Are Markets About to Take Off Again? | Macro Mondays: September 21, 2026

0:00Andreas Steno:Summertime is maybe good, summertime is maybe shit.

0:22Mikkel Rosenvold:Hello out there, welcome to Real Vision. Welcome to another edition of Macro Mondays. My name is Mikkel Rosenwald, and I am slightly delayed here with you for another Monday show with you, Andreas Dien. Welcome to the show, Andreas. Thank you very much.

0:36Andreas Steno:Yeah, I've had my issues with the Wi-Fi for the past 30 minutes, but hopefully we'll be able to send to you live for the next 30 minutes without any hiccups. Fingers crossed. Super great.

0:47Mikkel Rosenvold:Andreas, we have plenty of material and topics for those 30 minutes. We're going to be covering as much as we can here. But let's kick off, Andres, with a direct question. I like to do that. A harpoon, as we would usually call it. How much of your AI back have you offloaded to buy into this crypto rally?

1:07Andreas Steno:Nothing yet. But, okay, let me start by saying one thing when you address this question, Miguel. I've seen a load of takes online that if you're into the AI trade, then you need to pivot to crypto. And I've said, I think, continuously that those two traits will work in tandem over time. So I think it's a wrong question whether it's either or. It's AI and crypto in tandem over time.

1:39Mikkel Rosenvold:You don't see those AI stocks doing 15 % today, Andreas. It's too slow. Sure, sure. Fair enough. We'll dive much more into this, talk a little bit about the situation in the Middle East, the upcoming US-China summit a little bit, maybe a little bit Greenland, I don't know. lots of content to discuss today, Andreas. But we're going to start at one of my high points of this weekend. We had a lot of action, but this was probably definitely the best tweet I've seen maybe all year. Obviously, you had Logan and Jake Paul visiting the Pentagon as well. They visited Scott Besson in the Treasury Department as well.

2:15Mikkel Rosenvold:And, of course, the analysis is that the Hawk Tour girl should be Secretary of the Interior by now. Andreas, do you think this is Jake and Logan Paul? Is this the 2028 ticket for the Republican Party, do you think?

2:28Andreas Steno:I honestly wouldn't rule it out. So this is maybe the only thing that makes me slightly upbeat on behalf of the Republicans ahead of the midterms, because they have a tremendously good grip on this whole influencer crowd in the U.S. Something that we are yet to see to the same extent in Europe that parties work directly with these influencers to the extent that we see in the US. So, I mean, as per usual, as Europeans, we're kind of watching this and then we expect it to arrive in a cycle or two here.

3:02Mikkel Rosenvold:Absolutely, Andreas. Very exciting stuff here to watch this, but I have to admit, it's very, very strange for us here in Europe. Okay, Andreas, what's happening in crypto right now? What's driving it, do you think?

3:15Andreas Steno:So, I obviously think it's related to this, you know, short dollar proxy trade that we've had on since July. It's not as if the dollar is super weak in the foreign exchange market, but we've seen various proxies of that short dollar trade work alongside Scott Besson ramping up his purchases of longer dated bonds alongside this whole debasement narrative returning due to a lot of focus on the debt level. So sometimes it's actually pretty tricky to find the actual driver or the actual reason why a narrative returns. But I think, as I've said for a couple of weeks, that it dates back to Scott Besson admitting to the long end of the yield curve being slightly out of control and his return to a higher pace in the buybacks and all of that.

4:10Andreas Steno:At least for me, that's been the first catalyst. And you could, of course, argue that catalysts have been added over the past weeks. But it all dates back to that rally started by Scott Besson's buyback operations that suddenly revived the whole narrative and the whole momentum of the space.

4:29Mikkel Rosenvold:Yeah, I get that. That is probably the correct analysis. I still have a feeling that this is a much more healthy or wholesome rally that we're looking into in crypto, because it seems to me that this is at least correlating with the huge focus and huge debate around the U.S. deficit, the bond yields. And secondarily, we begin to see stories of especially SUI being used for inter-AI or agent-to-agent transactions. So in my opinion, you have some of the original story. This is not driven by politicians. On the contrary, you have politicians, they couldn't get the Clarity Act passed and still creditors rallying.

