The Future Investors

📦 Unpacked #15: Intuitive Surgical

The Future Investors — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:03:06 GMT

Welcome to the 15th edition of Unpacked, our monthly series where we take a deep dive into a company. This time, we’re taking a closer look at Intuitive Surgical — the global leader in robotic-assisted surgery, transforming surgery through advanced robotic systems, software, and data-driven innovation.

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We break down its story, business model, and highlight the latest developments.

Additionally, we do a detailed fundamental analysis, diving into the company’s management, market, financials, and growth estimates. We score each area separately, leading to a final score between 0 and 100. This score reflects how fundamentally attractive we believe the company is as an investment, ranging from:

🔴 Below 50 → Uninvestable
🟠 50 - 59 → Questionable
🟡 60 - 69 → Reasonable
🟢 70 - 79 → Quality
🔵 80 - 89 → High-Quality
🟣 90 or above → Exceptional

The goal? To give you a full deep dive into this company, as a complement to your own research, so you can decide if it’s the right investment for you.

In case you missed it, here you can read the previous editions of Unpacked:

Now let’s unpack the fundamentals of Intuitive Surgical and see how we score it!

History and Business Model

Intuitive Surgical was founded in 1995 by Frederic Moll, John Freund, and Robert Younge, with the idea of using robotics to make surgery less invasive and more precise.

The technology behind the company came from early research into robotic surgery. Intuitive saw the opportunity to turn this technology into a system that could be used in hospitals around the world. This led to the creation of the da Vinci Surgical System.

The first da Vinci system was launched in Europe in 1999, followed by FDA clearance in the United States in 2000. That same year, Intuitive Surgical went public on the Nasdaq under the ticker ISRG.

One of the first important uses for da Vinci was urology, especially prostate surgery. As more surgeons and hospitals started using the system, Intuitive expanded into other areas of surgery and improved its technology.

In 2006, the company launched its second-generation da Vinci S, followed by the third-generation da Vinci Si. From 2014, Intuitive introduced its fourth-generation systems, including da Vinci X, Xi, and SP. Each new generation made the technology better and allowed surgeons to use da Vinci for a wider range of procedures.

Intuitive later expanded beyond traditional surgery. In 2019, it launched Ion in the United States, a robotic-assisted bronchoscopy platform that helps physicians reach and biopsy small nodules deep inside the lungs, with the goal of helping detect lung cancer earlier.

The latest major step came with da Vinci 5, launched in the United States in 2024 and Europe in 2025. Intuitive’s fifth-generation platform offers better ergonomics and more than 10,000x the computing power of da Vinci Xi, creating a new foundation for the future of robotic-assisted surgery.

Source: Intuitive Surgical, company history and product information

Over the past three decades, Intuitive has grown from a pioneer in robotic surgery into the global leader in robotic-assisted minimally invasive care, with its technology now used by hospitals and surgeons around the world.

Its mission is:

“We believe that minimally invasive care is life-enhancing care. Through ingenuity and intelligent technology, we expand the potential of physicians to heal without constraints.”

Business Model Explained

Intuitive Surgical has built an ecosystem around robotic-assisted minimally invasive care. Its technology helps physicians perform procedures with more precision and control, often using smaller incisions than traditional open surgery.

At the center of this ecosystem are two robotic platforms:

🤖 1. da Vinci
Da Vinci is Intuitive’s core platform and is used for robotic-assisted surgery. Surgeons control the system from a console and use robotic instruments to make precise movements while seeing the surgical area in a detailed 3D view. Da Vinci is used in areas such as urology, gynecology, general surgery, and thoracic surgery.

🫁 2. Ion
Ion expands Intuitive beyond surgery into robotic-assisted bronchoscopy. It helps physicians navigate deep into the lungs and take tissue samples from small nodules that can be difficult to reach. These samples can then be tested for diseases such as lung cancer.

Around da Vinci and Ion, Intuitive has built a broader ecosystem of instruments, accessories, training, services, and digital solutions. Tools such as My Intuitive, Intuitive Hub, and SimNow help surgeons and hospitals with training, procedure data, and insights.

How Intuitive Surgical Makes Money 💰
Intuitive earns its revenue from:

🩺 Instruments and accessories used during procedures
🤖 Sales and leases of da Vinci and Ion systems
🔧 Service and support for installed systems

What makes the business model attractive is that selling a system is only the beginning. Each installed system can generate recurring revenue for years as more procedures are performed and hospitals keep buying instruments, accessories, and services.

This creates a powerful cycle: more systems → more procedures → more recurring revenue.

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Revenue Breakdown

On July 16, 2026, Intuitive Surgical reported its second quarter 2026 results. Total revenue reached $2.89 billion (+19% YoY), supported by higher procedure volumes, system leasing revenue, and a larger installed base of da Vinci and Ion systems.

🩺 Instruments & Accessories – $1.73 billion (60%)
Intuitive’s largest source of revenue. These are the instruments and accessories used during da Vinci and Ion procedures. Revenue increased 18% YoY, with da Vinci procedures growing 15% and Ion procedures 36%.

🤖 Systems – $685 million (24%)
Revenue from da Vinci and Ion systems. Intuitive placed 468 da Vinci systems during the quarter, including 246 da Vinci 5 systems, as well as 55 Ion systems.

🔧 Services – $472 million (16%)
Revenue from service and support for Intuitive’s growing installed base of systems.

The revenue mix shows the strength of Intuitive's business model: around 76% of Q2 revenue came from instruments, accessories, and services, giving Intuitive a large recurring revenue base that grows as its installed base and procedure volumes increase.

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Recent Developments

Intuitive Surgical is entering a new phase. The company has new leadership, is bringing da Vinci 5 to more markets, expanding into more procedures, and investing more in software, AI, and digital technology.

Here are the key developments:

1️⃣ Dave Rosa Becomes CEO
In July 2025, Dave Rosa became CEO of Intuitive Surgical, replacing Gary Guthart after 15 years as CEO. Guthart remained with the company as Executive Chairman.

Rosa had already served as President since 2023 and has been with Intuitive since 1996. Before becoming CEO, he oversaw areas including product, digital, manufacturing, and commercial operations.

2️⃣ Da Vinci 5 Expands Globally
After launching in the U.S. in 2024, Intuitive started bringing da Vinci 5 to more international markets. The system received regulatory clearance in Japan in June 2025 and CE marking in Europe in July 2025.

Da Vinci 5 is Intuitive’s most advanced system, with more than 150 improvements and over 10,000x the computing power of da Vinci Xi.

Source: Intuitive Surgical – Da Vinci 5 product page

3️⃣ More Procedures Added to da Vinci
Intuitive continues to expand what surgeons can do with its systems. During 2025, da Vinci SP received new FDA clearances for areas including colorectal surgery, hernia repair, gallbladder removal, and appendectomy. In January 2026, da Vinci 5 was also cleared for cardiac procedures, opening another important area for the platform.

4️⃣ AI & Telesurgery
AI is becoming a bigger part of Intuitive’s strategy. In July 2026, the company introduced a five-layer AI framework, moving from surgical data and insights toward real-time guidance, augmented dexterity, and eventually supervised autonomy. The strategy builds on data from more than 20 million da Vinci procedures.

Intuitive is also advancing telesurgery. After demonstrating transatlantic telesurgery in 2025, the company conducted another live demonstration in July 2026 using da Vinci 5, Force Feedback, and shared control between surgeons in California and Georgia. The technology is still in development and not yet commercially available.

Source: Intuitive Surgical – Vision for an AI-Enabled Future of Healthcare

5️⃣ Expanding Directly in Europe
In March 2026, Intuitive completed acquisitions of several European distribution businesses, expanding its direct presence in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malta, and San Marino. This allows Intuitive to work more directly with hospitals and surgeons in these markets instead of relying on distributors.

6️⃣ Building a Larger Intuitive Ecosystem
Intuitive continues to expand beyond its robotic systems. In May 2026, the company announced new da Vinci 5 features, telecollaboration capabilities, Force Feedback instruments, and other improvements. The company is building a broader ecosystem around robotics, instruments, software, data, training, and AI, making its platforms more useful over time.

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Fundamental Analysis

Now it’s time for the fundamental analysis of Intuitive Surgical.

In this section, we evaluate three key areas: management, market, and financials & growth estimates. Each area contains multiple elements and each element is scored individually, leading to a final score between 0 and 100.

Final Scoring

This score reflects how fundamentally attractive we believe Intuitive Surgical is as an investment, ranging from:

🔴 Below 50 → Uninvestable
🟠 50 - 59 → Questionable
🟡 60 - 69 → Reasonable
🟢 70 - 79 → Quality
🔵 80 - 89 → High-Quality
🟣 90 or above → Exceptional

Unlock our scoring framework and full fundamental analysis below, and see how we score Intuitive Surgical on a scale from 0 to 100 — exclusively available to our paid members! ✨

First, let’s walk through our scoring framework 📊👇

🗣️ Investor Talk #61: Brandon

The Future Investors — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 09:59:32 GMT

Welcome to Investor Talk — where we interview successful investors to uncover their journeys, strategies, and the lessons they've learned. Get inspired by real stories and gain valuable insights to sharpen your own investment approach.

Every interview follows the same set of sharp, insightful questions — such as “What is your investment strategy?”, “What are your highest conviction stocks?”, and “If you could give one piece of advice to investors, what would it be?”

✨ All Investor Talk editions are now unlocked 🔓 and free to read for everyone. Dive in, get inspired, and take your investing to the next level 🚀

👉 Check out all previous Investor Talks here
Including interviews with Brian Feroldi (Founder of Long Term Mindset), Shay Baloor (Chief Marketing Strategist of Futurum Equities) and Gav Blaxberg (CEO of WOLF Financial).

In this edition, we have the pleasure of interviewing:

Name: Brandon @Invest_Brandon
Age: 33
Residence/Country: Las Vegas, Nevada
Invests since: 2014

Introduction
To break the ice, I didn’t stumble into the stock market. I studied it professionally, became obsessed with it, and dug deep into what actually makes money in the market. The hard truth is that it’s not what 95% of retail and professional investors are doing.

More than 90% of investors fail to outperform the S&P 500. That statistic should make everyone stop and think. We’re all here to make money, so why do so many people do so badly?

