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Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today’s edition is brought to you by David Adler.
Travis Kelce is making the jump from football to baseball — as the newest MLB team owner.
Kelce might play for the Chiefs in Kansas City, but he’s a Cleveland Heights native and grew up a Guardians fan. (He’s also a fan of other Cleveland sports teams like the Cavaliers — he and fiancée Taylor Swift recently sat courtside for Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Cavs and Knicks.)
Now, one of the greatest tight ends of all time is a part-owner of his hometown team.
“Everyone knows how much love I have for this city, so to have the opportunity to come back and join the Guardians’ ownership group is the coolest thing in the world,” Kelce said. “I’ve always looked for ways to support and uplift my hometown, so I can’t wait to keep sharing the love and the passion I have for sports and this community as we look to bring a World Series title back to the Land.”
But wait a minute … that means he’s rivals with his own quarterback!
Patrick Mahomes — Kelce’s QB for all three of his Super Bowls — is a part-owner of the Royals, who are the Guardians’ AL Central rivals.
Unlike Kelce bringing it back to his hometown of Cleveland, the Texas-born Mahomes hopped in with his pro town of Kansas City. He joined the Royals’ ownership group back in July of 2020.
So even though Mahomes-to-Kelce is one of the greatest connections of all time on the gridiron, the two superstar teammates are now foes on the baseball diamond.
Kelce will be in the house at Progressive Field to celebrate his new role before the Guardians’ game against the Tigers on Sunday, June 14.
Kelce’s Cleveland fandom produced a viral moment a few years ago when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Guardians’ 2023 home opener … and spiked it straight into the ground. Not unlike a football, we suppose.
Kelce also talked about joining the Guards on the latest episode of his New Heights podcast with his brother Jason. Listen here >>
The 2023 American League Cy Young Award winner pitched six scoreless innings against the Rays, who the Bronx Bombers are trying to catch in the AL East race, in his first start in 569 days.
The Yankees were looking ahead to Cole’s return to the rotation for a long time. Cole’s debut was almost like a second Opening Day for the Yanks. Now that he’s back, they’re hoping it’s like he never left.
The way Cam Schlittler is pitching right now, if Cole keeps looking like his old self, the Yankees could have one of the best 1-2 punches in baseball at the top of their rotation.
And as Cole said about being back on the mound: “It’s a little bit like riding a bike.”
OHTANI VS. SUGANO IN ALL-JAPAN DUEL
Shohei Ohtani continues his Cy Young quest tonight, as the two-way superstar takes his 0.73 ERA into his ninth pitching start of the season against the Rockies (10:10 p.m. ET, MLB.TV).
This one’s going to be an all-Japanese pitchers’ duel, with Ohtani facing off against Tomoyuki Sugano. It will be the 21st matchup of two Japanese-born starting pitchers in MLB history.
The last time two Japanese pitchers squared off was Opening Day 2025, when Ohtani’s teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto faced the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga in the Tokyo Series.
The only one of the 21 matchups to come in the postseason also involved Yamamoto, who outdueled Yu Darvish and the Padres in the winner-take-all Game 5 of the 2024 NLDS.
The first matchup of Japanese starters came on May 7, 1999, when the Yankees’ Hideki Irabu defeated the Mariners’ Mac Suzuki.
And the best duel as far as actual pitching performances? That has to be Darvish vs. Masahiro Tanaka at Yankee Stadium on June 23, 2017, when Darvish threw seven scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts for the Rangers and Tanaka went eight scoreless with nine K’s for the Yankees.
Ohtani himself has never pitched against a fellow Japanese starter in his MLB career.
The Swingman Classic, founded by Ken Griffey Jr. in 2023, is a showcase that highlights players from Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
The 2026 Swingman Classic will be played at Citizens Bank Park on July 10, opening MLB All-Star Week in Philadelphia — where Rollins spent the first 15 seasons of his 17-year big league career.
“For [Griffey] to come back and say, ‘You’re not forgotten about,'” Rollins said. “‘And we’re going to put you on the biggest stage there is, and that’s an MLB stadium at the All-Star [Game], which is our primetime event.’ It doesn’t get bigger than that.”
Weeks, who played 14 Major League seasons and was an All-Star for the Brewers in 2011, played college baseball at an HBCU, Southern University.
“Just coming back and getting a chance to manage a team that gave me the chance to play college baseball,” Weeks said. “What more can you ask than that?”
