Since April 8 – the day before President Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs – stocks have soared.

As I write Friday early-afternoon, the Dow has added about 6%. The S&P is up 10%. And the Nasdaq has rallied roughly 13%.

The cannonball back into the market represents a wager from investors. They’re putting their chips on one specific outcome…

Trade deals will be announced soon, and they’ll be economically beneficial – or at a minimum, not overly destructive.

As with all wagers, there’s risk. In this case, there are two potential tripwires:

• The deals don’t actually materialize
• The deals that do materialize disappoint Wall Street

To illustrate the first risk, let’s look at Japan.

Initially, trade experts expected a deal would materialize rather quickly. On the 17^th, President Trump touted “big progress” in trade talks with Japanese trade officials.

However, when Ryosei Akazawa, Japan’s economic revitalization minister, arrived back in Tokyo, he told local press:

I made clear to the U.S. that we feel the tariff measures are extremely regrettable. I strongly urged them to reconsider these policies.

Today, headlines suggest a deal is imminent, but when I dig into the details, substantive issues remain – notably Japan’s reluctance to take part in a U.S.-led economic bloc aligned against China, its largest trading partner.

Meanwhile, it’s unclear how close the White House is to deals when it reports “progress.”

For example, on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration has an “opportunity for a big deal” on trade between the U.S. and China.

But yesterday, a Ministry of Commerce spokesperson threw cold water on that idea, saying:

At present there are absolutely no negotiations on the economy and trade between China and the U.S.

Time’s interview with President Trump, published earlier today, provides an illustration (annotated):

Interviewer: We’re now 13 days into the point from when you lifted the reciprocal, the discounted reciprocal tariffs. There’s zero deals so far. Why is that?

Trump: No, there’s many deals. 

Interviewer: Not one has been announced yet. When are you going to announce them?

Trump: I’ve made 200 deals.

Interviewer: Can you share with whom?

Trump: Because the deal is a deal that I choose. View it differently: We are a department store, and we set the price. I meet with the companies, and then I set a fair price, what I consider to be a fair price, and they can pay it, or they don’t have to pay it.

If a trade deal can be whatever the President chooses, then loads of “deals” could maintain some tariff level that negatively impacts Corporate America’s bottom line.

For example, on Wednesday, President Trump’s comments about lower tariffs on China helped fuel this week’s market gains. But included in his statement was:

But [tariffs on China] won’t be zero.

There’s a lot of room between 0% and today’s rate of 145%. Even if Trump takes tariffs down to 50%, it’s likely to have a substantial impact on small U.S. import businesses with razor-thin margins.

For perspective, financial planning platform Vena finds that the average small business profit margin ranges between 7% and 10%. A 50% tariff could do loads of damage. Even a 20% tariff could be painful.

Right on cue, this morning, CNBC reported that Amazon sellers are raising prices:

Amazon merchants are hiking prices for everything from diaper bags and refrigerator magnets to charm necklaces and other top-selling items as they confront higher import costs.

E-commerce software company SmartScout tracked 930 products on Amazon that have seen increased prices since April 9, with an average jump of 29%.

Sellers are now faced with the conundrum of raising prices or eating the extra costs associated with Trump’s new tariffs. It’s an existential threat for many sellers, who subsist on razor-thin margins.

Beginning with Wall Street, here’s Jon Moeller, CEO of consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, speaking yesterday:

[Tariffs] will cause a challenge, and we’re working to understand the magnitude of what that challenge will be, and how we’ll offset that.

There will likely be pricing [changes] — tariffs are inherently inflationary — but we’re also looking at sourcing options.

Next up, we have PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta from yesterday:

As we look ahead, we expect more volatility and uncertainty, particularly related to global trade developments, which we expect will increase our supply chain costs.

Then, there’s Merck. Yesterday, the drugmaker lowered its profit outlook, partially blaming a $200 million hit from tariffs. From CNBC:

The company said the expected tariff charge primarily reflects levies between the U.S. and China, and Canada and Mexico to a lesser degree.

Shifting to Main Street, yesterday, we learned that fewer Americans are planning to travel this summer.

Survey results from consumer finance company Bankrate show only 46% of respondents are planning summer travel, down from 53% last year. A senior industry analyst at Bankrate cited tariffs and fears of a recession:

We’re seeing…the potential for higher prices, which has many people on edge.

Meanwhile, market research company Numerator recently conducted a survey of U.S. consumers. From its takeaways:

• 85% are concerned about the impact of tariffs on their finances or shopping
• 83% anticipate making changes to their shopping habits in response to tariffs
• 72% are worried about tariffs raising the price of everyday goods

And this morning, The University of Michigan released the glum results of its Consumer Sentiment Survey. From Bloomberg:

US consumer sentiment fell to one of the lowest readings on record and long-term inflation expectations climbed to the highest since 1991 on fears of the economic fallout from tariffs.

Clearly, tariffs and trade war uncertainty are beginning to impact the economy and the consumer. This has us eager for headlines trumpeting signed trade deals – not just “progress” on trade deals.

The good news is in that the same Time article referenced earlier, the President suggested he’ll have wrapped up all the trade deals within the next month…sort of:

Trump: I would say, over the next three to four weeks, and we’re finished, by the way.

Interviewer: You’re finished?

Trump: We’ll be finished.

Interviewer: Oh, you will be finished in three to four weeks.

Trump: I’ll be finished. Now, some countries may come back and ask for an adjustment, and I’ll consider that, but I’ll basically be.

Bottom line: Let’s be clear – this market run-up is a big bet.

As investors, we’re always making bets. But we recommend that you analyze your wagers through the lens of the “Iron Law” of the stock market.

Here’s legendary investor Louis Navellier with the definition:

Stock price trends can diverge from earnings trends for a while, but over the long-term, if a company grows and grows the amount of cash it takes in, its share price is sure to head higher.

Wednesday brought an example of this law in action when one of Louis’ Growth Investor recommendations, Vertiv Holdings (VRT) popped 9% on strong earnings.

(Disclaimer: I own Vertiv.)

If you’re less familiar, Vertiv is a leading provider of critical infrastructure solutions for data centers, communication networks, and industrial environments.

Here’s Louis:

Not only did Vertiv beat [earnings forecasts], it said the demand for the AI datacenters was very strong.

So Vertiv is going to gap up today. And it’s going to lift all the data center–related stocks.

The gains kept coming yesterday after Amazon and Nvidia executives said the construction of artificial intelligence data centers is not slowing down.

From CNBC:

“There’s been really no significant change,” Kevin Miller, Amazon’s vice president of global data centers, said at a conference organized by the Hamm Institute for American Energy.

“We continue to see very strong demand, and we’re looking both in the next couple years as well as long term and seeing the numbers only going up.”

The gains are continuing today. Between Wednesday and Friday as I write, VRT has jumped 23%. Congrats to all the Growth Investor subscribers out there.

So – yes – keep making bets. But anchor them in the Iron Law of the market, which is what Louis is doing today:

Earnings are working – and earnings are even working when you have bad news…

This is going to be a stunning earnings announcement season for us.

Our average sales are going to be up over 23%, our average earnings are going to be up over 62%, and usually our surprises are substantial. So, whether they’ll be 13%, 15% or so on average – we’ll see.

But so far, so good. 

The U.S. economy is dangerously reliant on China in several areas, but perhaps none more important than rare earth metals, which are critical in many manufacturing and defense sectors.

For readers less familiar, rare earth metals (or elements) are a group of 17 metals that form under the earth’s surface. They can be difficult to find and extract.

These metals contain unique magnetic, heat-resistant, and phosphorescent properties that make them critical for tech-products such as smart phones, digital cameras, computers, LED lights, and flat screen TVs, among others. Basically, they’re the building blocks of all things “technology and AI.”

Now, at the heart of the China/rare earths problem is one thing…

They control them. We don’t.

Here’s the Center for Strategic & International Studies:

At present China produces 60 percent of the world’s rare earths but processes nearly 90 percent, which means that it is importing rare earths from other countries and processing them.

This has given China a near monopoly…

China announced a ban of rare earth extraction and separation technologies on December 21, 2023.

This has significant implications for U.S. national, economic, and rare earth security.

Rare earth elements—a group of 17 metals—are used in defense technologies, including missiles, lasers, vehicle-mounted systems such as tanks, and military communications…

Well, the Trump administration is now considering investing in rare earth mining companies.

From Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, earlier this week:

We should be taking some of our balance sheet and making investments. The U.S. may need to make an equity investment in each of these companies that’s taking on China in critical minerals.

It’s not just drill, baby, drill. It’s mine, baby, mine.

If we don’t do that as a country, we will not be successful. We will literally be at the mercy of others that are controlling our supply chains.

Yesterday, we learned that the Trump administration will even be mining under water.

From CNBC:

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a sweeping executive order to jump-start the controversial practice of deep-sea mining, seeking to offset China’s dominant position in critical mineral supply chains.

Most recently, in our 12/4/24 Digest, we highlighted a handful of Western miners that could benefit from “mine, baby, mine.”

Here’s how they’ve performed since as I write Friday:

• Las Vegas-based Mp Materials Corp (MP): +8.7%
• Texas Mineral Resources Corp (TMRC): +105.0%
• Canadian-based Ucore Rare Metals (UURAF): +146.4%

Whether you want to play rare earths with these picks (be careful, they’re volatile) or other miners, this is one of those “no brainer” investment set-ups. Our national security demands a rare-earth supply chain that’s insulated from China – and that begins with miners.

Throw in the federal government, considering throwing its financial weight around, and that’s quite the investment tailwind.

We’ll keep you updated on all these stories here in the Digest.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Are Trade Deals Imminent? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

So, if you find yourself craving some stability, wanting to reduce the pain in your portfolio, I want you to remember something.

I think economist Ben Graham sums up the market perfectly here:

In the short run, the stock market is a voting machine. But in the long run, it is a weighing machine.

Simply put, the market in the short term is unpredictable. Just like how an election can devolve into a popularity contest, the same is true for the stock market in the short term.

The market oscillations can be driven by market/consumer sentiment and the news, rather than business results. But in the long term, a stock’s value will grow because of its superior fundamentals.

So, rather than focusing on more talk about tariffs and the latest news, I want to focus on the latter today.

In case you haven’t noticed, it is earnings season, and that’s where we should shift our focus right now. That’s what’s most important, especially if you own stocks with superior fundamentals. Those stocks should dropkick and drive your portfolio higher after good results.

Now, this week, there were a couple of Magnificent Seven stocks that released their earnings that many investors had their eye on: Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) and Alphabet, Inc. (GOOG).

So, let’s take a look at the results for these companies in today’s ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360. I’ll explain if they’re good buys right now. Then, I’ll share where you can find fundamentally superior stocks this earnings season.

Tesla, Inc.

On Tuesday after the bell, Tesla’s earnings came in mixed. Yet shares went up 5% on Wednesday and have continued to soar – up nearly 18% as of this writing. So, what happened?

Let’s look at the numbers. Tesla reported first-quarter revenue of $19.34 billion, below expectations for $21.43 billion. That’s also down from the $21.3 billion reported in the same quarter a year ago. Adjusted earnings came in at $0.27 per share, well below the $0.44 per share that analysts were expecting.

It’s a horrific miss. Tesla even paused its 2025 guidance due to slowing demand and trade uncertainty. The company also blamed the latter for why sales have slowed down.

Despite this statement, Tesla’s shares still went up. CEO Elon Musk said in the earnings call that starting early next month, he will be spending more time at Tesla and less time at DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).

What’s more, news broke on Thursday that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will ease self-driving regulations to help enable the adoption of self-driving vehicles. The move was seen as a huge plus for Tesla’s robotaxi efforts, which made investors happy.

Musk also said during Tesla’s earnings call that the company expects to be offering fully autonomous rides in Austin, Texas, in June, with other cities to follow this year.

Now, Musk has a history of setting overly ambitious timelines. But the bottom line is that, despite the awful earnings report, Tesla went up because Musk was on a charm offensive, for lack of a better word.

Alphabet, Inc.

After the close yesterday, Alphabet announced results that beat expectations. In its first quarter, it reported earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.2 billion in revenue. Analysts were expecting $2.01 per share on $89.1 billion in revenue. That also compares to earnings per share of $1.89 on revenue of $80.5 billion during the same period last year.

Google’s advertising revenue reached $66.8 billion, beating estimates for $66.4 billion. Google Cloud Platform revenue was $12.2 billion, just shy of estimates calling for $12.3 billion.

Speaking of clouds, one particularly dark cloud has been hanging over Alphabet’s head for the past year, which helps explain why the stock has underperformed.

The company has been in hot water with antitrust regulators over its search and advertising business. In fact, last week, a federal judge ruled that Google holds an illegal monopoly over the online advertising market.

That’s the second ruling against the company, folks. Ultimately, it could mean that Alphabet will have to sell off or reorganize either its advertising business or its search engine.

The bottom line is that the Justice Department is a little bit like the dog chasing the car. Now that it’s caught it, it doesn’t know what to do.

Still, investors cheered after Alphabet announced a dividend increase of 5% and authorized $70 billion in stock buybacks.

Meanwhile, CEO Sundar Pichai emphasized that Alphabet’s push for AI innovation and competitiveness remains essential for its growth. Here’s what he said:

We continue to see healthy growth and momentum across the business, including AI powering new features. In Search, we saw continued double-digit revenue growth. AI Overviews is going very well with over 1.5 billion users per month, and we are excited by the early positive reaction to AI mode. Our differentiated full-stack approach to AI continues to be central to our growth.

Should You Buy?

Now, after going through both Tesla and Alphabet’s earnings, let’s see if they’re buys right now. Here’s what my Stock Grader tool (subscription required) has to say:

Alphabet earns a Total Grade of “C”, as well as a C-rating for its Fundamental Grade and Quantitative Grade. That means if you own it, it’s a “Hold” right now. And if you’re looking to buy, you may want to hold off and simply keep an eye on it.

Tesla, meanwhile, receives a Total Grade of “B”, making it a “Buy.” However, despite its strong Quantitative Grade of an “A”, which means that it is experiencing strong institutional buying pressure, it earns a “D” for its Fundamental Grade.

The fact is superior fundamentals are key to a stock’s continued success, so I personally wouldn’t buy it.

Where to Find Strong Stocks This Earnings Season

So, where can you find stocks with superior fundamentals this season? Look no further than my Growth Investor service.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s important to keep your focus on earnings season amidst all the market noise.

And the reality is my Growth Investor stocks are characterized by 24% average annual sales growth and 81.1% average annual earnings growth. That compares to the S&P 500, which is expected to achieve an estimated 4.6% revenue growth and a 7.2% average earnings growth rate for the first quarter.

Now, earlier today, I released my May Monthly Issue with my Growth Investor subscribers with a brand-new buy that analysts are forecasting to have 32.4% sales growth and 49.7% earnings growth.

Click here to learn more about Growth Investor and gain immediate access to my latest Monthly Issue!

(Already a Growth Investor subscriber? Click here to log in to the members-only website.)

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360

P.S. How did you like today’s issue? Have any questions about it? Send me an email to navellierfeedback@investorplace.com with the subject line “ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360 Question/Comment.” I always love hearing from my subscribers!

The post Tesla and Alphabet Are Up After Earnings… Should You Buy? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Yesterday, the market didn’t whisper — it roared.

A Zweig Breadth Thrust — one of the rarest and most reliable technical indicators in market history — just triggered. If you know your market history, you understand how big this is. If not, buckle up.

Because this isn’t just any buy-the-dip signal.

It’s the mother of all buy-the-dip signals, and it just lit up the tape.

What’s the Zweig Breadth Thrust?

The late Marty Zweig, one of the most respected market strategists of the 20th century, developed the indicator. It flags the moment when bearish sentiment burns out and a powerful bullish reversal is underway.

Here’s how it works:

• It tracks the 10-day moving average of advancing stocks on the NYSE.
• When that average surges from below 40% to above 61.5% in 10 days or fewer, the signal fires.

That’s exactly what happened yesterday.

Why does this matter?

Since World War II, the Zweig Breadth Thrust has triggered only 18 times. After each one:

• The market was higher six months later 100% of the time.
• The market was higher 12 months later 100% of the time.

The average 12-month return after a Zweig Thrust: +25%.

Let that sink in: 18 for 18. Zero false positives. Massive gains.

Do you see why I call this the mother of all buy-the-dip signals?

But it’s not just the Zweig Breadth Thrust flashing green. A perfect storm of bullish technical signals is forming right now — all pointing in the same direction.

Let’s run through the recent fireworks…

70% Advancers Signal

Over the past 10 trading sessions, six have seen more than 70% of stocks on the NYSE close higher.

How rare is that?

Going back to 1950, it’s happened just seven times before.

And after each of those? You guessed it:

• Stocks were higher six months and 12 months later.
• The average 12-month gain was +23%.

This is what it looks like when broad-based institutional buying reenters the market. Not just a few mega-caps dragging the tape — the whole market is lifting.

Bollinger Band Reversal

Two weeks ago, more than 70% of S&P 500 stocks were trading below their lower Bollinger Band.

Bollinger Bands are technical indicators that measure price volatility and extreme conditions. When stocks trade below the lower band, they’re considered oversold — often excessively so.

Fast forward to today: not a single stock in the S&P 500 is below its lower Bollinger Band.

That flip from deep oversold to full recovery has happened only a handful of times since 1990. And every time:

• Stocks were higher 12 months later.
• Average gain? +16%.

That’s a powerful whiplash reversal — and it’s happening right now.

Breakaway Momentum on the Horizon

The Breakaway Momentum Breadth Thrust — perhaps the only signal as legendary as Zweig’s — is on the verge of triggering, too.

Here’s the setup:

• It triggers when the 10-day ratio of advancing to declining stocks exceeds 1.97.
• Historically, this has happened only a couple dozen times since World War II.
• Stocks went up 12 months later 95% of the time.
• Average return? +21%.

As of today, we are this close to triggering the Breakaway Momentum Breadth Thrust. Especially considering the following:

• If we get 1,660 net advancers today, it triggers.
• Or if we get 3,030 net advancers across today and Monday, it also triggers.

That’s within reach — and the market momentum says it’s possible.

The Fundamentals Are Lining Up

The best technical signals come when they’re confirmed by the macro picture. That’s what we’re seeing now.

This is not some technical bounce in a vacuum. The fundamentals are shifting fast — and in bulls’ favor.

Trade war tensions, for one, are thawing quickly. The Liberation Day tariffs shocked the market in early April. But since then, we’ve seen tariff pauses, widespread exemptions, and a significant softening in trade rhetoric.

As a result, the average effective U.S. tariff rate has dropped from 27% to about 20% in three weeks. Some trade deals appear on the way in May with Japan, India, Vietnam, and others, while a China trade deal looks possible in May or June — and that could push the average tariff rate down toward 10%.

The direction of trade policy is, and should remain, decisively positive.

Meanwhile, we are starting to hear chatter of the Fed getting back into rate-cutting mode.

Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said this week that the Fed could cut rates in June if the data is clear. We think it will be — especially with trade easing and inflation softening. That sets the stage for a rate-cutting cycle into year-end.

And, maybe most importantly, earnings are holding up.

The first-quarter earnings season is off to a strong start. Last night, for example, Alphabet (GOOG) reported blowout results — showing that AI spending, ad demand, and cloud strength are all alive and well. Plus, early reports from AI infrastructure companies like Texas Instruments (TXN) and Lam Research (LRCX) have been bullish, too. Same with early reports from AI software firms like ServiceNow (NOW).

Final Word

So let’s recap.

• Zweig Breadth Thrust just triggered → 100% success rate since World War II
• 70% Advancers Signal → last seven times = all gains
• Bollinger Band Reversal → consistent 16%+ gains
• Breakaway Momentum Thrust nearly there → 95% success rate
• Tariffs falling, Fed pivoting, earnings strong

This is what market liftoffs look like.

This is Wall Street’s version of “all systems go.”

If you’ve been waiting for clarity — this is it.

The technicals say “buy.” The fundamentals say “buy.” The tape says “buy.”

The Zweig Breadth Thrust is a once-every-few-years gift to investors — and when it hits, history tells us you want to be long and strong.

The last time we saw it was in March 2023, which was right before the market launched into the AI boom.

Now we’re seeing it again, with even more fuel.

Don’t overthink this.

The opportunity is here. The signal has fired.

Looking for the best stocks to buy on the dip?

Click here to learn about some of our favorite picks.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Questions or comments about this issue? Drop us a line at langofeedback@investorplace.com.

The post The Mother of All Buy-the-Dip Signals Just Flashed appeared first on InvestorPlace.

• “Credit-Card Companies Brace for a Downturn”
• “$1 Trillion of Wealth Was Created for the 19 Richest U.S. Households Last Year”

From the first article:

There are some early warning signs. Consumers are holding off on nonessential splurges such as vacations…

Consumer sentiment has been sinking over the past couple months, fueling concerns that it will cause people to slow their spending.

And from the second:

The wealthiest have gotten richer, and control a record share of America’s wealth…

The growth in wealth of the richest Americans has far outpaced that of all other U.S. wealth groups.

Regular Digest readers are familiar with the term “Technochasm.” Originally coined by our macro investing expert Eric Fry, it describes the widening wealth gap generated from cutting-edge technology and AI.

For as expansive as it is today, the next handful of years will see it explode to a whole new level.

Behind the shift will be a next-gen technology that will transform businesses, homes, society…everything.

It will make day-to-day life far more convenient for some – but at a heavy economic cost for others.

For us investors, it’s important that we see what’s coming, enabling us to position our portfolios appropriately today. That will help us end up on the right side of the expanding Technochasm.

You can be aggressive and take focused, concentrated bets, looking for the multi-bagger winners – the “needle in the haystack”…

Or more conservative, opting for broader ETFs, following John Bogle’s advice of “Don’t look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!”

Whichever approach is right for you, the takeaway is the same: It’s time to invest in “embodied AI.” Or as most people call it…

Humanoids.

And who was it?

The companies that leverage robotics, and the investors who saw the writing on the wall.

This wasn’t a difficult conclusion to support.

Reshoring requires far greater payroll expense, real estate costs, and electricity/energy expense. And as it appears now, if CEOs don’t reshore, they’ll face massive tariffs.

This leaves corporate managers facing a tough tradeoff: eat those added onshoring costs at the expense of profit margins…or pass along those costs to customers at the risk of a drop in demand.

Enter a third option: Replace human workers with robots.

This makes for a much easier comparison…

Humans: massive salary expense, benefits expense, sick days, vacation days, human error on the job…

Robots: one time CapEx expense, marginal yearly maintenance expense, perfect job execution with no need for rest/breaks/benefits/and so on…

Barring policy guardrails, how does a push for onshoring result in anything other than an acceleration of the transition to robotics/humanoids?

Wrapping up that Digest, we quoted our technology expert Luke Lango:

The trade war may have lit the match. But the fire now spreading across this country is an economic one, unleashing a new 21st-century Industrial Revolution powered by AI, fueled by necessity, and backed by policy.

Let’s pick up where we left off.

Let’s go straight to Luke:

Thanks to the incredible advances in AI, robotics, and automation, we now have the technology to revolutionize American manufacturing right now.

Think humanoid robots that don’t just compute but physically act: walking, lifting, building, and problem-solving in the real world.

And this isn’t speculative anymore. It’s real. Consider:

• Tesla(TSLA) is leading the charge with Optimus, its humanoid robot that’s already performing tasks inside its factories.
• Nvidia(NVDA) just launched Project GR00T, a new suite of AI models built specifically for robotics use cases
• Meta(META) launched a humanoid AI division aimed at building the “iOS of robotics”
• Apple(AAPL) is investing in smart home robotics
• Alphabet(GOOG) is funding humanoid robotics startups like Apptronik
• OpenAIis exploring building its own robot
• Microsoft(MSFT) is backing Sanctuary AI, which just completed its first commercial delivery with a humanoid robot

Big Tech isn’t just watching. They’re investing aggressively

Below is a visual on what’s already here:

And this won’t stop with metal or plastic robots.

Mashable reports that Japanese scientists have coated a robotic finger in self-healing human skin – an enormous jump forward for humanoid technology.

(In the graphic below, pretend you didn’t read the closed captioning reference to a “Terminator”)

In past Digests, we’ve featured how companies like Amazon and Walmart are increasingly shifting their warehouse operations to a robotic workforce. That will continue.

But warehouses and manufacturing plants are just the beginning. We’re not far from humanoids impacting our day-to-day lives in countless ways…

Households and Personal Assistance

Household robots are evolving from basic vacuum bots into multifunctional assistants. Get ready for your personal robot assistant to help you with everyday errands like picking up dry cleaning, meal prep, and walking the dog.

But it’s beyond that. The use cases involve functions that don’t readily come to mind.

For example, I occasionally invest in startups on Angel List. I just read about two different companies building robotics for the blind. One has created a robotic guide dog; the other a guide robot that appears more like a Roomba.

Elder Care

With global populations aging, humanoid robots are stepping in as round-the-clock companions. They’ll be helping seniors manage medications, stay socially connected, and remain mobile.

And it’s not just about taking vitals and dispensing pills. Some humanoids will exist for the purpose of social companionship – literally, reducing loneliness.

Social robots like ElliQ provide camaraderie for elderly individuals living alone. These humanoids can engage in simple conversations, offer reminders, and suggest activities.

Customer Service

Humanoid robots are already appearing in hotels and airports as receptionists, concierges, and information guides.

With natural language processing and facial recognition, they can personalize guest experiences, handle check-ins, and even serve food – all while never calling in sick.

Education

Educational robots can provide one-on-one tutoring, support special needs students, and offer engaging lessons using interactive media. Their consistency and adaptability make them ideal aides for teachers in both traditional and remote classrooms.

I could keep going, but you get the idea.

Humanoids are coming – and they’re going to impact everything.

You have your Big Tech companies working on versions of a finished-product humanoid.

But think of smaller, components companies that are a part of that buildout.

Here’s Luke:

[Consider] AI chipmakers and sensor firms – companies that make the GPUs, LiDAR and vision sensors, and edge processors that enable real-world AI.

There’s also software platforms for robotics. Just like iOS for iPhones, there will be a winner in “robot OS”: platforms that help control fleets of machines in coordinated workflows.

But here too, this is just the start. Investing in humanoids represents a vast ecosystem that’s far too large to cover in one Digest.

We profiled the easiest way back in September.

Regular Digest readers will recall an issue in which I shared part of an internal email from one of our senior analysts, Brian Hunt, to a few members of our leadership team.

Brian described the technological advancements coming (like humanoids), the potential for market volatility, but the even greater potential to make enormous wealth over the next five to 10 years.

With that as our context, here’s Brian from that email with the most effortless way to ride this trend:

If you want to make it simple, easy, and powerful, just look up the five largest AI/robotics ETFs and buy them in equal parts and go to sleep for a while. Maybe throw in some QQQ. 

Ignore the corrections. They will be painful but temporary.

This tailwind will blow with hurricane force.

Now, Brian just described the “buy the haystack” approach to humanoid investing. If you prefer to look for the various “needles,” Luke recently put together a free research video in which he discussed his top robotics stocks for 2025.

And, of course, we’ll be bringing you some of the top ideas from our experts as this technology proliferates.

For as quickly as this technology is arriving, we remain a few years out from your kitchen humanoid grilling you a perfect steak while you watch reruns of “The Office.”

But iterative versions will arrive in the next 12 months or so. Think “agentic AI” that can book flights and hotels based on your calendar and preferences… proactively manage your subscriptions or utility bills… and even monitor your portfolio, moving money between your high-yield accounts and your trading account when positions get out of balance.

As to that steak, even though we’re a handful of years away, Luke urges action today:

If you’re an investor, this is your early-in moment…

Because we’re confident that in five years, everyone will be talking about robotics stocks the same way they talk about AI chip stocks today.

But by then, the easy money will have already been made.

You don’t have to go big. But it’s time to consider some starter positions in leading robotics/humanoids companies.

This is already a long Digest. So, we’re going to tackle this aspect of humanoids in an upcoming issue.

But for now, consider this: With humanoids being so capable, how deeply will that cut into our workforce?

Below is a list of jobs – hardly exhaustive – where humanoids be will able to accomplish many (or all) of the related tasks relatively soon…

Tutors, nurses, doctors, factory workers, forklift drivers, Uber drivers, lawyers, financial advisors, personal assistants, editors, customer services agents, telemarketers, accountants, data entry specialists, logistics operators, retail cashiers, truck drivers, security guards, pharmacists, market research analysts, legal assistants, and far more…

Now, if/when humanoids take over those functions, what happens to all that salary expense?

It remains on the balance sheets of the companies selling/utilizing humanoids/robotics, benefiting management and investors.

Might that exacerbate the contrast between the two WSJ articles that opened today’s Digest?

Loads of Americans turn to credit card debt…while a select few Americans watch their wealth explode.

More on this to come…

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Humanoids: How to Invest in the Next Trillion-Dollar Tech appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Coke vs. Pepsi. Yankees vs. Red Sox. Celtics vs. Lakers. Microsoft vs. Apple.

Heck, you could even argue our country was built on feuds…

Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton’s fierce rivalry ended tragically on a New Jersey dueling ground, with Burr fatally shooting Hamilton.

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas clashed over slavery and the soul of America in debates that defined our nation’s future.

Viewed in this historical light, the ongoing spat between President Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell isn’t unprecedented, but it certainly commands attention.

Sure, the stakes aren’t pistols at dawn, nor do they possess the grandeur and decorum of those historic debates. Yet investors and markets hang on every social media post and off-hand remark, wondering how this tense feud over monetary policy will reshape the economy – and their own financial futures.

In today’s ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360, I want to touch on the latest developments that happened between Trump and Powell this week. I’ll cover what’s behind the President’s criticisms and why I think he may have a point in this particular case. I’ll also share how you can position your portfolio for success no matter what happens with tariffs, interest rates or the market.

Trump’s War of Words

Beginning last Thursday, President Trump hasn’t been mincing words when it comes to the Fed – and specifically Jerome Powell. He took to Truth Social, his social media platform, and blasted the Fed Chair, suggesting that his “termination” couldn’t come soon enough.

The verbal jabs kept coming over the weekend, and markets opened on Monday on a sour note.  

Trump’s criticisms didn’t sit well with the stock market, causing it to tumble sharply as investors worried Trump might fire Powell. All the major indices were down roughly 2.4% and 2.5% as a result.

But by Tuesday afternoon, Trump walked back his harsh words. He claimed he had “no intention of firing” Powell and argued the media exaggerated things. After Trump’s reassurance, stocks rebounded overnight, and by Wednesday, markets surged at the opening bell.

So, what changed Trump’s mind? Insiders say Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged caution. According to reports, they reminded the president that the U.S. economy (and the stock market) has enough on its plate already – namely, in the form of tariffs.

Trump later clarified, “I would like to see [Powell] be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates. It’s a perfect time to lower rates. If he doesn’t, is it the end? No, it’s not, but it would be good timing.”

He also softened his tone on tariffs, hinting at easing his trade war by slashing China tariffs by as much as 65%, down from previous highs of 145%.

In the wake of these comments, stocks went on to rally for three straight days – with the S&P up over 6% this week. 

What’s Behind the Feud

What’s obvious to me here is that Trump is becoming more sensitive to the market – and that’s a good thing, folks. But why all the back-and-forth?

After all, Trump originally hired Powell during his first term. And Powell’s second term doesn’t expire until May 2026.

It all comes down to two people with two different jobs, folks.

Trump wants to grow the economy. Lower rates will help do that. Powell, on the other hand, is concerned about managing inflation. So, he’s being cautious about lowering rates. In fact, Powell recently warned that the tariffs could cause lingering inflation, making rate cuts tricky.

Cutting rates might help short-term growth, but risks higher inflation down the road. And Powell made clear: The Fed won’t bow to political pressure.

However, in this case, I think Trump has a point. Powell may be acting a little too cautious here, especially since inflation has clearly cooled down lately. Waiting could slow down the economy more than necessary. In fact, the recent Beige Book survey from the Fed noted that economic activity remains roughly the same, although uncertainty over tariffs is high and there are some signs of increasing prices.

But what we need to remember is that a global interest rate collapse is unfolding. The European Central Bank (ECB) recently cut key interest rates by 0.25% for the seventh consecutive time. I remain in the camp that, due to recessions in France and Germany, the ECB will cut another three times this year.

That means it’s only a matter of time before our central bank will have to follow suit. So, I am sticking to my prediction that the Fed will be cutting key interest rates at least four times this year, hopefully starting at the May Federal Open ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Committee (FOMC) meeting.

According to CME’s FedWatch Tool, that probably won’t happen. It has an over 90% probability of no change. But by mid-June, that’s a different story – with a better than 60% chance of a quarter-point rate cut.

How to Survive the ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½’s Waves

The bottom line is we all know markets love lower rates. Stocks often jump when the Fed loosens the reins on monetary policy.

I think we’ll get those rate cuts soon enough. But in the meantime, my advice remains simple: Focus on owning strong stocks backed by superior fundamentals.

These are the stocks that hold up the best when waves of uncertainty come crashing down on the market. And they’re usually the stocks that rebound first when the tide lowers and things are “all clear.”

And I hate to break it to you folks, but there is an even bigger financial tidal wave coming for investors. In fact, it’s the biggest I’ve seen in my over four decades in the market.

It has nothing to do with Fed policy, the White House, tariffs or anything like that.

And I’m making it my mission to prepare you for what’s coming.

That’s why I created this presentation. I’ll explain everything you need to know and the best way to not only survive – but thrive – in its wake.

Click here to learn more.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360

The post Trump Vs. Powell: What Investors Need to Know appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Tom Yeung here with today’s Smart Money.

In 1812, the English word unprecedented doubled in use, according to Google’s “Ngram” study of historical books.

America’s war with Great Britain had just begun… Napoleon’s Grand Army invaded Russia… and journalists of the day delighted in reporting these events with eye-catching words. 

The same Google study now finds the word unprecedented in vogue again. The 13-letter word has been used to describe everything from financial crises to technological innovation. The term was uttered in 75% of S&P 500 earnings calls in 2020. 

It’s tempting to call everything President Donald Trump is doing “unprecedented” as well. We’ve never seen America’s executive branch unilaterally raise tariffs to double-digit levels overnight… nor have we seen stocks whipsaw double-digits on a single presidential announcement.

To U.S.-focused investors, this all seems entirely new. 

But experienced investors will have seen similar stories before… just not in America. 

In today’s Smart Money, by drawing parallels to other countries, I’ll explain why President Trump’s hasty actions aren’t as unprecedented as they seem.

Then, I’ll outline our best- and worst- case scenario plans for riding this unpredictable market…

And how you can make sure you’re prepared to profit for both.

History Repeats Itself

In East Asia, strongmen-styled leaders have been around for decades. Many credit the military dictatorship of South Korea for the country’s success in the 1960s and 1970s. Singapore got its start from a 31-year rule by a one-man “democracy.” More recently, we’ve seen similar rulers in Turkey… Poland… Bangladesh… and so on.

President Trump follows a long list of leaders seeking to consolidate power to steer their countries in new directions. 

And the one lesson we can draw is this: 

It’s almost impossible to know who will succeed at the start. 

Some countries start strong… only to devolve into chaos. An investor who bought the Turkish lira in 2014 when the current president was sworn in would have lost 94% of their original investment. Egypt and Zimbabwe remain cautionary tales. 

Despite the odds, some countries do a supreme job at reform, turning them into investment superstars. Singapore was once described as a “swamp-filled jungle,” destined to fail because it lacked any natural resources. The country’s stock market is now the second most valuable in Southeast Asia.

Additionally, many were skeptical that the outspoken President Javier Milei could succeed in Argentina. That South American nation had previously defaulted on 22 International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans, and the “shock therapy” Milei was prescribing (cutting 30% of government expenditures, slashing subsidies, and so on) could have easily killed the patient. 

But we began seeing the first signs of success in mid-2024, when Argentina’s month-to-month inflation fell to single digits and the economy returned to growth.

And things have continued to improve. Two weeks ago, Argentina finally secured its 23rd IMF loan, a highly positive sign of the country’s turnaround efforts.

This unpredictable path of government reform is why I like to think of President Trump’s policies to an asteroid heading toward Earth.

We have no idea whether disaster will hit… or pass us by entirely. 

So, here is what we think of each possible scenario…

How We’re Covering Our Bases

In our best-case scenario, the danger of a great recession (or depression) passes us by entirely. Trump’s tariff wars are resolved, leaving us with no major impact on inflation, supply chains, or long-term investor confidence.

Instead, we’ll see enormous leaps in artificial intelligence, energy innovation, and biotech sending markets to new all-time highs. We might also benefit from the re-onshoring of high-tech industries like advanced chipmaking and solar panel production. 

In this case, we’re sitting on one of the decade’s greatest moments to invest.

But what if President Trump’s plans backfire? 

What if the asteroid remains on course and collides directly with the U.S. economy?

In this case, a lot can go wrong. Perhaps the president misjudges the inflationary impact of the current 125% tariffs on Chinese goods. That would force the U.S. Federal Reserve to tighten rates… triggering a showdown with President Trump. (It may seem like a year ago, but just on Monday, U.S. stocks fell around 3% over fears that President Trump could and would fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell.) 

I wish we could tell you today which path we’re on. 

It would save us all so much trouble to know whether the recession “asteroid” will hit… or not. 

However, the international experience tells us that no one can predict what will happen next. We’ll begin seeing signs of Trump’s successes or failures in the coming months, but anyone saying they’re 100% confident today in the path is being disingenuous. 

And that’s why we’re expecting the best while preparing for the worst – a theme we’ve revisited many times over the past few months.

That is why, in the Fry’s Investment Report portfolio, I’ve made sure my paid-up members are invested in high-growth tech leaders that should surge if American growth remains robust and valuations get back on track.

But I’ve also made sure we’re balancing this risk with countercyclical plays, including energy, international, and value stocks.

To learn more about the companies we’ve got our eyes on to help us survive – and thrive – through these volatile times, click here to learn how to become a member of Fry’s Investment Report today.

