Stocks Just Had Their Worst Week in a Year. The Companies? Still Fine.
Weekly Market & ValueAligned Portfolio Review — trading week of June 1–5, 2026 The short version The S&P 500 — a list of 500 of the biggest U.S. companies — fell 2.6% last week. Tech stocks fell harder, down 5.6%. Almost all the selling hit the biggest tech and AI names. The average stock barely […]
Amazon (AMZN) Q1 2026 Earnings: Why a 95% Free Cash Flow Drop is Actually Bullish
Why the cash collapse is not the story, the backlog is — and what investors are really being asked to underwrite. TL;DR Trailing twelve-month free cash flow fell 95% to $1.2 billion while Amazon spent $43.2 billion on capex in a single quarter. AWS revenue grew 28% to $37.6 billion — its fastest pace in […]
Alphabet (GOOGL) Q1 2026 Earnings: 5 Surprising Truths Behind the $500B AI Pivot
How Q1 FY2026 turned Google from a search-ad cash machine into the world’s most capital-hungry AI infrastructure builder — and why the headline net income hides the real story. By David Berkowitz · Berk on Value · Published April 30, 2026 TL;DR Alphabet reported Q1 FY2026 revenue of $109.9 billion, up 22% year-over-year — a […]
S&P 500 Hits 7,165: Why 5 VAP Earnings Beat Got Sold Off Anyway
Week ending Friday, April 25, 2026 | Berk on Value | VAP Wealth Advisors TL;DR Five VAP holdings reported earnings this week. All five beat. Three got hammered anyway. The headline S&P 500 record close at 7,165 hides what is actually moving the tape. Intel printed a blowout Q1 , with Data Center & AI […]
The Unpriced Peace Dividend: What an Open Iran Means for Global Markets
April 6, 2026 | TL;DR Iran has 208 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves. Forty-seven years of sanctions have kept most of it offline. James Altucher and Iranian-born investor Kiana Danial argue that regime collapse would trigger a peace dividend larger than the one that followed the Soviet […]
How the Iran Conflict and $111 Oil Are Shaping Stocks – Weekly Market Review
One Variable Rules This Market: Oil, Iran, and the Week That Showed Investors What Really Matters April 5, 2026 | David Berkowitz, CFA | VAP Wealth Advisors TL;DR The S&P 500 snapped a five-week losing streak with a 3.4% gain through Thursday, April 2, led by mega-cap tech and semiconductors — then the weekend changed […]
