Julian Emanuel, Evercore ISI’s chief equity derivatives and quantitative strategist, said on CNBC this week that megacap tech results this quarter were “breathtaking” and then said, “the other side of breathtaking is it is likely to be as good as it gets.” In the same breath, he told viewers to stay long on technology into 2027.
The tension resolves once you separate two ideas that usually get mashed together. Peak growth rate refers to the second derivative, meaning the rate of improvement.
Declining earnings would be a comment about the level.
Emanuel is talking about the former, and his own math on the record makes that explicit when he says, “even if we come off of these rates, you’re still talking of earnings growth that’s likely to be close to 20%, perhaps higher. And then, you know, potentially double digits next year as well.” That is a maturing cycle.
What Peak Growth Actually Looks Like In The Numbers
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) reported Q1 FY2027 revenue of $82 billion, up 85% year over year, with data center revenue of $75 billion and a $91 billion revenue guide for the next quarter, disclosed in the company’s SEC filing. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) closed FY2026 with Azure crossing $100 billion in annual revenue and growing 41%, and guided to roughly 45% Azure growth in constant currency for Q1 FY27. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) posted Q2 revenue of $119.80 billion, up 24.2%, with Google Cloud accelerating to 82% growth.
Comparisons get harder from here because the base numbers are enormous, and year-over-year rates will compress by definition. That compression is what a peak in growth rate looks like when earnings power is still climbing. NVIDIA trades at a forward P/E of about 25x, Microsoft at about 25x, and Alphabet at about 17x. None of that pricing requires the growth rate to keep accelerating. It requires the growth to keep happening.
The Stampede Is The Part Worth Sitting With
Emanuel’s most interesting claim was structural. He said, “if you look at all structural tech driven bull markets over the last 25 or 30 years, they invariably end with a stampede.” The uncomfortable implication is that the most violent gains and the top tend to arrive together.
A reader who waits for confirmation that the melt-up is real will be buying into its final stage. Waiting for proof looks conservative but leaves you buying into the final stage of the pattern he describes.
Jensen Huang’s own language on the earnings call fits this pattern. He said “demand has gone parabolic” and pointed to a hyperscale CapEx forecast to exceed $1 trillion in 2027. Whether that is a real capital cycle or the acceleration phase Emanuel is warning about is unknowable in real time.
The peak growth argument is convincing because year-over-year comparisons are close to impossible to sustain, but I do not read it as a reason to reduce exposure. Watch the enterprise RPO figures at Microsoft, currently $678 billion, up 84%, and NVIDIA’s supply commitments, currently $119.0B, because those numbers would break first if the demand signal weakens.
The Options Trade And The Credit Signal
Emanuel offered a specific tactic. He said, “with the VIX at 15, if you want to think into 2027, long term call options on the triple Q’s make a lot of sense.”
The VIX closed at 14.25 on August 14, 2026, which sits in the bottom 2.3% of its one-year range. Compressed implied volatility makes options premiums cheaper, so buying long-dated upside exposure costs less than it would in a normal volatility environment.
The logic is sound, although the instrument suits sophisticated investors more than readers approaching retirement, because a call option that expires out of the money results in a total loss of premium.
The credit observation is the one to end on, because it is the least discussed. Emanuel noted that “high yield spreads are near their tights simply because it’s sort of a forgotten part of the financing market, and investment grade tech, where all the demands are, are the areas that have widened.”
Investment-grade technology issuers, historically the safest corner of the corporate bond market, are the ones paying up. Alphabet raised roughly $70B in combined equity and debt for its AI buildout, and Microsoft’s calendar 2026 CapEx guidance is approximately $ 175 billion.
That borrowing is the reason those spreads have widened, and it is a cleaner tell on the AI cycle than any equity chart (we profiled seven of the power, cooling, and networking suppliers absorbing that spend in a free report on the AI buildout beyond the chipmakers). If those spreads keep widening even as high yield holds firm, the market is telling you the buildout is straining the balance sheets funding it, and that is the point at which the peak growth argument stops being an ordinary feature of a maturing cycle and starts being something else.
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