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Daily Stock Picks' Gary Vaughan tells us 2 truths and a lie (0:35) Why valuation matters (2:50) Energy and the 5 layer cake of AI (5:35) Knowing when to sell and buy is sector specific (9:40) Tech moats, storylines and risk/reward (16:30) All things Apple (28:55) Taxes and investing (32:10) Trump's trip to China (35:00)

Transcript

Rena Sherbill: Gary Vaughan, one of our favorite people to have on this podcast from Daily Stock Picks. First of all, welcome back to the show. Always appreciate having you on.

Gary Vaughan: Thanks Rena. It's an honor to be here and I did tell my listeners today, I'm going to say it again, I'm not an expert in any way or form, but thank you for having me on and I appreciate it.

Rena Sherbill: So before we just hit record, you were telling me two truths and a lie. I'll leave it there. Set up the audience for what you just shared with me. Because I think it's a perfect place to start.

Gary Vaughan: Okay, if I told you at the beginning of the year that the 10-year bond would be near 52-week highs and it would still be rising, oil is up 60%, and the stock market is at all-time highs, you should tell me one of those is not true.

Honest to God, anybody in the market should tell me one of those is not true. All three are true.

Rena Sherbill: And yet.

Gary Vaughan: Yeah, this is an amazing run.

I think Peter Lynch put it perfectly. And the last time I was on, there was two things that I said. I said, I think the rally can continue because earnings should continue to grow. We've seen that happen and that's true. And then the second thing I told you was literally buy energy the day before the Iran war.

If you look back at the episode, I said, buy energy. I don't know if I'm a genius. I don't know if I have perfect timing. I don't know what it's about.

But honest to God, I've made some great calls in the past couple of months. One of them, I got off a podcast, I forget where it was, but they said, and this is part of what I consider myself to be a pretty good listener.

They said value has outperformed growth in the first quarter for the first time in X number of years. I forget how many. So I floated the idea, it's never happened twice. Why not just buy (VUG) in the second quarter?

I think I'm up 10% on that position.

Again, it's a simple market. I think you're seeing (SMH) up 70 % in 30 days, something like that.

And then today, it's today, Tuesday, May 12th, and all of those names are pulling back. But your episode specifically with Steve Cress, I think it was last week sometime, where he basically said know when to hold him. I think that's the name of the episode and he said Micron (MU), it makes sense.

I think you're going to see this one top out about 700, 800, somewhere there. We'll trade sideways until earnings just like we did last time around 400. And I think you're setting up a new base.

Again, what Steve has taught me is valuation matters. And that's what Peter Lynch said. Valuation matters. Follow the earnings and the price will come.

Rena Sherbill: We were talking also on the weekly news podcast, Wall Street Roundup, about how valuation for (AMD) and Micron (MU), it's fluctuated between F and Ds, but those are looking good.

Speaking to the quant system, relatively speaking, and that's kind of what you have to do when it comes to valuation these days. Happy for you to say something further about valuation or we can move on.

Gary Vaughan: I mean, the PEG ratio, and Steve brings it up a lot. I think when I first interviewed him a few years ago on my podcast, he had touted the PEG ratio.

And I went in and I know I did about a month of research just on the PEG ratio. And I have conversations about the PEG ratio and the market with Grok in my car when I drive. And so that's a favorite measurement of mine is the PEG ratio.

In fact, I've got one seeking alpha scanner that just looks at a PEG ratio that's lower in Nvidia (NVDA). And Nvidia's got a crazy, I mean, the PEG rate, if I told you that you could buy a stock that had almost a trillion dollar in backlog and it was trading at as low as it's ever traded and you could make 20%,

I mean, again, we've moved from 180 to 220. And that's a great move on a stock that is very little risk to reward.

Do I think it's better than Micron? Do I think it's better than AMD? No. But Steve has picked it. His top 10, I don't know if you, he doesn't tout this enough. Of the top 10 stocks he's picked, four of them are over a hundred percent year to date.

So, I mean, that's just an amazing track record. And then you throw in Alpha Picks. And I remember last year during Liberation Day, he said, I know that the portfolio is down significantly from the beginning of the year, but the likelihood of these rebounding and outperforming on the way up is highly likely.

And we just passed, I think, a hundred percent one year return on Alpha Picks. And so April 1st, when that dip happened, we started to see the nine day just tick up. I loaded in, I remember what Steve said.

