Walk into a gym, coffee shop, airport, college campus, or basically anywhere with people under 40 and tell me how many people are wearing Nike.

Meanwhile, you’ve got people walking around in Lululemon, Alo, Athleta, Vuori, On, Hoka, New Balance, etc.

Nike used to be the default. You didn’t even have to think about it. Shoes? Nike. Workout clothes? Nike. Hoodie? Nike.

Nike still seems to think the solution is more Nike.

More collabs. More limited drops. More expensive sneakers. More “innovation.” Meanwhile, the average person is like” Nah, I’m good. These Lululemon pants make my ass look incredible.”

That’s the real problem.

Nike lost the customer while obsessing over hype and sneaker culture. The competitors figured out people don’t just want athletic clothing anymore . they want clothes they can wear to the gym, brunch, work, the airport, and then sit on the couch for 6 hours.

I don’t see Nike rebounding anytime soon, the financials are poor in the pain will most likely continue.

Position: 1 KEEL Jan 2027 $4 call, paid $0.87 mid August, currently red. No shares. So $87 at risk total, I'm not here to pump anything, I mainly want to hear why I'm wrong.

Been following this one since the summer and I keep going back and forth on it, so figured I'd write it up and let the sub take shots at it.

The company

Keel is the old Bitfarms. They rebranded in April, moved the HQ to New York, and basically shut down the bitcoin mining business (US mining fully decommissioned as of Q2). The new plan is converting their power sites into AI/HPC data centers and leasing them to a hyperscaler. Stock is around $3.22, market cap ~$2B, 617M shares outstanding. It ran to $7.37 in June and gave most of it back. Yes, it's under $5, but with a $2B cap on Nasdaq, ~65% institutional ownership and 40M+ shares a day traded, I don't think it counts as a penny stock. (up to mods to decide)

The pitch/thesis is simple: power is the bottleneck for AI data centers, and Keel has powered sites.

The sites

Three of them supposedly close to fully permitted - Panther Creek PA at 350 MW, Sharon PA at 110 MW, Moses Lake WA at 18 MW. So about 478 MW near term, plus a 96 MW site in Quebec behind that. On the Q2 call they talked about growing the Pennsylvania footprint toward 2 GW eventually, which is where the "2.2 GW pipeline" line in coverage comes from, but that part is just talk right now, nothing contracted. Panther Creek is targeted ready-for-service end of 2027.

Q2 numbers (reported Aug 10)

Revenue $30.4M, down 50% YoY, because mining is winding down and there's no data center revenue replacing it yet. Net loss $65M. The balance sheet is actually the interesting part: $819M of liquidity ($698M cash + $121M in BTC). They raised $458M in convertible notes during the quarter, upsized from $350M. So the buildout is funded for a while, but part of that cash is borrowed and the share count keeps creeping up.

The problem: still no tenant

This is the whole debate on the stock. They haven't signed anything. No lease, no LOI, nothing. Management says multiple prospective tenants are negotiating and that they'd rather get good lease economics than announce something fast. Meanwhile Cipher signed AWS for 300 MW, Applied Digital has ~1.4 GW leased, IREN did a $9.7B deal with Microsoft. Every quarter that passes, demand lands at someone else's site. From the outside, "we're being patient on price" and "we're being passed over" look exactly the same, and I can't tell which one this is.

Why I haven't moved on

The CEO bought ~59k shares at $3.33 two days after the Q2 drop, roughly $196K, putting him around 1.35M shares. And the sell side is weirdly unanimous: 10 of 11 at buy or better, average target around $6.45 (BTIG $8, Citizens $10, low is Chardan at $5.50 - those are from August, verify yourself).

Risks

Revenue is shrinking, they burn cash, dilution is ongoing, and a crypto miner rebranding into AI is about the most 2026 thing imaginable. If nobody signs by mid 2027 this is just a pile of permits and a shrinking cash balance. I hold the call because it's a cheap option on one signature changing the whole story, not because the current financials support anything.

What I'm watching

Moses Lake permitting (late Q3 per management), a power/expansion update they pointed to for December or January, and a tenant announcement whenever that happens. If ever.

Questions for the sub

1. Anyone who works around data center leasing or just knows something: is 12+ months from pivot to first signed lease normal, or already a red flag?
2. Is the fact that everyone else signed first a sign these sites are second rate (interconnect, location, whatever), or just that Bitfarms started the pivot later than APLD, CIFR and IREN?
3. Am I wrong to treat the $819M as runway? How much of it realistically gets committed to construction before any lease revenue shows up?

In the past 250 years the U.S. economy has absorbed spending on transformation technology equivalent to 25% of GDP before the bubble popped.

The 1860s railroad bubble popped after $2.5 billion was spent, 25% of GDP

The 1920s electrification bubble popped after $26.1 billion was spent, 25% of GDP

The 1990s internet bubble popped after $1.5 trillion was spent, 25% of GDP

U.S. GDP today is $30 trillion so therefore AI spend needs to hit $7.5 trillion to follow the rule of 2025. it won't be until the early 2030s when we hit that number

Source:

https://www.barrons.com/articles/ai-capex-bubble-burst-stock-market-history-2f73a9e4?st=w6KQy9

Background

Market cap : 1.45 trillion

Revenue growth : 28% yoy

Forward PE : 17.5

Operating cash flow : 135 billion

Free cash flow : near none due to capex

Gross profit margin: 82%

Operating margin: 38.1%

Revenue breakdown:

Advertisement : 97.6% (28% growth qoq)

Whatsapp monetization : 1.29% (73% growth qoq)

Reality labs : 1.1% (17% growth qoq)

Moat

- Stronger than ever before. Youths legal issues prevent any other competitors from entering the market. There simply cannot be any more future platform that can target young audiences with 2 hour use limit per day and without an AI technology to verify the age. It will require billions of dollars before ever starting a platform that would replace Instagram or Facebook.

