Feb 23rd Pre-Market

Good morning.

Supreme Court kills the tariffs Friday, Trump builds new ones Saturday, Europe rejects them Sunday.

All this while two carrier strike groups are sitting off Oman and Iran talks resume Thursday. Nvidia earnings Wednesday, we are in for a busy week.

Let's get into it...

Today's Big Picture

1. Iran still The Real Risk this week

Nuclear talks resume Thursday in Geneva. Two U.S. carrier strike groups are parked 150 miles off Oman. Goldman sees $6 of risk premium already in crude. If talks collapse, the Strait of Hormuz might reprice every energy position across the desks.

2. Nvidia On Wednesday Decides The AI Trade 

Five of the Mag 7 are negative this year. Every big tech beat this season got sold. Nvidia reports Wednesday, Street expects $66 billion in revenue, and the entire AI spending narrative rides on what Jensen Huang says next.

3. Tariffs Got Replaced, Not Removed 

Supreme Court struck down Trump's tariffs Friday. By Saturday he had a new 15% global levy under Section 122.

The EU is calling an emergency meeting today. These tariffs expire in 150 days and six House Republicans already voted to rein in his trade powers last week.

Market Overview

Today’s Sponsor

Meet America’s Newest $1B Unicorn

It just surpassed a $1B valuation, joining private US companies like SpaceX and OpenAI. Unlike those companies, you can invest in EnergyX today. Industry giants like General Motors and POSCO already have. Why? EnergyX’s tech can recover 3X more lithium than traditional methods. Now, they’re preparing 100,000+ acres of lithium-rich Chilean land for commercial production. Buy private EnergyX shares alongside 40k+ people at $11/share through 2/26.

Invest in EnergyX Today

_{This is a paid advertisement for EnergyX Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.energyx.com. Under Regulation A, a company may change its share price by up to 20% without requalifying the offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission.}

Stock Spotlight (pre-market)

Novo Nordisk $NVO ( ▼ 0.68% )  
CagriSema failed to match Eli Lilly's tirzepatide on weight loss after 84 weeks. Novo guided for a sales decline of 5 to 13 in 2026 with lower U.S. pricing and patent expirations on Wegovy and Ozempic. Stock has lost roughly half its value since early 2025. Eli Lilly $LLY up as the obesity market leader.

Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 0.69% )  
Quiet in premarket. Wednesday's report is the most watched earnings event this quarter. Aletheia upgraded to Buy this morning with a $250 target. TSMC's capex expansion through 2026 suggests the biggest cloud companies are locking in chip manufacturing capacity years out. That's a strong demand signal for Nvidia.

Domino's Pizza $DPZ ( ▼ 0.54% )  
Beat on Q4 same-store sales at 3.7 growth vs. the 3.1 estimate. Revenue at $1.54 billion topped expectations. Dividend raised.

Warner Bros. Discovery $WBD ( ▼ 0.11% )  
Deadline is today for Paramount Skydance $PSKY to improve its $30 a share bid. Netflix $NFLX has the right to match any bid and its co-CEO said they may do exactly that. Paramount has reportedly signaled $32 to $33. Someone is overpaying either way.

Salesforce $CRM ( ▼ 3.53% )  
Reports Wednesday alongside Nvidia. Software stocks have been crushed this year on AI disruption fears. This report tells you whether the selloff was overdone or just getting started.

Coinbase $COIN ( ▼ 2.98% )  
and Strategy $MSTR Both lower as Bitcoin stays under pressure. Crypto shed $100 billion in value in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin is down from a record above $126,000 in October and has wiped out every dollar gained since Trump's reelection.

What to Watch

State of the Union (Tomorrow Evening) 

Trump addresses Congress Tuesday night. The 150-day clock on his new tariffs is ticking. Watch for any signals on Congressional approval or what comes after Section 122 expires.

Nvidia Earnings (Wednesday After Close) 

EPS expected at $1.53. Revenue near $66 billion. The beat is priced in. What matters is Huang's tone on AI spending durability and Blackwell demand visibility into 2027.

Berkshire Hathaway Letter (Saturday) 

Greg Abel's first annual shareholder letter alongside Q4 results. How he talks about deploying Berkshire's cash will set the tone for value investors heading into March.

Thanks for reading 🙂

- John

Today’s Sponsor

Ray Dalio: "The S&P Fell 28% Last Year." Wait, What?

He's measuring in gold, not dollars. And that's the point.

The dollar dropped 10% in 2025. So, yeah, your portfolio went up in dollars, but, Dalio says your real return isn’t so exciting.

And the decline is reportedly advancing as macro conditions don’t improve.

So, what investments offer protection against that currency risk?

Well.. billionaires have an answer. And now 70,819 everyday investors have joined in.

This unexpected asset class outpaced the S&P 500 overall with low correlation since 1995.*

Not real estate or PE. Post war and contemporary art. Seriously.

Plus– Art trades globally ;)

And now, you don’t need to be a billionaire–

Masterworks makes it easy to FRACTIONALLY invest in blue-chip art, with a track record of 26 net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8% on works held over a year.

See why investors moved $1.3 billion into 500+ offerings:

Skip waitlist

_{*According to Masterworks data.  Investing involves risk. Past performance not indicative of future returns. See important disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.}