I won’t say much more than that, you can get a feel for what he’s got to say below and make sure to check out his latest briefing with Jim Rickards about what they expect the US government is about to do that could move the needle on thress resource stocks.

But now… over to “The CEO”…

We’ve seen this story before. The last time gasoline prices rose like this was 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Now the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran and we’re back to escalating fuel prices clobbering the global economy.

Here’s what I mean…On February 23, 2026, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. was $2.97. On March 17, 2026, the average price of a gallon of gasoline jumped to $3.79.

That’s a huge 28% increase in less than a month. And it echoes what happened in 2022.

The average cost of energy jumped 22% year over year in 2022, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). And it sent U.S. inflation over 9% for the first time since 1981.

Most of that price increase came from transportation. For example, the price of jet fuel jumped from $1.22 per gallon in 2020 to $3.25 per gallon in 2022. That means a full load of aviation gas for a 747 jumped from $61,000 in 2020 to $162,500. The airlines have no choice but to pass on that additional $100,000 per flight to customers.

Our deliveries are also facing higher trucking costs. The average price of diesel fuel jumped $1.34 per gallon in the past month. That’s a 36% increase that companies simply can’t afford to pay themselves. That’s going to hit us everywhere, from our grocery stores, department stores, Amazon shipments, etc. And it may not be a huge increase, but it is another form of inflation.

That’s another parallel to 2022…companies like UPS, FedEx, and airlines now add fuel surcharges to offset the rising fuel costs. That’s an immediate and hidden source of inflation.

The market recognized this problem, as you can see in this chart of the S&P 500 Air Freight and Logistics Industry Index:

Shares are well off their February 2026 highs. And if the oil price continues to rise, we can expect this to continue to fall.

If we look back at this group in 2022, you can see it fell 30%:

A similar decline today would push the Index down to 700.

One inflationary pressure that isn’t subtle is our daily commute costs. Soaring gasoline prices clobbered us. About 115 million Americans still drive to work. The additional cost (from February 2026 to today) adds up to about $118 million per workday. That’s overt inflation. And as I just filled up my tank, I can tell you…it stings.

Dr. Patrick Penfield, a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University, told the Associated Press that fuel prices account for 50% to 60% of the total operating cost of moving goods by ship. That’s why higher fuel prices have a huge effect on the industry.

This will have a significant impact on the U.S. economy. If gasoline prices stay this high, they could push monthly inflation up as much as 1% in March. That would be the highest monthly increase in four years. And it could push the annual inflation rate over 3%.

Our takeaway is simple – review your positions. Understand that transportation stocks could be in for more pain in the short term. And they could be a good sector to bargain hunt once things in Iran calm down.

Best,

The CEO

PS If you’re wondering who in the heck is this “CEO” well all is revealed in a new presentation from Jim rickards and “The CEO” which went live yeserday call, “The Big Dig” all about how this war in Iran is impacting the metals and resources markets along with three stocks they believe the US government is set to take an equity stake in to protect the national interests.

If you missed “The Big Dig” you can see Jim and “The CEO’s” briefing here.

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Sam Volkering

Investment Director

Southbank Investment Research

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of Investor’s Daily UK is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in Investor’s Daily UK is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it.

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The rockets, the AI ventures, the main character energy.

Even Musk leans into the Iron Man vibes… he had a cameo in Iron Man 2 back in 2010.

It’s a fun comparison and the media loves it.

But if we’re being honest about who actually fits the mould, the real-world Tony Stark isn’t Musk.

It’s Palmer Luckey.

Or more precisely, the version of Stark who built the next-gen weapons before he became a superhero and all altruistic.

And right now, Luckey’s company, Anduril Industries, is rapidly becoming the most important, most exciting, most hotly IPO-anticipated defence company in the world

From a garage to a $60 billion war machine

Luckey was born in Long Beach, California, building lasers and coil guns in his parents’ garage as a teenager. By 16, he was designing his own virtual reality headsets. By 20, he’d founded Oculus VR, a virtual reality headset company.

Just two years later he sold it to Facebook for$2.3 billion.

Then things went a bit sideways.

A political donation to a pro-Trump (yes, the current US president) group turned into a media firestorm, and Luckey was pushed out of Facebook – from his own Oculus division, mind you – in 2017.

I mean, when you really think about it, Mark Zuckerberg pushing Luckey out of Facebook may have single-handedly changed the direction and future of American warfare.

And at the time, no one realised.

Because within months of Luckey’s exit, he co-founded Anduril Industries with former Palantir executives, backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

Anduril comes from Tolkien, the reforged sword of Aragorn. Translated from Elvish, it means “Flame of the West.”

If that sounds dramatic, well, it’s supposed to. That’s exactly what Anduril has been working on.

Since 2017, the company has grown from a small border security startup into a full-spectrum next-generation defence and weaponry technology company.

Its Lattice operating system is an AI-powered command and control platform that integrates sensors, drones, autonomous vehicles, and weapons systems into one unified battlefield picture.

The company now builds autonomous drones, loitering munitions, submersible drones, collaborative combat aircraft, and counter-drone systems. It took over the US Army’s IVAS augmented reality programme from Microsoft.

And it’s constructing Arsenal-1.

Arsenal-1 is destined to be a “hyperscale” manufacturing campus that would do for defense what Henry Ford did for the automobile.

Revenue doubled to roughly $2 billion in 2025 and is expected to nearly double again to $4.3 billion in 2026. A new funding round would value the company at $60 billion, nearly double its valuation from last summer.

I expect Anduril to hit the Nasdaq this year… or at the very least announce an IPO.

But as important as this backstory and context are…none of that is why I’m writing today.

Why I’m writing is because, last Friday, the US Army awarded Anduril a contract worth up to $20 billion over 10years. The deal now makes Anduril’s technology accessible to the entire US Department of War.

Already, there’s an $87 million deal to deploy Lattice as the command and control backbone for the Pentagon’s counter-drone operations under Joint Interagency Task Force 401.

And the US Navy has chosen Anduril to develop its unmanned submarine systems.

All of this came in just the last week.

The timing is not accidental.

Operation Epic Fury is consuming munitions, and drone-defence assets are now possibly the most important line of defence for countries everywhere.

The urgency for next-generation defence is real, and it’s Anduril that’s at the centre of it all.

Follow the metals, not just the machines

Clearly, for investors, the temptation is to fixate on Anduril itself. And I get it. If I could buy the stock of any private company tomorrow, Anduril would be top of my list.

For me, it’s arguably the best-value non-public company in the world right now. That’s saying something when you look at OpenAI and Anthropic (I really like them too, but their valuations are eye-watering). $60 billion for Anduril? Yes please!

But the bigger investment opportunity here sits underneath the end product.

Every autonomous drone Anduril builds requires rare earth permanent magnets for its motors.

Every sensor array uses neodymium and samarium for precision guidance.

The airframes rely on titanium for strength-to-weight ratios.

Gallium arsenide and gallium nitride underpin the radar systems.

Lithium powers the batteries.

Tantalum and tungsten sit inside capacitors and armour-piercing components.

Next-gen weaponry and autonomous systems are utterly and absolutely reliant on the supply of critical metals.

But we all know the problem here. China controls roughly 70% of global rare earth mining and over 85% of the processing capacity.

The Pentagon’s own audits have found it lacks the data to even project shortfalls for nearly half the materials it considers critical to national security.

This is why the defence supply chain story is, in my view, a bigger and more important trade than any single defence company.

The Pentagon knows it.

Congress knows it.

Trump knows it.

That’s why there’s such an emphasis on “reshoring” these critical metals by accessing deposits in America, and also bringing in metals from overseas (places like Australia)… and refining and producing them in America.

It’s a long-term opportunity that demonstrates immense demand for everything America needs and wants to arm itself, rearm itself, and protect itself… and the allies that stand alongside it.

But this is no market for the faint-hearted. The market is volatile, the companies boom out of nowhere, and many bust overnight. Knowing who to trust, who to listen to, and where to invest is as important as knowing about this story to begin with.

We’ll be discussing this soon at The Big Dig, an event Jim Rickards and a man he only refers to as “The CEO” will be hosting on Monday, 23 March at 4 pm GMT. One click will get you on.

Anduril might be the name on these big war contracts. But when you pull apart the supply chain, the real asymmetric opportunities are in the metals and minerals that the US is desperate to lock down for national security.

And for that, I think we can thank Mark Zuckerberg for kicking Palmer Luckey out of Facebook in 2017.

Until next time,

Sam Volkering
Investment Director, Southbank Investment Research

PS Palmer Luckey may be building the future of warfare… but he can’t do it without rare earths, lithium, and critical metals. That’s where the real battle is being fought and where the biggest investment opportunities are emerging. We’ve scheduled an urgent, critical briefing for Monday, 23 March at 4 pm GMT to prepare investors for this shift. One click here will secure your spot here.

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Southbank Investment Research

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of Investor’s Daily UK is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in Investor’s Daily UK is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it.

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

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© 2026 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697.

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It was fun (a bit early for me) but a lot of interesting stuff. A highlight was when he said “trillions” and the stock price ripped higher, only to give it all back when he started banging on about NVLINK upgrades.

Anyway check it out if you’re into what the most advanced AI company is going to deliver next, and my commentary about it all. (A friend likened it to a director’s commentary on a DVD, which I think is a compliment).

Onto today’s essay… this time brought to you by renowned tech entrepreneur and expert, James Altucher.

What happens when the Iran uncertainty disappears

James Altucher

Everyone’s scared right now.

I get it.

War. Iran. Oil. Chaos.

But let me tell you something nobody on TV is saying.

This might be the greatest wealth-creation event of our lifetime.

Here’s what’s actually happening on the ground.

The United States looks to have control of Iranian airspace. Iran’s navy is all but gone. Its missile capability is down 90%. Nobody really knows who is running the country right now.

Think about that for a second.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

What happened next?

A peace dividend that lasted a decade. Trillions added to markets. A tech boom nobody predicted. Opportunities nobody saw coming.

Iran has been the single greatest source of oil market uncertainty for 47 years.

Forty. Seven. Years.

That era is ending.

People tell me: “James, supply chains are permanently broken.”

No, they’re not.

Supply chains survived Iran-Iraq. Survived the Houthis strangling the Strait of Hormuz. Survived decades of nuclear brinkmanship.

Supply chains are cockroaches.

They can always survive more than everyone thinks.

Here’s what I keep coming back to.

The United States is a net oil exporter. It doesn’t need Iranian oil. It never did. And yet Iranian instability held a gun to global oil prices for half a century.

That gun is being put down.

So what do I do with my money?

I’d short USO – the United States Oil Fund that tracks crude futures – and cover 50% lower.

I’d go long every risk-on asset I can find – AI software, crypto, anything that breathes when fear leaves the room.

Some people will say I’m being overly optimistic.

I am optimistic.

Am I naive?

I don’t think so.

The 47-year Iranian uncertainty trade is ending.

And here’s the part I believe makes this moment truly historic.

It’s not just geopolitical paradigms that are shifting.

It’s technological paradigms too.

Simultaneously.

Because while the world is watching missiles fly across the Middle East…

Another transformation is happening quietly beneath the surface.

Governments are scrambling to secure the resources that power the next technological era.

AI infrastructure. Semiconductors. Defence systems. Electric grids.

None of it works without the metals that come out of the ground.

Lithium. Rare earths. Copper. Antimony. Gallium.

And right now Washington is making moves that suggest it understands exactly how strategic those resources are.

Moves that could direct trillions of dollars into mining and resource companies in the years ahead.

If that happens, the biggest winners from this geopolitical reset won’t necessarily be oil companies.

They’ll likely be the companies supplying the raw materials that power the next industrial revolution.

That’s exactly what “The CEO” will be explaining in an invitation-only online event on 23 March called The Big Dig
.

During the briefing, he’ll walk through:

• Why the global scramble for natural resources is just beginning

• The government moves that could unleash a massive mining boom

• And three specific stocks positioned to benefit from it

If you want to understand what’s really happening beneath the headlines – and how investors could profit from it – you can reserve your free spot here.

Click here to claim your free pass to The Big Dig on 23 March.

Best,

James Altucher
Contributing Editor, Investor’s Daily

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Sam Volkering

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Southbank Investment Research

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of Investor’s Daily UK is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in Investor’s Daily UK is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it.

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2026 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697.

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Yesterday, I traced the straight line from the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, through a century of oil-driven conflict, to the bombs falling on Iran right now.

Or at least I tried to condense what is an incredibly complex geopolitical history into something relatively direct and easy to follow.

The point being that oil is really the name of the game in this conflict. But that should surprise no one.

BP [LON:BP] became a strategic powerhouse out of the Sykes-Picot era. British Petroleum literally began as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Churchill’s strategic play to fuel the Royal Navy. Shell’s [LON:SHEL] roots in the Middle East run just as deep after being a primary beneficiary of the carve up of the Ottoman Empire.

But in 2026, these companies are no longer the primary beneficiaries of Middle Eastern conflict.

They still produce and refine oil globally, and higher crude prices lift their earnings. BP is yielding over 5% right now and remains a solid dividend play. But neither BP nor Shell is positioned to capture the most asymmetric gains from this particular disruption.

The real winners sit across the Atlantic.

Shutting off supply

ExxonMobil [NYSE:XOM] is trading near its all-time high, around US$150 and is already up roughly 23% year to date. The company produced 4.7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day last quarter, beat earnings estimates and committed to US$20 billion in share buybacks for 2026.

Chevron [NYSE:CVX] hit a new 52-week high in the early days of the conflict, trading well over US$190. Its breakeven level for maintaining spending and dividends sits around US$50 a barrel, which means that at current prices the company is generating enormous free cash flow.

These are companies built for exactly this kind of environment.

ConocoPhillips [NYSE:COP], Marathon Petroleum [NYSE:MPC], and Diamondback Energy [NASDAQ:FANG] are all in the same boat.

Hence it’s no surprise that the energy sector has been the top-performing S&P 500 sector in 2026, up nearly 27% year-to-date while technology stocks have slipped into the red. That rotation was already underway before Iran. The war has now accelerated it.

