Seasonally Picky Shoppers, Hypersonic Upgrades, More Investing News
Let's scan through the headlines for the stories of the week that speak to our Pro Portfolio holdings.
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Frugal shoppers are shunning pricey razors and fancy fast dining for other holiday buys. The Pentagon is trying to scale up its hypersonic arms abilities. And Europe is getting more serious about the artificial intelligence race. Meanwhile, outages at Cloudflare (NET) and Shopify (SHOP) remind us how critical digital infrastructure is in our increasingly connected world. These are just some of the stories we've been tracking this past week for news and views that relate to our Pro Portfolio holdings.
If you’ve come across a signal we should know about, be sure to drop a link in the Comment section below.
And if you haven’t watched this week’s TheStreet Stocks & Markets podcast, here’s a helpful link so you can.
Aging Population
The United States Senior Living Market is entering a major expansion phase, driven by the country’s rapidly aging demographic, rising life expectancy, and a notable shift toward wellness-centered, community-based living options. According to Renub Research, the United States Senior Living Market is expected to reach US$ 154.55 billion by 2033, up from US$ 97.85 billion in 2024, growing at a CAGR of 5.21% from 2025 to 2033. Read more here
Paid home care is buckling under the surging demands of an aging population. But there are alternatives that could upgrade jobs and improve patient care. Read more here
Position: Labcorp (LH) ; Welltower (WELL)
Artificial Intelligence
Turning the lens inward, in August 2025 we surveyed 132 Anthropic engineers and researchers, conducted 53 in-depth qualitative interviews, and studied internal Claude Code usage data to find out how AI use is changing things at Anthropic. We find that AI use is radically changing the nature of work for software developers, generating both hope and concern. Read more here
The European Union expects to launch the formal bidding process for artificial-intelligence gigafactories early next year as the bloc seeks to catch up with the U.S. in the AI race. The EU wants to develop large-scale AI facilities equipped with the latest AI chips to train the most complex models and is hoping to do so through public-private partnerships, tapping European funds and private investments. Read more here
Position: Alphabet (GOOGL) , Amazon (AMZN) , Arista Networks (ANET) , Axon (AXON) , Meta (META) , Microsoft (MSFT) , ServiceNow (NOW) , SuRo Capital (SSSS)
Cash-Strapped Consumer
Even with holiday shopping off to a robust start, consumers—especially those from less-affluent households—are pulling back on routine purchases as they give priority to gifts and holiday meals. Sales on things that can wait, such as haircuts, pricier razors and fast-casual lunches, are slipping. Read more here
Position: Amazon, Costco (COST) , TJX Companies (TJX)
Cybersecurity, Data Privacy & Digital Identity
Financial software provider Marquis Software Solutions is warning that it suffered a data breach that impacted dozens of banks and credit unions across the US. Marquis Software Solutions provides data analytics, CRM tools, compliance reporting, and digital marketing services to over 700 banks, credit unions, and mortgage lenders. Read more here
Freedom Mobile, the fourth-largest wireless carrier in Canada, has disclosed a data breach after attackers hacked into its customer account management platform and stole the personal information of an undisclosed number of customers. Read more here
A threat actor has published over a hundred malicious extensions that can track and profile Chrome and Microsoft Edge users, and can also execute a payload on their systems, Koi Security reports. According to the company, the threat actor, tracked as ShadyPanda, has been uploading seemingly innocuous extensions for roughly seven years, and weaponizing them after gaining users’ trust. The extensions have gathered over 4 million downloads and some of them remain available for download. Read more here
Position: Alphabet, First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF, Microsoft
Digital Infrastructure
A widespread Cloudflare outage just brought down major websites across the globe, from LinkedIn to Coinbase, affecting roughly 20% of the internet before the company issued a fix… Cloudflare just demonstrated how fragile the modern internet really is. Read more here
Shopify's platform crashed during Cyber Monday's peak shopping hours, locking thousands of merchants out of their stores and payment systems just as consumers rushed to spend an estimated $14.2 billion online. The outage hit the company that powers over 10% of US e-commerce transactions at the worst possible moment. Read more here
Positions: Arista Networks, Marvell (MRVL) , Nvidia (NVDA) , Qualcomm (QCOM)
Digital Lifestyle
A recent report by Phocuswright reveals that nearly four in ten U.S. travelers have used generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT and AI-powered search features like Google’s AI Mode, to research travel in the last 12 months. This marks an 11-point increase in AI usage compared to the previous year. Although general search engines remain the predominant tool for travel research, their use is declining as AI adoption grows, suggesting a potential shift in preferred trip-planning resources. Read more here
In the U.S., nearly half of consumers (47 percent) have already used AI for at least one shopping-related task, with gift discovery, price comparison and product research emerging as top holiday use cases across North America. This data signals the beginning of an agentic AI era where shoppers rely on intelligent tools not just to browse, but to make decisions too. Read more here
AI is changing how consumers shop for holiday gifts. This holiday season, traffic from AI sources (LLMs) to retail sites is expected to rise 515–520% from the 2024 holidays. Read more here
