Join us for an insightful episode where we delve into the intricacies of global trade and its profound impact on stock markets. Bill Gundersen, alongside Jeff Webster, examines the current market dynamics, discussing tariffs, the resilience of major public companies, and the evolving trade relationships with key players like South Korea, Japan, and China. Learn about the Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ movements and the implications of increased tariffs. In the second part of our discussion, we shift our focus to the ever-evolving world of technology and its intersection with energy markets. Discover how AI is shaping market trends and
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 Gundersen Capital Management. Here is professional money manager Bill Gundersen.
SPEAKER 01 :
And welcome to the Tuesday. It is the Two for Tuesday edition of the Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunnarsson, president of Gunnarsson Capital Management. I’m here with Jeff Webster today, our VP, and he’ll be commenting on a lot of the issues that face us today in the markets. We have a mixed agenda. Undecided the dole market so far today. You know, sometimes dole is good. It’s better than an 800 point drop. But in the meantime, there’s some uncertainty out there with the trade issues. The Dow is down 99 points. That equates to 22 basis points to 44,307. It looks like 45,000 is the ceiling. The resistance level on the Dow right now, the S&P is down just two points, pretty much undecided on the day. But it’s at or near new all-time highs at 6,227. The NASDAQ, which hit a new high last Friday, is down now four points to 20,411. Japan and South Korea seem to be the big sticking points today, those trade issues. There are 25% tariffs. I’m sure that is unpalatable to them. Something needs to be worked out. Meanwhile, over at the bond market, we’re up to 4.49%. We’ve quietly been sneaking our way up, and we’re up about 25 basis points now off the low. Actually, we’re at 4.42, but that’s still a recent high. Gold is flat, Bitcoin flat. So welcome to today’s Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management, a nationwide fee-based only money management financial planning firm. And we had kind of a rough day in the market yesterday. The tariff talk has heated up again. It’s back on the front burner. You know, Jeff, the last time we had tariff talk on the front burner, it was not good. It really set the markets reeling. The markets just don’t like that tariff talk. Yeah, President Trump put out a bunch of…
SPEAKER 02 :
I was going to say, he sent out a bunch of letters yesterday, you know, stating like, hey, this is going to be your tariff. And so some of the countries have responded. Others have not yet. But I think they’re all hoping that they can negotiate more favorable terms.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, and it does seem like August 1st is now the new deadline. The Dow was down 400 yesterday. The NASDAQ was down a couple hundred. We actually had a fairly decent day yesterday on a relative basis. We were down like 13 basis points. Gold helped us yesterday. Palantir helped us yesterday. But let’s not complain too much. We’ve been hitting new highs here recently. The 10-year is creeping up. We’re up to almost 4.40 right now. We’re up about a quarter of a point percent off of the low here recently. Gold has really cooled off. The gold stocks had a decent day yesterday, but gold’s kind of leveled off in that 33 to 3400 area, which you can’t complain if you own gold. I mean, I can remember not too long ago it was 17, 1800 for the longest time. And it’s doubled since that. Oil, yeah, you know, it’s about $67 a barrel right now. The oil stock’s not doing so hot. Bitcoin has been fairly aggressive here. It’s been around $108,000, $107,000. Its all-time high is $111,000, so not too far from there. We’re kind of awaiting more trade announcements. The two that are kind of under the microscope right now, South Korea and Japan, they received their letters, 25% tariffs on imports beginning August 1st. They’ve got to work that down. There’s no way. South Korea is already hurting. I saw that Samsung claiming that flash memory sales have really, really just fallen through the floor. That’s hurting them. And Japan, they can’t afford a 25% tariff. I mean, their automobile industry is one of the most important industries that they have. And obviously selling Japanese cars into the U.S. market where there seems to be plenty of demand for those cars is very important to them. So he’s hitting a nerve there with Japan. They’re going to have to come around. Japan and South Korea accounted for about 8.5% of U.S. imports last year. So they’re big trade partners. So this increase could point to some price inflation, too, if it doesn’t get worked out. China is raising its hackles today. They warned the Trump administration against reigniting trade tensions by reinstating tariffs on its goods from August and threatened to retaliate against nations that strike deals with the U.S. I thought we kind of had China put to bed, but no, they’re still not happy. And they’re threatening to disrupt supply chains, which is pretty important.