Seeking peace in Switzerland... The market is churning... The Mag 7 are down 10%... What's winning instead... A 'top' defined by AI... The $1 trillion software panic... A land of opportunity...
Two wars, one city to end them both?...
Negotiators from the Trump administration are in Geneva, Switzerland... There, they met today with representatives of Russia, Ukraine, and Iran in hopes of ending multiple yearslong global conflicts.
News from the Ukraine talks didn't reveal much movement. The two sides remain at odds over control of disputed territory and the possibility of security guarantees for Ukraine.
The Iranian negotiations showed more promise...
Ahead of the talks, U.S. and Iranian leaders postured by positioning military capabilities in the Middle East. And Iran closed part of the Strait of Hormuz earlier today, a waterway heavily trafficked by oil tankers.
The U.S.'s Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, met with Iranian officials first. After those talks, the lead Iranian negotiator reported that "we now have a clearer path ahead" toward a new agreement about Iran's nuclear program and capabilities.
The details remain up in the air. Draft proposals are said to be coming next. For now, the positive sentiment around the U.S.-Iran talks appeared to at least ease some concern in the market.
Oil prices were down about 2%. The "chaos hedge" of gold was down by about the same, while the major U.S. stock indexes were mixed with the benchmark S&P 500 Index little changed.
A lot is happening beneath the headline indexes, though...
The S&P 500 isn't far off from an all-time high set last month. It has remained within a relatively tight range since late November.
However, some interesting trends have been playing out recently, including today.
First off, the "risk on" trades of the past few years have petered out...
The most popular stocks in America – the Magnificent Seven tech giants – are down about 10% since Christmas Eve. That's as measured by the Roundhill Magnificent Seven Fund (MAGS).
And bitcoin – the world's most popular cryptocurrency and another bellwether of riskier investing – has lost nearly 50% from its all-time high around $125,000 set in October.
However, this is not an "everything is down" market. We're seeing investors rotating from some sectors to others. That's bad news for stocks in sectors that fall out of favor. But overall, sector rotation can be a sign of a healthy market.
Four sectors of companies making "real" things – materials, energy, industrials, and consumer staples – are up more than 15% over the past three months.
We've written about the rise in precious metals and commodities over the past year. When how to take profits (like in silver) is a primary part of the conversation, that's a good thing and indicative of a long-term trend.
Another trend we've written about – emerging markets versus U.S. stocks – continues to play out in favor of the former. Mike Zaccardi, a market technician and analyst, shared a chart on the social platform X the other day showing how the performance of U.S stocks lags the rest of the world.
As Zaccardi shared, the MSCI World ex-USA Index (XTMWF) is up about 5% this year while the S&P 500 is flat...
Emerging markets are doing even better, with the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Fund (EEM) up more than 8% in 2026 already.
Some have called this the "sell America" trade and linked it to growing negative sentiment with U.S. policies like tariffs. That's part of it... But at the same time, the equally weighted S&P 500 just made a new all-time high last week.
That means, stripping out the very biggest stocks in America, plenty of people are buying American. They're just buying more of everything else.
But no doubt gains are being taken in pockets of the market...
We agree with this take from a former Stansberry Investor Hour guest – Jim Carroll, who publishes the Substack page Vixology. He wrote over the long weekend...
Seems to me that we have a whole bunch of investors who have a nervous outlook and have taken steps to protect the gains in their portfolios. The big-boy indices [S&P 500 and Nasdaq] have seen some air come out of their biggest constituents (Mag 7). Growth has given some back to value and large cap has given some back to small cap. This may be a healthy rotation but not everyone is comfortable. Put the recent volatility of precious metals and crypto into the blend and we have investors looking for the next durable trend while unsure what it will be. We can't be surprised by more volatility as this plays out. And that volatility could get spicy should we add a nasty headline or two.
One of our Stansberry Research traders is among those who recommended taking profits today. Ten Stock Trader editor Greg Diamond shared a trade alert to subscribers this morning to sell a bearish position on semiconductors for around a 14% gain.
In a subsequent update today, Greg said he continues to track what looks like it could be a topping process in U.S. stocks overall.
Tops within strong bull runs have happened before, and they will again. This one could be a top defined mostly by AI.
Maybe the AI boom never ends up in a bubble on the scale of the dot-com days, but the happiest days can still turn a little sour.
Right now, everything associated with AI is getting crushed... That's the semiconductor makers and the hyperscalers that would benefit from an AI expansion, but also the companies that AI is supposed to be threatening.
That's a "bad news, good news" scenario for long-term investors.
Some opportunities are emerging...
We wrote to you two weeks ago about the "SaaSpocalypse." It was a term making the rounds in the market for huge sell-offs in Software as a Service companies whose entire business models are thought to be on their deathbed because of AI.
For instance, cloud-based legal-software provider LegalZoom (LZ) shed 20% in a day two weeks ago. Since October, the UBS High Growth SaaS Index is down more than 30%, with much of that hit coming late last month and earlier this month.
Even Microsoft (MSFT) took a hit, losing about 7% in three days recently.