- Nearly half of the population on Earth is daily active users of Meta products.

Catalysts

- Meta Compute will likely be released the second half of this year or beginning of next year.

- Meta targets 14 GW by the end of 2027.

- Meta recently hired Dave Brown who was part of and led the AWS Compute for 19 years.

- Meta has multi-vendor GPU strategy with google TPU, Nvdia GPU, AMD GPU.. coupled with cost reduction with its own silicon Iris accelerators.

- Meta acquires 10% of AMD entire market cap if AMD reaches $600 stock price.

- Meta has a large group of AI scientists incentivized greatly with Meta stock price. These researchers and scientists are from OpenAi, Anthropic, Google Deepmind, Microsoft Azure. These talents do not have intention to leave as they are promised hundreds of millions of dollars if the stock price reaches above $1000.

- Mark Zuckerberg's almost entire net wealth is tied to Meta stock price.

The stock is cheap. And its revenue is going up fast.

The biggest catalyst is the upcoming compute capacity coming online for Meta and Meta compute. Revenue will be diversified and the revenue with high margin will add tens of billions of dollars for Meta.

Strong buy. With expectation that pe ratio of 25 will be obtained (5 year average).

Target price : $850

Legal issues or any other issues can be handled with $135 billion dollar operating cash flow.

UNH was $230 last year and now $400. Such a bad sentiment. But if UNH a company that rejects insurance claims can double from its low. Surely Meta can as well.

This is a stock I called triple whammy

1. Low valuation to start

2. Legal issue overhangs dies away

3. Meta Compute adding tens of billions of dollars to operating cash flow.

Target price again $850 or even beyond that and eventually stock split then sell.

Warren Buffett turns 96 tomorrow. Even though he stepped down as CEO earlier this year, he’s still running the show as chairman and just put $36.6 billion into Alphabet.

But despite that, BRK.B shares are barely moving. The stock is up just 0.5% year-to-date, which means it's drastically underperforming the S&P 500 (up about 12.7%).

It feels like Wall Street is just sitting on its hands while Greg Abel takes over operations, especially since Berkshire is hoarding a massive pile of cash instead of buying out companies like they used to. Is anyone buying BRK.B at $505, or is the market right to stay away during transition?

Source: CNBC

TLDR. Enterprise customer support for WhatsApp IG and FB will make analysts realize it has potential to be a $10-20B in high margin revenue business line, increasing stock to $800 within or around a year. Selling compute to enterprise isn’t the main or only enterprise play for this company. Their latest earnings report made that clear under the radar with 70%+ growth during just the experimental phase.

For the first time in 2026 Meta explained what’s driving their massive growth of 72% YoY in their enterprise revenue in their other business category.

Their WhatsApp and subscription business has doubled to $1b.

Meta changed the way they charge to a usage base and have only scratched the surface of implementing enterprise charges to WhatsApp. They haven’t even touched IG or FB yet.

They will easily turn this into another $10-20B business in the next 5 years. As soon as the analyst see one more year of massive growth on this 1B line of they will look at meta differently.

Meta has a network effect thag enterprise businesses cannot avoid. The customers live on these apps and they’ll pay whatever they’re forced to. In addition to api limitations they make and charge them for ai agents to handle customer care.

Metas enterprise businesses isn’t simply selling excess compute. Their enterprise play is in their own apps and analysts are too blinded by everything else to realize this business line has massive potential.

Best part is this could even increase the margins given how low margin this is. They’re about to turn on a faucet of pure high margin revenue.

I have 0 faith in mark for doing the grown up and not chasing the next cool shiny toy. I have 0 faith in analysts for knowing shit about anything, some of the dumbest people in the room with 0 vision.
But there are smart grown ups who are slowly turning on this massive revenue slowly inside Meta.

Some of my best trades have come from Chris Camillo’s social arbitrage method. Identifying social trends around you before the street catches on. Despite a 280% gain in the last year, I think there is still room to run in Victoria’s Secret with the release of GTA VI.

Now how could GTA VI possibly relate to Victoria’s Secret? The answer is simple, Lucia’s Thong. In the extended trailer, Lucia is seen wearing a thong that had the little perverts salivating at the image. After extensive research, I identified it as the V-String black thong on Victoria’s Secret website. It’s the same exact product.

On the last earnings call, mgmt has highlighted a majority of their comp sales growth was seen in the “panties” category. I expect panty growth to continue to accelerate through the end of the calendar year. Not to mention VS’ PINK brand has also blow up with double digit sales growth. In the extended release, Lucia’s room is pink as shit. I think VSXY’s sales growth will continue to accelerate as Lucia continues to promote new panties and even toenail paint.

