Analog Capital AI

10/06/2026

Quarterly Letter | Q3 2026

What narrow equity leadership, rising rates, and broad asset-class weakness mean for diversified investors.

Markets delivered a very different experience beneath the headline index during the third quarter.

While the capitalization-weighted S&P 500 remained positive, equal-weighted stocks, small caps, REITs, and bonds all declined. At the same time, the 10-year Treasury yield moved sharply higher, creating pressure across several asset classes that investors normally expect to provide diversification.

These conditions do not mean diversification has stopped working. They illustrate why diversification can feel least rewarding precisely when market leadership becomes unusually narrow.

In our latest quarterly letter, we examine:

- Why the S&P 500’s return concealed much broader weakness across the market
- How rising long-term interest rates affected Treasuries, REITs, small caps, and precious metals
- Why we systematically rebalanced into small caps, REITs, and Treasuries during the quarter
- How softer inflation and employment data may create a more constructive medium-term environment for bonds and precious metals

[Read “Higher Yields, Narrower Leadership: What Q3 2026 Revealed About Diversification”]

Our objective is not to predict every short-term market move. It is to maintain a disciplined, strategic portfolio that is not dependent on one asset class, one economic outcome, or a small group of market leaders.

https://na2.hubs.ly/H08dGgV0

Higher Yields, Narrower Leadership: What Q3 2026 Revealed About Diversification The S&P 500 advanced while small caps, REITs and bonds declined. Beneath the headline, the third quarter was a test of market breadth, benchmark discipline and systematic rebalancing. By Billy Desai, MBA, CF

09/27/2026

Something very strange is happening beneath the surface of the stock market.

The S&P 500 is close to an all-time high.

Yet 72.8% of the stocks in the index are at least 10% below their own 52-week highs.

Nearly 3 out of every 4 S&P 500 companies are already in individual corrections. Even more striking: 36% are more than 20% below their highs.

The S&P 500 is market-cap weighted, so a small group of enormous companies can push the index higher while most stocks underneath it struggle.

We've seen versions of this before.

In 1998, the S&P 500 reached record highs despite weak participation. It fell almost 10% over the next three months, then recovered and was more than 16% higher a year later.

In December 1999, a similar breadth divergence appeared near the height of the dot-com bubble. That episode ended very differently.

This past May was only the third period since 1997 when the S&P 500 hit an all-time high while fewer than half its constituents were on Point & Figure buy signals. The others: June 1998 and December 1999.

Earlier this week, the S&P 500 rallied more than 1% to within 1% of its record while more S&P 500 stocks made 52-week lows than highs.

According to SentimenTrader, that had occurred only twice before in nearly a century:

July 23, 1929.
December 21, 1999.

That doesn't mean we're about to repeat 1929 or 2000. Breadth is not a market-timing tool.

But it does tell us something important:

The headline index is giving a very different picture from the average stock.

When leadership becomes this concentrated, the market depends on a small number of very large companies performing.

There are two ways this can resolve.

The healthier outcome: the rest of the market catches up, the equal-weighted S&P 500 strengthens and breadth expands.

The less healthy outcome: the handful of stocks holding up the index join the rest of the market.

That's what I'm watching.

Sometimes the index tells you where the market is.
Breadth tells you how it got there.

Right now, those two stories look very different.

09/24/2026

At what Treasury yield does the equity market break?

A 5.5% 10-year? A 6% 30-year?

Recently, the 10-year Treasury yield reached roughly 5.15%, while the 30-year approached 5.45%—its highest level since 2004.

My view: a sustained 5.5% 10-year and a 6% 30-year would be serious stress tests for equities. But they are scenarios, not scientifically established breaking points.

The more important questions are: Why are yields rising? How quickly? And how long do they stay elevated?

Higher yields accompanied by stronger growth and improving earnings are one thing. Investors demanding more compensation to hold long-term debt, without a better growth outlook, is a much less comfortable backdrop for valuations.

The pressure reaches equities through two channels.

First, higher borrowing costs squeeze businesses as they refinance. Companies that locked in cheap, fixed-rate debt have breathing room—but that protection is not permanent.

Second, higher required returns reduce what investors will pay today for future cash flows, unless earnings expectations improve enough to compensate.

You do not need an earnings collapse to have a substantial equity decline.

Consider a hypothetical company earning $10 per share. At 25 times earnings, its shares trade at $250. At 20 times earnings, they trade at $200.

Same earnings. 20% lower share price.

That is valuation risk.

