It seems like no one knows what to think about AI stocks these days.

For every expert screaming “full speed ahead!”, there’s another one warning investors to pump the brakes.

Last week, our friends at MarketBeat invited Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld onto their YouTube channel for an interview on this very topic.

Was the recent shakiness in the sector just a blip on the radar… or something more?

How concerned should investors be about buying stocks at 52-week highs?

And most importantly, is AI in a “bubble”… and if so, when will it pop?

Marc answers all these questions during the interview and even provides two free stock picks:

• A growth play that operates in an AI hotbed and counts Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) among its customers
• A defensive agriculture play that gives investors the best of both worlds: a hedge against AI while still maintaining exposure to it.

To watch the interview and get Marc’s two free picks, click here or on the image above.

The post Will the AI Bubble Burst in 2026? appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

When a stock dominates headlines and dinner conversations, the easy money is usually gone. That doesn’t make it a bad business. It just means the market has already done the rewarding.

I suspect that may be where Advanced Micro Devices (Nasdaq: AMD) sits today. The company is no longer the challenger it once was. It’s a fixture of the modern tech landscape.

Its chips power servers, PCs, gaming consoles, and now some of the most demanding AI workloads in the world. And investors know this. That’s why the stock price reflects it.

As you can see, after spending much of last year building a base, AMD didn’t grind higher. It surged. Shares leapt from below $80 in April to well above $250 in a short window before volatility set in.

Now, it’s easy to look at AMD and see a “chipmaker.” But that can be reductive.

The company designs high-performance semiconductors across data centers, consumer devices, gaming, and other computation-heavy ecosystems. Nowadays, that means the company sits at the intersection of cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

That’s a powerful place to be – as the market acknowledges. But it’s also a crowded one.

The latest quarter shows that the business is firing on all cylinders. Revenue rose 36% year over year to $9.2 billion, driven by strength in data centers, AI accelerators, and client CPUs. Operating income expanded. Free cash flow hit a record $1.5 billion.

The balance sheet is solid: over $7 billion in cash and about $3.2 billion in debt. AMD has room to invest without stretching itself.

This is a solid business producing great cash flow.

But the question isn’t whether AMD is a great company. (It is.) The real question is whether you’re being offered value at today’s price.

That, of course, is where our handy-dandy Value Meter comes in.

AMD’s enterprise value-to-net asset value ratio sits at 5.83. The broader universe averages 3.82. This tells us investors are paying a premium for AMD’s assets and its future. That premium may prove justified – but it leaves little room for error.

On efficiency, AMD’s free cash flow-to-net asset value ratio is 1.15%, only slightly above the 1.12% average. That’s fine. It’s not exceptional.

Where AMD does stand out is consistency. Over the past three years, it’s grown its quarterly free cash flow 54.5% of the time, well ahead of peers. Execution has been steady. The momentum is real.

In short, AMD has strong growth and solid cash generation… but a valuation that already assumes both will continue.

The stock’s recent run reinforces the point. Much of the upside came quickly, driven by shifting expectations, not neglected value. Early buyers were paid. New buyers are paying attention – and paying up.

For long-term holders, patience still makes sense. The business is strong, and the strategy is intact.

For new capital, discipline matters. The margin of safety is thin, and thin margins tend to show up after sharp rallies, not before them.

The Value Meter rates AMD as “Appropriately Valued.”

What stock would you like me to run through The Value Meter next? Post the ticker symbol(s) in the comments section below.

The post AMD Is a Great Story… but Is It a “Buy”? appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

While most investors overlook this critical piece of the AI ecosystem, Alex believes it could become one of the most important beneficiaries of the next phase of the tech boom.

He details this below…

– James Ogletree, Senior Managing Editor

Artificial intelligence has generated no shortage of commentary – breathless predictions, dire warnings, sweeping promises. Yet for all the noise, very little attention is being paid to the single most important question for investors: What must happen behind the scenes for AI to actually deliver on its potential?

Because while the conversation tends to focus on what AI can do, the more consequential issue is what AI requires to function at scale.

The newest generation of AI chips is astonishingly powerful. Nvidia’s latest architecture, for example, processes data at speeds that would have seemed impossible a few years ago. But this development has created a less glamorous – yet absolutely fundamental – challenge. These chips generate extraordinary heat, consume enormous amounts of energy, and produce more data per second than most existing systems can handle.