J. Jonah Jameson himself was in the house for the Mets’ game against the Reds yesterday — actor J.K. Simmons, that is. And the Amazin’s had an unpleasant surprise in store for the Daily Bugle editor-in-chief.
Of course it was Spider-Man, who was hiding behind a copy of the Daily Bugle bearing the front-page headline: “Masked Web-Slinger: A Citi Field Menace!” … “menace” being Jameson’s favorite moniker for the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler.
Simmons plays Jameson, Spider-Man’s No. 1 hater, in the early-2000s Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies and in the current Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Turning around to see Spider-Man in the Citi Field seats, Simmons put on an Oscar-worthy performance in character as Jameson, shaking his fist at his nemesis and turning back to the camera with a scowl.
The Mets are all-in on movie character moments lately — a couple of weeks ago, Tom Hanks reunited with volleyball companion Wilson from “Cast Away” in the form of Mr. Met, complete with bloody handprint.
Editor’s Note: AI isn’t just creating new winners… it’s quietly exposing the companies built on fragile business models.
Today, my colleague Jonathan Rose is joining us to break down the four warning signs he found in nearly every major AI casualty before the market caught on.
More importantly, he explains where institutional capital is rotating next… and why that shift could create the next wave of outsized opportunities for investors willing to follow the money early.
He’s also doing a live event with Marc Chaikin on May 28 at 8 p.m. Eastern — their first-ever public collaboration, where they’re revealing a brand-new combined “Buy” signal and five specific stocks where it’s flashing right now.
I did some research recently that I can’t stop thinking about.
I went back and studied the companies that AI has already destroyed:
Chegg Inc. (CHGG)
Fiverr International Ltd. (FVRR)
Teleperformance SE (TLPFY)
I looked at what they all had in common — not after the AI trend has destroyed them, but before. When the stock was still holding up and nobody was really worried yet.
I found four specific tells. Four characteristics that showed up, in some combination, in every single company before the fall.
Once I had the framework, I started running it forward and applied it to companies that by most measures look fine today. I found 12 names with multiple tells stacking up right now.
Some of them will upset you. You might own a few of them. Someone you respect probably recommended them.
But here’s the important point.
The same four signals that show me where smart money is quietly leaving also show me where it’s quietly arriving.
Institutional capital doesn’t sit in cash. When it rotates out of one place, it shows up somewhere else. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance.
And right now, the somewhere else that smart money is flowing is getting very interesting.
In today’s piece, let’s take a walk through these three things:
The four tells – the warning signs I found in every AI casualty before the market caught on – and the 12 stocks those signals are flashing on right now.
Where the big money rotation is going right now, with some proof from our own track record to back it up.
A stock that sits directly in the path of that rotation. It’s one of the names where both a big trend and the smart money activity are pointing in the same direction at the same time.
Elon Musk is now paying you 15X more than your bank… Thanks to a project he’s been working on for the last 27 years. All you have to do is sign up for his new bank. For years, America’s biggest banks have been telling you they have no choice but to pay you interest rates as low as 0.4% (that’s the national average). Now, suddenly… Elon is exposing many of these bankers for the sharks they really are. He’s not offering double… or triple… or even five times the interest… But 15 times the national average – at 6% per year. This is just one of the radical ways Elon’s new bank is disrupting the financial sector… Luke Lango is revealing how it could impact your money (and how you should prepare) here.
The Four Tells — and the 12 Names
I want to be clear: I didn’t start this research by looking for specific companies. I started by asking what the pattern was. Then I let the pattern find the names.
Here’s what I found.
Tell #1: Coordinated insider selling. Not one executive trimming a position for tax reasons. Multiple senior people selling at the same time, across different titles, in size. When the people who know the business best are quietly getting out together, that’s not a coincidence.
Tell #2: Senior talent leaving for AI companies. Top engineers. Product leads. Salespeople who know where the customers are going. When they start moving to OpenAI, Anthropic, or the hyperscalers, they’re not leaving for the money alone. They’re leaving because they can see the trajectory from the inside.
Tell #3: Pricing model changes. When a software company suddenly pivots from per-seat to consumption-based pricing, they’ll call it “innovation.” It isn’t. It’s a response to AI undercutting their model. Companies that are genuinely winning don’t restructure their pricing under pressure.