Speed matters, too. A sharp rise in yields can create losses on existing bond holdings and force vulnerable investors to sell at the wrong time.

What would concern me most is not one yield crossing a round number. It is rising inflation-adjusted yields, widening corporate credit spreads, and falling earnings expectations occurring together.

That combination would suggest the cost of capital is rising while the ability to service it is weakening.

At Analog, the objective is not to guess the exact yield that triggers the next selloff. It is to build portfolios that do not depend on one favorable economic outcome.

The question is not simply, “How high can yields go?”

It is, “How much optimism is embedded in equity prices—and can earnings still justify it?”

09/17/2026

The strongest consensus I hear right now: avoid long-dated Treasuries.

I struggle to find anyone enthusiastic about owning them. And that level of agreement makes me wonder what we might be missing.

The bearish case is familiar: inflation risk, large fiscal deficits, heavy borrowing and concerns about higher long-term yields. These are legitimate risks.

But a convincing economic story and a good investment decision are not necessarily the same thing.

What happens if the next big surprise is not more inflation—but weaker demand?

What if we enter a deleveraging cycle? Households and businesses retrench. Spending slows. Recession replaces resilience. Inflation concerns give way to disinflation—or even deflation.

In that scenario, lower interest-rate expectations and renewed demand for defensive assets could push long-term Treasury yields materially lower. That is the environment in which their role as a portfolio hedge can become particularly valuable.

And because long-dated bonds are highly sensitive to changes in yields, the potential benefit is not just coupon income. A substantial decline in yields can produce substantial capital appreciation. The same sensitivity investors fear on the way down can work in their favor on the way up.

Of course, this is not a free lunch. If long-term yields keep rising, long-dated Treasuries can suffer significant losses.

Nor does every risk-off episode immediately help Treasuries. The nature of the shock matters.

I am not arguing that consensus is always wrong. Being contrarian is not an investment thesis by itself.

But when I hear the same conviction repeated everywhere, I ask:

How much of that story is already in the price—and what happens if a different story unfolds?

For me, the case for considering Treasuries does not require predicting a recession. It requires acknowledging that a recessionary, disinflationary outcome is possible—and asking whether the portfolio is prepared for it.

The goal is not to build a portfolio that wins an argument about the future.

It is to build one that does not require your favorite forecast to be right.

09/13/2026

Can I retire earlier? Am I saving enough? What happens if markets take a hit?

These are the questions we built Analog Capital AI to help you explore.

Our latest version of Analog Capital AI: Planner is now available on the Apple App Store.

Explore your financial future, test different scenarios, and see how today’s decisions could shape tomorrow’s retirement.

Already using the app? Update to the latest version. New here? Take a look—and let us know what you think.

👉 Download or update on the App Store (https://na2.hubs.ly/H07NnWv0)

👉 Download or update on Google Play (https://na2.hubs.ly/H07NnVf0)

09/10/2026

The strategy that helped you build your wealth may not be the strategy that helps you keep it.

Getting wealthy often involves concentration. You commit your time, expertise and capital to a business, a career, real estate or equity in a company.

That focus can create tremendous opportunity. But it can also leave much of your financial future dependent on one outcome.

Once you have accumulated meaningful wealth, the question changes.

“How much more could I make?” is still relevant.

But so is: “How much could I lose without changing the life I’ve worked to build?”

Staying wealthy does not mean abandoning ambition, avoiding all risk or putting everything in cash. It means recognizing that some risks are worth taking—and others no longer serve you.

It means looking beyond the number of investments you own to understand whether they depend on the same economic conditions.

It means keeping enough liquidity so that an unexpected expense does not dictate when you sell.

It means considering taxes, managing debt and building a portfolio you can realistically stick with when markets become uncomfortable.

Above all, it means distinguishing between the risk you can take and the risk you need to take.

At Analog Capital Partners, we believe investment management should reflect that distinction. The objective is not simply to pursue more wealth, but to help protect what that wealth makes possible: independence, family security and choices about how you spend your time.

Getting wealthy expands your possibilities. Staying wealthy protects your freedom to choose.

09/03/2026

Avoiding Single Points of Failure

Single points of failure are easy to recognize in engineering. In investing, they are often harder to see.

A portfolio may own 20 funds and still have one dominant bet: stocks will continue to rise.

A bond portfolio may hold dozens of securities and still depend on the same credit cycle.

A retirement plan may look sound but rely on smooth average returns arriving in the right order.

A tax strategy may avoid a gain today while allowing one concentrated position to become the family’s largest risk.

The number of holdings is not the same as the number of independent return drivers.