Our strategy: Magnificent Seven stocks are out, gold is in, and we’re quietly buying up well-priced stocks (particularly outside the U.S.) when the moments are right. 

Until next week,

Tom Yeung

ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s Analyst, InvestorPlace

The post ‘Unprecedented’: What History Tells Us About the Word Taking Over Wall Street appeared first on InvestorPlace.

So far in 2025, gold prices have surged more than 30%, hitting new highs above $3,400 an ounce. It’s one of the sharpest, fastest rallies in gold’s history

Unfortunately, it’s also a strong warning sign.

Here’s the deal: 2025 has been ugly for stocks. In fact, through the first 74 trading days of the year, the S&P 500 is down more than 12%. That makes this the third-worst start to a year on record. The only years that were worse were two during the Great Depression – 1932 and ‘39. And the only years with comparably bad starts? 1941 and ’42 (mid-World War II), 2008 and ‘09 (great financial crisis), and 2020 (COVID-19 pandemic). 

When you’re brushing shoulders with those chapters of history, you know things aren’t going well.

But while stocks are getting steamrolled, gold is enjoying a ‘golden hour.’ Not just good – we’re talking parabolic, headline-dominating, all-time-highs kind of performance.

Technically speaking, it’s one of the most overbought gold markets we’ve ever seen; and that provides an important signal for stocks. 

How Overbought Is Gold in 2025? The RSI Tells a Warning Story

How extreme is this move?

Gold’s relative strength index (RSI) – a momentum indicator used to measure how overbought or oversold an asset is – just jumped above 85 on a monthly basis.

Let’s put that in context: any reading above 70 is considered overbought. So, above 85? That’s so hot it may as well be molten lava.

In the past 55 years, gold has only gotten this hot three times before:

• In 1972, just after Nixon implemented price controls and strong-armed the Federal Reserve into cutting rates (and right before a decade of hyperinflation).
• In December 1979, when then-Fed Board Chair Volcker began hiking rates aggressively to crush hyperinflation.
• And in January 2008, as the U.S. housing market was imploding into the great financial crisis.

These weren’t minor market pullbacks. They were turning points in economic history.

Every Time Gold Surged Like This, Stocks Tanked…

Spoiler: Gold’s outperformance was like a kiss of death for stocks.

After the 1972 gold surge, the stock market fell ~40% over the next two years. After 1979’s peak, stocks went nowhere for three straight years. And following the early 2008 spike, stocks crashed 45% over the following 12 months.

Every time gold has reached this level of being technically overbought, stocks have gone into hibernation – or worse.

Gold gets this hot when fear rules the market. And when fear rules, it’s usually because something very real and very bad is brewing in the background.

So, gold ripping this hard is a signal… and not a positive one.

Why Investors Are Flocking to Gold in 2025

Given today’s political and economic climate, gold’s rally makes perfect sense. 

The White House has declared what can only be described as an economic world war, launching tariffs against nearly every major trading partner and threatening the entire post-WWII global trade framework. The markets are confused. Corporations and investors alike are spooked.

In that kind of environment, buying gold is like hiding in a panic room. It doesn’t pay dividends, innovate, or grow… but it doesn’t go bankrupt either.

It just sits there, safely, while the world burns. So, people buy it in preparation for such a catastrophe. 

Now, this is where things get tricky – and interesting.

Yes, gold is flashing a warning sign. And yes, the last three times it flashed this bright, stocks suffered.

But we don’t think it’s time to panic. Despite the similarities to historical precedent, we believe this time is different.

The core drivers behind this gold surge aren’t structural or systemic. They’re not tied to broken banks, runaway inflation, or energy shocks.

Instead, they are the result of policy chaos — more specifically, a White House that’s cornered itself into a strategy that it now needs to walk back.

In other words, gold is up because of self-induced uncertainty. And uncertainty, unlike inflation or recession, can go away fast if the right headlines hit.

Trade Peace Could Flip the Script and Revive Stocks

We believe pressure is building around the Trump administration to cool its trade rhetoric and deliver some tangible wins.

The 90-day pause on Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs was sold as a fast-track toward dealmaking. But here we are, weeks later, and not a single deal has been signed. The clock is ticking, while investor confidence is draining.

If the White House doesn’t deliver real progress soon, markets could break further.

But if it does ink deals, then the narrative should shift fast.

• Trade deals = reduced global friction
• Reduced friction = reduced inflation risk
• Reduced inflation risk = Fed rate cuts
• Fed rate cuts = equity rally

All of a sudden, gold feels less necessary… and stocks become much more attractive.

Why Gold’s 2025 Rally May Not Mean Disaster for Stocks

We get it. “This time is different” are the four most dangerous words in investing.

But hear us out.

In the lead-up to the 1972 election, President Nixon pressured Fed Chair Arthur Burns to keep interest rates low to stimulate the economy – and boost his reelection chances. This political interference undermined the Fed’s independence and credibility, setting the stage for the inevitable inflationary surge that followed.

In 1979, inflation was already out of control. It surged into the double digits, driven by soaring oil prices, loose monetary policy, and a crisis of confidence in the U.S. dollar. Fed Chair Paul Volcker had to respond with aggressive rate hikes, pushing the federal funds rate above 20% in an effort to break the inflationary spiral.

And in 2008, the financial system was sitting on a ticking time bomb of bad debt. This was the result of years of aggressive lending practices, particularly in the subprime mortgage market, where banks extended loans to borrowers with poor credit. These risky mortgages were then bundled into complex financial instruments and sold to investors, creating a fragile house of cards that began to collapse when home prices fell.

None of that is true today.

• The Fed is not artificially cutting rates yet and, instead, is being very strategic and purposeful with its cuts – despite pressure from Trump to do so.
• Inflation is not spiraling out of control. The data continues to reflect a cooling trend; core CPI edged up 0.1% in March, below market expectations for a 0.3% increase. And overall CPI saw a decrease of 0.1% on a month-over-month basis, marking its first decline since May 2020.
• The banking system is not melting down. Balance sheets are strong. Many big banks just reported first-quarter earnings, with JPMorgan Chase (JPM) achieving record annual profits and Bank of America (BAC) seeing its revenue increase by 6% year-over-year to reach $27.4 billion.
• Employment remains resilient. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that despite the unemployment rate edging up to 4.2% in March after being 4.1% in February, it remains in the range of 4.0% to 4.2% that it’s held since May 2024. 

What we have here is not an economic death spiral – it’s an anxiety spiral. And anxiety can be soothed just as quickly as it forms.

From Panic to Profit: A Buy-the-Dip Moment for Stocks?

If and when this policy panic clears – and we think it will – gold will likely cool. And stocks will be primed for a V-shaped recovery.

That’s why, as contrarian as it might sound, we think this is a moment to go long stocks.

Specifically, we’re thinking high-beta tech, small caps, risk assets – the stuff that gets crushed when fear dominates… and flies when relief hits.

The last three times gold got this hot, stocks tanked. But this time might just be the time that breaks the pattern.

While gold’s record-setting rally is historic – and yes, historically, it has meant very bad news for stocks – context matters.

We believe this particular surge is being driven not by systemic collapse or runaway inflation but policy volatility. And that’s something that can turn on a dime.

So, no, we’re not ignoring this warning sign. But we’re not running for the hills either.

We’re watching and waiting. And when the clouds clear – when the trade war cools and the Fed starts cutting – we plan to go all-in on the rebound.

And the smartest AI investments may lie in what’s coming next: AI 2.0.

We’re talking about intelligent systems that can navigate the real world: machines that see, hear, move, speak, adapt, and even solve problems on the fly.

It’s no coincidence that the biggest names in tech are racing to develop these humanoid robots.

This is where we see the next wave of trillion-dollar opportunities taking shape – and we’ve identified a standout way to tap into this emerging phase of the AI revolution.

Get the full story on our top AI 2.0 stock pick.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Questions or comments about this issue? Drop us a line at langofeedback@investorplace.com.

The post Gold Flashing Crisis Signal? Why Investors Shouldn’t Panic (Yet) appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Let’s begin with Trump:

Diving into this second point, this morning, The Wall Street Journal ran an exclusive story reporting that Trump is considering cutting tariffs by more than half.

From the WSJ:

President Trump hasn’t made a final determination, the people said, adding that the discussions remain fluid and several options are on the table.

One senior White House official said the China tariffs were likely to come down to between roughly 50% and 65%.

Adding to the good news, the plan could include a tiered tariff system along with a gradual phase-in of tariffs rather than an overnight “on” switch.

Back to the WSJ:

The administration is also considering a tiered approach similar to the one proposed by the House committee on China late last year: 35% levies for items the U.S. deems not a threat to national security, and at least 100% for items deemed as strategic to America’s interest, some of the people said.

The bill proposed phasing in those levies over five years.

Finally, in a keynote address to the Institute of International Finance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outlined a plan to restore “equilibrium” to the global financial system.

He also said that “there is an opportunity for a big deal here” between the U.S. and China.

This comes after his conciliatory remarks yesterday, including, “No one thinks the current status quo [of current tariff rates] is sustainable.”

Bottom line: Outside of signed trade deals, this is what Wall Street and corporate America wanted – normalcy. Something steady that it can plug into its pro formas and use as the basis for capital allocation decisions.

Though stocks are off their highs from earlier in the session, it’s still a strong day in the market as I write. And even if the gains pull back further, we’re encouraged by today’s trade talk.

Here in 2025, the U.S. dollar has been sliding fast.

Even though it’s rallying today on positive trade news, as you can see below, since mid-January, the dollar has lost 9%.

Meanwhile, economic uncertainty has been spiking.

Below, we look at the “Economic Policy Uncertainty Index for United States” from the Federal Reserve.

Starting in 1985, today’s level clocks in at the highest reading outside of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and the Covid meltdown in 2020.

Finally, governments around the world are awash in debt.

According to the Institute of Internation Finance, the global debt-to-GDP ratio notched a record high of 328% in 2024. Behind it was a surge in global debt to $318 trillion. 

So, combine a crumbling dollar, soaring economic uncertainty, and surging global debt, and what do you get?

(Besides gold setting a string of new all-time highs recently…)

Bitcoin, finally showing signs of acting like an independent hedge!

Although it’s tempting to attribute the gain to the “risk on” market sentiment that’s fueling stocks today, there’s more going on.

But first, let’s be clear – it’s too early to conclude that bitcoin has bottomed. It’s also too early to say that investor sentiment has suddenly shifted, and bitcoin is now considered a rock-solid safeguard of economic value…

But we’re inching in that direction.

First, showing that this is more than a “risk on” rally, below we look at bitcoin and the S&P 500 since April 9. Even with today’s market surge, the S&P is flat while bitcoin is up 12%.

Why?

First, a weakening U.S. dollar erodes confidence in fiat currencies, especially for people looking to store long-term value. Bitcoin – volatile as it is – is a hard asset thanks to its capped supply (21 million coins), no central authority, and resistance to debasement.

Second, tied to the first point, bitcoin is a sort of “exit ramp” from a global system addicted to debt. The U.S. is hardly the only nation with soaring debt spending. Too much borrowing/spending weakens fiat currencies (not just the dollar) over time.

Third, during past periods of trade tensions (like the US/China spat in 2019), bitcoin spiked due to cross-border capital flight. Chinese and other emerging market investors were looking for non-sovereign stores of value. Crypto is borderless and doesn’t rely on the U.S. dollar or global trade frameworks.

Put it all together and it’s easy to see why investors are moving back into bitcoin…

The gains aren’t “in spite of global uncertainty,” they’re “because of global uncertainty.”

So says master trader Jeff Clark.

For newer Digest readers, Jeff is a legendary trader with more than four decades of experience. In his service, Jeff Clark Trader, he uses a suite of indicators and charting techniques to profitably trade the markets regardless of direction – up, down, or sideways.

From Jeff’s update yesterday:

The setup in bitcoin looks bullish.

After peaking above $105,000 in early February, bitcoin has been in a consistent downtrend – making a series of lower highs and lower lows.

But, as bitcoin approached $75,000 earlier this month, the momentum indicators at the bottom of the chart were making higher lows.

This sort of “positive divergence” is often an early warning sign of an impending rally.

For the past three weeks, bitcoin has been stuck in a tight trading range near the $85,000 level. This consolidating action has allowed all of the various moving averages to coil together and build up energy to fuel the next big move.

And, after [Monday’s] rally, it appears “the next big move” will be to the upside.

Jeff’s prediction is certainly playing out as I write Wednesday.

As you’d expect, when bitcoin is doing well, bitcoin miners tend to follow. But Jeff notes that something unusual has been happening for the past few weeks:

While bitcoin has been chopping back and forth in a trading range between $76,000 and $86,000, the bitcoin miners have been declining to new lows.

The stock declines have been so severe the miners now trade at the lowest value ever relative to bitcoin…

That means one of two things must happen to bring it back into its historic range. Either bitcoin needs to fall, or the bitcoin miners have to rally – or some combination of the two.

While Jeff anticipates more gains from bitcoin climbing, he writes that miners will climb farther/faster:

Traders who are bullish on bitcoin can buy the cryptocurrency right here.

But the bigger gains will likely come from the bitcoin miners.

To his point, between yesterday and Wednesday as I write, bitcoin miners Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA), CleanSpark (CLSK), and Riot Platforms (RIOT) have surged, respectively, 18.5%, 21.4%, and 22.6%.

Trade accordingly.

Today is the final day to watch the free replay of last week’s trading breakthrough from Keith Kaplan, TradeSmith’s CEO, where he detailed TradeSmith’s AI algorithm – “An-E” (short for Analytical Engine).

This cutting-edge trading tool forecasts the share price of thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs one month into the future along with the conviction level of that prediction.

Because the platform is rooted in quantitative analysis, its advanced predictive modeling isn’t guesswork. An-E analyzes millions of data points, learning patterns, pricing behavior, and momentum signals that most investors would never catch. 

Here’s Keith:

While human investors react with fear, delay, or overconfidence, a new breed of trading algorithm – like our cutting-edge system, An-E – is making precise, unemotional forecasts about where the market is heading next…

Unlike humans, AI doesn’t get emotional. It doesn’t chase headlines.  It doesn’t second-guess every move. Instead, it digests mountains of data and makes calculated projections – especially when things get messy. 

And in this turbulent market, messy is the new normal…

Again, this is the last day to check out Keith’s free replay. Here’s that link.

For newer Digest readers, Jonathan is the analyst behind Masters in Trading Live.

He earned his stripes at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, going toe-to-toe with some of the world’s most aggressive and successful moneymakers in the business. He’s made more than $10 million over the course of his career, profiting from bull markets, bear markets, and everything in between.

During this market volatility, Jonathan and his subscribers have been winning again.

From his recent Masters in Trading Live update:

The markets can’t seem to find their footing after Liberation Day.

But for nimble traders, all this volatility is creating perfect trading opportunities – as long as we know where to find them.

This week, we scored one of our biggest wins yet after spotting a widening gap between Mexican and Brazilian stocks.

That triple-digit gain wasn’t mere luck… It came from spotting an opportunity to benefit from a key divergence forming between two major markets.

If you missed it, don’t worry – Jonathan writes that market divergences are happening everywhere right now.

He points toward the gold-to-oil ratio, sitting at an extreme 274.74 as an example. He’s also seeing significant gaps between crude oil and refined products.

It’s a fantastic way to learn more about trading volatile markets, while also giving you the tools to put a wad of cash in your pocket.

But there’s no pressure to trade either. You can simply tune in to watch, listen, and learn.

Here’s feedback from two of Jonathan’s followers:

Here’s Jonathan, speaking to his subscribers wins, but also inviting new traders to join. I’ll let him take us out today:

Seeing you lock in profits on both sides of this trade is exactly why we focus on these market divergences in the first place.

With so many huge price dislocations and widening spreads in the stock market, our strategy is well-positioned to find even bigger opportunities for profit from here.

Join me for Masters in Trading LIVE, where I’ll show you the specific crack spread setups offering the best risk/reward in this volatile market environment.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s Surge on Trade and Bitcoin Boost appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Many factors go into these selections… statistics, performance at the NFL Scouting Combine, personal interviews, advanced analytics, and much more. In that way, it’s a lot like investing, where you want to have the right tools to pick stocks that will push your portfolio over the top.

Our corporate partner, TradeSmith, has taken this to a new level. They’ve incorporated AI into a new tool called An-E (short for Analytical Engine), which delivers projections for how a stock will perform over the next 21 trading days.

It goes without saying, but this gives a huge advantage to investors. And that’s why they recently hosted a special event – to explain how you can harness its power to gain an edge in the market.

You can click here to watch a replay of the special event right now.

But this will only be available until midnight tonight, so you need to act quickly before it’s taken down.

Now, I’ll let TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan explain more…

**

This week is a big one for sports fans: It’s time for the 2025 NFL Draft.

Starting tomorrow, 32 teams will look for the missing pieces that’ll put them on a path to the Super Bowl.

The evaluations that each team uses to create its “draft board” consist of both old-school inputs (such as college game tapes, 40-yard dash times, and pre-draft meetings) and new-school analytics (such as the S2 cognition test, which gauges how quickly and accurately a player can see order in the chaos that’s part and parcel of the football gridiron).

The more information you have, the more likely you’ll snag a generational talent and avoid the draft-day “busts” that’ll set you back years… and put your team on those “biggest-missteps-of-all-time” lists that never seem to go away.

Investing is a lot like the NFL Draft.

You want to stuff your portfolio with generational winners – and you want to avoid the big losers that’ll grind your ego for years.

Information is the great differentiator. And the “right” information – analyzed correctly and in a timely manner – is what will separate you from everyone else.

When you get right down to it, that’s what we’re all about at TradeSmith.

Our pioneering analytics zero in on the information that matters. And we create systems that help you “draft” the right stocks, assets, or trading opportunities at just the right time.

We package that into products that meet different objectives.

And we’ve done it again, with an artificial intelligence-powered trading algorithm we’ve nicknamed An-E (short for Analytical Engine).

This AI technology performs a very powerful task: After analyzing thousands of key data points, it creates a projection of where a stock will be trading in a short period of time…

Let me show you how.

AI Is Leading the Way

Take Walmart Inc. (WMT), for example.

• 21-Day Price Target: $97.77
• Prime Target Date: May 20, 2025
• Historical Directional Accuracy: 69.53%

Online shopping has largely made visiting a physical store irrelevant – and sometimes, a downright pain.

Why spend gas money driving to a store for one item and hoping it isn’t out of stock when you can have it delivered to your doorstep with just a few mouse clicks?

Walmart has clearly had that in mind. The company has upgraded its delivery system, rivaling Amazon’s same-day drop-off fame and ensuring better, faster, and smarter shopping for its customers.

Walmart is well-known as the “everything” store. Whether it’s a last-minute potluck snack, garden shears, a pack of batteries for the new toy your grandkid just got, or even paint to update the living room, Walmart has always been a one-stop shop.

More, Walmart – along with other retailers – has been oversold in the fallout since President Trump’s new tariff plan announcement. It’s down from its highs, but it has established a historical price floor, so it’s reasonable to expect the share price to increase over a shorter period of time.

Walmart is just one of many examples of how An-E can help you spot high-potential opportunities hiding in plain sight. With powerful, time-sensitive forecasts, you can act with more confidence – just like an NFL team that’s done its homework and knows exactly how to draft.

And in investing, success comes down to picking winners and avoiding costly mistakes.

With An-E, you can get data-driven stock forecasts to help you make smarter, more timely decisions. It’s like having your own draft board for the market – so you can build a portfolio of champions.

How to Make An-E Work for You

Last week, we revealed An-E in action in a special event.

During the event, we showed even more of An-E’s remarkable capabilities and how everyday folks can use these projections to target winners and avoid losers to make huge money in the markets, completely rewriting their financial future. 

It was an incredible presentation, one of the biggest in TradeSmith history… 

In fact, it was so remarkable, we believe this way of investing (using forecasts from AI rather than brokers, financial analysts, Wall Street, or the media), will change the entire financial industry for the better.

And now, you can catch the replay…

But only until midnight tonight, April 23. (View the replay now by clicking here.)

After that, I can’t promise you’ll ever see it again.

With all the market turmoil in recent weeks and more uncertainty up ahead, it pays to have an edge in the market.

An-E can help you have that edge.

So, go here now to see An-E in action – and learn how to make this incredible tech work for you – before it’s too late.

Sincerely,

Keith Kaplan
CEO, TradeSmith

The post Like the NFL Draft, Our New Stock-Picking System Is All About Finding Winners appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Investing, like football, comes down to preparation, precision, and making the right picks. That is why it’s so important to have access to timely and accurate data.

Enter An-E, an AI-powered algorithm developed by our corporate partners at Tradesmith.

An-E scans thousands of data points to forecast short-term stock movements. Built in-house using machine learning models trained on over 1.3 quadrillion data points and 50,000+ backtests, An-E can help you see what stocks could go up or down within a 30-day projection. An-E projects the share price on thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs one month into the future.

So, you can think of An-E as your personal draft board for the market, helping you pick potential winners and dodge the duds.

Want to see it in action? Click here to watch a replay of Tradesmith’s AI Predictive Power Event, where CEO Keith Kaplan details everything you need to know about the AI tool.

But hurry, the replay is only available until midnight tonight.

Today, Keith is joining us to showcase more of An-E’s predictive power… and how investors can use it to build a portfolio of champions. Take it away…

This week is a big one for sports fans: It’s time for the 2025 NFL Draft.

Starting on Thursday, 32 teams will look for the missing pieces that’ll put them on a path to the Super Bowl.

The evaluations that each team uses to create its “draft board” consist of both old-school inputs (such as college game tapes, 40-yard dash times, and pre-draft meetings) and new-school analytics (such as the S2 cognition test, which gauges how quickly and accurately a player can see order in the chaos that’s part and parcel of the football gridiron).

The more information you have, the more likely you’ll snag a generational talent and avoid the draft-day “busts” that’ll set you back years… and put your team on those “biggest-missteps-of-all-time” lists that never seem to go away.

Investing is a lot like the NFL Draft.

You want to stuff your portfolio with generational winners – and you want to avoid the big losers that’ll grind your ego for years.

Information is the great differentiator. And the “right” information – analyzed correctly and in a timely manner – is what will separate you from everyone else.

When you get right down to it, that’s what we’re all about at TradeSmith.

Our pioneering analytics zero in on the information that matters. And we create systems that help you “draft” the right stocks, assets, or trading opportunities at just the right time.

We package that into products that meet different objectives.

And we’ve done it again, with an artificial intelligence-powered trading algorithm we’ve nicknamed An-E (short for Analytical Engine).

This AI technology performs a very powerful task: After analyzing thousands of key data points, it creates a projection of where a stock will be trading in a short period of time…

Let me show you how.

AI Is Leading the Way

Take Walmart Inc. (WMT), for example.

• 21-Day Price Target: $97.77
• Prime Target Date: May 20, 2025
• Historical Directional Accuracy: 69.53%

Online shopping has largely made visiting a physical store irrelevant – and sometimes, a downright pain.

Why spend gas money driving to a store for one item and hoping it isn’t out of stock when you can have it delivered to your doorstep with just a few mouse clicks?

Walmart has clearly had that in mind. The company has upgraded its delivery system, rivaling Amazon’s same-day drop-off fame and ensuring better, faster, and smarter shopping for its customers.

Walmart is well-known as the “everything” store. Whether it’s a last-minute potluck snack, garden shears, a pack of batteries for the new toy your grandkid just got, or even paint to update the living room, Walmart has always been a one-stop shop.

More, Walmart – along with other retailers – has been oversold in the fallout since President Trump’s new tariff plan announcement. It’s down from its highs, but it has established a historical price floor, so it’s reasonable to expect the share price to increase over a shorter period of time.

Walmart is just one of many examples of how An-E can help you spot high-potential opportunities hiding in plain sight. With powerful, time-sensitive forecasts, you can act with more confidence – just like an NFL team that’s done its homework and knows exactly how to draft.

And in investing, success comes down to picking winners and avoiding costly mistakes.

With An-E, you can get data-driven stock forecasts to help you make smarter, more timely decisions. It’s like having your own draft board for the market – so you can build a portfolio of champions.

How to Make An-E Work for You

Last week, we revealed An-E in action in a special event.

During the event, we showed even more of An-E’s remarkable capabilities and how everyday folks can use these projections to target winners and avoid losers to make huge money in the markets, completely rewriting their financial future. 

It was an incredible presentation, one of the biggest in TradeSmith history… 

In fact, it was so remarkable, we believe this way of investing (using forecasts from AI rather than brokers, financial analysts, Wall Street, or the media), will change the entire financial industry for the better.

And now, you can catch the replay…

But only until midnight tonight. (View the replay now by clicking here.)

After that, I can’t promise you’ll ever see it again.

With all the market turmoil in recent weeks and more uncertainty up ahead, it pays to have an edge in the market.

An-E can help you have that edge.

So, go here now to see An-E in action – and learn how to make this incredible tech work for you – before it’s too late.

Sincerely,

Keith Kaplan

CEO, TradeSmith

The post Like the NFL Draft, Our New Stock-Picking System Is All About Finding Winners appeared first on InvestorPlace.

But what if you had the power to see the markets 30 days into the future? 

Well, our corporate partner TradeSmith has developed a cutting-edge AI system – An-E, short for Analytical Engine – that can offer such clarity. Trained on 1.3 quadrillion data points and more than 50,000 backtests, An-E is able to forecast the price movements of thousands of stocks, ETFs, and funds 30 days into the future.

Such precise, high-confidence projections give investors a powerful edge on the markets, allowing them to adapt faster, limit losses, and get positioned for gains – no matter the macro backdrop.

TradeSmith just showcased this powerful new tool last week during The AI Predictive Power Event. If you missed that special broadcast, there’s still time to learn more about this technology in action – but only until midnight tonight, Wednesday, April 23. (Click here to watch the replay while you can.)

Today, we’re joined by TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan to discuss just how this AI breakthrough is changing the game for everyday investors. Take it away, Keith!

This week is a big one for sports fans: It’s time for the 2025 NFL Draft. 

Starting on Thursday, 32 teams will look for the missing pieces that’ll put them on a path to the Super Bowl.

The evaluations that each team uses to create its “draft board” consist of both old-school inputs (such as college game tapes, 40-yard dash times, and pre-draft meetings) and new-school analytics (such as the S2 cognition test, which gauges how quickly and accurately a player can see order in the chaos that’s part and parcel of the football gridiron).

The more information you have, the more likely you’ll snag a generational talent and avoid the draft-day “busts” that’ll set you back years… and put your team on those “biggest-missteps-of-all-time” lists that never seem to go away.

Investing is a lot like the NFL Draft.

You want to stuff your portfolio with generational winners – and you want to avoid the big losers that’ll grind your ego for years.

Information is the great differentiator. And the “right” information – analyzed correctly and in a timely manner – is what will separate you from everyone else.

When you get right down to it, that’s what we’re all about at TradeSmith.

Our pioneering analytics zero in on the information that matters. And we create systems that help you “draft” the right stocks, assets, or trading opportunities at just the right time.

We package that into products that meet different objectives.

And we’ve done it again, with an artificial intelligence-powered trading algorithm we’ve nicknamed An-E (short for Analytical Engine).

This AI system performs a very powerful task: After analyzing thousands of key data points, it creates a projection of where a stock will be trading in a short period of time…

Let me show you how. 

How An-E Is Leading the Way

Take Walmart Inc. (WMT), for example. 

• 21-Day Price Target: $97.77
• Prime Target Date: May 20, 2025 
• Historical Directional Accuracy: 69.53%

Online shopping has largely made visiting a physical store irrelevant – and sometimes, a downright pain. 

Why spend gas money driving to a store for one item and hoping it isn’t out of stock when you can have it delivered to your doorstep with just a few mouse clicks?

Walmart has clearly had that in mind. The company has upgraded its delivery system, rivaling Amazon’s same-day drop-off fame and ensuring better, faster, and smarter shopping for its customers. 

Walmart is well-known as the “everything” store. Whether it’s a last-minute potluck snack, garden shears, a pack of batteries for the new toy your grandkid just got, or even paint to update the living room, Walmart has always been a one-stop shop. 

More, Walmart – along with other retailers – has been oversold in the fallout since President Trump’s new tariff plan announcement. It’s down from its highs, but it has established a historical price floor, so it’s reasonable to expect the share price to increase over a shorter period of time.

Walmart is just one of many examples of how An-E can help you spot high-potential opportunities hiding in plain sight. With powerful, time-sensitive forecasts, you can act with more confidence – just like an NFL team that’s done its homework and knows exactly how to draft. 

And in investing, success comes down to picking winners and avoiding costly mistakes. 

With An-E, you can get data-driven stock forecasts to help you make smarter, more timely decisions. It’s like having your own draft board for the market – so you can build a portfolio of champions. 

Making This AI System Work for You

Last week, we revealed An-E in action in a special event. 

During the event, we showed even more of An-E’s remarkable capabilities and how everyday folks can use these projections to target winners and avoid losers to make huge money in the markets, completely rewriting their financial future.  

It was an incredible presentation, one of the biggest in TradeSmith history…  

In fact, it was so remarkable, we believe this way of investing (using forecasts from AI rather than brokers, financial analysts, Wall Street, or the media), will change the entire financial industry for the better. 

And now, you can catch the replay…

But only until midnight tonight, April 23. (View the replay now by clicking here.)

After that, I can’t promise you’ll ever see it again. 

With all the market turmoil in recent weeks and more uncertainty up ahead, it pays to have an edge in the market. 

An-E can help you have that edge. So, go here now to see this AI system in action – and learn how to make this incredible tech work for you – before it’s too late.

The post Scouting for Stock Stars: The AI System That Finds Top Performers Early appeared first on InvestorPlace.

The bottom line is Jerome Powell has screwed up. 

No, that’s not from President Trump. That comes from legendary investor Louis Navellier.

In yesterday’s Special ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Podcast in Growth Investor, Louis weighed in on President Trump’s attacks on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell:

The latest criticism is, President Trump wants to get rid of Jerome Powell. Ok, well, unfortunately, I have to agree with him because Powell is fighting a mythical inflation that hasn’t occurred yet.

We’re not going to have more tariffs other than the Chinese tariffs because everybody is caving. Everybody is meeting with the administration; everybody is dropping their barriers. So, we are going to have freer trade when it is all said and done…

In the meantime, you’ve got two months in a row of declining consumer prices. So, you have deflation. You have wholesale prices collapsing 0.4%, you have crude oil prices near the lowest level in four years.

And they are worried about inflation?

So, there is something wrong with Chairman Powell.

I suspect the “something wrong” is Powell being haunted by his characterization of inflation as “transitory” back in 2021. That inaccurate call opened the door to the worst inflation in four decades as well as merciless attacks on his judgement.

My hunch is that Powell is gun-shy about cutting rates today despite the cool inflation data Louis flagged because he doesn’t want to risk going into the history books as Arthur Burns 2.0. For readers less familiar, Burns was the Federal Reserve Chairman whose loose policies opened the door to the inflationary 1970s.

What if deals don’t materialize?

I’m all for the trade deals that Louis referenced. But it’s been nearly three weeks since “Liberation Day” and no deals have been announced.

Here’s how our hypergrowth expert Luke Lango characterized it in yesterday’s Daily Notes from his service Innovation Investor:

Almost two weeks have passed since “The Pause” — the day Trump announced a 90-day tariff pause to make room for “quick” trade deals.

There was optimism back then. Real optimism. We were told talks were going well. Deals were imminent. And yet… not a single trade deal has been signed. Not one. Nada. Zip. We got absolutely no news over the weekend!

We still have country-specific tariffs on dozens and dozens and dozens of nations floating around out there. And zero trade deals to permanently eliminate any of those tariffs. 

Despite positive headlines, no actual deals have been announced.

One example is this morning’s news that India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and U.S. Vice President JD Vance have made “significant” progress in trade talks. We’re thrilled to hear it, but at this point, we’re ready for news that a deal is official.

In the meantime, Trump’s blanket 10% tariff on nearly all the U.S.’s trading partners is in effect. The longer it remains, the greater the risk of reinflation, despite the recent cool, backward-looking inflation data.

For perspective, though 10% tariffs are infinitely better than the nosebleed levies that Trump originally proposed for each trading partner, that’s not the relevant comparison. The analysis we should consider compares “10% blanket tariffs to the tariff rate before the trade war.”

And what is that?

According to Visual Capitalist, in 2024, the U.S. average effective tariff rate on imports was 2.5%. So, this new normal of 10% – while in effect – has the potential to be inflationary.

At the beginning of the month, Citi modeled a base case of 10% tariffs, which it predicted could push the economy into stagflation in roughly six months.

From its note to clients:

Looking out, large tariffs would move us closer to the stagflationary risks we have downplayed this past year.

To help us, let’s look at day-to-day U.S. consumer purchases.

After all, if inflation is our concern, then such “everyday purchases” are the best window into where prices are today, and where they’re going tomorrow. For that analysis, there’s one place to turn – Amazon.

As you can see below with data from Statista, 71% of all items sold on Amazon are made in China.

Even if China is the only country facing higher tariff rates, prices for many of the “everyday goods” purchased via Amazon are going to get caught up in the tariff war – assuming these manufacturers raise their prices to offset the tariffs…

Will that happen?

Two weeks ago, Ross Sorkin of CNBC interviewed Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. From that CNBC interview:

SORKIN: Who is going to eat the cost, though, because I think that’s one of the big questions. How much can get passed on to the customer? How strong do you think the American consumer is right now and how much of it gets eaten by Amazon? How much gets eaten effectively by potentially a third-party seller?

JASSY: I think we’ll have to see how it all plays out. But if you made me guess, you know, I’m guessing that that sellers will pass that cost on… Depending on which country you’re in you don’t have 50% extra margin that you can play with.

So, I think they’ll try and pass the cost on.

Now, as we’re going to press, there’s good news on this front.

Earlier today, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told investors that he anticipates “there will be a de-escalation” in the trade war with China in the “very near future.”

Here’s CNBC:

“The next steps with China are, no one thinks the current status quo is sustainable” with tariff rates at their current levels, Bessent said at a private investor summit in Washington, D.C., hosted by JPMorgan Chase…

Bessent said he believes that the prospect of de-escalation between the economic superpowers “should give the world, the markets, a sigh of relief,” according to the person in the room.

We’ll bring you more on this as new details emerge.

So far, prices on Amazon are stable.

According to CamelCamelCamel, a company that provides pricing history for Amazon products, prices have been mostly flat for items ranging from iPads to toothpaste.

Here’s Wired explaining:

At least for now, ecommerce pricing experts say there are three leading reasons why Amazon sellers are keeping their prices steady: Many still have existing inventory in the US, are fearful about violating Amazon’s pricing rules, and remain inclined to wait out the mercurial president.

Regular readers of Louis know what’s behind the first point since he’s highlighted it repeatedly in recent weeks: foreign countries dumped their products into the U.S. ahead of Trump’s “Liberation Day.” So, they’re still sitting on a glut of inventory.

As to the second point, Amazon has “fair pricing” rules that penalize merchants that abruptly raise prices.

Finally, many companies share the same “hope it all goes away” mentality as do many investors – which is a real possibility. With Trump, a change of mind resulting in a single post on social media could end this instantly.

On April 1, in the lead up to President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, Israel eliminated all tariffs on U.S. imports. We’re talking 0% levies on U.S. imports across the board.

However, on Liberation Day, the U.S. hit Israel with a 17% tariff, which was based on our trade deficit.

On April 7, after flying to Washington to meet with President Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel would eliminate its trade deficit with the U.S.

From Netanyahu:

We will eliminate the trade deficit with the United States.

We intend to do it very quickly. We think it’s the right thing to do. And we’re going to also eliminate trade barriers.

It’s now more than two weeks later, and as far as I’m aware after searching, the U.S. still imposes the 10% blanket tariff on Israel.

Why?

Israel has removed all tariffs. And Netanyahu has publicly committed to eliminating the trade imbalance that appears to be at the heart of Trump’s trade grievances.

Netanyahu went so far to say:

Israel can serve as a model for many countries who ought to do the same.

I’m a free-trade champion, and free trade has to be fair trade.

With Israel giving Trump everything he’s asked for, minus the implementation, what is Trump waiting for?

If the answer is “implementation,” how does that work for every one of our trading partners?

Remember, a significant reason why we have trade deficits is because many of our trading partners are smaller, with lower GDPs and reduced per capita incomes. These smaller nations don’t have the economic resources to instantly “buy more U.S. goods” to balance the deficit.

So, if “canceling the trade deficit” must be accomplished, then “shipping fewer goods into the U.S.” would be the faster, more realistic way to achieve the goal. But that would risk pushing those nations toward different trading partners…

Such as China.

In our April 8 Digest, we looked at the case for Trump’s main goal with tariffs being the engineering of a flight into bonds, pushing yields lower. The purpose would be to reduce the refinancing burden on $9.2 trillion in federal debt maturing this year.

And in our April 16 Digest, we analyzed the idea that Trump’s real goal is the reshoring of domestic manufacturing as a matter of national security. As we profiled in that Digest, we’re woefully vulnerable to global manufacturers – especially China.

But stepping back, whatever the motivation, questions remain as we look forward to how this resolves…

Though Netanyahu says, “Israel can serve as a model for many countries who ought to [balance their trade deficits],” is the U.S. serving as a model for what our trading partners can expect when they give us 99.999% of our ask?

Bottom line: We’re crossing fingers that Louis is right about trade deals getting done. And it does appear that progress is being made. But at this point, we’d like to see some headlines.

We’ll keep you updated.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post When Will We See Trade Deals? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

While tariffs have been plaguing the markets lately, there was a new culprit yesterday. Namely, the battle between the White House and the Federal Reserve is heating up.

In contrast to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s cautious approach, President Trump took to Truth Social yesterday morning to warn that the economy would slow if key interest rates aren’t cut now.

Specifically, Trump said, “There can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late [Jerome Powell], a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW.”

I should mention that this isn’t the first time Trump has criticized the Fed Chair. And I’ll have more thoughts on their feud later this week in ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360.

