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Alphabet (GOOGL 1.13%) (GOOG 1.04%) is already one of the biggest companies in the world, but there is no reason to think it couldn’t become much bigger. With a market cap of about $2.8 trillion, it has a real shot at becoming the next $4 trillion stock and possibly the largest company in the world one day.

The recent court ruling that let it keep its search advantages pulled a big risk off the table, and the company now has multiple growth drivers lined up. Let’s look at why Alphabet is set to run higher.

Search advantage stays intact

One of the biggest risks hanging over Alphabet for the past year or so was the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against it. The judge could have forced it to spin off Chrome and Android or end its exclusive search deal with Apple, but that didn’t happen. Alphabet still owns both, and it can still pay Apple and others for default search placement. The only change is that these contracts need to be renewed every year instead of for longer terms.

One of Alphabet’s key advantages in search, as well as in artificial intelligence (AI), is its distribution. Almost 70% of the world uses Chrome, while Android powers about three quarters of the world’s phones. Meanwhile, through a revenue-sharing agreement, Apple’s Safari defaults to Google, helping it reach most of the rest of the world’s population. That makes Alphabet the gateway to the internet, and the judge’s ruling protected that advantage. People don’t often change default browsers, which means billions of users are going to stick with Google Search.    

At the same time, AI isn’t taking away from search; it’s doing the opposite. Over 2 billion people are already using AI Overviews every month, and Alphabet just started rolling out AI Mode globally, which lets users switch between traditional search and chatbot-style results without leaving Google. Last quarter, Alphabet saw its search revenue growth accelerate, as AI helped drive queries.

Meanwhile, the company has been at the forefront of AI search innovation, with features like Lens and Circle to Search driving incremental queries, often with a commercial intent. It’s also embedded AI commerce features in its offering, such as Shop with AI, where users can even virtually try on clothes.

Finally, Alphabet has spent decades building one of the most far-reaching ad networks on the planet. From your local landscape business down the street to global powerhouses, the company has the tools to reach any type of audience for advertisers.

Image source: Getty Images.

Cloud is finally breaking through

While Google Search is Alphabet’s foundation, its cloud computing unit, Google Cloud, has become its growth engine. Revenue jumped 32% last quarter, while operating income more than doubled. This segment is now scaling fast, and it is one of the best ways Alphabet is tied into the AI boom.

One of Alphabet’s big edges here is that it’s designed its own custom AI chips specifically for its infrastructure. Its Tensor Processing Units are designed to handle AI workloads within its TensorFlow framework, which gives it cost and performance benefits. Developers are also adopting its Gemini models and Vertex AI platform at a rapid pace, which keeps customers tied into Google Cloud.

Capacity is tight, and Alphabet is spending aggressively to expand. It recently upped its capex budget by $10 billion to $85 billion to build new data centers, and management has said constraints will likely last into 2026. That shows just how strong demand is.

Emerging opportunities

Alphabet also has a set of bets that could pay off big. YouTube is still dominant in online video and pulling more ad dollars from TV, but the real long-term excitement sits with Waymo and quantum computing.

Waymo is rapidly growing its robotaxi service, rolling into new cities and testing in major markets like New York. It may take time, but if autonomous driving takes off and Alphabet can reduce the cost of its robotaxis, it could end up with another giant business.

Quantum computing is even further out, but progress with Alphabet’s Willow chip shows it is moving forward. Reducing errors is the biggest hurdle for quantum computing, and Alphabet is one of the few companies that have made headway in this area.

Still an attractive valuation

While Alphabet’s stock has recently hit new highs, it still hasn’t seen the momentum of many other megacap AI stocks over the past few years. Investors were too worried about the impact of AI on search and the potential risk of the antitrust trial. However, the worst-case scenario with the trial is now behind it, and Alphabet has been demonstrating that it is set to be an AI winner. In fact, after the trial, it has been reported that Alphabet and Apple are getting close to expanding their relationship, with Google’s Gemini model set to power an AI version of Siri. That’s not the sign of a company that is losing the AI race.

Trading at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 21 times 2026 analyst earnings estimates, Alphabet is much cheaper than peers like Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon. If it were to trade at a similar 30 times multiple on 2026 analyst estimates as these names, it would already be a $4 trillion company.

Given its strong leadership positions in search and streaming, along with its growth opportunities around AI, cloud computing, robotaxis, and quantum computing, there is now no reason why Alphabet may not become the world’s largest company by the end of the decade.

While Zscaler (ZS 2.14%) stock has had a strong run this year, the momentum shifted after the cybersecurity company reported its fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter results following the close of trading Tuesday. Though the period’s numbers were good, and management issued upbeat guidance, the stock sank 4% in Wednesday trading. However, even after the pullback, the stock is still up by about 50% year to date.

Let’s take a closer look at the company’s results and guidance to see if Wednesday’s dip has created a buying opportunity.

An upbeat outlook

While endpoint cybersecurity companies like CrowdStrike (CRWD 1.18%) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW 0.99%) tend to get more attention from investors, Zscaler has carved out an important niche in a fast-growing part of the cybersecurity sector. It’s focused on zero trust security, which is built around the idea that no individual user or device should automatically be trusted, even if it was previously found to be trustworthy. That means that all users’ access to various platforms must be verified, authorized, and then regularly revalidated.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI agents, meanwhile, has only added to the complexity of the cyberthreat landscape. This is leading to growth in newer areas for Zscaler, including AI Security, Zero Trust Everywhere, and Data Security Everywhere, which combined to exceed $1 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in its fiscal Q4, which ended July 31. The company is also working on solutions to secure agent-to-agent and agent-to-application communications.

All of this helped Zscaler achieve robust revenue growth. In the quarter, its revenue climbed 21% year over year to $719.2 million, easily surpassing management’s prior guidance for revenue of between $705 million and $707 million. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) climbed to $0.89 from $0.72 a year earlier. That was also well ahead of the company’s $0.79 to $0.80 forecast.

Zscaler generated operating cash flow of $250.6 million and free cash flow of $171.9 million. It ended the period with $3.6 billion in cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet and $1.7 billion in debt in the form of convertible notes. It also completed the acquisition of managed detection and response specialist Red Canary for an undisclosed sum right after the quarter ended, so that cash position is likely to come down.

Image source: Getty Images

Zscalar’s calculated billings — the amount invoiced to customers, and a potential indicator of future revenue growth — surged by 32% year over year to $1.2 billion. Deferred revenue — money the company has received for services that it has not yet delivered — jumped by 30% to $2.47 billion. Both these metrics are indications that revenue growth could begin to accelerate in the new fiscal year.

Management forecast that fiscal 2026 revenue would be between $3.265 billion and $3.284 billion, which would amount to approximately 22% to 23% growth. Red Canary is projected to add about $90 million in revenue. ARR is projected to be between $3.676 billion and $3.698 billion, also equal to growth of 22% to 23%. The guidance range for adjusted EPS was $3.64 to $3.68.

For its fiscal 2026’s first quarter, Zscaler guided for revenue of between $772 million and $774 million with adjusted EPS of between $0.85 and $0.86.

Data source: Zscaler.

Is it time to buy the dip?

Zscaler turned in a solid quarter, but what is even more promising is that metrics such as calculated billings and deferred revenue suggest that revenue growth should nicely accelerate in fiscal 2026. Moreover, while the company issued an upbeat outlook, historically, it tends to guide very conservatively, so revenue growth in the mid-to-high 20% range is possible.

The company is seeing nice momentum in new growth vectors, and the advent of AI agents could only add to this. Meanwhile, Zscaler has also taken a page out of CrowdStrike’s book by introducing its own flexible payment program, Z-Flex. Such programs let customers pay for and deploy modules only when needed. Zscalar introduced Z-Flex two quarters ago and saw a 50% increase in flex billings in fiscal Q4. This could be another growth driver for Zscaler.

Zscaler trades today at a forward price-to-sales multiple of about 13 based on analysts’ consensus estimates for the current fiscal year. Given that I think its revenue growth is likely to be around 25%, I think that is a fair multiple, but the stock isn’t in the bargain bin. Overall, given its valuation and prospects, I view Zscaler as a solid stock to hold although I’d prefer to be a new buyer after a further dip in price.

It has been a remarkably strong decade for the S&P 500. In fact, a $1,000 investment in the low-cost Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO -0.35%) a decade ago would be worth about $4,100 today, assuming you reinvested all of your dividends. That is an annualized return of about 15%.

Why has the S&P 500 had such a strong decade?

It’s worth noting that a decade ago, the S&P 500 had already more than tripled from the 2009 financial crisis lows. So, adding a 310% total return on top of that is no small feat.

VOO Total Return Price data by YCharts

The short explanation is that while most sectors have performed quite well, the bulk of the stellar performance has been largely fueled by large-cap technology stocks. After all, the trillion-dollar megacap tech stock wasn’t a thing back then, and now there are eight of them. To illustrate this, consider the five largest holdings of the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF and how each one has performed over the past decade:

Data source: yCharts, Vanguard. Percentages of assets as of 7/31/2025.

Think about this. The worst performer of the five largest megacap tech stocks in the S&P 500 outperformed the overall index by more than 250 percentage points over the past decade.

Image source: Getty Images.

