Exit vs. voice The simple model is that, if you don’t like SpaceX, you don’t have to buy it. For whatever reason. If you think that SpaceX is worth $1 trillion, or $780 billion , or zero, and it sells shares in its initial public offering at a $1.78 trillion valuation, you can just not buy any shares. (If the price later drops, you can revisit that decision.) Or if you think that SpaceX’s governan...
Exit vs. voice The simple model is that, if you don’t like SpaceX, you don’t have to buy it. For whatever reason. If you think that SpaceX is worth $1 trillion, or $780 billion , or zero, and it sells shares in its initial public offering at a $1.78 trillion valuation, you can just not buy any shares. (If the price later drops, you can revisit that decision.) Or if you think that SpaceX’s governance — in which Elon Musk has total control of the company and can’t be sued or second-guessed by shareholders — is oppressive for shareholders, then just don’t buy any shares. Nobody is forcing you to become an oppressed SpaceX shareholder. “No, I’m an index investor, and the index is forcing me to become an oppressed SpaceX shareholder,” you might say, but I have limited sympathy. First of all, the biggest index, the S&P 500, isn’t forcing you to buy SpaceX: After consulting with users, S&P decided to exclude SpaceX for at least a year and possibly much longer. Second, while other indexes have jumped to add SpaceX early , they also consulted with their users; the S&P experience suggests that if index investors really didn’t want SpaceX, they could have said no. And most crucially, if you are a passive investor, you are a passive investor. If you have strong feelings about valuation, or even governance, maybe you should be an active investor? Indexing is buying all the companies. Figuring out which companies are good and buying them is active investing. If you want to go around telling people that SpaceX is bad and that they shouldn’t buy it either, that’s your prerogative. But your main defense against SpaceX’s governance and valuation is not to buy the stock. I feel like there is another model? I am not sure that anyone quite puts it in words, but I think it goes something like this: Public companies are owned by public shareholders. Big institutional public shareholders — and particularly widely diversified indexed or quasi-indexed public shareholders — have a sort of ste...
Dan Ives, Global Head of Technology Research at Wedbush Securities, says that the SpaceX IPO expected later this week will be a "watershed" moment for markets. SpaceX, which is officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is preparing for an IPO that would value the company at about $1.8 trillion. Anthropic raised funds at a $965 billion valuation last month. (Source: Bloomberg)
Dan Ives, Global Head of Technology Research at Wedbush Securities, says that the SpaceX IPO expected later this week will be a "watershed" moment for markets. SpaceX, which is officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is preparing for an IPO that would value the company at about $1.8 trillion. Anthropic raised funds at a $965 billion valuation last month. (Source: Bloomberg)
Thomas Barwick/DigitalVision via Getty Images Thesis When I work on these types of research papers, sometimes there's a specific investment thesis that is simultaneously easy to get my head around and really hard to act on. Titan Machinery Inc. ( TITN ) is a good example right now. I switched to a downgrade on the stock nearly two years back, eventually landing on a Hold rating . Since then, TITN ...
Thomas Barwick/DigitalVision via Getty Images Thesis When I work on these types of research papers, sometimes there's a specific investment thesis that is simultaneously easy to get my head around and really hard to act on. Titan Machinery Inc. ( TITN ) is a good example right now. I switched to a downgrade on the stock nearly two years back, eventually landing on a Hold rating . Since then, TITN had traded sideways but eventually managed to pick up momentum and gained almost 48%, handily outpacing the broader market ( SP500 ). At first glance, that could be vindication, but it's rarely that simple. All in, Titan Machinery has done almost everything management can control. Is that enough, though, when farmer demand remains entirely out of their hands? Titan Machinery's Road to Recovery Seeking Alpha Titan operates a large network of agriculture and construction equipment dealers in North America. Its primary sales include the brands of CNH Industrial ( CNH ), such as Case IH and New Holland, in the regions of the United States, Europe, and Australia. So, essentially, Titan’s business is fairly connected to the well-being of farmers. Presently, farmers are in a downturn. The USDA forecasts net farm income to decline in 2026. Supplies of grain still remain heavy, prices of commodities are weak, and input costs are still high. It is for this reason that many farmers are deferring the purchase of big equipment. Titan did not create this problem. It is just taking the hit. Total revenue : $522.4M vs. $594.3M Agriculture revenue: $344.2M vs. $384.4M Agriculture same-store sales: -8.2% Europe revenue: $60.4M vs. $93.9M Australia revenue: $50.3M vs. $44.0M Australia local-currency revenue growth: +2.8% Europe FX benefit: $4.2M Australia FX benefit: $5.1M. I think that what makes the fiscal first quarter interesting is that the company's operating story and its financial results are telling slightly different things. Sales revenue was lower in nearly all segments. Agricultur...