Now, I still believe this conflict is largely about oil. And I say that partly because of the action the US has taken in Venezuela as well.

But if you’re thinking perhaps there’s even more to this than deep historic control of oil, you might also be right…

Qatar produces roughly 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas. When Iran struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility and effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, that entire supply went offline overnight. Qatar declared force majeure on exports.

If you like a good mystery, then consider this. The US likely knew exactly how Iran would respond. And the real strategic move here may not simply be about controlling Middle Eastern supply. It may also be about squeezing China.

China gets about 38% of its crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

When that chokepoint closed, it didn’t just disrupt Qatari LNG. It threatened the energy lifeline that keeps the world’s second-largest economy running.

China has a strategic petroleum reserve, but estimates vary wildly on how long it lasts — anywhere from 40 to 90 days.

If the Strait remains contested, and the US is not especially motivated to reopen it quickly (despite public claims), China could face an energy shock that Washington might actually welcome.

And that creates a very specific kind of leverage.

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Sam Volkering will be hosting a LIVE (like, really LIVE) watch-along livestream of the GTC conference on YouTube.

Join the Livestream

Sam will also have a live chat open for Southbank YouTube subscribers to ask anything and everything about GTC 2026, Nvidia and the rollout of AI. Just head to the YouTube page livesteam, subscriber and enjoy!

GTC 2026 Livestream with Sam Volkering

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It’s critical to these metals

China also happens to control the global supply of several critical metals that sit at the heart of the AI, semiconductor and defence build-outs every Western nation is racing to complete.

We’re talking about antimony, gallium, germanium.

Materials most people have never heard of, but without which modern chips, infrared optics, military-grade electronics and solar panels cannot be produced.

There is a good reason these metals were all designated strategically important to US national security by President Trump.

China refines around 80% of the world’s gallium and germanium. It also controls a dominant share of global antimony supply. Beijing has already weaponised that position, restricting gallium and germanium exports since mid-2023 and tightening antimony controls in late 2024.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

If the US and its allies are effectively squeezing China’s energy imports by keeping the Strait contested, China’s leverage over critical metals becomes a bargaining chip, not a trump card. It is difficult to pressure the US with mineral supply restrictions while your own energy lifeline is being threatened.

Whether this is by design or accident is the conspiracy question.

But the result is the same.

The conflict is exposing a codependency that both sides have been dancing around for years. China needs energy routes that run through waters it doesn’t control. Meanwhile, the West relies on refined metals from supply chains it does not own.

Feels a bit like a good old fashioned Mexican standoff.

The US and its allies are painfully short of domestic refining capacity for these metals. That was a known vulnerability before the first missile was launched. Now it’s front and centre.

The nations and companies that can build or secure alternative supply chains for antimony, gallium and germanium will hold a major advantage in the AI and defence arms race that shows no sign of slowing down.

Which makes investing in critical metals, commodities and resource production arguably one of the most important opportunities of 2026.

Of course, the risks are real.

If the conflict resolves quickly and the Strait reopens, the pressure on China’s energy supply eases immediately. A rapid de-escalation would likely take the geopolitical premium from markets almost as quickly as it appeared.

But even if this war ended tomorrow, the world has just received a brutal reminder.

Critical mineral supply chains and energy corridors had been operating as though geopolitical risk barely existed.

That illusion has now been shattered.

The race to secure domestic sources and strategic reserves of oil, gas and the metals underpinning next-generation military, AI and semiconductor infrastructure has suddenly become the highest priority for governments everywhere.

A century ago, Churchill needed oil and reached into the Middle East to get it.

They are oil — plus the antimony in flame retardants, the gallium in radar systems, the germanium in fibre optics and the advanced AI hardware – capable of guiding a drone to a target the size of a football from 10,000 miles away.

The Sykes-Picot era created oil giants in BP, Shell, and Chevron. This era will create a new generation of critical resource giants.

Which companies those will be…

Only time will tell.

Regards,

Sam Volkering
Investment Director, Southbank Investment Research

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Sam Volkering

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Southbank Investment Research

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of Investor’s Daily UK is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in Investor’s Daily UK is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it.

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2026 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697.

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Almost a decade ago, I wrote a two-part essay about the secret agreement that carved up the Middle East and helped ignite a century of conflict over oil.

It traced how Britain and France drew lines on a map, how Churchill pivoted the Royal Navy from coal to oil and suddenly needed to control the supply, and how the Americans later arrived with their own playbook for energy dominance.

At the time, it felt like a history lesson.

But it was also a roadmap.

Because the story from a decade ago is the same story today. The same story in the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1980s and the 1990s.

Not much really changes. What changes is what the world remembers.

And what’s happening right now in the Middle East looks eerily familiar. At the very least, it’s the latest chapter in a century-long struggle for control of the world’s most important resource.

On 28 February, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury, a coordinated strike campaign against Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and levelled military infrastructure across the country.

Iran retaliated with missiles and drones, hitting energy facilities across the Gulf, closing the Strait of Hormuz and dragging a dozen nations into what is now the largest oil supply disruption in history.

Crude oil surged past US$110 a barrel. Roughly 20% of global supply has been taken offline. Qatar has shut its LNG facilities, Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura refinery has gone dark, Kuwait Petroleum has declared force majeure, and more than 200 tankers now sit anchored at the edge of the Strait waiting to move.

It’s so bad that according to Politics UK, “The AA and RAC are advising drivers to conserve fuel and cut back on non-essential journeys amid fears soaring oil prices will increase petrol costs,”

The official line from Washington is that this is about nuclear weapons. Iran was enriching uranium beyond civilian use, the window to act was narrowing, and preemptive strikes were the only option.

Maybe. But we’ve heard this story before.

The Sykes-Picot playbook

On 16 May 1916, Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot signed a secret agreement that would define the next hundred years of conflict in the Middle East.

The deal divided the collapsing Ottoman Empire into British and French spheres of influence. Britain took Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), Palestine and access to the Persian Gulf. France took Syria and Lebanon.

The motivation was oil. Churchill had already shifted the Royal Navy from coal to oil. He understood that if Britain wanted to rule the seas, it needed access to reliable petroleum supplies.

But fuelling the most powerful fleet on Earth required something more than access. It required control.

Churchill told Parliament in 1913, “Safety and certainty in oil lie in variety and variety alone”

The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, eventually BP [LON:BP], was Britain’s first foothold.

After World War I, the San Remo conference formalised the carve-up. Britain took control of Iraq’s oil. France got 25%. The Americans got nothing.

But the United States had its own strategy.

Where Britain relied on colonial influence, America used dollar diplomacy.

By the 1940s, the Standard Oil Company of California (now Chevron [NYSE:CVX]) had secured Saudi oil rights. Its subsidiary eventually became Saudi Aramco, today the most valuable company on Earth.

President Franklin Roosevelt soon declared that the defence of Saudi Arabia was vital to the defence of the United States.

That statement has shaped U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East for the past 80 years.

From backing Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, many major interventions in the region ultimately trace back to securing energy supply.

WMDs, nuclear threats, and the question that won’t go away

In 2003, George W. Bush told the world that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair stood shoulder to shoulder with him.

Years later, inspections confirmed what many suspected.

There were no WMDs.

Now, in 2026, Trump insists Iran was on the verge of building a nuclear weapon. Yet his own Director of National Intelligence testified to Congress that Iran was not building one.

Envoy Steve Witkoff claimed Tehran was a week away from the bomb. Defence officials simultaneously said they’d already destroyed Iran’s nuclear capability in strikes last year.

The contradictions are extraordinary. And the pattern feels familiar.

This time, however, the alignment is different. In 2003 it was America and Britain standing shoulder to shoulder.

In 2026, it’s America and Israel.

Now, there is one meaningful difference between Iraq then and Iran now. Iran actually does have a nuclear programme. It has enriched uranium beyond civilian levels and restricted international inspectors.

But whether Iran was actually building a nuclear weapon, or even close to one, remains deeply contested, even inside the White House.

And that’s where the story begins to look familiar again.

Because the moment the first missiles hit Tehran, the oil price spiked.

The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply, and the moment conflict threatens that chokepoint, markets react instantly.

So you have to ask a simple question.

If Washington knew this would send oil prices higher, why strike now? Why risk rising fuel costs heading into mid-term elections?

The answer, at least according to the administration, is simple.

Short-term pain for long-term gain.

And that long-term gain will show up in very specific places: oil markets, commodities supply chains and ultimately in who controls the energy flows of the region.

But there’s another difference between this conflict and the Middle Eastern oil wars of the past.

In 2003, the UK marched in lockstep with the United States. Blair and Bush were inseparable. British companies, military forces and diplomacy were deeply embedded in the campaign.

In 2026, Britain isn’t even in the room.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer initially refused US requests to use British bases for strikes on Iran. When he eventually relented, Trump publicly called him a loser, compared him unfavourably to Churchill (an idol of Trump’s), and posted that the UK’s aircraft carriers were no longer needed.

The irony is extraordinary.

Churchill once centred Britain’s military strategy on Middle Eastern oil, at a time when America wasn’t even at the table.

A century later, Britain has been told to sit down while America runs the latest chapter of the same campaign.

Whether Starmer was right to hesitate or not isn’t the point. The result is the same. Britain has been sidelined. And when the dust settles, it will be American and Israeli interests that shape whatever comes next.

For UK investors, that matters.

Because it means British industry takes a seat on the bench too. The companies positioned to benefit most from disrupted oil markets and the long-term geopolitical shift are overwhelmingly American.

And that’s exactly where we’re heading tomorrow…

Because if this war really is about oil, and I suspect it largely is, then the companies making the biggest gains today aren’t the old Sykes-Picot beneficiaries like Shell and BP.

They’re a new breed of energy giants. Some of them are already seeing their share prices surge as the global energy power balance begins to shift again.

Tomorrow, we follow the money.

Until then,

Sam Volkering
Investment Director, Southbank Investment Research

P.S. If the past century of Middle Eastern conflict teaches us anything, it’s this: the real power in geopolitics isn’t ideology. It’s resources.

Oil shaped alliances, wars and entire foreign policies for more than 100 years. Nations fought to control it because whoever controlled the resources controlled the future.

Now something remarkable may be happening in the United States.

Instead of fighting over resources abroad, Washington is beginning to unlock the enormous wealth already sitting beneath its own land. In fact, a recent Supreme Court decision could open the door to monetising what some estimate to be a $150 trillion stockpile of metals, minerals and natural resources across federal lands.

And if that happens, the biggest beneficiaries won’t necessarily be the oil majors or defence contractors dominating today’s headlines.

They could be a handful of little-known mineral rights companies positioned right at the centre of this shift.

You can see how this opportunity may unfold here.

Click here...

Polltelligence 🗳️

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Quote of the day

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Sam Volkering

Investment Director

Southbank Investment Research

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of Investor’s Daily UK is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in Investor’s Daily UK is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it.

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2026 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697.

https://register.fca.org.uk

Ed note: WAR is raging, conflict is everywhere. In times like these, you have to look at your investments and figure out where to next. That’s why this week and next we’re looking at…

And to kick it all off, here’s Nick Hubble…

Will detransitioning the energy system work?

All around the world, governments are turning their backs on net zero. And where the government hasn’t woken up yet, an anti-net zero political party is polling ahead of them.

It is therefore only a matter of time before net zero commitments end.

The big question now is what energy policies will replace them.

Will renewables manage to stand on their own two feet without subsidies, vast power grid rollouts, subsidised batteries, and curtailment cheques?

Will we transition back to coal? Its price is certainly spiking lately.

Will we continue the pivot to gas, but produced domestically to shore up supply lines?

Or will we try something new, like a nuclear-dominated system?

Each of these options has plenty of merit. What’s not well understood is how well and badly some of them combine on the same grid. Sometimes into a toxic mix.

A mix made in hell

Governments love to tell us that our energy sources should be a mix. Which sounds sensible at first.

Relying on just one source of power seems risky. Diversification means stability, right? Don’t put all your power sources into one basket.

But it’s simply not true.

The most successful energy grids take advantage of local conditions to the extreme. Hydropower provides about 90% of Norway’s electricity. Paraguay gets 99.7% of its power that way too. Selling solar panels in Paraguay to “diversify the mix” would be silly.

Some forms of power are very well suited to dominating a grid.Nuclear is a good example. France is the country that demonstrates the benefits of doing exactly that.

Some forms of generation fit together like puzzle pieces. . Renewables and pumped hydro, for example.

Others combine like the contents of a punch at a university frat party.

Nuclear power is nobody’s switch

The trouble with nuclear is that it struggles to combine well with other forms of power.

At the moment, France is curtailing its nuclear output to make room for solar power.

It’s difficult for me to convey just how dumb this is. But I’ll give it a good go…

The first point is simple: carbon-neutral power is pushing carbon-neutral power out of the mix. There is no gain in terms of emissions.

Although, of course, all those solar panels did cause plenty of environmental damage while they were being made.

But it’s the costs that expose the stupidity of adding solar to the French grid.

Nuclear power has very low marginal cost and very high fixed costs. Producing less nuclear power doesn’t save the power plant much money. It has to pay its whopping bills whether it’s running at 100% or 50% of capacity.

That means nuclear only makes sense if you run it as close to full capacity as possible.

When nuclear gives way to solar, it becomes expensive per unit of power produced.

So, the French are undermining the viability of their nuclear plants for no benefit. It’s a terrible thing to do. Naturally, this is exactly what the UK now plans to emulate.

The value of a nuclear plant is that it works when the sun doesn’t shine. So you don’t need a solar power system to back it up. Whereas solar does need some form of backup. If that’s gas, it pollutes. If it’s nuclear, that undermines nuclear power when the sun is shining.

The point is that solar and nuclear are a mix made in hell. Unless you give nuclear power priority to produce baseload under fixed long-term contracts and leave solar power doing the curtailment. Unfortunately, solar farms tend to demand rather a lot of money to be curtailed…

Much the same goes for wind, by the way. Which makes all those windfarms a poison pill to our future electricity system. Whatever we use for power will have to combine well with wind farms.

The only good news is that wind turbines don’t seem to last as long as it says on the label. And it takes us so long to build nuclear that it really could replace wind by the time it’s ready.

