☕️ Tesla: buy, sell or hold?

Howdy! 👋 

I didn’t like the way the wind was blowing after hours last night and sent this tweet out via X… 

Looks like I may have been on to something. 

Stocks are down a skosh as I type, to start the 2nd half of the year. 

Big deal or meh? 🤔 

There are folks like hedge fund billionaire Robert Citrone making the case for a correction starting right about now but there are just as many making the case for “generational” opportunity a la BlackRock’s Rick Rieder.  

I don’t really care either way. 

That’s the wrong question. 

If you want to guess about which way the markets go, then fine. 

I don’t. 

I’d rather concentrate my efforts on finding great companies that a) will succeed anyway and b) will be there when I need ‘em. 

History shows very clearly that it almost never feels like a great time to invest, but almost always is. 

Here’s my playbook. 

1 – Mess with the bull, get the horns 

It was “only a matter of time” I told an audience in Dallas recently. 

“For what?” you ask. 

For two of the biggest egos on the planet to clash – US President Donald Trump and Tesla front man Elon Musk. 

• President Trump threatened to cut subsidies for Elon Musk’s companies, calling him the most subsidized human in history and suggesting the Department of Government Efficiency review his funding.  
• Musk slammed Trump’s tax bill as “debt slavery” and called for a new political party. It would be logical to expect elevated political risk for Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink as Trump seeks leverage in upcoming budget negotiations. 

What to do? 

Buy, sell or hold? 

• If you’re a trader, volatility is your friend. There are dozens of short-term strategies you could use to play this ranging from simple directional options to complex spreads on volatility itself. 
• If you’re an investor, volatility is also your friend… you just use it differently. In this case you need to think about the bigger themes here and take action that keeps you lined up with ‘em. Using the right tactics, of course. 

I know what I’ll be doing and hopefully you do too. 

Btw and if you’d like some help threading this needle, you may enjoy One Bar Ahead® where I detail specific stocks, funds and strategies for both using an approach that investors around the world tell me has changed their lives. 

I say chill. 

Tesla has returned 18,822.99% since its IPO. The S&P 500 has turned in 494.79% over the same time frame. 

Tough love time. 

If you’re worried about a few bucks and a few percent, you’re not an investor but a speculator. 

Either is fine just don’t kid yourself. 

2 – Zuck’s brainpower blitz 

Meta just launched Meta Superintelligence Labs — a brand spanking new unit to consolidate all its AI foundation models, projects, and research under one ominous-sounding roof. (Read) 

Who’s running the show? 

Alexandr Wang (ex-Scale AI CEO) and Nat Friedman (ex-GitHub CEO). Both were recently poached… err, hired… to turbocharge Meta’s AI efforts against OpenAI and Google. 

Zuck’s not messing around.  

These hires aren’t cheap. Neither is the $747.90 share price Meta hit on Monday — a new all-time high that topped its February record. 

My POV: Zuck doesn’t like second place. And when he starts throwing billions at brainpower, you can bet he’s aiming for the crown. 

AI is an arms race. If you’re investing in the combatants, pick the ones buying the smartest weapons — not just the shiniest ones.

3 – Home Depot’s growth hack… just buy it 

Home Depot just bought building products distributor GMS for $4.3 billion. (Read) 

The move ends a brewing bidding war with billionaire Brad Jacobs’ QXO, which had offered ~$5 billion and threatened a hostile takeover if rejected. 

Why the splurge? 

DIY sales are slowing, something we’ve been talking about for a long time and why I have repeatedly encouraged you to avoid both Home Depot and Lowe’s. 

Professionals — electricians, roofers, contractors — spend more, spend often, and aren’t as sensitive to every headline about mortgage rates or unemployment. Home Depot expects the deal to close by early 2026. 

Wall Street will probably cheer this as “strategic diversification,” but let’s call it what it really is: defensive buying. 

When consumer demand weakens, companies either shrink or pivot to where the money still flows because – repeat after me – money always flows to where it’s treated best. 

This deal tells you exactly where Home Depot thinks the real money is — and contrary to what many talking heads and self-style pundits will tell you, it’s not suburban families buying mulch and ceiling fans on weekends. 

Keith’s Investing Tip: When you see a company buying growth, look deeper. Are they extending existing advantages or just patching cracks in the foundation? There’s a world of difference… and your money deserves to know which is which. 

Trade Idea Update: I suggested a pairs trade a while back – meaning buying and selling two different retailers simultaneously... Walmart and Home Depot. The former has returned ~12.96% over the past 3 months while the latter has tacked on just 0.91%. So far so good. 

4 – AI open sourcing: there is no free lunch 

Huawei just open-sourced two AI models under its Pangu series. (Read) 

Loads of folks are thinking cool… open source because collaboration, innovation, and community, right? 

Think again. 

Open sourcing is bait. The real goal is to hook developers into Huawei’s Ascend AI chips and expand its ecosystem dominance — especially as Nvidia remains blocked from selling its top-tier chips to China. 

Huawei’s playing a different game. While Baidu builds general-purpose models, Huawei focuses on specialized AI for government, finance, and manufacturing. It doesn’t need to beat DeepSeek or Baidu in software — it just needs to sell more hardware. 

And let’s be clear: 

Their chips may not match Nvidia’s high-end inference capabilities today, but give ‘em time.  

Beijing has very little regard for intellectual property and has all but turned reverse engineering into a national sport. 

Keith’s Investing Tip: Many investors struggle with China but there’s really only one thought here – and it’s a big one. The Dragon is coming to dinner which means you’ve got to decide if you’re gonna be at the table or on the menu. 

5 – Amazon’s robot army hits 1 million 

Amazon just deployed its one millionth robot across operations. (Read) 

Cue the Luddites. 

One particularly salty anonymous keyboard warrior recently came at me with a full-caps "SO WHAT" in response to something I said. 

Aside from the fact that yelling online (all caps are the Internet version of screaming) doesn’t make you right — it just makes you obnoxious, this particular individual didn’t offer a single fact, idea, or even a halfway coherent rebuttal. Just anonymous jabbing from behind a screen. 🤷‍ 

Meanwhile, in the real world... 

Amazon just deployed its 1,000,000th robot. 

That’s not science fiction.  

This is what exponential adoption looks like, and it's not surprising. 

Robotics isn’t “coming” someday like many think. It's already here and no amount of snarky anonymous commentary will stop it. 

The Industrial Revolution took decades, but this is happening in quarters. 

Every industry will adapt, adopt or die. 

That’s the real “so what” here. 

So… make sure your money is on the right side of history. 

 Meanwhile, I’ll be here if you need me. 

Bottom Line  

People want to make investing very complicated because they think that’s what they should be doing. 

You’ve only got to get 2 things right as an investor: 

1. Buying the world's best companies making "must have products and services" when nobody wants 'em & selling when others can't resist buying them 
2. Keeping risk as low as possible at all times. 

As always, let’s MAKE it a great day. 

You got this – I promise! 

Keith 😀