The AI trade has entered a puzzling phase. Do we know who the winners are anymore?

All hail Anthropic, the destroyer of everything. What an amazing service. It can wipe out Adobe by allowing you to design something better that has a much simpler commerce system, designed personally for you. That one is child’s play. ServiceNow may call itself the “AI Control Tower” to signify who is in charge, but the … Read more

Here are 3 factors that drove the big swings in the stock market last week

It was a tale of two markets last week: Industrials surged while financial and tech names buckled under the growing weight of artificial intelligence fears. A mixed bag of economic data complicated matters further. Although the S & P 500 bounced slightly Friday following an inflation print that bolstered the future case for lower interest … Read more

Here is what caused the wild swings in our 34-stock portfolio last week

The S & P 500 closed lower on Friday but slightly higher for the week. It briefly topped 7,000 for the first time ever Wednesday. There was no storage of news: Ten portfolio names, including three of our megacaps, reported earnings throughout the week; the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday; software stocks … Read more

Buy low, sell high: How we navigated the wild week on Wall Street

It was a tumultuous week for investors. President Donald Trump ‘s threat to increase tariffs on eight European countries for opposing his bid to take over Greenland sent the stock market into a tailspin on Tuesday, with the S & P 500 and Nasdaq posting their worst days since October. Both averages rebounded the next … Read more

How we navigated the market’s winning week amid Trump’s Truth Social surprises

Wall Street had a stellar first full trading week of 2026, shaking off a barrage of uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump ‘s social media posts and the surprise military operation in Venezuela. The S & P 500 turned in a record high close Friday, following weaker-than-expected December job growth. The government reported that nonfarm … Read more

3 positive signals for Home Depot — and its shareholders — heading into 2026

The stars look like they’re finally aligning in 2026 for Home Depot — one of seven out-of-favor portfolio stocks that Jim Cramer has called a buy. Although shares are down nearly 11% year-to-date, three recent developments point toward a recovery for the home improvement retailer. 1. November’s cooler-than-expected consumer price index (CPI) is helping the … Read more

Broadcom and Costco’s rich valuations leave little room for error as battleground stocks

Sometimes the stakes are so high, the degree of difficulty so immense, that it simply may be too hard to game. When that’s the case, no amount of formal research will help you fathom the stock implications. Yet, you have inherited the issues and they must be dealt with — or you are too at … Read more

Here are 4 major moments that drove the stock market last week

The S & P 500 ran into a brick wall Friday and finished the week lower, just one day after closing at a record high. The rotation out of tech stocks, which supported the Dow , was on full display. The across-the-board rally on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the third … Read more

Week in review: Stocks rise, Meta gets real on metaverse, and Salesforce bounces

Stocks eked out gains Friday and closed the week higher after the Federal Reserve’s favorite inflation gauge added to the case for an interest rate cut next week. For the week, the S & P 500 rose 0.3%, while the Nasdaq added nearly 1%. Both indexes logged back-to-back weekly gains. The Dow gained roughly 0.5%. … Read more

Forget AI spending — the biggest risk to this stock market is speculative junk

Chicken and egg? Cart before the horse? Six of one, half dozen of the other? After a while, you realize there isn’t a simple phrase to capture the linkages between alternative investments that cloud the landscape of money-making opportunities. What kind of alternative investments am I alluding to? They could be any number of things: … Read more