The Future Investors

🗣️ Investor Talk #58: Hamid Shojaee

The Future Investors — Mon, 11 May 2026 13:40:02 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: Hamid Shojaee @hamids
Age: 52
Residence/Country: United States
Invests since: the 1990’s

Introduction
I have been fascinated by businesses for as long as I can remember, how they are created, how ownership is divided among shareholders, and how public markets allow everyday investors to participate in the growth of great companies.

That interest started when I was a teenager, and during high school I began paper investing to better understand how the stock market worked. Tracking companies and simulating investments taught me the basics of buying and selling stocks, but more importantly, it helped me realize that investing was far more than simply watching stock prices move, it was about understanding businesses. Over time, that curiosity developed into a lifelong passion for investing and analyzing companies.

What is your investment strategy?
As I became a more experienced investor, I noticed a clear pattern in my results: the overwhelming majority of my gains came from just a small number of investments, typically the companies I understood best and had the highest conviction in. That realization completely changed the way I approached investing. Rather than spreading capital across dozens of positions, I adopted a highly concentrated strategy focused on owning only my very best ideas.

Today, I invest in just six companies and look exclusively for businesses that I believe are great companies trading at good or great prices. My philosophy is simple: if you truly understand a business and believe the upside is compelling, it makes sense to size that position accordingly rather than dilute returns through over-diversification.

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How many stocks are currently held in your portfolio?
I currently own just six stocks:
$MU - Micron
$RKLB - Rocket Lab
$META - Meta
$HOOD - Robinhood
$RIVN - Rivian
$BMBL - Bumble

My portfolio is fully public and can be seen here: SavvyTrader profile (it’s free to subscribe)

Which sectors do you mainly focus on?
My primary focus is on technology and software companies, largely because that aligns with my professional background and area of expertise. I believe investing within sectors you deeply understand can provide a meaningful edge over time.

What are your 3 highest conviction stocks?
$MU - Micron
$META - Meta
$RIVN - Rivian

I believe each of these companies has substantial long-term upside and the potential to deliver outsized returns from current levels.

What is the stock in your portfolio with the highest return?
$RKLB - Rocket Lab has delivered the highest return in my current portfolio. Looking back over my investing career, some of my biggest winners have included Netflix, Tesla, Uber, Apple, and Meta.

What is the biggest investing mistake you have made?
One of the biggest mistakes I made early in my investing journey was believing that diversification was inherently a smart strategy. In my experience, excessive diversification often leads to mediocre returns rather than true outperformance.

I also believed I could time the market, which proved to be another misconception. Over time, I learned that while market timing is extremely difficult, identifying when great companies are clearly overvalued or undervalued is much more achievable. My strategy evolved accordingly into buying underpriced, high-quality businesses.

If you could give one piece of advice to investors, what would it be?
Don’t follow hype. Valuation always matters. Focus on buying good or great companies at attractive prices rather than chasing whatever is popular in the market at the moment.

Hamid’s Favorites

📖 Favorite book: One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch

🎧 Favorite podcast: Buy Hold Rant, where I am the co-host

💬 Favorite quote: “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” by Warren Buffett. In my view, Buffett has some of the greatest investing quotes of all time.

👤 Favorite FinX account: Shay Boloor @StockSavvyShay

Where can we find more info about you?
You can watch and listen to all of our podcasts and videos on our YouTube channel: Buy Hold Rant

That’s a wrap!
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Thank you for reading! 🙏
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Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments — we’d love to hear from you 💬

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 - May 2026

The Future Investors — Tue, 05 May 2026 10:27:54 GMT

Hey Investors,

Fresh month, fresh opportunities. Our Best Buys for May are here. 🎯

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

Since December 2024, we’ve shared 51 Best Buys with our paid members.

They’ve delivered outstanding results so far, with multiple positions already up close to or over 100% in such a short timeframe 🔥

🚀 AMD at $97.35 (+250%)
🚀 Alphabet at $168.95 (+127%)
🚀 BE Semiconductor at €113.85 (+117%)
🚀 ASML at $662.63 (+99%)

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 May ✨👇

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: Hermès (OTC: HESAY)

This is the first time we’re adding Hermès to our Best Buys list. In early 2025, the stock peaked at $303. Since then, shares have fallen to $186, leaving this world-class business more than 38% below its highs.

While the stock has corrected sharply, the quality of the business has not changed. That disconnect has created an attractive opportunity for long-term investors 🎯

What Happened?

