Few cars define the era of American automotive dominance more than the 1968 Chevy Corvette... It's an icon of the "muscle car" era.

This Metal Helped American Muscle Cars Make Clean Air 'Cool' By Marc Chaikin, founder, Chaikin Analytics Few cars define the era of American automotive dominance more than the 1968 Chevy Corvette... It's an icon of the "muscle car" era. The 1968 model kicked off the third generation of the Corvette. It introduced a sleek design never seen before in an American-made muscle car. And the engine options included a zippy 300-horsepower, 327-cubic-inch small-block V8... or a monstrous 435-horsepower, big-block V8. Here's a picture of one... Legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix and Hollywood icon James Garner were just a couple of the famous celebrities who got their hands on a '68 Corvette. Hendrix crashed his Corvette that same year. Garner's Corvettes were used by his American International Racing team in Daytona, Florida. Chevrolet went on to sell 38,762 Corvettes in 1969 – its first full year of sales. That marked a record for the company. But in 1975, Chevy faced an existential dilemma. And it had to do with a new piece of machinery using an important precious metal... Recommended Links: The Man Who Nailed the 2020, 2022, and 2023 Crashes Issues Urgent Warning He called the 2020 COVID-19 crash... the 2022 tech crash... and the 2023 bank crisis – all in advance. On Tuesday, March 10, former multibillion-dollar hedge-fund trader Greg Diamond is going public with the EXACT WEEK he believes the market will peak – before it plummets dramatically. Click here to reserve your spot at the summit now. Is This Stock AI's Next Victim? A single AI update erased $300 billion in one day. Another wiped out $1 trillion the week before. CNBC legend and trading veteran Jon Najarian says dozens more stocks are in the crosshairs right now, and most investors have no idea. Click here for the full story. A New Law Slashed the Corvette's Horsepower In 1975, U.S. carmakers were mandated by the Clean Air Act of 1970 to reduce carbon emissions from new vehicles by 90%. The move aimed to address the soaring air pollution in cities – which resulted mainly from the burning of fossil fuels by internal-combustion engines. Before 1975, unchecked and unregulated vehicle emissions from the nearly 100 million cars in the country often blanketed cities in dense smog during the peak summer driving months. The creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") and the passing of the Clean Air Act sought to put an end to that. As such, automakers started installing catalytic converters in their exhaust systems. These devices are designed to remove harmful carbon molecules from the burning of gasoline by restricting the airflow of a vehicle's exhaust. Polluted fumes from an engine are made to pass through several layers of honeycomb-like ceramic structures. These structures are coated with a catalyst – usually in the form of platinum. When they come into contact with the catalyst, a chemical reaction takes place. It breaks down the carbon-filled gases into less harmful gas and water. You would think that consumers would welcome a device that reduces harmful carbon emissions. But adding a catalytic converter had one undesirable effect... By restricting airflow, it reduced an engine's horsepower. So, when Chevy came out with its 1975 Corvette, its base model came with a V8 engine that maxed out at 165 horsepower. That's a fraction of the power of the older base model without the catalytic converter. But the marketing folks at Chevy didn't waste time spinning this into a positive... When they launched the '75 Corvette, they introduced it as a more efficient car that had something no other Corvette ever had before... They called it the Chevrolet Efficiency System... This new system added minor improvements like a better ignition system and an early fuel-evaporation system (to reduce stalling on cold starts). These came packaged with the catalytic converter. And the company got clever with the marketing. As Chevy put it in one ad...   Using unleaded gas, the 1975 Corvette should emit the cleanest exhaust of any Corvette ever. And with the converter on the job, the factory can now tune your Corvette more toward smooth, responsive, efficient performance. So, instead of buying a watered-down, EPA-regulated muscle car, consumers would be buying the most efficient Corvette ever made. This approach worked... That year, Chevy sold 38,465 Corvettes – almost matching its launch year. And the following year, in 1976, the company sold a record 46,558 units. This marked the beginning of the era of catalytic converters. These became standard in almost every single automobile to come out of a factory in the next 50 years. And one precious metal has been almost single-handedly responsible for the transition to cleaner-burning car engines. We're talking about platinum. Catalytic converters use platinum. And even in today's increasingly electric-driven world, demand for the metal remains strong – even amid some big volatility recently...  Precious Metals Saw Recent Fast Gains – and Faster Crashes Exchange-traded funds ("ETFs") offer investors an easy way to get exposure to a variety of metals – like platinum. In this case, I'm talking about the abrdn Physical Platinum Shares Fund (PPLT). In fact, this precious metal fund outperformed gold in 2025. Most of its growth happened at the end of 2025 – due to threats toward the precious metals market from China. That momentum carried on until the end of January... On January 30, PPLT lost 18% of its value in one day as the broader metals market pulled back. The fund gave back almost all the gains it saw in January. And it shows what can happen when a stock or ETF runs too far, too fast. Of course, PPLT resumed its growth soon after – this time not as fast. What we just saw with the wild moves in platinum serves as a good reminder... Investments that go sky-high in the blink of an eye can come crashing down just as fast. That said, overall platinum demand is likely to remain strong. Pay attention to the metal this year... but be prepared for volatility if sentiment gets ahead of itself. Good investing, Marc Chaikin Market View Major Indexes and Notable Sectors     # Hld:     Bullish     Neutral     Bearish Dow 30 -0.75% 6 19 5 S&P 500 -0.88% 109 289 100 Nasdaq -1.07% 19 52 29 Small Caps -1.73% 529 983 370 Bonds -0.2% — According to the Chaikin Power Bar, Small Cap stocks and Large Cap stocks remain somewhat Bullish. Major indexes are mixed. *  *  *  * Sector Tracker Sector movement over the last 5 days Energy +2.58% Communication +1.55% Financial +0.45% Real Estate -0.07% Utilities -0.28% Health Care -0.72% Industrials -0.87% Information Technology -2.01% Consumer Discretionary -2.04% Consumer Staples -2.23% Materials -2.66% *  *  *  * Industry Focus Semiconductor Services 12 28 3 Over the past 6 months, the Semiconductor subsector (XSD) has outperformed the S&P 500 by +14.32%. Its Power Bar ratio, which measures future potential, is Very Strong, with more Bullish than Bearish stocks. It is currently ranked #7 of 21 subsectors and has moved down 2 slots over the past week. Top Stocks MU Micron Technology, I DIOD Diodes Incorporated CRUS Cirrus Logic, Inc. *  *  *  * Top Movers Gainers WDAY +7.16% BBY +7.08% TGT +6.74% AKAM +4.55% PANW +3.96% Losers SNDK -8.67% MU -7.99% NEM -7.93% NRG -7.7% ALB -7.55% *  *  *  * Earnings Report Earnings Surprises VIK Viking Holdings Ltd Q4 $0.67 Beat by $0.12 TGT Target Corporation Q4 $2.44 Beat by $0.28 ROST Ross Stores, Inc. Q0 $2.00 Beat by $0.10 CRWD CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. Q4 $1.12 Beat by $0.02 AZO AutoZone, Inc. Q2 $27.63 Beat by $0.22 *  *  *  * You have received this e-mail as part of your subscription to PowerFeed. If you no longer want to receive e-mails from PowerFeed, click here. You're receiving this e-mail at punjabsvera@gmail.com. For questions about your account or to speak with customer service, call +1 (877) 697-6783 (U.S.), 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Eastern time or e-mail info@chaikinanalytics.com. Please note: The law prohibits us from giving personalized financial advice. © 2026 Chaikin Analytics, LLC. 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