Something doesn’t add up.

AI stocks have been volatile – whipsawed by macro headlines, geopolitical tension, and shifting risk sentiment.

But underneath that, something very different is happening.

The companies powering the AI boom have been reporting some of the strongest numbers – and issuing some of the most aggressive forward guidance – we’ve yet seen in this cycle.

Historically, these kinds of gaps between price action and underlying fundamentals don’t last very long.

Because they can’t both be right.

What will be left when the smoke clears?

A set of AI tailwinds that are still intact, still accelerating – and now trading at a discount after a fear-driven correction.

AI Infrastructure Data Is Telling a Different Story

So let’s talk about those fundamentals. Because I have five major transcripts from the last few weeks sitting in front of me – Broadcom (AVGO), Marvell (MRVL), Oracle (ORCL), Micron (MU), and Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote – and they’re all pointing to the same conclusion: the AI infrastructure supercycle is only compounding.

We’ll start with the companies’ forward guidance revisions.

Forecasts Are Moving Higher Fast

Back in September 2025, Marvell told investors that fiscal 2027 revenue would be ~$9.5 billion. By December, it was revised upward to $10 billion. Last week, it hit $11 billion – with fiscal 2028 now targeting $15 billion. That is a 30%-plus upward revision to the forward revenue outlook, all in six months. Marvell’s projected 2027 growth rate is roughly double what it told the Street at the September investor day.

That kind of revision in six months would be a headline in any other environment.

Here, it’s part of a broader pattern across the stack.

Across the AI supply chain, companies aren’t just reporting strong demand – they’re adjusting expectations higher as that demand shows up faster than planned.

Scale Is Expanding Across the AI Infrastructure Stack

Broadcom’s latest results reflect that same shift, just at a different scale. The company reported $8.4 billion in AI semiconductor revenue in a single quarter, up 106% year-over-year, and guided to $10.7 billion next quarter – implying 140% growth.

Then CEO Hock Tan added a longer-term datapoint that’s hard to ignore: Broadcom now has visibility into more than $100 billion in AI chip revenue by 2027. Not total revenue. Just chips.

If Broadcom highlights the scale of what’s building, Oracle offers a view into how far ahead customers are already committing.

Oracle’s remaining performance obligation (RPO) – essentially a signed backlog (contracted demand that still needs to be delivered) – now stands at $553 billion. AI Infrastructure revenue grew 243% year-over-year, while MultiCloud Database revenue grew 531%. 

Supply Constraints Are Already Showing Up

And in some parts of the stack, demand is already running into supply constraints.

Micron reported the largest sequential revenue increase in company history and projected that next quarter’s revenues will exceed the company’s entire annual revenue for every year through fiscal 2024 – with gross margins rising from 75% to 81% in a single quarter.

Those margins reflect how tight supply has become.

Step back, and all of these data points start to line up with what Nvidia is seeing at the system level.

At March’s GTC event in San Jose, Jensen Huang said: a year ago, he saw $500 billion in high-confidence demand through 2026. Today, he sees at least $1 trillion through 2027. And then, just to make sure nobody was getting too comfortable, he added: “We are going to be short.”

Why AI Demand Is Compounding at an Exponential Rate

Individually, those numbers are impressive. Together, they describe a demand curve that’s starting to bend upward.

Jensen Huang explained what’s driving that shift at GTC.

In the last two years, computing demand has increased by approximately 1 million times. That’s the product of two separate multipliers: 

• First, the compute required per inference session increased roughly 10,000x as AI evolved from simpler chatbots into reasoning models (o1, o3) and then into increasingly agentic systems. 
• Second, usage itself has grown roughly 100x. 

Multiply those drivers, and you get a million-fold increase in demand.

The Shift From Training to Inference Is Driving AI Infrastructure Demand

AI no longer just responds. It acts. The critical development Jensen highlighted at GTC is the inference inflection. For the first two years of the generative AI era, most compute demand was training. Now, with reasoning models that think before they respond – and agentic systems like Claude Code that can autonomously read files, write code, test, and iterate – inference is the dominant and rapidly growing workload. 

Every action requires tokens. Every token requires inference, and every inference requires compute, memory, bandwidth, and power. The demand engine has fundamentally shifted from a one-time training cost to a perpetual inference tax on every activity that AI performs.

This is a structural change. And it explains why every company in this stack is not just growing – but growing faster than they were six months ago.

AI Bottlenecks Are Shifting – And So Is the Opportunity

When demand starts compounding like this, something has to give.

In AI infrastructure, that ‘something’ shows up as bottlenecks – and they don’t stay in one place for long.

GPUs and other accelerators were the first constraint, and that part of the market is now well into a phase of sustained hypergrowth.

From Compute to Connectivity

From there, the pressure moved into interconnects – the systems that link all of that compute together.

Marvell’s results make that shift clear. Its interconnect business, which was previously expected to grow in line with overall capital spending, is now growing at more than 50% – much closer to the pace of the accelerators themselves.

Now the bottleneck has moved again.

The AI Infrastructure Bottleneck Has Shifted to Memory

Memory is the current constraint, and Micron’s numbers show just how tight things have become.

The company is only able to meet roughly 50% to 66% of customer demand, as both AI workloads and traditional server demand compete for limited DRAM and NAND supply.

That imbalance isn’t resolving anytime soon.

High-bandwidth memory (HBM4) is only just beginning to ship, the next generation (HBM4E) doesn’t ramp until 2027, and new fabrication capacity takes years to build.

In the meantime, pricing power is doing the adjusting.

Micron’s gross margins jumped from 75% to 81% in a single quarter – an unusually sharp move that reflects how constrained supply is relative to demand. Its CFO Mark Murphy was explicit: this is not a cycle. Memory has been “recast as a defining strategic asset in the AI era.”

Demand Is Getting Locked In Early

As supply tightens, customers aren’t waiting around.

They’re committing earlier – and at larger scale – to secure what they’re going to need.

We can see that shift clearly in Oracle’s numbers. Its $553-billion RPO may be the single most underappreciated number in technology right now. 

Three years ago, Oracle was a legacy database vendor fighting for relevance. Today, it is the preferred infrastructure for large-scale AI training and inference workloads. Nvidia confirmed this at GTC, noting Oracle as its first AI customer and pointing to Cohere, Core, Fireworks, and OpenAI as tenants. Oracle’s bring-your-own-hardware model – $29 billion in new contracts since the last earnings call – allows it to grow without a corresponding free cash flow drag. 

Demand is accelerating. Bottlenecks are shifting. Capacity is getting locked in.

Now the buildout itself is starting to change.

The Rise of Custom Silicon In AI Infrastructure

Both Broadcom and Marvell are seeing the same shift from different angles: hyperscalers are increasingly building their own custom AI chips.

Broadcom is directly exposed to that trend.

The company now serves six XPU customers: Alphabet (GOOGL), Anthropic, Meta (META), ByteDance, Fujitsu, and OpenAI. And importantly, these are multi-year partnerships tied to each company’s long-term AI roadmap.

OpenAI alone has signed a 10-gigawatt agreement through 2029 and plans to deploy more than 1 gigawatt of its first-generation XPU in 2027.

The reason for this shift is straightforward.

As AI models become more specialized – whether for reasoning, inference, or sparse architectures – general-purpose GPUs can’t always deliver the same efficiency as chips designed for a specific workload.

That’s where Broadcom has an advantage. Its decades of experience in custom silicon design, combined with advanced packaging and manufacturing scale, make it one of the few companies capable of delivering these chips at volume.

Marvell sits in a different position – but benefits from the same trend.

Every XPU that gets deployed still needs networking, memory expansion, and high-speed connectivity. Marvell’s portfolio – network interface cards (NICs), CXL-based memory expansion, and switching – supports that layer of the buildout.

As more custom chips are deployed, that “attached” market grows alongside them.

Marvell expects that portion of its business to reach roughly $1 billion by fiscal 2027, with a path to more than $2 billion by 2029 in networking and memory-related products alone.

It doesn’t need to design the winning chip.

It supplies the infrastructure that connects and supports all of them.

Short-Term Noise vs. Long-Term AI Demand

None of the demand trends we’ve just walked through have been driven by geopolitics.

They’ve continued to build in the background.

What the U.S.-Iran conflict has done is introduced a layer of macro uncertainty – pushing energy prices higher, tightening financial conditions, and triggering a broad risk-off move across equities.

The key question is how durable that overhang is.

Right now, the rhetoric remains elevated, and negotiations have been uneven. But the underlying incentives on both sides point in a different direction.

Sustained escalation carries meaningful economic costs – through energy markets, trade flows, and domestic financial conditions – that neither side is well-positioned to absorb for long.

That doesn’t guarantee a clean or immediate resolution. But it does suggest that the current level of geopolitical risk premium is more likely to stabilize or gradually fade as those pressures build.

When that happens, the market’s focus will shift back to underlying fundamentals.

And in this case, those fundamentals have continued to strengthen while attention has been elsewhere.

The stocks that get hit hardest in risk-off moves in a sector with intact fundamentals are typically the same stocks that recover fastest and furthest when the risk-off catalyst resolves. 

What Happens When Price Catches Up to Data

Jensen Huang now sees at least $1 trillion in AI infrastructure demand through 2027 – and expects supply to fall short.

Broadcom is scaling custom silicon programs tied to multi-gigawatt deployments.

Oracle has already locked in hundreds of billions of dollars in future demand.

Micron is operating in one of the tightest supply environments in its history.

The data is already on the table. 

The AI infrastructure buildout is still accelerating. As more compute comes online, the companies positioned on top of it – turning it into products, platforms, and recurring revenue – will begin to take a larger share of the upside.

That layer is coming into view.

And one company, in particular, sits right at the center of it.

The post What the AI Demand Data Says That the Market Doesn’t appeared first on InvestorPlace.

This weekend’s peace talks were supposed to be the beginning of the end of the Iranian conflict…

Vice President JD Vance led the U.S. delegation to Islamabad, Pakistan, for 21 hours of negotiations. Officials were cautiously optimistic. Markets had been pricing in some probability of a diplomatic off-ramp.

Then Sunday morning, Vance announced the delegation was flying home without a deal. Iran had refused to agree to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf – also Iran’s parliamentary speaker – said the U.S. had “failed to gain the trust” of his delegation.

By last night, President Trump had announced a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, effective 10 a.m. Eastern this morning. U.S. Central Command later clarified that vessels traveling to non-Iranian ports wouldn’t be impeded.

Iran’s response was immediate – and targeted directly as U.S. consumers.

From Ghalibaf on social media:

Enjoy the current pump figures.

With the so-called ‘blockade,’ soon you’ll be nostalgic for $4-$5 gas.

As I write on Monday, oil is pushing up toward $100 a barrel again. However, stocks are brushing off the news, betting that this is political posturing and a deal will eventually arrive.

On that note, a second round of talks remains possible. Officials say the door hasn’t closed. But “possible” and “priced in” are two very different things.

So, at least for now, the scenario that was supposed to bring energy prices down – a negotiated resolution, a reopened strait, and a return to something resembling normal shipping flows – has moved further away, not closer.

And that puts the risk of higher inflation directly in the crosshairs – which brings us directly to the Fed, upcoming interest rate policy, and your wallet…

Goodbye, rate cuts

In the March Summary of Economic Projections, Federal Reserve policymakers projected one quarter-point interest rate cut by the end of the year.

Oh, how things have changed…

That projection came before oil prices surged due to the Iranian conflict… before the Strait of Hormuz closed to fertilizer and energy shipments… before gasoline topped $4 a gallon and diesel crossed $5… before last week’s two inflation reports – the February PCE on Thursday and the March CPI on Friday – that came in well above the Fed’s 2% target, with both trending in the wrong direction.

And here’s the kicker: the PCE report captures data from before the Iran war’s full inflationary impact hit the economy. The CPI tells a partial story – it picked up some of the early gas price spike, but not the full force of what’s now moving through the system.

Either way, the trajectory is clear, and the worst is still ahead in the data.

So, where does that leave rate-cut expectations?

According to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, “hold current rates steady” remains the market’s base case all the way until September.

And to be clear, that’s September of 2027.

Why the Fed is cornered

Legendary investor Louis Navellier, editor of Growth Investor, has been tracking the economic spider webs of the conflict. Here’s his take from last week:

The U.S. energy price bump is expected to ripple through other markets, as shipping costs rise and food prices increase.

So, the March data for food and energy inflation is expected to be hideous – and it won’t dissipate immediately even after a ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

It will likely be months until prices stabilize.

The numbers back that up. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) updated its inflation forecasts at the end of March, projecting that inflation for the G20 countries will rise to 4% in 2026, up from its previous 2.8% estimate.

For the U.S. specifically, the OECD now expects inflation to reach 4.2%. Some economists are projecting even higher.

Meanwhile, also in late March, Fed Governor Christopher Waller told CNBC that “oil prices are going to stay high for a long time” – an acknowledgment of how deeply the Iran conflict has complicated the Fed’s calculus.

As we’ve been tracking here in the Digest, this leaves the Fed in a bind.

Slowing growth normally calls for cuts. But with inflation at today’s levels – and headed higher – cutting now would mean pouring fuel on a fire that’s already at risk of growing out of control. So, the Fed will wait, but that will risk further punishing an already strained U.S. consumer.

The takeaway for investors is clear: If the Fed isn’t coming to save the day, you’d better be in companies with genuine structural tailwinds – businesses whose fundamental case doesn’t depend on cheaper money to work.

And right now, one commodity fits that description better than almost anything else in the market.

Copper: the wiring of an AI-powered world

While stocks rallied sharply last week, copper caught a bid of its own – jumping more than 5% to almost $6 per pound as I write on Monday. Behind that gains are investors refocusing on what actually drives this metal’s long-term story.

Our global macro expert Eric Fry, editor of Fry’s Investment Report, framed it well:

Copper has always been the wiring of the world. But now, the world is demanding more wiring than it has at any point in history.

Every macro trend that feels futuristic, electrified, digitized, or decarbonized runs straight through a fat bundle of copper.

That means AI infrastructure, electrification, decarbonization, data centers, and electric vehicles are all copper stories.

We could zoom in on any of these uses, but let’s focus on data centers to illustrate.

A modern hyperscale data center is essentially a copper-and-aluminum exoskeleton wrapped around racks of silicon. And the copper demand is enormous.

Back to Eric:

Estimates suggest data centers alone could require hundreds of thousands of tonnes of copper per year by 2030, with individual AI-focused hyperscale facilities consuming up to 50,000 tons each.

The supply side, meanwhile, is nowhere close to keeping up.

The International Copper Study Group expects the refined-copper market to flip into a deficit of roughly 150,000 tonnes this year, as mine production slows and concentrate availability tightens.

Eric puts the long-term gap in stark terms: Without more than $200 billion in new mining investment, the world simply won’t have enough copper. For context, total copper-mining investment over the past six years reached only about $76 billion.

That’s a structural supply-demand imbalance with a decade’s worth of runway behind it.

Eric isn’t our only analyst eyeing copper…

Our trading expert Jonathan Rose, editor of Masters in Trading Live, has been tracking capital flows into the copper space for months.

He flagged strong call-side flow building in copper-related names last week – and traders in his community captured double-digit gains, with several pushing into the 80%-100% range on their positions.

From Jonathan:

It’s not about chasing moves. It’s about recognizing where capital is flowing — and getting there early.

So, how do you play copper today?

Both Eric and Jonathan have independently flagged Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX).

Eric’s case centers on valuation and timing. Freeport’s flagship Grasberg mine in Indonesia – one of the world’s largest copper deposits – suffered a tragic accident in late 2025 that temporarily knocked production offline. That created a dislocation.

But as Grasberg recovers, Eric expects FCX’s EBITDA to climb from roughly $12 billion this year toward $17.5 billion by 2027 – which would put the stock trading at less than four times forward earnings at current prices.

FCX is just one name on Eric’s buy list. He also has a “drop immediately” list that flags many broadly-owned stocks he believes are at risk today – you can find his full breakdown in his free Sell This, Buy That presentation here.

Jonathan’s read on Freeport is simpler…

The options flow told the story first. He flagged strong call-side activity building in FCX last week – and the trade he recommended to his subscribers delivered.

You can get the full story in Jonathan’s free Masters in Trading Live episode from last Friday right here.

And if you’re interested in how Jonathan finds trades like this – and you want to catch them from the very beginning – he walks through his process and flags trading ideas every weekday during his free Masters in Trading Live broadcasts.

Wrapping up

Between the blockade, the Fed’s frozen hands, and the structural copper story, let’s recognize the big-picture takeaway…

The old playbook – wait for rate cuts, lean on cheap money, play the ensuing rally – doesn’t appear to be in the cards today. The investors who adapt and focus on strength independent of rate policy will be the ones best positioned for whatever comes next.

We’ll keep tracking all of it here in the Digest.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Middle East Talks Break Down – What Happens Now appeared first on InvestorPlace.

This morning, President Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to blockade the Strait of Hormuz after peace talks with Iran failed to produce results over the weekend.

The ultimate goal is to increase pressure on Iran to reopen the critical oil route. But the announcement sent crude oil prices surging above $100 per barrel, reigniting concerns about inflation and global economic growth.

So, I understand if some of you are feeling frozen right now. But believe it or not, there is an opportunity here.

In this week’s Navellier Market Buzz, I talk about three energy stocks that are positioned to win in this chaotic environment, along with my top pick out of the three. I also explain how the oil crisis is dragging down economic growth and preview upcoming earnings as the first-quarter earnings season kicks off this week.

Click the image below to watch now.

To see more of my videos, click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Plus, the grades in Stock Grader (subscription required) have been updated this week! Click here to plug in your own stocks and see how they’re rated.

Where the Next Opportunity Is Now

While the headlines may be full of geopolitical drama, that’s not the real story right now.

The real story is earnings.

I’ve always said that our best defense in chaotic times is a strong offense of fundamentally superior stocks.

That’s especially important now.

According to FactSet, S&P 500 earnings are expected to grow 12.6% this quarter, and could come in as high as 19%.

But if you’re banking on the Big Tech names to deliver the goods for your portfolio this earnings season, that could be a mistake.

Most investors remain heavily concentrated in Big Tech names, which could become a problem if they release disappointing results.

And if market leadership is shifting like I think it is, it could be an even bigger problem…

When these major tech names no longer lead the pack, that kind of concentration often leads to small or even flat returns.

In a recent presentation, I explained how leadership may be changing and where I’m seeing stronger growth opportunities.

In fact, I identified five stocks in my Accelerated Profits portfolio that I call “Edge Innovators” – and I believe they could emerge as the market’s next leaders.

Click here to watch now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The post 3 Energy Stocks to Buy Now appeared first on InvestorPlace.

This Week’s Ratings Changes:

Upgraded: Strong to Very Strong

Downgraded: Very Strong to Strong

Upgraded: Neutral to Strong

Downgraded: Strong to Neutral

Upgraded: Weak to Neutral

Downgraded: Neutral to Weak

Upgraded: Very Weak to Weak

Downgraded: Weak to Very Weak

To stay on top of my latest stock ratings, plug your holdings into Stock Grader, my proprietary stock screening tool. But, you must be a subscriber to one of my premium services.

To learn more about my premium service, Growth Investor, and get my latest picks, go here. Or, if you are a member of one of my premium services, you can go here to get started.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The post Marriott Upgraded, Palantir Downgraded: Updated Rankings on Top Blue-Chip Stocks appeared first on InvestorPlace.

On Saturday, I wrote about the “if” of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire. If it would hold. If global crude oil production would normalize. If there is still a bull case to be made for energy stocks.

My predictions were: Hopefully… not anytime soon… and yes.

In the last 48 hours, it seems that first “if” has become even more fragile. The U.S. announced it would blockade Iranian ports starting today, marking a significant escalation in tensions. U.S. crude oil jumped 8% to $104.24 per barrel, while Brent, the global benchmark, climbed 7% to $102.29.

But as I wrote this weekend, investors who panic out of their energy positions may find themselves on the wrong side of one of the most consequential structural shifts in the history of global energy markets.

I still believe this to be true.

Now, before we get to our weekly Smart Money roundup below, let’s turn to another headlining commodity:

Gold.

Like the energy market, the bull market in gold is not over. It is merely napping.

Or as Bob Dylan crooned in his 1976 classic song “Joey”: “He ain’t dead, he’s just asleep.”

Earlier this year, the gold market became frothy and overbought. But the ensuing correction – which knocked the gold price from $5,500 an ounce to a recent low of $4,200 – is building the foundation for a fresh move higher. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.

Nearly one year ago, I presented a bullish argument for gold and gold stocks in my Fry’s Investment Report service. To lay the foundation for that argument, I quoted the following words from the esteemed financial writer James Grant:

Gold is a bet on monetary disorder – indeed, on other kinds of disorder too, including fiscal, geopolitical and presidential.

That bet has been paying off very nicely – gaining 42% since then, or more than double the returns of the S&P 500.

But the recent two-month correction in the gold market raises an obvious question:

Is it time to close out the bet on gold, or add to it?

I recommend the latter, simply because the four disorders Grant identifies have not dissipated. If anything, they have grown more disorderly over the past year.

Of the four, fiscal disorder seems to be attracting the least attention in the financial press – even though it may be the most consequential one for the gold market.

Fiscal disorder is an elegant term for soaring government deficits and debts. When a nation’s finances spiral out of control and its creditors back away, that nation loses a significant portion of its freedom, its self-determination, and its power.

A debt crisis quickly becomes a currency crisis, and a currency crisis can destroy an entire economic foundation.

The U.S. is not yet on the threshold of a currency crisis, but it is inching toward the kind of fiscal disorder that could put sustained downward pressure on the dollar’s value.

But America’s rising indebtedness – and the waning appetite of foreign creditors to finance it – provides plenty of raw material for the “bet on gold” to keep paying off.

That is why we continue to hold several positions in our Fry’s Investment Report portfolio that provide exposure to the gold market.

The U.S. government’s financial predicament is not a crisis today. But it is a slow-motion reckoning that is becoming harder to ignore and more expensive to defer.

When the cost of servicing the national debt exceeds the defense budget, when foreign creditors quietly reduce their exposure, and when the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio rivals that of nations that have historically struggled to maintain the confidence of global bond markets, the warning signs are flashing.

Gold does not predict the timing of a reckoning, but it has an excellent historical record of rewarding those who recognized the signs early.

This is an opportune moment to add some gold exposure to your portfolio, if you have not already done so.

You can click here to learn about the three gold stocks that I recommend, especially one I favor as the lowest-risk option for investors who wish to increase their exposure to precious metals at current levels.

Now, let’s take a look back at what we covered here at Smart Money last week, including:

• Why perfection is often a sell signal.
• The bull case for the energy market.
• How we’re playing AI differently.
• Two different ways of looking at the same market.

Smart Money Roundup

Perfection Is a ‘Sell’ Signal in the Age of AI

April 12, 2026

If the market feels different lately, it is. AI is accelerating change – and making once-dominant companies obsolete faster than ever. From BlackBerry to Zoom, history shows that when a company fully “solves” yesterday’s problem, it’s often about to be replaced by something better.

Why the Energy Bull Case Is Still Intact

April 11, 2026

The prognosis for global oil and gas markets remains deeply unsettled, and investors who panic out of their energy positions may find themselves on the wrong side of one of the most consequential structural shifts in the history of global energy markets.

I’ll share why the recent ceasefire-driven selloff is hiding bigger supply problems that will likely keep oil and U.S. natural gas prices higher for longer… and why that means the energy bull market isn’t over.

We’re Not Done With AI – We’re Playing It Differently

April 9, 2026

The more that AI infiltrates our daily lives, the more we will crave uniquely human experiences. This shift away from tech at the height of its dominance is a profitable one that we’ve seen play out before. I used this strategy in the dot-com era… and I’m using it again today.

I Sold Nvidia. Louis Navellier Didn’t. Who Was Right?

April 8, 2026

I recently sat down with my colleague Louis Navellier to debate one question: Was selling Nvidia a mistake? What might surprise you is that the answer isn’t as simple as “yes” or “no.”

In fact, it reveals something far more important about how to navigate AI stocks right now…

How to Play the Market Tremors

Volatility often, and understandably, makes investors nervous. But some strategies are built to take advantage of it.

That’s a big focus of Market Tremors 2026…a new free presentation our partners at Stansberry Research are running this week.

Instead of trying to ride out every market swing, the approach they outline is more structured: Identify a setup, hold for a defined period (around 90 days), then exit and reset.

It’s systematic, repeatable, and designed for the kind of fast-moving market we’re in now. Even if you don’t adopt the strategy directly, this free presentation is a useful window into how some traders are adapting to today’s conditions and why the market’s rules keep changing.

You can check it out here.

Regards,

Eric Fry

The post Why This Gold Pullback Is a Buying Opportunity appeared first on InvestorPlace.

The AI boom has created enormous wealth.

But most of it hasn’t shown up in the stock market yet.

Because the companies driving the most important breakthroughs are still private.

Think about the last time you used AI. Maybe you asked ChatGPT a question, got Claude to help edit a document, or read Grok’s take on the news. Those models are among the most powerful AI tools in the world – and you can’t invest in them directly

OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI – not a share available on any exchange. 

And those are just the consumer-facing names. Beneath the surface, the opportunity is even bigger. For example, a little-known company called Anduril is building the future of defense, centered on advanced autonomous systems. And, yes, it is private, too. 

AI is changing the world – but you don’t really own the AI that matters. 

Sure, many investors own shares of Nvidia (NVDA); maybe Microsoft (MSFT) or Amazon (AMZN). But none of them fully control the intelligence layer itself. 

Nvidia makes the chips those models run on. Microsoft distributes OpenAI’s technology under license. Amazon sells cloud compute. 

These are picks-and-shovels plays in the AI gold rush – excellent investments, but still indirect exposure. 

That means most investors have been participating in the AI revolution from the bleachers. But the insiders, founders, and venture capitalists… They have the field-level seats. They are the ones who will get phenomenally rich when these companies – the real AI pioneers like OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Anduril, etc. – go public.

And for most investors, there’s never really been a way in.

But that’s starting to change fast.

AI IPO 2026: The Biggest Tech Listings In a Generation

2026 is shaping up to be one of the most consequential years for technology IPOs in decades. Not because one great company is going public – but because several of them are.

Leading the charge is OpenAI, which is preparing for an IPO that could potentially value it near the trillion-dollar mark – making it one of the largest technology IPOs ever attempted. The company generates over $20 billion in annualized revenue, growing at triple-digit rates, with 810 million monthly active users and 1 million enterprise customers. It just closed a funding round valued at $730 billion with backing from Amazon, SoftBank (SFTBY), Nvidia, and Microsoft. 

OpenAI is targeting a listing as early as Q4 2026. Close behind, Anthropic – the AI safety-focused lab backed by Google and valued at $380 billion – is also widely expected to explore a public listing in that same window.

The SpaceX–xAI Mega IPO and the Rise of AI Defense

But OpenAI and Anthropic are only the beginning.

Elon Musk has assembled the most audacious corporate structure in modern tech. In February, he merged SpaceX – his aerospace company – with xAI to create a trillion-dollar conglomerate that combines the world’s leading orbital launch provider, a frontier AI lab, and the social media platform X. The combined entity was originally targeting an IPO as early as June, at a valuation some sources put as high as $1.5 trillion. 

Now that timeline may be accelerating.

According to recent reporting from CNBC, SpaceX could file IPO paperwork as soon as this week – with Bloomberg indicating the company may seek a valuation north of $1.75 trillion, potentially making it the first 10-figure IPO in market history.

And if you’re investing in the SpaceX IPO, you’re also buying xAI and X. It is, by design, the most vertically integrated technology company ever to approach public markets.

Then there’s the sleeper in this lineup: Anduril Industries. 

Founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey – the same wunderkind entrepreneur who founded Oculus and sold it to Facebook at age 21 – Anduril builds systems traditional defense primes struggle to replicate: AI-native, software-first autonomous systems. Its Lattice OS platform serves as the operating system for autonomous military operations, integrating sensor data across every domain and coordinating weapons systems in real time. 

Revenue is racing toward $2 billion. Its valuation has jumped from $14 billion to more than $60 billion in under two years.

With a $1 billion advanced manufacturing facility coming online in Ohio – and a CEO who has publicly said an IPO is ‘definitely’ coming – Anduril’s debut looks less like a question of if, and more a question of when.

The 2026 AI IPO Bonanza is imminent. And it is going to be one of the most talked-about investment moments of our lifetimes.

But there’s a critical dimension to this story that most investors haven’t heard yet – one that makes getting in early not just attractive but urgent.

The $48 Billion IPO Squeeze Wall Street Isn’t Thinking About

New reporting from Bloomberg Intelligence fundamentally changes the calculus here. 

S&P Global, FTSE Russell, and Nasdaq are all actively considering “fast-track” rules that would add SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic to their major indices within days of their IPO – bypassing the traditional 12-month seasoning requirement that currently blocks newly public companies from immediate index inclusion.

If those rules are adopted – and Bloomberg’s analysts suggest they’re being taken seriously – the implications are massive.

Here’s the math. Roughly $12 trillion in index-tied assets – passive funds mirroring the S&P 500, Russell 1000, and Nasdaq 100 – would effectively become forced buyers of these IPOs within days of listing. Bloomberg estimates $24- to $48 billion in automatic passive demand representing approximately 20% of shares offered. If active fund managers benchmarked to those same indices simultaneously move to neutral weights, index inclusion could require buying up to 55% of the public float within five trading days of the IPO.

Now consider the supply side. These companies are expected to go public with free floats of just 5- to 10% of total market value – deliberately tiny, to avoid flooding the market with shares. A 5% float of a $1.5 trillion SpaceX means about $75 billion in publicly available shares absorbing tens of billions in forced institutional demand within the first week.

That is a structural supply/demand imbalance of historic proportions.

The Bloomberg report also identified 37 publicly listed funds already holding SpaceX exposure. Of those, the ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF topped the rankings by portfolio weight at nearly 37% SpaceX exposure – more than Baron Capital, Fidelity’s Contrafund (which holds over $6 billion in SpaceX in dollar terms), ARK Invest, and Neuberger Berman. Bloomberg’s independent analysis confirms what we’ve been telling you: concentrated pre-IPO vehicles exist, they are accessible right now, and they are already sitting on extraordinary unrealized gains.

On that note: Bloomberg’s data on estimated SpaceX returns by fund shows Baron sitting on gains of approximately 864%, Fidelity at 715%, and Neuberger Berman at 733% from their initial entry prices. ARK, which was slower to build its position, shows an estimated 291% return. The message is unambiguous: time of entry is everything, and the gap between early investors and late ones is measured not in percentage points but in multiples.

Why IPO Day Is Usually Too Late for the Biggest Gains

When these companies arrive, the combination of genuine investor enthusiasm and $48 billion in mechanically forced passive buying will almost certainly produce one of the most violent opening-day pops in stock market history.

But there’s a darker flip side to this golden coin. We’ve seen this all before.

Think back to the first wave of internet IPOs in the late 1990s. It produced some of the most spectacular opening-day pops ever recorded. 

Yet, for most post-IPO investors, the years that followed were brutal. The insiders and venture capitalists who invested at pre-IPO valuations captured the overwhelming majority of the gains. The retail investors who piled in after the bell, swept up in the excitement, often held stocks that subsequently fell 50%, 70%, 90%.

The lesson wasn’t about the technology. It was about when you got in.

Now apply that pattern here, and add the Bloomberg dynamic: if $48 billion in forced passive buying hits a 5% float in the first five trading days, the post-IPO price could reflect an extraordinary one-time structural premium that has nothing to do with fundamental value. Once that forced buying is absorbed, what happens next? 

Pre-IPO holders get to sell into the most structurally bid-up IPO market in history. Post-IPO buyers are the ones providing the exit liquidity.

How to Invest In AI Companies Before Their IPO

Here’s what most investors still haven’t fully processed: the investment landscape has genuinely changed over the last few years.

A new category of investment vehicle has emerged. And it allows ordinary investors – not just hedge funds, accredited millionaires, or Silicon Valley venture insiders – to gain pre-IPO exposure to the world’s most transformational private companies. 

These vehicles trade like stocks. All you need are a ticker symbol and a brokerage account – no $250,000 minimum check, VC connections, three-year lockup period, or complex special purpose vehicle (SPV) paperwork required.

And most importantly, there are specific vehicles in this category that provide direct exposure to OpenAI, xAI, SpaceX, and Anduril right now, before they go public. 

These are not futures bets or derivatives or synthetic products. They are investment funds with actual positions in these private companies, wrapped in publicly traded structures and available to any investor with a standard account.

For the first time, you don’t have to be Sequoia Capital or Andreessen Horowitz to join the founding shareholder class of the most important technology companies being built today. 

The democratization of pre-IPO investing has arrived, without fanfare – which is exactly why most retail investors haven’t discovered it yet.

The Bottom Line

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming the foundational technology of the next economic era.

The companies building the core models, platforms, and autonomous systems that power it are still largely private.

But that window is beginning to close – quickly.

The venture capitalists who bet on these companies early are preparing to cash out at valuations that will make them unimaginably wealthy. And the founders are about to see their net worth go vertical. 

For the first time, ordinary investors have a legitimate way to stand alongside them.

Before the IPO circus arrives, institutional allocations are spoken for, and the opening-day pop happens without you.

The 2026 AI IPO Bonanza is the financial story of the decade. And Bloomberg makes one thing clear: this is not a “wait and see” moment. The time to get positioned is before the index funds are forced to act – not after.

If you want to get in before these IPOs hit – and before billions in forced buying distorts prices – you need to see this. 

I just put together a full presentation on this topic, including a deep-dive analysis of each vehicle, the risks every investor needs to understand, and our specific recommendations. 

Click here to watch it now.

The post IPO Day Is When Most Investors Get It Wrong appeared first on InvestorPlace.

That’s why our partners at Stansberry Research just released a new presentation, Market Tremors 2026, where hedge fund veteran Josh Baylin explains how he’s adapting. And how investors can, too.

Josh is joining us today to introduce a simple but powerful idea: Perfection is often a sell signal.

From BlackBerry to Zoom, history shows that when a company fully “solves” yesterday’s problem, it’s often about to be replaced by something better. Josh shares a straightforward framework – the “BlackBerry test” – to help you spot these turning points early… and reposition before the crowd.

You can read his full breakdown below – and watch his free presentation for a deeper look at the system he’s using to track what comes next.

In 2007, BlackBerry achieved perfection.

For a phone, its keyboard was flawless. Email synced instantly. The battery stayed charged for days. Even IT departments loved it.

The media dubbed it the “CrackBerry” because users couldn’t put it down.

BlackBerry Ltd. (BB) stock reflected the mania – soaring from below $10 in the early 2000s to more than $140 just a year after the iPhone launched in 2007.

Two years later, it was back to being almost worthless.

BlackBerry didn’t fail because it got worse at email…

It failed because “mobile email” stopped being the right problem to solve. The iPhone didn’t make a better BlackBerry – it made BlackBerry’s entire purpose obsolete.

And this same pattern happens all the time… like today with artificial intelligence.

I’ll explain how you can learn to spot it… and a simple two-step test to help you determine which investments are worth keeping, and which are on their way out.

The Problem With the ‘Perfect Tool’

If you can spot when a tool, company, or industry hits peak functionality, you can see its obituary coming – and position your portfolio before the crowd catches on.

Here’s the blueprint I’ve seen repeated across industries for two decades…

Peak functionality is a “Sell” signal, not a “Buy” signal.

When a tool perfectly solves yesterday’s problem, that means it’s probably about to become irrelevant.

You can see this just by looking around at the tools you use at home, in the office, or on the go…

• The Roomba perfected robotic vacuuming. Meanwhile, the company that makes it – iRobot Corp. (IRBT) – filed for bankruptcy in December 2025.
• Monday.com Ltd. (MNDY) mastered project-management dashboards. Yet the company didn’t participate in much of the market rally last year and is down nearly 80% since its high in February 2025.
• Zoom Communications Inc. (ZM) became flawless at video calls. Today, investors have largely moved on.

Each one became a BlackBerry – they perfected the wrong thing.

The AI Inversion Is Industry-Wide

Every collapse of a “perfect” tool follows the same pattern:

When a product gets too good at solving the wrong problem, it makes itself irrelevant. The world simply moves on.

Today, we’ve moved on to AI. As a result, this pattern is unfolding across several industries right now…

• Interface inversion: Apple Inc. (AAPL) has perfected the iPhone – the cameras, the chips, the ecosystem. But voice-first AI doesn’t make a better iPhone… It makes the iPhone unnecessary. That’s likely one reason Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-B) has reduced its stake in Apple by more than 70% since late 2023.
• Education inversion: Universities have perfected the student experience – beautiful campuses, refined classes, and prestigious degrees. But they perfected the wrong thing: packaging image instead of delivering outcomes. When an AI tutor that costs roughly $50 is on its way to outperforming a $50,000 education, the entire system inverts.
• Transportation inversion: Cars have never been safer, more comfortable, or more feature-rich. But the inversion here will eliminate driving and its inconveniences entirely. And as higher insurance costs gradually make driving too expensive, AI-enabled self-driving cars will continue to gain traction.

So how do you protect your portfolio?

An Investor’s Knowledge Edge

Right now, the market is full of big promises. That includes new companies promising the next big thing… and old companies trying to hold on to their place at the top.

In the age of AI disruptions, you need to know how to tell the difference…

Apply what I call the BlackBerry test:

Is this company perfecting the old purpose – or preparing for the new one?

Once you’ve applied this simple test, here’s what to do next:

• Sell the companies still adding bells and whistles to already “perfected” tools – whether it’s dashboards, project managers, or consumer apps.
• Buy the companies removing entire layers of friction – making the old problems irrelevant.

Think of it this way: Perfection is a trap. It signals the end of usefulness, not the beginning of growth.

For everyday investors, that knowledge is your edge.

The next BlackBerry is always hiding in plain sight — behind a product so polished it blinds investors to what’s coming next.

The key isn’t avoiding change. It’s learning how to spot it early – and acting before the market catches on.

In my recent Market Tremors 2026 presentation, I walk through exactly how I do that using my Shadow Data Indicator (SDI)… including how it identifies companies gaining traction before Wall Street fully recognizes it.

I also share a current opportunity that fits this pattern right now.

You can watch the full presentation here and see how the system works.

Good investing,

Josh Baylin

Senior Analyst, Stansberry Research

P.S. The market is shifting faster than most investors realize. That’s why Josh recently recorded a free briefing explaining how his SDI system has identified hundreds of winning trades by tracking signals most investors never see. Josh also breaks down why he believes we’re at a critical turning point — and the one move he’d consider right now. You can watch it here.

The post Perfection Is a ‘Sell’ Signal in the Age of AI appeared first on InvestorPlace.

All top investors rely on signals to know when to buy and sell. 

• Some prefer watching “smart money” flows, as Louis Navellier does. 
• Others use seasonal factors, as our partners at TradeSmith do. 
• Meanwhile, I use insider transactions as my preferred metric. 

