In today’s episode, Bill Gundersen dives deep into the unexpected market trends, highlighting key performers like Oracle and Google’s stronghold in AI developments. Explore the forces driving gold to new heights and examine the broader economic implications of strong retail sales figures. Tune in to discover how gold’s unprecedented rally is redefining investment strategies amid the backdrop of global uncertainty.
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 morning live from Silicon Valley. The Live from Silicon Valley edition of the Best Stocks Now show with the professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management. And Barry will not be joining us. I think he’s down getting the free breakfast. I don’t know. There’s probably nothing free here. There is no such thing as free breakfast. We’ve got a little bit of a drop in the market here today. I personally think the market’s going to kind of take the day off. with the big Fed decision tomorrow. The Dow is down 178 after a huge day in the markets yesterday. We had a really good day in the market yesterday. The Dow is at 45,705. Those are some pretty heady numbers there. The NASDAQ hit a new all-time high yesterday. It’s down a scant seven points right now. I think it’s going to take the day off, like I said. Although there’s always some action somewhere. The NASDAQ’s at 22,341. I remember visiting the Silicon Valley when it was around 1,500. 1,500 at one time. That was back in 2001. Now we’re at 22,339. The S&P… is at 6,608 after hitting a new all-time high yesterday. It’s down seven points. The bond market pretty much taking the day off. Gold hitting another new all-time high. That’s big news. It’s been a big performer here in 2025. 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 firm. And we are this week in the Silicon Valley. This is where it all began, not too far from here. In fact, right in this area where we are, Intel, I think that’s their original factory. I’m going to talk to some of these Silicon Valley folks here today. But I think right around here is where it all began. And I’m seeing something I haven’t seen in a long time, mountains. living in the low country in South Carolina. But I grew up in California. I’m used to mountains. I love mountains. But I haven’t seen any for a while. It’s good to see some mountains. Well, the market had a huge day yesterday. Wow, we had a huge day yesterday. You had the 10-year down at 4.03. Gold was up almost 1%. It closed at an all-time high of 3,721. The AI stocks were absolutely on fire yesterday. And I’ll tell you what else was on fire yesterday. Maybe that’s not a good way to term the move in the nuclear stocks yesterday. Holy cow, what a day they had. That whole nuke sector from your main line players like G.E. Vranova and Vistra and Constellation Energy down to the smaller players. They really had a day. uh… yesterday we had a big big day in tech yesterday uh… tesla had a big day google had a phenomenal day i want to talk a little bit about google today i also want to talk a little bit about oracle today which is also one of the really i mean going back uh… when i start for started visiting the silicon valley in the late nineties oracle was kind of uh… just becoming the kingpin uh… in database And now look at it today. It’s still a very relevant company, maybe involved in this TikTok deal. And I updated my valuation and my performance numbers and the ranking and the Best Stocks Now app on Oracle. Pretty amazing that it’s still relevant, as is Microsoft, still very relevant in this whole AI revolution that’s taking place. The retail sales come in stronger than expected. You know, that’s good news. I’m seeing a lot of people. Look, Seeking Alpha, there’s a lot of dramatic headlines, and that is click bait. And I go through those headlines every day. And for the most part, you know, I don’t pay much heed to most of the articles. out there on Seeking Alpha. Some writers carry a lot more weight than others as far as the importance of their message. But I’m seeing people say, how can you not see it? We’re currently in a recession. Well, I don’t believe that. A recession is two quarters of negative growth in a row, and it’s hard to see us being in a recession with the jobs numbers not as strong as they were. They’ve weakened quite a bit here. which I think supports the case for a 50 basis point rate cut tomorrow. I don’t think we’ll get it, but there’s a possibility. You never know. The retail sales are very strong. August retail sales were up 0.6% month over month. And don’t forget the market effect. of people’s bitcoin accounts going up their gold holdings hitting new highs their 401ks hitting new highs that has a big big impact on consumer sentiment and people are willing to spend a little more knowing that they got that behind them and spending some of those profits that they’ve made. This is going to be a fantastic year for stock price appreciation, capital gains, receipts for the U.S. government. So it does lift a lot of boats, a rising economy, a rising stock market. And, you know, that does spread out many tentacles. It has many tentacles throughout the economy and, of course, the markets. Gold surges to a record high as investors seek a safe haven. Well, I don’t know that gold is such a safe haven up here at this level, $3,700. Gold is up 40% so far this year. This has been the best year in gold maybe during my entire career. I do remember some other big years for gold, but