June 8: Last Week's Thematic Signals
If you missed out on this week's signals, we've got you covered
Aging Population
Long-term demographic trends are of little concern if you are a short-term-focused investor. But demography becomes quite important if you’re a decade or more from retirement and trying to devise an appropriate financial planning strategy for your nonworking years. Researchers have found that the ratio of a country’s middle-aged population to its elderly is highly correlated with the long-term cycles of its stock market. Read more here
Korea’s consumption growth is projected to decline by 1.0 percentage point annually over the next five years due to rapid population aging and falling birthrates, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said Sunday. Read more here
Artificial Intelligence
Gen AI is rapidly transforming the healthcare industry… The latest survey, conducted in the fourth quarter of 2024, found that 85 percent of respondents—healthcare leaders from payers, health systems, and healthcare services and technology (HST) groups—were exploring or had already adopted gen AI capabilities. Read more here
Grocery giant Lidl France, in collaboration with creative agency Marcel Worldwide, turned to generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to power a viral marketing campaign. Read more here
The FDA announced on Monday that it has launched a generative AI (genAI) tool for staff across the agency to use, as part of its push to integrate AI into internal operations. The move comes weeks ahead of the FDA’s stated goal to deploy genAI systems agencywide by the end of June. Read more here
Generative AI (GenAI) is quickly becoming a game-changer in the world of tax and accounting, reshaping how these industries operate and thrive. As highlighted in the 2025 Generative AI in Professional Services Report by Thomson Reuters Institute, the adoption of AI in daily operations is accelerating, with professionals increasingly recognizing its transformative impact. Read more here
Meta Platforms plans to create and target advertisements using artificial intelligence by the end of 2026. The move is a key element of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the future evolution of Meta, where advertising remains the core revenue driver... The development could potentially benefit small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), which represent a large portion of Meta’s advertisers and often lack the resources for extensive ad creation efforts, the report said. Read more here
McKinsey & Co.’s consultants are increasingly drafting proposals and making PowerPoint slides using the firm’s generative artificial intelligence platform, which has developed enough to take over at least some of the tasks typically performed by junior employees. Read more here
Cash-Strapped Consumer
About 1.9 million foreigners arrived at the U.S.’s main airports in the past four weeks, down 6% from the same period last year, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Airline bookings data for the summer suggest things won’t be picking up soon. Flight bookings to the U.S. from Europe are down by about 12% through August. San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles are seeing even larger declines, according to an analysis of online travel-agency booking data from Cirium. Read more here
According to the poll, a majority of Americans plan to forgo a summer vacation in 2025 for various reasons. While 47% of respondents said they cannot afford a vacation, about 21% said their family and personal obligations do not allow them the time to take a vacation this summer. Read more here
Executives at Campbell’s — known for its namesake soup, as well as such supermarket staples as Prego pasta sauce — said on Monday that the current economic backdrop had led to the highest level of meals cooked at home since early in the first pandemic year, 2020. They also said that shoppers were buying more ingredients that helped “stretch tighter food budgets,” as shoppers navigate higher costs of living. But they said that while cheaper options remained important, customers were still willing to “selectively splurge” on healthier options. Read more here
25% of BNPL users say they’ve used the loans to buy groceries. That’s up from 14% just a year ago, amid rising prices at the supermarket. One-third of Gen Z BNPL users say they’ve done so, making it the fourth-most common BNPL purchase for that age group, trailing clothing, technology and home decor. Read more here
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler revealed his discovery of a massive online database containing more than 184 million unique account credentials, in a report published Thursday. Usernames, passwords, emails, and URLs for a host of applications and websites, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, among others, were stored in a file. The database also contained credentials for bank and financial accounts, health platforms, and government portals. Read more here
Digital Infrastructure
Trucks carrying concrete and electrical wiring plod over red clay, weaving in between cranes and excavators. Two symmetrical buildings stand in a massive plot of land where thousands of people in brightly colored vests work day and night to construct six more near-identical structures that will make up the first site for the Stargate Project. Read more here
Brookfield Asset Management plans to spend up to 95 billion kronor ($9.9 billion) on an AI data center in Strängnäs, Sweden. The investment more than doubles a planned 300MW facility to 750MW, with the company planning to purchase 350,000 sqm of additional land in Strängnäs to support the larger data center. Read more here
Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund is joining a Microsoft Corp.-backed initiative to bankroll $30 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure globally, as the oil-rich Gulf nation looks to tap into the booming sector. The Kuwait Investment Authority will become the first non-founder financial anchor in the AI Infrastructure Partnership, according to a statement on Tuesday that didn’t disclose any financial commitment. Microsoft, Abu Dhabi’s MGX and BlackRock Inc. had in March added Elon Musk’s xAI and chipmaker Nvidia Corp. to the initiative. Read more here
Digital Lifestyle
Ive, a chief architect of the iPhone, and his design firm are taking over creative and design control at OpenAI, where they will develop devices and other projects that will shape the future look and feel of AI, the Journal previously reported. Altman and Ive have taken pains to keep the exact nature of the first device they plan to make a secret. Read more here.
