$LAC rocketed 100% this week on whispers that Trump's team may take an equity stake in the lithium miner.
Combined with the existing Intel CHIPS Act equity component, we're witnessing something unprecedented: the US government as venture capitalist.
Most investors have zero playbook for this.
The US hasn't done government equity deals since... well, basically never at this scale. Your traditional DCF models and sector rotation strategies are useless when Uncle Sam becomes your co-investor overnight.
We need new playbooks for this new regime!
But here's the thing: every government equity deal starts with policy signals months before announcement.
Think about it. These deals require Congressional approval, agency coordination, and political cover. The breadcrumbs are there if you know where you look. White House visitor logs, agency roundtables, "industrial base" language in appropriations bills.
I'm going to show you how I use AI to systematically hunt these signals before they hit the tape.
The idea is this:
map national priorities → identify chokepoint companies → track government signaling patterns → build a front-running watchlist
Look, I'll be honest about the hit rate here.
This is event-driven investing at its most speculative. Most companies on your watchlist won't get deals. Political priorities shift. Deals fall through. You're not going to bat .500 on government equity calls.
But that's exactly why this works as asymmetric risk management.
If you can narrow down to 8-12 high-conviction names and you actually like the fundamentals on 3-4 of them, you're basically holding free call options on stocks you'd want to own anyway.
The downside is capped at normal equity risk (on a stock you like the fundamentals of anyways). The upside is 100%+ overnight moves when Washington picks your horse.
The Prompt
I wrote a 5 page prompt for this week's exercise .... too long to paste here but the PDF of my prompt can be downloaded below (or copy pasted from the ChatGPT interface in the Results section).
Our AI research surfaced 6 high-conviction targets, but three names caught my eye that weren't on my radar: Micron (MU), SkyWater (SKYT), and GlobalFoundries (GFS).
Most investors are chasing LAC after the Reuters leak.
The real alpha is in these under-the-radar semiconductor names with defense contract breadcrumbs nobody's parsing.
Micron Technology (MU): The $6.1B CHIPS award everyone knows about. What they missed: Fox News interviews from August saying Micron is "under consideration" for equity deals. Commerce finalizes contract terms in November. MU is the only US-based advanced memory maker building $125B worth of domestic fabs. An equity kicker makes sense.
SkyWater Technology (SKYT): The sleeper pick. SKYT executives explicitly endorsed equity partnerships in interviews. They're the only purely US-owned foundry making defense chips. Pending $1.8B CHIPS application + frequent DOD contracts. Pentagon wants domestic control of rad-hard chips according to our research.
GlobalFoundries (GFS): UAE-owned but operates critical US fabs. Getting $1.5B CHIPS money for Malta facility. A US equity stake flips foreign control to domestic ownership. December groundbreaking = natural announcement window.
I am personally going to do homework on the fundamentals of these 3 names.
If they turn out to be positive (ie I would own the stock regardless of Trump admin decisions) then it could be quite asymmetric!
