| Jul 31, 2021 Hi Savio, Let me reintroduce myself. My name is Luke Lango, and I’m the new lead analyst of Investment Opportunities. If you haven’t already, I strongly encourage you to watch the introduction video that I filmed last week with InvestorPlace CEO Brian Hunt, in which we discussed the stock market, shared our outlook for multiple hypergrowth megatrends, and even revealed a new self-driving stock pick – Aurora Innovation (RTPY) – in a brand-new special report that you can find here. Quick refresher on myself for folks who are interested: I’m a tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist from California. I got my start studying economics at Caltech – which, when I was there, was rated the world’s number one university. While at Caltech, I linked up with venture capitalists in Los Angeles, started three different technology businesses, and made a name for myself as a technologist with a thirst for disruptive innovation – all before I was 23. Subsequently, I was looped into the finance game when I learned that I could share my often-unique and always-bold vision for the future of our world with a broader audience and help millions of people make money the same way I did – by investing in that future. That’s when I linked up with InvestorPlace, and launched and ran multiple research advisories just like Investment Opportunities. Those research advisories featured multiple 10X stock picks like NIO (NIO), Plug Power (PLUG), and MindMed (MNMD) – all in just one year. They also featured six different crypto picks that soared 500% or more, including Chainlink (LINK) for a 1,138% gain and Synthetic Network Token (SNX) for a 2,865% gain. Those picks helped me earn the ranking of the world’s #1 stock picker in 2020, according to TipRanks. Now, let me be clear: While I may be a new face, the core investment philosophy and theme of Investment Opportunities has not changed, nor will it ever change under my charge. That is, Investment Opportunities was founded on the core ideology that we are on the cusp of a seismic shift in society, wherein the convergence of 5G, artificial inteligence (AI), blockchain, cloud computing, and more will give birth to multiple disruptive technology platforms that will inevitably transform our world over the next decade – and fundamentally change how we eat, sleep, travel, play, work, and more. Of course, the founding premise of Investment Opportunities was that where there’s disruption, there’s opportunity – and that the next decade presents the most compelling opportunity ever to create generational wealth in the stock market by investing in these world-changing technologies. I fundamentally agree with all of that. More accurately, we fundamentally agree with all of that. You see… I’m not alone here. I’ve recruited a team of tech experts to help me run Investment Opportunities because, as the old saying goes, many brains are greater than one brain (or, as we used to say in college basketball practices, “teamwork makes the dream work”). The team is four people. You have myself – who has been credited with nearly 20 10X stock picks – and two fellow Caltech grads, plus another seasoned tech entrepreneur. One of the Caltech grads is a physics major and data scientist by training, who previously created AI-powered recommendation algorithms at Warner Bros, and got perfect scores on his SAT. He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and someone who understands – better than anyone I know – the software infrastructure underlying today’s most disruptive tech platforms, like Netflix and Amazon. The other Caltech grad is a programmer by training, who also understands software at a level only very few people do. Plus, he was one of the first folks to sign up for crypto exchange Coinbase back in 2013, and spends his spare time creating digital assets – or NFTs (non-fungible tokens) – on the WAX blockchain. The final person on our team is someone I’ve worked closely with before in the startup world, and whom I couldn’t speak more highly of. He’s a University of California Santa Barbara graduate, who helped me start a successful financial research business back in 2013 and subsequently co-founded a social media business with me. Together, we raised money from some of the biggest venture capital (VC) firms in California. Before joining us, he was coding the software platforms at TurboTax that help you do your taxes every year. Make no mistake. This is a crazy talented team. In fact, I’d venture to say there is no greater collection of intellectual firepower in the financial research world – and we’re dedicating all of that firepower to help you discover the next best hypergrowth opportunities right here, in Investment Opportunities. Now, let me be clear here. With all this firepower, my team and I don’t just want to continue to give you an excellent experience through Investment Opportunities – rather, our goal is to elevate your experience to a whole new level. We’re talking more great picks. More consistent updates. More research. More analysis. More of everything. A big part of this “upgrade” to your service includes Weekly Updates. We will send to you, every Saturday, an update on the status of the stock market, which will include commentary on recent developments in the hypergrowth megatrends we follow, and updates on