The big surprise for the second half could be the AI trade powering higher. Why it wouldn’t take much.

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HSBC sees no sign of ‘exuberance’ in the valuations of artificial-intelligence stocks

Updated June 30, 2026, 7:51 a.m. ET

Barring a dramatic nosedive, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are set to finish the April-through-June period with their best quarterly gains in six years.

Those second-quarter returns come despite persistent investor concern about whether the artificial-intelligence trade will deliver, and that’s at the crux of our call of the day from strategists at HSBC led by Duncan Toms and Max Kettner. Their view: that those AI skeptics could get blindsided this year.