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Tied at the hip

Another major decision concerns interdependence.How much do we want to rely on our neighbours for our power?

According to Karthryn Porter of the Watt Logic blog, we came mighty close to a blackout in January last year. The Danes performed a last-minute rescue by bringing their interconnection cable back from maintenance early.

And so a bigger grid makes more sense at first glance. It creates redundancy. And opens us up to a bigger mix of energy supply types.

The weather is unlikely to be the same across Europe. So interconnectors can combat the intermittency of renewables by offsetting them against each other.

But we’ve also discovered some downsides that weren’t mentioned when a European-wide grid was sold to us.

There’s the possibility someone simply cuts the cables. As someone did to Germany’s Nord Stream pipelines.The Russians have been busy mapping our subsea connector cables, for example.

Then there’s pricing power. Countries supplying electricity through interconnectors can demand eye-watering prices during shortages.

Recently, the Norwegian government has been considering cutting energy links with the South. They expected renewable energy to flow north during years of drought. Instead, the continent is sucking Norway’s water resources and power resources dry at the same time.

Besides, weather patterns around Europe do tend to be correlated, so we’re all bidding for the small amount of dispatchable energy when the weather turns against us.

In many countries, power supply is tied to other priorities like water reserves. Or the price instability of other countries is too much for the local market.

And foreign partners aren’t always as reliable as they seem when you sink multi-decade power infrastructure into the ground. Just ask the Germans about their Russian gas.

Choices must be made soon

The latest spike in gas prices is the final straw. Governments will have to announce measures soon.

The Financial Times reports that “Eight former UK energy ministers have called for the government to curb restrictions and taxes on the North Sea oil and gas industry.” And inside the EU, populist governments are already pushing to water down carbon constraints.

With our future energy system shaping up to be such an almighty mess, I can’t help but wonder whether small modular reactors may yet prove to be the solution. But only if they can circumvent the problems of our fouled-up energy grid.

They’d have to be rolled out very fast, avoiding the planning bottlenecks that slow every major UK project.

They’d have to be deployed on small microgrids in locations that opt out of the mess renewables have made for our national and international grid. (This would also dodge the vast transmission system cost.) Adding SMRs to the main grid would be an even bigger cost nightmare by adding to curtailment bills during windy and sunny days.

They’d have to be cost efficient, including the waste handling.

And they would likely need funding from entities capable of absorbing the upfront burden — large industrial power users such as AI data centres.

Although nobody in their right mind would build an energy system based on SMRs, we’re not starting with a blank slate. We’re starting with a messed up planning system, a messed up energy system and a messed up grid design.

So, as often happens in technology, the best solution is not to fix the old system but to circumvent it with something better, even if it’s not perfect.

The gains on offer for the technology that manages to circumvent our broken electricity system will be extraordinary.

Until next time,

Nick Hubble

Polltelligence 🗳️

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Quote of the day

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Investment Director

Southbank Investment Research

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of Investor’s Daily UK is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in Investor’s Daily UK is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it.

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2026 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697.

https://register.fca.org.uk

Back in January we pointed out that financial crises rarely hit hardest where they begin. The real question is who was relying on a crisis not to occur.

Usually, it’s an overleveraged bank or trader half a hemisphere away that gets caught out. From that point on, it’s domino day. Counterparty risk triggers a cascading series of failures until the government steps in with a bailout.

As Warren Buffett put it, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” And the tide has gone out in the Strait of Hormuz.

Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, has a habit of sitting on the beach and waiting for the tide to go out. When the tide goes out, it sells clothes to the skinny dippers at exorbitant prices.

That’s how Buffett came to own vast holdings in many of America’s most famous corporate names during the 2008 crisis…

In September 2008, Berkshire Hathaway injected $5 billion into Goldman Sachs to help stabilise the bank.

In October 2008, Berkshire invested $3 billion in preferred stock in General Electric.

In February 2009, Berkshire “helped” Harley Davidson’s finance arm to the tune of $300 million at 15% interest.

In 2009, Berkshire invested to help fund Dow’s acquisition of Rohm & Haas with $3 billion backing.

In August 2011, investors were worried Bank of America was running short on capital due to mortgage-related losses. Berkshire provided a $5 billion infusion, earning a 6% dividend.

Today, I’m suggesting you use the same strategy. Prepare to invest in the companies that were caught out by the war in Iran.

On the lookout for skinny dippers

The first big victim is the Japanese stock market. It plunged as traders discovered Japan imports 90% of its oil from the Middle East, largely through the Strait of Hormuz.

I’m going to be polite here. Japan didn’t learn its lesson from World War II. It was caught swimming naked in the oil market.

The Korean stock exchange was caught up in the same selloff. The KOSPI index fell 7% and then 12% in two days!

But both governments are already pivoting.

Japan’s return to nuclear power is rapidly displacing its usage of natural gas, which has spiked in price. This will serve as a lesson to other countries too. Those willing to look, anyway. Which excludes ours.

The point is that Japanese and Korean stocks will soon be a buy as the energy crisis abates or forces policy action.

Also of interest are the long-haul airlines that use the Middle East as a hub. Indeed, the airline industry has been carving up the globe in bizarre flight patterns since the war in Ukraine kicked off. Avoiding particular countries’ airspace adds huge costs.

Once geopolitical conflicts die down, these companies will experience an extraordinary cost cutting tailwind. Their fuel will be cheaper, demand for travel will bounce back and their flight paths will be shorter. It’s also likely their emissions won’t be targeted by climate alarmist governments as oil and gas suddenly become more fashionable industries.

At one point, Japan Airlines stock was down 13% from its closing price on Friday while the country experienced record tourism…

Qantas fell about 18%. I’m expecting the Aussie dollar to soar in the coming years, which is great news for the airline.

Alongside stocks that are beaten down by the crisis, there are also opportunities in the political response to it…

Radical political change is afoot

The situation in Europe is politically fascinating for investors. European gas storage levels have been trending at unusually low levels since winter. That made sense because new sources of supply are now open. Europe’s capacity to import seaborne LNG during winter is high.

But now Qatar’s gas fields have declared force majeure on gas exports. They can’t produce the gas contracted for sale.

The UK’s gas price just surged by a record amount in two days. Now Europe faces months of refilling gas storage at very high prices if it can find the stuff.

For the second time in five years, Europe is at the mercy of a geopolitical energy crisis beyond its control. Once again it is reliant on the Americans.

If governments don’t wake up and permit domestic oil and gas production, voters will abandon them for parties that promise to.

European oil and gas stocks are primed to soar. More on that soon.

Until next time,

Nick Hubble
Editor at Large, Investor’s Daily

P.S. Moments like this are when fortunes quietly get made.

When markets panic, most investors run for safety. But the smartest capital starts looking for the opportunities created by the chaos.

That’s exactly the kind of moment James Altucher believes we’re entering right now.

In fact, he believes one of the biggest investment opportunities of the decade could soon arrive in the form of what may become the largest IPO valuation in history.

And he’s identified a little-known company that could give investors a way to benefit before that IPO happens.

You can see the full presentation here.

Polltelligence 🗳️

Leave a comment

Quote of the day

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Investment Director

Southbank Investment Research

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of Investor’s Daily UK is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in Investor’s Daily UK is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it.

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2026 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697.

https://register.fca.org.uk

That’s right, Sam Volkering here former editor of AI Collision. I saw “former” but we rolled AI Collision into Investor’s Daily UK and hence, we took a bit of a sabbatical from Substack.

But as I like to put it…

So you can expect more coverage of the AI Collision, as well as a whole bunch of other important information, analysis and research coming your way from me, Jim Rickards (war expert, pretty handy right now) and James Altucher (AI expert, also pretty handy right now).

It will all be from Investor’s Daily UK, but of course if you’re just not that into me/us anymore, I get it… break ups are hard, specially when they come back into your life…

Anyway, we’re back, we’re now just Investor’s Daily UK but share us, comment, like, answer polls enjoy my GIFs, and generally welcome back (to me, to you).

Now, onto today’s show!

War doesn’t care about my growth story

Israel bombed Iranian oil infrastructure overnight. The US, by all accounts, is not happy about it.

Not because they don’t back Israel. They do. But burning oil fields are terrible optics when American petrol prices are nudging $4 per gallon and climbing.

And when you’re heading into midterm elections on a platform of easing the cost of living for “everyday Americans”, soaring fuel prices are a fast-track path to losing seats.

Oil crossed $111 per barrel as I write this. Getting to $120 now feels almost inevitable. Beyond that, $150 becomes a real possibility. And if the situation on the ground deteriorates further, $200 is no longer wild speculation.

You should also get used to hearing the term force majeure.

It’s a standard contract clause that allows suppliers of things like gas, chemicals or fertilisers to delay or cancel deliveries because of events outside their control.

QatarEnergy, one of the world’s largest gas suppliers, has already declared it. So have other major commodity producers, from PT Chandra Asri Pacific (petrochemicals) to Kuwait Petroleum (oil) and Sumitomo Chemical Asia.

These developments have knock-on effects everywhere — fertilisers, jet fuel, plastics, mining, packaging. The list is long. And they shatter the value of most risk assets.

That is why Asian markets were hit so hard. Korea triggered another circuit breaker. Australia’s market fell around 5%. Japan wasn’t far behind.

What happens next from the US isn’t difficult to guess.

Militarily, the US and Israel appear to have the upper hand over Iran.

But arguably more dangerous than a strong enemy is a collapsing one. Right now, the Iranian regime looks fractured, disorganised, and without a clear chain of command.

That’s chaos. And chaos, as any trader or investor will tell you, is the one variable that markets cannot price — but fear the most.

Take a look at UK gas prices last week.

Then Singapore jet fuel.

And finally crude oil itself.

All three tell the same story in slightly different commodities.

Fear is peaking. Markets are now pricing in massive supply shocks (and rightly so). Capital is fleeing almost everything.

Even gold has fallen as investors sell whatever they can to cover margin calls and unwind leveraged positions.

Of course, if you’re long oil futures right now, you’re quids in.

Gas too. Energy markets are ripping higher. That’s great for commodity investors, but it damages the growth story — particularly the AI infrastructure buildout that has absorbed so much capital and optimism over the past two years.

It’s certainly the time to have your portfolio weighted to defence and commodities.

Where the money moves when the world catches fire

The immediate beneficiaries are obvious.

Energy stocks. Oil producers. Defence contractors. Drone companies with genuine ties to the Department of Defence and allied governments.

These are exactly the sorts of stocks you hold for moments like this.

It’s also a stark reminder that geopolitical risk never really left the building.

That said, I expect the Trump administration will do everything it can to quell the market rout — to put a lid on top of the oil price and by hell or high water get ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz.

What’s hard to predict is the timing of the end of all this. The US could go full “FURY” on Iran tonight and stamp out the conflict quickly.

If that happens, oil could drop back below $100 just as fast as it rose. In that case, something like the WisdomTree 3x Short Oil ETP could deliver a quick 20%–50% ride.

But the more interesting play, and the one that holds value whether this war lasts another day or another year, is critical metals.

Think about what modern warfare actually looks like now.

It’s not columns of tanks and infantry anymore. It’s autonomous drone swarms, AI-guided targeting systems, laser-based counter-drone platforms, hypersonic missiles, and next-generation communications infrastructure.

All of it lighter, faster, more precise than anything that came before.

And all of it requires materials that are in constrained supply, often sourced from regions that are themselves geopolitically unstable.

Titanium. Tungsten. Rare earth elements. Gallium. Germanium.

These are the backbone of every advanced weapons system, every AI chip, every drone motor, and every guidance system being manufactured at scale.

When conflict breaks out — or even escalates — the first thing governments and defence contractors do is secure supply. That process is already underway. There will almost certainly be a prolonged ramp-up in defence spending following this conflict, alongside enormous demand for the materials needed to rebuild and expand military inventories.

Prepare the portfolio, not just the mindset

Yes, you can bet there will be huge opportunities in the short term to trade wild swings in oil and gas if you love that kind of thing.

If you have conviction about where energy prices move from here, leveraged ETPs like the WisdomTree products can provide exciting, and very risky, short-term trades.

But for longer-term investing, it’s hard not to look right at the critical metals arena. Drone production will rise. Missile manufacturing will expand. Autonomous systems development will accelerate.

That will draw a lot of capital and see a lot of government spending. Not just in the US either but everywhere.

And, dare I say, the AI growth thesis is not dead. Data centres still need building. Chips still need manufacturing. Inference infrastructure is clearly the next big evolution.

But in a world where oil is already above $111 and climbing, where energy costs are a major input for hyperscalers, this investment narrative takes a backseat to energy, commodities and metals and mining.

The truth about war and markets is simple.

Conflict is never priced in until it happens. And once it does, markets rapidly reprice everything connected to it.

That’s the volatility we always know is lurking around the corner. And it often presents great opportunities long term when things are sold off.

But whether this conflict escalates or de-escalates, one thing doesn’t change.

Nations will keep rearming and I’d say with even greater gusto off the back of this conflict.

War or no war, peace or fragile ceasefire, the world is now in a permanent state of preparation.

Your portfolio should reflect that reality.

Polltelligence 🗳️

Leave a comment

Quote of the day

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Investment Director

Southbank Investment Research

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of Investor’s Daily UK is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in Investor’s Daily UK is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it.

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2026 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697.

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• A bit of change to how and where we come from

• Grok’s gone WILD!

• Schmidt on how big AI will be

If that’s enough to get the new website loading, read on…

AI Collision 💥

Things are changing, and also not really changing here at AI Collision.

First things first, in terms of what you read, the structure and setup of our bi-weekly broadcasts, nothing is changing at all.

We’ll still be looking at the AI revolution and its rollout. We’ll be trying to piece together and figure out the best companies in the world that are driving AI forward and investment ideas that you can capitalise on as an investor.

All of that is staying the same.

What is changing though is how we send you AI Collision and where we send it from.

Up until now we’ve been publishing through Substack, and it’s been useful, easy and has given us some control over the system in which we publish through.

But the publishers at Southbank Investment Research, who I publish AI Collision through, would like us to grow, scale and reach more people with our content.

