Good morning, Investor.
Most people woke up this morning and checked their portfolio. They saw red. They panicked. They sold.
That is exactly what Wall Street wants you to do.
Here is what they did not tell you: some of the best-performing stretches in market history started during weeks that looked exactly like this one. Hartford Funds notes that 76% of the market’s best days have occurred during a bear market or in the first two months of a new bull market. The opportunity is not gone. It just moved — from the stocks everyone is watching to the ones nobody is covering.
That's our job. That is why we are here.
Today we are looking at five setups that Wall Street’s research desks are ignoring. Small caps quietly outperforming. A rare earth squeeze that Washington is throwing serious money at. An M&A wave that is creating steady, income-like returns for patient investors. One CEO who just put nearly $1.7 million of his own money into his company’s stock — on the open market. And the energy bottleneck hidden inside the AI story.
Let’s get into it.
1. The Small-Cap Setup Wall Street Keeps Delaying
The story: For years, investors were told small caps were “almost ready to outperform.” In 2026, that moment is actually here.
Earnings growth for small-cap companies is now projected to accelerate faster than large caps, according to Franklin Templeton’s early-2026 outlook. The reasons are structural, not speculative: the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” restored permanent 100% bonus depreciation for eligible property and brought back immediate expensing of domestic R&D, two provisions that can matter a lot more to smaller companies that can redeploy capital quickly.
On top of that, reshoring and domestic manufacturing incentives are creating multi-year tailwinds for small-cap industrials — especially precision manufacturers and engineered component suppliers that build the infrastructure the AI economy runs on. This is where the broadening story gets interesting. The junk-stock rally is fading. Patient, fundamentals-driven investors who own high-quality small caps with real operating leverage are set up better than the crowd chasing whatever is trending on CNBC.
The bottom line: This is the year to be selective, not to chase headlines.
Company: Mayville Engineering Company, Inc. (SYM: MEC)
Small-cap manufacturer leveraged to data-center and critical-power buildouts.
Mayville is currently trading around $17.85. In its March results, the company said fourth-quarter Data Center & Critical Power revenue reached $20.4 million, with 12.7% organic growth, and management guided for $580 million to $620 million of 2026 revenue as that business ramps.
Legacy markets are still soft, so this is not a no-drama story. But it is exactly the kind of underfollowed industrial name that can benefit if small-cap leadership broadens from theory into reality.
2. The Rare Earth Squeeze Nobody Is Talking About
The story: China controls roughly 90% of global rare-earth separation and refining. That fact alone should make every independent investor pay attention.
The U.S. government is. Washington just launched Project Vault, a strategic reserve for critical minerals backed by a $10 billion EXIM loan and roughly $2 billion in private capital. The Pentagon is also directly backing domestic rare-earth capacity, and the White House has made supply-chain independence a national-security issue instead of just a commodities story.
Why does this matter for your portfolio? Because rare-earth demand is still being pushed by EV motors, wind turbines, defense systems, and the broader buildout of electrification and advanced technology. The IEA says rare earths used in magnets — especially neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium — remain among the least geographically diversified materials in the world, which is exactly why supply security is becoming such a big deal.
The companies that mine, process, or supply the rare-earth chain outside China are sitting at the intersection of defense policy, AI infrastructure, and the energy transition.
That is a rare combination.
The bottom line: This is not a mining-speculation story. It is a geopolitics-meets-supply-chain story, backed by federal money. The window to get positioned ahead of mainstream coverage is closing.
Company: MP Materials Corp. (SYM: MP)
Mine-to-magnet rare-earth producer backed by the Pentagon.
MP is currently trading around $53.29. Last summer, MP announced a public-private partnership with the Department of Defense that included a $400 million preferred-stock investment, a 10-year NdPr price floor, and support for a second U.S. magnet manufacturing facility designed to bring total domestic capacity to 10,000 metric tons. Rare-earth prices will stay volatile. But if Washington is serious about building a non-Chinese supply chain, MP is already standing where the money is flowing.
3. The M&A Wave Creating Income for Patient Investors
The story: Merger arbitrage — the strategy of buying the stock of a company being acquired at a discount to the deal price — had its best first three quarters since 2021 last year. And AllianceBernstein’s December 2025 outlook sees the deal environment staying strong well into this year.
Here is why: the current administration has taken a lighter regulatory touch on M&A. Private equity firms are still sitting on enormous stockpiles of dry powder they need to deploy. And interest rates, while still elevated, have room to ease — which makes financing deals more attractive. AB also noted that the number of U.S. deals worth more than $5 billion rose 166% in the third quarter of 2025 versus the same period in 2024, including the ongoing Union Pacific/Norfolk Southern merger — the largest M&A deal in five years.
