Oil at $108, Records for Stocks, and POET Crashed 47%: That's Monday

Trump cancelled the Iran envoy trip over the weekend, oil crossed $108, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both hit fresh all-time highs anyway.

The market has made its position clear: the war is a background event now, and earnings season is the only thing that matters.

Today's newsletter has every move worth knowing.

Oil has moved above $100 a barrel as tensions in the Middle East continue to reshape expectations across global energy markets.

While daily headlines can drive sharp swings, the bigger story may be what higher crude prices mean for select energy companies with strong cash flow and operating leverage.

Zacks has outlined three oil stocks that may be well positioned if elevated prices persist.

Read the report.

A major holder in one of the market’s hottest recent winners sold a combined $334.4 million worth of stock across three sessions, even as a board member at a major chip name lined up another $1.19 million sale.

These executives know something you don’t - but our Insider readers get the full breakdown inside today's Insider section.

Every day, insiders and institutions move millions before the market catches on. We surface the data behind those moves before the rest of the market sees it.

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Oil crossed $108 per barrel after Trump scrapped plans to send envoys to Pakistan for peace talks.

Goldman Sachs raised its year-end Brent price forecast to $90 per barrel, flagging "unusually high refined product prices" and product shortage risks as a growing concern.

Despite the oil spike, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both hit fresh all-time intraday highs as investors concluded that Iran is a background variable rather than a market driver.

Qualcomm surged 12% after TF International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that OpenAI is partnering with Qualcomm to develop smartphone processors.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is using AI to cut its drug lead optimization time in half. The company is also using it to compress the time required to prepare clinical trial reports from 700 hours to 15 minutes. Not 15 hours. Fifteen minutes.

Those are not incremental improvements. Those are complete rewrites of how a pharmaceutical company operates.

Speed Is the New Advantage

Drug development has always been a slow, expensive grind. Finding promising compounds takes years. Preparing regulatory documents takes months.

J&J is compressing both timelines dramatically by using AI to screen chemical compounds faster and generate reports that used to consume entire teams for weeks.

You cut lead-optimization time in half, and every drug in the pipeline moves forward faster. Multiply that across dozens of active programs, and the cumulative time savings become transformative.

People Stay, Roles Expand

J&J has roughly 4,000 IT employees. The company is not replacing them. It is adding AI as a skill layer on top of their existing work.

Software engineers get broader responsibilities. Scientists get faster tools. The workforce evolves instead of shrinking.

You hear "AI in pharma" and assume it means drug discovery headlines. J&J is proving that the real value lies in the boring operational details that nobody talks about but everybody depends on.

Sports Entertainment Gaming Global Corporation (NASDAQ: SEGG) is making a clear shift in how it wants to operate.

The upcoming launch of its Sports.com Predict platform is not just another product; it is a move from content and engagement into direct monetization.

Instead of simply attracting viewers, the company is building a system where participation itself becomes revenue. If you are engaging, predicting, and interacting, that activity is what drives the business model forward.

Timing Is the Strategy

Launching ahead of the FIFA World Cup is not random; it is the entire strategy. Global events create concentrated attention, massive engagement, and repeat interaction over weeks.

By aligning its platform with that cycle, SEGG is positioning itself to capture both volume and momentum at scale.

This is less about one tournament and more about building a repeatable playbook. If it works once, it can be applied across leagues, regions, and future events.

A Platform That Wants to Scale Beyond the Event

The more users interact, the more the platform earns. That creates a loop where growth feeds on itself. If your attention stays inside the platform, the monetization scales alongside it.

If execution matches the vision, it changes how the company grows. More users mean more transactions, and more transactions create a compounding revenue loop.

It is a higher-risk move, but also a clearer path to building something that can scale well beyond a single moment.

A potential executive order tied to financial policy is drawing attention from market watchers.

Moves of this scale can ripple across currencies, savings, and hard assets.

With renewed focus on gold reserves and valuation, some believe a major shift could be unfolding.

Understanding the implications early may be key.

Learn how this could impact your strategy

Sysco Corporation (NYSE: SYY) just announced the acquisition of Restaurant Depot, the largest cash-and-carry foodservice distributor in the country, for $29.1 billion.

