NYSE – Tom Hulick on Tech Broadening Beyond Clear AI Winners & Bull Market Outlook (5/26/26)

Joining me now is Tom Hulick. He is the CEO at Strategy Asset Managers. Tom, welcome to the New York Stock Exchange. Good morning and welcome to me. All right. So we came off of a really strong session on Friday. What are you going to be looking forward to today? Well, following the Memorial Day weekend, we take a look at kind of what the headlines are. And one of the most important things is the momentum in earnings. And given earnings are predicted to be between 20 and 25 percent this year, we're very optimistic about the continuation of the bull market that we're in. All right. And we did hear some news out of Iran over the weekend. President Donald Trump saying talks are proceeding nicely. How are you pricing in the conflict? Any type of settlement talks will quiet down the oil markets. And interest rates in oil have been correlated pretty closely. So if you settle this, the war in Iran, we're definitely going to see a quiet period for interest rates, a quiet period for oil, and we think that the momentum in the market will continue. So oil will be coming down. It's a good sign. It's a very, very good sign. All right. And higher oil prices have led to increased inflation figures across both consumer and wholesale metrics. And we understand that you see this is only temporary. When could we see inflation growth begin to cool? Well, inflation has been right around the 3 percent range for a couple of years now. And with oil and also food prices hovering at the all-time high levels, that puts a lot of strain on the consumer. If we can get a pullback in oil prices, that's a natural tax relief on a consumer. Food prices may come down, but I do think that the outlook going forward is going to be much better. And we are in a temporary period for that hyperinflation, the inflation shock that we're seeing right now in energy and somewhat of the food side. We could also talk about the beef prices as well on that with JDS. Yeah. And we've also, I understand during geopolitical uncertainty, markets get very choppy, markets get very volatile. Do you think we're seeing the calming down of the markets with the recent rallies that we've seen, or do you think we're due for more volatility? The markets look forward. Interestingly enough, the volatility happens on an annual basis. You'll see 10 percent corrections every year. When you have a geopolitical event of this magnitude and the market reads through it and it doesn't really factor in the magnitude of what's going on, that's a very positive sign. And that really bodes well for earnings momentum and corporate earnings to continue on in their path in the coming years ahead. So let's hope for a settlement in the war. When investors hear that the conflict may be coming to an end, markets usually, we're seeing them go up. Do you think it's in reaction to oil prices? I do. I think that the traders and also, as we said, the market kind of looks ahead of things. But in our eyes, as an active manager, what we take a look at are kind of the trends. And the trends are that we like energy, we like industrials, we are very favorable in the technology area. As long as we see that and look ahead, we've been out in front of a lot of the trends so far and done quite well. And speaking of trends, you're keeping a close eye on tech and AI. What trends are you seeing when it comes to the broadening of that sector? Well, we've participated with a lot of the Magnificent 10 now, or seven stocks that are there. NVIDIA continues to lead on the chip sector. We're not going to see a slowdown in innovation and in technology, and that's going to benefit all society. As that leads the market into next year or the end of this year and into next year, you'll also see some follow-on sectors that will do well. We really think that the energy sector is important to that because the power generation is important to getting the chips to do what they need to be doing for data centers, for example. All right. And what should investors be mindful of when it comes to the evolution of AI? Well, I was just talking to a friend of mine about that. The one thing that AI can't do is be logical. It has no common sense. And so we've got some time in our jobs as a trader or as a money manager and you as a media personality to survive and continue to work in a partnership with AI. It's doing amazing things for us in data sequencing and centers. We're very optimistic about AI and how we will see the benefits in society going forward. What advice are you giving investors given the current state of the market? Well, one, to stay invested, to not get fooled by some of the volatility that's out there. We've been focusing on some of the stock names that we like ourselves, Eli Lilly, for example, and the explosion and the opportunity in the healthcare sector for what we see. Lilly, for example, bought three vaccine companies this year to boost their earnings potential and potentially be the first trillion-dollar pharmaceutical company out there. Although the price is high, we see the opportunity and that's driven by innovation. I think that we're going to see a cure for cancer. I do think that we'll see neurological disorders like ALS and Alzheimer's backed up and actually cured within the next decade or two. Very optimistic in that area. All right. Tom Hulick, CEO at Strategy Asset Managers, thank you for joining us at the New York Stock Exchange. Thank you, Ashley.