At Analog Capital Partners, our investment process begins with a different question:

What combination of return drivers gives a family the greatest probability of reaching its objectives across market environments?

That is why our portfolios combine global and U.S. equities, laddered U.S. Treasuries, precious metals, real estate and, when appropriate, selected alternative strategies. Within equities, our quality and momentum disciplines provide complementary approaches to security selection. Systematic rebalancing helps prevent one successful exposure from quietly taking over the portfolio.

We also treat the investment portfolio and financial plan as one connected system.

Investment risk, taxes, liquidity, retirement withdrawals, estate decisions and family goals interact. Optimizing one in isolation can create weakness elsewhere.

This approach does not eliminate losses. Nothing does.

The objective is to avoid building a family’s financial future around:

One asset class
One market regime
One forecast
One concentrated position
One perfectly timed decision

A resilient portfolio should not require us to know exactly what happens next.

It should be built with the expectation that something we rely upon will eventually disappoint.

Before asking, “What will outperform next?”, ask: Where are the single points of failure in my financial life—and what happens if one breaks?

That is where risk management begins.

08/27/2026

The financial industry is very good at measuring wealth.

It is much less skilled at asking what wealth is actually for.

Income is generally associated with greater well-being. And the widely repeated idea that happiness stops increasing once someone earns $75,000 is not a universal rule.

A 2023 joint analysis by researchers Matthew Killingsworth, Daniel Kahneman, and Barbara Mellers found that emotional well-being continued to rise with income for most people. For the least-happy group, however, the gains largely flattened at approximately $100,000 of annual income in the study’s U.S. sample.

In other words, money can remove many sources of unhappiness—financial insecurity, inadequate housing, lack of healthcare, debt, and limited choices.

The relationship becomes even more interesting among the wealthy. Two studies involving more than 4,000 millionaires found that additional net worth was associated with only modest increases in happiness, with clearer differences appearing primarily at very high wealth levels.

Perhaps the most useful finding is that how we use money may matter as much as how much we accumulate.

Research suggests that money is more likely to improve well-being when it is used to:

— Buy back time
— Reduce chronic financial stress
— Create autonomy and flexibility
— Support people and causes we care about
— Strengthen relationships and shared experiences

Experiments have found that spending money to save time can improve happiness, and that spending on others can create greater happiness than equivalent spending on oneself.

This is why the objective of financial planning should not be to maximize net worth at any cost.

The objective is to convert wealth into a better life—more freedom, more resilience, more time with the people you care about, and a greater ability to live according to your values.

At Analog Capital Partners, we believe every meaningful financial plan should answer two questions:

What is your money for?

And how much is enough?

Because becoming wealthier and living better are related—but they are not the same objective.

08/20/2026

How much should you Roth convert every year?

The answer is not:

“Convert as much as possible.”

The better goal is:

Recognize the right amount of taxable income today to reduce your lifetime tax bill.

For some people, the appropriate annual Roth conversion may be:

- $0 during a high-income year
- $50,000 during an ordinary retirement year
- $200,000+ during an unusually favorable tax window

The amount depends on much more than your current tax bracket.

A Roth conversion can also affect:

- Medicare Part B and Part D premiums
- Health-insurance subsidies before age 65
- The taxation of Social Security benefits
- Capital-gains taxation
- State income taxes
- Estimated-tax and withholding requirements

A practical starting point is:

Target income ceiling
− Projected income before conversion
− Margin of safety
= Potential Roth conversion

For example, assume a retired couple expects $120,000 of income and selects $200,000 as its planning ceiling.

That creates preliminary conversion capacity of approximately $80,000.

But converting the full $80,000 immediately may not be prudent.

They might convert $65,000–$70,000 first, then update the projection near year-end after dividends, capital gains, deductions, and other income become clearer.

For many families, the most valuable Roth-conversion window occurs:

After retirement, but before Social Security, pensions, and required minimum distributions fully begin.

Other attractive opportunities may include:

- A temporary drop in income
- A significant market decline
- Before moving to a higher-tax state
- Before the death of a spouse
- Before leaving large retirement accounts to high-income heirs

However, a large conversion can be a mistake when it creates excessive taxes, raises Medicare or insurance costs, weakens liquidity, or accelerates income that would otherwise be taxed at a lower rate later.

The question is not simply:

“How much can I convert?”

It is:

“What multiyear Roth-conversion strategy gives my family the best lifetime after-tax outcome?”

04/17/2026

Exploring Financial Projections and Income Evolution

Understand exactly how our projections are made and what drives the numbers.