adventtr/iStock via Getty Images The stagflation narrative dominating financial social media isn’t completely wrong. That’s what makes it so dangerous. After more than 30 years of managing client portfolios through actual inflationary cycles, not watching them on YouTube, I’ve learned that the most damaging investment advice isn’t built on outright lies. It’s built on partial truths, stretched pas...
adventtr/iStock via Getty Images The stagflation narrative dominating financial social media isn’t completely wrong. That’s what makes it so dangerous. After more than 30 years of managing client portfolios through actual inflationary cycles, not watching them on YouTube, I’ve learned that the most damaging investment advice isn’t built on outright lies. It’s built on partial truths, stretched past the point where the data still holds. (If you haven’t read Commodity Supercycle: The Enemy Of The Bull Thesis (Part 1) , it is an important primer to today’s discussion.) Let’s dig in. The doomers have legitimate inputs. Supply chains are genuinely under pressure, and the dollar currently faces real structural headwinds. Central banks have been buying gold at a historic pace. Equity valuations in certain segments are stretched, and every one of those observations is defensible. However, the leap from those observations to “sell everything, go all-in on commodities, bonds are dead forever, the great reset is here” is where the analysis ends and the storytelling begins. I want to do two things here. First, I’ll score the stagflation narrative claim-by-claim. We will give credit where it’s earned and expose where the logic collapses. I’ll lay out what a sound investment framework actually looks like when the data, not the narrative, drives the decision. Moreover, why the boom-bust nature of commodity markets and the AI-driven capex cycle both fundamentally change where allocations belong. The Stagflation Narrative Spreading Across Social Media Spend an hour on X, and you’ll encounter some version of the same script. The Federal Reserve has destroyed the currency. The 1970s are back, only worse. Commodities are going to surge for the next decade. Gold is the only real money. Bonds are a guaranteed way to lose purchasing power. Anyone still holding a diversified portfolio is either naive or not paying attention. The 1970s comparison is the narrative’s analytical spine. Commodi...
Suriphon Singha/iStock via Getty Images Dynatrace ( DT ) recently reported its Q4 numbers, which weren’t disastrous, yet the market is pricing it like it’s going out of fashion. I wanted to go over the numbers in more detail and why I think the reaction is too extreme. By the numbers Revenues for the quarter came in at around $531.7m, up 19.4% y/y, which beat estimates by around $10.5m. Most of th...
Suriphon Singha/iStock via Getty Images Dynatrace ( DT ) recently reported its Q4 numbers, which weren’t disastrous, yet the market is pricing it like it’s going out of fashion. I wanted to go over the numbers in more detail and why I think the reaction is too extreme. By the numbers Revenues for the quarter came in at around $531.7m, up 19.4% y/y, which beat estimates by around $10.5m. Most of these revenues come from the services segment, so there is no point breaking it down further. A key performance metric for a software subscription business is Annual Recurring Revenue, or ARR, which grew around 18% y/y to $2.054B. Subscription revenues account for 95% of total revenues, which will continue to increase. This is the path that all software companies are heading down. On to the company’s efficiency and profitability, Q4 non-GAAP EPS came in at $0.41, beating estimates by 2 cents. Non-GAAP operating margin increased 100bps to 27%. On a GAAP basis, the operating margin actually contracted 300bps to 7%, and net income declined 55% to $17.4m, giving DT a net margin of 3.2%. Now, on to the company’s financial position, DT finished the year with around $1.1B in cash and equivalents, as well as $75m in marketable securities, so a decent chunk of change, against no debt on the balance sheet, apart from some operating lease liabilities. Great position to be in. Its cash flow statement shows us that DT is still very efficient at generating cash flow. Q4 cash from operations increased by 39%, while for the full year it increased by 22%. Free cash flow margin for Q4 increased by a whopping 700bps to 40%, while for the full year it increased by 100bps to 26%. Still a very good result. So, there is nothing to worry about in terms of the company’s financial health. It’s not leveraged, and it makes a boatload of cash, which will support its growth story and even help it weather any further downturns. The company’s asset-light model allows it to turn that cash from operations int...
According to a recent SEC filing , ShoreHaven Wealth Partners, LLC established a new position in the iShares International Country Rotation Active ETF (NASDAQ:CORO) , acquiring 313,988 shares during the first quarter of 2026. The estimated transaction value was $10.3 million, based on the quarter’s average closing share price. As of March 31, 2026, the position was valued at $10.1 million. The iSh...
