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It's 'Round To It' Time ~
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Every time Musk needs a company, he buys it
3 Crucial Aerospace Component Makers That Analysts Love
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If the Dollar Crashes, What’s Your Plan B?
Trump's Strategic Bitcoin Reserve says it all:
The era of unlimited printing is cracking.
And Bitcoin is being positioned as the escape hatch - right alongside gold.
For decades, a Gold IRA was the go-to move for protecting retirement savings.
Now the government itself is treating Bitcoin the same way it treats gold in Fort Knox - holding it, refusing to sell it, and pushing legislation to accumulate more.
Smart investors are moving fast - shifting savings into Crypto-Backed IRAs that protect their wealth and shield them from taxes. The same tax advantages as a Gold IRA, built for what's coming next.
It's legal. IRS-approved. And built for this moment.
👉 Here's how to position yourself before the new "Gold Standard" goes fully mainstream.
You can't stop fiat from failing.
But you can opt out.
More Reading from MarketBeat Media
3 Industrial Stocks That Just Crushed Earnings
By Dan Schmidt. Article Posted: 5/13/2026.
Key Points
- The industrial sector is gaining momentum in 2026, driven by AI infrastructure buildout, sector rotation from tech, and growing defense backlogs.
- W.W. Grainger and Rockwell Automation both beat earnings estimates and raised full-year guidance, while analysts issued multiple price target increases for Rockwell.
- Powell Industries surged roughly 190% year-to-date despite missing estimates, though its valuation of 55x forward earnings raises concerns about near-term overextension.
- Special Report: Elon Musk’s $1 Quadrillion AI IPO
Every time you refresh your brokerage app, it seems another semiconductor stock is jumping 10%.
But it's not just chip stocks that are bubbling with bullish energy and earnings beats. The industrial sector is also getting in on the action. And with earnings season in full swing, some companies in the space are cruising past estimates, raising guidance, and giving investors plenty of reason to celebrate.
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👉 Unlock the ticker now and get it completely free.The industrial sector still trails the energy and tech sectors significantly so far in 2026. But the Industrial Select Sector SDPR Fund (NYSEARCA: XLI) is up more than 10% year-to-date (YTD), and several industry-specific catalysts are underway that could drive significant earnings growth.
Physical AI Buildout: One of the prevailing investment trends of 2026 has been the shift from software to hardware in the AI industry. Hyperscaler capex projections continue to reach nosebleed levels, but the constraints are no longer digital. Data centers need power generation, cooling systems, transformers, quality control equipment, and a host of components to house the intelligence. These physical constraints have been a boon to industrials that manufacture the infrastructure surrounding the most sophisticated models.
Mega Cap Tech Rotation: Even without the data center buildout, industrials are likely to benefit from more routine sector rotation. While semiconductors are leading the rally right now, investors have rotated out of overvalued, high-multiple tech names and into cheaper sectors like industrials. In addition to offering better value, money managers also understand that the AI revolution will be underpinned by vital physical infrastructure.
Growing Defense Backlogs: The wars in Iran and Ukraine have created a sustained tailwind as Europe and the U.S. both seek to increase defense spending and restock depleted inventories. Defense contractors' backlogs are reaching record levels, such as the nearly $200 billion order book at Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT), which will provide steady revenue for years to come.
Three industrials reported earnings within the last week, and each saw its results rewarded by the market. But how much more upside is left? Let’s break down the reports and see which companies can sustain their momentum.
W.W. Grainger: Strong Earnings Boost Technical Momentum
“For the ones who get it done” is the popular tagline of industrial supplier W.W. Grainger Inc. (NYSE: GWW), but it was management that got it done in Q1 with a strong earnings report.
The company beat analysts' estimates on both EPS and revenue in Q1 2026, with revenue up more than 10% year-over-year (YOY).
Both the Endless Assortment and High-Touch segments grew during the quarter, and management raised full-year sales guidance and increased the dividend by 10%, marking its 55th straight year of dividend increases.
