Everybody wants to panic sell. Don't.

0:10Gary Vaughan:Gary Vaughan, one of our favorite people to have on this podcast from Daily Stock Picks. First of all, welcome back to the show. Always appreciate having you on. Thanks, Rhea. It's an honor to be here. And I did tell my listeners today, I'm going to say it again. I'm not an expert in any way, shape or form, but thank you for having me on and I appreciate it. So before we just hit record, you were telling me two truths and a lie. I'll leave it there. Set up the audience for what you just shared with me because I think it's a perfect place to start. Okay. If I told you at the beginning of the year that the 10-year bond would be near 52-week highs and it would still be rising, oil is up 60 % and the stock market is at all-time highs, you should tell me one of those is not true.

0:59Honest to God, anybody in the market should tell me one of those is not true. All three are true. Yeah. This is an amazing run. I think Peter Lynch put it perfectly. And the last time I was on, there was two things that I said. I said, I think the rally can continue because earnings should continue to grow. We've seen that happen And that's true. And then the second thing I told you was literally by energy the day before the Iran war. If you look back at the episode, I said by energy. I don't know if I'm a genius. I don't know if I have perfect timing. I don't know what it's about. But honest to God, I've made some great calls in the past like couple of months.

1:41One of them, I got off a podcast. I forget where it was. But they literally said, and this is part of what I consider myself to be a pretty good listener. They said value has outperformed growth in the first quarter for the first time in X number of years. I forget how many. So I floated the idea. It's never happened twice. Why not just buy VUG in the second quarter? I think I'm up 10 % on that position. And again, it's a simple market. I think you're seeing SMH up 70 % in 30 days, something like that. And then today, it's today, Tuesday, May 12th. And all of those names are pulling back. But your episode specifically with Steve Kress, I think it was last week sometime, where he basically said, know when to hold him.

2:34I think that's the name of the episode. And he said, Micron, it makes sense. I think you're going to see this one top out about seven, eight hundred somewhere there. We'll trade sideways until earnings, just like we did last time around 400. And I think you're setting up a new base. Again, you know, what Steve has taught me is valuation matters. And that's what Peter Lynch said. Valuation matters. Follow the earnings and the price will come.

2:59Gary Vaughan:Yeah, we were talking also on the weekly news podcast, Wall Street Roundup, about how valuation, you know, like for AMD and Micron, it's like fluctuated between F and D's, but those are like looking good. Speaking to the quant system, like relatively speaking that, and that's kind of what you have to do when it comes to valuation these days. Um, happy, happy for you to say something further about valuation or we can, we can move on. I mean, the peg ratio and Steve brings it up a lot. I think when I first interviewed him a few years ago on my podcast, he had touted the peg ratio. And I went in and I know I did about a month of research just on the peg ratio.

3:41And I have conversations about the peg ratio and the market with Grok in my car when I drive. And so that's a favorite measurement of mine is the peg ratio. In fact, I've got one Seeking Alpha scanner that just looks at a peg ratio that's lower in NVIDIA. And NVIDIA has got a crazy, I mean, the peg rate. If I told you that you could buy a stock that had almost a trillion dollar in backlog and it was trading at as low as it's ever traded and you could make 20 percent. I mean, again, we've moved from 180 to 220. And that's a great move on a stock that is very little risk to reward. Do I think it's better than Micron?

4:28Do I think it's better than AMD? No. But Steve has picked his top 10. I don't know if he doesn't tout this enough. Of the top 10 stocks he's picked, four of them are over 100 % year to date. So, I mean, that's just an amazing track record. And then you throw in alpha picks. And I remember last year during Liberation Day, he said, I know that the portfolio is down significantly from the beginning of the year. but the likelihood of these rebounding and outperforming on the way up is highly likely. And we just passed, I think, 100 % one year return on AlphaPix. And so April 1st, when that dip happened, we started to see the nine day just tick up.

5:16I loaded in. I remember what Steve said. So again, I'm taking a lot of tips from Steve, from Seeking Alpha, and then layering in TrendSpider, which we can go into and talk about Sidekick because that has made some great calls. And I'll kind of describe that if you don't mind.

