The Bid Shading Threat to Amazon Advertising
Amazon’s $69 billion advertising business faces an FTC lawsuit over alleged bid shading, threatening a revenue stream that grew roughly sixfold since 2019.
Tuesday, September 1, 2026
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catechwilliams on X
$FTDR Vol declining (existing home sales=driver). Pricing lagging inflation, massively over-earning. Problematic given 25% churn w aggressive new entrants. Dubious company overall. Investor day yesterday was comical, compared themselves to $NFLX. Earnings misses coming.
catechwilliams on X
$AVO $CVGW 1) Retailers $CMG, etc sourcing elsewhere given MX tariff risk. 2) Avocado price spike during last year’s peak harvest season enabled distributors to realize outsized margins. 1-time benefit has reversed, significant earnings misses ahead for these commodity businesses
catechwilliams on X
$NX Outlandishly guiding to flat 2025 sales, customers and channel -DD. Commodity window and door components facing pricing pressure from larger customers ($JELD, $OC). Now levered 4x, trading at a premium to higher value-add building products peers. Guide cut inevitable.
catechwilliams on X
$J Beat earnings yesterday. Holding back detailed guidance for Investor Day (2/18)—likely raise ’25 #s, 4-year financial targets w significant upside on margins ($ACM and other peers +15% EBITDA margins). Record backlog and multi-year growth runway.
catechwilliams on X
$NX Rapidly declining levered (4x) commodity biz. Q1’25 guide -12% sales, mgmt hoping for 2H’25 recovery. End-mkts deteriorating ($OC -20% Q4 guide, $JELD), customer losses, internal controls issues, integrating a large acq, 0 prior M&A experience. +30x P/E on best case 2025 #s
catechwilliams on X
@StockJabber Thank you. As a read on $PLUS Q3 is tracking in October, $CSCO just reported -23% sales in networking (products account for ~50% of $PLUS revenue) for the Oct quarter-end. Further confirmation that PLUS Q3 is going to be ugly and no turnaround in sight.
catechwilliams on X
$AS 50x P/E levered retail roll-up w only one decent asset (Arc’teryx). Stagnating in the US, nearly fully-penetrated in China. >$500 jackets didn’t work for $GOOS in Asia. Arc already bigger. Hyper promotional mgmt sent the stock skyward. This is going to be an epic crash.
Investor Letters
All letters- Protean Funds July 2026 DVYSR $106MEVGGF $17B
- Royce Investment Partners year-to-date period ended 6/30/26 AAP $2.6BAGO $3.3B
- Protean Funds June 2026 CINT $224MIDDWF $9.5B
- Alluvial Capital Management Second Quarter 2026 ZEG $5BDGXX $372M
- Hayden Capital Q2 2026 AMZN $2.8TGOOGL $4.2T
- Intrepid Capital 2Q26 GOOGL $4.2T
- Polaris Capital Management Second Quarter 2026 ENI $81BHDIH
- First Eagle Investments second quarter 2026 032830 $44BBABA $268B
BE 2026-08-29 Bloom Energy: 5 Links That Cannot Break
Bloom Energy’s 80x forward earnings valuation relies on concentrated megaprojects, sustained AI data-center power demand and continued…
Valuation Rewind 6 clicks
Meta Buys Away its Distraction at Minimal Cost
Meta’s $18 billion teen-addiction settlement makes $5.3 billion contingent on YouTube and TikTok adopting matching restrictions, while…
Making sense of Sandisk’s long-term financial model
Sandisk’s FY28-FY30 model relies on long-term NAND agreements holding near-80% gross-margin floors despite pricing 26-28% below current…
CMCSA 2026-08-28 After A Decade Of Underperformance, Comcast Is Finally Ready To Rebound
Comcast's mobile growth, Verizon roaming agreement, NBCUniversal content and theme parks are positioned to offset broadband competition…
Max Greve 3 clicks
[scuttleslops] AI Data Center Economics, ADI, INTU, IDXX
AWS AI campuses cost $40–$45 billion per gigawatt, with Trainium 3 expected to lift compute per megawatt and improve infrastructure returns.
KMI 2026-08-26 Kinder Morgan: The Consolidation Is An Opportunity Before The Next Leg Higher
Kinder Morgan raised 2026 guidance after record Q2 results, supported by a $9.6 billion backlog and growing U.S.
Steven Fiorillo 3 clicks
Shitcos, Griftcos, and alignment versus enrichment at $IREN
IREN awarded each co-CEO roughly 9 million RSUs, about 2.5% of shares and $400 million, in exchange for no further equity grants until…
$NU: is Nubank Capital One in 1994 or Capital One in 2006? | Vanshap Capital
Nubank's 140 million customers, 20% efficiency ratio and 30% ROE frame whether its high-teens P/E reflects a scalable fintech or a maturing…
The $1.5 Trillion of Hidden Debt Fueling the AI Boom | Robin Wigglesworth of FT Alphaville
Hyperscalers’ off-balance-sheet lease and purchase obligations rose from roughly $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, turning the AI buildout into…
Will Hubspot go the way of the Dodo?
HubSpot trades near its 2020 share price despite quadrupled revenue and $750 million in free cash flow, with Breeze AI upside weighed…
Nvidia Climbing the Wall of Worries
Nvidia guided FY2028 revenue toward $700 billion, roughly 70% growth, while supply constraints and neocloud demand face concerns over…
MT 2026-08-27 ArcelorMittal: Regionalization Is Creating A Structurally Better Steel Company
ArcelorMittal’s regional steel franchises, integrated mining and India expansion are lifting EBITDA per ton and supporting per-share…
Capital Connoisseur 3 clicks
Nvidia’s Long-Term Margin Question
Nvidia faces questions over the durability of its long-term profit margins ahead of earnings.
CBRS 2026-08-26 Sizing Up Cerebras Systems: Why Its Latency Moat Makes It A Buy For Aggressive Growth Investors
Cerebras’ CS-4 wafer-scale chips target latency-sensitive AI inference, but Nvidia’s ecosystem, manufacturing yields and KV-cache…
Star Investments 4 clicks
Big Tech Off-Balance Sheet Concerns
Big Tech’s $3 trillion AI commitments are disclosed and largely long-dated, with nearly 60% of Amazon’s $650 billion commitments falling…
TTMI 2026-08-25 TTM Technologies: Priced Like A Board Shop, Booked Like A Defense Prime
TTM Technologies' $1.7B defense backlog and committed data-center expansion are shifting its PCB mix toward contracted, higher-margin…
Jaden Mealy 2 clicks
AI’s Achilles’ Heel: Why Everything Hinges on Anthropic & OpenAI | The Weekly Wrap
Steve Eisman argues the AI boom hinges on Anthropic and OpenAI’s importance to hyperscalers, while weighing software, CoreWeave and Cisco…
[scuttleslops] ZTS, APO, FISV, TTD, RELY
Zoetis’s U.S. companion-animal revenue fell 6% as dermatology competition drove rebates and discounts, pushing full-year net pricing to…
The Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Copart, A Timeline-Based Assessment - ($CPRT)
Copart faces a near-term lift from pricier AV repairs and total losses, but shrinking accident volumes could eventually force its…
Permian Basin Q2 Update – Power, Water, Solid Waste, and Data Centers
GFL’s proposed acquisition of Secure follows 19% revenue growth at Secure and 14.8% EBITDA growth at GFL, with Permian produced-water and…
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