However, it wasn’t a spotless conference call. Management warned that Q2 margins could be pressured by inventory and fuel costs, and the Section 232 tariff situation remains murky at best.
GWW shares popped as much as 10% following the release, though they gave back some of those gains over the next few days.
Management was careful to temper expectations for Q2, but the technical momentum remains strong. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is firmly in bullish territory, and the stock appears to have support along the 50-day moving average, which crossed above the 200-day moving average in February.
Rockwell Automation: AI Growth Story Outpaces Margin Headwinds
Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE: ROK) is, in some respects, one of the original AI companies.
The $50 billion giant has been helping clients automate industrial processes for decades, and advances in AI and machine learning are accelerating its revenue.
Rockwell reported fiscal Q2 2026 results on May 5, beating EPS and revenue projections by 13% and 3.5%, respectively.
The $2.24 billion in quarterly revenue represented nearly 12% YOY growth, and management raised full-year 2026 sales guidance to a 5-9% growth range, with an EPS midpoint of $12.80.
Following the report, the stock received 11 price target boosts from analysts, including a new Street-high $525 from Morgan Stanley. Analysts now see Rockwell as a beneficiary of several growing AI trends, including factory automation and data center energy efficiency.
Technical trends point to more upside as well. Shares now trade above both the 50-day and 200-day moving averages, and the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) has been bullish since the end of March.
Powell Industries: A Crucial Cog in Data Center Infrastructure
Markets have learned to trust Powell, but we aren’t talking about the Federal Reserve chairman here.
Powell Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: POWL) is a mid-cap electrical engineering company that actually missed EPS and revenue estimates when it reported fiscal Q2 2026 results on May 5.
However, investors care more about the future than the past, and Powell’s record backlog and clean balance sheet have driven the stock to a roughly 190% YTD gain and a nearly 400% gain over the past year.
The $1.8 billion backlog is expected to provide visible revenue through fiscal 2028, and the company is currently sitting on $545 million in cash with no debt, which has management exploring capacity expansion.
If there’s one worry for POWL investors, it's that the rally appears overextended. The stock has enjoyed strong support at the 50-day moving average since the start of its rally last year, but now trades several standard deviations above trend.
The MACD is still bullish but looking increasingly unstable, with the MACD and signal lines drifting further apart. A short-term pullback might not be the worst thing after a gain of more than 30% in the past month, and it could provide new investors with a better entry point on a stock that now trades at a hefty 55x forward earnings and 10x sales.
More Reading from MarketBeat Media
Buffett Spent 60 Years Ignoring Tech and the Bill Is Coming Due
By Bridget Bennett. Article Posted: 5/9/2026.
Key Points
- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has underperformed the S&P 500 by roughly 39 percentage points over the past year, raising questions about whether value investing can keep pace with the AI-driven market.
- Berkshire is holding close to $347 billion in cash—nearly 40% of its market cap—a signal that management is bracing for a potential market correction rather than chasing current highs.
- James Early of Curia Financial argues Constellation Software is the most "Buffett-like" way to play an overblown SaaS selloff driven by AI fears.
- Special Report: Elon Musk’s $1 Quadrillion AI IPO
The stock market is hitting new all-time highs, while Berkshire Hathaway continues to build a cash fortress. That tension tells investors something important about where we are in this cycle.
James Early, founder of Curia Financial and a longtime Buffett follower, attended Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Omaha earlier this month. What he saw made him more inclined to trim his position than add to it.
Berkshire's Cash Pile Is Sending a Signal
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👉 Unlock the ticker now and get it completely free.Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) is sitting on roughly $347 billion in cash—nearly 40% of its total market cap.
The company did repurchase about $200 million of its own stock last quarter, but that's a rounding error against a cash hoard that large.
Meanwhile, Greg Abel, who took over as CEO three months ago, is running his first annual meeting at the helm of one of the world's most closely watched companies.
