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Wednesday, November 4, 2026

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The Buyback Shows Up (ESRT Q3 2026)

Empire State Realty Trust repurchased $85.8 million of shares at $4.56 each, using 1359 Broadway sale proceeds to fund buybacks and debt reduction.

ESRT $1.3B
Orphan REITs 6 clicks

From X

@AsifSuria

Asif Suria on X

When we write about insider transactions for our weekly Insider Weekends articles, we are often focused just as much as the insider buying the stock as the company they are buying. Earlier this year, when writing about insider purchases at GeneDX $WGS, we wrote the following about Keith Meister of Corvex Management and his excellent track record with insider purchases. Last night we noticed that he picked up an additional $51.74 million worth of $MGM stock now that the acquisition saga with People $PPLI is over.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

Cyberoffense/defense is probably going to eat up a TON of compute and end up a continuous compute-intensive arms race. Even $AMZN CEO thinks cybersecurity would take up 20% of tokens consumed for the next year. It's literally a problem of how much you throw at compute for vulnerability discovery + model capability, from of my chats w/ Horizon3. And this is going to become a nation state issue, as seen with the implications already with PHP to vulnerabilities with banks/infrastructure from AI swarms. But people see this and throw money at $CRWD, $NET, and others, which I was saying was a bubble. If it's a compute issue, the economics go to the infra, from neoclouds to $NBIS to networking like $AAOI. We'll likely see swarms go wild from aggressor nation states in the next few years. And any country, whether that's Japan or EU that don't have their own capabilities might suffer severe damage. US spent $11T+ cumulatively (inflation adjusted) on Nuclear weapons and we're like ~$1.8T into the the "cyber-nuclear weapon" equivalent of that And this is not even including the endless other economic implications from AI in other fields from advancing cancer discovery to workforce automation with physical AI. It's hard to measure AI sustainability if $50K in compute spend from a foreign actor can take down $10B of your own infrastructure. AI has become a bipartisan national security issue, and even Democrats would not want China overtake the US in this field.
@StableBread

Fajasy on X

Toast's $TOST President and CFO Elena Gomez, who took it public in 2021, is leaving on December 31, the same day its CRO steps down to retire. She gave notice on October 28, and the board named SVP of Finance Michael Senno to succeed her the same day. Senno joined $TOST in 2022 after running investor relations at South Korean e-commerce company Coupang $CPNG, and his bio lists no prior CFO job. CRO Jonathan Vassil, who has led $TOST's sales since 2017, gave notice on September 28, and no successor has been named. The day after Gomez gave notice, the FTC and eight states sued $TOST, alleging the restaurant software and payments company hit customers with (1) hidden and unauthorized fees, (2) add-ons they didn't ask for, and (3) subscriptions that are hard to cancel. $TOST says the law the FTC sued under doesn't apply to negotiated business contracts, and it plans to fight the case in court. Nothing in the filings ties either exit to the lawsuit, and both executives stay on as employees into 2027, so I read the exits as planned, not forced. But two of $TOST's five executive officers leaving the same day, as an FTC fight starts, is a lot of change at once. None of the executive turnover shows up in the numbers yet: $TOST just reported its most profitable quarter ever, with $169M of net income and $240M of adjusted EBITDA, above its $210-220M guide. $TOST also raised its full-year EBITDA guide for the third time this year, to $840-850M from $775-795M in February. Hardware is still the soft spot: Its gross loss widened to $85M from $57M a year ago, and the $225M lost through September already tops all of 2025. Gomez said in May the memory-chip cost hit would be bigger in 2027 than in 2026, and Senno will own the 2027 numbers. At ~$32/share after hours, $TOST trades at ~20x this year's raised EBITDA guide, down from ~22x at $34/share in my August 10 update. With a new CFO, no named sales chief, and an FTC suit, I'd rather see three things before calling the exits a non-event: 1) Guide: Whether Senno's first, for FY2027 in February, is as conservative as this year's quarterly guides for 22-24% recurring gross profit growth, which $TOST beat with 27-28%. 2) Net adds: Whether net new locations stay above the 30,000/year my thesis needs without Vassil, after ~25,000 through September. 3) FTC: What the Q3 10-Q says about possible losses, and whether $TOST changes its contract terms.
@aleabitoreddit 1 click

Serenity on X

With $AXTI, even if demand was cut 50%, they'd still likely be sold out. Since customers are asking for 3x+ their contracted volumes. I'd argue InP substrates are just as severe as lasers. In just 90 days, $AXTI literally went from: Q2 backlog: $100m Q3 backlog: $500m+ With an extra $300-$400m+ from ordinary business, not multi-year agreements from $LITE / $COHR. I'm sure there's some double ordering but the materials are just so cheap relative to overall BOM, that it's spare change.

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New Ideas From The Road

Aurelion Research increased healthcare exposure and sees opportunities in banking and defense, alongside research on Alcoa, Nike, ONON and…

AA $10BNKE $60B
Aurelion Research 4 clicks

Site Centers (NYSE:SITC)

Site Centers' $3 per-share return-of-capital distribution and December delisting leave a discounted liquidation stub, with two properties…

SITC $192MCURB $3.6B
Real Assets, Real Value 4 clicks

Coupang: 3Q26 Business Recap

Coupang’s product-commerce growth rose 9% as data-leak effects fade, while management expects margins to return to pre-incident levels by…

CPNG $27B
Speedwell Memos 3 clicks

update on Gartner

Gartner’s growth has stalled after federal contract losses and cautious commercial spending, raising questions about its competitive…

IT $13B
scuttleblurb 1 click

Recycle Bin

Used aircraft engines can be repurposed as gas turbines, easing data center power constraints while tightening aviation supply.

EQT $33BRRC $12B
Doomberg 8 clicks
AMRZ · long

Amrize

Amrize (AMRZ) produces aggregates, cement and roofing materials across the US and Canada.

AMRZ $22B
Value Investors Club 3 clicks

TWLO Q3 FY12/26 Earnings Review

Twilio's Q3 revenue rose 20% to $1.56 billion, but Q4 organic growth guidance fell to 11% to 12% and RPO declined 28%.

TWLO $33B
Cestrian Capital Research 3 clicks

Namib Minerals: Research Flash

Namib Minerals accelerates Redwing’s restart, targeting first gold this month and a ramp from 338 ounces monthly to 835 ounces by Q2 2027.

NAMM $46M
Atrium Research - Equity Research 6 clicks

Stevanato down 30%. Yikes.

Stevanato fell 30% after forecasting low-single-digit 2027 growth as lower Nexa syringe volumes from a GLP-1 customer offset solid Q3…

STVN $3.6B
Best Anchor Stocks 3 clicks

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