As February ends, most stocks have gone nowhere. March tends to be better, closing higher 64 percent of the time. We can hope things improve, but hope is never a good investment strategy.

 

The carnage in the technology sector continued. While reporting stellar results, Nvidia, the AI semiconductor giant, failed to impress investors. Anemic bounces in other areas, such as software, did little to alter the mood. The market's schizophrenia continues.

 

About the only good thing one can say is that markets have held in there despite the technology sell-off. If you were fortunate or savvy enough to own stocks in emerging markets, precious metals, copper, energy, industrials, or small caps, your performance has been much better.

 

As I wrote last week, the Supreme Court ruling on Trump's tariffs was largely priced into the market. It offered only a day or two of volatility. Since then, the administration has faced more than 2,000 tariff refund lawsuits. Many fear their refunds will be delayed for a long time.

 

Markets soon returned to the threat of AI. "Threat?" you may say, what happened to AI, the linchpin of future productivity that has fueled all the buying over the last two years?

 

The narrative has changed. Today, it is all about fears that breakthroughs in artificial intelligence will affect companies' terminal values. Investors are fretting over whether AI will spell the end for certain industries and companies, or just cause widespread disruption. How much will software companies be worth ten years down the road? That is called a company's terminal value. Putting a number on its long-term worth is nigh on impossible. But that never stopped Wall Street from guessing.

 

This week, IBM's stock price crashed after Anthropic announced that its Claude Code tool could automate the modernization of COBOL systems on IBM mainframes. This business is core to Big Blue, and just the threat had investors dumping the stock. It was the steepest price drop ($31 billion) in more than 25 years for Big Blue.

 

Investors are seeking companies supposedly immune to AI disruption, yet few are truly immune to this trend. Sure, you still need trains, trucks, and airplanes to transport, or picks, shovels, and equipment to extract gold or silver, but creating an investment case based on this thinking makes little sense to me.

 

In every industrial revolution, massive changes have triggered fear. Fear of lost jobs, of a great uprooting of lives, of social disruption. In some cases, traditional processes fall by the wayside or evolve into something new and beneficial. It takes time to parse out these changes. It can't be accomplished in a week or a month.

 

Emotions are running high right now, but calmer heads will prevail. The truth is that the financial community almost always needs a story to justify price movements, no matter how far-fetched. Why not just accept that the entire technology sector, after a three-year run, needs a period of profit-taking and consolidation? In the meantime, sectors that have been ignored until now are having their day in the sun.

 

Cryptocurrencies attempted a bounce this week, but it was short-lived, while gold, silver, copper, etc. have been in a trading range. The biggest winner of the court's tariff turndown has been emerging markets. Given that they were hurt the most by the levees, their bounce back makes sense.

 

As we enter March, I am expecting this volatility to continue. My feeling is that markets need a trigger (up or down) to break this trading range. It could be conflict in the Middle East, or peace. Some hoped the State of the Union address might enliven buyers, and it did for one day, but profit-taking quickly ensued.

 

I advised readers to focus on the 6,900 level on the S&P 500 Index. Above it, positive; below it, negative. This week, we have had four days below and one above. That is called volatility. Expect more of the same.

 

The winter storms of ice and snow that buried much of the U.S. in January and February were large enough to impact the economy. It will be months before the final tallies are in, but many economists expect the price tag to be over $100 billion.

 

That seems like a lot of money. I guess if you take into account the indirect and longer-term costs, like business supply chain disruptions and even medical costs, then maybe. Sure, there was some disruption. On those minus-degree days, we only took the dog out for a few minutes to do its business. And yes, we may have curtailed our trips to the grocery store a little, or to a restaurant, but how does that add up to that much money?

 

I mean, I could understand if we were discussing a series of hurricanes or tornadoes, which have now become commonplace under climate change. The high cost of damage from such disasters is usually attributed to infrastructure. But how can a spate of reduced shopping hurt the economy that much?

 

Well, airline cancellations come to mind. When you cancel as many as 11,400 flights, there is significant lost revenue for both airlines and their passengers. Then there are power outages, which also impact businesses, sometimes for a few days. Trucks also find it more difficult, if not impossible, to make deliveries at least on the actual days of snowfall.

