Earnings season is well under way and I wanted to highlight the mega-cap brands that drive market cap weighted indices given they have such large weightings. Bottom line, there’s still room in the tank for these great brands, they have huge global opportunities, are serving large and growing end markets, and generate significant amounts of cash for smart reinvestment. Twitter is an outlier that seems to be getting its mojo-on!

Here’s a link to this week’s article regarding the U.S. and International brands serving consumption across Asia and China. These brands are getting it done across the world and their stocks have historically been great investments, I see no signs of that changing anytime soon.

I listened to the Disney Investor Day event yesterday and liked what I heard. Finally the stock is beginning to get re-rated, here’s the link to my comments and the investor presentation.

The business of advice is a very crowded space these days. Advisors need to add value over and above the traditional advisory metrics, they need to bring something differentiated to the table. Sophisticated clients and wealthy clients require us all to be a resource for all the things that matter in their lives - personal and business.

I spend an enormous amount of time looking at consumer trends and one theme in particular is “entertainment”. As human beings we have to work but we LOVE to play & have fun. In many cases we work so we can play. In good times and bad, FUN & ENTERTAINMENT is a large part of our daily lives as well as our daily spend.

I’ve always been a contrarian, I’m not sure why but I prefer NOT to be in the crowded boat and right now, the boat is crowded with people who do not believe in the sustainability of the U.S. economy or its equity markets. How do I know this? From looking at equity fund flows and CFTC data that shows the boat is crowded with bears and non-believers. Here’s a chart of equity flows from ML, maybe the masses are right this time but history suggests they will be wrong with such a bearish bias. I’m happy to be buying great brands with strong competitive advantages on further dips.