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Now, before everyone starts building bunkers and hoarding parchment, let’s consider this. The Guild of Alchemists and Venture Capitalists (Wall Street, to the uninitiated) is, by and large, still optimistic. They’ve revised their prophecies (price targets, they call them), but even after the recent tremors, most see a considerable upward trajectory for the stock. A median prediction of $225 suggests a potential 76% rebound. That’s a rather substantial return, even for those of us accustomed to the frankly ludicrous valuations occasionally seen in this sector.

But here’s the twitch. A flicker in the dying light. Year-to-date, they’ve actually… risen. Eleven percent. Ahead of eighty percent of the S&P 500. Which, frankly, says more about the general state of things than it does about Target’s brilliance. It’s like watching a slightly less diseased patient outrun the rest of the lepers. Still sick, just… slower to rot. And the P/E ratio? A measly 13. Cheap. Dangerously cheap. Like a used car with a suspiciously low price tag. You know something’s wrong. But you check the engine anyway.

Buffett’s reign, spanning six decades, was not merely about accumulating wealth; it was about the deliberate, almost ascetic, avoidance of its loss. Berkshire’s portfolio, a behemoth exceeding $300 billion, is a testament to this principle. Let us, therefore, examine five holdings that exemplify this philosophy – not as a mere list of stocks, but as a curriculum for the aspiring investor, a guide to surviving, and perhaps even thriving, in this rather chaotic marketplace.

The CAPE, or Cyclically Adjusted Price-to-Earnings ratio, is a simple thing, really. It takes the price of the market – the S&P 500, a broad measure of American industry – and sets it against the earnings of those industries over a decade. It smooths out the bumps, the lucky years and the lean ones, to give a truer picture of value. It’s a way of asking whether the price being paid for a share reflects a reasonable claim on the future earnings of the company behind it.

Observe, if you will, the spectacle of a company chasing the glittering phantom of artificial intelligence, while simultaneously neglecting the rather mundane necessity of, shall we say, profit. I am reminded of a certain Monsieur Jourdain, who, upon learning the art of rhetoric, insisted on speaking in prose without realizing he had been doing so all along. SoundHound, it seems, is similarly preoccupied with the appearance of innovation, while the substance remains… elusive.

Berkshire, a behemoth exceeding a trillion dollars in market capitalization, now rests in the hands of Greg Abel. The question, then, is not merely one of profit, but of fate. Can a share purchased today truly secure a life, or is it merely another indulgence in the grand, tragic comedy of the market?

Goldman Sachs, naturally, aren’t thrilled. They want fewer human hands involved, because humans cost money, you see. They’re predicting that by 2030, one operator should be able to manage ten robotaxis, and by 2040, a whopping thirty-five! That’s a lot of metal to control. It’ll require a bit of ingenuity, a dash of magic, and a whole heap of technological tinkering.