Don’t Fear AI Bubble, There Will Be Winners – Tech Contrarians

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Tech Contrarians on pretty fishy levels (0:30). Where is the money going? (3:40) Oracle, AMD and other contrarian takes (9:45). Not giving China enough credit (14:50). Why Intel deserves a larger market cap (19:30). TSM, Intel and Trump’s influence on tech (23:15). Don’t fear the bubble (32:10).

Transcript

Rena Sherbill: Always excited to welcome Sara Awad from Tech Contrarians back to the podcast. Welcome back to Investing Experts, Sara.

Sara Awad: Thanks so much. Thanks for having us. It’s always a great time chatting with you.

RS: It really is. I mean, the tech sector now more than ever is leaving people with many questions, certainly more questions afoot every day in terms of, is AI a bubble? What’s the proper valuation on these stocks? What about these deals that we keep seeing more and more of?

You’ve been tremendously helpful for investors, for listeners, for observers in terms of sussing out and contextualizing what’s happening in the tech space. I’m thrilled to have you back because there’s a lot to talk about.

I guess the place that I would like to start is with all this talk of an AI bubble, with all these questions around the sector and the long term nature of how long the bullishness may or can last. What are your thoughts, generally speaking, when you’re talking about tech, when you’re sharing your insights with investors? What would be the sixty second summation that you would give them to start?

SA: That’s a great question. Spot on. I think that’s what’s on everyone’s mind now, especially after we saw Oracle’s (ORCL) earnings earlier this month.

Essentially if I would have to summarize this briefly into a quick overview on how we’re looking at things from what standpoint, I think things are pretty fishy at current levels.

There’s a lot of money moving around, especially this quarter from OpenAI committing money to Oracle, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) committing money to OpenAI, NVIDIA also committing money to buy out capacity from CoreWeave (CRWV).

It seems like we have multibillion deals being made all around, and that’s great. Right? That’s bullish. Markets are reacting really well to that. But at the same time, it seems like people are getting really excited without thinking about what’s next.

Can we sustain this level of spending? Can we sustain this level of CapEx from the tier one players, Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Google (GOOG) (GOOGL)?

And what next year is gonna look like, especially that there’s still a gap when it comes to spend on AI and AI infrastructure versus actual returns on that for the larger tech sector, and even beyond that.

So I think that’s the standpoint that we’re looking at tech through. I think that it’s time to have a critical eye to things.

There was a lot of panic around the potential AI bubble after Sam Altman’s commentary, after the MIT report that found something like more than 90% of companies trying to spend on AI are really being able to leverage it into growth and see that in terms of revenue growth and sustainable revenue growth at that.

So there’s a lot of questions.

I think now we’re at a point where there’s more questions than we have answers, and it’s really dangerous to get carried away with all this news without really thinking about it critically, and thinking about how long this can last, and if we’re actually headed to a bubble, the more good news that we see.

RS: What would you say are the top one to three questions investors should be asking themselves right now about the tech sector?

SA: The top question, I would say is, where is the money going?

And if you trace the money, especially when it comes to the money that’s concentrated with these top big tech players, there’s something that looks fundamentally wrong.

So the top question would be, where is this money coming from?

And is the money that these guys are committing, are they actually gonna be able to to act on it? So, for example, take Oracle and their earnings report. They missed on top and bottom lines.

And market didn’t seem to mind because they had the RPO that jumped something like 359% year over year to 455,000,000,000. And it’s crazy to think that Oracle jumped something like over 30% in one day. I think even hit a high of of 40% on that earnings report.

At the same time, if you look just one quarter prior, their RPO then was around, if I’m not mistaken, 138,000,000,000. So if you really think about it critically, you know that Oracle suddenly reported this jump in RPO, and you know that they had a 300,000,000,000 deal from OpenAI.

So the market’s really getting excited about something that they think is a sustainable spend in terms of the broader AI narrative, but it potentially isn’t because that number only jumped because of that one deal with OpenAI.

