The United States economy is full of innovation. It has to be. Manufacturing industries that dominated the economy decades ago - textiles, televisions, even automobiles to a large degree - have moved overseas, where labor and materials costs are lower. Yet the U.S. economy, even during the pandemic and the recent period of high inflation, has expanded to record levels. If U.S. corporations weren't innovating, creating new products (such as AI and vaccines) and services (such as Zoom calls and Netflix), as well as moving into new markets (clean energy, rare drugs), the domestic economy would not be growing, and capital would not be flooding into the country. Consider that U.S. GDP was approximately $1 trillion in 1930 but was almost $30 trillion at the end of 2024. That's growth of 30-times. Meanwhile, the U.S. population has grown less than 3-times during that time span, to 340 million from 120 million. The delta between GDP growth and population growth has been driven, in large part, by innovation.

Most clients of Argus Research are buy-and-hold investors. As such, our proprietary BUY-HOLD-SELL ratings and target prices are established with one-year time horizons. We also have five-year ratings for even longer-term investors. But we do have select hedge fund clients that are looking for more trading opportunities or for long/short portfolio ideas. The early weeks of 2025, with roller-coaster ups and downs in stock prices, likely have provided more opportunities for momentum traders than for fundamental investors. Indeed, the VIX Volatility Index is near 24, up from 17 at the start of the year and above the historical average of 20. The list below includes some of the shorter-term trading ideas our analysts and strategists have identified recently. All stocks are rated BUY at Argus.

Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, Axon Enterprise Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets electrical weapons for personal defense. It operates through its TASER segment and Software & Sensors segment. The TASER segment sells electrical weapons, accessories, and other related products and services. The Software & Sensors segment consists of devices, wearables, applications, cloud, and mobile products. The company was founded by Patrick W. Smith.

The major indices are higher at midday with the Nasdaq up more than 1%. There's a lot of hype and anticipation around Nvidia earnings coming after the bell today. Why the hype? As the leading chipmaker driving AI growth, investors are looking for what that AI growth might look like and how it might domino for other chipmakers and related businesses, like cloud companies, energy, and utilities. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note is at 4.29%. Oil is at $69 per barrel. Bitcoin is at $87,000.