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Many employees can't afford a hefty medical bill that pops up out of the blue, but it happens. And employees who are financially stressed are understandably more likely to be distracted at work, costing their employers greatly in lost productivity. Luckily, Aflac plans help with out of pocket expenses not covered by health insurance and can be offered at no direct cost to businesses. Learn more@aflac.com Frumarkets that's aflac.com Frumarkets Berkshire Hathaway is making waves in tech we break down its new $10 billion investment in Alphabet and what this may mean for the Omaha OG and it's a money mover day. We sit down with Shauna Smith, senior investment strategist at Global X ETFs for her latest views on these motion filled markets in a very special interview today. The Tuesday, June 2, it's Brew Markets Daily and I'm Ann Berry. More market details to come, but first, is Berkshire Hathaway shifting gears with one of its biggest bets yet on big tech? The Omaha OG has agreed to invest $10 billion directly into Google parent company Alphabet. That's as part of the tech giant's newly announced 80 billion dollar capital raise to support the expansion of its AI infrastructure. The raise includes both public offerings placements just like this one to Berkshire, while the conglomerate's latest investment in Alphabet brings Berkshire's holdings there to more than $25 billion. That's after a series of Alphabet share purchases over the past year, making the tech bet one of Berkshire's largest equity holdings behind only Apple and American Express. Well, perhaps it signals Berkshire's greater willingness to embrace technology investments under its new CEO, Greg Abel, a shift that some shareholders have been eager to see. That's because for decades Berkshire Hathaway has been known for investing in businesses that founder Warren Buffett could easily understand insurance banks, consumer brands and industrial firms. Apple, to take one example, has been a big position for Berkshire. But even there, Buffett famously referred to that as a consumer stock and reduced Berkshire's stake in the business by more than 75% over time to avoid concentration issues. And the one other tech investment that worked out for Berkshire in a really big way, that's a 17 year position in Chinese EV maker BYD was in fact championed by Buffett's business partner, the late Charlie Munger. That Bet grew over 20 fold, with Berkshire's position peaking at nearly $9 billion. But beyond these, tech has been largely absent at scale from the Berkshire portfolio, prompting some investors to argue the company was missing out on major trends such as artificial intelligence, which makes Berkshire's growing commitment to Alphabet especially noteworthy. The company disclosed an Alphabet stake late in 2025, purchasing roughly 18 million shares worth about $5 billion. And then during the first quarter of this year, Berkshire has more than tripled that position. Well, now it's going a step further with this new $10 billion direct investment. And it comes at a time when Alphabet shares have been volatile this week, even on the news of this $80 billion raise, because the new equity issuance has raised concerns about shareholder dilution and just the enormous sums of AI capex. Even though, and I just want to raise this context, this huge number, $80 billion is ironically, a relatively small one. Alphabet is one of the largest companies in the world, with a market value of roughly $4.4 trillion. And the company sits at the center of the artificial intelligence race through its Google search business, its cloud computing operations, and of course, the Gemini AI platform. Which makes Berkshire's move a clear sign that CEO Greg Abel sees artificial intelligence not as a trend to avoid, but one to start putting real. And he's doing it, of course, in classic Berkshire style, with an eye on value. That $10 billion new position, priced at a 6% discount to Alphabet stock price, close on the day of announcement. But coming up in a moment, our producer John sits down with Shauna Smith, senior investment strategist at global X ETFs for today's money Movers segment. But first, this episode is brought to you by Liquid. John, how many times have you wanted to move your money around the market but had to wait for markets to reopen?
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Oof. And you're setting alarm clocks in advance.
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Well, it's Tuesday, so it's time for our Money Movers segment where we talk to a professional investor about their strategy and what they're seeing in the markets. And earlier today, our producer John had a brilliant conversation with Shauna Smith, senior investment strategist at Global X ETFs which has over $100 billion in assets under management worldwide. They talk AI space and why, despite ongoing political unrest, the market's keep hitting record highs. Here's that conversation.
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All right, Shauna Smith, senior investment strategist at Global X ETFs, thank you so much for being back on the show. You were here a few months ago in the early weeks of the Iran war and your global insight made you a fan favorite.
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I don't know if you know that perspective. Yeah, we heard you make my day, John.
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We heard from a lot of listeners. In a moment we'll get into the specifics of what you're seeing in the defense space. But let's start macro. Despite the volatility in oil prices and we keep every day hearing conflicting reports about what deal might be made with Iran and other countries, markets just had their best May in years. The S and P is on a nine week winning streak. We keep seeing closes of all time highs. What is the disconnect or what is fueling the resiliency?
