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A ‘garbage’ proposal from Iran… What ‘everybody’ is ignoring… ‘Nobody’ is thinking… The AI boom keeps ‘booming’… Where to put new money to work in AI now…
There’s no end in sight for the war in Iran…
After promises of progress, the latest headlines suggest we’re no closer to the end of the conflict in Iran than we were when the war began at the end of February.
Late last week, zero ships reportedly traveled through the Strait of Hormuz for three consecutive days.
And today, President Donald Trump said from the White House that “the ceasefire is on massive life support.”
What about the proposal to end the war that Iranian officials presented to the U.S. over the weekend? It was a “piece of garbage,” Trump said. “I didn’t even finish reading it.”
According to reports, there were various points of contention, but the biggest was about Iran’s possession of enriched nuclear material. As Trump has said repeatedly, he doesn’t want Iran to “have a nuclear weapon.”
The Wall Street Journal wrote about the Iranian “multipage” proposal last night…
The latest response doesn’t resolve the U.S. demand for commitments in advance on the fate of Iran’s nuclear program and its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Instead, Iran is proposing an end to the fighting and a gradual opening of the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic as the U.S. lifts its blockade on Iranian ships and ports, the people said.
Nuclear issues would be negotiated over the next 30 days, they said. Iran proposes to have some of its highly enriched uranium diluted and the rest transferred to a third country, the people said.
Maybe that was the point where Trump stopped reading…
“Totally unacceptable,” he posted on Truth Social yesterday about the proposal… after which oil futures started rising again. Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate prices are both up about 3% in the past 24 hours to around $104 and $98 per barrel, respectively.
When the inmates are running the asylum…
Trump also touched on another heart of the matter today, which we’ve written about before.
That’s the apparent battle for power withinIran between the parliamentary folks the U.S. has been negotiating with and the hard-liners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard intent on fighting indefinitely.
“The moderates are dying to make a deal. And then you have the lunatics, and I guess they’re a little bit afraid of the lunatics,” Trump said.
Barring a sudden and large change of heart by any of the parties involved, a likely way to end the immediate conflict – and the gridlocked Strait of Hormuz – would be for the U.S. or its allies to further attack the Revolutionary Guard forces who clearly continue to wield enough power in Iran to keep the strait closed.
I (Corey McLaughlin) am not saying what’s “right” or “wrong.” I’m just stating the reasonable outcome at this point – more war.
Another option would be a popular uprising. But we’ve seen no signs of that among the Iranian people. So either bombs will start flying again eventually or the U.S. calls it quits, which seems unlikely. Meanwhile, the world will deal with the reduced energy supply.
The consequences are piling up…
After a pullback at the end of last week, oil prices rose again over the past day. That makes sense, given global oil supplies continuing to drop… and energy prices rising.
In the U.S., the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline remains above $4.50… and now, after more than two months of war, the White House says it wouldn’t mind if Congress voted to suspend the federal gas tax.
Still, that would only cut gas prices by around 20 cents a gallon and 25 cents for diesel, while costing the federal government about a half billion dollars per week. (More debt, more inflation, anyone?)
Elsewhere, fuel rationing continues in Asia and Europe, which are experiencing the brunt of essentially 20% of the world’s typical oil supply being out of commission.
Yesterday, in India, prime minister Narendra Modi called on citizens to work from home – drawing comparisons to pandemic-era policies – or at least take public transit in an effort for Indians to consume less gasoline.
Mr. Market shrugged off the news… and the AI boom keeps ‘booming’…
The major U.S. stock indexes were slightly higher today, with many names from the AI ecosystem leading the way. The benchmark S&P 500 Index gained 0.2%.
Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) were up almost 2% to a new record high… And Micron Technology (MU) was up more than 6%, for a roughly 150% gain since March 30.
AI “optical networking” stocks were the biggest winners in the S&P 500. Lumentum (LITE), Coherent (COHR), and Corning (GLW) were up 16%, 13% and 11%, respectively, on the heels of a partnership announced last week between Nvidia and Corning to build three new manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and Texas.
