SPEAKER 02 : 0:00

He’s been seen on CNBC, the Fox News Channel, and the Fox Business Channel. His articles can be found on MarketWatch, Seeking Alpha, TheStreet.com, and many other places. He’s the author of the weekly Best Stocks Now newsletter and the inventor of the Best Stocks Now app. He’s president of Gunderson Capital Management. Here is professional money manager Bill Gunderson.

SPEAKER 03 : 0:26

And welcome to the Friday. It is Friday already. It’s the January 24th edition. The year is flying. We’re already almost four weeks into a new year. This is Bill Gunderson, President of Gunderson Capital Management. And it is the Best Stocks Now show, which is heard every weekday, Monday through Friday, across several channels across America. And, of course, our podcast goes out every night on our website and most podcast sites. Well, we had a good day in the market yesterday. And we’re off to kind of a mixed start today. Let’s pick up where we left off yesterday. We left off yesterday with the S&P 500 at an all-time high. Yes, sir, it hit an all-time high, 6,119. And today it looks like we’re tacking on, let’s see, the S&P 500, last time I looked, was down a little bit here. And so we’re not going to see a new high again today. Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t. In the meantime, well, we are seeing a new high. We’re up now. We’ve turned to the upside on the S&P 500 with a gain of 11 basis points. Or, well, it’s up one point right now. The Dow’s down 127 to 44.437. And the NASDAQ closing in on a new high. It’s up 17. at 20,070. So welcome to today’s Best Docs Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management, a nationwide fee-based only firm. We’ve had a pretty good start to the year so far in 2025. A little bit of Trump euphoria still in the air, it would seem. Valuations a little rich, however. I did send out charts this morning to all of our followers there on the current status of the Dow. Not only the technicals, but also the valuations. I sent out the current status of the S&P 500, which hit a new high yesterday, and is a point above that today. But I also sent out those valuation numbers, which are very critical at this time. And I sent out a chart of the NASDAQ this morning with my commentary, not only on the chart, but also on those all-important valuations. the nuclear stocks had another very good day yesterday it looks like they’re doing well again today and like i said a little bit of trump euphoria still out there interest rates we’re watching those very very closely because they could be a very important factor this year in fact i saw a A big firm out there, let me see, who was it? It was J.P. Morgan or one of those talking about if interest rates go back up above 5. They believe that 5% is kind of the key there. And if you start rising above 5, that could be very, very bad. for the markets. And I’ve said the same thing, basically. We did burst right through that old 4.7 level. It looked like we were headed for 5, and all of a sudden it caught hold, and we’ve held that. But there’s some worry that if inflation comes back or sticks around, that we could go above 5, and that would really hurt the markets because we’re at such high multiples already. And I did see this morning that Japan, that’s kind of surprising. I mean, Japan is a very, very sluggish economy. They’ve been at zero interest rates forever. They’ve been at about 1% growth forever. They’re having a bit of an inflation problem in Japan. Inflation went up to 3%. So I don’t know if that bodes well for the rest or if that’s any indication for the rest of the world. But inflation still is a problem, and that’s why interest rates are so critical to watch. And, of course, you’ve got Trump calling for lower interest rates. Well, he’s jawboning. He’s jawboning, hoping that the Fed will hear him. and the lower rates at their next meeting. I don’t see that happening. But, you know, you never know what could happen. There’s a proposed constitutional amendment. Let’s see, who was this introduced by? Andy Ogles, Republican from Tennessee. A resolution introduced to the House of Representatives to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow President Donald Trump to be elected to serve a third term in the White House. Okay. I don’t know, you know, if I like changing that constitutional amendment. But he claims… that Trump has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness. He must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal. Well, you know, by the time he ends this term, he’ll be 82, I believe, years old. But obviously, mind’s still sharp and still in pretty good shape. I can’t believe the energy that the guy has. But that’s just being floated out there. something interesting. Okay, nuclear. Let’s talk nuclear a little bit. They had a good day again