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Novo Nordisk, bless its diligent heart, was the first to stumble upon the elixir of weight loss in injectable form. A pioneering achievement, quickly overshadowed by the superior marketing of Eli Lilly (LLY +0.39%) and, let’s be honest, a slightly more potent concoction. Compounded versions of Wegovy, a testament to human ingenuity and the relentless pursuit of profit, began to appear. A chaotic scene, really. And now, Mounjaro and Zepbound reign supreme. A predictable outcome, one might say, in a world where perception is often more valuable than reality.

I’ve landed on two companies, not because I’m particularly optimistic about the future, but because they seem… less terrible than most. Broadcom and IBM. I’m not suggesting you remortgage your house, of course. But a few thousand dollars? It could be worse. It could be spent on another limited-edition porcelain cat.

Bandwidth reported earnings, which, as far as earnings reports go, were…earnings. A bit of a miss on revenue, a little nudge above on profit. The usual dance. Honestly, I find these quarterly pronouncements exhausting. It’s like everyone’s pretending to be surprised by things they already knew six weeks ago. Investors, however, latched onto the 2026 guidance. An acceleration in revenue, margin expansion… the usual promises. It’s the hope that kills you, as my grandmother used to say, right before she’d buy another set of collectible thimbles.

But fear not, for they’ve decided to do a bit of dividing. A splitting, if you will. A 25-for-1 split, to be precise. It’s like taking a whole apple pie and slicing it into twenty-five smaller pieces. You still have the same pie, mind you, but now more folks can get a slice without needing a ladder.

Analysts, those appointed arbiters of potentiality, now project a valuation for Viking Therapeutics—a company whose existence is, in essence, a protracted experiment—reaching, in some estimations, $125 per share. This figure, exceeding the current price by a margin that borders on the fantastical, suggests a conviction bordering on delusion. One wonders, naturally, if these projections are based on careful calculation, or merely the result of a systemic error in the forecasting protocols. The ticker, VKTX, appears to be suspended in a peculiar state of anticipation, awaiting a judgment it may never fully comprehend.

As of the hour of two and twenty minutes past noon, the shares of Wheels Up have fallen by nearly twelve percent. A significant tremor in the marketplace, yet merely a ripple in the vast ocean of capital. Still, it compels one to consider the human dramas unfolding within this single company – the hopes of the founders, the calculations of the investors, and the quiet anxieties of those who have placed their faith – and their fortunes – in this venture.

Back in the day, Ripple Labs, a bunch of fintech fellas, decided the world needed a faster way to move money. Forget carrier pigeons and smoke signals! They birthed XRP, pre-minted a gazillion of ’em (100 billion, to be precise—talk about a supply glut!), and said, “Behold! The future of finance!” It wasn’t mined like Bitcoin, and it didn’t have the staking bells and whistles of Ethereum. It was just…there. Like a slightly confused relative at a family reunion.

The clever sorts at Peregrine clearly decided Universal Display wasn’t doing the jig they wanted it to. It was 3.6% of their portfolio a quarter ago, now…poof! Vanished. They’ve gone from being a shareholder to looking at it like a rather dusty old toy they’ve outgrown. A complete liquidation, they call it. Sounds rather dramatic, doesn’t it?

This increase in holdings, a deliberate weighting of their portfolio towards the lands beyond the American shore, is not merely a calculation of profit, but a tacit acknowledgement of a truth often obscured by the exuberance of domestic markets: that fortune, like the wind, does not blow eternally in a single direction. The managers of Financial Council, men accustomed to the scrutiny of balance sheets and the vagaries of sentiment, appear to have discerned a subtle change in the air, a premonition of value ripening elsewhere.

It seems the world has developed an insatiable appetite for data. Artificial intelligence, you see, isn’t powered by inspiration; it’s fueled by memory chips. And when demand outstrips supply, prices, predictably, begin to resemble the ambitions of a nouveau riche. Micron and Samsung, the usual suspects, are struggling to keep pace. This, naturally, creates a delightful situation for those who can deliver.