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I think the issue with the Chinese bill is that they don’t want to threaten the countries. They’re concerned about any implications of… people that do business with them. And so, uh, I think, I think they’ll be able to work through that. Um, you know, and then of course the Japanese and Koreans, you know, He basically responded to, he said, he called, this is Prime Minister Ishiba, called the tariff extremely regrettable, but he said he’s determined to continue negotiating. He said that Trump’s tariff rate is lower than levels he had threatened earlier and opens the way for further negotiations. The South Koreans are a little bit more friendly. Yeah. Yeah, they’re a little more friendly, but still. Yeah, they said, hey, this basically, we want to get things, you know, the 25% tax, we don’t want that to go into effect, and it’s going to help accelerate negotiations to get something done before that goes into effect.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, and don’t forget, I mean, South Korea has a pretty big automobile business here in the U.S. also with Kia and what’s the other brand that they have? They have a couple big brands here. They sell a lot of cars in the U.S. China’s, yeah, Hyundai. China’s shares of U.S. container imports hit a four-year low in June amid tariff pressure. So of all these containers that are coming in and being unloaded here in America, China’s share was 41% back in February of 2022. Now it’s down to 28.8%. hitting a four-year low and down substantially from that high, according to supply chain technology firm Descartes, which I believe is a French firm. Total U.S. container imports dropped 3.5% from a year ago, reaching 2.2 million 20-foot equivalent unit, TEUs. Imports from China accounted for 639,000 TEUs. Well, they keep track of that stuff, and definitely we’re relying less and less. You know, I think that came out of COVID. COVID really exposed our dependence on China in a lot of different things. And there’s no question that the companies out there have spread their supply chains around to South Korea, to Japan, to Vietnam, to Thailand, to other important India, have become much more important in the overall supply chain. India wants to make good with us by buying more of our liquid LPG, LPG liquid petroleum gas, and that’s for their cooking and their heating of things. They plan to buy about 10% of their cooking gas from the U.S. starting in 2026 as a part of a broader strategy. Now, Now, Jeff, I have not seen much action in the LPG stocks. I look at that one. The Bellwether stock is LNG, which is the biggest exporter there out of Houston. San Diego Gas and Electric. Yeah, Chenier. Chenier, that’s the one I’m looking for. Chenier Energy has not been performing all that well. And you would think with Europe getting off of their reliance on Russian liquid natural gas and other countries stepping up to the plate, to appease President Trump by buying more. You would think those stocks would be more in play, but they just are not. Okay, when we come back, we’ve got updates on Ukraine, on the drone wars, and other things happening over in that neck of the woods. And welcome back to the second quarter of today’s Best Stocks Now show. Well, the U.S. will send more weapons to Ukraine after last week’s pause, reversing the administration’s move last week. They were saying that we needed to replenish our own weapons stocks. But I guess after talking to his advisors, Trump said that we’ve got to give Ukraine some weapons. They have been able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard now. We’re going to send some more weapons, defensive weapons primarily, defensive weapons. You know, that has been another area of the market that has cooled off quite a bit. You had some pretty good action in the Raytheons of the world. I think that was mostly driven by the Middle East. Think of how many Patriot missiles were used in Israel during that Iron Dome. Every time something came in, they shot it down with the Patriot missile. The Lockheed Martin really has not done that much during all of this. I don’t think the defense stocks are a very good place to be invested right now. especially with the cooling down in the Middle East. But obviously the hot spot is Ukraine and Russia. And I also saw that Ukraine is looking to come up with new drones. You know, it’s a technology war too, Jeff. It’s not just an arsenal of blowing things up, but some of these technologies have to get around the other person’s air defenses. And Ukraine is coming up. Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER 02 :
I was going to say, it reminds me of, wasn’t there a Star Wars sequel out there, Attack of the Drones, you know, where they had all these differences? A lot of that’s going on.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, well, Ukraine’s turning to fiber optics right now to outmaneuver the Russian jamming. So it’s a technology war. Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Didn’t drones lead the way to kind of throw the Iranian defenses off? Absolutely. The attack?
