In today’s issue:

  • Is Trump planning for 100 years?
  • Recession or buy the dip?
  • Who would you buy first?

This from President Donald Trump last weekend in an interview with Fox News.

Fox News host:

“… are you expecting a recession this year?”

Trump:

“I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of, it takes a little time. It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.

“What I have to do is build a strong country. You can’t really watch the stock market. If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective, we have a quarter, we go by quarters. And you can’t go by that you have to do what’s right.”

The quip about China is significant.

Significant because he’s right. China and Russia (for that matter) have focused on the long game for a long time. It’s paid off big time as they’ve both become major disruptors to the entrenched “Western” way of conducting trade… and warfare.

The fact Trump has openly recognised this also says to me that he’s prepared to set long-term plans in place early. This is so he gets at least some form of recognition for them to play out over the next four years.

That means short-term pain, long-term gain. At least that’s the theory when you’re trying to turn the largest ship in the global economic shipping channel.

Hopefully he doesn’t create an “Ever Given moment” with the economy and lead it into a long, drawn-out recession.

However, while there is an increasing number of experts calling a recession in the US, the UK and the global economic canal, the question remains: should you play into the idea of a recession or should you be looking at all this chaos as a buying opportunity?

Let me help out with that decision making…

The Nasdaq Composite hit a high of 20,100 around three weeks ago.

It hit a low of 17,980 last Friday.

A 10% swing lower for the Nasdaq Composite is volatile in just a three-week period. Look at some of its biggest constituents’ monthly returns:

  • Amazon down 13%
  • Meta down 12%
  • Nvidia down 13%

That equates to around $1 trillion in decreased market cap between those three alone. It also puts a company like Nvidia closer to $110 and increases the fears the AI boom is turning into a bust.

Add to this Trump’s newfound 100 years strategy (OK, maybe not that long) and the short trade spat with China (it’s not the first time he’s been in this position with China) and it’s ripping through tech stocks no end.

However, like I say, “trade wars” aren’t isolated to now. Nor just this presidency from Trump. The last time Trump kicked off a trade war with Chiiiiina, we ended up with the market ripping through to all-time highs.

In fact, since Trump started trade wars with China in 2018, the Nasdaq Composite is up around 150%…

Amazon is up 250%…

Meta is up 257%…

And Nvidia is up 2,225%.

If you ask me, I’ll have these trade wars please and I’ll invest for the next seven years and reap the rewards as they come due.

Of course, history is no guarantee of the same outcome happening again. The world is very different to 2018… right?

It’s worth noting that I don’t think it is all that different to 2018. If you’re looking at a company like Nvidia, consider this too.

By the end of 2026 it’s expected that OpenAI and Oracle will deploy 64,000 Nvidia GB200s at the Stargate datacentre in Abilene, Texas.

The expected pricing of the GB200s is around $70,000 for one. So, yes, that’s roughly $4.5 billion worth of GB200s, just for that one data centre, for that phase of buildout.

This off the back of Nvidia posting record-breaking data centre revenues for the fiscal year ending January 2025, just a lazy 142% increase from the year prior.

Look, I won’t lie. Volatility is definitely the word of the month, maybe this year. But there’s no way this isn’t a long-term buying opportunity in my eyes.

Everything I see and read within the industry tells me we’re going to see increases in demand and revenues in key players building out the next wave of AI infrastructure.

I just reeled off three of them. I’d have those right smack bang at the top of any watchlist or consideration list when you’re thinking to yourself, “Hmmm, what should I buy next?”

And that’s just the start.

Yes, their prices may head lower short term, which is why I think a dollar-cost average strategy in a market like this is the only way to play it. But to be out or sell out of it completely? Not for me.

These dips mean long-term buying, keeping in mind a seven to ten years’ timeframe (minimum) as we step into a whole new wave of technology and infrastructure at a scale that’s frankly hard to fathom.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week.) [Figures correct at time of writing.]

Boom 📈

  • IBM (NYSE:IBM) up 3%
  • Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) up 3%
  • Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) up 2%

Bust 📉

  • Vertiv (NYSE:VRT) down 10%
  • Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) down 10%
  • Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 10%

From the hive mind 🧠

    • The UK government’s approach to AI is always interesting. There is a chance to really become a world leader, but it depends on how the UK builds frameworks and support for the industry. This maybe suggests the government is heading in the right direction at least?
    • If you’re a mega giant tech company and you don’t have your own AI model these days, then do you even really AI properly?
    • It will be China, won’t it? You know, that one country that ends up ruining AI for us all. And probably humanity while it’s at it…
    • It may have been challenging for AI stocks recently, but this could present an opportunity. My colleague James Altucher believes there’s an AI “Wealth Window” open right now – but it slams shut on 17 March. Find out what he means and how you could get in on the AI Boom he sees coming before it’s too late.

