In this article BRK.B .SPX CSX BRK.B Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT (This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.) Berkshire trails red-hot S&P by biggest margin so far this year With hot tech stocks fueling its solid 5.1% gain in May, the S...
In this article BRK.B .SPX CSX BRK.B Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT (This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.) Berkshire trails red-hot S&P by biggest margin so far this year With hot tech stocks fueling its solid 5.1% gain in May, the S&P 500 closed Friday at a fresh record high . In a sharp contrast, shares of Berkshire Hathaway were close to unchanged for the month. As a result, Berkshire's widely held B shares are now running 16.3 percentage points behind the benchmark index year-to-date, the biggest gap so far in 2026. Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards At the end of March, Berkshire had a small winning margin of 1.8 percentage points over the S&P. But then the S&P zoomed more than 35% higher in April and May while Berkshire fell almost 11%. Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards Great expectations for AI profits, and massive spending to build the infrastructure needed to generate all that future artificial intelligence, have been sending the tech stocks that dominate the market-capitalization-weighted S&P sharply higher. Berkshire, on the other hand, is extremely conservative with minimal exposure to AI, nearly $400 billion in cash, and solidly profitable, but not spectacular, operating companies. If enthusiastic AI investments turn out to be a bubble , (the concept has its own Wikipedia page ), as some have been warning ( for months ), that caution may well pay off over time, as it did when Warren Buffett avoided the high-flying internet stocks of the late 1990s. While its overall AI exposure remains relatively small, it does appear new CEO Greg Abel did, in a decidedly un-Buffett-like move, triple the company's Alphabet stake during the first quarter. At almost $22 billion, it is the fifth largest equity holding in the portfolio . Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards Berkshire shares are now dow...
Among the best stocks in earnings performance, Comfort Systems has a pristine 99 EPS Rating, the highest in IBD's air conditioning and heating products industry group.
Among the best stocks in earnings performance, Comfort Systems has a pristine 99 EPS Rating, the highest in IBD's air conditioning and heating products industry group.
Harry Wedzinga/iStock via Getty Images May 29th was a really painful day for shareholders of The Buckle ( BKE ). Shares of the company plunged 9.1% after management announced financial results covering the first quarter of the company's 2026 fiscal year. Even though earnings came in comfortably above what analysts anticipated, revenue fell short of expectations. This is disappointing to say the le...
Harry Wedzinga/iStock via Getty Images May 29th was a really painful day for shareholders of The Buckle ( BKE ). Shares of the company plunged 9.1% after management announced financial results covering the first quarter of the company's 2026 fiscal year. Even though earnings came in comfortably above what analysts anticipated, revenue fell short of expectations. This is disappointing to say the least. However, I believe that the market is behaving a bit irrationally in this case. It is always disappointing to see revenue fall short of expectations. However, the company is growing in most key respects. This includes not only top line growth, but bottom line growth as well. Shares are incredibly cheap, both on an absolute basis and relative to other similar firms. And, based on the data provided, the company has a very solid balance sheet. Given this combination of factors, it should come as no surprise that I would be bullish about the prospect. And this is not the first time that I have expressed bullish sentiment. Back in November of last year, I upgraded the stock from a 'hold' to a 'buy'. This was based on what I saw as a promising turnaround for the company and the valuation as things stood. The company was implementing a strategic store optimization program that was proving to be successful. And at the end of the day, I argued, further upside would be warranted. It is disappointing to see that, largely because of this earnings call, that the company has seen its share price dropped 12.3% since then. That's at a time when the S&P 500 is up 12.9%. Even though the market disagrees with me, however, I remain adamant that this is a good prospect for value oriented investors. Putting the quarter into perspective Author - SEC EDGAR Data Operationally speaking, I would say that the first quarter of the 2026 fiscal year was a good time for shareholders of The Buckle. But before I get into that, I would like to point you to the chart above. In it, you can see financial p...
Intercepted Iranian Missile Damages U.S. Reaper Drones, Injures Five At Kuwaiti Air Base An Iranian Fateh-110 short-range ballistic missile targeted Kuwait's Ali Al Salem Air Base, a key operational hub for the U.S. Air Force's expeditionary forces in the Gulf region. An initial report from Bloomberg News indicates that Kuwaiti air defenses intercepted the tactical ballistic missile in the last 24...