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely. Attack of the drones. Exactly. Drones are a bit… I just wonder if the locusts that… On the Isle of Patmos, when John was writing revelations and he saw swarms of locusts, I just wonder if it wasn’t drones that he saw. How do you explain back in the year 70 A.D. what a drone is, other than something that they knew at that time? They do look like locusts. They sound like a swarm of locusts, that’s for sure. They do. Yeah, so I don’t know. Hey, okay, so they’re trying to get around it, and the Russians are shooting them down. It’s too bad. War is a bad thing. War is not a good thing, as John Lennon said. But it just seems to be something that will always be with us. European indexes are almost flat, awaiting progress. Now, that seems to be the one that is the closest. In fact, they’re one of the countries that didn’t get a letter. uh… yesterday that’s like a teacher writing a letter to all the bad kids in class you know the guy who doesn’t get the letter he’s going hey somehow i came out pretty good out of all of this but it looks like we’re getting very close to a deal With the EU, which would probably be around 10%. And, of course, the European distillers, Remy Cointreau, Pernod Ricard, David Campari, Milano, all those fancy bottles you see in a fancy restaurant, you know, all the shape bottles and colors and everything like that. They’re hoping to get a carve-out on a lot of those well-known brands. And so that’s another area of the market. Europe has cooled off. It was the hottest area of the market in Q2 of this year. Now we’re in Q3 of this year. And when the market was bottoming for us here in America, Europe was topping out it would seem. And I just think that you had a trade taking place of let’s go somewhere else while we work out. It’s kind of like people that get out of here during hurricane season and go somewhere else. Hurricane season was right here in the U.S. in February, March, and April. And I think there was a lot of money that was parked there. in the european markets and you know when big amounts of money move europe stocks are not european stocks are not as liquid and and high don’t trade the kind of volume that our stocks trade here in the u.s and and that also kind of amplified that move higher that you saw in europe And I think, unfortunately, a lot of people were buying into German stocks and French stocks and other stocks, probably at the top of the market. And that has settled down a lot. I wouldn’t see Europe outperforming the U.S. in the second half of the year. I could be wrong, but I just don’t see it. Usually things have a way of reverting back to the mean. Now, we’re getting a couple of target raises for the S&P 500 from a couple of very influential Wall Street firms. Wall Street, which was very bearish in March. Very bearish. They were the ones deserting the U.S. and looking elsewhere and sounding the doom. I guess they finally thrown in the towel and they’re becoming more and more bullish on America. Goldman Sachs and the Bank of America, which basically, I mean, those are two of your biggest, are lifting their targets amid the resilience of large public companies. You know, and that’s another thing I go back to. Really, when you’re talking about the resilience of large public companies, you’re talking about them keeping their bottom line afloat. in tough circumstances. And I always say it always comes back to earnings. And, you know, even though it was a tough period of time in February, March, and April, Jeff, the overall bottom line is that the earnings estimates for this year, 2025, for next year, 2026, and for the year after that, 2027, had very little trimming done those are the expectations now if things were going to be very bad you would have expected to see some drastic downgrades to earnings estimates and that just did not happen And that’s what kept me alive. That was my North Star during that whole period of darkness and gloom and doom, you know, coming out of CNBC and Bloomberg and the rest of them. And, you know, it turned out that they were wrong again. You know, I have a T-shirt. I just saw one in my drawer. BWRA. Bill was right again. But you know what? The opposite side of that, WSRA. No, WSWA. Wall Street was wrong again. WSWA. Weren’t they wrong? I mean, they had it totally wrong. To take the market down to 4,800… and tell everybody that nothing but doom and gloom ahead. They had it wrong. When we come back, they’ve done a 180, and we’ll take a look at what they’re saying about the market now. Maybe we should do just the opposite of what they’re saying. We’ll be right back. 