Again, I'm taking a lot of tips from Steve, from Seeking Alpha, and then layering in TrendSpider, which we can go into and talk about Sidekick, because that has made some great calls. And I'll kind of describe that if you don't mind.

Rena Sherbill: Yeah, happy for you to share that. Also, I wonder if it dovetails at all with why you are so prescient about energy. You know, luck is preparation meeting opportunity. So it's not just luck, like what led you to that call?

Gary Vaughan: There's two things that I'm taking a cue from Jensen Huang, and he's got this five layer cake of AI. And I mean, just think about it. I just animated a thumbnail and this takes a lot of energy to do that type of thing. And energy is a backlog. I live in Georgia and my energy prices have gone crazy at home.

And I know they're probably going to go up from here because we're just at a standstill with energy.

China's putting up what? A new coal plant every nine days or something. So we are in a backlog of energy and that's the key. And even before the Iran war, you saw it.

Trump wants oil down. He can't get oil down. I do think that oil does come down, but it goes up with an escalator and comes down at a stair.

You can't just get it down like that. And again, back to the truth, it's up 60 % year to date. So I do think that there's a way to stay focused on the markets and memory and energy right now.

I love Bloom Energy (BE). Now that's not one I would ever buy off of a Seeking Alpha valuation.

But when I listen to the experts talk about energy and I hear them say, you can take hydrogen, natural gas and turn it into electricity using the Bloom Energy turbines, that's enough.

That's all I need to know. And I know that they have hyperscalers buying their products. So it's not a one where I would play. And sidekick, was funny because sidekick, I had listened to Chris Camillo of Dumb Money.

And I heard him explaining this topic and I'm like, this guy's not an engineer, what does he know? And then I literally went in and did more research and I found out, I don't understand it, I like it, so I wanna put some money into it. And Sidekick said, buy the 135 dip, down to 135. I think within a week, the thing was at 250. So it's one of those that you just kind of YOLO into. You gotta know that this is money that you're gonna risk.

And I think even today, one of the keys that I've learned over the years is position sizing.

I've got a position in Apple (AAPL) that's up 6,000 % from a buy in 2004, somewhere in that neighborhood. And I'm stuck in that position. I can't get out without a huge tax hit.

So one of the things I've learned over the years is position size. We just had Micron up 100 % in like 30 or 40 days and it hit 800 and then it pulled back today.

If you're upset that you didn't sell at 800 and you're upset that you're selling at 700, I don't think that's a bad move.

Nobody ever got poor taking profits. And if it's within your tax burden this year, I just think that's a smart move.

So one of the things I've been focusing on my podcast is when you're at all time highs, what's the right play?

And I gotta tell you, one of the mistakes that I've made over the last year, I journal every trade that I have. I've gotten out of positions way too soon. It's a market where I think we're still in the early stage of AI. And a lot of my trades, I've just gotten at, I'm sitting on a (TQQQ) trade that's up 98 % right now, and in a triple leveraged ETF.

So I think there's opportunities here. I think people will have different goals.

But I think when you enter into a trade, you absolutely should understand, is this a trade, is it an investment, or what it is. Bloom Energy, when I get an entry into it, it's gonna be an investment. So it's gonna be a long-term buy-in.

Rena Sherbill: So what would you say, what else would you say about knowing for, please forgive me repeating myself, but knowing when to hold them, knowing when to fold them, knowing when to sell, knowing when to buy more, knowing when to buy it all. How are you looking at that right now? And is it sector specific?

Gary Vaughan: Yeah it is because I do think that we're early in AI. I traded in 2000, that 2000 boom. This doesn't feel anything like that. There's a lot of headlines that are out there that are kind of scaring you.

That's where I think Seeking Alpha really keeps me grounded. Specifically with the Alpha Picks. I had a sidekick from TrendSpider analyze three weeks in a row. The first week, April 24th, it said Twilio (TWLO) is the Alpha Pick that most likely is going to gain.

Why? Because they've got a great backlog, blah, blah. It went in. You can read my newsletter if you want to know the details of what it said, but it analyzed all the Alpha Picks that were reporting that week and said Twilio is the best opportunity. Boom, 30% gain.

The next week it went in and it said Sterling (STRL) is the best opportunity. Boom, that was published May 1st. You got a nice 50 % gain. I think in my four hour algorithm, it's like up 100%.

