Berkshire’s Alphabet Buy, and What’s Really Limiting Data Centers

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This week will all be about Nvidia’s (NVDA) quarterly announcement. The analyst community is anticipating 56.7% annual sales growth of $54.97 billion and 54.7% annual earnings growth of $1.25 per share. As always, Nvidia’s guidance will be crucial.Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) gets a lot of press for its record cash reserves, since it has been a net seller of stock for 12 consecutive quarters. However, Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that it bought 17.8 million shares of Alphabet (GOOG) in the third quarter despite reducing its overall stock holdings by $6.1 billion. Also notable is that Berkshire Hathaway sold 41.8 million shares of Apple (AAPL), marking the second straight quarter the company has reduced its holdings. However, Apple remains one of Berkshire Hathaway’s largest holdings, along with American Express (AXP), Bank of America (BAC), Coca-Cola (KO), and Chevron (CVX).There have been reports trying to imply that the data center boom would be constrained by construction delays as well as soaring electricity costs. The simple fact of the matter is that the U.S. is the “Saudi Arabia” of natural gas, so the U.S. has unlimited resources to cheap electricity via natural gas turbines. Although both GE Vernova (GEV) and Siemens have 5-year order backlogs for their train-sized natural gas turbines, the data centers can also operate on smaller turbines per data center that are widely available, thanks to the aviation industry.To demonstrate how the U.S. is poised to dominate data centers worldwide, Germany recently agreed to cut its planned natural gas turbine development by half due to its pledge to decarbonize and rely on more renewable electricity sources. As a result, Germany’s high electricity prices are now subsidized by the German government to stem the manufacturing exodus that has been underway for the past several years due to high electricity prices. So, the countries that are still striving to decarbonize simply cannot compete with America, since renewable electricity is much more expensive.So why Europe and some other countries persist with their NetZero goals, which makes them uncompetitive compared to other countries that use more fossil fuels, like China, India, and the U.S., they are essentially accelerating their economic decline. In America, we no longer have bans on natural gas and LNG production, so we are poised to continue to capture more business, especially with the trillions of dollars in onshoring that the Trump Administration has secured for data centers, plus the automotive, pharmaceutical, and semiconductor industries.Prosperity is addictive, and with some help from the Fed, I am expecting interest rates to decline from deflationary forces from China, plus a stronger U.S. dollar, making both commodities and imports cheaper. Recent ADP labor data may convince the Fed to cut key interest rates sooner rather than later as the AI job apocalypse persists. Furthermore, recent data that rental prices are starting to decline may help the Consumer Price Index (CPI) decline due to the fact that Owners’ Equivalent Rent is a major component. Finally, lower crude oil prices are also helping to lower inflationary pressures. So, the Fed will be cutting key interest rates in the upcoming months due to AI-related labor weakness as well as cooling inflationary forces.