Intercepted Iranian Missile Damages U.S. Reaper Drones, Injures Five At Kuwaiti Air Base An Iranian Fateh-110 short-range ballistic missile targeted Kuwait's Ali Al Salem Air Base, a key operational hub for the U.S. Air Force's expeditionary forces in the Gulf region. An initial report from Bloomberg News indicates that Kuwaiti air defenses intercepted the tactical ballistic missile in the last 24 hours, but falling debris struck part of the base, injuring five Americans and damaging one MQ-9 Reaper drone while severely damaging another. About five people, including both contractors and active duty personnel, suffered minor injuries, the person said. One Reaper was destroyed and at least one other was seriously damaged . -BBG ⚠️ Bloomberg reporting the consequences of Thursday night's Iranian ballistic missile strike on Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait: Several Americans suffered minor injuries. Two MQ-9 Reaper strike drones - $30 million each - seriously damaged. The weapon: a Fateh-110 ballistic… https://t.co/WgmB42pBU5 pic.twitter.com/3xYK4oHSHx — The Tectonic (@thetect0nic) May 30, 2026 News of the strike on ASAB, where the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing under U.S. Air Forces Central acts as a forward logistics, airlift, and combat-power gateway for the broader CENTCOM theater, comes as the US and Iran on Friday reached a tentative memorandum of understanding to extend a ceasefire by 60 days and restart nuclear negotiations. However, the proposal still requires final approval from President Trump, according to U.S. officials cited by Fox News. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also indicated yesterday that Washington is maintaining maximum leverage, saying sanctions relief will remain off the table unless Tehran reopens the Hormuz chokepoint, transfers highly enriched uranium, and accepts that it cannot maintain a nuclear program. Meanwhile, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth attended the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore overnight, where he said the US military is prepar...
Latest updates from 2.30pm (BST) start in Bristol Get in touch with Tanya to offer your thoughts Hello ! The World Cup is now less than two weeks away and England have just two games left to primp and preen their strategy. Out-thought and out-bowled by India in the first T20 at Chelmsford, they will want to do better today in Bristol – stand-in captain Charlie Dean pinpointed “leaving ourselves to...
Latest updates from 2.30pm (BST) start in Bristol Get in touch with Tanya to offer your thoughts Hello ! The World Cup is now less than two weeks away and England have just two games left to primp and preen their strategy. Out-thought and out-bowled by India in the first T20 at Chelmsford, they will want to do better today in Bristol – stand-in captain Charlie Dean pinpointed “leaving ourselves too much to do at the end,” as a flaw to fix. Play will start at 2.30pmBST, the toss and the teams at 2pm. Do join us. Continue reading...
Although NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang rarely lacks for big numbers, his latest one stopped Wall Street cold. Huang has been telling audiences that humanoid robots represent a $40 trillion total addressable market for labor automation, a figure so vast it dwarfs every consumer technology category that came before it. On the Animal Spirits podcast ... Jensen Huang’s $40 Trillion Robot Call ...
Although NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang rarely lacks for big numbers, his latest one stopped Wall Street cold. Huang has been telling audiences that humanoid robots represent a $40 trillion total addressable market for labor automation, a figure so vast it dwarfs every consumer technology category that came before it. On the Animal Spirits podcast ... Jensen Huang’s $40 Trillion Robot Call Echoes the 1913 Moving Assembly Line. The Pattern Says Buy the Picks and Shovels
Artificial intelligence has become the biggest technology story since the internet. Companies are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure, software, and services, all chasing the same goal: higher productivity and bigger profits. But one lingering question has hung over the entire AI boom. Will the technology actually replace workers, or simply make ... Uber’s CFO Just Said ...
Artificial intelligence has become the biggest technology story since the internet. Companies are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure, software, and services, all chasing the same goal: higher productivity and bigger profits. But one lingering question has hung over the entire AI boom. Will the technology actually replace workers, or simply make ... Uber’s CFO Just Said the Quiet Part Out Loud: AI’s Impact on Jobs Will Be Worse Than You Thought
On a recent episode of The Pomp Podcast featuring guest Jordi Visser, host Anthony Pompliano surfaced a notable statement from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos: the bottom 50% of Americans should pay no federal tax. Pompliano paired that proposal with a data point and a pivot. The data point: that bottom-half cohort currently contributes about ... Jeff Bezos Says Bottom 50% of Americans Sho...