And then just this week it said Barrick Mining (B), published May 7th. Boom, you're up 11 % since then.

So I don't think that AI is running my portfolio, but using Sidekick, which is a walled garden, and that's the difference between these general LLMs and what I'm finding with TrendSpider and Sidekick. It's a walled garden. So it just looks at the information that's within TrendSpider. So there's no slop out there and somebody talking their book on a particular analysis, there's none of that that's infecting the AI.

So when I give it some of the Alpha Picks stuff, I mean, I'll give you a perfect example. We talked last time how it told me to trim Nvidia by 50 % at about 195 before earnings. And then they thought a good entry point after earnings was about 175. I think I repurchased at 178.

But this particular time, it told me Sterling after their first quarter earnings on February 24th, I had it do a pre earnings analysis and it told me a 41 times earnings, don't buy it here. The words it used, fantastic business at the worst possible price, wait for blood in the streets because the expectations are too high. The stock wound up losing 20 % over the next few days.

The stock went from 477 to...I sold 50 % of my position at 470, not because I thought it was a bad business. It's the valuation was too high. And I use seeking alpha because I think it was a hold. If it wasn't a strong buy, I know that one.

But the valuation was a D. And then on March 30th, I had it run it again because I saw an uptick in my four hour algorithm stock was at 385. It literally told me the stock is an eight out of 10 buy long at 375 to 385.

So that 50 % position, I just added it back in. Word for word, it said Sterling crushed earnings, raised guidance dramatically, then sold off 20 % on profit taking.

This is now a buy for May earnings catalyst. And the May 1st, when I asked it for the best weekly opportunity, it literally ranked Sterling number one. So I'm using AI with Seeking Alpha's ratings and the charts to try and make some determination of trading in and out.

The key point that I make to my subscribers is Alpha Picks has returned almost 400 % since it started. This is a portfolio that's unbelievable. It's less than four years old, it's returned 400%. I tried stock picking with Alpha Picks, I failed. I totally failed.

So now what I do is I base my portfolio on the holding percentage that you get, and it's such a good barometer and I can overweight. So when Sidekick tells me, hey, this is a great stock, I can just go in and overweight that particular position. Today Sidekick told me on my podcast, I ran it and it said, hey, this is priced for perfection. And then they had a dilution. So I'm planning on trimming a large portion of that and maybe buying it back.

But again, the Alpha Picks portfolio, and I've said this before, I owe Steve Cress a huge debt of gratitude and Seeking Alpha because you guys just make it so easy to do this stuff.

And for something like a Bloom Energy or even something like, what was the stock symbol? It was (MXL). So I tuned in, I basically went on to Seeking Alpha and I saw Micron was number one in the quant as far as semiconductors.

And then all of a sudden I saw this MXL last Monday. And so I put it in my newsletter and I said, hey, it went from a hold to a strong buy. Boom, stock is up 30 % the next day.

I had like four or five subscribers who said they went in and read some Seeking Alpha analysts on this business. They like what they read. They bought it. Boom, they're up 30%. So using the tools that you have in front of you. And with Seeking Alpha, you've got every tool that you need in front of you.

That quant system, I don't think it gets enough credit as for how good something that moves. And one of my subscribers, I'm in Nebius (NBIS) and I'm in it for technical reasons.

I'm not in it for fundamental reasons. And I know the quant doesn't always love it, but it did move to a strong buy, I think recently.

And one of my subscribers said, why did it move from a strong buy down to a hold? I don't get it. Nothing changed, blah, blah. And I said, I don't know the calculations, but you can listen to Rena's podcast with Steve on know when to hold them. And he explains it perfectly.

It's ranked against the peers and it just has a, when you go back test these things and I'm huge on back testing. That's why I like technical strategies. I can back test them, but you guys have back testing on the quant and it beats the S&P (SP500).

I found this great portfolio, I found this great service, and I'm sticking to it and just using that to run my portfolio. And I think I'm up like 44 % this year. And on a multimillion dollar portfolio, I'll take 44 % up in a year.

Rena Sherbill: When it comes to the tech space in particular, what else are you looking at these days as somebody that focuses mainly on that sector?

Gary Vaughan: Moats and storylines and risk reward.

