Once a titan of corner-store convenience, Walgreens became a game of musical chairs where everyone arrived early, and there were no chairs left. Growth? Gone. Profit? Dwindling. Desperate for reinvention, it dabbled in pharmacy benefits and health clinics. Both flopped, like a mime slipping on a banana peel. The dividend, once a promise of stability, vanished into the ether. So it goes.
Act I: The Investor’s Dilemma. To time the market is to believe oneself a magician in a world of arithmetic. One might charm the stock gods once or twice, but to weave such tricks into a lasting tapestry of wealth? That is the ambition of a man who believes his pocket square contains a rabbit.
Yet for all their clamor, the true architect of this new world remains unseen. Nvidia (NVDA), that titan of silicon and shadow, tills the soil with quiet diligence. While its rivals dance on the stage of hype, Nvidia builds its empire in the wings, where the real alchemy of computation occurs. One might say it is the old world’s answer to the new-a quiet symphony composed in the language of GPUs and CUDA.
Nvidia, whose market capitalization dwarfs that of many nations, has forged its dominion through the creation of graphical processing units that serve as the sinews of artificial intelligence and digital entertainment. In contrast, XRP-a digital token native to its own blockchain-has ridden the tempest of speculative fervor, its valuation surging nearly sixfold in the span of a year. Their differences, however, run far deeper than mere market metrics. They are, in essence, different breeds of assets: one a tangible product of regulated corporate enterprise, the other an ephemeral token whose fate is bound to the caprices of supply, demand, and legal adjudication.
If you’ve got the dough and a time horizon that stretches beyond the blink of a panicked investor’s eye – think three to five years or even longer – then these two stocks are your secret weapons. They’re not your garden-variety plays; they’re the renegades that promise to blow up the old paradigms and deliver serious gains.
Yet here we are, mere mortals, staring at a stock now trading at $907-a retreat of 22%. And why? Despite repeatedly outwitting analysts’ expectations, raising guidance with the swagger of a seasoned cardsharp, and securing deals laced with the seductive promise of artificial intelligence, ServiceNow finds itself in a peculiar predicament. Shall we unravel this enigma together?
Tom Farley, the man entrusted with shepherding this venture into the public gaze, declared, with a measured calm that belied the turbulent currents of the market, that their intention to offer shares arose from a belief in the industry’s awakening, another leg in a journey whose starting point was already shrouded in the mists of forgotten code. It was a statement delivered with the gravity of a priest interpreting ancient runes, as if the unfolding events were not merely economic calculations, but a fulfillment of something older, deeper.
The company, architect of end-to-end computing solutions for data centers, cloud computing, and the esoteric realms of high-performance computing, has become a case study in the futility of forecasting. Since November, it has performed a ritualistic act of self-abasement, each quarter peeling back layers of its revenue guidance like a Sisyphean ledger. From $6 billion to $7 billion, then to $5.9 billion to $6 billion, and onward-each revision a bureaucratic formality, a submission to an authority that demands perpetual recalibration. The fourth-quarter results, as if scripted by an indifferent hand, once again fell short, a performance so routine it borders on absurdist theater.
Visa’s third-quarter fiscal 2025 results, a crescendo of 14% revenue growth and 23% adjusted earnings, echo the inevitability of progress. Yet, as with all things, the true measure lies not in a single quarter but in the enduring trends. The digital age, like a well-dressed gentleman, is here to stay, and Visa, as its trusted valet, continues to facilitate transactions with unflappable grace.
Yet, much like a protagonist in a Wodehousian escapade who finds himself momentarily discomfited by an unexpected twist, Occidental did not let these fluctuations dampen its spirits. With a gusto that would make even the most jaded investor raise an approving eyebrow, the company’s midstream and marketing segments surged ahead. In a performance that bordered on the sublime, Occidental churned out 1.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, a figure that soared past the mid-point of its guidance. Meanwhile, its chemicals business, OxyChem, maintained a steady performance, much as one would expect from a reliable old friend who never lets you down.