CEO Watchlist: Week In Review And Bonus: Our Top 5 Stocks For 2025!

April 6, 2025

TOP NEWS AFFECTING THE STOCK MARKET THIS WEEK:

Stocks Crash After Liberation Day: What's Next? (Source)

Stocks mentioned: $SPY, $QQQ, $NKE, $LULU

Stocks reacted sharply to Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. U.S. markets took one of the largest two-day declines in stock market history. This is the fourth time since 1952 that the S&P500 (SPY), which is the top 500 stocks in the U.S., had a 10%+ decline over 2 days. The other three historical drops were:

1. October 1987 - Black Monday Stock Market Crash
2. November 2008 - Great Financial Crisis Crash
3. March 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic Crash
4. April 2025 - "Liberation Day" Tariff Crash

Even by Friday, the Nasdaq (QQQ) had officially reached a bear market, which is when a market is down by 20% or more from its all time high. The reasoning behind this major drop is that Trump announced much larger tariffs than what Wall Street analysts had expected. Not only were the tariffs larger than expected, but Trump put these tariffs on over 60 countries all at once. Some smaller countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam already called the White House to agree to take their tariffs down to 5% and 0% respectively, which benefited stocks such as Nike (NKE) and LuluLemon (LULU) which manufacture a lot of their products there. Although this may sound like good news, because our economy isn't heavily reliant on countries like Cambodia and Vietnam, it wasn't enough to save the overall stock market. We expect the stock market won't be able to recover to all time highs until major countries such as China, Canada, and Mexico are all able to resolve the tariff war with the White House. The reason for this is because a majority of the U.S. economy relies heavily on these three countries. Economists and critics, including Mark Cuban, warn that Trump's tariffs could raise consumer prices and hurt small businesses here in the U.S. Even worse, many economists believe that if there is not a resolution to these tariffs soon, the U.S. is doomed to face stagflation and a severe economic recession.

BITCOIN: A Beacon Of Hope In A Crashing Market? (Source)

Stocks mentioned: $BTC, $BRK.B

Bitcoin (BTC) showed strong resilience amid a historic stock market sell-off triggered by President Trump’s new tariffs, staying above $82,000 while U.S. equities lost over $5 trillion in value. Analysts believe Bitcoin may be breaking its correlation with tech stocks, potentially setting up for a move toward $100,000 as it behaves more like a safe-haven asset. Some experts argue that the tariff-driven economic instability could actually boost Bitcoin's appeal as a hedge against fiat currency risks and government intervention. Even some politicians, as recently as last week, are increasing their exposure to Bitcoin, as you'll read later in this newsletter.

Although some analyst believe Bitcoin could be a source of safety right now, we still believe Bitcoin is a higher-risk asset that could potentially have a delayed pull back. Personally, we own bitcoin and like it as a higher risk long-term investment, but with the uncertainty in this market and crypto's volaility historically, I think it's too soon to say that Bitcoin is a "safe haven". To be frank, we still believe "cash is king" in a market such as this. This is why someone like a Warren Buffett, who is sitting on over $300 billion in cash right now, could be getting ready to pull the trigger on some stocks in the market. We will be reporting all the stocks Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) buy in our future newsletters, so make sure to keep an eye out every Sunday for our updates in this newsletter regarding his stock portfolio changes.

Our Top 5 Stocks For 2025!

Stocks mentioned: $AMZN, $GOOG, $ASML, $NVDA, $UBER

With stock markets currently in turmoil, investors tend to react quite emotionally, but as a long-term investor, we need to look past the short-term noise. Our focus with these 5 stocks is to find a good balance between risk and reward as well as growth. We want stocks that in the worst case scenario could survive a severe recession, but also in the best case scenario could still grow and make us a lot of money. We have a unique set of multiple filters that we use to research and discover these stocks. After filtering over 2,000 companies, we were able to narrow it down to these 5 stocks:

1. Amazon (AMZN) - leader in cloud/e-commerce/robotics, full self driving exposure with Zoox, Amazon is the 3rd biggest platform for ad spending, owner of devices such as Ring/Kindle/Alexa, exposure to grocery through their ownership of Whole Foods Market, streaming platform such as Twitch and other entertainment through Amazon Prime

2. Google (GOOG) - near monopoly in search, owner of YouTube and Android, leader in cloud/artificial intelligence (DeepMind)/large language models (Gemini), full self driving exposure through Waymo, quantum computing exposure through their new Willow chip, and is the largest platform for ad spending

3. ASML Holdings (ASML) - simply put, ASML is a monopoly in the semiconductor industry. They are the only company that can make the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines. These machines are necessary to help produce chips that we use in everything from kitchen devices like your microwave and refrigerator to more complex things like robotics and your iPhone. Companies such as Nvidia could not produce their chips without these machines. If ASML were to magically disappear off the face of the planet tomorrow, the entire supply chain for chips would be destroyed and would cause the entire stock market to crash. That's how important this stock is to technology.

4. Nvidia (NVDA) - most powerful and widely used chips in the world, and they're trading at a 2017 forward P/E, which is a huge discount in this market. If you haven't heard about them, you have probably been living under a rock! This is the most impressive company of this decade... so far!

5. Uber Technologies (UBER) - Although there is some risk with Tesla's robotaxis, Uber's valuation compared to its growth and profitability makes this a very clear winner for our top 5 list. With other full self driving (FSD) companies starting to compete against Tesla, and willing to partner with Uber, we believe this won't be a "winner takes all". Uber we believe will be an aggregator for FSD vehicles which will help them cut costs and increase profit margins.

The common theme amongst these 5 stocks is that they are all tech leading companies. In our opinion, the future is tech, and these companies are all leaders within their own respective industries. In addition, they are all trading at some of their lowest multiples historically. However over the next few months, these stocks are all exposed to macro-driven volatility. Like we mentioned earlier in this newsletter, we don't believe stocks can hit new all time highs until there is more clarity on tariffs and recession risks. But, for the long-term investor, it's hard to ignore these 5 stocks' leadership and growth potential.

* For our Investment Club members, make sure to log in to your account on www.ceowatchlist.com and see our FULL list of stocks we like for 2025 in our "Stock Portfolio Tracker" section of the website. If you are not an Investment Club member and want access to all of our research and stocks, continue reading below.

We are making major changes to our stock portfolios over the next couple months, and if you are an Investment Club member, you will be able to see these changes live and in real-time each day. Not only will you get access to our stock portfolios and what we are buying this year, but you will also get access to all of the following:

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While prices are going higher everywhere from the eggs you are buying in the grocery store to the bills and taxes you are paying, companies right now are increasing their price of goods and servcies and don't care that your salary is not increasing at the same rate.

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We want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to change their financial future. So if you are tired of losing money in the stock market, and a 9-5 is no longer enough to support your lifestyle, make the investment today and join our "Winner's Circle" so we can help get you on track.*

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INSIDER TRADES FROM THE WEEK:

1. Eli Lilly (LLY) - Ashley Moody, a Senator in Florida, bought between $100,001 to $250,000 of Eli Lilly stock on March 6, 2025, but it was reported to the public on March 22, 2025. (Source)

2. Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) - Dave McCormick, a Senator in Pennsylvania, bought between $260,008 to $600,000 of the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF between February 27 to March 20, 2025, but it was reported most recently to the public on March 29, 2025. (Source)

3. Salesforce (CRM) - Oscar Munoz, a director, bought ~$1,000,000 worth of Salesforce stock on April 3, 2025, but it was reported to the public on April 4, 2025. (Source)