This Forgotten Supply Crunch Threatens to Upend AI

By Michael Salvatore, Editor, TradeSmith Daily

In This Digest:

Oil, fertilizer, and now these critical AI commodities are held up in the Persian Gulf
Bitcoin just flashed a buy signal – just mind the bear market
As software and the Mag 7 struggle, these infrastructure stocks sit at all-time highs

America’s allies aren’t coming to the rescue…

President Trump spent the weekend pressing “about seven” countries to send warships to help escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

The response was lukewarm at best.

Britain’s Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, signaled willingness to help, with the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon already deployed. But Germany, Italy, Japan, and Australia have all said no.

Then, Trump posted earlier today on Truth Social that he’s no longer seeking the help, and the U.S. doesn’t need it.

No matter what happens next, the global energy market is in a serious bind with no easy way out.

Iranian forces have effectively shut down the narrow waterway through which about 20% of global oil consumption normally passes.

Now, it’s under constant threat by Iranian drone and missile fire. And if those don’t sink an oil tanker or shipping vessel, the underwater mines will.

So with the war entering its third week, oil from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, and Iran is sitting stranded.

And with no place to store newly pumped oil, production is rapidly in decline. That means higher oil prices. It also means countries aren’t importing the oil they need.

Natural gas could be an even bigger problem. About a fifth of the world's liquefied natural gas (LNG) – nearly all of it from Qatar – flows through the Strait.

Qatar has halted production after Iranian drone strikes hit its facilities. And unlike oil, there’s no pipeline alternative and no way to quickly restart a shuttered LNG plant.

Analysts say a full restart could take weeks.

Fertilizer is another problem. Roughly a third of the world's fertilizer chemicals are now stranded in the Middle East.

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There are other key shortages that aren't making the headlines…

Even before the U.S. and Israeli strike on Iran, there was a supply crunch building in the global commodities market.

These shortages didn’t make headlines the way $100 oil does. But they’re arguably more impactful… because they slow down the multitrillion-dollar AI infrastructure buildout.

Normally, we dedicate these Dailies to bringing you insights from the TradeSmith platform and our team of analysts.

But today, we’re shining the spotlight on an analyst from our sister company InvestorPlace… someone who’s been warning of this for months.

Eric Fry has a remarkable track record of staying one step ahead of the market.

In 2019, he published a book predicting the 2020 bear market.
In 2005, he went on CNBC to argue that a housing bubble was forming – when less than 1% of U.S. households were in foreclosure.
He recommended selling Cisco on Oct. 10, 2000. The stock fell more than 80% over the following two years.

And last July, he told his subscribers to sell AI chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) and buy glass, ceramics, and fiber-optic cable maker Corning (GLW).

Since that call, Corning is up more than 100%, while Nvidia has barely budged.

Eric understood that the biggest roadblock to AI wasn’t computing power, but what he calls the technology’s “Golden Rivets” – the copper, energy capacity, and memory chips AI needs to scale.

Consider copper…

To maintain the pace of AI infrastructure growth, the world needs to mine as much copper in the next 18 years as it mined over the last 10,000 years combined.

And a new copper mine takes seven to 10 years to bring online. You can’t close that gap with money – only with time. And there just isn't enough of it.

Energy is a similar story. Data centers consume about 4% of all U.S. electricity. By 2030, that figure could hit a 22% increase in power grid demand.

And the energy infrastructure in place is already strained, with residential energy prices up as much as 14% since 2023.

But nuclear plants take 10 to 15 years to build. Natural gas plants take three to five. So it’s unclear where that new energy is going to come from.

And then there’s DRAM – the short-term memory chips that AI systems use to process information.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has called the shortage "severe” as prices have more than tripled over the past year. That sent the stocks of Micron Technology (MU), Seagate (STX), and SanDisk (SNDK) up 328%, 340%, and 1,164% over the same time.

The problem facing the AI trade is clear. But what stocks do you buy to profit?

That’s where Eric’s research comes in…

In a presentation he’s airing tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET, Eric is sharing his full forecast on the AI supply crunch and how he recommends playing it.

He’ll also share with all attendees 15 free stock picks across raw materials companies, energy producers, infrastructure plays, and memory chip companies.

If you’re looking for a way to profit from the AI boom that doesn’t involve already-popular stocks like Nvidia and Microsoft (MSFT), I highly recommend Eric’s event.

