One stock to invest in Trump’s plan to develop Venezuela’s oil

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Today’s issue in preview:

• One stock to invest in Trump’s plan to develop Venezuela’s oil

• Memory giant Micron gives us guidance on how to trade “the world’s most important trend”

• Stocks for investing in the next phase of the AI trade

• Learn our Top Themes to buy now

Memory giant Micron gives us guidance on how to trade “the world’s most important trend”

Credit: KanawatTH

It’s not just semiconductors treading water in the market right now…

Another key part of the AI infrastructure trade – memory stocks such as Micron (MU) – are “becalmed” as well.

Over the past month, we’ve published a special series of research notes analyzing the semiconductor trend, which is a key part of the larger AI infrastructure trend.

The status of this critical trend has become one of the great sagas of the business and investment world… a source of intense disagreement among industry bulls and bears. It’s a trend whose outcome could have large effects on your portfolio.

Given AI’s enormous promise, large tech firms such as Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), and Microsoft (MSFT) have invested over $1 trillion in AI infrastructure. They are on pace to invest over $700 billion this year alone and more than $3 trillion after that.

Both the scale and the velocity of this investment boom are unprecedented. It is the largest collective investment effort in history.

Big Tech’s historic investment boom has made the entire “AI infrastructure” trend responsible for a large share of America’s GDP growth and stock market returns over the past two years. It has also drawn the skeptical scrutiny of many widely followed investment analysts who claim the trend is a bubble… one that will soon explode and cause tremendous damage to stock prices and the global economy.

If this hugely consequential trend isn’t the most important trend in the stock market, then it is certainly in the top three.

I believe the AI infrastructure trend has years to run. I believe the world’s smartest, most connected tech CEOs who have the greatest access to information on AI advancement and return on AI infrastructure spend like Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Satya Nadella (Microsoft) and Andy Jassy (Amazon) just might know more about the AI trend than the bearish armchair quarterbacks know about it.

As much press as AI gets, let’s remember that less than 1% of the global population pays for top-tier AI programs. And I estimate less than 20% of large companies believe AI has made a meaningful impact on their businesses. It’s probably closer to less than 10%.

This revolutionary technology hasn’t yet proliferated, achieved mass adoption, or had mass impact.

Regular readers know I care a lot more about what the market thinks of any stock, trend or theme than what any one person thinks of it, including me. You can be bullish or bearish on a trend all you like, but if that trend is moving strongly against you, then your idea isn’t worth a hell of a lot in my book.

We’ve been studying semiconductor stocks to see how the AI infrastructure trade is playing out. But a thorough analysis of any trend as large and diverse as AI infrastructure is a mosaic of facts, figures, and stock price action. The trend in memory stocks is a key part of this mosaic.

Memory chips are a critical part of AI data centers because AI systems constantly require large amounts of data to perform their tasks. Think of memory as the information sitting within easy reach of an AI chip. The faster the memory, the faster powerful AI chips can get the data they need. As AI models get bigger and smarter, they need more and faster memory to keep up.

Micron is America’s largest memory storage chip and product maker. Along with South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix, it is one of the “big three” global memory chip makers. The state of Micron is essentially the state of the memory business.

The massive AI infrastructure buildout has been a boon to Micron’s business. Micron revenue grew 49% in fiscal 2025, and the stock soared over 950% from June 1, 2025, to June 1, 2026.

Since reaching a high in June, Micron’s stock has moved very similarly to the semiconductor sector, which we’ve been tracking closely.

As you can see in the one-year chart below, Micron is trading within a directionless sideways consolidation. It, like the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), is like a “becalmed” sailboat on a windless sea. The trends of other important parts of the AI infrastructure trade – electric power component makers, optical networking firms, and data center cooling firms – are virtually the same. This entire, hugely consequential trend continues to move sideways.

I’ll keep you updated on this world’s most important trend. It won’t be long before we get meaningful price action that provides direction for trading semis, memory, and other key components of AI infrastructure.

One stock to invest in Trump’s plan to develop Venezuela oil

Credit: Brasil2

It’s a bull market in finding and producing oil outside the Middle East.

This morning, America’s largest oilfield services company, SLB (SLB), jumped 3.5% to reach a new all-time high. It’s yet more confirmation that our Sept. 29, 2025, recommendation to get long oil stocks was well-timed… and that the oilfield services business is enjoying boom times.

Back then, we laid out a simple bull case for oil stocks: As the global economy grows, oil demand will remain solid. However, importantly, U.S. shale oil production growth appears to be peaking.

Flatlining supply from this region would remove a critical and reliable source of production growth that has been in place for more than a decade. Plus, oil was very cheap relative to gold and other assets, indicating good value.

With all this in mind, I’ve recommended Canadian oil giant Suncor (SU), U.S. supermajor ExxonMobil (XOM), offshore drilling firms such as Transocean (RIG), and oilfield service firms such as SLB (formerly Schlumberger). All these ideas have produced substantial gains since our recommendation.

When I recommended oil and started trading it from the long side, I did not factor in the potential bullish driver of the Iran War. That’s been a “bonus” driver of gains in oil stocks. Sometimes, the dice rolls in your favor.

As I’ve covered over the past five months, for many countries and businesses, the Iran War is a brutal reminder : If your survival or smooth operation depends on uninterrupted resource flows from the Middle East, you are in a dangerous, vulnerable position.

No politician, CEO, or major shareholder wants their business to be in that position. No citizen wants their country to be in that position. Many powerful and influential people are realizing this is a big risk that must be mitigated if humanly possible. Executives and politicians will get fired for not addressing it effectively.

