Signals From China, Defense Boosted
575: Intel Dumps, Hormuz Drags On
Alright morning guys.
Little disclaimer here I am writing this on my iPhone for the first time given my computer had to take a trip to the repair shop (in a sketchy ass mall) for a cracked screen. Turns out you can’t let your 2 year old treat your $2,000 computer like a frisbee. Our post for paid subs will drop Thursday where we will take a closer look at what we anticipate the rest of 2026 to hold.
Today will be a bit on the shorter side since I’m currently cranking this out while watching YouTube compilations of “Cops Best Moments” on a rainy Monday night.
Markets
The S&P 500 ended Monday basically unchanged around 7,753, while the Nasdaq moved slightly down 0.32% and the Dow slipped 0.11%.
Initially it looks like last week’s run to record highs is finally meeting some resistance.
The main pressure point really seems to still be oil. Crude jumped about 5% on Monday pushing back above $82 a barrel range as short lived hope for easing tensions in the Strait of Hormuz evaporated yet again.
This week featured competing views on the markets from some legendary Wall Street organizations and individuals including Warren Buffets Berkshire deploying cash and the Big Short’s Michael Burry continuing to double down on some of his short bets including $PLTR.
Nvidia $NVDA is set to announce a $500 billion AI financing effort in partnership with Apollo, Blackstone, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, KKR, and Brookfield (CNBC/Kobeissi Letter)
Bank of America has declared it's time to "sell" stocks (Polymarket Money)
Anthropic is reportedly targeting an IPO as early as September (WSJ) you can view the current odds of when Anthropic will IPO on Polymarket, as of this morning it looks like there’s a 78% chance they get this done before the end of October. If you thought SpaceX was nuts wait for this one.
After spending years building one of the largest cash piles in corporate history and remaining a net seller of stocks for 14 consecutive quarters, Berkshire Hathaway is finally starting to deploy some of that capital
$INTC is getting whacked a bit so far this week after news came out that the company has plans to sell $15 billion worth of new stock, taking advantage of the monster rally shares have seen over the past year (hopeful you’ve benefitted).
I’ll watch this with some interest in the coming weeks and will add if I think the FUD is getting to be too much.
$PLTR $ONDS $LMT $LHX and other defense names have been doing well with Trump’s confusing back and forth on a potential conclusion in Iran. $UAVS (Ageagle Aerial Systems Inc) crawled out of the grave as well, up about 33% this month on news that the company is continuing to gain traction across the defense and government drone market, including new orders and growing demand for their eBee tactical unmanned aircraft systems.
I added some more on Friday.
$AXON also looks solid (the body can play) and we will talk about potential future catalysts on Thursday for this name as we approach midterm elections.
Despite all the noise I am still feeling pretty optimistic on some of our recent winners and themes we highlighted in 5 Industries That Could Mint Millionaires if you haven’t read it yet HIGHLY suggest getting on it. Robotics sticks outs recently, with some noteworthy signs emerging from China.
The biggest development this week is Unitree, which is preparing to become China’s first publicly listed humanoid robotics manufacturer. iRobot comes to life.
The company priced the Shanghai IPO at a roughly $9 billion valuation after revenue skyrocketed more than 4x in 2025 to around $240 million. Even more interesting though is that the humanoid robots have now overtaken their robot dogs (made famous in Black Mirror) as its largest business. Demand for this IPO has been utterly insane, with the retail portion reportedly more than 8,000x oversubscribed. Imagine lol.
China may offer us some valuable insight into how the robotics wave is going to collide with capital markets in the U.S. soon.
In the short term I’m going to add some more $BOTZ to my brokerage to just up my exposure before looking a bit deeper at some of the individual names we covered in last week’s guide.
Crypto
Lord Michael Saylor sold some more Bitcoin this week but the market reaction seems to keep getting more and more muted. He took to X to say the following on Monday:
Strategy increased its USD Reserve by $650M and repurchased $109M of $STRC. This increased USD Duration by 143 days to 2.7 yrs and tightened STRC's BTC Credit by 10 bps.
Without freaking everyone out I’m kind of feeling like the bottom is beginning to form.
Could I see one last leg lower? Maybe.
But I’m getting a gut feeling that when we look at crypto vs. other asset classes, the risk/reward is looking more and more attractive. The Saylor FUD lost its steam and he now has significant runway despite having less than ideal entries and exits on some of these clips he snatched up and paper handed.
The CLARITY act also didn’t make it through before Senate recess, but the market kind of just said “meh”. Pay attention when negative news starts to have no impact on price in crypto.
Anthropic has signed a $9B compute deal with $RIOT blockchain, the stock was up 24% in after hours
Grayscale withdraws proposed Cardano, Polkadot and Hedera ETF registrations from SEC review (WatcherGuru)
Solana quietly outperformed the majors, climbing to a roughly two week high while Bitcoin and Ethereum traded mostly sideways
Global News
Yesterday was another busy one globally. U.S.–Iran negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz appeared to lose some short lived momentum.
Trump said in the Oval Office this week:
"They asked for reparations, you might say, or they asked for money for the damage that we've done, and I said that's a good idea, well we're going to ask for money for the damage they've done over a 50-year period“ (CNBC)
100 people were killed in a powerful earthquake in western Colombia
Taiwan conducted major war games with cyber and electronic warfare components
Trump’s Gaza peace plan hit another roadblock, with Netanyahu rejecting withdrawal before Hamas is fully disarmed
Intelligence officials have issued a warning that the New IRA is planning a wave of violence intended to drive migrants of Ireland (DailyStar)
Iran installed hardliner Mohsen Rezaei as secretary of its Supreme National Security Council. Doesn’t exactly bode well for negotiations
President Donald Trump was spotted golfing at his Bedminster, New Jersey club over the weekend with a full on missile-defense system positioned nearby, while F-16 fighter jets were dispatched after civilian aircraft entered temporarily restricted airspace around the property.
Two general aviation aircraft were ultimately intercepted and escorted out of the restricted zone as Trump attended the LIV Golf tournament. Pretty wild that we need missile defense systems around the sitting president of the United States.
I’ve mentioned recently I am kind of checked out on the U.S. politics front but at some point we’re going to have to a do another schizo rant/deep dive because I don’t want you guys to be fooled by this “quiet” period.
At the risk of sounding like yoda there are some big disturbances in the force and on the horizon (particularly midterms and the next presidential election) and I do not think the future will be anywhere near as calm as the last few months have been at home.
We’re in a momentary lull with some pretty big forces at work vying to control the U.S. in the coming years.
Sorry for the short one fellas but I’m driving myself nuts trying to type out 20 minutes worth of reading on my iPhone.
Thursday we’re going to get into some more predictions, warnings, and advice for the rest of 2026 for paid subs. See you guys then.
Andy
Disclaimer - I am a monkey brained former salesman and trader who shares his thoughts on markets, geopolitics and crypto weekly. None of this is former financial advice, ensure you do your due diligence on any potential investments you make