Happy Friday, investors. Some of you may recognize today’s headline from one of my columns last October: “The White House keeps crowning stock market winners.”

The story this morning hasn’t changed.

Just the sector.

“Buy what the government buys” continues to be an elite investment strategy.

The White House announced over $2 billion in equity stakes and funding across nine quantum computing companies on Thursday.

President Trump’s administration has already captured outsized returns from its four previous industrial bets from 2025, including Intel and Trilogy Metals, and the market has already positioned for the latest round of quantum companies to follow a similar trajectory.

The Thursday news routed $1 billion to IBM to build the country’s first dedicated quantum foundry, while $375 million went to GlobalFoundries and the rest divided up between D-Wave, Rigetti, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, Atom Computing, and Infleqtion.

Rigetti, for one, closed 30% higher on the day, and the entire quantum industry saw a spike in share prices.

The stock moves make sense not in the sense that those are necessarily the best companies at what they do, but by virtue of the government picking those names, investors recognize these stocks are unlikely to go down from here.

Since the government took a stake in Intel last year, for instance, the stock has rallied more than 400%.

The common thread across all these names is an ambition to build a strategic supply chain for the AI age:

As I wrote in October, this approach functions less like industrial policy and more like a sovereign venture-capital fund.

Think about it. If you run a company and the White House effectively sits on your cap table, the implicit message is that you have a backer of last resort and will receive preferential treatment from a funding and regulatory perspective.

It’s no wonder these stocks have skyrocketed.

The investors who have secured triple-digit returns from Intel, Trilogy Metals, Lithium Americas and MP Materials saw this quantum rally coming from around the corner.

🚀 Wall Street is on board with SpaceX. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will serve as the two lead investment banks on the IPO, which will include 23 total banks. The deal should be a cash cow for every firm that touches the deal. (Yahoo Finance)

🚢 US-Iran talks are still ongoing. The latest proposal was close to being finalized, but there is still a dispute over tolls in the Strait of Hormuz and a uranium stockpile, according to reports. (Bloomberg)

📉 Walmart stock tumbled after its cautious earnings outlook. Shares dipped more than 6% after the retailer reporter in-line quarterly results but a softer than expected guidance, pointing to higher gas prices pinching consumers’ wallets. (Yahoo Finance)

Lyft stock is down 32% this year and it’s underperformed its rival, Uber. I sat down with Lyft CEO David Risher to find out why.

We discussed why he thinks investors are mispricing the stock, autonomous vehicles, whether he would entertain an acquisition from Google or Tesla, and more.

Tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

🗓 May 22, 2010: Software developer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 bitcoin for two Papa John's pizzas delivered to his Florida home, widely cited as the first commercial transaction in bitcoin and dubbed Bitcoin Pizza Day.

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