Good morning, investors. Today we’re covering, one of the biggest market rallies in years, 20 long-term dividend stocks investors love, the 10 best ETFs, and much more.
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This Week’s Top Stories
NEED TO KNOW
Biggest Stock Rally
The S&P 500 just surged 9.8% in 10 days.
A move in the 99.7th percentile of all 10-day returns since 1950.
Here’s why this is dangerous.
Historically, these kinds of explosive rallies are called “momentum thrusts.”
Since 1950, there have only been about 20 instances where the market jumped this much in such a short period.
And almost all of them happened during bear markets.
In most cases, the market was still 10–20% below its previous all-time high when the signal appeared.
Only two cases occurred near all-time highs:
• 2000 – right before the dot-com crash
• 2026 – the current rally
That doesn’t mean a crash is coming.
But it does show that this kind of move is statistically unusual.
So while hopes of the Iran war ending triggered the rally, historical data suggests this may not be the ideal moment to go all-in.
CHART OF THE WEEK
20 Dividend Kings
We analyzed 66 Dividend Kings.
Companies that increased dividends for 50+ consecutive years.
The results reveal a simple blueprint for identifying the next Dividend King before it becomes obvious.
Three patterns stood out.
Consumer companies dominate the list: About one-third of Dividend Kings sell everyday consumer products with steady demand.
Very oldest dividend streaks actually yield less: 60+ year dividend streaks yield about 2.5%, while 40–59 year streaks yield around 3.3% because investors pay more for the longest track records.
The “safe payout zone”: Roughly 70% keep payout ratios between 30% and 70%, balancing reinvestment and dividends.
How to use this: Look for companies with consistent demand, moderate payout ratios, and decades of dividend growth.
Anthropic IPO
Anthropic may soon IPO at $850B in 2026, generating roughly $30B in revenue.
Samsung sits near $800B after 51 years on the stock market, producing about $230B annually.
The comparison shows just how radically AI companies are being valued today.
Samsung Electronics makes semiconductors, smartphones, and electronics worldwide, generating over $230B in annual revenue.
Anthropic, by contrast, is a software-first AI company built around models like Claude.
Its recent growth is being driven largely by enterprise AI workloads, especially coding tools used by developers.
These generate massive token usage, the core pricing unit behind AI models.
In the AI economy, a few power users can be worth more than millions of casual users.
Burry Buys Paypal
PayPal is now trading at about 8.4x earnings.
And Michael Burry the investor famous for predicting the 2008 financial crisis is suddenly buying software stocks again.
His newest positions suggest he may believe the sector has already hit bottom.
According to recent filings and updates, Burry opened a 3.5% position in PayPal ($PYPL) at $49.38 on April 15.
The company faces slow user growth, stronger competition, and doubts about its strategy.
However, Burry’s strategy often centers on buying strong businesses when sentiment collapses.
And judging by these purchases, he may believe software and fintech pessimism has gone too far.
He also reportedly added Salesforce ($CRM) and MSCI ($MSCI), continuing a broader move into beaten-down software and fintech names.
15 Best ETFs
We analyzed the 15 biggest ETFs and the last three years revealed a surprise.
Gold beat stocks, and bonds barely moved.
Over the past three years, SPDR Gold Shares ETF returned about 33.2% annually, outperforming major equity ETFs.
Stocks still performed well:
• Invesco QQQ Trust: ~26.8%
• Vanguard Growth ETF: ~25.6%
• Vanguard S&P 500 ETF / SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust: ~21%
Tech and growth stocks led the way, largely driven by the AI boom.
But the real laggards were bonds:
• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: ~3.8%
• iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF: ~3.8%
Why? Rising interest rates.
When rates rise, bond prices fall, which weighed on bond ETF returns.