Quantum and why the Street still has this one wrong

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:02]Good morning. It's Keith Fitzgerald.

[00:00:04]It's Friday and the markets seem to have gotten the memo that investing and optimism beats cowering and pessimism.

[00:00:11]How cool is that? Anyway, all three indices are charting higher, moving higher, whatever you want to call it. As I record this, I have no idea if that'll hold, but then again, I'm not particularly concerned either. The price action today proves my point yet again.

[00:00:27]be in to win or you won't win. So here's my playbook today. Number one, the street still has this one wrong. Still team Bentonville is in Walmart reported yesterday and the street and its infinite wisdom is selling shares this morning as I record this because of cautious forward guidance and comments about consumer pressure. Uh yeah, anyway, revenue hit 177.8 8 billion dollar up something like 7.3% in change year-over-year. E-commerce grew 26% globally. The global advertising business, you know, the one nobody on Wall Street was counting on or paying attention to two years ago and I specifically told you would be a gamecher. Well, that one served 37 surged 37%.

[00:01:13]Membership fee revenue is up 17.4%.

[00:01:17]I'd hate to see what actual trouble looks like. Anyway, long story short and snarkiness aside, Walmart isn't a retailer anymore. As I noted to the venerable Steuart Vney on Monday ahead of earnings earlier this week, this is an AI story wearing a blue vest. One with 280 million customers walk through its doors every single week. Now, they know what you buy, when you buy, how you pay for it, and heck, probably what you're going to need next Tuesday, too.

[00:01:46]My point is, you don't build an ad business growing at 37% at scale without running AI underneath it. Now, Amazon figured this out years ago. Walmart figured it out, too. And the street is still squinting at the comp sales line like it's 2015. I mean, brain explode time. Anyway, I don't think shares are going to stay down long, but that's just me. Keith investing tip in this department, super simple. Buy the best, ignore the rest. If you have no idea how to do that, you're not alone, but I'll be here. All right, number two. Still not convinced about quantum computing?

[00:02:19]Uhhuh. Game time. The Trump administration is awarding $2 billion in grants to nine quantum computing companies, and it's taking government equity stakes in every single one of them. Now, IBM gets a billion of that to build an American quantum chip foundry operating under a new subsidiary that's called Anderon. I don't know who comes up with these names. I mean, might as well say sounds like Battlestar Galactica or something. But anyway, Anderon's headquartered in Alb, New York. Global Foundaries get something like 375 million. D-Wave, Quantum, Regetti, and Inflection, they each get roughly 100 million. Now, the Commerce Department in it infinite wisdom, I just got to laugh, says quantum computing has significant implications for national defense, advanced materials, biofarmaceutical discovery, financial modeling, and energy systems. Yeah, talk about being in firm command of the obvious. We've been talking about this for three years. Anyway, I hope you've got at least one Quantum Choice in your portfolio like the OBA family does. The way I see things, Quantum's Chat GPT moment is closer at hand than ever before. Now, my choice, fortunately, is already best in class, and it's handily beating the S&P 500 since I introduced it to the OBA family. Obviously, there no guarantees that's going to continue to charge higher, but my view and my research makes me think that it very well could. All right, number three today. Uncle Elon's battery just charged Meta's aspirations.

[00:03:43]This is interesting to me. So, Team Zuck, right? Everybody pits Tesla against MA or vice versa, any of the big seven hyperscalers against each other.

[00:03:52]But we know from Nvidia that's not how it works. It gets interesting. Team Zuck is deploying approximately $200 million worth of Tesla megapac batteries to power its AI data center operations in Wyoming. Now, Meta has announced an $800 million, $715,000 foot facility in Cheyenne, Wyoming, specifically optimized for AI workloads.

