In today’s episode, Tyler kicks off the week by honoring America’s servicemen and women following Memorial Day, then dives straight into the latest market action. From new all-time highs across major indices—including small ...
Don’t look back because the market is closed. Good Tuesday afternoon, everyone. Tyler Herriage here with you for today’s VRA Investing podcast. Hope you all had a fantastic day out there today. Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend here as well. And I do want to take a second to pause here as we paused over the weekend to honor the brave service men and women of this country who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for us here, for our country. And it’s only because of men and women like that that we are able to enjoy the freedoms that we do here in this country that many of us, you know, take for granted a lot of, a lot of times that we don’t cherish enough. And so thank you to all of those who have served out there, are currently serving and again to all of those who have paid, who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
I know we’ve got a lot of VRA members here and listeners that are current servicemen and women who have, who have family, who are as well and family and friends who have paid that, that ultimate made that ultimate sacrifice, that ultimate act of courage and selflessness. So thank you out there and hopefully we all got a chance to pause and, and reflect on that over the weekend and that that is the reason why we’re able to enjoy so many of the things that we get to here on a daily basis in the US So thank you again. That cannot be be said enough. Again, thank you to everyone out there, all of our servicemen and women. I know I’m repeating myself, but ah, it is incredible and something to be so grateful for. So thank you again and not to transition too quickly out of that, but it is only fitting that we get a good start to the week after a long, hopefully restful weekend for you as well as well out there. And it was a good way to end last week on a Friday and a good way to start this week as well with some all time highs from our market. So we’ll recap all of that here today, including an all time high that, not to say you weren’t expecting it, but maybe it flew a little under the radar today on this start to the week as you were getting caught up.
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So if you’re feeling a little behind from the long weekend, strap in here, we’ll cover it quickly for you as we do every day here after the market close. Everything you need to know in today’s market action, we’ll cover it right here. So if you’re new here with us to the VRA Investing podcast, great to have you here with us. And if you’re a longtime member, you’re going to find some value in here as well. So without further ado, well, one more for the new members, if you’re not already with us. This is your first time hearing the VRA Investing Podcast. Welcome. We’d love to have you here with us.
Check us out @vraletter.com you can subscribe to receive the podcast every day at the market close again VR a letter dot com. Click that podcast link at the top. Or if you prefer social media a little bit more. You can find us just about everywhere out there. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. You can find Kip out there as well. Phenomenal follow on X or Twitter if you don’t already. But all of those things like share, subscribe, always help us out.
We love what we have the opportunity to do here every day to bring this information about the markets to everyday investors. We want to help the retail investor, the individual investor, the mom and pop out there to crush the market and to do so in a, in a major fashion to where you can have a fully funded retirement account, not be concerned about those things, monetarily speaking, after retirement. That’s our goal here day in and day out. Kip’s been doing it since 2003. I joined him just about 10 years ago now. And, and truly, we wake up every day so excited to do it. So if you’re not here with us already, come and join us. All right, that being said, let’s jump in to some of these all time highs today and I’ll lead with one again that might have flown under the radar but might have preceded them.
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All right, we talked about this in our book the Big Bribe that Kip and I published in 2022, just about a month ahead of the bear market lows from the Biden bear market in 2022, that midterm year as we’re in here now, four years ago, it’s hard to believe we’re coming up on year four of this bull market. But one bullish factor here, bull markets that make it through year three tend to go on to last much longer. Four, five, six years plus the most recent, I mean, 10 years plus, right? So that being said, we have so many things to look forward to in this market, but what we wrote about in the Big Bribe is that when you see, and this is not just from me, not just from Kip, but from his mentors and his mentors, mentors as well, that when money supply is on the rise, you must be long stocks. And that’s exactly the data point that we got back today from the Fred data set, you know, directly government source here reported here May 26. The latest reading, all time high. Again, I mentioned that bear market of 2022 just so happened to coincide with the peak and money market funds. Right. And it bottomed just shortly or excuse me, just a little bit before as the market is a forward looking mechanism in anticipation of the money printer being turned back on, which we’re absolutely seeing.
That has been our call from day one of the Trump presidency. As much as we’ve supported the president, we’ve always said from day one he’s never and never claimed to be the president of austerity. This was, we saw it in his first term. Money printer. I mean, look at what happened during COVID Right? We added 40% roughly to our money supply. I’ll go ahead and share that chart one more time just so you can see exactly what I’m talking about. Right. This isn’t your traditional, you know, you know, tightening up the purse strings.
