An overlooked play on AI and robotics just broke out to new highs. Are you paying attention?

Today’s issue in preview:

• An overlooked play on AI and robotics just broke out to new highs. Are you paying attention?

• An AI “demand shock” is set to hit this industry and drive stock prices higher

• An update on Bitcoin’s price action. We’re still bullish

• We told you to stay long AI infrastructure. Did you listen and profit?

An overlooked play on AI and robotics just broke out to new highs. Are you paying attention?

Credit: MikeMareen

According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, global electric vehicle (EV) sales increased 20% in 2025 to reach 20.7 million units. The strong growth is being driven by surging EV sales in China, Europe, and developing markets such as Brazil.

Although EV sales in North America have slowed after a 10-year boom, the above stats show us that globally, the EV megatrend is alive and well.

This is a major tailwind for lithium miners and lithium battery makers.

Lithium is a preferred material for high-tech batteries due to several key properties. It’s the lightest metal on the periodic table, so it offers an outstanding energy-to-weight ratio, making it ideal for portable electronics and electric vehicles.

Lithium has a high electrochemical potential, meaning it can generate a greater voltage difference between electrodes than most other metals, resulting in more powerful cells. Lithium batteries also retain their charges, which means they don’t lose power when they sit idle for a while.

All these properties make lithium a key ingredient in EVs and many other rechargeable devices such as phones, laptops, and tablets.

Plus, battery use isn’t limited to EVs, phones, and computers. Each year, the world deploys more medical devices, drones, robots, bikes, and solar power systems that run on batteries. Given their pervasiveness, any improvement in battery technology is an improvement in dozens of technologies.

Over the next decade, the demand for battery technology breakthroughs will be extraordinary.

As AI enhances the functionality of cars, robots, devices, and a thousand other things, they will become increasingly autonomous. This means huge future demand for advanced batteries. After all, most of our “soon-to-be-enhanced-by-AI” devices won’t be worth much if they must be plugged into the wall all the time. They must be mobile… and they must have high-tech batteries that can run power-hungry AI applications.

Device makers of all kinds have a permanent and urgent need for batteries to get cheaper, smaller, and more powerful. This makes their products more desirable.

According to Grand View Research, the global battery market was estimated at $134.6 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $330 billion by 2030.

These big demand tailwinds are producing a powerful uptrend in the Global X Lithium ETF (LIT). This fund owns a diversified basket of lithium miners such as Albemarle (ALB) and Sociedad Quimica Y Minera De Chile (SQM) and battery makers.

The lithium mining sector recently suffered from a supply overhang. Strong demand growth from the markets above, however, has driven lithium prices 57% off their 2025 lows and lithium miners and LIT to new highs.

Batteries are a critical component of devices and vehicles that will experience soaring demand in our new AI-powered world. This makes well-positioned battery manufacturers and battery metal producers downstream beneficiaries of the AI and robotics boom.

An AI “demand shock” is set to hit this industry and drive stock prices higher

Credit: dongfang zhao

Our March 6 recommendation to “trade AI via the chemicals industry” is off to a great start.

Chemical leader Chemours (CC) is up 37% since our note and just reached a new one-year high. Fellow leader Element Solutions (ESI) is up 15% since our note and just reached a new one-year high. This strength makes them clear market leaders.

Back in March, we detailed how owning firms like Chemours and Element Solutions is a way to profit from a potential AI “demand shock.” This kind of trade works as follows…

For the past three years, the best way to make money quickly in stocks has been to locate an industry where an AI “demand shock” is about to strike… and then invest there before the shock arrives.

Not a supply shock, mind you, where a war or a pandemic abruptly cuts off the supply of a resource like oil.

Instead, I’m talking about a “demand shock,” where demand for a specific resource or manufactured product suddenly skyrockets… and sends its price hundreds of percent higher. This creates boom times for the companies involved, as their unit sales and per-unit prices skyrocket simultaneously.

AI is the fastest-evolving technology in history and the focus of the largest capex spending cycle in history. Its power and adoption rates are exploding from one quarter to the next.

AI is advancing at such a rapid pace… and large tech firms such as Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN) are spending such huge, unprecedented amounts of money on it (over $600 billion in 2026 alone) that AI-driven demand shocks are now happening every year… and creating the fastest – and most lucrative – stock market moves we’ve ever seen.

Recent “AI demand shock” bull markets include:

**In 2023, just after ChatGPT was introduced, there was an AI demand shock for Nvidia’s (NVDA) advanced semiconductors. The company’s revenue soared as a result, and so did its stock price. Nvidia advanced 525% in less than two years.

**Around the same time, there was a demand shock for systems that cool AI data center components. This drove shares of cooling systems maker Vertiv (VRT) up 1,050% in under three years. It sent Comfort Systems’ (FIX) shares up 1,000% in three years.

**AI data centers require advanced optical systems that allow fast data transfer. This demand shock drove the stock of optics firm Coherent (COHR) up 295% in two years. It drove the stock of optics firm Lumentum (LITE) up 1,164% in two years. It drove shares of optics materials firm AXT Inc. (AXTI) up by 1,035% over two years.

