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 . . . )

OPRT

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.

CNF

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.