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.

From X

@convequity 2 clicks

Convequity on X

Anthropic's $518bn of planned compute obligations is about the same size as $AMZN's entire stack of debt, leases and purchase commitments. Convequity's ABBX barometer adds up borrowings, leases, purchase obligations and leases not yet started for each hyperscaler. On that all-in measure, AMZN and Anthropic are roughly level. 1. Against valuation, the number looks normal. At the $2 trillion valuation being debated, Anthropic's obligations are about a quarter of its value. That is close to $GOOGL's ratio and inside the range of the four big hyperscalers. 2. Against revenue, it is large but not extreme. Anthropic told investors its annualized run rate was above $65bn at the end of July. The obligations are about eight times that, spread over roughly a decade. A run rate is the latest month multiplied by twelve, not full-year booked revenue, and the hyperscalers fund their stacks from large, established cash flows. 3. Reuters reports that about 80% of the obligations are non-cancelable or payable regardless of usage, while many of Anthropic's largest customers are not on long-term contracts. I think the size is about right. It fits a $2 trillion company, and at the July pace Anthropic can grow into it. The risk is in the terms: most of the cost is locked in for years, while much of the revenue can leave at short notice. The number to watch now is how much of Anthropic's revenue is under long-term contract.
@StableBread

Fajasy on X

Elmet $ELMT expects Masan High-Tech Materials, its Vietnamese tungsten supplier, to stay its key refiner even after a U.S.-funded plant in Nevada comes online, and it bought 4.99% of the company for $124.75M on October 1. Masan High-Tech Materials (UPCoM: MSR) mines tungsten at Nui Phao in Vietnam, refines the concentrate into APT (ammonium paratungstate, the traded form of tungsten) and oxides, and calls itself the largest producer of processed tungsten outside China. Elmet, which turns tungsten into parts for U.S. missiles and jets, has bought from MSR for 12+ years, and the deal values MSR at $2.5B. The 55.1M shares came from a Masan Group (HOSE: MSN) subsidiary, so the $124.75M goes to MSR's parent, not into MSR. Along with the stake come (1) an MSR board seat, (2) an 18-month lockup on Elmet's MSR shares, and (3) 8+ years of supply that MSR puts at ~1,250 tonnes of WO₃ (tungsten trioxide, the standard measure of contained tungsten) a year, ~$1.5B of revenue to MSR at today's prices. That's ~$187.5M a year of spend with MSR ($1.5B / 8), equal to 82% of Elmet's $228.5M of TTM revenue. On September 14, Elmet's deck labeled ~$100M of the U.S. Department of War's (DoW) $450M "Strategic Investments in Elmet Refining & Trading," its new tungsten buying and trading division, to build a "diversified feedstock portfolio." The October 1 deck relabels the same ~$100M "Strategic Investment in Masan," and the stake cost $124.75M. At $2.5B, Elmet paid 10.7x the ~$233M of net profit MSR expects for 2026 ($2.5B / $233M). For context, APT was $3,040/MTU (metric ton unit, 10 kg of WO₃) on May 29, up from $330 in January 2025 per Elmet's deck, and Elmet's own 2031 targets assume $1,500/MTU. Elmet's 8-K also says it won't participate in MSR's 2026 interim dividends. On October 1, the day the shares traded, MSR's board proposed a second 2026 interim dividend of VND 5,000/share (Vietnamese dong). VND 5,000 is 8.5% of the VND 58,760/share Elmet paid, or ~$10.6M on its 55.1M shares. In September I wrote that Springer, the Nevada APT plant, gives Elmet the one step it didn't own: Turning tungsten concentrate into the oxide its powder line starts from. Elmet's deck calls MSR a "long-time supplier and processor of blue tungsten oxide (BTO)," so MSR already handles the conversion for Elmet. So the step Elmet didn't own in July stays with MSR, and Elmet paid 10.7x MSR's expected 2026 profit for its 4.99% while its own 2031 plan assumes APT at under half the May price.

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