More from Vegas... and Details on a 'Game-Changing' 5X Trade

An urgent briefing – and opportunity... Highlights from Day 2 of our annual conference... Dan Ives on AI: The bulls are going to party... Ben Hunt on 'World War AI'... Navigating the narratives...

Before we get to our live report from Las Vegas today...

It's Day 2 of our annual Stansberry Research Conference at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

I (Corey McLaughlin) have some highlights to share momentarily... and we have more updates on what's happening in the markets, too.

But first up today, I want to tell you about a brand-new, free emergency briefing we just released this morning...

An urgent and 'game-changing' profit opportunity...

Before we left the East Coast for Vegas, our Director of Research Matt Weinschenk sat down with two of our most seasoned analysts – who look at the market from totally different perspectives – to record a critical video.

Why? Well, because right now, they both agree on the same thing...

It's a setup that they say is a rare moneymaking opportunity. They believe it could deliver more than 5X returns... and mint a whole new wave of millionaires along the way.

From the rise in inflation... to the war in Iran... to Washington politics... and simple price action, Matt says everything is lining up for this trade. All it took was a couple of quick phone calls with our analysts to connect the dots. As Matt explains in the briefing...

Typically, [these two analysts] operate in such different worlds, but I knew as a matter of urgency, we needed to get them together and get this message out to you by any means possible, and quickly, because opportunities like this do not come around very often.

The fact that two of our most successful editors are so aligned, when often you might find them otherwise disagreeing... It's one of the reasons why they describe this opportunity as a home run for our readers.

You'll get the full story in the briefing. It has to do with a cycle of fear and greed that is reaching what looks like a critical turning point – in a fundamental, technical, and geopolitical sense.

You'll also hear a specific game plan for this rare trade setup. As Matt says...

The bottom line is we don't do calls like this very often, but then, we don't have moves like this very often, either. This could be a huge, game-changing moment in the market. And as it stands, there's still a chance for you to get ahead of it.

Click here to watch this free urgent briefing now and learn more.

Now, back to Vegas...

I was looking forward to hearing what Dan Ives had to say during his main-stage talk this morning.

The colorful-jacket-wearing tech investor and market commentator has started his own investment-banking firm, Yorkville Ives & Co., after an eight-year run as global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities.

Before that, Ives spent 16 years as an analyst and managing director with FBR Capital Markets. He is widely known for his insights on AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and the broader technology landscape.

All of that is timely today, of course, as the AI-driven bull market that began in late 2022 surges higher. Ives thinks it will keep going for many more years...

As Ives said on stage today...

I truly believe the AI revolution is in Year Three of what's going to be a 10 to 12-year build-out. We're in the midst of what I view as a multiyear tech bull market. I think where people get caught up is not understanding the scale and scope of what's going on.

Ives pointed to a 13-to-1 demand-to-supply ratio for AI-capable semiconductor chips and other American companies' – like Nvidia's (NVDA) – edge over Chinese competitors as reasons. Plus, there's the fact that for every dollar spent on a chip, there's an 8-to-10-times multiplier in other parts of the infrastructure build-out.

"I'm not saying we don't have issues," Ives said, mentioning the war in Iran, rising oil prices, and inflation as reasons for concern, but AI is the "biggest transformational theme that we've seen in 100 years, with the U.S. leading."

He projected that $4 trillion to $5 trillion will be spent on AI in the U.S. over the next four or five years, which includes between 800 and 1,000 data centers, even if as many as 15% get voted down in the months ahead as the issue becomes a bigger political point across the U.S.

Party on...

Ives used a few analogies that were as colorful as his outfit to describe what he thinks is going on with AI today, which he said is different from the late stages of the dot-com bubble in 1999 and 2000. Here's one of them...

AI is like a party... If it started in 2022 or 2023, the party started about 9:30 p.m. Right now, it's about 11, 11:30 p.m. That party ends at 4 a.m. The bears will watch the party through the glass window and then go up to their room and read a book.

