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For the most part, earnings have been roughly in line or slightly ahead. That's been reflected in the markets. The bigger impact on the quarter is the decline in inflation. That's a positive, we'll see if it continues.

Those two things have set a good tone for the quarter.

The challenge with the rhetoric coming out of the White House is that the market's just ignoring it. It's just constant, and it's disconnected from reality. If we're going to have a peace deal, let's have one. Striking around the Gulf is just causing everyone to suffer.

He doesn't see the Iranians giving in anytime soon.

You need to think about 2 segments of the consumer, the classic K-shaped economy. Metrics reported by Visa recently showed sustained double-digit returns and growth. That speaks to a healthy consumer. Median rents in NYC are $5k a month. Though that might be a bit excessive, it points to consumers who are, generally, optimistic.

There's a lot of spending going on in the US with AI and data centres, and that's permeating through the economy. So the US consumer who has a job or is exposed to markets is doing quite well. Those who do not have tended to suffer, and we're starting to see that in the labour markets.

WMT would be exposed to the less economically advantaged consumer (though the wealthy do spend there). WMT results are a bit disconnected from the portion of the population that actually drives the US economy.

Maintaining the dividend is not a challenge, and it will continue to grow. Under pressure because of the assumption that peace will come to the Strait of Hormuz. But the space ran up in the first place due to the conflict. Just look at the chart. Big capex program, growth in various businesses. 

Blue-chip company, ballast for your portfolio. Buy, put it away for the dividend. His firm has owned for ~27 years, and they've been happy campers reaping the income.

Be wary of any stock that benefits from ETF fund flows because when the market decides it doesn't like the stock anymore, everyone just sells en masse.

Oil reserves in a safe haven. Well run. If peace breaks out in the Middle East, all the energy names could retrace somewhat; if conflict escalates, then oil will run and you should take profits along the way. 

If you're looking at a 3-10 year investment, by all means buy some energy here. But if you're looking for a 3-6 month trade, you have to be careful with these politically charged components of the market.

Don't put new $$ in today. Priced to perfection on its execution abilities. At some point it will stumble. Good company, but very expensive.

More of a dividend story. More of a marketing engine as opposed to a development company. He's not interested.

Very good ore deposits, but a better company is BHP. All commodity companies have run up on the back of the Iran conflict.

All commodity companies have run up on the back of the Iran conflict. He'd look to add some copper exposure via this name, but now.

With the dot-com era, and the promise of what it was for e-commerce, it was very hyped in 2000. But the crossing of the chasm didn't happen until 2020, when everyone was locked in the house and had to buy online. 

If you look at what the promise of AI is, the likelihood of what's being promised now to be delivered now is virtually zero. We have to put some roadblocks around our assumptions. That's the fundamental reality.

From an investor reality, the trend is your friend. You should have some exposure to AI. Be careful how you risk-manage it. If you're playing with the house's money, then trim, take some off the table, and put it in defensive names. If you're a growth investor and 100% invested in AI, that trade will work. Until it doesn't. And you'll be down 50%.

New CEO is trying to pivot more to the defense side, so give that time. A great pivot if they can pull it off. Challenge is that the pivot's required due to a lot of deteriorating trends under the hood. Has potential, but not a great performer over the long term.

Could be a value trap. Better opportunities elsewhere.

Competitors have better cost of capital and scale. He'd prefer one of the Asian suppliers. Better opportunities elsewhere.

His firm first bought it back when Hilary Clinton was going to become president :)  It served them well, but he sold when LLY started winning the GLP-1 race.

Long-term story still intact. Challenge for nat gas is the Iran conflict -- US oil companies drilled more, which produced excess nat gas and depressed the price. The whole ecosystem has underperformed. Peace in the Iran conflict will be a positive.