5:07Mikkel Rosenvold:So this is not some government bailout driven rally. And actually, we're starting to see blockchains being used for something.

5:14Andreas Steno:Yeah. And I mean, if you look at the agent economy since, say, mid-May or early June, we're talking about a very, very, very rapid acceleration of the number of agents live. In that sense, I do hold sympathy for this more fundamental structural story that blockchains and crypto will prove to be the means of transaction in an agent economy. And that's why I've said also earlier on this show that AI and crypto will work in tandem. It's not either or. And I still struggle with that either or narrative that we see everywhere. Because without AI, we wouldn't really have gotten to the point where we discussed crypto at an agent economy, right?

6:04Andreas Steno:and vice versa without crypto being well equipped for microtransactions, we probably wouldn't even discuss whether an agent economy with small transactions and all of that would be feasible at all because in the old fiat system, that wouldn't really be feasible. The old system is not well equipped for a microtransaction regime. So I think it is something that will work in tandem. And let me just stress that five or six times on this show. I think it's wrong to look at it from an either-or perspective, and it annoys me that a lot of people do. Yeah, absolutely, Andreas.

6:40Mikkel Rosenvold:Before we dive in more into some of the topics that we have today and look into your analysis of this looking like March or April, which I'm very eager to get into, Andreas, just a few notices here. Remember, guys, this is our free show every week. We publish on Real Vision. It's live on, you can follow it on X on YouTube, and something new also on TikTok. I believe it's called Andreas on TikTok. So we're expanding like that. We have a great week for you at Real Vision. If you're on the Pro Tour, you can look forward to your monthly Macro meets Micro Andreas. It's on Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern.

7:15Mikkel Rosenvold:You're going into how the portfolio is doing, a lot of the changes that were made this Friday, actually. So lots of stuff to talk about and the entire setup, your entire micro setup or stock setup for Q4. On Wednesday at 10 a.m. Eastern, I'm hosting an exclusive Ask Me Anything, and that's actually even for the Alpha cheer on Real Vision, so it doesn't have to be in the Pro cheer on geopolitics. So quite good timing, I have to say, right on top of the Trump-She meeting that we'll be covering much more there in our weekly article. So lots of great stuff to look forward to this week on Real Vision.

7:50Mikkel Rosenvold:Go check out your options in there. Brunge, you wrote this morning that this is beginning to look a bit like March or April, And we're seeing today oil is dropping towards$100 from upwards or from higher than that, despite new threats that Trump is considering, restarting strikes in Iran, etc. What are you seeing in that space? Some of the fear that we've been struggling with for the past few weeks around oil, around the situation, has that evaporated a little bit?

8:24Andreas Steno:Well, slightly, right? At least the rate of change is improving. And when you look at it, Michael, right, back in March, we had markets trading the dollar on the long side. I mean, the market is very, very keen on trading the dollar high, at least when you look at speculants right now. We had a market that was incredibly long energy in positioning terms. Currently, the market is net 44 % long in oil of the open market interest in the future. So it's a very crowded long for good reasons. obviously given what has happened over the past couple of months but we're starting to get to a point where and as i've said that over the course of the fomc meeting last week also the higher than expected core cpi print the week before that that even with news that should push the market in a certain direction we're not really getting a large move in that direction and that is to me a symptom of a market that has a very exhausted positioning already and i think we're getting more and more evidence of that i mean the day after the fed hike and a pretty hawkish message overall from from wash markets just started accelerating again right and that is again to be a symptom of a market that is very very crowded in one direction if you look at for example the aaii survey uh so the american association of individual investors so they basically survey a lot of their um very active retail investors and they are incredibly bearish um you know a rate hike suddenly in the mix of war that you know never ends uh basically a re-acceleration of the conflict between ukraine and russia in many ways at least if you look at the damage done on infrastructure and all of that you have so many things to worry about and yet um you know the market hasn't really sold off despite so many people being bearish i think it is a pretty good sign that we're about to see better times and i saw someone label it the september phobia we almost always have september phobia because it's you know if you look at the past 10-15 years september has a bad seasonality track record it was kind of the same last year everyone was so bearish into september and we got a massive rally uh especially in some of the momentum names and um yeah i think something like that is on the cards for the fourth quarter here.

