💥 The $3B Peptide Boom Is Here. Micron Is The New Nvidia. Here’s What Comes Next.
And why inflation, Fed hikes, and chip prices are about to change everything.
Steve Jobs got fired from Apple in 1985. The company he built pushed him out.
He spent the next ten years on the outside, far from the spotlight, building other things. He built NeXT. He bought Pixar. He learned what he needed to learn. Then he came back and changed the world.
He came back and turned Apple into the most valuable company on Earth.
The best returns in life often come from the moments that feel the worst.
This week felt bad. The Nasdaq fell four days straight. The chip index dropped 8%. Bitcoin hit a 20-month low. And the Fear & Greed Index sank to 25, deep in extreme fear.
I’ve felt this exact feeling before. In 2020, the market crashed 34% in a single month. The Fear & Greed Index hit 2, about as scared as the market ever gets. I bought index funds while everyone around me sold. Two years later, those buys had doubled. Every fear spike is a little different, and this one has its own causes. But the math of fear works the same way every time. When everyone agrees things are awful, most of the selling is already done. The hard part is buying while your stomach churns.
So while the crowd panics, look at what’s quietly forming.
Back in 1998, Pfizer launched Viagra expecting modest sales. It became a $2 billion drug almost overnight. The reason was simple. It solved a problem people were too embarrassed to talk about, but almost everyone had.
In July, the $3 billion black market is about to go legal, and the setup looks the same. The product is peptides. The problem is aging, weight, and health. The opportunity is huge.
The FDA holds a panel in July. They’ll vote on whether seven peptides can be legally made and sold. If they say yes, a $3 billion underground economy becomes a real, investable market almost overnight. Hims & Hers $HIMS could capture around $440 million of it. LifeMD $LFMD is positioning for the same wave. The Precision Peptide Company $PNGAF is already marketing through MMA partnerships.
I’ve watched this exact pattern play out before. Cannabis went from illegal to legal, state by state, and the early investors in the right companies made 10x their money. The peptide story has the same structure. A friendly White House. A health secretary who supports access. And a crowd of consumers who already proved the demand by buying it on the black market. The only real question left is which companies win once it’s legal.
This week we break down why peptides could become the next big healthcare investing theme, how Micron replaced Nvidia as the new AI king, and what Nancy Pelosi is buying behind the scenes.
📬 Here’s what’s in today’s issue!
Part I — Big Picture (Markets & Economy)
1) Market Breakdown (And What’s Important)
2) 3 Things You Need To Understand
Part II — What The Market Is Telling Us
3) Market Psychology & What Comes Next
4) Interest Rate Forecast & Real Estate Outlook
Part III — Investment Research & Analysis
5) Insider Trading Alerts (Follow the Smart Money)
6) Stocks Beating the Market
7) The Smartest Trades I See Right Now
Part IV — What You Should Do
8) Practical Advice & What to Do Next
9) Lessons I Wish I Learned Sooner
10) Ask Me Anything (Subscriber Questions Answered)
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Part I: The Big Picture (Markets & Economy)
A full market overview, explained simply.
(1) Market Breakdown (And What’s Important)
What happened, why it happened, and what’s next.
Inflation ran hot. May PCE hit 4.1% headline (a three-year high) and 3.4% core, with AI data centers now a main driver of rising prices.
The Fed under new Chair Kevin Warsh turned hawkish. Traders now bet on a rate hike by September or December 2026.
The Nasdaq fell for four straight days, closing out one of the ugliest tech weeks of the year.
Fear is in control. The Fear & Greed Index sits at 25 (extreme fear), down from 60 a month ago.
Tuesday was the worst of it. The Nasdaq dropped 2.2%, the S&P 500 fell 1.4%, and the Dow held roughly flat. The chip index sank close to 8%.
The selloff started overseas. South Korea’s KOSPI plunged 10%, Samsung and SK Hynix each fell more than 12%, and Hong Kong stocks entered a bear market.
Memory chips led the damage, then turned around. Micron crushed earnings Wednesday night and jumped 15%, with revenue up over 400%.
Apple had its worst day in over a year, down 6%, after raising MacBook and iPad prices on soaring memory costs. Microsoft hiked Xbox prices hours later.
The quiet winners held firm. The Russell 2000 hit a record Tuesday, and the Dow is on pace for its best quarter since 2023.
Bitcoin fell to a 20-month low near $59,400, down about 35% this year, as the dollar hit a 13-month high.
Overseas, the records kept coming. Japan’s Nikkei and Europe’s Stoxx 600 both hit fresh all-time highs even as Asia’s chip names cracked.
Tech layoffs passed 100,000 for 2026, with AI named as the top reason. Meta, Cisco, Intuit, and PayPal led the cuts.
💡 Andrew’s Analysis:
For two years, AI spending pushed this market straight up. This week it started pushing prices up too. The same boom that made investors rich is now making your laptop, your groceries, and your mortgage cost more. The thing that lifted stocks is now the thing splitting the market in two.