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So I think there's a couple of things to dig into here. I think One, just in terms of what is fueling this resiliency because I think it's got a lot of investors and maybe come to a bit of a surprise just this continuous march higher that we have seen, especially in the face of the Iran war and the fact that it's dragged on a lot longer than maybe we initially had anticipated. So here we are yet again right around all time highs. And at least from our perspective, the path of least resistance still seems to be and still looks to be to the upside. And I'll tell you why there's a couple of factors going on. One, when you take a look at corporate earnings season and what we saw, the tremendous amount of growth and yes, a lot of the excitement, a lot of the focus was because of the AI sector and what we saw in terms of some of those leading names within that. But I think once you take a look underneath the surface surface, clearly it was so much more than just the Mag 7. We talk a lot about investment opportunity across the stack and we think that was very much on display. So that of course contributing to this more bullish outlook and the more bullish march to higher that we certainly have seen. I also think when you combine what we saw in the air trade also more broadly, what we saw across various industries, we did see very strong performance. And I think when you take a look at the fact that over 80% of the companies that reported within the S and P beat on earnings and beat on sales really just speaks to the extent of the growth and extent of this, of the strength that we certainly are seeing across industries within the market. So there's that piece of it. I also think when you take a look at the econ data, yes. When you take a look at inflation, some worrisome signs just in terms of the longer that the war drags on, the more pressure that puts on energy prices to the upside, then ultimately it's a bit problematic when it comes to inflation. Despite that, if you put that off to the side just a bit, take a look at the other data that we are that, that we have gotten GDP growth. When you take a look at the fact that the labor market, we'll get another reading on Friday. The labor market has remained so resilient. That is also a very, very positive step here for the overall market and it's giving a strong foundation here. So we certainly have seen this return to fundamentals. So all that to say that we still see the path to at least resistance to the upside.
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Well, what should investors who see all time highs and sometimes that's a red flag, meaning, like get out, what should they be thinking?
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You know it is. And a former colleague of mine, Sam Rowe, he's over at the Ticker now, he had a great piece out on this earlier this week and just talked about the fact that a lot of times when we see repeated all time highs or all time highs in general, investors say oh, I've missed my opportunity or we're ready for a big pullback or dramatic pullback. And when you take a look at the historical data and this is exactly what Sam Rowe dug into here over the last couple of days, it actually points to higher highs. So you haven't exactly missed the boat. Yes, it's impossible to time the market. If you're trying to time the market, then you're going to miss some of the biggest opportunities. You have to be ready for some volatility. You have to be prepared. It's not always going to be the straight line to the upside. But when you take a look at past historical or past all time highs, historical data, there's we have seen that momentum continue. So it's not enough. That alone is not something that should spook investors enough to at least stay on the sidelines.
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All right. Talking about being spooked, I find it almost humorous that the headlines keep evoking the dot com bubble because you see the same names. You know, anyone that went through that, you know, we're now seeing Cisco, Dell, intel, all these names seem similar. So is there something similar going on there or does that just make for good headlines?
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C
I think it makes for good headlines. I think maybe the similarity, if you want to draw one comparison, is obviously is the excitement with the dot com bubble versus what we're seeing here with the with. I think we can certainly draw a lot of parallels between just flat out excitement. But I think once again once you look at the fundamentals, once you look at the real earnings that we are starting to see, once we look at the real spending, the capex spending plans from the Mag seven companies once again planning to spend more and more and more and over the next consecutive years when you listen to some of the commentary from the CEOs and other executives within those companies. So I think there is a dramatic difference between what we're seeing now with AI and what we saw, the dot com bubble. And I think because of that there's real reason to believe that that momentum that we have certainly seen to the upside is going to continue.
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Let's talk about AI. It's been such a week already. It's only Tuesday. Anthropic filed for an ipo. Nvidia announced a new AI processor. What is reviving the AI trade? What are we seeing?
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C
There's a lot that's going on. And you also had HP CEO Antonio Newry this week saying that there's a risk in terms of being left behind when it comes to the AI trade. And they just reported their strongest earnings that they've seen up 30 in a couple of years. Yeah, stocks up more than 30% today. And we certainly saw some of that excitement or similar excitement from a name like Snowflake last week and the list goes on. So I think there's a couple of things. One, I think there has, there has been and there will continue to be a shakeout between the winners and the losers within the trade. Some of the selling that we saw was in software names going back to February. I think some of that has been a bit overdone and we've seen this many of those names being able to recoup some of those losses at least. And I also think that when you take a look at the AI trade and where we see the opportunity is when you take a look across the AI stack. So we're talking about the infrastructure names and we say infrastructure everything from data centers to chip makers. We talk about the bottlenecks within the memory space right now. So certainly a Lot of opportunity there. And we take a look and pair that with the capex spending and there's just sheer demand compared to supply. That of course sets us up to really see some significant movement to the upside.