10:41Andreas Steno:Then we can talk about 2027 later, because sure, when we get rate hikes from all central banks, it is something that will put a lid on the business cycle down the road. But there's time between now and then, let me put it like that.

10:55Mikkel Rosenvold:There's money to be made in that interrectum there. Okay, Andreas, we are approaching a very, very important summit, the Trump-Shia summit. I wrote an article on it a few weeks back. I wasn't quite sure what the backdoor was going to be. We had a lot of reports that the Chinese were struggling to find out who would coordinate this meeting on the American side. That's always very, very hard to know. It seems to me like Scott Besant has now come to this on his to-do list after sending Jake Paul out of the door. He had time to begin coordinating this meeting, which is about time. They will probably be on this for a few weeks, but you know what I mean.

11:29Mikkel Rosenvold:And we're getting quite positive news that there's a constructive tone. They're working on maybe an AI safety plan, other stuff. It seems like the market is reacting really well to this address. What are you expecting? What do you hear from market participants and the expectations for this meeting?

11:48Andreas Steno:In terms of what I hear, a lot of people are obviously focused on this whole career licensing question. Also, the broader question on semiconductors semiconductors across borders and all of that. What we've heard from the U.S. side is that they hold sympathy for added tariffs on semiconductors. They hold sympathy for banning more of the equipment from China, which in turn would probably also lead to some sort of consensus between the U.S. and China that they cannot renew a license within China for the Korean companies. in my opinion. So I'm kind of watching those names within that space with a certain degree of eagerness since we're so heavily invested in them, right?

12:39So having said that, I don't really get the vibe right now

12:45Andreas Steno:that they're keen on really accelerating the trade war between them right now. I had that vibe a lot more a couple of weeks ago. So I don't know whether you agree with that, But to me, it would be a major surprise to see some sort of big escalation towards the end of the week now that we've gotten these conciliatory signals over the weekend.

13:08Mikkel Rosenvold:No, absolutely. There are still a lot of fundamentals in the trade relationship that should, if you follow the 2025, the spring of 2025 logic, this war should be red hot because they haven't been solved. They haven't been addressed. You still have all the same imbalances. But that just doesn't seem to be the focal point anymore. Everything is about AI, potentially also about Iran. I doubt they will get much done on Iran, at least not publicly. They might be discussing a strategy for oil prices, et cetera. But I agree with you. It seems like they have found some common ground on the AI build-out and how to balance that in a fair way.

13:47Mikkel Rosenvold:So looking forward to it. We'll hopefully know more.

13:51Andreas Steno:Go ahead. Well, no matter whether it's fair to say that the current spike in the oil and oil products price is solely driven by the Iran war, it's at least very much partially driven by it. What I was about to say is that China, the Chinese and the U.S. administration, they have a problem in common right now. They do. That they're facing high energy costs. And to some extent, they simply need to coordinate their efforts for this not to spiral out of control. And both parties know that. And I actually think basically since the Iran war, no matter whether you blame the U.S. for starting it, whatever, right, the two parties have actually not been as focused on escalating trade wars against each other because they have this problem in common.

14:41Andreas Steno:And it's very typical, even foes, they can't find common ground when they have something they need to solve together, right? And I actually think this is a big part of the backdrop here.

14:51Mikkel Rosenvold:No, I agree absolutely, Andres. We'll be covering that even more during the week. Andres, in your Monday article here, and also in the Friday article, you began to look at one of the absolute banger charts that we usually do. And we have to look at it again, Andres, because things are really, really starting to look interesting in semi-space. Take us through what you see. We're already seeing some of the movements in today's market in some of the ETFs and others. What are you seeing out of South Korea and in the semi-memory trades here?

15:20Andreas Steno:Yeah, so the semiconductor trade is up a couple of percent today, right? So I know we cannot compete with some of the meme coins you mentioned to begin with, but the semiconductor trade looks interesting, again, in my opinion. And if you look at it, right, it was the exact same backdrop that we had in March and April, for that matter. The South Korean trade data looked incredibly impressive. We're talking about a new acceleration in the numbers for the first 20 days of the month throughout this morning, pointing to an increase of almost 80 % year on year. If you work day adjusted, it's even more.