Here’s what most people missed this week. AI didn’t just hit tech stocks. It hit your wallet. May PCE inflation came in at 4.1%, the hottest in three years, and this time oil and tariffs weren’t the cause. Chips were. Demand for AI memory drove computer and accessory prices up 14.5% from last year. Five companies are doing most of this spending. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Oracle plan to pour about $741 billion into AI infrastructure in 2026, up nearly 75% from last year. All that money soaks up the world’s supply of memory and power, and when supply runs short, prices rise for everyone. Apple said it plainly when it raised prices. The cost of memory had more than quadrupled since late last year, and the company stopped absorbing it. So now you pay.
These pieces all connect. Hot inflation forces the Fed to act. Warsh shut down talk of rate cuts and put a hike back on the table. Higher rates make safe bonds more attractive and squeeze the future profits that expensive tech stocks depend on. So money rushed out of the stocks everyone had piled into. That’s why 17 of the biggest tech names already sit deep in a bear market from their highs, with Coinbase down 69%, Salesforce and Oracle down 57%, and even Microsoft down 37%. The S&P 500 won’t show you that, because a few big winners cover up how much damage is sitting underneath.
I spent two decades in finance, and I’ve seen this happen before. When a whole sector decides there’s only one trade worth making, the fall comes faster than the rise did. So watch what the companies themselves do, because that’s the clearest warning sign. When companies stop buying back their own stock and start selling new stock to the public instead, smart money is taking your money. We saw a wave of it this week. SpaceX sold stock and bonds. Google raised a record amount. OpenAI is reportedly leaning toward delaying its IPO to 2027 because it worries nobody will show up. When the people closest to the boom rush to sell shares to you, that’s worth noticing.
The panic told only half the story. While everyone watched chip stocks fall, money quietly moved across the market. The Russell 2000, an index of smaller companies, hit a record. The Dow is heading for its best quarter since 2023. Investors bought safer sectors like consumer staples and healthcare. Companies in emerging markets beat earnings estimates for the first time since 2022. Stocks in Japan and Europe hit new highs. This is rotation, which means money leaving one part of the market and moving into another. Rotation is healthy. The market isn’t falling apart. It’s spreading out.
So here’s what to actually do. First, check how much of your money sits in one type of stock. If your portfolio is really just five AI stocks that all move the same way, you don’t own a portfolio. You own one bet. Add up how much of your money is in big tech. If it’s more than 80%, you’re not spread out. You’re exposed.
Second, use the fear. A reading of 25 on the Fear & Greed Index has, in the past, been closer to a buy signal than a sell signal for long-term investors. The best returns often get made when it feels worst. I’m not telling you to throw all your cash in at once. I’m telling you to keep buying on your normal schedule and stop checking your account every hour.
Third, own the boring stuff again. Value and small companies led this week for a reason. When everyone sells the popular stocks, the unpopular ones get cheap. A broad index fund spreads your money across hundreds of companies in one buy, so you catch the rotation without having to guess the winner. An S&P 500 index fund like VOO, or a total market fund like VTI, does this for you.
The bull case is real. AI may be big enough to keep paying off. The bear case is real too. All this spending may never earn its money back. You don’t have to pick a side. You just have to stay spread out enough that being wrong doesn’t wreck you. Keep your money in more than one place, and weeks like this one stop scaring you.
👉 For daily insights follow me on X /Twitter; Instagram Threads; Facebook; or BlueSky (and turn on notifications)
(2) 3 Things You Need To Understand
The biggest ideas & trends to pay attention to, and where they’re heading next.
📬 Today we’ll discuss:
⚡Micron Is the New Nvidia
📉 SpaceX Losing $600 Billion in 3 Days Is Just the Start
💊 The Peptide Boom Is Here
🤔 But first — Which trend would you rather invest in right now?
⚡Micron Is the New Nvidia
Memory-chip maker Micron has taken Nvidia’s title as the single biggest winner of the AI spending boom. The numbers back it up. Micron quadrupled revenue to $41.5 billion, posted an 85% gross margin, and predicted next quarter’s sales would hit $50 billion, far above what Wall Street expected. The stock jumped 15% and has more than tripled this year. These are the kind of figures that used to belong only to Nvidia.
What changed is supply. AI data centers need enormous amounts of memory, and the world can’t make it fast enough. That shortage lets Micron charge much higher prices, which turned a boring, low-profit business into one of the hottest stocks on Wall Street. Where big tech companies once paid an “Nvidia tax” on processors, they now pay a “Micron tax” on memory. Micron says the shortage lasts at least another 18 months, and it has locked in 16 long-term supply deals with fixed prices and cash deposits to keep those profits coming.
There’s a reason this matters beyond one stock. Memory chips went from a boring, up-and-down business to the most important part of the AI trade. So when Apple and Microsoft raise prices on you, a chunk of that money ends up as profit for Micron. SK Hynix, a Micron rival, plans to list in the U.S. next month, which gives American investors another way to invest in the same trend.