According to a recent SEC filing , ShoreHaven Wealth Partners, LLC established a new position in the iShares International Country Rotation Active ETF (NASDAQ:CORO) , acquiring 313,988 shares during the first quarter of 2026. The estimated transaction value was $10.3 million, based on the quarter’s average closing share price. As of March 31, 2026, the position was valued at $10.1 million. The iShares International Country Rotation Active ETF (CORO) is an actively managed fund from BlackRock that rotates allocations among international equity markets based on BlackRock's proprietary research and quantitative models. The fund targets institutional and retail investors seeking diversified global exposure through a systematic, country-level selection process. ShoreHaven's decision to open a new 3.6% position in CORO is a meaningful signal -- not just because of its size, but because of what it says about the firm's broader strategy. ShoreHaven's portfolio is already heavily weighted toward U.S. equity and fixed income ETFs. Adding CORO suggests the firm is deliberately building out its international exposure, and doing so through an active rather than passive vehicle. Continue reading
Editor's note: Seeking Alpha is proud to welcome Wail Shudar as a new contributing analyst. You can become one too! Share your best investment idea by submitting your article for review to our editors. Get published, earn money, and unlock exclusive SA Premium access. Click here to find out more » Sundry Photography/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Investment Thesis Investors used to ignore Qorvo...
Editor's note: Seeking Alpha is proud to welcome Wail Shudar as a new contributing analyst. You can become one too! Share your best investment idea by submitting your article for review to our editors. Get published, earn money, and unlock exclusive SA Premium access. Click here to find out more » Sundry Photography/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Investment Thesis Investors used to ignore Qorvo, Inc. ( QRVO ), at their peril. Qorvo was once effectively written off as a casualty of the worst downturns in the semiconductor cycle. This caused it to fall from glory in FY2023, with gross margin collapsing to 36.3% on revenue decline greater than 23% to $3.57 billion and debt use climbing over 2x EBITDA, as Apple and Android handset makers had stockpiled over-ordered RF components from their COVID-led demand spike and proceeded to use those inventory holdings for the next year instead of issuing new orders. As Qorvo's own fabs are optimized for high utilization, those fabs saw the de-leveraging of their costs fully fall upon them. As such, the stock's price has never returned to its highs. It is a new age. The RF inventory cycle normalized. Gross margin levels are up and have already surpassed the level that was expected for FY2028. Cash flows paid the debt off in full ahead of schedule, with the company having $1.2 billion net cash. High performance analog (HPA) will see rising revenue as the trend towards higher military/defense spending is sustained, 5G RF content per device is continuing to expand, and Qorvo has reduced its costs via the consolidation of its fabs following the merger. This is well-documented in the last six earnings reports. I still see this stock as underowned and underpriced. Company Overview Qorvo, one of three leading RF chipmakers in the industry (along with Skyworks and Murata), was created in 2015 through the acquisition of RF Micro Devices and TriQuint Semiconductor. Qorvo's operations are organized into three business segments. The biggest...
laddawan punna/iStock via Getty Images Portfolio Manager Christopher Smith “Speed is a competitive advantage. ...We don’t wait for perfect clarity. We prefer doing and iterating to debating endlessly. ... If you’re wrong, you’ll fix it faster than your competitors finish arguing about it.” —Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe Stripe has built one of the most effective operating cultures...
laddawan punna/iStock via Getty Images Portfolio Manager Christopher Smith “Speed is a competitive advantage. ...We don’t wait for perfect clarity. We prefer doing and iterating to debating endlessly. ... If you’re wrong, you’ll fix it faster than your competitors finish arguing about it.” —Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe Stripe has built one of the most effective operating cultures in modern technology. In a business where the landscape shifts quickly and competition is relentless, the company has consistently prioritized speed, iteration and pragmatism over rigid planning. That orientation has allowed it to compound into a critical piece of global financial infrastructure. We think this quality of adaptiveness and flexibility is particularly relevant to today’s volatile environment. Performance Review For Q1, the portfolio returned -3.76% versus -4.33% for the S&P 500® Index, outperforming by 58bps. Exhibit 1: Investment Results As of 31 Mar 2026 Q1 2026 Annualized(since inception) Cumulative(since inception) Artisan Focus Fund (Investor Class) -3.76% 16.73% 298.34% S&P 500® Index -4.33% 13.86% 218.97% Alpha (percentage points) 0.58 2.87 79.37 S&P 500® Equal Weight Index 0.67% 10.80% 150.11% Alpha (percentage points) -4.42 5.93 148.24 Click to enlarge Source: Antero Peak Group/S&P. As of 31 Mar 2026. Past performance does not guarantee and is not a reliable indicator of future results. Investment returns and principal values will fluctuate so that an investor's shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance may be lower or higher than that shown. Call 800.344.1770 for current to most recent month-end performance. Returns greater than one year are annualized unless otherwise noted. Fund inception: 24 Apr 2017. The underlying market environment was notably complex in Q1, with two forces dominating the narrative. First, artificial intelligence (AI) continued to pressure the perceived long-term economics a...
akinbostanci/E+ via Getty Images In my opinion, the market does not value Zeta Global Holdings Corp. ( ZETA ) properly anymore. The market still perceives ZETA within the framework of advertising technology instability, negative short-seller sentiments, and historical marketing solutions. Nevertheless, analyzing Q1 2026 data, I believe that ZETA is moving in a completely new direction, which will ...
