Summary – A top-down review of interesting calls and comments made last week in Treasuries, monetary policy, economics, stocks, bonds & commodities. TAC is our acronym for Tweets, Articles, & Clips – our basic inputs for this article.
Editor’s Note: In this series of articles, we include important or interesting Tweets, Articles, Video Clips with our comments. This is an article that expresses our personal opinions about comments made on Television, Tweeter, and in Print. It is NOT intended to provide any investment advice of any type whatsoever. No one should base any investing decisions or conclusions based on anything written in or inferred from this article. Macro Viewpoints & its affiliates expressly disclaim all liability in respect to actions taken based on any or all of the information in this article. Investing is a serious matter and all investment decisions should only be taken after a detailed discussion with your investment advisor and should be subject to your objectives, suitability requirements and risk tolerance.
1. Afternoon on Friday, February 20
We typically prefer to look at the impact once all the news is out. And that was certainly true of the last market hour on Friday, February 20. The SC decision was out, the President’s comments were out & so was the press attack. And what happened after all the above was over?
The market indices like Dow, S&P, QQQ, Semis moved up into the close and in the right proportional sequence. So we are tempted to believe that almost all the news & the bulk of shouting is now behind us.
If you doubt us, watch the interview by Treasury Secretary Bessent with CNN’s Dana Bash:
We should all now focus on the State of the Union and then on the affordability actions going forward. And the one action we want to see is the Fed lowering interest rates to 3%.
2. Markets Last Week:
2.1 US Indices:
- VIX down 7.3% to 19.09; Dow up 25 bps; SPX up 1.1%; RSP up 60 bps; NDX up 1.1%; SMH up 1.8 %; RUT up 64 bps MDY up 1.2%; XLU down 37 bps;
A big down move in $VIX on Friday post Trump comments. And the big equity indices turned the week from red to green in the past hour.
- Subu Trade@SubuTrade – 2-21 – Total Put/Call Ratio continues to trend Up. Put/Call Ratio’s 1 week average is at the highest since $SPX crashed last April. *This is the Put/Call Ratio across all U.S. options exchanges, not just CBOE
The end of the first quarter is a month away, but
- Seth Golden@SethCL – Nailing🔨the Cycle! – If you bought $DIA at Midterm year low and held until high the following year, avg. return was ~50%. 1st Quarter marked the low 11 times, the most of any other Quarter. $SPX $SPY $QQQ $NYA $IWM $SMH $NVDA $AMZN $AAPL $MSFT $ES_F $VIX h/t @AlmanacTrader
For those who prefer NDX to SPX:
- Seth Golden@SethCL – 2-21 – $COMPQ $NDX $QQQ – A compelling 150-DMA support achieved for 3rd time since getting above in May 2025. Also a compelling bullish RSI divergence (bottom)
- Larry Tentarelli, Blue Chip Daily@bluechipdaily – If $QQQ clears 620, I would expect new highs in the leadership groups semis and memory. $MU $AMAT $ASML $TSM $WDC $SNDK $STX
Speaking of hallowed names, Seth Golden tweeted that according to Larry Williams, “Next major buying opportunity arrives as monthly calendar turns to March.”
2.2 MAG 7:
- AAPL up 3.4%; AMZN up 5.7%; GOOGL up 3%; META up 2.5%; MSFT down 1%; NFLX up 2.3%; NVDA up 3.8%; MU up 4%;
Did these stocks already know what is said below:
- Scott Brown, CMT@scottcharts – 2-20 – Interesting spot for growth to respond vs. value (using the Russell “pure” style ETFs). Bullish divergences in momentum have been prescient here
2.3 Key Financials:
- BAC up 97 bps; C up 4.6%; GS up 1.9%; JPM up 2.7%; KRE up 87 bps; EUFN up 3.6%; SCHW up 33 bps; APO down 4.3%; BX down 6.6%; KKR down 54 bps; XHB down 1%; ITB down 2.8%; NAIL down 7.1%;
Questioning “human-hood” type message:
- Brian G ☀️@alphacharts – 2-21 – $XHB monthly chart looks like this and you’re bearish??
