New York sued 3M, DuPont, and a handful of other chemical companies for putting forever chemicals in consumer goods and lying about it for decades. Forever chemicals. They named them forever chemicals. Not because they sound ominous in a lawsuit but because they don't break down. They just sit there. In your blood. In the water. In that non-stick pan you bought because some commercial convinced you scrambled eggs were too hard.
Attorney General Letitia James claims these companies knew the stuff was toxic and hid it anyway. Which tracks. You don't get to be a multi-billion dollar chemical conglomerate by disclosing risk factors in plain English. You get there by selling Teflon to every moron who thinks cooking spray is for peasants.
The technical setup here is fascinating. Retail traders will see this headline and immediately check if DuPont stock is dipping. It won't matter that the company literally poisoned the water supply. They'll pull up a three-month chart and convince themselves the lawsuit is priced in. It's not priced in. Your kidneys are priced in.
3M's defense will be incredible. They'll trot out some VP of External Affairs who'll say they take environmental concerns seriously and remain committed to transparency moving forward. Translation: we sold carcinogens for forty years and got caught so now we're sorry. Not sorry we did it. Sorry you noticed.
The chemicals are in everything. Carpets. Food packaging. Firefighting foam. Your body absorbed them before you learned to read a balance sheet. But sure, let's worry about whether the Fed's pivoting in Q3.
Best part? These stocks barely moved. Lawsuits are just cost of doing business when you're large enough. They'll settle for a number that sounds big in a press release and represents eleven minutes of revenue. Then everyone goes back to pretending DuPont makes science miracles and not compounds that'll outlive your great-grandchildren.
You drank the chemicals and bought the stock. Diversification at its finest.
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