Tim's Wealth Letter

26/08/2026

TWL Morning Briefing - Wednesday 26th August

Yesterday the S&P 500 rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq 0.7%. The driver was oil. Iran has restarted talks with Oman on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, crude fell more than 3%, and long Treasury yields came down with it. Cheaper energy takes the heat out of the inflation numbers, and that is the worry that has been sitting on this market all month.

Oil is down again this morning, a third straight fall, just under $81. US futures point slightly lower ahead of Nvidia, which reports after the close tonight.

Core PCE inflation lands at 1:30 pm today. Jackson Hole starts tomorrow, with Kevin Warsh's first speech as Fed chair on Friday.

In our portfolio, QXO rose 3.3% and Pfizer 2.2%.

Strategies & current holdings are available on the Tim's Wealth Letter website.

21/08/2026

TWL Morning Briefing - Friday 21st August

Yesterday the S&P 500 fell 0.9% and the Nasdaq 1%. Treasury yields turned back up despite the government's debt buyback, on doubts it is anything more than a temporary fix. Rising oil added to the inflation worry, with the US and Iran still deadlocked over the Strait of Hormuz.

Oil is steady near $86 this morning. US futures point marginally higher.

Flash PMIs land at 2:45 pm today. Next week brings Jackson Hole, with Kevin Warsh's first speech as Fed chair on Friday and core PCE the same morning.

In our portfolio, Alibaba rose 1.3% after reporting. Profit fell more than 75% as capital spending hit $10bn in the quarter. The shares were down 4% before the open, then finished up as cloud revenue growth accelerated to 45%.

Strategies & current holdings are available on the Tim's Wealth Letter website.

20/08/2026

TWL Morning Briefing - Thursday 20th August

Yesterday the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both rise 0.2%. The Fed's July minutes came out and showed three officials had wanted a rate rise, with others saying tightening would probably be needed if inflation doesn't come down. Stocks went up anyway, led by healthcare. Futures point marginally higher this morning. Oil keeps climbing, Brent above $92 on Middle East tensions.

Alibaba reports before the US open today, the only one of ours this week. Flash PMI figure tomorrow.

In the TWL portfolio, Estee Lauder jumped 16.3%. Sales of $3.6bn beat, earnings doubled, and it lifted its margin outlook for next year, ending three straight years of falling revenue. Exactly the sort of turnaround our portfolio targets. More to come.

Pfizer rose 3.6% to a 52-week high, pulled up by the mRNA news through its BioNTech stake. QXO up 4.5%, Canada Goose 3.1% and Disney 2.9%.

Strategies & current holdings are available on the Tim's Wealth Letter website.

19/08/2026

TWL Morning Briefing - Wednesday 19th August

Yesterday the S&P 500 fell 0.69% and the Nasdaq 1.33%, a third straight loss. Chipmakers led it down, but the driver was bonds. The 30-year Treasury yield hit a 19-year high, Japan's 10-year a three-decade high, German 30-year bunds their highest since 2011. Higher long yields hit the most expensive stocks hardest, and that is the AI trade.

Asia took it far worse overnight. South Korea's Kospi fell 5.8% and tripped its circuit breaker as SK Hynix and Samsung were dumped. Japan's Nikkei lost 2.9%. US futures are flat this morning, so Wall Street isn't following. Crude sits at $85.

FOMC minutes tonight, then flash PMIs and jobless claims Thursday. Advance Auto Parts reports Thursday before the open, our only holding due.

In the TWL portfolio, Alibaba rose 2.8% after Alipay launched an AI agent platform for merchants. Etsy gained 2.0% with no news of its own.

Strategies & current holdings are available on the Tim's Wealth Letter website.

16/08/2026

Berkshire Hathaway spent about $4.5 billion buying its own shares last quarter. Buybacks are one of the biggest forces acting on your money, and almost nobody explains what they actually do — so here it is in plain English.

When a company buys its own shares, it cancels them. They stop existing.

Say a company has 100 shares and makes £100 of profit. That's £1 per share. Now it buys back 10 of them. There are 90 shares left and the profit is still £100 — so that's £1.11 per share.

You didn't buy anything. You didn't do anything at all. But your slice of the profits just went up 11%, because there are fewer people to share it with.

A dividend gives you cash. A buyback gives you a bigger share of the business.

The catch: it only works if the company pays less for the shares than they're worth. If it overpays, it's burned your money — and plenty of companies buy back at silly prices because it flatters their per-share figures.

