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However, a closer inspection reveals a rather… uneven distribution of success. It appears that a disturbingly small number of stocks have been doing most of the heavy lifting. In fact, unless you’ve diligently adhered to the strategy of simply buying the entire index (a perfectly sensible approach, if you can find an index to physically purchase), your returns have likely been… less exuberant. Last year, just seven stocks accounted for nearly half of the S&P 500’s total return. A situation akin to a team of penguins attempting to push a grand piano up a hill – impressive, but ultimately reliant on a few particularly determined penguins. Approximately 30% or fewer of the index’s components have outperformed the average return in each of the last three years. Which, statistically speaking, is… unusual. (And potentially foreshadowing something.)

Almost twenty-one million new shares, released into the current, a flood attempting to nourish a fragile seedling. One hundred and fifty million dollars, they anticipate—a sum that feels both substantial and, somehow, insufficient. The price, seven dollars and twenty-five cents per share, feels less like a valuation and more like a concession—a whispered agreement between hope and necessity. It is the way of things, I suppose, this constant calculation of worth.

It did have a moment. A proper, soaring-stock moment. Up 600% over three years! Which, let’s be honest, is enough to make anyone feel like a financial genius. But then reality bites. It’s down 35% in the last year. And currently wobbling around the $11 mark. It’s like a dating app profile: initially promising, then… well, you know.

The company reported revenues of $2.39 billion – a figure large enough to inspire envy in a small principality, yet somehow insufficient to prevent a dip in the share price. Net operating income, that slippery concept divorced from generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), retreated to a modest $185 million, or $0.74 per share. A year prior, they managed $227 million. One suspects a misplaced decimal point somewhere in the calculations, or perhaps a particularly lavish company picnic.

Rather than undertake this tedious exercise themselves – a process akin to sifting through ashes for a spark of value – they now favour the convenience of Exchange Traded Funds. A neat solution, certainly. One merely surrenders control – and a small percentage of one’s capital – to a faceless algorithm, and hopes for the best. It’s a form of outsourcing anxiety, and quite popular these days.

The thing is, while everyone’s obsessing over the shiny new generative AI (which, let’s be honest, mostly produces slightly unsettling images of cats), there are actual companies making money from this. Real, solid, hardware providers. And I’ve been looking at four in particular. Nvidia (NVDA +0.74%), Broadcom (AVGO 1.10%), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD +1.52%), and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM +0.32%). I’m seriously considering ‘loading up,’ as they say. It feels…bold. And slightly reckless. But that’s investing, isn’t it? A constant negotiation between hope and despair.

And yet, even in the midst of such cautious currents, opportunities persisted, hidden like ancient coins beneath the silt of the present. For those with patience, with a willingness to look beyond the immediate spectacle, there existed a trio of enterprises – not titans, perhaps, but resilient blooms pushing through the cracked pavement of the financial landscape. These were not stocks to be chased with reckless abandon, but to be cultivated, to be understood, to be held with the quiet dignity of a long-term affection. With a mere thousand dollars, or even a little less, one could acquire a share in their unfolding stories, a small piece of their potential destinies.

By the close of trading, LSI’s stock price had ascended by more than 14%. This, in the grand scheme of things, is roughly equivalent to the height of a moderately enthusiastic houseplant.

Certain players, naturally, have benefited disproportionately from this fleeting calm. FuelCell Energy (FCEL +5.94%) and Enphase Energy (ENPH +12.54%) have experienced a rather spirited ascent, relieved, it seems, that their prospects are not immediately clouded by import duties. And Meta Platforms (META +5.66%), ever resilient, and a rebounding Tesla (TSLA +4.08%) have lent their considerable weight to the Nasdaq’s upward momentum. It is a spectacle, to be sure, though one wonders if the foundations of this prosperity are built upon anything more substantial than air.