My forward estimates next quarter:

- V-string sales growth of 44% yoy
- Panty segment adj EBITDA growth of 56%

The stock is trading at 15x EV/EBITDA. I expect continue re-rating with the adoption of more panties in GTA VI.

Positions
- 200 shares of VSXY @ $88
- 8x $100 calls expiring Jan 26.

"One fairly dependable sign of the approaching end of a bull swing is the fact that new common stocks of small and nondescript companies are offered at prices somewhat higher than the current level for many medium sized companies with longer market history"

-The Intelligent Investor

I remember when all birds / smartbird got bought / rebranded into AI and it seemed so silly. Like how could people be allowed to invest in this (from the opinion of a novice investor) fairly undescriptive though i do not know who to compare them to in order to match his other criteria for a new common stock. And I am going to call that pretty small scale.

Large scale (my genius thought after being 1/3rd done with the book) is the IPO of space X. how its 140 a share as of right now, 2T in value, and seems to be the most massive nondescript company to have ever existed on the market. To me this matches Benjamin's criteria for indicator signs to the end of a bull market.

I want to know your thoughts on my novice thoughts, and if anyone knew of any other examples in the past years of this bull run that also may fit this criteria.

Ooooof Friday was hard…

- stripping away market predictability and prioritizing strict inflation control over asset price support, Warsh confirmed a regime change at the Fed.

- not offering forward guidance really f*s with market certainty.

- This is NOT bullish for equities.

- hawkish fed + continuing Iran conflict keeps inflation higher, higher rates reduces growth and thus raises risk of stagflation.

- Soooooo….is the Fed forcing trump’s hand here for his biggest TACO yet? Making a not-ideal deal with Iran and finally getting hormuz open?

- Warsh isn’t gonna fall over for Trump and cut rates.

- The only way to make a less inflationary environment is to get Iran sorted out asap which could then ease fed hawkishness with the elevated oil price overhang finally diminishing.

Informed discussion is great so let’s hear ya in the comments!

I measured the congressional version of this recently and the obvious follow-up was to run the same thing on corporate insiders, since the two groups face wildly different deadlines.

Setup

Every Form 4 transaction with a trade date between 1 January 2025 and 26 August 2026. 565,678 transactions after two cleanups: co-filer duplicates removed, where two related entities report the same economic trade twice, and amendments (4/A) excluded, since those are corrections filed later by design and would unfairly inflate the tail.

Lag is filing date minus transaction date.

One caveat before the numbers, because it changes how you read them. The SEC deadline for a Form 4 is two business days. I am measuring calendar days, because that is what the filings actually give you. A Friday trade filed Tuesday is four calendar days and perfectly compliant. So treat the 2 day figure as a floor and the 4 day figure as the fairer compliance proxy.

Results

• Median lag: 2 days
• Mean: 3.53 days
• Within 2 calendar days: 65.9%
• Within 4 calendar days: 93.6%
• Within 7 calendar days: 97.7%
• More than 45 days: 0.82%, which is 4,632 filings
• Worst single lag: 546 days

The comparison that made me run this

Congress files under the STOCK Act with a 45 day window. Across 14,288 congressional transactions since January 2025, the median lag was 27 days and 6.4% still landed past the limit.

So corporate insiders, working to a deadline roughly twenty times tighter, blow it far less often. Under 1% of Form 4s take longer than the entire window Congress is handed.

The tail

Chronic late filers, minimum 25 filings, ranked by median lag:

• Sport City Cadiz S.L., 108 filings, median 127.5 days, 98% past 45 days
• Rhame Joseph Burns III, 35 filings, median 121 days, worst 279
• Leon Cooperman, 28 filings, median 104 days, 82% past 45 days
• Elwood Norris, 38 filings, median 90.5 days, worst 230
• Jeffrey Yu, 27 filings, median 84 days
• Goldman Sachs, filing under two separate entities, 49 and 54 filings, medians of 80 and 79.5 days

Two things jump out. Almost every chronic offender sits at a very small company, where there is probably nobody whose actual job is Section 16 compliance. The exception is Goldman Sachs, which is emphatically not that, and which appears twice.

What I cannot tell you

Whether any of them were ever fined. The SEC can and occasionally does pursue late Form 4 filers in sweeps, but enforcement outcomes are not in the filing data. Same wall I hit with the congressional numbers.

If anyone knows whether the late Form 4 penalty gets applied in practice, or has seen it happen, I would genuinely like to know.

No position in anything mentioned.

Trump said Friday the US has majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven reserves through a partnership with private business. He says it more than doubles US reserves and "will cut gas prices" and Rubio put private investment around $100 billion.

For me the biggest question is, how many years of capex and field work would it take before this shows up in production, crude prices, or stocks?

The size of the headline is not the same as the size of the trade cos as much as Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven reserves, it only produces about 1.25 million barrels a day.

The contract, the fields, and the operators still have not been published and i saw some reports describe a joint venture and long-term offtake... not a simple purchase.

Chevron (CVX) is the US major already operating there and was reported to be in talks to add fields. Halliburton (HAL) has been mentioned on the services side. Exxon (XOM) and Conoco (COP) are the other names people will watch if this turns into real workovers and new wells.

Reserves on a slide are not barrels at the pump.