yesterday. There’s advances being made. I’m going to call it, I think the best word, I finally heard the word, I think, or the term that coins this whole move in nuclear the best. We’re looking at a renaissance, a nuclear renaissance. And it’s being driven by Artificial intelligence and data centers. And who would have ever thought that that would put to death? Well, solar and wind aren’t completely out of the mix. But, you know, there are a drop in the proverbial bucket when you look at the surge in energy demand that is happening, not only from EV, electrical vehicle cars, being charged all night, but also from these data centers, which are big, big energy hogs. And we continue to get partnerships and deals being made in the nuclear space. I mentioned that yesterday, South Carolina, I probably live maybe 20 miles from where they started to build the nuclear power plant out at the Santee Cooper Lake area. And they abandoned that project, and guess what? They’re going to reboot it. and try to get up and running. I’m sure that South Carolina wants to be a player in that data center business, which right now is really centered in Texas and a few other states. Virginia, believe it or not, has a lot of data centers. And I see today that Virginia, let’s see, the private equity firm that the governor was a member of, I believe it’s KKR, or KBR, one of those, they are buying the big energy company there in Virginia. So everybody kind of wants to be a player. Yesterday, Oklo had another huge day. Nano Nuclear also had a huge day. These are very small players. And I mean that in a couple of ways. They’re small in that they’re trying to develop smaller nuclear reactors so they can kind of go to private industry and be used for a lot of other purposes. Yesterday, Lightbridge, LTBR, and Oklo, I’ve talked about both of those many times, are doing a potential nuclear partnership. and they’re coming up with new fuels for nuclear energy. So that continues to be. And I’ve also created a sector in my app. I’ve divided off the nuclear sector. You know, one of the important screens that I do daily in the Best Stocks Now app are the leading sectors in the market. I have about 66 sectors, I think. Might be up to 70 now. but I separated out the nuclear sector and made that so it could be the leading sector in the market right now. We’ll see, those numbers will compute in the app and I’d say by next Tuesday we’ll know where the nuclear sector is. I know that Vistra Energy out of Texas has been the number one ranked stock for a long time in the app. It’s either one or in the top two or three for many months now. So that continues to be a very vibrant sector. Now, there’s a lot of other players that I want to talk about when we come back. In fact, one of them gets an $11 billion contract to supply nuclear reactors for submarines in the United Kingdom. And let’s not forget, we’ve had nuclear-powered submarines for many years, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and now we’ve got to even some of these cargo ships are nuclear-powered. So that is a big renaissance that’s taking place and a very enticing, a very interesting area for investment. And in fact, I saw one of the big firms, we’ll get to that in a bit, calling one of the big energy nuclear companies their best idea of 2025. Which one is it? And which one is it that got this $11 billion contract? We’ll be right back. And welcome back here to the second quarter of today’s Best Stocks Now show. Well, we’re all in the red right now. Not by much. The Nasdaq’s now down 24. Dow’s down 103. The S&P is down just four points here right now. Okay, back to nuclear. That seems to be on a lot of investors’ minds these days. It’s definitely been a very good place for us here to be invested recently. Rolls-Royce is the company that got the contract from the U.K. Navy to put nuclear reactors down. into the submarines over there it’s the biggest contract ever awarded here to Rolls Royce and you know you could say that Rolls Royce has gone through a massive renaissance itself it was a one dollar stock Not that long ago, nuclear was not all that popular there for a long, long time. And, of course, Rolls-Royce, their bread and butter is making jet engines. But now, all of a sudden, they’re a major player in the nuclear space. And that has shown up in their… in their performance of the stock. Now the stock trades on the pink sheets. It does not trade as an ADR in the US. RYCEY is the symbol. I do have it in the app. Rolls-Royce signed the largest ever contract with the UK Ministry of Defense to design and build nuclear reactors to power new UK submarines. under a contract valued at 11 billion dollars uh rolls royce uh you know what has not been a very good stock over the last 10 years it’s delivered about three percent a year that’s it but all of that