Early describes Abel as solid but not electric. "You can't replace the irreplaceable," he says of Buffett and the late Charlie Munger.
But the more pressing question isn't who's running the meeting; it's why so much cash is sitting idle while the market keeps climbing.
Buffett offered one telling frame at the meeting: the market is always a mix of church and casino, and lately the casino side has been getting more traffic. That's not a forecast—it's a posture. And Berkshire's actions back it up.
The Underperformance Gap Is Real—and the Reason Matters
Over the past decade, BRK.B has trailed the S&P 500 by roughly 2.6 percentage points annualized. Over the past year alone, that gap has widened to approximately 39 percentage points. That's not noise. It's a story.
Early's answer is blunt: the Magnificent Seven.
The market has assigned roughly double the earnings multiple to mega-cap tech compared with the rest of the S&P. And that's not because earnings growth has been dramatically different, but because investors are pricing in much higher expectations.
Berkshire, with its railroads, insurance companies, and energy holdings, isn't in that trade.
The historical parallel is uncomfortable but instructive. In 1999, Buffett looked just as out of step. Headlines declared he'd lost his edge. Then the dot-com bubble burst, and he was vindicated within 18 months. He's made this move before: hold cash, wait for blood in the streets, and acquire on the way down.
The question Early can't answer with certainty is whether the same playbook works in 2025.
AI Is Where Berkshire Is Most Exposed
The technology gap inside Berkshire's private portfolio is clearer than most investors realize.
Greg Abel acknowledged at the meeting that Burlington Northern Santa Fe is roughly a decade behind Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) in technology adoption. GEICO faces a similar challenge against Progressive (NYSE: PGR), which was among the first insurers to sell policies online in the late 1990s and has never looked back.
Early's rough read of Abel's remarks: about 80% of his AI commentary focused on risk, not opportunity. That's not a company leaning into the moment. It's one watching it go by.
On the public equity side, Berkshire has made progress. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) became its single biggest return driver, and the portfolio has added Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) in recent years. But those moves came from portfolio managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, not from Buffett himself—and Combs has since departed.
The Contrarian Case for Constellation Software
Early isn't abandoning value investing. He's updating it. His current conviction pick is Constellation Software (OTCMKTS: CNSWF), a company he describes as "the most Buffett-like way to play the SaaS selloff."
Founded by Mark Leonard, Constellation has quietly acquired between 500 and 1,000 vertical market software companies over its history—small, niche businesses with long-term contracts, founder-led cultures, and high customer retention. Leonard recently stepped back from day-to-day operations for health reasons, with Mark Miller now serving as president.
The stock has been hammered on AI fears: the assumption that large language models will simply replace the specialized software these companies provide. Early thinks that logic is overdone.
Even if AI replicates 90% to 95% of what a vertically integrated software company does, the 5% it misses could create catastrophic risk for the businesses relying on it. Those aren't relationships you rip out for a vibe-coded alternative.
That risk/reward setup—quality software assets priced for an AI apocalypse that probably isn't coming—is exactly the kind of misvaluation Buffett has always hunted. The difference? Investing in Constellation means hunting it in technology rather than avoiding technology altogether.
What This Market Moment Is Really About
Early draws an analogy to the early internet era: companies that dismissed websites in 2000 look absurd in retrospect. AI may carry even more long-term weight. The hype cycle will correct—it always does—but the underlying transformation is likely underestimated over any decade-long horizon.
The risk for Berkshire isn't just underperformance. It's that railroads could be disrupted by autonomous trucking. It's that insurers without AI-driven underwriting could lose ground permanently. It's that holding cash while waiting for a crash means missing the compounding that's already happening elsewhere.
Early still holds his Berkshire shares; he's just not adding. And for what it's worth, he's thinking harder about Constellation Software instead.
The market will eventually sort out what's priced right and what isn't. The setup worth watching is whether Berkshire's cash pile becomes a weapon—or just a record.
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