But for now, I want to stress that we can’t let this noise distract us. Instead, our focus should be on the first-quarter earnings season.

Last week, the Big Banks kicked things off with the majority exceeding analysts’ estimates. Bank of America Corp. (BAC), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) all posted positive earnings surprises. In turn, all four initially climbed higher this week.

Now, it may be early to state that “earnings are working,” but the initial rallies following these earnings beats are a positive. Of the S&P 500 companies that have reported so far, 71% have exceeded analysts’ earnings estimates, posting an average earnings surprise of 6.1%. FactSet now anticipates that the S&P 500 will achieve at least 7.2% average earnings growth for the first quarter.

FactSet also points out that the final earnings growth rate at the end of an earnings season has exceeded the estimated growth rate at the start of the season in 37 of the past 40 quarters. And S&P 500 companies have topped analysts’ earnings estimates by an average of 6.9% in the past decade.

This Week’s Ratings Changes

The bottom line is that wave after wave of positive earnings surprises are in the offing!

Now, this week there are a handful of companies slated to report. But the two I will be watching in particular are Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and Alphabet Inc. (GOOG).

Remember, the Magnificent Seven stocks (of which TSLA and GOOG are members) have been slammed recently due to the tariffs. So, it will be interesting to see what they have to say on the subject. Wall Street will also be paying close attention to their forward-looking guidance.

The bottom line is that even though there is still a lot of volatility in the stock market, earnings season tends to add strength and boost stocks higher. So, let’s just allow earnings to take over and do their thing.

With that in mind, I took a fresh look at the latest institutional buying pressure and each company’s financial health and decided to revise my Stock Grader (subscription required) recommendations for 102 big blue chips. Of these 102 stocks…

• Nine stocks were upgraded from a Buy (B-rating) to a Strong Buy (A-rating).
• Fifteen stocks were upgraded from a Hold (C-rating) to a Buy (B-rating).
• Fourteen stocks were upgraded from a Sell (D-rating) to a Hold.
• Four stocks were upgraded from a Strong Sell (F-rating) to a Sell.
• Sixteen stocks were downgraded from a Strong Buy to a Buy.
• Twenty-seven stocks were downgraded from a Buy to a Hold.
• Fourteen stocks were downgraded from a Hold to a Sell.
• And three stocks were downgraded from a Sell to a Strong Sell.

I’ve listed the first 10 stocks rated as Buys below, but you can find a more comprehensive list – including all 102 stocks’ Fundamental and Quantitative Grades – here. Chances are that you have at least one of these stocks in your portfolio, so you may want to give this list a skim and adjust accordingly.

Earnings Aren’t the Only ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Mover

Now, earnings season isn’t the only event hitting the markets that we should be keeping an eye on right now…

The fact is, thanks to the AI Revolution, a massive wave is on the horizon – and many don’t even see it coming…

It’s so serious that I call it a financial tsunami.

That’s because I’m predicting there will be a stock market crash –  but not the kind most people expect.

You see, as far as AI has come, most regular Americans have no idea what’s on the horizon.

We’re talking about an unprecedented rate of change and disruption.

It will dramatically affect your money, the value of your home, your investments, and your ability to retire.

It will be devastating for most Americans. But it will also make a small group rich beyond their wildest dreams. 

The thing about a tsunami is, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. It can’t be stopped, no matter how hard you try.

All you can do is prepare for what’s coming.

That’s why I created a special presentation – because it’s absolutely critical to make investments in yourself, in your business, and in your portfolio to ensure that you survive and thrive the coming wave of change. 

Click here to watch my urgent warning now. 

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360

The Editor hereby discloses that as of the date of this email, the Editor, directly or indirectly, owns the following securities that are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned in, the essay set forth below:

EMCOR Group, Inc. (EME)

The post Quant Ratings Updated on 102 Stocks appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Yes, you read that right. The president has set his sights on the head of our nation’s central bank. Now the biggest threat to the market is an old-fashioned political boxing match – social-media-style. 

Welcome to Round One of the Trump vs. Powell saga. So far, the crowd isn’t loving it. 

After Trump called Powell a “major loser” on social media yesterday (more on that later), both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped more than 3% in a risk-off panic. 

This isn’t your standard economic hiccup. This is an institutional nervous breakdown – because at its core, what’s shaking the market is a simple, uncomfortable question:

Can the Fed still be trusted to stay independent?

Trump vs. Powell: How the Federal Reserve Clash Escalated

The long and short of this latest drama is that Trump wants Powell to cut interest rates… badly. 

With trade negotiations dragging and consumer prices sticky, Trump is eager to stimulate the economy ahead of 2026. Lower rates, more growth, happier voters.

But Powell isn’t biting – yet. In public remarks last week, he said the Fed is in no rush to cut rates. Why? Because of reinflation risks from Trump’s own tariffs. A trade war, after all, tends to raise prices, not lower them. Cutting rates into rising prices is a dangerous game, and the Fed knows that.

Trump’s response? A full-throttle public takedown of Powell. On social media, he’s labeled Powell “too late,” “a major loser,” and “a disaster.” Over the weekend, White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett even said Trump is looking into whether he can fire Powell outright.

As a result, the market mayhem continues.

Why Federal Reserve Independence Matters More Than Ever

The Federal Reserve is designed to be independent for a reason. It’s the foundation of U.S. economic credibility. 

We don’t want politicians printing money whenever it helps them win an election. We want the Fed to make rational, apolitical decisions about interest rates and money supply.

That’s why this feud is so upsetting to Wall Street. If Trump actually removes Powell or forces him to cut rates for political gain, it would shatter a sacred norm – and inject instability into the system. If markets can’t trust the Fed, then who can they trust?

This isn’t some theoretical fear. In fact, we’ve seen this play out before… And it didn’t end well.

Nixon vs. the Fed: A Warning Sign for Today’s ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½

The only modern precedent here is Richard Nixon’s pressure campaign on then-Fed Chair Arthur Burns in the early 1970s.

Back then, the economy was shaky, and inflation was already high. But eyeing reelection in 1972, Nixon didn’t care. He wanted the economy juiced – and fast – so he bullied Burns into cutting interest rates. Eventually, Burns gave in.

To hide the inflation that would inevitably result from those cuts, Nixon imposed price controls – locking in wages, rents, and consumer prices across the board. It worked temporarily. Inflation dipped, the economy boomed, and Nixon won reelection in a landslide.

But it was a con.

Underneath the surface, inflation was building; suppressed, but not solved. And when the Fed stopped cutting and Nixon ended the price controls, it all blew sky-high.

What followed was a decade-long economic disaster: runaway inflation, stagnant growth, surging unemployment, and collapsing stock prices. The 1970s were a painful decade, and it all started with a president strong-arming the Fed into rate cuts at the wrong time.

That’s the specter haunting investors today.

Could Trump repeat Nixon’s mistake?

Only if words turn into actions.

If Trump actually fires Powell – or installs a loyalist to cut rates rapidly and preemptively – we could absolutely end up reliving a version of the 1970s. We’d get short-term sugar highs, followed by long-term stagflation hangovers… a quick burst of growth followed by years of pain.

That’s why markets are panicking. The risk is real.

But we don’t think it’s going to happen like that.

Trump’s Pressure on Powell: Real Threat or Political Theater?

We don’t think Trump is trying to destroy the Fed’s independence. Instead, we see him trying to guarantee that Powell sticks to a path the Fed was already on: cutting rates by this summer.

Wall Street is still pricing in four rate cuts in 2025, with the first expected by June. That expectation has remained unchanged even before Trump began his barrage. 

The Fed knows that higher tariffs are slowing demand, that core inflation is easing, and that financial conditions are tightening.

In other words, the data was already pointing to rate cuts.

Trump’s tantrums, while loud and theatrical, aren’t changing the game. They’re just turning up the volume on what the Fed was going to do anyway. This is not Nixon 2.0. It’s just classic Trump – tweet now, take credit later.

How the Federal Reserve Drama Could Create Buying Opportunities

If Trump doesn’t fire Powell and the Fed does cut rates this summer – both of which we believe are highly likely – then today’s market panic is tomorrow’s buying opportunity.

This selloff, driven by fear of interference that probably won’t come to be, could give way to a massive rally once the Fed starts easing.

Lower rates mean higher valuations, more liquidity – and that growth stocks, especially high-beta tech names, can fly once again.

All that’s needed is confirmation that the rate-cut cycle is starting and that the Fed remains independent. When that happens, this wounded market could roar back to life.

In other words, now is not the time to panic.

Yes, there are real risks. If Trump goes full Nixon and tries to commandeer the Fed, markets could unravel. But there’s strong reason to believe this is mostly theater – a pressure tactic, not a power grab.

We expect that cooler heads will prevail. Powell will stay. The Fed will cut. And the market will recover.

So, be patient. Stay sharp. Look for buying opportunities amid the chaos. As the old Buffett line goes: Be greedy when others are fearful.

There’s certainly ample fear right now – which means opportunity abounds.

And AI 2.0 stocks may be the best bet. 

We’re talking AI that can respond to real-world environments; embodied intelligence that can see, hear, walk, talk, lift, carry, organize, fix, learn…

Indeed, there’s a reason why every tech titan is suddenly obsessed with humanoid robots.

That’s where we believe the next trillion-dollar investment opportunities will be found. And we’ve found a compelling way to play that next phase of the AI Boom.

Uncover the details on our favorite AI 2.0 pick.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Questions or comments about this issue? Drop us a line at langofeedback@investorplace.com.

The post Trump Takes Aim at Powell: What It Means for the Federal Reserve and Investors appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Meanwhile, gold futures have broken $3,400, setting a new all-time high.

Behind this “risk off” market action is President Donald Trump and his latest attack on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

As we noted in last Thursday’s Digest, Trump wants lower interest rates…yesterday.

Last week, Trump referred to Powell as “‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell of the Fed,” writing that “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

The attacks continued this morning with Trump calling the Fed Chair a “major loser” while again demanding lower interest rates.

But it isn’t the insults roiling the investment markets today. Rather, it is Trump’s recent saber rattling about firing Powell.

Wall Street wants stability. Trump firing the sitting Fed chair for not doing his bidding – despite the risk of reinflation – would rattle the market. As much as stocks have fallen in recent weeks, a “Powell firing” is not priced in.

Here’s Bloomberg:

The sell-America trade gathered momentum on Monday on concern President Donald Trump will act upon his threat of firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and implement policies that lead to a recession.

The dollar, US stock futures and Treasuries slid, pushing the yield on 30-year bonds higher by as much as 10 basis points in thinner-than-normal, post-holiday trading.

Investors are grappling with the risk of Powell’s dismissal, which the White House said last week it was assessing, and the implications of his policies on the world’s largest economy.

So, how will all this play out?

Today, let’s evaluate two different market forecasts. One bullish, one bearish.

After all, the more angles you have, the better prepared you’ll be.

I reached out to master trader Jeff Clark, editor of Jeff Clark Trader, to ask if the surging market had changed his bearish forecast.

Prior to that historic rally, Jeff had told his subscribers:

Ultimately, I think where we’re headed, if this is truly a bear market as I think it is, is the same level as late-2023 when we were somewhere around the 4,150 level or 4,100 level (for the S&P).

The real opportunity to buy I think is probably going to wind up sometime in October, November.

We can trade between now and then, but…like oftentimes happens, you get that final washout in October or November, and that’ll give us a really good opportunity to jump in and put some capital to work at super depressed prices.

Jeff told me the tariff-pause rally has not changed his opinion.

He was sticking by his forecast for a relief rally that, ultimately, would fizzle and turn into a new leg lower.

Since then, the S&P jumped to roughly 5,453 but then ran out of steam. It fell back to 5,275, successfully holding that support level twice. But as you can see below, as I write Monday, we’ve fallen through that level to 5,138.

So, where do we go from here?

Medium-term, Jeff believes we’re headed lower. But in the short-term, the level to watch is 5,200.

Rather, he expected the relief rally that began two Wednesdays ago would have more room to run.

That still may be the case. But before we get to what’s changed, let’s map out that original scenario.

Let’s go to Jeff’s Morning Update from last Thursday:

Stocks are likely headed higher in the short term.

Conditions are oversold enough to justify a rally towards the upper end of our 5,400-5,500 target zone.

In fact, I can make a case for higher levels if the rally happens fast enough. But I don’t think we have any chance of getting above the 50- and 200-day moving averages near 5,750.

The closer the S&P gets to 5,750 the better the odds for adding short exposure.

Ultimately, the index will need to retest the 4,835 low, and more likely, break below that level.

For the next few days, I am leaning bullish. But, with one eye glued to the exit sign.

To better contextualize Jeff’s predictions, a rally to 5,750 would mean we’re in for another 12% climb based on where the S&P trades as I write Monday.

Assuming that happens, the subsequent fall to 4,835 (and potentially, beyond) would mean a 16% drop.

But Jeff’s update this morning puts the key level of 5,200 into the spotlight. Where we close today has the potential to change Jeff’s short-term outlook:

As long as 5,200 holds, on a closing basis, I favor an upside move over the next few days.

If the S&P closes below 5,200, then the odds favor a retest of at least the 5,000 level, and possibly an immediate retest of the recent low at 4,835.

I am leaning mildly bullish for the week. That will change if the S&P closes below 5,200.

For now, though, sentiment is so poor, and the daily technical indicators are starting to turn bullish. So, I tend to think we’re due for a quick pop higher before we get a retest of the recent lows.

So, all eyes on whether the S&P closes above or below 5,200 today.

Regardless of which way the S&P moves in the short term, let’s revisit Jeff’s overall forecast.

As noted earlier, 4,150 or 4,100 is Jeff’s predicted bear-market low. That would mean a 29% fall from where he thinks a relief rally could top out (5,750).

Here’s Jeff:

If you’re holding stocks long all the way through that, that could spell a little bit of trouble.

But if you take advantage of opportunities where you get deeply oversold conditions, where you can get into a good bounce – play that bounce.

But be quick to take your profits off the table and then allow the market to come back down again and give you another opportunity…

Bottom line is, I think there’s going to be an awful lot of opportunity to trade.

To dive into exactly how Jeff plans on trading a bear market, you can revisit our April 11, 2025, Digest here.

Ready for the S&P to be 15% higher and looking bullish by late summer?

According to Luke, that’s possible, but it all hinges on two big developments:

• Rate cuts from the Federal Reserve
• Trade war de-escalation

Luke believes each is coming.

Beginning with the Fed and rate cuts, Luke’s analysis from late last week starts with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his ostensible nonchalance about today’s deteriorating economic conditions.

As we profiled in the Digest, this drew the wrath of President Trump (which is continuing this morning). The day after Powell’s speech, Trump took to Truth Social, writing “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

Here’s Luke’s take on Powell and this slow play:

Don’t panic just yet. More importantly, don’t listen to the words; watch the feet.

Powell may have said “no cuts for now,” but the evolving reality on the ground says something very different…

In fact, we believe the Fed is on the brink of launching a full-blown rescue mission for the U.S. economy – and it could send stocks soaring.

To make the case for this rescue, Luke points toward Bloomberg’s U.S. Financial Conditions Index – a catch-all measure of credit spreads, equity levels, and money supply.

Today, it’s showing that outside of 2020’s COVID crash, financial conditions are tighter than they’ve been at any time in the past decade.

At the same time…

• Consumer confidence is near a 50-year low
• Retail sales are slowing
• Business investment has stalled
• The housing market is frozen solid
• And yet bond yields have been spiking

Here’s Luke:

This is not a good cocktail.

It practically screams for Fed action. And we believe Powell is quietly preparing for that – regardless of what he’s saying in public…

So, when does the cavalry arrive?

We think it’s coming in June.

That’s when the data will likely have piled up just enough to give Powell and his colleagues the political and academic cover to start cutting.

That doesn’t mean we need to wait until June for optimism to begin. Luke expects strong forward guidance to come out of the Fed’s May meeting (about two weeks away). If so, that’s going to begin to move stocks higher.

The other half is improvement on the global trade war.

And here, Luke is optimistic, reporting that the conflict is dissipating:

Since the U.S. launched its “Liberation Day” tariffs in early April, we’ve actually seen tariff rates fall, not rise.

The average U.S. tariff rate spiked from 2.5% to 27% on April 2. But with the 90-day pause and electronics exemptions, that number has already fallen to about 23%.

If rumored auto parts exemptions come to fruition, we’ll drop to ~20%. And if steel/aluminum or China deals are locked in, we’ll slide closer to 10%.

That’s a pretty sharp reversal.

Luke is clear that the rhetoric from Washington remains aggressive. But as with the Fed, actions speak louder than words. And today, the actions suggest de-escalation.

Putting it altogether, we’re still in for volatility over the coming days. But the Federal Reserve’s next FOMC meeting concludes in just two weeks on Wednesday, May 7. If Luke is right above dovish signaling from Powell, Wall Street will begin repositioning immediately.

Then, if we get positive headlines on trade deals and the lowering of tariffs, that’ll continue to fuel a rally.

Next up, throw in a potential rate cut in June, and Luke believes…

The stock market could rip higher.

We wouldn’t be surprised to see the S&P 500 up 10% to 15% from current levels by late summer.

So, while others panic, we’re getting ready to pounce.

First, you don’t try.

InvestorPlace and our corporate partner TradeSmith are independent publishers, and we believe it’s a strength to bring you the unfiltered market perspectives of our veteran analysts.

As American entrepreneur and author Jim Rohn once said:

Always be willing to look at both sides of the argument.

Understanding the other side is the best way to strengthen your own.

But I’ll note that during volatile markets, your odds of making profitable market decisions increase if you limit how far ahead that you’re looking.

And that brings us to TradeSmith’s breakthrough AI algorithm – calledAn-E.

As we detailed in the Digest last week, “An-E” (short for Analytical Engine), forecasts the share price of thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs one month into the future along with the conviction level of that prediction. It’s equally applicable in both bull and bear markets.

Built in-house using machine learning models trained on over 1.3 quadrillion data points and 50,000+ backtests, this quantitative trading platform can help you better time and target your trade entries/exits within a 30-day price projection.

If you missed last week’s presentation from Keith Kaplan, TradeSmith’s CEO, you can catch a free replay here.

Whether you lean more bearish like Jeff, or more bullish like Luke, An-E can help you focus on what the data suggests is on the way – which can make all the difference in your shorter-term market positioning.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Trump’s Fed Battle: Will Stocks Crash or Rally? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Now, the European Central Bank (ECB) cut key interest rates for the seventh time recently, and there is mounting pressure on the Fed to follow suit and cut as well. I’ve been on the record saying that as global interest rates collapse, the Fed will cut rates as well.

Although Wall Street is distracted by the tariff and politics noise, we need to stay focused on what’s most important right now: the first-quarter earnings season. There are a few big earnings announcements this week, and I go over my thoughts on them in today’s ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Buzz video. I also answer questions ranging from economic data and Fed policy to the global tech landscape.

Click the image below to watch now!

Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel here! My new book, The Sacred Truths of Investing, is out now, and you can buy it here.

The Incoming Financial Wave You Should Prepare For

If the recent market volatility has you feeling uneasy, you’re not alone. But as a savvy investor, uncertainty can bring opportunity if you know where to look.

Right now, there is a huge financial tidal wave set to hit our shores, the biggest that I’ve ever seen. And it has nothing to do with tariffs.

It could very well change our normal way of life: our money, the value of our homes, the ability to retire, etc.

Now I don’t mean to scare you, but it’s my goal to make sure that you are prepared for what’s to come so you can withstand it.

That’s why I created this presentation. I’ll explain everything you need to know and the best way to overcome this huge wave. You don’t want to miss it.

Click here to learn more.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360

P.S. With all this market noise, wouldn’t you like to have the same edge as Wall Street’s most powerful investors? What if you could use the power of AI to forecast where stocks will go in the next 21 trading days? Our corporate partner, TradeSmith, has figured it out and is backed by over 50,000 backtests and a confidence gauge so you can feel good about its predictions!

This presentation will be taken down on Wednesday night, so you don’t have much time left to watch it. Click here to learn how AI forecasting can give you a powerful advantage.

The post Recession Fears and Earnings Hype – What Wall Street’s Watching appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Today, the White House hosted its annual Easter Egg Roll, the first one of President Donald Trump’s second administration. Four thousand people gathered on the South Lawn for nearly as many eggs…. but not the plastic, candy-filled kind.

Instead, around 30,000 real eggs decorated the South Lawn, despite the high cost of the food item.

In March, the price of a dozen eggs reached a record-high of $6.23. And according to the latest consumer price index (CPI) on April 10, the price of eggs is up 5.9% from a month ago and 60.4% from this time last year.

Despite this data, Trump posted on social media this morning that food costs – including that of eggs – are “trending so nicely downward.” He made the same claim last week, too, posting that “groceries (even eggs!) are down.”

The truth is that grocery prices have continued to rise under Trump, and will likely continue to rise due to the president’s sweeping tariffs.

This reminds me of what then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld infamously remarked during the Iraq War in 2004: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

Likewise, we investors must engage with economic and stock market conditions as they actually are, not as we, or Trump, might wish them to be (the price of eggs included).

Today, for example, we might wish that the three major U.S. stock market indexes didn’t open in the red. But that’s not the stock market we have.

On the economic front, we might wish that we had never even heard of the word “tariff,” or that a trade war was not still underway. We might also wish that inflation expectations were tumbling and that consumer sentiment was not.

But that’s not the economy we have.

Therefore, as often happens, we investors must take the good with the bad, while trying to identify the stocks that offer the best risk-reward potential.

Often, those kinds of stocks live in the stock market’s shadows, where they attract little attention. You’ll never find a high-flier or stock market “darling” in those shadows, but you might find the next high-flier sitting there.

Companies in the shadows tend to carry below-average valuations, even when they possess above-average growth prospects. Discounted prices provide excellent entry points, all else being equal. Additionally, a low valuation can provide at least some protection against the kind of stock market trauma we’ve been enduring recently.

In fact, I shared a lowly valued, “unpopular” tech stock here with you last week. It’s a name that I’ve recommend in my Fry’s Investment Report service… and one that I’m not abandoning just yet.

In case you missed it, you can read that Smart Money below, and check out what else we covered here this past week…

Smart Money Roundup

Nvidia Moves to Manufacture in the U.S. – This Overlooked Company Is Already Doing It

Despite Nvidia Corp.’s (NVDA) AI market dominance, its sky-high valuation calls for caution. Investors may be excited about the company’s $500 billion U.S. manufacturing announcement, but in Wednesday’s issue, I explain how its “American-made” plans aren’t quite what the headlines suggest. Keep reading to discover a U.S. tech company that deserves your attention instead.

What Kind of Easter Egg Hunt Are You In?

In Part 1 of Senior ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Analyst Brian Hunt’s essay, he shares Netflix Inc.’s (NFLX) journey from Blockbuster’s $50 million rejection to becoming a $129 billion streaming powerhouse. This fits with Hunt’s Easter egg hunt analogy for stock picking: A $5,000 Netflix investment in 2002 would’ve yielded $2.87 million by choosing the right hunting ground.

What the Easter Egg Hunt and the Stock ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Have in Common

In Part 2 of Brian Hunt’s Easter egg hunt series, he poses the question: Would you prefer hunting Easter eggs in a park with 1,000 people or just 10 others? This applies to the stock market as well. In this issue, Hunt suggests that investors find greater success in less crowded, overlooked areas in the market.

Looking Ahead

This week, I’ll continue to dive deeper into big-picture trends that continue to shape my investment outlook… especially amid the recent market volatility and uncertainty.

Of course, AI continues to be a megatrend that I’ll be closely following.

It is one of the biggest investment stories of the moment, perhaps even of our lifetimes. That’s why I was intrigued when I learned that our corporate partners over at TradeSmith have released an AI algorithm that can forecast prices one month into the future.

Imagine having access to the same kind of AI-powered predictive capabilities previously available only to elite Wall Street firms. I can’t think of a more valuable tool to have in a chaotic market like this…

That’s why TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan hosted The AI Predictive Power Event last week – so that regular investors can profit during the chaos… instead of fearing it.

Click here to watch the replay now.

Regards,

Eric Fry

The post Investing in the ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s We Have… Not the Ones We Want appeared first on InvestorPlace.

This Week’s Ratings Changes:

Upgraded: Buy to Strong Buy

Downgraded: Strong Buy to Buy

Upgraded: Hold to Buy

Downgraded: Buy to Hold

Upgraded: Sell to Hold

Downgraded: Hold to Sell

Upgraded: Strong Sell to Sell

Downgraded: Sell to Strong Sell

To stay on top of my latest stock ratings, plug your holdings into Stock Grader, my proprietary stock screening tool. But, you must be a subscriber to one of my premium services. Or, if you are a member of one of my premium services, you can go here to get started.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360

The post Weekly Stock Grader Analysis: Upgrades & Downgrades on Top Blue-Chip Stocks appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Last week, I revealed five stocks from Luke’s quantitative model. These high-quality firms were all counter-cyclical, so they typically hold their value during falling markets. 

Since then, these companies have performed well. The five stocks have traded flat on average, despite crushing selloffs elsewhere. Shares of Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) plummeted 10% on Wednesday alone. 

But what about investors seeking a bit more cyclical risk? 

There are some difficulties with this approach. Decades of research show that stocks generally keep moving in a single direction, so rising stocks keep going up, and falling ones keep going down. 

Some call contrarian investing like catching a falling knife; in my experience, it’s more like catching a falling piano. 

Emotions also get in the way. It takes nerves of steel to buy stocks when they’ve fallen by 20% or more… and it’s tempting to cut losses whenever shares drop even further. 

That’s why “buy the dip” strategies are hard to get right. My worst-performing “buy the dip” stocks from last fall, Oscar Health Inc. (OSCR), saw shares plummet 20% in the month after my recommendation. I’m not exactly proud of that. 

Still, getting things right can yield phenomenal results. My same group of “buy the dip” recommendations included enough gems like these to flip overall performance solidly positive. 

• Informatica Inc. (INFA): +5% 
• Seagate Technology Holdings plc (STX): +10% 
• Meta Platforms Inc. (META): +20% 

Now, our corporate partner TradeSmith believes they’ve found a way to help longer-term investors find attractive entry points into great long-term stocks. They’ve taken some of Wall Street’s brightest and built an AI system using over 1.3 quadrillion data points. 

The result is An-E (short for Analytical Engine), the top AI-powered algorithm from TradeSmith. The system is based on a short, 30-day holding period that reacts almost instantaneously to the news. That allows investors to compound gains over time. 

At Wednesday’s AI Predictive Power Event, TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan demonstrated how to get your own forecasts and use An-E’s confidence gauge to stack the odds in your favor. He even shared a few of An-E’s latest predictions. (You can watch a replay of the event here.) 

In the meantime, I’ve been given permission to share five picks from An-E as well. These are fundamentally sound stocks I’ve been watching for a long while now… and An-E is giving the green light to buy. Let’s jump in. 

Three Tech Stocks to Buy 

It’s been a surprisingly rough year for high-quality tech stocks. Many firms have sold off in lockstep with the “Magnificent Seven” companies, despite lacking the sky-high valuations of their larger counterparts. Others are simply falling because of investor fear.  

That’s creating a rich vein of companies to buy the dip… provided you can get the timing right. 

Timing is often challenging for fundamentals-focused investors. I can draw up discounted cash flow (DCF) statements, showing how companies are undervalued relative to their immense future profits. But I can’t tell you whether investor sentiment will flip positive on these firms in the next month. 

Here’s where TradeSmith’s An-E system comes in. By examining short-term moves and knowing where the “smart money” is putting their chips, the AI system can determine the right moments to jump back in. 

Salesforce Inc. (CRM). This blue-chip software firm has lost 20% of its value this year. Shares of Salesforce now trade at 22X forward earnings; each time it’s done that in the past five years, shares have jumped an average of 33% over the following three months. 

The San Francisco-based firm is a wide-moat firm with both blue-chip and growth-like aspects. It’s Sales Cloud and Service Cloud are the gold standard in selling and servicing, and their mission-critical nature makes companies less likely to switch away. Customer retention rates are a strong 92%, and net margins typically sit in the mid-20% range. 

In addition, Salesforce has been quickly expanding in Data Cloud and AI revenues, which grew 120% in its most recent quarter to $900 million in annual recurring revenue. Management is forecasting a 9% overall sales growth rate in calendar 2025 as a result. 

Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM). This is a legacy content distribution network (CDN) firm that’s found a new life as a cybersecurity company. Shares currently trade at a stunningly low 12X forward earnings, despite analysts projecting 25% growth in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). 

Much of its growth in cybersecurity is thanks to Akamai’s legacy CDN business, which handles roughly a quarter of the world’s internet traffic. This allows Akamai to “see” an enormous portion of the internet and stop cyberattacks before many even start. Security services now generate half of the company’s revenues. 

The other growth comes from acquisitions in the cloud computing space. These efforts accelerated in 2022 with the purchase of Linode, a developer-friendly cloud infrastructure business. Cloud computing now generates around 20% of revenues. 

Perhaps most interestingly, Akamai now trades so cheaply that it’s become a compelling takeover target. Its $13 billion enterprise value would be easily absorbed by larger firms, and its CDN know-how will allow potential buyers like Fortinet Inc. (FTNT) and CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (CRWD) to better compete against Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN). 

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD). Finally, An-E suggests it’s time to jump into AMD, the keenest rival to Nvidia. 

AMD is one of the best-managed companies in the world. Its CEO, Lisa Su, executed such a notable turnaround that landed her the winner of 2024’s CEO of the Year Award. AMD Zen architecture performs well against Intel Corp.’s (INTC) versions, and its consumer-facing graphics processing units (GPUs) now rival Nvidia’s in speed. AMD has also succeeded in creating a crossover between GPUs and central processing units (CPUs) thanks to its 2022 acquisition of Xilinx.  

The trade war between the U.S. and China has recently depressed AMD underlying value. The company expects to take a $800 million loss on export restrictions on MI308 AI chips, and AI-related revenues from China will likely head to zero in the near term. That cuts the company’s fair value closer to $125 per share. 

However, the 42% selloff over the past 12 months is far too steep. AMD now trades at a wide discount to its fair value, and An-E is flagging it as a good buy. 

Revisiting Two Old Picks 

Last year, I named 10 stocks to my top “Buy” list for 2025. Many have done well, including defensive plays like Dollar General Corp. (DG), up 20%, and Realty Income Corp. (O), up 9%. I called these firms “Dividend Kings” for their strong cash flows and consistent payouts. 

But two of my top picks have been blindsided by the new administration. 

• Moderna Inc. (MRNA). The cancer vaccine developer has seen shares plummet 40% on fears that Health and Human Services leader Robert Kennedy Jr. would dismantle America’s vaccine programs. 
• Celanese Corp. (CE). A 25% tariff on U.S. auto imports has triggered fears of a national slowdown in auto sales, impacting firms like Celanese that make the chemicals needed for production. Shares of CE are down 42% 

Both firms were cheap… and now they’re even cheaper. Moderna has an enterprise value of just $3.1 billion – a third of what most late-stage blockbuster drugs are acquired for. It’s still on track to release findings of a promising cancer vaccine later this year. 

Meanwhile, Celanese trades at 0.8X book value, its lowest point on record. That’s despite the chemical company having some of the best economics in its class because of its access to cheap natural gas. Even this strength has become no match for the recent selloff. 

Fortunately, the pair now have at least 100% upside in the medium term, and 200% in the longer run. Though I admittedly mistimed my initial purchase, An-E is now seeing a far better entry point in today’s price action. 

Timing the ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ with AI 

The wonderful thing about investing with An-E is that you can easily go back in time and see how the hundreds of predictions have fared. 

And An-E has proved its worth. 

Over the past month, the system has provided recommendations including: 

• Duolingo Inc. (DUOL): +10% 
• Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (WBA): +9% 
• Aaon Inc. (AAON): +8% 

I’m not cherry-picking numbers either. The system typically has a 60% to 70% “hit rate” on its target predictions. 

On Wednesday, TradeSmith held an emergency briefing called The AI Predictive Power Event, where they covered exactly how this tech works. 

And for a limited time, they’re offering a chance to rewatch the event. Whether you’re playing offense by targeting winners or defense by avoiding losers, An-E gives you the clarity you need when it matters most.

Click here to sign up to watch a limited-time replay of The AI Predictive Power Event now and learn how to make every trade a “high conviction trade.”

Until next week,  

Tom Yeung  

ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Analyst, InvestorPlace  

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

The post 5 Stocks to Buy the Dip, According to AI  appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Now, in part two today, Hunt compares a quiet, small egg hunt to one with hundreds of people. If you had your pick, I’d be willing to bet you would go for the smaller egg hunt, where you are more likely to be successful.

As Brian explains, this same dynamic is at work in the stock market every day… I’ll let Brian take it from here…

Picture this…

It’s Easter and you’re ready for the neighborhood Easter egg hunt.

Over 100 eggs have been hidden in a small local park. Each egg has a treat inside it. You’re told that one special egg even has a cash prize in it.

If you’re in this hunt, which of the two following scenarios would you rather be in?

If you’re like most reasonable people, you picked B.

You’d rather have this:

Than this:

You’d rather have just 10 people in competition with you… instead of 1,000 other people picking over the park like a swarm of locusts.

What does this have to do with investing?

Well, this same dynamic is at work in the stock market every day.

The financial markets are where millions of people go to pick through opportunities in stocks, commodities, currencies, options, bonds, and real estate.

In this big market, everyone is looking to buy assets for less than what they are worth and looking to sell assets for more than what they are worth.

Essentially, everyone is trying to outsmart everyone else.

Everyone is looking for eggs.

The financial markets price most assets correctly most of the time.

However, it’s not a perfect system. Windows of opportunity – where you can buy assets for less than what they are worth or sell assets for more than what they are worth – appear from time to time.

In the investing world, these windows are called “market inefficiencies.”

These are the opportunities that can make us big money.

However, the more people that are studying, monitoring, and picking over a market and its opportunities, the more competition you have in that market… and the less likely you’ll be able to find market inefficiencies.

The more people picking over a market, the smaller its pricing inefficiencies will be and the shorter its windows of opportunities will be open.

In the financial markets, the biggest competitors are “institutional investors.”

Institutional investors are the elephants of the financial markets. This group includes mutual funds, pension funds, large hedge funds, and insurance funds. It also includes sovereign wealth funds, which manage the savings of entire nations.

A single large institutional investor can manage over $10 billion in assets.

So, even a wealthy individual with $5 million in assets is a mouse compared to this elephant (in this case, the elephant is 2,000 times larger).

Some institutional investors manage much more than $10 billion.

The sovereign wealth fund of Norway – which has been fattened by oil revenue for years – was worth more than $1 trillion in 2017.

This is 100 times bigger than the large institution with $10 billion to invest.

The large institutional investors of the world have ridiculously giant amounts of money to invest in stocks, bonds, and other assets.

These large institutional investors typically employ armies of analysts who spend hundreds of thousands of hours every year scouring the world for opportunities.

These analysts perform a lot of old fashioned “financial detective” work by visiting public companies and interviewing industry experts.

They also use the world’s most advanced computer algorithms and “Big Data” analytical programs to comb through market data.

The programs run 24 hours a day, seven days a week… sifting all of the world’s financial data a thousand different ways at warp speed… hunting for pricing inefficiencies, small and large.

Picture those Easter egg hunts again… and realize that the stock market is a brutally competitive Easter egg hunt.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is the financial market is a big, diverse place.

And there are Easter egg hunts the big guys can’t participate in.

The Problem of Size

In the investment world, professional investors obsess over “liquidity.”

When it comes to buying and selling investments, liquidity is a measure of how easy or difficult it is to transact in a security.

For example, take Amazon stock. Because Amazon is one of the world’s largest companies (worth over $983 billion in 2022), and since many people like to buy and sell its stock, we can say Amazon stock is “very liquid” or “has huge liquidity.”

There is a large market for Amazon stock where buyers and sellers execute many sales each day. In 2022, it was common to see over 70 million shares of Amazon change hands in a day.

On the other side of the spectrum, take an unknown small-cap firm with a market cap of just $50 million (less than one-tenth of one percent of Amazon).

Because this company is tiny by stock market standards, and since most people have never heard of it, the company’s stock will not have much liquidity.

Remember, market cap is simply the number of outstanding shares times the share price. That means with small-cap stocks, there simply aren’t all that many shares out in the market (compared to, say, Amazon, which we just talked about). This makes it harder for someone to buy up a huge amount of those shares – there may not be all that many sellers.

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Let’s say you manage a $10 billion stock portfolio.

For a stock position to make a meaningful positive impact on your fund’s results, you need it to represent at least 3% of your fund’s assets.

Most good managers would rather put 4% to 8% of their fund into a stock idea they believe is truly great.

If you’re looking to put 3% of $10 billion to work in a great idea, that means you are looking to place $300 million.

That is six times more money than a $50 million small-cap.

Even if you wanted to put just 1% of your fund into a stock, that is $100 million.

You get the idea.

Big money managers can’t join in the small-cap stock Easter egg hunt.

They also can’t “play” in other small markets with limited liquidity, like many options markets, smaller investment funds (like closed end funds and ETFs), individual bonds, small-cap foreign stocks, and penny stocks.

When you “play” in small markets with modest liquidity, you don’t take on the world’s richest, most powerful institutions armed with armies of topflight analysts and the world’s best computers.

Instead of competing against thousands of other Easter egg hunters, you compete against modest amounts of them.

Think of it like you would buying a house. You want to be a buyer in an area with just a few other buyers… instead of being a buyer in a town where lines form down the block after homes go on sale. When you’re a buyer, you don’t want loads of competition.

I can’t resist rolling out one more analogy to get you on board:

Think of it like fishing. You don’t want to fish in the same spot as 1,000 other anglers. You’d rather have a quiet stream and its fish all to yourself.

Successful investing and trading is all about tilting the odds in your favor.

The more you can get this advantage, the more successful you will be.

Hunting in smaller, less liquid markets – like the small-cap market – is one of the best ways to do that.

