By the close of play, Valaris’s stock was up by a margin that could only be described as robust – over 34%, if you please. A tidy sum, indeed, and enough to put a spring in the step of even the most jaded investor.
Last April, when everyone was panicking about tariffs, Bitcoin briefly dipped to around $75,000 before rebounding. My uncle, predictably, missed the rebound. He always misses the rebound. It got me thinking, though. Is that $75,000 mark some sort of psychological barrier? A line in the sand drawn by people who mostly just want to feel clever?
The question, as always, is whether this presents an opportunity or merely foreshadows further unpleasantness. One observes the market with a certain detached amusement, attempting to discern whether the prevailing gloom is justified or simply the usual herd mentality. It’s a tiresome game, really, but someone must play it.
Before the restructuring, two specters haunted Wolfspeed: dwindling margins and a persistent drain on operating cash. These shadows, it seems, have not entirely lifted. The recent quarterly report speaks of a negative gross margin – a disheartening 46% – burdened by the costs of adjusting inventories and the lingering effects of a fresh start. The manufacturing facility, a potential orchard, remains underutilized, a field lying fallow.
Before the market had fully roused itself, the aforementioned Morgan Stanley team, led by the ever-opinionated Stephen Byrd, bestowed its blessings upon three purveyors of digital excavation – Cipher Mining amongst them, along with TeraWulf and Mara. Cipher Mining and TeraWulf received the coveted ‘overweight’ designation – a polite euphemism for ‘buy,’ naturally – while poor Mara was deemed ‘underweight,’ a fate akin to being cast as the villain in a rather dull play.
The reduction in their stake, executed during the fourth quarter of 2025, amounted to approximately $2.91 million. A rather substantial sum, of course, though one suspects it barely makes a dent in their overall holdings. The fund’s position, diminished by a further $2.41 million – a combination of trading and the usual market vagaries – now represents a mere 0.37% of their 13F AUM. One pictures the portfolio managers having a good, brisk clear-out. Perfectly sensible.
Recent quarterly reports indicate a 30% revenue decline for Converse, totaling $300 million. This contraction extends a protracted period of negative growth, raising concerns regarding the sub-brand’s trajectory and its contribution to consolidated financial performance.
Anyway, Dale’s little operation, and the countless others like it sprouting up everywhere, is why I’ve been watching Nvidia (NVDA +2.50%). It’s not that I’m suddenly interested in basement-based tech empires, but the numbers are hard to ignore. The company’s recent earnings report—$57 billion in sales, a 62% jump—felt less like a financial statement and more like a declaration of independence from, well, reality. Jensen Huang, the CEO, talks about a “virtuous cycle of AI,” which sounds suspiciously like a polite way of saying “we’re printing money.” He claims their Blackwell processors are “off the charts,” and frankly, I believe him. I’ve seen the charts. And I’ve seen Dale’s electric bill.
It appears our Californian friends have decided to establish an advanced research and development facility in Israel. A bright idea, what! Not merely a workshop for tinkering with wires and whatnot, but a dedicated space for pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence. They’ve been touting this as a means to accelerate the development of their “scale-up fabrics” – a rather technical term, but one assumes it involves making things connect with a bit more pep. Apparently, it’s all about addressing those pesky memory bottlenecks in AI training and inference. A most commendable ambition, and one that, as a portfolio manager, I find rather appealing.
The filing with the SEC tells us this much: they sold. Eighteen million dollars, give or take. Money changing hands. It always does. But looking back, MapleBear, or Instacart as some remember it, represented a brief, bright flicker in the ongoing saga of getting groceries to people. A logistical puzzle solved, momentarily, with apps and personal shoppers. We thought, for a time, that this was the future. The future, of course, has other plans.