[00:04:16]It's expected to come online, I think it's in 2027. And here's where, you know, I find this investable. Power, to a point I have made many, many times, is the whole ball game. Now, I'm not talking about the hype clickbait kind of power you read about and those midnight emails you receive and I receive and clog up my email. You can build the biggest GPU cluster in the world, but that won't matter one iota if the grid can't feed it cleanly. This is where everybody in the rush to power plants gets it wrong. And that's also where Megapac walks in. GPU inensive AI training runs can cause power fluctuations as sharp as 90% at frequencies up to 30 hertz. Now, if you're an engineer, you'll understand exactly what I just said. But if you're not, this is not something your run-of-the-mill average local utility was ever designed to handle. You need a battery buffer sitting between the grid and the GPUs to manage all of that because it absorbs the spikes. It smooths the delivery and it keeps the whole dang thing stable. So, three guesses is what Tesla engineered and the first two don't count. Yeah, smooth power battery packs. Anyway, I said back in 2011 that Tesla's real business was energy and data, not cars. People laughed, not so politely, I might add.

[00:05:31]They're not laughing now. So, the question I have for myself is I may not own enough shares, and I wonder about that. But more importantly, and controversial as it is, do you own enough shares of Tesla? All right, number four today. Stalantis, $70 billion and a prayer. Remember when I said Stalantis like memory lane today, but remember when I said Stalantis was more likely to see five bucks before it broke 15? Well, I wrote about that in the five with fifth some time ago and there's a link in the written version where you can click on to see the original story. Well, since then, since I said that, the stock's gotten annihilated. The dividends gotten clobbered. Now, there's a new CEO standing in front of investors in Auburn Hills with a $70 billion turnaround plan and a brand new name for it, Fast Lane, but with the S, the T, the L, and the A like the ticker capitalized. Now, I'm not making that up. I mean, this is like amateur hour high school stuff, but that's just me. Here's what's actually in the plan. I think it sounds great.

[00:06:27]More than 60 new vehicles, major refreshes on 50 models, positive free cash flow targeted by 2027. All coming from a loss of 4.4.5 billion euros last year. Revenue growth from 154 billion euros to 190 billion euros by 2030. And here's where it gets interesting. A partnership list that now includes Jaguar Land Rover. So what? But importantly, Chinese automaker Leap Motor and Dongfang Group. Now the last line item, this Chinese partnership was really catches my attention. Why? Well, Stalantis is now another in a long line of Western automakers that have decided to partner with the Chinese because they have no choice. The only question now is whether Filosa can actually execute because strategy decks like the one he presented are easy. turning around 14 brands, cutting European capacity by 800,000 units, and launching a unified platform while the Chinese are eating your lunch in every market simultaneously.

[00:07:35]I'm being generous, but that's a different animal entirely. So, my POV, I wouldn't still touch Stellantis here. I still wouldn't touch Stellantis here.

[00:07:42]25page plan, a snazzy acronym don't fix the fundamental problems. They're still trying to outproduct companies that outcost them at every level of supply chain. I mean, for example, Leap Motor builds its own batteries and powertrains in house. Stalantis does not. That gap and others do not close with the new platform by 2027. So, watch the execution, not the presentation. If Stellantis hits positive free cash flow in 27 and shows margin improvement in North America, yeah, maybe we'll revisit it. But until then, cool beans. Not for me. Pass five bucks a share. Probably sooner rather than later. Anyway, number five today, the steroid games and a flyer. Okay, sports fans. My grandfather used to use that line whenever he wanted to make a point. Okay, sports fans. It was a nod to old school radio and announcers who actually had a personality back in the day. Now, I use it when I think something deserves more attention than it's getting. And this qualifies. The enhanced games kickoff in Las Vegas this Sunday. And yes, they're exactly what they sound like, a sanctioned athletic competition where competitors are allowed to take performance-enhancing drugs out in the open, right? 42 athletes are registered to compete in swimming, track, and weightlifting events. Now, Wada and IOC, meaning the World Anti-Doping Association, the International Olympic Committee, are predictably outraged, and I wouldn't expect anything less under the circumstances. But let's get serious. If the IOC were genuinely committed to clean sport and if there were real institutional incentives to follow through, the doping scandals that have dogged every Olympics for the past 40 years wouldn't exist. Just saying.