15:56Andreas Steno:So, I mean, it's an incredible increase. And against even my incredibly bullish expectations, we're accelerating in year-over-year terms, which is an incredibly hard barrier to beat because obviously you cannot continue growing 100 % a year, right? If you look beneath the hood, semis are up 250 % year over year, something like that. It's absolutely bizarre. While the broader exports, ex-semis, are up 20%, 22%, something like that between friends, which is still a lot. I mean, the economic cycle is doing very well. And South Korea is typically one of the first gauges that we get of the economic health of the cycle.

16:39Andreas Steno:And despite hikes, despite oil wars and what have you, the economic cycle is not budging. And I think that's very, very important as a takeaway this morning. And I think it is absolutely fair that NASDAQ is up a couple of percent here, that semiconductors are up a couple of percent, that the market is rebounding because the market is simply not positioned for this. And that's exactly what I've said, maybe two or three weeks in a row. And we've thankfully guided our members in the right direction, basically over those weeks, that the bearishness that we see across positioning, across a lot of metrics, it's not really rounded in fundamentals right now.

17:23Andreas Steno:It may be that 2027 will turn out to be a crap year. I wouldn't rule that out, given everything that's happening. But remember the leads and lacks. And that's why it's so important that you continue to do a business cycle analysis where you focus on the moving parts that you can actually use to forecast where the cycle is heading. And it is too early to label the cycle dead. It's simply too early.

17:50Mikkel Rosenvold:Okay, Stof Andreas. And obviously, you guys can catch all the movements that we did in the macro portfolio in our Friday portfolio update article from last week with the Real Vision Pro Tour. So a quick break in your regular programming. If you're serious about your future, grab my free report called Prepare for 2030. I think you've got five years to make as much money as possible, and this guide will help you navigate what's coming. The link is in the description. Download it now. Okay, Andreas, I want to talk a little bit about Greenland. I don't have a big investment angle for this, but we have to touch upon it a little bit.

18:26Mikkel Rosenvold:Obviously, we're both Danish, for people who don't know that. So we've been in the middle of this, and people are eager for our opinions on this, Andreas. And I know we've had slightly differing opinions. You were very, very hot on selling Greenland to the US. I know how I had, but that is still my viewpoint. A little bit more lukewarm on that. In any case, we got a Greenland deal. And just to sum up a little bit of what happened here, the way I see it, is that the U.S. had for many, many years a big desire to mitigate this tail risk that essentially was Greenlandic independence, because some very, very foolish Greenlandic politicians, they were talking about, ah, once we become independent, we might decide to ally with China or Russia or who knows.

19:10Mikkel Rosenvold:And that's obviously delusional. And the U.S. wanted to control that tail risk. It's a very, very, very, very small tail risk. Greenland is not becoming independent right now. And even if they were, would the Chinese swoop in, whatever. But I get it. I mean, as I label it, it's kind of like a hedge fund thinking that you have this tail risk. It's potentially one that could trigger a world war. You need to hedge it. It's very, very expensive to hedge. So you mitigate it instead. And that's essentially what the US landed. And therefore, I think this was a very, very good deal. There was a lot of noise and problems in between, a lot of drains in the US-European relations.

19:47Mikkel Rosenvold:That shouldn't have happened. But again, this deal is okay. It's good for Denmark. It's good for the US. It's probably good for Greenland. I think this is a win-win, and you can have that. I get a lot of Americans in my feed talking about who won this. And I mean, Denmark and US are supposed to be best friends. I mean, Andreas, when you and I go to lunch, we don't need a negotiation strategy for who pays for the lunch because we're friends. We figure it out. I mean, you shouldn't need some kind of out of the deal to figure out who pays for this. But here we are. It's probably gone as a topic, which is a big relief.

20:24Mikkel Rosenvold:And yeah. How do you feel about it?

20:28Andreas Steno:I'm not sure I completely buy that analogy because no matter whether we use my credit card or yours, it will end up in the same council. That's fair. That's not entirely fair.