The deal has signaled that Nvidia could be gearing up to replace copper in its data-center technology with Corning’s fiber-optic glass.
Stansberry Innovations Reportsubscribers are sitting on a 577% gain in Lumentum, which editor John Engel recommended in April 2021 because of the company’s position of strength and potential for growth in the optical-networking space.
But market sentiment about these stocks looks a bit frothy right now. This quote got my attention today…
“The tech boom is just too powerful to let the fact that energy prices are high affect the U.S. economy or the U.S. stock market,” Jay Hatfield, founder and CEO at Infrastructure Capital Advisors told CNBC. “Everybody’s tuning out the Middle East.”
It reminds me of a pillar of risk management we always try to keep in mind. When “everybody” is doing something – in this case, tuning out the Middle East – a “surprise” can catch “everyone” off guard.
Dan Ferris wrote about ‘everyone’ in a Digest a few years ago…
And he highlighted the danger of being part of the crowd when it’s in consensus.
Dan cited investor Howard Marks’ April 2007 essay, “Everyone Knows,” which Marks published to his Oaktree Capital clients six months before the S&P 500 peaked ahead of the great financial crisis. The U.S. benchmark went on to fall nearly 60% through March 2009.
Dan wrote…
As Marks wrote at the time…
What’s clear to the broad consensus of investors is almost always wrong.
And he continued…
Take, for example, the investment that “everyone” believes to be a great idea. In my view by definition it simply cannot be so.
If everyone likes it, it’s probably because it has been doing well… it’s likely the price has risen to reflect a level of adulation from which relatively little further appreciation is likely… [and that] there’s significant risk that prices will fall if the crowd changes its collective mind and moves for the exit.
Dan went on say that “Everyone Knows” is the flip side of “Nobody Thinks”…
Everyone Knows stocks aren’t going anywhere but up… And every little dip is a buying opportunity. Nobody Thinks a major bear market is about to begin.
Everyone Knows the Federal Reserve supports the stock and bond markets and won’t let them crash. Nobody Thinksthe Fed is playing a dangerous game by doing nothing to disabuse investors of that horribly naïve assumption.
Everyone Knows passive investing flows into index funds and exchange-traded funds are so powerful that the big stock indexes are highly unlikely to fall far without another pandemic or global economic shutdown… And even then, it would be just another short-term dip to buy. Nobody Thinks passive investing flows can move in the opposite direction and that investors can sell without reference to underlying business fundamentals as manically as they bought.
Everyone Knows value investing is dead and buying fast-growing companies is the only way to make money in the stock market. Nobody Thinks the old cycles are still intact and that – just like at the peak of the dot-com boom – great companies’ share prices are about to fall 80%, making this a great time to buy cheap value stocks and sell overvalued growth stocks.
Everyone Knows the stock market will never fall more than 20% in a single day as it did in 1987 because they’ll shut down the exchange when the S&P 500 is down that much. Nobody Thinks stocks can fall more than 20% in a single day because the market is not a man-made machine but a natural phenomenon… And mankind doesn’t control nature.
If you take nothing else from today’s Digest, let it be this reminder: think for yourself.
“The consensus is dangerous,” Dan wrote in his essay.
We understand that it’s not easy watching certain stocks melt up, but it’s dangerous to chase these stocks higher – especially the longer the behavior continues.
After nearly four years of big gains for well-known names like Nvidia, be smart about where to put new money to work in the AI trend today…
Look to the bottlenecks…
If AI’s footprint is going to be everything that “everybody” thinks it is – or even a fraction of that – we’re going to need a heck of a lot more energy in the years ahead. Electricity demand, prices, and public frustration have already been rising, in part, thanks to AI and data centers.
And the U.S. energy grid is becoming increasingly strained. That’s bad news for daily life, but presents an opportunity in the companies well positioned to help America meet its growing energy demand.
Over the past two years, our colleague Gabe Marshank has been studying the AI power crisis and where the biggest opportunities for your money may be. And he has put together an incredible presentation with more details.
In the free presentation, Gabe reveals some overlooked infrastructure power plays poised for massive upside… and what he’s calling a “Hormuz Dividend” – a company he considers a “toll taker” on energy infrastructure. To learn more, click here.
