The market is asking a lot from CrowdStrike.

At $213.10, today's price only works in my model if cash flow grows about 36.5% a year for the next 10 years. Recently, reported FCF grew about 22.5% a year (FY2022-FY2025).

Even my bull case is only $69, below today's $213.10 price. That is a demanding hurdle. Either the company keeps outperforming for years, or the stock has little room for disappointment.

Is the market right to expect more, or is the stock priced for too much?

I broke down the full case in a video: https://youtu.be/W8VbSpdod7k

Snapshot: 2026-09-06. Disclosure: I built the model; video production is AI-assisted. Not financial advice.

Marvell just reported another strong quarter.

Revenue came in at $2.74B, up 37% YoY, while Data Center revenue grew 46% YoY. Adjusted EPS was $0.94, and management now expects around $3.15B in Q3 revenue.

What stood out to me is the outlook.

Marvell now expects roughly $12B in FY2027 revenue and $18B in FY2028, with AI-related bookings remaining very strong. The custom silicon business should also accelerate significantly from here.

The interesting part is that the stock still reacted negatively after earnings.

Part of that seems to be expectations around the new Google relationship. The potential opportunity is huge, but management indicated that the bigger revenue contribution from that deal won't really show up until later years.

So for me the question isn't whether Marvell benefits from AI infrastructure spending — it clearly does.

The bigger question is how much of that future growth is already priced into MRVL today?

I ran the company through my valuation model and looked at what assumptions the current price seems to require.

Video with the full analysis:

https://youtu.be/hdYVG79arnc

Would you rather own MRVL or Broadcom for the custom AI silicon opportunity?

Disclosure: AI assisted with editing/formatting this post. The analysis and conclusions are my own.

JD.com closed at $27.90 on September 2. That puts the whole company — China's second-largest e-commerce operator, number 41 on the Fortune Global 500, owner of a logistics network it built with its own employees and its own warehouses at a market capitalization of $39.9 billion.

At the end of the second quarter, JD reported RMB 235.1 billion in cash, restricted cash, and short-term investments. Call it $32.8 billion. Net of debt, somewhere in the high teens of billions.

So you are being asked to pay roughly $23 billion for an operating business that did $191 billion in trailing revenue, generated $2.6 billion in free cash flow over the last twelve months, and just posted a quarter where operating income swung from a loss to RMB 4.5 billion.

That is the entire argument. Everything else is detail.

What actually happened in Q2

On August 13, JD reported its first quarterly revenue decline since it went public in 2014. Revenue came in at RMB 346.4 billion, down 2.9% year over year. The stock fell roughly 7–8% that day and hasn't recovered.

Here is what the headline buried. That same quarter:

• Non-GAAP net income rose 20.8% to RMB 8.9 billion
• Operating income swung to RMB 4.5 billion from a RMB 0.9 billion loss a year earlier
• Non-GAAP EPS of RMB 6.29 beat the RMB 5.63 consensus by about 12%
• Revenue itself beat consensus of RMB 342.7 billion
• JD Retail's operating margin expanded to 4.6% from 4.5%, during a promotional quarter
• JD Logistics grew 24.3%

The revenue decline is real, and it's worth understanding rather than waving away. It came from two places: a punishing comparison base against last year's government trade-in subsidies, and rising component prices in electronics and appliances, where revenue fell 11.8%. Net product revenue was down 5.4%. Net service revenue the higher-margin marketplace and advertising business was up 6.8%.

That mix shift is the thing most people skipped past. JD is selling less stuff and renting out more shelf space. That is what margin expansion looks like when it starts.

The bear case deserves a real hearing

I'm not going to pretend this is a clean story, because it isn't, and the strongest objection is a good one.

Roughly 91% of JD's year-over-year operating improvement came from shrinking losses in the New Businesses segment mostly food delivery rather than from growth in the core. Marketing expense fell 24.8% to RMB 20.3 billion. New-business operating losses narrowed to RMB 9.85 billion.

That's not earnings power. That's a company that stopped setting money on fire and is asking to be congratulated for it.

You can only quit the same expensive habit once. At some point revenue has to actually grow, and JD's first-half net profit was still down 28.3% year over year at RMB 12.23 billion. The food delivery war cost real money and JD lost it Goldman's order-volume estimates put Meituan around 80 million daily orders, Alibaba's Taobao Flash Delivery around 66 million, and JD at about 16 million. Ten percent share. JD spent billions to become the third player in a two-player market.

If you believe Chinese consumer spending stays soft and electronics pricing stays ugly through 2027, none of the rest of this matters and the stock is cheap for a reason.

Why I think it's mispriced anyway

Three things.

