Momentum in the crypto ETF market finally hit the brakes. After three sessions of steady institutional buying, Thursday rolled in with the first coordinated pullback across major crypto exchange-traded funds, like a bad punchline finally landing.
And now, from the gilded cage of Nvidia’s executive suite, Monsieur Huang, the company’s chief visionary, delivers his latest decree. He proclaims that we have arrived at the ‘inflection point’ of ‘agentic AI.’ An inflection point! As if the relentless march of technology were not already sufficiently dramatic. One half expects trumpets and a chorus of adoring sycophants.
They’ve got this new thing, the Rubin platform. Sounds like a fancy Yiddish surname, doesn’t it? Anyway, it’s supposed to be a game-changer. They’re promising it’ll train AI models with fewer GPUs. Fewer GPUs! It’s like saying you can build a pyramid with fewer slaves. Efficient, yes, but where’s the drama? The spectacle? Still, 75% fewer GPUs… that’s a lot of saved electricity. And reducing the cost of “inference tokens” by 90%? Tokens, schmokens. What does that even mean? It means AI companies won’t have to charge you quite as much for the privilege of being insulted by a chatbot. Progress!
The curious thing about markets is their inherent unevenness. They are not a smooth plain, but a landscape of hills and valleys, of sudden blooms and lingering frosts. To seek a uniform return is to ignore the very nature of things. One can, with a discerning eye, locate those pockets of vitality, those nascent forces that promise a richer harvest. And it is in this spirit that I have turned my attention to the Invesco QQQ Trust, a fund that has, for a considerable time, defied the easy categorization of ‘market-matching.’
Look, let’s be real. Rivian hasn’t exactly been crushing it in the production department. They went from making 24,000 vehicles in 2022 to 57,000 in 2023, which sounds good until you realize it dropped to around 42,000 last year. It’s like they’re playing production Tetris, and the blocks keep falling faster. And, you know, they’re not making money. Not a huge surprise when you’re trying to build cars. It’s expensive! They’re blaming supply chains, fewer subsidies (thanks, government!), and the fact that everyone and their mother is now making an electric vehicle. The R2 is their attempt to fix all that by, you know, making a slightly cheaper version.
The vagaries of the market are, of course, legendary. To attempt to decipher its moods is to invite madness. One could attribute Chipotle’s dip to any number of external factors—a passing cloud, a poorly worded tweet, the sheer ennui of investors. But I suspect the fault lies not in the stars, but in the analyst’s assessment. It is a curious thing, this modern habit of offering pronouncements without the bother of providing detail. Mr. Curtis, it seems, foresees “a significant rebound for Chipotle in FY26 due to multiple sales driving initiatives.” Initiatives, mind you, which remain shrouded in a delightful, Wildean mystery.
She, the orchestrator of Ark Invest’s portfolio – a rather audacious ensemble of growth-minded enterprises – has been, shall we say, accumulating. A collector of promissory notes, if you will, on these very same ventures. Let us, with a detached curiosity, examine the rationale behind this peculiar fondness, this willingness to catch falling stars before they fully extinguish.
Stifel’s Wieczynski stuck to his “buy” rating, a $25 target. Analysts. They deal in hopes and projections. I deal in realities, and the reality is, numbers don’t lie, but they can be…massaged.
There was, at one point, a rather substantial impairment charge – a sum of $3.8 billion, if you please – which rather knocked the book value about. But things, as they so often do, are in a state of flux. Berkshire, now under the capable direction of Mr. Greg Abel, considered, if whispers are to be believed, a divestment. The notion of splitting Kraft Heinz into two separate entities was bandied about, but mercifully, it seems, was put on hold, presumably at Berkshire’s behest. One gathers they’re content to hold firm for the moment, and frankly, one can’t blame them for a spot of caution.
You’d think, wouldn’t you, with everything going on in the Middle East, that gold – that age-old ‘safe haven’ asset – would be doing rather well. A bit of a rally, perhaps. Instead, it’s been going the other way. Falling. Which is… perplexing. It’s a bit like expecting an umbrella to keep you dry during a snowstorm. It just doesn’t compute.