Welcome Friends, 

Here’s an assortment of posts shared this week on Trends with Friends. Let’s dive in…

THE DEGLOBALIZATION TREND… PICKING UP STEAM

Howard Lindzon digs deeper on “deglobalization.” This week he writes, 

My friend Lewis Johnson has been investing with a deglobalization thesis since 2022. I know this because he joined me on my old podcast ‘Panic With Friends’ back in 2022 to explain why and how the trend was kicked off. The explanation and history of it starts at minute 12.

Flash forward to 2025 and Trump is President again and his policies are accelerating the trend. Tariffs are just one of those policies. It is not just the US. Germany is doubling down it seems.

This version of ‘deglobalization’ will have some new twists because of software and cybersecurity which were not prevalent in the 1930’s and 1970’s. Growth will exist, but will markets value companies the same way?

So far gold and the new digital gold Bitcoin have really performed well since Lewis began talking about this trend back in 2022 along with the cyber security stocks.

Lewis Johnson will be Live on Trends with Friends Tuesday. 

THE RISE OF THE AI-POWERED BROWSER

Today’s browser will likely be obsolete in the not so distant future. Michael Parekh previews the rise of an AI-powered browser. 

Michael mentions,

AI native Search company Perplexity threw its hat in the ring here, with founder/CEO Aravind Srinivas announcing:

“Perplexity will be launching a new agentic browser: Comet very soon!”

Adding:

“Browse like a Billionaire. What do you want to see in Comet ? Apart from all the usual suspect AI features like smarter Deep Research and basic agent workflows. Just the core browsing improvements that Chrome hasn’t shipped for ages. Please reply here!”

Of course as with AI Search, Perplexity is gunning for Google, now with its global market leading Chrome browser, with Apple’s Safari not too far behind. And of course OpenAI, which apparently also considering an AI browser.

Read Parekh’s full post here.

GETTING FIRED

Ted Merz shares his experience getting fired from Bloomberg after 32 years. His authentic message is a must read. 

He writes, 

By any measure, I had had a fantastic career. I got raises and glowing evaluations. I dedicated my adult life to working there.

And in a five-minute call it was over. 

No reason was given except to say it wasn’t for cause.

It took some time to process and get around to writing about. Bloomberg was my first real job; It felt like my entire identity.

You can know you are disposable but not really understand it until you have been disposed. 

Getting fired teaches you a lot. It was my blessing or curse not to gain that knowledge until I was 57. 

I wasn’t angry at the company or my colleagues, including the dingbat who fired me. Its an amazing company and Mike Bloomberg is an entrepreneurial genius who I was lucky to have worked directly with on projects.

Instead, it felt like a car crash. You don’t blame the automobile because you know 40,000 people are killed in America in motor vehicle accidents each year. Statistically, it has to be someone. It happened to be your moment.

As I was leaving, I stopped by Mike’s desk to thank him for the opportunities I had been given. He stepped out of a meeting to talk. He told me to reach out if I ever needed anything.

One piece of advice I took from Mike was to not look back. 

From the moment I walked out of the building, I started thinking about people to meet, places to go and things to learn.

THE GODSPEED WEEKLY

Riley Rosebee reviews eVTOL earnings, the FAAs Starlink pilot, space data centers, Waymo’s exponential growth, new-age energy and more in his recently launched Godspeed Weekly.

Subscribe to Godspeed with one-click.

THIS WEEK IN CHARTS

Charlie Bilello curated dozens of great visuals in his latest weekly chart review. Here’s a sneak peek. 

Inflation is often referred to as the “cruelest tax” due its regressive nature, hitting the lowest income earners the hardest. When food, gas, and shelter costs rise at a rapid pace, that disproportionately hurts those with lower incomes as these essentials represent a higher percentage of their incomes.

On the opposite side of the spectrum are the highest income earners (top 10%), who are not immune from rising costs but are less impacted as essentials comprise a much lower share of their monthly budget.

These highest earners also tend to be the biggest owners of assets such as stocks (the top 10% own 87% of stocks) and houses, which have outpaced inflation by a wide margin over the past five years…

It should come as no surprise then to learn that the top earners have maintained their excess savings over the past few years of high inflation while the bottom 90% have been dipping into these savings in order to make ends meet. And this widening gap has translated into much bigger increases in spending from the top 10% versus the bottom 90%.

The result: the top 10% of income earners in the US (households making $250,000 or more) now account for half of all consumer spending, a record high. Three decades ago they accounted for roughly 36% of all spending.

TRENDS WITH NO FRIENDS

Trends With No Friends sifts through the noise and discovers stocks above $1B market cap with high relative strength and low social following.

The publication shares 52-Week Highs and Lows sorted by followers on Stocktwits. 

Why is high relative strength and low social following important?

Stocks that are outperforming tend to continue to outperform. Stocks that have a low social following are, by definition, undiscovered by the crowd. Stocks that have both Relative Strength and Low Social Following can really outperform as more investors discover them.

This week, Trends with No Friends featured… 

Aris Water Solutions ($ARIS), Huron Consulting Group ($HURN), National Fuel Gas Company ($NFG), CSG Systems International ($CSGS), Pony AI ($PONY) and more.

THIS WEEK’S EPISODE

And in case you missed it… Howard Lindzon, Phil Pearlman and Michael Parekh are joined by Adeniyi Abiodun and Shomik Ghosh to discuss crypto, AI and global markets on the latest episode of Trends with Friends.

Tune in today.

GET IN TOUCH

If you share insight on the market and would like to contribute to Trends with Friends, send us an email.

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