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But there was last fall there was a lot of conversation around the picks and shovel trade around the data centers and that that seemed to transition into the, into the winter of circular capex spending which you're talking about. So what changed that Suddenly the narrative is less about the circular capex.
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I think the narrative is when you take a look at to some of these projections in terms of the build out story and also just those that are cap have the capabilities now we have certainly seen reason to believe that that is going to continue to remain strong. So when you take a look at vacancy rates right now within the data center space, it's around 1.4%. It has entered the year right around 1.4% has continued to fall. So what does that mean? Means that these companies now have more pricing power so they're able to charge more. So then obviously that's going to help their margins in the long run. Also capacity in and of itself, those that are being built, it's expected to double by 2030. So we're talking about a timeline of just about less than four from now. So I think there's a strong reason to believe that the data center trade is not going anywhere anytime fast considering that it's such an important piece, a critical piece to the infrastructure layer and to the AI trade that a lot of these promises, a lot of these at least ambitions here that we're hearing from so many of these companies wouldn't be possible if we don't have the data center later layer up and functioning.
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B
Well, how should we keep an eye on the bottlenecks of energy and these other issues?
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C
You know that's an interesting question there and I think there's a couple of ways to answer that. One, I think that highlights just a sheer opportunity within the commodity space right now. And we talk a lot about the fact that commodities have long been viewed as a tactical trade and we certainly have seen almost a structural shift in terms of the supply dynamic going on. And there's a couple of things. You have the AI space and ultimately what that means for natural resources and, and what that has done to demand across a number of these commodity names. I think also beyond that you have the whole supply and demand dynam coming out of the Iran war. So I think it's more than just the energy trade. We've seen in a couple other commodities as well, just in terms of what is being held back just a bit in the Strait of Hormuz. So I think because of that, when you take a look at the commodity side, when you take a look at the fact that supply has certainly not been able to keep up with demand, is not expected to keep up with demand anytime soon, really, then points to the fact that a lot of these names within the commodity space, you have a different strategy when it comes to portfolio allocation. So no longer just viewed as a hedge against inflation, no longer viewed as just a tactical trade, but more of a structural shift that's going on within the economy and a real reason to also offer some diversification to your portfolio.
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All right, well, talking about that portfolio, if I were to invest in an AI etf, how do I know that I'm not just investing in Nvidia or some of those big company names, but rather the infrastructure?
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C
Yeah. So it very much depends on which fund you're looking at. I think, at least from Global X's perspective, we offer a number of names within the space and I think a lot of your viewers, I believe, are retail investors. So where we have seen some of that retail investor interest, a lot of that has been with aiq. Now that's more of that broad based exposure. So you're going to get some of those mags. I mean you're going to get chip names, you're going to get a lot of the names within the space within aiq, drilling down and kind of going a layer deeper there. We have a number of other funds. We have the dtcr, which is our data center fund. We have Chip X which has certainly seen a tremendous amount of strength, a lot of interest rates from the retail investor base. So I think it's also deciding and figuring out what your own risk tolerance is and allocating from there. And I think that's so critical because you don't want to only be exposed to the growth sector. It's very, very important to have that balance. But we certainly do see opportunity within that.
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B
All right, well let's move over to defense and just like talking about that AI is not just Nvidia or that type, defense is no longer just about the primes. It's not just Lockheed and things like that. Last week we saw announced an initiative that they might be investing in drone companies. What are you seeing in defense?
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We think defense is still an attractive area. Certainly has seen tremendous amount of growth. When you take a look at our Defense Tech ETF shield grew over 70% in 2025 alone. Has had a a more of a muted return since the start of the year. But still we are seeing some growth and some opportunities. You know, it's that has been the disconnect. And I think there's a couple of things. One, a lot of people tie the defense trade strictly to the geopolitical uncertainty. And yes, there is a lot of reason and I understand that argument. But we see the opportunity within defense as so much more than just that. When you take a look at the fact that the US and global spending specifically on defense is expected to scale and scale pretty dramatically over the coming years, that of course is a tailwind. When you talk about the modernization of warfare, you just mentioned drones and the importance there. We don't think that that is so much an option right now or discretion item. It's a necessity for so many of these companies. So we think it's going to continue to drive the sector higher. Not exactly forecasting a repeat of the returns that we saw in 2025, but we still think there's reason to be optimistic and we think a number of those tailwinds are going to further some of that growth that we have seen within the sector.