For instance, I brought up Nvidia (NVDA). Nvidia is a risk reward of next to zero with a $1 trillion backlog in their pocket. Now, the only risk out there for the entire tech sector is OpenAI's (OPENAI) debt.

And so OpenAI is coming to market and we know that, will OpenAI have enough money to pay their fees or do they have to raise more money? We just don't know.

But Nvidia right now has such a moat that I think the risk reward is next to zero. I think today's most recent price target was raised to 350 and you're trading at about just under 220.

So I don't think that they are going to do what they did in 2022 and 2023, which is two times every quarter, double in two quarters. You just can't take a $5 trillion stock and go to 10 trillion.

It's similar to Apple. Apple's 50 % of my portfolio. I still believe in it.

But if I were buying Apple today on that valuation, to me, that'd be crazy. I'm not going to put 50 % of my portfolio in a new buy into Apple trading at 30 times forward earnings.

But if it dips down, I know I can get 2 to 4 % just on their buyback every year. And that's paying me more than bonds.

So, again, when I'm looking at things, I'm looking at a couple of things. It's mainly the narrative. And I tell everybody, you've got to have an elevator pitch for the story. My elevator for Apple is simple. I'm holding onto this A, because of tax reasons. I can't sell the whole thing.

But I'm also holding onto it because they have a moat. There are two billion handheld devices. If any AI app is going to succeed, it's going to be in the app store and they'll take 30 % of that revenue.

If that's the case, I think that can continue to rise. And with the new phones, you're going to need new devices, just launched with Claude code, you can't get a Mac mini with the OpenClaw stuff. I tried, they're sold out everywhere.

And so they're constrained by their memory right now. I read in an article, I think on Seeking Alpha, that they were making memory choices based on products. Meaning that they were taking memory out of certain products and making more MacBook Pros. So I still like the Mag 7.

I read earlier that one of the analysts is saying that the Optimus robot isn't priced into Tesla (TSLA) at all. I think the valuation of that doesn't make sense to me. And I think unless Elon does something to merge SpaceX (SPACE) and Tesla, I think when SpaceX becomes public, I think you see a drop in Tesla.

So I don't think that Mag 7, I've spent my career, my investing career, you know, for 20, 26 years, ever since 2000, really going after the Mag 7. I don't think it's that easy anymore. And I think that's where Seeking Alpha comes in is helping me understand, what in that group is actually cheap?

Sandisk (SNDK)? Sandisk gets a 99 on their monthly RSI. I'm not touching that. I know there's probably still $500 left in that stock, but I'm not touching it.

That (DRAM) ETF that just came out, that's leveraged already, they're releasing a two times leveraged DRAM ETF. I told the degenerates in my audience, I'd love to trade that one technically, but I'm not touching it from a fundamental standpoint.

It's just run too far, too fast. And I do think that some of these pullbacks, my stance today is July is a, I think 94 to 100 % win rate on (QQQ) over the last 25, 30 years, somewhere in that neighborhood. So it's got a huge win rate percentage in July. I think you see a 10 to 15 % pullback into June.

You've got a new Fed chair that we know the markets like to test. So I think you start to see a pullback. And I will reiterate, when Steve Cress tells me to buy the dip, I'm going to buy the dip. I'm going to buy quality companies with good earnings, with good quant scores and good technicals. I'm not going to go chasing something.

And so I've been, for the past two, three weeks, I've been very fine sitting on AMD, is up 100%.

I wasn't touching Intel (INTC) because I just don't like their technology. And I think the companies run, I think it turned into more of a meme stock than anything. But the obvious buy was when Intel said, hey, we didn't increase our CPU sale. We just increased the price of it.

The obvious buy was AMD. And I think that's when the quant turned it to a strong buy.

But I bought that dip on AMD just on a technical level. And I've been saying since August of last year, AMD will outperform Nvidia just based on a market cap.

Doesn't mean I got rid of Nvidia, just means that the risky part of my portfolio was more in AMD.

Rena Sherbill: AMD was one of the things I wanted to ask about because you were talking about that last episode at the end of February as well about AMD encroaching on Nvidia's territory.

Anything else to say? And also Credo (CRDO) was another stock that's been up a nice amount, but something that you were saying, Quant was telling you to buy it, but TrendSpider was telling you not to and you didn't. Anything else to say about those two names or anything in particular tech-wise?