So far as we can tell, this market action has been chalked up to recently debuted AI tools from industry leader Anthropic. These are no doubt impressive and useful. But their impact might also be overblown by some people throwing money around the markets.
Stansberry Venture Value editor Bryan Beach wrote a terrific update on the story in his latest issue, published last Thursday (Bryan's subscribers can read it in full here)...
Investors have interpreted the recent AI developments not merely as incremental improvements, but as existential threats to traditional enterprise software. They're afraid AI could disrupt long-established revenue models for SaaS licenses.
This is an... interesting take by the market, to say the least. In our view, this sell-off contains elements of fear-driven, reflexive selling that's disconnected from fundamentals.
In my previous job, I served as controller of a publicly traded software company. Two of our biggest expenses – as well as the biggest expenses for most of our competitors – were coding/development and customer service. AI can help automate both of these.
Thus, my initial thought has always been that AI could prove fantastic for software companies. It's true, not all software companies are created equal. So I do think certain corners of the software market may be doomed by AI, including translation and transcription software, task-tracking gadgets, and basic design platforms.
But for established companies with a stable of entrenched corporate clients... is AI really an existential threat? Oddly, according to AI executives, the answer is "no."
Investors fled Microsoft when news of the Claude Cowork plugins broke last week. But ironically, Anthropic's head of product for financial services, Nick Lin, specifically mentioned Microsoft as an example of Claude helping software companies, not killing them...
As Bryan referenced, the broader software and services sector has shed nearly $1 trillion in market value lately, according to a report from global news service Reuters.
Here's how this can be a good thing... This sell-off is setting up what could be terrific buying opportunities if you know where to look.
In an update on Bryan's model portfolio on Thursday, he highlighted two software businesses that have been "casualties of the SaaSpocalypse" but that he remains bullish about. This includes one that he's even more optimistic about than before.
And subscribers also received a brand-new recommendation. In the meat of the newest issue of Venture Value, Bryan recommended a "boring" beverage company that he says has double-digit upside.
Last time he recommended the company, it made subscribers of our flagship Stansberry's Investment Advisory a 71% gain in 17 months. "That was 11 years ago," Bryan writes. "Today, I like the setup even better."
Again, Venture Value subscribers can read the newest issue here.
On a similar point about opportunity...
This morning, we saw a brand-new presentation from our friend Marc Chaikin, founder of our corporate affiliate Chaikin Analytics.
In it, Marc unveiled a powerful new way that he says can spot which AI stocks could double or triple your money this year. The trick is identifying the biggest earnings beats... before they occur. As Marc says...
Out of all the different AI stocks you could've touched, our system would have singled out exactly which ones still had real potential to rise hundreds of percent in a short time span... even during a difficult market.
And Marc said this same strategy allows folks to avoid painful losses – driven by AI disruption – in other stocks. This is critically important to protect your wealth. Click here to watch a replay of Marc's new, free presentation now.
New 52-week highs (as of 2/13/26): ABB (ABBNY), Antero Midstream (AM), Applied Materials (AMAT), Atmus Filtration Technologies (ATMU), Alpha Architect 1-3 Month Box Fund (BOXX), Brady (BRC), Ciena (CIEN), Western Asset Emerging Markets Debt Fund (EMD), Enterprise Products Partners (EPD), iShares MSCI South Korea Fund (EWY), Freehold Royalties (FRU.TO), Hubbell (HUBB), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Lockheed Martin (LMT), NYLI CBRE Global Infrastructure Megatrends Term Fund (MEGI), Natural Resource Partners (NRP), Novartis (NVS), Realty Income (O), Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI), Pembina Pipeline (PBA), Packaging Corporation of America (PKG), Robo Global Robotics and Automation Index Fund (ROBO), Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Consumer Staples Fund (RSPS), Snap-on (SNA), Solstice Advanced Materials (SOLS), Sempra (SRE), Valaris (VAL), State Street Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLP), and State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLU).
In today's mailbag, feedback on our annual Report Card (for posterity, here are Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV from our Director of Research and Publisher Matt Weinschenk)... and we also have one more note on Dan Ferris' Thursday Digest... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"Now that you have completed 2025 grades could you publish the grades for all your services since inception for every year they have been in existence? This might [show] us investors who's had the most A's and what years that might have happened. Would also help to put the past years' grades in perspective." – Stansberry Alliance member Greg D.
Corey McLaughlin comment: Thanks for the note, Greg. Good news for you: All of our past Report Cards, dating back to the first one published in 2006 by our founder Porter Stansberry, can be found here under "Yearly Report Cards" in the Digest section of our website.
"Hi Dan, I appreciate your wisdom about when to sell! I chuckled about how it described me with silver. I invested in it years ago and after many years of it losing ground, I sold. Wish I would have held on to it, but I was young and didn't have the stomach. Now I followed your advice bought it low and watched it grow phenomenally, but my emotional ties kept me from selling when it hit the stop loss. I could still sell some for great gains, but maybe I'll just change my exit plan to a long-term hold! Hehe! After all, it is only silver (money)! I give you an A grade for all your great advice! Thanks!" – Subscriber Larry N.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin with Nick Koziol
Baltimore, Maryland
February 17, 2026
