Keith Kaplan

Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix and YouTube never built the fiber lines, routers or servers underneath them. They built businesses on top of that infrastructure, and early investors turned modest stakes into 10X and even 100X returns. Now, it's $LMND, $ZETA, and $UPST's turn. Since ChatGPT's public release, big tech has poured over $1 trillion into semiconductors, networking gear, memory and data centers. That hard infrastructure is now largely in place. The next fortunes will be made by the businesses built on top of it, the AI applications layer. Three names show what this looks like today. Lemonade $LMND, a $5.4 billion insurer, has rebuilt underwriting around AI so thoroughly that operating expenses and headcount have stayed flat over the last two years even as revenue more than quadrupled. It is now pushing into car insurance, a market that could make its current valuation look like a bargain if the expansion succeeds. Zeta Global $ZETA, valued at $5.3 billion, replaces stale, client-entered CRM data with a live database of 2.4 billion consumer identities and trillions of behavioral signals, and has struck partnerships with both OpenAI and Palantir. Upstart $UPST, a $3 billion lender, uses machine learning on employment history, income stability and cash flow patterns to underwrite credit better than legacy scoring models. Revenue growth is expected to stay above 30 percent annually for the next four years, all while the stock trades around 3x sales. The infrastructure buildout still has room to run. But the market is about to start rewarding the businesses built on top of it, and that shift could define the next decade of investing.

@graham380429 Hi Sam - not sure what this is referring to, but happy to help with any questions. Stocks move up and down and the call options will ebb and flow with that movement. Even if a stock is expected to gain and ultimately does, it typically won't happen in a straight line.

@KeithTradeSmith Bought Sept $45 Calls at $5.20/share based on Fri recommendation. A sure loss when your system says a gain of 5.84% to $47.63 is expected. Duh!

Big Week of Earnings - Week of July 20: $GOOGL $TSLA $SAP $PM $TMUS $IBM $AXP $NOW $BX $VZ $TMO $RTX $T $TXN $NEE $GEV $HON $UNP $CMCSA $LMT The biggest names reporting this week, ranked by market cap: $GOOGL - Wed, AMC | EPS est: $2.86 | Rev est: $116.5B $TSLA - Wed, AMC | EPS est: $0.47 | Rev est: $24.7B $SAP - Thu, AMC | EPS est: $2.04 | Rev est: $11.4B $PM - Wed, BMO | EPS est: $2.04 | Rev est: $10.6B $TMUS - Thu, BMO | EPS est: $2.62 | Rev est: $23.4B $IBM - Wed, AMC | EPS est: $3.02 | Rev est: $17.9B $AXP - Fri, BMO | EPS est: $4.39 | Rev est: $19.6B $NOW - Wed, AMC | EPS est: $0.86 | Rev est: $3.9B $BX - Thu, BMO | EPS est: $1.34 | Rev est: $3.4B $VZ - Fri, BMO | EPS est: $1.27 | Rev est: $35.5B $TMO - Thu, BMO | EPS est: $5.71 | Rev est: $11.7B $RTX - Thu, BMO | EPS est: $1.66 | Rev est: $22.8B $T - Wed, BMO | EPS est: $0.59 | Rev est: $31.8B $TXN - Wed, AMC | EPS est: $1.92 | Rev est: $5.24B $NEE - Fri, BMO | EPS est: $1.07 | Rev est: $7.3B $GEV - Wed, BMO | EPS est: $3.17 | Rev est: $10.8B $HON - Thu, BMO | EPS est: $4.83 | Rev est: $9.8B $UNP - Thu, BMO | EPS est: $3.20 | Rev est: $6.6B $CMCSA - Thu, BMO | EPS est: $0.97 | Rev est: $30.3B $LMT - Thu, BMO | EPS est: $7.22 | Rev est: $19.4B