Hermès has been building one of the strongest luxury brands in the world since 1837. Across 16 product categories (métiers), the company has built a reputation for exclusivity and craftsmanship that very few brands can match.

That is why investors have historically been willing to pay a premium valuation for the stock. But this year, even Hermès has come under pressure.

Source: Hermès investor materials, adapted by ChatGPT

The war in Iran hurt spending in the Middle East, one of the most important growth regions for luxury brands. Sales in the region fell more than 13% in the first quarter. Fewer wealthy tourists also visited Europe, which impacted sales there.

China was another weak spot. Many consumers are still spending more cautiously due to economic uncertainty, putting pressure on luxury demand. Growth in Asia-Pacific slowed to just 2.2%. On top of that, currency effects reduced reported revenue by €290 million. As a result, Hermès reported Q1 organic growth of 5.6%, below expectations of 7.1%.

Luxury as a whole is under pressure right now, and companies like LVMH and Kering are seeing an even steeper slowdown. The difference is that Hermès operates at the very top of the luxury market:

📊 Excluding currency effects, Hermès still grew in a difficult quarter
👜 Hermès still cannot keep up with demand for its most exclusive products
📈 Hermès has the highest gross and net margins of any major luxury company

That is why many investors see Hermès as a class apart within luxury.

Why Hermès Looks Attractive Now

Hermès scores 79 🟢 in our Fundamental Scoring Framework, which is an excellent score. If the company had met earnings expectations this quarter, it would have received our High-Quality label 🔵.

Hermès has always traded at a premium valuation, which makes sense given the strength of the business. Over the past 10 years, the stock traded at an average P/E ratio of 49.2x. Today, that has dropped to 36.7x, which is more than 25% below its historical average.

Its forward P/E of 34.0x is also below the lowest valuation level of the past decade (10-year low: 34.2x).

That means investors can now buy the best luxury company in the world at its most attractive valuations in years.

No luxury brand matches Hermès when it comes to brand strength, pricing power, and exclusivity. The company has been around for nearly 200 years, and if one luxury business is built to keep winning long term, it is Hermès.

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

Fundamental Score: 79 🟢 → Quality
Current Stock Price: $185.79

The next two? Two high-quality 🔵 businesses trading at very attractive valuations right now:

👑 One is a near-monopoly business with industry-leading margins.
🚀 The other is a fast-growing fintech leader with plenty of room to grow.

Ready to discover our #1 and #2 Best Buys?
Get instant access as a paid member 🔓✨

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📈 Portfolio Update – April 2026

The Future Investors — Sat, 02 May 2026 09:19:57 GMT

March was brutal, but the markets bounced back strongly in April as hopes grew that the conflict with Iran may soon come to an end 📈

In this recap, we break down what happened. How did the indexes perform? What did our portfolios do? Which stocks led the rebound, and which lagged behind? We end with the moves we made this month.

Dive into our full April Recap below 👇

📢 Our Best Buys for May drop early next week — don’t miss it 🎯

What Moved the Markets in April?

April was a strong month for the markets. After the heavy sell-off in March, stocks rebounded as the U.S. and Iran agreed to a ceasefire, removing a lot of uncertainty from the market.

TSMC and ASML kicked off Q1 earnings season with strong results, showing AI demand is still incredibly strong. Big Tech earnings last week only reinforced that view, with the hyperscalers once again raising their AI spending plans. Combined capex for the four largest players is now expected to reach up to $725 billion in 2026. Alphabet impressed the most with 63% growth in Google Cloud, while Meta disappointed investors after raising its capex outlook by another $10 billion.

Memory companies like SK hynix, Western Digital and Sandisk also posted strong numbers, with demand for AI memory and storage staying very strong.

April also brought a wave of AI and product launches. Anthropic launched Project Glasswing, opening access to Claude Mythos for a select group of companies. OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Images 2.0, and rumors emerged that the company may be developing an OpenAI Phone powered by Qualcomm chips.

Amazon launched Amazon Quick, its new desktop AI assistant, and Microsoft announced its biggest Copilot rollout ever with Accenture, bringing the software to 743,000 employees. Adobe launched CX Enterprise Coworker and announced a $25 billion buyback, and Salesforce introduced Headless 360.

Eli Lilly launched Foundayo, its new GLP-1 weight loss pill, in the U.S. Amazon launched a GLP-1 weight loss program through One Medical, and Novo Nordisk partnered with OpenAI on drug discovery.

