If Nvidia disappeared tomorrow, Google would be fine. The same can’t be said for others. Google’s built its own parallel universe to Nvidia’s hardware stack. That said, I’m not saying Nvidia is obsolete or in danger. Nvidia is still very much in the AI race, and Google won’t stop buying its chips. Why? Because Google Cloud needs to capture market share. Clients still want torent Nvidia chips for AI compute. If Google Cloud only offered TPUs, clients would leave for AWS or Azure. Google isn’t going to let that happen. Nvidia’s dominance isn’t going anywhere soon. Companies still want Nvidia chips because they’re still the most powerful AI chips on Earth. Google’s TPUs are designed for cost-efficiency, not raw power. Depending on the task—if you need the absolute fastest training time possib

There are different asset classes. Equity and fixed income ETFs, in different varieties, let you construct your core stock-bond portfolio. Stock ETFs can be separated by geography, from New Zealand to Chile, covering many countries and time zones. Or you can pick a particular sector like tech. Or differentiate by styles, from value to growth. Prefer dividend focus? All available. And don’t forget thematic ETFs that reflect trends you’re following, such as clean energy or AI. Bond ETFs cover everything from investment grade to high yield, from short duration to long-term bonds, across various geographies. Other asset classes like crypto and commodities have also made their way into ETFs. For example, some markets now list ETFs that track Bitcoin’s price. Having more options sounds great, bu

Alphabet’s P/E is lower now than it was in 2017. But it was even cheaper in 2022, when U.S. tech stocks tanked. Back then, it traded at just 17x earnings—lower than today. And Buffett didn’t bite. So again, I don’t think this was him. The investment managers are ramping up their influence as Buffett steps back. My fair price estimate for Alphabet was $163 to $209. So Berkshire’s entry was sensible. But at $276 today? Definitely not. There were plenty of chances to buy Alphabet earlier this year when it spent considerable time below $200—and even dropped as low as $146.75.this might explain why Berkshire’s been selling for so long—it could be part of the succession plan. Freeing up capital for the investment managers to deploy. Finally So my guess? This Alphabet buy came from one of them. N

About a month ago, I still saw a balanced mix of AI bulls and bears on social media. But for the last two weeks, it’s been overwhelmingly bearish—calling it an AI bubble, comparing it to the dotcom crash. Perhaps this one-sided bearish tone has affected investor psychology, prompting some to sell their AI-related stocks and exacerbating the decline. I think we shouldn’t underestimate the impact of social media on financial markets today. Just like how digital banking apps can cause bank runs faster—since withdrawals are instant—social media and digital trading apps can drive one-directional moves in a short span of time. So it could be a case where some AI investors were already thinking of selling but wanted to wait for Nvidia’s results. And once the good results pushed the share price hi

I did a rough tabulation (not perfectly apples-to-apples—some foreign stocks, some recent buys and trims) but good enough for an estimate. Below is the table of the stock returns in Berkshire’s portfolio: Buffett famously avoids tech. He sticks to what he understands—consumer brands like Coca-Cola, American Express, and Kraft Heinz. And as we’ve discussed in a previous post, non-AI stocks have had a rough year, so it’s no surprise Berkshire’s portfolio underperformed the tech-dominated S&P 500. I doubt it’s because Buffett is predicting a crash. He’s never cared about timing markets. He’s repeatedly said he doesn’t invest based on forecasts. One possible reason: succession planning. Buffett may be clearing the slate for Greg Abel and the investment managers to build their own portfolio

$Trump Media & Technology(DJT)$  

Earlier this month, Trump once again announced a 100% tariff on Chinese goods. Yet this time, the S&P 500 didn’t flinch as much. Perhaps markets have grown used to the pattern — what many now call the “Trade War Cycle.” Over the weekend, while markets were closed, Trump visited Malaysia as part of his Asia tour ahead of his meeting with Xi in Korea. Although framed as an ASEAN Summit, the real highlight was a quick negotiation between the US and China — a prelude to the APEC Summit. This gave ASEAN countries a moment of prestige, playing host to what may turn out to be a pivotal step in thawing tensions between the two superpowers. Trump’s deputies wasted no time engaging their Chinese counterparts. In a swift turnaround, both sides announced that a preliminary deal had been struck. De

Gold can be useful for diversification. It does reduce drawdowns and improve the Sharpe ratio, as it behaves differently from stocks and bonds. But it’s not a core asset, and it shouldn’t dominate your portfolio. And if you’re thinking, “I should have gone all-in on gold”... that’s not investing—that’s gambling. That’s no different from aping into crypto or meme stocks during their hype cycles. That’s go big or go home, not responsible investing.And then we start seeing bold claims—like this one on Bloomberg saying gold has outperformed stocks this century. Let’s take a step back: This century is 100 years, and we’re only 25 years in. Bloomberg’s already drawing conclusions 75 years too early. From a portfolio construction perspective, gold is not suitable as a core holding. This has been

Nvidia isn’t far from the $5 trillion milestone. It needs just another 14% gain, which could happen within the year. The first trillion is the hardest, the next one gets easier. The technological moat is very wide, even if it may not be permanent. There’s no doubt Nvidia will milk it big time in the near future. Its net profit margin is a staggering 52%. Nvidia reported earnings on Wednesday and the stock initially dropped 3% in after-hours trading, at one point does such as 5%. Some investors were probably just taking profits. The results weren’t bad, though some may complain that revenue growth has decelerated. But growing at over 56% YoY is still very fast for the world’s largest company. None of the other Magnificent 7 are growing at this pace—not even half of it. Nvidia beat both reve

