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 her. Landed back home Sunday night, packed again and now I actually sit on a plane with my son, delivering him to college. So, this post is about last week but is being finalized on August 17.
What it means when a company sells more stock
I know I keep writing about AI but that is where I keep finding good teaching moments. This week held the same.
Intel sold stock this week. The company raised $20 billion by selling new shares at $95 each, and it was the first time Intel has done that since it went public in 1971. The money is going toward building capacity to meet demand for artificial intelligence.
This is where the teaching moment comes if you are new(er) to investing. A company that needs money has three ways to get it. It can earn the money. It can borrow the money. Or it can sell a piece of itself. Intel chose the third one.
Here is why that matters to you if you own the stock. A share is a fraction of a company. Using a very simple example, if a company has 100 shares and you hold one of them, you own one hundredth of everything that company is and everything it earns. Now the company creates 20 new shares and sells them. There are now 120 shares. You still hold one so your percentage of ownership decreased.
That is called dilution. It is not a scandal and it is not hidden. It is simply the cost of raising money this way.
What makes Intel interesting is that the company spent roughly $82 billion in the 2010s doing the exact opposite. It bought its own shares back and retired them. Fewer shares, same company, so every remaining share became a slightly bigger fraction. That is a buyback, and it is the mirror image of what happened this week.
So the same company shrank the number of shares for years and has now added a large batch of new ones. If you had owned Intel that entire stretch, your piece grew and then it shrank, and you never bought or sold a thing.
Now the useful part. When a company you own announces it is selling new shares, the question is not whether dilution is good or bad. The question is what they are buying with the money. A company selling shares to build something that will earn more money later is a different animal from a company selling shares because it is short on cash. Same mechanic. Completely different story.
Intel says it is building. Whether that pays off is a separate question and nobody knows the answer yet, including Intel.
Two more quick items.
- On the same theme, Nvidia is working with a group of large investment firms to put together more than $500 billion for AI construction. Until now the technology companies have been paying for this out of their own pockets. That money is starting to come from somewhere else. I will come back to what that means when it is clearer.
- Berkshire Hathaway this week announced they increased their stake in Alphabet (and Delta Air Lines). What this means to you……only you know. For me, it validates that I recently increased my stake in GOOGL. For you, it could mean you want to start a position or it could mean nothing at all.
People spent less in July
Americans spent less at stores in July. Retail sales fell 0.6 percent when economists had expected a small increase, and it was the biggest monthly drop in more than a year.
That matters more than it sounds like it should. Consumer spending is roughly two thirds of the entire American economy. When people pull back, it eventually reaches everything, including the companies whose stock you own.
So why did people pull back? Prices are 3.4 percent higher than they were a year ago. Pay is rising about 3.2 percent a year. When prices climb faster than your paycheck, you fall behind. Not by much in any one month, but you do fall behind.
People do not need a report to know this. The University of Michigan asks Americans every month how they feel about the economy and their own finances. The August reading came in near the lowest level ever recorded in a survey that has run since 1952. Inside that same survey, only eight percent of people expect their income to keep up with prices over the coming year.
Here is the part I find interesting. In the same week all of that came out, the S&P 500 set a record close of 7,798.99 on Thursday. The market and the household were telling two completely different stories.
The week itself was quiet underneath that record. The S&P 500 gained 0.36 percent, the Nasdaq gained 0.14 percent and the Dow lost 0.56 percent.
One more thing, and it has nothing to do with money
I turned 60 this week. I spent it in Baton Rouge, moving Thalia into her dorm at LSU.
I do not have much to say about the number yet. I have a great deal to say about the week, and none of it is ready. Next Saturday I do this again in North Carolina, with my son Jaden.
That is why this one is short. I wanted the time. I needed the time. It was a sad week saying goodbye to my best friend but a blessed week to give her the chance to spread her wings and fly.
Blessings Come From the Worst of Times.
See you next Saturday.
Christopher
Weekly Notes — August 29, 2026