Many are trying to get rich overnight. Many don’t know what they own or why they own it. Many are only positioned to win when the market goes up, but when it dips, their portfolios suffer. Others use option strategies that cap their upside or fall into the cash flow trap at the cost of long-term appreciation.

The biggest problem is that many investors simply have no plan or system. They don’t know how to build a portfolio that works across different market environments while benefiting from both cash flow and long-term appreciation.

What is your investment strategy?
My investment strategy is very simple. It’s very boring. But I’ve used this framework to outperform the S&P 500 over the last decade.

I start at the 40,000-foot level and understand the macro: the economy, S&P 500 valuations, interest rates, and EPS growth. I then take that level of conviction and allocate my portfolio.

Around 75% of my portfolio is invested in broad market ETFs like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. That’s my compounding base, and I never touch it. The other 25% goes into elite companies trading at good valuations with solid EPS growth. To have a great investment, you need both a great company and a good price.

The final layer is options. So many people do options wrong. Options are leverage. They are a way to make a bet on a very compelling setup. If you don’t have a compelling setup, don’t use them.

When I buy options, I always choose expirations at least one year out. Nobody knows what stocks will do in the short term, but in the long run, stocks follow earnings. If you buy a great company with good EPS growth at a good valuation and give your thesis enough time to play out, you can be surprisingly consistent.

My approach is simple: if I’m bullish, I buy shares. If I’m super bullish, I sell portfolio-secured puts. If I’m super, super bullish, I buy LEAPS.

The strategy people ask me about most is the portfolio-secured put. It’s like a cash-secured put, but without cash sitting there doing nothing. My portfolio secures the trade instead, allowing me to participate in the market’s upside while avoiding the cash drag of a traditional cash-secured put. As long as my ratios are in check, I’m not even close to a margin call.

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How many stocks are currently held in your portfolio?
A few ETFs and a handful of individual names. When the market is cheaper and more compelling, I often own more individual companies. When it's more overvalued and less advantageous, I own fewer individual companies and build my bond allocation. It's all about allocating based on how compelling the setups and the macro environment are.

Which sectors do you mainly focus on?
It's all about where the compelling opportunities are in areas I understand. Right now, I see opportunities in the Magnificent 7, AI picks-and-shovels plays, and banks too.

What are your 3 highest conviction stocks?
$TSM - TSMC
$NVDA - NVIDIA
$META - Meta

All three pass my test of being great companies at good prices, with strong moats, pricing power, durable competitive advantages, and valuations at or below intrinsic value.

What is the stock in your portfolio with the highest return?
$TSLA - Tesla, up 154% (it’s a small-ish position now).

My CAGR over the last decade beats both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq by a wide margin. That’s the key thing to judge on, in my opinion.

What is the biggest investing mistake you have made?
Confusing activity with progress. Early on, I chased short-dated options and momentum plays because they felt like more work, and I thought more trades meant more money. The market rewards patience and discipline, not making 18 trades a day like most people.

Everything changed when I stopped gambling and started following Buffett’s approach of buying great companies when they are on sale. Adding long-duration options and portfolio-secured puts to magnify ultra-compelling setups has been the game changer, combining long-term appreciation with cash flow.

If you could give one piece of advice to investors, what would it be?
The few investors who consistently beat the market over the long run don’t use the strategies most people are likely using. They buy great companies at good prices and only use options to magnify ultra-compelling setups, while always keeping their ratios in check to withstand deep market crashes.

That’s how I’m always allocated. It’s boring... but we’re all here to make money, right?

Brandon’s Favorites

📖 Favorite book: Richer, Wiser, Happier by William Green @WilliamGreen72

🎧 Favorite podcast: The All-In Podcast @theallinpod

💬 Favorite quote: "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient." – Warren Buffett

👤 Favorite FinX account: Investing With Brandon @Invest_Brandon

Where can we find more info about you?
X: @Invest_Brandon
YouTube: @InvestingWithBrandon
Training & Discord: https://investingwithbrandon.co/invest

That’s a wrap!
Want more real-world investing insights? 👉 Browse all Investor Talks here

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Thank you for reading! 🙏
We put a lot of love into creating this post for you. If you enjoyed it, feel free to click the ❤️ button so more people can discover it on Substack or hit the ↪️ share button to share it with friends, family, and fellow investors!

Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments — we’d love to hear from you 💬

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That’s it for today.
We’ll see you again in the next edition of our newsletter!

Until then, invest wisely.

Vincent & Stefan
The Future Investors

Disclaimer:
The information and opinions provided in this article are for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any financial product, security, or asset. The Future Investors does not provide personalized investment advice and is not a licensed financial advisor. Always do your own research before making any investment decisions and consult with a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions. Please consult the general disclaimer for more details.

🎯 Best Buys - August 2026

The Future Investors — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:07:29 GMT

Hey Investors,

Our Best Buys for August are here 🎯

Each month, we look for great companies trading at attractive valuations and highlight three stocks that currently stand out to us.

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Since December 2024, we’ve shared 60 Best Buys with our paid members.

Our Best Buys have delivered an average return of 20.3% so far. Several picks have delivered triple-digit returns 🔥

🚀 AMD: picked at $97.35, now +398%
🚀 ASML: picked at $662.63, now +148%
🚀 Alphabet: picked at $168.95, now +121%

We focus on high-quality businesses with strong fundamentals trading at attractive valuations. As Warren Buffett famously said:

“It’s better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”

Learn more about how we score stocks on fundamentals in our Fundamental Scoring Framework article.

To keep looking for the best opportunities, we don't pick the same Best Buy two months in a row.

Now let’s dive into our Top 3 Best Buys for August ✨👇

Disclaimer:
The information and opinions provided in this article are for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered as investment advice. Please consult the general disclaimer for more details.

#3: SK hynix (FRA: HY9H)

Our first Best Buy for August is SK hynix. It's the first time we've included the company in our Best Buys list.

The stock has fallen sharply over the past month and now trades around 45% below the all-time high it reached in June. We believe this has created an attractive buying opportunity.

AI needs more and more high-bandwidth memory (HBM), yet many investors still value memory as a cyclical business. We believe that’s exactly why SK hynix trades at such an attractive valuation.

What Happened?

2026 has been an exceptional year for SK hynix. The stock gained more than 440% before sentiment turned after its record high in June.

Another important milestone was SK hynix’s Nasdaq listing under the ticker SKHY, giving U.S. investors easier access to the stock.

There were several reasons behind the sell-off. Investors became more cautious on AI stocks, and heavy leverage in the Korean market led to margin calls, putting extra pressure on one of the market’s biggest winners: SK hynix.

The company’s Q2 2026 results also fell short of very high expectations. Revenue of $54.6 billion missed the $57.7 billion analysts had expected. That may sound disappointing, but the underlying numbers tell a very different story. Revenue still grew 257% YoY and 51% QoQ. Gross margin reached a record 83%, while operating margin hit an incredible 76%. Read those numbers again.

CEO Kwak Noh-Jung also expects demand for HBM to exceed the company’s production capacity well beyond 2030. That's also why SK hynix is investing billions to expand its HBM production capacity around the world.

Source: SK hynix Newsroom

Memory is still a cyclical business, and another downcycle will eventually come. We believe the global AI buildout will extend this cycle far longer than the market expects.

Why SK hynix Looks Attractive Now

For many years, SK hynix was a highly cyclical business with low margins. We believe that has changed. Our fundamental scoring model gives the company a score of 79, placing it in the 🟢 Quality category and close to 🔵 High Quality.

The valuation depends on which listing you buy. SKHY on the Nasdaq trades at a 30% premium to HY9H in Frankfurt. We prefer the Frankfurt listing and expect that gap to narrow over time. The Frankfurt shares trade at 15.0x trailing earnings, but the forward P/E falls to just 5.8x by the end of this year and 3.6x by the end of 2027.

We believe those are exceptionally low valuations for a company at the center of the AI buildout. That's why Vincent increased his SK hynix position last week.

Only Vincent currently holds a position in SK hynix.

Fundamental Score: 79 🟢 → Quality
Current Stock Price: €970.00

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The next two? Two high-quality businesses playing a key role in the future of AI, both trading at attractive valuations.

🤖 One is using AI to unlock its next wave of growth.
🛠️ The other develops technology the entire semiconductor industry depends on.

Ready to discover our #1 and #2 Best Buys?
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📈 Portfolio Update – July 2026

The Future Investors — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 13:26:29 GMT

July was a volatile month for most investors as markets became more uncertain 📉

In this recap, we look at how the major indexes performed, how our portfolios compared, which stocks were the biggest winners and weakest performers, and the changes we made during July.

Dive into our full July Recap below 👇

📢 Next week, we'll reveal our Best Buys for August — don't miss it 🎯

What Moved the Markets in July

July was a very volatile month for investors. The conflict between the U.S. and Iran was still making headlines, but most attention shifted to earnings season and the latest AI developments. The Nasdaq posted its weakest July in 22 years.

Companies announced a number of major AI infrastructure investments. TeraWulf signed a 20-year, 401 MW lease with Anthropic worth around $19 billion. Core Scientific secured AMD as a customer in a 15-year agreement that could generate more than $14 billion in revenue. Micron also increased its U.S. investment plans to $250 billion by 2035.

Meta launched Muse Image, its first AI image generation model. Reports also suggested the company is considering launching a cloud computing business to compete with AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, but Meta has not confirmed those plans.

Nvidia, Microsoft and more than 20 other technology companies signed a letter supporting open-source AI models. Chinese startup Moonshot AI unveiled Kimi K3, saying its latest model can match OpenAI and Anthropic while using fewer advanced AI chips. That led to a sell-off in AI and semiconductor stocks. Reports that China had developed its first domestic DUV lithography machine added more pressure on ASML and other chipmakers.

SK hynix completed its Nasdaq listing, and Chinese memory maker CXMT debuted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The shares opened roughly 470% higher, making CXMT the largest listed company in mainland China. The South Korean index (KOSPI) also came under heavy pressure after margin calls forced many leveraged investors to sell. Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund, Situational Awareness, sold most of its public stock portfolio to Citadel after heavy losses triggered margin calls.

