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Caught My Eye…

  • Berkshire Hathaway has been a net seller of stocks for ten consecutive quarters, trimming or exiting positions, including Apple, Bank of America, and Chevron, while fully exiting holdings like HP and Paramount Global. At the 2025 annual shareholder meeting, Buffett explained that the firm is waiting for “extraordinarily attractive” opportunities, preferring to hold cash rather than overpay in an overheated market. As a result, Berkshire’s equity portfolio has become more concentrated, with Apple (still its largest holding), Coca-Cola, American Express, and Occidental Petroleum anchoring Warren’s long-term convictions. Meanwhile, the company’s cash pile has increased to an unprecedented $348 billion, which is roughly equal to the total reserves held by all U.S. commercial banks at the Federal Reserve. Warren also announced he will step down as CEO by the end of 2025. Under his leadership, Berkshire Hathaway delivered a return of 5,502,284% since 1965, compared to just 39,054% for the S&P 500 over the same period.

  • Google’s rollout of AI Mode marks a shift in its core search strategy, transforming Search from a results engine into a task-oriented AI assistant. This mode offers conversational inputs, including voice and images, and delivers visually rich answers with product cards, local business info, and session memory similar to Search’s current UI. AI Mode works by combining Gemini with structured real-time data from across its services, including Search index, Maps, Shopping Graph, and local business databases. When a user enters a query, such as “best foldable camping chair under $100,” AI Mode generates a clear, concise answer formatted in visual cards, which are clickable, tappable, and linked to actions like visiting a store, calling the business, or placing an order. Users can ask follow-up questions without starting over, and a memory panel on the left-hand side (on desktop) shows previous sessions, letting users revisit or refine their queries over time. This launch is central to Google’s ecosystem play: by integrating shopping, trip planning, and local discovery directly into the AI layer, Google keeps users inside its platform as they compete with OpenAI and other platforms for more and more tasks that traditionally people searched for.

  • The U.S. court upheld a ruling requiring Apple to allow developers to include external payment links for apps downloaded from the App Store. This ruling enables developers to bypass Apple’s in-app payment system and its 30% fee, long derided as the “Apple tax”, by using alternatives like Stripe, which charges just 2.9%. Stripe responded immediately with a developer-friendly SDK, making it easier than ever to integrate external payments and reclaim margin. After Apple tried to blunt the impact by introducing a new 27% “external processing fee,” the court further mandated that Apple must eliminate its 27% external processing fee as well, representing around $20 billion annually. More broadly, as AI reshapes how people interact with their phones and software, the App Store may lose relevance under its current design. Apple must evolve or risk becoming a toll booth that fewer developers will use.

  • A month ago, China imposed new export restrictions on heavy rare earth elements, such as dysprosium (Dy) and terbium (Tb). What are dysprosium and terbium, and what does the supply chain for these two elements look like today? Dysprosium and terbium are heavy rare earth elements used in high-temperature-resistant permanent magnets, which are essential components in electric vehicles, wind turbines, and defense systems. These two elements are extracted from ionic clay deposits through surface mining operations in southern China and northern Myanmar. After mining, the clays undergo chemical leaching to yield a rare earth concentrate containing a mixture of elements. This concentrate must then be processed through solvent extraction to isolate and purify individual oxides. Nearly all commercial separation and refining capacity today is located in China, making it the dominant global supplier. Once purified, the oxides are converted into metallic alloys through metallization. These alloys are then used in the manufacture of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets, which are produced in China, Japan, and South Korea. Finally, the magnets are integrated into end-use systems ranging from EV drivetrains and wind turbine generators to industrial robotics and U.S. defense platforms such as missile guidance systems and fighter aircraft. This multi-step chain remains geographically concentrated and strategically fragile, with China controlling nearly all high-value stages today.Subscribe now

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