I’ve been accumulating shares of Intuitive Surgical (ISRG +1.45%). Not because I want to think about medical expenses, but because it seems a reasonable place to put your money, given the circumstances. I intend to hold them for a long, long time. Here’s the story, as I see it.
People are asking if it’s too late to buy. A reasonable question. Most questions are, when you think about it. But let’s look at the guts of the thing, shall we?
I spend my days staring at spreadsheets, trying to predict the future based on numbers that are, let’s be honest, largely made up. It’s a bit like trying to assemble IKEA furniture with only the pictures as instructions. But every now and then, something genuinely interesting surfaces. And Sandisk, despite the name conjuring images of forgotten toys, might just be that thing.
We’ve observed, not for the first time, that the labor market appears to have developed a rather stubborn case of inertia. Job openings, it seems, are experiencing a post-COVID slump, a phenomenon one might compare to a deflating balloon. A most disheartening sight, really. Sentiment, meanwhile, is currently residing somewhere south of dismal. A truly impressive feat, considering the usual levels of optimistic delusion.
Ripple’s managed to snag some attention from big banks, like Bank of America and Santander, which, let’s be honest, are usually more interested in things like, well, being big banks. So, the question becomes: where will XRP be in five years? It’s a surprisingly difficult one, and not just because predicting the future is generally a fool’s errand – though I’ve met plenty of investors who seem quite comfortable with the role.
Yet, within this apparent profligacy, a pattern emerges, discernible to those who have borne witness to the long march of Amazon’s dominion. Matt Garman, the Chief Executive of Amazon Web Services, has offered a corrective to this prevailing apprehension – a suggestion that this expenditure is not a sign of weakness, but a calculated assertion of strength. A boldness that, if substantiated, warrants not censure, but a considered reevaluation.
The question presented – whether to acquire shares while the valuation hovers below the arbitrary threshold of $270 (as of February 12th) – is not a question of profit, but of assessing the degree of one’s resignation to the prevailing order. It is a calculation of uncertainties, not opportunities.
These payments, while hardly a fortune, can at least provide a temporary distraction from the general unpleasantness of the market. And, during periods of stagnation – or, as some optimists call them, “opportunities” – they offer a smidgen of momentum. One shouldn’t rely on it, naturally. But a little extra income never ruined anyone. Let’s examine two companies that, shall we say, have a history of not entirely collapsing.
Such heady themes took center stage at the illustrious Premiere 2026 gala hosted by KuCoin Institutional in the dazzling metropolis of Hong Kong. More than a hundred institutional clients and partners gathered, not to raise a toast to prosperity but to engage in a sobering assessment of how the industry might respond when the winds of sentiment shift and liquidity begins to constrict like a tightening noose.
They register names, host websites, the usual. They have servers, actual machines humming with electricity, which feels…substantial in a world increasingly made of air. It’s a business, a perfectly ordinary business, which is almost a novelty these days.