usdaed

The markets, naturally, are gripped by a familiar mania. Optimism blossoms into speculation, a fragile flower easily withered by the cold breath of reality. To label this a ‘bubble’ is perhaps too simplistic. Bubbles pop. This feels more like a slow, agonizing inflation, a stretching of credulity until it threatens to tear. The technology itself is not the issue, understand. It is the valuation, the grotesque distortion of potential into present worth. A dangerous game, played with the fortunes of men.

Recently, my gaze – and a regrettable portion of my capital – has settled upon three entities: PepsiCo, Main Street Capital, and Verizon. Not because they represent some pinnacle of innovation or moral rectitude, mind you. But because they…yield. They offer a semblance of predictability in a world governed by whim and chance. And so, I acquire more, driven by a need that gnaws at the very foundations of my financial sanity.

Yet, within the vast, often chaotic landscape of financial instruments, there exists a curious anomaly. The Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG 0.13%)—a fund that dares to look beyond the present yield, to consider the potential for growth. It is a fund, I confess, that has occupied my thoughts of late, prompting a disquieting reassessment of my own strategies. Is it possible, I wonder, to reconcile the desire for income with the relentless pursuit of capital appreciation? This ETF, at least, attempts to do so.

The company, a Dutch confectioner of lithography machines – those intricate devices that etch the future onto silicon – finds itself in a position of enviable, almost suffocating, dominance. It is, quite simply, the sole purveyor of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology, a process as vital to modern chip fabrication as a well-mixed martini is to a civilized evening. The relentless hunger for processing power – fuelled by the insatiable maw of artificial intelligence – has, predictably, benefited ASML. The demand, one might say, is less a rising tide than a frothing, iridescent wave.

To seek a single vessel for such a portfolio is not to embrace optimism, but to acknowledge the sheer impossibility of informed omniscience. The Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQM 1.19%) presents itself as such a vessel. It is not a panacea, but a distillation—a concentrated essence of the prevailing currents. It offers, if nothing else, a degree of insulation against the inevitable failings of individual enterprises – a small hedge against the relentless entropy of the market.

The question is not whether silver will continue to rise, but whether this ascent bears any relation to genuine investment value. Is this a flight to safety, or simply a collective delusion?

Let us consider, then, two such glimmers: Spotify Technology, and Pinterest. Not shining beacons, mind you, but flickering candles in the gloom, worthy of a closer inspection, particularly for those with a tolerance for risk and a fondness for the peculiar.

They rent out space in these digital caverns to the giants, and also to a rather brainy bunch called OpenAI – the folks who make computers talk, if you can imagine such a thing. The real muscle behind it all, the very whizz-bangery, comes from something called ‘GPUs’ – graphics processing units – made by a company called Nvidia. But CoreWeave isn’t just a customer, oh no. They’ve become… well, let’s just say Nvidia has taken a rather substantial liking to them.

They both want to be the operating system for everything, naturally. It reminds me of my brother, Mark, trying to organize our mother’s Tupperware collection. An admirable effort, but ultimately doomed to failure. There’s just too much plastic. And in this case, too much data. Alphabet, with its Gemini models embedded in everything from search to, apparently, Apple’s revamped Siri (launching in 2026, a lifetime in tech years), is betting on ubiquity. Siri, though. That’s a bold move. I’ve had more coherent conversations with Winston. But the Apple deal is clever. It’s like admitting search isn’t enough, that you need access to two billion devices to really matter. Their $155 billion backlog in Google Cloud is impressive, and the Wiz acquisition, if it goes through, will be interesting. Though, honestly, the names of these security firms all blend together after a while. It’s like they’re trying to sound vaguely menacing.