qfx

Both enterprises hum along, naturally, each with its own engine of expansion. But which one, my friends, offers the more promising wager? Which one will fill our pockets with a satisfying clink? Let us examine the data, as one would inspect a slightly used samovar.

Now, we at the firm have been giving rather a lot of thought to Broadcom. And the conclusion, after much calculating and staring intently at charts (a surprisingly effective method, if you ignore the headaches), is that it’s poised to join this select group. Broadcom, you see, doesn’t make dragons. It makes the things for the dragons. The bits that make them breathe fire more efficiently, the scales that don’t fall off quite so readily. Essential stuff, really.

And now, this sprawling snack and soup empire is flirting with getting booted from the S&P 500. Apparently, being a relatively small fish in a very big index is frowned upon. It’s the corporate equivalent of showing up to a gala in sweatpants. A market cap under $7 billion? That’s…cozy. The S&P 500 is a VIP club, and Campbell’s is starting to look like it needs to check its invitation.

To peruse the company’s filings with the SEC – those quarterly missives detailing its holdings – is akin to reading a playbill. We are presented with a cast of characters – the companies in which Berkshire has invested – and invited to judge their performances. Two, in particular, demand our attention – not for any exceptional novelty, but for the sheer, enduring quality of their… well, their persistence. Let us, with a touch of ironic detachment, examine their roles in this ongoing drama.

We track sentiment, of course. It’s a silly business, trying to measure fear. But fear, like gravity, is a force. And forces can be anticipated. We look at sectors, see which ones are getting kicked the hardest. And then there’s breadth – how many stocks are participating in the misery. A wide crack in the pavement suggests a bigger problem underneath. A narrow one? Just a pebble.

There is a company, Lucid, led by men who speak of transforming transportation itself. They envision a future where the automobile is not merely a means of conveyance, but a vessel of technological innovation, a purveyor of data, and, ultimately, a source of profit far exceeding the mere sale of metal and glass. The former chief executive, a man possessed of considerable zeal, spoke of a company eighty percent devoted to the creation of technology, and only twenty percent to the laborious task of assembling automobiles. A noble ambition, certainly. Yet, one is reminded of the ancient fable of the man who wished to capture the wind – a grand vision, but lacking the necessary foundations.