Regards,

Brian Hunt

InvestorPlace Senior ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Analyst

P.S. Eric Fry, here.

As you may know, I’ve been following the AI megatrend for a long time now.

That’s why I was intrigued when I learned that our corporate partners at TradeSmith released an AI algorithm that can forecast prices one month into the future.

Imagine having access to the same kind of AI-powered predictive capabilities previously available only to elite Wall Street firms. I can’t think of a more valuable tool to have in a chaotic market like this…

That’s why TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan hosted The AI Predictive Power Event earlier this week – so that regular investors can profit during the chaos… instead of fearing it.

If you didn’t get a chance to attend, click here to start watching the replay now.

The post What the Easter Egg Hunt and the Stock ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Have in Common appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Today, in Part II, Brian reveals the real reason the world’s wealthiest investors can’t touch these hidden gems – and how that gives you an almost unfair advantage.

You’ll discover why institutional giants are forced to ignore the very places where the biggest growth lives, and how their absence opens a far less crowded, far more lucrative Easter egg hunt for savvy individual investors.

If you want the edge in today’s hyper-competitive market, this is a must-read.

I’ll let Brian take it from here in Part II of “What Kind of Easter Egg Hunt Are You In?

Have a wonderful Easter Weekend,

Jeff Remsburg

The Problem of Size

In the investment world, professional investors obsess over “liquidity.”

When it comes to buying and selling investments, liquidity is a measure of how easy or difficult it is to transact in a security.

For example, take Amazon stock. Because Amazon is one of the world’s largest companies (worth over $983 billion in 2022), and since many people like to buy and sell its stock, we can say Amazon stock is “very liquid” or “has huge liquidity.”

There is a large market for Amazon stock where buyers and sellers execute many sales each day. In 2022, it was common to see over 70 million shares of Amazon change hands in a day.

On the other side of the spectrum, take an unknown small-cap firm with a market cap of just $50 million (less than one-tenth of one percent of Amazon).

Because this company is tiny by stock market standards, and since most people have never heard of it, the company’s stock will not have much liquidity.

Remember, market cap is simply the number of outstanding shares times the share price. That means with small-cap stocks, there simply aren’t all that many shares out in the market (compared to, say, Amazon, which we just talked about). This makes it harder for someone to buy up a huge amount of those shares – there may not be all that many sellers.

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Let’s say you manage a $10 billion stock portfolio.

For a stock position to make a meaningful positive impact on your fund’s results, you need it to represent at least 3% of your fund’s assets.

Most good managers would rather put 4% to 8% of their fund into a stock idea they believe is truly great.

If you’re looking to put 3% of $10 billion to work in a great idea, that means you are looking to place $300 million.

That is six times more money than a $50 million small-cap.

Even if you wanted to put just 1% of your fund into a stock, that is $100 million.

You get the idea.

Big money managers can’t join in the small-cap stock Easter egg hunt.

They also can’t “play” in other small markets with limited liquidity, like many options markets, smaller investment funds (like closed end funds and ETFs), individual bonds, small-cap foreign stocks, and penny stocks.

When you “play” in small markets with modest liquidity, you don’t take on the world’s richest, most powerful institutions armed with armies of topflight analysts and the world’s best computers.

Instead of competing against thousands of other Easter egg hunters, you compete against modest amounts of them.

Think of it like you would buying a house. You want to be a buyer in an area with just a few other buyers… instead of being a buyer in a town where lines form down the block after homes go on sale. When you’re a buyer, you don’t want loads of competition.

I can’t resist rolling out one more analogy to get you on board:

Think of it like fishing. You don’t want to fish in the same spot as 1,000 other anglers. You’d rather have a quiet stream and its fish all to yourself.

Successful investing and trading is all about tilting the odds in your favor.

The more you can get this advantage, the more successful you will be.

Hunting in smaller, less liquid markets – like the small-cap market – is one of the best ways to do that.

Regards,

Brian Hunt
Senior Analyst, InvestorPlace

P.S. – Here’s how to find the best small-caps poised for one-month gains

As you may know, we’ve been following the AI megatrend for a long time now.

That’s why I was intrigued when I learned that our corporate partners at TradeSmith released an AI algorithm that can forecast prices one month into the future.

Imagine having access to the same kind of AI-powered predictive capabilities previously available only to elite Wall Street firms. I can’t think of a more valuable tool to have in a chaotic market like this…

That’s why TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan hosted The AI Predictive Power Event earlier this week – so that regular investors can profit during the chaos… instead of fearing it.

If you didn’t get a chance to attend, click here to start watching the replay now.

The post “What Kind of Easter Egg Hunt Are You In?” Part II appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Now, in part two today, Hunt compares a quiet, small egg hunt to one with hundreds of people. If you had your pick, I’d be willing to bet you would go for the smaller egg hunt, where you are more likely to be successful.

As Brian explains, this same dynamic is at work in the stock market every day… I’ll let Brian take it from here…

****

Picture this…

It’s Easter and you’re ready for the neighborhood Easter egg hunt.

Over 100 eggs have been hidden in a small local park. Each egg has a treat inside it. You’re told that one special egg even has a cash prize in it.

If you’re in this hunt, which of the two following scenarios would you rather be in?

If you’re like most reasonable people, you picked B.

You’d rather have this:

Than this:

You’d rather have just 10 people in competition with you… instead of 1,000 other people picking over the park like a swarm of locusts.

What does this have to do with investing?

Well, this same dynamic is at work in the stock market every day.

The financial markets are where millions of people go to pick through opportunities in stocks, commodities, currencies, options, bonds, and real estate.

In this big market, everyone is looking to buy assets for less than what they are worth and looking to sell assets for more than what they are worth.

Essentially, everyone is trying to outsmart everyone else.

Everyone is looking for eggs.

The financial markets price most assets correctly most of the time.

However, it’s not a perfect system. Windows of opportunity – where you can buy assets for less than what they are worth or sell assets for more than what they are worth – appear from time to time.

In the investing world, these windows are called “market inefficiencies.”

These are the opportunities that can make us big money.

However, the more people that are studying, monitoring, and picking over a market and its opportunities, the more competition you have in that market… and the less likely you’ll be able to find market inefficiencies.

The more people picking over a market, the smaller its pricing inefficiencies will be and the shorter its windows of opportunities will be open.

In the financial markets, the biggest competitors are “institutional investors.”

Institutional investors are the elephants of the financial markets. This group includes mutual funds, pension funds, large hedge funds, and insurance funds. It also includes sovereign wealth funds, which manage the savings of entire nations.

A single large institutional investor can manage over $10 billion in assets.

So, even a wealthy individual with $5 million in assets is a mouse compared to this elephant (in this case, the elephant is 2,000 times larger).

Some institutional investors manage much more than $10 billion.

The sovereign wealth fund of Norway – which has been fattened by oil revenue for years – was worth more than $1 trillion in 2017.

This is 100 times bigger than the large institution with $10 billion to invest.

The large institutional investors of the world have ridiculously giant amounts of money to invest in stocks, bonds, and other assets.

These large institutional investors typically employ armies of analysts who spend hundreds of thousands of hours every year scouring the world for opportunities.

These analysts perform a lot of old fashioned “financial detective” work by visiting public companies and interviewing industry experts.

They also use the world’s most advanced computer algorithms and “Big Data” analytical programs to comb through market data.

The programs run 24 hours a day, seven days a week… sifting all of the world’s financial data a thousand different ways at warp speed… hunting for pricing inefficiencies, small and large.

Picture those Easter egg hunts again… and realize that the stock market is a brutally competitive Easter egg hunt.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is the financial market is a big, diverse place.

And there are Easter egg hunts the big guys can’t participate in.

The Problem of Size

In the investment world, professional investors obsess over “liquidity.”

When it comes to buying and selling investments, liquidity is a measure of how easy or difficult it is to transact in a security.

For example, take Amazon stock. Because Amazon is one of the world’s largest companies (worth over $983 billion in 2022), and since many people like to buy and sell its stock, we can say Amazon stock is “very liquid” or “has huge liquidity.”

There is a large market for Amazon stock where buyers and sellers execute many sales each day. In 2022, it was common to see over 70 million shares of Amazon change hands in a day.

On the other side of the spectrum, take an unknown small-cap firm with a market cap of just $50 million (less than one-tenth of one percent of Amazon).

Because this company is tiny by stock market standards, and since most people have never heard of it, the company’s stock will not have much liquidity.

Remember, market cap is simply the number of outstanding shares times the share price. That means with small-cap stocks, there simply aren’t all that many shares out in the market (compared to, say, Amazon, which we just talked about). This makes it harder for someone to buy up a huge amount of those shares – there may not be all that many sellers.

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Let’s say you manage a $10 billion stock portfolio.

For a stock position to make a meaningful positive impact on your fund’s results, you need it to represent at least 3% of your fund’s assets.

Most good managers would rather put 4% to 8% of their fund into a stock idea they believe is truly great.

If you’re looking to put 3% of $10 billion to work in a great idea, that means you are looking to place $300 million.

That is six times more money than a $50 million small-cap.

Even if you wanted to put just 1% of your fund into a stock, that is $100 million.

You get the idea.

Big money managers can’t join in the small-cap stock Easter egg hunt.

They also can’t “play” in other small markets with limited liquidity, like many options markets, smaller investment funds (like closed end funds and ETFs), individual bonds, small-cap foreign stocks, and penny stocks.

When you “play” in small markets with modest liquidity, you don’t take on the world’s richest, most powerful institutions armed with armies of topflight analysts and the world’s best computers.

Instead of competing against thousands of other Easter egg hunters, you compete against modest amounts of them.

Think of it like you would buying a house. You want to be a buyer in an area with just a few other buyers… instead of being a buyer in a town where lines form down the block after homes go on sale. When you’re a buyer, you don’t want loads of competition.

I can’t resist rolling out one more analogy to get you on board:

Think of it like fishing. You don’t want to fish in the same spot as 1,000 other anglers. You’d rather have a quiet stream and its fish all to yourself.

Successful investing and trading is all about tilting the odds in your favor.

The more you can get this advantage, the more successful you will be.

Hunting in smaller, less liquid markets – like the small-cap market – is one of the best ways to do that.

Regards,

Brian Hunt

InvestorPlace Senior ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Analyst

P.S. It’s Louis again.

For years, investors have been trying to forecast future stock prices. And our corporate partners at TradeSmith seem to have finally cracked the case.

Using advanced AI and machine learning, they created a tool that is already revolutionizing the financial industry… and helping many Americans survive and thrive.

Click here for more details.

The post The Story of the Easter Egg Hunt appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Imagine turning $5,000 into $2.87 million – and that’s not a typo…

The early days of Netflix offer a gripping glimpse into what happens when the world laughs off a visionary idea. But this isn’t just a tale of Blockbuster’s blunder, it’s a launchpad into a hidden truth about markets that few investors truly understand.

In the essay below by Brian, we dive into why the biggest fortunes aren’t made with the largest stocks – and how to find the kind of opportunities everyone else is too proud, slow, or uninformed to notice.

Ready to rethink where you’re hunting for the big winners?

Here’s Brian with Part I of “What Kind of Easter Egg Hunt Are You In?”

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

In the spring of 2000, a man named Reed Hastings traveled to Dallas with a big business idea.

Hastings approached the management of movie rental giant Blockbuster with a proposal. He wanted Blockbuster to buy his small business for $50 million.

At the time, Hastings’ company – called Netflix – had a promising business model. It allowed people to rent movies through the mail. Netflix was also small and struggling to turn a profit.

Hastings believed a Blockbuster purchase of Netflix would be a win-win deal for both parties. Blockbuster’s managers did not. They didn’t think Netflix’s business model made sense for them. A Netflix executive later said that Blockbuster essentially laughed Hastings out of the room.

You probably know the rest of the story.

Netflix secured investment from other sources and built a hugely popular mail-order DVD rental business.

Around 2007, it made a brilliant move and began transitioning into America’s No. 1 movie and television streaming service. This innovation crushed traditional brick-and-mortar rental companies like Blockbuster.

In 2002, Netflix had less than 3 million subscribers. By 2022, it had reached 222 million subscribers and climbed to a market valuation of $129 billion.

Blockbuster’s market valuation in 2018?

Zip.

It went bankrupt a long time ago… and its “pass” on Netflix is widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in modern corporate history.

To give you an idea of how an investor would have done with an early Netflix stake, consider that Netflix stock fell to a split-adjusted low of $0.35 per share in 2002.

Assume you did not buy the bottom, but instead invested $5,000 at $0.50 per share, picking up 10,000 shares of Netflix.

In 2022, that $5,000 investment would have been worth $2.87 million… a 574-fold return.

Netflix’s story is one of my favorite examples of one of the most powerful concepts in the world of finance and investing.

The concept?

If you want to make giant returns in stocks, you must be in the right Easter egg hunt.

Below, I explain why…

How to Find Stocks That Can Return 100-Fold Hide

On Wall Street, companies are often grouped and labeled according to their size.

Investors typically place a company in one of three size categories: large-caps, mid-caps, and small-caps.

“Cap” is short for “market capitalization.” This is the term used to describe the value of a public company. To figure out a company’s market cap, all you have to do is multiply the total number of shares the company has in the market times the market price of a single share.

The group names are common sense. Large-caps are large. Small-caps are small. Mid-caps are in between.

For example, the popular software company Microsoft is a large-cap. In November 2022, its market cap was around $1.79 trillion.

Or, take iPhone maker Apple. It’s also a large-cap. In November 2022, its market cap was around $2.4 trillion .

Mid-caps are smaller than large-caps. Typically, investors consider companies with market caps in between $2 billion and $10 billion to be mid-caps.

The difference between a large-cap and a mid-cap can be huge. A mid-cap company worth $5 billion is less than 0.2% of the size of giant Microsoft.

Finally, we have small-caps.

These are companies with market caps under $2 billion.

While the difference between a mid-cap and a large-cap can be huge, the difference between a small-cap and a large-cap can be incredible.

For example, take a small-cap with a market value of $500 million.

This is just 10% of a mid-cap with a market value of $5 billon… which means it is less than one tenth of one percent the size of a large-cap like Microsoft.

Large-caps can be good investments. They are typically stable, established, profitable companies. They often pay dividends. Large-caps can be great investments for conservative investors.

But if you’re interested in making 10, 20, or even 50 times your money (or 574 times your money like with Netflix) in a single investment, you’d be smart to look at small-cap stocks.

Small-cap companies have much greater potential to produce giant returns for their shareholders in a short time than any other kind of company.

The reason is simple…

It’s much, much easier for a young, $500 million small-cap to grow 10-fold than it is for a mature $500-billion giant to grow 10-fold.

That’s just basic math.

If your daughter sold 10 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies around the neighborhood on her own, you could probably help grow her results 10-times (selling 100 boxes) by driving her around, putting a little pressure on your friends, neighbors, and coworkers to buy some boxes.

But what if your daughter was a natural saleswoman and had sold 100 boxes on her own?

To enjoy 10-times growth under that scenario, she’d have to sell 1,000 boxes. Not so easy anymore. That’s the mathematical challenge behind enjoying giant growth when a company is already doing giant sales.

Or, think about these situations…

• When a small $300 million market-cap beverage company creates a hit product that generates an additional $1 billion in sales, it’s a huge deal that can make the company’s stock rise by hundreds or thousands of percent.

However, if beverage giant Coca-Cola creates a way to generate an additional $1 billion in sales, it barely registers on its massive income statement.

• When a small $200 million restaurant company with 40 locations expands to 200 more locations, its market value can soar. But if mega-chain Starbucks adds 200 new locations to its already massive 14,000+ locations, it’s a blip on the company’s balance sheet.
• When a small $600 million software company creates an amazing new way to collect, manage, and analyze healthcare data, financial data, or marketing data, it can increase revenue by over $1 billion… and its stock can soar 10-fold.

However, if giant Microsoft adds $1 billion to its $100 billion+ annual revenue, it’s a drop in the bucket that won’t even make the news.

Now, all this DOES NOT mean a large company is automatically a bad investment. It just means that it’s not an ideal investment for someone looking to make big returns in a relatively short period of time.

Remember, a $500 million small-cap is just one-tenth of one percent of a $500 billion large-cap.

That’s why a search for stocks with huge growth potential should start in the small-cap stock world.

This is where companies with the potential to grow 10, 20, 50… even 574 times larger live and hide out.

But it gets even better for small-cap investors.

There’s another tremendous benefit they enjoy that large-cap investors do not.

I believe this benefit is best explained with the story of an Easter egg hunt.

The Story of the Easter Egg Hunt

Picture this…

It’s Easter and you’re ready for the neighborhood Easter egg hunt.

Over 100 eggs have been hidden in a small local park. Each egg has a treat inside it. You’re told that one special egg even has a cash prize in it.

If you’re in this hunt, which of the two following scenarios would you rather be in?

If you’re like most reasonable people, you picked B.

You’d rather have this:

Than this:

You’d rather have just 10 people in competition with you… instead of 1,000 other people picking over the park like a swarm of locusts.

What does this have to do with investing?

Well, this same dynamic is at work in the stock market every day.

The financial markets are where millions of people go to pick through opportunities in stocks, commodities, currencies, options, bonds, and real estate.

In this big market, everyone is looking to buy assets for less than what they are worth and looking to sell assets for more than what they are worth.

Essentially, everyone is trying to outsmart everyone else.

Everyone is looking for eggs.

The financial markets price most assets correctly most of the time.

However, it’s not a perfect system. Windows of opportunity – where you can buy assets for less than what they are worth or sell assets for more than what they are worth – appear from time to time.

In the investing world, these windows are called “market inefficiencies.”

These are the opportunities that can make us big money.

However, the more people that are studying, monitoring, and picking over a market and its opportunities, the more competition you have in that market… and the less likely you’ll be able to find market inefficiencies.

The more people picking over a market, the smaller its pricing inefficiencies will be and the shorter its windows of opportunities will be open.

In the financial markets, the biggest competitors are “institutional investors.”

Institutional investors are the elephants of the financial markets. This group includes mutual funds, pension funds, large hedge funds, and insurance funds. It also includes sovereign wealth funds, which manage the savings of entire nations.

A single large institutional investor can manage over $10 billion in assets.

So, even a wealthy individual with $5 million in assets is a mouse compared to this elephant (in this case, the elephant is 2,000 times larger).

Some institutional investors manage much more than $10 billion.

The sovereign wealth fund of Norway – which has been fattened by oil revenue for years – was worth more than $1 trillion in 2017.

This is 100 times bigger than the large institution with $10 billion to invest.

The large institutional investors of the world have ridiculously giant amounts of money to invest in stocks, bonds, and other assets.

These large institutional investors typically employ armies of analysts who spend hundreds of thousands of hours every year scouring the world for opportunities.

These analysts perform a lot of old fashioned “financial detective” work by visiting public companies and interviewing industry experts.

They also use the world’s most advanced computer algorithms and “Big Data” analytical programs to comb through market data.

The programs run 24 hours a day, seven days a week… sifting all of the world’s financial data a thousand different ways at warp speed… hunting for pricing inefficiencies, small and large.

Picture those Easter egg hunts again… and realize that the stock market is a brutally competitive Easter egg hunt.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is the financial market is a big, diverse place.

And there are Easter egg hunts the big guys can’t participate in.

We’ll leave it here today, and pick back up tomorrow.

Regards,

Brian Hunt
Senior Analyst, InvestorPlace

P.S. – Want help in this “Easter Egg Hunt”?

Perhaps artificial intelligence can help.

For years, Wall Street has experimented with using AI to help target the most lucrative investments on the market. But in the past few years, they’ve gone “all in.” Now, they’re spending hundreds of millions to develop this technology. 

For everyday investors far from Wall Street, that’s where TradeSmith’s breakthrough AI algorithm – called An-E – comes in. It can forecast the share price on thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs one month into the future.  

On Wednesday, TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan covered the full details behind this remarkable new system and demonstrated how you can apply it to your investment strategy.

If you missed it, you can catch a free replay of Keith’s AI Predictive Power Event right here.

The post “What Kind of Easter Egg Hunt Are You In?” Part I appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Drawing on the upcoming Easter holiday, Hunt will explain how picking stocks can be like an Easter egg hunt… and how if you want to make big returns, you need to make sure you are in the right one. I’ll let Brian explain it from here.

***

In the spring of 2000, a man named Reed Hastings traveled to Dallas with a big business idea.

Hastings approached the management of movie rental giant Blockbuster with a proposal. He wanted Blockbuster to buy his small business for $50 million.

At the time, Hastings’ company – called Netflix – had a promising business model. It allowed people to rent movies through the mail. Netflix was also small and struggling to turn a profit.

Hastings believed a Blockbuster purchase of Netflix would be a win-win deal for both parties. Blockbuster’s managers did not. They didn’t think Netflix’s business model made sense for them. A Netflix executive later said that Blockbuster essentially laughed Hastings out of the room.

You probably know the rest of the story.

Netflix secured investment from other sources and built a hugely popular mail-order DVD rental business.

Around 2007, it made a brilliant move and began transitioning into America’s No. 1 movie and television streaming service. This innovation crushed traditional brick-and-mortar rental companies like Blockbuster.

In 2002, Netflix had less than 3 million subscribers. By 2022, it had reached 222 million subscribers and climbed to a market valuation of $129 billion.

Blockbuster’s market valuation in 2018?

Zip.

It went bankrupt a long time ago… and its “pass” on Netflix is widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in modern corporate history.

To give you an idea of how an investor would have done with an early Netflix stake, consider that Netflix stock fell to a split-adjusted low of $0.35 per share in 2002.

Assume you did not buy the bottom, but instead invested $5,000 at $0.50 per share, picking up 10,000 shares of Netflix.

In 2022, that $5,000 investment would have been worth $2.87 million… a 574-fold return.

Netflix’s story is one of my favorite examples of one of the most powerful concepts in the world of finance and investing.

The concept?

If you want to make giant returns in stocks, you must be in the right Easter egg hunt.

Below, I explain why…

How to Find Stocks That Can Return 100-Fold Hide

On Wall Street, companies are often grouped and labeled according to their size.

Investors typically place a company in one of three size categories: large-caps, mid-caps, and small-caps.

“Cap” is short for “market capitalization.” This is the term used to describe the value of a public company. To figure out a company’s market cap, all you have to do is multiply the total number of shares the company has in the market times the market price of a single share.

The group names are common sense. Large-caps are large. Small-caps are small. Mid-caps are in between.

For example, the popular software company Microsoft is a large-cap. In November 2022, its market cap was around $1.79 trillion.

Or, take iPhone maker Apple. It’s also a large-cap. In November 2022, its market cap was around $2.4 trillion .

Mid-caps are smaller than large-caps. Typically, investors consider companies with market caps in between $2 billion and $10 billion to be mid-caps.

The difference between a large-cap and a mid-cap can be huge. A mid-cap company worth $5 billion is less than 0.2% of the size of giant Microsoft.

Finally, we have small-caps.

These are companies with market caps under $2 billion.

While the difference between a mid-cap and a large-cap can be huge, the difference between a small-cap and a large-cap can be incredible.

For example, take a small-cap with a market value of $500 million.

This is just 10% of a mid-cap with a market value of $5 billon… which means it is less than one tenth of one percent the size of a large-cap like Microsoft.

Large-caps can be good investments. They are typically stable, established, profitable companies. They often pay dividends. Large-caps can be great investments for conservative investors.

But if you’re interested in making 10, 20, or even 50 times your money (or 574 times your money like with Netflix) in a single investment, you’d be smart to look at small-cap stocks.

Small-cap companies have much greater potential to produce giant returns for their shareholders in a short time than any other kind of company.

The reason is simple…

It’s much, much easier for a young, $500 million small-cap to grow 10-fold than it is for a mature $500-billion giant to grow 10-fold.

That’s just basic math.

If your daughter sold 10 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies around the neighborhood on her own, you could probably help grow her results 10-times (selling 100 boxes) by driving her around, putting a little pressure on your friends, neighbors, and coworkers to buy some boxes.

But what if your daughter was a natural saleswoman and had sold 100 boxes on her own?

To enjoy 10-times growth under that scenario, she’d have to sell 1,000 boxes. Not so easy anymore. That’s the mathematical challenge behind enjoying giant growth when a company is already doing giant sales.

Or, think about these situations…

• When a small $300 million market-cap beverage company creates a hit product that generates an additional $1 billion in sales, it’s a huge deal that can make the company’s stock rise by hundreds or thousands of percent.

However, if beverage giant Coca-Cola creates a way to generate an additional $1 billion in sales, it barely registers on its massive income statement.

• When a small $200 million restaurant company with 40 locations expands to 200 more locations, its market value can soar. But if mega-chain Starbucks adds 200 new locations to its already massive 14,000+ locations, it’s a blip on the company’s balance sheet.
• When a small $600 million software company creates an amazing new way to collect, manage, and analyze healthcare data, financial data, or marketing data, it can increase revenue by over $1 billion… and its stock can soar 10-fold.

However, if giant Microsoft adds $1 billion to its $100 billion+ annual revenue, it’s a drop in the bucket that won’t even make the news.

Now, all this DOES NOT mean a large company is automatically a bad investment. It just means that it’s not an ideal investment for someone looking to make big returns in a relatively short period of time.

Remember, a $500 million small-cap is just one-tenth of one percent of a $500 billion large-cap.

That’s why a search for stocks with huge growth potential should start in the small-cap stock world.

This is where companies with the potential to grow 10, 20, 50… even 574 times larger live and hide out.

But it gets even better for small-cap investors.

There’s another tremendous benefit they enjoy that large-cap investors do not.

I believe this benefit is best explained with the story of an Easter egg hunt, which I will explain in the second part of this series. Stay tuned for that in tomorrow’s ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360.

Regards,

Brian Hunt

InvestorPlace Senior ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Analyst

P.S. Louis here again.

As you may know, I’m a “numbers guy”. I’m more interested in probabilities rather than speculation.

That’s why I was intrigued when I learned that our corporate partners at TradeSmith released an AI algorithm that can forecast prices one month into the future.

Imagine having access to the same kind of AI-powered predictive capabilities previously available only to elite Wall Street firms. I can’t think of a more valuable tool to have in a chaotic market like this…

That’s why TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan hosted The AI Predictive Power Event earlier this week – so that regular investors can profit during the chaos… instead of fearing it.

If you didn’t get a chance to attend, click here to start watching the replay now.

The post What Kind of Easter Egg Hunt Are You In? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Stocks are ricocheting back and forth like they’re trapped in a pinball machine. The Nasdaq swings 4% up one day, 5% down the next. It’s enough to make investors melt down.

But here’s the thing nobody seems to be talking about: The stock market isn’t the real risk right now. The bond market is.

And if we don’t get some relief there soon, we’re staring down the barrel of a potentially apocalyptic economic scenario…

For example, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield is often called “the most important number in finance.” It’s not just a benchmark rate for Wall Street traders. It’s the foundation of nearly every major financing rate in America.

Mortgages, auto loans, student and personal loans, and credit cards are all tied to it.

Indeed, the entire U.S. consumer credit system leans on that number.

So, when the 10-year moves, everything does.

And over the first few weeks of April, the 10-year took off, spiking from 3.8% to 4.6% in just a few days – one of the most violent upward moves in modern market history.

That may sound abstract. But here’s what it really means:

• Mortgage rates will surge above 8%.
• Auto financing rates will punch past 9%.
• Personal loan interest rates will spike into the double digits.
• Credit card APRs will flirt with 30%.

All this in the middle of a slowing economy…

Why Surging Bond Yields Are a Huge Problem for the Economy

In every major recession, bond yields fall. That’s the natural cycle. 

When things get bad, investors flock to safety. They buy U.S. Treasuries, which pushes yields down. Lower yields mean lower financing rates, which support consumer borrowing and help resuscitate demand.

For instance, during the 2008 financial crisis, the 10-year collapsed from 4.2% to 2%. And during 2020’s COVID Crash, it nosedived from 2% to 0.5%.

In both cases, the plunge in yields unlocked the economy’s natural shock absorbers – cheap mortgages, affordable car loans, and low-interest personal debt.

But this time, those shock absorbers are failing.

As we outlined in yesterday’s issue:

• Consumer confidence is near a 50-year low. According to the University of Michigan’s latest survey, consumer sentiment plunged 11% this month to 50.8 – a 12-year low and the second-lowest level on record since 1952.
• Retail sales are slowing, especially on a core basis. Though sales surged 1.4% in March, this uptick is likely temporary as consumers attempt to ‘frontload’ tariffs. In February, retail sales rose 0.2%, much lower than the 0.7% increase economists projected.
• Business investment has stalled, down $130 billion from Q3 to Q4 of 2024. 
• The housing market is frozen solid. Data from the National Association of Realtors shows that existing home sales fell 1.2% year-over-year.

And now bond yields are spiking.

That’s not how this is supposed to go.

The Dangerous Divergence Between the Economy and the Bond ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½

We’re watching the economy fall off a cliff – and borrowing costs are going up.

That’s a deadly combo.

As we mentioned, the housing market is already frozen. Affordability is stretched to historic levels. If mortgage rates rise from 7.5% to 9%, that market could break completely. And when housing goes, the economy tends to go with it. See: 2008.

Similarly, the auto market is already in a funk. And credit card debt is already at all-time highs. Higher rates will crush household finances, cut spending, and choke growth.

If bond yields keep spiking while the economy keeps slowing, we’re not talking about a mild recession.

We’re talking about a potentially historic economic meltdown.

So, why are bond yields spiking when they’re supposed to be falling?

There are two main reasons. And neither is natural.

1. Tariff-Driven Inflation Fears

Investors are terrified that the new tariff regime will reignite inflation.

If tariffs spike the cost of goods, inflation rises. And if inflation rises, investors demand higher yields on long-term debt to compensate. Nobody wants to hold a 10-year bond yielding 4% if inflation is running at 5%. That’s a guaranteed loss.

So, bondholders are panicking. And yields are surging.

2. Foreign Selling Pressure

The U.S. isn’t the only one upset about this trade war.

China and Japan – two of the largest foreign holders of U.S. Treasuries – may be quietly dumping U.S. debt in retaliation. After all, why hold the IOUs of a country you’re currently in an economic battle with?

This foreign selling creates additional pressure, pushing bond prices lower and yields higher.

Bond ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Relief Could Be Coming: Here’s Why

Now, here’s the good news: This pain is not driven by a permanent fixture. It’s the result of an acute political problem.

And political problems can be solved.

If trade tensions ease, inflation expectations will normalize, and foreign holders will stop selling Treasuries… and then, guess what?

Bond yields will fall.

And if bond yields fall, financing rates drop. The consumer endures. The housing market breathes. The economy stabilizes, and stocks recover: crisis averted. Therefore, we’re not panicking. 

We understand the bond market risk. It’s huge – but it is also fixable.

That’s why we’ve been telling our subscribers to nibble on this stock market dip… because we believe resolution is coming.

We’ve already seen progress:

• A 90-day pause on new tariffs
• Electronics exemptions on Chinese exports
• Talk of an auto tariff exemption
• Softening Washington rhetoric

The signals are subtle, but they’re starting to stack up. 

The White House knows what’s at stake. It may posture for headlines, but we think it’s also preparing for resolution.

Bond ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Turmoil: What It Means for Stocks, Housing, and the Economy

We are on the edge of something dangerous.

The bond market is ringing alarm bells. If yields don’t come back down soon, this trade war could destroy the foundation of the U.S. economy, starting with the housing market and then spreading like wildfire.

But we don’t think it will come to that.

The pressure is too intense. The pain is too real. 

As such, we believe a trade war resolution is coming. 

And when it does, the bond market will cool. Yields will fall. Financing rates will normalize. The recession risk will recede. And stocks will rebound.

If you’re looking to prepare for that market surge, consider buying AI 2.0 stocks on this recent dip.

We’re talking AI that can respond to real-world environments; embodied intelligence that can see, hear, walk, talk, lift, carry, organize, fix, learn…

After all, there’s a reason why every tech titan is suddenly obsessed with humanoid robots.

That’s where we believe the next trillion-dollar investment opportunities will be found. And we’ve found a compelling way to play that next phase of the AI Boom.

Uncover the details on our favorite AI 2.0 pick.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Questions or comments about this issue? Drop us a line at langofeedback@investorplace.com.

The post Forget Stocks: Why the Bond ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Is the Real Threat to the Economy appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Editor’s Note: Our InvestorPlace offices are closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

If you need assistance from our Customer Service team, they’ll be happy to assist you when we re-open Monday.

Have a wonderful Easter Weekend!

Earlier today, President Trump took to Truth Social, posting:

The ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, ‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete ‘mess!’

Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS.

Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now.

Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!

As we’ve detailed here in the Digest, Trump really wants lower interest rates.

Perhaps it’s due to the trillions of dollars’ worth of government debt that are rolling over in the next 18 months… maybe he wants to provide a tailwind to the economy… perhaps he wants to give the wobbly stock market a boost…

The problem is that even if Powell gives Trump the lower rates he wants, that doesn’t mean Trump’s desired outcomes will come to pass.

You see, the Federal Reserve only controls the federal funds rate – a short-term lending rate. The “Big Dog” that impacts mortgage rates, the economy, the stock market, and so on, is the 10-year Treasury yield. But for that, the market is the master puppeteer.

And according to legendary investor Louis Navellier, there’s one group within the market that’s in control today…

To make sure we’re all on the same page, Louis’ favorite economist Ed Yardeni popularized the term “Bond Vigilantes” in the 1980s.

It refers to bond investors who sell off Treasurys in response to what they perceive as irresponsible fiscal or monetary policies, like excessive government spending or inflationary policies. By dumping bonds, they drive up yields, effectively punishing governments with higher borrowing costs.

These investors act like “vigilantes” in the market, enforcing financial discipline when policymakers stray.

Now, April has brought an historic move in the 10-year Treasury yield from these Bond Vigilantes.

Last week, they stampeded out of the 10-year Treasury, causing its yield to soar from less than 4.00% to about 4.50% – the largest weekly gain in over a decade. You can see the bounce in the chart below.

Here’s Louis from yesterday’s Special ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Podcast in Growth Investor:

Last week’s events were stunning.

The main takeaway is the Bond Vigilantes are in charge – these big institutional Treasury investors.

The U.S. dollar is now down almost 10% for the year, and Treasury yields rose because apparently the Bond Vigilantes decided to sell some of our Treasuries…

That means President Trump isn’t in charge; the Bond Vigilantes are…

When the Bond Vigilantes started to avoid our Treasuries, President Trump had no choice but to respond and put a 90-day suspension on reciprocal tariffs.

The better question is “what aren’t they worried about?”

There’s the U.S. budget deficit that grew to $1.83 trillion last year. That’s equivalent to 6.4% of U.S. economic output, marking the highest reading other than the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far in fiscal year 2025 (covering the first half of the fiscal year), the deficit has climbed to more than $1.3 trillion. This is the second-highest six-month deficit on record (second only to Covid).

Then there’s the overall national debt, which is ballooning – and accelerating. It’s now nearly $37 trillion, growing at more than $1 trillion about every 100 days.

The current debt-to-GDP ratio clocks in at 123%. Long term, this is unsustainable. It will result in either an economic or currency collapse.

Next up is the size of our government’s interest payments that are based on the size of our debt and today’s elevated interest rates.

Here’s the non-partisan thinktank Peter G. Peterson Foundation:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that interest payments will total $952 billion in fiscal year 2025 and rise rapidly throughout the next decade…

Relative to the size of the economy, interest costs in 2026 would exceed the post-World War II high of 3.2 percent…

The federal government already spends more on interest than on budget areas such as:

• Defense
• Medicaid
• Federal spending on children
• Income security programs, which include programs targeted to lower-income Americans such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; earned income, child, and other tax credits
• Veterans’ benefits

In fact, interest payments will exceed the amount that the federal government spends on Medicare (net of offsetting receipts) this year, leaving Social Security the only program larger than net interest.

Then we have President Trump’s tax plan.

To set the stage for why Bond Vigilantes have a problem with this, remember that governments only have two main means of funding their spending: taxes and debt (via issuing Treasurys).

If President Trump’s tax plans make it through Congress, tax revenues will fall.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the tax cuts would add $7.75 trillion to the U.S. national debt over the next decade.

This would mean the government would have to rely more on debt issuance to meet all its spending obligations.

And this leaves debt (Treasurys) in the spotlight…which brings us full circle to the bond vigilantes who are punishing perceived economic bad behavior by driving Treasury yields higher.

To be clear, monthly Treasury data comes with a lag. So, we don’t know exactly who sold bonds last week. But there are suspicions – and culprits aren’t limited to U.S. sellers.

The two biggest foreign holders of U.S. debt are China and Japan.

China clearly has a motivation for dumping our debt, and some analysts believe they’re holding the smoking gun.

Here’s CNBC:

“I think China is actually weaponizing the Treasury holding already,” said Chen Zhao, chief global strategist at Alpine Macro.

“They sell U.S. Treasurys and convert the proceeds into Euros or German bunds. That’s actually very consistent with what happened over the last couple of weeks,” he added. 

Germany’s bunds had bucked a wider sell-off in long-dated Treasurys last week, with its 10-year yields sliding.

Now, there’s pushback against this theory.

After all, if China sells U.S. bonds, it means capital flows back to China in the yuan, therein strengthening the yuan. This isn’t what China wants – Beijing is trying to offset the impact of Trump’s tariffs.

As for Japan, last week, Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said Japan won’t use its accumulation of Treasurys as a bargaining chip against Trump:

We manage our U.S. Treasury holdings from the standpoint of preparing for in case we need to conduct exchange-rate intervention in the future.

But apparently, Japanese insurer Nippon Life owns a tremendous amount of Treasurys, and they could be behind the recent selling.

Here’s CNBC:

“It’s all very well for the Japanese government to say, we’re not going to sell U.S. Treasurys, but it’s not the Japanese government that owns them. It’s Nippon Life,” [BCA Research’s Garry Evans] added. 

If these insurers are worried about U.S. policy flip-flopping and want to reduce exposure, there’s “not a lot the government can do.”

