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For years, Fluor had walked a tightrope strung between ambition and ruin, its fate tethered to contracts that demanded miracles of cost control. The old ways, where a fixed price was a gambler’s wager against the unpredictable currents of construction, had brought the company to the brink. Each project was a fever dream, haunted by cost overruns and the ghosts of budgets past. Then came the shift, a subtle recalibration of fate. They began to favor reimbursable contracts, a gentler rhythm, where the cost of building was shared, a communal effort against the entropy of time. Now, with a backlog of $25.5 billion, 81% shielded from the vagaries of fixed pricing, Fluor had built itself a foundation, a sturdy, if unglamorous, shelter against the storms to come. It wasn’t a fortune built on shimmering gold, but on the quiet accumulation of prudent decisions, a slow drip of earnings into the coffers, a promise of stability for those who sought the comfort of a consistent yield.

The stock is down about fifty percent since that little bit of accounting magic. People say that happens. Like getting a flat tire or realizing you’ve worn mismatched shoes all day. It’s just…common. But it feels less ‘common’ and more ‘ominous’ when we’re talking about billions of dollars. Wall Street, it seems, is a bit twitchy. They’ve seen this movie before. A lot of bright ideas, a lot of capital, and then…well, then the laundry piles up.

The company, a phantom limb of the old Twitter, declared a pruning of its workforce – more than forty percent, a number that resonated with the echoes of ancient sacrifices. Dorsey, a man who often seemed to speak in riddles and pronouncements, attributed the cuts to the relentless advance of artificial intelligence. He spoke of a ‘smaller team, doing more,’ as if efficiency could truly fill the void left by vanished faces and silenced expertise. It was a curious logic, this belief that machines could replace the intangible qualities of human ingenuity – a notion that Tiberius dismissed with a wave of his hand and a knowing glance toward the rain-streaked window. The market, however, reacted with a peculiar enthusiasm, a collective sigh of relief that suggested it had been secretly yearning for this very reckoning.

Units of Cryptocurrency Lost (so far): 0.5. Hours Spent Refreshing CoinMarketCap: 7. Number of Times I’ve Considered Taking Up Knitting: 4. I mean, I’m a long-term investor, or at least, I aspire to be. The plan was solid. Buy low, hold…forever? It’s starting to feel less like a plan and more like a desperate hope.

This, naturally, has prompted a spot of bother amongst the leading cryptocurrencies, including XRP (XRP 3.76%) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), who are now attempting to add a touch of privacy to their operations. But the question is, will these new features provide enough of a lift to warrant a jolly good investment? Let’s have a look, shall we?

Three stocks warrant consideration: Microsoft (MSFT 2.17%), Amazon (AMZN +1.04%), and Meta Platforms (META 1.29%). Each has experienced a recent decline, and a pragmatic assessment suggests they may represent reasonable, if not exceptional, purchases at present prices.

It’s all terribly familiar, actually. Reminds me of the crypto boom. Remember that? It started as something slightly dodgy, hidden away in corners of the internet, and then, suddenly, everyone was talking about it. “Disruptive technology!” they cried. “The future of finance!” I mostly remember a lot of red candles.