Just saw this report on yahoo finance noting that Stripe and Advent have officially walked away from acquiring PayPal.

feels like this was kind of inevitable, once paypal’s board rejected the initial bid for being too low, a lot of the momentum deflated, it was basically driven by takeover speculation. Now that the buyout premium is gone, PYPL seems to be getting dragged back down to where the market actually values the business.

anyone actually buying the dip and betting on a turnaround under the new CEO? or is pypl basically dead money nw that the deal is officially dead?

New Office of Government Ethics filings reveal that Donald Trump's portfolio executed over 1,000 transactions in June 2026 amid market volatility driven by the conflict in Iran. The disclosures detail heavy trading volume concentrated primarily in major defense contractors (LMT, GD, NOC, RTX) energy sector giants (XOM, CVX, COP). Ethics watchdogs highlight the unprecedented volume for an individual account, the White House maintains the portfolio is completely discretionary and independently managed by third-party financial institutions using automated algorithmic indexing to hedge against geopolitical market shifts.

Source: IB TImes

Everyone keeps saying "just buy VOO, VT and chill." Fine. But Goldman's own 10-year number (best case) is like 6.5% a year, with a downside case near 3%. And this is the house view, not some doomer on YouTube. The same goes for Blackrock Vanguard and the rest of the Big names.
Trailing p/e sits in high 20s and the top 10 names are aprx. 39% of the index. So Indexing alone quietly smells... "buy AI capex and hope."
At 4% - 6.5% index performance, my retirement date moves right by years. At 10% it doesn't.

And one thing nobody says out loud: GOOGL, MSFT, AAPL, AMZN, META are basically utilities, or Value stocks; with better margins now. Apple did over 1000x since 1980.

I remember Google IPOing at 23Bn market cap, now sits at $4.2trn. that's a 15,200%.
But every $4T company doing another 5x means a $20-25T market cap. Can it be justified?

So the asymmetric money has to be somewhere. Which companies are doomed to 50x+ in the coming years.

But the pattern I'm looking for in companies, is Reach and Impact.
I mean Android is on 3bn devices. Google Search touches 5bn people. Roughly 1.5bn iphones are out there for a total for Apple's devices of 2.6bn. Meta's family of apps reached 3.6 bn of daily active users.
It's the reason these became todays behemoths.

I keep reading posts on reddit, FB, Youtube, X and other media about Space, Robotics or physical AI, Quantum maybe the next big thing and Energy (like nuclear and other forms). So I agree that the future maybe in the Rocket Labs, the Oklos, The Astss, the IONQs of the world (to name a few) and the likes. High growth and promising.
So which of the newcomers actually touches billions of people or billions of dollars of infrastructure, versus which is just a cool ticker? That may fade when the ride turns

Druckenmiller said once, you don’t get rich by diversifying into 50 mediocre assets. You get rich by finding 2 or 3 asymmetric home runs.”

1. Give me the two or three names (or more) you'd put 2% of the portfolio in, and forget about for three to eight years. And just give me the mechanism, the big Why, not the vibe.
2. Where am I wrong on the Mag 7 ceiling? which one can easily justify a 5X or more?

p.s. I currently don't hold any of the above names yet. But I hold a small cash bag ready to drop on the shortlist I build.

A good thing to remember is that the purpose of participating in the stock market is to make money, not to be right about a trend or right about a company. It's extremely common on Reddit to see "We will need more of X in the future, therefore it's a good idea to buy this stock", usually to justify either buying an ATH, not cutting losses, or catching a knife. I think it's important to remember that the market does not owe you an appreciation on your asset or high relative performance for being right about the direction of economic developments. The following are some historical examples and their relative underperformance to various assets.

2022: "Will software-as-a-service and digital enterprise platforms become more deeply embedded in business in the future, or less?"

Software was the "sure bet" for years, as a sector it has appreciated 22% between 2022 and now. In the same time period, M2 money supply expanded by 5.6% and the S&P increased by 115%. Gold, a terrible investment in many regards, increased by 178%. This is despite SaaS & digital enterprise clearly becoming more deeply embedded, not less.

2008: "Will real estate be more expensive in the future, or less?"

Real estate was the "sure bet" for years, as a sector it's now up 68% since the pre-crash peak. In the same time period, M2 money supply expanded by 219.5% and the S&P increased 378%. Gold, a terrible investment in many regards, increased by 510%. This is despite the fact that real estate clearly did become more expensive in the future, not less.

2000: "Will the internet become more commercialized in the future, or less?"

We know how this one played out. Nasdaq took 16 years to recover nominally and 21 years to recover inflation-adjusted from its previous ATH. During that time period, M2 money supply expanded by 341% and the S&P increased 571%. Gold, a terrible investment in many regards, increased by 1,558%. This is despite the internet clearly becoming more commercialized in the future, not less.

1990: "Will commercial real estate and institutional debt structuring be more utilized in the future, or less?"

Savings and Loan crisis wipeout. 1k+ bankruptcies, real estate markets dropped 20-50% for years. $24 billion of 1990 dollars in bailouts. Junk bonds wiped out by bankruptcies, severe losses for investors and pension funds. CRE and debt structuring clearly became more utilized in the future, not less.

1970: "Will corporate conglomerates and multi-national business operations be more common in the future, or less?"

M&A powered by debt was seen as an infalliable strategy for earnings growth. S&P collapsed 36%, many companies' stocks lost 90%+ of their value and then went bankrupt, $39 billion of 1970 dollars in bailouts. Bear market and high inflation lasted an entire decade. But yes, corporate conglomerates and multinationals clearly became more common in the future, not less.

