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THE MAIN EVENT
Wall Street’s Toll Booth Trade 🚦

The big banks just had one of those quarters where almost everything went right.

They didn't get there by picking the winners of the AI boom. They got there by owning the road it drives on and charging for every trip.

J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley all beat earnings and revenue estimates. J.P. Morgan posted a record $21.2 billion profit, the largest quarterly profit in U.S. banking history.

Goldman and J.P. Morgan also hit a 24% return on equity. Plain English: for every $100 of shareholder money sitting in the business, they were generating $24 of profit per year. For banks, that is very strong.

The revenue growth was not subtle:

• Goldman Sachs: $20.3 billion, +39%

• J.P. Morgan: $58.0 billion, +27%

• Morgan Stanley: $21.3 billion, +27%

• Bank of America: $31.6 billion, +15%

• Citi: $24.8 billion, +14%

Across the group, expenses got more efficient, credit losses stayed tame, and shareholders got billions in buybacks.

So yes, the banks are booming. But this was not just “the economy is great, therefore banks are great.” It was more specific than that: markets are hot, AI has the big funds trading, IPOs are back, and Wall Street gets paid when its clients get busy.

The biggest engine was trading.

If you add up the five banks' filings, the toll booth is doing enormous business. J.P. Morgan, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Citi booked $47 billion in trading revenue last quarter, up 38%.

But that 38% is a blend, and it hides the real story. Trading runs on two roads.

One is fixed income: bonds, rates, currencies, commodities. The other is equities, meaning the business of helping clients buy, sell, hedge, and finance stock-market bets. Almost all of the acceleration came from the equity side.

• All five banks, all trading: +38%

• All five banks, equities only: +71%

• J.P. Morgan equities: +86%

• Goldman equities: +72%

The bond desks had a good quarter. The stock desks had a historic one. The AI boom is obviously a huge part of it.

Institutions are chasing AI stocks, hedging them, financing them, trading around them, and piling into IPOs and options tied to the theme. Banks do not need to guess every winner. They just collect tolls from all the traffic.

And traffic is heavy.

• U.S. options volume hit an all-time high of 73 million contracts a day.

• Stock trading also reached a record, averaging 20 billion shares a day.

Jamie Dimon summed up the moment best: “It’s getting close to as good as it gets. We just don’t know how long it’s going to last.”

Of course, the trouble with “as good as it gets” is that it doesn’t get better. Two of these cracks are already showing. Two more are waiting to happen.

1. Banks are still paying up to keep deposits, because customers can earn decent yields elsewhere.

2. Lending margins remain thin, meaning banks are not making huge spreads between what they earn on loans and what they pay for funding.

3. If the AI trade cools, trading, IPOs, and financing activity will likely slow.

4. If the economy weakens, today’s low credit losses could ramp up quickly.

For investors, the takeaway is simple: bank earnings are telling us that confidence is high and risk appetite is alive. Just don’t confuse a Goldilocks quarter with a permanent climate.

MARKET MOOD
PayPal Pops, Sandisk Slumps, & Big Blue Bleeds 🩸

Winners

PayPal ($PYPL) - Market Cap: $50.0B (Week-to-Date: +22.5%)

PayPal spent years as the fintech everyone stopped believing in. Then a rival showed up with a checkbook. Stripe and private-equity firm Advent bid $60.50 a share, valuing PayPal north of $53 billion, a 28% premium. Analysts say the real prize is Venmo, the payment habit PayPal never fully monetized.

Apple ($AAPL) - Market Cap: $4.90T (Week-to-Date: +5.7%)

Two things landed at once for Apple this week. First, iOS 27's beta shipped with a Siri rebuilt on real AI. Second, China approved Apple Intelligence, unlocking the company's biggest growth market. Deepwater's Gene Munster called it proof Apple “finally has the AI chops it's long been missing.” Here's hoping this version of Siri can finally do more than set a timer.

ExxonMobil ($XOM) - Market Cap: $605.0B (Week-to-Date: +5.1%)

Four weeks ago, oil lost its war premium. This week, it came right back. President Trump initially demanded a 20% toll on all cargo crossing the Strait of Hormuz, sending Brent crude surging 9.6% in a single day. He abruptly scrapped the toll in exchange for Gulf state investments, but the headfake was enough to keep Exxon up while the broader market fell.

Losers

Sandisk ($SNDK) – Market Cap: $209.0B (Week-to-Date: -26.3%)

Sandisk, 2025's best-performing S&P 500 stock, plummeted as the AI narrative flipped from shortage to glut. SK Hynix warned that memory price growth would fall short of the 50% analysts expected. Then, China's CXMT lined up a multibillion-dollar IPO to fund even more supply. The collateral damage was immediate: Western Digital, Seagate, and Micron promptly fell 20%, 18%, and 13%, respectively.

IBM ($IBM) – Market Cap: $205.9B (Week-to-Date: -23.8%)

Big Blue just suffered its worst day in company history, worse than Black Monday 1987. IBM pre-announced a quarter that missed expectations, but the reason is what rattled everyone. CEO Arvind Krishna admitted clients froze big mainframe deals because the debut of Mythos, Anthropic's new AI model, has them rethinking their security budgets.

Caterpillar ($CAT) – Market Cap: $404.0B (Week-to-Date: -7.9%)

Believe it or not, Caterpillar is the Dow's best performer this year, up over 50%. Data centers need massive amounts of power, and CAT has a $63 billion backlog worth of heavy-duty generators. So when the AI trade wobbled this week, the bulldozer company wobbled right along with it. Michael Burry is already shorting the stock, calling its valuation a 30-year high. Just another reminder that you might own more AI than you realize.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Markets Snooze Through Buffett’s Alarm 🥱

Warren Buffett called it “probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment.”

The idea is simple: take the value of the entire US stock market, divide it by the size of the US economy, and you see what investors are paying for each dollar of American output. Buffett warned in 2001 that if this ratio neared 200%, “you are playing with fire.”

Well, the Buffett Indicator just hit a record 234%, more than three standard deviations above its long-term average. The dot-com peak was 143%.

So where is the fire? Well, maybe the yardstick is warped...

1) We're an asset-light economy now. This market is built on highly scalable software, not capital-heavy steel mills. Thanks to that structural shift and the 2017 tax cuts, corporate profit margins are hovering near 12% of GDP. That blows past the historical 7% to 8% norm.

2) Earnings are on steroids. Historically, S&P 500 earnings grew at a reliable 6% to 7% a year. But today? Wall Street consensus expects EPS growth of nearly 22% for 2026 and another 15% in 2027 (shoutout to AI and buybacks).

3) The denominator drifted. Buffett's original metric used GNP, which counts what US firms earn everywhere. Today's version uses GDP, which only counts what happens here. As our tech giants conquer the globe, their valuations reflect more than the domestic economy.

4) The relentless, price-blind bid. Every other Friday, millions of paychecks automatically dump billions into 401(k) index funds at whatever the market price happens to be. Passive investing is now the majority of the equity fund market, establishing a massive, permanent floor under prices.

None of that makes stocks cheap. But it does prove that you can't measure a tech-driven market with an industrial-era thermometer.

FAST FACTS
Savers Fall Short, Senators Step In ✍️

🎯 Savers Want $1.2M, Expect Half That: Workplace-plan participants say they need $1.2 million to retire comfortably, but 51% expect to have under $500,000. [Read]

🏛️ Senators Move On Social Security: Eight senators from both parties introduced a bill to force Congress to act before the retirement fund runs short in 2032. [Read]

👴 Next Year's Raise Looks Like 3.8%: The 2027 Social Security COLA estimate holds at 3.8%, worth roughly $79 a month on the average benefit. [Read]

🏠 Mortgage Rates Hit A 1-Year High: Freddie Mac's 30-year fixed averaged 6.55% this week, the highest since August 2025. [Read]

🚗 The IRS Raised Its Mileage Rate: The standard business rate rose to 76 cents a mile on July 1, its first midyear bump since 2022. [Read]

🏡 Insurance Now Beats Property Taxes: Homeowners in 15 states pay more for home insurance than property tax, with premiums averaging 8.5% of monthly housing costs. [Read]

🤖 Anthropic Eyes An October IPO: The Claude maker was valued at $965 billion in May and would be the first big AI lab to sell shares to the public. [Read]

🫧 Fund Managers Fear An AI Bubble: 45% of managers in BofA's latest survey named an AI bubble the single biggest tail risk facing markets. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Volatility Is Part Of Ownership 🧠

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THE PULSE
Your Halftime Scorecard 📊

Last week, I asked where your heads are at for the second half of 2026. Here's where you landed.

• 📈 You're winning. More than 70% of you kept pace with or beat the S&P 500 this year. Nice work. If you're in the other 30%, hit reply and tell me what dragged you down. I read every message.

• 🎯 Cautiously bullish. Almost all of you see the S&P finishing the year modestly higher, with tech in the lead. The debate is how: do the AI giants do the heavy lifting, or does the rally broaden out? You're split.

• ⚠️ What's keeping you up: sticky inflation was the top risk, with an AI or tech bubble a clear second.

• 💵 Spare cash? Two answers tied for first: “buy the dip” and “what spare cash?” Which pretty much sums up the mood. Inflation is biting, but your faith in the market isn't.

Thanks to everyone who voted. Now, onto the main event!

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THE MAIN EVENT
The House Buffett Built 🏠

Two of the smartest pools of money in America just made opposite bets on housing.

Wall Street's biggest landlords were net sellers of about 3,011 homes last quarter, a 408% jump from a year earlier. In that same stretch, Warren Buffett's Berkshire agreed to buy homebuilder Taylor Morrison for $6.8 billion, becoming roughly the country's fourth-largest homebuilder.

They're not looking at different data. They're looking at different clocks.

Wall Street's Clock Runs In Quarters ⏱️

Right now, the quarters are ugly. At a ~6.5% mortgage, Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) believes 70% of the 100 biggest metros are still overvalued.

Prices are slipping where the building actually happened. Austin, for example, is down over 5% on the year.

To keep sales moving, builders are piling on incentives: last quarter Lennar spent about 13% of each home's price, nearly $50,000 a house, on rate buydowns and discounts, which torches profit margins.

As Moody's Mark Zandi put it, builders are “giving up” because propping up sales has gotten “simply too expensive.”

Landlords are in the same bind, for different reasons.

Their rents have basically flatlined (Invitation Homes' newest leases rose just 0.8%) while taxes, insurance, and upkeep keep climbing. When a house stops paying its way, and your investors want results now, you sell.

Berkshire’s Clock Runs In Decades 🕰️

One of Warren Buffett's most famous lines is that his “favorite holding period is forever.” That changes the math entirely.

Homebuilders trade as low as 10x earnings today, half the broader market's multiple. That’s the kind of value price Berkshire loves. But this isn't buy-it-cheap-and-pray. It comes with a tailwind most value plays don't have.

America is short roughly 4 million homes. That backlog of unmet demand is the cushion under Berkshire's bet.

Buffett said it plainly in 2011: “Every day we are creating more households than housing units.” Lennar's Stuart Miller echoed it just last month: “The fundamental shortage of housing has not been solved. Demand is real, deferred, and building.”

So Berkshire gets a value price, built-in demand support, and free upside. If rates fall or building regulations loosen, that deferred demand floods back into the market and the builders feast. Heads it wins, tails it doesn't lose much.

Should You Follow Buffett? 💡

If you can think in Berkshire's timeframe, this is a rare combination: homebuilders on sale, and a country that still needs millions more homes than it's building.

Just know that “cheap” is usually cheap for a reason, and the payoff may take a few rough quarters. This is not a trade for anyone watching a 90-day scoreboard.

But if you're a buyer rather than an investor, that same softness is your opening.

Those builder incentives, especially the 2-1 rate buydowns in the oversupplied Sun Belt, are the best deal you'll get before the crowds return. Berkshire is betting the window eventually closes. You might as well use it while it's open.

MARKET MOOD
Broadcom Bags Apple, Intel Cedes Its Crown 👑

Winners

Akamai ($AKAM) - Market Cap: $17.0B (Week-to-Date: +14.4%)

Once known as boring internet plumbing, Akamai is suddenly getting priced like an AI-security tollbooth. The company launched tools to verify AI agents, closed a $200 million browser-security deal, and picked up a Microsoft partner badge. The pitch is simple: if AI bots are about to start roaming the internet, someone needs to check their IDs.

Dell ($DELL) - Market Cap: $281.0B (Week-to-Date: +14.2%)

Dell just unveiled a next-gen Nvidia server packing up to 144 GPUs per rack, protecting its first-mover lead in AI “factories.” It didn’t hurt that President Trump used the first-ever White House opening bell to tell Americans to “go out and buy a Dell computer,” after the Dells pledged $6.25 billion to fund kids’ investment accounts. A product win plus a presidential plug is a strong combo.

Broadcom ($AVGO) - Market Cap: $1.82T (Week-to-Date: +11.3%)

Apple turned Broadcom’s biggest worry into a contract. The iPhone maker committed more than $30 billion to U.S.-made Broadcom chips through 2031, covering custom silicon and wireless components. That matters because Apple is a huge Broadcom customer, and investors had worried it might slowly design Broadcom out of its devices. Instead, Broadcom got a five-year vote of confidence.

Losers

Solstice Advanced Materials ($SOLS) – Market Cap: $10.2B (Week-to-Date: -21.7%)

This mega-deal gave investors indigestion. Solstice, the chemicals maker that spun out of Honeywell last fall, agreed to buy Element Solutions in a $14.5 billion cash-and-stock deal. Strategically, it pushes Solstice deeper into electronics, AI infrastructure, and specialty materials. Financially, investors saw a young public company swallowing a very large meal and politely backed away from the table.

Intel ($INTC) – Market Cap: $566.4B (Week-to-Date: -6.5%)

Intel has been on an absolute tear, up 380% over the past year, so this week’s drop was more reality check than meltdown. Reports suggested its next-gen 18A chipmaking process may not reach profitable yields until 2027. Meanwhile, AMD reported $5.8 billion in Q1 data-center revenue, officially surpassing Intel in the category. Not a panic moment, but a reminder that Intel’s comeback still has to prove itself in the factory, not just the stock chart.

Home Depot & Lowe’s ($HD / $LOW) - Market Cap: $346.8B / $123.9B (Week-to-Date: -5.4% / -6.4%)

No earnings let-downs here, just the same ’ol affordability math. U.S.-Iran tensions pushed oil and Treasury yields higher, keeping 30-year mortgage rates stuck around the mid-6% range. That keeps homeowners frozen in place, which means fewer moves, fewer remodels, and less spending on home projects.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Cheap, Open Models Are Eating The Lead 🌏

For years, the AI story was a handful of American labs racing to build the single smartest model. That story is shifting.

Builders are realizing many AI tasks don’t need the most powerful model on Earth. Sometimes they just need something cheap, fast, and reliable.

• Open Chinese models are finding that practical lane. Frontier models still matter for hard problems, but routine work often comes down to cost and speed. That is where DeepSeek, Qwen, and Kimi are gaining ground.

• Distillation is the shortcut. Smaller models can learn from bigger ones, capturing much of the usefulness without paying the huge upfront cost to create intelligence from scratch.

• Open source also helps with privacy. Companies can run models on their own systems, keeping sensitive data on premises instead of leaking it back to an outside provider.

That is a warning for OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, but a gift for companies and consumers. For investors, it does not kill the AI trade. It changes where value may accrue: apps, chips, power, and whoever can turn cheap intelligence into useful products.

FAST FACTS
Nvidia’s On Sale, Silver's On Fire 🔥

💾 Nvidia Hits The Clearance Rack: Nvidia now trades near 18x forward earnings, its cheapest since 2019, even as quarterly revenue set a record $81.6B. [Read]

🥈 Silver Is Outshining Gold: Silver blew past $60 an ounce, up more than 100% this year, as tight supply and industrial demand leave gold behind. [Read]

💸 Saving Was The Easy Part: Only 19% of near-retirees have thought about how to spend down their nest egg, the "decumulation" blind spot. [Read]

🏥 ACA Premiums Are Set To Spike: Obamacare insurers propose a median 14% premium hike for 2027, on top of 2026's ~20% jump. [Read]

💊 AstraZeneca's Heart Drug Flunks: The pharma giant faced its worst day in six years after its Wainua heart drug missed in late-stage testing. [Read]

📺 Netflix Reinvents The Cable Bundle: Netflix is weighing live TV channels and bundling rivals like Peacock, circling back to the linear model it once killed. [Read] 

🔔 The Year's Biggest Chip IPO: SK Hynix, the memory kingpin, priced a roughly $28 billion U.S. share sale at $149 apiece and debuts on the Nasdaq today. [Read]

🌎 The Average Is Misleading: The typical American holds $124K in median wealth versus a $621K average, the widest rich-skew gap among major economies. [Read]

🏠 Half Of Young Adults Live With Parents: 49% of under-30s still live at home, up 12 points since 2019, as the affordability crunch delays progress. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Build Wealth With Broad Exposure 🧠

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THE MAIN EVENT
Cloudy With A Chance Of Excess ☁️

Meta has spent the last two years building AI data centers at a pace that makes your head spin. This week, it dropped a surprise: it wants to rent out some of that capacity.

The company is reportedly building a cloud business, internally dubbed Meta Compute, to sell access to its AI infrastructure to outside developers. The idea appears to come in two forms:

1. Raw GPU access, similar to CoreWeave.

2. Hosted access to Meta’s own AI models, similar to what Amazon, Microsoft, and Google offer.

That matters because Meta is no longer just one of the biggest spenders in the AI buildout. It may become a supplier too.

Meta shares jumped 9% on the report, while the neocloud names got hit hard. CoreWeave fell about 14%, and Nebius dropped about 17%. Despite the market’s strong reaction, there’s more than one way to read this move.

The Bull Case 🐂

The optimistic read is simple: Meta is trying to turn a cost center into a revenue stream.

Meta spent $72 billion on capital expenditures in 2025 and expects $125 billion to $145 billion in 2026 capex, driven primarily by AI infrastructure. That is an enormous bill, even for a company with Meta’s cash flow.

Selling excess compute could help offset that spending while internal demand continues to grow. Zuckerberg has already suggested this was possible, saying cloud compute is “definitely on the table.” He also said companies ask Meta for compute “almost every week.”

That is the key bull argument. Meta isn’t stuck with unused infrastructure — it just built ahead of demand and can monetize the gap.

There is an obvious historical parallel: AWS. Amazon turned internal infrastructure into a cloud business that generated $129 billion in revenue and $46 billion in operating income in 2025. Meta investors would love even a slice of that action.

The Bear Case 🐻

The less flattering interpretation is that Meta may have overbuilt.

If Meta suddenly has capacity to rent out, investors have to ask whether this is savvy monetization or the first sign that the buildout is running ahead of demand.

That concern matters because the AI infrastructure boom has become a major economic engine. The St. Louis Fed estimates that AI-related investment accounted for 39% of U.S. GDP growth in the first three quarters of 2025.

If that spending slows, the pain wouldn’t stop at Meta. It could hit chipmakers, memory suppliers, power companies, data-center builders, and the neoclouds.

The Neocloud Squeeze

The clearest near-term pressure point is the GPU rental companies.

CoreWeave and Nebius are not just competitors in this story. They are also Meta suppliers. Meta has a $21 billion agreement with CoreWeave and a deal worth up to $27 billion with Nebius.

In other words, Meta may be funding the neoclouds today while preparing to compete with them tomorrow.

Wall Street is split on how serious that threat is.

Bernstein called Meta’s cloud push “problematic for CoreWeave,” arguing it is “only a matter of time” before hyperscalers compete directly with GPU-rental firms.

Analysts at Rosenblatt Securities pushed back, calling the selloff a “buying opportunity” because GPU shortages are still “the norm right now across the industry.”

The Bubble Question

The strongest argument against the existence of an AI bubble has been this: unlike the dot-com era, the industry has not been building in search of demand. It has been racing to catch up with demand.

During the dot-com boom, telecom companies laid huge amounts of fiber ahead of actual internet usage. Much of it became “dark fiber,” meaning cable that had been installed but was sitting unused. The internet eventually grew into that capacity, of course. But the timing gap was brutal, and investors paid for it.

AI has looked different so far. The market has been defined by scarcity:

• Not enough GPUs

• Not enough power

• Not enough data-center capacity

• Not enough time

That is why Meta Compute is such an interesting signal.

If Meta is monetizing a temporary capacity gap while its own AI demand ramps, this is disciplined. Data centers don’t arrive in perfectly measured increments, and renting out spare capacity in the meantime is better than letting expensive chips sit idle. But if Meta miscalculated demand by years, not months, the read changes.

For now, Meta Compute is just a plan. The key question is whether Meta can land customers, show real pricing, and prove this is more than a way to soften the optics of a massive AI bill.

One cloud product won’t make or break the AI boom. But if excess compute becomes a broader theme, it could rattle the entire infrastructure trade.

MARKET MOOD
Dow’s Change Lifts Google, Sinks Verizon 🔁

Winners

AeroVironment ($AVAV) - Market Cap: $9.7B (Week-to-Date: +38.4%)

The earnings blowout of the week came from a drone maker sitting right where defense budgets are headed. AeroVironment’s quarterly revenue more than doubled to $642M, while full-year revenue hit $1.98B. And if that was not enough, the U.S. Army awarded AeroVironment a half-billion-dollar contract. Investors see a company moving from niche supplier to defense heavyweight.

Visa & Mastercard ($V / $MA) - Market Cap: $682.3B / $476.6B (Week-to-Date: +7.7% / +8.1%)

Stablecoins were supposed to disrupt the card-network duopoly. Instead, Visa and Mastercard are starting to make crypto look more like a software update and less like a bulldozer. This week, Open USD was announced with 140+ partners, including both card giants, Stripe, BlackRock, and Ripple. If it works, the networks could make payments faster and cheaper… while keeping themselves in the middle.

Alphabet ($GOOG) - Market Cap: $4.36T (Week-to-Date: +6.4%)

Google’s big move was all about supply and demand. Alphabet joined the Dow before Monday’s open, replacing Verizon, and every fund tracking the index had to adjust: buy the new member, sell the old one. That wave of forced buying helped push a company already worth more than $4T even higher. Note to self: index demand can still move very large stocks.

