Markets
CROSS-CATEGORY: 'Atoms Over Bits' / HALO Trade — Capital Rotating Out of SaaS Into Physical Infrastructure
As $1.1T+ in software market cap has evaporated in 2026, investors are pivoting to a 'HALO' (Hardware, Atoms, Labor, and Operations) trade: Vertiv reported a $15B backlog for liquid cooling systems, ExxonMobil is up 26% YTD, while Adobe faces its creative monopoly stripped by generative tools and Microsoft struggles with an $80B Azure backlog it cannot clear due to power shortages. The thesis: in an era of abundant AI-generated code, physical scarcity (electricity, cooling, hardware) is the only defensible moat — directly inverting the premise of software-based competitive advantage across design, cloud, and CRM categories simultaneously.
↳ Follow the thread