The tape keeps telling the same story: a broad wave of new highs signaling an economy that refuses to quit. Start with the rails. Union Pacific $UNP and Norfolk Southern $NSC both hit fresh all-time highs. When railroads are moving goods at record levels, that is about as bullish an economic signal as it gets. The refiners are running hot too. Valero $VLO, Marathon Petroleum $MPC, and Phillips 66 $PSX all touched new highs as the Iran War constricts refined product supplies. Tight supply plus steady demand equals fat margins for the companies turning crude into gasoline and diesel. Consumers are still spending, and the restaurant names prove it. Brinker International $EAT, the operator behind Chili's, notched a new all-time high. Cheesecake Factory $CAKE did the same. Two casual dining giants at records tell you the everyday American is still going out to eat. The megatrend plays are working as well. Our call on Boomer health care keeps paying off, with senior care firm Brightspring Health Services $BTSG hitting a new all-time high. And on the lifestyle side, drinkware and cooler maker Yeti $YETI reached a new one-year high, a sign discretionary spending on premium gear is holding up. Put it all together and the picture is clear. Rails, refiners, restaurants, health care, and consumer brands are all pushing to new highs at the same time. That is not a coincidence. That is what a healthy, expanding economy looks like from the inside.

$PLOW is approaching a Green Zone 15-year win rate: 86.67% Avg gain: 5.84% (106.66% annualized) Runs July 23 to August 12 #PLOW #seasonality #stocks #trading

Union Pacific $UNP, CSX $CSX, Norfolk Southern $NSC, Canadian Pacific Kansas City $CP, and Canadian National $CNI all reached new all-time highs last week. That is not a coincidence. It is one of the more bullish economic signals out there. Railroads are mission-critical to the U.S. economy. They haul coal, chemicals, grain, lumber, cement, electronics, clothes, and building materials. They do well when America is making things, buying things, building things, and moving things. When the whole group breaks out together, the real economy is healthier than the headlines suggest. Railroads are not alone. Over the past eight months, economically sensitive groups have been quietly soaring: trucking stocks, regional banks, manufacturers, diesel engine makers, steelmakers, mall operators, and hotel chains. These are real-world indicators, and they usually tell the truth about the economy faster than any economist or media outlet. Market prices are the sum of everything industry insiders, money managers, and operators actually know. Their knowledge shows up in their buying, and that buying sets prices. Right now those prices are pointing up. You can listen to whoever you like. The transports are voting bullish on America.

Last week, Starbucks $SBUX touched a new one-year high, and the iShares U.S. Broker-Dealers & Securities Exchanges ETF $IAI just hit a fresh all-time high. Together, these two moves tell a story government data can't match. $IAI holds the market's plumbing: Goldman Sachs $GS, Morgan Stanley $MS, Robinhood $HOOD, Moody's $MCO, and CME Group $CME. These firms take a cut of nearly every financial transaction out there, from IPOs to 401(k) management to debt issuance and credit ratings. When their stocks climb to new highs, it means deal flow, trading volume, and market activity are all humming. Starbucks tells a different but equally powerful story. Buying a $7 latte is a want, not a need. People splurge on marked-up coffee when they are employed, earning, and feeling good about tomorrow. They switch to fifty-cent home brew when times get tough. New management has also engineered a real turnaround after a stretch of missteps, and that execution is finally showing up in the stock. Market prices are the ultimate scoreboard. They reflect the combined judgment of insiders, money managers, and bankers who understand their industries better than any economist crunching lagging government statistics. When the financial system's toll collectors and everyday discretionary spending are both pointing in the same direction, that is a signal worth trusting. Add $SBUX and $IAI to a growing list of real-world indicators flashing bullish. If broker-dealers keep printing highs and consumers keep buying $7 coffee just because they can, the U.S. economy's foundation looks a lot sturdier than the headlines suggest.

@OldSaltWorks Thank YOU for sharing. Good luck with the position.

@KeithTradeSmith I just started a position in $NSC this past Friday. This train runs by my home. I only bought a few to start building a position. Ill add money to it every week for a few months then move to something else. Thanks, Keith, for the information. Liked and shared. 🤝 🙂

