Hey bow TI Nation Joseph hog with your weekly stock market update 9:00 a.m. eastern every Monday morning with the stocks to watch and the stock market news you need to see and Nation both parties are talking about the need for a US Sovereign wealth fund making it more likely to gain momentum even after that election politicking is over does the US need a wealth fund and which stocks might go in it I'm going to explain wealth funds and the stocks to watch along with important updates to sharees a paler and super micro computer first up I want to thank this week's sponsor and share resources I used to stay up toate with market news and find some great analysis and best yet I get them free in my inbox every day more than 3 and2 million investors get Wall Street breakfast seeking Alpha's morning newsletter a quick and easy one-page overview of today's economic events and financial news I also get the must-reads newsletter a quick email highlighting some of the best analysis on the site those newsletters are both totally free I know you all get the weekly boai from this channel but I can only get that out once a week so these are some great resources to keep you up to date during the week so I'm going to leave links to each in the description below back to our main topic though we've heard in the past month both former president Trump and President Biden coming out in favor of creating a US Sovereign wealth fund we're are bipartisan support for our project so making it more likely than other politicking but is it a good idea or just good talking points and what are the stocks that could be included a sovereign wealth fund is like a pension fund but set up by the government for the benefit of all its citizens these are usually resource dependent countries like Saudi Arabia that get most of its government revenues from oil sales so the wealth fund is like a back stop for when those resources begin to deplete or when prices are low wealth funds can be used to counter economic and policy downturns so paying out those benefits during a recession or to reduce volatility in the government revenues from year to year more than 50 countries have wealth funds from China's largest cic at $2.75 trillion and with five funds in the trillions in fact 11 US states already have what they call permanent funds from Alaska's $80 billion fund that pays out 1,600 a year to its resident to the $52 billion Texas Permanent Fund that has distributed more than $4.3 billion to schools in the state so it's not out of the question that the US would set up a national wealth fund and it can be a good economic tool but is it even possible these are usually set up with resource revenues and government budget surpluses which the US hasn't had a budget surplus that tax revenue minus spending in decades and is forecasting a $2 trillion deficit for this year in fact it strikes me that the US setting up a wealth fund is a little like the question should you invest or pay off debt first so we don't exactly know where this money would come from but that's never stopped Americans before Trump has said he wants to fund his wealth fund through tariffs on Imports the problem is is his team has already earmarked those projected tariff revenues to cut taxes the Biden Administration for its part hasn't released a funding plan though it would likely include asking Congress to appropriate a starter funding but hey we can always worry about how to pay for it later right now which stocks usually go into a wealth fund and how would the US be different the Norwegian fund holds 72% of its $1.6 trillion in shares of 8,700 companies in 66 countries more than 1,800 of those stocks are us companies including some of the biggest names Norway holds over $182 billion in the Magnificent 7 tech stocks alone and owns nearly 10% of several real estate companies including Equity residential and Vornado realy now most wealth funds invest across the entire Market but also take an added focus on stocks of national interest Trump has said he wants to invest in infrastructure and medical research companies the Biden administration's month-long study has focused on investments that might be beyond the private sector so things like Rare Minerals which might not offer enough profit incentive for miners because of that difficulty in production but in which the US would still want to nurture an industry one of the best ways to find stocks in a theme is to start with the ETFs and then narrow down your list from there not only has infrastructure been looked at from both sides for a wealth fund but the theme regularly receives special funding like the one trillion doll earmarked from the inflation reduction act so let's start there and for that we can start with the global X us infrastructure development ETF ticker paav which holds shares of 99 us companies mostly in Industrials and materials but all in some way connected to that infrastructure theme these broad theme ETFs are a great way to get Diversified exposure to the entire group basically for that half% expense fee you get the upside to the infrastructure idea with without having to do your own research into individual stocks but you know we're all about those individual stocks so so for each fund we're going to use the ETF to mine for our stock selection here you can go to Holdings in Yahoo finance and we'll see the top 10 stocks held along with the percentage weights in the fund but to see the entire list we go here to the ETFs website and look for Holdings or portfolio here again you'll see the top 10 but we'll also be able to download a copy of the entire stock list within the list we see materials companies like Martin maretta materials ticker MLM which should do well on that infrastructure buildout but I'd also be interested in a Rockwell Automation ticker R which provides Industrial Automation and digital transformation Services it's not quite the infrastructure play you might be thinking about but stronger growth than I think most have on the list in the medical research theme we can start with the spider S&P biotech ETF ticker xbi which holds shares of 139 companies in healthcare and biotech but they're all fairly large at a median cap of $32.5 billion so we're not talking about penny stocks here here we're mostly talking familiar names like exact Sciences Gilead ABY and Viking Therapeutics