The bulls? They're in a party on the dance floor with [Nvidia CEO] Jensen [Huang], Lisa Su [Advanced Micro Devices CEO], and [Microsoft CEO Satya] Nadella, [plus] others. I think when the bulls and the bears meet up at the diner at 6 a.m., the bulls had a lot better night than the bears.

While spending outlays by the "hyperscalers" and others are massive, Ives believes more companies will start monetizing the technology. He used Microsoft (MSFT) as his favorite example, and Meta Platforms (META) as another with potential. Ives named the cybersecurity, energy, and utility sectors, too. As he said...

The value is in the data, not the models. The models are the tip. The data is the value.

Frankly, Ives' bullishness on AI sounded similar to our own Brett Eversole. As we wrote yesterday, Brett believes the market will start rewarding AI sellers in "Phase 2" of the bull market while "Phase 1" (spending) continues.

Like Brett, Ives shared his favorite stocks to own as all this unfolds with those in the room and online with anyone watching with our Livestream Pass.

Ben Hunt had a slightly different take on AI...

Hunt, author of the Epsilon Theory newsletter, got things going this morning with a presentation on AI – and just how influential it has been for our economy. He noted that more than half of U.S. GDP growth is coming from the AI infrastructure build-out.

If AI weren't there, GDP growth would have been just 1% over the past 18 months compared with 2.1% average annualized growth (equaling roughly $2.5 trillion), including 4.4% growth in the third quarter of 2025. So the U.S. government has incentive to keep the investment going.

"We have to keep this hamster wheel turning," he said. "That's why the U.S. government is all in."

Hunt said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is betting on an AI productivity boom to produce enough economic growth to eat into rising debt loads.

There's a problem, though...

Data-center spending is making up a larger slice of the pie, to the point where the growth won't be large enough to make a difference. So costs will be passed on to consumers (like with higher energy bills). And the cost of money – represented by 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields, for example – will go up (as yields already have been). "Or we can't build out the data centers," Hunt said.

According to Hunt, that's why we're hearing the government "oversell" foreign threats to America's place in AI development or say that data centers "save dying towns." It's all part of what Hunt describes as "World War AI," with spending akin to what the U.S. spent on World War II.

Hunt, also the president and co-founder of Perscient, an AI research firm and software company, showed attendees how he tracks the rise and fall of popular – and sometimes viral – "narratives" like these, across subjects from AI to Fed policy.

His big point was to be aware of and understand the stories that you're being sold. "It's not that [the threats] aren't real threats," he said. But you need to wonder, "Why am I reading this now? Even though a story can be true, it can also be oversold."

And plenty more...

As we near press time, Dr. David Agus is onstage talking about the intersection of medicine and technology, including AI. I'll share highlights soon.

And this being Vegas, there's some celebrity entertainment, too. We're about to hear from iconic actor Henry Winkler – yes, "The Fonz" – who I also remember fondly as Coach Klein from the Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy.

Last night, you could have spotted Winkler at the craps tables at the Aria, along with some people we know... I have no idea what he's going to talk about today, and I couldn't be more excited. I'll report back.

Tomorrow is Alliance Day...

Stansberry Alliance partners, tomorrow is your day, with an exclusive slate of presentations and dozens of stock picks from our editors, friends, and special guests.

Alliance members who aren't here in person can watch via our 2026 Alliance Meeting Livestream. Check your inbox for login information to get access.

For those of you with us in Vegas, tomorrow's festivities begin at 8 a.m. with a live recording of Top Stocks with Matt, who is hosting a debate on the AI boom – or bubble – featuring Stansberry Research senior analysts Gabe Marshank and Alan Gula.

Gabe and Alan have been preparing for this showdown for weeks, and I can tell you that they have very different opinions on how the rest of the AI story will play out from here. Alliance members have the chance to watch the debate live and unedited.

A 'sell everything' day ahead of tomorrow's inflation report...

Our Alliance Day isn't the only thing to watch tomorrow. At 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release its personal consumption expenditures ("PCE") price index data for August.