Rails and banks don't lie. Union Pacific $UNP, Norfolk Southern $NSC, and CSX Corp $CSX all hit new all-time highs this week, while mega banks Royal Bank of Canada $RY, BNY Mellon $BNY, U.S. Bancorp $USB, and Kearny Financial $KRNY joined them at fresh records. Rails move goods. Banks move money. When both groups are printing new highs on the same tape, the underlying economy is stronger than the headlines suggest. Billboard giant Lamar Advertising $LAMR also hit a new all-time high today, another quiet but powerful signal that companies are still spending to reach consumers. Oil refiners Valero $VLO, Marathon Petroleum $MPC, and Phillips 66 $PSX also broke out to new highs today, riding tighter crack spreads on the back of armed conflict in Iran. Senior living continues to pay off. Agilon Health $AGL hit a new high today and is now up 131% over the last year. Industry heavyweight Welltower $WELL also printed a new all-time high. Demographics don't reverse, and neither does this trend. Fintech is showing serious life too. International money transfer giant Remitly $RELY is at new highs, now up 27% over the last month, and Sezzle $SEZL is trending right along with it. Biotech keeps working. Smaller-cap plays Atai Beckley $ATAI, Adaptive Biotechnologies $ADPT, and GH Research $GHRS are all pushing new highs today. Real economy names, healthcare, fintech, biotech, all breaking out together. That's a market with broad, healthy participation. It was a wild week in the markets, follow what the tape is telling you while headlines create opportunities.

Space stocks including Rocket Lab $RKLB, BlackSky $BKSY, Planet Labs $PL, and AST SpaceMobile $ASTS have been stuck in a painful correction, but the Procure Space ETF $UFO is flashing signs that the bottom could be in. Back in September, the bull case on space stocks centered on more than just rockets and Elon Musk's SpaceX. The real opportunity sits in space based communication platforms: government surveillance, military communication, GPS, internet service, and cell service. Add in a Trump administration pushing hard for U.S. "space dominance" against China, and the sector has real policy tailwinds behind it. That bull case played out fast. Space stocks soared 50 to 100 percent, partly fueled by anticipation of the massive SpaceX IPO. What goes up that quickly needs to come back down and work off the froth, and that is exactly what has happened since. Now $UFO is attempting to carve out a bottom in the mid $40s per share, the same range where the fund consolidated sideways earlier this year. That repeat test of support is worth watching closely. Here is the line in the sand. If $UFO breaks down below the mid $40s, treat the average space stock as a pass, since it would signal the broader industry trend has turned weak. But if $UFO holds this level and pushes into the high $40s, the uptrend is back on and tradeable from the long side. Space stocks are at a crossroads. The next move in $UFO will tell us which way this sector breaks.

@exponentialluke Well said, Luke. I’m definitely bullish on $NFLX.

$NFLX earnings weren't great, but they weren't awful, either. The best framing is "Long-term growth story remains intact, but near-term execution risks cloud short-term upside prospects." First, the bad... this is the second straight quarter of decelerating FX-neutral growth, the margin guide wasn't raised despite double-digit revenue growth (implying content/marketing/tech spend is eating incremental margin), and the FCF/operating cash flow miss (-28% to -33% y/y) went almost entirely unaddressed on the call. Neumann's commentary stayed at the "we manage to the full year" level, and he never explained the cash flow gap directly. And "free trials are back in select markets" is a soft tell that acquisition may be getting harder, not easier. So, there are clear short-term execution risks here as the company balances growth with profitability. Now, the good... the long-term TAM framing is unchanged and still fairly credible. We are under 45% penetrated into ~800M addressable households, capturing only ~7% of a $670B addressable revenue market, with ~5% of global TV view share. Content spend discipline is real (+10% this year vs. a 14% 10-year average, growing slower than revenue). Q2's record $4.7B buyback with $27B of authorization left signals management doesn't think the stock is broken. And the "engagement quality over quantity" defense (view hours +2% in H1, live events driving 6 of the last 10 top sign-up days despite being only ~1% of view hours) is a real explanation for the softening hours metric, even if it's hard for outsiders to verify. Taken together, this reads more like a multiple compression event on a still-intact growth story than a broken thesis. I'd treat this as a name where the story is intact but the setup (premium multiple, no near-term reacceleration catalyst) argues for waiting for the FCF question to resolve before buying the initial drop reflexively. I love Netflix, I believe in the Netflix value prop and competitive moat, and I like the management team... so I'm sticking with a bullish vibe on this one despite some short-term execution risks.

