Stephanie Link, Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager at Hightower Advisors, returns to The Master Investor Podcast to offer a constructive, theme-driven, bullish case for US equities. She explains why she has repeatedly “bought the dip” at moments of crisis – from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse and April 2025 ‘Liberation Day’ lows through to the recent March 2026 Iran war sell-off – arguing that investors who sell at such points historically miss out on very large subsequent gains. Her conviction rests on a still-resilient US consumer, a solid labour market, healthy bank balance sheets, and AI-driven capex – albeit with the clear caveat that a war lasting months rather than weeks could see higher energy and input costs eventually squeeze spending.

The core of Link’s optimism is what she calls the AI “food chain”: a massive, multi-year capital-expenditure boom driven by the big tech platforms that ripples out through data centres, grid upgrades and power generation. She notes that the world will likely need to drastically increase the number of data centres in the coming years, requiring huge investment in infrastructure and specialised engineering talent, and she believes this AI build-out alone could add around 2 percentage points to economic growth. This leads her to favour semiconductors (with long-term positions like Broadcom and a current preference for Marvell), industrials and infrastructure names such as Vertiv, as well as mission-critical software and cybersecurity providers that stand to benefit from AI-driven complexity and rising security needs.

Frost also revisits a scorecard of Link’s prior stock picks from July 2025 – including big wins like Vertiv, and more mixed outcomes like Palo Alto Networks and Uber – giving her the chance to reaffirm and refine her views. She remains positive on Palo Alto after a burst of dealmaking and insider buying, has added to ServiceNow after a sharp pullback, and continues to like D.R. Horton as a cheap way to play pent-up US housing demand once mortgage rates move sustainably into the low-5% range. At the index level, she acknowledges that S&P 500 valuations are not cheap but points out that earnings estimates are rising, particularly in her favoured AI-linked sectors, and argues that investors should stay focused on decade-long themes, using volatility to add selectively rather than retreating in the face of short-term macro and geopolitical shocks.

Recorded 27th April 2026

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