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This one…this one is sneaky good. Realty Income (O), a Real Estate Investment Trust, or REIT, if you’re feeling fancy. They own properties – lots of ’em – and lease them out. It’s as simple as that. Now, these REITs are legally required to hand out most of their profits as dividends. It’s the law! They’re basically forced to be generous. And get this: they pay monthly dividends. Monthly! That’s right, not quarterly, not annually…monthly! It’s like getting a tiny little birthday present every month. They’ve been doing this for 667 consecutive months, which is longer than some marriages, let me tell you.

To leap from the current $64 to $100 represents a gain of precisely 56%, a figure that, while mathematically sound, feels…optimistic. Especially when one recalls the stock’s nadir, a 64% descent from the effervescent heights of November 2021. It’s a humbling reminder that even the most athletic of companies can stumble, its momentum momentarily lost in a tangle of its own laces. Five years prior to that peak, however, a soaring 255% ascent proved that Nike is not immune to the capricious whims of investor fancy. Bulls, naturally, yearn for a repeat performance, a resurrection of past glories.

To speak of ‘money machines’ is to misunderstand the currents at play. These are not engines of pure creation, but rather vessels that collect the detritus of desire, the shimmering fragments of dreams cast off by a restless world. And yet, even a cynic like Mateo couldn’t deny that certain vessels were more adept at gathering these fragments than others. Three, in particular, stood out, their hulls reinforced against the inevitable storms of the market, their captains steering by a compass calibrated to the whims of the collective imagination.

IonQ boasts a commendable accuracy – 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity – a figure that, upon closer inspection, reveals a landscape riddled with error. To declare such a system ‘accurate’ is akin to claiming a ship seaworthy despite a multitude of unseen leaks. The company endeavors to construct not merely a quantum computer, but an entire ‘ecosystem’ – a term so frequently invoked in our age that it has lost all meaning – encompassing chip fabrication, software development, and network infrastructure. A laudable ambition, but one that requires a prodigious expenditure of capital and a tolerance for risk that borders on recklessness. The current market capitalization, a staggering $17 billion, stands in stark contrast to the projected revenue of a mere $110 million in 2025. A valuation divorced from reality, a phantom built upon the shifting sands of expectation.

Apparently, 90 million Americans are using this stuff. Ninety million. That’s roughly the population of Germany, all collectively delaying the inevitable regret of a slightly-too-expensive sweater. The average spend is $244 a month. Which, if you extrapolate, is enough to fund a surprisingly robust porcelain cat collection. It’s a shift, though, away from credit cards. Younger folks, especially, seem to prefer this. Easier access, I suppose. Less paperwork. Fewer opportunities to feel vaguely ashamed of your spending habits.

Because, let’s be real, ten years ago, XRP was basically pocket change. January 2016. A grand – a whole thousand dollars – would get you… well, a lot of XRP. Enough to be currently looking at a portfolio worth… are you ready for this?… $437,460. Yes, you read that correctly. I’m starting to question my life choices, frankly. I invested that much in a sourdough starter once. Don’t ask.

The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund, that pale reflection of collective optimism, has barely registered the shift. A curious indifference. One recalls the apocryphal treatise of the cartographer, Master Eldred, who argued that a map which perfectly replicates a territory is, in fact, that territory itself – and therefore, useless as a guide. So too with the market; it is a labyrinth of projections, each mirroring the others, obscuring the true contours of value. To seek a definitive reading is to chase a phantom.