5 + 1 cherry picked Maverick Charts of the week say 10,000 words or more = the ‘How’!

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because great research respects the reader’s time:

📊 Maverick Charts: GDP, FOMC Outlook & Financial Conditions

📊 Bonus: ‘POTUS’ Job Approval Rating

Objective: both data-driven insights + valuable food for thought = the ‘Why’!

📊 Maverick Charts: GDP, FOMC Outlook & Financial Conditions 📊

U.S. Q3 GDP latest estimates from the Atlanta FED & New York FED:

1. Atlanta Fed GDPNow real GDP latest estimate from August 18th:

👉 +4.0% = a very solid reading — note how it was +6% when the quarter begun

2. New York FED Nowcast latest and fresh estimate from August 21st:

👉 +2.3% = a very solid reading also — note, it is a smoother / more compact estimate

"What is the FED’s latest view on the economy, Mav? Can you do that in one single chart? You the master chartist out there with those Maverick Charts for 10,000 words!"

Yes, there you go:

3. There you go, FOMC projections including March VS June 2026 revisions:

👉 Real GDP: revised downwards from 2.4% to 2.2% for YE 2026 = lower growth

👉 Unemployment: down from 4.4% to 4.3% for YE 2026 = lower unemployment

👉 Inflation:

• revised upwards PCE from 2.7% to 3.6% = higher inflation

• revised upwards Core PCE from 2.7% to 3.3% for YE 2026 = higher inflation

👉 Fed Funds Rate (FFR): on hold with Kevin Warsh’s as new Chair with the target range at 3.5% to 3.75% — he held rates steady at both of his meetings so far

• revised upwards from 3.375% to 3.750% for YE 2026

• 2026 rates anticipation = 50% hiking in 2026 with notably, 9 of 18 members anticipate a rate hike in 2026

For 2027 and 2028 outlooks, just check the further nice yellow and red dots.

“How are financial conditions these days, Mav?“

4. Bloomberg’s Financial Conditions Index:

👉 it has never shown easier conditions since its inception back in 1990

👉 hence, ‘Summertime and Conditions are Easy’ buddy

Going further with a leading view: what about Financial Conditions and their expected contribution to future real GDP growth over the coming year?

5. FED Financial Conditions Impulse on Growth (FCI-G):

👉 positive contributions going forward (negative values are good)

👉 both on a 3-year lookback with -0.9%, and on a 1-year lookback with -0.4%

N.B. the 7 Indicators inside this metric: it aggregates changes in the FED Funds Rate, 10-year Treasury yield, 30-year fixed mortgage rate, BBB corporate bond yield, Dow Jones Stock Index, Zillow House Price Index, and the nominal broad dollar index

📊 Bonus: ‘POTUS’ Job Approval Rating 📊

6. “What is the latest Job Approval Rating for the current ‘POTUS’, Mav?“

👉 Silver Bulletin with a -19.5% drop

👉 RCP with a -17.5% drop

Takeaway:

The economy is doing well (overall), hence imagine if the economy was doing bad how much even bigger of a drop this would have been.

N.B. this is not a pro or against POTUS take:

• agnostic politics given independent research, hence apolitical is my A-Game

• the key is to know the facts, separate our investing & wallets from (desired) politics, being pragmatic to shape a solid forward outlook, and act accordingly

• more on that will be covered in a future dedicated Maverick Special report

P.S. way more on the U.S. Economy via my 2 key deep dives for both Top-Down & Bottom-Up approaches, in essence connecting the mighty Macro-Finance bridge:

The report breaks down the U.S. economy and ultimately aims to answer two of the biggest questions in Finance and Economics:

“How are the Fundamentals of the U.S. Economy?“

“What is the Ongoing Probability of a Recession?”

• decoding the U.S. Economy by looking way beyond the traditional economic metrics, namely, through the lens of real-time, high frequency & alternative data!

• in essence, a ‘live’ view on the state of the U.S. Economy, and quite a unique report which you do not see elsewhere!

• a sharper and timely way to understand the macro forces shaping investing and overall financial markets!

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Maverick Charts 62th edition done, 5 key charts with many insights + 1 Bonus!

You can check all the previous 61 editions in the Maverick Charts section!

Mission accomplished for me if the following resonates with you:

• ‘Hmm I never thought it that way’, ‘now that chart said a whole lot’, ‘now that chart was really interesting’, ‘now that is something new’, ‘now I got it!’, ‘you managed to turn something complex into something actually simple’

• hence, if you got to see something differently, my approach gave you a different angle, it did help you connect your key dots, then we all do well here!

Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this by finding it interesting, saving you time and getting valuable insights? What would be appreciated?

Just sharing this around with like-minded people, and hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons!

That’ll definitely support bringing in more & more independent investment research: from a single individual … not a corporate, bank, fund, click-baity media or so … !

Like this, the big positive externalities become the name of the game! Thank you!

Sharing = 3x win: you + your close ones + me!

Share

Have a great day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

the much awaited Full Equity Research section will start soon as I will be able to allocate time to it also. Some people call them ‘deep dives’, ‘investment ideas’, or ‘actionable ideas’ — in short, it will cover in full single businesses and their stocks!

I said businesses first, then stocks because the mindset is all bout about being a business owner, a shareholder of the business, and not of a ticker moving on a screen.

This is one of the most simple statements about investing, yet sooner or later the most forgotten by way too many investors. Mindset is as equal or even more important than the research and overall due diligence, especially as the portfolio value gets bigger:

• research does the trinity: finds opportunities, builds conviction and lowers risk

• yet it’s mindset, emotional control, patience, and independence that turns all that into enduring investment results — being able to stick to the strategy is key!

I will do the research & due diligence + occasional mindset reminders — both are key!

The first businesses that will be covered are planned to start in Q4 2026 or Q1 2027.

Until then, expectations wise, check below my Maverick framework as a preview. First, the Table Of Contents with key highlights, and then the ins & outs about all:

📊 Geographical focus: U.S. and Switzerland focus + Europe, Canada and Japan

📊 Business types: Owner-operators, monopolies, time tested business models

📊 Investment style: Value, Growth & Quality, Dividend & Royalty

📊 Research method: Hybrid with Bottom-up first, Top-down secondary

📊 Investment horizon: compounding through a medium-long term horizon

📊 Investment mindset: thinking as a shareholder, hence thinking as an owner

📊 Size: small & mid caps under covered focus, large and micro secondary

📊 Frequency: 1-6x year, possibly more, it depends on the valuation

📊 Research style and delivery: balancing simplicity with technicality and length

📊 Independence: very valuable and rare nowadays, full freedom here

👍 Takeaways: great companies, Skin In the Game (STIG), mindset

Let’s get started with more details on each of the key aspects from above:

📊 Geographical focus 📊

• U.S. + Switzerland primarily, while secondary Europe overall, Canada & Japan = overall strong jurisdictions for political and economic stability, solid legal and regulatory standards, investors asset protection and ideally also tax efficiency

• should value and opportunity to be found also elsewhere, going global also

📊 Business types 📊

A big focus on my Big 4:

1. Founder-led companies + Owner-Operators

2. High insiders equity ownership: managers, officers, directors, and employees, when not or as well (ideal) the firm is Founder-led/Owner-Operated

Key rationale:

• businesses that are managed by their founders, owners and/or largest shareholders mean true Skin In The Game (STIG): financial + reputational + legacy

• ultimate interests alignment with shareholders (Agency Problem natural hedge)

3. Natural Monopolies, Duopolies & Oligopolies

Key rationale:

• pricing power, barrier to entry, a durable long-term business which has a solid ‘MOAT’ around its operations and inside the geography it operates in

• the MOAT could be management & employees, their skills & Skin In The Game, it could be the infrastructure, scalability, patents, the tech, or a royalty business

• after all, the value of a company = Present Value of its Free Cash Flow (PV FCF) it generates across time — hence, super durable cash flows are key!

4. Time tested business models:

• time tested across the business cycle, at least one, and at least a big/full one: ignoring 2020 Covid which was a ‘pause’ rather than a recession

• at least 20 years in business, as that would mean we include the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) which was a big test for any business

• hence, if a business did well since at least 2005 to now, that is a good signal and invitation (naturally, not a guarantee) that it will likely do well also in the future

• ‘past performance is no future guarantee’ as the saying goes, but on the other side a long track record says: customers are there, management is good, business could adapt across time, it is making money and delivering to shareholders (while a short track record can happen even in markets without any of these requisites)

• sometimes, younger companies or even IPOs could be featured also depending what I find, and assess as potential good candidates — the ‘next hot thing’ can indeed turn to be hot, but have to be very selective as most do not turn hot

📊 Investment style 📊

• Value, Growth & Quality stocks, together with their derivatives: GARP (Growth at a Reasonable Price) & QARP (Quality at a Reasonable Price)

• Dividend stocks, REITs and royalty businesses as income investing

Nonetheless, I would not fixate at all on categorisations, let’s just recall 2 key takes:

📊 Research method 📊

• fundamentals, bottom-up: what are the core operations, products and services? how is Revenue generated and how is it spent? how is management? are there plenty of projects that will likely generate a positive NPV (Net Present Value)? How good is the business model today, and for the medium and long-term?

• connecting the valuation to the economy via ✍️ The State of the U.S. Economy quarterly reports that you will find in the ‘Macro’ section

• hence, overall a hybrid approach: Bottom-up at the core, Top-down secondary

• why a hybrid method? nothing happens in a vacuum: knowing where we are in the business cycle is important as that connects to the overall Valuations in the market, the Macro-Finance bridge — it is one thing to buy/sell a stock when the economy & markets are hot, and another when in a recession and/or a bear market

📊 Investment horizon 📊

• medium-long term horizon, hence a business owner mindset (not a traded ticker)

• understanding the business before the numbers is key for a long-term view

📊 Investment mindset 📊

• thinking as a shareholder is the way to build true conviction, otherwise with the first market wobbles (which will naturally keep happening) confidence will vanish — understand what you own, and why you own it

• easy to forget for many, even experienced investors, that a share is not a ticker or lottery ticket ... it’s part-ownership of a business — we are here for the long-term

• therefore, if after publishing a research report the stock goes very fast -20% and the research is labelled as ‘bad’, or if +20% and the research is labelled as ‘genius’ = that is clearly not the right mindset

• sooner or later in your investment journey, your focus should be less on chasing glamorous businesses with fancy CEOs, slides, media overhyped — you should transition to more ‘simple’ & ‘boring’, under covered and not hyped businesses with great a great risk/reward ratio, ideally with a genuinely asymmetric upside — the tricky hard part is having enough patience to wait for the right price, comfortable when the price drops, and for the thesis to actually play out …

📊 Size 📊

• small & mid caps = a major focus, occasionally both large caps and micro caps

• hence, most stocks will likely be names you never heard much about or at all

N.B. retail investors have a BIG advantage NOT having a big capital to be invested = full freedom, no mandate, no restrictions, one can invest in anything — conversely, funds the bigger they become, the more limitations they have given the size via the smaller possible investment universe, liquidity, and that besides the big limitations via a mandate, governance, high costs, benchmarks etc

📊 Frequency 📊

• between 1-6 per year, maybe a bit more than that, it depends: it is not easy to find great companies at decent valuations — as a reference, there are many funds with many employees who make 2-14 investment decisions times a year

• only on YouTube/TikTok to be found ‘10 stocks to buy this month, or week … or today’ … sarcasm alert … anytime you hear that your spider senses should be up and running … it does not look good, not good at all!

• goes without saying, even after finding the companies it is highly time intensive to ‘put pen to paper’, aka produce the actual reports

• I have a clear and big Wishlist also besides my own investments, though price paid maters a lot for future returns, hence a lot is also waiting for better prices: be it via a general market selloff, or a temporary dislocation between the price and the potential and fundamentals of the business

• Volatility = Opportunity, and not Risk: recall Buffet’s 2024 annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders where he describes: while great businesses are very seldom to be bought in their entirety (not a problem for us), small fractions of these gems can be purchased very occasionally at bargain prices!

👉 Research style and delivery:

• simplifying the complex via sleek charts and plain English

• broad yet deep coverage by saying 10,000 words via charts and clear sentences — e.g. when I describe the business model I will really explain how is the company delivering value to customers and making money, instead of using a bunch of Mambo-Jambo marketing buzzwords and complicated smart sounding concepts

• balancing simplicity with technicality and length of a research piece = is very tricky to do, but that is my big approach to deliver value to a broad audience

📊 Independence 📊

I cannot stress how important, valuable and also how rare truly independent thinking is, especially nowadays — hence I made an entire dedicated post on the topic:

• in short, full freedom here, no conflict of interest, no mandate, no benchmark, no self-censorship, no boss tapping around the shoulder to change this or that

• without independent free thinking, there can’t be any independent conclusion

• my related tweet with +200,000 views:

• and the one and only Nassim Taleb on the subject & retweeting my tweet:

Note also one of my favorite life rules shared by Taleb during his Commencement Address at the American University in Beirut on June 3, 2016:

👍 Takeaways 👍

1. Overall goal

👉 find great companies at reasonable valuations for the medium-long run

👉 ideally with a view of never planning or need to be sold, hence durable businesses

2. Skin In The Game (STIG)

👉 all companies covered in this section will be ones that I am also personally invested, hence personal Skin In The Game (STIG)!

👉 the only exceptions will be when the valuation is too high, hence patience and waiting for better times to buy — naturally, the relevant disclosures will be made

3. Mindset

👉 business owner as a long-term shareholder

👉 thinking as a long-term investor bring both results and makes things easier, and I know that very well from both buying shares, but also as I founded and run a start-up back in 2010 — they are both the same world, but also a different world

👉 a stock is first of all not about the excel and ratios, it is about the business per se

👉 recall Buffett reflecting the great synergies between the two, and overall mindset:

Have a great next week! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

Subscribe now

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With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

4 + 1 cherry picked Maverick Charts of the week say 10,000 words or more = the ‘How’!

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because great research respects the reader’s time:

📊 Maverick Charts: Defense Contractors Backlog, Palantir, Mercado Libre, Wix

📊 Bonus: S&P 500 1st year Performance with new Fed Chair

Objective: both data-driven insights + valuable food for thought = the ‘Why’!

📊 Maverick Charts: Defense Contractors Backlog, Palantir, MercadoLibre, Wix 📊

1. Defense Contractors Backlog = $846 billion, +26% compared to last year:

👉 Geopolitical conflicts are high, hence naturally so are the Defense Contractors backlog — both arming up & munition replenishment are required for those conflicts

👉 “Big Five” prime defense contractors all reported record orders in the 2nd quarter:

• RTX Corporation (RTX): $289 billion for a +22%

• Lockheed Martin (LMT): $230 billion, for a +38%

• General Dynamics (GD): $136 billion, for a +32%

• Northrop Grumman (NOC): $105 billion, for a +17%

• Boeing Defense, Space, & Security (BA): $85 billion, for a +15%

Combined, the five companies (including only Boeing’s defense division) now have a backlog of $846 billion — that’s up $176 billion, or 26%, compared to Q2 2025!