A buyback only works if the company pays less than the shares are worth. Plenty don't, so don't assume it's always a good thing.

This week's letter, in full:

Warren Buffett called Google his biggest miss for 20 years. In June, Berkshire put $10bn into Alphabet — here's why, and what it means for UK investors.

15/08/2026

Warren Buffett has spent about twenty years telling anyone who asked that missing Google was the worst call he ever made.

And he had every advantage. He knew the founders. He also owned GEICO, the American car insurer, which was one of Google's earliest big advertisers — paying Google ten or eleven dollars every single time somebody clicked one of its adverts.

He owned the company writing the cheques. He just never thought to buy the company cashing them.

In June he put that right. Berkshire put $10 billion into Alphabet, taking its stake to around $31 billion.

Here's the part I find useful, though. He sat on nearly $400 billion in cash for three and a half years while people queued up to say he'd lost his touch. He wasn't dithering. He simply couldn't find anything worth buying — and the moment he could, he moved fast.

Sitting in cash because you can't find anything you like is a decision. Sitting in cash because you've never got round to it isn't.

This week's letter, in full:

Warren Buffett called Google his biggest miss for 20 years. In June, Berkshire put $10bn into Alphabet — here's why, and what it means for UK investors.

14/08/2026

Here's my portfolio update for the week: I did nothing.

The S&P 500 was fairly flat. Diageo was the one clear winner, up 8%. Beyond that, nothing worth reporting.

That's what most weeks look like, and I think people find it reassuring rather than dull. If you're investing rather than trading, "nothing happened" is the normal state of affairs. The financial press is built on the opposite idea — that something urgent is always going on and you ought to be doing something about it.

The one thing I am doing is homework. I've started looking properly at Alphabet, after Berkshire put $10 billion into it in June. I'll tell you what I find.

If Warren Buffett is interested to the tune of $10 billion, it's at least worth a look.

Every holding I own, and what each has done, is on the site. This week's letter, in full:

Warren Buffett called Google his biggest miss for 20 years. In June, Berkshire put $10bn into Alphabet — here's why, and what it means for UK investors.

14/08/2026

TWL Morning Briefing - Friday 14th August

Yesterday the S&P 500 rose 0.7% to a record close and the Nasdaq 0.8%. Producer prices were unchanged in July, backing up Wednesday's tame inflation number, and traders cut the odds of a rate hike again.

US futures are flat this morning.

July retail sales land at 1:30 pm today.

In our portfolio, QXO reported after the close: sales of $3.25bn against $3.18bn expected, up about 70% on the year as the Kodiak and TopBuild takeovers came in. The shares rose 2.1% after hours. Advance Auto Parts jumped 7.2% after RBC raised its price target, saying the company is tracking towards the high end of its full-year guidance.

Strategies & current holdings are available on the Tim's Wealth Letter website.

13/08/2026

America lost 23,000 jobs in July. Economists had expected it to add 83,000.

The S&P 500 closed at a record high the same day.

That catches people out, and it's worth understanding why, because it kills one of the most stubborn myths in investing: that good news for the economy means good news for shares.

Share prices don't track how the economy is doing. They track what investors think is going to happen next — and interest rates are usually the loudest part of that. American rates have been going up rather than down, and three members of the Federal Reserve's committee voted for a rise last month. A weak jobs report makes another rise less likely, so traders cut the odds from 55% to 44%, and shares went up on the relief.

Which is exactly why trying to trade the news is such a poor use of your Friday afternoon. You'd need to be right about the news, right about how interest rates respond to it, and right about how everybody else reads both of those.

This week's letter, in full:

Warren Buffett called Google his biggest miss for 20 years. In June, Berkshire put $10bn into Alphabet — here's why, and what it means for UK investors.

13/08/2026

TWL Morning Briefing - Thursday 13th August

Yesterday the S&P 500 rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq 0.5%. July inflation came in as expected, prices up 0.1% and traders cut the odds of a September rate hike.

Oil has slipped to $82 this morning, its first fall in six sessions, with Washington and Tehran still deadlocked over the Strait of Hormuz. US futures are flat.

Producer prices land at 1:30 pm today.

In our portfolio, QXO fell 3.3% into tonight's results, its first since it closed the $17bn TopBuild takeover.

Strategies & current holdings are available on the Tim's Wealth Letter website.