Worried About AI? These 5 Stocks Don’t Care.

The market is obsessed with AI winners.

But there’s another group of companies quietly getting stronger — businesses that don’t rely on AI… and can’t be replaced by it either.

Government systems. Physical commodities. Financial infrastructure.

This briefing breaks down 5 stocks built around real-world demand, regulatory barriers, and assets no algorithm can replicate.

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☕️ GM Munchers! Big day ahead. By tonight I'll either be celebrating with a ribeye or explaining to my wife why we're becoming a lentil household for the foreseeable future. No pressure, market.

On today’s menu:

• ⏰ The Most Uncertain Fed Day In Years

• 📊 The Nasdaq's Best Month Just Broke

• 🍿 Tasty Movers & Shakers

• 💉 The Best Stock Nobody's Talking About Isn't A Chip

• 🍎 Apple Just Made History

Yesterday’s numbers:

BREAKING NEWS

⏰ The Most Uncertain Fed Day In Years

Grab your coffee, because at 2:00pm ET today the Federal Reserve makes a rate decision that almost nobody can call in advance which makes it highly unusual.

Here's why this one is different. For the last several years, the Fed basically told everyone what it was going to do before it did it. Markets would show up on decision day with 99% certainty about the outcome. But not today. Right now, interest rate markets put the odds of a rate hike around 30%, with a roughly 70% chance the Fed holds steady. A one-in-three chance either way is about as split as this gets.

Two things are creating this fog. First, oil shot above $100 this month on the Iran conflict, which reignited inflation fears and dragged hike odds up from just 10% two weeks ago. Second, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has scrapped the old playbook. He killed forward guidance, shrank the official statement, and there's no dot plot this meeting. Translation: the market is flying blind, and it doesn't love it.

📌 What To Actually Watch Today:

• 🕑 2:00pm ET, the decision. A hold is the base case. A surprise hike would jolt stocks lower and send yields higher fast, since most people aren't positioned for it.

• 🎤 2:30pm ET, Warsh speaks. With no dot plot, his press conference is the whole game. Every word gets parsed for hints about September, which is where the real fight over the next hike lives.

• 💵 The reaction, not the decision. Watch the 10-year Treasury yield and the dollar. They'll tell you how the market read Warsh faster than any headline will.

• Special Report: Trump’s Emergency Dollar Reset (from Porter & Co)

So, how do you play this? If you're a long-term investor, the honest move today is to do nothing. Decision-day volatility is a trap that punishes people for reacting to the first headline, which often reverses within the hour once Warsh starts talking. If you're a trader, expect whipsaw. The gap between a 30% hike bet and reality means something is going to move sharply no matter which way it breaks.

The Munch Take: We think the Fed will pause and point to a weak labor market and the Iran oil spike being temporary. But the point isn't guessing the outcome, it's understanding that when the smartest desks on Wall Street are split down the middle, your edge isn't prediction, it's patience. The market will overreact to something in the first ten minutes and then reverse. Let the pros lose money being fast today. My wife asked what I'm doing to prepare for the big Fed day. I said absolutely nothing, on purpose. She said it sounds like I’m adopting my household chore work ethics to the market. That one stung a bit, but she’s not totally wrong.

📊 The Nasdaq's Best Month Just Broke

If the Fed decision at 2:00pm wasn't enough to fray your nerves, buckle up, because the day is only half over at that point. After the closing bell, two of the largest companies on the planet, Microsoft ($MSFT) and Meta ($META), both report earnings. Same day as the Fed. Hours apart. It's a lot.

Here's why this combination is a big deal. These aren't just any two companies. Microsoft and Meta are cornerstones of every index fund most Americans own, and they're two of the biggest spenders in the entire AI arms race. Between them they're pouring hundreds of billions into chips and data centers. The market has one burning question: is all that spending actually turning into profit, or just burning cash?

We already got a preview of what happens when the answer disappoints. Last Wednesday, Alphabet and Tesla reported, spooked investors on exactly this AI-spending worry, and the Magnificent Seven lost nearly $800 billion in market value in a single day. That's the mood heading into tonight. Nervous and twitchy.

📌 What Makes Tonight Different:

• 🏦 The double whammy. The Fed at 2:00pm is major. Microsoft and Meta at 4:00pm just adds further fuel to the fire.

• 💸 Both stocks are already wounded. Microsoft is down roughly 20% this year and Meta about 10%, both beaten up on AI-spending fears. This means investors will be even more nervous than usual.

• 🎢 The market expects fireworks. Options traders are pricing in about an 8% swing in Meta alone. That's a massive one-day move for a company this size.

