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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.

SOLS $9.6BSBUX $113B
Yet Another Value Podcast 87 clicks

From X

@HaydenCapital

Fred Liu on X

Happy to share our Q4 2025 letter. Especially at a time when the future of internet and software business models are being questioned. In it, we offer our take on: - The "AI Scare Trade". The market is pricing in fear, not facts. These businesses aren't broken (yet), but investors are selling indiscriminately. - What's still investable? Software faces real headwinds - disruption to terminal value assumptions and forced pricing model shifts. But ~80% of a software company's value is trust, reliability, and headache-free solutions. That doesn't disappear overnight. - Network effects are real moats. Gaming, ecommerce, consumer internet - they're all down substantially from highs. But as AI reduces barriers to entry, the barriers to scale go up. Distribution grows more valuable. - Thoughts on $SE, after a -45% drawdown. We don't think the TikTok boogeyman is as scary as the market fears. In fact, the opposite. - New Oriental $EDU exit. Originally bought near net cash, and business has stabilized since. Time to move on. Full letter linked here: https://t.co/0WPoxoHt7t
@HaydenCapital 2 clicks

Fred Liu on X

AppLovin - Interview with Xiaochuan (architect of $APP's Axon engine). Thought this was the most in-depth public conversation on AppLovin's business to date. (P.S. Youtube has great subtitle translation) Axon & Technical Philosophy - Axon was built by just 5 people in 3 months - AppLovin was the first to implement models with prediction windows exceeding 7 days - Deliberately avoids developing its own LLMs, preferring to use the best available models on the market — building LLMs in-house wouldn't generate the best ROI E-Commerce Expansion - Decision to enter e-commerce made in May 2024, with the product launching later that year; original team was only 10 people - Entering e-commerce was effectively building a new model from scratch - The gaming and e-commerce algorithms share nothing except infrastructure and accumulated organizational experience Core Competency & Culture - AppLovin's edge isn't industry-specific — it's rooted in how the company approaches problems (the culture itself), which he believes positions them to tackle challenges well beyond gaming and e-commerce - His relish for being called an "underdog" comes through clearly throughout the interview Social Media Ambitions - Already working on building a next-generation social media platform - Strategic logic: Meta started with captive organic traffic and built an ad platform on top; AppLovin is doing the reverse - starting with the ad platform and building toward organic traffic - Owning that organic traffic, if achieved, would be a significant advantage Short Seller Response - When the short reports were published, Xiaochuan personally reviewed the systems and code to assess whether the claims had merit Hiring Philosophy - After 2023, overhauled hiring: moved to paying among the highest salaries in Silicon Valley, and shifted focus away from seasoned veterans toward people with fewer than 2 years of experience - Core belief: experience is overrated, the capacity to learn is underrated; breakthroughs come from willingness to abandon convention - "You can't operate like a large company if you don't have a large company's resources" - Most prominent AI researchers are overpriced — high visibility and intense competition drives salaries beyond their marginal value - Targets talent at the "periphery of the spotlight": technically strong but undervalued by the market, and still carrying the underdog mentality that well-known names often lack (i.e. "Moneyball") - Entire engineering org runs on fewer than 100 people https://t.co/vXaWUZGkZt

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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 $631B
Best Anchor Stocks 27 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 $18B
Latticework by MOI Global 15 clicks

Lennar, Part Two: The Deep Dive

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

LEN $18B
Latticework by MOI Global 13 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 $631B
Cestrian Capital Research 10 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 8 clicks
SRTA · long

Strata Critical Medical INC

Strata Critical Medical, SRTA, supplies organ-transport products tied to U.S. transplant growth.

SRTA $415M
Value Investors Club 3 clicks

Expert Call | Corning

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

GLW $116B
P Equity Research 38 clicks

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