Earnings season has been mixed so far. Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon all reported excellent results, driven by strong cloud growth. Google Cloud grew 82%, Azure 43% and AWS 37%. SK hynix and Samsung reported another strong quarter thanks to booming demand for HBM memory, but revenue came in slightly below analysts’ expectations. Meta reported another strong quarter, but higher AI spending and capital expenditure guidance overshadowed the results. Apple also declined after its quarterly results.

Robotaxis continued expanding across the U.S. Tesla launched its Robotaxi service in Miami and announced future launches in Orlando and Tampa. Waymo entered Las Vegas and announced launches in Denver, San Diego and Tampa. Reports also suggested Waymo may end its partnership with Uber in Austin and Atlanta after 2028. Amazon’s Zoox became the first company to receive approval for a paid robotaxi service without a steering wheel.

July also brought other important business news. Uber agreed to acquire Delivery Hero for €12.5 billion, while Tempus AI acquired Personalis for $1.5 billion. Novo Nordisk received EU approval for the first oral version of Wegovy. Klarna applied for a U.S. banking license, while Nubank Mexico received approval to operate as a bank.

How did the markets perform in July? Here's how the three major indexes ended the month:

S&P 500: -0.1% 📉 (+9.4% YTD)
Nasdaq: -3.2% 📉 (+9.2% YTD)
Dow Jones: +0.3% 📈 (+9.2% YTD)

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Portfolio Performance: How Did We Do?

How did our portfolios perform in July?

We compare our returns with the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones, take a closer look at our best and worst-performing stocks, and share every change we made to our portfolios.

Dive into the full recap below 👇
Available exclusively for our paid subscribers ✨

🎯 The AI 20: The Titans (5-1)

The Future Investors — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:17:28 GMT

AI is creating one of the greatest investment opportunities of our generation. But not every company will emerge as a long-term winner. Some will define the AI era. Others will be left behind.

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That’s why we created The AI 20: our ranking of the 20 stocks we believe are best positioned for the AI era.

Not based on hype, but on long-term fundamentals, competitive advantages, innovation, execution, and value creation.

The series is divided into four chapters:

🔴 The Challengers (20–16)
🟢 The Innovators (15–11)
🔵 The Leaders (10–6)
🟡 The Titans (5–1)

Last week, we revealed The Challengers (20–16), The Innovators (15–11), and The Leaders (10–6).

Today, we conclude The AI 20 with The Titans: five companies we believe are defining the AI era.

Time to reveal The Titans (5–1) ✨👇

#5: Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)

Businesses around the world use Microsoft products every day. From Microsoft 365 and Teams to GitHub, Dynamics, and Azure, the company is part of the daily workflow of organizations around the world.

Microsoft is now adding AI across this entire ecosystem. Copilot helps employees write documents, analyze data, build software, and automate repetitive work. Azure gives businesses the computing power and AI tools they need to build, train, and run AI applications. More companies are choosing Azure as the foundation for their AI applications.

Source: ScholarHat – Microsoft's AI Ecosystem

Microsoft is also investing billions of dollars in AI infrastructure. The company is expanding AI data centers, developing its own Maia AI chips and Cobalt CPUs, and giving businesses access to leading AI models through Azure AI Foundry.

Few companies can bring AI to as many businesses as Microsoft. With one of the world’s largest enterprise software ecosystems and a leading cloud platform, we believe Microsoft is one of the companies defining the AI era.

The Future Investors (Vincent & Stefan) currently hold a position in Microsoft.

Fundamental Score: 80 🔵 → High-Quality

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This is just the first Titan. The next four each help define the future of AI 🤖

Ready to discover the companies ranked #4 to #1 in The AI 20?
Become a paid member to unlock the full chapter 🔓✨

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🎯 The AI 20: The Leaders (10-6)

The Future Investors — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 11:02:30 GMT

AI is creating one of the greatest investment opportunities of our generation. But not every company will emerge as a long-term winner. Some will define the AI era. Others will be left behind.

Subscribe now

That’s why we created The AI 20: our ranking of the 20 stocks we believe are best positioned for the AI era.

Not based on hype, but on long-term fundamentals, competitive advantages, innovation, execution, and value creation.

The series is divided into four chapters:

🔴 The Challengers (20–16)
🟢 The Innovators (15–11)
🔵 The Leaders (10–6)
🟡 The Titans (5–1)

Last week, we revealed the first half of The AI 20: The Challengers (20–16) and The Innovators (15–11).

Today, we enter the Top 10 with The Leaders. Five companies we believe are leading the AI revolution.

Time to reveal The Leaders (10–6) ✨👇

#10: Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN)

Most people know Amazon as the world’s largest online retailer. We believe its biggest AI opportunity lies somewhere else: Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS is the world’s largest cloud platform and gives businesses the computing power, storage, and AI services they need to build and run AI applications. Thousands of companies already use AWS to train AI models, deploy AI agents, and develop AI applications.

Amazon is also building its own AI platform. The company has developed Trainium and Inferentia, two custom AI chips designed for AI workloads, while Amazon Bedrock makes it easier for customers to build AI applications using leading AI models.

Source: AWS Builder Center – AWS AI Stack

Amazon isn’t just using AI. It helps thousands of companies build and scale AI applications through AWS.

As AI adoption grows, more companies are likely to build AI on AWS, giving Amazon an even bigger role in the AI ecosystem.

The Future Investors (Vincent & Stefan) currently do not hold a position in Amazon.

Fundamental Score: 74 🟢 → Quality

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This is just the first Leader. The next four each play a key role in the AI revolution 🤖

Ready to discover the companies ranked #9 to #6 in The AI 20?
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🎯 The AI 20: The Innovators (15-11)

The Future Investors — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 09:53:34 GMT

AI is creating one of the greatest investment opportunities of our generation. But not every company will emerge as a long-term winner. Some will define the AI era. Others will be left behind.

Subscribe now

That’s why we created The AI 20: our ranking of the 20 stocks we believe are best positioned for the AI era.

Not based on hype, but on long-term fundamentals, competitive advantages, innovation, execution, and value creation.

The series is divided into four chapters:

🔴 The Challengers (20–16)
🟢 The Innovators (15–11)
🔵 The Leaders (10–6)
🟡 The Titans (5–1)

Last Sunday, we kicked off The AI 20 with the first chapter: The Challengers (20–16).

Today, we continue with the second chapter: The Innovators. Five companies we believe will help drive the next wave of AI.

Let's dive into The Innovators (15–11) ✨👇

#15: Arm (NASDAQ: ARM)

Most people have never used an Arm product. There’s a good chance they’re using Arm technology every day.

Arm doesn’t make chips itself. It designs the architecture that companies use to build their own processors. Companies like NVIDIA, Apple, Amazon, Google and Qualcomm all use Arm’s technology.

More than 350 billion Arm-based chips have been shipped worldwide. For years, Arm became the standard for smartphones because its chip designs are fast and use very little power. That makes Arm well positioned for the AI era.

AI is no longer limited to large data centers. It is moving into laptops, smartphones, robots, cars, and billions of connected devices. All of those devices need powerful, energy-efficient chips, and many of them already run on Arm’s technology.

Companies pay Arm to use its technology. Arm also receives a royalty every time an Arm-based chip is sold. As more AI devices are built, Arm has the opportunity to increase its royalty revenue.

With one of the largest ecosystems in the semiconductor industry, we believe Arm is well positioned to benefit as AI becomes part of billions of devices worldwide.

The Future Investors (Vincent & Stefan) currently do not hold a position in Arm.

Fundamental Score: 81 🔵 → High-Quality

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This is just the first Innovator. The next four are each helping shape the future of AI in their own way 🤖

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🎯 The AI 20: The Challengers (20-16)

The Future Investors — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 10:13:18 GMT

AI is creating one of the greatest investment opportunities of our generation. But not every company will emerge as a long-term winner. Some will define the AI era. Others will be left behind.

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That’s why we created The AI 20: our ranking of the 20 stocks we believe are best positioned for the AI era.

Not based on hype, but on long-term fundamentals, competitive advantages, innovation, execution, and value creation.

The series is divided into four chapters:

🔴 The Challengers (20–16)
🟢 The Innovators (15–11)
🔵 The Leaders (10–6)
🟡 The Titans (5–1)

Today, we begin with The Challengers: five companies that may not dominate the AI landscape today, but that we believe could become tomorrow's AI leaders.

Before we reveal our first company, there's one name we couldn't leave unmentioned.

⭐ Honorable Mention: SpaceX
We believe SpaceX has the potential to become one of the world's most important companies in the AI era as AI becomes embedded in autonomous systems, satellite communications, robotics, and future space infrastructure.

For now, AI is not yet the primary driver of SpaceX's investment case. That could change in the years ahead.

Now it's time to meet The Challengers (20–16) ✨👇

#20: Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ: AXON)

Most people know Axon as the company behind TASER devices. Today, the company does much more than that. It has built a platform that helps police and other public safety agencies with body cameras, digital evidence, drones, software, and AI.

The more products customers use, the more valuable the platform becomes. That makes it harder to switch to another provider and gives Axon a strong competitive advantage.

AI is becoming a bigger part of the platform. Products like Draft One, Axon Assistant, and Smart Capture help officers spend less time on paperwork, find information faster, and make better decisions in the field. As more AI capabilities are added, customers have more reasons to use Axon's software, creating more opportunities to sell additional software and services.

Source: Axon Enterprise – AI Era Plan

With founder-led management, recurring software revenue, high switching costs, and plenty of room to grow internationally, Axon has many of the qualities we look for in a long-term investment.

We believe Axon is well positioned to grow its ecosystem and create long-term value for shareholders as AI becomes a bigger part of its platform.

The Future Investors (Vincent & Stefan) currently hold a position in Axon Enterprise.

Fundamental Score: 84 🔵 → High-Quality

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This is just the first Challenger. The next four each play a different role in the AI ecosystem, but they have one thing in common: each has a strong investment case for the AI era 🤖

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🚀 Rising Star - July 2026

The Future Investors — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:13:57 GMT

Every two months, we highlight a growth stock that we believe has the potential to become a multibagger over the next 5-10 years.

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Predicting the long term is never easy, and these types of selections naturally come with more uncertainty.

We’re very selective with our Rising Stars, and it’s paying off. Since January 2025, we’ve shared nine picks with an average return of +27.8%, including two standout winners already up +123% and +98% in just a few months 🚀

You can check all previous Rising Stars here.

