They’d released their Q4 and full-year 2025 results beforehand. Revenue was $630.7 million – up almost 8%, which, you know, isn’t nothing. Net income (the non-GAAP kind, naturally) was up 11% to $47.2 million. Which sounds…fine. Analysts were expecting $616.6 million for revenue, and $0.05 per share for that adjusted net income. So, a beat on both fronts. Which, logically, should be good.
For months, the price of gold had climbed, a fever dream fueled by anxieties. Almost $5,600 an ounce. A figure that once seemed impossible, a legend whispered among those who toil in the shadows of finance. It was a confluence of fears – inflation gnawing at savings, the distant drums of conflict echoing across continents. People sought refuge in the familiar weight of gold, believing it a fortress against the storm. A foolish faith, perhaps, but a predictable one.
Cryptocurrencies, naturally, offer a different sort of appeal. Or, rather, a different sort of anxiety. They are, admittedly, volatile things. But so is life. And their current pricing, compared to the burnished glow of gold, presents a curious possibility. A portfolio, constructed with a degree of circumspection, might find some modest benefit there.
Apparently, they’ve got a new CFO coming in, Gary Bischoping. Mike Eastwood is retiring. It always strikes me as odd, these executive transitions. It’s like watching a particularly slow game of musical chairs. Everyone pretends it’s seamless, but I suspect there’s a lot of frantic emailing and passive-aggressive Slack messages happening behind the scenes. I imagine Eastwood, on his way out, leaving a cryptic note taped to Bischoping’s monitor: “The quarterly reports… they bite.”
The stock jumped, okay? Up over 18%. I saw it. It’s just… the way they present this information. Like it’s some kind of grand achievement. It’s a stock price. It goes up, it goes down. It’s not rocket science. Although, maybe it is semiconductors, so… never mind.
Is this a moment? A chance to buy? Let’s look. Not with hope, necessarily. Just…observation. It’s a universe of random events, and this is one of them.
While a modest increase in net sales—reaching $1.22 billion—might have been deemed acceptable in other circumstances, a corresponding decline in comparable sales, nearly one percent below the previous year’s figures, has clearly unsettled the more sensitive investors. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a steady progression is far more desirable than a fluctuating fortune.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a company in possession of a promising drug must be in want of sustained growth. Yet, mere promise, alas, is insufficient. Execution, that most fickle of muses, must also lend its favor. The question, then, is not simply whether these firms can innovate, but whether they can consistently deliver upon their pledges. Novo Nordisk, it seems, is being subjected to a rigorous examination of its credibility, while Eli Lilly, with a certain audaciousness, positions itself as the ascendant player.
The company, engaged in the ambitious, and arguably hubristic, project of establishing a cellular network among the satellites, has, for the first time, generated revenue. This is, naturally, cause for…observation. The CEO, Abel Avellan, issued a statement. Statements are always issued. He spoke of advancements in commercial operations, government relations, manufacturing processes, spectrum rights, intellectual property, and the company’s capital position. Each phrase, a carefully constructed barrier against the inherent chaos of existence. It is unclear what, precisely, constitutes an “advancement” in these nebulous realms, but the word was used.
Wix, you see, is a platform for building websites. Not actual bricks and mortar, naturally. That would be terribly inefficient. No, it’s a digital construction site, where one can erect a virtual shopfront, a personal fiefdom, or a shrine to one’s collection of bottle caps.2 And it appears that, despite the prevailing winds of technological upheaval, people are still quite keen on having these digital spaces. The company has been enjoying a period of steady revenue growth, recently acquired a particularly potent alchemical formula (more on that later), and announced a rather aggressive scheme to buy back its own shares. All this, despite the widespread panic that artificial intelligence would render the entire endeavour utterly pointless.