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SMX Emerges as a Critical Energy-Era Gatekeeper as Oil Volatility and Tensions Redefine Global Supply Chains!

As oil prices climb and geopolitical tensions—especially between the United States and Iran—inject uncertainty into global markets, the true cost of energy is being felt far beyond the pump.

From plastics to critical minerals, nearly every industrial input is tied to fossil fuels, exposing supply chains to price shocks, disruption, and strategic vulnerability. This is where SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited (NASDAQ: SMX) stands apart.

The company’s molecular identity platform embeds a permanent, verifiable signature directly into materials, enabling real-time authentication and traceability across complex global supply chains. In an environment where higher energy costs amplify inefficiencies and risks, SMXtransforms materials into trusted, trackable assets—reducing dependence on volatile inputs and protecting against counterfeiting, diversion, and systemic breakdown.

At the same time, rising tensions in Iran are elevating rare earth minerals into a frontline national security priority. These materials—essential for defense systems, energy infrastructure, and advanced technologies—must move securely from origin to deployment, even during geopolitical instability.

By digitizing and securing the physical layer of supply chains, SMX ensures that critical resources, including those sourced from Australia, remain authenticated and protected as they flow into the United States. Its presence in Southeast Asia adds an additional layer of geopolitical neutrality and resilience.

In a world defined by energy volatility and conflict-driven uncertainty, SMX is not just solving a technical problem—it is enabling a more secure, efficient, and resilient industrial system.

See why SMX is a hidden hedge against energy chaos!

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Exclusive Content from MarketBeat

The Market Is Selling Everything, but These 5 Stocks Aren’t Breaking Down

Written by Bridget Bennett. Originally Published: 4/10/2026. 

Key Points

• Cloudflare, Datadog, and Palo Alto Networks are all outperforming a software sector weighed down by AI replacement fears, signaling competitive advantages the market hasn’t fully priced in.
• Thermo Fisher Scientific is leveraging operational efficiency to convert modest sales growth into stronger earnings growth, making it a defensive pick trading at a multi-year discount.
• AT&T’s nearly 4% dividend yield and 8.5% expected earnings growth give investors a recession-resistant way to stay in the market while collecting income.
• Special Report: What is “Project Apex”? (From The Oxford Club)

The Iran conflict has prompted broad selling across markets. The Dow is in correction territory, oil prices have surged, and entire sectors are trading as if a recession is already here. But inside those beaten-down groups, a handful of stocks are quietly doing something different.

Joseph Hogue, CFA and host of the Let’s Talk Money YouTube channel, says that divergence is worth watching. Landmark research from UCLA has shown that stocks outperforming their peers over a three- to 12-month window tend to continue outperforming over the next three to 12 months — and the reverse is also true. So instead of chasing discounts on broken stocks, Hogue focuses on names showing relative strength within the market’s weakest corners.

Cloudflare: Edge Computing’s Quiet Winner

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Software stocks have been punished by the narrative that AI will replace traditional software companies. The software industry is down almost 15% over the past year, yet Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) is doing the opposite — up almost 70% over the past year.

What’s driving that divergence? Cloudflare’s delivery network sits in front of roughly 20% of the global internet, giving it a large cross-selling runway for security tools, performance products, and developer services. The company has also moved aggressively into edge computing, positioning its global server infrastructure as a natural home for AI inference workloads that need to run close to end users.

Revenue grew nearly 34% year-over-year in Q4 2025 to $614.5 million, beating estimates. The company still operates at a slight GAAP loss, but free-cash-flow margin hit 16.2% last quarter, a sign the business model is scaling.

Datadog Could Be the Next Platform Story

Also outperforming the struggling software space is Datadog (NASDAQ:DDOG), up almost 15% for the year while its industry peers sink. Hogue sees it as a potential platform play on the scale of Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR), and the foundation for that comparison starts with its data.

Datadog’s observability and security platform helps enterprises monitor everything from cloud infrastructure to application performance. Q4 2025 revenue hit $953 million, up 29% year-over-year, and the company now counts 603 customers paying more than $1 million in annual recurring revenue.

For 2026, management guided revenue to $4.06 billion to $4.10 billion. After modest near-term margin pressure as the company invests heavily in R&D and AI capabilities — including a recent partnership with Sakana AI — consensus estimates call for roughly 21% earnings growth the following year as operational leverage kicks in.

Palo Alto Networks: Cybersecurity’s Pricing Opportunity

The fear that AI would erode cybersecurity demand has hammered the sector. Hogue argues the opposite: AI is expanding the attack surface, and enterprises are spending more, not less, to defend against it. Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) is the largest pure-play cybersecurity company, and its stock has held up better than peers — up slightly over the past month while the broader cybersecurity group has sold off.

The numbers back the resilience. Fiscal Q2 2026 revenue grew 15% year-over-year to $2.6 billion, with non-GAAP operating margin expanding to 30.3%. That level of profitability is rare in cybersecurity, where many competitors are still burning cash on customer acquisition.

Palo Alto leads in fast-growing segments such as cloud security, SASE, and the emerging agentic AI security category. Its recent acquisitions of CyberArk and Chronosphere broaden the platform further. On valuation, Hogue notes the stock is at one of its cheapest price-to-sales levels in five years.

Thermo Fisher: Operational Leverage in a Defensive Wrapper

For investors who want market exposure but still sleep at night, Hogue pivots to healthcare. The healthcare equipment industry is down 6% over the past month and 13% over the year. Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) is only down about 2% over the same month, outperforming the group by roughly four percentage points.

At roughly $185 billion in market cap and $44.6 billion in annual revenue, Thermo Fisher is a giant in life sciences instruments and diagnostics. The operational story separates it: management’s 2026 guidance implies approximately 5.2% revenue growth, which translates into about 7.3% earnings growth — a sign of discipline on costs.

Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) are expected to be near $24.50 this year. On a price-to-sales basis, the stock trades at about 4X, a discount to its five-year average of 5.2X. That kind of discount on a market leader with improving earnings leverage doesn’t happen often.

AT&T: Getting Paid to Wait

The final name on the list sticks with the safety theme. Few cancel their cell phone plan because of a recession, which makes AT&T (NYSE:T) a dependable place to park capital while the macro picture sorts itself out. The telecom sector is down about 3%over the past month; until a recent dip, AT&T had been up roughly 1%.

AT&T’s dividend yield is approximately 4%, and the payout ratio sits around 36%, meaning the dividend is well covered by earnings. The company delivered nearly 9% adjusted EPS growth last year to $2.12 and is guiding for $18 billion-plus in free cash flow for 2026.

Hogue highlights that AT&T is leveraging modest 2.3% revenue growth into roughly 8.5% earnings growth — a four-to-one ratio that suggests the company is running a tighter operation even if the top line isn’t explosive. In an oligopoly shared with Verizon and T-Mobile, there’s no existential competitive threat.

The stock isn’t going to make anyone rich overnight, but an 8.5% earnings growth rate plus a 4% dividend yield is a compelling total-return combination in a market where safety is scarce.

The Thread: Relative Strength With Real Fundamentals

These five names span different sectors and risk profiles, but the connecting logic is the same. Each is outperforming a weak peer group, and each has fundamentals that help explain why. In a market driven by fear and headline risk, that combination of relative strength and earnings quality is exactly where momentum investors tend to find their best entries.

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From Our Partners: What is “Project Apex”?(From The Oxford Club)