Gary Vaughan: Yeah. So Credo was a great example where I think it was trading around 130 and it had popped to 130 and I'd asked Sidekick, hey, can you do an analysis? And it said, well, the market chatter is not great about this one. You probably want to enter under 100.

And I said from 130 on a strong buy, I'm never going to get this at 100. I think it was April 1st. You could get that at 96 and it triggered in my four hour algorithm. I asked Trendspider Sidekick, said, what should I do? They said load up the Brinks truck.

And so I loaded up the Brinks truck and it was up 100% at one point in time.

And I know Credo is still, I think it's a still strong buy. Let me see. I think it's a strong buy in the quant as of today.

Rena Sherbill: It is, yeah.

Gary Vaughan: Yeah. And so to me, we've seen this game play out before. We know that the Photonics stuff, they just bought that Photonics company, Dustphotonics, but they bought that company, that popped them, and that was the second leg of the pop.

Your 52-week high is 213, you're trading at 189. It's Wall Street price target is right now 209, it's 10% down. And again, the quant loves this one, and six months ago, it was a D plus on valuation. Now it's a C.

It's actually cheaper now. So I think again, reviewing that and allowing, part of me, I'm not the best analytical person when it comes to looking at the fundamentals and understanding the moat and all of the things. I leave that to your other guests like Uttam and Amrita and James Foord, all those other guys that do the analysis. I'm not the best, but I do read theirs.

And one of the great thing is when you have Seeking Alpha, you can just go in and read this. the top one now is from Jamelle Danne Rosales, Credo Technology Group. The valuation looks absurd until you do the math. And she's got it as a buy. So again, I think those things do it.

Was I buying Credo at 200? No, it had run too far too fast. And I think one of the things that you have to have in this market is patience. And if you're at a 52 week high, wait for the pullback because stocks will always pull back. I don't care if it ran to 250 and then pulled back to 220 and I had the opportunity to buy it at 205. I don't want to buy it at 205. I've got too much money that's into this market.

So if AI actually fails, I mean, I'm screwed, but I think we're still early. And my bet is that we're still early.

Rena Sherbill: Have you had any grave mistakes with this process? Any steep learning lessons?

Gary Vaughan: Not a ton. For instance, I will tell you, I noticed the quant had (IGV) as a strong sell in January. I mean, when I interviewed Steve Cress and I asked him, I think it was in October, I said, why did the quant pick so many gold stocks for Alpha Picks?

Your team picked gold stocks for Alpha Picks in the summer and they were up like 100 % and stuff. And he said the quant has a way of picking sectors that are hot. And so when you go and you look in the screener and you look at the top stocks in the quant, they're all semiconductors right now.

Now they've been semiconductors, but they haven't pulled back in the quant. So the valuation and the growth and the profitability might be there still. I like it. So for me, I'll find a support level and I love in my technical charts, I love horizontal lines.

And the horizontal lines that I draw are just from previous runs up and then pulls back. That's resistance. And if it runs up to that level and pulls back and it pulls back to an older support level, I know I can at least trade it within that range.

But, I don't want to let a position wind up being in my portfolio like Apple did just buy and hold. And that's what I love about the Alpha Picks stuff. They don't hold it forever. And I'll give you a great example.

(WLDN), and you went over this with Steve. Alpha Picks pulled this out of the portfolio because it wound up getting to a sell rating, but it's a top 2026 stock.

Now, I trust Steve with the top 2026 stocks that some of them may wind up negative. There's never a guarantee, but I saw it just from a technical level. It bounced off this perfect level of support at about 76, 77, somewhere in that neighborhood.

And that was the day when Alpha Picks said sell it, but it was down like I think 20 or 30 % that day. And I didn't want to sell it. I just said, you know, it's a top stock. It bounced off this technical level.

I don't know if it's going to come back. It's up 50 % since then. Now it's a small position. It's not a huge position because I held it in Alpha Picks. I think it's 0.2 % of my overall portfolio. So it's not huge.

But that's where I mix those technicals and the fundamentals in seeing, okay, just because it's a sell and it moved to a sell to a quant, it does have the possibility. And I remember Steve telling me, (GCT), giga cloud, I think is what it's called, GCT is the symbol.

Last year, they pulled it out of the Alpha Picks portfolio because it did go to a sell. There were a bunch of short reports. And Steve said, his team literally went to the warehouses and they looked and they did research before actually picking this stock and continuing to recommend it. And he said they didn't see any of the short report stuff.