has occurred now listen to what it’s done recently and i’ve got a chart here the the There’s going to be a story in the newsletter this week about it with the chart and the performance of the stock. Over the last three years, Rolls-Royce has delivered 66.7% per year, while the market’s delivered 13.1%. We call that alpha. There’s some big alpha. And over the last 12 months, Rolls-Royce is up 91%, while the S&P is up 26%. So there’s some massive alpha. Rolls-Royce is hitting a new 52-week high here. And really, you’ve got to go back to 2020. It’s hitting a new five-year high also. It got as low as about $1 in 2022. And then with the renaissance of nuclear, I mean, that’s been good for Rolls-Royce. The chart looks very solid. The valuation is pretty good. And, of course, the momentum is very good right now. Now, Guggenheim, they named their best idea. I did that at my NASDAQ appearance earlier this year, several weeks ago. Guggenheim happens to like a nuclear-related stock, very much a nuclear-related stock. And one of our biggest holdings, I’ve talked about this one many times, Constellation Energy, CEG, is named the best idea at Guggenheim. It says, they say, if you have to own one name in 2025, it’s CEG. Well, I’m glad to see them come aboard. We’ve been in Constellation Energy, I think, for well over a year. And Constellation Energy, let’s see how it’s doing today, CEG, which is Three Mile Island. I mean, this is where all of the no-nuke stuff began. And now you’ve got this huge renaissance taking place, which really is breathtaking. CEG, I want to say it’s hitting a new all-time high today. Yes, it is. It’s hitting $347.86 today. The performance of this stock is about as good as it gets. Their earnings are exploding. Earnings are going to be up 87% this year, 10% next year out of Baltimore, but they’re also in the natural gas, power, renewable energy business, but it’s the nuclear part of this story. that is really driving it. So there you go, there’s top pick for 2025 from Guggenheim. They think that the Calpine deal that they recently did changed everything. And we have a very large position in Constellation Energy in both our premier growth portfolio and our dividend and growth portfolio. Yes, it pays a dividend. So You know, there’s your basic utilities, which 90% of the utility sector, maybe 95%, is just your basic old utilities. Edison, you know, Pacific Gas and Electric and all the different… suppliers, Dominion Industries, Southern. It hasn’t been a very good sector for folks. But now all of a sudden, it has new life. And in fact, I used as my proxy here for the nuclear sector an ETF. The symbol is NUKZ, N-U-K-Z. I haven’t heard of range ETF funds, but they’re definitely got a good one here. in nukes, I’ll read you the top 10 holdings in that, and I’m using that as my proxy for the nuclear sector. This is called the Range Nuclear Renaissance ETF, which is hitting a new all-time high today. Their top 10 holdings, Cameco, Oklo, Constellation Energy, NuScale, Centris, which is uranium, GE Vernovia, which we’ve talked about many times, Silex, which I believe is an Australian company that would be very difficult to purchase shares in unless you bought the ETF. Vistra and Honeywell. Honeywell has big nuclear ambitions. So you can see what a hot sector this is. And yesterday, we’ve had several in the incubator portfolio that is only available to the live trading audience out there. Nano had a huge day yesterday. NNE, nano nuclear, surged to an all-time high after securing new patents. for a micro reactor now this is the one i believe that’s doing all of their testing up in idaho at the proving grounds up there they’re looking not only for a micro reactor but also portable reactors and they got some really important patents yesterday that’s nne let’s see how nne it’s had one heck of a run it’s up 3.2 percent today but NNE is gone. In August, it was $6.50. Today, it’s $44.37. How did I find it? The beststocksnowapp.com. When I add those stocks to the app, I added one today. I think we’re talking about that one in the second half of the show. They show up on the A-plus momentum list. All of a sudden, wow, look at this thing, A-plus momentum. That means it’s performing better than all the stocks in the market out there. And that’s when I start doing my research on why. And a lot of times there’s a good reason why. We’ll be right back. This is Bill Gunderson. Thank you for tuning in to today’s Best Stocks Now, Best Inverse Funds Now show. I put several hours of research in during the wee hours of the morning each day to bring you the very best cutting-edge stories that I can. To get two free weeks of my newsletter, go to GundersonCapital.com. To talk to us about our fee-based only money management services… Call us at 855-611-BEST. Now, back to the second half of the show.

