Now, Microsoft. They’re in this AI thing. Big time. And Wall Street is predicting a 46% jump in the next year. 46%! It feels… aggressive. But, and this is a big but, the stock is… reasonably priced. Which is practically unheard of these days. It’s like finding a parking spot in Manhattan. Almost suspicious.
I, naturally, hold a few shares. A speculative flutter, really. But despite this minor uptick, I shan’t be adding to the position. Statistics, however hopeful, are simply that – numbers. And one particular number is proving decidedly tiresome. A turnaround could occur, of course. But one isn’t holding one’s breath. There’s a distinct lack of fizz.
February 25th. Another quarterly confessional. Another chance for Jensen Huang to spin gold from vaporware. They’ll be talking about Blackwell, Rubin, architectures so complex they make the Large Hadron Collider look like a child’s toy. They’ll be promising 50x performance gains, 75% reduction in GPU requirements, 90% cost savings. It’s a beautiful lie, meticulously crafted for the easily impressed. Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet… lining up like addicts for their next fix. The whole thing smells of desperation, of a market straining at the seams.
Units of Microsoft stock currently causing mild anxiety: 73. Number of times I refreshed the trading app: approximately 147. Number of times I told myself “stay calm, it’s a long-term investment”: dwindling rapidly.
Before committing one’s hard-earned funds, however, a spot of due diligence is in order. Let me illuminate three points that any discerning investor – or, indeed, anyone hoping to avoid a financial muddle – ought to bear in mind.
The broader indices, those pale reflections of underlying vitality, also felt the breeze. The S&P 500 drifted downwards, settling at 6,800, while the Nasdaq Composite, ever the more volatile spirit, lost 1.59% to reach 22,541. One observes, with a certain detached amusement, that even the titans are susceptible to the prevailing winds. Alibaba and Walmart, those fellow purveyors of goods, experienced similar, if less dramatic, declines, underscoring a shared vulnerability. It is a landscape of shifting sands, where even the most firmly established empires must occasionally brace against the tide.
The S&P 500 dropped 1.20% to 6,800. The Nasdaq Composite, not doing much better, lost 1.59% to 22,541. Tech stocks, generally, were feeling a little glum. Meta Platforms, though, managed a tiny gain (+0.18%), closing at $670.21. Amazon, however, took a bigger hit (-4.42%), finishing at $222.69. Large companies, shuffling around like cards in a deck. It’s all just numbers, really.
Chevron’s consistent dividend increases – a 39-year streak – are noteworthy. The recent 4% increase, resulting in a current yield of approximately 4.1%, appears superficially attractive. However, reliance on historical performance as a predictor of future results is inherently flawed. The oil and gas sector is subject to pronounced cyclicality and increasingly vulnerable to secular shifts in energy demand. While Chevron’s cash flow from operations totaled $33.9 billion this past year, this figure is heavily influenced by prevailing commodity prices. A sustained decline in oil prices would exert considerable pressure on the company’s ability to maintain its dividend commitments.
They’re touting $1.73 a share, when everyone expected $1.70. Okay, fine. A little over. But then the sales number – $4.2 billion. Analysts were sniffing around $4.1 billion. So, they beat on both. And the market’s response is to punish the stock? What is wrong with people? It’s like they’re actively looking for things to be disappointed about. It’s exhausting.
A filing. That’s how we know these things. Bernzott Capital Advisors, they reported it. They used to own a piece of Hillenbrand. Now they don’t. The value went poof. About $10.53 million. It’s always about the money, isn’t it? The quarter-end numbers shifted, reflecting the sale. And the universe didn’t even blink.