When they pulled it out, Steve said it killed him to pull it out of the portfolio. But rules are rules. You have to pull it out of the portfolio. I think the stock was up 100 % over the next month or two. So I do think that you want to make your own decision about this stuff.

But that, again, I bring it back to that Alpha Picks portfolio. It is just amazing. And even the ProQuant Portfolio, I mean, that one up 50 % since it was started last June. I think the S&P's up like 17 or 18%.

So for an equal weight portfolio to beat it, again, the value is here for me and just mixing in the technicals. It just makes sense.

Rena Sherbill: When it comes to Apple (AAPL), any things to say about Tim Cook stepping down?

Gary Vaughan: Yeah. So you got WWDC coming up. Tim Cook was a great, I mean, I like Warren Buffett, applaud him for making the stock so profitable for me to hold over the years. I think he did a great job.

I think they are lacking in the innovation department right now. And I think it's a good pick for the new guy coming in as a product guy. I think he's got his hands full.

As I read that OpenAI probably is coming out with a new phone. That may be the new, the new product that they actually launch. might just be a new phone. I don't know what's in store for Apple. I do know that I have, I'm talking to you on my Mac mini. I've got my Apple watch. I've got my iPhone, my Mac book, my iPad pro. I mean, I'm all sucked in. My house is all Apple TV.

So I've got the entire ecosystem in my house. I couldn't be more bullish in the fact that I went to my brother's house, he's an engineer from Microsoft (MSFT), and I saw the pain in that ecosystem.

And so I'm not bearish Microsoft, I still hold Microsoft stock. I think it's different sectors that I hold it for, but I can't imagine somebody not liking the Apple ecosystem.

And the fact that they take 30 % of software sales. And Tim Cook, he innovated all of that stuff. He led the charge. And him staying on, I like, because I do think he has played political advisor significantly well in a space that probably could have been fraught with Apple being so tied to China. again, I applaud him.

I like the stock. I don't love the stock. I were building a new portfolio, it probably wouldn't be one of the stocks that I would have in my portfolio.

Rena Sherbill: And yet it's your biggest position, is that right?

Gary Vaughan: I'm stuck tax wise. Honestly, I mean, if this were in a Roth IRA, I would have the greatest retirement ever, but I'm stuck in tens of thousands of shares that are up over 4,000, some 6,000%. I mean, taxes are a real thing here.

And I know you guys are worldwide, but here in the US that's something you have to consider. If I were to sell that entire position.

I'm already high income. I'm already paying the 20 % long-term capital gains. So it's a hard position to be in. It's probably not the best place for my money, but I tell people all the time, don't follow me. I don't think you should follow most anyone.

But again, the reality of this is it's a stock picker's market. And I continue to say that it's a stock picker's market.

Rena Sherbill: I was going to ask you about the trip to China Trump's trip to China. But as long as we've talked about it a little bit, and I do think it's very edifying for listeners and not talked about enough outside of like tax, you know, podcasts or what have you or personal finance stuff. Where did you learn what you needed to learn about the tax component of investing? And do you still continue to take lessons and implement them?

Gary Vaughan: I learned about taxes before AI. I mean, today, you could literally load your tax return into AI, and it can tell you everything that you need to know. You can load your income. I keep spreadsheets of my income. I keep spreadsheets of my expenses. I think today there's no reason for anybody to not understand taxes.

I learned a lot on YouTube with financial advisors telling you that it's not financial advice, but literally giving you financial advice. There's no reason you can't learn this. I do think one of the ways, Ross Cameron, who does warrior trading on YouTube, he had a great video, and I think it was somewhere near a year ago or so, and it was how to pay 0 % on your trades. And his number one thing was, he trades mostly in his Roth IRA. So this guy's making like 10, $15 million a year trading in a Roth IRA. and he pays nothing in taxes on that Roth IRA because he just trades it aggressively.

So I think there's ways that you can do that. And I have an Alpha Picks brokerage portfolio where I overweight some stuff, but I actually manage it a little differently.

And I have an Alpha Picks retirement portfolio in an IRA. And so I've got both of those portfolios set up. I manage them completely differently because of tax events. I think taxes are a hack here in this country. And I know it's higher in some places in the world, but here in this country, taxes are a hack.