Amazon acquired Globalstar for $11.6 billion, and Adyen acquired Talon.One. Uber expanded further into travel by adding hotel bookings through Expedia.

Intel and AMD rallied last month as investors started realizing CPUs are becoming more important and could play a crucial role in an agentic AI era.

SpaceX confidentially filed for an IPO, with a potential listing expected in June.

Finally, Apple announced that Tim Cook will step down as CEO later this year and remain chairman, with John Ternus taking over as his successor. Reed Hastings also stepped down as chairman of Netflix after more than two decades.

So how did the markets respond this month? Here’s how the three major indexes performed:

S&P 500: +10.4% 📈 (+5.3% YTD)
Nasdaq: +15.3% 📈 (+7.1% YTD)
Dow Jones: +7.1% 📈 (+3.3% YTD)

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Portfolio Performance: How Did We Do?

How did our portfolios perform in April?

In this update, we break down our performance versus the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones, and highlight which stocks performed best and which lagged behind.

Want to see what we bought and sold during the month? Check out the full breakdown below 👇

Available exclusively for our paid members ✨

📦 Unpacked #12: Palo Alto Networks

The Future Investors — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:31:53 GMT

Welcome to the 12th edition of Unpacked, our monthly series where we take a deep dive into a company. This time, we’re taking a closer look at Palo Alto Networks — a global leader in cybersecurity, protecting thousands of organizations worldwide with its advanced network, cloud, and AI-driven security platforms.

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 Palo Alto Networks and see how we score it!

History and Business Model

In 2005, Nir Zuk founded Palo Alto Networks after seeing that companies had limited insight into what was happening on their networks. Firewalls could block traffic, but didn’t show which apps were being used or who was behind it.

Zuk believed security needed to go further, not just block, but also understand what’s happening inside the network.

In 2007, Palo Alto Networks launched its first product: the Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), introducing:

App-ID (which applications are running)
User-ID (who is behind the activity)
Content-ID (what data and threats are inside)

Source: Palo Alto Networks’ first next-generation firewall (PA-4000 series)

As cloud, mobile, and remote work increased, Palo Alto Networks moved beyond hardware and built a broader platform across networks, cloud, and endpoints.

In the summer of 2012, the company went public, helping expand globally.

From 2018, Palo Alto Networks moved from separate products to one integrated platform across network security, cloud security, and security operations, accelerated by acquisitions such as Evident.io (2018), RedLock (2018), and Demisto (2019).

Today, its platform is built around three core areas:
🔐 1. Network Security
☁️ 2. Prisma Cloud
🤖 3. Cortex

Over the past few years, Palo Alto Networks has been adding AI to detect and respond to threats faster, and now serves tens of thousands of organizations worldwide.

Its mission says it all:

“To be the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.”

Want to go deeper? A recent podcast with Nir Zuk and CEO Nikesh Arora shares the full Palo Alto Networks story 🎧👇

Source: Sequoia Capital, Crucible Moments Podcast

Business Model Explained

Palo Alto Networks helps companies stay secure in a world where everything is connected, from office networks to cloud systems and employee devices.

Instead of using many separate security tools, customers can use one platform that covers multiple areas of cybersecurity.

Its business is built around three core areas:

🔐 1. Network Security
Protects company networks with firewalls and software that monitor and control traffic. This is where the company started.

☁️ 2. Prisma Cloud
Secures cloud environments like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. As more companies move to the cloud, this has become a key growth area.

🤖 3. Cortex
Helps security teams detect and respond to threats using automation and AI, reducing manual work and improving response times.

How Palo Alto Networks makes money 💰
The model combines products with recurring subscriptions. Companies often start with a firewall or a specific product, but most revenue comes from ongoing subscriptions for threat detection, cloud security, monitoring, and continuous updates.

As customers add more products over time, revenue becomes more predictable and grows. Once a company uses one part of the platform, it becomes easier to expand into others, leading to more products per customer, higher switching costs, and deeper integration in daily operations.

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Revenue Breakdown

On February 17, 2026, Palo Alto Networks reported its fiscal Q2 2026 results (quarter ended January 31, 2026). Total revenue came in at $2.59B (+15% YoY).

🔄 Subscription & Support – $2.08B (80%)
Recurring revenue from cloud security, threat detection, and ongoing services. This is where most of the growth comes from, as customers use more parts of the platform.

🔐 Product – $0.51B (20%)
Includes hardware like firewalls, plus the basic software that runs on them. This is a smaller part of the business, but still growing and important for bringing in new customers.

