Seven years, though. Seven years and a 7% annual growth rate. Now that’s a timeframe I can work with. Assuming, of course, the world doesn’t spontaneously combust. Or, you know, another global pandemic. Still, a girl can dream. And, apparently, invest. I’ve been digging around, and there are a couple of companies that are currently making the right sort of noises. Though ‘right’ is, as always, a subjective term.
The Shiller P/E ratio – a measure of how much investors are willing to pay for a share of earnings, adjusted for inflation and the general tendency of goblins to hoard gold – currently sits around 37. That’s about where it was in November 2021, just before the market decided to take a rather extended nap in 2022. A nap, of course, involving a significant loss of coin for many. The ratio peaked at 39 in January, but has eased slightly since then. However, add to that the ongoing… situation in the vicinity of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz (which, naturally, is affecting the flow of vital elixirs… er, oil) and you have a recipe for increased market jitters.
Mercury Systems, a mid-cap technology provider, specializes in high-performance electronics for the aerospace and defense sectors. They craft components, modules, and subsystems – a rather impressive array of technical jargon, if you ask me. Their success, it seems, stems from a deep integration across the value chain and a focus on secure, scalable, and innovative subsystems. One imagines a team of dedicated engineers, toiling away in a dimly lit laboratory, fueled by coffee and an unwavering commitment to technological advancement.
The fund, once a believer in First Bancorp – 72,921 shares, to be precise – now holds zero. A clean break. It’s a story told not in booming pronouncements, but in the subtraction of digits from a ledger. They held 2.3% of their assets in this bank, a not insignificant stake, now dispersed like smoke. The market, of course, barely noticed.
Bitcoin (BTC) dipped to around $69,600 after briefly reaching nearly $71,000 earlier in the day, mirroring a general decline in riskier investments. Other cryptocurrencies like Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), and XRP also saw price drops of 2-3% over the last 24 hours.
The numbers are frankly astonishing. A mere $500 in 1965 would now be… well, enough to buy a small island, probably. Or at least a very nice garden shed. The S&P 500 did okay, I suppose, but not island okay. It’s all a bit intimidating, really. Makes my own portfolio look like a collection of impulse purchases from a charity shop.
Prices plucked straight from the official documents, naturally.
The Sky Perfect JSAT Corporation, a name redolent of distant constellations and terrestrial ambition, has engaged Kratos to construct the ground infrastructure for a “5G Non-Terrestrial Network” (NTN) across the Asia-Pacific region. A network of signals, mirroring, perhaps, the endless corridors of a forgotten palace.
The experts reckon this AI business will keep expanding for a good decade, growing at a rate that would make even a prize-winning pumpkin blush. But here’s the wrinkle, the little twist in the tale: this whole market is splitting in two, like a mischievous twin. We have the ‘Trainers’ and the ‘Users’, and figuring out which side will gobble up the most money is the trick.
The regulators – those diligent arbiters of risk – have decreed that banks may hold slightly fewer billions on their balance sheets. This, of course, is not a reduction in security, but a liberation of capital. Funds previously dedicated to weathering storms will now be available for the far more civilized pursuits of share buybacks and dividend disbursements. It’s a simple equation, really: less caution, more profit. One trusts they’ve calculated the probabilities with the same meticulous care they apply to selecting a suitable waistcoat.