usdaed

First upon our stage strides Procter & Gamble, a company whose wares are as ubiquitous as human necessity itself. Dish soap, diapers, toothpaste – these are not the stuff of dreams, yet they are purchased with a regularity that shames the most ardent speculator. Their success, you see, lies not in innovation, but in sheer volume, in the relentless pursuit of market dominance. They have, through cunning and scale, established a tyranny over the household, demanding tribute with each passing week. One might almost accuse them of lacking imagination, were it not so undeniably profitable.

Shareholders, naturally, have been reaping the benefits of this admirable efficiency. The stock, over the last three years, has performed a positively dizzying jig, climbing a remarkable 437%. A most agreeable sight, wouldn’t you agree? And even in the last twelve months, it’s put on a respectable 60%, which is enough to make even the most hardened City gent crack a smile.

The 17e, you see, is the ‘entry-level’ iPhone. It starts at $599, which, when you consider that some people once paid the equivalent of a small house for a brick-sized mobile phone, feels almost…reasonable. The standard 17, naturally, is a bit more, starting at $799. It’s a curious thing, this pricing. They’re offering double the storage on the ‘e’ model for the same price as the previous budget version. It’s like getting a free dessert with your coffee, only the coffee is a remarkably complex piece of engineering. And people are buying them. In vast quantities.

It reminds a feller of the electric carriage craze a few years back. Tesla, bless their ambitious hearts, was the first to truly try, bleeding red ink for what felt like an eternity. But once Wall Street got a whiff of that potential, why, it was like opening the floodgates. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a half-baked idea and a shiny brochure was suddenly an electric car manufacturer. Rivian, Lucid – names you hear bandied about now – popped up amongst a whole host of others, all clamoring for a piece of the public’s purse. A grand rush, I assure you, and one that rarely ends well for the pursuers.

The macroeconomic climate? Surprisingly… not awful. The biggest news isn’t some global economic meltdown, but the SEC suddenly deciding that maybe, just maybe, not suing everyone all the time is a viable strategy. It’s like they realized endless litigation is expensive and bad PR. Revolutionary! This benefits XRP because they recently settled a lawsuit over whether their token sales were securities. The court said retail investors were good, institutional investors… less so. It’s nuanced. Like a corporate restructuring.

David Tepper, a fellow who runs Appaloosa Management (a name that conjures images of particularly stubborn equines, doesn’t it?), has a reputation for not losing quite as much money as most people. So, when he started rearranging the furniture in his portfolio – specifically, trimming his holdings in Nvidia and Amazon last quarter – it raised an eyebrow. Or, in my case, caused a small, internal debate with the yield-seeking gnome who advises me on these matters.¹ These two stocks, you see, have been reliably dispensing profits like a well-maintained chocolate fountain.