Republican and Trump. Right. That’s a massive again from, from here, from pre Covid to the end all the way in 2022. Yes, a roughly 40% increase in money supply. That’s where inflation comes from. It doesn’t come from. Yes, of course it comes from a supply shortage. But that was a short term impact from COVID I mean, this is the reason why inflation hit 9% on the official readings and much higher in the unofficial, the real readings that everyday Americans felt now that being back on the rise in our view does not mean inflation is coming back.
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Excuse me, the. There is a difference here and I won’t dive into it today because I’ve spent a lot of time on it here in the podcast, but I do get a lot. Kip and I both get a lot of questions about this. How can you say M2 money supply is at all time highs and that was a problem with inflation in 2020 leading up to the peak in 2022. And that is not a problem today. Two totally different economic environments that we’re in. I’ll take a step back because when most people think about a recession, they think of a housing crisis. Right? And this is a hypothetical.
Just wrap your head around this, okay? When so many people think in this day and age, when you think about a recession, most people consider it a housing crisis where your house is going to collapse in price. The amount of times I’ve heard people say, oh, just waiting for the next 2008 and then I’ll Buy a house. Big reason why it might not ever happen. But people have a recency bias that the next economic downturn is going to look like the last one leading up to 2008. Now this is a little bit before I was in the industry, but Kip and I talked about it some. I’d love to hear his comments on this as well. That a lot of people would have been looking for a tech led recession, much like the dot com bust. So and just like Covid was a totally different recession in there, right? The Biden Bear market, totally different.
But the big One is the 2008 financial crisis that’s in most people’s minds, whether you, you were personally affected by it or you know, your parents were affected by it or you know, your grandparents or whatever, aunt, uncle, cousin, friend. It was so obvious what happened there that most people jumped. That’s going to be the next conclusion. So when you see money supply at all time highs, we get the question a lot. Aren’t you afraid inflation’s going to come back? And the answer since 2022, since the peak in inflation, the answer on our end has been no. When we published the Big Bribe, we said that inflation was a rear view mirror issue. That stands here. Almost four, three and a half years later, that view remains yes, it will never be straight down.
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We’re seeing increases slight in the official data, cpi, ppi. And we look at that as another blip on the radar, another lower high which will be followed by a lower low in inflation because of the innovation revolution. As simple as that. Innovation low leads to deflation. Being able to make things for a lower price, people will be able to sell them for less. So that is where we see the inflation story is very different from a currency debasement story. So again, if you want to learn more about that, come and join us here at the vra. We do cover it here quite often in the podcast because it is such.
We get questions about it all the time and it is such a, it is kind of difficult to wrap your head around. So what does that look like in the market? I’ll go ahead and jump ahead to where I was going to go from here, but yields, you see it in yields that we’ve said this. Another blip here in yields to us looked like, well one, we were at overbought levels, but then we’re going to go lower because we saw it in Trump’s first term and almost identical situation to this. Yields peaked just before his inauguration and have not gotten back to that level. We don’t expect that to see to be the case. We think this move was overextended, got to the upper end of this channel that it’s been in and now we’ll begin to head lower. Especially now we have Kevin Warsh in and so many great things coming for companies. Earnings have been incredible.
Go ahead and jump ahead here again, GDP again, 4.3%. We discussed this last week. We’ll get an update in a couple of days here. This has been our call for some time. That will exceed 5% GDP. So I’ll scroll down so you can see this a little bit better. But there we go. That’s the latest again, 4.3%.
Tyler Herriage [00:11:35]:
So phenomenal numbers there. And I know I had one more point in there. Oh, the dollar. So two more points here that I do want to make. Let me pull this chart up. I wasn’t planning on sharing this one today, but the same thing that we’ve seen in the dollar is what we’ve seen in yields. This one’s even more clear. That’s Trump’s inaugurate just days before Trump’s inauguration.
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To today we expect that to continue again does not mean inflation is coming back to this market. That’s not, not our call here at all. So what was really interesting just today, actually, I’ve got one more to share for you here. Sorry I’m bouncing around. But this is really interesting because so many people before and during Kevin Warsh coming in with oil above 100 again, conflict induced, not a structural error, because this is a structural bull market led by the fundamentals, as you’ll see here throughout this podcast, a broadening bull market. The oil price was a shock. The Iran conflict was a shock. So we’ve said from the beginning, and Kip said this on Friday, oil prices have peaked in our view.