5:33Gary Vaughan:Yeah, happy for you to share that. I'm also, I wonder if it dovetails at all with why you were so prescient about energy. You know, luck is preparation, meeting opportunity. So it's not just luck. Like what led you to that call? There's two things that I'm taking a cue from Jensen Wong. And he's got this five layer cake of AI. and I mean just think about it I just did I animated a thumbnail and I know I killed a tribe of pygmies in the South African rainforest by just doing that this takes a lot of energy to do that type of thing and energy is a backlog I live in Georgia and my energy prices have gone crazy at home and I know they're probably going to go up from here because we're just at a standstill with energy.

6:23China's putting up, what, a new coal plant every nine days or something. So we are in a backlog of energy, and that's the key. And even before the Iran war, you saw it. Trump wants oil down. He can't get oil down. I do think that oil does come down, but it goes up with an escalator and comes down at a stair. You can't just get it down like that. And again, back to the true truth, it's up 60 % year to date. So I do think that there's a way to stay focused on the markets and memory and energy right now. I love Bloom Energy. Now, that's not one I would ever buy off of a seeking alpha valuation. But when I listen to the experts talk about energy and I hear them say, you can take hydrogen, natural gas, and turn it into electricity using the Bloom Energy turbines.

7:26That's enough. That's all I need to know. And I know that they have hyperscalers buying their products. So it's not one where I would play. And Sidekick, it was funny because Sidekick, I had listened to Chris Camillo of Dumb Money, and I heard him explaining this topic. And I'm like, this guy's not an engineer. What does he know? And then I literally went in and did more research and I found out I don't understand it. I like it. So I want to put some money into it. And Sidekick said, buy the 135 dip down to 135. I think within a week, the thing was at 250. So it's one of those that you just kind of YOLO into.

8:02You got to know that this is money that you're going to risk. And I think even today, one of the keys that I've learned over the years is position sizing. I've got a position in Apple that's up 6 ,000 % from a buy in 2004, somewhere in that neighborhood. And I'm stuck in that position. I can't get out without a huge tax hit. So one of the things I've learned over the years is position size. We just had Micron up 100 % in like 30 or 40 days and it hit 800 and then it pulled back today. If you're upset that you didn't sell at 800 and you're upset that you're selling at 700, I don't think that's a bad move.

8:45Nobody ever got poor taking profits. And if it's within your tax burden this year, I just think that's a smart move. So one of the things I've been focusing on in my podcast is when you're at all-time highs, what's the right play? And I got to tell you, one of the mistakes that I've made over the last year, I journal every trade that I have. I've gotten out of positions way too soon. It's a market where I think we're still in the early stage of AI. And a lot of my trades I've just gotten at, I'm sitting on a TQQQ trade that's up 98 % right now and in a triple leverage DTF. So I think there's opportunities here.

9:28I think people will have different goals, but I think when you enter into a trade, you absolutely should understand, is this a trade? Is it an investment or what it is? Bloom Energy, when I get an entry into it, it's going to be an investment. So it's going to be a long-term buy and hold.

9:44Gary Vaughan:So what would you say, what else would you say about knowing, please forgive me repeating myself, but knowing when to hold them, knowing when to fold them, knowing when to sell, you know, knowing when to buy more, knowing when to buy at all. How are you looking at that right now? And is it sector specific? Yeah, it is because I do think that we're early in AI. I traded in 2000, that 2000 boom. This doesn't feel anything like that. There's a lot of headlines that are out there that are kind of scaring you. That's where I think seeking alpha really keeps me grounded. Specifically with the alpha picks, I will tell you, I had a sidekick from Trendspider analyze three weeks in a row.

10:24The first week, April 24th, it said Twilio is the alpha pick that most likely is going to gain. Why? Because they've got a great backlog, blah, blah, blah. It went in. You can read my newsletter if you want to know the details of what it said, but it analyzed all the alpha picks that were reporting that week and said, Twilio is the best opportunity. Boom, 30 % gain. The next week it went in and it said Sterling Industries is the best opportunity. Boom. That was published May 1st. You got a nice 50 % gain. I think in my four hour algorithm, it's like up 100%. And then just this week, it said Barrick Gold, Barrick Mining, published May 7th.

