To begin this week’s column, I clicked on the CNBC homepage and saw this headline. “Stock prices fall due to global stock market decline, Nasdaq falls more than 1% led by Micron.” It was exactly what I expected and a fair headline. Looking at price trends on Tuesday, it looks like the major names and industries in the market are really making a fuss. But in the market, context matters, especially during times of spikes in volatility. To gain perspective on what is happening, why it is happening, and how to proceed amid volatility, I like to step back, take a deep breath, and evaluate the long-term charts of the relevant market. As visual investors, we can gain valuable insights by focusing on long-term trends, allowing us to rise above the inevitable short-term noise in this secular AI-driven bull market and stay focused on our long-term goals. Let’s get started. This will be a diagram-heavy column, so I’ll do my best with my limited writing skills to get my points across clearly. First, year-to-date, the S&P 500 is up almost 8% and the Invesco QQQ ETF is up 16%. And then things get very interesting. Taiwan is up 66% in 2026, semiconductors are up 72% and the iShares MSCI Korea ETF (EWY) is up about 100%, including Tuesday’s decline. wonderful. Asian stocks have tumbled recently, leading to the Asia-heavy iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) to its first breakout in 20 years. Weighting of the top 5 EEM countries: Taiwan: 26.41% South Korea: 23.81% China: 18.93% India: 10.83% Brazil: 3.59% Looking at the EEM chart, we can see that there have been very important developments over the past 20 years. The last time emerging markets outperformed the United States was during the global financial crisis. We have been looking at a number of new client portfolios from our previous asset management company, some of which were allocated overseas in the name of ‘diversification’. Well, that “diversification” sleeve has been a poor opportunity cost performer for the past decade and a half. As visual investors, we can predict that this is no longer an opportunity cost, but simply an opportunity. We covered this development several times on February 10th and May 12th, and also talked about it on the May 21st broadcast, so this has been developing for quite some time. The EEM/SPY ratio has turned upwards (bottom panel) as the EEM chart itself (top panel) has broken above the $55-$60 resistance. In a May 12th CNBC Pro article , I wrote about the artificial intelligence chokepoint that’s gotten the most attention these days: memory. In addition to American companies catering to the insatiable demand for memory (including SanDisk and Micron), South Korean giants Samsung and SK Hynix have also seen big gains this year. Memory names in AI buildouts have increased by a whopping several hundred percentage points over the past year. Pullbacks are completely normal. All the market needed was one or two triggers to start taking profits on these historic rallies. One impetus is that new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh is expected to take an early hawkish stance as the Fed scraps forward guidance and prices in the federal funds futures market raise the possibility of a rate hike as early as this fall. I have serious doubts that will happen, but as Treasury yields rise, inflation concerns remain and the US dollar strengthens. On a traditional global macro basis, none of this is favorable for emerging market trade. But I don’t think this is a traditional global macro rotation. I think this is further confirmation that the AI revolution is here. The AI revolution is global and structural, and the rise in both U.S. and international stocks reflects pure gains from the companies driving the revolution. That brings me to the next possible catalyst. AI memory makers Nvidia and Micron will report their financial results after the bell on Wednesday. Micron is up 267% since the beginning of the year. Profit-taking before earnings announcements is completely reasonable. As it turns out, expectations for this quarter are off. Take a look at your finances below and use the color-coded squares to reference the numbers. In the black rectangle of Micron’s report, revenue is expected to be $35.25 billion, compared to $9.3 billion in the year-ago period, representing a growth rate of 279%. In the orange area, net income is expected to increase from $2.1 billion to $23.9 billion, a growth rate of 996%. The green square indicates adjusted EPS for Q3 2025 of $1.91. Analysts on Wednesday expected EPS of $20.28, on a growth rate of 962%. Nvidia wasn’t even seeing that kind of growth rate. Is this growth rate just a 12-month phenomenon? Let’s take a look at our expectations for next year. In the blue rectangle, we’re looking at fiscal year revenues of $37.3 billion (2025), $114.16 billion (2026), and a projected $196.6 billion (2027). The purple rectangle shows that FY25 EPS is $8.29, FY26 is $61.73, and FY27 is $121.77. That’s historic growth. I don’t know what will happen after Micron’s financial results report. Here are some important data points to look out for. HBM4 Ramp: This is a central part of Micron’s bullish theory. Micron has begun full production of high-bandwidth memory 4 for Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, and investors are looking for concrete revenue numbers on HBM4’s contribution to third-quarter results. Micron has been developing HBM4 twice as fast as HBM3. If we can maintain this pace, it will be a big plus. Gross margin: Consensus for the third quarter is 81.6%, which if achieved would be the highest in Micron’s 47-year history. If we can achieve this, it will also be a big plus. Q4 Guidance: If management steers Q4 revenues or gross margins slightly below whisper numbers, this could significantly reduce the widening gap between the stock and the industry group. High-bandwidth memory price stability: The bull case is based on the narrative that capacity will sell out and prices will stabilize. If prices soften as competitors enter the market, this will have a negative impact on stock prices. Leading up to this report, we hold a sizable 4.5% allocation to Micron in our flagship growth portfolio, along with the newly created Round Hill Memory ETF (DRAM) position mentioned in our previous article (which also holds Micron). I added Micron to my portfolio on February 25th with a 3% allocation, increasing to 4.5% on June 11th. Since February, the position has increased by approximately 150%. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, context is important. If Micron misses any of the four points above and the stock price declines, we will calmly evaluate the incoming data and decide how to respond. However, the recent rally in Micron, memory, and overall emerging market trading has been so large that we believe that concerns about Fed rate hikes and expansion of memory trading could create a pullback that could eventually become support, followed by a new all-time high. Use long-term charts to gain perspective, rise above the noise, and continue to participate in building this historic and life-changing AI. -Todd Gordon, Founder, Inside Edge Capital, LLC Not only do we provide active portfolio management and financial planning for individual investors, we also provide regular market updates like the ideas we introduced above. https://www.insideedgecapital.com/cnbc Disclosure: Todd directly owns DRAM, MU, and SK Hynix and Samsung through the DRAM ETF, both personally and for clients of his asset management company, Inside Edge Capital, LLC. The chart shown is Koyfin. 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