Doing so through Substack is possible, but a bit more challenging than it needs to be. And also, we are pretty hard to find.

That’s why, we’re picking up everything and putting it down in a new setting as of this coming Tuesday.

That setting is going to be:

aicollision.co.uk

We’re going to be sending out our content on a Tuesday and Friday to you as normal and if you want to check back on any of our previous work, it’ll all be through our new site.

In effect this means, there’ll be no more content coming in from AI Collision via Substack.

You'll also be receiving marketing for Southbank Investment Research’s other products, but be assured that you can choose to opt in or out of this.

When the email hits your inbox it’ll still be from “AI Collision by Southbank Investment Research” but the actual sender email address will be aic@mb.southbankresearch.com instead of aicollision@substack.com.

What I want to stress more than anything though is there is nothing you need to do in order to receive AI Collision going forward.

Everything stays as it is, it’s just that we’re taking a bit more control over how we’re found, and how we can reach a far bigger audience to get our content.

If all of this sounds horrific and the slightest of change is terrifying and you now hate our guts for moving to aicollision.co.uk – there will still be an easily accessible unsubscribe button at the end of every one of our broadcasts giving you the chance to say, so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye!

The way things are set up, you’ll still be able to comment, like and share on all our posts. We’ll still have the polls, links to videos, articles, and everything else AI related we can get our hands on.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out, either with a comment or via cs@southbankresearch.com where our handy customer services team can forward your email and questions on to me.

Thanks for being a subscriber to AI Collision, and remember, there’s nothing you need to do to keep getting our work in your inbox – just sit back, enjoy and absorb…

Although…

What you’re about to see below…

You might not want to absorb too much!

AI gone wild 🤪

Normally I’d post this in the “Weirdest AI image of the day” section.

However, this is so wild that it had to be more prominent.

Rather than explain further, look for yourself.

The title of this r/Weirddallee is, “Deepfakes are going to have serious consequences for politics. People won't be able to tell fact from fiction.”

It’s true.

But for a while, most AI image generators have had the shackles on so to speak. You’ve not had unfettered access with no filters or restrictions on what you can ask for and what can be delivered.

Until this week when Elon Musk’s company xAI unleashed its AI Grok without filters.

Right away things got wild. The image above is one of the wildest. But there were more…

I had this one sent to me…

And this one was on X.com:

There are a lot more (and a lot worse) that are easy enough to find. This release of Grok is sweeping through online platforms, and it is impressive as to the levelling up of its image-creation capabilities.

Then run these images through some of the AI animation platforms out there and you get some pretty crazy outcomes, like the video below (click on the image) from TechHalla:

Point is, if you think we’re deep into the rollout of AI, then you better take a seat.

We are just getting started. AI is getting stronger, smarter, more powerful and we’ve only just taken the first few steps of the marathon.

AI isn’t a game changer. It’s creating a whole new game to play, and we’re all still learning the rules.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Veritone (NASDAQ:VERI) up 31%

• Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) up 17%

• Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) up 14%

Bust 📉

• Team Internet Group (LSE:TIG) down 18%

• Vicarious Surgical (NYSE:RBOT) down 13%

• Guardforce AI Co. (NASDAQ:GFAI) down 10%

From the hive mind 🧠

• I can’t remember if I’ve sent this before, or let alone seen this before. Maybe I have. Or maybe it’s new. Either way, it’s worth listening to as Schmidt is bang on the money when it comes to how big AI is going to be and how many people underestimate the size and scale of what’s coming.

• Competition in AI and importantly, AI chips is coming thick and fast. There aren’t enough chips from the big players like Nvidia and AMD to go around, so big companies are turning to the old guard, like Intel to get their AI fix.

• Google is putting the foot down on the accelerator for their AI plans. It’s going to hit all their Google products…including Android, in a big way. Is Google the real AI sleeper? And will AI push them on to new heights?

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

Poll time!

Here’s this weeks question,

Leave a comment

Weirdest AI image of the day

From McEarth to McMoon – r/weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• Three down, more to come

• Something to watch

• The most descriptive weird AI yet!

If that’s enough to get the stocks splitting, read on…

AI Collision 💥

Earlier this year on 7 March I wrote about the sneaky little way in which expensive stocks get cheap.

Considering the week we had last week; we’re not talking about a market crash making them cheap today.

No, the way in which you make a pricey stock cheap is to hope for life and death the company decides to split it up.

The stock split is a mechanism companies can utilise to make their pricey stocks more affordable to regular investors.

For example, in March we said:

Take a look at the prices of the following stocks:

• Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) – stock price $880

• Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ:SMCI) – stock price $1,121

• Meta (NASDAQ:META) – stock price $550

• ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML) – stock price $984

• Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) – stock price $1,360

• Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) – stock price $402

What do you notice about them all?

Yes, they’re all traded on the Nasdaq.

What else?

I’ll help out: they’re related to the AI investment boom we’re in the midst of right now.

But also…

They’re all very bloody expensive on a per-share basis.

A lot of these were tied directly to the AI boom we’ve seen in the market, but not exclusively.

We also went on to point out,

[It’s] not just AI stocks either. Netflix is at $595, MicroStrategy is over $1,100, Adobe is at $540.

I think 2024 is going to see a whole range of companies split their stock. It will be the year of the splits. And it will benefit holders of some of these stocks as they unlock that demand and excitement for their companies.

Well, we’re now five months down the track, so the question is…

Were we right?

Turns out, yeah, we were (mostly).

Nvidia announced a 10-for-1 split effective from the start of June.

The stock now trades at $109.

And what about the others?

Broadcom also announced a stock split, a 10-for-1 split too. Its stock now trades at $148. Super Micro has also announced a stock split, also 10-for-1. Its stock will trade (when it comes into effect) for one tenth its trading price at the time of the split.

That means looking down our list…

• Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) – ✅

• Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ:SMCI) – ✅

• Meta (NASDAQ:META) – ❌

• ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML) – ❌

• Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) – ✅

• Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) – ❌

MicroStrategy has also gone through a 10-for-1 split recently. It now trades for a bit over $131. So, five months on and we’re tracking at a 50% success rate.

We don’t expect the splits will stop there. Microsoft is still expensive and hasn’t split in around 20 years. Meta, very expensive on a per-share basis, has never split its stock, and ASML… it’s about 14 years on from its last split.

Point being, they’re all expensive and they’re all due.

It also means a stock and multiples of stock are much easier to add to a portfolio than they’ve been before. Now, the market might not be as “toppy” as it was in March and April when we pointed this out. However, we expect this time next year that all of these stocks will be worth more than they are today, and the splits just put them in reach of far more investors.

So, splits can be good, and we’re expecting to see that other 50% of the ones yet to split head down the path of those who have. 2024 is indeed already the year of the splits, and there’s much more to come.

AI gone wild 🤪

This isn’t so “wild” but when you do think about and look at the potential use cases of AI in the real world, then actually things do start to get a little wild.

Nonetheless, I saw this during the week, and thought that it was quite good, balanced and insightful. And sometimes, there are so many events and conferences around it’s hard to filter out what’s useful and what’s not.

But this session from BBC News World Service is definitely worth the time to watch.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Appen (ASX:APX) up 20%

• Amesite (NASDAQ:AMST) up 21%

• Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) up 13%

Bust 📉

• iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) down 23%

• Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) down 1%

• Vicarious Surgical (NASDAQ:RBOT) down 10%

From the hive mind 🧠

• Worldcoin. It’s weird. It looks like it wants to literally harvest your data in the weirdest way. However, there are many who find it hugely exciting and interesting. But best to get all the facts you can before you decide to hand over your eyeballs.

• Let’s face it, politicians are liars. They will lie to get your vote and lie to stay in power. They will do whatever it takes. And in the US it seems that AI use in the manipulation of popularity is all over this election.

• The good news here is that we’ve gone from AI will destroy jobs to AI will transform jobs. That rhetoric is softening as the realisation continues that AI is here to stay.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

It had been quite a week by Friday, so much action in the market, so much to absorb.

Monday to Friday felt like an eternity. And it was. But it was also enough to shake the most hardened investors to their core.

Which means, you had some decision making to make. Buy, hold, sell?

Many would have sold. Many would have held. The courageous bought more.

And I wanted to know, after the antics on Monday, what action were you taking?

The good news is, I think on the balance the approach is sound. I’d have thought maybe the buys would have taken the prize, but a little patience isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Just don’t wait too long!

Another poll will be with you on Friday…

Leave a comment

Weirdest AI image of the day

A strange looking creature that resembles a tangled rubber band asking, “Smart, why does blood flow?” to a brain with eyes and a mouth that is wearing crown. The king brain responds, “to live.” they are surrounded by tubes filled with personified blood drops. – r/weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• Are AMDs earnings a sign of what’s to come for Nvidia?

• AI in your eyeballs

• Olympic pasta

If that’s enough to get the wacky waving inflatable tube guy waving, read on…

AI Collision 💥

Last week AMD released its quarterly earnings.

After a spate of AI- and tech-related companies beat earnings, but still managed to disappoint the market, there wasn’t high hopes for AMD.

The reason that AMD’s earnings are important though is because the company is somewhat of the canary in the coal mine for its (now) bigger sibling, Nvidia.

You see as the “next best thing” to Nvidia, certainly in terms of AI technology, if AMD was going to come out of the earnings gate firing, then it sets the scene for a ridiculous set of numbers for Nvidia on 28 August.

Well, yes, AMD did fire out of the gates. Let’s take a look at what it looked like…

AMD’s results highlighted “strategic growth” in AI and data centre markets. The company reported revenues of $5.8 billion, a 7% rise from the previous quarter and a 9% jump year-over-year.

But the nice kicker was gross margins improving to 49% from 46% year on year, driven by record revenue from its data centre segment, all tied to AI advancements in its tech arsenal.

The actual number for AMD’s data centre segment was a record $28 billion, a whopping 115% increase year-over-year.

The company’s strategic investments in AI are putting the company on a more level playing field with Nvidia in tech terms. It will take some overhaul to knock Nvidia off the market cap game, but it’s not an unrealistic possibility over the rest of the 2020s.

AMD isn’t stupid and its top-notch leadership starting with Lisa Su at the top of the tree continues to build its AI arsenal both technology development and through acquisitions, such as the planned acquisition of Silo AI.

But the encouraging aspect of AMD and what could be the precursor to Nvidia blowing the roof off in a few weeks is the growth in data centre and AI infrastructure.

This is down to advances in tech, and I’ll be honest, it’s a lot…

As the company explained,

AMD expanded its leadership end-to-end AI solutions portfolio with new CPUs, GPUs, NPUs and software offerings:

At Computex 2024, AMD unveiled an expanded AMD Instinct accelerator roadmap, bringing an annual cadence of leadership AI performance and memory capabilities. The roadmap includes the new AMD Instinct MI325X accelerator, planned to be available in Q4 2024, with leadership memory capacity and compute performance. The next generation AMD CDNA™ 4 architecture, planned for 2025, is expected to bring up to a 35x increase in AI inference performance compared to AMD Instinct accelerators based on AMD CDNA 3.

AMD announced the AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series processors, the company's third generation processor for AI PCs, with industry-leading 50 TOPs of AI processing power for Windows Copilot+ PCs. OEMs including Acer, ASUS, HP, Lenovo and MSI unveiled new devices powered by the lineup.

AMD and industry leaders announced the Ultra Accelerator Link promoter group which will leverage AMD Infinity Fabric™ technology to advance open standards-based AI networking infrastructure systems.

Cloud providers showcased offerings powered by AMD Instinct MI300X accelerators, with Microsoft announcing the general availability of new Azure ND MI300X V5 instances, which provide leading price/performance for GPT workloads.

AMD launched the Radeon™ PRO W7900 Dual Slot GPU for high-performance AI workstations and expanded AMD ROCm™ 6.1.3 software support to enhance AI development and deployment with select AMD Radeon desktop GPUs.

What all that means, is more powerful AI-focused tech for data centres, including cloud services companies (Azure) for devices specifically aiming at Windows Copilot devices and as the company puts it, AI infrastructure.

It does put AMD right up there in terms of tech and a legitimate contender to Nvidia.

Which then turns us to what might be coming for Nvidia. Considering its stock price just dipped below $100, is this the last chance you’ll have to see Nvidia under $100?

As I noted earlier in the week, the wild action in the market has made a lot of quality stocks a lot cheaper. And Nvidia’s stock price has been in somewhat of a freefall ever since…

… THIS HAPPENED in June which we wrote about:

But if Nvidia, like AMD, is going to surprise earnings expectations by a country mile, and the market figures its business out and the dust settles from the wild action this week, Nvidia at sub-$100 might become a thing of the past.

I think the question you need to ask for yourself and your decision making on both AMD and Nvidia is simple.

Are these two the tech leaders of an AI future? And if so, is the ongoing demand for their tech going to continue, plateau or retreat?

Answer those and the heavy lifting of your decision-making process is complete.

AI gone wild 🤪

So, I have a problem.

I’m moving (again). More on that in the coming weeks…

But it means changing regions/countries. Having already changed regions/countries in the last year has been hard enough.

It’s meant new phone numbers, new utilities connections, residency and visa things, just a whole lot or “operational nightmares” as I like to put it.

Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment but I decided with the family that we’re going to do all that again.

Aside from the regular “operational nightmares”, I’m in the midst of one of the biggest headaches: all the streaming and TV services.

I’m old enough to remember a time when what was on TV was whatever the programming boffins at the terrestrial channel providers decided it was.

That might have been NBA Action on a Saturday early afternoon, or Samurai Pizza Cats at 7.30am during Agro’s Cartoon Connection (Australia in the 90s was something else…).

Either way, telly was controlled by a dial on the square box, and you watched what was on and nothing else. If you wanted to see a “new release” movie it was down to the video shop to get an “overnight” VHS or a bunch of “weeklies”.

Eventually that became DVDs, but again, you get the idea, because you probably did it too.

Then “Pay TV” came along. In Australia it was called Foxtel, but it was really just the Aussie version of what you know as Sky in the UK, all from the world’s media dictator (and related companies) Rupert Murdoch and co.

