Blooming sales helped-a 17% jump in Q2. Nearly all of it was organic growth, which sounds nice unless you remember that “growth” is often just a thin patch of grass amidst a field of drought. That really means business might be slowing; their book-to-bill ratio was only 0.7. For those of us with a fondness for fiscal stability, that’s a fancy way of saying “maybe not a lot of new orders coming in.”
AMC Entertainment (AMC) and Grab Holdings (GRAB) are the kind of stocks that make your financial advisor sigh and adjust their glasses like they’re about to explain why you shouldn’t eat cake for breakfast. But here we are. Let’s dissect these two with the precision of someone who once tried to balance a checkbook using a Ouija board.
I’ve waxed poetic before about some standout dividend-focused ETFs, including my old flame, the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD). But today, let me introduce you to the new kid on the block: the Fidelity High Dividend ETF (FDVV). This one’s special because you can dip your toes in for less than $500-or go all-in if you’re feeling particularly ambitious. Think of it as the financial equivalent of ordering off the dollar menu versus splurging on a full-course dinner.
Gate’s “Molecular Gates” sound like a sci-fi concept, but let’s be real: it’s just another way to target proteins that no one else could be bothered to touch. The idea is simple-why stop at easy targets when you can complicate your life? It’s like ordering a salad but then asking for extra ranch, pretzels, and a side of existential dread. Lilly’s paying for the ranch, the pretzels, and the dread. All in one bite.
The company’s Artificial Intelligence Platform, that most modern of alchemical tools, has worked wonders on the balance sheet. One might almost believe the U.S. government and its corporate sycophants have discovered a new form of currency more valuable than gold. Revenue figures for the second quarter read like the ledger of a Victorian railway baron: $733 million in U.S. revenue, with the commercial segment tripping along at 93% year-over-year growth. It is a performance that would make Dickens’ Mr. Bumble weep into his corned beef.
By 2025, the corporation seemingly executes its strategy with the cold precision of a bureaucrat, layering interfaces upon interfaces, each more labyrinthine than the last-web, Android, iOS-each detaching the user further from a straightforward experience while simultaneously coaxing them toward a singular, indiscernible goal: transaction. A microcosm of control, the interface shifts like a Dadaist’s dream-features moved, repositioned, concealed in menus that seem designed not for utility but for a perpetually delayed revelation-an exercise in patience or despair, depending on one’s state of mind.
By Friday’s early light, the stock’s week-to-date ascent of 11% stood as a testament to the alchemy of numbers and narrative. Yet beneath the surface, one senses the uneasy marriage of tradition and technology-a union born of necessity rather than affection.
Yet, as any true Discworld investor knows, chaos often breeds opportunity. Let us explore how one peculiar factor might yet turn this “crisis” into a “golden opportunity”-assuming, of course, the cocoa gods are in a charitable mood.
Enter stage left: two stocks that, with a mere $1,000, could turn into the seeds of a fortune, long after the current year’s fireworks have faded-ASML Holding and Alphabet. Both are promising, in their own peculiar ways, to grow along with the tech landscape, provided you have patience, a bit of nerve, and the willingness to wait out the inevitable squalls.
The analysts, those modern-day oracles of the financial world, have thrown Joby into chaos. H.C. Wainwright, in a move as dramatic as a Shakespearean villain’s monologue, downgraded the stock from “buy” to “neutral,” citing valuation concerns. Meanwhile, Canaccord managed the impressive feat of both downgrading the stock to “hold” and raising its price target to $17-a financial tightrope act that would leave Cirque du Soleil envious. The stock closed at $17.25, a figure that now feels as meaningful as a prophecy from a teacup-reading llama.