SPEAKER 06 : 20:23

Call out the instigator because there’s something in the air.

SPEAKER 03 : 20:44

And welcome back here to the second half of today’s Best Stocks Now show. Well, the newsletter will be coming out Saturday. That’s a labor of love. I’m in my 25th year of writing the Gunderson Letter, which goes out every Saturday. And it has all five, six, six of our portfolios in it every week. Our macro call on the market, our outlook. and stories that I’ve talked about during the week on stocks that a lot of times you’ve never heard of, maybe sometimes new technologies, new kids on the block, new shooters, new players in burgeoning industries. I try to stay on top of things here, and if there’s a better newsletter out there, please email me, bill at gundersoncapital.com, and I’d like to subscribe to it. But other than that, I do my own research, and I share it with you. Now, I have been offering, and that has been a big hit, and I am having so much fun doing it. The four-week trial of everything, which is the app, my newsletter, and all my commentary articles. during each day in the market and uh and then a lot of people end up saying you know what that’s a lot of work after following that for a month they say maybe we’ll just have the gunderson team over there manage our money for them then we put you through a financial planning process uh to determine where your risk level is at and what might be the proper allocation of our portfolios that we manage here for you. Now, you can get four free weeks at GundersenCapital.com. We’ve had an overwhelming response. GundersenCapital.com. And to set up an appointment with us to talk to us about money management, 855-611-BEST. 855-611-BEST. Okay, now we’re going to go in a little different direction. We’re going to go to AI, artificial intelligence, where we’ve had a lot of news this week. We had the big announcement on Monday, I believe it was, the $500 billion being committed. by a consortium of OpenAI and SoftBank and Oracle and others. We also found out that, I already knew this, Elon Musk does not like Sam Altman of OpenAI, and he warned that they don’t have the money, the bucks that they’re talking about, 500. But anyways, AI is definitely… one of the leading sectors in the market is not kimberly clark is not johnson and johnson is not the railroads uh… we have a whole new bunch of uh… leadership uh… sectors and industries uh… in in the u.s economy today It’s my strong opinion that a portfolio should reflect that and not have dead wood from yesteryear in those portfolios. That doesn’t mean we’re out there taking big risk and everything. Look, NVIDIA is the biggest market cap in America today. You can own NVIDIA, you can own Intel. It’s your choice. But semiconductors obviously play a massive role in today’s economy. Well, we did an interesting story earlier this week of what Nancy Pelosi was buying and selling. She has an uncanny prowess for picking stocks. It’s been proven that her track record is phenomenal. Of course, you know, she sits in on a lot of important meetings there in her role as a congresswoman from California. But anyways, one of the stocks that she disclosed was Tempus AI, which is T-E-M. And I added it to the app that day. I haven’t looked at it since. Yeah, I have. I’ve got it on my daily watch list. But they create AI in the drug industry, the health care industry. And, you know, it’s interesting, but it’s out there. I mean, it’s an $8.3 billion company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. But I saw yesterday Kathy Wood goes all in. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing because I’ve seen many times where she’s been the kiss of death on a stock. And she’s written a lot of stocks right into the ground. I’m a witness to it. I’ve seen her write stocks right into the ground. She doesn’t seem to have the ability to admit, you know, maybe I’m wrong and better cut my losses and move on before I lose 80%, 90%. But, hey, it is what it is. Everybody has their own style. Kathy Woods goes all in on Tempest AI, boosting her holdings by over 600,000 shares today. The symbol of the stock is TEM. She says that her interest began on December 6th when the Arc Genomic Revolution ETF made its initial purchase of shares in the healthcare technology company. Since then, Tempus AI has rapidly ascended with ARK’s portfolio becoming the 10th largest holding in the flagship innovation ETF. Tem now represents 3.2% of ARK’s total assets. She’s got a $265 million stake, which is pretty big. I mean, she owns about 5% of the company. So I don’t own it. I have it on my watch list. But now you’ve got Pelosi and Cathie Wood. Big news out of Novo Nordisk. In fact, there’s two weight loss stories here that are big stories. Novo is up 7.4% today. They’re working on, I guess, GoV2 or whatever they’re going to call it. The Danish drug maker said amicretin, amicretin, one of its novel obesity therapies, caused up to 22% weight loss over 36 weeks. That’s pretty good. 22% weight loss over 36 weeks. And the stock is up… 7.3% today. I think Lily’s up too a little bit. Lily’s up 1.6%. But the other one that just blows me away here, how about Allurion, A-L-U-R. They’re combining gastric balloons. Okay, that’s been their weight loss thing is putting a balloon in your stomach so obviously you get full real fast. They did a study on combining the gastric balloon with the GLP-1 drugs. uh… and saw tremendous results this is uh… i think it’s phase two uh… i don’t can’t find it there but it it it’s not like uh… it is like phase two is not the initial one the stock last time i looked a l u r was up four hundred percent well it’s settled down a lot i would advise not buying stocks in the pre-market when they’re up four hundred percent Now the stock’s up just 183%. This is only a $29 million company. I mean, it began the day as about a $10 million company, and now it’s a $29 million company. We’ll call it the stock of the day. out of Natick, Massachusetts, Allurion, A-L-U-R, which is combining balloons, gastric balloons, with GLP-1 drugs. Maybe you just never eat anything with that in your stomach. I don’t know. Boeing shares fall as preliminary results miss estimates. Poor Boeing. They just can’t get out of their own way. Boeing, a member of the Dow. It has come back. It was 137 recently. Now it’s 177. It’s up about 33%. They’ve got the assembly line back up and running. They seem to have all their immediate problems behind them for now, but they’re warning that they’re going to miss their earnings estimate. Now, here’s a surprise to me. Costco shareholders overwhelmingly voted to keep Costco’s diversity program in place. And, of course, there’s been a lot of controversy about DEI, diversity programs. Most companies are giving them up. And I think from the results of the recent election, DEI not real popular, but shareholders at Costco were overwhelmingly for it, and Costco is keeping their diversity programs. Okay, Bank of America keeps their buy rating on Apple. Well, that’s why I don’t have Bank of America managing my money. He took a shot at the CEO Trump did in his speech to the World Economic Forum. He called out Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, for kicking conservative investors out if they did anything funny. or discriminating against him. He also called out Jamie Dimon for the same thing publicly. Moynihan was in the audience. Jamie Dimon was in the audience. But you know Trump. Trump is Trump. And he says you haven’t been fair to conservative Republican investors. But anyways, Bank of America, which is Merrill Lynch, keeps their buy rating on Apple. That’s a terrible stock. What can I say? It was once a great stock. We’re talking Steve Jobs, and I think Tim Cook came in, did okay for a while, but man, I just see that thing being dead in the water right now for a Quite some time with very little innovation. Okay, when we come back, let’s look at underneath the surface here. And there are some big earning reports here today. A couple of Dow companies reporting. We’ll be right back.

