Newsletter — week of September 21, 2026

Market performance

The S&P 500 ends the week higher, putting an end to a run of three consecutive weekly declines for the Dow Jones. The index rose about 0.5% on Friday’s session alone, lifted by the pullback in oil at week’s end.

Market news

Meta reignites the consumer AI battle

At its annual Meta Connect conference on Wednesday, the company unveiled a series of new products built around its personal AI agent Muse, launched in early September, including a small device called « Muse Charm » that lets users interact with the AI without going through a phone.

The app has already passed 3.4 million downloads, with a growth rate far above that of ChatGPT at its launch. The market welcomed the news, with Meta stock climbing 4 to 4.5% on Thursday and approaching its all-time high.

In our view, this success is indirect good news for the entire AI-infrastructure chain. A personal agent used daily by millions of people consumes an enormous amount of compute on every request, far more than a simple internet search. If Muse’s adoption holds over time, it should translate into additional needs for data centers and GPUs, which should benefit players in our portfolio!

A « high-stakes week » at the United Nations General Assembly

The annual gathering of world leaders in New York, this year before nearly 130 heads of state, was one of the tensest in recent years:

The Trump–Xi Jinping summit, held the same week in Washington, thus falls within this especially charged context. The Chinese president traveled there for his first state visit to the United States in more than ten years, but the only concrete result to emerge was the extension of the trade truce until January 10, with no progress on the most sensitive issues such as artificial intelligence or Taiwan.

Trump versus Iran: in his opening speech on Tuesday, the U.S. president framed the conflict with Tehran as a binary choice—a deal reached after the November midterm elections, or the outright « annihilation » of the country. Nearly the entire Iranian delegation left the room while he spoke. In a highly unusual move, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian then addressed the podium even as his country is in active war against the United States.

This week ultimately saw no improvement on any of the current hot files. No de-escalation in sight. Oil fell slightly this week, but that isn’t tied to the « high-stakes week »—it’s thanks to the improvement in the situation in Saudi Arabia mentioned last week. While the Saudi topic dominates prices in the short term, we should nonetheless not expect a lasting fall in oil prices for as long as the war continues in the Middle East.

This further reinforces our portfolio choice, which is fairly heavily exposed to energy. With oil durably above $80, our energy companies turn into genuine cash machines and protect us against geopolitical risk.