Apparently, silver has breached the hundred-dollar mark. A milestone, I suppose, though one wonders if it’s worth the bother. The Americans, in their typically dramatic fashion, seem to be causing a stir with tariffs. One imagines international investors are beginning to feel a touch… unloved. The dollar, predictably, is looking a little peaked. It’s all frightfully dull, really. A bit like watching paint dry, only with rather more shouting.
The stock, it continues to climb, like a determined beetle scaling a particularly lucrative sunflower. Most of the gains, as one might expect, materialized towards the year’s end – a frantic scramble for digits, a last-minute accounting of fortunes. I ventured, some months ago, a prediction of considerable growth for Micron, and, remarkably, it has exceeded even my cautiously optimistic estimations—a jump of over 150% since then. This is not, of course, to suggest any particular prescience on my part, merely a fortunate alignment of celestial bodies and the insatiable human appetite for ever-increasing computational power.
The near-term journey will bend where U.S. crude oil inventory data and the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision unfold, each as if turning a page in a ledger of inflation and liquidity. If they smile, the market smiles back; if they sigh, Bitcoin sighs with them.
Nine months have passed, and the market cap has dipped from around $400 billion to $365 billion. A slight stumble, you say? A mere hiccup in the grand scheme of things? Maybe. Unless you consider that their outlook for 2026 is…let’s call it “underwhelming,” and the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition is causing investors to clutch their pearls. Honestly, it’s like watching a perfectly good pratfall turn into a slow-motion disaster. A very expensive disaster.
Equinix (EQIX +1.91%) is, at its core, a landlord. But instead of renting space to shops or offices, it provides the physical infrastructure upon which the entire digital world, and increasingly, artificial intelligence, depends. It owns and operates data centers – vast, anonymous buildings filled with humming servers. These are not glamorous enterprises, but they are essential, and that is where opportunity lies.
It is said – though the provenance of this claim is lost within the archives of the Buenos Aires Society of Economic Heresies – that all markets are, at their core, attempts to predict the future, to map the labyrinthine corridors of possibility. Cohen, it seems, is offered a key – a substantial allocation of stock options, some 171.5 million shares, predicated on the achievement of certain financial milestones. A sum exceeding $3.5 billion initially, escalating to a figure surpassing $35 billion should GameStop attain an EBITDA of $10 billion and a market capitalization of $100 billion. A rather ambitious cartography, one might observe.
To engage in the mining of copper is not a task to be undertaken lightly. It demands a considerable outlay of capital, a prolonged commitment of resources, and a degree of foresight rarely encountered in the more speculative corners of the market. One must first locate a deposit of sufficient value, then navigate the intricate process of securing the necessary permissions – a challenge not dissimilar to obtaining the consent of a particularly discerning family. Once approved, the mine must be constructed, operated with diligence, and, eventually, restored to a semblance of its original state. It is a lengthy, and often arduous, undertaking, requiring a patience that many investors, alas, do not possess.
Palantir, you see, has been dabblin’ in this AI business for nigh on twenty years, mostly workin’ for the government and its allies. But it was their “Artificial Intelligence Platform,” or AIP as they call it – a name that sounds suspiciously like a doctor’s bill – that really set things a-stirrin’. They claim it can plug into just about any business and reveal all sorts of hidden truths. Sounds a bit like a detective novel, don’t it? And the way they teach folks to use it – these “boot camps,” they call ’em – well, it’s like hand-holdin’ a fella while he tries to tame a wild mustang.
The AI ETFs have been doing rather well, admittedly. The Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (AIQ) has outperformed the S&P 500. But it had a wobble recently, didn’t it? A little shudder. Down 11% in a matter of days. It’s recovered a bit, but it’s enough to make one reach for the herbal tea and re-evaluate life choices. So, I’ve been thinking. What if the AI party does end? What if it’s not all self-driving cars and robot assistants, and more…a very expensive digital paperweight? I’ve been making lists, naturally. It’s what I do when I’m stressed.
It is a curious thing, this human tendency to extrapolate present fortune into infinite future gain. We are, by nature, creatures of habit, prone to mistaking the temporary ebb of hardship for a permanent triumph over fate. The year 2022, a season of justifiable lament—a decline exceeding twenty percent—served only to sharpen the subsequent ascent, to fuel the delusion that a correction had been vanquished, not merely postponed. The slowing of inflation, the tentative pause in the Federal Reserve’s relentless tightening—these were seized upon not as prudent signals, but as confirmations of an inevitable, upward trajectory.