Rising again – Or just floating?

August the 3rd

Lately, a few names have crept back into the conversation.
Neste. Kempower. Rapala.

Stocks that, for the past months or even years, have mostly lived in the blind spot of investor attention — discounted, dismissed, overlooked.
Now suddenly, they’re moving.
Prices rising.
Headlines shifting.
And so the question follows: what has really changed?

A rising stock price doesn’t mean a business has found its new direction.
It doesn’t confirm a turnaround.
It doesn’t even guarantee progress.
It simply tells us that today, more people wanted to buy than sell.

These companies — once riding high in the post-pandemic market narrative — saw their valuations compress sharply.
The hype cooled.
Cash flow projections were questioned.
The market decided: not yet.
Now, some of those same companies are moving upward again.
But why?

Maybe, behind the scenes, their businesses were never broken.
Maybe their future cash flows are more durable than the market was willing to price in.
Or maybe this is just another bounce — not based on business strength, but on rotation, sentiment, and timing.

That’s the paradox of public markets:
Prices change every second,
but value changes far more slowly.

And the investor stands between those two rhythms — often forced to make decisions in the noise, while hoping to be right in the silence.

We often speak of undervaluation like it’s an automatic trigger.
As if the market must recognize what we see.
But the truth is: valuation is never destiny.
A company can stay “cheap” for far longer than we expect.
And when sentiment finally shifts, it’s rarely when we predicted — and never as cleanly as we’d like.

Some would say that Neste, Kempower, and Rapala have been “cheap” for a while.
Still, the market only started to care recently.
And no one can say how long it will last.

On the other end, look at Novo Nordisk.
Once the golden child of “quality investing.”
Now, under pressure.
But has the business truly changed?
Or just the mood around it?

This is the game we’re in.
Not one of certainties — but of decisions made with incomplete information.

And even if you know a company’s future is intact…
is now the right time to step in?
Are you early — or simply wrong?

Markets can stay indifferent longer than we can stay rational.
That’s not cynicism.
That’s just history.

But if you've truly found something of quality,
then these swings — these pullbacks, doubts, overreactions —
should be noise, not signals.

Long games demand long vision.
The problem is, most can't hold it.

And from there — you build.