In partnership with
MONDAY CLOSE — FEBRUARY 23, 2026
THE AI DISRUPTION ISN'T COMING. IT'S HERE. AND NO ENTERPRISE TECH STOCK IS SAFE.
Anthropic announced that Claude Code can now modernize COBOL, the ancient programming language that still powers 95% of ATM transactions in America, and IBM's entire mainframe consulting empire — worth billions in annual revenue — is built on being the only ones who can touch it.
One announcement. Worst day since March 2020. Down 26% for February alone.
That's the story today, but it's not the only one.
The indexes sold off hard on tariff chaos, stagflation data is confirmed and sitting in the market like a live grenade, the Landlord (Kevin Warsh, our incoming Fed Chair, the ape who controls the cost of borrowing for every ape in America) has no clean move, and NVDA somehow closed green heading into the biggest earnings print of the year.
| MARKET PULSE | MONDAY CLOSE • FEB 23 |
Gold up over 3% while everything else bled is not a coincidence, it's the smart money doing exactly what you do when stagflation is confirmed and the Fed has no clean answer for it.
THE SAASPOCALYPSE
THE AI DISRUPTION VIRUS FOUND A NEW HOST.
The SaaSpocalypse (the ongoing collapse in Software-as-a-Service valuations, driven by fear that AI is replacing what enterprise software used to charge humans to do) has been running for weeks.
Last Friday it was cybersecurity, after Anthropic launched Claude Code Security, a tool that scans codebases for vulnerabilities the same way CrowdStrike and Okta charge enterprises hundreds of millions a year to do.
Today it jumped to IBM, which has built its entire late-stage identity around being the only company that can manage and modernize COBOL, a language so entrenched it still runs 95% of ATM transactions globally.
If that moat just got drained, the repricing question extends to every legacy enterprise tech company still charging consultant-per-hour rates for things AI can now do in quarters.
| AI DISPLACEMENT CASUALTIES — MON FEB 23 |
Barclays put out a note saying the cybersecurity selloff "seems incongruent" and that Claude Code Security doesn't directly compete with CrowdStrike or Palo Alto Networks' core products.
They might be right in the narrow technical sense.
But the market isn't trading the narrow sense right now, it's trading the question of whether any company that charges humans to do something AI can now do is a safe long-term hold.
The market's answer, again and again, is no.
The one name that didn't get dragged: NVDA closed up roughly 1.7%, which tells you exactly where institutional conviction is sitting two days before the most important earnings print of the year.
We tracked this same displacement logic when the AI virus first spread into financials two weeks ago, and today was the loudest version of that signal yet.
It looks like no tech stock is safe from Anthropic.
MEANWHILE, UNDERGROUND
WHILE AI EATS SOFTWARE, SOMETHING ELSE IS HEATING UP.
Everyone is watching the AI arms race play out in chips and code.
Not enough people are watching what's happening underground, literally, where the commodity that powers every EV battery, every AI data center UPS system, and every grid-scale energy storage unit in the world is being extracted at a fraction of the current cost using a completely new process.
AI and clean energy run on lithium, and the supply chain for it is about to get rewritten.
Which is exactly why we wanted you to see this.
The Lithium Boom is Heating Up
Thanks to growing demand, lithium stock prices grew 2X+ from June 2025 to January 2026. $ALB climbed as high as 227%. $LAC hit 151%. $SQM, 159%.
This $1B unicorn’s patented technology can recover 3X more lithium than traditional methods. That’s earned investment from leaders like General Motors.
Now they’re preparing for commercial production just as experts project 5X demand growth by 2040. They’ve announced what could be one of the US’ largest lithium production facilities and have rights to approximately 150,000 lithium-rich acres across North and South America.
Unlike public stocks, you can buy private EnergyX shares alongside 40,000+ other investors. Invest for $11/share by the 2/26 deadline.
This is a paid advertisement for EnergyX Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.energyx.com. Under Regulation A, a company may change its share price by up to 20% without requalifying the offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
THE INSIDER EDGE
THE AI STORY HAS A MACRO PROBLEM UNDERNEATH IT.
While the market was processing today's body count, last Friday's economic data was confirming something worse.
Q4 GDP printed at 1.4% annualized against a 2.8% consensus, and Core PCE (the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, price growth excluding food and energy) came in at 2.7% year-over-year and 0.4% for the month, well above the 2% target the Landlord is supposed to hit.
That's stagflation: slow growth and persistent inflation running at the same time.
It's also the one environment where the Landlord (Kevin Warsh, our incoming Fed Chair, the ape who sets the price of every dollar borrowed in America) has no clean move.
Cut rates and inflation rips higher, especially with 15% tariffs now flowing through the goods economy. Hike rates and the already-limping 1.4% GDP gets choked out entirely. Hold steady and stagflation just calcifies while everyone waits for the other shoe to drop.
Fed Governor Waller confirmed a March pause this morning, saying his decision rides entirely on labor market data between now and mid-March.
Gold closed up over 3% today knowing exactly what that means. Touch Grass (zoom out, stop staring at the 1-minute chart) on this: gold is up over 95% in the past twelve months, and the smart money has been telling you the whole time.
PREDICTION MARKET CORNER
NVDA BEATS AT 94.5% CHANCE. BUT WHAT HAPPENS AFTER?
