How to invest in AI and earn large passive income yields at the same time

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Today’s issue in preview:

• How to invest in AI and earn large passive income yields at the same time

• The bull market in agriculture powers to a new high

• Here’s why silver could resume its explosive uptrend

• Learn our Top Themes to buy now

The bull market in agriculture powers to a new high

Credit: niknikon

The bull market in agriculture we detailed on August 21 just got stronger…

This morning, the Invesco DB Agriculture Fund (DBA) advanced 0.8% to reach a new one-year high.

DBA is an ETF that provides investors with broad exposure to agricultural commodity prices through futures contracts. It’s one of the largest and most liquid ways for investors to take a diversified position in corn, wheat, cattle, hogs, soybeans, cocoa, sugar, and cotton.

The agricultural commodity complex is in a bull market for various reasons.

One, the price of virtually all input costs are rising thanks to the U.S. government’s runaway spending, borrowing, and printing of money.

As we detail in this research note, the government is spending far more than it takes in via tax revenues. It is borrowing and printing money to cover the shortfall. This is devaluing the dollar rapidly.

This means the cost for everything required to run a farming operation is going up. Feed costs. Fertilizer costs. Insurance costs. Fuel costs. Equipment costs. Labor costs. These rising costs are reflected in higher-end product costs.

Two, drought, heat, and other adverse weather conditions have increased concern about U.S. corn and soybean yields. Some agricultural experts believe a strengthening El Niño will make these problems even worse over the next 12 months. Key grains such as corn, soybeans, wheat, and rice all reached new one-year highs today.

As you can see in the chart below, DBA is trading in an established series of higher highs and higher lows, which is pretty much the definition of a bull market. The fund is up 25.8% over those two years.

This is a bullish tailwind for agricultural stocks like fertilizer giants Nutrien (NTR), CF Industries (CF), and Mosaic (MOS). Keep these firms on your radar… they could become big winners if the bull market in agriculture continues. Profits you make from those stocks could offset the costs of rising grocery prices.

Here’s why silver could resume its explosive uptrend

Credit: alexis84

Corn, soybeans, and wheat aren’t the only critical resources rallying this week.

The price of silver is also rallying. The precious metal just reached its highest level since June.

I’ve been long and bullish on silver for many years. I believed precious metals would rise due to U.S. dollar debasement… while also benefiting from a high-tech tailwind. Thus, I’m the proud owner of three silver “monster boxes.”

Most people don’t realize this, but silver has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal. This makes it a critical component in AI infrastructure and other electrical systems. In small, densely packed areas like AI servers, heat dissipation is critical.

Silver was one of the world’s top trends in 2025, returning about 145%. Since going on that huge run that peaked around $121 per ounce in January, silver has corrected and traded in a sideways consolidation range.

Right now, silver is attempting to regain its 2025 “mojo.”

As we covered in our Feb. 19, 2026, piece on Edge Computing, AI is moving towards “the edge.” AI will increasingly be run on local devices such as phones, cars, homes, robots, jets, boats, satellites, and spacecraft.

This is the foundation behind the long-term thesis on edge AI, autonomous systems, humanoid robots, and physical AI. These systems don’t just demand more electrical performance – they demand better electrical performance within increasingly tight thermal and power constraints. Every watt matters. Every degree of heat matters.

The infrastructure that enables this level of efficiency spans connectors, switches, relays, semiconductor packaging, and thermal management components – the bottlenecks we have regularly discussed here at Money & Megatrends. And silver is present in every single one of those critical infrastructure pieces.

To put this into perspective…analysts estimate that if just 10% of new global data centers integrate silver-enhanced components into their power and cooling systems, industrial silver demand could rise by 10% over the next decade.

As with most metals today, there’s a supply-side layer to this bullish scenario. The 2025 World Silver Survey reported a structural deficit of 148.9 million ounces in 2024, with cumulative deficits since 2021 now around 680 million ounces. The market has been running short on silver for years. And it’s only getting worse.

More concerning is that roughly 80% of the world’s silver is mined as a byproduct of extracting base metals like lead, zinc, and copper. Even if demand pushes silver prices significantly higher, miners simply can’t just turn on more silver production. Their output is dictated by the production economics of the primary metals in that mine. The market cannot drill its way out of a silver shortage.

