The oracle stood as a beacon of accuracy and wisdom, attracting those seeking guidance – from contemplating rulers and generals to ordinary travelers hoping to understand their fate.

Today, the art of prediction is still practiced, although it has evolved.

Modern militaries churn through massive amounts of satellite information and real-world data with human analysts and AI. Entire battles can be simulated by computer.

Companies use predictive models to forecast demand… weather forecasters use simulations to determine the chance of rain…

…and savvy investors often use these same tools to figure out what comes next in the market.

Investors like Tom Yeung, who joins me once a week here at Smart Money to keep you updated about markets, investing, and everything in between.

Tom’s market analysis is remarkable. He’s essentially practicing a modern form of auspicy, or the ancient art of divining future events.

He has done this most recently by analyzing President-Elect Donald Trump’s current actions and their future effects on the stock market’s potential trajectory.

While he’s no divine profit, Tom has a unique approach to predicting market signals, using social media and political developments as his bronze cauldrons and rustling leaves.

In today’s Smart Money, I want to share some of Tom’s recent auspicious insights… including why the key to investing in politically sensitive stocks over the next four years will be understanding that Trump needs to be taken seriously, but not literally.

Here’s what he has to say…

From the Smart Money “Oracle”

In November 2016, Google search terms for “move to Canada” spiked 20-fold.

Who could blame the millions of worried Americans? The incoming president was a polarizing figure that had campaigned on issues like repealing the Affordable Care Act, eliminating gun-free zones at schools, ending birthright citizenship, and so on.

Half the country was terrified.

But what came next over the following four years was the same type of prioritization that every American president faces in office. Many campaign promises were kept, while others were watered down or abandoned entirely.

It turned out that many of Donald Trump’s promises were about outlining his world views, rather than specific blueprints to implement.

A promise to cut the corporate tax rate to 15% was only partially fulfilled. So were goals of raising GDP growth to 4%, saving the coal industry, and so on. Wilder ambitions of “eliminating wasteful spending in every department” went nowhere.

Fast-forward to today, and this explains why the betting market’s calling Trump’s “bluff” on imposing 20% across-the-board tariffs.

Polymarket, a betting site that correctly predicted Trump’s recent election victory, gives a 38% chance of large tariffs being implemented in his first six months and only a 29% chance he will follow through with a recent threat to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada.

Instead, people seem to believe Trump is threatening tariffs as a negotiating tool.

Countries like China will see some increase in tariffs, especially if their leaders fail to offer something in return. But many other regions will see room to negotiate lower tariffs (or none at all) in exchange for something else. It’s more than likely that Trump will come to an agreement with Canada to keep the oil and gas taps open. So, we see no reason to panic-sell commodity-producing stocks that export to the United States.

Now,the picture is a little more muddled with healthcare stocks.

Trump’s selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the next head of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) injects enormous uncertainty into the industry. While his well-known vaccine skepticism raises concerns for vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer Inc. (PFE), there are healthcare stocks that remain on the “right” side of Trump’s mandate. (You can learn more about Eric’s healthcare stock recommendations at Fry’s Investment Report.)

In fact, many of Trump’s goals for his second presidency will be good for pharma companies with strong pipelines. This includes repealing the Medicare negotiation provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, reducing Federal Trade Commission oversight of mergers and acquisitions among corporations, lowering corporate taxes, and more.

Our investment strategy continues to focus on identifying stocks with attractive valuations, while managing potential political volatility.

A New Stock Prediction Tool

So, just like the Oracle of Dodona, Tom too makes stock market predictions by interpreting signs from the natural world (in this case, Trump’s current actions).

However, he isn’t the only auspice here at InvestorPlace.

In fact, my colleague Luke Lango has a new quant system that does the same thing. His new tool – called Auspex  – scans over 10,000 stocks to find the ones that meet his strict criteria for fundamental, technical, and sentiment strength. It then divines the immediate future of each stock to tell you which ones are the best over the best month.

And the Auspex screener can get you in front of big winners roughly every 30 days.

Over a 5-year period from September 2019 to September 2024, Luke’s historical analysis shows the Auspex portfolio, rebalanced monthly, would have returned 1,0534%

The S&P 500 only put up 109% over the same 5-year period. So, we’re talking about an outperformance of the market by 9X.

And it has beaten the market every single month since Luke started live testing it in July with a small group of his subscribers.

It requires just about 10 minutes of work a month, and exposure to only 10 or so equities at a time.

On Wednesday, December 11, at 1 p.m. Eastern time, he’ll reveal this new screener to a wider audience during his free The Auspex Anomaly Event next Wednesday. Luke will also reveal the name and ticker symbol of a stock he used Auspex to uncover during this free broadcast. 

It’s an event that you won’t want to miss. So, be sure to click here to reserve your spot.

Regards,

Eric Fry

The post Your Guide to Navigating an Unpredictable Trump Era appeared first on InvestorPlace.

December has settled in, and it seems like the world has transformed.

Everyday sights are now lined with twinkling lights.

The scent of pine trees fills homes, shopping malls and even office buildings.

Kitchens are stocked with cookies – maybe one of your favorites that you look forward to every year.

It’s amazing how the sights, sounds and smells of a season can transport you backwards in time. You probably remember just what your house looked like when you were young, the excitement of putting up the decorations, and the comforting aroma of your favorite treats baking in the kitchen.

The brain stores all this information and the related emotions and calls it up again easily. Suddenly, you’re thrown back into a different (hopefully happy) mood.

The brilliance of the human brain can’t be overstated. With it, we turn ordinary homes and shops into places of wonder. Human beings write symphonies, create mechanical marvels, and now we have even created real artificial intelligence.

An adult brain only weighs about three pounds and is 75% water, but it contains about 100 billion neurons – roughly the same number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Despite its compact size, its capacity to create music, art and inventions seems limitless.

Yet for all its marvelous gifts, the human brain is not always the best tool for stock picking and managing your portfolio.

As we all know, we’re too often ruled by our biases and emotions. All our analytical capabilities are worthless if we let those things sway our decision-making.

But there are ways to mitigate those impulses and make the most of your investing dollars.

Overcoming irrational investing

You don’t have to be a psychologist, sociologist or economist to understand that humans are emotional creatures. The field of behavioral finance examines the irrational behaviors that hurt our money management.

If you look back over your investing history, you can probably see, in retrospect, how your biases affected your decision-making.

Some of the more familiar biases include:

Overconfidence: In investing circles this is often referred to as “confusing a bull market with brains.” Overconfident investors refuse to believe their thinking is wrong, even when the market changes direction.

Loss Aversion: People fear losses more than anything else. This causes them to sell winners too soon or hold on to losers for too long, hoping they will rebound.

Crowd-seeking: The fear of missing out leads folks to pile into popular trades, creating bubbles and eventual crashes. Everyone who lived through the dot-com bubble and crash can relate.

And as trading stocks has become easier – you can trade stocks in seconds on your phone – the potential for an emotional decision to wreak havoc on portfolios has only increased.

Senior tech investing analyst Luke Lango knows this challenge well.

Luke is well-known for his ability to see the technology trends that are going to drive societal progress. His specialty is investing early in the companies that will thrive from that change.

Whether the technological advancement is self-driving cars, AI, quantum computing or the rise of cryptocurrencies, Luke has helped his subscribers grow their wealth as the tide of progress continues to surge forward.

And though technology is unemotional, technology investors are still just human beings with all the same emotional tendencies. Here’s Luke explaining how that reality affects the markets.

More so than any other time in history, the stock market is being driven by emotions. And markets driven by emotions like fear or greed are a breeding ground for volatility.  

This observation resonates with buy-and-hold investors. One day everything seems to be going well in the market, and the next day chaos reigns.

You likely remember 2018, when on Christmas Eve, the S&P hit its low point on a 20% correction that had begun just months prior.

2018 S&P ���Ҵ�ý Plunge

Luke believes fear- and greed-driven “flash crashes” are only going to become more common.

That’s why he decided to develop a solution to help keep himself, and his subscribers, from having to endure these stomach-churning rides.

Luke’s new stock screening system

Luke hasn’t abandoned buy-and-hold investing. He specializes in finding the innovative companies that are developing the technology of tomorrow. Those are often smaller companies that need time to grow and mature. And in his various investment services, he still provides related buy-and-hold recommendations.

Over the shorter term, however, Luke wants to help his readers thrive in volatile market environments. But that requires overcoming those investment biases we highlighted a moment ago.

This is why Luke created a new, exclusive stock screener called Auspex that identifies the best fundamentally strong stocks with the technical indicators and positive sentiment needed to drive short-term gains. It’s a systems-based market approach that removes emotion, allowing impartial data to inform buy and sell decisions.

At its core, Auspex identifies the strongest stocks in the market. Each month, Luke runs it again, thereby continually making sure that investors are aligning their wealth with the current “best of the best,” not yesterday’s leaders who are now slipping (which too many investors would hold onto thanks to our biases). 

After a year of development and rigorous back testing, Luke is ready to make the results widely available.

Luke has shared the system’s picks with his Inner Circle subscribers for the last five months, and it has beaten the market every month – even in November, as you can see in the chart below.

Given these results, you owe it to yourself to sign up for Luke’s free Auspex Anomaly Event, next Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 1 p.m. ET.

Luke will explain why the markets are going to be more volatile than ever next year, how he developed his new Auspex screener, and how his subscribers can achieve market-beating gains while only spending about 10 minutes a month on their portfolios, and only trading five to 20 stocks at a time.

The event is free, and the results are impressive. You can sign up for the event by clicking right here.

The holidays can be a time of great joy and happy memories. With Luke’s powerful Auspex tool, you can create some financial joy and happy memories year-round!

Enjoy your weekend,

Luis Hernandez

Editor in Chief, InvestorPlace

The post Outsmart Emotional Investing in 2025 appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Well, I have six words of wisdom to offer: Embrace the boom; beware the bust. 

Thanks in large part to the AI investment megatrend and long-awaited rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, the U.S. stock market has been booming for the past two years. 

That is, the craze around artificial intelligence has sparked an exceptional surge in investment. Companies have been racing to create the infrastructure necessary to support next-gen AI. Indeed, Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL) – pretty much all the world’s major tech companies continue to spend billions upon billions of dollars to build new AI data centers, create new applications, hire more engineers, etc. And all that investment has created a major economic boom.

Meanwhile, throughout 2022 – after embarking on the most aggressive rate-hiking cycle in nearly 50 years – the Federal Reserve finally slowed its pace of hikes. And here in 2024, the central bank actually started to cut rates. This has provided much-needed relief to consumers looking to finance big purchases and businesses looking to make new investments. This relief has also helped support the present economic boom. 

This optimal setup has helped stocks to really soar.

Embrace the Boom; Beware the Bust 

Since hitting its lows in October 2022 – just over two years ago – the S&P 500 has surged 70% higher. It is now on track to notch its second consecutive year of 20%-plus gains. 

The S&P rose 24% in 2023. And so far in 2024, it is up 27%. If those gains hold, this will mark just the fourth time since the Great Depression – nearly 100 years ago – that the S&P 500 rallied more than 20% in back-to-back years. 

We are unequivocally in a stock market boom. 

And in our view, this boom is about to get even “boomier.” 

Thanks to Donald Trump’s victory and Republicans’ newfound control of Congress, a wave of deregulation, pro-business policies, and tax cuts are likely to sweep the nation over the next few years. Those dynamics will only add to the current economic boom. 

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Sure does – so long as you remember that all market booms inevitably end with busts. It is not a question of “if.” It is simply a question of “when.” 

As we mentioned before, the stock market is working on back-to-back years of 20%-plus gains. It has only done that three times before: in 1935/36, 1954/55, and 1995/96. 

After the two boom years in 1935 and ‘36, stocks immediately crashed about 40% in 1937. That boom turned into a bust almost immediately. 

Following the market boom in 1954 and ‘55, stocks went flat in ‘56, then dropped 15% in 1957. The boom turned into a bust after about a year. 

Similarly, post-1995/96, stocks kept partying throughout 1997, ‘98, and ‘99 – only to crash about 50% throughout 2000, ‘01, and ‘02. After about three years, that era’s big boom turned into a big bust as well.

All booms of this nature turn into busts. It’s just a matter of timing. 

Does that mean you should dump your stocks while you still can and head for the hills to avoid this inescapable bust? 

Absolutely not.

The Final Word on Conquering an Ever-Changing Stock ���Ҵ�ý

Usually, the last 30 minutes of a movie is the best part of the film. The last episode of a TV show is almost always the best one, just as the last few minutes of a ballgame are normally the most exciting. 

Similarly, the last few years of a stock market boom can often be the most profitable. 

Just look at the Dot Com Boom of the 1990s.

Tech stocks had some amazing years therein. The Nasdaq Composite rallied 40% in 1995, about 20% in ‘96, another 20% in ‘97, and then 40% again in ‘98. But tech stocks saved their best for last, with the Nasdaq soaring almost 90% for its best year ever in 1999. 

Then the bust started in 2000. 

Point being: The best year for tech stocks in the ‘90s was the final year of the Dot Com Boom. 

That’s why you don’t want to leave a stock market party early. But you also don’t want to leave too late. 

So, what’s an investor to do? 

Embrace the boom. Beware the bust. Ride stocks higher, then head for the exits when the warning signs appear. 

Of course, that’s much easier said than done, I know. 

But that’s exactly why we’ve been working to create a new investment tool that helps folks navigate through the market turbulence and all these booms and busts. And in fact, it has beaten the market every single month since we started live testing it in July.

In short, this new tool is a home-grown stock screener that I can use to give you the chance to make long-term gains – but in only 30 days or less.  

That way, you can get into a position, potentially make a lot of money, and then cash out, helping to limit your exposure to the increased volatility coming our way in 2025 and beyond.

Perhaps the best part? It requires just about 10 minutes of work a month and exposure to only 10 equities at a time.

And next Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 1 p.m. EST, I’ll be unveiling this investment tool in a new broadcast that you won’t want to miss. 

Reserve your seat now!

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post Introducing: An Outperforming Investment Tool to Help You Game the ���Ҵ�ý appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Luke and his team have spent the better part of the past year developing this thing, and I’ve got to say… the results are impressive. A thorough backtest showed it outperforming the market by 10X-plus in trailing 5-, 10-, 15-, and 20-year windows.

So, today I want you to hear more about it straight from the horse’s mouth. I’ve invited Luketo talk more about how the old buy-and-hold strategy may not be the way to make big gains anymore. Luckily, that’s where Auspex can help…

In the meantime, you won’t want to miss his Auspex Anomaly Event on Wednesday, December 11 at 1 p.m. ET, so click here to sign up now.

And, without further ado, take it away Luke…

The stock market just had its best month of the year, with the S&P 500 rallying almost 6% in November.

And no wonder…

From deregulation to tax reform, President-Elect Donald Trump promises to reshape the U.S. economy through pro-growth policies. Those promises are stirring investors’ “animal spirits”… and so the market continues to surge higher.

For instance, since Election Day…

• The S&P 500 is up about 6.2%, and it keeps reaching record highs of 6,000 and beyond.
• The Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks has surged about 9.7%
• The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 has gained about 7.2%.
• And Bitcoin (BTC-USD) has also risen about 32% – from $70,000 to, just this past Wednesday evening, an all-time high of more than $100,000.

Now, we’re all now wondering if this red-hot rally can keep going through Trump’s inauguration and beyond.

I think it can. However, there’s every reason to believe it could sputter out before Trump’s term is over… and maybe even sooner than that.

No rally lasts forever. No smart investor can afford to set it and forget it.

That’s why we need strategies that can beat the market in rallies – and in downturns.

And during a special broadcast on December 11, I’m showing to the public – for the first time ever – a new strategy that just does that. (Go here now to sign up and reserve your spot for that event.)

In fact, I’ve been using this strategy live with a select private group of my subscribers for the past five months… and it’s beaten the market each and every single month.

Including November.

So, here today, let’s look at the past in order to see why the current Trump boom may not last as long as we wish.

And I want to take a minute to take a look under the hood of my new strategy.

It takes only a few minutes each month to set up… and you’re done. There’s no need to constantly keep an eye on target prices or stop-losses.

Finally, I’ll show you why I believe my new strategy will keep beating the market month after month – whether we get a Trump boom or bust – and how you can start using it yourself…

When Buy-and-Hold Doesn’t Always Work

The investment landscape has changed… a lot… over the past several decades.

However, most investors still believe in “stocks for the long haul” – in buying and holding.

They’ve yet to realize how drastically market conditions can shift.

Consider 1962 to 1982.

During this two-decade bear market, the S&P 500 index (the blue line in the chart below) plummeted from 713 to 363, a nearly 50% decline. Buy-and-hold strategies just won’t work in that kind of an environment.

Source: Macrotrends.net

Indeed, not many stories of ordinary workers amassing multimillion-dollar portfolios through patient investing emerged during this era.

In fact, this period of stock market pain resulted in BusinessWeek’s now-famous “The Death of Equities” cover in 1979:

Investing in individual stocks during the 1960s and ’70s was challenging, even for expert stock pickers. Even seemingly safe, industry-leading companies underperformed.

Consider IBM Corp. (IBM), a technology pioneer and popular choice among retail investors. Despite its prominence and innovation, IBM’s performance was pretty cruddy.

Between winter 1962 and fall 1981 (19 years!), IBM produced an average annual return of 2.62%. (And that includes reinvested dividends.)

Source: DQYDJ.com

A $10,000 investment yielding 2.62% annually over 19 years results in $16,346 — hardly enough for a comfortable retirement.

A similar years-long bear market hit us in the 2000s following the dot-com boom and the financial crisis.

Am I predicting something similar now? No.

In fact, a 25-basis-point interest rate cut remains on the Federal Reserve’s table for later this month – and that should help keep stocks on a winning path.

At some point, however, this rally will end. At some point, post-election euphoria will fade. At some point, investors will look to lock in short-term profits.

We’re not at that point yet. I do think it could arrive by around the inauguration.

Moreover, the world is an “interesting” place. And Donald Trump only makes it more “interesting.”

In the years ahead, we could see global conflicts… rising inflation… soaring interest rates… just about anything.

All of which could put the stock market in a funk. Maybe not a 1960s-’70s style funk… but a bad mood, nonetheless.

However, thanks to my new strategy, investors can still beat the market and make big gains after this rally sells off… or even if we do go into a longer downturn.

Let me show you how…

How to Succeed in Today’s ���Ҵ�ý

“Buy-and-hold” isn’t dead.

In fact, I recommend my members to buy and hold in artificial intelligence, precision medicine, quantum computing, and nuclear energy stocks. Those megatrends – and others – still have plenty of potential for long-term growth.

This is still the best way to build a multimillion-dollar portfolio – and a life of wealth and peace – over decades of time.

However, between frequent flash crashes and constant market turbulence, investors face many challenges when it comes to short-term gains.

We need to diversify our investing strategies beyond buy-and-hold.

That’s why I also encourage my subscribers to use more active trading approaches to capitalize on market volatility.

And it’s why we developed my new Auspex strategy – to replace uncertainty and volatility with certainty and stability.

It’s why I’m showing everyone who signs up a lot more about it during The Auspex Anomaly Event on Dec. 11 at 1 p.m. Eastern.

To me, Auspex is the ultimate stock-screening tool. My team and I designed it to find the “best stocks at the best time.”

Auspex combines fundamental, technical, and market sentiment factors to identify the next month’s top-performing stocks.

At the start of each month, Auspex scans more than 10,000 stocks for those with the highest levels of fundamental strength, technical market direction, and positive market sentiment… to find the stocks with the most upward momentum over the next month.

It typically identifies 5-20 stocks. Then, my team and I then dig in and determine which of those will form that month’s Auspex Portfolio.

We started doing this live for a small group of my members five months ago. And we’ve seen market outperformance – sometimes outstanding outperformance –  each and every month since then.

November was a great month for stocks, with the S&P 500 rising 5.7%.

However, Auspex crushed it, with our equal-weighted portfolio rising more than 8%.

Again, this was the fifth consecutive month of market-beating returns for Auspex.

Moreover, back-testing shows Auspex outperforming the market by 10X-plus in trailing 5-, 10-, 15-, and 20-year windows.

In our April 2024 back-test scan, Auspex identified Dynagas LNG Partners LP (DLNG) and Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) as having huge momentum behind them.

And in April, DLNG stock popped almost 30%, while ZETA rose about 15%. Over that same stretch, the S&P 500 dropped about 4%.

In our May back-test scan, Auspex continued to highlight DLNG and ZETA. In May, ZETA soared more than 30%, while DLNG popped almost 10%. The S&P 500 rose just 4%.

To put it simply: Two Auspex stocks – DLNG and ZETA – rose about 40% and 50%, respectively, at a time when the market was basically flat.

The Bottom Line

In 2025, the stock market is going to be volatile and complex… and it’s going to change all the time… just like 2024, 2023, 2022, etc.

In this environment, tools that provide data-driven, adaptive investment strategies will be invaluable.

That’s why we developed Auspex…

With it, investors can position themselves to not just weather potential market storms but to thrive and potentially achieve returns far beyond market averages.

To learn more, just click here to sign up for The Auspex Anomaly Event. Then mark your calendar for Tuesday, December 11, at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Luke Lango

Senior Analyst, InvestorPlace

The post This Strategy Just Beat the ���Ҵ�ý 5 Months in a Row appeared first on InvestorPlace.

We’re almost at the midpoint of the decade, too. And this has me thinking about my time in this business, which has been over four decades now.

Looking back, I’ve been blessed to have more than my fair share of winners. And that’s thanks in large part to Stock Grader (subscription required).

It led me to Tyson Foods, Inc. (TSN), the original supplier of McDonald’s Corporation (MCD) for its Chicken McNuggets. Tyson was left with a lot of leftover “chicken parts” as the demand for McNuggets soared. So, the company decided to make its own “Chicken Chunks,” creating a monopoly out of a new way to eat chicken. Its operating margins expanded and created windfall earnings, and I made over 900% in the stock.

Then, there’s Conair Corporation, a personal care company that specializes in hair products. Conair created a handheld hair-drying product in the early 1980s when “big hair” was the biggest fashion trend. As demand rose and people wanted bigger hair, the watts of hairdryers rose from 800 to 1,200, then to 1,800 and up. This fueled Conair’s explosion of earnings. Once competition came in a few years later, I decided to sell Conair and made over 1,000% in profits!

Now, I can confidently tell you that most people are lucky to have one 1,000% gainer in their life. For a really good analyst? Maybe once a decade.

So, how have I been able to pick out these huge winners before they really pop? Well, it’s quite simple really… some of the biggest winners of my career all had one thing in common…

They all had monopolistic characteristics. In other words, they were so dominant, there were virtually no competitors. This is what led to their amazing returns.

Given this, I think I know what the “Stock of the Decade” will be when the 2020s are over.

I’m talking about NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA).

In today’s ���Ҵ�ý 360, I’ll explain why. We’ll take a closer look at NVIDIA’s business and how I found the stock before the AI Boom started. I’ll also share why I expect the AI Boom to continue… and where to learn how you can profit from it.

NVIDIA and the Dawn of the AI Boom

NVIDIA is a leading computer graphics company that makes graphics processing units (GPUs).

Originally, graphics were only prized by video game enthusiasts. But it turns out that the GPU has a wide range of powerful applications. They can be used to aid computers in applications like financial modeling, oil and gas exploration, virtual reality and even in self-driving cars.

So, in the late 2010s, NVIDIA began receiving some unusual orders. Not only were crypto enthusiasts buying up high-end GPUs to mine cryptocurrency… but machine-learning researchers were also using the cards to train their models.

It turns out that GPUs are really good for something called “parallelization.” This is where you break down a large computational task into smaller ones that can be calculated independently and simultaneously. That makes GPUs extremely powerful – far more than even the best central processing units (CPUs) in these types of computations.

Data storage provider Pure Storage estimates that GPUs are roughly three times faster than an equivalent CPU for machine-learning algorithms. That is an enormous advantage in a world where large models can require months to train and cost millions of dollars.

That put NVIDIA on the fast track to success. Thanks to its portfolio of valuable patents and internal research, NVIDIA got an enormous head start on the AI Boom. No company came close.

Why I Recommended NVIDIA

What originally got me excited about NVIDIA was what it was doing with the development of autonomous vehicles. My son was an engineering student at Stanford when they debuted an autonomous race car named “Shelley” that used NVIDIA chips.

But in 2019, when I learned what it was planning to do with AI, I pulled the trigger and added it to my Growth Investor Buy List. Since then, the stock has been on a tear, and it’s now sitting on a whopping 3,300% gain!

The reason behind NVIDIA’s stunning growth? Its AI chips.

Back in March 2022, NVIDIA unveiled the Hopper chip. It was a significant advancement in GPU technology, specifically designed to meet the growing demands of AI computing.

So, it’s no surprise that roughly $19.4 billion of NVIDIA’s $26 billion in revenue from its most recent quarter can be attributed to Hopper.

Then, before we knew it, ChatGPT launched in November of that same year, and the AI Boom took off.

The rest, as they say, is history.

To stay ahead of the competition, NVIDIA introduced Blackwell in March 2024. This is a brand-new GPU that is set to succeed Hopper. It is reportedly 2.5 times faster and 25 times more energy efficient.

In other words, it’s a completely new game-changer.

What sets the Blackwell GPU apart is that it is for generative AI, which is “machine learning.”

The other AI chip competitors, like Intel Corporation (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), are not experts in machine learning. They are primarily developing chips for AI devices that optimize correlating data sets to learn preferences and habits rather than machine learning to solve problems and provide solutions.

So, NVIDIA effectively has a monopoly. And as NVIDIA develops even more powerful GPU successors to Blackwell, I do not expect any competitor to “crack” NVIDIA’s dominance.

I should also add that demand for Blackwell has been insatiable, with Big Tech names like Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) and Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) lining up to get all they can get their hands on.

It’s reported that Blackwell is sold out for the next 12 months. So, once these new chips are in full production – and in peak demand – the company’s business is set to explode even further.

This leads me right into why it is the stock of the decade…

Why NVIDIA Is the Stock of the Decade

Through the end of this decade, the transistors in each of NVIDIA’s chips will be approaching the “atomic” level, so sheer physics may prohibit it from making its chips any faster.

So, looking beyond this decade, NVIDIA plans to utilize quantum computing. This is a form of computing that essentially utilizes ones AND zeroes to perform calculations instead of a 1 or 0, like traditional computing.

Now, quantum computers have traditionally been cost-prohibitive except for government agencies and some universities.

But I predict NVIDIA will help lead the charge to a breakthrough in this field in order to help speed up generative AI after its GPUs hit their physical limits. In fact, NVIDIA has a quantum cloud simulator up and running right now.

The point is that NVIDIA is miles ahead of the competition.

Now, I must disclose that NVIDIA is grossly overweighted in my portfolios. But I have no intention of selling this stock anytime in the next few years.

Eventually, companies do lose their “edge.” Another more innovative company comes along with a better product and eats their lunch.

But I don’t see that happening anytime soon with NVIDIA.

To put it bluntly: I have never found a stock as monopolistic and as powerful as NVIDIA.

Since the company is expected to dominate generative AI GPUs with virtually no competition in sight, I think it’s worth holding the stock through the end of the decade.

And even after that, I expect NVIDIA to shift gears and then dominate quantum computing to further speed up generative AI.

A New Wave of the AI Boom

That being said, I predict that we’re going to see the AI Boom broaden out as we enter the second half of this decade.

That’s because, within Donald Trump’s first days in office, he will issue a set of executive orders that will unleash a flurry of activity to help support the AI Boom.

This second wave will be the new driving force of AI. And in a special presentation, I lay out a number of ways you can profit.

Click here to learn how you can profit from the second wave of the AI Boom.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ���Ҵ�ý360

P.S. If there’s anything we can learn from my experience with NVIDIA, it’s that finding the right stock at the right time can make all the difference.

Names with superior fundamentals and strong momentum can go on to rise 100%… 300%… even 1,000% in relatively short order… while making their shareholders enormous amounts of money.

Stocks like these allow you to turn modest amounts of money into large amounts of money. They’re the “bullet trains” of the stock market. They move the fastest.

So… why should you own anything else?

Luke Lango, Senior Analyst for InvestorPlace, has devised a strategy that turns this mindset into an actionable plan.

It requires just about 10 minutes of work a month, and exposure to only 10 equities at a time.

Even so, a thorough backtest showed it would’ve done 18.6X better than the stock market from April 2019 to April 2024.

And it has beaten the market every single month since Luke started live testing it in July. To learn more about why Luke’s “Auspex” system is one of the smartest trading strategies ever created, click here.

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

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)

The post Why Every Growth Investor Should Own the “Stock of the Decade” appeared first on InvestorPlace.

That is, we think this was the perfect “Goldilocks” jobs report. It wasn’t hot enough to create reinflation fears, nor was it cold enough to stoke lingering concerns about an incoming recession. Rather, it was the perfect temperature.

There was good news. For example, the U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs in November – better than the 215,000 expected. Clearly, hiring remains stable nationwide.

However, this jobs report included bad news as well. The unemployment rate crept up to 4.2%, higher than economists’ expectation that it would remain flat at 4.1%. In truth, unemployment has been creeping higher for the past year but improved in the late summer. The fact that it is increasing once again does suggest some weakness in the labor market. 

So, in other words, today’s jobs report was a mixed bag. There was good news, and there was bad news. 

But that’s exactly what stocks need to keep pushing higher.

Why We View This Jobs Report as Bullish

If November’s jobs report were red-hot, with robust growth and falling unemployment, it would certainly have created more reinflation worries. Not to mention, it also would’ve axed odds that the Federal Reserve would cut rates at its meeting in two weeks.

Meanwhile, an ice-cold report with weak growth and rising unemployment would’ve reignited fears about a potential recession. 

But a just-right “Goldilocks” jobs report – with good growth and rising unemployment – simultaneously supports another rate cut and keeps reinflation and recession fears at bay. 

Thankfully, we got that “just-right” report. And the markets are reacting exactly as you would expect. 

Following the data’s release, odds for a December rate cut jumped from 70% to 90%. The 10-year Treasury yield sank to a post-election low. And the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all rallied in early morning trading. 

Wall Street got the jobs report it wanted. Now stocks are celebrating the holidays early. 

We think this stock market has runway to keep pushing higher into the end of the year. Furthermore, we also think stocks have the fundamental support to achieve another very strong year in 2025. 

But we caution folks against getting too greedy or too bullish in the current market boom.

The Final Word

Every stock market boom eventually ends in a bust. And this particular boom has some eerie parallels. 

That is, the S&P is currently on track to notch back-to-back years of 20%-plus gains. It has only done that three times before: in 1935/36, 1954/55, and 1995/96.

And the table below details exactly what happened next…

All booms of this nature turn into busts. It is simply a matter of when. 

But, that being said, an inevitable crash is no reason to dump your stocks and throw in the towel. 

Despite the ever-changing economic landscape, plenty of investors find success in the markets. Some focus on fundamentals, closely analyzing a company’s sales and profit growth to find their future winners. Others look at a stock’s technical setup, assessing the slope of moving averages and day-to-day price action. And then, of course, there’s market sentiment to account for. What’s the trading volume like? Do folks sound bullish or bearish on social media?

Each can play an important role when it comes to a successful investment strategy. And combined, these factors can help you to create a nearly unstoppable portfolio.

As it happens, that’s exactly what we aim to do with our latest investment tool: Auspex. By combining fundamental, technical, and sentimental analysis, this tool has consistently demonstrated its ability to identify breakout stocks before their explosive growth phases. 

In fact, it has beaten the market every single month since we started live testing it in July.

As we move beyond the era of simple buy-and-hold strategies, Auspex stands ready to guide investors toward the next generation of market winners, month in and month out.

If you’re looking for a way to outperform the broader market, no matter the economic climate, join my upcoming broadcast next Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 1 p.m., where I’ll be sharing all the details about this powerful new system.

Reserve your seat now!

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post ‘Goldilocks’ Jobs Report Shows That a ‘Santa Rally’ Approaches appeared first on InvestorPlace.

According to analysts at Citi, the S&P’s positioning is “completely one-sided” in favor of the bulls.

Citi notes that bullish positioning in the S&P has notched new records for four consecutive weeks.

Below is a chart from Bloomberg dating to 2007. The red line shows the S&P 500’s price. The black line indicates the net futures positioning of asset managers. Today’s reading marks one of the highest on record.

Importantly, except 2012, the other times that net long positioning reached such levels, the S&P suffered a sharp pullback shortly thereafter.

As we’ve pointed out in prior Digests, the percentage of U.S. household wealth in stocks relative to other assets is near all-time highs today.

To illustrate why this is a problem, we’ve referenced the following quote from Stéphane Renevier from Finimize in past Digests:

A lot of things can influence short-term stock returns: interest rates, economic data, geopolitical stuff, investor sentiment – even weather.