Weirdest AI image of the day

Sketchy-looking guy offering free mammograms on the street

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

“Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.”
– Alan Turing

Thanks for reading, see you next time.

Sam Volkering
Contributing Editor, Investor’s Daily

All Measures Necessary

Bill Bonner, writing from Baltimore, Maryland

‘President Trump wanted a trade war with the world, and Americans are getting it, good and hard.’

– Wall Street Journal

This in on Thursday. Bloomberg:

Trump Vows 200% Tariff on EU Wine, Escalating Trade Tensions

President Donald Trump threatened to enact a 200% tariff on European wine, champagne and other alcoholic beverages, the latest escalation in a brewing trade war between the US and the EU.

What a wild and ridiculous ride. Whee!

The Primary Political Trend is headed down… and taking us down with it.

You’ll recall our unwelcome guess: that the real historical role for Donald Trump was not to arrest America’s decline…but to hasten it.

That is not to say that Mr. Trump is wrong about everything. The Department of Education should have been abolished long ago; education is a local issue, not a national one. Eliminating wokeism and DEI, firing federal employees, etc – much of what Trump is doing is a pleasure to watch.

But it doesn’t do any good to put a new label on the bottle if the wine is bad.

After Karine Jean-Pierre, we thought we might have seen the last of the air-head press secretaries at the White House. But no. Irish Times:

Tariffs proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump are a ‘tax cut for Americans,’ White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday at a tense press conference that included her regretting giving a reporter a question. Leavitt briefed reporters when she clashed with an Associated Press reporter who questioned her about Trump’s tax cut promises made on the presidential campaign trail.

Up is down. War is peace. And a tax increase is now a tax cut.

This is sour wine.

On Wednesday, Trump imposed ‘tax cuts’ all over the world… principally on steel and aluminum.

Canadians escaped a doubled levy… after threatening to cut off electricity to New York. Trump accuses Canada of ‘ripping us off.’ But Canada’s tariff protections are generally lower than those of the US.

No matter. This isn’t science. Or math. It’s politics. And tawdry politics is what we’re talking about today.

An economy either produces what ‘The People’ want… or the elites use politics to get what they want. Typically, there’s a tolerable and fairly reliable middle ground, where the masses don’t mind being ripped off in exchange for the predictability of a stable ruling class.

In a free, honest economy, people make money by trading with each other, with exact outcomes largely unforeseeable. In a politicized economy, on the other hand, hustlers make money by gaming government policies. They know exactly who will get the loot.

If they are big steel companies, with big steel-workers’ unions, located in ‘swing states,’ for example, they might ask for tariffs… so they can sell their products at higher prices.

And in a declining empire, such as the Soviet Union in 1991, the opportunities for grift and self-dealing multiply. The old Soviet Union had resources. They were administered by civil servants – apparatchiks and nomenklatura. Then, when the system imploded, these insiders were able to pick up the pieces and become fabulously rich ‘oligarchs.’

Broadly, the more politics the less real freedom and prosperity. That’s why, when politics is on the rise, the Primary Political Trend is down.

But none of the victims, of Wednesday’s trade war attack seems ready to roll over. The BBC:

Canada’s government is announcing how it is hitting back after tariffs of 25% on steel and aluminum imports came into effect this morning. The three government ministers are expected to say Canada will impose more than $20bn in retaliatory tariffs. Canada is the biggest foreign supplier of steel and aluminium to the United States.

The EU says it will strike back with countermeasures on $28 billion worth of US goods… putting tariffs on “everything from bourbon to motorbikes.”

“We deeply regret these measures,” said Ursula von der Leyen. “Tariffs are a tax. They are bad for business. And worse for consumers.”

China says it will take ‘all measures necessary’ to protect its interests.

Antagonizing allies as well as enemies? What is the point? Whatever the aim, the result will probably weaken the old empire, turning it into a friendless pariah – raising consumer prices while making domestic industries less competitive and more in need of political protection.

And as the empire declines so does the real value of its capital assets. Look for continued, long-term, drift downward in both the Primary Political Trend (more politics)… and the Primary Market Trend (lower asset prices, in gold).

Regards,

Bill Bonner
Contributing Editor, Investor’s Daily

For more from Bill Bonner, visit www.bonnerprivateresearch.com