This has been a terrific week for the Fab Five (+$487 billion, each stock higher) but a dismal week for the Telco Top Five (-$31 billion for the week, each stock lower). And only two of the ten stocks have announced earnings – AT&T was “in line” with expectations (but ahead on fixed wireless and fiber net additions) while T-Mobile crushed theirs (yet many shareholders are selling). We will go into details on earnings but are coming to the conclusion that the feather of rumor creates downdrafts in fragile markets. More on that in a week.
Meanwhile, we had an inflation report (CPI here; no PPI was released). Here is the chart that caught our eye:
Within energy services, electricity is up 5.1% over the last 12 months and piped (natural) gas is up 11.7%. The primary gains in that were aat the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025. Both electricity and piped gas have been lower over the last four months (more details here). Bottom line is that the inputs to the production of energy have decreased year-over-year, but the conversion of those inputs into energy has risen much more than the overall inflation rate. Whether that changes dramatically due to more power being added to the grid for AI and other initiatives remains to be seen, but we think it’s one sub-category to bookmark.
As we noted in last week’s Brief, each of the remaining eight stocks that we track is scheduled to report next week (see nearby schedule). The most important metric, in our opinion is the change in (negative) net debt for each of the Fab Five. Here is the schedule (available in the spreadsheet at the end of this post:
A larger negative number means the company has been accumulating cash faster than they have been accumulating debt. We show sequential and year-over-year for comparison but include each quarter in the attached spreadsheet. Note Google ($16 billion lower negative net debt) and Meta ($21 billion lower negative net debt). Third quarter figures for those two companies will be of highest interest (see this Bloomberg article on how the Meta data center in Louisiana will be funded – also need to track the financial viability of the financial partners). But keep in mind that each of the Fab Five still have negative net debt. This is not 1999 all over again at least with respect to this group.
Spreadsheet is below. Welcome comments or suggections. Apple iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max tracker out later this afternoon.