Losers

Teradyne ($TER) – Market Cap: $57.8B (Week-to-Date: -15.5%)

Teradyne got the same kind of index-buying lift we just saw with Google after it joined the Nasdaq-100 in late June. Then reality set in: chip stocks sold off to start July, and Q2 revenue is expected to cool after a blowout Q1. The AI chip-testing business remains strong, but the stock seemed to get ahead of itself. Momentum giveth, and momentum taketh away.

Verizon ($VZ) – Market Cap: $177.7B (Week-to-Date: -8.6%)

This boring ol’ telecom got two tests in one week. First, Verizon was removed from the Dow, creating the forced selling we mentioned above. Then SpaceX reportedly told investors it plans to launch a Starlink-branded mobile service for U.S. consumers, a direct shot at the wireless giants. Verizon still has the network, customers, and cash flow, but investors now have to wonder: how safe is that moat?

Equinix ($EQIX) – Market Cap: $98.8B (Week-to-Date: -8.2%)

Equinix owns data centers, the buildings behind cloud apps and AI workloads, but it is still a capital-heavy REIT, which means interest rates matter. The 10-year Treasury yield moved higher this week, and Meta’s plan to sell excess AI compute made the market feel more crowded. Nothing dramatic broke at Equinix. The stock just got hit by higher-rate math and a less-forgiving AI trade.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Nine Sectors Finish The First Half Higher 🟢

We're officially halfway through 2026, so here's the sector-by-sector scoreboard. A few things jump out.

Tech ran the show, but it had company. Technology led the pack, up about 25% on the back of the AI trade. But this was not a one-sector rally. Energy (+19%), Industrials (+19%), and Materials (+15%) all posted monster first halves too. The old economy quietly kept pace with the robots.

The biggest loser might surprise you. The worst sector of the half was Communication Services, down about 7%. That's the corner of the market that houses Meta, Alphabet, and Netflix.

Breadth was better than expected. 9 of the 11 sectors finished the half in the green, so the gains ran wide. The equal-weight S&P 500 even beat the market-weighted version, meaning the average stock, not just the mega-caps, had a strong six months.

So that's where we stand at the break. The bigger question is what happens next, and that’s where you come in.

6 questions, no wrong answers. Next week, I'll show you exactly where the community landed: bullish, bearish, and everything in between. Don't sit this one out.

Take the 60-second survey here →

FAST FACTS
Bots, Bosses, And BBQ 🌭

🤖 A Bot Army Faked A No. 1 Hit: Spotify scrubbed 500,000+ streams from a song after bettors used bots to rig it to the top and cash in on Kalshi. [Read]

🤦 Bosses Regret Their AI Layoffs: 55% of leaders who swapped workers for AI now admit it was a mistake, and some are already rehiring. [Read]

🍔 Your Barbecue Bill Hit A Record: Feeding 10 at a July 4th cookout now runs $73.82, the priciest since the Farm Bureau started tracking in 2016. [Read]

🏠 Homebuyers Are Back In Charge: The typical U.S. home takes about 18 days to sell now, 3 times longer than the bidding wars of 2022. [Read]

🥇 Gold Wraps A Brutal Quarter: Gold bullion sank about 16% last quarter, its worst since 2013, thanks to a strong dollar and rate-hike fears. [Read]

🎮 PlayStation Goes Disc-Free: Sony announced plans to stop making physical PlayStation game discs in 2028, with digital already making up 85% of sales. [Read]

🏙️ How Much It Takes To Afford Rent: Renting a modest two-bedroom now means earning $34/hr nationally, and north of $49/hr in California and Hawaii. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Investing Starts And Ends With Self-Control 🧠

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OUR PARTNER: MASTERWORKS

$181 Million for a Pollock. Is the Art Market Sending Signals?

Christie's May 18 auction was headlined by a $181M Jackson Pollock — the fourth highest price ever. A Rothko also went for $95.4M. A Brancusi fetched $107.6M (second highest ever for sculpture).

Those masterpieces were obvious outliers, but by the end of the evening, $1.1B in art had been sold.

Pollock died in 1956. The number of paintings he left behind is limited. Same for Rothko, Warhol, Basquiat. When one of these works trades at the top of the market, the remaining supply gets thinner and more contested.

That scarcity is what Masterworks was largely built around. Their acquisition committee — former specialists from Sotheby's and Christie's — uses over 3 million data points to identify which pieces to buy.

29 exits have delivered net annualized returns like 16.5%, 17.6%, and 17.8% on those held longer than a year, not including those unsold.

To join Masterworks, my subscribers skip the waitlist by clicking this unique link.

^{*Investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. See important Reg A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.}

THE MAIN EVENT
Your 401(k) Needs A Checkup 🩺

America's 401(k)s just hit a record. But before you celebrate, do the math on what that money actually buys in retirement.

The headline number looks good. The retirement math looks a lot tighter.

First, the average is misleading.

Vanguard says the average 401(k) balance hit $167,970 in 2025. But the median saver, meaning the person closer to what most Americans actually have, has $44,115.

By age, the median saver holds roughly:

1. $40K in their late 30s

2. $70K around 50

3. Shy of $100K by their early 60s

Fidelity recommends you have 6x your salary saved by 50 and 8x by 60. For workers in that age range, median income sits in the $60K - $80K zone, which puts the target closer to $400K - $600K. The typical 401(k) balance is nowhere near that.

Now run the 4% rule.

The classic guideline says you can pull about 4% of your nest egg per year in retirement. So:

1. The median saver with $44K gets about $1,800 a year, or $150 a month.

2. Even the “average” saver with $168K gets just $6,700 a year or $560 a month.

Add the average Social Security check, which is roughly $2,070 a month, or $24,900 a year.

That puts the median saver near $26,700 a year in total retirement income. The average saver lands around $31,600.

That is the part the “record balance” headline leaves out.

Planners usually tell retirees to aim for 70% - 80% of their working income to maintain their lifestyle. Using that same $60K - $80K income range for near-retirees, that means a target income of $40K - $65K.

Most of America is coming up short.

Luckily, there are some cushions: couples may collect two Social Security checks, and some people also have IRAs, home equity, or pensions. But for the median worker relying mainly on a 401(k), there’s a significant gap.

Then there is the part most people never check: what the money is invested in.

Two out of three savers now use a target-date or “managed” fund. The upside is real. These funds help people avoid panic-selling, bad timing, and poor investment choices.

But “set it and forget it” still deserves a second look:

1. Fees: Target-date funds cost more than the plain index funds inside them. An extra 0.3% - 0.5% a year sounds small, but it adds up. On a $100K balance left invested for 25 years, a 0.5% annual fee drag could mean roughly $50K - $60K less by retirement.

2. The glide path: These funds gradually move you from stocks into bonds as you age. That can help near retirement, but if you are in your 30s or 40s, too much bond exposure may limit growth earlier than you need.

3. One-size-fits-all: The fund does not know about your spouse’s account, your home equity, your other investments, or how much risk you can actually handle.

The move isn’t necessarily to dump the target-date fund. It is to open the hood: check what it costs, how much it holds in stocks and bonds, and whether that mix fits your situation.

If your balance is anywhere near average, here’s what I would recommend:

1. Max out your full employer match. If your employer offers one, it’s free money.

2. Auto-escalate one percentage point a year. Small increases in your 401(k) contribution make a huge difference over time.

3. Check your glide path. If retirement is decades away, make sure you are not being overly conservative.

4. Compare fees. Look at your target-date fund versus a plain index fund.

5. Don’t cash out when you switch jobs. Roll it over. Cash-outs are one of the biggest leaks in the system.

6. Over 50? Use catch-up contributions. And build an emergency fund so you are not forced to raid the 401(k) when life gets expensive.

The takeaway: I don’t want to be harsh, but I also don’t want readers to see that $168K figure and think they’re in good company. They’re not. The record 401(k) balance is a headline, not a plan. For the typical saver, a 401(k) plus Social Security may replace far less income than expected.

The good news is that the biggest levers are in your control: the match, the savings rate, the fees, and the fund mix. Pull a few of them, and the math starts to look a lot better.

MARKET MOOD
Memory Market Boosts Micron, Bites Apple 💾

Winners

United Airlines ($UAL) - Market Cap: $43.7B (Week-to-Date: +13.8%)

Airline stocks took off as oil prices fell toward $70, and United was the biggest winner of the group. Fuel is one of United’s highest costs, so cheaper oil can quickly lift the bottom line if travel demand holds up. UBS also raised its price target to $153, helping push the stock to a record high.

AbbVie ($ABBV) - Market Cap: $429.6B (Week-to-Date: +12.3%)

AbbVie, the drugmaker behind Botox and Skyrizi, agreed to buy Apogee Therapeutics for ~$11 billion. Big acquisitions often drag down the buyer’s stock, but investors liked the logic here: Apogee’s lead drug could be dosed every 3 to 6 months, versus rivals’ every two weeks shots. That gives AbbVie another chance to extend its allergy and inflammation drug business as Humira sales fade.

Micron ($MU) - Market Cap: $1.37T (Week-to-Date: +7.0%)

Micron did not just have a good quarter. It had the kind of quarter that keeps the whole AI trade alive. Revenue exploded to $41.5 billion from $9.3 billion a year ago, gross margin hit 85%, and management guided for about $50 billion next quarter. The message was loud: AI companies are desperate for memory chips, and Micron is one of the few companies selling what they need.

Losers

Palantir ($PLTR) – Market Cap: $257.2B (Week-to-Date: -16.5%)

Palantir fell hard, and this wasn’t about earnings. The stock has been expensive for a long time, and investors finally had a few reasons to worry: AI competition, lost European contracts, and a fresh jab from Michael Burry (who says Anthropic is “eating Palantir’s lunch”). In fairness, it doesn’t take much to wobble a stock trading at more than 100 times earnings.

Broadcom ($AVGO) – Market Cap: $1.80T (Week-to-Date: -7.9%)

Broadcom slid as investors got pickier about AI stocks. The company is still a major player in custom AI chips for Big Tech, but its growth outlook was more “good” than “jaw-dropping.” A report that SK Hynix was slowing part of its AI-memory expansion added to the worry that AI spending might not go straight up forever.

Apple ($AAPL) – Market Cap: $4.04T (Week-to-Date: -7.7%)

Apple was the flip side of Micron’s monster quarter. The same memory shortage making chipmakers rich is making Apple’s products more expensive to build. Apple raised prices on Macs, iPads, and the Vision Pro, including a $300 jump for some MacBook Pro models, after Tim Cook warned those costs had become hard to absorb. Investors saw margin pressure, and the stock paid for it.

OUR PARTNER: GREENFIELD ROBOTICS

Physical AI is coming to agriculture.

Everyone talks about AI software. Few are paying attention to AI machines operating in the real world. Greenfield Robotics is building autonomous machines that remove weeds at commercial scale, targeting one of agriculture's largest recurring costs.

Reserve Early Shares

_{Greenfield Robotics is Testing The Waters under tier 2 of Regulation A. No money or other consideration is being solicited, and if sent in response will not be accepted. No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the offering statement filed by the company with the SEC has been qualified by the SEC. Any such offer may be withdrawn or revoked, without obligation or commitment of any kind, at any time before notice of acceptance given after the date of qualification. An indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind. “Reserving” shares is simply an indication of interest. There is no binding commitment for investors that reserve shares in this manner to ultimately invest and purchase the shares reserved of the company, or to purchase any shares of the company whatsoever.}

CHART OF THE WEEK
The S&P 500 Has A Concentration Problem 🔍

Index returns can hide a lot.

The S&P 500 is up 8% this year, but Apollo's Torsten Sløk points out that without AI and energy, it's actually down. The entire gain comes from just two corners of the market.

That's because the index has become wildly top-heavy.

The 10 biggest stocks are now 37% of the S&P 500, and the top 20 are nearly half. Nvidia alone is over 7%, and Micron just cracked the top 10.

So a "safe, diversified" S&P 500 fund like SPY or VOO is really a concentrated bet on a handful of AI giants. That is great while they are winning. It is also a lot of eggs in one basket.

The fix is simple. Consider pairing your S&P 500 holdings with an equal-weight version of the same index. RSP, for example, holds all 500 names in equal slices.

Or, round it out with value, international, dividend, or small/mid-cap funds. Same market, just not all riding on ten stocks.

FAST FACTS
Fries, Flights, And Fool’s Gold 🫢

🍔 Reddit Put Wendy’s On The Menu: WallStreetBets helped send Wendy’s up about 35% in a day, with trading briefly outpacing Micron. [Read]

✈️ The Rise Of "Inheritourism": Luxury spending is shifting from goods to experiences, as Gen Z "inherits" their parents' high-end vacation tastes. [Read]

💰 Gold Giant Faces Fraud Charges: One of India's largest gold exporters, owner of a top Swiss refiner, is under investigation for accounting irregularities. [Read]

💳 Autopay Cuts Loan Rates: Student-loan borrowers who enroll in autopay can get a temporary interest-rate discount from the government. [Read]

🛻 Slate Bets On Bare Bones: Slate’s stripped-down electric pickup costs less than the average used car, betting minimalism can beat luxury. [Read]

🚗 When To Replace Your Car: A handy rule of thumb for telling when repair bills finally make buying your next car the smarter move. [Read]

💝 A Record Year For Giving: U.S. charitable donations topped $600 billion for the first time, lifted by megadonors and a wave of big estate gifts. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Selling To Avoid Pain Often Backfires 🧠

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OUR PARTNER: MARKETBEAT

7 Stocks to Buy Before the Robots Take Over

The next AI trade may not be another chatbot.

It may be surgical robots, automated warehouses, smart factories, and machine vision systems already reshaping how companies operate.

MarketBeat’s new 7 Stocks to Buy Before the Robotics Revolution report reveals seven companies positioned across the automation boom, from robot builders and AI chip leaders to machine vision providers and factory automation giants.

This is where AI gets a body.

And as labor shortages, wage pressure, and supply chain stress push more companies toward automation, these stocks could move before the robotics story becomes impossible to ignore.

The report normally sells for $29.97, but it is free for a limited time.

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THE MAIN EVENT
Warsh Rips Up The Roadmap 🗺️

On paper, this week’s Fed meeting was boring.

Rates stayed at 3.50% to 3.75%, exactly where markets expected. No surprise cut. No surprise hike. No dramatic vote.

But underneath, Chair Warsh sent a much bigger message: the Fed is done holding investors’ hands.

The vote was 12-0, a sharp turn from April’s 8-4 split, which had been the Fed’s biggest divide in more than 30 years. But the real shift was in how the Fed talked.

For two decades, the Fed has tried to telegraph its next move, smooth out surprises, and let investors price everything in ahead of time.

Warsh seems to think that went too far.

• He declined to submit his own rate forecast.

• The Fed’s statement shrank to 130 words, down from 340 in April.

• Forward guidance was stripped out.

Put it all together and the message is pretty clear: Stop obsessing over what officials might do months from now. Watch the data. Or, you know, read The Money Maniac. 😉

Cuts Out, Hikes In 🦅

Warsh kept his own forecast private, but the rest of the committee did not.

And their dots delivered a jolt: Nine of the 18 policymakers who submitted forecasts now see at least one rate hike in 2026.

A few months ago, investors were debating how many cuts were coming. Now half the committee is leaning the other way.

That would be interesting in any week. It was especially interesting this week because the inflation backdrop actually improved:

• Oil fell to three-month lows after the U.S.-Iran peace announcement reopened the Strait of Hormuz.

• Core inflation cooled, with the monthly pace easing to 0.2%, below forecasts and down from April.

Falling oil and cooler core inflation are exactly the gifts a rate-cut-friendly Fed would normally love. They got both in the same week and still would not preview a cut.

That means either officials do not think the peace deal alone will defeat inflation, or Warsh really means it when he says this Fed will not box itself in.

Why Investors Care ⚖️

Markets got the message fast.

The S&P 500 fell 1.2% on the day. The 2-year Treasury yield jumped, which usually happens when investors rethink where Fed policy is headed.

That matters because rates touch almost everything:

• Stocks: Higher rate uncertainty can pressure valuations, especially for growth stocks.

• Housing: Mortgage relief gets harder if investors stop believing cuts are close.

• Government debt: Washington is already dealing with a deficit headed toward $2.7 trillion, while interest costs are now higher than the defense budget.

So the tradeoff is simple.

The upside: a Fed that is less scripted may be able to react faster when the economy changes.

The downside: markets may get more surprises, because the Fed is no longer trying to preview every move three months in advance.

For investors, that means every inflation report, jobs report, and oil shock matters more.

If prices heat back up, rate worries can return fast. If inflation keeps cooling, cut hopes can come back just as quickly.

Expect rate-sensitive stocks like small caps, REITs, and homebuilders, as well as unprofitable growth stocks, to be even more volatile in this environment.

What could force a change?

• A crack in the job market

• Meaningfully slower GDP growth

• A pullback in the AI spending boom

Until then, the Fed is watching the data as closely as everyone else. It just plans to say a whole lot less while doing it. 🤐

MARKET MOOD
Oil Loses Its War Premium, Stocks Celebrate 📈

Winners

Western Digital ($WDC) - Market Cap: $257.2B (Week-to-Date: +32.6%)

AI needs a lot more storage, not just faster chips. Western Digital, one of the biggest makers of hard drives for data centers, benefited after analysts said demand could grow 40-50% a year while supply grows only 30-35%. That imbalance shifts pricing power toward suppliers like Western Digital, which is why the stock has already quadrupled this year.

Moderna ($MRNA) - Market Cap: $25.4B (Week-to-Date: +28.2%)

Investors have been waiting for Moderna to show signs of life after COVID vaccines. This week, they finally got it with MFLUSIVA, an mRNA flu shot. FDA documents came in more favorable than expected, and advisers backed the vaccine for adults 50 and older. Moderna hopes to turn its vaccine technology into a broader business, but the FDA still has the final say, with a decision expected by August 5.

Talen Energy ($TLN) - Market Cap: $19.8B (Week-to-Date: +21.0%)

Talen Energy is becoming a power-market play on the data center boom. The company closed a deal to buy three gas-fired plants in PJM, a major electricity market covering Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. Talen says the deal should add more than 15% to cash flow per share, giving investors a clearer link between rising power demand and future profits.

Losers

Accenture ($ACN) – Market Cap: $78.6B (Week-to-Date: -24.8%)

The issue for Accenture was future demand, not last quarter’s profit. The company beat earnings expectations, but new bookings fell to $19.3 billion, and management lowered its revenue growth forecast to 3-4%. For a consulting business, bookings are the pipeline, and investors did not like seeing that pipeline shrink while AI threatens to automate more white-collar work.

Fox ($FOXA) – Market Cap: $20.9B (Week-to-Date: -20.7%)

Fox agreed to acquire Roku for about $22 billion in an effort to push deeper into streaming. Investors saw the logic, but balked at the 34% premium to Roku’s pre-deal share price. The upside is that Fox gets more distribution for its content. The risks are more debt and potential partner pushback. After all, rival media companies may be less eager to work with Roku once a competitor owns it.

Schlumberger ($SLB) – Market Cap: $71.9B (Week-to-Date: -14.4%)

Oil prices fell sharply this week as the U.S.-Iran deal boosted optimism that oil would start moving through the Strait of Hormuz again. That hit SLB because the company sells drilling tools and services to oil and gas producers. When crude prices fall, producers have less reason to spend aggressively on new wells and field work, which is why the broader oilfield-services industry sold off.

OUR PARTNER: GREENFIELD ROBOTICS

Physical AI is coming to agriculture.

Everyone talks about AI software. Few are paying attention to AI machines operating in the real world. Greenfield Robotics is building autonomous machines that remove weeds at commercial scale, targeting one of agriculture's largest recurring costs.

Reserve Early Shares

_{Greenfield Robotics is Testing The Waters under tier 2 of Regulation A. No money or other consideration is being solicited, and if sent in response will not be accepted. No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the offering statement filed by the company with the SEC has been qualified by the SEC. Any such offer may be withdrawn or revoked, without obligation or commitment of any kind, at any time before notice of acceptance given after the date of qualification. An indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind. “Reserving” shares is simply an indication of interest. There is no binding commitment for investors that reserve shares in this manner to ultimately invest and purchase the shares reserved of the company, or to purchase any shares of the company whatsoever.}

CHART OF THE WEEK
Debt Is Getting A Shorter Fuse 🧨

T-bills now make up almost 85% of new Treasury borrowing, near a 20-year high. In other words, the government is increasingly funding itself with short-term IOUs instead of long-term debt.

• The upside is lower cost. Short-term debt is often cheaper to maintain than locking in 10-year or 30-year borrowing.

• The second upside is subtle rate relief. Issuing fewer long-term bonds can help keep long-term yields lower, which suppresses rates on mortgages and other long-term loans.

• The downside is rollover risk. Bills have to be replaced constantly, making ~22% of publicly traded federal debt effectively floating-rate. That is well above the 15% to 20% range Treasury’s own advisers previously preferred.

Takeaway: The current borrowing mix makes the Fed even more important, adds more refinancing risk, and leaves markets more exposed if inflation, rates, or bond buyers stop cooperating.

FAST FACTS
SpaceX Soars, Social Security Sinks 👀

🚀 SpaceX Briefly Passes Amazon: After its record IPO, SpaceX's market cap topped $2.6 trillion, edging past Amazon before settling as the world's 6th-largest public company. [Read]

🛰️ SpaceX Buys Cursor for $60 Billion: Musk is using SpaceX's richly valued stock to buy the AI coding startup and chase OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. [Read]

🏛️ Social Security Faces Cuts: Actuaries now project the main retirement trust fund will run dry in late 2032, forcing a benefit cut of more than 20%. [Read]

⚡ Summer Electricity Bills Will Hit A Record: U.S. households are projected to spend nearly $800 to power their homes this summer, up 10.5%. [Read]

🍎 Apple Plans To Raise Prices: Outgoing CEO Tim Cook calls the hikes unavoidable, blaming the memory-chip shortage that has lifted Micron, SanDisk, and Western Digital. [Read]

🏠 Home Construction Falls To 8-Month Low: Single-family housing starts dropped 1.9% in May as high mortgage rates keep builders cautious. [Read]

⛏️ The Pentagon Bets On Rare Earths: Energy Fuels jumped after winning a $725 million Defense Department loan to process rare-earth minerals at home. [Read]

🚗 Carvana Starts Selling New Cars: The used-car "vending machine" company bought 7 Stellantis dealerships to enter the $655 billion new-car market. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Risk Management Beats Risk Avoidance 🧠

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OUR PARTNER: DECENTRALIZED MASTERS

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THE MAIN EVENT
The Cookie Jar Is Open 🍪

Last week, we broke down SpaceX's $1.77 trillion IPO. This morning, it actually begins trading, but that’s not the whole story.