Clearly, “bond vigilantes” don’t exist only in the U.S.

Now, regardless of who is behind the selloff, the bottom line remains: big players have been bailing on the 10-year.

Imagine your brother-in-law comes to you, lamenting that things are a little tight; he needs to borrow some cash.

You give him a loan, only to watch him go spend extravagantly, far beyond his income. It’s not long before he’s back at your door, requesting more money. You agree…he spends recklessly once again.

Now, say this pattern repeats another half a dozen times.

Eventually, what are you going to do?

Either 1) ask for a higher return on your loans, or 2) just stop lending.

While the Bond Vigilantes have been engaged in something like the “higher return” strategy, billionaire hedge fund founder Ray Dalio is worried about the second possibility – people not wanting to lend our government money anymore.

From Fortune:

[Speaking at CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore, Dalio said that] at some point, the U.S. will have to “sell a quantity of debt that the world is not going to want to buy.”

This is an “imminent” scenario of “paramount importance,” Dalio said.

Fortune went on to quote Wharton Business School finance professor Joao Gomes:

The most important thing about debt for people to keep in mind is you need somebody to buy it.

We used to be able to count on China, Japanese investors, the Fed to [buy the debt]. All those players are slowly going away and are actually now selling.

If at some moment these folks that have so far been happy to buy government debt from major economies decide, “You know what, I’m not too sure if this is a good investment anymore. I’m going to ask for a higher interest rate to be persuaded to hold this,” then we could have a real accident on our hands.

Dalio went on to predict that when the world runs low on buyers for U.S. Treasurys, we’ll see “shocking developments in terms of how [debt] is going to be dealt with.”

What would that mean?

Dalio points toward restructurings of debt, pressure from Washington on countries to buy the debt, and even monetization of debt.

Though Dalio didn’t explicitly say this, a study of global economic history shows that monetization of debt risks hyperinflation.

First, despite Dalio’s reference to an “imminent” crisis, it’s unlikely that some sort of economic A-bomb is right around the corner.

While we respect Dalio’s analysis, he’s been preaching similar doom-and-gloom for years at this point. Eventually, he’ll be right, but if there’s one thing our government excels at, it’s sticking fingers in dikes and kicking cans down roads.

Second, focus on what you can control rather than fearing what’s beyond your control.

While understanding and recognizing these big-picture macro movements can help inform your market choices, they shouldn’t paralyze them.

Circling back to Louis, you’re better served focusing on what he calls the “iron law” of the stock market:

Stock price trends can diverge from earnings trends for a while, but over the long term, if a company grows and grows the amount of cash it takes in, its share price is sure to head higher.

This is why Louis remains bullish during this earnings season that just began. When you limit your buying to fundamentally superior stocks that have earnings power, earnings season usually brings welcomed gains.

For the latest fundamentally superior stocks that Louis likes, click here to learn about joining him at Growth Investor.

Last night, Keith Kaplan, the CEO of our corporate partner TradeSmith, went live at this AI Predictive Power Event.

It was a fantastic evening with thousands of attendees learning about TradeSmith’s AI-powered algorithm “An-E” (short for Analytical Engine).

This AI-fueled technology forecasts the share price of thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs one month into the future along with the conviction level of that prediction. It’s equally powerful in both bull and bear markets.

To watch a free replay of the event, including examples of back-tests, just click here. Keith even gives away five of An-E’s most bearish forecasts. These are stocks that the AI platform projects will drop hard in the coming weeks.

Last September, the Fed began cutting rates (as Trump wants).

Did it result in the 10-year Treasury yield falling?

Nope. As you can see below, the two yields diverged, and the 10-year surged…

Bottom line: Trump can focus on Powell all he wants, but Louis is right…

The Bond Vigilantes are running the show.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post When Our $37 Trillion Time Bomb Will Explode appeared first on InvestorPlace.

My home in Florida sits just a stone’s throw away from Mar-a-Lago – also known as the Winter White House.

Though I’m not a member, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit many times. Each time, President Trump has been a gracious host to my family, and we’ve created some wonderful memories.

And let me tell you, Mar-a-Lago can be quite the scene. One time, I watched South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham deeply involved in a conversation on the phone just a few feet away from me. Moments later, he was whisked away for dinner with the President himself.

That’s the kind of place Mar-a-Lago is. Big decisions happen. Deals get done.

So, it didn’t surprise me one bit when NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang attended a high-powered fundraising dinner there on Friday, April 11. Nor did it surprise me when, suddenly, big news about NVIDIA started to break in the days after.

In today’s ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360, I’m going to cover the latest tariff news that’s impacting NVIDIA and why it caused a sharp drop in the stock. However, I believe this is an extreme overreaction, and I’ll explain why. Plus, I’ll discuss an even bigger piece of news that’s getting completely ignored. As you’ll find out, it’s part of a much bigger story involving the White House’s plans for reshaping the U.S. economy and taking the lead in the AI Revolution. And I’ve found the perfect way to profit…

President Trump Bans NVIDIA Chips in China

Yesterday, the Trump administration announced surprise export restrictions targeting NVIDIA’s semiconductor business. Specifically, these new rules ban NVIDIA’s sales of its H20 AI chips to China. NVIDIA disclosed in a regulatory filing that complying with these rules would cost the company an immediate $5.5 billion charge. Analysts have projected that the potential lost revenue could reach $10 billion over the coming quarters, mostly due to existing inventories of these specialized chips now becoming unsellable.

Investors didn’t take kindly to the news. NVIDIA shares dropped nearly 10% on Wednesday, and are now down roughly 25% so far this year.

However, this is a gross overreaction, folks. I want to point out that NVIDIA generated nearly $135 billion in revenue last year alone – $61 billion of that in just the past quarter. The China business? It’s a drop in the bucket.

Now, some analysts are wondering if banning these specific chips might inadvertently benefit Chinese competitors, like Huawei, rather than strategically hindering China’s AI ambitions. It’s a valid question, but that’s not the bigger story here.

NVIDIA Is Playing Trump’s Game

The bigger news broke just one day earlier: NVIDIA announced a massive $500 billion initiative to bolster U.S. AI infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities. This includes plans to build two enormous supercomputer factories in Texas – the company’s first-ever supercomputer plants located entirely in the U.S. These new facilities will occupy over 1 million square feet of manufacturing space and are expected to start mass production within the next 12 to 15 months.

Additionally, NVIDIA will produce and test its cutting-edge Blackwell AI chips domestically at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSM) new plants in Arizona. Jensen Huang highlighted that moving production to the U.S. would help strengthen NVIDIA’s supply chain, boost resiliency and better position the company to meet the exploding global demand for AI-powered computing.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this announcement was made after Huang had dinner with the President. It’s the kind of move that fits perfectly with President Trump’s broader economic agenda.

The Bottom Line

I know the tariffs have caused a lot of pain in the market. I expect to see some more good news on tariffs soon. Just yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he was optimistic about achieving clarity on tariffs and trade deals within the next 90 days. He said that outside of China, the White House was in “rapid motion” in setting up negotiations with 14 other major U.S. trading partners.

Remember, I have gone on record saying that the ultimate goal of Trump’s trade policies is to use tariffs and economic incentives to 1) bring other countries to the negotiating table for a better deal and 2) bring manufacturing jobs and advanced technology back to American shores.

If Trump and his team can pull this off, then the U.S. will be primed for significant long-term growth. Not only that, but it will be in the sole position to win the AI race against China.

Huang’s recent Mar-a-Lago meeting tells me that NVIDIA is on board. They’re ready to play ball.

So, don’t be rattled by short-term setbacks. Sure, losing sales in China hurts today, but NVIDIA’s vision is much bigger and longer term. Yours should be, too.

NVIDIA is positioning itself at the center of America’s AI-driven future. And the stock’s recent near-term weakness may be exactly the type of opportunity savvy investors dream about – a chance to buy into a monopolistic company at a temporary discount.

It’s why I think the stock is a screaming buy right now.

How to Profit From the Trump/AI Convergence

Now, it’s clear that President Trump and his team are rewriting the rulebook. And I want you to be prepared for when the full vision of Trump’s economic policies begins to take shape.

For example, one of the clearest beneficiaries of President Trump’s aggressive policies will be the explosive AI Super Boom.

When Trump’s policies converge with the AI Revolution, I predict that it will be one of the most powerful opportunities of our lifetime.

But, as we’ve witnessed from the past month, in order to profit, we’ll need to move fast. So, that’s why I’m inviting readers to “test drive” a powerful strategy I’ve used to quickly extract gains like…

• 90.25% from Celestica, Inc. (CLS)
• 95.13% from Builders FirstSource, Inc. (BLDR)
• 114.49% from Targa Resources Corp. (TRGP)
• 187.28% from YPF Sociedad Anonomia (YPF)
• 604% from Vista Oil & Gas (VIST)

This strategy is designed to repeatedly generate thousands of dollars in short-term cash payouts – all from regular stocks, no complicated trades required. And in the fast-changing market we are experiencing right now, it could prove crucial to your portfolio right now.

In fact, my system has flagged a handful of stocks with superior fundamentals and persistent institutional buying pressure that are primed to thrive in this new Trump/AI Convergence.

Click here to learn more now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360

P.S. Last night, TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan unveiled a breakthrough AI market algorithm that can forecast stock prices 21 days into the future. And in today’s uncertain market, this is a great tool for you to have in your back pocket. In fact, this level of predictive power is crucial for navigating any choppy market. Click here to watch a replay of yesterday’s special presentation now.

The Editor hereby discloses that as of the date of this email, the Editor, directly or indirectly, owns the following securities that are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned in, the essay set forth below:

Celestica, Inc. (CLS), NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) and Targa Resources Corp. (TRGP)

The post Trump’s Chip Ban Hits NVIDIA – Here’s Why It’s a Huge Buying Opportunity appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Today, I want to take a little break from all the talk about tariffs and market volatility. Instead, I want to share a two-part series from Senior ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Analyst Brian Hunt that I think you’ll find incredibly valuable. The second part of this series will be available in your next Smart Money on Saturday.

Drawing on the upcoming Easter holiday, Hunt will explain how picking stocks can be like an Easter egg hunt… and how if you want to make big returns, you need to make sure you are in the right one. I’ll let Brian explain it from here…

In the spring of 2000, a man named Reed Hastings traveled to Dallas with a big business idea.

Hastings approached the management of movie rental giant Blockbuster with a proposal. He wanted Blockbuster to buy his small business for $50 million.

At the time, Hastings’ company – called Netflix – had a promising business model. It allowed people to rent movies through the mail. Netflix was also small and struggling to turn a profit.

Hastings believed a Blockbuster purchase of Netflix would be a win-win deal for both parties. Blockbuster’s managers did not. They didn’t think Netflix’s business model made sense for them. A Netflix executive later said that Blockbuster essentially laughed Hastings out of the room.

You probably know the rest of the story.

Netflix secured investment from other sources and built a hugely popular mail-order DVD rental business.

Around 2007, it made a brilliant move and began transitioning into America’s No. 1 movie and television streaming service. This innovation crushed traditional brick-and-mortar rental companies like Blockbuster.

In 2002, Netflix had less than 3 million subscribers. By 2022, it had reached 222 million subscribers and climbed to a market valuation of $129 billion.

Blockbuster’s market valuation in 2018?

Zip.

It went bankrupt a long time ago… and its “pass” on Netflix is widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in modern corporate history.

To give you an idea of how an investor would have done with an early Netflix stake, consider that Netflix stock fell to a split-adjusted low of $0.35 per share in 2002.

Assume you did not buy the bottom, but instead invested $5,000 at $0.50 per share, picking up 10,000 shares of Netflix.

In 2022, that $5,000 investment would have been worth $2.87 million… a 574-fold return.

Netflix’s story is one of my favorite examples of one of the most powerful concepts in the world of finance and investing.

The concept?

If you want to make giant returns in stocks, you must be in the right Easter egg hunt.

Below, I explain why…

How to Find Stocks That Can Return 100-Fold Hide

On Wall Street, companies are often grouped and labeled according to their size.

Investors typically place a company in one of three size categories: large-caps, mid-caps, and small-caps.

“Cap” is short for “market capitalization.” This is the term used to describe the value of a public company. To figure out a company’s market cap, all you have to do is multiply the total number of shares the company has in the market times the market price of a single share.

The group names are common sense. Large-caps are large. Small-caps are small. Mid-caps are in between.

For example, the popular software company Microsoft is a large-cap. In November 2022, its market cap was around $1.79 trillion.

Or, take iPhone maker Apple. It’s also a large-cap. In November 2022, its market cap was around $2.4 trillion .

Mid-caps are smaller than large-caps. Typically, investors consider companies with market caps in between $2 billion and $10 billion to be mid-caps.

The difference between a large-cap and a mid-cap can be huge. A mid-cap company worth $5 billion is less than 0.2% of the size of giant Microsoft.

Finally, we have small-caps.

These are companies with market caps under $2 billion.

While the difference between a mid-cap and a large-cap can be huge, the difference between a small-cap and a large-cap can be incredible.

For example, take a small-cap with a market value of $500 million.

This is just 10% of a mid-cap with a market value of $5 billon… which means it is less than one tenth of one percent the size of a large-cap like Microsoft.

Large-caps can be good investments. They are typically stable, established, profitable companies. They often pay dividends. Large-caps can be great investments for conservative investors.

But if you’re interested in making 10, 20, or even 50 times your money (or 574 times your money like with Netflix) in a single investment, you’d be smart to look at small-cap stocks.

Small-cap companies have much greater potential to produce giant returns for their shareholders in a short time than any other kind of company.

The reason is simple…

It’s much, much easier for a young, $500 million small-cap to grow 10-fold than it is for a mature $500-billion giant to grow 10-fold.

That’s just basic math.

If your daughter sold 10 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies around the neighborhood on her own, you could probably help grow her results 10-times (selling 100 boxes) by driving her around, putting a little pressure on your friends, neighbors, and coworkers to buy some boxes.

But what if your daughter was a natural saleswoman and had sold 100 boxes on her own?

To enjoy 10-times growth under that scenario, she’d have to sell 1,000 boxes. Not so easy anymore. That’s the mathematical challenge behind enjoying giant growth when a company is already doing giant sales.

Or, think about these situations…

• When a small $300 million market-cap beverage company creates a hit product that generates an additional $1 billion in sales, it’s a huge deal that can make the company’s stock rise by hundreds or thousands of percent.

However, if beverage giant Coca-Cola creates a way to generate an additional $1 billion in sales, it barely registers on its massive income statement.

• When a small $200 million restaurant company with 40 locations expands to 200 more locations, its market value can soar. But if mega-chain Starbucks adds 200 new locations to its already massive 14,000+ locations, it’s a blip on the company’s balance sheet.
• When a small $600 million software company creates an amazing new way to collect, manage, and analyze healthcare data, financial data, or marketing data, it can increase revenue by over $1 billion… and its stock can soar 10-fold.

However, if giant Microsoft adds $1 billion to its $100 billion+ annual revenue, it’s a drop in the bucket that won’t even make the news.

Now, all this DOES NOT mean a large company is automatically a bad investment. It just means that it’s not an ideal investment for someone looking to make big returns in a relatively short period of time.

Remember, a $500 million small-cap is just one-tenth of one percent of a $500 billion large-cap.

That’s why a search for stocks with huge growth potential should start in the small-cap stock world.

This is where companies with the potential to grow 10, 20, 50… even 574 times larger live and hide out.

But it gets even better for small-cap investors.

There’s another tremendous benefit they enjoy that large-cap investors do not.

I believe this benefit is best explained with the story of an Easter egg hunt, which I will explain in the second part of this series. Stay tuned for that in Saturday’s Smart Money.

Regards,

Brian Hunt

InvestorPlace Senior ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Analyst

P.S. Eric Fry, here.

As you may know, I’ve been following the AI megatrend for a long time now.

That’s why I was intrigued when I learned that our corporate partners at TradeSmith released an AI algorithm that can forecast prices one month into the future.

Imagine having access to the same kind of AI-powered predictive capabilities previously available only to elite Wall Street firms. I can’t think of a more valuable tool to have in a chaotic market like this…

That’s why TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan hosted The AI Predictive Power Event earlier this week – so that regular investors can profit during the chaos… instead of fearing it.

If you didn’t get a chance to attend, click here to start watching the replay now.

The post What Kind of Easter Egg Hunt Are You In? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

That’s right. With the economy cracking under the weight of a global trade war and sentiment falling off a cliff, the captain of the monetary ship looked us in the eye and said, “We’re going to wait and see.”

Wall Street didn’t like it. Stocks and yields initially sank in response.

But we’re here to tell you, don’t panic just yet. More importantly, don’t listen to the words; watch the feet.

Powell may have said “no cuts for now,” but the evolving reality on the ground says something very different… 

In fact, we believe the Fed is on the brink of launching a full-blown rescue mission for the U.S. economy – and it could send stocks soaring.

Let’s break it down.

Powell’s Stagflation Dilemma and the Federal Reserve’s Tough Choice

To us, Powell’s message yesterday made clear that the Fed is confused.

He said that Trump’s massive tariff regime is larger than expected and that it will likely create more inflation and slow the economy more than expected. That’s a problem because rising inflation + falling growth = stagflation.

That would be an economy where central banks are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Should they raise rates to fight inflation or cut them to combat the slowdown?

Powell said the Fed doesn’t know which it’ll be yet – so it’s going to sit on the sidelines and wait to find out.

That might sound measured and diplomatic. But in reality, it’s a dangerous game of chicken. And Powell knows it.

Why the Fed Must Act: Financial Conditions Are Too Tight

If you strip away the ‘Fed speak’ and look at the data, the picture becomes clear: The central bank should already be cutting rates.

Bloomberg’s U.S. Financial Conditions Index – a catch-all measure of credit spreads, equity levels, and money supply – shows that outside of 2020’s COVID crash, financial conditions are now tighter than they’ve been at any time in the past decade.

Indeed, they are currently tighter than they were during China’s 2015 slowdown, the 2018 Fed freak-out, and 2022’s inflation panic.

Financial conditions are too tight… 

Because here’s the backdrop we are dealing with right now:

• Consumer confidence is near a 50-year low. According to the University of Michigan’s latest survey, consumer sentiment plunged 11% this month to 50.8 – a 12-year low and the second-lowest level on record since 1952.
• Retail sales are slowing, especially on a core basis. Though sales surged 1.4% in March, this uptick is likely temporary as consumers attempt to ‘frontload’ tariffs. In February, retail sales rose 0.2%, much lower than the 0.7% increase economists projected.
• Business investment has stalled, down $130 billion from Q3 to Q4 of 2024. 
• The housing market is frozen solid. Data from the National Association of Realtors shows that existing home sales fell 1.2% year-over-year.
• Despite all of the above, bond yields are spiking, not falling. The 10-year now sits at 4.29%, above where it was before Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement.

This is not a good cocktail. 

It practically screams for Fed action. And we believe Powell is quietly preparing for that –  regardless of what he’s saying in public.

Inflation Fears Are Overblown

Now, yes, there’s one reason the Fed has been sitting tight: inflation.

Tariffs could cause reinflation. And the Fed doesn’t want to be cutting rates right as inflation starts running hot again. That’s understandable… in theory.

But in reality, this inflation threat is probably overblown. After all:

• CPI inflation is currently running at 2.4% – very close to the Fed’s 2% target.
• Core CPI inflation is at 2.8% and falling.
• Producer prices and import/export prices are all showing cooling trends. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that U.S. import prices decreased 0.1% in March following a 0.2% increase in February. Similarly, PPI for final demand decreased 0.4% in March, goods declined 0.9%, and services fell 0.2%.

Yes, tariffs may cause a temporary blip in inflation. But the Fed knows better than to base long-term monetary policy decisions on short-term price distortions. It’s said as much in the past.

And when you weigh the risks – a modest, short-lived inflation bump versus a full-blown economic breakdown – we think Powell will ultimately choose growth.

When Will Powell and the Federal Reserve Step In? The Likely Rescue Timeline

So, when does the cavalry arrive?

We think it’s coming in June.

That’s when the data will likely have piled up just enough to give Powell and his colleagues the political and academic cover to start cutting. We expect that by then the trade war will likely be cooling (more on that in a second), inflation fears will be abating, and markets will be loudly begging for help.

Our base case is a rate cut in June, preceded by strong forward guidance in the Fed’s May meeting. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised to hear ‘the pivot’ begin as early as next month.

And when that happens…

The markets will move.

The Cooling Trade War Is a Catalyst

Of course, this Fed story is only half the equation.

The other half is the global trade war — which, we’re happy to report, appears to be losing some steam.

Since the U.S. launched its “Liberation Day” tariffs in early April, we’ve actually seen tariff rates fall, not rise.

The average U.S. tariff rate spiked from 2.5% to 27% on April 2. But with the 90-day pause and electronics exemptions, that number has already fallen to about 23%.

If rumored auto parts exemptions come to fruition, we’ll drop to ~20%. And if steel/aluminum or China deals are locked in, we’ll slide closer to 10%.

That’s a pretty sharp reversal.

Yes, the rhetoric from Washington is still aggressive. But as with the Fed, actions speak louder than words. And right now, the actions suggest deescalation.

That’s very bullish.

Once Powell and the Federal Reserve Pivot, Stocks Could Soar

Put it all together:

• The Fed is almost out of excuses. The data says cut. And it likely will soon.
• The trade war is beginning to abate, and tariff rates are falling.
• Financial conditions are too tight and about to loosen.
• Inflation is easing, not surging.
• And innovation – especially in the AI industry – continues to march forward.

The storm clouds are still thick today. But if you know where to look, the sun is already peeking through.

We believe that as these two macro levers – monetary policy and global trade – begin to shift, the stock market could rip higher. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the S&P 500 up 10% to 15% from current levels by late summer.

So, while others panic, we’re getting ready to pounce.

Now, we’re not saying the road will be easy. There will be more volatility, headline noise, and stock market drops. 

But with the Fed about to step in, the trade war thawing, and the AI revolution continuing to accelerate…

This is a time to be disciplined, strategic, and optimistic.

Buy the dip. Own the future. The rescue is coming.

If you’re looking to make the most of it, consider buying AI 2.0 stocks on this recent dip.

We’re talking AI that can respond to real-world environments; embodied intelligence that can see, hear, walk, talk, lift, carry, organize, fix, learn…

After all, there’s a reason why every tech titan is suddenly obsessed with humanoid robots.

That’s where we believe the next trillion-dollar investment opportunities will be found. And we’ve found a compelling way to play that next phase of the AI Boom.

Uncover the details on our favorite AI 2.0 pick.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Questions or comments about this issue? Drop us a line at langofeedback@investorplace.com.

The post Powell vs. Reality: Why the Federal Reserve Will Step In to Save ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s appeared first on InvestorPlace.

We’ll begin today’s Digest with a reminder…

Tonight at 8:00 pm Eastern, Keith Kaplan, the CEO of our corporate partner TradeSmith, is holding The AI Predictive Power Event.

The evening centers on TradeSmith’s AI-powered algorithm “An-E” (short for Analytical Engine).

Built in-house using machine learning models trained on over 1.3 quadrillion data points and 50,000+ backtests, An-E can help you better time and target your trade entries/exits within a 30-day price projection.

The technology forecasts the share price of thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs one month into the future along with the conviction level of that prediction. It’s equally applicable in both bull and bear markets.

Here’s Keith:

While human investors react with fear, delay, or overconfidence, a new breed of trading algorithm – like our cutting-edge system, An-E – is making precise, unemotional forecasts about where the market is heading next…

Unlike humans, AI doesn’t get emotional. It doesn’t chase headlines.  It doesn’t second-guess every move. Instead, it digests mountains of data and makes calculated projections – especially when things get messy. 

And in this turbulent market, messy is the new normal…

Because the platform is rooted in quantitative analysis, its advanced predictive modeling isn’t guesswork. An-E analyzes millions of data points, learning patterns, pricing behavior, and momentum signals that most investors would never catch. 

It’s not too late to join Keith. By clicking here, you’ll automatically be signed up and registered to attend tonight at 8:00 pm Eastern.

There’s so much happening these days that it’s tough to stay on top of every headline.

I want to take today’s Digest in a specific direction, but let’s do a brief walk-through of a handful of stories impacting the market as I write Wednesday morning.

First, there’s Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), which announced on Tuesday that it will incur a $5.5 billion charge due to new U.S. export restrictions on its H20 AI chips. The U.S. Commerce Department now requires licenses for exporting these chips to China and certain other countries, citing national security concerns. This is dragging NVDA down about 10% as I write.

Related to the trade war, China is apparently open to tariff negotiations but wants to see a series of steps from the Trump administration before it will enter such talks.

These steps include showing more respect to Beijing and, according to Bloomberg, “a more consistent US position and a willingness to address China’s concerns around American sanctions and Taiwan.”

Michelle Lam, Greater China economist at Societe Generale SA says:

There is a bit more clarity on what China is looking from: respect, consistency and a point person.

So now the ball is in US court on whether they can meet these demands. But that is still difficult — especially if the aim is to contain China’s rise.

Next up, this morning’s retail sales report found sales increased 1.4% in March. This was more than the forecast of 1.2%.

In one sense, this is a great report, showing that the U.S. shopper remains able – and willing – to keep spending. On the other hand, the heavy spending might reflect a frantic “clearance sale” mentality as shoppers rushed to buy ahead of what many believe are higher prices on the way.

Finally, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke earlier today at the Economic Club of Chicago, saying:

We may find ourselves in the challenging scenario in which our dual-mandate goals are in tension.

If that were to occur, we would consider how far the economy is from each goal, and the potentially different time horizons over which those respective gaps would be anticipated to close.

Shortly after the comments, stocks hit their lows of the session (up to that point). As I write early-afternoon, they’re still sliding.

Let’s establish some context before we try to answer…

At face value, these trade wars are about unfair trade practices.

But that can’t be the whole story. After all, we’ve already had Israel, Vietnam, and the European Union either lower their tariffs on U.S. goods to 0% or propose such a move, and yet the Trump administration’s response was “not good enough.”

What appears to be “good enough” is mass onshoring. In other words, the real goal appears to be bringing back manufacturing to within the United States.

Last week in the Digest, we offered an explanation for why Trump finds this so important:

The U.S. has a key vulnerability that most Americans don’t realize: We no longer produce the vast majority of the goods that are critical for day-to-day “normal” life…

If China cut us off today, we’d have a national emergency on our hands tomorrow.

Just three days later, President Trump wrote:

What has been exposed is that we need to make products in the United States, and that we will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China, which will do everything within its power to disrespect the American People.

So, we have a huge push to bring back large swaths of the supply chain within U.S. borders.

Now, various politicians and business organizations are applauding the number of domestic jobs and economic tailwind this could create.

A few examples…

• “We’re going to bring jobs back, and we’re going to get new and improved reciprocal trade agreements done.” – Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas)
• “President Trump has the right plan to secure our economy, restore fairness to international trade, and bring back good-paying jobs to the United States.” – Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL)
• “President Trump is right: restoring a level playing field on trade will unlock the next blue collar boom – creating jobs and powering our economy through ‘Made in America.’ Huge news for Main Street!” – Small Business Administration

They could be right. We hope they are.

Yet this is where we need to dig in. You see, even if they’re right, those jobs will come with an enormous asterisk – one that points toward an equally enormous investment opportunity.

That’s the question that most people (and investors) aren’t great at asking – much less answering correctly.

We’re decent at looking one step ahead to that first fork-in-the-road decision and its potential outcomes. But beyond that, most people stop evaluating.

Too often, this lack of “second-level thinking” leads to an array of suboptimal outcomes. In the investment world, the consequence is usually underperformance. 

In his book, The Most Important Thing, the co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Howard Marks writes:

First-level thinking is simplistic and superficial, and just about everyone can do it (a bad sign for anything involving an attempt at superiority).

All the first-level thinker needs is an opinion about the future, as in “The outlook for the company is favorable, meaning the stock will go up.” Second-level thinking is deep, complex and convoluted.

What does first-level thinking suggest about Trump’s onshoring push?

Tons of new jobs! Economic explosion! Earnings bonanza! Stocks to the moon!

Perhaps.

But second-level thinking suggests something else…

Below, we quote RSM, which is a global network of audit, tax, and consulting firms, particularly focused on serving the middle market.

It’s from 2021 so the numbers have likely changed slightly, but you’ll get the idea.

From RSM:

In 2019, the average hourly manufacturing wages in China were about $5.25 per hour, according to the latest available data from the Chinese Bureau of Statistics.

The comparable U.S. average manufacturing wage in 2019 was nearly four times that, at $21.38 per hour. 

According to ZipRecruiter, the most recent average manufacturing wage in the U.S. has climbed to about $25.00 per hour.

A moment ago, I quoted Rep. Greg Steube, speaking about “good-paying jobs.”

I assume “$5.25 per hour” is not a good-paying job.

If not, then we have a tricky binary on our hands…

• We can choose “bad-paying jobs” that keep retail prices stable yet would seemingly not provide a livable wage (and potentially be illegal, coming in below minimum wage). Or…
• We can go with “good-paying jobs” that would be great for new workers, but the U.S. consumer would foot the bill via much higher retail prices.

Not a great choice.

“Jeff, you’re creating a false binary. Domestic hourly wages wouldn’t push retail prices that much higher.”

It depends on which sector and specific type of manufacturing. But overall, don’t fool yourself – payroll costs are a massive part of overall expense.

Here’s HR company, Paycor:

Labor costs can account for as much as 70% of total business costs according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And while we could quibble about how much more expensive onshoring might be, “some degree of higher prices” appears inarguable. Shifting from lower-cost production overseas to higher-cost production domestically brings a cost.

Here’s the AP News:

Imports help keep prices in check, economists say, partly because of lower labor costs overseas and because increased competition in the U.S. market forces American companies to be more efficient.

Domestic real estate for manufacturing is significantly more expensive than foreign real estate for manufacturing.

Here’s Tetakawi, a business consulting company:

Industrial real estate is in hot demand in Mexico, but still remains highly competitive compared to costs found in many U.S. markets. 

Tetakawi’s research finds that “Typical Monthly Industrial Building Rent” in the U.S. is about 62% more expensive than rents in Mexico for mid-price rents, and 42% more expensive for high-price rents.

Tetakawi comes to the same conclusion when looking at typical electricity rates. They’re vastly more expensive in the U.S.

For one example, high-price rates (as measured in per kWh in USD) are about 78% more expensive in the U.S. than in Mexico. Mid-price rates are more in line, but remain more expensive in the U.S.

Bottom line: Someone eats this cost.

Will it be the U.S. companies (and our portfolios via lower earnings) or U.S. consumers (and our economy, via higher retail prices)?

Trump is pushing hard for domestic jobs… but domestic jobs would explode labor costs… C-suite executives don’t want exploding labor costs because it hits earnings, stock prices, and their bonuses…

What’s the action step?

I suspect you already know…

Robotics.

What CEO won’t be doing a direct cost comparison?

On one hand, we have a human manufacturing workforce with its higher U.S. hourly wages, not to mention healthcare and other benefits expenses. Then there’s the downside of human error on the job…

On the other hand, we have the one-time CapEx expense of robots and their marginal upkeep expense. Of course, they don’t come with benefits expenses, not to mention sick days and human error.

Barring some sort of policy guardrails, how does this push for onshoring result in anything other than an acceleration of the transition to robotics?

From Time:

If tariffs persist in the medium term, [Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu] tells TIME, he expects companies “will have no choice but to bring some of their supply chains back home—but they will do it via AI and robots.”

Let’s go to Luke:

The U.S. government is now pursuing an economic strategy built on reindustrialization, supply chain security, domestic manufacturing, and economic sovereignty

But to pull it off in a globally competitive world? You need automation and robotics – AI in the real world.

With tariffs in place, trade deals being renegotiated, and the reshoring wave gaining steam, this strategy is already in motion. And the robotics arms race is officially on.

To achieve its economic goals, the U.S. will need to deploy millions of intelligent machines in warehouses, fulfillment centers, ports, airports, factories, fields, and construction sites.

In short, intelligent robots are now a national necessity.

We’re running long, but we’ll tackle this in more detail with Luke’s help in an upcoming Digest. But if you’d like to jump ahead to a research presentation Luke created on the topic, you can click here.

Forget country-specific tariffs, trade imbalances, and “deals.”

Yes, all that stuff will push and pull at stock prices in the coming weeks. But big picture, it’s just noise.

The more important influence is Trump’s goal of radically reshaping domestic manufacturing and supply chains as a matter of national security. It carries a high price tag that businesses will be eager to work around.

And the winners of that workaround?

The companies that leverage robotics, and the investors who saw the writing on the wall.

Here’s Luke:

The trade war may have lit the match. But the fire now spreading across this country is an economic one, unleashing a new 21st-century Industrial Revolution powered by AI, fueled by necessity, and backed by policy.

If you’re an investor, this is your early-in moment…

Because we’re confident that in five years, everyone will be talking about robotics stocks the same way they talk about AI chip stocks today.

More on this to come.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Here’s the Real Winner of Trump’s Onshoring Push appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) has established itself as the undisputed AI darling of today’s stock market, without a doubt generating life-changing amounts of wealth for many investors.

But its soaring popularity and front-page dominance can sometimes lead investors to throw on their rose-colored glasses and see only what they want to see.

Just look at the latest headline Nvidia made…

On Monday, the tech giant announced that it plans to completely produce its AI computers in the United States, and it plans to produce up to $500 billion of AI infrastructure in the U.S. over the next four years through manufacturing partnerships. Shares of Nvidia popped on the news.

While this move is monumental for the company and continues to capture investors’ excitement, it’s up to us to look beyond Nvidia’s hype, and examine its current valuation.

So, in today’s Smart Money, I’ll dive into the details of Nvidia’s American manufacturing shift… and why it’s not quite as homegrown as the headlines suggest.

Then, I’ll share the name of a tech company that’s already manufacturing in the U.S. – and trading at bargain prices.

Nvidia’s “American” Move

Nvidia has secured over a million square feet of manufacturing space across the country with plans to produce Blackwell chips in Arizona and AI supercomputers in Texas.

Its partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSM) has already begun Blackwell chip production at their Phoenix facilities. Meanwhile, construction is charging ahead on supercomputer manufacturing plants across Texas. Nvidia has also partnered with Taiwanese electronic manufacturing giants Foxconn (also known as Hon Hai Technology Group) to build supercomputer facilities in Houston and with Wistron for similar operations in Dallas.

According to Nvidia’s timeline, both plants are expected to escalate production in the next 12-15 months.

The chip king is also forming partnerships with Amkor Technology (AMKR) and Siliconware Precision Industries to establish packaging, assembly, and testing operations in Arizona.

Now, shares of Nvidia fell about 10% today after the company disclosed that the U.S. will limit sales of its advanced chips to China. But, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s everchanging tariff regime, it’s important to point out that this new manufacturing announcement has nothing to do with tariffs.

Major semiconductor companies like Micron Technology Inc. (MU) and Samsung Electronics have been gradually shifting production to the U.S. for several years now. But relocating such a sophisticated high-tech supply chain is a complex, time-consuming process that just can’t happen overnight.

That said, Nvidia’s stated goal is ambitious: to generate up to half a trillion dollars of AI infrastructure within the United States over the next four years. However, of the five major manufacturing partnerships Nvidia announced, four involve Taiwanese companies. So, Nvidia’s “domestic” production plans are still largely tied to foreign companies.

I’m not pointing this out from any political perspective, but rather as an important observation for investors. With Taiwanese partners collaborating with Nvidia on these projects, they could presumably maintain access to or ownership of the technologies behind these chips and supercomputers.

Both Republicans and Democrats have consistently advocated for American companies to independently design and manufacture next-generation AI technologies domestically.

And this is precisely what one lowly valued tech company has been striving to accomplish for years. It’s an “unpopular” company that faced a disappointing past… but I’m not abandoning this name just yet.

Balancing Innovation With Valuation

I’m talking about Intel Corp. (INTC).

Intel represents exactly what both political parties claim to want – an American company designing and building cutting-edge technology on American soil. Yet the market’s enthusiasm hasn’t followed political rhetoric.

Intel’s stock can’t seem to get out of its own way. Despite being America’s original semiconductor pioneer, most investors assume the company is a has-been. But when Intel finally begins producing chips from the multi-billion-dollar fabs it has in the U.S., the company’s earnings could lurch to the upside. Based on those prospective future earnings, the stock is trading for 16 times 2026 earnings and just 10 times the estimate 2027 result. That valuation is far below the S&P 500’s.

And with a market subject to the whims – and even social media posts – of the current administration, my strategy is to invest in companies with modest valuations, which typically offer greater downside protection than their high-flying counterparts.

Stocks trading at reasonable multiples tend to weather the storm far better than those with a pretty price tag. This is why my approach to investing prioritizes companies with solid fundamentals trading at attractive valuations.

And Intel is just one example of the value-oriented opportunities I’m keeping an eye on in this ever-changing market environment.

You can find the names of more undervalued gems in my Fry’s Investment Report portfolio. These are companies that offer both growth potential and defensive qualities that overvalued darlings simply cannot match.

Click here to learn how to join me at Fry’s Investment Report.

Regards,

Eric Fry

P.S. Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan is holding a special AI Predictive Power Event to showcase TradeSmith’s breakthrough AI algorithm, An-E.

Short for Analytical Engine, An-E harnesses the incredible predictive power of AI to gain insights into the market by forecasting stock prices one month into the future, potentially handing you big gains while avoiding big losses.

As we find ourselves in this constantly changing, uncertain market, An-E could be more useful than ever. And just for signing up for tonight’s special event, you’ll receive five of An-E’s most bearish stock forecasts for free.

The AI Predictive Power Event is just hours away, so click here to reserve your seat now.

The post Nvidia Moves to Manufacture in the U.S. – This Overlooked Company Is Already Doing It appeared first on InvestorPlace.

With China confronting a potential 245% tariff on imports to America, the uncertainty roiling Wall Street continues. After initially rallying in response to last week’s pause, stocks have begun sliding once again. The S&P 500 is down more than 1% over the past two trading days, while the Nasdaq has fallen nearly 2%. 

ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s are in turmoil; there’s blood in the streets, as they say. But in the middle of all this chaos – the economic fear and geopolitical noise – something remarkable is happening…

America’s AI Boom has begun.

And it may end up being the greatest silver lining of this entire trade war saga.

A Billion-Dollar American AI Bet

While politicians posture and stock prices buckle, the most important companies in the world are making some of the biggest bets in modern economic history. And it’s not happening overseas but right here in the USA. 

They’re building factories, forging partnerships, and investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the reshoring of America’s AI infrastructure.

It may be a tactical response to global instability or a strategic play for long-term control.

Either way, it looks like a sensational investment opportunity to us.

Let’s start with the kingmaker.

Nvidia (NVDA), leader of today’s AI Boom, just announced plans to invest up to $500 billion – half a trillion dollars – into American AI infrastructure over the next four years.

This is already in the works.

• Production of Nvidia’s latest chip – the Blackwell AI chip – has officially begun in Phoenix, Ariz., at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing’s (TSM) new U.S. plant. That’s right; Taiwan’s silicon giant is making its crown jewel chip for Nvidia on American soil.
• Nvidia is also building supercomputer manufacturing facilities in Texas through partnerships with Foxconn and Wistron –  the first time ever it will make these machines in the U.S.
• The firm is also teaming up with Amkor Technology (AMKR) and Siliconware Precision Industries to develop packaging and testing operations, all based in Arizona.

And here’s the kicker:

This has all been announced after the White House exempted electronics components from its reciprocal tariffs on China.

In other words, despite sourcing many components from China, Nvidia still decided to go big on American soil. 

Whether tariffs persist or evaporate, whether trade deals are signed or supply chains snap, Nvidia has concluded that the future of AI infrastructure is American.

And it’s not the only tech titan to do so.

The Great American AI Infrastructure Land Grab

Nvidia may be the headliner, but the chorus of companies backing the American AI Boom is loud – and growing louder by the day.

• Apple (AAPL) recently pledged to invest $500 billion in the U.S. over the coming years, including the construction of a massive AI server facility in Houston, which is expected to open in 2026.
• Meta (META) is pumping $10 billion into its largest-ever data center campus in northeast Louisiana, dedicated exclusively to AI development.
• Microsoft (MSFT) just tripled its original proposal, announcing a $3.3 billion investment to build an AI superhub in southeast Wisconsin.
• OpenAI, Oracle (ORCL), SoftBank (SFTBY), and others have teamed up under the White House’s Project Stargate, pledging to invest up to $500 billion into AI infrastructure and innovation hubs across the U.S.

This feels like more than a boom; it’s an explosion.

But why the sudden rush to reindustrialize America’s tech backbone?

Because the trade war has exposed the fragility of globalization.

With tariff risks rising and geopolitical tensions simmering, Big Tech is de-risking its supply chains. And the best way to do that? Build at home.

But it’s not just about economics anymore. It’s about national security.

AI has become the backbone of 21st-century power. Control over AI infrastructure means control over future prosperity.

The White House knows it. So does every company racing to pour concrete and erect fabs and data centers across the American heartland.

What began as a tariff tantrum may very well end in the largest technological buildout on U.S. soil since the interstate highway system.

Trade War Turbulence Begets Opportunity: What to Do Right Now

Yes, stocks are whipsawing. Indices are bleeding red.

But that’s what volatility before a paradigm shift looks like.

While the headlines scream about destruction, the groundwork is being laid for creation.

And in times like these, the best investors know the right play: Be greedy when others are fearful.

Tariffs and the threat of an ongoing trade war have wrought widespread fear and pain. But through that fog, the signal is clear: Capital is coming home. Infrastructure is getting built.

AI is going domestic.

And in our view, that’s not just resilience. That’s rocket fuel.

So, what’s the move?

You don’t need to chase every bounce or  time every dip.

But what you should be doing is building your AI stock watchlist and looking for entry points – because rampant fear creates opportunity.

Focus on:

• Semiconductor leaders reshoring U.S. production (think NVDA, AMD, TSM partners).
• AI software companies (think PLTR, AXON, META, MSFT).
• Advanced manufacturing plays in packaging, testing, and thermal systems (think SNPS, COHR, AMAT).

This may well be the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution… and it’s being built on American soil.

The Final Word: A Trade War and a Tech Renaissance

Let the media bemoan tariffs and the analysts fear-monger over GDP hits.

We understand why a lot of people are afraid right now. 

But we also see the bigger picture.

The trade war may bruise the short-term outlook; but we think it’s quietly setting the stage for the next great American economic boom, all powered by AI.

Factories are rising. Infrastructure is booming.

If this is what a crisis looks like… just wait for the recovery.

The time to start buying is not when the news gets better.

It’s now – while the future is being built, brick by brick, right here at home.

Though, buying into AI isn’t the only way to take advantage of this potentially momentous time in the industry’s history.

Now you can use this powerful tech to help you uncover Wall Street winners – while avoiding the losers at the same time… even amid as choppy a market as we’re seeing right now. 

Our corporate partner TradeSmith has developed a homegrown AI – An-E, short for Analytical Engine – a breakthrough system designed that can project prices one month into the future for thousands of stocks… and you’d be shocked at how close many of these forecasts are.

In just a few hours – today, April 16 at 8 p.m. EST – they’re hosting an emergency briefing called “The AI Predictive Power Event,” in which they’ll go over all the details behind An-E and exactly why it’s the ultimate tool to help you navigate the uncertain times we’re living in today.

You can register for the event automatically by going here.

And when you do, you’ll receive access to five of An-E’s most bearish forecasts for the coming month, all for FREE.

These five stocks could be among those most negatively impacted by Trump’s new tariff policy… so you’ll want to check them out right away.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Questions or comments about this issue? Drop us a line at langofeedback@investorplace.com.

The post Why the Trade War May Have Just Supercharged U.S. AI Development appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Is it…

• “Let your winners run” or “Little pigs get big, but big pigs get slaughtered”?
• “Cut your losers short” or “Time in the market beats timing the market”?
• “Be greedy when others are fearful” or “Never catch a falling knife”?
• “Stick to your investment plan” or “When the facts change, I change my mind”?

There will always be an investment maxim that, in hindsight, will have been the “wise” path you should have taken (usually quoted to you by a 23-year-old, wet-behind-the-ears recent hire at a brokerage firm).

You know that stock you sold when it fell 20%, triggering your stop-loss?

When it reverses and turns into a 300% winner, you should have known that…

“The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient,” as Warren Buffett once said.

But when you hold onto that other 20% loser in your portfolio – only for it to collapse 85% and never recover – you should have known that…

“Selling your winners and holding your losers is like cutting the flowers and watering the weeds,” as Warren Buffett once wrote.

(Technically, this comes from Peter Lynch, but Buffett liked the quote so much that he included it in one of his year-end reports to shareholders.)

Bottom line: Investing is hard.

About a decade ago, the research shop Longboard studied the total lifetime returns for individual U.S. stocks from 1983 through 2006.

They found that the worst-performing 6,000 stocks – which represented 75% of the stock-universe in the study – collectively had a total return of… 0%.

The best-performing 2,000 stocks – the remaining 25% – accounted for all the gains.

Here’s Longboard on the takeaway:

The conclusion is that if an investor was somehow unlucky enough to miss the 25% most profitable stocks and instead invested in the other 75% his/her total gain from 1983 to 2006 would have been 0%.

In other words, a minority of stocks are responsible for the majority of the market’s gains.

It gets worse.

The above statistic, that 75% of the stocks had a collective return of 0%, masks a darker financial reality…

While it would be unfortunate to sink your money into a stock that generated no gain, the unspoken implication is that you’d at least walk away with your original investment capital.

Not so much.

The Longboard study found that 18.5% of stocks lost at least 75% of their value.

In other words, nearly one in five stocks didn’t just return zero… they were double-digit losers that destroyed investment capital.

Here’s the breakdown:

Other studies have found similar results.

Research from economist and academic Hendrik Bessembinder that looked at equities from 1926 to 2015 concluded that about 60% of stocks were so bad that their performance was worse than one-month U.S. Treasury notes.

From Bessembinder:

It is historically the norm in the U.S. and around the world that a few top-performing companies have great influence over how the market does overall.

It’s the norm and I expect it to be the case in the future.

While it may be “the norm,” it points toward a sobering takeaway for investors…

It’s not easy finding the big winners. And if you don’t find a big winner, getting a 0% return isn’t the worst potential outcome. Instead, significant loss of your hard-earned money is a very real threat – and it happens with greater frequency than most investors realize.

By the way, it’s not just you and me who struggle with underperformance.

Here’s market analyst and author Charlie Bilello:

Most professional money managers (>90%) underperform their benchmarks over the long run.

Good thing you only pay them 1% of your entire portfolio!

(Do the quick math on that, and then imagine carrying a briefcase of cash with that amount into their office each January to pay them. Are they worth it?)

Again: Investing is hard.

How about one that sidesteps emotions and zeroes in on fundamental strength?

Maybe one that leverages artificial intelligence to analyze volumes of historical data and millions of data points to help investors make wiser decisions?

Last week in the Digest, we highlighted “An-E,” which is short for analytical engine. This is an AI-based investment product from our corporate partner, TradeSmith.

If you’re not familiar with TradeSmith, they’re one of the most respected quant shops in our industry. They’ve spent over $19 million and over 11,000 man-hours developing their market analysis algorithms with a staff of 36 people working on developing and maintaining their software and data systems.

Here’s Keith Kaplan, CEO of TradeSmith, with more on An-E:

A lot of today’s chatter about artificial intelligence is about “the future” – about AI’s potential, and the great things this technology can achieve.

But at TradeSmith, we don’t have to visualize too far into the future.

For us, that “future” is already here.

We’ve figured out how AI can deliver market-beating wealth – and not just on the easy, good days.

What we’ve created can help you thrive even in the worst market conditions.

And that means recognizing opportunities, yes, but also sidestepping danger. That’s where TradeSmith’s proprietary AI trading algorithm – An-E, short for analytical engine – comes in.

What sets An-E apart from the crowd is that it can forecast stock prices one month into the future… and many of these forecasts are incredibly accurate.

And it’s not just useful for stocks that are set to go up… An-E also zeroes in on the losers, too.

Over the last few days in the Digest, we’ve highlighted case studies illustrating An-E’s predictive power. Let’s look at another bearish example (An-E is equally effective in bear markets as it is in bull markets).

Back on March 6, An-E predicted that Dolby Laboratories Inc. (DLB) would suffer a 12.91% drop after 21 trading days.

The AI’s conviction level on its prediction was 63%.

After 21 trading days, DLB closed at $72.49, just above An-E’s prediction of $71.85. This put the loss at -12.13%, nearly identical to the forecasted -12.91% decline.

He’ll walk you through how An-E forecasts stock prices one month in advance with remarkable accuracy – and how you can use it to find high-probability trades that unlock short-term profits.

By the way, just for joining automatically, Keith will give you five of An-E’s most bearish forecasts – stocks it’s projecting to drop hard in the coming weeks.

Back to Keith:

We’re in the midst of one of the most radical economic shifts we’ve ever seen. Global trade is being rewritten, markets are in flux, and many investors are scrambling to make sense of it all.

But this is exactly the moment AI like An-E was designed for.

With markets more unpredictable than ever, “buy and hold” simply won’t cut it anymore. The smart money is learning how to move with the market’s rhythm – and AI is the key to making it possible.

American publisher and author William Feather once wrote, “One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute.”

Do you know who’s on the other end of your “astute” stock transactions?

Increasingly, it’s AI (or at least high-powered quantitative algorithms), which surpasses humans in its analytical/predictive powers by orders of magnitude.

Here’s Business Insider with how Wall Street is cannonballing into AI.

Welcome to Wall Street’s AI era…

Quant hedge funds are beginning to rely on the latest AI chips, like Nvidia’s popular GPUs, to test some of their most advanced models.

Google Cloud is helping quantitative investment firms like Two Sigma and Hudson River Trading innovate around a shortage of sought-after Nvidia AI chips.

The article goes on to highlight a long list of companies that are turning to AI in one way or another.

Can the average investor compete?

Perhaps the better question is: “Will the average investor even try to compete?”

The answer appears to be “no.”

In 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveyed how Americans spend their time. After “sleeping” and “working,” what was the most time-intensive activity for survey respondents?

Watching TV.

That clocked in at 2.84 hours per day.

And how much time, on average, was allocated to personal financial management?

0.03 hours per days… which is less than two minutes.

Here’s Keith again:

Not every chunk of bad news means doom for your portfolio. In fact, volatility like we’ve seen presents a massive opportunity.

This is AI’s time to shine.

With An-E on your side, the odds of you finding more winners and avoiding more losers is higher than before.

Join me tomorrow at 8 p.m. Eastern at The AI Predictive Power Event by signing up here automatically… and you’ll discover how.

Whether you’re playing offense by targeting winners or defense by avoiding losers, An-E gives you the clarity you need when it matters most.

To reserve your seat, just click here to instantly reserve your spot and we’ll see you there.

So, what’s the best way to end today’s Digest?

Clearly, with yet another investing quote – but this one might be the wisest of all.

From author, asset manager, and trader Andreas Clenow:

Beware of trading quotes.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Why Good Investing Advice Can Still Lose You Money appeared first on InvestorPlace.

And while that’s good for the economy in the long run, I know that their effect on the market so far has been quite unsettling.

That is where our corporate partner, TradeSmith, comes in. They have created an invaluable tool using an AI-powered algorithm called An-E (short for Analytical Engine). It analyzes millions of data points per day to make a one-month price forecast on thousands of stocks, with remarkable accuracy.

Having a tool like this in your back pocket is a powerful advantage. And tomorrow at 8 p.m. Eastern, you can learn all about it for free at the AI Predictive Power Event.

Trust me, if you have any fear or uncertainty about the market we’re in… this is a tool you’ll want to have at your disposal. Click here to automatically save your spot for the event now!

In the meantime, I’ve asked Keith to share a bit more about how predictive algorithms, like An-E, are outpacing human traders. Take it away, Keith…

$2 trillion. Gone in a flash.

That’s how much value was lost from the markets after President Trump’s unexpected tariff announcement – setting off one of the most volatile periods in recent market history.

For most investors, it triggered the same response: fear and hesitation, which led to painful losses.

But for a growing class of traders, this chaos didn’t bring uncertainty – it brought opportunity.

Because in the middle of extreme volatility – when headlines change by the hour and traditional strategies fall apart – a powerful new force is emerging as the clear winner in the battle for market profits: AI.

While human investors react with fear, delay, or overconfidence, a new breed of trading algorithm – like TradeSmith’s cutting-edge system, An-E (short for Analytical Engine) – is making precise, unemotional forecasts about where the market is heading next.

And in today’s chaos, that edge is proving invaluable.

The Shift: Why AI Is Dominating in Volatile ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s

In stable markets, it’s easy for anyone to feel like a smart investor.

But real skill – and real profits – show up when things fall apart. Volatility is the stress test.

That’s why AI is taking over.

Unlike humans, AI doesn’t get emotional. It doesn’t chase headlines.  It doesn’t second-guess every move. Instead, it digests mountains of data and makes calculated projections—especially when things get messy.

And in this turbulent market, messy is the new normal.

Meet An-E: The AI Forecasting Engine Built for Chaos

AI-powered trading systems like robo-advisors have been gaining steam for years. In 2024 alone, U.S. robo-advisors managed over $1.46 trillion in assets.

But basic robo-advisors are just that – basic.

The real leap forward? Predictive AI. Tools that don’t just manage your portfolio – they forecast future stock movements before the rest of the market reacts.

That’s what sets An-E apart.

Unlike most robo-advisors that only adjust based on your risk tolerance, An-E takes it several steps further.

It uses advanced predictive modeling to forecast stock prices 21 trading days into the future – a huge advantage when markets are whipping back and forth like they are now.

And this isn’t guesswork. An-E analyzes millions of data points, learning patterns, pricing behavior, and momentum signals that most investors would never catch.

Here’s what that looks like in real time…

Case in Point: Duolingo Inc. (DUOL)

On March 3, 2025, AN-E projected that Duolingo Inc. (DUOL) would rise to $325.30 within 21 trading days – a projected increase of 10.18%.

What made this signal stand out even more was An-E’s 66% confidence gauge – its own internal measure of how likely the forecast was to come true.

And just 21 days later, the stock exceeded that projection, hitting $327.28 – locking in an even bigger gain of 10.89%.

In a choppy, panic-driven market, that kind of signal isn’t just valuable; it’s game changing. The average investor sees volatility and backs away. But with the right tool, volatility becomes a profit machine.

And that’s exactly what you want in today’s landscape. Because while there will always be winners, volatility also creates landmines – and knowing when companies are poised to crash could save your portfolio from serious losses.

So, what about the downside? Take this bearish forecast:

On March 7, 2025, An-E projected that Discover Financial Services (DFS) would fall from $167.52 to $150.83 within 21 trading days – a projected drop of 9.97%.

This time, An-E’s confidence gauge was even higher – 72%  – suggesting a strong likelihood the bearish move would materialize.

And by April 7, 2025, DFS plummeted to $150.88 – a nearly perfect match to An-E’s forecast, and a real-world 9.93% drop.

Whether it’s going long on opportunities or short on risk, An-E thrives where human instinct fails.

Human Emotion vs. Machine Precision

Let’s face it: Human traders struggle in unpredictable markets. We get nervous. We chase headlines. We miss out – or worse, buy at the top and sell at the bottom.

But An-E doesn’t do panic.

It simply scans millions of data points and highlights the moves most investors will miss – both bullish and bearish – with no emotion involved. That includes which stocks could collapse next, something no investor can afford to ignore right now.

In fact, when the S&P 500 dropped nearly 6% the day after the tariff news, An-E’s bearish forecasts became more crucial than ever.

AI is no longer a niche tool – it’s becoming the foundation of modern trading.

In 2023, investment in AI-powered financial services hit $35 billion. By 2028, it’s projected to soar past $126 billion.

Why? Because the numbers don’t lie.

A quarter of firms already say AI strategies are delivering their highest returns. And more investors are turning to AI not just to survive in volatile markets – but to win.

Here’s the turning point…

TradeSmith’s Emergency Briefing

To help investors navigate the storm, TradeSmith is hosting a special AI Predictive Power Event on Wednesday, April 16 at 8 p.m. Eastern to reveal exactly how An-E works and which stocks to avoid immediately based on An-E’s bearish projections.

And just for signing up, you’ll get five of An-E’s most bearish stock forecasts for free – stocks that could be falling hard in the coming weeks.

We’re in the middle of the most radical economic shift. Global trade is being rewritten, markets are convulsing, and investors are struggling to find their footing.

But AI like An-E is built for this exact moment.

It cuts through the noise, sees what human intuition can’t, and delivers forecasts you can actually trade on – whether markets are crashing, bouncing, or stuck in a whipsaw.

If you’re still relying on guesswork in a market like this, you’re falling behind.

Join the emergency briefing on April 16 and see how you can turn today’s volatility into tomorrow’s opportunity.

Click here to reserve your seat instantly – and get five free bearish forecasts now.

Sincerely,

Keith Kaplan

CEO, TradeSmith

The post When AI Takes the Lead: Why Predictive Algorithms Are Outpacing Human Traders appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Then this weekend, the White House went even bigger… but the move received far less attention.

That is, late Friday night, in a quiet yet seismic shift within the ongoing trade war, the U.S. announced a reciprocal tariff exemption for electronics exported from China – a category that includes computers, smartphones, and semiconductors. 

It’s easy to miss among the headlines, but make no mistake: This is the most significant trade war development since “Liberation Day” – even more than the 90-day pause announced last week… 

And we think it could mark the beginning of a 20% meltup in stocks.

Why?

Because China exports over $100 billion worth of electronics to the U.S. every year, making it a cornerstone of global commerce.

And now those exports are no longer being hit with the full force of “Liberation Day’s” 145% tariffs. Instead, they’re back to just 20% (at least for now); and the impact on the U.S. tariff picture is huge.

There are four reasons why this electronics exemption could light a fire under the market – and why we think stocks are setting up for a monster rally into summer…

How the $100 Billion Electronics Tariff Exemption Changes Everything

The 90-day tariff pause that triggered last week’s epic relief rally was widely covered by the media and celebrated by investors. But if you look under the hood, it only shaved less than one percentage point off the average U.S. tariff rate – from just under 27% to just over 26%.

But the subsequent electronics exemption slashed the average U.S. tariff rate from just over 26% to around 23%.

That’s more than three times the impact of last week’s sweeping pause.

It’s all about volume. 

Electronics represent over 20% of total Chinese exports to the U.S. By reducing tariffs on that major sector, the U.S. essentially cut a massive weight off the global trade system.

And Federal Reserve research shows that each one-point rise in the average U.S. tariff rate cuts GDP by 0.14 percentage points. So, before the exemption, we were looking at a -3.3% drag on U.S. GDP. Now that drag is down to -2.9%.

That’s a big deal.

Especially when you’re trying to steer a slowing economy away from recession.

From 27% to 20% in Two Weeks: A Clear Trend

For weeks, we’ve been advising folks to forget the noise, and watch the numbers.

And here’s what the numbers say:

• After the “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced, the average U.S. tariff rate skyrocketed from 2.5% to nearly 27%.
• The 90-day pause trimmed it down to 26%.
• Friday’s electronics exemption pulled it further down to 23%.
• Reports are now circulating that auto parts may be next. And if those are exempted too, we’ll be looking at a 20% average tariff rate by week’s end.

From 27% to 20% in two weeks…

That’s not just a dip. That’s a trend.

Now, of course, the administration’s rhetoric remains confusing. This past Sunday, April 13, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the electronics weren’t truly exempt but rather delayed. Trump himself doubled down, saying sectoral semiconductor tariffs were still coming.

But we think that’s all part of the game.

These walk-backs are calculated. This White House wants to look tough while cutting deals behind the scenes. They’re keeping trading partners guessing; but the tariff rate keeps drifting lower.

And we think it’ll keep on that path, moving toward 10% or less by early summer.

This Tariff Delay Might Just Become Permanent

Trump’s recent 90-day pause applies to reciprocal tariffs. But Lutnick said sectoral tariffs, specifically on semiconductors, will be enacted within the next 30 to 60 days.

That means we now have a one- to two-month window to reach trade deals with China, the EU, and other trading partners before the pause ends and the sectoral tariffs begin.

If deals are struck – and we believe they will be – then the White House’s proposed electronics tariffs may never actually come to pass.

They’ll join the long list of policy threats that never made it to the finish line.

And that’s the point: Timing is everything.

We think the White House is using this window to deescalate quietly and land a few high-profile trade wins, creating a “winning” moment for Trump before tariffs inflict real economic damage.

Why the Latest Tariff Rollbacks Could Fuel a 20% Stock ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Rally

Let’s not overcomplicate this.

Since “Liberation Day,” stocks have moved in lockstep with the average U.S. tariff rate. When the rate spiked from 2.5% to 27%, stocks tanked. Last week, as the rate slid from 27% to 26%, stocks staged their best weekly rally since 2023.And when the average tariff rate fell again to 23% early this week, stocks jumped once more.

There’s now a clear, powerful inverse correlation between tariff pressure and equity performance.

We think that if the tariff rate keeps falling – perhaps toward 20% after auto exemptions, then toward 10% if a deal with China is made – stocks could surge 20%-plus.

That’s the roadmap. And the White House seems to be following it… if not in word, then at least in action.

What the 90-Day Pause Means for Investors

Yes, the commentary from Washington is confusing at best, contradictory at worst.

But look past the bluster to the numbers:

• Reciprocal tariff pause = 90 days of breathing room.
• Electronics exemption = $100 billion of breathing room.
• Average U.S. tariff rate = down four full percentage points from the peak.
• Stock market reaction = clear and bullish.

Now, we’re not calling a straight line up for the markets. Volatility will persist. There will be more reversals and threats.

But the trajectory is what matters. And right now, the tariff trajectory is lower…

Which means stocks should be following a path higher. 

In fact, we believe stocks are preparing for a massive rebound into summer.

If you’re looking to make the most of it, consider buying AI 2.0 stocks on this recent dip.

We’re talking AI that can respond to real-world environments; embodied intelligence that can see, hear, walk, talk, lift, carry, organize, fix, learn…

After all, there’s a reason why every tech titan is suddenly obsessed with humanoid robots.

That’s where we believe the next trillion-dollar investment opportunities will be found. And we’ve found a compelling way to play that next phase of the AI Boom.

Uncover the details on our favorite AI 2.0 pick.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Questions or comments about this issue? Drop us a line at langofeedback@investorplace.com.

The post Tariff Cuts and Stock Surges: The $100B Exemption Driving ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s Higher appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Last Friday, the Trump administration announced exclusions for smartphones, computers, semiconductors, and other electronics from President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff list.

However, in a post on Truth Social on Sunday, President Trump confused everyone, writing “There was no Tariff ‘exception’ announced on Friday.”

Yet Yahoo! Finance reports:

The fact remains that Trump has offered at least a temporary boost to companies with close links to China, and investors are responding by sending stocks of directly impacted companies like Apple and Dell (DELL) higher on Monday morning.

To clarify, these companies are still subject to the 20% fentanyl-related tariff, plus whatever tariffs were in place under the first Trump administration and the Biden administration. But it appears they’re avoiding the brunt of the all-in 145% tariff in place.

This might not last…

Yesterday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that many tech products will face separate tariffs in a month or two. And Trump chimed in, saying that tariffs on tech products will still exist but simply be moved to a different “bucket.”

So, we’ll see how this shakes out. But for the moment, Wall Street is happy(ish). As I write Monday, all three major indexes are up – though they were up far bigger earlier in the session. Given how volatile stocks are these days, who knows where they’ll be by the time you read this.

One note before we move on…

Last Thursday’s Digest included a deep dive into what may be Trump’s real motivation in this trade war – quick, vast reshoring as a matter of national security because the U.S. is dangerously dependent on other countries, mostly China.

With that context, here’s Trump from Friday:

We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations.

What has been exposed is that we need to make products in the United States, and that we will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China, which will do everything within its power to disrespect the American People.

We’ll continue updating you on this story. It’s going to be a massive influence on the market and your portfolio.

For why, let’s go straight to our macro investing expert, Eric Fry:

Many overseas stock markets will begin to outperform our own. And that’s not just a geopolitical factor; it’s also a valuation one.

We have valuation extremes in the U.S., relative to many foreign markets. In other words, the U.S. market has never been more richly priced relative to many foreign markets than it is today.

For smart investors, this valuation chasm can serve as a signal to look toward foreign stocks.

That is not to say great opportunities will not continue to exist in the U.S. stock market. But I believe we will start to see more opportunities popping up in the foreign markets.

Historical data supports Eric’s conclusion. To illustrate, let’s use the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio (CAPE).

This is a long-term measure of a market’s valuation. It’s your traditional P/E ratio, but it uses rolling 10-year average earnings to smooth out business cycle fluctuations.

The CAPE ratio isn’t a market-timing tool. But it does offer investors a helpful and remarkably accurate expectation of long-term forward returns.

This happens because markets tend to mean revert over time. So, a stock or index that has a high CAPE value today is more likely than not to see its value fall in the coming years.

As I write – even after the historic drawdown we’ve experienced in recent weeks – the U.S. market’s CAPE ratio sits at 33.15. As you can see below, this remains one of the highest readings in more than 150 years.

Of course, a high CAPE reading would be irrelevant if foreign stock valuations were equally expensive. But that’s not what we find.

For that data, we’ll turn to my friend and respected quant investor, Meb Faber of Cambria Investments.

Earlier this month, Meb updated the latest global CAPE ratios. With the U.S. reading at 33.15 as our context, here those are:

• Median CAPE Ratio: 16
• 25% cheapest: 11
• 25% most expensive: 25
• Average of Foreign Developed: 19
• Average of Foreign Emerging: 14

So, the U.S. is twice as expensive as the median reading, and about 230% as expensive as the average foreign emerging market.

Even compared to the average of the 25% most expensive, the U.S. is about 33% pricier.

Beyond CAPE, Meb provides three additional valuation metrics: Cyclically Adjusted Price to Dividends, Cyclically Adjusted Price to Cash Flow, and Cyclically Adjusted Price to Book.

The results?

Averaging all four valuation-metrics, the U.S. is tied with India for having the highest reading out of the nearly 50 foreign markets Meb tracks.

That’s what I used to belief, too.

But Meb’s 2016 study on the topic shows that over the long term, it’s not accurate:

Many pundits will list the myriad reasons why the U.S. deserves its lofty valuation, rule of law, GAAP earnings, stable government (ha!), etc., but a quick look at history casts doubt on the explanations…

First, if the U.S. is truly “special” it should always be special, right? Meaning, if the U.S. market is so fantastic that a higher valuation is always warranted, then historically, it should always have a higher valuation.

But that’s not what history tells us.

Below is a chart showing the U.S.’s CAPE versus the world ex U.S. (i.e., foreign stocks). Going back to 1980, both have an average CAPE ratio of about 22. Let me repeat: the historical valuation premium has been ZERO.

Beyond that, the amount of time each spends being more expensive than the other is basically a coin flip.

And if we look at returns on the year, the U.S. market is badly trailing some global markets.

As you can see below, while the S&P is down more than 7% on the year, Japan (via EWJ, the iShares MSCI Japan ETF) is flat, while Europe (via FEZ, the SPDR Euro Stoxx 50 ETF) is up 12% and China (via FXI, the iShares China Large-Cap ETF) is up 13%.

If you want to go specific stocks, look for foreign companies that either have limited exposure to tariff wars or enough fundamental strength to weather the storm.

You’ll be looking for companies with strong cash flows that trade at reasonable valuations.

On Saturday, fellow Digest writer Luis Hernandez highlighted one of Eric’s latest picks that fits the bill – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. (GOOS). It’s a global performance luxury and lifestyle brand.

As to limited trade war exposure, here’s Eric:

Canada Goose exports its goods to the U.S. duty-free. Under the U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) President Trump signed during his first term, the U.S. levies no tariffs on apparel and textile exports from Canada to the U.S.

On valuation, it trades at a P/E ratio of 15.2. That’s miles beneath the S&P’s current P/E of 26.7.

If you don’t have the time to research specific foreign stocks, you can buy entire foreign markets via an exchange-traded fund.

For example, to buy “Europe,” look at FEZ, the SPDR Euro STOXX 50 ETF.

Eric currently holds three “whole country ETFs” in his Investment Report portfolio that give subscribers exposure to a basket of the top stocks in those respective countries. For those specifics as a subscriber, click here.

As Eric clarified after highlighting foreign markets, “That is not to say great opportunities will not continue to exist in the U.S. stock market.”

So, how do you find those great opportunities?

One answer is by letting data do the heavy lifting for you.

Past performance has predictive power. It doesn’t guarantee future success, but it can signal which stocks have a higher probability of outperformance.

With this in mind, let’s jump to Keith Kaplan, CEO of our corporate partner TradeSmith. They’re one of the most respected quant shops in the investment universe.

Here’s Keith:

Investing operates along the principle of “past performance has predictive power.”

You want to stock your portfolio with strong performers – companies poised for sustained growth. And just as importantly, you want to avoid the losers before they drag down your portfolio.

That’s what TradeSmith’s proprietary AI trading algorithm, dubbed “An-E” (short for Analytical Engine), is designed to do…

In 21 trading days or less.

Let’s do another.

About a month ago, An-E signaled a trade on AAON Inc. (AAON). It gave the reading a “confidence gauge” of 62%, signaling An-E’s conviction level of its own projection.

To clarify, a 62% confidence level isn’t better than 50%, nor is it worse than 90%. A higher confidence level simply means that the algorithm anticipates a higher likelihood of a stock hitting the price it projected.

So, how’d it play out?

While the confidence reading on AAON’s projection wasn’t exceptionally high, it still hit nearly on target…

By its target date of April 3, 2025, the HVAC equipment maker’s stock reached $79.16. This was just 58 cents off its projection – and a gain of about 7%.

In a recent essay, Keith provided a real-time illustration of An-E’s bear market accuracy, concluding:

An-E doesn’t need calm waters to find winners. And right now, An-E’s bearish forecasts are just as sharp…

This isn’t just about finding what to buy. It’s about knowing what to dodge – and when to get out before things go haywire.

This Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET, Keith is holding The AI Predictive Power Event. You’ll discover exactly how this tech works, and how it can guide you through today’s market volatility – whether “up” or “down.”

I’ll note that just for signing up, you’ll get five of An-E’s most bearish forecasts. These are stocks that the AI platform projects will drop hard in the coming weeks.

Whether you want to trade them or just make sure you don’t own them, those forecasts are yours for free.

Here’s Keith to wrap us up:

Whether you’re playing offense by targeting winners or defense by avoiding losers, An-E gives you the clarity you need when it matters most.

Click here to sign up for The AI Predictive Power Event now and get five of An-E’s most bearish forecasts now.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Tariff Exemptions Lift Big Tech appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Stocks continued their downward trend in the front half of the week. But on Wednesday, President Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for all U.S. trading partners except China, the markets soared. The S&P 500 rallied 9.5%, the Dow jumped 7.9% and the NASDAQ surged 12.2%.

This was the single best day for the market since 2008. But unfortunately, due to the escalating trade war with China, this rally was short-lived, and stocks traded lower again on Thursday.

Now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the volatility continue this week. I should note that the markets will be closed for the Good Friday holiday, but there is still a lot going on that we need to keep an eye on.

To help make sense of everything, we are joined by a very special guest in this week’s ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Buzz: economist Dr. Ed Yardeni. In this exclusive interview, he answers some of the most pressing economic questions, including why “bond vigilantes” have hit a homerun, whether China and the U.S. can come to an agreement soon, whether China will need to devalue its currency and much more. You don’t want to miss this!

Click the image below to watch now!

If you aren’t already a subscriber to Navellier ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Buzz, click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Also, if you like Ed as much as I do, you can learn more about him and subscribe to his research here. You can also purchase Ed’s book, Predicting the ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s, here.

Using AI During ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Volatility

As the recent market volatility continues, you’ll want to be nimble with your investing strategy.

That’s where our friends at TradeSmith come in. They just released a brand-new update to their AI trading tool that you don’t want to miss…

In short, their analytical engine utilizes a custom-fit algorithm that can tell you which stocks are poised to bounce like fresh tennis balls… and which ones could drop like a rock over the next 21 days.

Case in point: Back on March 12, weeks before Liberation Day took an axe to the tech market, it forecasted that Palantir Technologies (PLTR) would drop by -6.79% over the next 19 trading days.

With the window closed on April 8, PLTR had indeed fallen -7.57%.

That’s not just a one-off, either, folks. Over the past two years, the projection has called PLTR’s directional move (up or down) correctly 75% of the time. And 89.84% of the time, the stock price hit the exact price forecast within the 19-day window.

Now, imagine being able to do this not just for Palantir or other popular tech stocks, but for thousands of stocks – and with stocks you already own in your portfolio.

The ramifications of this breakthrough are clear. And in a wild market like this one, you can’t afford to miss learning more about it.

That’s why, on Wednesday, April 16 at 8 p.m. Eastern, TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan will tell you everything you need to know about this tool in an event called The AI Predictive Power Event.

Make sure and reserve your spot now while you can. And, as a special bonus for signing up, you’ll receive five bearish forecasts to help you sidestep disaster in your portfolio.

Click here to claim your spot now!

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360

The Editor hereby discloses that as of the date of this email, the Editor, directly or indirectly, owns the following securities that are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned in, the essay set forth below:

Palantir Technologies, Inc. (PLTR)

The post Did the Bond Vigilantes Hit a Homerun? Economist Ed Yardeni Breaks It Down… appeared first on InvestorPlace.

And if you have the right tools.

Our corporate partner TradeSmith has cracked the code on securing short-term gains, even amid the bumpiest turbulence. And it’s all thanks to an AI-powered algorithm called An-E (short for Analytical Engine).

Built in-house using machine learning models trained on over 1.3 quadrillion data points and 50,000+ backtests, An-E can help you see what stocks could go up or down within a 30-day projection. An-E projects the share price on thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs one month into the future.

The result? A powerful advantage unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.

You can learn all about it in The AI Predictive Power Event on April 16 at 8 p.m. Eastern. Click here to save your spot for the event now!

Now, I’ll let Keith talk more about how this strategy can work for you…

$2 trillion. Gone in a flash.  

That’s how much value was lost from the markets after President Trump’s unexpected tariff announcement – setting off one of the most volatile periods in recent market history.  

For most investors, it triggered the same response: fear and hesitation, which led to painful losses. 

But for a growing class of traders, this chaos didn’t bring uncertainty – it brought opportunity. 

Because in the middle of extreme volatility – when headlines change by the hour and traditional strategies fall apart – a powerful new force is emerging as the clear winner in the battle for market profits: AI. 

While human investors react with fear, delay, or overconfidence, a new breed of trading algorithm – like TradeSmith’s cutting-edge system, An-E (short for Analytical Engine) – is making precise, unemotional forecasts about where the market is heading next.  

And in today’s chaos, that edge is proving invaluable. 

The Shift: Why AI Is Dominating in Volatile ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s 

In stable markets, it’s easy for anyone to feel like a smart investor. 

But real skill – and real profits – show up when things fall apart. Volatility is the stress test. 

That’s why AI is taking over. 

Unlike humans, AI doesn’t get emotional. It doesn’t chase headlines.  It doesn’t second-guess every move. Instead, it digests mountains of data and makes calculated projections—especially when things get messy. 

And in this turbulent market, messy is the new normal.

Meet An-E: The AI Forecasting Engine Built for Chaos 

AI-powered trading systems like robo-advisors have been gaining steam for years. In 2024 alone, U.S. robo-advisors managed over $1.46 trillion in assets. 

But basic robo-advisors are just that – basic. 

The real leap forward? Predictive AI. Tools that don’t just manage your portfolio – they forecast future stock movements before the rest of the market reacts. 