SPEAKER 1 : 31:14

You’ve got to go where you want to go.

SPEAKER 03 : 31:38

And welcome back here to the final segment of today’s Best Docs Now. Well, American Express, I can’t knock too much. I’ve owned that. We owned it for quite some time. It’s a very good company. They have reported earnings. And American Express is also in the Dow. They are, let’s see, down 3.2% after their slight earnings beat. Now, one of the poster boy, soggy stocks, dodgy old growth giants of yesteryear, Verizon. I got to tell you, every single portfolio that comes to me from a Merrill Lynch or a Morgan Stanley or a Raymond James or any of these big firms, almost always, always on Verizon. and AT&T. Okay, now the app would say, why? The Best Stocks Now app shows you, look, here’s what the stock has done over the last 10 years, the last decade, which has been a very good decade in the S&P 500. I mean, the S&P 500 alone has averaged almost 20% a year, believe it or not. It sits right now at 19.7. Verizon, however, has delivered 3.1% per year. You would have made more in a money market than Verizon. Oh, I know, it pays a big dividend yield. But you have to add the capital depreciation to that dividend yield to calculate your total return. And total return is very, very important. Verizon’s current dividend yield is 6.8%. Well, do the math. If the stock’s averaged 3.1% over the last 10 years, total return, the dividend 6.8, that means the stock’s been going down by 3.7%. But you have received the dividend yield to make it look a little better. Over the last five years, you’ve been losing 3% a year in Verizon VZ. And if you look in your portfolio and you see VZ in your portfolio, you’ve got to make your own analysis of that. I don’t think it’s a very good holding. You know, I’ve only got 20, 25 slots on my roster. Verizon would be in a dividend and growth portfolio. The problem is there’s no growth. So not good. Not good at all is Verizon. In my book, over the last three years, minus 3.6% per year. There’s just nothing there. There’s nothing there. New York, New York. Verizon’s up 1.9% today. And then the other one that has reported here, Intuitive Surgical, which really arguably is the best robotic stock of all time. one of the great disruptors i have to admit i never really ever got in maybe in the early days of intuitive surgical that’s a two hundred and five billion dollar company and that’s obviously uh… was a big disruptor in surgery uh… where it’s done uh… with uh… you know computer driven scalpels and very precise precision And it was a big advancement, a huge advancement. It’s still growing by about 12%, 13% a year. They had a huge quarter, however. Maybe they’ve got some new products, but their earnings are up 35% and their sales are up 25%. ISRG, one of the great inventions, one of the great disruptors. of all time now let’s just take a look inside the NASDAQ and see what’s going on the internals of the NASDAQ in the few minutes we have remaining here the biggest loser Texas Instruments there’s another one you take any sector the semiconductor sector is one of the best sectors in the entire market okay but there’s about 50-60 stocks in that semiconductor manufacturing sector There’s only a few good ones, and the rest are just kind of filler in an ETF or in a sector. TXN has not been a good stock. It’s down 5.8% after they reported earnings today. Intel, also a big loser in the NASDAQ, down 2.6%. Arguably one of the worst stocks in the NASDAQ, recently kicked out of the Dow chart. Kind of a disgraced company looking for a massive comeback. Maybe they need to bring in Larry Culp from GE to turn that mess around. But they’re in pretty deep water. They’ve got a long way to come back. On the upside in the NASDAQ today, Broadcom’s up 2.4%. Workday up 1.3%. Pretty flat day. however, in the NASDAQ today. And we’ll end with the S&P 500 here. NextEra Energy. Now, I wonder if they’re going to become a nuclear player. They have not yet. They’re Florida. NextEra was always kind of an innovative company and kind of a broker in electricity, but they are not participating in this big move, which tells me they don’t have any nuclear companies. The stock is up 4.9% today, but the chart’s not all that great on NextEra. Palantir’s having a good day. Palantir is the top tech stock in the S&P 500. It’s up 3.6%. We spent a lot of time yesterday, and we’ve spent a lot of time in the past talking about Palantir. Eli Lilly’s having a good day. Eli’s up 2.4%. The battle on obesity rages on. And, I mean, it’s a war. It’s a battle. The Battle of the Bulge, maybe they should call it. And with several players, but obviously Novo Nordisk and Lilly dominating. dominating uh… that uh… industry and i’m a big believer i’m a big believer that uh… weight loss uh… lead stew a lot of benefits lot of benefits and other areas i believe that the Just overall health, everything. Nothing bad can come from losing those extra pounds. And on the downside in the S&P 500 today, CF Industries down 6% and Texas Instruments down 6%. All right, well, I’m geared up. I’m going to be writing the newsletter here today, get a big head start on it. Kind of interesting to see how the sector rotation that’s taking place out of kind of, you know, big tech is seeing money leave and going to other places, and then some of big tech is still doing well, like Netflix and Meta. etc so in very interesting time that we’re in right now in the market should be very interesting newsletter sign up for four free weeks to follow gunderson it’s been a lot of fun i think you’ll learn a lot i sent out a lot of charts and teaching examples 855-611-BEST for an appointment for four free weeks of the trial go to gundersoncapital.com gundersoncapital.com Have a great weekend, everybody.