An energy play with Louis Navellier’s thumbs-up … Luke Lango continues to point investors toward AI/robotics stocks … Eric Fry’s research into AI and healthcare … your last chance to access the Early Warning Summit 2024 replay
Let’s get your portfolio positioned to make a lot of money in 2024.
We’ll do that today by looking at where our three experts, Louis Navellier, Eric Fry, and Luke Lango, are urging investors to invest money right now.
We’ll begin with Louis, who’s eyeing the oil patch.
How to find the best energy plays today
Before we get to any stock recommendations, let’s address the elephant in the room – flagging oil prices.
Though oil has popped over the last week and is trading at $74 as I write Wednesday, the medium-term trend is clearly lower.
Chart showing the price of West Texas Intermediate Crude in a major drawdown since late-September
Crude oil prices are anticipated to climb as global crude oil supplies remain tight.
Saudi Arabia and Russia have both reiterated that their crude oil production cuts will persist through yearend. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) has also noted that the inventories of crude oil and refined products that tend to grow in the winter remain low. So, any flare up in the Middle East could cause crude oil prices to soar.
Natural gas and LNG prices also tend to rise in the winter—and that’s definitely a possibility this winter.
An El Niño weather pattern should make it abnormally cold in the Northeast U.S. and Europe, which will boost natural gas demand and prices.
In addition, LNG exports from Egypt to Europe could be disrupted if Middle East tensions escalate and Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz.
Overall, crude oil and natural gas prices should remain elevated as we head into the New Year. In turn, energy companies will likely reassert their leadership, especially as they continue to benefit from tension in the Middle East and the possibility that Russia could halt its crude oil production in the Arctic Circle.
So, which energy stock does Louis Like today?
Well, rather than give you just one, let’s put a powerful, free tool on your radar that you can use going forward to find your own high-quality stocks.
Louis has codified much of his proprietary quant-based market system, and now offers it to the investment community in the form of his free Portfolio Grader tool.
Think of the Portfolio Grader as a diagnostic that gives investors an instant snapshot of a stock’s financial strength. It focuses on eight metrics:
sales growth
operating margin growth
earnings growth
earnings momentum
earnings surprises
analyst earnings revisions
free cash flow
return on equity
To see how the Portfolio Grader works, let’s use a company called Profire Energy (PFIE)
Profire designs burner and combustion management systems for oilfield and gas companies. It’s also putting up some great numbers. Q3 revenues were up 16% from last year. Meanwhile, gross profits jumped 22% from last year.
Here’s how it looks through Louis’ Portfolio Grader:
Graphic of Profire Energy run through Louis Navellier's Portfolio Grader (getting an A score)
And when we dig deeper, we see why it gets an “A.”
Here’s Profire’s line-by-line grading:
Graphic of Profire Energy run through Louis Navellier's Portfolio Grader (getting an A score). This shows the itemized individuals scores leading to the A.
Think of the Portfolio Grader as a way to get Louis’ thumbs-up or down on a stock, even when he doesn’t explicitly analyze it in one of his newsletters. And best of all, as noted earlier, it’s free.
So, given Profire’s “A” rating in the Portfolio Grader, it’s worth a look today – especially given Louis’ bullishness on the broader energy sector.
Meanwhile, our hypergrowth expert Luke Lango is eyeing artificial intelligence, specifically, robotics stocks
Luke has been bullish on AI all year. He was one of the earliest analysts to position his subscribers in top AI stocks, resulting in a slew of triple-digit gainers here in 2023.
Here’s Luke to introduce one of the top AI stocks he likes today:
It likely comes as no surprise that I’m exceptionally bullish on artificial intelligence (AI) right now. In fact, all year, I’ve been pounding the table on robotics stocks as the best AI stocks to buy.
In particular, I’ve been very bullish on AI robotics startup Symbotic (SYM) as the top AI stock to buy right now.
Symbotic has developed an AI-powered robotic solution to entirely automate warehouse operations. Think massive Walmart (WMT) and Target (TGT) warehouses. Symbotic’s robotics automate everything inside of those facilities.
In fact, the company has already won a nationwide contract to automate all of Walmart’s distribution centers. And its order backlog just keeps growing.
That’s why SYM stock is up nearly 350% this year alone, while the S&P 500 is up ‘just’ 23%.
While Luke remains very bullish on Symbotic, if you’re looking to find the next AI moonshot that hasn’t already soared 350%, Luke recommends you stay in this “robotics” corner of the market since this is the direction corporate America is headed.
