New York tried this before.

Back when horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing were unlocking the biggest domestic energy boom in a generation, Albany, worried about water tables and quakes, outright banned the shale beneath the Southern Tier. The ban held and production in New York went to zero.

Everywhere else, it didn’t matter. Pennsylvania kept drilling. Texas kept drilling. Oklahoma kept drilling. The industry didn’t slow down, it transitioned to multi-well pads instead of single wells, water recycling instead of waste, smaller footprints doing more work.

New York, for what it’s worth, opted out of the boom and had to watch it happen from the sidelines.

I mention this because Albany just did it again. Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order in July banning new large-scale data centers across the state for up to a year, and more than a dozen other state legislatures have introduced bills aimed at the same target. Some of the loudest opposition, reporting suggests, is not even coming from New Yorkers. It is coming from social media accounts tied to foreign governments with an obvious interest in slowing America’s AI buildout down.

So here is the pattern again. A state says no. The capital doesn’t care. It builds where the door is open, and it builds smarter than it would have if nobody had pushed back at all. The bears keep pointing at bans and backlash as proof the AI Boom is losing steam. I keep pointing at the ledger.

Now the tape is starting to agree with the ledger again. Below, I team up with Louis Navellier to walk you through exactly what just changed, and why later innings just became my favorite time to buy:

When the Tape Lies: What the AI Infrastructure Sell-Off Really Means

Right now, Micron Technology, Inc. (MU) trades 30% below its high. SanDisk Corporation (SNDK) sits more than 50% off its peak. Celestica Inc. (CLS) fell 30% before its recent bounce. Corning Incorporated (GLW) slips below its 200-day moving average for the first time this cycle. As the charts break down, everyone keeps asking the same question: Is the AI Boom finally cracking?

Always check the ledger before you trust the tape. Corning posted core sales up 17%, earnings per share up 30% and Gen AI product sales that nearly double, with orders still accelerating. The four biggest AI spenders on earth – Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) – all raised capital spending guidance this earnings season. None of them cut it.

Morgan Stanley raised its 2027 and 2028 hyperscaler capex forecast by 10%, to $1.2 trillion and $1.4 trillion. OpenAI lifted its projected compute spend through 2030 by 25%, to $750 billion. That is a boom outgrowing its own supply chain, quarter after quarter.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 25% from its highs this summer, and the S&P 500 sits just 2% off its own highs. Compare that to early 2000, when that same 25% drop in semiconductors arrives alongside a 12% to 13% decline in the S&P, evidence of a crash spreading through the entire market. A localized sell-off that stays localized looks nothing like a localized sell-off that turns into contagion. This one stays contained, and that distinction matters more than almost anything else happening in markets right now.

In this episode of Being Exponential, Louis and I run through our favorite sectors for the back half of the year. We do not always agree on the individual names, but we agree completely on the setup: strong businesses, weak charts and a gap between the two that patient investors could exploit. Here is what we cover, sector by sector.

Semiconductors: Louis recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) and NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) because both companies post strong sales and earnings forecasts, even after Nvidia’s recent deal with OpenAI briefly shakes the group. I recommend Corning. Corning is a builder of the optical backbone underneath the AI Boom, and a stock breaking its 200-day moving average the same week it reports numbers like that hands patient investors a mispriced opportunity.

Memory: Micron, Seagate Technology Holdings plc (STX) and SanDisk trade at single-digit forward earnings multiples on top of triple-digit revenue growth, with the current cycle not expected to peak until 2028 or 2029. That gives investors two to three years of runway before this cycle even reaches its top, and the stocks already price in a crash that has not happened. The AI memory shortage, driven by the sheer compute demands of AI labs racing each other, could persist for well more than a year.