In the early days, Foxtel (read: Sky) promised the holy grail of TV… programming with no ads.

Yes, you read that right, NO, ADS.

And early on that’s why people bought it. You could also choose what you wanted to watch with much greater variety and depth. Five terrestrial channels all of a sudden became 100. That included dedicated sports channels and movie channels!

Well, Pay TV soon became the best and most lucrative way for advertisers to advertise into your eyeballs, so that ad-free time ended abruptly.

Another selling point of Pay TV was the “all in one place” aspect. You’d just fire up the box, and all your choices were there front and centre.

Then streaming came along.

And that mean apps, so, many, apps!

Netflix, then Amazon, then Apple, Disney, Max, Hulu, Paramount, Discovery, there are more, but honestly too many to mention now.

I have far too many subscriptions too. And you can’t just take them from one country to another. It requires ending and restarting and just HASSLE.

If only it was easier to just manage everything at once, in one place and do away with the ads and just make things easier.

Well, maybe Google is onto it, and it’s through the integration of its Gemini AI that might be the answer.

See below for what I mean.

I won’t lie, I like this in concept.

However, I also fear it goes the way of Pay TV, and that it really just ends up as another way to inject AI and ,worse, AI advertising into my eyeballs.

So, this AI looks promising, but deep down, I’m a bit scared of what it becomes, or the iteration of what comes after it.

Still, like my Alexas, I’ll probably buy it, use it for a while and then once I get sick of being advertised endlessly for upgrades, I don’t want, I’ll throw it out.

In the meantime, I’m off to cancel a lot of streaming services, which is going to upset two little dudes, until they (some of them) come back when we arrive in our next destination.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

***As you’d expect, not much booming still this week…but here’s the roll call of some of the best anyway.

Boom 📈

• Appen (ASX:APX) up 7%

• Taiwan Semi (NYSE:TSM) up 3%

• AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) up 1%

Bust 📉

• Bigbear.ai (NYSE:BBAI) down 20%

• Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) down 15%

• C3.ai (NYSE:AI) down 10%

From the hive mind 🧠

• What if, just what if… all along God was AI? Of course that’s unlikely, or is it? Still, I bet there will be some people that take their AI obsession too far, and what does that mean for civilisation?

• Remember that time in 2023 when I said this devices was NOT the future of AI devices? Well, again, some proof we were right as the returns are now outpacing the sales.

• Microsoft, Palantir and national security operations. Seems just fine, right? RIGHT? This announcement seems nonchalant, but I think there’s a lot more to it than first meets the eye. Something to keep an eye on me thinks.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

Time for a new poll.

Considering the wreck of a market we had on Monday, it’s a similar question to the week before…

Actually, it’s the same question, but now you have more information. I wonder if that changes the vote at all?

Leave a comment

Weirdest AI image of the day

Alternate Olympic medals – r/weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• Japan triggers mayhem

• Japan triggers mayhem

• Japan triggers mayhem

If that’s enough to get the stomach churning, read on…

AI Collision 💥

We were going to dive deeper today into AMD’s earnings. We were going to look at AI stocks and we were going to look at more stocks as they released their numbers.

But then Japan happened, and the market took a hiding. So, we cut all plans for anything else to look at what’s going on, and what should we do about it?

What is very clear from the outset is that yesterday we all got a little poorer.

At least on paper.

Thanks to the Bank of Japan, stock market bears, leverage traders, Iran and Israel, bitcoin, the Federal Reserve, fear and greed… and for reasons we’ll never really understand, things are RED.

When markets are rough like this it’s a hard day to stay sane, to stay together and to stay rational.

In times like these, I find it cathartic to turn to the memes. And boy are the memes great today!

For all the Seinfeld fans out there…

And for those who know who Salt Bae is:

If you liked the Beckham documentary then you’ll love this:

And just when you thought the fear and greed index couldn’t get worse…

Of course, that means with stocks getting hammered, AI stocks have taken a clipping too…

Or have they?

At last check (time of writing), AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) was UP for the day (not much, but still up), Onsemi (NASDAQ:ON) was up almost 4%, NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ:NXPI) was up and LAM Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) was up – like AMD, not by much, but a 0% to 1% win today is worth its weight in… well, very good performing stocks.

So, it seems although some are calling this all a black swan-style event (and to be fair the Nikkei 225 did have its biggest single-day drop EVER) that not all stocks are going to the proverbial shi**er.

If anything, some of these AI-focused stocks are a defensive way to play a market meltdown.

But I digress somewhat…

Most of the market is in meltdown, and there’s a 100% chance your portfolio is worth less today than it was yesterday.

Unless you’re in cash, but then again, it’s still worth less today than yesterday because… inflation!

So, we ALL lost money. And so much so that it looks like the US Federal Reserve is going to step up, step in and aggressively cut rates – maybe even in an “emergency” cut this week, and then another in September… the double whammy!

And you know what that means kids?

Yes, the memes are great, I told you.

If money printer goes “brr” then markets do the old “number go up” trick.

And if you’ve got a bunch of AI stocks that have been defensive against what’s gone on in the last 24 hours, then you’re very sweetly placed to see that number go up very much indeed.

Jokes aside, it’s a tough day when it’s a sea of red.

And there are still systemic issues with levels of debt, particularly government debt. So, we never want days like these in the markets, but they do make great stocks cheap.

And some of the names we’ve written about in the last few weeks and months are now trading at a discount.

I mentioned the stocks above haven’t been clipped too hard. But here’s some more that have…

• Nvidia, down over 7% and under $100

• ARM, down almost 7% and trading near $105

• Taiwan Semi, down 5% and near $140

• Super Micro Computer, down 6% and now under $600

• Vertiv, down 7% and under $65

• Micron, down 6% and now under $90

What you’ll find is these stocks are all down heavily in trading from yesterday. But they’re also heavily down over the last couple of weeks.

They’re all roughly down 30% to 50% from their 2024 highs.

They may even trade lower this week and for me that means you’ll get to a point very soon as to making a great call or a not-so-great call in the market.

My take is that sometime this week, we’re going to find a quick bottom in the market. Rates will cut, money will print, sentiment will come back hard and fast.

Also, earnings will continue to pump out and they’ll be pretty good. When the market is like this, all it’s now looking for is a glimmer of hope to pump it back.

I think that will come. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but in the next week or so. I think that being active and investing in the market makes great sense now for long-term investors.

I can’t tell you what to buy, or when to buy it. But I can highlight stocks that I think are trading at a discount to their long-term value. And that’s what I’m doing here.

I’ve just given a roll call of AI-related stocks that look attractively priced now, I liked them a month ago, and I like them more now.

If you’ve got the risk appetite for volatility (the kind we last saw in 2008 and 2020) and you’ve got the risk capital to deploy, I don’t think you want to sit on your hands here.

I think it’s a buyer’s market again, and the time to buy is upon us.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

*Ain’t much booming this week…but the busts give some perspective as to how heavily sold some of these stocks are right now.

Boom 📈

• Appex (ASX:APX) up 77%

• Team Internet Group (LSE:TIG) up 7%

• Bigtincan Holdings (ASX:BTH) up 5%

Bust 📉

• Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 10%

• C3.ai (NYSE:AI) down 14%

• iRobot (NYSE:IRBT) down 24%

From the hive mind 🧠

• CNN says CARNAGE. And I guess they’re right.

• Washington Post says the US government blames Elon for all their problems. He’s not it.

• BBC says UK government is shelving AI plans. They are.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️ The Results

Ahh you’re a smart bunch aren’t you!

Last Thursday I asked if the sell off in tech was going to impact your investment decision making at all.

And while it was a mix of results, cool heads clearly prevailed, and after the activity in the last 24 hours, the right decision at that…

It should be said that there’s actually little difference for long term investing in taking action, and investing when you have available capital right away, and dollar-cost averaging, and even poorly timing the market.

But what really hits a portfolio and can drag on long term returns is being completely out of the market.

Analysis of data over time suggests that its in bear markets and in large market drops when markets end up having some of their best days.

So you might feel like you’re doing the right thing when you’re out of the market, but unless you have perfect timing which no one in history ever has, then it hurts you to be out of the market and to miss even a couple of the best days on the bounce.

Research and data analysis over time says most investors are just best placed to stay invested for the long term, ride the peaks and troughs and keep adding when you want to. That I think is the way to go, and that’s the approach I know I’ll be continuing to take.

A new poll coming on Friday (remember our new democratically voted for schedule!) and with the market behaving as it is, I’ll be very keen to see what you’re saying later this week.

Leave a comment

Weirdest AI image of the day

A china bowl in a bull shop – r/Weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• Is it time to fill your boots?

• Friend Wars

• Boomers stay, Fridays are in!

If that’s enough to get the wacky waving inflatable tube guy waving, read on…

AI Collision 💥

Two weeks ago semiconductor company ASML released its earnings. Overall it was a good release. I covered it in AI Collision 💥 (you can revisit that article here).

But I noted that even though ASML had beat earnings, it was the forward-looking statements the market didn’t like.

As such the stock dropped from a price of around $1,067 to as low as $856 in trading this week – nearly 20% lower.

Of course it is not the only semiconductor and AI-related stock that’s been heading south as earnings continue to come out from big tech companies.

But when ASML’s results came in (and ASML was pretty early with its release) and the stock was hammered, it became pretty clear that even with an earnings beat, it was going to take a lot to shoo away the market bears.

In fact at the time I wrote to you saying,

So, strap in, because other companies are about to drop earnings in the next few weeks, from Taiwan Semiconductor to Texas Instruments, Apple, Amazon, Google and Netflix… it’s all incoming and it’s going to make the market nice and volatile.

But if they “do an ASML” and beat expectations but give a dour forecast, get ready for some big and mega-cap stocks trading at a handy discount.

Well, Microsoft just beat earnings expectations.

Not by much. But they beat. $64.7 billion revenue for the quarter. Earnings per share of $2.95. This is one profitable, money-making giant. And then the stock was down as much as 8% in after-market hours.

If you walked into the local shops and things were trading at 8%, 10%, 15%, 20% discounts, you know what they’d be...?

They’d be on SALE!

Right now, I think that’s exactly what is going on with AI and tech. It’s on SALE!

The market will probably spike higher in the next trading session (at the time of writing) due to the increasing likelihood of rates starting to get cut within the next year from central banks across the world.

China already cut, the UK is pretty close to it, the US Federal Reserve is merely months away from it, Australia is now (unexpectedly) likely to cut early in the new year. Cheaper money is coming back and the market loves it.

But off all of that, Microsoft is likely to trade lower because of “fears” of slowing growth.

Gimme a break!

Microsoft is just getting hammered because of fears that expenditure now won’t lead to a future pay-off in AI.

Well, the good news is companies like Microsoft can spend up big now for the future pay-off later. They’re building the AI infrastructure that all future AI gets built off.

One of the drags on Microsoft is slowing Azure (cloud) growth. The money Microsoft spends on AI now is like building cloud in its earliest days. In fact, the two are likely to co-exist and the cloud becomes AI.

Do you remember that time about 18 months or two years ago when Google, Meta and Microsoft were all slashing jobs, trimming the fat and reorganising for growth again after the bloat of Covid?

That paid off in spades. These companies all hit new, fresh all-time highs year to date. That is the delay to expect with AI spending now. Expect that pay off to really hit 18 to 24 months from now.

So if you've holding or looking at a stock that is spending up big on AI infrastructure and hardware, be happy. And if it’s “doing an ASML or Microsoft” then now might be a great time to fill your boots (as a mate of mine would say!).

Oh, and just one more thing (that I'll dive into a little more next week). It’s not all bad... AMD dropped its results too and smashed it out of the park.

That’s right. Smashed it. And the company is the closest competitor to Nvidia. What does that tell us?

I'll tell you on Tuesday.

AI gone wild 🤪

AI and devices. It’s the market that everyone wants to crack.

Everyone wants to have that next great product that launches a tech unicorn and becomes the next Apple.

Only problem is it took Apple around 30 years to actually deliver something that completely changed the world.

But right now it seems like there’s a race on to deliver the first useful AI-based consumer product that isn’t a smartphone with AI inside.

We’ve already seen the hype and subsequent crash and burn of the Humane.ai “AI pin” and now we’ve got two new entrants to the market.

The only thing with these two AI devices is that they’re both called “Friend”, they’re both AI necklaces and they’re, well, pretty much exactly the same.

Except they’re from different builders, different ambitious founders and right now they’re both about to go to war.

Just one more thing before I explain a little more... they’re also destined for the trash heap.

First off here is Friend, an AI necklace that is being built and brought to market by Nik Shevchenko and his company Based Hardware.

Currently you can buy the developer kit and start tinkering away with what it can do. The fancier looking thing above is the expected production version slated for release later this year.

Then in the link below you’ll find... Friend.

It too is an AI necklace that just dropped a (weird) promo video and a handy link to the (very expensive) domain, friend.com.

Rumours are the company spent around $1.8 million of the $2.5 million it’d already raised just to acquire the friend.com domain!

You can watch the video for yourself as to whether or not these are the next great things in the AI world.

But I'm here to tell you, they aren’t. I guess that’s not exactly any great revelation. However, I've got good reason to say this.

And it relates to this:

This is my Myo Armband, which I got around 2015 or 2016. It was one of the most hyped-up “wearable tech” products of the time. It would connect to your devices and enable you to perform tasks, Minority Report style.

Even Time did an article on it, such was the hype.

Only problem... it kind of sucked. Real-world use and application was, well, average at best. It didn’t make operating devices any easier. If anything, it became a burden.

It has sat in my collection of “promising tech that never made it” pile ever since.

These AI pins or AI necklaces, they’re all destined for the same heap. So in short, don’t waste your energy, time or money bothering with these things.

There will be something in our future that does change the game again. Something that will inherently be all about AI. Something that will move from the pile of promising tech, to the display cabinet for game-changing tech (like my Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, iPhone, iPod, Ledger Nano and Minidisc player)...