SpaceX raised a record $75 billion, the largest IPO in history, drawing roughly $300 billion of investor interest. That's $75 billion of cash getting vacuumed out of the market in a single listing.

The raise is so big that some are calling it a drain on market liquidity. There are only so many dollars to go around, and SpaceX just grabbed an enormous scoop.

Now look at who else is reaching for cash:

• Google is selling $80 billion of stock to fund its AI build-out, including a $10 billion check from Berkshire Hathaway.

• Oracle plans to raise $40 billion in fresh debt and equity, on top of the $43 billion of debt it already raised this fiscal year. Its $638 billion backlog looks unstoppable, but it burned $24 billion in free cash flow getting there.

• Super Micro announced a $7 billion raise to turn a wave of AI server orders into actual revenue, and the stock fell 28% in a day.

• Smaller players are piling in too: quantum-computing firm Quantinuum raised $1.7 billion, and data-center power maker ERock pulled in $600 million.

Plus, the next two giants haven’t tapped the market yet.

OpenAI and Anthropic are widely expected to be coming soon, already locked in a price war that's torching profits, and you can bet they'd rather grab funding before the market turns.

That’s a lot of hands reaching for the same cookie jar at the same time. The question is what it's telling us.

The Bear Read: This Is What A Top Looks Like 📉

When everyone rushes to sell you a piece of their company at once, history says pay attention. Heavy issuance into a hot market is a classic late-cycle tell: insiders raise when they think their stock is dear, not cheap.

And valuations are full by any honest measure.

• SpaceX priced at 92 times sales.

• OpenAI's own plan, $145 billion of revenue by 2029, would require 108% annual growth for five straight years, something that has never happened across 19,000 large companies.

• Roughly 70 U.S. stocks now trade above 10x sales, a bigger share of the market than at the dot-com peak.

Short seller Jim Chanos summed up the mood this week: "Bull markets put a premium on promises. Bear markets put a discount on reality."

The Bull Read: It's An Arms Race, Not An Exit 🏗️

Here's the flip side. This isn't a group of fading companies cashing out. It's a group of winners racing to fund the most expensive build-out in corporate history.

The most expensive build-out ever

AI data centers cost tens of billions, and the capital pool is finite. If you're Google, Oracle, or OpenAI, the nightmare isn't overpaying. It's letting a rival lock up the chips, power, and dollars first.

In that light, the "race to raise" looks rational. Grab the funding while it's cheap and available, because whoever hesitates gets out-built. It's the same competitive logic that's driven the whole AI trade.

Both things can be true at once. Valuations are stretched, and these companies need the cash to compete.

The Takeaway

A market top and a capital-hungry arms race can look identical right up until they don't.

The move isn't to call the top. It's to watch the quality of the raise.

Are companies funding from strength, while demand is real and cash flow is healthy? Or are they funding from need because the numbers still don’t pencil?

The three tells are free cash flow, debt loads, and IPO reception.

If the spending starts paying for itself, the bull case gets stronger. If balance sheets stretch and new listings stumble, the market is telling you that the cookie jar is running low.

MARKET MOOD
Markets Want Proof, Not Promises 🔍

Winners

Applied Materials ($AMAT) - Market Cap: $438.8B (Week-to-Date: +22.0%)

Applied Materials makes the machines that make chips, which puts it near the base of the AI supply chain. Revenue hit a record $7.9B, and adjusted EPS popped to $2.86. Management also said its chip-equipment business should grow more than 30% in 2026, as memory makers add capacity for AI workloads.

Cava Group ($CAVA) - Market Cap: $10.3B (Week-to-Date: +21.6%)

Cava jumped after UBS upgraded the fast-casual Mediterranean chain to Buy with a $90 price target, betting its traffic strength can hold up. Last quarter, same-restaurant sales rose 10%, driven by 7% traffic growth. Consumers might be cutting back elsewhere, but they're still lining up for Cava.

Intel ($INTC) - Market Cap: $587.8B (Week-to-Date: +17.9%)

Intel’s foundry dream got a badly needed credibility boost. Google ordered more than 3 million Intel-made AI chips for 2028, while Nvidia is also reportedly looking at Intel as a backup supplier to TSMC. Bank of America piled on with a rare double-upgrade to Buy and a $135 target. For once, the turnaround story has a customer attached.

Losers

Super Micro ($SMCI) – Market Cap: $19.2B (Week-to-Date: -23.2%)

Super Micro builds the servers that house Nvidia’s AI chips, so demand is not the issue. The stock sank after the company announced a $7B equity (and equity-linked) raise to buy parts for roughly $39B of AI server orders. The catch: those orders are not firm commitments, and shareholders are getting diluted today for a payoff that still has to show up.

AppLovin ($APP) – Market Cap: $160.8B (Week-to-Date: -14.1%)

AppLovin runs the engine that decides which ads you see inside mobile games and online stores. The stock fell as investors rotated out of pricey AI software and zeroed in on the risks: Meta and Google pressuring its e-commerce push, an ongoing SEC investigation, and steady insider selling. With a 53x P/E ratio, AppLovin was priced for perfection, and this week the market decided to stop paying up.

Oracle ($ORCL) – Market Cap: $529.5B (Week-to-Date: -13.8%)

Oracle’s AI cloud business is booming, but investors are starting to eye the bill. Cloud infrastructure revenue surged 93% and the backlog hit $638B, but that backlog only turns into revenue after the company builds the necessary data centers. Free cash flow was negative $24B in fiscal 2026. If the AI boom keeps roaring, this massive buildout could look like a generational land grab. If it cracks, shareholders are left holding the bag.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
I Just Roasted My Own Portfolio 👀

I just roasted my own portfolio with a tool I’m building, and I realized it’s time to clean house.

The idea is simple: upload your holdings as percentages or dollar values, and it breaks them down by sector, geography, leverage, and what the portfolio is really betting on.

For me, the main thesis was clear: bullish USA, bullish tech, growth-oriented. I’m young enough to take a long-term view, so that part did not shock me.

Still, the readout pushed me to consider a few moves, and I’ll likely do these three:

• Close small positions where I don’t have enough conviction and the upside isn’t meaningful

• Book some wins from leveraged bets before a good trade turns into excessive risk

• Add infrastructure and energy exposure, where demand may be strong enough to offer steady returns (while still benefiting from the AI buildout)

I’m thinking about making this free on the site, but it would be a bit of an undertaking. So I’d love some feedback… 👇

FAST FACTS
From Pumps to Prediction Markets 🎰

🛢️ Gas Keeps Falling: The national average dropped to $4.12, a third straight weekly decline from $4.56 in late May, as crude stays below $100. [Read]

📊 Yet, Inflation Runs Hot: May CPI hit 4.2%, with energy driving 60% of the jump. The projected 2027 Social Security COLA just rose to 4.7%. [Read]

🎰 Sports Bets Go Mainstream: The CFTC moved to allow nationwide sports “event contracts” on prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, a fight likely headed to the Supreme Court. [Read]

💳 AI Can Now Swipe Your Card: Visa teamed up with OpenAI, and Mastercard launched its own "Agent Pay." Now, AI agents can make purchases for you within spending caps. [Read]

₿ Bitcoin Bleeds Out: Investors have pulled ~$2 billion from Bitcoin ETFs so far in June, on track to top May's record outflows. [Read]

🎬 YouTubers Beat Hollywood: Two horror films from viral creators (ages 20 and 26) out-earned big-budget sequels. Obsession ($229M) and Backrooms ($216M) account for 20% of the summer box office. [Read]

🚀 SpaceX Gets Its First Analyst: New Street launched coverage with a $165 target, 22% above the $135 IPO price, implying a $2.3 trillion value. [Read] 

⚖️ Big Tech Loses A Round: A California judge denied Google and Meta a new trial in the youth social-media-addiction case. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Great Stocks Reward Patient Owners 🧠

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OUR PARTNER: RISE ROBOTICS

World Record Strength. Eight Government Contracts. Limited Shares.

A Guinness World Record sounds like a novelty, but it served as clear validation of the strength and real-world capability of RISE Robotics's technology. 

Their Beltdraulic™ system set the record for the strongest robotic arm prototype ever built, demonstrating performance that is relevant across many sectors. 

The arm is key to modernizing Munition Handling Units used by the Air Force, which recently awarded RISE a $3M contract. This is RISE’s 8th contract - a result of delivering successfully on past awards. 

The company has raised over $27M and just opened up a limited allocation of shares to retail investors.

See the Full Story on Wefunder

THE MAIN EVENT
The $1.77 Trillion Question 🚀

SpaceX is about to become the cleanest test of the AI-IPO boom.

Not because it is some vaporware science project with a pitch deck and a dream. SpaceX is very real. It launches rockets at a pace no one else can touch, owns the dominant satellite internet network, and has a revenue base most IPO candidates would kill for.

So the question for investors is not “Is SpaceX impressive?” It obviously is.

The question is: At $1.77 trillion, is SpaceX still a deal, or are public investors about to become the exit liquidity?

According to the IPO details reported by Axios, SpaceX plans to sell 555.6 million shares at $135 each, list on Nasdaq under $SPCX ( ▼ 5.43% ) , and begin trading around June 12. That would make it the largest IPO ever… by a mile.

Let’s score it like investors should: bull case, bear case, and what to watch before deciding if the Elon premium is worth paying.

Bull Case: This Is Not Another Pets.com 📈

The strongest SpaceX argument starts with the moat.

In 2025, SpaceX completed 165 orbital launches, nearly one every other day, representing about 85% of all U.S. orbital launches and almost twice China’s total, according to Space.com.

That is not a normal competitive advantage. That is a tollbooth to orbit.

But the bull case is bigger than the rockets themselves:

• Starlink scale: SpaceX reported about $18.7 billion in 2025 revenue, with Starlink making up roughly 61% of sales.

• Starship optionality: If reusable heavy lift works at scale, SpaceX can unlock cheaper satellite deployment, in-space infrastructure, and markets that barely exist today.

• xAI upside: The AI segment lost heavily in 2025, but Anthropic’s compute deal could turn it from a drag into a serious revenue engine.

Much of the actual financial case comes from Starlink, which is growing fast and highly profitable: $11.4 billion of revenue, a 63% EBITDA margin, and $4.4 billion of operating profit.

In plain English, SpaceX has a high-margin internet business strapped to the world’s best launch machine. The Mars stuff gets the headlines. Starlink pays the bills.

Then there is xAI (home to Twitter and Grok), where the story gets messier and even more interesting.

In 2025, SpaceX’s AI segment generated about $3.2 billion of revenue but posted a roughly $6.4 billion operating loss. Oof.

But Anthropic’s new compute deal changes the math. At $1.25 billion per month, SpaceX could add $15 billion of annualized revenue through May 2029 from a single customer.

That is almost as much as SpaceX’s entire 2025 revenue base.

Of course, revenue is not profit. Compute comes with power costs, chip depreciation, financing costs, maintenance, and constant reinvestment. The deal also reportedly includes a 90-day termination clause, which makes it less bulletproof than a traditional long-term infrastructure contract.

Still, the upside is clear: if SpaceX can sell high-demand AI compute at attractive margins, xAI starts looking less like an anchor and more like another growth pillar.

As one bullish investor told the Financial Times, SpaceX has “the deepest moat that exists today.” Another put it more simply: “Never bet against Elon.”

Bear Case: Great Company, Absurd Price 📉

Twitter tweet

The bear case is not that SpaceX is fake. It is that the IPO price already assumes too much greatness (i.e., the “Elon Magic Multiple”).

At $1.77 trillion on $18.7 billion of revenue, SpaceX would trade around 95 times sales. That is nosebleed territory, especially for a company that lost $4.9 billion in 2025.

The bear case has teeth:

• Valuation: Roughly 95x sales for an unprofitable company.

• Concentration: Starlink is carrying the entire profit story.

• Falling ARPU: Starlink is growing users, but average revenue per user has been declining.

• AI losses: The AI segment is expensive, uncertain, and facing brutal competition.

• Governance: Musk retains heavy control through dual-class shares.

• Key-man risk: SpaceX is still very much an Elon Musk company.

Morningstar has valued SpaceX at roughly $780 billion, far below the IPO target, and called the proposed valuation significantly overvalued. New Constructs CEO David Trainer was even blunter in Fortune:

The IPO Pop As A Market Thermometer 🌡️

SpaceX will tell us something bigger than whether investors like rockets.

The first-day move will be a live read on how much heat is sitting inside the AI-private-market boom. DataTrek’s Nick Colas told Opening Bell Daily that a healthy first-day IPO pop would probably be 15% to 20%.

A 50% to 70% pop would be a different signal. That starts looking a lot like 1999, when average first-day IPO gains hit 71.2%.

The simple read:

• Up 15%-20%: Strong demand, probably rational enthusiasm.

• Up 50%-70%: Froth alert.

• Flat or down: Public investors may be rejecting private-market math.

So the pop matters, but it should not become your whole investment thesis. Most investors do not need to win the first day.

If you get IPO allocation at $135, great. If you buy after trading opens, you are buying at the market price, which could be much higher.

Three practical routes:

1. Buy SPCX directly. Simple, but risky if the first-day pop is huge.

2. Wait for index exposure. Nasdaq’s fast-entry rules could pull SpaceX into the Nasdaq-100 quickly, which matters for QQQ-style funds. S&P, however, has decided not to fast-track SpaceX into the S&P 500, so VOO/SPY holders will not get automatic exposure for at least a year.

3. Use pre-IPO or thematic funds. For indirect exposure, investors can look at XOVR, ARK Venture, and space-themed ETFs like NASA, UFO, or ARKX. However, these often come with steeper fees, lower liquidity, and the actual SpaceX weight can vary a lot from fund to fund.

The Takeaway

The investment decision comes down to a few key questions:

1. How hot is the first-day pop? A 15% to 20% move signals strong demand. A 50% to 70% rip starts looking more like mania than healthy price discovery.

2. Is Starlink growing the right way? Subscriber growth needs to more than offset falling ARPU.

3. Does Anthropic change the AI math? A $15 billion annualized revenue stream is huge, but only if it actually narrows xAI’s losses.

4. Can Starship become a commercial reality? Reusable heavy lift could unlock bigger markets, but only if SpaceX can solve the technical challenges.

5. Will index demand distort the price? Nasdaq-100 inclusion could force QQQ-style funds to buy shares, creating price-insensitive demand early on.

Remember: two things can be true at once. SpaceX is a phenomenal business and still a tricky stock at this valuation.

The bull case is about dominance, Starlink profits, and AI upside. The bear case is about paying nearly 100x sales for a company that still loses money and gives public shareholders very little control.

That does not mean investors should ignore it. It means the entry price matters.

MARKET MOOD
Bitcoin And Tech Go Their Separate Ways ↔️

Winners

Victoria’s Secret ($VSXY) - Market Cap: $5.8B (Week-to-Date: +32.9%)

Victoria's Secret had been written off as a fading mall brand. This quarter said otherwise. Earnings nearly doubled expectations on sales of $1.6B (+15%). The real win was quality of growth: more full-price selling, fewer promotions, and a 13% comparable-sales jump. That gave management the confidence to raise its full-year projection.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise ($HPE) - Market Cap: $71.1B (Week-to-Date: +24.7%)

HPE sells the servers and networking gear that data centers run on, and the AI boom is now showing up in the numbers. Revenue jumped 40% and adjusted earnings more than doubled, while total orders and backlog climbed sharply. The company raised full-year guidance, with revenue projected to grow close to 30%.

Twilio ($TWLO) - Market Cap: $35.9B (Week-to-Date: +24.1%)

Twilio is the plumbing behind the texts and calls you get from your bank, your dentist, and your delivery driver. This week’s rally had nothing to do with earnings, though. Wall Street is warming up to Twilio's voice-AI push: new tools built for AI agents, plus partnerships with voice startups Deepgram and ElevenLabs. Analysts piled in, lifting price targets toward $250 and calling the turnaround complete. The stock hit a four-year high.

Losers

Five Below ($FIVE) – Market Cap: $10.6B (Week-to-Date: -15.5%)

Here's the flip side of Victoria's Secret. Five Below crushed the quarter, with net sales up 33% and comparable sales up 23%. The stock fell anyway because the company’s outlook assumes tariff relief only lasts through July 24, then reverts to higher rates. For a retailer built around cheap imported goods, that uncertainty overshadows a lot of good news.

Cboe Global Markets ($CBOE) – Market Cap: $29.9B (Week-to-Date: -14.2%)

Cboe runs the options and derivatives markets where Wall Street places its bets, including the famous VIX "fear index." Its worst week since 2020 came courtesy of regulators, who approved Bitcoin "perpetual futures" on rivals like Kalshi and Coinbase. The worry is that a new 24/7 derivative could pull trading away from established exchanges. Cboe argues its moats, including deep liquidity and institutional clients, will hold up just fine.

Broadcom ($AVGO) – Market Cap: $1.98T (Week-to-Date: -6.2%)

Broadcom is one of the biggest winners of the entire AI boom, designing the custom chips hyperscalers use to avoid relying on Nvidia. So how does a company growing revenue 48% drop 13% in a single day? Expectations. Its AI-chip forecast of ~$16B for next quarter landed below the $17.2B Wall Street wanted.

OUR PARTNER: MARKETBEAT

Wall Street’s New Shopping List

Big money is rotating into a select group of stocks for the second half of 2026.

MarketBeat’s analysts tracked the move and identified 10 companies attracting fresh capital right now.

The updated 10 Best Stocks to Own in 2026 report lays out the tickers, trends, and catalysts.

See The 10 Names

CHART OF THE WEEK
The $1 Trillion "VOO And Chill" Era 📈

Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF just became the first fund in history to cross $1 trillion.

• Fees matter. With just a 0.03% annual fee, VOO is the cheapest way to own the S&P 500.

• The rally helped. Investors keep piling into passive funds, but the huge run since the 2022 pullback has swelled their assets too.

• Broad, but top-heavy. It’s spread across 500 companies, but the Magnificent 7 take up 35% of the index, so "diversified" comes with a tech-heavy lean.

VOO is my single biggest holding, so I'll cosign the market’s enthusiasm here: cheap, boring, and diversified-ish keeps winning.

FAST FACTS
Capital Pours Into Compute, Concrete, And Qubits 🏗️

🤝 Alphabet Sells Stock For AI: Google’s parent plans to raise $80B, including $10B from Berkshire, as AI demand outruns available compute capacity. [Read]

🏠 Homebuilders Find Deep-Pocketed Buyers: Berkshire is buying Taylor Morrison for $8.5B, while Japan’s Sumitomo is scooping up Tri Pointe for $4.5B. [Read]

⚛️ Quantum Gets Its Moment: Honeywell-backed Quantinuum priced at $60, raised $1.7B, and landed near a $16B valuation on just $31M of 2025 revenue. [Read]

💸 Your 401(k) May Get Access(ed?): The comment window closed on a Labor Dept rule to allow private equity, real estate, and crypto in retirement plans. Nearly 37,000 comments later, the industry is split. [Read]

🤖 Tesla Ditches The Safety Driver: Riders can now hail fully driverless Model Ys across Austin’s roughly 245-square-mile metro zone. [Read]

₿ Bitcoin’s Slide Gets Uglier: BTC is near $63K, roughly 50% below its October peak, while spot ETFs logged a record 13 straight days of outflows. [Read]

💼 Hiring Refuses To Crack: ADP says private employers added 122K jobs in May, with 8 of 10 sectors growing. That is the strongest month since January 2025. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Stop Hunting For Perfect Stocks 🧠

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Follow the $50 Billion Buy-In

Wall Street just bet billions on a small collection of stocks.

And after a volatile first half of 2026, it looks like they’re about to shift even more.

MarketBeat’s updated 10 Best Stocks to Own in 2026 report reveals the 10 names attracting fresh capital right now.

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THE MAIN EVENT
The Bad Vibes Bull Market 😤

We all know money doesn’t buy happiness. So I guess it goes without saying that record stock prices don’t either.

Yesterday, all three major U.S. indexes closed at record highs, something they’ve been doing repeatedly in recent weeks. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 44.8 in May, the lowest reading in the survey’s history.

To be clear, that means Americans say they feel worse about the economy than they did during:

• The inflation panic of June 2022

• The depths of the pandemic

• The financial crisis

• The post-9/11 slump

According to survey director Joanne Hsu, 57% of consumers spontaneously mentioned high prices hurting their personal finances, up from 50% in April. Her summary was blunt: the “cost of living continues to be a first-order concern.”

Yet, the market’s optimism isn’t coming out of nowhere.

Axios, using FactSet data, noted that S&P 500 companies produced first-quarter earnings per share of $80.75, up 28.4% from a year earlier, the fastest growth since 2021.

AI spending is still surging. Corporate margins are strong. Earnings estimates are rising. Investors are not buying vibes alone. They are buying profits.

So which is it? Is the economy miserable, or is the market right to party?

Annoyingly, the answer may be: both. But the more useful answer for investors is this:

Consumers are saying one thing and doing another.

That distinction matters. The sentiment index is useful because it tells us how people feel. But feelings are not the same thing as economic reality.

Even Paul Krugman recently conceded that the economy is “objectively not bad enough to justify the worst consumer sentiment in history.”

He’s right. Low sentiment does not automatically mean recession. It does not automatically mean consumers stop spending. And it definitely does not automatically mean stocks have to fall.

The better investor question is:

• Are consumers just grumpy?

• Or are they grumpy and changing behavior?

So far, the answer still looks closer to the former.

The National Retail Federation expects retail sales to rise 4.4% in 2026 to $5.6 trillion, and noted that sentiment has been historically disconnected from actual spending.

