Two critical U.S. infrastructure firms are in bull markets. Invest accordingly!

Today’s issue in preview:

• Two critical U.S. infrastructure firms are in bull markets. Invest accordingly!

• Rare earth stocks have huge upside potential. A status update on this trade

• Business is booming for “Made in America” infrastructure stocks. Are you benefitting?

• Learn our Top Themes to buy now

Two critical U.S. infrastructure firms are in bull markets. Invest accordingly!

Credit: Maudib

Make sure to put Nucor (NUE) and Steel Dynamics (STLD) on your watch list today.

These two stocks are clear market leaders right now. Nucor just reached a new all-time high. Steel Dynamics is close to one.

These bull markets are important signs the U.S. economy is rocking and rolling.

Nucor and Steel Dynamics are the two largest U.S. steel producers.

They manufacture the structural steel that goes into our office buildings, data centers, electric grids, hospitals, automobiles, factories, and skyscrapers.

In today’s high-tech world of iPhones, ChatGPT, video streaming, and Instagram, it’s easy to forget our world is built on a low-tech foundation of steel, concrete, and lumber.

Steel is a major component of bridges, cars, trucks, electric grids, ships, pipes, factories, construction equipment, and skyscrapers. This makes the steel industry highly sensitive to the economy’s ups and downs. When the economy booms, the steel industry booms with it. When the economy busts, so does the steel business.

Over the past eight months, I’ve written over a dozen research notes analyzing the soaring share prices of similar highly economically sensitive industry groups, including trucking stocks, railroad stocks, regional banks, manufacturing stocks, shopping mall operators, and hotel chains.

At the end of each note, I pointed to their soaring stock prices and told readers that the U.S. economy is doing much better than most people think.

These economically sensitive firms are important “real world” indicators. They almost always do a better job of telling us what is happening in the economy than any media outlet or economist. And their uptrends are moving in a bullish upward direction for the U.S.A.

Driven by strong demand, Nucor and Steel Dynamics are enjoying bull markets. Nucor is up 99% over the past year. Steel Dynamics is up 118%. Their strength indicates a strong economy.

So, keep these two on your watchlist. America’s largest steelmakers don’t hit new all-time highs when the economy is struggling.

Instead, they hit new all-time highs during economic expansions… when we have the capacity to finance, build, and operate mega infrastructure projects, skyscrapers, factories, and transportation networks. What’s good for steelmakers is good for America. Both are trending higher.

Rare earth stocks have huge upside potential. A status update on this trade

Credit: William_Potter

Investors might end up making big money in the rare earth element business, but they’re going to have to wait a while. After all, the market simply isn’t interested in this trend now.

By now, you’ve probably heard about America’s rare earth element problem… and how there’s money to be made in solving it.

President Donald Trump – along with many business and military leaders – believes that the U.S. has outsourced far too much of its industrial capacity to China over the past 25 years. We outsourced significant portions of our semiconductor, appliance, medicine, weapons, and machinery production. We outsourced the capacity to produce and process critical resources, such as rare earth elements.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed that depending on other countries for critical economic inputs makes the U.S. economy less safe and secure. To put it bluntly, it is very stupid not to produce products critical to national security, like AI semiconductors, within our own borders.

President Donald Trump has staked his legacy and reputation on massively expanding U.S. manufacturing capacity. His administration is working with business leaders to invest trillions to pursue this goal.

However, any plan to increase domestic manufacturing capacity must overcome a major problem: we don’t have the critical resources to build the necessary infrastructure.

We don’t have the copper, iron ore, rare earths, lithium, antimony, nickel, and other vital building blocks required to build all those data centers… all those factories… all those robots…. all those electric grids… all those power plants… and so on.

To make matters worse, we also lack the refining, smelting, and processing facilities needed to turn those resources into ready-to-use end products. We rely on China for a lot of that.

It’s as if we very much want to build a big house… but we don’t have the lumber, screws, or nails we need to make it happen.

Solving the big “critical resources problem” is possible… and it is a big financial opportunity.

To ensure we have the critical resources to build trillions of dollars in high-tech hardware and physical infrastructure, the U.S. government will change any law, kill any regulation, and write any check that increases critical resource production and processing capacity.

This means that after more than 30 years of the U.S. government being hostile toward domestic mines and mineral processing facilities, it now supports them. Trump can’t have his big manufacturing dream without them.

It’s all a bullish backdrop for companies that will act as “national champions” to mine, process, and refine rare earth elements… and help the U.S. get ready access to these critical raw materials… whether through domestic sources or “friendly to the U.S. sources” such as Australia.

This bullish backdrop made companies with rare earth exposure big winners in 2025. MP Materials (MP), Idaho Strategic Resources (IDR), Critical Metals Corp. (CRML) and Energy Fuels (UUUU) each enjoyed 100%+ rallies.

Unfortunately, going from “A: This rich mineral deposit could be a profitable mine” to “B: We are mining and selling a refined resource” is often a frustrating process that costs a lot more than most people think it will and takes a lot longer than most people think it will.

