Good morning. Brutal … just absolutely brutal. In the recent past the U.S. market has been bolstered by tech stocks focused on chips and Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) with claims made that advancements in AI will lead to everything from greater productivity gains to cures for cancer and even result in perfecting the chocolate chip cookie. The U.S. was the powerhouse behind AI …and ChatGPT had “first mover advantage,” having achieved much publicity since its introduction. But there could be a new entrant that has the potential to completely upset leaders in the chip space. DeepSeek. Ever hear of them? Few have … up until this morning … but this Chinese upstart claims to have developed a product which would allow companies to develop artificial intelligence models at a much lower cost than what has been budgeted … to the detriment (or, at least, the possible detriment) of many U.S. leaders in the chip industry. Suddenly, according to CNBC, DeepSeek “took over rival OpenAI’s coveted spot for … most-downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple’s App Store.” Even if U.S. products prove better and more efficient, this news puts investors on notice that competitors are not sitting idly by, and new (and possibly better or cheaper) variants can arrive on the scene without so much as sending a postcard far in advance of their arrival. Two other interesting stories I saw this morning deal with health and aging … both of which have articles below. The first makes the claim that while recent focus has been on health issues with red dye#3, there is a far more dangerous enemy … our collective weight issue. The scary claim in the article is that if you gain 1 pound per year over 15 years, your likelihood of cancer increases by 40%. And yes, many are in that camp. I am looking for my doctor’s phone number this morning as suddenly, injecting myself with a weekly needle doesn’t seem so disturbing anymore. A second article tells of the “tsunami” about to hit the U.S., for which we are not prepared … and that is the extent of the elderly population about to hit our shores. The claim here is 23% of our population will be over the age of 65 in the next 25 years (that’s 82 million of us). While advancements have been made in medicine and Alzheimer’s … will solutions arrive fast enough? The clock dealing with our aging population is ticking … and is getting louder with each passing year. Have a great day, Joseph G. Witthohn, CFA Have any questions? Please contact info@teamemerald.com
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