YouTube is now the TV service of choice for viewers of all ages. People in the US spend more time watching YouTube on a TV than on a phone or computer, according to the company. Not including YouTube TV, the service accounted for over 12% of TV viewing in April, more than all of Walt Disney Co.’s TV networks and streaming services combined, according to Nielsen. Read more here
Energy Pain Point
There’s also a growing urgency to electrify because it’s a major strategy in fighting climate change. The world recorded its hottest year in 2024 and, on the current trajectory, it’s only years away from blowing past the climate targets set under the Paris Agreement. The quickest way to get back on track is to electrify as much of the global energy system as possible while simultaneously decarbonizing electricity. The severe shortage of skilled workers is slowing progress towards electrifying everything. Read more here
Guilty Pleasure
Almost everyone loves chocolate, whether it’s a Hershey’s Kiss, a Toblerone or a dark Lindt bar. But a historic surge in cocoa prices is testing just how deep that love really runs. And it turns out Europeans may be a bit more committed to chocolate than their American counterparts. That gap in loyalty has real implications for global confectionary companies. Read more here
Non-alcoholic beer is on track to overtake ale as the second-largest beer category by volume worldwide this year, according to a new projections from industry tracker IWSR. While overall beer volume fell roughly 1% in 2024, volume for its non-alcoholic counterpart grew 9% worldwide, according to IWSR. Read more here
Safety & Security
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain vowed Monday to bring his country to “war-fighting readiness,” announcing plans to build up to 12 new attack submarines and invest billions of pounds in weapons, to fortify for a world caught between a hostile, aggressive Russia and a retrenching United States. Read more here
NATO member states signed off on the military alliance’s most ambitious military ramp-up since the Cold War as leaders closed in on an agreement to ratchet up spending at a summit later this month. Read more here
The Strategies Behind Our Thematic Models
Aging of the Population - Capturing the demographic wave of the aging population and the changing demands it brings with it.
Artificial Intelligence – Software, chips, and related companies that facilitate the collection and analysis of large data sets and autonomous generation of solutions given non-machine language prompts.
Cash Strapped Consumers - Companies poised to benefit as consumers stretch the disposable spending dollars they do have.
CHIPs Act – Capturing the reshoring of the US semiconductor industry and the $52.7 billion poised to be spent on semiconductor manufacturing.
Cloud Computing – Companies that provide hardware and services that enhance the cloud computing experience for users, such as co-location, security, and edge computing.
Core Holdings – Companies that reflect economic activity and are large enough to not get pushed around by day-to-day market trends. Low-beta, large-cap names able to better withstand economic turmoil.
Cybersecurity - Companies that focus on protecting against the penetration of digital networks and the theft, ransom, corruption, or destruction of data.
Digital Infrastructure & Connectivity - Companies that are integral to the development and the buildout of the infrastructure that supports our increasingly connected world.
Digital Lifestyle - The companies behind our increasingly connected lives.
Data Privacy & Digital Identity - Companies providing the tools and services that verify authorized users and safeguard personal data privacy.
EPS Diplomats - Profitable large capitalization companies proven to produce above-average EPS growth and provide investors with the benefit of multiple expansion.
EV Transition - Capturing the transition to EVs and related infrastructure from combustion engine vehicles.
Guilty Pleasure – Companies that produce/provide food and drink products that consumers tend to enjoy regardless of the economic environment and potential long-term health hazards associated with excessive consumption.
Homebuilding & Materials – Ranging from homebuilders to key building product companies that serve the housing market, this model looks to capture the rising demand for housing, one that should benefit as the Fed returns monetary policy to more normalized levels.
Market Hedge Model – This basket of daily reset swap-based broad market inverse ETFs protects in the face of market pullbacks, overbought market technicals, and other drivers of market volatility.
Nuclear Energy & Uranium – Companies that either build and maintain nuclear power plants or are involved in the production of uranium.
Luxury Buying Boom - Tapping into aspirational buying and affluent buyers amid rising global wealth.
Rebuilding America - Turning the focused spending on rebuilding US infrastructure into revenue and profits.
Safety & Security – Targeted exposure to companies that provide goods and services primarily to the Defense and security sectors of the economy.
Space Economy – Companies that focus on the launch and operation of satellite networks.
The Strategies Behind Our Dividend Income Models
Monthly Dividend Model – Pretty much what the name indicates – this model invests in companies that pay monthly dividends to shareholders.
ETF Dividend Model – High-yielding ETFs that provide a range of exposures from domestic equities, international equities, emerging market equities, MLPS, and REITs.
ETF Enhanced Dividend Model – A group of high-yielding ETFs that utilize options to enhance yield through collecting option income.
Don’t be a stranger
Thanks for reading and if you have a suggestion for an article or book we should read, or a stream we should catch, email us at info@tematicaresearch.com. The same email works if you want to know more about our thematic and targeted exposure models listed above.