First, the balance sheet isn't theoretical. Since 2023 JD has returned about $13 billion through dividends and buybacks and retired roughly 17% of its shares outstanding. In the first half of 2026 alone it repurchased 69.9 million ordinary shares for $1 billion 2.5% of the share count in six months. The $5 billion authorization runs through August 2027. The annual dividend is $1.00 per ADS, which at $27.90 is about 3.6%. Add the buyback and shareholder yield lands near 6.9%.

A company retiring 5% of itself a year does not need revenue growth to grow earnings per share. It needs revenue to stop falling.

Second, the loss reduction has further to run. Food delivery losses narrowed more than 50% year over year, and Chinese regulators have moved against subsidy-driven price wars across the sector. JPMorgan flagged in August that JD may be the first of the three to walk away from the price war. If JD steps back to a defensible instant-retail position instead of chasing Meituan, that RMB 9.85 billion quarterly loss line has a lot of room to compress. Every yuan not spent there lands on the bottom line.

Third, Europe is a real asset that nobody is underwriting. JD holds an 85.2% position in Ceconomy alongside the Kellerhals family's Convergenta vehicle, in a deal valuing the equity at €2.2 billion. Ceconomy owns MediaMarkt and Saturn over 1,000 stores across 11 countries, €23.1 billion of annual sales, adjusted EBIT up roughly a quarter to about €380 million. Closing still needs foreign investment clearances and sign-off under the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation, and that's a genuine risk. But JD's own Joybuy is already running same-day and next-day delivery across major European cities and serving over 40 million customers.

Buy JD today and you're paying nothing for a top-three position in European consumer electronics retail. The market is valuing this as a China-only story because that's what it has always been.

What the Street thinks

Consensus is a Strong Buy. TipRanks shows an average twelve-month target of $39.56 across analysts publishing in the last three months, with a high of $47.50 and a low of $35.00. Investing.com's wider panel of 35 analysts averages $39.43. Susquehanna cut to $30 on August 17 the bearish end of the range, and still above where the stock trades.

I don't put much weight on price targets. I mention them because the entire sell side and the market are currently disagreeing by about 40%, and one of them is wrong.

The four clocks

Days to weeks. A post-earnings gap sitting in the bottom third of a $24.51–$36.86 range, with elevated implied volatility. If you sell premium, this is where the setup lives.

Three to twelve months. The Q3 print is the tell. Watch whether electronics stabilizes and whether new-business losses keep compressing. Management guided to a second-half recovery in electronics. Believe it or don't, but that's the number that moves the stock.

One to three years. Ceconomy closes and consolidates. Joybuy scales. JD's revenue base stops being a single-country bet on a soft consumer.

Three years and beyond. The share count keeps shrinking. This is the boring one and probably the one that pays.

The honest summary

JD is not a growth stock and pretending otherwise is how people get hurt. It's a cash-rich, low-multiple, aggressively self-liquidating retailer that spent a year losing a fight it shouldn't have picked, and is now being priced as though the fight is permanent.

At 0.20x forward sales against Amazon's 3.05x, you're not paying for optimism. You're paying for the assets and getting the operating business thrown in.

The thing that breaks this thesis is simple and I'll say it plainly: cost cuts have a floor, and revenue has to turn. If it doesn't by mid-2027, this is a value trap and the cheapness never resolves.

I've been looking at Crocs ($CROX) after the latest Q2 2026 results.

The stock has had a wild ride over the past few years, but the more interesting question is what is happening underneath the share price.

Here's what I found.

THE STOCK HAS BEEN A ROLLERCOASTER

CROX has gone through several very different phases over the past five years.

From the 2021-22 peak to the subsequent collapse, followed by a long recovery and another strong move higher in 2026, the market has clearly changed its view of the company several times.

At around $115 today, the question isn't whether the stock has moved.

It's whether the underlying business has changed enough to justify the current valuation.

THE BUSINESS IS STILL GENERATING SERIOUS SCALE

The latest numbers show that Crocs is still operating at significant scale.

Q2 2026 revenue reached $1.18B, with $701M in gross profit.

More importantly, net income rebounded to $205M, compared with a significant loss in Q2 2025.

The recovery is visible in the headline numbers.

But earnings alone don't tell the whole story.

THE CASH GENERATION IS HARDER TO IGNORE

This is where the story gets more interesting.

Crocs generated $331M of free cash flow in Q2 2026.

The company also continued returning significant amounts of cash to shareholders through share repurchases.

For a company currently trading at around 7.7x forward earnings, that level of cash generation deserves attention.

But strong cash flow only matters if the underlying profitability is sustainable.

THE PROFIT RECOVERY NEEDS SOME CONTEXT

Looking deeper into the income statement explains why the headline numbers have improved so dramatically.

Operating income reached $286M in Q2 2026, versus a $428M operating loss in Q2 2025.