You can, for instance, I've got a position in RobinHood that I'm down on. And I'm sitting in there because I did tell myself I would hold it for long term to write against a long term. But earlier this year, I had a pretty large loss in that particular stock and I took it as a tax loss harvest. You can tax loss harvest on brokerage during any time of the year.

And so during these times when, the stock market is up 10, 15 % in a month and you've got a stock that's actually down, probably a good bet to tax loss harvest and maybe look at it again in 30 days.

Rena Sherbill: And what would you say about Trump's trip to China?

Gary Vaughan: I gave my readers a tip this morning. I wanna buy (YINN), the triple leveraged China ETF. He's going over there with people, all of those CEOs. You know some type of big deal is gonna be announced. That's what he's going over there for. I think Xi wants him to make a peace with Iran, which should push oil down.

And I think that the the rare earths will be discussed But there's no doubt in my mind that he's not showing up with all of those CEOs to come home empty-handed He wants an announcement and he wants it now I think he he's been trying to deflect a lot away from the war in Iran and honestly I think the market has been just ignoring the war in Iran and the risk that's involved there.

But I would say that YINN - and I'm not personally taking this trade. Full disclosure, I'm not. I'm perfectly happy sitting in the five or 10 trades that I have that are up 100 % since April. But I'm not putting money into this trade. But it's pretty obvious.

I mean, that has been just a key component of buying stocks is when he says something, he moves markets. And when you're showing up with a contingent of that sort, I just think an announcement is likely to happen.

But I think it's going to happen over the weekend. And that's part of the danger is if you buy stocks on a Friday, you got to sit there till Monday.

Rena Sherbill: Any earnings takeaways that you'd care to share that you've seen this season or that you're you may be anticipating for the ones yet to report?

Gary Vaughan: I mean, I gave the folks Barrick Mining, all the Alpha Picks earnings, so I think I've had a good track record.

I will tell you, next week I'll probably do a Nvidia analysis of the upcoming earnings and Micron. I mean, Micron (MU) earnings, I think if Micron even guides a smidge lower, you're seeing a 30 % downturn in that stock, even though it's just... from a fundamental standpoint, it just makes sense.

I love Micron, I like it. I'm heavily involved in it. I've got a good size of my portfolio into that. In fact, I think when I looked at my Alpha Picks portfolio, I was heavily overweight in Micron.

And I think it's like almost 35 % of my Alpha Picks portfolio, I put so much money into it. So I like it. Earnings have been good.

This earning season has proven to be exactly what I thought it was going to be. I do think we see 8,000 in the S &P by the end of the year, not at the end of the year, but by the end of the year. I think you're going to have some pump up come the midterm election cycle. think they want, they're going to want the stock market to be higher and they're going to do everything that they can to push that market higher into that election cycle. So I think that starts with this trip.

I think it starts with Kevin Warsh's first Fed hearing. I think you're going to see some type of pullback, but I remain steadfast in Steve's logic. Buy a company that is fundamentally good, gives you a good technical setup for an entry, and I think you'll be rewarded.

And we saw that all through the last month. All through the last month, strong buys in the quant that had good technical setups that were beaten down had great buys.

Rena Sherbill: I've been asking guests at the end of conversations if they have a motto when it comes to investing or life in general. Do you have one or some?

Gary Vaughan: The one motto I would tell people is time in the market beats timing the market. And I think too many people, and the one thing I've learned over the last three years in my journaling and reviewing kind of journals and stuff, there are stocks that I should have just bought and held. Sandisk, I called that one out to newsletter subscribers in October of last year and I said,

It just doesn't make sense to be this low with a memory shortage. And I traded it. I made a 50 % profit. I was fully happy. That stock shot up like 4,000%. I should have bought and held it. Vertiv, I traded on an earnings back in January. I made like 40 % on the trade. Should have bought and held it. There's a lot of stocks in that sector that I just...

I didn't know the narrative. I thought they were trades, but I think in this market where it's bull, a bull market, I think you've just got to grit your teeth and understand that sometimes, and I lived through this. If you look at Apple over the last 26 years or 25 years, however long I've held it, that I've lived through several 40, 50 % downturns without even trimming that stock, just saying, Hey, it's still a good stock.