The strategy works. Once investors find a winning signal, even the wildest trading systems can become consistent. Waiting for the right signal forces traders (and algorithms) to hold out for only the best opportunities while avoiding low-quality ones. 

For instance, I wrote in February to sell 11 separate stocks that insiders were suddenly dumping. Over the following month, these 11 companies lost 9% on average – a favorable outcome for those who got out (or sold short). Insider buys offer similarly powerful signals, as my flagged stocks last November show. 

So, here’s an interesting question: 

What if you could combine multiple signals into a single strategy? 

Presumably, you would have even better results. Weaker signals can get overruled by stronger ones, and the best-of-the-best picks soon rise to the surface. 

In quant parlance, that’s called an “ensemble model” (or “multifactor model,” depending on the specifics). On Main Street, we know it as the “wisdom of the crowd.”  

Stansberry Research’s Josh Baylin has put a new name to this: the Shadow Data Indicator (SDI). His new system combines thousands of different signals and data points into a clear picture. This system tracks hidden “Shadow Data” across roughly 145 tech companies and builds a “mosaic” that reveals what to do next. 

It’s a strategy that’s done incredibly well. By focusing on these 145 names and holding them for only 90 days at a time, in recent back-tests, the former hedge fund trader found at least 442 winners over the past eight years, including: 

• Datadog Inc. (DDOG), which jumped 187% in 90 days… 
• Lyft Inc. (LYFT), which ran up 159%… 
• Etsy Inc. (ETSY), which jumped 132%… 
• And Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN), which jumped 106% after being flagged by Josh’s SDI. 

This approach mirrors the systems he used in his days at SAC Capital (Steve Cohen’s fund). 

Now, I can’t reveal picks from this system here today. You’ll have to watch Josh’s new special presentation for that, which you can do by clicking here.  

But what I can do is offer you several more buy and sell recommendations from my own favored signal: those from insider transactions. 

2 Stocks to Buy…   

It’s been a surprisingly quiet month for insider buying signals.  

Most purchases have focused on low-quality picks or risky ventures like Better Home & Finance Holding Co (BETR). I’m not keen on recommending a company where the CEO fired 900 employees over a Zoom meeting and then called the remaining a “bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS.” (Instead, my top pick in that space is Rocket Cos. Inc. [RKT], which you can read up on here.) 

However, some signals have emerged. 

Stock to Buy #1 

The first one is ThredUp Inc. (TDUP), an online consignment firm that reminds me greatly of RealReal Inc (REAL), a stock I flagged in 2022, long before its meteoric 500% recovery.  

Here’s why. 

ThredUp runs a straightforward business. It’s an online service that accepts used clothing via a “Clean Out Kit,” and then sorts, evaluates, and presents clothes for selling online. Sellers earn anywhere from a few dollars to $30 for items that would have otherwise gone into the trash. Meanwhile, buyers can save anywhere from 50% to 80%, compared to new clothing prices… all while enjoying the quality certification that ThredUp provides. 

The company has become noticeably popular, especially among Gen Z shoppers. Revenues rose 18% in the most recent quarter, and active buyers jumped 30% to 1.65 million. The firm flipped to positive cash flows in 2025 and could break even on a net income basis as early as 2028.  

Why would a shopper roll the dice on an eBay listing when ThredUp does the vetting for you? 

Now, I must admit that it’s never quite been the right time to buy ThredUp. Shares dropped 13% the last time I recommended the stock in October, despite being flagged by a social heat score. (Its social media popularity didn’t translate to higher stock prices at the time.) And the stock remains 85% below its all-time high reached in 2021 on waning interest in pandemic-era stocks. 

But like RealReal in 2022, ThredUp’s shares now price in a lot of bad news given its fantastic growth rate. And now that a director on its board has finally made a purchase, it’s time to reconsider this down-and-out stock.  

If things go well, ThredUp is a company with potential 500% upside hiding in plain sight. 

Stock to Buy #2 

The second company is Nike Inc. (NKE), another firm that’s seen share prices fall sharply. 

Now, there’s admittedly a lot to dislike about this longstanding athletic footwear and apparel firm. Under former CEO John Donahoe, Nike executed one of the worst strategic pivots in retail history by cutting its presence at physical stores and becoming reliant on recycled classics like Dunks and Air Jordan 1s.  

Since 2021, these cost-saving, profit maximizing strategies alienated customers and triggered a 75% collapse in stock prices. Nike’s C-suite has been a revolving door of managers ever since.  

The firm might finally be turning a corner. Under new CEO Elliott Hill, Nike has aggressively cleaned out its sales channels and introduced new products to compete against upstarts like Hoka and On. Hill has cared little about satisfying Wall Street in the short term, preferring instead to accept shocks like a double-digit decline in Greater China sales to clear out old inventory at bargain-basement prices. 

That will help greatly with turning the sportswear behemoth around. Nike’s previous turnaround efforts were too slow and too marginal. It was like ripping off a mile-long bandage a quarter of an inch at a time. 

Under Hill, Nike is finally taking the pain all at once so it can focus on innovation and growth once more. A major purchase by a director last week makes the case that at $42, Nike’s stock is now too cheap to ignore.  

Long-term investors should expect perhaps a 2X return over the next three to four years. 

… And 2 Stocks to Sell 

Meanwhile, the “insider sell” signal is flashing a lot brighter. This is especially true in sectors that should be doing well, such as AI and crypto. 

Let’s take them in order and start with AI. 

Stock to Sell #1 

In February, I warned readers that insiders seemed unusually bearish about AI data center firm CoreWeave Inc. (CRWV). Here’s from that update: 

CoreWeave’s sales have all been the 10b5-1 type, but their pace of selling has been astonishing. Many sales happen as soon as the shares are awarded, a historically bearish sign: 

• Chief Development Officer: Sold almost 1 million shares 
• Chief Strategy Officer: Sold roughly 770,000 shares 
• CEO: Sold roughly 300,000 shares 

Shares fell 15% over the following month. 

CoreWeave’s recent recovery now presents a second opportunity to sell shares. The stock recently rose back above $90 for the first time since February, and insider sales are once again signaling investors to get out at the $100-level. 

In April alone, we’ve seen: 

• Chief Strategy Officer: Sold more than 2.5 million shares 
• Chief Development Officer: Sold roughly 330,000 shares 
• CEO: Sold about 444,000 shares 

These sales are particularly revealing because CoreWeave’s industry should be doing well. Demand for AI data centers is surging, and analysts expect CRWV’s revenues to more than double to $12.4 billion this year, up from $5.1 billion in 2025. 

However, CoreWeave’s losses are also expected to double this year. Insiders are selling shares at incredible speed, and that tells me that far better AI bets exist elsewhere. (Top picks here from me include Akamai Technologies Inc. [AKAM] and PayPal Holdings Inc. [PYPL], despite a recent pullback in the former) 

Stock to Sell #2 

My second stock to sell today is Circle Internet Group Inc. (CRCL), the company behind the wildly popular stablecoin USDC. 

In theory, stablecoins are a perfect business. Companies like Circle take customer deposits by issuing dollar-backed tokens and then invest the proceeds in short-term Treasurys. The interest earned is kept by Circle, while the principal is returned to customers whenever they ask for it back.  

Circle is essentially a bank that can issue its own currency. 

Now, one potential issue with stablecoin issuers is greed. Much like banks, stablecoin companies can invest customer deposits into higher yielding assets. These longer-dated Treasurys and money markets can lock up funds, raising the risk of a bank run if customers ask for their money back all at once. 

However, the bigger issue at Circle is its reliance on the Sky, Binance, and Ethena platforms. These three platforms, which are responsible for around 80% of Circle’s growth, have distribution deals that eat into Circle’s cut of interest revenues. 

That means Circle’s margins are declining… right as a new Federal Reserve chairman is about to start his job. If Kevin Warsh cuts interest rates as many expect (reducing the interest “spread” Circle can earn), then up to a third of Circle’s revenues could vanish.  

That’s likely why insiders are continuing to exit their positions today. Since the start of April, insiders have sold 67,667 shares through 10 different 10b5-1 plan sales. While these are preplanned events, the sheer volume suggests insiders set up these schemes expecting the stock to decline. 

This is not what you want to see at a high-growth, high-potential company. 

And so, I would recommend investors follow the lead of the insiders. If the stock isn’t good enough for its management, it’s probably not good enough for you either. 

Using the “Shadow Data” Approach to Combine Signals 

Every investment signal is like a “window” that lets you see where a stock might go. 

Some provide larger openings. Cluster insider purchases (where multiple execs and directors buy in all at once) are some of the best bull signals I know. To me, these massive windows invite you in as a shareholder.  

Others offer smaller windows. “Shadow Data” like web traffic and social media mentions might not instantly change the course of an e-commerce firm. 

Nevertheless, combining these windows together eventually creates a mosaic that creates a far clearer picture than any individual piece can offer.  

That’s what makes Josh Baylin’s Shadow Data Indicator system so compelling. Over the years, he’s built over 100 different models to examine billions of data points to find the optimal combination of these tiles. Even better, he’s focused this massive amount of research into analyzing an elite group of 145 tech firms where his SDI strategy works best. 

In his Market Tremors 2026 presentation, Josh breaks down this system in detail — including the “Shadow Data” signals it tracks and how it identifies opportunities most investors never see. It’s designed for shorter-term moves… and offers a very different way to approach today’s market. 

You can watch the full presentation here and decide for yourself.

Until next week, 

Thomas Yeung, CFA 

Market Analyst, InvestorPlace 

P.S. I’ve spent years relying on insider activity as a signal — and it works. But what Josh is doing takes that idea further by combining multiple signals into a single system. Instead of relying on just one edge, it pulls from many. In a market that’s moving this quickly, that kind of approach is worth understanding. You can check out his full presentation here.

Thomas Yeung is a market analyst and portfolio manager of the Omnia Portfolio, the highest-tier subscription at InvestorPlace. He is the former editor of Tom Yeung’s Profit & Protection, a free e-letter about investing to profit in good times and protecting gains during the bad.

The post 2 Stocks to Buy and 2 to Sell, According to Insiders  appeared first on InvestorPlace.

On Tuesday, the United States and Iran agreed to a conditional two-week ceasefire.

The deal comes after weeks of intense conflict among Iran, the U.S., and Israel that has seen drone strikes across the Middle East, attacks on oil infrastructure, and a disruption of global shipping and energy markets.

Now, declaring victory in an oil market crisis because of a two-week ceasefire is a little like leaving the emergency room because your painkillers kicked in.

The underlying injury hasn’t healed. The surgery hasn’t happened. And the doctor is already warning you that the anesthesia wears off fast.

This week’s relief rally in markets – and the brutal selloff it triggered in energy stocks – reflects the medicine, not the prognosis.

The prognosis for global oil and gas markets remains deeply unsettled, and investors who panic out of their energy positions may find themselves on the wrong side of one of the most consequential structural shifts in the history of global energy markets.

So, in today’s Smart Money, I’ll detail the five reasons why oil and gas won’t normalize anytime soon.

Then, I’ll share why the recent ceasefire-driven selloff is hiding bigger supply problems that will likely keep oil and U.S. natural gas prices higher for longer… and why that means the energy bull market isn’t over.

Why the Oil Markets Remain Unsettled

1. Ceasefires Are Notoriously Fragile

Brief ceasefires have a poor track record of becoming permanent peace. They are like the interval between rounds of a boxing match – once the bell signals a return to center-ring, the punches fly furiously once again. In this particular boxing match between the U.S.-Israeli coalition and Iran, any lasting peace deal must overcome a massive trust deficit.

2. The Tanker Backlog Won’t Clear in Two Weeks

Even if the ceasefire holds perfectly from this point forward, the physical plumbing of the global oil market doesn’t repair itself overnight.

Roughly 187 tankers, laden with 172 million barrels of seaborne crude and refined oil products, remain mired inside the Persian Gulf. Another 800 ocean-going vessels of various types are also clogging shipping channels in the Gulf. Clearing a backlog of that size would likely take more than two weeks, even under normal conditions, according to Daejin Lee, global head of research at Fertmax FZCO.

3. Iran Now Controls the Toll Booth

Even in the best-case ceasefire scenario, Iran appears to have permanently altered its relationship to the Strait of Hormuz. The country is now a toll-taker.

In recent weeks, Tehran has been charging shipping companies as much as $2 million per tanker to guarantee safe passage through the strait. That’s a major revision to the maritime chokepoint’s previous status as a toll-free route. Now that Iran has discovered this “easy money,” it will not likely surrender it without compensation.

4. The Physical Infrastructure Is Damaged

The energy market seems to be viewing the Iran conflict as merely a logistical disruption. But the physical disruption is far more serious and long-lasting. The war-related damage stretches across the entire Gulf, from Kuwait to Qatar to the UAE, accumulated over six weeks of relentless strikes on energy infrastructure.

5. Aggressive Restocking Will Accelerate Demand

The final reason “normal” is not coming back soon is behavioral.

Countries that were caught flat-footed by this crisis are not going to walk away without building bigger strategic reserves and diversifying their supply chains. Energy and commodity markets are likely to remain on a structurally higher floor regardless of the ceasefire outcome, said BCA Research’s U.S. Political Strategist Matt Gertken. As governments hoard and restock in anticipation of renewed conflict, that persistent demand will keep oil and gas prices elevated well above pre-war levels, even in a scenario where shipping resumes.

Here’s the part of this story that gets genuinely interesting for energy investors…

The Hidden Winner: U.S. Natural Gas

While oil is grabbing all the headlines, the real strategic beneficiary of this crisis is U.S. natural gas – and those prices are actually lower than they were when the war started.

Why? Because U.S. natural gas prices are set primarily by domestic supply and demand. And right now, American gas production is running at record levels, with more gas coming out of the ground than at any point in history. That abundance has kept a lid on prices at home.

But the global picture is the exact opposite. European gas prices have more than doubled since the war began. Asian liquefied natural gas (LNG) benchmarks have surged. The result is a historic and growing spread between cheap domestic U.S. gas and the desperate global buyers who need it.

That spread is not going away. It’s the foundation of a long-term structural shift.

The United States is the world’s largest LNG exporter, and with the largest available incremental LNG capacity, U.S. producers are positioned to play a critical role during this historic disruption.

Even if the ceasefire leads to a genuine peace accord, the global oil and gas market will remain a “sick patient” for many months. 

Meanwhile, the demand side of the market will undergo an important structural change. Countries and companies that used to be comfortable with a “just in time” approach to oil inventories will adopt a “just in case” approach.

They will stockpile. They will diversify energy sources. They will sign long-term contracts with suppliers who sit outside the blast radius of the Middle Eastern conflict.

That means U.S. LNG. That means U.S. producers.

And that’s why, in my Fry’s Investment Report portfolio, I recommend three energy companies that can capitalize on their geographically desirable crude production and robust natural gas production potential.

They are…

• A large U.S. shale producer known for disciplined capital returns and a variable dividend strategy.
• A smaller, growth-oriented U.S. oil producer focused on efficient drilling in a few core basins.
• The largest integrated energy company in Argentina, combining upstream production with refining and fuel distribution.

To learn more about the opportunity each of these companies present, click here.

Regards,

Eric Fry

The post Why the Energy Bull Case Is Still Intact appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Quick question…

Can you read the chart below?

Can you tell me the price, RSI, and volume?

Most investors can.

AI can’t. Or at least, it can’t consistently.

AI can read a 400-page book in seconds.

It can ace standardized tests and the bar exam.

And it can generate investment ideas and analyze financial statements at scale.

But put it in front of a typical investor deck…and suddenly, it’s not as impressive.

Because when it comes to pulling a number from a chart, AI gets it wrong.

That’s the latest from a study by Mercor, an AI-powered hiring platform that automates the recruitment process by using large language models to screen resumes, conduct interviews, and match talent with companies.

Mercor researchers tested some of the most advanced AI models in the world, including Claude Opus 4.6, GPT-5.4, and Gemini 3.1 Pro, on real financial tasks.

The researchers found that when the data was clean and written out in text, the models performed well, getting the right answer roughly 75% of the time.

But when those same numbers were embedded in charts and visuals – the kinds we see in reports every day – accuracy dropped sharply.

The models couldn’t reliably read the inputs.

In many cases, they latched onto the wrong data point… misread a chart axis… or pulled a number that looked plausible but wasn’t correct. And once that initial mistake was made, everything that followed was, of course, incorrect.

In the real world, investing isn’t done with clean spreadsheets and perfectly labeled data.

That’s where human analysts still have the advantage.

Where the Money Will Flow Next

Tech investing expert Luke Lango didn’t hesitate to act once the ceasefire was announced. Luke put it bluntly…

In our view, the war is now effectively over. The AI bull market resumes today. And it is time to deploy the dry powder.

Luke recommended five stocks across two themes: the AI Infrastructure Buildout and the Hard Assets Boom Cycle. These recommendations are not speculative bets on possible geopolitical outcomes. Luke believes these are the stocks we want to own as the fear premium comes out … and the fundamental premium comes back in.

I can’t give these away out of respect for Luke’s Innovation Investor subscribers, but I can tell you about one of Luke’s recent AI Infrastructure Buildout picks, KLA Corp. (KLAC).

KLA doesn’t make semiconductor chips. They make the inspection and metrology tools that ensure those chips actually work. In an era where a single silicon wafer can be worth $200,000, a microscopic speck of dust or a nanometer-scale misalignment isn’t just a nuisance—it’s a financial catastrophe. KLA provides the “immune system” for the semiconductor manufacturing process, detecting defects that are literally smaller than a virus.

As you can see below, the stock traded sideways during Operation Epic Fury but has since resumed its climb. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is still in negative territory, as you can see in the chart below (even if AI can’t).

Stocks in the AI megatrend have rebounded significantly since the Iran ceasefire agreement.

Luke says that AI leader, OpenAI, is gearing up for a historic IPO, and he has found a way for folks to invest BEFORE the announcement is even made.

You don’t need to file any special paperwork… buy shares from a former employee… have a source on the inside – or jump through any other hurdles.

You can find out more by clicking here.

Will Inflation Cripple Earnings Season?

On Thursday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released the February Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index – the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge.

Core PCE, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, came in at 3.0% year-over-year, in line with consensus estimates. Meanwhile, headline PCE came in at 2.8% annually. On a monthly basis, both core and headline rose 0.4%.

Although both these numbers were in line with expectations, they reflect the world before the uncertainty sparked by Operation Epic Fury.

Also, worth noting: Q4 GDP growth was also revised down to just 0.5% annualized, a significant cut from the initial 1.4% estimate.

On Friday, the government released data on the Consumer Price Index.

Consumer prices rose 0.9% in March, as expected, driven by a nearly 11% jump in energy costs. Overall prices were up 3.3% from a year earlier. “Core” prices, excluding the volatile food and energy categories, were up 0.2% from the prior month, and 2.6% from a year earlier.

The annual rate of inflation rose to 3.3%. This puts inflation back at a level not seen in nearly two years.

Investing legend Louis Navellier isn’t happy with those results, but he isn’t letting it sway him from the focus on stock fundamentals – an emphasis that has powered his market-beating gains for more than 40 years.

Here was Louis’ take on the market’s state this week, shared with his Growth Investor subscribers.

Overall, despite the fears of an inflation spike and some uncertainty surrounding the Iranian cease-fire, Wall Street is rallying due to wave after wave of positive analyst earnings revisions. 

The relative strength and institutional buying pressure that was obvious during quarter-end window dressing and discussed in Navellier Market Buzz has carried over to this week. 

I think it is fair to say that the excitement about the upcoming quarterly announcement season is building, so we have a lot to look forward to in the upcoming weeks!

Louis reiterated this point in the latest issue of Growth Investor last week.

It’s clear that recent distractions have caused many investors to call “time out” and head for the sidelines. So, how should we proceed in the current environment? Should we follow Wall Street to the bench and wait for the dust to settle?

Absolutely not. In my opinion, we should stay in the game.

As always, our best defense during these chaotic times is a strong offense of fundamentally superior stocks. Remember, good stocks always “bounce,” and our Growth Investor stocks are the epitome of “good” stocks, with 37.3% average forecasted annual sales growth and 144% average forecasted annual earnings growth.

Louis is also steering his subscribers into AI infrastructure stocks.

In late February, Louis recommended his subscribers buy Ciena Corporation (CIEN). CIEN is a global leader in connectivity, providing optical networking systems and software to help its customers thrive in the AI economy. Simply put, Ciena builds adaptive networks that support increasing bandwidth demand.

Since his recommendation, CIEN is up almost 40%, while the S&P hasn’t even broken even over the same period.

Ciena’s earnings forecast remains excellent despite war shocks.

Louis reports that Ciena expects total revenue of about $1.5 billion, up from $1.07 billion in the same quarter a year ago. For fiscal year 2026, the company anticipates total revenue between $5.9 billion and $6.3 billion, or 23.7% to 32.1% annual revenue growth.

Louis is also tracking a new development from Elon Musk … a new type of AI-powered computer so massive that one device will cover a footprint larger than the state of Texas (more than 700 miles across). 

The “world’s first AI mega computer” will be more than 283 trillion times more powerful than the traditional data centers powering ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok.  

You can learn more about this device and its implications for the AI market by clicking here.

The algorithms may get good enough to read charts and graphs as well as people can. But until then, Luke and Louis are here to help guide you to where the money is flowing today!

Enjoy your weekend,

Luis Hernandez

Editor in Chief, InvestorPlace

The post Two Stocks Our Experts Are Buying Now appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Before this revelation, the idea felt speculative – a thought experiment lodged somewhere between cutting-edge science and market irrelevance. The kind of thing most traders would scroll past without a second thought.

Then reality caught up. A 57-page white paper from Google’s DeepMind Research Center, Google’s Quantum AI division, Stanford University, and the Ethereum Foundation proved that crypto encryption can be cracked with quantum computers far sooner than anyone expected.

This wasn’t some amateur blog post or anonymous chirping in a comment section. This was a coordinated, peer-level warning from three of the most credible institutions in technology and cryptography.

The Numbers That Matter

I went through all 57 pages and distilled it down to the figures that traders need to understand:

Why This Is Worse Than the Headlines Suggest

Current blockchain security relies on elliptic curve cryptography—the computational difficulty of solving discrete logarithm problems. Classical computers would need billions of years to crack a 256-bit key.

Quantum computers don’t play by those rules.

Shor’s algorithm, running on a fault-tolerant quantum machine, can theoretically reduce that timeline from billions of years to single-digit minutes.

We’re not there yet—current processors don’t have enough stable qubits. But the paper argues the gap is closing 20 times faster than the industry assumed. Just like AI is improving a lot quicker than people think, quantum is on the same trajectory.

The $2 Trillion Exposure No One Is Pricing In

The critical detail most people miss: 1.7 million Bitcoin sit in old Pay-to-Public-Key addresses where the public key is already exposed on-chain. These are old, old coins—keys likely lost forever.

At a $70,000+ valuation, that’s over $100 billion in exposed assets. A quantum attacker wouldn’t even need a man-in-the-middle attack—they could derive private keys directly from the blockchain’s public data.

Beyond that, 6.9 million Bitcoin across all protocols with reused public keys are vulnerable—that’s 33% of all Bitcoin in existence. Unspent attacks are possible: fast-clock quantum computers could intercept transactions in real time.

There’s one piece of good news: proof-of-work mining itself is safe.

The risk is in the signatures—the cryptographic locks that protect ownership. But that distinction doesn’t shrink the scale of what’s at stake.

Then there’s Ethereum, which faces five distinct attack vectors: account-level, admin-level, smart contract code, consensus mechanism, and data availability layer vulnerabilities. The entire $600 billion-plus Ethereum ecosystem is in the crosshairs.

“It is conceivable that the existence of early quantum computers may first be detected on the blockchain rather than announced.”

— Directly from the Google DeepMind / Stanford paper

Let that sink in. The paper is suggesting that quantum computers may be used to steal crypto before anyone even knows they exist. That’s the world we’re walking into.

It all feels familiar – like we’re living through another Y2K moment.

Yeah, Y2K turned out to be nothing. But the world spent $300 billion preparing for it.

Companies that sold the solution made fortunes—not the ones who panicked on December 31st.

The same principle applies here.

Over $2 trillion in crypto assets are at risk. Unknown deadlines. The fix requires a global cryptographic migration. The money won’t be made when quantum breaks crypto. It’ll be made when the world starts preparing for it.

That preparation has already begun.

Panic Is a Strategy — Just Not Ours

When this paper hit, we didn’t scramble. We didn’t panic-sell. We asked a better question than everyone else in the room:

Which blockchain is already built for a post-quantum world?

The answer: Algorand (ALGO).

I’ll be honest—I wasn’t familiar with ALGO before I researched this piece.

But when you dig in, the picture is clear.

This is the first coin we’ve ever shared in a Masters in Trading Live broadcast, and there’s a reason for that.

Why ALGO Specifically?

Algorand was designed from the ground up by Silvio Micali, a Turing Award-winning cryptographer from MIT, with forward-looking security architecture baked into its core.

Algorand’s Pure Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism doesn’t rely on the same computational assumptions that quantum computing threatens.

The Algorand Foundation has been actively researching and implementing post-quantum cryptographic primitives—hash-based signatures and lattice-based schemes—designed to resist exactly the kind of attacks this paper describes.

But here’s the part most traders miss: narrative drives price before fundamentals do. The moment “quantum-resistant blockchain” becomes a mainstream search term, capital floods into the chain that already has the answer.

ALGO is that chain.

There’s only one blockchain that’s already prepared for this. On the day the paper dropped, ALGO was up 20%. It was trading at 14 cents at the beginning of the year, rallied up to 30 cents in 2025. The market is telling you something. Smart money is already positioning—you can see the confidence just by looking at the chart.

The most efficient way to express this opining through coins is ALGO.

This is what separates us. Reading, doing the research, and then finding the most efficient way to express your opinion. That’s the game.

Where the Capital Is Going

Zoom out. The post-quantum cryptography market is currently valued at roughly $400 million.

The paper projects it will grow to $2.8 billion—a 46% compound annual growth rate. That’s not a typo.

Who needs post-quantum security? Everybody at risk. And that’s essentially everyone. The world needs to change as quantum comes on board.

NIST finalized its first set of post-quantum encryption standards in 2024. The U.S. Department of Defense, the NSA, and major financial institutions are actively auditing their cryptographic infrastructure.

Governments are moving. Institutions are allocating. Blockchains will be forced to adapt—or face existential questions from every institutional allocator on the planet.

How to Invest in the Quantum Security Shift

It’s not easy to get direct exposure. Here’s the landscape:

Private pure plays are still in the venture stage—these will eventually become massive IPOs.

On the public side, big cybersecurity companies are pivoting into this area: PANW (Palo Alto Networks), NXPI (NXP Semiconductors), and NET (Cloudflare) are all building post-quantum capabilities.

But for the most direct, highest-conviction expression of this thesis in crypto: ALGO is the play. Capital flows to solutions, not problems. ALGO sits directly in that path. And this may still be early innings.

Headlines Are Free. Edge Is Earned.

Anyone can scroll social media and catch the headline. That’s table stakes. The real question is: what do you do with it?

Very few traders can digest a 57-page technical paper, extract the second-order implications, map those implications to specific assets, and translate all of that into a conviction position—while the rest of the market is still processing the headline.

That’s what happens inside Masters in Trading Live. Every session. In real time.

The ALGO setup followed this framework to the letter. So does every trade we take. This isn’t about being smarter than the market. It’s about having a repeatable process that consistently puts you ahead of the curve—before the crowd arrives, before the FOMO kicks in, before the easy money is gone.

Stop Chasing Headlines. Start Building Conviction.

If you want to catch trades like this before they move, understand the “why” behind market shifts, and build the kind of conviction that lets you hold through the noise—it’s time to step inside the room where this work happens.

The Masters in Trading Challenge is designed to walk you through that process step by step. You’ll see how we identify catalysts, interpret the signals that matter, and translate those into real trades — all while managing risk in real time.

From identifying catalysts and unusual options activity… to translating that into trades… to managing risk and locking in gains.

You’ll see the process play out from start to finish in just seven days, follow along with real setups, and start building the framework that allows you to think and act like a trader — not a spectator.

No fluff. No noise. Just execution — built around a repeatable system you can actually use.

The post We Saw the Quantum Threat Before the Headlines Did appeared first on InvestorPlace.

We are not back in that world. But investors are getting a reminder of how fast energy prices can rise when geopolitics turn ugly.

According to AAA, the national average for regular gas has climbed from $2.98 a gallon on February 26 to about $4.16 now. And while markets initially cheered news of a two-week ceasefire with Iran, that ceasefire already looks like it is hanging by a thread as oil prices swing around every new headline.

That matters because higher energy costs rarely stay at the pump. They tend to spread through shipping, travel, food and a long list of everyday expenses.

Which is why this week’s inflation data is so important.

Investors are looking at the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index for clues about where inflation stands now.

But I should mention that this data looks backward. It tells us where inflation was, not necessarily where it is headed if energy costs keep pushing higher.

And I’ll be honest with you – the numbers are hideous, as I suspected they would be.

So in today’s Market 360, I want to walk you through what the CPI and PCE reports are really telling us, what they may be missing and what the implications could be for the Federal Reserve, key interest rates and your portfolio.

What the Data Is Telling Us – and What It Isn’t…

Let’s start with the PCE, the Fed’s favorite inflation indicator.

Now, this delayed report showed that headline PCE rose 0.4% in February and is now up 2.8% year-over-year – right in line with expectations.

Core PCE, which strips out food and energy, came in at 3.0% year-over-year, also rising 0.4% for the month.

That’s still well above the Fed’s 2% target.

So, this shows that inflation was already stubborn before energy prices began moving higher.

The conflict with Iran escalated late in February, so much of the recent jump in energy costs hasn’t yet shown up here.

Then came CPI – and it showed energy is starting to bite. Headline CPI rose 0.9% in March, the biggest monthly increase since 2022, while energy prices soared 10.9%. Gasoline prices jumped 18.9% and fuel oil prices surged 44.2%.

 Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% last month and was up 2.6% in the past 12 months.

Interestingly, the headline CPI was in line with economists’ expectations, and the core CPI was better than expected, rising 0.3%.

Overall, higher energy costs are clearly starting to show up.

So, here is the key point: These reports show inflation was already stubborn, and they also show higher energy costs are starting to work their way into the economy.

But that may not be the full story, either.

Much of the recent surge in oil and gas prices happened late in the month and into April, so the full impact may still be ahead.

Which means inflation could remain more stubborn than investors expect.

What This Means for the Fed and Investors

What needs to happen now is for traffic in the Strait of Hormuz to return to pre-conflict levels and for the U.S.-Iran negotiations to be fruitful. When that happens, uncertainty will diminish further, inflation will moderate and things can get back to normal.

Until that happens, the inflation numbers are likely to be hideous.

So, what does this mean for the Fed and for investors?

It means the Federal Reserve may not have much room to cut rates anytime soon.

Inflation is still above target. And if higher energy costs keep working their way through the economy, that could make it even harder for the Fed to ease policy in the months ahead.

In other words, interest rates could stay higher for longer than many investors expect.

And that matters because markets can handle high rates for a while. But when investors start to realize rates may stay elevated longer than expected, leadership often begins to shift.

We saw that in the early 2000s, when the biggest tech winners stopped leading. Other parts of the market still moved higher. But many investors who were heavily concentrated in those former leaders went through years of flat returns.

That is the real risk here.

It is not just that inflation stays stubborn. It is that stubborn inflation can keep pressure on rates – and higher-for-longer rates can expose risks that were easy to ignore when money was cheap.

That’s when concentration starts to matter a lot more.

And right now, I believe many investors are far more concentrated in Big Tech than they realize.

That creates the potential for what I call a “Hidden Crash.”

It’s not a big drop you see on the news. But it can lead to years of flat or disappointing returns for investors who think they’re diversified but really aren’t.

And if you’re invested in yesterday’s tech winners right now, it’s something you may need to think about.

That’s why I put together a full breakdown of what I’m seeing – including why I believe money is starting to move out of Big Tech and into a group of what I call “edge innovators” – companies that stand the most to benefit from this shift.

You can go here to learn more about them now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The post Why the Latest Inflation Numbers Look Hideous – And May Get Worse… appeared first on InvestorPlace.

That’s getting harder in the age of AI, where headlines and hype often distract from what’s really driving the next wave of winners.

Market veteran Josh Baylin has spent his career tracking that hidden layer – from hedge funds to the tech sector itself – analyzing how software adoption spreads and where real momentum is building beneath the surface.

In the essay below, Josh explains why “perfect” technologies are often closest to becoming obsolete – and how to identify what’s replacing them early.

This is the foundation of his Shadow Data Indicator (SDI), a rules-based system designed to uncover high-potential tech stocks before they surge. You can read his full breakdown below – and watch his free presentation for a deeper look at the system he’s using to track what comes next.

In 2007, BlackBerry achieved perfection.

For a phone, its keyboard was flawless. Email synced instantly. The battery stayed charged for days. Even IT departments loved it.

The media dubbed it the “CrackBerry” because users couldn’t put it down.

BlackBerry Ltd. (BB) stock reflected the mania – soaring from below $10 in the early 2000s to more than $140 just a year after the iPhone launched in 2007.

Two years later, it was back to being almost worthless.

BlackBerry didn’t fail because it got worse at email…

It failed because “mobile email” stopped being the right problem to solve. The iPhone didn’t make a better BlackBerry – it made BlackBerry’s entire purpose obsolete.

And this same pattern happens all the time… like today with artificial intelligence.

I’ll explain how you can learn to spot it… and a simple two-step test to help you determine which investments are worth keeping, and which are on their way out.

The Problem With the ‘Perfect Tool’

If you can spot when a tool, company, or industry hits peak functionality, you can see its obituary coming – and position your portfolio before the crowd catches on.

Here’s the blueprint I’ve seen repeated across industries for two decades…

Peak functionality is a “Sell” signal, not a “Buy” signal.

When a tool perfectly solves yesterday’s problem, that means it’s probably about to become irrelevant.

You can see this just by looking around at the tools you use at home, in the office, or on the go…

• The Roomba perfected robotic vacuuming. Meanwhile, the company that makes it – iRobot Corp. (IRBT) – filed for bankruptcy in December 2025.
• Monday.com Ltd. (MNDY) mastered project-management dashboards. Yet the company didn’t participate in much of the market rally last year and is down nearly 80% since its high in February 2025.
• Zoom Communications Inc. (ZM) became flawless at video calls. Today, investors have largely moved on.

Each one became a BlackBerry – they perfected the wrong thing.

The AI Inversion Is Industry-Wide

Every collapse of a “perfect” tool follows the same pattern:

When a product gets too good at solving the wrong problem, it makes itself irrelevant. The world simply moves on.

Today, we’ve moved on to AI. As a result, this pattern is unfolding across several industries right now…

• Interface inversion: Apple Inc. (AAPL) has perfected the iPhone – the cameras, the chips, the ecosystem. But voice-first AI doesn’t make a better iPhone… It makes the iPhone unnecessary. That’s likely one reason Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-B) has reduced its stake in Apple by more than 70% since late 2023.
• Education inversion: Universities have perfected the student experience – beautiful campuses, refined classes, and prestigious degrees. But they perfected the wrong thing: packaging image instead of delivering outcomes. When an AI tutor that costs roughly $50 is on its way to outperforming a $50,000 education, the entire system inverts.
• Transportation inversion: Cars have never been safer, more comfortable, or more feature-rich. But the inversion here will eliminate driving and its inconveniences entirely. And as higher insurance costs gradually make driving too expensive, AI-enabled self-driving cars will continue to gain traction.

So how do you protect your portfolio?

How to Position Your Portfolio for AI Disruption

Right now, the market is full of big promises. That includes new companies promising the next big thing… and old companies trying to hold on to their place at the top.

In the age of AI disruptions, you need to know how to tell the difference…

Apply what I call the BlackBerry test: 

Is this company perfecting the old purpose – or preparing for the new one?

Once you’ve applied this simple test, here’s what to do next:

• Sell the companies still adding bells and whistles to already “perfected” tools – whether it’s dashboards, project managers, or consumer apps.
• Buy the companies removing entire layers of friction – making the old problems irrelevant.

Think of it this way: Perfection is a trap. It signals the end of usefulness, not the beginning of growth.

For everyday investors, that knowledge is your edge.

The next BlackBerry is always hiding in plain sight — behind a product so polished it blinds investors to what’s coming next.

The key isn’t avoiding change. It’s learning how to spot it early – and acting before the market catches on.

In my recent Market Tremors 2026 presentation, I walk through exactly how I do that using my Shadow Data Indicator (SDI)… including how it identifies companies gaining traction before Wall Street fully recognizes it.

I also share a current opportunity that fits this pattern right now.

You can watch the full presentation here and see how the system works.

The post Why ‘Perfect’ Companies Underperform appeared first on InvestorPlace.

But what if the earliest – and most valuable – signals show up somewhere else?

In today’s Friday Digest takeover, Stansberry Research analyst Josh Baylin explains why one of the most powerful indicators in today’s market isn’t found in financial statements, but in people – specifically, where the smartest engineers, researchers, and executives are choosing to go (as well as where they’re leaving).

Josh argues that talent moves first and capital follows. If you know how to track those shifts, you can often spot major opportunities before they show up in the numbers.

Below, he breaks down how this works, and how everyday investors can tap into these “hidden” signals using simple, public tools.

Josh also walks through his full system – including a current opportunity it’s flagging – in his Market Tremors 2026 presentation. You can watch it right here.

If you’re looking for an edge that goes beyond the usual indicators, this is a perspective worth your time.

I’ll let Josh take it from here.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

A few years ago, I started noticing something strange most investors would have missed.

Engineers I’d known for years – people who had spent their careers at Qualcomm, General Atomics, and other legacy defense contractors – were quietly disappearing from their jobs.

These engineers weren’t retiring. They were moving into artificial intelligence.

To companies like Anduril, Shield AI, and Oura.

The people leaving were among the best in their fields – the engineers other engineers wanted to work with.

I didn’t have access to their offer letters. I couldn’t see their stock options. But I could see movement.

Within months, the announcements hit: massive funding rounds, major defense contracts, and valuations that made national news.

The capital followed the talent.

If you know how to spot that shift early, you can get positioned before the market catches on…

Talent Moves First

I call these early signals “observable surfaces”– places where real behavior reveals what’s coming before Wall Street models it.

Consumer behavior is a big one. And where the best people choose to work is an observable surface hiding in plain sight.

Employees at tech firms—especially top engineers and executives—see reality long before it shows up in SEC filings:

• They know whether the technology actually works.
• They know if leadership has a real plan.
• They know when the company culture starts to rot.

Nondisclosure agreements keep them quiet. But they can leave. And when they do, they’re telling you everything.

What I watched happen locally in San Diego has played out on a massive scale in the AI space.

Notably, it happened with ChatGPT creator OpenAI… and almost no one noticed at the time.

