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Saturday, October 31, 2026

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When the liquidity does not add up

Arbor Realty Trust’s dividend suspension is presented as creating $60 million of liquidity, raising questions about its ability to meet 2027 debt maturities.

ABR $2.2B
John Hempton's Newsletter 3 clicks

From X

@kevin__mak

Kevin Mak on X

$SPHR Update on my old friend Sphere. The recent sell off seems to be directly related to some sell-side rerating of the stock based on "soft data". I find that kind of interesting because the data has been soft for many months (see daily ticket sales chart below), and among investors that I talk to, this isn't a "surprise". (Realistically that's why the stock traded down from $170 to $130). So this "surprise, the data is weak, stock rerates down 25%" is interesting to me, but also reminds me: it's always extremely hard to figure out what the market has or hasn't "priced in". The issue with the "soft data" is that my (and many) original projections was that WoZ would trough at around 1.4-1.6m/day of sales in 2027. By the summer we observed levels of ~1.2m so that likely wasn't going to happen. Towards the end of the year, the data has inflected upwards, we're down YoY (expected, given less hype than the launch a year ago). Some of this is likely due to LV weakness in general, but I think that's a relatively small fraction of the story. Personally, I find this data interesting because A) I think it's largely meaningless to value the company B) I think the market overreacts to it I think the Sphere business is humming along extremely nicely. The concert business is consistently improving (higher numbers, better acts, more utilization). The ads and bookings businesses are healthy/growing, there are 2 (and probably more unannounced) additional Spheres working through production. What WOZ did was prove that a "hit film" could generate enormous interest/revenues/visitors to the Sphere. Whether it "levels off" at $1m/day, or $1.2m/day or $1.4m/day, doesn't matter that much because the longer term model is to consistently launch NEW films launch and generate $1.5-$2.5m/day. And they have somewhere between 2-3 new films coming out next year, and probably another 2-3 films in 2028. AI is cutting their speed (and cost) of making films dramatically. Overall I'm a buyer at these $100-$120 price levels (We're long via some short Nov $120P's that are currently in the money). Given recent price action, it's hard to say how the market reacts to the November earnings release, but I think the earnings picture has stabilized from here and the stock is setup for good fundamental catalysts driving earnings growth in 2027.
@convequity 6 clicks

Convequity on X

OpenAI and Anthropic will rent most of the AI capacity they plan, but mainly from the big clouds rather than the listed neoclouds Convequity's AI Bubble Barometer (ABBX) tracks the data-centre capacity each company plans and how much of it it expects to rent from partners rather than own. 1. OpenAI plans 21.2 GW, of which 18.0 GW is to be supplied by partners. Anthropic plans 13.8 GW, all of it from partners. Together the two labs plan to rent 31.8 GW. 2. That is 2.8 times the 11.2 GW that the five hyperscalers, $MSFT, $AMZN, $GOOGL, $META and $ORCL, plan to rent from others. 3. The labs' named suppliers are mostly AWS, Oracle, Google, Azure and SB Energy. CoreWeave, a listed neocloud, and Nscale, a private one, appear on the lists, but the bulk of the 31.8 GW is not with listed neoclouds. 4. The seven listed neoclouds, $CRWV, $NBIS, $IREN, $APLD, $CORZ, $CIFR and $BTDR, plan to build 33.62 GW of their own. Much of that is gross site power rather than contracted IT capacity. 5. The labs are also behind most of the recent growth in AI capacity plans. Since 14 Jul, the total capacity that the 15 ABBX companies say they plan to have has risen by 22.19 GW, from 131.23 GW to 153.42 GW on 7 Oct. OpenAI and Anthropic raising their own plans accounts for 13.7 GW of that rise (62%). We think the labs' rental demand mainly supports $AMZN, $ORCL, $GOOGL and $MSFT. The neoclouds will need to fill their pipelines largely with other customers, including the hyperscalers' own 11.2 GW of planned rentals, so we would not read the labs' plans as demand for the neoclouds.
@convequity 4 clicks

Convequity on X

Neoclouds trade at 2.6x invested capital, less than half the hyperscalers' 6.1x The seven neoclouds in Convequity's AI Bubble Barometer (ABBX), $CRWV, $NBIS, $IREN, $APLD, $CORZ, $CIFR and $BTDR, lost 7.2% of their combined enterprise value this week, from $190.2B at the 2 Oct close to $176.5B at the 9 Oct close. Over the same week the five hyperscalers, $MSFT, $AMZN, $GOOGL, $META and $ORCL, gained 2.4%, from $13,316B to $13,637B. 1. Enterprise value divided by invested capital (EV/IC) at the 9 Oct close was 2.6x for the neoclouds and 6.1x for the hyperscalers. At the 2 Oct close it was 2.8x and 6.0x. 2. ABBX estimates the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) at 14.6% for the neoclouds and 9.7% for the hyperscalers. 3. At the 9 Oct close, neocloud share prices were 20% to 45% below each stock's best Friday close since 17 Jul: CIFR −44.5%, CORZ −33.3%, BTDR −25.8%, IREN −24.6%, APLD −24.1%, CRWV −22.0% and NBIS −20.4%. Among the hyperscalers, ORCL was 10.9% below its best, AMZN and META 4.4% and GOOGL 1.3%, while MSFT closed above its best. We think most of the discount reflects the neoclouds' higher cost of capital rather than a mispricing. We would not call 2.6x cheap until they report their July to September backlog and customer prepayment figures.

Investor Letters

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Molina & Kinsale

Molina Healthcare and Kinsale Capital’s earnings are reassessed through a long-term lens, emphasizing conviction and detachment during…

KNSL $8.3B
Bearstone 8 clicks
PSN · long

Parsons CORP

Parsons generates roughly half of its $6.4 billion revenue from Federal Solutions, serving defense and intelligence customers.

PSN $5.6B
Value Investors Club

MYR Group q3’26 Earnings Preview

MYR Group’s Q3 2026 preview cites data-center and power transmission demand, with long-term service agreements supporting margin growth and…

MYRG $4.3B
Monte Independent Investment Research 6 clicks

Mosaic, Part One: The Story

Mosaic’s history traces the 2004 Cargill-IMC merger and the phosphate and potash mines that shaped NYSE: MOS.

MOS $6B
Latticework by MOI Global 34 clicks

Mosaic, Part Two: The Deep Dive

Mosaic, NYSE: MOS, is the subject of a second audio program for professional investors analyzing fertilizer producers.

MOS $6B
Latticework by MOI Global 5 clicks

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