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The underlying driver is economic resilience—especially labor-market data, which continue to show growth. Although job numbers have retreated from post-COVID peaks, labor conditions have normalized to healthy levels and are improving versus last year.
During Tesla's last earnings call, Elon Musk outlined a new AI-driven approach he says could generate $30,000-$50,000 a year in passive income with minimal effort and modest upfront costs.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz called it 'a total game-changer,' and millions of Americans are reportedly eligible to participate. This is a new business model, and early movers could be positioned for significant returns.
The most current labor indicators are weekly initial and total unemployment claims. As of early April, initial claims are near 200,000—well within a healthy range—and total claims are declining. Total claims are down year-over-year, and late-March data show the pace of decline accelerating, with signs this trend may continue.
The U.S. heads into the spring hiring season with tailwinds. Beyond macro concerns, the onshoring of critical supply chains, rising data-center and energy demand, favorable consumer trends, and measures such as deregulation and tax relief are supporting activity and could accelerate later in the year.
Why These 2 Small-Cap ETFs Are Heading Toward Long-Term Highs
For ETF traders, the combination of small caps holding near record territory alongside still-stable labor signals helps explain why Russell 2000-tracking funds like IWM and VTWO have been pushing higher.
Price action for these ETFs is supported by the Russell 2000 outlook and by institutional inflows, which reflect a broader market rotation. When fundamentals shift—such as when the Federal Reserve began a rate-cutting cycle—other areas of the market can benefit.
In this case, an improving economic outlook is prompting institutions to broaden their holdings as they trim profits in some large-cap, high-flying names such as NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA).
The question for investors is which Russell 2000-tracking fund suits them. The primary differences are expense ratios and liquidity, which makes the choice straightforward.
VTWO has a lower expense ratio (0.07% vs. IWM's 0.19%), making it cheaper to own for long-term investors, while IWM is far more liquid (nearly 44 million in average daily volume versus about 4.8 million). Liquidity matters for short-term trades because it enables quick entries and exits with minimal slippage. IWM also has a robust options market, which is useful for short-term speculation and income strategies such as covered calls.
Russell 2000 Catalysts: The FOMC, Interest Rates, and Earnings Growth
A primary catalyst—and risk—for the Russell 2000 is the Federal Reserve's FOMC and its interest-rate trajectory.
Lower rates have helped fuel the small-cap rotation, but that dynamic could change. Higher oil prices—potentially driven by the Iran conflict—could accelerate inflation and push the Fed toward a more hawkish stance. The best-case scenario as of early April is that the committee holds rates, allowing the so-called “Great Rotation”—a shift out of overvalued, high-flying tech into cheaper areas of the market—to continue.
Earnings growth is another key catalyst for the index and the ETFs that track it. Rate cuts have improved the outlook by lowering borrowing costs. Q1 forecasts point to as much as 45% year-over-year (YOY) earnings growth, which may be a conservative estimate. Full-year forecasts are likely cautious as well, anticipating the YOY boost to fade as the year progresses.
Price action as of early April is bullish for the index and its most closely correlated ETFs. Geopolitical concerns and AI-related fears caused a correction, but the market found support at a critical level that aligns with prior highs, and a rebound is underway. Indicators such as the stochastic oscillator and MACD point to a meaningful momentum shift, suggesting the recovery could be sustained.
The likely outcome is the Russell 2000 will test its all-time high before midyear—potentially before the end of May—and then move to new highs. Technicals suggest 3,000 as a base case in this scenario, with higher levels likely to follow.
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Special Report
CrowdStrike Stock Drops on AI Fears—Is This a Buying Opportunity?
Written by Chris Markoch. Publication Date: 4/2/2026.
Key Points
CrowdStrike stock has declined as investors worry that AI tools like Claude Code could disrupt traditional cybersecurity platforms, but these concerns may be overstated.
The company’s Falcon platform remains differentiated with full-stack protection that goes beyond the capabilities of current AI security tools.
Recent price target cuts reflect tempered expectations, yet analysts still see meaningful upside as cybersecurity demand continues to grow.
CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWD) has heard the names Anthropic and Claude Code more than it would like. CRWD stock is down about 16% in 2026, a decline that largely reflects the broader malaise in frothy technology stocks.
Just as CRWD was beginning to regain momentum, it was derailed by two Anthropic-related events. The first came in late February, when Anthropic launched Claude Code Security — a move that coincided with CrowdStrike’s Q4 earnings report for its 2026 fiscal year.
While attention stays fixed on dominant AI names, one low-priced stock is gaining quiet momentum - trading for pennies compared to industry leaders like Nvidia.
Early investors still have a window before this pick reaches wider awareness. A modest position could establish exposure ahead of broader attention. A 12-page Special Report covers the full case, including the name and ticker.
In March, more details surfaced about Mythos, an unreleased model described as more powerful than Claude Code Security, and the source code for Claude Code was also leaked.
The worry: AI could take over tasks presently sold by cybersecurity vendors, which would force a reassessment of pricing power and margins for CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform.
