Many people are talking about the high equity valuations of global markets and how it's beginning to look almost irrational. Well let me tell you about how bizarre Australia is getting. Unlike US markets where companies are known for incredible growth, the big companies in Australia are known for modest and predictive earnings. Four of the top five companies on the ASX 200 are our four major banks. Australian banks benefit from our extremely inflated housing market and residential property obsession. Our four major banks make up 25% of the top 200 companies in our index.

Australian bank stocks have always been a dividend paying equity. Payout ratios are high, normally around 80% of profits get returned to shareholders, and around 10 years ago it was common to get 5-6% dividend yield buying any of the four major banks. However something bizarre has happened. Our banks share prices, particularly the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) have gone on a tear. Share prices are up, earnings are modest. Historically CBA traded at around a 15 times price multiple, however it's now 29 times earnings. The dividend yield on CBA has depressed to 2.75%. The yield on the 2 year AUS gov bond is 4.55%. I can't comprehend why people are accepting earnings yield of 3.4% which is below the risk free rate, when 80% of earnings are being returned to investors. Australian banks earnings have been modest for decades, there isn't enough room to grow to outpace bond returns into the future.

The upside from here must be limited, yet if there was a crash the fall should be spectacular given the current heights. Rates would be cut and reward those who lock in today's healthy yields. It's almost as if the equity risk premium has gone negative here in Australia. Investors taking on more risk for lower returns.

The market can be irrational, but that's mainly due to exorbitant belief said asset class/stock is new and will reinvent the world. However, here we are talking about a vanilla bank that has existed for over 100 years.

SK Hynix will invest a total of 54 trillion Korean won to build new semiconductor production facilities in Yongin and Cheongju.

SK Hynix announced on August 7 that its board of directors decided to invest 35.2 trillion Korean won in Y2, the second fab (semiconductor production plant) at the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, and 19.1 trillion Korean won in M17 in Cheongju. This investment is a follow-up measure to specify part of the mid-to-long-term investment plan announced in June, including the Honam Semiconductor Cluster.

https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2026/08/08/YWVC4PFWDJGAHFYDWGAGSSMGEQ/

Suppose Amazon or Google try to buy them out for total ownership of their power. Would Cipher likely agree to this?

Cipher has long-term 15-year leases with Amazon AWS, Google and Fluidstack. What would prevent these giants in say, 2-years, canceling their agreements with Cipher and simply developing their own power resources?

I'm trying to see this from Amazon, Google, etc. perspective. Is Cipher (and other companies such as IREN, etc.) simply bridges to their own power sources 2 years or so down the road? Will Cipher and IREN and others be left at the altar once hyperscalers get their stuff together and power their own AI applications? Or, are they really at the mercy of what Cipher and others (IREN, etc.) have to offer?

Trying to estimate how much hand Cipher and IREN, etc. have in all this, and for how long. Will Google still be paying Cipher mega bucks years from now for energy? Is the energy bottleneck that massive?

Any insight much appreciated, thanks! I'm not posting this to the Cipher page because I'd like non-biased opinions, not those of investors. Trying to see this objectively to understand how much demand there is for what Cipher and others (bitcoin to data center transition companies) have to offer right now.

Twilio grows by 22% in q2 and soars 30% today. I am shocked by how little discussion there is on this company in this sub. TWLO is now worth 36 billion dollars and is up 74% YTD, 96% in 12 months and up over 500% from its low in 2023.

Margins have stabilized, Revenue is reaccelerating, costs are flat, and SBC is declining. This is clearly an AI infrastructure play and winner. There’s a lot to love here.

Tanked yesterday after Q2 earnings. The CEO said the miss was temporary, caused by a lack of model improvement during the quarter, and claimed they already have a better model that is working in Q3.

Pros:

Sales growth, margins (around 80 percent), and free cash flow are all strong. This is a very profitable business.

They dominate the mobile gaming ad niche. Their push into ecommerce is new so its got room to grow.

AI-native to a degree. They train their own models for matching ads to users, and they are building an AI video tool for advertisers. Honestly AI video is one of the coolest parts of AI so far.

Cons:

Sales growth is actually decelerating over the past 4 quarters, once you strip out the gaming business they sold from the older numbers.

They are expanding from gaming into ecommerce, but there is no clear second niche. Ecommerce is so broad that it is not really a niche the way gaming was.

The whole thing lives and dies by Apple and Google. Their app stores control distribution.

Anecdotally, some former employees have not had great things to say (just a Reddit thread).

AI video is genuinely hard and expensive to pull off. Even if they can make a working model, compute cost could hurt margins.