Historically, the S&P 500 has delivered annualized returns in the 9% to 10% range over long periods, so it’s fair to say that this has been an incredibly strong decade for S&P 500 investors. And while there’s no way to predict what might happen over the next 10 years, it wouldn’t be realistic to expect 15% annualized returns over the long run forever.

For more than a year, savers have enjoyed a gift: easy access to 4.00%+ APYs on high-yield savings accounts. But that window is starting to close. With the Fed likely to cut rates later this month, banks are already preparing to dial back those generous payouts.

If you’ve been waiting to move your money, now’s the moment. But banks with the highest APYs now are likely to still have the highest APYs after rates start to drop. Here are three of the best options.

Nvidia (NVDA -2.78%) is the most valuable company in the world, with a market cap of around $4.1 trillion. Every time it faces adversity, the stock finds a way to go higher.

Early this year, investors were rattled by news of a budget-friendly AI model, DeepSeek R1, developed in China. This raised doubts about the necessity of large investments in Nvidia’s next-generation chips, ultimately causing a drop in the company’s stock price. Then there were the concerns around tariffs in early April, which resulted in the stock hitting its lowest levels this year, falling to below $100.

However, time and time again, Nvidia’s stock has proven to be resilient, and it has continued to rise higher. It would need to rise by another 22% to hit yet another milestone: $5 trillion in market cap. Are there any factors that could hinder Nvidia’s progress, or is it just a matter of time before it reaches that value?

Image source: Getty Images.

Nvidia’s growth rate expected to remain above 50%

Last week, Nvidia posted its latest earnings numbers, and demand remained strong for its cutting-edge AI chips. Its revenue rose by 56% year over year, totaling $46.7 billion for the period ending July 27. That was slightly better than analyst expectations of just over $46 billion. And adjusted per-share profits of $1.05 were also higher than estimates of $1.01.

But what’s most encouraging for investors is that the guidance also looks good, as Nvidia still expects to see its growth rate to be above 50% for the current quarter. Although its growth rate is slowing down, that’s still incredibly impressive for a business of Nvidia’s size.

NVDA Revenue (Quarterly YoY Growth) data by YCharts.

Has Nvidia’s valuation finally gotten too high?

Year to date, Nvidia’s stock has risen by about 25% (as of Sept. 2). It’s trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of around 50, which isn’t cheap, but it still may not be all that expensive given the company’s incredibly fast growth rate. And based on analyst estimates, it’s trading at a forward P/E multiple of 38.

Nvidia’s stock price has effectively become a gauge of how much growth potential investors see for AI in general. News of the DeepSeek AI model hurt its valuation temporarily, as did tariff-related news back in April, which affected the stock market as a whole. Given the robust demand anticipated for AI chips, I believe Nvidia, even at its current price, could still climb higher and be a worthwhile investment.

However, if there are any concerns or rumblings that tech companies are cutting back on AI investments, investors who are sitting on big gains may be eager to cash out, which could lead to a decline in Nvidia’s value, at least in the short term.

When might Nvidia hit $5 trillion?

I believe it’s only a matter of time before Nvidia hits a $5 trillion market cap, considering the enormous potential of AI and its likely dominance in the AI chip market for the foreseeable future. But I wouldn’t expect it to reach $5 trillion this year or even within the next 12 months. It could take multiple years, as the stock’s high valuation, combined with uncertainty in the markets due to tariffs and trade wars, may limit its near-term returns.

That’s clear from the stock’s latest earnings beat. Even though Nvidia did well and its guidance was strong, the stock hasn’t been taking off. Investors are clearly thinking about the longer-term picture, including its slowing growth, and what lies ahead. Nvidia still looks to be a solid buy for the long term, but there could be some challenges ahead for it in the short term.

McDonald’s (MCD -0.85%) is one of history’s most successful restaurant chains. What started as a hamburger restaurant in Southern California has grown into a global chain with over 44,000 locations in more than 100 countries.

While such growth bodes well for long-term investors, it could bring uncertainty to future growth plans. That complicates the prospects for turning $10,000 in McDonald’s stock into $50,000 over the next five years. Here’s why.

Image source: Getty Images.

Achieving fivefold growth

Unfortunately for McDonald’s stock bulls, its recent history does not point to fivefold gains over five years. If one had invested $10,000 five years ago, that position would be worth less than $14,600 today. If including dividend income, which has risen every year since 1976, that grows to less than $16,400.

MCD data by YCharts.

This is not to say McDonald’s is a poor choice. Its business model revolves around 95% of its locations operating as franchises. After paying a franchising fee, franchisees must rent the properties from McDonald’s and pay a royalty fee amounting to 4% or 5% of sales. Since the fixed expenses define most of this arrangement, it makes the company’s business model highly recession resistant.

Nonetheless, its financial growth may not inspire fivefold gains over the next five-year period. In the first six months of 2025, revenue of $12.8 billion grew by only 1% yearly. While it kept cost and expense increases in check, the $4.1 billion in net income in the first half of the year was only a 4% yearly gain.

Moreover, its 27 P/E ratio is slightly under the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.32%) average of 30. That gives its stock an average valuation, decreasing the likelihood that an expanding earnings multiple would drive it dramatically higher.

As a company, McDonald’s should continue to benefit from revenue from its franchisees and rising dividends. Although that should bring positive returns to the company, its financial growth will likely not turn a $10,000 investment into $50,000 over the next five years.

It’s an unfortunate reality that older adults, who have had more time to accumulate wealth, are at an increased risk of being targeted by some fraudsters — and of losing more money per fraud incident. However, the risk might not affect everyone equally. In research by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, certain behaviors and characteristics were found to be associated with an increased risk of fraud victimization in older adults.

Some of these risk factors include: engagement in activities that increase fraud exposure, such as opening all of your mail (especially unsolicited marketing materials or sweepstakes announcements), participating in conversations with telemarketers and answering unknown calls or texts; a preference for higher financial risk; loneliness; and financial fragility.

How to Help Reduce Risk

Reduce your exposure. Cut off contact before it starts by taking precautions like declining or blocking calls from unknown numbers, deleting messages from unknown senders, saying no to or hanging up on telemarketing offers, and throwing away junk mail. If you suspect a text message or email is spam, block and report the sender.

Ignore promises of big rewards. There are no guarantees with investing. Look out for red flags like promises of risk-free investing, guaranteed returns and high profits. Be especially wary if you were solicited for an investment when you weren’t even looking for one. Likewise, competitions and prize drawings, particularly if they require an upfront fee, are often fraudulent.

Check out sellers and products. Be alert to signs of imposter investment scams and, before you make any investment, research the seller and the product to make sure they’re legitimate and a good fit for you. You can look up financial professionals using FINRA BrokerCheck to confirm whether they’re registered and/or licensed and view their employment history.

Stay connected. If you’re struggling with feelings of loneliness, try to bolster your existing relationships or seek new connections in person, rather than virtually. Unfortunately, random contact from strangers online or via text message is all too often the start of a scam. Reach out to family and friends, if possible, whether in person or from a distance, and look for opportunities to participate in community programs and interact with others.

Monitor your emotions. Don’t make investing decisions in a rush or when your emotions are strong. Take time to think things over — or even better, talk over decisions with someone you trust.

Practice healthy financial habits. To bolster your sense of financial security, develop a budget for yourself and try to build an emergency fund. If you’re not sure where to start, look for money management webinars and/or financial counseling services offered by banks, libraries and local nonprofit organizations.

Increase your financial knowledge. Having a foundational knowledge about financial products and the basics of investing can make fraudulent offers easier to spot. If you have a brokerage account, make sure you know how to read your account statements, and take steps to protect your financial accounts like adding a trusted contact.

Stay informed about fraud. The more people hear about different scams, the less susceptible they are, which is a great reason to keep learning. Educate yourself about the red flags of fraud and current scams to be on the lookout for. Organizations like AARP and the BBB can help you learn about and track current scams. You can also look for coverage by your local news outlet, or discuss the matter with people you trust.

Resources

If you have a question or concern about your brokerage account or an investment recommendation, you can call FINRA’s Securities Helpline for Seniors toll-free at 844-574-3577. You can also file a complaint about a brokerage firm with FINRA or submit a tip about possible securities fraud to the SEC.

If you think you’ve been the victim of a scam, report it to law enforcement.

And if you’re experiencing emotional effects from fraud, there are resources available to help.

Learn more about protecting your money.

August is over, and September is here. But many investors are fearful because of the so-called “September Effect.” It turns out that September is historically the worst month for the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.32%), with stocks often going down more often than they go up.

However, I’m sure that investors in The Trade Desk (TTD 0.23%), Super Micro Computer (SMCI -0.76%), Gartner (IT 3.83%), Fortinet (FTNT 3.06%), and Coinbase (COIN -2.49%) welcome September anyway. That’s because these five stocks were the five worst performers in the S&P 500 during August, dropping between 19% and 37% during the month.

Data by YCharts.

As the chart shows, all of these stocks dropped sharply early in August. But the drops happened on different days, suggesting that each stock was down for unique reasons.

Considering these businesses range from adtech to cryptocurrency to cybersecurity, it makes sense that all five are down for their own reasons. And that’s why I want to explore why each stock fell in August, as well as which of the five might be the most opportunistic buying opportunity today.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why these five stocks lost ground in August

All five of these stocks were down for unique reasons, yes. But they did all share one thing in common: The drops came right after each company reported quarterly financial results.