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. And welcome back here to the second half of today’s Best Stocks Now show. Well, the market has improved considerably. You know what? It’s a news-driven market. It’s breaking news. Boy, I remember my early days in this industry. We did not have the breaking news. We didn’t have Truth Social. We didn’t have Twitter or X. We didn’t have alerts coming on our iPhones. And now, you know, it’s so much a breaking news driven market, which can make it difficult in the short term. But if you keep your eyes focused on those earnings, that helps you grow. not get jittery and do emotional-type things when the breaking news is all bad. Obviously, there must be some good news coming out of the trade front. The NASDAQ has gone positive. The S&P has also gone positive by a little bit here, and I have to believe there’s some kind of news, and that’s what the market’s going to trade on until this all gets put to bed at some point in time. In the meantime, maybe we should be getting bearish as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America are getting bullish. Goldman Sachs raises their target to $6,600 by year-end. Well, we’re at 6,250 or so right now, so that’s not like a wild forecast out there by Goldman Sachs. And they say within 12 months, they see 6,900. okay and that’s pretty big hike to their previous estimates following suit bank of america which again is basically merrill lynch also raised its s&p 500 year-end target to 6300 which is pretty much where we’re at now but they also raised their 12-month price target to 6600 and by the way those are right in line with the price targets i’ve had for uh for quite some time so it You could say they’re catching up to us finally, Jeff. We do try to be leaders in the industry and stay one step ahead of everybody. But it is good to see others agreeing with us, especially big firms like that. Now, what can derail it all? Well, you know what? I mean, there’s always stuff that can derail it. Here’s the things that Deutsche Bank is listing. What could lead to turmoil in 2025? Well, U.S. levies, tariffs on August 1st, and they’re… They’re extraordinarily high, which could lead to inflation and keeping the Fed from lowering rates. That seems to be the biggest one. It seems to be mostly centered around the tariffs. In the meantime, should we trust? Now, these two words going together, Zuckerberg and AI, do you trust Zuckerberg’s hands? He is really, you know what he’s doing, Jeff? He’s raiding talent. He got Apple’s – can you believe what’s going on with him?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, here’s what he’s doing, Bill. He’s going out there to some of these emerging companies, and he is offering them tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars for partnerships and their companies. And essentially he is taking out, quote-unquote, his competition because he is – putting these people under significant golden handcuffs. And in many cases, really what he’s doing is he’s just buying the talent of the organization as opposed to the technology. And it’s a very, very interesting play. Yeah. He stole apples. He’s got a lot of money to be able to do that. He’s got a lot of money to do that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, he’s got the money. That’s exactly right. He runs a very profitable company that we own. And when you’ve got that cash hoard, you can do things like that. And he’s especially building, he calls it the AI Superintelligence Division. Well, there’s no question he’s a super intelligent guy, as long as you use it for the right things. I guess Zuckerbucks is back. We can call him Zuckerbucks. He stole Apple’s head of AI models.
SPEAKER 02 :
Here’s what these tech companies do, Bill. When they know that they need to do something because they’re behind, they make the decision, should we build something or buy it or partner? And essentially that is what he is doing. I think he recognizes that as savvy as the folks at Meta are, they’re behind some of these up-and-coming AI companies. So he’s like, okay, do we invest a whole bunch of money with what we have to try to build something ourselves, do we partner, do we buy? And I think he’s defaulting to the latter two options right now with his checkbook.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, bring in more talent. I mean, Facebook, if it doesn’t already have enough, that brings in just, I mean, look at the earnings. I’ve said it so many times on Meta. What a powerhouse. You can say whatever you want to say about Zuckerberg, But he runs a highly profitable company. And, you know, look, they’re going to make $28 a share this year in earnings. And you could say that this is one of the cheapest AI plays out there with a PE of just $28 and a forward PE of about $25. Major player in AI, certainly trading a lot cheaper than some of the other competitors in AI, like the Palantirs, which are trading at 200 times the earnings.