Back in December 2020, Dario Amodei was OpenAI’s vice president of research. He had helped build GPT-2 and GPT-3 – the models that made OpenAI famous. His sister, Daniela Amodei, ran safety and policy.

Then they left. And they didn’t leave alone.

A cluster of senior researchers – the very people who had built the ChatGPT technology – walked out the door. Together, they founded a new startup…

They called it Anthropic.

At the time, most people didn’t notice. OpenAI was raising billions. ChatGPT was about to change everything. Why pay attention to a handful of quiet departures?

Those departures were the signal.

The people closest to the technology had already seen where things were going.

Today, Anthropic has emerged as one of OpenAI’s most serious competitors, attracting billions in funding and partnerships with major tech players.

And according to SignalFire’s 2025 State of Tech Talent report, OpenAI employees are now far more likely to leave for Anthropic than the other way around.

The best people vote with their careers. Right now, they’re voting decisively.

In AI, capital follows the people who matter most. You don’t pay “war prices” for talent unless you believe you’re fighting for the future.

In May 2024, Ilya Sutskever left OpenAI to launch a new venture called Safe Superintelligence.

By April 2025, it was reportedly valued at $32 billion.

No product. No revenue. Just Sutskever and a small group of researchers who had worked at the frontier.

That’s what talent is worth when it has already seen the future.

The same pattern showed up at upstart defense contractor Anduril. When this company set out to challenge legacy players, it recruited Tom Keane – who had spent 20 years at Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) building Office 365 and Azure – along with leaders from Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR), SpaceX, and Splunk.

The result? Anduril grew from 700 employees to more than 4,000. Its valuation climbed from $1 billion to over $30 billion… and it’s now winning contracts once reserved for companies that have dominated the industry for decades.

The pattern is always the same:

The talent moves first. The capital follows.

Your Edge

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: The best employees always have options.

When a once-booming company changes trajectory, the most talented people see it first. And because they’re the most in-demand, they’re the first to find better opportunities.

By the time an exodus is obvious to outsiders, the top talent is long gone.

You don’t need insider access to track talent movement. The signals are public, if you know where to look:

• LinkedIn: This career-networking app shows job changes in real time. If you notice five engineers from the same team moving to the same startup… that’s no coincidence.
• Glassdoor: This site’s workplace reviews reveal sentiment before it becomes news. Rising complaints about leadership or sudden silence from a once-active company are early warnings.
• Hiring patterns: These trends speak volumes. Freezes mean trouble. Unexpected surges mean urgency.
• Quiet executive departures: This is often what matters most. A CEO leaving makes headlines… but a chief product officer slipping out the backdoor is often a bigger signal that most folks miss.

Institutions can’t act on this information. They won’t green-light trades based on Glassdoor reviews. And you can’t plug “top five engineers quit” into a financial model.

But as an individual investor, you don’t have those constraints.

You can check LinkedIn in minutes. You can notice when the people building the future start clustering in one place.

The observable surfaces show you what’s coming, before it shows up in the numbers.

When engineers leave, they know something.

The only question is whether you act before everyone else sees it.

In my brand-new Market Tremors 2026 presentation, I show how I track these signals — along with other forms of “shadow data” — to identify companies gaining real momentum before it shows up in the numbers.

I also walk through how this system works step by step… and share a current opportunity it’s flagging right now. It’s one of the clearest signals I’m seeing today.

You can watch the full presentation here and see how to apply it yourself.

Good investing,

Josh Baylin

Senior Analyst, Stansberry Research

The post When the Smartest People Start Leaving, This Might Be Why appeared first on InvestorPlace.

These companies possessed high margins, incredible revenue growth, earnings that seemed to climb quarter after quarter.

What’s not to love?

For years, software stocks could do no wrong. As long as revenue kept rising and management could spin a good story about the future, investors were happy to pay up.

But every market era has its favorites. And every market era eventually turns on them.

Remember Blackberry? Or AOL? Or Yahoo?

At one point, those companies looked untouchable.

Then the world changed. Some of these companies are still around, though they’re not nearly as dominant as in the past. Others, meanwhile, are in the dustbin of history.

I think something similar may be starting to happen in parts of the software world.

In recent essays, I’ve explained how private credit grew into a $3 trillion shadow banking system, how investors may be able to profit from a coming flight to quality and why June 30 could become a day of reckoning for this whole mess.

If I’m right, then software may be one of the first places where the pressure starts to show.

Why software? Because this sector is getting squeezed from both sides at once.

On one side, artificial intelligence is starting to disrupt old software business models. Wall Street is beginning to wonder out loud whether a single person using AI can create sophisticated software that’s just as good or better than existing offerings in fields like human resources, accounting, graphic design and more.

As a result, companies like Salesforce Inc. (CRM), ServiceNow Inc. (NOW), Monday.com Ltd. (MNDY), Atlassian Corp. (TEAM) and Workday Inc. (WDAY) have all been punished.

On the other, tighter financial conditions are exposing which companies were built for survival and which ones were built for easy money.

Today, I want to focus on what that could mean for investors.

Because if this software rout is really signaling something bigger beneath the surface, some stocks are going to be a lot more vulnerable than others.

And believe me, you do not want to be caught owning one of them if this pressure keeps building.

The Software Stocks Losing Their Edge

AI is lowering barriers. It is creating new competition. And it is forcing investors to ask harder questions about which software companies still have real pricing power, real staying power and real moats.

That alone is enough to hurt a stock.

A company does not have to die for shareholders to lose money on it. It just has to lose its premium. And once the market starts revaluing a whole group lower, the damage can come fast.

Now, to get the full background on the broader private-credit story behind all this, and why I believe investors need to pay attention right now, you can watch my latest video presentation.

In the meantime, in the next part of my interview series with InvestorPlace Editor-in-Chief Luis Hernandez, I explain why some software stocks may be especially vulnerable in this environment, what warning signs investors should watch for – and why this weakness may not stay confined to tech.

Click the play button on the image below to watch my conversation with Luis.

Do You Own One of Them?

Here is the part that matters most.

This is not just a story about software stocks falling out of favor. It is also a story about what happens when a market darling loses its shine at the exact moment conditions get tougher.

Some of these companies may still look respectable on the outside. But if growth slows, competition rises and financing pressure builds, then the market can get a lot less forgiving in a hurry.

That is when investors start discovering which companies were truly durable and which ones were just riding the tailwinds of a different era.

And one of the best ways to spot the difference is with my Stock Grader system (subscription required). It analyzes more than 6,000 stocks each week, looking at the fundamental and quantitative factors that matter most – things like sales growth, earnings momentum, cash flow and institutional buying pressure.

When you pull up the grades on some of these software names, the warning signs become a lot harder to ignore.

Now, that does not mean every one of these stocks is doomed. But it does tell you that the market may already be separating the strong from the weak. And in an environment like this, that is exactly the kind of signal investors need to pay attention to.

In my full presentation, I explain why I believe this software selloff may be signaling deeper trouble, which stocks I would avoid now and where I believe investors may want to reposition as money moves toward stronger, higher-quality businesses.

If you want the full story – and want to see the name of one A-rated stock I believe investors should look at before June 30 – I strongly encourage you to watch my full presentation now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The post Software Stocks Are Cracking. Is Your Portfolio Exposed? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

But Netscape had velocity.

This was a company fresh off the heels of building the browser that facilitated the entire world onto the internet. And everyone who used it could feel, in their bones, that the old rules were about to stop applying.

On its first day of trading, Netscape’s stock doubled.

Within months, the company had ignited a technology investment boom that would reshape the American economy for the next three decades.

In short, it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime investment… until today.

Now, there’s another company positioned to take the world into the next generation, and much further than Netscape ever could. But this time, the numbers are even more staggering. And if you’re not paying attention, you could be standing on the platform while the train pulls out of the station.

The company is Anthropic.

And what’s happening inside its revenue line is, to put it plainly, unlike anything we’ve ever seen in the history of American business.

From $1 Billion to $30 Billion in 15 Months

To get a sense of the scale here, Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate in January 2025 was “just” $1 billion. A year later, in February 2026, it had climbed to $14 billion. Then just two months later it more than doubled again to $30 billion.

That translates to roughly 1,400% annualized revenue growth from January 2025 to today. And from February to April of this year alone? Approximately 10,000%.

That is obscene. There is no precedent for a company generating $30 billion in annualized revenue growing at that pace.

We aren’t talking about a scrappy startup going from $1 million to $10 million. We’re talking about a business already operating at the scale of a Fortune 100 company, and accelerating.

Why This Matters for Every AI Investor

The Anthropic story is the strongest proof point yet that the $600 billion in AI capital expenditure from the hyperscalers this year is producing real returns.

The bears’ core argument against the AI infrastructure buildout has always been the same: Where’s the revenue? The spending is reckless. The returns aren’t materializing. It’s another dot-com bubble.

Anthropic’s numbers throw cold water on that thesis.

The hyperscalers — Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), Meta Platforms (META) — are spending hundreds of billions on compute infrastructure. Anthropic rents that compute, runs its models on it, and converts it into a $30 billion business that barely existed 18 months ago.

In short, these companies are spending all this money, and as a result, Anthropic turns into a $30 billion revenue run rate business after being just a billion-dollar business 14 to 18 months ago.

The Anthropic IPO Question

The big frustration here is that there’s no clean way to get pre-IPO exposure to Anthropic in public markets right now.

Destiny Tech100 Inc. (DXYZ) does offer some broader private tech exposure, while Suro Capital Corp. (SSSS) provides a window into OpenAI — but the only vehicle with direct Anthropic exposure, Roundhill Innovation Inc. (VCX), had been trading at a massive 15x-plus premium to its net asset value. It’s since fallen from above $300 to around $100, which might make it worth a second look.

But investors are so hungry for a piece of Anthropic that they’ve been willing to pay extraordinary markups just to get a sliver of equity. When Anthropic finally IPOs, the demand could be enormous.

The Anthropic IPO: What to Watch

Anthropic’s IPO may turn out to be even more exciting than the upcoming OpenAI or SpaceX offerings; precisely because neither of those companies is growing revenue at a 10,000% clip.

Whether that proves true depends on timing, valuation, and market conditions. But the trajectory is clear. Anthropic is building the most commercially dominant AI model infrastructure in the world, and the revenue curve all but confirms this.

For a deeper breakdown of my full market thesis — including my outlook on the Iran ceasefire, the S&P 500’s technical breakout, and the space stocks I’m watching — catch this week’s full episode of Being Exponential below!

The post Anthropic’s 10,000% Revenue Growth Rate Could Make This the IPO of 2026 appeared first on InvestorPlace.

This morning, the headlines handed investors two things to weigh…

First, yesterday’s U.S./Iran ceasefire – while holding as I write – is already showing cracks.

Second, this morning’s inflation report confirmed that pre-war baseline inflation was already uncomfortable.

Let’s look at each development in turn.

The ceasefire is fragile – and the Strait is still closed

The White House is calling this week’s ceasefire a “military triumph,” yet reports indicate the Strait of Hormuz is still not fully open – a U.S. requirement for that ceasefire.

From Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company:

The Strait of Hormuz is not open.

Access is being restricted, conditioned and controlled.

Iran has told nearby ships they need Tehran’s permission to pass and warned that vessels attempting to transit without it “will be destroyed.”

Iran’s Parliament Speaker has already called the ceasefire “unreasonable,” accusing the U.S. of violating three of Tehran’s ten conditions for ending the war. Meanwhile, Iran has provided no clear signal that it intends to hand over its highly enriched uranium.

Also complicating the picture, Israel struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Wednesday. Iran has cited those strikes as grounds to keep the Strait restricted.

Bottom line: the ceasefire is real and still holding as I write. But this is a fragile, contested arrangement with significant unresolved issues – not yet a clean “total victory.”

But that’s not the only thing investors are considering this morning…

This morning’s PCE confirmed higher baseline inflation

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released the February Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index this morning – the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge.

Due to the October–November 2025 government shutdown, the report was originally scheduled for March 27 and was delayed until today. So, this is the most current pre-war read we have on where inflation stood when the conflict began.

Core PCE, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, came in at 3.0% year-over-year, in line with consensus but well above the Fed’s 2% target. Meanwhile, headline PCE came in at 2.8% annually. On a monthly basis, both core and headline rose 0.4%.

At first glance, those numbers look manageable – “In line with expectations” is how the financial press is framing it. But there are two important layers underneath the headline.

First, personal income fell 0.1% in February while consumer spending rose 0.5%. Economists had expected income to rise 0.4%. That gap – spending up, income down – raises real questions about the durability of consumer demand.

Also, worth noting: Q4 GDP growth was also revised down to just 0.5% annualized, a significant cut from the initial 1.4% estimate.

Second, this data predates the war entirely. It doesn’t reflect a single dollar of the energy shock, the shipping surcharges, the food price volatility, or the supply chain disruptions that have been rippling through the economy for the past five weeks.

So, let’s be clear: core PCE was running at 3% with oil at $65. As I write on Thursday, oil is back at $102, the Strait of Hormuz is still functionally closed, and the March and April data haven’t landed yet. In other words, higher prices are still coming.

Now, despite that lag time, we still have clues about how prices have moved during the war. Consider what’s already happened in the real economy:

• Gasoline: The national average jumped from $2.98 before the war to a peak of $4.11 – a 38% surge in just six weeks.
• Shipping: The U.S. Postal Service filed for an emergency 8% delivery surcharge to combat rising transportation overhead.
• Agriculture: Essential fertilizer prices spiked more than 40% in a single month, baking higher costs into the upcoming fall harvest.
• Air Travel: Delta raised checked bag fees to $45 to offset jet fuel costs, which have soared nearly 88% in major hubs since the conflict began.
• E-Commerce: Amazon and other major retailers implemented a new 3.5% fuel surcharge taking effect April 17 to cover skyrocketing diesel costs for delivery fleets.
• Utilities: Natural gas volatility has already pushed wholesale electricity prices up to 45% higher in some regions, signaling a massive spike in summer cooling bills.
• Aluminum: Prices surged 8% in March alone, impacting the cost of everything from soda cans to consumer electronics and auto parts.
• Plastics: Polyethylene and polypropylene prices – the building blocks for food containers and bottles – surged 37% to 40% since the start of the war.

Bottom line: Today’s data wasn’t an inflation shock, but it establishes a higher baseline than we’d prefer before such a shock might arrive.

This leaves us with a few questions…

One, will the Strait truly reopen, removing the primary source of the disruption?

Two, because higher oil prices don’t hit the economy all at once, what will six weeks of rising costs mean for consumers as this inflation works its way through the system?

And three, what will all this mean for the Federal Reserve?

The Fed’s tightrope just got narrower

Here’s the bind in which the Fed now finds itself…

On one side, inflation was already above target before the war, and today’s data confirms it wasn’t moving convincingly toward the 2% goal.

The war has layered an energy shock on top of that already-stubborn baseline, and the full impact on consumer prices is still working its way through.

On the other side, the economic data underlying today’s inflation numbers is softening. The Q4 GDP growth was revised down to just 0.5%. The March ISM Services Employment Index fell to 45.2 – a level historically associated with recession. And this morning’s jobless claims came in at 219,000, up 16,000 from the prior week and above the 210,000 consensus (though still broadly in line with recent trends).

The dual mandate – stable prices and maximum employment – is pulling in opposite directions. Cutting rates into this inflation picture risks pouring gasoline on a fire that’s already spreading. Hiking into a weakening economy risks tipping it into something worse.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell addressed this tension last week:

By the time the effects of a tightening in monetary policy takes effect, the oil price shock is probably long gone, and you’re weighing on the economy at a time when it’s not appropriate…

We will eventually maybe face the question of what to do here. We’re not really facing it yet because we don’t know what the economic effects will be.

In essence: the Fed is watching and waiting.

The March FOMC minutes, released Wednesday, showed policymakers worried about both sides of the mandate but generally inclined toward cutting later this year – assuming conditions allow.

What investors should watch next

So, where does this leave us?

Yesterday’s ceasefire – and the historic pullback in oil prices – remains good news, even if the follow-through is complicated. And today’s mildly higher stock prices as I write suggests investors believe the progress is real and sustainable.

But this morning’s data added to the headwinds. And there’s one final detail worth factoring in.

Yesterday, Luke Lango, our technology expert and editor of Innovation Investor, concluded that even on this side of the ceasefire, oil isn’t going back to pre-war levels.

The infrastructure damage, the rerouting of shipping lanes, the lingering risk premium in energy markets – all of it means crude will likely settle at a structurally higher level than before the conflict began.

From Luke:

Oil won’t return to $65. Likely settles in the $80s.

Good enough to recharge the rally in AI stocks. Not good enough to reawaken the consumer economy. 

That framing captures the two-track market we’re likely heading into: technology and AI-driven names that can grow through higher costs on one side, and a consumer-facing economy quietly absorbing a wave of price increases on the other.

So, what’s our takeaway?

The most honest conclusion is “it’s complicated.” In such an environment, patience and non-reactivity are likely our best approach.  

We’ll keep monitoring and will report back here in the Digest.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

P.S. Most individual investors don’t realize how different the playing field is at the hedge fund level

The tools, the data, the speed — it’s not even close. But occasionally, parts of that world start to become accessible to everyday investors. That’s the idea behind a new free presentation from our partners at Stansberry Research.

During Market Tremors 2026, they break down a system built on “shadow data” — including signals derived from tech adoption trends that most investors never see. It’s designed for shorter-term moves, not long-term holding… and it’s one of the more interesting “edge” conversations we’ve seen recently.

You can take a look and decide for yourself.

The post What the PCE Is Really Telling Investors Today appeared first on InvestorPlace.

AI is accelerating change across industries… and it’s causing even dominant companies to lose their edge faster than most investors expect.

That’s one reason I’ve been paying close attention to what our colleagues at Stansberry Research are doing with their new Market Tremors 2026 presentation.

In it, hedge fund veteran Josh Baylin explains how he’s adapting to this faster-moving environment – and how investors can better position themselves as these shifts unfold.

In today’s essay, he introduces a simple but powerful idea: Perfection is often a sell signal.

We’ve seen this pattern play out before. From BlackBerry to Zoom, companies that seem untouchable can quickly become obsolete… especially when a major technological shift resets the playing field.

Josh outlines what he calls the “BlackBerry test” – a straightforward way to identify when a company is optimizing for the past instead of preparing for what’s next.

It’s a useful framework in today’s AI-driven market, where leadership can change quickly and without much warning.

You can read his full breakdown below – and if you’d like to see how he’s applying this approach right now, you can check out his free presentation here.

******************

In 2007, BlackBerry achieved perfection.

For a phone, its keyboard was flawless. Email synced instantly. The battery stayed charged for days. Even IT departments loved it.

The media dubbed it the “CrackBerry” because users couldn’t put it down.

BlackBerry Ltd. (BB) stock reflected the mania – soaring from below $10 in the early 2000s to more than $140 just a year after the iPhone launched in 2007.

Two years later, it was back to being almost worthless.

BlackBerry didn’t fail because it got worse at email…

It failed because “mobile email” stopped being the right problem to solve. The iPhone didn’t make a better BlackBerry – it made BlackBerry’s entire purpose obsolete.

And this same pattern happens all the time… like today with artificial intelligence.

I’ll explain how you can learn to spot it… and a simple two-step test to help you determine which investments are worth keeping, and which are on their way out.

The Problem With the ‘Perfect Tool’

If you can spot when a tool, company, or industry hits peak functionality, you can see its obituary coming – and position your portfolio before the crowd catches on.

Here’s the blueprint I’ve seen repeated across industries for two decades…

Peak functionality is a “Sell” signal, not a “Buy” signal.

When a tool perfectly solves yesterday’s problem, that means it’s probably about to become irrelevant.

You can see this just by looking around at the tools you use at home, in the office, or on the go…

• The Roomba perfected robotic vacuuming. Meanwhile, the company that makes it – iRobot Corp. (IRBT) – filed for bankruptcy in December 2025.
• Monday.com Ltd. (MNDY) mastered project-management dashboards. Yet the company didn’t participate in much of the market rally last year and is down nearly 80% since its high in February 2025.
• Zoom Communications Inc. (ZM) became flawless at video calls. Today, investors have largely moved on.

Each one became a BlackBerry – they perfected the wrong thing.

The AI Inversion Is Industry-Wide

Every collapse of a “perfect” tool follows the same pattern:

When a product gets too good at solving the wrong problem, it makes itself irrelevant. The world simply moves on.

Today, we’ve moved on to AI. As a result, this pattern is unfolding across several industries right now…

• Interface inversion: Apple Inc. (AAPL) has perfected the iPhone – the cameras, the chips, the ecosystem. But voice-first AI doesn’t make a better iPhone… It makes the iPhone unnecessary. That’s likely one reason Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-B) has reduced its stake in Apple by more than 70% since late 2023.
• Education inversion: Universities have perfected the student experience – beautiful campuses, refined classes, and prestigious degrees. But they perfected the wrong thing: packaging image instead of delivering outcomes. When an AI tutor that costs roughly $50 is on its way to outperforming a $50,000 education, the entire system inverts.
• Transportation inversion: Cars have never been safer, more comfortable, or more feature-rich. But the inversion here will eliminate driving and its inconveniences entirely. And as higher insurance costs gradually make driving too expensive, AI-enabled self-driving cars will continue to gain traction.

So how do you protect your portfolio?

An Investor’s Knowledge Edge

Right now, the market is full of big promises. That includes new companies promising the next big thing… and old companies trying to hold on to their place at the top.

In the age of AI disruptions, you need to know how to tell the difference…

Apply what I call the BlackBerry test:

Is this company perfecting the old purpose – or preparing for the new one?

Once you’ve applied this simple test, here’s what to do next:

• Sell the companies still adding bells and whistles to already “perfected” tools – whether it’s dashboards, project managers, or consumer apps.
• Buy the companies removing entire layers of friction – making the old problems irrelevant.

Think of it this way: Perfection is a trap. It signals the end of usefulness, not the beginning of growth.

For everyday investors, that knowledge is your edge.

The next BlackBerry is always hiding in plain sight — behind a product so polished it blinds investors to what’s coming next.

The key isn’t avoiding change. It’s learning how to spot it early – and acting before the market catches on.

In my recent Market Tremors 2026 presentation, I walk through exactly how I do that using my Shadow Data Indicator (SDI)… including how it identifies companies gaining traction before Wall Street fully recognizes it.

I also share a current opportunity that fits this pattern right now.

You can watch the full presentation here and see how the system works.

Good investing,

Josh Baylin

Senior Analyst, Stansberry Research

P.S. The market is shifting faster than most investors realize. That’s why Josh recently recorded a free briefing explaining how his SDI system has identified hundreds of winning trades by tracking signals most investors never see. Josh also breaks down why he believes we’re at a critical turning point — and the one move he’d consider right now. You can watch it here.

The post The Hidden Sell Signal Most Investors Miss appeared first on InvestorPlace.

It’s usually subpar food or slow service that will earn a restaurant negative reviews… not an AI-generated logo.

But that’s exactly what recently happened to a restaurant in my home state of California – The Salty Otter Sports Grill.

The Santa Cruz-based establishment received an overwhelming amount of one-star ratings last month after heated backlash against its surfing otter logo, made with the help of AI. (The owner pretty quickly replaced the logo with plain black text of the restaurant’s name.)

Source: SFGate

What we’re witnessing here is a shift in sentiment away from artificial intelligence.

Of course, AI’s role in our world is still important, and getting more important all the time. But the more that AI infiltrates our daily lives, the more we will crave uniquely human experiences.

And it’s not just local West Coast restaurant-goers who think so. Name-brand companies are beginning to understand the shift.

Aerie, the American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (AEO) clothing brand… cookware maker Le Creuset… and baby products marketer Coterie are distancing themselves from AI. All three companies issued disclaimers that their social media content isn’t and won’t be altered by the technology.

Coterie got right to the point…

The coming decade will still belong to data centers, algorithms, and robots. But in a future defined by AI, the greatest and most dependable returns may come from the companies that remind us of what AI can never reproduce:

The simple, sensory, irreplaceable pleasure of being human.

I call these businesses “AI Survivors.”

The shift away from tech at the height of its dominance is a profitable one that we’ve seen play out before. In today’s Smart Money, I’ll explain how I used this strategy in the dot-com era… and why I’m using it again today.

Then, I’ll show you how to add AI Survivors to your portfolio.

Let’s jump in…

I Diversified in the Dot-Com Bust – and Won

If you doubt that analog, non–AI stocks can deliver wealth-building gains, you would be mistaken. During certain market cycles, stocks like these are among the few that can deliver outsized gains.

For example, during the waning days of the dot-com boom, I was running an institutional research service in which I recommended selling short numerous high-flying tech stocks and buying several non-tech plays.

Generally speaking, both the “Sells” and the “Buys” performed as expected.

On the “Sell” side, I suggested dumping tech stocks like Softbank Group Corp. (SFTBY), Infosys Ltd. (INFY), Ariba Inc. (ARBA), Motorola Solutions Inc. (MSI), Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), and Celestica Inc. (CLS) – all of which tumbled more than 80% over the ensuing two years.

On the “Buy” side, I recommended a diverse group of non-tech stocks like…

• Royal Garden Resorts (MINT.BK) – A Thai hotel company
• Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX) – A global copper and gold miner
• Humana Inc. (HUM) – A managed health care company
• Christian Dior SE (CHDRY) – A French fashion house
• The Indian Hotels Co. Ltd. (INDHOTEL.NS) – A leading Indian hotel company
• Adidas AG (ADDYY) – A leading brand of athletic shoes and leisurewear

As the chart below shows, these six stocks delivered triple-digit gains during the early years of the dot-com bust, while highfliers like Cisco, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN),and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) tumbled more than 50%.

I am not expecting history to repeat itself exactly during the current AI boom, but I do expect it to rhyme. Specifically, I expect many non-AI stocks to outperform their AI counterparts over the next few years.

Obviously, we do not want to ignore dynamic, promising AI plays. But while we remain alert to opportunities of that sort, we must also remain alert to opportunities that are unabashedly non-AI.

These opportunities have long-term resilience, even with current market volatility.

Doubling Down on AI Survivors

Several of the AI Survivor companies that I recommend would fall under the banner of “consumer discretionary.” That means they sell nonessential products to consumers, like luxury goods and pricey eats and drinks, which are typically the first casualties of a serious economic contraction.

Although the U.S. economy is not in a sharp collapse, it is experiencing a slowdown. And current geopolitical tensions, particularly in the Middle East, are creating volatility

To be sure, the Iranian conflict is a massive, and serious, risk factor – not just for AI Survivor stocks, but for the entire global economy. The longer these tensions last, the greater the economic fallout.

Thankfully, the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday. Markets experienced a “relief rally,” but the ceasefire and recovery remain fragile. And turnaround plays, like AI Survivors, do not always turn around immediately.

Take Dutch Bros. (BROS), for example. The $7 lattes from this drive-thru coffee chain will certainly attract fewer eager buyers if the U.S. economy slips on a banana peel.

But any recent negative performance is not a major outlier. Although BROS (a recommendation at my Fry’s Investment Report service) has fallen somewhat more than the overall market year-to-date (YTD), most U.S. stocks have posted negative returns YTD.

For example, Tesla Inc. (TSLA), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), and Oracle Corp. (ORCL) have all dropped more than 20% YTD, far exceeding the losses of my AI Survivor holding.

Nevertheless, I recommend staying the course with AI Survivor stocks like Dutch Bros.

The Oregon-based company has a phenomenal business model because it is even more capital-light than its rivals. As a drive-thru coffee shop, locations have no hot kitchens, no public bathrooms, and no inside seating areas. And each of its drive-thrus is a profit-spinning machine.

On the fundamental level, similar popular food service companies succeed simply because people like the product. People will drive for miles for the food. And don’t you dare criticize any of these popular restaurants in front of their fans.

I continue to believe that AI Survivors offer exceptional long-term opportunity – and have the strength to weather both AI and geopolitical volatility.

The Opportunity That Outlasts the Chaos

While none of us can predict what will happen next in the global landscape, we know that AI will continue to entrench itself in our everyday lives, even after the current conflict in the Middle East.

The current shift in AI sentiment may influence how the technology is used, but not if it’s used. Even as brands add disclaimers distancing themselves from AI in consumer-facing content, investment in AI remains constant.

What’s changing is how and where companies choose to apply it.

And how much we humans want to interact with it.

As AI becomes increasingly ubiquitous and invasive, we will crave interactions that exclude digital participation. Take it from The Salty Otter Sports Grill.

You can read all of my research on AI Survivors – and access my non-AI recommendations – at Fry’s Investment Report.

Tomorrow, I will be releasing my April monthly issue, where I’ll discuss other types of stocks with compelling risk-reward profiles well-positioned for volatility ahead. So, be sure to join me at Fry’s Investment Report ahead of its release.

Click here to learn more.

Regards,

Eric Fry

The post We’re Not Done With AI – We’re Playing It Differently appeared first on InvestorPlace.

After World War II, the United States built a system: the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, the Navy securing global trade routes, and American institutions setting the rules of commerce.

It was influence without occupation. Control without colonies. Power expressed through systems rather than force.

In other words, America ran the world while pretending it didn’t.

That era is ending.

Over the past several months – war with Iran, pressure on Venezuela, the Greenland gambit, tariffs, and aggressive economic nationalism – the United States has stopped pretending.

What looks like a series of disconnected events is something much bigger: a shift toward resource sovereignty – a world where nations prioritize control of energy, materials, and supply chains over maintaining a shared global system.

The mask of Pax Americana hasn’t just slipped. It’s been removed.

In its place, a more explicit model is becoming clear – one we’re calling Imperium Americanum.

And the investment implications are enormous.

From Pax Americana to Resource Sovereignty

The post-World War II liberal international order was American power expressed through institutions.

The U.S. built the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and NATO not just out of generosity, but because managing the system through institutions was cheaper – and more effective – than managing it directly.

In exchange, countries made a bargain: accept American dominance, hold American dollars, buy American debt, and, in return, enjoy access to American markets, American security guarantees, and the general stability of a U.S.-enforced global trading system.

And for decades, it worked. Global trade expanded. Hundreds of millions were lifted out of poverty. And direct great-power conflict remained rare.

But it always rested on three foundational assumptions that the world took for granted (which I’ve borrowed from Louis-Vincent Gave’s astute insight):

Those assumptions are now under significant strain.

The Three Assumptions That Held the System Together – Now Failing

The first cracked in 2022, when the U.S. froze Russia’s dollar reserves – an act that revealed dollar holdings are a conditional promise, revocable at Washington’s discretion. 

The second broke when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and cheap drones challenged the effectiveness of the world’s most powerful navy.

And the third absorbed a major blow from tariff regimes that weaponized market access – as well as the Greenland takeover threat – which made clear that the U.S. is now willing to openly coerce even its closest allies.

You can see the shift in something as simple as energy reserves. South Korea – a close U.S. ally operating under the old assumptions – entered the Iran crisis with roughly 10 days of natural gas. China – less reliant on those assumptions – entered with closer to 50. One system optimized for efficiency in a stable global order. The other for resilience in a world where access can be cut off.

In other words, South Korea trusted the system. China prepared for its failure.

That shift in thinking is now driving policy.

The Resource Sovereignty Doctrine Explained

What has replaced the old order? A Resource Sovereignty Empire, unified by the ideology of “America First.”

This doctrine asserts that American power should be deployed not to maintain a global system that benefits everyone, but to secure, for America alone, the strategic resources necessary for true national independence. 

Energy independence. Financial independence. Technological independence. Food independence. 

The goal is to make the United States so comprehensively self-sufficient that no adversary can threaten American society through supply chain denial, energy cutoffs, or financial warfare.

If we consider the acquisition targets through this lens, the apparent chaos starts to look like a coherent map:

• Venezuela – light sweet crude oil in the Western Hemisphere, under Monroe Doctrine geography, available to replace Middle Eastern supply that geopolitical risk has made unreliable.
• Greenland – rare earth minerals essential for technological independence, plus Arctic shipping lanes that become strategic as climate change opens the north, plus denial of that territory to China and Russia.
• Iran – regional energy dominance, Hormuz leverage, and Trump has stated explicitly that post-conflict oil access is an objective.
• Canada – energy corridor control, fresh water (the most underappreciated resource in this framework), and supply chain integration on American terms rather than sovereign Canadian ones.
• Tariffs – not trade policy; industrial sovereignty policy. The explicit goal is to rebuild domestic manufacturing capacity in semiconductors, batteries, steel, and pharmaceuticals. The economic inefficiency is part of the tradeoff. You are paying a sovereignty premium.

This is not an empire that wants to govern foreign peoples or plant flags on foreign soil. It wants the resources without the administrative headache. It is imperialism updated for the 21st century – extraction without occupation, dominance without governance. Whether that proves more or less stable than classical empire is an open question. 

But critically, this ideology has domestic political legs. “We are securing American independence” is a story American voters will accept across party lines. The specific tactics may shift with administrations. The strategic direction will not. 

For this reason, we don’t view this as a four-year Trump trade but, rather, a decade-long structural regime change.

Resource Sovereignty and Its Economic Consequences

Why Resource Sovereignty Drives Structural Inflation

For the past three decades, the single greatest deflationary force was the efficiency of globalized supply chains. 

When you can manufacture anything anywhere on Earth and ship it cheaply to wherever demand exists, prices fall. That era is deliberately ending. 

Reshoring, tariffs, supply chain redundancy, resource nationalism – none of these are free. They all add cost. And those costs don’t go away when the next administration takes office. It’s inflation driven by design. 

You’re paying more because the system is being rebuilt to be less efficient – and more secure. The Federal Reserve cannot fix it with interest rate hikes because it isn’t demand-driven. Structurally elevated inflation is becoming embedded in the system.

What It Means for the U.S. Dollar

The dollar’s reserve status was always a bargain: we provide security and open markets, you hold our currency. As America rescinds that bargain, rational actors reduce their dollar exposure at the margin. 

Foreign central banks will begin to hold more gold, more energy, more physical commodities, and fewer U.S. Treasuries. That means less natural demand for American debt – which, combined with large U.S. deficits to fund military and industrial policy, means persistently elevated long-term interest rates. 

The bond market may look broken, but it’s just repricing in a world where the implicit global subsidy to U.S. borrowing costs is slowly being withdrawn.

How Resource Sovereignty Is Splitting the Global Economy

The single most consequential macro implication of Imperium Americanum is the fragmentation of the integrated global economy into competing blocs. 

Trade within blocs stays robust. Trade between blocs becomes expensive, politicized, and subject to weaponization at any moment. That means the correlation structures that underpin modern portfolio theory – the reason investors hold a globally diversified portfolio – break down. Assets that served as diversifiers stop doing so. The 60/40 portfolio, which depended on bonds hedging equity risk in a low-inflation world, faces structural challenges.

How to Invest In This New Order

The old investment playbook was built on the assumption that financial claims were more valuable than physical ones. Own the stock, hold the bond, trust the dollar. 

The new playbook inverts that. In a world organized around resource sovereignty and physical self-sufficiency, owning the actual asset – the energy, the land, the mine, the plant – beats owning a financial claim on it. 

The regime governing which assets are strategic has permanently changed. Act accordingly.

Real Assets Are the New Blue Chips

Energy is the most immediate and direct beneficiary – not as a cyclical trade on oil prices, but as a structural allocation reflecting a world in which physical energy security has replaced financial reserves as the bedrock of national power. 

Western Hemisphere producers – Canadian oil sands, Brazilian offshore, Colombian and Guyanese production – sit inside or adjacent to the Imperium Americanum security perimeter and face meaningfully lower political risk than Middle Eastern alternatives. Refiners are particularly attractive: crack spreads were already elevated before the Iran war for structural reasons, and the destruction of refining infrastructure in the Gulf means they stay wide regardless of what happens in the Strait of Hormuz.

Uranium and nuclear fit this doctrine perfectly. Energy independence requires baseload power that doesn’t depend on imported fossil fuels or Chinese solar panels. Nuclear is the only technology that delivers that at scale with domestically available fuel. As such, the political tailwinds are the strongest they have been for this industry in decades.

Critical minerals and rare earths are the longest-duration play and the most underowned. Technological independence – the most difficult piece of the Resource Sovereignty framework – cannot be achieved without processing capacity for lithium, cobalt, nickel, and the suite of materials China currently dominates. Greenland’s rare earths are part of the story, but the processing infrastructure is the bottleneck and the opportunity. Whoever builds non-Chinese rare earth refining and battery precursor manufacturing in the Western world captures enormous economic rents for a decade or more.

American Industrial Stocks Are the New Market Leaders

The Magnificent Seven thrived in an era of frictionless global markets, cheap Asian manufacturing, and stable supply chains. 

The next era’s defining companies look different. They build and maintain physical infrastructure, manufacture in America, and benefit from reshoring mandates and domestic industrial policy. GE Vernova (GEV), Eaton (ETN), Parker-Hannifin (PH), Emerson (EMR), Caterpillar (CAT) – companies that would have previously seemed boring to a growth investor are now strategic assets in a Resource Sovereignty economy. 

AI infrastructure specifically gets a tailwind that it seems many analysts still underestimate. The Gulf AI buildout is now compromised by geopolitical instability, and the reshoring of compute back to North American power grids directly benefits the power infrastructure, cooling, and connectivity plays that underpin the next generation of AI deployment.

Why Crypto Benefits From Resource Sovereignty

The most counterintuitive implication of Imperium Americanum? It is powerfully bullish for Bitcoin (BTC/USD) and the broader digital asset ecosystem. 

As America weaponizes the dollar system – freezing reserves, imposing sanctions, using financial access as coercive leverage – every nation that gets pushed to the margins of that system increases its demand for a neutral, independent store of value and settlement layer. Bitcoin is one of the few assets that attempts to provide that credibly. 

There’s a feedback loop here. The more aggressively the U.S. uses the dollar system, the more demand grows for alternatives like Bitcoin. At the same time, dollar-backed stablecoins extend U.S. monetary influence through private digital rails – adapting dollar dominance to a more fragmented world.

Losers May Already Be In Your Portfolio

Global consumer discretionary trades are structurally compromised. The business model of brands like Nike (NKE), for example – design in America, manufacture cheaply in Asia, sell globally – is directly at odds with the new doctrine. 

Tariffs compress margins. Reshoring mandates increase costs. The entire category was priced for a world of frictionless globalization that no longer exists.

Traditional enterprise Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) faces a double threat: AI disruption and global market fragmentation. Software sold into a unified global economy is a very different business than software sold into politically fragmented, regulated blocs where data sovereignty and geopolitical alignment govern purchasing decisions.

And emerging market exporters dependent on U.S. market access – i.e. South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam – now operate in a world where that access is conditional on political alignment, technology transfer, and resource cooperation. The rules-based order they were once priced for is gone.

The Shift to Resource Sovereignty Is Already Underway

Louis-Vincent Gave, one of the sharpest macro minds in global finance, has spent the past several weeks methodically documenting the death of the three foundational assumptions that governed global portfolios for decades. 