Today, we reveal a stock we believe has the potential to become a multibagger 🚀

This fast-growing company is building an AI-powered platform with the potential to reshape a massive global industry 🔥

🚀 Strong growth: Revenue is growing 36% YoY
🏗️ Highly scalable platform: The platform becomes increasingly valuable as it grows
🌍 Massive AI opportunity: AI adoption in this industry is still in its early stages

Ready to discover our next potential multibagger? 🚀
Unlock it now 🔓. Exclusively for our paid subscribers ✨

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🗣️ Investor Talk #60: Jose Najarro

The Future Investors — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:43:26 GMT

✨ All Investor Talk editions are now unlocked 🔓 and free to read for everyone. Dive in, get inspired, and take your investing to the next level 🚀

In this edition, we have the pleasure of interviewing:

Name:
Age: 33
Residence/Country: United States
Invests since: 2015

Introduction
I come from a first-generation immigrant family that knew nothing about 401(k)s, stocks, or investing. I grew up thinking the only option was to save money and put it in a bank. The one subject I excelled at was math, which led me to study electrical engineering. I earned both a bachelor's and a master's, focused on semiconductors. My first engineering job was at an optics company, and I was making more money than I ever thought I could. I wanted to put it to work, so I walked into a Barnes & Noble, found a book on investing, and that's how I got started at around 21.

What is your investment strategy?
I invest in companies whose growth the market is doubting, since that's where I find the biggest mispricings, when strong businesses get punished for uncertainty. Before I buy, I make sure I understand both the bullish and bearish case, because knowing both sides is what gives me the conviction to buy the doubt.

I stay focused on the tech market, where I have the most edge, and I go heavy on my high-conviction names rather than spreading thin. I'd rather size positions by risk versus reward than diversify for its own sake. If I've done the work, I want it to matter.

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How many stocks are currently held in your portfolio?
I own 30+ stocks, but I concentrate in my highest-conviction names. My top 3 make up roughly 50% of my portfolio, and my top 10 make up roughly 80%.

Which sectors do you mainly focus on?
Semiconductors, which tend to lead me into adjacent markets. I believe semiconductors drive innovation, so no matter where the innovation is happening, semis are behind it.

What are your 3 highest conviction stocks?
My three highest conviction stocks are

$NVDA - Nvidia
$AMD - AMD
$CRWV - CoreWeave

Nvidia and AMD earned that spot through pure gains.

What is the stock in your portfolio with the highest return?
$NVDA - Nvidia. It completely changed my life.

What is the biggest investing mistake you have made?
Early in my investing career I thought diversification was everything. AMD and Nvidiahave been life-changing for me, but the impact would have been far greater if I had trusted myself and concentrated sooner.

If you could give one piece of advice to investors, what would it be?
Understand both the bull and bear case. Knowing both sides helps you see where you could be wrong. You never want to be the investor who gets emotional the moment they see a bearish post on a stock they own. Sit with it. You might learn something new.

Jose’s Favorites

📖 Favorite book: The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing by Jason Kelly. This is the book I picked up in Barnes & Noble when I knew nothing about investing, and it changed everything for me.

🎧 Favorite podcast: To be honest, I don't consume much content. I mostly listen to whoever is interviewing my favorite CEOs, plus earnings calls and conference events.

💬 Favorite quote: "I didn't wake up a loser." – Jensen Huang

👤 Favorite FinX account: Amit @amitisinvesting. I get so deep in the weeds on semiconductors that I lose track of the broader market. Amit's daily recaps on X keep me up to date on what everyone else is watching.

Where can we find more info about you?
YouTube (my main free content): Jose Najarro Stocks
Semiconductor research community: WhatTheChipHappened.com

That’s a wrap!
Want more real-world investing insights? 👉 Browse all Investor Talks here

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Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments — we’d love to hear from you 💬

Leave a comment

That’s it for today.
We’ll see you again in the next edition of our newsletter!

Until then, invest wisely.

Vincent & Stefan
The Future Investors

🎯 Best Buys - July 2026

The Future Investors — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 12:11:25 GMT

Hey Investors,

The wait is over. Here are our Best Buys for July 🎯

Each month, we look for great companies trading at attractive valuations and highlight three stocks that currently stand out to us.

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Since December 2024, we’ve shared 57 Best Buys with our paid members.

Our Best Buys have delivered an average return of 20.7% so far. Several picks have delivered triple-digit returns 🔥

🚀 AMD: picked at $97.35, now +432%
🚀 ASML: picked at $662.63, now +167%
🚀 Alphabet: picked at $168.95, now +113%

We focus on high-quality businesses with strong fundamentals trading at attractive valuations. As Warren Buffett famously said:

“It’s better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”

Learn more about how we score stocks on fundamentals in our Fundamental Scoring Framework article.

To keep looking for the best opportunities, we don't pick the same Best Buy two months in a row.

Now let’s dive into our Top 3 Best Buys for July ✨👇

#3: Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA)

This is the third time we’re adding Nvidia to our Best Buys list. The first two times were in February 2025 and February 2026, when shares traded at $120 and $185. Today, the stock trades at $194, slightly above our last pick, but still nearly 18% below its all-time high reached in May.

The share price only tells part of the story. Since our previous pick, Nvidia’s revenue and earnings have continued to grow at an exceptional pace, making its valuation even more attractive.

AI is still in its early innings, and Nvidia continues to strengthen its leadership. It's an exceptional company that's firing on all cylinders and fully deserves a place on this month's Best Buys list 🎯

What Happened?

Many semiconductor stocks have delivered exceptional returns this year. Marvell is up 188%, AMD has gained 142%, and ASML has risen 77%. Nvidia is up just 4.5% year to date.

The company continues to deliver outstanding results. In its latest quarter (Q1 FY27), Nvidia generated $81.6 billion in revenue, up 85% YoY, while EPS increased an incredible 140%. The outlook remains very strong. Nvidia expects around $91 billion in revenue this quarter, with gross margins of 75%. For FY27, analysts expect revenue to grow 81% and EPS to increase 88%.

Why hasn't the stock kept up? Investors seem to be chasing other AI opportunities, such as memory and space. Nvidia keeps doing what it does best: growing revenue, earnings, and its market leadership.

The company also continues to expand its opportunities. Earlier this year, Nvidia officially entered the CPU market with its new RTX Spark Superchip. The first laptops powered by the new processor are expected to launch this fall from manufacturers such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Microsoft, opening the door to another massive growth opportunity.

For us, this creates an attractive opportunity. When a company keeps growing at an exceptional pace while the share price stays behind, only one thing happens: the valuation becomes increasingly attractive.

Why Nvidia Looks Attractive Now

In our view, Nvidia is fundamentally the strongest company in the world today. That is reflected in its outstanding fundamental score of 95 🟣, making it the only company we currently classify as Exceptional.

Nvidia currently trades at less than 30x earnings, and that doesn’t yet include the expected growth for the full FY27. Looking 12 months ahead, the stock trades at a forward P/E of just 19.6x. That’s lower than the forward P/E of the S&P 500, despite much stronger expected earnings growth.

Source: Opening Bell Daily Newsletter

The biggest risk is that AI investments slow down significantly. Based on the record CapEx plans of the hyperscalers, we don’t expect that to happen anytime soon.

We believe Nvidia is one of the most attractive stocks in the market today. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the stock reach $300 by the end of the year. If Nvidia continues to execute at this level, we believe it has a realistic chance of becoming the world's first $10 trillion company over the next few years.

The Future Investors (Vincent & Stefan) currently hold a position in Nvidia.

Fundamental Score: 95 🟣 → Exceptional
Current Stock Price: $194.83

View our Portfolios

The next two? Two leading companies trading at extremely attractive valuations today:

🌍 One is a global commodity company with world-class assets.
🚀 The other is a tech company with strong growth and a record backlog.

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📈 Portfolio Update – June 2026

The Future Investors — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 11:07:14 GMT

June was a steady month for the markets after May’s strong rally 📈

In this recap, we look at how the major indexes performed, how our portfolios compared, which stocks were the biggest winners and weakest performers, and the changes we made during June.

Dive into our full June Recap below 👇

📢 Our Best Buys for July are coming this weekend — don't miss it 🎯

What Moved the Markets in June?

June was a relatively steady month for the markets following May’s strong rally. On the macro side, investors focused on the conflict between the U.S. and Iran. A temporary ceasefire eased fears of disruptions to global oil supplies, pushing Brent crude back to around $73 per barrel by the end of the month.

Earnings also brought plenty of good news. Hewlett Packard Enterprise reported record demand for its AI servers and its largest server backlog ever. Micron delivered the strongest earnings report of the month, easily beating revenue and earnings expectations. The company also raised its Q4 guidance to $50 billion in revenue and $31 EPS, far above Wall Street estimates. Adobe reported another solid quarter as well, although the stock fell after the company announced that CFO Dan Durn will leave later this year.

The AI and semiconductor sector had another eventful month. Nvidia entered the PC processor market with its new Arm-based N1X chip, which will power laptops from Microsoft, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus and MSI. South Korea announced plans to invest more than $1.3 trillion in AI and semiconductors over the next ten years, led by Samsung and SK hynix. SK hynix also confirmed its Nasdaq listing for July 10. BESI increased its 2030 revenue target from €1.5-1.9 billion to €1.7-2.2 billion, and Marvell joined the S&P 500 after Jensen Huang described the company as “the next trillion-dollar company” during Computex.

June was also a big month for IPOs and acquisitions. SpaceX completed the largest IPO ever at a valuation of $1.77 trillion, and quantum computing leader Quantinuum also made its Nasdaq debut at a $17.6 billion valuation.

Several companies announced major acquisitions. Rocket Lab acquired Iridium in an $8 billion deal, creating one of the world’s most integrated space companies. Fox bought Roku, Adyen acquired Orb, AMD acquired Mext and Qualcomm acquired Modular to strengthen their AI capabilities. Qualcomm also introduced its new Dragonfly AI data center platform and announced plans to develop more than 40 AI-powered devices, including smart glasses, watches and earbuds.

Finally, Alphabet replaced Verizon in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of the biggest changes to the index in years.

How did the markets perform in June? Let's take a look at how the three major indexes ended the month:

S&P 500: -1.1% 📉 (+9.6% YTD)
Nasdaq: -2.8% 📉 (+12.8% YTD)
Dow Jones: +2.5% 📈 (+8.9% YTD)

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Portfolio Performance: How Did We Do?