Recent Developments

Palo Alto Networks is moving beyond firewalls into a broader platform across cloud, AI, identity, and security operations. Here are the key developments:

1️⃣ Strategic Acquisitions
In 2025 and 2026, Palo Alto Networks made several acquisitions to expand into new areas of cybersecurity:

Protect AI ($650M+): early move into securing AI models and applications
Chronosphere ($3.3B): helps monitor and secure large amounts of data
CyberArk ($25B): adds identity security for users, machines, and AI agents
Koi ($400M): focused on securing AI agents and endpoints

These deals show a clear direction: the company is building out its platform across AI, data, and identity.

2️⃣ AI & New Product Launches
Palo Alto Networks launched new products focused on AI security:

Prisma AIRS 3.0: helps companies discover, monitor, and protect AI systems from development to real-world use
Prisma Browser for Business: secures work done in the browser, where employees increasingly use SaaS tools and AI applications

Source: Palo Alto Networks Blog - Securing the AI Enterprise

These launches show how cybersecurity is shifting. More work is happening in the cloud and the browser, and more processes are supported by AI, creating new risks that need to be secured.

3️⃣ Google Cloud Partnership & Migration
Palo Alto Networks expanded its partnership with Google Cloud through a multi-billion dollar deal.

The company is moving part of its own systems to Google Cloud, while also integrating its security tools more deeply into Google’s platform. This includes protecting AI workloads and data using solutions like Prisma AIRS.

Palo Alto Networks is also using Google’s AI models within its own platform, showing a deeper level of integration beyond a typical partnership.

This also supports products like Prisma SASE, as companies move more of their networks and applications to the cloud and look to use fewer vendors.

4️⃣ Founder Nir Zuk Steps Down
In 2025, founder and CTO Nir Zuk stepped down after leading the company’s technology strategy for nearly two decades.

Lee Klarich, a long-time product leader at the company, took over as CTO. He has been closely involved in building many of the company’s key products.

5️⃣ Project Glasswing: Collaboration with Anthropic
Palo Alto Networks is a launch partner in Project Glasswing, an initiative led by Anthropic. The project uses advanced AI models to automatically find and fix software vulnerabilities. This is important because AI is not only used by companies, but also by attackers.

Source: Anthropic website

Together, these developments show how Palo Alto Networks is building a broader cybersecurity platform, with AI at the center.

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Fundamental Analysis

Now it’s time for the fundamental analysis of Palo Alto Networks.

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 Palo Alto Networks 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 Palo Alto Networks on a scale from 0 to 100 — exclusively available to our paid members! ✨

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

🎓 GAAP vs Non-GAAP: What Investors Overlook in Earnings

The Future Investors — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:14:30 GMT

Many investors look ahead to decide if a stock is cheap or expensive. To do that, they use the forward P/E ratio, and based on that number, they conclude if a stock is cheap or expensive. But here’s the problem: not all earnings are the same.

Companies can report different versions of earnings, and the difference between them can be significant. That means a stock that looks cheap can actually be much more expensive. And that has a direct impact on valuation.

That’s why it’s so important to understand which earnings you’re using when valuing a company, and how they can lead to very different valuations.

In this article, we’ll break down the two types of earnings: GAAP and non-GAAP.

You’ll learn:
📊 what the key differences are between GAAP and non-GAAP
🧾 what is included (and what is excluded)
🎯 how they impact valuation

We’ll also use a real-world example to show how big the difference can be.

Let’s start with GAAP, the official way companies report earnings.

📊 What is GAAP?

GAAP stands for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. It’s the industry standard for reporting financial results, which makes companies comparable. These are the numbers you’ll find in their income statements.

GAAP includes all costs. That means the following is included:

operating expenses
interest and taxes
stock-based compensation
restructuring and other charges

These are all costs related to running the business. Nothing is excluded, which means GAAP reflects the full financial picture of a company’s performance.

GAAP earnings show what a company actually earned over a period. There are no adjustments, no “cleaned” numbers, and no exclusions to make results look better. It reflects the true bottom line.

Because GAAP includes everything, earnings can sometimes look lower, especially in the short term. One-time charges, restructuring costs, or acquisition-related expenses can impact results in a given quarter or year. That doesn’t always mean the underlying business is weaker.

If you want to understand a company’s profitability, GAAP is your starting point. It shows what is actually reported and what shareholders are left with. But GAAP doesn’t tell the whole story about how a business is performing. That’s where non-GAAP comes in.

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📊 What is Non-GAAP?