[00:09:25]Don't shoot the messenger. To be clear, I am not condoning cheating, drugs, or shortcuts of any kind. But I'll tell you where I am coming from on this one because it's personal. I spent the better part of a decade fighting full contact martial arts as a younger man and doing another set of decades in triathlons as a top 10% amateur athlete.

[00:09:45]Now many people with my bride including you know including me at many of these events including this picture that's in the written version of five with fits showing that when we just finished the escape from Alcatraz and it was a party and a half really fun but that's a story for another time. Anyway, we got to make friends the world over but in doing so I've pushed my body hard. I've paid the price and I've earned a few scars I wouldn't trade for anything. But these days, and I say this with the appropriate because now that I'm a certain vintage, I'm a lot more interested in recovery than I used to be. So when someone says they want to find out what the human body is actually capable of when all the guard rails come off like they have at this event, yeah, I'm going to listen because breakthroughs in every field happen when people push hard against the edges of what's possible. Space gave us memory foam and water filters. Warfare gave us the internet and GPS. Some of the most important medical advances in history have come from the most extreme circumstances imaginable. I say push the boundary far enough and you almost always discover something nobody expected. The enhanced games are being put on by the enhanced group, which if you know your your tickers is billionaire Peter Teal's outfit. And the real business model isn't ticket sales.

[00:10:57]It's a full range of health, performance, longevity, and recovery products, including peptides, which as you may or may not know, have become enormously popular in recent years. I think it's worth noting that GLP1 drugs like WGO and Lily's Fondo, former peptide based, the latter is not, are already taken by one in eight American adults. JP Morgan says projecting that number could top 30 million adults by 2030. And mind you, that's before the pill versions really take hold. Anyway, full disclosure, I own 200 shares of the Enhanced Group. I bought them for the heck of it, and I consider what I spent to be a complete throwaway money. So, the company goes to zero, I'm fine with that. If it works, it's a very nice dinner a few years from now. Meanwhile, I've tucked them on the shelf, and I do not intend to manage the trade in any way, shape, or form. It's hero or zero time. As in, the company's going to be a hero and make money, or it's going to be zero, and I'll lose everything. I don't care either way. My point is that companies like this one are not a sports story. What's happening is a longevity and performance science story with a potentially serious commercial engine behind it. Peptides, recovery protocols, and human optimization products are a multi-billion dollar space that most investors haven't seriously looked at.

[00:12:11]And not for nothing, Teal doesn't usually back things without a real thesis. So, there is that. All right.

[00:12:18]All that having been said, do not kid yourself. The company is a high risk early stage gamble because this kind of controversy will keep institutional money on the sidelines for a while. Do not buy shares if you can't afford to lose every dollar of what you pay to do that. But if you like the idea of planting a small flag before the crowd shows up and you can afford to lose every dollar of what you plant, it might be worth a flyer. Emphasis on might.

[00:12:47]Keys investing tip in this department.

[00:12:49]The biggest gains rarely come from what everybody else is already watching.

[00:12:55]All right, today's bottom line. You attract the energy you give off.

[00:12:58]Investing in optimism makes sense because you attract profits. Good vibes and positivity are contagious. Speaking of which, and as always, let's make it a great day and finish the week strong.

[00:13:10]And one last thing that's very important, we're headed into Memorial Day here in the United States. It's an important reminder that the freedoms we enjoy were paid for by those who gave everything. So before you fire up the grill or check the markets, take a minute this weekend to remember why we can do those things. And to every veteran and gold star family reading along or watching along with the five with Fitz from one military family to another, thank you for your service.

[00:13:37]Full stop. Now let's make it a great day. You got this. Thanks for watching.

[00:13:41]and I will see you on Tuesday when we regroup after the holiday. Cheers.