Gearing up for a big event next Wednesday; Investors who benefited by 'holding firm' amid the market chaos; Trump's drug-price crackdown could be overblown

1) You won't want to miss my next big event...

A week from now, on Wednesday, May 21, I'm joining my friend Jeff Brown to share the details on something that could be the catalyst to at least double your money on five different investments and reshape America on a scale unseen since 1999.

Jeff is a big deal in the newsletter publishing industry. He's the founder and chief investment analyst of our corporate affiliate Brownstone Research. And he's a legend in Silicon Valley.

Jeff recommended bitcoin and Nvidia (NVDA) before they went on to soar by thousands of percent... He has advised the U.S. government... And he has gotten into 18 tech deals that each returned 1,000%.

So I'm excited to be joining him for an event like this. Regular readers know that I love going on camera with the brightest minds in the business.

In this one, Jeff and I will be discussing a new chip that could spawn a new class of artificial-intelligence ("AI") companies with the potential to absolutely soar this year.

Again, it's all happening next Wednesday, May 21 – and it's free to attend. Just reserve your spot and get more details here.

See you then!

2) In yesterday's e-mail, I highlighted that individual investors, unlike institutional ones, continued to buy stocks during the recent downturn – and have therefore profited immensely from the big recovery.

Congratulations if you were buying stocks near the lows. But as this story on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal article notes, the key was to simply "sit tight," as I was advocating the entire time: These Investors Cashed In by Holding Firm When Markets Slumped.

The article highlights a 60-year-old investor named Andrew Skillman, who has a portfolio split between stocks and bonds. And he kept calm amid the recent market chaos.

As Skillman told the WSJ, "I never panicked. Timing the market is fruitless. No one has a crystal ball." And as the WSJ article notes:

To get to this point, investors such as Skillman had to absorb – or ignore – a lot of bad news. The Nasdaq Composite Index at one point entered bear-market territory. April was headed for its worst month since 1932 until the turnaround happened.

Some traders sought to make the most of the volatile stretch, moving in and out of the market. Others, concerned that the trade conflict would lead the U.S. economy into a recession, took the opportunity to sell stocks and other riskier assets. This year, though, the biggest winners might have been those who did nothing at all.

It can be hard to do nothing during times of turmoil, so it often helps not to look at your portfolio, as Skillman did. As the article continues:

Those investors who took a hands-off approach to the markets' tariff turmoil say they have made back all of their losses since Trump unveiled steep levies on imported goods – and held on to their sanity in the process.

Skillman, who considers himself a devotee of John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Group who championed low-cost funds, usually avoids making changes to his investments in response to short-term volatility. He didn't sell any of his stocks, but also didn't add to his positions, either.

Regular readers will likely recall what I said in my April 8 e-mail – that I wasn't obsessing over my own portfolio. As the WSJ article continues, a similar approach paid off for Skillman:

For two weeks in April, [Skillman] stopped checking his brokerage accounts. "I've looked maybe two times since the Rose Garden ceremony," he said.

But when he gathered the nerve to peek at his portfolio this past weekend, he saw that his investments had recovered nearly all of their losses. "I feel partly justified, and the other part is relieved," he said.

On a similar note, the below post on social platform X earlier this week made me laugh. It's from Ben Carlson – the author of the popular financial blog A Wealth of Common Sense.

If you had not only not looked at your portfolio this year, but didn't read the news at all, you'd think we'd had a boring start to the year!

Here's Carlson's post:

3) I've written quite a few times about drug giant Pfizer (PFE) – most recently on March 19 and March 26 – and my readers have asked me to look at other pharma companies. As such, I've been following President Donald Trump's threat to slash drug prices. Stocks in the sector initially fell on the news, as this Bloomberg article from earlier this week notes: Trump's Vow to Cut US Drug Prices Drags Pharma Stocks Lower. Excerpt:

President Donald Trump said he plans to order a cut in US prescription drug costs to bring them in line with other countries, spurring a drop in pharmaceutical shares worldwide...

A renewed push to lower drug prices may have an "enormous" impact on the sector's revenues, said Stephen Barker, an equities analyst at Jefferies Japan Ltd.

But then, shares of these companies rallied after investors analyzed the executive order Trump signed.

As this new Heard on the Street column in the WSJ notes, the executive order doesn't appear likely to change much: Trump's Drug-Price Crackdown, Like His Trade War, Could Be More Bark Than Bite. Excerpt:

As with Trump's trade brinkmanship, victories on drug pricing could be vaguely defined, with deals subject to extended negotiation. That is why, despite the tough talk, now may be an opportune time to invest in the beaten-down sector...

"This [executive order] is not a material event in our view," wrote Chris Meekins, an analyst at Raymond James. "It reminds us of how in President Trump's first term he was all bark, no bite on drug pricing... He has tools available to him to impact drug pricing, but whether he will use them remains to be seen."

Even if Trump does push forward with international reference pricing on blockbuster drugs in a way that could seriously dent the industry's profits, pharma has ways to blunt the impact.

And the sector is cheap, as this chart from the article shows:

And as the WSJ article also notes:

For long-term investors, the uncertainty – which also includes forthcoming pharma tariffs and changes at the Food and Drug Administration – is leading to bargain prices in healthcare at a time when the broader stock market is already back to lofty levels. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index is currently trading at 13.6 times its earnings over the next 12 months, which reflects a roughly 10% discount to its 10-year average and a more than 30% discount to the S&P 500's 20.5 multiple.

The article also argues that pressure on pharma companies is real – and it probably won't go away soon. However, it notes that a lot of that risk is already priced in... which would be good news for patient investors to step back in to the sector.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to follow along with developments in the pharma sector – and do some more digging. This setup has me intrigued, so (as always) I'll be on the lookout for compelling stocks.

Best regards,

Whitney

P.S. I welcome your feedback – send me an e-mail by clicking here.