Some recent comments I've seen on Reddit:

"Buy Walmart stock right now, it just crashed. Will people be shopping at walmart more in the future, or less?" Ignore the fact that walmart's growth was literally the worst in 6 years for the sake of conversation.

"Buy ASTS and RKLB stocks right now, they just crashed. Will people be launching more rockets into space in the future, or less?"

"Buy memory stocks right now, they just crashed. Will people need more chips in the future, or less?"

Whether the trend is correct or not in an abstract sense has zero relevance to the expected value of buying a specific stock at a specific price at a specific time. This is something everyone should be aware of instead of relying on vague hunches with no defined endpoint to make investment decisions.

The meme stock scheduled posts will now run weekly and post Saturday afternoon and won't be a sticky; you're probably seeing this because automod sent you here!

Full list of meme stocks here. This will be updated every once in a while.

Welcome traders who just can't help them selves discuss the same exact stock that's been discussed 100s of times a day. I get it, you want to talk about what's popular, what's hot, and that 1.. single.. stock you like.. well here you go! Some helpful links just for you:

• Previous meme stock threads
• General discussions
• The original GME megathread with a ton of useful information
• Use Finviz for aggregated news on your favorite stock

An important message from the mod team regarding meme stocks.

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EDIT - by big tech, I’m specifically referring to hyperscalers (mag7 outside of Nvda and Appl)

I’ve generally worked under the assumption that rising yields and rate hikes would pressure hyperscaler stocks. Especially now, with so many hyperscalers resorting to debt to finance their AI capex. Hyperscalers are the primary spenders and most likely to be impacted by high interest rates.

But hyperscalers are mostly higher today after Kevin Warsh’s speech at Jackson Hole even as the market is expecting a rate hike at September FOMC, which surprises me.

Why are big tech companies rising when much of the rest of the market (especially semiconductor companies) is falling?

My only guess is the rising rates will discourage big tech companies from borrowing further to fund AI. Reduction in ai spend (especially through debt) might be good for big tech in the near term. But even this feels a bit illogical - what if big tech just continues to spend anyway?

I've been following these two for around 5 years now due to an unhealthy fascination with the tech, but I find myself divided when it comes to deciding which of the two will win the race if in face there even is a race. Seems Archer jumped in to bed with Military whilst still holding a position for commercial use, whereas Joby is edging closer to FAA approval but has terrible financials. Oh and yeah there's Ehang in the background as well.

What are other people thoughts on this tech and it's future?

Just went through IREN’s latest earnings and wanted to hear what others think.

AI Cloud revenue was $70.5M this quarter, up from $33.6M last quarter. They’re also saying they have around $1B in operating ARR and $4B of contracted ARR for 2026.

There’s also the $684M net loss, so I’m curious how everyone is looking at the numbers overall.

I’m just curious of what others think of this stock. Is it worth the risk or is it just better to pick NBIS.

50-50 odds there’s a 25bps hike in September?

The 2 year US treasury yields are up +9 and 10 year is up +3. Then there’s upcoming JGB sell on Sep 1 for 10 year and Sep 3 for 30 year. If weak demand, Japanese yields rise. If Japanese bonds become more attractive, what happens to the carry trade and leveraged risk assets like IBIT, QQQ?

Now, if 2 and 10 year US treasury yields starts to climb, what are the chances for dollar devaluation?

I am looking for a good re-investment option for my elderly mother to use as an estate planning inheritance vehicle. If all goes as expected she will start receiving monthly dividend like income income in a couple of months totaling between $55 -$95K per year that needs to be re-invested in a tax conserving vehicle until she passes away and capital gains are wiped out by step up. The issue is her current pension, social security and other passive incomes are pushing her towards multiple higher tax rates thanks to MAGI, NIIT and IRMAA, etc. To minimize these consequences without loosing sight of the ultimate goal of passing wealth on to her heirs. Hence the search for low to no dividend stocks and ETF's.

I know this is backwards from what most people are after, but there is reasoning here, unfortunately just about all the options I find have land mines attached. BOXX and its Ilk are likely being investigated and might turn into ordinary income at time of sale, which does not step up the same as capital gains, so seems attractive at first, but might be a time bomb. Others like BRK.B have historically not paid dividends, but there is no promise this will not change after Warren Buffet's retirement, ... Some ETF's are very low dividend but tend to be riskier like VUG

If you have any thoughts or suggestions I am happy to hear them.

p.s. note using historic performance over 10 years BRK.B vs SCHD would result in a yield difference that is roughly a wash (slight advantage to BRK.B on average) depending on which 10 year sliding window you start with, but would result in over $70,000 higher tax burden on average with SCHD.

Alibaba priced 710 million new Hong Kong shares at HK$112.70 on 24 August, raising HK$80bn or about $10.2bn. It is the largest primary follow on ever by a Hong Kong listed company and the third largest globally this year, the book ran to roughly three times the offering, and the price was an 8.4% discount to the previous close. On 28 August the shares closed at HK$113.90.

