Bullpen.News From Edwin Dorsey
Get Daily Recap Feedback

Saturday, November 7, 2026

Back to the front page

From X

@StableBread

Fajasy on X

Fuel Tech's $FTEK new CEO used his first earnings release to make acquisitions part of the plan, with $27.8M of cash and investments against a $44M market cap. Ramesh Nuggihalli, a former COO of competitor CECO Environmental $CECO, took over the power plant pollution-control company in August. He's pursuing organic growth in core markets, data center power, and water treatment, plus "select M&A" to add products and sales channels. Its cash and investments come to $0.89/share, ~63% of the $1.42 stock price. So I read the new plan as a choice for the cash: (1) Either it stays the floor under the stock, or (2) it becomes the budget for deals. Q3 revenue rose 16% to $8.7M, and the $267K net loss was its smallest this year (vs. a $303K profit a year ago). But air pollution control (APC) gross margin fell to 40% from 47% a year ago on project mix. APC backlog reached ~$20M with October's $3.3M of awards, but none of this year's awards is a data center order. Q3 also had the year's biggest drop in cash and investments, $1.8M, but receivables rose ~$2.0M as APC projects ramped, so the drop is mostly money customers owe, not money lost. At $1.42/share, $FTEK trades ~19% above its $1.19/share book value and below the $1.72-2.17 sum-of-the-parts in my August 27 deep dive. Would you rather $FTEK spend its cash on a deal or keep it as the floor? I'd rather hear three answers on the November 4 call before giving the new plan credit: 1) M&A: How much of the $27.8M the board would spend, and whether it would pay in cash or in stock trading near book value. 2) Data center: Whether the August talks with a data center customer about paying to reserve $FTEK's capacity are still going. 3) Margins: Whether the ~$20M backlog carries the 40% APC margin from Q3 or the 47% from a year ago.
@ACapitalLP

A Capital on X

The 13% puke today is the market questioning whether $CVI is using peak-cycle earnings to justify a transformative acquisition (nearly doubling nameplate capacity). The $MPC assets may be attractive, but shareholders are absorbing dilution, additional debt, and the risk that refining margins normalize before the company can meaningfully delever… $CVI was always sub-scale, so there’s a legitimate strategic rationale here. The irony is that the best time to buy cyclical assets is usually when you can least afford to finance them…
@AsifSuria

Asif Suria on X

While rummaging through insider purchases last night, I came across a company that I almost discarded at first look. It scored poorly in our quantitive model (IA Score of 36), free cash flow was just a smidgen positive in 2025, debt on the balance sheet was growing and it remains unprofitable. Yet an independent director with deep industry experience was buying. This is his fourth insider purchase since joining the board in 2023 and he picked up $408,600 worth of stock according to the Form 4 filed yesterday. The company is California-based Alphatec Holdings $ATEC and they make a robotics platform focused on spinal surgery. The stock is down an astounding 62% over the last year. Dave Demski, the independent director that bought shares, used to previously be the COO and then the CEO of Globus Medical $GMED Globus Medical built a robotics platform to help with spinal surgery, hip reconstruction and more. During Demski's nearly 5 years as CEO of Globus Medical from 2017 to 2022, revenue increased from about $700 million to over $1 billion and the stock more than doubled despite the disruption due to COVID-19. So what made me take a closer look at Alphatec? I love companies that could be at a point of inflection and I'll let the income statement speak for itself. Last quarter the company almost broke even and free cash flow was positive. Year-over-year revenue growth was about 13% but it missed consensus estimates. For the full year they expected adjusted EBITDA of $137 million and free cash flow of $10 million. With an enterprise value of just $1.65 billion, I can see this company being an acquisition target for Medtronic $MDT, Zimmer, Boston Scientific or more importantly Globus Medical.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

$AAOI signs $194.4M/year contract with Yuunan Germanium. This is for 2027 alone, with a 5 year contract. Given an implied total of ~$970M in InP substrates over 5 years (before price hikes) Hmm just some thoughts: - AOI laser capacity expansion seems bigger than what’s disclosed based on procurement patterns? 180K wafers seems like an extreme amount compared to what’s needed for lasers within their own transceivers… if they can consume all of that So maybe we’ll hear about a new UHP laser contracts in earnings, after $LITE announced a $5B contract. - read through on $AXTI is positive, given they’ll probably be #1 in InP substrates manufacturing scale in the future + have contracts with $LITE and $COHR. - positive AOI was able to secure capacity during the bottleneck More spend is probably the boogeyman in the AI trade, but it’s a good signal for earnings.

Investor Letters

All letters

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

New Ideas From The Road

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

MDA $4.2B
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 4 clicks
AAP · long

Advance Auto Parts INC

Advance Auto Parts, AAP, is presented as a long idea following prior write-ups at $48.81 per share in January 2025.

AAP $2.9B
Value Investors Club 1 click

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

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…

ABR $2.2B
John Hempton's Newsletter 4 clicks

Publications we follow

Every publication on this site, hand-picked.

129 publications

Newsletters 109

YouTube 4

Blogs 15

Seeking Alpha 74 of 275

Nominate a publication

X accounts we follow

Every account on this site, hand-picked.

91 accounts
Nominate an account

Investor letters we follow

359 firms

Sectors

Ordered by how often our editor reaches for them.