71% Gains Since Keith’s Call, But Space Is Still a Buy
BY MICHAEL SALVATORE, EDITOR, TRADESMITH DAILY
In This Digest:
- Why space infrastructure stocks just ripped higher
- The next big winners of the AI boom
- The AI Biotech Leap is moving fast – are you in the right stocks?
Make space a top investing theme in 2026…
That was the advice from our CEO Keith Kaplan in these pages at the start of the year.
He wasn’t talking about space tourism… or landing men on the Moon.
The space investing theme is about turning space into an extension of Earth’s infrastructure – a place where communication, computing, and monitoring now happen above our heads.
This orbital infrastructure layer is already paying dividends on Earth:
- Farmers use orbital imagery to plan irrigation.
- Insurers assess flood and wildfire risk.
- Airlines and cargo fleets reroute using live satellite data.
- Energy firms monitor pipelines, offshore rigs, and power grids.
- Defense agencies track troop movements, missile launches, and maritime activity.
And as we build out this new infrastructure layer, it’s funding a full orbital ecosystem: rockets, satellites, sensors, and the AI that ties them together.
Yesterday, investor interest in the space infrastructure sector reached its boiling point with massive leaps in three stocks in particular:
- Redwire (RDW) – A space infrastructure company that makes satellite components, solar arrays, and on-orbit manufacturing technology for NASA, the Department of Defense, and commercial space firms jumped as much as 31%.
- AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) – It builds the first space-based cellular broadband network designed to connect directly to ordinary smartphones, with no special equipment needed. It gained nearly 20%.
- Firefly Aerospace (FLY) – This rocket and lunar lander builder rose 18%.
And small-rocket builder Rocket Lab (RKLB) is up more than 71% since Keith recommended it in these pages in January.
Keith calls Rocket Lab “the FedEx of low-Earth orbit.” It launches small satellites into space for governments and private companies.
Why all the excitement over space stocks right now?
Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company – long the most-watched private company in the world – filed last week to go public on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX.
And the IPO could come as early as next month at a valuation of nearly $2 trillion – making it the biggest IPO in history.
To be clear, the moves we’re seeing today are extreme…
One of the most hotly debated topics at our recent meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this month was the SpaceX IPO.
Some of the analysts from our sister companies described it as the biggest ripoff in modern stock market history. Others, like TradeSmith’s Andy and Landon Swan, believe it will kick off a new wave of profits for space infrastructure stocks.
Here at TradeSmith, we don’t have to guess whether that happens or not, or even which space stocks will survive.
We have tools that tell us when to be in and when to get out.
Take, for example, this chart of the Long-Term Health status of the ARK Space & Defense ETF (ARKX). It’s a popular way to own a basket of top space infrastructure stocks.
As you can see, ARKX has been bullish (green) or cautious (yellow) on Long-Term Health since June 2025. But it’s never flipped bearish (red).
That means the ETF has been in a healthy long-term uptrend the whole time – and at worst has pulled back partway toward a sell signal, never far enough to trigger one.
As long as it stays green, ARKX is a buy. And because it serves as a proxy for the space sector, that’s a good piece of evidence that the broader theme is intact.
This ETF carries an annual fee of 0.75%. And it won’t give you the kinds of targeted gains from best-of-the-best space stocks. But it’s a great way to get exposure to the space theme in one holding.
Recommended Link
Before June 12, Smart Money Is Making Its SpaceX Move
The SpaceX filing made headlines. But the real opportunity may sit just outside the spotlight.
Predictive Alpha is flagging bullish moves for AI infrastructure stocks…
As regular readers will know, Predictive Alpha uses AI to forecast likely moves in stocks up to 21 trading days out.
And right now, 4 of the top 10 stocks our AI forecaster is most confident in are direct AI-infrastructure plays.
Here’s a quick run-through of those four stocks with their Predictive Alpha forecasts…
Axcelis Technologies (ACLS) –Makes the machines chipmakers use to blast charged atoms into silicon wafers, a critical step in turning a sheet of silicon into a working computer chip. Predictive Alpha sees it hitting roughly $170 by June 24, a 3% jump from Friday’sclose. The model has been right 91% of the time on this stock – the best track record in the top 10.
Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) –Makes the fiber-optic parts that move data at lightning speed inside the giant warehouses Amazon, Google, and Microsoft use to run their AI. Projected to hit about $194 by June 25, a 9% gain. Right 88% of the time.
Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) –Makes the chips inside your phone and other wireless gadgets that connect them to cell towers and Wi-Fi. Projected to hit about $88 by June 12, a 6% move. Right 87% of the time.
American Superconductor (AMSC) – A solution to the AI boom’s biggest hidden problem: power. Data centers guzzle electricity, but America’s aging grid wasn’t built for this kind of load. AMSC makes special wires and equipment that allow utilities to push more power through the lines we already have. Projected to hit about $60 by June 25, a 13% jump. Right 88% of the time.
I get it if you’re wary to continue chasing semiconductors here. AI stocks have led the market for the past two years. Plenty of analysts will tell you that valuations are stretched, and the trade will inevitably roll over.
They may be right – eventually. But Predictive Alpha is looking strictly at short-term moves. The longest forecast is 21 trading days.
And it doesn’t have an opinion on valuations or sentiment.
It looks at how a stock has actually moved in the past, finds repeating patterns that have preceded the moves in the past, and constantly learns by how accurate its forecasts have been.
On these four tickers, the algorithm is averaging close to 90% historical target accuracy. That’s a confident forecast not to be ignored.
The AI Biotech Leap is sending these stocks soaring…
Thirteen biotech and pharma stocks hit fresh one-month highs on Friday’s screen.
That cluster covers everything from the four largest drug companies in the world – Eli Lilly (LLY), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Merck (MRK), and Novartis (NVS) – down to small-cap names you’ve probably never heard of. (I definitely haven’t.)
But the one I want to focus on today sits in the middle of the pack, and it’s where AI is most directly changing what’s possible in medicine.
Lantheus Holdings (LNTH) makes radiopharmaceuticals. These are radioactive drugs engineered to bind only to specific disease markers – a cancer cell’s surface protein, for example.
Once they bind, they light up on a scan so doctors can see exactly where the disease is. They can also deliver a targeted dose of radiation that destroys the diseased cells while leaving healthy tissue alone.
Lantheus’s lead product, PYLARIFY, identifies prostate cancer lesions with PET imaging. It’s the type of imaging doctors use to spot tumors, see if they’ve spread, and check whether treatment is working. And it’s increasingly using AI to make it more accurate.
AI-assisted analysis pulls signals out of those scans that the human eye can miss – smaller tumors, earlier-stage disease, more accurate staging.
That’s a real example of how biotech companies are using AI to make more effective medicine. It’s only the beginning… and the market is just starting to wake up to it.
Check out this chart of Lantheus with its Short-Term Health indicator along the bottom – our most sensitive trend tool:
Lantheus spent most of 2025 in a bearish Red Zone. The stock cratered from above $100 in May 2025 down to the low $50s by October.
Then on Dec. 19, 2025, Short-Term Health flipped Green at $64.86. As of Friday’s close, LNTH is back above $100 – a 54.2% gain since the signal fired, in just over five months.
And LNTH remains an active buy as long as Short-Term Health stays Green. That’s the trade discipline – ride it until the signal changes, then act on the change.
If you’re a paid-up subscriber, add LNTH to your watchlist in TradeSmith Finance and set Short-Term Health as the trail. The moment it flips Yellow or Red, the trend is breaking down, and the position should be reviewed.
Speaking of AI-powered medicine…
Lantheus is one face of the AI biotech leap. Gene editing is another – and Keith has been writing about it on X.
In a recent post, he laid out the case for why gene editing is closing in on what he calls a “once-in-a-generation breakthrough.”
In late 2023, the FDA approved Casgevy – the first gene-editing therapy for sickle cell disease, built by extracting a patient’s own cells, editing the DNA, and reinserting them.
The results in the New England Journal of Medicine showed nearly all patients achieved a functional cure.
Keith says this theme is mostly flying under the radar right now, which is exactly the entry point worth watching.
For more from Keith on this and other themes he’s tracking – including stocks and tickers our system is flagging as bullish setups within these themes – follow him on X at @KeithTradeSmith.
To building wealth beyond measure,
Michael Salvatore
Editor, TradeSmith Daily
RJ Hamster 