Welcome to the Breakfast Club, your weekly dose of market insights and trading strategies! Join us live every week at 9 AM ET on Traders Reserve Live, where John Hutchinson breaks down the latest market movements, shares actionable trade ideas, and answers your most pressing questions.
Not some of them. All of them. Before a single Nvidia GPU reaches a data center, before a single HBM memory module gets installed, it has to be verified. The equipment that does that testing comes from one company more than any other — and most investors have never heard of it.
Before I get into the numbers, here’s the backdrop — because you need both to understand why this matters right now.
Oil is sitting at $110 a barrel. An 8pm Tuesday deadline from Trump hangs over the Iran conflict. ISM services data dropped Monday morning, and CPI hits Friday. It is, in John’s words, data, deadlines, and deals week.
The March jobs report came in at 178,000 — a surprise to the upside. But averaged across the first three months of the year, we’re running at 66,000 jobs per month. Soft. Not broken. The labor market is absorbing geopolitical drag, not collapsing under it. This is a war blip, not a structural shift — and that actually gives the Fed room to stay focused on inflation rather than rushing to cut rates to protect jobs.
On the Iran deadline: the pattern has been carrot, stick, another carrot. Another extension is possible. But until ships are actually moving through the Strait of Hormuz, oil stays elevated and the market stays volatile. When the deal does come — and it will — don’t expect it during market hours. Trump announces at 7am or after 4pm. When it hits, the next morning is a runaway day. That’s why I’m holding powder dry right now.
The data point I’m most focused on this week is Friday’s CPI — specifically core CPI, which excludes food and energy. Everyone expects headline inflation to be elevated because of fuel costs. That’s priced in. What’s not priced in is whether core stays flat. If it does, the rate cut narrative starts to shift back in a positive direction heading into mid-April.
This is infrastructure-of-the-infrastructure. You’ve been watching the chip makers. TER is the company that makes sure the chips actually work.
18% annualized revenue growth. 20–22% earnings growth. And 68 consecutive quarters of beating earnings estimates — a streak so consistent I probably just jinxed it by saying it out loud.
The stock is currently at $309, consolidating right around the $300 level where it’s been for over a month. It broke out post-earnings in February, pulled back as the Iran conflict weighed on everything, and has been holding $300 as support. I like it anywhere in the $300 range. A bad market day that pushes it toward $280–$290 is an add. One-year target: $395. Bull target: $591.
The one risk worth knowing: Teradyne is customer-concentrated. Management flagged it in their last earnings call — they need to expand their customer base. Watch for any movement on that in the upcoming May earnings report. It’s not a reason to avoid the stock. It’s a reason to pay attention.
JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon released his shareholder letter over the weekend. Two things stood out.
First: AI is not a bubble. Second: AI adoption rates are increasing at the fastest pace any technology has ever been adopted.
This isn’t a tech CEO talking up his sector. This is the CEO of the largest bank in the United States telling his shareholders that artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing how business is done and will be done in the future. I’ve been saying for months that AI is a business transformation, not a consumer one. Jamie Dimon agrees. That kind of institutional validation — from outside the tech world — carries weight.
Where the Portfolio Stands
19 open positions. +10.1% portfolio return. $4,379 total P&L.
The winners — MU, TSEM, CIEN, AMPX, LITE — are working because the thesis is working. The laggards are down because of the macro air pocket, not because anything fundamental has changed. The laggards equal the macro. The winners equal the thesis. The thesis is intact.
Still holding more cash than usual. Still watching oil as the primary variable. But if the dominoes start to fall — an Iran resolution, oil dropping, core CPI holding stable, Q1 earnings coming in strong — Q2 sets up very well. Not a snap-back to highs. A meaningful, sustained recovery from where we are right now.
Watch the close, not just the open. And watch Friday’s CPI number — specifically the core.
AI2 briefing today at 4pm. Next Breakfast Club: Monday, April 13th.
