Heavy Metal Traders Are Getting Rich
Congratulations. You survived the first half of January.
So it’s time for the 5 charts you need to see. Though there’s more than 5 this week:
Heavy Metal Traders Are Getting Rich
Metals won in 2025, and they’re winning again this year.
But while everyone’s obsessed with the #silversqueeze, there is another dominant metal in 2026: uranium.
The Global X Uranium ETF (URA) is now up 26.5% this month, edging out the iShares Silver Trust (SLV).
The AI industry is driving demand for more nuclear power. And nuclear power providers need a lot more uranium, which is in short supply.
Bank of America said uranium prices could rise by 50% by 2027, and named Cameco (CCJ) its number one pick. It’s been on fire this year:
But uranium and silver are not the only metals winners.
Copper, platinum, palladium, and lithium are all in uptrends.
So this the year of heavy metal!
Full disclosure: CCJ is one of my biggest personal equity holdings.
But let’s talk about my biggest position, which isn’t doing as well as CCJ:
Apple = Crapple
Every time it looks like it’s waking up, Apple (AAPL) goes back to sleep.
Look at this mess:
Do you need indicators or squiggly lines to see how ugly this is?
Now, I’m not selling my Apple because the company’s got two huge things going for it:
- Android is, um, not very cool
- The products all just work together
It’s a good thing earnings are in two weeks, because we need resolution here.
Either a screaming rally back to the highs, or a final death blow.
This slow bleed is too painful to endure.
If it’s gonna go down, let’s just get it over with!
Small Caps Go on a Wild Ride
We’ve been hearing about a small cap comeback for years.
But it may be happening.
The Russell 2000 is up over 8% in January while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 are up less than 2%.
And there are tons of individual winners. ‘
As of Friday afternoon, 205 stocks in the Russell 2000 are up more than 20% this month.
And 32 are up more than 50%.
We can’t necessarily attribute this to lower rates because the Fed direction isn’t quite clear.
So it looks like a combination of speculative juices and catch-up.
Investors Are Getting Very Bullish
The crowd is getting very bullish after a big rally from the December lows.
According to the AAII Sentiment Survey, 49.5% investors are bullish:
This is the highest bullish reading since November 14, 2024, which was right after President Trump’s election victory, which drove a massive surge in stocks.
Interestingly, it seems that survey respondents are not concerned about all the chaos in the world, between Venezuela, Iran, the President going after Powell, uncertainty on the economy, etc.
Or perhaps everyone’s just gotten used to chaos by now.
Just keep in mind that timing the market using sentiment indicators is notoriously difficult.
Happy times can last.
Micron Earnings Estimates Are Insane
Micron (MU) is up 249% over the past year, and if you want to know why, look at the power of a memory shortage.
Earnings estimates have gone parabolic, as you can see in this chart.
This is crazier than what we saw with Nvidia 3 years ago.
In the past 12 months, FY2026 EPS estimates have gone from $11.24 to $32.67.
Everybody from Nvidia (NVDA) to AMD (AMD) to Alphabet (GOOGL) is desperate for memory and prices are going through the roof.
Crazy stuff.