The AI trade has been a more volatile influence on markets so far in 2026 – and this price action reveals the it’s starting to become more nuanced. Understanding that nuance is now important for understanding if the market can still rally without AI leadership, advises Tom Essaye, president of the Sevens Report.
Prior to 2026, the AI trade was basically a rising tide that lifted all tech boats regardless of their position in the AI/tech value chain. However, that’s changed. Now, there are three distinct groups/subsectors within the AI trade and they do not all trade together.
In fact, there’s growing evidence they may trade inversely to one another (at least partially and from time to time). Right now, the AI sector in the markets can be loosely grouped into three distinct buckets:
* Receivers of Capital (ROCs). These are the AI/data center infrastructure industries such as memory, semiconductors, networking, cloud storage, computing power, etc. These sectors have surged for most of 2026 as they are “receiving” the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent by the hyperscalers to build out AI data centers.
* Spenders of Capital (SOCs). These are the hyperscalers. They are the ones spending the hundreds of billions of dollars to build and manage AI data centers and create computing and memory capacity to support the rollout of AI across the economy.
* Software/Disrupted Sectors (SaaS). These are the sectors that may be at risk of having their business models “disrupted” (which is just financial media speak for damaged). AI could potentially replace these software solutions and skills and damage these companies’ long-term prospects.
Bottom line: Take stock of tech allocations to make sure they aren’t dramatically overweight semiconductors, memory, SaaS, hyperscalers, etc. Instead, have balance across the various parts of the AI value chain, including ROCs, SOCs and SaaS. That way, as the AI trade continues to evolve, you have balanced exposure to whichever part is taking a leadership role at that time.
