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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 $109BCMG $39B
Yet Another Value Podcast 84 clicks

From X

@convequity

Convequity on X

Private equity puts a floor under software valuations, and you can work out that floor with simple arithmetic. A private equity buyer takes the company private, removes unnecessary staff, lifts margins to 30%+ and keeps growth in the low teens. A company restructured that way should be worth at least 20x EV/EBIT. At a 33% EBIT margin, 20x EV/EBIT is about 6.7x EV/Sales. That gives a simple test for any software stock. If it trades well below that level, the market values the business at less than a buyer could get from it just by cutting costs. In our view, the market sees no differentiated future for that company. So why don't more of these companies get restructured? One reason is ownership. Dual-class share structures are common across large-cap and mid-cap tech, and they limit how much pressure private equity and activist investors can apply. That makes it hard for a company like $OKTA to accept legacy status and carry out a deep restructuring. We expect many SaaS companies to keep fighting slowing revenue with high operating expenses rather than restructure.
@convequity

Convequity on X

$FTNT already has a fast-growing OT security business of more than $1bn. Robots will face the same security problems as factory machines. Factory equipment and IoT devices were designed for availability and safety. They shipped with weak or no security, and controls were added afterwards. Robots and humanoids are likely to follow the same pattern. Many will run custom or stripped-down operating systems, have tight CPU and power budgets, and sit under safety-certification rules that make heavyweight endpoint agents and frequent patches difficult. When security software is hard to install on the device, enforcement moves to the network: segment the environment, control which systems can talk to which, and inspect the traffic. That work needs a lot of switches inside the plant, in addition to a few firewalls at the perimeter. FortiSwitch is built to be price-competitive for cost-conscious industrial buyers, with security functions embedded and ASIC acceleration for always-on inspection. Endpoint vendors such as $CRWD can help protect higher-value machines, but their software has to run on the device itself, which is often hard on robots for the same reasons. As inference moves into factories, hospitals, warehouses and vehicles, every new AI-controlled actuator still sits on a network, often on the industrial backbones Fortinet already protects.
@convequity 1 click

Convequity on X

$NVDA vs $AVGO: The Optical Edge NVIDIA can keep growing while facing pressure from more directions. Custom chips, optical supply constraints and specialized inference systems give customers more reasons to consider alternatives. Broadcom’s optical capabilities could help it win the accompanying compute order. Customers need both accelerators and the optical components that connect them to bring capacity online. Securing those components alongside an ASIC purchase could shift the customer’s platform choice toward AVGO. Control across lasers, photonic and electronic chips, and packaging also gives Broadcom more freedom to optimize the complete design. Embedded lasers could reduce the laser power required, easing dependence on scarce, high-power external lasers, although replacement becomes harder. For AVGO, this remains a potential design route. NVIDIA can respond through partnerships, but separate suppliers still have their own margins and product priorities. Google ($GOOGL) and Amazon ($AMZN) are expanding the alternatives through TPUs and Trainium. Our ABBX model allocates 10GW of Anthropic’s 13.8GW planned capacity to those two platforms. The plans span different timelines, but show how a few large buyers could redirect substantial spending away from GPUs. Huawei adds pressure through its integrated optical approach and the prospect of Chinese models supplying cheaper tokens internationally. That could affect both hardware choices and the prices compute providers can charge. Cerebras ($CBRS) targets workloads where faster responses matter. It can compete for latency-sensitive decoding without replacing GPUs across every stage of inference. NVIDIA’s defenses remain substantial. GPU batching supports high total output, flexibility across workloads matters, and its ecosystem is deeply established. Customers can use GPUs for prefill and specialized chips for decoding. Wider enterprise model development would also favor NVIDIA because smaller buyers have less reason to fund custom-chip programmes. At comparable valuations, we prefer adding to AVGO: it can benefit from custom-silicon adoption while helping customers secure the optics needed to deploy it. For NVIDIA, the key question is how much market share and pricing power it retains as customers gain more alternatives.

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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 13 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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