But these are not it.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Appen (ASX:APX) up 47%

• Predictive Oncology (NASDAQ:POAI) up 6%

• Vicarious Surgical (NYSE:RBOT) up 5%

Bust 📉

• Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) down 20%

• Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 15%

• AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) down 10%

From the hive mind 🧠

• AI is going to replace a LOT of jobs. No doubt about that. But fears are massively overblown. And you know how I know that? Food. AI will never be as good as humans at things like cooking. So if you’re a chef, rest easy my friend, your culinary skills are safe as houses.

• When is parody, parody? And when is parody an intentional attempt as misinformation? It’s a fair conversation to have. You can use parody to great effect, and in fact it’s a staple of human civilisation. But also some people hide behind parody for more sinister reasons. Where does the line exist? And who is (or isn’t) trying to really censor speech?

• There’s a lot of social media coverage of Apple Intelligence right now, some good, some bad, it’s a mixed bag really. We’ll see for ourselves in the coming weeks and keep an eye on it. But the reports are already filtering through as to how it seems to be working.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

I asked and ye hath spoken!

The other week I asked if you’d prefer to get AI Collision sent to you on Tuesdays and either Thursday or Friday.

The Tuesday slot I like, and that will remain, but I was thinking of spacing out our second send on a Friday right before the weekend.

And here’s what you voted for...

There you have it. Friday it is.

That means next week, you’ll get AI Collision sent to your inbox on Tuesday and Friday.

I also asked what you thought about one of our regular sections, the “Boomers & Busters” section. Here we take a look at some of the better performing stocks and some of the losers of the rolling week.

That means over the week to that day, what stocks are significantly up, and which ones are down. The reason of this section is to give you a feel for the broader AI stocks market.

I wasn’t sure how much you did, or didn’t, like that section, so I wanted to know if we should keep it or get rid of it.

Once again, you gave your vote...

In full respect of the democratic process (no mail-in votes here!) you’ve made your choice, so the Boomers & Busters section stays.

Now, as it is Thursday, the last Thursday that we'll send AI Collision to you, here’s a new poll to get us through to next week.

Leave a comment

Weirdest AI image of the day

The sarcastic wine glass producers aren't even trying anymore – r/weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

Note: unfortunately Sam has come down with a sickness bug and hasn’t been able to put together a new AI Collision for you today.

That said, he’s hoping to be better for something new on Thursday.

In the meantime, we’re sending today a trimmed down “rewind” edition from a few weeks back, which was one of our most popular editions. In particular the interview with Sam and CEO of Sprott Asset Management, John Ciampaglia which is as relevant now as it was when we first published.

AI gone wild 🤪

A little while ago I sent you an interview I did with CEO of Sprott Asset Management, John Ciampaglia back in March 2023.

If you missed it, check it out here (it provides great context for what’s coming below).

I sent it because the uranium and nuclear story is critical to the future of AI. We know AI is power hungry, we know that the current energy mix is not going to be sufficient as energy demand looks to double in the coming years.

So what is the answer?

Well, the answer is in the new interview video I recently did with John Ciampaglia.

We look back on our March 2023 interview, dissect what’s been going on in the last year, and then look forward at how uranium and nuclear is going to be critical to industry like AI and what that means for the uranium market, for uranium prices and for uranium and nuclear focused stocks.

There’s a lot of great insight in there, so check it out below,

Weirdest AI image of the day

Rejected Olympic sports – r/Weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• Gambling with $23 billion

• Don’t annoy the Japanese

• Rings of the Future

If that’s enough to annoy Japanese players, read on…

AI Collision 💥

It takes the utmost belief and conviction in yourself and everything you stand for to say no to a tech giant like Google.

It takes even more courage to say no to Google when it’s waving a cool $23 billion in front of your nose.

What makes this true story even more incredible is the company that just said no to $23 billion from Google is only around four years old.

That company is called Wiz. It said no because it doesn’t think it’s enough. Wiz wants to get an “ARR” annual run rate of $1 billion and then do an initial public offering (IPO).

In the longer term, Wiz thinks it’s worth much more than $23 billion. So, is the company absolutely nuts or is there something in its confidence?

Well, what is Wiz?

It’s a cybersecurity company that provides cloud security. It was founded in 2020 and has quickly become a prominent player in the cloud security market – hence Google’s offer!

I will admit that on the face of it, it doesn’t seem wildly different than a lot of other cybersecurity companies out there. But then again, I don’t use its platform.

But from the information I could find, the platform focuses on the following key areas:

1. Visibility and Monitoring: Wiz scans cloud infrastructure to provide a complete inventory of resources, configurations, and relationships between different components. This helps organisations understand their cloud environment and detect any potential security risks.

2. Risk Assessment and Prioritisation: Wiz assesses the security posture of cloud resources and identifies vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other risks. The platform prioritises these risks based on their potential impact, helping organisations focus on the most critical issues first.

3. Compliance and Governance: Wiz helps organisations ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations by continuously monitoring their cloud environments and providing actionable insights to maintain governance.

4. Incident Response: The platform provides tools for detecting and responding to security incidents, helping organisations mitigate threats before they can cause significant damage.

What I also found interesting is that in a world of enhanced AI risks, with the threat of AI cyber-attacks being a very real and present danger, Wiz is already well ahead of the game.

The company employs AI and machine learning in several ways to enhance its security offerings. It does this through:

1. Anomaly Detection: AI models are used to identify unusual patterns and behaviours in cloud environments that may indicate potential security threats. This includes detecting abnormal network traffic, unusual user activity, and other indicators of compromise.

2. Risk Prioritisation: AI helps prioritise risks by analysing various factors such as the likelihood of exploitation, the potential impact of vulnerabilities, and the context of the cloud environment. This ensures that companies can focus on addressing the most significant threats first.

3. Automated Remediation: AI-driven automation can help in automatically fixing certain types of vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. This reduces the manual effort required from security teams and speeds up the response to potential threats.

In a nutshell, this is a highly popular company that’s already making money hand over fist and just knocked back $23 billion in order to IPO itself.

That takes coconuts of steel.

It also means that you can expect to see a Wiz IPO on the near horizon. If the company does   have a strong element of AI in the mix for its platform, then you can bet your bottom dollar that’s going to attract a bit more hype to the offering.

But is it an IPO to invest in? Right now, I just don’t know. But when the prospectus hits and the IPO becomes a legitimate thing, I’ll take a deep dive on it and figure it out.

AI gone wild 🤪

Earlier this week I put the kids to bed, poured a glass of wine and settled in for an evening just chilling on the sofa.

I couldn’t be bothered thinking that much so I just scrolled through the movie channels till I spotted something I thought, yes, I could watch that tonight.

And I found something reasonably quickly: the Assassin’s Creed movie starring Michael Fassbender.

Now admittedly, a movie based on a video game, that doesn’t typically go very well. Aside from a few recent game-to-streaming series successes (The Last of Us and Fallout being probably the most successful two recently), game-to-movies are usually duds.

And as fun as the Assassin’s Creed movie is, let’s be honest, it’s a bit of a dud.

The game however... HUGELY successful.

It’s a franchise game, which means over the years it’s gone through many iterations and developments, new titles, and improved and (sometimes controversial) new gameplay.

But all in all, the franchise has made somewhere north of $5.5 billion and sold more than 200 million copies across the world.

As you can see, gaming and successful gaming titles are big business.

But the latest version of the Assassin’s Creed game may be the most advanced and most controversial of all time.

Called Assassin’s Creed Shadows, it is set in feudal Japan. Normally the games are set in historic times, sometimes representing real historical figures. But, of course, games often take significant creative licence.

Yet when you take on Japanese culture and history, prepare to be accurate. The latest game has sparked controversy because of the use of Yasuke, the first black samurai. There is furore amongst Japanese players because of the controversial status and contesting of whether Yasuke was in fact a samurai.

The controversy around the historical accuracy of Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed even led Ubisoft, the game's developer, to put out some “clarifying” statements.

This game is still likely to be a success. However, the “Yasuke debacle” is not the only thing Ubisoft has done that’s getting the ire of its players.

There’s already a lot of heat in the gaming industry around the use of AI in game development. There are also some fears that AI is set to replace game developers completely.

And Ubisoft isn't holding back about pressing forward with its use of AI.

Ubisoft has introduced “Ghostwriter”, an AI tool developed by its R&D department, La Forge, to assist video game writers by generating first drafts of non-player character (NPC) dialogue, known as “barks”.

This tool saves time for scriptwriters, allowing them to focus on other narrative elements.

Ghostwriter uses a process of pairwise comparison to improve its output based on writers’ feedback. Pairwise comparison in Ghostwriter involves showing writers two versions of AI-generated dialogue and asking them to choose the better one.

Based on these choices, the AI learns and improves its future outputs. This feedback loop helps the AI produce more relevant and engaging dialogue over time.

The goal is to enhance creativity and efficiency in game development, ensuring NPC interactions remain engaging and realistic.

I think the push to AI is going to continue for a company like Ubisoft. While it’s a highly successful gaming company, it is also a publicly listed company that needs to improve things like profits and reduce things like costs.

In the last year since Ghostwriter was announced, the stock price has fallen from around €30 to around €18.

The last five days alone, off the back of the conjecture around the “Yasuke debacle”, the stock price has dropped from €22 to €18. That’s the impact poor PR can have on a game, especially if you annoy one of your biggest regions for sales.

And if Ubisoft continues to hang its hat on titles like Assassin’s Creed that get incrementally smaller, and alienate players, and then employ more and more AI in order to minimise development costs, then the fall from €30 to €18 might not be the last of the march lower for Ubisoft.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) up 8%

• iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) up 6%

• Amesite Inc (NASDAQ:AMST) up 6%

Bust 📉

• Vicarious Surgical (NASDAQ:RBOT) down 15%

• Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) down 11%

• AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) down 6%

From the hive mind 🧠

• The Zuck is really pushing forward on the AI chops of Meta. This is something I’ll dive a bit deeper into next week. But for now this is a good look at its approach to AI – I think the fact it’s saying open source at all is a good thing.

• Google had $23 billion to throw at Wiz. So I’m sure a few losses on the AI side of things it can wear. But this will get the bears excited when the words “AI” and “losses” are used in the same sentence.

• For all the nerds out there (like me) this is a cool look at how AI is helping to improve science.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

It’s Thursday and it’s time for a new poll.

Today I want to get your thoughts on a scheduling change that I'm considering and then another poll on some of the content changes I’m considering as well.

So, let’s crack on.

I'm going to keep sending AI Collision on a Tuesday, but admittedly I have a preference for our second send to move to Friday, spacing things out a little.

But what do you think?

Now, another poll. This is on our “Boomers & Busters” section where we take the best and worst performing AI stocks from a watchlist we’ve curated on a rolling week basis.

But I’m not sure how helpful that is (or isn’t) and if it’s just a bit of a waste of space. Considering we regularly talk about AI stocks in our general discussion at AI Collision and the “AI gone wild” section, I want to know if you think I should keep the “Boomers & Busters” section or get rid of it.

Leave a comment

Weirdest AI image of the day

Lord of the Future Rings – r/Weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• Elon's spending big

• AI's perfectly fine use

• Silence of the Yams

If that’s enough to get the cash money flowing, read on…

AI Collision 💥

The "average" Nvidia H100 GPU is going to set you back about $30,000 (give or take $5,000 – $10,000).

For that kind of money, you also choose from...

• 19,333 Greggs sausage rolls

• A brand-new Vauxhall Corsa

• 7,200 Bridgestone Tour B RX golf balls

• 7½ Zone 1 - 6 Transport for London annual railcards

Or of course just one H100 GPU.

But what if you needed more? What if you, say, needed 100,000 H11 GPUs?

Well of course that would mean around $3 billion you'd need to cough up.

In case you were wondering...

• 1.93 billion Greggs sausage rolls

• 100,000 brand new Vauxhall Corsas

• 720 million Bridgestone Tour B RX golf balls

• 750,000 Zone 1 - 6 Transport for London annual railcards

Or...enough grunt power to train the, "most powerful AI training cluster in the world!"

That's what Elon just posted yesterday.

"RDMA" means remote direct memory access. Which is a technology term for a fast and efficient network of memory where data transfer is done directly without another machine's CPU or operating system.

In short, it's a highly powerful system of GPUs that are all made by Nvidia. So, when I see a stock like Nvidia go from a high of around $135 to about $115 in the space of a few trading days I ask myself...

Why? Is the market thinking this is the kind of stock that's overvalued? And then I look at something like Elon's post and think to myself...

Why? Is the world's most illustrious tech billionaire spending billions on Nvidia hardware for his AI project? And why is he buying the gear all from just one company, Nvidia.

Makes sense to me that if Elon is still aiming hard at Nvidia, then their future revenues still aren't properly priced in to the stock.

And while it's tempting to think it can't go up forever, I ask myself a question that maybe you should too...

Why not?

Leave a comment

AI gone wild 🤪

FINALLY!

We have a decent use for AI...

I must say, Putin in a Louis Vuitton gown probably made my day...until it got to Bill Clinton in a blue dress 😂 😂 😂

Anyway, best see for yourself below,

This wasn't Elon's doing I might add, but he did share it around which is how it ended up on most people's X.com feed.

Now I must say, the idea of an AI fashion show like this is very funny, but I think it tells a deeper story about the direction of the fashion industry.

That we'll begin to see the integration of AI technology into everything from design and display through to the consumer experience at the retail point of sale.

We've seen how online shopping and fast fashion has evolved over the years. And also seen how companies that look like deeply entrenched stalwarts of the industry can crash and burn, ASOS and Burberry being two examples of that.

I think those that can embrace AI to enhance the experience for the shopper and consumer, will be those that rise hardest and fastest, and fend off the challenges from fast moving (and questionable practicing) companies like Temu.

Fashion + AI...maybe that's one of the big areas of opportunity in the market that no one's quite looking at hard enough…

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Zeta Global Holdings (NYSE:ZETA) up 16%

• iRobot Corp (NASDAQ:IRBT) up 9%

• Cyngn (NASDAQ:CYN) up 8%

Bust 📉

• AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) down 14%

• Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) down 10%

• BigBear.ai (NYSE:BBAI) down 9%

From the hive mind 🧠

• This is quite an interesting piece as an adaptation of a speech given by Daniel Kelhmann. Considering the terrifyingly exciting and fearful aspect of AI is a responsibility of all of us, and this I think does a great job of balancing out both sides of the coin.