The Trade Desk

On Aug. 7, The Trade Desk disappointed investors with its financial guidance for the third quarter of 2025, only calling for 14% revenue growth — its slowest growth rate as a publicly traded company, outside the pandemic. And at the same time, the company abruptly changed its chief financial officer (CFO), which particularly unsettled investors in light of its lackluster outlook.

Super Micro Computer

On Aug. 5, Supermicro reported its completed fiscal 2025 financial results. Its fiscal 2025 net sales were up by 47% year over year, which was good. But its gross margin dropped to 9.5% in the fourth quarter — its lowest ever as a publicly traded company. So while its net sales are going up, profits aren’t up as much as investors would like to see.

Gartner

The business insights company reported financial results for the second quarter of 2025 on Aug. 5, beating expectations on the top and bottom lines. But the stock fell because management only expects 2% growth for the entire year, which is pretty meager and leads investors to believe that there’s little upside potential with this investment.

Fortinet

Gartner recognizes Fortinet as a leader in cybersecurity, but its stock plunged in August nevertheless. One of the company’s main products is firewalls, and when it reported second-quarter results on Aug. 6, management mentioned a refresh cycle.

In short, analysts are worried about the company’s growth, considering it’s already about halfway done with refresh for 2026, and 2027 is looking particularly slow. The refresh cycle was so heavy on investors’ minds that management even had a special call in which it tried to downplay any weakness in its refresh cycle, but it did little to relieve nervous investors.

Coinbase

On July 31, Coinbase reported financial results for the second quarter of 2025, showing that revenue was down and expenses were up. The big issue is that the company’s transaction revenue — what it makes when its users buy and sell cryptocurrency — is dropping sharply, leading management to expect a big year-over-year drop in revenue for the upcoming third quarter. This obviously isn’t what investors wanted to see, and the stock consequently fell.

With all of this now out of the way, which of these stocks is the best buy as September gets going?

Why AI might be the difference maker here

Coinbase may be the most vulnerable here. The cryptocurrency space goes into bear markets every few years on average, and it’s about due for a new one. The company’s transaction tends to suggest that a  “crypto winter” may be just around the corner.

Of the remaining four stocks, I don’t think investors with a long-term view can go wrong. Gartner expects low growth, but it’s still a reliable business, and the valuation is cheap. Fortinet is experiencing a normal refresh cycle, and cybersecurity remains a big need. And The Trade Desk has been so reliable for years that it’s premature to assume that its best days are behind it.

However, Super Micro Computer stock may be the opportunity with the most upside of these five.

First, Supermicro clearly doesn’t have a growth problem. Demand for its servers and storage solutions are popular with companies building infrastructure for artificial intelligence (AI), as evidenced by its 47% top-line growth in its fiscal 2025. And management expects at least 50% additional top-line growth in fiscal 2026, showing that demand isn’t slowing.

Moreover, Supermicro stock is cheap at just 24 times its earnings. That’s cheaper than the average for the S&P 500, even though its growth is far above average. This could limit the downside of this investment.

Therefore, the investment thesis for Supermicro hinges on whether its gross margin can improve. If it can, then expect its profits to skyrocket far faster than its already torrid revenue growth. That would likely be rocket fuel for the stock.

For its part, Supermicro’s management believes this is possible. Countries are looking into building their own AI infrastructures, known as sovereign AI. The company has products to address this trend, which could boost its gross margin. Management is expecting gross margins to recover to 15%-16% long term.

It’s not a sure thing. But even modest gross-margin improvement would radically change the trajectory of Supermicro’s profits and, by extension, its stock price. This is why I believe Supermicro is one to take a look at here in September, considering it went on sale in August.

Three decades ago, the advent and proliferation of the internet changed the growth arc of corporate America forever. This game-changing technology allowed businesses to move beyond their brick-and-mortar settings, as well as broke down barriers for everyday investors by giving them access to financial statements, balance sheets, corporate presentations, and leading business stories at the click of a button.

For decades, investors have been waiting for the next big technology to push corporate America forward. The evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) looks to have answered the call.

In Sizing the Prize, the analysts at PwC forecast a $15.7 trillion jump in global gross domestic product by 2030, courtesy of AI. With an addressable market this large, it’s no wonder AI stocks have soared.

Image source: Nvidia.

But among the hundreds of public companies that have benefited in some way, form, or shape from the AI revolution, none has enjoyed a bigger boost than Nvidia (NVDA -2.78%). The world’s largest publicly traded company has added around $3.8 trillion in market value since 2023 began, with its shares up a cool 1,070%, factoring in a historic 10-for-1 stock split in June 2024.

Although Nvidia would appear to be unstoppable, the people who know it best are sounding a warning that’s arguably unmistakable… if investors are paying attention.

Nvidia has become practically synonymous with “artificial intelligence”

Nvidia became the face of the AI revolution thanks to its graphics processing units (GPUs), which act as the brains of enterprise data centers. Its Hopper (H100) and Blackwell chips account for the bulk of all GPUs deployed in AI-accelerated data centers.

One of Nvidia’s core advantages is that no external competitors have come particularly close to surpassing the compute capabilities of its AI hardware. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang would prefer to keep it this way, with Huang overseeing the expected launch of a next-gen chip annually.

The production ramp-up has already begun for Blackwell successor Blackwell Ultra, with deliveries of the Vera Rubin and Vera Rubin Ultra expected to take place in the latter half of 2026 and 2027, respectively. Nvidia is unlikely to cede its compute edge anytime soon.

Building on this point, it has AI GPU scarcity working in its favor. Even with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing doing what it can to meaningfully expand its monthly chip-on-wafer-on-substrate capacity, demand for Nvidia’s GPUs continues to handily outpace their supply. This is an enviable position that’s allowed Nvidia to sustain a premium price on its hardware, which has provided a lift to its gross margin.

There’s also the unsung hero of Nvidia’s operating model: the CUDA software platform. CUDA is the toolkit used by developers to maximize the compute abilities of their Nvidia GPUs, which includes building and training large language models. CUDA is an effective lure that keeps existing clients loyal to Nvidia’s ecosystem of hardware and services.

With shipments of AI GPUs to China back on the menu and orders for its next-gen chips backlogged, the sky would appear to be the limit for Nvidia — but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the track record of its insiders.

Nvidia’s insiders offer a clear warning to Wall Street and investors

An “insider” is someone at a publicly traded company with access to nonpublic information, such as a member of the executive team, someone on the board of directors, or a beneficial shareholder with a greater than 10% stake. No one understands the catalysts and pitfalls of their company better than these folks.

Thanks to Wall Street regulations, insiders are required to report their trading activity within two business days of a transaction via a Form 4 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In other words, if insiders of a company are buying or selling shares or exercising options contracts, investors will know about it.

Nvidia’s insider trading activity is sounding a warning that Wall Street and investors would be wise not to ignore.

Image source: Getty Images.

Over the trailing-five-year period (as of this writing on Sept. 3), insiders have sold a net of $4.7 billion worth of Nvidia stock.

However, there’s an asterisk that accompanies insider selling activity — namely, executives receive the lion’s share of their compensation in the form of common stock and/or options. Often, stock needs to be sold to cover their federal and/or state tax liability. Likewise, options need to be exercised before they expire, which can result in tax-based selling. The key point is that selling activity from insiders isn’t automatically a bad thing.

But there’s another side to this coin — and that’s where the real worry arises.

While selling activity has been persistent over the last five years, buying has been virtually nonexistent. The last purchase from an executive or board member occurred on Dec. 3, 2020, with CFO Colette Kress reporting respective purchases of 100 shares for each of her sons. Prior to Kress, director Stephen Neal acquired 948 shares, in aggregate, from Sept. 21, 2020, through Sept. 25, 2020. Cumulatively, the people who know Nvidia best have spent only $581,000 of their own money to buy its shares over the trailing half-decade.

Whereas numerous reasons exist to sell stock, there’s only one reason to be a buyer: You believe the share price will head higher. If none of Nvidia’s executives and directors are willing to take the plunge with shares up 1,070% in less than three years, why should investors be expected to jump in?

Despite Nvidia having a rosy long-term forecast, its price-to-sales ratio of more than 25 is bordering on bubble territory. Further, no next-big-thing technological advancement in over 30 years has avoided an eventual early-stage bubble-bursting event. The lack of buying from insiders paints a picture worth a thousand words.

In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Tim Beyers and contributors Travis Hoium and Lou Whiteman discuss:

• AI capex trends.
• Housing price declines.
• KPop Demon Hunters and other Netflix content.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool’s free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you’re ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on August 29, 2025.

Travis Hoium: Could AI spending reach $1 trillion by 2030? Motley Fool Money starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I’m Travis Hoium, joined by Lou Whiteman and Tim Beyers. We’re going to talk today about housing. We’re going to have Lou and Tim cut some of their favorite stocks from a mini portfolio. But let’s start with artificial intelligence. Morgan Stanley recently said that they expect global Data Center spending to increase from $307 billion in 2024 to 920 billion in 2030. Data Center CapEx is driving companies like NVIDIA, Amazon, Alphabet. But they’re not making enough cash to make that investment themselves. Tim, when you see these huge projections, what do you hear, and do we actually have enough cash flow from these companies to spend almost $1 trillion per year on CapEx?

