AI Stocks to Buy Now: Chaikin’s Shock Timing

Every AI presentation now claims to know the AI stocks to buy now. Marc Chaikin’s Demand Shock presentation takes a different route to the answer than most: instead of naming tomorrow’s Nvidia directly, it argues that the answer depends on where the next demand shock lands, and that the location is identifiable from the pattern of the last three. The conclusion is specific and surprising: not chips, not software, but robotics, via the electrical equipment industry. We read the presentation end to end. Our full Demand Shock teardown covers it in detail.

Why the Obvious Answer Is Wrong, Per the Pitch

The pitch’s central claim is that “it has not been one uniform AI trade, but rather a series of different trades… sparked by dramatic shocks hitting different industries almost overnight.” The evidence is the software wipeout: in February 2026, after Anthropic’s Claude Cowork launch, roughly $285 billion of software market value was erased in about 48 hours. Software is as AI as it gets, and “it wasn’t enough to just be in AI… It’s about knowing where the demand shock will hit next and getting into position.”

The four-stage history the pitch builds is the actual answer to “which AI stocks”: stage one was semiconductors and servers (Nvidia, Broadcom, AMD, Super Micro, Dell, Celestica (CLS)); stage two was cooling and energy (Comfort Systems, Modine, Vertiv (VRT), Vistra, Constellation, Bloom Energy); stage three was telecom and memory (Arista, Netgear, Lumen, SanDisk, Seagate, Micron); stage four, per the pitch, is robotics, “moving AI from the digital world to the physical world,” selected from the electrical equipment industry the Power Gauge currently rates bullish.

The Evidence Layer

The moves cited are real and checkable: Broadcom up 876%, Palantir up 2,860%, Powell Industries up as much as 3,427%, Micron’s 827% HBM run, Lumen’s 831% surge in under five months. The macro forces are sourced: Goldman Sachs’ roughly $7.6 trillion AI capex estimate for 2026-2031, the IEA’s data center electricity projection doubling to about 945 TWh by 2030, the “15 New York Cities” of grid load. Even the industry-group claim (“50 percent of a stock’s performance can be attributed to its industry group”) matches widely cited research popularized by Investors Business Daily.

What is the presenter’s own: the Power Gauge’s backtests (“43 of last year’s top 50 stocks. That’s an 86% hit rate”), the 90-day timing claim, and the stage-four robotics thesis itself. The pitch hedges appropriately on the forward claims (“could all potentially double in value or more very quickly”) and repeats “These gains are market examples, and past performance does not guarantee future results” mid-script, which is better discipline than the genre norm.

The Four-Stage Map, In Full

The reason “which AI stocks” is the wrong question, in Chaikin’s telling, is that the AI bull market has never been one trade. The presentation organizes the whole run into four stages: stage one was semiconductors and servers (Nvidia, Broadcom, AMD, Super Micro, Dell, Celestica); stage two hit the industries needed to build more data centers, cooling and energy (Comfort Systems, Modine, Vertiv, Vistra, Constellation, Bloom Energy); stage three was telecommunications and memory (Arista, Netgear, Lumen, SanDisk, Seagate, Micron), plus a “mini demand shock” in optical components (Coherent, Lumentum, AXT); and stage four, the pitch’s forward call, is robotics, “moving AI from the digital world to the physical world in the form of robotics,” located in the electrical equipment industry.

The historical framing is what makes the map feel structural rather than promotional: “for the past 150 years demand shocks on this scale were relatively rare… The market experienced similar demand shocks during the build out of the railroads in the 1870s, the electrification of the country in the 1920s, and the interstate highway system in the 50s.” The named stage winners are real market history, Broadcom up 876%, Palantir up 2,860%, Powell Industries up as much as 3,427%, Micron up 827% on the memory run. What is interpretive is the claim that stage four’s location is already visible and that one rating system catches these in advance. Both are the pitch; the stage history is the evidence.

The One Free Name

The presentation does pay out one free pick: Allient (NASDAQ: ALNT), the precision motion, controls, and power quality company, chosen from the electrical equipment industry group the Power Gauge rates bullish. The pitch describes the thesis: motion, controls, and power quality as “a key bottleneck as AI moves into the next stage of this bull market.” Allient is a real, verifiable company, and the free pick is genuinely free; the paid AI Demand Shock Portfolio, the cluster of names the pitch expects to go parabolic, is membership content.

What You Get

The Power Gauge Report: the model portfolio (“We typically have around 10 recommendations in the model portfolio at any given time”), monthly issues and updates, sell signals, plus the AI Demand Shock Portfolio report, “Five Companies Heading for Infinite Value,” a year of the Power Gauge Rating System, the avoid-list, and a mystery bonus. The $499-per-year anchor is discounted on the order page, with a 30-day full cash refund: “no strings attached.” Details in the presentation. For the service itself, our Power Gauge Report examination covers the value question.

The Honest Read

The honest answer to “which AI stocks to buy now” is the one this pitch actually gives: it depends on where the demand lands next, the industry group does much of the work, and the current candidates are the boring suppliers of the robotics build-out rather than the famous names. That is a more defensible answer than a moonshot ticker. The unverifiable part is the timing and the system’s edge, and the pitch, unusually, volunteers its own modest average gain since inception: 5.1%. The list is the product. The pattern is the argument. The fine print is our department.

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