That’s what sets An-E apart. 

Unlike most robo-advisors that only adjust based on your risk tolerance, An-E takes it several steps further. 

It uses advanced predictive modeling to forecast stock prices 21 trading days into the future – a huge advantage when markets are whipping back and forth like they are now. 

And this isn’t guesswork. An-E analyzes millions of data points, learning patterns, pricing behavior, and momentum signals that most investors would never catch. 

Here’s what that looks like in real time… 

Case in point: Duolingo Inc. (DUOL) 

On March 3, 2025, An-E projected that Duolingo Inc. (DUOL) would rise to $325.30 within 21 trading days – a projected increase of 10.18%.  

What made this signal stand out even more was An-E’s 66% confidence gauge – its own internal measure of how likely the forecast was to come true.  

And just 21 days later, the stock exceeded that projection, hitting $327.28 – locking in an even bigger gain of 10.89%. 

In a choppy, panic-driven market, that kind of signal isn’t just valuable; it’s game changing. The average investor sees volatility and backs away. But with the right tool, volatility becomes a profit machine.  

And that’s exactly what you want in today’s landscape. Because while there will always be winners, volatility also creates landmines – and knowing when companies are poised to crash could save your portfolio from serious losses.  

So, what about the downside? Take this bearish forecast: 

On March 7, 2025, An-E projected that Discover Financial Services (DFS) would fall from $167.52 to $150.83 within 21 trading days – a projected drop of 9.97%. 

This time, An-E’s confidence gauge was even higher – 72%  – suggesting a strong likelihood the bearish move would materialize.  

And by April 7, 2025, DFS plummeted to $150.88 – a nearly perfect match to An-E’s forecast, and a real-world 9.93% drop.  

Whether it’s going long on opportunities or short on risk, An-E thrives where human instinct fails. 

Human Emotion vs. Machine Precision 

Let’s face it: Human traders struggle in unpredictable markets. We get nervous. We chase headlines. We miss out – or worse, buy at the top and sell at the bottom. 

But An-E doesn’t do panic. 

It simply scans millions of data points and highlights the moves most investors will miss – both bullish and bearish – with no emotion involved. That includes which stocks could collapse next, something no investor can afford to ignore right now. 

In fact, when the S&P 500 dropped nearly 6% the day after the tariff news, An-E’s bearish forecasts became more crucial than ever. 

AI is no longer a niche tool – it’s becoming the foundation of modern trading. 

In 2023, investment in AI-powered financial services hit $35 billion. By 2028, it’s projected to soar past $126 billion. 

Why? Because the numbers don’t lie. 

A quarter of firms already say AI strategies are delivering their highest returns. And more investors are turning to AI not just to survive in volatile markets – but to win. 

Here’s the turning point… 

TradeSmith’s Emergency Briefing 

To help investors navigate the storm, TradeSmith is hosting a special AI Predictive Power Event on Wednesday, April 16 at 8 p.m. Eastern to reveal exactly how An-E works  and which stocks to avoid immediately based on An-E’s bearish projections. 

And just for signing up, you’ll get five of An-E’s most bearish stock forecasts for free – stocks that could be falling hard in the coming weeks. 

We’re in the middle of the most radical economic shift. Global trade is being rewritten, markets are convulsing, and investors are struggling to find their footing. 

But AI like An-E is built for this exact moment. 

It cuts through the noise, sees what human intuition can’t, and delivers forecasts you can actually trade on – whether markets are crashing, bouncing, or stuck in a whipsaw. 

If you’re still relying on guesswork in a market like this, you’re falling behind. 

Join the emergency briefing on April 16 and see how you can turn today’s volatility into tomorrow’s opportunity. 

Click here to reserve your seat – and get five free bearish forecasts now. 

Keith Kaplan 

CEO, TradeSmith 

The post When AI Takes the Lead: Why Predictive Algorithms Are Outpacing Human Traders  appeared first on InvestorPlace.

When the future feels increasingly uncertain, it’s the near-term opportunities that can make all the difference. That’s where our partner TradeSmith enters the picture, with a powerful new tool designed for today’s unpredictable landscape: An-E (short for Analytical Engine).

It’s a cutting-edge AI system that forecasts the one-month price movements of thousands of stocks, ETFs, and funds. Unlike generic models, An-E crafts a unique forecast for each asset – trained on 1.3 quadrillion data points and more than 50,000 backtests. And this Wednesday, April 16 at 8:00 p.m. EST, the folks at TradeSmith will be debuting this powerful system at The AI Predictive Power Event. (You can click here to reserve your seat now).

This isn’t about making wild bets on where the market will be a year from now. It’s about acting on precise, high-confidence projections over the next 30 days, helping investors adapt faster, limit losses, and position themselves for gains no matter the macro backdrop.

With volatility shaking even the most seasoned traders, knowing what’s likely to fall – or rise – in the short term can be a critical edge. That’s why today, we’re joined by TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan to explore how AI is reshaping the way we navigate market turmoil… and seize opportunities others might miss.

It felt like the world was ending. 

Almost exactly five years ago, as the COVID-19 virus amplified from a concentrated contagion to a full-blown pandemic, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) – aka, the market’s “fear index” – closed at the highest level ever seen. 

At the same time, the S&P 500 saw its third-largest one-day percentage drop in history: a whopping -11.98% loss. 

We all had similar feelings this week, following the 10% nosedive – a record $5 trillion loss – in the S&P 500 after President Trump’s tariff announcement on Wednesday, April 2. 

The market has since rebounded following the president’s decision to pause reciprocal tariffs on countries other than China. 

But as we learned back in 2020, when the uncertainty is extremely high rather than running for the hills, all we have to do is adjust how we trade. 

And our latest breakthrough at TradeSmith may provide the ideal solution…

With a technology we’ve heard about nonstop for the past two years: artificial intelligence.

Protect and Profit With AI – Even in Panic

A lot of today’s chatter about artificial intelligence is about “the future” – about AI’s potential, and the great things this technology can achieve. 

But at TradeSmith, we don’t have to visualize too far into the future. 

For us, that “future” is already here.

We’ve figured out how AI can deliver market-beating wealth – and not just on the easy, good days. 

What we’ve created can help you thrive even in the worst market conditions.

And that means recognizing opportunities, yes, but also sidestepping danger. That’s where TradeSmith’s proprietary AI trading algorithm – An-E, short for analytical engine – comes in. 

What sets An-E apart from the crowd is that it can forecast stock prices one month into the future… and many of these forecasts are incredibly accurate. 

And it’s not just useful for stocks that are set to go up… An-E also zeroes in on the losers, too. 

Because as we’ve well learned, playing defense in today’s volatile market can be just as valuable as offense – and An-E does both.

Take Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY), for example. 

• Price at the Time of Projection: $46.21
• Projected Price: $49.23 by April 2, 2025
• Confidence Level: 70%

On March 3, 2025, An-E projected that the stock would rise from $46.21 to $49.23 within 21 trading days – a projected gain of 6.53%, backed by a 70% confidence level, signaling An-E’s strong conviction in the forecast. 

And the result? By April 1, 2025, OXY just about hit that target at $49.19 – locking in a gain of 6.44% in just 20 trading days. 

A modest gain, but when you repeat that rhythm over a year the results can really add up. 

But there’s so much more to An-E than just picking winners when market conditions are calm…

On March 4, 2025, An-E projected that Light & Wonder Inc. (LNW) would fall from $106.60 to $92.52 in 21 trading days – a projected drop of 13.20%. That confidence gauge came in at a 63%.

And as projected, by April 2, 2025, LNW dropped to $91.95 for an actual loss of 13.74%. 

Think about it. If you’d seen that one of the stocks you were thinking about buying had a 63% chance of dropping in the next month, would you still buy it? I don’t think so. 

And in market conditions like these, avoiding the losers can be just as valuable than finding the winners – if not more.

The Art of Finding Winners and Avoiding Losers

Whether you’re boosting your upside or guarding against drawdowns, An-E isn’t just another tool – it’s a paradigm shift. As markets grow more unpredictable, it delivers the precision and foresight needed to adapt, just like we did in past market crises. 

The future of trading is here, and An-E is leading the way. 

We designed An-E to provide price projections for thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs in the next 21 trading days.

We also designed it to be easy to use. 

An-E doesn’t handcuff you to your computer screen for hours. You don’t have to perch there watching the second-to-second price action and waiting to make your move.

All you have to do is open your email when a trade alert hits your inbox and decide whether you want to make a move.

That’s it.

So, there’s little wonder why we’ve seen overwhelming demand for this service. It’s one of the most popular pieces of technology we’ve rolled out in years.

In the face of today’s market turbulence, TradeSmith is stepping in with an urgent online event to help you navigate the storm.

And on Wednesday, April 16 at 8:00 p.m. EST, we’re hosting The AI Predictive Power Event to show you exactly how An-E works. We’ll walk you through how An-E forecasts stock prices one month in advance with remarkable accuracy – and how you can use it to find high-probability trades that unlock short-term profits. 

We’re in the midst of one of the most radical economic shifts we’ve ever seen. Global trade is being rewritten, markets are in flux, and many investors are scrambling to make sense of it all. 

But this is exactly the moment AI like An-E was designed for.

With markets more unpredictable than ever, “buy and hold” simply won’t cut it anymore. The smart money is learning how to move with the market’s rhythm – and AI is the key to making it possible. 

Click here to register for the event. 

P.S. Just for signing up for the event, you’ll receive five of An-E’s most bearish forecasts for the coming month. These insights can help you determine which stocks to avoid during this market shakeup, so be sure to check them out.

The post The 30-Day Advantage: How AI Is Redefining Short-Term Trading appeared first on InvestorPlace.

This Week’s Ratings Changes:

Upgraded: Buy to Strong Buy

Downgraded: Strong Buy to Buy

Upgraded: Hold to Buy

Downgraded: Buy to Hold

Upgraded: Sell to Hold

Downgraded: Hold to Sell

Upgraded: Strong Sell to Sell

Downgraded: Sell to Strong Sell

To stay on top of my latest stock ratings, plug your holdings into Stock Grader, my proprietary stock screening tool. But, you must be a subscriber to one of my premium services. Or, if you are a member of one of my premium services, you can go here to get started.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360

The post Weekly Stock Grader Analysis: Upgrades & Downgrades on Top Blue-Chip Stocks appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Instead, what you should be doing is looking for a way to change the way you trade – with a strategy that not only protects, but profits during the upheaval.

TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan has a way to do just that, using the power of AI. Built in-house using machine learning models trained on over 1.3 quadrillion data points and 50,000+ backtests, their predictive technology can help you see what stocks could go up or down within the next month.

The result? A powerful advantage unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.

You can learn all about it in The AI Predictive Power Event on April 16 at 8 p.m. Eastern. Click here to save your spot for the event now!

Now, I’ll let Keith talk more about how this strategy can work for you…

It felt like the world was ending.

Almost exactly five years ago, as the COVID-19 virus amplified from a concentrated contagion to a full-blown pandemic, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) – aka, the market’s “fear index” – closed at the highest level ever seen.

At the same time, the S&P 500 saw its third-largest one-day percentage drop in history: a whopping -11.98% loss.

We all had similar feelings this week, following the 10% nosedive – a record $5 trillion loss – in the S&P 500 after President Trump’s tariff announcement on Wednesday, April 2.

The market has since rebounded following the president’s decision to pause reciprocal tariffs on countries other than China.

But as we learned back in 2020, when the uncertainty is extremely high rather than running for the hills, all we have to do is adjust how we trade.

And our latest breakthrough at TradeSmith may provide the ideal solution…

With a technology we’ve heard about nonstop for the past two years: artificial intelligence.

Protect and Profit – Even in Panic

A lot of today’s chatter about artificial intelligence is about “the future” – about AI’s potential, and the great things this technology can achieve.

But at TradeSmith, we don’t have to visualize too far into the future.

For us, that “future” is already here.

We’ve figured out how AI can deliver market-beating wealth – and not just on the easy, good days.

What we’ve created can help you thrive even in the worst market conditions.

And that means recognizing opportunities, yes, but also sidestepping danger. That’s where TradeSmith’s proprietary AI trading algorithm – An-E, short for analytical engine – comes in.

What sets An-E apart from the crowd is that it can forecast stock prices one month into the future… and many of these forecasts are incredibly accurate.

And it’s not just useful for stocks that are set to go up… An-E also zeroes in on the losers, too.

Because as we’ve well learned, playing defense in today’s volatile market can be just as valuable as offense – and An-E does both.

Take Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY), for example.

• Price at the Time of Projection: $46.21
• Projected Price: $49.23 by April 2, 2025
• Confidence Level: 70%

On March 3, 2025, An-E projected that the stock would rise from $46.21 to $49.23 within 21 trading days – a projected gain of 6.53%, backed by a 70% confidence level, signaling An-E’s strong conviction in the forecast.

And the result? By April 1, 2025, OXY just about hit that target at $49.19 – locking in a gain of 6.44% in just 20 trading days.

A modest gain, but when you repeat that rhythm over a year the results can really add up.

But there’s so much more to An-E than just picking winners when market conditions are calm…

On March 4, 2025, An-E projected that Light & Wonder Inc. (LNW) would fall from $106.60 to $92.52 in 21 trading days – a projected drop of 13.20%. That confidence gauge came in at a 63%.

And as projected, by April 2, 2025, LNW dropped to $91.95 for an actual loss of 13.74%.

Think about it. If you’d seen that one of the stocks you were thinking about buying had a 63% chance of dropping in the next month, would you still buy it? I don’t think so.

And in market conditions like these, avoiding the losers can be just as valuable than finding the winners – if not more.

The Art and Science of Finding Winners – and Avoiding the Losers

Whether you’re boosting your upside or guarding against drawdowns, An-E isn’t just another tool – it’s a paradigm shift. As markets grow more unpredictable, it delivers the precision and foresight needed to adapt, just like we did in past market crises.

The future of trading is here, and An-E is leading the way.

We designed An-E to provide price projections for thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs in the next 21 trading days.

We also designed it to be easy to use.

An-E doesn’t handcuff you to your computer screen for hours. You don’t have to perch there watching the second-to-second price action and waiting to make your move.

All you have to do is open your email when a trade alert hits your inbox and decide whether you want to make a move.

That’s it.

So, there’s little wonder why we’ve seen overwhelming demand for this service. It’s one of the most popular pieces of technology we’ve rolled out in years.

In the face of today’s market turbulence, TradeSmith is stepping in with an urgent online event to help you navigate the storm.

And on Wednesday, April 16 at 8:00 p.m. EDT, we’re hosting The AI Predictive Power Event to show you exactly how An-E works. We’ll walk you through how An-E forecasts stock prices one month in advance with remarkable accuracy – and how you can use it to find high-probability trades that unlock short-term profits.

We’re in the midst of one of the most radical economic shifts we’ve ever seen. Global trade is being rewritten, markets are in flux, and many investors are scrambling to make sense of it all.

But this is exactly the moment AI like An-E was designed for.

With markets more unpredictable than ever, “buy and hold” simply won’t cut it anymore. The smart money is learning how to move with the market’s rhythm – and AI is the key to making it possible.

Click here to register for the event.

Sincerely,

Keith Kaplan
CEO, TradeSmith

P.S. Just for signing up for the event, you’ll receive five of An-E’s most bearish forecasts for the coming month. These insights can help you determine which stocks to avoid during this market shakeup, so be sure to check them out.   

The post The New Way to Trade in an AI-Powered ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Several years ago, we at InvestorPlace and our partners at TradeSmith began working on AI-powered investing systems to bring Wall Street’s edge to ordinary investors. These AI algorithms crunched millions of data points and found connections between fundamental data and future returns that no ordinary human could. 

In 2023, for instance, one of Global Macro Specialist Eric Fry’s systems helped us identify Sight Sciences Inc. (SGHT) before a massive 135% rally. Then, in 2024, our systems identified Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) before a 30% rally. Here’s what we said: 

The quantitative system sees Nvidia’s recent 15% selloff as overdone… Shares now trade at 25 times 2026 earnings – not far from the average S&P 500 firm… 

This weakness could be a long-term opportunity. 

The best part is that our AI systems can be tailored to different needs. Some are designed for longer-term “buy-and-hold” investors, while others are crafted for swing traders seeking to compound their gains.  

I’m bringing this up now for two reasons. 

First, the past several weeks have shown the importance of keeping a cool head. President Donald Trump’s “will-he-or-won’t-he” tariff threats have shaken some of the most confident investors out of the market, even as our own analysts have urged people to stay invested. AI can help investors see through the roller coaster of emotions. 

Second, trading today depends more on the news cycle than ever before. Bull markets can quickly turn to bear ones (and back again) on a single social media post. We foresee more of this happening over the next four years, which means AI and other quant tools will become essential in sorting through the daily deluge of information. 

That’s why we’re reintroducing An-E, the top AI-powered algorithm from TradeSmith. This system has now been trained on over 1.3 quadrillion data points and is the work of dozens of Wall Street and MBA professionals.  

In addition, the system is based on a short, 30-day holding period. That means it can react quickly to news, and allow gains to quickly compound over time.  

And at TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan’s upcoming AI Predictive Power presentation, he’s going to walk you through how the upgraded “An-E” works – live, on camera. 

Keith will demonstrate how to get your own forecasts and use An-E’s confidence gauge to stack the odds in your favor. He’ll even share a few of An-E’s latest predictions. Click here to save your spot. 

Now, I’d ordinarily love to reveal An-E’s top picks for you right here. In fact, its current top 10 bullish picks have a historical target accuracy of 72%. That’s a phenomenal “hit rate” for any system… let alone one focused on short-term moves. 

But I’ll have to leave Keith to do that unveiling in his presentation. In the meantime, I’ve been allowed to reveal five picks from Luke Lango Price Breakout quant system. These firms are equally promising, and give you a sense of the power that AI and other quant systems have in finding great investments in turbulent times.  

Buying the (Garlic) Dip 

Our first pick is a pizza company virtually everyone knows. The 41-year-old firm has grown to over 6,000 locations worldwide and has differentiated itself by targeting a higher-end clientele than that of Domino’s Pizza Inc. (DPZ) or Pizza Hut from Yum! Brands Inc. (YUM). 

We’re talking about Papa John’s International Inc. (PZZA). 

In ordinary times, Papa John’s trades in the upper 20X forward price-to-earnings range thanks to its capital-light business model. The company outsources the cash-intensive restaurant business to franchisees and collects an average of 5% to 6% of revenues. That means its returns on invested capital average 15% — twice the market average. Papa John’s also maintains a steady dividend that’s averaged a 1.7% yield over the past decade. 

The market’s recent selloff now makes PZZA a dough that’s ready to rise. Shares of this high-quality firm trade at just 18X forward earnings after a 35% selloff, and this cheapness is also reflected in an ultra-high dividend yield, which now sits at 5.5%. (All else equal, a lower share price increases the dividend yield.) The last three times PZZA shares traded this cheaply were in May 2024, July 2018, and June 2012. In those instances, shares jumped between 15% and 35% over the following months. 

Luke’s Price Breakout system sees a similar outlook this time around. Papa John’s maintains a strong brand and positive same-store-sales growth. And the firm remains far better capitalized than markets seem to think with a 3X interest coverage ratio.  

Though market troubles are far from over, Papa John’s shares are now too cheap to ignore. 

Serving Up Dividends 

Our next pick might not serve fresh 14-inch pizzas… but its price is equally appealing. 

Over the past several decades, SpartanNash Co. (SPTN) has pumped cash by supplying grocery and household goods to retailers and government entities. Its long list of customers includes the U.S. military, and more than 2,300 independent grocers. 

This Michigan-based firm is usually not exciting… nor does it want to be. Earnings are relatively stable, and it has recorded only one year of losses in the past 20 years. Military bases, after all, always need food delivered. 

Fortunately, this predictability makes SPTN an attractive target for quantitative systems. The stock tends to trade in a narrow band, and any system using machine learning (ML) eventually figures out they can generate consistent profits by buying these companies low and selling high. 

The recent selloff has now put SpartanNash’s stock at its “buy low” point. Dividend yields have edged above 4.5%, and shares trade for 0.9X book value – a typical bottoming-out level. The last two times this happened were in June 2024 and December 2024; shares rose roughly 15% each time afterward.  

For long-term investors, it’s a chance to buy a blue-chip firm for cheap. And for short-term traders, it’s a chance to score double-digit gains by investing in one of the most boring companies on Earth. 

Taking the Show on the Road 

Rising tariffs on Chinese goods have battered e-commerce companies that sell to Americans. Shares of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) have slipped 8% in the past month, and those of Temu owner PDD Holdings Inc. (PDD) have plummeted 23%. Fewer affordable goods to sell means lower profits for e-commerce marketplaces. 

But not every e-commerce player is affected by the trade war. In fact, some may even benefit. 

That’s likely why Luke’s Price Breakout system has chosen South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. (CPNG). The “Amazon of South Korea” is the country’s largest retailer, responsible for more than 1 in every 8 Korean won spent on consumer goods. Its “Rocket Delivery” network is unbeatable, providing same-day or one-day delivery services to roughly 99% of the country. 

American tariffs on Chinese goods will now create a pent-up supply of products seeking a place to go. Much of it will end up in Southeast Asia or the European Union – China’s two largest trading bloc partners. And a large chunk will also find its way to South Korea, which has traditionally been China’s fourth-largest trading partner behind these two blocs and the United States. 

That would prove a windfall for Coupang, which generates profits based on the volumes of goods sold. Analysts have upped their 2026 earnings-per-share forecasts for CPNG to $0.83, up from January’s estimates of $0.78, and they foresee topline growth in the mid-teens for the next several years. CPNG might also benefit in the short term from nervous investors seeking to diversify. 

American markets might be trending down… and our AI system says looking beyond the U.S. might be the key. 

More Belt-Tightening? 

In December, I named Dollar General Corp. (DG) as my top stock to buy for 2025. The stock had dropped to irresistibly low levels, and shares appeared ready to bounce on a new administration. 

Though the past four years might have been difficult for Dollar General, the changing tide of rural consumer sentiment makes DG my No. 1 pick for 2025.  

Shares of the rural-focused retailer have since risen 17%, compared to a -10% decline in the broader S&P 500 index. 

Luke’s quant system believes there’s still time to get into this conservative play. This week, the AI system ranks DG in the top 5% of all companies to buy. 

One reason could simply be an investor pivot toward defensive stocks. Companies like Dollar General tend to do well during periods of belt-tightening (since they provide essential goods), and shares will often rise during periods of economic strain. The stock surged 36% in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The other reason is that Dollar General is still wildly cheap relative to other retailers. Companies like Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) and Walmart Inc. (WMT) continue to trade at over 35X forward earnings, leaving DG (16X earnings) as one of the few “value” stocks left among its class.  

Shares have an enormous upside on “multiples expansion” alone, and Luke’s quant system is sensing an opportunity. 

Buying the Tariff Bounce 

Finally, our last recommendation includes JBT Marel Corp. (JBTM). 

In January, Chicago-based John Bean Technologies merged with Iceland-based Marel Corporation, creating a global manufacturer of food service machinery. The two firms now have one of the broadest portfolios in the industry, covering everything from industrial citrus juicing machines to extrusion blow-molders for bottle-making.  

According to Luke’s system, JBTM’s recent 25% drop in share price now puts the company in oversold territory. The stock trades at a reasonable 17X forward earnings, and is essentially back to where it was pre-merger. This is despite the combined firm having far better protections from U.S. tariffs than before. JBT Marel now has factories in over a dozen countries, and earns 50% of revenues from aftermarket parts and services, which are less affected by tariffs. 

To be sure, JBT Marel is still exposed to some tariffs because it must import steel and other raw materials to produce its machines. It’s also sensitive to changes in industrial demand; shares sank as much as 45% during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Still, Luke’s quant system suspects the selloff has finally gone too far. So, it’s making a contrarian bet on a JBTM bounce. 

Using AI to Forecast the Future 

It’s hard to overstate how close the investing world is to a full-blown AI revolution. What once took months of analyst meetings, financial modeling, and “boots on the ground” research can now be replicated in seconds.  

It’s also about accuracy. These AI models don’t get tired. They don’t suffer from emotional bias or cognitive dissonance. And they don’t worry about the things that should not matter. 

The results speak for themselves.  

An-E predicts the moves over the next 21 trading days of thousands of stocks… and its “Confidence Gauge” signals its conviction level of its own projections. TradeSmith’s editors then scan An-E’s readings to find where its highest projected price gains match with its high-conviction “Confidence Gauge” signals.  

This kind of AI system is made for this kind of market. 

The recent tariff news caused a sharp market correction. 

Some stocks will rebound – but others are headed for a steeper fall. And here’s the thing: Most investors won’t know which is which until it’s too late. 

But with An-E on your side, the odds of you finding more winners and avoiding more losers are higher than before. 

That’s why TradeSmith is holding an emergency briefing on Wednesday, April 16, 2025 at 8 p.m. Eastern – called The AI Predictive Power Event. During this event, you’ll discover exactly how this tech works… and how it can guide you through today’s market storm. 

And just for signing up, you’ll get five of An-E’s most bearish forecasts – stocks it’s projecting to drop hard in the coming weeks. 

Bottom Line: We’re in the middle of a dramatic global trade shift – and the markets are feeling the heat. 

But An-E can still find winning trades in a down market. 

Whether you’re playing offense by targeting winners or defense by avoiding losers, An-E gives you the clarity you need when it matters most.

Click here to sign up for The AI Predictive Power Event now and get five of An-E’s most bearish forecasts immediately.  

Until next week, 

Tom Yeung 

ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Analyst, InvestorPlace 

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

The post The ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Meltdown Is No Match for Our Quant System’s 5 Latest Picks appeared first on InvestorPlace.

What began with his “Liberation Day” announcement of universal tariffs has since evolved into a full-blown trade war, with America going toe-to-toe with China, the EU, Canada, Vietnam, and many other countries around the world.

To many, this moment looks like a risky threat; perhaps a massive policy blunder.

But we think that for smart investors, this perceived catastrophe is providing a great buying opportunity in the next decade’s market winners…

Because beneath the political posturing and violent market volatility – like Wall Street’s 10% down-days – something much bigger is brewing:

What we see as the rebirth of American industry and the dawn of a new industrial age; one powered not by steel or steam but AI-powered robots.

Welcome to the era of Physical AI.

The Big Idea: Reindustrialization Meets Robotics

Let’s unpack the strategy behind Trump’s aggressive trade policies.

We don’t think it’s just about squeezing China or enacting hefty tariffs for the sake of it.

Instead, it’s about reshoring – rebuilding American manufacturing; bringing the jobs, supply chains, and economic activity back home. And it seems that the president is all in.

Every tariff, press conference, and social media post all reinforces the same message: America First. American Made.

This is no longer just campaign rhetoric. It’s national policy.

But here’s the problem…

The path to bolstering U.S. manufacturing is hindered by the math.

For example, let’s talk wages.

American labor costs significantly more than labor in China or Vietnam. The U.S. minimum wage stands at $7.25/hour, compared to ~$3.50/hour in China and ~$1/hour in Vietnam.

That’s a 2x–7x labor cost premium – and it’s a major barrier to domestic manufacturing competitiveness.

So, how can the U.S. level the playing field?

How U.S. Trade Policy Is Fueling an AI Manufacturing Boom

This is where the AI robotics revolution enters the picture.

Because if you can’t compete with overseas wages using human laborers, you do so with machines.

Robots don’t need breaks, call in sick, unionize, or demand raises. In other words, they erase the labor cost differential.

And thanks to the incredible advances in AI, robotics, and automation, we now have the technology to revolutionize American manufacturing right now.

We’ve all seen the headlines about ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other chatbots competing for the generative AI crown.

But that’s AI 1.0 – productivity restricted to digital spaces.

Now comes AI 2.0: embodied AI. Think humanoid robots that don’t just compute but physically act: walking, lifting, building, and problem-solving in the real world.

And this isn’t speculative anymore. It’s real. Consider:

• Tesla (TSLA) is leading the charge with Optimus, its humanoid robot that’s already performing tasks inside its factories.
• Nvidia (NVDA) just launched Project GR00T, a new suite of AI models built specifically for robotics use cases
• Meta (META) launched a humanoid AI division aimed at building the “iOS of robotics”
• Apple (AAPL) is investing in smart home robotics
• Alphabet (GOOG) is funding humanoid robotics startups like Apptronik
• OpenAI is exploring building its own robot
• Microsoft (MSFT) is backing Sanctuary AI, which just completed its first commercial delivery with a humanoid robot

Big Tech isn’t just watching. They’re investing aggressively.

And Wall Street is starting to follow.

Why Robotics and Automation Are Now Essential for U.S. Industry

Let’s tie this all together.

The U.S. government is now pursuing an economic strategy built on reindustrialization, supply chain security, domestic manufacturing, and economic sovereignty

But to pull it off in a globally competitive world? You need automation and robotics – AI in the real world.

With tariffs in place, trade deals being renegotiated, and the reshoring wave gaining steam, this strategy is already in motion. And the robotics arms race is officially on.

To achieve its economic goals, the U.S. will need to deploy millions of intelligent machines in warehouses, fulfillment centers, ports, airports, factories, fields, and construction sites.

In short, intelligent robots are now a national necessity.

And that creates a generational investment opportunity.

This won’t be a short-term hype cycle. This is a multi-year megatrend, with tailwinds from:

• National industrial policy
• Technological maturity
• Investor capital flows
• Supply chain security mandates
• Defense and military spending
• Federal subsidies and state incentives

In other words… this boom is just getting started.

And we’re not talking about buying Tesla stock to play this revolution. Instead, it’s time to home in on the next generation of AI 2.0 leaders.

Best Robotics Stocks to Watch in 2025

We’ve been closely tracking companies that we believe could be big winners in this Physical AI revolution for some time now. Here are some of the areas we’re watching:

1. Humanoid Robotics

• Companies building general-purpose, humanoid robots that can function in dynamic environments and directly replace human laborers

2. Industrial Automation & Logistics

• Robotics firms already powering warehouses and fulfillment centers, like Symbotic (SYM), whose tech is now being used across Walmart‘s (WMT) U.S. distribution network

3. AI Chipmakers & Sensor Firms

• The makes of these machines’ brains and eyes – companies that make the GPUs, LiDAR and vision sensors, and edge processors that enable real-world AI

4. Software Platforms for Robotics

• Just like iOS for iPhones, there will be a winner in “robot OS”: platforms that help control fleets of machines in coordinated workflows

5. Next-Gen Mobility

• Autonomous forklifts, robotaxis, and delivery bots, all of which are seeing rising demand in this post-globalization environment

The Final Word: A 21st-Century American Comeback

Tariffs, inflation, and market volatility may dominate today’s headlines.

But if you zoom out, you’ll see something much bigger unfolding.

America is rebuilding, powered by machines and guided by policy.

The trade war may have lit the match. But the fire now spreading across this country is an economic one, unleashing a new 21st-century Industrial Revolution powered by AI, fueled by necessity, and backed by policy.

If you’re an investor, this is your early-in moment…

Because we’re confident that in five years, everyone will be talking about robotics stocks the same way they talk about AI chip stocks today.

But by then, the easy money will have already been made.

So don’t wait.

When the winds of change start blowing, the best investors don’t build shelters. They build portfolios.

And the winds just picked up.

So, if you’re looking for the best AI 2.0 stocks to buy now…

See our top robotics stock pick for 2025.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Questions or comments about this issue? Drop us a line at langofeedback@investorplace.com.

The post AI Robotics & the 2025 Industrial Revolution: How Investors Can Capitalize appeared first on InvestorPlace.

“BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well,” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” 

It turned out it was. On Wednesday afternoon, the president announced a 90-day pause on all “reciprocal” tariffs on non-retaliating countries. American markets surged 9%, and Asian ones jumped even higher. 

Eric had anticipated possible meaningful reductions to the new tariff regime. That’s why, despite the market noise and headline headaches, he recently added a high-quality athletic apparel firm in his elite-trading service The Speculator that would benefit from the delay of tariffs.  

The company in question imports a large quantity of its products from Vietnam, and it had become priced like a coiled spring waiting to go off on any good news. Here’s what Eric wrote to his subscribers… 

The “Black Swan” tariff event is causing the selloff, not any fundamental flaw with the brand itself. 

Therefore, if the swan simply flies way, the share price could soar…. 

If that change occurs, the new U.S. tariffs on Vietnamese imports could disappear entirely as well. I think that’s a bet worth taking. No one wants this trade war, especially not the Asian countries that produce so much of the clothing we buy here in the U.S. 

He’s been proved right so far. Shares of this firm surged double digits on Wednesday as the bulk of tariffs on Vietnam (and just about every other country besides China) were postponed. Only 10% tariffs have gone into effect. 

But I know many of you are still worried about what can go wrong.  

So, in today’s Smart Money, we’ll take a quick look at what could happen in the worst-possible outcome.  

Then, I’ll share the three ways that the smart money is approaching this new normal… a “will-he-won’t-he” market, where tariffs still might be around the corner.  

After all, Eric’s bet on that high-end apparel maker isn’t the only investment he’s recommended in recent days. 

Let’s take a look… 

Imagining the Unimaginable 

Many financial disasters have been attributed to a “failure of imagination” of things that could go wrong.  

The 1997 Asian financial crisis was triggered when Thailand devalued its currency relative to the U.S. dollar. That single act caused a cascade of events that led to a stunning 83% decline in nearby Indonesia’s gross national product and the resignation of two world leaders. The Bank of Thailand certainly did not foresee that outcome. 

Closer to home, the 2008 global financial crisis was caused by a similar lack of imagination. In this case, American banks and insurers failed to anticipate how mortgage-backed securities could become worthless if a real estate slowdown triggered thousands of defaults all at once. 

The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and ’90s… the dot-com bubble burst in 2000… the Covid-19 pandemic… history is full of unexpected crises that only needed a little bit of imagination to predict. 

Today, we’re faced with a new potential meltdown. Trump’s “will-he-won’t-he” game of tariffs are triggering immense amounts of fear and uncertainty in financial markets. There’s also no guarantee that his 90-day pause on tariffs will remain in effect. 

Bond markets remain wary. Over the past several days, 10-year government bonds have jumped from 3.8% to 4.5%, even though the opposite should have happened. (Usually, falling stock prices should cause yields to fall as well.)  

This is an ominous sign. The last time the Treasury market gapped up this way was during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

We’re also seeing some massive unwinding of leveraged bets – often a sign of an impending financial crisis. Over the past several days, according to the Financial Times, hedge funds have been forced to close out “mega-leveraged Treasury arbitrage trades, like it did in March 2020.” 

“The most violent move in the last six weeks has been that swap-spread trade coming to a violent conclusion,” said Ed Al-Hussainy, a rates strategist at Columbia Threadneedle, in an interview with Bloomberg News. “This tells us that banks are now looking to raise and looking to preserve cash.” 

That means the experts are still worried about what comes next. President Trump has proved he’s willing to take the stock market to the brink of a bear market, and if high tariffs ultimately do come in, we could see a sudden surge of inflation… and perhaps even stagflation. 

The smart money is cutting back their riskiest bets because they’re now imagining a possible outcome where this brinkmanship creates this disastrous outcome. 

So, how is Eric preparing his paid-up subscribers for this future crisis that might not happen? After all, we know that panic selling often happens right at the bottom of the market. 

We’re approaching this in three ways… 

Taking the Show on the Road 

Eric’s tariff-surviving strategy is best shown in his Fry’s Investment Report portfolio.  

1. Blue Chip Companies.  

The first is to invest in blue-chip companies with limited downside and significant upside. Here, companies like Corning Inc. (GLW) stand out, which Eric recommends in Fry’s Investment Report. This upstate New York company has been innovating since its founding in 1851, and brought us products like Pyrex glassware for the kitchen and Gorilla Glass for smartphones.  

Corning is now riding a new once-in-a-generation wave of demand for fiber-optic cable for AI-focused data centers, and it recently announced plans to build the only solar panels made with wafers and cells made in the U.S. Although the company fell after “Liberation Day” last week, it ended Wednesday 10% higher.  

2. Oversold Stocks.  

The second is buying oversold companies that were caught up in the tariff panic. One very recent addition to Fry’s Investment Report was selling at 16 times forward earnings when he bought it last week… well below its 31X historical average.  

Even after its double-digit gain on Wednesday, shares till have plenty of upside just to get back to “average” valuations. Every sports better will know that a bet with a 1-in-2 chance of a 30% loss and a 1-in-2 chance of a 100% gain is a wager you should make every time. 

3. Tariff Winners.  

Finally, we’re looking at stocks beyond America that are less affected by Trump’s “will-he-won’t-he” policies.  

Earlier this year, Eric established two new positions in countries seeing a turnaround in fortunes. These two nations only export 1% to 3% of their GDP to the U.S. and have fundamental factors that could help them “zig” even as American markets “zag.” 

Then on Monday, Eric introduced a new company in Fry’s Investment Report that falls into this third camp. The firm, which produces 100% of its products in Canada, is seeing a revival thanks to the “Buy Canada” movement. The 90-day pause on global tariffs won’t change the way Canadians see U.S. goods overnight. 

As a bonus, this firm is also protected from potential future tariffs, because its products are covered by the U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that President Trump signed during his first term. So, even if tariffs on Vietnam and other countries are put in place after this 90-day pause, this Canadian firm should be able to keep exporting its goods to the U.S. tax-free. 

Now, I’d like to tell you more about this “heads-I-win, tails-I-don’t-lose” company. But to do that, you’ll have to subscribe to Fry’s Investment Report.  

You can do that here. 

In the meantime, we remain optimistic that U.S. stock market will pull through the recent crisis as it always does. But with bond traders beginning to imagine the worst-case outcomes, a little bit of strategic buying will go a long way in protecting your portfolio from the next inevitable reversal. 

Regards, 

Thomas Yeung 

ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s Analyst, InvestorPlace 

P.S. Amidst the current market chaos, a massive sea of change is going on in the investing world right now… 

For a while now, Wall Street has experimented with using AI to help target the most lucrative investments on the market. But, in the past few years, they’ve gone “all in.” Now, they’re spending millions to develop this technology. 