Tim Beyers: We do, and we don’t. Let’s start with the we do. They are committing quarter over quarter, Travis, and these are multiple companies, somewhere between $50 and $100 million every single quarter. That’s extraordinary. I’m sorry. I said million. I meant billion. This is just a few orders of bag which is bigger. This is extraordinary amounts of money. On the one hand, yes, but on the other, this is a market that is completely out of sync. The buildout of hardware is so extreme that the infrastructure to support all that hardware just isn’t in place yet. I know you’ve covered energy quite a bit over the years, Travis, and I don’t see how you don’t get to a point where there is a little bit of slowdown in the hardware buildout, and then you do some catch-up around energy infrastructure, around environmental infrastructure, around city planning, urban planning. How do you get all of this done in a way that actually creates sustainable growth? That doesn’t seem to be part of these projections, and I think that’s one of the flaws.

Travis Hoium: It does seem like the numbers are just we’re going to keep increasing this. Going from the ChatGPT moment, that was in late 2022, to where we are today, there has been a massive amount of growth in AI spending in spending on things like NVIDIA’s chips. But we’re still learning what these business models are too. We talk a lot about chips, but there’s more to it than this, than just spending money on these power-hungry chips. What else are they going to be spending money on?

Lou Whiteman: With all respect to Morgan Stanley, I do think that it’s smart research. But humans, we are terrible at recognizing cycles, recognizing pendulums for being pendulums. I feel like some of this is just taking what we’re doing today and assuming it into the future, and not considering a swing back. We’ll see about the actual number, but we’re going to spend a lot of money. I do think that at some point, Tim mentioned energy, we’re going to have to spend money on ways to be smarter about energy consumption or building out energy, so that’s part of it. I do think we’ve seen all of this hiring, this poaching, maybe a shift from building up this hardware to getting the brains that know how to use it. I wouldn’t be surprised if, at some point, just instead of just pure hardware and all this data center spending, that even if we still spend a significant amount of money, the spending gets spread out in ways that we’re just not seeing right now at the initial buildup.

Travis Hoium: Tim, the way that you’re talking about this reminds me a lot of the late 1990s and the telecom buildout. There was a dual bubble. We talk about the dotcom bubble. That was a dotcom stock bubble, but there was also a telecom bubble, which is basically these companies spending incredible amounts of money to build out the fiber that we still use today. Google bought up a bunch of that dark fiber. That’s one of the reasons that they have as good infrastructure as they have. What you’re saying reminds me a little bit about, you know what? The numbers are just going up so fast. Demand is going up so quick, and we hear this from every AI-related company that we’re just going to keep building and keep building at some point, there has to be a business model behind it. There has to be return on investment. If we’re talking about $1 trillion of investment, you’ve got to have some profits coming from that. Most of these companies aren’t profitable. Is that a good analogy for thinking about it, or is there a big difference in this buildout versus that telecom buildout?

Tim Beyers: You would hope there’s a difference. I don’t know that there’s a difference, and I think there is a genuine fight over the right economic model for AI, particularly any commercial AI. I think you have two ways to fight the portal fight. What I mean by the portal fight is, I think we are getting to a point where the next interface for computing is likely to be a chat interface. It’s likely to be some kind of, hey, ChatGPT, do this thing for me, or search for this thing, or whatever it is. Some chat interface. Now you’re going to have ChatGPT anthropic, companies like that that are native to the business of building up a chat portal. That’s their primary economic engine, and they want to build things that make that chat engine economically viable. Then you have a competing idea, which is the search model, the traditional web model, and then putting on top of that a chat portal, and that is Alphabet. That is Microsoft. That’s even Apple with Siri. Those two ideas are going to compete. There’s going to be a real fight to figure out who wins in that model. There’s going to be lots of trial and error here, Travis, between is it all going to be driven by advertising? Is it going to be driven by data access? Is it going to be driven by new tools to make different kinds of software that run from a chat interface? But those different types of companies converging to fight a battle to win the portal War, I think, is something we’re still in the infant stages of seeing that. It’s barely started. But that’s a big piece of this story that we aren’t talking about yet, but I promise you in the next 18 months, we’re going to be talking about it.

Travis Hoium: I saw somebody compare the moment that we’re in in artificial intelligence to the Motorola Razor moments. That really stuck with me. That was my favorite phone, I think 2005. But that was obsolete two years later.

Lou Whiteman: I love that phone. But this is such an important part of the AI conversation for us as investors to have because, Travis, to your point a lot of fortunes were lost on that infrastructure buildup, but it was still value adding over time. All of this money is being spent. I think it is adding value. There is a there there. This isn’t just crazy spending, but if history is a guide, that does not translate to every one of these investments will be a winner. As Tim says, there will be a period of figuring out who’s the winners, who’s the losers. I think there could be a lot of winners that aren’t spending the money, just using AI. Just to use one example, MongoDB was up 30% post earnings today on a huge surge of customers attributed to AI. There are going to be a ton of winners. They’re going to be losers, and we’re just so early. If nothing else, you just don’t put all your eggs in one basket here as an investor.

Tim Beyers: Can I add something there, Travis? Just quickly. One of the things that’s common about that. Now, we can’t be sure that MongoDB is going to be a durable winner here. But one of the things that’s true at least today about that MongoDB result is that they sit in one of the categories that historically, over time, you were likening it back to the dotcom bubble, the telecom bubble, the things that did endure from those periods, at least over time, it took some time to wash away all of the excess. But the companies that didn’t go away had real picks and shovels that they could rely on and build upon for the revolution to come. MongoDB is in that space. They’re not the only ones. If we’re an investor that’s looking to profit from the time that we’re in and the excess that we’re in, please, for the love of God, don’t just look at NVIDIA. Look for the picks and shovels. MongoDB might be one. We can’t say for sure that they will be, but they might be one. Any company that is in successful data management is one to at least consider.

Travis Hoium: One of the problems with the telecom buildout was the debt that those companies ended up taking on that increased their risk of their business. Right now, we have Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta generating almost $500 billion in operating cash flow. They’re spending about 365 on CapEx. That’s a projection for this year. They’re using almost all of their operating cash flow on CapEx, in other words. Are we going to get to a point where they’re going to be going into debt to build out more AI solutions?

Tim Beyers: They might, but they certainly have the cash flow to service that debt. You could see it. I’ll make a reckless prediction on this, Travis, you won’t see that. You will see a relentless focus on efficiency first because there is a software side of the AI equation that we haven’t figured out yet. Right now, most of these models are very dumb. They use a lot of tokens. They just burn through all kinds of energy. Almost indiscriminately, that can’t last. There is real engineering work that is happening and will continue to happen to make models, tools far more efficient. I expect, Travis, that you’re going to see a lot of focus on that at the labs at AWS and Google Cloud Platform, and at Microsoft. I just don’t see how they get around that because ultimately, those companies want to see more software built. If you want to build more software, you need better tools, and there just is no way to get around the need for clever, efficient software engineering. That’s just common.

Travis Hoium: Lou, what’s the big picture here?

Lou Whiteman: The big picture I’m watching, we’re talking about all this spending, and, arguably, AI spending is keeping the whole economy afloat right now. I think that’s a little bit of hyperbole, but not too much. The economist, venture capitalist, nature hiker, Paul Hodorowski, great guy. He put out something last month that was really interesting. AI spending is about 1.2% of GDP. That’s higher than it was back in the telecom boom, higher than the Internet. You have to go back to the 1880s, Travis, with railroads to find a time when one sector had that large of a role. At a time when we’re talking about Tara, so the consumer looks pressured, is AI spending just the only thing keeping us afloat? If so, and some of these pressures do build or what could that mean? I can’t answer those questions, but it’s just a broader investor. Those are the things that I don’t know that keep me up at night, but those are the things I’m really watching.

Travis Hoium: We could talk about this all day, and I’m sure this will be a continuing topic, but we do need to take a quick break. When we come back, we’re going to talk about housing prices and the trends that we’re seeing there. You’re listening to Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. We got a reading from the Case-Shiller Index this week for July. This measures the value of home prices throughout the country, and there’s regions all over the country. Housing is always a regional dynamic. But we are seeing declines in home prices, especially in some of the hotter areas like Florida. Housing is the biggest asset for most Americans. Tim, what should we take away from the potential that home values are going down, not a lot, but at least a little bit throughout the country?

Tim Beyers: It’s healthy. I look at this, Travis, and to me, it feels like a very healthy reset because we badly need more supply in this country. We just don’t have enough, and we haven’t had enough homes for quite a long period of time. When you inject supply into the market, you may see a little bit of pressure on pricing. Pricing comes down a little bit if demand just keeps going, unrelenting, then prices go way up. As supply comes into the market, prices go down a little bit. This feels like exactly what we need right now. I’m very happy to see it. Now, what I’d be looking for is what homes are we talking about here? Are we getting more planned communities? Are we getting more urban housing? I, in particular, think a bit of urban investment is probably the right thing.

Tim Beyers: Because that has economic knock on effects, not that I don’t, like, hey, I live in a suburb. Suburban investment is great, but urban investment where there’s a lot of businesses, there’s a lot of concentrated economic activity. If you get some of this housing influx, new supply, Travis, then I think you may have some knock on effects that are very good for the US economy and very good for consumer facing businesses. I’m hopeful here, but I might be a little bit naive.