Tell #4: CEO denial. This one is almost a perfect inverse signal. The earnings call where the CEO says, “AI cannot disrupt our business — our moat is too wide.” Real moats don’t require that kind of reassurance. When you hear it, pay attention to what’s happening underneath the surface.
The 12 names where I’m seeing multiple tells stack up:
Salesforce Inc. (CRM)
Adobe Inc. (ADBE)
Workday Inc. (WDAY)
Gartner Inc. (IT)
Atlassian Corp. (TEAM)
HubSpot Inc. (HUBS)
EPAM Systems Inc. (EPAM)
DXC Technology Co. (DXC)
Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR)
ServiceNow Inc. (NOW)
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. (CTSH)
CoStar Group Inc. (CSGP)
I’m not saying they all collapse tomorrow. I’m saying the smart money is repositioning out of them – and historically, price follows positioning. These are names I’m watching carefully, not holding.
The Other Side of the Rotation
The flip side is more interesting.
Everything that AI is dismantling in software is simultaneously creating demand somewhere else. The infrastructure has to exist before the disruption can happen. The hardware. The computing power. The specialized applications that replace what’s being disrupted.
That’s where the smart money is building right now. And one of the clearest areas of concentration I’m tracking is quantum computing.
I know what you’re thinking: Isn’t quantum just the next hype cycle?
Fair question. But let me tell you what the data actually shows—not the hype narrative, but the smart money activity.
The stock I want to share with you today is Quantum Computing Inc. (QUBT).
This is a small-cap company working on quantum hardware, photonics, and cybersecurity applications. It’s speculative. I’ll say that plainly. But there’s a significant difference between speculation with a defined opinion and proof of big money moving in… and speculation on a story alone.
What’s catching my attention in QUBT isn’t the quantum narrative — it’s the activity. Unusual, concentrated positioning building around this ticker at a time when money is rotating hard out of legacy software and into the infrastructure layer underneath it.
QUBT recently reported a sharp jump in revenue following acquisitions tied to photonics and cybersecurity technologies. And the positioning we’re seeing has the same character as names we’ve caught early before.
We saw similar activity in Rigetti Computing Inc. (RGTI) before our trade on it ran 234% in five days. In MP Materials Corp. (MP) before a 700%-plus gain on our bullish trade. In Albemarle Corp. (ALB) before a 959% gain on a lithium trade.
None of those came from following a story or making a prediction. They came from watching where serious money was moving — and following it before the broader market figured out why.
That’s the setup in QUBT today.
Which brings me to what Marc Chaikinand I are doing on May 28.
Marc has spent 60 years in markets. He created the Money Flow indicator — it’s now in Bloomberg terminals and virtually every major trading platform on the planet. For decades he built research tools for the world’s biggest hedge funds, then walked away to give regular investors access to the same analysis.
Marc can tell you where institutional money is flowing. I can tell you where the highest-conviction positioning is building. We both thought those two things were built to work together.
And so, we’ve spent the last few months putting them together to see what happens.
We backtested the combination against nearly 200 of my real trade recommendations. The results surprised even me. Confirmed setups produced 45% higher average gains than unconfirmed ones. Win rate jumped 17 percentage points. And the filter would have kept us out of two-thirds of losing trades.
We’re calling it the Convergence Trigger. And we’re showing it off for the first time ever at a free event on May 28 at 8 p.m. Eastern (save your seat for tomorrow’s event now).
QUBT is one of five stocks where that Convergence Trigger is flashing right now. You’ll get all five when you sign up for the event’s VIP list.
The rotation is already underway. The question is which side of it you’re on.
The creative trader always wins,
Jonathan Rose Founder, Masters in Trading
P.S. One thing I appreciate about Jonathan’s approach is that he spends less time trying to predict the future and more time tracking where institutional money is actually moving right now. In markets this volatile, that distinction matters. He and Marc Chaikin are breaking down that process — along with five stocks where their new “Convergence Trigger” is flashing — during a free live event on May 28. You can reserve your seat here.
Manage your account We hope this timely investment research is valuable to you. As you know the markets move fast and conditions change frequently. So please check the current issue for the most recent advice. Please note that we cannot be liable for any missed bulletins caused by overzealous filters. To ensure that you continue to receive this valuable part of your service please take a moment to add services@exct.investorplace.comto your address book.
After the reigning winners topped our first Cy Young poll of the 2026 season, Yankees phenom Cam Schlittler and Phillies lefty Cristopher Sánchez are the new favorites.