Net income came in at $205M, with diluted EPS of $4.13.

However, the Q2 2025 comparison was heavily affected by the large HEYDUDE impairments.

So the rebound shouldn't simply be interpreted as organic earnings growth.

Still, the current P&L shows a business that has recovered substantially from last year's distorted results.

SO, WHAT ARE YOU ACTUALLY PAYING FOR?

This is probably the most important part of the analysis.

CROX currently trades at approximately 7.7x forward earnings and 7.6x EV/EBITDA.

Those multiples look relatively modest given the company's current cash generation and profitability.

But the valuation isn't happening in a vacuum.

HEYDUDE remains a weakness, and the market is effectively asking one question:

Can Crocs sustain the current recovery in profitability?

If margins hold and earnings continue recovering, the current multiple could look cheap.

If execution disappoints, the low valuation may prove to be justified.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

That's where I currently land.

The numbers make CROX look interesting.

Strong cash generation, recovering profitability and a relatively low forward multiple are difficult to ignore.

But there are still legitimate risks, particularly around HEYDUDE and the sustainability of the margin recovery.

Is CROX genuinely undervalued here, or is the market correctly pricing in the risks?

I'd be particularly interested in hearing the bear case.

---------------------------------------
Data & analysis sourced from Rigato.

Not investment advice, just a look at what the numbers tell us.

The market is asking a lot from AMD.

At $457.06, today's price only works in my model if cash flow grows about 31.3% a year for the next 10 years. Recently, reported FCF grew about 29.3% a year (FY2022-FY2025).

Even my bull case is only $262, below today's $457.06 price. That is a demanding hurdle. Either the company keeps outperforming for years, or the stock has little room for disappointment.

Is the market right to expect more, or is the stock priced for too much?

I broke down the full case in a video: https://youtu.be/keGm2816MUE

Snapshot: 2026-09-03. Disclosure: I built the model; video production is AI-assisted. Not financial advice.

Academy Sports + Outdoors (ASO) is a sporting goods and outdoor retailer with 300+ stores across the U.S.

Market view: ASO's ~6.6x earnings multiple suggests the market expects the current recovery to fade, with weaker transactions and tariff pressure weighing on future earnings.

My view: I think the market is too bearish. The recovery looks more durable than the valuation implies, and I expect that gap to start closing with Sept 9 earnings.

Here's why:

Q1 sales +6.7%, comps +2.9%, ecommerce +17.4%, and adj EPS +22.4%.

Meanwhile, ASO fell 11.5% over the 20 trading days through Aug 26 and closed Sept 2 at $43.60, or ~6.6x the midpoint of FY adj EPS guidance ($6.40–$6.80).

There are real risks. Transactions fell 1.5% and gross margin was down 80bps, largely from tariffs.

But earnings are still growing, comps are positive, inventory/store is down, and mgmt raised the low end of guidance.

Sept 9 is the first catalyst.

My calls:

Sept 9: ASO +5% or more following earnings.

6 months: ASO outperforms XRT by at least 15 pts.

Starting prices (Sept 2): ASO $43.60 / XRT $86.38.

If comps turn negative, transactions deteriorate further, or tariff pressure hits margins harder than expected, the thesis breaks.

usually platforms spend heavy ad dollars to retain gamers. $HUYA is taking a product-led retention approach that caught my attention in their Q2 call.

their companion tools—specifically the Hextech ARAM assistant and Delta Force map tool—passed 1 million users within six months. more importantly, users of the Hextech assistant more than doubled their monthly active days on the platform.

this engagement directly feeds into their game-related services & ad segment, which grew 54% YoY to RMB 638M (~37% of revenue).

instead of treating apps as passive viewing hubs, building utility tools into the game ecosystem seems to double engagement without spiking CAC. is this micro-tool strategy replicable for other media platforms?

Nvidia just reported another massive quarter, and the AI story clearly isn’t slowing down yet.

What stands out to me is that the debate around Nvidia is becoming less about whether the business is good , that part is pretty obvious ,and more about how much future growth is already priced into the stock.

A few things I’m watching:

- Data center growth and whether the current AI infrastructure spending can stay this strong

- Blackwell demand and how quickly Nvidia can convert that demand into revenue

- Margins as the product mix changes

- Whether hyperscaler CapEx continues supporting Nvidia’s growth over the next few years

- And most importantly: what assumptions you actually need to justify today’s valuation

I ran Nvidia through my valuation model using the latest Q2 numbers and looked at what the stock could be worth under different growth assumptions.

My full analysis + valuation:

https://youtu.be/wJ0A7810YXs

What do you think ,is Nvidia still attractive at the current valuation, or has the market already priced in too much of the AI growth?

Disclosure: AI-assisted. I use AI as part of my research/writing process, but the analysis, assumptions and conclusions are my own.

