June 12, 2026, Issue 27

Sometimes the Grass is Greener

Eleven days I started a new job as Director of the Fabrics division at Semper Cellmark. While the onboarding process has certainly had a few hiccups, I can say this with a full heart and complete conviction. People make the difference. The people have been warm, welcoming, and excited about me joining the ranks. They want to do and follow all of my early recommendations, and I can feel the love all the way from my home base in North Carolina. Even though I have yet to meet anyone in person, the teamwork I feel throughout the organization radiates and fills me with an excitement for the business that I have not felt in a very long time. We all know the old saying, but if the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, that means that sometimes it is. This is one of those times!

To SpaceX or Not to SpaceX

Unless you’ve been living on Mars, you probably have at least heard of Elon Musk’s SpaceX going public and opening for trading today. The excitement around this IPO has been unprecedented. People in the company have been shareholders since the beginning, and as such many new millionaires will be minted today. The question is should the average investor or trader be in this stock? Full disclosure: I put in a request for shares with Etrade, which is my platform, and also a lead underwriter of the stock sale. I found out this morning that I was granted 14 out of the 50 shares I asked for. Now the hard part: What is this company worth? The truth is that no matter how you slice it, it isn’t worth anywhere near the $135 stock price that the IPO was priced at. This number gives SpaceX a valuation of $1.77 Trillion. It loses money, and its sales volume is about $18B. This puts its price of $135 at about 100 times sales. Does it make sense? Not really. Here is what people want a piece of: Elon Musk. We can all have our opinions of the man, but one thing is certain. He is brilliant, and he brings a vision that people want to buy into. As with Tesla, you have to suspend your disbelief, you have to forget the fundamentals, and you have to see a future with data centers in space, people on the moon, and visits to Mars. They do have the Starlink internet service which is already a hugely important piece of the puzzle. As I write, the stock has opened for trading, and while very volatile at this moment, it is up about 20% at $163. I will hold on to the small number of shares I’ve been allocated and see what happens going forward.

Shift in Sentiment

The world remains a crazy, unsettled place. However, the stock markets have remained fairly robust. Historically this is not “normal”. Wars, inflation, and upcoming mid-term elections in the USA have always tended to kill valuations and destroy stocks, at least in the short term. That has not happened. Indices have continued to hit record highs. Most of this has been driven by AI-related stocks, and more importantly, great earnings by most of the tech related companies. Even so, there has been a bit of a rotation in what people are buying. Financials like banks have been higher, the memory makers like Micron are flying, and healthcare stocks like United Health have been bid up much higher. Some of this shift has come at the expense of the Magnificent 7 stocks of Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Nvidia, Google, Meta, and Amazon. As a result, these 7 names are beginning to look cheap, at least in my opinion. As an example, Nvidia’s PE ratio over the last ten years is 53.72. Today, it has a PE of 31, and a forward PE of 20. For a company growing at over 20%, this looks not just reasonable, but cheap. I believe we are only in about the 3rd inning of the AI revolution. As such, companies and countries are still needing to spend billions of dollars on Nvidia products as the infrastructure gets built.
Apple, which has spent next to nothing on AI will use Google’s Gemini AI to make Siri super smart. Millions of us have an iPhone in our pocket, and we eagerly anticipate this advance. On top of that, millions more will need to upgrade their phones to access the new capabilities. Services revenue at Apple is growing in the 30% range and margins remain crazy high. This also looks inexpensive.
At this moment, I would recommend almost all of the Mag 7 (With the exception of Tesla, which never looks cheap). You can buy them and forget them.

Other Ideas

While I stand by technology, as I believe that is what provides the biggest returns over time, I have also made some changes to take advantage of the broadening out of the market rally. Recent purchases have included Rithm Capital, Sabra Health Care REIT, and Capital One Financial. These companies operate as follows:
RITM – Operates various capital management companies that provide credit to real estate developers, mortgages, and other alternative investments. The recent private credit scares have conspired to lower the price to $9.30, which is a PE of 8x. The dividend yield is a very healthy 10.7%. This is very undervalued.
SBRA – Contrary to what the name implies, Sabra does NOT operate any health care sites. They own the real estate that the health care sites occupy. This provides a steady, growing stream of income. They pay 6.4% dividend.
COF – Capital One is a bank with a concentration in credit card issuance. Since completing the purchase of Discover cards, the stock has fallen on the fear of credit defaults. I believe this is overdone, and the price represents good value. You can collect a 1.75% dividend while you wait for price appreciation.

Current Portfolio

With all of that said, here is a look at our current portfolio.

STOCK	SHARES	AVG. COST	CURRENT PRICE	FIRST PURCHASE
SNAP	500	$7.58	$5.23	8/5/2025
GOOGL	5	$238.74	$359.80	10/10/2025
AMZN	10	$135.49	$237.70	2/10/2023
AAPL	5	$258.98	$290.75	1/9/2026
NVDA	20	$47.72	$204.96	1/02/2024
NKE	50	$66.02	$45.07	9/11/2025
PLTR	10	$135.03	$128.21	2/19/2026
SOUN	445	$4.94	$6.95	2/15/2024
ARKB	45	$19.46	$21.11	5/1/2024
MSFT	7	$408.79	$389.44	10/31/2024
BA	15	$210.44	$219.74	5/20/2025
PANW	10	$166.03	$278.44	8/7/2025
JOBY	450	$12.33	$9.17	8/19/2025
PTON	1,200	$6.09	$5.56	10/14/2025
META	8	$623.57	$564.59	10/30/2025
COF	20	$203.37	$184.10	1/23/2026
SBRA	150	$18.42	$18.81	1/27/2026
HOOD	15	$74.99	$93.30	2/19/2026
RITM	300	$9.51	$9.32	4/29/2026
SPCX	14	$135	$161.22	6/12/2025

Thought of the Day

The ONLY time you fail is when you fall down and stay down. We will all run into roadblocks, obstacles to our own success. I’ve always said that is where we learn the most. Knowing what not to do is just as valuable as knowing what to do. I’ve seen too many people handed the things in life without having to work for them. They lack the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes with your hard-won success, and the knowledge that you’ve picked yourself up and tried again and realized the goal, whatever it may be.

Always looking forward to your comments.

Go ‘Canes!!