qfx

Now, Coca-Cola, as anyone with functioning taste buds knows, is a Dividend King. Sixty-three years of consistently raising its dividend? That’s not just good business, that’s practically a geological epoch. We’re talking through wars, recessions, the rise and fall of shoulder pads…it’s seen it all. It’s more reliable than my mother’s advice, and that’s saying something. And the current yield is around 3%, which, okay, isn’t going to fund a yacht anytime soon, but it’s consistent. That’s the key. It’s the difference between a one-hit-wonder and a classic album.

They’ve brought in a new Head Honcho, a fellow named Kaz Nejatian, to try and polish up the finances. A perfectly pleasant man, I’m sure, but he’s attempting a strategy that’s about as sensible as trying to build a castle on quicksand. He thinks he can fix things. Oh dear.

Two developments, seemingly modest in themselves, offer a glimpse into the company’s evolving strategy. The acquisition of the remaining 18.6% interest in the Round Top deposit from Texas Mineral Resources Corp, secured with a consideration of approximately $73 million in shares, feels less like a bold stroke and more like a necessary tidying of affairs. A company, one might observe, that secures its foundations before building its towers. It removes a lingering uncertainty – the potential for financial strain within a crucial partner – and allows for a more focused pursuit of its ambitious goals.

The conventional sourcing of nickel and cobalt, essential components of these accumulators, is frequently attended by disturbances to the natural world and, one might add, to the tranquility of those whose livelihoods depend upon it. TMC, with a boldness that borders on the audacious, seeks to circumvent these inconveniences by harvesting polymetallic nodules from the abyssal plains – potato-sized formations, as they are rather plainly described, containing the very materials so eagerly sought.

Despite this initial advantage, or perhaps because of it, the stock currently trades at a valuation 93% removed from its previous peak (as of March 10th), a figure that resonates with a peculiar emptiness. A further decline of 36% in the current year presents itself not as a simple numerical decrement, but as a slow erosion of possibility. The question, then, is not whether one should allocate $1,000 to this venture, but whether such an allocation is even conceptually permissible within the established order of things.

Over 700 workshops, a baroque excess of learning opportunities, will cover everything from the prosaic – driverless vehicles, robotics – to the faintly unsettling – “agentic AI.” The phrase itself evokes images of digital automatons plotting their ascent. Nearly 400 exhibitors will vie for attention, and 70 hands-on labs will offer a fleeting illusion of control over the increasingly opaque machinery of intelligence. One wonders if the attendees will leave enlightened, or merely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data.

These hedge funds, these titans of finance, have apparently deemed it wise to gather this intangible substance. Twenty billion units now reside within their coffers, a shimmering mirage in the desert of global finance. One wonders, of course, if they truly believe in its inherent worth, or if it is merely a game of shifting shadows, a particularly elaborate form of blind man’s buff played with the fortunes of others. A gentleman I know, a purveyor of pickled herring and dubious financial advice, assures me it is the latter, but then again, his pronouncements are usually accompanied by a generous sampling of his wares.