GE Aerospace: A Thin Veneer of Optimism

Digging through the rubble, you find a few glimmers. Maybe. It’s a long shot, but a man can hope. Or at least, observe.

Digging through the rubble, you find a few glimmers. Maybe. It’s a long shot, but a man can hope. Or at least, observe.

That date marks the full implementation of California’s Digital Financial Assets Law (DFAL). Now, laws are generally understood as attempts to impose order on chaos, but sometimes they feel more like attempts to catalogue the infinite possibilities of things going wrong. This particular law dictates that any entity “exchanging, storing, or transferring a digital financial asset” – which, let’s face it, is most of what Coinbase does – must either possess a license from the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) or cease operations within the state. It’s a bit like asking a fish to obtain a permit for swimming – perfectly logical, in a certain, deeply unsettling way.

According to a filing with the SEC – a government agency tasked with keeping track of these things, and doing a middlin’ job of it, if you ask me – PFG sold off all 62,410 shares of the Vanguard Malvern Funds – Core Plus Bond Fund (VPLS 0.03%) during the last quarter of 2025. Four and ninety-one hundred thousand dollars, gone like a puff of smoke. The fund itself reported a drop in value of the same amount, which is just a fancy way of saying money moved from one pocket to another. A perfectly ordinary occurrence, if you don’t dwell on the details.

The company’s premise – to organize the vast, chaotic ocean of digital data through its aiWARE operating system – is not entirely new. Many have attempted to impose order on the digital wilderness. But Veritone, at least for a time, seemed to offer a plausible method, a way to sift through the endless streams of text, audio, and video. The appeal, naturally, lay in the promise of efficiency, of extracting meaning from the noise. Though, one suspects, much of that meaning remains elusive, lost in the very data it seeks to categorize.

After the Federal Open Market Committee decided to hold rates at 3.50%-3.75%, the chairman proclaimed the current stance “appropriate,” as if a tailor had declared a suit properly fitted after trimming away 75 basis points during the last three gatherings. A ceremony with bells and ledgers, and yet somehow no fireworks for the crypto crowd.

The early months were burdened by the specter of tariffs, a crude instrument wielded with a peculiar sort of enthusiasm. President Trump, a man of… decisive action, sought to reshape the economic landscape through levies. A blunt force, applied without subtlety. Now, Fluor, engaged primarily in domestic construction, might seem immune to such machinations. But the market, alas, is a web of interconnected anxieties. Increased material costs, imported necessities suddenly rendered more expensive… it was a contagion of rising prices, and Fluor, like a patient weakened by a hidden ailment, felt the chill.

There were, naturally, several factors at play. It wasn’t just luck, although a certain amount of serendipity is always welcome in the stock market. It’s a bit like making a decent cup of tea: you need the right ingredients, a bit of skill, and a healthy dose of not messing it up. And AbbVie, it seems, didn’t mess it up.

The CORP-DEPO people did a survey, and nine out of ten investors said they’re sticking with AI stocks, or even adding more. Not a lot of panic, apparently. Which is… something. It’s like watching people rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, only the iceberg is made of code and the band is playing algorithms. So it goes.

The official pronouncements, of course, are couched in the dry language of SEC filings, dated January 28, 2026, detailing a reduction in position. But let us not be deceived by such sterile accounting. The true story, as always, lies beneath the surface, swirling in the murky depths of market sentiment. The quarter-end value, diminished by $13.64 million, is not merely a number; it is a symptom, a feverish flush upon the face of a troubled enterprise. A most peculiar fever, I might add, one that smells faintly of damp wool and forgotten promises.

Come January 28th, 2026, they filed a notice with the SEC – a fancy way of sayin’ they told the government what they’d been up to. Seems they sold off 373,236 shares of JD.com during the last quarter. That’s a goodly sum, and it shrunk the value of their holdin’s in that company by $14.03 million – a loss accounted for by both the sellin’ and the stock itself takin’ a tumble. They still got some – 155,104 shares, worth around $4.45 million – but they’re clearly lighten’ their load.