Non-GAAP earnings are adjusted numbers. Companies start with their GAAP results and then exclude costs. These are costs such as:

stock-based compensation
restructuring costs
acquisition-related expenses
other “one-time” items

The goal is to show a clearer view of the underlying business. One example of a non-GAAP metric is EBITDA, which excludes interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. This allows non-GAAP to focus more on the core performance.

Unlike GAAP, non-GAAP is not standardized. Companies decide what they exclude and how they present these numbers, which means results are not always comparable.

Non-GAAP is a useful way to understand how a business is performing without short-term impact. However, it’s important to be careful. Some of the costs that are excluded are not always one-time. Stock-based compensation, for example, is often excluded, while it is a recurring cost for many companies. This can make earnings look higher than they are.

Non-GAAP can help you understand the business, but it doesn’t always show the full picture when valuing a company.

Source: The Motley Fool

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🎯 The Impact on Valuation

Most investors use the forward P/E ratio to value a company, meaning they look at expected future earnings. But here’s the problem: the “E” in that ratio is often based on non-GAAP EPS.

As discussed earlier, this means costs such as stock-based compensation, restructuring costs, and acquisition-related expenses are excluded. As a result, the EPS used in the forward P/E is often higher than the actual EPS, which leads to a lower P/E ratio.

For example, a stock might trade at a forward P/E of 25, which at first glance can look reasonable. However, that multiple is based on non-GAAP EPS. If you instead look at GAAP EPS, those costs are included, which usually results in lower earnings, especially for growth companies where stock-based compensation can be significant.

The same stock trading at 25x non-GAAP EPS might actually trade at 40x or more based on GAAP EPS. It’s the same company and the same business, but a very different valuation.

This is where many investors get it wrong, and it’s not just theory. Let’s look at a real example: Axon Enterprise.

🛡️ Example: Axon Enterprise

The difference between GAAP and non-GAAP can have a big impact on valuation. You often see this with high-growth companies. Let’s take Axon as an example.

As you can see in the image below, for Q4 2025, Axon reported a non-GAAP net income of $177.8 million and an EPS of $2.15. But on a GAAP basis, net income was just $2.7 million, with EPS of only $0.03.

The biggest impact comes from stock-based compensation, which was $184.5 million in the quarter. This has a major impact on reported earnings and brings net income close to zero.

So GAAP EPS is much lower than non-GAAP EPS, and that’s exactly the point, because GAAP EPS is the actual “E” used in the trailing (TTM) P/E ratio.

Source: Q4 2025 Axon Enterprise Shareholder Letter

At the current share price of $402.85 and a GAAP EPS of $1.51, Axon trades at a P/E ratio of 267.

If we look, like many investors do, at Axon’s forward P/E ratio for 2026, it is 51.7 (source: GuruFocus). At first, that may look reasonable. You might think earnings will grow quickly and the valuation will come down next year. But here’s the problem: that 51.7 is based on non-GAAP EPS of 7.79, which means costs are excluded. And we know that can have a big impact on the valuation.

The expected GAAP EPS for 2026 is 1.68. Based on that, the real forward P/E at the current stock price would be around 240.

Still very high, and very different from what the forward P/E shows.

View Our Portfolios

📌 Final Takeaway

Not all earnings are the same. GAAP shows the full picture. Non-GAAP shows a cleaner version of the business. Both matter, but for different reasons.

If you want to understand how a business is performing, non-GAAP helps.
If you want to value a company, GAAP matters most.

Make sure you understand the numbers and use the right earnings. Otherwise, you risk reaching the wrong conclusions, and making the wrong decisions. Good luck!

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

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

🗣️ Investor Talk #57: Amrita Roy

The Future Investors — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:27:24 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 🚀

👉 Check out all previous Investor Talks here
Including interviews with Brian Feroldi (Founder - Long Term Mindset), Shay Baloor (Host of Stocktwits) and Gav Blaxberg (CEO - WOLF Financial).

In this edition, we have the pleasure of interviewing:

Name: @amritaroy2011
Age: 36
Residence/Country: Originally from India, now living in Tbilisi, Georgia
Invests since: 2020

Introduction
I have an extensive background working in technology startups in San Francisco Bay Area for several years before I made a career pivot into investing and finance in 2020/2021. During that period of time, I got deeply interested in understanding how the global economies and financial markets work. Ray Dalio’s “The Principles of Dealing with a Changing World Order” had a big role to play in inspiring me to embark on a quest to study and disentangle how the world’s financial markets and economies work and use the insights to discover and invest in companies that sit at the intersection of key technological and cultural waves.