AI infrastructure: This is where the tug-of-war shows up most clearly. Celestica, Vertiv Holdings Co (VRT), Quanta Services, Inc. (PWR) and Comfort Systems USA, Inc. (FIX) all report growing order backlogs, in some cases stretching to 2029, and all four still trade well below their highs. Part of the pressure comes from mechanics rather than business results: leveraged ETFs pile into the same names on the way up and unwind just as fast on the way down, and options market makers running mean-reversion programs against their own hedges add fuel to the fire. That combination looks a great deal like 1987, a market shock born of positioning, not profits.

Energy: The refining trade turns on regulation as much as oil prices. California’s decision to restrict diesel made from crude oil forces refiners like HF Sinclair Corporation (DINO) and Phillips 66 (PSX) to import refined fuel from South Korea and India rather than sourcing it domestically, tightening supply and lifting margins for the refiners left standing. On the power side, GE Vernova Inc. (GEV) posts a beat-and-raise quarter: revenue up 22%, orders up 88% and a backlog that expands $13 billion in a single quarter to $176 billion. That combination, rising revenue paired with expanding free cash flow guidance, defines a beat-and-raise quarter that actually matters.

Defense: Elbit Systems Ltd. (ESLT) builds missile defense systems now deployed across the Middle East, and Howmet Aerospace Inc. (HWM) continues to benefit from defense budgets that stay elevated. For diversified exposure, the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA) and its European counterpart spread the bet across the sector rather than concentrating it in one name. One area worth avoiding: pure-play drone stocks. The long-term story around AI-powered drones makes sense on paper, but those stocks sit stuck below their 200-day moving averages and near 52-week lows, with no sign yet of the market rewarding the thesis.

Space: Space stocks carry real risk into August because SpaceX lockup expirations could unleash a fresh wave of insider selling, a wave that already pressures Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (RKLB), which loses its 200-day moving average for the first time since 2024. I remain a long-term believer in Rocket Lab because its acquisition strategy pushes the company toward becoming a vertically integrated space and compute business rather than a rocket launcher alone, but the next three to six months could bring more consolidation before that thesis plays out.

None of this argues for recklessness. The technical damage across AI infrastructure names is real, and a disciplined investor waits for the charts to confirm a bottom rather than guessing at one. But the ledger keeps saying the same thing the tape eventually has to agree with: capital spending accelerates, backlogs grow and earnings estimates keep rising into year-end.

That gap between the tape and the ledger is where the money gets made, the same gap that turned Black Monday into a forgotten line in the history books rather than the end of anything.

Watch the full episode of Being Exponential for the complete sector-by-sector breakdown, including where Louis and I disagree on timing and why that disagreement matters more than either of our individual picks.

The Bottom Line on AI Infrastructure Stocks

AI infrastructure stocks, the picks-and-shovels companies building the compute, power, and cooling behind the entire AI boom, just went through one of the sharpest sell-offs of this bull market.

Charts breaking. Headlines darkening. The usual chorus asking if the boom is finally over.

And in that very same window, the four biggest AI spenders on Earth, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta, reported earnings and did the opposite of pulling back.

Every one of them raised their spending guidance. Combined, they’re now on pace to spend more than $700 billion building this out in 2026 alone.

The chart panicked. The business didn’t.

That gap, between what the ticker says and what’s actually happening inside the businesses, is where fortunes get made. It happened in 1987. It happened in 2000. It’s happening again right now, in the exact megatrend I’ve spent my career studying.

I’m telling you this because there’s one $15 stock that could go through the same thing. It involves Elon Musk, AI, China… 

There will be a headline that spooks you. Similar stocks that drop for reasons that have nothing to do with the business underneath it. A moment where it looks, on the surface, like the story is falling apart.

That moment, if history is any guide, is exactly when the money that matters moves in.

The only question left is whether you’re positioned before that moment or after it. In fact, if you buy just one stock for the rest of the year, I urge you to make it this one. 

Click here to see what you’re missing.

The post Luke Lango and Louis Navellier Rank the Best AI Stocks to Buy Right Now appeared first on InvestorPlace.

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