2.4 Dollar, Commodities & International Stocks:
Those the media love, the markets abhor!
- J.C. Parets@JC_ParetsX – 2-21 – The circle of life; Dollar covers both ways – USE
Dollar was up 1% on UUP & up 93 bps on DXY:
- Gold up 1.6%; GDX up 2.2%; Silver up 9.6%; Copper up 1.5%; CLF up 2.6%; FCX up 2.4%; MOS down 74 bps; Oil up 6.2%; Brent up 6%; OIH up 2.2%; XLE up 98 bps;
Another mocking message:
- Peter Brandt@PeterLBrandt – Hey Gold shorts; New all time Friday closing price high; Probably nothing
International Stocks:
- EEM up 2%; FXI up 1.3%; KWEB down 27 bps; EWZ up 3.4%; EWY up 5.9%; EWG up 80 bps; INDA up 1%; INDY up 1.1%; EPI up 1.6%; SMIN up 1.2%;
INDY & other India ETFs were having a bad week again until Mike Santoli exclaimed “INDY has gone vertical” after President Trump’s comments. Frankly, India ETFs closed up 1% only because of the reaction to what President Trump said.
2.5 Treasuries & Interest Rates:
- 30-year Treasury yield up 2.3 bps on the week; 20-yr yield up 2.8 bps; 10-yr up 3.3 bps; 7-yr up 3.7 bps; 5-yr up 4.3 bps; 3-yr up 5.5 bps; 2-yr up 7.4 bps; 1-yr up 9.3 bps;
- TLT down 35 bps; EDV down 44 bps; ZROZ down 57 bps; HYG up 19 bps; JNK up 14 bps;
Looks bad but it is a giveback of a small part of last week’s rally in Treasury rates. On the other hand, we did see a bad, bad 20-yr auction this past week.
3. AI Summit in India
Something amazing happened on CNBC this past week. They actually spoke about India in a non-negative way on live CNBC. Let’s not get carried away though. CNBC was only covering its new demi-gods in a funny moment on stage at the AI Summit.
To their credit, it took CNN-News 18 to isolate the really significant comment about India’s AI “energy” from Sam Altman in a 2:02 minute clip. Before we quote him, his statement is absolutely true. We ourselves have never witnessed this level of energy in India or in any other place in the world:
- “It (“India”) is our second largest market and it the the energy here that people are uh what people are building with the technology is just amazing to watch. We have more than 100 million weekly active users of CHBT. This is the fastest growing market for Codex. …. it’s amazing to see the energy here. Every time I come, it feels like it’s gone up another level.
- “more generally India is just building incredible entire AI stack uh from you know like data centers to models to applications I think there’s no country in the world quite matches India for total AI energy. ….. “
- “The number one request we get uh is better support of local languages and dialects which is something we’re hard to work on …. Totally. uh hard to overstate as I mentioned earlier how much energy there is for building AI and building with AI in India. uh and I think you should expect to see more partnerships and much more activity here as we try to work with the Indian people to bring AI to the rest of the world in all of these amazing ways.”
The message of the last paragraph is significant and, a bit later, we will provide a real example of how much India & Indian AI can contribute to the world, especially to large continents.
But before that come France & President Macron. Nobody would have been surprised had Britain achieved what France has achieved in & with India. India purchased Jaguar fighters from the UK in 1979. About six years later, India purchased Mirage 2000 fighters from France in 1985. Now fast forward to 1999 when Na-Pak special forces occupied the tops of the Himalayan Peaks that guarded the line of control. With that, Napak could strafe the highway to Kashmir & potentially cut it. These peaks like Tololing rise to 16,000 ft above the sea-level & control of these peaks with artillery made them impossible to scale with infantry.
It was the moment of the gravest danger for India and it also proved to be a moment when USA under President Clinton & the UK established embargo on military supplies to both India & Napak just when India needed laser-guided bombs. Only two countries stepped up, Israel & France. The Mirage-engineers worked very fast to install Israeli-supplied laser-guided bombs on the Mirage 2000. The Indian Air Force wiped out the Napaki troops occupying the Himalayan peaks & the Kargil war ended with Napak withdrawing to its line of control.