July's seasonality is at risk. August is usually a terrible month. Will July pull out? x.com/KeithTradeSmit…

Ahh, figured it out. We have many thresholds to generate the most reliable forecasts. When something happens way outside of a volatility range, the forecast looks to see if it can be reliable on next projection. When $IBM had a major drop, the model became unstable, so it has to take some time to reset to become reliable. It's built that way for protection. We're going to make some tweaks to make sure it's widely understood when this happens (rare, but happens).

@inside_bar_Paul I'm not sure, looking into this Monday. We do have thresholds to deem the forecast worthy, which is why we only support ~2500 stocks / etfs. But we also are working on our next generation to support more. I'll get back to you on $IBM

@KeithTradeSmith How can $IBM no be recognized on the Predictive Alpha Dashboard? Says it doesn't exist???

If you're focused on the headlines and still not sold on the U.S. economy, the blowout numbers J.B. Hunt $JBHT just posted should get you there. Over the past four months, we've written over a dozen research notes on economically sensitive industry groups. Trucking stocks, regional banks, manufacturing names, diesel engine makers, steelmakers, shopping mall operators, hotel chains. At the end of each one, we made the same call: the U.S. economy is doing far better than most people think, and the price action in these "real world" sectors is telling us so. These businesses are the ground truth. They almost always do a better job of telling us what's really happening than any media outlet or economist. And their charts keep pushing higher. Last night, J.B. Hunt $JBHT confirmed the bull case by shooting the lights out on its Q2 earnings report. Earnings jumped 45% year over year. Sales climbed 19% year over year. The stock popped 5% this morning and printed a fresh all-time high. J.B. Hunt is one of America's largest and most important trucking companies. It runs a massive fleet of trucks and trailers hauling furniture, appliances, raw materials, clothing, electronics, toys, and consumer goods across the country. Trucking isn't glamorous. The media rarely covers it. But virtually every piece of clothing, food, furniture, and building material bought in America rides a truck multiple times before it reaches the end user. Trucking is the economy's circulatory system. J.B. Hunt's blowout quarter and new all-time high tell us that system is running hot.

@rsmyrlcomc51672 Wow, thank you Mike! I appreciate the note. All the best to you.

@KeithTradeSmith Thank you for the Stock tips and insight in the market. I read them every day and find them very helpful and profitable. Mike

Cloudflare $NET just notched a new all-time high this week, adding fresh fuel to the bull market in securing the world's AI, computers, and data centers. Back in March, we introduced our Agent Supernova thesis, the idea that AI is now advanced enough to take over everyday tasks, from managing factory schedules to running financial analysis to writing software. Over the next 12 to 24 months, that list keeps growing. Within two years, the number of AI agents operating in the American economy isn't likely to grow 10X or even 1,000X. Try 10,000X. That kind of expansion needs infrastructure, security, and traffic management at scale, and that's exactly where Cloudflare $NET sits. Cloudflare is one of the world's leading Content Delivery Network firms, speeding up website content and cutting latency and bandwidth costs. Add in its cybersecurity services, AI agent management tools, and AI agent transaction services, and Cloudflare starts to look like an AI agent conglomerate. The numbers support the thesis. Cloudflare's revenue grew 29% in 2024 and 30% in 2025. Wall Street projects revenue near $2.79 billion in 2026, roughly 29% growth, rising toward $3.6 billion by 2027. After ten months of sideways consolidation, the stock broke out to new highs today. If the Agent Supernova unfolds as expected, Cloudflare's diversified position in security and agent management should keep driving growth well past this breakout.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in America, and the money flowing into fixing it is about to explode. Beneficiaries: $BSX $EW $LLY $AORT $LMAT $ATRC The American Heart Association projects total U.S. cardiovascular healthcare costs will more than triple to roughly $1.5 trillion annually by 2050. In 2023, 915,973 Americans died from cardiovascular disease. Nearly 47% of American adults have hypertension. And 10,000 Americans hit retirement age every single day. The U.S. population aged 80+ is projected to roughly double, from 14.7 million in 2025 to 29.4 million by 2045. The big cardio names are obvious. Edwards Lifesciences $EW dominates heart valves. Boston Scientific $BSX runs deep in devices. Even our call on Eli Lilly $LLY plays here, since GLP-1s support cardiovascular health through weight loss. But the real asymmetric upside sits in the small caps. Three we are watching: Artivion $AORT, $1.1B, aortic disease. Just secured FDA approval of the NEXUS Aortic Arch System, the first off-the-shelf solution for aortic arch disease. LeMaitre Vascular $LMAT, $2.2B, peripheral vascular disease. Often the only or dominant supplier of its mission-critical grafts, patches, and catheters. Growing 12% year over year with 72% gross margins that are still expanding. AtriCure $ATRC, $1.7B, surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. Its AtriClip is the most widely sold LAA device in the world. Revenue growing 14.3% year over year. Boomer healthcare has been one of the most powerful megatrends of the decade. Cardio is where the next leg gets paid.