A report by CarGurus, surveying 3,000 recent car buyers and sellers, revealed that more consumers are turning to digital tools to personalize their purchase journey, boost confidence in their decisions, and streamline steps in the process, with AI driving wider adoption… Top consumer uses for AI were comparing vehicles (44%) and finding listings (40%). AI also ranks high for summarizing reviews on cars (39%) and dealerships (36%). Read more here
Spotify is making its boldest move yet to break free from audio-only streaming. The company launches music videos this month for US subscribers and boldly declares it's "creating a best-in-class video experience to rival the biggest players, like YouTube or TikTok." This isn't just feature creep - it's a full platform transformation as music streaming hits growth limits. Read more here
Position: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta
Energy Pain Point
U.S. electric utilities are entering a five-year capital expenditure “super-cycle” as they build out transmission and generation networks to meet new demand from data centers… “Investment in electricity infrastructure is projected to be $1.4 trillion from 2025 to 2030, double the amount invested in the prior 10 years,” Read more here
US electric companies will spend almost $208 billion in 2025 and more than $1.1 trillion over the next five years on the power grid, according to industry group Edison Electric Institute. Utility spending is growing rapidly. For comparison, investor-owned utilities made capital expenditures of $765 billion in the five-year period through the end of 2024, new data from EEI shows. The spending over the next five years will support the construction of new infrastructure to meet rising demand from data centers, artificial intelligence and economy-wide electrification. Read more here
Position: Eaton (ETN)
Homebuilding & Materials
A record 41% of homebuilders reported cutting prices this month to entice skittish consumers and work through a glut of new homes in some parts of the country. The share of builders slashing prices reached a post-pandemic high, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, and topped 40% for the first time on record. The average discount was 6%, unchanged from a month earlier. Read more here
Production developers, on average, spent 7.5% of sales prices on incentives in the three months ended August, according to John Burns Research & Consulting. They’ve given up the average premium of 16% that new builds have commanded since 1973, based on the firm’s analysis of Census and National Association of Realtors data. Read more here
Safety & Security
The Pentagon is getting serious about hypersonic weapons, a technology that has eluded the U.S. military for decades. It is looking to startups, with no experience but billions of dollars backing them, to fill an increasingly glaring hole in the national arsenal. Read more here
Companies such as BAE Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, L3Harris and General Atomics are among the more than 1,000 firms the Pentagon has selected to potentially work on its Golden Dome missile defense shield program, or other projects. Read more here
On Tuesday, the Pentagon released an open call to industry to rapidly obtain and deploy over 300,000 small one-way-attack drones — with the Pentagon hoping to put them into the field at such a pace that operators can learn to use them within two hours. The $1 billion initiative aims to have the one-way attack drones in the hands of service members by 2028. Read more there
Germany’s parliamentary budget committee has approved 11 major defense procurement projects worth more than €2.5 billion ($3 billion), bringing the country’s tally on equipment spending for 2025 to over €33 billion across 73 major projects. Read more here
Police leaders say AI technology like Axon Draft One saves time, allowing officers to more quickly get back to patrolling. It uses audio from officers’ Axon body cameras and drafts a police report, to which officers are then prompted to add details and check for accuracy. Read more here
Position: Axon Enterprise (AXON) , Palantir (PLTR)
The Strategies Behind Our Thematic Models
Aging of the Population - Capturing the demographic wave of the aging population and the changing demands it brings.
Artificial Intelligence – Software, chips, and related companies that facilitate the collection and analysis of large data sets and autonomous generation of solutions given non-machine language prompts.
Cash-Strapped Consumer - Companies poised to benefit as consumers stretch the disposable spending dollars they do have.
Cybersecurity - Companies that focus on protecting against the penetration of digital networks and the theft, ransom, corruption, or destruction of data.
Data Privacy & Digital Identity - Companies providing the tools and services that verify authorized users and safeguard personal data privacy.
Digital Infrastructure & Connectivity -The buildout and upgrading of our Networks, Data Storage Facilities, and Equipment.
Digital Lifestyle - The companies behind our increasingly connected lives.
Digital Payments - This model focuses on companies benefiting from the accelerating structural adoption of digital payments and financial technology (FinTech).
Energy Pain Point - Companies poised to prosper from rising power demand.
EV Transition - Capturing the transition to EVs and related infrastructure from combustion engine vehicles.
Guilty Pleasure – Companies that produce/provide food and drink products that consumers tend to enjoy regardless of the economic environment and potential long-term health hazards associated with excessive consumption.
Homebuilding & Materials – Ranging from homebuilders to key building product companies that serve the housing market, this model looks to capture the rising demand for housing, one that should benefit as the Fed returns monetary policy to more normalized levels.
Luxury Buying Boom - Tapping into aspirational buying and affluent buyers amid rising global wealth.
Rebuilding America - Turning the focused spending on rebuilding US infrastructure into revenue and profits.
Safety & Security – Targeted exposure to companies that provide goods and services primarily to the Defense and security sectors of the economy.
