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The Guild of Alchemists – or, as they’re known in less fantastical circles, market analysts – predict the market for the glowing rocks they put inside these boxes – specifically, the Graphics Processing Units – will swell from a respectable 23.87 billion crowns¹ in the current year to a frankly astonishing 201.64 billion crowns by 2032. That’s a compound annual growth rate of 30.5%, which, if you’re not good with numbers, is a lot. It means anyone building these halls, or crafting the glowing rocks within, is poised to profit. Handsomely. One might even say… suspiciously handsomely. But let’s not dwell on that just yet.

Units of Newmont Stock Owned: A Respectable Amount (Until Today). Hours Spent Staring at Gold Charts: Far Too Many. Number of Times I’ve Considered a Career Change: Double-Digit.

The figures themselves presented a pleasing vista. Revenue climbed seven and a tenth percent year over year, reaching $3.30 billion, a substantial sum in these increasingly digitized times. Earnings per share, adjusted, rose a commendable forty-one percent to $8.85. Indeed, the company’s forward guidance, viewed in isolation, suggested a continuation of this upward trajectory. One might almost imagine a peaceful, well-tended estate, yielding a bountiful harvest.

The problem wasn’t just building the machines. It was scaling them, connecting them, making them actually do something useful. IonQ seemed to understand that. They weren’t just chasing qubits; they were buying up the pieces of the puzzle. Oxford Ionics for shrinking the footprint, LightSynq for the interconnects. Each acquisition a calculated risk, a step closer to…what, exactly? A future that felt less like science and more like a high-stakes poker game.

According to a recent SEC filing, Silphium effectively liquidated its holding in VCLT. The fund’s reported position now stands at zero. The mechanics are simple enough: shares were sold, funds received. The significance, however, is rarely found in the transaction itself, but in the reasons – stated or unstated – that prompted it. One must avoid the temptation to read too much into a single action, but equally, to dismiss it entirely would be negligent.

A new position, they’re calling it. One point two percent of their holdings. Not exactly betting the ranch, but enough to raise an eyebrow. Berkeley doesn’t usually play hunches. They prefer a sure thing, which, in this business, is about as common as an honest politician.

The connection, one suspects, lies not in some arcane mystery, but in the very substance Newmont wrests from the earth.

Trust. That’s a funny thing to ask for from a company that once halved its dividend. It happened in 2020, a year when everything felt like a bad dream. The world was ending, or so it seemed, and Energy Transfer decided to join the party. Other pipeline companies, like Enterprise Products Partners and Enbridge, kept the checks coming. They weren’t saints, mind you, just less…enthusiastic about sudden austerity.

They scooped up 334,227 shares, according to the SEC filing. Which, when you break it down, is a lot of shares. My aunt Mildred buys shares, too, but it’s usually in companies that make porcelain dolls. Different strategies, I suppose. Elevation Capital is clearly betting on “fallen angels” – companies that were once considered safe investments, then…weren’t. It’s a lovely phrase, really. Fallen angels. Sounds like a particularly gloomy rock band.