But for long-term returns, one factor rules them all: the proportion of assets that investors are parking in stocks.

This ratio has proven to be the most reliable predictor of stock returns over a ten-year horizon, outshining even heavyweight factors like valuations.

It says that when investors go big on stocks, their long-term returns tend to be below average…

Investor over-allocation to stocks has been the most precise warning signal of lost decades.

A rather concerning omen for 2025…

In September, JPMorgan published a report suggesting that forward returns over the next decade could come in at just half their long-term average.

Here’s ���Ҵ�ýWatch:

The basis for their argument was mostly mathematical.

Current stock-market valuations are high relative to history, largely due to the performance of a handful of megacap stocks like the members of the Magnificent Seven.

Reams of historical data suggest that, over the long term, valuations should return to the mean, which should translate to lower stock-market returns in the years ahead.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, the research shop Ned Davis pointed toward 2024’s 54 different all-time highs. While that’s been great news for investors, Ned Davis suggests that, historically, it’s not great for returns the year after such blowout performance.

From Business Insider:

Since 1928, in years when the S&P 500 has hit more than 35 record highs, the median gain for the benchmark index was just 5.8% the following year, below the long-running average of 8%, the firm said.

In years when the S&P 500 hit at least 50 record highs, the median return for the benchmark index was -6% the following year.

1996.

In that year, the S&P climbed 20% despite having hit 77 different record highs in 1995.

Now, Luke isn’t saying there won’t be a correction eventually, but he challenges the idea that it’s coming next year:

After the 1995/96 bull run, we get another three great years in 1997, 1998, and 1999 – but that led to the huge Dot Com Crash wherein stocks fell about 50% from 2000 to 2002.

So, what does Luke see coming in 2025 then?

It depends on a handful of variables, but here’s his bull case:

While we think stocks have good upside prospects over the next 12-24 months, we think spectacular upside potential will depend on the path forward for inflation and interest rates.

If inflation stays low and interest rates are able to keep moving lower, then valuation multiples on the S&P 500 will expand and power strong upside in stocks…

After walking through the math of projections based on Trump tax cuts, the related earnings boost, and sentiment-related stock multiples, Luke concludes:

If inflation stays low and interest rates keep falling, you could see stocks rally more than 30% in the next 2 years.

Despite this potential outcome, Luke is no perma-bull. He’s realistic about the headwinds facing stocks in 2025:

If inflation moves higher and interest rates stay high, then valuation multiples on the S&P 500 will have to compress and that will limit upside in stocks… You could see stocks push only marginally higher in the next 2 years.

Do you stay in the market to benefit from bullish momentum, voting to emphasize “offense” and the possibility of a third consecutive year of blowout performance?

If you choose this, you risk a guillotine-chop-style market correction that can derail or delay investment and/or financial goals.

On the other hand, do you sell down your big winners, swallow the capital gains tax hit, and rotate into safer investments, voting to emphasize “defense,” protecting the gains you’ve generated?

If you’re wrong and the market screams 30% higher over the next two years as Luke believes is possible, the missed gains could materially impact the timing of achieving your retirement timing and/or financial goals. Plus, that FOMO could be brutal.

Not an easy choice to make.

Given this challenge, I’ve been urging readers to consider adopting a “trading” mindset to today’s market.

In other words, rather than adding to your buy-and-hold portfolio with new stocks bought at elevated valuations (or even buying more of your existing blue chips that are trading at lofty valuations), put your money into short-term trades. This way, you ride surging momentum while limiting your time in the market, therein reducing the risk of exposure to a sudden selloff.

Now, while this makes sense theoretically, how do you really do it when rubber hits road?

Luke has developed a new tool to help answer that question…

When it comes to “buying low and selling high,” what really matters?

Is it fundamental strength? Think expanding profit margins and strong sales growth.

Or maybe technical strength? Perhaps indicators and charts that suggest snowballing bullish momentum?

Or is it sentiment? Regular Digest readers have seen me write “price is truth,” meaning that if bullish sentiment results in investors bidding up prices, what else is there, really?

Each of these factors is important and plays a key role in a sustained bull run. That’s why Luke has created a comprehensive stock screening system called Auspex that combines all three.

Luke’s Auspex system scans more than 10,000 stocks, looking for the select few that meet Luke’s strict standards for fundamental, technical, and sentiment performance. Next Wednesday, at 1 PM ET, Luke is holding a special event to detail exactly how he and his team engineered Auspex… the outperformance it’s been racking up since the summer… and why it could be the perfect answer to our earlier challenge of staying with bullish momentum versus getting out of the market to protect our gains.

The rigorous screening process produces only about 5-20 “buy” signals each month. Luke’s strategy has been to buy them all and then forget about them for the ensuing month.

This means no trading in and out new stocks each week. No waiting for intra-day buy/sell notifications. Instead, you buy once at the beginning of the month then forget about it until about 30 days later.

The following month, Auspex provides a new batch of short-term trade recommendations that have triggered its strict performance criteria. Perhaps one of the same stocks will have triggered a “buy” again. Perhaps the system will suggest you rotate your money into a new, stronger position.

Whatever the guidance, the takeaway is the same: You keep your wealth aligned with the “best of the best” of fundamental, technical, and sentimental strength on a month-by-month basis.

This increases the odds you’re invested in bullish stocks while reducing the odds that one of the positions rolls over in a significant way. After all, a one-month hold period provides less time for strength to erode.

Luke has been using the Auspex system with his Inner Circle readers in real time and it’s beaten the market each month for the last five months. That includes November, when the S&P 500 rose 5.73% and the Dow jumped 7.54%, marking their best monthly performance of 2024. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq climbed 6.21% for its largest gain since May. The Auspex Equal Weight portfolio rose more than 8% over this period.

We’ll be bringing you more on this over the coming days, but to sign up right now for next Wednesday’s event at 1 PM ET, click here. We’re anticipating one of the biggest turnouts of the year.

Historical data suggests we should expect muted returns. But current momentum points toward a continuation of outsized gains.

As we see it, trading the market’s strongest stocks over shorter hold periods is one of our wisest choices for navigating this tension. It’s the old idea of “renting” the market, not “buying” it.

Whatever approach is right for you, just be prepared for a 2025 that could be “up 20%” or “down 20%.”

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post How to Trade This “One-Sided” ���Ҵ�ý appeared first on InvestorPlace.

When December rolls around, the predictions for the coming year roll out at a fast and furious pace.

The S&P 500 has notched 20%-plus returns in the past two years – a truly remarkable run – and the consensus is that 2025 will be another gangbuster one for stocks. Analysts are virtually unanimous in believing the S&P 500 will deliver positive returns – and above-average ones at that.

For example…

• Goldman Sachs predicts that the S&P will finish 2025 at 6,500.
• Deutsche Bank: 7,000.
• Yardeni Research: 7,000.

Analysts at Wells Fargo set the high-water mark on Tuesday, issuing a forecast of 7,007.

Yahoo Finance has been tracking these predictions, and so far, we’re looking at a range of 6,400 to 7,007. That’s 5% to 15% upside from current levels.

The reason why there’s a range is because these folks use all sorts of methods to arrive at those numbers. One analyst might be a “macro” expert who tracks geopolitical developments and economic conditions. Another may be a “quant” (like myself) – specializing in algorithmic or statistical models that combine historical data with current valuations, earnings projections, etc.

Others may rely on technical analysis… sentiment… discounted cash flow models… or a combination of all of the above.

Here’s the reality, though. None of these folks have a crystal ball. And if they did, they certainly wouldn’t let us look at it…

The truth is that these folks are just trying to come up with their best guess with the information at hand.

These different methods analysts use reminds me of what the Ancient Greeks used to do. They would often consult various sages and mystics for signs about the future. And they took it pretty seriously, looking for signs and omens related to matters of war, politics, love… you name it.

What they watched for varied somewhat. The Romans liked to interpret the eating habits of sacred chickens before battle. Others would examine the entrails of sacrificed animals.

One such practice was called auspicy, and it usually involved interpreting the signs of birds.

Case in point: The Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.

According to some accounts, the Greek generals sought guidance from a seer (or Auspex), who interpreted the flight of the birds in the sky to predict the outcome of the battle. If the interpretation was favorable, it was considered a divine endorsement.

(This is also where we get the phrase “under the auspices” – meaning under the protection or with the support of a higher authority.)

Whatever they did apparently didn’t hurt that day because the battle was a famous victory. Plus, it was great for morale – and that can mean a lot when the stakes are high.

Now, we don’t know exactly what kind of bird the Auspex used that day. One practitioner might interpret the flight path of a raven. Another might use crows. 

My point is we’ve been trying to make sense of an unpredictable world for thousands of years. Whether through divine guidance or complicated algorithms, the intention is still the same.

The “Divine” Nature of Stock Grader

This even applies to Stock Grader, my proprietary quantitative stock-picking system.

Here’s how it works…

Every public company has hundreds of data points (often called “factors”) related to its business and its stock.

This means you can analyze trillions upon trillions of factor combinations in order to find the most effective stock selection strategy.

This, of course, requires a lot of computing power. But thanks to the extraordinary technological advances of the past few years, that type of power is at our fingertips.

In my over 40 years of experience and research, I’ve found that when a unique set of nine “metrics” come together in a certain way in one stock, it portends enormous short-term stock market gains: eight fundamental metrics and one quantitative buying metric.

This is my “secret sauce” to some of the big wins I’ve had over the years.

It’s how I made over 700% on an online discount retailer in China called Vipshop Holdings Ltd. (VIPS) a few years ago. 

It’s also led me to current winners in my Growth Investor service, like NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) – where we’re sitting on a gain of 3,200%!

So, you could say that using Stock Grader is like doing a little stock market divination, if you will. Except we’re talking about a massive, computerized research project, which, over the years, has cost millions of dollars.

The Quant System for Big Gains in 30-60 Days

Now, I use Stock Grader to find long-term winners. But if you’re looking for a quant system that finds big gains in the short term, then I’ve got some exciting news for you: My friend and InvestorPlace colleague Luke Lango has created a unique quant system that does just that.

Luke calls this system Auspex.

He has spent nearly a year building and testing a powerful new screener to help readers find the best stocks at the best time. Auspex blends different fundamental, sentiment and technical factors to find stocks that can hand you long-term gains in short-term holding periods. 

In fact, Luke’s Auspex portfolio just delivered another stellar performance in November, outpacing the S&P 500 for the fifth consecutive month. What’s more, a thorough backtest showed it would’ve done 18.6X better than the stock market from April 2019 to April 2024.

And Luke is finally ready to share this portfolio with the public.

The fact is that Auspex does the heavy lifting for you. With exposure to only 10 equities at a time, you can follow along with just about 10 minutes of work a month.

You’re going to hear more from Luke in a ���Ҵ�ý 360 later this week. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about Luke’s new Auspex system, you need to sign up for his Auspex Anomaly Event on Wednesday, December 11 at 1 p.m. ET. That’s when Luke is going to reveal more about Auspex, including an anomaly it’s discovered in the market that could hand you triple-digit gains in just 30 to 60 days.

Click here to reserve your spot now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ���Ҵ�ý360

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

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)

The post The Ancient Art of Stock Divination appeared first on InvestorPlace.

In short, volatility and flash crashes are the new norm, even in bull markets.

To address this new reality, my InvestorPlace colleague Luke Lango has spent nearly a year building and testing a powerful new tool – called Auspex – to help find the best stocks at the best time. Luke will reveal this new tool at The Auspex Anomaly Event on Wednesday, December 11 at 1 p.m. Eastern time. You can reserve your spot for this event here.

Today, Luke is joining us to discuss why it’s crucial to recognize that market conditions can shift dramatically… why the traditional “buy-and-hold” strategy now requires a more nuanced approach… and share more about his new Auspex tool.

Take it away, Luke…

The stock market just had its best month of the year, with the S&P 500 rallying almost 6% in November.

And no wonder…

From deregulation to tax reform, President-Elect Donald Trump promises to reshape the U.S.’ economy through pro-growth policies. Those promises are stirring investors’ “animal spirits”… and so the market continues to surge higher.

For instance, since Election Day…

• The S&P 500 is up about 6.2%, and it keeps reaching record highs of 6,000 and beyond.
• The Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks has surged about 9.7%
• The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 has gained about 7.2%.
• And Bitcoin (BTC-USD) has also risen about 32% – from $70,000 to, just last night, an all-time high of more than $100,000.

Now, we’re all now wondering if this red-hot rally can keep going through Trump’s inauguration and beyond.

I think it can. However, there’s every reason to believe it could sputter out before Trump’s term is over… and maybe even sooner than that

No rally lasts forever. No smart investor can afford to set it and forget it.

That’s why we need strategies that can beat the market in rallies – and in downturns.

And during a special broadcast on December 11, I’m showing to the public – for the first time ever – a new strategy that just does that. (Go here now to sign up and reserve your spot for that event.)

In fact, I’ve been using this strategy live with a select private group of my subscribers for the past five months… and it’s beaten the market each and every single month.

Including November.

So, here today, let’s look at the past in order to see why the current Trump boom may not last as long as we wish.

And I want to take a minute to take a look under the hood of my new strategy.

It takes only a few minutes each month to set up… and you’re done. There’s no need to constantly keep an eye on target prices or stop-losses.

Finally, I’ll show you why I believe my new strategy will keep beating the market month after month – whether we get a Trump boom or bust – and at how you can start using it yourself…

When Buy-and-Hold Doesn’t Always Work

The investment landscape has changed… a lot… over the past several decades.

However, most investors still believe in “stocks for the long haul” – in buying and holding.

They’ve yet to realize how drastically market conditions can shift.

Consider 1962 to 1982.

During this two-decade bear market, the S&P 500 index (the blue line in the chart below) plummeted from 713 to 363, a nearly 50% decline. Buy-and-hold strategies just won’t work in that kind of an environment.

Source: Macrotrends.net

Indeed, not many stories of ordinary workers amassing multimillion-dollar portfolios through patient investing emerged during this era.

In fact, this period of stock market pain resulted in BusinessWeek’s now-famous “The Death of Equities” cover in 1979:

Investing in individual stocks during the 1960s and ’70s was challenging, even for expert stock pickers. Even seemingly safe, industry-leading companies underperformed.

Consider IBM Corp. (IBM), a technology pioneer and popular choice among retail investors. Despite its prominence and innovation, IBM’s performance was pretty cruddy.

Between winter 1962 and fall 1981 (19 years!), IBM produced an average annual return of 2.62%. (And that includes reinvested dividends.)

Source: DQYDJ.com

A $10,000 investment yielding 2.62% annually over 19 years results in $16,346 — hardly enough for a comfortable retirement.

A similar years-long bear market hit us in the 2000s following the dot-com boom and the financial crisis.

Am I predicting something similar now? No.

In fact, a 25-basis-point interest rate-cut remains on the Federal Reserve’s table for later this month – and that should help keep stocks on a winning path.

At some point, however, this rally will end. At some point, postelection euphoria will fade. At some point, investors will look to lock in short-term profits.

We’re not at that point yet. I do think it could arrive by around the inauguration.

Moreover, the world is an “interesting” place. And Donald Trump only makes it more “interesting.”

In the years ahead, we could see global conflicts… rising inflation… soaring interest rates… just about anything.

All of which could put the stock market in a funk. Maybe not a 1960s-’70s style funk… but a bad mood, nonetheless.

However, thanks to my new strategy, investors can still beat the market and make big gains after this rally sells off… or even if we do go into a longer downturn.

Let me show you how…

How to Succeed in Today’s ���Ҵ�ý

“Buy-and-hold” isn’t dead.

In fact, I recommend my members to buy and hold in artificial intelligence, precision medicine, quantum computing, and nuclear energy stocks. Those megatrends – and others – still have plenty of potential for long-term growth.

This is still the best way to build a multimillion-dollar portfolio – and a life of wealth and peace – over decades of time.

However, between frequent flash crashes and constant market turbulence, investors face many challenges when it comes to short-term gains.

We need to diversify our investing strategies beyond buy-and-hold.

That’s why I also encourage my subscribers to use more active trading approaches to capitalize on market volatility.

And it’s why we developed my new Auspex strategy – to replace uncertainty and volatility with certainty and stability.

It’s why I’m showing everyone who signs up a lot more about it during The Auspex Anomaly Event on Dec. 11 at 1 p.m. Eastern.

To me, Auspex is the ultimate stock-screening tool. My team and I designed it to find the “best stocks at the best time.”

Auspex combines fundamental, technical, and market sentiment factors to identify the next month’s top-performing stocks.

At the start of each month, Auspex scans more than 10,000 stocks to for those with the highest levels of fundamental strength, technical market direction, and positive market sentiment… to find the stocks with the most upward momentum over the next month.

It typically identifies 5-20 stocks. Then, my team and I then dig in and determine which of those will form that month’s Auspex Portfolio.

We started doing this live for a small group of my members five months ago. And we’ve seen market outperformance – sometimes outstanding outperformance —  each and every month since then.

November was a great month for stocks, with the S&P 500 rising 5.7%.

However, Auspex crushed it, with our equal-weighted portfolio rising more than 8%.

Again, this was the fifth consecutive month of market-beating returns for Auspex.

Moreover, back-testing shows Auspex outperforming the market by 10X-plus in trailing 5-, 10-, 15-, and 20-year windows.

In our April 2024 back-test scan, Auspex identified Dynagas LNG Partners LP (DLNG) and Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) as having huge momentum behind them.

And in April, DLNG stock popped almost 30%, while ZETA rose about 15%. Over that same stretch, the S&P 500 dropped about 4%.

In our May back-test scan, Auspex continued to highlight DLNG and ZETA. In May, ZETA soared more than 30%, while DLNG popped almost 10%. The S&P 500 rose just 4%.

To put it simply: Two Auspex stocks — DLNG and ZETA — rose about 40% and 50%, respectively, at a time when the market was basically flat.

The Bottom Line

In 2025, the stock market is going to be volatile and complex… and it’s going to change all the time… just like 2024, 2023, 2022, etc.

In this environment, tools that provide data-driven, adaptive investment strategies will be invaluable.

That’s why we developed Auspex…

With it, investors can position themselves to not just weather potential market storms but to thrive and potentially achieve returns far beyond market averages.

To learn more, just click here to sign up for The Auspex Anomaly Event. Then mark your calendar for Wednesday, December 11, at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Luke Lango

Editor, Hypergrowth Investing

The post This Strategy Just Beat the ���Ҵ�ý 5 Months in a Row appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Autonomous vehicles, robotics, space, and AI – these are the industries that Elon Musk cares about most. And for that reason, we think the stocks therein could succeed enormously in 2025 and ‘26.

That’s because the world’s richest man has allied himself very closely with President-elect Donald Trump. And as a result, he has been named the head of the soon-to-be Department of Government Efficiency. His sphere of influence, if you will, seems likely to grow significantly to arguably unprecedented levels in 2025. 

What will he do with that authority?

Probably a lot. But among some of the things he’s most likely to do is support the industries in which he does a lot of business. 

Indeed, this appears to already be happening with Tesla (TSLA), his biggest company.

With the reveal of its Cybercab and Cybervan – the firm’s two self-driving models – Tesla has recently pivoted toward becoming an autonomous vehicle company. Now Musk’s big vision is for Tesla to operate its own fleet of robotaxis to autonomously transport folks all over the place. 

And just recently, in late November, reports leaked that the Trump administration is considering easing regulations on self-driving cars to make it easier for companies like Tesla to roll out such self-driving fleets. 

Of course, if those regulations are reduced, we’ll see rapid growth across the whole autonomous vehicle industry, including at Tesla, Musk’s crown jewel. 

And we think that is merely a microcosm of what could happen in 2025 and ‘26. 

The Elon Musk Playbook for 2025

Here’s what we anticipate as Musk assumes a position of power within the next administration. 

He’ll likely exert his sphere of influence to help pass legislation that benefits the various industries in which he does business. Those industries will experience rapid growth, and many of the businesses therein will see enormous success. 

So… maybe the best investment strategy for 2025 is to just follow Elon Musk. 

What does that strategy entail?

A Boon for the Space Economy & Robotics?

Well, beyond Tesla, Musk is also the founder of SpaceX – the world’s largest private space firm. And we think it’s entirely possible that over the next few years, we’ll see a push to increasingly privatize space travel and exploration. In turn, that could lead to an increasing number of space business contracts for companies like SpaceX, Rocket Lab (RKLB), Planet Labs (PL), AST SpaceMobile (ASTS), and others. 

If so, those space stocks could see huge success in 2025. 

Then there’s X, formerly known as Twitter. The company has been in financial mayhem ever since Musk acquired it. But pro-free-speech policies to be enforced in the coming years could bring users and advertisers back to the platform. 

And returning to Tesla… Elon Musk is also focused on developing a humanoid robot called Optimus, which he thinks could be the firm’s most valuable product at scale. As such, it’s possible we’ll soon see some legislation that promotes robotics adoption. That could result in a major boost for related stocks, like Symbotic (SYM), PROCEPT BioRobotics (PRCT), and more.

Now, clearly, Elon Musk has several irons in the fire. And with his political influence only set to grow from this point, it could prove exceptionally wise to keep a close eye on his many business ecosystems.

The Final Word

We’re confident that, by tracking Musk’s strategic moves and the industries he’s actively developing, investors can get positioned to potentially capitalize on his legislative and innovative successes into 2025 and beyond.

Though, perhaps above all else, now that Musk has a seat at the regulatory table, we expect that the U.S. government will pass legislation to further incentivize spending on artificial intelligence. 

That’s because arguably his most important and promising business is his AI startup, xAI, which is designing a ChatGPT-like bot called Grok. 

That company just closed a new fundraising round valuing it at $50 billion. And xAI was only founded in early 2023 – meaning it took the firm less than two years to be worth more than Ross Stores (ROST), BMW (BMWKY), Electronic Arts (EA), Discover Financial Services (DFS), Ford (F), and 7-Eleven. 

Given xAI’s success, the AI Boom, Musk’s closeness to Trump, and more – we think it’s highly likely that the stage is set for xAI to grow tremendously in 2025. 

Now, of course, it isn’t a publicly traded company. It’s not one you’ll be able to add directly to your portfolio. 

But as it happens, we’ve found a “backdoor” way to invest in the promising new startup. 

Click here to learn all about that play right now.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post Want Unsurpassed Results in 2025? Follow Elon Musk’s Lead appeared first on InvestorPlace.

It was a blistering November for stocks.

The S&P 500 rose 5.73% and the Dow jumped 7.54%, marking their best monthly performance of 2024. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq climbed 6.21% for its largest gain since May.

Where does the market go next?

According to our tech expert Luke Lango, the answer is “even higher.”

Let’s quickly tour through his four reasons, the first of which is “bullish seasonality.”

From Luke:

Since 1950, the stock market has risen about 80% of the time between Thanksgiving and the New Year.

And for the past five years, the market rallied from Dec. 2 into the end of the year all but once.

The second is “a dovish Fed”:

The Federal Reserve will likely play the part of Santa, not the Grinch, later this month…

It is widely expected to cut interest rates by 25 basis points at that upcoming meeting. But more important than the actual rate-cut decision will be Fed Board Chair Jerome Powell’s tone in the post-meeting press conference…

[We think he will sound] dovish and signal that the cuts will keep coming.

Third, Luke points toward “robust consumer spending”:

It looks like this holiday shopping season will be quite a strong one.

According to data from Mastercard (MA), Adobe Analytics, and Salesforce (CRM), the 2024 holiday shopping season is off to a record start…

By some metrics, we’re looking at potentially the best holiday shopping season since Covid emerged more than four years ago.

Finally, Luke highlights “falling inflation:”

Reinflation fears have, in our view, been the one obstacle holding the market back in recent weeks – and rightfully so. For a while there, real-time measures of inflation had been reheating…

But [Truflation’s U.S. Inflation Index] has slid to 2.7% over the past two weeks. This seems to suggest that the recent bout of reinflation has at least temporarily stalled.

Put it altogether and Luke believes we’re in for a strong Santa Rally to end the year.

This comes after what was an extraordinary November for Luke’s Innovation Investor subscribers. They locked in the following profits:

• Palantir: 165%
• Intapp: 60%
• Q2 Holdings: 50%
• VanEck Digital Transformation ETF 40%
• AppLovin: 200%
• IonQ: 335%
• Zillow: 60%
• Axon: 365%
• Tempus: 30%
• Cava: 60%
• Zeta: 65%
• Wix: 25%

We’re thrilled to highlight these wins for subscribers and couldn’t be prouder of Luke. Better still, if he’s right, more profits are on the way as we round out the year. 

Yesterday brought news that China has tightened its grip on two obscure yet indispensable elements that are cornerstones for next-gen technologies.

Here’s Bloomberg with more:

China ratcheted up trade tensions with the US with a ban on several materials with high-tech and military applications, in a tit-for-tat move after President Joe Biden’s government escalated technology curbs on Beijing.

Gallium, germanium, antimony and superhard materials are no longer allowed to be shipped to America, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Tuesday. Beijing will also place tighter controls on sales of graphite, it added.

This is important because these elements have a wide range of applications – from semiconductors, to satellites, to night-vision goggles, and beyond.

Here’s a graphic illustrating how many industries rely on gallium. If you can’t see/read it, the takeaway is basically “all things tech.”

After news broke yesterday, western-based rare-earth materials companies popped. For example, Las Vegas-based Mp Materials Corp (MP) shot up 11%, Canadian-based Ucore Rare Metals added 23%, and tiny Texas Mineral Resources Corp erupted 34% (and it’s up another 15% as I write Wednesday).

This could serve as a preview of what’s on the way if Trump ratchets up the trade war with China. It risks putting upward pressure on inflation for related tech products in 2025 – a dynamic we’ve been warning about repeatedly here in the Digest.

We’ll keep you updated as this story unfolds.

In the wake of the pandemic and supply chain problems, McDonald’s raised prices as its input costs soared.

You may recall last May when the president of McDonald’s U.S. business, Joe Erlinger penned an open letter, explaining why the average price of a Big Mac in the U.S. is 21% higher than in 2019. He pointed toward the company’s own higher costs.

The problem is that these higher prices (which protected McDonald’s profit margins) have made the fast-food giant no longer affordable for a huge percentage of Americans.

From Bloomberg:

After decades of stagnant wages, depleted pandemic savings and the highest inflation since the disco era, many Americans are broke. So much so that in February, McDonald’s Chief Executive Officer Chris Kempczinski told investors that fewer “low-income consumers,” by which he means households earning $45,000 a year or less, are showing up for meals at McDonald’s.

According to the latest Census Bureau data, roughly 28% of US households earn less than $45,000 a year. This translates into roughly 90 million Americans.

Now, so far, this hasn’t made a dent in McDonald’s overall profitability. But at some point, the fast-food icon will have trouble passing along inflationary cost increases to protect its margins without kneecapping revenues.

Back to Bloomberg:

[If inflation rises], someone will have to pick up the tab. Companies shouldn’t assume it will be consumers, as McDonald’s has discovered…

What is clear is that McDonald’s can no longer serve the broad public, as it always has, without absorbing some of the cost because a substantial portion of its customers have reached their spending limit.

It’s a balance that many U.S. executives may have to navigate in 2025: Do you raise prices to protect margins, while risking raising them too high, resulting in fewer customers… or do you eat some of your higher input costs to keep customers happy, which means lower profit margins? At the end of the day, which will have the greatest positive impact on overall profitability?

Keep in mind that analysts are projecting calendar year 2025 earnings growth of 15% and revenue growth of 5.7% for the S&P. That’s a lot. For context, for 2024, analysts project earnings growth of 12% and revenue growth of 4.7%.

This is happening as the labor market tightens up, which could mean even tighter purse strings for some Americans, which brings us to our next story…

ADP released its latest private payrolls report showing that U.S. businesses added 146,000 jobs on the month. That was shy of the downwardly revised 184,000 in October and less than the Dow Jones estimate for 163,000.

In positive news, wage growth accelerated by 4.8%, which was faster than October’s increase.

Here’s ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson:

While overall growth for the month was healthy, industry performance was mixed. Manufacturing was the weakest we’ve seen since spring. Financial services and leisure and hospitality were also soft.

The more closely watched labor report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes out Friday. You’ll recall that its October release showed an increase of just 12,000 jobs. This was artificially lowered by the Boeing strike and hurricanes in the south.

The estimate for November is 214,000 jobs. You can be sure the Fed will be watching closely as it tries to thread the needle between maintaining a healthy labor market and taming inflation.

In what marks a momentous step into the mainstream, Apple announced that it’s partnering with crypto platform Coinbase to enable crypto purchases through Apple Pay in third-party apps.

From CEO Today:

The integration is part of Coinbase Onramp—a service designed to streamline the conversion of traditional currencies, such as USD, into digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The move signifies a turning point for the cryptocurrency ecosystem, as two major tech and financial players join forces to simplify the notoriously complex process of acquiring digital currencies. By leveraging Apple Pay’s widespread adoption and Coinbase’s crypto expertise, this partnership could redefine how consumers and developers interact with cryptocurrencies.

Here’s more from Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong:

This partnership is a game-changer. It eliminates many of the barriers that have kept average consumers from exploring cryptocurrencies.

By integrating with Apple Pay, we’re bringing crypto to the fingertips of millions of users.

We continue to be bullish on Bitcoin and the emerging “altcoin season.” If you missed yesterday’s Digest on altcoins, click here to catch it.

Bottom line: We believe a tremendous amount of wealth will be made in the crypto sector in 2025. This latest news from Apple and Coinbase only adds to that conviction.

We’ll end today by circling back to Luke’s bullishness at the start of the issue.

Yes, there are reasons to maintain caution today, and we’ll continue highlighting them so that you’re not caught off-guard as we move into 2025. But we’re in a money-making market. So, until bullish momentum turns, stay invested.

While it may or may not be a white Christmas, from the looks of it, it’ll be plenty green.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

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One of the things this iconic American company brought to life this year was GE Vernova Inc. (GEV) – which GE spun out as a new standalone entity in April.

This “purpose-built company” combined GE Renewable Energy, GE Power, and GE Digital. As the company states, it “is uniquely positioned to lead customers through the energy transition” to solve the “energy trilemma of reliability, affordability, and sustainability.”

The company is already making strides… nuclear ones, at that.

This weekend, CNBC reported that GE Vernova is planning to set up small nuclear reactors across the developed world. This deployment will happen over the next decade.

Nicole Holmes, chief commercial officer at GE Vernova’s nuclear unit, GE Hitachi, said that the company’s small modular reactors (SMRs) promise to reduce the cost of building new nuclear plants.

An SMR is a type of advanced nuclear reactor that can produce electricity. It has a smaller footprint and can be constructed faster than traditional reactors. They are about a third the size of the average reactors in the current U.S. fleet, with a power capacity of 300 megawatts or less – which could power more than 200,000 U.S. households.

As such, SMRs could revitalize nuclear as a vital power source needed for the rise of artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and manufacturing.

GE Vernova’s SMR is called the BWRX-300. And compared to a larger nuclear plant, it has fewer components, less concrete, and less steel. BWRX-300’s smaller size allows it to be put in more locations.

Here’s why GE Vernova’s nuclear venture is so important: In many respects, nuclear power has no equal, especially when it comes to powering data centers. Because of nuclear’s unique virtues, and the compelling economics it promotes, leading data center operators are becoming leading nuclear power investors.

“Everything old is new again,” 18^th century author Jonathan Swift said. And the nuclear energy industry lends truth to that saying.

So, in today’s Smart Money, let’s take a look at nuclear energy’s history…

And then I’ll share one specific way you can capitalize on its future.

A Look Into the Past

Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, nuclear energy in the United States enjoyed a Golden Age. Power plants sprouted up across the country to provide reliable, “pollution-free” energy. But the Golden Age started to lose its luster in the late 1970s, as public sentiment turned against the radioactive power source and attempted to halt its nationwide expansion.

Then, in March 1979, a reactor at the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania suffered a partial meltdown. Although the accident did not cause any fatalities, it dealt a fatal blow to the industry.

Seven years after Three Mile Island, the Soviet Union’s horrific nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl terrified the world. And it seemed to guarantee that nuclear power would never make a comeback in the United States.

Yet, despite that monumental setback, nuclear power’s public image eventually started to improve, bit by bit.

Its image first started to improve when the term “climate change” entered the global lexicon. When that term appeared, it introduced the environmental equivalent of the classic 1960s self-help book I’m OK – You’re OK.

This relativistic attitude asserted that no source of power generation is all bad, nor all good. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

For its part, nuclear energy has the unique strength of providing continuous baseload power, while not fouling the air or spewing CO2 emissions.

Because nuclear power still satisfies about 19% of electricity demand in the U.S., its contribution to clean air is roughly equivalent to removing 100 million cars from the nation’s highways.