This is rarely discussed outside technical circles. Yet it is the limiting factor that determines how far and how fast AI can advance.

We are building larger and larger GPU clusters – some with hundreds of thousands of chips working in unison – and asking them to perform tasks that dwarf the demands of even the most powerful supercomputers of the last decade. But here’s the problem: These chips can’t operate effectively unless they can communicate with one another at incredibly high speeds… without melting the servers they occupy.

In other words, AI doesn’t rise or fall on clever algorithms alone. It depends on the physical infrastructure that underpins them.

And that’s where things get interesting.

There is a relatively small American company – one you almost certainly haven’t heard of – that has quietly solved the most important bottleneck in AI today. It doesn’t develop models or design chips. It builds the connective tissue that allows these chips to exchange data at blistering speeds while keeping heat and system instability in check.

Without this capability, the highly publicized advances in AI simply don’t work in the real world.

That’s why nearly every major player in the industry – Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Amazon, Microsoft, and others – relies on this firm’s technology. It is not an exaggeration to say that the most advanced AI clusters on the planet could not operate at scale without it.

This is the part most investors fail to appreciate.

Technological revolutions rarely reward the companies that generate the headlines. They reward the companies that quietly make the entire ecosystem function.

During the dot-com boom, investors bid up flashy internet stocks to absurd levels while ignoring the behind-the-scenes firms that enabled the internet to actually run. Cisco, which built the routers that moved data from point A to point B, became one of the most profitable investments of that era. So did companies like Akamai, which solved the problem of delivering content efficiently across the web.

Meanwhile, many of the companies that investors thought would change the world disappeared entirely. Their business models weren’t sustainable. Their valuations weren’t rational. And the innovations they hoped to commercialize were ultimately built – or bought – by others.

The same dynamic is unfolding today in AI.

Investors are clamoring for the biggest names, the megacap platforms spending billions to stay ahead of their competitors. And many of these firms will continue to do well. But the most underappreciated beneficiaries of the AI boom are not the giants creating the models. They are the companies enabling those models to run safely, reliably, and at scale.

Consider the magnitude of what’s happening right now. Global data-center construction is accelerating at a rate we’ve never seen. Companies are racing to build new GPU clusters as fast as they can pour concrete. Entire power grids are being upgraded just to support these facilities. And late last year, a consortium of some of the largest firms in the world announced a multi-hundred-billion-dollar initiative to build what may become the largest AI supercomputing system ever attempted.

All of this expansion hinges on a single, unavoidable requirement: the system must be able to handle the data produced by the chips that power it.

Most investors don’t think about this step at all. They assume it’s already solved. It isn’t.

And that is precisely why the company addressing this challenge is not just a “nice to have” in the AI supply chain – it is foundational.

This is also where history acts as a guide. When investors become overly fixated on a narrow group of winners – whether it’s the Nifty Fifty in the 1970s, the dot-com darlings of the late 1990s, or the megacap tech giants of today – the biggest opportunities often emerge elsewhere. Not in the obvious place, but in the necessary place.

AI will undoubtedly reshape industries across the economy. It will enhance productivity, lower costs, accelerate drug development, improve supply chains, and transform manufacturing. But none of this happens unless the underlying infrastructure keeps pace with the models themselves.

In the meantime, investors would do well to remember that the biggest profits are rarely made where the crowd is already looking. They’re made where essential progress is being created – quietly, consistently, and before the rest of the world notices.

The post The AI Question People Aren’t Asking appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

It’s also no secret that China and the U.S. are in a race to AI dominance that may make previous conflicts look like child’s play in comparison.

While Eisenhower may have gotten the credit for the Allies’ victory on D-Day, it was the privates scrambling out of the landing craft that got the job done.

It’s the same with AI. Chips made by companies like Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) get all the glory, while it will be energy that will do the heavy lifting.

That’s why President Trump is pushing for more development of nuclear energy and encouraging oil companies to drill.

As a result, nuclear stocks have gone… well, nuclear.

Even though Trump is trying to squash alternative energy, investors know that AI will require every bit of energy that can be produced, whether it’s from fossil fuels, nuclear, or solar and wind.

As a result, solar stocks are also up sharply.

