kgtoh/iStock via Getty Images I covered INNOVATE Corp. ( VATE ) more than a year ago, when it was trading just under $13. About a month before that, the FDA had approved its TGFR system, and by the time of my coverage, the stock had run up 150 percent. My rating was a Hold at that time, my reason being we were still some quarters away from the monitors being... well, monetized. In the year followi...
kgtoh/iStock via Getty Images I covered INNOVATE Corp. ( VATE ) more than a year ago, when it was trading just under $13. About a month before that, the FDA had approved its TGFR system, and by the time of my coverage, the stock had run up 150 percent. My rating was a Hold at that time, my reason being we were still some quarters away from the monitors being... well, monetized. In the year following my article, the stock dropped below $4, chiefly, I believe, due to the low visibility provided by management over that period. The FDA approval was announced in the Q4 2024 release on March 31, 2025 , along with news of China's NMPA approving the monitor and the sensor for the CKD (Chronic Kidney Disease) indication and AKI (Acute Kidney Injury). In Q1 2025 , management simply reported that it had "started the year on the front foot" and that "MediBeacon looks forward to exploring potential applications with clinicians both in the hospital and outpatient settings". Two quarters later, in Q3 2025 , management was still talking about "we continue to see positive momentum" and "MediBeacon received regulatory approval to sell the Transdermal GFR System in China". If that were the entire story, I may not have written this article, but about a week ago, readers started commenting about the stock being on fire, and it piqued my curiosity that the stock would jump to $7.77, where it stands as I write this. Why now? Were there significant catalysts in the making? The answer was in the Q4 2025 earnings call from a little over a week ago, and two things stood out for me. One was the announcement of MediBeacon's U.S. commercial roll-out to at least one COE, which is what investors have been waiting for. MediBeacon is their FDA-approved transdermal glomerular filtration rate testing device and system. The second catalyst is the DBM backlog now being reported at $1.8 billion. An associated data point was the 12.5 percent revenue increase for the quarter, on a year-on-year basis. DBM G...
A century on, T.S. Eliot’s poem The Hollow Men strikes a disturbingly ominous note: This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper. With the way things are going at present, we could be about to find out which of these endings it will be. The hope is that the Iran-centred conflagration in the Middle East will not turn into a nuclear apocalypse and that the “whimper” will be merely ...
A century on, T.S. Eliot’s poem The Hollow Men strikes a disturbingly ominous note: This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper. With the way things are going at present, we could be about to find out which of these endings it will be. The hope is that the Iran-centred conflagration in the Middle East will not turn into a nuclear apocalypse and that the “whimper” will be merely a cry from the depths of global economic recession. But either scenario is possible while the Trump...
KanawatTH/iStock via Getty Images A well-timed short squeeze significantly mitigated Q1 market declines. The S&P 500 rallied 2.9% during the quarter's final trading session, reducing Q1 losses to 4.6%. The Goldman Sachs Most Short Index surged 7.1% (ending the quarter up 6.4%). From Monday's lows to Tuesday's quarter end, the Nasdaq 100 rallied 4.0% to close Q1 down 6.0%. The MAG7 index rallied 5....
KanawatTH/iStock via Getty Images A well-timed short squeeze significantly mitigated Q1 market declines. The S&P 500 rallied 2.9% during the quarter's final trading session, reducing Q1 losses to 4.6%. The Goldman Sachs Most Short Index surged 7.1% (ending the quarter up 6.4%). From Monday's lows to Tuesday's quarter end, the Nasdaq 100 rallied 4.0% to close Q1 down 6.0%. The MAG7 index rallied 5.0% from Monday's lows to end the quarter with a 12.0% loss. The KBW Bank Index recovered 4.0% to end Q1 down 6.0%. There was notable quarter-end hedge fund performance "window dressing." March 31 - Barron's (Shaina Mishkin): "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock on Monday notched their largest one-day increases in over a decade after traders took investor Bill Ackman's advice. Ackman, founder of the hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, said… that 'some of the highest quality businesses in the world are trading at extremely cheap prices.' 'And Fannie and Freddie are stupidly cheap. Asymmetry at its best'… 'They could be a 10X and it could happen soon.' The stocks took off on Monday: Fannie Mae closed 51% higher, logging its largest one-day gain since August 2009… Freddie Mac gained 47%, its largest gain since March 2013." April 2 - Bloomberg (Nishant Kumar, Bei Hu, and David Ramli): "Some of the world's biggest hedge funds known for delivering steady returns lost money in March as the war in the Middle East roiled markets across energy, bonds and equities and forced traders to unwind crowded positions. Multistrategy hedge funds ranging from ExodusPoint Capital Management to Balyasny Asset Management, Citadel and Millennium Management posted declines, giving up all or part of their gains from the prior two months… Earlier in March, JPMorgan… strategists said hedge funds experienced their biggest drawdown since the Liberation Day tariff turmoil…" CDS prices reversed sharply lower Tuesday, with high yield CDS sinking 21 to 385 bps (ended week at 377 bps). "Squeeze" dynami...
Woodkern/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Investment Thesis Structural change within the Caterpillar ( CAT ) market is in its infancy. For over two centuries, Caterpillar was characterized as a cyclical equipment company exposed to the difficulties of construction, mining, and fluctuations in interest rates. This outdated lens is no longer useful; when investors employ it, they consistently under...
Woodkern/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Investment Thesis Structural change within the Caterpillar ( CAT ) market is in its infancy. For over two centuries, Caterpillar was characterized as a cyclical equipment company exposed to the difficulties of construction, mining, and fluctuations in interest rates. This outdated lens is no longer useful; when investors employ it, they consistently underestimate the company's earnings potential. The Power and Energy division of Caterpillar is the biggest and the quickest expanding part of its business, which delivers the large generators, turbines, and industrial power systems to the grid. Demand is driven by AI data centers' inelastic power needs, not cyclical forces. This is real and valid physical evidence. The fact that orders of mega generator sets and turbines by hyperscalers increased rapidly led to the growth of Power and Energy revenue by 23% in the fourth quarter of 2025, and power generation sales increased by 44% . In 2025, the company recorded the highest power generation sales, with year-over-year growth of over 30% . A two-gigawatt order of a generator set to power a compute campus in Mason County, West Virginia, resulted in one of the largest power solution contracts in the 100-year history of the company . Based on quarterly earnings, Caterpillar is projected to record its highest-ever full-year adjusted EPS of $19.06 and operating cash flow of $11.7 billion in 2025 . Revenue visibility of the company is also unparalleled, as it has witnessed its highest backlogs of $51 billion, which has increased by 71% annually, and it is expected to increase to 62% in the near future. The premium multiple of Caterpillar as viewed by the market has been a partial evaluation of 15x cyclical P/E. Our target price of non-GAAP EPS is $880 in 2027 in light of our backlogs to revenue and accelerating Power & Energy mix. The multiple of AI infrastructure is lower than its present position of 31x and in an unfavorable position ...