Moreover, although nuclear reactors produce radioactive waste, they don’t emit a molecule of those toxins into the air. This singular virtue cast a favorable, new light on nuclear power and helped it reclaim a shred of respectability.

But old attitudes die hard. The world was not yet ready to welcome home this prodigal power source with open arms.

Then AI arrived. And it immediately cleared a seat at the energy table for nuclear power…

The AI-Sparked Nuclear Revival

AI demands such spectacular volumes of electric power that existing sources are not able to provide. During the last three years alone, the combined electricity consumption of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Meta Platforms Inc. (META), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), and Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) soared more than 80%.

That explosive growth is certain to continue.

So, like GE Vernova, these tech giants “rediscovered” nuclear power as an ideal energy source.

In October, Amazon announced that Amazon Web Services (AWS) – its cloud computing platform – is set to invest more than $500 million in nuclear power.

AWS has signed an agreement with Dominion Energy Inc. (D), Virginia’s top utility company, to explore the development of an SMR near Dominion’s North Anna Nuclear Generating Station (located about halfway between Washington, D.C., and Richmond).

Around the same time, Google announced it will purchase power from Kairos Power, a small modular reactors developer. And in September, Microsoft made a deal with Constellation Energy Corp. (CEG) to restart a reactor at the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear facility.

As the tech giants need to feed their growing appetite for electric power, they are investing directly in nuclear power.

And this is where the profit opportunity comes in.

This new high-profile demand for nuclear power from the tech industry could accelerate the uranium industry’s growth and profitability.

So, to capitalize on that potential, I recommend investing in the uranium market. In fact, I recently recommended a unique energy play to my Fry’s Investment Report members that stands to benefit directly from the growth of AI technologies.

To learn more about this uranium recommendation – and how to become a member of Fry’s Investment Report – click here.

Regards,

Eric Fry

The post Every Old Profit Opportunity Becomes New Again… Including Nuclear Energy appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Indeed, according to new data from Adobe Analytics, this is shaping up to be possibly the best holiday shopping season since 2020. 

On Thanksgiving Eve, online sales climbed about 5% year-over-year. They rose about 9% on Thanksgiving Day and more than 10% on Black Friday. Then, they popped over 7% on Cyber Monday.  

All in, Cyber Week online sales increased by more than 8% versus last year. Total online holiday spending to-date (since Nov. 1, 2024) measures $131.5 billion, up about 9% from 2023. If this growth rate holds – and we think it will – it will mark the fastest growth for online holiday sales since 2020. 

Therefore, considering how robust holiday sales have been thus far, we think that retail stocks could be big winners throughout December and January. 

After all, a lot of retailers earn the bulk of their revenues and profits during the holidays. If those retailers have a good season, then they’re set for the year – and their stocks could soar. 

And it looks like a handful of retailers are having a particularly great season so far this year. 

Retail Stocks on the Launching Pad?

Per our research, it looks like Lululemon (LULU) is enjoying a very strong shopping season right now. We heard a lot of buzz about the company’s Cyber Monday deals. And Google search interest for “Lululemon” soared to an all-time high this past week. 

It’s the same story with On Holdings (ONON). With its On Cloud running shoes, the athletic apparel-maker has burst onto the scene as the hottest footwear brand in the industry. It looks like those shoes have been strong sellers this holiday season. As with LULU, search for “On Shoes” also spiked to all-time highs this past week. 

We’re seeing a similar situation unfold with Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF). For the past two years, the retailer has made a huge comeback, suddenly re-emerging as one of the most sought-after apparel brands in the world. It looks like that trend continued this holiday season, with the company successfully riding strong demand for wide-leg and baggy jeans. Yet again, search interest for “Abercrombie” also spiked to all-time highs this past week. 

It appears Levi Strauss (LEVI) is also riding this resurgent jean trend. And – you guessed it – Levi’s search interest also spiked to all-time highs during Cyber Week 2024. 

In fact, the trend of skyrocketing search interest in these hot retailers is quite persistent. Other brands that saw search-related spikes to multi-year highs this past Cyber Week: YETI (YETI), Steve Madden (SHOO), Ralph Lauren (RL), and Adidas (ADDYY). 

Victoria’s Secret (VSCO) search interest has also been strong as of late, likely helped by the return of the VS Fashion Show. And based on its strong recent search interest trends, Gap (GAP) looks like it could be having a really good holiday shopping season as well.

Given the consumer momentum currently propelling these firms, we think these 10 retail stocks are primed to be big winners this holiday season.

The Final Word

Folks, we may be watching a real retail renaissance unfolding. These sky-high search volumes aren’t just numbers; they’re telling us something about how people are feeling this holiday season. That is, consumers seem ready to spend. And they’re gravitating toward brands that feel exciting right now. 

For investors, this could be more than just interesting—it might be a signal to pay attention. Keep an eye on these companies’ upcoming earnings reports because these search trends could very well translate into some serious sales momentum.

So… is it time to back up the truck on all these trades? 

Not so fast. Some of these stocks look better than others. And in fact, there are a few we didn’t even mention here that may fare even better. 

That’s exactly why, for the past several days, our team has been busy looking for the most promising retail stocks to buy this holiday season. 

Thanks to those efforts, we’ve narrowed down our list to just a handful of picks: what we believe are the retail sector’s best of the best. 

If you’re inclined to shoot for some holiday profit-making, don’t miss those new recommendations. 

Uncover our top stocks to buy for fast-and-furious year-end gains.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post 10 Retail Stocks Likely to Surge This Holiday Season appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Let’s begin today with our crypto expert Luke Lango and his forecast for Bitcoin:

We think Bitcoin can rally to $120,000 by Christmas.

We think this Fourth Boom Cycle has about 12 months runway left, with room for Bitcoin to pop towards $200,000 by late 2025.

And we also believe altcoins will start to join the party soon and could soar in 2025, similar to how they soared in 2021.

Let’s back up and fill in a few details.

Beneath Bitcoin’s price surge has been record-setting demand. Here’s Bloomberg:

US exchange-traded funds investing directly in Bitcoin and Ether are enjoying unprecedented demand, buoyed by President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to unfetter the crypto industry from regulatory shackles.

The groups of Bitcoin and Ether ETFs each posted record monthly net inflows in November, $6.5 billion and $1.1 billion respectively, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Friday’s daily Ether ETF subscriptions also hit an all-time peak.

Propelling this wave of capital is the idea that Trump will not just be friendly to crypto, but an advocate. You’ve probably read headlines suggesting that Trump is considering creating a national strategic Bitcoin reserve.

Regardless of whether that happens, the forecasts for Bitcoin’s price have been climbing. And while some are based on little more than wishful thinking, Luke’s prediction of $200,000 is anchored in history…and a lot of math.

Here he is with more:

If we run a regression analysis on the size of previous boom cycles, we can see a pathway for BTC to rally towards $200,000 in 2025.

In the First Boom Cycle, BTC rallied about 55,000%, trough to peak. In the Second Boom Cycle, BTC rallied about 9,000%. In the Third Boom Cycle, BTC rallied about 2,000%.

The rallies have been getting smaller. If we run a simple regression on that, we find that BTC could rally about 1,000%, peak-to-trough, in the current boom cycle.

Bitcoin bottomed around $16,000 in late 2022. A 1,000% rally from there would get you to about $180,000 on BTC.

If we run a regression analysis on Bitcoin’s peak price in previous boom cycles – and not the returns of previous boom cycles – we see a pathway for Bitcoin to hit about $250,000 in this Fourth Boom Cycle…

If you throw in the very first peak of ~$25 on BTC in 2011 and then run on regression of those four previous peaks, the statistics suggest that Bitcoin should rally to above $250,000 in this boom cycle.

Luke settles at $200,000 as a rough mid-point for his 2025 forecast.

Now, while Bitcoin climbing another 50% or 100% by late-2025 is nothing to brush off, it’s the broader altcoin world that offers the real potential for fireworks.

That’s a popular opinion. Many investors are reluctant to wade into this corner of the market.

The mindset here is something like: altcoins have no inherent value… they’re basically nothing but a gamble … and you’d better be prepared to lose your shirt if you touch one.

Our response might raise an eyebrow…

Agreed!

At least, up to a point (some of these coins do have inherent value).

But yes, there is a heavy element of gambling with altcoins. And yes, you should be prepared for extreme volatility and losses.

But for a small percentage of your portfolio that you have earmarked for speculations, the potential payoff is worth taking these risks.

In Breakout Trader, Luke trades stocks based on something called “stage analysis.” In short, you only trade stocks that are surging in a “stage 2” bullish breakout.

There’s zero consideration given to profits, revenues, margins, cash flows, or any other such traditional measure of fundamental strength.

Instead, only one thing matters – price.

Here’s more from the User Guide:

Let’s say you found a truly atrocious company – we’re talking the opposite of a blue chip. It’s hemorrhaging cash, has awful management, and is in a dying industry.

But what if its stock price had just broken out and, hypothetically, was on its way to doubling from $5 to $10? Would any of those negative characteristics matter to you?

If what you care about is your personal wealth, they shouldn’t. Why would they?

All that would matter is that the stock is doubling while you’re invested…

With all due respect to whatever your preferred market approach might be, our Breakout Trader system focuses on the one thing that really matters to your wealth…

A price breakout.

At the end of the day, the only thing that will make a difference to your portfolio is whether the stocks you own rise in value while you own them.

A stock is not a family heirloom to pass down and cherish. It’s a tool. It’s only as useful as its ability to generate wealth, which puts its price (or its dividend payments) squarely in the spotlight. At the end of the day, any other focus is misguided.

For example, in early November, the company Quantum Computing (QUBT) reported a Q3 net loss of $5.68 million. Its margins also collapsed from 52% to 9%.

And yet, since November 1, QUBT is up a staggering 404% as I write. At the end of last month, it was up nearly 600%.

The chart below shows this price explosion with a bit longer timeline for context.

Now, if you bought QUBT on October 31, would you care that it’s never made one dime of profit… is burning through cash… and has collapsing margins?

I doubt it. You’re probably too busy planning your vacation with your profits.

So, if you wouldn’t care with a stock like QUBT, why should you care if an altcoin doesn’t have obvious inherent value – as long as it’s surging like QUBT?

If your purpose for being in the market is increasing your wealth, you won’t. You’ll see altcoins for what they are – tools for making money.

Bitcoin is the big dog in the crypto universe.

The chart below will give you a sense for this. We’re looking at Bitcoin’s market cap (in blue at the top) compared to the market cap of the top 125 altcoins (only a handful of those altcoins are shown).

As I write, Bitcoin makes up about 56% of the crypto sector’s market cap (specifically, the largest 125 altcoins just referenced).

Given its monster size, early in a new cycle, Bitcoin outperforms smaller altcoins. This “Bitcoin dominance” makes sense as the sector is coming out of its prior bust. Bruised investors are in “safety” mode, focusing on what they consider to be the biggest, strongest assets. For crypto, that’s Bitcoin by a mile.

But as the cycle continues, gains snowball, investor confidence returns, and animal spirits take over. Eventually, emboldened investors begin allocating to smaller altcoins in search of bigger gains. Leadership rotates away from Bitcoin, toward altcoins.

Here’s Luke with the general timing:

Our monthly RSI analysis of BTC suggests that we are just now entering the “bubble phase” of the boom cycle. The “bubble” phase is also when altcoins start to soar.

As it turns out, the so-called “altcoin season” tends to start right when Bitcoin enters the “bubble phase” – or when its monthly RSI crosses above 70.

Which means, in our view, that 2025 could be the altcoin season. 

Luke isn’t the only analyst suggesting this. Below is a chart from J-C Parets. It shows Bitcoin dominance hitting a three-month low. The question asked is, “Is it the start of altcoin season?”

If we go by recent performance, the answer is “yes” – altcoin season appears to have begun.

To illustrate, here are some of the top gainers over the last 30 days, according to Crypto Slate:

• Convex Finance: 302%
• Curve DAO Token: 305%
• IOTA: 426%
• XYO: 599%
• Hedera: 693%

And as a quick reminder of what’s possible, rewind to 2021. Though the last altcoin season ran longer than just that one year, this is what a few of the biggest winners returned in 2021:

• Avalanche: 3,335%

• Dogecoin: 3,546%

• Solana: 11,178%

• Terra: 12,967%

Now, as quickly as I write this, let’s circle back to yesterday’s Digest in which I highlighted the danger of greed/envy, which can derail your investment plan. As always, remember that return of capital is more important than return on capital.

That means altcoins are at the bottom of your list when it comes to allocating your money. Everything else gets priority: bills, savings, blue chip stocks, you name it.

However, the good news is that even a few leftover dollars have the potential to generate enormous returns.

Say you put $350 into the next “Solana,” and it climbs 10,000% in 2025. Congrats – you’re suddenly sitting on $35,000.

This is why we love altcoin season. You don’t have to bet big to win big.

A basket approach is the way to go. Spread your money across roughly 10 or more altcoins. Target a mix of some of the larger altcoins with some newer, high-momentum picks.

For the largest altcoins, Coin���Ҵ�ýCap will rank them by size. The top five are currently: Ethereum, XRP, Tether, Solana, and BNB.

For smaller momentum picks, there are plenty of online tools that show you which coins are trending. Coin���Ҵ�ýCap has such a feature simply called “Trending Coins.”

As you’d expect, Luke is beginning to make moves as well. We’ll bring you more of his insights as we get them.

Bottom line: Yes, we expect more gains from Bitcoin next year. But the real wealth could come from select altcoins. It’s time to make some wise speculations in anticipation of the buying surge that history suggests is on the way.

Do it safely. Prepare for volatility. But recognize the wealth potential of altcoin season.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post “Altcoin Season” is Arriving…Along with 10X-Return Potential appeared first on InvestorPlace.

But although trading was light, stocks still marched higher. The Dow climbed 2%, while the S&P 500 and NASDAQ both rose a little more than 1%. As a result, the S&P 500 and Dow ended the month at all-time highs.

All of the major indices soared higher in the month of November, too. The Dow led the charge with a 7.5% gain. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ also posted impressive gains, rising 5.7% and 6.2%, respectively.

Essentially, in November, much of the uncertainty that plagued the stock market in the first 10 months of the year diminished after the presidential election.

So, the question is: Will December outshine November? The simple answer is no.

But the good news is I expect this strength to continue and for the stock market to end 2024 on a high note. In today’s ���Ҵ�ý 360, I’ll explain why I think that’s the case. I’ll also show you how to best position yourself for gains in December and into the New Year.

A December to Remember?

Now, don’t get me wrong when I say that December is unlikely to live up to November’s stellar performance. The reality is that December is also a seasonally strong month for the stock market.

In fact, the folks at Bespoke Investment Group recently pointed out that December is one of the four strongest months of the year. According to their research, the Dow has achieved average gains of more than 1% in these four months (December, April, July and November) in the past 100, 50 and 20 years.

Breaking it down… The chart below shows that the Dow posted an average gain of 1.46% in December in the past 100 years, an average 1.37% gain in the past 50 years and an average 1.01% gain in the past 20 years.

So, I still expect December to be a strong month for the overall stock market and our stocks – and I also anticipate a yearend rally to close out the year. But December isn’t likely to be a blowout month like November.

What we need to remember is that the S&P 500, Dow and NASDAQ are all sitting at or near all-time highs after the November surge. In other words, stocks need to consolidate these gains. Plus, much of the November strength could also be attributed to the presidential election, as well as an early “January effect” and pension funding.

On the other hand, December is often the month when folks try to sell some of their losing positions to offset their gains. So, December is usually characterized by tax selling.

Given this, we can expect a return of the washing machine market in December. Money is going to slosh around a bit and slowly meander higher. So, overall, I remain incredibly bullish and expect December to cap off what has been a strong 2024.

This Week’s Ratings Changes

Turning to this week, all eyes will be on the major retailers and labor market.

Wall Street will be eager to hear clues from the major retailers on how their latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales performed, which will give us more insight into the strength of the consumer.

The ADP employment numbers on Wednesday and jobless claims on Thursday, as well as the jobs report on Friday, will also provide a temperature check on the labor market. Remember, now that inflation is nearing the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target, it is focusing on unemployment.

This means that by the end of this week, we should have more clarity on the Fed’s thinking on a potential rate cut ahead of its December Federal Open ���Ҵ�ý Committee (FOMC) meeting.

Since any of these reports could move the market, I want us to be prepared. So, I looked at the latest institutional buying pressure and each company’s financial health. I decided to revise my Stock Grader recommendations for 85 big blue chips. (Subscription required.) Of these 85 stocks…

• Eight stocks were upgraded from a Buy (B-rating) to a Strong Buy (A-rating).
• Eleven stocks were upgraded from a Hold (C-rating) to a Buy (B-rating).
• Nine stocks were upgraded from a Sell (D-rating) to a Hold.
• Two stocks were upgraded from a Strong Sell (F-rating) to a Sell.
• Thirteen stocks were downgraded from a Strong Buy to a Buy.
• Twenty-eight were downgraded from a Buy to a Hold.
• Thirteen stocks were downgraded from a Hold to a Sell.
• And one stock was 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 85 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.

Ending the Year Strong

Now, it has been a phenomenal year in the market so far. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ were both up more than 26% in the first 11 months of the year, and the Dow rose more than 19%.

We were able to profit handsomely in this environment with our fundamentally superior Growth Investor stocks, and I hope you were, too.

Regardless, if you’re looking to end the year on a high note, you’ll want to ensure you’re invested in the crème de la crème of the market.

For example, our Growth Investor stocks are characterized by 23.7% average annual sales growth and 506.3% average annual earnings growth. In other words, we remain “locked and loaded” for a strong yearend rally.

So, if you are looking for fundamentally superior stocks, you should look no further than my Growth Investor service.

Click here now to learn more about my latest research and how Growth Investor can steer you to profits in 2025 and beyond.

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

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ���Ҵ�ý 360

The post Quant Ratings Updated on 85 Stocks appeared first on InvestorPlace.

That is, last month, the S&P 500 delivered its strongest monthly gain of 2024, surging nearly 6% and reigniting bullish optimism among investors. 

Naturally, after such outperformance, the question on many folks’ minds remains: Can this red-hot market rally continue throughout the holiday season? 

We think so – for a few big reasons.

1: Bullish Seasonality Trends Suggest a Santa Rally Ahead

First of all, stocks tend to do well this time of year. Let’s call it holiday cheer. Indeed, since 1950, the stock market has risen about 80% of the time between Thanksgiving and the New Year. 

And for the past five years, the market rallied from Dec. 2 into the end of the year all but once. It rose about 4% during that stretch in 2019, 2021, and 2023. In 2020, it rose about 2% over that same period. The only time in the past five years that the market didn’t rally through the holidays was in 2022… when the stock market was fighting a brutal bear market.

Seasonality is a formidable ally this time of year. 

2: Inflation Keeps Sliding Lower

Additionally, inflation is finally cooling once again. 

Reinflation fears have, in our view, been the one obstacle holding the market back in recent weeks – and rightfully so. For a while there, realtime measures of inflation had been reheating. Truflation’s U.S. Inflation Index, for example, popped from 1% in early September to almost 3% in mid-November. 

But it has since cooled, with that index sliding to 2.7% over the past two weeks. This seems to suggest that the recent bout of reinflation has at least temporarily stalled. 

That should help to ease investors’ fears – and push stocks higher.

3: A Dovish Fed Is Driving the Sleigh

Three, the Federal Reserve will likely play the part of Santa, not the Grinch, later this month. 

That is, the Fed will have its December meeting in two weeks. And it is widely expected to cut interest rates by 25 basis points at that upcoming meeting. But more important than the actual rate-cut decision will be Fed Board Chair Jerome Powell’s tone in the post-meeting press conference. 

If he sounds hawkish and signals that the central bank may pause its rate cuts, that could spoil the stock market’s holiday rally. If he sounds dovish and signals that the cuts will keep coming, that could further support the holiday rally. 

We think we’re due for the latter. According to Bloomberg’s Fed Sentiment Natural Language Processing Model, the central bank’s commentary shifted considerably more hawkish from mid-September to mid-November, apropos with growing reinflation risks. But as those fears cooled over the past week, Fed sentiment has turned slightly more dovish. 

We expect reinflation fears to keep cooling. And as such, we also expect the Fed to respond with a continued dovish tilt. 

That should help Powell to be a Santa for Wall Street this year.

4: Robust Consumer Spending on Deck

And last but not least, it looks like this holiday shopping season will be quite a strong one. 

According to data from Mastercard (MA), Adobe Analytics, and Salesforce (CRM), the 2024 holiday shopping season is off to a record start. Roughly speaking, overall holiday sales on Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend rose about 3- to 4% from last year, with online sales rising about 8- to 10%. 

Those are very strong growth rates. Indeed, on the online front, this year’s sales growth rate of over 8% is tracking to be the best since Covid. 

In other words, by some metrics, we’re looking at potentially the best holiday shopping season since Covid emerged more than four years ago.

The Final Word on the Upcoming Santa Rally

So, what does all this mean for investors as we cruise into the holiday home stretch? Well, it seems the stars are aligning for a pretty sweet market finale to 2024. 

We’re looking at a potentially perfect storm of good news: consumers are still spending, inflation is taking a chill pill, and the Fed looks like it might play nice with Wall Street.

The pandemic-era economic rollercoaster seems to be smoothing out, and investors have plenty of reasons to feel a bit more optimistic. Of course, the market can always throw a curveball. But right now, things are looking bright.

Now, keep your eyes on that upcoming Fed meeting. Jerome Powell’s words could be the holiday gift – or lump of coal – that sets the tone for the rest of the year. 

Though, for now, it looks like we might just be in for a merry little market run.

Want to know which stocks we think are among the best to buy for this Santa rally?

Learn more about our research services and our top stocks to buy for fast-and-furious year-end gains.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post Santa Rally 2024: Why the Bulls Should Charge Through December appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Many investors were too busy with Thanksgiving preparation to notice, but last Wednesday, we received an important inflation report that should be on your radar.

Some in the financial media put a positive spin on it. For example, CNBC covered it with this headline, “Fed’s preferred inflation gauge rises 2.3% annually, meeting expectations.” While that’s true, there’s more to the story.

Stepping back, I’m referencing October’s Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index. And as a quick refresh, month-to-month PCE rose 0.2% and the year-over-year figure climbed 2.3%. As the CNBC headline suggested, these numbers matched consensus forecasts.

So, what’s the issue? After all, 2.3% inflation isn’t too far north of the Fed’s stated goal of 2% inflation.

Well, headline PCE is well below its high in 2022, and that’s certainly a good thing. But let’s fill in a few details…

This core reading strips out volatile food and energy prices.

The monthly and yearly readings for core PCE came in at 0.3% and 2.8%, respectively. So, October’s 2.8% reading means that inflation remains 40% above the Fed’s goal.

Now, you might brush this off based on where core PCE stood at its high in 2022 (5.6%), concluding “We’ve come a long way. This is still a great reading.” But even if so, we have a second issue – direction.

As you can see below, core PCE is U-turning north.

Some might say that the curve is just barely lipping upwards. This is nothing to be concerned about. But that depends on what you find concerning.

While the slope of the core PCE readings above might not represent a dramatic resurgence of inflation, it’s certainly not evidence of, to quote Jerome Powell, “a sustainable path back to 2 percent.”

Here are the month-to-month readings for core PCE over the last six months.

May: 0.1%

June: 0.2%

July: 0.2%

August: 0.2%

September: 0.3%.

October: 0.3%.

Where is the sustained downward progress?

Today’s record-high prices don’t include any significant room for error. The prevailing bullish narrative can be summarized this way…

Inflation is vanquished… so, the Fed will cut rates many times in 2025… which will bring much-needed relief to financially exhausted consumers… which will bolster corporate earnings… which will relieve nosebleed valuations that are currently in bubble territory… which will keep the stock market party going.

But if inflation isn’t vanquished, this happy ending doesn’t materialize (or at least, not to the same degree). That would leave us with a stock market that looks very expensive relative to earnings.

To illustrate this, let’s start by looking at the forward price-to-earnings (PE) ratio. This shows what investors are paying today for what they believe will be earnings a year from now.

According to data provider FactSet, today’s forward PE ratio is 22.0. Now, this level is already high all by itself. FactSet reports that the 5-year average reading is 19.6 and the 10-year average is 18.1. And keep in mind that this is based on expected earnings which represents optimistic earnings forecasts from excited analysts (if they were less excited, this metric would be even more expensive).

Now, there is a valid case for this earnings excitement.

Here in the Digest, we’ve profiled how Trump tax cuts and deregulation could cause an explosion in productivity that gooses earnings. But if growth and earnings don’t materialize, what we’re left with is a price for the S&P that’s leaning way out over its skis.

For a sense of just how far out over its skis, let’s shift from the forward PE ratio to the Shiller PE ratio. This looks at what investors are paying relative to the average of the last 10 years’ worth of earnings. This smooths out short-term earnings fluctuations from different business cycles. We’re basically changing our analysis from “what we hope will happen,” to “what has already and is happening right now.”

As you can see below, today’s Shiller PE ratio is basically tied for the second-highest valuation ever.

So, why does the tiny little upswing in core PCE inflation matter?

Because it jeopardizes the “priced for perfection” sequence of dominos that investors have already priced into the market.

Our hypergrowth expert Luke Lango detailed the risk in one of his recent Daily Notes in Innovation Investor:

Let’s say inflation pushes back above 3% and moves towards 4%.

In that scenario, the Fed would stop cutting interest rates. They may even hike interest rates again.

That means, in this hypothetical scenario, the 10-year Treasury yield could spike to 5% or more. The S&P 500 is trading at 23.5X forward earnings – among its richest valuations in history.

Those valuation multiples on stocks will not be supported if the 10-year Treasury yield keeps spiking – meaning that, if we do get serious reinflation and yields spike, stock multiples will have to significantly drop.

To be clear, Luke doesn’t believe this will happen, and it’s not his base case. But the most prepared investor is usually the most successful. So, as Luke is doing, it’s important that we look directly at this potential risk and plan accordingly.

Regular Digest readers likely know what’s coming.

This is the point at which we recommend you identify your conviction level for each stock in your portfolio… establish clear trailing-stop levels for all holdings you don’t own with ironclad conviction… mind your position sizes… but then remain with this bullish momentum until things change…

While we stand by all that, let’s add two additional suggestions today…

First, consider trading today’s market rather than adding to your buy-and-hold positions (unless those positions trade at attractive valuations). After all, the valuation of the average stock today doesn’t scream, “buy me for the long haul!” Trading can be an effective way to benefit from this bullish momentum while reducing the potential drawdown that might be lurking out ahead with a buy-and-hold approach.

With this in mind, I’d like to introduce you to one of the most recent additions to our corporate family, Jeff Clark. Jeff is a 40-year market veteran who trades the markets regardless of direction – up, down, or sideways.

Since Jeff’s team began tracking his trade results in 2005, he’s provided his subscribers with the opportunity to make triple-digit gains over 50 times and double-digit gains more than 160 times.

To give you a better sense of Jeff and his trading approach, he recently sat down with our Editor-in-Chief Luis Hernandez for a short interview. You can watch it right here.

They discuss Jeff’s philosophy… the specific pattern Jeff looks to drive his market moves (he calls it a “magic pattern”) … and how limiting risk is an enormous part of his trading approach. Again, that interview is right here. 

By the way, just this morning, Jeff came out with a new position in his newsletter, Jeff Clark Trader. I’ll let him give you the overview:

It’s a bad time to buy the banks.

Indeed, the entire financial sector looks vulnerable to a decline. So, it’s probably a good time to add short exposure to the sector.

It’s also worth noting that the bullish percent index for the financial sector (BPFINA) has been generating sell signals for the past few months. While none of the signals have led to a big decline yet, it is just a matter of time.

Jeff’s new trade is a bet that banking is about to slide. For more of his analysis as a subscriber, click here to learn more about joining him.

Check your motivation.

Is your attention focused on your specific investment goals (and its related timeline)? Or is your focus drifting as parts of this market begin to melt up?

A market like the one we’re in can be both fantastic and challenging – “fantastic” when our stocks are climbing… “challenging” when they’re not climbing as fast as other parts of the market that are in the headlines.

Such FOMO-based comparison increases the odds of emotion-based market moves…which usually doesn’t end well.

Warren Buffett had some blunt words about this years ago when interviewed on Charlie Rose:

You can’t stand to see your neighbor getting rich. You know you’re smarter than he is, but he’s doing all these [crazy] things and getting rich … so pretty soon you start doing it….

People don’t get smarter about things that get as basic as greed.

Buffett’s late business partner, Charlie Munger, took it one step farther:

The world is not driven by greed. It’s driven by envy.

Bottom line: We’re in a bull market, so yes, we absolutely want to take advantage.

But remember today’s valuation… remember the rosy assumptions underpinning bullish forecasts… and make sure you know how you’ll handle it whether this bull lasts another two years or two days.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post The Key Risk to ���Ҵ�ýs in 2025 appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Editor’s Note: Seasonality trends and historical data can help guide your investments, especially in the long term – but there’s more to the market than its past performance. You can’t ignore what’s happening in front of you in the short term, even if the data says otherwise.

Few people know this as well as my colleague Jonathan Rose. He’s the lead analyst at our corporate partner Masters in Trading. After spending 25 years learning his craft on the Chicago trading floors and inside private investment firms, Jonathan now offers up live trading ideas, market commentary, and trading education each morning. And he’s been working on something perhaps even more special over the past few months.

Jonathan has been studying the day-to-day movements of the market – and he’s ready to debut a new tool to help his growing community of traders capitalize on short-term opportunities.

And at his One-Day Winners Live Summit last week, Jonathan shared his new options-trading strategy. You can watch a replay of the event here.

Now, let me turn things over to Jonathan, who will tell you a little more about one of the options market’s best-kept secrets…

Within a few days of Donald Trump’s election victory – and with a market-beating third quarter in the books – Tesla Inc. (TSLA) stock suddenly surged by more than $100. As many of us probably know, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was one of Trump’s top donors, dedicating at least $118 million through his firm SpaceX and millions more through his own PAC.

Musk isn’t the only Trump donor who’s capitalized on the market’s recent climb…

Just take a look at the surge in energy stocks over the last few weeks. Clean energy companies have absolutely tumbled since Trump’s election victory, sparking a wind and solar sell-off in the immediate aftermath.

But legacy energy players like ExxonMobile rallied in the days after the election based on a strong belief that a Trump administration would be easier on fossil fuels… Significantly, major players from Energy Transfer to Liberty Energy have contributed a haul of more than $34 million in donations to Trump’s campaign.

Of course, these are just a couple of examples of how the markets are rewarding industries that investors think Trump will favor. And anyone who invested through those intraday moves had the chance to quickly take gains on a handful of stocks.

Those gains are gone for us now… But that doesn’t mean the markets are suddenly in retreat.

There’s one major takeaway I want to leave you with here – The stock market’s momentum won’t let up anytime soon.

If we take a wider view on equities, we’ll see that this post-election stock boom is no mere fluke… It’s really part of a longer uptrend in the stock market that we all need to pay attention to.

Consider how all the major indexes have performed before and after the election…

The Russell 2000 – one of the largest small-cap indexes I follow – surged 14% in the week following the election, and it’s now up over 30% for the year. Ever since November 5th, the S&P 500 is up about 23% for the year… and a whopping 65% since November 2020.

All of the major global indexes are searching for higher highs from here… And I believe options traders have the market beat when it comes to capturing the biggest gains the markets can offer.

That’s why I’m interested in showing you one of the options market’s best-kept secrets… One that institutional traders have relied on over the last four years to capture truly unprecedented gains.

And it all starts with discovering where the biggest and most unusual options trades are trending in the stock market right now.

Looking Beyond the Post-Election Stock Boom

The VIX Term Structure (VIX) – my volatility crystal ball, so to speak – is a tool used by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) that shows the expected S&P 500 Index volatilities based on options that hold different times to maturity. It essentially allows us to take the temperature of the stock market and see where near-term and long-term volatility sit in the markets.

Now, long-term volatility is an interesting case. It’s ticking lower as I write to you, with a more stable market outlook following the election finally bringing some certainty to the markets.

But if we consider the near term, we can see a large spike in this fear gauge, with short-term risk bouncing higher just before the big day and right after… As it stands, even days after the election, all the VIX short-term indices are running higher.

All of this tells us something very powerful about the stock market right now – short-term volatility isn’t going away any time soon. And when short-term volatility is elevated, that gives us the opportunity to quickly execute options trades that can capture unprecedented gains.

That’s where a key tool I like to use comes in.

It’s what I call the Unusual Options Activity (UOA) Tool, and it’s designed to track and quantify unusual options market activity for individual stocks. This tool combines various factors – from volume and open interest to changes in implied volatility – to find those stocks that are making potentially market-making moves.