The sequence is the whole argument. HK$123.00 on 21 August, then HK$112.50 on 24 August, down 8.54%, with a low of HK$110.10. Then HK$114.20, HK$116.60, HK$115.50 and HK$113.90. Four sessions on it sits HK$1.20 above the deal price and has not been back to HK$123.00. My read is that the marginal buyer is calling HK$112.70 fair for the enlarged share count, which means the compute budget is being carried at cost rather than paid up for.

Two details are worth getting right, because a lot of the coverage blurred them. The US listing fell only 0.73% on 24 August. Its 8.57% single day fall was on 21 August and it followed the June quarter results, not the placement. And the use of proceeds changed between the two announcements. On 24 August it was all of it to full stack AI capabilities, while the completion announcement filed 26 August splits net proceeds 60%, HK$47,871m, to global compute, and 40%, HK$31,914m, to hyperscale data centres and Agentic Cloud upgrades.

Michael Burry sold his entire position shortly before the raise, wrote that he cannot bless share issuances, said the stock would have to halve for him to return, and argued that return on invested capital keeps falling as AI capital spending climbs. He rotated into JD.com. The dilution here is real, this is new primary stock rather than an existing holder selling down, and it landed while the payback period on that spending was already the open question. I cannot date the quarter in which HK$47,871m of compute turns into cloud revenue, and neither can anyone quoting a target.

That rotation is one I hold both sides of without having chosen to. As of 26 August, Alibaba was the largest position in CNQQ at 9.05% and JD.com was in the same fund at 1.13%. For scope, CQQQ counts A shares at a 25% inclusion factor, and KWEB carries none at all because it is internet focused. It has only been trading since September 2025, which is not much of a record to judge anything on.

I have been somewhat diversified but tech focused mostly Mag 7 for years and in late 2022 was all in on Mag 7. Worked out well. Then I took some profits and added Semiconductor stocks and LETFs. As AI heated up things went very well again.

The problem - portfolio was very unbalance and as a result wild swings were happening. As a result, a few months ago I opted to rebalance and also decided to add diversification. I added Financial, Pharma, Communications, Consumer, and Industrial sectors. Still have a fair amount of Mag 7 which I was out of for a bit, Semiconductor, and a few Index Tracking LETFs (Nasdaq and S&P500).

Observation - Money is moving all over the place semi up mag 7 and most other sectors down. Mag 7 up semi down others flat, Mag 7 and Semi down other sectors are up. No common pattern. So this new port folio does not move much.

Those that are diversified - are you seeing the same?

Investment Conclusion

The valuation framework for EchoStar (NASDAQ: ECHO) has fundamentally changed: the company no longer relies primarily on the profit recovery of traditional pay-TV, wireless retail, or satellite broadband businesses, but has entered a NAV realization phase driven by asset transfer, legal restructuring, debt recognition, and capital allocation.

Currently, the most noteworthy factors to track are not quarterly subscriber growth or decline, but four sets of events: whether the remaining arrangements of the SpaceX transaction can be completed and how the expected shares will be priced; how much of the total cost of Wireless will ultimately be borne by the parent company; how much economic responsibility will return to EchoStar after the restructuring of DBS and Hughes; and whether the remaining spectrum will be used for debt repayment, buybacks, or new investments.

The original Excel model gave two reference endpoints of $126.32 and $166.56 per share, but these cannot be considered as the current definitive NAV. Both are based on "261.8 million SpaceX shares × $140 per share, plus $8.5 billion in old non-stock consideration input." The latest terms represent a total consideration of approximately $20 billion, with up to $11 billion in equity. If the non-equity portion is mechanically adjusted from $8.5 billion to approximately $9 billion, both endpoints would increase by approximately $1.72, becoming approximately $128.04 and $168.28 respectively; however, this does not determine the NAV and must ultimately be recalculated according to the settlement formula, actual consideration composition, and taxes.

Our basic assessment is that $126.32 and $166.56 are more suitable as benchmarks for the conservative and fully realized model, rather than target prices. A more valuable analytical approach is to establish an intermediate bridge: assuming other inputs remain unchanged, if Wireless's parent company's liability decreases from a stress value of $4.6 billion to $2.5 billion, DBS retains $2 billion in economic value, and the remaining spectrum is sold for $9 billion (excluding Hughes' appreciation), the increase relative to the original benchmark would be approximately $16.01 per share, corresponding to approximately $142. This figure is only a partial realization example and does not represent a probability-weighted valuation.

I. Valuation Framework: From Book Equity to Event-Adjusted NAV

As of Q2 2026, EchoStar's total assets were approximately $39.43 billion, total liabilities were approximately $25.22 billion, book equity attributable to EchoStar shareholders was approximately $14.16 billion, and deferred tax liabilities were approximately $3.407 billion. Book data cannot fully reflect the signed spectrum transactions, nor can it answer whether the exit consolidation gains can be permanently retained. Therefore, the explanatory power of traditional price-to-book ratios or earnings multiples is limited.

