The Insane Melt-Up Continues
560: Drones, Rockets, AI, and Record Highs
Morning lords, and a fine morning it is indeed.
Happy Friday.
Welcome new subscribers.
Congratulations to those of you who stayed patient. It was obvious that there was going to be a similar announcement for drones/defense as there was for metals and chips. Drone names rallied yesterday as investors responded to the U.S. government’s recent push to strengthen domestic drone capabilities.
New policy support around American made drones, expanded operational use, and unmanned systems development boosted sentiment across the drone and defense tech space.
ONDS 0.00%↑ went on a fat tear yesterday. Sorry haters, but she’s going much higher. I keep telling people to expand their view and attention span but they want to chase the next shiny thing in the markets. Paid subs reaped the benefits if they positioned after our drone guides (which you can find below).
I literally told you what to buy here in March.
RCAT 0.00%↑ KTOS 0.00%↑ and others joined the pump party as well while the classic Trump adjacent play Unusual Machines UMAC 0.00%↑ ripped almost 60%. Likely going to get a pentagon deal worth millions and millions.
AMD 0.00%↑ continues on an insane bender, up 60% in the last month and 138% in the last 6 months. Hopefully you added when we called it out months ago. I did the same thing with SMCI 0.00%↑ yesterday. I knew she was a laggard and the criminal issues were an overreaction. She has a lot of catching up to do with AI and memory hype names.
DELL 0.00%↑ rallied after delivering a major earnings beat driven by explosive AI infrastructure demand. Revenue and EPS came in well above expectations, AI server sales surged, and the company raised full year guidance as enterprise and hyperscaler spending on AI hardware remained strong.
You might remember when President Trump gave Dell a nice little shoutout….. the guy is literally telling you what pumps next.
BBAI 0.00%↑ even ripped. The company just signed a commercial deal with Panama Transshipment Group for the deployment of AI-driven logistics and cargo optimization technology aimed at improving operational efficiency, visibility, and supply chain decision-making across port and transportation operations.
If you couldn’t tell, we are in some sort of insane mania phase in markets. Sideliners are in immense pain as names are mooning left and right. We covered this crazy time on Wednesday in Trading and Surviving Financial Market Bubbles.
Markets News
Markets continue acting like gravity is optional.
The major U.S. indices remain parked near some juicy record highs, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq grinding higher on the back of the unending AI enthusiasm, resilient corporate earnings, and non stop dip buying.
Even the Dow has rejoined the party as the market leadership broadens beyond just the usual mega cap names. Outside the USA several international markets are also showing strength, with Japan and South Korea notably touching fresh highs. Seems folks think the Iran conflict is winding down for the time being and odds on Polymarket for a permanent peace deal by July 31 sit at 56%.
That being said every time an update comes out Iran contradicts it so I am not holding my breath. The current proposed US Iran peace deal includes a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran according to the NYT.
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has plans to relocate to Argentina, after citing concerns about the U.S. future and shared ideology with major leadership
South Korea's stock market rose to a fresh record high, now up +101% in 2026, as AI stocks continue to surge (Kobeissi Letter)
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week: "There will be no central bank digital currency” (Unusual Whales)
Anthropic announced on X yesterday: We’ve raised $65 billion in Series H funding at a $965 billion post-money valuation, led by AltimeterCap, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and sequoia
American Eagle shares AEO fell 11% after the clothing retailer reported total comparable sales for the first quarter that missed the average analyst estimate (ZeroHedge)
Anthropic announced it will roll out Claude Mythos “in the coming weeks” despite growing fears over the model’s cyber capabilities (Polymarket)
Size lord Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin made headlines after its New Glenn rocket absolutely exploded during ground testing at its Florida launch facility.
The incident occurred during pre launch operations tied to the company’s heavy lift launch system, marking a pretty brutal setback for one of the most closely watched challengers to SpaceX in the commercial space race.
This event serves as another reminder that rocketry is a rather unforgiving business where technical failures, delays, and explosions are just table stakes.
For SpaceX, my sense is the news may reinforce perceptions of its growing competitive moat. Musk’s company has built a massive lead across launch frequency, reusable rocket technology, satellite infrastructure, and government contracts.
You can see the ignition below:
Quick note, I am not telling you guys what to do but at this point it might make sense to start drawing the conclusion on what it means when Trump tweets or posts about stocks/companies. We had the insane Intel run. Now we have the Dell run. If you recall, he posted about Palantir as well…..
I will be adding some and maybe dabbling in some calls. Also closely watching NOW 0.00%↑and ORCL 0.00%↑
Crypto
Poor crypto. Sentiment has got to be near bear market lows and Bitcoin continues grinding in a frustrating range despite risk assets, AI names, and parts of the equity market pushing higher.
Ethereum has struggled to reclaim sustained momentum, while many alt coins remain well off their highs.
Hey listen good news for Ethereum is Vitalik announced a book he is writing.
The SEC granted the first blockchain-native company ‘Paxos’ approval to clear and settle securities transactions this week (WatcherGuru)
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) founder Jeff Sprecher said recently Hyperliquid is bigger than NASDAQ and is being run by just 11 people, calling it “pretty something” (CoinTelegraph)
Texas announced the creation of the "Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Advisory Committee” (BitcoinMagazine)
Even with ongoing institutional adoption headlines, ETF flows, and long term bullish narratives intact, price action has felt far less inspiring than many expected.
I am sure of one thing, attention on crypto has to be near all time lows, which is interesting if you remain bullish long term (like me). The AI surge and stock market mania is simply too strong right now.
