Berkshire, TSMC, and Intel: 3 Earnings Stories Shaping This Week

Earnings season doesn't care about geopolitics. While everyone is glued to the Strait of Hormuz, three of the most closely watched names just reported, and the divergence is hard to ignore.

$BRK.B is up slightly in pre-market after Berkshire Hathaway's latest filing showed Warren Buffett's cash hoard dipped from roughly $400 billion to $365 billion, with $4.5 billion in buybacks and a $10 billion private placement in Alphabet. The Alphabet bet is the real headline here. Buffett doesn't do splashy AI plays, so parking $10B in $GOOGL is as close to a ringing endorsement of the search giant's AI durability as you're going to get from Omaha. The bear case: Geico, Berkshire's largest insurance unit, saw pre-tax underwriting profits fall 45%. That's not a rounding error. Insurance softness at scale is worth watching if macro headwinds persist into Q3.

$TSM ADRs are nearly flat after Taiwan Semiconductor reported a 45% rise in monthly sales and guided for full-year revenue growth slightly above 40%. That guided beat helped pull the broader chip complex higher, with ASML, ST Micro, and Infineon all climbing 2-3% on the coattails. The concern the market had been quietly nursing, that data center buildout was slowing and AI capex was overhyped, got punched squarely in the face by TSMC's numbers. Nvidia's investment in a Taiwanese data center power producer (boosting Delta Electronics and Lite-On to the daily 10% limit in Taipei) adds another data point that the infrastructure wave is still very much live.

Then there's $INTC, which is selling stock. The market opened mostly lower on the day and Intel fell on the share offering news, which is exactly the reception you'd expect. Dilution during a turnaround is never a good look. The stock has been trying to stabilize but an equity raise signals the balance sheet still needs work, and that's a tough story to sell alongside a company trying to regain fab credibility.

On the macro side, $MDNA is getting attention after Moderna presented flu shot data, and $RKLB is up about 1% in pre-market after a $397 million US Space Force contract to build and launch spacecraft using its upcoming Neutron rocket. After plunging 36% last month, even a modest bounce off a government contract feels like a lifeline.

July CPI drops this week. With Wharton's Jeremy Siegel noting wages grew only 3.2% against an expected 3.4% CPI, real wages are still in negative territory for most workers. If inflation surprises to the upside, expect the rate-sensitive names to get another haircut. Right now earnings are doing the heavy lifting, and they're doing a better job than anyone expected.