Dear Income traders,
Look, here's the thing. While the whole market argued about AI, a different corner quietly turned into one of the best stories of the year: fintech.
Financials broke out (pushed above the price ceiling they'd been stuck under for months). The rally broadened too, meaning more stocks joined in instead of the same five mega-caps carrying everything. And one name I flagged two months ago came roaring back to life.
I said it had room to run. We're already a third of the way there. And the thesis is just getting started.
Before I give you the ticker, let me tell you why this corner suddenly matters.
Start with the money in motion. Roughly 124 trillion dollars changes hands over the next two decades as boomers pass assets to Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z. That is the largest wealth transfer ever measured, and the generations inheriting it grew up on crypto, DeFi (decentralized finance, money apps built on blockchain instead of banks), and platforms that let you bet on anything.
That shift alone moves markets for the next decade. But there's a second layer most people are sleeping on.
Prediction markets let you take a position on real-world outcomes: elections, sports, earnings, policy. Bernstein thinks the category grows to roughly one trillion dollars in annual volume by 2030, up from around 240 billion dollars this year. That's what regulatory clarity unlocks: a brand-new asset class, born legal.
The crypto tie-in is direct. These markets run natively on blockchain, so every position and settlement happens on-chain (recorded straight onto the blockchain ledger, no middleman). More prediction volume means more crypto transaction volume.
Agentic AI pours fuel on it. When AI agents start moving money on their own (software that places transactions without a human tapping the button), they need programmable, verifiable settlement. And a few weeks back, one platform said it's opening the door to exactly that.
One to Love: The Stock Sitting on Top of All of It
That platform is Robinhood (HOOD). Retail investing, crypto, and prediction markets, all under one roof.
It just rolled out Rothera, its own prediction-market exchange built with Susquehanna, so it can keep that trading flow in-house instead of renting someone else's pipes. The timing is perfect: rival venue Kalshi just printed a record 6.38 billion dollars in weekly volume and crossed 100 billion dollars in lifetime trades, with the World Cup pulling in new users by the millions.
And Robinhood is feeding the same fire. Event-contract trading hit a record 8.8 billion contracts in the first quarter alone, more than all of the prior quarter, and the revenue tied to it jumped 320 percent year over year.
That's not a story. That's a flywheel (a self-reinforcing loop, where every turn makes the next one spin faster).
Financials are breaking out. Fintech is back in favor. And HOOD owns the pipeline for the next generation of wealth.
Not advice. But I think this name has room to keep running over the next 10 months. Which means my options should… rock 'n roll.
That's the One to Love.
One to Leave: The Trade That Already Had Its Moment
Now the flip side. Lockheed Martin (LMT).
The bid that drove this name is gone (the steady buying demand that held it up). A 60-day ceasefire framework between the US and Iran just got signed in Geneva, with the Strait of Hormuz reopening. Defense was the trade of the year because the world was on fire. It isn't anymore. It's just tense, and the tape knows the difference.
LMT is rolling over (topping out and starting to grind lower). Back in late April it dropped almost five percent in a single session on a soft quarter: earnings landed at 6.44 a share versus about 6.73 expected. Free cash flow went negative and margins got squeezed.
The stock clawed back some of that since, but it's still sitting well below its highs. Near-term support (a price floor where buyers have stepped in before) sits around 508. Lose that level, and there's air underneath.
Here's the bigger problem. When a ceasefire holds even partly, capital rotates. Money leaves defense and runs to growth, fintech, crypto, and AI: the exact corners breaking out right now.
That makes LMT the funding short. The dead-money name (capital that just sits there going nowhere) that pays for the rotation into HOOD and everything like it.
I'm not telling you to short Lockheed. Geopolitics can flip on a single headline. But this is not the place to park money for upside. Take profits if you've got them. Stay out of the way if you don't.
Dead money is the worst money. While the rest of the market makes new highs, you're stuck watching paint dry.
That's the One to Leave.
Two names. One just getting started. One running out of runway.
Want to see the actual options structure I'm using on HOOD, strikes and all?
I'm breaking it down live on the Ticker Highlight Show this Monday at 10:30 AM ET.
Trade smart, stay hedged.
Here for a good time AND a long time,
Hans