11:04Boom, you're up 11 % since then. So I don't think that AI is running my portfolio, but using Sidekick, which is a walled garden. And that's the difference between these general LLMs and what I'm finding with Trendspider and Sidekick. It's a walled garden. So it just looks at the information that's within Trendspider. So there's no slop out there and somebody talking their book on a particular analysis, there's none of that that's infecting the AI. So when I give it some of the alpha pick stuff, I mean, I'll give you a perfect example. We talked last time how it told me to trim NVIDIA by 50 % at about 195 before earnings.

11:50And then they thought a good entry point after earnings was about 175. I think I repurchased at 178. But this particular time, It told me Sterling after their first quarter earnings on February 24th, I had it do a pre-earnings analysis and it told me at 41 times earnings, don't buy it here. The words it used, a fantastic business at the worst possible price. Wait for blood in the streets because the expectations are too high. The stock wound up losing 20 % over the next few days. The stock went from 477 to 398. I sold 50 % of my position at 470, not because I thought it was a bad business. It's the valuation was too high.

12:31And I use Seeking Alpha because I think it was a hold. It wasn't a strong buy. I know that one. But the valuation was a D. And then on March 30th, I had it run it again because I saw an uptick in my four-hour algorithm. The stock was at 385. It literally told me the stock is an 8 out of 10 buy long at 375 to 385. So that 50 % position, I just added it back in. Word for word, it said Sterling crushed earnings, raised guidance dramatically, then sold off 20 % on profit taking. This is now a buy for May earnings catalyst. And the May 1st, when I asked it for the best weekly opportunity, it literally ranked Sterling number one.

13:11So I'm using AI with Seeking Alpha's kind of ratings and the charts to try and make some determination of trading in and out. The key point that I make to my subscribers is AlphaPix has returned almost 400 % since it started. This is a portfolio that's unbelievable. It's less than four years old that's returned 400%. I tried stock picking with AlphaPix. I failed. I totally failed. So now what I do is I base my portfolio on the holding percentage that you get. And it's such a good barometer and I can overweight. So when Sidekick tells me, hey, this is a great stock, I can just go in and overweight that particular position.

13:57So today, Sidekick told me on my podcast, literally I ran it and it said, hey, this is priced for perfection. And then they had a dilution. so I'm planning on trimming a large portion of that and maybe buying it back but again the the alpha picks portfolio and I've said this before I mean I owe Steve Kress a huge debt of gratitude and seeking alpha because you guys just make it so easy to do this stuff and for something like you know a bloom energy or even something like what was the stock symbol it was mxl so I tuned I basically went on to Seeking Alpha and I saw Micron was number one in the quant as far as semiconductors.

14:42And then all of a sudden I saw this MXL last Monday. And so I put it in my newsletter and I said, hey, it went from a hold to a strong buy. Boom, stock is up 30 % the next day. I had like four or five subscribers who literally said they went in and read some Seeking Alpha analysts on this business. They like what they read. They bought it. Boom, they're up 30%. So using the tools that you have in front of you and with Seeking Alpha, you've got every tool that you need in front of you. That quant system, I don't think it gets enough credit as for how good something that moves. And one of my subscribers, I'm in Nebius, N-B-I-S, and I'm in it for technical reasons.

15:25I'm not in it for fundamental reasons. And I know the quant doesn't always love it, but it did move to a strong buy, I think, recently. And one of my subscribers said, why did it move from a strong buy down to a hold? I don't get it. Nothing changed, blah, blah, blah. And I said, I don't know the calculations, but you can listen to Rina's podcast with Steve on know when to hold them. And he explains it perfectly. It's ranked against the peers. And it just has a, when you go and backtest these things, and I'm huge on backtesting. That's why I like technical strategies. I can backtest them. But you guys have backtesting on the quant and it beats the S &P.

16:04So for me, I found this great portfolio. I found this great service and I'm sticking to it and just using that to kind of run my portfolio. And I think I'm up like 44 % this year. And on a multimillion dollar portfolio, I'll take 44 % up in a year.

