market commentary

Weekly Notes for October 10, 2026 on how Delta responded to a $1.6 billion increase in fuel costs

Weekly Notes — October 10, 2026

It has been a rough week of being sick. I have slept a ton but thankfully, prior to going down and out, Cerebras provided a teaching moment, and driving in to work Friday at 4:30 a.m. provided another as I…

Weekly Notes for October 3, 2026 on three 2026 IPOs and why the IPO price is not the price you pay

Weekly Notes — October 3, 2026

I am working on this post mid-flight heading out to see my daughter for Family Weekend at LSU. The prices you see below are Thursday’s closing prices from October 1st. Once I touch down in Louisiana, we have a crazy…

Weekly Notes for September 26, 2026 on the 10-year Treasury and mortgage rates

Weekly Notes — September 26, 2026

The stock market had a quiet week. The Dow finished up 0.28 percent, the S&P 500 up 1.21 percent and the Nasdaq up 2.06 percent. Mortgage rates did not have a quiet week. I do not know if that is…

Weekly Notes for September 19, 2026 on eight and a half months of stock market ups and downs

Weekly Notes — September 19, 2026

It took me quite a while to live what I am trying to demonstrate here. I once held my breath on bad stretches in the stock market. When COVID began and the market absolutely plummeted, it took every ounce of…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes card for September 12, 2026, on how the same inflation report affects people differently and what record diesel prices mean for consumers.

Weekly Notes — September 12, 2026

I went back and forth this week to find a teaching moment within the news then the inflation report came out Friday and the market rallied on it. I want to spend a little time walking through those numbers because…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes card for September 5, 2026, covering mortgage rates rising during the Iran conflict and a revised jobs report.

Weekly Notes — September 5, 2026

It is Friday night and I am working to get this post published. Tomorrow is the start of all the big college football games. I am excited to watch my Georgia Bulldogs. They are mine…… not because I graduated from…

Weekly Notes card dated August 29, 2026 from Money and Inspiration.

Weekly Notes — August 29, 2026

Why Nvidia fell and then rose an hour later Nvidia earnings came out Wednesday afternoon, after the market closed. The numbers were good. Sales were $96.2 billion, more than double what they were a year ago, and higher than what…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes card for August 22, 2026, with the week's summary of Walmart's earnings drop and a Treasury bond buyback that briefly moved yields.

Weekly Notes — August 22, 2026

This was the second week in a row dropping a child off to college so I did not micromanage the daily news. From a distance, things felt very extreme. Big swings. The market headed one direction, I would work a…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes card for August 15, 2026, with the week's summary of Intel selling new stock, a drop in retail sales, and the market closing at a record.

Weekly Notes — August 15, 2026

Not that Weekly Notes is meant to be long but I have to keep this short this week. I have been in Baton Rouge moving my daughter into LSU, and I needed to savor every remaining moment I had with…

Weekly Notes card dated August 8, 2026 from Money and Inspiration.

Weekly Notes — August 8, 2026

There were no notes last Saturday. August 1st belongs to my daughter Isabella. Since she passed away 23 years ago, I have never worked on her day. Three good quarters, three different reactions I have spent a lot of time…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes card for July 25, 2026, with the week's summary of AI spending concerns, a major Nvidia supply deal, and a note on unity from the World Cup.

Weekly Notes — July 25, 2026

We have spent more time on artificial intelligence in these notes than I planned to when I started writing them. I will be honest about that. But it is what is driving the markets right now. And if I am…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes card for July 18, 2026, with the week's summary of stock market declines, the Fed chair on AI investment, and Buffett on careful investing.

Weekly Notes — July 18, 2026

Short one this week. Another hard stretch on my end and I want to spend the time I have on what actually matters. I did just get a post out on How to Read an Earnings Release so check that…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes cover for July 11, 2026, covering Meta's best week since early 2024 driven by new AI models and a Bank of America note on lower-than-expected AI infrastructure costs, the SK Hynix IPO on the Nasdaq raising $26.5 billion as the largest ever U.S. IPO by a foreign company, and a personal reflection on stepping away from the market during a difficult family week and trusting the framework built when things were calm.

Weekly Notes — July 11, 2026

This one is going to be a little different from usual. I want to open with something personal and let the market piece follow. It has been an unusually hard week for me at home, and honestly, showing up to…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes cover for July 4, 2026, covering strong year to date returns for the major stock indexes despite recent volatility, Meta’s pivot to selling AI cloud compute as a response to the Magnificent Seven capex selloff, and two inspirational stories of impossible feats accomplished this week.

Weekly Notes — July 4, 2026

Happy Fourth of July weekend. Some quick housekeeping before we get started. The U.S. stock market was closed Friday for the Fourth of July holiday, so this week’s official close is Thursday July 2. On to the notes. I  will…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes cover for June 27, 2026, covering the Nasdaq Composite's five-day losing streak driven by chip stocks, SpaceX's July 7 addition to the Nasdaq 100 index and what that means for passive index investors, and the Iran ceasefire that fell apart before reaching implementation.

Weekly Notes — June 27, 2026

Quick note before we get started. This was a very tough week personally. Some hard news on the medical front along with some other challenges. It will never compare to the bad week, weeks, months and years when Isabella passed…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes cover for June 20, 2026, covering the Nasdaq's round-trip week from Iran deal optimism through a hawkish Federal Reserve dot plot to a chip-led recovery, plus continuing analysis of SpaceX's first week as a public stock.

Weekly Notes — June 20, 2026

Quick housekeeping note before we get started. The U.S. stock market was closed Friday for Juneteenth, so this week’s closing prices are Thursday’s. The week was four trading days long. That actually fits the story it tells. Let’s get into…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes cover for June 13, 2026, covering SpaceX's record-breaking $75 billion IPO, Alphabet's $80 billion equity raise with Berkshire's $10 billion commitment, and a week of headline-driven market volatility.

Weekly Notes — June 13, 2026

This was a wild week. The market swung in both directions on news that mostly was not about the companies whose stocks were moving. Alphabet’s record stock issuance from last week kept teaching its lesson. And on Friday, the largest…

Money and Inspiration Weekly Notes cover for June 6, 2026, covering the AI rally pullback, Broadcom's drop on great earnings, the worst Nasdaq day in over a year, and the Cerebras update.

Weekly Notes — June 6, 2026

This week the AI rally finally took a real punch to the gut which it does from time to time. The priced-in lesson we have discussed on this site scaled all the way up from individual stocks to the whole…