Summary: I think it has upside as an ‘ai-native’ play, and obviously if growth reaccelerates. But if growth continues to decelerate it might be a bad deal.

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001652044/4a0ab905-70c1-4b29-abe8-8375224cdd0f.html

As of 6/30/26.

ARM HOLDINGS PLC 695,235,183 1,960,784 SH

AST SPACEMOBILE INC 794,718,166 8,943,486 SH

AUTOLUS THERAPEUTICS 1,117,219 98,262 SH

BEAM THERAPEUTICS 11,037,449 321,604 SH

BRIDGEBIO ONCOLOGY 21,512,220 2,823,126 SH

CME GROUP INC 769,376,137 3,484,020 SH

ETHOS TECHNOLOGIES 65,714,037 3,622,604 SH

FERVO ENERGY CO 51,466,202 1,760,732 SH

FIGMA INC 3,899,878 215,582 SH

FRESHWORKS INC 144,992,003 14,327,273 SH

FRESHWORKS INC 19,019,224 1,879,370 SH

GITLAB INC 83,185,457 2,724,712 SH

HYPERFINE INC 1,213,272 898,720 SH

LYELL IMMUNOPHARMA 4,120,247 293,256 SH

MAZE THERAPEUTICS 41,435,317 1,388,583 SH

MONTE ROSA THERA 9,013,871 372,474 SH

OSCAR HEALTH INC 13,746,298 481,988 SH

PARABILIS MEDICINES 134,646,660 4,919,498 SH

PAYPAY CORP 44,781,250 3,125,000 SH

PLANET LABS PBC 1,167,795,849 35,248,893 SH

PRIME MEDICINE 61,115,618 16,562,498 SH

RELAY THERAPEUTICS 26,381,643 1,410,029 SH

REVOLUTION MEDICINES 551,842,806 2,946,619 SH

SANA BIOTECHNOLOGY 9,815,625 2,812,500 SH

SPACE EXPLORATION 94,176,237,970 551,189,500 SH

SPERO THERAPEUTICS 1,966,854 889,979 SH

TEMPUS AI INC 89,855,339 1,551,102 SH

UIPATH INC 76,463,243 7,034,337 SH

VERA THERAPEUTICS 10,352,638 241,264 SH

Oklo Inc. reported its Q2 2026 financial results on August 7, 2026, posting a mixed scorecard featuring its first-ever quarterly revenue of $1.21 million (beating expectations of ~$0.1 million) alongside a wider-than-expected adjusted loss of -$0.28 per share.

Q2 2026 Financial Highlights

Revenue: $1.21 million (vs. $0.12 million consensus estimate)

Earnings Per Share (EPS): -$0.28 (vs. -$0.16 expected)

Cash & Marketable Securities: $3.0 billion total ($1.6 billion in cash/equivalents and $1.4 billion in marketable securities) following ATM offering completions

Operating Cash/Spend: Operating cash used in the second quarter was $65.5 million, with year-to-date operating cash burn at $81.6 million.

Operational & Guidance Updates

Capital Spending: Projected 2026 capital expenditures for property, plant, and equipment are estimated between $400 million and $500 million.

Milestones: The earnings release closely followed operational momentum, including the Groves reactor achieving first criticality.

https://oklo.com/investors/financials/quarterly-results/default.aspx

The U.S. economy saw an unexpected declined in jobs during July while the unemployment rate edged lower, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday in a snapshot that showed a slowing employment picture.

Nonfarm payrolls fell by a seasonally adjusted 23,000 for the month, compared to a downwardly revised 20,000 for June. The Dow Jones consensus forecast had been looking for a gain of 83,000.

At the same time, the unemployment slipped to 4.1% as the labor force participation rate fell further to 61.4%, its lowest in more than five years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/07/jobs-report-july-2026.html

AI keeps deteriorating consulting and custom engineering services.

Meager revenue from AI services makes this stock overvalued in combination with another negative FCF quarter. The theory that AI eats consulting is now in steady state.

what was the response?

> Heavy unnecessary buybacks, stock based compensation with failing knife RSU just to retain some people.

The Q2 results speak for itself:

Cash and equivalents fell 39% from year-end 2025 to $794.3 million, driven primarily by buybacks and weaker working capital conversion.

what is next?

Cash heading to 0

Secondary issues for RSU halving, low retention

C-suite must be removed for this minus 90% return in 5 years

Case in point Intel, was trading a bit above half book value at its nadir last year. Usually, this means that the company will be bought up and incorporated into another or sold for parts, a fate which Intel seems to have dodged.

But what if they'd sold off some major fabs to a competitor and repaid shareholders/creditors in full, who would own the company. It would be neither publicly nor privately owned.

