President Trump’s renewed tariff threat, this time against the EU because of Greenland ambitions, has had a noticeable effect on global stock markets. After hitting record highs last Wednesday, STOXX Europe 600 dropped 1.3% since early trading.
Likewise, both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures declined over one percent. Asian markets had a more muted response with Nikkei dropping 0.7%, while MSCI effectively remained flat.
Commodity holders received another boon from Trump’s threat, however, as both gold and silver hit record peaks. Over a year, gold is now up 70%, while silver outperformed wildest expectations at 204%.
With volatility once again in play, the focus now shifts to which stocks are best positioned to emerge with double-digit gains by the end of the year.
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) – 37% Potential Upside
In early January, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella experienced the Streisand effect first hand. When he called for people to stop framing AI as “slop”, he triggered an avalanche of memes attempting to rebrand the company into Microslop.
This reaction built on the divided reception of Windows 11, which received backlash from the Recall feature, agentic reframing of the entire OS, and the Copilot integration. Moreover, having to receive ads in recommendations and prompts for Microsoft services detracts from the experience of having a neutral operating system.
With that said, it bears remembering that social media runs on fleeting hyperreality. In reality, Microsoft’s fundamentals remain exceptionally strong, having multiple deep economic moats via an entrenched ecosystem, network effect, high switching costs, brand strength, and a leading position in the AI arms race through Azure cloud and OpenAI partnership.
All of these elements generate recurring, high-margin revenue. In Q3 2025, this amounted to $77.7 billion revenue, which is up 18% year-over-year, and a net income of $27.7 billion, which is up 12%. Noticeably, Azure was the strongest grower, up 40%.
With massive free cash flow, the company can easily outspend competitors on AI infrastructure without sacrificing its profitability. Even consumer demand was not fading away, as Microsoft 365 Consumer cloud’s revenue increased 26%. On January 28th, Microsoft is to produce Q2 FY26 earnings, which is for the calendar Q4 2025.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s analyst data, MSFT’s current price of $449.86 is now well below its bottom price target of $500. The average MSFT stock price target is $629.56, while its ceiling is $730 per share.
In other words, this is a rare optimal entry for both a safe and prospective stock.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) – 24% Potential Upside
Thanks to its 3D V-cache innovation and infinity fabric interconnect, AMD CPUs have been steadily chipping away market dominance from the dormant giant Intel. In November’s market report, Mercury Research noted that AMD exceeded one-third market share in desktop CPUs against Intel for the first time, at 33.6% vs 66.4% respectively.
Although Nvidia still dominates the GPU market at over 90%, AMD may receive some windfall from the “Microslop” animosity. Specifically, some portion of gamers may switch to Linux distros such as Bazzite or Cachy OS. In that scenario, it is likely for them to pick up AMD GPUs as their open-source drivers are built directly into the Linux kernel.
In contrast, Nvidia GPUs are more difficult to integrate as they rely on proprietary drivers, often disrupted by Linux kernel updates. Additionally, Steam’s family of gaming devices is launching in Q1, running SteamOS as another Linux distro developed by Valve. This is quite significant because Steam is the world’s largest gaming distribution platform.
Lastly, AMD fully onboarded the AI train hype at CES 2026 under the theme “AI Everywhere, for Everyone”. While this may ruffle feathers for the slop-allergic crowd, it is worth paying attention to AMD’s positioning as a volume scaler of AI compute rather than a luxury monopolist.
This is why AMD should be viewed as transitioning from its perpetual challenger phase into a more mature compounding winner phase.
At the current price of $229.92, AMD stock is above its bottom outlook of $200 per share. The average AMD price target is $287.69, while its ceiling is $380 per share.
Constellation Energy Corp. (NASDAQ: CEG) – 33% Upside Potential
On top of having Nord Stream pipelines blown up, Germany denuclearized under the “Green” banner. Most recently, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called this phaseout a “serious strategic mistake”, despite this “mistake” being widely recognized as irrational and destructive inside and outside of Germany long ago.
This just goes to show how ideological energy policy collapses under the weight of real-world demands. Constellation Energy’s nuclear-first strategy stands in sharp contrast, operating the largest nuclear fleet in the U.S. and benefiting from the ever-surging AI data center buildup.
In May 2025, President Trump signed four executive orders (EOs) to unleash nuclear energy, directly benefiting CEG by modernizing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), reforming nuclear reactor testing at the Department of Energy (DoE) to accelerate progress, boost supply chains, and deploy advanced nuclear reactor technologies.
Overall, by 2025, the U.S. should add an extra 300 Gigawatts of nuclear capacity according to DoE, which is 3x more than present capacity. The fact that ideologically-bound Germany is now admitting an enormous blunder only underscores the inevitability of nuclearization, as if China had not already demonstrated it.
In addition to AI data centers, CEG is also uniquely positioned to monetize the rising baseload from re-industrialization. In other words, CEG is another prospective and safe stock.
At the current price of $301.06, CEG stock is significantly below its bottom price target of $343.23. The average CEG price target is $409.01, while its ceiling is $481 per share.