The price used for valuation, according to the paperwork, was $64.51 per share. A number, really, like any other. It just happened to represent a tiny slice of ownership in a company trying to make people less sensitive to sunlight. A noble goal, I suppose.
Three hundred and twenty billion in equities, plus a cash pile that could choke a horse. Abel admits he’d rather put that money to work, not let it gather dust earning pennies. Smart man. Sitting on cash is for guys who are afraid of shadows. This isn’t about safety; it’s about finding something worth owning. Something that grows. Something that doesn’t remind you of a slow decline.
I have been examining dividend-paying stocks as a means to this end. Not for spectacular gains – those are often illusory – but for the steady, predictable return of capital. Three such stocks currently appear reasonably positioned to deliver this: Enterprise Products Partners (EPD +0.50%), Invitation Homes (INVH +0.04%), and W.P. Carey (WPC +0.58%). Their merits, and the rationale behind my interest, are detailed below.
This, naturally, now constitutes a rather alarming 61.1% of the fund’s 13F reportable AUM. One pictures the portfolio manager, perhaps, having a particularly good day at the races. Or possibly, simply a lack of other sensible options. The current holdings, for those keeping score (though why anyone would is beyond me), are as follows:
Devon, left to its own devices, could, of course, continue to bore holes in the earth. A perfectly respectable, if rather tedious, occupation. But the relentless march of depletion – the inevitable decline of any finite resource – demands a more…robust approach. Every barrel extracted is a barrel less to extract tomorrow, a rather grim accounting for any energy concern. Acquisition, therefore, isn’t merely expansion; it’s a postponement of the inevitable reckoning. And a rather effective one, at that.
The firm’s remaining stake, now constituting a mere 0.51% of their $712.19 million portfolio – a figure rendered precise only to emphasize its diminishing presence – is a detail of bureaucratic necessity. One understands the compulsion to quantify, to impose order upon the inevitable decay. The remaining holdings, listed with an almost clinical detachment – Nvidia at $63.67 million, Amphenol at $37.25 million, Alphabet and Microsoft following in predictable procession – are not investments, but rather anchors, tethering the firm to a reality increasingly divorced from tangible worth.
The figures are precise, sterile. A man unburdening himself of a portion of his wealth, while still clinging to a considerable sum. The reported price of $116.55 per share, the market close of $116.42 – these are not merely numbers; they are the measure of a man’s position, the weight of responsibility, and the fleeting nature of prosperity.
Now, though, they’ve got a lot of users. Millions. More than there are reasonably polite conversations in the world. And that’s a problem, not because it’s bad to have users, but because turning free lookie-loos into paying customers gets harder with each new download. The question isn’t if they can attract people. It’s if they can get those people to stay, and pay, without making the whole thing feel like a slightly more elaborate form of begging.
The company, a shimmering mirage in the landscape of late capitalism, has accrued returns that border on the fantastical – a thousandfold increase since the beginning of 2023, a number that mocks the slow, incremental gains of more grounded enterprises. To suggest, then, that its shares remain undervalued feels almost… disrespectful. A cruel joke played on the weary investor. Yet, the illusion persists, woven into the very fabric of its operations, a gilded cage built on the back of relentless innovation and a market willing to believe in miracles.
It is understood the valuation of these shares, as recorded on the nineteenth of February, was forty dollars and eighteen cents apiece. A prudent calculation, indeed.