That is the whole ballgame. If Americans complain about prices but keep swiping the card, the economic impact is limited. Maybe political. Maybe emotional. But not market-breaking.

If the complaining turns into a spending pullback, then we have a different conversation.

The disconnect comes down to three things that explain the “vibe gap.”

1. Stocks and consumers are measuring different realities

Stocks care about profits, margins, AI capex, buybacks, and whether companies can keep squeezing more earnings out of every dollar of revenue.

Consumers care about rent, groceries, gas, insurance, electricity, and whether they can get to the next paycheck without doing financial gymnastics.

Those are not just different readings of the same economy. They are almost entirely different scoreboards.

2. Consumers remember the old prices

Economists tend to focus on the inflation rate, meaning how fast prices are rising. Households focus on the price level, meaning what things actually cost today.

Jared Bernstein and Daniel Posthumus (had to triple-check that last name) made this point in a Stanford SIEPR paper on “price-level shocks.”

Their argument is basically that consumers have long memories after sudden price spikes. People don’t just notice that prices are rising more slowly. They remember what they used to pay.

That is why even an inflation victory, as in “only 2% more expensive than last year,” does not really feel like a win when the grocery bill is still miles above 2019 levels.

3. The market’s good news is not evenly distributed

Wealthier households and stock owners feel the rally directly. The pain at the pump might be offset by another leg higher in the AI trade.

Lower-income Americans and households with less exposure to stocks feel gas, food, rent, and borrowing costs much more directly, with no portfolio gains to soften the blow.

Beyond the vibe gap, there is one real yellow flag here: wages.

The latest BLS real earnings report showed real average hourly earnings fell 0.3% from April 2025 to April 2026, meaning inflation outpaced wage growth. One month does not make a trend. But if real wage growth stays negative, that is no longer just a vibes problem. That is a spending problem waiting to happen.

That being said, this bull market may be even more insulated from consumer moods than usual.

A lot of the AI rally is being driven by business-to-business spending: chips, cloud infrastructure, data centers, software, and enterprise tools. That is not the same as a bull market led by consumers buying more sneakers, phones, or lattes.

But insulated does not mean invincible.

At some point, the companies spending hundreds of billions on AI infrastructure need to prove that customers will pay for it. The path from “massive AI capex” to “durable profits” may be indirect, but it still has to exist.

For investors, the takeaway is simple: don’t ignore consumer gloom, but don’t treat it like a recession siren by itself.

What would actually change the risk picture?

• Retail sales rolling over

• Real wage growth staying negative

• Higher-income consumers starting to pull back

• AI monetization failing to justify the capex boom

• Earnings estimates falling or plateauing

Until then, record-low sentiment is not a stop sign. It is barely even a warning light.

MARKET MOOD
Nasdaq Leads As Tech Outruns Crypto And Crude 📈

Winners

Snowflake ($SNOW) - Market Cap: $82.9B (Week-to-Date: +38.9%)

Snowflake gave the market the clean “show me” quarter it had been waiting for. Revenue rose 33% to $1.4 billion, and its future contracted business grew even faster, with remaining performance obligations up 38% to $9.2 billion. The $6 billion AWS deal helped, too. Yes, it means spending, but it also signals Snowflake sees enough AI demand coming to lock in serious cloud capacity.

Micron ($MU) - Market Cap: $1.04T (Week-to-Date: +23.0%)

Micron ripped higher without an earnings report. The spark was UBS more than tripling its price target to $1,625. The argument is simple: memory companies usually trade at a discount due to their boom-bust cycles. But as AI customers increasingly sign long-term contracts, Micron’s earnings look a whole lot less volatile — and less deserving of a discount.

Ford ($F) - Market Cap: $66.3B (Week-to-Date: +11.5%)

Ford’s rally wasn’t about cars. Investors got excited about Ford Energy, its new battery storage business targeting at least 20 GWh of annual output. It is a page from Tesla’s playbook: use battery manufacturing know-how to sell grid-scale storage into a market getting pulled higher by rising electricity demand.

Losers

Pinduoduo ($PDD) – Market Cap: $118.2B (Week-to-Date: -12.2%)

PDD, the Chinese e-commerce company behind Temu, got hit after growth came with much less profit. Revenue rose 11% to 106.2 billion yuan, but adjusted profit fell 17% as the company kept spending to support merchants and supply chains. This was the trifecta investors did not want: weaker China consumer signals, continued trade friction, and management not rushing to protect margins.

AutoZone ($AZO) – Market Cap: $50.3B (Week-to-Date: -11.7%)

AutoZone beat on earnings, but the market focused on the parts that looked less bulletproof. Sales rose 8% to $4.8 billion and earnings beat expectations, but higher inventory costs weighed on profitability and international sales weakened. The concern is that tariffs may raise costs faster than AutoZone can raise prices, squeezing margins even further.

British Petroleum ($BP) – Market Cap: $108.4B (Week-to-Date: -6.2%)

BP sold off after abruptly removing Chairman Albert Manifold over unspecified governance and conduct concerns. For investors, the worry is less about one board seat and more about distraction at the top while BP is trying to rebuild credibility after years of underperformance.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Three Rate Fires Are Burning At Once 🔥

This Apollo chart shows why borrowing costs are staying stubborn across nearly every time frame. Short-term, medium-term, and long-term debt each have their own reason to move higher.

• Front end: Short-term yields mostly follow the Fed. With April PCE up 3.8%, inflation gives the Fed less room to cut. Fewer expected cuts keep 1-month to 2-year yields higher.
  

• Belly: Middle maturities are feeling pressure from AI borrowing. Hyperscalers need to raise cash for data centers, chips, and power. Because all that bond supply gives buyers more choices, borrowers have to offer higher yields to attract investors.
  

• Long end: Long-term bonds reflect fiscal risk. A 1-month bill gets repaid quickly. A 30-year bond asks investors to absorb decades of deficits, debt, inflation, and Treasury supply. As long as the government keeps deficit spending, investors may demand a bigger reward to lend for that long.

The takeaway: higher-for-longer rates aren’t a hypothetical anymore.

This dynamic can pressure pricey stocks, make high-yield savings accounts more attractive, and make bonds worth considering for income. But investors still need to be careful. If yields keep rising, even longer-term bonds can fall in price.

FAST FACTS
Agents, Drones, And Grocery Groans 🤖

📱 Robinhood Lets AI Trade: Robinhood is launching stock trading for AI agents, with dedicated wallets, trade notifications, and approval previews. [Read]

🚁 Drones Enter The Front-Run Zone: The Pentagon is reportedly weighing funding for drone names like Neros, Performance Drone Works, and Unusual Machines. [Read]

🥩 Food Prices Keep Biting: USDA sees groceries rising 3.2% in 2026 as bad weather, tariffs, fuel costs, fertilizer, and a thin cattle herd keep pressure on shelves. [Read]

🤖 Anthropic Leapfrogs OpenAI: Anthropic raised $65 billion at a reported $965 billion valuation, topping OpenAI’s most recent $852 billion mark. [Read]

🧠 AGI Timeline Gets Shorter: Nobel Prize winner Demis Hassabis now says AGI could arrive by 2029 or 2030, moving up his prior 2030 to 2035 estimate. [Read]

🤠 Exxon Picks Y’all Street: Exxon shareholders approved moving its legal home from New Jersey to Texas, despite ISS and Glass Lewis warnings. [Read]

🛡️ Cyber Stocks Steal Chips’ Thunder: Cybersecurity is suddenly the hot AI trade, as AI agents expand the enterprise attack surface. Since I pushed back on the February selloff, PANW has climbed nearly 70%. Nailed it. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Hype Moves First, Value Follows Later 🧠

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THE MAIN EVENT
Berkshire’s New Boss Bets On Google 🧹

Berkshire Hathaway’s latest portfolio filing was not just about what Greg Abel bought. It was about what a $263B stock portfolio walked away from.

In one quarter, Berkshire tripled its bet on Google-parent Alphabet, opened a multibillion-dollar stake in Delta Air Lines, and exited more than a dozen positions.

This was not routine portfolio housekeeping.

This was Berkshire taking out the trash, rearranging the furniture, and hanging a very large Google poster in the living room.

First, What Is A 13F?

A 13F is the quarterly SEC filing where large investment managers disclose their U.S. stock holdings.

For decades, Berkshire’s 13F was Wall Street’s version of reading Buffett’s diary. Investors tracked every move because a new Berkshire position could send stocks soaring.

Buffett even occasionally requested confidential treatment from regulators so Berkshire could keep building a position without being front-run.

But this filing hits different.

Buffett announced last May that he would retire as CEO, with Abel taking over on January 1, 2026. Since then, Berkshire has lost some of its old glow:

• Berkshire: down 5% over the last year

• S&P 500: up over 27%

• An open question: Can the “Buffett premium” survive without Buffett calling the shots?

The Big Buy: Alphabet

Berkshire increased its Alphabet stake by 224%, making Google’s parent company its fifth-largest equity holding at roughly $22.9B.

That is a loud vote of confidence in a company some investors still worry is investing too heavily in AI infrastructure.

But so far, the market likes the trade.

Alphabet has rallied sharply since the end of Q1, helped by enthusiasm around Gemini, Waymo, and the company’s custom TPU chips.

For Berkshire, Alphabet looks like a rare blend:

• A wildly profitable advertising engine

• Built-in Gemini distribution across Google’s ecosystem

• A full-stack AI strategy running on its own rails, from custom chips to owned cloud

The funny part? Alphabet is also the lowest-yielding dividend payer in the S&P 500.

In other words, Abel’s first major swing is not a classic Buffett value bet. It is a bet on a company that can spend like a moonshot factory, earn like a monopoly, and turn innovation into its next growth engine.

The Surprise Return: Delta

Berkshire also bought 39.8M Delta shares, worth nearly $3B.

That is notable because Buffett dumped Berkshire’s airline stocks during COVID, after years of warning that airlines were exactly the kind of business investors should avoid:

The Cleanup: 16 Full Exits

The quieter story may be the selling. Berkshire eliminated 16 positions entirely, cutting the portfolio from 42 holdings to 26.

Some of the biggest exits included:

• Visa

• Mastercard

• Amazon

• UnitedHealth

• Domino’s

These exits are not necessarily a thumbs-down on the businesses themselves.

Berkshire may have sold because:

• The original thesis had already played out

• The stocks no longer offered enough upside at today’s prices

• The positions came from previous portfolio managers

• The portfolio had become too crowded

• Abel no longer saw a clear edge in owning them

That is less “these companies are broken,” and more “every holding has to re-earn its spot.”

Still Patient, Just Pickier

Despite the flashy Google buy, Berkshire is still not chasing this market.

The company remained a net seller of stocks for the 14th straight quarter and ended Q1 with a record cash pile of $397B.

In plain English: Abel is buying selectively, while holding a giant pile of dry powder in case the market turns.

That matters because it shows the foundation has not changed:

1. Buy only when the price makes sense

2. Hold cash when bargains are scarce

3. Avoid chasing hype for hype’s sake

4. Stay patient, even when the crowd is getting greedy

The difference is where Abel seems willing to look.

• Google? Yes.

• Delta? Apparently.

• A bloated portfolio full of legacy positions? Not so much.

MARKET MOOD
Nvidia Turns Arm Into AI Royalty 💸

Winners

Arm Holdings ($ARM) - Market Cap: $317.3B (Week-to-Date: +42.6%)

Arm ripped higher after Nvidia made the CPU royalty story impossible to ignore. Nvidia now expects roughly $20B in CPU revenue this year, with much of that tied directly to Arm’s chip architecture. That means more AI chips, more CPU usage, and more royalties flowing to Arm. As AI shifts from training to inference, Arm looks positioned to collect a per-chip toll the whole way.

IBM ($IBM) - Market Cap: $237.8B (Week-to-Date: +15.4%)

IBM jumped after reports that it landed a major role in a new $2B U.S. quantum computing initiative. Investors took it as validation that IBM still has a seat at the table in next-generation computing. Quantum revenue is years away, but steady software growth and a reliable dividend give investors something real to hold onto in the meantime.

AST SpaceMobile ($ASTS) - Market Cap: $37.3B (Week-to-Date: +15.0%)

This week pushed AST SpaceMobile closer to looking like a real business instead of a space-age science project. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile announced a joint venture built around satellite-to-phone coverage, which is exactly what AST specializes in. The company also received FCC approval to expand U.S. service and recently hit nearly 99 Mbps speeds directly to smartphones from space.

Losers

Intuit ($INTU) – Market Cap: $84.9B (Week-to-Date: -21.9%)

Intuit delivered a quarter that looked fine on paper, but immediately raised questions. The company cut its TurboTax revenue forecast and announced plans to lay off roughly 3,000 employees as part of an AI-focused restructuring. Investors are beginning to worry that generative AI could weaken the “guided help” model that made TurboTax and QuickBooks so dominant in the first place.

Analog Devices ($ADI) – Market Cap: $187.6B (Week-to-Date: -8.0%)

Analog Devices makes the behind-the-scenes chips used in factories, telecom equipment, cars, and industrial systems. The company crushed earnings expectations and raised guidance, helped by strength across nearly every business line. Yet the stock still dropped. After a huge run into earnings, investors treated strong results as a reason to lock in gains instead of buy more.

Walmart ($WMT) – Market Cap: $967.2B (Week-to-Date: -7.7%)

Walmart’s earnings report looked solid. The future guidance did not. Management warned that freight costs, tariffs, and aggressive promotions could pressure profits going forward, making it this week’s clearest “good quarter, nervous outlook” story. Even retail’s biggest winner is starting to feel margin pressure.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Bond Yields Hit Nearly 20-Year High ⚠️

The 30-year Treasury yield just hit 5.2%, its highest level since 2007. That means bonds are selling off, and the world’s “boring” market is suddenly demanding attention.

• The 10-year yield is near 4.6%, up from below 4% before the Iran war began.

• Mortgage rates have risen to 6.8%, their highest level since July.

• Traders have gone from expecting three Fed cuts in 2026 to pricing in the possibility of a rate hike.

• Trump wants lower rates, but even he recently conceded that incoming Fed Chair Kevin Warsh can “do what he wants to do.”

We’ve seen bond market pressure create policy changes before, including during last year’s tariff rollout. But the Iran conflict is a different beast. Washington can soften its own stance, but it can’t control whether the other side takes the off-ramp.

Stocks may have moved on from Iran, but the bond market is still pricing in sticky inflation, fewer rate cuts, and a lot less room for error.

FAST FACTS
Stock Pickers Lose, Coffee Drinkers Win ☕

📉 Stock picking rarely wins: Just 28% of mutual funds are beating the S&P 500 this year, as AI megacaps leave diversified portfolios in the dust. [Read]

🆓 Claim your free coffee here: Capital One is bringing back free Monday drinks at its bank cafés through September 7 to celebrate the MLB season. [Read]

🚀 SpaceX finally opens its books: The rocket giant filed to go public under $SPCX, setting the stage for the biggest IPO ever as soon as mid-June. [Read]

🤖 OpenAI clears Musk hurdle: A jury sided with OpenAI in Musk’s lawsuit, removing a major legal cloud as the company races Anthropic toward a blockbuster IPO. [Read]

💍 Young couples split the bills: Only 4 in 10 married couples fully combine finances now, with Gen Z and millennials leading the shift toward separate accounts. [Read]

💸 The IRS might owe you: Millions of Americans could qualify for Covid-era penalty and interest refunds, but protective claims must be filed by July 10. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Great Investments Need Room To Grow 🧠

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OUR PARTNER: MARKETBEAT

The 10 Best AI Stocks to Own in 2026

AI is moving from experiment… to essential.

Every major industry is integrating it.
Every major company is investing in it.

By late 2025, AI was already an $800B market — growing at a pace that could push it well beyond $1 trillion in the years ahead.

Cloud infrastructure is scaling fast.
AI-enabled devices are multiplying.
Automation is becoming standard.

But here’s the real question…

When trillions flow into this transformation — which stocks stand to benefit most?

Our new report reveals 10 AI stocks positioned across the backbone of this shift — from the companies powering the infrastructure… to those embedding intelligence into everyday systems.

If you want exposure to one of the defining growth trends of this decade, start here.

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THE MAIN EVENT
Inflation’s Warning Lights Are Flashing 🚨

The stock market has been acting like inflation is yesterday’s problem.

Investors have pushed stocks toward all-time highs, powered by strong earnings, AI optimism, and hopes that the economy can keep humming along. But underneath that rally, the warning lights are starting to flash a little brighter.

Inflation is heating up again. Bond yields are climbing. Rate-cut hopes are fading. And some Fed officials are putting rate hikes back on the table.

That does not mean the rally has to end tomorrow. But investors should understand why inflation matters beyond the obvious “groceries cost too much” problem.

For the stock market, inflation creates three big headaches:

1. It squeezes consumers

2. It makes money more expensive

3. It forces the Fed to stay tougher for longer

Let’s break these down one by one.

1. Inflation Squeezes Consumers

Wall Street knew the Iran war could create some inflation pressure, especially with oil prices surging and energy costs rippling through the economy.

But April’s CPI report was still an eye-opener.

• Headline CPI jumped to 3.8%, up from 3.3% in March

• Gasoline rose 5.4% in one month

• Groceries climbed 0.7%

• Shelter rose 0.6%

Consumers only have so much money to go around. When more of each paycheck goes toward gas, rent, and groceries, there is less left for restaurants, vacations, clothes, and other “fun money” purchases.

Consider that a warning for consumer discretionary stocks.

2. Inflation Makes Money More Expensive

The 10-year Treasury yield is now hovering near 4.5%, its highest level in 10 months, while the 30-year yield is back above 5%.

Together, these bond yields influence the price of money across the economy. Higher Treasury yields can push up:

• Mortgage rates

• Auto loans

• Credit card rates

• Business borrowing costs

• The returns investors demand from stocks

Since 2020, stocks have repeatedly faced pressure when the 10-year yield has climbed near today’s level.

To be clear, 4.5% is not an automatic crash button. But when yields stay above that line, the market often shifts from “rates are helping” to “rates are a problem.”

The reason is simple: higher Treasury yields raise the bar for stocks.

If investors can earn 4% to 5% “risk-free” from the U.S. government, they see much less upside in owning risky assets.

That is especially important in today’s AI-driven market.

Even the best companies are spending huge amounts of cash now in hopes that those investments produce much larger profits later.

Higher rates make investors ask a tougher question: “How much are those future dollars really worth right now?”

3. Inflation Puts The Fed Back In Play

The bond market is losing faith that inflation will quietly drift back to normal.

Break-even rates, basically the bond market’s best guess for future inflation, now imply inflation will average about 2.7% over the next five years.

That is not panic territory. But it is meaningfully higher than the Fed’s 2% target, and it suggests investors do not think inflation is under control.

Even the Fed itself is starting to sound less patient.

Although inflation has been above target for 62 straight months, policymakers seemed willing to tolerate mid-2% inflation if it looked stable and trending lower.

But this jump back toward 4% changes the conversation.

In other words, rate hikes are not the Fed’s first choice, but they are back in the conversation. That alone dents one of the market’s favorite hopes: that relief was right around the corner.

Stocks Choose Optimism Anyway

Surprisingly, stocks seem unbothered.

Corporate earnings have been strong. AI spending remains massive. The economy is still growing. So far, investors have had enough good news to look past the inflation problem.

But that calm is worth watching.

The risk is not that one hot CPI report kills the rally. The risk is that inflation squeezes consumers, keeps bond yields elevated, delays rate cuts, and forces investors to revalue stocks.

For now, stocks are still partying. But inflation is reaching for the punch bowl, and the bond market is already checking the exits.

MARKET MOOD
Dow Breaks 50K As Markets Ignore Iran And Inflation 🔥

Winners

Cisco ($CSCO) - Market Cap: $456.3B (Week-to-Date: +19.6%)

Cisco gave Wall Street yet another sign that AI infrastructure is booming. Orders from hyperscalers jumped to $1.9B this quarter alone, up from $600M a year ago. The company is also cutting about 4,000 jobs to redirect money toward silicon, optics, and security. The old-school networking giant suddenly looks very plugged into the AI arms race.

Philip Morris ($PM) - Market Cap: $299.0B (Week-to-Date: +12.2%)

Philip Morris surged after regulators signaled they would not crack down on certain nicotine pouch and vape products while applications are pending. That’s a big deal for ZYN Ultra, one of PM’s newest launches. Smoke-free products now account for 43% of the company’s revenue, as the cigarette giant slowly turns toward nicotine-tech.

Nvidia ($NVDA) - Market Cap: $5.71T (Week-to-Date: +9.5%)

Nvidia added a casual half trillion dollars in market value this week. That’s about two Toyotas. The catalyst was geopolitics, not earnings. CEO Jensen Huang joined Trump’s Beijing trip, and reports suggest the U.S. may loosen AI chip restrictions in China. That could reopen access to a $50B market that Nvidia currently captures… none of.

Losers

ZoomInfo ($GTM) – Market Cap: $1.1B (Week-to-Date: -38.9%)

ZoomInfo showed what AI disruption looks like in practice. The company sells sales leads and customer data to corporate sales teams, but customers are increasingly shifting toward cheaper AI-native alternatives. Management slashed its revenue outlook as companies pause spending and rethink which software they actually need.

SanDisk ($SNDK) – Market Cap: $204.8B (Week-to-Date: -11.5%)

SanDisk fell after a South Korean official floated the idea of taxing AI company profits to fund a “national dividend.” The proposal is unlikely to become law, but it still triggered a semiconductor selloff. After a 3,000% run, the stock was vulnerable to almost anything, including a little regulatory risk.

Accenture ($ACN) – Market Cap: $100.9B (Week-to-Date: -9.1%)

Accenture sank as two headwinds intensified. First, DOGE-related government budget cuts continue to reduce federal consulting contracts. Second, investors increasingly worry that AI will shrink demand for the labor-heavy consulting work Accenture built its business around. The stock is now down nearly 40% in 2026.

OUR PARTNER: MARKETBEAT

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CHART OF THE WEEK
This Is Not How Most Bubbles Behave 📊

One of the strangest parts of this rally? Tech stocks have actually gotten cheaper despite the market hitting record highs.

