Shesa's FEBRUARY 2026 Investment Blog

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U.S Stock Market Update

As I wrote in my January blog, this year we may see a lot of volatility. And exactly that’s what we have been witnessing. The year started reasonably well but there were dips, again it picked up some steam towards the end of last month. January ended on a positive note for the indexes. However, February started on a rough note. But Dow Jones hit its all-time high and went past 50,000 mark for the first time in history and closed at 50,115.67. However, despite the good results from big tech companies like META, Google, Apple, AMD the technology stocks got hammered. Microsoft and Amazon’s results were not very encouraging. Wall Street is very concerned about the tech spending. A humongous $700 billion capital expenditures are planned by the tech giants this year. 

• Amazon: $200 billion
• Alphabet: $175–185 billion
• Meta: $115–135 billion
• Microsoft: $145 billion 
• Oracle: $50 billion
• Tesla: $20 billion

Such an astronomical spending is scaring the Wall Street. It’s anticipated that a few companies may get into negative cash flow due to major spending spree. As such, investors started moving money from tech stocks to non-tech stocks like energy, industrials, utilities, healthcare etc. The Bitcoin went down below 60,000 last week before bouncing back. This also added pressure on the technology stocks.  It lost about 50% from its of 126.3K on October 6, 2025. Gold and Silver were on fire but they have also given up some gains in last week or so. For the year, all indexes are green except Nasdaq which is down -0.91% so far this year.

Federal Reserve

The FOMC meeting was held on January 28 but it was a non-event. The interest rate remains at 3.5 - 3.75%. Many of you may be aware, President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor from 2006 - 2011, as the next Federal Reserve chair to replace Jerome Powell whose term ends on May 2026. Once Senate approves the confirmation, hopefully in next few weeks, he should assume the responsibility of Fed chair after J Powell. He was little hawkish in his tenure as Fed governor. But off late he has become more dovish. We will see how it goes. Having said that, his nomination had some impact on the stock market. I am hopeful that he won’t be as much hawkish as J Powell and does not make many mistakes! Finger crossed…

Dow is rising, Nasdaq is falling, so what to expect? Will the rotation keep continuing or tech stocks may get some ground? I will discuss it later but first let’s see the stock market index:

Indexes	Close FRI 12/31/25	Close FRI 12/31/25	Change in 2025	% Change in 2025
DOW	48,063.99	50,115.67	2,051.68	4.27
S&P 500	6,845.5	6,932.3	86.80	1.27
NASDAQ	23,241.99	23,031.21	-210.78	-0.91
Russel 2000	2,481.91	2,670.34	188.43	7.59
SOX (Semi)	7,083.13	8,048.62	965.49	13.63

Economic news

• ISM Manufacturing PMI (Jan): 52.6 which expanded first time in 12 months. 
• The ADP private payrolls were 22,000 vs. expected 45,000, much less that wall street expectations. 
• The layoffs picked up in January. 
• U.S. real GDP grew by a robust 4.4% in the 3rd quarter of 2025, driven by strong consumer spending, exports, and AI-related investments, marking the fastest pace in two years

Economic Report next week (Feb 9-13, 2026)

•  Tue Feb 10: Retail Sales (Dec)

•  Wed Feb 11: Nonfarm payrolls, unemployment (~4.4% expected)

•  Thu Feb 12: Existing Home Sales (Jan)

•  Fri Feb 13: CPI (Jan) – inflation data

Note: Moat of the data were delayed due to prior gov shutdown

Current Market Situation - Poll and My View 

If you recall, in my January blog I had emphasized on the fact that this year will be very volatile and tricky stock market. Some key fact that I wrote - historically stock market do not do too well in the  “mid term election year”. It happens to be the worst of 4 years presidential cycle. Usually, S&P 500 retuned only around 3-4% since 1928 vs. 10-10.5% return generally for S&P 500. If we see last 60 years starting 1966 then there were nine bear markets or about 65% of time there were bear market in the midterm election years i.e. 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1990, 1998, 2002, 2022. Now the big tech earnings are out. Most of the companies did well but Wall Street is nervous about the Capital Expenditure. 