We got some examples of that over the weekend, which I’ll get to, because oil prices are now in the 90s once again and they’re going to come down even faster once this is fully behind us in a, in a big way. So that is a major factor behind the recent pop in inflation. You take care of that factor. It brings down food costs, it brings down transportation costs. It brings down costs in just about everything. Heating of your home. It’s the summer months of cooling of your home. But already, and just one day, one session here, one, a massive decrease in the odds of a rate cut this year.
So there’s a little bit of a weird webpage. There we go. All right, so you see this here? I’VE gone out to December. All of these next four Fed meetings as of today are expected to stay at the current target rate of 350 to 375. Until today it was actually expected that there would be a rate cut. I mean just a session ago, one day ago there was. One week ago it was the same. Right.
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So it’s good here. Now back into staying put for the year and this can change rapidly. Remember, this is just a tool. Okay. It’s more of a sentiment indicator than something that we would really base anything off of. Okay, Maybe you go to look at polymarket. Right. That would be an interesting one to check here as well.
But already you’re seeing the fear of a rate hike this year quickly going out the window. We remain firm that the next move from the Fed will be rate cuts. And so thinking about that and what it means for our market, we look at that as very bullish as well. Although yields at these levels, I just showed you the ten year now below a four and a half percent. A reminder during the dot com melt up where The NASDAQ rallied 580% from 1995 to 2000, the 10 year averaged above a 6.1. So we’re nowhere near danger mode here. Although that’s not going to stop the financial mainstream media from talking all about it. So long story short that when you see M2 money supply on the rise, you want to be long stocks.
And today was a proof of that. We had a lot of all time highs. I’ll cover them here quickly for you. Small caps Russell 2000 all time high today. We also saw the Nasdaq hitting an all time high today. And exactly what you want to see here. I mean, yes, I mean really, I guess you could say. Let me run one chart really quick.
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So small caps led, but then the NASDAQ 100 right there with it. What I’m going to say, you’ve heard us say here a lot, is that you want to see tech leading and then the semis leading tech. And it’s exactly, exactly what we got today. So while the queues were up nearly 2%, the semis up 4 1/2 percent. That is some serious, serious outperformance there. Take a look at this chart here, one we’ve shared often and as a matter of fact here, I’m going to do this really quick because you’ll see I created and drew this on March 10th just so you can know how firm we’ve remained in our views. I’ve not updated this chart at all. SMH to spy.
We talk about this one often. KIP shared it with members this morning. That’s a one year chart. I shared it originally as a two year chart. That’s the April lows from tariff mania. Anytime we’ve gotten to this lower end, we’ve said it then it was a fantastic buying opportunity. That’s when the semis began outperforming once again. That was the bottom, the March 30 lows.
And we’ve gone parabolic from there. Anytime you’re seeing this chart make all time highs, this is another all time high. Even though it seems counterintuitive, you want to be long stocks in this environment. It’s just like buying the S&P 500 at all time highs is better than any other time on average. Historically speaking. Then it’s better to buy at all time highs than just about any other day. It’s incredible when you think about it. And I know it seems counterintuitive, probably exactly why it works because the market loves to fool as many people as possible.
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So great to see there. We also had the S&P 500 also. Even though the SM, the SMH was much better. S&P 500 still hit an all time high. But it’s not just seven stocks. I’ll get to that. In our internals we also saw the equal weight S&P 500 hit an all time high. I mean even some of the under the radar sectors that we’ll talk about whether it’s value, I mean even software today hit I believe its highest level from its lows right there in that level.
So it’s not the Mag 7, it’s not just five stocks. And I’ll show some more here in a little bit as well. But here’s an important point. We shared this chart with members this morning as well from Charlie Belio. Phenomenal work here about what happens after an eight week gain like this. So this ranks the 20th biggest eight week, eight week rally since 1950. Phenomenal. But what do you see going forward from there? That’s what matters, right? The S and P has put up an average gain of 27%.
It was higher 94.7% of the time. Again, buying at all time highs. It seems counterintuitive, but there’s the proof of it right there. All right, for our last major index on the day to day, we did have one red on the screen, but it’s for a reason. This one. You don’t always like to find the exact reason, but this is a very clear Cut case. Energy stocks got hit hard to start the week as oil pulled back. You know, markets were still open globally yesterday.
