00:00 Speaker A
Catherine, what do you make about, um, what do you make about tech starting to lead this market again?
00:10 Catherine
Well, you know, we one of our guests on the panel said that the US is a basket case. It’s a pretty resilient basket case, right? I agree, you know, policy making has been
00:19 Speaker A
Is that even possible? What is a resilient basket case? Well, I guess it makes sense.
00:25 Catherine
Exactly. No, I I I I’m respectfully trying to push back on that because I I really do think that the resiliency underlying the fundamentals has been there and that’s why you know, you’ve had retail guys getting off the sidelines, putting their cash to work when you see um, the buy the dip, which really has played out this year. In fact, at Stonex, one of our biggest calls, and probably our best call after gold this year, um, was to go long at the peak of the tariff meltdown. And that’s when the market is collapsing based on fear, um, and so we went long biotech and banks actually, and that call since April 7th, um, is up double digits. So right now, what I’m looking at is is I’m looking at playing the defensives because the equities market is back on track and moving higher. I am very much more bullish than I think a lot of people are with respect to, and have been since day one, I’m proud to say, with regard to the geopolitical um, risk to oil prices. I called I had a piece out yesterday that called the the oil price shock that wasn’t. Um, the Strait of Hormuz was, in my view, not going to be shut down, um, and probably never will be. Um, and and we and it was the the Iranian reaction was a far cry from that level of escalation, that catastrophic Armageddon type of escalation that would take oil prices potentially to 150 plus, um, and would derail the US and global economies. So I’m generally more bullish. I do like, however, to protect position, and what I’m telling our clients right now is when you have a return to risk, when you have the VIX falling, that’s when you want to buy put options on your on your on your tech positions. Tech could move higher. I think you want to look at put options, and I think you want to look at second derivatives to the tech trade, which was our top performing recommendation last year, utilities, and I think we want to look at real estate industrial complex as a second derivative as well.
03:10 Speaker B
Uh Travis, the word of the uh, the day for me so far is basket basket case. So what’s making me feel like a basket case? I know I look all polished out here, but I’m feeling it internally. Is this moving in Nvidia? Nvidia has really rallied and I go back, it was just a couple of months ago and the earnings report wasn’t good. We have a shareholder meeting today for Nvidia. May not say much. Are you a big believer in this Nvidia rally?
04:02 Travis
Um, yes and no. I think it’s been very strong in the most recent past, uh, Nvidia’s performance over the last three months has been very strong. But over the last year, it’s actually been a median performer versus large cap peers. Um, but we do think it’s very close and I think the um, the last piece of the puzzle for the confirmation of the next kind of big out performance run in Nvidia is that kind of 150 level in Nvidia, which was the prior highs that we saw late last year and early this year. So we’re on Nvidia watch in terms of that confirmation of the new uptrend, which I think if it has a breakout above that 150, then that’ll be kind of the last signal that that needs to be in place. Um, but Brian, I think we coined the term resilient basket case. I think that’s a good one for the US given the given the big sell off and the big rally back. I mean, it’s only been beta and volatility which really mattered this year, which side you are on and the risk on risk off trades. So I like resilient basket case. That’s a good one.
05:58 Speaker B
Yeah, well, if you want to be a resilient basket case, I mean what where else you looking at in tech? If if video’s not your your vibe, we have these Micron earnings coming out, where else are you looking?
06:24 Travis
Yeah, we think, um, actually that the AI kind of tech industrial complex has broadened out, um, in this recent rally. So yeah, I mean, it’s not that we don’t like Nvidia, uh, it’s actually very close to us really liking it. Uh, but right at the moment, we think there’s some stronger momentum in like Broadcom, IBM, Oracle, and even if you broaden out into the small cap markets in the US, you know, infrastructure companies like Sterling infrastructure, um, you know, benefiting from the data center build out that seems to be uh, just insatiable demand. So I think there’s a lot more uh, to play in US markets and globally than just Nvidia. So it’s not that we don’t like Nvidia, we like it. We just like uh, uh, a couple companies better than that right now.