They opened 402 new stores in ’25, jettisoned the Family Dollar disaster (good riddance), and now boast over 9,000 locations. A creeping empire of five-dollar footies and bargain bin batteries. Management, predictably, projects another billion or so in sales for ’26. More stores. More stuff. The machine grinds on. They’ll add 400, close 75. A carefully calculated dance with the abyss.
And so, I acquired a stake in Sea Limited. Not, mind you, out of any particular faith in the inherent goodness of capitalism, but because the numbers, viewed through a cynical lens, suggested a temporary…misunderstanding. A Singaporean entity, it operates in the realms of commerce, digital amusements, and, most curiously, the lending of money – a practice that has, historically, rarely concluded well for anyone involved. The stock, you see, has suffered a rather undignified tumble – a decline of 56% from its recent high. A bargain, perhaps, for a vulture with a functioning calculator.
Enterprise Products Partners. The name itself sounds like a shadowy consortium. And in a way, it is. They move the black gold, the natural gas, the petrochemicals… the lifeblood of this frantic, unsustainable civilization. Fifty THOUSAND miles of pipeline. It’s obscene. A web of steel and pressure, crisscrossing the continent. They treat, they process, they transport. They’re the logistical backbone of a system that’s accelerating towards… well, let’s not dwell on that. The point is, they’ve built a MONSTER. And monsters tend to survive. They’re even sniffing around the AI infrastructure buildout—riding the wave of the next technological obsession. A.J. Teague, co-CEO, talking about leveraging existing systems to feed the insatiable appetite of data centers… it’s a beautiful, terrifying synergy.
Eventually, the price will fall. It always does. That’s just physics, or greed, or both. Here’s a look at a few companies, and how they’ll likely fare when the music stops. Don’t expect a happy ending.
Bitcoin’s biggest limitation just got shattered. Or, as my cat would say, “Shattered? Please. I’ve knocked over harder things.” A new protocol went live Thursday, making it simple to put the largest cryptocurrency directly to work in powerful, yield-generating strategies within the booming world of decentralized finance (DeFi). You know, the one where people yell about “the future” while accidentally sending ETH to a black hole.
The stock, a unit of ownership in a system of calculating human value, has experienced a decline of thirty-six percent since the middle of the previous cycle. This is not a dramatic collapse, but a slow erosion, a quiet unraveling that suggests a deeper, systemic malaise. ADP, the processor of payrolls for a sixth of the American workforce, finds itself subject to the same anxieties that plague those whose livelihoods it calculates.
Berkshire’s evolution is itself a curious tale. From the near-moribund textile manufacturer it once was, it has risen – or perhaps, been reborn – as a behemoth, a conglomerate of such scale that its very existence seems to defy the laws of economic gravity. A trillion-dollar empire built not on innovation, but on…prudence. A strange virtue in our age of reckless abandon. It owns insurance companies, railways, utilities…a vast network of enterprises, each humming with the quiet energy of accumulated wealth. And, of course, the stock portfolio. Apple, a particularly weighty obsession, representing a significant portion of the whole. The gradual shedding of Apple shares, a pragmatic decision, perhaps, but one tinged with a subtle melancholy. To relinquish even a portion of such a lucrative holding feels…almost like a confession of fallibility.
However, a bit of short-term unpleasantness shouldn’t distract one from the long-term potential. If one insists on dabbling in technology—and frankly, who doesn’t—a tech-focused Exchange Traded Fund is a far more sensible approach than chasing individual stocks. It avoids the vulgarity of putting all one’s eggs in a single, possibly fragile, basket.
And opportunities, however fleeting, present themselves in the current valuations of Netflix and Amazon. Both, it seems, are experiencing a touch of fashionable unpopularity. A temporary affliction, naturally. The market, after all, is a fickle beast, prone to fits of irrationality. It rewards conformity and punishes independent thought. One might almost suspect a deliberate orchestration of chaos, a grand cosmic jest.
They sell western and workwear. Boots, shirts, the whole shebang. Over 300 stores and an online presence. Basically, they’re catering to people who want to look like they can wrangle cattle, even if they’re just going to the grocery store. Which, honestly, is a solid business plan.