And then when you think back to OpenAI, we don’t have too much information in terms of the finances that go into OpenAI because, of course, it’s not publicly traded.

But what we do know is that the number is something like 700,000,000 active weekly users, and we don’t know how many of those are paid.

Regardless, committing 300,000,000,000 is a very big number, and a lot of question marks around how sustainable this is, especially now that we have this China alternative to compare to and this DeepSeek (DEEPSEEK) kind of alternative to compare to that’s also implementing and growing, and releasing new models, but not with the same amount of spend.

So there’s a question mark about how much of the spend is really needed, and how much of the spend is gonna be able to – how much of these dollars committed are actually gonna be spent at the end of the day?

I think people are really getting ahead of themselves in terms of seeing positives or wearing, let’s say, heart shaped sunglasses. On this situation, it’s time to take the sunglasses off because we’re entering, in our opinion, risky territory.

Especially that there’s a lot that’s not resolved in terms of the China questions and the broader trends that play. So if we just take a look at Oracle and OpenAI, and then if you take a step back and look at the other deals happening this quarter, you also have NVIDIA committing 100,000,000,000 to build AI infrastructure for OpenAI, and markets love that.

They reacted very positively. But there’s a lot of money going around, and there’s a lot of question marks about how sustainable this spend is gonna be.

And the use of this infrastructure that’s being built, if we still are in the very early innings of AI and we still don’t have, let’s say, a good command about where things are headed. I revisit what we spoke about in a prior podcast, which is that Apple (AAPL) research paper on AI that said that the more complex inferencing workloads are, the models are actually collapsing on themselves.

So if we’re not able to have clean execution on higher complexity models, then how are we able to justify such a high spend for low to mid complexity inferencing? That’s the question I think that people should be looking at.

Take the the news, but also ground it in logic.

Because at the end of the day, logic is really what’s gonna show where AI is headed next, where tech is headed next, where potentially we might see this bubble deflate, I wouldn’t say pop because at the end of the day, we still are in the very early innings of AI, but we might see a bit of a deflation or a correction because things are really getting ahead of themselves and moving very fast.

RS: Are you of the opinion that the dotcom era is worth a look back in terms of teaching us some lessons about how to avoid being on the wrong side of the switch, whether it’s a deflation or a slow deflation or a big pop. Some people think, are there lessons to be learned, or is this time its own thing?

SA: I don’t think there’s any right or wrong answer as of now for this, but what I would say is I’m pretty confident that currently we’re in uncharted territory.

Right now, the combined weight of the top five companies, I think, in the S&P 500 (SP500) is almost at 30%. So that’s higher than in the late sixties, early seventies, and it’s also higher than than what we saw in the dotcom bubble.

So there’s really something that I would say is a red flag about how things are playing out, especially when you take that and you put it side by side or pair it with the fundamentals that we talked about in terms of Oracle and the sudden jump in RPO and how market’s reacting to things.

It doesn’t seem that people are really reacting to fundamentals. It seems like they’re reacting more to what they want to see, and not what is really happening. So I do think there are lessons to take from that dotcom bubble and apply here in terms of being more wary.

The fear, however, is that people are actually being very avoidant of drawing that comparison when it comes to practice and kind of just thinking, okay, markets may keep going higher. I think we’re at the fifth month in a row of closing the month higher.

I don’t blame those people because everyone at the end wants to make returns, but it’ll become increasingly risky to keep this up down the line because we’re at a very fragile point where any slip up could really cause the the kind of reaction, especially from the retail investor that’s sell now and then ask questions later.

If the dotcom bubble really taught us anything, it’s about asking questions now before taking action, and understanding really who are the guys that are gonna stay on top and who are the losers in this play because not everyone’s gonna come out of this a winner.

We talked last time about NVIDIA. We also talked last time about Broadcom (AVGO). Broadcom is one of those players that I’d say is gonna be one of the top winners moving forward into 2026.

