Making Cents Sense

There are stocks I buy because I believe the market is underestimating their growth. There are stocks I buy because the underlying assets appear to be worth more than the market price. Then there are stocks like Walmart, where I find myself staring at the valuation and asking a slightly different question: How much am I willing to pay to avoid unpleasant surprises? Walmart is not an obscure turnaround story hiding beneath a mountain of debt. It is not a speculative technology company promising to revolutionize commerce once it figures out how to generate a profit. It is one of the largest, most recognizable, and most durable retailers on the planet. Approximately 280 million customers and members visit Walmart’s stores and e-commerce platforms each week. The company operates more than 10,900 stores across 19 countries and generated roughly $713 billion in revenue during fiscal 2026. Walmart is not merely a retailer at this point. It is economic infrastructure with shopping carts. That ...

I have owned, watched and analyzed enough technology stocks to recognize the familiar stages of an artificial intelligence investment story. First comes amazement. Then comes excitement. Next comes a corporate presentation containing the word “AI” so many times that I begin to wonder whether the accounting department has been replaced by a chatbot. Finally, investors ask the only question that matters: Where is the money? Amazon is moving beyond the presentation stage. AWS is not merely experimenting with artificial intelligence or adding a cheerful assistant to an existing product. Amazon is spending extraordinary amounts of money to build the infrastructure, chips, models and software that it believes will power the next generation of computing. The scale is breathtaking. It is also mildly terrifying. Amazon expects to invest approximately $200 billion in capital expenditures during 2026. That is not a typo caused by an analyst falling asleep on the zero key. The company is spending ...

Apple has accomplished something most companies can only fantasize about while their marketing departments rearrange adjectives in a PowerPoint presentation: it has convinced millions of people that purchasing its products is not merely a transaction but an expression of personal identity. People do not simply own an iPhone. They live inside an Apple ecosystem. They do not replace a laptop. They “upgrade their Mac.” They do not buy headphones. They purchase tiny white membership badges that occasionally fall between couch cushions and cost approximately the same as a respectable weekend vacation. That loyalty is why Apple deserves a premium valuation. It is also why investors can become dangerously comfortable paying almost any price for the stock. As of August 21, 2026, Apple shares trade near $311, giving the company a market capitalization of roughly $4.58 trillion. The stock changes hands at approximately 35.7 times trailing earnings, based on earnings per share of about $8.71. Tho...

When I look at Meta’s artificial-intelligence spending, I have two reactions. The first is admiration. Meta is one of the few companies on Earth with enough money, users, data, engineering talent and distribution to make a bet of this size without immediately requiring a rescue operation. If artificial intelligence becomes the foundation of the next computing era, Meta does not want to rent its future from somebody else. My second reaction is the financial equivalent of watching a neighbor begin construction on a private airport. I understand the ambition. I can even imagine why it might be useful. But I would still like to know how many planes are coming, when they are arriving and whether anyone has calculated the maintenance bill. Meta expects its 2026 capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, to fall between $130 billion and $145 billion. That is up dramatically from the $72.22 billion it spent in 2025. At the midpoint of the new range, Meta could spend ...