Meanwhile, oil and gas stocks have gone nowhere. They’re pretty flat for the year.

And that gives us an excellent opportunity.

Over the past 20 years, the price of oil has gyrated back and forth between roughly $20 and $100 per barrel. (There were a few outliers, like when oil prices briefly went negative and when they spiked to $147.)

Today, it’s barely above $60, which means quality oil stocks are on sale.

Companies like small cap Precision Drilling (NYSE: PDS) are trading at less than six times free cash flow. The company generated $150 million in free cash flow over the past 12 months. Despite Precision’s earnings being projected to grow 298% over the next five years, the stock trades at just 11 times forward earnings.

Tidewater (NYSE: TDW), which provides vessels for offshore oil drilling, also generates plenty of cash flow and is trading at a big discount at less than nine times free cash flow and 13 times forward earnings.

Lastly, one of my favorite companies, Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD), which operates pipelines to transport oil and gas, pays a 7% tax-deferred dividend and is on pace to generate nearly $8 billion in distributable cash flow, which means the stock is trading at just eight times cash flow.

Whatever trend is hot in the market, I like to dig a little deeper to find the value and the companies that are vital to the new technology.

Energy is that sector in the booming AI space.

The post The “Excellent Opportunity” in the Energy Sector appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Yet most of it misses the essential point for investors.

Let me explain…

On the negative side, AI will eliminate millions of blue-collar jobs that involve routine physical tasks and white-collar jobs such as analyzing data, drafting documents, or handling customer service calls.

Privacy and security challenges loom large. That’s because AI doesn’t just enhance cybersecurity efforts. It also empowers hackers, cyber criminals, and other bad actors.

And deep fakes will make it much harder for people to know if the information or instructions they receive are accurate – or even legitimate.

On the positive side, AI will transform healthcare with more accurate diagnoses, faster drug discovery, and personalized treatment regimens tailored to the patient’s personal genome.

In transportation, it creates self-driving cars and trucks, smarter traffic controls, and coordination of urban infrastructure to lower carbon emissions, reduce accidents and save lives.

In education, it will provide personalized instruction, adapt materials to each student’s pace and learning style, and shrink learning gaps.

There are many more positives, of course, as well as many more negatives.

AI – like most transformative technologies – is not inherently good or bad.

It is a set of risks… and opportunities.

Yet little of the discussion centers on the most transformative aspect of AI: How it will dramatically enhance corporate productivity and efficiency at non-tech companies.

AI will boost economic growth, increase corporate sales, and make public companies far more profitable.

That’s great news for shareholders.

And investors have bid up The Magnificent Seven – and other megacap tech leaders – to record highs.

Since these stocks make up more than a third of the S&P 500, the market has hit record highs too.

But as an investor, the important thing to understand is the world-changing ramifications…

This is not just about the companies creating and improving AI.

It’s about the many hundreds of public companies whose business fortunes will improve dramatically as a result.

For example, during the dot-com boom 26 years ago, investors could foresee the dramatic impact of the internet.

As a result, they bid the leading internet companies on the Nasdaq to levels that were ultimately unsustainable.

The result? From its March 2000 peak to its October 2002 trough, the Nasdaq lost three-quarters of its value.

And many internet stocks lost over 90% of their value.

Think about that. The leading internet stocks were worth only a tenth as much a couple years later, even though the internet did indeed “change everything.”

Over the past few decades, every company has had to move a significant portion of its operations online.

Every company had to cut costs by eliminating middlemen.

And every company began selling products and services on its own website and through other e-commerce sites.

If they didn’t – or were slow to adapt – they’re no longer around.

Many of the dot-com names that investors were chasing – like eToys and Pets.com – are gone.

Former tech darlings like Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) have massively underperformed the market.

Heck, Intel is worth less than it was 26 years ago.

Meanwhile, companies that were not obvious internet beneficiaries at the time – Old Dominion Freight Line (Nasdaq: ODFL), Deckers Outdoors (NYSE: DECK) and Visa (NYSE: V) for example – are up tens of thousands of percent.

Don’t get me wrong. Most AI stocks are not as overpriced today as internet stocks were in the first quarter of 2000.

I don’t believe they will crash and burn like the Nasdaq did 25 years ago.

