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IBM’s a hardware and hard research company (quantum computing). I think it relies on Intel chips for its server products. I’ll be a little surprised if IBM isn’t acquired this year.

Apple’s a hardware and software developer that OEMs its manufacturing (that started I think after Jobs was brought back), but in a way it’s primarily a service company.

I don’t currently own any AAPL shares, but will in 2026 I think. It’s going to be a big year for the company, lot of stuff coming. At this summer’s WWDC I suspect the focus will be new tools and advanced programmer interface to support any and all AI software platforms on phones and CPUs, turning the company into the anti-AI of the mag 7 stocks.

Tesla (TSLA I also don’t currently own any, but expect to in 2026) is going to go upward (not on a straight line, I call the stock the Maalox roller coaster) very hard. It was flirting with $500 last I checked yesterday, it seems likely to go up a couple or a few hundred in 2026.

The SpaceX IPO may be coming in 2026, but IPOs tend to be a bit spikey in the early months, plus it’s not easy to get picked to buy some at the IPO price, so that’ll be another run roller coaster trade for the coming years.

Micron (MU, I don’t currently own any, but expect to in 2026) may go upward, hard, in 2026, not on a straight line, perhaps by a hundred or a couple.

Oracle’s been getting hammered in media because Larry’s a Trump supporter. I suspect the partisan spin on their next few quarterly results will not work and 2026 will be a good year for them. I don’t have any now, but probably will in 2026. Paramount Skydance launched a hostile bid for WB-Discovery, and the board claimed that shareholders should reject it (because they’ve been assured of golden parachutes by Netflix, no doubt). The Netflix deal won’t work out because of anti-trust, but various lefty unions and other lefty showbiz orgs really don’t know what to do now.

Family Dollar was acquired by Dollar Tree in 2015, and reportedly Dollar General was glad in retrospect that it lost its bid for FD. The COVID fiasco was hard on Dollar Tree, but it’s been successful in its pivot to slightly higher priced items and in March found a buyer for FD. DG has been expanding into areas previously served by FD, including The Boonies. The new DG not all that far from here is a beautiful store, not like those narrow-aisled piled-to-the-ceiling hellholes that DGs always appeared to be to me in the past. This tiny synopsis is offered as an analogy for what I suspect will be the outcome of the WB-Discovery ‘winner’ — the long term outlook seems pretty bleak to me.

I’ve never been a fan of Trump Media stock, not least because of their bitcoin involvement, but more generally because of the no earnings thing. This week’s FR topic about their merger with the fusion company turns it into one of those wild west ride ‘em cowboy kind of speculative stocks, and while I’ve never owned any, I may try some of that for fun, and right after may try some single malt for the first time to drown my resulting troubles.

Ordinarily I’d avoid restaurant stocks, but speculatively, Wendy’s (WEN) has been tanking for a long time, fast food chains have been in flux since COVID, and W’s free cash flow has fluctuated quite a lot the past few years. They’ve still got plenty of presence, with some rumored new locations here in West Mich, and a good menu. A risky guess is, the company will be acquired and get all new upper mgmt this year or next.

Other mag 7 stocks [Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA)] are probably going to run some; the best of this bunch is NVDA and GOOG, imho. I’ve only ever held NVDA, enjoyed it, sold it too early, and it’ll be going into my 2026 rotation I think.