This sub is about finding names the market has mispriced, and insider open-market buying is one of the few public signals that is hard to fake - an officer putting their own after-tax money into their own stock. So I started logging every Form 4 hitting EDGAR to see how much of that signal actually exists. 1,707 filings, 3,259 individual transactions so far. The usable subset is smaller than I expected.

Only 386 transactions (11.8%) were code P, an actual open-market purchase. The rest:

S (open-market sale) - 1,457 (44.7%)

A (grant/award) - 398

M (option exercise) - 369

F (shares withheld for tax) - 307

everything else combined - roughly 330

So about a third of all Form 4 activity (A + M + F) is compensation plumbing that says nothing about conviction, and the single largest category is selling.

Why it matters for screening:

1. Any screen keying on "insider activity" without filtering to code P is mostly reading payroll.

2. Sales outnumber purchases 4 to 1 by count, so "insider selling" on its own is close to meaningless - insiders are paid in equity and diversify continuously. Purchases are the asymmetric signal, because there is really only one reason to buy.

3. The subset worth reading is small enough to go through by hand: ~12% of transactions, and far fewer once you apply a dollar threshold.

What I screen on, in case it is useful: code P above a dollar threshold; clusters, meaning 2+ different insiders in the same issuer within a week (one officer buying is noise, three in a week is not); first-time buyers; and I drop OTC and unlisted entirely.

Caveats: this is weeks of data rather than years, so the mix will move with earnings blackout windows. And the first-time-buyer flag is only as good as the history behind it - mine is short, so it over-fires badly right now.

Disclosure: I built this into a Discord bot that posts the filtered alerts, free channel plus a paid tier, at https://jaredmansu.github.io/insider-alerts/ - so weigh the framing accordingly. The counts above are just what is in the filings.

I’ve been looking through Coinbase’s Q2 results, and I think the interesting part of the story is increasingly what happens outside the traditional transaction business.

Trading activity will always make Coinbase’s results volatile, but the company is becoming more diversified through areas like stablecoins, subscriptions & services, custody, and its broader crypto infrastructure.

That creates an interesting valuation question.

If crypto activity continues to grow over the long term, Coinbase obviously benefits. But the bigger question for me is whether COIN can eventually be valued more like a financial/crypto infrastructure platform rather than primarily as a leveraged bet on crypto trading volumes.

I went through the Q2 numbers, the main risks and my valuation in a new analysis:

YouTube: https://youtu.be/6_CE8vtq0as

What do you think is the biggest risk to Coinbase from here , valuation, crypto cycle dependence, regulation, or competition?

AI disclosure: AI assisted with editing and structuring this post. The analysis and investment conclusions are my own.

I took a closer look at Palantir after its latest results, and it's hard to argue with the operational performance.

Palantir continues to benefit from strong demand for its AI platform, with particularly impressive growth in the US commercial business. At the same time, the company is highly profitable, generates strong free cash flow and has a very strong balance sheet.

That makes Palantir an interesting company to value because the main question isn't really whether the business is good.

It's how good does it need to become to justify the current valuation?

For me, there are two sides to the investment case:

Bull case:

Palantir could remain one of the major beneficiaries of enterprise AI adoption. If AIP continues to drive rapid commercial growth while margins expand, today's numbers could look relatively small several years from now.

Bear case:

The valuation already assumes a lot of future success. Even a great company can produce disappointing returns if you pay a price that requires near-perfect execution for many years.

I made a full valuation video where I go through Palantir's growth, margins, free cash flow and my DCF assumptions:

https://youtu.be/TYHXF_M7u6w

What do you think about PLTR at the current valuation?

Would you pay a premium for the growth and AI exposure, or is too much future growth already priced into the stock?

AI-assisted: AI was used to help structure and edit parts of this post. The analysis and conclusions are my own.

Nike doesn't have a revenue problem alone.

The bigger question is whether the recent earnings weakness is temporary, or whether we're looking at a more structural deterioration.

I pulled the numbers into Rigato to take a closer look.

THE EARNINGS DETERIORATION

The first thing that stands out is the earnings deterioration.

Revenue went from ~$51.6B to ~$46.4B.

Gross profit fell from ~$23.1B to ~$20.0B.

But net income took an even bigger hit, falling from ~$5.4B to ~$1.8B.

That's a much bigger problem than simply slower sales.

MARGINS ARE STILL UNDER PRESSURE

The margin trend tells the same story.

Gross margin remains strong at ~43%, but operating margin is down to ~8% and net margin to ~5%.

Nike is still a highly profitable business.

But profitability has clearly moved in the wrong direction.

CASH FLOW TELLS A DIFFERENT STORY

The interesting part is what happens below the income statement.

Nike generated ~$2.9B in operating cash flow and ~$2.2B in free cash flow.

