And the implication, of course, is that they’re hoping for some sort of…meme stock status. Like they’re going to ride a wave of online hype to solvency. It’s just… insulting. The stock is down 84% over three years. Eighty-four percent! You need a miracle, not a Reddit thread, to recover from that. It’s like thinking a good haircut is going to fix a collapsing building.
Lemonade proposes to offer a fifty percent reduction in per-mile rates to Tesla owners utilizing the company’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ capability. This is not generosity, but a calculated experiment. They will ingest the data stream emanating from these vehicles – the countless micro-decisions made by the machine, the near-misses, the actual collisions – and attempt to refine their risk models. It is a form of algorithmic divination, seeking to predict the future by dissecting the present. They become, in effect, cartographers of a new and uncertain terrain, charting the hazards of automated travel. The company positions itself as the first to attempt such a venture, a distinction less laudable than precarious. It is a bold step into the unknown, a venture predicated on the assumption that the machine will prove a more reliable custodian of life and property than the fallible human being.
Lately, a disquieting tremor has run through the stock. A decline, not of gradual erosion, but of a precipitous fall, a halving of value in a mere four years. Is this merely a correction, a temporary lapse in the market’s fickle affections? Or is it a symptom of something deeper, a fundamental questioning of Adobe’s very existence? The whispers speak of Artificial Intelligence, of algorithms that threaten to supplant the artist, the designer, the very notion of human creation. It is a specter that haunts not just Adobe, but the entire landscape of innovation.
The company now touts “Intelligent Agreement Management” – IAM, as they call it – a system utilizing artificial intelligence. One gathers that this is intended to alleviate the tedium of contract administration, a task not generally considered a source of either profit or excitement. The suggestion that AI can simplify such matters is, perhaps, optimistic, but the initial uptake appears encouraging. Whether it represents a genuine turning point remains to be seen; one must always view such pronouncements with a degree of skepticism.
Zoetis, for those unfamiliar, is in the business of keeping animals…well, not immortal, but certainly more comfortable. A noble pursuit, one might think. They deal in remedies for everything from the sniffles in a goldfish to the existential ache of a particularly melancholy poodle. Their strength, naturally, lies with the companion animal market – because let’s be honest, we lavish more attention on Fluffernutter the Persian than on most of our relatives. Last year, however, things got a bit…complicated. Two of their leading potions – Librela and Solensia – designed to alleviate the aches and pains of aging canines and felines, ran into a spot of bother. Not a plague of locusts, thankfully, but enough concerned whispers about side effects to cause a ripple of unease.2
The pronouncements of Mr. Jensen Huang, the estimable head of Nvidia, a firm with close ties to Arm, have further contributed to this fortunate turn. His remarks, delivered at the gathering in Davos, regarding the prospects of Artificial Intelligence, were received with a suitable degree of optimism, suggesting a wider confidence in the future of such innovations.
Michael Saylor, the architect of this audacious gamble, possessed, it seems, a preternatural faith in Bitcoin’s ascent – a faith bordering, perhaps, on a delightful form of financial mania. He envisioned a future where the cold logic of algorithms would outweigh the cumbersome realities of traditional finance, a vision that, while not entirely unprecedented, required a certain… boldness. The software business, once the company’s raison d’être, was permitted to gently atrophy, a wilting bloom overshadowed by the promise of digital gold.
Every prudent investor, observing the currents of the market, ought to hold some portion of his wealth within the energy sector. It is a foundational truth, a bedrock upon which to build a diversified portfolio. Chevron, then, is not merely a stock to be examined, but a company to be understood. Let us delve into the particulars, beyond the fleeting pronouncements of analysts and the capricious whims of the trading floor.
But lately, it’s been silver stirrin’ up the dust. A quicker shimmer, a brighter flash. The exchange-traded funds, they’ve been climbin’ like vines on a weathered fence. Last year, the SPDR Gold Shares rose a good bit, but the iShares Silver Trust… well, it near doubled. A hungry beast, that one. Folks get carried away with a quick gain, forgettin’ the long haul.
Meet Bruno Oliveira, the “crypto scrapper” who’s spent 730 days sweating through the small stuff (literally) to buy Bitcoin. Two years of dumpster diving and he’s this close to a single Bitcoin. Let’s hope he doesn’t step on a Lego on his way to the bank.