MLB Pipeline put together a list of 32 nominees for the best nickname in Minor League Baseball, and you can vote until Friday at noon ET to anoint the Minors’ top moniker.
After a Blue Jays fan snagged a foul ball in the second inning and improbably got ANOTHER one in the fifth, he spread the joy by giving his second souvenir to a young fan.
Willson Contreras batted .458 to win the AL Player of the Week Award, while Ketel Marte broke out with seven extra-base hits and 12 RBIs to claim the NL nod.
The NCAA Regionals begin this week, so we assembled a team of the best player at each position who you can expect to see selected in the 2026 MLB Draft.
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.
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
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While many investors have focused heavily on the artificial intelligence trade lately, the banking industry has quietly performed well too. One commonly used proxy of the industry’s performance is the Invesco KBW Bank ETF (NASDAQ: KBWB). Over the last 12 months, the fund has delivered a total return of around 35%, exceeding the S&P 500’s approximately 27% return over that period.
Notably, large-scale share buybacks have been a common theme among many bank stocks. After engaging in big-time buyback spending over the past several quarters, these three names are loading up again. All have huge buyback capacity equal to more than 10% of their market capitalizations. This allows these firms to continue lowering their outstanding share counts, adding a tailwind to per-share metrics.
First up is one of the most well-known banking institutions in the world, Citigroup (NYSE: C). The stock has gone on an extremely strong run, delivering a total return above 70% over the last 12 months. This comes as Citi’s turnaround plan has been progressing well. In 2025, Citi saw record revenues across all of its five main business lines, and four out of five posted double-digit growth in Q1 2026. Overall, 2025 revenue hit a record $86.4 billion.
Citi has also made judicious use of buybacks recently, spending $13 billion on repurchases in 2025—around four times what it spent in 2024. The company’s buyback pace continues to accelerate, with $6.3 billion of repurchases in Q1 2026, or nearly half of its 2025 spending in just one quarter.
Now, the company has filled its buyback chest to the brim, authorizing a new $30 billion repurchase program. The firm noted, “This reflects both our earnings power and our confidence in the trajectory of our business.” The size of this program is very significant, equal to 14% of Citi’s market capitalization near $210 billion.
This gives the firm a significant ability to continue lowering its share count, which it has reduced by more than 15% over the past five years.
KeyCorp Announces $3B Buyback Plan as Investment Banking Shows Out
KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) shares have also performed well, but to a much lesser extent than Citi. Shares have delivered a total return of about 40% in the last year. Notably, KeyCorp’s investment banking business had its second-best year ever in 2025, and ended the year saying that its pipelines are at historically elevated levels. In Q1 2026, the company reiterated this, saying that pipelines were up 5% from year-endand that merger-and-acquisition pipelines were at record levels.
The company’s buyback spending has also been higher than expected. KeyCorp spent $200 million on repurchases in Q4 2025, double what it anticipated.
In Q1 2026, KeyCorp spent nearly $400 million, well more than the $300 million it set out for. The company currently says that it expects to spend $1.3 billion on buybacks in 2026—but specifically notes that this is a floor estimate.
Pursuant to this, the company just added $3 billion in buyback capacity. This buyback program is also very large, equal to just under 13% of KeyCorp’s market capitalization near $23.5 billion.
Notably, KeyCorp also returns a significant amount of capital through its dividend program. Overall, the company’s indicated dividend yield sits near 3.8%.
M&T Makes Strong Progress on Improving Loan Quality, Spends Big on Buybacks
Last up is M&T Bank (NYSE: MTB), which has delivered decent but not impressive performance over the last 12 months, up about 20%. Sizeable gains have been made over the past six months, as M&T has made strong progress in reducing its criticized loan balance. These are loans where the risk has increased relative to original expectations, putting the lender in an unfavorable position.
Buybacks have also been a key part of M&T’s strategy, with the firm noting that it repurchased 9% of its outstanding shares in 2025. As part of its $5 billion buyback authorization, the company recorded $1.25 billion in repurchases during Q1 2026. This was equal to 3.5% of its outstanding shares versus the end of 2025. With this, the company now has around $3.75 billion in buyback capacity remaining.
Despite already undertaking big-time repurchases, its buyback firepower remains large. Overall, M&T’s capacity is equal to around 12% of its approximately $31 billion market capitalization.
