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Now, like a lot of established plumbing, Fiserv has been having a bit of a moment. The stock price, after a rather impressive run, took a tumble – a 73% drop over the past year is not something you see every day. It’s enough to make even the most seasoned investor reach for the antacids. But before you start picturing a financial apocalypse, let’s take a look at what went wrong, and, more importantly, whether this old giant can actually turn things around.

Lumen, formerly known as CenturyLink – a renaming signifying little beyond an attempt to distance itself from the weight of its past – now proclaims a dedication to the infrastructure underpinning this new era. It has begun a deliberate shedding of its consumer-facing fiber networks, a strategic retreat from the households it once served, to concentrate on the demands of enterprise and public sector—the true arbiters of technological progress, or so it is believed.

(Based on SEC Form 4’s weighted average price of $49.02. As if a weighted average means anything when the whole damn system is rigged. The closing price on the 13th? Irrelevant. It’s all a game.)

The question, then, is not whether Vertex can achieve the impossible, but whether it can continue to outperform a market increasingly given to fits of irrationality. A decade ago, the company was a smaller, more focused entity, diligently addressing the lamentable condition of cystic fibrosis. The approval of Kalydeco in 2012 was a minor triumph, though hardly a cause for national rejoicing.

The share price, once soaring to the heights of nineteen dollars, now languishes, diminished by sixty-three percent from its zenith. A most lamentable decline! One is tempted to ask, is this a bargain, a treasure awaiting discovery, or merely a fool’s errand dressed in the guise of innovation? Let us, with a discerning eye, examine the play unfolding before us.

A certain caution has begun to creep into the market. The assumption that AI spending will continue at its current pace is, at best, optimistic. Investors, belatedly, are beginning to ask whether the promised returns will materialize, or if they are chasing a phantom. Consequently, the pronouncements of industry leaders are being scrutinized with an intensity not seen before. Demand, and the capacity to fulfill it, are the key metrics.

The price? $56.63. A ghost of a number. It meant little on its own. It was the context that mattered. He still held a healthy stake, $1.7 million worth. But he’d shaved off a piece. A small piece, about 15% of his direct holdings. He’d done this before. Usually around 5,500 to 7,600 shares. Routine, almost. Like a man trimming a hedge. But hedges hide things.

The company boasts of a near quadrupling of revenue from its generative models. A most impressive figure, to be sure. One can almost smell the money being printed. And now, a collaboration with Apple – a billion dollars a year, they say, for Gemini to whisper suggestions into the ears of Siri. A most curious arrangement. It’s as if two emperors are sharing a particularly fine tapestry, each convinced they are the true owner. But let us not be distracted by the grand gestures of the powerful. The real story, the truly lucrative tale, lies not in the clouds, but in the very dust from which those clouds are formed.

The story of Apple, then, isn’t merely a chronicle of quarterly earnings and product launches, but a slow, inevitable unfolding, a prophecy whispered in the silicon valleys of the world. For decades, the company has not simply participated in the markets; it has quietly, persistently, become them. It began, of course, with the rectangles, the iPhones, those luminous portals to a world both boundless and contained. In the year 2024, while others chased volume, Apple captured a disproportionate 46% of global smartphone revenue, despite holding only 28% of the units sold. A curious alchemy, that – a triumph not of quantity, but of desire, of a willingness to pay a premium for the illusion of perfection. The average selling price, a staggering $903, wasn’t a number; it was a testament to the power of narrative, of branding woven into the very fabric of aspiration.

Yet, beyond the familiar confines of these shores, a different narrative unfolds. The Vanguard Total International Stock ETF – a composite, a chimera of global equities – has ascended, displaying a growth of 9% in the current cycle. It is a phantom limb, responding to stimuli unseen by the American market. This divergence, while not unprecedented, warrants a closer examination. The ancient Gnostics believed reality to be a flawed reflection of a higher realm; perhaps the international markets are, at this moment, the truer reflection.