For independent investors, merger arbitrage has a specific advantage: returns are tied to deal completion, not the broader market. That makes it a compelling complement to a stock-picking portfolio when valuations are stretched and volatility is high.
The bottom line: If you are not at least watching the announced deal pipeline, you are leaving potential income on the table. This is exactly what our Takeover Targets publication exists to help you navigate.
Company: UniFirst Corporation (SYM: UNF)
Pending takeout target offering a live merger-arbitrage spread.
UniFirst is currently trading around $263.54. On March 11, Cintas announced that it plans to acquire UniFirst for $310.00 per share in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at roughly $5.5 billion. That leaves a real spread for patient investors to track. The catch is obvious: merger-arb only works if the deal gets done. But this is exactly the kind of live setup worth keeping on the screen in a market like this.
4. This CEO Just Put $1.7 Million of His Own Money In
The story: Insider buying — when a CEO or director purchases shares on the open market with their own money — is one of the cleanest signals in investing.
They know things you do not.
And when they put up $1.7 million of personal capital, they are saying something worth listening to.
Company: Grocery Outlet Holding Corp. (SYM: GO)
Discount retailer where the CEO just wrote a real check.
According to March Form 4-related reporting, Grocery Outlet CEO Jason J.N. Potter purchased 286,097 shares at $5.90 apiece — a $1.69 million personal investment — while the stock sat near multi-year lows.
Company: Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Inc. (SYM: AMR)
Repeated insider conviction from a director buying in size.
Kenneth S. Courtis has continued to make open-market purchases in March, including 15,000 shares for about $2.73 million on March 10 and 8,000 shares for about $1.53 million on March 12. These are not stock option grants. These are personal checks. That distinction matters.
The bottom line: Insider buying at current levels is a high-signal indicator that undervalued stocks are being recognized by the people who know them best. We track these moves every week. When you see this kind of conviction from management, it deserves a second look.
Company: SoFi Technologies, Inc. (SYM: SOFI)
Another CEO-buy signal after a public short attack.
SoFi is currently trading around $16.70. Barron’s reported that CEO Anthony Noto bought 28,900 shares at roughly $17.32 on March 17, bringing his 2026 open-market purchases to about $1.5 million. Insider buying is never a guarantee. But when a CEO buys into a fresh public short attack, it usually deserves a closer look.
5. The Energy Stock Hidden Inside the AI Story
The story: Everyone talks about Nvidia and the AI chip arms race. But the real bottleneck for the next phase of AI growth is power — specifically, the inability to get new data centers connected to the grid fast enough.
A data center that cannot get power cannot open. Period.
That is why companies offering on-site, behind-the-meter power generation are suddenly some of the most interesting names in the market. A White House AI power-and-permitting assessment cited Wells Fargo’s projection that AI power demand could reach 52 TWh by 2026, up from 8 TWh in 2024. And companies closer to the ground are saying the same thing in plain English: grid interconnection queues are stretching, redundancy matters, and fast time-to-power is becoming the edge.
The energy stocks quietly capturing this demand are not always the household names. They are the mid-cap and small-cap power infrastructure plays that Wall Street’s big-cap desks do not bother with.
The bottom line: The AI story is an energy story in disguise. And the companies building that energy backbone — natural gas compressors, electrical equipment makers, on-site generation providers — are trading at prices that do not yet fully reflect the demand coming their way.
Company: Solaris Energy Infrastructure, Inc. (SYM: SEI)
Behind-the-meter power provider riding AI data-center demand.
SEI is currently trading around $61.00. Solaris disclosed a long-term agreement to supply more than 500 MW of generation equipment to an AI-focused data center customer, and its January investor presentation said it is scaling toward 2.2 GW of capacity, including over 1 GW at two data centers, with roughly 900 MW of open capacity already in advanced discussions.
This is exactly the kind of underfollowed power-infrastructure name that can benefit when AI demand runs headfirst into grid reality.
THE TAKE
Here is the common thread across all five of these stories: Wall Street is focused on the same 200 stocks it always is. The Magnificent 7. The S&P 500 index leaders. The names on CNBC.
The opportunity — the real opportunity — is everywhere else.
That is why we exist. That is why every issue of Behind the Markets is focused on the companies trading below their true value, in the sectors most people have not thought to look at yet.
Stay sharp. Stay independent.
— The Behind the Markets Team
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING NEXT
Wednesday, April 2: U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, February 2026
Wednesday, April 9: GDP (Third Estimate), 4Q 2025, and Personal Income and Outlays / PCE for February 2026
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Written by Andy Fleming