Now the warning. Nvidia is the cautionary tale here. It still leads in AI chips, but its stock has fallen behind this year because competition showed up. A flood of new processors broke its near-monopoly. The same threat now faces memory chips. Big tech hates paying anyone an 85% profit margin, and companies like Microsoft and Google are under heavy pressure to cut AI spending. They will find ways to pay Micron less. Chinese competition is coming too.
My read after years watching chip cycles is simple. Micron is winning big right now, and the next 12 to 18 months look strong on paper. The risk is that today’s record profits are as good as they’ll ever get. Memory chips have always gone through big booms and big busts, and the booms never last forever. If you own it, enjoy the ride but know what you’re holding. Micron is the king of AI right now, and being the king means everyone is coming to take a piece.
📉 SpaceX Losing $600 Billion in 3 Days Is Just the Start
A two-day selloff in AI and chip stocks spread across the world, erasing more than $1 trillion in value and scaring investors who had crowded into the most popular trade on the planet. SpaceX got the headlines, losing over $400 billion in value in a single Monday, but the company was just the most visible sign of a much bigger problem. Investors no longer agree on what these AI dreams are worth.
The selling started in South Korea. A local report suggested SK Hynix was slowing its AI memory expansion and shifting toward cheaper everyday chips. That one headline set off the selling. The KOSPI plunged 10.5% and triggered a circuit breaker that paused trading. Samsung and SK Hynix each fell more than 12%. Chinese stocks in Hong Kong dropped into a bear market. Then the selling spread to the U.S. The American chip index fell more than 7%, Micron dropped as much as 13% before its earnings, and the Nasdaq 100 sank.
The damage hit the giants too. Google had its worst single day in more than a year, down $225 billion, made worse by news that a Nobel Prize-winning scientist was leaving the company for rival Anthropic. When your best people walk out during a selloff, investors notice. The bigger fear underneath it all is spending. Tech giants are pouring a projected $650 billion into AI this year, expected to rise toward $1.1 trillion next year, and almost four years after ChatGPT launched, the actual payoff from all that cash still looks unclear.
Here’s the part that should grab your attention. When companies become net sellers of their own stock, history says the market is stretched too thin. Research from the investment firm GMO shows that when IPOs reach 5% of total market value, the S&P 500 has tended to fall around 40% over the following year. We’re seeing a flood of new stock right now, from SpaceX to Google to a packed IPO pipeline. And there’s a hidden multiplier. When investors buy into a giant IPO, they sell other stocks to pay for it, and every dollar that leaves the market can erase several dollars of total value. That’s how selloffs feed on themselves.
The bulls aren't giving up. Dan Ives of Wedbush called this a "gut check moment" and said the AI revolution is still in the third inning of a nine-inning game. Others argued the drop was technical, not a sign of broken companies. They may be right. The S&P 500 actually fell on Tuesday even though most of its stocks rose, which means the pain was stuck in a few huge names while the rest of the market quietly held up. That’s a sign of rotation, which means money moving from one part of the market to another, and that’s the healthy kind of selloff.
So here’s my honest take. This looks more like a fast, scary drop than the start of a real crash, at least for now. When the 20 hottest stocks in the index have all doubled in under six months, a pullback isn’t a surprise. It’s overdue. The real test is whether the AI spenders keep spending. The day one big player decides to spend less, things change fast. Nobody expects that yet, which is exactly why you should be ready for it.
💊 The Peptide Boom Is Here
The black-market peptide economy worth up to $3 billion is on the edge of going fully legal, and investors are racing to get ahead of it. A peptide-friendly White House and an FDA advisory panel meeting in late July could decide whether seven peptides can be legally made and sold. The whole industry is approaching its biggest turning point yet.
This boom is the sequel to the GLP-1 weight-loss craze. Once people discovered drugs like Ozempic, they went looking for more, and a giant underground market grew to meet that demand. The numbers tell the story. U.S. Customs logged $328 million in peptide ingredient imports in just the first nine months of 2025, more than double the prior year’s pace. Testing lab Janoshik Analytical saw peptide sample volumes jump 1,200% from 2023 to 2025. That demand clearly needs rules around it.
The money is lining up behind a few names. The research firm Leerink projects the telehealth peptide market could reach $2.2 billion by 2027, with Hims & Hers Health $HIMS potentially grabbing around $440 million of it. LifeMD $LFMD is positioned to benefit as legal access expands. The Precision Peptide Company $PNGAF is ramping up through a marketing partnership. The opportunity is real, and the early movers in telehealth could capture a lot of it.
The range of outcomes here is wide, and that’s the part worth respecting. In a more cautious case where doctors prescribe fewer peptides, that same forecast drops to $1.1 billion and Hims’ slice falls to around $220 million. The FDA just sent 25 warning letters to telehealth firms over misleading GLP-1 claims, proof that going legal won’t mean a free-for-all. Supply chains still lean heavily on Chinese manufacturers, and building legal, compliant sourcing takes time.