• Considering that it seems like both side of the US political spectrum want to enact trade war with China, this should be interesting...Maybe Nvidia's "China Chips" will come with a side of spyware?

• So if you're swiping content from YouTube to train your AI model, then it's almost certain our future will end up with Mr. Beast as the President of the United States.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️ The Results

The opening of Parliament last week was signified by The King's Speech. A speech read by the King but written by the government.

A fascinating look at the Monarchy in full flight it was full of all the pomp and ceremony as you'd expect from Great Britain.

And the speech itself was a bit dull. But that doesn't mean the event itself wasn't full of grandeur.

Still, it's a strange situation when all the royal "stuff" is on display. And as a non-British native, I always wonder what the people of Great Britain think of the Monarchy from time to time, especially when the extravagance is on full display.

Hence our poll from last week...and here are the results,

So, it seems like (at least our readers) think that it's best to keep the King and his family cohort in place (for now).

New poll coming Thursday.

Leave a comment

Weirdest AI image of the day

Ruin a movie title and make a movie poster about it – r/Weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• When great is just not good enough

• The King’s Speech

• Fighting zebras

If that’s enough to get the ceremony pomping, read on…

AI Collision 💥

ASML is a Dutch semiconductor industry giant.

It is a crucial cog in the supply chain for the world’s semiconductor industry.

The company makes machines known as photolithography equipment which in turn are used in the manufacturing of semiconductors.

What comes to mind when you think “photolithography equipment”? Well initially probably not much.

But here’s a machine that ASML has been touting as its best and most important for the AI explosion.

Apparently, this thing weighs as much as two Airbus A320s… about 125 tonnes.

It’s also what helps companies to make AI chips.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of ASML’s activities and products…

Photolithography Equipment: ASML specialises in producing advanced photolithography machines, which are used to etch microscopic patterns onto silicon wafers. These patterns form the intricate circuits in microchips. The company’s machines use light to transfer a pattern from a photomask to the wafer.

EUV Technology: ASML is particularly known for its cutting-edge Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. EUV machines use extremely short wavelengths of light (13.5 nm) to create even smaller and more precise patterns on wafers. This technology is essential for producing the latest generations of microchips, enabling higher performance and lower power consumption in electronic devices.

DUV Technology: In addition to EUV, ASML also manufactures Deep Ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems, which use longer wavelengths (193 nm) and are still widely used in semiconductor fabrication for various production steps.

Software and Metrology Solutions: ASML provides advanced software and metrology systems to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of the photolithography process. These tools help in aligning the patterns correctly and inspecting the wafers for defects.

ASML’s equipment and technology are essential to the semiconductor manufacturing process, enabling the production of increasingly powerful and efficient chips.

So, when the company reported earnings this week, as you would expect, and I would expect, it beat market expectations…

• Net sales: 6.24 billion euros versus 6.03 billion euros expected

• Net profit: 1.58 billion euros versus 1.43 billion euros expected

With news of beating earnings expectations, you’d expect the stock to fly the next day. Well, not in this market.

ASML was down 10.5% in trading on Wednesday. Beat earnings, stock takes a beating.

Get used to that this earnings season.

The reason for the stock price beat-down was all around future earnings guidance. According to a CNBC report:

ASML now said it forecast third-quarter net sales of between 6.7 billion euros and 7.3 billion euros. Analysts had expected the company to forecast revenue of 7.6 billion euros in the third quarter.

ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet said,

“While there are still uncertainties in the market, primarily driven by the macro environment, we expect industry recovery to continue in the second half of the year,”

“We see 2024 as a transition year with continued investments in both capacity ramp and technology. We currently see strong developments in AI, driving most of the industry recovery and growth, ahead of other market segments.”

What a way to water down the AI hype and excitement, Christophe!

I think ASML is the yardstick for this earnings season.

The playbook will be simple. Expect AI-related companies to beat earnings expectations. I think there will be a lift in revenues and profits almost across the board.

But what will determine the movement of a company’s stock price will be what it says about the future of its AI business in the next 12 to 18 months.

The market is baying for AI blood (as we reported the other week) with the doomers out in full force just looking for a reason to get the fear-train rolling.

Anything that softens future guidance is all the fuel that will be needed.

And you know what?

That’s perfectly fine.

Because ASML is still a crucial part of the semiconductor industry. And other AI-related stocks that are down 4%, 5%, 10% or more are simply at a discount when you’re looking at the long-term impact of these companies and this market.

So, strap in, because other companies are about to drop earnings in the next few weeks, from Taiwan Semiconductor to Texas Instruments, Apple, Amazon, Google and Netflix… it’s all incoming and it’s going to make the market nice and volatile.

But if they “do an ASML” and beat expectations but give a dour forecast, get ready for some big and mega-cap stocks trading at a handy discount.

AI gone wild 🤪

I did it!

I sat through the entire King’s Speech.

The pomp and ceremony of it all was amusing to say the least. It’s not the first King’s Speech I’ve seen but it was certainly one of the most boring.

I had expected that we might see some exciting growth-oriented AI announcements, some detail on bills to come about high-tech investing and growth in the UK.

Nup.

None of that.

The King mentioned AI once. And it was said about placing “requirements” on companies developing the most powerful AI models.

That. Was. It.

From there it was all about nationalising the buses, trains and clean energy companies of the UK.

It was about building and “modernising” the way in which things get done.

In short, it was as Labour a speech as a Labour speech could get and very underwhelming.

Even Politico described it as a “gaping hole” in the King’s Speech:

An AI bill

Labour’s manifesto promised to support the development of the Artificial Intelligence sector and to introduce regulation on companies developing the most powerful AI models. But some expectations of an explicit AI bill in the king’s speech did not come to pass.

Instead, the king nodded to the government seeking to “establish the appropriate legislation” to regulate the AI sector, stopping short of introducing a specific AI bill.

Translation: the legislation ain’t ready to go yet.

So, it looks like the government has delivered as expected… nothing at all.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Cyngn (NASDAQ:CYN) up 81%

• iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) up 33%

• Zeta Global Holdings (NYSE:ZETA) up 21%

Bust 📉

• Vicarious Surgical (NASDAQ:RBOT) down 12%

• Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 11%

• AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) down 10%

From the hive mind 🧠

• There’s always someone worried about the rise of AI in their industry. Of course, you would be a little worried about the idea of a machine doing a better job than you. But for game developers, I don’t know, I just don’t think people will respond to AI creation in the same way we enjoy human-created experiences.

• It’s not just the response to earnings that has the market moving AI-related stocks. Remember, a lot of this industry is Taiwan dependent. And when Trump takes a somewhat combative approach to Taiwan, it’s going to rumble the market.

• Remember how companies would “greenwash”? Many still do, but at least now they can get in trouble for it. Well, how about the term, “AIwash”? That’s right, expect to see a lot of companies touting their AI-ness when in reality, they’re just blowing smoke up our… you get the idea.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

After watching the King’s Speech from his procession to Parliament, the cannons firing and the event itself, there were times when I couldn’t help but simply chuckle at the absurdity of it all.

I think the biggest laugh I got was when they slammed the doors shut as “Black Rod” approached. Black Rod is forced to bang on the door and then from within they call out, “It’s Blackrod.”

Anyway, this week’s poll is kind of un-AI related. But it is something I am curious about considering the AI-aware readers we have here at AI Collision…

Leave a comment

Weirdest AI image of the day

Spain outlaws bulls, switches to fighter Zebras that can defend themselves – r/Weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• The geopolitical tinderbox

• Welcome to the club, gangster

• Teddy on a whale?

If that’s enough to get the shots firing, read on…

AI Collision 💥

Sometimes the AI story has to sideline when historic moments take place that you must pay attention to.

And when a former US president, who mid-campaign for the next presidency is shot in an attempted assassination, yeah, we kind of need to take a moment to consider the seriousness and impact of this.

Whichever side of the debate you might sit on, it is never acceptable for something like this to happen. Ever.

I think that it’s going to solidify Trump’s run at presidency, and it’ll be a decisive factor in him getting back into the White House.

In which case, it’s going to be bullish for markets, bullish for crypto, it’s going to be bullish for US domestic energy providers notably oil and gas and nuclear (but not so much for the renewables sector), US military and ultimately the US markets.

The markets are going to be fun to trade and find opportunities in leading up to it as right now, chaos seems to prevail – which leads to market volatility, which leads to opportunities in the market.

But we are also acutely aware of the tinder box of social unrest that faces America, and much of Europe and the UK right now. And that too adds a layer of volatility to the market which we also have to consider.

An inch different over the weekend, and Trump dies, and then who knows what happens to America and the markets. Again, I would expect chaos to ensue.

But he’s alive, barely, and the hysteria is only going to build from here (on both sides).

So, frankly, I don’t see things tamping down any time soon.

In America it’s only going to ramp up to the election. In Europe, well, who knows what’s going on – that’s a bit of a basket case in its own right. And then of course the UK just changed hands of government as Sunak vacated the prime ministership, handing over to Tony Blair Keir Starmer.

Can anyone say, “geopolitical risk”?

On the subject of the UK right now, whilst there is a bit of a lull in things post-election (and post another Euros football final loss for England) expect things in the UK to heat up again too.

I say that because interestingly I saw an article in The Times recently from none other than the former Labour leader, titled “Tony Blair: My advice to Kier Starmer.”

(If you’re paywalled, try dropping the URL into archive.md.)

I found this interesting in the highest order because for the first half of the article Blair goes on about voting and the other parties and the job of getting to become PM vs actually being PM.

Then about halfway through things take a surprising turn towards… artificial intelligence.

That’s right. An article about “my advice to Keir” quickly becomes an article about how The Blair Institute is pushing hard for AI and the economic growth engine of the UK.

It is quite an abrupt turn, and one we find utterly fascinating.

Not the least because just two weeks ago I wrote to you about the real puppet masters of our governments and AI future.

On 2 July I wrote,

… it’s fair to say who might have some input on the shaping and change-making that Labour might pursue when it comes to AI.

And I would suggest taking a look at the Tony Blair Institute site for a bit of an idea.

We went on to show you what some of the highlights of the Blair Institute have been thus far on AI and were quite clear that if anyone was going to shape Labour’s AI strategy, it would be Blair via the Blair Institute.

So, when four days after I wrote all that we get Blair penning a piece in The Times which is an AI strategy piece in disguise… well I guess I felt somewhat vindicated with my take on things.

In his piece, Blair wrote,

My institute will this week hold its Future of Britain conference. To coincide with it, we will publish detailed reports that show how the unvirtuous circle can be turned virtuous, by accelerating the application of technological innovation.

The spread of the application of AI by the private sector and its encouragement by appropriate government policy is the only answer to Britain’s productivity challenge and, over time, it can turbocharge growth.

He writes about AI in healthcare, in government, and how AI will “change everything”. It is for him, clearly, the centrepiece of the pathway forward for Labour.

Good or bad, whether he is indeed in control of the strings that Starmer dances to, or not, it is very clear that AI is going to be a theme for the UK government to try to get its growth agenda humming along.

The government will say it’s about houses and construction, but underneath it is about technology and AI, that’s what’s going to drive the country forward.

The tools are there to be taken and used. We’ll have to wait and see if they can execute any of it.

AI gone wild 🤪

Prince Charles is said to have written a personal letter to Trump after the assassination attempt.

I wonder what it said…

Dear Donald,

Welcome to the club, gangster!

Yours truly,

H.R.H Charles III

For it was 30 years ago in Sydney the King was also in the midst of an “assassination attempt”.

Well, it’s said it was a protest not an attempted assassination of the King who was then just Prince Charles. But the guy that did it was carrying a pistol (albeit a starters gun) and did get off two shots (albeit blanks) as he rushed the Prince.

Weirdly in Australia, they just wrestled the guy to the ground, and he’s now a barrister in Sydney. He’s not in a morgue with half his head missing.

I get the feeling the next time someone tries something like that in Australia, the UK, the US… anywhere, it’ll be an outcome befitting the guy that took a shot at Trump.

Anyway, it is the King that will also have a hand (somewhat) in what Blair has pushed (as per the essay earlier) through his institute and what Keir Starmer is about to introduce to the UK tomorrow.

It is tomorrow that HRH Charles III will read The King’s Speech, written by the government, delivered by the monarch at the official opening of Parliament.

It’s widely expected that in that speech Labour is going to drop some heavy AI-focused detail, even some AI specific bills to be introduced into parliament.

That’s going to set up for a lively summer sitting and debate, when the UK gets its big boy AI pants on and really starts to push forward Blair’s Starmer’s policies and agendas.

We don’t know for sure what’s coming, but we will be watching.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) up 24%

• Vicarious Surgical (NASDAQ:RBOT) up 32%

• Taiwan Semi (NYSE:TSM) up 10%

Bust 📉

• Cyngn (NASDAQ:CYN) down 43%

• Wearable Devices (NASDAQ:WLDS) down 8%

• Zeta Global Holdings (NYSE:ZETA) down 8%

From the hive mind 🧠

• Meet the NGF. The Next Generation Fighter from Europe. Maybe they should have called it the Defence Next Generation Aviation Fighter, or the DNGAF (if you want, look that up on Urban Dictionary). It will be scary, high tech and yes, full of AI.

• Is AI the energy drain that many suggest? Is it going to require vasts amount of energy that we currently do not have? Are we going to see rolling blackouts if something isn’t done? Dunno. Maybe. AI can help energy usage, that’s for sure. But it also does require vasts amounts to do its thing.

• When we say AI can help energy usage, there’s some evidence to support that. Like how LG has used AI to rapid design batteries. Not in a month, not in a week, but in just one day.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️ The Results

Last week, we looked at the idea of AI helping to improve government services and asked:

You don’t think it will help. A narrow margin, but a win for the “no’s” nonetheless.

Interesting again is that Blair in his The Times piece also said,

… applying AI to the processes of government can cut workforce time by 20 per cent.

So maybe AI helps to reduce the time we all waste with government services, but fundamentally the services themselves don’t actually improve.

