Gene Munster, Deepwater Asset Management managing partner, said AI developments are driving markets more than geopolitics in a CNBC video feature that also discussed the market reaction to conflicts in the Middle East, his outlook for tech stocks, trends in software stocks and more.
Who Gets to Set the Terms
Munster’s comments, delivered in a CNBC video feature on The Exchange, put the machinery of finance front and center: AI developments are steering markets while conflicts in the Middle East are treated as background noise. The segment, posted Monday, Apr 20 2026 at 1:34 PM EDT, framed the market reaction around what investors and market watchers are paying attention to, not what ordinary people living through conflict are forced to endure.
The feature was built around Munster’s view as a managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, a position that places him inside the financial hierarchy where market narratives are shaped and circulated. In the segment, he discussed the market reaction to conflicts in the Middle East, his outlook for tech stocks, trends in software stocks and more. The structure of the discussion makes clear whose priorities dominate: the movements of capital, the fortunes of tech, and the software trade.
Markets First, Everything Else Second
The central claim in the segment was blunt: AI developments are driving markets more than geopolitics. That is the language of a system where the pulse of finance matters more than the violence and instability that ordinary people are expected to absorb. The market reaction to conflicts in the Middle East was part of the discussion, but only as one factor among many in a conversation organized around investor sentiment and stock performance.
The video runtime was 4:57, a short stretch of airtime in which the logic of the market was allowed to set the frame. The segment ran on The Exchange, another reminder that the public is invited to watch the financial class interpret the world for them, while the consequences of those decisions land elsewhere.
Tech Stocks, Software Stocks, and the Usual Winners
Munster also gave his outlook for tech stocks and discussed trends in software stocks. Those categories matter because they show where the attention of capital is flowing and which sectors are being positioned as the next winners in the market game. The article does not offer a grassroots response, mutual aid effort, or any direct action from people outside the financial apparatus. Instead, the only voice centered is that of a market insider speaking through a corporate media platform.
The source also notes that the segment discussed more beyond those topics, but the core message remains the same: AI developments are being treated as the force moving markets, while geopolitics is demoted to a secondary concern. That ordering says plenty about the priorities of the system. The people living with conflict do not get to decide how their suffering is priced in. The market does.
The CNBC feature, posted on Monday, Apr 20 2026, is a clean example of how financial media normalizes the rule of capital. A managing partner from Deepwater Asset Management is given the platform to explain what matters, and what matters is whatever keeps the market machine humming. The rest is just noise for the trading floor.