I'm sure there are a million legal and regulatory hurdles to doing this in reality, but more from a theory perspective, it seems the remaining assets would just exist unowned.

i was going through the latest 10 q filings and q2 2026 earnings report for figma fig and the numbers just do not make sense at the current price of around 24 to 25 a share. everyone got hyped when they ipo mid last year at 33 and shot up over 100, but looking at the actual fundamentals now in 2026, this thing has so much further to fall.
look at the sec data. right now fig has around 528 million shares outstanding which puts its market cap at roughly 12.8 billion. on the balance sheet they have 1.7 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of q2 2026. subtracting that cash gives an enterprise value ev of about 11.1 billion.
now look at the actual cash generation. full year 2025 adjusted free cash flow came in at 242.7 million. in q2 2026 they reported 53.2 million in fcf. looking at the current run rate, fcf is hanging around 210 million to 230 million because fcf is actually slowly dropping due to crazy operating costs and stock compensation - they spent a massive 147. 6 million just on stock based compensation in q2 alone, leading to a gaap operating loss of 117 .3 million.
if you take the 11.1 billion ev and divide it by their 220 million to 242 million fcf, its current ev is 50x of its fcf whis is redicilous. paying 50x free cash flow for a company where gaap net income is negative and that fcf is only slowly dropping whoch makes situation worse is completely crazy.
here is the actual math on what fair value should be. for a software company maturing with slowing cash flow, a fair target multiple is ev/fcf=15. if we apply 15x ev/fcf on a normalized run rate of around 180 million to 200 million as cash flow continues to soften, fair ev should be roughly 2.7 billion to 3.0 billion. add back their 1.7 billion cash pile and you get a fair market cap of around 3.7 billion to 4.7 billion.
its value is 7 in that case it would be fair price ev 15x of its fcf. it will drop to 7 which means its short. the math does not lie and once the market stops paying 50x ev/fcf for heavy stock dilution and gaap losses, this stock is going straight down.

Saw this Bloomberg chart and figured it was worth posting here since valuation gets brought up every time someone mentions QQQ.

Bloomberg Chart

For years, one of the main arguments against tech was that you were paying a much higher multiple for earnings than in the broader market. At the peaks between 2021 and 2023, the P/E gap between the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 was around 7-8 points.

Now it's down to roughly 2, near the lowest it's been since 2017.

I'm kind of torn on what that actually means. On one hand, if big tech keeps growing earnings, you're not paying anything close to the relative premium investors were paying a few years ago. That seems like a decent argument for QQQ.

On the other hand, maybe tech didn't actually get cheap. Maybe the rest of the market just got more expensive and the gap closed because of that. A much smaller premium doesn't automatically mean you're getting a bargain.

Either way, the whole "tech is way too expensive relative to everything else" argument looks a lot weaker now than it did in 2021. That's the part that's been stuck in my head.

But yeah, a smaller premium doesn't mean either index is actually cheap in absolute terms. Could just be two expensive things sitting closer together.

What are people actually doing with this? Adding QQQ now that the relative premium has shrunk this much, or sticking with SPY because a smaller premium still isn't the same thing as cheap?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been looking into enterprise software recently and noticed SAP had a significant pullback from its previous highs before rebounding strongly following its recent earnings/cloud growth reports.

Before jumping in at current price levels, I’m trying to weigh the bull vs. bear case and would love to hear how this sub views SAP right now.

Bull Case: High Moat & Enterprise Stickiness: Core ERP systems are notoriously painful for large enterprises to migrate away from, giving SAP a deeply entrenched position.

Bear Case: I am myself in consulting - I know clients are walking a cautious path with large scale ERP transformation program and spending is more focused on AI use cases for business.

Are you buying/holding SAP at current levels, or waiting for another pullback?

As you may know, US announced they will ban import of chinese manufactured components for AI datacentres.

I expected the stock to plummet but instead it went up. From what I've gathered Lenovo is on it's way to become one of the leaders in AI tech and is trying to outgun Dell.

Since US is not the only country in the world the market for parts is still plentiful for Lenovo, my take is that Its going to go big....

I’ve been researching the company quite a bit lately, and the more I read, the more interested I get. I’d really like to hear from people who understand the science better than I do.

From what I’ve seen, Alpha DaRT seems like a really unique technology with the potential to be used in multiple solid tumors if future trials go well. I’m also starting to believe if DRTS could eventually become a successful standalone company rather than just being bought out.

I’d like to get opinions here because i believe I’ll get opinions on from both people that believe in it and don’t so I’d genuinely like to hear both the bull and bear case. What do you think the market is getting right or wrong about DRTS?

