qfx

VXUS is basically the Switzerland of ETFs. It throws a little money at everything outside the US – developed and emerging markets alike. It’s the “responsible adult” of your portfolio. EEM, however, is all-in on emerging markets. It’s the fund that’s been binge-watching documentaries about the Asian Tigers and thinks it has a foolproof plan. And honestly, sometimes it does… for a while.

Eli Lilly, of course, has already had its moment, a gilded ascent that left many trailing in its wake. Its stock, a phantom limb of past opportunities, has risen so high that to chase it now feels akin to scaling a mountain already crowned. The price-to-earnings ratio, a cold number, whispers of a peak perhaps unsustainable. But the market, like a fickle lover, rarely lingers on past glories. It demands new enchantments, fresh narratives. And those narratives, I believe, are beginning to coalesce around the quiet resilience of Novo Nordisk and the strategic refocusing of Medtronic.

The expense ratios are demonstrably similar, rendering cost differentials negligible for most investment scales. Notably, GDX distributes dividends, a feature absent in SLV, representing a potential, albeit modest, income component for the former.

Ford, bless its rusty heart, is a company built on engines that cough and splutter. They’ve dabbled in these electric doohickeys, but it seems the sums weren’t quite adding up. Demand, you see, wasn’t exactly leaping off the shelves like sugared plums. So, they’re having a bit of a rethink, focusing on less flashy models and those hybrid things – a sort of halfway house for the petrol-guzzlers. They’ve even decided to abandon the all-electric version of their F-150 truck – a bit like throwing a perfectly good sweet in the bin, if you ask me.

However, to focus solely on the recent downturn is to ignore the peculiar arc of its history. Over the preceding five years, a discernible, if unsettling, upward trajectory has been observed. One is compelled to inquire: what would have become of a modest investment of $100, committed to this digital entity half a decade ago? The answer, as with most things, is not straightforward, but rather a complex accounting of forces beyond any single investor’s control.