• S&P 500 tech earnings grew 50% in Q1, while stock prices rose just 15%

• That pulled the sector’s forward P/E ratio down to 24x from a peak of 30x

• Meanwhile, analysts are still raising earnings estimates

That doesn’t mean the AI trade can’t correct. It absolutely can. But bubbles usually get more expensive over time, not cheaper.

Right now, earnings are growing faster than stock prices, and that’s a very different setup than most people realize.

FAST FACTS
Chips Rip, Crude Climbs, And Warsh Wins 🏛️

🤖 Cerebras blasts onto Wall Street: Nvidia challenger Cerebras surged 68% in its debut, closing in on a $70B valuation thanks to its dinner-plate-sized AI chip. [Read]

🛢️ Oil jumps on China deal: Crude prices rose after Trump said China agreed to buy U.S. oil and help broker a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. [Read]

🏦 Warsh wins a tight vote: Kevin Warsh was confirmed 54-45, the narrowest Fed chair vote ever, in a sign the job is becoming more partisan. [Read]

🔒 Bitcoiners find a new crush: Zcash is up 1,140% over the past year as privacy-loving crypto diehards chase a token that feels like “bitcoin circa 2013.” [Read]

🍔 GLP-1s help wallets too: Households using weight-loss drugs spend 8% less at fast-food chains, coffee shops, and quick-service restaurants within six months. [Read]

💾 DRAM ETF shatters records: The Micron-led memory ETF hit $6.5B in assets faster than any ETF ever, nearly doubling in its first five weeks. [Read]

📈 Stocks party like 1999: Wall Street sees dot-com echoes as AI stocks rip higher, but stronger earnings suggest this boom has more substance. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Excitement Is A Dangerous Signal 🧠

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OUR PARTNER: MODE MOBILE

One Shark Missed Billions… Another Saw This Coming

Imagine turning down Uber at a valuation of $10 million only to watch them go public at over $80 billion.

That’s exactly what happened to Mark Cuban… a 799,900% return, gone.

But Kevin Harrington, another shark from Shark Tank, built his reputation by spotting these opportunities early and didn’t make this same mistake.

Like Uber turned vehicles into income-generating assets, there’s a tech startup right now turning smartphones into the easiest passive income source imaginable.

They were named the #1 fastest growing software company by Deloitte and have already helped their users earn and save over $1B.

Kevin Harrington invested early in this mobile disruptor, and now you can too.

At just $0.52/share, you can become a shareholder in Mode Mobile before their potential IPO.

Secure your shares in Mode Mobile at $0.52/share

^{Potential Uber return for Marc Cuban does not take into account dilution.}

^{The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period in 2023.}

^{Please read the offering circular at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation A Offering.}

THE MAIN EVENT
GPUs Built AI, CPUs Run It ⚡

For most of the AI boom, GPUs were the entire story.

Nvidia became the face of that era. Its chips trained the models, powered the infrastructure, and turned the company into the most valuable business in the world.

Since the launch of ChatGPT, Nvidia’s data center revenue has exploded from $15B annually to $194B last year.

But AI is entering a new phase.

This week offered a symbolic glimpse of that shift: Alphabet (Google) briefly passed Nvidia in market value before Nvidia rallied back and crossed the $5T mark for the first time since October.

That doesn’t mean Nvidia is losing the AI race. It means the race itself is starting to broaden. AI is still about GPUs. But it is no longer only about GPUs.

The shift comes down to two words: training and inference.

Training is when companies build massive AI models. That remains Nvidia’s kingdom because GPUs are built to process huge amounts of data all at once.

Inference is what happens after the model is built.

Every chatbot response, coding assistant, AI search result, customer service bot, or autonomous agent performs inference. And as AI agents start handling more multi-step tasks, the hardware mix begins to change.

That’s because inference relies far more heavily on CPUs.

If GPUs are the brainpower, CPUs are the coordinators. They handle the step-by-step work: opening apps, pulling data, calling tools, checking outputs, and sending responses.

AMD CEO Lisa Su put it plainly on the company’s earnings call. Running AI models once required roughly one CPU for every four to eight GPUs. Now, she says, that ratio is moving closer to one-to-one.

With enough AI agents, there could eventually be more CPUs than GPUs.

That is the money line.

GPUs built the models, but CPUs may end up running the AI economy around them.

That is why the AI winner circle is starting to expand.

• AMD is the clearest dual-threat: AMD makes both the GPUs that power AI workloads and the CPUs needed to coordinate them, giving it a cleaner shot at selling the full package. Its data center revenue jumped 57% year-over-year to $5.8B, and the company doubled its 2030 CPU server market forecast to $120B from $60B just a few months ago.

• Intel is getting a second look: Its Data Center and AI segment rose 22% year-over-year to $5.1B. Intel largely missed the GPU gold rush, but CEO Lip-Bu Tan noted AI is moving “from foundational models to inference to agentic.” This shift back toward CPU-heavy coordination gives Intel’s Xeon processors fresh relevance.

• Arm is riding the power-efficiency wave: Arm licenses chip designs known for doing more work with less electricity, giving it an edge as AI spreads to devices and as data centers try to control power costs. The company claims it already has 50% market share for CPU compute among top hyperscalers.

• Google is building its own lane: Alphabet’s custom in-house chips (“TPUs”) help it run AI workloads inside Google Cloud more efficiently, lowering reliance on outside suppliers.

• Micron and Samsung are the supporting proof: This week, Samsung joined the elite “four-comma club” with a $1T+ valuation, while Micron crossed $700B. Their rallies show investors are looking beyond GPUs and toward the broader AI hardware stack.

Nvidia sees the shift, too.

At its annual developer conference, Jensen Huang leaned harder into inference and agents, showing off new systems that combine GPUs, CPUs, and other specialized chips into unified AI platforms.

The subtext was clear: Nvidia knows the future is not just selling the best GPU. It is selling the full AI system.

That matters because Nvidia still has the strongest ecosystem, the deepest customer relationships, and the clearest claim as AI’s chip king.

But AMD, Intel, Arm, Google, Samsung, and Micron are each proving there are more ways to win as AI moves from “build the model” to “use the model.”

So no, this isn’t an Nvidia obituary. It’s a reminder that building AI and running AI are two different businesses.

MARKET MOOD
AI Buildout Keeps Pushing Stocks Higher 📈

Winners

DigitalOcean ($DOCN) - Market Cap: $15.7B (Week-to-Date: +46.3%)

DigitalOcean sells cloud computing tools to developers and small businesses. The stock ripped after annualized AI revenue hit $170M, up 221% year-over-year. Its new AI-Native Cloud positions DOCN as both a home for AI agents and a cheaper, simpler alternative to AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

Micron ($MU) - Market Cap: $729.0B (Week-to-Date: +19.2%)

Micron blew past a $700B market cap, with the stock now up 127% this year and nearly 700% over the past twelve months. The reason is simple: AI memory demand is overwhelming supply. Micron’s 2026 inventory is fully booked, so customers are signing multi-year prepayment deals. Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon all flagged higher component costs, with memory doing much of the damage. That’s pricing power in plain English.

Corning ($GLW) - Market Cap: $157.0B (Week-to-Date: +15.3%)

Corning rose after landing a multi-year Nvidia partnership that brought attention to a bottleneck I flagged back in March: AI infrastructure needs a lot more fiber. Corning will build three new facilities in Texas and North Carolina, increasing U.S. optical connectivity production by 10x and optical fiber by 50%. The Street is starting to see it less like a sleepy industrial and more like AI infrastructure.

Losers

Planet Fitness ($PLNT) – Market Cap: $3.5B (Week-to-Date: -32.7%)

Planet Fitness beat Q1 numbers, but the outlook did the damage. Revenue rose 22% to $337M, yet management cut 2026 profit guidance to $3.19 per share and cancelled planned membership price hikes. Net new member adds fell 36%, which is the real problem. My theory: casual gym users may be the easiest to lose if GLP-1s make weight loss feel less dependent on a $10 gym membership.

Shake Shack ($SHAK) – Market Cap: $3.0B (Week-to-Date: -29.6%)

Shake Shack got squeezed where it hurts most: beef. Revenue rose 14% to $367M, but operating profit disappointed as margins fell from 12.7% to 10.1%. SHAK’s angle is premium fast-casual, so beef inflation is hard to pass through. Raise prices too much, and a “better burger” starts looking like an easy budget cut.

Shopify ($SHOP) – Market Cap: $145.7B (Week-to-Date: -12.5%)

Shopify’s selloff wasn’t about weak demand. Revenue rose 34%, while gross merchandise volume (total sales running through the platform) rose 35%. The issue was soft guidance and a $581M net loss as the company keeps spending on AI-powered commerce. The market has decided that “growing fast at a loss” needs to become “growing fast at a profit.”

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^{Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation A+ Offering.}

^{Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur.}

^{The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.}

CHART OF THE WEEK
Retirement Planning Is Easier With A Roadmap 🗺️

With stocks near all-time highs, now’s a great time to zoom out and think about the bigger picture.

That’s exactly why I built The Money Maniac FIRE Calculator.

FIRE stands for “Financial Independence, Retire Early,” and the calculator lets you compare multiple paths side-by-side:

• Lean FIRE: Retire as soon as possible by limiting spending to just the essentials.

• Barista FIRE: Semi-retire while part-time income fills the gap.

• Coast FIRE: Stop saving for retirement and let compounding grow your existing portfolio until retirement.

• Fat FIRE: Aim for a more aspirational retirement lifestyle with higher long-term spending.

One of the coolest parts: you can also see how working an extra year or two beyond your target retirement date changes your long-term monthly income.

Try it out here →

FAST FACTS
Yield Traps, Shark Tanks, and Cruise Bugs… Oh My ⚠️

💸 Wall Street’s yield trap: Flashy new ETFs promise annual yields as high as 19%, but when markets turn, both the income and your principal are at risk. [Read]

🦈 The sharks are eating everyone: WSJ found insiders “elite traders” dominate prediction markets, with 0.1% of accounts taking home 67% of profits. [Read]

🦠 This feels too familiar: Health officials are tracing a cruise-linked hantavirus outbreak spanning 23 countries after several deaths onboard. [Read]

🎓 Best cities for new grads: Tampa jumped from No. 26 to No. 2 thanks to strong hiring and lower costs, but you’ll never guess which city took the top spot. [Read]

🍎 Apple may owe you money: Apple agreed to a $250M settlement tied to AI features promoted before they were actually ready on the iPhone 16. [Read]

💼 Jobless claims hit 50-year low: New unemployment filings fell to their lowest level since 1969, suggesting companies aren’t eager to cut workers despite AI fears. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Attention Is Too Valuable To Waste 🧠

Thanks For Reading!

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THE MAIN EVENT
The Easy Era Is Over 🏁

For more than a decade, markets have been shaped by leaders who made the system feel stable, predictable, and, at times, almost easy to navigate. Their edge was discipline, consistency, and patient decision-making.

That era is ending.

Warren Buffett has already passed the keys at Berkshire Hathaway. Over the past two weeks, the transition continued.

Tim Cook announced he’s stepping aside at Apple, while Jerome Powell held what was likely his final press conference as Fed Chair.

What connects all three is not just reputation, but approach. Leaders who avoided overreaction, even in uncertain moments.

Now the baton is moving to a new generation that looks very different.

These are not caretakers. They are builders, risk-takers, and innovators, stepping in at a moment when the system itself is being reshaped.

They’re not being asked to maintain what exists. They’re being asked to figure out what comes next.

The Buyback King vs. The Hardware Architect

Tim Cook’s run at Apple is one of the clearest examples of what “optimization” looks like at scale.

• The S&P 500 rose about 6x during his tenure (August 2011 to today)

• Apple’s market cap grew 11x, from roughly $350B to nearly $4T

• The stock itself rose roughly 20x

That gap is not a rounding error. It came from one of the most aggressive capital return programs in history. Apple reduced its share count by 44% and returned more than $840 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends.

Cook didn’t just grow Apple. He engineered the return profile.

He took a hit-driven hardware business and turned it into a recurring revenue machine, layering in services and smoothing out the volatility.

For a decade, that made Apple feel almost like a bond proxy. A safe, cash-generating core holding you didn’t have to think much about. There’s a reason it became Berkshire Hathaway’s largest position.

That strategy worked because the environment allowed it. Products anchored the ecosystem, supply chains were an advantage, and incremental improvement was enough to drive outsized returns.

Now comes the pivot.

John Ternus, a 25-year Apple veteran, is stepping in after building his reputation on hardware. He helped lead the iPad and Mac lines and played a central role in the Apple Silicon transition.

But the next chapter may not be about building a better device.

If AI becomes the primary computing layer, the value may shift to model platforms. In that world, the question isn’t just who builds the best phone. It’s who owns the interface between you and the information.

That’s the challenge Ternus is stepping into.

The Fed Is Losing Its Playbook

To understand what’s changing at the Fed, it helps to zoom out.

Each chair has left a distinct mark on the system:

• Greenspan kept rates low after the dot-com bust, which helped fuel the housing bubble.

• Bernanke stepped in during the financial crisis and used aggressive money printing to stabilize the system.

• Yellen focused on the labor market and moved cautiously to normalize rates, leaving the Fed with limited room when the next shock hit.

Powell inherited that setup and faced a different challenge.

His tenure will likely be remembered in two phases. First, the pandemic response, where rates were slashed and trillions were pumped into the system. Then the aftermath, where inflation surged to 9% and the Fed was slow to react, calling it “transitory” while relying on lagging data.

Throughout it all, his framework remained consistent.

He was data-dependent, reactive, and focused on confirmation. More than 75% of Fed meetings under Powell were unanimous, which gave markets a clear signal.

That consensus is now breaking down.

At his most recent meeting, the Fed saw its largest split since 1992, with dissents in both directions. One governor voted for a rate cut, while others resisted even signaling easing after the latest inflation print of 3.5%.

That kind of disagreement is new, and it highlights the tension facing the next Fed.

Kevin Warsh represents a change in how the Fed operates. He has been clear about two core ideas:

1. Inflation data may be lagging and incomplete, meaning the Fed risks reacting too late if it relies on traditional measures.

2. AI could act as a structural disinflationary force, lowering costs and increasing productivity across the economy.

Taken together, those point to a more forward-looking framework.

What This Means For Investors

Leaders like Cook and Powell operated in environments where incremental improvement was enough. The next group is stepping into a world where AI is changing business models and the economy faster than the data can keep up.

That creates a tougher balancing act:

• How do you move faster without acting on bad signals?

• How do you invest in AI without undermining what already works?

• How do you stay ahead of disruption without overcorrecting?

At Apple, the risk is shifting too far toward AI and weakening a proven cash machine, or moving too slowly and losing relevance.

At the Fed, the risk is acting too early based on forward-looking assumptions, or waiting too long and falling behind again.

Neither path is obviously right.

The old environment rewarded patience and steady execution. The next will reward being early and being right.

That could lead to more dispersion across the market—and a greater need to be selective with investments.

MARKET MOOD
All Time Highs Hide An AI Divide 🤖

Winners

Centene ($CNC) - Market Cap: $26.5B (Week-to-Date: +28.4%)

Centene helps manage government health plans like Medicaid, where it gets paid a fixed amount per patient. If care costs run too high, profits get squeezed. This quarter flipped that script. Profit came in at $3.37 per share versus about $1.87 expected, as medical costs fell. Management also raised full-year profit guidance, confirming the turnaround is gaining traction.

Quanta Services ($PWR) - Market Cap: $109.0B (Week-to-Date: +16.5%)

Quanta builds the power infrastructure behind the AI boom, including transmission lines and substations. Think of it as the company wiring up data centers. Revenue hit $7.87B, about $880M above expectations, and the backlog reached record levels. As tech giants spend heavily on AI, that demand is now flowing directly into Quanta’s pipeline. A classic picks-and-shovels winner.

Alphabet ($GOOG) - Market Cap: $4.64T (Week-to-Date: +11.7%)

Alphabet jumped after showing that AI demand is already real. Google Cloud revenue surged 63% to $20B, far ahead of expectations. The key line from CEO Sundar Pichai: "We are compute-constrained in the near term … our cloud revenue would have been higher if you were able to meet the demand."

Losers

Robinhood ($HOOD) – Market Cap: $65.7B (Week-to-Date: -14.0%)

Robinhood fell after missing on both revenue and earnings. The main issue was crypto, with revenue down 47% year over year to $134M. That’s a core profit driver. Other areas like event betting are growing, but not enough to offset a crypto slowdown.

ARM Holdings ($ARM) – Market Cap: $223.4B (Week-to-Date: -10.4%)

ARM dropped after a report suggested OpenAI may be missing its growth targets, raising doubts about future demand for ARM’s chip designs. At the same time, TSMC dumped about 1.1M shares, creating selling pressure. The real test comes with earnings next week.

Meta Platforms ($META) – Market Cap: $1.55T (Week-to-Date: -9.4%)

Meta fell despite strong results, and the issue was spending. The company raised its 2026 AI investment plan to $125-145B, citing higher chip costs and more data center buildout. The core business is improving, with better ad targeting driving higher pricing. But investors are focused on how big the bill is getting.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
AI Is Creating More Work, Not Less 📈

AI was supposed to be a death sentence for radiologists. As it turns out, it’s been a tailwind.

Since 2015, the number of U.S. radiologists has grown from 31,000 to nearly 38,000, while average pay has exploded past $550K.

This is Jevons paradox in action. When something gets faster and cheaper, we don’t use less of it. We use more.

AI is already doing the first part. It can flag up to 40% of X-rays and 50% of mammograms as normal, cut reporting time by 27-29%, and help radiologists read up to 20-30% more cases per day.

Now comes the second part: demand spikes.

1. Lower friction: With preliminary triage happening in minutes, doctors are more comfortable ordering precautionary scans they might have skipped before.

2. Mass screenings: Nearly automated reads are enabling large-scale programs, like lung cancer screenings for smokers, that weren’t practical before.

3. The follow-up loop: AI catches tiny findings humans might miss. Once flagged, those often require repeat scans months later, planting the seeds for future demand.

4. Better prioritization: Critical cases get flagged immediately, reducing wait times and increasing overall throughput.

As AI hits medical workflows, we see that the first-order effect is speed. The second-order effect is demand. So far, that means the end result isn’t fewer jobs, it’s bigger markets.

FAST FACTS
Cartel Cracks And Goblin Glitches 👹

🛢️ UAE exits OPEC: The oil producer is leaving the cartel after 65 years, potentially weakening a group that controls 40% of global supply. [Read]

🤖 ChatGPT went full goblin mode: OpenAI says a “nerdy personality” tweak turned answers into goblin-filled ramblings. [Read]

📉 Dimon flags looming bond crisis: JPMorgan’s CEO warns rising global debt, deficits, and geopolitical risks could trigger a shock in bond markets. [Read]

🏠 Home prices roll over: National growth slowed to just 0.7% while cities like Denver fell 2.2%, signaling the housing market is finally cooling in real terms. [Read]

✈️ Airlines face mechanic shortage: Over 40% of the workforce is nearing retirement, leaving airlines desperate to fill a growing pool of six-figure jobs. [Read]

🚀 IPO hype meets harsh reality: New listings are popping 19% on day one, but lag the broader market shortly after the initial excitement. [Read]

👋 Meet the guy writing this: I finally put together a page on how I invest, why I focus on sectors over stocks, and a few real wins and losses. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Simple Rules Require Strong Discipline 🧠

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THE MAIN EVENT
Cannabis Stocks Light Up 💨

After years of false starts, the cannabis industry finally got a real win this week.

The Department of Justice officially moved state-licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, a shift investors have been waiting for for decades.

The reaction?

Stocks ripped on the leak, then cooled off once the fine print hit. It was a textbook case of buy the rumor, sell the news. But beneath the volatility, something meaningful actually changed.

From Hype To Reality

When news first leaked midweek, cannabis stocks went vertical.

Names like Curaleaf, Tilray, and the ETF MSOS surged 15% to 25% in a single session as investors rushed to price in what many thought would be a “magic wand” moment for the industry.

Then the actual order dropped, and the details mattered.

• The change applies specifically to medical marijuana, not the full recreational market

• Interstate commerce is still restricted

• Cannabis is not federally legal yet

• A broader ruling on recreational use is pending, with a hearing expected in July

So the initial excitement gave way to a more sober reality. Still positive, just not an overnight transformation.

One Change That Actually Moves The Needle

Even with those limitations, there’s one piece of this ruling that is a game-changer: the removal of 280E taxes for medical operators.

For context, 280E is a tax rule from the 1980s that treated cannabis companies like criminal enterprises. While cannabis companies could deduct the cost of goods sold, they could not deduct normal business expenses like rent, payroll, or marketing.

That led to absurd outcomes:

• Effective tax rates of 70% to 90%

• Companies paying taxes on income they didn’t actually keep

• Cash flow constantly squeezed, even for growing businesses

Under Schedule III, that goes away for medical operators.

These businesses can now deduct expenses like any other company, bringing tax rates closer to the standard 21% corporate level, which could double or even triple free cash flow overnight for some operators.

That’s why U.S. names led the rally.

The Easiest Way In… And Its Tradeoffs

If you were watching the action, you probably saw MSOS everywhere.

That’s the AdvisorShares Pure U.S. Cannabis ETF, and it’s the most direct way to own the core U.S. operators. It holds names like Curaleaf, Green Thumb, and Trulieve, which make up more than half the fund.

These are American businesses through and through. The catch is they can’t list on the NYSE or Nasdaq because cannabis is still federally illegal, so they trade on Canadian exchanges or OTC markets.

MSOS exists to solve that problem. It bundles them into one ticker you can buy like a normal stock.

That convenience comes with tradeoffs:

• Easy access to the biggest U.S. operators

• Direct exposure to the 280E tax relief story

• Highly concentrated in just a handful of names

• Higher fee (~0.8%) than typical ETFs, reflecting the niche exposure

• Relatively small fund size with under $1B in assets

• Still tied to regulatory risk and headline-driven volatility

MSOS jumped nearly 20% intraday on the news, with trading volume exploding.

As Dan Ahrens, the fund’s manager, put it: “This is the moment the U.S. cannabis industry has been building toward for many decades.”

Not All Green Was Created Equal

One of the more interesting parts of this move was the split between U.S. operators and Canadian names.