2. Palantir Technologies (PLTR) — the Software AI of Defense getting market also:

👉 157% Net Dollar Retention Rate (NRR) reported for Q2 — it now accelerated for 11 consecutive quarters!

P.S. NRR = the % of recurring revenue a company keeps from its existing customers

• it factors in expansions (upsells), contractions (downgrades) and churn

• above 100% means revenue from the current customer base is growing even without new customers — Palantir’s 157% is exceptionally strong!

3. MercadoLibre (MELI), the dominant e-commerce and financial technology ecosystem in Latin America just achieved the unachievable:

👉 +30% revenue growth for 30 consecutive quarters = this mighty streak represents 7.5 consecutive years of unceasing, high-velocity expansion — insane growth at scale

👉 I do not recall any company ever managing this feat, hence I had to check if my intuition is right — yes, it is a global record: the only publicly company in the world out of more than 83,000 tracked globally to achieve this feat

👉 it’s even crazier to think that no other company has come even closer to top that: not even growth giants like Amazon, Apple, Meta, or Nvidia had such a streak

4. Wix.com (WIX) — one of the software AI losers so far from the market’s side:

👉 management bought back 24% of their shares in a single quarter in Q2 — massive commitment from the insiders as they see the stock very undervalued

📊 Bonus: S&P 500 1st year Performance with new Fed Chair 📊

5. How is the S&P 500 performing in the 1st year with a new Fed Chair?

Kevin Warsh was sworn in as the new chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve on May 22, succeeding Jerome Powell at the helm of the world’s most consequential central bank.

👉 very good returns in general, except when Alan Greenspan took over — currently, the S&P 500 has gained roughly 3.80% since Kevin Warsh took office

👉 naturally, way more factors at play, but a sleek angle to consider

P.S. S&P 500 and way more will be covered by the future Maverick Special reports:

Complementary, Single Stocks deep dives and Model Portfolios will start soon!

Heads-up: the next Special report covers Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Q2 earnings:

The quick take right after Q2 earnings were out is below in case you missed it:

Maverick Charts 61th edition done, 4 key charts with many insights + 1 Bonus!

You can check all the previous 60 editions in the Maverick Charts section!

Mission accomplished for me if the following resonates with you:

• ‘Hmm I never thought it that way’, ‘now that chart said a whole lot’, ‘now that chart was really interesting’, ‘now that is something new’, ‘now I got it!’, ‘you managed to turn something complex into something actually simple’

• hence, if you got to see something differently, my approach gave you a different angle, it did help you connect your key dots, then we all do well here!

Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this by finding it interesting, saving you time and getting valuable insights? What would be appreciated?

Just sharing this around with like-minded people, and hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons!

That’ll definitely support bringing in more & more independent investment research: from a single individual … not a corporate, bank, fund, click-baity media or so … !

Like this, the big positive externalities become the name of the game! Thank you!

Sharing = 3x win: you + your close ones + me!

Share

Subscribe now

Have a great day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

Berkshire Hathaway’s 2nd quarter 2026 earnings came out yesterday, August 8th.

📊 Stock Buybacks 📊

As I anticipated in my preview report three weeks ago, Berkshire’s share repurchases proved to be a big surprise. Moreover, my forecast was not only correct directionally, but also numbers wise, highly accurate!

Print screen from the preview report with the key part:

So, how did Q2 2026 numbers come out?

👉 $4.5 billion worth of buybacks! (in Q1 2026 they were just $226 million)

👉 $7.2 billion when we count July also (hence, one month from Q3 which we will have it confirmed in 3 months time) which is a -0.8% drop in shares outstanding

• that was based on various sleek calculations & deductions like I did in the preview

• I’ll explain that in more detail in the full Q2 ‘Berkshire Report’ + my take on how likely or not the big buybacks are set to continue, under what conditions etc

Hence, I am confident to say that the analysis was both right and accurate!

Visualising Share Buybacks, Price/Book & Price last 10 years for a sleek overview:

👉 after the big buybacks between 2020 and 2024, we had quite a long ‘dry spell’

👉 yet now with this Q2 buybacks we can say the buyback program has restarted

A complementary visual to see the Share Buybacks and Price/Book levels:

👉 1.5x Price/Book (green) now with a 10-year average of 1.4x (red dotted)

👉 hence, most Q2 buybacks were done at around 1.4x

Enhancing the same key visual with Berkshire stock drawdowns (red below):

👉 Berkshire has no problem buying at P/B. 1.3x, even some at 1.4x like recently
👉 yet way more at 1.0x-1.2x, but for that one needs a big 20-30% stock drawdown —see the 2020 covid, and 2022 bear market via the 3 circles to highlight this key insight!

📊 Buffet’s cash pile or better said, the ‘Berkshire’s STASHaway’ = Optionality! Heads One Wins, Tails One Wins! Keep Compounding For The Win! 📊

“What about that mighty Berkshire cash pile, Mav?” There you go with the breakdown:

👉 Q2 2026: $365,5 billion, to be very exact for what I call the ‘real cash pile’, we extract unsettled T-Bill purchases (771 million + 167 million), hence then 364,5 billion

👉 Q1 2026: $397 billion with the real cash pile $380 billion (as back then they had way more unsettled T-Bill purchases)

👉 Q2 2022, hence 4 years ago the cash position was just or ‘just’ $105 billion

Specifically, the Q2 2026 cash position breakdown from the balance sheet:

👉 +$324 billion = short-term investments in U.S. Treasury Bills (maturities exceeding 3 months and less than 1 year)

👉 +$35 billion = Cash and cash equivalents (demand deposit, money market accounts and investments with maturities of 3 months or less) which is equivalent to Cash and Cash Equivalents and Restricted Cash at the end of the year for the Insurance and other businesses, as well as Restricted cash included in other assets

👉 +$5 billion in the Railroad, Utilities and Energy business

👉 -$771 million and -$167 million as unsettled T-Bill purchases

Q: “Why does Berkshire have a payable for U.S. Treasuries, Mav? They certainly can pay!”

A: Yes, the cay, yet simply they are so active in the Treasuries market — that comes with timing differences from the end of any given quarter to the beginning of the next

📊 Takeaways📊

The full “Berkshire Report” will cover these and way more pillars in way more detail!

Until then, take these 3 home:

Berkshire saw their stock undervalued, hence bought back materially! Recall Greg Abel on share repurchases which is naturally the same approach as Buffett:

“Share repurchases are another important capital allocation option. We will buy back Berkshire shares when they trade below our estimate of intrinsic value, conservatively determined, ensuring that repurchases enhance per-share value for continuing owners.”

If you bought the stock in Q2, you made a very good decision as very likely the stock was undervalued! If you did once I sent you the preview with my forecast 3 weeks ago on the 19th of July, you made +6.29% which will compound beautifully on the long term! There is no need to chase AI, momentum, FOMO, YOLO which is more like playing the thrill of the casino than investing!

Outlook for tomorrow:

I expect the media, pundits and many investors to catch the buybacks story, hence the stock to increase further than the +6.29% from my post (even if it does not, that was still a solid capital deployment). Hence, check tomorrow the ‘News’ and the big ‘Surprise’ which you knew 3 weeks ahead — looking forward for your emails!

Fun notes to wrap it up:

• even before AI came to town for everybody, I noticed not many professional investors, bankers (you name it) looking into the fillings, disclosures, not doing the proper digging and the real hard work

• how can you easily spot them I asked many years ago a former managers? Just meet them after work and they are fresh, dressed nicely, some even look like they just got out of a spa, ready for drinks, excited for networking and the next ‘opportunity’ — and that after they sat half of the day or more on LinkedIn … work? ‘others should do it!’ kind of mindset … one more thing that is quite for sure is that there are plenty of ‘free rider’s and ‘rent seekers’ out there …

• nowadays, with AI even less folks are doing the real hard work — they think doing AI queries do the job, some are impressed how good the AI is — well, ignorance is bliss … for a while …

• for me and other people that still do the work, that is actually a GOOD thing, as that is a great way to build an edge, yet truth to be told, it’s not easy at all, it does require a lot of time, patience and diligence

• I tried many times various AI/LLM models for research, and they do get better, but they make so many mistakes, even for simple tasks, and sometimes it is even more work to check the AI output — I just don’t like games of ‘Check the Checker, then Check yourself, and then again Check the entire Checks’ (as long as I make less human mistakes than the AI is doing, I am fine with doing the work)

• even if AI gets very good, it’ll just become consensus, and most importantly, you can’t buy conviction and patience for investing from a query — meaning, with the first bear market and/or recession, sooner or later one will throw in the towel (and way faster in a prolonged recession, which actually can be an opportunity)!

Now many of you asked why I do this for free as it requires a lot of time, data costs etc. I really appreciate the question, all good and free for now. One day, I will come up and commit to a premium paywalled offering, one with a clear structure and cadence.

• one way to support that and get the highest value, hence cheapest price is by pledging a subscription now — locking in means at least 20% cheaper = you will get the best introductory pricing, it will never be cheaper — actually price will go up in time as the premium research will keep expanding

• you will not be charged now, you will be informed ahead when the premium offering will go live, pricing, and what it will contain + you can cancel anytime

• thank you for that, appreciate it — I am very glad that you see the value in my work and what I call: “I-RAAS” = Independent Research As A Service!

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In case you missed my dedicated post covering in detail why Independent research is valuable and paramount, especially nowadays, there you go:

P.S. once I am done with the Berkshire financials, charts and key insights, I will send you the 2nd edition of the full “The Berkshire Hathaway Report” — planned to be delivered each quarter, and ad-hoc when very important and timely!

Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this by finding it interesting, saving you time and getting valuable insights? What would be appreciated?

Just sharing this around with like-minded people, and hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons!

That’ll definitely support bringing in more & more independent investment research!

Like this, the big positive externalities become the name of the game! Thank you!

Sharing = 3x win: you + your close ones + me!

Share

Have a great Sunday evening and next week! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

5 + 2 cherry picked Maverick Charts of the week say 10,000 words or more = the ‘How’!

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because great research respects the reader’s time:

📊 Maverick Charts: SpaceX & Berkshire, Fair Isaac, Blackrock, Margin Loans

📊 Bonus: S&P 500 All-Time Highs & Valuation

Objective: both data-driven insights + valuable food for thought = the ‘Why’!

📊 Maverick Charts: SpaceX & Berkshire, Fair Isaac, Blackrock, Margin Loans 📊

1. SpaceX (SPCX) and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK), naturally not an apples to apples comparison, but a very ‘valuation’ kind of comparison and food for thought. To begin with, when SpaceX IPO-ed, many of you will recall this chart that I posted:

👉 SpaceX (SPCX) at $2.1 trillion market capitalisation

👉 Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) at $1.05 market cap

SpaceX was then worth exactly 2x Berkshires which recall: compounded at 19.9% for 6 decades via legendary Buffett and Munger! 'Welcome to America!' or 'Only in America!'😉. Or as Elon would do, let that one sink in & bring the sink 😉.

2. Updating the chart to today which is less than 2 months, to be exact, 55 days:

👉 SpaceX (SPCX) at $1.42 trillion market capitalisation from $2.1, hence down 32%

👉 Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) at $1.11 market cap

Takeaway:

SpaceX valuation cooled off materially, yet it is still worth 1.28x than Berkshire!

This is not a SpaceX vs Berkshire, undervalued/overvalued, just pointing out the value assessment from the frothy & sometimes funny mighty financial markets!

In investing, one of the hardest things to master is separating admiration from valuation. In other words, a great company is not always a great stock.

I am on both team Buffet & Elon, but above all, my number one team = ‘Valuation’!

P.S. Berkshire’s 2nd quarter 2026 earnings are expected soon on the 8th of August.

Once I am done with the financials, charts and key insights, I will send you the 2nd edition of “The Berkshire Hathaway Report” which is planned to be delivered each quarter, and ad-hoc when very important and timely!

In case you missed the latest on Buffet’s Berkshire and a preview to this future report:

3. Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO), the industry standard for measuring consumer credit risk with their FICO® Score (essentially a monopoly for U.S. consumer credit scores) is going bonkers with buying back their own stock:

👉 ~$2.3 billion spent on share repurchases in Q2

👉 which reduced their total share count by 7% in a single quarter

Takeaway:

With the stock down 55% from their 2024 peak, FICO’s management team definitely sees these days the stock as very undervalued!

P.S. a very interesting business and situation which I might cover in full in the future!

4. Blackrock (BLK) AUM = continues going to the moon!

• just crossed $15tn in AUM for the first time powered by $192bn in Q2 inflows, and a record $321bn in H1

• ETFs alone pulled in $178bn, revenue jumped 31%, EPS beat also

Takeaway:

Scale is becoming the ultimate MOAT, isn’t it?

5. Retail Investors risk appetite via Margin Loan Balances from the 3 largest U.S. publicly traded brokerages, namely Schwab, Interactive Brokers, and Robinhood:

👉 $283 billion for a combined total!

👉 +21% in a single quarter while the S&P 500 is only 2% off its all-time highs

Takeaway:

All 3 brokerages are growing their accounts and assets, but still these huge numbers clearly point out how much risk appetite is out there: a lot, buddy, a lot!

P.S. check my dedicated report on the topic from 2025 — a 2026 update to be sent also:

📊 Bonus: S&P 500 All-Time Highs & Valuation 📊

6. S&P 500 Number of Times it Reached All-Time Highs Each Year:

👉 25 times already this year, after 39 last year and 57 in 2024!

👉 great times that’s for sure, yet check the next Valuation chart also

7. S&P 500 valuation via a rare Maverick Chart for 10,000 words= 3 key CAPE (Cyclically Adjusted P/E) measures and related drawdowns since 1995:

👉 S&P 500 CAPE (Shiller) = 41.4 = being above 40 marks that it is now higher than 99% of historical valuations

👉 USA CAPE (Barclays) = 39.7 (similar message)

👉 USA Equity Index CAPE = 36.5 (similar message)

Pricey market if you ask me = starting CAPE matters for future returns!

All that and way more, will be covered by the future Maverick Special reports:

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Valuation, Fundamentals, Special Metrics & Leading Indicators

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Performance, Sentiment, Seasonality, Technical Analysis

✍️ Is the U.S. Stock Market in a Bubble?

✍️ Market Pockets of Overvaluation, Animal Spirits Behaviour and Bubbly Territory

Maverick Charts 60th edition done, 5 key charts with many insights + 2 Bonus!

You can check all the previous 59 editions in the Maverick Charts section!

Mission accomplished for me if the following resonates with you:

• ‘Hmm I never thought it that way’, ‘now that chart said a whole lot’, ‘now that chart was really interesting’, ‘now that is something new’, ‘now I got it!’, ‘you managed to turn something complex into something actually simple’

• hence, if you got to see something differently, my approach gave you a different angle, it did help you connect your key dots, then we all do well here!

Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this by finding it interesting, saving you time and getting valuable insights? What would be appreciated?

Just sharing this around with like-minded people, and hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons!

That’ll definitely support bringing in more & more independent investment research: from a single individual … not a corporate, bank, fund, click-baity media or so … !

Like this, the big positive externalities become the name of the game! Thank you!

Sharing = 3x win: you + your close ones + me!

Share

Subscribe now

Have a great day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

4 + 1 cherry picked Maverick Charts of the week say 10,000 words or more = the ‘How’!

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because great research respects the reader’s time:

📊 Maverick Charts: Air Travel, Food Affordability, Minimum Debt Payment

📊 Bonus: Corporate America Profit Margins

Objective: both data-driven insights + valuable food for thought = the ‘Why’!

📊 Maverick Charts: Air Travel, Food Affordability, Minimum Debt Payment 📊

The U.S. Economy in Real-Time through a sleek high frequency data point that everyone participates in, but rarely knows how good or bad it is: Air Travel as a good proxy for all the Consumers’ big 3: Income, Sentiment and Mobility!

1. TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers, daily total & 7dma since 2019 + recessions (grey shaded) + bear markets (redd:

👉 2,727 million travelers (grey) = a solid reading via the latest fresh number from just 2 days ago, 3rd of August

👉 2,701 million travelers (blue) is the 7-day moving average: also a solid reading!

2. TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers, by Year, 7dma, 2019-2026 & Median, as a complementary view in order to capture Air Travel Seasonality Dynamics:

👉 2026 (blue) with 2.725 million daily passenger screenings (as a 7-day moving average) way above the 2.632m median (red) = a solid reading also from this angle!

👉 above or around record levels for a decent part of 2026 — great numbers!

Takeaway on Air Travel given the correlation with the business cycle:

We can infer that the economy is currently doing quite well, and that despite all the negative headlines, especially the latest ones regarding Iran, related very volatile oil prices and overall Geopolitical issues (and you name it).

Overall, a positive/bullish sign given that naturally this type of data is a decent proxy for income, sentiment & mobility!

Food Affordability — what about this hot topic? You might have seen this chart:

3. CPI for All Urban Consumers: Food at Home in U.S. City Average since 1970 as a great (if not the best) proxy for grocery prices:

👉 it trends higher in time, and once with Covid 2020 it kicked into a higher gear

👉 not fun, right?

Yet, check this one out:

4. Median Wages divided by CPI Food at Home in U.S. City Average since 1980

👉 at 3.92 we get a completely different picture: higher affordability! (using median values for wages is key as the average is quite misleading/silly)

👉 actually, grocery prices are the most affordable they've ever been — note:

• I strictly refer on a median basis — it is likely the bottom 10-20% of the population does unfortunately suffer from inflation in general, and as well the key Food inflation (one day I will dig into the data and show also how that looks)

• you can ignore the 2020 higher peak as that was a big outlier: back then median wages shot up temporarily due to the compositional effects of low-wage workers getting laid off disproportionately

Takeaway:

Nominal grocery prices are and should NEVER going back down — unless we have a severe deflation which nobody wants to have actually (trust me).

Yet, especially since 2015 stuff become more affordable through wages rising faster than prices, which is exactly what has been happening.

You know what they say, going out is cool, but nothing beats a home-cooked meal!

4. Mean Probability of Missing Minimum Debt Payment Over the Next 3 Months through the NY FED Survey of Consumer Expectations:

👉 10.8% with a big drop in 2026 from 15.3% — a lower share of consumers with a negative outlook on this key payment points to easing financial stress for households

Takeaway:

At the lowest level since 2023, a sign of confidence from the households which are feeling better about their finances.

📊 Bonus: Corporate America Profit Margins 📊

5. ‘Maverick, how are profit margins in the entire Corporate America doing?‘ via BEA, both overall (excluding financials) + the S&P 500 (including fins) for 10,000 words:

👉 both are doing very well, trending higher:

• 15.78% (tax accounting basis, blue) and 14.35% (cash-flow basis, green) overall

• 12.47% (red dotted) for the mighty S&P 500 big caps

👉 note how materially they are above both the 2019 pre-pandemic times and the 2006 pre-Lehman/GFC times when they bottom at 4.21% for the S&P 500 (hence a 3x to today), 6.86% on the tax accounting basis (hence a 2.3x), and 7.3% on the cash flow basis (hence a 2x to today)

Takeaway;

Corporate America keeps doing its thing — up and to the right!

2 further complementary notes to cover F.A.Q. on this key comprehensive chart:

• S&P 500 profits & BEA profits are correlated (correlation > 0.8), yet differences exist due to coverage, accounting methods, and industry representation

• BEA corporate profits data include the profits of S&P 500 companies as part of the broader universe of all U.S. corporations, but the BEA figures are more comprehensive and reflect the entire corporate sector, not just the S&P 500 index

P.S. way more on the U.S. Economy via my 2 key deep dives for both Top-Down & Bottom-Up approaches, in essence connecting the mighty Macro-Finance bridge:

The report breaks down the U.S. economy and ultimately aims to answer two of the biggest questions in Finance and Economics:

“How are the Fundamentals of the U.S. Economy?“

“What is the Probability of a Recession?”

• decoding the U.S. Economy by looking way beyond the traditional economic metrics, namely, through the lens of real-time, high frequency & alternative data!

• in essence, a ‘live’ view on the state of the U.S. Economy, and quite a unique report which you do not see elsewhere!

• a sharper and timely way to understand the macro forces shaping investing and overall financial markets!

Subscribe now

Share

Maverick Charts 59th edition done, 4 key charts with many insights + 1 Bonus!

You can check all the previous 58 editions in the Maverick Charts section!

Mission accomplished for me if the following resonates with you:

• ‘Hmm I never thought it that way’, ‘now that chart said a whole lot’, ‘now that chart was really interesting’, ‘now that is something new’, ‘now I got it!’, ‘you managed to turn something complex into something actually simple’

• hence, if you got to see something differently, my approach gave you a different angle, it did help you connect your key dots, then we all do well here!

Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this by finding it interesting, saving you time and getting valuable insights? What would be appreciated?

Just sharing this around with like-minded people, and hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons!

That’ll definitely support bringing in more & more independent investment research: from a single individual … not a corporate, bank, fund, click-baity media or so … !

Like this, the big positive externalities become the name of the game! Thank you!

Sharing = 3x win: you + your close ones + me!

Share

Subscribe now

Have a great day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

4 + 1 cherry picked Maverick Charts of the week say 10,000 words or more = the ‘How’!

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because great research respects the reader’s time:

📊 Maverick Charts: Biggest Tail Risks, Consumer & CEO Confidence, Households Asset Allocation, U.S. Federal Expenditure

📊 Bonus: Public Trust in Government & Long-Term Potential Growth

Objective: both data-driven insights + valuable food for thought = the ‘Why’!

📊 Maverick Charts: Biggest Tail Risks, Consumer & CEO Confidence, Households Asset Allocation, U.S. Federal Expenditure 📊

1. The biggest macro ‘tail risk’? BofA’s 26th of July Global Fund Manager Survey:

👉 #1 AI Bubble = 45% of fund managers see it as the top tail risk by a wide margin

👉 #2 Inflation = 26%, quite a plunge from May and June way higher levels: market focus basically shifted from the FED fighting inflation to the crowded trade exit door

👉 #3 Disorderly rise in Bond Yields = 14%, dropping lately

👉 #4 Geopolitical Risk = 8%, a big drop from the 20% May levels

👉 #5 DEM Sweep in U.S. midterms = 1%, for the first time into the poll

👉 #6 China growth weakness = 1%, for the first time into the poll

Maverick’s food for thought for you + connecting the dots: while all those above are valid Macro tail risks, what about Micro tail risks on the individual company level?

My top pick and a widely under covered one is cybersecurity risk! And where there is risk and it is also underpriced, there is also return, hence one day I might do a Maverick special Cybersecurity thematic report!

• you do not believe in my pick enough? That is good! Check Berkshire Hathaway’s top “Risk Factors” section of their annual report: Berkshire has it as number 2!

• Greg Abel, new Berkshire CEO, mentioned it from the get go at the recent AGM:

P.S. Berkshire’s 2nd quarter 2026 earnings report is expected soon in 2 days time.

Once I am done with the financials, charts and key insights, I will send you the 2nd edition of “The Berkshire Hathaway Report” which is planned to be delivered each quarter, and ad-hoc when very important and timely!

If you missed the preview and the latest on Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway:

2. Consumer & CEO Confidence via the Conference Board:

👉 Consumer = at 90.8, as the index is quite resilient despite the Mid-East conflict, elevated fuel prices, inflation etc

👉 CEO = 47, back into negative territory (below 50) as of mid-year

Maverick’s takeaway looking at this and other metrics:

1) Consumers are quite strong and resilient still nowadays

2) CEOs likely too many reading too much the news, virtue signalling, how hard they have it etc, instead of DOING stuff, justifying their overpaid wages (most cases) — one could easily find replacements in many cases for ¾ or ½ of the cost

N.B. I exclude owner-operator CEOs as those have Skin In The Game (STIG) — I refer mainly to ‘Corporate CEOs’ that are just good at ‘relationships’, fraternity club folks, complaining, finding excuses ‘the difficult environment’ than doing things via their ‘alpha’, well beta in reality ‘skills’ …

3. Households Asset Allocation:

👉 more wealth in equities than in real estate now (% of U.S. Households Net Worth)!

Quite some implications there, and I will cover those in the future reports.

4. U.S. Federal Expenditure by Year:

👉 2026 above the previous years, and by quite a bit = not good!

Also this year you’ll get a dedicated coverage on the topic via an updated report. Until then, you can check the 2025 version:

📊 Bonus: Public Trust in Government & Long-Term Potential Growth 📊

5. U.S. Public Trust in Government & Long-Term Potential Growth since 1970:

👉 while potential growth got a kick lately, trust has tanked!

👉 reminder on Trust = it is huge in both consumption & investing via specific asset allocation (real economy & financial assets)

P.S. way more on the U.S. Economy via my improved deep dive — for both Top-Down & Bottom-Up approaches, connecting the mighty Macro-Finance bridge:

The report breaks down the U.S. economy and ultimately aims to answer two of the biggest questions in Finance and Economics:

“How are the Fundamentals of the U.S. Economy?“

“What is the Probability of a Recession?”

• decoding the U.S. Economy by looking way beyond the traditional economic metrics, namely, through the lens of real-time, high frequency & alternative data!

• in essence, a ‘live’ view on the state of the U.S. Economy, and quite a unique report which you do not see elsewhere!

• a sharper and timely way to understand the macro forces shaping investing and overall financial markets!

Subscribe now

Share

Maverick Charts 58th edition done, 4 key charts with many insights + 1 Bonus!

You can check all the previous 57 editions in the Maverick Charts section!

Mission accomplished for me if the following resonates with you:

• ‘Hmm I never thought it that way’, ‘now that chart said a whole lot’, ‘now that chart was really interesting’, ‘now that is something new’, ‘now I got it!’, ‘you managed to turn something complex into something actually simple’

• hence, if you got to see something differently, my approach gave you a different angle, it did help you connect your key dots, then we all do well here!

Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this by finding it interesting, saving you time and getting valuable insights? What would be appreciated?

Just sharing this around with like-minded people, and hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons!

That’ll definitely support bringing in more & more independent investment research: from a single individual … not a corporate, bank, fund, click-baity media or so … !

Like this, the big positive externalities become the name of the game! Thank you!

Sharing = 3x win: you + your close ones + me!

Share

Subscribe now

Have a great day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

first of all, it's a great occasion to welcome the +1,500 new subscribers from great and diverse backgrounds, for a total of 24,000 subscribers across all 50 U.S. states and 169 countries! No marketing, no hype, independent research: I deliver, you share it around!

Table of contents & preview:

4 + 1 cherry picked Maverick Charts of the week say 10,000 words or more = the ‘How’!

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because great research respects the reader’s time:

📊 Maverick Charts: S&P 500 Leading Indicator, Insiders Action, Equity Supply

📊 Bonus: Investment Themes by Decades

Objective: both data-driven insights + valuable food for thought = the ‘Why’!

📊 Maverick Charts: S&P 500 Leading Indicator, Insiders Action, Equity Supply 📊

As you all know, it is a Realist-Optimist doing the independent research here, hence humanity will continue to make progress, economies will evolve and financial markets will just reflect and price all that by going up over the medium-long term!

Yet, with this occasion I will highlight some rather cautious-bearish, yet key points:

1. First of all, introducing the 1st Maverick S&P 500 Leading Proprietary Indicator:

👉 it did catch very nicely the last 3 major market peaks over the last 3 decades — shown in the chart as the red shaded areas corresponding to equity drawdowns:

• 2001 Dot-com bubble

• 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC)

• 2022 bear market

👉 49 now, it has to cross 60 first for the signal to be very strong

👉 after it has to invert, and once inverted 3-9 months from there

Takeaway:

In the current cycle it did not cross 60, and lately it even reversed from 54 to 49, hence it is not flashing red, but more like an overvaluation warning sign for now.

N.B. indicator is NOT the Yield Curve, but has to invert like it … and like Maverick in Top Gun, hence only AFTER it is ‘flipping the birdie’ — pun intended 😉!

N.B. there also other indicators, and confidence increases materially when more and more independent signals start to align.

2. What are U.S. Corporate Insiders doing lately, buying or selling their own stock?

👉 sold $77.6 billion during the 1st half of 2026 = a 20% increase from a year ago!

👉 the only time the selling spree was more intense was guess when? back in the 2021 stock market mania …

👉 big time selling from the insiders can also just mean them diversifying their human capital with financial capital — I can’t blame them at all for that, I and most of us (I guess) would do similarly these days given the massive rally we had in the last years, especially as some high beta momentum names went parabolic for no real fundamental reason (there is a lot of casino behaviour in the markets these days)

Takeaway:

I see this now as a bearish sign on the back of current high valuations — and not as a sign of panic selling which would be a different way more concerning story.

3. Net Equity Supply Is Positive Again = meaning companies issuing stock, paired to less stock buybacks:

• last time it happened was in the 2021 stock market mania & 2009 GFC

• nowadays Wall Street is creating a lot of supply for all the AI demand

Takeaway:

More stock issued & less stock buybacks signal a market with stretched valuations.

4. Equity Issuance standalone:

• Q2 was a record quarter

• higher even than during the 2021 stock market mania

Takeaway:

Record stock issuance, especially as SPACs are back big time, also indicate a market with stretched valuations (and casino behaviour in the markets these days).

All that and way more, will be covered by the future Maverick Special reports:

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Valuation, Fundamentals, Special Metrics & Leading Indicators

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Performance, Sentiment, Seasonality, Technical Analysis

✍️ Is the U.S. Stock Market in a Bubble?

✍️ Market Pockets of Overvaluation, Animal Spirits Behaviour and Bubbly Territory

Subscribe now

📊 Bonus: Investment Themes by Decades 📊

5. Investment Themes by Decades & their Returns!

👉 Nifty 50 until 1970 = 645%

👉 EM & Commodities until 1980 = 1,259%

👉 Japanese Stocks until 1990 = 527%

👉 U.S. Tech until 2000 = 795%

👉 EM & Commodities 2.0 until 2010 = 381%

👉 U.S. Tech 2.0 until 2020 = 737%

👉 current U.S. American Tech 3.0 with AI = a whooping … drum rolls … 3,033%!

Food for thought … thoughts?

P.S. next Maverick Special research reports will cover the two mighty AI questions:

✍️ Is AI in Bubbly Territory?

✍️ AI & Jobs – The Ultimate Question & Conundrum

As well, on the AI CAPEX big cycle we are having currently I am working on 2 Maverick proprietary indicators/indices that would capture the 2 key aspects:

✍️ AI ROI on CAPEX (a quantitative objective gauge)

✍️ AI Sentiment (a qualitative, mood gauge)

Sentiment is very high and investments have gone parabolic in the AI space, hence:

• a rigorous oversight of capital conversion efficiency is necessary to gauge the AI ecosystem’s capacity for sustained growth and ability to translate all that into corporate financial returns

• similarly, for the overall economy, it’s growth and potential going forward

Both the qualitative and quantitative gauges are essential to map the current trend and cycle position, allowing us to forecast the eventual stabilization, subsequent market correction (shakeout), and the identification of long-term sustainable winners.

Maverick Charts 57th edition done, 4 key charts with many insights + 1 Bonus!

You can check all the previous 56 editions in the Maverick Charts section!

Mission accomplished for me if the following resonates with you:

• ‘Hmm I never thought it that way’, ‘now that chart said a whole lot’, ‘now that chart was really interesting’, ‘now that is something new’, ‘now I got it!’, ‘you managed to turn something complex into something actually simple’

• hence, if you got to see something differently, my approach gave you a different angle, it did help you connect your key dots, then we all do well here!

Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this by finding it interesting, saving you time and getting valuable insights? What would be appreciated?

Just sharing this around with like-minded people, and hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons!

That’ll definitely support bringing in more & more independent investment research: from a single individual … not a corporate, bank, fund, click-baity media or so … !

Like this, the big positive externalities become the name of the game! Thank you!

Sharing = 3x win: you + your close ones + me!

Share

Subscribe now

Have a great next day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

P.S. as some of you were on holidays, you might have missed my latest 2 reports:

1. the latest on the U.S. Economy decoded through the lens of real-time, high frequency and alternative data, enjoy this unique report:

2. the latest on Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway:

Berkshire’s 2nd quarter 2026 earnings report is expected soon on the 1st of August.

Once I am done with the financials, charts and key insights, I will send you the 2nd edition of “The Berkshire Hathaway Report” which is planned to be delivered each quarter, and ad-hoc when very important and timely!

Berkshire’s 2nd quarter 2026 earnings report is expected on the 1st of August.

Once I am done with the financials, charts and key insights, I will send you the 2nd edition of “The Berkshire Hathaway Report” which is planned to be delivered each quarter, and ad-hoc when very important and timely!

As a quick preview, I expect 1-3 surprises in the 2nd quarter. One of them is regarding Berkshire accelerating the stock buybacks!

• after digging into the various Berkshire fillings, together with Buffett’s own annual charitable giving July disclosures, based on various sleek calculations, there is a high probability (not a guarantee) of way more stock buybacks in Q2

• should that be the case, I expect the media and pundits to catch the story, and the stock to react because it would mean the stock is trading below Intrinsic Value

• if most of the buyback happened in early July which would be unlikely (and not during Q2 April-June), then we will have to wait until Q3 to confirm this or not

A quick recap on Berkshire stock buybacks and a visual:

👉 after doing big buybacks since the 2020 covid times, a long pause of 21 months / 7 consecutive quarters between Q2 2024 and Q1 2026 (aka quite a ‘dry spell’)

👉 resumed buybacks in Q1 2026 with bigger stock buybacks expected for Q2 2026

👉 numbers time, baby: if in Q1 2026 buybacks were worth around $226 million, for Q2 2026 I expect that number in the billions, anywhere between $4-12 billion, with my best estimate around $8 billion, for a drop in the share count anywhere between -0.5% and -0.8% for an equivalent of 7–15 million shares! Let that one sink in!

P.S. in the full report, I will cover the rationale and related calculations that I did

Until Q2 2026 results are out together with my related deep dive report, today’s key qualitative report will cover Buffett handing over the Berkshire baton to CEO Greg Abel, and Buffet’s impressive decision of donating his entire fortune!

📊 Buffett passing the torch to Abel after a mighty 6 decade tenure

📊 Buffett’s philanthropy: donating his entire fortune

👍 Bonus: Qualitative Character Analysis (QCA), general remarks

Let’s get started!

📊 Buffett passing the torch to Abel after a mighty 6 decade tenure 📊

After a mighty six-decade tenure, Warren Buffett announced the CEO handover to Greg Abel back in May 2025, which started to be effective as of January 1st 2026.

Rest assured, Buffett has no full retirement plans, and continues to work daily in his new role as Non-Executive Chairman with further advice and investment decisions.

On the 28th of February Berkshire reported its Q4 2025 & full-year 2025 results, and it was also the first time new CEO Greg Abel wrote his 1st Berkshire Hathaway Letter.

How did that one start? With a class act from Greg Abel. The very first two words:

Honoring the past, Abel also surprised Buffett (who was in the audience), by “retiring” his CEO jersey with Buffett’s name and the number 60. The jersey was lifted to the rafters alongside Charlie Munger’s with the number 45, representing the number of years the two partners served as leaders.

As another class act, it served both as a decisive message and perpetual symbol: the Buffett and Munger era will always be honored and never forgotten! This wasn’t some grand finale built on fireworks. It was built on durability!

What did Warren say about Greg passing on the torch to him?

👉 May 2025 CNBC interview with Becky Quick:

👉 November 2025, annual Thanksgiving letter to shareholders and family:

👉 January 2026, CNBC’s ‘Warren Buffett: A Life and Legacy’:

👉 May 2026, Berkshire shareholders’ meeting:

Let that one sink in! If you ask me, if that is not a massive endorsement, nothing is!

What about Charlie Munger on Greg?

👉 May, 2021 Annual Shareholders Meeting: “Greg will keep the culture” in response to a question about Berkshire’s decentralised structure and whether the company had the right culture to support it. This is key in a major leadership transition, and in Berkshire’s case is not just corporate boilerplate mambo-jambo virtue signalling!

Greg did not forget at all Charlie’s comments and in the 2025 letter he emphasised:

Even before the shareholder letter, Greg sent a distinct letter to all employees which basically makes the point:

📊 Buffett’s philanthropy: donating his entire fortune 📊

Buffett’s charity can me summarised in short as: from Compounding Wealth to Distributing Wealth, for an overall philosophy of Giving While Compounding!

Buffett formal large-scale philanthropic journey began 20 years ago in 2006.

👉 How Much?

• formally committed to donating more than 99% of his wealth to philanthropy:

• in dollar terms, it now totals above $65 billion, substantially more than his entire net worth back in 2006 when he made the pledge — making him the largest philanthropist in history by dollar amount!

👉 To Whom?

• they have gone to 5 main foundations, all in the form of Berkshire stock:

👉 The Giving Pledge — initiative inspiring the other wealthy to donate to charity

• co-founded in 2010 with Bill and Melinda Gates, encouraging the world’s richest people to pledge at least half of their fortunes to charity

• started with 40 signatories in the United States in 2010. As of November 2025, it has grown to more than 250 pledgers from 30 countries

• for this Buffett received in 2011 from Obama the Presidential Medal of Freedom

👉 What if Buffett wouldn’t have done all the charity for $65 billion?

• that stock would now be worth more than $250 billion, hence he’d have a net wealth of almost $400 billion (140 + 250) — let that one sink in!

All in all, for nearly two decades, the vast majority went to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and his family‑linked charities. As Buffett decided recently to exclude the Gates Foundation from any further donations, the focus is now shifting toward a family‑run, multi‑foundation model that will continue for decades after his lifetime.

In a very recent release from July 14th, Buffett says:

Even without taking into account potential increases in Berkshire’s stock price, that implies gifts of at least $17 billion / year, more than double the $7 billion from 2025. This will be overseen by his three children, who must decide unanimously.

If you want to see the ins and outs of such a major task, Buffett’s three children sat down in January 2026 with Becky Quick on the big task their father has given to them: to one day give away his $140 billion dollar fortune. Susan, Howard and Peter talk about their own foundations, working together and growing up with Warren.

On top of the top, Buffett’s enormous wealth accumulation hasn’t changed him, something that most enormously wealthy people can’t simply claim — well, actually that is valid also (or even more) for WAY less wealthy people, especially the nowadays ‘Instagram’ folks needy for constant superficial attention, admiration and adulation!

The saying that “money just makes you more of what you already are” is generally true. And that is something I also witnessed anecdotally as a mini ‘observational study’ across time with people from the very low wealth to the ultra wealth.

Basically, money magnifies existing qualities: kindness becomes greater generosity, while meanness enables more selfishness.

Buffett with the same house in Omaha (no MTV Cribs with big estates), no fancy cars, same community aiming continuously to add value and form great friendships.

The more time passed, the more Buffett donated — at its core, Buffett remained the same bright, optimistic, curious, lifelong learner and upbeat young adult.

👍 Bonus: Qualitative Character Analysis (QCA), general remarks 👍

In general on qualitative analysis, too often and too many investors overlook this major aspect as they are too focused in a myriad of quantitative metrics:

• I used to do that mistake also, but with time and experience I have the qualitative aspects at least 50% if not more important than ‘the numbers’ — ‘Why, how Mav?’

• many times, knowing the integrity and character of the managers, insiders and employees (‘the culture’), the incentives (aligned with the shareholders) and the fundamental business model, gets a lot of the research job done: from there the numbers just flow from the former!

• trust is a huge part building conviction to invest in a given business (especially in bad times), and in the same time it also builds a margin of safety!

Buffet said they looks for 3 main qualities when hiring somebody:

I bet that applies to both hiring and when investing in a new company: they will scrutinize the character, integrity and values of the executives like nothing else! Knowing your counterpart is essential, not knowing is playing dangerous games.

After all, intelligence is not hard to find in a room of ambitious and highly educated people, but character is a personal choice. Across time, I met many people with high motivation and high education as a common denominator (Type-A characters), yet personal choices break sometimes that common denominator.

Each decide to be honest, emphatic, generous, and fair … or the opposite! Most people make the right choices, yet you have to avoid the bad apples!

On reputation, recall Buffett’s powerful quote to Salomon Brothers employees during their treasury bond scandal in the late 1980s:

He elaborated on this in a memo to Berkshire’s subsidiary managers (”The All-Stars”):

More recently, in his 2024 shareholder letter, Buffett also addressed the flip side, namely how to handle mistakes once they occur. He wrote:

The takeaway and overall message is consistent: reputation is non-negotiable, while when mistakes happen, the cardinal sin isn’t making them, but hesitating to fix them!

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Have a great next week, and if you are watching soon the World Cup football/soccer final, enjoy! ‘Vamos Chicos’! May the best team win & both celebrate the achievement!

Last but not least, never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, knowledge, capital, research and mindset!

With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

the 4th of July is here, and today America celebrates Independence Day! The 1776 Declaration of Independence set the stage for Americans to prosper by declaring:

It also marks 250 years of history, setbacks, comebacks, progress, resilience, capitalism and exceptionalism! Today is a great reminder of the courage it took to build this nation, and the dedication it takes to keep it moving forward.

Wishing all Americans a very Happy 4th of July! Have a great celebration, full of joy, gratitude, and unity as we step forward together into a brighter future!

I’m not an American citizen, but I’ve lived in the U.S., among quite a few other countries, so I know a thing or two about various approaches and systems. I can say with confidence that, generally, the U.S. has the “secret sauce”:

I think that many of you would like to know more about the ingredients that make this “secret sauce”, so I’ll also cover that in a separate comprehensive report:

In the meantime, here's a preview via the following very sleek chart for 10,000 words.

Nobel Prize Winners (in scientific fields) from 1905 to 2025 — U.S. leading by far:

👉 one can be lucky once or twice or more times, one can be an unexplained outlier, a product of sheer randomness, one can fake it, or benefit from a favorable regime for a while — yet none of that can hold up for 120 years!

• today, nearly 40% of the world’s leading scientists, or those in the top 200,000 globally by citations, are based in the U.S. — no other country has more than 10%!

• half of the scientific Nobel Prize winners over the past decade call America home!

• between 1940 and 2020, approximately 27% of U.S. based Nobel Prizes in science went to winners born outside the U.S.!

👉 for more than a century, the U.S. managed to attract top talent from all over the world through great incentives and an ecosystem where together they can thrive

As I always like to say: the scientists, researchers, innovators, geeks, optimists, crazy ones, the naive and dreamers that dare, the ones that challenge the status quo, the mavericks, the ones who fall but get back up and keep trying again and again and again — ARE among the top heroes of society…! 😉

Put them all in the same place & magic happens! Kudos, chapeau, respect, gratitude … just hats off to them🫡 🫶 🙏! America works because it performs and rewards!

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Until then, coming back to Buffett, my next report is covering Berkshire Hathaway:

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And in case you missed my latest U.S. Economy decoded through the lens of real-time, high frequency and alternative data, enjoy this unique report:

Wishing all Americans a very Happy 4th of July! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

for the 4th of July U.S. celebration, which also marks 250 years of American independence, capitalism, and exceptionalism, I said to myself: this is a great occasion to bring you a Maverick Special report!

Second of all, this is also a great occasion to welcome the +2,000 new subscribers with great & diverse backgrounds, for a total of 22,550 from 50 U.S. states & 168 countries.

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Independent of what type of investor, trader, business person, or professional you are, obtaining a real-time overview of the current state of the U.S. economy is key!

There are many ways to approach such a research, ranging from highly technical to more accessible, lengthy to concise, yet as always I aim to provide you with a distinctive perspective, original analysis, compelling visuals, and key insights.

For this special occasion, you get my approach of decoding the U.S. Economy by looking way beyond the traditional economic metrics. Namely, through the lens of real-time, high frequency and alternative data!

How? Through sleek 30 Maverick Charts for 10,000 words of economic intelligence!

• a ‘live’ view on the state of the U.S. Economy!

• a sharper way to understand the macro forces shaping investing and overall financial markets — connecting the Macro-Finance bridge!

• quite a unique report which you do not see elsewhere! If you know a similar report, be it free, or paid, just let me know!

✍️ Decoding the U.S. Economy in Real-Time Through Sleek High Frequency & Alternative Data ✍️

Table of contents = report structure + highlights:

1. The Consumer & Households

2. Business

3. Supply Chains

4. Trade Policy

5. Economic Policy

6. Bonus: GDP Near-Real-Time Tracking

7. Conclusions

Let’s get started!

1. The Consumer & Households: we start & focus on the mighty Consumer as we hear often that it accounts for 70% of GDP — I would extend that to say that the Consumer IS THE Economy with our collective decisions to spend, save & invest!

How many people are flying overall ? What about relative to previous years?

In order to capture consumers’ Income + Sentiment & Mobility all at once, there is a sleek chart to capture this key dynamic:

1. TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers: Daily Total & 7dma since 2019:

👉 2,910 million travelers (grey) = a very solid reading (via the latest fresh number from just 3 days ago, 25th of June), not far from all-time record numbers

👉 2,777m travelers (blue) is the 7-day moving average which is also a solid reading

Context and insight:

• Flight Travelers numbers are very correlated with the business cycle: check for recessions like the the 2020 Covid (grey), and also partly with the stock market, check the 2022 bear market (red) with that big drop in the first part of the year

• hence, this is one of those rare Maverick Charts to be monitored for both downturns & upturns, especially given its timely daily values

As a Leading Indicator, in a nut shell it is a ‘live’ way to look at the dynamics of the mighty U.S. consumer and economy!

2. TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers: by Year, 7dma, 2019-2026 & Median, a great complementary view in order to capture Air Travel Seasonality Dynamics:

👉 2026 with 2,777 million (blue) daily passenger screenings (as a 7-day moving average) way above the 2,632m median (red) = a solid reading also from this angle

Above or around record levels for a decent part of 2026!

3. TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers: by Year, Daily Total, 2019-2026 & Median, the same chart as before, but looking at the daily total values (not as a 7-day moving average) — the chart looks more ‘noisy’, but like this we see some nice highs that we had already in 2026, hence worth showcasing it also:

👉 27 days with above 2.7m daily passenger screenings

👉 16 days with even above 2.8m

👉 5 days with even above 2.9m

Context and insight:

Q: when did we have the all-time record? A: on July 7, 2024 with 3,013,413

A: I believe 2026 will break the current record!

4. TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers: Growth Y/Y %, 7dma since 2019, a view in order to capture Air Travel Growth Dynamics:

👉 +0.06%, some growth compared to last year is a good sign, especially given it is compared to an extraordinary good 2025

Maverick’s Net Take on Air Travel and Connecting the Dots:

👉 Business Cycle correlation:

Given it is quite correlated with the business cycle, we can infer that the economy is currently doing quite well despite all the negative headlines, especially the latest ones regarding Iran, related oil prices and overall Geopolitical issues.

Overall, a positive/bullish sign given that naturally this type of data is a decent proxy for income, sentiment & mobility!

👉 “K-shaped Economy”: given the presumably K-shaped economy with high inequality, can it be just ‘the rich’ travelling, and the middle & bottom staying at home?

The numbers are very strong, close to record levels, hence, if the situation were that bad, we would see consumers cutting back on flying which is a big discretionary expense — mobility is in the very fabric of being American: Americans have the travel bug and can afford to indulge it with relative ease.

External dynamic: the numbers do not track just U.S. residents or domestic travelers, but also tourists, business travelers, U.S. citizens, and international visitors — hence, good developments given the importance of the U.S. consumer spending, and as well good international income, sentiment & mobility dynamics!

5. Vehicle Miles Traveled: monthly since 2000

👉 279,318 in April 2026, trending up nicely, hence another good sign

👉 285,452 was the all-time high at the end of 2019, just right before the 2020 Covid

It is very likely we make another all-time high this year!

6. Vehicle Miles Traveled: moving 12-month total since 2001

👉 3,335,934 when we have the data as a moving 12-month total (rolling sum)

👉 that is already way above the all-time high of 3,285,170 from the end of 2019 — we actually broke that all-time high already in November 2024

Overall, 2026 is showing a great continuation of the uptrend!

7. U.S. Retail Sales: Redbook (weekly) and Census (monthly) since 2005 along with recessions and stock bear markets to guide us:

👉 Redbook Index = same-store retail sales (9,000 general merchandise retailers with over 80% of retail sales, excludes gas stations sales) continues to show solid strength:

• +10% YoY for the week ending June 20, after 9.4% in the previous week

• well above the historical 3.8% average and close to a four-year high

👉 Retail Sales = picking up pace also at 6.9% YoY for May 2026 (June 17th release)

Redbook Retail Sales Index feature & insight:

It is a timely demand-side indicator answering, and it answers how much households are spending at retail stores (in relative terms %) — in other words, it tells us whether consumers are showing up and buying.

As a weekly time series, it tracks earlier the shifts in consumer demand — hence, it is leading the classic Census Retail Sales economic data.

In order to capture consumers’ both Income + Sentiment at once, a great way is looking at Debit + Credit Cards Spending data.

8. Visa Spending Momentum Index: Debit + Credit Cards Spending with headline (blue) + discretionary (green) & non-discretionary spending (red), monthly data:

👉 100.1 in May 2026 (blue), decent reading indicating broad-based net acceleration in economic momentum as consumer spending is strengthening Y-o-Y % — both discretionary (green) at 97.6, and non-discretionary (red) at 98.8 being very close to 100

👉 2025 Trade War 2.0 with quite a dip to 90, yet the rebound was also strong

Overall, good rising consumer spending momentum relative to the previous year — hence, good news on this front as well, complementary to the Air Travel dynamics!

9. Complementary, the same chart zoomed in since 2023:

👉 the Trade War 2.0 dip is seen better, and so is the recovery back to above 100

In order to capture consumers’ both Income + Sentiment at once, another sleek way is looking at the seated diners online reservations dynamic.

10. OpenTable Seated Diners: Growth Y/Y %, 7dma since 2020

👉 +40.7% growth for online reservations = a very strong reading with a recent uptick ahead of the 4th of July (via the latest fresh number from just 2 days ago, 26th of June)

👉 as a high-frequency proxy for consumer sentiment and demand in the restaurant sector, good growth indicates stronger discretionary spending, more foot traffic, and better near-term conditions for hospitality businesses

👉 a useful read on the broader services economy, especially as it reflects reservations data that are highly informative for trend changes BEFORE they show up in official monthly retail or services data

Solid numbers & to be seen as a Leading Indicator through its timely daily values!

In order to capture consumers’ both Income + Sentiment at once, another sleek way is looking at Box Office revenue numbers.

11. Box Office Seasonality: Top 10 Grossing Films (7dma, 2021-2025):

👉 2026 (blue), another good year topping most previous years (via the latest fresh number from just 4 days ago, 24th of June)

👉 pointing to robust discretionary demand, and a very strong consumer appetite for out-of-home entertainment

As a high-frequency proxy for consumer demand in the entertainment sector, and as a Leading Indicator through its timely daily values — hence, warranting close monitoring for big swings alongside other complementary metrics!

2. Business

The key to a vibrant and flexible economy is its entrepreneurship, risk appetite, business dynamism as it can signal healthier expectations about demand, easier access to financing, and confidence among consumers and prospective entrepreneurs.

Hence, for Leading Indicators we also look at entrepreneurial & new business formation activity where there are various key measures — we will start from the general one, to a headline type, and ultimately to a valuable high signal one!

12. Business Applications (BA) Total for All NAICS, monthly since 2005:

👉 523,9711 new business applications for May 2026

👉 +3.71% from April 2026, and +17.04% compared to last year May 2025

For the past 6 months, we are averaging +500,000, and if we maintain this pace (very likely), we will have 6 million new potential start-ups in 2026 which are very good numbers — 10 years ago in 2016 the average was +250,000 for 3 million!

Progressing from the total monthly business applications, to a headline more cleaner and weekly measure of new applications which excludes certain non-business filings (tax liens, estates, trusts, and certain financial filings).

13. Business Applications (BA), weekly since 2005:

👉 112,090 new business applications for May 2026, and 155,020 as an all-time high recently in January 2026 (a weekly data series, hence more granularity while still released monthly)

👉 it did surpass the 2021 madness when the post-Covid recovery started, and note also the 2025 Trade War 2.0 dip, but also the very fast recovery!

👉 qualitatively, this tells us not just that “someone filed business paperwork” but “someone filed business paperwork with a decent chance of becoming a payroll business”

Hence, as a subset of the previous Total Business Applications (BA), economically this is a better series for judging real business formation!

You might have noticed the regularity of seasonal variations through each year which is not ideal — hence for a ‘smoother’ and less ‘noisy’ view, the same chart but with a 7-day moving average (not the weekly raw data series):

14. Business Applications (BA), 7dma since 2005:

👉 127,706 for May 2026, close to the very recent all-time high of 133,083 reached in February 2026, and with a great recovery after that 2025 Trade War 2.0 dip

👉 overall, the recent dynamic become very strong after the 2020 pandemic-related recession — with more than 100,000 new applications becoming rather the norm

👉 close to all-time highs, it signals further new business formation momentum, which can be supportive for future hiring, capex, and local overall economic activity

👉 in general, an erratic behavior is quite natural as an economy reassesses, recovers, shedding weak businesses during the recession & regaining new ones in the recovery

👉 key note: this pattern is stronger than usual this time around as it seems there’s some reorganization happening in the labor market through AI and the "Gig Economy"

Overall, the recent stronger pattern is very encouraging. It signals we entered into a higher base level of business dynamism which would be structurally great over the medium to long term for the U.S. economy!

Progressing further, we go deeper, or as some say more ‘granular’, and we look at:

15. High-Propensity Business Applications (HBA), weekly since 2005:

👉 the key word here is “High-Propensity“ which we can define as a “High-Probability“ of a business application turning into a real active business with a payroll — in other words, it is not just signaling “someone filed business paperwork” for a new business, but “someone filed business paperwork with a stronger chance of becoming a payroll business”

30,690 new high-propensity business applications for May 2026 — solid readings in 2026, and since 2020, many readings have been above 30,000, even 40,000, also signaling we have a new higher base level!

16. High-Propensity Business Applications (HBA), 7dma since 2005:

👉 38,091 same chart as before, but as a 7-day moving average as it looks less ‘noisy’

The new higher base level is now even more evident!

17. High-Propensity Business Applications (HBA): weekly Seasonality by Year, 2015-2026 & median, a great view in order to capture the yearly Seasonality:

👉 2026 (blue) with 30,690 new applications, way above the 26,910 median (red), and numbers above most previous years = a solid reading also from the seasonality angle

👉 simply put, new business appetite is solid — plenty of businesses with a high probability turning into a real, active business with payroll

Overall, as a subset of the previous headline Business Applications (BA), High-Propensity Applications (HBA) are economically the better series for evaluating real business formation, hence providing better insights!

Maverick’s Net Take on New Business Applications and Connecting the Dots:

One key question is what is driving this new big wave of business applications — especially the ones with a high probability of turning into real businesses? What’s going on behind the numbers, especially since 2020 when the base level is bigger?

👉 tech since 2020, and now AI with huge investments are simply showcasing how they created substantially lower barriers to pursue ideas, innovation, risk-taking from which new real businesses eventually emerge

👉AI/LLMs lowering the barriers to entrepreneurship is also seen through the recent Software sector disruption, an industry that had it too easy in the last 10-20 years

👉 solo founders are driving nearly all of the growth, and if even a fraction of these firms scale, the economic implications would be significant!

👉 also, the “Gig Economy” is real with more freelancers and self employed people

American business is thriving, taking risks, and innovating! On that, recall Warren Buffett on the American economic dynamism in his 2016 shareholder letter:

“Americans have combined human ingenuity, a market system, a tide of talented and ambitious immigrants, and the rule of law to deliver abundance beyond any dreams of our forefathers.”

3. Supply Chains

18. Number of Crossings through Strait of Hormuz: daily values in 2026:

👉 Context: Hormuz Strait = the world's most critical energy chokepoint 21 miles wide, a place where 20% of global oil supply is running — huge vessels crossing daily before March 2, and then the shutdown as Operation Epic Fury started

Tanker traffic is recovering with 21 bi-directional crossings — after 3 months of blockages, we are still far from the 50–80 crossing range seen during normal operations, yet the rebound, for starters, is solid!

My most likely scenario on the Hormuz Strait:

👉 solution and full normal flow is just a question of time, yet it’ll take some time to reach pre-war levels, and some further hiccups are to be expected

👉 also, some countries and oil companies might reorganize structurally around this, as one cannot depend on it to simply switch on and off overnight

👉 in any case, as we resume normal traffic, pressure on Oil prices should ease, and also a positive factor for markets in general!

Naturally, this was not a U.S. based analytical data point. Yet, given how critical oil is for the U.S. economy, especially for consumers, where it effectively acts as a tax on household budgets, it was worth covering. As a casual reminder, everything we see and touch day in and day out is either directly or indirectly made from oil.

N.B. side note / connecting the dots: recall that when oil was negative during 2020, this was the only thing you had to know to be a buyer, no big thesis is needed sometimes, that is how big dislocations are occasionally — hence the opportunity!

Further on opportunities, recall Buffet’s opportunity on investing in stocks:

👉 Volatility = Opportunity, and not Risk:

In Buffet’s 2024 letter he says that while great businesses are very hard to be bought in their entirety (an issue for Berkshire, but not a problem for us), small fractions of these gems can be purchased very occasionally, and at bargain prices.

This applies basically to any good business/stock out there, independent of size, which is also the huge advantage of the small investor.

P.S. I will cover great single stocks/businesses via the dedicated section: many under-covered names that you likely never heard of!

✍️ Full Equity Research

19. Global Supply Chain Pressure Index (GSCPI) by New York Fed, monthly since 2006 — it aggregates data from several sources: shipping costs (Baltic Dry Index, Harpex), airfreight costs (BLS), and manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) surveys from seven highly interconnected economies:

👉 1.77 in May after the 1.82 April reading (GSCPI measure standard deviations from the index’s average, hence now 1.77 standard deviations above its long-term mean)

👉 that is up from 0.68 in March, hence raising fast in 2026, after being mostly negative in 2023, 2024 and 2025

👉 while it's way down from its December 2021 supply chain mega disruption, it has returned to its highest level since January 2023 — as a result, we see headline inflation increasing lately, yet core inflation measures remain quite steady

Overall, some mild signs of distress, yet quite unlikely to intensify much this year!

4. Trade Policy

20. U.S. Trade Policy Uncertainty Index, monthly since 2006:

👉 1,657 in May, dropping fast from the 2025 Trader War 2.0 saga when it it almost reached 8,000

Good developments on a key topic that makes making business way harder/easier!

5. Economic Policy

21. U.S. Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) Index, Daily News, 30-dma since 2006:

👉 387 as of June 21st, just a week ago (daily data shown as a 30 day moving average)

👉 this has fallen sharply from its 2025 Trader War 2.0 peak of 586, which was itself higher than 2020’s COVID-era level of 564

• hence back in 2025 this news based index was exaggerating — chasing for clicks & views for ad-money (the daily news overflow entered another level since 2020)

• therefore, judgement is to be made whenever this one gets very volatile

More Clarity or Less Uncertainty = More Business which is Good for Business!

6. Bonus: GDP Near-Real-Time Tracking

And now 2 big questions:

• do all the numbers from above reflect general economic activity?

• if yes, how do they feed into near-real-time tracking of economic activity?

To answer, we will first set the scene with the latest realized Q1 2026 GDP data and then proceed to the most timely, near-real-time economic metrics for Q2 2026.

22. U.S. Real GDP Growth (Q/Q, Annualized) & Potential GDP since 2006:

👉 Q1 2026: 2.1% real GDP annualized growth rate

• above the 1.6% consensus estimate, a material improvement from 0.5% growth in Q4 of 2025, and also a bit above the 2% potential GDP

• nominal GDP growth (unadjusted for inflation) came in at 5.7% annualized

A very good reading!

What about the underlying U.S. Real GDP Growth?

23. Underlying U.S. Real GDP Growth (Q/Q, Annualized) since 2006:

👉 What is ‘underlying’? That is tripping out government spending, net trade, and inventories, Real Final Sales to Private Domestic Purchasers (orange)

At +1.7%, also a decent reading!

24. U.S. Real GDP by Contribution to answer: “Which ones are the drivers, Mav?”

👉 Personal Consumption PCE: +0.37% (light green)

👉 Residential Investment:-0.30% (green)

👉 Net Export up (Trade Deficit): -0.37% (light blue)

👉 Government: +0.74% (dark green)

👉 Inventories: +0.23% (orange)

What is the big positive contributor?

👉 Business Investment (red) 1.42% contribution, driven by the boom in AI-related investments, but also the general U.S. current CAPEX cycle

Overall, a solid reading!

“On the AI investment effect, how does one go from an oral narrative to real data, Mav?”

25. Information Processing Equipment + Software + Intellectual Property

👉 AI effect proxied here by the contributions made by AI-related investments

At +2%, it is quite “stealing the show!”

Second of all, we now look further at near-real-time quantitative tracking!

26. Atlanta Fed ‘GDPNow’: Q2 2026 current quarter

👉 Q2 2026: 2.5% real GDP annualized growth rate according to the latest release from just 3 days ago, 25th of June!

Overall, also a solid reading!

27. Atlanta Fed GDPNow: Q2 2026 by Contribution

👉 Personal Consumption PCE: +1.36% (light green)

👉 Business Investment: +1.09% (red)

👉 Residential Investment: +0.098% (light green)

👉 Government: +0.292% (light blue)

👉 Imports: -1.47% (green)

👉 Exports: +0.88% (orange)

👉 Inventories +0.283% (blue)

Overall, a solid reading!

Background info:

• Atlanta Fed GDPNow tracks the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)’s advance estimate of real GDP growth for the current quarter, using incoming economic data releases to update the forecast in real time

• it is an accounting/bottom-up model — more precise mechanics

• more volatile early in the quarter when little data has been released, hence it is more useful in the final weeks of a quarter when data is nearly complete

28. U.S. Real GDP & Atlanta Fed GDPNow + Potential GDP since 2005, overview:

👉 Actual GDP: Q1 2026 real GDP (blue): 2.1%

👉 GDPNow Atlanta Fed (green): +2.5%

👉 Potential GDP (red) : +2.0%

The latest nowcast is above both the actual & potential GDP — a solid reading!

29. New York Fed ‘Nowcast’: Q2 2026 current quarter

👉 Q2 2026: 2.7% real GDP annualized growth rate according to the latest release from just 2 days ago, 26th of June!

A very good reading!

Background info:

• New York Fed Nowcast uses a dynamic factor model that incorporates a broad set of macroeconomic indicators (labor market data, surveys, industrial output, etc.) — it basically reads the real-time flow of information and evaluates its effects on current economic conditions

• it is statistical/top-down/model-driven approach — this approach incorporates a reliable big data framework that captures the salient features of macroeconomic data dynamics in a parsimonious way

• useful reading broad economic momentum mid-quarter, when you want a smoother signal less prone to single-release swings

30. Weekly Economic Index (WEI) by Dallas Fed, a good GDP proxy as the index is scaled to align with year-over-year GDP growth, which gives it a concrete interpretive anchor beyond just being a directional signal:

👉 2.50% (blue) for the week ended June 20, and 3.10% for June 13 according to the latest release from just 3 days ago, 25th of June!

👉 my preferred view is the 13-week moving average for 2.83% — this is compared with 2.68% four-quarter GDP growth through first quarter 2026.

👉 not only defying also the recent headwinds, but accelerating strongly lately — hence also a strong signal for a strong Q2 in 2026!

A very good reading!

Background info:

• the ‘weekly’ part in the name does not do enough justice in terms of how timely and good it is because it provides a signal of the state of the economy based on data available at both a weekly and daily frequency — hence we can say it reflects economic conditions with only a ~1-week lag, in which also daily data is present!

• it represents the common component of 10 different daily and weekly series covering consumer behavior, financial/fiscal flows, the labor market & production

• therefore, it is one of my preferred high-frequency trackers of the U.S. Economy, especially since 2020 COVID, as it was capturing the historic March–April 2020 collapse and subsequent recovery in near-real-time

7. Conclusions

Takeaways & Incoming Independent Research

1. The U.S. economy is remarkably resilient and still acing stress tests as general economic activity remains robust:

👉 Americans are out & kicking: working hard, travelling, taking holidays, investing, innovating, consuming, and they earned it! “After Work, The Reward, Baby!”

👉 that isn’t what many headlines say, the gloom & doom is perpetual (“Bear Po*n”), especially since the Rise of Negative Media for clicks & views for ad-money

2. Financial markets and investing implications you might wonder? “Risk On, Baby!”

All in all, I really believe this is unique, interesting and useful Macro research for both investors & traders (of all types), entrepreneurs, bankers, journalists, and beyond!

This is planned as a quarterly report that will evolve through improved visuals incorporating real-time, high-frequency, and alternative data!

This Macro is what I call: “The Marco Essence” and “Macro Intelligence vs. Macro Noise”:

• daily macro commentary is hindering more than helping — my idea is to both stop the Macro noise overflow, yet get the valuable insights out of the Macro

• mindset wise, in general it just pays off to be a Professional Realist-Optimist vs a Professional Ultra-Pessimist, Ultra-Skeptic or a … Cassandra!

On Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett and new CEO Greg Abel:

✍️ Buffet’s Berkshire: The Legacy Continues! Stash Away Baby! Fundamentals, Buybacks, Optionality, Valuation, and … Patience!

Single stocks deep dives, many under-covered names that you likely never heard of!

✍️ Full Equity Research

On the S&P 500:

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Valuation, Fundamentals, Special Metrics & Leading Indicators

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Performance, Sentiment, Seasonality, Technical Analysis

✍️ Is the U.S. Stock Market in a Bubble?

On the U.S. Economy, a deep dive covering the main sectors & key macro variables through traditional data, but also, special, leading and recession probability metrics:

✍️ The State of the U.S. Economy in 75 Charts

On the so called “K‑shaped Economy” and the “Inequality” key topics:

✍️ How Truly “K-Shaped” is the U.S. Economy?

✍️ Inequality, Wealth Concentration, Taxation, Equity and More

On the current U.S. general CAPEX investing cycle:

✍️ U.S. CAPEX Boom! Invest Baby, Invest!

On AI and its big implications:

✍️ Is AI in Bubbly Territory?

✍️ AI & Jobs – The Ultimate Question & Elephant In The Room

And way more … step by step … as always, with a big focus on quality!

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Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this by finding it interesting, saving you time and getting valuable insights? What would be appreciated?

Just sharing this around with like-minded people, and hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons!

That’ll definitely support bringing in more & more independent investment research: from a single individual … not a corporate, bank, fund, click-baity media or so … !

Like this, the big positive externalities become the name of the game! Thank you!

Sharing = 3x win: you + your close ones + me!

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Have a great next week, and a wonderful 4th of July holiday! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Mav 👋 🤝

5 + 1 cherry picked Maverick Charts of the week say 10,000 words or more = the ‘How’!

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because the best writing respects the reader’s time:

📊 Maverick Charts: Amazon VS Walmart, Retail Sales & Banks

📊 Bonus: Investment Themes by Decades

Objective: both data-driven insights + valuable food for thought = the ‘Why’!

📊 Maverick Charts: Amazon VS Walmart, Retail Sales & Banks

1. Valuation in Retail Sales diverging — Walmart (WMT) bricks & mortar with 82% in-store sales & 18% online VS Amazon (AMZN) with 95% online & 5% in-store):

👉 Walmart with a bonkers 45.8x forward P/E as it hit $1 trillion market capitalisation — also now trading at 3x its average (pre-2024) EV/EBIT multiple and 65x P/FCF for a business that grew revenues less than 4% CAGR for the last decade

👉 Amazon with a colling 27.4x forward P/E

Quite a divergence, isn’t it? The big question: will these lines cross again? Yes …

2. Let’s check Revenues, quarterly since 1996 for a 30-years span :

👉 25 years ago: Walmart revenue 47x larger than Amazon

👉 20 years ago: Walmart revenue 25x larger than Amazon

👉 15 years ago: Walmart revenue 8x larger than Amazon

👉 10 years ago: Walmart revenue 3x larger than Amazon

These days, specifically since Q3 2025: Amazon revenue > Walmart revenue, Amazon with materially bigger revenues: $213 vs $179 billion!

Amazon was and is not just scaling, but mostly building optionality, and that compounds beautifully across time, hence nowadays more Revenue sources!

👉 Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a monster way beyond their retail sales: around 69% of profits coming from it

👉 $129 billion revenue over the last 12 months was higher than the revenue of 469 companies in the S&P 500 … let that one sink in!

👉 simply put, AWS went from side project to the core profit engine

👉 then there is advertising, subscriptions, 3P Seller Services, all high margin!

3. Retail Sales — Online vs In-Store sales as overall sector dynamics:

👉 E-Commerce Retail Sales as a % of Total Sales is quite on a trend since 1999

👉 currently at just 15.8%, way more room to capture more sales via the online selling

4. Wondering how are Retail Sales overall doing, aka the Consumer, aka ‘MainStreet’?

👉 up & up with the occasional bigger or smaller recession dips: +0.6% from the previous month for a $635.65 billion total

👉 never bet against for too long against the U.S. Consumer spending and overall entrepreneurship spirit and risk taking

5. From ‘Main Street’ to ‘Wall-Street’, meaning from Retail Sales to mighty Banks:

👉 valuations on the rise via the Price/Tangible Book Value (TBV)

• Morgan Stanley (MS) = 3.7x

• JP Morgan (JPM) = 3.0x

• Goldman Sachs (GS) = 2.7x

• Bank of America (BAC) = 2.0x

• Citi (C) = 1.3x

👉 MS at 3.7x & JPM at 3.0x are quite some …

👉 some people hate banks (partly deserved, especially for some aspects/culture), yet one does NOT want weak banks in any economy … just a casual reminder, a lot of the economy / assets sits on the balance sheet of banks

Overall, good signs also from the banking sector!

Among others, working these days also on a JP Morgan mini deep dive into their Corporate Finance actions: buybacks, dividends, lending, valuation — stay tuned!

✍️ J.P. Morgan (JPM): Buybacks, Price/Book, Dividends, ALM = Maverick Special #10

You can read all the previous Maverick Special reports here.

📊 Bonus: Investment Themes by Decades 📊

6. Investment Themes by Decades & their Returns!

👉 Nifty 50 until 1970 = 645%

👉 EM & Commodities until 1980 = 1,259%

👉 Japanese Stocks until 1990 = 527%

👉 U.S. Tech until 2000 = 795%

👉 EM & Commodities 2.0 until 2010 = 381%

👉 U.S. Tech 2.0 until 2020 = 737%

👉 current U.S. American Tech 3.0 with AI = 2,868%

Food for thought … thoughts?

One of my next Maverick Special research reports covers the big AI question:

✍️ Is AI in Bubbly Territory? Maverick Special #10

As well, on the AI CAPEX big cycle we are having currently I am working on 2 Maverick proprietary indicators/indices that would capture the 2 key aspects:

✍️ AI ROI on CAPEX (a quantitative objective gauge)

✍️ AI Sentiment (a qualitative, mood gauge)

Sentiment is very high and investments have gone parabolic in the AI space, hence:

• a rigorous oversight of capital conversion efficiency is necessary to gauge the AI ecosystem’s capacity for sustained growth and ability to translate all that into corporate financial returns

• similarly, for the overall economy, it’s growth and potential going forward

Both the qualitative and quantitative gauges are essential to map the current trend and cycle position, allowing us to forecast the eventual stabilization, subsequent market correction (shakeout), and the identification of long-term sustainable winners.

Maverick Charts 56th edition done, 5 key charts with many insights + 1 Bonus!

You can check all the previous 55 editions in the Maverick Charts section!

Mission accomplished for me if the following resonates with you:

• ‘Hmm I never thought it that way’, ‘now that chart said a whole lot’, ‘now that chart was really interesting’, ‘now that is something new’, ‘now I got it!’, ‘you managed to turn something complex into something actually simple’

• hence, if you got to see something differently, my approach gave you a different angle, it did help you connect your key dots, then here we all do well!

Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this finding it interesting, saving you time and with valuable insights?

If yes, you can support Independent Investment and Economic Research with a Realist-Optimist mindset via the following 3 options:

1. ‘Buy me a Book, Coffee or Data’ which are the tools through which the research is done and delivered straight to your inbox!

Buy me a Book, Coffee or Data

2. PayPal, the classic donation/tip option:

PayPal

3. Pledge for a future Premium Research subscription, to be specific introducing “I-RAAS” = Independent Research As A Service

• you will be informed in advance both when the Premium Offering will go live, and what it will consists of along its cadence & structure + you can cancel anytime

• best part = you will get the best introductory pricing, it will never be cheaper

Subscribe now

That’ll definitely support bringing both the current + future ‘Maverick-esque’ research: from a single individual … not a corporate, bank, fund, click-baity media or so … !

Like this, big positive externalities become the name of the game, and we all benefit!

Have a great day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, hobbies, community, work, independence, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Your Maverick 👋 🤝

P.S. sharing around with like-minded people + hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons = great!

10 cherry picked Maverick Charts of the week say 10,000 words or more = the ‘How’!

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because the best writing respects the reader’s time:

📊 Maverick Charts: U.S. Real GDP growth, Economic Policy Uncertainty & Spreads

📊 Bonus: Tracking AI’s Contribution to GDP Growth

Objective: both data-driven insights + valuable food for thought = the ‘Why’!

📊 Maverick Charts: U.S. Real GDP growth, Economic Policy Uncertainty & Spreads

1-3) U.S. Real GDP growth via Atlanta FED + New York FED latest nowcast models:

👉 +4.2% in Q4 2025 via the Atlanta FED (chart 1), way above the 0.9% consensus

👉 +2.74% in Q4 2025 via the New York FED model (chart 2)

👉 +2.73% in Q1 2026 via the New York FED model (chart 3)

Overall, very good readings in my opinion.

Key note — New York FED nowcast model is superior to the Atlanta FED one:

• NY FED measures the broad strength of the economy, it smoothest noise for trend insights, hence suiting macro strength assessment

• Altanta FED is more accounting based, and reacts more sharply to individual releases, hence suiting more precise mechanics

4. Economic Policy Uncertainty = Improving (EPU vs Spreads)

Chart = U.S. Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU, blue) & U.S. Investment Grade (IG) Corporate Bonds Spread (green), Recessions (grey) = highlights a historical correlation between economic policy uncertainty and bond spreads, with synchronized peaks during financial crises and volatile periods

👉 they are disconnected, and as I was mentioning often last year, in particular in April 2025 during the Trade War 2.0:

• things are still good, definitely no need to panic, geopolitical risk premium is actually to be harvested also this time around, and so it happened

• as long as ‘the green line’ (aka spreads) do not move wildly, things are fine

👉 from a peak of 568, EPU is way cooler now at 339 — spreads at a ultra 74 b.p. low

👉 Policy Uncertainty ≠ Policy Outcome (more likely = quite a circus or silly show)

In case you missed that key research at that key time, one that was inviting for calm and coolness, instead of chaos driven by spooky headlines, there you go:

✍️ Disconnected - Economic Policy Uncertainty & Corporate Bonds Spread (IG & HY)

5. Complementary, the same chart but with the more sensitive and responsive to all economic conditions, the U.S. High Yield (HY) Corporate Bonds Spread:

👉 at 285 b.p., naturally a bigger spread, but the same behaviour and message

Way more via my U.S. economy deep dive for both Top-down & Bottom-up approaches, essentially connecting the Macro-Finance bridge also:

✍️ The State of the U.S. Economy in 75 Charts

The report breaks down the U.S. economy and ultimately aims to answer two of the biggest questions in Finance and Economics:

“What is the State of the U.S. Economy?“

“What is the Probability of a Recession?”

📊 Bonus: Tracking AI’s Contribution to GDP Growth 📊

AI is the new kind in town, yet how about checking its contribution to GDP growth?

1-4. Four key Charts via St. Louis FED showing how the major AI-related investment categories have contributed to real GDP growth over time:

1) Investments in Information Processing Equipment (chart 1) +

2) Investments in Software (chart 2) +

3) Investments in R&D (chart 3) +

4) Investments in Data Centers (chart 4)

= combined AI categories contributed 0.97% to real GDP growth in the first three quarters of 2025 = these categories made up 39% of total GDP growth (vs 28% in 2000)

👉 has surpassed the contribution of IT components made during the dot-com boom, both in levels and as a share of GDP

👉 firms continue integrating AI into their operations and building the infrastructure required to support it, these categories are likely to remain significant drivers of investment well into 2026 and beyond

5. Complementary, what about AI & Productivity?

Connecting the AI thematic with the Real Economy via a historical chart from 1894 on the U.S. business sector labor productivity:

👉 early industry gains drove the largest productivity booms ...

👉 current productivity (the base) is still pretty low ... way more to come …

👉 hence, is AI the next productivity train everybody embarks on? Food for thought …

👉 will there be job displacements? yes, just like before — will it be more and pose big societal social issues? That is to be covered in the future via Special reports!

One of my next Maverick Special research reports covers the big AI question:

✍️ Is AI in Bubbly Territory? Maverick Special #10

As well, on the AI CAPEX big cycle we are having currently I am working on 2 Maverick proprietary indicators/indices that would capture the 2 key aspects:

✍️ AI ROI on CAPEX (a quantitative objective gauge)

✍️ AI Sentiment (a qualitative, mood gauge)

Sentiment is very high and investments have gone parabolic in the AI space, hence:

• a rigorous oversight of capital conversion efficiency is necessary to gauge the AI ecosystem’s capacity for sustained growth and ability to translate all that into corporate financial returns

• similarly, for the overall economy, it’s growth and potential going forward

Both the qualitative and quantitative gauges are essential to map the current trend and cycle position, allowing us to forecast the eventual stabilization, subsequent market correction (shakeout), and the identification of long-term sustainable winners.

Maverick Charts 55th edition done, 5 key charts with many insights + 5 Bonus!

You can check all the previous 54 editions in the Maverick Charts section!

Mission accomplished for me if the following resonates with you:

• ‘Hmm I never thought it that way’, ‘now that chart said a whole lot’, ‘now that chart was really interesting’, ‘now that is something new’, ‘now I got it!’, ‘you managed to turn something complex into something actually simple’

• hence, if you got to see something differently, my approach gave you a different angle, it did help you connect your key dots, then here we all do well!

Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this finding it interesting, saving you time and with valuable insights?

If yes, you can support Independent Investment and Economic Research with a Realist-Optimist mindset via the following 3 options:

1. ‘Buy me a Book, Coffee or Data’ which are the tools through which the research is done and delivered straight to your inbox!

Buy me a Book, Coffee or Data

2. PayPal, the classic donation/tip option:

PayPal

3. Pledge for a future Premium Research subscription, to be specific introducing “I-RAAS” = Independent Research As A Service

• you will be informed in advance both when the Premium Offering will go live, and what it will consists of along its cadence & structure + you can cancel anytime

• best part = you will get the best introductory pricing, it will never be cheaper

Subscribe now

That’ll definitely support bringing both the current + future ‘Maverick-esque’ research: from a single individual … not a corporate, bank, fund, click-baity media or so … !

Like this, big positive externalities become the name of the game, and we all benefit!

Have a great day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, hobbies, community, work, independence, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Your Maverick 👋 🤝

P.S. sharing around with like-minded people + hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons = great!

15 cherry picked Maverick Charts of the week say 10,000 words or more = the ‘How’!

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because the best writing respects the reader’s time:

📊 Maverick Charts: World Stocks Valuations, S&P 500 Valuation & Profitability

📊 Bonus: Palantir (PLTR)

Objective: both data-driven insights + valuable food for thought = the ‘Why’!

📊 Maverick Charts: World Stocks Valuations, S&P 500 Valuation & Profitability

In a Top-Down fashion, starting with World Stocks by countries and sectors, then the major U.S. Indices, followed by more nuances on the mighty S&P 500 index and its sectors — then connecting it with the fundamentals: profitability and earnings!

1. World Stocks Valuations by countries & sectors, forward P/E, chart=10,000 words!

👉 U.S. with Growth, IT & Industrials = the ‘pricey’ chaps

👉 U.K. with Value, Energy and Financials = the ‘cheap’ chaps

2. U.S. Valuations by indices via forward P/E relative to 20-year distributions:

👉 S&P 500 = 22x and top of the 20-year range, and Nasdaq = 27x and close to the range 20-year range = ‘pricey’

👉 S&P 500 equal-weight = 17x, and Midcap = 16x = more ‘decent’

3. S&P 500 Forward P/E complementary note:

👉 we are now very close to the +2 Standard Deviations (red) which equates to 23.7x

4. S&P 500 11 Sectors Valuations via forward P/E relative to historical 10 & 30-years:

👉 from 16x for Financials to 29x for Consumer Discretionary

👉 relative to history it is a very mixed bag: note Industrials on the ‘high’ end, while Real Estate on the ‘low’ end

5. S&P 500 Free Cash Flow (FCF) yield wise:

👉 2.57% now, very close to the -2 Standard Deviations (red) which equates to 2.42%

6. Shiller CAPE at 40 = not far from a historical all-time high!

👉 Valuation regimes wise, statistical evidence points to a regime shift toward higher valuations = U.S. stocks have been in a ‘high’ valuation regime since January 1992 (sole interruption during the 2007-2009 GFC)

7. Valuations shifted structurally higher over recent decades / since WW2

👉 CAPE tells us that we are way above both post-2002 (26) and pre-1992 median (14)

8. S&P 500: Valuation vs Profitability, the both surprising head scratcher one, and the key food for thought chart going forward — by periods/regimes, trend line and statistical bands +/- 1 SD via forward P/E ratio and forward Net Margin:

👉 2025-present (orange) with a very high profitability environment ...

👉 22x forward P/E multiple ‘justified’ at least partly or majority one can say = the index is more concentrated in the mega tech names, but overall a higher quality index than 10-20 years ago ...

9. In terms of the actual/realised current Net Profit Margins (NPM):

👉 at 13.2% it will likely mark the highest NPM reported since 2009

👉 current record (going back to 2009) = 13.1%, which occurred in the previous quarter

10. Q4 Earnings & Revenue scorecard (fresh as of Jan 30th) with 166 companies in:

👉 75% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive EPS surprise and 65% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive revenue surprise

👉 Earnings growth +13.4% = solid! And if it stays above 10% (very likely), it will mark the 5th consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth

👉 Revenue growth +7.6% (solid also ...)

👉 Guidance for Q1 2026: 7 S&P 500 companies have issued negative EPS guidance and 17 issued positive EPS guidance

N.B. way more via my quarterly recurrent two distinct S&P 500 reports & materially improved in all areas: structure, flow, insights and special metrics you rarely see!

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Valuation, Fundamentals, Special Metrics & Leading Indicators

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Performance, Sentiment, Seasonality, Technical Analysis

The reports aim to break down the key question:

“Where are we, what are the key drivers, what are the technicals saying, how is the Sentiment?

“Is the stock market = highly undervalued (very cheap), undervalued (cheap), fairly valued, overvalued (expensive), or highly overvalued (very expensive)?”

📊 Bonus: Palantir (PLTR) 📊

Palantir Technologies (PLTR) reported yesterday great Q4 results:

Growth rates:

• Government Revenue: +66%

• Commercial Revenue: +137%

• Customer Count: +34%

• Adjusted EPS: +243%

• Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO): +143%

• Net Dollar Retention Rate: 139%

Stock reacted +7.2% after hours yesterday, and +5.77% today heading into the closing.

Let’s get visual now with selected fundamentals:

1. Revenue:

👉 $1.4 billion for the quarter = super solid!

👉 Business is scaling very well, especially in the last 3 years ramping up!

2. Operating Income:

👉 $575 million for the quarter = super solid also, confirming the scaling!

3. Adjusted Operating Margin & Revenue Growth:

👉 Palantir a huge outlier with a 127% & the only one inside the ‘Rule of 120 Frontier’

4. Stock-Based Compensation (SBC):

👉 $196 million, it’s not high not low given that the business is scaling nicely

5. The big big question is VALUATION as during waves, the stock is not the business & the business is not the stock!

S&P 500 top 5 by Price/Sales multiple - guess #1? Palantir = drum rollllls ... 82.7x !!!

👉 = 2.75x greater than the 2nd highest P/S ratio in the S&P 500 which belongs to Texas Pacific Land (TPL) at 30.1x

👉 = 3.3x greater than the 3rd highest P/S ratio in the S&P 500 which belongs to AppLovin (APP) at 25.2x

👉 = 3.50x greater than the 4th highest P/S ratio in the S&P 500 which belongs to Broadcom (AVGO) at 23.6x

👉 = 3.53x greater than the 5th highest P/S ratio in the S&P 500 which belongs to Nvidia (NVDA) at 23.6x

Let that one sink in & bring the sink if you wish 😉!

Overall, I think Palantir is a great business, will do well, but the valuation is way too high now for me. I still believe it is very dependent on the market (beta).

👉 when the market will correct 20%, Palantir stock likely dropping 40-50%

👉 when the market will correct 30%, Palantir stock likely dropping 60-70%

Maverick idea: 2027-2028 Long Puts (to hedge or speculate) are now a good idea!

Maverick Charts 54th edition done, 10 key charts with many insights + 5 Bonus!

You can check all the previous 53 editions in the Maverick Charts section!

Mission accomplished for me if the following resonates with you:

• ‘Hmm I never thought it that way’, ‘now that chart said a whole lot’, ‘now that chart was really interesting’, ‘now that is something new’, ‘now I got it!’, ‘you managed to turn something complex into something actually simple’

• hence, if you got to see something differently, my approach gave you a different angle, it did help you connect your key dots, then here we all do well!

Research is NOT behind a paywall and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places!

Did you enjoy this finding it interesting, saving you time and with valuable insights?

If yes, you can support Independent Investment and Economic Research with a Realist-Optimist mindset via the following 3 options:

1. ‘Buy me a Book, Coffee or Data’ which are the tools through which the research is done and delivered straight to your inbox!

Buy me a Book, Coffee or Data

2. PayPal, the classic donation/tip option:

PayPal

3. Pledge for a future Premium Research subscription, to be specific introducing “I-RAAS” = Independent Research As A Service

• you will be informed in advance both when the Premium Offering will go live, and what it will consists of along its cadence & structure + you can cancel anytime

• best part = you will get the best introductory pricing, it will never be cheaper

Subscribe now

That’ll definitely support bringing both the current + future ‘Maverick-esque’ research: from a single individual … not a corporate, bank, fund, click-baity media or so … !

Like this, big positive externalities become the name of the game, and we all benefit!

Have a great day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, hobbies, community, work, independence, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Your Maverick 👋 🤝

P.S. sharing around with like-minded people + hitting the 🔄 & ❤️ buttons = great!

first of all, have a great 2026 with many accomplishments, personal and professional!

Keep compounding: family, friends, hobbies, community, work, independence, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

The U.S. economy enters 2026 with solid growth, stocks at all-time highs, broadening profit drivers, big investments, a strong consumer, and a Monetary and Fiscal policy mix that remains supportive for stocks.

Hence, time for a forward looking view with my 2026 Top 25 Maverick Predictions!

Before proceeding further, in case you missed the 2025 review, I highly recommend it as it sets the stage for this 2026 outlook, hence a solid grounding for a 2026 clean state!

✍️ 2025 Top 50 Maverick Charts! The Year in Independent Review!

Next year, holding myself accountable (Skin In The Game), I’ll review the predictions, and present an overview with the results. Grading system: 0.5 points for getting the predictions directionally right, 1 point for getting both the direction & the level right.

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because the best writing respects the reader’s time!

👍 Predictions 101: how they are powerful and useful — even when proven wrong

👍 Predictions 102: the easiest job in the world = the post fact predictions “expert”

📊 Equities: S&P 500, Berkshire, Nvidia, Palantir, RobinHood, UBS, Real Estate

📊 Macro & Fixed Income: Jobs, Inflation, Yield Curve, Credit Spreads, MMFs

📊 Currencies & Commodities: USD, CHF, Gold, Silver, Copper

📊 Crypto: Bitcoin & MicroStrategy

📊 Thematics: AI, Trade War, Geopolitics

📊 Vice of The Year: Betting Markets and Insider Trading

👍 Bonus: 2026 Outlook — Strengths & Tailwinds VS Threats & Headwinds

👍 Incoming Maverick-esque Independent Investment and Economic Research

Subscribe now

Predictions 101 & 102 before anything, in order to clear up key confusions about them, setting up expectations and also clearly outline how and why they are useful!

👍 Predictions 101: how and why they are powerful and useful, and both if I get them right and in case wrong:

1) Building Conviction: as the future unfolds, new information shows up which makes our initial case stronger and stronger by validating our analysis and assumptions, hence helps acting consistently and committing to the long term

“A-Ha” moments where we go like: “Oh yes, we are so on the right track with this one!”

2) Risk Management: with new information becoming available, some of our initial thesis are becoming more and more clear that they are wrong, hence we can abort

“Oh, this is not going into our foreseen direction, time to abord mission and simply move on!”

Therefore, predictions are both a Risk Management and a Financial Returns tool coupled with deeper know how and a solid overall framework — I bet you did not see that one coming!

Overall, the value is in the process, hence even if I get many wrong = still valuable! Other than that, just like everybody else, I do not have next years’ Wall-Street Journal on my desk … ahead of time to know for sure how things will play out! If anybody knows somebody that gets that, just please email me 😉!

👍 Predictions 102: the easiest job in the world = the post fact predictions ‘expert’

Predictions = a “shit*y business” in general because when:

• you get them wrong: there will always be “experts” after the fact to pinpoint how wrong you were, some even remind you after years — yet if you ask them how many they got right, silence: most do not even dare to make any predictions given ego, lack of forethought, scared to be wrong and be ridiculed

• you get them right: many would say you got lucky, or all the events leading to the prediction coming true will make the prediction less bold, and/or ‘easy’ to have that one figured out before the fact!

This is usually the view from folks that do not understand how predictions are useful, those afraid to put themselves out there, without much understanding in the first place, prisoners of the past, the pessimists, the cynical types and associates.

Then too many also have one of the easiest ‘jobs’ on planet earth: calling out others for being wrong after the fact … a bit like “armchair experts” watching sports and saying after the game how wrong was X player, or the coach, or the weather, or the fans … .

Funnily enough, besides politics, also in the corporate/banking world (across countries), I noticed (too) many people making great careers with the behaviours above — some ecosystems signal to me that humans are quite strange species rewarding these kind of people, isn’t it? Funny because it is (too) often true? 😉

You the audience are high quality people, many with decades of experience, and I am confident you have seen this kind of behaviours here or there. It is good to be aware, yet we can only focus on what we control, and from there move forward with a Realist-Optimist mindset. Everything else is just noise, wasted time & rabbit holes!

Mavericks are built differently, and with Skin In The Game, DO-ing versus TALK-ing we all move forward — the world has too many talkers, doesn’t it? 😉

‘Bonus’ from my side = Independent Thinking = Independent Research = unfiltered unbiased non-partisan coverage which is key nowadays! Common sense is sometimes not so common, conflicts of interest are too common, hence the true edge & hedge is Independent Investment & Economic Research for the win! In case you missed it:

✍️ Why Independent Investment and Economic Research = Paramount Nowadays!

= no bosses, no interferences of any kind to control the narrative, not paid to say what somebody wants or not say what somebody doesn’t want, no fear to speak out, no self-censorship, unflinchingly freedom of thinking for the win!

Together we all benefit as truth is born from debate “In disputando veritas gignitur!”.

“If something is nonsense, you say it and say it loud. You will be harmed a little but will be antifragile — in the long run people who need to trust you will trust you!” Nassim Taleb

And now time to start the spicy, juicy and tricky Maverick Predictions!

📊 Equities

1. S&P 500 the mighty ‘market’ index:

👉 to register one or more -15% drawdowns — I would not be surprised even about a 20%-25% drop, hence a bear market!

👉 to be sure, I am not saying the S&P 500 will have a bad/negative year — in 2025 the drawdown in April was 19%, yet the index ended the year with a great 17.72%!

2. 👉 to end the year with a higher volatility than in 2025, meaning above 14.5 (VIX)

3. 👉 S&P 500 will likely underperform the Rest of The World (RoW)

• S&P 500 17.72% in 2025 vs ACWI ex-US (ACWX) a whooping 32.59%

S&P 500 developments in terms of both performance & valuation (undervalued, fairly valued, or overvalued) will be covered extensively via the quarterly 2 reports which are materially improved in all areas: structure, insights & special metrics you rarely see!

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Valuation, Fundamentals, Special Metrics & Leading Indicators

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Performance, Sentiment, Seasonality, Technical Analysis

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4. Buffet’s Berkshire (BRK-B) cash position:

👉 to reach $425 billion from the current $382 billion — Cash Stash Away Baby!

5. Nvidia (NVDA):

👉 to register a +20% drawdown (strong case for even 25-30%) — if one likes the stock now, wouldn’t they like it more after a 25% or bigger drawdown?

6. Palantir (PLTR):

👉 to register one or even more +25% drawdowns (strong case for even 30-35%) — if one likes the stock now, wouldn’t they like it more after a 25% or bigger drawdown?

👉 it is always more tricky to go for a drop in stock price because if the market overall does fine and goes higher, it carries basically most stocks also regardless of valuation

Valuation rare and fun fact via the S&P 500 Top 5 by Price/Sales (LTM) multiple:

👉 Palantir = drum rollllls ... 108x !!!

👉 = 3.25x greater than the 2nd highest P/S ratio in the S&P 500 which belongs to AppLovin (APP) at 33x

👉 = 4x greater than the 3rd highest P/S ratio in the S&P 500 which belongs to Texas Pacific Land (TPL) at 27x

Let that one sink in & bring the sink if you wish 😉!

It is Sales, not even Earnings! Hence, a sexy business, but too sexy of a stock now!

N.B. during waves, the stock is not the business and the business is not the stock!

7. RobinHood (HOOD):

👉 to register a +30% drawdown (strong case for even 35-40%)

8. UBS Group AG (UBS) the mighty Swiss universal bank:

👉 will trade again at 2x Price/Book from 1.8x now — last time it happened in 2010!

👉 this will be tricky as it would imply the stock to go up a further 15-25% + banks are very hard to get right — but willing to take this one regardless!

9. Real Estate sector:

👉 to have a better 2026 than 2025 when it lagged massively with just a +3.24% (VNQ)

📊 Macro & Fixed Income

10. Labor Market when it comes to Job Openings VS Unemployed People:

👉 from a ‘tight’ labor market between 2021-2023, 2024 and 2025 made it for a more balanced labor market

👉 2026 will be a year where the labor market will likely become more ‘loose’ = more unemployed people than job openings

👉 $7.146 million job openings VS $7.831 unemployed people, hence a 685k deficit

Implications of a cooling labor market:

• lower wages growth, hence helping to cool off inflation (wages are a “sticky’ variable for inflation)

• on the other side, it will benefit further corporate America margins and profitability

11. Inflation = the hot topic of the last years, what is going on there? A Maverick chart with 110 years of Inflation rate (CPI YoY%), a very long series!

👉 2.7% now, it’ll likely stay between 2.5% and 3% in 2026 = not too hot, not too cold!

👉 3.3% average, we have been now been below that level for 18 straight months

12. U.S. Yield Curve (YC): “mighty curvy curve, how will you behave in 2026?” I ask because you are connecting monetary policy, the bond market, with the economy overall and the stock market via the S&P 500 = Macro-Finance!

👉 the Yield Curve will keep un-inverting / steepening, and end up higher than 0.5%

13. Credit Spreads:

• both Investment Grade (IG) and High-Yield (HY) = quite ‘Perfect World’ tight!

• in 2026 likely to widen and end the year higher than 279 b.p (HY) and 79 b.p. (IG)

14. Money Market Funds (MMF):

👉 Total assets to go above $8 trillion from the current $7.48 trillion

15. 👉 Retail assets to go above $2.4 trillion from the current $2.25 trillion

Macro wise, way more via my improved U.S. Economy deep dive — and that for both Top-down & Bottom-up approaches, connecting the Macro-Finance bridge:

✍️ The State of the U.S. Economy in 75 Charts

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📊 Currencies & Commodities

16. U.S. Dollar, the mighty USD:

👉 after a 9.38% drop in 2025, hence with one of the worst years in decades among major currencies, to continue depreciating in 2026

17. The Mighty Swissie Swiss Franc (CHF):

👉 on the other side and after a great 2025, the Swiss Franc to keep appreciating against most currency majors!

18. Gold

👉 to break above the 5,000 threshold, hence a minimum further 12% increase — and that after the whooping 78% in 2025

19. Silver:

👉 to drop below 60 from 87.50, hence a minimum 31% drop!

20. Copper, ‘Dr. Copper’:

👉 to cool-off also from 5.97 and drop below 5.25, hence a minimum 12% decrease

📊 Crypto

21. MicroStrategy (MSTR) & Bitcoin (BTC):

👉 after a massive 66.69% drawdown (which I did call way before it happened), the stock will drop lower in 2026 — from the 167.79 current price

👉 medium-long term (2027-2028) I see it below 100, and below 50 later

👉 nonetheless, tricky to bet against the Bitcoin crowd as all it takes is some good sentiment and another crypto bull run — hence even MicroStrategy could run up again and go above 200, 300, or even 400

👉 MicroStrategy has been diluting shareholders by issuing shares like there is no tomorrow: +46% in the last year alone, +230% in the last 5 years!

N.B. I still find it very strange that investors are buying the share issuances, and especially their debt/bonds — but hey, with great marketing (quasi or outright lies) and getting rich quick ‘guidance’, everything is possible, isn’t it?

22. Bitcoin:

👉 analogous, it will be down for the year below $90,000 from 93,469 now

👉 fun fact: check below the historical drawdowns and notice how often they reach even a crazy -80% — we can debate what the Bitcoin features are, what is the outlook, but given those heavy and often drawdowns, how can one call it a ‘store of value’?

N.B. when an asset is down 80%, a reminder: it needs a 400% increase to break even and return to its original value — I don’t make the rules, the math is the math 😉

Thematics:

23. 📊 AI

👉 U.S. Data Centers construction spending = to keep going up

👉 AI chatter: mentioned during earnings calls in the S&P 500 = even more

👉 AI LLMs going IPO, at least one of them - likely this will happen in 2027, but willing to be wrong early this year

24. 📊 Trade War

👉 topic will likely continue to fade away, hence reduced intensity and importance

25. 📊 Geopolitics

👉 to continue being elevated, yet not much importance to the markets just like in the last years — hence, the opportunity to harvest geopolitical risk premia

26. 📊 Vice of The Year: Betting Markets and Insider Trading

Online betting markets bigger with more and more people, especially young demographics which are the easiest target:

👉 less patience, less of a burn to grind out in their careers, yet with a mindset of grinding for months and years ‘learning’ stocks day trading and crypto trading (which is fool’s gold)

👉 social media a core role: people constantly thinking they are left behind, and others have it better (which is a weird mix of silly, superficial, toxic and untrue)

👉 just like in Casino gambling, the house never losses in online betting markets — it is a place where definitely “people have a negative edge“, yet gambling is seen as their salvation — in Economists’ terms, this is the “convex utility in losses“: when already losing, one prefers a small chance of getting back to even over a certain moderate loss. It's the same mindset & reason people double down at blackjack when they're behind!

“What is the solution Mav?“ Well, there is no solution, but I know the future 2 outcomes as the classic in advance well-intentioned advice falls on deaf ears!

• people will take the losses, most will have it as a lesson learned, regroup, get back to classical hard work and investing which works

• some will ‘learn’ that the ‘system is rigged’, go down into the online rabbit holes, become keyboard warriors, toxic in society, and frustrated will vote ‘accordingly’

More insider trading cases with bigger online betting markets:

👉 we already have quite some insider trading cases or well, highly suspicious cases

👉 in a way, this can be spined positively: insider information held and traded by the insiders & gatekeepers, will be now available to the public as wild outlier public bets — decentralized inside information for the masses: everybody can go online and see the odds and the volumes related to various bets, hence spotting patterns, weird timing, as outliers can signal inside information is behind the bet

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👍 Bonus: 2026 Outlook — Strengths & Tailwinds VS Threats & Headwinds

Overview table with the key points for 2026, both Bullish and Bearish factors that will shape the year going forward. These key themes will be monitored, analysed & presented as we progress into 2026!

👍 Incoming Maverick-esque Independent Investment and Economic Research

Economy wise, way more via my improved U.S. Economy deep dive — for both Top-down & Bottom-up approaches, connecting the Macro-Finance bridge:

✍️ The State of the U.S. Economy in 75 Charts

Stock market wise, namely the S&P 500 key index, to be covered quarterly via my two S&P 500 distinct reports, and lately materially improved in all areas: structure, flow, insights and special metrics you rarely see!

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Valuation, Fundamentals, Special Metrics & Leading Indicators

✍️ S&P 500 Report: Performance, Sentiment, Seasonality, Technical Analysis

Then the Maverick Special reports covering individual thematics, connecting the Economy with the Stock Market, aka crossing the Macro-Finance bridge. Examples:

✍️ Warren Buffett’s Cash Pile & More ... Stash Away Baby! Berkshire Hathaway Report #2

✍️ Switzerland and the Swiss Franc = Safe Haven

✍️ The Number 1 Feature Any Investment Portfolio Really Needs To Have

✍️ Is the U.S. Stock Market in a Bubble (Part II)

✍️ Market Pockets of Overvaluation, Animal Spirits Behaviour and Bubbly Territory

✍️ Bitcoin & Gold, not Bitcoin VS Gold

✍️ Screening for Stocks that just Switched to Profitability - Maverick Treasure Hunting

✍️ In Defense of Short Selling

✍️ U.S. Public Debt Reduction = Hard but Feasible

Regarding the coverage from the other sections, there you go:

• Full Equity Research = new kid in town, the much awaited single stocks coverage

• Model Portfolios which compound, yet in the same time take care of the downside, sequence risk, diversified, very low fee, passive and easy to implement

• Maverick Equities & Macro Charts of the Week as highlights will continue

• Hedges, Trades and Special Situations for the more active investor

And way more Independent Investment and Economics Research is coming to town!

“In Disputando Veritas Gignitur!” — together we all benefit as truth is born from debate!

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Have a great day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, hobbies, community, work, independence, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

With respect,

Your Maverick 👋 🤝

are you ready for the New Year’s Eve and have a great start in 2026? I hope so, I am!

Before that, it’s time to review and highlight the 2025 Top 50 Maverick Charts!

There is a lot of value doing and going through this as we set the stage for 2026:

• distinguishing between fundamentals and noise, seeing the "Forest for the Trees"

• understanding the lag-times between policies and future economic reality

• identifying Structural vs. Cyclical Shifts

• strategic “Re-Anchoring” for investors and entrepreneurs of all kinds

• educational value by gaining contextual depth on interconnected events

• historical parallels as memories are surprisingly short in finance: X years from now when policies like Trade Wars or other industry booms (like AI now) come to town, will be a primary source for understanding how the markets and the economy adjusted to the specific variables of this era

• forward looking: shape a 2026 outlook with a solid grounding and fresh views!

In January you will also get my top 2026 predictions which is quite a spicy, juicy and ‘dangerous’ business … 😉! So, let’s let the show begin!

✍️ 2026 Top 25 Maverick Predictions!

50 cherry picked Maverick Charts of the year say 1,000,000 words or more = the ‘How’!

Table of contents = the ‘What’! Executed in a succinct manner with the aim of a high density of ideas, because the best writing respects the reader’s time!

📊 Performance Overview

📊 Equities: S&P 500, Thematic and Single Stocks

📊 Macro & Fixed Income

📊 Currencies & Commodities

📊 Crypto

👍 Bonus: +200,000 views Maverick Tweet of the Year — Nasim Taleb retweet!

Objective: both data-driven insights + valuable food for thought = the ‘Why’!

📊 Performance Overview

1. First of all, how did U.S. Stocks, Bonds, Gold and Bitcoin do in 2025?

👉 S&P 500 (SPY) continuing the big bull market with another great year: +19.03%

👉 Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) similarly with another whooping: +22.63%

👉 SHV (short-term treasury bills 1-year or less, cash proxy): +4.15%

👉 IEF (intermediate treasury notes between 7-10 years): +8.24%

👉 TLT (long-term treasury bonds +20-year maturities): +4.86%

👉 AGG (IG broad maturities: treasuries, corporate, MBS, ABS, municipals): +7.32%

👉 Gold shinning bright as the big outperformer with a mega run: +72.80%

👉 Bitcoin the big laggard: -7.28%

Overall, the vast majority of investors should be very happy with 2025!

More nuances and rationale on these performances will be presented below.

2. below a casual reminder with the exact same chart, but with the 2022 bear market:

👉 except short-term treasury bills with a slight +0.94%, all were down big time!