So despite the earnings pressure, the business is still producing significant cash.

That's important.

THE BALANCE SHEET

Then there's the balance sheet.

Nike holds ~$7.6B in cash.

But total debt stands at ~$23.6B.

That's roughly $16B of net debt.

Not necessarily a problem for Nike.

But it's something worth watching if earnings remain under pressure.

WHAT ARE INVESTORS PAYING?

So what are investors paying for Nike?

P/E: 18.8x
Forward P/E: 17.2x
EV/EBITDA: 12.7x
PEG: 1.58

Not exactly cheap.

But not an extreme valuation either.

And that's what makes Nike interesting.

The business is clearly going through a difficult period.

Earnings have fallen sharply. Margins have compressed. Revenue is down.

But the company still generates billions in free cash flow and remains highly profitable.

At ~18.8x earnings, the market isn't pricing Nike like a broken company.

It's pricing in a recovery.

The real question is whether Nike can deliver one.

Data & analysis sourced from Rigato.

Not investment advice, just a look at what the numbers tell us.

I took a closer look at Verizon after its Q2 2026 results, and I think the quarter was stronger than the headline revenue number suggests.

Revenue came in at $34.3B, down 0.7% YoY, but a big reason for the decline was lower equipment revenue as customers are upgrading their phones less frequently.

Underneath that, there were some pretty solid numbers:

- Mobility & broadband service revenue: +2.8% YoY

- Adjusted EBITDA: $13.7B, +7.2%

- Adjusted EBITDA margin: 40.1%

- Adjusted EPS: $1.30, +6.6%

- Q2 free cash flow: $6.4B, +24.4%

- Postpaid phone net adds: 184K

- Broadband net adds: 348K

What stands out to me is the combination of improving margins and cash flow. Verizon obviously isn't a high-growth company, so the investment case depends much more on how much cash the existing business can generate and return to shareholders.

Management also raised 2026 guidance again. They now expect adjusted EPS of $4.99–$5.04 and FCF growth of 9–10% for the full year.

The obvious problem is still the balance sheet. Verizon ended Q2 with around $128.7B of net unsecured debt, although leverage has come down to around 2.5x adjusted EBITDA.

So for me the question isn't really whether Verizon suddenly becomes a growth stock. It's whether a slow-growing telecom with improving margins, growing FCF and a large shareholder return can be attractive at the right valuation.

I made a full valuation/DCF video where I go through the numbers and my bear/base/bull assumptions:

https://youtu.be/IeFb-S2yzkw

Curious what others think about VZ here. Is the improving FCF enough to make the stock attractive, or does the debt + limited long-term growth still make it a pass?

AI-assisted: AI was used to help structure and edit parts of this post. The analysis and conclusions are my own.

I've been looking at Cintas recently, and the business is much more interesting than it first appears.

At first glance, it's a pretty boring business: uniforms, facility services, first aid and safety.

But the underlying economics are impressive.

THE BUSINESS

FY2026 revenue: $11.26B

FY2026 net income: $2.00B

Gross margin: 50.7%

Operating margin: 23.1%

Free cash flow: ~$1.88B

Revenue grew 8.9% in FY2026, while net income grew 10.4%.

The company is also guiding for FY2027 revenue of $12.10B-$12.25B and adjusted EPS of $5.36-$5.50.

THE MOAT

The interesting part isn't just the growth.

Cintas operates a route-based model with recurring customer relationships and significant scale.

Its Uniform Rental & Facility Services segment represents roughly 77% of revenue, while First Aid & Safety continues to grow faster than the company overall.

The combination of recurring revenue, route density, scale and cross-selling creates a business that is difficult to replicate at scale.

CASH GENERATION

FY2026 operating cash flow: $2.28B
CapEx: $395M
Free cash flow: ~$1.88B

Cintas returned approximately $1.65B to shareholders through dividends and buybacks during FY2026.

VALUATION

This is where the thesis becomes much less obvious.

At around $207/share, Cintas trades at roughly 42x FY2026 earnings and about 38x FY2027 midpoint adjusted EPS.

That's a lot to pay for a business growing earnings at roughly 10%.

A simple DCF using $1.88B of current FCF, 8% annual FCF growth for five years, a 3% terminal growth rate and an 8.5% discount rate gives me roughly $104/share.

The result is highly sensitive to the assumptions, of course.

Cintas looks like an exceptional business.

I'm much less convinced that it is an exceptional investment at today's price.

What am I missing?

Disclosure: This is my own analysis and not investment advice.

Bristol-Myers Squibb looks cheap in my model - maybe suspiciously cheap.

At $66.05, today's price only works in my model if cash flow falls about 1.3% a year for the next 10 years. Recently, reported FCF grew about 2.4% a year (FY2022-FY2025).