But many of them are likely to underperform in the months and years ahead.

And the likely outperformers? They are not the ones spending countless billions to build and improve these platforms.

They are the ordinary companies that will be the beneficiaries of all that spending.

Banks, manufacturers, retailers, hospitals, homebuilders, energy companies and even utilities will see a huge increase in efficiency, productivity, and profitability.

But – here’s the key point – without spending all that money, much of it will ultimately be written off because the innovations don’t turn out to be best of class.

Instead, these non-tech companies will merely buy – or subscribe to – what they need and reap the benefits.

That means many of tomorrow’s best-performing stocks – from both an offensive and a defensive standpoint – will be not The Magnificent Seven but smaller companies.

We have many of these in our Oxford Club portfolios now, as we position for the eventual rotation out of Big Tech and into Global Value.

Bottom line? The upside is greater. The valuations are better. (Much better.) And the downside risk is far lower.

Given the market events of the past few weeks, this rotation already appears to be underway.

That means the high-growth/low-risk play today is not the tech behemoths that everyone has been chasing for the past two years.

It’s value stocks, both large and small.

The post The Move Out of Big Tech Is Underway appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

I built a tool – one of many I’ve created over the years – that used volatility to spot quick trades in options, typically holding for no more than a week or two.

That tool worked quite well. In fact, one of my biggest wins was from the very company we’re looking at today. (It gave me a nice 100% option win in less than 24 hours.)

But today, we’re not chasing short-term spikes. We’re looking at the company’s financials.

Samsara (Nasdaq: IOT) helps companies run their physical operations more efficiently. Its software tracks trucks, trailers, equipment, and more, using data and AI to cut waste and improve safety.

Let me give you the facts…

In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, which ended on May 3, Samsara brought in $367 million in revenue, up 31% from the same time last year. The company’s net loss shrank to $22.1 million, a big improvement from $56.3 million a year ago. It also turned in $45.7 million in free cash flow, compared with $18.6 million last year.

Margins are moving the right way, too. Gross margin hit 79%, up from 77%. Adjusted operating margin was 14%, also up year over year. Management now expects full-year revenue of $1.547 billion to $1.555 billion, with adjusted free cash flow margin set to beat last year’s figure by about 1 percentage point.

The business is growing across the board. Samsara now has 2,638 customers spending over $100,000 per year. That’s up 35% from last year. It added 154 new large customers in the last quarter alone. Wins include names like 7-Eleven, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, and Knife River, a construction firm that was spun off from MDU Resources.

But what do the numbers say?

Samsara’s EV/NAV is 16.61, compared with a universe average of 6.09. That tells us investors are paying a premium – likely for future growth and high retention.

Its FCF/NAV ratio is 0.44%. That may not sound like much, but it beats the universe average of -1.19%. The company’s free cash flow has grown quarter over quarter 63.6% of the time, compared with 46.3% for the typical stock.

Put simply: Samsara is still scaling, but it’s doing so with better cash discipline than most.

Now, the stock isn’t cheap. But it’s also not riding a hype wave. It’s actually down this year.

That can be a good sign: The market isn’t overreacting even as the business keeps improving.

If you want exposure to AI – especially through a company tied to more concrete things like trucks, warehouses, and field work – Samsara is worth a close look. It’s not a screaming bargain, but it’s building something durable.

The Value Meter rates Samsara as “Appropriately Valued.”

What stock would you like me to run through The Value Meter next? Post the ticker symbol(s) in the comments section below.

The post Samsara’s Numbers Are Finally Catching Up to the Hype appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

“We can’t even imagine how our lives are going to change…”

In a recent interview with our friends at MarketBeat, our very own Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld made that bold declaration about quantum computing – an emerging tech field that he believes has a ton of potential.

When you hear those words from someone who had a front-row seat to the dot-com crash and is often skeptical of the fads that pop up and become the “next big thing” seemingly overnight…

It should catch your attention.

While Marc says AI is currently in “the third, maybe fourth inning” from an investment standpoint, he believes the quantum computing game is just getting underway.

In his view, that equates to a “much longer runway” and a better opportunity.

During the interview, Marc shared more about why he’s so bullish on quantum computing – and even listed three of his favorite stocks to capitalize on it.

