If you listen to politicians China is the biggest threat to the US and President Trump imposed various tariffs on the country. Some were high, some were delayed, some stayed and similar to most people China is somewhere between a threat and friend. If you owned a company or invested in a company doing business with China, is that good or bad?

In an article from Reuters, Meta Platforms Inc announced it will acquire a Chinese-founded artificial-intelligence startup called Manus. Financial terms were not disclosed but Manus is value between $2 and $3 billion.

Manus went viral earlier in the year when it released what it claimed was the world’s first general AI agent, capable of making decisions and executing tasks autonomously, with less prompting that AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek.

With all the political talk about China, Manus moved its headquarters from China to Singapore.

Meta will operate and sell Manus service and integrate it into its consumer and business products.

Earlier in 2025, Manue backed by its parent Beijing Butterfly Effect Technologies raised $75 million at at a valuation of $500 million with US venture fund Benchmark leading the funding round. Other investors according to PitchBook include HSG formerly known as Sequoia Capital China, ZhenFund and Tencent Holdings.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, politicians have a say, but commerce moves the world. Wherever there is a good idea, commerce will learn about it and use it no matter what country it comes from. It is usually in the best interest of the company that it works with whatever government is in power, but commerce will win out.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In the world of business often the first to the market gets most of the spoils. In the industry of car vehicles, the brand Tesla was one of the first EVs made and shortly after they came out, the cars were made better. If you rode in one, you have would enjoy riding in it, but maybe not want to pay the cost of owning one. The governments of the day introduced tax credits to lower the cost of the car and Tesla ended up as the best-selling EV vehicle. But every industry has competitors.

In an article by Paul Harloff and Bernard Condon of Associated Press, Tesla has lost the crown of the world’s largest selling electric-vehicle maker. Some of the reasons sales are down include the owner’s political actions, expiring US tax breaks and overseas competition.

Tesla said it delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2015, down 9% from a year earlier.

Chinese rival BYD, sold 2.26 million vehicles. (apparently prices of EVs in China are falling and BYD and other Chinese EVs make greater margins and profits by exporting cars). The number one export market worldwide is Mexico and its appeal for low-cost vehicles.

If you own Tesla shares you need to be a big believer in the future lies with driverless robotaxis; energy-storage business and building robots for home and factory. The owner of Tesla Elon Musk is set to sell shares of his rocket company SpaceX.

Mr. Musk said he hopes software updates to Tesla cars will enable hundreds of thousands of Telsa vehicles to operate autonomously with zero human intervention by the end of the year. There are also plans to begin production of an AI-powered Cybercab with no steering wheel or pedals.

Linking to dividend paying companies, for years Tesla dominated at the high end of the EV market which meant the competition of Cadillac, BMW, Mercedes and others brought out EV vehicles. With the adoption and the infrastructure, it has been there is a demand for lower priced EVs and the Chinese manufacturers are sending EVs around the world in record numbers. Every market has the high-end and low-end and a wide variety of companies competing in both sides. When you make your investments, ideally you want some sort of barrier to entry which allows the company to make profits and reward you with dividends.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

Every geographic area has its assets and if you live in the area, you will soon find them and begin to treasure them. To make an income often requires the exporting of goods to other places or to bring in people to the area or a combination of both. If the place becomes too popular, which is a good thing for the economy, the locals think about times when it was not the place to be. There are cycles, a town which has not seen any significant activity for generations is rediscovered because the buildings were built in a different era and people visit. There are many reasons why cycles happen, sometimes politics adds a dimension.

In an article by Jeffery Collins of the Associated Press, if you think bourbon, you think of Kentucky products. 95% of all bourbon made in the US comes from Kentucky. The trade group estimates the industry brings more than 23,000 jobs and $2.2 billion to the state.

The number bourbon brand is Jim Beam and it takes at least 4 years of aging in barrels before being bottled. At the present time. there were 16 million barrels of bourbon aging in Kentucky warehouses, more than triple the amount held 15 years ago.

When President Trump introduced tariffs to every country in the world, the world leaders asked what product is primarily in a Republican state that is imported into their country? One of the answers is bourbon. In the April to June quarter, bourbon exports fell 85% in Canada and over 50% in Europe.

Jim Beam has a number of distilleries in Kentucky, the largest in Boston, Kentucky, has decided to halt production at its Clermont location. The bottling and warehouse remain open as well as the James B Bean Distilling Co visitor center and restaurant. At the moment, because Jim Beam can make improvements to the line, there are no layoffs at the present time.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in business the hard part is the customer and ensuring customer needs and expectations are met. The easy part is supposed to be politicians because people who work tend to vote. If politicians do their best to partner with business, business leaders can worry about customers. Similar to economic cycles, sometimes governments help and sometimes they do not.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

All countries around the world wish to control their destiny, but in reality someone has to provide capital inflows. Capital will flow to any country which investors believe they can receive both short term and long-term returns. The longer the investment period, the greater the desire that the government is a willing partner for the business.