My take is that this is a real trend with real money behind it, and it deserves a spot on your watch list. It’s also early, speculative, and depends heavily on what regulators decide, which means how much you bet matters more than how sure you feel. The race has started, and the winners will be the companies that follow the rules.
💡 Andrew’s Analysis:
The crowd always rushes into the same popular stocks until they break, then runs to the next ones. You saw it in all three stories this week. Micron is today’s darling because money fled Nvidia. The global selloff happened because too much cash chased too few AI names. And peptides are heating up because the GLP-1 winners got crowded and investors went hunting for the next wave. It’s the same human behavior on repeat, just with new stock names.
The lesson for you is to think one step ahead of the crowd, not with it. By the time a trade is on every front page, the easy gains are gone and you're the one buying right before it falls. The smart play is to spot where money is moving before the crowd arrives, decide how much to put in any one bet so no single trend can wreck you, and keep enough cash to buy when fear (like this week's reading of 25) hands you a discount. Chase the headlines and you show up late. Watch where the money is quietly moving and you show up early.
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Part II: What the Market Is Telling Us
The hidden signals, sentiment, and data beneath the surface.
3. Market Psychology & What Comes Next
4. Interest Rate Forecast & Real Estate Outlook
(3) Market Psychology & What Comes Next
The psychology, signals, and data pointing to where the market goes next.
Fear & Greed Index — Bearish Mood, Contrarian Positive
The reading is flashing Fear at 25, which is a bearish mood signal on the surface. The Fear & Greed Index is a simple gauge that scores market emotion from 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed), built from seven different measures of how investors are behaving. Right now it sits near the bottom, down from 60 a month ago and 63 a year ago. The crowd is scared.
The fear runs deep. Five of the seven gauges show extreme fear, including stock price breadth, the put-call ratio, safe haven demand, and junk bond demand. Money is running from risky stocks into safe bonds, and traders are buying protection. Only market volatility reads neutral, which tells us this is more of a slow grind of worry than a full panic.
Here’s why this matters for you. Extreme fear has, in the past, been closer to a buying opportunity than a selling one when you invest for the long term. When everyone is scared at the same time, most of the selling is already done. I’m not calling a bottom, because fear can always get worse. But a reading of 25 is the kind of setup that rewards you for staying calm while everyone else panics. The events behind it, the hot inflation and the AI chip selloff, are real, so this fear has a cause. It just may be overdone.
AAII Investor Sentiment — Mixed, Leaning Optimistic
This one reads Mixed, with a hopeful tilt. The AAII survey simply asks everyday investors where they think the market is headed over the next six months, and it’s been running since 1987. The latest results show optimism jumping.
Bullish sentiment leaped 8.4 points to 44.9%, climbing above its long-term average of 37.5% for the first time in six weeks. Neutral sentiment dropped to an unusually low 18.9%, and bearish sentiment slipped to 36.1%. The bull-bear spread, which is just bullish votes minus bearish votes, swung positive to +8.8%. On the surface, regular investors are feeling better, helped by easing tensions with Iran and oil sliding to a four-month low.
The picture is split though. Bearish votes are still above their long-term average for the 20th straight week, which means a big chunk of investors stay nervous even as the optimists get loud. Put this next to the Fear & Greed Index showing extreme fear, and you get a market that can’t make up its mind. Some people see a buying chance. Others see more pain coming. That kind of disagreement tends to produce back-and-forth, up-and-down action until one side wins the argument. Watch which way the bears break.
Technical Analysis — Positive, With Cracks Forming
The charts read Positive overall, but the cracks are real. The S&P 500 closed at 7,357.49 and sits in a rising trend across the short, medium, and long term. It’s holding above support near 7,270, which is a healthy sign. As long as it stays above that level, the market is more likely to keep rising.
The Nasdaq-100 closed at 29,440.32, and it’s the weak spot. It broke below the floor of its rising trend, a sign the climb is losing steam. It now has support around 28,500 and resistance near 30,500. The index still rates positive, so it isn’t broken, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq took the most damage in this week’s chip selloff. The Nasdaq’s own fear gauge, the VXN, spiked to 32 even while the broad market VIX stayed below 20, which tells you the worry is concentrated in tech.
Bitcoin closed at 59,888 and reads clearly negative. It’s in a falling trend and broke down through support at 61,000, which points to more weakness ahead. Crypto is the riskiest part of the market, and it’s falling first as the dollar gets stronger. All three move the same way. The safer, broader index looks fine, while the riskiest corners (tech and crypto) crack first. That is what usually happens late in a market cycle, when the speculative stuff starts to fall before the rest.
Economic Indicators — Mixed, Pulled in Two Directions
The economic indicators read Mixed, with hot inflation pulling one way and a still-solid economy pulling the other. On the troubling side, inflation sits at 4.17%, well above the Fed’s 2% target, and consumer sentiment is at 44.80, sitting at the very bottom of its entire historical range. People feel terrible about the economy, and prices are too high. That combination keeps the Fed hawkish and rate cuts off the table.
