Nomura Quant Insights: Three impediments to AI momentum recovery; crude oil volatility amid renewed Middle East risk; GPIF comments

Research evidence excerpt

Nomura Quant Insights: Three impediments to AI momentum recovery; crude oil volatility amid renewed Middle East risk; GPIF comments

Global Markets Research

13 July 2026Nomura Quant Insights

Cross-asset - Japan

Three impediments to AI momentum recovery; crude oil Research Analysts

volatility amid renewed Middle East risk; GPIF comments Macro Strategy / Quantitative

Strategy

Momentum could suffer in July / AI reversal and bank stocks / Reassessment of domestic Yoshitaka Suda - NSLdemand stocks with revisions pointing upwards if JPY looks likely to weaken no further yoshitaka.suda@nomura.com

+65 6433 6674

Three impediments to a recovery in AI momentum / Caution towards hyperscaler

earnings / Pressure to adjust positions / South Korean equity volatility / CTAs trim

long exposure to the Nikkei 225

Midway through last week, the reversal that had been under way in Japanese equities

took a breather (Figure1). The magnitude of the reversal ended up being no greater than

what one might have expected based on the extent of the widening in the dispersion of

returns (Figure2, Figure3). The momentum factor seems to increasingly be staging a

turnaround now, but for several reasons, we have a hard time imagining that the factor will

make a genuine recovery—at least through the end of July. First, investors in the US

equity options market are increasingly casting their eyes towards the run of earnings

announcements by the hyperscalers late in the month. Among events coming up on the

immediate horizon, the event premium the market has assigned to the hyperscaler results

announcements is plainly higher than the premiums assigned to other events, such as the

economic indicators due out this week or semiconductor companies’ results

announcements (Figure4).