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Sunday, November 15, 2026

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Intel Custom ASICs?

Intel’s custom ASIC business more than doubled last quarter as it pursues hyperscaler demand, AI accelerators and a stronger Intel Foundry.

INTC $317BQCOM $185B
Chipstrat 2 clicks

From X

@ActAccordingly

PAA Research on X

"That would be PRESUMPTIOUS!" I'm listening to the $ORCL investor day and I found the response to the question about potential vendor/partner financing and whether or not the company has committed/signed deals quite interesting. The tone was defensive and I started to immediately think of Jimmy Cayne. In late 2007, a few months before Bear Stearns blew up they hosted an investor event in NYC to calm the markets following the blow up of 2 hedge funds. I was in the room. An analyst asked about how Bear Stearns planned to manage risk going forward in light of the "unprecedented" events in the capital markets (hedge funds blowing up, subprime defaults, credit spreads widening etc.). Jimmy Cayne responded: "You cannot create a risk model for something that is by definition UNPRECEDENTED". The tone was what I remember most. Defiant, condescending, angry. That's what I heard today with "PRESUMPTIOUS". No $ORCL is not Bear Stearns, but it's obvious to anyone that can read a balance sheet or track CDS, the financial risks for the company are growing rapidly. Negative variance on funding could have massive implications for the company. Assuming they have their financing needs secured from vendor financing or partners would be PRESUMPTIOUS.
@convequity 1 click

Convequity on X

Circular AI financing keeps getting bigger. A record $63 billion vehicle, partly supported by Broadcom ($AVGO), will buy Broadcom chips for Anthropic, and it only pays off if enterprises adopt AI beyond coding. The vehicle borrows, buys Broadcom XPU accelerators (custom AI chips) and networking gear, and leases them to Anthropic. Deliveries are expected from 2027. Broadcom guarantees a residual value of $40B+. This is the latest example of the banks, hyperscalers, model labs and chipmakers are frontrunning AI demand they expect to be insatiable. Without faster enterprise adoption, that demand may not arrive, and the financing stays circular. AI has to spread from coding into the rest of the enterprise. Coding can be checked, because code has to compile and pass tests. Other domains need the same verifiability, which means codifying context that lives in employees' heads, or at best across email, Slack, WhatsApp and work-management platforms. Vendors that can codify that context should extract immense value. Palantir ($PLTR) is the closest so far. Palantir's ontology, a structured account of an enterprise's objects, relationships and rules that software can use to check a result, is critical because it is instrumental to verifiability. We think it can make an average Nemotron model state of the art for that enterprise's own work. If the result is good enough, enterprises will use it and achieve sovereign AI. Once that context is codified, enterprises will not want to blindly run closed frontier models on it and give their know-how away. Broader adoption depends on data sovereignty. The shift has been visible since Palantir's Alex Karp warned earlier this year that handing closed frontier labs their data, models and institutional know-how means losing control of the value. The path is intelligence sovereignty plus more verifiability, then greater enterprise adoption, which would justify this frontrunning. It would also benefit Nvidia ($NVDA), which needs enterprise adoption because hyperscalers and model labs are leaning toward custom chips.
@convequity 1 click

Convequity on X

We think AI power users are overestimating how far enterprise adoption has progressed. Anthropic’s S-1 says over half the Fortune 500 were $100k+ annual customers as of September. Among those publicly traded customers, Anthropic spending averaged under 0.1% of total expenses in Q3 2026. That measures spending on one provider, so it cannot establish whether their AI deployments are succeeding. But the expectation gap is familiar. When you spend all day using the best models, it is easy to assume the rest of the economy is close behind. Building and running an enterprise’s own AI applications is a much harder undertaking. In Part 2 of our recent $NVDA report, we argued that successful adoption remains concentrated in a few exceptionally capable organisations, with Palantir ($PLTR) and coding agents the clearest examples. For Nvidia, adoption through clouds and model providers still leaves compute demand concentrated in intermediaries with the scale and incentive to develop their own chips. It needs more enterprises buying its compute directly. This is why we continue to see Palantir as a strategic enabler. The ability to help enterprises put AI into production remains scarce, even as access to capable models spreads. From Convequity’s “Nvidia at 16x Earnings: Bargain or Value Trap?” (Pt.2), 20 Oct 2026.
@StableBread

