The story isn’t complicated. It’s about a company that’s been underperforming, plain and simple. They’re chasing the shadow of AutoZone and O’Reilly, companies that know how to squeeze a dime until the buffalo hollers. Advance’s EBITDA margin? Let’s just say it’s currently residing in the basement. Which explains the price-to-sales ratio. It’s low. Very low. And where there’s a low price, a value investor starts to pay attention.
Now, management doesn’t offer specific forecasts for dividend growth – a tactic I suspect involves a complex algorithm designed to confuse both investors and the very fabric of reality. However, signs suggest a substantial increase is on the horizon. Perhaps even in the double digits. The last time they dared to venture into double-digit territory was back in 2007. (A time when, if memory serves, trousers were considerably wider and the prevailing philosophical question was whether or not to add glitter to everything.)
Maytree Asset Management, a Hong Kong-based firm with a penchant for the exotic, has recently acquired a stake of some $11.16 million in AXT. A substantial sum, certainly, though in the grand theatre of finance, merely a pleasant distraction. The truly wealthy, one suspects, measure their fortunes in lost masterpieces, not mere silicon.
There was a flurry of excitement a while back, a grasping for shares of those who dig the rare earths from the bones of the land. USA Rare Earth (USAR +16.33%) felt the rush, a fevered bloom, then a settling. Now, the fever returns, and it seems the digging won’t stop with just those elusive elements. The scope widens, like a farmer realizing his field isn’t large enough for all he hopes to grow.
Yet, beyond the familiar shores of American finance, a different tale unfolds. A quiet performer, the Vanguard International High Dividend Yield ETF – VYMI – has begun to cast a long shadow, eclipsing the S&P’s gains with a disturbing ease. A forty-one percent rise since the beginning of 2025…it feels almost…unnatural. A silent rebuke to the anxieties that plague our domestic markets.
It is possible, though, that the sellers, in their haste, overstepped. As of this afternoon, DaVita’s stock has risen a startling 20.3%, a bloom in the desert of recent performance, all thanks to quarterly results and a future outlook that suggests, if not exactly sunshine and roses, then at least a respite from the prevailing gloom. One might almost suspect a clerical error, or perhaps the intervention of a benevolent spirit, though such notions are, of course, entirely unscientific.
A shortage of memory, you say? A modern inconvenience? Hardly. It’s a symptom. A symptom of a world increasingly obsessed with feeding data into the maw of the machine. The market, naturally, is tightening. As if squeezed by an invisible hand, or perhaps the relentless pressure of progress. Micron’s management, during their December earnings call, casually mentioned that their entire 2026 production of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) had been…committed. Before the year even began. One pictures a frantic scramble, a silent auction conducted in the shadows of server farms. HBM, you see, is not merely memory. It’s a vertical city of data, a skyscraper built of silicon, designed to appease the digital deities.
Prior to the introduction of the GeForce 256 GPU in 1999, Nvidia’s revenue base was comparatively limited. The subsequent fiscal years, 1999-2003, witnessed a substantial increase in sales—a twelvefold expansion to $1.91 billion—accompanied by a profit of $91 million. This momentum continued through the decade, peaking in fiscal 2008 with revenues of $4.1 billion and profits approaching $800 million. However, the financial crisis of 2008 introduced a period of retrenchment. While research and development expenditures remained elevated, sales declined, resulting in net losses for both 2009 and 2010. It was not until 2017 that net income surpassed the 2008 high-water mark, a prolonged period of constrained earnings for shareholders.
They disrupted things, didn’t they? Commission-free trades, a streamlined app, a dash of gamification. It appealed to a very specific demographic – the ones who thought meme stocks and crypto were a legitimate investment strategy. And, to be fair, it worked. Millions of new retail investors flooded in back in 2020 and 2021. It was… chaotic. And profitable, for a while.
December saw them deliver 48,135 vehicles. A new record. Records are made to be broken, of course. It’s the natural order of things. The fourth quarter was even better, up 71.7% year over year. Numbers. They dance around, signifying… what, exactly? Progress, perhaps. Or just more cars on the road.