 

One area that could see some significant losses is in vehicle sales. The January 2026 vehicle report seems to bear this out. Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis indicated that sales really took a nosedive, hitting a three-year low. That does make sense, since not only would buyers need to drive to the showroom in snowstorms, but they would also want to test-drive a new car before buying it.

 

Most consumers may not realize it, but natural gas prices also surged. The week ending January 30th saw the largest inventory drawdown since the Energy Information Administration began record-keeping in 2010. Wholesale prices rose 81 percent. Since then, the EIA has raised this year's price forecasts by 25 percent.

 

Housing construction also took a hit. As one small example, the guys building a spare room in our condo could not cut the lumber needed outside, so they had to ferry the wood back and forth from their shop. Imagine putting on a new roof or laying cement in 2 feet of snow! Some analysts are now predicting a 3 percent decline in residential investment growth in the first quarter.

 

The early February bomb cyclone that hit the lower East Coast, combined with the ongoing deep freeze that has covered parts of central and south Florida, could cause as much as $15 billion in total damage and economic loss. The citrus groves and other crops were damaged extensively.

 

If I step back and look at the overall impact on most Americans, it seems clear that our heating costs are going up this year. The average family spent almost $1,000 to heat their home last year. We should expect that cost to rise 9 percent. If you use electricity to heat, tack on another 3 percent to that. Fixing water damage from burst pipes can cost as much as $30,000, and many insurance companies won’t pay unless you can prove that your thermostat was set on at least 65 degrees.

 

And then there are the "panic buyers." Even here in New England, grocery stores and supermarkets are often packed in the days before a winter storm. Of course, prices are higher because retailers know they can markup groceries and supplies the most.

 

The good news depends on the weather. Just this week, Boston, New York and other parts of the Northeast saw record snowfall levels.  If storms and icebox temperatures persist, it will take longer for the economy to recover. If not, and we get a break, most economists expect any lost output could be made up quickly in this first quarter of the year.

 

It was an uneventful week, at least until Friday. Growth remains firm, but inflation remains a concern. The data gave few clues, while geopolitics kept markets in check. And then, on Friday morning, the Supreme Court struck down Trump's tariffs.

 

The response was somewhat muted, although foreign equities did spike higher. Most investors, and I suspect the administration, were expecting that outcome. It is why the president's staff has been working on a Plan B for months now. Tariffs will continue, for sure, but levying them will now take longer since Congress must approve.

 

As for markets overall, call it what you will — consolidation, range-bound, volatile — stocks just couldn't mount a real comeback. The market indexes traded in a tight range while under the hood, the rotation game continued. And then there is Iran.

 

All week, the tension mounted as negotiations between the U.S. and Iran stalled. Both sides upped the stakes by showing their teeth. The U.S. forces on sea and air tightened the noose around its adversary. In response, Iran threatened the Straits of Hormuz, where the lifeblood of industry, oil, flows through and into Europe.

 

Oil rose above $65/bbl. as fears of a shooting war continue to mount. The safety trade of gold and silver hung in there as well. Hovering in a tight range above and below $5,000 an ounce. One might be tempted to dismiss these market jitters as another TACO play by the president. However, after the first bunker-busting go-around with Iran barely seven months ago, the odds are higher that something major could be in the works.

 

My own opinion is that the chances of such a debacle are lower than many fear. That does not rule out another aerial bombardment, but not a ground war or regime change. Middle Eastern nations do not want to see a shooting war in which the U.S., and particularly Israel, comes out on top.

 

The Arab states would prefer the devil they know (the present Iranian leadership) to something worse. An even stronger Israel, an Iranian civil war, or becoming embroiled in a larger regional conflict are scenarios that they would rather avoid.

 

The question is whether they can convince Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to let cooler heads prevail. It is noteworthy that both the National Security Council and the State Department were left on the sidelines in Geneva this week. Bypassing these two bodies, which have traditionally conducted such negotiations, says a lot.

 

The Gulf Arab States and Turkey have welcomed both men, despite having no official capacity within the government. Kushner spearheaded the Abraham Accords in his father-in-law's first term between Israel and several Arab countries and has as clients the wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Both U.S. negotiators have reputations for prioritizing dealmaking over human rights or democracy-building.

 

In the meantime, the economic data remains robust, though the picture is mixed. Higher numbers for housing permits, capital goods orders, and industrial production indicate some growth ahead. However, U.S. GDP growth disappointed, coming in at 1.4 percent instead of 2.9 percent for the last three months of 2025. The 43-day government shutdown took the blame for that slowdown.

