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Walmart is, of course, a familiar name in Buffett’s portfolio-a dalliance that began in 2005 and, like most of his romantic entanglements, ended with a certain sense of disillusionment in 2018. For over a decade, Walmart was a principal figure in Berkshire Hathaway’s empire, only for Buffett to begin shedding the stock in 2015, his faith eroded by the siren call of Amazon’s e-commerce juggernaut. In fact, shortly after bidding farewell to Walmart, Buffett turned to Amazon, buying up shares with the same fervor as a lovesick teenager.

Royston Yang: Before Buffett, I was the investing equivalent of a TikTok stock tipper-buying based on vibes and a Google search. Then the Oracle of Omaha dropped a mic drop on my ignorance: Stocks aren’t *things*; they’re *businesses*. Suddenly, I wasn’t just picking winners; I was dating companies. It was like swiping right on a soulmate… who also pays rent on time. Happy birthday to the guy who made me stop sounding like a broke college student in a Reddit thread.

SoFi has been on a rampage lately, devouring markets and spitting out profits like a rabid wolf tearing through a flock of sheep. Over the past three years, its share price has skyrocketed more than 300%, making early investors feel like they’ve cracked the cosmic code. But here we are, staring at $30 as if it’s the edge of a cliff, wondering whether jumping off will send us soaring-or plummeting into the abyss.

Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) reigns as a colossus of the digital realm, its empire built on the twin pillars of Google Search and the ever-expanding Google Cloud. Critics whisper of generative AI as a storm in the distance, a threat to displace the old guard. But let us not mistake the horizon for a battlefield. Google Search, that “old-world” sentinel, still commands the field with a dominance honed over decades. Even as it weaves generative AI into its fabric-a union of machine and man-the algorithm’s pulse remains steady, its revenue rising 12% in Q2 alone.

The biggest reason I think IonQ can soar over the next few years is its quantum computing approach, which is less cost-intensive than that of some of its competitors. Because it could be cheaper to deploy and scale, it could give IonQ a massive advantage over its competitors, allowing it to capture a market that IonQ estimates could be worth $87 billion by 2035. (This is the same logic that convinced the ancient Greeks to build a wooden horse, which, incidentally, also had a 200% return on investment-until it didn’t.)

Meta, you see, has already secured its quarry: a veritable menagerie of luminaries from the rarefied world of AI research, lured by offers so opulent they would make Midas blush. Nine-figure bonuses, whispered like incantations in the corridors of Silicon Valley, were but the bait. Now, having ensnared these prodigies, Meta pauses-not out of despair, but discernment. It is reorganizing, aligning its newly acquired talent with projects worthy of their genius. One such division, cryptically named “TBD Lab,” hints at mysteries yet undreamt, a blank canvas awaiting the brushstrokes of brilliance.

A study by J.P. Morgan-a name so venerable it sounds like it ought to be carved into marble-reveals that since 1950, the S&P 500 has hit new highs on about 7% of trading days. And get this: nearly a third of those times, it never looked back. Never! It simply sauntered off into the sunset like a dashing hero in a romantic novel, leaving lesser indices to pine and ponder what might have been.

The stock recently staged a modest comeback after reporting fiscal Q2 results that could charitably be described as “less panic-inducing than expected.” Revenue hit $1.17 billion (21% YoY growth, a reacceleration that felt suspiciously like financial prestidigitation), while adjusted EPS of $0.93 trounced guidance by a margin usually reserved for parliamentary elections in banana republics. Yet the P/S ratio of 25.3 suggests investors are paying roughly $25 for every $1 of sales-a valuation strategy that makes sense only if you’ve misplaced your financial compass in a parallel universe.