Wrapping Up Vegas: Don't Be Afraid of All-Time Highs
Leaving Las Vegas... A few more thoughts from our annual conference... Tesla's latest earnings report... Elon Musk's latest narrative shift... Highlights from Whitney Tilson's 89 slides... Buying at all-time highs isn't bad... A $7 joke...
We're homeward bound...
After three days in Las Vegas, the Stansberry Research team is heading home from our annual conference. Nick Koziol and I (Corey McLaughlin) are flying back to Baltimore, full of ideas... and ready for a rest.
Before that happens, we have a few more thoughts to share from this year's conference. But we're starting today's Digest with a "Magnificent Seven" earnings report...
Tesla (TSLA) broke its falling-sales streak...
Yesterday after market close, the electric-vehicle ("EV") giant reported its results for the third quarter. Revenue rose 12% year over year to $28 billion – marking Tesla's first quarter of positive sales growth this year. Automotive revenue rose 6% in the quarter to more than $21 billion.
That's about where the good news ends, though.
Tesla's earnings per share fell short of Wall Street's estimates, with net income dropping 37% from the third quarter last year. Tesla said the decline in earnings was due to higher investment in research and development, particularly when it comes to (what else?) artificial intelligence ("AI").
Meanwhile, Tesla's sales bump might be short-lived... You see, the end of Tesla's third quarter coincided with the expiration of the EV tax credit. So a lot of that sales growth may be attributed to folks moving purchases forward to take advantage of the tax credit, not an ongoing trend. Time will tell.
With the miss on earnings and concerns about demand after the end of the EV tax credit, investors sent shares lower. The stock fell after hours and was down around 4% in early trading today.
But Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants us to talk about robots...
We told you on Tuesday that "robots are near" after listening to a presentation from entrepreneur Dr. Peter Diamandis, which painted a picture of a world soon to be filled with humanoid robots doing chores and working jobs.
Well, wouldn't you know it, on Tesla's earnings call yesterday, Musk said that the company has started "first generation" lines of production for its Optimus humanoid robot.
In recent quarters, Musk has tried to downplay problems in his auto business by highlighting robotics as the company's future. If you take a look at Tesla's investor relations page, the cover image is not of a car but of one of its robots using a computer (probably to buy Tesla shares)...
Which brings us back to our conference...
On Monday, bestselling author and cohost of the Pivot podcast Kara Swisher told conference attendees that Tesla is a great example of a company that's using popular sentiment about AI to boost its stock price.
She noted that the company is selling fewer and fewer cars (deliveries are down 6% year over year so far in 2025), but it is trying to make its investing story about its robotics and robotaxi potential.
Swisher also said that she believes Tesla has taken its eye off the ball when it comes to innovation in cars, and that's why the company is struggling. It's now facing more competition than ever, and its competitors continue to release better and better cars.
One of the things she pointed to was Tesla's semitruck, which the company unveiled in 2017, but hasn't hit mass production yet. (Don't worry, though, Tesla still wants to achieve "volume production" of the truck in 2026.)
These narrative shifts have done alright so far. As Swisher so rightfully put it: Sales go down, the stock goes up!
But Tesla is still an auto company...
While its energy-storage business saw sales jump in the third quarter, they're a long way from becoming as significant as Tesla's auto revenue – which makes up 75% of the company's total sales. So auto sales will continue to be the biggest driver of Tesla's financials.
We'll leave you with our advice from Tesla's last earnings report in July: We don't recommend buying the dip. You can find better places to put money to work.
Thoughts from Whitney...
On Tuesday, Stansberry's Investment Advisory lead editor Whitney Tilson shared a few ideas with an 89-slide presentation in 29 minutes, which he says might be a new record for him.
You can read the highlights in his free daily newsletter here and here. Among other things, Whitney analyzed whether the stock market is in a bubble... and shared which of the 10 largest U.S. companies he thinks are buys and holds... and the one he's bearish on – Tesla.
Don't be afraid to buy all-time highs...
Ritholtz Wealth Management CEO and CNBC contributor Josh Brown made this point yesterday when explaining that he's constantly hearing from clients who are hesitant about putting their money to work in stocks already at all-time highs.
It's human nature to think this way. If stocks are already at records, aren't they due to drop in the future and produce underwhelming returns? Josh noted that that's flawed thinking... And he shared some familiar data...
It was the same finding that our friend Jeff Havenstein wrote about in the free Health & Wealth Bulletin just last week, when he suggested this current bull market likely has still more runway ahead of it. As Jeff wrote...
