July looked calm from a distance and was anything but underneath. Headline indices barely moved, yet the makeup of the market changed. The average stock had a good month while the most crowded positions came apart, and leadership drifted away from US technology toward Europe and other markets investors had stopped paying attention to.

Bonds were the harder place to be. Long yields rose across developed markets, pushed by energy prices and heavy government and corporate issuance rather than by any move from the Fed, which held again with a visible hawkish minority. Fixed income offered little shelter on the days equities struggled.

The pages that follow take three threads: the unwind in momentum and why it says more about leverage than about artificial intelligence, a central bank that has stopped offering guidance and what that does to bond risk, and the shifting relationship between equities and bonds that is quietly changing how portfolios should be built.

We wish you a pleasant and insightful read.