SPEAKER 02 :
One company, Bill, that’s getting a lot of attention today is SoundHound. which is an up-and-coming AI company that produces AI technology that allows people to use their natural voices. So when you think about some of the simple applications that we have for you know, hey, I want to turn on the lights, hey, open up the garage, you know, you can talk to your phone and do these things. They’re developing some really cool technology that will allow people to, you know, place orders with, you know, online providers. If you’re an employee and you say, hey, I want to make some changes to my 401K or I want to understand, you know, how many days of vacation I have, You know, all those cool types of capabilities that allow people to utilize their natural voices in a very conversational way to deliver to those individuals outcomes and results. and data points that they’re seeking is the stuff that they’re doing. And SoundHound is up, I think, 14%.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, 14%. Yep, four times normal volume. Okay, so AI continues to be a leading area of the market. We talked about energy. No. We talked about Europe. No. Gold has cooled off. AI, which got hammered in February and March. Palantir just got hammered. kicked in the gut for several weeks there. Now it’s once again one of the strongest areas of the market to be invested in. And the other one is I still believe in this whole energy concept. I see the energy department today is warning of more U.S. blackouts by 2030. That’s not too far from now from relying on renewables. Now the Department of Energy’s focus over the last several years has been a massive deployment of wind and solar, but unfortunately that’s not even going to come close to meeting the demand, the growing power demand expected by data centers and artificial intelligence. So the other artificial intelligence play here, obviously, is in the energy sector, and particularly in the nuclear sector, which we talk about almost on a daily basis. But the Energy Department is warning that blackouts could increase by 100% in 2030. if the U.S. continues to shutter reliable power sources, and that would also include coal. And I’ve seen some pretty good action. We actually own a coal stock in our relative value portfolio because just like Germany found out, you know, you don’t want to shutter these plants until you have a replacement for them So anyways, it seems like the green policies are kind of losing out to AI. AI seems to be the biggest weapon used against these poor green energy companies, which are really suffering. If we’re going to continue to keep the lights on and when the… ai race electricity prices and keep electricity prices from skyrocketing the u.s must unleash american energy says energy secretary chris wright who comes from the oil comes from the oil industry and we come back we were just in ohio not too long ago and one of these big new companies was just approved for a 20-year operations extension at their nuclear plant And I do believe that it is one of the best growth utilities out there in the market right now. We’ll be right back. And welcome back here to the final segment of today’s Best Stocks Now show. And August 5th and August 6th, which is a Tuesday and a Wednesday, we’ll be in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, just outside of Detroit, where our show is heard every morning. And we’re looking forward to that. We had a great time there last time. We’ll be meeting at the same hotel. I think it’s called, I can’t think of the name right now, the Renaissance. I’ll have that for you by tomorrow. But on that Tuesday night, August the 5th, We’ll have a live workshop, which is always a lot of fun. I mean, I really enjoy seeing some of the faces and meeting some of the folks that listen to our show and appreciate what we do. And hopefully I can share some of my experiences and knowledge of the markets with you on that evening. I would think that would fill up pretty quickly. I’m not just saying that. I mean, we had a full house in Lakewood Ranch, and I would expect the same thing in Detroit. And, of course, on those two days, we’ll be meeting privately with individuals or couples that want to talk to us about their situation. whether it’s their investments, your portfolios, your financial plan, whatever the case may be. And obviously there’s a limited amount of appointments that will be available during those two days that we’re there. But we’ll put in a full day on Tuesday with a workshop Tuesday night. I’m usually pretty tired by