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Both VYM and VIG, it is claimed, track indices—arbitrary lines drawn across the chaotic landscape of the market, intended to impose order where none naturally exists. VYM, with its emphasis on immediate yield (currently 2.3%), appeals to those who seek the illusion of present gain. VIG, conversely, favors companies with a history of dividend growth, a lineage of increasing returns—a comforting, yet ultimately unsubstantiated, narrative of progress. The expense ratio of 0.04% for both is, of course, a negligible detail in the grand calculus of risk, akin to counting the grains of sand in the desert.

Palantir… it’s software. Okay. Fine. But software is just…air. It’s ones and zeros. You’re paying for someone to not have bugs, which, let’s be real, is a low bar. And they started with the government? That’s immediately suspicious. Everything with the government is a mess. They can’t even run the DMV efficiently, and now they’re building AI? I don’t like where this is going.

The financial weight of this increase is not insignificant. The position, valued at $16.2 million as of December 31st, represents a $9.4 million gain in value since the quarter’s end. However, to view this solely through the lens of monetary gain would be to miss the subtle narrative at play. Axalta, comprising 1.2% of Arnhold’s reportable assets under management (AUM), remains outside the firm’s top five holdings, a fact that speaks volumes. It is a deliberate choice, a calculated weighting, suggesting a belief in the company’s potential, rather than an all-in commitment.

The company, for those blissfully unaware, peddles telehealth consultations and prescriptions. They were, until recently, making a rather aggressive play for the weight-loss market with a compounded version of semaglutide – the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy. The stock jumped when they announced a cheaper pill, a move that felt less like innovation and more like a dare. “Forty-nine dollars a month!” the press releases practically shouted. “Stick it to Big Pharma!” It reminded me of a neighbor who started a competing landscaping business using a slightly different shade of mulch.

Let us, then, consider Amazon. Not as a disruptor—that label feels rather shopworn—but as a remarkably persistent phenomenon.

The year 2025, they whispered, would be the turning point. A retirement, not of flesh and blood, but of an idea – the belief that one man could foresee the market’s capricious heart. Berkshire’s recent performance, a mere six percent gain against the market’s sixteen, was not a failure, precisely, but a premonition. A subtle tremor before the shifting of plates. Greg Abel, the chosen successor, a man of competent hands but lacking the old man’s almost mystical intuition, now stood at the helm. Buffett’s pause in share buybacks, a gesture as enigmatic as a desert mirage, suggested a disquiet, a sense that the stock, once a beacon, might be overvalued, its luster fading like a forgotten photograph.

that’s about 16% above the price on February 6th ($110.80)! So, she sold high, folks. High! It’s like selling your antique furniture before the termites get to it. Smart lady. Very smart.

The total value of this increased position, fifty-two million, six hundred and ninety thousand dollars, represents a substantial, almost unsettling, commitment. It is as if the University, a repository of established knowledge, has decided to place a wager on the improbable – access to the moon, the transport of inanimate objects to a desolate sphere, the very notion of extending earthly concerns into the void. The previous holding, a mere six hundred and seventy-five thousand shares, now seems a distant, almost forgotten, precursor to this current, amplified investment. One wonders, naturally, what prompted this escalation. A sudden clarity of vision? A bureaucratic imperative? Or simply the exhaustion of more conventional investment opportunities?