Less than two years later, I started my Substack called The Pragmatic Optimist. In 2024, I also started actively contributing to Seeking Alpha & other financial platforms to share my research on technology companies that I had started investing in. Today, my work on both these platforms share a tight synergy in terms of our core macroeconomic thesis, industry trends in AI and investing themes and companies. Additionally, we also share our portfolio along with real-time trades through our paid service on The Pragmatic Optimist newsletter.

What is your investment strategy?
We focus on high-growth assets that generally sit within AI or the digitally native ecosystem, along with some exposure to cryptocurrency. Of late, we’ve been utilizing a lot of thematic investment strategies to deploy our capital, possibly even in multi-phased approaches.

On a more tactical basis, we lean a lot on top-down methodologies, looking at industries, sectors, themes, dependencies, competitive positioning and then picking out our winners which we believe will deliver category-leading performances over the rest of its peers. A lot of our research is also centered in identifying market mispricing in companies, particularly, where revenue and/or margins may be about to inflect in either direction.

The thing is that the pace of progress in AI is much faster than the previous innovation cycles like cloud computing, internet, etc., so this is a constant process of keeping ourselves updated across the demand signals developing across the entire AI ecosystem.

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How many stocks are currently held in your portfolio?
In The Pragmatic Optimist portfolio, we own a total of 22 stocks, including Bitcoin, Ethereum as well as iShares MSCI India ETF for exposure in the Indian markets.

Which sectors do you mainly focus on?
I tend to focus my research on hyperscalers, software and cybersecurity. Particularly, I am keen on finding long-term opportunities in platform companies with embedded distribution, ecosystems that lock in users, system-level integration that competitors can’t easily replicate.

What are your 3 highest conviction stocks?
$META - Meta
$PLTR - Palantir
$CRWD - CrowdStrike

What is the stock in your portfolio with the highest return?
The current position in our portfolio with the highest return is AMD $AMD, yielding 77%.

Since the start of 2026, we have trimmed and/or exited several positions at significant gains, which include iShares Silver Trust ETF at 200%, SPDR Gold Shares ETF at 110%, Celestica at 250%, Alphabet at 50% and TSMC at 50%.

What is the biggest investing mistake you have made?
My two biggest mistakes since launching The Pragmatic Optimist portfolio include investing in Zscaler and remaining overly patient with the stock. Since 2026, it has seen the largest decline in the cybersecurity complex as the competition in the Zero Trust space heats up, with companies like Cloudflare that are eating its lunch. At the moment, we are planning to exit the position altogether, as we consolidate our holdings in our higher conviction names.

My second mistake is building too heavy a position in Microsoft for the portfolio at the end of last year, which is also weighing down on the portfolio performance.

If you could give one piece of advice to investors, what would it be?
The macro narrative at the moment is “higher for longer”. With inflation projected to tick up higher in the short-term, I believe any bounce in the S&P 500 should be treated with caution, at least until we get evidence that inflation expectations has peaked. This will create a lot of short-term volatility and it is important to practice appropriate risk management strategies as you navigate between cash preservation vs. selective investments.

Amrita’s Favorites

📖 Favorite book: -

🎧 Favorite podcast: -

💬 Favorite quote: -

👤 Favorite FinX account: I have several favourites: @RihardJarc, @StockSavvyShay, @SemiAnalysis_, @damnang2, @Beth_Kindig

Where can we find more info about you?
Substack:
Seeking Alpha: https://seekingalpha.com/author/amrita-roy
X: @amritaroy2011

That’s a wrap!
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Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments — we’d love to hear from you 💬

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

🔍 The Mag 7: Which Stocks Are Most Attractive?

The Future Investors — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:03:30 GMT

For years, The Magnificent 7 have dominated the market. They still make up a large part of the S&P 500 and have been responsible for a big share of the returns. But recently, something has started to shift. Not in their businesses, but in their stock prices. A number of these stocks have dropped significantly from their highs. So what’s actually going on?

They are often seen as one group, but they are no longer moving in the same way. Some are now much more attractive than others.

