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Northrop Grumman’s share price has enjoyed a rather spirited ascent this year – approximately 33% upwards, which, when you consider the sheer chaos of existence, is frankly astonishing. Much of this is, naturally, attributable to the ongoing… situations in various parts of the world, which, sadly, tend to encourage increased defense spending. (It’s a vicious cycle, really. Peace is expensive, but war… well, war is just remarkably expensive.) But let’s look beyond the immediate geopolitical turbulence. There are reasons to believe this isn’t just a temporary spike, but a company poised for long-term success.

Wall Street, as ever, succumbed to a fit of speculative enthusiasm. The marijuana sector was briefly deemed not merely profitable, but transformative. The resulting valuations bore no relation to reality, of course. It’s a recurring pattern: a perfectly serviceable idea, inflated into a bubble by the combined forces of greed and gullibility. The business, it turns out, is subject to the same tiresome laws of supply and demand as any other. And, rather inconveniently, competition is fierce.

Liquid Robotics recently entered this latter category.

The company, born of a restless ambition and a stubborn refusal to accept the limitations of the road, had climbed a remarkable distance. Three thousand seven hundred and seventy percent in a single decade – a figure that would have made the alchemists of old weep with envy. Yet, it now lingered eighteen percent below its highest peak, a phantom limb aching for the heights it once knew. The question, then, wasn’t simply whether Tesla could reach a thousand dollars, but whether the very fabric of its destiny allowed for such a resurrection.

The company, a century-old institution built on the combustion of fuel, had long been priced as a reflection of the open road, a cyclical wager on the price of freight. A reasonable, if unremarkable, investment. But the roads, it seems, were no longer the most demanding masters. Now, it was the insatiable appetite of the cloud, the endless calculations of algorithms, the very breath of artificial intelligence, that dictated the terms. The surge in demand for uninterrupted power, for the seamless flow of electrons to these digital cathedrals, had transformed Cummins from a maker of engines into something…else. Something akin to a provider of divine sustenance.

Two transactions are of particular note. He liquidated his entire position in Sandisk, a manufacturer of memory storage, and initiated a new position in Amazon. These are not bold gambles, but calculated shifts in allocation, reflecting a clear understanding of underlying value, or the lack thereof.

Target, it must be admitted, has endured a period of distinctly unglamorous performance since the onset of the pandemic. A surfeit of inventory, a discernible decline in the allure of its merchandise, stores exhibiting a certain…laxity, and a regrettable tendency towards political posturing have all contributed to its current predicament. The financial results reflect this. Net sales experienced a 2% contraction in fiscal 2025, with net income falling by a rather more substantial 9.7% to $3.7 billion. A sorry spectacle, indeed.

There is much chatter, naturally, about the President’s pronouncements on trade – tariffs and the like. These are presented as potential calamities, as if a few well-aimed duties could bring the entire edifice crashing down. While such policies are not without consequence, to fixate upon them as the primary threat is akin to blaming the footman for the master’s folly. The true dangers, I assure you, lie deeper, concealed within the very mechanisms designed to safeguard our prosperity.

There are these prediction markets now. People bet on things. Political races, the weather, whether Bitcoin will hit a hundred and fifty thousand dollars by 2026. The markets say eleven percent. Eleven. That’s a low number. It peaked around one hundred and twenty-six thousand before, a while ago.