At the same time, we’re still pretty bearish when it comes to guys like Marvell (MRVL) or (AMD), the little brother of NVIDIA. So when it comes to guys like Marvell or AMD, I pair those guys in the same place because at the end of the day, they’re trailing behind if you really look at the performance and the fundamentals, and they don’t have the positioning that NVIDIA has in comparison to AMD or that Broadcom has in comparison to Marvell.

So I think it’s time to take a critical lens to things and really make sure that if you’re gonna put money into this AI play, you’re putting money where the fundamentals do check out, and you’re not just chasing this broader narrative that everyone has the potential to be the next NVIDIA, to be the next Broadcom.

RS: Yeah. I think context is definitely key. And I think to your point of people looking at things how they want it and seeing them how they wanna see them as opposed to how they are is a very astute point and something I think we would all do well to be checking ourselves on.

I mentioned at the start and for those that have been following these conversations that you and I have been having together over the past year, your investing group on Seeking Alpha is called Tech Contrarians.

You just mentioned Oracle as a bit of a contrarian take given how much it’s risen lately and your more bearish take, let’s say, if not bearish outright. What would you say are your most contrarian takes right now?

SA: I think Oracle definitely makes it to that list.

Aside of from Oracle, we have some contrarian takes. For example, another one that I just mentioned is AMD. We’re buy rated on AMD just because we think the stock has come down so much.

It returned to the 160s even high 150s level, which makes it attractive just for the bounce back because people want that AI narrative. If it’s gonna be a self fulfilling prophecy, they’re gonna see it even if it’s not there.

So that’s one of the constraints where we don’t really think the fundamentals support more upside there, but we do think the market will push more upside there.

But we think those names like AMD, like Marvell, are not stocks that you wanna be invested in when they report because that’s when really investor scrutiny and all these hopes and dreams of AI growth are really gonna be put to the test.

So we have Oracle, AMD, Marvell. CoreWeave is a stock that we’ve been watching closely and this growing NeoCloud peer group.

So we’ve got CoreWeave, Nebius (NBIS). (IREN) is also very much in the public eye after they doubled their GPU inventory from NVIDIA.

I think it was earlier this month, if not last week. So those guys are also very attractive in terms of the hype around them and the hype around them being the extension or the next generation of AI names to play.

At the same time, for those stocks, we think they’re just trading stocks, not stocks to be invested in in the longer term. Because as tech advances, when we get the next generation, the Vera Rubin from NVIDIA, and the one after that, since we have a four year road map outlined, the tech is gonna go out of date.

It’s gonna become outdated, and then these guys are gonna need to put a whole lot of upfront CapEx to be able to buy the next generation and then one after that to be able to keep up a higher ASP, and keep the business running.

So this peer group is attractive to trade, but I think our contrarian take there is that the business model in itself is fundamentally flawed, when it comes to the world of tech.

And you can see that because the guys, for example, that run CoreWeave are more finance guys, not tech guys. And they’re acting like finance guys with renting GPU as a model without looking at the nitty gritty, which is that if you don’t have the latest generation, you’re not gonna be able to rent it out as high, and you’re gonna be losing money.

You’re not gonna be seeing the returns on the investment that you put there. And that kinda loops into the idea that NVIDIA is buying out CoreWeave’s extra capacity. We’re seeing customers and NVIDIA CoreWeave is supposed to be a customer of NVIDIA, but NVIDIA now is gonna be a customer of CoreWeave.

So we’re seeing weird dynamics and relationships forming. If you take that lens and you look at anything in the tech space, you start to see the cracks in the bigger AI narrative.

RS: It’s definitely interesting watching. Nobody would accuse the tech sector of being a burgeoning sector, of course, but this whole idea of how AI – how it is already and how it will be incorporated into our lives is very much a developing story and one that has been very interesting if you’re just an observer.

Obviously, if you’re invested, it’s a lot more concerning at times. What would you say in terms of the China story, in terms of NVIDIA, in terms of these deals Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has done the past couple of weeks? What would you say about all of that in context?