More investors are starting to use AI for research, strategy development, or simply scanning the market for opportunities. Sure, it reduces grunt work and boosts productivity—but the real value lies in the new insights AI can help uncover. It’s not about blindly following whatever it spits out. Instead, it’s about challenging your own thinking, spotting blind spots, and filling knowledge gaps. Sometimes, AI is more right than we are—and that’s worth recognizing. Even  today’s AI—especially in the form of chatbots—is already surprisingly powerful. The limitation isn’t the AI’s ability, but rather our own creativity. That’s why prompting has become a critical skill in this new era. Finally, I’ve been exploring how to integrate AI into my investment process, and here’s one recent experim

Titanic game of up and down [Happy][Happy]

Markets are likely pricing in the risk of Iranian retaliation, but history shows that unless the situation escalates into a global war, volatility usually fades after the initial shock. We've seen this movie before—as long as it doesn’t become World War III, the panic is likely temporary. The Middle East conflict has been simmering for decades. The Israel-Palestine war has never truly ended, and now this escalation involving Iran is being seen as a widening of the battlefield.Investors rotated out of high-growth, high-volatility names—particularly those tied to AI, quantum computing, and speculative tech. Travel stocks were also hit, as wars naturally deter tourism. The attack reportedly took place late Thursday, after US markets had closed, so the immediate impact wasn’t visible then. But

If inflation persists—possibly driven by tariffs—it could force yields higher. Trump’s efforts to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. will raise production costs, especially compared to China or Vietnam. In the interim, tariffs mean higher consumer prices. While inflation fell to 2.4% in March, that was before the tariffs kicked in. A reacceleration is possible. If inflation rises amid economic slowdown, we could be headed for stagflation—a toxic mix where few asset classes perform well. Bonds would suffer, and growth stocks may struggle too. This is the worst-case scenario. A selloff in Treasuries could signal that investors no longer see them as safe, given America’s debt load. U.S. Treasuries total $51 trillion—40% of the global bond market. If the U.S. faces a credit downgrade or, wor

It is tricky to forecast the USD trajectory because of its multi-faceted nature.when global economic growth is decent, USD tends to be positively correlated with the relative US growth outlook (i.e., the stronger the relative growth, the stronger the greenback). A contractionary economic environment, however, would see the USD having a negative correlation with growth, meaning the currency becomes a safe haven.The softer US growth backdrop has been consistent with the USD weakness observed as of late, and a lot of that has been priced in, Since the announcement, President Trump has come out and opened the door for negotiations on tariffs, which may suggest that the announced weighted average tariff of 18% may be at the high end of the range and the 10% floor at the bottom of the range

In a sluggish growth and sticky inflation scenario bonds still won’t shine, and while some strong businesses may still grow, many others could struggle under slow demand and higher costs. The key point is that positioning needs to happen before the scenario unfolds. Markets are forward-looking—stocks often crash before a recession is official, and bond prices rally early as investors move to safety. By the time the news confirms a recession, bonds have likely already risen, and that might actually be the time to start looking at stocks again. Fed Chair Jerome Powell recently described tariff-driven inflation as ‘transitory’. That word set off alarms across the investing world. After all, Powell used the same term during the post-COVID inflation surge—only for inflation to persist far longe

For the longest time, U.S. stocks have led the global markets, and no group has felt this more acutely than China stock investors since 2021, as China stocks have severely underperformed U.S. stocks. But that’s changing—at least in 2025 so far, the tide has turned. The MSCI China Index has gained 18.7%, while the S&P 500 is down 4.6%. The key question now: Can this China stock outperformance last? History has shown that China stocks can surge rapidly, only to experience sharp declines. And with the U.S. stock market still the global leader, any major shock in the U.S. is likely to ripple across world markets, including China. we believe that there is a real chance that China stocks could continue to perform well, even if U.S. stocks struggle. Shifting market cycles, valuation re-rating

Cathie woods. Marie curie

$SUPER MICRO COMPUTER INC(SMCI)$  

Seatrium also has shipyard assets in Texas, USA and could see some order wins from the US’s push to move some manufacturing back into the country, despite the investment required and its complexities. Seatrium has a proven track record, having previously delivered a Jones-act compliant Wind Turbine Installation Vessel. The Jones Act requires that all vessels transporting goods within the United States must be USA-documented, owned, crewed, and built, making Seatrium’s experience highly valuable. With its latest results, Seatrium has now shown that it can deliver on all 4 of its key priorities and deliver value to its long-suffering shareholders. We have voiced our concerns multiple times about the long-term nature of Seatrium’s projects, which subject investors to tail-end risks. This is t

Since 2010, Hangzhou’s population has surged from 8.7 million to 12.5 million in 2023, driven by its booming tech sector and reputation for high living standards. While many Chinese developers are struggling to sell units, Hangzhou’s robust local economy helps sustain housing demand, making it one of the more resilient property markets in China. Against this backdrop, Binjiang Service Group has thrived by providing essential property management and value-added services. With DeepSeek’s rapid rise, Hangzhou could see an even greater influx of talent, further strengthening the demand for housing and premium property services. Binjiang is well-positioned to benefit from this ongoing tech boom—not just as a property manager, but as a company deeply embedded in Hangzhou’s economic ecosystem. Wh