Tom Hulick, chief executive officer of Strategy Asset Manager, spoke with Quartz for the latest installment of our “Smart Investing” video series.
Watch the interview above and check out the transcript below. The transcript of this conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
ANDY MILLS (AM): On Monday, Apple revealed Apple Intelligence. Do you think this is gonna move the needle for Apple?
TOM HULICK (TH): It does move the needle for Apple. I think it moves the needle for everybody. There are a lot of partnerships that are gonna take place in the next, you know, probably six months, a year, that will pave the way for additional advancements that Apple has, in particular for this partnership that’s going on with how ChatGPT or Open AI can assist just the normal person, just like how the iPhone has assisted us, ChatGPT is gonna be a new partner for a lot of us.
AM: What does this mean for investors?
TH: Lots of opportunities. We’ve seen opportunities in the chip sector. Obviously Nvidia, we’ve seen opportunities downstream into other areas. Stocks like Intuitive Surgical, and then you go into the energy sector with Constellation Energy Group. But for lots of opportunities for investors on the technology side and then downstream.
AM: Tim Cook said that ChatGPT’s deal with Apple is not gonna be a privacy risk for users. Do you believe him?
TH: I think the devil is in the details with that. I don’t know enough about how the privacy can be protected at this time. There’s a lot of data that can go into that and whether the consumer wants to give up their rights to the information that’s going into these data sources remains to be seen or whether we’re gonna know about it. That’s the other thing.
Read more: Apple’s AI reveal ‘changes the game,’ analyst says
AM: AI usage uses a lot of energy. What companies are gonna benefit from this?
TH: There will be a lot of companies that will benefit from the energy arena. And if you take for example, Constellation Energy Group, that’s a nuclear power company that we’ve been following for years. CEG has been doing very well, especially with alternative energy sources. As you said, a ChatGPT source takes up 10 times as much energy as a regular Google search. That’s where we have to narrow the gap with who is going to be able to power these data centers. And I believe that Constellation Energy Group can benefit from that. Emerson Electric, for example, EMR, is another company that can do quite well in the arena. And then you have to look at who’s going to be possibly participating downstream from that. And we’re still trying to find some of those companies.
AM: Gotcha. There’s been a lot of talk of nuclear energy with the use of AI. You don’t think it’s overblown at all?
TH: No. No, I don’t. I think the world needs to open up their eyes even more now to clean energy. I mean, energy used to be a dirty word, and I believe the statistic is that 82% of the world’s energy is still fossil fuels. And that’s not so bad. My family was in the energy business and I still think that there are lots of opportunities from nuclear, obviously coal, you can go wind, solar, hydrogen, but it’s gonna be a combination of a lot of those sources. And we may have had excessive expectations on the electric vehicle market, but we don’t have the infrastructure to take to take place there. So you look at companies like Constellation Energy Groups, CEG, and then you look at, you know, the possibility of, of what, what these companies are doing in the industrial sector to help with this transmission issue with energy. But energy is a very, very important thing that we should focus on, especially for the next six months, 12 months and beyond.
AM: Gotcha. So you’re a buyer of Constellation?
TH: I’m a buyer of Constellation Energy Group and we have been. We own Constellation Energy Group in our separately managed account portfolio at Strategy Asset Managers. And, and we’ve done quite well with that.
AM: You also mentioned Emerson Electric. Are you a buyer?
TH: We are a buyer of Emerson Electric. We’ve had Emerson Electric, ticker symbol EMR, in our portfolio for several years. It’s definitely benefited our clients. And the reason why is, is because it’s part of this next generation of energy transmission and the clean energy movement that the United States and the world is starting to open up their eyes more to and has been for the last decade. But even more so now. Companies like Emerson Electric and as I said, CEG, Constellation Energy Group will be in in conversation pieces for cleaner energy for everybody and transmission.