By using this tool – and looking at all the sectors that will likely benefit from a Trump administration – we can discover some of the most potentially lucrative trades hiding in plain sight.

One major area of focus right now is nuclear energy.

As the world gradually moves away from fossil fuels, the use of nuclear power is expected to grow exponentially. And with all the investment and speculation flying around nuclear power, there’s a lot of bullish options trading volume lifting industry players like NuScale Power Corp. (SMR) and Centrus Energy Corp. (LEU) as I write to you.

Even if you’re not interested in playing these stocks outright, there are great ways to play any positive beats in nuclear by trading options on funds like the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NLR).

We can also look at precious metals like steel for a clue.

Steel stocks like United States Steel Corp. (X), Steel Dynamics, Inc. (STLD),and Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (CLF) are seeing a ton of options trading after the election. It’s no surprise. Domestic manufacturing is a huge priority for the incoming administration, and Wall Street anticipates more policies to shore up stateside steel companies in the long term.

These are just some of the sectors where we can anticipate seeing strong gains over the coming months. My UOA tool is also showing strong options trading volume around a whole range of other sectors expected to see positive policies and investment over the next year – everything from digital assets and semiconductors to commodities and transportation.

My readers already get access to the suite of tools I use to discover these amazing opportunities in the stock market… And if you’re reading this right now, I want you to be able to get the same insights they do to capitalize on this unprecedented moment in the stock market.

For months, I’ve been preparing my readers for the type of widespread market volatility we’re seeing right now.

And I don’t think normal stock plays are on the table for investors looking to capture the biggest gains the markets can hand us…

The Next Step in the Trump Stock Surge

For any traders looking to maximize their gain potential, it all comes down to a specific asset class that I like to call Wall Street’s “best-kept secret.”

You see, over the last four years… in a market wracked by rampant volatility… the most successful institutional traders have all been maximizing their gains using a type of quick options trade that’s simply not on the radar for most traders.

It’s called an 0DTE trade – or zero days to expiration. These are stunning options plays that allow us to buy an option today and expire before the end of the trading session. These quick options plays don’t require us to put up massive amounts of capital to maximize our gain potential… and they’re the perfect tool for allowing anyone to profit from intraday price movements while market volatility remains at a fever pitch.

Additionally, there are options that expire within 1 to 3 days – known as 1DTE, 2DTE, or 3DTE options – giving you a slightly longer window to execute your trades while keeping your risk exposure low.

By hedging your short-term risk and piling into trades at the right time, you can find some of the most powerful opportunities for gains in the stock market. And the historical trajectory of the stocks bears all this out.

I’ve just recently put together a special presentation that will clue you in to the strategies I use to find these market-making trades. Time is short, and I really don’t want you to miss out on a proven system that could net you gains as high as 155%… and even one 279% gain… all while the markets are turning higher.

Simply click here to find out more about my unique system.

Remember, the creative trader wins.

Jonathan Rose

Founder, Masters in Trading

The post The Post-Election Stock Boom Is Over… Here Are the Next ���Ҵ�ý Winners to Watch appeared first on InvestorPlace.

In the 1990 film “The Two Jakes,” legendary actor Jack Nicholson says one of my favorite lines:

You can follow the action, which gets you good pictures. You can follow your instincts, which will probably get you in trouble. Or, you can follow the money, which, nine times out of ten, will get you closer to the truth.

I love that quote. In my experience, people say all sorts of things. Sometimes, they mean it. Sometimes, they don’t. But they pretty much always put their money where their true beliefs lie – and that is exactly why I “follow the money” on Wall Street. 

If money is flowing into a certain sector or stock, it’s probably best to follow along. 

Right now, the money is flowing almost nonstop into Artificial Intelligence. 

And I’m not talking just any money – I mean the “smart” money.

Microsoft, for example, has given $10 billion to OpenAI – the maker of ChatGPT – to fund the creation of complex large language models. Amazon has poured $4 billion of its own into another AI startup, Anthropic, to help create new generative AI technologies. Alphabet just dropped another $5 billion into its self-driving unit, Waymo. Meta said it plans to spend up to $40 billion this year alone on capital expenditures, a bulk of which will go toward AI research and development.

The list goes on and on.

However, while AI is undoubtedly the hottest sector on Wall Street, we suggest that investors focus on a different type of AI stock than what has dominated the market over the past two years. 

That is, ever since the AI Boom started in late 2022, a particular type of AI stock – what we like to call the ‘AI Builders’ – have been the biggest winners. These are the stocks involved in building the infrastructure necessary to support the Age of AI. Think things like AI chips, data centers, networking, and related equipment. 

Those AI Builders have been all the rage. For example, from late 2022 to mid-2024, AI chipmaker Nvidia saw its stock soar more than 600%. And AI server supplier Super Micro rallied about 800%. 

The ‘Builders’ dominated the first phase of the AI Boom. But now, it looks like we may be moving into this boom’s second phase, wherein the ‘AI Appliers’ will dominate. 

Phase 2 of the AI Boom: Ushering in Wall Street’s Next Champions

In our view, the first phase of this boom was all about building the infrastructure necessary to create AI applications. The second phase will be all about applying AI to create real-world value. 

And it appears that phase is beginning right now. 

Earlier this summer, law enforcement tech solutions provider Axon launched a new AI product called Draft One, which automatically writes first drafts of police reports using data extracted from police body cameras. That’s hugely value-additive. And the results speak for themselves. Axon said Draft One is seeing record demand, building an order pipeline of over $100 million in just three months. 

Meanwhile, AI lending firm Upstart has forever tried to disrupt the credit lending markets with AI. But the firm has proven unable to do so – until recently. Upstart recently said massive improvements in its AI modeling are improving deal flow and powering big profit margin expansion, offering investors the first-ever sign that maybe… just maybe… Upstart could use AI to redefine the lending markets. 

And enterprise software provider Monday.com has noted that its new general AI (genAI) chatbot is successfully resolving about 50% of the customer service tickets it sees. This is allowing Monday.com to address more customer service tickets without as many customer service agents, driving incremental revenue growth while cutting costs. That’s why the company reported 30%-plus revenue growth in its most recent quarter. Not to mention, it has now surpassed $1 billion in annually recurring revenue, just a decade after its launch.

The Final Word on Winning AI Stocks

Folks, to us, the writing is on the wall. Companies are broadly figuring out how to innovatively deploy new AI applications to create real-world economic value. 

And the AI Appliers should reign supreme. 

That’s why we think those stocks could be the biggest winners as the AI Boom continues to dominate over the next few months. 

After all, AXON is up 150% this year. MNDY stock rallied 50% over the past six months (though, those gains were significantly diminished post-earnings). And UPST has popped about 60% in just the past three months. 

Clearly, the AI Applier stocks are catching fire. And we think they’ll be the leaders on Wall Street for the foreseeable future. 

Be sure not to miss out on this big pivot. It will likely prove to be a fantastic way to profit in the Age of AI.

Learn which stocks we expect will be the market’s biggest winners.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post Where to Focus Your Sights as the AI Boom Rages On 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

The post Weekly Upgrades and Downgrades appeared first on InvestorPlace.

A Note From Eric: You all know Tom Yeung, who joins me once a week here at Smart Money to keep you updated about markets, investing… and everything in between. And if you’re one of my paid-up subscribers, you might also recognize him from Fry’s Investment Report, where he pens our weekly update every Tuesday.

What you may not know is that Tom also appears just about every Sunday at InvestorPlace Digest… my publisher’s daily review of our team’s insights .

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to share one of his Sunday Digest pieces with you all today. In it, he shares five moonshot bets that present turnaround opportunities for 2025. Take it away, Tom…

Many of you will know that I am a relatively conservative investor.

I pay close attention to a company’s long-term profitability, and to me, cash flow is king. There’s nothing wrong with earning 10% dividends from a high-quality stock.

But sometimes, growth is so obvious that it’s hard to ignore. In February, I said that Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) should be worth a split-adjusted $160 by 2027. It’s since doubled in price from $72 to $144.

And the excitement surrounding Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) in 2021 was so bananas that I suggested throwing in $500 just to see where the $0.10 crypto would go. (The answer was $0.64.)

Some have made careers from these sorts of high-volatility bets.

See Jonathan Rose, our options expert colleague at Masters in Trading. He’s helped his followers generate profits of 16%… 48%… 156%… 545%… even 1,306%… all within six-and-a-half-hour periods.

He does this by trading options that are expiring today, rather than those expiring a year or more from now. These “zero-day options” are some of the fastest-growing segments of financial markets today.

And the astonishing thing is that he trades these moonshots while limiting his downside risk.

Jonathan just hosted a One-Day Winners Live Summit free masterclass … and it’s not too late to join in. In it, he reveals his entire five-step strategy to finding those one-day winners. This session is absolutely free to attend.

To watch his broadcast, just click here.

In the meantime, I’ll offer my own five moonshot bets for 2025. These companies are obviously risky… and there’s a good chance you can lose everything.

But for investors seeking abnormal returns, these are some of the best risk-adjusted bets you can make for the coming year.

The Equity Stub

Some firms are risky because they’re a tiny equity stub built on top of a mountain of debt. If a company has just $1 of equity for every $4 of debt, every 10% increase in enterprise value will raise stock prices by 50%.

That’s the situation Sabre Corp. (SABR) now finds itself in.

The highly indebted firm is one of the world’s three operators of the Global Distribution System (GDS), the computerized network that links airline and hotel reservations all together. It’s how websites like Google Flights and Kayak can “see” flight availability in real time. Even airlines use the GDS system to help book stranded passengers onto rival carriers.

On the positive side for Sabre, there’s no good alternative to the GDS system. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) rolled out a rival product a decade ago, but their decentralized system turned out to be far too slow. (It needed to contact every airline each time someone tried to book a flight.) That’s allowed GDS companies to operate with enormous profit margins with virtually no competition.

However, in the mid-2000s, private equity firms decided they could do even better. By leveraging up companies like Sabre with debt, they thought they could earn high returns on the GDS business, pay back low interest rates, and profit from the difference.

It worked for a while… and then the Covid-19 pandemic came.

Virtually overnight, Sabre’s shares went from the $20-$30 range into the single digits. It continues to trade at $3.60 today, with a now-smaller profit pool being eaten up by ruinously high interest payments.

That’s where my first “moonshot” bet comes in.

We know that travel is coming back. According to the IATA, air travel flipped back above its pre-Covid levels earlier this year and is set to surge another 8% in 2025. Figures from Sabre also show an increase of booking revenues, with total sales up almost threefold since 2020.

The company is now on track to covering its $500 million annual interest payments. Analysts expect Sabre will generate $86 million in net income next year (after interest), compared to a $57 million loss in 2024.

This opens the door to even greater gains down the road. Sabre could use its newfound profitability to repay maturing debts and refinance others on better terms. We also know that flipping from negative profits to positive is a historically bullish sign, and Sabre is on track to do exactly that.

Three Turnarounds

Meanwhile, other moonshots are attractive because they present turnaround opportunities for 2025. Here are three companies with that kind of potential…

1. Stratasys Ltd. (SSYS) is a Minnesota-based a leader in 3D printing. Over the past five years, it has snapped up other top players like RPS for stereolithography, XAAR for powder-based printing, and others to grow its technological lead.

Stratasys’s flagship F3300 printer is now one of the fastest machines in its price class, and analysts expect 2024 to be a down year before a significant return to growth. Net profits are expected to surge tenfold to $26 million next year.

The threat of 20% across-the-board tariffs could send that figure even higher. If President Donald Trump does implement steep import barriers, many American manufacturers would suddenly find themselves forced to buy domestically produced parts. Stratasys remains far more profitable than its chief rival, 3D Systems Corp, (DDD), and we know from history that it pays to buy the best when turnarounds are underway.

2. Evolv Technologies Holdings Inc. (EVLV) saw shares plummet 50% this fall after the security company announced an internal investigation into its accounting practices. Several high-profile managers had inappropriately logged revenues, resulting in $4 million to $6 million of sales being recorded too early.

This now presents a compelling opportunity to invest in one of America’s top moonshot bets.

Evolv is a Massachusetts-based firm that builds AI-powered scanning “gates” that detect hidden weapons. Hundreds of stadiums, schools, and event spaces already use Evolv’s products, and they are far faster than traditional metal detectors because users can simply walk through without taking metal items out of their pockets. Evolv uses millimeter-wave technologies similar to those currently used by airports.

The potential for new gun-friendly laws now creates a significant opportunity for growth. The Trump administration will likely challenge various states’ conceal-carry bans, and the greater prevalence of hidden weapons will increase demand for Evolv’s products.

The company is also currently testing its products with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). If approved for commercial airport use, that could become an unexpected windfall.

3. UiPath Inc. (PATH). Shares of this AI firm have fallen 83% since going public in 2021 on fears of slowing growth and significant management turnover. The company’s success during the Covid-19 work-from-home boom failed to repeat during more “normal” periods.

However, analysts now forecast a return to accelerating growth in calendar 2025. Companies are being increasingly pressured to save money using AI, and UiPath’s products are recognized by experts as being top tier. Gartner calls UiPath the leading visionary of business automation.

The growth trend will likely accelerate through 2025 as AI begins to become “smarter” than the average person. OpenAI’s latest “o1-preview” model recently surpassed humans on the IQ test, and these innovations will create greater demands for UiPath’s suite of automation products. No matter how smart AI gets, enterprises will need firms like UiPath to help implement these tools.

Betting on Volatility

Finally, we all know that incoming president Donald Trump is a disruptor. The Washington outsider spent his first term shaking up the status quo. To the delight of his fans and the horror of his critics, Trump has promised more of the same for his second term.

That creates an incredible amount of uncertainty around highly regulated businesses, particularly healthcare.

Consider Pfizer Inc. (PFE), a company that Eric recently recommended his Fry’s Investment Report members sell. That came after Donald Trump put forward Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

As I noted recently at the Investment Report:

The drugmaker earns a quarter of its revenues from Covid-19 vaccines and therapies, making it one of the most vaccine-exposed companies in the pharma industry. RFK Jr. is a well-known vaccine skeptic, and Eric rightly doesn’t want to stick around to see what happens next.

On the other hand, even Trump’s greatest critics will acknowledge that many of his intended policies will be good for healthcare stocks. This includes repealing the Medicare negotiation provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, reducing Federal Trade Commission oversight of mergers and acquisitions among corporations, lowering corporate taxes, and more.

Either way, we know that Pfizer won’t trade in its $25 range forever. By 2026, it likely will have either shot the moon or crashed to Earth.

To benefit from this uncertainty, traders look into at-the-market 2026 Pfizer straddles – an options strategy that will pay off if PFE shares move outside of a $19.50-$30.50 range by January 2026. If PFE shares rise to $35 as they did during Trump’s first term, traders will see a 100% payoff. And if the stock dips to $15, then traders also get a 100% profit. (A straddle can also pay off before 2026 if volatility rises far enough.)

The best part is that these straddles are currently trading for cheap, thanks to low market volatility. The VIX Index has dropped a quarter since the election, bringing down the cost of 2026 straddles from the $7 to $9 range to just $5.50.

A Way for Even Faster Gains

Of course, not everyone will enjoy waiting around for the next year for Pfizer straddles to mature or 3D printing firms to turn around. Trump isn’t set to take office until January, and we won’t know the administration’s policies for several more months after that.

That’s why I think it’s essential to watch Jonathan Rose’s recent special broadcast, where he outlines his strategy for profiting from zero-day options.

According to JPMorgan Chase, around $1 trillion zero-day options now exchange hands daily.

And when we start seeing that kind of money flow into a specific corner of the market – it should pique our interest. Because these areas tend to be where you find the most dramatic gains.

Of course, these big potential rewards come with equally big perils. And that’s why you need a proven game plan that manages the downside risk while leaving the door open for upside gains.

That is why Jonathan recently held his One-Day Winners Live Summit free masterclass to show how his system works. You can watch the event here.

During this masterclass, Jonathan shows viewers how they could’ve used these trades to TRIPLE their money from Donald Trump’s election victory… in less than seven hours.

Indeed, when it comes to options, our colleague Jonathan is the master of money flows. His 25-plus-year career trajectory, from floor trader to CBOE market maker to trading mentor, is a testament to the power of understanding these flows – including winners of 126%, 245%, even 463% or more, often in 30 days or less.

So, there’s no one I’d rather have you hear from when it comes to the exploding market for zero-day options.

Once again, you can click here to watch Jonathan’s One-Day Winners Live Summit broadcast.

Regards,

Thomas Yeung

���Ҵ�ýs Analyst, InvestorPlace

The post 5 Moonshot Bets for 2025 appeared first on InvestorPlace.

So, in today’s ���Ҵ�ý 360, I want to take it easy, so to speak and talk about how I find the very best stocks in the market. I’ll share how my system has led me to take profits in a stock before it goes down. And most importantly, I want to tell you about a few overrated stocks that you should sell right away.

But first, I want to talk about the recent market action. I’ve been encouraged to see some positive action this past month, with the S&P 500, NASDAQ and the Dow hitting new record highs. This is due to the fact that the uncertainties that were hanging over the market earlier this year have largely been lifted.

We are also entering the seasonally strong time of the year, the holiday season, where the cheery mood spreads through Wall Street. But I don’t want you to sit back and get comfortable just yet.

With earnings season now behind us, I want to remind you of what you will see happen every quarterly announcement season. The stocks that are the crème de la crème – that is, stocks with superior fundamentals – often beat their estimates for sales and earnings. As such, they get rewarded with strong institutional buying pressure.

Meanwhile, the weaker companies – that is, stocks with poor fundamentals – rarely surprise Wall Street. And because of this, they can drop like rocks when they announce results.

Now, I’ve been in the market for more than four decades. And during that time, I’ve learned “what works” on Wall Street and what doesn’t. While I don’t claim to have a crystal ball, I believe my Stock Grader tool (subscription required) is the closest thing to it.

You see, I purposefully designed this tool to help me distinguish between the two – fundamentally superior stocks and fundamentally weak stocks… before the rest of the market catches on.

How Stock Grader Helps Avoid Disaster

In a previous ���Ҵ�ý 360, I wrote in detail about how my Stock Grader tool works – including the eight fundamental criteria that make up a stock’s fundamental “grade.”  (You can read that here for a refresher.)

But essentially, what I’m looking for are strong fundamentals like good margins, strong sales growth, earnings growth and optimism from analysts. That’s the bedrock of the stocks we select in my Growth Investor service.

The other element that Stock Grader helps us find is stocks with persistent institutional buying pressure. This is where my Quantitative Grade comes in.

If a stock has a Quantitative Grade of “A,” that tells me that there are institutional investors (money management firms, banks, etc.) who are VERY interested in this stock. This is what Wall Street likes to call the “smart money.”

These firms have billions at their disposal to invest. So, when they begin buying, they tend to buy a LOT. As this buying pressure increases, so does the price of the stock. And in turn, you’ll see profits!

These things might sound like common sense, but far too many investors neglect them. And I find that’s often the case with growth stocks that are receiving more hype than they really deserve.

Sure, we all want growth. But oftentimes, eye-popping revenues can hide a lot of evils and result in much more hype than is really warranted. This sends people stampeding into exactly the wrong names.

Luckily, we can also use Stock Grader to help us avoid these stocks. And even better, if we do own them, it can help us sell these stocks before it’s too late.

Because the truth of the matter is this…

Even if a company looked great before, sometimes disaster can be lurking under the surface.

That was the situation with Enron in the early 2000s…

How My System Detected the Biggest Financial Fraud of All Time

Before Enron became one of the most infamous stocks ever, it was a great growth play.

Enron was once America’s seventh-biggest company, but also named “America’s most innovative company” in Fortune magazine (six years in a row).

And at one point, it was a big, flashing, A-rated buy in my system. After I recommended the stock, it gained 36%.

Then, Enron’s rating started to weaken. This was well before Newsweek declared “Lights out for Enron,” in December 2001. The corruption going on at Enron was yet to be discovered – but according to my system, the fundamentals certainly didn’t justify the hype.

So, we took our profits. And it turned out to be one of the best moves of my career! Other investors, sadly, got wiped out. Enron’s employees lost their retirement savings. But we avoided the massacre that ensued a few months later.

Now, Enron is a pretty extreme example. So let me be clear: It does not take a massive financial fraud to wipe millions of dollars in value from the stock market.

When a stock gets into a bubble, even a much smaller prick will do the trick.

With that in mind, let’s look at some growth stocks that my system is flagging to sell or avoid. Each one of these stocks has a Total Grade of either “D” (Sell) or “F” (Strong Sell).

Again, let me stress that I am not suggesting there is anything untoward going on at these companies. But according to Stock Grader, they are simply not worth your money at this time. As such, I am suggesting that you look elsewhere for great buys right now.

Where You Should Look Next

By combining a stock’s Fundamental Grade with its Quantitative Grade, we can make sure that we’re avoiding holding ticking time bombs in our portfolio. 

Ultimately, spotting the right investment is simple with Stock Grader. You buy when the company achieves a Total Grade of “A” (Strong Buy) or “B” (Buy)… and sell when it disappears.

This is how we’ve landed winners like 3,000% on NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA), which we still have in our Growth Investor Buy List right now.

The fact is that if you are looking for fundamentally superior stocks, you should look no further than my Growth Investor service. Currently, my Growth Investor stocks are characterized by the strongest sales and earnings growth: 23.7% average annual sales growth and a whopping 506.3% average annual earnings growth.

So, these stocks remain “locked and loaded” for a strong yearend rally – and for the ongoing bull market in 2025.

Click here now to learn more about my Growth Investor service, and how my Stock Grader system can steer you to profits.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ���Ҵ�ý360

P.S. On Tuesday, Jonathan Rose went LIVE to talk about his exciting new 5-step strategy for trading options that has already produced market gains as high as 100%… 477%… even 3,900% and 5,000% in a matter of hours.

He also revealed the hidden risks when trading these explosive options, and how savvy traders can minimize them.

He’s also agreed to provide at least 24 new recommendations over the next year.

Learn how you can get your hands on them here.

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

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)

The post How to Spot a Bad Stock Before it Drops appeared first on InvestorPlace.

This past Tuesday, he went LIVE to share his findings and teach you all about his new options-trading strategy. If you missed it, don’t worry. Click here now to watch the replay.

Now, let me turn things over to Jonathan, who will share how you can profit from the post-election surge…

Within a few days of Donald Trump’s election victory – and with a market-beating third quarter in the books – Tesla, Inc.’s (TSLA) stock suddenly surged by more than $100. As many of us probably know, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was one of Trump’s top donors, dedicating at least $118 million through his firm SpaceX and millions more through his own PAC.

Musk isn’t the only Trump donor who’s capitalized on the market’s recent climb…

Just take a look at the surge in energy stocks over the last few weeks. Clean energy companies have absolutely tumbled since Trump’s election victory, sparking a wind and solar sell-off in the immediate aftermath.

But legacy energy players like Exxon Mobil rallied in the days after the election based on a strong belief that a Trump administration would be easier on fossil fuels… Significantly, major players from Energy Transfer to Liberty Energy have contributed a haul of more than $34 million in donations to Trump’s campaign.

Of course, these are just a couple of examples of how the markets are rewarding industries that investors think Trump will favor. And anyone who invested through those intraday moves had the chance to quickly take gains on a handful of stocks.

Those gains are gone for us now… But that doesn’t mean the markets are suddenly in retreat.

There’s one major takeaway I want to leave you with here – The stock market’s momentum won’t let up anytime soon.

If we take a wider view on equities, we’ll see that this post-election stock boom is no mere fluke… It’s really part of a longer uptrend in the stock market that we all need to pay attention to.

Consider how all the major indexes have performed before and after the election…

The Russell 2000 – one of the largest small-cap indexes I follow – surged 14% in the week following the election, and it’s now up over 30% for the year. Ever since November 5th, the S&P 500 is up about 23% for the year… and a whopping 65% since November 2020.

All of the major global indexes are searching for higher highs from here… And I believe options traders have the market beat when it comes to capturing the biggest gains the markets can offer.

That’s why I’m interested in showing you one of the options market’s best-kept secrets… One that institutional traders have relied on over the last four years to capture truly unprecedented gains.

And it all starts with discovering where the biggest and most unusual options trades are trending in the stock market right now.

Looking Beyond the Post-Election Stock Boom

The VIX Term Structure (VIX) – my volatility crystal ball, so to speak – is a tool used by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) that shows the expected S&P 500 Index volatilities based on options that hold different times to maturity. It essentially allows us to take the temperature of the stock market and see where near-term and long-term volatility sit in the markets.

Now, long-term volatility is an interesting case. It’s ticking lower as I write to you, with a more stable market outlook following the election finally bringing some certainty to the markets.

But if we consider the near term, we can see a large spike in this fear gauge, with short-term risk bouncing higher just before the big day and right after… As it stands, even days after the election, all the VIX short-term indices are running higher.

All of this tells us something very powerful about the stock market right now – short-term volatility isn’t going away any time soon. And when short-term volatility is elevated, that gives us the opportunity to quickly execute options trades that can capture unprecedented gains.

That’s where a key tool I like to use comes in.

It’s what I call the Unusual Options Activity (UOA) Tool, and it’s designed to track and quantify unusual options market activity for individual stocks. This tool combines various factors – from volume and open interest to changes in implied volatility – to find those stocks that are making potentially market-making moves.

By using this tool – and looking at all the sectors that will likely benefit from a Trump administration – we can discover some of the most potentially lucrative trades hiding in plain sight.

One major area of focus right now is nuclear energy.

As the world gradually moves away from fossil fuels, the use of nuclear power is expected to grow exponentially. And with all the investment and speculation flying around nuclear power, there’s a lot of bullish options trading volume lifting industry players like NuScale Power Corp. (SMR)and Centrus Energy Corp. (LEU)as I write to you.

Even if you’re not interested in playing these stocks outright, there are great ways to play any positive beats in nuclear by trading options on funds like the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NLR).

We can also look at precious metals like steel for a clue.

Steel stocks like United States Steel Corp. (X), Steel Dynamics, Inc. (STLD),and Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (CLF) are seeing a ton of options trading after the election. It’s no surprise. Domestic manufacturing is a huge priority for the incoming administration, and Wall Street anticipates more policies to shore up stateside steel companies in the long term.

These are just some of the sectors where we can anticipate seeing strong gains over the coming months. My UOA tool is also showing strong options trading volume around a whole range of other sectors expected to see positive policies and investment over the next year – everything from digital assets and semiconductors to commodities and transportation.

My readers already get access to the suite of tools I use to discover these amazing opportunities in the stock market… And if you’re reading this right now, I want you to be able to get the same insights they do to capitalize on this unprecedented moment in the stock market.

For months, I’ve been preparing my readers for the type of widespread market volatility we’re seeing right now.

And I don’t think normal stock plays are on the table for investors looking to capture the biggest gains the markets can hand us…

The Next Step in the Trump Stock Surge

For any traders looking to maximize their gain potential, it all comes down to a specific asset class that I like to call Wall Street’s “best-kept secret.”

You see, over the last four years… in a market wracked by rampant volatility… the most successful institutional traders have all been maximizing their gains using a type of quick options trade that’s simply not on the radar for most traders.

It’s called an 0DTE trade – or zero days to expiration. These are stunning options plays that allow us to buy an option today and expire before the end of the trading session. These quick options plays don’t require us to put up massive amounts of capital to maximize our gain potential… and they’re the perfect tool for allowing anyone to profit from intraday price movements while market volatility remains at a fever pitch.

Additionally, there are options that expire within 1 to 3 days – known as 1DTE, 2DTE, or 3DTE options – giving you a slightly longer window to execute your trades while keeping your risk exposure low.

By hedging your short-term risk and piling into trades at the right time, you can find some of the most powerful opportunities for gains in the stock market. And the historical trajectory of the stocks bears all this out.

I’ve just recently put together a special presentation that will clue you in to the strategies I use to find these market-making trades. Time is short, and I really don’t want you to miss out on a proven system that could net you gains as high as 155%… and even one 279% gain… all while the markets are turning higher.

Simply click here to find out more about my unique system.

Remember, the creative trader wins.

Jonathan Rose
Founder, Masters in Trading

The post Don’t Bet on the Post-Election Stock Boom… Watch These Sectors Instead appeared first on InvestorPlace.

But did you know that the biggest gains in this AI Boom are probably still to come?

As we look toward 2025, the market is primed for a seismic shift, with a new type of AI-driven company at the forefront.

Follow me here.

Everyone compares this AI boom of the 2020s to the dot-com boom of the 1990s. And for good reason, as that comparison feels spot-on…

The internet was a revolutionary technology that emerged in the 1990s which proliferated throughout the global economy and changed how we work, play, travel, and communicate – it changed everything about everything.

Lather, rinse, and repeat with AI.

If we’re right, the stock market in 2025 could be dominated by AI-driven innovation, with the potential to dwarf even the impressive gains we’ve seen from AI stocks like NVDA. But only investors who position themselves strategically in this burgeoning sector can reap the substantial rewards in this next phase of the AI revolution.

History Repeats With the AI Boom

AI is a new revolutionary technology that has emerged in the 2020s and is proliferating throughout the global economy, changing how we work, play, travel, and communicate – it is changing everything about everything.

The AI and internet have very strong parallels as revolutionary technologies.

The AI boom and the dot-com boom on Wall Street also have very strong parallels.

The S&P 500 rose more than 20% in 2023 – the first year of this AI boom. It rose more than 20% again in 2024 – the second year of the AI boom. That’s two consecutive years in which the market has soared more than 20%!

You know the last time it did that? Yup, the first two years of the dot-com boom in 1995 and 1996.

Just look at the price action of the S&P over the past two years and the price action of the S&P in the first two years of the dot-com boom in 1995 and 1996. Those lines match up almost perfectly.

Stocks today—in the AI boom—are tracking the exact footsteps they followed in the dot-com boom.

We therefore think it is fair to say that the AI boom is essentially the second coming of the dot-com boom.

The dot-com boom played out in two phases: the Builder Phase and then the Applier Phase.

When the internet first emerged in the 1990s, telecom and internet infrastructure companies rushed to build the infrastructure to support the buildout of the internet. This was the Builder Phase. It was all about building the infrastructure necessary to facilitate the internet revolution. That was Phase One.

This played out in the 1990s, and it’s why in that decade, the dot-com boom’s biggest winners were Internet Builders—or the companies building that internet infrastructure.

Qualcomm (QCOM) rose almost 6,000% from 1995 to 1999. Applied Materials (AMAT) popped about 1,000% over that same stretch. Semtech (SMTC) rose almost 7,000%. And Verisign (VRSN) soared about 3,000%.

These were Internet Builder stocks, and they stole the show in Phase 1 of the dot-com boom. They were big-time winners.

But they weren’t the winners that we think of today when it comes to the dot-com boom or the Internet Revolution.

The Next Phase of the AI Revolution

Who are the companies that we all think of when it comes to the big winners of the internet revolution?

Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), Meta (META), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Microsoft (MSFT): These are the largest and most powerful companies in the world.

They are the biggest winners from the internet revolution. And yet, none of them are so-called internet builders.

They are internet appliers.

As I mentioned earlier, the dot-com boom played out in two phases…

The first phase was the Builder Phase, where companies like Qualcomm, Applied Materials, and Semtech rushed to build the infrastructure necessary to facilitate the internet revolution.

Then, once that infrastructure was built, we pushed into the Applier phase – where companies like Amazon, Netflix, Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft actually applied the internet to various industries to create entirely new business models. Internet business models that turned into internet empires.

Amazon applied the internet to the commerce industry and created an internet commerce empire.

Netflix applied the internet to the entertainment industry and created an internet entertainment empire.

Meta applied the internet to the communication industry and created an internet communication empire.

Alphabet applied the internet to the information services industry and created an internet information empire.

These companies innovatively applied the internet to industry to create global business empires. They became the world’s largest companies and the stock market’s biggest success stories.

And they were all internet appliers.

They weren’t internet builders. They were internet appliers.

I think we are just now getting to the Applier phase of the AI Boom.

Over the past two years, we’ve been in the AI Builder phase. Companies have been rushing to spend billions upon billions of dollars to create the infrastructure necessary to facilitate the AI Revolution. They’ve been building new data centers, constructing new chip fabs, creating new chips, and so on. The past two years of the AI Boom – the first two years of the AI Boom – have been dominated by building out the infrastructure necessary to facilitate the AI revolution.

And, as a result, AI Builder stocks have been on fire.

Semiconductor stocks are a good proxy for AI Builder stocks. They comprise the semiconductor firms that build the chips, equipment, and more necessary for AI infrastructure. Semiconductor stocks led the AI Boom from early 2023 to summer 2024, with semiconductor stocks soaring about 130% higher.

Meanwhile, AI Applier stocks – or the software stocks looking to apply AI – rose just 70% over that same time frame.

