There’s this fund, the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI +0.82%). It’s a mouthful, I know. It doesn’t promise fireworks. It doesn’t guarantee you’ll be sipping Mai Tais on a yacht. It just… owns a piece of almost every company in America. All 3,500-ish of them. A bit like owning a very, very small part of everything. Which, when you think about it, is kind of absurd. And beautiful.
It has been noted, with a degree of accuracy, that these companies, those stalwart pillars of American industry, have a habit of increasing their distributions to shareholders. Last year, a prediction was ventured – a modest assertion, really – that fifteen among them would augment their dividends. The event unfolded as foreseen, a testament not to prescience, but to the predictable rhythms of established enterprise. One is tempted to ask, however, whether such increments truly represent progress, or merely a palliative against the anxieties of a restless age. The question, of course, is rarely posed by those who simply count the coins.
They peddle modules, these “AI” things, that plug into your networks and… predict stuff. Great. Everyone’s predicting stuff. It’s a crowded field, overflowing with silicon valley snake oil salesmen. And the reliance on government contracts? Forget about it. Rigid, bureaucratic, and slower than a three-toed sloth on tranquilizers. They’re acquiring companies like a desperate man hoarding lottery tickets, hoping one of them will magically save the whole operation. Pangiam, Ask Sage… it’s a frantic scramble, a last-ditch effort to avoid the inevitable. The new CEO, some ex-Homeland Security guy? A warning sign if I ever saw one. More smoke and mirrors, I tell you, more goddamn smoke and mirrors.
ResearchAndMarkets.com, a name that sounds like a late-night infomercial, confirmed what a decent scout on the ground could have told you: MercadoLibre isn’t giving up its lead in Chile anytime soon. The numbers, of course, had a part in it.
Last week, TSMC released its report, a document freighted with implications. For those invested in Nvidia and Broadcom, it should be a moment of… not jubilation, precisely. More a quiet, uneasy relief. A temporary stay of execution in a market perpetually poised on the brink. The numbers, of course, are presentable. But it is the feeling behind them, the subtle shift in the tectonic plates of the industry, that truly captivates.
The tale began, as so many modern transactions do, with a pronouncement on X (formerly known as Twitter – a name change as unnecessary as painting stripes on a zebra). Shai Wininger, Lemonade’s chief executive, declared an intention to integrate Tesla’s in-car data with their own systems. A clever idea, really. Gather data, assess risk, and sell insurance. The usual dance. He proposed, with a characteristic flourish, insuring those ‘FSD miles’ for almost nothing. Investors, it seems, were unimpressed. A fall of 8% ensued. A lesson, perhaps, that free money is a myth perpetuated by magicians and politicians.
Realty Income specializes in what’s called ‘net lease’ properties. This is where things get a little bit clever. Essentially, they own the buildings, but the tenants – think drugstores, grocery stores, convenience stores – pay most of the operating costs. Property taxes, maintenance, insurance – all that falls to the tenant. It’s a bit like being a landlord who doesn’t actually do any of the landlord-y things. It reduces risk, of course, but it also means Realty Income doesn’t have to spend its time wrestling with leaky roofs and recalcitrant tenants. They have over 15,500 properties, which, when you think about it, is a lot of buildings. A truly staggering number.
Over the last five years, their payout has grown at a rate that would make a particularly ambitious goblin blush – 13% annually. The S&P 500, bless its index-shaped heart, managed a mere 5%, while other REITs trailed at 6%. It’s as if Prologis has discovered a particularly efficient form of alchemy, turning bricks and mortar into shareholder happiness.1
And the implication, of course, is that they’re hoping for some sort of…meme stock status. Like they’re going to ride a wave of online hype to solvency. It’s just… insulting. The stock is down 84% over three years. Eighty-four percent! You need a miracle, not a Reddit thread, to recover from that. It’s like thinking a good haircut is going to fix a collapsing building.
Lemonade proposes to offer a fifty percent reduction in per-mile rates to Tesla owners utilizing the company’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ capability. This is not generosity, but a calculated experiment. They will ingest the data stream emanating from these vehicles – the countless micro-decisions made by the machine, the near-misses, the actual collisions – and attempt to refine their risk models. It is a form of algorithmic divination, seeking to predict the future by dissecting the present. They become, in effect, cartographers of a new and uncertain terrain, charting the hazards of automated travel. The company positions itself as the first to attempt such a venture, a distinction less laudable than precarious. It is a bold step into the unknown, a venture predicated on the assumption that the machine will prove a more reliable custodian of life and property than the fallible human being.