Cathie Wood's ARKK fund, which as of writing was down nearly -50% YTD, has had a bad year. They are not the only major market player with performance issues.

Markets value certainty. Whether terrible or euphoric, more certain outcomes make planning, valuing future revenues, and controlling for future costs much easier, and by extension makes valuing companies as a whole much more straightforward (as much as it can be). The corporate temptation of whether or not to merge, takeover, or take private becomes a much harder to ignore when the answer is seemingly self-evident.

One of the many overlooked components of a well-managed portfolio is original data - data which is often sanitized, re-analyzed, or downright omitted by the time it hits the news wires. Freeport-McMoran's recent call was particularly enlightening.

The behemoth of a company that is Amazon is becoming is dangerously similar to gilded-age monopolies.