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And where does that money go? Not into pockets, not into idle hands, but flowing outward, across the water, like a river seeking a new course. The numbers tell a plain story: seventy-five billion dollars pulled from American stocks in the last six months, fifty-two billion since the first frost of this year. It’s a pulling back, a quiet exodus, the fastest such flight in over a decade. A man wonders if this is a tremor before a larger shifting, a turning away from the familiar fields.

They own about 90% of their Chili’s restaurants, which is… control. Proper, adult control. Not the kind where you pretend everything is fine while silently judging everyone, but the kind where you can actually change things. And they did. Before, each Chili’s was pulling in around $370,000 in profit. Now? We’re talking $790,000. Nearly double. It’s almost… upsettingly simple. And yet, the stock is still stubbornly, almost defiantly, cheap.

Behold, Silicon Motion Technology (SIMO 4.20%)! A company not burdened by the weight of such extravagant valuations. They provide the essential memory storage solutions upon which these ‘intelligent’ machines depend – the very foundation, if you will, upon which the grand illusion is built. And, lo and behold, demand for these controllers is, as they say, ‘heating up.’ Their recent financial pronouncements reveal a revenue increase of forty-six percent, year over year, with these SSD controllers contributing most generously to the coffers. Indeed, they anticipate a ‘stronger-than-seasonal start,’ with ‘sustained and steady growth’ throughout the year – a forecast refreshingly devoid of hyperbolic pronouncements.

They’re in the middle of this massive, capital-intensive AI transition. Which, let’s be honest, is just a fancy way of saying they’re throwing money at computers in the hope something magical happens. It’s a bit like me trying to fix a leaky faucet with duct tape and wishful thinking. Usually ends in disaster, but sometimes… sometimes it holds. And Alphabet? They have a lot more duct tape.

Abel, in a move that suggests a continuation of sound judgment, has highlighted four stocks that Berkshire holds dear. He describes them as businesses understood well, led by chaps he clearly approves of, and possessing the rather desirable quality of being likely to “compound over decades.” A most sensible aspiration, wouldn’t you agree? He also hinted, in a manner that was blessedly free of the usual financial jargon, that Berkshire isn’t planning any hasty exits from these positions. A refreshing change, as one often finds investment strategies resembling a particularly frantic game of musical chairs.

From 2021 to 2025, the expansion of its active accounts was a paltry increase from 426 million to 439 million. A pathetic growth, considering the grand ambitions of reaching 750 million by 2025 – a goal abandoned, like a discarded faith. It strives now to compensate, to force more transactions through its branded checkout, the ephemeral Venmo, debit cards, and the siren song of “buy now, pay later” services. But is this merely a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable, to rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking vessel?

The outperformance of consumer staples ETFs obscures significant disparities in underlying holdings. Costco and Walmart, comprising a substantial portion of these ETFs, exhibit price-to-earnings ratios comparable to those of high-growth technology firms – a metric that warrants careful consideration. The apparent safety of the sector, therefore, may be illusory.