So I'm used to that. And so what I tell people is if you're upset, there were people selling Micron at $370 back in March. And they were like, what are you going to do? You're up like almost 100 % in this one. Why aren't you selling? And I said, because it's just too cheap. And I put a price on things. And so for instance, Amazon, I won't sell Amazon for less than 250 bucks.

Even if it dips down, doesn't mean I'm going to buy it because I already have a large position in it. Apple, when it was at 250, I said, you know, if I didn't have such a large position, I would buy it because at some point in time, it's going to be a $280 stock. And that's a great move. If you can just find stocks like that and you're comfortable selling and trimming, that's fine. But I do think in a bull market like we're in, and I still think that we've got two or three years left before this market actually starts to You can't go up forever like this. You can't have a 2023, you're up 20 something percent, 2024, you're up 20 something percent, 2025, you're up close to 20%. You just can't have that. And so at some point in time, you're gonna see a pullback, but I think that Steve says it best, ignore the headlines, look at the fundamentals and the fundamentals right now still make sense. So any dip that I'm seeing in the market I'm buying,

And I'm more in the realm of buy and hold and just understand that time in the market beats timing.

Rena Sherbill: Always appreciate talking to you, Gary. As people know, as I hope they know, you come on about once a quarter, always really enjoy these conversations, always enjoy being in touch. You have a sub stack, you have a podcast, you have a YouTube show. Happy for you to share where else investors, listeners can find you, viewers can find you, and if you have any final words to share.

Gary Vaughan: I will tell you, I was on the golf course with these two college kids about a week ago. And one of them wound up Googling me and he said, dude, you must be a big deal because when you Google you, have an AI summary. so anybody can Google daily stock pick Gary and you'll find out exactly where to find me, what to do. have a daily podcast. I'm on there.

Rena Sherbill: Hahaha.

Gary Vaughan: Usually Monday, and Friday, I think I do it live on YouTube at 8.30, but I put it out on Spotify. That's where most people listen. And then I have Substack and I go live on Substack. And what I do is I kind of, put together this 10 part series of how I trade and you can see the technicals and the fundamentals. And then on Tuesdays I have office hours, just like a college professor. So if anybody has any questions, they can join live on Tuesday and just ask back and forth within the community.

It's usually about 50 people that join, so it's not a huge community of people. So you'll get your question answered. So I think that's been one of the things that I've enhanced for these subscribers is just to make sure that I'm available for questions. I don't think that any advice that I give, like people who ask me about specific stocks, if I don't own the stock, I don't have an elevator pitch for it. So you're just asking me for, what I tell people is,

Go and look at Seeking Alpha and then go look at my four hour algorithm on TrendSpider, which I make available to people, then go ask Sidekick. It's a far better opinion than anything that I could give you. But what I do give you is the ability to ask me questions like, what is the MACD? How should I use the MACD? How should I use the RSI? And then how I look at Seeking Alpha. mean, we found in our community, we found a ton of stocks that just move from hold to strong buy.

And then there's a thesis on them and they put that in the community and boom, we make some money. So using the tools that you have in front of you is kind of the biggest point. And I'm not, I may not be the greatest at this, but I think I found a pretty good way of making it work.

Rena Sherbill: Is your community made up of all levels of experience in investing?

Gary Vaughan: Yeah, there's guys in there who talked to me about options. I know nothing about options, Rena, nothing. And so they'll be like, I used your four hour algorithm to buy. In fact, one guy used Sidekick yesterday and at 3.56 in the afternoon, Sidekick said, get out of your (HIMS) contracts, your options contracts. And he said, thank God it gave me that, that advice because I think HIMS wound up dropping like 20%.

And so he saved so much money just by asking it that, should I stay in this? And then said, it's not worth the risk. So a lot of these tools that they give you unemotional guidance.

And I think that's part of what's good in the market is keeping your emotions. Everybody wants to panic sell. When Micron's up 100%, you want to sell it because, oh, how much further can it go?

But if you're able to just keep a logical sense and have that mentality of the PEG ratio is too low, the MACD is still not at a level where it was before, the RSI is still only at a 60. We see the monthly on SanDisk at a 90, so we know it can go higher.

So I think layering those things on and making sure that you're keeping a level head, I think that's more what the community is about.

And I think a lot of people give me more stock advice than what I give them because, again, I follow Alpha Picks. I follow the Pro Quant Portfolio. I follow the strong buys. I'm bought into the entire Seeking Alpha magic.