It has historically been a smart strategy to buy stocks when they hit fresh all-time highs.
The chart below includes data from 1975 through 2025. Over those 50 years, buying the S&P 500 at record highs outperformed buying when the index wasn't at record highs. Take a look...
So while you typically hear the saying of "buy the dip," it's also a profitable strategy to "buy the high."
And there are a lot of all-time highs these days.
It's not just the U.S. headline indexes, but many sectors and foreign stocks too. On Tuesday, TrendLabs' JC Parets showed dozens of charts with the proof on stage at the Wynn. His refrain of "all-time highs" after each chart is still ringing in my head.
A $7 joke...
In Vegas, we also made sure to catch a more lighthearted presentation from Alan Zweibel, who was an original writer on Saturday Night Live and a writer on the Late Show with David Letterman and Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Zweibel took to the stage on Tuesday afternoon and shared anecdotes from his SNL days, like how he aced his interview with Lorne Michaels with help from his friend Billy Crystal. Crystal told Zweibel that Michaels hated mimes, and Zweibel cursed them in his interview with Michaels to clinch the job.
Zweibel went on to write SNL "Weekend Update" segments for years... create the "Samurai" character for John Belushi... and develop a "platonic friendship" with original SNL cast member Gilda Radner.
And, it turns out, the first joke that Zweibel ever got paid for ($7 in 1972) had a little bit to do with finance.
He wrote it as a 21-year-old still living in his childhood bedroom on Long Island while trying to get started as a comedy writer after failing to do well enough on the law school entrance exam.
A comedian who was working in New York's Catskill Mountains called him seeking a joke about sperm banks, a new thing at the time. Zweibel came up with this...
They have a new thing now called sperm banks, which is just like an ordinary bank, except here, after you make a deposit, you lose interest.
From there, Zweibel considered himself a professional comedy writer...
Of course, Zweibel couldn't have known that a few decades later, a thing called "negative interest rates" would become reality in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, when European central banks came up with their own comedy.
Seeking to encourage businesses and people to spend rather than park their money in interest-bearing savings accounts, central banks encouraged institutions to charge clients to save money rather than reward them by paying interest.
It didn't quite work. Banks were reluctant to charge clients to hold their savings for fear of losing their balances entirely, and many banks ate billions in losses, weakening them further.
Closing the book on this year's Vegas trip...
If you missed any of our coverage from Las Vegas, be sure to read our reports on Day 1, Day 2, and yesterday's Alliance Day. We covered topics ranging from the state of the AI boom and the prospects for humanoid robots to gold (and what signal it might be sending) and why 2026 might be the "year of the bear."
Finally, I want to give a big shoutout to the entire Stansberry Research team, from everyone who gave a presentation or talk, to our staff and colleagues behind the scenes making things run smoothly, and of course to our subscribers for coming. It's why we do this.
A Crash Coming?... Gold Surges... and What the 'Smart Money' Is Doing
At the conference this week, MarketBeat's Bridget Bennett sat down with MarketWise CEO and Retirement Millionaire editor Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig to discuss market uncertainty, gold's surge, and how investors can prepare for a potential market crash.
You can watch Doc's entire interview on our YouTube page, and find more coverage of our conference from Bridget at MarketBeat's page here.
New 52-week highs (as of 10/22/25): Cencora (COR), Roivant Sciences (ROIV), and Vale (VALE).
In today's mailbag, more thoughts on a future filled with humanoid robots, which we wrote about on Tuesday following a thought-provoking presentation at our conference from entrepreneur Dr. Peter Diamandis... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"I agree with S.J.I. that so much of the discussion has focused on the supposed benefits, without addressing the realities for our population in a realistic way.
"Increased lifespan for humans will equal a larger aging population. This means that an increasing number of people no longer in the workforce will still require food, clothing, shelter, and a greater need for medical care. The current human workforce worldwide is estimated at [nearly] 4 billion people. If there are 1 to 10 billion humanoid robots coming into the workforce, then what are humans supposed to do on a daily basis? If people are not working, how will companies make money when people cannot afford to buy robots, products being made by robots, self-driving vehicles, etc.? Additionally, with a rapidly shrinking tax base, where is the money coming from to support a nation?
"We need less business-led idealizing, and more realistic dialogue on what these advances will mean for humanity." – Subscriber E.G.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin and Nick Koziol
Las Vegas, Nevada
October 23, 2025