nothing like this one this year, hitting $3,700. It was mired in that, like I’ve said many times, it was mired in that $1,800 to $1,900 range. For the longest time, and now here we are hitting a new all-time high once again today, and gold up 40%. That’s the sharpest annual increase. Well, there you go. Since 1979, okay, I was in college. at that time and in and out of college at that time and working for our family business at that time I was not a stock market participant I certainly followed it back at that point in time but I don’t remember that past move in gold that this one is something else and we do have some exposure you almost wish you had 100% exposure to gold that’s not wise Maybe it is. I don’t know. But it is up 40% here this year, enjoying its biggest rally in decades. I would say the unsettled markets, the tariffs, the war in Ukraine, a little bit of inflation, and a dollar that – and the debt. The massive debt all seems to be lending itself to that move in gold. Tomorrow the Fed decision comes. Lisa Cook will be in the meeting. Trump was not able to oust her before the meeting. I’m reading one side where she did claim that it was a second home and vacation home that she got her mortgage for, and then I read other sides that say she got favorable treatment on her mortgage, but she claimed it as her primary home. which you can’t do. So we’ll see how that plays out. But she will be in the room voting tomorrow on whether they go 25 or 50. I think those are the two possible outcomes. I don’t think there’s any chance for no rate cut. I’ve been saying rate hike, rate cut. I don’t think there’s any chance for that after nine months of no action by the Fed. While the ECB has driven their rate down to 2%, we’re still sitting at 4%. I think that the odds are pretty long for a 50 basis point cut. I think that’s the appropriate move, but I don’t know that we’ll get it. So anyways, I do think that the market’s going to pretty much sit this one out. You never know. There’s always some opportunity here and there. I’ll be going through all my charts like I do every other day to look for that opportunity. And, boy, did I like what I saw in the market yesterday. And I’m going to highlight a lot of those stocks that are really making some impressive moves right now in the market. This is Bill Gunderson. It’s the Best Stocks Now show. We’ll be right back. And welcome back here to the second quarter of today’s Best Stocks Now show. The first stock I want to talk about here today, Oracle. Will they be involved in that TikTok deal? You know, my hat is off to Larry Ellison for it still being almost as relative as when I first got into the business 25 years ago. And, you know, that big move that they made last week, it was up 30% in one day, is just unheard of. for a stock that size. And in this week’s newsletter, I titled it the Oracle of Austin. That’s where Oracle is headquartered now. And I went in. The formula for a five-year target price, I learned it right here in the Bay Area from a mutual fund manager at GT Global, which I don’t know who owns GT Global these days. There’s been a lot of changes in the mutual fund industry, but he taught me how to do five-year valuations. One of the big components in a five-year valuation is the five-year growth rate. You might think, well, isn’t that hard to find? You know what? It’s a pretty common number that is out there. spending some time as an analyst in my early years and visiting the Bay Area, pitching ideas to various institutional money managers, hedge funds, etc. A five-year growth rate is kind of the common lingo in the business. That’s kind of what we look at as a past five-year growth rate, but more importantly, an anticipated growth. five-year growth rate. And that growth rate is not of headcount or of sales. It is to some extent, but for the most part, it’s that bottom-line earnings growth. And, you know, any kind of a pro forma that you do with income statements, you make projections, and, you know, you put all your key people together in the company, and you come up with what you think is an achievable Five-year growth rate. Well, I upped the growth rate on Oracle a little bit after that astonishing quarter because of the huge backlog of business that they have to work off. And that will be flowing through into as revenues in, it looks like, the next few years before they work that off. So I went and I upgraded or I freshened my five-year target price. And I’ll tell you what my findings were. the first part of my formula is looking at the track record of the stock and oracle really has kind of lagged a little bit i mean it’s been basically a market performer but i’ll tell you what that forty percent day last week kind of really moved the the curve quite a bit over the last ten years now okay when you take the price of the stock ten years ago and where it is today It has delivered an average return of 25% per year, while the S&P is 23.8%. So it’s just barely outperformed the market over the last decade. And a lot of that really came last week. I think probably pushed it ahead of the S&P 500. One day like that can have quite an effect on your performance numbers. Over the last five years, Oracle is up 42% per year. That’s the stock. I think it pays a little dividend. It includes the dividend. That’s double the return of the S&P 500. And over the last three years, with that big move last week, now it’s up 60% per year over the last three years, while the market’s up 