16:23Gary Vaughan:When it comes to the tech space in particular, What else are you looking at these days as somebody that focuses mainly on that sector? I, you know, moats and storylines and risk reward. For instance, I brought up NVIDIA. NVIDIA is a risk reward of next to zero with a$1 trillion backlog in their pocket. Now, the only risk out there for the entire tech sector is OpenAI's debt. And so OpenAI is coming to market. And we know that, you know, will OpenAI have enough money to pay their fees or do they have to raise more money? We just don't know. But NVIDIA right now has such a moat that I think the risk reward is next to zero.

17:06I think today's most recent price target was raised to$350 and you're trading at about just under$220. So I don't think that they are going to do what they did in 2022 and 2023, which is, you know, two times every quarter, double in two quarters. You just can't take a$5 trillion stock and go to$10 trillion. It's similar to Apple. Apple's 50 % of my portfolio. I still believe in it. But if I were buying Apple today on that valuation, to me, that'd be crazy. I'm not going to put 50 % of my portfolio in a new buy into Apple trading at 30 times forward earnings. But if it dips down, I know I can get 2 % to 4 % just on their buyback every year.

17:53And that's paying me more than bonds. So again, when I'm looking at things, I'm looking at a couple of things. It's mainly the narrative. And I tell everybody, you've got to have an elevator pitch for the story. My elevator for Apple is simple. I'm holding onto this A because of tax reasons. I can't sell the whole thing. But I'm also holding onto it because they have a moat. There are 2 billion handheld devices. If any AI app is going to succeed, it's going to be in the app store and they'll take 30 % of that revenue. And so if that's the case, I think that can continue to rise. And with the new phones, you're going to need new devices.

18:34They just launch with Claude Code. You can't get a Mac mini with the OpenClaw stuff. I tried. They're sold out everywhere. And so they're constrained by their memory right now. I read in an article, I think on Seeking Alpha, that they were making memory choices based on products, meaning that they were taking memory out of certain products and making more MacBook Pros. So I still like the Mag 7. I read earlier that one of the analysts is saying that the Optimus robot isn't priced into Tesla at all. I think the valuation of that doesn't make sense to me. And I think unless Elon does something to merge SpaceX and Tesla, I think when SpaceX becomes public, I think you see a drop in Tesla.

19:24So I don't think that Mag 7, I've spent my career, my investing career, you know, for 20, 26 years, ever since 2000, really going after the Mag 7. I don't think it's that easy anymore. And I think that's where Seeking Alpha comes in, is helping me understand, okay, what in that group is actually cheap. SanDisk? SanDisk get a 99 on their monthly RSI. I'm not touching that. I know there's probably still$500 left in that stock, but I'm not touching it. That DRAM ETF that just came out, that's leveraged already, they're releasing a two times leveraged DRAM ETF. I told the degenerates in my audience, I'd love to trade that one technically, but I'm not touching it from a fundamental standpoint.

20:16It's just run too far too fast. And I do think that some of these pullbacks, my stance today is July is a, I think, 94 % to 100 % win rate on QQQ over the last 25, 30 years, somewhere in that neighborhood. So it's got a huge win rate percentage in July. I think you see a 10 to 15 % pullback into June. You've got a new Fed chair that we know the markets like to test. So I think you start to see a pullback. And I will reiterate, when Steve Kress tells me to buy the dip, I'm going to buy the dip. I'm going to buy quality companies with good earnings, with good quant scores, and good technicals. I'm not going to go chasing something.

21:04And so I've been, for the past two, three weeks, I've been very fine sitting on AMD, which is up 100%. I wasn't touching Intel because I just don't like their technology. And I think the companies run, I think it turned into more of a meme stock than anything. But the obvious buy was when Intel said, hey, we didn't increase our CPU sale. We just increased the price of it. The obvious buy was AMD. And I think that's when the quant turned it to a strong buy. But I bought that dip on AMD just on a technical level. And I've been saying since August of last year, AMD will outperform NVIDIA just based on a market cap.