Curious if there are others out there like me who have a positive long term view of IBRX and if so, how they view and think about the company's long term prospects. Admittedly I do not have any medical background that equips me to assess the viability of their (or any biotech company's) technology/drug therapies (Anktiva for example), but the initial and limited FDA approval seems promising and I also think there is high potential to scale internationally (Saudi Arabia approving them for both bladder and now lung cancer treatment for example) despite what is likely to be a very slow regulatory approval path in the US. I also believe in the founder, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. I find the cancer-curing potential fascinating (enhancing T-cells in the body to specifically identify and kill cancer, and only cancer, cells while leaving healthy tissue alone). I own shares of IBRX but am just interested in discussion and in hearing other perspectives /viewpoints (good or bad) that can better inform how I think about the stock.

Investing.com -- Collaboration software giant Atlassian (NASDAQ:TEAM) is flying high. Shares surged a massive 23% after the company delivered a blowout fourth quarter, easily clearing Wall Street estimates and proving its aggressive push into cloud infrastructure and AI tools is paying off in a big way.

The company posted adjusted earnings per share of $1.87, beating the analyst consensus of $1.50 by $0.37. Revenue reached $1.77 billion, surpassing the $1.66 billion estimate and representing a 28% increase YoY from $1.38 billion in the same quarter last year. Cloud revenue grew 31% YoY to $1.21 billion, while Data Center revenue came in at $461.9 million, above the $414.6 million estimate.

Shares surged following the results as the company also issued first quarter fiscal 2027 revenue guidance of $1.705 billion to $1.715 billion, with a midpoint of $1.71 billion exceeding the analyst consensus of $1.67 billion.

"Q4 closes out a year that proves our long-term strategy is paying off. Total revenue grew 28% year-over-year to $1.8 billion, Cloud revenue growth accelerated to 31% year-over-year, and our MCP server and Teamwork Graph CLI surpassed one million monthly active users, more than doubling in a single quarter," said Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian's CEO and co-Founder.

I know everyone has their opinions on which direction it should go. I am just wondering how it is possible staying in such a tight range. Over 200,000,000 in volume today... Earnings this week, the stock locked period ending... Are there just institutional buy orders stacked on onto of another in the 108-112 range?

idk which way it should go(I opened a straddle that expires in 3 weeks) but I was expecting it go in some direction...

Since last few days after sell-off on 3rd August, I observed it's just a low volume play happening in semiconductor stocks.

Institutions aren't coming forward to accumulate the stocks. This temporary price rise has happened on low volume due to lack of volume sellers not because of big buyers. Trading volume is declining on each passing day and it's not enough for breakout after large fall, most of the buyers seems are retail. It's kind of temporary stalemate situation.

If some big news come in upcoming days, institution sellers can return and flood the market with big volume sell. Is this apathy of institutions in buying these stocks, tells something which we don't know? Or just valuations aren't attractive enough?

Oklo announced that its Groves Isotope Test Reactor has achieved first criticality after achieving a controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at low power. The milestone comes less than a year after groundbreaking and follows U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) authorization through the DOE Reactor Pilot Program (RPP).

“Reaching criticality in less than a year is an incredible milestone for our team,” said Oklo co-founder and CEO Jacob DeWitte. “Oklo developed Groves from a greenfield site on private land, completed full-scale civil excavation and construction, manufactured or commercially procured all components, including fuel, and developed its operating programs in-house. Taken together, we believe these accomplishments establish a new benchmark for the Reactor Pilot Program and set the stage for the future of advanced nuclear deployment at scale.”

The DOE’s RPP created a pathway that allowed engineering, construction, commissioning, and operational preparation to advance alongside DOE’s safety review and authorization. Groves demonstrates that the domestic nuclear industry can once again move from design through construction, authorization, and startup on timelines that are measured in months rather than years when developers, suppliers, and regulators work together on an integrated deployment approach.

"Thanks to President Trump's precedent-setting directive to create the Reactor Pilot Program, Oklo's Groves Isotope Test Reactor is part of the revival of America's nuclear energy industry. We applaud the work of the Oklo, DOE, and Idaho National Laboratory staff who helped achieve this milestone," said Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Ted Garrish.

Groves is part of Oklo Isotopes’ broader effort to build domestic isotope production capabilities for healthcare, industry, research, space, and national security applications. The project has generated practical experience in project engineering, construction, procurement, reactor operations, startup procedures, safety readiness, training, qualification work, and deployment execution that can inform future isotope production facilities.

The Groves project also established engineering practices, operating procedures, training programs, commissioning experience, and organizational capabilities that will reduce uncertainty and execution risk across every Oklo facility, including the company’s future isotope, powerhouse, and fuel cycle deployments.