His conclusion is clear: the world that existed before is not coming back, not even if the U.S. and Iran sign a peace deal, tariffs are even partially rolled back, or the next administration is more conventionally internationalist. 

The underlying architecture has shifted. Governments know it. Central banks know it. The futures market is beginning to price it. But most retail investors have no idea.

Pax Americana – the liberal international order built on American benevolence, naval supremacy, and dollar hegemony – is being deliberately dismantled and replaced with an explicit, unapologetic Resource Sovereignty Empire unified by the ideology of America First. This is the most significant geopolitical and economic regime change since World War II. 

Portfolios built for the old world will underperform in the new one. The time to restructure is now, not after the consensus catches up.

Retire the 60/40 as your mental model. Raise your structural allocation to real assets and energy. Own the physical infrastructure of the new doctrine rather than financial claims on the old one. And position for a decade of structural inflation rather than the disinflation that made bonds a reliable hedge. 

The disguise has been dropped. The investment implications are enormous – and the window to act before the market fully reprices is closing.

The Bottom Line

In some cases, that repricing is immediate.

Because this shift is already moving markets – through direct government action.

Over the past few months, Washington hasn’t just talked about resource sovereignty. It has started writing checks – taking equity stakes in strategic companies tied to rare earths, semiconductors, and energy infrastructure.

And every time it does, the same thing happens: Stocks explode higher – sometimes doubling or tripling overnight.

That’s what happens when the most powerful buyer in the world steps into the market.

And right now, the opportunity isn’t in reacting to those moves but anticipating them.

I’ve put together a full breakdown of what Washington is targeting next – and how to get positioned before the next wave hits.

Don’t wait until the next press release drops. By then, it’s too late.

Find out which stocks are on Uncle Sam’s shopping list.

The post The 60/40 Portfolio Was Built for a World That No Longer Exists appeared first on InvestorPlace.

As I write on Wednesday, the markets are surging.

The Dow has jumped more than 1,200 points, the S&P 500 is up 2.5%, and the Nasdaq has rocketed more than 3% higher.

Meanwhile, oil prices are doing the opposite – plunging 16% on the day.

It’s all due to the two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran reached last night, with roughly 90 minutes to spare before President Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline.

If you read yesterday’s Digest, you know how close we came to the edge…

Trump had set a hard deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. forces had already struck military targets on Kharg Island the night before. Trump had posted an ominous warning on Truth Social: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

Then, at approximately 6:30 p.m., came the post that avoided the worst.

How the deal came together

Here’s what Trump posted on Truth Social:

Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks.

Pakistan, which has been leading negotiations throughout this conflict, appears to have been the critical last-minute broker.

Prime Minister Sharif had publicly urged Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks to allow diplomacy to advance, and he simultaneously asked Iran to reopen the Strait.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council confirmed on Wednesday that it had accepted the ceasefire. Talks are set to begin in Islamabad on Friday.

The language from Tehran came with some pointed caveats. “This does not signify the termination of the war,” Iran’s statement read. “Our hands remain upon the trigger, and should the slightest error be committed by the enemy, it shall be met with full force.”

Meanwhile, the Strait itself remains a complicated question…

Iran’s foreign minister confirmed that ships may transit the waterway over the next two weeks – but “via coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces and with due consideration of technical limitations.”

Before this conflict, more than 100 ships passed through daily in a decades-old traffic system that required no such coordination. What those “technical limitations” mean in practice is not yet clear.

The U.S. military has halted all offensive operations against Iran, though defensive measures remain in effect. In fact, early this morning, both Israel and the United Arab Emirates sounded missile alerts despite the announced ceasefire – a reminder that in the Middle East, the gap between a declared peace and an actual one can be significant.

Still, the market is rejoicing

Today’s price action tells you everything about how much fear had been priced into assets over recent weeks.

Brent crude has plunged from around $110 to $95 as I write – on pace for its biggest single-day drop since COVID. And West Texas Intermediate is down roughly 16%.

Meanwhile, all three major indexes are surging. And something important is happening that goes beyond a single day’s headlines.

As of yesterday’s close, the S&P was trading below its 200-day moving average – a critical technical line that divides bull market behavior from bear market behavior. Senior market analyst Brian Hunt has written that stocks “below their 200-day moving average are ‘on the wrong side of the tracks.’ It’s the ugly part of town.”

Well, as you can see below, with this morning’s surge, we’re back in the pretty part.

This is big.

Markets that reclaim their 200-day MA after falling below it – especially on heavy volume and a fundamental catalyst – often see sustained follow-through. It’s not guaranteed, but we’re encouraged.

Meanwhile, the bond market is pricing in sunnier skies as well.

Treasury yields are falling as investors bet that lower energy costs could give the Federal Reserve room to cut interest rates later this year – a scenario that had looked increasingly slim just days ago when Brent crude was threatening to push toward $130.

So, is today a time to buy?

Yesterday, we featured our technology expert Luke Lango, editor of Innovation Investor, and his three-scenario framework for how this conflict would resolve.

He had assigned Outcomes 1 and 2 – a deal or a unilateral U.S. withdrawal – a combined probability of 80-85%.

This morning, Luke is calling it clearly: we got the TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). Better still, in his view, it’s not a tactical pause – it’s the beginning of the end of the conflict.

Here’s Luke:

TACO Tuesday delivered. Trump “chickened out” last night with an apocalypse-averting Truth Social post that we think marks the beginning of the end of the Iran War.

We didn’t just get a TACO last night — we got the TACO. The big one. The one that ends the war.

In our view, the war is now effectively over. The AI bull market resumes today. And it is time to deploy the dry powder.

Luke’s confidence in that call rests on a detailed reading of Trump’s actual language – not just the headline.

He walks through it (Trump’s posts in bold):

• “We have already met and exceeded all Military objectives.” This is the victory declaration. Trump is publicly stating — on the record, with hundreds of ReTruths — that the military mission is complete…
• “Double sided CEASEFIRE.” This is not a pause, not a delay, not a suspension pending review. A ceasefire is a mutual agreement to stop fighting.
• “A 10 point proposal from Iran… almost all points agreed.” Iran came back with its own proposal. The U.S. considers it a workable basis. This is a deal being consummated, not a delay being manufactured.
• “Longterm PEACE with Iran and PEACE in the Middle East.” Trump is framing this as his legacy foreign policy achievement. You don’t frame a tactical delay as a legacy achievement.

In light of this, Luke is recommending that his subscribers buy the dip.

He sent out a handful of Buy Alerts this morning – but with a specific focus: AI and high-growth names only. Not the broader economy.

He writes that oil prices will fall, but not to pre-war levels like $65. It’ll be low enough to recharge AI stocks but not revitalize the flagging U.S. consumer.

Back to Luke on how this war has changed the investment landscape:

The bifurcation in markets becomes permanent as a result of this war. 

The AI Boom and other high-growth investment themes are the stocks we want to own as the fear premium comes out and the fundamental premium comes back in. 

The rest of the economy will continue to struggle.

For subscribers of Innovation Investor looking for Luke’s specific positioning guidance, click here to access this morning’s new recommendations. And to learn more about joining Luke in Innovation Investor, click here.

Why we’re mostly – but not entirely – celebrating

I agree with Luke’s analysis, and I’m most encouraged by the idea of Trump wanting to secure his legacy as a peacemaker in the region. That’s a significant motivator for keeping this ceasefire alive.

Still, this is the Middle East. And two weeks is a short runway.

That doesn’t rain on today’s rally. The ceasefire is real, the market reaction is rational, and the technical picture has meaningfully improved.

But if you’re buying today, it’s worth a moment of forethought: are you making a more speculative trade you’ll want to exit if the next two weeks disappoint? Or are you adding a longer-term holding you’ll keep even if volatility returns?

Knowing the answer – and your exit plan – before you pull the trigger today is the best way to sidestep potential regret tomorrow.

The bottom line

It’s a big day…

The ceasefire that few thought would arrive in time actually did, and the markets are responding accordingly.

We’ll be watching the Islamabad talks closely when they begin Friday, and we’ll keep you updated as the picture develops.

But for now, let’s take a breath and appreciate the fact that the worst-case scenario didn’t happen.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

P.S. One thing we’re hearing more and more from readers lately…

“It feels like the market is moving faster than ever.”

And they’re right. Between AI-driven moves and sharp reversals, the old buy-and-hold approach is getting harder to rely on by itself. That’s why our colleagues at Stansberry Research just put together a new event, Market Tremors 2026, focused on a different approach — one built around identifying short-term opportunities and acting on them quickly using alternative data.

It’s a very different mindset… but one that may be better suited for today’s market environment. If you’ve been feeling that shift, it’s worth checking out.

The post Stocks to Buy As the War Pauses appeared first on InvestorPlace.

A little friendly competition keeps things interesting.

Earlier this week, I sat down with my colleague Louis Navellier to debate one question: Was selling Nvidia a mistake?

We took on that question during Sunday’s Navellier Market Buzz, the YouTube videocast he hosts with his daughter Crystal.

We covered energy, window dressing, and AI… before getting to the big question:

I recommended selling Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) last summer, but Louis didn’t.

So, who made the right call?

What might surprise you is that the answer isn’t as simple as “Louis” or “Eric.”

In fact, it reveals something far more important about how to navigate AI stocks right now…

What follows is a short exchange that reveals how Louis and I see the market differently.

Plus, I reveal three stocks I believe are best positioned for what comes next.

Click the play button below to watch now.

Now, Louis and I don’t always see eye to eye, especially when it comes to a stock like Nvidia. But that’s what makes our conversation so valuable.

You get two different ways of looking at the same market. I look at big-picture trends that drive huge, multiyear moves in entire sectors of the market. On the other hand, Louis focuses on the stocks already showing strong fundamentals and momentum.

Our different strategies have both demonstrably produced massive gains over different timeframes and market cycles.

There is no one way to beat the market. But whatever system you choose, you need discipline. Here are my best tips to exercise this practice…

How Smart Investors Stay Disciplined

A disciplined investor is one who honestly evaluates both risk and reward, and then sets a long-term course toward wealth creation.

If we keep our eyes on the prize, we can hitch our financial future to the engines of progress, rather than being run over by them.

In practical terms, I believe you should stay disciplined in these five tactics…

1. Own Businesses, Not “Tickers” – Disciplined investors insist on buying businesses with formidable competitive moats, not “story stocks” that are trying to dig a moat with a garden trowel.

2. Respect Both Promise and Peril – AI is creating massive winners… but also pricing in perfection (as we’ve seen with Nvidia). The disciplined investor plans for both.

3. Think in Years, Not Days – The disciplined investor looks past the noise and insists on a longer timeframe. Wealth is not built in days or weeks. It is built in years, even decades.

4. Diversify Without Diluting – In an AI-driven age, diversification might mean balancing high-growth innovators with stalwarts in energy, infrastructure, or healthcare.

5. Refuse the Seduction of Fads – The range of compelling investment opportunities extends far beyond the most faddish AI companies. Disciplined investors should hunt for opportunity across the four AI categories I’ve identified: Builders, Enablers, Appliers, and Survivors.

And it requires knowing exactly what to buy, what to sell, and when.

That is why, in my free “Sell This, Buy That” broadcast, I reveal four stocks to sell before they stumble — including Nvidia itself.

And more importantly, three stocks positioned to benefit from the next phase of the AI boom… including one critical supplier to data centers that most investors have never heard of.

I’m sharing all of this with you today, free of charge. All you have to do is click here to access my special broadcast… and put disciplined investing into action.

Good investing!

Regards,

Eric Fry

P.S. To see more of Louis’ Market Buzz videos, click here to subscribe to his YouTube channel.

The post I Sold Nvidia. Louis Navellier Didn’t. Who Was Right? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Not long after, one of the most famous AI companies on Earth – one targeting a $1 trillion market cap – will follow it out the door. 

Another AI titan will be close on its heels, in what could be the second-biggest IPO deal ever. 

And a defense-tech unicorn is lining up behind all of them.

Altogether, more than $3.5 trillion in potential market value could hit public markets in a matter of months. For context, the entire U.S. IPO market raised about $469 billion over the past decade.

This would already rank as one of the most consequential IPO windows in history.

But something just changed that could make it far more explosive.

On March 30, 2026, Nasdaq introduced a new fast entry rule that allows massive IPOs to enter the Nasdaq-100 in as little as 15 trading days.

That single change could pull billions in forced institutional buying forward into the first two weeks of trading.

The Nasdaq Fast Entry Rule Explained

Nasdaq’s rule change just flipped the script on how mega-cap companies enter its flagship index. 

Under the old rules, even a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars had to sit on the sidelines for at least three months after its IPO before it could even be considered for Nasdaq-100 inclusion. Sometimes, the wait stretched closer to a year. That seasoning period existed to ensure price stability – reasonable in theory, maddening in practice for a company that debuted at a trillion-dollar valuation.

But the index’s new “Fast Entry” rule scraps all of that. 

Starting May 1, 2026, any newly listed company whose market cap ranks within the top 40 Nasdaq-100 constituents – a threshold currently around $100 billion – can be evaluated for index inclusion as early as its seventh trading day. If it qualifies, it joins the index after just 15 trading days; no seasoning required. 

Nasdaq also eliminated its 10%-minimum public float requirement alongside this change. This is crucial because every one of the mega-IPOs expected this year will debut with a tightly controlled float, likely in the 3% to 8% range. Without this tweak, the companies might not have even been eligible despite their gargantuan market caps. 

In one move, Nasdaq eliminated both the waiting period and the eligibility barrier that would have kept the biggest IPOs in history off the index entirely.

How the Nasdaq Fast Entry Rule Triggers Forced Buying

The rule change is interesting on its own terms. What it unleashes is the reason every serious investor should be paying attention.

The Nasdaq-100 is tracked by over 200 investment products with more than $600 billion in assets, including the $300 billion-plus Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) – one of the most widely held ETFs on Earth. When a company joins the index, every single fund tracking it must buy that stock. It is mechanical, non-discretionary, and enormous in scale.

Previously, that tsunami of forced institutional buying didn’t arrive until at least three months post-IPO. By then, the initial excitement had faded, early flippers had already exited, and the stock had often settled into a choppy price-discovery phase. Retail investors who bought on day one were frequently stranded while the real buying pressure still sat on a three-month delay.

Under the new rules, that same tsunami hits just two weeks later. The forced buying wave now compresses directly into the post-IPO window — right when the stock is most visible, most talked-about, and most in need of structural support. For a company debuting at $1.75 trillion, that’s an extraordinary amount of institutional firepower arriving within the first two weeks of trading.

And it isn’t just Nasdaq. The S&P 500 – with $24 trillion benchmarked to it – is also considering fast-track inclusion rule changes of its own. 

If both indexes move quickly on these IPOs, the combined forced-buying pressure from passive funds alone could be unlike anything the markets have ever seen concentrated around a single public debut.

Why the 2026 AI IPO Wave Could Be Unlike Anything Before

The second half of 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most consequential periods in the history of public markets. 

These companies are in active IPO preparation; one has already filed. Investment banks are salivating. The Nasdaq fast-entry rules go live May 1, just in time for a summer listing season that could break records.

This is the AI IPO Bonanza. And the fast-tracking rule just made it dramatically more exciting for investors who are paying attention.

For most of the past decade, the smartest money in the world – the Andreessen Horowitzes, the Tiger Globals, the sovereign wealth funds – got to feast on the early-stage growth of companies like these while ordinary investors watched from the sidelines. By the time a company went public, the 1,000x returns were already captured. Public investors were left in the dust.

But the rules of engagement have shifted: there are now publicly accessible vehicles that provide exposure to these companies before they hit the tape. 

Closed-end funds. Actively managed ETFs with Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) structures. Venture-focused investment vehicles with direct stakes in the very companies about to go public. 

All have proliferated rapidly in anticipation of the incoming IPO tidal wave. Investors willing to do their homework can access this pre-IPO window through several such vehicles – though with an important caveat: some of these products have already gone parabolic in anticipation of the listings, trading at extreme premiums to their underlying asset values. One recently traded at 16x its net asset value. 

Buying enthusiasm is one thing. Paying 16x for it is a different calculation entirely. Choose your vehicles carefully.

Don’t Be the Exit Liquidity

The fast-entry rule is a genuine structural tailwind. But it doesn’t guarantee that every investor who buys on IPO day gets rich. 

Index inclusion triggers forced buying from passive funds – but passive funds aren’t buying because they love the stock. They’re buying because they have to. And often, the people they’re buying from are the insiders, venture capitalists, and early employees who have been waiting years for exactly this liquidity event.

That dynamic is worth understanding clearly before you buy. The fast-entry rule compresses the timeline, which is good for everyone who owned the stock before the IPO. For investors buying at the IPO price or above, the real question is whether the valuation holds at that level – and whether the post-inclusion buying pressure outweighs the selling from insiders finally getting their liquidity.

The best way to avoid becoming exit liquidity is to be positioned before the IPO, in vehicles that still reflect rational valuations relative to their underlying holdings. 

The question is how to do that without overpaying.

Pre-IPO vehicles exist – but as we noted, some are already trading at 16x their net asset value. That’s not avoiding exit liquidity. That’s paying a premium to become it sooner.

We’ve identified one opportunity that appears to avoid that problem. It’s a way to stake a claim in OpenAI – the most anticipated public debut of this generation – at a rational valuation, for under $10, before the IPO is even announced.

When OpenAI goes public at an expected $1 trillion valuation and earns fast-track Nasdaq-100 inclusion, the forced buying mechanics we’ve described will arrive fast and at enormous scale. The investors best positioned for that moment will be the ones who got in before the institutions had to.

The window is open. It won’t stay that way.

Click here to see the pre-IPO play before it closes.

The post Trillion-Dollar IPOs Are Coming – But the Rules Just Changed appeared first on InvestorPlace.

As I write Tuesday, we’re just hours away from President Donald Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz.

For weeks, Trump has issued a series of ultimatums demanding Iran reopen the Strait – the narrow waterway through which roughly 20% of the world’s seaborne oil flows every day.

Each prior deadline came and went with some diplomatic cover to justify an extension. This time, Trump set a hard deadline of 8 p.m. tonight – and warned that failure to comply would trigger massive U.S. strikes on Iran’s power plants, bridges and civilian infrastructure.

Last night, U.S. forces struck dozens of military targets on Kharg Island – the small island off Iran’s Gulf coast through which roughly 90% of the country’s crude oil is exported. Importantly, U.S. officials confirmed the strikes did not target oil infrastructure – hitting military installations only. The administration appears to be holding Iran’s energy assets as a final bargaining chip.

Then, this morning, Trump posted this on Truth Social:

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.

I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.

He added that tonight would be “one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard responded by warning it would “deprive the U.S. and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years” if further strikes occur.

Officials called on young Iranians to form human chains around the country’s power plants. Ceasefire talks, Tehran says, remain at a “critical, sensitive stage” – though Iran has explicitly rejected any temporary ceasefire, demanding a permanent end to the war.

With tonight’s deadline looming, the question is whether Trump will follow through on strikes against power plants and civilian infrastructure – a genuinely new and more serious step than anything we’ve seen so far.

What does this mean for investors?

Yesterday, our technology expert Luke Lango, editor of Innovation Investor, laid out a framework for thinking through this moment. His analysis has only grown more urgent since he wrote it.

Luke’s starting point was President Trump’s Easter Sunday ultimatums and how this deadline felt different from those that came before. His conclusion: this would resolve in one of three ways – not another extension.

Here’s Luke:

Outcome 1 — Deal: Some variant of a ceasefire framework gets accepted… Hormuz reopening timed to the verification period. Both sides claim victory. War ends.

Outcome 2 — TACO withdrawal: Trump pulls the U.S. out unilaterally without a formal agreement. Declares objectives achieved — nuclear program destroyed, navy decimated, missile stockpiles reduced, military command decapitated.

Outcome 3 — Power plant strikes and escalation: The deadline is real, Iran doesn’t move, Trump executes. The worst-case scenario that markets have been pricing as a tail becomes the base case.

Luke assigned Outcomes 1 and 2 a combined probability of 80-85% when he wrote that yesterday morning.

But the Kharg Island strikes, Trump’s “whole civilization” post, and Iran’s refusal to budge suggest the needle has moved…

We may already be inside Outcome 3.

What Outcome 3 means – and what to do about it

Back to Luke:

If Trump executes power plant strikes — and oil gaps to $130-140 on the open — the calculus changes dramatically.

The consumer, already stretched to near-breaking point, cannot absorb another $20-30 per barrel on a sustained basis without genuine demand destruction. We would be looking at an economy that tips from recession risk into actual recession with a lag of 60-90 days.

In that scenario: the bullish thesis gets paused, not abandoned.

The AI infrastructure fundamental case remains intact… But the holding period through a recession extends from months to a year or more.

We would move to maximum defensiveness — heavy cash, energy overweight, hard assets — and wait for the Outcome 3 bottom before redeploying into AI infrastructure at even more dislocated prices.

On that note, West Texas Intermediate crude has jumped more than 2% as I write on Tuesday afternoon. Brent crude trades near $110.

Meanwhile, all three major stock indexes are down, though off their lows this morning.

The market is on edge but not yet panicking. But that may change tonight.

Why the U.S. consumer can’t handle much more of this

Here’s what makes tonight’s deadline so economically urgent – and why Luke believes the pressure to reach a deal is intense on both sides of the negotiating table.

Yesterday brought the March ISM Services report, and it was genuinely troubling.

Here’s Luke with the details:

This is the most alarming U.S. economic data of the entire conflict.

Not uncomfortable. Not concerning. Alarming.

The headline index fell to 54 – a 2.1-point drop from February – posting its biggest one-month decline in a year. The Prices Paid component spiked to 70.7 – the highest reading since October 2022, when inflation was running above 8%. That single component jumped 7.7 points in one month, its largest surge in nearly 14 years.

But the biggest eyecatcher was the Employment Index, which collapsed from 51.8 to 45.2. As Luke explains, that’s not a slowdown reading. It’s a recession reading:

The ISM Services Employment index has only been at or below 45 during three periods in modern economic history: the Dot-Com crash, the Global Financial Crisis, and COVID.

Not the 2018 rate scare. Not Liberation Day 2025.

The three actual recessions of the last 25 years.

Put those two numbers together – a Prices Paid spike and an Employment collapse – and Luke says we have “the textbook definition of stagflation printing in real time.”

This puts the Fed in a terrible bind. Cutting rates into a Prices Paid spike accelerates inflation. Hiking into 45.2 Employment risks turning a severe contraction into a full collapse.

So, what’s the fix?

Back to Luke:

Only ending the oil shock — which is not in the Fed’s toolkit but is very much in Trump’s — addresses both problems simultaneously.

Which is why Luke believes the political math is becoming impossible to ignore:

ISM Services Employment at 45.2 flows into May and June payrolls with a two to four-month lag.

If the war continues and oil stays at $110+, the May and June payroll reports could print negative — actual job losses — during the exact window when midterm campaigning reaches full intensity.

Negative job prints with $5 gas is not a difficult political environment to analyze. It is a catastrophic one.

In other words, the potential economic fallout may be our best shot at preventing greater escalation tonight than any diplomatic proposal.

The bottom line

What happens tonight could have a profound impact on our economy and stock market.

If the 8 p.m. deadline passes without a deal, resulting in infrastructure strikes, the next several days will be volatile and uncomfortable for most portfolios.

On the flip side, if a last-minute deal is reached, Luke says it will trigger “the AI infrastructure re-rating that we have been waiting for. The Liberation Day playbook executes. Multi-month bull market in AI names follows.”

For now, we’ll end by borrowing from how Luke ended his Daily Notes:

Watch [tonight]. The next [24] hours are the most consequential of this entire conflict.

We’ll have a full update in tomorrow’s Digest.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Will the Worst-Case Scenario Unfold Tonight? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

This morning, President Trump posted on Truth Social:

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” 

The president has been escalating his threats over the past few days in the hopes of convincing the Iranian leadership to cut a deal and end the conflict.

Now, as I have said repeatedly, President Trump likes to make everybody very uncomfortable during negotiations.

But when the president uses language like that, investors are going to focus on geopolitics. They are going to watch oil prices, the Strait of Hormuz and every new headline out of the Middle East.

I get it.

And that is happening at the same time we are heading into a critical stretch for inflation.

Later this week, we will get fresh readings on the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index and the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Both reports could have a major impact on the market, especially now that higher energy prices are adding a new layer of uncertainty.

So yes, there is a lot for investors to process right now.

I’ll cover both in a later Market 360 issue this week. But right now, the bigger driver of the market is unfolding overseas. So today, I want to briefly discuss the current situation. Then, in order to help you position your portfolio, we’ll take a peek at my latest Stock Grader ratings before I tell you about the bigger shift I think will happen next…

Why Iran Is Driving the Market Right Now

The recent stock rebound has been fueled, in large part, by hopes that tensions in the Middle East may ease.

Investors are watching the situation in Iran very closely – particularly developments in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil transit routes.

There have been renewed hopes for a ceasefire and the reopening of the strait. And as those hopes have increased, so has the market.

However, tensions have escalated again in just the past 24 hours. Ceasefire talks appear to be breaking down, even as a key deadline approaches for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

President Trump has set an 8 p.m. Eastern deadline for Iran to respond – and markets are essentially in a holding pattern as investors wait to see what happens next.

At the same time, the U.S. has stepped up its military response – launching strikes on critical Iranian oil infrastructure tied to a huge portion of the country’s exports. That’s raising the risk of retaliation and the potential for a broader escalation.

Right now, we’re in what I would call the “fog of war,” where uncertainty is high and headlines can shift sentiment in a matter of hours.

In my experience, markets can rebound quickly when war concerns begin to fade – but they can reverse just as fast when tensions escalate.

But there’s another side to this story.

The conflict has already driven energy prices sharply higher. Crude oil has surged above $100 per barrel, and gasoline and diesel prices have spiked nationwide.

That’s beginning to ripple through the broader economy.

Higher energy costs are pushing up shipping expenses, food prices and ultimately, inflation.

Some economists now expect inflation to climb back above 4%, putting the Federal Reserve in a very difficult position.

On the one hand, economic growth is slowing. On the other hand, inflation is heating up again.

That’s why the Fed is effectively stuck on pause.

And that’s also why uncertainty remains elevated, even as stocks attempt to move higher.

How I’m Navigating This Market

When markets are being pulled in two directions like this, it becomes even more important to focus on what’s actually working. When in doubt, you don’t chase headlines – you follow the data.

That’s where my Stock Grader system (subscription required) comes in.

Every week, it cuts through the noise and shows me where institutional money is actually flowing based on real fundamentals and quantitative signals, not headlines.

And I’ve just updated it with the latest data.

So, let’s take a closer look at my latest Stock Grader ratings for 112 big blue-chip stocks. Of those 112 stocks…

• Fourteen stocks were upgraded from Strong (B-rating) to Very Strong (A-rating).
• Thirty stocks were upgraded from Neutral (C-rating) to Strong (B-rating).
• Twelve stocks were upgraded from Weak (D-rating) to Neutral.
• Three stocks were upgraded from Very Weak (F-rating) to Weak.
• Twelve stocks were downgraded from Very Strong to Strong.
• Twenty-two stocks were downgraded from Strong to Neutral.
• Seventeen stocks were downgraded from Neutral to Weak.
• And two stocks were downgraded from Weak to Very Weak.

I’ve listed the first 10 stocks rated as Very Strong below, but you can find a more comprehensive list – including all 112 stocks’ Fundamental and Quantitative Grades – here. Chances are that you have at least one of these stocks in your portfolio, so you may want to give this list a skim and adjust accordingly.

Now, here’s what stands out to me…

Earnings season is right around the corner, folks. A week ago, we were expecting 14% earnings growth for the S&P 500.

Now it’s 17%. That’s how aggressively analysts have been raising their earnings estimates. It’s the highest in five years, according to FactSet.

This tells me one thing. This market is not broken.

If the analysts are raising their estimates, the stock market’s going to go up. Period.

So, I don’t want you to worry, because there’s a silver lining, critical path we can follow as investors. If we invest in fundamentally superior stocks with strong forecasted sales and earnings, positive analyst revisions and good earnings surprises and guidance, the rest should take care of itself.

That’s the formula. And the list above is a good start.

The Bigger Shift in the Market

Remember, our best defense is a strong offense.

I don’t want you to worry about the latest news from Iran or President Trump. We’re on the verge of another great earnings announcement season.

I know you don’t like all the distractions, but with any luck, this won’t be a concern for the market a month from now. It’ll be old news.

In the meantime, we’re heading into a completely new phase of the AI boom, and I do not expect all stocks to benefit equally.

A handful of companies look poised to gain momentum as this shift accelerates. Others may struggle to keep up.

And because of all of the market distractions, hardly anyone is paying attention…

That’s why I’ve just released a brand-new presentation today.

In it, I explain the deeper AI reset I see unfolding now, why it could reshape the market in the months ahead and which kinds of stocks I believe investors should own – and avoid – as this next phase begins.

So if you want to stay ahead of this shift instead of reacting after the fact, I urge you to watch this presentation now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The Editor hereby discloses that as of the date of this email, the Editor, directly or indirectly, owns the following securities that are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned in, the essay set forth below:

Alamos Gold Inc. (AGI), DT Midstream, Inc. (DTM) and Phillips 66 (PSX)

The post Quant Ratings Updated on 112 Stocks appeared first on InvestorPlace.

A benchmark calculation completed by Google’s Willow quantum chip in roughly five minutes would take the world’s fastest classical supercomputer an estimated 10 septillion years. That’s 10 followed by 24 zeros. The universe is only 13.8 billion years old.

That number describes a fundamental shift in what computers can do – and by extension, what becomes possible in medicine, finance, defense, logistics, and artificial intelligence.

The Quantum Computing Market Opportunity Is Massive

How big is the quantum computing market? Estimates vary depending on who’s doing the math, but the broad consensus from serious research firms is that this is a multi-hundred-billion-dollar industry in the making.

McKinsey projects quantum technologies could generate up to $97 billion in annual global revenue by 2035, with computing accounting for the lion’s share at $72 billion.

Boston Consulting Group puts the addressable market for quantum hardware, software, and services at up to $170 billion by 2040. 

Jefferies, taking the widest view, sees the total addressable market approaching $198 billion by the same year.

The verticals driving this demand are enormous: 

• Pharmaceutical companies that could slash drug development timelines from a decade to months
• Financial institutions running risk models and portfolio optimization at unprecedented speed
• Defense contractors simulating complex battlefield scenarios in real time
• Energy companies optimizing power grids
• Logistics firms solving routing problems that currently require armies of operations researchers

There is no major industry that won’t be fundamentally disrupted if quantum computing delivers on its promise.

The question has never been whether these systems work; it’s whether we can make them reliable enough to matter commercially. 

And that answer, as we’ll get to shortly, is more complicated than the cheerleaders would have you believe.

Top Quantum Computing Companies Leading the Race

The most direct ways to invest in the quantum computing revolution are the pure-play public companies — the ones where quantum isn’t a side project but the entire business:

IonQ: The Revenue Leader In Quantum Computing

Using trapped-ion technology — barium and ytterbium atoms suspended by lasers as their qubits — IonQ (IONQ) has achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, the highest in the industry by a wide margin. It has also expanded beyond quantum computing into networking, sensing, and security – positioning itself as a full-stack quantum platform company. And its pending acquisition of SkyWater Technologies signals serious intent to own the quantum supply chain.

The company generated $130 million in full-year 2025 revenue (up 202% year-over-year) and is expecting $225- to $245 million in FY2026. 

D-Wave: The First Commercial Quantum Player

While the rest of the industry debates when quantum computers will do something useful, D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) is already doing it. 

Its edge lies in its quantum annealing approach: architecturally distinct from gate-model competitors and uniquely suited for optimization problems, which represent one of the largest near-term commercial opportunities in the space.

According to its latest earnings report, “During FY2025, D-Wave recognized revenue from over 135 individual customers encompassing over 70 commercial enterprises, including over two dozen Forbes Global 2000 companies.” Those are paying customers running production workloads across logistics, defense, telecom, manufacturing, and finance – right now.

With a $20-million system sale to Florida Atlantic University, a $10-million Fortune 100 enterprise license, and a 1,500% pipeline expansion planned for 2026, D-Wave is pulling away from the pack in terms of commercial traction.

Rigetti: A Long-Term Quantum Bet

Rigetti Computing (RGTI) is the only pure-play quantum company that controls its own chip fabrication — and the only one whose CEO will tell you plainly when the technology will actually matter.

On the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call, CEO Subodh Kulkarni told investors directly that true quantum advantage is ‘roughly three years away’ — a refreshingly candid admission in an industry that rarely acknowledges inconvenient timelines. 

Rigetti’s differentiator is its chiplet architecture and custom quantum fab (Fab-1), which gives it hardware roadmap control that no other pure-play public company has. 

Rigetti is targeting a 1,000-plus qubit system by the end of 2027 with 99.8% gate fidelity – meaning fewer than one in 500 quantum operations produces an error, a threshold widely considered necessary for running the complex, real-world calculations that justify commercial deployment. With $590 million in cash and no debt, it has the runway to execute. 

Rigetti’s CEO will be the first to tell you this is a 2028-29 investment story. That honesty is, paradoxically, one of the more bullish things about the company.

Big Tech’s Quantum Computing Push

The pure-plays are building the future. But the incumbents have the capital, the talent, and the infrastructure to define it.

IBM (IBM) has the most aggressive quantum roadmap of any large company, targeting verified quantum advantage by the end of 2026 and a fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029.

Alphabet (GOOGL) achieved the landmark ‘below threshold’ error correction with its Willow chip. In other words, adding more qubits now reduces error rates rather than increasing them. 

Microsoft (MSFT) is betting on topological qubits with its Majorana 1 chip. 

Quantinuum — largely owned by Honeywell (HON) — has arguably the most accurate commercial system available today with its Helios machine. 

And Amazon (AMZN) is quietly building quantum cloud infrastructure through its Amazon Braket, giving enterprises a hardware-agnostic on-ramp to quantum without requiring them to bet on a single architecture.

Why Quantum Computing Stocks Exploded In 2024-25

It took one Google chip announcement to turn a decade of quiet laboratory progress into a full-blown market mania. What happened next is a masterclass in how Wall Street prices the future – and what it costs when reality doesn’t move at narrative speed.

The trigger? Google’s December 2024 announcement of the Willow chip. Suddenly, quantum computing went from being considered a future technology to a present reality. 

The stock market, which had largely ignored these companies for years, woke up practically overnight. And the moves were extraordinary. 

IonQ went from roughly $7 per share in early 2024 to nearly $85 by early 2025 – a roughly 12x move in about a year. 

Rigetti went from under $1 to nearly $60, a gain of more than 6,000% from its lows.

D-Wave went from about $1 to over $45. 

These were parabolic, meme-stock-style moves driven by the combination of genuine technical progress, narrative momentum, and an investor base that had just watched AI stocks go vertical and was desperately looking for the next wave.

The technology was genuinely advancing. The long-term thesis was compelling – and remains so. 

But markets tend to reprice the future instantaneously and then wait, impatiently, for reality to catch up. And in the quantum computing space, reality moves at a much more deliberate pace than Wall Street.

The Crash: When the Reality Check Arrived

The catalyst for the reversal came in October 2025, courtesy of Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang — a man whose opinion on computing matters more to tech investors than almost anyone else. 

Huang estimated that practical, widely useful quantum computing was likely still 15 to 30 years away, with 20 years being his central estimate. And the effect on Wall Street was immediate and brutal. 

IonQ fell from $85 to under $30. Rigetti collapsed from nearly $60 to under $15. D-Wave dropped from over $45 to under $15.

In a matter of months, those stocks gave back the majority of their extraordinary gains.

The technology was real. The long-term potential was massive. But the near-term commercial reality did not justify the valuations the market had assigned.

The companies’ financials told the story plainly. 

IonQ — by far the strongest revenue performer in the group — generated $130 million in 2025 revenue against losses around $500 million. 

D-Wave’s full-year 2025 revenue was $24.6 million – alongside losses of $355 million. 

And Rigetti’s Q4 revenue was $1.9 million, down 17.4% year-over-year.

Meanwhile, the Willow chip was completing benchmarks that no commercial customer was paying for. Microsoft’s Majorana 1 was a research prototype. IBM’s fault-tolerant roadmap wasn’t nearing the finish; it runs through 2029.

The gap between the narrative and the revenue wasn’t a crack. It was a chasm. Wall Street found it the same way it always does – by falling in.

What Will Drive the Next Rally In Quantum Computing Stocks

Here is the honest truth: quantum computing stocks are not going to sustain a meaningful recovery until they can point to undeniable, large-scale commercial proof that quantum computers are delivering measurable economic value in the real world – not in labs, press releases, or benchmarks, but in production environments where real businesses are paying real money for real results.

The specific catalysts to watch – which are closer than the current stock prices suggest – include:

The commercial tipping point is coming. When it arrives, these stocks will move fast and hard. The discipline is in waiting for it.

Investment Strategy: When to Buy Quantum Computing Stocks

We want to be unambiguous about where we stand. 

The long-term bull thesis on quantum computing is one of the most compelling investment stories of the next decade. This technology will reshape drug discovery, financial modeling, materials science, logistics, cryptography, and artificial intelligence. The companies building it today are laying the foundation for what could be a $100- to $200 billion industry within 15 years. 

We are enthusiastic, unapologetically bullish long-term investors in this space. But we are not yet advocates for buying these stocks today.

IonQ at $30, Rigetti at $15, D-Wave at $15 – these are dramatically cheaper than they were at the peak. But ‘cheaper than the top’ is not the same as ‘bottomed out.’ Markets don’t find floors based on long-term theses. They find floors based on near-term catalysts that change the narrative. Without a commercial tipping point, these stocks can drift lower for longer than any bull thesis investor is comfortable with.

The cash burn is real, the timelines are long, and the competition from IBM, Google, and Microsoft is intensifying.

The Bottom Line

The quantum playbook, right now, is straightforward: watch for the commercial catalysts outlined above. When one of those catalysts lands, these stocks will bounce hard. 

Let the narrative re-establish itself. Then buy into that momentum with conviction, knowing that the long-term destination is many multiples higher than even the early 2025 peaks.

The future of computing is quantum. The future of the quantum computing trade is patience.

But capital moves toward what can be monetized now.

While quantum is still working toward commercial reality, another shift is already underway – one built on infrastructure that’s already here, scaling and moving capital in real time.

It’s happening at the platform layer.

And historically, that’s where the biggest value accrues. Not at the moment of discovery – but at the point of adoption.

Which leads to a different question…

Where does the capital flowing into AI infrastructure ultimately end up?

One answer is becoming increasingly clear: OpenAI.

Most investors will first encounter it when it goes public – when the story is widely understood and the asymmetry is gone.

We’ve taken a closer look at how that moment could unfold – and how to position before it does.

You can watch the full presentation here.

The post The Quantum Computing Paradox: Brilliant Future, Complicated Present appeared first on InvestorPlace.