Sell the Rumor, Buy the News?
Markets love a panic, and Anthropic handed one to investors. Claude Code Security was a research preview intended to identify high-severity software vulnerabilities and suggest fixes. Some investors interpreted that as an AI-native product that could replace work currently done by cybersecurity vendors, triggering a broad selloff.
Then reports about Mythos described it as a major leap in capability and warned of “unprecedented cybersecurity risks,” reinforcing the narrative that Anthropic’s models might both defend and attack more effectively — and that the market might need to reprice security vendors' moats.
But over time a clearer picture of what Claude Code is — and is not — has emerged.
Claude Code Security is a research preview strong on static code analysis but limited when it comes to runtime threats, cloud sprawl, and adaptive attacker behavior. By contrast, CrowdStrike’s Falcon is a full-stack platform for prevention, detection, and response across endpoints, identities, and networks — not just a scanner. Those differences matter, especially as AI also enables smarter phishing and more sophisticated exploits.
CrowdStrike’s AI-native roots allow it to harness these models rather than fear them. CEO George Kurtz has framed this as a competitive edge: agentic AI threats demand platforms that can automate at scale. Post-earnings volume suggested capitulation; the roughly 5.7% snapback by April 1 indicates buyers returning.
CRWD Stock May Be Running Out of Sellers
When investors again favor cybersecurity names, CRWD should be a clear beneficiary. For now, though, sentiment is in limbo: the stock shows signs of recovery — which can deter new buyers — while analysts pare back price targets.
To be fair, many analysts still see roughly 20% or more upside. Only a month ago, several targets were at or above $600; the CrowdStrike analyst forecast on MarketBeat currently shows no recent price targets in the $600s.
Importantly, the Claude Code fallout isn’t an indictment of CrowdStrike’s business model. If anything, it highlights why an AI-native Falcon platform positions the company well to manage threats from increasingly agentic AI tools.
Put in sports terms: CrowdStrike was the team on an unprecedented winning streak. Many expected the streak couldn’t last — and it didn’t. But like most teams, the next result is usually a reversion to the mean rather than an extended collapse.
CrowdStrike’s baseline remains that of a best-of-breed company in a high-demand sector; it’s simply reverting toward normal.
That normal may sting investors who bought near the top, but the company’s strong annual recurring revenue (ARR) and expanding customer base suggest time is what CRWD needs.
Analysts trimmed targets from $600+ into the $400s, yet roughly 20% upside persists. ARR is growing, customer retention remains strong, and cybersecurity spending is rising as risks mount. This looks less like a snapped streak and more like a pullback toward fair value in a must-have sector — patient investors should be rewarded.
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Today’s editorial pick for you
JPMorgan Reports Record Q1 Earnings in an Environment Its CEO Doesn’t Trust
Posted On Apr 16, 2026 by Grayson Cavern
Volatility, geopolitical fractures and rising competition from players that didn’t even exist a decade ago. Yet, JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) just delivered one of its cleanest quarters in recent memory when it reported its first quarter 2026 results. The bank posted an EPS of $5.95, surpassing estimates of $5.45, while revenue came up at a whopping $50.5 billion against $49.2 billion estimates.
Table of Contents
The unclear part, however, is why those numbers are showing up now, in this environment, under these conditions. This is because when you read the report alongside Jamie Dimon’s shareholder letter, you are forced into a contradiction that most investors will walk right past if they stay at the surface.
Bank Earnings Could Be Misleading
Treating strong bank earnings as confirmation of healthy economic conditions is a reflexive instinct, and here, it is the wrong one. Net income reached $16.5 billion, up 13%. ROTCE came in at 23%. These are dominance-level numbers. But a meaningful portion of that outperformance came from areas that don’t thrive in calm markets.
Markets’ revenue reached $11.6 billion, up 20%. The Commercial & Investment Bank generated $23.4 billion, up 19%, driven by trading activity and elevated market flows. These are revenues extracted from dislocation and uncertainty — from a global system generating more friction than it was twelve months ago. In short, JPMorgan didn’t outperform in a stable environment. It monetized an unstable one, and that distinction matters more than any single line in the income statement.
Staying on Top Has a Price
Strength at this scale is not self-sustaining. The $26.9 billion in noninterest expenses – up 14% year-over-year – reflects deliberate investment in compensation, technology, and expansion. The urgency behind that spend is hiding in plain sight in Dimon’s letter: the firm is now tracking over 100 competitors globally, spanning fintech, digital payments, blockchain infrastructure, and capital markets platforms.
These aren’t fringe challengers. They are fast-moving, well-funded, and structurally different from anything JPMorgan has historically competed against. Meaning, the old playbook of out-scaling the competition doesn’t fully apply when your competition is built lighter, moves faster, and isn’t carrying a $4 trillion balance sheet’s worth of regulatory and operational weight.
Dimon Said It But Most People Skimmed It
There is a line in the shareholder letter that deserves more attention than it will get. Dimon explicitly acknowledges that size can become a liability – introducing complexity, slowing decision velocity, and creating conditions for the one thing a dominant institution cannot afford: complacency. Think about it: the man who built the most profitable bank in the world is warning that the very thing that made it dominant could be what undoes it.
