Breaking down business applications into value and growth companies reveals a widening divergence, likely driven by the proliferation of AI-enabled startups, as large language models dramatically lower the barriers to entrepreneurship. For more, see also here.
Note: Growth includes information, professional services, healthcare & social assistance, educational services, arts & entertainment. Value includes retail trade, finance & insurance, utilities, mining, manufacturing, transportation & warehousing, construction, real estate, wholesale trade, accommodation & food services, administrative & support, other services, management of companies, agriculture. Sources: US Census Bureau, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist
See important disclaimers at the bottom of the page.
Tech’s share of the investment-grade index has risen from 1.9% in 2006 to 10.7% today, with similar gains in high-yield and leveraged loans, see chart below.
The bottom line is that AI-related sectors now represent a growing share of credit markets.
Sources: Nick Meyer, JPM, Apollo Chief Economist
See important disclaimers at the bottom of the page.
The chart below assesses the severity of the Middle East conflict's impact across various segments of credit markets.
Note: Red = Negative, Yellow = Moderate, Gray = Non-material, Green = Positive. Sources: Moody’s ratings, Apollo Chief Economist
See important disclaimers at the bottom of the page.
The price of natural diamonds has fallen more than 50% since 2022, and is now at its lowest level on record, see chart below.
Note: Bloomberg: DIAMINDX. The index represents the market value (in USD per standardized coin) of a fungible basket of natural diamonds, each coin initially containing $5,000 worth of diamonds at launch in March 2021. It reflects the wholesale diamond market's aggregate value and should not be interpreted as the spot price of individual diamonds. Sources: Bloomberg, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist
See important disclaimers at the bottom of the page.
We are in the midst of an AI revolution, and the CFO Survey below shows the many channels through which business managers expect AI to have an impact on firm outcomes.
CFOs expect the biggest impacts to be on decision speed, output per worker and time spent on high value–added tasks, with employment essentially unchanged.
Note: Question asks for Likert scale options that are mapped to percentage outcomes (i.e., increased moderately, 5.1 to 10%). Above chart uses midpoint of ranges provided and +/-5% above/below highest/lowest options to calculate numeric averages across respondents. Sources: The CFO Survey, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Apollo Chief Economist
See important disclaimers at the bottom of the page.
The chart below compares the forward P/E ratios for the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 Information Technology sector.
Tech valuations have compressed from 40x to 20x, and we are back at levels last seen before the AI boom began.
Note: The companies listed represent the 10 largest constituents in the S&P 500 Information Technology index by market capitalization: NVIDIA Corp, Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Broadcom Inc, Oracle Corp, Micron Technology Inc, Palantir Technologies Inc, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Cisco Systems Inc, and Applied Materials Inc. Sources: Bloomberg, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist
See important disclaimers at the bottom of the page.
April 10, 2026
Almost Half of American Households Have No Retirement Savings
Nearly half of working-age Americans don’t have a retirement account, with the shortfall most acute among younger, less-educated and lower-income workers, see chart below and here.
Sources: AARP, Apollo Chief Economist
See important disclaimers at the bottom of the page.
Ground beef prices are rising, see chart below. The US cattle herd remains historically tight because of years of drought and high feed costs, and this has kept slaughter availability constrained and pushed live cattle costs higher. Resilient consumer demand and elevated feed, labor and energy costs are reinforcing the move at retail.
Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist
See important disclaimers at the bottom of the page.
We are in the middle of tax filing season, and the latest weekly data from the Treasury shows that refunds for households are currently running at a rate that is 14% higher than last year, see chart below.
Sources: US Treasury, Haver Analytics, Apollo Chief Economist
See important disclaimers at the bottom of the page.
April 07, 2026
US Insurers Have Very Small Exposure to Levered Lending
The chart below shows exposure to below investment grade bank loans across a representative sample of US insurers.
The average is 1%.
The bottom line is that sub-investment grade levered lending is a very small part of the balance sheet for the US insurance industry.
Note: Data as of December 31, 2024, or December 31, 2025, based on latest available. Above insurers constitute a representative sample of US market participants. Represents unaffiliated and affiliated below investment grade bank loans (rated NAIC 3 and lower) in US statutory entities (from Schedule D statutory investment schedule), as aggregated by SNL financial, divided by total general account US statutory assets (from US statutory summary balance sheet). Excludes assets outside US statutory entities (e.g., asset in international entities). The data in this page is pulled from the publicly available S&P Market Intelligence SNL Insurance Regulatory Data dataset.
See important disclaimers at the bottom of the page.