But that has changed in the past few months.

Since mid-July 2024, AI Applier stocks have been crushing AI Builder stocks. Software stocks are up 20%. Semiconductor stocks, meanwhile, are down 20%.

We have “phase-shifted” into the Appliers Boom.

The Final Word on the AI Stock Boom

This is where we predict the biggest winners of the AI boom will emerge.

Remember: As great as Internet Builders were, Internet Appliers were better. Therefore, we predict that the biggest winners of the AI boom will emerge from the AI Appliers.

Qualcomm – the quintessential Internet Builder stock – has soared about 10,000% since 1995, which is an excellent return. But Apple – an Internet Applier – is up about 67,000% since 1995.

Netflix – another Internet Applier – is up about 84,000% since its initial public offering (IPO). Amazon – another Internet Applier – is up about 264,000% since its IPO.

Just like how Apple, Netflix, and Amazon outperformed Internet Builders, we believe AI Appliers could produce similarly impressive returns.

However, to fully capitalize on this AI Application Boom, you need to be focused on the right AI Appliers.

Which is why I want to give you the opportunity to become part of an elite group of investors who will experience increasing wealth in the coming years…

Just click here to learn more about how to access the top AI stocks on our radar right now.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post The AI Stocks Poised to Dominate the ���Ҵ�ý by 2025 appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Have a happy Thanksgiving holiday!

Today, market veteran Jonathan Rose is back to share which sectors he’s eyeing in our current market environment and explain why his unique strategy should be your next move.

Yesterday at his One-Day Winners Live Summit, Jonathan gave viewers an inside look at the exploding market for zero-day options, revealing his top short-term option trade right now.

He set attendees up to profit from upcoming events, like the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet release on November 29, the S&P Global Manufacturing Report on December 2, and more.

To learn how you could potentially book short-term gains of 158%, 710%, or even 2,850% using Jonathan’s strategy – and watch a replay of yesterday’s event – click here.

We’re in the midst of a massive global economic reset.

It all started back in September… While the markets were treading cautiously before the election, the Federal Reserve took the first steps toward easing its inflation offensive with a huge 50-basis point cut – its first in over four years.

Then, even with inflation cooling less than expected in October, the Fed enacted yet another 25-basis point cut that’s fueling a massive rally in the stock market as I write to you.

I believe these rate cuts marked the moment that everything changed for investors. Let me be clear…

For the first time in over four years, the markets are ready to embrace risk again.

That might seem like a bold claim. But if we take a closer look… We’ll see that the Fed’s moves are causing a ripple effect all over the world.

Soon after the central bank’s super-sized September cut, the People’s Bank of China announced a fiscal stimulus package aimed at rescuing the rising global power from its own deepening economic woes. We’re seeing that same push to slash rates everywhere from continental Europe to Southeast Asia. And it won’t all end there…

With a new U.S. administration poised to cut regulations in everything from transportation to financial services – and exert its own influence on the Fed to enact further rate cuts – Wall Street is looking for the best ways to capitalize on a market fueled by an abundance of fiscal stimulus measures.

I’m happy to say that I’ve been helping my readers collect gains as big as 49%… 84%… and even a whopping 197% trading on all the momentum we’re seeing in the stock market right now.

And I see even more opportunities to capture huge gains from here… Right as all this global stimulus boosts a handful of key sectors in the coming months.

The Top 2 Sectors to Watch

So where can we find these mega-sectors surging on stimulus?

Right now, we need to pay close attention to any assets linked to the most important channels in the global supply chain – especially, precious metals and commodities. Both of these sectors are correlated with the biggest industries that drive the global economy, including everything from automakers to semiconductor manufacturing.

And if we look at how all the top domestic indexes have been performing since the election, the markets are making a strong case for investing in the next wave of supply chain-forward stocks.

Consider where equities are trending as the markets react to the latest Fed rate cut and the election…

The S&P steel sub-industry index – which includes 11 major industry players such as United States Steel Corp. and Steel Dynamics Inc. – jumped as high as 14% over the last two weeks – its biggest surge in more than 14 years!

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 have also each hit record closing highs over the last month, represented by mining stocks and metals like copper, lithium, gold, and silver. All of that momentum in metals has fueled a post-election surge in tech stocks – and even with softening demand in the near-term, the markets haven’t come anywhere close to bottoming out.

The evidence is clear… And now is the time to put our capital to work.

There’s one mantra I love to share with my readers over and over again – education mitigates risk.

For us, knowing where to look for the best opportunities in the stock market is all about following the beat on volatility. As options traders… whether we’re short or long… we always trade on volatility rather than direction.

And there’s never been a better time to be short on volatility…

If we’re keen on placing our bets in tech, we should pay special attention to any assets that are moving higher with semiconductor companies, automakers, and other hardware stocks in the coming weeks.

Steel stocks like United States Steel Corp. (X), Steel Dynamics, Inc. (STLD),and Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (CLF) have seen massive gains over the last month… In fact, all three are surging more than 10% since October.

Near-term volatility in the stock market has shaken off some of these gains… But steel stocks have been running higher since the election, with United States Steel Corp. rising back to its October price levels. Any quick moves from here are key to a short-volatility trade setup.

If we’re keen on trading bellwether metals like copper and lithium, we can also execute short-term trades on a whole slew of mining stocks. Now, copper prices have been getting hammered over the last few weeks… But industry players like Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX) and Southern Copper Corporation (SCCO) are showing a lot of resilience as I write to you – and they’re both well outside of their expected move right now.

I’m following even more stocks that represent the best ways to capture gains on all this short-term volatility we’re seeing in these sectors. And I want us all to feel empowered to play on the stock market’s current strength.

All that said, it’s not merely enough to buy these stocks in the right time frame…

Today, I want to clue you into the best way to ensure you can maximize your potential gains on all this momentum driving metals and commodities higher… And it all starts with one of the best-kept secrets in the options market.

What’s Your Next Move?

Right now, a lot of options traders are throwing their capital behind the biggest players in metal miners and commodities stocks.

And the smart money absolutely has the market cornered on quick options plays that yield double- and triple-digit gainers in less than 72 hours… and often in just under 24 – all without holding trades for days or weeks… I don’t want anyone reading this to think they can’t get in while the smart money is riding high.

That’s why I’ve developed one options trading strategy that has the smart money beat.

With all of our positions, we look for the same conditions… We find where the market makers are placing their bets and execute trade setups that allow us to quickly capture gains within just days of entering a trade.

Using this system, I’ve helped my readers close out several trades with gains over 100% — including 245% on Criteo and 177% on Cameco Corp. I’ve also helped my readers benefit from all the volatility leading up to this moment – to the tune of five triple-digit options wins with gains as high as 279% on one of the best volatility indicators out there, the Invesco QQQ Trust.

I’ve just put together a special presentation that will clue you in to the strategies I use to find these market-making trades. Time is short, and I really don’t want you to miss out.

Simply click here to find out more about my unique system.

Remember that the creative trader wins,

Jonathan Rose

Founder, Masters in Trading

The post The Global Stimulus Rally: The Top Sectors to Watch appeared first on InvestorPlace.

But while the gains have been impressive, this has also been a “market of the few,” not “of the many.” That is, the past two years’ big market rally has been dominated by a few particular firms – namely, the so-called “Magnificent 7” Big Tech stocks. 

Now, though, that may be about to change in a big way. 

It’s no secret that the Magnificent 7 have been leading the market for the past couple of years now. But nonetheless, their outperformance of the “average” stock has been stunning. From early 2023 to summer 2024, the Magnificent 7 soared about 150%. Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 – an index of 2,000 small-cap stocks – rose a meager 17%. 

In other words, from early 2023 to summer 2024, the Magnificent 7 stocks outperformed small-cap stocks by about 9-to-1. 

But something big has changed since summer 2024. And suddenly, small-cap stocks are crushing their Big Tech competitors. 

Reversing the ���Ҵ�ý Trend

The Magnificent 7 stocks peaked on July 10, 2024. Since that time, they’ve dropped about 1%. Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 is up more than 15%. 

That is, for the first time since this bull market began in late 2022, small-cap stocks are consistently outperforming Big Tech’s previous incumbents. 

That’s a big deal. 

Throughout 2023 and most of 2024, the U.S. economy was propped up by robust AI spending, mostly via Big Tech firms. Those titans were pouring billions upon billions of dollars into developing new AI data centers, chips, chatbots, and more. Of course, all that spending benefitted those Big Tech firms and companies related to them. But it didn’t do much to help everyone else (hence Big Tech stocks’ roughly 9-to-1 outperformance of small caps during that time). 

Now, though, the U.S. economy is expected to strengthen beyond AI in 2025. Thanks to pro-growth policies, rate cuts, and lower inflation, plenty of market observers – including us – think that the economy will improve in 2025 in a manner which benefits companies beyond the scope of AI. 

Call it a small-cap comeback, a U.S. economic revival, or the return of mom-and-pop shops. The result is that small-cap stocks are soaring. 

For the first time in years, the stock market is becoming a “market of the many.”

The Final Word on Small Caps

Now, does this trend reversal mean Big Tech stocks will struggle going forward? We say no; they’ll do just fine. 

Apple (AAPL) has huge upside through its 2025-plus expansion of Apple Intelligence. Meanwhile, Nvidia (NVDA) will likely benefit from huge demand for its new Blackwell AI chips. And Meta (META) should continue to crush it on AI-powered advertising. 

Indeed, Big Tech stocks will remain strong for the foreseeable future. 

But they probably won’t be the strongest stocks going forward. That baton is being passed to the smaller players. 

And in that world, AI stocks are the most enticing to us. That’s because we still think that AI will remain the most dominant theme in the economy for the foreseeable future. 

The investment implication, then, is to look for smaller AI stocks beyond the Big Tech crowd. 

That is exactly what we’re doing right now. 

Check out a few of the most promising AI stocks we’re watching at the moment.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post Small Caps: Unexpected Outperformance Could Drive Gains in a Hurry appeared first on InvestorPlace.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’d like to share my most important investing tips to prime your portfolio to flourish in the coming months. Let’s get right to it.

1. Invest in high margin companies that dominate their business. A company that’s able to expand its operating margins is usually a company that has a dominant position – such as a monopoly – in its industry. This company can raise prices without seeing a drop-off in sales, and that’s a nice place to be, especially in the current inflationary environment.

2. Along these lines, companies that have margin expansion tend to post bigger earnings surprises. This is one reason why I like the oil refiners right now. They have dramatic profit margin expansion and are also profiting from rising natural gas and crude oil prices.

3. Invest in companies with strong forecasted sales and earnings. Do you really want to buy stock in a company that’s expecting its growth to slow? As sales and earnings dwindle, so will Wall Street’s interest in the stock. You want to invest in companies that are expecting to be even bigger and better quarter after quarter. Ultimately, these are the ones that will see an increase in institutional buying pressure. As that buying pressure increases, so will the stock price.

I am a stickler about this in Growth Investor. In this service, Growth Investor stocks are characterized by 23.7% annual sales growth and 506.3% annual earnings growth. Furthermore, my Growth Investor stocks continue to soundly beat the S&P 500 this year by over 2 to 1.

4. Look for companies that see positive analyst revisions in the past three months, as these typically post earnings surprises. If a stock beats Wall Street’s earnings forecast by a significant amount, share prices can rally dramatically. When I find an unsung stock that has regularly performed better than the “experts” have predicted, I recommend it on the premise that it should top expectations again – and see shares surge when it does.

5. If you’re a dividend investor, focus on companies that are consistently raising their dividends. You want to be sure you’re investing in dividend stocks that have the ability to increase their dividend payments. I check this by looking at the company’s last four dividend payments. Are they increasing? Are they decreasing? Are they staying the same? Decreasing dividend payments is a bad sign (it often means the company isn’t doing well), and you want to avoid those stocks.

Where to Invest First

For all investors, old and new, my Stock Grader (subscription required) is a great tool to keep in your back pocket. You simply plug in a stock you like and it will automatically grade that stock for you. An A-rating is a “Strong Buy,” a B-rating a “Buy,” a C-rating a “Hold,” a D-rating a “Sell,” and an F-rating is a “Strong Sell.” You’ll know right away whether the stock you’re interested in is one worth buying or one you shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

If you’re not sure of where to invest, I encourage you to check out Growth Investor. This service is chock-full of fundamentally superior companies across a variety of sectors to ensure that you’re investing in stocks that will “zig” when others “zag” – which will give your portfolio an extra boost when the broader market rallies, as well as protect it if the broader market turns south.

So, the time to position your portfolio is now. Fundamentally superior stocks should benefit from new pension funding in the upcoming weeks and the overall seasonally strong time of year.

My Growth Investor subscribers have the odds in their favor with stocks with phenomenal sales and earnings growth. Join Growth Investor today so you do, too.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ���Ҵ�ý360

The post My 5 Tips to Set Your Portfolio Up for the Long Haul appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Imagine that it’s mid-afternoon on a Thursday, shortly before the closing bell…

The stock you’ve been tracking for weeks reports earnings just after market close, and your indicators are tipping you off that a trade opportunity is at hand.

Although you don’t have a crystal ball, this isn’t a blind gamble. You’ve seen this set up many times before.

Past trades have exploded when certain market conditions have come together, the same ones you’re seeing now: a catalyst event… the expectation of outsized volatility… plenty of volume… lofty expectations…

You check your suite of indicators one more time. They all suggest the same thing: a big move could be coming.

Based on your financial situation, you decide that $1,000 is what you’re comfortable risking. You recognize that if the trade doesn’t go your way, you will lose most or all this $1,000. But you’re okay with that.

A few clicks later in your brokerage account, and voila, you’re in the trade.

It’s an earnings beat. A big one.

You watch as after-hours traders begin piling into the stock. The next day, it seems like all of Wall Street is joining in on the move. By lunch, the stock is up 10%.

But here’s the thing…

You didn’t trade the stock. So, you’re not up 10%…

You traded a two-day option on the stock, so you’re up almost 1,500%.

And your $1,000 speculation from yesterday afternoon?

It’s now worth nearly $15,000…in less than 24 hours.

If you’re less familiar with this type of trade, here’s expert Jonathan Rose from Masters in Trading:

Committing your capital in the morning and taking a massive gain before the end of the day… That’s the promise of what elite traders refer to as 0DTE options.

In simple terms, an 0DTE trade – which stands for zero days to expiration – means that if you buy an option today, it expires by the end of the trading session, making it perfect for profiting from intraday price movements.

Additionally, there are options that expire within one to three days – known as 1DTE, 2DTE, or 3DTE options – giving you a slightly longer window to execute your trades while lowering your exposure to risk.

By hedging your short-term risk and piling into trades at the right time, you can find some of the most powerful opportunities for gains in the stock market.

To illustrate these “powerful opportunities,” let’s return to our example. We based it on data from Bankrate.com which recently crunched the numbers on a zero-day option move.

Here’s Bankrate:

Imagine you can purchase a $20 call option on a $20 stock for $0.10, with the option expiring at the end of the day. The total cost of a single contract is $10, or 100 shares * 1 contract * $0.10.

Then, let’s imagine you buy 10 of these contracts for a total of $100.

The article then provides a table showing the profit and loss for a variety of moves in the underlying stock.

I won’t include it due to copyright issues, but one projection shows that a 10% move in the underlying stock causes the specified zero-day option to explode 1,900% – which is an even greater return than what I suggested from our hypothetical two-day option trade.

Clearly, when a move goes your way, the returns can be huge.

Here’s Jonathan:

I want to help anyone reading this article.

That’s why I’ve put together a special presentation that will help you identify the best opportunities for quick options plays on the market.

Using the system I’ve developed, you’ll not only discover the key to quick, consistent gains trading options… You’ll also understand how trading pros protect their portfolios from market uncertainty by adding upside and downside coverage that allows them to stay nimble whatever the markets throw at them.

Jonathan’s reference to portfolio protection is another great potential benefit of short-term options.

Circling back to our earlier hypothetical, say you already owned the stock that was about to announce earnings.

What if it had become so valuable in your portfolio over the last 24 months that it was now almost enough to fund a down payment on your dream home?

If earnings go your way, the ensuing jump in the stock’s price would likely take you over the top in having enough for that down payment. But if earnings disappoint, it could result in, say, a 15% pullback. That would kneecap your down payment fund, and your dream home would likely slip through your fingers.

In this situation, you could buy short-term options that will soar in value if your stock craters after its earnings report. This would go a long way to protecting your nest egg, keeping your dream home purchase in play.

To be clear, if the stock doesn’t crash due to earnings, you could lose most or all of whatever you spent on those options, but that’s basically like an insurance premium. And a potential spike in the value of the stock itself could more than offset that cost.

Back to Jonathan:

With this presentation, you’ll get a clearer picture of how volatility shapes the options market, and you’ll gain the depth of understanding necessary to execute creative trades based on all the market criteria I’ve outlined above.

Now, one last note…

Why now? Is there any reason why today’s market environment makes learning about options more urgent than other times?

Yes – the likelihood of exaggerated volatility.

With Trump entering the White House and promising tax cuts and deregulation, Wall Street has been getting into “risk on” mode. This is creating lots of big moves in various corners of the market.

Here’s Jonathan:

With a new U.S. administration poised to cut regulations in everything from transportation to financial services – and exert its own influence on the Fed to enact further rate cuts – Wall Street is looking for the best ways to capitalize on a market fueled by an abundance of fiscal stimulus measures.

Now, while this skews more toward “good” volatility – meaning the kind where the markets roar higher, if there’s a misstep (maybe too much inflation, a policy mistake from the Fed, or perhaps a geopolitical Black Swan), then expect plenty of “bad” downward volatility.

Either way, having short-term options in your investment toolkit offers a powerful way to navigate this range of potential volatility while other investors are on their heels.

But consider joining Jonathan tomorrow – click here to instantly sign up – just to learn more and have some of your questions addressed.

You don’t have to make any trades. Just watch one of our industry’s best teachers explain one of today’s most powerful market strategies. You’ll walk away as a more knowledgeable investor, and that’s always a good thing. You can automatically reserve your seat right here.

I’ll let Jonathan take us out:

This is a rare opportunity to learn about a whole approach to options that is driving millions of dollars in trading volume as I write to you. There’s no reason you should miss out on this market phenomenon.

I want to make sure anyone who’s interested has a chance to gain the knowledge to beat the smart money at its own game.

Click here and I’ll see you tomorrow at 11 am ET.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post From $1,000 to $15,000…in a Day appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Hello, Reader.

40% off select models. Up to 70% off clearance. Limit one coupon code per customer.

We’ve been bombarded with Black Friday deals for weeks now. What used to be a one-day-only, in-store event has turned into a month-long celebration of “the best deals of the year.”

So, in the spirit of the week, I’d like to share a relatively cheap and underappreciated AI play that I’ve been watching throughout 2024.

Let’s take a look…

If we were to play a word-association game and I said, “Artificial intelligence,” you might respond with something like “Nvidia,” or “Google,” or maybe “robots.” You probably would not say “Corning.”

But as it turns out, this iconic glassmaker could benefit significantly from the AI boom, as a classic “pick and shovel” play.

For more than 170 years, the Corning Inc. (GLW) name has been synonymous with best-of-breed glass products. It has continuously innovated and set the industry standard for excellence.

Now, the path from AI to Corning is fairly direct and intuitive. AI technologies require enormous processing power from data centers. Because this new source of demand is surging, the companies that operate these “hyperscale” data centers are ramping up their capacity by building new centers and/or boosting the capacity and speed of existing centers.

That means surging demand for the optical fiber and components that Corning produces. Importantly, the growing AI workloads not only require more data centers, but also more fiber optic connections per data center.

According to Corning CEO Wendell Weeks, modern data center systems that rely on Nvidia Corp.’s (NVDA) popular Hopper H100 GPUs require 10 times more fiber optics than a conventional data center server rack.

As Weeks explained on CNBC, “We’ve invented new fibers, new cables, new connectors, and new custom integrated optical solutions to dramatically reduce installation costs, overall time and space, and carbon footprint.”

Therefore, it is easy to see how more data center processing power means “more Corning.” On average, Corning estimates that data centers running AI large language models (LLMs) will require five times more optical connectivity than they have today.

In 2024 alone, these hyperscalers – like Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), and Meta Platforms Inc. (META) – invested about $200 billion in data centers, hardware, and other technologies required to deploy generative AI models.

This massive investment caps a multiyear construction wave that has doubled the total capacity of hyperscale data centers during the last several years, according to Synergy Research Group. Synergy predicts capacity will double again during the next few years, as 120 to 130 new hyperscale centers come online each year.

This building boom is finally showing up on Corning’s order books, with the company citing “strong adoption of our new optical connectivity products for Generative AI.”

Coincident with the data center boom, Corning is seeing trend improvements in its other major end markets, like smartphones. As a result, Weeks believes a $3 billion to $5 billion revenue surge will land on Corning’s income statement over the next two years.

If these expected sales arrive in a timely manner, Corning could earn as much as $3 per share within one year, and $3.50 within two years. At that level of profitability, Corning shares will be trading for 15 times 2026 earnings and just 13 times the 2027 result.

Obviously, this hoped-for revenue surge is not yet in the door. But the trajectory is very promising. If/as/when this revenue does materialize, Corning shares could easily double from the current quote.

So, as tech darlings like Nvidia and Amazon continue to prosper, I would favor the unloved Corning for the next phase of the AI boom.

Now, let’s look at what we covered here at Smart Money this past week…

Smart Money Roundup

Use This Tool to Get Light-Years Ahead of Other Investors

In trading, it’s critical to have a fundamental idea of how the market is performing to help shape our positions. By looking over recent history, we begin to see patterns of behavior we can use to our advantage. Jonathan Rose explains how his systematic approach can act as our investing “Line in the Sand.”

How to Beat the ���Ҵ�ý… Even if You’re Bad at Math 

Traders can take advantage of market makers’ ignorance… if they know how options work. So, let’s take a look at that. Plus, I’ll show you a specific trade opportunity that smart investors might want to investigate further right now. Click here to learn more.

These 24-Hour Stock Plays Aren’t on Anyone’s Radar

Seasonality trends and historical data can help guide your investments, especially in the long term. But there’s more to the market than its past performance. You can’t ignore what’s happening in front of you in the short term, even if the data says otherwise.

Jonathan Rose will show you how to harness extremely short-term options to trade just like institutional investors – all while limiting your exposure to risk and maximizing your potential for gains.

My 5 Tips to Set Your Portfolio Up for the Long Haul

To start the Thanksgiving holiday off early, my InvestorPlace colleague Louis Navellier shares his five tips that you can use to set your portfolio up for success in over the coming months. Continue reading here.

Looking Ahead

Speaking of Black Friday sales, a one-day trade is coming this Black Friday…

The idea of putting on a trade in the morning and closing it out that same day, knowing you could double your money or lose most of it, may either delight or terrify you.

For those in the latter camp, here is why you’ll want to open your mind to the idea of very short-term trading…

Volatility is a new fact of life. Companies are doubling in market cap at a faster rate than ever before. And 24/7 access to trading platforms is encouraging more impulsive decision-making.

What you need to understand is that when you learn to harness the power of volatility, this becomes a wonderful thing.

Jonathan Rose, former CBOE floor trader and market maker, can tell you all about that. He doesn’t try to guess the direction of stocks over a 24-hour period. Rather, he looks for unique setups that pay out if volatility rises. That’s a much easier thing to forecast.

That’s what his One-Day Winners Live Summit – tomorrow, Tuesday, November 26, at 11 a.m. Eastern time –is all about. You can click here to sign up.

Jonathan will tell you everything you need to know to prep for this week’s big trade on Black Friday, from the perspective of a trading veteran with decades of experience.

To sign up for this event, click here.

Regards,

Eric Fry, Smart Money

The post A Black Friday Deal for Your Portfolio appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Two years ago, in a seminal moment for the industry, tech startup OpenAI launched its next-gen chatbot, ChatGPT. That was, after all, the moment that many consider the dawn of the Age of AI. 

But that splashy debut may well have just been OpenAI getting its feet wet.

Now it appears the company is preparing for its ‘second act.’ We think it could be far bigger than its first. And it may even lead OpenAI to become the most important and powerful company in the world. 

That’s because the firm is quickly gaining ground when it comes to artificial general intelligence (AGI), widely considered the endgame for AI development. 

AGI is the top tier of the AI pyramid. As McKinsey & Company explains, it will be able to “replicate human-like cognitive abilities including reasoning, problem solving, perception, learning, and language comprehension.”

“AGI tools could feature cognitive and emotional abilities (like empathy) indistinguishable from those of a human. Depending on your definition of AGI, they might even be capable of consciously grasping the meaning behind what they’re doing.”

Clearly, when this AI breakthrough is achieved, it will be an incredibly big deal, likely reshaping every facet of our daily lives.

And right now, OpenAI is making leaps and bounds toward this near-fantastical future.

Paving the Path to the AI Endgame

The company recently launched a landmark new AI model – ChatGPT o1 – capable of complex reasoning. 

Of course, there are a lot of AI models out there right now. But in terms of structure, intelligence, and capabilities, most are extremely similar. These models – like ChatGPT 4, Gemini, Claude, and Grok – are mostly just chatbots capable of conversational language and not much else. 

These bots can engage in dialogues, answer questions, and perform tasks. But for the most part, their responses are based on pre-programmed scripts and/or simple pattern matching. 

In other words, they aren’t really ‘thinking.’ 

But ChatGPT o1 reportedly thinks. 

It goes beyond simple pattern recognition. ChatGPT o1 can engage in logical thinking, make inferences, understand cause-and-effect relationships, and solve problems by applying principles or rules learned during training. As such, it can go beyond just helping us automate tasks and, instead, help us to solve hard problems. 

In fact, in its introduction of this new model, OpenAI claimed, “o1 can be used by healthcare researchers to annotate cell sequencing data, by physicists to generate complicated mathematical formulas needed for quantum optics, and by developers in all fields to build and execute multi-step workflows.”

This is a massive achievement in AI development. And the results appear stunning. 

Each week, the TrackingAI project provides IQ quizzes to a variety of AI models. Most models out there right now – like ChatGPT 4, Llama 3.1, Claude, Grok, and Bing Copilot – score around 80 to 90 on those IQ tests. 

The average human IQ is around 100. Therefore, current AI models are slightly less ‘intelligent’ than the average human. 

But ChatGPT o1 scored a 124 on TrackingAI’s IQ test.

That is almost 50% better than most other AI models. And it is just below the threshold for genius – an IQ above 130 – which is reserved for just 2% of the human population. 

In other words, ChatGPT o1’s complex reasoning breakthrough looks like a leapfrog forward in AI development. 

The Final Word

This groundbreaking development puts OpenAI one massive step closer to achieving AGI. 

Maybe that’s why the company was just looking to raise billions of dollars at a lofty valuation of $150 billion – and why so many rushed to participate in that funding round. 

Indeed, as of October 2024, Microsoft has invested $13 billion in the startup. Nvidia has sunk a lot of cash into the firm as well, to the tune of $100 million. 

Perhaps these companies see the writing on the wall – that ChatGPT o1 puts OpenAI at the front of the pack when it comes to achieving AGI. 

Though, in fact, this game-changing model isn’t even the only bullish development going on behind the scenes for OpenAI of late.

We recently learned that the Microsoft-backed firm is exploring the possibility of entering the web browser market to compete with Google Chrome. Its proposed browser would combine its powerful AI capabilities with traditional browsing features. Such an engine would likely reshape consumer expectations of what a web browser can do – and pave a clear path for a truly web-connected AGI.

And, believe it or not, we think OpenAI’s potential ascent toward ‘AGI creator’ will create huge tailwinds for Apple. 

Find out why – and how to profit from it.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post OpenAI Races Toward AGI with its New Breakthrough Model 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

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

The post Weekly Upgrades and Downgrades appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Many of you will know that I am a relatively conservative investor. I pay close attention to a company’s long-term profitability, and to me, cash flow is king. There’s nothing wrong with earning 10% dividends from a high-quality stock. 

But sometimes, growth is so obvious that it’s hard to ignore. In February, I noted that Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) should be worth a split-adjusted $160 by 2027. It’s since doubled in price from $72 to $144.  

And the excitement surrounding Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) in 2021 was so bananas that I suggested throwing in $500 just to see where the $0.10 crypto would go. (The answer was $0.64.) 

Some have even made careers from these high-volatility bets. Jonathan Rose, our options expert colleague at Masters in Trading, has generated profits of 16%… 48%… 156%… 545%… even 1,306%… all within six-and-a-half-hour periods. He does this by trading options that are expiring today, rather than those expiring a year or more from now. These “zero-day options” are some of the fastest-growing segments of financial markets today. 

And the astonishing thing is that he trades these moonshots while limiting his downside risk. 

Jonathan just kicked off a four-day free Strategy Summit… and it’s not too late to join in. Tomorrow’s session, at 11 a.m. ET, includes LIVE market analysis.  

And in the live grand finale session on Tuesday, he’ll reveal his entire five-step strategy to finding those one-day winners. These sessions are free to attend.  

To access them all – including the grand finale session on Tuesday – simply register here. 

The Equity Stub 

Some firms are risky because they’re a tiny equity stub built on top of a mountain of debt. If a company has just $1 of equity for every $4 of debt, every 10% increase in enterprise value will raise stock prices by 50%. 

That’s the situation Sabre Corp. (SABR) now finds itself in. 

The highly indebted firm is one of the world’s three operators of the Global Distribution System (GDS), the computerized network that links airline and hotel reservations all together. It’s how websites like Google Flights and Kayak can “see” flight availability in real time. Even airlines use the GDS system to help book stranded passengers onto rival carriers. 

On the positive side for Sabre, there’s no good alternative to the GDS system. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) rolled out a rival product a decade ago, but their decentralized system turned out to be far too slow. (It needed to contact every airline each time someone tried to book a flight.) That’s allowed GDS companies to operate with enormous profit margins with virtually no competition. 

However, in the mid-2000s, private equity firms decided they could do even better. By leveraging up companies like Sabre with debt, they thought they could earn high returns on the GDS business, pay back low interest rates, and profit from the difference. 

It worked for a while… and then the Covid-19 pandemic came. 

Virtually overnight, Sabre’s shares went from the $20-$30 range into the single digits. It continues to trade at $3.60 today, with a now-smaller profit pool being eaten up by ruinously high interest payments. 

That’s where my first “moonshot” bet comes in. 

We know that travel is coming back. According to the IATA, air travel flipped back above its pre-Covid levels earlier this year and is set to surge another 8% in 2025. Figures from Sabre also show an increase of booking revenues, with total sales up almost threefold since 2020. 

The company is now on track to covering its $500 million annual interest payments. Analysts expect Sabre will generate $86 million in net income next year (after interest), compared to a $57 million loss in 2024.  

This opens the door to even greater gains down the road. Sabre could use its newfound profitability to repay maturing debts and refinance others on better terms. We also know that flipping from negative profits to positive is a historically bullish sign, and Sabre is on track to do exactly that. 

Three Turnarounds 

Meanwhile, other moonshots are attractive because they present turnaround opportunities for 2025. Here are three companies with that kind of potential… 

1. Stratasys Ltd. (SSYS) is a Minnesota-based a leader in 3D printing. Over the past five years, it has snapped up other top players like RPS for stereolithography, XAAR for powder-based printing, and others to grow its technological lead.  

Stratasys’s flagship F3300 printer is now one of the fastest machines in its price class, and analysts expect 2024 to be a down year before a significant return to growth. Net profits are expected to surge tenfold to $26 million next year. 

The threat of 20% across-the-board tariffs could send that figure even higher. If President Donald Trump does implement steep import barriers, many American manufacturers would suddenly find themselves forced to buy domestically produced parts. Stratasys remains far more profitable than its chief rival, 3D Systems Corp, (DDD), and we know from history that it pays to buy the best when turnarounds are underway. 

2. Evolv Technologies Holdings Inc. (EVLV) saw shares plummet 50% this fall after the security company announced an internal investigation into its accounting practices. Several high-profile managers had inappropriately logged revenues, resulting in $4 million to $6 million of sales being recorded too early. 

This now presents a compelling opportunity to invest in one of America’s top moonshot bets. 

Evolv is a Massachusetts-based firm that builds AI-powered scanning “gates” that detect hidden weapons. Hundreds of stadiums, schools, and event spaces already use Evolv’s products, and they are far faster than traditional metal detectors because users can simply walk through without taking metal items out of their pockets. Evolv uses millimeter-wave technologies similar to those currently used by airports. 

The potential for new gun-friendly laws now creates a significant opportunity for growth. The Trump administration will likely challenge various states’ conceal-carry bans, and the greater prevalence of hidden weapons will increase demand for Evolv’s products.  

The company is also currently testing its products with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). If approved for commercial airport use, that could become an unexpected windfall. 