After all, the overarching promise of AI is increased economic productivity from less human input. And which U.S. corporation doesn’t want more from less since the result is fatter profits margins and higher stock prices.
But the missing piece between AI and “more output without humans” is – you guessed it – a robotic workforce
Back to Luke:
AI is just software. It’s a piece of code – or, more specifically, machine learning algorithms coded in the cloud or on a computer. It has no physical component.
That means by itself, AI simply cannot automate most tasks.
Enter robotics.
Luke highlights retail salespeople, home health and personal care aides, cashiers, fast food workers, and registered nurses as five occupations that are ripe for robotic disruption. In fact, this transition has already begun.
Chipotle (CMG), White Castle, Panera, and Chili’s are all using robots in their restaurants to make and deliver food, even clean tables and floors.
Meanwhile, Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale (BJ) are using autonomous inventory robots to verify price signs and look for out-of-stock items.
And, as we covered earlier, Walmart is automating all its warehouses and distribution centers in America with Symbotic’s technology.
Here’s Luke’s bottom line on the synthesis of AI and robotics:
The AI Robotics Revolution has arrived. And it’s not going to slow down anytime soon.
We’re standing at the foot of a Mt. Everest-sized opportunity in AI robotics.
For more of Luke’s AI/robotics research in his newsletter Innovation Investor, click here.
Finally, our macro expert Eric Fry is eyeing artificial intelligence within the health care industry
Let’s jump straight to Eric’s latest issue of his flagship newsletter Investment Report:
AI technology is stretching its tentacles into nearly every facet of medical diagnosis, treatment, and patient care.
As a recent bulletin from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration remarked…
“As technology continues to advance every aspect of health care, software incorporating artificial intelligence (AI), and specifically the subset of AI known as machine learning (ML), has become an important part of an increasing number of medical devices. One of the greatest potential benefits of AI/ML resides in its ability to create new and important insights from the vast amount of data generated during the delivery of health care every day.”
Eric goes on to highlight many illustrations of AI’s increasing role in the healthcare sector, including how AI is helping radiologists, accelerating the drug discovery and development process, and even “scrubbing up” the operating room to assist surgeons.
The potential applications of AI within healthcare are enormous – so too are the potential profits. Back to Eric:
AI can also predict outcomes, including the risk of postoperative complications. AI could also monitor medications, preventing the thousands of deaths that occur annually from medication error.
As the CEO of one AI start-up remarked…
“AI solutions are essential pieces of infrastructure at hospitals and health systems, and we have just begun to scratch the surface. There are so many more connections to make using AI – so many more lights to shine on all of the broken healthcare processes that stand between providers and patient care.”
But the healthcare AI story is not only about surgical robots and the gee-whiz products of the future; it is also a story about enormous economic activity.
The global healthcare market is already a $12 trillion behemoth.
Eric points out that the U.S. healthcare industry is on track to grow faster than any other sector in the United States economy. It could grow 65% between now and the end of the decade. But according to Acumen Research and Consulting, the AI subset of the healthcare market is on pace to grow 18 times faster than that!
So, how do you play it?
Out of respect for Eric’s Investment Report subscribers, I won’t reveal Eric’s latest AI healthcare pick. But I’ll mention a few other names in the issue that Eric references.
There’s Exscientia PLC (EXAI), a $750-million “pharmatech” that uses AI to precision-engineer drugs.
There’s also Recursion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (RXRX), a $2-billion pharmaceutical company that has one of the largest and broadest pipelines of any technology-enabled drug discovery company.
Finally, check out Schrödinger Inc. (SDGR), a $2.5-billion company that is attempting to develop new cancer treatments by utilizing an AI-enabled, physics-based computational program.
For Eric’s top AI healthcare pick in Investment Report, click here.
Here’s his bottom line:
When it comes to artificial intelligence in the healthcare field, the future is here.
Before we sign off, today is the final day to access the free replay of the Early Warning Summit 2024
Last week, we held one of the biggest nights of the entire year for InvestorPlace – a round-table discussion with Louis Navellier, Eric Fry, and Luke Lango discussing their top ideas for how to profit in 2024.
If you’re looking for a crystal ball about what next year will bring (and how to make money from it), this is as close as we get. And today is the final day we’re making this video replay available.
Better still, the replay includes three bonus stock recommendations. These are picks that our experts believe are primed to soar in 2024.
One of Luke’s recommendations from last year was Fluence Energy (FLNC), a leading renewables company. It went on to jump 92% between early January and mid-July.
