The Week That Is

Growing fears about a war-driven, lingering price shock to oil sent bond prices falling last week, with yields reaching their high for the year and promising more without a quick resolution. Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital digs into what the bond market is saying and how the message differs from the stock market. He also expects the equity markets to send a message this week when NVidia releases earnings, noting that he expects gangbusters numbers that still manage to disappoint investors whose expectations are sky high. Plus, the ongoing battle over where to locate data centers has the potential to put a limit on just how fast the artificial intelligence boom can play out; Vijay discusses the potential market impacts that are lost amid headlines about data-center protests.

Jobs numbers came out strong last week, but there are some dissenting opinions about whether they can remain stable. Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, joins the optimists, though he suggests the numbers have room to flex and will continue to make it hard for the Federal Reserve to cut rates quickly or deeply. Marolia also discusses the wild GameStop bid to buy eBay and why he doesn't expect it to succeed but does think it will push eBay to make some structural changes. He finishes by revisiting Jane Street Capital, the market maker he discussed a week ago, covering why it has become so important and why foreign regulators believe the company may be gaming the system.

Last week saw the trillion-dollar giants reporting earnings and the market was impressed with the results from Alphabet (Google) and disappointed with numbers from Meta Platforms (Facebook), and Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, is in line with those reactions but is looking past the quarterly numbers for what the market's response is suggesting about each company longer term. He also talks about the disappointing end for Spirit Airlines, and how the 34-year-old carrier might have avoided its fate, and he talks about Jane Street, the little-known Wall Street market maker that made headlines when it was revealed that its average compensation per employee last year was roughly $2.7 million, more than seven times higher than the average staffer at Wall Street blueblood Goldman Sachs. Vijay discusses how Jane Street came out of nowhere and what it is doing to become an increasingly large force in markets.

After a week in which Nvidia and Intel powered the stock market back to near record levels, Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, says the rally in one of those stocks feels temporary while the other can roll on, and says that the difference points out how investors should re-evaluate the way they see "tech stocks," because different industries lumped broadly within technology have very different valuation pictures. He also discusses Apple and Netflix — both changing leadership but continuing massive stock buybacks — and companies like Micron that he thinks can keep leading, and finishes "The Week That Is" discussing Fed chair nominee Kevin Warsh and the inflation issue he's facing if he gets the job.

After the stock market rebounded to record-high levels after a peace treaty announcement last week, Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital and the founder of Dharma Investing LLC, looks at how the market is responding to the flip-flop in new that the waterway is closed again, awaiting peace talks, and discusses whether investors should expect the market to take off once there is clarity on the war. With earnings season off to a hot start, Vijay talks about what he is expecting from some popular consumer, energy and financial stocks and whether earnings will be strong enough to power the market higher or weaker than guidance and, therefore, problematic. Plus, he looks at the business pivots of Netflix and Allbirds, two companies moving in very different directions.

With consumer sentiment at record lows -- but consumer confidence improving ever so slightly -- in March, Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, discusses why feelings make headlines but fundamentals make for better investment prospects. That's why he's leaning into some of the market's most beaten down sectors, most notably the private-credit market, which has been hammered by market concerns over software companies losing the war against artificial intelligence issues. Marolia talks about how investors can pursue private-credit yields without being sucked into the industry's troubles, and also covers how the Federal Reserve is torn between its dual mandate and what that likely portends for the economy.

Volatility in the oil markets has changed investment opportunities, and Vijay Marolia says he has responded in several ways, from going long on oil futures using a popular ETF to shorting airline stocks. Marolia, the chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, talks about the benefits and pitfalls to hunkering down and trying to avoid the market until headlines settles, but also talks about the exciting investment opportunities opening up in space and space-related technologies, including his latest take on the SpaceX IPO initial public offering that is expected to value the company at $2 trillion this summer.

The market is fully focused on the most current of current events — the war in Iran and the rapidly changing market sentiments in the battle between artificial intelligence and software — and Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, says investors should back away from the headlines and keep a sharper watch on the economic numbers that will determine how the market responds once there is more clarity in the Middle East. Those factors — the job market, inflation and interest rates — have the potential to take the market's focus off of the earnings numbers that drove the market's gains in 2025.

With an earnings report akin to Nvidia's but recent stock performance getting hammered like Microsoft, Vijay Marolia makes the case that Micron Technologies is being buffeted by a feelings-over-facts market, and that investors are missing one of the most compelling stories on the street. Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, puts Micron through his five-lens process to show why market sentiment is missing the real picture. War in Iran has chanegd the picture on oil prices, and despite the frustrations of consumers, Marolia says that consumers and investors should heed the words of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said last week that he expected 50 days of discomfort to be the price for long-term geo-political advances. Plus, with artificial intelligence changing even faster than industry observers can adapt, Marolia has a cautionary tone about avoiding being sucked into the next "great AI story" and instead focusing on the picks-and-shovel infrastructure companies that are the cornerstones to innovation.

War in Iran has driven oil prices above $100 per barrel and Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, expects them to stay there for the foreseeable future, though he notes that the short-term is barely foreseeable given all of the current headline risks. His investment play into the oil uncertainty is with tanker companies, rather than oil producers, noting that they are making money while they sit, loaded, waiting for the Strait of Hormuz to open, and they will benefit from pent-up demand as the situation resolves. One stock that has not seen its current headline risk get resolved is Microsoft, which has struggled as the market worries that artificial intelligence will damage the software business; that just makes Microsoft a better value now, Marolia says. The market itself has not become a bargain yet, and with nervous investors on the edge of selling and trading, Marolia says there could be more short-term pain, but investors should avoid increasing that pain by freaking out about the headline risk.