How did our portfolios perform in June?

In this update, we compare our performance with the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones, highlight our biggest winners and weakest performers, and share the portfolio changes we made during the month.

Curious to see what we bought and sold? Dive into the full recap below 👇

Available exclusively for our paid subscribers ✨

📦 Unpacked #14: IonQ

The Future Investors — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 12:54:58 GMT

Welcome to the 14th edition of Unpacked, our monthly series where we take a deep dive into a company. This time, we’re taking a closer look at IonQ — a pure-play quantum computing company focused on solving problems that are far too complex for today’s most powerful computers.

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We break down its story, business model, and highlight the latest developments.

🔴 Below 50 → Uninvestable
🟠 50 - 59 → Questionable
🟡 60 - 69 → Reasonable
🟢 70 - 79 → Quality
🔵 80 - 89 → High-Quality
🟣 90 or above → Exceptional

The goal? To give you a full deep dive into this company, as a complement to your own research, so you can decide if it’s the right investment for you.

In case you missed it, here you can read the previous editions of Unpacked:

Now let’s unpack the fundamentals of IonQ and see how we score it!

History and Business Model

The story of IonQ began in 2015, when scientists Christopher Monroe and Jungsang Kim founded the company after years of quantum computing research at the University of Maryland and Duke University.

They believed quantum computers could one day solve some problems much faster than even the world's most powerful computers. With that vision in mind, they founded IonQ to make quantum computing useful for the real world.

Source: The Science Monitor - Founders Jungsang Kim and Christopher Monroe

During its first years, IonQ focused on improving its technology and building more powerful quantum computers. Since day one, the company has focused on trapped-ion technology, which is still the foundation of its quantum computers today.

An important step came in 2019, when IonQ made its quantum computers available through the cloud. Instead of needing access to expensive equipment, researchers, developers, and businesses could use IonQ’s systems through platforms such as Amazon Web Services. This helped bring quantum computing to a much larger audience and was one of the company's first steps toward commercialization.

In 2021, IonQ became the first pure-play quantum computing company to go public. The company entered the stock market through a merger with a SPAC called dMY Technology Group III. The deal valued IonQ at $2 billion and brought the company to the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol IONQ.

Since then, IonQ has continued to improve its technology, expand its partnerships, and grow its customer base. The company is also the only quantum computing company available through Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

Over the years, IonQ has expanded beyond quantum computing. The company is building a full-stack quantum platform that includes quantum computing, quantum networking, quantum security, and quantum sensing technologies.

Source: IonQ First Quarter 2026 Earnings Presentation

IonQ's goal is to build quantum computers with up to 2 million qubits by 2030. The company believes these systems could help solve complex problems in areas such as drug discovery, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, logistics, and defense.

Today, IonQ is focused on making quantum computing more powerful, accessible, and practical for real-world applications.

Its mission is:

“To develop the world’s best quantum technology to solve the world’s most complex problems.”

Business Model Explained

IonQ is building a new type of computing platform based on quantum technology. Instead of selling quantum computers directly, the company gives customers access to its systems through the cloud. This means researchers, businesses, and governments can use quantum computing without owning the hardware themselves.

While most of IonQ’s revenue still comes from quantum computing, the company is building a broader quantum platform with four main focus areas:

💻 1. Quantum Computing
This is IonQ’s core business today and its main source of revenue. Customers can use IonQ’s quantum computers through platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

🌐 2. Quantum Networking
IonQ is developing technology that could connect quantum computers together, similar to how the internet connects traditional computers today.

🔒 3. Quantum Security
Through acquisitions such as ID Quantique, IonQ is building technologies that help protect data and communications from future cyber threats.

📡 4. Quantum Sensing
IonQ is also developing sensors that can make highly accurate measurements for applications such as defense, navigation, and scientific research.

This strategy is already starting to pay off. Today, more than one-third of IonQ’s revenue comes from customers using multiple IonQ products.

How IonQ Makes Money 💰
IonQ currently earns most of its revenue from:

☁️ Access to quantum computers through cloud platforms
🏛️ Government and research contracts
🤝 Commercial partnerships and development projects

It is important to remember that quantum computing is still in its early stages. Most customers are currently testing and exploring the technology rather than using it in everyday operations.

IonQ is investing heavily today because management believes quantum computing could become much more widely used in the future. If that happens, the company could benefit from one of the largest emerging opportunities in the technology industry.

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Revenue Breakdown

On May 6, 2026, IonQ reported its first quarter 2026 results. Total revenue came in at $64.7 million (+755% YoY).

The revenue breakdown is estimated based on company disclosures, acquisitions, and management commentary. IonQ does not report revenue by segment.

💻 Quantum Computing – $42.1 million (65%)
IonQ's core business and main source of revenue. This includes access to quantum computers through cloud platforms, commercial contracts, and government contracts and projects.

🔒 Quantum Security – $16.2 million (25%)
Primarily driven by ID Quantique, which develops technologies that help protect data and communications from future cyber threats.

🌐 Networking & Other – $6.4 million (10%)
Includes newer activities such as quantum networking, sensing, and other technologies that could become important growth drivers in the future.

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Recent Developments

The past 18 months have been very important for IonQ. Through acquisitions, partnerships, and new initiatives, the company has expanded beyond quantum computing into areas such as networking, security, sensing, and space infrastructure.

Source: IonQ - Moor Insights & Strategy

Here are the key developments:

1️⃣ Niccolo de Masi Becomes CEO
In February 2025, Niccolo de Masi became President and CEO of IonQ, replacing Peter Chapman. De Masi had served on IonQ's board since 2021 and was already familiar with the company. Since becoming CEO, he has accelerated IonQ's acquisition strategy and expanded the company's strategy beyond quantum computing.

2️⃣ Oxford Ionics Acquisition Accelerates the Roadmap
In June 2025, IonQ announced the acquisition of Oxford Ionics in a deal valued at $1.08 billion.

Oxford Ionics develops advanced trapped-ion quantum computing technology. The acquisition strengthens IonQ's technology roadmap and could help the company achieve its goal of building quantum computers with up to 2 million qubits by 2030.

3️⃣ Building a Quantum Networking Leader
IonQ has made quantum networking a major focus area. Through acquisitions including Lightsynq, Qubitekk, and Skyloom, the company has expanded its capabilities in quantum networking, optical communications, and networking infrastructure.

The long-term goal is to help build the infrastructure needed for a future quantum internet, where quantum computers can communicate with each other through highly secure networks.

4️⃣ Expansion into Quantum Security
In May 2025, IonQ completed the acquisition of ID Quantique, a Swiss company specializing in quantum security and quantum networking.

The deal added products for secure communications, encryption, and quantum-safe cybersecurity. It also brought an established business with existing customers, revenue, and more than 300 patents to IonQ.

5️⃣ Expansion into Space & Quantum Sensing
IonQ also expanded into new markets through the acquisitions of Capella Space and Vector Atomic.

Capella Space added satellite and space infrastructure capabilities, while Vector Atomic brought quantum sensing and precision timing technologies. Together, these acquisitions broadened IonQ’s exposure to defense, navigation, and space-related applications.

6️⃣ Roadmap to 2 Million Qubits by 2030
At its 2025 Analyst Day, IonQ announced plans to build quantum computers with up to 2 million qubits by 2030. Management believes these systems could unlock new applications in areas such as artificial intelligence, drug discovery, cybersecurity, logistics, and defense.

Source: IonQ May 2025 Investor Presentation

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Fundamental Analysis

Now it’s time for the fundamental analysis of IonQ.

Final Scoring

This score reflects how fundamentally attractive we believe IonQ is as an investment, ranging from:

Unlock our scoring framework and full fundamental analysis below, and see how we score IonQ on a scale from 0 to 100 — exclusively available to our paid members! ✨

First, let’s walk through our scoring framework 📊👇

🎓 Not All Growth Is Equal

The Future Investors — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 14:03:20 GMT

In the stock market, there are many companies growing their revenue at impressive rates. Some grow by 20% per year. Others by 30%, 40% or even 50%.

At first, many of these companies look very similar. They are growing fast, serve large markets and attract a lot of attention from investors. But if we look ten or twenty years ahead, the outcome is often very different.

A small number of companies become legends. Companies like Nvidia, Amazon, Visa and MercadoLibre continue to grow, strengthen their position and create significant value for shareholders.

But most others become memories. Despite growing fast today, many of these companies will struggle to keep growing, lose their competitive edge, get acquired or simply disappear over time.

So what makes the difference?
Why do some companies become legends 🏆 while others become memories? 🕰️

In this article, we’ll break down:

📈 Why growth is only the beginning
🏰 What separates legends from memories
🚀 Three examples of companies that turned growth into greatness
🔍 How you can identify future legends

📈 Why Growth Is Only The Beginning

When investors analyze a company, growth is often one of the first things they look at. And for good reason. A company growing its revenue by 30% per year is usually far more attractive than a company growing by just 5%.

But there is a problem: growth alone isn’t enough.

Imagine two companies:

🏢 Company A: Revenue growth 35%
🏢 Company B: Revenue growth 25%

Based on those numbers alone, many investors would probably choose Company A. After all, faster growth sounds better. But that doesn’t always make it the better investment.

Perhaps Company A is growing because it is lowering prices, spending heavily on marketing or benefiting from a short-term trend. Company B might be growing because customers love its product, keep coming back and recommend it to others.

Today, Company A may look more attractive. But ten years from now, the outcome could be completely different.

This is a mistake many investors make. They focus on how fast a company is growing, while the more important question is often: “Why is this company growing?”

A company can grow quickly for a few years without building anything special. Another company can use that same growth to strengthen its position, attract more customers and create advantages that competitors struggle to match.

Growth may help a company get noticed. But growth alone doesn’t make a company a legend.

To answer that question, we need to look at what separates legends 🏆 from memories 🕰️

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🏰 What Separates Legends From Memories

If growth alone doesn’t explain why some companies become legends, what does?
The best companies don’t just grow. They become stronger as they grow.

More customers, more products and more revenue help strengthen their position. As a result, it becomes harder for competitors to challenge them. This is what we call a moat: a competitive advantage that helps a company stay ahead of its competitors.