Wednesday, Jeff. And then Wednesday we’ll do another full set of appointments. But I really, really enjoy it, meeting the folks face-to-face, not staring at a computer screen all day, looking at stock charts. It’s really a lot of fun and very enjoyable, and it’s a rare opportunity. It’s been a while since we’ve been there, but, you know, between COVID and other factors and But we’re going to have a very regular schedule now in all of our cities that we’re heard in. We’ve already done a lot of trips this year, and the next one is August the 5th and August the 6th in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. You can reserve a spot for the workshop. By calling 855-611-BEST, talk to Edie. We’ve got to make sure we have enough cookies. 855-611-BEST. Actually, we had some pretty good brownies there in Lakewood Ranch. And then, of course, if you want to meet with us individually, this is a rare opportunity to sit down with the team. We’ll all be there. You can reserve one of those spots. I mean, we’ve got two days. We’ve got roughly, what, 20 openings maybe is usually the amount of people we talk to in those two days. To reserve a slot, get a prime time, call 855-611-BEST, talk to Edie. I know it’s out a bit, but, you know, it’ll come real quickly. We’re less than four weeks out on that right now, so I need to start – Putting that offer out there now, 855-611-BEST to reserve a spot to the workshop and or a private appointment with us while we’re there meeting with the full team. Okay, Vistra approved for 20-year operation extension at the Ohio Nuclear Plant. So that’s good news. You know, there’s been a shift, okay? There’s no question there’s been a shift on approving solar and wind projects and putting obstacles in front of nuclear, coal, other different hydroelectric projects. There’s definitely been a shift. And the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Avistra the okay for another 20 years to its original license there at the Ohio Nuclear Power Plant. And the other one that’s making some noise and is almost one of the, it’s definitely in that nucleus of core growth utilities is GE Vernova. I mean, that stock continues to hit new highs. And just think of the value that was unleashed, Jeff, when Larry Cope went in there and took over GE and spun out the GE Vernova spot, which has pretty much become their prize jewel. Of course, they still have the aerospace, which is GE. And then they spun out the health care, which hasn’t done as well, GEHC. But he has certainly unlocked some value there. GE Vernova started at a buy at UBS as earnings are seen lifted by AI-driven power demand. GE Vernova gets a $614 target price. It’s currently trading at $513. So that ought to whet your appetite a little bit about another big player in AI. We talked about Meta stealing all the top talent. Now you’ve got to have the energy to run all of that AI that this top talent creates and produces. And GE Vernova is smack dab in the middle of that, not only here in the U.S., but also overseas in Europe. So a major player. The stock is not cheap. But I am encouraged to see UBS step up to the plate here and raise their target price by a considerable amount. Okay, well, we are out of time. This is going to be a tariff-driven market over the next, I would say, next two or three weeks until that August 1st deadline. and hopefully we get them done sooner rather than later. To reserve a spot, to talk to us now, to the team now, wherever you are in the U.S. of A., give us a call at 855-611-BEST. You don’t have to drive and fight for a parking spot at some big downtown tower. You can talk to us from your home. And if you’d like to reserve a spot to the workshop there in Bloomington Hills on August 5th and August 6th, Give us a call at 855-611-BEST. And to get a four-week trial to the newsletter and get caught up on all the different initiatives and all the knowledge base and news that we’re putting out there and content that we’re putting out there on a daily basis, you can sample it all for free for four weeks. 855-611-BEST. 855-611-BEST. See everybody in Bloomington Hills. Looking forward to that. Have a great day, everybody.
SPEAKER 04 :
This show is not a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. Bill Gunderson or clients of Gunderson Capital Management may have long or short positions in stocks mentioned during the show. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Gunderson Capital Management is a fee-based registered investment advisory firm. All accounts are held at Charles Schwab. Schwab is a member of SIPC and FINRA.
