{"id":26828,"date":"2026-04-09T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/?p=26828"},"modified":"2026-04-08T14:31:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:31:52","slug":"the-antidote-to-ai-anxiety-is-high-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/the-antidote-to-ai-anxiety-is-high-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"The Antidote to AI Anxiety Is High Quality"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"card card-body bg-light mb-4 mt-4\">\n<p><strong>Managing Editor&rsquo;s Note:\u202f<\/strong>Today, we&rsquo;re hearing from our contributing editor Mike Burnick in his weekly Thursday feature.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mike has over 30 years in the investment and financial services industry &ndash; from operating as a stockbroker, trader, and research analyst, to running a mutual fund as a registered investment advisor and portfolio manager, to being Research Director for the Sovereign Society, specializing in global ETF and options investing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u202fAnd he&rsquo;s been senior analyst at TradeSmith for three years, running <em>Constant Cash Flow, Infinite Income Loop,\u202f<\/em>and <em>Inside TradeSmith<\/em>.\u202f\u202f&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Here&rsquo;s Mike&hellip;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>The Antidote to AI Anxiety Is High Quality<\/h2>\n<p><strong>BY MIKE BURNICK, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, MARKET MINUTE<\/strong<\/p>\n<p>AI anxiety has taken hold of the stock market in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Stocks in one sector after another has been laid low due to fears of overnight AI-obsolescence, including&hellip;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Software<\/li>\n<li>Financial Services<\/li>\n<li>Data Services<\/li>\n<li>Cybersecurity<\/li>\n<li>Transport &amp; Logistics<\/li>\n<li>Legal &amp; Consulting<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The nightmare scenario goes something like this. Artificial intelligence models and their AI-powered agents will instantly disrupt stocks in these industries.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly transforming them from innovative, high-margin businesses, into lumbering dinosaurs headed to the graveyard.<\/p>\n<p>This may be true for some stocks that are no longer on the cutting edge of consistent improvement.<\/p>\n<p>After all, businesses that don&rsquo;t possess a durable competitive advantage typically suffer from the laws of &ldquo;creative destruction.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>But AI is not going to creatively destroy all the stocks in all of these industries overnight either.<\/p>\n<p>And the plunging prices of stocks in these sectors due to the AI-induced panic also creates opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>There is a simple antidote to <em>AI obsolescence<\/em>, as well as market volatility. And it just so happens to be my favorite investment style: Quality!<\/p>\n<h2>Quality Is AI-Proof<\/h2>\n<p>Quality stocks tend to have &ldquo;wide moats&rdquo; defending their &ldquo;castles&rdquo; from competitive threats. And this includes threats from AI disruption.<\/p>\n<p>A moat is simply a durable competitive advantage a business possesses over other potential competitors. Often, this is an advantage of scale. Companies that have dominant market share in a particular industry.<\/p>\n<p>Other types of &ldquo;moats&rdquo; are companies that have a large and loyal customer base. Or a company that provides very unique products or services.<\/p>\n<p>Stocks like this also share superior financial metrics that help you spot their quality from a mile away. And that&rsquo;s where our TradeSmith Business Quality Score (BQS) comes in handy.<\/p>\n<p>BQS is a unique metric TradeSmith created to find high-quality stocks with growing earnings, financial strength, high profit margins, and safety.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, stocks that enjoy durable competitive advantages.<\/p>\n<p>BQS considers the critical traits of stocks proven to outperform the market over the long run, including:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Growth in sales, earnings, cash flow, and high returns on equity and assets&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Profitability compared to both its own history and compared to other stocks<\/li>\n<li>Safety: low debt, minimal risk, and low volatility&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Payout: How profits get reinvested to enrich shareholders and grow the business&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Our BQS ranks every stock from zero (<em>lowest quality<\/em>) to 100 (<em>highest<\/em>). Stocks with a BQS of 80 to 100 are considered high quality.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Using BQS as the key filter, our TradeSmith Screener can help you find quality stocks that are unlikely to get disrupted by AI-anxiety!<\/p>\n<p>Simply log into your TradeSmith Finance account and click on <em>Invest<\/em> from the main menu, then click on <em>Screener<\/em> from the sub menu.<\/p>\n<p>If you are a TradeSmith Platinum member, or subscribe to Trade 360, then you have full access to our Screener.<\/p>\n<h2>Combining Quality and Timing<\/h2>\n<p>I created a screener with a few simple filters that searches for healthy, high-quality stocks that have pulled back recently due to AI-anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>To increase my conviction level that these stocks should rebound soon, I also included several of our Trade Cycles timing filters shown below.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Health Indicator = Green and Yellow zone, which are healthy stocks<\/li>\n<li>Business Quality Score &gt; 80, the top 20% of stocks ranked by quality<\/li>\n<li>Cycle Turn Area, Valley<\/li>\n<li>Cycle Period, Composite Cycle<\/li>\n<li>Cycle Conviction, Very High, High &amp; Medium<\/li>\n<li>Days to Cycle Start, 0 to 60<\/li>\n<li>One Month Change, &lt;0%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Our Trade Cycles filters are designed to uncover stocks that are now &ndash; or soon will be (<em>next 60 days<\/em>) &ndash; in a Valley turn area, with a medium- to very high-conviction level.