3. UiPath Inc. (PATH). Shares of this AI firm have fallen 83% since going public in 2021 on fears of slowing growth and significant management turnover. The company’s success during the Covid-19 work-from-home boom failed to repeat during more “normal” periods. 

However, analysts now forecast a return to accelerating growth in calendar 2025. Companies are being increasingly pressured to save money using AI, and UiPath’s products are recognized by experts as being top tier. Gartner calls UiPath the leading visionary of business automation. 

The growth trend will likely accelerate through 2025 as AI begins to become “smarter” than the average person. OpenAI’s latest “o1-preview” model recently surpassed humans on the IQ test, and these innovations will create greater demands for UiPath’s suite of automation products. No matter how smart AI gets, enterprises will need firms like UiPath to help implement these tools. 

Betting on Volatility 

Finally, we all know that incoming president Donald Trump is a disruptor. The Washington outsider spent his first term shaking up the status quo. To the delight of his fans and the horror of his critics, Trump has promised more of the same for his second term. 

That creates an incredible amount of uncertainty around highly regulated businesses, particularly healthcare. 

Consider Pfizer Inc. (PFE), a company that our global macro specialist, Eric Fry, recently recommended his Fry’s Investment Report members sell. That came after Donald Trump put forward Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).   

As I noted earlier this week: 

The drugmaker earns a quarter of its revenues from Covid-19 vaccines and therapies, making it one of the most vaccine-exposed companies in the pharma industry. RFK Jr. is a well-known vaccine skeptic, and Eric rightly doesn’t want to stick around to see what happens next.  

On the other hand, even Trump’s greatest critics will acknowledge that many of his intended policies will be good for healthcare stocks. This includes repealing the Medicare negotiation provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, reducing Federal Trade Commission oversight of mergers and acquisitions among corporations, lowering corporate taxes, and more. 

Either way, we know that Pfizer won’t trade in its $25 range forever. By 2026, it likely will have either shot the moon or crashed to Earth. 

To benefit from this uncertainty, traders look into at-the-market 2026 Pfizer straddles – an options strategy that will pay off if PFE shares move outside of a $19.50-$30.50 range by January 2026. If PFE shares rise to $35 as they did during Trump’s first term, traders will see a 100% payoff. And if the stock dips to $15, then traders also get a 100% profit. (A straddle can also pay off before 2026 if volatility rises far enough.) 

The best part is that these straddles are currently trading for cheap, thanks to low market volatility. The VIX Index has dropped a quarter since the election, bringing down the cost of 2026 straddles from the $7 to $9 range to just $5.50.

A Way for Even Faster Gains 

Of course, not everyone will enjoy waiting around for the next year for Pfizer straddles to mature or 3D printing firms to turn around. Trump isn’t set to take office until January, and we won’t know the administration’s policies for several more months after that. 

That’s why I think it’s essential to sign up for these free presentations by Jonathan Rose, where he outlines his strategy for profiting from zero-day options. 

According to JPMorgan Chase, around $1 trillion zero-day options now exchange hands daily. 

And when we start seeing that kind of money flow into a specific corner of the market – it should pique our interest. Because these areas tend to be where you find the most dramatic gains. 

Of course, these big potential rewards come with equally big perils. And that’s why you need a proven game plan that manages the downside risk while leaving the door open for upside gains. 

On Tuesday, November 26, Jonathan will complete his free masterclass with hosting his One-Day Winners Live Summit to show how his system works. You can click here now to reserve your spot. 

During this masterclass, Jonathan will show you how you could’ve used these trades to TRIPLE your money from Donald Trump’s election victory… in less than seven hours. 

Indeed, when it comes to options, our colleague Jonathan is the master of money flows. His 25-plus-year career trajectory, from floor trader to CBOE market maker to trading mentor, is a testament to the power of understanding these flows – including winners of 126%, 245%, even 463% or more, often in 30 days or less. 

So, there’s no one I’d rather have you hear from when it comes to the exploding market for zero-day options. 

Once again, on Tuesday, November 26, Jonathan is hosting his urgent summit on this brand-new moneymaking strategy. It is completely free to attend.  

Just click here now to reserve your spot. 

Regards,

Thomas Yeung

���Ҵ�ýs 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 Moonshot Stocks to Buy for 2025  appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Just a few short months ago, on Sept. 9, Apple launched its first-ever iPhone built for AI: the iPhone 16. Initial reception has been mixed. Some folks loved the updated camera and new capabilities. Others think the new phone lacks that ‘wow’ factor. 

Though, in our view, this will be a device that helps to change the world over the next 12 months. 

That’s not because of the better camera, new action buttons, or extended battery life. 

Rather, our excitement stems from the major AI software update recently released on Oct. 28. 

I’m talking, of course, about Apple Intelligence. 

Back in June, Apple unveiled this new signature AI software. The whole idea behind it? To leverage the vast amount of data folks produce by interacting with their iPhone each day – and train an AI on all that data to create hyper-personalized virtual assistants built into every iPhone. 

We love that concept. 

Imagine your iPhone being equipped with a custom AI tailored specifically to your needs and wants. It would know your favorite restaurants, what sports you follow, what news feeds you read, how you craft emails and texts, what music you listen to, what shows you watch, and more. It would know everything about you.

And with this broad understanding, it could help you do nearly anything. 

Creating a Powerful and Truly Useful AI

Having trouble picking a restaurant for Friday date night? Maybe you’re not sure what movie to settle on, or you’re struggling to find new music you like. Perhaps you just crafted an email to your boss, but you want to make some edits, and you’re not sure where to start.

Just let your Apple Intelligence AI help you. 

We see this as the future of AI. And it’s a future that Apple is uniquely positioned to create. 

Why? Well, just think about all the data your iPhone collects on you every day. Your Spotify or Apple Music streams, YouTube views, news feeds, messages – all of it, every single day. Apple has all the personal data in the world necessary to create profound, hyper-personalized AI. 

But data is just half the equation when it comes to creating great AI. 

Indeed, mighty AI is like a car – it needs a powerful engine and a lot of fuel. Apple has vast amounts of data, which means it has plenty of fuel. But it doesn’t have a great engine. 

That’s where OpenAI comes into play. 

The company behind ChatGPT has arguably the greatest AI models in the world. In fact, it just launched a brand-new model – ChatGPT o1 – that is capable of complex reasoning, a first for any AI. 

OpenAI has the best ‘engine,’ if you will, in the AI Race. 

And that best engine is now coupling with the best data in Apple Intelligence. 

That is, Apple is teaming up with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT into the Apple Intelligence ecosystem. The two will natively integrate ChatGPT into every iPhone. 

Between Apple’s data and OpenAI’s models, we think Apple Intelligence could very well live up to the hype. In fact, we think it will exceed the hype. 

Given the iPhone’s global proliferation, Apple Intelligence will likely serve as an “on-ramp,” allowing most folks to incorporate AI into their everyday lives on a brand-new level. 

And that AI will launch within the next few weeks. 

The Final Word on Apple Intelligence

Oddly enough, Apple didn’t launch Apple Intelligence with the iPhone 16. 

The 16 was available in stores on Friday, Sept. 20. Apple Intelligence became partially available alongside the iOS 18.1 software update, ready to download as of Oct. 28.

That means that while Apple’s latest device has been around for the past month, the ‘real’ new iPhone has just arrived.

And in our view, Apple Intelligence will be what makes the iPhone sensational. 

We predict that it will shock the world – and significantly impact both Apple stock as well as the firm’s supplier and partner stocks. 

So, if you’re looking to take a strong position in the AI Boom, we think a great strategy right now is to buy some top-tier Apple supplier and partner stocks.

And as it happens, we’ve got some strong contenders on our ‘buy’ list.

Check out a few verified and rumored suppliers that we have our sights on right now.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post Apple Intelligence: Redefining AI With the Ultimate Assistant appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Take it away, Louis…

Thanksgiving is just a few days away, and I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to spending the extra time with family and friends, eating turkey and watching a little football.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’d like to share my most important investing tips to prime your portfolio to flourish in the coming months. Let’s get right to it.

1. Invest in high margin companies that dominate their business. A company that’s able to expand its operating margins is usually a company that has a dominant position – such as a monopoly – in its industry. This company can raise prices without seeing a drop-off in sales, and that’s a nice place to be, especially in the current inflationary environment.

2. Along these lines, companies that have margin expansion tend to post bigger earnings surprises. This is one reason why I like the oil refiners right now. They have dramatic profit margin expansion and are also profiting from rising natural gas and crude oil prices.

3. Invest in companies with strong forecasted sales and earnings. Do you really want to buy stock in a company that’s expecting its growth to slow? As sales and earnings dwindle, so will Wall Street’s interest in the stock. You want to invest in companies that are expecting to be even bigger and better quarter after quarter. Ultimately, these are the ones that will see an increase in institutional buying pressure. As that buying pressure increases, so will the stock price.

I am a stickler about this in Growth Investor. In this service, Growth Investor stocks are characterized by 23.7% annual sales growth and 506.3% annual earnings growth. Furthermore, my Growth Investor stocks continue to soundly beat the S&P 500 this year by over 2 to 1.

4. Look for companies that see positive analyst revisions in the past three months, as these typically post earnings surprises. If a stock beats Wall Street’s earnings forecast by a significant amount, share prices can rally dramatically. When I find an unsung stock that has regularly performed better than the “experts” have predicted, I recommend it on the premise that it should top expectations again – and see shares surge when it does.

5. If you’re a dividend investor, focus on companies that are consistently raising their dividends. You want to be sure you’re investing in dividend stocks that have the ability to increase their dividend payments. I check this by looking at the company’s last four dividend payments. Are they increasing? Are they decreasing? Are they staying the same? Decreasing dividend payments is a bad sign (it often means the company isn’t doing well), and you want to avoid those stocks.

Where to Invest First

For all investors, old and new, my Stock Grader (subscription required) is a great tool to keep in your back pocket. You simply plug in a stock you like and it will automatically grade that stock for you. An A-rating is a “Strong Buy,” a B-rating a “Buy,” a C-rating a “Hold,” a D-rating a “Sell,” and an F-rating is a “Strong Sell.” You’ll know right away whether the stock you’re interested in is one worth buying or one you shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

If you’re not sure of where to invest, I encourage you to check out Growth Investor. This service is chock-full of fundamentally superior companies across a variety of sectors to ensure that you’re investing in stocks that will “zig” when others “zag” – which will give your portfolio an extra boost when the broader market rallies, as well as protect it if the broader market turns south.

So, the time to position your portfolio is now. Fundamentally superior stocks should benefit from new pension funding in the upcoming weeks and the overall seasonally strong time of year.

My Growth Investor subscribers have the odds in their favor with stocks with phenomenal sales and earnings growth. Join Growth Investor today so you do, too.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ���Ҵ�ý 360

P.S. Seasonal trends can help guide your investments, especially in the long-term – but there’s more to the market than its past performance.

Few people believe this as much as Jonathan Rose, lead analyst at our corporate partner Masters in Trading. After spending 25 years learning his craft on the Chicago trading floors and inside private investment firms, Jonathan now offers up live trading ideas, market commentary, and trading education each morning. And he’s been working on something special.

Jonathan has been studying the day-to-day movements of the market – and he’s ready to debut a new tool to help his growing community of traders capitalize on short-term opportunities.

Next week, on Nov. 26, Jonathan will be going live to share his findings and teach you all about his new options-trading strategy. You won’t want to miss it – and you might not have a second chance to watch.

Click here to reserve your spot – and get ready to see how the Masters in Trading handle the market.

The post My 5 Tips to Set Your Portfolio Up for the Long Haul appeared first on InvestorPlace.

The market optimism spurred by Trump’s election is already starting to fade.

Investors greeted Trump’s election victory, as well as the sweep of Congress, with enthusiasm. Promises about deregulation, pro-business policies and tax cuts made investors anxious to get into market gains early.

The exuberance is waning as folks remember we still have a lot unresolved.

The across-the-board tariffs Trump promised are potentially inflationary. The geopolitical environment seems to be getting more unstable.

Plus, the market is expensive. The forward price to earnings ratio for the S&P right now is sitting at 23.88. That’s not the highest it has ever been, but it’s certainly not cheap.

Recent data from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) supports the bearish turn. If you’re not familiar, every week AAII, an association of mostly retail investors, asks its members a simple question: Are you bullish, neutral or bearish?

Here are the highlights from their latest data, released Thursday:

• Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, decreased 8.6 percentage points to 41.3%.
• Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, increased 3.7 percentage points to 25.5%.
• Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, increased 4.9 percentage points to 33.2%.
• Bearish sentiment is above its historical average of 31.0% for the first time in 10 weeks.

The Cost of Everything

Adding to the unease may be that everyday expenses haven’t stopped rising.

For example, you might have seen the photo of President-elect Trump enjoying McDonald’s with Elon Musk, J.D. Vance and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The picture reminded me that the cost of a McDonald’s cheeseburger has risen 150% since 2019.

Holiday shoppers are feeling the pinch too. According to pickyourownchristmastree.com, the median cost of a real Christmas tree was $76 in 2019. By 2022, that cost had risen to $93. Costs went up another 10% in 2023 and increases of 5% to 15% are expected this year. 

Playing Offense in an Expensive ���Ҵ�ý

I hope you’ve been able to take advantage of the bull market the last two years. As I write Friday morning, the S&P 500 is up 24% for the year.

If the current gains hold through the end of the year, 2024 will close with gains of more than 20%. And since 2023 finished with gains of 26%, this would be the first time the S&P 500 will have had gains of more than 20% in consecutive years since 1998 and 1999. The chart below shows the S&P’s gains since January 2023.

If you’ve been invested during the last two years, these gains might at least help ease the sting of a more expensive hamburger, or Christmas tree.

But there are other ways to extract cash from the market without waiting for two years. In fact, in some cases you don’t have to wait more than two days. And it doesn’t always require taking extreme risks.

A Method for Quick Gains

Regular Digest readers are familiar with Jonathan Rose, the analyst behind our Masters in Trading franchise. For newer readers, Jonathan’s credentials are impressive.

He was a professional trader for more than 16 years and traded in the pits on some of the biggest exchanges in the world, such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

He earned millions in the market before turning his attention to mentoring others. He has trained more than 100 professional traders. Now, in his Masters in Trading franchise, he helps teach retail investors how to trade the markets for profits while effectively managing risk.

On Tuesday at 11 a.m., at the One-Day Winners Summit, Jonathan is going to host a live demonstration of his new five-step strategy that can deliver triple-digit gains in just a few days – and it only takes two tickers to get started.

During the session, he’ll reveal the results of a months-long beta test and demonstrate the tools he uses to detect when the conditions are just right for executing these trades … and he’ll be doing it all live! You can sign up here to reserve your spot for the One-Day Winners Summit.

The holiday season means a lot of good cheer – and a lot of spending. It can be a stark reminder that everything in our lives is more expensive than it was four years ago.

Whether Trump’s policies bring prices down remains to be seen. In the meantime, you owe it to yourself and your financial goals to learn how to trade and get the most profits from the market without waiting months or years for a meaningful return.

You can start Tuesday at 11 a.m. at the One-Day Winners Live Summit. It’s free to attend and you can sign up here to reserve your spot.

Enjoy your weekend,

Luis Hernandez

Editor in Chief, InvestorPlace

The post ���Ҵ�ý Optimism Wanes: How to Stay Ahead appeared first on InvestorPlace.

They’re happening rapidly, so it’s tough to keep up with them all. And, of course, some of them are quite controversial.

There’s one pick, however, that has flown relatively under the radar compared to others. But for those who are watching, it sends a clear message about what Trump plans to do in his second term. And, as I’ll explain in a moment, there’s a way we can prepare to profit.

I’m talking about Chris Wright, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Energy.

You see, the mainstream press isn’t telling the full story about this pick. I even saw one derogatory headline referring to Wright as Trump’s pick for “fracker-in-chief.”

If you look a little deeper, you’ll see Wright isn’t just some just some run-of-the-mill oilman caricature.

He’s a pioneer in the fracking industry. Currently chairman and CEO of Liberty Energy Inc. (LBRT), Wright has also founded a number of other successful energy ventures.

A self-described “tech nerd turned entrepreneur,” Wright holds a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He’s also passionately articulated why he thinks the world needs more hydrocarbon energy for humanity to flourish, not less.

He also holds a stake in Oklo Inc. (OKLO), a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) company. Some experts see SMRs as the “next big step” in making safe, reliable, clean and cheap nuclear power available at scale.

So, while there will certainly be plenty of “drill baby drill” under a new Trump administration (and with Wright leading the charge, if he’s confirmed), it’s pretty clear there’s more to the story here.

Now why do I bring this up?

I believe Trump wants to ramp up energy production. This, in turn, would help bring gas prices back down and lower the cost of goods for everyday Americans.

But a major reason that’s not getting near enough attention is that he wants to support the current AI Boom.

One of the Biggest Problems with AI Right Now…

The AI Boom is starting to encounter a major roadblock. There isn’t enough energy for the data centers that power AI.  

Most existing data centers that were around up until a couple of years ago just weren’t big or powerful enough.

So, tech companies are building a new type of data center.

This is where the hyperscale data center comes in. Basically, we’re talking about a massive data center – at least 10,000 square feet and with at least 5,000 servers. But some are much bigger than that.

And as you can imagine, they use a lot of energy. Just one facility can use 150 megawatts of power – enough to power a large city.

All of the data processing means hyperscale data centers use more electricity than almost any building ever built.

That’s created an enormous headache for utility firms, data centers, and energy providers. As more people turn to AI, these providers are suddenly facing surging demand that could threaten the stability of power grids.

According to estimates, the average hyperscale data center could use between 20 and 50 megawatt-hours (MWh) per year.

With thousands of data centers spread across the U.S., and hundreds more steadily coming online, the overall power consumption by 2030 is expected to reach 35 gigawatts (GW).

That’s more than double what they were using in 2022. 

And with only 54 such facilities in the U.S., there simply isn’t enough power to meet the demands of society AND the AI Boom.

The Best Way to Meet the Energy Demand

As I explained in a previous ���Ҵ�ý 360, the immense demands of AI data centers mean they need a reliable base-load power source that can provide electricity consistently, regardless of external conditions (like weather or time of day).

I predict we will meet most of this demand with natural gas turbines.

It’s the only current source that is widely available, relatively clean – and most important of all, cheap. So, within the context of the AI Boom, natural gas just makes common sense.

Of course, there are coal plants that still produce energy… but they have limited lifespans, and many are reaching the end of them. For example, there’s a coal plant in Kansas that’s running longer than it was intended or designed just to help meet the current grid demands.

With more hyperscalers coming online, these outdated plants have no chance.

But…

We have more than 625 trillion cubic feet of natural gas under the ground in America – ready to consume. That’s enough gas to produce 30 gigawatts… for the next 2.7 billion years… at an extremely low cost.

I believe Trump, as soon as he takes office, is going to make sure we can access all that stored energy.

I expect one of his first acts as president will be to sign an emergency executive order on energy.

He’ll roll back all of the environmental regulations President Joe Biden slapped on the industry.

He’ll instruct Wright to marshal the power of the Department of Energy to open the spigot on American energy production.

He’ll open more land and sea for oil and natural gas drilling, as well as build more natural gas infrastructure. I should also add that nuclear is on the table, too, but that will take some time.

This, in turn, will provide hyperscale data centers with the energy they need to support AI.

How You Can Profit

Once Trump opens the floodgates on energy production, I expect demand for these data centers to explode… and investors need to position themselves now.

I explain everything you need to know in this special presentation.

You’ll learn:

• Why I think we’re on the cusp of a Second AI Boom
• My prediction for how President Trump will ignite it within his first 100 days in office
• And the six stocks I’ve pinpointed that could benefit the most.

Go here to get all the details now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ���Ҵ�ý360

P.S. My colleague Jonathan Rose just showed me some impressive research he is preparing for his upcoming Masters in Trading training series.

Starting today, he’s going to pull back the curtain on one of the most exciting trading strategies that is taking the world by storm.

In fact, he’ll show you how you could’ve used these trades to TRIPLE your money from Donald Trump’s election victory… in less than seven hours.

From floor trader to CBOE market maker to trading mentor, Jonathan’s 25-plus-year career is a testament to the power of understanding some of the market’s most powerful trading strategies. And it’s allowed him to rack up winners of 126%, 245%, even 463% or more, often in 30 days or less.

So, if you’re curious at all to know more, I invite you to attend Jonathan’s urgent summit on this brand-new money-making strategy. It’s completely free to attend. Just click here now to reserve your spot.

The post How Trump Could Solve One of AI’s Biggest Problems – And How to Profit… appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Editor’s Note: Seasonality trends and historical data can help guide your investments, especially in the long term – but there’s more to the market than its past performance. You can’t ignore what’s happening in front of you in the short term, even if the data says otherwise.

Few people know this as well as my colleague Jonathan Rose. He’s the lead analyst at our corporate partner Masters in Trading. After spending 25 years learning his craft on the Chicago trading floors and inside private investment firms, Jonathan now offers up live trading ideas, market commentary, and trading education each morning. And he’s been working on something perhaps even more special over the past few months.
Jonathan has been studying the day-to-day movements of the market – and he’s ready to debut a new tool to help his growing community of traders capitalize on short-term opportunities.

On Tuesday, November 26th at 11 a.m. Eastern, he’ll be going LIVE to share his findings and teach you all about his new options-trading strategy (sign up here). You won’t want to miss it – and because this is live, you might not have a second chance to watch.

It’s completely free to attend. And you can sign up here to reserve your spot now.

Now, let me turn things over to Jonathan, who will tell you a little more about himself and the trading patterns he has discovered…

The biggest money-making opportunities in the stock market often happen when investors’ backs are turned. In fact, they come so fast – and are so under-the-radar – that they’re usually gone before everyday folks even know they exist.

I should know… When I worked on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), it was my job to help institutional investors execute the kind of market-making options plays that drive generational wealth for only a select few.

And back then, I helped those same investors capitalize on a singular market phenomenon that sparked a whole earnings spree on the Street.

Back in March 2020 – right as the COVID-19 pandemic kicked into high gear and sparked a market wide panic – the smart money was placing all of its bets on volatility.

In a single day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2,997 points. In a testament to just how unpredictable the markets were, that same index managed to gain over 2,000 points just a few days later.

I was on the floor right in the middle of it all. It was pure insanity… And for institutional traders, it was extremely lucrative.

Among the CBOE Global ���Ҵ�ýs’ four options exchanges, nearly 12 million contracts traded hands per day as the markets seesawed throughout March.

The smart money absolutely had the market cornered on quick options plays that yielded double- and triple-digit gainers in less than 72 hours… and often in just under 24 – all without holding trades for days or weeks.

Today, these quick options trades make up nearly half of the daily volume of S&P 500 index options. That’s up from 17% in 2020 – back when the trend was still one of the market’s best-kept secrets.

Short-volatility trades like these can help us capture gains that are rarely possible with regular stocks…

And while the smart money has maintained a stranglehold on this powerful tool for years…  I’m here to tell you that you too can harness extremely short-term options to trade just like institutional investors – all while limiting your exposure to risk and maximizing your potential for gains.

The Power of Short-Volatility Trading

Committing your capital in the morning and taking a massive gain before the end of the day… That’s the promise of what elite traders refer to as 0DTE options.

In simple terms, an 0DTE trade – which stands for zero days to expiration –means thatif you buy an option today, it expires by the end of the trading session, making it perfect for profiting from intraday price movements.

Additionally, there are options that expire within one to three days – known as 1DTE, 2DTE, or 3DTE options – giving you a slightly longer window to execute your trades while lowering your exposure to risk.

By hedging your short-term risk and piling into trades at the right time, you can find some of the most powerful opportunities for gains in the stock market.

Consider this…

When the Nasdaq popped 2% back on Sept. 19, you could have made 344%, 1,402%, or even 1,788% and more with this kind of trade. With those kinds of gains, you could have turned a $500 stake into $2,220, $7,510 or $9,440 – all in just a few hours.

Extremely short-term options trades provide us the tools to maximize our potential gains like no single stock play can.

And as I mentioned, these powerful tools have been hiding in plain sight for years. So right now, I’m sure there’s one question you’re asking yourself…

How do I discover these short-term options plays in the first place?

Where the Smart Money Treads

To harness the power of short-volatility trading, we have to think like institutional investors do – and that means using the same tools at their disposal.

The reality is, the smart money relies on a whole series of indicators that help predict the weather in the stock market, so to speak… And they’re the sorts of tools that I regularly track to bring powerful recommendations to my own readers.

For options traders, looking for unusual moves in the market is essential. So we keep an eye on the major volatility indicators out there, especially the 1-day (VIX1D) and 9-day (VIX9D) indices… The VIN and VIF provide a broader view of how volatility might shift in the longer term as well.

We subscribe to a simple rule here…

If short-term volatility is rising while longer-term volatility remains low, this usually signifies a short-lived but significant spike in volatility. That’s typically what we need to see to execute the perfect short-term trade.

Of course, it’s not enough to just study a few indices and charts. In extremely short-term volatility options trading, education always mitigates risk.

Everything I’ve told you about single- and multi-day options trading will provide the foundation for you to start dipping your toes into the possibilities of short-volatility setups.

But I want us all to dig a little deeper… To truly understand how powerful these options plays are, we need to understand how to trade volatility rather than direction. That means developing a mindset for consistently spotting where the best opportunities for these trades exist in the markets.

And I want to help anyone reading this article do exactly that…

That’s why I’ve put together a special presentation that will help you identify the best opportunities for quick options plays on the market.

Using the system I’ve developed, you’ll not only discover the key to quick, consistent gains trading options… You’ll also understand how trading pros protect their portfolios from market uncertainty by adding upside and downside coverage that allows them to stay nimble whatever the markets throw at them.

With this presentation, you’ll get a clearer picture of how volatility shapes the options market, and you’ll gain the depth of understanding necessary to execute creative trades based on all the market criteria I’ve outlined above.

This is a rare opportunity to learn about a whole approach to options that is driving millions of dollars in trading volume as I write to you. There’s no reason you should miss out on this market phenomenon.

I’m hosting a special edition of my Masters in Trading Live on Nov. 26 to go over all of this in more detail… And I want to make sure anyone who’s interested has a chance to gain the knowledge to beat the smart money at its own game.

So, click here to reserve your spot.

Remember, the creative trader wins.

Jonathan Rose

Founder, Masters in Trading

The post These 24-Hour Stock Plays Aren’t on Anyone’s Radar appeared first on InvestorPlace.

We think the combination of pro-growth policies, still-low inflation, continuing rate cuts, and AI-driven economic tailwinds will propel stocks broadly higher in 2025.

That comes from our hypergrowth expert Luke Lango.

Of the variables Luke identified, we’re focused on “pro-growth policies.”

That’s because they have the best chance of mitigating the biggest threat to your portfolio value in 2025 – reinflation.

Looking at the data, it’s easy to agree with her.

The last handful of months of core PCE inflation (the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge) have been flat or slightly higher on a month-to-month basis:

May: 0.1%

June: 0.2%

July: 0.2%

August: 0.2%

September: 0.3%.

(The October reading arrives next week.)

The Fed isn’t going to raise rates to deal with this. We’ve begun a rate-cutting cycle, and a U-turn now – even the hint of a U-turn – would be like tossing a grenade into the economy.

If we want to help hurting Main Street America… and ease lofty stock valuations via real earnings growth… and offset inflation … then the answer is simple:

Grow like crazy.

Specifically, outgrow inflation.

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers had a great one-liner when asked about any advice he’d give President-elect Trump:

We need to be able to build, baby, build in the United States.

Here’s more from ���Ҵ�ýWatch:

[Summers] argued there were too many barriers to constructing data centers, energy production facilities and electricity transmission systems to help power the AI revolution and new green technologies.

“These are potentially complex and risky technologies, and the government needs to, less by law than by moral force, establish close connections where real experts within government who are closely monitoring and following developments” in the sector, he said.

From Thomson Reuters:

President-Elect Trump has the potential to impact a wide range of policy provisions, from the economy to a raft of regulatory rules and directives…

The regulatory landscape under Trump is also expected to see significant shifts. Deregulation would be a key theme, affecting sectors from energy to finance…

As we discussed in the Digest at the start of the week, in a rosy scenario, Trump tax cuts and deregulation increases demand for goods and services… business investment increases… hiring increases… wage growth increases… so, overall productivity skyrockets. 

No, prices wouldn’t come down (they’re entrenched at this point). They might even climb again. But in this ideal hypothetical, growth-based wages and economic opportunities will rise to offset higher prices and inflation, and then some. So, the net, felt effect is positive.

But for this to happen, it’s all about growth. That’s how we spike the punchbowl and keep this party going in 2025.

For a sense of this, let’s turn to Eric Fry’s lead analyst in Investment Report, Thomas Yeung:

[The result of the run-up in the market] has been a surge in average valuations – a fact Eric and I have been highlighting over the past several weeks.

The Shiller PE Ratio, which averages earnings over a 10-year business cycle, now sits at 37.0, its highest level since the heady days of 2021.

When the Shiller PE Ratio was last at this level in December 2021, stocks tumbled 19% over the following year.

The Shiller PE has climbed since Thomas wrote this. As I write Friday, it’s up to 37.95.

The chart below, dating to 1860, will give you some context for how extreme this level is.

Will Trump’s pro-growth policies create an earnings explosion that gently lets the air out of this overinflated balloon? We’ll find out beginning next year.

If not, today’s lofty valuation increases the likelihood of volatility – stocks roar on good news but drop sharply on not-so-good news.

Now, while such an environment is tough on long-term investors, it’s a dream for traders.

Jonathan is the lead analyst at our corporate partner Masters in Trading. After spending 25 years learning his craft on the Chicago trading floors and inside private investment firms, Jonathan now offers up live trading ideas, market commentary, and trading education each morning.

This week, we’ve introduced Digest readers to how Jonathan is trading short-term options. This includes zero-day options, which expire on the very same day they’re issued.

As we detailed yesterday, zero-day options can be incredibly lucrative, potentially rewarding traders with quadruple-digit returns – sometimes in just hours. But for this to happen, it requires big moves in the underlying stock. Translation, lots of volatility.

Jonathan believes today’s market is ripe for such moves:

I’ve been hammering one point home all week… All this short-term volatility isn’t going anywhere. And with volatility remaining elevated, we have many ways to capitalize on whatever the markets throw at us.

One opportunity on Jonathan’s radar comes from QQQ, which is an ETF that tracks the Nasdaq 100 Index:

Take a look at the daily chart below.

The $500 mark is standing out as a critical level right now. After QQQ hit a high just above $515, it pulled back, but it’s consistently found support right around that $500 area.

This isn’t just a coincidence — it’s where buyers and sellers are battling it out, making it the key level to watch.

Why does this matter?

Because levels like this often act as a launchpad for the next big move.

If QQQ holds above $500, we could see another push higher. But if it breaks below, we could be looking at some serious downside action.

Either way, this is where opportunity lives, and this is why we trade short-term options like 3DTE, 2DTE, and even 0DTE — to move fast and capitalize on these shifts.

If you’re less familiar, “DTE” stands for “days to expiration” which circles us back to the short-term options trades I highlighted a moment ago.

That’s when he’ll be broadcasting in real time, demonstrating how zero-day and short-term options work. This will be a live, one-time-only event.

Now, if options make you nervous, I get it. They have a questionable reputation. But I’d encourage you to join Jonthan so you can see for yourself why that reputation is unfair – and why these short-term options can be so powerful, both for protecting and making money.

On the “making money” side, let’s return to Jonathan and the QQQ set-up he just identified:

We’ve seen this play out before.

Earlier this year, during a similar setup, I highlighted a key level in our live class. Members positioned themselves using short-term puts ahead of a market pullback, and when the QQQ dropped 2.4%, our model portfolio saw gains as high as 179.9% overnight.

This is what it’s all about — being prepared, staying disciplined, and taking advantage of these moments.

Tuesday’s live event is all about helping you understand how these options work… the market conditions that increase the chances of such triple/quadruple-digit overnight returns… and the right way to avoid taking unnecessary risk.

On that note, here’s Jonathan:

A solid fundamental understanding of the market, the strategic use of options, and disciplined risk management forms the cornerstone of successful trading.

My career on the front lines of the exchanges has shown that these principles, when applied systematically, can offer major advantages, even in volatile markets.

To reserve your seat for Jonathan’s One-Day Winners Live Summit this Tuesday at 11 a.m. Eastern, sign-up here.

If we get loads of it, our inflation and valuation problems shrink.

If we don’t get it, we’re left with a very expensive stock market. And that could mean major fireworks.

But that just points us back to Jonathan and how he trades unpredictable markets. We hope you’ll join him on Tuesday to learn how to put volatility in your corner.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Mitigating the #1 Concern for 2025 appeared first on InvestorPlace.