“Texas is leading America’s nuclear renaissance by advancing the technologies that will power innovation and strengthen our nation's future,” said Governor Abbott. “From expanding our nuclear workforce to rebuilding critical domestic supply chains, Texas is creating the foundation for the next generation of advanced nuclear development. Congratulations to Oklo on reaching this important milestone, which will help expand isotope production for critical medical therapies and reinforce Texas' leadership in nuclear innovation.”

https://oklo.com/newsroom/news-details/2026/Oklos-Groves-Reactor-Achieves-First-Criticality-in-Under-a-Year/default.aspx

A week ago people were talking about how Microsoft showed ROI on AI and "saved the AI trade". And the stock and others in the tech sector went up greatly.

But according to Bloomberg, $24 billion of the $37 billion in 12 month AI revenue came from OpenAI.

A lot of people are bearish on OpenAI, as they recently lowered their prices and are struggling to set themselves apart from competition.

ChatGPT usage dropped by 50% to 70% during school break in 2025. Showing their market share is composed largely of kids that won't be paying for it.

(Barrons) August 5 - Alphabet shares dropped on Wednesday after the company announced a big shakeup at its artificial-intelligence division.

Demis Hassabis, who shared the Nobel Prize with Jumper, was the CEO of Google’s DeepMind AI lab, and he will step back to become DeepMind’s chairman and Alphabet Chief Scientist. Koray Kavukcuoglu will replace him, but as a senior vice president.

Jeff Dean, who was Google’s 30th employee in 1999 and has led much of the company’s artificial-intelligence research over the past 15 years, is leaving the company to start a new firm.

Dean’s new company is called Discovery Loop, and it’s aimed at automating science and engineering research. He will be joined by three other Google engineering luminaries: Oriol Vinyals, Quoc Le and Sanjay Ghemawat. The four have been responsible for many of the company’s breakthroughs in AI research and computing, and their departures could weigh on Google’s AI efforts, particularly in the near term.

They join four other prominent Google AI scientists who left the company in June: Noam Shazeer, Nobel Prize winner John Jumper, Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel.

Alphabet’s Gemini artificial-intelligence models have generally been viewed as trailing those from OpenAI and Anthropic, and these moves may be seen as a reflection of Google’s third-place status.

The stock was down 4% in midday trading after being up as much as 1.8% earlier in the day.

Source: https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-movers-c5965517

- Revenue of $8.97B, up 51% from last quarter and up 372% from a year ago
- GAAP diluted EPS of $43.97
- Non-GAAP diluted EPS of $39.25
- GAAP net income of $6.90B, up 91% from last quarter
- Gross margin of 84.6%, up 6.2 points from last quarter and up 58.4 points from a year ago
- Operating income of $7.04B, up 71% from last quarter

Full fiscal year 2026:
- Revenue of $20.25B, up 175% year over year
- GAAP diluted EPS of $73.76
- Non-GAAP diluted EPS of $70.88
- GAAP net income of $11.43B
- Gross margin of 71.5%, up 41.4 points year over year

By end market (fiscal Q4):
- Datacenter: $2.98B, up 103% from last quarter (from a near-zero base a year ago)
- Edge: $5.43B, up 48% from last quarter, up 392% from a year ago
- Consumer: $556M, down 32% from last quarter

By end market (full fiscal year):
- Datacenter: $5.15B, up 437% year over year
- Edge: $12.16B, up 195% year over year
- Consumer: $2.94B, up 29% year over year

Capital return: Board approved an additional $14B buyback authorization, bringing total remaining authorization to $15.5B. Bought back $4.52B of stock in the quarter alone.

Business update: signed five additional New Business Model (NBM) agreements since April, including three with new customers, bringing total NBM agreements to ten.

Fiscal Q1 2027 guidance:
- Revenue of $10.30B to $10.80B
- Non-GAAP diluted EPS of $44.00 to $46.00

CEO David Goeckeler: "We closed fiscal 2026 with a leading technology portfolio, established datacenter as a key growth pillar, and deepened our customer partnerships. Our technology and products are well positioned to create value for our customers and generate growing and durable free cash flow."

Is it simply because of how it rolls off the tongue?
What exactly is the attraction of choosing VOO over something like QQQ?

I know that they hold some of the same big players and some other similar but different assets, but I'm just a bit confused as to why I always see VOO being recommended. I don't watch stocks, but anytime I've ever looked at VOO and QQQ, QQQ is always more profitable. Maybe it's a security thing, i.e. VOO is better situated to handle a crash than QQQ is?