As we've written, inflation is the Federal Reserve's focus right now, and the reason that the Fed raised interest rates for the first time in three years at this month's meeting. Fed voters even indicated that we may see one more rate hike in 2026.

The PCE has been the Fed's preferred inflation measure. Heading into tomorrow's report, the Cleveland Fed estimates that PCE will come in at 3.8% and core PCE, which strips out food and energy prices, will come in at 3.4%. Both of those would be a slight increase from July's readings... and make the case for more rate hikes.

We'll have a full inflation breakdown in tomorrow's Digest.

For today, investors sold just about everything, with all three major stock indexes and oil falling. Meanwhile, bond yields rose again.

A yellow light for the credit markets...

While we've focused a lot on government bonds in recent weeks (the 30-year Treasury yield hit its highest level since 2002 today), the corporate bond market isn't out of the woods, either.

High-yield credit spreads, a measure of the extra yield investors demand to hold risky "junk" bonds over safe Treasurys, have risen alongside Treasury yields.

As of yesterday's close, the "spread" between high-yield credit and Treasurys came in at 302 basis points. That's the highest level since April, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve.

Now, the spread is still low historically. And it's not at the 550 basis-point level that our colleague and Credit Opportunities editor Mike DiBiase believes will trigger a credit crisis. But it's worth watching.

Elsewhere in the corporate world... wealth management firm UBS shared in a note to clients this morning that credit spreads for the hyperscalers (which have begun borrowing en masse to fund their AI investments) have more than doubled from 45 basis points in August 2025 to about 100 basis points today.

That's below the junk bond market. You see, several of the hyperscalers – like Alphabet (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) – have pristine credit ratings, so the spread between their debt and Treasurys will be a lot smaller than high-yield credit spreads.

Other hyperscalers – like AI "canary" Oracle (ORCL) – aren't so lucky. Oracle has the lowest credit rating of the hyperscalers. And that shows up in the numbers. Its 2056 bond is yielding more than 8%, with a spread versus Treasurys that matches the broader junk bond market.

In both the AI debt and junk bond markets, investors are getting less complacent. If that continues, we could see something "break" in the credit market.

New 52-week highs (as of 9/28/26): AbbVie (ABBV), Invesco DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund (UUP), and Waters (WAT).

In today's mailbag, more thoughts on the price of gasoline, which was covered in yesterday's Digest and mail... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.

"I remember in the late 1970s when they were selling gas in half gallons at the pump because the meters would only go up to $0.99. As a result, they were able to charge more than a dollar a gallon back then even though the pumps wouldn't go higher than a dollar. Just another example of why California is the state in the country with some of the dumbest people in the country running it, despite them saying otherwise." – Subscriber Charles S.

"I keep hearing people complain that gasoline is over $4.00 a gallon. But before we declare gasoline the most outrageously expensive liquid on Earth, let's put things in perspective.

"For $4.00, I get a GALLON of gasoline. I pour it into a 4,000-pound machine, turn a key, and that gallon will haul me, the groceries, the golf clubs and half the junk in my trunk almost 30 miles down the highway. That's actually a pretty impressive day's work for $4.00.

"Now let's compare.

"A restaurant sells me a 5-ounce glass of wine for $9. That's about $230 a gallon. And how far does it transport me? Usually, from the dinner table to the women's room.

"A fancy coffee shop can charge $6 for a 16-ounce latte. That's $48 a gallon. It doesn't transport me 30 miles. It transports me from 'Leave me alone' to 'Okay, now you may speak.'

"Bottled water at a convenience store might be $2.50 for 20 ounces. That's $16 a gallon, for something that occasionally falls out of the sky FOR FREE...

"We have a warped perspective we don't always acknowledge. We regularly pay more for less without complaint, but we've picked our target and are sticking to it." – Subscriber Susan H.

All the best,

Corey McLaughlin with Nick Koziol
Las Vegas, Nevada and Baltimore, Maryland
September 29, 2026