The fears associated with artificial intelligence have now spread from the software to the logistics and financial sectors. Rumours began circulating in the market that someone had built a freight management system in a matter of weeks that delivers similar performance for a fraction of the costs – without licence fees and with an AI agent at its core. Investors are drawing a simple conclusion: logistics is coordination, coordination is data, and data is a natural breeding ground for AI automation. Platforms that reduce empty runs, increase capacity utilisation and speed up dispatching strike at the heart of the industry. Here too, though, complexity is the protective wall, and established companies form a huge counterweight with their networks, their experience and the trust of their customers. Banks such as ZKB argue along the lines that for large, complex and urgent tasks the edge held by the established players remains intact. And the companies themselves are likewise already using AI to improve processes, not make themselves redundant.
The third sector that has since been impacted by the AI shock is the financial industry. Whereas previously it was only insurers, shortly afterwards brokers and asset managers also came under scrutiny. The pattern is repeating itself: AI is lowering transaction and consultancy costs, increasing personalisation and opening up alternative, AI-supported offerings. In Europe, for example, online brokers and asset managers came under pressure following the weakness of US stocks such as Charles Schwab. The brokerage firm Jefferies spoke of a broad sell-off among European online brokers on the back of concerns that margins could also decline here due to AI alternatives. The immediate trigger cited was the introduction of an AI-supported tax planning tool, a product that does not replace a financial system but hits exactly where fee psychology and customer loyalty are sensitive. The experts at the Bank of America, nevertheless, take the view that established financial services providers are exposed to a greater risk of being displaced by competitors who are already making successful use of AI than by a new AI tool itself. The US bank believes that the loyalty of customers and the need for human interaction constitute an important competitive edge. In the capital markets, corporate banking and asset management sectors especially, personal service combined with regulatory requirements form high barriers to market entry.
The market is currently pricing in three things simultaneously: business models, investment cycles and capital structures. As long as it is not clear which company is really monetising AI and which is only investing in it, price movements can overreact – in both directions. That is precisely why the classic buy-and-hold strategy does not suit this volatile environment. Instead, a tactical approach could pay off. Risk-tolerant investors wanting to actively exploit fluctuations can use leveraged products on both the long and the short side. In doing so, it is important to ensure the appropriate risk management and a holding size that is commensurate with the portfolio as a whole. It is in the nature of leveraged instruments, after all, that they present not only huge opportunities but also high risks. One thing that the recent past has shown very clearly is that in the AI era risk arises not just when company figures disappoint, but even simply when a tool is released. That is why it is always essential to stay on guard and follow the flow of news closely.
Whether Alphabet, Allianz, Kühne + Nagel, Microsoft, Oracle or UBS, Leonteq’s range of more than 18,000 leveraged products gives traders a broad spectrum of shares in the current “hot” sectors of logistics, tech and banking. From mini-futures, warrants and open-end knock-out warrants to other structured solutions for different market phases, investors will find what they need at Leonteq. Thanks to low spreads, market movements can be exploited specifically and at little cost with the various leveraged instruments on both the long and the short side. This enables everyone to implement their individual market expectation efficiently and to remain flexible even amidst the ups and downs.
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