As you know, we turn the investment theses featured in the newsletter into indexes with defined positions and active management. We take a medium-term approach, typically making just a few trades per year.
We regularly publish updates on these indexes to show how the underlying theses are evolving: where the evidence is strengthening, where expectations are being met, and where the original argument is starting to weaken.
Today, I’m sharing our five best-performing indexes.
Some have benefited from both a strong investment thesis and significant exposure to the AI boom.
Others, however, focus on sectors with little or no direct exposure to AI infrastructure.
Those are particularly interesting to me. Strong returns alone don’t tell us how much of a thesis has actually played out.
When an entire sector is rallying, performance can reflect market enthusiasm as much as improving business fundamentals. And when expectations and valuations rise together, the risk of a sharp correction increases.
Some of our other theses rely on more specific drivers: structural shortages, replacement cycles, or sustained demand in overlooked markets.
They carry their own risks, but their potential depends less on continued enthusiasm for AI—and that makes them worth examining closely.
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Memory & Storage Shortage (658%)
The AI boom is creating bottlenecks beyond GPUs, as demand for memory and storage outpaces supply expansion. This portfolio tracks the companies positioned to benefit from those shortages.
We first shared this portfolio in our sister newsletter, Public Markets. The thesis remains compelling, although it has already largely played out and is directly exposed to AI infrastructure.
But if you read Public Markets, you’ll know that several interesting developments are opening up new opportunities within this theme. We’ve already created new indexes to track them.
AI Optical Chain (420%)
Journal of the bottleneck moving from compute to light — Corning fiber, Ciena systems, Coherent and Lumentum lasers/transceivers.
Satellite Broadband Buildout (230%)
Journal of connecting the unconnected from orbit — AST SpaceMobile and Globalstar as D2C/mobile satellite, EchoStar as spectrum/constellation residual.
Precision Oncology: Assay Owners, Not Sequencers (199%)
Liquid biopsy and MRD as the compounding layer of cancer care — Natera and Guardant, not the sequencing box.
This index attracted far less attention than our fiber optics index. Yet it’s exactly the kind of thesis I look for: an attractive balance between risk and potential returns, largely validated by developments so far, with further opportunities emerging that we could also position for—and little direct exposure to the AI bubble.
Subsea and Long-Haul Light (147%)
Journal of the cables that carry intercontinental bits — Ciena, Corning, AT&T as a strange but listed operator overlay.
These indexes show how our theses have evolved, but the strongest past performers aren’t necessarily the most compelling opportunities today.
On Macro Notes Terminal (formerly altis.finance), you can explore more than 100 indexes across different industries. Follow the themes that interest you, track the key events that could strengthen or invalidate each thesis, and see when we add positions, take profits, or reduce our exposure.
These indexes are research case studies, not investment recommendations. They offer a practical way to follow our work beyond the newsletter: how we assess new evidence, adjust our positions, and revisit our assumptions as conditions change.
Some of the most interesting theses are those we’ve recently added to the Terminal. They’re still at an early stage, when the opportunity may be less widely recognized—and when understanding both the potential and the risks matters most.
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