In an article from the Associated Press, recently there was an election in Bolivia and it changed from socialist to center right. The socialist administration had very particular expectations for companies and most of them started with distrust of foreign companies. The new administration of President Paz starts with the expectation, foreign companies can be helpful to the Bolivian economy.

The decree by the President will allow global satellite internet companies such as Starlink or Kuiper to provide access across the Andean nation as it tries to upgrade its technology and speed up its notoriously slow connectivity rates.

The President has also allowed more capital to flow into natural resources such as tin, silver and copper mining exploration companies.

Linking to dividend paying companies, because many tend to have global reach the ideal is to go into a country which welcomes foreign investments or flow of capital. Once that is done the company will need to ensure on balance that welcoming stays as welcome and try to do all the correct things to be a good citizen of the country. For investors, welcoming free flow of capital is the start of a good thing.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

President Trump signature slogan is America First and many in the US would agree with the slogan. However, there is a balancing act with the slogan because the President believes companies should make the goods in the US and sell to other countries around the world which is why he imposed tariffs. Think about the concept, why would the other companies buy the US brand rather than the local or homemade brand?

In an article by Nicholas P. Brown and Juveria Tabassum of Reuters, Nike is based in Oregan and if you ever owned them is a good shoe to own, they also sell branded sportswear, with the swoosh on it. Nike sells to countries around the world, it typically does the design in the US and makes the shoes in Southeast Asia.

China accounts for 15% of Nike’s annual revenues. Second quarter footwear sales dropped 21% in China and CEO Elliot Hill said we need to reset our approach to the China marketplace.

Mr. Hill has been trying to restructure the company by refreshing the offerings and cut legacy lifestyle lines. Instead, margin pain is mounting, 2nd quarter gross margins fell about 300 basis points, hit by tariff costs and a glut of obsolete inventory.

In the US, Nike has multi-channels to sell their products, in China brands commonly operate their own stores instead of selling through 3rd party retailers.

On the digital side, sales were down 36% competing against brands such as Anta and Li-Ning.

CEO Hill noted we firmly believe our growth will come through sport, but the reality is we have become a lifestyle brand competing on price in China.

Morningstar analyst noted Nike gets some benefit of the doubt, at least for a couple quarters because sales in America were not that good when Mr. Hill took over, but the results have gotten better.

Recently Apple CEO Tim Cook bought a few million dollars in shares and Nike shares jumped up.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, companies have many strengths and if they are in retail they must have what consumers want and willing to buy, not what they have in inventory. That line makes retailer a tough market, but if you do it well, margins increase and profits come along. The other issue for retail is goodwill and that is where politics come along, sometimes it helps and sometimes it does not.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

On Wall Street similar to every other street, the half full glass is always a topic of conversation. Is the glass half full or half empty? Did you miss the run up or will those prices fall? The best way to avoid this is to buy quality stocks, which tends to the big well capitalization companies. However, when Wall Street bears ask about half empty, the sector will be affected. At the moment, the biggest conversation piece is the massive amount of money going into the AI. This means there will be winners and losers, how do you know?

In an article by Karen Weise and Eli Tan, the hyper scalers or the magnificent 7 are the prime movers of AI and will need a great amount of data centers. They have the revenues, the size and need for the results, however they do not do everything. Similar to many industries, they outsource.

This fall Microsoft announced a series of deals, totaling tens of billions, to lease computer power for its AI ambitions. Meta secured a $30 billion in financing to build a data center in Louisiana without taking on the debt itself. Google committed to rent computing power from a small company and then sell some of it to OpenAI.

The deals had one thing in common: they allowed the large companies to reduce their financial exposure to the frenetic, global building of data centers.

The large companies push some of the risk of the AI boom onto the shoulders of upstarts eager for a piece of the action.

Trillions of dollars are at stake as tech companies try to predict how much computing power AI will demand years down the road. If the big companies decide they do not need all the computing power, the smaller companies and their lenders will be stuck with all the consequences.

The deals also add a level of mystery to data-center financing because many companies running the data centers are far from household names. Some are privately held, do business with large startups and borrow from private lenders.

An example is Meta in Louisiana. Meta created a special purpose vehicle called Beignet Investor and worked with Blue Owl Capital, a private credit firm to borrow money for the project.

Meta is responsible for the construction of the data center, but Blue Owl is responsible for 80% of the financing. Meta agreed to rent the facility in a series of 4-year leases. This means for Meta the funding is operating cost, not debt.