SA: So that’s the natural next place to go. I’m glad you’re asking about that.

When it comes to China, I think China is becoming actually a bigger part of the AI conversation. And where I don’t think in the discussions happening around China, we’re giving it enough credit in terms of the AI advancements or let’s say the technological advancements that are happening.

And instead, China’s consistently being discussed within the context of geopolitical risk, which is really overshadowing what potentially could be actually the biggest AI market.

Because at the end of the day China is the biggest smartphone markets. They’re the biggest EV market. They’re the biggest PC market.

So there’s a very big potential that there’s a huge AI opportunity there, and we’re just thinking about this in terms of national security risk. And that’s overshadowing the technological advancements that are happening, and I really think that’s what Jensen is trying to to shed a lot of light on.

I think it was earlier this week that he said that China is, and I quote here is nanoseconds behind the US when it comes to to AI and that the US really needs to compete and that all this geopolitical jargon is stopping NVIDIA from tapping into what is and could be an insanely big opportunity.

I know that Jensen put out an estimate there that it’s a $50,000,000,000 opportunity. I think that’s extremely a modest estimate. It could be much bigger than that, considering the fact that China is the biggest market in terms of PC, smartphone, EV, etc.

When it comes to China, I think we really do have an alternative to what AI could look like and what the alternative to what AI spend could look like.

And at the same time, we’re seeing China try to move towards self reliance with the latest news on this being Huawei and the new plans to prep a ramp in production for its most advanced AI chips because they’re really trying to steal market share from NVIDIA and show the world that China doesn’t need NVIDIA, although the US is now gonna allow these H20 chips to be sold.

We don’t need these H20 chips. And in fact, the government is advising Alibaba (BABA), Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY), all these players to stay clear from buying those because they have this new domestic alternative that should be able to compete.

So I think that should be a bigger part of this broader narrative because what China is doing is important to contextualize US spend and if that spend is misplaced or if it’s actually gonna pay off in terms of returns.

So what we know is that, essentially, China NVIDIA’s market share in China is shrinking. They’ve been banned from selling these H20 chips for a while, and then even when that ban was reversed, they’re still not able to get the products in.

And that is gonna leave a a big gap, which Huawei is gonna naturally, fill even if the the their products, you know, don’t live up to the performance of NVIDIA’s AI chips, and even if their products aren’t gonna be able to to be produced at the same scale.

Because now everyone’s getting excited about this story, but at the same time, in theory, it sounds great. In theory, we have this road map from them that’s aimed at getting, China to be self sufficient.

But the problem is really about production, how realistic this is gonna look. So the question is that, eventually, China’s gonna need in the short term, NVIDIA and the hardware and the software that it has.

And if not even the software, at least the hardware because on seven nanometer chips, it’ll be hard very hard.

You know, and I’m I’m cautious with the use of the word impossible, but quite impossible to compete with NVIDIA’s next generation because they don’t really have the hardware for it.

And with, you know, the restrictions and the really tight grip that we have from, The US on China’s access to tech, We’re likely, in our opinion, this is one of our takes that I’d consider to be contrarian to see China actually somehow come to a deal with The US, maybe one that coincides with The US, and China’s trade deal to allow the sale of NVIDIA’s hardware back into China.

And that that moment, I think, is coming, and that we should pay a lot more attention to China and that market and what’s happening there because not only is it a huge market that NVIDIA that NVIDIA could tap into, but it’s also a huge market that shows us an alternative reality of what AI spend could look like, whether that’s from DeepSeek, or Alibaba committing a lot more in CapEx to AI, but still being one of the lowest spenders when you compare it to the tier one players in the US.

RS: And what would you say about the deals that Intel’s done recently?

SA: Intel’s actually one has been one of our favorite names.

For those of you who check out our articles on Seeking Alpha or have listened to this podcast before, we’ve been really preaching, screaming, buy Intel under $20.

It’s a no brainer. And the logic behind that at the time was that Intel deserves a larger market cap than what it had and that it really had bottomed out.

