UK-headquartered bank Standard Chartered’s global chief investment office ( CIO ) has released its inaugural CIO equity newsletter titled Long Story Short, outlining key equity market insights, developments and trends.

This regular newsletter, the banks notes, serves to distil key equity market drivers into a concise format, featuring three sections: “The Story”, “Long ( positive implications )” and “Short ( negative implications ).

As artificial intelligence ( AI ) continues to drive global markets, questions remain around whether it represents a bubble for investors. In this inaugural edition, the bank introduces its AI bubble meter — a confidence index designed to help investors navigate the broader AI landscape. 

For the month of February, the AI bubble meter shows an improvement in the AI confidence index to a better risk-reward profile, suggesting a potential 5% to 10% return for the AI theme over the next three to six months.

However, with AI adoption rates accelerating, the bank remains cautious on traditional business models facing disruption risk, particularly across hardware, legacy software and other service-related industries.

“We rolled out our new AI bubble meter in this first Long Story Short because investor sentiment remains fragile, given the evolving geopolitical landscape and lingering concerns around the AI narrative,” says Sundeep Gantori, the bank’s chief investment officer for equities. “We endeavour for future editions of the newsletter to cover broader equity topics, including the most topical and relevant equity narratives globally. Importantly, we hope our views will offer investors perspectives on how they can navigate the equity market in 2026.”