This is the biggest deal in the company's history by a wide margin.

Restaurant Depot serves the small operators, independent restaurants, and mom-and-pop kitchens that walk in, fill a cart, and pay at the register without a delivery contract.

Sysco already dominates foodservice delivery. Now it wants to own the walk-in warehouse business too.

Two Different Customers, One Company

Sysco built its empire delivering food to restaurants, hospitals, and hotels on scheduled routes. Restaurant Depot serves a completely different customer.

Small business owners who drive to the warehouse themselves and buy what they need that day. Merging those two models under one roof is ambitious. It is also complicated.

The Debt Is Hard to Ignore

Sysco is financing this with $21 billion in new and hybrid debt. That is an enormous amount of borrowing for a company in an industry with thin margins.

Your question is whether this acquisition accelerates that momentum or distracts from it.

Control the Food, Control the Industry

If Sysco pulls this off, it will control both the delivery pipeline and the cash-and-carry warehouse network.

That combination gives it reach across virtually every type of food business in America, from fine dining chains to the taco truck down the street.

You look at the ambition, and it is undeniable. Sysco wants to be the only name in foodservice distribution. Whether the execution matches the vision is the story that plays out from here.

High-Trend International [HTCO] $38.07 (+239.29%)

High-Trend International is an 18-employee Singapore-based ocean shipping company that announced a strategic expansion into lithium resources transportation.

For an $83 million market cap company with a thin float and 41x relative volume, the lithium logistics pivot is a fundamental repricing event.

This is the same critical minerals macro theme driving Greenland rare earth names.

Edesa Biotech [EDSA] $11.20 (+53.27%)

Edesa Biotech reported additional positive Phase 3 results for paridiprubart in systemic sclerosis and ARDS patients in February and has been building momentum in the biotech sector all month.

Running on the week's sustained biotech tailwind with 30x relative volume confirming active momentum buying into a thin float.

The $102 million Strong Buy-rated company holds $12 million in cash, representing 81% of total assets, and has zero revenue, making it a pure pipeline bet.

Veradermics [MANE] $100.68 (+47.69%)

Veradermics announced positive topline results from Phase 2/3 Study '302' of VDPHL01, its oral extended-release minoxidil tablet for male pattern hair loss, hitting all primary and key secondary endpoints.

Twice-daily dosing produced 37.7 additional hairs/cm² versus placebo, and 86% of patients reported improvement.

VDPHL01 targets becoming the first FDA-approved non-hormonal oral treatment for the 80 million Americans affected by pattern hair loss.

POET Technologies [POET] $7.94 (-47.32%)

Marvell Semiconductor, which acquired Celestial AI, cancelled every purchase order POET had received, including the flagship initial production-unit orders first announced in 2023.

POET's CFO had discussed Marvell/Celestial shipment timelines in a public interview just days before the cancellation notice.

POET retains $430 million in cash and a separate $5 million production order from another customer.

Skillz [SKLZ] $6.36 (-18.98%)

Skillz is reversing after its 183% single-session surge on Thursday, the largest move in the company's recent history.

No new negative catalyst; this is profit-taking on extreme momentum in a $103 million Buy-rated company with no near-term earnings catalyst.

Volume at 1.07x average confirms the selling comes from Thursday's momentum buyers exiting rather than fresh institutional selling pressure.

MaxLinear [MXL] $51.87 (-14.01%)

MaxLinear is giving back a portion of its 80%+ surge from last Thursday after reporting Q1 earnings that beat estimates with revenue up 43% year-over-year and raising its full-year optical data center revenue target by 28%.

The stock ran from $31 to $63 in a single session on hyperscaler order momentum, and today's 15% pullback is straight profit-taking after one of the strongest single-day moves in the semiconductor sector this year.

He reignited electric cars, reshaped space travel, and built a global satellite grid.

But this breakthrough in AI could become the defining masterpiece of Elon’s legacy.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says, “What Elon and his team has achieved is singular. It’s never been done before.”

Discover what this means for investors now.

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Thanks for reading. I'll see you at the next open! 

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— Adam G.
Elite Trade Club

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