• Special Report: Is Your Retirement About to Tank? (via Oxford Club)

And here's the scary backdrop tying it all together. According to Barchart, the Nasdaq 100 is on track for its worst July in 24 years. That matters because July is historically the Nasdaq's best month of the year. When a market's most reliable winning streak suddenly flips to its worst showing in a generation, it tells you the mood is genuinely shifting.

The Munch Take: The market spent two years assuming every dollar spent on AI was a dollar well spent. But this week the market is demanding receipts. Tonight, Microsoft and Meta either show the money is coming back as profit, or they don't, and a jittery market that just lost $800 billion on the same fear is in no mood for excuses. Buckle up.

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STOCK OF THE DAY

💉 The Best Stock Nobody's Talking About Isn't A Chip

While every headline this month screamed about Nvidia, China, and AI, one of the market's biggest comebacks was happening in a corner almost nobody was watching. Moderna ($MRNA), the COVID vaccine company everyone wrote off two years ago, has quietly roughly doubled in 2026. Over one recent 30-day stretch it jumped about 75%, climbing from the mid-$40s to around $80.

Remember Moderna? It was the pandemic darling that soared, then crashed almost 90% as COVID demand dried up. For two years it was left for dead, a one-hit wonder waiting to fade. That's exactly why this move is interesting. Nobody was positioned for it.

Here's what actually lit the fuse:

• 💊 A big flu win: An FDA advisory panel voted unanimously, 9 to 0, in favor of Moderna's new flu vaccine. Unanimous votes are rare, and it teed up a formal FDA decision coming August 5.

• 🧬 It's not just COVID anymore: At its June "Science Day," Moderna showed off a pipeline reaching into cancer treatments and other diseases. The story shifted from one product to a platform.

• 📈 The turnaround narrative: Even Jim Cramer flipped, arguing the company has evolved past its COVID-era identity into something with real long-term legs.

• Free Report from Profits Run: Your Free Options Book Is About to Vanish

The lesson here is bigger than one stock. The entire market is so hypnotized by AI that huge moves in other sectors are slipping by unnoticed. Healthcare, biotech, energy, all of it can rip or crash while everyone stares at the same seven tech names. Attention is a herd, and the herd is all standing in one field right now.

But before anyone backs up the truck, respect the risk. This stock has roughly doubled already, and Wall Street's average price target actually sits below where it trades now, meaning analysts think it got ahead of itself. Two big tests land almost immediately: earnings on July 31 and that FDA flu decision on August 5. Both could swing it hard in either direction.

The Munch Take: The most crowded trade in the world right now is paying attention to AI. That's precisely why the interesting stuff is happening where nobody's looking. I'm not telling you to chase a stock that already doubled, because "it used to be higher and now it's roaring back" is how a lot of people talk themselves into buying the top. But the real takeaway is simpler: if your whole watchlist is chips and hyperscalers, you're watching the same movie as everyone else and wondering why you can't find a seat.

MARKET OVERVIEW

🍿 Tasty Movers & Shakers

🎨 $SHW Sherwin-Williams jumped 8.25% after topping Wall Street's second quarter earnings and revenue estimates. I guess all my wife's home projects are finally paying off for somebody's bottom line.

🥤 $KO Coca-Cola rose 5% after beating earnings and raising its full year outlook, powered by strong demand for the low-calorie stuff like Coke Zero and Diet Coke. Turns out the guilt-free version sells just fine.

✈️ $BA Boeing climbed 4.76% as stronger commercial aircraft deliveries drove revenue higher, even with a wider quarterly loss than expected. Still down 2.73% on the year, but planes going out the door is the number that matters here.

💳 $PYPL PayPal gained 4% on a stronger than expected second quarter, as its "strategic reorganization" starts to show up in the results. It's still down 25% over the past year, so this is a first step, not a victory lap.

🚗 $LCID Lucid Group ripped 21.54% after Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal disclosed a 5% stake in the EV maker. Nothing wakes up a struggling stock like a billionaire prince showing up on the cap table.

💾 $MU Micron dropped 8.85% as the China chip panic swept the whole sector. SK Hynix lost 8.98%, Sandisk sank 14.25%, and Intel fell 5.86%. When the memory trade breaks, it breaks all at once.

📦 $UPS UPS slipped 6.54% despite beating earnings, as flat domestic revenue guidance for the third quarter stole the show. The stock is down over 40% in five years, and "we beat but next quarter looks flat" isn't the line that turns that around.

TRADING SUCCESS

🤑 Wednesday Motivation

🚀 Pre-Market Fuel

1. 😏 Buy this stock by July 31 (Ad)

2. 🍎 Apple just made history.

3. 🚗 Is it time to buy Tesla?

4. 📉 Dell had a horrible day.

5. ✅ A billionaire just bought $14 million of this stock.

🍪 Munchy Memes

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