To go from “promising mineral deposit” to “producing mine,” a mining firm must delineate the deposit, convince the locals a dirty, noisy mine is a good idea, arrange financing to develop the mine, get permits to develop the mine, build roads and electrical infrastructure to the mine, then build the mine, and sometimes build domestic ore processing and refining facilities near the mine (especially important for U.S. and rare earths).

To this end, mining firms often must spend far more on lawyers, political campaigns, bankers, lobbyists, environmental consultants, experts, and political bribes than their backers anticipate. All too often, a three-year development plan turns into a six-year development plan.

This is the situation investors in U.S. rare-earth and strategic-metals firms find themselves in. The long-term fundamentals seem quite bullish, but the difficult short-term realities of mining have greatly diminished investor enthusiasm. MP Materials – the largest and highest profile U.S. rare earth stock – is down 27% over the past year and recently reached a new one-year low.

Someday, investors may return to the rare earth theme with enthusiasm and capital. But for now, the market is saying this trend is dead in the water. I’ll keep you updated as new developments happen.

Business is booming for “Made in America” infrastructure stocks. Are you benefitting?

Credit: gorodenkoff

On Tuesday of this week, shares of Johnson Controls (JCI) surged 5% to reach a new all-time high.

If you needed confirmation that the “Made in America” megatrend is a compelling case for investment capital, this is it.

Johnson Controls isn’t a household name. But it’s a giant of American manufacturing. Its market cap is $88 billion, and it employs over 80,000 people.

Johnson is essentially a “commercial building tech” company, and one of the largest of its kind. It manufactures and services industrial heat pumps, refrigeration systems, HVAC systems, security systems, temperature control systems, and virtually everything else you need to keep a factory, data center, hangar, hospital, warehouse, or airport running properly. We’re talking high-tech manufacturing on a massive scale.

This makes Johnson Controls a key player in our “Made in America” megatrend. Wall Street is attributing the company’s recent high to its earnings report, which showed strong earnings growth and new orders.

Back in January, I made the case for going long the Made in America megatrend… for investing in companies that supply critical equipment and services for building and operating today’s high-tech factories.

The bull case here is simple…

President Donald Trump – along with many business and military leaders – believes that the U.S. has outsourced far too much of its industrial capacity to China over the past 25 years. We outsourced significant portions of our semiconductor, appliance, medicine, weapons, and machinery production.

We outsourced the capacity to produce and process critical resources, such as rare earth elements.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed that depending on other countries for critical economic inputs makes the U.S. economy less safe and secure. To put it bluntly, it is very stupid to not make products critical to national security like AI semiconductors within our own borders… especially when we are in an economic and geopolitical “great powers” contest with China.

Trump has staked his legacy and reputation on greatly expanding our industrial base… and he’s working with business leaders to invest trillions to pursue this goal. Apple (AAPL), for example, has committed to invest $600 billion in U.S.-based manufacturing over the next four years. Nvidia (NVDA) says it will invest $500 billion in U.S.-based manufacturing over the next four years.

In Money & Megatrends, we’ve capitalized on this “Made in America” megatrend with strong returns in robotics, factory automation, and machine component makers such as Cognex (CGNX), Ouster (OUST), and RBC Bearings (RBC). Plus, new ideas in this trend include ESAB Corp (ESAB), Lincoln Electric (LECO), Xometry (XMTR) and Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT).

The Made in America megatrend involves building huge amounts of new AI data centers, high-tech factories, electrical infrastructure, and industrial machines. JCI’s excellent earnings report and surging stock price indicate this trend is in full swing. We remain bullish!

Market Notes

• The Invesco S&P SmallCap Industrials ETF (PSCI) reached a new all-time high this week. This indicates the U.S. manufacturing sector is very strong.

• Our recommendation to invest in cybersecurity via Palo Alto Networks (PANW) is paying off. The stock reached a new all-time high this week.

• Drug development giant Charles River Laboratories (CRL) reached a new all-time high this week.

• It’s a bull market in defense stocks. The iShares Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA) reached a new all-time high this week.

• The Financials Select Sector Fund (XLF) reached a new all-time high this week. This fund owns a “who’s who” of large financial companies. The new high is a bullish economic signal. 

Regards,

Brian Hunt
Editor, Money & Megatrends

An urgent message from our colleagues:

Earnings season is already proving Navellier’s biggest AI call right

Taiwan Semiconductor – the company that makes the chips inside almost every AI system on earth, recently reported blowout earnings. At least, that’s the headline Wall Street ran with. But, here’s the one they buried: TSM is putting ANOTHER $100 billion into U.S. chip manufacturing. On top of the $165 billion it already committed. That’s $265 billion, from a single Taiwanese company, betting on American soil, in the middle of an AI arms race with China. Ask yourself why. I don’t think it’s about tariffs. I think TSM knows something the rest of Wall Street hasn’t priced in yet.

Go here for the full details – before I’m forced to take this down.