Tuesday, October 20, 2026

Back to today

Vicor Update, Part Three

Vicor’s $66.6 million in AI power-delivery royalties generated about $50 million of operating profit, eclipsing its module business as revenue reached $197.1 million.

From X

@ParadisLabs 3 clicks

Paradis on X

Once again, the GPU depreciation bear thesis is dead. Elon on the $SPCX call: "The value of compute per watt will increase over time, not decrease... that's why you see things like even old computers like H100s renting for more than they rented when they were new." When supply is this constrained, GPU rental prices are set by the value of the marginal token, not the replacement cost of the chip. Models keep getting better, and better models raise the value of every installed watt faster than new GPUs deflate the old ones. Various datapoints all stack up: -> $SPCX says compute contracts are renewing "at higher dollars per watt, not lower dollars per watt" -> 1-year H100 contract pricing went from ~$1.70/hr to ~$2.35/hr between Oct 2025 and Mar 2026 (a 2022 chip!) -> $CRWV signed an A100 contract running into 2029 (a 2020 chip) and said older-gen pricing is at / above a year ago, and raised list prices ~25% in July. -> $NBIS's first Blackwell auction cleared 15% above its previous high and as a reminder....they told customers H100 on-demand goes up ~17% (from Oct 1). -> Zuckerberg: $META is getting offers for its compute "at a significant premium over what we paid for it". -> Lenders are now lending against GPUs out to 2030 e.g. $NBIS borrowed against its GPUs at SOFR+250 in July. Feels like the 2-3 year GPU useful life bear thesis keeps getting setback. Ofc, the one thing that ruins the party is the S/D gap closing -- Rental prices fall back toward replacement cost + older GPUs get repriced on perf/W. Which won't happen anytime soon.

Copper Fox Metals: Research Flash

Copper Fox’s C$9.1 million Schaft Creek program advances metallurgical, tailings, water and road studies toward a pre-feasibility study,…

AppLovin Deep Dive

AppLovin rebuilt its ad model with AXON 2.0, lifting LTM revenue to about $7 billion and margins to 77% as Unity competition threatens ad…

ZTS · long

Zoetis INC

Zoetis, the animal prescription-medicines company, is presented as a long investment despite concerns around its 2026 and 2027 outlook.

[VRSK] Verisk has standards

Verisk’s exit from healthcare, financial-services and energy data restored a pure-play insurance analytics model, but D.E.

Brown & Brown

Brown & Brown compounded revenue 14.4% annually since 1998 through more than 650 acquisitions, capped by its nearly $10 billion Accession…

When the Ducks are Quacking

Ford’s 1956 IPO sold 10.2 million shares at $63 each after Goldman Sachs helped resolve the Ford Foundation’s voting-rights problem.

What I Read This Week

Weekly reading list covers Agnico Eagle, Cameco, Dollar Tree, Meta, Braze and Apollo across mining, retail, AI and insurance.

Publications we follow

Every publication on this site, hand-picked.

128 publications

Newsletters 108

X accounts we follow

Every account on this site, hand-picked.

90 accounts

Investor letters we follow

189 firms

Sectors

Ordered by how often our editor reaches for them.