A moat is not something that appears overnight. It needs to be built over time.
The most successful companies use growth to build that moat. Every new customer, product launch or expansion helps strengthen their competitive position.

Companies build moats in different ways. According to Morningstar, most moats can be grouped into five categories:

Source: 5 Sources of Moats - Morningstar

📜 Intangible Assets
Strong brands, patents, licenses or unique intellectual property that competitors cannot easily replicate.

🔒 Switching Costs
When changing to another product or service becomes expensive, time-consuming or inconvenient for customers.

🌐 Network Effects
The product becomes more valuable as more people use it.

💰 Cost Advantages
Companies can operate more efficiently than competitors, helping them offer lower prices or earn higher profits.

🏗️ Efficient Scale
A market is only large enough for a few players, making it difficult for new competitors to enter.

While these advantages may look different, they all have one thing in common:
They make the business harder to compete against.

Companies that become memories often follow a different path. They may grow quickly for a few years and attract plenty of attention from investors. But they fail to build a moat.

Without a strong competitive advantage, competitors can copy their products, match their prices or offer a similar service. As competition increases, growth slows and the business becomes weaker. In other words, these companies grow bigger, but they don’t become stronger.

Many companies grow. The best companies use that growth to build a moat.
That moat is often what turns a company into a legend 🏆 instead of a memory 🕰️

Want to learn more about moats? 🏰

In this short video, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger explain why strong competitive advantages matter 🎥👇

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🚀 Three Examples of Growth Into Greatness

Now that we understand what separates legends from memories, let’s look at three companies that used growth to build powerful moats.

These companies didn’t become legends because they grew fast.
They became legends because their growth made the business stronger.

Let’s look at three examples.

1️⃣ Visa — Network Effects 🌐
Visa is one of the best examples of a company that became stronger as it grew.
Every new cardholder makes Visa more attractive for merchants. And every new merchant makes Visa more valuable for cardholders. This creates a powerful network effect.

Today, billions of Visa cards are used around the world and millions of businesses accept Visa payments. Visa didn’t just use growth to get bigger. It used growth to build one of the strongest moats in the world.

2️⃣ Nvidia — Intangible Assets 📜 & Switching Costs 🔒
Nvidia’s success is about much more than selling chips. The company built a powerful software ecosystem around CUDA, its AI development platform. Today, millions of developers and companies use Nvidia’s tools to build AI applications. This creates strong switching costs.

Nvidia has also spent decades building unique technology, software and expertise. These advantages are difficult for competitors to replicate. As Nvidia grew, its moat grew with it. It didn’t just sell more chips. It used growth to build an ecosystem that is difficult to compete with.

3️⃣ MercadoLibre — Network Effects 🌐 & Efficient Scale 🏗️
MercadoLibre started as an online marketplace in Latin America. Today, it offers e-commerce, payments, logistics, advertising and financial services. As more buyers join the platform, more sellers are attracted. And as more sellers join, the platform becomes even more valuable for buyers. This creates a strong network effect.

MercadoLibre has also built one of the largest logistics and payments networks in Latin America. This creates efficient scale and makes it harder for competitors to compete. Growth helped MercadoLibre build a wider moat and strengthen its market leadership.

These three companies operate in different industries. But they all followed the same path: They didn’t just use growth to get bigger. They used growth to become stronger.

View Our Portfolios

🔍 How To Identify Future Legends

We’ve seen what made companies like Visa, Nvidia and MercadoLibre successful. The next question is: How can you identify future legends?

There is no perfect formula. But many legendary companies have a few things in common.

1️⃣ Does growth make the business stronger?
This is often the most important question.

Every time Visa gains a new user, its network becomes more valuable.
Every time MercadoLibre adds a new buyer or seller, its ecosystem becomes stronger.
Every time Nvidia sells more AI chips, more developers use CUDA.

Ask yourself:

Does growth make this business stronger, or does it simply make it bigger?

2️⃣ Is the company building a moat?
Look for signs such as:

📜 Intangible Assets
🔒 Switching Costs
🌐 Network Effects
💰 Cost Advantages
🏗️ Efficient Scale

The stronger the moat becomes, the harder it is for competitors to challenge the company.

3️⃣ Can competitors easily copy the business?
Many companies grow quickly. Far fewer companies build something that is difficult to replicate. Ask yourself:

If a competitor had unlimited money, could they realistically build the same business?

For companies like Visa, Nvidia or ASML, the answer is far from simple. That is exactly what makes them special.

4️⃣ Will this company be stronger in 10 years?
The stock market often focuses on the next quarter. Long-term investors should think differently. Ask yourself:

Will this company have a stronger position in ten years?

And another important question:

Will this market be much larger in ten years?

The best investments often combine a company that is building a moat with a powerful long-term trend.

🎯 Key Takeaway

Many investors focus on finding the fastest-growing companies. But growth alone rarely tells the full story.

The best companies use growth to strengthen their position, build a moat and make it harder for competitors to compete.

That is why some companies become legends while others become memories.

The best investors don’t just look for growth. They look for companies that use growth to build a moat.

Because growth alone rarely creates a legend. Building a strong moat does 🏆

Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments — we’d love to hear from you 💬

Leave a comment

That’s it for today.
We’ll see you again in the next edition of our newsletter!

Until then, invest wisely.

Vincent & Stefan
The Future Investors

🔍 SpaceX: Buy, Hold or Bubble?

The Future Investors — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 13:10:06 GMT

Last Friday, history was made. SpaceX officially went public in the largest IPO ever. The stock gained almost 50% during its first days of trading, lifting the company's valuation to $2.66 trillion. The company is now the fifth most valuable company in the world. The IPO also made Elon Musk the first trillionaire in history.

Source: Companies Market Cap - Largest Companies by Marketcap

Many investors believe the company could become one of the most valuable companies in the world over the next decade. Others think a $2.66 trillion valuation is hard to justify.

So who’s right? In this article, we'll look at:

📊 The key numbers behind the $2.66 trillion valuation
🧮 What needs to happen to justify today’s valuation
🐂 The bull case for SpaceX
🐻 The bear case for SpaceX
📌 Finally, we’ll share our view on the question every investor is asking: Is SpaceX a buy, hold, or bubble?

📊 Breaking Down the $2.66 Trillion Valuation

Before discussing the future, let's start with the numbers. How much revenue and profit does SpaceX generate, and what are investors paying for the company today?

At a valuation of $2.66 trillion, SpaceX is worth more than Amazon, TSMC and Broadcom. In 2025, the company generated $18.7 billion in revenue and reported a net loss of $4.9 billion.

To understand the valuation, let's start with the key numbers:

Market Cap: $2.66 trillion
Revenue (2025): $18.7 billion
Net income (2025): -$4.9 billion
Free Cash Flow (2025): -$3.4 billion
P/S Ratio: 142x
P/E Ratio: N/A (not profitable)

The valuation is extraordinary, even by tech stock standards. At 142x sales, investors are paying $142 for every $1 of revenue generated by the company. SpaceX is also not profitable, so it doesn't have a P/E ratio.

For comparison, some of today’s highest-quality tech companies trade at much lower valuations. Nvidia trades at 20x sales, CrowdStrike at 34x sales, and Palantir at 61x sales. SpaceX trades at 142x sales.

Investors are clearly not paying for what SpaceX is today. They're paying for what it could become over the next decade.

Let’s take a closer look at where that revenue comes from.

Many investors think of SpaceX as a rocket company. In reality, Starlink generates most of the revenue.

In 2025, revenue came from:

📡 61% Starlink - $11.4 billion
🚀 22% Launch and Space-related activities - $4.1 billion
🤖 17% AI-related services - $3.2 billion

A large part of the investment case depends on Starlink and its future growth.

So what needs to happen for SpaceX to justify its $2.66 trillion valuation?

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So far, we’ve explored the numbers behind SpaceX’s $2.66 trillion valuation and where the company’s revenue comes from today.

In the rest of this article, we’ll look at what needs to happen for SpaceX to justify its valuation 🧮, the bull case 🐂, the bear case 🐻, and our view on SpaceX as a long-term investment 📌

This content is exclusively available to our paid subscribers ✨

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🧮 Justifying Today's Valuation

At a valuation of $2.66 trillion, SpaceX is already one of the most valuable companies in the world. The key question is simple:

What does SpaceX need to achieve to justify its valuation?

One way to answer that question is to work backwards from today’s valuation using a reverse discounted cash flow (DCF) model.

🗣️ Investor Talk #59: Cole Grinde

The Future Investors — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:44:53 GMT

✨ All Investor Talk editions are now unlocked 🔓 and free to read for everyone. Dive in, get inspired, and take your investing to the next level 🚀

In this edition, we have the pleasure of interviewing:

Name: Cole Grinde @GrindeOptions
Age: 29
Residence/Country: United States
Invests since: 2014

Introduction
I first became interested in investing at the age of 15 after watching an interview with Warren Buffett during a library class in high school. From that moment on, I was hooked. The first stock I ever bought was Microsoft, which turned out to be great timing with Satya Nadella taking over as CEO.

Over the years, I’ve had many different jobs, including working as a cook, in office coffee service (OCS), construction, and various side jobs before moving into sales. Through it all, I’ve always been invested in the stock market and continued learning more about investing.

What is your investment strategy?
My investment strategy is simple. I look for companies that have a great product or service and are either already profitable or getting close to profitability. In most cases, I also prefer founder-led companies.

Once I find a company that checks those boxes, I want to see it continue to grow, scale its business, and keep innovating. Those are the types of companies I enjoy following and investing in for the long term.

Like what you’re reading? Share it with your friends, family & fellow investors!

How many stocks are currently held in your portfolio?
Today, my portfolio consists of around 17 individual stocks.

Which sectors do you mainly focus on?
I’m primarily focused on the AI, robotics, renewable energy, consumer packaged goods (CPG), fintech, space, and semiconductor sectors. These are the industries I spend most of my time researching and following as an investor.

What are your 3 highest conviction stocks?
My three highest conviction stocks are $TSLA, $SOFI and $IREN as of now.
$TESLA - Tesla
$SOFI - SoFi
$IREN - IREN Limited

What is the stock in your portfolio with the highest return?
My highest-returning stock in my portfolio is Rocket Lab $RKLB, which is up more than 400%.