Here’s just some of what he covered:

• What quantum computing is and how it could transform various industries
• Details on why he believes quantum computing has more upside than AI
• Two household names that are quietly positioning themselves to be leaders in the quantum computing space
• A lesser-known growth play with $1.7 billion in cash and no debt
• Why he loves investing in “pick and shovel” plays regardless of the sector.

To watch the full interview, “3 Quantum Computing Stocks That Could Change Everything,” click here or on the image above!

The post 3 Tech Stocks Making Big Strides appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

The same opportunity is happening with quantum computing right now.

In fact, there’s a $20 company that supplies the essential material that makes light-speed computers possible.

Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld projects the stock could see 1,500% gains and rise to $300 as demand explodes.

Find out how to get the ticker symbol here.

– James Ogletree, Senior Managing Editor

I consider myself fortunate to have had a front-row seat to history.

I lived in San Francisco during the dot-com boom. It was a wild time. My wife and I both worked for dot-com startups. Most people we knew either worked for or had some connection to a dot-com company.

Watching the development of the internet unfold in real time and seeing what was going on behind the scenes was an invaluable lesson about new trends, greed, and hubris – and, perhaps most importantly, what it takes for a business to thrive in a new industry.

I was enough of a student of history to realize that what I was witnessing and participating in, while uncommon, was not unheard of. There have been several times that industries completely changed the way Americans – and then the rest of the world – lived. Those disruptions led to immense creations of wealth.

In 1869, the transcontinental railroad was born. By 1880, $50 million worth of goods were being transported each year. (That’s nearly $1.6 billion in today’s dollars.) Within just a few years, there were 364 railroad companies.

Radio was the 1920 equivalent of the dot-coms. In 1921, there were five radio stations in America. Six years later, there were 681.

Radio stocks were a big factor in the Roaring ’20s stock market, with RCA rising 200X.

Of course, there were other industry booms as well, such as autos in the early part of the 20th century and personal computers at the end of the century.

These were all generational changes that drastically improved billions of lives.

Today, we’re on the cusp of another such change.

In fact, we’re on the cusp of two of them.

Surely, you’re familiar by now with artificial intelligence, or AI. Even if you haven’t used it yourself, you’re aware of its capabilities. We’re all just now starting to perceive how much the world is going to change because of AI.

But there’s another quieter change coming that I suspect will be just as important as AI – if not more important.

Quantum computing.

Quantum computing makes today’s supercomputers look like an old Wang PC from 1984. In just minutes, quantum computers can solve complex problems that take today’s most powerful computers years to solve.

In fact, Google developed a quantum computing chip that needed only five minutes to solve a problem that would take the world’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years to solve. (Ten septillion is a 1 followed by 25 zeros.) Think about that in years. Now, think about condensing that to five minutes. It’s absolutely mind-blowing.

You can imagine the potential and what it will mean for the companies at the forefront of this technology (as well as their investors).

Here’s the thing: In every boom, whether it was railroads, radio, or the internet, there was excess, and when the bubble burst, investors got hurt chasing copycat companies that had no real edge.

The ones with lasting power, such as Ford Motor Company, Cisco Systems, Amazon, and others like them, consistently found ways to create value for their customers and shareholders.

There is going to be a lot of money to be made in the AI and quantum computing space over the next few years. But there are also going to be a lot of companies that are simply cashing in on the craze without offering anything unique.

Find the companies that are the early creators of these technologies and that have big leads over new competition. They are likely going to be the big winners that will move the needle in a very big way in your portfolio.

Good investing,

Marc

P.S. The potential of quantum computing technology is absolutely staggering.

Right now, in an enormous facility in the Arizona desert…

One incredible company is doing something that you’ll have to hear to believe…

It’s producing a special material capable of harnessing the raw power of light itself.

This breakthrough material – which I call “TF3” – can grab and direct individual particles of light to unleash computing power beyond anything we’ve ever seen.

Today, I want to show you what this breakthrough could mean for your wealth… if you act fast.

Click here to see how TF3 could power a $2 trillion wealth explosion over the next decade.

The post Quantum Computing: The “Mind-Blowing” Next Phase of the Tech Revolution appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

I remember when my parents brought home our first computer and I played my first computer game (though I could never get the floppy disk to run right). There wasn’t much else to do with the machine yet, aside from writing and playing Solitaire.