the holdings in our portfolio, when there is news to report and analyze. These Weekly Updates will not replace our Monthly Issues. You will continue to receive in-depth, robust issues from us every single month. Weekly Updates will be entirely supplemental to that, so every month, you will now receive one Monthly Issue and four or five Weekly Updates from us. In other words, you’re going to get 5X the volume of analysis and commentary than before. If that’s not an upgrade, I don’t know what is. We hope you enjoy this service upgrade, and as a result, glean more insights, knowledge, and profits than ever before. With that in mind, let’s dive right into the first Weekly Update. –––– It was a solid week in the stock market, and a solid week for our portfolio, thanks to a flurry of strong earnings reports, and reassurance that monetary policy will remain accommodative. However, gains in our portfolio were capped by concerns surrounding renewed spread of Covid-19 as well as fears with respect to China’s regulatory crackdown. We see such fears as temporary and overblown – and therefore, smell a few great buying opportunities in the market. On the positive side, pretty much everyone is crushing earnings estimates this quarter, and for the right reasons. Alphabet and Facebook reported great earnings highlighting the current spending boom in digital advertising. Microsoft smashed estimates thanks to surging cloud spend. Visa topped estimates, too, thanks to a rise in non-cash spending across the globe. Shopify did as well, on the back of a continued uptick in e-commerce sales. Apple crushed estimates, too. These earnings broadly underscore that the current economic recovery remains on solid footing, and that a lot of the growth in the economy is happening in the technology sectors – after a weird three-month stretch in April, May, and June wherein consumers ditched e-commerce, streaming TV, and social media platforms for “old school” malls and movie theaters. With the reopening now having come and gone, consumer time and spending is re-concentrating back on the digital platforms that make our lives faster, easier, cheaper, and just plain better. As this re-concentration accelerates in the coming months, we expect the tech sector to lead on Wall Street. Meanwhile, also on the positive side, the Fed sounded a very dovish tone in its press release and conference on Wednesday, reassuring investors that accommodative monetary policy will remain in-place for the foreseeable future. The very next day, we received a flurry of bad economic data reports – a big Q2 GDP miss, rising jobless claims, and falling home sales – which Wall Street actually reacted to positively, because the sum of those reports confirmed that the Fed should (and will) stay on the sidelines. The– wall of liquidity upon which the stock market is propped up today, will stay in place. On the negative side, however, stocks tied to the reopening did lose some momentum as Covid-19 cases are now rising in every single state, and as some companies have pushed back return-to-the-office dates and some counties have re-instituted indoor face mask mandates. We view the economic risk of these restrictions as small, since the world has clearly learned how to adapt to the virus – regardless of if nothing is open, or everything is open – and actually think that sporadic lockdowns could create a tailwind for our portfolio through increased adoption of digital platforms. The bigger risk to our portfolio, in our opinion, is what’s going on over in China. For years, China has talked about bringing the regulatory hammer down on its tech companies. But they’ve never followed that talk up with any walk – until now. Last week, China basically dismantled its entire $100 billion online education sector in an attempt to reverse the country’s declining birth rate. Now that China is walking the walk on regulation, we’re watching to see if that uncertainty surrounding the course of action of the Chinese government over the next few months will weigh on all Chinese stocks, including the ones we own. However, we take confidence in the fact that we do not believe the Chinese stocks we own will be significantly or permanently damaged by regulatory action, as China still needs its tech sector to thrive in order for the country to maintain its global economic positioning, and the companies we’re invested in will help China do just that. So, in our opinion, what we’re dealing with here are optical risks, not fundamental risks, and therefore, they shall pass. Overall, we believe the fundamentals underlying our portfolio are very healthy. We see the stock market continuing to power higher in the coming months – and see our stocks as being in a great position to lead that rally. With that in mind, let’s jump into our Weekly Portfolio Updates: - Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) pops on strong earnings and upbeat comments from its CEO. AMD stock had a great week, thanks to the company’s strong second-quarter earnings report in which it smashed revenue and earnings estimates, and CEO Lisa Su sounded an optimistic tone on the conference call with respect to the business working through the current semiconductor shortage crisis. Things look good here for AMD stock to keep pushing higher as chip shortage headwinds become old news.
