Last Week's Signals and Model Confirmation Points
Examining recent targeted exposure model confirmation points
We’re back with a fresh set of ripped from the headlines confirmation points and signals for not only our targeted exposure and thematic strategies, but also our Digital Infrastructure & Connectivity model and the AI & Data Center Model Suite.
Feast away!
Aging Population
While people are living longer, they’re also having fewer children, according to the United Nations. In the U.S., this population shift means caring for parents, grandparents, and other relatives could become even more challenging with fewer family members to pitch in. The caregiving industry is already experiencing a workforce shortage. The decline in the birth rate may reshape how we think about caring for the oldest Americans. Read more here
With the first baby boomers set to turn 80 in 2026, senior housing demand is nearing a historic inflection point, and a combination of limited new supply, evolving care models, and changing consumer expectations is pushing occupancy to record highs. Read more here
Artificial Intelligence
Salesforce has acquired Israeli startup Doti AI in a deal reportedly worth around $100 million, betting big on enterprise search tech that’s barely out of stealth mode. For marketers, it’s a sign that AI’s next frontier is making internal knowledge instantly accessible across campaigns, teams, and tools. Read more here
Seventy-one percent of IT leaders polled say AI is now embedded in non-IT departments such as HR, operations, and finance. Nearly all respondents (91 to 92 percent) rate operational efficiency, employee productivity, customer experience, business growth, and governance as at least somewhat important outcomes of AI adoption. Read more here
According to IBM, the primary barrier holding back enterprise AI isn’t the technology itself but the persistent issue of data silos. Ed Lovely, VP and Chief Data Officer at IBM, describes data silos as the “Achilles’ heel” of modern data strategy. Lovely made the comments following the release of a new study from the IBM Institute for Business Value that found AI is ready to scale, but enterprise data is not. The report, which surveyed 1,700 senior data leaders, found that functional data remains stubbornly isolated. Finance, HR, marketing, and supply chain data all operate in isolation, with no common taxonomy or shared standards. Read more here
Cash-Strapped Consumer
There were 36,766 U.S. properties with some type of foreclosure filing in October — such as default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions, according to Attom, a property data and analytics firm. That was 3% higher than September and a 19% jump from October 2024, and marked the eighth straight month of annual increases, Attom said. Read more here
Nearly 900,000 homeowners are underwater on their mortgage as home prices fall, signaling a worrying turn in the housing market. That figure represents 1.6% of all mortgage holders in the U.S. While the share may seem like a small part of the overall market, it’s also the highest rate in three years, according to a new report by Intercontinental Exchange. Read more here
Cybersecurity, Data Privacy & Digital Identity
The Washington Post is notifying nearly 10,000 employees and contractors that some of their personal and financial data has been exposed in the Oracle data theft attack. The news organization is one of the largest daily newspapers in the U.S. with approximately 2.5 million digital subscribers. Read more here
Synnovis, a leading UK pathology services provider, is notifying healthcare providers that a data breach occurred following a ransomware attack in June 2024, which resulted in the theft of some patients’ data… Synnovis is now reaching out to affected organizations, including NHS hospitals and clinics, but will not contact patients directly. Patient notifications will be handled by the impacted NHS organizations, as required by UK data protection law. Read more here
Anthropic to automate break-ins of major corporations and foreign governments during a September hacking campaign, the company said Thursday. The effort focused on dozens of targets and involved a level of automation that Anthropic’s cybersecurity investigators had not previously seen, according to Jacob Klein, the company’s head of threat intelligence. Read more here
The UK economy expanded by just 0.1% in the quarter from July to September as the crippling cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover hit manufacturing. Read more here
Digital Infrastructure
Anthropic on Wednesday said it had signed an ambitious new data center partnership with U.K.-based neocloud provider Fluidstack, committing $50 billion to building facilities across the U.S. to meet its growing compute needs. The data centers will be located in Texas and New York, and come online throughout 2026. The company described the sites as “custom built for Anthropic with a focus on maximizing efficiency for our workloads.” Read more here
European signings for AI data center capacity have tripled in 2025 as neocloud demand for AI infrastructure surges, according to research from CBRE. The report, which covers the European data center market supply as of Q3 2025, said that the volume of data center capacity sold to neocoloud providers rose from 133MW in the first nine months of 2024 to 414MW across the same period in 2025. Read more here
Data center spending to surpass $1 trillion by end of decade. Fueled by the race for AI supremacy, the global data center infrastructure market is on course to surpass $1 trillion in annual spending by 2030, according to IoT Analytics’ 186-page Data Center Equipment & Infrastructure Market Report 2025–2030 (published November 2025). Read more here
Digital Lifestyle
Generative AI is becoming a part of everyday life for millions of U.S. consumers. From enhancing productivity to sparking creativity, this transformative technology is reshaping how people work, create, and make decisions, according to Deloitte research. Most surveyed consumers (53%) are now either experimenting with generative AI or using it regularly—up sharply from 38% in 2024, according to the “2025 Connected Consumer” study. Read more here
“Rufus, our AI-powered shopping assistant has had 250 million active customers this year with monthly users up 140% year-over-year, interactions up 210% year-over-year, and customers using Rufus during a shopping trip being 60% more likely to complete a purchase,” Read more here
Google is rolling out a suite of AI shopping updates just ahead of the holiday season. The company on Thursday unveiled a host of new tools and features, including conversational shopping in Google Search, new shopping features within its Gemini app, agentic checkout, and even an AI tool that can call local stores to find out if a product you want is available. Read more here
Amazon is the latest of the big ad-supported streamers to lay claim to what it portrays as a growing audience — even though the numbers aren’t vetted by standard measurement services. The digital giant said Tuesday that its Prime Video streaming service now reaches more than 315 million people around the world, compared with a figure of 200 million it disclosed in April of 2024. Read more here
Meta is overhauling Facebook Marketplace with new collaborative tools, social features, an improved checkout experience, and Meta AI integrations, the company announced Thursday. Marketplace is getting a new “collections” feature that lets users create groups of listings and invite friends to join. Users can get started by saving a listing, starting a new collection, and then choosing whether to make it public or private. They can then add friends to their collection and share updates through Feed, Messenger, WhatsApp, and more. Meta’s also testing collaborative buying, which means users can invite a friend to join their chat with a seller. Read more here
Homebuilding & Materials
While 90% of Gen Zers surveyed in a recent report said they want to own a home one day, 79% also said they are being priced out of the market. Likewise, while 55% of millennials now reportedly own a home, it took them far longer to get a foot on the property ladder. According to Census Bureau Data analyzed in Apartment List’s 2025 millennial homeownership report, at age 30, 33% of millennials were homeowners, compared to 42% of Gen X and 48% of baby boomers. One eye-popping stat summed just how bad things have gotten in the recent past: the average age of the first-time homebuyer was 40 years old in 2025, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Read more here
Nuclear Energy & Uranium
In 2023, data centers consumed around 4.4% of America’s electrical power, and that percentage is expected to rise substantially in the next years. According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, energy growth is likely to increase between 6.7-12% by 2028. Around the world, it is projected that AI’s energy needs could account for as much as 21% of all electricity usage by 2030. 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.
Data Privacy & Digital Identity - Companies providing the tools and services that verify authorized users and safeguard personal data privacy.
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.
Digital Payments - Companies benefitting from the accelerating structural adoption of digital payments and financial technology (FinTech).
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.