☕️ Watch for a late day fade and keep your guard up

Howdy! 👋 

It’s another day, and another new record on tap. 

Proves a point I make incessantly. 

You’ve got to be “in to win”… if winning is what you want to do. 

You’d be surprised at how many people say that’s what they want but then their actions never match up. 

Here’s my playbook. 

1 - Surprise? Not. Washington and Beijing may have a deal on the table 

I hate to say I told you so but in this case I did. 

Repeatedly. 

The US and China would make a deal, tariffs would bring people to the table, and traders would try to get ahead of both, I said on more than one occasion. 

Not surprisingly, the S&P 500 has returned 21.31% since April lows when I said that it’s time to buy during an interview with the super sharp Charles Payne. (Watch)  

A number of stocks that I prefer, including many that we talk about frequently, have done considerably better which is why I prefer to own ‘em but that’s a story for another time. 

What’s next? 

Two thoughts come to mind. 

First, there is still a huge amount of upside from here longer term, so it makes sense to continue buying those very same tightly focused names. A process I call, “buy the best, ignore the rest.” 

Second and more immediately, there are a lot of big money traders who have been caught offsides by this latest move off April lows so, Bryce, our lead risk management analyst, has asked me to remind you to keep your guard up into the weekend for a mid or late day “fade.”

Trade Idea: If you’re a trader, consider ATM SPY/SPX/QQQ puts as a speculative way to capture any downside drift or weekend uncertainty. Plan on exiting win, lose or draw, come Monday. 🤔 And if you’re an investor, use any weakness as an opportunity to do a little extra shopping. 

2 – Data is the new oil, but privacy is the pipeline 

This is rich. 

Germany just told Apple and Google to consider blocking Chinese AI app DeepSeek, calling its transfer of user data to China “unlawful” under EU privacy laws. (Read) 

Na endlich! 

China pulled off the greatest single industrial espionage coup in human history when it launched DeepSeek and it’s astonishing that more of the planet doesn’t recognize that. 

To be fair, I am not certain there’s a whole heckuva lot anybody can do about it but that’s a different proposition. Not to mention one that depends on personal and political willpower. 

Any Wall Street darling (stock) without airtight data governance is playing with fire. 

Focus on those names with: 

✅ Regulatory resilience 
✅ Trusted data architectures 
✅ Leaders who know the line between innovation and overreach  

The market will reward investors who understand clarity — and punish carelessness. 

Keith’s Investing Tip: Data is the new oil, but privacy is the pipeline. 

3 – Nike: “the dog ate my homework” 

Nike just warned that new tariffs will cost it a whopping $1 billion this year, even though it beat Q4 earnings estimates. (Read) 

The company says it’ll offset the pain with price increases and supply chain shifts, while doubling down on its turnaround strategy – sharpening its focus on sports performance and rekindling wholesale partnerships, including crawling back to Amazon for the first time since 2019. 

Here’s a thought. 

How about making great shoes that last and concentrating on your customers? 

I competed in triathlons for more than a decade. I wasn’t the fastest in the bunch nor the slowest… call me a respectable amateur near the top of my bracket. 

Long story short, I raced in Nike for years… right up until I started miling ‘em out – meaning running past the useful life – every few months and the footbed support went to mush. Repeatedly with multiple pairs of shoes (because I thought perhaps I simply had a bad pair).  

I asked a then-Nike designer about the repeated product failures that summer and his response at the time was really telling… “we’ve been directed to engineer less effective, less durable materials into our shoes so people buy more.” 

I don’t know if that was true but I took him at his word… then went to Adidas the next day. 

Anyway, I know that’s just a small slice of everything Nike does and that I am a nobody in the scheme of things, but my story is just one of hundreds from other athletes with whom I’ve compared notes over the years.  

It was certainly the talk of the paddock on the race circuit that year. 

Can Nike recover? 

Nike walked away from Amazon six years ago, claiming it wanted brand control and a “curated customer experience.” Now, with margins under pressure, sales sliding, and competition from the likes of Lululemon and On Holding eating its lunch, brand purity suddenly matters less. 

Any global brand – not just Nike – is a reminder that global brands relying on extended supply chains are vulnerable to geopolitical shifts and policy shocks – something most investors ignore until it’s too late. 

Is the design back up to snuff? 

That’s another question… I am not sure I’m willing to risk my knees to find out. 

Keith’s Investing Tip: Great companies don’t just raise prices when costs rise. They innovate, cut fat, and create products people will pay up for regardless. Nike’s pivot back to wholesale and Amazon tells me it’s playing defense, not offense. If you’re looking for retail exposure, stick to businesses with true pricing power, loyal customer bases, and leadership that isn’t always reacting to the last crisis. Oh, and products that match up to expectations. 

If you have this covered then great, but if not and you’d like some help, you know where to find me. 

4 – Uber to buy Pony AI? 

This intrigues me. 

Uber founder Travis Kalanick is reportedly trying to buy the U.S. arm of Chinese self-driving startup Pony AI, with whispers that Uber itself might help make the deal happen. (Read) 

Why does this matter? 

Because it signals something critical about where the next AI arms race is headed. 

At least to me anyway. 

Most investors hear “AI” and think chatbots, coding tools, or productivity apps. But the real money is in infrastructure and automation at scale—like oh, I dunno, autonomous vehicles that move goods and people 24/7 without coffee breaks, yoga rooms, union negotiations, or driver shortages. 

Kalanick was forced out of Uber in 2017, but he’s kept busy building CloudKitchens, a robotics-heavy ghost kitchen empire.  

Buying Pony AI would put him back at the center of transportation disruption, with Uber potentially re-joining the driverless game it abandoned in 2020. 

Keith’s Investing Tip: AI isn’t just software. It’s logistics, transportation, manufacturing, energy… everything. Look beyond headlines about chatbots and find companies building the physical and digital infrastructure AI runs on.  

Don’t chase yesterday’s trends. Instead, position for tomorrow’s inevitabilities. 

5 – Bezos’ $50M wedding seems tone deaf 

Maybe it’s just me, but Jeff Bezos’ $50M wedding in Venice strikes me as tone deaf. (Read) 

I’m all for celebration, but there are loads of folks hurting right now for any number of reasons. 

Lavish celebrations aren't inherently wrong.  

But context matters. 

When inflation's still biting, rent’s up, and millions are still paycheck-to-paycheck, a $50 million blowout in Venice feels... out of touch. Especially from someone whose fortune was built in part on warehouse workers hustling through heatwaves for $15 an hour. 

No one’s saying don’t celebrate love or success, least of all me. 

Just view it differently. 

Imagine the message—and the ripple effect—if even a fraction of that spend had gone to food banks, housing programs, or education... with guests invited to match.  

That’s how you turn a private event into public good. 

At the end of the day, seems to me that people will remember generosity a lot longer than they will remember fireworks over the Grand Canal. 

Am I off base? 

Bottom Line 

Better to be “long” (and own the right stocks) than wrong (because you don’t). 

As always, let’s MAKE it a great day and end the week strong. 

You got this – I promise! 

Keith 😀