TGIT: What Tom Sosnoff is Trading and 8 Other Ideas

Mid-year regrets, quantum bets, cloud cash, bank skanks, Sosnoff's picks, pharma's next tricks and much more. First time reading? Join other risk-takers, entrepreneurs, traders, investors, data geeks and alpha types. Sign up for free here.

TGI Thursday! (7/3) The S&P 500 reached record highs this week, erasing its brutal spring face-plant. After plummeting 18.7% through April — half of it in 48 apocalyptic hours following Liberation Day's tariff tantrum — stocks have clawed their way back with the persistence of a telemarketer.

Here's the thing about breakeven: It's as meaningful as a LinkedIn thought leader's insights. Yet investors treat it like some mystical checkpoint, selling precisely when they should double down. These are the same geniuses who thought Zoom was overvalued at $100 because "people will return to offices."

The recovery speed — fastest ever from a 15%+ drop — reveals how our silicon overlords now run the show. While talking heads shrieked about tariff apocalypse, algorithms had already priced in economic collapse. When reality proved merely terrible instead of civilization-ending, relief became rocket fuel.

The perpetual "wall of worry" isn't a bug — it's a feature.

Stay lucky, and have a great Fourth!

Letter to Editor

Policy whiplash turned markets into a pinball machine — tariffs on, tariffs off, repeat until dizzy. Communication services and industrials crushed it at +12%, while energy and healthcare bled out at -2%. Now the smart money pivots for the second half: technology for AI dominance, utilities for data-center power hunger and contrarian energy bets as crude recovers. Andrew Prochnow reveals some quantum computing favorites and discusses the wisdom of taking profits before the inevitable chaos. Read Full Story

IBM (IBM) has been quietly executing the tech world's most unlikely comeback. The company everyone wrote off as a mainframe relic just posted a 70% stock run by doing something radical: Actually making money from enterprise AI. With $13.5 billion in free cash flow and a century of dividends, IBM's transformation from hardware dinosaur to software cash machine deserves serious attention — especially at today's reasonable valuation. Read Full Story

IBM had 293,400 employees as of December 2024, down from 345,000 in 2022.

— Statista

Remember when insurtech was going to eat every legacy insurance carrier's lunch? Well, the survivors are finally growing up. Oscar Health (OSCR), Lemonade (LMND) and Root (ROOT) have shed their unicorn fantasies for actual business models — and the market has noticed. These three digital-first insurers are up between 50% and 160% as investors realize disruption without profits was just expensive performance art. But here's the thing: Only one of these companies has cracked the code for sustainable execution while maintaining meaningful upside. The others are still betting tomorrow's profits against today's premium valuations. Luckbox analyst-at-large Andrew Prochnow breaks down which insurtech deserves your money. Read Full Story

Remember when Disney (DIS) was that stock your grandmother bought you that just sat there doing nothing for a decade? Well, the House of Mouse is up 30% this year, and suddenly analysts are scrambling to justify $150 price targets. And while moviegoers still have difficulty connecting with the company’s new releases, the parks are packed, streaming finally stopped hemorrhaging cash and ESPN+ is positioning for a potential spinoff. Read Full Story

Wells Fargo (WFC) has a lot to celebrate. The stock just reached all-time record highs, and the bank has been released from the Federal Reserve’s seven-year timeout — because apparently billion-dollar crime sprees only warrant a temporary grounding when you're "too big to fail." Eric Salzman dissects the bank's greatest hits: Fake accounts, mortgage fraud and the Luckbox favorite — the "BSwift Piñata.” Yes, they literally called ripping off corporate FX clients a party game. After decades of settlements totaling more than the GDP of some countries, regulators are betting this reformed criminal enterprise won't immediately return to form.
Read Full Story

Legendary options trader Tom Sosnoff dismantles the stock-picking myth with surgical precision. Stocks are binary bets — up or down, win or lose. It’s like playing poker with one card. Options? They're chess while everyone else plays checkers. You can adjust probability, tinker with duration and sculpt return profiles like a risk architect. Stock investors accept whatever the market gives them; options traders engineer outcomes. It's the difference between being a passenger and piloting the plane through turbulence. Watch The Video

This week's Cherry Picks reveals nine active positions in the legendary options trader's portfolio. That alone should be worth the read ... but wait, there's more!

Resident math nerds Mike (Dr. Data) Rechenthin and Nick Battista share some new research on those wildly volatile darlings Tesla (TSLA), Microchip Technology (MCHP) and Marvell Technology (MRVL). Turns out they aren't just chaos engines. They're precision instruments — tracking the S&P with 90%+ correlation but amplifying every move by 2x. Small short positions in these correlation beasts can hedge your SPY exposure without the typical institutional hedging theater.

If that isn't enough, they also toss in two new trade ideas: an Etherium ETF put spread and a crude oil volatility iron condor. Read Full Story

Ozempic's dirty secret: It turns users into deflated balloons, stripping 40% of weight loss from muscle instead of fat. Enter the German toddler who could deadlift seven-pound dumbbells at age four — his myostatin mutation created natural superhuman strength. Now pharma's cracked the code for a swole pill: Combine Ozempic with myostatin inhibitors and suddenly patients lose 85% fat, 15% muscle instead of the reverse. Scholar Rock (SRRK) stock exploded 300% when trial data dropped. Regeneron (REGN), Eli Lilly (LLY) and AstraZeneca (AZN) are writing billion-dollar checks. Here are the reasons behind your next pharma trade.
Read Full Story

Powell vs. Reality:
The Fed's GPS Is Broken  

Jerome Powell's Federal Reserve keeps preaching patience while markets scream for immediate relief. The central bank's "modestly restrictive" stance meets manufacturing data that whispers stagflation and bond traders betting heavily on recession. It's the institutional equivalent of a stubborn GPS refusing to recalculate while traffic piles up ahead. Manufacturing jobs are bleeding out and prices are climbing, yet Powell insists the economy remains in a "pretty good position." Ilya Spivak, tastylive's head of global macro, breaks it down. Read Full Story

More Cowbell

Boston, Denver and other upcoming tastylive events.

CNN's live updates on the fate of Trump's megabill.

Trump's tariff revenue YTD is $121B and counting.

How to turn $174,000 a year into $413 million.

Yes, the research on creatine matches the hype.

Check out the top 10 stocks to watch for July. 

The big, beautiful bill's winners and losers.

ICYMI: tastylive’s best videos of the week. 

Last week’s Luckbox TGIT. 

Share the Luckbox—forward to a friend.
Subscribe for free here.

Luckbox Magazine is a product and service offered by tastylive, Inc. (“tastylive”). Luckbox Magazine content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not, nor is it intended to be, trading or investment advice or a recommendation that any security, futures contract, digital asset, other product, transaction, or investment strategy is suitable for any person. Trading securities, futures products, and digital assets involves risk and may result in a loss greater than the original amount invested. The information provided in Luckbox Magazine may not be appropriate for all individuals, and is provided without respect to any individual’s financial sophistication, financial situation, investing time horizon or risk tolerance. Transaction costs (commissions and other fees) are important factors and should be considered when evaluating any securities, futures, or digital asset transaction or trade. For simplicity, the examples and illustrations in these articles may not include transaction costs. Nothing contained in this magazine constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, promotion or offer by Luckbox Magazine or tastylive, Inc., or any of its subsidiaries, affiliates or assigns. While Luckbox Magazine and tastylive believe that the information contained in Luckbox Magazine is reliable and make efforts to assure its accuracy, the publisher disclaims responsibility for opinions and representation of facts contained therein. Active investing is not easy, so be careful!