20%. Now that’s pretty good. Now you’re tripling the returns of the S&P 500. And now you’ve got a 12-month return of 89% while the S&P is 18.3%. It gets a momentum grade of A+. and it gets a performance grade of A+. I grade on the curve. I compare it against all the other stocks out there. So it definitely passes that momentum side of the equation, but I don’t end there. No, that’s only half the equation for me. The other big part of this equation is valuation. That plays a huge role. And for me, Oracle has not quite met that five-year requirement that I have. I like to buy stocks when they have 80% or more upside potential over the next five years. But I did up my growth rate on Oracle. I think it was at 12 or something around in there, low double digits. I upped it to 15%. I think that’s achievable because of this huge backlog that they have and the momentum that they have in getting new contracts. And if they become a player in TikTok, that only improves the situation. The forward PE of the stock is currently 37. The PEG ratio is 2.5. And I come up with the five-year target price now on Oracle. of $555, which gives it 87% upside potential. And I’ll be going through this at my workshop tonight, a little bit more granular details on how I arrive at this. And that pushes Oracle up. It’s now ranked, that stock is ranked number five. out of 5,134 stocks with a strong buy rating. So one day made a huge difference in the life of Oracle there last week. I’ve never seen a move in a big stock like that. I’m sure there’s been others, but that’s one of the most memorable moves. Of all time. So there you go. I think Oracle would be one, you know, premier growth. Is it one of the premier growth stocks in the world today? You know, I’ll let you make up your own mind on that, but it’s got a lot going for it right now. Okay, and the other, we don’t own Oracle, by the way. But who knows? I’m watching it very closely because it meets all of my criteria. It took a big move like that to really move the needle, but it did make that move last week. The other one that I did move in… and scoop up quite a bit, I don’t know, several weeks back. I’d have to look here. Let me see. I stepped up to the plate in Google in the relative value portfolio on June the 10th. Three months ago. And Google is up 41%. I keep calling it Google. I know it’s Alphabet. But they don’t own the Alphabet, damn it. I think the Greeks own the Alphabet. Google is up 40% since we bought it. And then it was doing so well. that I added it to my premier growth. I manage four stock funds and one bond fund. And with that, we’re able to put together asset allocations for you that we think are appropriate, depending on your risk, your age, your goals, and everything like that. We picked up Google on July the 18th in the premier growth portfolio, and it’s up 36% since we bought it. Alphabet hit the $3 trillion mark yesterday, which is quite a milestone. But I think even more importantly, Gemini, which is their AI, overtakes ChatGPT. What does that mean? I’ll talk about that when we come back. But man, I’ll tell you what, Google stock has just blasted off here recently. 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 05 :
And welcome back here to the second half of today’s Best Docs Now show.
SPEAKER 01 :
A couple other things I wanted to mention here about Alphabet. the company formerly known as Google, which I consider to be a verb. Why don’t you just go Google it? Well, guess what? Google’s Gemini generative artificial intelligence chatbot, which it has infused into seemingly everything, overtook OpenAI’s chat GPT as the most downloaded free app on the App Store over the weekend. Investors had been concerned that the rise of generative AI could lead to a decline in search revenue for Alphabet. But guess what? No. They’ve remained current. And Barry and I always kind of said, you know, Google was kind of behind the curve a little bit in their AI because, you know, Microsoft was first to market with ChatGPT. Gemini had several misfires. But it seems to be firing on all cylinders now and has now overtaken ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app in the Apple Store. Okay, and then the other thing with Alphabet that happened recently was the favorable ruling. that they received, which was not as harsh as some thought, that they might have to sell their Chrome browser. But that was a major win in court, a massive win, in fact, for Alphabet. And it was a big win for Apple, which has also had a little bit of renewed life here recently. Tencent markets first bond sale in four years. I also want to talk just a minute about, and I talked about it several times here recently, about the big Chinese AI stocks, which obviously are a lot cheaper. Then the US AI stocks, and they’re starting. A lot of them, many of them are breaking out to new all-time highs. Tencent Holdings is returning to the bond market after quite some time. I don’t think we’ll be buying it in our portfolio, in our bond portfolio, but I do own Tencent in our relative value portfolio because on a relative basis, while it might not meet, in fact, if you’re a deep value investor and committed to it and weren’t a Buffet head, or one of the other Benjamin Graham types of valuations. I mean, you would cringe at the thought of 10-cent holding being a value stock. But I have a theory of relative value. You take a look at where it’s traded at historically. I guess it’s growth at a reasonable price would