On a recent episode of The Pomp Podcast featuring guest Jordi Visser, host Anthony Pompliano surfaced a notable statement from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos: the bottom 50% of Americans should pay no federal tax. Pompliano paired that proposal with a data point and a pivot. The data point: that bottom-half cohort currently contributes about ... Jeff Bezos Says Bottom 50% of Americans Should Pay No Tax. The Real Culprit Is Federal Spending
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) has been one of the best-performing stocks in the entire market over the past year. In this video, Certified Financial Planner® Matt Frankel discusses the reasons for the stellar performance and gives his take on whether Intel is a smart buy even at today's p
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) has been one of the best-performing stocks in the entire market over the past year. In this video, Certified Financial Planner® Matt Frankel discusses the reasons for the stellar performance and gives his take on whether Intel is a smart buy even at today's p
Buying ETFs is a great way to build a diversified investment portfolio. They can provide broad diversification to an asset class, sector, theme, or investment style. That can help enhance your returns while lowering your risk profile. Here are three top ETFs to buy this June that you won't regret owning in the coming years. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading
Buying ETFs is a great way to build a diversified investment portfolio. They can provide broad diversification to an asset class, sector, theme, or investment style. That can help enhance your returns while lowering your risk profile. Here are three top ETFs to buy this June that you won't regret owning in the coming years. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading
Darren415/iStock via Getty Images Introduction: The market had an incredible run since 2023 in spite of a turbulent ride and a highly volatile geopolitical situation. Markets never move in a linear fashion, and the ups and downs of the market are what make the market. Since the lows of Sept. 2022, the S&P500 has gained roughly 119%, that is an annualized rate of 23.5%, just for the broader market....
Darren415/iStock via Getty Images Introduction: The market had an incredible run since 2023 in spite of a turbulent ride and a highly volatile geopolitical situation. Markets never move in a linear fashion, and the ups and downs of the market are what make the market. Since the lows of Sept. 2022, the S&P500 has gained roughly 119%, that is an annualized rate of 23.5%, just for the broader market. Broadly speaking, the last 10 years have been a wonderful time to be invested in the stock market, even though the period includes some unprecedented events like COVID and many volatile geopolitical events such as the Russia-Ukraine war and, more recently, the Iran war. In summary, over the past 10 years, investors have had a very good period. It is not always like that. Investors who are old enough would remember the lost decade of 2000-2010. Incidentally, the current market situation has some resemblance to the exuberance of the internet boom years 1997-1999 period, just prior to the dot-com bust in 2000. Many technology firms, such as Cisco, did not achieve their previous highs for the next 15 years. Investors in many high-flying companies of those days were entirely wiped out. On the other hand, many of the technology companies, such as Amazon, lost a lot of value for a brief period but survived and thrived later on. So, today's technology and AI boom has led to extreme valuations for many of the leading companies, so much so that the S&P500 has a very high concentration of over 35% technology, similar to a situation in 2003-2004 when the financial sector comprised one-fifth of the S&P500. So, what does all this have to do with retirees? Well, many things. First, retirees need income to meet their expenses. The S&P500 yields a paltry 1.10% today. Retirees can't just be invested in the broader market indexes, such as the S&P500, and have a peaceful retirement. Sure, some would argue that they can sell a fraction of their shareholdings every year and generate income. At ...
Watcom/iStock via Getty Images You know the classic story about Goldilocks, a girl who stumbles upon a bear family's home and samples their bowls of porridge. "This one is too hot. This one is too cold. This one is juuuuuust right." But I'm guessing you have graduated middle school at this point (if not, you are quite the prodigy!), so let me jump to a more adult version of the Goldilocks concept....
Watcom/iStock via Getty Images You know the classic story about Goldilocks, a girl who stumbles upon a bear family's home and samples their bowls of porridge. "This one is too hot. This one is too cold. This one is juuuuuust right." But I'm guessing you have graduated middle school at this point (if not, you are quite the prodigy!), so let me jump to a more adult version of the Goldilocks concept. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle articulated what he called the "Golden Mean," which is the middle path of wisdom and balance between two extremes. Virtue, Aristotle argued, lay in that happy medium between two opposite vices. Whether you prefer the classic fable or the philosophy, the bottom line is the same: Wisdom is found in the moderate zone between two equally unattractive extremes. I would argue that this is true for retirees seeking to live off their investment portfolios. The safest sources of passive income like savings accounts, certificates of deposit, money market funds, and bonds yield very little and lack any growth-of-income. But many retirees make the opposite mistake, investing heavily in ultra-high-yielding securities they scarcely understand only to see their principal erode over time and their dividends eventually get cut. I have found that there is a "Goldilocks Yield" that falls between these two extremes. Within this range, fixed-income securities tend to be safer and more stable, and stocks tend to have greater ability to provide inflation-matching or -beating dividend growth. The Goldilocks Yield is between 3% and 7%, with stocks generally falling on the lower end of that range and fixed-income securities on the higher end. The portfolio-wide average yield for a "Goldilocks" retirement portfolio probably falls in the 5-6% area. I think this is the sweet spot for retirees who seek to live on their portfolio income. Let me walk through some extremes to showcase the wisdom of moderation between the two. Extreme 1: Too Conservative It is unders...