And Stansberry Alliance members and Gabe’s Market Maven subscribers can check out this latest research here.
Recommended Links:
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New 52-week highs (as of 5/8/26): ABB (ABBNY), Altius Minerals (ALS.TO), Applied Materials (AMAT), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), ASML (ASML), Broadcom (AVGO), BHP (BHP), Alpha Architect 1-3 Month Box Fund (BOXX), CBOE Global Markets (CBOE), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Datadog (DDOG), DigitalOcean (DOCN), iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ex China Fund (EMXC), EnerSys (ENS), iShares MSCI South Korea Fund (EWY), Fanuc (FANUY), FirstCash (FCFS), Alphabet (GOOGL), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Intel (INTC), KraneShares Global Humanoid Robotics and Physical AI Index Fund (KOID), Keyence (KYCCF), Lamar Advertising (LAMR), LXP Industrial Trust (LXP), Mueller Industries (MLI), Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy Fund (PBW), Construction Partners (ROAD), Roku (ROKU), ProShares Ultra Technology (ROM), U.S. Global Sea to Sky Cargo Fund (SEA), ProShares Ultra S&P 500 (SSO), UnitedHealth (UNH), and State Street SPDR S&P Semiconductor Fund (XSD).
In today’s mailbag, feedback on a quote we shared last week about AI and layoffs… Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
“Corey, When quoting Andy Challenger in Thursday’s Digest, “Technology companies continue to announce large-scale cuts and are leading all industries in layoff announcements. They are also often citing AI spend and innovation. Regardless of whether individual jobs are being replaced by AI, the money for those roles is.” I disagree with the big tech companies line that these layoffs are all due to AI. It does, however, add a ‘nice guy’ spin to the story by big tech.
“As an investor, saving money helps the bottom line, which in turn helps the price of the underlying investment. However, the main job losses are happening in the customer service area, which aren’t high paying engineering jobs AND the coders/programmer’s jobs, which are high paying jobs. BTW as a senior, I absolutely HATE, those endless customer service center drill down questioning by AI, as I yell, ‘TALK TO A PERSON’, but I digress.
“What big tech is doing in reality is moving a lot of these high paying engineering jobs to India, at a much lower salary. It started with Covid and work from home and our home-grown engineers training others and has progressed with the now, exorbitant H-IB visa policies. Hiring in India of these newly pre-trained individuals in on the rise in India, which doesn’t require those high fee visas and much lower salaries than in the U.S.
“Yes, AI is the biggest investment thesis currently. I do dislike hearing an incorrect ‘excuse’ for job losses currently taking place at most tech companies. I speak from experience as our son is deeply embedded in the tech area here in Seattle. Yes, he tells me, coders are losing their jobs, as AI is making huge strides in that area. He is a senior UX researcher and is challenged by worldwide meetings including teams in India and east and west coast ‘hubs’. These meetings take place at all hours, as teams are assembled to discuss the newest projects and deliverables.
“So far, he tells me, customer service and coding are the big breaks from AI, along with meeting/data summations and the use of LLM’s (large language models), which does help bottom lines. Nothing new to your readership, as this is discussed quite often.
“The biggest challenge’s occurring in his field is how to monetize AI (as discussed by your writers) to substantiate this huge amount of expenditure taking place. I agree with your contributors, as there will be winners and losers on this horizon. We, as subscribers, are absorbing everything you folks uncover and divulge to us!” – Subscriber S.R.
