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The ETF’s growth, undeniably fueled by the AI boom, presents a curious paradox. It is a vessel brimming with the fruits of technological innovation, yet, one wonders, is it truly capturing the full harvest? The concentration of its holdings—nearly 59% residing in the hands of a mere ten companies—is a testament to the consolidation of power within this digital realm. A delicate balance, easily disrupted, as any seasoned observer of markets will attest.

Microsoft, Palantir, ServiceNow – the big names are all down. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) took a 16% hit last month, a final 7% tumble over the last two days after earnings reports from Microsoft, ServiceNow, and SAP. Numbers don’t lie, but they rarely tell the whole story. This felt less like a correction, more like a sigh.

They also own Teva, which, let’s be honest, peaked in 1998 with the ironic college student crowd. But Hoka and Ugg? Those are the workhorses. Management, to their credit, didn’t just stumble into this. They actually bought these brands when they were basically adorable startups and built them into global footwear powerhouses. It’s almost…competent. Which, in corporate America, is practically a unicorn sighting.

J&J (JNJ 0.02%), the company, is a bit like that slightly eccentric neighbor who’s been meticulously tending their garden for decades. You might not understand why they’re so obsessed with petunias, but you have to admire the dedication. They’re approaching a milestone – $100 billion in annual sales. It feels…significant. Not in a world-altering way, but in a “they’ve managed to avoid complete disaster for another year” kind of way. Only one other biopharma company has hit that mark, and that was Pfizer, riding the wave of pandemic panic. J&J’s doing it the old-fashioned way: slowly, steadily, and with a portfolio diverse enough to make a venture capitalist weep.

Choosing between them…it’s not a question of preference, but of recognizing which machine is built to last a little longer. And for me, it’s Apple. Not because it offers salvation, but because its gears, for now, seem marginally less prone to grinding to a halt.

2026 has offered a slight reprieve – a mere 11.8% uptick year-to-date. Charming, but hardly a cause for popping champagne. One wonders if regaining former glories is entirely within the cards. The question, of course, is whether one should venture a purchase at this juncture.

Sandisk’s revenue surged 61% year-over-year to $3 billion in their latest fiscal quarter. Now, one might reasonably ask, what’s driving this sudden demand? The answer, as is so often the case these days, is artificial intelligence. It turns out that all these cloud computing behemoths, the ones busy building these ‘AI factories’ as they’re calling them, need an awful lot of data storage. A truly colossal amount. It’s rather like discovering that building a large Lego castle requires, well, a lot of Lego bricks. And Sandisk, it seems, has a particularly robust supply of those bricks.