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So gold was open, oil was open. So we’re seeing a reaction to some of yesterday’s moves. So that might make these moves even bigger. So energy got hit hard today after that move in oil which, which you know, led Dow’s only 30 stocks at the end of the day. So for the Dow 30, when you have some of your biggest holdings, you know a Chevron down 3 and a half percent, healthcare stocks down 3%. Right to finish down only 2 tenths of 1% is really kind of a non issue here for the Dow. And what we’re going to look at instead because we just hit an all time high from the Dow on Friday as well. We still closed above 50,000 today.
Phenomenal. What we like to see today was the transports led. All of our major indexes led just about everything except for the semis up over 2%, hitting their highest level in about a month as well. So that’s really good to see. And again, as a forward looking mechanism tells us energy prices are going to continue moving lower, that remains our call here. All right, one other chart here for the market that has, I mean just absolutely shocked us. You know we talked last week in my podcast and Kip talked about about it as well was AI. Now there are some other sentiment surveys that are a little bit more bullish, but I mean we just saw an eight week rally and here’s the AI with an 8% drop in bulls.
We got roughly 12% more bears than bulls despite the fact we just hit all time highs last week. And we’ll get an update on this one for Thursday. But here’s the really interesting one is that short interest, this is from Goldman Sachs. Short interest hit its highest level in years. That is just incredible. You know from this is short exposure in U.S. macro products. Okay, I almost don’t even know what to say here.
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That’s pretty incredible. When so much of the market is on one side, we love to take the other side of it. I mean the level of bearishness that we saw at the end of 2020, into 2021, there were zero economists who were bullish on the market. It was one thing that had us so bulled up for 2021. We went into 2022 very different. Right. So this is the kind of setup, even though it’s been such a huge move for our market, the kind of setup you would see when the real risk is for a short squeeze, not For a big downside move. We already got that this year so we’ll see how that plays out.
But, but wow, Wow. I mean I, that surprised us for sure. All right, we’ll kind of wrap it up here for the day. Looking our internals, I don’t want to move too fast past this because these were good numbers. Over 2 to 1 positive advanced decline on the NYSE just shy of that on the NASDAQ. 52 week highs and lows just blew away again, broadening. It’s not just the Mag 7 here. When you see equal weight hitting all time highs, the number of names hitting 52 week highs or all time highs today was very good to see.
Finally here. Volume also great. Just shy of 70 upside volume on the Nasdaq and a little bit less but still good beat here today from the NYSE as well for our sectors on the day we finished. Let’s see here, six out of our 11 sectors higher on the day to day. I got another all time high from the tech sector as you might expect. But industrials did really well today. That dip in oil prices certainly helps here. Materials did well.
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Our laggards on the day, as you might expect, Energy, but all defensive here. Energy, consumer staples and healthcare. So you know, really the areas you would like to see if you’re going to have a mixed market, of course we want to see all 11 higher. We want it all right. Just like Trump said in his inauguration speech, we’ve been told for years in this country to lower your expectations. It’s time to raise your expectations. Expect more from your leaders, expect more from yourself. There is so much abundance out there in this world and we can share it with so many people.
And that is what we look at as part of our job here at the VRA as well that you look at some of these huge companies out there where a company like Nvidia, I mean literally is making so much money and has spread it out throughout the industry and yet after their most recent earnings, they still did an $80 billion share buyback. Now there’s all kinds of reasons for that, but if I were to boil it down into one sentence, it’s essentially Nvidia said we’re making so much money right now that we can’t find anywhere else to park this cash except for buying our own stock. Yes, we’re the most valuable company in the world and we can’t find anything cheaper to buy, essentially. Right. Again, I’m skipping past a lot of the nuance there and that’s essentially what they’re saying incredible. Again, if you’re not here with us already, we want to help you to beat the market year in and year out. Come and join us. We’d love to have you with us.
All right, let’s wrap it up here today with our VRA commodity watch. We did have gold higher yesterday, so some of a little bit of catch up today. Last trade here, $4,541 an ounce. But the real action that you like to see, GDX almost up as much as the semis today, up over 4%. We want to see the miners leading this group just like you want to see the semis leading tech. And we saw the junior miners leading that as well. Four and a half percent. Even better.
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Everything we want to see from this group today. Next up here, silver. Let’s see, last trade. 77.27 an ounce. Copper, $6 and 42 cents a pound. Nearing an all time high there. It’s all time high. Six dollars and 64 cents a pound.