In this article, we take a closer look at:

📉 How far these stocks have fallen and why they’ve come down
📊 What the growth expectations are for the Mag 7
🔢 And how we rank the Mag 7 from #7 to #1

📉 The Drop

The Magnificent 7 are no longer trading near their highs. After a strong run over the past few years, these stocks have come down. Many of them are now down double digits from their all-time highs:

Amazon: -7.8% 📉
Alphabet: -9.1% 📉
Apple: -9.8% 📉
Nvidia: -11.1% 📉
Meta: -20.9% 📉
Tesla: -30.1% 📉
Microsoft: -33.2% 📉

The S&P 500 is only 2.6% below its all-time high, which shows how much bigger the declines have been in these stocks.

The chart below shows the recent drop in the Magnificent 7 compared to the rest of the market. But zoom out, and they’ve still significantly outperformed the market over the past 10 years.

Source: Yardeni Research, Magnificent 7 performance vs S&P 500

What’s behind the drop in Mag 7 stock prices? There are a few clear reasons:

1️⃣ Geopolitics
The situation around Iran has pushed oil prices higher, which brings more uncertainty to the market and puts pressure on growth stocks.

2️⃣ AI investments
Big Tech is set to spend around $600–700 billion this year on AI infrastructure, and investors are starting to question the returns.

3️⃣ Tariffs & trade
Trump’s tariff plans increase costs for companies and create uncertainty around global trade. That puts pressure on earnings expectations and stock prices.

In uncertain times, Big Tech stocks often get hit harder. Over the past month, investors have been rotating into “defensive” parts of the market, such as value stocks, energy and consumer staples. This creates opportunities for investors with a long-term horizon.

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📊 The Expectations

We’ve seen that Magnificent 7 stocks have come down, all of them more than the S&P 500. But maybe that’s justified. To understand that, we need to look at expectations, in this case, earnings growth.

The chart below shows expected earnings growth over the next 12 months for the Mag7, the S&P 500, and the S&P 500 ex-Mag 7.

Source: Yardeni Research, Magnificent 7 vs S&P 500 Forward Earnings Growth

The Magnificent 7 are still expected to grow faster than the rest of the market. Over the next 12 months, earnings are expected to grow around 23.6% for the Mag 7, compared to 16.1% for the S&P 500 ex-Mag 7.

We’ve just seen that many of these stocks have fallen well below their highs. Strong growth and lower prices mean that the Mag 7 stocks have become more attractive. But not all of them. So which ones stand out right now?

We’ve done the work and ranked the Magnificent 7 from least to most attractive (#7 → #1) 🏆

Let’s start with #7 🔍👇

#7: Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA)

Tesla is by far the most expensive stock within the Magnificent 7. With a forward P/E of 172, a PEG ratio of 4.65, and a P/FCF of 210, the valuation is far above the rest of the group.

Tesla is not being valued as a traditional car manufacturer. Investors are paying for Elon Musk’s long-term vision. That includes projects like the robotaxi and the Tesla Optimus, both with huge potential, but also a lot of uncertainty around timing and execution.

Based on current results and expectations, the stock looks very expensive. Tesla still needs to prove it can deliver on this vision. If not, the stock could be revalued lower, but if it does, the potential is still significant.

Metrics 📊
P/E (NTM): 172.2
PEG-ratio: 4.65
P/FCF: 210.5
EPS 5Y Forward Growth: 37.0%

#6: Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)

Apple is still trading at a high valuation, and growth is limited. With a forward P/E of 30, a PEG ratio of 2.73, and a P/FCF of 31, the stock looks expensive for a company expected to grow earnings by 11% over the next five years.

Apple does not yet have a clear AI strategy that supports future growth, but that could change. Apple has a massive iPhone user base, which gives it a strong position to launch new products and services.

Based on current expectations, the mix of high valuation and lower growth makes the stock less attractive. There is still potential, but Apple needs a new growth driver, likely in AI, to justify its valuation.

Key Metrics 📊
P/E (NTM): 30.3
PEG-ratio: 2.73
P/FCF: 31.0
EPS 5Y Forward Growth: 11.1%

With Tesla at #7 and Apple at #6, we’re left with five Mag 7 stocks: Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta. Which ones are the most attractive right now?

This part of the article is exclusively available to paid subscribers ✨
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The top 3 names look like screaming buys 🔥

But let’s start with #5 first 👇

🎯 Best Buys - April 2026

The Future Investors — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 11:38:21 GMT

Hey Investors,

April is here and so are our new Best Buys 🎯

Every month, we search the market for great companies trading at fair prices — and highlight three stocks we believe stand out right now.

Since December 2024, we’ve shared 48 Best Buys with our paid members.

