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There is, however, a glimmer of growth, a subtle stirring within the machine. The company proclaims record revenue for the year just passed – $187.3 billion, a fifth consecutive year of increase. But numbers alone tell a fractured story. Ford is now engaged in a delicate dance, a retreat from the full embrace of electric vehicles, a pause to allow the market to mature. It is a pragmatic decision, born not of vision, but of a sober assessment of current realities. The company turns, instead, to the familiar comfort of gasoline-powered vehicles, the SUVs and trucks that have long sustained it, and the hybrid options that offer a bridge to an uncertain future. This is not innovation, perhaps, but a shrewd calculation, a return to what works, and in doing so, has increased its U.S. market share by a modest, yet significant, 0.6 percentage points – the best performance since 2019. A small victory, to be sure, but in the long campaign of commerce, every inch gained is a testament to endurance.

The market, in its eagerness, once saw a disruption coming, a shaking up of the old ways. A digital hand reaching into a business built on handshakes and trust. But the ground was harder than they reckoned. It’s easy to blame the weather—the rising rates, the shifting tides—but a good farmer always looks first to the soil, to what he can amend, what he can coax from the earth.

Let us, then, consider two specimens from this burgeoning digital garden – one a fragile bloom, dependent on constant tending, the other a more robust growth, rooted in practical application.

It’s easy to assume popular companies like Apple or Microsoft are the most frequently searched stocks online. However, a recent study by Surety First, an insurance and bond company, shows that neither of these well-known “Magnificent Seven” stocks actually made the top searched list.

By the time the market decided to call it a day, Netflix stock was up near 6%. Folks seem to think a failed acquisition is a good thing. Seems counterintuitive, don’t it? Like cheerin’ when the train jumps the tracks. But there’s a method to this madness, as I’ll explain.

The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF, a vessel carrying the hopes and fortunes of many, has suffered a decline of no small measure, a quarter of its value surrendered to the currents of apprehension. Within its hold, giants such as Microsoft, Palantir, and Salesforce feel the chill. It is not a collapse, mind you, but a quiet erosion, a realization that even the most seemingly invincible enterprises are subject to the same laws of gravity as lesser concerns. The anxieties surrounding disruption by these very AI tools, once hailed as saviors, have become the instruments of this retrenchment, a tragic irony not lost on the seasoned observer.

It represents 6.8% of their 13F reportable assets. Which, if you’re not familiar with the jargon (and frankly, who isn’t a little lost in it all?), is a significant chunk. It means they’re putting their money where… well, where the animal by-products are, as it turns out.

But a low price doesn’t always mean a bargain. Sometimes, it just means the ground is poor.