00:00 Speaker A

Now, time for some of today’s trending tickers. We are watching bank stocks, strategy and Alphabet. Let’s dive in. First up, bank stocks are rising after passing the Federal Reserve’s annual health check. The Central Bank says 22 of the largest US banks are well positioned to withstand future economic downturns. This clears the way for lenders to boost buybacks and dividends for shareholders. A Fed official says that the banks are expected to announce buyback plans on Tuesday. Raymond James says the stress test results should garner increasing investor interest in financials. And Wells Fargo is naming Goldman Sachs as the big winner, along with JP Morgan, Bank of America and M&T Bank. Uh perhaps should come as no surprise. Those are the largest banks and with the best positioning, perhaps to pass some of these stress tests.

01:01 Speaker B

Right. So JP Morgan and Bank of America are two family favorites. I own them. I own them both. The others I don’t, but you’re right. This will uh this passing of the tests is going to just is going to uh uh allow investors to get even that much more confident once these banks start to announce these buybacks and raise their dividends. You’ll see money flowing into it and with earnings just starting two weeks away, kick again, kick off with JP, all these big banks will kick off on the 15th. Um I suspect that we’re going to hear some very positive forward guidance from these companies.

01:54 Speaker A

Yeah, and just a reminder is context to our viewers, why these stress tests are so important. Essentially solidifies that the banks would have enough liquidity if there were a run on the bank.

02:12 Speaker B

On the bank.

02:13 Speaker A

And so, that’s exactly why these are even more important, securitizing some of that investor interest as well.

02:22 Speaker B

Right. And investors should look to have those big names, exposure to those big names. Michael Oh, excuse me. Next up, Michael Saylor’s strategy is once again buying Bitcoin using common shares despite coming under fire for the practice by renowned short seller, Jim Chanos. Strategy purchasing nearly 300 or $532 million of Bitcoin in the last seven days ending June 29th. Now, Chanos uh Chanos argues strategy’s business model doesn’t make sense and the stock is overvalued. Saylor is arguing that Chanos doesn’t understand the process here. And so, uh maybe kind of signaling what the Sixers have told me and sold me for a while and trusting the process here. Um but understanding the process and the difference in strategy from formerly known as MicroStrategy, now strategy and of course, friend of the show, Michael Saylor, who has joined us time and time again to really walk us into what their purchase patterns would look like in the future. Very bullish on Bitcoin and they’ve stayed that way and not wavered.

03:51 Speaker B

Look, I I think everyone’s entitled to an opinion and a strategy on how they design it and what they think their future is. It’s okay to have a difference of opinion. Chanos thinks it’s wrong. He thinks, Saylor thinks it’s correct. Certainly, it is proven, you know, Saylor strategy has proven to be a winner. Um so, it’s okay to have an argument, but I don’t think you can throw all your, you know, your cards in the same pile as Jim Chanos that I know it’s wrong. I don’t necessarily think it’s wrong at all. The world is changing, right?

04:37 Speaker A

It is, and it’s even prompted some of the other publicly traded companies to consider where they also need to add on Bitcoin to their balance sheet. I.e., look no further than GameStop that hit the strategy button just weeks ago here, announcing that they were buying, I think it was at the time, 4,710 Bitcoin. And so, we’ll see how they continue to add on to a position.

05:02 Speaker B

Correct.

05:03 Speaker A

Right.

05:19 Speaker A

Also here, we’re also tracking alphabets today, making a play in nuclear fusion. Now, the tech giant says it will buy electricity from a future fusion power plant in Virginia. This is power that’s never successfully been used anywhere in the world yet, but the plant being built is called Commonwealth Fusion Systems and grew out of research at MIT. Fusion could help meets the demand for energy things for things like AI and data centers and EVs. Google going to be increasing its existing equity investment into Commonwealth beyond the $2 billion the company has already raised here. Shares right now are down on the day, but there are always a myriad of different headlines circling around Alphabet and Google, but this is pretty significant here. And you actually pointed out another stock as well that is hot within the space this year.

06:15 Speaker B

Yeah, new scale, the symbol is SMR, right? But they do these small modular reactors, right? These nuclear reactors that are really designed to help power all these things that you’re talking about, data centers, EVs and all that stuff. And I actually think that’s going to be where a lot of these data centers find their energy coming from is going to be from uh from this clean energy.

06:45 Speaker A

Interesting. Yeah, and that stock that you pointed out, SMR, it’s up year to date 118%.

06:52 Speaker B

Yeah, it’s had a fantastic move.

06:54 Speaker A

Absolutely. You can scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks of the session with Yahoo Finances Trending Tickers page.