Trump Policies Help Big-Bank Buybacks Hit Historic Levels
Notably, elevated buyback activity isn’t confined to these three names; it is characterizing much of the banking industry. In Q1, the largest U.S. banks hit a quarterly record for buyback spending at $33 billion. Analysts note that the Trump administration’s deregulatory stance has been a boon for buybacks as companies have to lock up less of their capital. READ THIS STORY ONLINE
Elon Musk has confirmed the SpaceX IPO for June 12, 2026, at a valuation of up to $2 trillion – potentially 4,566 times larger than Amazon’s IPO.
America’s top venture capitalist has identified a strategy that lets any investor take a pre-IPO stake in SpaceX using a regular brokerage account and as little as $100. Once the IPO happens, this opportunity closes permanently.GET THE FULL DETAILS BEFORE THE JUNE 12 WINDOW CLOSES
The price of aluminum has surged by almost 50% in the last year, reaching multi-year highs amid pressure due to the Iran war, domestic tariffs, and more. The shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz has had a particularly strong impact, given its critical role in the transmission of aluminum through the Middle East to other parts of the world.
Kaiser Aluminum Could Benefit From Tariffs and Aerospace Business, But Valuation Is a Risk
Kaiser Aluminum is a producer of semi-fabricated aluminum products for a variety of different markets, including aerospace, automotive, electronics, and more. The company’s earnings for Q1 2026 were very strong: more than 42% year-over-year (YOY) growth in revenue and an earnings per share (EPS) beat of $1.78, plus record EBITDA and solid guidance for the full year.
The company is seeing demand strengthen while simultaneously boosting operational execution through improved facility performance. This has allowed the firm to boost margins by about 850 basis points YOY. Additionally, free cash flow for the first quarter reached $69 million, and the firm ended the quarter with liquidity of roughly $596 million, giving it plenty of flexibility going forward.
With Section 232 tariffs including a 50% tariff on many aluminum imports and aluminum-based products, domestic firms like Kaiser could benefit. Still, as a specialized aluminum products firm, Kaiser may not be particularly dependent upon raw aluminum prices. Where Kaiser does stand out, however, is in its significant aerospace and defense business. Demand here is likely to remain strong, and multi-year contracts should provide a meaningful stability buffer—even as the auto segment faces potential headwinds from lagging demand and ongoing tariff volatility.
For investors, Kaiser could be a strong industrial materials firm with some potential tariff-related upside and lower risk than a pure commodity producer. Analysts are fairly optimistic, with half calling KALU shares a Buy. However, given that KALU shares are up more than 50% year-to-date (YTD), valuation may be a concern. Indeed, Wall Street expects more than 10% in downside potential.
Century’s Exposure to Tariffs Makes It a Big Beneficiary
While Kaiser is focused on aluminum products, Century is primarily an aluminum producer operating smelters across the United States and Europe. This means the firm is heavily exposed to aluminum pricing, and tariffs may give CENX shares a big boost as a result.
Century is advantageously positioned because it not only benefits from aluminum prices that are higher overall due to tariffs, but also from the fact that it does not need to pay tariffs on most of its production, thanks to its domestic focus.
The company is planning a new smelter in Oklahoma that could help to significantly boost its domestic production capacity. Enthusiasm surrounding Century’s prospects in the current tariff climate has led to a unanimous Buy rating from all five analysts rating CENX shares, as well as a consensus price target of $80. This price represents not only a 20% premium over recent levels but also essentially double the level at which CENX stock traded at the start of 2026.
Still, investors should keep in mind that Century’s dependence on tariff-related prices is significant. If tariffs shift and premiums collapse, the company could see a major hit to its earnings and valuation multiples. Further, building a new smelter will cost billions of dollars, and the cash-intensive nature of the project means Century is exposing itself to financing, execution, and construction risks.
For investors keen to capitalize on the tariff-related impact on aluminum prices, there also exists the possibility of gaining exposure to the commodity itself. An exchange-traded fund like the Invesco DB Base Metals Fund (NYSEARCA: DBB) holds a portfolio of aluminum futures to track commodity prices directly. This approach takes the other company-specific variables out of the equation, allowing for a more direct way of gaining exposure the price of aluminum. However, DBB is exposed to a variety of metals, so it is not aluminum-specific. READ THIS STORY ONLINE
AutoZone (NYSE: AZO) is a buy-and-hold quality stock nearly beyond compare. The company’s management, strategy, market position, market trends, operational quality, cash flow, and capital returns are a recipe for ever-growing value, as reflected in the long-term price action. AZO’s stock price advanced approximately 500% from the pandemic low to the 2025 peak, and additional highs are still likely in 2026.