I think it was last year in 2024 August that Intel took a nosedive and didn’t break the $30 per share level. That is until, of course, we saw it break it earlier this month.

And so when it comes to Intel, these deals that are coming through, I think, are a direct result of Trump’s involvement in Intel, and this effort to make US chip making great again and to make Intel great again.

And what we saw is a divergence from what we saw from Intel’s own earnings report earlier this quarter where L Bu Tan’s tone regarding the foundry side of the business, at least, was pretty cautious.

It was along the line, especially if you take a look at the 10 Q, I think it’s on page 26 that they very clearly disclaimed that they’re not gonna be moving forward with their foundry plans unless they can guarantee and lock in the demand just because it’s been such a high cash burn, and such a weight on the company itself.

So we’re seeing Intel close all these deals. We have a stake from the US government. We have a stake from SoftBank. We also have a stake from NVIDIA, what people are calling now the NVIDIA effect, which really moved the stock.

And now we have Intel looking to get some money as well from Apple. So all of this is great to boost optimism when it comes to Intel, but the fundamental story, which is the foundry side of the business, still has a huge question mark around it.

So while we’ve been preaching buy Intel under $20, we think that at the moment, it’s the question people should be asking themselves, whether invested in Intel or not is what’s gonna happen to the foundry side of the business.

There we see two two scenarios playing out. The first is Intel doubling down on IFS and really going for the 18 a and the 14 a after that, especially that they already committed and bought ASML’s high NA tools, which are the most expensive tools.

TSMC still hasn’t bought those or committed to buying those. And that would only happen if we get external customers, which is why to us, the deal with NVIDIA was a big positive, but it was also about what was missing from that deal, which was NVIDIA committing to being a foundry customer of Intel even if in small part, and we didn’t get that.

The fact that we didn’t get that and we only got NVIDIA put in, I think it’s around a minor stake compared to the amount of money that NVIDIA generates, it seems more of a show for Trump, in our opinion, or a show to spice up the the competitive environment, especially as it relates to ARM and and AMD than an actual commitment to bring Intel’s foundry to its full potential.

So that’s the first case scenario that we see Intel’s foundry really get external customers.

And then the second case scenario is that we see it spun off. And I think in either one of those case scenarios, Intel stock is gonna move up from there, but there is uncertainty around which will happen.

And the stock now is moving up on these investments, but we still don’t have a guarantee about how they’re gonna show up on the financials. And the guarantee about how financials can get healthier is getting an answer about what’s gonna happen to foundries.

RS: We saw a report, a denial of a report from the Wall Street Journal this morning. I don’t know if you’ve already seen it about Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) saying that they’re not doing a deal with Intel.

Are these the kinds of headlines, the kind of, yes, maybe there’s a deal in the works, no, there’s not a deal? Are these the kind of headlines we’re gonna see in the next meanwhile while Intel kinda does its media tour? Not really, but surreptitiously.

SA: It feels a bit funny to see Intel approach so many of the big players, and kind of try to leverage no capital. I think the number that was being floated around is that Intel needs at least 50,000,000,000 to really get into its next phase of growth.

So even with all this money that’s been committed, we’re still looking at something that’s much lower than where we need to be for Intel stock to really hit that next level of growth.

And when it comes to TSMC, I think TSMC is a big factor of this conversation, especially as it relates to the foundry side. And we’re gonna keep seeing these kinds of headlines.

Because for TSMC, if Intel really does walk the talk when it comes to the foundry side of the business, then TSMC actually has competition, which is something we haven’t seen TSMC have to deal with really seriously up until now.

So so if I was to paint a a picture here, if Intel does take that option, the first option that we outlined and is able to get an external customer, to take a bet on their foundry, then TSMC would actually have to buy ASML’s high NA tools, which is, if I’m not mistaken, something in the range of 400 million euros.

So TSMC would have to do that because they’d have to keep up with the technological advancements.