Wirestock/iStock Editorial via Getty Images By Khaveen Jey, CFA, FMVA, Portfolio Manager @ Khaveen Investments & Nicholas Tan, Investment Research Analyst @ Khaveen Investments. In our previous analysis of Cisco ( CSCO ), we believed that Cisco could achieve management’s targets and that single-digit growth targets could be reached. We also expected its growth outlook to be robust, with Security a...
Wirestock/iStock Editorial via Getty Images By Khaveen Jey, CFA, FMVA, Portfolio Manager @ Khaveen Investments & Nicholas Tan, Investment Research Analyst @ Khaveen Investments. In our previous analysis of Cisco ( CSCO ), we believed that Cisco could achieve management’s targets and that single-digit growth targets could be reached. We also expected its growth outlook to be robust, with Security and Observability being the core revenue growth drivers. We also believe its focus on enterprise would support Networking growth and that Services could also continue growing. We cover Cisco again, as in February 2026, Cisco's stock price broke past its $82.00 peak set in March 2000, which stood for nearly 26 years. Due to the large time gap and the higher stock price set, we thus analyze whether Cisco's stock price is now more justified than in 2000. We first assess whether Cisco's current business model is stronger than before. We then analyze whether Cisco has more competitiveness now than before. We lastly evaluate whether its valuation is more justified currently. Current Business Model More Robust Business Segments Company Data, Khaveen Investments We first compile the 10-year revenue product breakdown for pre-2000 Cisco and current Cisco to analyze the change in revenue breakdown. Cisco’s routers and switches, as a proportion of revenue, are less concentrated than before. The current Cisco breakdown also now includes new segments such as Collaboration (8.8%), Security (7.5%), and Observability (1.3%). One reason could be Cisco’s focus on using acquisitions to grow these 3 segments. According to Cisco’s website , they have completed 186 acquisitions between 2000 and 2025, which are used to boost its Collaboration (45 acquisitions or 24.2% of acquisitions), Security (46 acquisitions or 24.7% of acquisitions), and Observability’s revenue (26 acquisitions, 14.0% of acquisitions). Services also now account for 25.8%, which is much larger than Others. For context, Service w...
Gargolas/iStock via Getty Images Sempra ( SRE ) up 1.9% in Tuesday's trading after its San Diego Gas & Electric subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies ( QCOM ) and UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced a collaboration that aims to bring artificial intelligence directly to the front lines of wildfire and extreme-weather response. While the initial deployment is in San Diego, Calif...
Gargolas/iStock via Getty Images Sempra ( SRE ) up 1.9% in Tuesday's trading after its San Diego Gas & Electric subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies ( QCOM ) and UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced a collaboration that aims to bring artificial intelligence directly to the front lines of wildfire and extreme-weather response. While the initial deployment is in San Diego, California, the Edge Alert Sentinel collaboration is intended to demonstrate how edge-based AI can support grid reliability, emergency preparedness and climate resilience, the groups said. Edge Alert Sentinel is designed to integrate environmental sensors, edge AI computing and atmospheric science to generate near-instant insights where conditions are unfolding — not minutes later in distant data centers. The first system will be installed on Mount Palomar, where it will begin analyzing wind, weather and environmental data to provide earlier visibility into conditions that influence wildfire behavior and extreme weather impacts, the groups said. The technology is anticipated to be up and running in late August or September. More on Sempra Sempra: Oncor's 127 GW Pipeline Could Redefine Its Earnings Power Sempra: Solid Utility Growth Story At A Fair Price (Rating Downgrade) Sempra Q1 2026 Earnings Call Presentation
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says he's excited about the potential uses for quantum computing. Speaking with Romaine Bostick at the Mizuho Technology Conference in New York, Krishna also comments on the Trump administration's investment in the company, the utilization of AI and IBM's profit strategy. (Source: Bloomberg)
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says he's excited about the potential uses for quantum computing. Speaking with Romaine Bostick at the Mizuho Technology Conference in New York, Krishna also comments on the Trump administration's investment in the company, the utilization of AI and IBM's profit strategy. (Source: Bloomberg)
On-device AI models have stayed small because the entire weight set has to live in DRAM, capping practical parameter counts well below what server-side deployments use. Enterprise architects evaluating agentic workloads have had to choose between capable cloud-dependent models and limited on-device ones. Apple's third-generation foundation models, announced at WWDC26, break that constraint by movi...
