BizNews Ricardo Portfolio: Alec Hogg on Big Tech's AI spending race and the JSE's cash handback

Same thing. Jassy was asked about it, and he answered, straight. It was the most honest thing said by any chief executive this week. He asked, if this opportunity came along over 25 years so you could spread it out? Yes, it might be more convenient, but that's not the world we live in.

And then he said, We can fund this plan. That's from the conference call that Amazon gave that, well, gave a few people the jitters, but for us, it's fabulous because we can see exactly what's going on in the company, even though it's based so far away. And I like the candor. Chassis is saying what they're all thinking: this is a once-in-a-lifetime land grab, and whoever builds the most capacity.

Capacity will win. But here's the uncomfortable question for shareholders: who's getting paid right now? Well, not us, not the shareholders in Amazon and Alphabet and others. The chip makers are getting paid, the memory makers, the power companies. There comes Vistra, that'll come into the picture when it reports in the next week or so. The builders.

But our payday as shareholders of these companies has been moved to later and maybe much later. One thing worth noting, Amazon's advertising business looked like it slowed sharply. Most of that's timing. Prime Day moved earlier this year from the third quarter to the second, so it wasn't included in this three months results. That took a chunk of ad sales with it. Amazon expects ad growth.

To bounce back over Christmas? Well, it better do so. So let's step back because this week tells us something bigger than those two sets of results. For three years, the market has rewarded anyone who said, AI, spend more and your share price went up. The bigger the spending plan, the louder the applause.

This week that changed. The market has stopped grading on ambition. It's now grading on cash. Investors are saying, we believe you're growing. Now show us when the money comes back. And here's my question to you as a shareholder. Is this the moment the AI boom cracks the time that so many have been predicting for so long? Or is it the kind of wobble that Warren Buffett would call a gift?