AI Stock Gurus Struggle: Leopold Seeks Funding, Serenity Already Retracts 50%

On July 30, recent AI trading has faced a severe downturn, with high Beta assets under pressure from U.S. stocks to Asian tech stocks. The Nasdaq 100 has significantly retreated from its peak, with many AI infrastructure, cloud computing, power, and semiconductor stocks experiencing double-digit declines; Korea's KOSPI has become an amplifier of this sell-off, retracting nearly 40% since its mid-June high, with intraday losses approaching 44%. The AI computing power chain, previously favored by investors, is undergoing a rapid deleveraging and valuation reassessment.

In this context, the once-popular "stock gurus" have also struggled to protect themselves during the downturn. Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher, is seeking new funding for his AI-themed hedge fund, Situational Awareness. Following a significant pullback in AI-related stocks, this fund, known for its high concentration bets on the AI industry chain, has incurred substantial losses and is looking to replenish capital through investor communications and potential asset sales.

This fundraising effort has quickly become a symbolic event following the retreat of AI trading. Over the past year, the market was willing to pay high valuations for computing power, chips, electricity, and cloud infrastructure; as the KOSPI, Nasdaq 100, and several AI infrastructure stocks experienced severe fluctuations, funds began to reassess the return cycles, leverage risks, and position crowding within the AI industry chain.

A similar pullback has also occurred with the well-known "White Hair Stock Guru" Serenity in the Chinese investment circle. Serenity is an anonymous trader active on platform X, with no regulatory filings disclosing complete holdings, making it impossible for outsiders to confirm his actual positions and portfolio weights. However, he has publicly discussed his AI supply chain framework multiple times, claiming his portfolio focuses on "AI bottleneck" sectors such as storage, photonics, robotics, and upstream semiconductors.

Serenity's rise to fame relied on identifying high-elasticity targets deep within the industry chain ahead of time. He has specifically mentioned directions like SIVE, NBIS, AXTI, CCXI, covering sub-sectors such as CPO light sources, InP materials, AI cloud, and humanoid robots. When the market is favorable, these stocks exhibit far greater elasticity than mainstream tech stocks, allowing Serenity to quickly gain prominence on social media.

However, the backlash from high-elasticity assets is equally fierce. In mid-July, Serenity claimed on X that following the recent market crash, his portfolio experienced a maximum drawdown of 49.4% this month. He later explained that if using 1.4 times leverage, and the heavily weighted storage and photonics underlying assets average a decline of about 35%, a portfolio drawdown close to 49% is not surprising.