It was October 24, 2014…

On stage at the MIT AeroAstro Centennial Symposium, Elon Musk said something that stopped the room:

With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon.

The line ricocheted across headlines for days. And almost immediately, people began picturing the same thing: a rogue superintelligence, hostile and uncontrollable, something like the “Terminator” – a conscious machine that decides humanity is the problem and acts accordingly.

Many smart people take that concern seriously. We’ve covered it in the Digest before.

But I want to suggest something today that I think is more unsettling than the Terminator scenario – because it doesn’t require a rogue superintelligence. In fact, it doesn’t require anything dramatic at all.

It just requires everyone to keep doing exactly what they’re already doing.

The demon we’ve built…but never saw coming

Here’s what makes the Terminator vision almost comforting in a nightmarish way…

It’s a clear enemy.

A conscious machine that wants to destroy us is at least something we can name, resist, and point to, saying, “That’s the threat.”

The demon I’ll describe today has none of those features. It’s simply a structure – a game – where every player is locked into choices that, collectively, produce an outcome that no individual wants.

Economists and game theorists call this the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

The classic version: two suspects are arrested. They’re separated, then each is offered a deal – betray your partner and go free or stay silent and risk the heavier sentence if your partner talks first.

The rational move for is the two suspects to betray the other. But when both betray, both end up worse off than if they’d cooperated.

The problem is that if you cooperate but your partner betrays, you get the harshest sentence of all.

Here’s a visual with the various outcomes:

So, the “safest” bet for each player ends up producing a worse outcome than if they’d worked together.

Now, here’s what I want to show you…

With AI, that same structure is playing out simultaneously at every level of our economy, society, and civilization.

Not in one place. Not in two. Everywhere.

The same game has started – and nobody can stop playing it.

This may not be the same demon that Musk described. But it’s the one we’ve summoned.

Five Prisoner’s Dilemmas, playing out right now

While there are more, let’s look at five of the most significant Prisoner’s Dilemmas today.

One: The geopolitical race

The U.S. and China are locked in a full-speed race toward artificial general intelligence (AGI) – AI that doesn’t just assist human thinking but surpasses it across every domain.

Neither country wants a technology that could be beyond anyone’s ability to control. Both have brilliant thinkers who are concerned about that result. And yet both countries are accelerating toward it.

Why?

Because, logically, if China develops AGI first and the U.S. has stood down, our leaders fear the geopolitical consequences could be catastrophic. So, America must race. And for the same reason, China must race. Neither can afford to be second.

Each country is making what seems to be the most rational choice in its own best interest. But together, those two rational choices may produce the very outcome both are hoping to avoid.

Two: The worker

Your boss has made it clear: use AI. Increase your productivity. Stay competitive.

So, you do. You adopt every tool available, automate the repetitive work, produce more output in less time. You become more valuable to your employer in the short term.

But here’s what you’re also doing: mapping your own job in granular detail so that a future, more intelligent version of AI can replace you.

Every workflow you automate, every task you hand to a model, every process you optimize – you’re demonstrating exactly what your role consists of and how it can be done without you.

The worker who doesn’t incorporate AI loses their job first. The worker who embraces AI loses it last. But the worker who uses AI accelerates the transition toward a robotic workforce for all other human workers coming after him.

The rational choice – protect your position by embracing AI – just kicks the can down the road, while also amplifying the collective AI displacement that’s coming.

Three: The average company

No CEO wants to be the executive who destroyed his company’s margins in the long term. But no CEO can afford to let competitors win in the short term.

So, every CEO will choose to cut costs with AI before the competitor down the street does.

But what happens then? Well, efficiency improves. Quarterly numbers look strong…for a while.

But over time, because every competitor has the same tools at roughly the same price, the gains get competed away. Prices fall to reflect lower costs. Margins compress. The value (what’s left of it) flows to consumers – not the balance sheet, and not shareholders.

No company chose this outcome. Every company caused it.

Four: The AI infrastructure buildout

Right now, the world is financing a historic data center boom – massive scale, enormous debt, all in service of the computing demands AI requires today.

But consider what’s happening inside a hyperscaler like Microsoft (MSFT)…

Its infrastructure division must build at massive scale to support today’s AI or lose ground to the other hyperscalers. Meanwhile, the AI research division must push toward smarter, more efficient models or fall behind. Both choices are rational – but they’re on a collision course…

The better the AI research team does its job, the more it undermines the infrastructure team’s investment. After all, the smarter AI gets, the more likely it will be to design a future AI that needs much less power and energy.

So, the company is simultaneously building an empire…and designing the weapon that destroys it.

We got a preview of this in early 2025, when DeepSeek demonstrated that frontier-level AI performance could be achieved at a fraction of the energy and compute cost that American companies had assumed was necessary. Remember how badly the markets reacted?

What if “getting to AI supremacy first” is its own trap?

If the computing demands of 2029 look nothing like those of 2026, the “winner” may find itself sitting atop billions in debt attached to old AI equipment that the next generation of AI no longer needs.

In this dilemma, the prize for winning may be a sprawling data center empire built for an AI that no longer needs it.

Five: The AI software application layer

One level up from infrastructure are the software companies, the AI-powered tools, and the products built on top of foundational models. This is where much investor excitement has been focused in recent years.

But here’s the trap – and it rhymes closely with the worker’s dilemma.

As AI gets cheaper and more capable, the gap between what a premium software product offers and what a consumer can do with a raw AI model narrows fast.

So, why pay a monthly subscription for an AI software tool when the underlying model it’s built on does nearly the same thing for a fraction of the price – or free?

Just like the worker who maps his job to keep it, the software company will have to cut prices to stay in the game. But these cuts just buy time – while simultaneously accelerating eventual irrelevance. What one company offers cheaply today, five competitors replicate freely tomorrow.

Pricing power evaporates. And yesterday’s premium AI product starts to look more like a utility: essential, widely used and structurally unable to command premium returns.

Here’s what’s critical to see across all five examples…

Every level of the system is running the same program. The government isn’t wrong to race. The company isn’t wrong to cut costs. The worker isn’t wrong to adopt AI. The software company isn’t wrong to lower prices. Each individual decision, evaluated on its own terms, is entirely defensible.

And yet, in the aggregate of those defensible choices, the Prisoner’s Dilemma delivers the outcome no one wanted.

Bottom line: The demon isn’t in any one of these actors. It’s in the structure of the game that we’ve built for ourselves.

Three tragic ironies worth watching

The Prisoner’s Dilemma isn’t the only demon in the room. Alongside it run three tragic ironies – not games with multiple players making rational choices, but situations where the pursuit of a goal contains the seeds of its own defeat.

The economy. If AI is indeed a mass labor disruptor, what happens when human consumers have greatly reduced disposable income?

As I described in our January 3 Digest, AI can do virtually everything better than humans – except one thing. Consume.

But what will drive our economy forward without the same volume of consumer spending from human workers who once had far more disposable income?

Government. If millions lose their jobs, what stops politicians from becoming increasingly dependent on the handful of AI companies that generate the bulk of the remaining taxable economic activity?

Income tax is the lion’s share of federal revenue. So, in an AI-dominant economy where income taxes dry up, do politicians continue to listen to their constituency – or cozy up to the hand that feeds them?

Personal meaning. As we explored in our August 12, 2024 Digest, biologist experimenter John Calhoun gave his mice a perfect utopia – unlimited food, no predators, no struggle – but the population didn’t flourish. It collapsed. He called what he witnessed “the death of the spirit.”

A world where AI does everything and humans do nothing may be efficient…but utterly unlivable.

Will we be able to avoid these tragic ironies?

So, what does all this mean for us as investors?

The Prisoner’s Dilemma structure doesn’t mean nobody wins.

But it does mean most of the players won’t – and that the winners are likely a far smaller group than current market enthusiasm implies.

In the near term, over the next 12 to 24 months, there will be real flashes of opportunity. New products will capture genuine market share. The AI trade will produce real winners in the shorter run, and some will be worth owning beyond that.

And over the next 36 months, we’ll likely see more sustained winners in the infrastructure buildout, even though we expect efficiency-driven headwinds farther out.

But for the ultimate winners of AI, your safest bet is to stay with the foundational layer: the core that makes AI possible. The critical metals. The chip designers. The equipment manufacturers. The specialized fabricators.

To be clear, even these companies aren’t guaranteed winners forever. The same efficiency curve that could eventually threaten today’s infrastructure buildout could ultimately compress their margins too. But here’s the distinction that matters…

They are the last ones the Demon reaches.

The foundational companies sit at the one point in the ecosystem where demand is structurally reinforced by the race itself – whoever wins, whatever it costs, and however it evolves.

And in a field full of difficult bets, “last one standing” is still a bet worth making.

Just this morning, our technology expert Luke Lango, editor of Innovation Investor, published a piece that echoed some of our thoughts and investment rationale.

From Luke:

I won’t pretend this is an easy thing to face. I’d say the appropriate emotional response to the AI [transition] is outrage. 

But the appropriate investment response is cold-eyed pragmatism…

Because investors cannot stop what’s happening – but they can position themselves for it.

Luke urged investors to look at the same foundational layer I’ve just argued for: Nvidia (NVDA), Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), Broadcom (AVGO) are three stocks he named.

But he also walks readers through many prospective winners of the next 12-36 months from the infrastructure layer and related plays.

If you want additional guidance, Luke has been a leading voice in AI investing for years. For his ongoing insights on navigating the AI shift in your portfolio, consider joining him in Innovation Investor. I say with conviction – he’s one of the best in the business.

Coming full circle

Elon Musk was right. We are summoning a demon.

But the demon he described – the rogue, conscious superintelligence – is a threat from the outside. Something we could, in theory, see coming and prepare for.

The demon we’ve built – now at our door – is quieter. It doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t need to.

It arrives through the perfectly rational decisions of governments, companies, workers, and investors – each doing exactly what the situation demands, each contributing to an outcome that nobody, given a genuine choice, would have selected.

No villain. No single wrong decision. It’s just the game, playing out to its conclusion.

So, the question isn’t whether you’re in the game. You are. I am. We all are.

The question is whether you can see it clearly enough to play it wisely.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

(Disclaimer: I own MSFT and AVGO.)

The post AI’s Real “Demon” Has Nothing to Do With Robots appeared first on InvestorPlace.

That’s exactly what happened recently when we closed out the first quarter.

See, at the close of each quarter, we typically see what’s called quarter-end window dressing. This is when money managers make their clients’ portfolios “pretty” by loading up on stocks with the strongest fundamentals.

This time around, my Fundamental A-rated stocks climbed nearly seven times as much as the S&P 500 within the last five trading days.

So, that brings up an important question: What should investors be looking at now?

In this week’s Navellier Market Buzz, I’m joined by my friend and colleague Eric Fry. He’s been in the business almost as long as I have and has an excellent track record with more 10,000% winners than almost anyone in the game.

We talked about the power of quarter-end window dressing, why he’s bullish on energy stocks right now and then we got into a big question I’ve received a lot from my subscribers…

Eric sold NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA), but I didn’t. Who was right? Who made the right call? It’s a fun and interesting exchange that I think will give folks a better understanding of the way we look at the market.

Plus, Eric will reveal his top three stock picks best positioned for this environment.

Click the image below to watch now.

To see more of my videos, click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel. And to learn more about Eric, go here.

Plus, the grades in Stock Grader (subscription required) have been updated this week! Click here to plug in your own stocks and see how they’re rated.

A Fresh Perspective on Where to Invest Next

Now, Eric and I don’t always see eye to eye, especially when it comes to a stock like NVIDIA.

But that’s what makes our conversation so valuable. You get two different ways of looking at the same market.

I focus on the stocks already showing strong fundamentals and momentum. Eric, on the other hand, looks further ahead – figuring out which names investors should avoid and what to own instead.

In fact, he’s already identified several well-known stocks he believes investors should reconsider and paired them with a new set of opportunities he thinks are better positioned for what’s ahead.

If you want to see exactly what Eric is recommending now, I encourage you to check out his latest research presentation.

He walks through what he calls a “sell this, buy that” strategy – what to avoid and what to own instead.

Click here to learn more.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The Editor hereby discloses that as of the date of this email, the Editor, directly or indirectly, owns the following securities that are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned in, the essay set forth below:

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)

The post Eric Fry Sold NVIDIA. I Didn’t. Who Was Right? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

This Week’s Ratings Changes:

Upgraded: Strong to Very Strong

Downgraded: Very Strong to Strong

Upgraded: Neutral to Strong

Downgraded: Strong to Neutral

Upgraded: Weak to Neutral

Downgraded: Neutral to Weak

Upgraded: Very Weak to Weak

Downgraded: Weak to Very Weak

To stay on top of my latest stock ratings, plug your holdings into Stock Grader, my proprietary stock screening tool. But, you must be a subscriber to one of my premium services.

To learn more about my premium service, Growth Investor, and get my latest picks, go here. Or, if you are a member of one of my premium services, you can go here to get started.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The post Target Upgraded, Robinhood Downgraded: Updated Rankings on Top Blue-Chip Stocks appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Copper has always been the wiring of the world. But now, the world is demanding more wiring than it has at any point in history.

Why? Every macro trend that feels futuristic, electrified, digitized, or decarbonized runs straight through a fat bundle of copper.

• Power grids and data centers. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects U.S. electricity demand to grow around 2% per year from 2026-2030, as AI data centers, semiconductor fabs, and other large industrial loads connect to the grid.
• AI and cloud computing. A modern hyperscale data center is essentially a copper-and-aluminum exoskeleton wrapped around racks of silicon. These facilities consume enormous volumes of copper wiring, busbars, and switchgear. Estimates suggest data centers alone could require hundreds of thousands of tonnes of copper per year by 2030, with individual AI-focused hyperscale facilities consuming up to 50,000 tons each.
• Electric vehicles and renewables. EVs use roughly two to three times as much copper as internal-combustion vehicles once you count motors, inverters, and charging networks. Wind, solar, and battery installations are even more copper-intensive on a per-megawatt basis than traditional generation. Layer on microgrids, distributed generation, and 5G towers, and you get a steadily expanding, globally diversified demand base.

Given the demand, the copper market is tilting toward long-term deficits.

The International Copper Study Group (ICSG) expects today’s refined-copper balance to flip into a deficit of roughly 150,000 tonnes this year, as mine production growth slows and concentrate availability tightens.

Copper is one of the most vulnerable links in the global supply chain for the energy transition and AI build-out. Without more than $200 billion of new investment, the world simply won’t have enough copper. For context, Wood Mackenzie estimates that total copper-mining investment over the past six years reached only about $76 billion.

So, the short-term story is simple; demand is growing faster than expected, supply is growing slower than expected, and the market is already slipping into deficit.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX), one of the world’s largest copper miner, is maximizing this opportunity by boosting copper production in every way possible – and is using artificial intelligence to do so.

The company uses AI to optimize ore sequencing, mill throughput, equipment uptime, and geological modeling across massive copper operations. Algorithms improve recovery rates, reduce energy consumption, and minimize downtime.

Because mining is capital intensive and operationally complex, small efficiency gains can scale into enormous dollar impact. AI helps Freeport decide which rock to move, how fast to process it, and when to service machinery.

The company also applies machine learning to geological data, improving reserve estimates and guiding long-term mine planning.

This is applied intelligence in its purest form: more output from the same ore body, with fewer people and lower costs.

CEO Kathleen Quirk said recently that she does not expect the U.S.-Iran conflict to derail copper demand. She stated, “The things that are driving copper demand are more secular in nature.” That means demand is coming from multi-year, structural trends – not short-term economic cycles.

FCX is up 20% year-to-date, while the S&P 500 Index is down 4%. So, the market may be nervous, but the actual need for copper is still growing fast.

I’ll share below why Freeport is currently an attractive buy right now. But first, let’s take a brief tour through what we covered here at Smart Money last week…

Smart Money Roundup

The Hidden Commodity Winner of the Oil Crisis

April 1, 2026

Even though oil is grabbing most of the market-driven headlines, it isn’t the only commodity under the thumb of the U.S.-Iran conflict. Aluminum prices have swung wildly since the U.S. launched its first attacks on Iran in February. That’s because the war is causing a double-whammy for the aluminum market. Find out what they are – and how to position your portfolio before this growing ripple effect turns into a full-blown supply shock – now.

What Anthropic’s Latest Model Signals for Investors

April 2, 2026

Each new, incremental AI update can feel almost unremarkable – until you zoom out and see you’re standing in a completely different world than you were years ago. That’s exactly what Anthropic has been reminding us as the company inches closer to achieving artificial general intelligence. Check out Thursday’s issue, where we go over the leak of Claude Mythos, Arm Holdings Plc’s (ARM) new AGI CPU, and how they should inform your AI investments going forward.

Why the Best Opportunities Are Off the Beaten Path

April 4, 2026

Easter egg hunting and stock picking have more in common than you think. In Saturday’s guest essay, Brian Hunt explains how, similarly to an egg hunt, choosing potential winners from a small group improves your odds of finding outsized opportunities. Learn more about the problem of size and why paying close attention to market cap will make you a successful investor.

Why FCX Is an Attractive Stock Now

It’s important to note that Freeport’s world-class Grasberg mine stumbled just as copper and gold began pressing toward record highs.

The copper-and-gold complex in Indonesia killed seven workers and forced an immediate shutdown in September 2025. This awful tragedy also delivered a serious financial shock. Production dropped sharply, and the company took a well-publicized reputational hit.

The company expects to generate around $12 billion of EBITDA this year, a transition year while Grasberg production is still in recovery mode. But assuming copper and gold prices remain close to where they are today, that figure could rise above $17.5 billion per year by 2027.

At that level of profitability, the stock would be trading for less than four times 2027 EBITDA. This depressed valuation offers an attractive opportunity to capitalize on a temporary dislocation.

I share more companies like Freeport that I believe investors should buy now – and what stocks everyone should drop immediately.

My “buy now” list contains under-the-radar, early opportunities that could multiply your money in the coming months, thanks to their ability to adapt to this age of chaos we find ourselves in.

On the other hand, my “drop immediately” list are companies with significant headwinds that could drag down your portfolio.

My Sell This, Buy That broadcast will help you protect and multiply your money during these make-or-break markets.

You can click here to watch it now.

Regards,

Eric Fry

The post Copper Demand Isn’t Slowing – It’s Accelerating appeared first on InvestorPlace.

In 1848, a carpenter named James Marshall spotted something glinting in the water at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California.

Within months, 300,000 people had flooded the state. They came with pickaxes, tin pans, and dreams of striking it rich.

Most went home broke.

The ones who got rich? They weren’t the miners. They were the merchants. The men who sold the shovels. The ones who understood, before the stampede began, exactly where the gold was really flowing.

Right now, a transfer of wealth is unfolding that could rival some of the largest shifts in modern economic history. And like 1848, most people are too distracted by the excitement of the rush to notice who’s actually pocketing the gold.

The financial press isn’t talking about it plainly. Neither are the politicians – many of whom are actively participating in it. Instead, the story gets dressed up in the comfortable language of innovation, disruption, and national competitiveness. It’s celebrated on earnings calls. Packaged as thrilling news about a technology that will make all of our lives better.

Maybe it will. Eventually.

But not before it makes a very small group of people generationally wealthier… while most others are left holding the pan.

Here’s what makes this moment different from the dot-com boom, different from the shale revolution, different from every previous technological disruption: the speed. According to a recent analysis, the last major platform shift took roughly a decade to fully restructure the economy. This one is moving in months.

That means the window for ordinary investors to position themselves on the right side of this transfer (before the mainstream catches on) is closing faster than most people realize.

What is happening has a name. And understanding it, right now, may be the single most important financial decision you make this decade.

In this issue, I’ll show you exactly what’s going on, why it’s moving so fast, and – most importantly – how you can position yourself among the few, not the many.

A Historical Parallel Worth Revisiting

In England, between the 16th and 18th centuries, the landowning class executed one of the most consequential wealth transfers in history. They called it enclosure. 

The common lands that ordinary people had farmed and depended on for generations – the shared economic foundation of an agrarian society – were gradually privatized. Parliamentary acts were passed. Fences went up. Farmers and laborers who had worked the land for generations found themselves trespassing on what used to be theirs.

They didn’t disappear. They lost their independent economic footing and became dependent on the very people who had enclosed the land. And many became the labor force for the Industrial Revolution.

The enclosers didn’t think of themselves as villains. They were “rational actors” with good lawyers, political connections, and a compelling narrative about efficiency and progress. The fences, they argued, were actually better for everyone in the long run.

The pattern should sound familiar…

The ‘AI Enclosure’: How Artificial Intelligence Is Privatizing Cognitive Labor

The “AI Enclosure” is the 21st-century version of this same story – and it is happening in real time, while most people are busy arguing over politics and worrying over their job security.

What is being enclosed this time is not land. It is intelligence itself.

For most of modern history, cognitive ability – the capacity to read, write, reason, analyze, build, create, persuade – has been widely distributed. You cultivated it through education and experience. It was yours. No one could take it from you. In an economy built on knowledge work, that endowment was your ticket to the middle class; your identity and security.

A small number of companies are beginning to concentrate control over that endowment. 

They are encoding human intelligence into model weights, embedding it inside proprietary systems, and charging rent for access to a resource that used to belong to everyone who developed it. 

The senior product manager, the paralegal, the financial analyst, the mid-level software engineer – these people spent years and borrowed money building cognitive skills they were told would always be valuable.

The fences are going up around those skills. And the people raising them are not asking for permission.

The Moment the AI Labor Shift Became Obvious

Most major structural shifts have a watershed moment, when the abstract becomes undeniable – when the thesis stops being a prediction and becomes a description.

We think we just had ours.

Last week, Block (XYZ) CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the company – the fintech conglomerate behind Square, Cash App, and Afterpay – would cut 4,000 employees, roughly 40% of the entire workforce. It was the largest single-round percentage layoff in the history of the S&P 500.

He didn’t frame it as a cost-cutting measure, blame the economy or the market, or claim it was the result of a strategic pivot gone sideways. He said, plainly, that “intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company” – and that he’d rather get there honestly and on his own terms than be forced into it reactively.

In effect, Dorsey didn’t just fire 4,000 people. He fired the starting gun. He gave every CFO at PayPal (PYPL), Shopify (SHOP), Stripe, Adyen (ADYEY), and every financial services firm watching nervously from the sidelines what they needed most: cover. The moment one player in a competitive industry achieves structurally lower operating costs through AI-driven headcount reduction, the others face a binary choice: match the efficiency, or compete at a permanent cost disadvantage.

In a low-margin industry, there are few alternatives – which means the pressure to follow suit will spread quickly. So, fintech will cut. Broader financial services will follow. Then software, consulting, law, accounting… The logic that justified Block’s announcement applies to every industry where the primary input is human cognitive labor – where people are paid, essentially, to think.

That is the knowledge economy, which employs tens of millions of Americans today. And Dorsey just announced that its restructuring has begun.

The New Power Structure of the AI Economy

The AI Enclosure is not a hidden conspiracy. It is a visible, mutually reinforcing network of capital, technology, and political power that has converged with unusual speed and clarity around a single asset class.

The Hyperscalers: Owners of AI Compute Infrastructure

Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META). They own the compute infrastructure – the data centers, cloud platforms, and distribution channels through which AI reaches the economy.

The Model Builders: The Companies Controlling AI Intelligence

OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Google DeepMind. They own the AI itself – the model weights that encode humanity’s accumulated knowledge and make it available to whoever can pay for access.

The Semiconductor Gatekeepers of the AI Economy

Nvidia (NVDA), Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), Broadcom (AVGO). They manufacture the physical hardware on which all of this runs. Nvidia’s GPUs function almost like the oil wells of the AI economy.

The Capital Network Funding the AI Boom

Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Founders Fund, and their satellites. They fund the ecosystem, take equity early, and harvest the returns at scale.

The private equity and asset management layer: Blackstone (BX), Apollo (APO), and KKR (KKR) are positioned to harvest the displacement, buying distressed assets as the businesses that can’t adapt fail and recycling capital into the infrastructure of the businesses that replace them.

The Political Shield Protecting the AI Enclosure

This club is not operating in opposition to political power. It has merged with it.

Vice President of the United States J.D. Vance – former Silicon Valley insider, Peter Thiel protégé, close friend of Palantir‘s (PLTR) Alex Karp – is the connection point. Indeed, his friend Karp has an explicit ideological framework for this merger. He calls it the Technological Republic: the idea that America’s national destiny is inseparable from technological supremacy and that the people building that technology should have an outsized role in shaping the country’s direction. 

This is largely the operating philosophy of the current administration.

The result: many policy tools that could slow or reshape the Enclosure or distribute its gains have been pre-labeled as a threat to American competitiveness. 

Compute taxes? Handing the lead to China. 

Automation dividends? Socialism. 

The fences going up have political protection from the highest levels of government.

The AI Version of Engels’ Pause

There is a name for the waiting period between when a great technological transformation begins and when society builds the institutions to manage it equitably. 

Economic historians call it Engels’ Pause after Friedrich Engels, who documented that during Britain’s Industrial Revolution, real wages stagnated for decades even as GDP soared. 

The industrial gains were real. They just didn’t reach workers until unions, factory laws, public education, and, eventually, the welfare state forced the redistribution.

That institutional scaffolding took 80 years, and supporters had to fight for it every inch of the way.

We are likely entering the AI version of Engels’ Pause. The legislation that would end it – something that routes the gains back to the displaced like automation dividends, compute taxes, or universal basic income – faces the most hostile political environment imaginable. 

The constituencies who would benefit are diffuse and disorganized. The constituencies who would oppose it are the most concentrated, wealthy, and politically connected groups in the modern economy. And they are currently inside the administration.

The pause will likely endure for the foreseeable future – which means for the majority of Americans, the next several years will be a slow, grinding transfer of wealth from those who sell labor to those who own AI capital. 

Not a crash. A quiet, relentless enclosure.

How Investors Can Position for the AI Infrastructure Boom

I won’t pretend this is an easy thing to face. I’d say the appropriate emotional response to the AI Enclosure is outrage. 

But the appropriate investment response is cold-eyed pragmatism…

Because investors cannot stop the Enclosure – but they can position themselves inside it.

The Enclosure is, at its core, a bet on physical scarcity in a world of digital abundance. As intelligence becomes far cheaper and more abundant, the things that are genuinely scarce – the energy to power AI, the chips to run it, the physical infrastructure to house it, the land and permits and grid connections to build it – become extraordinarily valuable. 

The semiconductor is the oil well. The data center is the refinery. And the utility is the pipeline. So:

Own the ‘Oil Wells’ of AI: Semiconductor Leaders

Nvidia, TSM, Broadcom. These companies don’t just benefit from the AI buildout – they are the foundational constraint. Nearly every major AI model ultimately depends on hardware they manufacture. That is a royalty on cognition itself.

Own the ‘Refineries’: Hyperscale Cloud Platforms

Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta. The hyperscalers own the compute and the distribution. They are the Enclosure’s landlords. They will be extraordinarily wealthy in every plausible scenario because they are too deeply embedded in the infrastructure of both the technology and the economy to lose.

Own the ‘Pipelines’: Energy for Data Centers

Energy is the most underappreciated and underowned trade in this entire framework. Data centers require extraordinary and growing amounts of power. Nuclear energy, natural gas infrastructure, grid modernization, and power management hardware will be essential. Constellation Energy (CEG), Vistra (VST), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Eaton (ETN), Vertiv (VRT) – these companies are boring in name and extraordinary in structural position. The AI buildout will require enormous amounts of the infrastructure they provide. Their revenue is contracted, long-duration, and insulated from the application-layer volatility that will shake the ‘sexier’ names.

Own the Real Estate of the AI Economy

Equinix (EQIX) and Digital Realty (DLR) are the landlords of the internet’s physical infrastructure. They lease the space and connectivity that hyperscalers depend on. They have long-term contracted revenue, irreplaceable physical assets – moats that software alone cannot replicate.

Avoid the ‘Friction Economy’ 

Any company whose business model depends on human cognitive labor, information asymmetry, habitual intermediation, or the inefficiencies that AI eliminates will face structural pressure. That means traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS) without strong proprietary data advantages, financial intermediaries built on inertia, staffing companies, offshore IT services. These are the knowledge economy equivalents of the hand-loom weavers – good businesses in the wrong century.

That divide – between the infrastructure of AI and the businesses disrupted by it – will likely define the early economics of this transition.

The Gate Is Closing

None of this guarantees a dystopian outcome.

History suggests technological revolutions rarely unfold in straight lines. Institutions adapt. New industries eventually emerge. The gains from major innovations have historically spread far more broadly over time than they do in their earliest stages.

But that process takes years – sometimes decades.

In the meantime, the early phases of every technological shift tend to concentrate wealth around the infrastructure that makes the new system possible.

Railroads created steel fortunes before they created middle-class prosperity.

Electrification made utility barons wealthy before it transformed household living standards.

The internet made semiconductor and network companies enormously valuable before the broader digital economy matured.

Artificial intelligence appears to be following a similar pattern.

The chips, data centers, power systems, and physical networks enabling AI are not speculative ideas about the future. They are being built right now at enormous scale, backed by hundreds of billions of dollars in capital commitments from the largest technology companies in the world.

The Final Word

Investors do not need to predict every consequence of the AI revolution to understand where the early economic gravity lies.

They simply need to recognize where the infrastructure of the new system is forming – and who owns it.

Because in every technological revolution, the people who own the infrastructure tend to benefit long before the rest of society figures out how to adapt.

One company sits closer to the center of that infrastructure than almost any other: OpenAI (OPEN).

The same organization that launched ChatGPT and ignited the modern AI race is widely expected to enter public markets – potentially becoming the first pure-play way for everyday investors to own a piece of the intelligence layer itself.

And when that moment arrives, the demand could be enormous.

But investors who wait for the IPO headlines may already be late to the opportunity.

That’s why I recently put together a detailed briefing explaining a little-known way investors may be able to position themselves before OpenAI ever rings the opening bell.

You can see the full breakdown here.

The post What You’re Not Being Told About the AI Economy appeared first on InvestorPlace.

According to Senior Market Analyst Brian Hunt, it’s not just what you buy, it’s where you look.

In today’s guest essay, Brian shares one of his favorite investing lessons, starting with a story you probably know well: the time Blockbuster passed on buying Netflix for $50 million. That single decision ended up costing Blockbuster billions.

But Brian’s point isn’t just about missed opportunities. It’s about understanding why those opportunities exist in the first place – and why most investors never find them.

He argues that the market isn’t one big playing field – it’s a series of “Easter egg hunts.” Some are crowded with thousands of competitors. Others are wide open, with far fewer people looking. And where you choose to hunt can make all the difference.

Below, Brian explains how this dynamic works, why small-cap stocks often hold the greatest upside, and how to tilt the odds in your favor as an investor.

I’ll let him take it from here.

Have a wonderful Easter Sunday,

Jeff Remsburg

In the spring of 2000, a man named Reed Hastings traveled to Dallas with a big business idea.

Hastings approached the management of movie rental giant Blockbuster with a proposal. He wanted Blockbuster to buy his small business for $50 million.

At the time, Hastings’ company – called Netflix – had a promising business model. It allowed people to rent movies through the mail. Netflix was also small and struggling to turn a profit.

Hastings believed a Blockbuster purchase of Netflix would be a win-win deal for both parties. Blockbuster’s managers did not. They didn’t think Netflix’s business model made sense for them. A Netflix executive later said that Blockbuster essentially laughed Hastings out of the room.

You probably know the rest of the story.

Netflix secured investment from other sources and built a hugely popular mail-order DVD rental business.

Around 2007, it made a brilliant move and began transitioning into America’s No. 1 movie and television streaming service. This innovation crushed traditional brick-and-mortar rental companies like Blockbuster.

In 2002, Netflix had fewer than 3 million subscribers. By 2022, it had reached 222 million subscribers and climbed to a market valuation of $129 billion.

Blockbuster’s market valuation in 2018?

Zip.

It went bankrupt a long time ago… and its “pass” on Netflix is widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in modern corporate history.

To give you an idea of how an investor would have done with an early Netflix stake, consider that Netflix stock fell to a split-adjusted low of $0.35 per share in 2002.

Assume you did not buy the bottom, but instead invested $5,000 at $0.50 per share, picking up 10,000 shares of Netflix.

In 2022, that $5,000 investment would have been worth $2.87 million… a 574-fold return.

Netflix’s story is one of my favorite examples of one of the most powerful concepts in finance and investing.

The concept?

If you want to make giant returns in stocks, you must be in the right Easter egg hunt.

Below, I explain why…

How to Find Stocks That Can Return 100-Fold

On Wall Street, companies are often grouped and labeled by size.

Investors typically place a company in one of three size categories: large-caps, mid-caps, and small-caps.

“Cap” is short for “market capitalization.” This is the term used to describe the value of a public company. To figure out a company’s market cap, all you have to do is multiply the total number of shares the company has in the market times the market price of a single share.

The group names are common sense. Large-caps are large. Small-caps are small. Mid-caps are in between.

For example, the popular software company Microsoft is a large-cap stock. In April 2026, its market cap is around $2.7 trillion.

Or, take iPhone maker Apple. It’s also a large-cap. In April 2026, its market cap is around $3.7 trillion.

Mid-caps are smaller than large-caps. Typically, investors consider companies with market caps between $2 billion and $10 billion to be mid-caps.

The difference between a large-cap and a mid-cap can be huge. A mid-cap company worth $5 billion is less than 0.2% of the size of giant Microsoft.

Finally, we have small-caps.

These are companies with market caps under $2 billion.

While the difference between a mid-cap and a large-cap can be huge, the difference between a small-cap and a large-cap can be incredible.

For example, take a small-cap with a market value of $500 million.

This is just 10% of a mid-cap with a market value of $5 billion… which means it is less than one-tenth of one percent the size of a large-cap like Microsoft.

Large-caps can be good investments. They are typically stable, established, profitable companies. They often pay dividends. Large-caps can be great investments for conservative investors.

But if you’re interested in making 10, 20, or even 50 times your money (or 574 times your money like with Netflix) in a single investment, you’d be smart to look at small-cap stocks.

Small-cap companies have much greater potential to produce giant returns for their shareholders in a short time than any other kind of company.

The reason is simple…

It’s much, much easier for a young, $500 million small-cap to grow 10-fold than it is for a mature $500-billion giant to grow 10-fold.

That’s just basic math.

If your daughter sold 10 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies around the neighborhood on her own, you could probably help grow her sales 10 times (selling 100 boxes) by driving her around and putting a little pressure on your friends, neighbors, and coworkers to buy some boxes.

But what if your daughter was a natural saleswoman and had sold 100 boxes on her own?

To enjoy 10-times growth under that scenario, she’d have to sell 1,000 boxes. Not so easy anymore. That’s the mathematical challenge behind achieving giant growth when a company is already doing giant sales.

Or, think about these situations…

• When a small $300 million market-cap beverage company creates a hit product that generates an additional $1 billion in sales, it’s a huge deal that can make the company’s stock rise by hundreds or thousands of percent.

However, if beverage giant Coca-Cola creates a way to generate an additional $1 billion in sales, it barely registers on its massive income statement.

• When a small $200 million restaurant company with 40 locations expands to 200 more locations, its market value can soar. But if mega-chain Starbucks adds 200 new locations to its already massive 14,000+ locations, it’s a blip on the company’s balance sheet.
• When a small $600 million software company creates an amazing new way to collect, manage, and analyze healthcare data, financial data, or marketing data, it can increase revenue by over $1 billion… and its stock can soar 10-fold.

However, if giant Microsoft adds $1 billion to its $100 billion+ annual revenue, it’s a drop in the bucket that won’t even make the news.

Now, all this DOES NOT mean a large company is automatically a bad investment. It just means that it’s not an ideal investment for someone looking to make big returns in a relatively short period of time.

Remember, a $500 million small-cap is just one-tenth of 1% of a $500 billion large-cap.

That’s why a search for stocks with huge growth potential should start in the small-cap stock world.

This is where companies with the potential to grow 10, 20, 50… even 574 times larger live and hide out.

But it gets even better for small-cap investors.

There’s another tremendous benefit they enjoy that large-cap investors do not.

I believe this benefit is best explained with the story of an Easter egg hunt…

What Stock Picking and Easter Egg Hunts Have in Common

Picture this…

It’s Easter, and you’re ready for the neighborhood Easter egg hunt.

Over 100 eggs have been hidden in a small local park. Each egg has a treat inside it. You’re told that one special egg even has a cash prize in it.

If you’re in this hunt, which of the two following scenarios would you rather be in?

If you’re like most reasonable people, you picked B.

You’d rather have this:

Than this:

You’d rather have just 10 people in competition with you… instead of 1,000 other people picking over the park like a swarm of locusts.

What does this have to do with investing?

Well, this same dynamic is at work in the stock market every day.

The financial markets are where millions of people go to pick through opportunities in stocks, commodities, currencies, options, bonds, and real estate.

In this big market, everyone is looking to buy assets for less than they are worth and sell assets for more than they are worth.

Essentially, everyone is trying to outsmart everyone else.

Everyone is looking for eggs.

The financial markets price most assets correctly most of the time.

However, it’s not a perfect system. Windows of opportunity – where you can buy assets for less than what they are worth or sell assets for more than what they are worth – appear from time to time.

In the investing world, these windows are called “market inefficiencies.”

These are the opportunities that can make us big money.

However, the more people that are studying, monitoring, and picking over a market and its opportunities, the more competition you have in that market… and the less likely you’ll be able to find market inefficiencies.

The more people picking over a market, the smaller its pricing inefficiencies will be and the shorter its windows of opportunities will be open.

In the financial markets, the biggest competitors are “institutional investors.”

Institutional investors are the elephants of the financial markets. This group includes mutual funds, pension funds, large hedge funds, and insurance funds. It also includes sovereign wealth funds, which manage the savings of entire nations.

A single large institutional investor can manage over $10 billion in assets.

So, even a wealthy individual with $5 million in assets is a mouse compared to this elephant (in this case, the elephant is 2,000 times larger).

Some institutional investors manage much more than $10 billion.

The sovereign wealth fund of Norway – which has been fattened by oil revenue for years – is worth more than $2.2 trillion in 2026.

This is 200 times bigger than the large institution with $10 billion to invest.

The large institutional investors of the world have ridiculously giant amounts of money to invest in stocks, bonds, and other assets.

These large institutional investors typically employ armies of analysts who spend hundreds of thousands of hours every year scouring the world for opportunities.

These analysts perform a lot of old-fashioned “financial detective” work by visiting public companies and interviewing industry experts.

They also use the world’s most advanced computer algorithms and “Big Data” analytical programs to comb through market data.

The programs run 24 hours a day, seven days a week… sifting all of the world’s financial data a thousand different ways at warp speed… hunting for pricing inefficiencies, small and large.

Picture those Easter egg hunts again… and realize that the stock market is a brutally competitive Easter egg hunt.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the financial market is a big, diverse place.

And there are Easter egg hunts the big guys can’t participate in.

