Monday - May 18, 2026
The Dividend Cafe
The Dividend Cafe - The Bahnsen Group
4.9 • 569 Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2026
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today's Post - https://bahnsen.co/4nErXgi
David Bahnsen records Monday’s Dividend Cafe from Miami, noting a prior deep dive on U.S. national debt and then reviewing markets after an S&P 500 “melt up” led by semiconductors, the Mag Seven, and AI, followed by a pullback tied to sharply rising bond yields, with the 10-year near 4.6% and higher yields a potential catalyst for equity weakness. He flags poor market breadth, mentions a $67B Dominion–NextEra utility merger connected to data-center power demand, and highlights AI’s dominance in new high-yield, investment-grade, and venture funding plus global index concentration in semiconductors. He also covers U.S.–China announcements (Boeing planes, agricultural purchases, tariff oversight), Iran uncertainty, industrial production gains, weak homebuilder sentiment, incoming Fed chair Kevin Warsh amid no-cut expectations, and oil near $106 with limited rig-count response.
00:00 Miami Intro and Debt Recap
00:55 Market Pullback and Yield Spike
03:52 Breadth Warning and Utility Merger
05:04 AI Concentration and Momentum Risk
07:43 US China Summit and Iran Tensions
09:47 Economic Data and Fed Outlook
11:46 Oil Surge and Rig Count Reality
12:55 Ask TBG and Sign Off
Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Dividing Cafe, weekly market commentary focused on dividends in your portfolio and dividends in your understanding of economic life. |
| 0:10.0 | Well, hello and welcome to the Monday Dividing Cafe where I am recording from Miami, Florida. |
| 0:18.0 | I just arrived a few moments ago. I got to write a lot of today's Dividend |
| 0:23.5 | Cafe on the plane today. And I'm not sure that I've ever recorded a Dividend Cafe from Miami. |
| 0:31.0 | I will be here for a few days. I'll be back in New York City Thursday night and we'll bring |
| 0:35.3 | you the Friday Dividend Cafe from New York on Friday. |
| 0:39.6 | In the meantime, last Friday's Dividy Cafe, I very much want to call out of your attention. |
| 0:44.7 | And so we're getting an awful lot of feedback about it, but we did a rather deep dive into the state of the U.S. |
| 0:50.4 | national debt. |
| 0:52.3 | And there's been recent headlines about the debt crossing that 100% |
| 0:57.0 | debt, public debt to GDP ratio. And I believe this is a Divida Cafe worth your time. So check |
| 1:04.4 | that out at divinycafe.com. Let me get into the action for today. We have just sort of a little |
| 1:10.4 | bit to cover on every topic. |
| 1:13.3 | I think it goes without saying that the market has been mostly since, let's call it, mid-ish April, |
| 1:21.6 | been in a real melt-up mode, a very, very rapid increase in the semiconductor space, in Mag 7, in AI, AI-A-I-adjacent, |
| 1:33.1 | and of course all that carrying S&P 500. It sold off quite a bit on Friday and then was down |
| 1:40.2 | a little today, the NASDAQ down more. The S&P was only down seven basis points, |
| 1:44.2 | although at one point it had been down a lot more. All three market indices rallied in the last |
| 1:48.7 | hour and a half. Nasdaq was still down a little over half percent because technology was |
| 1:54.2 | down one percent today was the worst performing sector. But the Dow ended up being up 160 points. It had opened down 60. |
| 2:04.7 | A lot of this action in the market Friday almost entirely and hangover into today. |
| 2:11.5 | It has to do bond yields have really risen quite a bit. And so the bond market falling off, |
... |
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