With more than 25 years of market experience, including as a CME floor trader and partner of a proprietary trading firm, my colleague Jonathan Rose is the real deal.

Not only did he help pioneer computer-based trading, but he’s also trained more than 100 professional traders and made millions in the market by leveraging highly profitable trading strategies typically reserved for Wall Street insiders.

And for the first time ever, Jonathan is going to pull back the curtain on his brand-new 5-step strategy that can:

• deliver triple-digit gains in 72 hours or less
• with only two tickers to get started
• And he’s going to do it LIVE!

You’ll also see the results of his multi-month beta test, real-life case studies, and more… 

It all happens on Tuesday, November 26th at 11 a.m. Eastern.

Sign up here to reserve your spot now.

Now, let me turn things over to Jonathan, who will tell you a little more about himself and the trading patterns he has discovered…

**

It’s amazing what a trader can do with a straightforward fundamental market outlook, and the leverage we get from trading options.

I would know, I was a professional trader for more than 16 years. I traded in the pits on some of the biggest exchanges in the world like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

Over the course of my career, I’ve come to find that if you can combine these tools into a comprehensive system – just as Louis has done with his Stock Grader system – then odds are good you are lightyears ahead of most folks out there.

In trading, it’s critical to have a fundamental idea of how the market is performing to help shape our positions. That’s why members of my Masters in Trading program and I have been watching the action in the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) under a microscope. This ETF is based on the Nasdaq-100 Index, which includes the 100 largest nonfinancial companies on that exchange.

By looking over recent history in the charts, we begin to see patterns of behavior we can use to our advantage.

What’s so important about the QQQ? Well, the biggest drivers in the market are the so-called “Magnificent Seven” stocks: Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Apple Inc. (AAPL), Alphabet Inc. (GOOG), Meta Platforms (META), Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN).

All these companies trade on the Nasdaq, so the QQQ is one highly valuable chart I like to keep a close eye on.

Part of how I like to monitor the market’s performance is looking for the current critical level  – what I like to call my “Line in the Sand.” This can be either a level of support or resistance depending on how markets are trending in relation to that line.

This is a fantastic concept to help us simplify our fundamental view of the market… If we’re trading above the line, we’re in a bullish trend, and if we’re below that line, we consider that to be bearish.

In our daily Masters in Trading: Live sessions at 11 a.m. Eastern, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the QQQ, especially around the $500 level – which I’m calling the current “line in the sand.”

Take a look at the daily chart below. The $500 mark is standing out as a critical level right now. After QQQ hit a high just above $515, it pulled back, but it’s consistently found support right around that $500 area. This isn’t just a coincidence – it’s where buyers and sellers are battling it out, making it the key level to watch.

Why does this matter? Because levels like this often act as a launchpad for the next big move. If QQQ holds above $500, we could see another push higher. But if it breaks below, we could be looking at some serious downside action. Either way, this is where opportunity lives, and this is why we trade short-term options like 3DTE, 2DTE, and even 0DTE – to move fast and capitalize on these shifts.

We’ve seen this play out before. Earlier this year, during a similar setup, I highlighted a key level in our live class. Members positioned themselves using short-term puts ahead of a market pullback, and when the QQQ dropped 2.4%, our model portfolio saw gains as high as 179.9% overnight. This is what it’s all about – being prepared, staying disciplined, and taking advantage of these moments.

Be Adaptable, Be Objective

A solid fundamental understanding of the market, the strategic use of options, and disciplined risk management forms the cornerstone of successful trading. My career on the front lines of the exchanges has shown that these principles, when applied systematically, can offer major advantages, even in volatile markets.

These trades came together because of the time we had spent working on our systematic approach. We understood that the markets were in a bullish trend, and we knew how to manage for a portfolio that might be out of balance relative to market support. That knowledge allowed us to protect our portfolio ahead of potential volatility from a key market catalyst.

As we navigate the complexities of the financial world, remember that adaptability and objective market indicators, like our ‘Line in the Sand’, remain essential.

This is just one of the tools I use to inform my trading, which is why I invite you to join me at my One-Day Winners Live Summit on Tuesday, Nov. 26, at 11 a.m. Eastern. At the summit, I will dive deeper into this money-making strategy to capitalize on volatile markets using short-term trades.

It’s free to attend, and you can sign up here to reserve your spot.

It’s critical for every trader to always be learning and keep an open mind to evolving strategies. This type of mindset keeps us creative and helps ensure you’re always in position to capitalize on market opportunities as they arise…

And as I like to say, the creative trader always wins.

Remember that the creative trader wins,

Jonathan Rose

Founder, Masters in Trading

The post How to Master My “Line In the Sand” Strategy appeared first on InvestorPlace.

The age of AI is in full steam, propelling a global shift to NVIDIA computing.

So says, Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.

After market close yesterday, the chip giant and poster child for AI investing provided another blowout earnings report. Earnings per share soared 111% from last year, and revenues jumped 94% over the same period.

Back to Huang:

AI is transforming every industry, company and country. Enterprises are adopting agentic AI to revolutionize workflows. Industrial robotics investments are surging with breakthroughs in physical AI. And countries have awakened to the importance of developing their national AI and infrastructure.

So, why was Nvidia down this morning (though it’s turned positive as I write mid-afternoon)?

Nitpicks.

There was a slight sequential decline in gross margins… the revenue guidance looking forward didn’t meet the highest of high expectations… and, similarly, overall guidance wasn’t utterly flawless.

Most likely, today’s pullback was shorter-term traders who want a continuation of high-octane growth rotating out of their positions. Despite the fantastic numbers, Nvidia’s growth forecasts are slowing relative to past quarters – inevitable due to its behemoth size.

However, the story for longer-term investors remains incredibly bright. On that note, here’s legendary investor Louis Navellier with his bottom line on today’s earnings report:

Nvidia is my largest holding, by far. I have no intention of selling it. I’m going to hold at least until the end of the decade… No one can compete with them… So, I’m very, very happy with Nvidia.

Not much I can add to that.

As I write, Bitcoin trades at almost $99,000 as this blistering rally continues. But be careful…

Bitcoin has exploded 78% since early-September. As you would imagine based on the size of this move, the trade is incredibly overbought.

Both the Relative Strength Index (RSI) indicator and the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) indicator show wildly stretched technical conditions. This increases the likelihood of a pullback and period of consolidation. My guess is it will arrive shortly after Bitcoin hits $100K.

This morning, Galaxy Digital CEO Michael Novogratz warned that leverage will intensify the coming correction:

There’s a ton of leverage in the system right now. … The crypto community is levered to the gills, and so there will be a correction.

Despite whatever correction comes, we encourage you to hold onto your Bitcoin. With Trump headed back to the White House and making crypto-friendly appointments, we see 2025 shaping up as a banner year for the sector.

It will be volatile, but it should be even more profitable.

Speaking of profits…

Tech traders had a fantastic session. But while a same-day 2.51% return is great, that same move could have returned 1,788%. That turns $500 into roughly $9,000…in only a handful of hours. 

This wasn’t a one-off anomaly. It’s the type of return that’s possible using a financial instrument that’s been gaining enormous popularity over the last two years: zero-day options.

This is an option that, as its name suggests, expires the same day. And while there are risks for sure (that we’ll discuss momentarily), the potential financial payoff is greater than just about anything you’ll find in the market.

To illustrate, let’s borrow from an example provided by BankRate.com in September:

Imagine you can purchase a $20 call option on a $20 stock for $0.10, with the option expiring at the end of the day. The total cost of a single contract is $10, or 100 shares * 1 contract * $0.10.

Then, let’s imagine you buy 10 of these contracts for a total of $100.

Bankrate.com runs through various potential outcomes – let’s assume one of its bullish ones. Say this hypothetical company reports blowout earnings, resulting in its stock jumping from $20 to $22.

The specified zero-day option would explode 1,900%.

So, that $100 investment made in the morning?

By the afternoon, it’s turned into $1,900.

Here’s Bankrate with some additional possibilities:

If the stock moves just 2.5%, then the option goes up 400 percent in value. A 5% move would lead to a 900% gain in the option.

These massive gains in a short time frame are what traders of zero-day options are hoping for.

That’s when our resident master option trader Jonathan Rose will be broadcasting in real time, demonstrating the power of zero-day options. This won’t be pre-recorded. It’ll be a live, one-time-only event showing attendees exactly how these options work when rubber meets road.

But before we go any further discussing the benefits of this financial tool, let’s address the issue you’re probably thinking about – risk.

Frankly, you’re 100% correct to be thinking this way. That’s how wise traders view the markets. And you’re right – short-term options can be risky. If the underlying stock doesn’t move how you hope, you could lose your entire $100 investment.

But one of the great things about options is that you can dial up or down your risk to match your specific temperament. So, don’t want to speculate with a full $100? No problem, dial it back to just $50.

Even a $50 investment in the hypothetical we walked through a moment ago would grow into $950 by the afternoon. That’s not a bad risk/reward profile!

The point is you don’t need to put down huge amounts of money to make a lot. In fact, you shouldn’t put down huge amounts. Jonathan would be the first person to remind you of that.

But dialing up or down your investment amount isn’t the only way to adjust your risk level when using short-term options. Here’s Jonathan:

Additionally, there are options that expire within one to three days – known as 1DTE, 2DTE, or 3DTE options – giving you a slightly longer window to execute your trades while lowering your exposure to risk.

By hedging your short-term risk and piling into trades at the right time, you can find some of the most powerful opportunities for gains in the stock market.

Extremely short-term options trades provide us the tools to maximize our potential gains like no single stock play can.

For a zero-day option to really pay off, you need the underlying stock to make a major move. So, your timing has to be just right.

After all, if your option expires in one day (or within three days as Jonathan sometimes chooses), then you’d better have nailed your entry timing or else your option will expire worthless.

This is why you never randomly buy a zero-day option and just cross your fingers. Instead, you do what the pros do: use a suite of indicators and market tools that give you an edge.

The tools Jonathan uses are engineered to identify one thing: market conditions featuring outsized potential for volatility spikes. This is basically jet fuel for zero-day options moves.

Back to Jonathan:

To harness the power of short-volatility trading, unusual moves in the market are essential.

So, we keep an eye on the major volatility indicators out there, especially the 1-day (VIX1D) and 9-day (VIX9D) indices… The VIN and VIF provide a broader view of how volatility might shift in the longer term as well.

We subscribe to a simple rule here…

If short-term volatility is rising while longer-term volatility remains low, this usually signifies a short-lived but significant spike in volatility. That’s typically what we need to see to execute the perfect short-term trade.

Of course, it’s not enough to just study a few indices and charts. In extremely short-term volatility options trading, education always mitigates risk.

While a major goal of the event is to help you put a wad of cash in your pocket, the more important goal (in my opinion) is education.

Yes, Jonathan is a world-class trader – he’s pulled millions out of the market over the last 10 years after having spent time as a floor trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. But more important to you and me is that he’s an equally fantastic teacher.

That’s my personal take after having watched Jonathan in action. But his subscribers agree with me. Here are a few of the kudos he’s received from subscribers who share my opinion:

• “Jonathan, I want you to know I really appreciate the way you teach us from a professional perspective. It’s helping”
• “Appreciate all that you’re doing and planning for us!”
• “Thank you, JR! As a self-learner, you can get info from so many resources, but until someone who really understands can show you a hard example, I am always a little apprehensive. Thanks for helping build my foundation of knowledge.”

As we pointed out earlier this week, they can also be an incredibly powerful way to protect the gains that you’ve already made.

But whether you’re using them to try to generate a 500%+ return in a few hours or you’re using them to protect a 500%+ gain that you’ve made over a few years, it all begins with learning – and that’s what this Tuesday’s live event is all about.

Back to Jonathan:

I want to help anyone reading this article.

That’s why I’ve put together a special presentation that will help you identify the best opportunities for quick options plays on the market.

Using the system I’ve developed, you’ll not only discover the key to quick, consistent gains trading options… You’ll also understand how trading pros protect their portfolios from market uncertainty by adding upside and downside coverage that allows them to stay nimble whatever the markets throw at them.

With this presentation, you’ll get a clearer picture of how volatility shapes the options market, and you’ll gain the depth of understanding necessary to execute creative trades based on all the market criteria I’ve outlined above.

This is a rare opportunity to learn about a whole approach to options that is driving millions of dollars in trading volume as I write to you. There’s no reason you should miss out on this market phenomenon.

Bottom line: Whether your primary interest is offense or defense, Jonathan will put you in the driver’s seat this coming Tuesday at 11 am ET. You can register right here.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post A 1,788% Return…By This Afternoon? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Tom Yeung here with your weekly Smart Money update. 

In the mid-2010s, I attended an advanced valuations class – one of many continuing education requirements that tests your ability to stay awake. 

Taking the same course was an options trader from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). 

Now, this trader knew everything about valuing options. As a market maker, he determined the price of hundreds (if not thousands) of options daily. People like him often become so fast at calculating the underlying math that they act more like human calculators than traders. The NYSE’s parent firm, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), now generates $500 million annually from financial options. 

But when it came to the underlying stocks… our “human calculator” classmate knew virtually nothing.  

AAPL… BAC… CVX… These might as well have been strings of random letters. He was only interested in things like delta risk, theta decay, and other things no ordinary person should ever worry about. 

You should immediately sense an opportunity.  

Options are directional bets on company stock prices. So, if you believe a stock like CVX (Chevron) will double in the next 12 months, you can profit from that insight simply because the market maker on the other side of the trade does not know… nor does he care.

He’s only interested in getting the average trade correct by sticking to his math. 

So, in today’s Smart Money, let’s take a closer look at exactly how you can take advantage of these market makers’ ignorance with a quick look at how options work. 

Plus, I’ll show you a specific trade opportunity that smart investors might want to investigate further right now. 

Options 101 

Now, some of you might be thinking, “What exactly is an option?” 

Essentially, these financial derivatives are side-bets on a stock’s price that allow investors to make enormous payoffs if they get things right. The math might be complicated, but the outcome is straightforward. 

The simplest of these bets are called call options. It’s much like horse racing when you put a WIN, PLACE, and SHOW bet on the same horse. (Buying stocks, on the other hand, is like buying the horse outright.) 

Think back to May of this year… 

At the time, you might not have known if Sierra Leone would win the Kentucky Derby… but you might have been confident enough that the winner of the Blue Grass Stakes (by 1.5 lengths, no less!) was good enough to place third or better at the high-stakes race. (The higher they place, the more you win.) And if Sierra Leone came fourth or worse, the most you can lose is your initial bet. 

The same principal is true for call options. If a stock is trading at $20, you can often buy “$30 call options for January 2026” for around $1. 

• Breakeven (SHOW): If the stock trades at $31 by January 2026, you get the difference of $31 and $30 (in this case $1) and break even.  
• Big win (PLACE): If the stock trades at $32, you get $2 instead ($32 minus $30), a 100% gain on investment. 
• Enormous win (WIN): If the stock goes to $40, you get $10 ($40 minus $30). And after deducting your initial $1 cost, that $9 profit represents a 900% gain! 

These contracts are traded in 100-share lots. So, in practice, if the stock does go to $40, your initial $100 wager would suddenly be worth $1,000! (Or $900 if you want to deduct the costs.)  

Put options are call options in reverse, where you bet on shares going down. 

Meanwhile, options market makers usually have no idea where the $20 stock will go… or how good of a racer Sierra Leone is. As long as they’re offsetting these bets with clever hedging (i.e., betting on the other 19 Kentucky Derby horses), they don’t mind who eventually wins the race. 

The Opportunity in Plain Sight 

This creates some obvious opportunities for keen-eyed investors… even those who have no idea how options are priced. 

Consider Pfizer Inc. (PFE), a company that Eric recently recommended his Fry’s Investment Report members sell. That came after Donald Trump put forward Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  

The drugmaker earns a quarter of its revenues from Covid-19 vaccines and therapies, making it one of the most vaccine-exposed companies in the pharma industry. RFK Jr. is a well-known vaccine skeptic, and Eric rightly doesn’t want to stick around to see what happens next. 

On the other hand, even Trump’s greatest critics will acknowledge that many of his intended policies will be good for healthcare stocks. This includes repealing the Medicare negotiation provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, reducing Federal Trade Commission oversight of mergers and acquisitions among corporations, lowering corporate taxes, and more. 

That means Pfizer could either go to the moon… or crash to Earth. But it certainly won’t stay in its $25 range forever. 

Here’s where options become very useful… 

• Pfizer crashes. To profit from a potential Pfizer crash, we can buy put options, the mirror image of the call options described above. The further Pfizer goes down, the greater our winnings. And if Pfizer stays the same or goes up, the most we lose is our initial bet. 
• Pfizer surges. To profit from a Pfizer surge, we can buy call options, the WIN/PLACE/SHOW bet we talked about before. This opens the door to exponential upside if healthcare stocks go up. 

This strategy of buying put and call options on the same stock is called a straddle – a bet that a stock will break out of a trading range. 

And the best part about buying straddles today? 

They are unusually cheap. 

���Ҵ�ý volatility has collapsed over the past several weeks now that we’re in a lame-duck period between presidents. And our “human calculator” market makers are using this low volatility as an input into their math equations. (i.e., their equations don’t account for what happens after inauguration). 

That means prices for Pfizer’s $25 straddles for January 2026 have now fallen to the $5.50 range, so traders will break even if PFE shares move either below $19.50 or above $30.50 by that date (that’s $25 plus/minus $5.50). And the further away PFE moves from those two goalposts, the greater the profits will be.  

If PFE trades at $40 by January 2026 (as they did during Trump’s first term), every $1,000 wagered would be worth $2,727… or $1,727 of profits. And if shares move higher… then you might see gains of 300%… 500%… or more. 

A Way for Even Faster Gains 

Not everyone will enjoy waiting around for the next 14 months for Pfizer straddles to mature. The Senate isn’t set to confirm Trump’s nominees until at least January… and it will take many months after that to see whether the new administration’s policies will be beneficial or harmful to the Covid-19 vaccine maker. 

That’s why I’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Rose, an options trading expert who has generated 16%… 48%… 156%… 545%… even 1,306%… all within a six-and-a-half-hour period. 

He does this by trading options that are expiring today, rather than those expiring a year or more from now. These “zero-day options” are some of the fastest-growing segments of financial markets today. 

Within two years, zero-day options have gotten to around $1 trillion a day in trading volume, according to JPMorgan Chase. 

And when we start seeing a lot of money flow into a specific corner of the market – that really piques our interest. Because these areas tend to be where you find the most dramatic gains. 

Of course, these big potential rewards come with equally big perils. And that’s why you need a proven game plan that manages the downside risk while leaving the door open for upside gains. 

That’s why, on Tuesday, November 26, Jonathan will host his One-Day Winners Live Summit to show how his system works. You can click here now to reserve your spot. 

In the research Jonathan is preparing for this upcoming presentation, he’ll show you how you could’ve used these trades to TRIPLE your money from Donald Trump’s election victory… in less than seven hours. 

Indeed, when it comes to options, Jonathan is our resident master of money flows. His 25-plus-year career trajectory, from floor trader to CBOE market maker to trading mentor, is a testament to the power of understanding these flows – including winners of 126%, 245%, even 463% or more, often in 30 days or less. 

So, there’s no one I’d rather have you hear from when it comes to the exploding market for zero-day options. 

Once again, on Tuesday, November 26, Jonathan will host his urgent summit on this brand-new moneymaking strategy. It is completely free to attend.  

Just click here now to reserve your spot. 

Regards, 

Thomas Yeung 

���Ҵ�ýs Analyst, InvestorPlace 

The post How to Beat the ���Ҵ�ý… Even if You’re Bad at Math  appeared first on InvestorPlace.

I’m talking about NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA).

There are many reasons why I like NVIDIA. Obviously, it is a leader of the AI Boom. The company also has some of the strongest sales and earnings growth in the market. It also helps that we’re up over 3,420% since adding it to my Growth Investor Buy List back in May 2019.

But this just scratches the surface.

In a future ���Ҵ�ý 360, I’ll devote more time to fully explaining why NVIDIA is such an important stock – and why I have no plans to sell it anytime soon.

But for now, we need to talk about NVIDIA’s latest earnings report, which was released yesterday.

You may recall that NVIDIA spent about $2.0 billion to develop its next-generation Blackwell GB200 graphics processing unit (GPU). And starting in the fourth quarter, Blackwell would dominate its sales for the next couple of years. NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang even recently stated that the Blackwell chips were expected to bring in “several billion dollars” in sales in the fourth quarter alone.

Now, there were some concerns earlier this year that the Blackwell chips would be delayed. But as we covered in a previous ���Ҵ�ý 360 issue (which you can read here), Huang put those concerns to rest, saying, “Blackwell is in full production, Blackwell is as planned, and the demand for Blackwell is insane.”

So, in today’s ���Ҵ�ý 360, let’s take a look at how the numbers came in and if it’s still a good buy after earnings. And then, I’ll explain why I think the AI Boom is about to explode to a new level very soon.

Reviewing NVIDIA’s Latest Earnings

NVIDIA announced spectacular results for its third quarter in fiscal year 2025 on Wednesday evening.

Third-quarter revenue jumped 94% year-over-year to a record $35.1 billion, which topped estimates for $33.2 billion. Data center revenue also set a new record, surging 112% year-over-year to $30.8 billion. I should mention that this is now the sixth quarter in a row that both revenue and data center revenue have hit new records.

Third-quarter earnings surged 103% year-over-year to $0.81 per share, compared to $0.40 per share in the third quarter of 2024. The consensus estimate called for earnings of $0.75 per share, so NVIDIA posted a 4% earnings surprise.

Gaming revenue grew 15% year-over-year to $3.3 billion and just slightly beat expectations of $3 billion. Additionally, automotive revenue came in at $449 million for the quarter, up 72% from the third quarter 2024.

Huang commented, “The age of AI is in full steam, propelling a global shift to NVIDIA computing.” He also noted that the company’s Blackwell chips are now in full production and will start shipping this quarter with “very strong” demand.

With the Blackwell chips anticipated to add immensely to the company’s top and bottom lines going forward, NVIDIA provided a strong outlook. It expects fourth-quarter revenue to be around $37.5 billion, up about 70% from $22.1 billion in the same quarter last year.

Now, as we go to press, NVIDIA shares have meandered a bit today in the aftermath of the company’s outlook. It appears that some folks were expecting an even bigger acceleration in NVIDIA’s sales, with the Blackwell chips now in full production and shipping in the fourth quarter. However, the reality is that the consensus estimate calls for fourth-quarter revenue of $37.1 billion, so NVIDIA’s forecast is in line with estimates.

And, in my opinion, there’s a good chance that NVIDIA is being conservative.

Bottom line: NIVIDA remains a great buy after this stunning quarterly report.

My Stock Grader tool (subscription required) certainly thinks so. It gives NVIDIA a Fundamental grade of B as well as a Quantitative grade of B, as well as an overall “B” grade, making it a “Buy.”

On the Cusp of Another AI Boom

Now, many folks are still pouring their money into “first-generation” AI stocks. And, in the case of NVIDIA, there is certainly nothing wrong with that. If there is any takeaway from this latest earnings report, it’s that NVIDIA should continue delivering stunning results for quite some time. And as such, it is set to continue making money for investors in the coming years.

However, in 2025, I predict that the AI Boom will start to broaden out. And the real money will be made in this second wave of the AI Boom.

This is where you’re going to start seeing a lot of companies adopt AI in their traditional businesses. But, right now, there are a few roadblocks in the way.

As I explained in a special presentation, we need to build out a lot of infrastructure to enable these large-scale computing projects – and we need to do it fast.

And thanks to Donald Trump’s win in the presidential election, we’re about to do just that…

You see, Trump and his advisors want to make sure the U.S. gains supremacy in the AI race. And they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.

So, when Trump returns to the Oval Office, I expect him to issue an executive order that will unleash the floodgates and propel a select group of AI stocks to new heights.

Go here to learn more now.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier

Editor, ���Ҵ�ý360

P.S. After spending 25 years learning his craft on the Chicago trading floors and inside private investment firms, my colleague Jonathan Rose now offers up live trading ideas, market commentary, and trading education each morning over at Masters in Trading. And lately, he’s been working on something special…

Jonathan has been studying the day-to-day movements of the market – and he’s ready to debut a new tool to help his growing community of traders capitalize on short-term opportunities.

Next week, on Nov. 26 at 11 a.m. Eastern, Jonathan will be going live to share his findings and teach you all about his new options-trading strategy. You won’t want to miss it – and you might not have a second chance to watch.

Click here to reserve your spot – and get ready to see how the Masters in Trading handle the market.

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

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)

The post NVIDIA’s Earnings Are Out. Can The AI King’s Reign Continue? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

When it comes to long-term investing, there are many ways to find success. For example, the great Warren Buffett likes to buy good businesses with wide competitive moats. Famed investor Benjamin Graham believed in backing undervalued stocks. Other folks like to invest in stable dividend-payers. 

Personally, I work to uncover the next big thing emerging from the tech industry. 

By zooming out to take in the bigger picture, I can identify the technological megatrends that are sure to reshape the world over the next decade. From there, I can home in on the stocks on the cutting edge of those megatrends.

Specifically, I like to do this during times of heightened market volatility – because that is often when you’ll find the best deals on promising stocks. 

I did this in 2015, when many were panicking about plunging oil prices and a global economic slowdown. That same year, I recommended investors buy the dip in an up-and-coming chipmaker called Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). A few years later, AMD stock had soared more than 8,000%. 

I was also able to do this in 2018, when the market was crashing due to the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes. In the midst of that crash, I recommended investors buy the dip in tech stocks like The Trade Desk (TTD), Roku (ROKU), and Tesla (TSLA). All three went on to soar around 1,000% over the next two years. 

March 2020 offered a similar opportunity. While the market was roiling from COVID-19 shutting down the global economy, I was pounding the table on stocks like ZScaler (ZS) and Snap (SNAP). The two popped more than 500% over the next year. 

In other words, looking past market volatility to discover the next batch of big tech winners is sort of “my thing.”

And as it happens, I think I may have just found that next batch of winners: quantum computing stocks.

What Is Quantum Computing?

Let me start my discussion of quantum computing by saying that the underlying physics of this technological breakthrough – quantum mechanics – is a highly complex topic. It would likely require over 500 pages to fully understand.

But, alas, here’s my best job at making a Cliff’s Notes version in 500 words instead.

For centuries, scientists have developed, tested, and validated the laws of the physical world, known as classical mechanics. These scientifically explain how and why things work, where they come from, so on and so forth.

But in 1897, J.J. Thomson discovered the electron. And he unveiled a new, subatomic world of super-small things that didn’t obey the laws of classical mechanics… at all. Instead, they obeyed their own set of rules, which have since become known as quantum mechanics.

The rules of quantum mechanics differ from that of classical mechanics in two very weird, almost-magical ways.

First, in classical mechanics, objects are in one place at one time. You are either at the store or at home, not both.

But in quantum mechanics, subatomic particles can theoretically exist in multiple places at once before they’re observed. A single subatomic particle can exist in point A and point B at the same time until we observe it. And at that point, it only exists at either point A or point B.

So, the true “location” of a subatomic particle is some combination of all its possible positions.

This is called quantum superposition.

Entanglement

Second, in classical mechanics, objects can only “work” with things that are also “real.” Of course, you can’t use an imaginary friend to help move the couch. You need a real friend instead. 

But remember how the true location of a subatomic particle is the combination of all of its probabilistic states? Well, all those states are not independent; they’re entangled. So, if we know something about the probabilistic positioning of one subatomic particle, then we know something about the probabilistic positioning of another. It’s all connected. And that means that theoretically, all of these probabilistic states can work together, all at once, to create a super-complex ecosystem. 

This is called quantum entanglement.

Between entanglement and superpositioning, subatomic particles can theoretically have multiple probabilistic states at once. And all those states can work together – again, all at once – to accomplish some task. 

Pretty wild, right?

It goes against everything classical mechanics taught us about the world. It goes against common sense. But it’s true. It’s real. And now, for the first time ever, we are learning how to harness this unique phenomenon to change everything about everything…

This is why the U.S. government is pushing forward on developing a National Quantum Internet in southwest Chicago. It understands that this tech could be more revolutionary than the discovery of fire or the invention of the wheel.

Mark my words. Quantum mechanics could very well reshape our world over the next few years. 

And some investors may end up making a lot of money because of it.

Quantum Computing Will Change the World

The study of quantum theory has made huge advancements over the past century, especially so over the past decade. 

Scientists at leading laboratories and tech companies have started figuring out how to harness the almost-magical powers of quantum mechanics to make a new generation of super quantum computers. These devices are infinitely faster and more powerful than even today’s fastest supercomputers. 

In the words of Haim Israel, Bank of America’s head of Thematic Research:

“By the end of this decade, the amount of calculations that we can make [on a quantum computer] will be more than the atoms in the visible universe.”

Again, the physics behind quantum computers is highly complex. But here’s my shortened version… 

Today’s computers are built on top of the laws of classical mechanics. That is, they store information on what are called bits, which can store data binarily as either “1” or “0.”

But what if you could turn those classical bits into quantum bits – qubits – to leverage superpositioning to be both “1” and “0” stores at once?

Further, what if you could leverage entanglement and have all multi-state qubits work together to solve computationally taxing problems?

Theoretically, you’d create a machine with so much computational power that it would make today’s most advanced supercomputers seem ancient.

That’s exactly what’s happening today.

The Possibilities Behind Quantum Computing

Google has built a quantum computer that is about 158 million times faster than the world’s fastest supercomputer.

That’s not hyperbole. That’s a real number. 

Imagine the possibilities if we could broadly create a new set of quantum computers 158 million times faster than even today’s fastest computers… 

We may finally have the level of AI that you see in movies. Arguably the biggest limitation to today’s AI is the robustness of machine learning algorithms, which are constrained by supercomputing capacity. Expand that capacity, and you’d get infinitely improved machine learning algos – and infinitely smarter AI. 

We may be able to eradicate disease. Of course, we already have tools like gene editing. But, as with AI, gene editing tech’s effectiveness relies on the robustness of the underlying computing capacity to identify, target, insert, cut, or repair genes. With quantum computing capacity, all that could happen without error in seconds. 

What about a million-mile EV? We can only improve batteries if we can test them. And we can only test in the real world so much. Therefore, one way to unlock a million-mile battery is through simulation. And the higher the underlying computing capacity, the faster and more effective the simulations. 

There’s seemingly no limit to what such powerful computing capacity could lead us to…

Which means the economic opportunities here are truly enormous.

The Final Word

Quantum computing is the most underrated and most transformational technological breakthrough since the internet. 

In fact, it may be bigger than the internet. And Wall Street is starting to notice. 

Quantum computing startup Rigetti (RGTI) is up about 30% this year. Its competitor, D-Wave Quantum (QBTS), has popped about 60%. And IonQ (IONQ) – the technical leader in quantum computing – has seen its stock more than double so far in 2024.  

Quantum computing is starting to come into its own. 

By dramatically increasing computing capacity and speed, this should help greatly accelerate the AI Boom. 

And it should really help AI startups like Elon Musk’s xAI. 

In fact, given all the positive developments surrounding AI, Elon Musk, and quantum computing, we are particularly excited about xAI’s growth prospects in 2025. 

And we’ve discovered a promising “backdoor” way to invest in it. 

Learn all about this little-known play on Musk’s next winner.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post Quantum Computing: The Key to Unlocking AI’s Full Potential? appeared first on InvestorPlace.

U.S. consumers are hanging in there…and this bodes well for stocks as we look ahead to 2025.

Yesterday, Walmart’s earnings provided insight into the health of Main Street America.

Here’s The Wall Street Journal:

Walmart said U.S. sales rose during the most recent quarter, propelled by shoppers buying groceries, home goods and toys—a sign that spending is off to a steady start this holiday season. The retail giant raised its sales and profit estimates for the year…

“Overall, we are feeling good about holiday,” Rainey said. But “consumers are still discerning,” he said. “They are spending more of their wallets on food than they have historically.” That means overall sales of nonfood items are still growing slower than spending on consumables, he said.

We saw evidence of Rainey’s conclusion in this morning’s earnings report from Target. The big box retailer missed third-quarter earnings and revenues and cut its full-year guidance. As I write, the stock is down 20%.

Behind this miss, juxtaposed against Walmart’s beat, is the different sales mix from the two companies. Groceries account for about 60% of Walmart’s revenues, but only about 23% of Target’s. With consumers being far more selective about their non-grocery purchases, it’s hurting Target far more than Walmart.

Overall, despite the slowdown in non-grocery sales, shoppers are still opening their wallets. And Walmart doesn’t see this changing for its customers. In fact, the grocery giant raised its fiscal year forecast for comparable sales growth, helping its stock climb 3% yesterday. 

