Over the past year, the most worry-free trading strategy on Wall Street might not have been AI or interest rate cuts, but four simple words: follow Trump. Investment accounts on social media, like TheAIInvestor, have summarized it plainly: one of the best-performing strategies in the past year has been the "Trump trade." In more relatable terms, it means: don't just look at earnings reports; see who the White House is praising today.

To simplify further, it follows a clear pattern: first, a stock appears in the portfolio, then it's mentioned publicly, and finally, it shows up on the price chart. Intel, Micron Technology, and Dell Technologies Inc. have recently taken turns surging. One saw a valuation re-rating driven by government equity investment, another was called "great" by the President, and a third was explicitly told to "go buy a Dell, they're great."

The script is simple, but it works every time. Dell Technologies Inc. is the standard template for "presidential product placement," while Micron Technology represents an accelerated version of "buy first, praise later." On February 10, Trump purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of Dell Technologies Inc. stock. Nine days later, standing at a podium in Georgia, he earnestly told the audience: "Go buy a Dell computer, they're great." He later praised the Dell family specifically in a video on the White House YouTube channel, adding that "they put a lot of money in"—implying, of course, that this stock was worth watching. Dell Technologies Inc. surged 38% in after-hours trading, reaching a record high, following an already upward trend.

Of course, Dell Technologies Inc.'s stock rise wasn't solely due to words. Real demand for AI infrastructure exists, as do corporate spending on servers and data centers. Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh maintained an "outperform" rating on Dell Technologies Inc. and raised the price target from $215 to $260, citing expanding AI infrastructure demand.

The Micron Technology storyline has more granular timing. On March 25, Trump purchased between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of Micron Technology stock. The next day, during a call to Fox News' "The Five," his tone turned enthusiastic: "I just met with the head of Micron, one of the hottest companies out there." By May 22, he added that Micron Technology was "great." Four days later, Micron Technology's market cap surpassed $1 trillion for the first time. UBS subsequently raised its price target from $535 to $1,625, an increase of over 200%. The industrial logic behind Micron Technology's rise includes AI server demand for high-bandwidth memory, data center capital expenditure expansion, and improving supply-demand dynamics in the memory sector.

This same script has been followed by Apple and Thermo Fisher.

Intel: Not Just Talk, but Fiscal Support While Dell Technologies Inc. and Micron Technology represent a crossover of personal holdings and public endorsements, Intel is a more advanced version: not only named by the President, but also backed by policy funds directly entering the market. Materials indicate that U.S. government equity investment has driven Intel's stock up approximately 200% this year. On May 18, the White House stated that this government stake, acquired for $8.9 billion, was now worth over $50 billion.

In other words, Intel wasn't simply "praised into rising"; it was lifted into the spotlight by policy, industrial security, and state capital. The significance of the Intel case is that it expands the so-called "Trump trade" from a personal portfolio strategy to a policy-capital market dynamic. Investors now need to watch not only what Trump buys or praises, but also what the government plans to invest in, rescue, or support.

This gives the trading a distinct modern characteristic: reading earnings reports alongside presidential speeches; watching orders alongside Treasury actions; monitoring price charts while scrolling Truth Social.

3,711 Trades: Machine Buying or Market Guru at Work? What truly amplified attention to this matter was the financial disclosure document released by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) on May 14. The filing showed Trump executed 3,711 securities trades in the first quarter of 2026, with a transaction scale between $220 million and $750 million. That's 3,711 trades in one quarter, averaging over 60 trades per trading day.

If one imagines a head of state managing Middle East tensions in the Oval Office while watching stock charts, they might be unfamiliar with the term "direct indexing." Samir Vasavada, co-founder of investment platform Vise, pointed out that the overlap between individual stocks in the disclosure and the Russell 3000 index constituents was about 90%, a classic feature of a "direct indexing" strategy—holding constituent stocks directly instead of an index fund, then using systematic trading for tax-loss harvesting.

The logic is this: when a stock falls, the system automatically sells to lock in a loss, then buys a similar stock in the same sector, creating a realized loss on paper that can be used for tax deductions. The overall portfolio remains largely unchanged, but the number of trades is systematically amplified. March 23 was the second busiest trading day in the disclosure, coinciding with the same-day rebalancing of the S&P 500, 400, 600, and 100 indices, as well as new additions to the FTSE Russell benchmarks. On February 12 and March 18, when the S&P 500 fell more than 1%, the system triggered 155 and 124 sell trades, respectively. The timeline aligns, and the logic holds.

The White House's official explanation follows this line: the President's investments are independently managed by a third-party financial institution using "automated, model-driven portfolio and direct indexing strategies," with no involvement from Trump himself, his family, or his company in investment decisions.

Therefore, the 3,711 trades themselves may not be the issue. The issue lies in the fact that 625 of them were marked as "unsolicited."

625 "Unsolicited" Orders: Too Many Coincidences Stretch Credibility "Unsolicited" means initiated by the client, not recommended by a broker. In other words, these 625 trades were not generated automatically by a system; someone actively placed the orders.

These 625 trades were almost entirely concentrated in March, with the vast majority being buy orders, increasing significantly on the first trading day after U.S. airstrikes on Iran. Compared to other systematic trades, they appeared more ad hoc and random—or rather, more like someone having a specific buying desire for specific assets at specific moments. The key is that many timelines align too perfectly.

On March 11, Trump visited a Thermo Fisher facility in Ohio, calling it a "great company." The same day, he bought between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of Thermo Fisher stock, marked: unsolicited. Also that day, during a speech in Kentucky, he praised Apple CEO Tim Cook. That same day, he bought between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of Apple stock, also marked: unsolicited. Throughout March, he accumulated between $2 million and $7.2 million in Apple stock purchases, five of which were unsolicited. On March 25, he bought Micron Technology stock, marked unsolicited. The next day, he said on a Fox News live broadcast that Micron Technology was "one of the hottest companies out there." On February 10, he bought Dell Technologies Inc. stock. Nine days later, he told the American public to "go buy a Dell computer."

These trades do not fit within the automated logic of a system.

The Market Begins Trading the "Next Endorsement" The market has already started speculating on the next "lottery ticket." Among the holdings disclosed in the OGE's first-quarter filing are companies like ServiceNow, Adobe, and Texas Instruments. Investors are already guessing who might be the next lucky company to receive public praise.

Oracle is a top contender, given its political-business connections through Larry Ellison and its involvement in the Stargate AI infrastructure project. Broadcom also fits the script well, with a valuation exceeding $2 trillion and providing custom chips for U.S. data centers—a key part of the government's tech agenda. Motorola Solutions takes a different route: police radios, dispatch software, and public safety surveillance equipment perfectly align with law enforcement and border security narratives.

On May 26, Trump also posted on Truth Social specifically supporting the prediction market industry, urging the CFTC to maintain "exclusive jurisdiction" over platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket.