Not much happened in the dog days of late August, aside from Bitcoin rediscovering its mojo week before last as debasement returned to vogue.

This article looks at the investment philosophies of two companies – Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) and Michael Burry's Scion Asset Management. What ties them together is their focus on value, although the change in leadership at Berkshire is raising some concerns that Berkshire's decades-old value philosophy might be changing.

This article provides an early-week update on the highly volatile and under-pressure semi-conductor sector, as well as the Mag 7 stocks with AAPL, AMZN, META and MSFT reporting earnings this week. It also looks at SpaceX (SPCX), which is well below its IPO price and falling like a stone.

This article looks at the semi-conductor value chain and explores the opportunities for investors. It's not easy to evaluate many of the companies, and the valuations are stretched already.

US stocks lost ground and are performing poorly YtD, especially compared to stocks in the UK, Europe and Japan, all of which closed at record highs on Friday. US Treasuries suddenly have a safe haven bid, with the yield on the 10y finally dropping below 4%. Gold remains strongly bid, Bitcoin remains largely without a bid.

The weekly update covers NVDA's excellent earnings; the A.I. shine which is wearing off; the minutes from the last FOMC meeting (Oct); and the fall of Bitcoin.

I am not expert in artificial intelligence, although I do have a basic grasp of its expected benefits balanced by the possible social implications. However, this article focuses on A.I. from an investor's perspective, since the stocks of companies that can attach themselves even loosely to the A.I. narrative have taken off like a rocket.

This article takes a quick look at the semi-conductor value-chain, including chip designers, fabricators and chip machinery makers.

Tech companies drove the 7% return of the S&P 500 in the 1Q23. Without the "magnificent seven", the index would have been flattish.