• U.S. companies rallied because their economics actually improved overnight.

• Canadian players like Tilray and Canopy Growth mostly moved on momentum… and then gave it back.

Tilray allegedly even used the spike to sell shares through a $180M at-the-market program. In simple terms, they used the hype to raise cash, diluting shareholders and sending the stock down nearly 12% by the end of the day.

You can argue that’s smart capital raising. You can also argue that it’s not the kind of management behavior you want to be on the other side of.

Where Does This Leave The Trade?

This is a real step forward, but it’s not the finish line.

What changed:

• Medical cannabis operators just got a massive tax break

• Profitability and cash flow should improve meaningfully

• The industry is moving closer to a formal regulatory framework

• Fewer barriers to medical research, paving the way for broader clinical use

What didn’t:

• Recreational cannabis is still in limbo

• Federal legalization hasn’t happened

• Large institutional capital is still mostly on the sidelines

The market isn’t pricing in full legalization yet. It’s pricing in progress with uncertainty. That distinction matters.

If anything, this week showed that cannabis is finally gaining real traction. But until the full regulatory smoke clears, expect volatility to stay high.

MARKET MOOD
Oil Rips Toward $100, Stocks Hang Near Highs 👀

Winners

Intel ($INTC) - Market Cap: $335.3B (Week-to-Date: +17.0%)

Intel popped after delivering its biggest earnings surprise in four years and beating expectations for a sixth straight quarter. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said demand is surging for AI inference—when models are actually used, not trained. That shift requires more CPUs, where Intel still controls about half the U.S. market. Oh, and new interest from SpaceX and Tesla didn’t hurt either.

GE Vernova ($GEV) - Market Cap: $309.1B (Week-to-Date: +14.6%)

GE Vernova is up 76% YTD and 242% over the past year, and apparently still has room to run. The company raised its revenue outlook as data center power demand heats up, with its heavy-duty turbine backlog now stretching into 2029. Orders jumped 32% to a record $163B, showing the AI buildout is far from over.

UnitedHealth ($UNH) - Market Cap: $322.0B (Week-to-Date: +9.2%)

UnitedHealth moved higher after showing it’s getting costs under control. The company beat earnings, improved its medical cost ratio, and raised its long-term profit outlook as it continues “right-sizing” operations. The question now: is this a real comeback… or just a healthy bounce?

Losers

Lululemon Athletica ($LULU) – Market Cap: $16.4B (Week-to-Date: -15.3%)

Lululemon dropped after naming Heidi O’Neill as its next CEO, and investors weren’t pleased. She’s a 28-year Nike veteran known for scaling operations, not fixing product issues. That’s a problem, because Lululemon needs its product soul back right now. Besides, Nike hasn’t exactly nailed its own turnaround—that stock is still down 66% over the last five years.

ServiceNow ($NOW) – Market Cap: $87.8B (Week-to-Date: -12.3%)

ServiceNow tumbled despite beating earnings, as the AI overhang on software continues. The company flagged a few delayed deals and gave cautious guidance, which was enough to spark a broad selloff across SaaS. When strong results still get sold, it tells you investors are worried about the future, not the present.

Tesla ($TSLA) – Market Cap: $1.17T (Week-to-Date: -6.7%)

Tesla slipped after earnings, even as its operating profit more than doubled. The issue wasn’t performance—it was the price tag. Tesla plans to spend $25B this year chasing robotaxis and its Optimus robot. Musk says it will pay off “in a very big way.” The market sees an exciting future, but an expensive bill.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Inflation Eats Your Returns From Both Sides 🍽️

This chart reveals a simple pattern. When inflation is low, returns are higher. When inflation rises above 3%, returns drop across both stocks and bonds.

The reason is simple, but easy to miss.

Higher inflation pushes interest rates up, which lowers how much investors are willing to pay for future profits. So even if companies are growing, the market often values that growth less.

That’s why inflation isn’t some secret win for investors. Asset prices may rise, but usually not enough to outrun the headwind.

So, who actually benefits from inflation? Debtors, who see the real value of their debt get inflated away over time.

And in completely unrelated news… the national debt just passed $39T.

FAST FACTS
Bailouts, Bots, And Big Bills 🧾

✈️ Spirit may get rescued: The government is reportedly discussing a $500M lifeline for Spirit that could leave taxpayers owning up to 90% of the airline. [Read]

🤖 AI prices drop to near zero: Google is slashing voice AI costs to $25 per day for a 24/7 agent, seeking to underprice rivals to win market share. [Read]

🏥 America pays more for care: Families now pay $27K a year for coverage, with drug prices and hospital consolidation driving costs well beyond peer countries. [Read]

💼 Big Tech trims for AI: Meta plans to cut 10% of staff while Microsoft offers buyouts to 7% of employees, as companies free up cash to bankroll a $650B AI spending surge. [Read]

📱 Netflix chases snackable video: After a rough earnings reaction, Netflix may launch a vertical feed to keep users scrolling between full shows. [Read]

🚀 SpaceX courts Cursor: Musk struck a “try before you buy” partnership with Cursor, giving SpaceX a path to acquire it for $60B or walk away for a massive $10B breakup fee. [Read]

🌿 Medical marijuana gets relief: Trump’s DOJ moved state-licensed medical cannabis to Schedule III, unlocking tax deductions and research access for operators in 40 states. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Money Isn’t The Only Asset To Protect 🧠

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The 10 Best Cheap Stocks to Buy Now

The market is expensive… historically expensive.

Most of the biggest stocks are already fully priced. Capital has crowded into the same mega-cap names — making true value harder and harder to find.

By early 2026, institutional money had stayed concentrated. Smaller companies had been overlooked. And beaten-down names had been left behind.

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THE MAIN EVENT
Hard Assets Are Back In Charge 🏗️

For most of the last decade, the market had a clear preference: asset-light businesses with high margins and endless scalability. Software led the charge, and anything that required heavy spending on physical infrastructure was often viewed as a drag on returns.

That’s starting to change.

A new framework making the rounds on Wall Street is HALO: Heavy Assets, Low Obsolescence.

Put simply, investors are rotating toward companies that own real, hard-to-replace assets and operate in industries that AI is unlikely to disrupt.

And importantly, this isn’t just a theory. It’s showing up in the market.

Where The Moat Is Made Of Steel

These are companies where the moat isn’t code. It’s physical reality.

The infrastructure itself is expensive to build, heavily regulated, time-consuming to replicate, and often essential to how the economy runs.

AI can automate workflows, but it can’t build a power grid, lay pipelines, or manufacture heavy machinery.

That distinction is starting to matter a lot more.

A One-Two Punch Driving The HALO Trade

This rotation is being driven by two powerful forces hitting at once.

On one side, AI is challenging the software world. We touched on this in the SaaSpocalypse edition.

The idea is simple: if AI lowers the cost of building and maintaining software, competition rises and pricing power weakens. Software isn’t going away, but margins may not look as bulletproof as they once did.

On the other side, AI is creating an enormous demand for physical infrastructure.

Think about what actually powers this boom:

• Data centers need land, cooling systems, and massive electricity

• Chips require complex manufacturing and supply chains

• Power grids need upgrades to handle increased demand

The companies driving this shift are the usual suspects: Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle.

Together, they’ll spend roughly $1.5 trillion on infrastructure between 2023 and 2026. That’s more than the ~$600B they spent in their entire history before 2022.

Even more striking, 2026 alone could see over $650B in capex. That means just one year’s outlays will exceed their total spend before AI went mainstream.

In other words, the biggest “asset-light” winners of the last cycle are now becoming some of the most asset-heavy spenders in history.

Follow The Money, Not The Narrative

You can already see this shift playing out in market performance and positioning.

Asset-heavy sectors like energy, materials, and industrials have been 2026’s strongest performers.

Here are some of the most notable HALO winners:

• Photonics & Connectivity

  • LITE: Lumentum (2026: +131%)

  • GLW: Corning (2026: +83%)

  • COHR: Coherent (2026: +69%)

• Semiconductor Manufacturing & Storage

  • INTC: Intel (2026: +74%)

  • MU: Micron (2026: +45%)

  • SNDK: SanDisk (2026: +234%)

• Power & Energy Backbone

  • GEV: GE Vernova (2026: +44%)

  • BKR: Baker Hughes (2026: +29%)

  • ETR: Entergy (2026: +23%)

  • FANG: Diamondback Energy (2026: +23%)

• Heavy Machinery & Equipment

  • CAT: Caterpillar (2026: +29%)

  • DE: John Deere (2026: +25%)

At the same time, much of the software sector has seen valuations plummet as investors reassess long-term growth prospects.

Goldman’s data shows capital-intensive stocks have outperformed capital-light ones by a wide margin since 2025, and the valuation gap between the two has narrowed dramatically.

That may sound technical, but the takeaway is simple: the market is no longer handing out premium valuations for being asset-light.

The Real Story And What Comes Next

HALO stocks are attractive because they’re hard to disrupt. But their current momentum is still tied closely to the AI buildout itself.

Energy demand, copper demand, data center expansion. All of it flows from the same source. So this isn’t a clean break from tech. It’s more of a reshuffling of who benefits most from the next phase.

The key question is whether this is a short-term rotation or something more structural.

A few things worth watching:

• AI spending trends: If big tech keeps pouring money into infrastructure, HALO names likely stay supported.

• Interest rates: Higher rates tend to favor cash-generating, asset-heavy businesses over growth stocks.

• Commodity prices: If energy and materials run too hot, they can start to slow the broader economy.

The market isn’t saying software is dead. It’s saying the easy trade is gone.

In a world focused on digital everything, investors are being reminded of something simple: the economy still runs on physical constraints. And right now, those constraints are where the money is flowing.

MARKET MOOD
Tech Rips As Oil Pulls Back 🚀

Winners

Oracle ($ORCL) - Market Cap: $512.9B (Week-to-Date: +29.1%)

Oracle surged after making a massive bet on AI infrastructure. The company expanded its partnership with Bloom Energy to secure up to 2.8 gigawatts of fuel-cell power. That directly tackles the power shortage holding back AI expansion. Bloom Energy stock jumped alongside it, boosted by the deal and a $400M investment.

Robinhood ($HOOD) - Market Cap: $78.2B (Week-to-Date: +25.5%)

Robinhood rallied after a major rule change removed a key barrier for its users. The SEC eliminated the $25,000 minimum required for frequent trading, opening the door for smaller accounts to trade more actively. Since Robinhood’s business depends on user activity, investors are betting this leads to higher trading volume, more margin usage, and stronger subscription growth.

Microsoft ($MSFT) - Market Cap: $3.12T (Week-to-Date: +13.3%)

Microsoft bounced as the valuation narrative flipped. After concerns that heavy AI spending would drag on profits, Goldman Sachs argued the selloff had gone too far and called the stock undervalued at around 19x forward earnings. That brought in big buyers ahead of earnings, shifting the story toward a potential rebound.

Losers

PG&E ($PCG) – Market Cap: $38.3B (Week-to-Date: -6.3%)

PG&E fell after Jefferies downgraded the stock and flagged ongoing wildfire risk. A key California bill that could limit how much utilities pay for fire damage has stalled, meaning PG&E may still face large future costs. The drop spread to Edison International, a peer utility in the state, as investors reacted to the same risk.

Wells Fargo ($WFC) – Market Cap: $249.0B (Week-to-Date: -4.9%)

Wells Fargo slipped after a mixed earnings report showed pressure in its core lending business. The bank beat profit estimates ($1.60 vs. $1.58), but revenue came in light at $21.4B vs. $21.8B expected. The issue was weaker net interest income, meaning it’s making less money on loans as higher rates and rising costs squeeze borrowers.

Abbott Laboratories ($ABT) – Market Cap: $165.9B (Week-to-Date: -4.8%)

Abbott fell after barely meeting earnings estimates and projecting weak second-quarter results, driven by a ~6% decline in its nutrition segment. The company also trimmed its full-year outlook following its acquisition of Exact Sciences. Even solid growth in medical devices couldn’t balance it out, which is why shares moved lower.

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The Market Missed These

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CHART OF THE WEEK
AI Is Boosting Margins, Not Cutting Jobs 🤖

Source: The CFO Survey, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Apollo Chief Economist

This chart shows AI’s biggest impact isn’t on jobs, it’s on efficiency.

Despite the doomsday headlines, total employment has barely moved. Instead, output per worker and decision speed are climbing. When you automate the "boring" stuff, workers shift toward higher-value tasks that actually move the needle.

The result? Companies are scaling output without scaling headcount. That expansion in margins is exactly what the market is rewarding right now.

FAST FACTS
From Meme Stocks To Missiles 🧨

👟 Allbirds pivots to AI overnight: The struggling shoe brand sold its assets for $39M and is now chasing AI servers, sending shares up 500%+ in pure meme-stock fashion. [Read]

🏦 Dimon shrugs off private credit fears: JPMorgan’s CEO says the real risk isn’t private credit, but a default cycle that could ripple through the system. [Read]

🏥 Healthcare hiring leaves others behind: The sector added 76K jobs in March and now drives 43% of all growth, helped by $93K nurse salaries and jobs that AI can’t easily replace. [Read]

🎟️ Ticketmaster hit with monopoly ruling: A jury says fans overpaid by $1.72 per ticket, opening the door to $700M in penalties and possibly breaking up the live event giant. [Read]

🛰️ Amazon takes aim at Starlink: The company is buying Globalstar for $11.5B to expand its satellite network, still far behind Starlink’s 10,000 satellites but clearly entering the fight. [Read]

🏠 Buyers gain leverage in hot markets: Listings in cities like Nashville and Riverside have jumped over 200% since 2022, giving buyers more power. [Read]

🏙️ NY targets luxury second homes: A new proposal would tax properties worth $5M+ that sit empty part-time, aiming to plug budget gaps without hitting full-time residents. [Read]

🏭 Detroit may build weapons again: The Pentagon is exploring using automakers like Ford and GM to boost weapons production, echoing a World War II-style industrial shift. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Following The Crowd Is Not A Strategy 🧠

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THE MAIN EVENT
Last-Minute Tax Moves That Actually Pay Off 💸

We’re down to the wire. Tax Day hits next Wednesday, and if you haven’t filed yet, this is your last chance to make moves that can put real money back in your pocket.

The good news: taxes are one of the rare areas of personal finance where a solid weekend cleanup can save you thousands. The bad news: the clock matters, and waiting too long can turn a manageable bill into an expensive one.

Let’s focus on the real levers.

The Deadline Has Teeth

April 15 is more than a paperwork cutoff. It’s your last real opportunity to influence your tax bill.

Most importantly:

• IRA or HSA Contributions: You can still contribute for the 2025 tax year until the April 15 deadline, which may lower your taxable income.

• Extensions: Filing an extension gives you until October 15, 2026 to submit your paperwork, helping you avoid the much steeper late-filing penalty.

• Estimated Taxes: You may need to make your first 2026 estimated tax payment if you have a side hustle or freelance income.

That extension point matters more than people think.

• Late Filing Penalty: 5% per month (max 25%).

• Late Payment Penalty: 0.5% per month.

• The Math: Filing late is 10 times more expensive than paying late.

In other words, if you cannot pay in full, don’t freeze. File, pay what you can, and look into an IRS payment plan for the rest.

The Checklist Most People Rush Past

At this point, the biggest opportunity isn’t an exotic loophole. It is catching the obvious credits and deductions that people forget when they’re rushing.

1. High-Impact Credits (Directly Reduce Your Bill)

• Child Tax Credit: Now worth up to $2,200 per qualifying child for 2025, with up to $1,700 of that being refundable.

• Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC): This can be worth up to $8,046 for a family with three or more children (income limits apply, generally up to $68,675 for joint filers).

• American Opportunity Credit: Worth up to $2,500 per student for eligible college costs.

• Energy-Efficient Upgrades: Credits worth up to $1,200 for weatherization (doors/windows) and up to $2,000 for heat pumps or biomass stoves.

• Clean Energy Credit: Solar, battery storage, or similar upgrades may qualify for a 30% credit with no dollar limit.

2. Missed Deductions (Reduce Taxable Income)

• Student Loan Interest: Up to $2,500, even if you don't itemize.

• HSA/IRA Contributions: Made before the April 15 deadline.

• Standard Deduction: For 2025, it’s significantly higher: $15,750 for singles and $31,500 for married couples.

• Seniors: If you are 65 or older, a new 2025 deduction allows an additional $6,000 off your taxable income (phasing out at $75,000 income).

3. Homeowners & High-Tax States

• The Ownership Audit: If you itemize, make sure you review mortgage interest, property taxes, and home equity loan interest (if used for improvements). Don't forget discount points from a recent purchase or refinance, and receipts for energy-efficient upgrades like heat pumps or windows.

• The SALT Cap: The limit for State and Local Tax deductions was quadrupled to $40,000 for 2025 (for those with income under $500,000).

4. New Deductions In 2025

• No Tax on Tips: You can now deduct up to $25,000 in qualified tip income. This is available to workers in customarily tipped roles (hospitality, delivery, etc.) with a MAGI under $150,000 ($300,000 if filing jointly).

• No Tax on Overtime: You can deduct the "premium" portion of your pay (the extra 50% from "time-and-a-half" wages) up to $12,500 ($25,000 for joint filers). This applies to non-exempt employees under the same $150k/$300k income thresholds.

A Few Tips Before You Hit Submit

• File for Free: IRS Free File is available to anyone with an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $89,000 or less. If you are above that limit, you can still use Free File Fillable Forms. Military families can use MilTax for free regardless of income.

• E-file and Direct Deposit: This remains the fastest route to your refund.

• Payment Strategy: IRS payment processors charge a fee of 1.75% when paying by card. If you have a card that rewards 2% or more, you can actually pocket a small gain while paying your bill.

• Extension ≠ Free Pass: An extension gives you more time to file, but not more time to pay. Any tax owed is still due by April 15.

If You’re Getting A Refund, Don’t Waste The Gift

Refunds are averaging $3,571 this season, an 11% jump from last year. A smart pecking order for that "windfall" looks like this:

1. Checking Buffer: Keep a small amount to prevent random expenses from hitting a credit card.

2. High-Interest Debt: Pay off cards or loans with double-digit interest rates first.

3. Emergency Fund: Top off a high-yield savings account (many are still hovering near 4-5% APY).

4. Invest: If your foundation is solid, put the money into long-term investments to let it compound.

MARKET MOOD
Ceasefire Sparks Major Market Rally 🚀

Winners

Intel ($INTC) - Market Cap: $309.9B (Week-to-Date: +22.5%)

Intel caught a perfect wave of AI hype and deal momentum. Over the past week, the company teamed up with Google on next-gen AI chips, joined Elon Musk’s new chip venture, and bought back a major stake in its Irish factory for $14.2B. Add in analyst upgrades and strong manufacturing progress, and investors started believing the turnaround story again in a big way.

Applied Materials ($AMAT) - Market Cap: $315.7B (Week-to-Date: +14.2%)

Applied Materials jumped after unveiling new tools for sub-2nm chips, the cutting edge of AI hardware. Plus, investors rotated back into chip-making equipment as war-related fears eased. The manufacturing company sits at the center of massive spending plans from customers like TSMC. As reshoring accelerates, AMAT is one of the clearest beneficiaries.

Brown-Forman ($BF-B) - Market Cap: $14.0B (Week-to-Date: +12.8%)

Jack Daniel’s found itself at the center of a potential bidding war. Shares jumped after reports that Sazerac, the maker of Fireball, is exploring a deal. There’s also interest from Pernod Ricard, a large French spirits company. Still, control sits with the Brown family, which owns 67% of the vote and rejected a deal years ago. With the stock down over 60% from its highs, investors think this time could be different.

Losers

Workday ($WDAY) – Market Cap: $29.1B (Week-to-Date: -14.5%)

Workday got hit from two sides at once. First, founder David Duffield (a fellow Cornell engineer) sold a large chunk of stock. Then came the bigger issue. Anthropic launched AI agents that can handle complex business tasks on their own, raising real questions about whether companies will need as many paid software seats. It looks like the SaaS-pocalypse is back for a second inning.

Palantir ($PLTR) – Market Cap: $312.1B (Week-to-Date: -12.1%)

Palantir slid after Michael Burry took aim at the company’s valuation and competitive position. He pointed out that Anthropic’s revenue exploded from roughly $9B to $30B, while Palantir took two decades to reach just over $5B. His takeaway: faster, cheaper AI tools are catching up quickly, and Palantir’s premium pricing could be at risk.

Phillips 66 ($PSX) – Market Cap: $64.6B (Week-to-Date: -8.6%)

Phillips 66 dropped after revealing a $900M loss tied to hedging bets gone wrong. The company had short positions on oil and refined products, meaning it benefited if prices fell. Instead, oil spiked due to tensions in the Middle East and disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz. It didn’t stop there. Refining took a ~$300M hit, winter storms disrupted operations, and the company had to post $3B in collateral. Now that’s risk management gone wrong.

OUR PARTNER: FISHER INVESTMENTS

The 15-Minute Retirement Plan

Retirement savings face two quiet threats: cash flow gaps and inflation eroding purchasing power over time. The 15-Minute Retirement Plan helps investors with $1,000,000 or more account for both and build a portfolio designed to last the distance.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Inflation Expectations Swing With Every Oil Move 🛢️

This chart shows how fast prices exploded after the Iran conflict. Jet fuel is up +95%, heating oil +68%, and WTI crude (the main U.S. oil benchmark) +66%.

• Energy is the inflation driver: That spike is why March CPI is expected to jump nearly +1.0% month over month, up from +0.3% in February.

• But it’s already spreading: Fertilizer is up +31% and palm oil +20%, which can push food prices higher next.

• Importantly, this is a supply shock: It is being driven by conflict and oil flows, not overheated consumer demand.

Fortunately, the U.S.-Iran ceasefire sparked a sharp reversal. On Wednesday, stocks rallied, oil dropped, and bond yields fell as inflation fears eased.

For investors, this is the whole game.

If the truce holds and oil keeps falling, inflation likely cools, the Fed has room to cut rates later this year, and risk assets win.

If the conflict flares back up, this chart becomes your inflation and investing roadmap.