On the steady side, the picture looks fine. Unemployment is 4.30%, still healthy by any historical measure. GDP growth is 2.00%, right in the normal range. The VIX at 17.27 signals a calm market. The 10-year Treasury yield at 4.45% sits right in its normal range. So the hard data says the economy is holding up, even as inflation runs hot and people feel miserable about it.
That gap between how things feel and how they actually are is the whole story of this market. The jobs are there. The growth is there. But the cost of living is wearing people down, and the AI spending boom is adding fresh fuel to inflation. As long as inflation stays above 4%, the Fed stays stuck, and a stuck Fed means rates stay high for longer, which pressures stocks. Watch inflation and consumer sentiment closely. They’re the two readings most likely to decide what happens next.
The Bigger Picture — Neutral With a Cautious Lean
My overall grade is Neutral with a cautious lean. The market is sending mixed signals on purpose, because it’s at a real crossroads. Fear is extreme, which is a contrarian positive. Everyday investors are getting more hopeful, which is a good sign. The broad charts still point up. But inflation is hot, the Fed is hawkish, tech and crypto are cracking, and people feel awful about the economy. None of these signals agree, and that’s exactly what a turning point looks like.
The AI spending boom is the thread running through every signal. It’s driving inflation, which keeps the Fed hawkish, which lifts rates, which pressures the most expensive stocks, which are the AI names, which is why tech is cracking while the broad market holds. Meanwhile fear has spiked to extreme levels, which has, in the past, marked the kind of moment where being patient pays off. The events behind all this, the chip selloff, the hot inflation print, the Iran ceasefire easing oil, are real and traceable. This is a market working through a real change.
A few things could push it higher from here. Cooling inflation, a steady Fed, and the AI money spreading out into more stocks instead of just five would all help.
A few things could push it lower too. A hot inflation report, an actual rate hike, or one big AI spender cutting its budget would all hurt.
My honest outlook is back-and-forth and stuck in a range in the near term, with the broad market holding up better than the scary headlines suggest. Stay invested, stay spread out, and let the extreme fear work for you instead of against you.
👉For daily insights, follow me on X /Twitter; Instagram Threads; Facebook; or BlueSky (and turn on notifications)
(4) Interest Rate Forecast & Real Estate Outlook
What’s next for mortgages, housing, and your money.
Interest Rates — Holding Steady, With Upward Risk
I think rates stay flat over the near term, with a slightly better chance of going up than down. The 30-year fixed is stuck around 6.49%, and the 10-year Treasury keeps bumping against the same 4.42% limit it’s faced since late May. Until something breaks that range, mortgage rates won’t move much.
Two forces are pulling in opposite directions, and that standoff is why rates are stuck. On one side, oil slid to a four-month low as ships move through the Strait of Hormuz again, which took some pressure off the 10-year and nudged rates down a touch. On the other side, PCE inflation just hit 4.1%, the Fed under Warsh killed the idea of cuts and put a hike back on the table, and inflation is climbing rather than cooling. Weigh those against each other and you get rates that drift sideways in a narrow range.
For buyers, sellers, and investors, the move is the same. Stop waiting for a big rate drop, because the math says it isn’t coming soon.
If you’re buying, treat today’s mid-6% rate as the new normal and buy the home that fits your life and your budget. You can always refinance later if rates fall.
If you’re selling, price it realistically, because high rates are keeping buyers cautious.
And if you’re an investor, run your numbers at 6.5%, not at some fantasy 5%. The buyers winning right now are the ones who stopped waiting and accepted rates as they are.
Buy the home now if it’s right for you, and refinance the rate later if it drops.
Real Estate — A Rare Housing Win, Tangled in Politics
The big story is a landmark housing bill that passed Congress with overwhelming support and then hit a wall. The 21st Century Road to Housing Act cleared the Senate 85-5 and the House 358-32, a rare bipartisan win. Then, two hours before the signing ceremony, President Trump abruptly canceled it, saying he won’t sign until a separate voter-eligibility bill passes. The bill isn’t dead though. Unless he vetoes it, it becomes law automatically in 10 days, and it has enough votes to override a veto anyway.
What’s in it matters for housing costs over time. The bill speeds up homebuilding by cutting red tape and rewarding cities that loosen zoning rules, makes cheaper manufactured and modular homes easier to build and finance, and blocks large Wall Street investors from mass-buying single-family homes. The country is short more than 4 million homes, so anything that adds supply helps. None of this lowers your mortgage overnight, but the supply measures could ease prices over the coming years.
The current data tells a calmer, more buyer-friendly story than last year. New-home sales fell to a 580,000 annual pace, down 7.3% from April, as builders turn cautious. Active inventory crossed 1.1 million homes, the most since December 2025. The median list price is down 3.1% from a year ago, though prices are basically flat in real terms. And 55% of homes are now selling below their original list price. You have more choice and more room to negotiate than buyers have had in a while.