I believe that’s an all time high. And while that might seem concerning in some ways, it’s known as Dr. Copper tells you that people, there’s live demand out there. Oil, as I mentioned, was down on the day, you know, started out the day at about $90 a barrel. Came back a little bit here again, some of that trading yesterday, but $93.89 a barrel again, we do expect that to continue to come down. Finally here for today, bitcoin down a little bit. $75,981 Bitcoin, folks. That’s all that we have time for here today.
Please be sure to subscribe to receive our VRA podcast every day at the market close. You sign up @vraletter.com, click that link at the top and we’d love to have you with us. Thanks again for tuning in. Until next time, we’ll see you back here tomorrow for the close. I will actually be gone for the rest of the week this week. So thank you to everybody on the VRA team here for, for covering for me. I’ve got my best friend’s wedding coming up. Gonna be the best man there.
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So, you know, gotta go celebrate a little bit, but hope you all have a fantastic weekend already. I can’t wait to be back here with you next week to discuss everything going on in the market. So have a phenomenal week this week, everyone. We’ll see you back here tomorrow for the close.
In today's episode, Tyler breaks down a volatile market session shaped by geopolitical tensions, including an escalating Iranian conflict and a high-profile True Social post from Donald Trump. You’ll hear key insights on what’s happening under the surface of the markets, the resilience of the semiconductor sector despite heavy selling, and a dive into sentiment indicators that may surprise you. Tyler also shares his perspectives on the upcoming midterms, why political certainty matters to markets, and delivers an exciting update on SpaceX and its ambitious plans for Mars colonization. Plus, get the latest on sector performance, the Fear & Greed Index, and what the data means for investors looking ahead to the end of the year. Stay tuned for a well-rounded analysis and the contrarian moves shaping today’s market landscape. Tune into today's podcast to learn more.
Welcome to another episode of the VRA Investing Podcast with your host, Tyler Herriage. In today’s show, Tyler Herriage breaks down the strong start to the week for the markets, following a tough sell-off last Friday—the worst day of the year so far for the S&P 500. He discusses why there’s no need to panic, sharing historical stats that reinforce this bull market’s staying power and why short-term dips are just part of the journey. We’ll cover major headlines like Tesla’s surge on the back of big news from their newest major investor—the “Chinese Warren Buffett”—as well as what’s heating up in the IPO world with OpenAI’s recent filing. Tyler Herriage will review key index moves, sentiment readings, sector highlights, internals, and commodities including Bitcoin and notable winners like Galaxy Digital. Plus, he touches on practical investment strategies, the outlook for VRA’s favorite “10 bagger” stocks, and why now could be a generational opportunity for retail investors. Stay tuned for all the essential stats, stories, and actionable insights from today’s market action!
In today's episode, Kip breaks down a turbulent Friday in the markets, where a brutal selloff sent shockwaves through major sectors but also revealed underlying signals of opportunity. From a rare 39% spike in the VIX to sharp declines in semiconductors, gold, and bitcoin, Kip explores why volatility is the true price of admission in bull markets and why panic selling may be the biggest mistake investors can make right now. With insights on recent jobs data, upcoming IPOs, and critical market indicators, this episode is packed with the actionable analysis and contrarian perspective you need to navigate today's market chaos and prepare for the opportunities ahead. Tune into today's podcast to learn more.
In today’s episode, Tyler breaks down a record-setting day in the markets, with the Dow Jones and other major indexes hitting all-time highs. He discusses current market trends, the breadth expansion, and the rotation of this bull market, highlighting the persistent strength beyond the headline-making “Magnificent Seven” stocks. Tune into today's podcast to learn more.
Welcome back to the VRA Investing Podcast! It’s a jam-packed Wednesday as Kip Herriage returns after three days away with an in-depth market update. Today, Kip Herriage breaks down the end of the market’s nine-day winning streak, why he believes this is a "buy the dip" moment, and how the VRA System signals there’s plenty of room left in this powerful, long-lasting bull market. He covers headlines from a parabolic surge in semiconductors and AI stocks, to the impact of global events on oil and rates, and the market’s anticipation for the SpaceX IPO. On the company front, we get updates on Tesla's breakthrough robo-taxi rollouts in Austin and promising news for Lost Soldier investors. Kip Herriage also unpacks the latest in Bitcoin volatility, gold and miners, and why retail investors may be selling the recovery short. Strap in for a fast-moving, insight-packed episode that puts the week’s major financial headlines into sharp focus!