You guys are killing it on getting rid of spam. There's a ton of impersonations that happen, too. They're easy to programmatically catch ... An account gets taken over, the person changes their username to something similar to a real user. Then they copy the description and images and start following others that follow the original user. Can you programmatically kill those accounts? Reporting does work, but is limited and can be cumbersome when the account verification doesn't work right (and you have to get complaints to find these as they block you).

An exception: If you solicited engagements on Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday to celebrate the algorithm change, we excluded those so no need to delete them. A lot of people did that unintentionally.

Some updates on the creator rev share program: 1. Soliciting engagements (“I’ll follow everyone who replies”) 3 or more times will results in removal from the program and your account will be forwarded to the policy team for suspension. Grok now catches all of these. Nearly 4000 accounts were removed from the program today. 2. Our new model now detects duplicated content at 3x the rate of the previous model. Adding watermarks, intros and other edits will send monetized impressions to the original uploader. This also includes copying viral text posts (most common one: “Twitter is like the smoking section of the internet”). We detected 1.5 million posts that were stolen this cycle. Repeated or intentional circumvention will lead to removal from the program. With these changes, over $1 million will be given back to original content creators.

@FaceplantJim I'm looking to enter a trade purely on speculation. The fundamentals are still extremely healthy, technicals are in the gutter. So I'm hoping for some reversion to the mean action. This is going against the green zone, so I'm figuring out how I want to play it.

@KeithTradeSmith Wow, thanks for sharing. That is amazing, and you are bold for getting in. I've been curious about all you said with Netflix.

Value-investing hearts are beating a little faster. Netflix $NFLX, the company that rewired how the entire planet watches television, just cratered to a fresh 52-week low after earnings, down about 44% from its highs and back to levels last seen in September 2024. Shareholders are demoralized. That is usually exactly when I start paying attention. And full disclosure, I'm going to open a position in $NFLX for the first time in years. Take a look at what is on sale. Netflix now serves 325 million paying households, more than any streaming service on earth, and viewers consumed a staggering 97 billion hours of its content in just the first half of this year. It has flipped from cash-burning disruptor to cash machine: management guides to a 31.5% operating margin and roughly $12.5 billion in free cash flow ("FCF") this year. No dividend, but a buyback authorization north of $30 billion, and net debt is now a rounding error next to that FCF. So why is it down? The quarter itself was fine. Revenue of $12.56 billion and EPS of 80 cents landed right on the screws. The problem was the guide: Q3 revenue of about $12.9 billion and 82 cents of EPS came in just shy of Wall Street's hopes, and a crowd that had priced in perfection hit the sell button. Here is the number that should stop you cold. At roughly 20 times forward earnings, Netflix trades in line with the S&P 500 and at less than half the 40-plus times multiple it averaged over the past five years. You are being offered an ordinary price for an extraordinary business. Verdict: a far above-average company at a below-average multiple, a rare thing for this name. The honest catch is growth. If 12-14% revenue growth keeps decelerating, a stock this loved can stay unloved for a while. Here is what TradeSmith's data adds: Quantum Score: 45 (Fundamentals 75 / Technicals 24) Health: Red long term, Bearish short term VQ: 23.2% (Medium risk) That is the whole story in three lines. Fundamentals score a powerful 75, so the quality is undeniable. But technicals are just 24 and Health is flashing Red, so the market has not stopped selling yet. A wonderful business, and still a falling knife. I want this one. I'm likely jumping in before letting TradeSmith's Health turn back toward green before I would normally reach for it. Be careful, the strategy is to catch the turn, not the knife.