FAST FACTS
Tariffs, Tollbooths, and Tech Bets ₿

🛢️ Trump threatens 50% Iran-linked tariffs: The White House says any nation supplying Iran with weapons could face immediate 50% duties, putting China and Russia squarely in the market’s crosshairs. [Read]

₿ Iran builds a Bitcoin tollbooth: Tehran reportedly wants $1 per barrel from tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, with payments in crypto. [Read]

🤖 Meta upgrades its AI game: Meta just launched Muse Spark, a new in-house model that it says closes much of the gap with OpenAI and Anthropic. [Read]

🚀 Musk eyes a mega-merger: After quickly merging SpaceX and xAI, investors are already speculating about the next wild combo: Tesla plus SpaceX. [Read]

🧠 Goldman says AI has legs: Goldman sees AI spending as early- to mid-cycle, with semis and cybersecurity still looking like prime “picks and shovels” plays. [Read]

💳 Gen Z swipes for survival: More than 25% of Gen Z adults opened a new credit card in the past year, the highest rate of any generation. Nearly 40% are doing so to have a "financial cushion." [Read] 

🏠 HELOCs come with a catch: Homeowners are sitting on $34T in equity, but tapping it got trickier. Many lenders now require huge upfront draws, which can raise delinquency risk. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Inaction Is Often The Best Action 🤫

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OUR PARTNER: BELAY

Market Volatility Exposes Weak Delegation

When markets get shaky, advisors don’t just manage portfolios. They manage fear, questions, follow-up and a flood of client communication.

That’s where weak delegation gets expensive.

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BELAY created the free Financial Advisor’s Delegation Guide to help you identify what to hand off, what to keep and how to stay client-facing without losing control.

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THE MAIN EVENT
The Space Economy Reaches Escape Velocity 🚀

It was a big week for space. And not the sci-fi kind. The real, investable kind.

NASA just launched a crewed lunar mission, sending astronauts on a path around the moon, for the first time in more than 50 years.

At the same time, SpaceX confidentially filed for what could become the largest IPO in history. Put those together, and you start to see the bigger picture.

Space is no longer just a science project. It is becoming an economy.

The Artemis Roadmap To The Moon

NASA’s Artemis program is the foundation of America’s return to the moon, and it is designed as a multi-step buildout rather than a one-off mission.

• Artemis I (2022): Tested the rocket and spacecraft without a crew

• Artemis II (2026): First crewed mission, looping around the moon

• Artemis III (2027): Will test lunar landers built by SpaceX and Blue Origin

• Artemis IV (2028): Expected to mark the first U.S. moon landing since 1972

• Artemis V (2028): Early stages of moon base construction

This week’s Artemis II mission will cover nearly 700,000 miles, taking astronauts roughly 250,000 miles from Earth — the farthest humans have ever ventured.

This is not just about planting a flag. NASA is laying the groundwork for what it calls a “lunar economy” with research labs, infrastructure, and eventually even resource extraction.

But NASA is no longer doing this alone.

SpaceX And The Rise Of Private Space

NASA has spent more than $30B developing its rocket system and another $25B on the spacecraft used in Artemis II. Meanwhile, SpaceX has built a dominant launch business with just $12B in lifetime funding.

Now SpaceX wants to go public.

• Potential IPO raise: up to $75B

• Target valuation: $1.75T

• Timeline: as soon as this summer

If that holds, this would be the largest IPO of all time, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s 2019 record. Plus, SpaceX would become the 8th largest public company in the world — larger than even Tesla.

This is not just a rocket company. SpaceX today looks more like a global infrastructure business:

• $15B to $20B in annual revenue

• Starlink accounts for 50% to 70% of revenue

• 9M+ users and 10,000 satellites in orbit

Government work now makes up only 5% of revenue, which shows how much the business has shifted toward commercial demand.

What The Space Economy Actually Includes

When investors talk about the space economy, they are usually referring to two layers of activity.

Today’s reality:

• Satellite internet (Starlink)

• Defense and surveillance

• GPS and communications

Tomorrow’s potential:

• Orbital data centers

• Lunar mining and fuel production

• Space-based manufacturing

The unlock for all of this is cost.

Over the past decade, SpaceX has already driven launch costs down from ~$20,000 per kg to ~$2,000 per kg. Its next goal is closer to $100 per kg.

If that happens, entire industries that once looked impossible suddenly become viable.

Why Investors Are Starting To Pay Attention

The combination of Artemis missions and the SpaceX IPO signals something important. Governments are building the roadmap, but private companies are building the businesses that sit on top of it.

We are already seeing early market reactions, with smaller space-related companies moving higher on the news.

• Firefly ($FLY): +38.9% this week

• Intuitive Machines ($LUNR): +36.9% this week

• Planet Labs ($PL): +16.3% this week

• Rocket Lab ($RKLB): +11.2% this week

That reflects a broader realization that increased activity in orbit creates demand for everything from satellites to launch services to infrastructure.

At the same time, it is worth keeping expectations in check. Many of the most ambitious ideas are still years away from generating meaningful revenue. For now, the bulk of the economic value is tied to satellite networks and communications.

Still, the direction is becoming clearer. As launch costs fall and activity increases, space is gradually turning into a place where companies operate, not just explore.

MARKET MOOD
Stocks Bounce, Snap 5-Week Losing Streak 😅

Winners

Lumentum ($LITE) - Market Cap: $59.0B (Week-to-Date: +17.7%)

Optical networking has become the AI trade’s next leg higher. Lumentum and Coherent keep ripping as demand for faster data movement picks up. Ever since joining the S&P 500, these two have been on an absolute heater. So I won’t say my recent coverage caused this move, but I also won’t rule it out. Hope you enjoyed the +18% follow-through.

Sandisk ($SNDK) - Market Cap: $103.6B (Week-to-Date: +13.9%)

Memory stocks got smoked last week after Google's research on a compression algorithm suggested AI models could use far less memory. The market took that and ran… a little too far. Turns out, the paper was a year old. More importantly, investors may have missed the bigger picture.

There’s a concept called Jevon’s Paradox: when something gets more efficient or cheaper, people end up using more of it. That’s exactly what could happen here.

Palo Alto Networks ($PANW) - Market Cap: $132.4B (Week-to-Date: +11.0%)

Cybersecurity hasn’t had much to cheer about lately, but a $10M stock purchase from CEO Nikesh Arora may have lifted the mood. It’s a reminder that the bigger picture hasn’t changed. If anything, AI may increase the need for cybersecurity, not replace it. More apps, more agents, more attack surfaces.

Losers

Nike ($NKE) – Market Cap: $65.4B (Week-to-Date: -14.0%)

Nike beat earnings, but that wasn’t the story. Guidance was. The company now expects sales declines ahead, with China down 20% next quarter and margins getting squeezed by tariffs and rising costs. The market didn’t stick around to hear the rest. The stock is now sitting at a 12-year low, down 67% over five years.

McCormick & Company ($MKC) – Market Cap: $13.1B (Week-to-Date: -8.0%)

McCormick did what you’d want on paper: beat earnings and raised guidance. Then it announced a massive deal to acquire Unilever’s food business (valued at $44.8B). The problem? Big food mergers don’t have a great track record, and this one comes with nearly $16B in debt. Management is selling long-term upside, but the market is focused on execution risk.

Beyond Meat ($BYND) – Market Cap: $0.3B (Week-to-Date: -7.8%)

Beyond Meat is dealing with weak demand, falling volumes, and now accounting issues. Revenue missed expectations, guidance came down, and the company delayed its annual report due to inventory-related errors. As the CFO put it, the category is “very volatile, and volumes remain soft.” The stock has fallen 99% since IPO.

OUR PARTNER: PERCENT

Institutions Aren't Guessing. Neither Should You.

94% of institutional investors now allocate to private credit (Nuveen, 2025). Percent gives accredited investors direct access to private credit: 16.72% current weighted average coupon, terms as short as 3 months, starting at $500. $1.82B funded since 2018. New investors can receive up to $500 credit.

Follow the institutional money.

Alternative investments are speculative. Past performance not indicative of future results. Terms apply.

CHART OF THE WEEK
The $14T Debt Tsunami Nears Shore 🌊

The next big move in bonds isn’t about demand. It’s about supply.

Roughly $10T of existing U.S. government debt needs to be refinanced in the next year. Add in a $1.9T deficit and $2.5T in corporate borrowing, and you’re looking at a flood of supply hitting the bond market.

More supply = lower prices. And in bonds, lower prices mean higher yields.

What that means for you:

• Rates may stay higher for longer: All these new bonds need buyers, so yields have to rise to attract them.

• Long-term bonds face pressure: If rates rise, existing bonds (which pay lower yields) lose value, especially 10+ year ones.

• Time horizon matters: Remember that if you hold a bond to maturity, you still get paid. So price swings only matter if you sell.

• Cash gets more attractive: Short-term Treasuries and money markets benefit as yields reset higher.

Bottom line: You don’t need to avoid bonds today. This is just a reminder that the coming wave of supply could push yields higher over the next year, with longer-term bonds likely to feel the most pressure first.

FAST FACTS
The IRS Giveth, Gas Stations Taketh ⛽

💸 Blue states get the biggest refunds: California refunds are up 21% this season versus 11% nationally, as Trump’s SALT cap hike sends some of the biggest tax breaks to high-income households in blue states. [Read]

😢 Gas is back above $4: The national average just crossed $4.00 a gallon for the first time since 2022, while diesel is up 45%, threatening to raise shipping and grocery costs next. [Read]

🧾 The wealth-tax bar keeps dropping: Elizabeth Warren’s latest plan would hit fortunes above $50M with a 2% annual tax. At this rate, wealth taxes are starting to creep up on the 401(k) millionaire crowd. [Read]

🚕 Waymo hits 500,000 weekly rides: Alphabet’s robotaxi unit is now doing half a million paid trips a week across 10 cities, up 10x from two years ago. [Read]

🏚️ House flipping loses its shine: The average flip made just $66K last year, the weakest profit since 2008. [Read]

🔐 Quantum closes in on crypto: Google researchers now see a 10% chance that quantum machines could crack blockchain encryption by 2030, putting roughly 6.7 million Bitcoin at risk unless the network upgrades in time. [Read]

💊 Lilly brings weight loss to a pill: The FDA approved Eli Lilly’s Foundayo, the first oral GLP-1 for weight loss with no food or water rules. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
The Lie Investors Love To Believe 🧠

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OUR PARTNER: CYTONICS

The Key to This $240B Market Is in Your Bloodstream

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THE MAIN EVENT
First The Brains, Now The Nervous System ⚡

The AI trade has moved in waves. Each wave has been driven by one physical constraint, and each time, the market has rewarded whoever controlled the choke point.

• 2023-2024: GPUs were the bottleneck. Logic was scarce. Nvidia became the top-performing stock in the S&P 500 for back-to-back years.

• 2025: Memory took over. As models got "smarter," they needed massive pools of data to store their thoughts. SanDisk led the index.

• 2026: The constraint is shifting again. We have the "brains" and the "memory," but we can’t move the data fast enough.

This time, the bottleneck is the “nervous system.” Specifically, photonics.

Photonics 101: Electricity vs. Light

If you’re trying to understand the difference between the old way (copper) and the new way (photonics), imagine two kids talking through tin cans and a string.

1. Copper is the string. If the string is too long, the sound gets fuzzy. If you try to whisper 1,000 words a second, the string vibrates so hard it just turns into a "buzz." That’s why copper fails past a certain point.

2. Photonics is a laser pointer. You can flicker that light as fast as you want, and as long as your friend can see the light, the message is clear.

At a high level, photonics is the use of light to move data. That sounds technical, but the building blocks are straightforward:

• Transceivers (The Parts): The "laser interpreters" from Lumentum or Coherent. These devices contain both the lasers that "speak" in light and the sensors that "translate" it.

• Fiber Optics (The Road): The ultra-pure glass cables (from Corning) that carry that light.

• Optical Networks (The System): The full traffic grid that connects 100,000 GPUs into one giant supercomputer.

The "Data Wall" Is Real

AI chips are now so fast that they spend up to 60% of their time idle, literally waiting for data to arrive. If you buy a $40,000 Blackwell GPU but use old copper cables, it performs like a $4,000 chip.

This is what engineers call the "Data Wall."

Nvidia solved the internal speed problem, pumping out data faster than ever. But that created a massive traffic jam outside the chip.

The only way to clear it? Light.

Why Share of Wallet is Exploding

Networking used to be a small piece of the total cost. That is no longer true.

• The Rack Tax: In a $3M to $8M AI rack, networking and optics now represent up to 15% of the total cost. Just three years ago, that was less than 5%.

• The Multiplier: In 2023, a standard cluster needed dozens of optical transceivers. In 2026, the new "reasoning" models require hundreds per rack.

• The Market: Bank of America just hiked its estimate for the AI optical market from $14B in 2025 to $73B by 2030.

This isn't just a budget shift. It’s a repeat of the same supply-side panic we saw with GPUs and memory. Now we’re seeing it with lasers.

• Sold Out: Lead times for 1.6T transceivers, the new gold standard, have stretched over 12 months.

• The Moat: You can’t easily build a photonics factory. It’s a physics problem, not a software problem. Companies like Fabrinet are seeing margins surge from 20% to over 40% because they are the only ones who know how to package these lasers without them melting.

Early Signals

The market isn't waiting for the earnings reports. It is moving now.

• Lumentum (LITE): Up 87% YTD. It just hit another all-time high this week after being added to the S&P 500 on March 23rd.

• Coherent (COHR): Up 32% YTD. Like Lumentum, they are the light engines of the industry.

• Corning (GLW): Up 55% YTD. They are the "King of Glass." Their multi-billion-dollar deal with Meta to provide fiber backplanes has turned them into a high-growth AI darling.

• Fabrinet (FN): Up 21% YTD. They specialize in "precision assembly," the process of mounting tiny lasers into the modules that power AI racks.

• The Nvidia Stamp of Approval: Nvidia isn't taking chances. They just locked in $4 billion in prepayments to Lumentum and Coherent to secure their laser supply through 2030.

The Connectivity Supercycle

The setup is familiar. A bottleneck has formed, supply is tight, and demand is rising. That is exactly what defined the GPU phase and then the memory phase.

For photonics to follow the same path:

1. Data center spending needs to continue increasing.

2. AI clusters need to keep scaling, which drives more connectivity demand.

3. Supply constraints need to persist.

If those conditions hold, the narrative is clear.

But the market is already moving ahead of today’s numbers. Valuations across the group have ballooned, with most of these names trading at 40x to 60x forward earnings.

As Morgan Stanley put it:

“We would fully expect these names to work as long as capex data points are revised higher.” However, they wrote, “having added ~$180 billion of market capitalization over the last year, we have begun to price-in perfection.”

MARKET MOOD
Chips Up, Crypto Down, Chaos In Between 🤖

Winners

Arm Holdings ($ARM) - Market Cap: $164.4B (Week-to-Date: +17.0%)

Arm ripped higher after unveiling its first in-house AI data center CPU, marking a big shift from licensing designs to building its own chips. Meta is already on board, and others like OpenAI are lining up. As AI moves toward always-on agents, CPUs are back in focus — and Arm wants a slice. Executives think the chip line could drive $15B in annual revenue by 2031.

Chewy ($CHWY) - Market Cap: $11.2B (Week-to-Date: +15.6%)

Chewy missed on sales and earnings, yet the stock still rallied. Why? Margins. The company showed it can squeeze more profit out of each customer through Autoship orders and pet health insurance. Add better cost control and strong guidance, and investors looked past the weak top line.

JetBlue Airways ($JBLU) - Market Cap: $1.7B (Week-to-Date: +11.9%)

JetBlue popped after reports it may explore a sale, potentially to a larger airline. The company has reportedly mapped out how combinations with United, Alaska, or Southwest would be viewed by regulators. After its Spirit merger got blocked in 2024, JetBlue could now flip the script and become the target.

Losers

Circle Internet Group ($CRCL) – Market Cap: $26.1B (Week-to-Date: -22.0%)

Circle got hit as lawmakers debate new stablecoin rules under the pending Clarity Act. One key issue is whether stablecoins like USDC can offer interest. Banks are lobbying against it, since yield-bearing stablecoins compete with deposits. At the same time, rival Tether is taking steps toward getting its first complete audit, chipping away at Circle’s edge as the “safer option.”

DraftKings ($DKNG) – Market Cap: $10.6B (Week-to-Date: -10.1%)

DraftKings dropped as regulatory pressure started stacking up. A proposed Senate bill could limit its push into prediction markets, a key growth area, while an NCAA lawsuit aims to block its use of March Madness-related branding. Add in rising competition from prediction platforms, and the former duopoly with FanDuel is starting to look less secure.

OUR PARTNER: TABS

AI Alone Can’t Run Revenue

Finance doesn’t run on “mostly right.” It runs on math.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Was “Sell America” Just A Headline? 🇺🇸

“Sell America” made for great market drama, but this chart by Apollo suggests the narrative was mostly a ghost story. Days when U.S. stocks, the dollar, and Treasuries all fell together didn’t actually spike in 2025 or 2026.

Despite the “Liberation Day” panic, we never saw the massive exit everyone feared.

Stocks recovered quickly, the dollar and rates held their ground, and foreign investors actually doubled down—pushing their ownership of U.S. stocks to its highest level in nearly 60 years.

This month’s hot-war reaction also looks nothing like a “Sell America” trade:

• U.S. Dollar: +2%

• 10-year Yields: +10% (Bonds being sold off)

• S&P 500: -6%

• Magnificent 7: -10%

• Gold: -16%

What’s happening instead is a frantic scramble for cash.

Fund managers’ average cash pile jumped from 3.4% to 4.3%, the biggest one-month leap since the 2020 COVID crash. In other words, the "pros" swung from being light on cash to hoarding it.

When things got real, they didn’t flee America. They sold everything from stocks to gold, and they hid in literal dollars.

FAST FACTS
Rulebooks, Recession Risks, And Rosie 🐶

🏛️ Trump wants one AI rulebook: The White House rolled out a national AI framework designed to preempt state-by-state rules, arguing that 50 different laws would slow innovation. [Read]

😰 Recession odds are climbing: Moody’s now puts the chance of a U.S. recession in the next year at 49%, as war-driven oil spikes and labor market cracks raise the pressure. [Read]

🐶 AI helped build a dog cancer vaccine: After surgery and chemo failed, an Australian entrepreneur used ChatGPT and DeepMind tools to help create a custom mRNA cancer vaccine that shrank most of his dog Rosie’s tumors. [Read]

📉 This hot AI fund crashed back to earth: Fundrise’s VCX exploded on private-tech hype, then dropped hard as the market remembered one small detail: the underlying assets were worth far less. [Read]

⚖️ Social media’s legal trouble deepens: Meta and YouTube were hit with a new $6M verdict in LA over addictive platform design, just days after Meta alone got tagged for $375M in New Mexico. [Read]

💵 Cash is still king-ish: Even as mobile wallets take over, 84% of Americans oppose going fully cashless. Can you guess which bill is now the most common in circulation? [Read]

👶 Trump Accounts aren’t just for newborns: Think your kid missed out because they were born before 2025? Not so fast. The $1,000 seed is just one piece of the story parents need to know. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Price And Value Are Not The Same 🧠

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OUR PARTNER: FISHER INVESTMENTS

Are You Ready to Actually Retire?

Knowing when to retire is harder than knowing how much to save. The timing depends on what your retirement actually looks like: how long your money needs to last, what you'll spend, and where your income comes from.

When to Retire: A Quick and Easy Planning Guide is built for investors with $1,000,000 or more who are ready to move from saving to planning. Download your free guide and start working through the details.

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THE MAIN EVENT
This Isn’t The 1970s 🕰️

The Fed held interest rates steady this week. That part was expected.

The real story is how Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell framed it and what that says about where policy is heading.

Inflation is heating up again, GDP growth came in weaker than expected, and now an oil shock is adding fuel to the fire. That mix has started to spook investors and bring back the “S-word.”

Powell isn’t buying it.

Why The Fed Is Standing Still

The Fed is dealing with a tricky mix right now:

1) Inflation is ticking up

The latest inflation reading pushed core PCE to 3.1%, a noticeable jump that caught markets off guard.

Producer prices (PPI) came in hot as well. These track what businesses pay for goods and materials, and often point to where consumer prices are headed next.

Energy is now adding to the pressure. Gas prices have surged 25% in just three weeks due to the Iran conflict, and much of that hasn’t shown up in the official data yet.

Put it all together, and inflation isn’t just elevated — it’s starting to reaccelerate.

2) The labor market is cooling

The economy shed roughly 92,000 jobs in February. Unemployment remains low, but hiring has slowed meaningfully.

Powell described this as a “zero employment growth equilibrium.” In plain English: stable, but not growing.

That’s not a crisis, but it shifts risks to the downside. If hiring weakens further while inflation rises, the Fed gets pulled in two directions with no easy answer.

Powell’s Case Against Stagflation

Even with that setup, Powell made it clear he does not see a 1970s-style stagflation scenario.

It’s an important distinction, because stagflation isn’t just “things feel bad.” It’s a very specific mix of high inflation and a non-growing or contracting economy.

Here’s why he pushed back:

1) Growth is still positive

The Fed actually raised its GDP forecast to 2.4%. That may not be booming, but it’s far from stagnation.

2) Unemployment is still low

At 4.4%, the labor market is cooling, not breaking.

In true stagflation periods, unemployment spikes dramatically. It peaked at 9% in the mid-1970s, which is a very different environment from what we’re seeing today.

That said, this is the piece worth watching. Labor markets can deteriorate quickly once momentum turns.

3) This is a supply shock, not a broken economy

Powell attributes most of the current inflation to external forces, not internal excess.

Tariffs, for example, act more like a one-time price reset than an ongoing inflation cycle. That’s very different from demand-driven inflation, where spending keeps pushing prices higher.

Where The Fed Loses Visibility

Confidence fades when the conversation turns to energy.

Tariffs can be modeled. Policy can be forecasted. A geopolitical conflict cannot.

The key question: is this a short-term spike, or something more persistent?

That uncertainty didn’t lead the Fed to panic. It pushed them to lean more hawkish, meaning more focused on fighting inflation.

