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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.

SBUX $103BCMG $38B
Yet Another Value Podcast 84 clicks

From X

@StableBread

Fajasy on X

The Navy plans to buy more ships, and BWX Technologies $BWXT doesn’t charge a set price per reactor. $BWXT makes the fuel, reactor cores, steam generators, and other reactor components for the Navy’s Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines and Ford-class carriers. $BWXT now produces two to three of these reactors/year, Joe Miller, president of Government Operations, said at its Investor Day on September 29, 2026. The Navy buys under multi-year pricing agreements, so orders arrive in large blocks: → February 2025: $2.1B of naval reactor component contracts. → July 2025: $2.6B, including options. → May 2026: $1.45B, mostly long-lead material (parts ordered years before a ship is built) under the first of five annual task orders through 2030. → October 2026: $189M of naval fuel, to be completed by August 2027. $BWXT’s plants carry large fixed costs, so final pricing depends on how many ship sets (all the reactor components for one ship) the Navy orders, CFO Mike Fitzgerald said at Investor Day. The Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan, released in May, calls for (1) “buying two attack boats per year for the next 30 years,” meaning Virginia-class submarines, (2) a new carrier every four years instead of every five, and (3) 15 nuclear-powered Trump-class battleships, per USNI News, the U.S. Naval Institute’s news service. $BWXT’s own read of the plan is naval growth of 4-6%/year from the existing ship classes. Each Ford-class ship set takes ~8 years to deliver, so ordering a carrier every five years left gap years with one ship set in $BWXT’s plants instead of two. CEO Rex Geveden said on the Q2 call that the four-year cadence takes out “that revenue bathtub that we’ve been going through” and has “a bigger volume impact than even adding a battleship.” The next carrier’s long-lead orders come in 2028, but Fitzgerald said at Investor Day the faster cadence won’t really show up in $BWXT’s numbers until around 2030. A Trump-class battleship would use one Ford-class reactor (a carrier uses two), so $BWXT could build the reactor on its existing lines, but Congress still has to fund the program. Fitzgerald said $BWXT’s 2030 targets exclude the battleship program, so congressional funding would be extra growth.
@convequity 3 clicks

Convequity on X

We exited $LITE at the start of 3Q26 and stayed out at the 4Q26 rebalance. Lumentum's exposure to AI optics is real, but it depends on design choices that are still open. 1. Lumentum is one of the suppliers of high-power lasers for external laser sources, where the laser sits in its own module and feeds light to the optics. Growth in AI optics lifts this business only as far as customers choose these designs. 2. Co-packaged optics (CPO) puts the optics in the same package as the chip. Some CPO designs keep external lasers, which suits Lumentum. Others move the light source closer to the package, or replace lasers with microLEDs, tiny LEDs used for short links. Wider use of these would cut demand for its lasers. 3. Laser and silicon-photonics technology built for LiDAR (laser-based sensing) is being adapted for data-center links, which could bring new competitors. We have added LiDAR exposure and will cover it in Part 2 or 3 of our 4Q26 rebalance series. 4. Optical circuit switching (OCS) connects fibers by steering light between them. Lumentum's MEMS switches use tiny movable mirrors and suit many ports, low loss and paths that stay in place for long periods. Designs that must change paths quickly and in smaller units are more likely to use silicon-photonics switches. MEMS should win a meaningful share, but probably not all of it. Lumentum keeps credible exposure to external lasers and OCS, but both depend on unsettled design choices. At the 4Q26 rebalance, that uncertainty was enough for us to stay out.

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My 2028 numbers

ASML’s €11.7 billion quarter benefited from €3.3 billion in installed-base sales and operating leverage, while the MATCH Act threatens…

ASML $660B
Best Anchor Stocks 22 clicks

Lennar, Part One: The Story

Lennar grew from a Miami builder into one of America’s two largest homebuilders, controlling land largely through options and land banks…

LEN $17B
Latticework by MOI Global 10 clicks

Lennar, Part Two: The Deep Dive

Lennar’s second audio program examines the homebuilder’s business for professional investors and housing analysts.

LEN $17B
Latticework by MOI Global 11 clicks

ASML Q3 FY12/26 Earnings Review

ASML reported Q3 sales of €11.7 billion, up 55% year over year, and guided Q4 sales to €14.2 billion to €15.2 billion amid capacity…

ASML $660B
Cestrian Capital Research 7 clicks

Insider activity September 2026

Asian insider buying rose 19% to US$2.4 billion across 930 September transactions, led by Grab CEO Anthony Tan’s US$30 million purchase…

GRAB $12B
Asian Century Stocks 6 clicks
WDC · long

Western Digital CORP

Western Digital, a hard-disk manufacturer, is pitched as a long after significant share-price moves deter investors.

WDC $142B
Value Investors Club 5 clicks

Expert Call | Corning

Corning’s NVIDIA-backed 10x fiber expansion, enterprise connector demand and carrier capacity plans frame its optical communications…

GLW $126B
P Equity Research 37 clicks

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