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Mr. Dalio proposes a “capital war.” Not with cannons and cavalry, mind you, but with money itself. A far more subtle, and infinitely more profitable, form of conflict. Sanctions, asset freezes, capital controls – these are the weapons of choice in this peculiar contest. It’s a bit like a game of chess, only the pieces are billions of dollars and the board is the global economy. The Americans and the Chinese, it seems, are particularly fond of this game. Each side attempting to outmaneuver the other, all while pretending it’s simply a matter of “national security.” The naiveté is almost touching.

Energy Transfer (ET +2.68%). They’re offering a 7.4% yield. It sounds… generous. Almost suspiciously so. Like a charming stranger offering you a drink you know you shouldn’t accept. But hey, who am I to judge? They’ve bumped up their distribution by a little over 3% year-over-year, to $1.34 annually. It’s covered – 1.7 times, they claim – by their distributable cash flow. Which, let’s be honest, is industry jargon for ‘we’re currently able to juggle the numbers without things immediately collapsing.’ They’ve also improved their balance sheet, which is… good. It’s always good to not be actively drowning in debt. And they boast the highest percentage of ‘take-or-pay’ contracts in their history. Translation: people are obligated to pay them, even if they don’t particularly want to. Smart. Ruthless. I approve.

The thing is, Sandisk isn’t just benefitting from our collective digital hoarding. It’s also, dare I say, cheap. Like, suspiciously cheap for a company fueling the AI revolution. It’s like finding a designer handbag at a garage sale – you immediately check for a hidden camera. But in this case, the only thing hidden is how long this good fortune can last. Still, while it lasts, it’s a good time.

Thus, we turn our attention to Realty Income (O +1.36%), a name whispered amongst the burgeoning ranks of those who partake in the modern exchanges, a favored holding, it is said, upon the Robinhood platform. This company, a collector of single-tenant properties, offers a dividend yield of 5%, a figure that, to the untrained eye, appears most generous. Four times the average return of the broader market, the S&P 500, it cries out for attention. But is this bounty genuine, or merely a fleeting mirage, a consequence of underlying weakness disguised as prosperity? The question demands a thorough investigation, for fortunes are won and lost not on the promise of riches, but on the accurate assessment of risk.

The pursuit of artificial intelligence dominance, a field now considered the sole arbiter of corporate viability, finds AMD trailing behind Nvidia, a competitor whose success appears less a result of innovation and more a function of… acceptance. The emergence of Broadcom as another contender only serves to further constrict the pathways to profitability. One wonders if the very notion of ‘competition’ is not merely a bureaucratic fiction designed to mask a preordained hierarchy. The management, of course, remains optimistic, issuing pronouncements of future success, but these statements feel less like predictions and more like mandatory affirmations, required for continued operation within the system.

The transaction, revealed in a filing dated February 13, 2026, elevates Kiltearn’s stake in LKQ to 3.24% of their reported assets. A modest indulgence, perhaps, but one that speaks volumes about their faith in a company that profits from the inevitable imperfections of mechanical existence. One might say they are betting on the persistence of accidents, and really, what is more reliable than human error?

Both aim to capture the world, of course. But SPGM, with its blend of American and international holdings, feels… comprehensive. A sort of all-weather portfolio, perhaps. IXUS, however, is a more pointed inquiry. A deliberate attempt to seek growth elsewhere. One imagines the fund manager, gazing at a map, tracing lines to Tokyo, to Frankfurt, to São Paulo… a longing for something beyond the predictable.

They’re due to report their fourth-quarter earnings on February 19th, and the question, as always, is: should you buy? Now, I’ve spent a good portion of my career staring at numbers, trying to predict the unpredictable, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that predicting the future is, well, difficult. But let’s have a look at what’s going on under the hood.

These magnets, you see, are born of rare-earth elements – substances abundant in the earth’s crust, yet frustratingly elusive in concentrated form. Mining them is merely the first act in a rather elaborate drama; refining them into something genuinely useful is where the true artistry – and the true expense – lies. And it is here, in this realm of geological alchemy, that USA Rare Earth (USAR +1.81%) has chosen to stake its claim.