qfx

At $1.9 trillion, Meta’s ascent appears inevitable to the optimists. Its stock, they say, needs but a 53% rise—a mere stumble in Wall Street’s casino. The prophets chant of AI-driven ads converting clicks into gold, of virtual realms where avatars dance while flesh-and-blood laborers prop up the machine. But let us not mistake the map for the territory.

Valuations soar like kites untethered from earth, their strings cut by winds of speculative fervor. The Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500, those twin towers of market triumph, have scaled heights that would make even the most ardent optimist pause. Is it still wise to entrust one’s capital to an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the Nasdaq-100, or has this ascent become a perilous climb, demanding a retreat into safer havens?

In the second quarter, Altria’s adjusted EPS growth and revised guidance might make one believe in miracles. Revenue net of excise taxes fell 1.7% to $5.29 billion, while EPS climbed 8.3% to $1.44. One might call this progress, but let’s not confuse a sleight of hand for a standing ovation. The elephant in the room—declining shipment volumes—remains unacknowledged, like a bureaucratic memo buried in a drawer.

Yet, what predictions might be considered appropriate from such a vantage as three years hence? Shall we peer through our crystal balls or simply observe quietly the tableau of data center developments to divine the future? Let us indulge in a modest examination.

To declare Meta a continuing ‘hot buy’ would be premature. Too many uncertainties remain. This assessment will examine the recent performance – the causes of its upward trajectory – and, more importantly, the substantial risks that linger beneath the surface, risks which the market appears, with characteristic short-sightedness, to have largely ignored.

But as any expert in dividends (and, for that matter, Mel Brooks movies) will tell you, even the biggest fish eventually find themselves dodging smaller, scrappier fish with much sharper teeth. Enter, stage left (possibly tripping over his own shoes for comedic effect): Shopify (SHOP). This plucky Canadian outfit has done for e-commerce what sliced bread did for… well, unsliced bread.

To the uninitiated, a stock split appears as magical as a conjurer’s rabbit. But let us dissect this illusion with the precision of a surgeon who has seen too many appendectomies. A stock split is but a bureaucratic sleight of hand: shares multiply while value remains constant, like dividing a cake into smaller slices and pretending the hunger has vanished. A 3-for-1 split? Imagine a peasant with 10 gold coins suddenly holding 30 copper ones. The total wealth? Still a peasant’s meager hoard. And reverse splits? Those are the desperate waltz of a company waltzing on a tightrope over a canyon of regulations. One false step, and the Nasdaq’s gavel falls like a thunderclap from the heavens.