Years passed, and life changed big-time.

We moved from New York City to the Long Island suburbs. I started taking computer classes in middle school, learning the basics of this new technology. And soon I was putting in CDs of the Encyclopedia Britannica, feeling as if I had access to the world’s knowledge at my fingertips.

Little did I know the world was going through a wave of innovation thanks to the internet.

While I was playing “Math Munchers” on CD-ROM – I can still hear that menu screen music – business owners were quietly building websites and empires that would reshape commerce forever.

But here’s the crazy part…

As companies like Amazon and eBay became the household names of the internet boom, one company was the behind-the-scenes giant making money from every single digital move.

That company was Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO).

Every time you visited a website or sent an email back then, your data traveled through networks built with Cisco gear. The company wasn’t selling books to consumers. It was selling the routers and switches that made it all possible.

It was the perfect “pick and shovel” play during the internet gold rush.

And now it’s at it again with artificial intelligence.

The Same Playbook, Different Era

Cisco just reported great third quarter numbers. Revenue hit $14.1 billion, up 11% year over year. More importantly, the company pulled in over $600 million in AI gear orders from big tech companies in just one quarter.

That brought its AI revenue to over $1 billion for the first three quarters of fiscal 2025, enabling it to beat its target a full quarter early.

The stock has done well, climbing from lows around $36 in 2022 to current levels near $68.

But here’s what really matters for your money: Cisco made $4.1 billion in operating cash flow last quarter. (That’s real money, not accounting tricks.) It also returned $3.1 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks, bringing the total to $9.6 billion returned so far this year.

This isn’t some growth-at-any-cost story. It’s a mature company throwing off serious cash while getting ready for the AI boom. It’s even working with Nvidia to make Cisco gear the standard for AI setup.

Think about the potential here if every major AI rollout were to include Cisco equipment by default. The company could immediately return to a dominant position within the tech sector.

What the Numbers Actually Mean

The Value Meter shows some good metrics for Cisco.

The company’s enterprise value-to-net asset value (EV/NAV) ratio sits at 6.15, meaning you’re paying about $6 for every dollar of business assets after covering debts. With our universe average at 12.32, Cisco trades at roughly half the typical premium.

More telling is its free cash flow-to-net asset value (FCF/NAV) percentage of 7.66%. That tells us the company makes over $7 in free cash flow for every $100 in net assets. Compare that with our universe average of -26.98%, and you’re looking at an impressive cash generator.

Cisco’s free cash flow growth consistency tells the real story. It grew free cash flow quarter over quarter 45.5% of the time over the past three years, nearly matching our universe average of 47.58%. This isn’t a company with wild swings – it’s one that’s steadily improving.

Now, Cisco faces real challenges. Competition is tough. Economic downturns hurt infrastructure spending. Tariffs create headwinds.

However, there are also multiple tailwinds pushing the company forward, including a 54% spike in security revenue, increased government orders, and heightened demand as a result of the 5G rollout.

When I look at Cisco, here’s what I see: a company with a dominant market position, $15.6 billion in cash, and partnerships that put it at the center of the AI buildout.

It isn’t the flashy AI stock making headlines. It’s the infrastructure play that quietly profits from everyone else’s AI dreams.

For conservative investors wanting AI exposure without the volatility, Cisco offers something rare: a combination of steady dividends, consistent cash flow, and upside in a massive tech shift.

Sometimes the best investments aren’t the companies everyone’s talking about.

They’re the ones building the backbone that makes everything else work.

The Value Meter rates Cisco Systems as “Appropriately Valued.”

What stock would you like me to run through The Value Meter next? Post the ticker symbol(s) in the comments section below.

The post Cisco: The Internet’s Best-Kept Secret Is at It Again appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

That baby boy had no clue he would one day type away on the internet with his thoughts about money, markets, and – elsewhere than this column – his Maker.

My journey as a writer began early, though not always well.

My first bit of writing was on a VTech children’s laptop at age 6. From the rented upstairs of our Brooklyn home, I aimed to investigate the local crime on our block.

Three shops had been robbed at gunpoint in three weeks’ time. The cops, according to the newsman on TV, didn’t have any leads. But my 6-year-old brain thought I could write down the clues and solve the mystery.

It was a failed attempt. But it sparked my love for writing.