Two things matter most here. First, the hidden costs of owning are climbing fast. Annual homeownership expenses jumped 39% since 2019, far outpacing the 26% rise in consumer prices, with emergency repair costs alone up 175%. The mortgage is only part of the bill, so budget for the rest before you buy. Second, the big institutional investors are pulling back. Mega-investors fell to just 7.5% of purchases, their smallest share since at least 2011. With Wall Street stepping back and more homes for sale, you face less competition than buyers have in years.
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Part III: Investment Research & Analysis
Data-driven research on the best stocks, trades, and insider buys.
5. Insider Trading Alerts (Follow the Smart Money)
6. Stocks Beating the Market
7. The Smartest Trade I See Right Now
(5) Insider Trading Alerts (Follow the Smart Money)
The latest insider trades worth paying attention to.
Nancy Pelosi Bought Intel $INTC
Reported on June 24, 2026, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) disclosed a buy of Intel $INTC through her spouse, in the $1 million to $5 million range. Pelosi’s trades get followed closely, and for good reason. Her household has one of the best long-term track records in Congress, helped by her husband Paul’s well-timed bets and her decades of access at the very top of Washington. When the Pelosis buy, people pay attention.
This buy landed right in the middle of the worst chip selloff in months, with Intel dropping alongside the rest of the group. Buying a beaten-down American chipmaker while everyone else panics is a classic value move. Intel has been the underdog of the AI era, far behind Nvidia and Micron, but Washington has made building chips in America a national priority, with funding and even ownership stakes flowing to U.S. producers. A bet on Intel is partly a bet that the government keeps propping up homegrown chip supply.
Looking ahead, the case for Intel rests on a turnaround that’s still unproven. The growth drivers are its push into making chips for other companies, government support for U.S.-made chips, and the simple fact that the world needs far more chip capacity than it has. The risk is execution, because Intel has missed before. If the turnaround works, this is a cheap way into a recovering giant. If it doesn’t, it stays the underdog. The Pelosi household is betting on the recovery.
I'm keeping Intel on my watchlist for now, not buying yet. The turnaround story is real, and the Pelosi buy is a strong political signal worth tracking, but Intel still has negative free cash flow, shrinking margins, and a heavy spending burden weighing on the business. The case rests almost entirely on a recovery that hasn't proven itself, and Intel has missed its own targets before. I want to see real customer traction in its contract chip business before I commit. The government support and the global chip shortage give it a floor, but a floor isn't a reason to buy.
Nancy Pelosi Bought Uber $UBER
Also reported on June 24, 2026, Pelosi disclosed a buy of Uber $UBER through her spouse, in the $500,000 to $1 million range. Uber has quietly become one of the great comeback stories in tech, going from a cash-burning startup into a profitable company that dominates rides and food delivery. The Pelosi household adding to it signals confidence that the profits keep growing.
Uber sits right in the path of the self-driving revolution, teaming up with robotaxi companies instead of fighting them. As driverless cars scale up, Uber’s huge network of riders becomes the obvious place to plug them in. Its total addressable market keeps expanding from rides into delivery, freight, and advertising, which gives it many ways to grow.
My read is that this is a bet on a steady, growing company, not a quick flip. The growth drivers are clear, including the shift to driverless cars, the move into new services, and steady profit growth. Uber is past the risky startup phase and into the part of the S-curve where profits scale up fast. Buying it during a broad tech selloff, when fear drags good companies down with the bad ones, is exactly when patient investors step in.
This is a buy for me. Uber has the exact combination I look for: a dominant position with real network effects, profits that are growing every quarter, several ways to expand beyond its core rides business, and a smart position in the self-driving shift where it benefits instead of competing. It's past the risky phase and into the part of its growth curve where profits scale fast. Buying it during a broad tech selloff, when fear drags good companies down with the bad ones, is exactly when patient investors step in. The Pelosi buy adds one more credibility signal on top of an already strong story.
DPC Holdings $DPC
In one of the strongest insider signals of the week, three top executives at DPC Holdings $DPC (the aerospace parts maker that does business as Doncasters) bought a combined roughly $26 million of their own stock, all filed on June 26, 2026. CEO Quinn Michael Joseph led with a $14,358,993 purchase, CFO David John Egan bought $9,086,979, and COO Jason Mays added $2,837,109. All three bought at $33, the exact price of the company’s IPO the day before, and each raised their stake by more than 999%.
When the CEO, CFO, and COO all buy together at the same time, that’s the clearest bullish signal in the insider world. People sell stock for a hundred reasons. They buy for only one. They think it’s going higher. Doncasters is a nearly 250-year-old British company that makes the high-precision “can’t fail” cast parts for the hot zones of jet engines and industrial gas turbines, serving aerospace and power markets that are both booming. After a long turnaround, the company just went public, raising over $900 million, mostly to pay down debt.
