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Tuesday, October 20, 2026

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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.

VICR $10B
CV's Substack 17 clicks

From X

@convequity

Convequity on X

Networking, not compute, now decides custom AI chip wins, and in our view that is Broadcom's ($AVGO) edge. As GPUs become more like specialized AI processors, matrix compute looks much the same everywhere. At 224G high-speed chip connections (SerDes), only Nvidia ($NVDA) and Broadcom can do it. If you want a custom chip, you go to Broadcom. That is why we avoid Marvell ($MRVL). A cheaper design partner is not necessarily cheaper overall: weaker connections and networking compound costs after deployment, resulting in higher total system costs. The bottleneck is moving from the switch to the optics. Lasers and optical signal-processing chips are short, and Broadcom can bundle priority optical supply with its custom chips, even for customers running Nvidia GPUs. Nvidia's lack of optical know-how is becoming its biggest disadvantage, and we expect Broadcom to take more share from it for years to come.
@convequity 3 clicks

Convequity on X

$CRWV 5-year CDS hit a record ~1,195bp on 15 Oct and the whole neocloud group sold off with it. Our ABBX tracker suggests the market is pricing contagion into the wrong names. The balance sheet first. At 30 June CoreWeave had $35.6B of debt against $5.5B of cash, and its ~$33B market cap now sits below its debt. $4.4B falls due in the rest of 2026 and $6.2B in 2027, mostly loan amortisation; no bond matures before 2030. Its 9.625% notes sold at par in June now yield ~14.9%. Add $16.3B of lease liabilities and $35.5B of leases not yet started. CoreWeave's Q2 operating cash flow: Net loss: −$0.63B + Depreciation & amortisation: +$1.39B + Stock-based comp: +$0.17B + Other non-cash items: +$0.28B − Working capital (payables, receivables, prepaids): −$1.32B + Customer prepayments: +$0.79B = Operating cash flow: $0.68B The core business makes cash, but working capital ate it. Without the prepayments OCF was −$0.11B. That OCF is already after ~$0.44B of cash interest, equal to 65% of it, and capex ran 9.5x OCF. Funding is where the group splits. CoreWeave builds with borrowed money: GPU-backed loans, 8.5–9.75% bonds and vendor credit, with ~$9.8B of H1 equipment supplier-financed outside the cash-flow statement. Prepayments covered 12% of its Q2 capex. $NBIS builds with convertibles (~$9B this year) and prepayments that covered 21% of Q2 capex; at 30 June it held $8.5B of debt against $8.0B of cash. $IREN builds with equity, a $3B 1% convertible and prepayments that covered 87% of its latest quarter's capex; net debt is ~$1.7B and cash interest equalled ~1% of OCF. The exposure that matters is its landlords. CoreWeave is ~77% of $CORZ revenue, the tenant at Galaxy's Helios campus and leases 400MW from $APLD. Yet since 2 Oct Core Scientific is down 17%, while Microsoft-anchored IREN is down 34% and Nebius 30%. Our view: the risk is CoreWeave's debt-funded build, not the neocloud model. If CoreWeave stumbles, the hit lands on the landlords that depend on its rent. Nebius and IREN share the model, not the funding.

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Heico Corporation

HEICO sells FAA-approved aircraft replacement parts at 30% to 50% discounts to OEMs, gaining customers as restrictive aftermarket contracts…

HEI $43B
D Invests 7 clicks

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,…

TECK $31B
Atrium Research - Equity Research 5 clicks

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…

APP $92BU $19B
Speedwell Memos 63 clicks

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