As of now, with Intel kind of still flopping around in terms of what they’re gonna do next on the foundry, TSMC hasn’t needed to commit that kind of money.

So actually what happens with Intel will be a ripple effect within the broader sector of tech, which is why we’re seeing so many, let’s say, tense and urgent headlines around it.

Because if Intel commits to the foundry, TSMC has to buy high NA tools, and that’s a massive tailwind for ASML, which has really been going through it in terms of what’s gonna happen after they said they’re not sure if they can guide for growth in 2026.

So there’s gonna be a really big ripple effect from Intel, ironically, considering that it was a player that was was more under the radar or in the shadows for the greater part of this year.

Although the stock actually if you take a look at the the stock, quarter to date, in Q1 and Q2 and even in Q3, it’s been one of the best performing stocks if you’re trading it five below 20 and then sell when you’re comfortable above that and then hold into Q4, which is what our original thesis there was.

RS: Anything that surprised you recently, whether it be in the earning season, out of the conference calls, or what you’ve seen from these development deals or companies pivoting, has anything really surprised you recently?

SA: I think the biggest surprise, and I think a lot of people share this, and it’s it’s one of the surprises that there’s a couple more to discuss, is how much involvement we’re seeing from the Trump administration within tech.

I think especially when it comes to diplomatic talks and what we saw in the UK, in terms of more investments, it seems that the government and the Trump administration is very closely tied to the trajectory of tech and the trajectory in specific of AI.

So we’re seeing these big tech players not only consolidate in terms of being a a large weight within the S&P 500, but we’re also seeing them play a bigger role when it comes to trade talks, especially in how this relates to China.

Especially how this relates to China. And the next thing that comes up there is really the TikTok deal.

So I think the TikTok deal and seeing that resolved this year is something that was expected more or less with how determined Trump was to get a deal there.

But what wasn’t as expected from our end is that Oracle is gonna be such a big part of that conversation, and that we’re gonna see this new spin off in which Oracle is gonna be working on American version of TikTok’s algorithm.

And I think that’s gonna have interesting ripple effects into Snapchat (SNAP), into Meta as well, and into where advertisers choose to put their dollars spent.

So this is actually the impact when we look at it through the lens of ads, could even impact Amazon. It could even impact Google. That’s one thing that I think is interesting.

A lot of people were very excited about that news, but I think that the ripple effect hasn’t gotten enough attention. Because if we have an an American, which we will have an American version of TikTok, there’s gonna be a ripple effect in terms of advertisements that needs to be taken really seriously.

RS: Before you go on to the second one, can you explain a little bit in in more detail about what those ripple effects may be?

SA: Yeah. Of course. If you look at Google’s earnings, if you look at Meta’s earnings, a lot of the bulk of the revenue really comes from advertisement.

And this year, earlier this year, we had a lot of panic around if the economy if the situation worsens, then we’re not gonna have as much ad dollars spent, especially if there’s an unfavorable trade agreement with China.

A lot of the products advertisement do come from China, and it’ll be harder to have the capital to advertise these. And so if we have a new player that’s already very well established coming into into the US, and coming into the US kind of permanently, which hasn’t been the case for TikTok, we could see the behavior from ad spend differ and maybe circling more towards TikTok, over Meta, over Snap, over Google.

So I think this is a big part of the conversation that we should pay attention to because I think a lot of people were being hesitant about advertising on TikTok considering there’s there was this whole, will it stay here, will it not stay here conversation on and off, and we even had it banned temporarily, which was a big scare for a lot of people.

So now that we have TikTok and an emergent American version that’s been overseen by the president, it’s likely that we’re gonna see a lot more people put capital there, especially that has a specific kind of audience.

And the TikTok algorithm has been a golden standard since COVID for really getting a sticky audience and getting people to stick around.

So while Meta is trying to enter this ecommerce vertical and Google’s been the the dominant player when it comes to advertising, TikTok could potentially, over the next year, change the dynamics within this market within advertising and digital advertising, and that’s something that we need to keep a close eye on.

