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Now, however, a curious thing is happening. Meta appears to be noticing that building entirely new realities is, surprisingly, expensive. And, even more surprisingly, that people still rather enjoy looking at pictures of cats on their phones. The company is now pivoting, ever so slightly, towards artificial intelligence – a field that, while equally baffling to most, at least doesn’t require the purchase of imaginary real estate. This has resulted in a 10% reduction in headcount at Reality Labs. Which, let’s be honest, is a small number when you consider the sheer improbability of the entire undertaking. (It’s statistically more likely that a flock of pigeons will spontaneously compose a sonnet than that the metaverse will become a universally accepted form of social interaction. Just saying.)

Take InterContinental Hotels Group, or IHG as they call themselves. A rather grand name, wouldn’t you say? Like a king of the bedspreads. They took a terrible walloping when the world went into hiding during the dreadful COVID business. Hotels stood empty, like ghostly castles. But as soon as people remembered how much they enjoyed being squished together on airplanes and in crowded lobbies, things began to perk up. This tale, you see, is about how IHG managed to dust itself off and get back to building its empire. We’ve already peeked behind the velvet ropes to see how they constructed this hotel kingdom, and now we’re going to have a proper look at the numbers – the bits and bobs that really make the world go round.

Gold started the party, briefly nudging past $5,000 an ounce. Then silver decided to join in, recently hitting the century mark. The iShares Silver Trust (SLV 20.77%) has seen a surge – nearly 265% in a year. It’s enough to make a rational investor – and I do try to be – raise an eyebrow. So, the question isn’t just how high can silver go, but should it be going this high? And what, exactly, is driving this peculiar behavior?

Units of SSRM Stock Lost Today: 9.5%. Number of Times I Refreshed the Chart: Approximately 78. Number of Internal Pep Talks: Uncountable.

The Guild of Alchemists – or, as they’re known in less fantastical circles, market analysts – predict the market for the glowing rocks they put inside these boxes – specifically, the Graphics Processing Units – will swell from a respectable 23.87 billion crowns¹ in the current year to a frankly astonishing 201.64 billion crowns by 2032. That’s a compound annual growth rate of 30.5%, which, if you’re not good with numbers, is a lot. It means anyone building these halls, or crafting the glowing rocks within, is poised to profit. Handsomely. One might even say… suspiciously handsomely. But let’s not dwell on that just yet.

Units of Newmont Stock Owned: A Respectable Amount (Until Today). Hours Spent Staring at Gold Charts: Far Too Many. Number of Times I’ve Considered a Career Change: Double-Digit.

The figures themselves presented a pleasing vista. Revenue climbed seven and a tenth percent year over year, reaching $3.30 billion, a substantial sum in these increasingly digitized times. Earnings per share, adjusted, rose a commendable forty-one percent to $8.85. Indeed, the company’s forward guidance, viewed in isolation, suggested a continuation of this upward trajectory. One might almost imagine a peaceful, well-tended estate, yielding a bountiful harvest.

The problem wasn’t just building the machines. It was scaling them, connecting them, making them actually do something useful. IonQ seemed to understand that. They weren’t just chasing qubits; they were buying up the pieces of the puzzle. Oxford Ionics for shrinking the footprint, LightSynq for the interconnects. Each acquisition a calculated risk, a step closer to…what, exactly? A future that felt less like science and more like a high-stakes poker game.