He’s not only one of the smartest investors I know. He’s also a fantastic educator and explainer. So this is a must-see event if you’re interested in developing a deeper understanding of the ever-shifting AI trade.

Bitcoin is flashing green – here's how to play it…

On Friday, March 13, our Short-Term Health indicator flashed its first Green signal on Bitcoin since January.

It looks at how a stock, ETF, or cryptocurrency typically moves and flags the kind of abnormal movement that signals a trend shift. Green means buy, Yellow means caution, and Red means sell.

That signal is a buy… with a caveat.

We showed you recently that Bitcoin is likely in a bear market based on its four-year halving cycle.

As we said back then…

Bitcoin prices have tended to peak in the last quarter of the year after the halving – a regular, programmed event that cuts the supply of new coins in half. The last one occurred in April 2024.

The year after Bitcoin’s peak, a bear market has always hit. The data shows it clear as day:

Bitcoin’s $1,250 price peak in December 2013 was a year after the November 2012 halving. Then it dropped 85% in 2014.
The $20,000 peak in December 2017 was the year after its July 2016 halving. It fell 84% the next year.
The $69,000 highs in November 2021 came the year after the May 2020 halving. Then Bitcoin crashed 77% in 2022.
Last October, Bitcoin peaked at more than $125,000. And it’s down 45% from that high.

But if you had access to TradeSmith’s tools, you didn’t need to even know what the halving was… much less care what it meant. You could have followed our Short-Term Health indicator instead. It showed Bitcoin was a sell on Oct. 5 before it crashed as much as 49%.

Now, here’s a look at the Short-Term Health chart for Bitcoin going back to 2023. I’ve circled areas of major buy and sell signals from the indicator on the bottom.

When it flashed Red on Oct. 10, 2025, Bitcoin was trading at $122,358. What followed was one of the most punishing declines in recent crypto history, eventually taking the price down to the low $60,000 range – a drop of more than 50% from where the signal fired.

That exit point protected against the bulk of the decline.

Then in January, Short-Term Health flashed Green again. Bitcoin was trading near $89,951. Over the next 11 days, it ran as high as $97,704 – a gain of nearly 9% – before rolling back over.

The signal eventually went Red. Readers who followed both trades captured the bounce and avoided the continued slide that brought Bitcoin back to current levels.

So, Bitcoin is a buy here as long as Short-Term Health stays green.

But treat it like a trade. The January signal lasted just 11 days before reversing. And the backdrop of all of this is the fact that Bitcoin is in a bear market during the worst year of its cycle.

Look at late 2021 and 2022, the last time Bitcoin peaked before a bear market.

Bitcoin went Green on Oct. 1, 2021 at a price of just over $48,000. When it next flashed Red, it was at $60,000.

Then, just like now, another Green signal fired in mid-March 2022 at $41,845 and went Red again on April 8 at $42,403. It barely got off the ground before Bitcoin resumed its bear market and fell another 48%.

If you want to buy Bitcoin here, just don’t overstay your welcome and watch our indicators. Short-Term Health will tell you when it's time to exit – just like it did at $122,000.

These AI infrastructure stocks haven't blinked…

If you weren't following TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan on X this weekend, you missed something…

The broader market has been struggling through the volatility triggered by the Iran war, rising oil prices, and continued AI disruption fears.

But Keith pointed out that three AI infrastructure stocks had barely moved from their all-time highs.

His post flagging GE Vernova (GEV), Vertiv (VRT), and Bloom Energy (BE) shows the full story.

GEV powers data centers. VRT cools them. And BE provides the clean, on-site power generation that Big Tech is racing to lock up under long-term contracts.

These companies collect real revenue from customers who have no alternative.

Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are still committed to spending over a trillion dollars on AI infrastructure in 2026 and 2027.

That capital has to go somewhere physical – and a significant portion of it flows directly to companies like these.

Relative strength in a weak market tells you where the durable money is. And these three are a big tell.

Keith posts insights like this regularly on X – unfiltered, ahead of the news cycle, direct from the CEO of one of the most data-driven investing platforms in the business. If you want to see what he's watching before it shows up anywhere else, follow him at @KeithTradeSmith.

To building wealth beyond measure,

Michael Salvatore signature