It’s something that we need to keep a close eye on, but I wouldn’t say it’s detrimental in terms of the longer term bullish view we have on Google or Meta.

But it’s definitely something that’ll help provide clear entry points when we see a risk coming. Because I think there should be a headwind that comes from TikTok being well established in the US for those players, of course.

So that was the first thing that we were looking at.

The second thing is actually and this is a theory that we’re still playing around with, which is that we really do think that, circulating back to NVIDIA in China, we do think that we’re we could see China and the US come to a trade agreement that actually does allow NVIDIA to sell H20, maybe even the next product, within the Chinese market.

So I think it’s a big part of the conversation.

I think both parties are leveraging what they have in terms of technological capabilities or for China, for example, TikTok, to be able to be playing cards on the table, negotiation tools, if you will.

So I think we’re likely to see something come to to pass when it comes to NVIDIA getting back into the the Chinese market.

And I think that could be what drives NVIDIA’s next leg of growth because NVIDIA, this past period has been weighed down by not only China fears, but also, considering that they didn’t guide for China with an outlook, but also has been weighed down by this whole idea of, you know, a AI custom ASICs and if we’re gonna see that take market share from NVIDIA or even AMD.

So this is really I think it’s gonna be the push that NVIDIA needs, and I think we’re likely to see it in the overall trajectory of how things are going because no doors are permanently closed as of now to get NVIDIA back into China.

But I do think what we’re seeing is Jensen being stuck between a rock and a hard place, being stuck and being used as a negotiation tool from both ends.

RS: What else would you add to this conversation that you feel is important for investors to keep in mind these days?

SA: I think the main takeaway or the main thing to highlight is that there is fear of an AI bubble, but then again, there will be winners to this AI bubble.

And that’s where I think this diverges from the dotcom bubble because I think we are still in the very early innings, and we can see this stretched out much further down the line.

That’s where Broadcom (AVGO) comes into the conversation as attractive. That’s where NVIDIA, if they can get back into China, comes into the conversation, is still very attractive, potentially even crossing into new all time highs and crossing in the 4,500,000,000,000 market cap that we saw it hit earlier this year.

So that’s one thing. So it’s about being very selective when when you wanna invest in AI. And at the same time, keeping your overview on the bigger picture and what’s the the domino effect.

So, for example, we have that domino effect with Intel to TSMC to (ASML). We also have a domino effect from AI when it comes to memory and storage, and those have been some of the best performing sectors this year.

Western Digital (WDC), I think, is one of the best performing sectors up over 145% year to date, and Micron (MU), and Seagate (STX).

So we’re seeing that with this buildout of capacity, this buildout of AI infrastructure that’s happening, this is causing a ripple effect also with what you’d need to build out this AI infrastructure.

So that’s higher capacity. So that impacts HDD sales and enables Western Digital to raise prices. It also enables Micron to raise prices and SanDisk (SNDK) to raise prices.

So there’s a lot of different ways to play off of AI without directly being exposed to guys like CoreWeave, or Applied Digital (APLD) are these stocks that are more volatile and that are more exposed to panic.

RS: Well, I appreciate this conversation, Sarah, as I appreciate all our conversations. Your investing group, for those who have not yet taken advantage, is Tech Contrarians on Seeking Alpha.

Any final words or things you’re sharing with subscribers these days or anything you’d like to leave listeners with?

SA: I always like to say this at the end of every podcast. If money is an issue, we’re here to make money together. We always like to bring people on free trials within the investing group that are actually a year long just to show them the service, help them build up the capital, and then take it from there and let them stick around.

At the same time, AI is gonna grow. It’s gonna go big from here. So it’s really a matter about sifting through and focusing on the fundamentals.

Because at the end of the day, like Rena and I were talking before this podcast started, now the fundamentals and stocks following the fundamentals has become the exception, not the default.

But, eventually, everything will return to the fundamentals. And so keeping an eye on that will be a a good anchor in markets like today.

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