The sharp declines in American stock markets have stopped. Powell's dovish speech on Wednesday contributed greatly to this. The stock market was slightly red on Thursday and futures are slightly red on Friday. But it is certain that their declines have slowed down, Friday is a very special day for American stock markets. Because the option expiration date of $4.5 trillion came on Friday, these options will close. There is very high volatility on such days. Also, today is the triple witching day, which has a unique dynamic. In other words, both index options, stock options and futures were closed on Friday. The stock market is even more volatile on such days. But the stock market spent this week relatively calmly, even though we are in the red overall. So what is the news that scares the markets? Recession news is feared, but when we look, there are actually many signs that there is no recession. For example, home sales in America increased significantly in February. It exceeded expectations, there was a 4.2% increase here. In other words, it is not something that can happen in a market where there is a serious recession. Economists were quite surprised. There was a 4.2% increase in February compared to the previous month. 4.26 million houses were sold, the expectation was around 3.95 million. This does not exactly resemble a recession data, to tell the truth.

When we look at employment, things seem to be going well there too. Bloomberg says that unemployment claims in America came in lower than expected. The upward trends on the public side are showing themselves a little bit. But overall the market is not bad. The labor market has maintained its resilience. New unemployment claims increased by only 2000 people compared to last week. There are 223,000 unemployment claims in total. The 4-week average has also increased to 227,000. So things are not so bad. There is a little more deterioration on the public side. As you know, Elon Musk's doge team is laying off a lot of people. Some of them are being canceled in court, etc. So a huge wave of unemployment has not started yet. I think this data will deteriorate a little in the coming weeks. Because they will continue to lay off people, but at least there does not seem to be a big problem in the private sector. Well, these are good news but there is also bad news about the markets.

For example, the Dow Jones transportation index experienced a death cross as of Thursday. The 50-day moving average breaking down the 200-day moving average is not a very good message for the markets. So why is this index important? Because this index is considered an index that shows that business is slowing down in America. If there is less transportation, there is less business. It means that the economy is slowing down. I have a theory to the contrary. At the same time, the fact that investors have such negative sentiment about the market is something that increases my investment enthusiasm.

My basic thought is as follows; I think America, towards Trump's election and immediately after the election, imported excessively because it knew that customs tariffs would come, warehouses were filled with goods. Now they are waiting for the tariffs to come, as you know they will be announced on April 2. Therefore, business activity has slowed down a bit compared to previous months. I read the situation like this; If there are no very negative outcomes in customs tariffs, I think activity will return in the data to be announced on April 2. I mean, I don't see a recession in America right now. But still, you have to be aware of the data. On Thursday, FedEx made an alarming statement. FedEx is also in the carrier business, it said sales are going bad. What could this mean? There could be a slowdown in the economy, people need fewer couriers, there are fewer online sales, you could read that way. Of course, what everyone is talking about these days is, then should we focus on European stocks?

The Financial Times also immediately published an article asking if Europe's Exceptionalism period is starting. What does this mean? This was always said about the American stock market, the exceptionalism period. Because the American stock market had been rising faster than all the stock markets in the world for years. Is it Europe's time now? As you know, European stock markets have been doing better since the beginning of the year. I have some European ETFs in my portfolio anyway. But I think this game will turn around soon. Because yes, Europe is trying to produce more, they are increasing their defense budgets due to this fear of Russia, etc. It is certain that this will be very beneficial for certain companies, especially in the defense sector. But this does not mean that Europe's problems, especially its structural problems, are over. They are still extremely sluggish, they have an elderly population. They are far behind in technology. So this trend may continue for a while, but when we look from now until the end of the year, I predict that the American stock market will still do better. Of course, I can be wrong in my predictions, what I am telling you is not investment advice.

I saw one interesting graph. The productivity graph that shows where the struggle between America and Europe will return to its essence. In other words, they made a comparison between the productivity level of America's non-farm employment and the level in Europe, and American productivity is increasing very rapidly. The reasons for this are the good use of artificial intelligence, the good use of automation, and the different management system of human resources. As long as Europe does not recover upwards in this graph, that is, as long as it does not start using technology more effectively, I will not be a long-term investor in Europe. I am in this money-printing period right now, but eventually everything comes down to efficiency, and it is impossible for an inefficient economy to cope with an efficient economy. I do projects for European companies from time to time. Their perspective on this technology and their use of artificial intelligence are really so problematic that I still do not foresee such a long-term investment in Europe.

