Bubbles, Rocks, and the Implausibility of Everything

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A vaguely concerned-looking stock chart. Or is it a topographical map of a particularly disappointing planet?

The question, as it invariably does, hung in the air like a slightly used teabag: were we, at the tail end of 2025, experiencing another of those peculiar financial effervescences known as a bubble? Specifically, an ‘AI’ bubble. A bubble, of course, being a temporary distortion of reality driven by the collective delusion that something is worth more than, well, everything. (It’s a bit like believing you can fit an infinite number of monkeys into a finite number of typewriters and expect a coherent Shakespearean sonnet. Statistically improbable, to say the least.)

The media, predictably, has moved on to other anxieties – the rising price of artisanal toast, perhaps, or the existential dread of self-folding laundry. But the question hasn’t evaporated. It lingers, a low-frequency hum beneath the cacophony of market optimism. It will likely remain unanswered until either the bubble – should one exist – performs its characteristic popping motion, or AI continues to inflate, driven by the unwavering faith of venture capitalists and the enduring human capacity for self-deception.

Hedges, therefore, are sensible. Especially when the current enthusiasm bears a striking resemblance to the dot-com frenzy of the early 2000s – a period remembered fondly by those who sold early, and less fondly by everyone else. (It was a time when companies with names ending in ‘.com’ were valued as if they’d discovered the secret of perpetual motion, or at least a marginally faster way to deliver cat pictures.) So, let us consider two industrial stocks, entities so stubbornly, reassuringly un-futuristic that they might just survive the coming digital storm.

The King of Utterly Unremarkable Necessity

Some of the best investments are the ones you don’t think about. The companies that quietly, relentlessly provide the things we take for granted. We call them ‘boring but important,’ a phrase that sounds suspiciously like a euphemism for ‘essential yet chronically undervalued.’

And 3M (MMM 0.70%) is the absolute monarch of this kingdom of the unglamorous. They manufacture everything from the adhesive strips holding your life together (literally and figuratively) to the safety equipment preventing you from becoming a statistic. It’s a product portfolio so vast and mundane that it’s practically invisible. (Think of it as the background radiation of modern existence – always there, quietly preventing chaos.)

Don’t expect exponential growth from 3M. It’s not a company that dreams of colonizing Mars or disrupting the metaverse. It’s a company that reliably makes things that people need, and has been doing so for over a century. It hit a rough patch in recent years, naturally. Everything does. But it’s been showing signs of recovery, with a 96% jump since February 2024, fluctuating within the familiar $120-$200 range. Revenue grew by 1.5% in 2025, reaching $24.9 billion, and adjusted operating margin increased by 200 basis points to 23.4%. Promising, if you’re the type of person who finds incremental improvement deeply satisfying.

Earnings per share did fall by 10% for the year, but Q4 showed a 9% increase in adjusted EPS, suggesting a potential turning point. 3M appears to be emerging from its restructuring, poised for a stronger 2026. And, crucially, it’s about as far removed from the AI hype cycle as it’s possible to be, offering a comforting degree of insulation from the inevitable volatility.

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Digging Up Spicy Rocks (and the Improbable Future of Energy)

The other industrial stock to consider is Cameco (CCJ +2.21%). They are the second-largest uranium miner in the world, responsible for approximately 15% of global supply, trailing only Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom. (A sobering thought, if you happen to be concerned about geopolitical stability and the reliable provision of nuclear fuel.)

The key to Cameco’s success lies in the quality of its mines. McArthur River/Key Lake is the world’s largest high-grade uranium deposit, with enough fuel to keep reactors humming until 2044. Cigar Lake is another high-grade mine, with reserves extending to 2036. (These mines, incidentally, are located in places where the landscape appears to have been designed by a committee of particularly grumpy geologists.)

Cameco can extract a pound of uranium for approximately 20 Canadian dollars – about $15 US. With uranium currently trading around $85 a pound, that’s a rather healthy margin. (It’s a bit like finding a ten-dollar bill in a five-dollar drawer. Unexpectedly pleasant.)

Prior to recent geopolitical events, uranium was the only energy commodity to increase in value over the past year. This is because interest in nuclear power is growing, driven by concerns about climate change and energy security. The US Department of Energy aims to triple America’s nuclear capacity by 2050, France is extending the life of its existing plants, South Korea is building new reactors, and Japan is cautiously reviving its nuclear program. China and India are also heavily investing in nuclear infrastructure. Cameco recently secured a $1.9 billion agreement to supply India with 22 million pounds of uranium ore concentrate between 2027 and 2035.

While 3M is recovering, Cameco is surging ahead. Revenue for 2025 totaled $3.48 billion, up 11% year-over-year, and adjusted EPS climbed 114%. The company maintains a net profit margin of 16.9% and a remarkably healthy balance sheet with a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

Electricity is a perpetual need, regardless of the latest technological fads. And increasingly, governments around the world are turning to a spicy yellow rock – uranium – as a reliable and low-carbon energy source. (It’s a bit like realizing that the solution to a complex problem was staring you in the face all along. Slightly embarrassing, but ultimately satisfying.)

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2026-03-17 10:02