Dear Friend,

Markets do not reprice when a mine pours its first gold. They reprice the day the uncertainty dies.

On May 21, 2026, the board of a federal bank voted unanimously to lend nearly $3 billion to build a gold mine on American soil. Not a chip plant. A gold mine.

Congress got 25 days notice. Nobody objected.

Final papers are expected in the second half of this year. The day that ink dries, three things happen at once.

Funding risk goes to zero.

The U.S. government becomes financially fused to the project.

And Wall Street re-rates the stock from speculative developer to federally backed strategic asset.

One more detail. This company's own filings carry a phrase I have never seen on a gold project: substantial support and partnership from the Department of War.

Why? The deposit carries a second metal alongside its gold. One China formally banned from export to the United States. This is the only domestic reserve of it in the country.

Gold for the dollar war. The banned metal for the shooting war. Both from the same pit.

The company is about one fiftieth the size of Newmont.

Get the name and ticker before the signature >>

"The Buck Stops Here,"

Kelly Maguire

Behind the Markets

3 Surging Stocks That Don’t Need the AI Boom to Keep Winning

Written by Nathan Reiff. Originally Published: 9/21/2026.

With AI companies—and related chip stocks—driving much of the market's performance this year, it's understandable that some investors are hesitant to put all their trust in a burgeoning industry, regardless of how much momentum it appears to have. Fortunately, several non-AI stocks have stood out for their strong performance during the first part of 2026.

Companies like DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA), Franklin Resources Inc. (NYSE: BEN), and Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) have all returned more than 30% year to date (YTD), with minimal reliance on the factors fueling AI stock performance. Each company also has catalysts that could help sustain its momentum, making these stocks potential diversification plays for the rest of the year for investors concerned about an AI bubble or simply looking to diversify.

DaVita's Dialysis Business Continues to Grow Regardless of Economic Conditions

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DaVita is a kidney dialysis company that provides outpatient services and other clinical care. Its role within the health care sector makes its business relatively resilient to shifting economic cycles. Individuals with late-stage renal disease require dialysis services multiple times per week regardless of economic conditions, and DaVita is a leading provider of those services.

Shares of DVA are up more than 60% YTD as reimbursement rates have improved and the company has strengthened its cost discipline. After a solid Q2 2026 that included better-than-expected performance on both the top and bottom lines, DaVita reaffirmed its bullish full-year guidance.

The company's momentum could continue as it expands its hemodialysis services with new technologies in future quarters, having already secured the necessary supply.

Analysts expect DaVita to boost earnings by more than 18% in the year ahead, potentially fueling an additional 26% in upside even after the recent robust rally. Despite its dramatic rise, DaVita remains relatively modestly valued compared with its broader sector. The stock trades at about 15 times earnings, well below the health care sector overall.

Franklin Resources Has Tempered Its Flow Problem, But Can It Continue?

The company behind Franklin Templeton has returned about 38% YTD following a series of underperforming years and has benefited from multiple catalysts.

First, the outflows that have long concerned the company have moderated in recent quarters and, at times, even reversed. Barring a significant shift in investment performance, fund flows could continue to trend upward.

Beyond that, Franklin Resources has delivered better-than-expected earnings, including a 6-cent earnings per share (EPS) beat in the latest quarter, along with 14% year-over-year (YOY) revenue growth. Broad strength in the equities market has helped expand the company's asset base, while a series of acquisitions has begun to integrate more fully.

To be sure, Franklin faces a major headwind as investors migrate toward exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offered by larger competitors. The company is also heavily dependent on the health of the broader market. Investors who expect the equities space to continue performing well may agree with analysts that BEN shares are worth holding.

Archer Daniels Midland Benefits From Global Trends That Remain Volatile

Just two years after a $40 million penalty related to an accounting scandal, food-processing and agricultural company Archer Daniels Midland has staged a significant turnaround, with shares rising 48% YTD. The company's agricultural commodity processing operations stand to benefit from ongoing disruptions in the fertilizer supply chain caused by the war in Iran. As a result, grain-processing volumes and origination margins have recovered more quickly than expected.

Thanks to its execution in the first half of the year, ADM boosted its full-year adjusted EPS guidance by about $1 at both the low and high ends of the range. Oilseed-processing volumes worldwide have also risen amid higher demand for soybean meal.