Fajasy on X

A tape library maker fired its CFO on October 9, 2026, without giving a reason, and its stock is now down 41.3% from its October 2 peak. Within two months, it replaced both of its top finance officers. Yet it still expects to meet or exceed its September-quarter guidance. That company is Quantum $QMCO, which makes tape libraries that companies use to archive data for years. $QMCO has fallen to $20.25/share, down 22.4% since my August update, but still more than double the $9.42 investors paid in its June private placement (PIPE). Worth mentioning that the larger hard drive and flash memory stocks have fallen from their 2026 highs as well, through the October 27 close: → SanDisk $SNDK: Down 44.1% to $1,304.84/share. → Seagate $STX: Down 39.0% to $667.85/share. → Western Digital $WDC: Down 49.0% to $380.88/share. So $QMCO fell about as far as the group, but in under four weeks instead of four months, and mostly after the CFO was fired. Besides the firing, three accounting issues hang over $QMCO’s September-quarter 10-Q, due November 9: 1) Material weaknesses: $QMCO’s June-quarter 10-Q still reports material weaknesses (the most serious kind of gap in a company’s financial reporting controls) in revenue recognition, inventory, and income taxes. 2) Restatements: None of the weaknesses has led to a material misstatement, but $QMCO has restated its financial statements before, in May 2024 and again in August 2025. 3) Late filings: Its June-quarter 10-Q was officially filed on August 11, a day after its 40-day deadline, and its FY2026 10-K needed a notice of late filing in June. Still, tape demand is growing, and no $QMCO insider has sold since my August update: → Tape: Secondary storage, which $QMCO’s 10-K describes as “primarily tape storage systems,” doubled from a year earlier to $37.0M in the June quarter, 46% of total revenue, up from 29%. → Industry: The LTO Program, the group of $HPE, $IBM, and $QMCO that sets the LTO tape standard, reported on September 1, 2026 that tape capacity shipped in Q1 2026 rose 57% from Q1 2025. → Supply: By CEO Hugues Meyrath’s account, $IBM’s drive supply, not demand, limits how much $QMCO can sell for now. → Insiders: No $QMCO insider has bought or sold shares in the open market since my August update, including Dialectic, the activist fund managed by director John Fichthorn. $QMCO’s EV is $825.3M, counting its warrants, options, and RSUs. That’s 2.8x TTM revenue, down from 4.9x at the October 2 peak, but still 34.4x the September quarter’s $6M ±$1M of adjusted EBITDA guidance, annualized. So is $QMCO’s drop a pullback worth buying, or a warning about the numbers? That’s what I answer in my new update on $QMCO, including my bear, base, and bull cases.

Investor Letters

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The Spy Who Shagged The Market

Nvidia’s leadership scandal puts its AI-market role under scrutiny, with comparisons to AIG’s pre-GFC liquidity influence.

AIG $43B
WHAT ARE WE DOING? “Contrarians At The Gate” 4 clicks

Is Nebius Fucked?

Nebius’ Q3 beat relied on $325 million of one-off partnership fees as it raised 2027 CapEx to $40–45 billion and may need $6–11 billion of…

NBIS $32B
Daniel Romero 6 clicks

Qualcomm Custom ASICs?

Qualcomm’s Alphawave SerDes, CPU cores and HBC could support custom AI ASICs as hyperscalers build heterogeneous fleets beyond GPUs.

QCOM $185B
Chipstrat 4 clicks

TSOH Weekly Roundup (11/13/2026)

Tripadvisor’s CEO and CFO will depart after weak Q3 results, while Roblox’s CEO discusses AI and Berkshire repurchases $9.6 billion of…

RBLX $36B
TSOH Investment Research 3 clicks

QXO Inc Earnings Update: Q3 2026

QXO's Q3 sales rose 79% to $4.9 billion after TopBuild and Kodiak acquisitions, while acquisition debt lifted interest expense to $163…

QXO $13B
SixSigmaCapital: Navigating the Financial Markets 3 clicks

Cerrado Gold: Research Note

Cerrado Gold will acquire Argentina’s Manantial Espejo mine from Pan American Silver for $20 million and targets a 2027 restart funded by…

PAAS $15B
Atrium Research - Equity Research 2 clicks

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