The Problem of Size

In the investment world, professional investors obsess over “liquidity.”

When it comes to buying and selling investments, liquidity is a measure of how easy or difficult it is to transact in a security.

For example, take Amazon stock. Because Amazon is one of the world’s largest companies (worth over $2 trillion as of 2026), and since many people like to buy and sell its stock, we can say Amazon stock is “very liquid” or “has huge liquidity.”

There is a large market for Amazon stock where buyers and sellers execute many sales each day. In 2022, it was common to see over 70 million Amazon shares traded in a single day.

On the other side of the spectrum, take an unknown small-cap firm with a market cap of just $50 million (less than one-tenth of one percent of Amazon).

Because this company is tiny by stock market standards and most people have never heard of it, its stock will not have much liquidity.

Remember, market cap is simply the number of outstanding shares times the share price. That means with small-cap stocks, there simply aren’t all that many shares out in the market (compared to, say, Amazon, which we just talked about). This makes it harder for someone to buy up a huge amount of those shares – there may not be all that many sellers.

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Let’s say you manage a $10 billion stock portfolio.

For a stock position to make a meaningful positive impact on your fund’s results, you need it to represent at least 3% of your fund’s assets.

Most good managers would rather allocate 4% to 8% of their fund into a stock idea they believe is truly great.

If you’re looking to put 3% of $10 billion to work in a great idea, that means you are looking to place $300 million.

That is six times more money than a $50 million small-cap.

Even if you wanted to put just 1% of your fund into a stock, that is $100 million.

You get the idea.

Big money managers can’t join in the small-cap stock Easter egg hunt.

They also can’t “play” in other small markets with limited liquidity, like many options markets, smaller investment funds (like closed-end funds and ETFs), individual bonds, small-cap foreign stocks, and penny stocks.

When you “play” in small markets with modest liquidity, you don’t take on the world’s richest, most powerful institutions armed with armies of top-flight analysts and the world’s best computers.

Instead of competing against thousands of other Easter egg hunters, you compete against modest numbers of them.

Think of it like you would buying a house. You want to be a buyer in an area with just a few other buyers… instead of being a buyer in a town where lines form down the block after homes go on sale. When you’re a buyer, you don’t want loads of competition.

I can’t resist rolling out one more analogy to get you on board:

Think of it like fishing. You don’t want to fish in the same spot as 1,000 other anglers. You’d rather have a quiet stream and its fish all to yourself.

Successful investing and trading are all about tilting the odds in your favor.

The more you can get this advantage, the more successful you will be.

Hunting in smaller, less liquid markets – like the small-cap market – is one of the best ways to do that.

Regards,

Brian Hunt

InvestorPlace Senior Market Analyst

The post What Kind of Easter Egg Hunt Are You In? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

In reality, the biggest returns tend to come from looking where others aren’t – overlooked, less crowded areas of the market.

In today’s issue, InvestorPlace Senior Analyst Brian Hunt uses a simple Easter egg hunt analogy to illustrate a powerful truth: the fewer competitors you have, the better your odds of finding outsized opportunities.

It’s a timely reminder that shifting where you “hunt” can dramatically improve your results.

Now, I’ll let Brian take it from here…

Picture this…

It’s Easter, and you’re ready for the neighborhood Easter egg hunt.

Over 100 eggs have been hidden in a small local park. Each egg has a treat inside it. You’re told that one special egg even has a cash prize in it.

If you’re in this hunt, which of the two following scenarios would you rather be in?

If you’re like most reasonable people, you picked B.

You’d rather have this:

Than this:

You’d rather have just 10 people in competition with you… instead of 1,000 other people picking over the park like a swarm of locusts.

What does this have to do with investing?

Well, this same dynamic is at work in the stock market every day.

The financial markets are where millions of people go to pick through opportunities in stocks, commodities, currencies, options, bonds, and real estate.

In this big market, everyone is looking to buy assets for less than what they are worth and looking to sell assets for more than what they are worth.

Essentially, everyone is trying to outsmart everyone else.

Everyone is looking for eggs.

The financial markets price most assets correctly most of the time.

However, it’s not a perfect system. Windows of opportunity – where you can buy assets for less than what they are worth or sell assets for more than what they are worth – appear from time to time.

In the investing world, these windows are called “market inefficiencies.”

These are the opportunities that can make us big money.

However, the more people that are studying, monitoring, and picking over a market and its opportunities, the more competition you have in that market… and the less likely you’ll be able to find market inefficiencies.

The more people picking over a market, the smaller its pricing inefficiencies will be and the shorter its windows of opportunities will be open.

In the financial markets, the biggest competitors are “institutional investors.”

Institutional investors are the elephants of the financial markets. This group includes mutual funds, pension funds, large hedge funds, and insurance funds. It also includes sovereign wealth funds, which manage the savings of entire nations.

A single large institutional investor can manage over $10 billion in assets.

So, even a wealthy individual with $5 million in assets is a mouse compared to this elephant (in this case, the elephant is 2,000 times larger).

Some institutional investors manage much more than $10 billion.

The sovereign wealth fund of Norway – which has been fattened by oil revenue for years – was worth more than $1 trillion in 2017.

This is 100 times bigger than the large institution with $10 billion to invest.

The large institutional investors of the world have ridiculously giant amounts of money to invest in stocks, bonds, and other assets.

These large institutional investors typically employ armies of analysts who spend hundreds of thousands of hours every year scouring the world for opportunities.

These analysts perform a lot of old-fashioned “financial detective” work by visiting public companies and interviewing industry experts.

They also use the world’s most advanced computer algorithms and “Big Data” analytical programs to comb through market data.

The programs run 24 hours a day, seven days a week… sifting all of the world’s financial data a thousand different ways at warp speed… hunting for pricing inefficiencies, small and large.

Picture those Easter egg hunts again… and realize that the stock market is a brutally competitive Easter egg hunt.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the financial market is a big, diverse place.

And there are Easter egg hunts the big guys can’t participate in.

The Problem of Size

In the investment world, professional investors obsess over “liquidity.”

When it comes to buying and selling investments, liquidity is a measure of how easy or difficult it is to transact in a security.

For example, take Amazon stock. Because Amazon is one of the world’s largest companies (worth over $2 trillion as of 2026), and since many people like to buy and sell its stock, we can say Amazon stock is “very liquid” or “has huge liquidity.”

There is a large market for Amazon stock where buyers and sellers execute many sales each day. In 2022, it was common to see over 70 million shares of Amazon change hands in a day.

On the other side of the spectrum, take an unknown small-cap firm with a market cap of just $50 million (less than one-tenth of one percent of Amazon).

Because this company is tiny by stock market standards, and since most people have never heard of it, the company’s stock will not have much liquidity.

Remember, market cap is simply the number of outstanding shares times the share price. That means with small-cap stocks, there simply aren’t all that many shares out in the market (compared to, say, Amazon, which we just talked about). This makes it harder for someone to buy up a huge amount of those shares – there may not be all that many sellers.

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Let’s say you manage a $10 billion stock portfolio.

For a stock position to make a meaningful positive impact on your fund’s results, you need it to represent at least 3% of your fund’s assets.

Most good managers would rather put 4% to 8% of their fund into a stock idea they believe is truly great.

If you’re looking to put 3% of $10 billion to work in a great idea, that means you are looking to place $300 million.

That is six times more money than a $50 million small-cap.

Even if you wanted to put just 1% of your fund into a stock, that is $100 million.

You get the idea.

Big money managers can’t join in the small-cap stock Easter egg hunt.

They also can’t “play” in other small markets with limited liquidity, like many options markets, smaller investment funds (like closed end funds and ETFs), individual bonds, small-cap foreign stocks, and penny stocks.

When you “play” in small markets with modest liquidity, you don’t take on the world’s richest, most powerful institutions armed with armies of topflight analysts and the world’s best computers.

Instead of competing against thousands of other Easter egg hunters, you compete against modest amounts of them.

Think of it like you would buying a house. You want to be a buyer in an area with just a few other buyers… instead of being a buyer in a town where lines form down the block after homes go on sale. When you’re a buyer, you don’t want loads of competition.

I can’t resist rolling out one more analogy to get you on board:

Think of it like fishing. You don’t want to fish in the same spot as 1,000 other anglers. You’d rather have a quiet stream and its fish all to yourself.

Successful investing and trading are all about tilting the odds in your favor.

The more you can get this advantage, the more successful you will be.

Hunting in smaller, less liquid markets – like the small-cap market – is one of the best ways to do that.

Regards,

Brian Hunt

InvestorPlace Senior Market Analyst

P.S. Eric Fry, here. Investing in small markets is an excellent way to protect yourself amidst today’s unpredictability… but knowing exactly which stocks to buy, which to sell, and when, can still be a challenge.

That’s why I encourage you to view my free “Sell This, Buy That” broadcast, where I explain my approach that’s led to gains across several sectors, including 60% and 30% in specific biopharma and energy companies.

Plus, I share the names of four companies to sell before they crater, and another four that could multiply your money in the coming months.

Click here for more information.

The post Why the Best Opportunities Are Off the Beaten Path appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Imagine starting an online business that isn’t available to 80% of Americans.

When Amazon went public in 1997, only about 20% of Americans had Internet access.

And, frankly, it looked ridiculous. Below is a screenshot of the website from those early days.

Not only was Internet usage low, but only about 37% of Americans even owned a computer in 1997.

So, investors who gambled on Amazon’s IPO were betting on an online book seller with no profits and very little reach, taking on established names like Barnes & Noble.

It’s easy to see why many investors dismissed the stock.

But inside Amazon, CEO Jeff Bezos wasn’t thinking about books.

In his 1997 shareholder letter, he called it “Day 1 for the Internet” – and made clear the company would “invest aggressively” in building its customer base, brand, and – perhaps most importantly – its infrastructure to create an “enduring franchise.”

Books were just the starting point. The revolution in a new online retail infrastructure was the real story.

We all know how this story turned out…

One share of Amazon bought then would become 240 shares today due to stock splits, and now sells for well over $200.

Those who understood what was coming and moved early built a fortune. Everyone who waited for confirmation might still have made money, but not to the extent of early movers.

A similar thing is happening right now in the stock market

People who understand the changes happening in the market have already changed their strategy… while retail investors stick to the same old methods of investing.

But it’s not 1997 anymore. You don’t have to guess what those insiders are thinking.

And you don’t have to wait years for their ideas to play out.

Today, the people building the future leave a trail for folks to follow. For those who know where to look, the trail isn’t difficult to find. They just have to follow what key insiders are doing…

Every time they write code…

Every time they release a new tool…

Every time other developers adopt their work…

They’re leaving a trail to where the next big breakthroughs are happening. Signals that can show up weeks – and sometimes months – before the market catches on.

That’s why some of the world’s smartest investors have already adapted.

They’re no longer relying on earnings reports, analyst upgrades, or any other data that could demonstrate that a company has “proven itself.”

Instead, they’re following this new trail, and detecting early signals to make short-term moves – getting in early and out before the rest of the market even as a chance to react.

In fact, one former hedge fund insider, working for our corporate affiliate Stansberry Research, has built an entire system around this idea…

The power of following “alternate signals”

This market approach identifies stocks with the potential to make major moves in as little as 90 days.

It has nothing to do with options…

Just following the same kind of “insider signals” that helped early investors spot companies like Amazon long before the rest of the world caught on.

Here’s a simple way to think about it…

Most investors follow what companies say by tracking earnings calls, press releases, and analyst coverage.

But the real signal often shows up in what companies do—before they say anything at all.

The signal is in what developers are building… and what other developers are adopting.

The signal is when a new tool, platform, or piece of code starts spreading rapidly among engineers…

Those are signs that something important is happening beneath the surface.

And by the time that shift shows up in quarterly earnings, the stock has usually already moved.

How to see it in action

This former hedge fund manager is going to reveal exactly how it works in a new presentation…including the name of one stock his system is tracking right now.

Next Tuesday, April 7, at 10 a.m. ET, you’ll have the chance to hear about his truly unique strategy at the Market Tremors 2026 event. The system behind it has flagged 442 winning trades since 2017 and could have turned $10,000 in each trade into nearly $620,000.

This strategy has virtually nothing to do with war in Iran, or any market indicator or trend you’ve likely heard about.

And that’s the point…

The man behind this hedge-fund-caliber trading strategy uses a system to analyze stocks and businesses in a way that few, if any, other analysts do. It stems from his years of expertise working at hedge funds and in the private sector as a tech insider.

Plus, the volatility we’ve seen so far in 2026 is a tailwind for this strategy, as it’s designed to deliver triple-digit gains in just 90 trading days… and then do it again, and again.

After signing up, you’ll get more details about the Market Tremors 2026 event, including stories about one of the world’s most envied hedge funds… what it really takes to find an edge on Wall Street… and a closer look at the man behind this strategy.

Then, just for tuning in next week, you’ll hear much more about this opportunity, plus two free stock recommendations… one to buy and one to avoid.

Sign up here now to make sure you don’t miss anything at this free event from our friends at Stansberry Research.

Enjoy your weekend,

Luis Hernandez

Editor in Chief, InvestorPlace

The post The Market Has Already Changed … but Most Investors Haven’t appeared first on InvestorPlace.

The book, which chronicles the miscalculations and rigid military thinking that led to the outbreak of World War I, would come in quite handy just a few months later during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The existence of medium-range missiles in Cuba was a direct threat to the United States. But Kennedy was determined not to repeat the same missteps detailed in Tuchman’s book.

He knew that a crisis could escalate if the Soviets were backed into a corner. They needed room to maneuver, a way to choose de-escalation while still saving face.

But due to the growing thickness of the “fog of war,” it was difficult to determine the other side’s motives.

Ultimately, the Kennedy administration got what it wanted, and the missiles in Cuba were removed. The Russians got something out of it, too – the removal of U.S. missiles placed in Turkey.

The Fog of War Hanging Over the Market

Fast forward to this week, and we find ourselves once again in the middle of the “fog of war.”

Now, the geopolitical stakes may not be as high as they were in the Cold War, but the risks and uncertainty of the Iran war have driven many investors to the sidelines.

As a result, all of the major indices declined sharply in March. The S&P 500 and Dow closed out the month down 5% and 5.4%, respectively, while the NASDAQ declined 4.8%.

On Wednesday night, President Trump spoke to the nation about the conflict with Iran. He took a tough tone, and that caused the market to get up on the wrong side of the bed once again.

But on Thursday, rumors emerged that a deal could be in the works to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and that’s caused a reversal.

At the time I’m writing this, that’s still a rumor. And, as investors, we can’t afford to overreact too much to rumors and innuendo.

Who’s in charge of Iran is a little unclear at this point. But what we do know is that the “fog of war” is likely to persist in April, as a ceasefire remains elusive and tensions in the Middle East remain elevated.

I suspect that stocks will continue to oscillate as investors react to the latest headlines regarding the Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz and rising energy costs. Mean reversion algorithms will also continue to play a role in the market’s oscillations, too.

But the biggest glitch for the stock market going forward will be inflation.

Inflation Strikes Again

There is no doubt that the conflict in the Middle East has driven energy, fertilizer and food prices higher. Even prior to the conflict, wholesale prices were already rising: The Producer Price Index (PPI) for February showed that food prices rose 2.4% and energy prices jumped 2.3%.

In the wake of the Iran war, both West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude oil prices have surged above $100 per barrel. To put this into perspective… Brent crude oil rose about 55% in March, marking its biggest monthly surge on record. WTI crude oil also rose more than 50% in March.

With crude oil prices surging, Americans are feeling the pinch at the pump. Gasoline prices rose above $4 per gallon for the first time since August 2022. That’s an increase of more than a dollar since the start of the Iran war.

So, the March data for food and energy inflation is probably going to be hideous.

Some economists now expect U.S. inflation to exceed 4%. In fact, the OECD updated its inflation forecasts this week, projecting that inflation for the Group of 20 will rise to 4% in 2026, up from the previous 2.8% estimate. Inflation in the U.S. is anticipated to rise to 4.2%.

Due to the inflation “bubble” and higher Treasury yields, hopes for the Federal Reserve to cut key interest rates have been squashed for the time being.

Why I Want You to Remain Positive

Now, I know it’s hard to be excited after the gut-wrenching month of March. In this environment, it is very easy to be discouraged and to follow the crowds to the exits.

But here’s what I want you to remember: The stock market is currently oversold. So, when war concerns diminish or a ceasefire is established, the stock market will resurge in a massive relief rally.

I’m viewing the market’s pullback and the subsequent dip as a great buying opportunity for fundamentally superior stocks.

The fact is, we remain in a stunning earnings environment, and these are the stocks that should rebound impressively in the upcoming weeks, especially as the first-quarter earnings announcement season gets underway.

Remember, your best defense remains a strong offense of stocks with accelerating sales and earnings growth, positive analyst revisions and robust guidance.

Good stocks always bounce – and I look for my Growth Investor stocks to rebound 20% or more in the upcoming weeks, especially as the fog of war dissipates and our companies post wave-after-wave of positive quarterly results.

That’s because my Growth Investor stocks are showing 37.3% average annual sales growth and 144% average annual earnings growth. And ultimately, earnings are what drive stock prices – not the headlines.

So, if you want to learn more about Growth Investor, I encourage you to check out my latest research presentation by clicking here.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The post How to Approach the Market During the “Fog of War” appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Right now, that money is flooding into AI infrastructure at an unprecedented pace. Hyperscalers are on track to spend more than $600 billion this year alone building the compute backbone of the AI economy. And as always, the biggest profits are flowing to the suppliers enabling that buildout.

But capital is always on the move, hunting for the next bottlenecks and finding new frontiers.

And one of the most important new frontiers in AI infrastructure is something most investors aren’t even looking at yet: underwater data centers.

It sounds unconventional. Yet it may be the next major evolution in how AI infrastructure is built – and one of the most overlooked investment opportunities in the entire AI trade.

Underwater Data Centers: A New Solution to AI’s Cooling Problem

Data centers are the critical component of this buildout. They are the physical backbone of the entire AI economy – where models are trained, deployed, and scaled.

But traditional data centers have one enormous structural cost problem: cooling. Keeping servers from melting requires industrial-scale HVAC systems that account for, on average, 40- to 50% of a data center’s total power consumption. That’s nearly half of every dollar spent on electricity going toward fans, chillers, and cooling towers rather than actual computation.

Some forward-thinkers, notably Elon Musk, believe outer space holds the key to solving this problem. In theory, space offers near-infinite solar energy and a naturally cold vacuum environment – both ideal for powering and cooling high-density compute. But for now, the cost, latency, and logistical complexity remain prohibitive.

That’s why others are pointing somewhere much closer to home: the ocean – and, more specifically, underwater data centers.

Seawater is free, plentiful, and cold. By submerging GPUs in the ocean, you eliminate the cooling problem almost entirely – reducing cooling’s share of total energy consumption from 40- to 50% down to roughly 10%. The result is a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating around 1.15, versus the 1.4 to 1.6 typical of even well-designed land-based facilities. That is a meaningful efficiency gap that translates directly to lower operating costs and lower carbon emissions.

Underwater Data Centers Are Already Operating at Scale

China, as it tends to do with emerging technologies, has moved first and moved fast. Two major underwater data centers are now operational:

• The Hainan Cluster: The world’s first commercial underwater data center, operated by Beijing Highlander/HiCloud off the coast of Lingshui County, Hainan Province. Currently serving live clients including China Telecom, Tencent, and SenseTime – running AI inference at 7,000 simultaneous queries per second. Already expanded to a second module in February 2025.
• The Shanghai Lin-Gang Wind-Powered Facility: Completed in October 2025 at a cost of $226 million. The world’s first wind-powered underwater data center, drawing 97% of its electricity from nearby offshore wind farms and targeting a PUE of 1.15. Phase one capacity: 198 server racks of AI-capable compute.

The Constraint That Delayed Adoption

Microsoft spent nearly a decade researching this concept under the banner of Project Natick, which found that submerged servers had a failure rate of just 0.7% versus 5.9% on land – an eightfold reliability improvement attributed to sealed, nitrogen-filled environments and the absence of human interaction. The company ultimately shelved the project – not because it failed, but because it arrived too early.

“The technology worked. The business case didn’t.” – Microsoft, 2024. 

Fast forward 18 months, and that calculus is changing.

The challenge that killed Microsoft’s commercial ambitions – the inability to quickly swap GPUs inside sealed pods – is a real constraint. But it is also a constraint that matters far less for specific workloads: stable inference serving, long-term archival storage, and edge compute at coastal density hubs. And importantly, these are large and rapidly growing markets.

Where Underwater Data Centers Actually Work

Underwater compute is a powerful niche complement to – not replacement of – terrestrial infrastructure; one that could attract significant capital because it solves specific, expensive problems that land cannot.

Two use cases are most compelling.

Coastal City AI Inference

Approximately 50% of the global population lives within 60 miles of a coastline. AI inference – serving real-time responses from already trained models – is latency-sensitive but far less dependent on constant hardware upgrades than training workloads. A subsea pod deployed offshore can serve dense coastal populations with lower latency and dramatically lower energy costs than a landlocked data center. Think of it as underwater edge computing: a permanent, high-density, energy-efficient inference node anchored to the ocean floor near the cities that need it most. As AI inference demand scales from millions to billions of daily interactions, the economics of coastal subsea compute improve significantly.

Long-Term Storage and Archival Compute

Storage hardware has a seven- to 10-year lifecycle – far longer than the 18- to 24-month GPU refresh cycle that makes sealed pods problematic for training workloads. That means that for archival data, compliance storage, digital sovereignty vaults, and frozen-model repositories, underwater data centers are close to ideal: lower power costs, higher hardware reliability, zero land footprint, and a stable thermal environment that extends hardware life. The world is generating data at an exponential rate, and it must be stored somewhere. Doing so under the ocean is increasingly cost-competitive.

Energy Co-Location

Beyond compute and storage, there’s a third driver emerging here. The world is building massive offshore wind capacity – hundreds of gigawatts over the next decade, particularly in Europe and the U.S. East Coast. The fundamental problem with offshore wind is transmission loss: you generate power 10 to 30 miles out at sea, then pay to move it onshore. An underwater data center co-located with an offshore wind farm would eliminate that transmission cost entirely. The wind farm becomes both the power source and the cooling infrastructure, in one integrated coastal deployment. China’s Shanghai facility is already doing exactly this.

Realistically, the total addressable market for this niche over the next five to 10 years could reach tens of billions of dollars – potentially approaching $50- to $150 billion depending on adoption rates. It’s a fraction of the overall AI infrastructure buildout – but a fraction of trillions is still a very large number.

More importantly, because underwater compute is capital-intensive and technically complex, it will attract a relatively small number of specialized suppliers who will capture outsized margins. That is exactly the dynamic that made terrestrial AI infrastructure suppliers so profitable.

How to Invest In the Underwater Data Center Supply Chain

The best way to invest in a new infrastructure wave is to own the supply chain. 

We saw how it worked with terrestrial AI compute. The infrastructure layer – Nvidia (NVDA) for chips, Vertiv (VRT) and Eaton (ETN) for power, Arista (ANET) for networking, Corning (GLW) for fiber – delivered spectacular returns for investors who understood this dynamic early.

That same logic applies to underwater compute. But that supply chain has a crucial difference: the most differentiated, highest-alpha layer is drawn almost entirely from the offshore oil and gas supply chain – not from tech. 

These are companies that AI investors have largely ignored because they don’t show up in any AI infrastructure ETF. 

That’s the opportunity.

Layer 1: Existing AI Infrastructure (Limited Upside)

Underwater data centers use the same compute hardware: Nvidia GPUs, Western Digital (WDC) and Seagate (STX) storage, Arista and Cisco (CSCO) networking. No incremental investment thesis here. Don’t buy these stocks for the underwater story if you already own them for the land story. They benefit marginally at best.

Layer 2: Partial Beneficiaries of Underwater Data Centers

Corning supplies fiber optic cable for both terrestrial and subsea applications. The underwater leg is a separate, higher-ASP product. Teledyne Technologies (TDY) makes subsea-rated hermetic connectors and penetrators with genuine marine heritage from defense and oceanographic work. Xylem (XYL) provides water quality and thermal monitoring around deployed modules. We expect these two will be legitimate secondary beneficiaries.

Layer 3: Pure-Play Winners In Subsea Infrastructure

This is where the investment case is most compelling. Every company in this layer built its core competency serving offshore oil and gas platforms. They know how to seal modules against saltwater corrosion, deliver power to the ocean floor, and install large structures in open water. Underwater data centers present the same engineering challenge with a different payload. These companies are now pivoting toward offshore wind and underwater compute as their next growth chapter – and the AI investor community has not yet connected the dots:

• Prysmian Group (BIT: PRY) is the world’s largest cable manufacturer with ~40% of the submarine cable market. It makes both the subsea power cable that delivers electricity from offshore wind to underwater pods and the fiber optic cable that connects them to terrestrial networks. Prysmian has a multi-year order backlog and strong pricing power – the single most direct publicly traded play on underwater data center infrastructure.
• NKT A/S (CPH: NKT) absorbed ABB’s high-voltage cable unit and now has ~45% of its high-voltage backlog in offshore wind. It looks to be the purest play on the subsea high-voltage direct current (HVDC) infrastructure that powers coastal underwater compute deployments.
• Nexans (EPA: NEX) is the No. 2 subsea power cable manufacturer, with the highest proportional offshore wind revenue exposure of the major European cable makers. Complementary to Prysmian with a different geographic mix.
• TechnipFMC (NYSE: FTI) specializes in offshore engineering and subsea systems. It’s the only major Layer 3 name trading on a U.S. exchange in a straightforward way. It partners with cable makers on complex subsea installation projects and sports a deep engineering moat.
• Subsea 7 (OSE: SUBC) is a marine installation contractor that owns cable-laying vessels – the true physical chokepoint of the entire industry. You cannot deploy an underwater data center without one. There are very few of them, they take years to build, and their operators charge accordingly.

Note: Prysmian, Nexans, NKT, and Subsea 7 trade on European exchanges (Milan, Paris, Copenhagen, Oslo respectively). They are accessible via international brokerage accounts, and some trade as OTC names in the United States. TechnipFMC (FTI) is the most direct NYSE-listed exposure. 

This accessibility gap is part of why these names are underowned by American AI infrastructure investors – and part of why the opportunity exists.

Why Underwater Data Centers Are an Early Stage AI Opportunity

There are really only two things you need to be right about to make serious money in markets. 

First, follow the money. Second, find the story that no one is paying attention to yet.

The AI infrastructure buildout checks the first box so decisively that it barely requires argument. Six hundred billion dollars of annual hyperscaler capex. Sovereign AI initiatives from Washington to Riyadh to Tokyo. A global race to build compute capacity faster than the next country, competitor, or model generation. The cash flow is unprecedented, and it’s going straight to the suppliers.

The only question is which suppliers the market has already priced in – and which it hasn’t.

Underwater AI compute checks the second box in a way that very few emerging themes manage. The concept is already operable, as China has proven at commercial scale. The efficiency gains are genuine. The use cases are defensible. And the supply chain is almost entirely invisible to the typical AI infrastructure investor.

That invisibility is the opportunity because markets price what people are paying attention to. When very few people are connecting the offshore oil and gas supply chain to the underwater AI infrastructure buildout, there is real potential for a re-rating when the narrative catches up to reality.

The Bottom Line

By our estimate, we are roughly at AI’s equivalent to cloud computing’s 2012-13 moment: the technology is proven, the first commercial deployments exist, the economics are becoming clear, and the investment community has not yet built a coherent framework for how to play it. 

The next 24 to 36 months will be when that framework takes shape – and the early investors in the right names will be well-positioned when it does.

Underwater data centers are a good example of how early this buildout still is.

Capital is still chasing bottlenecks, still finding new frontiers, still expanding the infrastructure layer in ways most investors haven’t fully processed yet.

But that phase doesn’t last forever. Once the infrastructure is in place, the value shifts – quickly – toward the platforms that sit on top of it.

That’s where the next phase of this story plays out. And right now, one company sits at the center of it: OpenAI.

Most investors will only have access after it goes public.

We’ve found a way in earlier.

Watch our full breakdown on this pre-IPO opportunity right here.

The post Is the Next AI Gold Rush Happening Beneath the Ocean? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

That’s exactly what legendary investor Louis Navellier believes is happening right now inside the $3 trillion private credit market.

In today’s Friday Digest takeover, Louis explains how years of easy money may have kept a growing number of companies alive – not because they’re strong, but because financing was cheap and abundant. Now, with interest rates higher and conditions tightening, some of those businesses may be far more fragile than they appear.

He calls them “zombie companies.”

Below, Louis breaks down why this matters now, why June 30 could be a key inflection point, and how to spot the warning signs before the market does.

He also lays out his full game plan – including the specific stocks he believes are most vulnerable, and where capital may rotate next – in a presentation you can watch right here.

If Louis is right, this is a risk most investors won’t see clearly until it’s too late.

I’ll let him take it from here.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

Zombie-themed movies and TV shows are very popular, so you probably know the pattern.

Many things look normal. People go to work. Stores are open. Life goes on.

But underneath the surface, something is wrong.

The infected are still walking around… still functioning… still blending in.

Until suddenly, they’re not.

The same is true of some companies. From the outside, everything looks normal, but they are rotting away on the inside.

For years, Sears looked like a company that was still humming along.

And technically, it was. The stores were open. The stock still traded. Management kept promising a turnaround.

But in reality, the business was being kept alive by asset sales, financial engineering, and borrowed time.

That is what I call a “zombie company.”

And if I’m right about what’s happening in private credit, investors may suddenly discover there are more of them out there than they realized.

In recent essays, I’ve explained how the private credit market grew into a $3 trillion shadow banking system, how investors may be able to profit from a coming flight to quality – and why June 30 could become a potential day of reckoning for this whole mess.

Why June 30? Because that’s when many private credit vehicles will be forced to update investors on what their holdings are really worth. And if some of those loans have been kept afloat by extensions, restructurings and wishful thinking, then this could be the moment when a lot of that hidden stress bubbles straight to the surface.

Today, I want to focus on what that could mean for investors’ portfolios.

Because if this private credit story keeps unfolding, some stocks are going to be a lot more vulnerable than others.

And believe me, you don’t want to be caught owning one of them if the private credit bubble begins to burst.

The “Zombie” Companies

A zombie company is not always obvious at first glance.

On the surface, it may look like a normal, functioning business. Revenue may still be coming in. Management may still be talking confidently. Wall Street may still be giving it the benefit of the doubt.

But underneath the surface, the story is very different.

These are companies that have been kept alive by easy money, cheap refinancing and constant access to credit. They do not really stand on their own. They depend on lenders continuing to extend terms, roll over debt and keep the game going.

That worked for a long time.

But now the environment has changed.

Roughly 80% of private credit loans are floating-rate, meaning they are at the mercy of prevailing interest rates.

That’s a problem, because borrowers’ interest costs have surged as rates have climbed.

In many cases, loans that once carried 4%-5% interest are now costing 12%-15%. That’s a massive jump, and it’s putting serious strain on already leveraged companies.

Now, to get the full details on what’s happening in private credit – and what I believe investors should do to protect themselves – you can learn more in my full presentation here.

In the meantime, in the next part of my interview series with InvestorPlace Editor-in-Chief Luis Hernandez, I explain why some so-called “zombie” stocks could be especially vulnerable if the private credit story keeps unfolding… and what investors should be watching for now.

Click the play button below to watch my conversation with Luis.

Are You Holding One of Them?

Here is the part that matters most.

This is not just a story about private credit funds or some hidden corner of Wall Street.

It is also a story about the public companies that depended on that easy-money system to survive.

Some are directly tied to private credit.

Others simply share the same warning signs: deteriorating fundamentals, mounting debt, weakening institutional support and business models that may not hold up well if financing conditions get tougher.

That is why I created a special report called: The Shadow Banking Blacklist.

In it, I identify 10 stocks I believe investors should be especially cautious about right now.

These are the names my system says look particularly vulnerable if the private credit cracks continue to spread. And if you own any of them, I believe you need to know before the rest of Wall Street catches on.

In my full presentation, I explain why I believe these “zombie” companies could be in serious trouble if credit conditions keep tightening. And I also show you where I believe investors may want to reposition as money begins moving toward higher-quality businesses.

If you want to get more details on the 10 stocks I’m most concerned about right now – and learn what I believe investors should do next – I strongly encourage you to watch my full presentation now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Breakthrough Stocks

The post Why the Private Credit Squeeze Could Create “Zombie” Companies appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Headlines can swing from escalation to calm and back again in just a few days.

But one thing is already clear: Warfare is changing.

Not with bigger weapons or larger armies. But with faster, cheaper and smarter technology.

Right now, that shift is changing how wars are fought. It is also creating a new wave of investment opportunities.

In today’s Market 360 issue, I want to look at this major shift in modern warfare, how AI is pushing it further and tell you about one of my favorite companies that stand to benefit.

The Technology Taking Center Stage

What we’re seeing now brings a major shift in warfare into focus.

It’s a shift driven by speed, cost and scalability – not old-school military power.

In fact, some of today’s most effective battlefield weapons are not the most advanced or expensive. They are the simplest.

They’re being deployed in large numbers, often in coordinated waves, designed to overwhelm even the most sophisticated defense systems.

I’m talking about drones.

In its attacks on Iran, the United States has used low-cost, one-way attack drones in combat for the first time.

The system is called LUCAS, short for Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System. It is an autonomous attack drone used to hit IRGC command centers, air defenses, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields.

It is 10 feet long with an 8-foot wingspan. It can travel about 500 miles, stay over a target for up to six hours and carry a 40-pound payload.

The LUCAS was developed by the Arizona-based company SpektreWorks.

Here’s a picture of a test launch, which took place in the Persian Gulf on December 16, 2025, from the USS Santa Barbara.

Total cost: about $35,000.

Compare that with a Tomahawk cruise missile, which costs about $2 million, or a Reaper drone, which costs about $30 million. By contrast, LUCAS looks like a game-changer for U.S. defense doctrine.

Interestingly, it was reverse-engineered from Iran’s own Shahed-136 drones, which have been used extensively by Russia on battlefields in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Iran has launched hundreds of Shahed drones of its own to overwhelm air defenses and attack U.S. bases and Middle Eastern partners and allies.

The point is simple: Drone warfare is becoming the new norm.

The Real Arms Race Is Just Beginning

Now, before we go any further, let’s address a really basic question:

Why drones?

The answer comes down to one thing: Drones are cheap.

According to estimates by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, one Shahed drone costs between $20,000 and $50,000. In comparison, one Patriot interceptor, used by the U.S. to destroy incoming drones, costs $4 million.

From a military standpoint, spending $30,000 to make your enemy spend $4 million is a very good trade. It’s what the experts would call an “asymmetry” – a huge imbalance.

Your opponent must either spend a fortune to defend itself or adapt fast.

From the U.S. side of the coin, we’ve finally been able to do just that.

And as drones grow cheaper, they become far more accessible.

But cost is only part of the story.

These systems are also becoming more autonomous and more AI-driven. They can process data in real time, navigate tough terrain and operate with little human help.

That means they are easier to deploy, easier to scale and far easier to weaponize.

It also means advanced militaries no longer have the edge to themselves.

Insurgent groups in Africa now use drones in routine operations. Drug cartels south of the U.S. border use them for surveillance and smuggling. Both are learning from war zones like Ukraine, where drone tactics and AI targeting have improved fast.

In other words, AI is transforming drones into intelligent weapons that anyone can use.

But it doesn’t stop there.

As drones become more widespread, defense systems must also become smarter – using AI to detect, track and neutralize threats in real time.

That means governments will likely increase spending on counter-drone and AI-driven defense systems.

And companies at the center of this shift stand to benefit.

We’re Already Seeing the Winners

The real opportunity here isn’t just understanding this shift – it’s knowing which companies stand to benefit.

And as this trend accelerates, certain companies are already emerging as clear winners.

One of the clearest examples is Elbit Systems Ltd. (ESLT).

Elbit is an Israeli defense contractor sitting right at the center of this shift. It develops advanced drone systems, AI-driven surveillance platforms and integrated battlefield technology.

This company is built for the future of warfare, where smart machines gather intelligence, monitor threats and operate in high-risk settings with little human input.

Elbit has developed a range of unmanned aircraft for reconnaissance and surveillance. These systems are built for long missions, strong data collection and more autonomous operation.

At the same time, it is linking drones, sensors and command networks in real time to improve battlefield decisions.

In other words, Elbit isn’t just building drones.

It’s helping build the infrastructure of modern AI-driven warfare.

When we added Elbit to the Growth Investor Buy List at the end of April last year, the market hadn’t fully caught on to this shift. Since then, the stock has taken off, rallying roughly 123%.

That is what happens when you spot a major trend early and buy the companies leading it.

And luckily, this trend is far from over.

As governments ramp up spending on AI-driven defense systems and counter-drone technologies, companies like Elbit are likely to remain in high demand.

Where to Find the Next Winners

I bring this up because finding a powerful trend with a long runway can make you a lot of money.

And drones are just one example.

The fact is I’m tracking and recommending stocks across multiple sectors that are benefiting from mega shifts just like this one… from artificial intelligence to energy to emerging technologies.

So, how do I find them?

I rely on a proven, data-driven system that cuts through the noise and identifies fundamentally superior stocks with the strongest growth potential.

That same approach is the backbone of my Growth Investor service.

Right now, my Growth Investor stocks are showing 37.3% average annual sales growth and 144% average annual earnings growth.

That tells me one thing: These companies are not just riding major trends. They are leading them.

In fact, I expect my Growth Investor stocks to resurge by 20% or more in the coming months, driven by their spectacular fundamentals and in the wake of stunning quarterly results.

So, if you want to see my top recommendations and get positioned in the kinds of stocks that can outperform in any market environment, I encourage you to take a closer look at Growth Investor today.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The Editor hereby discloses that as of the date of this email, the Editor, directly or indirectly, owns the following securities that are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned in, the essay set forth below:

Elbit Systems Ltd. (ESLT)

The post The New Weapon Changing Warfare (and Markets) appeared first on InvestorPlace.

They focus on headlines.

Revenue beats. EPS misses. Conference call narratives.

That’s surface-level noise.

What actually moves price is expectation — and how real capital is positioned against it.

I learned that lesson the hard way.

You see, I’ve been in the stock market for over 28 years. While I’ve learned the mindset of a pro trader in that span, the knowledge and insights I’ve gained haven’t come easy.

And four times a year, earnings season would roll around to remind me of just how much I hadn’t yet learned about trading.

When I started on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in 1997, I thought trading was about reacting quickly. I thought if I could interpret earnings faster than the next guy, I’d win.

I was wrong.

For years, every earnings season was the same. Volatility everywhere – but no high-conviction trade setups landing in my crosshairs.

Everything changed when I stopped asking, “What happened?” and started asking, “What was priced in?”

That shift — from reaction to positioning — is what built my process.

And today, there’s an entirely new layer helping us answer that last question.

