Good morning and welcome to First Trade. Beer-drinkers are shunning IPAs and getting back to basics. But don’t take my word for it — just look at Anheuser-Busch InBev stock up 22% this year, handily beating the market.
We here at Business Insider — led by frequent newsletter collaborator Will Edwards — do a quarterly series that tells everyday investors where to invest $10,000.
Three months can feel like an eternity, especially with investors cycling through a rotating buffet of catalysts: trade war back and forth, the prospect of rate cuts, AI mania… even a sudden shock to regional banks.
Here’s a quick rundown of what’s changed since our last edition three months ago:
With those main inputs in mind, we talked to six investors about how the shifting conditions are impacting their decisions. Major themes and highlights across the interviews included:
A strong preference for beaten-up stocks. Stocks are back at record highs. So where are the opportunities?
AI plays. How could we forget the stock market’s golden goose?
More debasement. The popular trade, which involves buying gold and bitcoin, has taken a hit recently.
Looking outside the US. Valuations are at record highs, no matter how you slice it.
Looking for the names of specific stocks and ETFs that fit these suggestions, as well as further discussion of the reasoning behind them? Check out the full story here.
Sometimes all you need is a simple S&P 500 chart.
The benchmark index heads into this week at record highs, pushed higher by a cooler-than-expected inflation report on Friday. The release was seen as further paving the way for rate cuts this week, and in December.
But there’s a lot more than a Fed rate decision to look out for this week. It’s an enormous week for earnings, with a handful of heavy hitters reporting, most notably:
This chart showcases the immense recent interest in gold. Bank of America data shows that gold funds are on pace to absorb $108 billion in 2025, which would be an annual record. Another recent BofA report showed the biggest 10-week inflow to gold funds in history, as well as the single largest weekly inflow.
Those stats confirm what we all know by now: gold is the hottest asset on earth right now, and investors don’t seem to be dissuaded by the biggest sell-off in 12 years. It’s a major part of the so-called debasement trade, which we tackled in First Trade last week.
In this section, a weekly feature on Mondays, we manage a hypothetical portfolio.
When I opened up the portfolio for tweaks last Monday, I wasn’t surprised when the most popular stock-addition choice was Tesla. With earnings on deck, it made sense to try and position for a resulting share bounce.
That the Tesla inclusion came at the expense of Caterpillar, a “boring” company by comparison, was also not a surprise.
What ended up playing out is a good lesson in the double-edged sword of high-flying tech stocks. When you buy a stock like Tesla, you do so expecting to beat the market — over the long term. But doing so exposes you to the immense day-to-day volatility.
Tesla’s quarterly report last Wednesday featured an EPS miss and a notable EV-sale slowdown, which dragged the stock lower. A 3% sell-off on Friday didn’t help matters either.
Here’s how all the stocks fared last week:
When all was said and done, the First Trade index ended the week 1% higher, trailing the S&P 500’s nearly-2% return by 88 basis points.
The diversification of a big index wins, at least for now. But we have another shot at glory next week. Should we add Nvidia? Should we get into quantum computing, like the Trump administration apparently wants to? It’s your call.
Let me know at [email protected] (1) which stock you’d remove, and (2) which one you’d replace it with.