Travis Hoium: What do you think, Lou?

Lou Whiteman: I think healthy is a good word. I don’t want to read too much into this. I think this is a sign of just things are getting back to normal. We had a huge price shock. Housing slowed dramatically as we saw rates go up and just we weren’t ready for it. I think what we’re seeing in this data is buyers and sellers returning to the market. A lot of that added supply are just people who have been sitting on their home and are just now saying, we just have to suck it up and sell.

Tim Beyers: That’s because housing is a very sticky thing. If you buy a house and the interest rate goes up, you go, I could double my mortgage payment by moving to a similar home, but that doesn’t make any sense. It is a strange business.

Lou Whiteman: Well, here’s the thing, too, that is interesting, I think, because there’s a lot of macro headwinds that are new supply. Homebuilders are under a lot of pressure in a lot of different ways now between labor, raw materials, all that. I said if we’re just finally adjusting to the rate hikes, there’s a lot of talk now of rates coming back down. I don’t know. The conventional wisdom is that with juice sales, but does that set unrealistic expectations? Does that actually slow sales temporarily? Because we’re just getting used to the status quo, we’re changing again. Look, whatever the Fed does, I think everything going on in the world, all signs are the longer term rates and the mortgages are tied to the 10 year. I don’t know if a Fed rate cut really moves the 10 year and moves the mortgage rate the way, in Econ 101, we were told. If those headlines are there and people aren’t seeing the mortgage adjustment, I have no confidence that this continues. I think there could be another different shock right around the corner, and then we’ll have to adjust to that.

Travis Hoium: For perspective on the 10 year, the 10-year yield has not changed basically since election day. It’s basically flat. I think there has been two rate cuts and another one rumored for September. The other thing I want to bring in here, and this comes down to some of the unemployment numbers that we’ve seen recently, and the Fed talked about this in their Jackson Hole speeches that part of the issue with the headline number, the number of jobs added or not added in the recent revisions, was that there’s just fewer people in the labor market. That could help housing prices, but that’s the other side of the supply and demand. Tim, is that a piece of it that there’s just fewer buyers in the market than there used to be, partly because of less immigration?

Tim Beyers: That could be. I don’t know, but I think Lou made an important point, so I want to double underline it here. This is very complicated. There are a lot of moving parts. The unemployment numbers are going to be important here. We have continued to see layoffs, Travis. I think the thing that I don’t want and I hope I’m not just taking out of context what you were saying here, Lou. But the way I think about it is that if there’s artificial stimulus that comes in at the wrong time, just when we’re seeing a healthy sign come into the market, if you muck with that with more artificial stimulus, let’s say, a poorly timed rate cut, you start to lose some of the benefits you would get by seeing the market return to health. I want the market to just be healthy.

Lou Whiteman: Bottom line is, as an investor, housing looks like even a bigger long term trend to me than AI, but it scares me right now. I don’t know how soon that comes.

Travis Hoium: Well, next up, we’re going to get to a few stocks that we like or maybe don’t like in our game called Cut Down Day, you’re listening to Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. The NFL has just completed. It’s cutdown day. Roster has gotten down to 53 players. Today’s game that we’re going to play is a little bit similar. I’m going to give Lou and Tim three stock portfolios, just three stocks in the portfolio. We’re going to hopefully get through all four of these. They’re going to have to cut one of their favorite stocks or Foolish favorite stocks. Put on your best Dick for Mal hat and shed some tears for some of the stocks that you probably love. The first portfolio is Foolish favorites. Tim, I want to start with you because I know that you have a long history with a lot of these companies. Netflix, Amazon, and NVIDIA, if you own all three and you’d have to cut one from your portfolio, which one gets the boot?

Tim Beyers: It’s going to be very unpopular.

Travis Hoium: Oh, no.

Tim Beyers: It’s going to be NVIDIA. NVIDIA has got to go. I’m sorry, NVIDIA. I’m sorry, Jensens. The reason NVIDIA’s got to go is because this is a business that is highly cyclical. It has been an absolute stone cold winner, and it could continue to be a stone cold winner. But for me, one of the ways that I practice portfolio management, Travis, is I don’t want to sell everything off of a stock. But let’s say, in this particular case, I’m selling, 75% of my NVIDIA, and I’m redeploying some of that capital. If I have to sell all of it, I will, because what I want to do is always keep moving forward. In a portfolio, sometimes you let go of those darlings in order to keep building and moving forward. In this case, you know what? You’ve been great NVIDIA, but your time has come. Got to give a rookie a shot.

Travis Hoium: All right, Lou. Which one Netflix, Amazon or NVIDIA?

Lou Whiteman: I think Tim has the right answer here. But just to have fun, I do want to give a shout to cutting Amazon. Again, I’m glad we don’t actually have to do these. But look, Amazon, their AI performance to date, hasn’t matched the Cloud. We’re not seeing the same, oh, my gosh, growth we’ve seen elsewhere. I think Microsoft and even Google has a better portal to the customer in a lot of ways, which I don’t know. Also, you do have a fantastic retail business, but it’s a retail business. The divorce with UPS means they weren’t giving their easy deliveries to UPS guys. They were giving the ones that were hard for the internal, so I think there’s going to be some cost pressure on the internal logistics. Look, great company, but I do think they could come under pressure in a bunch of different ways up ahead.

Travis Hoium: But Netflix is the stock that you both want to keep. I think that’s interesting, given Netflix is actually losing time spent to YouTube. Why is that one, Tim, the one that is the winner out of these three?

Tim Beyers: Because I think it’s a two horse race between Netflix and YouTube.

Travis Hoium: You don’t think Disney stands a chance? I say that because sports is really the only uncaptured territory in streaming.

Tim Beyers: You know what? Guess what Netflix just did. They wrote a new deal, and this time, they picked off two things from Major League Baseball that are events that are going to capture a global audience. They’re going to have the world baseball classic between the US and Japan, and they’re going to have the home run derby. For the all star weekend. They’re going to under commit on capital and get in, the likely outcome is you’re going to get some rabid fans who are going to show up for just these things, and they don’t have to overcommit on a giant contract to be the exclusive home of Major League Baseball. They’re very smart about this, Travis. They are really good users of capital. I’ll just remind everybody, this is still the only global TV network that across the world has a direct relationship with every single one of its subscribers. It’s the only one.

Lou Whiteman: I just add, of these three, and again, this is a best of show. These are all, top companies. Netflix, to me, feels the most stable in their most important market in terms of volatility.

Tim Beyers: The cash flows would support that, by the way.

Travis Hoium: I guess there’s no real argument for me I guess Netflix would probably be Number 1 for me, as well. Let’s do Portfolio Number 2. That is the Hidden Gems. These have all been phenomenal performers in Hidden Gems. Tesla, Shopify, and Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook. I still think they should change their name back to Facebook or maybe just call themselves Instagram. Lou, which one of these three would you cut from your portfolio?

Lou Whiteman: Again, this is hard. I have to go with Tesla just on the core business here, because, sometimes I feel like I like Tesla’s automotive business more than Elon Musk.

Travis Hoium: It still don’t have a roadster.

Lou Whiteman: No. Honestly, they just need someone from Detroit to come in and just Detroitify it just a tiny bit. But there are questions about that business. There is still a great long term future story to be had with automotives and out so I don’t want to be too hard on it, but I look at Shopify. I look at them just beginning to conquer all worlds, and I see a lot of potential from there. Meta, Zuck, I love you. I can’t quite always figure out what Zuckerberg’s doing, but it works, and they have a case printing machine, which I am just going to bend the knee and be in awe of. Tesla, to me, is the one that I think I can ask the most questions about. Again, in a best to show, were really fascinating companies, they’re the one that I lean to.

Travis Hoium: What about you, Tim?

Tim Beyers: I’ll give you one number, and this will describe why I’m saying what I’m about to say. Nine, Mark Zuckerberg is giving out nine figure packages to AI engineers. No thank you. You’re out. As soon as you start going to $100 million packages to try to get to AI super intelligence, when there’s still so much we don’t know, no thanks. None of this makes very much sense to me. Now, to be fair, they generate a ton of cash. It’s not like they can’t do it. They can do it. But they are going to dilute investors on the way to this. I think this smacks of more desperation than strategy. See you.

Travis Hoium: Do you have the same criticism for Alphabet? Because Alphabet bought Character.AI basically to reacquire one person, the person who invented the [inaudible] this is not unique in Silicon Valley. Especially today.

Tim Beyers: A hundred percent, Travis. You could level this criticism at lots of different companies at lots of different times. Especially the Silicon Valley companies. Alphabet absolutely deserves criticism for that. There’s no question. Now, would I rather have Alphabet than I would Meta? Yes, I would. Because I feel like the data advantage that Alphabet has is extraordinary. It is also global. It is significant, and you can build a lot once you have, so much search data, so much geographic data. They just have a massive data mote that I think they can build off of. But, no, they do not escape criticism. I think it’s a fair point, Travis.

Travis Hoium: The spending spree will probably continue at least as long as the market is giving these multiples for anybody that has some AI story. Let’s go to our Rule Breaker stocks. This is three popular and very high performing Rule Breakers.

Travis Hoium: MercadoLibre, Intuitive Surgical, and Chipotle. Tim, out of those three, which one gets cut?

Tim Beyers: Really hurts me to say this. This is very painful. I have to say Chipotle, which just kills me because I love a Chipotle burrito. But at this moment in time, I think that Chipotle is still figuring out the next phase of its growth, and I’ll be back when you figure out the next phase of your growth. I’ll be back. But robot surgery is only going to grow more important over time. Mercado Libre they’ve barely tapped the opportunity they have across Latin America. Chipotle burritos are amazing. I will continue to eat them, and I will be back when Chipotle figures out their next phase.

Travis Hoium: If you want to hear a painful story about Chipotle, I sold my shares in 2008. That is painful. That was a mistake selling, which anybody who’s invested for a long time, your worst mistakes are usually your sales, not the stocks that you necessarily miss. Lou, Mercado Libre, Intuitive Surgical or Chipotle, who gets got from your portfolio?

Lou Whiteman: I really wanted to find something else, but Tim’s right on this one. Just to underline a couple more things. Mercado Libre, in some ways, is a consumer business, but not in the same way. They’re just, by the nature of the industry, there’s so much more choice. It’s so much hard to fuel growth in a restaurant business versus the other two. The other two, it’s not as simple as just keep doing what you’re doing, and the business will come, but especially on Intuitive, it feels that way. Like Tim said, Wall Street pays for growth. Wall Street does not pay for just, hey, you’re a good performer. Just continue what you’re doing. I think they may be able to answer the question. It’s almost a running joke. It’s like the Apple car and breakfast at Chipotle. Maybe they’ll get there. Maybe it’ll happen, but I do think that their path forward from here is harder than the other two.

Tim Beyers: Having said that, Travis, like super quickly, if the Chipotlanes take off across that network, look out. If volumes across each unit, like if Chipotle materially increases the volume, they can do per store by virtue of those drive-through Chipotlanes, look out, man. There could be some real winds there, but we’re not seeing that yet.

Travis Hoium: Yeah, that’s basically the only way that I use Chipotle today. I don’t want to get the kids out of the car. We’re going through that Chipotle lane, and everybody’s going to have their food finished by the time we get home. Final group of stocks, I love them all, but they all make me a little nervous for one reason or another. Exxon, Palantir and Arrow Virment Lou, which one of those three is cut today?

Lou Whiteman: I’m going to invert the game here and say the one that I’m not going to cut is Exxon.

Tim Beyers: The price doesn’t make you nervous.

Lou Whiteman: Valuation all over the place here, but just Exxon’s ability. I’m an owner of this one, and I keep saying, oh, they can’t do it again, and yet they do. I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt, given their ability, not just to add new customers, but they have done such a great job of continuously just layering on new products from tasers to body cams to software to now drones and cameras. You got to pick someone. I believe in them to continue. Arrow Virment, I think, could have a really tough time over the next few years, but I love the long-term potential, so I’m not going to cut them. Palantir, I love the technology. But I’m an old school government guy, and all of these companies have government ties. Palantir is still over 50% government. I know the way government allocation works. There is no way you can justify that valuation of the government, so they have to really just grow that commercial like nobody’s business. I think they have it in them, but I am guessing. Just like Netflix, just like Amazon, this really looks like a company where both things can be true. It’s a big long-term winner, and there’s massive drops along the way. I’m going to say goodbye to Palantir here.

Travis Hoium: Tim.

Tim Beyers: Same. I’m not sure. I can’t say it better than that. I will only add that we should consider, in my opinion, Palantir a deeply cyclical business, and it trades like it’s not a cyclical business. And that, I think, should make investors nervous.

Travis Hoium: Well, some very interesting picks from all of you and some great insights on at least why we should be thinking about valuation and growth for some of these companies. Next up, we are going to get to stocks on our radar. You’re listening to Motley Fool Money.

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Travis Hoium: Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don’t buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards, and it’s not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. We do need to touch on the hottest movie of the week. That is KPOp Demon Hunters, Lou, and Tim. Did either of you see this, Lou?

Lou Whiteman: I didn’t know about it till you asked. [LAUGHTER]

Travis Hoium: Apparently not the target demographic for this movie. But what’s unique about this and what I think is interesting for our investment discussion is, this is a movie made by Sony that ended up on Netflix and became just an absolute hit. I can’t avoid it with my kids. We have not watched it, but it pops up every single time we open up Netflix, and now it ended up in theaters, and it’s been a smash hit in theaters. I had no idea it was coming, except for multiple parents brought it up over the weekend. Are you seeing KPOp Demon Hunters? Tim, is this one is this a new model for the industry? And two, I think it’s interesting that no one saw this coming, including Netflix. It seems like they’re throwing content at the wall, and they don’t know what’s gonna hit. But every once in a while, they hit KPOp Demon Hunters or Squid Game. Is that the strategy for them?

Tim Beyers: Well, it is. The strategy for Netflix is to build a long tail. The longer the tail is, the more opportunity you have to get unexpected hits. And the thing that really makes Netflix sing and what drives that cash flow is you have a hit that goes across multiple territories. Netflix is not. They are the opposite of the max strategy, where you’re going to invest in a very big franchise name, and you’re going to have to put a lot of money behind that franchise name, and then you hope that it delivers just huge returns. Netflix does the exact opposite of that. Lots of seeds, and then something grows into just this giant, beautiful flower that you just can’t help but admire it. We’ve seen this over and over and over again. The Queen’s Gambit did this, Squid Game did this. Wednesday did this. There are some others that are multi-territory hits that are on a smaller scale. Well, I’ll recommend it to you, Travis, Department Q. Great. There’s little things like that. It is a deliberate strategy. It’s going to keep happening. It’s one of the reasons why we should believe in.

Travis Hoium: Lou, do theaters matter and does the order matter theaters first or streaming first?

Lou Whiteman: I don’t think the order matters anymore. I think we’ve evolved to a point where it’s a very different experience. One is more of a communal, and one is more just kind of at home. I think that the same property can work depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. It depends on the group, but more and more, I don’t think it matters. It’s just you put your assets in the ways where it generates money, and it all works out in the end.

Travis Hoium: We’re going to end with stocks on our radar, and I’m going to play the role of Dan Boyd today. Tim, what are you bringing to us for our radar stocks?

Tim Beyers: I’m bringing you Warby Parker. The glasses maker that originally made for selling glasses online, you could get a big package in the mail. You could try on several sets. You use your computer camera to check the fit and check your prescription. They have since moved dramatically from that, Travis. Now they have just under 300 stores across the country. Those stores are highly profitable. Over the trailing 12 months, even when you strip out the stock-based compensation, they’re still generating free cash flow. This is a business that’s getting more and more efficient over time. I’ll give you one stat on this to highlight that. In the most recent quarter, revenue up 13.9%, operating expenses up 3.3%. This is a business that’s getting better and better and better, and I think it’s one for the future. Look out. We’re seeing clearly with Warby Parker.

Travis Hoium: Lou, what are you bringing to radar stocks today?

Lou Whiteman: I’m watching CSX, the Railroad and only watching. The stocks are about 10% down this week, it seems, because no one wants to buy them. CSX’s primary rival, Norfolk Southern. They are going to be acquired by Union Pacific. That puts CSX in a really tough position. And conventional wisdom is that they would get bought by Burlington Northern. However, Berkshire Hathaway, and this does sound like a soap opera, I know. But Berkshire Hathaway, which owns Burlington Northern, Warren Buffett says, no, thank you. I don’t want to buy another railroad. Canadian Pacific said no, too. This is a mass guy, and the market’s reaction to sell off CSX, makes sense. But this story is far from over. For one, we don’t even know if that deal will get through. It’s possible regulators will carve out rules that make it interesting for everyone. I’m not ready to jump in here, but I feel like there might be an opportunity if the market overreacts to their seemingly getting left at the altar. So one to watch.

Travis Hoium: As much as I like these transportation stocks, Lou, Warby Parker, I think is interesting. The deal with Target, we’ll see if that gives them a little bit more legs, a little bit more growth. I think it’s interesting that these DTC companies making these retail partnerships. I don’t know if they all win, but if they can, they can get a little bit more exposure; it could be a big win for them. For Lou Whiteman and Tim Beyers, thanks for joining me today and our production magician Bart Shannon and the entire Motley Fool team, I am Travis Hoium. Thanks for listening to Motley Fool Money. We’ll see you tomorrow.

Artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia (NVDA -2.78%) recently reported strong second-quarter earnings for its fiscal year 2026. Not only did Nvidia beat Wall Street estimates, but the company’s board of directors also approved the addition of $60 billion to its share repurchase program, which will help increase earnings per share by lowering the outstanding share count over time.

Despite what looked like strong numbers, Nvidia’s stock didn’t react too well and fell following the release. Ultimately, there were both positive and negative aspects from the print. Interestingly, I found one aspect to be both the best and worst part of Nvidia’s earnings report.

China remains a big variable

In the second quarter, Nvidia reported $1.05 adjusted earnings per share on $46.74 billion of revenue, both of which beat estimates. Nvidia also guided for revenue in the current quarter to hit $54 billion, about $900 million ahead of Street forecasts. However, investors seemed slightly miffed by performance in Nvidia’s data center business. Despite growing 56% year over year, the number came up slightly short of estimates.

