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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

@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.
@DOMOCAPITAL

DOMO Capital Management, LLC on X

Many may think the portability of the Ares financing may point towards Icahn acquiring $MNRO. However, I believe it strongly points of a sale to MAVIS! Most may immediately dismiss this since Mavis is disqualified to be the "New Sponsor" since it's an operating company. However - Mavis is owned by US-based PE firms - an investor group led by BayPine, along with TSG Consumer Partners, a holding company controlled by the Sorbaro brothers and Golden Gate Capital. They easily clear the size test (at least $1.5 billion of AUM for the lead firm) and the location test (US-based). The definition also seems to anticipate holding-company structures: after a permitted deal, a parent company in which the "New Sponsor" holds the largest stake doesn’t count as a change of control. Why does this matter? Either BayPine or TSG could as as the sponsor and then put $MNRO alongside Mavis under a structure that they control. The probability that Monro gets sold to Mavis (at least in part) is very high in my opinion. If Icahn gets involved, I think it's more likely that since Icahn still owns the Pep Boys land that he sold to Mavis that he potentially comes in and acquires the $MNRO land with the rest of the company going to Mavis.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

For companies like $SIVE / $AAOI, the demand imbalance for lasers are so severe That even a 20-30% overall demand reduction from a hypothetical DC slowdown would likely not eliminate the shortage. We're seeing this before the next architectural shifts, where $NVDA Jensen Huang expects 15x optical volume for CPO scale-up. And as more hyperscalers commit to NPO as seen with $LITE new $5B UHP laser contracts. I'd argue this is more nuanced since I can't say the same for finished 800G/1.6T pluggables or lower end 70mW-100mW laser ranges that are currently bottlenecks. But this argument is more toward higher spec lasers. $AAOI is vertically integrated and has 300-400 mW capabilities, so they have the capability to shift attention to merchant lasers over supplying end-to-end optical transceivers. $SIVE is more pure play on this laser bottleneck, but they have the capabilities for 200mW + higher margin multiwavelength NPO/CPO lasers. I'd argue this is specifically the case for bottlenecks where demand imbalances are so deep (creating higher long term visibility, such as HBM). Whether it's large body substrates from $ATS that's bottlenecking Marvell + $AMD or lasers from $LITE that are sold out into 2029. or liquid transformers that have 4-5 year lead times. They they would still sell out of capacity even if overall demand decreased. If markets de-risked, it would make sense to hit optical module manufacturing players, maybe server rack assembly, to companies that still require heavy financing like Neoclouds. And obviously haircut growth valuations (but not to the point where demand collapses to 0). Yet we're seeing everything in AI trade is getting lumped up together as something that requires heavy financing + not profitable.

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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

Oracle: The Party Is Almost Over

Oracle’s CDS spreads exceed 320 basis points as debt approaches $135 billion and fiscal 2027 capex targets $95 billion, amid heavy reliance…

ORCL $363B
David Desjardins 1 click

Site Centers (NYSE:SITC)

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

CURB $3.6B
Real Assets, Real Value 4 clicks

Coupang: 3Q26 Business Recap

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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

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