Sober Savings, Prices Still Too High, Tariffs Hit Hard, 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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More people are trying to save money by skipping alcohol, inflation might be slowing but shoppers are still feeling the high costs of goods and tariffs are hitting major retailers like Amazon (AMZN) and Walmart (WMT) . These are just a handful of the stories we've collected over the past week that speak to our Pro Portfolio holdings.
The following 22 signals cover a range of topics, including luxury goods, the struggling consumer, artificial intelligence usage and energy.
If you’ve come across a signal we should know about, be sure to drop a link in the Comment section below.
Aging Population
Fresh research from the workforce data company Revelio Labs sheds light on the factors making it harder for applicants like Thomas: chiefly, an aging population and more people working well into their 60s and 70s, coupled with a labor market in which companies are culling roles and seeking more experienced candidates when they do hire. Read more here
Position: Labcorp (LH) ; Welltower (WELL)
Artificial Intelligence
Companies have high expectations from AI efforts with productivity gains predicted to grow by 42% and with 67% of companies expecting the technology to eliminate resource and skill constraints… The research, from the IBM Institute for Business Value, also revealed nearly eight in 10, (79%), surveyed executives expect AI will significantly contribute to their revenue by 2030 — up from 40% today. But just a small number, 24%, have a clear view of where that revenue will come from. Read more here
People working in various industries — from healthcare to education to construction — are exploring ways to use AI, and the retail sector is no exception. In fact, the AI market in retail is expected to grow from $4.84 billion to $31.18 billion by 2028 — representing a CAGR of 30.5%. Read more here
“When we look at AI between ‘25 and ‘30, we see another 40 points of operating leverage,” Demchak said. “We have 171 different opportunities outlined and $1.4 billion of total addressable spend that we’re able to go after through. I mean, we use the term ‘AI,’ but I just think of it as the same march that we’ve been along with automation that has given us all those efficiencies between ‘22 and ‘25.” Read more here
…data from the latest CAIO Report shows that firms have effectively settled the debate over the use of agentic AI. What is changing now is how much authority companies are willing to give these systems and how quickly they are putting them to work. Across industries, executives are shifting from cautious interest to active deployment, with implications for how they build products, serve customers and make operational decisions. The findings point to a market that has crossed a threshold, where trust, adoption and scale are advancing in tandem rather than sequentially. 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
In August, 68% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck, and 25% of that group said they were struggling to pay monthly bills, nearly matching the highest level recorded in the previous year…. Only 48% of consumers said they were very or extremely confident they could come up with $2,000 within 30 days, a figure that fell to 15% among those already struggling to pay bills. Read more here
Amazon isn’t the only retailer warning of higher prices because of tariffs. Walmart, Target and Home Depot and many other companies have publicly said tariffs are making products more expensive. And while overall consumer inflation was modest last year, many businesses surveyed by the Federal Reserve in its latest Beige Book, a collection of anecdotes, warned they’re planning bigger price hikes this year. Read more here
The cost of living in the U.S. rose 2.7% in December compared with a year before, according to Tuesday's federal data. That's a steady slowdown after a yearslong stretch of intense inflation, but still painful. The past year also brought a global trade war, as President Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on nearly all imports. And the world continued to grapple with extreme weather, from droughts to downpours. All of this is showing up in our shopping carts... To entice weary shoppers, NPR found, Walmart offered more discounts in December than it had in previous years. Read more here
Income remains the most important dividing line. Among households earning less than $50,000 annually, the share reporting at least one large purchase fell from 46% in August to 40% in December. For those earning between $50,000 and $100,000, that share declined from 66% to 61% over the same period. Higher-income households, by contrast, showed little change. Seventy-seven percent of households earning $100,000 or more reported at least one large purchase in December, maintaining the highest level of spending activity across income groups. Read more here
Position: Amazon, Costco (COST) , TJX Companies (TJX)
Cybersecurity, Data Privacy & Digital Identity
Cybersecurity firms are also busy adopting AI to better shield clients from hackers. Some $213 billion was devoted to protecting computer networks in 2025, up 10% from 2024, according to research and advisory firm Gartner. Yet for all the investment in firewalls, data security and access management, there’s little to suggest cybercrime is on the retreat. It’s still a relatively low-risk business considering the potential rewards, and AI is making it easier — and faster — to execute. Read more here
Cybercrime has entered its AI era, with criminals now using weaponized language models and deepfakes as cheap, off-the-shelf infrastructure rather than experimental tools, according to researchers at Group-IB. In its latest whitepaper, the cybersec biz argues that AI has become the plumbing of modern cybercrime, quietly turning skills that once took time and talent into services that anyone with a credit card and a Telegram account can rent. Read more here
Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new phishing campaign that exploits social media private messages to propagate malicious payloads, likely with the intent to deploy a remote access trojan (RAT)… The attack involves approaching high-value individuals through messages sent on LinkedIn, establishing trust, and deceiving them into downloading a malicious WinRAR self-extracting archive (SFX). Read more here
The European Commission has proposed new cybersecurity legislation mandating the removal of high-risk suppliers to secure telecommunications networks and strengthening defenses against state-backed and cybercrime groups targeting critical infrastructure. This move follows years of frustration over the uneven application of the EU's voluntary 5G Security Toolbox, introduced in January 2020 to encourage member states to limit reliance on high-risk vendors. Read more here
The U.K. government is warning of continued malicious activity from Russian-aligned hacktivist groups targeting critical infrastructure and local government organizations in the country in disruptive denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The attacks are aimed at taking websites offline and disabling services… Read more here
Position: Alphabet, First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF, Microsoft
Digital Infrastructure
Microsoft experienced one of its largest outages to date, affecting services including Outlook, Teams, 365 and more. Now, it appears the impact has been "resolved." Multiple Microsoft services suddenly went down on January 22, which left multiple users without access to emails, apps and even Microsoft Defender. Over the course of around nine hours, Microsoft tried to fix the issue, resulting in a mixed bag of services returning and being out again. Before that, on January 21, Microsoft 365 and Teams also suffered a brief outage that left users unable to log in or access various Office apps. Read more here
Position: Alphabet, Amazon, Broadcom (AVGO) , Marvell (MRVL) , Microsoft (MSFT) , Nvidia (NVDA)
Digital Lifestyle
OpenAI also plans to begin testing ads in the U.S. for its Free and Go tiers within weeks… As the company introduces ads to the ChatGPT experience, it said it will ensure that the artificial intelligence assistant’s responses are driven by “what’s objectively useful,” not by advertising; users’ data and conversations will remain protected and never sold to advertisers; and users will be able to choose to control the experience to see relevant ads and to turn off personalization, according to the release. Read more here
A week after adding a new Personal Intelligence feature to its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Gemini, Google has expanded the feature to AI Mode in Google Search. Google announced the initial launch of Personal Intelligence in a Jan. 14 blog post, saying that when added to Gemini, it personalizes the AI assistant by connecting to Google apps and drawing information from email, photos and videos. The apps to which it connects include Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube and Search. Read more here
Particularly as consumers are beset by economic uncertainty and financial stresses that may threaten to undercut even the most carefully architected innovation strategies. In response, Amazon this week pushed further into artificial intelligence and ambient computing, unveiling an agentic AI health assistant and broadening the reach of Alexa+. Walmart, by contrast, focused on the mechanics of marketplace evolution and organizational design, expanding its online platform into premium musical instruments while reshuffling leadership to reflect a more explicitly tech-forward strategy. Read more here
Position: Alphabet (GOOGL) , Amazon, Apple, Meta (META) , SuRo Capital (SSSS)
Energy Pain Point
Data centers can bring their own power generation that would either be maybe onsite or nearby, bring your own power. You're hearing it across the country, you're seeing it in a lot of places in Texas and Tennessee and Ohio and all sorts of places, you are seeing large data center projects that are bringing onsite power with them and they are planning to either, in a few cases, island themselves and just provide their own power forever or just use it as a bridge until all of the grid infrastructure can catch up and then they will connect at some point. Read more here
Position: Eaton (ETN)
Guilty Pleasure
Instead of mocktails, he drinks nonalcoholic beer, because he says it’s cheaper and “the taste is a bit of a placebo.” Other times, “I’m drinking club sodas and downing like four, one after another.” He’s been saving money, but not as much as he anticipated. During a regular month, he estimates that he spends as much as $900 on alcohol, which includes buying rounds for friends and drinks for dates; this month, he thinks he’ll end up at about half of that for nonalcoholic beverages. Read more here
A historic downturn in demand for Scotch, whiskey, cognac and tequila has left drinks makers sitting on a lake of unsold spirits, forcing them to mothball distilleries and slash prices to shift bottles piling up in warehouses. Five of the biggest listed alcohol producers — Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Campari, Brown Forman and Rémy Cointreau — are sitting on $22bn worth of ageing spirits, the highest level of inventory in more than a decade, according to their financial reports. Read more here
Luxury Buying Boom
De Beers cut its official diamond prices for the first time in more than a year, according to people familiar with the matter, ending its attempts to support the market in the face of slumping demand. The diamond industry has been beset by one of the deepest and most prolonged crises in modern history amid a pullback in Chinese luxury spending and rising popularity of synthetic stones. US tariffs on India — the world’s largest diamond exporter — have added even more pain. Read more here
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.