Scale generates friction. In an environment where challengers are iterating faster and deploying quicker, that friction carries a real cost – and the same institution generating $50 billion in quarterly revenue must operate with the urgency of one that cannot afford to feel comfortable with that number.
Peak Profits And Pessimistic CEO
JPMorgan is delivering what may be peak-cycle performance by almost any measure, while its CEO simultaneously outlines a world of rising geopolitical fragmentation, structural economic pressure, and narrowing financial mobility for the average American. Dimon’s reference to the American Dream becoming harder to attain is a directional signal about the durability of consumption, household resilience, and the long-term demand environment underpinning everything from card spending to mortgage origination.
These are not cyclical concerns; they are structural, and they matter because JPMorgan’s current strength is a direct product of navigating the very instability Dimon is warning about. The volatility generating $11.6 billion in market revenue is the same volatility he is telling investors to take seriously.
I’d argue that is the most important signal in the entire report, and sadly, most people will never connect those two things.
What The Chart Confirms
Heading into earnings, JPMorgan Chase traded around $295–$300, holding above its 50 and 200 EMAs, with price steadily building higher lows. Post-earnings, the stock broke out to $312, confirming strength, but quickly failed to hold those highs, pulling back to $305, where it is now stabilizing.
That pullback matters. Price remains above the 50 EMA and well above the 200 EMA, keeping the broader uptrend intact. RSI has dropped to about 41, showing momentum has cooled significantly without triggering a breakdown, while volume during the pullback has remained controlled, not indicative of distribution.
It’s simple: the breakout validated strength, but the rejection at highs shows that buyers are no longer aggressively chasing. The trend holds, but conviction is becoming more selective.
Options-like Business Model
JPMorgan isn’t thriving despite the instability. It is thriving because of it. Volatility is revenue in this business model. Dislocation generates flows. Uncertainty drives clients toward the balance sheet they trust most. The risk isn’t whether JPMorgan can perform in this environment – it’s what happens to the performance profile if conditions stabilize, or worse, deteriorate past the point where they can be monetized.
The thesis hasn’t changed, and JPMorgan & Chase still tops my buy list.
However, you have to pay attention to the fact that it is no longer a story about a bank navigating cycles with superior execution, but a story about a bank generating extraordinary returns from a system becoming progressively harder to stabilize, and a CEO clear-eyed enough to say so while the numbers are still green.
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The Shah fell. The Ayatollahs took over. Fifty-two American diplomats were held for 444 days.
The world flooded into gold. I watched from the outside. Too young to act, old enough to know what I was seeing.
Gold did not collapse when the hostages came home. The conflict was over. The repricing was not.
That is the lesson most traders are missing right now.
Look at what gold actually did this year. It peaked above $5,300 in late January, before the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February.
When the conflict escalated and the Strait of Hormuz closed, gold did not spike higher. It sold off from $5,200 in early March to $4,400 by late March. Inflation fears and rate uncertainty hit harder than the safe-haven bid.
Now peace talks are underway, and gold is climbing back toward $4,850.
Most traders look at that chart and see noise. I look at it and see something familiar.
The market is not pricing gold on the conflict alone. It is pricing gold on what the conflict has done to the monetary system underneath it.
Central banks bought more than 1,000 tonnes of gold in 2024, the third consecutive year above that level. Even in 2025, when buying cooled, they still purchased 863 tonnes.
In the latest World Gold Council survey, 43% of central banks said they plan to increase their gold holdings over the next year. Not a single one planned to cut.
And potentially impact every checking and savings account in America.
Click here nowbecause Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bancorp…
Are already preparing for what could be the biggest change to our financial system in 54 years.
During the conflict, Iran was reportedly accepting yuan for oil passing through the Strait itself. China, Russia, India, Brazil, and Poland have added hundreds of tonnes each over the past five years.
The shift away from dollar reserves is not a trend. It is a policy.
The deal that kept the dollar dominant for fifty years is coming apart.
The Iran conflict did not cause any of that. It accelerated it.
When a country sitting on massive oil reserves falls into chaos, when the Strait of Hormuz closes, and 20% of the world's daily oil supply stops moving, every central bank and finance ministry on earth is forced to ask the same question: what do we hold that no government can freeze and no sanction can touch?
In 1979, the answer was gold. Forty-six years later, nothing has changed.
Those forecasts were not built on the conflict. They were built on the structural forces the conflict made impossible to ignore.
YOUR ACTION PLAN
The ceasefire did not change those forces. The recovery in gold back toward $4,750, while peace talks remain unresolved, tells you something. The structural bid does not wait for certainty.
In 1979, gold kept climbing long after the headlines faded. The biggest move came not from the crisis itself but from what it revealed about the system beneath it.
I learned that lesson by watching in 1979. I've made a lot of money in gold stocks since then. And I'm actively pursuing new opportunities.
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