We had a subscriber ask to cover the decoupling of crypto from the stock market and what the theories/causes might be. So here is the TLDR version (just my opinion):
It is possible crypto already front ran the big move. One potential argument is that crypto massively outperformed ahead of equities and is just now digesting gains while stocks play catch up, particularly AI, defense, and momentum names. Remember bitcoin hit $127,000
While it is not the sole culprit, liquidity is clearly flowing elsewhere right now. Right now, degen retail and speculative capital may be chasing the hottest narratives in public equities which are AI infrastructure, quantum, defense, robotics, nuclear, etc. Crypto is no longer the only “high beta future” trade
Remember we now have the post ETF structural shift, which some consider the devil’s bargain in crypto. Spot Bitcoin ETFs brought in waves of institutional money, but they may have also changed crypto’s behavior. More traditional capital, arbitrage flows, and basis trades likely make BTC trade differently than the old purely retail driven crypto cycles that just went straight up
Macro ambiguity and rate implications need to be considered. Crypto tends to like falling yields, easy liquidity, and aggressive monetary easing. Markets are likely still wrestling with the questions of sticky inflation, Fed uncertainty, deficits, and the higher for longer dynamics that are being discussed more now. I know stocks seem like they don’t care, but the AI narrative is simply too strong to deter people right now
Simple crypto fatigue and a sentiment reset are possible as well. Sometimes markets simply get tired. After all the years of regulatory battles, exchange blowups, meme cycles, and nonstop “institutional adoption is coming” headlines, traders and investors may just be demanding stronger proof through price and this makes sense, especially when we look at alt coins
These are the big ones for me. I know it is frustrating to watch stocks go vertical while your crypto bags flatline but my long term views on crypto are completely unchanged. If this is your first big down period in crypto, congrats, you are earning your stripes. This is the part where most people give up.
We will cover crypto in depth next week.
Hold strong kings. This is the hardest part.
Global News
It has been awhile since one of our spicy US based political posts, but rest assured the time will come for them again soon (likely as we get closer to midterms). Today we can get into a little bit.
Iran tension SEEMS to be easing a bit with reports pointing toward continued diplomatic engagement, discussions around extending de escalation measures, and some progress toward a broader framework to cool the regional tensions.
Foreign born workers have accounted for more than half of U.S. labor force growth since 2007, according to analyses of BLS data (LeadingReport)
The White House's "aliens.gov" domain was revealed to be an illegal immigrant reporting site (Polymarket)
An ex-CIA official allegedly stole $40 million in gold bars (size!) from federal government. He also had an impressive collection of luxury watches (Fox News/Unusual Whales)
A 28-year-old Dutch citizen was arrested yesterday in the City Hall of The Hague, Netherlands for making bomb threats. Before you ask, yes.
Two Minnesota residents from Somalia were arrested this week for a $21,000,000 Medicaid fraud scheme
A Texas man has been arrested after allegedly threatening to kill Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk and making online comments about bombing a Turning Point USA event in downtown San Antonio (Breaking911)
Japan's population including foreign residents fell by a record 3.10 million, or 2.5 percent (KyodoNews)
Thiel Hedging the US with Argentina
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel is reportedly strengthening his footprint in Argentina, spending more time in Buenos Aires, buying property, and even enrolling his children locally.
His move reflects a broader trend among parts of the global elite seeking geographic optionality amid political uncertainty, rising taxes, and shifting institutional dynamics in the West. Everyone’s heard of the bunker complexes in New Zealand….
Argentina’s Milei era is increasingly being viewed by some as a live experiment in libertarian reform and economic reset. Basically the view is Argentina is further along in their cycle than the US is (i.e. we still need our hard reset).
Thiel is known for his skepticism of bloated institutions, centralization, and the long term trajectory of the Western political and economic model, making Argentina’s aggressive free market pivot a natural point of interest.
And as many pointed out it wouldn’t be the first time a German fled to Argentina.
As I said we can expand on this in the coming weeks but here is what you really need to grasp if you live in the U.S., UK, and certain European countries.
We’re getting to a nasty crossroads of politics, wealth gaps, technology, and demographic change. The market and “big thing” headline of the week, be it alien disclosure, hantavirus, Ebola, Iran, etc. is only going to buy so much time before some type of reckoning comes. Thiel can probably see that on the horizon and so can the world elites.
It is predictable the left is going to be bloodthirsty come midterms and the next presidential election. There will be a resurgence in street demonstrations. What’s scary now is the rapid expansion of the surveillance state and leaps in technology. These things can and will be abused.
Opponents of the current administration think they live in a fascist state now, but the reality is they would have already been rounded up and put in camps if that were the case.
Should the right lose power in the midterms and the next presidential election, it wouldn’t surprise me to see arrests, reversals of legislation/orders, and a complete unraveling of the progress made so far when it comes to common sense issues (borders, deportations, etc.).
I’ve touched on this formerly, communist sentiment is spreading fast, just look at Mamdani’s New York.
The wealth tax debate is heating up again, particularly after renewed discussion around California exploring versions of taxing ultra high net worth individuals. The basic idea is straightforward. Instead of taxing only income or realized gains, governments would tax accumulated wealth itself, investments, businesses, real estate, and other assets. Sound fun?!
Don’t you want to fund more Somali- Minnesota day cares and prison inmate sex changes?
Don’t be surprised if this becomes a national proposal by the left in the next election.
The AI/unemployment/wealth gaps narratives pair all too well with this. People are mad. They are struggling. They are threatening and targeting tech and AI executives over data centers and job losses. Even reasonable folks grow tired of the bureaucracy and lies in the government. This creates the ideal environment for some radical change to take place (and with it, unrest).
I don’t know specifically why Thiel is setting up a hedge in Argentina, but it cannot bode well for the nation.
Enjoy your Friday and good luck out there, I will be on X and Discord this weekend.
See you guys next week.
Andy
Added more Vertiv today and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries MHVYF (price target upgrade by BofA, they're getting into drones also).