Corey McLaughlin comment: Thanks for the note. Great discussion to have. And regarding “monetizing AI” and the potential winners and losers, as I mentioned above, a great place to look is our colleague Gabe Marshank’s latest recommendations…
Existing Market Maven and Alliance members can find them here. If you’re interested in joining them, check out Gabe’s free presentation for more details, including his take on the AI story and a trade setup that he says is similar to a pair of $100 million trades he made during his hedge-fund days.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin
Baltimore, Maryland
May 11, 2026
Stansberry Research Top 10 Open Recommendations
Top 10 highest-returning open stock positions across all Stansberry Research portfolios. Returns represent the total return from the initial recommendation.InvestmentBuy DateReturnPublicationMSFT
Microsoft11/11/101,374.8%Retirement MillionaireMSFT
Microsoft02/10/121,340.2%Stansberry’s Investment AdvisoryGOOGL
Alphabet12/15/16887.1%Retirement MillionaireCIEN
Ciena10/20/22865.2%Stansberry Innovations ReportADP
Automatic Data Processing10/09/08822.7%Extreme ValueBRK.B
Berkshire Hathaway04/01/09768.5%Retirement MillionaireALS-T
Altius Minerals03/26/09702.7%Extreme ValueSII
Sprott01/11/18656.6%Extreme ValueWRB
W.R. Berkley03/15/12610.2%Stansberry’s Investment AdvisoryLITE
Lumentum04/15/21577.5%Stansberry Innovations Report
Please note: Securities appearing in the Top 10 are not necessarily recommended buys at current prices. The list reflects the best-performing positions currently in the model portfolio of any Stansberry Research publication. The buy date reflects when the editor recommended the investment in the listed publication, and the return shows its performance since that date. To learn if a security is still a recommended buy today, you must be a subscriber to that publication and refer to the most recent portfolio.
Top 10 Totals3Extreme ValueFerris3Retirement MillionaireDoc2Stansberry Innovations ReportEngel2Stansberry’s Investment AdvisoryPorter
Top 5 Crypto Capital Open Recommendations
Top 5 highest-returning open positions in the Crypto Capital model portfolioInvestmentBuy DateReturnPublicationBTC/USD
Bitcoin11/27/182,085.7%Crypto CapitalWSTETH/USD
Wrapped Staked Ethereum12/07/181,920.5%Crypto CapitalONE/USD
Harmony12/16/191,013.0%Crypto CapitalPOL/USD
Polygon02/26/21644.6%Crypto CapitalQRL/USD
Quantum Resistant Ledger01/19/21415.9%Crypto Capital
Please note: Securities appearing in the Top 5 are not necessarily recommended buys at current prices. The list reflects the best-performing positions currently in the Crypto Capital model portfolio. The buy date reflects when the recommendation was made, and the return shows its performance since that date. To learn if it’s still a recommended buy today, you must be a subscriber and refer to the most recent portfolio.
Stansberry Research Hall of Fame
Top 10 all-time, highest-returning closed positions across all Stansberry portfoliosInvestmentDurationGainPublicationNvidia (NVDA)^*5.96 years1,466%Venture Tech.Microsoft (MSFT)^12.74 years1,185%Retirement MillionaireInovio Pharma. (INO)^1.01 years1,139%Venture Tech.Rocket Lab (RKLB)^2.35 years1,034%Venture Tech.Seabridge Gold (SA)^4.20 years995%Sjug Conf.Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B)^16.13 years800%Retirement MillionaireIntellia Therapeutics (NTLA)1.95 years775%Amer. MoonshotsRite Aid 8.5% bond4.97 years773%True IncomePNC Warrants (PNC-WS)6.16 years706%True Wealth SystemsMaxar Technologies (MAXR)^1.90 years691%Venture Tech.
^ These gains occurred with a partial position in the respective stocks.
* Editor Dave Lashmet closed the first leg of this Nvidia position in November 2016 for a gain of about 108%. Then, he closed the second leg in July 2020 for a 777% return. And finally, in May 2022, he booked a 1,466% return on the final leg. Subscribers who followed his advice on Nvidia could’ve recorded a total weighted average gain of more than 600%.
Stansberry Research Crypto Hall of Fame
Top 5 highest-returning closed positions in the Crypto Capital model portfolioInvestmentDurationGainAnalystBand Protocol (BAND)0.31 years1,169%Crypto CapitalTerra (LUNA)0.41 years1,166%Crypto CapitalPolymesh (POLYX)3.84 years1,157%Crypto CapitalFrontier (FRONT)0.09 years979%Crypto CapitalBinance Coin (BNB)1.78 years963%Crypto Capital
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RJ Hamster 