- Facebook (FB) drops on a mixed outlook following blowout earnings. Facebook smashed second-quarter user, revenue, and earnings estimates this week, but the stock fell after the print as management warned about a slowdown in the second half of 2021 thanks to tougher comps. But this is what Facebook management does. CEO Mark Zuckerberg and team always under-promise and then over-deliver. Don’t read too much into those “slowdown” comments. Instead, look at the Q2 numbers, and get bullish on the fact that Facebook is capitalizing on what is a digital ad spending boom today. Facebook stock should remain a steady winner in the coming months.
- Cannabis stocks – like Canopy Growth (CGC) – catch a ride higher after Tilray’s blowout earnings. One of Canada’s leading cannabis companies, Tilray, reported very strong earnings this week, and that lit a fire under cannabis stocks (many of which we own, like Canopy Growth). Remember: cannabis stocks have been crushed recently thanks to the U.S. failing to pass legislation that would have federally legalized weed. But Tilray’s earnings prove that cannabis companies don’t need weed to be federally legal in the U.S. to support impressive growth rates. They simply need to keep converting black market demand into legal demand in countries and states where weed is legal – and that is happening. Broadly, we think the recent drawdown in cannabis stocks is a great buying opportunity.
- Boeing (BA) stock surges after the company crushes earnings estimates and shows first profit in nearly two years. Early this week, Boeing reported excellent second-quarter numbers that importantly included the first profit in nearly two years – a stretch in which performance has been muddied by 737 MAX crashing issues and Covid-19 headwinds. It appears those issues are quickly moving into the rearview mirror, and as they continue to do so in the coming quarters, Boeing’s growth trajectory should meaningfully recover and Boeing stock should push higher.
- Enphase Energy (ENPH) shrugs off supply chain constraints and reports strong Q2 numbers. The solar industry has been bogged down in 2021 by supply chain disruptions. But Enphase Energy proved this week that, outside of those disruptions, business in the solar industry is good, as the company cruised past revenue and earnings expectations. We fully expect these supply chain issues to improve in the coming months, and for Enphase stock to rally back to all-time highs as those near-term issues become old news.
- Astra (ASTR) scores a big “Buy” rating from Deutsche Bank. Early in the week, Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yue slapped a “Buy” rating on Astra shares, and we like this call. You cannot commercialize space unless you first put things in space. Rockets are the building blocks of the space economy, and Astra’s ingenious small rockets fill a need for cost-effective, accessible, and convenient rockets, for things such as launching small satellites into orbit. Yue agrees, saying: “With an emerging number of private rocket launch companies, we see Astra’s differentiation being a focus on developing high frequency, low cost small rockets and associated infrastructure. This approach should enable much broader access to space so companies can more easily commercialize applications.” This is a great time to double-down on Astra stock.
- Tesla (TSLA) stock rises on a confluence of good news. It was a good week for Tesla. First, the company crushed earnings estimates. Then, the stock scored a bunch of upgrades. Then, Tesla announced an AI Day to flex its artificial intelligence capabilities. Then, there was a report of strong Model 3 sales in Europe. Lots of good news. The stock price rose as a result. We think Tesla stock has a big run in it here over the next six months to $1,000.
Have a great week. We’ll be back in touch on Thursday with your next Monthly Issue, and then again on Saturday with your second Weekly Update. We’ll also always get in contact right away if anything urgent comes up in the meantime. Sincerely, 
Luke Lango
Editor, Investment Opportunities
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