This “New” Prediction Market Shift Isn’t on Wall Street’s Radar

Prediction markets are online exchanges where participants buy and sell contracts tied to future real-world events — interest rate decisions, election outcomes, inflation prints, tariff rulings, geopolitical developments.

Instead of trading stocks or commodities, participants are pricing probabilities. And they’re putting thousands and even millions on the line to do so.

Contracts are binary: Yes or No, Will or Won’t, Above or Below. They settle at $1 if the event occurs, $0 if it doesn’t.

Now, these markets are nothing new. Polymarket came online back in 2020. Its nearest competitor, Kalshi, launched just a year later.

So why are prediction markets suddenly grabbing all the headlines?

Because when that much capital is on the line, belief adjusts quickly in the broader market.

In many cases, those probability shifts show up before analyst revisions… and before stock prices fully reprice.

That’s the edge. Prediction markets don’t replace fundamentals. They enhance them.

And they’re changing the entire stock market as we know it.

Major institutions are already incorporating these probability signals into their forecasting process. Financial media is even beginning to monitor them closely this year.

And we can see in real time how these markets are handicapping the outcomes of everything from potential military strikes to business acquisitions.

Just check out one of the wagers I’m watching right now:

Source: Polymarket

Traders are betting thousands – even millions – on the odds that the U.S. government will invest big in any one of these stocks.

The list represents everything from semiconductor manufacturers to the suppliers shoring up the key materials these firms need to build out their chips.

You’ll notice I highlighted several names including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), Freeport-McMoran (FCX), and Rigetti Computing (RGTI).

Each one was a winner for us over the last year. But it wasn’t just earnings or a major acquisition announcement that tipped us off to these opportunities.

These trades express one new truth about the markets.

Combine prediction market data with the key institutional signals showing where the smart money is getting into position before earnings prints hit the tape…

And you have the power to get a read on the best opportunities in the stock market before the headlines have anything to say about them.

Just like we did when RGTI handed my readers a massive 233% gain in just five days.

Or when TMC netted my readers a whopping 700%+ gainer in just over two months.

That was a very special trade for us. TMC was the product of government-led volatility, a strong earnings beat carrying the stock higher – and the early probability signals from prediction markets that tipped us off to the setup in the first place.

I’ve already used these signals to identify rapid moves in stocks during earnings season and beyond:

• Sunrun Inc. (RUN), 151% in two days.
• BHP Group Ltd. (BHP), 189% in 17 days.
• Alphatec Holdings Inc. (ATEC), 213% in two weeks.
• Fastly Inc. (FSLY), 300%+ in just over a month.
• Snap Inc. (SNAP), 375%+ combined in about two months.

During this quarter alone, my closed trades are running at a 60% win rate, with an average return of 85.76% over roughly 31 days.

That’s the repeatable edge we exploit.

Bets like the ones I showed you give us a stronger sense of the odds market participants are pricing in – and where they’re positioning ahead of any big moves.

It’s knowledge that, when paired with the data and fundamentals I highlight every day I go live with Masters in Trading, can help us pick more winners than losers.

Where the Edge Forms

Opportunities appear when belief changes — but stocks haven’t caught up yet.

That’s the gap.

If probability markets suddenly reprice the odds of tariffs, subsidies, policy shifts, or macro outcomes — and equities are still trading on outdated assumptions — you have temporary misalignment.

And markets don’t tolerate misalignment for long. That’s how we’ve captured some of our biggest gains.

When tariff confidence deteriorated late last year, we moved early. SunRun delivered 151% in just two days. BHP returned 189% in 17 days.

Before earnings in Alphatec Holdings, the stock itself moved just 21%. Our structured trade returned 213%.

Snap dropped 44% after earnings. We still produced a combined gain north of 375%.

Fastly delivered over 300%. Taiwan Semiconductor produced a 700%+ gain in just over two months.

These weren’t lucky breaks. They were pricing gaps closing.

I’m seeing more gaps like these emerging in the markets every day.

And right now, there’s another massive gap bubbling up under the surface. It’s right at the intersection of prediction market hype and institutional money flows.

Every earnings season I comb through the data to spot three new high-conviction trade ideas that bridge the gap between market hype and fundamentals. All in sectors that few investors are paying much attention to right now — and we’re just days away from our picks for the new quarter.

I want you to be able to profit from one of the most important earnings seasons in recent memory.

That’s why I put together a special presentation revealing these opportunities and much more.

Because here’s the truth about hype… It’s just another signal smart traders use to stay a few steps ahead of the crowd.

The kind of intel that allows you to stop gambling and start winning.

Here’s that link again for you. I hope to see you there.

Remember, the creative trader wins.

The post The ‘New’ Layer in the Market: How We Scored a 300% Trade on Polymarket Hype appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Missiles, sanctions, proxy conflicts, oil spikes – it’s consuming every headline, every conversation, and frankly, a lot of investor headspace. 

But at the same time, loud stories like these have a way of drowning out the ones that are quietly reshaping everything else.

Last week, for example, while most of the financial media was fixated on the latest developments out of the Persian Gulf, Anthropic accidentally leaked one of the biggest bombshells in recent tech history…

A configuration error in its content management system left a trove of internal documents – draft blog posts, internal memos, PDFs – sitting in a publicly searchable data store with zero authentication requirements. And tucked inside those files was a draft describing a model called Claude Mythos – a next-generation AI system that Anthropic’s own internal documents describe as the most powerful model the company has ever built.

When a security researcher stumbled across this revelation and the documents began spreading across forums and social media, Anthropic had a choice: deny, confirm, or say nothing. To its credit, the company confirmed.

“We’re developing a general purpose model with meaningful advances in reasoning, coding, and cybersecurity,” an Anthropic spokesperson told Fortune. “We consider this model a step change and the most capable we’ve built to date.”

What those documents reveal goes well beyond a product announcement – and the investment implications extend across nearly every corner of the AI trade.

Inside the Claude Mythos Leak: A New Tier of AI

Mythos – internally codenamed Capybara – is an entirely new tier of model, above Opus. 

The leaked documents describe it as “larger and more intelligent than our Opus models – which were, until now, our most powerful.” 

According to these files, Mythos delivers dramatically higher scores across coding and reasoning benchmarks. Claude Opus 4.6 already leads the industry, achieving 76.8% on the SWE-bench Verified leadboard. 

Even a slight improvement would put Mythos in territory no model has ever reached.

The angle moving markets is one thing. What’s rattling the government is another.

Anthropic’s internal documents describe Mythos as farther ahead of any other AI model in cyber capabilities – so much so that it will be able to exploit vulnerabilities in ways that far outpace the efforts of defenders. 

In fact, Anthropic is so alarmed by this that they are privately briefing top U.S. officials, warning that Mythos makes large-scale cyberattacks much more likely in 2026 and beyond. 

That’s a company scared of its own creation.

Mythos is not yet available to the public. Anthropic is currently testing it with a small group of enterprise customers, and the model remains too compute-intensive for general release – efficiency work is required before that becomes economically viable. Prediction markets put the odds of a public launch at roughly 73% by June 2026. 

When it does ship, the two investment implications below will only sharpen.

AI Is Entering the ‘Lift-Off Phase’ (And It’s Accelerating Fast)

For the better part of three years, AI model development has been on an exponential improvement trajectory. But for most of that time, the curve felt gradual enough that you could still debate this tech boom’s impact. 

ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini were all impressive. But were they genuinely transformative? Were they actually changing how businesses operated at scale?

The answer over the past 12 months has shifted decisively from “maybe” to “definitely.” Over the past six months specifically, the pace of improvement has entered what we’d call the lift-off phase: the part of the exponential curve where the slope goes nearly vertical.

Consider what’s happened just since last year. 

Claude Opus went from strong-but-contested to undisputed coding leader as measured by SWE-bench. 

Gemini 3.1 Pro more than doubled its predecessor’s score on ARC-AGI-2 – a benchmark that tests a model’s ability to solve novel, pattern-based problems with minimal prior examples – rising from about 31% to roughly 77%.

GPT-5.4 marked a real inflection point in agentic execution – demonstrating the ability to plan and complete multi-step tasks end-to-end, and operate software directly.

And now Mythos enters, claiming yet another full generational leap above the current best. 

This is compounding progress. And compounding, as any investor knows, is where things get interesting.

The AI Arms Race Is Driving $600 Billion In Infrastructure Spending

The hyperscalers see it, too, which is why they’re keeping their feet on the gas. The top five – Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Meta (META), and Oracle (ORCL) – are projected to spend over $600 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026, up 36% year-over-year. 

These titans collectively generate hundreds of billions in free cash flow and are now spending faster than they earn it, financing the gap with debt. 

That is the behavior of companies who believe they are in a race they cannot afford to stumble in.

Goldman Sachs (GS) estimates that AI capex has so far reached only about 0.8% of GDP, compared to peaks of 1.5% or higher during prior technology booms. There is a credible case that we are not even halfway through this infrastructure buildout.

Claude Mythos is the confirmation that all this spending is working; that the models are getting better at a rate that justifies, and will continue to justify, extraordinary capital deployment. 

And that confirmation has exactly two investment implications – one very bullish, one very bearish.

The Biggest Winners of the Mythos Era

If models are getting exponentially better, better models require exponentially more compute to train and run, and the hyperscalers are locked in a capability arms race, then AI infrastructure spending is only going to compound.

Every new model generation forces a re-architecture of data center infrastructure – more GPUs, better networking, more memory bandwidth, more power, more cooling. Mythos being described as extremely compute-intensive is indicative of what’s to come. And it means the capex cycle continues. 

Here are the stocks that sit most directly in the path of this spending wave:

Stocks to Buy

• Nvidia (NVDA) – Hyperscalers are building chip backlogs reportedly in the hundreds of billions for Nvidia’s next-generation Rubin architecture. If Mythos-class training runs require dramatically more compute, that backlog only grows. No intermediary, no ambiguity, no better seat at this table.
• Broadcom (AVGO) – Every GPU cluster needs interconnects and switches to function, and Broadcom supplies them. The major hyperscaler custom chip programs – Google’s TPU, Meta’s MTIA, Amazon’s Trainium – all run through Broadcom’s ecosystem.
• Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) – Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, and Micron all outsource production to TSM. It doesn’t matter which chip architecture wins the model wars. As long as frontier AI requires cutting-edge silicon, TSM makes it. Possibly the safest way to own the entire AI capex cycle without picking a chip winner.
• Arista Networks (ANET) – As GPU clusters scale to tens of thousands of chips for Mythos-scale training runs, the networking spend scales proportionally. Arista dominates 400G/800G switching – a category growing in lockstep with cluster size.
• Vertiv (VRT) – Compute density and heat output are rising, and Vertiv is the market leader in the cooling and power infrastructure required to keep it all running.
• Micron (MU) – Memory demand is a direct function of model size. Mythos being dramatically larger than Opus means more HBM per GPU, more NAND for inference caching, more memory everywhere. Also a recovery story – the recent AI memory selloff was overdone (a thesis we’ve covered in depth separately), and a new model generation accelerates the reversal.
• CoreWeave (CRWV) – When Anthropic needs to serve Mythos at scale before internal economics are workable, it rents CoreWeave. It is the most direct inference infrastructure play on frontier model deployment.

AI vs SaaS: Why Software Stocks Face Structural Decline

This is the part of the story that Wall Street is still wrestling with. And that’s costing investors money.

The SaaSpocalypse – a term to describe the roughly $2 trillion wipeout in enterprise software stocks that began in early February 2026 – was not irrational panic. It was the market correctly processing a structural truth: if AI models can perform the tasks that enterprise software enables, the per-seat licensing model that built the SaaS industry is fundamentally broken.

That is, if 10 AI agents can do the work of 100 sales representatives, you don’t need 100 Salesforce seats anymore. You need 10. That is a 90% reduction in seat revenue for the same economic output. And it doesn’t matter how entrenched the software is or how many years the enterprise has been on the platform – because the AI agent doesn’t need the software to complete the work.

Mythos accelerates this timeline dramatically. A model delivering dramatically higher capabilities in reasoning, coding, and autonomous task execution is more than  just a better chatbot. It is an agent that can replace knowledge workers across entire departments. And when the knowledge workers go away, their software seats go with them. 

Here are the stocks most directly in the crosshairs:

Stocks to Sell

• HubSpot (HUBS) – SMB-focused CRM and marketing automation = the category where AI agents displace humans most directly and switching costs are lowest. No meaningful data moat, premium multiple. And SMB customers are the fastest to cut seats the moment AI gives them a cheaper alternative.
• Atlassian (TEAM) – Jira, Confluence, and Trello are the canonical “AI will automate this” products. Task tracking, status updates, and documentation workflows are mechanical processes that AI agents handle natively. TEAM is already down 35% in the SaaSpocalypse, and the thesis has not changed.
• ZoomInfo (ZI) – ZoomInfo sells sales intelligence – prospect research, contact data, intent signals. That is precisely what an AI agent with web access does autonomously, continuously, and, increasingly, better. The disruption vector here is the most direct of any software name.
• Adobe (ADBE) – The creative suite under structural pressure from AI-native generation. If you can produce professional creative assets with a prompt, the case for a $600-per-year Creative Cloud subscription weakens materially. Firefly integration is a speed bump, not a moat.
• Workday (WDAY) – HR and finance workflow automation with per-employee pricing. As enterprises reduce headcount through AI automation, Workday’s revenue shrinks. The risk isn’t that AI replaces Workday; it’s that AI reduces the headcount that uses it.
• Datadog (DDOG) – As AI-native development tools handle monitoring and observability natively within agentic workflows, the need for a standalone observability layer compresses. Host-based pricing means revenue erodes with infrastructure abstraction.
• MongoDB (MDB) – AI coding tools weaken database lock-in by removing the expertise barrier that historically kept developers in a single architecture. A Mythos-class model that writes and optimizes database code at superhuman levels makes switching costs evaporate.

The Claude Mythos Leak Confirms the AI Investment Playbook

Let’s zoom out past the headlines for a moment. 

The Iran War is serious. The macro headwinds from elevated rates and lingering uncertainty deserve attention. 

We’re not looking past any of that. But consider what else is happening at the same time:

The most sophisticated AI research lab in the world just accidentally revealed that they’ve built a model so powerful they are afraid to release it publicly. They are privately briefing government officials about its implications. They have defined an entirely new tier of AI capability above their current best. And the hyperscalers — who have direct visibility into the ROI of these systems — are spending $600 billion this year, up 36% year-over-year, to build the infrastructure that trains and runs them.

That is a technology in lift-off.

In a situation like that, the investment playbook is clear: you bet on two things simultaneously.

These two bets are two sides of the same thesis. And Claude Mythos, accidental reveal and all, just made that thesis a lot more compelling.

The Bottom Line

Eventually, even the Iran War will end. The exponential improvement in foundational AI models will not.

The companies building the infrastructure that trains Mythos – and every model that follows – are the obvious first-order bet. But the second-order bet may be even more compelling: owning a piece of the AI platform that sits on top of all of it.

OpenAI is the company that forced every hyperscaler to restructure their roadmaps. It’s the platform that turned AI from a research curiosity into a $600 billion annual infrastructure commitment. And if the trajectory that Mythos confirms continues, OpenAI’s next chapter – as a public company – could be the defining investment event of this decade.

Most investors will wait for the IPO. We’ve found a way in before it happens, for under $10.

See the pre-IPO play before the window closes.

The post Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Leak Is Bigger Than You Think appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Editor’s Note: Our InvestorPlace offices are closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

If you need assistance from our Customer Service team, they’ll be happy to assist you when we re-open Monday.

Have a wonderful Easter Weekend!

As I write on Thursday morning, stocks are doing something we’ve grown accustomed to lately – swinging wildly, keeping us guessing about what’s coming next.

Behind the volatility is President Donald Trump and his address to the nation last night about the situation in Iran. The short version: we’re winning – but expect another two to three weeks of heavy fighting.

Markets were hoping for an exit ramp. Instead, they got a near-term timeline for continued fighting with no detailed ceasefire framework or reopening plan for the Strait of Hormuz.

Stocks opened sharply lower on the news, rallied back to flat, and are now bouncing around. Oil has jumped – both West Texas Intermediate Crude and Brent trade above $105 a barrel, though both are off their morning highs.

Overall, it’s one of those sessions where the close is anyone’s guess.

Given that we covered the Iran war’s market implications in yesterday’s Digest, let’s shift gears and take a closer look at a data point that came out yesterday that got a bit lost in the excitement.

What did we learn from the ADP jobs report?

ADP’s March private payrolls report came in yesterday at 62,000 – ahead of the Wall Street forecast of 39,000 and roughly in line with February’s upwardly revised total. On the surface, that’s a decent number.

But dig one layer deeper, and the picture gets a lot less comfortable.

Two sectors – education and health services, and construction – accounted for nearly all the gains, contributing 58,000 and 30,000 jobs respectively. Meanwhile, trade, transportation and utilities shed 58,000 workers. Manufacturing lost another 11,000. And large firms, those with 500 or more employees, actually reported a net decline.

In other words, the headline number is doing a lot of heavy lifting to cover up what is really a two-cylinder jobs engine.

ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, put it plainly:

We’ve seen two consecutive months of pretty steady job growth, but most of it has been in health care. That’s really the story.

Health care is transforming the labor market.

One sector carrying the labor market is not a sign of broad-based strength. It is a sign of narrow resilience – and narrow resilience has a way of becoming a problem when that one sector hits a speed bump.

We’ll get the official verdict soon. The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its March Employment Situation report tomorrow morning. Wall Street’s consensus is for 57,000 nonfarm payrolls – a bounce from February’s ugly 92,000 job loss, but still well below the pre-tariff monthly average of roughly 180,000.

One wrinkle worth noting: the stock market will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday. Whatever that number says – good, bad or ugly – investors won’t be able to react until Monday. It could make for an interesting weekend and Monday morning session.

But the real threat won’t show up in tomorrow’s labor report

Even if tomorrow’s jobs report beats expectations, the structural backdrop for the labor market is shifting in ways that a single month of payroll data simply cannot capture. Let’s talk about why.

First, a quick primer on a term you’re going to hear a lot more of: AI agents.

An AI agent isn’t just a chatbot you type questions into. It’s a software program that can take actions on your behalf – autonomously, without you guiding each step. It can browse the web, send emails, book appointments, manage files, execute transactions and coordinate with other AI agents, all while you’re doing something else entirely.

Think of it less like a calculator and more like a tireless digital employee who never sleeps, never calls in sick and can be cloned infinitely at almost no cost.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang put it bluntly at his company’s GPU Technology Conference last month: one engineer with an army of AI agents at their disposal should be ten times more productive than one without. The math on what that means for headcount isn’t complicated.

Goldman Sachs estimates AI could automate tasks accounting for 25% of all U.S. work hours, projecting that 6% to 7% of jobs will be displaced over the adoption period.

Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO of Circle – one of the largest stablecoin issuers in the world – was direct about where this is headed when speaking at the Economic Club of New York last month:

AI agents will replace a huge percentage of work that’s currently performed by humans on a massive scale…

It’s going to be most dramatic in white-collar work.

Regular Digest readers will recall the Citrini Research scenario we covered in our February 26 issue – the self-reinforcing loop where AI capabilities improve… companies need fewer workers… displaced workers spend less… and the ensuing margin pressure pushes firms to invest even more in AI. Rinse and repeat.

Increasingly, that’s appearing as a real risk.

Take the story we covered in yesterday’s Digest, Oracle’s mass layoffs. They’re affecting potentially 20,000 to 30,000 workers at a company that just posted a 95% jump in net income. This is the Citrini loop in motion.

Bottom line: Tomorrow’s labor market data will tell us what happened with jobs in March. But the dynamic above tells us what’s coming this decade.

How to invest ahead of the coming Agent Supernova

The structural shift playing out above has a name – at least in the pages of Money & Megatrends.

Brian Hunt, editor of this free daily e-letter, calls it the “Agent Supernova” – and he’s spent the past two weeks laying out exactly what it means for investors.

Here’s Brian on the scale of what’s coming:

Within the next two years, the number of AI agents operating in the American economy isn’t poised to increase by 10X… or 50X… or even by 1,000X.

Try at least 100,000X.

This is the coming Agent Supernova. Agents working with people. Agents working with other agents. Agents running businesses. Agents negotiating and haggling with other agents.

To bring this to life, Brian offers a simple illustration. A single restaurant could soon run five specialized agents simultaneously – one managing cooking schedules, one handling accounting, one overseeing staff, one tracking supply orders and one general-purpose agent coordinating all the others.

Now, multiply that model across every business in the economy, and you start to grasp what 100,000X growth in AI agents actually looks like in the real world.

So, how do we invest?

Brian argues that this economic shift runs straight through the semiconductor industry. AI agents don’t live in the cloud alone – they run “at the edge,” inside our phones, cars, homes, offices, hospitals and factories. All of that requires specialized chips built for the job.

One company Brian has his eye on is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Brian calls AMD one of the safest bets on the agentic wave. While Nvidia (NVDA) still dominates in GPUs, AMD has carved out nearly 40% market share in the CPU space – deeply embedded with hyperscalers like Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. As agentic AI shifts the compute mix toward CPUs alongside GPUs, AMD’s positioning looks increasingly strategic.

Brian has three more semiconductor names he’s watching in this space. To get those picks totally free – along with his full Agent Supernova investment thesis – sign up for Money & Megatrends here.

So, where does all this leave us?

This week’s ADP jobs number was decent. And Friday’s official labor report may well be “decent” too.

But “decent” is doing a lot of work in a labor market where two sectors are carrying everyone else, monthly payroll growth is running at roughly a third of its pre-tariff pace and the most powerful tech companies on earth are openly planning for a workforce where digital employees dwarf human ones.

The question for investors isn’t whether the March jobs number looks okay. It’s whether you’re positioned for the swarm of AI agents that will be coming after “okay.”

We’ll keep tracking these stories here in the Digest.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

(Disclaimer: I own AMD.)

The post Trump’s Iran Update Spikes Volatility. Now What? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Consider this year’s NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball tournament. The term March Madness certainly applied this year. In fact, there were so many “upsets,” with lower-seeded teams defeating higher-seeded teams, that only about 14,000 perfect brackets existed after the first round.

Of the 26-36 million NCAA men’s tournament brackets people filled out on major web platforms, nearly all were busted by the second round after Tennessee defeated Virginia.

If that’s not the perfect illustration of how hard it is to guess everything right, I don’t know what is, folks.

Of course, this year, there was a lot more than basketball upsets that made March a little “mad”.

The month was full of distractions on Wall Street, which understandably rattled many investors.

But the big one is the war in Iran.

And the market certainly felt it. In March, the Dow fell 5.4%, the S&P 500 dropped 5.1% and the NASDAQ slid 4.8% – and that’s even after a powerful rebound on Tuesday to end the month.

That sharp bounce is important. It tells us that while geopolitical shocks can hit stocks hard in the short run, sentiment can reverse just as quickly when investors begin to see a path forward.

That is why the real risk right now is not just volatility itself. It is letting all this noise distract you from the much bigger story quietly unfolding.

So, in today’s Market 360, I want to show you why the market’s recent March Madness may prove temporary, why investors are already starting to look past the latest Iran headlines – and why a couple of overlooked developments in Elon Musk’s orbit say a lot about where the future is heading.

Let’s dive in.

The Big March Distraction: Iran

First, there’s the conflict in Iran.

Tensions in the Middle East reached a tipping point at the beginning of March, with the U.S. and Israel launching coordinated attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, military infrastructure and leadership on February 28. The conflict is now on day 34.

In retaliation, Iran not only launched its own missile strikes but also decided to halt shipments in the Strait of Hormuz, which has significantly impacted global food and energy prices.

Not only that, but the market has also been struggling to keep up as developments keep changing.

You may recall that last week, President Trump paused military action in Iran until April 6. Then, on Monday, Trump threatened to attack Iran’s vital energy resources and infrastructure if a deal isn’t met and the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t reopen.

But now the tone has shifted.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, stocks rebounded strongly as hopes for de-escalation grew, oil prices eased and President Trump signaled that he was prepared to wind down the conflict.

In other words, the situation remains fluid. But the market’s response is a reminder that headline-driven fear can reverse in a hurry when investors begin to sense an off-ramp.

While the rebound was a good thing, uncertainty remains high and energy prices are feeling the heat.

The Strait of Hormuz closure has pushed West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude oil to $100 per barrel, though both have pulled back from their recent highs as investors bet the conflict may not drag on indefinitely.

Even when a ceasefire is negotiated and the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, it will take months for energy shipments to resume to pre-war levels. About one-third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and the resulting shortage will keep global food prices elevated.

So, food and energy inflation are anticipated to persist for several months.

The Problem With Distractions, and the Bigger Story…

Now, there are a couple of problems with these distractions. One is that they impede U.S. GDP growth.

Geopolitical shocks like this can interrupt economic momentum. They can push up energy costs, weigh on sentiment and make it harder for businesses – and investors – to plan with confidence.

The Atlanta Fed has already cut its first-quarter GDP estimate to a 2.0% annual pace, down from 2.8% on March 18 and 3.2% on March 5.

So, you might be wondering what happened to my prediction for 5% GDP growth this year. (I predicted this in early January, and by not even halfway through the month, signs pointed to it coming true.)

I still believe the U.S. economy has the potential to reaccelerate meaningfully once this latest wave of uncertainty fades. But in the short run, wars, energy shocks and Washington drama can all get in the way.

The second problem is how all of this complicates the path to lower interest rates.

Two weeks ago, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted 11-1 to keep the target range for the federal funds rate unchanged at 3.5%-3.75%. Surging energy prices, inflation fears and geopolitical concerns clearly played a role in the FOMC’s decision.

In fact, instead of saying that the war-related inflation would be temporary, the FOMC chose to say, “the implications of the developments in the Middle East for the U.S. economy are uncertain.”

Now, you may know that the Federal Reserve and other global central banks like to ignore food and energy inflation. Their favorite inflation indicator is core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), which excludes food and energy. We’ll get a look at this next Thursday.

Despite the food and energy inflation caused by the Strait of Hormuz closure, I expect global central banks to cut key interest rates in the coming months to stimulate their respective economies. The Fed should join the global rate-cutting parade in May, when Kevin Warsh takes over as the new Fed Chair.

Once key interest rate cuts start and uncertainty fades, 5% annual GDP growth should materialize – as soon as the second quarter.

Don’t Head for the Bench

Now, it’s clear that recent distractions have caused many investors to call “time out” and head for the sidelines.

But I want to urge you to resist that impulse.

One thing I’ve learned in my decades on Wall Street is that you have to keep your head in the game. The second is that it pays to be an optimist.

For example, while Wall Street was glued to every new development out of Iran, one story reminds us of the bigger picture.

Yesterday, SpaceX filed confidential paperwork for an initial public offering (IPO). Some estimates value the company at roughly $1.5 trillion, making it the largest IPO in history.

Think about what that means. Even with war headlines dominating the news, America’s innovation machine is still moving forward.

That is the bigger story.

What You Can Do to Profit

I remain convinced that 2026 will be one of our best-performing years in decades!

Because what’s driving this recent volatility is temporary, and it’s distracting investors from where real growth is coming from.

Just look at what Elon Musk has been up to, for example.

Between xAI, SpaceX and the broader buildout now unfolding around artificial intelligence, data centers and next-generation infrastructure, it is clear that the world’s biggest players are not pulling back. They are accelerating.

And that is why I believe investors should pay very close attention to what Elon Musk is setting in motion right now…

Between xAI, SpaceX and the broader infrastructure boom unfolding around artificial intelligence, I believe his latest moves are pointing to where some of the biggest opportunities of 2026 may emerge.

That’s why I recently put together a special presentation explaining what’s driving this shift, why Wall Street may still be underestimating it and the companies I believe are positioned to profit most as it unfolds.

You can watch the full presentation here.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The post The Bigger Story Behind March’s Market Selloff appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Hello, Reader.

Most people don’t realize they’re living in a revolution while it’s happening – and that’s exactly the case with the AI Revolution.

Each new, incremental AI update can feel almost unremarkable – until you zoom out and see you’re standing in a completely different world than you were years ago.

Almost four years ago, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, a large language model (LLM) chatbot. Artificial general intelligence (AGI), which can understand, learn, and perform at a human level, was just a fantasy.

But now, that fantasy might be turning into a reality after Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said last week: “I think we’ve achieved AGI.”

This was in response to a podcaster’s question about what it would take for AI to build and manage a $1 billion company on its own. In terms of profitability, Huang believes it’s currently possible – citing the profits Anthropic’s Claude has generated.

And he’s right to consider Anthropic’s achievements. 2026 already seems to belong to the AI company – and we’re only four months into the year.

In today’s Smart Money, let’s examine the latest AI developments that are leading the push toward AGI.

Then, I’ll share my three-part investment strategy you need to know before we’re fully submerged in the AI waters.

Let’s jump in…

Anthropic’s Leak – and Arm’s Breakthrough

Anthropic has had a standout year.

From entertaining Super Bowl commercials to the releases of Claude Code and Cowork, and now to lawsuits involving the Department of Defense’s use of the company’s AI models, Anthropic has been a constant headliner.

In addition, total Claude users and new users over the last six months have grown significantly, and subscriber numbers have steadily increased to record numbers. Though Anthropic hasn’t disclosed this specific data, TechCrunch has seen the total number of Claude consumer users range from 18 million to 30 million. And paid subscribers have already more than doubled this year.

But Anthropic is making new headlines this week with the leak of Claude Mythos.

Described as the company’s “most powerful AI model ever developed,” Mythos is part of a new model tier called Capybara. This agentic AI model will be able to arrange and perform tasks autonomously, including making decisions, moving across different software platforms, and completing operations with less human interference.

Along with advancements in reasoning and coding, Mythos also brings significant leaps in cybersecurity capabilities. The model is so powerful at spotting software weaknesses that Anthropic has expressed a desire to give cyber defenders early access.

Claude is already widely considered a significant precursor to or an early form of AGI by researchers and users. Mythos could very well raise that water line higher. 

But Anthropic isn’t alone in its AGI-related developments…

Last week, Arm Holdings Plc (ARM) announced its first chip built on silicon, the Arm AGI CPU. Created on the Arm Neoverse platform, these chips are designed to power the next generation of AI infrastructure and address agentic AI’s new demand for CPUs.

The Arm AGI CPU’s configuration performs sustainably at a massive scale, delivering more than double the performance per rack compared to the latest x86 systems.

This move signals how serious Arm – and the AI industry – is about fueling the AGI buildout. The company says it “remains committed to enabling progress across the ecosystem – meeting customers where they are, from hyperscale cloud providers to AI startups.”

Sink or Swim: Your AGI Investment Framework

Investors who are unprepared – or fail to notice the water slowly rise above them – will miss the transformative opportunities that AGI will bring.

And since there are so many ways to profit from AI’s exponential growth, I’ve developed a three-step process for finding companies that will survive and thrive on the Road to AGI…

• Invest “in” AI: Buying shares of companies that are providing key parts of the infrastructure that will accelerate AI technology toward AGI. Think chip companies.
• Invest “alongside” AI: Getting in on the companies primed to rise in tandem with AGI, like those that provide the physical infrastructure of AGI facilities.
• Invest in “stealth” AI: Investing in non-tech companies that will adopt and apply AI to reap huge gains in efficiency, productivity, and profits.

I explain each of these methods in more detail in my The Road to AGI: Final Warning broadcast.

I’ve also put together three reports, each with one recommendation: one for investing in AGI, another for investing alongside AGI, and a third for investing in stealth AGI.

You can learn how to access those reports and the names of these companies in my special presentation.

Click here for more details.

Regards,

Eric Fry

The post What Anthropic’s Latest Model Signals for Investors appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Micron (MU), SanDisk (SNDK), Western Digital (WDC), and Seagate (STX) had been among the hottest stocks in the entire market, riding the AI memory bottleneck thesis. Each were up hundreds of percent as investors collectively woke up to a simple truth: you cannot build AI without memory, and there wasn’t nearly enough of it to go around. 

Then came TurboQuant, and just like that, the hottest group in the market found itself in a selling frenzy.

Google’s TurboQuant targets something called the Key-Value (KV) cache – the working memory AI models use to store contextual information so they don’t have to recompute it with every new token they generate. As models process longer inputs, the KV cache grows rapidly, consuming GPU memory at an alarming rate. TurboQuant compresses that cache from 16 bits per value down to just 3 bits – a 6x reduction in memory footprint – with, per Google’s benchmarks, zero loss in model accuracy. No retraining required. No fine-tuning. It’s genuinely impressive; a real breakthrough.

So why aren’t we panicking? Because there is a very old and very reliable pattern in technology investing. An efficiency breakthrough gets announced. The market panics. Investors dump the stocks that allegedly benefit from inefficiency. And then, six to 12 months later, everyone quietly realizes they sold exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.

We think that’s exactly what’s happening now – and we’ll show you why.

The Bear Case for AI Memory Stocks After TurboQuant

Before we dismantle it, let’s give the bear case its due. The bears aren’t unintelligent – they’re just drawing the wrong conclusion from a real observation.

AI memory demand has been projected to grow explosively because of the KV cache. As context windows expand from 100,000 to 1 million-plus tokens, the KV cache grows proportionally, creating insatiable demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM). That demand thesis is a huge part of why stocks like MU and SNDK ran so hard.

TurboQuant, if widely adopted, compresses the KV cache by 6x. So the bearish argument goes that if the KV cache is 6x smaller, we’ll need 6x less memory. 

‘Memory demand – and memory stocks – will crater. Sell everything.’

Wells Fargo (WFC) analyst Andrew Rocha articulated this cleanly: if TurboQuant is adopted broadly, it quickly raises the question of how much memory capacity the industry actually needs. 

That’s a fair question. It’s just that the answer isn’t what the bears think.

Why TurboQuant Will Increase AI Memory Demand, Not Reduce It

In 1865, British economist William Stanley Jevons noticed something counterintuitive about coal consumption in England. 

You might expect that as steam engines became more efficient – requiring less coal to do the same work – coal consumption would fall. Instead, as Jevons observed, it exploded. More efficient engines made coal-powered applications cheaper to run, which unlocked a massive wave of new use cases that more than offset the efficiency gains.

Jevons called it a paradox. And it’s why we’re confident that Google TurboQuant will not kill memory demand.

Here’s how we see the Jevons paradox playing out for AI memory specifically:

Channel 1: Context Window Expansion 

Right now, long-context AI inference is brutally expensive because KV cache memory scales linearly with context length. That cost constraint has been a real ceiling on how ambitiously developers deploy long-context models. TurboQuant effectively makes the same GPU that currently supports a 100K-token context window capable of supporting a 600K-token context window – for free.

The moment that reaches widespread deployment, a massive wave of applications that weren’t economically viable suddenly become viable: deep document analysis across entire legal libraries, persistent AI agents with genuinely long memory, complex multi-step reasoning chains. All of those new applications consume more total compute and memory than the constrained baseline. 

The efficiency gain doesn’t reduce the memory market – it expands it into territory that was previously off-limits.

Channel 2: New Application Categories

Cheaper inference means more inference. Every major reduction in inference cost has historically triggered a more-than-proportional expansion in what developers actually build. When OpenAI slashed GPT-3.5 Turbo API pricing through 2023, developers who had been prototyping suddenly deployed at scale – and entirely new application categories emerged almost overnight. AI writing tools, coding assistants, and customer service bots went from niche experiments to mainstream products not because the technology improved, but because the economics finally made sense. TurboQuant is the same forcing function for a new tier of applications. 

The ceiling for AI capabilities has been cost. Lower that cost, and you unlock demand tiers that simply didn’t exist before.

Channel 3: Edge and Mobile AI

TurboQuant enables meaningful LLM inference on devices with far less memory than today’s data center GPUs. One benchmark showed that a 3-bit KV cache could make 32K-plus token contexts feasible on mobile phones. That means the addressable market for memory in an on-device AI world is potentially larger than the data center market. 

Efficiency enabling edge deployment is a demand expansion story, not a demand destruction story. In fact, the market was handed a near-identical lesson just months ago – and most investors have already forgotten it.

The DeepSeek Playbook: What the Last AI Efficiency Panic Got Wrong

In early 2026, DeepSeek published a paper showing you could train frontier-quality AI models at a fraction of the cost. 

The market’s immediate reaction? Sell Nvidia (NVDA). Sell AI infrastructure. Panic.

What actually happened: hyperscalers immediately used the efficiency gains to run more inference at greater scale. Capex guidance went up, not down. The dip became one of the most obvious buying opportunities of the year, and AI infrastructure stocks subsequently ripped.

TurboQuant is the same dynamic applied to memory. Right now, the market is selling memory stocks because AI will need less memory per query. But the real question isn’t “how much memory per query?” It’s, “how many queries?” 

As cheaper inference unlocks an ocean of new use cases, exponentially more.

Now, there’s one distinction worth flagging. Unlike DeepSeek, which was a deployed model developers could download and run the day the paper dropped, TurboQuant is still pre-production – real-world integration across hyperscaler infrastructure is likely 12 to 24 months out.

But the direction looks the same. And the valuation setup for memory stocks right now makes the entry point arguably even more compelling.

The AI Memory Stock Selloff Makes No Analytical Sense

Set Jevons aside entirely. Even accepting the bear’s core premise – that TurboQuant will reduce KV cache memory demand – the selloff in SNDK and STX is still nonsensical.

TurboQuant compresses the KV cache, which lives in GPU HBM and DRAM. That’s the domain of Micron and SK Hynix. 

SanDisk is primarily a NAND flash company. Seagate is an HDD company. Neither has meaningful HBM exposure.

The fact that SNDK and STX sold off as hard as MU tells you everything you need to know: this is panic-driven, not analytical.

The market is pattern-matching on “AI efficiency breakthrough = sell memory” without distinguishing between what type of memory is actually affected. 

That’s the kind of indiscriminate selling that creates generational entry points.

The Bottom Line

AI memory stocks have been punished by a confluence of macro headwinds – now-fading geopolitical uncertainty from the Iran conflict – and an algorithm-driven panic that misreads a genuine efficiency improvement as a demand destruction event. 

SemiAnalysis memory analyst Ray Wang put it plainly: it will be “hard to avoid higher usage of memory” as a result of improving model performance. And Quilter Cheviot‘s technology head Ben Barringer called TurboQuant “evolutionary, not revolutionary – it does not alter the industry’s long-term demand picture.”

We agree.

The Jevons Paradox is about to take its revenge on everyone who sold AI memory stocks because Google figured out how to make AI more efficient. History is littered with investors who made exactly this mistake – who sold the shovels because gold became easier to find, then watched the gold rush accelerate instead.

Don’t sell the shovels. This gold rush is just getting started.

What Smart Money Does While Everyone Else Panics

The memory stocks getting sold off today are the shovels of this gold rush — and we’ve argued they’re being thrown away at exactly the wrong moment. But if the real Jevons rebound plays out the way we expect, the next leg of this AI bull market won’t just reward the infrastructure. It’ll reward the platforms built on top of it…

Which brings us to the company at the center of it all.