Image source: Getty Images.

Part of the shortfall came from a decline in sales of Nvidia’s H20 chips, which it sells to businesses in China, in accordance with previous government restrictions. The company has not been able to sell its most advanced chips to China over national security concerns, specifically regarding what China might try to build with these AI capabilities.

These concerns have been ratcheted up under the Trump administration, which earlier this year required Nvidia to obtain export licenses in order to sell to China. In the first quarter of the year, Nvidia took a $5.5 billion charge due to prior built-up inventory and purchase commitments.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang appeared to be making progress with President Donald Trump, agreeing to give 15% of the company’s China sales to the U.S. government if it could sell in the country. Nvidia is also reportedly building a scaled-down Blackwell chip, which is more advanced than the H20 chip, that the government might allow the company to sell in China. However, right before earnings, media outlets reported that Nvidia had instructed its suppliers to stop making the H20 chips after the Chinese government told domestic companies to avoid Nvidia chips due to its own security concerns.

Management on the company’s earnings call noted that if geopolitical issues are solved, Nvidia could earn an additional $2 billion to $5 billion of revenue from H20 chip sales in the current quarter. But right now, that is not factored into the company’s guidance. Furthermore, Huang said the opportunity in China in 2025 would have been $50 billion “if we were able to address it with competitive products.” He continued, “And if it’s $50 billion this year, you would expect it to grow, say, 50% per year, as the rest of the world’s AI market is growing as well.”

Upside potential

The worst part of the quarter might have been the news about Nvidia having to suspend H20 chip production and seeing the Chinese government tell local companies to avoid Nvidia’s chips. However, there seems to be a real possibility that Nvidia will eventually be able to sell its products in China, and perhaps even more advanced chips than it had been selling.

In my opinion, this is also in a way the best part of the quarter because the stock and company are performing well without revenue from China, which is clearly material. While the government has reservations about selling U.S. chips in China, it probably would prefer a U.S. company to sell them over Chinese companies. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Alibaba is working on a chip to fill the void left by the H20 chip. While Chinese companies don’t have the same chip capabilities as Nvidia right now, that could change one day.

So the opportunity to eventually reignite a business in a fast-growing market where the opportunity is tens of billions in additional annual revenue growth is the most exciting part of Nvidia’s recent quarter and near-term future prospects. Nvidia currently trades around 38 times forward earnings, which is above its five year average of 34.4.

That’s not cheap, especially for such a large company. However, given that revenue is expected to keep growing at a healthy clip and the potential upside from China, I do think investors can continue to buy the stock, although dollar-cost averaging is likely the best strategy right now with the stock trading at a stretched valuation.

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HELEN Flanagan has been forced to slash the price of her £1.5million mansion AGAIN after struggling to sell her family pad amid money woes.

The former Coronation Street star, 35, had already slashed more than £300,000 off the price of the house she shared with ex Scott Sinclair.

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Now Helen has been forced to reduce the price again for a second time after just fourth months of being on the market.

Helen first put the £1.5million six-bedroom family home up for sale in May, before reducing it to £1.195million just four weeks later. 

Now, the detached, 5,000sq ft home can be snapped up for a cheeky £995,000.

The former couple, who have three children together, bought the property at Belmont, near Bolton, in June 2021 for £840,000.

It has five reception rooms, six bathrooms and six bedrooms including two en-suites.

The house is situated on the edge of moors and is said to have “breathtaking views”.

Helen, who has spoken openly about “losing all her money” in the past, recently opened up being forced to downsize.

She said: “It actually makes me sad that I’m going to be leaving soon because I actually put so much effort into it.

“When we moved I put like a lot lot of my savings into doing the house up and making it look really beautiful. 

“But it’s a big house. It’s an eight bedroom house, which is obviously really hard to keep on top of.”

Meanwhile, Helen has shown off her evil stepmother credentials as she debuted her panto outfit for the first time.

The actress will play the evil stepmother in Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs at Liverpool‘s M&S Bank Arena in December.

The stunning star donned a sequinned red and black dress, with black feathered sleeves, and wore a gold and red diamante tiara on her head.

She also held aloft a red apple, symbolic of the poisonous apple so relevant to the Snow White storyline.

A source previously told The Sun: “Helen is excited for panto season and can’t wait to get into character, she’s a brilliant actress and knows how to put on a show.

“She’ll also be pocketing a pretty penny, celebrities and soap stars make good money doing panto and always look forward to it as some extra income.”

But despite being about to make her first foray into the world of pantomime, Helen is not looking forward to being alone this Christmas.

Helen, shares daughters Matilda, nine, Delilah, six, as well as four-year-old son Charlie, with her ex Scott Sinclair.

However, the ex-Coronation Street star also recently told The Sun that she was spending Christmas without her children this year, as she and former Chelsea footballer Scott, who most recently played for Bristol Rovers, live so far apart.

But Helen explained: “”I’ll do something in November – a really nice long weekend then I feel like I’ve had my Christmas period with them.”

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The last three years have been nothing short of spectacular for stock investors. The S&P 500 has produced a cumulative total return of 87% since hitting its bear market low in October 2022. If you invested in growth stocks, your returns have been even better, with the S&P 500 Growth index more than doubling in that same period.

Growth stocks have been the driving force behind the gains in the index. But as growth stocks have climbed in price, it’s left fewer options for investors looking for good value. And if you’re just getting started or trying to invest your next $100, a good growth opportunity is hard to come by in this market.

But looking past the biggest companies can still reveal many great opportunities to buy stocks in businesses with excellent growth prospects ahead of them. Here are three options all trading for prices below $100 per share.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Block

Block (XYZ -1.11%) is the company behind Cash App and Square. The merchant side, Square, was the original growth driver for the company, but the momentum has shifted to its consumer app, Cash App.

That’s not to say Square is struggling. Gross payment volume climbed 10% last quarter, and it’s seeing even stronger demand in its international markets, which still represent a great growth opportunity for the business. It continues to see gross profit margin expand as it moves upmarket to larger merchants.

But Cash App could be an even bigger growth driver for Block going forward. That’s why the stock fell hard after the segment’s profit growth underperformed in the first quarter. But management quickly course corrected, with gross profit growth accelerating in the second quarter, and management’s confident it can continue climbing in the current quarter.

Cash App’s acceleration came as a result of improving monetization of its users by increasing the number of services used. That includes a slight bump in its Cash App Card monthly users and its newly released Cash App Borrow service.

But management sees a long-term opportunity to grow Cash App’s user base by focusing on younger consumers. To that end, it’s seen strong engagement among younger users, with users under the age of 25 exhibiting higher rates of paycheck deposits and Cash App Card usage. As those younger users increase their earning and spending power, Cash App could see strong gross profit growth.

With the stock trading around $75 per share at the time of this writing, investors are paying about 29 times forward earnings estimates. With accelerating profit growth, and long-term potential for user growth, that’s a fair price to pay for the fintech company.

2. DraftKings

DraftKings (DKNG -1.96%) is one of the biggest sports betting companies in North America. The company has used its scale and technology platform to remain ahead of the competition in offering new products and scaling them. For example, it was one of the first U.S. sportsbooks offering live betting and in-game parlays.

As a result, DraftKings continues to grow despite a step up in competition. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) accelerated in the second quarter, climbing 37% year over year. That was helped by sportsbook-friendly outcomes, a reversion from the first quarter (when all four No. 1 seeds reached the Final Four in the NCAA Basketball Championship Tournament).

That success comes in the face of stepped up competition. ESPN launched its own sports betting brand in late 2023, not only adding a huge brand name to the competition, but removing a potential marketing partner at the same time. More recently, prediction markets using CFTC-authorized futures contracts have gained popularity as legal alternatives in states where sports betting is still illegal.

The latter represents a big threat to DraftKings, especially as the new tax code goes into effect next year. The new tax law limits gamblers to deducting just 90% of their losses against their winnings. Prediction markets, using financial vehicles, face no such limitations. DraftKings is exploring opportunities in the space, which could expand its product offerings.

In the meantime, the new tax code could reduce the number of professional gamblers on the platform, which could ultimately increase margins at the expense of a lower sportsbook handle. And if it continues to push its live-betting platform, it could offer betting opportunities unavailable on prediction markets.

With the stock trading around $48 per share, it sports an enterprise value to EBITDA ratio of about 29, based on the midpoint of management’s 2025 outlook. For a company that’s growing its EBITDA at a mid-30% rate, that’s an excellent price for the stock, and you could pick up a couple of shares with your $100.

3. Roku

Roku (ROKU -2.03%) is the leading connected-TV platform in North America with a growing presence around the world. The company received a huge boost amid the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, with millions of customers flocking to its platform and using it to find entertainment. However, inflation, macroeconomic uncertainty, and more recently, tariffs, have weighed on its results since.

After the strong growth of its streaming platform in the early part of the decade, Roku became more willing to sell its devices at a loss. Device gross margin fell to negative 29% in the fourth quarter last year amid big holiday sales. Last quarter, Roku managed to sell its devices at cost, on average, but many expect tariffs will weigh on device gross margin going forward.

That’s made up for in the booming growth of its platform. Platform gross margin remains in the low-50% range, even as it scales its advertising business and relies on third-party demand-side platforms to fill inventory. And with the platform business now six times the size of its device sales, the overall business is growing steadily more profitable.

