In this video, Motley Fool contributors Jason Hall and Tyler Crowe explain why they plan to keep holding Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Green Brick Partners (NYSE: GRBK) stocks for the long term.
In this video, Motley Fool contributors Jason Hall and Tyler Crowe explain why they plan to keep holding Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Green Brick Partners (NYSE: GRBK) stocks for the long term.
Nuttawan Jayawan/iStock via Getty Images Over the last 30 years, I have bought and sold Altria ( MO ) many times. Altria is an incredible company from the point of view of several important financial metrics. And, of course, it has one major flaw: its business is slowly disappearing. To be clear, I am a fan of investing in MO and have made some nice gains from it in the past. I would not be surpri...
Nuttawan Jayawan/iStock via Getty Images Over the last 30 years, I have bought and sold Altria ( MO ) many times. Altria is an incredible company from the point of view of several important financial metrics. And, of course, it has one major flaw: its business is slowly disappearing. To be clear, I am a fan of investing in MO and have made some nice gains from it in the past. I would not be surprised to buy it again at some point in the future. But the price must be compelling. In this article I will show some of the company's strengths and then move on to valuation metrics. Finally, I will produce a price at which I would be interested in buying the stock again. What Makes MO a Great Business Companies with strong moats usually show great numbers in ROIC (return on invested capital) and margins. These are the first metrics I look at when evaluating any company, and I already know that MO is an absolute home run for these. Let's have a look: Data by YCharts Altria has been consistently in the 30% range for decades, and this is a beast of an ROIC. In fact, most companies with this sort of ROIC would support a P/E of 20+. Margins show a similar story: Data by YCharts Just for the heck of it, I compared Altria to NVIDIA here. Again, MO shows incredible numbers that would be the envy of any company in any industry. Another thing that MO does extremely well is it returns profits to shareholders. This is accomplished in three ways: dividends, share reduction, and debt reduction. We all know that the dividend is great. That's a reason for many to own the stock. As of the writing of this article, the dividend yield is at a very robust 6.3%. There are only a handful of companies with a very safe dividend that sport such a generous yield. Altria's dedication to share reduction is long-established and exemplary: Data by YCharts Finally, debt reduction has been ongoing, and the company has reduced about 10% since 2020. Here I have to dig them, however, as MO still has a substan...
NicoElNino/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis First and foremost, the AI trade is moving away from '' buy more GPUs '' to " make the whole system run ". And this shift is why Astera Labs ( ALAB ) has been one of a kind for me. This is because, the shift is where it thrives best. At the Needham's conference , CEO Jitendra Mohan framed it in a way I like because it is plain: the basic unit of...
NicoElNino/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis First and foremost, the AI trade is moving away from '' buy more GPUs '' to " make the whole system run ". And this shift is why Astera Labs ( ALAB ) has been one of a kind for me. This is because, the shift is where it thrives best. At the Needham's conference , CEO Jitendra Mohan framed it in a way I like because it is plain: the basic unit of compute has moved from a server to a rack. And if the rack is the new unit, then rack plumbing becomes strategic. And not optional. I said in my previous latest article on Astera Labs, that the rack becomes the new computer. I also recapped that the AI rack is quite busy in the sense that you can bring in the fastest GPUs from Nvidia ( NVDA ) but if the pathway is poorly designed, then everything stalls. And Scorpio, Aries, Taurus, and eventually opticals are Astera's way of fixing that pathway. Astera's Q4 2025 earnings report confirms that the demand is not a one-quarter fluke. Management tied the results to broad-based growth across product lines and called out the hyperscaler spending commentary as a tailwind. And this is important because it answers the 'why now' question that, of course, would be in many people's minds. ALAB's management framed the demand backdrop like this: ...Google and AWS alone, guiding nearly $400 billion in total CapEx spending for 2026. We are benefiting from this increased spending both in the near term and long term... So what does this mean? In my view, the key takeaway is that when hyperscalers talk like that, connectivity stops being a sideline item. It actually becomes part of the core build. And this is why I am still convinced ALAB warrants a Strong Buy even after the recent swings around the stock. The company is still early in its multi-product ramp, and it is moving up the stack from retimer to a fabric + software platform. And that is definitely a different business. The macro Tailwind is still building McKinsey & Company expects d...
NicoElNino/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis First and foremost, the AI trade is moving away from '' buy more GPUs '' to " make the whole system run ". And this shift is why Astera Labs ( ALAB ) has been one of a kind for me. This is because, the shift is where it thrives best. At the Needham's conference , CEO Jitendra Mohan framed it in a way I like because it is plain: the basic unit of...
NicoElNino/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis First and foremost, the AI trade is moving away from '' buy more GPUs '' to " make the whole system run ". And this shift is why Astera Labs ( ALAB ) has been one of a kind for me. This is because, the shift is where it thrives best. At the Needham's conference , CEO Jitendra Mohan framed it in a way I like because it is plain: the basic unit of compute has moved from a server to a rack. And if the rack is the new unit, then rack plumbing becomes strategic. And not optional. I said in my previous latest article on Astera Labs, that the rack becomes the new computer. I also recapped that the AI rack is quite busy in the sense that you can bring in the fastest GPUs from Nvidia ( NVDA ) but if the pathway is poorly designed, then everything stalls. And Scorpio, Aries, Taurus, and eventually opticals are Astera's way of fixing that pathway. Astera's Q4 2025 earnings report confirms that the demand is not a one-quarter fluke. Management tied the results to broad-based growth across product lines and called out the hyperscaler spending commentary as a tailwind. And this is important because it answers the 'why now' question that, of course, would be in many people's minds. ALAB's management framed the demand backdrop like this: ...Google and AWS alone, guiding nearly $400 billion in total CapEx spending for 2026. We are benefiting from this increased spending both in the near term and long term... So what does this mean? In my view, the key takeaway is that when hyperscalers talk like that, connectivity stops being a sideline item. It actually becomes part of the core build. And this is why I am still convinced ALAB warrants a Strong Buy even after the recent swings around the stock. The company is still early in its multi-product ramp, and it is moving up the stack from retimer to a fabric + software platform. And that is definitely a different business. The macro Tailwind is still building McKinsey & Company expects d...
