How March Madness brackets explain the AI-driven stock market right now

There you have it, folks. The inaugural First Trade stock bracket semi-finals are set.

Second-seeded Apple (60%) was voted as the stock you’d rather own over the next 10 years, beating Tesla (40%) with relative ease. That rounds out a Final Four that also includes Nvidia, Amazon, and Alphabet.

Now for the first semi-final. Which stock would you rather own for the next 10 years? (1) Nvidia vs. (5) Amazon. Cast your vote here.

With the bracket’s next round set, can I be real for a moment? I’m a little surprised, if not disappointed.

I figured there would be upsets galore. I pictured the vaunted Palantir retail army showing up in force and carrying their stock to victory. I had my eye on Tesla as a sneaky 7-seed, ready to ride its robotaxi magic to an upset. After all, hasn’t Apple been deemed an AI laggard?

Nope. This bracket was about as chalk as it gets. The one “upset” — if you can even call it that — was (5) Amazon edging out (4) Microsoft by two percentage points.

My takeaway? When push comes to shove, people still feel most comfortable with the market’s foremost juggernauts. A company like Tesla may have tantalizing upside, but if you’re locking in an investment for the long term, you want a more proven entity.

The results of these bracket votes also serve as a microcosm of the overall stock market right now: ruled by the absolute biggest tech companies. The most valuable ones — aka the winners of our bracket — are either spending huge on AI, getting paid a small fortune for it, or both.

Everything funnels up to them. AI is the new agent of change, and they’re winning the battle over it.

It reminds me of how the actual NCAA basketball tournaments have played out. Across both the men’s and women’s tournaments, the better seeds have dominated. It’s been a disappointment for fans who recall the (not-so-long-ago) days of major upsets, Cinderella runs, and bracket busters.

The NCAA basketball landscape has been reshaped by its own agents of change: (1) paying players, and (2) allowing players to transfer without sitting out a year.

This has created a situation where all of the best players trade up to better teams over time. They join better-established programs that can offer them more money. That point guard on Princeton that had an all-Ivy League season? He’s transferring to Florida, and they’re going to pay him a boatload. (True story from last season.)

In the end, in both the stock market and college basketball, the rich are getting richer over time. The blue-blood teams and blue-chip stocks rule all.

So keep this all in mind the next time you’re picking a bracket. That upset you have your heart set on may seem enticing, but it probably won’t happen.