Years passed before I tried again. In middle school, I sought to write a book on space travel, robots, and the meaning of life.

Yes, this was in middle school. No, I knew almost nothing about such deep topics.

But that didn’t stop me. I wrote a preface and two chapters, then never touched the project again. (Cartoons were a bit of a distraction in those days.)

Everything changed in my teen years.

In high school, I found a book in the library that would change my life forever: the first part of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica.

It was my first time seeing the power of pure logic and argument at work. It grabbed my mind in a way that, to this day, I haven’t forgotten. I was baptized in that moment, in that library, into the life of an intellectual.

From that point forward, I wanted to think deeply, write slowly, and answer all of life’s most pressing questions.

Philosophy became a way of life for me, not just an academic subject. It shaped how I saw and approached the world.

Now, you’re likely thinking, “That’s all well and good… but what’s this have to do with this column?”

The connection is deeper than you might expect.

This column isn’t only a space to pick apart stocks. It’s also meant to reveal the biases we all carry when seeking rewards and avoiding risks.

Just as philosophy taught me to do, The Value Meter strips emotions away and uses a logical approach to a key question: Why?

Why should I buy – or not buy – this stock right now?

Today’s company is a perfect example of why this matters. It’s a very popular company – you’ll know it well. It has an almost magnetic appeal to most investors’ hearts.

But here’s the question we must focus on: Should investors be drawn to it at all?

The company I’m talking about is Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL).

The Most Beloved Company in the World

It’s a popular myth that Apple is a technology company. It’s not. It’s a lifestyle brand that has created something every business dreams of: a passionate following among customers who become evangelists for the brand.

When someone buys their first iPhone, they often end up buying an Apple Watch, AirPods, maybe a MacBook… and before they know it, they’re paying for services throughout Apple’s entire ecosystem. There’s probably an Apple product within arm’s reach of you right now.

Apple’s second quarter results show a company that’s still printing money, even if the pace has slowed. Total revenue came in at $95.4 billion, up 5% from the second quarter of last year. The iPhone alone brought in $46.8 billion, up a modest 2%.

But the real story is Apple’s Services segment, which includes recurring revenue streams like the App Store, iCloud, and subscriptions. It generated $26.6 billion – a 12% increase year over year and an all-time record. That accounted for 27.9% of the company’s total revenue, up from 26.3% in the same quarter last year.

This is the kind of predictable income that makes investors fall in love.

The Stock’s Wild Ride

Apple’s stock tells a story, too.

Shares climbed steadily through 2024, reaching peaks above $250 by early 2025. But then something interesting happened: Despite solid financial results, the stock gave back much of those gains.

That climb above $250 looks almost parabolic in hindsight – the kind of move that often signals investor euphoria rather than rational valuation.

The market seems to be grappling with the same question we’re asking: At what price does even the world’s best company become too expensive?

To answer that, we need to strip away the emotional attachment and focus on the cold, hard facts.

So let’s see what The Value Meter reveals about this most beloved of companies.

The Value Meter Verdict

When we apply our three-metric framework to Apple, something fascinating emerges.

Yes, Apple trades at a premium. The company’s enterprise value-to-net asset value ratio sits at 44.35, well above the peer average of 12.31. At first glance, this screams “expensive.”

But here’s where the beauty of cash flow analysis shines through. Apple’s average free cash flow-to-net asset value ratio comes in at 37.87% over the past four quarters. Compare that with the peer average of just 8.33%, and suddenly that premium starts to make sense.

Apple isn’t just expensive – it’s expensive for a reason. The company generates cash over four times more efficiently than its peers. When you’re paying a premium for a money-printing machine that actually prints more money than anyone else, the math changes entirely.

The consistency factor seals the deal. Apple has delivered positive free cash flow in each of the past four quarters. No hiccups, no surprises, just steady cash generation quarter after quarter.

Even at these elevated valuations, the company’s cash generation prowess suggests there’s still value to be found. For investors who are willing to pay a premium for quality and consistency, Apple offers exactly that.

The Value Meter rates Apple as “Slightly Undervalued.”

What stock would you like me to run through The Value Meter next? Post the ticker symbol(s) in the comments section below.

The post The World’s Greatest Company Looks Expensive… but Is It? appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.