This means building and buying as many forms of “not Middle Eastern” resource supply chains as possible economically… like those from safe, resource-rich Canada and Brazil. It means lots of oil exploration off the shores of South America, Africa, Mexico, and eventually the Arctic shelf.

The U.S. government believes another important “not Middle Eastern” source of oil is in Venezuela. On Friday, President Trump posted on social media that the U.S. government would take a stake in Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. The stake would pair with potentially huge infrastructure investment from U.S. oil firms over the next five years.

Venezuela is home to one of the world’s largest crude oil reserves, estimated at over 300 billion barrels. However, that oil is extremely heavy and thick. It is more like asphalt or peanut butter than the easy-flowing oil we think of gushing from a Texas oil derrick. Venezuela’s oil must be heavily refined just to flow through a pipeline.

Plus, Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is extremely poor due to decades of mismanagement under the famous corporate leadership philosophy known as “South American communist dictatorship,” which is not known for its efficiency, concern for human life, or long-term focus on shareholder value.

Investors believe that opening Venezuela’s “pitiful-but-promising” oil industry to years of heavy investment would boost SLB’s profits. SLB is an “oilfield services” supergiant.

Oilfield services firms such as SLB do not prospect for oil… nor are they “Big Oil” firms such as ExxonMobil and Chevron (CVX). Instead, oilfield services firms provide a vast array of critical equipment and services to oil exploration and production firms. The equipment side includes drilling rigs, high-strength pipe, valves, and drilling tools. Services include operating offshore drilling ships, monitoring oil reservoirs, and fracking oil wells.

Some industry experts believe SLB is the best-positioned oilfield services firm in a scenario in which Venezuela’s vast oil reserves are, in part, developed by U.S. oil firms. SLB has operated in Venezuela for decades. It owns or has access to valuable data related to the country’s oilfields. SLB is also getting a boost today after it announced an acquisition that would get it into the AI data center cooling industry.

To be sure, Venezuela-focused operations make up a very small part of SLB’s business. But it has enormous potential to grow. In my mind, the more important story related to SLB’s new high, and the Venezuela news, is that the market is confirming our thesis that we are in for a long bull market in finding and producing safe, secure “not Middle Eastern” oil. Trade accordingly!

Stocks for investing in the next phase of the AI trade

Credit: imaginima

It’s been a wild roller coaster ride for investors… but nonetheless, it’s a bull market in cybersecurity, which is one of our top ways to invest in the proliferation of AI.

Back in March, we detailed how the “Agent Supernova” was set to create huge amounts of new cybersecurity threats across banking, transportation, healthcare, manufacturing, and corporate secrets.

Agent Supernova is our name for the megatrend of AI-powered “agents” working throughout the global economy.

Years of development have made AI advanced enough to perform many everyday tasks people do now… and the list keeps growing. Over the next 12–24 months, AI agents will help manage factories, perform financial analysis, manage inventories, write software, design websites, create legal documents… and thousands of other tasks.

Within two years, the number of AI agents operating in the American economy isn’t poised to increase by 10X… or 50X… or even 1,000X. Try at least 10,000X.

This is the coming Agent Supernova: agents working with people, agents working with other agents, agents running businesses, and negotiating with other agents.

The Agent Supernova is about to introduce billions of “AI workers” into our economy with very little day‑to‑day human oversight. The business and investment implications are huge. It will transform many businesses and industries, end many as we know them, and create entirely new ones.

In our original research note, we detailed how this megatrend would also create huge amounts of new cybersecurity risks. If we’re going to have millions of AI agents performing billions of daily tasks in health care, education, energy, transportation, manufacturing, and technology, then we’re going to have billions of points of cybercrime vulnerability. And remember, crooks get to use AI too.

If agents can roam the web, communicate for you, log in to your apps, move money, and modify data at machine speed, then a compromised agent can do the same damage just as fast – now with far less human oversight to catch mistakes or intrusions. We stated this is why well-positioned cybersecurity companies are poised to enjoy years of booming business.

At the time, we highlighted CrowdStrike (CRWD), Palo Alto Networks (PANW), Zscaler (ZS), SailPoint (SAIL), and Radware (RDWR) as “picks to click” in this trend. This basket is up an average of 75% in just over five months.

At the time of our note, cybersecurity stocks – a special type of software stock – had suffered a sharp decline due to investor concerns about AI disrupting software.

Soon after our note, cybersecurity stocks staged a huge rebound as investors began to believe AI wouldn’t disrupt the business as much as they had thought. This rally has sent leaders CrowdStrike and Palo Alto up more than 130% from their bottoms. This sector’s big drop and subsequent huge rise have given rollercoasters a run for their money.

AI is the most exciting and potentially transformational technology of our time. It’s also probably the most dangerous. That is driving a bull market in cybersecurity stocks.

Market Notes

• Our January 28th recommendation to own the AI application layer is paying off. Zeta Global Holdings (ZETA) just hit a new yearly high, which means it’s now up 53% since our initial recommendation.

• The Iran War and its constriction of Middle Eastern oil supplies continue to work to the advantage of U.S. oil refiners. Industry giants Marathon Petroleum (MPC), Phillips 66 (PSX), HF Sinclair (DINO), and Valero Energy (VLO)reached new all-time highs today.

• Casino giant Las Vegas Sands (LVS) reached a new one-year low today.

• Large Independent Power Producer NRG Energy (NRG) reached a new one-year low today.

Regards,

Brian Hunt
Editor, Money & Megatrends

An urgent message from our colleagues:

These 3 Stocks Could Soar as Sam Altman Announces New Venture After OpenAI

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