Making Cents Sense

A few years ago, it felt like everyone had written Meta off. The headlines were brutal. Investors questioned the company's spending on the metaverse, critics declared Facebook was becoming irrelevant, and the stock became the poster child for what happens when Wall Street loses confidence in a tech giant. If you listened to the loudest voices at the time, Meta was supposedly destined for a long, painful decline. Fast forward to today, and the conversation couldn't be more different. The stock has staged one of the most impressive recoveries in recent market history. Revenue growth has accelerated, profits have expanded, artificial intelligence has become a major catalyst, and investors who held through the storm—or had the courage to buy when sentiment was awful—have been rewarded handsomely. Now comes the question I'm hearing more than almost any other: Is Meta still a buy after its massive comeback, or has the easy money already been made? Looking Beyond the Headlines One...

There are few companies that have managed to convince millions of people that dinner is only thirty minutes away while quietly building one of the most efficient businesses on the planet. Domino's has become so familiar that many investors barely notice it anymore. That's exactly what makes it interesting. Wall Street has a habit of chasing whatever sounds futuristic. Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, autonomous vehicles, space exploration—those stories dominate headlines. Meanwhile, companies that simply execute exceptionally well often get pushed into the background. Domino's may not have the excitement of the latest technology darling, but boring businesses have a funny habit of making patient investors a lot of money. So the question becomes simple: Is Domino's an underrated consumer stock right now, or has the market already priced in everything there is to know? The Business Is Much More Than Pizza When people hear "Domino's," they picture ...

Every time Microsoft goes on another tear, I see the exact same debate play out like clockwork. One crowd is convinced they've missed the opportunity forever. They stare at the chart like someone who arrived at the airport just in time to watch their plane disappear into the clouds. "Well, that's it," they sigh. "I guess I'll wait for the next bear market." The other crowd suddenly discovers a level of confidence normally reserved for lottery winners and declares Microsoft will apparently compound at 25% annually until the sun burns out. Neither side seems particularly interested in living in reality. I've learned that one of the most expensive habits investors develop is believing that stocks have feelings. If a company goes up a lot, people assume it's somehow "too high." If it falls 40%, they automatically assume it's "cheap." The market, meanwhile, couldn't care less about your emotional attachment to round numbers...

If there's one thing the stock market has taught me over the years, it's that yesterday's winners don't automatically become tomorrow's champions. Technology changes too quickly. Consumer preferences evolve overnight. Companies that dominate one decade often spend the next explaining to investors why things didn't go according to plan. That's why I always approach high-flying technology stocks with equal parts optimism and skepticism. Broadcom is one of those companies. It isn't flashy. Its CEO isn't constantly making headlines with outrageous predictions. It doesn't rely on trendy consumer gadgets to drive revenue. Instead, Broadcom quietly powers much of the digital infrastructure that most people never think about. Ironically, that's exactly what makes me interested. While everyone argues over which artificial intelligence chatbot is winning the popularity contest, Broadcom is busy selling the picks and shovels. History has shown that the ...

There are companies that quietly make the modern world work, and then there are companies that become the reason Wall Street suddenly remembers an entire industry exists. Arista Networks falls squarely into the second category. For years, networking wasn't exactly the glamorous corner of technology. Everyone wanted to talk about smartphones, cloud software, social media, or whatever new gadget promised to revolutionize life for approximately six months before being replaced by another gadget promising to revolutionize life even harder. Networking equipment? That was the equivalent of talking about plumbing. Nobody brags about plumbing until the pipes burst. Then suddenly everyone becomes an expert. Artificial intelligence has done something remarkable. It has turned networking infrastructure into one of the hottest topics in technology. Everyone is busy talking about graphics processors, gigantic data centers, trillion-parameter language models, and enough electricity consumption t...

Whenever I analyze Alphabet, I have to remind myself not to treat it like just another technology company. That's the easiest mistake investors make. People see Google Search, YouTube, Android, Gmail, Google Cloud, Waymo, and now artificial intelligence, and they assume they're looking at a collection of separate businesses. I see something very different. I see an ecosystem that quietly became the infrastructure behind much of the internet. That distinction matters because infrastructure businesses tend to have staying power. People can switch brands. It's much harder to replace habits. For years, Alphabet's biggest advantage was that it became the default answer to almost every question people had. Need directions? Google. Looking for a restaurant? Google. Researching a new car? Google. Trying to remember the actor from that movie you watched ten years ago? Google. Search became so dominant that its name turned into a verb, and that's a level of brand recognition ...