Poll - My View: I conducted a poll in my WhatsApp group asking about their view of the volatile market situation, whether they see it as an opportunity or tricky or scared etc. Most of the respondent 48% said it’s tricky market and better to be cautiously optimistic, 25% said they see is as opportunity, 24% said they don’t know what to do. I agree with 48% respondent view - tricky and cautiously optimistic. Here are my thoughts:

This is a very volatile and uncertain market, particularly if you are a technology investor. I say this because we saw fantastic results/earnings from some of the great tech companies but still their shares were slammed. No good news is good news, it turned to be bad news. The tech spending was seen as positive earlier, but now those have become negative. Wall Street is saying “Show us the money from AI spending..”. Well, companies are generating huge revenue and profits but Wall Street wants even more.. As economics theory says “human needs are unlimited..”. Such a huge amount of AI spending of $700 billion only by the Mag 7 companies is scaring the Street. Evidently, “one has to invest to get the return on investment”. If they don’t invest, they are out of AI race, indigenous competition and moreover Chinese competition will swallow them. So, companies must invest and must show the results. If they can’t then their share prices will be obliterated. If a company does not show results, it’s better to stay away otherwise we may lose most of our investment. Many of our friends voted saying “they see this pullback as an opportunity”. I do agree with them that such pullbacks provide tremendous opportunity for long-term investors. Having said that, I will be really cautiously optimistic because it’s a very tricky market as I said earlier - despite good earnings stocks are getting hammered. Hence, some caution is warranted. There were many stocks in the AI space got obliterated in last couple of weeks. These stocks are down so much only THIS YEAR, since January 2026.

ServiceNow (NOW): -34%

Intuit (INTU) -33%

Salesforce (CRM):  -28%

Oracle (ORCL): -27%  ==> It has lost 40% in last 3 months

Snowflake (SNOW): -24%

Adobe (ADBE): -24%

Microsoft (MSFT): -17% 

IONQ: -23%

Amazon ( AMZN): -10% 

There were some good stocks including NVDA, AVGO etc. were also hit hard. Many small high flying stocks last year like TEM, HIMS, OPEN, QS and most of the Quantum Computing stocks have been hammered. There are a handful of stocks in memory, and storage like MU, SNKD, Seagate, WDC etc. sky rocketed. Despite their growth opportunity, it looks scary for me to add these shares. Because Wall Street may pull the trigger sometime unexpectedly. It may be good for cautious trading but not sure about longterm investment. Historically, these memory and storage stocks trade like cyclical stocks. So better to be careful. Coming back to the above stock table,  may not see a new all-time high in the foreseeable future. Many of them may never see new all-time high until they prove the street that they can still deliver. Hence, we must be very judicious about the opportunity - be very selective and cautiously optimistic. If we like something then it’s better to keep accumulating very slowly. One can buy very small quantities and keep accumulating.

Will the rotation keep continuing or tech stocks may get some ground? 

Now that earnings season is in full swing but once it’s over, the Super Bowl final will come with Nvidia (NVDA) earnings on FEB 25. It may move the market either way. If it’s fantastic and nice guidance then we may see some of the AI stocks bounce back hard. Otherwise the tech stock may again hit hard and rotation to DOW stock may continue. If that happens, it may be a great opportunity to accumulate slowly for long term. Please note that there are not many catalyst after Nvidia earnings. Also, reminding the readers that last Nvidia earning was fantastic, great earnings and guidance but NVDA stock has lost since last earnings. Wall Street is sometime extremely unpredictable. Hence, it’s better to be very watchful and little bit of hedging the portfolio makes sense. Furthermore, even if some of the cloud/AI software companies have come down, I am not very comfortable putting money in there as yet! Because we don’t know how far down they will go. Having said that, nobody can predict with surety, this is a very strange market. You can see that Information Technology has been the WORST sector in the market so far this year. So, caution is warranted.

