Two Tech Stocks, Plenty of Cigarette Smoke: A Skeptic’s Walk Down Wall Street

The market’s a parade of promises, most of them with heel marks and the occasional bloodstain. They say buy, hold, get rich if you wait long enough and don’t blink first. Sure. I’ve watched men try to time the market and wind up timing themselves right onto the unemployment line. Buy and hold makes sense on paper—assuming your paper isn’t soaked in the sweat of a panicked bull. Two stocks slip through the blinds tonight, wearing shiny jackets and quiet smiles. Let’s see if they’re packing heat or just empty holsters.

Uber Technologies

First up, there’s Uber Technologies (UBER). The boys on Wall Street like it for the usual reasons: it’s the kingpin of ride-sharing, it has institutional buddies with pockets nearly as deep as their egos, and it’s waving its hands at tomorrow—robotaxis, ad dollars, logistics. “Visionary,” they call it. I call it hopeful.

Uber’s got the street cred. Leader of the gig economy pack—it calls, they drive, everyone’s always late.
Heavy hitters pile in. Bill Ackman winks, and investors chase after him like pigeons after breadcrumbs, never minding the crumbs are sometimes laced with arsenic.
The expansion pitch: robotaxis, advertising, logistics. A three-headed coin toss. If the future ever arrives, maybe Uber will even charge it surge pricing.

But let’s kill the music and count the cash. Revenue? Uber dragged itself from eleven billion in 2021 to more than forty-five billion now, clocking a 42% CAGR. That’s big. The kind of big that gets you noticed—sometimes by the cops. Revenue’s still growing at 14%. The suits call this “scaling.” I’ve seen numbers scale before—right up until they broke their neck on the edge of a recession.

Profits. You remember when Uber bled money faster than a bad poker player? Now it’s making twelve billion in clean net income over twelve months. Eight percent operating margin. The highest the company’s seen, which isn’t saying much if you know the room’s history. If Uber manages to squeeze costs further, maybe that margin will move. Maybe.

Supposedly, Uber stock is cheap. The P/E ratio is 16, a pittance compared to the S&P 500 average—if you believe ratios instead of your gut. Over the last two years, Uber’s averaged a P/E ratio of 62, which says more about market memory loss than company value. But here’s the part they don’t print on the glossy pitch decks: the rideshare business is a street fight in every city. Regulators are always lurking. Drivers aren’t exactly madly in love. That dazzling expansion could just as easily be a chase scene with no getaway car.

You like a stock with staying power? Uber’s got polish these days. Nobody mentions the night sweats when the bottom falls out. But, hey, you’re looking for a ride, not a romance.

Nvidia

The second act features Nvidia (NVDA), the darling son of the artificial intelligence boom. World’s biggest by market cap. Close to $150 billion in revenue, give or take a few rounding errors the lawyers can explain.

Everyone’s got a reason to love Nvidia. Fresh headlines say the Trump administration slipped it a license to ship H20 chips to China—after the last administration shut the door and painted the windows black. The Chinese market is a beast in a cage. Now, Nvidia has the key, for as long as the politics go their way. Global chess moves, tech pawn gets promoted.

Wall Street expects Nvidia’s sales to climb 54% this year. Even the consensus estimates say so, though the consensus is as credible as a poker table at midnight. Maybe revenue grows more: self-driving cars, AI robot valets, supercomputers that can beat you at chess or steal your identity while you sleep. Nvidia’s cleaned up during the AI feeding frenzy. Market capitalization makes it king—until the next peasant with a sharper sword shows up.

How big is the AI boom going to get? Who knows. The estimates keep dancing. The future glitters, but it’s just as likely to be fool’s gold as the real McCoy. Nvidia’s long-term story is all potential, short on guarantees.

Buy and hold, they tell you. You could. Or you could wait for the fog to lift. The market—like any city at night—hides its dangers behind bright signs and the smell of cheap perfume. If you know the game, you keep your coat on, your money close, and your eyes open for the next twist.

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2025-07-31 15:12

Uber Technologies

Nvidia

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