Last night I watched The Godfather again.

You know how it happens. Ninety minutes of scrolling Netflix, nothing looks good, and you end up back at… a classic.

There's a scene where Peter Clemenza's driver has just carried out a hit. Body in the front seat. Dark road. Clemenza, completely unbothered, turns to him and says:

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

Just a man who knows exactly what matters and what doesn't.

I couldn't stop thinking about that scene this week.
Because while hedge funds were staring at the gun — Iran, tariffs, oil surging, the Strait of Hormuz shutting down — retail traders were doing something completely different.

They took the cannoli.

Here’s the story ⇩

SPONSOR BREAK presented by BanyanHill*

Reagan's Tech Prophet Issues Warning
George Gilder handed President Reagan the first microchip that helped create $6.5 trillion in wealth over the last 40 years. Now he's stepping forward with an even bigger prediction about what's being built in the Arizona desert.
 
He believes 3 little-known companies will explode when a bombshell announcement just days from now. Smart investors are already positioning themselves.
 
Click here to see what's coming before the story goes mainstream.

Throughout April, the market had plenty of guns to look at.

1\ The Iran war was escalating.
2\ The Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway that carries roughly 20% of the world's oil — was under pressure.
3\ Oil was surging.
4\ Tariffs were biting.

The kind of month where serious, institutional money managers look at their screens and start making very serious, institutional decisions.

Hedge funds sold - broadly, aggressively, defensively. They trimmed broad-based ETF exposure. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF saw massive outflows. The ProShares UltraPro QQQ followed.

The Mag 7 composite dropped from $65 at the start of the year to $55 in late March and early April. A 15% drop in the most important stocks on Earth.

Everyone was looking at the gun.

SPONSOR BREAK presented by BanyanHill*

Hate It Or Love It — Fortunes Will Be Made From This…
President Trump just signed a highly controversial new law — S.1582.
 
With one stroke of the pen, he’s unleashed the most radical change to America’s money in over 100 years.
 
Investors who understand what’s happening and position themselves now could make as much as 40X their money by 2032.
 
While the rest will be left scrambling in the dust, wondering how they missed it.
 
Go here now for details— before the wealth transfer begins on June 11th. 

 

Retail traders did something different.

While institutions were selling everything, retail pulled back as well... but not from everything.

The exceptions were Nvidia, Tesla, Meta, Microsoft. The Magnificent Seven. The stocks retail investors have never really stopped believing in — through tariffs, through Iran, through every macro headline that sent hedge funds scrambling for the exits.

JPMorgan strategist Arun Jain flagged it in real time. Retail investors were selling into strength across ETFs and broad market exposure.

But Mag 7? They kept buying.

While the professionals debated macro risk, retail picked up the cannoli and walked out.

SPONSOR BREAK presented by OxfordClub*

How Mitt Romney Turned $450K Into Up to $100 Million (Tax-Free)
It wasn't stocks. It wasn't real estate. It was a little-known investment vehicle that turned Mitt Romney's $450,000 into as much as $100 million and Peter Thiel used to turn $2,000 into $5 billion within two decades. Now, thanks to a new executive order, regular Americans can access the same type of investment. Get more details here >>

The Mag 7 composite is now at $66.32. Above where it started the year.
The entire 15% ▼ drawdown — erased.

And hedge funds are buying back in.

Goldman Sachs' Cullen Morgan wrote it plainly this week: hedge funds "have started buying Mag 7 stocks again this month." JPMorgan's own strategists noted that retail buying tends to crowd in institutional buyers — retail investors essentially forced institutions to follow them back into the trade.

Goldman even told clients directly to piggyback on stocks beloved by retail traders.

The most sophisticated money managers on Earth. Following retail. Back into the stocks retail never left.

→ Mag 7 composite: from $55 at the low back to $66.32
→ Mag 7 YTD: down just 1.3% after the full recovery
→ Amazon: up 8% YTD — top Mag 7 performer
→ Mag 7 share of S&P 500: 33.7% — up from 12.5% in 2016
→ Hedge funds: buying back in after following retail out
→ Goldman Sachs to clients: piggyback retail traders

SPONSOR BREAK presented by BehindTheMarkets*

A tiny government task force working out of a strip mall just finished a 20-year mission.

And with almost no media coverage, they confirmed one of the largest U.S. territorial expansions in modern history...

A resource claim worth an estimated $500 trillion.

Thanks to sovereign U.S. law, this isn't just a national asset.

It's an American birthright.

That means every citizen now has the legal right to stake a claim...

But very few even know the opportunity exists.

If you want to see how you can get in line for your portion of this record-breaking windfall...

I've assembled everything you need to see inside a new, time-sensitive briefing:

Get all the details here - while the claim window remains open.

Clemenza's wife just asked him to bring home cannoli.

And he did.

It's normalcy inside chaos. That's the whole story.

Mag 7 was the cannoli around the chaos.

→ Nvidia  NVDA ( ▼ 1.7% ) — the picks and shovels of AI
→ Apple  AAPL ( ▲ 0.45% ) — the device in everyone's pocket
→ Microsoft  MSFT ( ▼ 3.91% ) — the cloud, the office, the AI
→ Alphabet  GOOG ( ▲ 0.07% ) — the internet's landlord
→ Amazon  AMZN ( ▲ 0.08% ) — commerce, cloud, everything
→ Meta  META ( ▼ 2.17% ) — where 3 billion people spend their time
→ Tesla  TSLA ( ▼ 3.61% ) — the EV/AI/robot wildcard

Retail went there because these are certainties dressed up as stocks. Whatever happens in the world, people still use Google, still buy on Amazon, still scroll Instagram, still need Nvidia chips.

Was this email forwarded to you? Don’t miss out on future stories — subscribe using the button below.

Also, help your friends blossom this spring! Share us with them.

Got a market or stock you want us to analyze next?

Just drop your request in the comments here.

P.S. - If you no longer want to receive occasional emails from us and you want to unsubscribe, click here 👉 “Unsubscribe” . Thank you!