Stock Market TOP sectors for 2025 (as of 2/8/26)

Sector	Performance in 2026 in %
Energy (TOP)	19.32
Consumer Staples	14.01
Materials	12.45
Industrials	11.61
Real Estate	4.33
Health Care	1.49
Utilities	12.69
Information Technology (WORST)	-3.03

You can click below link to view complete sectorial performances:

Source: https://www.barchart.com/stocks/sectors/rankings?timeFrame=Ytd

Now let me discuss this month’s pick for my Blog Portfolio.

SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) 

There was a question asked to me on my radio show last week. Whether it’s good to buy Gold now? As we all know, Gold and Silver prices sky rocketed last year and early this year. I think it makes sense to add some position in Gold. Whether to buy physical gold or buy Gold ETF or Gold miners is our own choice. Each of these have their own advantages and limitations. Many folks ask me why the gold prices are going high? Here are some of the reasons that I can visualize and why I like to have some position in Gold.

• Central bank buying: The central banks across the world are expected to buy 800 tonnes of gold on an ongoing diversification from USD reserves amid geopolitical risks and sanctions fears.
• Geopolitical uncertainty: Persistent “fear premium” from global tensions, trade wars, policy shifts. Many countries like China, Russia, some EU nations and many others countries seem to be trying to be less dependent on U.S. Dollar. So, they keep accumulating Gold.
• Inflation hedge: The sticky inflation causes fear and Gold is one of the best inflation hedge. It protects against currency weakness, rising debt, and potential Fed easing.
• Investor/ETF inflows: Strong demand from new buyers viz. institutions are inclined to invest on gold as prices are going up. They have hundreds of billions of dollar. So, when institutions buy it keeps going up, when they sell it it’s hammered.
• Security: Physical gold can’t be seized like a bank account where you have no choice.

Why do I like GLD?

GLD - Gold ETF: I like this because it’s easier, more liquid, lower costs (no storage/insurance), instant trading, tracks spot gold price closely. Gold miners have the similar advantages but those are much more volatile. Furthermore, we are not sure which gold miners will provide best return on investment. One can go and buy Gold miners ETF like GDX which have many Gold miners and get better return on investment (ROI) but more volatile and risky. The physical gold (bars/coins) are better if you want tangible ownership, long-term hold, or privacy but it has higher costs (premiums, storage, security), lower liquidity, harder to sell quickly. Hence, I prefer GLD because it keeps 100% physical gold. It’s not highly volatile like GDX and we can get better ROI when gold prices appreciate. So, we may not get as much return on investment comparing to the gold miners ETF like GDX but it will also be less risky and less volatile. In the current market situation, we do not know when all of a sudden the institutions will start selling. As said, GLD tracks physical gold (allocated bars), it has low expense ratio 0.40%, high liquidity, no storage/insurance hassles and ideal for diversification. Hence, I prefer GLD which has less volatility and good ROI.

Performance

Gold and Silver have been on fire. GLD has solid return. Let’s take a look:

• Year To Date: 14.93%
• 1 Year: 72.9%
• 3 Years: 37.86%
• 5 Years: 165.4%

Strategy

Currently the GLD is trading at $456.5 as of last Friday. The 52-week high for this ETF is $509.70, down about -10% from its high. So, honestly it’s not down too. much. However, in the current volatile market, it may be sensible to have some position on Gold. If it comes down further, it may be worth adding in a phased manner in small quantities. One can also think of buying Silver ETF like SLV. That’s also a good one but Silver is highly volatile. Since the beginning of this year, GLD has done better than SLV. I have a small position in SLV as well but for now I will stick to GLD. Though I do not emphasize too much on analysts target but they say Gold price may go up to about $6,500 this year. But I don’t go with what analysts are saying. But when gold price goes up, GLD may see substantial appreciations.

Risks

Gold prices have gone up too much in last one year or so. The volatility may continue and short-term consolidation is very much possible. In case, the economy gets into deflationary situation or if the central banks starts disposing gold or institutions start selling then it may be hit hard. 