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Even if there is a resolution.
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Even if there is a resolution, yes, because I don't think that that doesn't change necessarily the threat of, of uncertainty in the future and the need for countries to spend on that now. Because when you take a look at so many of the backlogs and the argument that so many of these companies are not able to replace the necessities that they need even right now, we talk about the Depletion rates. It is a multi year investment story and it's something that countries can't simply stall on or sit on now. They need to start spending in order to be better positioned for years to come.
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B
All right, let's finish up with space. That's a very popular topic on our show. There's excitement around Artemis and the SpaceX IPO broadly. What are you seeing in space?
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C
You know, space is so exciting. We certainly have. So we launched a new space etf, Orbax Orb X at the end of April and we certainly have seen inflows and I think when you take a look or look at the headlines across so many of the our competitors and ETF providers, they have certainly seen the same. And so Space X has a lot to do with that. When you take a look at the opportunity within the industry, I mean this is an industry that we think is going to reach trillion dollars in revenue in the not too near distant future. So when you take a look at the fact that there's lower costs, that's helping in terms of profit margins. When you take a look at the fact that just the sheer demand and the fact that this was an industry that was government led for so long and now we're seeing the commercialization of that and a trend that we have talked about for quite some time and this and Space X giving a real opportunity or another massive driver in that bull case thesis for space and what that opportunity, what that growth opportunity is going to look like. I don't think it's taken anyone by surprise just in terms of the interest that that has generated here over the last several weeks.
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And we've been seeing it, we've been hearing it in conversations with the audience. Of course. Then there was the Amazon Blue Origin rocket explosion on the landing pad that said that it might put that project back a year. And so it's a reminder that the tech is evolving, it remains risky. And so how do you advise for short or long term in this space?
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C
Yeah, so, so I think going back to almost my, my previous, previous comment earlier when we were talking about AI and where we are seeing opportunity, obviously this is a quote unquote riskier trade or more so the growth within your investment profile. So I think when you take a look at exposure to this, obviously this is something that's not going to, or I don't think in many cases is going to account for the majority of your portfolio. It's not going to count even for a third of your Portfol portfolio. So, so I think you need to adjust for that risk. With that being said, I think when you take a look at the driving factors within the industry right now and the expected growth that we estimate and really the estimates almost across the board over the next five to 10 years, it's tough to argue that it is a space that you should be ignoring right now.
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Shauna Smith, senior investment strategist at Global X ETFs, thank you so much for being on.
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We love having me.
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If Elon Musk gets those 100 million humans or 1 million humans living on Mars, we'll have you back to talk about it.
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C
Thank you. Thank you. Before I was gonna say that might not be for quite some time.
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Thank you so much for being on.
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C
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
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Well, huge thanks to Shauna and of course a brilliant job there by our producer John croteau. Well, it's 4pm on the east coast, the markets have closed and we don't have a ticker tape. So let's throw it over to our human ticker. John, it's back to you.
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That's right, more green across the screen today with record high finishes across the board. The S&P 500 ended the day up a tenth of a percent. The Dow finished up half a percent and the NASDAQ eking out a record close finishing at 27,093. A quick earnings headline from today, shares in Victoria's Secret ticker VSXY gained almost 50% today and hit a new 52 week high. That's after the retailer swung from losses to profits in its latest earnings. The company reported $47 million in profit for the recent quarter compared to a loss of around 2 million a year earlier. The retailer also saw same store sales increase 13%. Raised its full year guidance. Victoria's Secret is just over a year into CEO Hilary Super's quote path to potential turnaround strategy which includes getting back to selling bras, calling them quote the emotional heartbeat of our business. Lub dub, lub dub. In the recent quarter, the bras segment saw double digit comparable sales growth and continues to bring customers back to the business.
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That's it for today's Brew Markets Daily.
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Brew Markets Daily is hosted by Ann Berry and produced by John Curto, Tarka delatif, Abney Laroya and Emily Millairne. Our technical director is Yochenna Waugh, Brittany Dottocco is our audio engineer and the president of Morning Brew Inc. Is Devin Emery.
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Wake up tomorrow with the Morning Brew newsletter and tune in to Neil and Toby on Morning Bre Daily. See you back here tomorrow, same time, same place.