MW He spotted weight-loss drugs and AI before they became hot. Here's this investor's next big idea.

By Barbara Kollmeyer

Citrini Research's James van Geelen sees robots doing your laundry

James van Geelen, founder of Citrini Research, has nailed some of the biggest transformational mega themes of the past decade.

He spotted the opportunity to invest in weight-loss drugs in 2023 before they exploded in 2024, and was an early AI mover, which he spied as a game changer in late 2022, early 2023. It's all about spotting "secular themes at cyclical prices," he says.

"We were also some of the first people to focus on the picks and shovels," van Geelen told MarketWatch in a Tuesday interview. They moved away from that when it became "super consensus," to focus more toward a second AI phase. "Actual use cases. Not just how do we build it, but how do we use it to make money."

An investor for a decade, and before that, founder of an alternative healthcare company that he sold in 2017, van Geelen started macro and thematic equity research group Citrini Research in 2023 and manages Citrinitas Capital Management.

That second AI phase is tied into his highest conviction call right now - humanoid robots who will eventually be doing our laundry.

"The core of the pitch is robots are closer than you think. They might still be a couple of years away, especially for consumer robots, but the growth is already occurring in industrials like Amazon," he said, laying that theme out on his website. The e-commerce giant works with privately held humanoid robot supplier Agility Robotics.

As opposed to trends he's spotted in the past, van Geelen believes the robot theme will play out over a decade. "Humanoid robots have a little bit of a ways to go, and obviously there's a lot of regulatory stuff to overcome. The reason why we published on it right now is because our favorite kind of theme is where you can buy a secular story - something that will play out over the next 10 years at a cyclical price," he said.

Looking across the landscape of companies with exposure to humanoid robots or robots in general, most are exposed to the automotive market, which has been "terrible" for years, he said. "And basically whenever you get to a cyclical bottom, analysts always do the same thing, which is that they model it being like this forever."

Van Geelen said they are investing in China's privately Unitree Robotics, which makes a $16,000 humanoid robot and dog robots. As that's a pretty tough way for a retail investor to get exposure, he compiled a laundry list of the picks and shovels for that theme.

Among the stocks he thinks best positioned, some of which are all about helping a robot move, are RBC Bearings (RBC), Timken $(TKR)$, Regal Rexnord (RRX), Ametek $(AME.AU)$, Curtiss-Wright $(CW)$, Rockwell Automation $(ROK)$, Ouster $(OUST)$, as well as bigger names such as Tesla $(TSLA)$, Deere & Co. (DE), Nokia $(NOK)$, Hyundai (KR:005380) and XPeng $(XPEV)$.

Discussing his "aha" moment on robots, van Geelen said he was speaking with an engineer friend who had been buying robot dogs from China, sticking a chip on the back and finding they could function like a guard dog. "He said 'If you give me 15 grand, I will make you a fleet of robot dogs and guard your property right now.'"

And he started thinking about the 1960s sitcom "The Jetsons," and his conclusion was that yes, technology will eventually mean a robot does our dishes and laundry. "It's not like the consumer is going to be buying it. The consumer is probably going to be renting it," which will spawn companies that provide those as a service, he said.

Van Geelen also has some advice for retail investors. He said they sold Nvidia when DeepSeek was released because they saw a a potential threat to the AI chipmaker's dominance.

But his relationship with Nvidia wasn't over. He saw the company continued to execute "flawlessly," with CEO Jensen Huang "really tied into what the future is. He just said on a recent earnings call that 'The era of robotics is now.' That was good enough for me to buy it [Nvidia] back."

"The one mistake I think investors make more than anything is when they sell something they treat it like someone has died," and they shouldn't ever own it again.

"It's so difficult intellectually to sell something and then buy it back 10% higher, but in the long term, OK, you missed out on that 10%, in five years' that probably isn't going to matter," he said.

The markets

U.S. stock futures (ES00) (YM00) (NQ00) are slightly higher, with Treasury yields BX:TMUBMUSD10Y BX:TMUBMUSD02Y holding steady.

   Key asset performance                                                Last       5d     1m      YTD      1y 
   S&P 500                                                              5970.37    0.82%  6.48%   1.51%    12.83% 
   Nasdaq Composite                                                     19,398.96  1.04%  9.66%   0.46%    15.08% 
   10-year Treasury                                                     4.457      -2.60  18.30   -11.90   17.70 
   Gold                                                                 3376.1     2.32%  -1.91%  27.92%   43.88% 
   Oil                                                                  63.22      3.52%  7.15%   -12.04%  -13.30% 
   Data: MarketWatch. Treasury yields change expressed in basis points 

The buzz

Earnings are ahead from Dollar Tree $(DLTR)$.

Private sector payrolls from ADP are due for release at 8:15 a.m., the Institute for Supply Management's services index due at 10 a.m. Atlanta Fed Pres. Raphael Bostic and Fed Gov. Lisa Cook will appear at an event at 10:15 a.m. The Fed's Beige Book of economic conditions is due at 2 p.m.

Walmart $(WMT)$ will reportedly cut some jobs in Florida following U.S. immigration rulings.

President Trump said on his Truth Social account that China's President XI is "very tough, and extremely hard to make a deal with!!" U.S.

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-Barbara Kollmeyer

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June 04, 2025 06:48 ET (10:48 GMT)

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