📊 Gold Hits New All-Time Highs

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Happy Sunday!

The newsletter is back and Q4 will be packed with premium content.

As mentioned previously, alongside this flagship Sunday edition, I’ll occasionally send high-quality research outside the usual cadence.

• Expect deep dives, stock analysis, investor insights, hedge fund portfolio breakdowns, and more.

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Some key data bites from this week that you should know:

• Morningstar shared a list of 10 best dividend stocks to buy in 2025.

• MarketWatch screened 20 international value stocks with future growth.

• Job growth was revised down by 911,000, the largest cut since 2002.

• Trump Family gained $1.3B in crypto wealth within weeks.

• Health insurance costs will jump to biggest levels in 15 years.

• Novo Nordisk will lay off 9,000 people, or 11% of its global workforce.

• OpenAI will burn through $115B in cash through 2029.

• Google Cloud forecasts $58B revenue boost by 2027.

• Microsoft and Nebius signed a $17.4B AI Infrastructure deal.

• Nebius will raise $3B to fuel growth in its AI cloud business.

• ASML has taken a $1.5B stake in French startup Mistral AI.

• U.S. inflation increased 2.9% annually in August, in line with estimates.

• Wholesale prices fell 0.1% in August, below 0.3% estimate.

• Anglo American and Teck will merge into a $53B copper giant.

• UnitedHealth sees 78% of members in high-rated Medicare plans.

• Vimeo will go private in a $1.38B deal.

• Adobe saw its AI-influenced ARR surpass $5B.

In today’s newsletter:

• 👩🏻 Cathie Wood’s Top Holdings

• 📈 Gold Reaches All-Time Highs

• 🏠 U.S. Housing Hits New Record

• 🏹 Robinhood Joins The S&P 500

• 💰 Larry Ellison Is Built Different

Let’s jump right in.

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Is Cathie back for revenge?

Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF has surged 38% this year, more than triple the S&P 500’s return.

The rally has been powered by several of her top holdings:

• Robinhood is up 192% YTD, Palantir 128%, Tempus AI 152%, and Roblox 127%.

But while 2025 has been impressive, the longer view tells a different story.

• Over the past five years, ARKK is down 8%, sharply underperforming the S&P 500, which has gained 97%.

Gold is shining brighter than ever.

The metal recently broke its inflation-adjusted record from 1980, hitting an all-time high of $3,695 an ounce.

• Even more striking, it has set more than 30 nominal records this year.

The bull run has been fueled by geopolitics, the ongoing trade war, steady central bank buying, and the prospect of rate cuts.

• China alone has purchased gold for 10 straight months, adding 1.22M troy ounces to its reserves as it diversifies away from the U.S. dollar.

Gold is now up 38% in 2025, far outpacing the S&P 500.

• Since the start of the century, it has actually outperformed the index on a total return basis, though across most time frames the S&P 500 has delivered higher returns.

But gold’s recent performance has been eye-catching, and Goldman Sachs believes it could continue.

• The bank sees prices climbing well above its $4,000 mid-2026 baseline if private investors shift more heavily into gold.

Gold isn’t the only thing hitting all-time highs.

U.S. housing market value reached a record $55.1T in June 2025, according to Zillow.

• The biggest one-year state level gains came from New York (+$216B), New Jersey (+$101B), and Illinois (+$89B).

• On the flip side, Florida (-$109B), California (-$106B), and Texas (-$32B) posted the largest declines.

Since early 2020, the U.S. housing market value has surged by $20T, reflecting a 57% jump.

• But growth has cooled over the past year, with U.S. housing wealth rising just 1.6%, or $862B.

Robinhood bulls finally got their wish.

S&P Global announced that Robinhood will join the S&P 500, replacing Caesars Entertainment.

The company has been on a rapid growth streak.

• In its most recent quarter, net revenue rose 45% to $989M, net income jumped 105% to $386M, and platform assets nearly doubled to $279B.

• That momentum has carried into the stock, which has surged 432% over the past year.

As part of the same rebalancing, AppLovin will replace MarketAxess, and Emcor Group will swap in for Enphase Energy.

The changes take effect before market open on September 22.

The richest man in the world, for a moment.

Oracle founder Larry Ellison briefly passed Elon Musk as the world’s richest this past week.

• He has since slipped back to second place with a net worth of $349B, but his climb this year has been unmatched.

• He’s added $171B this year alone to his fortune, more than Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Jensen Huang combined.

This year’s surge has come from Oracle’s booming cloud business.

• Despite missing on EPS and revenue in the most recent quarter, the company revealed $455B in contracted revenue, up 359% YoY.

• Cloud infrastructure brought in $3.3B last quarter and is now projected to reach $144B by fiscal 2030.

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Notable Companies Reporting Earnings Week of September 14th, 2025:

Buys

• Byron Donalds (R)

  • Company: Lam Research ($LRCX)

    • Amount Purchased: $2K - $30K

Sells

• Kelly Morrison (D)

  • Company: Accenture ($ACN)

    • Amount Sold: $33K - $145K

  • Company: Thermo Fisher Scientific ($TMO)

    • Amount Sold: $32K - $130K

Buys

• Smithfield Foods ($SFD)

  • Insider: Long Wan (Director)

    • # of Shares Purchased: 1,800,000

    • $ Amount: $41,850,000

    • SEC Forms: [1]

• Summit Therapeutics ($SMMT)

  • Insider: Robert Duggan (Co-CEO)

    • # of Shares Purchased: 333,394

    • $ Amount: $5,894,406

    • SEC Forms: [1]

  • Insider: Mahkam Zanganeh (Co-CEO)

    • # of Shares Purchased: 333,394

    • $ Amount: $5,894,406

    • SEC Forms: [1]

• Salesforce ($CRM)

  • Insider: David Kirk (Director)

    • # of Shares Purchased: 3,400

    • $ Amount: $865,827

    • SEC Forms: [1]

Sells

• Robinhood ($HOOD)

  • Insider: Baiju Bhatt (Director)

    • # of Shares Sold: 418,338

    • $ Amount: $49,959,890

    • SEC Forms: [1]

• Broadcom ($AVGO)

  • Insider: Hock Tan (President & CEO)

    • # of Shares Sold: 148,154

    • $ Amount: $49,879,007

    • SEC Forms: [1]

🤝 Review of the Week