Aquinas Market Briefing
Veritas in Numeris — The Public Editor
January 23, 2026
The Macro Narrative: The Crack-Up Boom
We stand at a moment of ontological contradiction. The tickers flashing on your terminal this morning tell a story that defies classical mechanics: SPX at 6913, tearing upward into the stratosphere, yet accompanied by a rising VIX (15.97) and spiking yields (US10Y 4.25%).
In a healthy market, these forces counterbalance. Today, they march in lockstep. This is the geometry of a Fiscal Dominance regime—a “Crack-Up Boom” (Katastrophenhausse). The market is no longer pricing growth; it is pricing the debasement of the measuring stick itself. Investors are fleeing cash not because they trust the equity valuation, but because they fear the currency more.
Geopolitically, we have entered the “Transactional Interregnum.” While the US and China maintain a “Fragile Truce” following the summits of late 2025, the global order is fracturing. The AI capex boom in the US is masking deep structural weaknesses elsewhere, creating a dangerous divergence. Capital is flooding into American “hard tech” and defense, driven by a fear that the era of globalized peace is irrevocably over.
The signal from Gold (4940) and Bitcoin (89k) is deafening: the market is demanding sovereign assets—things that cannot be printed away by a central bank forced to monetize a deficit.
The Aquinas View: Substance over Shadow
From the lens of Aristotelian realism, we must distinguish between wealth (substance) and money (sign). The current mania is an obsession with the sign. The crowds are chasing nominal highs, mistaking price velocity for value creation.
St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that the “irascible appetite” drives us to pursue difficult goods. Today, that appetite is disordered. The “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO) is a passion, not a virtue. It blinds the intellect to the reality that a market rising on volatility is like a house built on sand. The prudent investor does not merely chase the bull; he observes the storm clouds gathering behind it.
The verdict: Participate, but do not capitulate to the euphoria. Own assets that possess real utility and sovereignty, for in a world of breaking correlations, only the truth survives.
In this noise, Aquinas Intelligence provides the signal.
Our algorithms do not just read prices; they read the causality behind them. Do not navigate the storm blind.
