Brian Stewart

The Magic Kingdom is sort of glimmering in the horizon.

And all of a sudden, a predator he didn't know was there gobbles him up.

And I think that's the market we're living in is like AI and like a technological utopia is like just across the water, but there's things below the surface that we're afraid are going to attack us.

I think that a lot of the stories from this week kind of underlying that.

And I think Walmart's there too on a very kind of, um,

lower level.

The stock didn't move much after earnings dipped a little bit.

It was already down slightly going into the earnings report, had reached a new high not too long ago, became part of the $1 trillion market cap.

It's a little below that now after its earnings report.

Beat expectations in the holiday quarter.

So good news there, but earnings estimates were a little below expectations.

So the company is trying to moderate expectations for this year somewhat.

Also, the company's CEO, as part of the post-earnings conversation, said the pace of change in retail is accelerating.

And then he added that it's exciting, this accelerated pace of retailing.

And I think that could be brought to any sector.

It's the way technology is working now, the way AI is improving, the way companies are integrating it into it.

It's probably exciting in any sector you're going to go to, but also exciting

there's that danger.

An example from this week is Blue Owl Capital, the ticker is OWL, dropped after changing its policy regarding redemptions for a retail-focused private credit fund, also sold $1.4 billion of debt investments to institutional investors.

This played into the concerns that have been rising about the private credit