What is the biggest investing mistake you have made?
I’ve made a few mistakes over the years, which I like to think of as paying tuition to the school of hard knocks. Companies like Planet 13, Tattooed Chef, BitMine Immersion, Eos Energy, and a few others didn’t work out the way I had hoped.

Those experiences taught me valuable lessons as an investor. Thankfully, I’ve also had core positions in other companies that performed very well and more than made up for those mistakes over time.

If you could give one piece of advice to investors, what would it be?
My best advice is to keep following your own intuition and gut feeling because it’s often correct.

Cole’s Favorites

📖 Favorite book: The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.

🎧 Favorite podcast: The Joe Rogan Experience and Modern Wisdom.

💬 Favorite quote: “Life needs to be more than just solving problems every day. You need to wake up and be excited about the future.” - Elon Musk

👤 Favorite FinX account: Amit @amitisinvesting

Where can we find more info about you?
You can find me on 𝕏: @GrindeOptions

That’s a wrap!
Want more real-world investing insights? 👉 Browse all Investor Talks here

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Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments — we’d love to hear from you 💬

Leave a comment

That’s it for today.
We’ll see you again in the next edition of our newsletter!

Until then, invest wisely.

Vincent & Stefan
The Future Investors

🎯 Best Buys - June 2026

The Future Investors — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:52:28 GMT

Hey Investors,

Our Best Buys for June are here. 🎯

Each month, we look for great companies trading at attractive valuations and highlight three stocks that currently stand out to us.

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Since December 2024, we’ve shared 54 Best Buys with our paid members.

So far, they've generated an impressive average return of 23.4%, with multiple positions already up triple digits 🔥

🚀 AMD: picked at $97.35, now +457%
🚀 ASML: picked at $662.63, now +161%
🚀 First Solar: picked at $126.43, now +152%
🚀 Alphabet: picked at $168.95, now +112%

Our selection combines valuation and fundamentals, but quality always comes first. As Warren Buffett famously said:

“It’s better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”

Learn more about how we score stocks on fundamentals in our Fundamental Scoring Framework article.

To keep our process sharp and ideas fresh, we don’t pick the same Best Buy two months in a row.

Now let’s dive into our Top 3 Best Buys for June ✨👇

#3: Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG)

This is the second time we’re adding Intuitive Surgical to our Best Buys list. The first time was in September 2025, when shares traded at $473. Today, the stock trades at $407, down 14% since our first pick, 28% this year, and 33% below its all-time high.

What makes this decline interesting to us is that Intuitive Surgical is still one of the highest-quality businesses in the market. More procedures are being performed using its systems, more da Vinci systems are being installed, and recurring revenue continues to grow.

The business is performing better than ever, making this an attractive opportunity for long-term investors 🎯

What Happened?

Intuitive Surgical is the clear leader in robotic surgery. Over the past two decades, the company has built a dominant position with its da Vinci systems, which are now used in thousands of hospitals worldwide.

Thanks to that leadership and consistent growth, investors have historically been willing to pay a premium valuation for the stock. Over the past 10 years, shares traded at an average P/E ratio of 68.8.

This year, the stock has come under pressure. Much of that can be explained by expectations for slower growth. Management expects procedure growth of 13.5% to 15.5% in 2026, compared to 18% growth in 2025. Competition is also increasing as companies like Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, and several Chinese players continue to invest heavily in robotic surgery.

The company’s Q1 results were still very strong:

📊 Revenue grew 23%
🏥 Procedure volumes increased 17%
🤖 431 new da Vinci systems were installed
🌍 Installed base reached 11,395 systems
📈 Management raised its 2026 outlook

The stock may be under pressure, but the latest report showed that the business is still performing at a very high level.

Source: Intuitive Surgical Q1 2026 Investor Presentation

Why Intuitive Surgical Looks Attractive Now

Intuitive Surgical scores 78🟢 in our Fundamental Scoring Framework. That places the company in our Quality category and close to reaching High Quality status.

As we mentioned earlier, Intuitive Surgical has almost always traded at a premium valuation. Over the past 10 years, the stock traded at an average P/E ratio of 68.8.

Today, the stock trades at a P/E ratio below 50 and a forward P/E of 39.1. That’s about 43% below its historical average.

Free cash flow tells a similar story. Intuitive Surgical trades at a P/FCF ratio of 51.9, about 23% below its 10-year average.

Growth expectations also look healthy. Analysts expect both revenue and EPS to grow by around 14% per year over the next three years.

You’re buying a high-quality company with a dominant position in robotic surgery, a huge moat, and a long runway for growth. The key difference today is that you’re no longer paying the same premium valuation investors were willing to pay for most of the past decade.

The Future Investors (Vincent & Stefan) currently hold a position in Intuitive Surgical.

Fundamental Score: 78 🟢 → Quality
Current Stock Price: $407.29

View our Portfolios

The next two? One Quality 🟢 and one High Quality 🔵 company, both trading at extremely attractive valuations today:

👑 One is a global platform with exceptional cash flow growth.
🚀 The other is a market leader with exceptional margins and strong growth.

Ready to discover our #1 and #2 Best Buys?
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📈 Portfolio Update – May 2026

The Future Investors — Sat, 30 May 2026 12:19:27 GMT

May was another strong month for the markets, as the rally from April continued 📈

In this recap, we look at how the major indexes performed, how our portfolios compared, which stocks were the biggest winners and weakest performers in our portfolios, and the changes we made during May.

Dive into our full May Recap below 👇

📢 Our Best Buys for June will be released at the end of next week — don't miss it 🎯

What Moved the Markets in May?

May was another strong month for the markets, building on the gains from April. On the macro side, investors focused on the talks between the U.S. and Iran. No agreement has been announced yet, but markets became optimistic that a deal could be reached soon.

One of the biggest stories was the return of software stocks. After a very difficult start to the year, investors became less worried that AI could replace many software products. Strong results from Datadog and Snowflake gave investors more confidence in the sector. Atlassian (+53%), Figma (+51%) and ServiceNow (+40%) all had an excellent month.

GameStop made headlines after making a surprising $56 billion offer for eBay. The proposal was quickly rejected, as investors and eBay both questioned how GameStop would finance such a large deal.

Memory stocks also had a great month. Samsung, Micron and SK hynix all moved higher as demand for AI memory stayed extremely strong. During the month, all three companies crossed the $1 trillion market cap mark, joining the world’s largest and most valuable companies.

Amazon launched Amazon Now, bringing 30-minute delivery to cities across the U.S. Airbnb announced its biggest expansion in years by adding hotels, car rentals and grocery delivery to its platform.

Meta launched Forum, a new app inspired by Reddit that focuses on communities, discussions and AI-powered features. The company also introduced paid subscription options for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Cerebras, a company that develops AI chips for training and inference, went public this month. The stock jumped more than 65% on its first trading day before falling back later in the month. Investors also got excited about a possible SpaceX IPO, with June 12 being mentioned as the expected listing date.

NextEra Energy announced a $67 billion acquisition of Dominion Energy, creating one of the largest utility companies in the world. Uber also increased its stake in Delivery Hero and is interested in a full takeover of the company.

Dell stole the show during the final week of May. AI-optimized server revenue jumped from $1.9 billion to $16.1 billion in just one year. Dell also secured a $9.7 billion Pentagon contract, making May the best month in the company's history.

How strong was May for the markets? Here’s how the three major indexes performed:

S&P 500: +5.2% 📈 (+10.7% YTD)
Nasdaq: +8.4% 📈 (+16.1% YTD)
Dow Jones: +2.8% 📈 (+6.2% YTD)

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Portfolio Performance: How Did We Do?

How did our portfolios perform in May?

In this update, we compare our results with the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones, look at the biggest winners and losers, and review the changes we made during the month.

Curious to see what we bought and sold? Dive into the full breakdown below 👇

Available exclusively for our paid members ✨

📦 Unpacked #13: SanDisk

The Future Investors — Thu, 28 May 2026 10:36:13 GMT

Welcome to the 13th edition of Unpacked, our monthly series where we take a deep dive into a company. This time, we’re taking a closer look at SanDisk — one of the world’s leading NAND flash and storage companies, powering AI datacenters, cloud infrastructure, PCs, smartphones, and enterprise systems worldwide.

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We break down its story, business model, and highlight the latest developments.

🔴 Below 50 → Uninvestable
🟠 50 - 59 → Questionable
🟡 60 - 69 → Reasonable
🟢 70 - 79 → Quality
🔵 80 - 89 → High-Quality
🟣 90 or above → Exceptional

The goal? To give you a full deep dive into this company, as a complement to your own research, so you can decide if it’s the right investment for you.

In case you missed it, here you can read the previous editions of Unpacked:

Now let’s unpack the fundamentals of SanDisk and see how we score it!

History and Business Model

The story of SanDisk started in 1988, when Eli Harari, Sanjay Mehrotra (now CEO of Micron), and Jack Yuan founded the company in California under the name SunDisk.

Source: Business Insider - The Founding Story of SanDisk

Their goal was ambitious: replace traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) with flash memory that could store data faster, more efficiently, and without moving parts.

As the company prepared to go public, it changed its name from SunDisk to SanDisk in late 1995 to avoid confusion with Sun Microsystems. Later that same year, SanDisk went public on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SNDK, helping accelerate the development of flash memory technology.

A major breakthrough came in 2000, when SanDisk partnered with Toshiba to scale NAND flash memory production.

As smartphones, laptops, digital cameras, and gaming devices became more popular, demand for flash storage exploded. SanDisk became widely known for products such as SD cards, microSD cards, USB flash drives, and SSDs.

Source: SanDisk investor material, adapted by ChatGPT

Over time, the company expanded beyond consumer memory cards and became a broader storage company serving consumers, enterprises, and data centers.

One of the biggest moments came in 2016, when Western Digital acquired SanDisk for $19 billion, combining Western Digital’s HDD business with SanDisk’s flash memory expertise. In February 2025, SanDisk officially completed its spin-off from Western Digital and returned to the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SNDK.

Today, SanDisk focuses on NAND flash storage solutions used in smartphones, PCs, data centers, gaming devices, automotive systems, and AI infrastructure.

Its mission reflects this focus:

“Delivering innovative flash and memory solutions that keep people and businesses moving forward.”

