Dear Reader,
Happy Thursday.
Today is Thursday, January 29th.
I'm grateful to be here with you.
I actually took Ben Franklin's advice to heart this morning — early to bed, early to rise. I was up at 4:30, in the office before 6, digging through earnings as they rolled in. And this week's numbers are telling us an important story.
It's really been a tale of two markets.
On one side, we saw a sharp hit to health insurers — including one of our own recommendations.
UnitedHealth Group dropped nearly 20% this week after the Trump administration proposed keeping Medicare Advantage reimbursement rates essentially flat for 2027 — a roughly 0.09% increase in name only.
That one policy proposal sent shockwaves through the entire sector.
Humana fell more than 20%.
CVS Health dropped around 13%.
Elevance Health slid about 13%.
Centene fell more than 10%.
And UnitedHealth was right in the middle of it.
What's important here is that this move did not come from collapsing fundamentals.
And this is exactly why policy matters more than most investors realize.
UnitedHealth didn't drop because the business broke.
It dropped because a policy decision changed the economics overnight.
We're seeing this everywhere now — healthcare, energy, defense, semiconductors, infrastructure…
Washington isn't just setting rules anymore. It's setting returns.
That's why I created America First Fortunes — not to chase headlines, but to track how U.S. policy decisions can lead to massive changes for specific stocks.
The type of information you won't get from the typical investment media.
When you understand the policy direction early, you don't panic on days like this.
You position.
And right now, I've identified two unique opportunities that a 90-year old law will expose on March 31st.
If you don't know what I'm referring to yet, make sure to read my breaking report right away.
Did you know that UnitedHealth's revenue grew from roughly $100 billion to $113 billion? That's a 13% year-over-year increase. Earnings were distorted by one-time charges, but adjusted operating income would have been around $5.6–$5.7 billion.
In other words, the business itself is still very strong.
The reason the stock was hit so hard is simple: the larger a company's Medicare Advantage exposure, the more pressure it faces under a flat-rate environment.
Now, I want to be very clear.
This is not the time to panic.
And in my view, this is absolutely not the time to sell.
This is a dominant company. A franchise business. One I own personally, and one we originally recommended around $300. The stock is now closer to $280.
Timing matters — and this will take time.
But here's something I've learned over decades in the market:
If you refuse to buy great companies when they look terrible, you will never buy a true bargain.
Policy pressure like this forces efficiency. It accelerates automation. It pushes AI deeper into healthcare delivery. That's good for operators who can execute — and UnitedHealth is one of the best operators on the planet.
There will be political fallout here, especially as benefit structures tighten. That's the uncomfortable side of the ledger.
But now let's flip to the other side.
On the positive end of this earnings season, we saw a standout report from ASML — one of the most strategically important companies in the global economy.
ASML is based in the Netherlands, and it is the only company in the world capable of producing extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines — the technology required to manufacture the most advanced AI chips on Earth.
These machines are enormous — the size of buses — and they use laser-generated tin droplets and space-grade mirrors to etch circuitry at the nanometer scale. We're talking features tens of thousands of times thinner than a human hair.
Every cutting-edge chip — whether it ends up in Nvidia's AI accelerators or advanced data-center hardware — starts its life on ASML equipment.
We recommended ASML back in June around $780 a share. The stock eventually ran to over $1,500 — roughly a double.
What mattered in this earnings report wasn't just the numbers — it was what didn't happen.
Many investors were worried that restrictions on China would slow ASML's growth. But what this quarter showed is that demand outside China is more than strong enough to carry the business.
Gross margins came in around 54%.
That number alone tells you everything you need to know. You don't earn 54% gross margins in heavy industrial equipment unless you have an absolute monopoly on capability.
So here we are.
On one side, policy pressure temporarily is crushing high-quality healthcare franchises.
On the other, strategic technology companies are firing on all cylinders.
This is what real markets look like.
They don't move in straight lines.
They don't reward comfort.
But they do reward patience and discipline.
When great businesses get hit for reasons that don't permanently impair their economics, that's not danger — that's opportunity.
That's how I'm thinking about this environment.
Anyway, that's all I have for today.
Have a wonderful day, and I'll see you tomorrow.
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