Updates from 12.15pm kickoff (GMT) Follow us over on Bluesky | And get in touch: email Barry Those teams: Gary Bowyer makes one change to the team that started against Port Vale last time out. Jack Armer replaces Alex Hartridge in defence. Nuno makes 10 changes to the side that snatched a draw from the jaws of victory against Manchester United and has given Jarrod Bowen a rare day off. The England...
Updates from 12.15pm kickoff (GMT) Follow us over on Bluesky | And get in touch: email Barry Those teams: Gary Bowyer makes one change to the team that started against Port Vale last time out. Jack Armer replaces Alex Hartridge in defence. Nuno makes 10 changes to the side that snatched a draw from the jaws of victory against Manchester United and has given Jarrod Bowen a rare day off. The England winger is not in West Ham’s matchday squad. Konstantinos Mavropanos is the only survivor from Tuesday’s match, while January signing Keiber Lamadrid makes his debut. Mohamadou Kante and Adama Traore make their first starts for the club. Continue reading...
From a statistical standpoint, the stock market has thrived with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. During his first term (Jan. 20, 2017 – Jan. 20, 2021), the widely followed Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) , broad-based S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) , and innovation-inspired Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) gained 57%, 70%, and 142%, respectively. Since Donald Trump was inaugurated ...
From a statistical standpoint, the stock market has thrived with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. During his first term (Jan. 20, 2017 – Jan. 20, 2021), the widely followed Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) , broad-based S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) , and innovation-inspired Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) gained 57%, 70%, and 142%, respectively. Since Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second, non-consecutive term on Jan. 20, 2025, it's been more of the same. Through the closing bell on Feb. 11, the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite have respectively risen by 15%, 16%, and 18%. President Trump delivering remarks. Image source: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead, courtesy of the National Archives. Continue reading
More Taiwanese are visiting mainland China but the numbers have yet to cross pre-Covid levels, data from the island’s tourism body shows. Taiwanese media attributed the slow recovery to continued cross-strait tensions and partial travel restrictions. According to Taiwan’s Tourism Administration, around 3.24 million Taiwanese visited the mainland last year, nearly 17 per cent more than in 2024. But...
More Taiwanese are visiting mainland China but the numbers have yet to cross pre-Covid levels, data from the island’s tourism body shows. Taiwanese media attributed the slow recovery to continued cross-strait tensions and partial travel restrictions. According to Taiwan’s Tourism Administration, around 3.24 million Taiwanese visited the mainland last year, nearly 17 per cent more than in 2024. But this was still 20 per cent lower than the figure for 2019, the year before the coronavirus...
ugis bralens/iStock via Getty Images Introduction Since my last update on Waste Connections ( WCN:CA ) ( WCN ), the company has delivered another year of strong execution, reinforcing its track record of M&A success and operational discipline. Despite modest volume pressures in certain segments, 2025 for the company was a year with solid revenue growth, expanding margins, and robust free cash flow...
ugis bralens/iStock via Getty Images Introduction Since my last update on Waste Connections ( WCN:CA ) ( WCN ), the company has delivered another year of strong execution, reinforcing its track record of M&A success and operational discipline. Despite modest volume pressures in certain segments, 2025 for the company was a year with solid revenue growth, expanding margins, and robust free cash flow as a result of M&A pricing gains and efficiency improvements. With a flexible balance sheet, continued AI-driven initiatives, and a sizable M&A pipeline, I think Waste Connections is well-positioned to sustain long-term growth and return capital to shareholders. A look at Q4 and 2025 performance Waste Connections wrapped up 2025 with a strong Q4 , as total revenues came in in line with consensus at $2.373 billion , about 5% higher compared to last year. The $113 million revenue increase was largely driven by acquisition contribution of $58 million. The remaining increase was largely pricing that accelerated sequentially to 6.4%, ranging from 3.7% in exclusive Western markets to over 7% in more competitive areas. On the bottom line, EPS of $1.75 was 4 cents higher than sell-side estimates and 10% higher compared to last year. Seeking Alpha When looking at the full-year results for 2025, Waste Connections made 19 deals for a total of $377 million of capital deployed that added $330 million in total revenues. With full-year core pricing of 6.5%, this exceeded management’s initial expectations and helped to partially offset a 2.7% same-store volume decline in Q4. Some of the drivers of the negative volume growth have been intentional shedding, price-volume trade-offs, and cyclical weakness in construction and demolition debris (down 4% in the quarter and 5% for the year). And while that was a negative drag, there were several key highlights that showed Waste Connections is executing well. Firstly, the company has seen multiyear lows in voluntary employee turnover, with safety ...