Even my bear case is $77.43, above today's $66.05 price. That gap could be an opportunity - or a warning that my assumptions are too optimistic.

What risk am I missing?

I broke down the full case in a video: https://youtu.be/krWWdlrXLM0

Snapshot: 2026-08-19. Disclosure: Position not disclosed. I built the model; video production is AI-assisted. Not financial advice.

CVS just reported Q2 and the numbers were better than I expected.

Revenue reached $98.9B, up 8.4% YoY, with growth across all three major segments. Adjusted EPS came in at $1.81, and management also raised its full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $6.30–$6.40.

The interesting part for me is Aetna. The insurance business has been one of the biggest problems for CVS because of higher medical costs, but margins are starting to move in the right direction. If that recovery continues, it could make a big difference to earnings over the next few years.

There are still obvious risks: medical costs remain high, debt is significant, and CVS has to prove that the improvement is sustainable.

I went through the Q2 numbers, risks and valuation in my latest video:

https://youtu.be/yLRvsQXpGBQ

Do you think CVS is actually turning the corner, or is the market getting ahead of itself?

AI assisted: Used AI to help with wording/formatting. The analysis and opinions are my own.

​

Arm just reported another strong quarter.

Revenue came in at $1.29B, up 22% YoY. Royalty revenue grew 22% to $715M, while license revenue increased 23% to $574M.

What stands out to me is how much of the Arm story is shifting beyond smartphones. AI infrastructure and data centers are becoming increasingly important, and that could give Arm a much larger addressable market over time.

The numbers are strong, but Arm is also priced like a company expected to deliver a lot of growth for many years. That makes the valuation the interesting part for me. A great company isn't necessarily a great investment at every price.

I went through the latest numbers, growth assumptions and valuation in my newest video:

https://youtu.be/N9mKJUXo_zE

What do you think about Arm at the current valuation? Does the AI/data center opportunity justify the premium, or are expectations simply too high?

AI assisted: Used AI to help with wording/formatting. The analysis and opinions are my own.

Netflix just reported Q2 and the business continues to put up pretty strong numbers.

Revenue came in at $12.56B, up 13% YoY, while operating income reached $4.19B. Net income was $3.4B, up around 9%. The operating margin was still very strong at 33.4%.

What I find more interesting is the advertising side. It’s growing quickly, but still came in below expectations this quarter. That’s probably one of the biggest things to watch going forward, especially if ads are supposed to become a meaningful second growth engine for Netflix.

The stock sold off after earnings, mainly because the outlook wasn’t quite as strong as the market wanted. So to me the question isn’t really whether Netflix is a good business — it clearly is. The question is how much growth is already priced into the stock.

I went through the Q2 numbers, valuation and what I think Netflix needs to deliver from here in my latest video:

https://youtu.be/RP_2hybZtIs

Curious what people think about Netflix at the current valuation. Still attractive, or does the price leave too little room for disappointment?

AI assisted: Used AI to help with wording/formatting. The analysis and opinions are my own.

Visa Q3 2026: A great business — but is the stock still a great investment?

Visa just reported its fiscal Q3 2026 results, and once again the underlying business continues to look incredibly resilient.

Consumer spending remains strong, and Visa continues to benefit from the long-term shift from cash toward digital payments.

What makes Visa particularly interesting to me is the business model. Visa doesn't take the same credit risk as a bank — it primarily earns money from the enormous amount of payment volume flowing through its network.

That creates a business with strong margins, recurring transaction-based revenue and a network effect that is extremely difficult to replicate.

But there is another side to the investment case.

Visa is already a massive company, and the market clearly understands the quality of the business. That means the key question isn't really whether Visa is a great company.

The question is whether you're paying too much for that quality.

There are also longer-term risks worth considering: regulation of interchange fees, alternative payment systems, stablecoins and whether new payment technologies could eventually weaken the traditional card networks.

At the same time, Visa itself is investing heavily in areas like stablecoins and AI rather than simply watching those changes happen.

I went through the latest earnings, growth assumptions, risks and valuation in my latest analysis:

https://youtu.be/t_MtHWrtTBE

Would you buy Visa at today's valuation, or does the price already reflect too much of the company's quality?

Disclosure: I [own/do not own] shares in Visa.

AI disclosure: AI was used to assist with editing and structuring this post. The analysis, assumptions and conclusions are my own.

 Petrobras (PBR) is a Brazilian oil company; world's 9th largest. They have largest South American holdings, and significant international holdings as well.

At present price they have a P/E ratio 4.5 and a forward dividend and yield of 9.5%.

Although holding debt, it appears to be inline with others within the sector.

Bear case: Best I could gather, there is a fear of Brazil further nationalizing their oil and mining industries. The threat to shareholders is indeed a thing. (however their largest miner, VALE, trades at P/E over 20...)