• Inflation expectations were revised higher, with core PCE now projected to end the year at 2.7%, up from 2.4%

• Rate expectations shifted toward fewer cuts, with 7 of 19 officials now expecting no cuts this year

• The longer-run policy rate moved up to 3.1% from 2.5%

The message is subtle but important: The Fed is more concerned about inflation than unemployment.

The New Rate Reality

This shift matters more than it seems.

For years, markets believed 2.5% interest rates were “normal.” The Fed is now signaling that “normal” may be 3% or higher, which quietly resets the entire playing field.

All else equal, a higher baseline rate tends to pressure:

• Bond prices

• Rate-sensitive sectors like real estate and utilities

• Small caps with floating-rate debt

At the same time, it benefits or protects:

• Big tech and financials, which earn more on cash and short-term assets

• Companies with strong balance sheets and low financing needs

And it raises the bar for risk-taking:

• Startups and speculative investments face more expensive capital

• Gold and Bitcoin lose some appeal as non-yielding assets

The Bottom Line

Of course, none of this is set in stone. Powell’s entire outlook depends on inputs that are still moving.

What the Fed is giving you here is not a fixed outcome. It is a baseline scenario that markets are starting to price in.

If your view on inflation, growth, or rates differs, that’s where the opportunity lies.

MARKET MOOD
The Picks And Shovels Keep Winning ⛏️

Winners

Ciena ($CIEN) - Market Cap: $58.3B (Week-to-Date: +22.3%)

Ciena jumped as investors started treating it like a core AI infrastructure play. The company builds high-speed fiber and networking gear that connects data centers, and demand is exploding alongside AI buildouts. At this week’s OFC conference, Ciena showcased new AI-ready networking tech, reinforcing why analysts see it as a “hidden” winner.

Delta Air Lines ($DAL) - Market Cap: $42.5B (Week-to-Date: +10.6%)

Delta rallied after raising revenue guidance at a JPMorgan conference, easing fears that higher fuel costs would crush margins. Management pointed to strong demand, especially from higher-end travelers, with bookings running well ahead of last year. And it wasn’t just Delta: American and JetBlue also bumped their sales outlooks.

Micron ($MU) - Market Cap: $500.0B (Week-to-Date: +4.3%)

Micron crushed earnings and raised guidance as AI demand continues to soak up memory supply. Data center sales surged, pricing improved, and the outlook came in way above expectations. Still, after a 300%+ run over the past year, the stock only moved modestly — a sign that a lot of the good news was already priced in.

Losers

The Trade Desk ($TTD) – Market Cap: $11.2B (Week-to-Date: -14.0%)

The Trade Desk sold off after Publicis, one of the world’s largest ad agencies, flagged issues with “improper fee layering” and auto-enrollment practices on the platform. That’s a tough hit for a platform built on advertiser trust. The stock is now down 58% over the past year, and even rumors of a potential OpenAI partnership weren’t enough to stop the slide.

Newmont ($NEM) – Market Cap: $107.9B (Week-to-Date: -9.5%)

Newmont is the world’s largest gold mining company, and gold got hammered this week. Higher oil prices drove inflation fears up, rate cut expectations further out, and Treasury yields even higher. When bonds start paying more, gold loses its edge — and miners like Newmont feel it fast.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Do You Own the Market, Or The Leaders? 👑

The S&P 500 is increasingly “top-heavy.”

The 10 biggest companies now account for 39% of the index, and the Magnificent 7 alone are 33%.

Top 10 weights:

1. Nvidia: 7.3%

2. Google: 6.2%

3. Apple: 6.1%

4. Microsoft: 4.8%

5. Amazon: 3.8%

6. Meta: 2.6%

7. Broadcom: 2.5%

8. Tesla: 2.4%

9. Berkshire Hathaway: 1.7%

10. Eli Lilly: 1.4%

That concentration has been great for returns.

The S&P 500 is up about 70% over five years, but the Mag 7 returned roughly double that. Without them, the other 493 still did fine, but closer to an 8% annual pace vs 11%.

The trade-off is simple: more upside potential, but less diversification.

If you’re truly focused on preserving wealth, you may want to consider a total market index or an equal-weight S&P 500 approach.

FAST FACTS
From 520% IPOs To $100B Bets 🚀

🚀 This IPO Went Absolutely Parabolic: AI drone software firm Swarmer jumped 520% on day one… despite less than $310K in annual revenue. [Read]

💸 Tariff Refunds Are (Finally) Coming: The U.S. government is building a system to refund companies for improperly collected tariffs. A new portal could launch within 45 days, with billions on the line. [Read]

🧠 Nvidia Is Shifting Its Playbook: The AI king is moving beyond training models to powering them in real-time (“inferencing”) and launching AI agents. [Read]

☢️ Nuclear Energy Is Back In Focus: Oklo is advancing its first small nuclear reactor with U.S. government backing. Big Tech is already lining up for reliable power to fuel AI data centers. [Read]

🛢️ Recession Risk Has One Big Trigger… Oil: Economists say a recession won’t hit unless oil spikes to $138 and stays there. Right now? We’re closer to $94. [Read]

🧾 What To Do If You Get Audited: Only ~0.2% of returns were audited last year, but if you’re selected, you’ll be notified by mail. Then, it’s all about responding on time and having your records ready. [Read]

🤖 Bezos Plans the AI Factory of the Future: Jeff Bezos is reportedly raising a $100B fund to buy industrial companies and supercharge them with AI. Think robots, chips, and automation on steroids. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Your Ego Is Costing You Money 🧠

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THE MAIN EVENT
The Cockroach Problem On Wall Street 🪳

For the last decade, private credit has been one of Wall Street’s hottest trades.

Now it’s starting to wobble.

Lately, investors have been rushing to pull money out of large private-credit funds. One $33 billion fund run by Cliffwater saw redemption requests for 14% of its assets in a single quarter, forcing the firm to limit withdrawals.

That doesn’t mean the system is collapsing. But it does raise some important questions:

1. What exactly is private credit?

2. Why are people suddenly nervous about it?

What Is Private Credit?

At its simplest, private credit is lending done outside traditional banks.

Instead of going to J.P. Morgan or issuing bonds, companies borrow directly from investment firms like Apollo, Blackstone, KKR, Ares, and Blue Owl.

These loans are:

• Private: Not traded on public markets

• Higher yielding: Often paying 8-12% interest

• Less regulated than traditional bank loans

The typical players look like this:

Investors:

• Pension funds

• Insurance companies

• Wealthy individuals

• Retail investors via new funds

Borrowers:

• Mid-sized companies

• Private equity portfolio companies

• High-growth tech and software firms

The pitch was simple: banks pulled back on lending after the financial crisis, leaving a huge gap that private funds happily filled.

Why It Became So Popular

Private credit exploded for three reasons:

1️⃣ Higher yields

With interest rates near zero for years, investors flocked to anything offering double-digit returns.

2️⃣ The software boom

Many loans went to SaaS companies with recurring subscription revenue.

3️⃣ The “sticky revenue” story

Software subscriptions were viewed as extremely dependable. In fact, lenders got so comfortable that many loans were structured around annual recurring revenue (ARR) rather than actual profits.

The whole system worked beautifully… until recently.

What’s Going Wrong?

Several cracks are appearing at once.

1️⃣ AI is shaking the software thesis

For years, lenders believed software revenue was incredibly stable. Now that assumption is being questioned.

AI tools are making it easier and cheaper to build software internally or switch providers. That creates three problems:

• Leaner companies may buy fewer software seats

• New competitors can launch faster, fragmenting the market

• Pricing power weakens

If software becomes more commoditized, those once-reliable cash flows look less certain.

2️⃣ Some loans are getting marked down

Banks are beginning to cut the estimated value of certain loans, especially those tied to software companies.

If a loan once valued at $100 is suddenly marked at $85, it can trigger collateral calls or reduce lending capacity for funds.

3️⃣ Investors are asking for their money back

Large funds from firms like BlackRock, Blackstone, and Morgan Stanley have had to cap withdrawals because too many investors tried to exit at once.

Unlike mutual funds, these vehicles often allow only 5-8% withdrawals per quarter. So when redemption requests exceed that limit, investors get stuck waiting.

Why Wall Street Is Paying Attention

J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been warning about the sector for months. His concern isn’t one specific deal. It’s the pattern.

A few high-profile credit blowups have already appeared, including a subprime auto lender and a heavily leveraged auto-parts supplier. The losses themselves were manageable, but they revealed sloppy underwriting and aggressive lending.

Dimon’s broader point is that credit problems tend to show up in clusters. In his words, “when you see one cockroach, there are usually more.”

After a 14-year credit boom fueled by cheap money, lenders across the industry are now asking the same question: Where else might risk be hiding?

Banks are already responding by tightening lending and reducing exposure to some private-credit funds.

The Bottom Line

Private credit itself isn’t collapsing, as most loans are still performing.

But the industry has grown to nearly $2 trillion, and it increasingly relies on retail investors for funding.

That matters because retail capital tends to be far more reactive than pension funds or insurers. When headlines turn negative, withdrawals can accelerate quickly.

For now, the situation looks more like a slow stress test than a full-blown crisis.

But in credit markets, small cracks are worth watching.

MARKET MOOD
Oil Roars, Stocks Slip, Yields Climb 🛢️

Winners

Nebius ($NBIS) - Market Cap: $27.3B (Week-to-Date: +20.9%)

Nebius ripped higher after Nvidia invested $2B and basically stamped it with a giant “future winner” label. The deal gives Nebius early access to Nvidia’s next-gen systems and helps it build more than 5 gigawatts of AI computing capacity by 2030. When Nvidia blesses a partner like that, the market tends to reward it.

Mosaic Company ($MOS) - Market Cap: $10.0B (Week-to-Date: +19.2%)

Mosaic got a lift from both geopolitics and policy this week. Fertilizer prices jumped due to shipping delays in the Strait of Hormuz. With planting season approaching, even small supply hiccups can move the market, benefiting producers like Mosaic. The company also announced a rare earths partnership in Brazil, giving it exposure to minerals the U.S. wants sourced outside of China.

Oracle ($ORCL) - Market Cap: $457.4B (Week-to-Date: +4.1%)

Oracle did what Wall Street wanted: beat earnings, raised the big-picture outlook, and reminded everyone that its AI cloud business is still booming. While investors have been nervous about AI-related capex, Oracle showed demand is still real as its backlog swelled to a monster $553B. Turns out a half-trillion in future business makes it easier to look past massive data-center spending.

Losers

Campbell’s ($CPB) – Market Cap: $6.5B (Week-to-Date: -16.1%)

Campbell’s got hit after missing earnings, cutting guidance, and notifying investors that “defensive” does not always mean safe. Sales fell 5%, adjusted earnings dropped 31%, and analysts turned colder. Consumers are trading down to store brands, GLP-1 drugs are changing grocery habits, and old-school packaged food names like Campbell’s and General Mills are starting to look out of step.

Ares Management ($ARES) – Market Cap: $31.8B (Week-to-Date: -12.3%)

Ares got dragged down by private credit panic, even though the headlines were mostly about other firms. J.P. Morgan marked down some private credit loans, and Morgan Stanley capped withdrawals in one of its funds. That spooked investors across the space, sending stocks like Blue Owl, KKR, Carlyle, BlackRock, and Ares lower together.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Inflation Could Make A Comeback 😬

After a huge stimulus-fueled spike that forced the Fed to jack up rates, inflation has basically plateaued. Core inflation, which strips out the more erratic food and energy categories, is currently about 0.1-0.2 points higher than the graph above.

That puts inflation in the 2.5% to 3% range, which is still above the Fed’s 2% target. The gap is small, but it’s telling:

• Inflation has been stable since 2024. It’s tame, but not defeated.

• Tariffs didn’t lead to a major inflation spike like many feared (or fearmongered).

• Rate cuts haven’t re-ignited inflation, at least not yet. (They can take 6-18 months to work through the system fully.)

The main risk is that oil changes the outlook. WTI closed at nearly $97/barrel yesterday, and according to Apollo, here’s what ~$100 oil would do to the U.S. economy:

• Headline inflation rises by +0.7 percentage points

• Core inflation rises by +0.1 percentage points, since oil is an input cost across many goods and services

• Unemployment rises by +0.1 percentage points

• Real GDP falls by -0.1 percentage points

Even though inflation has moderated, that only means price increases have slowed. Prices themselves haven’t come down overall.

That’s why affordability is expected to be a key concern in the midterm elections this fall. The current administration has a lot of incentive to keep the war brief, or at least keep oil prices at bay.

FAST FACTS
Volatility At The Pump And In Your Portfolio 💥

⛽ See how much gas jumped in your state: The national average is up sharply, but the real story is how uneven the pain has been depending on where you live. [Read]

🧠 7 investor mistakes to avoid: Fidelity breaks down common traps investors fall into when markets get shaky. (I’ve definitely been guilty of #3.) [Read]

🤖 Musk takes a shot at Microsoft: Elon unveiled “Macrohard,” a Tesla-xAI project that he says could eventually replicate entire software companies. [Read]

🎟️ Ticketmaster monopoly case settles: Live Nation agreed to let venues sell up to half their tickets through outside platforms, cap service fees at 15%, sell several venues, and fund a $280M consumer settlement. [Read]

🏠 ARMs make a comeback: Adjustable-rate mortgages are creeping back into favor as buyers chase lower rates while waiting for fixed rates to fall. [Read]

🛢️ Oil shrugs off emergency rescue: Despite the IEA’s biggest-ever emergency oil release, crude keeps climbing, with Brent closing back above $100/barrel yesterday. [Read]

⚠️ Los Angeles hospice fraud exposed: Not long after Minnesota’s autism fraud scandal, investigators are now uncovering widespread hospice abuse in LA, with hundreds of providers showing red flags. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Great Investors Lose Small And Win Big 🧠

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All supposedly "uncorrelated" assets moving in lockstep largely because of overleveraged margin.

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THE MAIN EVENT
Oil, Inflation, and the Strait of Hormuz 🛢️

War between Israel, the U.S., and Iran has injected an all-new risk into global energy markets.

The immediate concern is not Iran’s oil production itself. Iran produces roughly 4.5% of global supply, which matters but is not catastrophic on its own.

The real pressure point is geography.

Iran borders the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping lane where roughly 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows every day. When that chokepoint looks threatened, energy markets react quickly.

That is exactly what happened this week.

What Energy Is Actually Affected

Three parts of the energy system are feeling the shock.

1. Oil

Two benchmarks dominate global oil pricing:

• Brent crude reflects global oil prices and is the benchmark used in Europe and Asia.

• WTI (West Texas Intermediate) reflects U.S. crude prices.

Both surged as the conflict escalated. WTI immediately jumped more than 10%, pushing toward $75-$80 per barrel, while Brent climbed to new yearly highs.

Even before physical supply has meaningfully changed, the mere risk of interruption can push prices higher.

2. Liquefied Natural Gas

The bigger surprise came from natural gas.

Iranian drone strikes forced Qatar to halt operations at the world’s largest LNG export facility, sending European gas prices soaring.

For context, oil and LNG serve different roles in the energy system.

• Oil is primarily used for transportation fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

• Natural gas is mainly used for electricity generation, heating, and industrial power.

Much of Europe and Asia relies heavily on LNG imports to run their power grids, so even a temporary supply shock can jolt prices.

3. Shipping and Insurance

Even when oil exists, it still needs to move.

With missiles flying in the region, tankers traveling through the Gulf now face war-risk insurance premiums and serious security concerns.

Iran has threatened to set ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz ablaze. In response, President Trump said the U.S. would provide military escorts and government-backed insurance for tankers attempting to pass through the Gulf.

That reduces the odds of a full shutdown, but it doesn’t remove the risk. As long as ships need protection to pass through, energy markets effectively price in a permanent “security premium.”

How This Shows Up in Inflation

Energy is one of the fastest ways geopolitical shocks reach civilians. When energy costs surge, economists often describe it as a tax on consumers, hitting everything from gas to groceries.

• A rough rule of thumb: Every $10 increase in crude oil adds roughly $0.20 - $0.30 to gasoline prices within a few weeks.

Economists estimate:

• A 5% rise in oil prices adds about 0.1 percentage points to inflation

• A sustained move toward $100 oil could add roughly 0.7 points

Markets reacted in two stages this week.

First came the classic safety trade. Investors rushed into gold, the dollar, and Treasuries.

Then the tone shifted.

As the administration suggested the conflict could last several weeks, investors began worrying about the return of inflation.

That would leave the Fed with even less room to cut rates. Markets quickly adjusted. The odds of a June rate cut fell below 40%, down from roughly 60% just a week ago.

Winners and Losers

When energy prices spike, the impact shows up quickly across industries.

Beneficiaries

• Energy producers

• LNG exporters

• Defense contractors

• Commodity producers

Energy stocks were already the best-performing sector in the S&P 500 this year, and the conflict added another catalyst.

Pressure Points

• Airlines

• Cruise operators

• Travel and hospitality

• Consumer discretionary

These industries rely heavily on cheap fuel or strong consumer spending, both of which get squeezed when energy prices rise.

The U.S. Is Less Exposed Than Before

The U.S. economy is far less vulnerable to oil shocks than it was decades ago.

• The United States is now a net petroleum exporter

• Shale drilling has dramatically increased domestic production

• Energy spending represents a smaller share of GDP than in the 1970s

Americans will still notice higher gasoline prices because oil is priced globally. When crude rises anywhere, prices at the pump tend to follow.

The difference is that the U.S. now produces so much oil domestically that higher prices transfer income within the country instead of sending it overseas. Europe and Asia must import large amounts of energy, so price spikes hit their economies much harder.

The Real Market Question

Right now, the market is not pricing a full-blown oil crisis.

It is pricing uncertainty.

If the Strait of Hormuz stays open and energy flows continue, the inflation bump will likely be temporary.

If shipping disruptions drag on for weeks, oil prices stay elevated, inflation expectations rise, and interest rates may remain higher for longer.

In that scenario, energy becomes more than just a commodity. It becomes the main channel through which this conflict hits the global economy.

MARKET MOOD
Crypto Cheers While Cruises Crumble 🚢

Winners

Coinbase ($COIN) - Market Cap: $54.3B (Week-to-Date: +17.0%)

Crypto got a political tailwind. Coinbase rallied after President Trump voiced support for the Clarity Act, a bill aimed at giving the industry clearer rules. Investors took it as a sign Washington might finally stop treating crypto like the wild west. Bitcoin popped, the whole sector lifted, and Coinbase — the biggest U.S. crypto exchange — rode the wave.

Marathon Petroleum ($MPC) - Market Cap: $64.1B (Week-to-Date: +9.7%)

When oil spikes, refiners can win big. Middle East tensions pushed crude prices higher, lifting gasoline prices globally. But Marathon has an advantage. It can source cheaper heavy crude from the Americas and sell the finished fuel at those higher global prices. That spread widens margins, and investors quickly priced it in.

Losers

Norwegian Cruise Line ($NCLH) – Market Cap: $9.5B (Week-to-Date: -15.6%)

Norwegian beat earnings by a penny, but revenue came in light at $2.24B versus $2.34B expected. Worse, management admitted it expanded Caribbean capacity too quickly, forcing ticket discounts to fill ships. Plus, war in the Middle East is pushing oil prices higher, making ships more expensive to run. And geopolitical turmoil doesn’t exactly scream “vacation.”

Paramount Skydance ($PSKY) – Market Cap: $13.1B (Week-to-Date: -13.1%)

Winning a takeover battle is exciting. Paying for it is another story. Paramount surged after securing its $110B Warner Bros. deal, but reality quickly set in. The combined company is expected to carry about $79B in debt, enough for Fitch to downgrade the company to junk status. Management promises $6B in synergies, but investors worry there’s little room for error.

Seagate Technology ($STX) – Market Cap: $82.3B (Week-to-Date: -9.9%)

Risk-off sentiment dragged down the memory market’s biggest winners this week, and Seagate was an easy target after its nearly 300% run over the past year. But the bigger concern came from Washington. Reports say the Commerce Department is stalling on China export licenses. That’s a major risk for Seagate, which generates about a quarter of its revenue there.

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CHART OF THE WEEK
Job Hoppers Are Winning Again 💼

For a while, the job market was stuck in “no hire, no fire” mode. Companies weren’t laying people off en masse, but they also weren’t poaching talent.

That’s starting to change.

Workers who switch jobs are once again seeing faster wage growth than those who stay put. Here are the forces driving the shift:

1. Tax changes boosted take-home pay: The One Big Beautiful Bill made overtime and tips tax-free (with limits), effectively raising pay in hospitality and service jobs and lifting wage expectations for new hires.

2. Fewer workers entering the labor pool: Stricter immigration policies reduced the supply of new workers, forcing companies to compete harder for existing employees.

3. AI and infrastructure hiring: Massive spending on data centers, manufacturing, and tech infrastructure has created intense demand for construction workers.

The result is simple. Companies are being more selective about who they hire, but they’re also willing to pay up when they find the right match.

FAST FACTS
Apple Goes Affordable, Anthropic Goes Viral 🤖

🍎 Apple drops M5 MacBooks, $599 iPhone: Apple says the new Pro models dramatically speed up AI processing and graphics workloads, targeting developers, designers, and power users. [Read]

🤖 Anthropic controversy sparks downloads: After refusing unrestricted military use of Claude, the AI firm lost a $200M Pentagon contract but jumped to the #1 free app in the App Store. [Read]

⚡ Trump unveils AI power pledge: Big Tech firms agreed to fund the electricity needed for their data centers so households don’t foot the bill. Critics note the pledge is voluntary and may be hard to enforce. [Read]

💰 Tax refunds are getting bigger: The average refund is up 10.2% this year, thanks to new deductions passed in 2025. The IRS has already sent back over $109 billion. [Read]

🏥 Hospitals caught “upcoding”: A Blue Cross Blue Shield analysis found hospitals increasingly coding routine cases as “complex,” inflating costs for patients. [Read]

🌍 Markets often shrug off war shocks: History shows oil and gold usually spike after geopolitical conflicts while stocks drop, but prices often reverse within a month. [Read]

💸 $130B tariff refund fight begins: A federal trade judge ordered the Trump administration to start refunding importers for struck-down tariffs. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Live To Invest Another Day 🧠

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