Blue Owl primarily funded the project called Hyperion through a bond offering to Pimco. The firm sold the Beignet bonds, which mature in 2049, to clients including insurers, endowments, pension funds and financial advisors. BlackRock owns some of the bonds.

Andrew Rocco, a stock analyst at Zacks Investment Research, notes the key part of Meta’s strategy is they are going to get as much of this built out with what the industry calls OPM or other people’s money.

If the AI were to slow, Meta can walk away in 2033, Blue Owl would have to find new customers or sell the project.

In September, Microsoft signed a $17 billion deal with Nebius, a neocloud. In October, Microsoft signed a deal with Nscale, a privately held British neocloud. In November, it agreed to a $10 billion deal with Iren, a former bitcoin miner. It also signed with Lambda, another neocloud. (Neoclouds are the new generation of data-center providers).

Alex Platt, an analyst at the investment bank D.A, Davidson, noted it was very savvy of the big companies. There are only a handful of companies that can do it.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, large companies tend to be vey good at trying to lower risk. While everyone talks about a competitive environment, the reality is that large profitable companies to have a division or two that has monopoly like environment to make money. In the world of insurance companies they have re-insurance companies to lower the risk to the individual company. Lowering the risk, allow plenty of upside potential is the path to generating wealth.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In mid-December, a medical supply giant went public and the prices rose which is good news for all those who wanted to own the shares.

In an article by Echo Wang, Arasu Kannagi Basil, Isla Binnie and Pritam Biswas of Reuters, the medical supplies maker and distributor has been in operation for 46 years. In 2021, the company was bought by Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman for $34 billion. Five years later the company has a market valuation of $46 billion plus.

Medline was founded in Northfield, Illinois by Jon and Jim Mills and key manufacturer and distributor of supplies such as surgical kits, gloves, gowns used by hospitals worldwide. The company has 33 facilities including 19 in the US.

President Jim Boyle said we make things that cost pennies, not thousands of dollars and having a robust, diverse geography that has primary, secondary and tertiary locations.

The company reported revenues of $20.6 billion and net income of $977 million for the 9 months ended in September 27. In other words a profitable, cash-generative business which is well-understood.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in every industry there are the sexy industries and sometimes they are the best to be in, there also tends to be reasonably dependable companies that year in, year out make profits to pay dividends. The task to know which ones and ideally buy the best one to hold for a period of time. Then the markets will fluctuate, but you do not have to worry about it, just be mindful, similar to in other parts of your life – quality matters.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

Every once in a while there are videos about robots, sometimes given the male dominated engineers are robots that look like potential girlfriends, but the real money in robots is made in the manufacturing sector. Robots to do the work than humans could do but they require the use of brawn, or the use of heavy lifting, and robots can work 24 hours a day as they are properly maintained. The world leader in many robots is China.

In an article by Meaghan Tobin and Xinyun Wu of New York Times News Service, in China robots are doing many of the things people can do including dancing, running and boxing. The technology is amazing, but with over 150 manufacturers, where are the sales? and the Chinese government is warning the industry was at risk for a crowd of highly repetitive products.

China gained an early global lead in manufacturing robots. China is using more robots than the rest of the world combined. In China they installed 300,000 new robots versus the US 34,000 last year.

Public and private investors have spent more than $5 billion on startups making humanoid robots.

Chinese robots makers have significant advantages: they can draw on the world’s strongest manufacturing sector and the backing of multiple levels of government. They are getting better at making parts such as motors and specialized screws in robot joints.

What Chinese robot startups have not been able to do is make humanoid robots that could transform the economy. The robots have been programmed to follow patterns, but terrible when chaos or unpredictable events happen.

Unitree Robotics is planning to do an IPO to help it becoming the leading manufacturer of humanoid robots. The price in China is US$ 6,000. The leading player in the US is Boston Dynamics and its robots are price much higher. In 2020, Hyundai Motor Co bought Boston Dynamics.

Deep Robotics raised US$70 million in its latest round of financing. The investors included: the venture capital arm of Geely, an electric automaker, and the Beijing city government’s dedicated investment fund for robotics and artificial intelligence.

Linking to dividend paying companies, technology can be wonderful and exciting, but for more cautious investors there needs to be sales. Which come first – investors or sales? With your dividends you can watch the industry see who leads the group and when things begin to shake out, snap up shares at good prices. The watching and analyzing takes homework, but without profits you want to limit the risk. Examine the early adaptors and how are they using the technology to make life better or easier for themselves. You will gain an idea of which companies are addressing the issues and solving the problems. Patience is the key and with dividends you can have patience.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.