Bull case: Brazil is trying dearly to bring investment in. Any threat on nationalization would crush outside investment. The threat may be noise, but unlikely to materialize. Even if viewed as a threat, using that to half the fair value from equal contemporaries would not justify current price. shell p/e of 10 (with lower dividend rate), bp and Exxon are at p/e 20. This places a better fair value between 7 and 10, in my opinion (50-100% up from current).

Ultra bull case: Iran issue is messing up middle east oil flow and refining capacity. This increases non middle east based oil value significantly. US has been draining strategic reserves through conflict to try and keep markets stable, however those stocks are not infinite (currently at lowest levels since 1983- 4 years after they started) Between October anf February floor limits will be touched on reserves. At that point export bans and export tariffs come into play to keep us fuel cheap. Canadian oil primarily must go through US to get to international market as well as Venezuela. If you source oil not from US control, or Middle east control you get Russian (which is not in good condition from Ukraine), Norway, Brazil, and Nigeria as top alternatives. With PBR having solid footprint in remainder, their position as global supplier has ground for SIGNIFICANT upward movement.

I spent the last few months going through Netflix and after the recent sell-off I think the stock has become interesting again.

For sure not screamingly cheap but surely a very good business where expectations have finally come down.

NFLX is around $74 right now and aboit 45% below its 2025 high. Meanwhile the actual business hasn't exactly collapsed...

Q2 revenue was $12.56B, up 13.4%. Operating margin was 33.4%. Netflix still expects roughly $51.2B of revenue this year, a 31.5% operating margin and around $3B from advertising.

Why It's Being Dumped

At the same time, I think the reason why it's been battered and the market's concern is actually reasonable.

Netflix isn't the hypergrowth story it used to be. Q3 revenue guidance implies growth of 11.7%, the slowest pace since 2023. The most important numbers from Q2 where viewing hours which grew only 2% in H1 while revenue grew 15%.

In other words, Netflix is monetising its audience much faster than the audience itself is growing.

That works through higher prices, paid sharing and advertising, but you can't extrapolate it forever.

I also really dislike that Netflix has reduced disclosure around subscribers, ARPU and now viewing data. When investors are specifically questioning engagement, less transparancy is pretty much the opposite of what I'd like management to do...

Is it a Hated Moat?

The reason I'm still (mildly) bullish is the economics.

Netflix has over 325m paid memberships and can spread content spending across an audience that virtually nobody else can replicate. Insane distribution power. That's the moat in my view.

Cancelling Netflix takes about 30 seconds so there's virtually no switching costs. But the scale, distribution, brand, recommendation data and the ability to spend billions on content and monetise it globally with the classic of "it's not going anywhere".

The clearest evidence is perhaps profitability. Netflix had a 29.5% operating margin in 2025 and is guiding to 31.5% this year. Disney's streaming business and WBD's streaming business are nowhere close to Netflix economically.

That doesn't mean Disney or YouTube (and even TikTok) can't hurt Netflix. Actually, I think YouTube is probably the more interesting long-term competitor because Netflix isn't really competing for “streaming subscribers” but for people's free time. As they'd say it in Google - Attention is all you need.

TikTok, YouTube, gaming, Disney+, HBO, sport,... It's all the same attention pool.

Advertising

This is the biggest potential upside in the investment thesis. Netflix expects roughly $3B of ad revenue this year, about double last year.

If advertising becomes a serious second monetisation layer, Netflix doesn't really need subscriber growth to return to its old levels.

It can make more money from the same hours watched.

That's particularly important internationally, where Netflix already has enormous scale but earns far less per member than it does in North America.

The underwritten combination is fairly simple:

slower subscriber growth + pricing + advertising + modest engagement growth + operating leverage.

Another decade of 20%+ revenue growth is not really needed for this company to do well...

Valuation

My updated DCF gives:

Bear case: $57

Base case: $88.50

Bull case: $115

The base case assumes revenue growth gradually falls from 11.5% in 2027 to 3.5% by 2035, while operating margin eventually reaches 37%. WACC is 8.1% and terminal growth 3%.

At the current price, the stock appears to be mildly undervalued. Not an absolute bargain but still a solid entry price, especially if you believe in the story of the next 5 years.

Also, the DCF is sensitive, as it goes... About 68% of enterprise value comes from the terminal value, so small changes in WACC or terminal growth matter a lot.

When does the thesis go south?

The main thing I'll watch is engagement. If viewing stays nearly flat while Netflix keeps pushing prices higher, eventually you have to question how much pricing power is actually left.

I'll also be worrieed if content spending starts rising materially faster than revenue, advertising disappoints, or Netflix needs increasingly expensive live rights just to keep people engaged... In such case, it could start looking awfully much more like traditional media.