My final thoughts

Gold prices have been on fire for little over a year. Visualizing the current market uncertainty, volatility, sticky inflation, diversification and many other factors as aforesaid, it makes sense to have some position in Gold. GLD offers easy, efficient exposure to gold’s long-term upside. Probably 5-10% of portfolio in metals like Gold and Silver is not a bad idea. I see the opportunity now, so invested little bit but I may keep adding on any pullback.

A few key earnings update

Amazon (AMZN)

• Earnings per share: $1.95 vs. $1.97 estimated
• Revenue: $213.39 billion vs. $211.33 billion estimated.
• Amazon Web Services: $35.58 billion vs. $34.93 billion expected.
• CapEx: The company expects $200 billion this year vs. $146.6 billion expected.
• My view: The company has huge CapEx and guidance was below expectations. All these are making Wall Street nervous. The stock may have challenges going forward.

Alphabet (GOOG)

• Earnings per share: $2.82 vs. $2.63 estimated
• Revenue: $113.83 billion vs. $111.43 billion estimated
• Google Cloud: $17.66 billion vs. $16.18 billion
• CapEx: $175 to $185 billion, nearly double its 2025 spending 
• My view: Google had a very good quarter but didn’t provide guidance. I think Google should bounce back.

Meta Platform (META): Beat on top and bottom line.

• Earnings per share: $8.88 vs. $8.23 estimated
• Revenue: $59.89 billion vs. $58.59 billion, up 24% YOY.

Guidance: Meta said it expects first-quarter sales to come in the range of $53.5 billion to $56.5 billion, ahead of analyst estimates of $51.41 billion.

My view: META had a good quarter and solid guidance. The stock saw nice bounce after the results. We may see this stock gradually going north. 

Tesla (TSLA): Beat on top and bottom line after a few quarters. 

• Earnings per share: 50 cents, adjusted vs. 45 cents, estimated
• Revenue: $24.90 billion vs $24.79 billion. Full-year revenue fell to $94.8 billion from $97.7 billion in 2024.

My View: Tesla is moving past just selling cars into autonomy, robotaxis, energy, and humanoid robots (Optimus). The company will be increasing CapEx to $20B. Because it plans to ramp up Optimus humanoid robot production ramp, Battery and lithium plants, AI compute/infrastructure and energy initiatives. If the TSLA and SpaceX merge then it should be very beneficial for the shareholders as the stock valuation should go up significantly, probably more than double. I do not know if and when it will happen but it's worth accumulating the stock with patience for the long haul. I plan to keep adding this stock on the dip. I plan to add some more on Monday. But any Tesla shareholders should have some hedging because it may reran volatile. 

Apple (AAPL)

EPS: $2.84 vs. $2.67 estimated 

Revenue: $143.76 billion vs. $138.48 billion estimated   

IPhone Revenue :$85.27 billion vs. $78.65 billion estimated

Guidance: $107.8 billion - $110.66 billion vs. $104.84 billion.

My View: Apple had a good results and the guidance was solid. The only little missing piece was miss in Service revenue and Mac sales. However, it was a strong report. Hence, I believe stock should bounce back. It may be worth adding little bit on any pullback.

Microsoft (MSFT) 

• Earnings per share: $4.14 adjusted vs. $3.97 expected
• Revenue: $81.27 billion vs. $80.27 billion expected

Revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew 39%, compared with 40% growth last quarter. The company reported $9.97 billion in other income, compared with other expense of $2.29 billion last year. It showed profits from OpenAI becoming public-benefit corporation. So, nothing to be excited about. The stock got hammered and the company had one of the worst day for its stock losing $357 billion of it market capitalization. 

My View: It was not a great result, particularly EPS was positively impacted by other income. The stock may not do much and money may be moving to other stocks. It may remain on some trading range. 

Lam Research (LRCX)

EPS: $1.27 vs. $1.17 

Revenue: $5.34 billion vs. $5.23 billion expected.

