Trade Alert: Drones, Venues, And Software Survivors
Bullish options bets on one of last night's Top Names, and on two names from our Market Watchers list.
Drones, Venues, And Software Survivors
One advantage of having several idea sources is that different themes can come to the fore at different times.
Portfolio Armor’s Top Names gave us one of today’s ideas. Our Market Watchers → Chartmill workflow gave us the others.
That matters in a market like this, where leadership keeps rotating through different parts of the AI-adjacent economy: power, photonics, memory, space, defense, drones, data centers, and, selectively, software.
The Drone Tailwind
We’ve been following the drone theme for a while.
We currently have open trades in Ondas (ONDS 0.00%↑), one of which we discussed in a trade alert last December:
Yesterday’s news added another tailwind to the sector, with reports that the Trump administration is in talks to fund select U.S. drone companies as part of a push to strengthen domestic drone production and defense supply chains.
That’s big, because government capital can change how investors value a sector. We saw that with Intel (INTC 0.00%↑): last August, the U.S. government agreed to invest $8.9 billion in Intel common stock, buying 433.3 million shares at $20.47 per share for a 9.9% stake. Intel now trades around $121, so investors have already seen what can happen when Washington turns a strategic-industry thesis into direct capital support.
The drone report is not the same as the Intel deal, but the market logic rhymes. If the administration starts putting capital behind domestic drone manufacturers, the story shifts from “interesting technology” to “policy-backed production ramp.”
Not Just Drones
Today’s Top Names trade comes from a different corner of the market: experiential entertainment and live-venue technology.
We already have a profitable trade on this stock from last February, one that’s deep-in-the-money now. The new trade gives us a fresh upside band farther out, with defined risk and an attractive payoff if the stock keeps moving.
There’s also over 20% short interest here, which can add fuel if the stock continues in the right direction. That’s not the whole thesis, but it’s a useful kicker.
Software Isn’t All Going Away
We’ve been cautious on software for a while because AI is a real threat to many software businesses. Some will get compressed. Some will get bypassed. Some will go bust.
But Snowflake (SNOW 0.00%↑) reminded the market Wednesday night that AI can also create software winners.
That’s the difference between a data-infrastructure platform and a seat-based SaaS app. A seat-based app can be vulnerable if AI agents start doing the work directly; a data platform can benefit because those same agents need clean, governed, permissioned enterprise data to work with.
Snowflake rerated because the company didn’t just talk about AI—it showed it in the numbers: product revenue grew 34% year-over-year, total revenue grew 33%, the company raised full-year product-revenue guidance, and it announced a five-year AWS deal tied to AI infrastructure and workloads.
The lesson is that the market is willing to reward software companies when AI expands the use case, deepens the platform, or pulls more demand through the product.
That’s why today’s software trade is on the list. The name we’re trading is tied to interactive 3D creation—a market where AI can lower production costs, expand the creator base, and increase the amount of content being built, rather than simply replacing the product.
Different themes. Same process: screen the names, check the story, price the structure, and don’t overpay. Then, enter our exit orders right after our trade entries fill, so we can profit automatically if the trades go our way, without having to babysit anything.
Today’s Top Names Trade
Experiential entertainment / live-venue tech theme
