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My personal (emphasis personal) view is that the biggest thing that stands out to me in the past two days is a return of adult conversations.

The Age of Rhetoric is upon us. AI was the lede back to the humanities and I think we are seeing the second wave start to crest.

Incredibly strong employment and earnings data

The broad based boom across America continues to take root

Today's data:

Job cuts: down
Productivity: up
Labor costs: down
Unemployment claims: down and historically low

Past few days we've seen Prices Paid in the PMIs come in lower than expected

Narrative violation after narrative violation

I have prided myself on being clear eyed, independent, and reasonably contrarian without making it a personality in my career. So w/ earnings this week, it was an excellent opportunity to interrogate my priors against a broad cross section of fundamental American and international business progress vs a geopolitical picture that remains challenging and a domestic political environment that remains murky.

Long story short I spent a couple hrs Friday reviewing an in depth recap of earnings across many industries - from tech to services to real estate to industrials to healthcare and everything in between.

My top level take is just that corporate America is accelerating. The vast growth impulse of the past 12 to 18 months is showing up - both in the near term and solid, highly visible backlogs that even if haircutted will be a durable source of demand for what seems to me like the next 3 years minimum.

I recognize there are many cross currents and even headwinds against the tailwinds. Geopolitical risk factors (higher oil and distillates) are hard to ignore. A less pro growth approach to regulation is another risk to market sentiment - but I would argue good growth by strong and responsible companies is not at risk.

Other cross currents are disruption to traditional business models that have powered the FCF driving *historic* earnings growth of the past 1, 3, and 5 years.

Market structure - the proliferation of 0DTE options, levered ETFs, and the massive growth of “pod” funds has ratcheted up daily volatility and made maintaining a clear eyed thesis through the storms more difficult than ever. The rapid dissemination of information and swarms of activity that leads to don’t help either (although I am fundamentally pro democratized information and investing David’s vs traditional well heeled Goliaths)

So when I stand back, here is what I see:

The largest industrial buildout of all time, on top of a transformational technology that I and those in my life use more and more every day. We taught the rocks to think.

Accelerating growth across all sectors of the American economy (with the caveat that creative destruction exists at the brand and individual firm / product level)

Breathtaking revenue numbers at the largest tech companies - #’s that were punished this week on a disconnect from certain expectations and for sentiment reasons, but that nonetheless remain staggering in an absolute assessment.

Consistent themes that land, power, and long term contracts facing high grade tenants with impeccable credit risk are the pico premium of desirable place to be at this juncture. This area has the most visibility with the least exposure to evolving technological trends (which chip, which model, etc). It also ironically was one of the most volatile segments this week.

Recognition that responsible corporate stewardship is paramount to staying power over the coming decade(s).

So as I reflect on these thoughts (always really for myself) I stand back and again think about how proud and grateful I am to work at CleanSpark. Who was vertically integrated, power and energy dense, partner discerning and community minded way before it was cool - or existential. An organization that I have seen stay completely committed to responsible stewardship of all our capital (time, talent, treasure) and constantly hold itself accountable to building for the long term.

It’s Halloween. Tonight I will leave my house, dressed as a ketchup bottle (my wife is the mustard) and take our kids trick or treating through the streets of this idyllic little town we are fortunate to call home. And across tens of other towns in tens of other communities, dads will do the same. We are united by a unique opportunity - to build a valuable, new industrial business that propels growth for Americans while serving the people who build it and the communities it’s in. And broadly, that is showing up in the numbers. But most importantly, it’s showing up at home.

So apparently AI is going to replace lawyers and also the competition for top talent is so fierce that record pay packages and defections are toppling 95 year old firms.