akinbostanci/E+ via Getty Images In my opinion, the market does not value Zeta Global Holdings Corp. ( ZETA ) properly anymore. The market still perceives ZETA within the framework of advertising technology instability, negative short-seller sentiments, and historical marketing solutions. Nevertheless, analyzing Q1 2026 data, I believe that ZETA is moving in a completely new direction, which will turn it into an AI marketing platform. Athena Is Starting To Separate Zeta From Legacy Marketing Clouds In my opinion, the key thing that investors should be focusing on in Q1 2026 is the progress that Athena is making towards establishing ZETA as a company with a native AI layer for enterprise marketing execution. Athena is what boosted my bullish view the most. Within a week of launch, Athena created 7x as many agentic exchanges and made up 60% of all platform AI activity. This rate of adoption implies that users are quickly adopting Zeta into their processes as companies continue to unify fragmented marketing ecosystems into a single AI-powered system. For many years, enterprise marketing clouds have been dominated by big players such as Adobe, Salesforce, and Oracle due to their ecosystem depth and strong positioning within this market segment. However, the challenge for many of these products lies in the fact that they usually require a huge number of acquisitions and integrations, which are achieved after many years of work on them. On the other hand, ZETA's approach stands out entirely in comparison to other providers. Rather than connecting already existing elements of the marketing technology stack, they were created by Zeta itself. The good news is that Athena appears to accelerate differentiation in this regard. Management mentioned several large deals that were directly influenced by the new product release. For example, a major win of a global apparel retailer consolidating four marketing platforms into one of ZETA's solutions would not happen in the absence of...
Containers at the Port of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photo: VCG Brazil has reinstated a tax exemption for imported goods worth $50 or less, giving Chinese cross-border e-commerce sellers a lift as other markets such as the U.S. and Europe tighten restrictions on low-value parcels from China. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed an executive order Tuesday removing federal import taxes on low-val...
Containers at the Port of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photo: VCG Brazil has reinstated a tax exemption for imported goods worth $50 or less, giving Chinese cross-border e-commerce sellers a lift as other markets such as the U.S. and Europe tighten restrictions on low-value parcels from China. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed an executive order Tuesday removing federal import taxes on low-value parcels, reversing a policy introduced less than two years ago that had sharply raised costs for overseas online purchases.
India’s consumers — hit with the first fuel price hike in four years — will likely face more such rises in the near term, as the government grapples with the economic impact of a months-long conflict in the Persian Gulf. After weeks of speculation, India’s state-owned refiners finally announced an increase in diesel and gasoline prices on Friday — though only by 3 rupees (a little over 3 US cents)...
India’s consumers — hit with the first fuel price hike in four years — will likely face more such rises in the near term, as the government grapples with the economic impact of a months-long conflict in the Persian Gulf. After weeks of speculation, India’s state-owned refiners finally announced an increase in diesel and gasoline prices on Friday — though only by 3 rupees (a little over 3 US cents) a liter, a level too modest to offset oil prices above $100 a barrel or to curb demand. Further hikes will be allowed in order to close that gap, but they will be spread over time in order to limit the impact for ordinary households, according to people familiar with the matter. A further 2-4 rupee increase is expected soon if crude prices remain high, they added, asking not to be named as they are not authorized to speak with the media. State-owned refiners have indicated they would need add closer to 15 to 20 rupees a liter in order to cope with the current crisis. India’s oil ministry didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. “This is a conundrum several governments around the world are facing,” Vandana Hari, founder of analysis firm Vanda Insights said. “It’s time to tighten our belts. More fuel price hikes will need to come if the situation doesn’t ease soon.” Read More: India Hikes Fuel Prices For The First Time in Four Years State fuel retailers in India control 90% of the country’s outlets, and are on paper free to set rates. Yet government is a majority shareholder in these large refiners, and has kept pump prices frozen since March 2024 — choosing to shield households at the cost of squeezing refiners’ margins. Oil Minister Hardeep Puri said earlier this week that state refiners were losing 10 billion rupees a day by selling fuels below market prices. Even after the price hike, the companies are still losing half of that sum on sales of diesel, gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas, said Prashant Vasisht, senior vice president with rating agency ICRA Ltd....
Investors shed government bonds around the world, propelling borrowing costs to multi-year highs from Japan to the US amid intensifying fears that war-driven inflation will force central banks to pursue higher interest rates. Inflation is the overwhelming risk facing the economy, Fed Governor Michael Barr said on Thursday. The comments followed data this week that showed producer costs acceleratin...
Investors shed government bonds around the world, propelling borrowing costs to multi-year highs from Japan to the US amid intensifying fears that war-driven inflation will force central banks to pursue higher interest rates. Inflation is the overwhelming risk facing the economy, Fed Governor Michael Barr said on Thursday. The comments followed data this week that showed producer costs accelerating at the fastest pace since 2022. Traders are pricing in an almost two-thirds chance the Fed will hike interest rates in December, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Opening Trade has everything you need to know as markets open across Europe. With analysis you won't find anywhere else, we break down the biggest stories of the day and speak to top guests who have skin in the game. Hosted by Anna Edwards, Guy Johnson and Tom Mackenzie. (Source: Bloomberg)