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The source of this madness? Weight loss. Not some niche market for vanity projects, but a full-blown, societal OBSESSION. Tirzepatide – Mounjaro for the diabetics, Zepbound for the rest of us – is the fuel, and Lilly is sitting on a goddamn rocket. Ten BILLION in revenue last quarter? That’s not incremental, that’s a GODDAMN LANDSLIDE. They’re not just selling medicine; they’re selling… hope. Or maybe just the illusion of control in a world spinning out of control. Whatever it is, people are lining up, wallets open, and Lilly is LAUGHING all the way to the bank.

AbbVie (ABBV 0.31%) has been distributing dividends for 54 consecutive years, a streak that began when it was still part of Abbott Labs (ABT 1.47%). This puts them in the rather exclusive club known as Dividend Kings – a title that sounds suspiciously regal for a bunch of accountants. To qualify, a company must have increased its dividend payout for at least half a century. (It’s a bit like a particularly stubborn weed; it just refuses to stop growing. Though, admittedly, a dividend payout is generally more desirable than a patch of bindweed.)

The bulls, bless their optimistic hearts, insist that Palantir offers indispensable analytics and artificial intelligence tools, assisting both commercial enterprises and governmental bodies in making… decisions. One gathers it’s frightfully clever stuff. The bears, however, maintain that the share price is based more on hype than on, shall we say, robust fundamentals. A perfectly reasonable observation, though lacking a certain… flair. It’s a tiresome dichotomy, really.

Tesla, it seems, no longer wishes to be judged solely as a manufacturer of automobiles. The ambition to be seen as a technology company – a purveyor of software, robotics, and artificial intelligence – is a gamble. It is not that innovation is unwelcome; it is that a dispersal of focus often leads to a dilution of competence. The pursuit of self-driving technology, admirable in intent, remains, after many years and considerable investment, stubbornly beyond reach. The market, however, appears willing to reward the promise of innovation, even in the absence of demonstrable results.

These aren’t mere predictions; they are carefully calculated opportunities. The kind that separate the astute investor from the… well, the ones still counting kopecks. Let’s examine the contenders, shall we?

One ought to be aware of the particulars.

The stock, on a purely mathematical basis—price to sales, you understand—appears remarkably inexpensive. A bargain, one might say. Yet, it remains consistently so, a persistent anomaly. The reason, predictably, lies in its inability to generate earnings that align with its peers. EBITDA margins, that cold, clinical measure of performance, continue to lag. It is a familiar story: a potential unrealized, a promise unfulfilled.