Business Model Explained

SanDisk operates in the global NAND flash memory market and develops storage solutions used in consumer devices, edge systems, and data centers.

In simple terms, the company helps devices and systems store data faster, more efficiently, and with lower power consumption than traditional hard disk drives

Its business is built around three core end markets:

📱 1. Consumer
SanDisk sells products such as SD cards, microSD cards, USB flash drives, and portable SSDs used in smartphones, cameras, gaming devices, and laptops.

🌐 2. Edge
The company also provides flash storage for cars, industrial systems, PCs, and connected devices that continuously generate and process data closer to the user.

🏢 3. Data Center
SanDisk supplies high-performance storage solutions for cloud providers and AI workloads. The rapid growth of AI and cloud computing is increasing demand for fast and energy-efficient storage.

How SanDisk makes money 💰
SanDisk earns money by selling NAND flash memory and storage products to consumers, device makers, businesses, and cloud companies.

Revenue depends on:

Demand for smartphones, PCs, and data centers
Growth in AI infrastructure
NAND memory prices
More storage needed per device

One important thing about the business is that the NAND market is cyclical. When there is too much supply, prices and profits can fall quickly. When demand picks up again, profitability often recovers fast as well.

Over the long term, SanDisk benefits from one major trend: the world keeps creating more data through AI, cloud computing, gaming, video, and connected devices.

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Revenue Breakdown

On April 30, 2026, SanDisk reported its fiscal Q3 2026 results. Total revenue came in at $5.95 billion (+251% YoY).

🌐 Edge – $3.66 billion (61%)
The largest part of the business, supported by demand from PCs, automotive, and industrial markets.

🏢 Data Center – $1.47 billion (25%)
The fastest-growing segment, benefiting from rising AI and cloud infrastructure demand.

📱 Consumer – $0.82 billion (14%)
Driven by consumer storage products, although growth is slower than in AI-related markets.

View our Portfolios

Recent Developments

SanDisk is going through one of the biggest transitions in its history, shifting from a traditional consumer storage company into a more AI- and data-center-focused storage player. Here are the key recent developments:

1️⃣ Spin-Off from Western Digital
In February 2025, SanDisk officially completed its spin-off from Western Digital and returned to the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SNDK.

David Goeckeler became CEO of the independent SanDisk, with the company now fully focused on NAND flash memory and SSDs. SanDisk also started transitioning several WD-branded flash and SSD products back under the SanDisk name.

2️⃣ AI Push with High Bandwidth Flash
In 2025, SanDisk partnered with SK hynix to develop High Bandwidth Flash (HBF), a new NAND-based memory technology designed for AI inference workloads. The goal is to deliver:

Higher storage capacity
Lower power consumption
Lower AI infrastructure costs

Source: SanDisk HBF Factsheet

In February 2026, both companies launched an initiative through the Open Compute Project to standardize HBF technology for future AI systems. First HBF samples are expected in the second half of 2026.

3️⃣ New BiCS9 NAND Technology & Kioxia Partnership
SanDisk continues working closely with Kioxia on next-generation BiCS 3D NAND technology.

In 2025, the companies started shipping BiCS9 samples for enterprise SSDs and AI workloads, improving speed, storage density, and power efficiency. At the same time, both companies extended their Yokkaichi joint venture agreement through 2034, strengthening one of the world’s largest NAND flash partnerships.

4️⃣ Massive Stock Surge & AI Momentum
Since returning to the stock market in February 2025, SanDisk has become one of the fastest-rising stocks in the market.

The stock surged more than 4,000% last year, pushing SanDisk’s market capitalization to $235 billion.

Source: Yahoo Finance - SanDisk stock performance

Here’s why the stock has been rallying:

Strong AI infrastructure demand
Rising NAND memory prices
Growing demand for enterprise SSDs
Increasing hyperscaler AI spending
Excitement around High Bandwidth Flash

Investors increasingly see SanDisk as a major beneficiary of the long-term growth in AI data infrastructure.

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Fundamental Analysis

Now it’s time for the fundamental analysis of SanDisk.

Final Scoring

This score reflects how fundamentally attractive we believe SanDisk is as an investment, ranging from:

Unlock our scoring framework and full fundamental analysis below, and see how we score SanDisk on a scale from 0 to 100 — exclusively available to our paid members! ✨

First, let’s walk through our scoring framework 📊👇

🎓 The Art of Not Selling

The Future Investors — Sun, 24 May 2026 17:40:24 GMT

Most investors think their biggest investing mistake will be buying the wrong stock. A company with slowing growth. A stock that falls 80%. A business that disappoints quarter after quarter.

But in reality, the biggest mistake is often something completely different:
Selling a great company too early.

Almost every long-term investor has a painful story like this:

🗣️ “I bought Nvidia at $40… and sold at $90.”
🗣️ “I owned Amazon at $60… but sold after it doubled.”
🗣️ “If I had just held that stock, I’d be a millionaire today.”

At the time, selling felt smart. The stock had already doubled, the valuation looked high, and taking profits felt disciplined and responsible.

But many of the biggest investing mistakes started with exactly that decision.
Because the biggest returns in investing often don’t come in the first few years.
They come later, when compounding becomes much more powerful.

In this article, we’ll break down:

🧠 Why investors sell winners too early and hold losers too long
⏳ Why compounding becomes so powerful over time
💰 When selling actually makes sense

Let’s start with a simple question:
Why do investors sell great companies too early?

🧠 Why Investors Sell Winners Too Early

Investing is not just about numbers and valuation models. It’s also about psychology.

Why do investors often sell their winners too early while holding their losers for too long?

The answer lies in how the human brain works. The brain naturally wants to protect profits and avoid pain. That’s why many investors start thinking differently once a stock doubles or triples. The focus shifts from future upside to what they could lose.

Many investors also start questioning the company and looking for reasons why the stock may fall:

🗣️ “Can this company really keep growing?”
🗣️ “Maybe the best years are behind it.”
🗣️ “What if this is the top?”
🗣️ “Maybe I should take some profits.”

Emotionally, selling feels right. It feels smart, disciplined, and responsible. A stock that already went up 300% starts feeling expensive, risky, and too high, even when the business itself is performing better than ever.

Investors react very differently to losing positions. When a stock falls 60% or 70%, many investors convince themselves the stock is now “cheap” and keep holding, hoping it eventually recovers.

Peter Lynch described this perfectly:

“Selling your winners and holding your losers is like cutting the flowers and watering the weeds.”

Selling a losing investment means accepting that you were wrong. Emotionally, that is very difficult.

That’s why many investors prefer taking profits quickly while holding losing positions for much longer. But the stock market often works the other way around. Weak companies often continue getting weaker, while great companies continue getting stronger.

That’s what makes investing psychologically difficult. Investors become more fearful as great companies rise… and more optimistic as weak companies fall.

Selling often feels intelligent, while holding often feels uncomfortable.

Peter Lynch talked about this many times in the past. In the video below, he explains how even he sold great companies too early, and later realized it was a mistake. 🎥👇

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⏳ The Power of Compounding

The biggest returns in investing often don’t come in the beginning. They usually come much later. That’s because compound interest looks slow at first… but becomes incredibly powerful over time. Albert Einstein even called it the “eighth wonder of the world.”

A company growing at 20% per year doubles in around 4 years, becomes 6x larger in 10 years, and almost 40x larger in 20 years. And that’s exactly why selling great companies too early can become so expensive.

Most investors never experience the most powerful phase of compounding because they sell years too early. Or as Charlie Munger once said:

“The first rule of compounding: never interrupt it unnecessarily.”

The chart below shows why compounding becomes so powerful over time. In the beginning, growth looks relatively slow. But later, growth becomes much faster and more powerful. That’s why patience is so important in investing.

Source: Four Pillar Freedom Blog

Many investors think a stock that already went up a lot can no longer outperform. But history often shows otherwise. Companies like Amazon, Nvidia, Apple, and ASML looked “expensive” many times during their rise. But they kept growing for years because the businesses became stronger over time, with larger moats, scale advantages, pricing power, and growing cash flows. That’s one of the reasons why some of the best companies keep outperforming for far longer than most investors expect.

One of the most powerful things about investing is that your downside is limited, while your upside can be enormous. A stock can only fall 100%. But a great company can rise 500%, 1,000%, 5,000%, or even more over long periods of time. That asymmetry is incredibly powerful.

Just one exceptional investment can completely change the returns of an entire portfolio. A stock falling 50% needs to rise 100% just to break even. But a stock rising 1,000% can easily outweigh many smaller mistakes and losses.

The longer time and compounding can do their work, the bigger the impact becomes. A stock rising another 20% after already gaining 1,000% may not sound very impressive at first. But that extra gain can create more wealth than all the earlier years combined.

That’s why many of the biggest fortunes in investing were not built through constant trading. They were built through patience, time, and uninterrupted compounding.

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💰 When Should You Sell?

So does this mean you should never sell a stock? Not at all. Sometimes, selling is absolutely the right decision. But as an investor, you should be very critical before selling a great company.

Just because a stock went up a lot doesn’t mean you should sell it. But changes in the company can be a good reason to sell. For example:

📉 slower growth
🛡️ weaker competitive advantages
👔 poor management decisions
🏦 rising debt
🔄 big changes in the industry
💡 a much better investment opportunity somewhere else

Valuation matters too. Even a great company can become too expensive when expectations get too high. But many investors sell for the wrong reason: simply because the stock already went up a lot. And historically, that has often been a very expensive mistake.

That’s why selling decisions should usually be based more on changes in the business than on short-term moves in the stock price.

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📌 Final Takeaway

One of the hardest parts of investing is doing… nothing.

Holding great companies for many years sounds easy in theory. In reality, it can feel emotionally uncomfortable. Stocks become volatile, valuations rise, negative headlines show up, and investors start questioning the company. That’s why so many investors sell their biggest winners too early.

But history shows that some of the greatest investments of all time created life-changing wealth not because investors traded perfectly, but because they held exceptional companies long enough for time and compounding to do their work.

As Charlie Munger once said:

“The big money is not in the buying or the selling, but in the waiting.”

Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments — we’d love to hear from you 💬

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That’s it for today.
We’ll see you again in the next edition of our newsletter!

Until then, invest wisely.

Vincent & Stefan
The Future Investors