So, let’s venture into those quiet corners, shall we? Today, we’re looking at two companies deeply involved in the artificial intelligence boom, but that somehow, remarkably, haven’t become household names. It’s almost as if they’re deliberately trying to avoid attention, which, in a world obsessed with self-promotion, is rather refreshing.
The price of crude, it is said, doesn’t merely reflect supply and demand; it absorbs the anxieties of nations, the weight of history, the metallic tang of impending conflict. Since the recent, deliberate disturbances – the strikes echoing from distant shores – a disquiet has settled over the oil markets, a restlessness that reminds seasoned traders of the long droughts and sudden floods that once plagued the coastal villages. Brent crude, now trading some seven percent above its late February slumber, has been climbing for weeks, fueled by the nervous energy of investors who sense the gathering storm. A barrel now commands around seventy-one dollars, a sum that feels less like a price and more like a reckoning, nine dollars more than a month ago, and briefly brushing eighty over the weekend – a fleeting glimpse of what might be.
Seems they published their earnings report Tuesday evening, covering the last quarter and the whole of 2025. Revenue came in at $26.6 million, a good 24% jump from the year before. A robust improvement, they call it. I call it a start. They also managed to shrink their losses – down to $2.7 million, or 8 cents a share – from a considerably heftier $5.3 million the previous year. Now, that’s the kind of arithmetic even a fella who spends too much time fishin’ can appreciate.
Last night, Orion reported earnings. A mixed bag, naturally. Sales up 7.5% year over year for the last quarter of ’25. Not bad. But profits? They flipped from a seventeen-cent share profit a year ago to a loss of a penny. A penny. That’s how fortunes are lost these days. It explained the stock’s reluctance to stay afloat.
The company’s early ambitions, grandiose in their scope – to provide hydrogen-based power for entire households – foundered upon the realities of infrastructure costs, the labyrinthine complexities of regulation, and a market not yet prepared for such a leap. A humbling experience, one might say, though such failures are the necessary compost from which more resilient growth emerges. Over the intervening decades, Plug Power has recalibrated, focusing on the more pragmatic task of providing fuel cells, electrolyzers, and storage solutions – tools, rather than transformations.
Is it a buy? Well, that’s what we’re here to unpack, like a particularly disappointing suitcase after a business trip.
For a long time, Apple’s strategy was elegantly simple: build premium products, charge a premium price. It worked, spectacularly. It’s the sort of thing that makes other companies gnash their teeth and mutter about ‘brand loyalty’. But lately, a subtle shift has occurred. Faced with the predictable woes of supply chains – memory chips, in particular, have become frightfully expensive – Apple has done something unexpected. They haven’t simply passed the cost on to the consumer. Instead, they’ve held the line on the price of their entry-level iPhone. A surprisingly… sensible move.
It’s always the tech stocks, isn’t it? Nvidia, Amazon, Meta… they’re the designated heroes in these little dramas. I watched the numbers come in, and it’s almost comical how reliant we’ve become on their performance. Nvidia, up 2.2%, Amazon with a solid 3.9% gain, and Meta trailing slightly at 2.2%. They’re like the reliable cousins you call when everything else is falling apart. The Nasdaq Composite, predictably, led the charge, up 1.7%. I swear, if I see another analyst use the word “resilient,” I might have to take up competitive birdwatching.
The transaction value is based on a weighted average purchase price derived from the SEC Form 4 filing ($46.22). The post-transaction value, meanwhile, is a snapshot in time, calculated using the market close on February 26th, 2026. It’s a bit like trying to measure the length of a river while simultaneously standing on a rapidly rotating planet.
This isn’t merely a purchase; it’s a statement. A statement, roughly translated from the language of high finance, that someone believes Fluor might, just possibly, generate some actual profit. A concept, admittedly, that seems almost quaint in these modern times. The stake represents 3.9% of Starboard’s reportable AUM as of December 31, 2025 – a figure that, upon closer inspection, appears to be comprised entirely of hopes, dreams, and slightly used staplers.