Then again, I’d rather have the same level of incompetence but 20% faster, than things get worse.

We can hope for the best, and then just accept they’ll probably fumble the opportunity anyway!

A new poll with you on Thursday.

Leave a comment

Weirdest AI image of the day

Newly discovered photos of Theodore Roosevelt – r/Weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• A bit of China, a bit of the US, a bit of the Dutch

• Nokia: can anyone catch them?

• Is government better with AI? (Poll)

If that’s enough to get the foundry firing, read on…

AI Collision 💥 TSMC’s rise from the ‘87 ashes

As we explained on Tuesday, there are a lot of vocal dissenters about the longevity of the AI boom that we’re experiencing.

Seems like every major investment bank or research house now has a view that this market is primed for a monumental crash and bursting of the “AI bubble”.

Some are saying it’s imminent. Some suggest it’s another two years away. If that’s the case, do you really want to be out of this market for two years in anticipation of a crash or correction?

Even if you had been an investor in October 1987, you’d still be better off long-term sticking in the market than trying to perfectly time when the market corrects or crashes.

(Yes, THAT October 1987, Black Monday.)

Even from the 2008/09 crash, long term, being out of the market is just not a wise decision – and I’ll tell you about a company today that proves exactly why…

And even if the market does correct or crash, not only does this provide great chances to pick up cheap stocks, but it also often opens the door for something great to emerge from the depths of investor despair.

In fact, if we wind back to 1987, the same year of “Black Monday” we’ll find the origins of what’s most likely about to become another regular member of the $1 trillion club.

After plying his trade at Sylvania Semiconductor and then a highly successful stint at Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN) Dr. Morris Chang was tapped on the shoulder in 1985 by the Taiwanese government to head up what was to be the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).

Two years later, whilst still at ITRI, Chang would also start a company involved in semiconductor manufacturing called Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

Thanks to his leadership and expertise in this area, he was promptly backed by the Taiwanese government and also multinational Dutch technology company Philips.

As an investor and early customer, Philips was crucial to TSMC getting off the ground. Also, its business model of making chips, with no interest in designing them, made a lot of sense to Philips and others early on.

TSMC would go on to become the preeminent chip maker for all kinds of tech companies around the world. Today some of its biggest customers include Nvidia, Apple, AMD, MediaTek, Qualcomm and Broadcom.

It’s also been a publicly listed company for 27 years. Its initial public offering (IPO) in 1997 saw the stock list at $24.78. Stock split adjusted, that’s an IPO price of a bit over $5. With a stock price today of around $190, that’s over 3,500% in 27 years – or about 14.5% compounding annually every, single, year.

But what’s significant about that isn’t just the extraordinary returns over that time frame. It’s the fact that having briefly crossed over the $1 trillion mark just this week, it looks like TSMC is going to leapfrog into the esteemed $1 trillion club and stay there.

TSMC reports earnings next week – and we’ll have more in the coming weeks about the big AI and tech players that are reporting soon. As we noted the other day, we’re expecting them to beat expectations.

Now the stock may well run up in anticipation of that – not just cruising through $1 trillion market cap, but smashing past it. It is crucial to the rollout of AI. And as the biggest actual maker of chips needed for AI worldwide, it’s fair to say as important as a company like Nvidia might be, you cannot ignore the company that makes most of its stuff either.

TSMC is an example of regardless of the bump, crises and crashes and corrections in a market, in the long term, quality companies that do really important things can be absolute stars and winners in a portfolio.

AI gone wild 🤪 it’s tough at the top

I saw this last week. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it. It probably won’t be the last.

We were all there in 2007, in the midst of Nokia mania. By this stage, I was rocking a Nokia N73.

It wasn’t my first Nokia, nor my favourite. That title went to my old bright orange Nokia 5210. I tested out its “rugged” capabilities by dropping it (intentionally) on a brick and then submerging it in a pint of beer when I first got it.

I also had the Nokia 3210. But then again, who didn’t have that one? The 3210 shipped over 160 million units worldwide.

I had some others even as recently as the Nokia 6300 when one Xmas I decided I wanted to go “off grid”. I also pined for many more including the N-Gage, the 6810 and N90. But for decades, nothing was better than Nokia.

Note; I’d love to hear about your favourite Nokia phone, or the Nokia you fell in love with most during their time at the top. Let me know in the comments…

Leave a comment

Even today as far as sitting on the precipice of design, nothing really has ever come close to Nokia.

But I bring all this up today because of that Forbes front page and its relation to AI comes amid all this talk of AI “bubbles”.

There is no doubt in my mind that AI is with us to stay. It is no bubble if the technology itself will form a fundamental part of all technology into our future.

What might be bubble-like are the key players in the AI space. For now, at least, I don’t see the top of the tree changing at all. I don’t see how Nvidia and AMD suddenly drop off the perch – not at this point at least.

But we must always appreciate that when you do sit on that throne – as strong and mighty and all-encompassing as it might seem at the time – competition, new technology, someone who just figures out how to do it better can and do regularly come along to disrupt and dominate.

Take nothing for granted. Nokia was the king of its domain for decades. And it did seem like no one could or would catch Nokia. Until they did.

The same could be said for the kings of AI today. Just a reminder, to always keep a look out for what comes next wherever it may come from.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Veritone (NASDAQ:VERI) up 25%

• Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) up 14%

• AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) up 12%

Bust 📉

• Brainchip (ASX:BRN) down 8%

• WISeKey International (NASDAQ:WKEY) down 8%

• UIPath (NASDAQ:PATH) down 8%

From the hive mind 🧠

• As a parent there’s enough things you worry about with your kids, let alone the perils of AI. But now you’ve got to think about how to teach your kids responsible use of AI, otherwise it might lead to some serious jail time.

• Former colleague of mine John Stepek writes a very entertaining column over at Bloomberg. And in his latest one, like we’ve done this week, he looks at how to invest in AI in conditions that many consider to be a bubble.

• I’m going to answer the question the BBC poses in this headline succinctly and nice and easy for you… YES!

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️ The Results

Following on from our last link above in the “Hive Mind” section and following on from the new government that has formed in the UK this week, I want to know your thoughts on dealing with government services and AI.

Leave a comment

Weirdest AI image of the day

Forbidden love – r/Weirddallee

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Share AICollision

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

Although Southbank Investment Research Ltd, the publisher of AI Collision is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the editorial content in AI Collision is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The editorial content is for general information only; it gives no advice on investments and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Your capital is at risk when you invest. Any investment decisions should be considered in relation to your own circumstances, risk tolerance and investment objectives.

Occasionally we may tell you about other information services published by Southbank Investment Research Limited which do contain content which is regulated by the FCA. When viewing this regulated content, you should review the risk warnings accompanying it. 

You can unsubscribe from AI Collision at any time by clicking the link below.

ISSN 2977-0882

© 2024 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: Basement, 95 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. 

https://register.fca.org.uk

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• Bubble-shmubble

• 13-fold increase in moolah says so

• The chickens are angry

If that’s enough to get the bubbles popping, read on…

AI Collision 💥 No parties like it’s 1999 thanks

Doomers are back!

Nothing goes up forever. And unless we’re talking about the S&P 500 (see below) then that statement might be reasonably correct.

Then again, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon… they too have gone up forever. Well, at least in their entire existence as publicly traded stocks they’ve only ever gone up long term.

I won’t chart them all, but they’ve all hit all-time highs recently. If you look closely at that term – all, time, high – you get an indication that indeed the stock price in the long term has only ever gone… up.

But that, of course, is no guarantee that’s what they’ll do in the future!

Of course!

Which means at some point they must go down. Right?

Well if you’ve kept an eye on the news flow into the AI market this week, peeling yourself away from the riveting outcomes of the UK general election, then you might have copped an eyeful of this:

This Reuters article takes a close look at the similarities of the late 90s/early 00s dot-com bubble, explaining:

Echoing the dot-com boom, the information technology sector (.SPLRCT), opens new tab has swelled to 32% of the S&P 500's total market value, the largest percentage since 2000 when it rose to nearly 35%, according to LSEG Datastream. Just three companies, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and Nvidia, represent over 20% of the index.

Not to be left out, we got the following headline from notable financial blog, The Felder Report:

Then from Tom’s Hardware:

This piece was referencing a recent Sequoia report about the huge bump in AI-derived revenues to make AI investment worthwhile and for companies to realise the value that the AI hype has been promising.

It notes that amongst the “Magnificent 7” – the big tech stocks all riding the AI train higher – Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta were all making about $10 billion each from the AI opportunity. And then others like Cisco, Tencent and Alibaba were making about $5 billion each.

But the real kicker is that they’re all still around $500 billion short in terms of revenue needed to justify the spend and the stock price rises.

And then on to Markets Insider with the following:

This was a different research report taking aim at the AI “bubble”. It noted that unless there were some immediate and fast increases in cash flow thanks to AI, then the bubble would imminently burst.

From that article and the Capital Economics report:

"Ultimately, we anticipate that returns from equities over the next decade will be poorer than over the previous one. And we think that the long-running outperformance of the US stock market may come to an end," Capital Economics' Diana Iovanel and James Reilly said.

Yowza!

That’s enough to make you want to run for the hills, take cover and steer well clear of the AI bubble.

I would expect this kind of hyperbole to continue through 2024. And there may even be times when we see a strong pullback in stock prices that are directly tied to the AI theme.

This week could be the start of that too, as we start to see earnings reports flow through into the mainstream media. It is earnings season again!

If you’re not making money hand over fist from AI and you’re not heavily investing in and talking about AI in your earnings reports, then I would defiantly stay at home.

But expect the next couple of weeks to be AI heavy and expect to see some stocks surprise. For me, I would expect the biggest end of town to all be surprising on revenue and profit expectations across the board.

Why do I say that? Why am I not convinced we’re in any form of an AI bubble yet? Well check out the AI Gone Wild section below to understand why…

Doomers, stay at home. Your time has not come, and long term, I don’t think it will come at all.

AI gone wild 🤪

If in one corner you’ve got an increasing number of analysts saying that AI is heading into or already in bubble territory. Then on the other, you’ve got people (like me) saying that’s a view, but also if you’re fearful and out of this market then you’re missing massive profit potential.

And I think another aspect of this market to cast the eye towards is those that make memory chips for the world’s markets.

More specifically, high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips.

I wrote to you the other week about how AI was bricking my computer. I also wrote about how companies like Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM) and Taiwan Semi (NYSE:TSM) were the ones that were potential benefactors from AI like Apple’s “Intelligence”.

For what it’s worth, Arm is up 16% since that piece on 13 June and Taiwan Semi is up 12%.

But I also noted:

… there’s also the memory makers, the cooling technologies, the cabling and power providers.

This is where the growth in AI comes from. Load me up with RAM and load me up with RAM stocks… that’s the direction I think we need to keep looking just so we don’t all end up with bricked devices.

So who are these “memory makers” and what’s going on with their bottom line?

Well cast your eye no further than a company you maybe don’t first associate with something like HBM…

That company is Samsung (KRX:005930). Well, Samsung Electronics’ part of Samsung.

Yes, the smartphone and telly maker is also a major player in the world’s manufacturing of memory chips.

And the explosion of AI is so fundamental to its potential that it’s expecting to report a 13-fold increase in profits this quarter thanks to AI.

That’s right folks, a 13-FOLD INCREASE!

But it’s not just Samsung that’s deep into the HBM market. SK Hynix (KRX:000660) is another that’s also a key player in this market along with Micron Technologies (NASDAQ:MU).

In fact, Micron is saying that it’s aiming to triple its market share by 2025. The target is around 25%.

And SK Hynix, well, you’ve probably not heard of it, but the company already holds about 35% of the world’s memory chip market. And it’s about to pump a lazy $76.5 billion into its development of AI chips to extend that dominance.

In these three alone – Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix – you’d be hard pressed to find a more important trio to the future of AI technologies, simply because combined they dominate the memory chip market.

The thing is, it’s not all that easy investing in Samsung or SK Hynix as both are traded on the Korean stock market. It’s not that simple to whip into your ISA or SIPP and load up on stock.

Micron, at least, makes investing a bit easier in that it’s traded on the US markets. But then again, check out the stock price over the last year…

That’s a bit over 106% in the last year and it is now carrying a $146 billion market cap… plus in 2023 it made a loss.

So, it’s probably a decent argument to say it’s overvalued. But then again, what is value when you’re talking about such a foundational technology like AI?

And how far into the future do you need to stretch to find earnings to make a stock price valuation worthwhile? Or indeed are we just in a bubble where you need to make your money, then get out?

Well I have my view, and there are my favourite stocks to invest in to take advantage of what’s going on here too.

Which ones? Well I can’t say exactly here – this is after all a free e-letter. But what I am certain of is that right now, bubble or 13-fold increase in profits, if you’re not investing in AI stocks and using AI tools to your full advantage, you need to seriously reconsider your investment approach.

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) up 24%

• Vicarious Surgical (NASDAQ:RBOT) up 32%

• Taiwan Semi (NYSE:TSM) up 10%

Bust 📉

• Cyngn (NASDAQ:CYN) down 43%

• Wearable Devices (NASDAQ:WLDS) down 8%

• Zeta Global Holdings (NYSE:ZETA) down 8%

From the hive mind 🧠

• “It’s-a-me, Mario!” The world's most popular video game character continues to evolve, continues to find his way into news games, and media. But he’s also saying "It’s-a-no” to AI.

• Intelligence is coming. Sooner than you think. Just remember you need to have the right kind of ‘silicon’ in your device to get it to work properly.

• Bill Gates says…AI and climate change go hand in hand. So, do you believe him? Will AI fight the change or is it all just a part of a secretive agenda? What do YOU think?

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️ The Results

After all the “seriousness” of the UK elections, last week’s poll was intended to be positively silly.

And silly it was.

But we still have a responsibility to look at the results which we shall…

However from all this came a tremendous reply from one of our readers, Matt.

I suggest checking out last Thursday’s comments section for his full reply to the poll. But to cut a long answer short, the synthesis of his reply, with my reply, ended up in perhaps the most poignant thing we would and arguably should get ASI to do…

How do you brew the perfect beer?

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Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision

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