Andrew, Ben, and Tom discuss Berkshire Hathaway finally deploying its cash pile with the $6.8 billion purchase of Taylor Morrison Homes, a $10 billion new stake in Google now among its top five holdings, and $4.5 billion in buybacks, prompting the question of whether Buffett's years of caution are giving way to optimism, operating earnings up 24% and utilities profit up 27% even as BNSF and Geico continue to lag, TSMC's strong July sales supporting Q3 guidance for 46-48% revenue growth, a rough stretch for agriculture with Taylor Farms recalling jalapeño products in a salmonella outbreak following an earlier Cyclospora scare, and Treasury Wine Estates taking a $500 million charge and retreating from its US "masstige" strategy as global wine consumption hits its lowest level since the 1960s

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Andrew, Ben, and Tom discuss Atlassian soaring 30% after declaring "AI is the best thing that's ever happened" to the company with credit consumption doubling quarter-over-quarter, the ECB reportedly blindsided after Treasury sold euros rather than dollars in last week's yen intervention with senior officials calling it an unprecedented breach of monetary cooperation conventions, Microchip Technology rising 9% on accelerating data center demand and a long multi-year upcycle across aerospace, defense, industrial, and automotive, Natera jumping 15% on accelerated MRD testing, Elon Musk's new $16.8 billion Terafab chip facility in Texas backed by SpaceX and Tesla, SK Hynix's $38 billion capacity expansion to ease the memory shortage, reports that Nvidia is testing lower-memory versions of its next-gen Rubin Ultra GPU, upcoming changes to the PCE calculation expected to lower reported inflation by up to 30bps, today's jobs report, and new US intelligence suggesting Putin could test NATO's resolve with a limited incursion.


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Ben and Tom discuss WSJ's Timiraos reporting that Trump has been calling Warsh repeatedly since he became Fed Chair — treating him as a trusted economic adviser on the Iran war and AI's economic impact — reigniting the Fed independence debate just as Bessent posted a viral tweet that lit up financial media, memory names WDC dropping 16% and SNDK falling 12% on decelerating quarterly growth despite still-strong annual revenue, ISM Services showing continued resilience with tariff and Middle East concerns fading and World Cup boosts persisting, Fastenal running slightly better than seasonal, Bank of America showing acceleration in lower-income segments, Costco's lowest ex-gas ticket since November potentially signaling disinflation, and Meta launching its Muse Code coding agent as a cheaper alternative to OpenAI and Anthropic.


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Andrew, Ben, and Tom discuss SpaceX falling 11% despite laying out an ambitious AI and Starlink roadmap including Grok 5 trained on internal SpaceX data by year-end, 1.4GW of current compute growing toward 10GW by end of 2027, deploying NVL72-designed data centers on the ground rather than in space, boots on the moon by 2028, and the goal of scaling launch cadence to one per day in 2027, SpaceX's decision to go exclusively with Nvidia sending AMD down 9% despite good results and CPU acceleration while Arista Networks jumped 14% on accelerating networking demand tied to Nvidia, CVS raising guidance and re-adding Zepbound to its formulary while publicly backing Eli Lilly with expanded GLP-1 support, Lilly beating on stronger-than-expected GLP-1 pricing, Disney rising 4% on parks strength and a TikTok short-form video partnership, Uber slipping despite record first-time user additions, and the JOLTS report showing softer job openings but likely not a signal Warsh will weigh.


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Andrew, Ben, and Tom discuss the industrial demand train continuing to roll with ISM Manufacturing accelerating to 55.6 and employment turning positive for the first time in 33 months, Caterpillar raising guidance and surging 10% on data center engine and turbine demand, Palantir soaring 15% with US commercial revenue up 149% and Karp declaring the "revolution for AI sovereignty" is underway, ON Semi up 8% on silicon carbide AI data center revenue growing 60%, Entegris beating estimates, TransDigm +3% on double-digit aerospace and defense growth, Cummins raising outlook on data center power gen, healthcare beats from MRK and PFE potentially masking channel stuffing, McDonald's +2% on better-than-feared comps with a new US president appointed, ADM +5% on the EPA biofuel mandate, and Snap +6% on the World Cup boost.

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Ben and Tom discuss the rare coordinated currency intervention with the US joining Japan and possibly Korea to prop up the yen from 164 to 155, Japan spending at least $53 billion with the US chipping in over $1 billion — reportedly by selling euros rather than dollars in a strategic move to pressure Eurozone policy while supporting Japan, Bessent's incentive to keep Japan from dumping US Treasuries, Japan's plan to tap a COVID-era $60B/day USD swap facility, Iran signaling that Hormuz talks with Oman are entering the final stages after MBS urged Trump to prioritize dialogue, and the market reaction with oil down 5% to the high-$70s/low-$80s, the 10-year at 4.68%, and stocks up 0.5%.

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Ben and Andrew discuss a plan for Hamas to disarm in Gaza, Apple and Amazon's earnings reports, and the blowup of the AI focused hedge fund Situational Awarness. 

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Andrew, Ben, and Tom discuss Warsh holding rates at 3.50-3.75% in a divided 6-3 vote with market-implied inflation expectations dropping meaningfully since the last meeting, the BOE also holding at 3.75% in a matching 6-3 split, the emerging Mag-7 split with Microsoft rising 8% on improved AI ROI, better throughput, and Copilot seat growth versus Meta down 9% on longer time-to-value and fuzzy CapEx guidance beyond 2027, the broader takeaway that Mag-7 is now focused on driving AI revenue and CapEx efficiency which is bearish for Nvidia near-term but long-term positive for the industry, a Russian missile leaving a 30-foot crater on the Poland-Ukraine border, Admiral Cooper preparing a 10-14 day punishing air campaign against Iran, and South Korea weighing a short-selling ban.

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Andrew, Ben, and Tom discuss today's Fed meeting with a 35% chance of a rate hike and expectations of a hawkish hold from Warsh amid potential mutiny from Waller, Bostic, and Lisa Cook, the emerging "semi-stagflation" theme with memory prices destroying demand and slamming chip stocks including Vertiv down 14%, Skyworks and Qorvo down double digits, and KLA down 8%, Procter & Gamble's remarkable flatline quarter with 0% volume, 0% pricing, and 0% organic growth, the strong and resilient consumer theme from Visa and Garmin, disruption stories like CoStar losing search traffic to AI, Trump vowing to hit Iran hard after intercepted attacks sending oil up 5%, and Zuckerberg's WSJ op-ed calling for democratized AI access.


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Ben and Tom discuss the growing Fed infighting reported by WSJ's Nick Timiraos with Governor Chris Waller openly challenging new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh at a dinner over his five new outside expert task forces on communications, inflation framework, asset holdings, data, and AI's impact on productivity, Warsh's notable silence on economic shocks despite the changed environment, the AIA Architecture Billings Index staying below 50 for 41 straight months in one of the longest downturns on record, oil falling as Iran hosts a diplomatic call with Saudi Arabia and Oman with WTI down to $80, chips getting smashed again on Korea weakness and China competition, and Trump's packed schedule meeting Zelensky and Netanyahu before Lindsey Graham's funeral.

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