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The whispers, of course, concern Artificial Intelligence. This new god, this digital demon, is said to be devouring the software landscape. And while I’ve seen enough market cycles to treat such pronouncements with a healthy dose of skepticism – remember the Y2K panic? – there’s a disquieting undercurrent. The fear isn’t that Adobe is failing now, but that it might become irrelevant in some distant, digitally-rendered future. The market, it seems, prefers to punish companies for hypothetical sins. A rather uncharitable approach, even for Wall Street.

Devon Energy. Number five on the list, but honestly, the most dramatic story. They’ve shifted to a fixed dividend, which is…nice. It’s like admitting, “Okay, the rollercoaster is fun, but maybe we should just…settle on a comfortable speed.” A predictable payout of $0.24 per share, yielding 2.1%. They’re merging with Coterra, which sounds like something you’d catch on a damp subway platform, and post-merger, that dividend is supposed to jump 31% to $0.315. Plus, another $5 billion in share repurchases. It’s all very…orderly. The ex-dividend date is March 13th, which is my birthday, incidentally. I’m not expecting a check, though. I’ve learned not to.

Thus, we observe a peculiar alchemy: erstwhile adversaries now joined in commerce. It is a transaction not of reconciliation, but of pragmatic necessity. And it compels us to examine two titans of the S&P 500 index, to discern the implications of this pact, and to contemplate the future trajectory of a market increasingly preoccupied with the alleviation of weight.

BlackLine has announced an addition of $100 million to its existing share repurchase program, bringing the total authorized expenditure to $500 million. This is presented as a demonstration of the board’s confidence, but it is, in essence, a financial maneuver. The company is, quite simply, using its funds to artificially inflate the price of its shares.

Now, a sixth such perturbation appears to be taking shape, born of conflicts in regions whose names resonate with ancient prophecies. This occurs at a moment when the economy exhibits the unsettling symptoms of ‘stagflation’ – a condition wherein growth stagnates while prices ascend, a paradox that would have intrigued even the most dedicated of scholastic theologians. Recent reports indicate a contraction of 92,000 jobs in February, a figure that, while not catastrophic, suggests a slowing of the economic engine. Furthermore, the growth of the gross domestic product has been revised downwards, and core inflation persists at levels that challenge the mandates of the central bank.

The pursuit of a stock price, like the pursuit of happiness, is often a mirage. One chases the shimmering promise, the thirty-dollar horizon in the case of Sirius XM, believing it can be grasped with a careful calculation of earnings and multiples. But the market, like the sea, has its own currents and whims. To believe one can predict its movements with precision is to mistake a ripple for a tidal wave. And yet, we persist, tracing lines on charts, whispering incantations of price-to-earnings ratios, hoping to divine the future from the entrails of the present.

The catalyst, as is so often the case, was a pronouncement from the oracle – in this instance, Tessa Romero of JPMorgan Chase. She elected to elevate her price target for Edgewise from $34 to $45. A most agreeable increase, though one wonders if such valuations aren’t merely exercises in optimistic arithmetic. Still, maintaining a ‘buy’ recommendation is a gesture of confidence, or perhaps, a shrewd anticipation of the herd.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.25%) managed a pathetic 0.25% gain, finishing at 6,716. Thrilling! The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC +0.47%) eked out 0.47% to close at 22,480. Meanwhile, in the alternative asset management freak show, Ares Management (ARES +6.68%) jumped 6.57% to $105.67 and Blackstone (BX +4.42%) waddled up 4.56% to $112.00. A coordinated effort to distract you from the impending doom? Possibly. It’s a broad-based rally…of the slightly-less-terrible.

One observes that Best Buy’s valuation, when measured by the vulgar arithmetic of price-to-sales, hovers near 0.4x—a trifle below its customary average. The price-to-earnings ratio, at 13.5x, is similarly restrained, a modest figure when compared to the extravagance of years past. Their price-to-book ratio is, shall we say, unremarkable, and the price-to-forward earnings, at 12.6x, suggests a cautious optimism. These numbers, taken together, hint at a company neither grossly overvalued nor particularly brimming with promise. It is a price, one might venture, for those who enjoy a bargain, but one must ask: what precisely is one acquiring?

These hyperscalers – Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Oracle – have declared their intent, each outlining a budgetary labyrinth of capital expenditure. Meta, a realm of curated illusions, proposes between $115 and $135 billion. Amazon, the ever-expanding repository of desires, forecasts $200 billion. Microsoft, a dominion of standardized logic, a ‘run rate’ of $150 billion. Alphabet, the collector of all knowledge (or, at least, all data), $175 to $185 billion. And Oracle, the keeper of records, a modest $50 billion. These figures, presented as pronouncements of intent, resemble less a financial forecast than the mapping of an impossible city.