These are among the largest and fastest wealth-creation events in history.

They are happening because Big Tech’s historic investment spree and AI’s breakneck rate of advancement are creating massive demand spikes that traditional manufacturing and resource chains are simply not equipped to handle. They don’t have enough lead time to adjust to rapid demand shocks. The trends are taking shape and exploding too quickly.

One day, an aggressive demand forecast for AI infrastructure components such as optical lasers or memory or semiconductors is just a spot on the horizon to conventional thinkers… a futurist’s fantastical estimate…

The next day, the demand spike is on us… and we don’t even have blueprints for the new factories we need today. So, prices explode by three, five, even 10 times or more. The demand shock hits the market like a meteor.

The typical manufacturing industry needs five-to-10 years to build operations capable of meeting increasing demand. Same with mining industries that supply critical raw materials.

But our new, lightning-fast technological cycles now move way, way faster than that. They are hitting our economy like supersonic tidal waves. We now have crazy mismatches in the economy’s interlocking and interdependent parts. It’s like we have a rocket engine attached to the drivetrain of a Toyota Corolla.

These factors are creating a market environment where the market values of well-positioned companies can rise 100%… 300%… and 1,000% in less than two years.

Back in March, we speculated that one such demand shock could hit the chemical sector.

The chemicals sector is commonly thought of as an “old economy” industry that produces products such as plastics, paints, solvents, cleaners, and pesticides. However, some chemical firms are involved in “brand new economy” activities related to AI.

The chemicals industry sits upstream of almost every physical component in the AI stack: from the specialty gases and materials used to manufacture semiconductors to the high‑purity solvents, coatings, coolants, flame retardants, and advanced polymers that make modern data centers possible.

Every AI server relies on a long chain of ultra-specific and ultra-pure chemicals. As AI usage explodes, the need for more chemicals and more sophisticated, higher-purity ones increases.

That’s the bull case for chemical producers. Regular readers know we care far more about what the market thinks of such a bull case than what we or anyone else thinks about it.

As evidenced by the new highs in Chemours and Element Solutions, the market likes this one.

AI is the fastest-evolving technology in history. Big tech firms are spending record amounts of money to fuel its progress. This will continue to create big “demand shocks” and investment opportunities. The next one could happen in the chemicals industry.

An update on Bitcoin’s price action. We’re still bullish

Credit: Vertigo3d

Our March 13 recommendation to be bullish on Bitcoin is off to a solid start. This week, Bitcoin broke above the $75,000 level to reach its highest point in over two months.

About one month ago, I looked at the encouraging price action in Bitcoin and identified as bullish on the world’s top cryptocurrency.

For Bitcoin’s “true believers,” this encouraging price action was a welcome change from the carnage of October 2025 – February 2026. During that period, Bitcoin plunged about 48%, a drop that punched big holes in many crypto portfolios.

Crypto specialists attributed this decline to the U.S. government withdrawing liquidity from financial markets, as well as to gold and AI trades drawing money flows that could have been directed toward Bitcoin.

Most long-term Bitcoin believers see it as a “store of value” that should maintain its purchasing power as do gold and beachfront homes. It should be a digital form of “hard money.” Sounds great.

However, from October 2025 to February 2026, Bitcoin traded more like a failing technology company than anything you’d call strong and stable.

In March, Bitcoin’s trading behavior underwent a significant change. It formed a bottom and gained 9.5% in one month while technology stocks dropped and gold gained just 3.2%. Importantly, Bitcoin outperformed stocks and gold as Operation Epic Fury created tremendous market volatility and hammered many sectors of the stock market. It was a “port in the storm.”

So, after months of disappointing believers, is Bitcoin the “store of value” back? Is it ready to be a “port in the storm” and a stabilizing component of serious portfolios? I believe it’s a bet worth making.

Market Notes

• Our March 20th recommendation to own semiconductor equipment stocks is paying off. Lam Research (LRCX) and KLA Tencor (KLAC) just hit new one-year highs. Amkor (AMKR) and ASE Industrial (ASX) also hit new highs.
• Memory leaders such as Western Digital (WDC), Seagate (STX), and Sandisk (SNDK) all just hit new yearly highs today.
• Our April 6th recommendation to own Globalstar (GSAT) was very well timed. Amazon (AMZN) just bought GSAT making the stock soar to new highs. It’s up 9.5% today.
• Our October 7th 2025 recommendation to invest in the power grid upgrade theme is still winning big. Quanta Services (PWR) just hit a new yearly high.
• Our recommendation to own AI semiconductor leader Marvell Technology (MRVL) is paying off well. The stock is up 153% over the last year.
• AI infrastructure leader Vertiv (VRT) – which specializes in AI data center cooling systems – reached a new all-time high today.
• AI Power Consumption leader Bloom Energy (BE) soared 19% today to a new all-time high after it announced an expanded deal with Oracle (ORCL) to support the rapid buildout of its artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Regards,

Brian Hunt
Editor, Money & Megatrends

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