<\/p>\n<p>Just as nature follows repeating seasonal patterns, so do financial markets. Our Cycles filters help you anticipate potential turning points for stocks, ETFs, or indexes.<\/p>\n<p>You can see at a glance when a stock is at or near a Cycle Peak (<em>high<\/em>) or Valley (<em>low<\/em>), which indicates a change in trend.&nbsp;A stock in a Valley turn area is likely to move higher.<\/p>\n<p>But you don&rsquo;t have to limit yourself to just these filters. Simply click on <em>+ Add Filter<\/em> to add more proprietary TradeSmith indicators.<\/p>\n<p>Plus, you can customize your screen including other fundamental, valuation, market classification and more filters.<\/p>\n<p>When I ran this screener yesterday with the filters above, I got 30 results. That&rsquo;s a good starter list for additional research.<\/p>\n<p>Due to space limitations here, the top 10 results are shown below sorted by BQS, with the highest quality stocks at the top.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"571\" src=\"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115109-1024x571.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-918521\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115109-1024x571.png 1024w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115109-300x167.png 300w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115109-768x428.png 768w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115109-700x390.png 700w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115109-861x480.png 861w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115109-370x205.png 370w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115109.png 1163w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<p>Two companies with business moats make the cut: <a href=\"https:\/\/tradesmith.com\/stockdata\/RYN:NYSE\">Rayonier (RYN)<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/tradesmith.com\/stockdata\/ABNB:NASDAQ\">Airbnb (ABNB).<\/a><\/p>\n<p>RYN is a REIT that manages nearly 3 million acres of prime timberland, an asset-rich business. Could AI obsolescence impact its business?<\/p>\n<p>I doubt it. AI can&rsquo;t plant and harvest trees&hellip; at least not yet.<\/p>\n<p>As for ABNB, it&rsquo;s a technology company, so AI could be a threat.<\/p>\n<p>But its business has a big moat and high castle walls thanks to a user base of 275 million members that made half a billion bookings last year alone.<\/p>\n<p>For my money, these stocks are among many in these results unfairly victimized by AI-anxiety and the stocks are on sale, which spells opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>And here&rsquo;s another way to sort the results to zero in on other stocks that have fallen due to AI-anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>We know all stocks that made the cut for this Screener are quality (<em>top 20% BQS<\/em>), so another way to sort is by 1 Month Change, by clicking on this column to sort by performance.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"545\" src=\"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115220-1024x545.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-918524\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115220-1024x545.png 1024w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115220-300x160.png 300w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115220-768x409.png 768w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115220-700x373.png 700w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115220-901x480.png 901w, https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-08-115220.png 1288w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<p>Here, we see the 10 high-quality stocks that are down the most over the past month, perhaps due to misguided AI-anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>And sure enough, another blue-chip name makes the cut: <a href=\"https:\/\/tradesmith.com\/stockdata\/AXP:NYSE\">American Express (AXP).<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Will Amex get disrupted by AI? Probably not. After all, AXP is in one of the oldest professions&hellip; money lending.<\/p>\n<p>And the company has a wide moat with 141 million loyal customers who see their Amex card as a status symbol.<\/p>\n<p>If anything, AXP can harness AI to improve its business by targeting more credit-worthy customers, leading to fewer losses and higher profit margins.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bottom Line:<\/strong> AI-anxiety has hit plenty of stocks and sectors hard. This includes high quality stocks that have perhaps been unfairly tarnished. The TradeSmith Screener above is a great way to find the winning stocks that are on sale due to overblown AI fears.<\/p>\n<p>Good investing,<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/image.exct.tradesmith.com\/lib\/fe8213727c6200757c\/m\/1\/34a6d15e-eaf1-4c10-bf47-a783782acc4a.png\" alt=\"Signature\" width=\"200\" style=\"max-width:200px;width:100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Mike Burnick<br>\nContributing Editor, <em>Market Minute<\/em><\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI anxiety has taken hold of the stock market in recent weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"0","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"service":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication":[10],"person":[155],"newsletter-type":[],"ticker":[],"class_list":["post-26828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-minute","publication-market-minute","person-mike-burnick"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26837,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26828\/revisions\/26837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26828"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=26828"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=26828"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-type?post=26828"},{"taxonomy":"ticker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ticker?post=26828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}