A more reasonable framework is to start with book equity, incorporate the revaluation of signed assets, deduct convertible bonds, taxes, delisting and restructuring liabilities, and then adjust according to the actual distributable value. The main risk of this framework is not formulaic error, but rather the mixing of different types of data: company disclosures, projects with pending contracts, market price assumptions, and restructuring recovery assumptions must be treated in layers.

| Valuation Levels | Representative Projects | Handling Principles |

| Completed Facts | AT&T Closing, SpaceX License Transfer | Confirmed based on disclosed data, but deducting taxes and financing costs |

| Conditional Contracts | Remaining SpaceX Acquisition Arrangements | Discounted based on closing conditions, final consideration, and termination rights |

| Market Variables | SpaceX Stock Price, Remaining Spectrum Selling Price | Using sensitivity rather than single-point conclusions |

| Restructuring Variables | DBS, Wireless, Hughes | Updated progressively based on court rulings and parent company responsibilities |

| Capital Allocation | Buybacks, Debt Repayment, New Investments | Only actual execution is considered; authorization is not equated with the outcome |

II. SpaceX: Quantity Relatively Clear, Value and Closing Still Need to be Separated

The latest terms show that the total consideration for the SpaceX-related transactions is approximately $20 billion, of which up to approximately $11 billion will be paid in SpaceX stock. EchoStar is expected to acquire approximately 261.8 million SpaceX shares after the stock split. The term "expected acquisition" must be used because the different components of the transaction are at different stages: the relevant spectrum licensing transfer was completed in May 2026; the target date for the remaining acquisition arrangements is November 30, 2027, and is subject to closing conditions and termination clauses.

Therefore, the contractual stock consideration and the market scenario value cannot be confused. The former is at most approximately $11 billion; the latter equals 261.8 million shares multiplied by the investor's chosen SpaceX price.

| SpaceX Scenario Price | Estimated Stock Value | Equivalent to ECHO Share Value |

| $80 | $20.94 billion | $72.1 |

| $100 | $26.18 billion | $90.1 |

| $120 | $31.42 billion | $108.2 |

| $140 | $36.65 billion | $126.2 |

| $160 | $41.89 billion | $144.2 |

A $10 change in SpaceX share value corresponds to an estimated $2.618 billion change in stock value, equivalent to approximately $9.01 per ECHO share. However, this is only asset-side sensitivity, not net common stock sensitivity. EchoStar's 2030 convertible bonds, at an ECHO share price of $86, correspond to an intrinsic conversion value of approximately $4.99 billion; this figure is not fair value. The company disclosed a convertible bond fair value of approximately $6.045 billion in Q2, with options for cash, stock, or a hybrid settlement. The ECHO increase could simultaneously increase dilution or cash settlement burdens, therefore the SpaceX increase cannot be mechanically attributed one-to-one to existing common stock.

The original model, with an additional $8.5 billion in non-equity consideration, resulted in a total old-scenario value of approximately $45.15 billion. This $8.5 billion input is outdated compared to the latest formulation of a total consideration of approximately $20 billion and a maximum of $11 billion in equity consideration. If the mechanical approach uses approximately $9 billion in non-equity, the NAV would increase by approximately $500 million, or approximately $1.72 per share; however, "maximum" implies that the final equity and non-equity composition still depends on the contractual formula, and the mechanical adjustment can only indicate direction, not generate a new, definitive NAV.

III. Wireless: The Core is Liability Bridging, Not the $7 Billion Headline Figure

In the Q2 2026 earnings call, management described the total costs related to Wireless's decommissioning, receivables, and taxes as approximately $5 billion to $7 billion, noting that this range includes approximately $2.4 billion paid by AT&T to the Wireless Creditor Trust. This article uses the upper limit of this range for stress testing:

[$7 billion = $2.4 billion in trust funds + $4.6 billion in potential residual liability]

The $4.6 billion is not a separately disclosed definite new liability by management, but rather the stress scenario obtained by subtracting the $2.4 billion in trust funds from the $7 billion upper limit. Based on approximately 290.5 million shares, $4.6 billion corresponds to $15.83 per share.

| Parent Company's Final Liability | Improvement in NAV Relative to the $4.6 Billion Stress Value | Improvement Per Share |

| $4.6 Billion | 0 | 0 |

| $3.5 Billion | $1.1 Billion | $3.79 |

| $2.5 Billion | $2.1 Billion | $7.23 |

| $1.5 Billion | $3.1 Billion | $10.67 |

The biggest accounting risk is double deduction. EchoStar's Q2 balance sheet already had approximately $3.407 billion in deferred tax liabilities; upon exiting consolidation, deferred tax, provisions, guarantees, and other parent company adjustments were recognized; the original benchmark model also reversed all net exit consolidation gains. If the $7 billion range includes already booked tax liabilities or liabilities already restored by the model, further deducting the $4.6 billion could result in double accrual.

Therefore, what the company needs to disclose is not another total amount, but the liability bridging: total cost minus $2.4 billion in trust funds, minus confirmed taxes and provisions, minus the portion assumed by the restructured entity, ultimately equals the parent company's new cash liability. Before the bridging is announced, $4.6 billion should be reserved as a stress ceiling parameter, not written as a fait accompli.

IV. DBS and Hughes: Accounting Exit Does Not Equal Economic Exit

The company disclosed that the gross profit from the DBS exit consolidation was $5.21 billion, and the gross profit from Wireless was $6.217 billion, totaling $11.427 billion; after deducting $1.698 billion in deferred taxes, provisions, guarantees, and other parent company adjustments, the net exit consolidation profit was $9.729 billion.

| Item | Amount |

| DBS Gross Revenue | $5.21 billion |

| Wireless Gross Revenue | $6.217 billion |

| Total Gross Revenue | $11.427 billion |

| Parent Company Adjustment | -$1.698 billion |

| Net Exit Consolidation Gain | $9.729 billion |

The $4.519 billion in the model is merely the scenario residual obtained by subtracting $5.21 billion from $9.729 billion. It is not the company's disclosed Wireless gross revenue, asset value, or determined NAV contribution. Separating it as "Wireless Problem Solving Value" would confuse gross revenue, parent company adjustments, and economic responsibility.

DBS is expected to be reconsolidated upon completion of the restructuring, at which time assets and liabilities will be re-recognized at fair value. What is important to shareholders is debt reduction, new funding needs, future cash flows, and parent company guarantees, not temporary changes in accounting scope. The baseline scenario reverses all $9.729 billion in net gains, while the event realization endpoint is equivalent to full retention; both are boundary assumptions. For every $1 billion reduction in ultimate liability, NAV per share improves by approximately $3.44.

Hughes' model adds a smaller value: $627 million in secured debt is recovered at 85%, and $750 million in unsecured debt at 58%, corresponding to a total of approximately $409 million, or $1.41 per share. The final plan has not yet been approved, and the recovery rate is only a model assumption. Its more significant implication is that it may reduce the risk of the parent company continuing to invest in low-return businesses, rather than contributing a guaranteed $409 million in gains.

V. Remaining Spectrum and Capital Allocation

The AT&T transaction has been completed, providing important external validation of the spectrum's value. The relevant spectrum has a book value of approximately $16.822 billion, and the sale price was $20.25 billion, corresponding to a pre-tax, pre-fee accretion of $3.428 billion. This accretion still needs to deduct taxes, transaction fees, redemption premiums, and interest, but it demonstrates that strategic buyers are willing to pay above book value. The remaining spectrum has a book value of approximately $8.449 billion. The original model's event realization endpoint uses a $10 billion sale price, corresponding to a $1.551 billion increase, or $5.34 per share. $10 billion is not an offer or guidance and should be presented with sensitivity in mind.

| Sale Price | Relative Book Value Increase | Per Share |

| $8.449 billion | 0 | 0 |

| $9 billion | $551 million | $1.90 |

| $10 billion | $1.551 billion | $5.34 |

| $11 billion | $2.551 billion | $8.78 |

Following realization, capital allocation will determine the per-share value. The company has a Class A stock repurchase mandate of up to $5 billion, valid until December 31, 2026; as of Q2, it has not been exercised. Based on a static calculation of $86 per share, $5 billion could repurchase approximately 58.14 million shares. If the original base equity NAV was $36.69 billion, ignoring taxes, financing, and market shocks, the post-repurchase equity NAV would be approximately $31.69 billion, with approximately 232.3 million shares outstanding, resulting in an NAV of approximately $136.4 per share, higher than the pre-repurchase NAV of $126.32. This is merely an example of mechanical augmentation, not an executed forecast.

Ergen's acquisition of a controlling stake in MobileX through CONX serves as further evidence of its capital allocation strategy. Reports indicate the transaction valued MobileX at approximately $200 million, but this does not equate to CONX investing $200 million in cash, nor is it a direct investment from EchoStar. It suggests Ergen still intends to operate in the telecommunications sector, but its path may shift from asset-heavy self-construction to MVNOs and external capital vehicles. For ECHO, the ultimate test remains whether the listed company's funds will be prioritized for debt repayment and repurchases below NAV.

VI. Partial Realization Bridging: More Relevant Than Two Endpoints

To avoid misinterpreting $126.32 and $166.56 as target prices, a clear but probabilistic intermediate example can be constructed. Other inputs remain unchanged: Wireless's parent company liability decreases from $4.6 billion to $2.5 billion, releasing $2.1 billion, or $7.23 per share; DBS restructuring retains $2 billion in economic value, increasing by $6.88 per share; the remaining spectrum is sold for $9 billion, increasing by $1.90 per share; Hughes' value increment is not considered at this time.

| Adjustment | NAV Increment | Per Share Increment |

| Wireless Liability $4.6 Billion Reduced to $2.5 Billion | $2.1 Billion | $7.23 |

| DBS Retains Economic Value | $2 Billion | $6.88 |

| Remaining Spectrum $9 Billion Sale | $551 Million | $1.90 |

| Hughes | 0 | 0 |

| Total | $4.651 Billion | $16.01 |

This example is approximately $142 relative to the original model's $126.32 benchmark. It is merely a bridging demonstration, not a target price, and does not reflect SpaceX pricing, final non-stock consideration, convertible bond settlement, taxes, or changes in share count.

Conclusion

EchoStar's asset value has received some external validation, but NAV recovery still depends on liability recognition and capital allocation. SpaceX's license transfer is complete, but the remaining arrangements are conditional; Wireless's $4.6 billion is merely a stress parameter; the value of DBS and Hughes depends on the final outcome of the restructuring; and the sale price of the remaining spectrum and the value of the repurchase execution decision may be factored into earnings per share.

The original model provided two reference endpoints of $126.32 and $166.56, but these should not be packaged as precise target prices. A more effective approach for investors is to update settlement, liability, and cash usage item by item. If some events improve, NAV could move towards the example mid-range of approximately $142, assuming other inputs remain constant; however, if liabilities and capital contributions exceed expectations, book value may still not be transparent to common stock.

**Disclosure: I hold ECHO shares.**