MW Legendary investor Bill Miller on why the worst is over for stocks, Amazon's a buy and Tesla isn't

By Barbara Kollmeyer

Markets have pretty much discounted the worst news, says Bill Miller

Is it time for investors to breathe a bit easier?

"I think the worst is over for the market. I'm pretty confident about that," says legendary investor Bill Miller, best known for beating the S&P 500 SPX 15 straight years.

Miller made the remarks in a recent quarterly update from Patient Capital Management, where he's a minority owner and advisor to the firm.

One reason he's confident is the commonalty of 20% corrections - such as what was nearly the case for the S&P 500 between February and April - that were also seen in 2011, 2016, 2018, and 2022.

"But they're psychologically very rare in the sense that that's the point at which people start to flip out," said Miller, noting that selloffs above 5% to 10% start to make people nervous. "Above 15%, there's probably a lot of selling. By the time you hit 20%, you've pretty much discounted most of the scenarios that people are worried about in the market."

He views history as a guide and says no matter what the cause of the selloff, when it comes to what happens next, "probabilistically you're going to do very, very well if you're in the market," he said.

Miller said President Donald Trump's tariff policy was "so incoherent and stupid that everybody was stunned," but the market expects and will get deals. A "gradual softening" by the U.S. is likely because Trump could lose control of Congress to the Democrats if he lets uncertainty linger for two years, he added.

The investor then digs into stocks and thoughts on how China tariffs could impact Amazon $(AMZN)$. Miller was an early investor in the e-commerce giant, claiming to be "the largest personal owner of Amazon whose last name isn't Bezos."

His reasons to be upbeat? Confidence in CEO Andy Jassy; the fact that it China items sourced by it make up a small part of their business; its other units such as Amazon Web Services and logistics are "doing very well"; and Amazon's Project Kuiper satellite internet service, which he says is set to be a massive competitor for SpaceX-owned Starlink.

"Probably the best evidence that the Mag 7 will fight another day, except for Tesla, is that Amazon is spending a hundred billion dollars this year to meet customer demand for compute and for chips and for AWS to build data centers," he said.

Miller said while Tesla $(TSLA)$ is an "incredible company," with a "genius" of a leader, it's "not worth the current price."

"They're going to have to knock the cover off the ball in terms of self-driving cars and AI," he said. "Tesla's charging $8,000 for their self-driving system and BYD has a self-driving system in a $9,000 car. BYD's cars, I think they're just better."

He's fan of Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy (MSTR), which he refers to as "bitcoin on steroids," highlighting its overperformance versus Nvidia since adopting its corporate bitcoin Treasury strategy.

A longtime bitcoin believer, Miller is sticking with that stance. "I think that pretty much whatever you're holding in bitcoin it's not big enough," he said. He said it's a shelter in case of a dollar storm, and trading "way too low for the fact that it's now got a favorable regulatory environment." Also if the U.S. starts to buy bitcoin (BTCUSD) strategically, other countries will follow and it's a fixed supply.

Miller finishes off with mentions of some smaller names stocks that he sees as cheap, such as ID tech group Clear Secure $(YOU)$, specialty AI company Nebius Group $(NBIS)$ and Grail $(GRAL)$, a biotech focused on early cancer detection that's expected to be a "gigantic" market.

The markets

U.S. stock futures (ES00) (YM00) (NQ00) are rising on tariff deal hopes. Treasury yields BX:TMUBMUSD10Y BX:TMUBMUSD02Y are also up, gold (GC00) is lower and oil (CL00) (BRN00) is bouncing.

   Key asset performance                                                Last       5d     1m      YTD      1y 
   S&P 500                                                              5606.91    0.83%  12.53%  -4.67%   8.08% 
   Nasdaq Composite                                                     17,689.66  1.31%  15.86%  -8.39%   8.31% 
   10-year Treasury                                                     4.328      16.40  -2.80   -24.80   -17.30 
   Gold                                                                 3395.3     2.91%  9.53%   28.64%   46.60% 
   Oil                                                                  60.07      3.18%  -4.23%  -16.42%  -24.17% 
   Data: MarketWatch. Treasury yields change expressed in basis points 

The buzz

A Fed decision on interest rates is coming at 2 p.m., followed by a news conference with Chairman Jerome Powell at 2:30 p.m.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other top U.S. officials will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Geneva in the first major talks since Trump's tariffs were announced.

China announced several moves to combat U.S. tariff pressure, including rate cuts and plans to cut bank reserve requirements.

Results are rolling out from Disney $(DIS)$ and Uber $(UBER)$ this morning.

AMD shares $(AMD)$ are up after an upbeat outlook from the chip maker.

Super Micro Computer $(SMCI)$ cut its outlook again and shares are falling.

EV maker Rivian $(RIVN)$ lowered its sales guidance, saying it's not immune to tariff stress.

Vice President JD Vance will speak at the Munich Leaders Meeting in D.C. later.

Best of the web

Got your Real ID? You should still get to the airport at least 3 hours early.

How is Elon Musk powering his supercomputer?

Telemarketers are selling bare bones healthcare plans by signing people up for fake jobs

Top tickers

These were the most active tickers on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m.

   Ticker  Security name 
   AM      Antero Midstream 
   NVDA    Nvidia 
   TSLA    Tesla 
   PLTR    Palantir Technologies 
   AMD     Advanced Micro Devices 
   GME     GameStop 
   AAPL    Apple 
   AMZN    Amazon 
   TSM     Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing 
   SMCI    Super Micro Computer 

Random reads

Meth-pipe chomping raccoon leads cops to big drug haul.

WW2 Enigma code would have been no match for AI.

Missing 500 days on remote island, miniature dachshund emerges fat and happy.

-Barbara Kollmeyer

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 07, 2025 06:52 ET (10:52 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.