So, how can you compete in this more technologically driven future we’ve entered? Our partners over at TradeSmith tracked down an incredible solution for you. 

And on Wednesday, April 16 at 8 p.m. Eastern, they’re going over the full details behind a remarkable new system called An-E. This AI-powered algorithm projects the share price on thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs one month into the future. 

Click here to sign up for the AI Predictive Power Event now. 

The post How We’re Playing the “Will-He-Won’t He” ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Â  appeared first on InvestorPlace.

The reciprocal tariffs are on … or not … or maybe just a little … except for China, and those are still big … but they could still come back for everyone else … maybe.

It’s no wonder the markets felt like a roller coaster this week.

In the chart below, you can see how the market reacted after the tariff news on April 2.

Last Sunday, President Trump said he wasn’t concerned about the stock market.

“I don’t want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”

But after declaring a 90-day pause on the tariffs, the stock market shot up and Trump was happily talking about, “the biggest day in financial history.”

But we haven’t recovered all the losses … at least, not yet.

So, after enduring one of the wildest weeks on Wall Street ever, what are we to do now?

InvestorPlace’s global macro analyst Eric Fry shared plenty of good advice this week alongside of his accurate forecast of the tariff “pause.”

Let’s look at Eric’s advice. Plus, I’ll give you one of his Investment Report picks that’s thriving despite the market whipsaws.

A Macro View of the ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½s

For newer Digest readers, Eric takes a “macro” view of the markets.

Most of Wall Street focuses on “micro” analysis – price/earnings ratios, income statements and other company details.

Eric looks for the big-picture trends that drive huge, multi-year moves in entire sectors of the market. Then he narrows his focus to find the stocks that will be the biggest winners in these megatrends.

Using this method, Eric has clocked more than 40 10X stock winners.

That may not sound so incredible … but let me put this in context …

Investing experts are lucky to make one 1,000% call in their career. It’s rare to have more than one, but it does occasionally happen.

But 40?

That’s not just above the rest; that’s in the stratosphere.

When I spoke to Eric on Monday, he said unequivocally that the administration’s method to roll out the tariffs was unworkable.

And he made a prediction…

My bullish scenario is that this proposed tariff policy is so bad that it’s good. I think obviously there’s been severe trade imbalances for a long time that we need to correct as a nation. I personally don’t believe this particular policy is the best way to achieve that, and it is so ill-conceived and potentially devastating that I don’t think it’ll last long.

I think the Trump administration will probably start to score some victories country by country, and I’m hoping enough mini victories that it would be able to claim a victory over the entire thing and abandon this sweeping global tax that it has imposed on 185 countries.

And if that happens, I think the markets reverse. I’m optimistic because I doubt that this particular iteration of the tariff policy will remain in effect for very long.

I spoke to Eric again on Wednesday, just an hour after the announcement that the tariff plan was being pulled back … and the markets had already started to rally. Here’s part of that conversation.

The markets are rallying as we speak pretty significantly, and so the trade war is not over, but it’s certainly taken a new twist.

And I would point out that this particular move by Trump mirrors almost exactly what billionaire Bill Ackman had been advocating for the last two days. Bill Ackman is a billionaire hedge fund manager in New York, a major contributor to the Republican Party, a major supporter of Donald Trump.

He was not alone. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan had said similar things in the last 48 hours, as had other prominent Trump supporters on Wall Street.

So, I think it’s likely that the president saw prominent members of the Republican Party and major donors to the Republican Party breaking ranks with him on this particular policy. I think that’s the biggest reason why he made this announcement today.

Even as the markets were soaring on Wednesday, Eric was quick to note that there were probably bumps in the road ahead … which we saw immediately on Thursday when the market fell again.

Here was his advice to investors feeling whipsawed by the market action.

When stocks are falling, you always own too much of them. And when they’re going up, you don’t own enough of them. That’s just kind of the nature of the beast.

But you have to continue to look ahead and not be buffeted too badly by the headlines, by the noise, and just continue to as coolly as you can. Assess the opportunities that are in front of you, and then pull the trigger if it’s appropriate.

So, I think that is a practice that runs through all markets: bull markets, bear markets. And in this particular case, I think the same thing.

One Stock to Consider Today

The philosophy that has served Eric so well is reflected in his most recent picks. In his Investment Report service, Eric recently recommended luxury clothing maker Canada Goose Holdings Inc. (GOOS).

For readers less familiar with the brand, here’s Eric:

Canada Goose is a global performance luxury and lifestyle brand founded in 1957. Like Patagonia and North Face, Canada Goose manufactures and sells a range of outdoor sportswear like parkas, puffers, rain jackets, and hoodies – both for genuine outdoor adventurers and for urban chic wannabes.

Now, the obvious question is “what about the trade war? Won’t that hurt Goose’s profits?

Eric writes that while “buying Canada” in the U.S. has become more expensive in most cases, Canada Goose exports its goods to the U.S. duty-free. Under the U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) President Trump signed during his first term, the U.S. levies no tariffs on apparel and textile exports from Canada to the U.S.

Of course, that doesn’t mean GOOS is in for a smooth ride higher. Expect volatility, which is what GOOS has experienced in April as you can see below.

But whatever the short-term ups and downs might be, Eric urges investors to reorient their focus:

I have no idea where the stock market is heading next, nor do I know how long or how deep the current selloff will go. But I do know that buying great companies at good prices is the key to building wealth over the long term, which is why I will continue to make select “Buy” recommendations throughout this downturn.

It’s a good bet volatility in general is going to continue, and when it does, you’re best served by ignoring the noise, and continue to coolly assess the opportunities in front of you and act when it’s appropriate.

Click here to learn more about Eric’s Investment Report picks.

Enjoy your weekend,

Luis Hernandez

Editor in Chief, InvestorPlace

The post Whiplash Week on Wall Street – How to Stay Grounded appeared first on InvestorPlace.

The ‘experts’ have emerged from their bunkers. But it seems none of them can agree on what’s to come.

Some say to buy the dip. Others advise to stay far away. And many still warn: This is 2008 all over again.

So… which is it? Historic buying opportunity, or just the first leg of a much larger collapse?

We’ll venture to answer that – not with opinion and theory but with data.

And to us, the data is screaming one thing: If you’ve got time on your side, you should be buying stocks hand over fist right now. 

Though, of course, we’ll let you decide for yourself.

Here’s what we’re seeing…

A Fast-and-Furious Decline in Stocks

This recent market madness began when President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced on Wednesday, April 2. Investors didn’t take the plan lightly.

That Thursday, April 3, the S&P 500 dropped more than 5%. Then on Friday, it slid another 5%-plus.

That’s a 10% two-day crash – a move that’s not just rare but nearly unprecedented.

Since 1950, this kind of price action has occurred just five times:

• Twice during Black Monday (1987)
• Twice during the great financial crisis (2008–09)
• Once during March 2020’s COVID Crash 

Now, here’s the important part: All five times, the S&P was higher one year later. The average 12-month return? 33%. Even with the worst-case outcome, stocks were up 18% by that time the next year.

But, of course, the selling didn’t stop in the two days after the “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced. 

This past Monday added more pain. The three-day total decline reached 11%, marking the 11th-largest three-day drop since 1950.

On Tuesday, April 8, we slid even further, bringing the four-day collapse to 12.1% – the 12th-worst four-day stretch in modern market history.

And guess what?

Every other time the market has fallen more than 10% in three days or more than 12% in four days, it was higher a year later.

And sometimes, stocks moved way higher. After similar four-day collapses, the market’s average return over the next 12 months is nearly 70%.

Then came the snapback rally.

Bullish Historical Signals

On Wednesday, April 9, President Trump announced a 90-day pause on all country-specific reciprocal tariffs (except China). It was the first signal that the administration might pivot from trade war escalation to negotiation.

And the market’s response was explosive. The S&P 500 surged 9.5%, marking one of the biggest one-day gains of all time.

Since 1950, the S&P has only rallied more than 5% in a single day 23 times. In 21 of those instances (91% of the time), the market was higher a year later, with an average return of 27%.

So far, that fits the pattern: Big selloff. Big rally. Big opportunity.

Now, we’ll admit; Thursday was rough. Stocks gave up a large portion of the 9%-plus gains they notched on Wednesday.

Indeed, the S&P dropped 3.5%, leading some to cry “dead cat bounce.”

But historically? Even that’s bullish.

Since 1950, every single time the S&P 500 rallied more than 5% in one day, and then dropped more than 2% the next day, the market was higher a year later, with average 12-month gains north of 37%.

In other words, even the rejection of a bounce has been a bullish historical signal.

Does the Data Say to Buy Stocks Now?

And then there’s the widespread fear. 

The volatility index (VIX) – Wall Street’s fear gauge – has spiked more than 100% in just a few days. It’s now hovering around levels we’ve only seen during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID crash. 

And what did markets do after the VIX last touched these levels?

They ripped higher.

After the VIX hit 50-plus in 2008, stocks rallied more than 60% in 12 months.
And after the VIX spiked during COVID, stocks exploded 70%-plus in a year.

Fear of this magnitude doesn’t last. But it does create opportunity – for those brave enough to act.

We’ve likely all heard Warren Buffett’s famous adage: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

But how many investors actually live by it?

Because the truth is that this is what fear – what blood in the streets – looks like:

• Double-digit percentage drops in a matter of days
• Terrifying headlines about trade wars and GDP crashes
• Talking heads calling for the next Great Depression

This is what most folks run away from. But history shows it’s exactly what you should be buying into.

The Final Word on This Buying Opportunity

Now, we want to be clear. We are not saying this is the bottom. In fact, we don’t think it is.

The volatility is still high. The situation with China is still unresolved. More short-term pain could absolutely be on the way.

But here’s the thing: You don’t need to buy the exact bottom – just bottom enough.

And based on the price data, volatility signals, and fear levels, it’s hard to argue we’re not in that zone already.

If you’ve got a six- to 12-month time horizon, the odds are stacked in your favor.

Every historical signal we track suggests that this is a generational buying opportunity for patient investors.

So, you may not feel good buying today. But you’ll probably feel great looking back on it a year from now.

Let’s stay smart, patient, and long-term focused to make the most of this moment.

And when it is time to buy the dip, AI 2.0 stocks may be the best bet. 

We’re talking AI that can respond to real-world environments; embodied intelligence that can see, hear, walk, talk, lift, carry, organize, fix, learn…

Indeed, there’s a reason why every tech titan is suddenly obsessed with humanoid robots.

That’s where we believe the next trillion-dollar investment opportunities will be found. And we’ve found a compelling way to play that next phase of the AI Boom.

Uncover the details on our favorite AI 2.0 pick.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Questions or comments about this issue? Drop us a line at langofeedback@investorplace.com.

The post This Is What it Looks Like to Buy Stocks ‘When There’s Blood in the Streets’ appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Just consider some of the major developments from the past week…

• On Monday, the market rallied on rumors that the Trump administration would suspend tariffs for 90 days. The White House stated this was “fake news,” and the stock market abruptly reversed course.
• Automobile manufacturers halted shipments or held their shipments at the docks in response to the U.S.’s proposed 25% tariff on vehicle imports.
• Due to the reciprocal tariffs and concerns about slowing global growth, there was mania in the bond market. The 10-year Treasury yield swung from below 4.0% last week back to 4.5% on Wednesday to settle around 4.45% today.
• Crude oil prices plunged to four-year lows, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude now around $60 per barrel.
• On Wednesday, President Trump shocked the world when he announced a 90-day reciprocal tariff pause that encompassed all of the U.S.’s trading partners with the exception of China.
• Let’s make a deal! More than 70 nations have reportedly contacted the White House and are ready to negotiate lower tariffs.
• The stock market staged a rally of historic proportions on Wednesday, with the S&P 500, Dow and NASDAQ surging 9.5%, 7.9% and 12.2%, respectively.
• The Trump administration increased its tariffs on China to 145% in response to China’s 84% tariffs on American goods. The escalating trade war drove another market reversal, with stocks erasing nearly half of Wednesday’s gains in Thursday trading.
• On Friday, China said it will raise tariffs on U.S. goods to 125%, up from the 84% previously planned, effective Saturday. 

That’s a lot of news, folks. But lost in all the drama this week was the fact that we received the latest batch of inflation reports: the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Producer Price Index (PPI).

These are especially important right now, as they will likely be the last readings before we see the impact of the tariffs in the numbers.

So, in today’s ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360, let’s take a look at what the CPI and PPI are telling us – and what that means for the market and the likelihood of key interest rate cuts. And finally, I’ll wrap things up by telling you about another financial event that’s set to throw the markets into turmoil – and how you can prepare.

Consumer Price Index

On Thursday, the CPI report came in better than expected. Prices fell 0.1% in March, which beat expectations for a 0.1% rise. I should also point out that this was the first time the monthly CPI has fallen since May 2020. On an annual basis, prices increased 2.4%, below February’s 2.8% annual gain and economists’ expectations for a 2.6% rise.

Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, showed a 0.1% increase over the prior month, besting February’s 0.2% monthly gain. On an annual basis, core CPI went up 2.8% over last year. That’s down from 3.1% in February.

Digging into the details, energy prices declined by 2.4%, and gasoline prices plunged 6.3%. There were also declines in categories such as airline fares and vehicle insurance, as well as used cars and trucks.

Meanwhile, the food index rose 0.4% in March and 3% year-over-year. This was primarily driven by the 5.9% increase for eggs. Additionally, food for home rose 2.4% over the last 12 months while food away from home increased 3.8% over the last year.

Food wasn’t the only index that saw an increase for the month, however. Medical care, clothes and new vehicles were all higher in March.

The biggest piece of this report for me was owners’ equivalent rent, or shelter costs. Following February’s slight rise of 0.3%, the index is back up, rising 0.4% in March. That marks the smallest monthly increase since November 2021. This is a very positive sign since housing costs have been the biggest problem in the CPI reports lately.

Producer Price Index

Friday’s PPI report showed that wholesale inflation is cooling off. The PPI fell 0.4% in March, compared to expectations for a 0.2% increase and February’s 0.1% rise. This marks the largest drop since last October.

Excluding food and energy, “core” PPI decreased 0.1%. Economists were looking for a 0.3% rise. This brings the annual increase to 3.3%, its lowest rate since last September.

Diving deeper, 70% of the decrease for March can be traced to the index for goods, which fell 0.9%. This was the index’s largest decrease since October 2023. The biggest impact on this index was the 11.1% drop in prices for gasoline.

Goods prices, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3% in March. This is the second monthly increase and marks the biggest two-month increase in two years. Service prices, meanwhile, fell 0.2% in March, the largest decline since July 2024.

What This Means for the Fed

The good news? Both reports show easing inflation.

The bad news? I wouldn’t read too much into either of these reports. The CPI report, in particular, was welcome news – and I’m especially glad to see shelter costs finally cooling.

But the fact is that next month’s reports are a significant wildcard. And until we have those numbers, it is hard to judge how important this month’s reports are – or what the Fed is going to do next.

That being said, I do think these reports could coax the Federal Reserve to cut rates in either May or June. And while the bond market is clearly going through some oscillations right now, I expect things to calm down and for market rates to meander lower.

I’m also still firmly in the camp that we will be getting at least four rate cuts this year. That’s because global interest rates are headed lower. Much of the world is in bad economic shape right now – much worse than us. And because of that, global central banks will be cutting their key interest rates.

Eventually, the Fed will follow in their footsteps.

Another Event on the Horizon

Currently, folks are in a tariff-triggered frenzy. But I want to urge you to remain calm. The fact is the U.S. is an oasis compared to the rest of the world. We are demographically superior, our states naturally compete with each other, we assimilate our immigrants, and our rate of innovation and entrepreneurship is unparalleled.

And for that reason, we are poised to remain the world’s growth engine.

So, I want you to keep your eye on the ball. Because the fact is, thanks to the AI Revolution, a massive wave is on the horizon – and many don’t even see it coming…

It’s so serious that I call it a financial tsunami.

When this tidal wave makes landfall, its impact will be more violent and more severe than any financial crisis we’ve ever seen. Hundreds of millions of American livelihoods – including my own – are in danger of being wiped out.

But it will also create an unimaginable amount of wealth.

As someone who has been in the investing world for more than 40 years, I’m one of the few people who actually knows what’s coming… and how to prepare for it.

That’s why I’ve created this free special presentation to share with you everything you need to prepare – and profit – from this unstoppable force.

Whether you’ve managed to save $10,000 or $10 million, this information could prove essential to your financial survival. And since the countdown has already begun, time is running short.

Click here to watch my special presentation now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ 360

The post Could March’s Inflation Reports Nudge the Fed to Cut Rates? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Three new headlines out this morning…

First, on the tariff front, China has hit back, raising its tariff on U.S. goods to 125% from 84% yesterday.

The increase came with a jab from the Chinese Finance Ministry:

Even if the U.S. continues to impose higher tariffs, it will no longer make economic sense and will become a joke in the history of world economy.

With tariff rates at the current level, there is no longer a market for U.S. goods imported into China.

It’s a reasonable point. With both countries now implementing 100%+ tariffs, most of the bilateral trade will grind to a halt.

Second, inflation continues to fall. Following yesterday’s cool Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, this morning brought a similarly cool Producer Price Index (PPI) report.

Wholesale prices unexpectedly dropped 0.4% in March. Economists had been looking for an increase of 0.2%.

Core PPI, which strips our volatile food and energy prices, also dropped. It fell 0.1% against the estimate for a 0.3% climb.

This good inflation news needs to be taken with a grain of salt. It reflects the period before President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, so higher prices are on the way unless something changes.

Third, consumer sentiment continues to slide. According to the University of Michigan’s April survey, consumer sentiment has fallen to 50.8, down from 57.0 last month.

Additionally, inflation expectations have reached their highest level since 1981.

Putting it altogether, there are two broad takeaways – one good, one bad.

The “good” is that the data increases the likelihood that the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates this year. The “bad” is that said cutting may be needed to stave off economic pain resulting from the trade war, pessimistic consumers who are closing up their wallets, and disoriented corporate planners who have stopped investing/hiring because they aren’t sure where the economy is headed.

On that note, this morning, BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink said the U.S. is either “very close, if not in, a recession now.”

So, what does all this mean for stocks?

I think we’re going to have a generational buying opportunity this year, not unlike what we saw back in 2008, where stocks traded just so unbelievably low that you had some incredible opportunities to buy.

I’m looking forward to that.

But in the meantime, you have to be willing to resist the emotion of selling based on fear and panic, and buying based on the fear of missing out.

That comes from master trader Jeff Clark.

While many investors are bullish after President Trump’s 90-day tariff pause on Wednesday, Jeff believes much lower prices are ahead. This would mean that the meteoric gains we saw two days ago, that are continuing Friday afternoon as I write, are a classic “bear market rally.”

Now, this is not a reason to panic.

In fact, Jeff writes that there’s plenty to look forward to – massive rallies (within a broader decline) that we can trade for fast, double-digit profits, followed by that “generational buying opportunity” at the ultimate bottom.

Today, we’ll look at three angles on this:

• Jeff’s roadmap for how this bear market will play out
• How to trade it as it falls using Jeff’s preferred “divergence” pattern
• A second way to trade it using a powerful artificial intelligence system from our corporate partner TradeSmith that predicts upcoming price movements

For newer Digest readers, Jeff is a legendary trader with more than four decades of experience. In his service, Jeff Clark Trader, he uses a suite of indicators and charting techniques to profitably trade the markets regardless of direction – up, down, or sideways.

Today, Jeff believes we’re headed “down” as we’ve entered a bear market and have already hit the high of the year.

So, where might the bottom be?

Here’s Jeff:

Ultimately, I think where we’re headed, if this is truly a bear market as I think it is, is the same level as late-2023 when we were somewhere around the 4,150 level or 4,100 level (for the S&P).

That’s about 23% lower than where the S&P trades as I write Friday afternoon.

Jeff plans to play this in two ways: 1) trading oversold rips higher (even as the broader trend is “down”), which will give him the dry powder to, 2) take advantage of that “generational buying opportunity” when the dust settles.

Here’s Jeff with the timing of that eventual buy-and-hold moment:

The real opportunity to buy I think is probably going to wind up sometime in October, November.

We can trade between now and then, but…like oftentimes happens, you get that final washout in October or November, and that’ll give us a really good opportunity to jump in and put some capital to work at super depressed prices.

On Wednesday, stocks posted historic gains. With the market roaring, I reached out to Jeff to ask him if his bear market prediction remained.

From Jeff:

I’m sticking to my forecast for a relief rally – which we’re getting [on Wednesday] – that makes a lower low, followed by another move lower to below Monday’s low of 4,835.

To be clear, this isn’t likely to happen all at once. Here’s Jeff’s latest thinking from his Morning Update about the short-term ups and downs:

The stock market did the bare minimum needed yesterday in order to keep the short-term momentum in the bullish camp…

The daily technical indicators remain in oversold territory. Indeed, in some cases they are “extremely oversold.” There is lots of energy available to fuel a bounce. Though, it’s going to take a positive “China-trade” headline to get that going.

Ultimately, I expect any rally will peak at a lower high – which is technically below 6150. Though, I’m struggling to see any argument where the S&P can get above 5800, or more likely 5600.

As long as the S&P can hold above 5200, the bulls get the nod. But the closer we get to 5600, and as the technical conditions move towards neutral, traders should be looking to lighten up on their long exposure.

In a bear market, many traders look to short the market and “ride the slide.” Jeff prefers a different angle.

Here he is explaining:

One of the greatest things that I found trading in a bear market environment is not trying to make money as stocks fall. You can certainly do that by shorting and buying puts and that sort of stuff.

But really, it’s those rip-your-face-off rallies that are developed out of deeply oversold conditions where you can make 10%, 15%, 20% on a stock in a matter of days.

To find these rippers, Jeff uses a multifaceted approach to stock trading that involves various technical indicators to help with market timing.

At the heart of his methodology is the use of divergence analysis, particularly through indicators like the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), Relative Strength Index (RSI), and Commodity Channel Index (CCI).

If you’re less familiar with divergence trading, this strategy profits from particular “divergences,” such as when the price of a stock is moving in one direction, but a technical indicator (like RSI, MACD, or CCI) is moving in the opposite direction.

Think of it like this:

• Price says: “I’m going up!”
• Indicator says: “Hmm… I don’t believe you.”

Jeff views this “disagreement” between price and momentum as a clue that price is about to change.

His plan is to track and trade such divergences all the way down to the bear-market bottom, generating cash along the way, then plow all that money into great stocks at the bottom.

As noted earlier, Jeff expects that bottom (in the S&P) will be around the 4,150 level or 4,100 level sometime in late-Fall.

Here’s his overall suggestion/roadmap for traders today:

If you’re holding stocks long all the way through that, that could spell a little bit of trouble.

But if you take advantage of opportunities where you get deeply oversold conditions, where you can get into a good bounce – play that bounce.

But be quick to take your profits off the table and then allow the market to come back down again and give you another opportunity…

Bottom line is, I think there’s going to be an awful lot of opportunity to trade.

To learn more about joining Jeff, and trading divergence patterns alongside him, click here.

For another way to play this volatile market – whether it turns into a bear or returns to a raging bull – let’s turn to our corporate partner TradeSmith.

They’re one of the investment industry’s leaders in quantitative/algorithmic trading, having spent over $19 million and over 11,000 man-hours developing their market analysis algorithms.

Years ago, they saw the writing on the wall and began developing a predictive AI algorithm. It uses millions of data points to forecast upcoming price points, helping traders plan their entries and exits.

Let’s go to TradeSmith’s CEO, Keith Kaplan:

What we’ve created can help you thrive even in the worst market conditions.

And that means recognizing opportunities, yes, but also sidestepping danger. That’s where TradeSmith’s proprietary AI trading algorithm – An-E, short for analytical engine – comes in.

What sets An-E apart from the crowd is that it can forecast stock prices one month into the future… and many of these forecasts are incredibly accurate.

And it’s not just useful for stocks that are set to go up… An-E also zeroes in on the losers, too.

Because as we’ve well learned, playing defense in today’s volatile market can be just as valuable as offense – and An-E does both.

Keith points toward one of Warren Buffett’s positions, Occidental (OXY) as an example.

(Disclaimer: I own Occidental.)

On March 3, An-E projected that OXY would jump from $46.21 to $49.23 within 21 trading days. That was a projected gain of 6.53%, backed by a 70% confidence level.

The result?

About two weeks ago, on April 1, OXY nearly hit that target, climbing to $49.19. That registered as a gain of 6.44% in only 20 trading days.

If that return doesn’t get you excited, remember, this played out in just 20 days. Also, let’s recall Jeff’s advice above: “Be quick to take your profits off the table.”

This isn’t necessarily the market in which you want to have long-term exposure.

Here’s Keith:

On March 4, 2025, An-E projected that Light & Wonder Inc. (LNW) would fall from $106.60 to $92.52 in 21 trading days – a projected drop of 13.20%. That confidence gauge came in at a 63%.

And as projected, by April 2, 2025, LNW dropped to $91.95 for an actual loss of 13.74%.

Think about it. If you’d seen that one of the stocks you were thinking about buying had a 63% chance of dropping in the next month, would you still buy it? I don’t think so.

And in market conditions like these, avoiding the losers can be just as valuable than finding the winners – if not more.

Whether you’re more interested in An-E’s ability to help you trade rips higher or sidestep dips lower, you can learn more next Wednesday at 8:00 PM Eastern. This is when Keith is hosting The AI Predictive Power Event to show you exactly how An-E works.

He’ll walk you through how this powerful AI tool forecasts stock prices one month in advance with remarkable accuracy – and how you can use it to find high-probability trades that unlock short-term profits.

But if not, we need to prepare for a bear market at worst, and exaggerated volatility at best.

If you want a powerful AI platform, rooted in historical data, to help guide you through this unpredictability, tune in to learn more with Keith next Wednesday. You can register for the event by clicking here.

I’ll let him take us out today:

Whether you’re boosting your upside or guarding against drawdowns, An-E isn’t just another tool – it’s a paradigm shift.

As markets grow more unpredictable, it delivers the precision and foresight needed to adapt, just like we did in past market crises.

The future of trading is here, and An-E is leading the way.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post The Bear is Here – How to Trade It appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Instead, what you should be doing is looking for a way to change the way you trade – with a strategy that not only protects, but profits during the upheaval.

TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan has a way to do just that, using the power of AI. Built in-house using machine learning models trained on over 1.3 quadrillion data points and 50,000+ backtests, their predictive technology can help you see what stocks could go up or down within the next month.

The result? A powerful advantage unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.

You can learn all about it in The AI Predictive Power Event on April 16 at 8 p.m. Eastern. Click here to save your spot for the event now!

Now, I’ll let Keith talk more about how this strategy can work for you…

*

It felt like the world was ending.

Almost exactly five years ago, as the COVID-19 virus amplified from a concentrated contagion to a full-blown pandemic, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) – aka, the market’s “fear index” – closed at the highest level ever seen.

At the same time, the S&P 500 saw its third-largest one-day percentage drop in history: a whopping -11.98% loss.

We all had similar feelings this week, following the 10% nosedive – a record $5 trillion loss – in the S&P 500 after President Trump’s tariff announcement on Wednesday, April 2.

The market has since rebounded following the president’s decision to pause reciprocal tariffs on countries other than China.

But as we learned back in 2020, when the uncertainty is extremely high rather than running for the hills, all we have to do is adjust how we trade.

And our latest breakthrough at TradeSmith may provide the ideal solution…

With a technology we’ve heard about nonstop for the past two years: artificial intelligence.

Protect and Profit – Even in Panic

A lot of today’s chatter about artificial intelligence is about “the future” – about AI’s potential, and the great things this technology can achieve.

But at TradeSmith, we don’t have to visualize too far into the future.

For us, that “future” is already here.

We’ve figured out how AI can deliver market-beating wealth – and not just on the easy, good days.

What we’ve created can help you thrive even in the worst market conditions.

And that means recognizing opportunities, yes, but also sidestepping danger. That’s where TradeSmith’s proprietary AI trading algorithm – An-E, short for analytical engine – comes in.

What sets An-E apart from the crowd is that it can forecast stock prices one month into the future… and many of these forecasts are incredibly accurate.

And it’s not just useful for stocks that are set to go up… An-E also zeroes in on the losers, too.

Because as we’ve well learned, playing defense in today’s volatile market can be just as valuable as offense – and An-E does both.

Take Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY), for example.

• Price at the Time of Projection: $46.21
• Projected Price: $49.23 by April 2, 2025
• Confidence Level: 70%

On March 3, 2025, An-E projected that the stock would rise from $46.21 to $49.23 within 21 trading days – a projected gain of 6.53%, backed by a 70% confidence level, signaling An-E’s strong conviction in the forecast.

And the result? By April 1, 2025, OXY just about hit that target at $49.19 – locking in a gain of 6.44% in just 20 trading days.

A modest gain, but when you repeat that rhythm over a year the results can really add up.

But there’s so much more to An-E than just picking winners when market conditions are calm…

On March 4, 2025, An-E projected that Light & Wonder Inc. (LNW) would fall from $106.60 to $92.52 in 21 trading days – a projected drop of 13.20%. That confidence gauge came in at a 63%.

And as projected, by April 2, 2025, LNW dropped to $91.95 for an actual loss of 13.74%.

Think about it. If you’d seen that one of the stocks you were thinking about buying had a 63% chance of dropping in the next month, would you still buy it? I don’t think so.

And in market conditions like these, avoiding the losers can be just as valuable than finding the winners – if not more.

The Art and Science of Finding Winners – and Avoiding the Losers

Whether you’re boosting your upside or guarding against drawdowns, An-E isn’t just another tool – it’s a paradigm shift. As markets grow more unpredictable, it delivers the precision and foresight needed to adapt, just like we did in past market crises.

The future of trading is here, and An-E is leading the way.

We designed An-E to provide price projections for thousands of stocks, funds, and ETFs in the next 21 trading days.

We also designed it to be easy to use.

An-E doesn’t handcuff you to your computer screen for hours. You don’t have to perch there watching the second-to-second price action and waiting to make your move.

All you have to do is open your email when a trade alert hits your inbox and decide whether you want to make a move.

That’s it.

So, there’s little wonder why we’ve seen overwhelming demand for this service. It’s one of the most popular pieces of technology we’ve rolled out in years.

In the face of today’s market turbulence, TradeSmith is stepping in with an urgent online event to help you navigate the storm.

And on Wednesday, April 16 at 8:00 p.m. EDT, we’re hosting The AI Predictive Power Event to show you exactly how An-E works. We’ll walk you through how An-E forecasts stock prices one month in advance with remarkable accuracy – and how you can use it to find high-probability trades that unlock short-term profits.

We’re in the midst of one of the most radical economic shifts we’ve ever seen. Global trade is being rewritten, markets are in flux, and many investors are scrambling to make sense of it all.

But this is exactly the moment AI like An-E was designed for.

With markets more unpredictable than ever, “buy and hold” simply won’t cut it anymore. The smart money is learning how to move with the market’s rhythm – and AI is the key to making it possible.

Click here to register for the event.

Sincerely,

Keith Kaplan
CEO, TradeSmith

P.S. Just for signing up for the event, you’ll receive five of An-E’s most bearish forecasts for the coming month. These insights can help you determine which stocks to avoid during this market shakeup, so be sure to check them out.

The post The New Way to Trade in an AI-Powered ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ appeared first on InvestorPlace.

• From late February into early March, we dropped 10% in just 20 trading days – one of the fastest corrections ever recorded.
• Then, after President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff shock, we fell another 10% in two days; something that’s happened only a handful of times in the past 100 years.
• We followed that up with a historic 8% rally on news of a 90-day tariff pause – some of the biggest single-day gains ever…
• Only to see the market crater again the very next day, giving back more than 3.5% as traders called the pause “signal over substance.”
• Meanwhile, the volatility index (VIX) – the market’s fear gauge – has more than doubled, now hovering at levels we’ve seen only twice before in history: once during the 2008 financial crisis and once during 2020’s COVID-19 lockdowns.

This isn’t your average market pullback. This is whiplash with a capital W.

And it puts us in rare company. Historically, this kind of price action has only happened four other times – during the Great Depression, the start of World War II, 2008’s global financial crisis, and 2020’s COVID crash.

Today’s stock market mayhem is reminiscent of some major historical crashes.

But are we actually staring down the barrel of a crisis like that?

Comparing History

The market’s price action is screaming: “Brace yourself. Something catastrophic is about to happen.”

But does this look like the Great Depression? Not really. 

Yes, the 1930s crash was worsened by a significant tariff package – Smoot-Hawley – that increased the average tariff rate from 13.5% to nearly 20%, triggering a global trade war. That comparison is real.

But in the ‘30s, unemployment was above 20%. Bank failures were happening on a weekly basis. Industrial production collapsed. And there was no central bank with the tools to backstop the financial system.

Today, unemployment is low, near 4%. Banks are relatively healthy. The U.S. Federal Reserve has stockpiled liquidity firepower. And the economy, though cooling, is not collapsing.

So, no, we don’t believe we’re in a tailspin toward 1930s America.

What about World War II? We don’t see that parallel, either. 

Yes, global geopolitical tensions are high. The U.S.-China dynamic is fraught. The Middle East is tense, and Russia and Ukraine remain locked in conflict.

But that’s been true for a while. And while global conflict risk is real, there is no indication that we are on the verge of a world-war-scale military event.

Serious concerns, yes – but not like 1939.

How about the 2008 financial crisis?

At that time, we were dealing with a broken financial system. The banks were loaded with toxic assets. Liquidity evaporated. The entire system teetered on the edge.

But right now, there’s no Lehman, Bear Stearns, or AIG collapse. There hasn’t been a sudden disappearance of trust in overnight lending.

Instead, this is a policy-driven, market-manufactured panic.

The Stock ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Isn’t Facing a Black Swan

And that brings us to the COVID era… which, in our view, bears almost no similarities to what we’re experiencing today. 

We’re not locking down economies, shutting borders, or freezing global supply chains in an instant.

We’re still working, living, and traveling. 

COVID-19 was a black swan health crisis. And this is not that.

This is a classic market overreaction to a real but overstated fear – tariffs and an ensuing trade war.

Now, don’t get us wrong. These tariffs are messy and economically damaging. But they’re not catastrophic.

That is, according to Bloomberg Economics, even with every reciprocal tariff enacted, the average U.S. tariff rate tops out at ~27% (vs. 2.5% last year). Using Fed modeling, that translates to a 3.4% drag on GDP.

That’s certainly meaningful – but not apocalyptic.

By comparison, the 2008 financial crisis knocked U.S. GDP down by more than 8%. The COVID-19 crash did the same.

Even if today’s tariffs stick, we’re talking a fraction of those drops. And we don’t think they’ll be around for long.

An Important Tone Shift

Just a few days ago, President Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for all countries except China.

Now, the market didn’t love the lack of detail. And the average tariff rate didn’t drop meaningfully (it only slid from 26.85% to 26.25%, to be exact).

But that’s not the point.

In our view, what’s most important is that the tone has shifted: from escalation to negotiation.

Since the pause was revealed:

• 70 countries have reportedly reached out to the White House for trade talks
• 20 have submitted formal proposals
• Two deals are close to being finalized
• Trump said that he’s confident the U.S. will get a deal finalized with China

The tough talk is over. It’s time for true negotiations.

And we expect that once those deals are locked in, it’ll be off to the races for stocks…

A lookback to the stock market of mid-February shows why.

Indeed, before this trade war started, stocks were at all-time highs, with the S&P 500 up at 6150. Consumer sentiment was strong, with inflation trending lower, easing to 2.8% from January’s 3.0% reading. The AI Boom was accelerating. And corporate earnings were stabilizing; S&P corporate earnings showed year-over-year growth of 17.8% – the highest since Q4 2021.

This wasn’t a stock market on the brink of collapse. It was a market in mid-cycle expansion.

Tariffs clouded that picture. But if we clear the fog – and we believe we’re in the process of doing so – the original bullish thesis comes right back into focus.

And that’s the opportunity here.

The Final Word on Today’s Stock ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½

Look; we don’t think we’ve bottomed yet. The stock market is still fragile, with extreme volatility.

But that doesn’t mean you wait forever to nail the bottom. You just have to give yourself enough time.

If you’re investing with a 12-month time horizon, we think buying stocks today will look smart.

Not tomorrow, next week, or even next month… But we think that a year from now, when the smoke has cleared, the trade deals are done, and the AI boom continues to gain steam, stocks will be much higher.

That’s why we’re advocating for a measured reentry strategy:

• Nibble on dips
• Focus on quality
• Buy high-conviction names
• Stay patient

This is how you win in volatile markets.

Let me leave you with this… 

This isn’t 1930, 2008, or 2020. 

This is 2025. And while the headlines are scary and the price action is violent, the fundamentals are not screaming “collapse.”

They’re saying: “This is bad. But it’s survivable.”

The trade war will pass as tariffs are negotiated. The Fed will likely cut. And the long-term stock market drivers – AI, innovation, productivity – are still in play.

Don’t get shaken out by short-term panic.

If you have time on your side, this is a moment to be greedy when others are fearful, as Warren Buffett says.

We’re not trying to catch the knife. We’re trying to ride the rebound.

Once this storm clears, the sun’s going to shine very bright.

And when it is time to buy the dip, AI 2.0 stocks may be the best bet. 

We’re talking AI that can respond to real-world environments; embodied intelligence that can see, hear, walk, talk, lift, carry, organize, fix, learn…

Indeed, there’s a reason why every tech titan is suddenly obsessed with humanoid robots.

That’s where we believe the next trillion-dollar investment opportunities will be found. And we’ve found a compelling way to play that next phase of the AI Boom.

Uncover the details on our favorite AI 2.0 pick.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Questions or comments about this issue? Drop us a line at langofeedback@investorplace.com.

The post Today’s Stock ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½: Another Great Depression or a Massive Overreaction? appeared first on InvestorPlace.