There are some straightforward ways to play this theme. The simplest entry point is through an ETF. The iShares Silver Trust (SLV) is the largest physically backed silver ETF.

For miners specifically, the Global X Silver Miners ETF (SIL) holds a diversified portfolio of about 40 silver mining companies. If you want a combination of both physical silver and miner exposure in one vehicle, the Sprott Silver Miners & Physical Silver ETF (SLVR) is an expression of that.

For those who prefer individual stocks, three compelling pure-play silver miners are Pan American Silver (PAAS) – the world’s largest silver-focused producer with 10 mines across the Americas; First Majestic Silver (AG) – the highest-purity silver producer in the industry with 58% of revenue coming directly from silver; and Hecla Mining (HL) – the largest silver producer in the U.S. and Canada with 100% North American operations, insulating it from the geopolitical risk that affects most of its peers.

When investors talk about the physical components of the AI infrastructure boom, semiconductor chips dominate the discussion. But as we’ve detailed, silver is an under-the-radar asset poised to enjoy rising AI-related demand. We are still long silver.

How to invest in AI and earn large passive income yields at the same time

Credit: bjdlzx

Transporting oil and gas isn’t as exciting as AI or what Elon Musk is doing at SpaceX (SPCX)… but it reliably generates lots of cash… and it continues to be one of the world’s strongest trends.

Avid Money & Megatrends readers are familiar with our longstanding take on oil and gas pipelines. In early 2024, I saw the industry as the best way to generate substantial passive income from the AI boom. We’ve written over a dozen M&M updates about this trend.

Given AI’s enormous promise, big tech firms like Meta (META), Alphabet (GOOG), and Microsoft (MSFT) are racing to build the world’s best AI models and infrastructure. They’ve already spent more than a trillion dollars. This year, they are on pace to spend over $700 billion on AI infrastructure, with more than $3 trillion expected to follow.

All that AI infrastructure is poised to consume vast amounts of electricity. S&P Global estimates that global electricity demand will increase by nearly 50% by 2040.

I’ve frequently mentioned that AI’s growing power demands are a bullish driver for natural gas, as it is the preferred clean-burning fuel for power plants that support AI data centers. This is why I believe natural gas producers such as EQT (EQT), Antero Resources (AR), Expand Energy Corp. (EXE), and Range Resources (RRC) are compelling long-term stock ideas.

However, all the natural gas in the world isn’t worth much if you can’t transport it to customers.

This is where America’s vast natural gas transportation, processing, and storage industry comes in. An extensive network of pipes crisscrosses America to allow energy companies to transport natural gas from the wellhead to power plants. If we get an AI-driven boom in natural gas consumption, we get a boom in natural gas transportation by default.

This year, the market has enthusiastically supported our thesis. Blue chip pipeline operator Enterprise Products (EPD) has returned 27.4% this year. Fellow blue chip operator Energy Transfer (ET) has returned 36.9%.

These individual stock gains have driven the pipeline operator-focused Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP) to a 24.5% year-to-date gain. Despite AMLP’s big run and shares being near all-time highs, it still yields around 7.35%.

The typical pipeline operator is not your conventional “high-risk, high-reward” AI play. Instead, it’s a boring, predictable business that generates steady cash flows and shareholder distributions.

But the AI megatrend is giving natural gas a boost that will last for years. Plus, the Iran War and its constriction of Middle Eastern energy flows have made U.S. natural gas exports increasingly more valuable to customers in Europe and Asia.

In other words, two megatrends are converging to create a highly favorable environment for U.S. pipeline operators… one that should allow them to continue generating steady income for years. Generating stable cash flows by transporting oil and gas isn’t as exciting as some high-tech industries, it just works… and business is booming.

Market Notes

• Refining giant Marathon Petroleum (MPC) reached a new all-time high today. The company benefits from the constriction of Middle Eastern resource flows.

• Home appliance giant SharkNinja (SN) reached a new all-time high today.

• Software giant Atlassian (TEAM) reached a new one-year high today.

• The iShares Germany ETF (EWG) reached a new all-time high today.

Regards,

Brian Hunt
Editor, Money & Megatrends

An urgent message from our colleagues:

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