The forward case here is the aerospace boom. Airlines are buying planes at a record pace, engine demand is surging, and only a handful of companies worldwide can make these parts. That gives Doncasters a protected niche with long-term growth behind it. The whole leadership team putting up their own cash on day two of public trading tells you they believe the boom is real and the stock is cheap. For a freshly public name, that’s about as confident a vote as insiders can give.
I'm putting this at the top of my watchlist, just short of buying. The insider signal here is as strong as it gets. A combined $26 million buy from the CEO, CFO, and COO at the IPO price is extraordinary, and the protected niche in aerospace precision parts is real with durable demand behind it. The only reason I'm waiting is that this is a brand-new public company that still carries meaningful debt even after the offering, and I want to see one quarter of public results before I buy. If those numbers come in clean, this moves to a buy fast.
(6) Stocks Beating the Market
The stocks gaining momentum and what’s driving them.
1) Definium Therapeutics up +50% on 6/22
Definium Therapeutics was up +50% on 6/22 after the early-stage biotech posted positive Phase 3 results for its depression treatment. A successful late-stage trial is the single biggest catalyst a small biotech can get, because it moves the company from “maybe” to “real product” almost overnight. That’s why the stock nearly doubled in a day.
Depression is one of the largest untreated markets in all of medicine, with millions of patients poorly served by existing drugs. A new treatment that actually works in a Phase 3 trial steps into a total addressable market worth billions. The next steps are FDA review and possible approval, and each one can move the stock sharply.
The forward case is high-risk, high-reward. The growth drivers are the path to approval, the huge patient population, and the strong odds that a bigger drug company tries to buy or partner with Definium to get the treatment. The risk is regulatory, because the FDA can still say no. This is a speculative bet, so keep it small, but the upside on a successful launch is real.
2) Kymera Therapeutics $KYMR up +17% on 6/25
Kymera Therapeutics $KYMR was up +17% on 6/25 after finishing enrollment in a Phase 2 trial for its eczema treatment. Hitting an enrollment milestone keeps a drug program on schedule, which reassures investors that the upcoming milestones are still on track.
Kymera works on a cutting-edge approach called targeted protein degradation, which aims to break down disease-causing proteins instead of just blocking them. If it works, it opens the door to treating conditions older drugs can’t reach. Eczema alone affects tens of millions of people, a large and growing market.
The forward picture is promising but early. The growth drivers are its new drug platform, the large patient groups it targets, and strong interest from big pharma in protein-degradation technology. The total addressable market spans many diseases if the science holds up. This is a high-potential biotech where each trial milestone, like this one, moves the story forward.
I'm keeping Kymera on my watchlist. The platform technology is genuinely innovative and the interest from big pharma is real, but the stock jumped 17% on an enrollment update, not actual trial results. The catalyst that really matters (the data itself) is still ahead. I want to see that data before I buy. Until then, it stays on close watch.
3) Super Micro Computer $SMCI up +16% on 6/22
Super Micro Computer $SMCI was up +16% on 6/22 on the rollout of a new AI data center platform built around Nvidia’s latest Vera Rubin chips. Super Micro builds the specialized servers that house AI chips, so every wave of new Nvidia hardware creates fresh demand for its systems.
Super Micro sits at the heart of the AI buildout. When companies spend billions on AI infrastructure, much of that money flows into the servers and cooling systems Super Micro makes. Being first to market with platforms for the newest chips gives it an edge over slower rivals.
The forward case is a direct play on AI spending. The growth drivers are the nonstop building of AI data centers, Super Micro’s tight partnership with Nvidia, and its lead in liquid cooling, which the hottest new chips require. The total addressable market grows every time a tech giant announces another data center. The risk is that any slowdown in AI spending hits Super Micro fast, so it’s a riskier way to invest in the trend, because it moves more sharply in both directions.
I'm watching this closely but not buying yet. The AI infrastructure tailwind is real and the tight Nvidia partnership is valuable, but Super Micro runs on thin margins, swings hard in both directions, and has a history of accounting scrutiny that I can't ignore. It's a high-octane bet on AI spending that drops fast whenever that spending gets questioned. I want to see a few quarters of clean, consistent financials before I commit.
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(7) The Smartest Trade I See Right Now
Unusual options activity showing where big money is placing its bets.
Rayonier Advanced Materials $RYAM — Bullish Call Buying
A big options bet just showed up in Rayonier Advanced Materials $RYAM, and the ratio tells the whole story. Traders are buying calls over puts at roughly 100 to 1, an overwhelmingly bullish lean. The action centered on the September 18th $10.00 call, with volume hitting 3,019 contracts against open interest of just 171. That gap means this is fresh money placing a new bet, not traders closing old positions.
The standout piece was a single 1,009-contract block bought at the ask price of $0.40. Buying at the ask, in size, is the sign of someone in a hurry to buy, and it points to real bullish intent. With the stock trading around $7.92, that $10 strike price sits well above where the stock is now, so these traders are betting on a big move higher by September.
