The Upcoming Week 12/21/25
The next major theme is setting up beneath the surface as we head into 2026...
This week was a whirlwind, I feel like I’m saying this every week now.
The unwind in AI infrastructure names seemed like it was never going to end and that feeling was exacerbated on Wednesday when news came out that Blue Owl was backing out of their funding to support Oracle’s new 1GW datacenter in Michigan. This was a big red flag because Blue Owl had been acting as a major lifeline to these AI centric companies building datacenters. They’ve been quick to hand out capital, what does it say if they’re backing out?
All of that selling came to a screeching halt on Friday as many of the high beta momentum stocks were bid relentlessly higher throughout the entire session. Why did this happen? I think there’s a few reasons, but the biggest in my view is the news that OpenAI is considering raising $100B at a monstrous $830B valuation. This means a few things.
OpenAI will be able to fulfill their obligations to companies like Oracle and CoreWeave. This has been the biggest fear in the AI complex… how could OpenAI fund hundreds of billions of dollars in commitments with just $25B in revenue this year? $100b in liquidity helps.
The appetite to support OpenAI is still there. Despite the nonstop fear, uncertainty, and doubt that has been cast upon OpenAI, they’re still able to find investors willing to buy at an $830B valuation. This is a good risk barometer for the overall AI complex.
This news came right as AI fear was at the highest point it’s been in since arguably this run began in 2022. The recent earnings report from Micron didn’t hurt either. This is arguably the biggest and most telling semiconductor quarter we’ve seen since this AI bull market began. They absolutely smashed expectations and guided much higher than what the street was expecting. This leads me to my next point.
The best time to buy will often be when you don’t want to, and the time to sell will often be when you don’t want to.
The best buying opportunities almost never feel good in real time… they often show up when the world feels like it’s ending and the bearish arguments actually start to make sense. By the time the bull thesis feel obvious again, the best opportunity is usually gone. I haven’t seen as much skepticism towards AI since late 2022, nearly three years ago. Could this narrative be setting up an opportunity? I published an article on Thursday discussing why I believe the AI trade isn’t dead yet, I’ll link it here. There are peaks and valleys throughout a seismic societal shift like AI. We were in a valley and we might be headed back up to a peak. More on that later…
I want to quickly highlight the moves in Space. I haven’t discussed a theme this extensively in quite some time. Space has been the main focus of multiple recent articles, including the Space Race primer I published on 12/9 here, where I broke down the full landscape of companies participating in the space economy, highlighted the names I like most, and outlined why this theme matters and has tailwinds from every angle imaginable.
Since that article less than two weeks ago, a number of names across the theme have already posted massive gains, validating both the timing and the thesis behind the idea. Since that article, here’s a few gains from names mentioned in that article:
RKLB +49.0%
FLY +38.9%
LUNR +34.2%
RDW +24.2%
My goal is simple. Generate and provide alpha + ideas you all can actually act on. That means identifying themes early, highlighting high quality setups, helping you navigate the market, and more. Everything shared here is built around preparation and conviction. I pour my entire process and stream of consciousness into this Substack! I spend the entire market day in our subscriber chat. If you haven’t checked it out I suggest taking a look at the Substack chat feature.
I also want to let you all know I’ve already started working on my 2026 Year Ahead Preview. Last year’s was a huge success, with the vast majority of themes and many of the names outperforming the market by a wide margin. In that preview I highlighted the risk of a major correction in H1 2025 tied to Trump volatility and tariffs that ultimately became a buyable dip, why I expected solar and China to outperform, and more. The 2026 Preview will be posted exclusively here on Substack. A few of the names included in the 2025 preview were OKLO, KTOS, NBIS, TEM, EOSE, FSLR, and more. The 2025 preview list is around +95% YTD, crushing the S&P500. If you want to revisit the 2025 Preview, you can find it here, and I also recapped it here. The 2026 Preview is going to be far more in depth now that I finally have a space where I can lay out the full framework properly. It’s thorough, it’s detailed, and I genuinely think it’s a really good one.
In the remainder of this article, I’m going to break down a theme that could see major news this week and one that I think could take off the way Space recently did, my favorite AI energy play that received under the radar news almost nobody is talking about, my favorite play off the recent Trump speech, the data center trade and thesis changing news + chatter from OpenAI that flew under the radar, my thoughts on the broader market, my favorite charts + setups right now, and more.
Let’s get into it.
To start things off, let’s take a look at the indices and a few important ETFs: