In this episode, Barry Kite engages with Jeff Webster in a spirited discussion about the current market landscape. As investors brace for the end of the trading week, we scrutinize the mixed market messages and the role of high valuations and profit-taking strategies. Listen for a deep dive into how the Fed’s rate decisions might influence future market performance and find out whether it’s time to rebalance your portfolio amid tech industry volatility and AI trends.
He’s been seen on CNBC, the Fox News Channel, and the Fox Business Channel. His articles can be found on MarketWatch, Seeking Alpha, TheStreet.com, and many other places. He’s the author of the weekly Best Stocks Now newsletter and the inventor of the Best Stocks Now app. He’s president of Gunderson Capital Management. Here is professional money manager Bill Gunderson.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good morning and welcome to the Friday, November 14th edition of the Best Docs Now show. I am Barry Kite, planner and analyst here at Gunderson Capital Management, sitting in for Bill today. And, of course, the markets, I think, are ready for the week to be over. So it looks like we’ve still got some red on the screen coming in after yesterday’s sell-off. We’ve got the Dow down 1.15%. We’ve got to see what’s leading the way on that one. That’s a pretty big number. It’s switched up over the last probably couple of, I’d say probably the last 20 minutes. But we’ve got the S&P 500 down about a half a percent. NASDAQ, which led the way when the losses yesterday, actually down only 0.42% at the moment. Only green I’ve got on the board is crude oil. Imagine that. Just under $60, up 2% today. We’ve got gold working on its best week in over a month, down 2% today at $4,075. And Bitcoin still in the doldrums there. Bitcoin went to $96,382, down another 3.3% today and under that $100,000 mark. Well, good morning, and welcome to the Friday, November 14th edition of the Best Docs Now show. I’m your host, Barry Kite, planner and analyst here at Gunderson Capital Management, sitting in for Bill today, and excited, as always, to have Jeff Webster joining me on the show. Of course, you know, Jeff, he’s an advisor here at the firm. Good morning, Jeff. What a week. Good morning, Barry. Good morning. Yeah, a little mixed emotions this week, right? I know. Our household’s been gearing up for the final soccer tournament of the winter, or I guess the fall season, coming up in Savannah this weekend. So kind of ramping up for that. We’ll go ahead and turn the page on that chapter for now and I guess look towards Thanksgiving and the holidays.
SPEAKER 03 :
um but we’ve got uh i mean seems to be a little bit of a rocky ending to the trading week uh this week jeff um yeah i think i think you know what we’re seeing is you know there’s been a huge run i think we’re seeing some profit taking you know we’ll jump into uh you know some of the earnings results here later in the show but there could potentially be some you know expectations fatigue you know you never know about uh You know, some of the geopolitical and policy risks that we might be seeing out there. And, you know, are we starting to see this, you know, cooling AI sentiment out there? Right. Yeah. And I think that’s putting pressure, you know, technically and putting pressure on the technicals and momentum aspects of the market right now.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and the market, as Bill’s alluded to a bunch, really just can’t overcome those high valuations in terms of P ratios. And also, of course, that’s translated into kind of the current risk-off narrative in the market. You mentioned some of the pessimism developing kind of towards the AI trade. Certainly some of the highlighted worries this week. We saw some information, power bottlenecks was what you heard yesterday in terms of not being able to, you know, you got this revenue potential, right, on your balance sheet that you’re, you know, sell these chips. Well, if you’ve got delays, right, in terms of a data center coming online, well, then that revenue recognition, right, it’s going to be further down, you know, further off into the distance, which, you know, affects what the value of that future income stream is because it’s further off. So it’s a, you know… We had kind of the bottlenecks talk the last couple of days. The other thing I’ve seen and talked about this week was kind of a narrative that came into was the debt load and some of these tech companies are taking on or potentially may take on, right, obviously as they’re building out. a lot of this infrastructure. And if you look at them, I was looking at some of the examples and some of the names from yesterday, right, in terms of, you know, the movement. You had NVIDIA down, you know, 3.5%. Constellation Energy down, you know, 5.1%. Broadcom was down 4.2%. ARM, 5.6%. Palantir, 6.5%. You know, even Tesla was down 6.6% yesterday, even not as big of an AI player as Intel was down 5% yesterday. Really, Cisco was, you know, one of the only, I think, the lone bright spot in the tech space yesterday. Imagine that, right? I mean, would you… I don’t think I had that one on my bingo card yesterday, but Cisco was up 4.5%, right? I think they finished up 4.5% yesterday, so they gained a bit of alpha on the tech space, but it’s… You know, I mean, as Bill highlighted with the S&P, and I was looking at it, you know, nine of the top ten S&P 500 companies are tech names. The tenth one is J.P. Morgan. So you’ve got to go all the way to the tenth spot to get out of tech when you look at the top ten. top nine companies in the S&P in their size, I think four of those being over, you know, being trillion-dollar companies. But those are, I mean, it’s, you know, from an index standpoint, I mean, you had yesterday, you know, The NASDAQ was down 2.3%. Dow down 1.7%. So, I mean, when you look at it out there, a big sell-off. I think the biggest sell-off since October 10th in terms of the market yesterday, Jeff. Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think, again, folks are – You know, they’re saying thank you very much for what’s happened throughout the year. Let’s take some profits here. Let’s kind of see where things, you know, settle out here over the next several days or weeks. And, you know, I think there’s going to potentially be some nice opportunities to buy back in.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it’s a bit of a sell-in, you know, kind of a bit of almost kind of what we’ve kind of been talking about as almost a basis reset where, Yeah, we’re thankful you worked hard for these gains. We’ve got to kind of weigh the tax consequences of realizing those gains. But in this sense, realizing the gains has really kind of been the right route and certainly the one that allows you to sleep better at night. And when you look at it from a firm perspective, I think we’re roughly around 40% cash money market at the moment. And so we’ve been taking some of those chips off the table and looking for opportunities at some point, like you said, to redeploy back into some of these names. Some of the names are selling out of great companies, but just in terms of where they’re at, what part of the market they’re on, these things can – they’ve gone up pretty rapidly, and they can go the other direction pretty quickly too, especially the further you go out on the spectrum, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think, Barry, you and I, we talk to our clients throughout the day and talk to new folks that are coming on board. One of the things that I’ve heard very – over the past few weeks is that our clients are very happy that they’re with someone that’s actively managing things for them, you know, that they have eyeballs on their investments every single day. You know, we’re able to quickly, you know, pivot, profit take, you know, jump in on buying opportunities and things like that. So I’m seeing a lot of appreciation for that. you know, that type of portfolio strategy.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and there’s a decision each time. I mean, that’s the thing, too, is there’s a decision point for each one of these names that we own, you know, really daily, right? Bill is looking at it and kind of making, what are we making that decision each day? Do we maintain the position? Do we potentially add to the position? Or do we need to part ways with the position? And that’s really kind of, you’re really going through that with a fine-tooth comb on a daily basis. And so, you know, when you look at these, you know, it gives you the ability to be more proactive. And, you know, when you look at, like I said, from a market perspective as a firm, you know, we’ve been lightening up and, like I said, sitting on about 40% dry powder at the moment, which, you know, we’ll see what kind of deals, what kind of sales we got going on out there at some point, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 05 :
And, of course, we’ve got some of your earnings recap and preview, but the interesting thing will be NVIDIA reporting next Wednesday after the close.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and I absolutely have some good perspective to share there on what we might be looking for with NVIDIA.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I mean, you know, NVIDIA’s really driven the market, has saved the market on a couple of occasions with some earnings reports over this span since, you know, probably first quarter of 2023. So it’s a, you know, it’ll be, we’ll see if they’ve got, we’ll see if old Jensen’s got another trick in the bag. We’ll see, you know, we’ll be, pop our popcorn and be waiting for that one on Wednesday afternoon. But, yeah. Just getting started this Friday morning, and we’ll be right back with the Best Docs Now show.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’ll be gone 500 miles when the day is done.
SPEAKER 05 :
And welcome back here to the Friday, November 14th edition of the Best Docs Now show. I’m Barry Kite, planner and analyst here at Gunderson Capital, taking the wheel for Bill today. And I’ve got Jeff Webster, as usual, joining me on the show. Jeff, advisor here at Gunderson Capital Management as well. I was hoping we’d have a little bit better news coming back from the break. Looks like the Dow has improved a bit. I was surprised it was down 1.4% when we started the show, but down 0.93% at the moment. S&P and NASDAQ both down about half a percent. We’ve got gold under the 4,100 mark, 4,079. And Bitcoin, which we’ll get to here in a moment, at 96,000. 207 and roughly about 23%, almost 24% off of its all-time high, which hit not long ago. It seems like it’s been forever ago now, but hit that all-time high around just the beginning of October. Uh, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll touch on that, uh, and some in the importance of it, uh, as well, uh, here in just a second. But the, uh, the other thing that was interesting that got introduced yesterday, Jeff, was some, some Fed speak, um, in terms of, uh, you know, in terms of that final December, uh, meeting, uh, in, um, you know, here, uh, for Fed meeting in December, whether we’re going to have a quarter point cut or not.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, our Minneapolis, uh, president, he, he was, uh, opining on his perspective and he’s uncertain now, which I think was creating some market
SPEAKER 05 :
friction and frustration out there yeah and the funny thing is reading his his his actually felt like the most positive for a potential for a potential rate cut and he actually did he actually didn’t he didn’t uh he didn’t want a rate cut last time i guess the uh the problem is too is he doesn’t have a vote this go around but um the uh you know we had you had uh Cleveland Fed, so our Cleveland listeners out there, your Fed president, Beth Hammock, she actually, you know, she was one that kind of threw some cold water on it yesterday in terms of, and she’s been a bit more of a hawk, but, you know, she kind of sees current monetary policy as barely restrictive. You know, she thinks they need something that’s somewhat restrictive. She’s kind of more focused on the inflation side of things. So some of her comments, you know, literally the chances of a 25 basis point rate cut currently all the way down got a little bit below 50%, actually. And, I mean, it’s a big move because we were at 90% chance of a quarter point move, you know, not long ago. So the other thing about some from a valuation standpoint is, you know, That 23 multiple is more palatable if you’ve got a lower Fed funds rate. But if that Fed funds rate is a bit more sticky, then certainly I don’t know if a 23 PE ratio is ever necessarily warranted. But in an environment where rates aren’t going to go down as low as maybe we think they might, then that makes that 23 even less palatable. palatable in terms of P ratios and valuation. She’s kind of a fan of a higher neutral rate than normal. You’re going to hear that term a lot coming up, the Fed neutral rate. What they mean by that is essentially what rate of Fed funds interest rate is not restrictive but also not necessarily expansive. or accommodating um and so you know historically that number you know it does move over different eras uh for a long time there was around three and a quarter ish or so uh there i thought as it’s kind of ticked up a little bit from from that 3.25 and that’s mainly because of the inflation environment we’ve had over the last you know few years but it’ll be interesting to see they’re in a you know they’re between a rock and a hard place jeff i mean they they’ve got to You know, they’ve got a dual mandate. They’re trying to balance, you know, employment and inflation. We won’t even talk about them not necessarily having all of that data. But, I mean, they, you know, helping one can hurt the other and vice versa. And so they’re in this kind of, you know, kind of optionality situation where, It’s essentially a coin flip going into these meetings. Rarely is it a coin flip going into a Fed meeting if there’s going to be a cut or a raise or staying. Usually you’ve got a pretty good consensus. The Fed does a pretty good job of passing this info or attempting to pass this info along to us. But, you know, they’re arguing back and forth, you know.
SPEAKER 03 :
And for our listeners out there, when we talk about, you know, policy and whatnot that the Fed is establishing and rates and stuff like that, this falls under the concept of systematic risk, correct? Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it’s going to interest rate risk, and that interest rate risk is obviously going to feed into overall market risk. But yeah, I mean, you can go back to correlations and what’s driven the equity markets the most, right? What’s affected the markets the most in terms of causation, not just correlation, has been has been the Fed, right? Obviously, Fed’s accommodative, right? That helps the markets and the markets feed off of that. So, you know, that’s probably been the one driver of the market. If you’ve gotten the interest rate picture right, then chances are you’ve at least been, you know, in the market, right, at the time, you know, at opportune times. So…
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, everyone’s excited for those rates to drop because they want to go out and get their 50-year mortgage, right, Bear?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, 50-year mortgage. I’ve got to look into that more. When Bill told me that, I was like, how much on the payment does that save? And he said $250. And I was like, no way. I figured it would have to be a much bigger savings.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and it creates a huge multiple of interest.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m not so sure on that one, Barry. It’s like I get to save $250 a month, but I’ve got to pay for 20 more years. I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll get a 50-year mortgage when I’m 70. How about that? We’ll see. Don’t give me one then. Maybe not. oh man well tell you what bitcoin i mean it’s a you know we’re i mean to get me on a serious note with uh you know they’re in a you know really in a bear market on the bitcoin side and the reason that it’s important um you know we don’t we’re not our clients have some exposure but we don’t um you know put our clients in bitcoin exposure we don’t have any dedicated bitcoin exposure within our portfolios but uh you know when you when you look at it i mean it’s a it’s a It’s a measure of risk appetite and when you’ve got the market of what’s happened over the last couple of days on say the AI side and tech side, higher valuation names and then of course when you look at what’s happened To Bitcoin, since it’s high in early October, it doesn’t take a rocket science to tell that we’ve got a bit of a risk-off move here. We’ve gotten a lot of outflows there. If it’s a space you’ve been in, just be cautious and keep a close eye on it. We’ll be done with the first half of the Best Docs Now show. We’ll be right back for the third quarter.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is Bill Gunderson. Thank you for tuning in to today’s Best Stocks Now, Best Inverse Funds Now show. I put several hours of research in during the wee hours of the morning each day to bring you the very best cutting-edge stories that I can. To get two free weeks of my newsletter, go to GundersonCapital.com. To talk to us about our fee-based only money management services… Call us at 855-611-BEST. Now, back to the second half of the show.
SPEAKER 05 :
welcome back to the second half of the friday november 14th edition of the best stocks now show i am barry kite planter analyst here at gunderson capital serving as relief captain for bill this morning and also i’ve got jeff webster joining me on the show today if you want to stay up to date with our thoughts on the markets you can always get bill’s newsletter at gundersoncapital.com or If you’d like to have a discussion with Jeff or myself about your portfolio allocation, always feel free to give us a call. Edie will likely be the one getting you set up. You can always give her a call at 855-611-BEST. That’s 855-611-2378. And it looks like we’re getting markets fighting back a little bit. Got some buyers in there. NASDAQ down only 0.14%, 14 basis points at the moment. Love it. Well off the… well off the session lows at least, Jeff. So we always need to start tracking our batting average whenever we do the show, see how that works out. If we can find any patterns or skewed returns there, who knows. So, I mean, the other thing, too, is, of course, as we’ve mentioned, kind of pessimism, the pendulum of pessimism is kind of, uh, moved into the market, uh, certainly, uh, towards the end of this week, a lot of it on that AI, you know, and that AI trade, is it real? How long is it going to last? I think folks are just kind of a bit, you know, tired of that narrative, but, uh, you know, if you want a bit of, I guess, uh, you know, joyful financial reading, um, to end the week, right? Bill, uh, you know, he was taking a day off from hosting the show, but he wrote an article. So we’ve got a He’s got a new article out.
SPEAKER 03 :
Seeking Alpha.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, got a new article out at Seeking Alpha titled, It Looks Like Eli Lilly Will Become the Next Trillion Dollar Baby. So go give it a look over there on Seeking Alpha. Also, check your email. You may get a link to the article as well.
SPEAKER 03 :
Barry, should we jump into this? What we are seeing as we kind of are in the last few minutes of the quarterly earnings report game. Jeff, are you there?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, you cut out there for a moment. I’m sorry.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, no, should we jump into some discussions on what we’re seeing, the overall earnings picture as we kind of wrap up earnings seasons here?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, you’ve got your recap, I know, in terms of earnings that we’ve had this week. I’d like, yeah, let’s get some, kind of look at the stats, if you will, in terms of what’s going on on the earnings front. And then if we’ve got, hopefully we’ll have a little more time in this segment and get into a little bit of the NVIDIA preview. They might be, you know. and Jensen might have to change that, uh, trade out that, uh, that, uh, you know, black leather jacket for a Superman Cape, um, you know, try to try to save the pessimism of the market next Wednesday.
SPEAKER 03 :
So, yeah, we’ll see. So my, my sources that come from facts at Forbes, you know, some of the big investment banks, but, uh, As of right now, 82 percent of the companies that have reported have beat their earnings per share. And what we mean by that is, you know, beating earnings per share means companies reporting earnings per share above the analyst consensus estimates. And then, of course, you know, for revenue, beating revenue estimates means that companies reported revenue above those analyst consensus estimates. 82% of the companies. Now, that represents, Barry, a 13.1% year-over-year EPS growth compared to last year. So Q3 of 2024, 73% of the companies beat EPS. Q2, very similar to where we’re at with Q3, 82% of the companies beat. Although this quarter we’ve seen, you know, that 13.1% EPS growth Q2 was only 10 to 12%. And last year Q3 was 9%. So we’re seeing some improvements there. And, uh,
SPEAKER 05 :
Go ahead. Well, and above analyst expectations. I mean, when we started the year, you know, you can go back and look at, you know, what Bill had kind of penciled in as earnings expectations, right, in terms of earnings growth for 2025. And we’re, you know, we’re pretty steady above that particular estimate in terms of where we’re at. And earnings projections, you know, continue to increase going forward. So the question is. That will tip, you know.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, so the question is, is with all this positive news, you know, why has the market been struggling here over the last few weeks? And, you know, Barry, you mentioned you’re going to the soccer tournament here, and soccer, like hockey, great soccer players move to where the ball is going, not to where the ball is at or where it’s been. You know, Wayne Gretzky coined that term, you know, why is it so great? He skates to where the puck is going. And so, despite… the results that are reported, people and the analysts are looking for what the outlook is. And, again, with a lot of the uncertainties with interest rates, with tariffs, you know, we have the government shutdown that ideally has been resolved here in the last couple of days. You know, that all created uncertainty. And so as companies reported, you know, their outlooks, in many cases, were not as optimistic as folks were hoping for. Therefore, you know, this concept of, you know, running to where the ball is going to be or going to where the puck is going to be, going to where the earnings or the results are going to be, I think it’s caused people to pause, to do some profit-taking, and to say, well, let’s, you know, let’s maybe look at doing a reset here and figure out what we do once things settle down.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and as Bill’s mentioned, it’s not an earnings problem. It’s been a valuation problem. How much are you willing? How much is the market willing to pay for $1 of earnings? As we’ve mentioned, historically, when you get to that 23 number on the S&P 500, it’s a pretty hard cap a lot of times. You can stay at 23 for a period of time, but you know, eventually the multiple seems to win out at some point. Now, how do you get back up there, right? Earnings growth, and as earnings grow, right, well, then that multiple, you know, you’re going to have mathematically, you’re going up. But it’s, you know, it’s just one of these periods where, I mean, there’s really no narrative or no, you know, no stimulus rate that’s going to just somehow magically propel you right past that 23, you know, forward PE ratio, right? There’s no particular news that’s coming out around the corner, right, to say, oh, you know, 27, more palatable, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep, yep. Some of the real nice surprises, and these surprises, Barry, do not necessarily correlate to how the stock has performed since they made their announcements. You know, Amazon, they crushed their expectations. Google… Google crushed their expectations. They posted their first ever $100 billion quarter. Wow. Eric, can you believe it? A $100 billion revenue quarter, $102.3 billion in revenue, a 16% year-over-year increase. Their Google Cloud revenue grew 34% year-over-year. You know, some disappointments. Meta, you know, they posted some disappointing results. I think people were frustrated with there’s going to be a lot of money. A lot of their good revenue, but, you know, the guidance and the notably larger build-out that they’re doing for CapEx is hurting them a bit. You know, Lilly, Bill did his article on Lilly. You know, they had very positive results as well. We’re starting, you know, to see, you know, some really nice increases there and, you know, good excitement there. Of course, you know, my favorite Palantir, you know, one of the best earnings results I’ve ever seen from a software company yet. Right. Yeah. You know, they’ve gone in the wrong direction since they did their announcement. And, again, you know, I think a lot of it is they’ve had a really good ride. I think there’s some profit taking. I think that there’s some frustration that perhaps, you know, expectations fatigue, you
SPEAKER 05 :
PE ratio of 237, maybe? Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
When we come back, let’s talk about NVIDIA and where we anticipate some of the opportunities for them.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, that’s going to be a fun one next week. We’ll be right back with the fourth and final segment of the week of the Best Docs Now show.
SPEAKER 07 :
You gotta go where you wanna go, do what you wanna do, and win whoever you wanna be. You gotta go where you wanna go, do what you wanna do, and win whoever you wanna be. You!
SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome back to the November 14th edition of the Best Docs Now show. I am Barry Kite, planner and analyst here at Gunderson Capital, handling show duties for Bill today, although I just sent a couple messages out during the break. Never taking much of a break, is he, Jeff?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, he’s seen a nice move with G.E. Vernova today. It’s interesting. As we talk about NVIDIA, Barry, first of all, I think the expectation is that they’re going to see revenue north of $54 billion. They’re going to see about $1.25 in earnings per share. But some of the things that I think folks are going to want to pay attention to is they’re going to want to pay attention to you know, the data center segment. You know, when you think about, you know, companies like NVIDIA and the actual data center companies, you know, like, for example, Meta is being punished right now with all the CapEx expenditure. But there are companies out there like GE Renova, you know, one of my favorites, Vertiv, you know, which is making a nice move today. As those data centers are being built – companies, you know, those data center companies are buying products. You know, they’re calling up their sales rep with Vertiv and saying, hey, Barry, you know, I need to get a bunch of racks and air conditioning units and flooring systems and conduits and wiring. And so it creates revenue for those companies that are helping, you know, build out those data centers, you know, the pick and shovel aspect of AI. The whole ecosystem, essentially. Yep. So I think they’re going to be paying attention to how NVIDIA is doing in that data center. Again, they’re going to be looking at where the puck is going, not where it’s been or where it’s at. Where is it going? You know, what’s the outlook? I think they’re going to pay attention to what Jensen Wang and their CFO states about the demand, you know, their inventory supplies, you know, their ramp-up timing on their new architectures that they’re coming out with. You know, there’ll be some conversations around some of their other segments, you know, gaming, their provisionalization. You know, they’re also starting to get big into that automotive space. And then just I think some of the analysts might be tuned in to how their margins, their gross margins are with some of these new architectures that they’re coming up with.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and they just have their irons. I mean, they’ve got an iron in all kinds of fires. I just saw, you know, and around the world, I mean – Just in the news today, I mean, Firmus Technologies, which is, I believe, an Australian company, and it’s got some investment backed by NVIDIA. They’re raising $327 million to build some renewable energy-powered AI data centers. I think they’re building a few of those. Over in Australia, and the interesting part about that is just kind of in one of the comments where they’re mentioning that essentially it’s kind of sovereign type network, right? I mean, each country is going to have to build kind of their network. quote-unquote AI model, and you kind of want to be in charge of your own data, right, when you’re a country. And so they’re doing some infrastructure with the Australian company and also some of the sovereign money coming from the government itself. So just a big… And then, of course, this story, obviously, there’s a lot of tailwinds to these stories. And then, of course, like we said, the narrative this week has really been kind of the pessimism on the other side. Hey, these companies are spending too much on AI. Are they ever going to get any of this money back? Are we seeing any of the… any productivity gains yet in any of these earnings releases that you were talking about in the last segment, Jeff. So there’s going to be continuously more and more, I think, scrutiny in terms of, okay, you’re throwing like Facebook or Meta this time around, right? They’ve kind of We’ve heard them talk about his spend before, and then that narrative kind of went away, and then now it’s back, right? Where it’s, okay, how much are you spending for AI? What are you doing with it? Is it driving revenues? When will it drive revenue, right, if it’s not?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, something that we don’t always get a picture of is, I’ve got a good friend here in Charleston that is a chief financial officer in Charleston, I was talking to him the other day and he was stating that they’re right in the middle of doing their 2026 budgets. And a lot of these executives, you know, they’re building budget lines for AI. They don’t know exactly how they’re using it and stuff like that. And so I’m curious, you know, with, with what’s happened here over the last month or so, you know, what those budget lines, uh, are looking back. Are they as, uh, You know, as rich as maybe they initially thought mid-year, they’re going to say, ah, maybe we trim back a little bit or we go all in. But it’s certainly going to be something, to your point, that most organizations, you know, built into their operating plan is we’ve got to figure out how to, you know, utilize this technology to make our operations and our people more efficient.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. And then on the, on the flip side of that, I did see that you were anthropic, I guess, disrupted, I guess what they’re calling kind of the first large scale, uh, cyber attack campaign that was, you know, basically pretty much powered, you know, purely via, you know, AI, um, you know, cyber agents essentially. So, um, but that’s, uh, you know, another, another wrinkle for, uh, for AI there, but I think they, uh, It sounds like Anthropic says they disrupted it, so I guess it doesn’t appear that it was successful.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m seeing a story outside of AI that I think Bill would appreciate. We know he has his love of his train collection, and I just saw here that shareholders of Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, support their $85 billion rail merger. That’s news that just came out within the last hour or so. So maybe Bill will go out and pick up a couple of trains to celebrate that union. I’m not sure yet.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’ve got the Monopoly man in my, you know, I can see him in my head now. So, and Reading Railroad, too. So, well, we’re out of time here for this week of the Best Docs Now show. If you’d like to stay up to date with our thoughts on the market, get Bill’s newsletter at gunnersoncapital.com. Or if you’d like to have a discussion with myself, with Jeff, give us a call, 855-611-BEST, 855-611-2378. We’re here to be a resource. Have a safe weekend, everyone, and enjoy Bill’s read on Lilly on Speaking Out.
SPEAKER 01 :
any securities bill gunderson or clients of gunderson capital management may have long or short positions in stocks mentioned during the show past performance is not indicative of future performance gunderson capital management is a fee-based registered investment advisory firm all accounts are held at charles schwab schwab is a member of sipc and finra
