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Monday, November 9, 2026

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Seed Corn

Chiron’s failed $49 million Beaumont sale and $178 million Pinnacle acquisition leave XRN with $70 million of liquidity and medical-office assets to fund future deals.

XRN $402M
Orphan REITs 2 clicks

From X

@leevalueroach

Lee Roach on X

The market's greatest gift this year to me was when $EVC posted a killer Q2 and the market sold it off as a dying radio company. It allowed me to buy even more when the piggies were panicking. Volatility is the greatest gift to active fundamental investors. People's brains have been fried from constant dopamine releases from social media and need instant gratification. No one can hold a business for the long term anymore. If you can, that is your competitive edge.
@Fierce__beast

Fierce_beast on X

$life anyone long? seems like the incremental margins could rapidly decouple as business becomes more 3rd party. also wondering what their ultimate edge is. if they are just providing a technological convenience to insurance providers, seems like a weaker customer value prop. if they have some secret sauce for generating great insurance terms quickly, that would be a bit better. i don't know a lot about how it all works and the incentives they have vs incentives that insurers have but one thing for sure is that profits are on trend to grow much much slower than revenues and it's trading at a very high multiple. if anything goes wrong with rev, the stock could collapse. even in the last quarter they beat and raised and the stock went down. very interesting.
@StableBread

Fajasy on X

From $14.47/share, you’re risking a $4.66 loss (-32.2%) on Quantum $QMCO in my bear case for a $20.40 gain (+141.0%) in my bull case, before any fallout from the CFO firing, which none of the three cases counts. Here’s where $QMCO’s stock could be by mid-2027 in my bear, base, and bull cases. I value each case on FY2028 revenue (year ending March 2028), since the market will be pricing that year by then. Each case’s value is FY2028 revenue times the multiple, plus the $77.0M of cash, over 44.6M diluted shares (44.7M in the bull case). Bear case ($9.81, -32.2%) The bear case assumes $IBM’s drive supply stays flat, Toshiba’s added capacity ends the disk shortage that helped push customers toward tape, and the “temporary benefit from higher pricing” $QMCO got in the June quarter fades. That implies FY2028 revenue of $300M, 8.5% below the $328M annual run rate in September-quarter guidance, at 1.2x, the multiple at the $9.42 PIPE price, for a value of $9.81/share. Base case ($17.89, +23.6%) The base case assumes $IBM raises drive output gradually through 2027, letting $QMCO ship more of its backlog each quarter. That implies FY2028 revenue of $360M, 9.8% above the $328M run rate, at 2.0x, a discount to $HPE’s 2.3x TTM revenue (as of October 27) for $QMCO’s open material weaknesses, for a value of $17.89/share. I use $HPE rather than $IBM (4.2x), since most of $IBM’s revenue comes from software and consulting rather than hardware. Bull case ($34.87, +141.0%) The bull case assumes $IBM ramps drive output early in 2027, the backlog converts quickly, and more hyperscalers (the largest cloud and internet companies) buy $QMCO’s Scalar i7 tape library. For reference, CEO Hugues Meyrath said the i7 deal $QMCO won from a hyperscaler in Asia-Pacific in the June quarter was valued at “well over eight figures.” That implies FY2028 revenue of $400M, 22.0% above the $328M run rate, at 3.7x, the multiple at my August update, for a value of $34.87/share. Winning more hyperscalers would also make $QMCO even more dependent on a few customers. Its top five customers made up 27% of FY2026 revenue, up from 21% in FY2025, and one customer made up more than 10%, when none did in FY2025. But the takeaway is that even the bull case, with faster $IBM supply and August’s multiple, lands just 1.1% above the $34.50 peak.
@calvinblissett

Calvin Blissett on X

I listened to a Bill Gurley @bgurley interview on @TKPPodcast, great interview by the way Bill. He compared the US AI labs to farmers who go to the market and just trade goods, whereas in China the farmers go to the market, trade goods, and are forced to share best practices and help each other implement them. In his words: “The competitive dynamic in China is more intense. Because it is more intense, everyone has chosen to go open source. That creates a system that is capable of innovating far faster than the competitive system we have here.” China’s way results in exponential learning and growth, which is pretty clear. Charlie Munger was a notorious China bull late in life: “The reason that I invested in China is I get so much better companies at so much lower prices.” Sentiment has also got to account for something. China’s CSI 300 just confirmed a bear market, down 20.2% from its June peak, and 19 years later it has still never closed above its 2007 high. On October 23 the Hang Seng Tech index fell 5% to a two-year low and the CSI AI index fell 3.3% in a single day. I am expressing this macro view through a bottoms-up investment I found: a shareholder-friendly, founder-led company paying an 11%+ dividend and authorized to buy back about 3% of its market cap. Revenue grew 33% in the first half of 2026, net income grew 34%, and paying users went from 3.8 million in 2021 to 18.2 million in 2025, a 48% CAGR. It has been preparing for AI since the beginning. The founder: “From the very first day of the company’s founding, we had our own AI algorithm engineers and big data team… we began applying these cutting-edge technologies as early as 2019.” Today about 70% of staff are R&D, AI-generated code is approaching half of all R&D code, and net margins run near 30%. All for the grand price of about 2.5x earnings, with a ~$494M market cap sitting below roughly $630M of unencumbered cash. Did I mention there are forced sellers selling for completely non-economic reasons because they are VC investors? VCs including Hike, Northern Light, Qiming, SIG and Sequoia China owned about 55% of the company after the IPO. Qiming alone has sold 43% of its stake in nine months, from 19.4M shares to 11.1M, per its 13G filings. Here is my writeup on Yuanbao $YB:

Investor Letters

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Vicor Update, Part Four

Vicor’s Federal Circuit hearing put Foxconn’s disputed patent license under pressure, reinforcing its AI server royalty model and licensing…

VICR $6.8B
CV's Substack 2 clicks

Floor & Decor 3Q26: Business Update

Floor & Decor’s 3Q26 sales rose 3% while comparable sales fell 1.4%; it cut 2027 openings to 10-15 as high mortgage rates pressure…

FND $5B
Speedwell Memos 1 click

Short CNM

Core & Main faces a short thesis centered on the risks in its roll-up strategy.

CNM $8.9B
Shallow Dives 1 click

Short LUMN

Lumen Technologies faces a fading boost from its PCF-related sugar high.

LUMN $4.6B
Shallow Dives

Nomad Foods - The Yield Machine

Nomad Foods combines leading European frozen-food brands with a high dividend yield, buybacks and decade-low valuation, while private-label…

NOMD $1.6B
D Invests

TIC Solutions: Thesis Check

TIC Solutions' NV5 merger lifted consulting and geospatial growth and margins, while its 52%-of-revenue inspection unit stayed flat after…

TIC $2.3B
Kairos Research

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