🇨🇳 China's AI Bubble Just Popped

PLUS: 3pm Friday, Take This Trade

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3pm Friday, Take This Trade

Tomorrow afternoon, somewhere around 3pm, Tim Sykes will be looking at a stock most people have never heard of.

He does this most Fridays.

Not because he has to.

Because he's learned that the two days most traders write off, Friday's close through Monday's open, is when a very specific kind of opportunity shows up.

Small cap stocks.

The kind nobody on Wall Street is watching closely enough to react to over a weekend.

When news breaks on one of them Friday afternoon, it just sits there, unpriced, until the market reopens Monday.

That's the gap Sykes has used to pull $9,177...

$8,780...

$16,159...

...from single weekend trades.

Of course these are some of my best trades.

All trading is risky, past performance doesn't indicate future success, and his results are exceptional.

But tomorrow, that window opens again.

Sykes recorded a short video walking through exactly what he looks for before he buys Friday afternoon, and how he decides when to sell Monday.

Today's the day to watch it, before tomorrow's window opens.

🇨🇳 China's AI Bubble Just Popped

Want a glimpse of how an AI crash plays out? Look at China right now. The STAR50, an index of China’s top AI and chip companies, has plunged 40% in under four months, wiping out roughly $480 billion in value. This is not a warning about the future. It is a bubble that has already burst, and US investors should be watching very closely.

Here is why this matters to you. China’s entire market got dangerously crowded into the AI trade, and when the mood turned, there was nowhere to hide. Some of the hottest names fell apart fast, with several debut darlings cut in half since the summer. The US market, for comparison, is now only about 6% off its own record high set just three weeks ago.

The individual stories are genuinely wild. One robot maker had an IPO so hyped it was oversubscribed 8,000 times, meaning there were 8,000 times more buyers than shares available. It has since lost half its value. Two chip startups soared 400% and 700% on their very first day of trading, only to get cut in half within months. This is what peak mania looks like: people throwing money at anything with “AI” in the name, no matter the price.

  • 📉 The crash was brutal. The STAR50 lost 40% and about $480 billion in under four months. Hot IPOs that once soared 400% or 700% have since halved, showing how fast crowded excitement can reverse.

  • 🎯 The concentration was extreme. AI stocks made up 42% of China’s market value and a staggering 57% of all trading. When everyone owns the same trade, a small wobble turns into a stampede for the exits.

  • 💰 The valuations were wild. The STAR50’s price-to-earnings ratio peaked near 250, meaning investors paid absurd prices for future hopes. Even after crashing, it sits near 100, still triple the Nasdaq 100.

There is one more detail worth knowing, because it explains why China’s crashes are so violent. In the US, big institutions like pension funds and hedge funds do most of the trading, which tends to smooth things out. In China, everyday retail traders drive the vast majority of daily activity. That means more emotion, more herd behavior, and faster panics. When regular folks all rush for the same exit at once, the door is not nearly wide enough, and prices collapse in a hurry.

The Munch Take: When everyone crowds into the same AI trade, the unwind is savage, and there is nowhere to hide once the selling starts. China just proved it. China’s bubble popped first, but the setup in the US rhymes more than most people want to admit. Here is the part that should make you pause. If you own a US index fund, you are far more concentrated in a handful of AI giants than you probably realize. The US is not China, our giants are wildly profitable, and the valuations here are nowhere near as extreme, so this is not a prediction of doom. Still, “the whole market leans on one trade” is a story that has never ended gently, no matter the country. Know what you actually own.

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