United States Daily Briefing

Greg Abel's first full year running Berkshire saw a sharp reversal from Buffett-era cash hoarding: the holding company deployed net $20–30B into stocks last quarter, per Business Insider. The shift matters because Berkshire's prior multi-year selling streak kept $300B+ in T-bills, sitting on the sideline as a vol signal. When Abel buys, it tells the tape that risk/reward is attractive at current levels — a credibility signal no sell-side note can replicate. Watch Berkshire's 13F (due mid-November) for sector reads.

AppLovin (APP) cratered 20% to yearly lows after a Q2 revenue miss — even with Q3 guidance intact, the Street didn't wait to hear the story. SeekingAlpha's note tagged the dip as 'illogical' given the forward guidance, but that framing misses the point: APP traded at 60x+ forward earnings coming in, so any miss triggers a multiple de-rating regardless of Q3 outlook. The lesson holds for the remaining software reporters: TEAM's 35% beat was exceptional; anything less than a beat-and-raise is a liability at current multiples.

Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF (VOO) is on the verge of crossing $1 trillion in AUM, a milestone no ETF has ever reached, per Yahoo Finance. The race highlights a structural shift: SPY charges 9.45bps vs VOO's 3bps, and the AUM gap has closed from near-parity in 2020 to VOO leading by a widening margin. From a market mechanics perspective, $1T in VOO means passive flows dominate price discovery in the S&P 500 constituents — the implication being that high-quality earnings beats (like TEAM's today) produce outsized moves as passive rebalancing amplifies momentum.