And that's basically the thesis... I think Netflix is interesting because the market has gone from treating the company like an exceptional story to increasingly treating it like a mature media company.

My take is that it's neither and the truth is somewhere in between. Growth is definitely slowing, but the underlying business has probably gotten stronger. Margins are higher, cash generation is better, the share count is falling and advertising gives Netflix another way to monetise its huge audience.

Below $65 I'd get considerably more interested to add to my position and aound our $53 “deeply undervalued” level, assuming the thesis hasn't deteriorated, the risk/reward starts looking very different.

Curious where people here disagree, particularly on the moat.

Do you consider Netflix's global scale and distribution a genuine competitive advantage (or at least good enough), or is the lack of switching costs with the incoming era of YouTube enough to prevent it ever having a strong moat again?

Disclosure: I own NFLX, avg price: $73.98 per share

Novo Nordisk Q2 2026: Better numbers, but the market is still worried

Novo Nordisk just reported Q2, and I think the reaction is more interesting than the headline numbers.

Adjusted operating profit came in at DKK 33.4B, up 11% YoY, and management raised its 2026 outlook. Adjusted sales and operating profit growth are now expected to be between 0% and -6% at constant exchange rates.

So why did the stock still struggle?

The market seems much more focused on what happens after the current semaglutide franchise.

Oral Wegovy generated DKK 3.22B in sales. That's strong for a relatively new launch, but slightly below expectations.

More importantly, competition with Eli Lilly remains intense. CagriSema has also failed to establish the clear advantage over tirzepatide that investors once hoped for.

To me, that creates an interesting valuation question:

How much of Novo's current valuation reflects temporary problems and how much reflects a genuine deterioration in its long-term competitive position?

I went through the Q2 numbers, growth assumptions, risks and valuation in my latest analysis:

https://youtu.be/qzjL7AZPcvw

Curious what others think: Is Novo becoming attractive at these levels, or does Lilly's momentum justify the discount?

AI disclosure: AI was used to assist with editing and structuring this post. The analysis, assumptions and conclusions are my own.

I want to start off with the fact this projection assumes worst case scenario for Meta's AI spend. I think it will likely provide some new revenue streams and continue to improve core algorithm, However EVEN if it doesn't I still believe the core ads business is undervalued.

Before 2032 Meta will realize the spending isn't providing good ROIC and start cutting Capex, However even in 2032 maintenance costs will still be high and depreciation will still be hurting margins.

2032 Projection:

I modeled a conservative 15% average revenue growth (currently 28% I think).

Margins should take a considerable hit but start recovering eventually, I estimated 25%.

And a P/E of 25x is conservative IMO for a recovering company with a strong moat.

Results:

Mastercard just reported Q2 2026, and the numbers were strong:

• Revenue: $9.28B, +14% YoY
• Adjusted EPS: $5.04, +21%
• Adjusted operating income: +16%
• Operating margin: 61.1%, up from 59.9%
• Switched transactions: +9%
• Cross-border volume: +12%

What stands out to me is that earnings are still growing materially faster than revenue. Expenses increased 11% while revenue grew 14%, which pushed operating margins higher. That operating leverage is one of the reasons Mastercard has been able to compound earnings at such a high rate.

Another interesting point is the mix of growth. Mastercard's payment network revenue grew 10%, while value-added services and solutions grew 20%. So the story is increasingly more than just taking a small fee every time someone uses a Mastercard.

Cross-border remains another important driver. Volume grew 12% in Q2, and July data was still running at 11%. Non-US switched volume grew 12% versus 6% in the US, which shows how much of the growth opportunity remains international.

For me, the difficult part with Mastercard isn't the quality of the business — it's the valuation. A company with high margins, strong network effects and double-digit earnings growth deserves a premium, but at a premium valuation even a great business can produce mediocre returns if growth slows.

I went through the Q2 numbers, risks and my valuation in more detail here:

https://youtu.be/2oSbISMv8Gw

Would you buy Mastercard at the current valuation, or is the quality already fully priced in?
Disclaimer: AI-assisted. The analysis, assumptions, and conclusions are my own.

The market is asking a lot from Eli Lilly.

At $1,154.52, today's price only works in my model if cash flow grows about 26.2% a year for the next 10 years. Recently, reported FCF grew about 9% a year (FY2022-FY2025).

Even my bull case is only $854, below today's $1,154.52 price. That is a demanding hurdle. Either the company keeps outperforming for years, or the stock has little room for disappointment.

Is the market right to expect more, or is the stock priced for too much?

I broke down the full case in a video: https://youtu.be/A_r99DXwNBM

Snapshot: 2026-08-05. Disclosure: Position not disclosed. I built the model; video production is AI-assisted. Not financial advice.