The company's Nutrition segment also has strong momentum, posting a 51% sequential increase in operating profit last quarter. What remains less clear is whether those trends will continue.

Because the company's industry is heavily dependent on geopolitics, weather, energy prices, and global trade, several factors remain uncertain heading into the end of the year. Analysts are cautious given these considerations, calling ADM stock a Hold overall. Still, the company remains minimally dependent on AI trends, offering investors a more diversified perspective.

Analysts See Double-Digit Upside for These 3 Stocks

Written by Ryan Hasson. Originally Published: 9/17/2026.

Price targets aren't promises or certainties, but when a group of Wall Street analysts assigns a stock a Buy rating and sees meaningful upside to its consensus target, it is worth paying attention to their views. The three names below all share that profile. Each has an outright Buy consensus, ranks highly on MarketBeat's top-rated stocks list, and offers double-digit implied upside from its current trading level. What makes the trio interesting is how different the companies are, spanning financial exchanges, AI networking and global payments, yet all have earned similarly favorable views from the analyst community.

Nasdaq: A Laggard the Street Still Believes In

Nasdaq (NASDAQ: NDAQ) is best known for the exchange that bears its name, but the modern company is far more than a trading venue. It has built a growing business in market data, indexing and anti-financial-crime technology through its Verafin division, giving it recurring, software-like revenue streams alongside its traditional listings and trading operations.

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The stock has struggled this year, falling about 8%, which makes the analyst optimism particularly notable. Nasdaq has a Buy consensus from 11 analysts, while the average price target of $110.30 implies nearly 24% upside from current levels—the highest of the three.

It ranks in the 99th percentile of MarketBeat's finance-sector rankings, pays a strong and growing dividend, and recently expanded its Verafin crime-detection partnership to cover both cash and crypto transactions.

From a technical perspective, the stock remains in a higher timeframe uptrend, although recent price action has been range-bound and choppy, in line with the broader market. The stock is stuck in a broad range, with $76 acting as support and $100 serving as the all-important level it would need to clear for upward momentum to take hold.

Arista Networks: The Momentum Name of the Group

Arista Networks (NYSE: ANET) sits at the opposite end of the performance spectrum. The company builds high-performance Ethernet switches and networking software that connect the massive data centers powering artificial intelligence, and demand has been surging. As AI clusters scale to hundreds of thousands of accelerators, the networking layer that enables those chips to communicate has become mission-critical, and Arista is one of its clear leaders.

That positioning has driven the stock up more than 47% this year, making it the best performer of the three by a wide margin. Even after that run, analysts see room for further gains, with a Buy consensus from 23 analysts and an average price target of $227.80 implying roughly 15% additional upside.

The fundamentals underpinning the move are genuinely impressive, with net margins near 38% and projected earnings growth above 23%. The potential red flag, however, is valuation: Arista trades at more than 50 times forward earnings, a premium that demands stellar execution. For a business this profitable, riding such a strong structural tailwind, the Street clearly believes the growth justifies the price.

Mastercard: A Quality Compounder on Sale

Mastercard (NYSE: MA) is one of the highest-quality businesses in the financial sector, yet its stock has gone essentially nowhere this year.

That stagnation is what makes it interesting. The global payments network operates a near-unassailable business model, taking a small cut of an enormous and growing volume of electronic transactions worldwide while generating excellent profitability.

The company reported its second-quarter 2026 earnings on July 30, beating the consensus estimate by 27 cents, while quarterly revenue rose more than 14% year over year to $9.28 billion.

MA has a Buy consensus from 31 analysts, the deepest coverage in the group, and an average price target of $666.64, pointing to about 17% upside. With a low beta of 0.74, it also offers a relatively smooth ride, combining defensive stability with durable growth. After a year of treading water while earnings continued to climb, the valuation has quietly become more reasonable, and analysts appear to view the current level as an attractive entry point into a proven compounder.

The Common Thread

These are three very different businesses, but Wall Street has reached the same conclusion about each: There is room to run. Nasdaq offers the widest implied upside, Arista brings the strongest momentum and growth, and Mastercard provides steady quality at a reasonable price.

Of course, analyst targets are only one input, and none of these names is without risk. That is particularly clear in Arista's premium valuation and Nasdaq's recent underperformance. However, when a stock combines an outright Buy rating with double-digit upside potential, it at least justifies a closer look.