Rayonier Advanced Materials makes high-purity cellulose specialties, which are refined wood-based materials that end up in everyday products like food, medicine, filters, and coatings. It’s a niche industrial business, far from the AI spotlight, which is part of what makes this bet interesting. When unusual call buying shows up in a quiet, overlooked name, it often means someone expects good news the broader market hasn’t noticed yet.
Smaller industrial and materials stocks have quietly been getting bought this week as money moves out of crowded tech and into beaten-down value. RYAM fits that profile. It’s a cheap, overlooked materials company in a market that’s suddenly hunting for exactly those traits. Call buying this lopsided suggests at least one trader thinks the move out of tech isn’t over yet and RYAM is a way to invest in it.
The bull case rests on a few things. The growth drivers are rising demand for specialty cellulose across food and medicine, the company’s push into higher-profit products, and any improvement in its finances that lifts the stock off depressed levels. The total addressable market for wood-based materials keeps growing as industries look for alternatives to oil-based inputs. As a small company, RYAM can move fast on good news, which is exactly what these call buyers are positioning for.
My take is cautiously bullish on this trade. The 100-to-1 call-to-put ratio, the fresh positioning well above the current price, and the aggressive block bought at the ask all point the same direction. Someone is betting on a real move by September. The risk is that small-company options bets like this can expire worthless if the good news doesn’t show, so this is a speculative play, not a sure thing. But the size and direction of this buying is hard to ignore. When smart money buys this many calls in a forgotten name, it pays to at least watch closely.
Part IV: What You Should Do
Make smarter financial decisions.
8. Practical Advice & What to Do Next
9. Lessons I Wish I Learned Sooner
10. Ask Me Anything (Your Questions Answered)
(8) Practical Advice & What to Do Next
A guide to helping you make smarter decisions with money, investing, and life.
Use extreme fear as a buy signal, not a sell signal. The Fear & Greed Index at 25 has, in the past, marked buying chances for long-term investors. The best returns get made when it feels worst. Keep buying on your normal schedule and stop watching your account.
Focus on your earning power. You cannot control interest rates. You cannot control inflation. You can control your skills and your income. The best investment you can make is in your ability to earn more money.
Keep some cash on hand. The market is volatile today. Having cash gives you power. When a great stock drops for no good reason, you can buy the dip. You need dry powder to take advantage of the panic. Keep at least 10 percent of your portfolio in cash.
Set up automatic buys for VOO or VTI. A broad index fund like VOO or VTI spreads your money across hundreds of companies in a single buy. Pick a day of the month. Buy the same amount every single time. This removes your emotions from the process. You buy when the market is high and when it is low. Over time, this wins.
Separate company quality from stock price. SpaceX can be a great company and still be a risky stock at the wrong price. The same goes for any popular name. A great story can become a poor investment when the price already assumes perfection.
Stop waiting for perfect mortgage rates. The 30-year fixed is at 6.5%. It may go to 7% before it goes to 5%. Buy the house that fits your life and your budget. You can refinance later if rates fall. The people who bought at 7% in 2023 and refinanced at 6.5% in 2025 are already ahead. The people still renting and waiting are paying someone else's mortgage.
(9) Lessons I Wish I Learned Sooner
Financial lessons most people learn too late.
I spent two decades in finance watching these exact cycles play out. The headlines will always try to scare you. The real story always sits in the data.
Warren Buffett has a rule he’s lived by for 60 years. Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. The Fear & Greed Index is at 25. That’s fear. Real fear. The kind that makes people sell good companies at bad prices. The kind that creates the entries you’ll brag about in five years.
So step back and look at what this week actually gave you. A peptide boom forming before the crowd arrives. Micron running while money flees Nvidia. Smart insiders buying with both hands while everyone else sells. The crowd is looking down at what’s falling. The money is quietly moving toward what’s about to rise.
You don’t have to be a genius to win here. You just have to be calm when others aren’t.
(10) Ask Me Anything (Subscriber Questions Answered)
What subscribers are asking, and what you need to know too.
Q: What exactly is the peptide boom, and why now?
Peptides are small chains of amino acids that the body uses as signals. Some help with weight loss, muscle, healing, and energy. The boom is the sequel to the Ozempic craze. Once people tried GLP-1 drugs, they went looking for more, and a huge underground market grew. Late this July, an FDA panel decides whether seven peptides can be legally made and sold. That ruling could turn a $3 billion gray market into a real one.
Q: Is the AI boom over?
The AI boom is not over, but the easy money is gone. The big tech companies are spending billions on AI. The problem is the valuations got high. The market is rotating. Money is leaving the expensive tech giants and moving into the companies that supply the AI hardware. You must shift your focus to the supply chain.
Q: What is rotation and why does it matter?
Rotation is when money moves from one part of the market to another. This week, money left tech stocks and moved into small caps, healthcare, consumer staples, and international stocks. It matters because you want to own where the money is going, not where it has been. A total market index fund like VTI automatically captures rotation because it owns everything.
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