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Over sixty years, Mr. Buffett steered Berkshire Hathaway to a growth rate substantially exceeding the broader market. The S&P 500, a benchmark of American industry, saw a roughly thirty-nine-thousand percent increase. Berkshire, however, achieved a staggering five million, five hundred thousand percent. These figures are often cited, but they belong to a different era. To extrapolate such growth into the future is a dangerous fallacy. The base from which Berkshire expanded was small; now it is a behemoth, and the laws of physics – or, in this case, economics – apply with greater force.

But earnings weren’t the whole story. Oh no. A fellow named Michael Blum, an analyst at Wells Fargo – a rather important person, apparently – decided to wave a magic wand and increase his prediction of what Plug Power shares might be worth. He bumped it up by a third, to two dollars. Now, the shares were already creeping towards two dollars and fifty cents, so it wasn’t quite the astonishing gift he intended, but investors are easily pleased, aren’t they? It gave them an excuse to buy more, which is what matters, I suppose.

One asks oneself, is this merely a transient flicker, a momentary warmth before the inevitable winter? Or is there a deeper current at play, a slow accumulation of value that the discerning eye might perceive? The question, as always, demands a closer look.

So, let’s venture into those quiet corners, shall we? Today, we’re looking at two companies deeply involved in the artificial intelligence boom, but that somehow, remarkably, haven’t become household names. It’s almost as if they’re deliberately trying to avoid attention, which, in a world obsessed with self-promotion, is rather refreshing.

The price of crude, it is said, doesn’t merely reflect supply and demand; it absorbs the anxieties of nations, the weight of history, the metallic tang of impending conflict. Since the recent, deliberate disturbances – the strikes echoing from distant shores – a disquiet has settled over the oil markets, a restlessness that reminds seasoned traders of the long droughts and sudden floods that once plagued the coastal villages. Brent crude, now trading some seven percent above its late February slumber, has been climbing for weeks, fueled by the nervous energy of investors who sense the gathering storm. A barrel now commands around seventy-one dollars, a sum that feels less like a price and more like a reckoning, nine dollars more than a month ago, and briefly brushing eighty over the weekend – a fleeting glimpse of what might be.

Seems they published their earnings report Tuesday evening, covering the last quarter and the whole of 2025. Revenue came in at $26.6 million, a good 24% jump from the year before. A robust improvement, they call it. I call it a start. They also managed to shrink their losses – down to $2.7 million, or 8 cents a share – from a considerably heftier $5.3 million the previous year. Now, that’s the kind of arithmetic even a fella who spends too much time fishin’ can appreciate.

Last night, Orion reported earnings. A mixed bag, naturally. Sales up 7.5% year over year for the last quarter of ’25. Not bad. But profits? They flipped from a seventeen-cent share profit a year ago to a loss of a penny. A penny. That’s how fortunes are lost these days. It explained the stock’s reluctance to stay afloat.

The company’s early ambitions, grandiose in their scope – to provide hydrogen-based power for entire households – foundered upon the realities of infrastructure costs, the labyrinthine complexities of regulation, and a market not yet prepared for such a leap. A humbling experience, one might say, though such failures are the necessary compost from which more resilient growth emerges. Over the intervening decades, Plug Power has recalibrated, focusing on the more pragmatic task of providing fuel cells, electrolyzers, and storage solutions – tools, rather than transformations.