Watch the actual footage of the laser-guided bomb dropped in 1999 on Tiger Hill peak, a strategically significant peak standing in Drass Kargil at 5,062 meters (16,608 feet) or over 16,700 feet. It is the highest peak in that specific region, commanding views of National Highway 1D.
Since then, the military relationship between France & India has grown & the two countries just signed a $39-40 billion defense deal for fighter planes & a host of other programs that are still under wraps. It is a culmination of the 25-year plus trusted relationship between France & India.
Listen to a Bloomberg non-Asian anchor, while discussing the French-India deal, ask “why France? it seems like an unusual choice“? How stunningly ignorant can a Bloomberg TV anchor be, a TV anchor who covers the Asian markets, including India? It is for people like him on White TV media that we highlighted the 1999 Kargil war & the France-India military relationship that has grown consistently since then.
Now let us move to Macron’s speech at the AI Summit in India:
- “And I want to start with a story. 10 years ago, a street vendor in Mumbai could not open a bank account. No address, no papers, no access. And today, the same vendor accepts payments on his phone instantly. Instantly for free from anyone in the country. That is not just a tech story. That is a civilization story. And India built something that no other country in the world has built. A digital identity for 1.4 billion people. A payment system that now processes 20 billion transactions every month. A health infrastructure that has issued 500 million digital health IDs. “
- They call it the India stack open interoperable sovereign. That dear friends is what this summit is about. We are clearly at the beginning of a huge acceleration and you perfectly described it during your interventions. … We say then artificial intelligence will be an enabler for our humanity to innovate faster to to disrupt healthcare, energy, mobility, agriculture, public services for the good of mankind. …”
By the way, the man who developed the above free payment system described above by President Macron pointed out that today it is the world’s largest payment system with 21 billion transactions a month with 500 million users. He said it while describing the new portal launched on February 11, 2026 in India. And it was done with Amul, world’s largest cooperative with 3.6 mm farmers ; 2 billion milk transactions per year & 40 mm cattle.
What is it? Simply put, it is AI for Cows and for the women who tend to them. What is stunning is the speed of diffusion of AI in India. PM Modi gave him the idea on January 8 and the app named Sarlaben (sister Sarla) went live on February 11. Watch the clip below:
We can’t end this without PM Modi taking President Macron to a celebration of the birth of Great King Shivaji, the man who resurrected his state & India from the oppressive rule of both Indian & Uzbeki-Mongol Muslim dynasties.
This again marks the uniqueness of PM Modi. Every other PM of India has taken foreign dignitaries to visit the monuments to leaders respected in the West like Gandhi.
Modi is the first true patriot PM of India who is extremely proud of King Shivaji and understands that India is India today because of the Great Shivaji. His 397th birthday was celebrated last week on 19th February 2026.
Europeans had discovered India before the birth of Shivaji, the largest contingent being that of Portuguese in Goa. The British had just begun trading off of Mumbai’s coast. Their diplomats, historians were sensibly amazed at the greatness of Shivaji comparing him to Alexander & Caesar. Below is a cutout from a biography of Shivaji.
Look at the transformation of India attributed to the Great King Shivaji and his successors. Not a trace of Indian rule in India in 1630 and then the Maratha Empire in 1759:
This is important to understand where today’s “energy”, “drive” & enormous self-confidence in India comes from.
Going back to AI, know & understand that the 8 principal languages among 22 languages in total provides India substantial advantages in propagation of its AI systems. If they can build AI applications that fit 8 languages simultaneously, they can do so for any language in the world. It is probably much harder to propagate a single-language specific AI app across the world.
Now you understand why Sam Altman focused above on getting better support of multiple languages of India.
Guess what? The Economist kinda said that on Dec 3, 25 based on an article by Mr. Nandan Nilekani focusing on a) Why India’s AI strategy stands out, b) Why language is important & c) What India’s experiment means for global AI
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