As the sun sets on late January 2026, XRP’s price sits near $1.90, as steady as a mule in a mud puddle. A modest 4% dip since the year began, it trades between $1.88 and $2.00, a range tighter than a miser’s wallet. The sentiment? Cautious, like a prospector eyeing a dubious claim.
However, even the most stoic investor finds a certain… weariness creeping in after a prolonged period of watching a promising venture merely…exist. Archer Aviation (ACHR 3.88%), purveyors of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft – or ‘air taxis,’ as they rather optimistically call them – provides a particularly good example. It’s a stock I’ve held, you see, and one has been cultivating a rather impressive degree of forbearance.
You see, when you’re picking stocks – which is a bit like choosing sweets from a very large jar – you mustn’t get distracted by a single, slightly-sour bonbon. Focus on the whole jar, and how many lovely sweets it holds over the next few years. That’s what a sensible portfolio manager does, and believe me, I’m rather sensible. United Rentals, despite this little hiccup, is still a very promising sweet indeed.
And so it has come to pass. Joby, adhering to the trajectory previously indicated, has initiated a substantial infusion of new shares into the market, and the stock, predictably, has reacted with a decline of 17.2% as of midday Thursday. One observes, not triumph, but a weary confirmation of predictable cycles.
Let’s start with Ally Financial (ALLY +0.59%). They spun out of General Motors after the whole financial crisis mess. Smart move, honestly. Let someone else deal with the legacy baggage. They specialize in auto loans – which, let’s be real, is a surprisingly reliable business. Everyone needs a car, even when they’re pretending to be environmentally conscious. They’re the biggest auto lender in the U.S. not attached to a car manufacturer, and also, the largest online-only bank with a hefty $144 billion in retail deposits. Which is…a lot of money. People trust them. Or are just lazy and don’t want to go to a physical branch. Either way, it works for me.
The portfolio, as it were, reveals a predictable pattern of cautious optimism. XLK remains the favoured child, at $35.90 million, followed by this JBND, now at $33.22 million. VCRB and VCIT linger in the middle distance, while SCHX brings up the rear. One imagines lively debate amongst the partners as to the relative merits of each, though the ultimate decision, as always, rests with those who understand the true meaning of leverage.
The filing with the SEC… it’s a bureaucratic autopsy of a dying breed. Ledgewood, bless their cold, calculating hearts, are doubling down on fixed income. The quarter-end value of this little obsession swelled by four million, fueled by the purchase and… the movements of the bond market. Movements. That’s what they call it. A slow, agonizing drift towards… what? Oblivion? Or just another Tuesday?
While the chaps with the computers are counting their digital pennies, there’s a little company, tucked away, tinkering with something far more potent: the very building blocks of life. They’re called CRISPR Therapeutics, and they’re not building robots, they’re building…well, fixes. For the bits of us that go wrong. And that, my dears, is a rather odd, and potentially lucrative, business.
Since that initial flourish, the shares have embarked upon a journey decidedly southward, a spectacle most disheartening to those who believed themselves poised to reap a golden harvest. The question, then, is not merely why this decline, but how swiftly illusion has yielded to reality.
I embark upon this examination of IHG as one might begin a well-crafted play, in three acts, if you will. The first, as it were, concerns the history – the stage upon which this company has strutted and fretted. I have been assembling a portfolio, a ‘Voyager Portfolio’ as I’ve dubbed it, seeking those companies overlooked, underestimated, and, dare I say, a little bit amusing in their persistence. IHG fits the bill admirably. It is a business that has, with remarkable dexterity, managed to remain relevant in an industry renowned for its fleeting trends and the insatiable demands of its clientele.