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Two years ago, with Intel trailing TSMC in manufacturing prowess by a margin that felt… significant, such a feat would have been considered, shall we say, statistically improbable. (Think of it like trying to predict the exact arrangement of tea leaves after a particularly vigorous stirring. Possible, yes, but not something you’d base a quarterly earnings forecast on.) But thanks, in part, to Intel’s 18A manufacturing process, Panther Lake appears to be a much-needed inflection point. A home run, if you will, though one executed with a rather complex series of physics and material science.

Amongst my own holdings, two companies presently claim my particular esteem: Costco Wholesale and Roku. These are not merely matters of financial interest, but of observing a certain… competence in their respective spheres. They possess, in my estimation, a capacity for exceeding expectations, and thus warrant a closer scrutiny.

They produced eighteen thousand, three hundred and seventy-eight vehicles this past year. A hundred and four percent increase, they announce. A significant number, to be sure. One can almost hear the hopeful cadence in their reports. But numbers, like people, require context. A percentage increase is easily achieved from a small base. It’s like a child growing an inch – a triumph for the child, perhaps, but hardly a challenge to a grown man. The capital required to birth these machines is immense, a burden that weighs heavily on any nascent enterprise. The ramp-up, as they call it, is a slow, arduous climb.

The company itself managed to exceed its own modest expectations, a feat rarely celebrated in polite society. Revenue and profits, while not exactly soaring, were at least respectable. Yet, the underlying trend remains stubbornly downward. Subscribers, like moths to a dying flame, continue to drift away. A most inconvenient truth.

We are told that quantum platforms promise to solve problems that would consume decades with mere minutes. A delightful notion, certainly, and one that has, predictably, sent shares of companies like Quantum Computing, IonQ, and Rigetti Computing into a rather undignified scramble. It’s a spectacle, to be sure, though one cannot help but observe that enthusiasm, like champagne, often loses its effervescence rather quickly.

Let us state the obvious: this is an exchange-traded fund, a mechanism for pooling capital and tracking an index. It is not, in itself, a source of wealth. Rather, it is a means of accessing a segment of the market – non-U.S. equities – that many domestic investors neglect, often to their detriment. The fund encompasses over 1,400 companies operating outside the United States, a breadth that, while not guaranteeing success, at least avoids the perils of placing excessive faith in a limited number of enterprises.

Now, they want you to believe these companies are poised for even more growth. As if growth is some kind of birthright. I mean, really. Let’s look at these supposed winners, shall we? Because I have a feeling this whole thing is built on a foundation of…optimism. Which, frankly, is terrifying.

The current preoccupation with these tariffs, enacted by the present administration, and their effect upon the digital token XRP (XRP 0.61%), is a case in point. The coin, designed to facilitate the swift and relatively inexpensive transfer of value, has experienced a modest decline of 7% since the initial imposition of these duties in early April. Yet, to attribute this downturn solely to these tariffs is to mistake the shadow for the substance. The true drivers of value, as always, lie deeper – in the utility of the underlying technology, and in the broader currents of economic sentiment.

Shiba Inu (SHIB 0.10%), launched in August 2020, initially benefited from the prevailing market enthusiasm for meme tokens. Despite a current market capitalization of $4.6 billion, a sustained period of value accrual remains questionable.

Recently, a disproportionate influx of investment has found its way into the State Street Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF +0.64%). A concentration of faith, if one may call it that, in the institutions that mediate, and often determine, the very fabric of our economic lives. This is not a surge born of genuine conviction, but a desperate application of polish to a tarnished facade.