February 9, 2025 | Juicing Our Bull Market Bellwether

Get the forecast for Microsoft right and you cannot go far wrong guessing where the stock market is headed next. This has been an article of faith at Rick’s Picks for years, and it has served us well. The chart shows MSFT either moving in lock-step with the Dow Industrials, or sometimes leading the Indoos with pullbacks and upthrusts that were relatively more pronounced and energetic. In July, however, after notching a record high at 468, Microsoft shares began a gentle decline that so far has gone unmatched by the Indoos. The latter corrected moderately for a couple of months, then pushed back up to the highs, where prices have hovered stubbornly since the beginning of the year.

Based on the chart comparison above, I assumed until recently that MSFT was about to lead stocks lower. Now I’m not so sure. Suppose Microsoft shares are simply taking a breather while the broad averages continue higher. This possibility was suggested to me in the Rick’s Picks chat room the other day by a subscriber who goes by the handle Formula432. An Ozarks-based financial advisor who specializes in high-net-worth clients, he manages their portfolios aggressively for yield, often with covered writes that have been astutely timed. “Where should our focus be now?” he asked. “I don’t think MSFT has the relevance it once did. The rotation is real, growth is breaking, and value is going to be in leadership IMO, if only on a relative basis.”

Hemlock Cocktail, Anyone?

I had to agree. Why should the stock market require Microsoft’s leadership if there are other companies with greater growth potential? As long as the software giant can continue to pile up mountainous revenues without spectacular growth, it will remain a safe “hold” for portfolio managers. As much could be said of some other biggies in the heavyweight class known as the Magnificent Seven. GOOG, META, AAPL, NFLX, WMT. TSLA and NVDA. There’s enough growth potential in this list to kick up portfolio performance in boom times, but also, especially in the case of Microsoft, rock-solid revenues to cushion against a downturn.

It is scary to find myself — a glass-is-half-full-of-hemlock permabear — thinking like a Wall Street shill who produces feel-good features for Bloomberg’s business channel. Some might even take this commentary as a contrary sign that stocks are about to crash. I’m down with that possibility as always and will be more guarded than ever against being caught with my pants down if it happens. However, my somewhat adjusted thinking about “rotation” cannot help but leave me more open-minded to the possibility that the Dow will be trading 10,000 points higher in six months.

Don’t worry; I have no intention of casting off the cynical regard for securities markets that informs and colors my writing. Twelve years in the trading pits taught me that capitalism’s symbolic redoubts are just an epic carnival midway, powered by greed, thievery, huckstering and mass psychosis. Thus, the inspiration for my new mantra: Get Bitcoin right, and you cannot go far wrong guessing where the stock market is headed.  Some of you will be pleased to hear that my highest outstanding target for Bitcoin , currently trading for a tad less than $100k, is a salacious $144,586.

Rick Ackerman February 9th, 2025

Posted In: Rick's Picks

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