On-device AI models have stayed small because the entire weight set has to live in DRAM, capping practical parameter counts well below what server-side deployments use. Enterprise architects evaluating agentic workloads have had to choose between capable cloud-dependent models and limited on-device ones. Apple's third-generation foundation models, announced at WWDC26, break that constraint by moving the weight set off DRAM entirely . The AFM 3 family was developed in collaboration with Google and spans five models: two on-device and three server-based, all running within Apple's Private Cloud Compute boundary. The server-side models, including AFM 3 Cloud Pro for agentic tool use and complex reasoning, run on Nvidia GPUs in Google Cloud. The on-device architecture is Apple's own. AFM 3 Core Advanced is a 20-billion-parameter model that stores weights in NAND flash rather than DRAM. "Instead of forcing the entire model into DRAM, the full model is stored in flash memory," Apple's research team wrote . "Because NAND-to-DRAM bandwidth is too slow to swap weights token by token, as standard MoE models require, AFM 3 Core Advanced makes routing decisions per prompt." How the architecture actually works The memory wall Apple is working around is one every local AI developer runs into. "You can't put 20B parameters in RAM at any reasonable precision," Awni Hannun , a researcher at Anthropic and former Apple research scientist, posted on X . "To make it work they are using pretty exotic architecture by today's standards. A small model predicts from the query (or prompt) which experts to load from NAND into RAM." That prediction-and-load mechanism has three distinct components, each driven by the hardware constraints of consumer silicon. The full 20B weight set lives in flash, not DRAM. AFM 3 Core Advanced stores its entire parameter set in NAND flash rather than active memory. Standard on-device deployments require the full model to fit in DRAM, which is what caps their par...
Jorge Aguado Martin/iStock via Getty Images In 2026, the clear majority of the stock market’s gains this year have accrued to the semiconductor and hardware stocks that are fueling the data center buildout. However, the recent cracks that are appearing in the market rally offer ample evidence that this confidence is breaking down: after all, the capex surge is likely contained to just a limited wi...
Jorge Aguado Martin/iStock via Getty Images In 2026, the clear majority of the stock market’s gains this year have accrued to the semiconductor and hardware stocks that are fueling the data center buildout. However, the recent cracks that are appearing in the market rally offer ample evidence that this confidence is breaking down: after all, the capex surge is likely contained to just a limited window of a few years, and semis’ record profits may fade. The next phase of the stock market, in my view, will reward the companies who are actually leveraging AI to release new products that are proven to accelerate growth profiles and to slim down costs. On the cost-cutting side, few companies have gone as deep as Block ( XYZ ), the Jack Dorsey-led parent company of Square and Cash App. Earlier this year, the company announced the layoff of 40% of its headcount, whereas many other giants like Meta ( META ) and Oracle ( ORCL ) have trimmed workforces by ~15-20%, and many more haven’t announced cuts at all. Data by YCharts I last wrote a buy article on Block in April, when the stock was trading in the low $60s. Since then, Block has traded roughly flat, missing out on gains in the rest of the S&P 500; yet I think the company is due a rebound as sentiment in the market shifts towards companies that are taking advantage of AI, rather than merely enabling it in the short term. Block is showcasing unique gross profit acceleration despite the weaker macro backdrop, and it's significantly bolstering its bottom line through its efficiency initiatives. The stock remains deeply overlooked and undervalued, and I reiterate my buy rating here. As a reminder for investors who are newer to Block, here is my full long-term bull case for the company: GPV continues to accelerate despite macro headwinds. The Q1 earnings season has seen decelerating comp sales trends across consumer-facing businesses, particularly retail and restaurant customers who are among the primary users of Square. In sp...