Real money on Polymarket has NVDA's earnings beat probability sitting at roughly 94.5%, and the analysts on TV are calling the tariff situation manageable and the IBM selloff overblown.
We trust skin-in-the-game over commentators, but the crowd isn't fully pricing the real risk: a beat with soft guidance, which is the classic "sell the news" trap NVDA has triggered before.
The move most people are missing: Salesforce ($CRM) reports the same night, and with zero software stocks currently above their 200-day moving averages, CRM's reaction Wednesday may matter more for the sector's direction than NVDA's number does.
THE WEEK AHEAD
FOUR DAYS. FOUR LANDMINES.
TUESDAY, FEB 24 — MEDIUM IMPACT
10:00 AM ET — Consumer Confidence: First reading since the SCOTUS tariff ruling. January printed 84.5, the lowest since May 2014. Anything below that confirms tariff anxiety is moving actual consumer behavior.
9:00 PM ET — State of the Union: Watch for tariff escalation language or surprise tax signals that could reprice sectors overnight.
Earnings: HD (consumer spending barometer), BABA, CEG, AMT, KDP, HPQ
WEDNESDAY, FEB 25 — THE WHOLE GAME
After close — NVDA earnings: Consensus is roughly $38B Q4 revenue. Guidance above $43B confirms the AI hardware thesis. A beat with soft guidance reprices the entire AI infrastructure trade overnight.
Same night — Salesforce ($CRM): Zero software stocks above their 200-day MA. CRM either shows the floor or confirms there isn't one.
Also reporting: LOW, TJX, SNOW, SNPS, TTD
THURSDAY, FEB 26 — WALLER'S TRIGGER
8:30 AM ET — Initial Jobless Claims: The exact number Waller said determines his March decision. A spike flips the rate narrative fast. US-Iran nuclear talks also resume in Oman Thursday, a geopolitical wildcard that could move oil either direction.
Earnings: DELL, INTU, ADSK, VST, Block
FRIDAY, FEB 27 — THE CLOSING ARGUMENT
8:30 AM ET — PPI: First read on whether tariffs are actually showing up in producer prices. With 15% tariffs now live globally, this number could look structurally different from anything in the past two years. The week's final verdict on stagflation.
9:45 AM ET: Chicago PMI
THE TRADE
$NVDA — THE ONE NAME THAT DIDN'T GET BURIED TODAY.
While IBM collapsed and the Nazzy (Nasdaq-100 ETF, QQQ) bled out, NVDA closed up roughly 1%.
That Aura (genuine price momentum backed by real institutional conviction) on a day like today is a signal worth respecting.
JPMorgan reiterated overweight this morning, the options market is pricing an 8 to 10% move in either direction post-earnings, and the Blackwell ramp plus AI infrastructure capex from Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are the tailwinds the bulls are pointing to.
Bull case: Guidance above $43B next quarter confirms hardware wins while software dies, which is the dominant trade thesis for 2026.
Bear case: A beat with soft guidance triggers the "sell the news" trap in a market running elevated VIX, active tariff uncertainty, and zero patience for ambiguity.
THE BLUEPRINT (THE STRATEGY)
| Entry Range | $188 – $195 |
| Stop Loss / Puke Point | $175 (thesis breaks below here) |
| Cookiez Target 1 / Price Target 1 | $210 (first realized profit zone) |
| Cookiez Target 2 / Price Target 2 | $235 (if guidance is strong) |
Risk Level: 8/10. This is a binary event carrying the weight of the entire AI infrastructure narrative, and any ambiguity in Wednesday's guidance may get treated as a miss by a market that's already on edge.
If it gaps through the Puke Point at $175, we're Paying Rent (taking the loss, it's the cost of doing business in this market) and moving on. The hardware-vs-software split we wrote about when the SaaSpocalypse started is playing out exactly as written, and NVDA is the clearest long-side expression of that trade right now.
Everything they said AI couldn't do, it just did to IBM. Wednesday it goes to court.
THE BOTTOM LINE
THE MARKET IS ASKING ONE QUESTION ABOUT EVERY STOCK YOU OWN.
Can AI do what this company charges humans to do?
If the answer is yes, or even maybe, the market is not waiting around to find out.
IBM down 13%. OKTA down 9%. CRWD down 8%. Six names on the AI body count before noon, and the Barclays note saying the selloff "seems incongruent" did absolutely nothing to stop the bleeding.
The stagflation trap is confirmed on top of all of it, the Landlord is handcuffed, and gold is telling you where the smart money is hiding while this plays out.
NVDA is the one name sitting green at the center of the chaos, two sessions away from the print that either validates or cracks the entire AI trade.
Stay Locked In (focused, high-conviction, no noise), know your levels, and don't Squatter (hold a dead position out of stubbornness and false hope) into Wednesday night without a plan for both outcomes.
— The Lead Editor, Main Street Betz
DISCLAIMER
We are a bunch of apes who figured out how to use a Bloomberg Terminal and a group chat at the same time. That combination is either genius or a liability, and we honestly aren't sure which one yet.
Nothing here is financial advice. Seriously. Do your own research. Talk to an actual licensed professional before you YOLO your savings into something you read in a newsletter written by an ape in a hoodie.
Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. The market doesn't care about your feelings, your conviction, or your "diamond hands." It will humble you. It humbles us too. That's the game.
We may hold positions in securities mentioned. Trade at your own risk. Eat Cookiez (realized profits) responsibly.