In fact, management is pushing toward GAAP profitability with expectations for it to eke out a small profit for the full year. Profits could soar significantly over the coming years as it scales and manages significant operating leverage. If you look at its reported adjusted EBITDA, management said it grew the metric 79% year over year in the most recent quarter. That earnings growth is supported by continued improvements in platform sales, which is driven by higher viewer engagement and the secular shift of ad budgets from linear TV to streaming video. Those trends aren’t changing, which provides a long runway of revenue growth for Roku’s platform.

With the stock trading just below $100, the company has an enterprise value to EBITDA ratio of about 33, based on managements outlook for 2025. With the company exhibiting a ton of operating leverage and benefiting from secular trends in advertising, it’s worth your $100 to add it to your portfolio.

Shares of Palantir Technologies (PLTR -2.04%) fell today, finishing down 2%, but fell as much as 5.2% earlier in the day. The drop came as the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.32%) lost 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC -0.03%) was flat.

The artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse saw shares slide after news that semiconductor tariffs could soon hit chipmakers, sparking fears that margins could be impacted for companies that rely on inference like Palantir.

Trump says chip levies are coming

At a dinner last night with Silicon Valley CEOs, President Donald Trump said that companies that do not shift production to the U.S. will soon face a “fairly substantial” tariff on the chips they sell into the U.S. Trump did, however, indicate there would be exceptions, though the details are unclear.

While this doesn’t affect Palantir directly, it could lead to the cost of inference rising, which investors seemed to believe could impact Palantir’s margins.

Image source: Getty Images.

Additionally, a weak jobs report further raises questions about the health of the broader economy. While this can spur interest rate cuts, which in turn tend to lift equity prices, it could indicate that a recession is approaching, which would likely impact Palantir’s sales.

Palantir’s valuation weighs on the stock

I don’t think that chip tariffs will have a sizable impact on inference costs, and even if it does, Palantir would be minimally affected. However, the jobs data is concerning. Palantir’s incredible valuation means that the company cannot afford to have anything less than stellar quarter after stellar quarter. Even if the economy is healthy, I don’t believe the company can deliver what its stock price demands: perfection.

Therefore, I would stay away from Palantir stock at this price.

Shares of Ciena (CIEN -0.20%) rallied 23.9% this week through 1:46 p.m. ET Friday, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Ciena is a leader in optical transceivers and other IP networking and routing hardware and software. That’s a market that has typically served large telecom players, but which has now reaccelerated in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), and the increased networking demands required for it.

On Thursday, Ciena showed off a new AI-powered acceleration, delivering fiscal third-quarter results that handily beat analyst expectations.

Ciena blows past estimates on the back of AI networking needs

In its fiscal third quarter, Ciena grew revenue 29.4% to $1.22 billion, while adjusted non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) earnings per share nearly doubled, up 91.4% to $0.67. Both figures handily beat analyst expectations, especially the bottom-line figure, which bested estimates by $0.14.

Ciena is capitalizing on the newfound demand for inter-data center networking, stemming from the growth of generative AI. AI training companies are now connecting multiple data centers to function as a single AI “cluster,” which increases bandwidth needs. Moreover, as AI becomes infused into many enterprise and edge applications, the need for lighting-fast “inferencing” is also growing networking demand by leaps and bounds.

While Ciena’s traditional telecom market is only growing at a 4% pace, newer markets in metro routing and data center communications are forecast to grow at a 26% compound annualized growth rate through 2028, wherein the new markets will equal the size of Ciena’s traditional markets.

Image source: Getty Images.

Ciena: An underappreciated AI star?

After its rally this week, Ciena currently trades around 27.5 times next year’s earnings estimates. Its fiscal year ends in October 2026.

That’s not exactly cheap anymore, but it is a lower valuation than other AI stars that have recently come onto the scene. That being said, the company could make for a solid addition to a high-quality AI-oriented “basket” portfolio for those bullish on the long-term prospects of the AI build-out.

Leading Internet-of-Things (IoT) specialist Samsara (IOT 17.16%) is up 14% today as of 1 p.m. ET, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Powered by its Connected Operations Platform, Samsara soared past analysts’ expectations for the second quarter, growing revenue by 30%.

The company’s margins also continued to improve, with its adjusted free-cash-flow (FCF) margin registering 11% during the quarter. This improvement is a far cry from the negative 15% it saw two years ago.

Connecting the physical operations of businesses

Whereas CrowdStrike is a one-stop shop for cybersecurity-related matters, for example, Samara is the go-to provider for operational technology that can help any company working with tangible assets.

The company provides telematics, safety solutions, site visibility cameras, connected equipment tracking, and a suite of apps on a single platform for companies. Whether helping a trucking company, food distributor, heavy equipment operator, airline, or retailer, Samsara aims to bring safety, efficiency, and sustainability to any physical business.

Image source: Getty Images.

Some ways it assists customers are by:

• reducing drivers’ speeding and phone usage incidents
• lowering auto liability claims
• helping identify and sell underutilized assets
• saving on fuel costs with more efficient routes
• addressing vehicle maintenance issues before they become a problem

Thanks to cost savings from items like these, market intelligence firm IDC believes Samsara generates a 700% return on investment for its customers, resulting in a mere monthslong payback period.

Samsara’s platform processes over 20 trillion data points, 90 billion traveled miles, and 300 million workflows annually for its customers, solidifying its status as an IoT leader.

Generating 15% of its net new annual contract value (ACV) from non-U.S. geographies and 8% net new ACV from products released in the last year, Samsara’s growth story looks robust.

Shares of Snap (SNAP 2.61%) fell 24.3% in August 2025, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. The company behind the popular social media platform Snapchat posted decent second-quarter results on Aug. 5, but modest management comments and soft next-period guidance left Snap investors underwhelmed. The stock fell 17% the next day.

Image source: Getty Images.

Snap’s user growth is hitting the brakes

Snap targets 476 million daily active users (DAU) in the third quarter, a 7.4% increase from the year-ago period. That’s a healthy increase, but also below the 9% year-over-year increase seen in the second quarter. And the DAU growth rate used to be reported in double-digit percentages, as recently as 2023. So it’s a growing user community, but the growth rate is slowing down.

At the same time, Snapchat experienced a glitch in its advertising system last quarter. Ad-spot auctions sometimes resulted in very low prices, which Snap had to honor. This issue has been fixed, but not before reducing Snap’s ad revenue.

That’s not a long-term problem, but it’s never fun to see technical glitches making a significant difference to a tech company’s business results.

The silver lining in Snap’s cloudy quarter

On the upside, Snap reported robust demand for its ad inventory. Despite an unstable macroeconomic backdrop, advertisers are still buying ad space.

At the same time, the company must fight to keep those Snapchat users coming. The slowing user growth may not look like a big issue at the moment, since Snap’s revenue and profits still largely met management’s guidance and Wall Street’s estimates. But I understand why Snap investors take this trend seriously, as the long-term health of social media systems depends very directly on this metric.

The company is doing what it can to light a new spark under its user growth and content engagement numbers. Recent product launches include an interactive app for the Apple Watch and the Spotlight content-discovery algorithm. Artificial intelligence (AI) is featured in most of these tools, including generative AI features in the augmented reality Lens filters.

Will the AI stuff make a difference? I don’t know, but Snap deserves some credit for pulling every available growth-boosting lever. Meanwhile, the stock looks fragile due to stalling top-line growth and consistently negative earnings. It’s a turnaround story with more question marks than clear solutions.

So your mileage may vary, but I’m ghosting Snap’s stock for now.

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD -5.53%) were taking a dive today in response to an analyst downgrade, calling out weakness in its artificial intelligence (AI) division.

In addition, the stock may have reacted negatively to a downbeat employment report, as well as a new threat about tariffs on semiconductors. Finally, reports came out showing that OpenAI was planning to make its own AI chips for the first time, which could threaten suppliers like AMD and Nvidia.

As a result, the stock was down 6.3% as of 11:28 a.m. ET.

Image source: Getty Images.

AMD gets dinged

The main reason for the sell-off today was a downgrade from Seaport Research, which lowered its rating on AMD from buy to neutral, noting that supply chain checks indicated slowing growth in its AI chip business.

Other reports seemed to add to those worries, as the August employment report showed that just 22,000 jobs were added last month, a sign of slowing economic growth.

Additionally, President Trump said again that his administration would impose tariffs on semiconductor imports for companies not moving production to the U.S. It’s unclear if that policy would affect AMD, which is based in the U.S., but as a fabless chip company, contracts with foundries like TSMC for production. The uncertainty around the move may be weighing on the stock as well.

Peers such as Nvidia, the leading AI chipmaker, also fell today, though that may be in response to a Financial Times report that OpenAI will begin production of its own AI chips for the first time, limiting reliance on outside partners like Nvidia and AMD.

What it means for AMD

Seaport’s report of slowing growth in the AI business is the most concerning news item, as AMD has positioned itself as the No. 2 company in AI GPUs, though it’s well behind Nvidia.

AMD reported strong sales of its Instinct Mi350 AI accelerators in the second quarter. At this point, the boom still seems healthy after Anthropic’s valuation doubled to $183 billion earlier this week, but investors should keep their eyes out for any other reports of AI weakness at AMD.