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Thursday, November 5, 2026

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AppLovin 3Q26 Business Update: No Notes

AppLovin’s Q3 revenue rose 55% year over year as AXON model gains expanded margins, while ad take-rate compression remains the key competitive risk.

APP $118B
Speedwell Research 3 clicks

From X

@StableBread 11 clicks

Fajasy on X

I first wrote up an AI data center company that rents out $NVDA GPUs to AI startup companies on April 15, 2026, when it still traded as a SPAC at $10.70/share, just above its ~$10.60 trust value. The merger was a success, and the stock peaked at $39.20/share on June 1st. Now it trades below its SPAC price. That company is Boost Run $BRUN, which has fallen to $8.89/share, down 77.3% from its peak, even after it announced its largest disclosed contract on October 6 (worth $525.6M). The three larger listed GPU clouds have fallen from their 2026 highs as well, through the October 16 close: → CoreWeave $CRWV: Down 55.5% to $61.39/share. → $IREN: Down 60.2% to $26.99/share. → Nebius $NBIS: Down 42.3% to $165.47/share. So $BRUN fell with the group, but further than all three. I’d blame the drop from $39.20 on two causes that have nothing to do with $BRUN’s core operations: (1) higher rates and borrowing costs, and (2) $BRUN’s float growing ~3.1x, which was expected once its lockup ended and its warrants were called. Yet the business carries less risk than it did as a SPAC: → Contracts: $1.61B with disclosed terms and TCV over $2.6B, including $1.43B signed since my April write-up. → Customers: Thinking Machines Lab (the AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati) and Cohere make up 61.9% of the $1.61B on three- to five-year terms, after three customers made up 75.9% of 2025 revenue, led by RunPod, a GPU cloud platform, at 44.5%. → Year-end target: If Thinking Machines’ GPUs are fully running by December 31 and the June order starts on November 30, the five disclosed contracts running by year-end cover $300.6M (75.1%) of the $400M ARR target. → Merger: Closed on May 8, 2026, with zero redemptions. → Balance sheet: The merger proceeds paid off its short-term bridge loans, the going-concern language is gone, and pro forma cash is $191.8M, up from the $108M I used in my June 3 update, right after the merger. But $BRUN still has to get the GPUs bought, financed, and running by December 31: → To reach the $1.0-1.2B of GPU spending management expects for 2026, $BRUN has to deploy $663-863M of GPU servers in H2 2026, 2.3-3.0x its cash and contracted prepayments. → CFO Erik Guckel said on the Q2 call that $BRUN is working on new ways to finance the build, but I found no new facility, lender, or term sheet in its filings or press releases from August 14 to October 16. → $BRUN’s named customers are private AI startups without investment-grade ratings, so its contracts are harder to borrow against. → If lessors funded 70% of the H2 2026 build instead of 79.5% (as in H1 2026), $BRUN would need $199-259M of its own cash for the build, more than its $191.8M of pro forma cash. → Both 10-Qs came late, after notices of late filing on May 26 and August 14, and $BRUN still reports three material weaknesses, the most serious kind of gap in a company’s financial reporting controls. → Founder and CEO Andrew Karos controls 87% of the vote. At $8.89/share, $BRUN’s EV is $989.7M. That’s 2.5x its $400M target for year-end ARR, down from 5.4x at the $22.93 price in my August 16 update. At 2.5x, $BRUN trades below all three peers, including $IREN at 3.2x. So did the thesis break, or just the stock? That’s what I answer in my new ~5k-word update on $BRUN, including my bear, base, and bull cases (Excel model included).
@convequity

Convequity on X

We think the foundry business at Intel ($INTC) may be closer than the market assumes. In our view, the key question is whether outside customers can design and produce chips with Intel. That is hard because Intel built its design rules, software and processes for its own teams. Two developments help. 1) Intel's 12nm partnership with $UMC brings experience serving external customers and a more customer-friendly design kit. 2) Musk has said Terafab plans to use Intel's 14A process, with Tesla and SpaceX building and running the fabs themselves. We see that as an important external test of 14A. Intel still has to prove yields, volume and schedules, and Terafab's commercial terms remain unclear. We continue to hold our Intel position and remain bullish, but not enough to add to it for now.
@KEDM_COM 22 clicks

KEDM.com on X

“There's only 10 ways to do fraud.” @hkuppy and @herbgreenberg on why the same patterns keep showing up, and the thin line between a visionary and a fraud. Carvana $CVNA is a good example. A few years ago, it looked like the company might run out of money, with Herb joking that its car vending machines could become trampoline parks or indoor skydiving towers. Instead, the stock recovered and access to capital reopened. Being right about a questionable business doesn’t help much if it can keep financing itself.
@convequity 7 clicks

Convequity on X

Nvidia ($NVDA) faces a major issue: most AI compute is moving to inference, where its CUDA moat protects less. CUDA's programming flexibility is essential for training, which is complex and changes rapidly. Inference runs a trained model with fixed weights, and we think inference chips are easier to build than training chips. The mix is shifting. Post-training RL, reasoning tokens and final replies are all forms of inference. On our view, pre-training could fall below 20% of compute in the future. In February, Cursor said the compute used to post-train its Composer 1.5 model surpassed the compute used to pre-train the base model. At Convequity we think CUDA's depth now protects a shrinking share of the workload, and we expect that to continue. Deeper dive available at Convequity.

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Trading Post November 5, 2026

MercadoLibre’s logistics expansion cut margins by 60 basis points, while Mercado Pago grew credit 62% with 7% NPLs.

MELI $77B
Cassandra Unchained 2 clicks

Intel: The CPU Comeback, Discounted

Intel's Q3 2026 results were hit by memory costs and an Israel shutdown, but enterprise AI inference could lift CPU demand as server…

INTC $287B
Monte Independent Investment Research 2 clicks

Problems at Twist Bioscience (TWST)

Twist Bioscience’s $200 rebound followed an Anthropic-linked short squeeze, yet its DNA and protein services face broad competition while…

TWST $8B
Hunterbrook 4 clicks

VSH Earnings Review

Vishay reported record Q3 revenue of $979 million, up 24%, and guided Q4 to about $990 million as rising backlog and margins contrast with…

VSH $3.6B
Cestrian Capital Research 3 clicks

Thursday Tailwinds #13: Nov 5, 2026

Florida marinas are 92% full as boat counts rise and permits constrain new supply, creating pricing power for existing operators such as…

SUI $14B
Trade Ideas Flow 6 clicks
CHWY · long

Chewy INC

Chewy (CHWY) is presented as a long opportunity after a prior 2022 short thesis played out.

CHWY $9.2B
Value Investors Club 5 clicks

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…

CURB $3.6B
Real Assets, Real Value 5 clicks

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