Dear reader,
Most investors wait for the government press conference.
I follow the money before the cameras show up.
And the money trail now leads straight to one tiny nickel stock.
Its U.S. platform has already been selected for $135.4 million in disclosed federal grants: $114.8 million tied to a domestic processing facility and another $20.6 million supporting exploration in Minnesota and Michigan.
That is not a prediction. That’s money already disclosed.
The next step is my forecast: I believe Washington could eventually go further and take an equity stake.
It may never happen. But the U.S. has already shown it is willing to put taxpayer capital directly into strategic mineral companies. And this company now controls the only primary nickel mine operating in America.
Meanwhile, Tesla has locked in a six-year supply agreement, and America remains dangerously exposed to foreign nickel supply.
Russia, China, and Indonesia have leverage because the United States allowed its domestic pipeline to wither.
This little company is one of the few credible ways to fight back.
That’s why I bought 10,000 shares before any equity announcement.
I am not promising Washington will buy in. I am saying the grants, the operating mine, the Tesla agreement, and the strategic pressure form a setup I refuse to ignore.
Click here to learn more about the $5 nickel stock I believe Washington could target next.
Yours for peace, prosperity, and liberty, AEIOU,
Dr. Mark Skousen
Macroeconomic Strategist, The Oxford Club
P.S. Washington has already backed this platform with $135.4 million in disclosed grants.
If an equity stake comes next, I believe a stock this small could move violently.
I refuse to wait for the press conference.
Click here to reveal details on what I bought before Washington makes its next move.
Oracle Is the One AI Borrower the Bond Market Won’t Forgive
Credit markets just ran the largest stress test on AI borrowing in memory, and the result was a split verdict. Goldman Sachs counted five separate bond deals among the hyperscaler universe, totaling $67 billion since October 29. Global hyperscalers have now issued $296 billion of bonds this year, well above Goldman’s earlier forecast of $250 billion. The market absorbed it. What it refused to absorb, without demanding more compensation, was Oracle.
Why Wall Street Cares
Microsoft, Meta Platforms, and Oracle issued new bonds in the U.S. since September 30, while Alphabet went to the European market; the total came to $67 billion across both markets. That is not routine corporate finance. Hyperscalers that historically accessed the bond market only intermittently are now issuing tens of billions of dollars annually, often across longer maturities. Portfolio managers who thought of investment-grade tech as low-maintenance paper are repricing that view in real time.
The Bull Case: Own the Quality
“We see an improving risk-reward for HQ hyperscalers and expect more spread volatility for data center bonds and neoclouds given execution and funding risk,” Morgan Stanley strategist Fernanda Lima said in a note Tuesday. Her reasoning is structural: for high-quality hyperscalers, strong balance sheets and earnings cushions provide the capacity to absorb higher borrowing costs, while attractive prospective returns sustain the incentive to invest. The bond market is confirming part of that thesis. Spreads have somewhat tightened on most names since the recent deals were priced. Only Oracle saw spreads widen.
Lima said hyperscaler spreads remained near their widest levels of the year and at levels consistent with A/BBB credit ratings, and described the resulting risk-reward balance as the best it had been all year, even after the improvement following most recent deals. Morgan Stanley expects little AI-company bond issuance activity, if any, for the rest of 2026, which is part of the entry-point argument: the supply that was going to pressure spreads has largely arrived.
The Bear Case: Oracle Is a Warning
Oracle is not some marginal borrower that slipped into the wrong cohort. Oracle has approximately $117 billion of debt in the Bloomberg U.S. high-grade corporate bond index, making it the largest issuer outside the financial sector. And the market has been sending distress signals for months. Over the two years to October 30, 2026, Alphabet’s five-year CDS spread moved from roughly 32 to 92 basis points, Microsoft’s from 18 to 59, and Oracle’s from 38 to 294. No other investment-grade hyperscaler is in the same zip code.
Oracle’s S&P rating is BBB-, the lowest rung of investment grade. Moody’s kept its rating at two notches above junk, with a negative outlook, meaning it is more likely to cut than to raise the rating going forward. The cost of capital is already climbing: bonds Oracle issued in February carried a 6.7% coupon; those same bonds now trade at an 8.3% yield. Meanwhile, CoreWeave has become the poster child for AI debt worries, with its bond yield topping 16% earlier this month, illustrating what the bottom of the quality ladder looks like.
The gap between Oracle’s credit signals and its equity price is not an isolated anomaly. Corporate bond spreads across the investment-grade tech sector have been widening while equity markets have yet to reprice the same risk.
What Investors Are Missing
The Morgan Stanley note draws a clean line between hyperscalers and everyone below them. The more uncomfortable question is whether Oracle belongs on the hyperscaler side of that line at all, or whether the bond market has already reclassified it.
Morgan Stanley’s Lima argues that investment-grade hyperscalers have the balance-sheet and earnings capacity to absorb expensive financing, unlike more leveraged data-center and neocloud firms. The bank sees the risk-reward as unusually attractive, but Oracle’s widening spreads show the trade is not uniform. That is the hidden implication: Morgan Stanley’s recommendation is internally consistent, but it requires investors to do the work of distinguishing Oracle from the rest of the group rather than buying the category.
The same divergence between equity optimism and credit caution runs through the broader hyperscaler group. Amazon and Meta’s bond markets were already signalling cash-flow stress before their earnings confirmed it, making Oracle’s spread widening part of a pattern rather than an isolated warning.
Goldman Sachs notes that the market consensus for 2027 capital spending by Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta has reached $1.04 trillion, and the widening of corporate bond and CDS spreads shows that investors’ worries about AI financing risk are rising. Morgan Stanley projects AI-related capital spending will reach $1.66 trillion in 2027. At that volume, the credit market’s ability to separate winners from stragglers matters as much as aggregate demand.
Stocks to Watch
- Oracle (ORCL): The clearest single data point in an otherwise supportive week for AI credit. Its CDS near 295 basis points, a rating one notch from junk, and $43 billion raised in debt financing in fiscal 2026 alone make it the highest-risk name in the hyperscaler bracket.
- Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta (META): Spreads tightened after their recent deals, validating the Morgan Stanley thesis. Both carry the balance-sheet depth Lima describes as the prerequisite for staying in.
- Alphabet (GOOGL): Its CDS moved from 32 to 92 basis points over two years, elevated but nowhere near Oracle’s trajectory. The company issued in Europe as part of this wave, broadening its investor base.