 

Another bummer was the latest FOMC meeting minutes. Most of the 12-member committee worried about inflation and thought the Fed might need to raise rates if inflation stays sticky. If that happens, it could put them in direct conflict with the White House and make the new Fed chairman's job a nightmare. Furthermore, the Fed's key inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE) for December, also rose more than expected.

 

In the past, the Fed has often thought inflation was contained, only to see it resurge. An inflationary rebound tends to occur when financial conditions quickly loosen, supply pressures persist, and government spending rises. Combined with a tight labor market, these factors can reignite an already-elevated inflation rate.

 

The next two weeks could be high-risk for investors. The Supreme Court decision on AIPA tariffs is behind us, but the State of the Union address, Iran escalation, and Nvidia earnings remain ahead. These events may keep markets volatile, and any one of them could send stocks down quickly.

 

The rotation out of growth and into value will continue. Gold and silver prices are somewhat overvalued but supported by a war risk premium. Quarterly earnings beats are in the range of 75 percent for all reporting companies thus far. However, the price action on announcements suggests to me that, after an initial pop, many stocks are hit by profit-taking.

 

I am using the 6,900 level on the S&P 500 Index as a guide. Under that, the bears take over; over it, the bulls have a chance of running with the ball.

 

In December 2025, the president unveiled plans to revamp the Navy. He announced the construction of two new battleships, each costing between $10 billion and $15 billion. It's a start, but still only a drop in the bucket for reviving American shipbuilding.

 

Why is that important? First off, in commercial terms, almost 80 percent of global trade by weight is transported by ships. If you also consider the capabilities of our armed forces, you understand that nearly 90 percent of their supplies, equipment, fuel, ammo, and food are delivered by ships. In addition, if we encounter a national emergency, the Navy will depend on commercial shipyards to build warships and support ships, as well as to transport equipment and troops.

 

We learned this during World War II. At its height, the U.S. accounted for nearly 90 percent of global shipbuilding output. Today, that output has declined to a mere 0.2 percent of gross tonnage. What happened? Competition. After the war, the rest of the world needed to be rebuilt, much of it with American money, and the shipyards were among the areas that had been decimated.

 

Japan, for example, could offer lower labor costs, no union issues, brand-new shipyards, and prices that undercut American construction by as much as 60 percent. The fact that foreign steel production skyrocketed as well and was sold at a fraction of the U.S. price didn't help either.

 

You know this, how? You might ask. As a kid in Philly in the early '50s, lots of neighborhood dads worked at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard after the war. They made a good living then, since U.S. shipbuilding was still in its heyday. But the decline was rapid.

 

In the 1970s, the U.S. government attempted to reverse that slide with the Merchant Marine Act of 1970. Shipbuilders spent more than a billion dollars modernizing their yards and making capital improvements with government backing. America also asked the Japanese, now the world's top shipbuilder, to introduce new techniques and practices to reinvigorate our moribund industry.

 

It worked. For a brief period, the U.S. became the second-largest commercial shipbuilder in the world, behind Japan. Many of these new ships were Liquified Natural Gas carriers and oil tankers. However, the 1973 oil crisis put an end to that. The petroleum industry was on its knees, and demand for new ships dried up.

 

Despite that setback, our shipbuilding productivity improved in the years that followed. Meanwhile, foreign shipbuilders — especially the Chinese — improved even faster. In 2008, China surpassed Japan in shipbuilding output; by 2010, it overtook Korea to become the world's largest shipbuilder.

 

By 2022, the U.S. had built just five ocean-going, commercial ships compared to China's 1,794 and South Korea's 734. Today, the Navy estimates that China's shipbuilding capacity is 232 times that of the U.S. Even worse, it costs twice as much to build a ship in the U.S. as it does elsewhere.

 

Nine Asian and European carriers, organized into three cartels, now control 90 percent of the U.S. containerized shipping trade. To add insult to injury, one Chinese company produces 80 percent of all the ship-to-shore cranes in America. I could go on, but this is about shipbuilding, not about the Chinese, who also produce 95 percent of the shipping containers. The 2025 order book for new vessels indicated that China accounted for 75 percent of orders, followed by South Korea at 19 percent. 

 

Under these circumstances, how is Donald Trump going to make American shipbuilding great again?