Getty Images Consensus expectations The US BLS is set to release the May labor market report on Friday, June 5th. Analysts expect that: non-farm payrolls increased by 96K, which is below 115K created in April, but still solid, and, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.3%, which is still near the full employment level. Trading Economics Surprise likely to the downside Based on soft-data su...
Getty Images Consensus expectations The US BLS is set to release the May labor market report on Friday, June 5th. Analysts expect that: non-farm payrolls increased by 96K, which is below 115K created in April, but still solid, and, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.3%, which is still near the full employment level. Trading Economics Surprise likely to the downside Based on soft-data survey reports for May, it appears that the surprise is likely to the downside, where the actual job creation could be even negative. Specifically, the PMI Services Flash for May came at 50.9, which is weak. However, the manufacturing PMI came strong at 55.3, while the composite PMI came weak at 51.7, given the relative importance of service sector in the US economy. The labor market part of the PMI report states: Sector divergences were also evident in terms of the labor market. Measured overall, employment fell in May for the second time in the past three months, the rate of job losses reaching the highest since August 2024 due to growing concerns over rising costs and deteriorating demand conditions. However, whereas service sector jobs were reduced at the second-fastest pace seen since May 2020 (surpassed only by April 2024), manufacturing payrolls showed the largest rise for 11 months as factories raised headcounts to meet the recent upturn in orders. Thus, the Service sector had significant job losses in May, while Manufacturing sector created jobs. Again, given the importance of the service sector, there were jobs lost overall in May. The PMI findings were largely supported by the May regional Fed surveys, where Kansas City and Philly Fed showed job losses, with flat reading by Dallas Fed, while NY Fed reported positive job creation. Kansas City Fed Employment Index Negative -4 Dallas Fed Employment Index Flat 0.2 NY Empire State Fed Employment Index Positive 8.3 Philly Fed Employment Index Negative -2.8 Click to enlarge It looks like the strength in the manufacturing ...
SW Photography/DigitalVision via Getty Images When Satellogic ( SATL ) went public (via a SPAC merger) in January 2022, it's likely essentially zero investors thought the stock would be flat, or anywhere close, four-plus years later. From the jump, Satellogic's strategy suggested either enormous success or potentially quick failure. Building out a satellite constellation capable of providing real-...
SW Photography/DigitalVision via Getty Images When Satellogic ( SATL ) went public (via a SPAC merger) in January 2022, it's likely essentially zero investors thought the stock would be flat, or anywhere close, four-plus years later. From the jump, Satellogic's strategy suggested either enormous success or potentially quick failure. Building out a satellite constellation capable of providing real-time imagery around the world is not a simple or inexpensive task. Once completed, however, at least in theory Satellogic would have a path toward printing money at massive profit margins. (As the 2021 merger presentation put it, Satellogic would have a "near zero marginal cost structure".) Yet here we are, with SATL trading 6% below the $10 SPAC merger price, albeit with quite a bit of volatility along the way: Data by YCharts There is an irony in Satellogic stock returning to near its SPAC price: the bull case in 2026 is not terribly different from that when the company first announced its plans to go public in July 2021. In a way, this is the same stock simply at a different time. The problem for SATL is that the first time around has not gone very well, and it still takes quite a bit of faith to believe that the second version of the bull case will be all that much different. Satellogic Whiffs It's always a bit fun to review projections from merger presentations during the 2020-2021 SPAC bubble. (There are dozens of companies who each modeled hundreds of millions of dollars in net profit last year, yet who by that point literally didn't exist because they were liquidated in bankruptcy before reaching that point.) Satellogic's projections at the time thus aren't that far out of line, but they're still worth recalling (and no, despite the slide, at this point these figures were not confidential): CF Acquisition Corp. V / Satellogic merger presentation, July 2021 Not pictured is the fact that Satellogic projected it would have 300 satellites in orbit by the end of last yea...
Mill CEO and Nest co-founder Matt Rogers watched Apple render startups obsolete overnight. He says the same dynamic is playing out in AI — and the survival playbook looks familiar.
Mill CEO and Nest co-founder Matt Rogers watched Apple render startups obsolete overnight. He says the same dynamic is playing out in AI — and the survival playbook looks familiar.