Every efficiency breakthrough we’ve discussed – TurboQuant, DeepSeek, cheaper inference unlocking new application tiers – ultimately accelerates demand for one thing: AI platforms capable of deploying at scale. And no company is better positioned to capture that demand than OpenAI.

Most investors are waiting for the IPO. That’s the wrong move. The biggest gains in generational companies don’t go to investors who buy on listing day — they go to investors who found a way in before the crowd arrived. 

We have identified a way to stake a claim in OpenAI right now, before any IPO is announced, for under $10.

When OpenAI goes public at an expected $1 trillion valuation and gets added to the S&P 500, the wave of institutional buying alone will be historic. The window to get in ahead of that moment is open right now – but it won’t stay open forever.

Click here to see that pre-IPO play before it’s too late.

The post What TurboQuant Actually Means for AI Memory Stocks appeared first on InvestorPlace.

This morning, President Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran’s president has requested a ceasefire – adding that the U.S. would only consider the proposal once the Strait of Hormuz was “open, free, and clear.”

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates is reportedly preparing to help open the Strait by clearing it of mines, while also encouraging neighboring Gulf states to join the effort.

Here’s The Wall Street Journal:

Emirati diplomats have urged the U.S. and military powers in Europe and Asia to form a coalition to open the strait by force…

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are now turning against Iran’s regime and want the war to continue until it is disabled or toppled.

Altogether, it’s enough to keep optimism high and market gains coming. The S&P 500 is up about 3.5% over the past two sessions as oil prices fall – it’s a welcome exhale after one of the roughest stretches of the year.

Let’s pull back and get some perspective

Even with this two-day bounce, as I write, the S&P remains roughly 6% below its January peak. The Nasdaq and the Dow – which both temporarily crossed into official correction territory – are still down about 9% and 7%, respectively, from their highs.

As you can see from the chart below, even after our two-day bounce, the S&P 500 is still trading below its 200-day moving average (MA).

Here’s how Brian Hunt, editor of the free e-letter Money & Megatrends, described the significance of being below the 200-day MA in last Friday’s issue:

Stocks, ETFs, and indexes below their 200-day moving average are “on the wrong side of the tracks.” It’s the ugly part of town.

All the really bad things — crashes, panics, horrible bear markets — happen below the 200-day moving average.

But look back at the chart, and you’ll see that the S&P is looking to retake that key technical level.

Will the market break through and continue to strengthen? Or will the S&P get rejected and begin a deeper leg lower?

Brian points out that today’s fundamentals, valuations, and interest rates aren’t driving the recent price action in the broad market. The volatility is nearly exclusively due to Operation Epic Fury and President Trump’s social media posts.

So, he sees a simple binary that could influence this 200-day MA test:

If the war ends soon, the S&P is very likely to pop higher and get back on the right side of town.

If the war does not end soon, its constriction of critical resource supplies will seriously damage the global economy and stocks will trade lower.

Bottom line: The last two days are encouraging. But the resolution remains unclear – and as we noted in yesterday’s Digest, even a ceasefire doesn’t automatically reopen the Strait, which will have the greatest influence over oil prices and, by extension, inflation, interest rates and the rest of the tipping dominoes.

Brian publishes his free e-letter every day the market is open. If you’re interested in learning more about the megatrends that are driving the market today, sign up for Money & Megatrends right here.

Now, even amid this uncertainty, our hypergrowth expert Luke Lango, editor of Innovation Investor, is betting on a bullish outcome.

Luke’s bull case: why he thinks this rally could have real legs

Even with the market below its 200-day MA, Luke sees a compelling setup building beneath the surface – particularly for tech and AI investors.

He notes a few converging signals. First, market breadth has deteriorated to levels historically associated with correction bottoms – the kind of readings that, in past cycles, marked the zone of maximum dislocation between price and fundamental value.

Meanwhile, fear indicators are compressing from their peaks, suggesting the worst of the uncertainty may already be priced in.

And the correction math itself is encouraging. Luke’s research found that every market pullback since 1950 that was constrained to 10%-20% went on to post an average six-month return from the trough of roughly 24%.

But the most bullish piece of Luke’s argument is the valuation reset in tech specifically. Here’s Luke from his most recent Innovation Investor Daily Notes:

Tech stock valuations have reset to levels that are genuinely compelling relative to the confirmed earnings growth trajectory.

The S&P 500 tech sector’s forward earnings multiple has compressed to 20.5X — essentially a post-COVID low, and just above where tech stocks bottomed in the 2022 bear market.

Over the next three years, tech earnings are projected to grow at a 25% CAGR. So, at current levels, investors are paying 20X forward earnings for ~25% compounded earnings growth.

That’s a very attractive setup.

Luke’s takeaway is that while we may not be at the exact low, waiting for a perfect all-clear signal could mean missing the opportunity. In his words, we’re “bottom enough.”

Now, shifting from the obvious impact of the Iran war on Wall Street, there’s a new related issue that could be a black swan lurking ahead…

The new brewing risk to the AI trade

While all eyes are on oil and the Strait of Hormuz, a quieter supply chain story is developing that AI and tech investors should closely track.

Helium.

The same invisible gas that keeps party balloons aloft is also essential for cooling the machines that manufacture AI chips – and right now, roughly a third of the world’s supply is offline.

Iran’s strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facility earlier this month didn’t just disrupt natural gas. They disrupted helium production lines that could take up to five years to repair.

Qatar supplies about a third of global helium, and virtually all of it travels through the Strait of Hormuz – which, despite Wall Street’s two-day party, remains paralyzed.

Here’s Entrepreneur on Monday:

Without helium, leading chip makers including TSMC, Samsung and SK Hynix could struggle to keep production running.

Helium cools superconducting magnets during chip manufacturing and flushes toxic residue after wafers are washed.

The gas is irreplaceable for making chips that power iPhones and Nvidia’s AI servers.

There is no easy substitute here. Helium’s unique combination of thermal conductivity, chemical inertness and atomic size makes it irreplaceable in chip fabrication.

The Semiconductor Industry Association acknowledged this in a 2023 filing to the U.S. Geological Survey, warning that a supply disruption “would likely cause shocks to the global semiconductor manufacturing industry.”

And though some headlines cite “months” of helium reserves, the inventory picture is more precarious than it sounds. The gas is notoriously difficult to contain. As Lita Shon-Roy, president and CEO of semiconductor materials advisory firm TECHCET, told Scientific American:

Helium can leak out about 0.1 to 1 percent per month, depending on how good the gaskets are. There’s never a good gasket or fitting. It just leaks over time.

Meanwhile, roughly 200 specialized cryogenic containers used to transport liquid helium – each worth about $1 million – were stranded near the Strait when the war began.

Industry consultant Phil Kornbluth told The Wall Street Journal that repositioning, refilling, and delivering those containers alone could take months.

Here’s his overall assessment:

There is a tsunami coming, but it’s still a thousand miles offshore.

So, where might that tsunami hit?

Of the major chipmakers, Samsung and SK Hynix appear most exposed. Both are heavily dependent on Qatari supply and are critical producers of the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) inside Nvidia’s AI servers.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) carries its own exposure as the foundry behind chips for Nvidia (NVDA). Meanwhile, Micron (MU), with more diversified sourcing, looks better positioned in the near term, but still has exposure.

But the helium story also has an unexpected winner hiding in plain sight: ExxonMobil (XOM).

Its Shute Creek facility in Wyoming accounts for roughly 20% of global helium production capacity and has an 80-year reserve runway. As 24/7 Wall St. noted, the shortage “hands Exxon a low-effort margin expander at a time when chip demand for AI keeps climbing.”

For investors already holding XOM for its oil-and-gas core, the helium angle makes it even more interesting. For new money, it’s worth putting on your radar.

The key variable, as with everything right now, is time. A swift ceasefire resolves this before it becomes critical. But a prolonged conflict turns a distant tsunami into a very close wave.

We’ll keep you updated.

Finally, another round of layoffs – and a darker question for AI investors

By now, most investors are familiar with AI’s threat to jobs. It’s the story everyone is watching.

But there’s a less-discussed question starting to surface – one I’ll tackle in a deep-dive Digest soon. It goes something like this…

What if AI will eventually be just as destructive to most AI companies as it is to the workers they’re replacing?

Consider Oracle (ORCL)…

Yesterday, the software giant announced a new round of layoffs – TD Cowen estimates between 20,000 and 30,000 workers – even as it simultaneously ramps AI infrastructure spending aggressively. Oracle has committed to a jaw-dropping $455 billion in remaining performance obligations following its OpenAI agreement, all while reshaping the company around the AI buildout.

And yet ORCL is down 25% this year. Part of that reflects investor concern about cash flow amid surging capital expenditures. But another part reflects something more unsettling…

The market is beginning to ask whether generative AI threatens not just Oracle’s employees – but its core business.

This question extends well beyond Oracle

It cuts to the heart of the entire AI investment thesis…

If AI commoditizes intelligence, who actually wins?

The companies building it?

The companies deploying it?

Or, maybe, nobody?

And – perhaps most unsettling – what about the investors currently holding the companies that appear to be winning right now?

The recent answer – own the infrastructure layer, the picks-and-shovels, the Nvidias of the world – has served investors well. And it will likely continue to… for at least a while.

But that thesis rests on one assumption: that demand for AI compute will keep compounding indefinitely. However, what happens if the economics of AI start working against that assumption?

What if we’ve started a race to the bottom that eventually circles back to the infrastructure layer, too?

That’s a bigger conversation than we have room for today. But it’s coming.

For now, here’s our takeaway

Oracle slashing potentially tens of thousands of jobs while simultaneously betting $455 billion on AI infrastructure isn’t a contradiction. It’s what the AI structural reset looks like in real time.

The technology is reordering how companies are built, staffed and financed – and that process is still in its early chapters.

Yes, short-term headwinds are real…

There are potential supply shocks like helium… unresolved geopolitics… and an S&P still on the wrong side of the 200-day MA. These are meaningful speed bumps.

But as Luke reminds us, investors are currently paying 20X forward earnings for roughly 25% compounded earnings growth in tech. Whatever the road ahead looks like, that’s an attractive set-up.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

(Disclaimer: I own MU.)

The post Is the Bull Market Rally Back On? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

In 1564, the teenaged King Charles IX moved New Year’s Day from the spring equinox to January 1. What followed was basically a 16th-century communication disaster.

Those who didn’t get the news, or were slow to adapt, were labeled “April fools”.

One royal decree began centuries of pranks.

This calendar confusion is just one working theory for the origins of today’s mischief-filled holiday. But it serves as a timely reminder: Change is messy, and it is easy to fall behind.

We see this playing out with the U.S.-Iran conflict.

Oil prices are hovering around $100 per barrel and are expected to remain high, driven by intense volatility, geopolitical risks, and fears of a prolonged supply shock. The Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping route, remains closed to most shipping traffic. And analysts at Wood MacKenzie are warning oil could rocket to more than $200 a barrel.

This is the new normal. Oil prices are not merely high, they are thrashing around wildly from day-to-day. But even though oil is grabbing most of the headlines, it is not the only commodity under the thumb of the Iran conflict.

It turns out that when a butterfly flaps its wings in the Straight of Hormuz, a tsunami of chaos sweeps over nearly every commodity industry in the world.

Today, I’d like to focus on another major global commodity – aluminum – and how to position your portfolio before this growing ripple effect turns into a full-blown supply shock.

Let’s dive in…

When Oil Moves, Aluminum Follows

Like oil, aluminum prices have swung wildly since the U.S. launched its first attacks on Iran in February. That’s because the war is causing a double-whammy for the aluminum market.

First, it is directly eliminating most of the Middle East supply, which accounts for about 10% of the world total. Second, it is driving the price of energy much higher. That’s bad news for aluminum production, which requires huge volumes of electricity.

By definition, therefore, an energy shock is an aluminum shock.

We saw this scenario play out in the 1970s, when oil prices surged due to geopolitical conflict and embargoes. Electricity costs jumped globally, and aluminum smelters become costly to run.

As a result, high-cost regions, like the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan curtailed aluminum production. Predictably, supply tightened… and prices rose.

Now, higher prices can be a tailwind for aluminum companies. When prices go up, producers sell aluminum at increased prices. In turn, their revenues and profits can climb.

But there’s a catch.

If aluminum prices rise because energy costs are also rising, then costs are going up at the same time as aluminum prices, and profit margins may not improve much.

That means that the real aluminum winners will be those with cost advantages – like access to cheap electricity or stable energy, especially hydro and nuclear power.

These companies will benefit from rising aluminum prices without much of their own costs rising.

Alcoa Corp. (AA) is better positioned than many other aluminum producers. The company has been preparing for this moment for decades, literally.

Alcoa’s Structural Advantage

Alcoa is not just the largest American aluminum producer; it is also among the world’s most environmentally progressive.

As I mentioned, producing aluminum requires immense amounts of electricity, and that energy intensity is reshaping the industry. Increasingly, companies such as Tesla Inc. (TSLA) are seeking to source their aluminum from clean-energy smelters powered by hydro, nuclear, or renewables. That shift is elevating low-carbon producers like Alcoa to the top tier of the aluminum world.

Today, renewable energy powers roughly 87% of Alcoa’s smelting operations. This alignment with the global push toward decarbonization gives the company a durable strategic advantage, and positions it not merely as a cleaner metal producer.

After suffering a tariff-induced selloff in early 2025, Alcoa’s shares have been trending higher. And since the butterfly flapped its wings in the Middle East, the company has soared on aluminum supply concerns.

This past weekend, Iran attacked two of the region’s producers. Emirates Global Aluminium, the area’s top aluminum supplier, said it sustained “significant damage” at its Abu Dhabi site. Aluminium Bahrain, the second target, is examining the damage at its own facility.

Meanwhile, Alcoa’s smelters continue humming along and churning out aluminum.

Beyond a conflict-related rally, I expect Alcoa’s uptrend to gain momentum – driven not only by firmer aluminum prices, but also by the company’s exceptional fundamentals. The company beat Wall Street’s expectations for the fourth quarter 2025, and is expected to release its next quarterly report on April 16.

Alcoa currently trades for less than 12 times estimated 2026 earnings – well below its historical forward multiple of roughly 20 times earnings. So, although the shares of this leading aluminum producer are climbing higher, they are still relatively “cheap” compared to estimated earnings… and I should point that Wall Street has been busily raising its estimates for this year.

Alcoa is one of the several commodity-related companies I recommend in Fry’s Investment Report.

To stay up-to-date on the aluminum producer – and learn more about my other recommendations – join me at Fry’s Investment Report.

As a member, you’ll get access to all of my latest research, reports, and trade alerts. (There is no chance of becoming an unsuspecting “April fool” here.)

The bottom line is that commodity markets, like aluminum, are excruciatingly capital intensive, requiring years, long or decades, long lead times, and do not often immediately reward those spectacular investments.

But inevitably, a shock of some kind arrives, either due to simple supply demand factors, tariffs, wars, or acts of God.

When those moments arrive, commodity-focused companies ring the register in a big way.

The aluminum market has arrived at such a moment. 

Click here to join me at Fry’s Investment Report today.

Regards,

Eric Fry

The post The Hidden Commodity Winner of the Oil Crisis appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Then came Citron.

On March 26, Andrew Left’s activist short-selling firm posted on X with a simple message and a chart titled “VCX Explodes!” – and within minutes, the stock plummeted from over $400 to around $270 as 31,000 shares changed hands. By the close, shares had fallen 49%. The fund that retail investors had rushed into as their ticket to the AI revolution had just been cut nearly in half in a single session.

As of this writing, VCX trades at around $130 – a roughly 585% premium to the actual value of its underlying assets. The mania isn’t over. But the easy part of the trade is.

We’re publishing this on April 1. None of it is a joke. And the most important part of the story is still ahead.

Inside the AI IPO Pipeline: Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX

Nobody pays 30 times the value of something unless they desperately want what’s inside. So what’s inside?

VCX’s largest holding is Anthropic – one of the most important AI companies in the world. Indeed, by many accounts, it’s built the best frontier model available today. And the company’s revenue trajectory is simply historic: from roughly $1 billion annualized at the start of 2025 to a $14 billion run rate by early 2026. It closed a $30 billion Series G in February 2026 at a $380 billion valuation, has hired IPO counsel, and is widely expected to file for a public listing before the year’s end. When it does, it will almost certainly be one of the most significant market events in a generation.

Then there’s OpenAI, the company that started the entire AI Boom. The ChatGPT creator put generative AI on the cultural map and permanently changed what consumers and enterprises expect from software. Its latest financing round values it north of $840 billion, and it is targeting a potential IPO valuation of $1 trillion. That would make it, at debut, one of the most valuable companies in American history.

And among its smaller – but no less significant – holdings is SpaceX: widely considered the most valuable private company in the world. Its Starlink satellite internet network serves millions of subscribers across 155 countries. Its Falcon 9 rocket handles more than half of all orbital launches on Earth. The company filed confidential IPO documents with the SEC earlier this month and is targeting a June 2026 listing at a valuation between $1.5- and $1.75 trillion – a figure that would make its IPO the largest in history by a wide margin, dwarfing even Saudi Aramco‘s record $29.4 billion offering.

VCX owns all three companies – before they’ve gone public – through a single, liquid, exchange-traded security that any retail investor can buy with a brokerage account. No wonder the market was going bonkers for it.

But there’s a big difference between something being conceptually understandable and being financially rational.

The Math Behind VCX’s Premium Problem

At the time of its listing, VCX’s net asset value (NAV) was $18.97 per share. Within four trading days, it reached an intraday high of $575 – more than 30 times the actual value of its underlying assets. 

Now, as of this writing, the fund trades around $130.

The reason for this sharp decline? The structure couldn’t support the price.

At its peak, investors weren’t just buying exposure to Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX. They were paying an extreme premium for access – access that only exists as long as those companies remain private. 

That distinction matters more than any valuation model – because the moment that access becomes widely available, the premium collapses.

That’s VCX’s core flaw. The trade hinges less on whether these companies succeed and more on how long they remain out of reach.

Walk through the mechanics. VCX owns minority stakes in a handful of elite private companies. The appeal is straightforward: you can’t buy Anthropic directly, so you buy the closest proxy. In the early days post-listing, that scarcity pushed shares to extraordinary levels.

But scarcity fades. Liquidity doesn’t.

When these companies eventually IPO, the rationale for paying a premium quickly erodes. Investors are no longer buying access. They’re holding a fund that owns what can now be purchased directly – without the markup.

As the underlying companies succeed, the fund’s advantage compresses.

This is a trade where success becomes the exit signal.

There’s also the supply side. Most of VCX’s pre-IPO investors are locked in at entry prices around $19 per share. When that lockup expires and that large base of holders can sell into the public markets, the supply shock will be severe. That kind of overhang doesn’t require a narrative shift, only an opportunity.

What’s playing out now is a transition.

VCX is moving from a narrative-driven asset – priced on scarcity and excitement – to a financial asset, where price has to reconcile with net asset value, liquidity, and supply. 

Assets in that phase rarely sustain extreme premiums.

Smarter Ways to Invest In the AI IPO Wave

Gaining exposure to the most important private AI companies before they go public is a powerful strategy. But there are other ways to access the same core exposure without paying for a premium that disappears as soon as the story delivers.

Three of them stand out right now.

SuRo Capital: AI IPO Exposure at a Discount

SuRo Capital (SSSS) is the original publicly traded venture fund. Its portfolio spans approximately 35 private technology companies, with a heavy emphasis on AI infrastructure. Key holdings include OpenAI, which SuRo has held since the company was a fraction of its current valuation, as well as a significant CoreWeave (CRWV) position that generated meaningful realized gains when the firm went public in 2025.

SuRo reported a Q4 2025 NAV of $8.09 per share. However, on its March 2026 earnings call, management disclosed that 2026 financings not yet reflected in the year-end marks – including OpenAI’s latest massive financing round – are expected to add between $5.00 and $6.50 per share to NAV. That implies a true forward NAV of $13 to $15 per share. SSSS currently trades around $9.89.

Put that together, and you have a fund with significant OpenAI exposure trading at an implied 25% to 30% discount to its forward NAV. 

In a world where people are paying 585% premiums next door, SSSS is offering AI mega-IPO exposure at a discount. 

Destiny Tech100: A More Rational Premium

Destiny Tech100 (DXYZ) is the most direct comparable to VCX in terms of structure – a pure closed-end fund holding only private companies, with no public equity sleeve diluting the exposure. Its portfolio of approximately 24 companies is anchored by SpaceX at roughly 23% of assets, with smaller positions in OpenAI and, more recently, Anthropic after a post-year-end investment.

DXYZ reported a Q4 2025 NAV of $19.97 per share. The stock currently trades around $26.52 – a 33% premium to NAV. That premium reflects a rational market assessment of the scarcity value of holding a liquid vehicle with SpaceX and OpenAI exposure. It is elevated, yes; but it is the kind of premium you’d expect for a unique product offering hard-to-access assets.

Thirty-three percent versus 585%… 

XOVR ETF: Diversified AI IPO Exposure

ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF (XOVR) takes a different structural approach. 

Rather than holding only private companies, it combines a public equity core – tracking ERShares’ proprietary Entrepreneur 30 Index – with a measured private equity sleeve capped at 15% of assets. Current private holdings include SpaceX – held through an SPV and representing a meaningful share of the fund’s private equity sleeve – and Anduril Industries, the defense technology company building AI-powered autonomous systems for the U.S. military.

XOVR’s NAV sits at $17.04, while the stock currently trades around $16.80, as of this writing. With XOVR, investors are buying SpaceX and Anduril pre-IPO exposure at a discount to the fund’s stated asset value, packaged alongside a diversified basket of publicly traded large-cap innovators. This is as close to a free lunch as you’re likely to find in this space.

The tradeoff: because more than 85% of XOVR is in public equities, the private-company kicker is diluted. But for investors who want a measured, ETF-structured exposure to the pre-IPO AI and defense wave without taking on the concentrated risk of a pure-play VC fund, XOVR offers a uniquely clean on-ramp.

The Comparison You Need to See

The Bottom Line On the AI IPO Trade

The VCX craze is a masterclass in what happens when genuine excitement about transformative technology collides with a microscopic float and an army of retail investors armed with Robinhood accounts. 

We think the underlying thesis – that Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX are going to be among the most valuable companies in human history – is probably correct. The execution of expressing that thesis through VCX at a hefty premium is not.

The good news is that the AI mega-IPO story is real, the opportunity is enormous, and there are rational ways to participate. 

SSSS, DXYZ, XOVR – none of these are perfect instruments. All carry the standard risks of pre-IPO investing: illiquidity, valuation uncertainty, lockup provisions, and the ever-present possibility that the underlying companies’ IPOs are delayed, dilutive, or priced in ways that disappoint.

Yet all three are far more rational than paying $130-plus for $19 worth of assets. 

The AI mega-IPO wave is coming. But you don’t need to lose your mind – or your capital – to ride it.

And if you want to go even further upstream than SSSS, DXYZ, or XOVR, we’ve found a way for everyday investors to stake a claim in OpenAI itself before it ever trades on a public exchange – for under $10.

The biggest gains in market history haven’t gone to investors who bought on IPO day. They’ve gone to those who were already inside when the doors opened. That window is still open – but it won’t be for long.

Here’s how to be early on OpenAI.

The post The VCX Frenzy Is a Warning for AI IPO Investors appeared first on InvestorPlace.

As I write on Tuesday, markets are surging on war news – but the logic behind this rally deserves a closer look…

This morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump has told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed.

Stocks jumped on the headline, reading “end of war” and buying first, asking questions later. But this rally is ignoring a critical detail…

Roughly 20% of the world’s seaborne oil passes through the Strait every single day. So, if Iran remains in control of that chokepoint when the guns go quiet, has our energy problem really been solved?

While Wall Street seems to be whistling past this issue, the oil patch isn’t – and the spread between the oil benchmarks, WTIC in the U.S. and Brent in Europe, tells the real story. As I write, WTIC is slightly down on the day while Brent has surged 5%.

The gap between them is roughly $15 a barrel, which is near an 11-year high. That spread reflects how much more exposed European supply is to a closed Strait than U.S. crude.

Oil industry executives and analysts warn the Strait of Hormuz needs to be reopened by mid-April or supply disruptions will get significantly worse – and that even then, enough damage may have been done to leave energy prices higher for longer.

Now, as we’re going to press, Axios is reporting that China and Pakistan have presented a new plan for ending the war that includes an immediate ceasefire and the reopening of the strait. We’ll keep tracking this as new details emerge, but it’s encouraging – and markets are applauding. 

So, what does this mean for investors?

Wall Street is trying to price in the end of active hostilities. That may well happen – and if it does, a relief rally is justified. But the deeper energy problem doesn’t resolve on ceasefire day, especially if Iran remains in control of the Strait.

So, while Wall Street appears to be asking “which stocks should I buy?” we’re mulling a different question…

If Trump ends hostilities with the Strait closed, where do oil prices settle as we move into the summer driving season? And what will that mean for inflation, Main Street budgets, and the Fed?

We’ll keep tracking this.

Today’s energy shock isn’t landing on households that are in good financial shape

Here’s the uncomfortable context around the recent oil surge…

The pain at the pump isn’t hitting families with cash reserves and low debt. It’s hitting families already stretched to their limits – and the data tells that story clearly.

New figures from J.D. Power and Edmunds put some striking numbers on the table.

An estimated 30.5% of car buyers with a trade-in now owe more on their current vehicle than it’s worth – what’s known as being “underwater.”

The average amount owed on these underwater trade-ins hit $7,214 in Q4 2025, an all-time high. And 27% of those trade-ins carried more than $10,000 in negative equity – also a record.

Here’s Edmunds consumer insights analyst Joseph Yoon:

While these levels of negative equity are nothing new… it’s the amount underwater that is the real, and troubling, story.

When you trade in a car with negative equity, that remaining balance doesn’t disappear. It gets rolled into your new loan. The average monthly payment for buyers who did exactly that reached $916 in Q4 2025 – that’s $144 more than the average new-car payment for buyers without negative equity.

And 40.7% of those negative equity trade-ins are now financed on 84-month loans. That’s seven years to pay off a vehicle that will likely be worth a fraction of its purchase price long before the loan is done.

Now throw in the possibility we covered in yesterday’s Digest – that the Fed’s next move is a rate hike, not a cut – and the picture darkens further. Borrowers already carrying heavy auto debt don’t get a lifeline in that environment…and that pressure must land somewhere – which puts lenders on watch.

The largest independent auto lender in the country, Ally Financial (ALLY), sits directly in the middle of all of this, with more than 70% of its $83.9 billion loan book in consumer auto.

To be fair, ALLY has been tightening its underwriting standards. But its Q1 2026 earnings on April 17 will be the first real window into how this consumer stress is affecting its numbers. If delinquency trends deteriorate further, it would be a meaningful signal – not just for ALLY, but for the broader consumer credit picture.

Bottom line: The auto loan data isn’t a crisis today – it’s a pressure gauge. But right now, the pressure is rising.

The same pressure is showing up in a corner of the market most investors aren’t watching

We’ve spent several recent Digests tracking the stress building inside private credit, covering the AI software angle. But recent data from Fitch Ratings suggests this isn’t just a software issue…

The problem is spreading.

According to Fitch, the overall private credit default rate climbed to 5.8% for the trailing 12 months through January 2026 – the highest since the agency began tracking it. But the sector leading in defaults isn’t software…

It’s healthcare.

Healthcare service providers recorded the highest number of unique defaulters in private credit over that period.

The playbook that got them here is familiar…

Over the past decade, private equity firms loaded dental chains, veterinary clinics and behavioral health networks with debt using the same leveraged buyout strategy they applied to software companies. The pitch was identical: sticky recurring revenue and a fragmented market that was ripe for consolidation.

But the cash flows aren’t holding up. Cuts in Medicaid reimbursement, staffing cost inflation, and the operational complexity of rolling up thousands of small practices have crushed the margins that were supposed to service all that debt.

Many of these companies have already seen their interest coverage ratios fall below 1.0x – translation, they’re no longer generating enough cash to cover even the interest on their loans.

Here’s William Barrett, managing partner at Reach Capital, speaking to CNBC:

“Funds concentrated in volatile sectors or holding covenant-lite loans with weaker protections are also vulnerable, as are highly leveraged healthcare roll-ups… certain smaller issuers have recently recorded a 10.9% default rate, due to a lack of resources to absorb shocks.”

Morgan Stanley’s 2026 private credit outlook independently echoes that concern – the firm notes it maintains a significant underweight to healthcare, which has led all sectors in loans placed on non-accrual status over the past year.

By the way, healthcare isn’t the only sector flashing red. According to the same Fitch data, consumer products recorded the second-highest default rate, more than doubling over the past year from 6.1% to 12.8%. That’s the institutional echo of the kitchen-table stress we described in our story on trade-ins being underwater.

Bottom line: stress in the private credit market isn’t limited to just one corner. Software is a big problem, but healthcare and consumer products are widening that problem.

We’ve been tracking this alongside legendary investor Louis Navellier, editor of Breakthrough Stocks

Louis has been warning about private credit stress since mid-2024, and his concern has grown considerably as the default data has accumulated.

It’s a subject he knows from the inside – early in his career, he worked as a banking analyst during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, watching firsthand how financial problems build long before they become headlines.

That experience shapes how he reads what’s happening today:

Financial crises do not start when the headlines hit. They start months earlier. Sometimes years.

The first cracks show up quietly. Loans stop performing the way they should. Cash flows weaken. Institutions start adjusting their exposure.

And most investors do not notice until the story is already much bigger.

He’s been watching those early cracks form in private credit for over a year. And now he’s flagging a specific date that most investors haven’t circled yet: June 30, 2026.

As I detailed yesterday, that’s the deadline when Business Development Companies (BDCs) and private credit funds must report their semiannual results – and for the first time in this cycle, put honest marks on their loan portfolios. What these assets are actually worth will become public record.

If the stress building beneath the surface is as significant as the early data suggests – and the Fitch numbers above indicate it is – June 30 could be the moment hidden losses become visible ones, with real consequences for markets.

Louis isn’t just warning investors. He’s also identified specific steps to both protect your portfolio and potentially profit as this story develops.

He’s put together a full presentation laying out what he’s seeing – and where he believes the opportunities are on the other side of it. Click here to watch Louis’ presentation before this story gets bigger.

Coming full circle, today’s Digest tells one story from three angles

We have an oil market pricing in peace while ignoring who still controls the strait… households rolling record negative equity into seven-year car loans… and a $3 trillion private credit market where defaults are spreading well beyond where they started.

These aren’t separate stories. They’re different readings of the same pressure gauge – a financial system built for low rates, cheap credit, and steady growth that is now being stress-tested on multiple fronts at once.

One of these stories is already flashing red. The other two are still building quietly in the background – which is exactly how Louis would tell you the dangerous ones always start. The cracks appear small and contained…until they don’t.

We’ll keep tracking all of this with you here in the Digest.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Markets Are Rallying – Are They Ignoring a Major Risk? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Many things look normal. People go to work. Stores are open. Life goes on.

But underneath the surface, something is wrong.

The infected are still walking around… still functioning… still blending in.

Until suddenly, they’re not.

The same is true of some companies. From the outside, everything looks normal, but they are rotting away on the inside.

For years, Sears looked like a company that was still humming along.

And technically, it was. The stores were open. The stock still traded. Management kept promising a turnaround.

But in reality, the business was being kept alive by asset sales, financial engineering and borrowed time.

That is what I call a “zombie company.”

And if I’m right about what’s happening in private credit, investors may suddenly discover there are more of them out there than they realized.

In recent essays, I’ve explained how the private credit market grew into a $3 trillion shadow banking system, how investors may be able to profit from a coming flight to quality – and why June 30 could become a potential day of reckoning for this whole mess.

Why June 30? Because that’s when many private credit vehicles will be forced to update investors on what their holdings are really worth. And if some of those loans have been kept afloat by extensions, restructurings and wishful thinking, then this could be the moment when a lot of that hidden stress bubbles straight to the surface.

Today, I want to focus on what that could mean for investors’ portfolios.

Because if this private credit story keeps unfolding, some stocks are going to be a lot more vulnerable than others.

And believe me, you don’t want to be caught owning one of them if the private credit bubble begins to burst.

The “Zombie” Companies

A zombie company is not always obvious at first glance.

On the surface, it may look like a normal, functioning business. Revenue may still be coming in. Management may still be talking confidently. Wall Street may still be giving it the benefit of the doubt.

But underneath the surface, the story is very different.

These are companies that have been kept alive by easy money, cheap refinancing and constant access to credit. They do not really stand on their own. They depend on lenders continuing to extend terms, roll over debt and keep the game going.

That worked for a long time.

But now the environment has changed.

Roughly 80% of private credit loans are floating-rate, meaning they are at the mercy of prevailing interest rates.

That’s a problem, because borrowers’ interest costs have surged as rates have climbed.

In many cases, loans that once carried 4%-5% interest are now costing 12%-15%. That’s a massive jump, and it’s putting serious strain on already leveraged companies.

Now, to get the full details on what’s happening in private credit – and what I believe investors should do to protect themselves – you can learn more in my full presentation here.

In the meantime, in the next part of my interview series with InvestorPlace Editor-in-Chief Luis Hernandez, I explain why some so-called “zombie” stocks could be especially vulnerable if the private credit story keeps unfolding… and what investors should be watching for now.

Click the play button on the image below to watch my conversation with Luis.

Are You Holding One of Them?

Here is the part that matters most.

This is not just a story about private credit funds or some hidden corner of Wall Street.

It is also a story about the public companies that depended on that easy-money system to survive.

Some are directly tied to private credit.

Others simply share the same warning signs: deteriorating fundamentals, mounting debt, weakening institutional support and business models that may not hold up well if financing conditions get tougher.

That is why I created a special report called: The Shadow Banking Blacklist.

In it, I identify 10 stocks I believe investors should be especially cautious about right now.

These are the names my system says look particularly vulnerable if the private credit cracks continue to spread. And if you own any of them, I believe you need to know before the rest of Wall Street catches on.

In my full presentation, I explain why I believe these “zombie” companies could be in serious trouble if credit conditions keep tightening. And I also show you where I believe investors may want to reposition as money begins moving toward higher-quality businesses.

If you want to get more details on the 10 stocks I’m most concerned about right now – and learn what I believe investors should do next – I strongly encourage you to watch my full presentation now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, Market 360

The post Do You Own One of These “Zombie” Companies? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Redemption caps at Ares and Apollo. A fresh monthly loss at Blackstone’s BCRED. A subprime auto lender collapsing amid fraud. My colleague Louis Navellier has been tracking this buildup since mid-2024 – and he thinks the moment of reckoning is fast approaching. Specifically, June 30, 2026, when private credit funds must mark their holdings to fair value and hidden losses may finally come to light.

Louis lived through the S&L crisis in the 1980s. He knows what it looks like when problems get papered over – and what happens when they can’t be anymore. He’s put together a full presentation on what he’s seeing and how to prepare before this gets more obvious. You can check that out here.

If he’s right, the biggest moves may come faster than most investors expect.

Here’s Louis.

It was an experience that scarred me for life. 

Early in my career, I worked as a banking analyst. It was the 1980s, and the savings and loan crisis was in full swing

At the time, we were restructuring failing institutions – merging balance sheets, reworking loan portfolios, and doing everything we could to make them appear stable.

Simply put, it was my job to “put lipstick on a pig.” 

It didn’t fix the underlying problem. It just delayed it.

That’s part of the reason I very rarely recommend financial-sector stocks – especially banks. 

There’s just too much funny business that goes on. 

Here is another one of the most important lessons I learned during my time as a banking analyst:

Financial crises do not start when the headlines hit.

They start months earlier. Sometimes years.

The first cracks show up quietly. Loans stop performing the way they should. Cash flows weaken. Institutions start adjusting their exposure. And most investors do not notice until the story is already much bigger. 

I saw that during the savings and loan crisis.

I saw it again ahead of the 2008 financial collapse.

And I saw the same pattern emerge before the regional banking failures in 2023. 

This time around, the risk has been building for years in private credit.

In fact, I’ve been warning my followers about this since mid-2024. 

If you want the full story on what is happening inside private credit, and what I believe investors should do before this gets more obvious, you can learn more in my full presentation here.

But what matters today is that the pressure inside that system is getting harder to hide. 

Private Credit Stress Is Already Showing Up

Tricolor, a subprime auto lender, collapsed last year amid fraud allegations. 

First Brands, an auto-parts company backed by private credit, filed for bankruptcy after struggling under its debt load. 

And more recently, large private-credit funds have started limiting withdrawals as investors ask for their money back faster than these illiquid portfolios can provide it… 

• The Ares Strategic Income Fund capped redemptions after investors sought to withdraw about 11.6% of fund shares.
• Apollo’s private-credit fund also enforced a 5% withdrawal cap amid heavy redemption requests.
• Blackstone’s $48 billion BCRED posted its first monthly loss since 2022 in February 2026, driven in part by markdowns on certain loans, while first-quarter redemptions reached 7.9% of assets.

It seems like every morning we see a new headline about troubles in the private credit world.

Frankly, if it weren’t for the conflict in Iran, I think this would be a much bigger story right now. 

That is why I recently sat down with InvestorPlace Editor-in-Chief Luis Hernandez for another part of my special interview series.

In this conversation, we discuss why the first warning signs in private credit matter so much, what I believe they are telling us now, and why investors should not wait until the broader market fully catches on.

Click here or the play button on the image below to watch my conversation with Luis.

Why Investors Need to Prepare for a Private Credit Reckoning

Now, here’s what you really need to understand. 

All of this is building toward a single moment: June 30, 2026.

That’s when BDCs (Business Development Companies) and private credit funds are required to file their semiannual reports and mark their holdings to fair value.

That will give us a crystal clear picture of just how ugly this mess is, folks. 

No internal estimates, no rosy outlooks, no vague assurances. 

And when that happens, the losses that have been building beneath the surface may finally be exposed.

If history is any guide, this could unravel pretty quickly. 

In March 2023, concerns around banks involved in lending in the cryptocurrency industry escalated into a full-scale regional bank crisis within just days.

But this time, the risk is spread across thousands of companies tied to the $3 trillion private credit system.

That’s why, in my latest presentation, I call these vulnerable businesses “zombie companies” – firms that appear stable on the surface but rely on constant access to credit to survive.

Many are already showing signs of strain – weakening cash flow, rising debt burdens, and increased sensitivity to even small changes in credit availability.

That’s why identifying these companies now – before the broader market fully reacts – is so important. And I’ve generated a full-blown research report dedicated to 10 stocks I think you should avoid. It’s called The Shadow Banking Blacklist. 

Some are directly involved with lending in the private credit industry. Others are simply companies that my system is flagging for their weak fundamentals.

If you own any of them, I recommend taking a closer look now before it’s too late. 

Go here to learn more about this report now.

The post This $3 Trillion Market Is Approaching a Breaking Point appeared first on InvestorPlace.