 

Largely by following the tactics used by the U.S. in the Seventies. A new office of shipbuilding has been established and is again offering special tax incentives to develop the industry. Last year, the U.S. signed deals with three affiliates of Hanwha Group, the world's third-largest shipbuilder. The $500 billion deal is earmarked for maritime investment. In 2024, Hanwha bought the Philly Shipyard for $100 million. This is the sad remnant of my boyhood Naval Yard. That yard closed in the 1990s, laying off thousands of South Philly workers.

 

Hanwha is sinking $5 billion into the shipyard to upgrade the site. It is also training what they hope will be a new generation of shipbuilders, while investing in robotic labor. Management estimates that, if they hit their target of 20 boats per year, the workforce could top 10,000. That's a big "if."

 

The administration and industry plan to focus on manufacturing LNG tankers, icebreakers, and naval vessels. An Italian company, Fincantieri Marinette Marine (FMM), based in Wisconsin, is already manufacturing naval vessels, LNG-fueled cruise ships, and other commercial vessels. The U.S. is working with the Italians to expand that enterprise. In addition, last year Finland and the U.S. agreed to spend $6.1 billion to produce 11 new icebreakers for the U.S., with the first due to be completed by 2028.

 

Trump's gunboat diplomacy, whether in Iran, Venezuela, or who knows where, appears to be a strategic tool of his presidency. As such, it is vital that the U.S. commands the high seas. In an age of drone warfare, ships are vulnerable in both combat and commercial settings. It's early days, but at least the administration recognizes the need to modernize this industry. The hope is that just maybe my grandson might see the day when Philadelphia could once again be noted for something other than cheese steaks.

 

The ongoing debate about the high spending by AI companies is intensifying, but a broader thesis is emerging. AI is now casting uncertainty across more industries, unsettling investors and markets alike.

 

Software stocks have been the most obvious area of concern. The sector, and Microsoft in particular, has seen relentless selling. However, other areas, from finance to accounting to insurance, are increasingly being questioned.

 

As a result, this week it has been a game of moving chairs, where suddenly a story appears touting a breakthrough in an accounting or finance tool. Down goes brokerage stocks. Anthropic PBC, an AI research and development startup, recently announced Claude 4.1, an AI chatbot that makes writing tasks easier. OpenAI, their competitor, offers ChatGPT, which is churning out outputs that analysts expect will disrupt industry after industry over the next two years.

 

No one really knows who the winners and losers in this AI threat will ultimately be, but short-term traders are taking advantage of the uproar while roiling the markets. As I warned, February is turning out to be a volatile month in any case.

 

Two macroeconomic events contributed to the market's gyrations this week. The delayed non-farm payroll report for January was an upside surprise, adding 130,000 new jobs versus expectations of only 55,000. Market participants did not like the number because stronger job growth reduces the reasons for the Federal Reserve Bank to lower interest rates.

 

On Friday, the Consumer Price Index for January was slightly weaker than expected, rising 2.4 percent year over year. Markets liked that result since it sort of balanced out the picture for the Fed. Weaker inflation, stronger labor gives the Fed some room to ease, or so the story goes.

 

As for me, I no longer consider the government's data as unbiased. It is an election year, and I expect the administration will tilt the numbers to put them in the best possible light. It happened under the previous president, and it will happen under the next president.

 

To me, the numbers were much ado about nothing. The expectations that the Fed will ease before June are quite low in the betting market. I concur. After the new Fed Chair takes his seat, then monetary policy will ease, and not before. That leaves me focused instead on geopolitics, trade policy, and how much the government can spend to boost the economy.

 

The fear that the U.S. will take military action against Iran as early as this weekend has supported energy prices. Anything can happen, but somehow, I don’t think another strike is in the cards, at least not now.

 

As for the overall market, this week saw the momentum winners of last year get hit one by one. Software, then hardware, financials, real estate, and consumer discretionary all got taken to the woodshed. Even metals and mining stocks experienced steep one-day declines with little or no reason.

 

The hysteria that AI is "coming for Wall Street" will likely continue. In my opinion, anyplace that relies on structured, repetitive workflows will be disrupted. Those that offer a human connection and add value will be enhanced and benefit from AI. But in the meantime, rotation in and out of various sectors will provide opportunity for traders and volatility for long-term holders. We are in a trading range. I expect that will be the playbook for the rest of the month.