As to the potential impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs that have been in the headlines recently, Rainey said that prices could rise, but it’s too soon for any specifics. He also mentioned that tariffs are nothing new anymore.

Here’s CNBC:

[Rainey] said about two-thirds of the items that Walmart sells are made, grown or assembled in the U.S., which reduces the tariff risk for those goods. And he added that Walmart, like other retailers, has been trying to diversify where it imports goods.

“We’ve been living under a tariff environment for seven years, so we’re pretty familiar with that,” he said. “Tariffs, though, are inflationary for customers, so we want to work with suppliers and with our own private-brand assortment to try to bring down prices.”

Overall, Rainey said that holiday spending is “off to a pretty good start.”

Score another one for this bull market.

Last week in the Digest, we discussed how oil stocks might perform under Trump 2.0. The issue is complicated.

The kneejerk line of thinking goes, “Trump is friendly to oil… he’ll deregulate… time to buy some top-tier oil plays.” However, if Trump follows through on “drill, baby, drill,” then U.S. production stands to flood the global market. And as you remember from Econ 101, all else remaining equal, an increase in supply puts downward pressure on prices.

But it’s not that simple.

• If Trump sanctions Iran and Venezuelan oil production, will that supply reduction bolster global prices? How much? Enough to offset new U.S. supply?
• How will China impact supply/demand given its wobbly economy?
• If Trump brokers a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, how might the return of Russian oil to the global market impact prices?
• If Ukraine takes out Russian oil production facilities with U.S.-based long-range missiles, what will be the impact? What if a broader war breaks out?

As you can see, oil prices could go in any number of directions. That’s why our macro expert Eric Fry suggests playing energy a different way…

Volume.

Here’s Eric reminding his readers about what happened the last time U.S. production volumes spiked (due to the shale revolution):

[Pipeline, refiner, and export stocks] thrived because their revenues were tied to the volumes of hydrocarbons they handle, not the price. The cheaper the oil and gas America pumped from the ground, the more money these “downstream” companies printed every quarter.

Pipeline firms succeeded by acting like toll roads, taking the same fee for every “car” (i.e., cubic foot of gas) regardless of the vehicle’s value. Refiners benefited from cheaper feedstocks. And exporters saw a bonanza as the world snapped up America’s low-cost fuels.

Exploration and production companies (“upstream” energy companies), on the other hand, saw the value of their reserves drop for every decline in energy prices.

We see a similar story playing out in the energy sector under a Trump 2.0 presidency.

As to specific stocks that performed well the last time we were in this environment, Eric highlighted Cheniere Energy Inc. (LNG), CVR Energy Inc. (CVI), Valero Energy Corp. (VLO), Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC), and ConocoPhillips (COP). The all enjoyed double-digit gains.

To be clear, these aren’t official recommendations, but they’re good starting points for your own research. To learn more about joining Eric in Investment Report for more of his research, click here.

Trump will go down as the first “crypto president” (his words). As we’ve detailed here in the Digest, he’s been very warm toward the sector.

In July, when Trump gave the keynote speech at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, he said:

This afternoon, I’m laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world, and we’ll get it done.

We will have regulations, but from now on, the rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry.

In recent days, Trump has been announcing who will head up government departments under his administration; and it appears he’s making good on his pro-crypto stance.

Here’s Bitcoin.com:

According to “people familiar with the matter” who spilled the beans to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong reportedly met with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Monday.

WSJ reporter Brian Schwartz claims the meeting would be the first since Election Day on Nov. 5 and the two will discuss “personnel appointments for his second administration.”

Meanwhile, yesterday, Trump made another Bitcoin-friendly pick, nominating Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce. Under Lutnick, Cantor has custodied billions of dollars’ worth of assets for stablecoin giant Tether.

With these pro-crypto appointments, 2025 could be a breakout year – not only for Bitcoin, but for smaller altcoins.

But when “risk on” sentiment takes hold, that’s when investors fan out, allocating to smaller altcoins. The sector “leadership” moves from Bitcoin and the larger market-cap-weighted cryptos to the smaller altcoins.

While Bitcoin still leads today (as I write, it’s pushing to news highs, trading at nearly $95,000), Trump’s victory plus these crypto-friendly appointments is sending bullish ripples through the sector, and certain altcoins are beginning to heat up.

To illustrate, here’s the performance of a handful of such altcoins over the last seven days, according to CryptoSlate.com:

• Cardano (ADA): 40.01%
• Ripple (XRP): 56.19%
• Stellar (XLM): 94.20%
• Hedera (HBAR): 106.14%
• Mantra (OM): 153.59%

Again, this is just seven-day performance.

To be clear, investors must treat these altcoins as speculations. Invest no more than you can afford to lose. But based on their historical performance, you don’t need more than a few bucks to generate needle-changing returns.

For example, in his altcoin service Ultimate Crypto, our specialist Luke Lango still holds Cardano (ADA). Even after all the sector carnage in recent years, subscribers remain up 2,141%. That turns $500 into nearly $11,000. Not bad vacation money!

Bottom line: The combination of Trump and his crypto-friendly appointments is likely to result in an explosive 2025 for Bitcoin/altcoins. It will be a rollercoaster ride – but one that could put a fat wad of cash in your pocket.

That’s when master option trader Jonathan Rose will broadcast in real time, demonstrating the power of one of the hottest strategies in the market today: zero-day options.

Zero-day options are a high-octane way to trade the markets during a single trading session. These options can return triple- or quadruple-digit returns in as short of a period as a few hours.

Yesterday, we looked at the power of hedging your portfolio using options. Tomorrow, we’ll look at their wealth-creation ability. But until then, here’s a preview…

Earlier this fall, when the Fed announced a 50-basis-point rate cut, the Nasdaq jumped 2.5% the following day. Zero-day options on the Nasdaq exploded higher with same-day gains like 477%… 1,665%… and even 1,820%.

Next Tuesday at 11 am ET, Jonathan will explain how they work, detail the risks/rewards, then demonstrate how to use them in real-time. It’s a free learning event that could transform your portfolio, you just need to click here to register.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post Two Trump Trades to Make Today appeared first on InvestorPlace.

Editor’s Note: Eric Fry, here. Today, I’m bringing you a special issue from market veteran Jonathan Rose. He has a brand-new, money-making strategy for you. It uses a new class of short-term options called zero-day options. 

On Tuesday, November 26, at The One-Day Winners LIVE Summit broadcast, Jonathan will reveal his entire five-step strategy for the first time. He will show you how to execute your first trade, while maximizing gains and minimizing losses.  

During the broadcast, Jonathan will also reveal his No. 1 short-term option trade. It could let you go for 5-to-1 gains on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. You can sign up for the event here.

Today, Jonathan is joining us to tell you a little more about himself and the trading patterns he has discovered.

Take it away…

It’s amazing what a trader can do with a straightforward fundamental market outlook, and the leverage we get from trading options.

I would know, I was a professional trader for more than 16 years. I traded in the pits on some of the biggest exchanges in the world like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

Over the course of my career, I’ve come to find that if you can combine these tools into a comprehensive system, then odds are good you are lightyears ahead of most folks out there.

In trading, it’s critical to have a fundamental idea of how the market is performing to help shape our positions. That’s why members of my Masters in Trading program and I have been watching the action in the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) under a microscope. This ETF is based on the Nasdaq-100 Index, which includes the 100 largest nonfinancial companies on that exchange.

By looking over recent history in the charts, we begin to see patterns of behavior we can use to our advantage.

What’s so important about the QQQ? Well, the biggest drivers in the market are the so-called “Magnificent Seven” stocks: Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Apple Inc. (AAPL), Alphabet Inc. (GOOG), Meta Platforms (META), Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN).

All these companies trade on the Nasdaq, so the QQQ is one highly valuable chart I like to keep a close eye on.

Part of how I like to monitor the market’s performance is looking for the current critical level  — what I like to call my “Line in the Sand.” This can be either a level of support or resistance depending on how markets are trending in relation to that line.

This is a fantastic concept to help us simplify our fundamental view of the market… If we’re trading above the line, we’re in a bullish trend, and if we’re below that line, we consider that to be bearish.

In our daily Masters in Trading: Live sessions at 11 a.m. Eastern, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the QQQ, especially around the $500 level — which I’m calling the current “line in the sand.”

Take a look at the daily chart below. The $500 mark is standing out as a critical level right now. After QQQ hit a high just above $515, it pulled back, but it’s consistently found support right around that $500 area. This isn’t just a coincidence — it’s where buyers and sellers are battling it out, making it the key level to watch.

Why does this matter? Because levels like this often act as a launchpad for the next big move. If QQQ holds above $500, we could see another push higher. But if it breaks below, we could be looking at some serious downside action. Either way, this is where opportunity lives, and this is why we trade short-term options like 3DTE, 2DTE, and even 0DTE — to move fast and capitalize on these shifts.

We’ve seen this play out before. Earlier this year, during a similar setup, I highlighted a key level in our live class. Members positioned themselves using short-term puts ahead of a market pullback, and when the QQQ dropped 2.4%, our model portfolio saw gains as high as 179.9% overnight. This is what it’s all about — being prepared, staying disciplined, and taking advantage of these moments.

Be Adaptable, Be Objective

A solid fundamental understanding of the market, the strategic use of options, and disciplined risk management forms the cornerstone of successful trading. My career on the front lines of the exchanges has shown that these principles, when applied systematically, can offer major advantages, even in volatile markets.

These trades came together because of the time we had spent working on our systematic approach. We understood that the markets were in a bullish trend, and we knew how to manage for a portfolio that might be out of balance relative to market support. That knowledge allowed us to protect our portfolio ahead of potential volatility from a key market catalyst.

As we navigate the complexities of the financial world, remember that adaptability and objective market indicators, like our “Line in the Sand,” remain essential.

This is just one of the tools I use to inform my trading, which is why I invite you to join me at my One-Day Winners Live Summit on Tuesday, Nov. 26, at 11 a.m. Eastern. At the summit, I will dive deeper into this money-making strategy to capitalize on volatile markets using short-term trades.

It’s free to attend, and you can sign-up here to reserve your spot.

It’s critical for every trader to always be learning and keep an open mind to evolving strategies. This type of mindset keeps us creative and helps ensure you’re always in position to capitalize on market opportunities as they arise…

And as I like to say, the creative trader always wins.

Jonathan Rose

Founder, Masters in Trading

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Admittedly, some of these changes are intangible. Big Tech firms, for example, are spending billions of dollars to develop new AI applications. But thus far, many of those projects are still in development. Therefore, outside of bots like ChatGPT, folks like you and me have largely yet to witness the change that is AI. 

But one technological transformation happening right now is very much real. And it is very “close to home.” At least, it is certainly close to my home. 

About a month ago, I was flying back from a work trip into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. It was late. My wife and kids were asleep. So, I fetched a ride from a ride-hailing app. The car arrived. It took me to my home in the suburbs. Dropped me off. 

It was a typical ride-hailing experience. 

Except for one critical detail… 

There was no driver. 

The car that picked me up from the airport, drove me through Phoenix, and dropped me off at my house had no driver. 

It was a fully autonomous vehicle operated by Waymo. 

Waymo is the self-driving unit at Alphabet Inc. (GOOG). It’s been working on developing autonomous vehicle technology for over a decade now. For the past few years, it’s been quietly testing its technology through autonomous ride-hailing in Phoenix and a few other American cities. Folks in those areas can hail an autonomous Waymo and have it drive them from place to place. I bet many of you live nearby one of them and can try this yourself. 

That’s what I did for my trip from Phoenix Sky Harbor International to my house.

(Check out the video of my self-driving ride here.)

Here’s How It Works

After downloading the Waymo One app, I summoned a ride, much in the same way you call an Uber or a Lyft through their apps.  

It arrived at the airport pickup location. I unlocked the car with my phone and stepped into the back of the vehicle. I put down my bags, buckled my seatbelt, and clicked “Start Ride” on an iPad-like display in the backseat. 

The Waymo – which, in my case, was a Jaguar – drove itself away from the airport, navigated through Phoenix traffic, and, some 30 minutes later, dropped me off safely at my house. 

It was a wonderful experience. 

And not an isolated one. 

Waymo is currently delivering more than 150,000 autonomous rides per week in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. 

That’s a lot of rides! 

And they’re growing quickly. Just a few months ago, Waymo was only completing about 50,000 rides per week – meaning it’s tripled its ride volume in just a few months. 

I think that number will triple in the next few months, too. 

Earlier this summer, Waymo announced that it is expanding its driving area in Phoenix and including highways. Less than three months ago, it announced expanded driving areas in San Francisco and Los Angeles. And in just a few months, Waymo plans to roll out autonomous rides to Austin and Atlanta. 

Plus, the company has partnered with Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER) to autonomously deliver food through Uber Eats in select locations, including Phoenix. 

It seems Waymo is firing on all cylinders right now.

Maybe that’s why Alphabet just invested an extra $5 billion in the company. With that much funding, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Waymo operating in every major U.S. metro by the end of 2025.

This Progress Is Widespread

Though, it isn’t just Waymo that’s swiftly making self-driving cars a reality. 

Aurora Innovation (AUR), an autonomous trucking company, has partnered with several major firms like Paccar, Volvo, and Uber Freight to develop fully self-driving trucks. Another startup – Kodiak Robotics – is also focused on making autonomous big rigs. 

Both are preparing to launch fully autonomous trucks on public roads in Texas later this year (without safety drivers). That means that in just a few months, Texans could see a self-driving 18-wheeler hauling goods from city to city. Aurora also plans to launch autonomous trucks in the Phoenix area soon as well. 

Meanwhile, in China, Baidu (BIDU) has launched an autonomous ride-hailing service called Apollo Go. It appears to be just as big as Waymo, completing nearly 100,000 rides per week. 

And very recently, Elon Musk unveiled the Cybercab and Cybervan, two fully autonomous vehicles – without steering wheels – that Musk sees as the future of Tesla (TSLA).

Folks, the writing is on the wall. 

With Waymo and Apollo Go each completing about 100,000 autonomous rides per week and expanding rapidly… Aurora and Kodiak preparing to launch fully autonomous trucks on public freeways within months… and Musk unveiling autonomous cars that have no steering wheels… 

The Age of Autonomous Vehicles has arrived.

The Final Word on the Robotaxi Revolution

Self-driving cars are here. They are spreading rapidly. And they’ll likely become a global ubiquity, possibly entirely replacing human-driven cars, trucks, and buses at some point. 

This future may still seem many years away. But it’s already a reality in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. It will soon be a reality in parts of Texas and Georgia. And it may quickly become a reality all over… because in addition to all these technological developments, the regulatory backdrop of self-driving cars is changing for the better, too. 

In fact, this past weekend, reports leaked that President-elect Donald Trump will work to ease the federal laws governing self-driving vehicles, making it easier for companies like Aurora, Waymo, and Tesla to massively deploy autonomous cars across America. 

We earnestly believe that 2025 could very well be the year that the self-driving car went mainstream. 

Of course, the arrival of the Age of Autonomous Vehicles also means the arrival of huge opportunities in AV stocks. 

The global transportation services market is estimated at over $7 trillion. And autonomous vehicles will turn that entire industry on its head, meaning it could impact how more than $7 trillion flows through the global economy. 

Huge investment opportunities should emerge out of all that change. 

Now, the obvious picks in this space are GOOGL and TSLA. The former owns Waymo. The latter is about to roll out its robotaxi program. If both scale and take over the global ride-hailing industry – estimated to be an $11 trillion market by 2030 – GOOGL and TSLA stock will be big winners. 

But, believe it or not, Tesla may not be Musk’s biggest winner in 2025. 

Rather, his newest startup, xAI, could become his biggest cash cow. And we’ve found a really interesting “backdoor” way to play it. 

Learn more now before those gains start rolling in.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

Editor’s note: A version of this article was previously published in Oct. 2024 with the title, “Small Caps, Big Potential in the Self-Driving Boom.” It has since been updated to include the most relevant information available.

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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

The post Weekly Upgrades and Downgrades appeared first on InvestorPlace.

As I write Tuesday afternoon, the market is shaking off Russia-related geopolitical concerns that have been building over the last two days.

While that’s good for this bull market, let’s not overlook the risk of what’s happening.

To unpack this, let’s rewind to September. As the U.S. mulled authorizing Ukraine’s use of Western-made long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

If this decision is made, then it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries—the U.S., European states—in the war in Ukraine. And that will substantively change the very essence, the very nature, of the conflict. It will mean NATO countries are fighting against Russia.

Putin would go on to add:

Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in case of aggression, including if the enemy using conventional weapons poses a critical threat.

With this as our context, here’s a Wall Street Journal headline from yesterday:

Biden Approves Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Missiles Inside Russia

This is a reversal of Biden’s prior reluctance to authorize such weapons use. As to what might have changed, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer indicated that the introduction of thousands of North Korean troops onto the battlefield on behalf of Russia has influenced the Biden administration’s position.

The Russian Defense Ministry reports that its air defenses shot down most of the missiles. The fragments of one made it through Russia’s defenses, apparently hitting a military target but there weren’t any casualties.

In response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:

The fact that ATACMS were used repeatedly tonight in the Bryansk region is, of course, a signal that they [in the West] want escalation. And without the Americans, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles.

In retaliation, Putin’s government just amended its nuclear doctrine, expanding the range of threats Russia can respond to using nuclear weapons. Now included are the same long-range missiles Ukraine just fired. 

On one hand, many analysts believe the nuclear threats are purely bluster. Here’s Newsweek:

Defense experts have previously cast doubt on whether Putin would act on his nuclear warnings.

“It’s a bluff,” Gustav Gressel, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Newsweek in September. “If they’d mean it, we’d all have had a nuclear escalation already.” He described the change in nuclear doctrine as “nonsense.”

That sentiment was echoed this morning. Here’s CNBC:

“Putin is bluffing again,” Timothy Ash, emerging markets strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, said in emailed comments Tuesday.

“Putin’s bluff was and has been constantly been called — Putin is terrified of getting into a conventional war with NATO which he would likely lose in weeks,” he said.

These analysts are probably correct (we hope). Putin is unlikely to use a full payload nuclear weapon, knowing it would usher in Armageddon. However, this is still quite the game of chicken.

But Bloomberg writes that this nuclear “will they/won’t they” is missing the point:

But is Putin merely bluffing? Is Kim? And what about Xi? It’s hard to say.

As it happens, though, Russia, North Korea and to a lesser extent China have something in common beyond a shared hatred for the US: the knowledge that, in a full-blown conventional (meaning non-nuclear) war against America, they’d lose. So, they’re forming strategies to compensate for that weakness with nukes.

The idea is not to attack the US with intercontinental “strategic” weapons, because that would invite retaliation and total destruction. It’s instead to ward off the superpower, or to end an ongoing war against it on their own terms, with the credible threat to drop “tactical” nukes — typically with smaller payloads and shorter ranges — in the theater of war.

Those blasts would be intended to shock Washington into backing off rather than risking escalation into a full-blown nuclear exchange, and mutual annihilation.

Bluff or not, tying back to the stock market, what we can say is that this entire situation is not good for a “peace dividend” that would be a tailwind for stocks.  

As I write Tuesday, gold is up roughly 2% since yesterday, and oil has added more than 3%.

It’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day market movements of these two assets and second guess yourself…

Are things looking overextended? … will dollar strength kneecap gains over the next few months? … how might government policy be a fierce headwind looking forward? 

While those are fair questions for shorter-term traders, if you’re a longer-term investor who owns high-quality oil stocks and gold, these questions are distractions. To illustrate, below are two charts to keep in mind.

The first compares the SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF (XLE) (in black) with the S&P 500 (in red) over the past 25 years.

When reinvesting dividends, XLE has destroyed the S&P by nearly 2-to-1.

Now, the naysayer might respond, “Jeff, that’s the power of reinvesting and compounding your dividends. In the real world, people don’t do that. They take their dividends and use them to pay bills or go on vacations.”

First, this assumes dividends were reinvested in the S&P as well. But let’s ignore that and use the pushback as a springboard for our second chart.

As you’ll see below, gold – which pays no dividends – has more than 2.5x’d the S&P 500 over this same period.

Most investors have no idea that gold has crushed the average S&P stock over the last 25 years.

That might be an odd question as you watch your portfolio roar higher as this bull continues. But it’s those gains that you’re enjoying that we want to protect.

Now, I just used the term “options.” If your immediate reaction is negative, I get it. In many investment circles, they’ve developed a reputation for being a fantastic way to lose huge amounts of money fast.

But that’s an unfair characterization. It’s a bit like concluding that all vehicles are terrible and should be avoided because some people are bad drivers and cause wrecks.

Like a vehicle, an option is just a tool. Whether its impact is good or bad depends on the user.

Sure, there are some gunslingers out there who use options recklessly, but many of the world’s most successful investors use them to hedge their portfolios. This includes Bill Ackman, Michael Burry, Ray Dalio, Stanley Druckenmiller, and George Soros.

If you’re less familiar with options, a “put option” is an investment engineered to increase in value as its underlying asset’s price falls.

For example, say you own loads of Nvidia. You’ve been thrilled, watching it soar thousands of percent in recent years. But with Nvidia’s earnings report coming out tomorrow, you’re concerned that the chip giant might finally disappoint Wall Street and implode. If that were to happen, the huge gain you’re sitting on would suffer a major haircut.

At the same time, you don’t want to sell your Nvidia. Doing so would mean you’d have to deal with huge capital gains taxes. Plus, what if earnings are good and the stock continues climbing?

Simplistically, if Nvidia were to report underwhelming earnings tomorrow causing its stock to tank, your put options would roar higher, helping offset Nvidia’s losses.

On the other hand, if Nvidia delivers another blowout report and its stock races higher, then the money you spent on your options would go to zero, like an insurance premium.

Many investors love the idea of put options until this little detail. Somehow, the idea of put options that don’t pay off feels like wasted money.

But does that make sense?

Many investors protest the idea of buying puts to hedge their portfolios, but don’t think twice about buying home, car, or life insurance.

By this logic, we should be angry when a tree doesn’t fall on our roofs after we’ve made our home insurance payments.

With this in mind, put one week from today – Tuesday November 26 – on your calendar. Master trader Jonathan Rose from Masters in Trading Live has put together a special presentation that will dive into how to use options to help protect your hard-earned portfolio gains. Here he is explaining:

To truly understand how powerful these options plays are, I’ve put together a special presentation that will help you identify the best opportunities for quick options plays on the market.

You’ll also understand how trading pros protect their portfolios from market uncertainty by adding upside and downside coverage that allows them to stay nimble whatever the markets throw at them.

With this presentation, you’ll get a clearer picture of how volatility shapes the options market, and you’ll gain the depth of understanding necessary to execute creative trades based on all the market criteria I’ve outlined above.

Though we’ve highlighted using options for defensive purposes in today’s Digest, they can also be a fantastic way to play “offense,” resulting in huge gains – sometimes in as little as hours.

Back to Jonathan:

By hedging your short-term risk and piling into trades at the right time, you can find some of the most powerful opportunities for gains in the stock market.

Consider this…

When the Nasdaq popped 2% back on Sept. 19, you could have made 344%, 1,402%, or even 1,788% and more with this kind of trade. With those kinds of gains, you could have turned a $500 stake into $2,220, $7,510 or $9,440 – all in just a few hours.

We’ll dive into this “offensive” angle in greater detail later this week in the Digest. The related returns are eye-catching to say the least. But to go ahead and register for next Tuesday’s event with Jonathan right now, click here.

But no one knows. And the news out of Ukraine/Russia is a reminder that Black Swan events can and do rattle the markets.

If your specific financial situation can’t afford a steep decline in your portfolio… if you have a handful of stocks that are now sitting on enormous gains that you need to protect… or, if you just want to learn how pros use options to stay in the market while limiting their downside… I hope you’ll join Jonathan next week.

Even if you don’t use them, you’ll be a better investor for simply understanding why guys like Ackman, Dalio, and Druckenmiller do.

Have a good evening,

Jeff Remsburg

The post How to Invest as Geopolitical Tensions Rise appeared first on InvestorPlace.

And following the recent presidential election, Jonathan is predicting the market is ready to take on risk again… and he sees an opportunity to capture huge gains. That’s why he is hosting a live Masters in Trading event next Tuesday. This event is completely free – and it’s for anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of how to beat the “smart money” at its own game. You can click here now to sign up for this special live event. But first, I want to share this piece from Jonathan, which explains how you can profit from the post-election surge…

**

We’re in the midst of a massive global economic reset.

It all started back in September… While the markets were treading cautiously before the election, the Federal Reserve took the first steps toward easing its inflation offensive with a huge 50-basis point cut – its first in over four years.

Then, even with inflation cooling less than expected in October, the Fed enacted yet another 25-basis point cut that’s fueling a massive rally in the stock market as I write to you.

I believe these rate cuts marked the moment that everything changed for investors. Let me be clear…

For the first time in over four years, the markets are ready to embrace risk again.

That might seem like a bold claim. But if we take a closer look… We’ll see that the Fed’s moves are causing a ripple effect all over the world.

Soon after the central bank’s super-sized September cut, the People’s Bank of China announced a fiscal stimulus package aimed at rescuing the rising global power from its own deepening economic woes. We’re seeing that same push to slash rates everywhere from continental Europe to Southeast Asia. And it won’t all end there…

With a new U.S. administration poised to cut regulations in everything from transportation to financial services – and exert its own influence on the Fed to enact further rate cuts – Wall Street is looking for the best ways to capitalize on a market fueled by an abundance of fiscal stimulus measures.

I’m happy to say that I’ve been helping my readers collect gains as big as 49%… 84%… and even a whopping 197% trading on all the momentum we’re seeing in the stock market right now.

And I see even more opportunities to capture huge gains from here… Right as all this global stimulus boosts a handful of key sectors in the coming months.

The Top 2 Sectors to Watch

So where can we find these mega-sectors surging on stimulus?

Right now, we need to pay close attention to any assets linked to the most important channels in the global supply chain – especially, precious metals and commodities. Both of these sectors are correlated with the biggest industries that drive the global economy, including everything from automakers to semiconductor manufacturing.

And if we look at how all the top domestic indexes have been performing since the election, the markets are making a strong case for investing in the next wave of supply chain-forward stocks.

Consider where equities are trending as the markets react to the latest Fed rate cut and the election…

The S&P steel sub-industry index – which includes 11 major industry players such as United States Steel Corp. and Steel Dynamics Inc. – jumped as high as 14% over the last two weeks – its biggest surge in more than 14 years!

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 have also each hit record closing highs over the last month, represented by mining stocks and metals like copper, lithium, gold, and silver. All of that momentum in metals has fueled a post-election surge in tech stocks – and even with softening demand in the near-term, the markets haven’t come anywhere close to bottoming out.

The evidence is clear… And now is the time to put our capital to work.

There’s one mantra I love to share with my readers over and over again – education mitigates risk.

For us, knowing where to look for the best opportunities in the stock market is all about following the beat on volatility. As options traders… whether we’re short or long… we always trade on volatility rather than direction.

And there’s never been a better time to be short on volatility…

If we’re keen on placing our bets in tech, we should pay special attention to any assets that are moving higher with semiconductor companies, automakers, and other hardware stocks in the coming weeks.

Steel stocks like United States Steel Corp. (X), Steel Dynamics, Inc. (STLD),and Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (CLF)have seen massive gains over the last month… In fact, all three are surging more than 10% since October.

Near-term volatility in the stock market has shaken off some of these gains… But steel stocks have been running higher since the election, with United States Steel Corp. rising back to its October price levels. Any quick moves from here are key to a short-volatility trade setup.

If we’re keen on trading bellwether metals like copper and lithium, we can also execute short-term trades on a whole slew of mining stocks. Now, copper prices have been getting hammered over the last few weeks… But industry players like Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX) and Southern Copper Corporation (SCCO) are showing a lot of resilience as I write to you – and they’re both well outside of their expected move right now.

I’m following even more stocks that represent the best ways to capture gains on all this short-term volatility we’re seeing in these sectors. And I want us all to feel empowered to play on the stock market’s current strength.

All that said, it’s not merely enough to buy these stocks in the right time frame…

Today, I want to clue you into the best way to ensure you can maximize your potential gains on all this momentum driving metals and commodities higher… And it all starts with one of the best-kept secrets in the options market.

What’s Your Next Move?

Right now, a lot of options traders are throwing their capital behind the biggest players in metal miners and commodities stocks.

And the smart money absolutely has the market cornered on quick options plays that yield double- and triple-digit gainers in less than 72 hours… and often in just under 24 – all without holding trades for days or weeks… I don’t want anyone reading this to think they can’t get in while the smart money is riding high.

That’s why I’ve developed one options trading strategy that has the smart money beat.

With all of our positions, we look for the same conditions… We find where the market makers are placing their bets and execute trade setups that allow us to quickly capture gains within just days of entering a trade.

Using this system, I’ve helped my readers close out several trades with gains over 100% — including 245% on Criteo and 177% on Cameco Corp. I’ve also helped my readers benefit from all the volatility leading up to this moment – to the tune of five triple-digit options wins with gains as high as 279% on one of the best volatility indicators out there, the Invesco QQQ Trust.

That’s why I’m hosting a special edition of my Masters in Trading Live on Nov. 26 to go over all of this in more detail…

I want to make sure anyone who’s interested has a chance to gain the knowledge to beat the smart money at its own game. So, this live, free event will clue you in to the strategies I use to find these market-making trades.

You’ll get a clearer picture of how volatility shapes the options market, and you’ll gain the depth of understanding necessary to execute creative trades based on all the market criteria I’ve outlined above.

This is a rare opportunity to learn about a whole approach to options that is driving millions of dollars in trading volume as I write to you. There’s no reason you should miss out on this market phenomenon.

Click here now to sign up for my live trading event next Tuesday.

Remember that the creative trader wins,

Jonathan Rose

Founder, Masters in Trading

The post The Post-Election Stock Surge Is Boosting These 2 Sectors appeared first on InvestorPlace.

From deregulation to tax reform, Donald Trump promises to reshape the U.S.’ economic priorities. And following the news that he will be returning to the White House, investors’ optimism about his pro-growth policies sent the market surging higher. 

Indeed, once the election results became clear, the market was off to the races. Between Nov. 6 and 11, the S&P 500 rallied 3.78%, and the Nasdaq popped 4.66%. And while stocks began sliding a bit in recent days, it seems they may be regaining their footing once again.

So… does that mean they will keep soaring over the next year?

Not necessarily. 

Historically speaking, how stocks perform in the weeks after Election Day actually has no correlation with how they perform over the following year. 

Post-Election Performance: Why Recent Gains Aren’t a Guide

Just look at the following chart from Morningstar, which details the S&P 500’s performance after Election Day. The data is all over the place. There is no clear trend. It seems random.

For example, in the weeks following the 2008 election, stocks crashed about 16%. Then, they rallied more than 20% throughout the next year. 

Meanwhile, after the 1976 election, stocks only rallied about 1%. Then, they dropped more than 10% over the following year. 

Of course, there have also been times when stocks rallied both immediately after the election and over the next year. In fact, that happened very recently – in 2020. Stocks rallied about 8% in the two weeks after that election, then surged another ~30% over the next year. 

And similarly, there have been instances when stocks crashed both immediately after the election and over the next year. The 2000 election is a great example. Stocks dropped a little over 5% in the weeks after that election. Then they went on to fall another ~20% over the following year. 

Point being: Post-election stock market performance is practically meaningless. 

So – don’t put too much stock in the market’s recent post-election rally. It is exciting. But it likely doesn’t mean anything when it comes to what’s in store for the market over the next 12 months.

The Final Word on Stocks Following the Presidential Election

Though, of course, having said all that… we are still very bullish on the S&P 500 for 2025. 

We think the combination of pro-growth policies, still-low inflation, continuing rate cuts, and AI-driven economic tailwinds will propel stocks broadly higher in 2025. 

And if stocks do continue to push higher as we expect, then we think it could be a particularly good year for Elon Musk. 

After all, Musk has attached himself to Donald Trump, and it seems that Trump is ready to return the favor with favorable legislation. For example, reports are already leaking that Trump plans to ease federal laws surrounding autonomous vehicles, which would likely benefit Tesla (TSLA) and Musk’s robotaxi vision. 

But the Musk company that could win the most in 2025 may not be Tesla… SpaceX… or even his brain implant firm, Neuralink. 

Rather, xAI – Musk’s newest startup – could become his ‘golden goose’ this year. 

Learn more about why we think that firm could be on the launching pad – and how to profit from it.

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

P.S. You can stay up to speed with Luke’s latest market analysis by reading our Daily Notes! Check out the latest issue on your Innovation Investor or Early Stage Investor subscriber site.

The post Don’t Put Too Much Stock in the Post-Election Rally appeared first on InvestorPlace.