21:44Doesn't mean I got rid of NVIDIA, just means that the risky part of my portfolio was more in AMD.

21:50Gary Vaughan:AMD was one of the things I wanted to ask about because you were talking about that last episode at the end of February as well about AMD encroaching on NVIDIA's territory. Anything else to say? And also Credo was another stock that's been up a nice amount, but something that you were saying, you know, Quant was telling you to buy it, but TrendSpider was telling you not to and you didn't. Anything else to say about those two names or anything in particular tech-wise? Yeah. So Credo was a great example where I think it was trading around 130 and it had popped to 130. And I'd asked Sidekick, hey, can you do an analysis?

22:31And it said, well, the market chatter is not great about this one. You probably want to enter under 100. And I said from 130 on a strong buy, I'm never going to get this at 100. I think it was April 1st. You could get that at 96 and it triggered in my four-hour algorithm. And I asked TrendSpider Sidekick, I said, what should I do? They said, load up the Brinks truck. And so I loaded up the Brinks truck and it was up 100 % at one point in time. And I know Credo is still, I think it's a still strong buy. Let me see. I think it's a strong buy in the quant as of today. Yeah. And so to me, we've seen this game play out before.

23:12We know that the Photonics stuff, they just bought that Photonics company, Dusphonics, I think is what it's called. But they bought that company, that popped them, and that was the second leg of the pop. Your 52-week high is 213. You're trading at 189. It's Wall Street price target is right now 209. It's 10 % down. And again, the quant loves this one. And six months ago, it was a D plus on value evaluation. Now it's a C. It's actually cheaper now. So I think, again, reviewing that and allowing part of me, I'm not the best analytical person when it comes to looking at the fundamentals and understanding the moat and all of the things.

24:00I leave that to your other guests like Udom and Amrita and James, all those other guys that do the analysis. I'm not the best, but I do read theirs. And one of the great thing is when you have Seeking Alpha, you can just go in and read this. And the top one now is from Danny Rossellas, Credo Technology Group. The valuation looks absurd until you do the math. Got it as a buy. So again, I think those things do it. Was I buying Credo at 200? No. No. It had run too far too fast. And I think one of the things that you have to have in this market is patience. And if you're at a 52-week high, wait for the pullback because stocks will always pull back.

24:42I don't care if it ran to 250 and then pulled back to 220 and I had the opportunity to buy it at 205. I don't want to buy it at 205. I've got too much money that's into this market. So if AI actually fails, I mean, I'm screwed, but I think we're still early. And my bet is that we're still early.

25:05Gary Vaughan:Have you had any grave mistakes with this process? Any steep learning lessons? Not a ton. For instance, I will tell you, I noticed the quant had IGV as a strong sell in January. I mean, when I interviewed Steve Kressy and I asked him, I think it was in October, I said, why did the quant pick so many gold stocks for alpha picks? Your team picked gold stocks for alpha picks in the summer. And they were up like 100 % and stuff. And he said the quant has a way of picking sectors that are hot. And so when you go and you look in the screener and you look at the top stocks in the quant, they're all semiconductors right now.

25:52Now they've been semiconductors, but they haven't pulled back in the quant. So the valuation and the growth and profitability might be there still. I like it. So for me, I'll find a support level. And I love, in my technical charts, I love horizontal lines. And the horizontal lines that I draw are just from previous runs up and then pulls back. That's resistance. And if it runs up to that level and pulls back and it pulls back to an older support level, I know I can at least trade it within that range. But I don't want to let a position wind up being in my portfolio like Apple did, just buy and hold.

26:33And that's what I love about the AlphaPix stuff. They don't hold it forever. And I'll give you a great example. WLDN, and you went over this with Steve. AlphaPix pulled this out of the portfolio because it wound up getting to a sell rating. But it's a top 2026 stock. Now, I trust, Steve, with the top 2026 stocks that some of them may wind up negative. There's never a guarantee. But I saw it just from a technical level. It bounced off this perfect level of support at about 76, 77, somewhere in that neighborhood. And that was the day when AlphaPix said sell it, but it was down like I think 20 % or 30 % that day.