Guidance: $1.35 vs. $1.20 and revenue $5.7 billion vs. $5.33 billion.

My view: The stock is up but company is doing well and has the momentum. So, worth keeping an eye out.

AMD

• EPS: $1.53 vs. $1.32 expected
• Revenue: $10.27 billion vs. $9.67 billion expected
• For the first quarter, AMD said it expects $9.8 billion in revenue, plus or minus $300 million, versus expectations of $9.38 billion.
• My view: AMD had a good quarter and guidance was also good. It deserves better. I hope stock to bounce back.

Palantir (PLTR) 

Beat on top and bottom line today and provided a strong guidance for the full year. 

EPS: Actual $0.25 vs. expected $0.23 (beat by 8-9%)

Revenue: Actual $1.41 billion vs. expected $1.33-1.34 billion (beat by 5-6%, +70% YoY)

FY 2026 revenue guidance: $7.18-7.20 billion vs. expected $6.22-6.3 billion.

Shesa’s Blog Portfolio (As of FEB 8, 2026)

Equity	Suggested Price	Current Price	Suggested Date	% Change	My View  (see disclaimer)
STOCK (All prices are in USD)
AAPL	12.9	278.12	1/25/13	2056%	Buy on Dip
META	47	661.46	11/13/13	1307%	Buy on Dip
MA	77.18	548.74	12/12/13	611%	HOLD
AMZN	15.58	210.32	4/12/14	1250%	Buy on Dip (Cautiously)
SHOP	13.48	112.05	11/25/18	731%	HOLD
SPG	54.59	199.6	5/25/20	266%	HOLD
NVDA	23.9	185.41	2/13/22	676%	Accumulate (Earning - 2/25)
TSLA	290.25	411.11	5/1/22	42%	Accumulate - Long term
RKT	14.24	18.88	7/6/25	33%	Accumulate
SOXL	15.66	61.75	4/6/23	294%	Accumulate
GOOG	123.25	323.10	5/21/23	162%	Buy on Dip
PLTR	20.49	135.90	11/19/23	563%	Buy on Dip
ENVX	10.48	6.38	4/28/24	-39%	HOLD
Z	51.92	54.97	8/11/24	6%	HOLD
LRCX	76.16	231.01	11/11/24	203%	Buy on Dip
RXRX	5.32	3.98	1/2/25	-25%	HOLD
IONQ	37.46	34.99	2/18/25	-7%	Accumulate - Long term
AVGO	203.64	332.92	4/5/25	63%	Buy on Dip
APLD	11.18	34.95	6/15/25	213%	Accumulate
HOOD	94.4	82.82	7/6/25	-12%	HOLD (Trimmed)
CRWV	104.14	89.95	8/3/25	-14%	Accumulate
NBIS	65.47	86.1	9/7/25	32%	Buy on Dip
HIMS	53.95	23.02	10/12/25	-57%	HOLD - I may add
TEM	71.56	54.91	11/9/25	-23%	Accumulate - Long term
AMD	214.16	208.44	1/1/26	-3%	Buy on Dip
GLD	455.46	455.46	2/8/26	0%	NEW ADDITION
MUTUAL FUND
PRMTX	59.45	125.48	12/20/14	111%	HOLD
FSRPX	9.05	18.66	1/15/16	106%	HOLD

Equity Sold since my Last Blog

None

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Disclaimer: This blog is meant to provide my opinion only. The information provided is to the best of my knowledge but may not be accurate. I do NOT provide any professional recommendation to buy/sell any stock, ETF, mutual fund, or any other security(s). As an investor, it’s your hard-earned money and you decide what is best for you. The above are merely my own opinions on what I do. Please contact a professional money manager to buy/sell any security. I do not charge any fees or commission by writing the blog except anything from Google AdSense. I have position(s) on whatever security I put on my blog portfolio and avoid including any security that I do not own or follow. Anyone buying or selling the equities mentioned here must do at their own risk.

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