The takeaway in 2026 is that the AZO market is experiencing a much-needed price correction and setting up a buying opportunity of generational proportions. It may take some time for AZO’s market to regain traction and resume its uptrend, but it will, and when it does, the gains could be explosive. Catalysts include international expansion, market share gains, business optimization, and aggressive share buybacks.
The company is expanding aggressively in Latin America, specifically in Mexico and Brazil, where middle-class expansion is fastest. Meanwhile, the company also focuses on capturing the fragmented commercial auto parts markets and driving supply chain efficiency through digitization. The critical factors are earnings growth, cash flow, and aggressive share buybacks. The company is well regarded as an efficient steward of capital, reducing its share count significantly on both a quarterly and an annual basis. Q1 activity amounted to $586 million, about 92% of operating profits, reducing the count by an average of 2% on a trailing 12-month (TTM) basis.
Mixed Results Favor AutoZone Investors
AutoZone reported a mixed quarter with revenue for its fiscal Q3 2026 falling short of the consensus estimate. However, the $20 million miss was slim and easily overlooked in light of the 8.5% growth and margin strength. Revenue growth was underpinned by increases in store count in the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil, compounded by a 3.9% systemwide comp. Comps rose by 4.1% domestically and 1.6% internationally, below expectations but still a healthy gain.
Margin news was also mixed, which was central to the stock price decline. However, the gross margin reduction and overall impact are less than feared, leaving operating profit up approximately 6.5% year over year and GAAP earnings per share well ahead of the consensus forecast. At $38.07, GAAP earnings were nearly $2 above expectations and 5.5% better than expectations, sufficient to sustain operations and capital returns while enabling strategy execution.
AutoZone’s balance sheet provides no red flags. The company’s cash balance held relatively steady despite the increased investment and robust capital return. Other highlights include increased inventory and total assets, and a reduction in deficit. Normally a problem, the shareholder deficit results from share buybacks and is likely to persist over time. AutoZone has returned more than $12.5 billion to investors over the past decade, approximately 25% of its late-May market cap.
AutoZone Market Over Reacts to Results: Deepens Value Opportunity
Analyst trends have contributed to AutoZone’s 2026 stock price weakness, as some price targets were reduced early in the year. The caveat is that this market overreacted to the adjustment, compounding the move in late May after the fiscal Q3 release.
Trading near $3,000, AZO stock is 20% below the lowest price target tracked, while analyst consensus forecasts more than 40% upside. The likely result is that AZO reaches bottom sometime in late Q2 or early Q3, and begins to regain traction later in the year.
Institutional trends are among the reasons why the AZO stock price is nearing its bottom. The institutional group owns approximately 93% of the shares and has accumulated on a TTM basis.
Price action in late May has entered the range where institutional buying was strongest, suggesting a robust response from this group is forthcoming. If not, AZO’s stock price could enter a sustained downtrend, but that is not indicated by the results, analysts’ trends, or chart price action.
The chart price action reveals a mid-term downtrend, with an increasingly strong chance of a rebound. While price action moves lower, the MACD is diverging, and the stochastic is deeply oversold, suggesting bears have lost control and all the bulls need is a trigger to start buying. That could be as simple as the valuation, which suggests a 50% discount to the five-year outlook, but may require more tangible news, which may not be revealed until the company’s fiscal Q4 earnings results are released.
The biggest risk for AutoZone this year is margin compression. While the impacts of aggressive expansion are manageable, produce results, and will slow over time, rising costs are more of a concern and may continue eroding results. The question is whether efficiencies gained from the “Mega Hub” strategy will be enough to support margin recovery over time. READ THIS STORY ONLINE
Tech investor James Altucher – who called Netflix, Facebook, and Bitcoin early – says the SpaceX IPO (Ticker: SPCX) is the single biggest opportunity of his career. SpaceX is confirmed to go public on Friday, June 12, in an IPO valued at up to $2 trillion.
But Altucher warns against buying shares on IPO day. He has identified a strategy that lets investors claim a pre-IPO position in SpaceX before it goes public – with what he believes is far greater profit potential.CLICK HERE TO SEE JAMES ALTUCHER’S FULL SPACEX PRE-IPO STRATEGY
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