I try never to miss Rex Woodbury’s Digital Native letters.
This one about loneliness and the future of artificial friends — AI Friends Are a Good Thing, Actually — I particularly commend.
(How far we’ve come from 1971 . . . )
The proxy fight has begun. I’m betting Findell will be successful and that the stock could quintuple in two or three years. Only with money I can truly afford to lose, of course . . . but I have to say (famous last words?) the downside on this one seems modest.
Whereas the downside on this one could easily be a total loss — plus the 2 cents per share I think I’m charged each year by the custodian. I’ve paid as much as $7 and have bought more over the years as it’s fallen to 80 cents. If you wade through its recently issued annual report, you’ll see that it is a real business. In China. Domiciled in the Cayman Islands. With lots of risks and complexity. Each CNF ADR represents 20 of the nearly 1.4 billion “ordinary” shares . . . giving the whole enterprise a market cap of about $55 million. A way smarter friend knows it intimately, owns a ton, and thinks one day our ship may come in. For better or worse, I enjoy gazing out at the horizon.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on May 5th, 2025, on andrewtobias.com, syndicated with permission.