so I would also look to a few of the smaller biotechs like recursion Pharmaceuticals ticker rxrx which we covered recently as a company revolutionizing drug Discovery with AI but here and biotech and medical research more than any other theme I think it pays to have that broad ETF exposure as well to really pick individual stocks here you need that deep experience in drug Discovery and the testing process so being able to get the entire theme is just so much easier for most investors a definite candidate for a strategic National Fund would be some of the stocks in the the vanck rare earth and strategic Metals ETF ticker rmx the fund holds shares in 32 companies mining or producing those Rare Earth elements like dysprosium neodium and lithium these elements and minerals are critical in everything from batteries to magnets but they occur in much smaller formations than things like copper it means cost of production can be very high and profitability lower to the point that most mining companies wouldn't even bother so there's a good reasoning for government stimulus to nurture those Industries but in this case if you were investing in that Sovereign wealth theme I would not be buying shares of this broad ETF because most of the 32 companies aren't based in the United States obviously a US Sovereign fund isn't going to be investing in shiam and tungsten out of China but might be interested in Alba Marley ticker ALB MP materials MP Tronics Holdings ticker TRX or lithium America ticker Lac now looking at the stocks I'm watching this week Garden restaurants ticker drri announces its earnings Thursday and it's going to be an important sign for consumer health the restaurant owner of Olive Garden LongHorn Steakhouse and Ruth Chris is expected to post a184 per share earnings which would be 3% growth from last year that comes as peers have already reported disappointing results on a Slowdown Chile's owner Brink Brinker International ticker eat missed its earnings by 6% and saw the stock drop 133% on the day of its report blooman Brands tooker BLM in missed its earnings expectations as well for the second quarter and saw its shares drop 6% on the day and more signs of consumer weakness keep coming in and not only is it going to be hard for Darden to meet its expectations but could be another signal paler Technologies tooker pltr jumped 16% earlier last week when it was announced the company would be added to the S&P 500 Index on September 23rd shares of the data analysis and AI company struggled later when it was reported that chairman Peter teal would sell up to a billion dollars of his Holdings but it's un it's likely just a brief blip I recently highlighted my $45,000 investment in the stock already up 34% and a video on my 10 largest stock Holdings for growth so make sure you check that out super microcomputer ticker smci rebounded 19% last week but an article in seeking Alva must-reads newsletter points out that the shares might still be too cheap to ignore the stock has lost more than half of its value from the march on a short seller report and delay in annual filings I'm preparing a video including it as one of my favorite beaten but not broken stocks to watch and carecloud ticker CLD is up 38% in the last month and 20% last week alone on approval of a preferred share class of stock that should help improve liquidity and funding the health information technology company is a cash flow positive but has missed earnings expectations in several of the recent quarters I highlighted shares as one of my 10x AI penny stocks to buy recently but investors do need to see that growth return within the next year looking at the bigger picture idea with the sector spider.com sector tracker 10 of the 11 stock sectors did finish higher last week with only energy stocks closing down on that continued weakness in the price of oil Financial were also relatively weak on renewed warnings of lower net interest income from the big Banks and Rising delinquencies on Consumer loans shares of those companies in the financial sector are now up 28% over the past year beating the market and a surprising rebound from a weaker start to the year once a pocket of relative attractive valuations though the sector is now trading at 15.6 times on a PE basis over 177% more expensive than its longer term PE average if we do see further signs of a consumer slowdown in this week's retail sales it's likely we're going to see weakness in the sector as well and as loan defaults rise and those investor sentiments just worsen for this week investors will be singularly focused on the Wednesday's rate decision by the Federal Reserve but just as important could be those retail sales reports on Tuesday headline retail sales for August are expected down 3% for the month a far cry from the 1% growth reported in the prior month even excluding Car Sales which have been really weak lately us retail sales are expected up just. 2% versus a reading of 4% the month before that's just going to be one more warning on the health of the consumer and investors should be paying more attention while Fed rate Cuts may help boost investor sentiment immediately the actual economic effects of those lower rates is going to take longer and we've already seen several signs of a weak consumer lately shares of Ali Financial plunged 18% last week when the CFO warned that Consumer Credit defaults would be higher than expected pointing out the delinquencies up to 2 months late had jumped to nearly a percent with all eyes on the FED though it's likely investors are going to overlook the a bigger picture until it's too late and more signs of a recession start appearing through the rest of the year The increased odds that the FED would go with a bigger .5% cut was highlighted in Thursday's Wall Street breakfast newsletter with analysis of recent CPI and PPI inflation data the CME fedwatch rate tool now puts a 45% probability on a half-point rate cut Wednesday with a prevailing odd still at about a quarter point cut look for those links in the video description below and get both the Wall Street breakfast and musts newsletter free every day it's an easy way to stay up up to date on today's market news and some of the biggest analysis don't forget to join the let's talk money Community by tapping that subscribe button and clicking the Bell notification