Before You Buy the Dip, Check the Calendar
Seasonality research suggests some AI stocks have historically better buying windows than others…
Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI).
Editor’s Note: Memory and data storage stocks have dominated the AI market for the past few years, achieving such huge gains that many investors wonder whether there’s still money to be made.
TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan is here to answer that question.
But instead of assessing only headlines and earnings estimates, he studies recurring seasonal patterns that have historically helped identify more favorable times to buy and sell individual stocks.
In today’s essay, Keith explains how that research applies to two well-known AI memory companies and why timing may matter just as much as the underlying investment story.
He also expands on this research during his Breakthrough 2026 event this morning. You can click here to watch the replay.
Take it away, Keith…
OpenAI is reportedly in talks to buy up to five exabytes of data storage. Which sounds meaningless, until you translate it into everyday terms.
The top iPhone from Apple Inc. (AAPL) holds a terabyte. That’s enough for about 250 high-definition movies. Multiply that 5 million times over, and you’re getting near what OpenAI is buying. In one order.
And it isn’t the only AI company scooping up storage. An estimated seven out of every 10 memory chips are going to Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), and the other hyperscalers building AI data centers.
That’s because AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT are memory hogs.
Training an AI model like that starts with feeding it a meaningful slice of everything humanity has ever written, photographed, and filmed. All of it has to sit on a hard drive, inside one of those buildings, before the model can start learning.
And the amount of data these models are training on is growing exponentially.
Training GPT-2, one of OpenAI’s earliest language models, took about as much text as you’d find on 2,800 shelves of library books. Two years later, GPT-3 needed the equivalent of 30,000 shelves. By 2024, Llama 3 from Meta Platforms Inc. (META) trained on the equivalent of 1 million shelves of books.
This surge in demand sent shares of memory and storage companies like Western Digital Corp. (WDC) and Micron Technology Inc. (MU) soaring. Western Digital is up 800% over the past year. Micron has done nearly as well — up more than 700% — after revealing it had sold out its most important product, high-bandwidth memory for AI chips, all the way through 2026.
But this month, investors started taking profits. Micron has fallen roughly 20% from the record high it hit in June. And Western Digital is down 26%.
This has triggered a lot of questions. Is the AI bull market still intact? Was that the top? Or is this a healthy pause and nothing more?
But guessing without some kind of edge — a plan, a pattern, something more solid than a hunch — is how most people lose money chasing a good story.
One way to find that edge is to stop trying to answer those questions at all, and to look at something else entirely — seasonality.
Every Stock Has Its Green Days
Seasonality is the study of how stocks trade across different calendar windows, year after year — through bull and bear markets, manias and panics, wars, pandemics, and more.
I didn’t come to TradeSmith from Wall Street. I’m a software engineer by training. So when my team went looking for an edge for investors, we didn’t start by asking what should move a stock. We started by asking what the data already showed.
By crunching through years of stock market history, we’ve found seasonally bullish days for thousands of stocks.
We call these “green days.” Once you know them, you don’t need to know whether the AI story holds up, or whether this correction has further to run. You just need to know the dates when those windows occur.
Take Parker-Hannifin Corp. (PH), the aerospace and industrial company. For the past 15 years, the stock has gone up starting on October 27 — not most years, every year. A 100% historical accuracy rate, through bull markets and bear markets both:
That same time of year is also bullish for KLA Corp. (KLAC), which makes equipment for semiconductor manufacturers. Its stock has risen beginning October 21 in 93.3% of the last 15 years:
Parker-Hannifin and KLA have nothing in common. They’re different businesses in different industries with different customers. What they share are windows of time during the calendar year that tend to be bullish for their stock prices.
TradeSmith’s research team has now found seasonality patterns across roughly 5,000 stocks.
So what does that analysis say about the two companies at the center of the memory story?
A Better AI Memory Trade Than Micron in July
Micron is the company most directly in the crosshairs of the AI chip shortage. It makes the high-bandwidth memory that sits right next to the chip in an AI system, feeding it data in real time.
If you’re looking for a stock that’s emblematic of the AI memory trade, Micron is it.
But right now, Micron isn’t in one of its green windows. Its next one doesn’t open until August 20. Through September 9, it’s been up on average 4.1% during this window 80% of the time:
For a memory stock with a window open right now, look at Western Digital instead. It’s one of the oldest names in computer storage, making the hard drives that data centers — including the ones being built for AI right now — depend on to hold everything we’ve been talking about.
And its green days run from July 1 to July 22. Over the past 15 years, the stock has gone up during that stretch 86.7% of the time.
You don’t have to just take my word for it – click here to watch the tool in action.
How to Access Our Seasonality Software Today
This year is critical, which is why I urge you to watch our Breakthrough 2026 event, all about the seasonal patterns you need to be alert to.
During the presentation, I walk you through how we uncovered these patterns, why they persist even in chaotic markets, and how you can use them to guide real-world trading decisions.
Importantly, you’ll learn how to access the software and prepare accordingly for the fast-approaching seasonality patterns.
Knowing when these windows open and close is crucial to your wealth. Click here to learn how.
All the best,
Keith Kaplan
CEO, TradeSmith
P.S. Thanks to Keith for sharing his perspective on the AI memory trade. If you’d like to see how his seasonality research applies to thousands of stocks – not just the names discussed here – I encourage you to watch the Breakthrough 2026 replay. He’ll explain why he’s watching the weeks ahead so closely, and reveal three free stock recommendations he believes could be well positioned for what’s next.