Company balance sheets continue to come. Unfortunately, Nike took a beating on Thursday. Because the CEO announced that the company's turnaround plan could take a long time. It is actually a reasonable explanation. As you know, there was a change in the top management at Nike and Elliot Hill, who grew up from within the company, came back to the leadership and says that there is a lot of work to do in the upcoming period, it may take some time. On Thursday, the company actually made a profit above expectations, but despite that, the company's stock fell quite sharply. On Friday, it was 6.12% behind in the early market. What do I think about Nike, it is not easy to have such turnaround stories. Last year, I invested in PayPal for such a turnaround story, as you know, there was a CEO change there. I made such an investment in Intel in 2024, it did not go very well. Now that CEO is gone, a new CEO has come. Things may go a little better. Also, since Trump supports domestic production a lot, this may benefit Intel. But these turnaround games are not very easy games. Because when companies lose their brand value, when managerial quality deteriorates, it takes a long time to repair it. Nike should be evaluated like this, it seems to have a long way to go, to be honest.

On the other hand, Micron brought a good balance sheet. Micron is not in my portfolio, I can say that it is perhaps the only stock that is not in artificial intelligence. When I look at the turnover, it has made 8 billion, the same period last year it was 5.82 billion, there is a serious increase. The profit per share is 1.56 dollars, which means a 42 cent improvement compared to the previous year. The free cash flow has also come to 3.94 billion dollars. It is a very good balance sheet, the stock market also liked this balance sheet of Micron. Micron continues to be one of the winning players of the artificial intelligence period. It is not in my portfolio, there are other alternatives, but it is 100% a good company.

As you know, Nvidia had an important conference. There, their CEO announced good things about the future. One of the topics he emphasized the most was that the new microchips are both much faster and will consume much more energy. This also benefited energy stocks, there was a serious climb in energy stocks on Wednesday. I am also investing in energy. I am trying to invest in almost every field of energy in America right now. Because it is not only artificial intelligence, but also energy needs will increase as America pulls production towards the country. Energy stocks have been a bit rough. They had risen a lot towards the end of last year. They gave back some of those gains at the beginning of this year. But now they are gaining again. Nuclear is important for this business, and other energies are important too, except solar energy. Trump doesn't like him. A related news article focuses on this and explains how energy consumption will increase in Nvidia's new chips.

I honestly don't know why Nvidia stock hasn't made a big rally from here. It has recovered a significant portion of its losses, and is back around $120. Because if you look at the CEO's statements, you can see that Nvidia will keep the market alive with brand new chips for years to come. They are coming up with much faster chips. Apart from that, they are also entering new business areas. For example, autonomous driving, or maybe more importantly, they are entering the robotics field. Right now, I continue to be a long-term investor in Nvidia. But as you know, I have other artificial intelligence stocks in my portfolio.

BYD has been doing very well since the beginning of the year, the exact opposite of Tesla. As you know, Tesla had a great closing last year. Then it gave back a significant portion of its earnings. BYD, on the other hand, has increased by 58% since the beginning of the year. The fact that China is generally doing well also has an effect on this. The fact that BYD's sales and delivery numbers are good also has an effect. BYD has become a very important company. Perhaps they are frankly walking on the path to becoming the leader of automobiles in the world. It also creates competition for Tesla, but Tesla still has the best-selling model in China. Model Y is still the best-selling car in China, but BYD is putting a lot of pressure on European and American companies. They are trying to prevent and stop it with tariffs, but it is still going full speed ahead. I will also look with curiosity, I do not have any investments in BYD.

There is an interesting article in Morning Star asking whether the American stock market has become cheap enough, and they looked at it sector-by-sector according to their own fair value calculations. For example, they say that communication services are currently well below where they should be. Similarly, they think that the technology sector has become cheap. They say there is also a slowdown in consumer cyclical products. In other words, they say there is an opportunity in these areas, and I think so too. I am already a net investor, especially in the technology sector. On the other hand, they say that financial services are a bit expensive and sectors such as fast-moving consumer products have become a bit expensive. In other words, since I haven't analyzed this side much, I don't have a comment. But I think that companies have become quite cheap, especially in the technology and communication sectors, and I believe that a significant portion of these values ​​will return in the coming days as they overcome fears of inflation and recession.

What surprises me is cryptocurrencies. In other words, positive statements about cryptocurrencies are coming one after another. Trump had positive statements again on Thursday. America has created a Bitcoin reserve. This is an asset that an economy, the world's largest economy, sees as a reserve currency. But no matter what they explain, Bitcoin continues to fall or, let's say, it maintains the 84,000 level on average. Altcoins are in worse situations right now. Ethereum is below 2000, an interesting article was published on Medium. Why don't you pay attention, why don't you do the necessary research, there is a big opportunity in crypto right now, he says. I agree too.

For example, Trump's statement came just on Thursday. Trump says, "We want to connect USAID to blockchain." USAID is a large fund that America helps countries abroad. As you know, there were some statements by Elon Musk's Doge about some corruption in this fund, and the money in this fund going to the wrong places. Yes, we should continue to help abroad. This is one of the tools of America's soft power. But this way, these things are completely unregulated, they say let's do this with blockchain. But crypto does not listen, it continues to fall. I am still a long-term investor in crypto, I am a Bitcoiner.

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