be the more common term in market GARP. But Tencent Holdings we picked up, let’s see, in the relative value portfolio, which has been doing really well. I’m really happy with that thing. I think if I was entering the market right now, this would be the portfolio that I would be probably emphasizing a little bit over maybe the emerging growth portfolio, although it’s hitting new highs this year. It’s having a fantastic year. But there are some extreme valuations in a lot of these stocks now. But we picked up $0.10 at $64.62 back on March 12th, actually, coming out of the tariff wars. And when we put the all-in sign, that was back on March 9th, at the bottom of the S&P 500 when it was at $4,800, we picked up some $0.10 holding. It’s up 28.4%. since we purchased it. And it’s been hitting new highs, and it’s still a pretty cheap stock, believe it or not, on a relative basis. And, of course, Tencent also, the other big tech stocks in China have also been doing very well. Alibaba. which is also a relative value candidate. NetEase is a relative value candidate. And, you know, I know that you’ve got that extra political risk. But AI is real, and it’s just as real in China as it is here in the U.S. In fact, it’s almost like the race, the outer space race. The first man to the moon, it seems like the AI race is just as heated today Only a lot more lucrative, it would seem, than the space race. Microsoft raises dividend by 9.6. I thought it would be a good time to kind of revisit Microsoft a little bit here. They remain very relevant. You know, they fired the first shot, as far as I’m concerned, in democratizing AI to the average person when ChatGPT came out. I use ChatGPT all the time. I guess I’m using Gemini also without knowing it. I use them both, both of those browsers. Microsoft had a really big day yesterday. And on a relative basis, you know, it’s trading not too bad. I’ve seen it at worse valuations than it is today. And it still remains very, very relevant in the whole AI race. We own Microsoft and what used to be the growth and dividend, growth and income portfolio. We still have that in there, although we don’t actively put people into that portfolio. We converted it over to the relative value, but we still have a pretty big position in Microsoft portfolio. left over in that portfolio, and it continues to do well. And it had a very big day yesterday. Another relative value stock that might even be entering down into the value range, one that I’m sure even the Silicon Valley has been enamored with in times past, Chipotle, Mexican Grill, has just had a horrible sell-off. horrible they had a horrible quarter hey they’re bringing carne asada back maybe that’ll do it but i think maybe a bottom is being put in into chipotle that’s the cheapest i’ve seen chipotle trading at in a long time i think the forward pe is about 23 or 24 right now I think inflation has taken a bite out of Chipotle. The tariffs have definitely taken a bite out of Chipotle. The stock, which one time was 70, is now 39. So it’s way, way off its highs. But they announced a stock buyback today. And sometimes when companies do that, the board of directors authorized an additional $500 million for share repurchases. that can not always but it can put in a bottom for the stock or help to put in a bottom. Chipotle’s been searching for a bottom here for quite some time. It hit 41 and it started to go sideways. I thought that was a bottom there. We own Chipotle in the relative value portfolio and we’re determined to be patient with it because I think they’ve proven themselves to know what they’re doing over time. And even though they’re going through this hiccup, you know, good companies know how to adjust to changing circumstances. And we’ll see. But I like the fact that they’re doing a stock buyback. Trump to file a $15 billion defamation case and libel lawsuit against the New York Times. Boy, that could be the trial of the century, huh? accusing the paper of serving as a virtual mouthpiece for the Democrats. Well, you know, I think a newspaper, unless they’re spewing bad, untrue things, which I’ve seen some of that too, you know, the freedom of the press and all this and that. How far can you go with, you know, spreading defamation and libel? Well, we’ll see. The courts will have to decide that. Here’s one that caught my eye today. AVAV, A-V-A-V, we own AeroVironment in our emerging growth portfolio. This is only a $12.7 billion company, but it’s one of the leading drone makers in the world. And they had a good earnings report here recently. Their sales were up 140%. year-over-year same comparable quarter last year but they’re having to really ramp up you know to meet the production and the earnings didn’t grow as much as the sales did but I think when you have growing sales like that but the good news is is the US eases its export policy for drones to make our drone makers more competitive in the world That’s good news for AeroVirement, A-V-A-V, which is a very, very aggressive stock down in the emerging growth portfolio. We’ll be right back. And welcome back here to the final segment of today’s Best Docs Now show. We are here in Santa Clara at the Santa Clara Marriott. And tonight at 7 p.m. I’ll be talking about a lot of things. But definitely the genesis of the Best Stocks Now app, the logic behind it, how it came about, and how simple it is to use, really. I made it for myself. so that I could manage a huge database of 5,300 stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, indexes, sector ETFs, et cetera, leveraged ETFs, inverse ETFs. And, you know, I look every day. I’m able to pull the charts. I always look at any stock that is ranked B+. That’s my overall grade. B+, or better. There’s a lot right now. About 20% of the market is ranked at B+, or better, which shows you the strength of the market. Normally, I have maybe 400 or 500. That’s kind of average. Right now, there’s about 1,000 stocks that are B-plus or better. To become a B-plus or better ranked stock, that includes valuation and momentum, a combination thereof. And then I look at the charts of those stocks, and I was just going through that list here today and a couple here. jumping off the page at me lg display they’ve been around for a long time that’s the korean manufacturer of lcd panels used in high def tvs notebook computers desktop monitors mobile phones etc etc boy that’s a big breakout there that stock’s up 9.5 percent today i don’t know if there’s news on it But that is a nice breakout there, and it is a B+. So that makes it a candidate, okay, for one of my portfolios. And then looking at the chart is kind of the last bit that I do. The artificial intelligence will take me so far to give me the candidates, and then I look at the actual pictures of the stocks. and get into the story behind it and things like that. Another one catching my eye here today is a rare earth stock. I own a little bit in my trading portfolio, personal trading portfolio, American Resources. A-R-E-C, which is out of Indiana, of all places. And I also noticed that yesterday, man, the uranium stocks like U-U-U-U and L-E-U, of course, they all moved in unison with the movement in the nuclear stocks yesterday. A lot of these stocks that are trying to come up with better fuel or nuclear power were on the move yesterday. But American Resources is breaking out again today. It’s a very small company. It’s $2.65, but supposedly… They’re a player in rare earth, possibly. Bloom Energy. I don’t have any position in Bloom Energy, but that is a renewable energy stock, which was mostly sun and wind. It’s headquartered right here in San Jose, where there’s lots of sun and wind. But I got to believe with their exposure to renewable energies that they’ve got some nuclear exposure too. This is one of the hottest stocks in the entire market from a momentum point of view. Now these aren’t recommendations. I just bring these things to your attention because it’s kind of exciting to look at this stuff and see what’s happening. Baidu is making a good breakout today. I’ve been mentioning these Chinese stocks. by do uh… you know they have a lot of irons in the fire in china uh… robo taxi search all kinds of different things online advertising internet content except for except for except for two forty three billion dollar company it’s got a pe ratio of 12 right now and i think that’s why you’re seeing some money move into these chinese stocks which has outperformed our market i think the chinese market’s up about 30 right now lower pe ratios that makes me think we’re at some pretty heady pe ratios here uh The S&P 500 now trading at almost 23 times forward earnings, which is at the upper, upper echelon of where it’s traded at historically. Okay. We have to be careful. We have to be mindful of that. But Baidu is breaking out to a new high today with a P.E. ratio of 28. Let’s see if there’s anything else here that catches my eye. Well, there’s Alibaba. It continues to break out, doing well. Okay, now let’s look at another category of stocks that I look at on a daily basis. are just the ones that have the most momentum, the highest relative strength. I have my own grading system on that. The Investor’s Business Daily uses 1 to 99, with 99 being the best. I actually get a little bit more granular than that. And I see some of these A-plus momentum stocks. Let’s see if I see any interesting names there. Well, TMC. TMC is another rare earth play. I believe that’s the underwater one, looking for rare earth under the water. Yeah, nothing really popping there else other than that. Okay, now let’s just take a look here at one other list that I look at, which are just kind of bell weather stocks. Well, there is Nucleus, no, okay, USAR. USAR is another rare earth stock. It’s up 11.2% today, USA rare earth. That’s been a sector of the market that’s done really well here this year. So those are some of the stocks today. uh that are on the move here uh today okay well we’re out of time i’m looking forward to seeing a lot of folks throughout the day i think i’ve got eight one hour meetings today and then a workshop tonight i’m glad i uh chose a holiday inexpress To get a good night’s sleep, I’m ready to roll, and I look forward to meeting you here tonight. If you want to, call Edie at 855-611-BEST. If there’s any spots left there, we’ve got a pretty big room to do the workshop in. I know we’re booked up today, tomorrow. I don’t know what Thursday. It was about 70%, 80% full last time I looked, and we’re going home on Friday. Again, you might want to call Edie. This is a rare opportunity to meet with us in person, 855-611-BEST. Or if you want to sample the newsletter, the app, and the live trading, if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, go to GundersenCapital.com. Or if you’d like to make an appointment with us over phone or Zoom, anywhere in America, 855-611-BEST. 855-611-BEST for Gundersen Capital.com. Have a great day, everybody.
