Wednesday, October 14, 2026

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October 2026 Random Ramblings

October 2026 market commentary covers SOLS’s cancelled merger, a hypothetical Starbucks-Chipotle deal, Russell 2000 weakness and AI premiums for Oura and home builders.

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@BrokenMoats

Broken Moats on X

Interesting to see $V up 9 days in a row (nearly funtrun the Chinese announcement). While a positive, it will be years before it plays out (if China follows through down the line, and gets them in the same place AXP and MA already were + the domestic competition). But thats incremental and down the road at best the focus though should be the support the administration (trump recently, and JD wrote the bill when in congress) has thrown behind the CCCA as well as additional bipartisan sponsors that signed on in the past few weeks....that bill will open the rails to an additional network. Which would be a very big additional push towards stable coin based transactions (even greater push from agents commerce). Ultimately the power is shifting towards merchants that no longer want to be subjected to 3%+ interchange fees. If $V losses the CCCA and pandoras box on competition is opened their entire moat is at stake, similar to what is going on with $FICO and Vantage. A once unassailable business model could very quickly come under pressure. Australia lowered interchange fees, went in to effect Oct. 1.....the pressure is building worldwide. But it's the cracking the door open in addition to a new way of shopping that could really leave $V disrupted. Not a mistake the first move earlier this year was lower on the back of AI fears, it has bounced with software now where somehow Phone systems from $RNG and website domains from $GDDY are somehow the new "hot trade", but secular trends seem obvious regardless of pacing that Visa and its pricing power and duopoly are in trouble and FICO to me is a similar case study.

LQDA: finer powder, higher doses

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Deep Dive: Inter & Co

Inter & Co, Brazil’s second-largest neobank, grew over 20% with controlled delinquencies and 15% book-value compounding while trading at…

You Understand Now, Why You Came This Way

Brazil’s October 25 runoff puts Bolsonaro’s likely victory at the center of a bullish regional-stock case; Golar LNG (GLNG) also reports…

PTRN · short

Pattern Group INC

Pattern Group is a fragile consumer business targeted on the short side.

Golar LNG q2’26 Operational Update

Golar LNG ordered a $2.45 billion fourth FLNG vessel, targeting 3.5MTPA of capacity and $400 million in annual EBITDA under a 20-year…

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