Rocket Lab surged 34% on May 8 — the largest single-day move in company history. Q1 revenue $200.3M (+63.5% YoY), backlog $2.2B (+108% YoY, doubled), GAAP gross margin 38.2% (record), Q2 guide $232.5M (+70% YoY, 10-15% above consensus). The market admitted three things at once: Neutron demand is signed (5 contracts including the largest deal in company history), vertical integration is producing margin (M&A flywheel intact), and RKLB has graduated from small-sat launcher to mission-critical national security infrastructure. Neutron maiden flight in Dec 2026 is the binary event. The only investable pure-play space alpha in public markets.
Trump-Xi concluded May 14-15. We score our 45/40/15 scenario call against reality, mark the sector calls that worked and missed, and update the trade matrix for the next 30/90/365 day windows.
Senate Banking Committee votes Thursday May 14 on the first U.S. crypto market structure bill — the first such committee vote in U.S. history. Three scenarios (60/25/15), Polymarket calibration (62% off the 75% high), what the 309-page bill actually says, why the real trade is Circle (CRCL), and the structure to play it.
Six photonics names reported in nine days. All beat. Half sold off anyway. NVDA committed up to $3.2B to GLW; LITE joins the Nasdaq-100 on May 18; NOK raised optical guidance 800bps mid-cycle. The original 8-name framework is now 14 names across 6 tiers: GLW #1 (catalyst), LITE #2 (index inclusion), COHR #3 (highest quality), NOK #4 (structural value). Two whole tiers added: foundry (TSEM) and optical DSP (MRVL/CRDO/ALAB).
Trump visits Beijing May 14-15. Three scenarios (45/40/15), five deep sector dives, master trade matrix, and what to actually do this week.
Five weeks ago I ranked 8 photonics companies. Last night, Mag-7 Q1 2026 raised combined 2026 capex to $695-725B. 7 of 8 names unchanged in ranking, 1 trimmed (LITE short-term), 2 internal weight tweaks — but conviction in every name went up.
600K+ unfilled US manufacturing jobs. Reshoring without automation is impossible. The market either dismisses industrial automation as "mature, boring" or overpays for humanoid via Tesla. The real trade is the structural floor: ROK, ABB, ISRG already earning 20%+ operating margins. Full teardown of 10 robotics + automation stocks.
A $50K drone destroying a $2M target. The Iran conflict validated drone-centric warfare economics: unit economics flipped. Market still values KTOS, AVAV by traditional defense models, but legacy primes literally cannot build $50K systems. Full teardown of 10 drone & autonomous systems stocks.
Five weeks after the original HBM supercycle thesis: 9 of 11 monitoring triggers fired bull, most by 3-4× the threshold. Microsoft attributed $25B of capex hike to memory inflation. Samsung memory profit +50× QoQ. Why I'm more nervous, not less — and updated stop-losses for all 10 stocks.
Five weeks after the bottom call: 9 of 10 stocks up +7% avg, FNV the only loser as predicted. The new story isn't gold price — it's the capital-return supercycle (NEM's $6B buyback, AEM's A- credit). Plus: silver's hidden demand crack and the trade for the next leg.
Apple Q2 FY2026: clean beat across the board — revenue $111.2B (+17%), iPhone $57B (+22%), Greater China +28%, gross margin 49.3% record, $100B additional buyback. Sept 1 transition: Cook → Ternus, biggest leadership change in 15 years. While the four mega-caps burn $700B on AI capex, Apple just showed you can hit all-time-high records without playing that card.
Four tech giants reported Q1 2026 the same night — Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta — and the market gave four wildly different verdicts on their combined $700B AI capex bet. Here's why only Google got initial credit, why AMZN got bid back the day after, and what to do.
Aggressive Risk-On: Strait of Hormuz reopens, oil crashes >10%. SPY +4.83% to $710 turns YTD positive. Tech XLK +8.45% leads with TSLA +14.44%, AMD +13.62% (20-year longest streak), MSFT +13.16%. BTC breaks 7-month downtrend to $77K.
Every 1GW data center needs $1-2B in grid upgrades. Transformer lead times 3+ years, transmission permitting 10-15 years. AI + EVs + reshoring hitting a 1970s-era grid simultaneously. Full teardown of 10 grid infrastructure stocks: ETN quality king, PWR backlog visibility, CEG scarcest asset.