And the results speak for themselves 🔥

🚀 AMD at $97.35 (+123%)
🚀 ASML at $662.63 (+89%)
🚀 Alphabet at $168.95 (+75%)
🚀 BESI at €113.85 (+67%)

Our selection combines fundamentals and valuation, but we always prioritize quality. Because in the end:

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

If you’re curious how we score companies, you can read more 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 it’s time to reveal our Top 3 Best Buys for April ✨

No. 1 is trading near its 10-year low valuation 🎯

#3: Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META)

This is the second time we’re recommending Meta Platforms as one of our Best Buys.

We first highlighted it in November. Since then, the stock is down another 12% as market fear increased due to the war in Iran.

The business keeps growing, and the valuation has come down. That makes the opportunity even more attractive today 🎯

What Happened?

Investors in Meta have been worried about one thing in recent months: spending. The company plans to invest heavily, with expected capex of $115–135B in 2026, up from around $72B in 2025. A large part of this is going into AI infrastructure like data centers and computing power.

Investors didn’t like that. But the impact of those investments is already visible. AI is already improving Meta’s core business:

🎯 Ad performance is getting stronger
+3.5% more clicks, +1%+ conversions, +3% higher conversion rate, and +24% incremental conversions, driven by better AI targeting and ranking.

📈 Engagement keeps rising
+7% views on Facebook and +20% time spent on Threads, powered by AI-driven recommendations.

💰 AI is already generating revenue
$10B run-rate from AI tools, including video generation

Even Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, said that no one uses AI better than Meta 🎥👇

Source: CNBC Television, Halftime Report

Meta is also cutting costs and reorganizing the company. It plans major layoffs, possibly up to around 20% of its workforce. So while the market is focused on the high level of spending, the results are already there. Meta is investing heavily, and it’s starting to pay off.

Why Meta looks attractive now

Meta Platforms scores 81 🔵 in our Fundamental Scoring Framework, which makes it a high-quality company.

It’s founder-led, has a very dominant position in digital advertising, and reaches 3.48 billion daily users across its platforms. The company delivers strong financials and still has strong growth ahead.

What stands out today is the valuation. Meta trades at a P/E of 24.4, with a forward P/E of just 19.4. Over the past 10 years, the average P/E was around 27.4, which means the forward valuation is about 30% lower than usual. It’s also the lowest forward P/E within the Magnificent 7.

Looking at growth, the PEG ratio is 0.85. A PEG below 1 is generally seen as attractive, especially for a company of this quality.

Meta is investing heavily in AI, and it’s already delivering real results. This means you can now buy a proven, high-quality company that is clearly benefiting from AI at a more attractive valuation.

A wonderful company… now at a wonderful price! 💎

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

Fundamental score: 81 🔵 → High-Quality
Current stock price: $574.46

The next two? Two quality businesses trading at very attractive valuations right now:

🚀 A high-growth company, expected to grow revenue 25%+ this year — now priced like a value stock.
💎 The other is a world-class company, trading near its lowest valuation in a decade.

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

The Future Investors — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 10:55:30 GMT

March is over… and what a month it was 😬. The war in Iran dominated the month. Oil prices jumped, and that brought a lot of fear into the markets ⚔️📉

In this recap, we break down what happened. How did the indexes perform? What did our portfolios do? Which stocks held up during the fear, and which ones didn’t? We end with the moves we made this month.

Dive into our full March Recap below 👇

📢 Our Best Buys for April drop this weekend — don’t miss it 🎯

What Moved the Markets in March?

March was a brutal month for markets. The war in Iran dominated the whole month. Iran responded with missiles and drones across the region, targeting U.S. bases and countries like Qatar and the UAE.

Iran also made it clear ships were no longer safe in the Strait of Hormuz. Tankers were attacked, traffic dropped sharply, and in practice the route was almost shut down. Around 20% of the world’s oil normally goes through that route, so this had a big impact. Supply dropped, and Brent oil prices shot up to well above $100.

That brought a lot of fear back into the markets. High-growth stocks were hit the hardest, but big tech names like Meta and Microsoft also dropped sharply. Almost all companies, except oil companies, came under pressure.

The VIX moved above 30, and the Fear & Greed Index dropped to 13, clear signs that extreme fear had taken over.

Source: CNN Fear & Greed Index

But yesterday, on the last day of the month, sentiment shifted. Iran signaled it wants to end the war, as long as it gets guarantees the conflict won’t return. At the same time, reports suggested Trump is open to ending the war as well, even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed. Markets reacted immediately, with indexes up more than 2–3%.

The big question now: is the war really nearing its end, and on what terms?

If a deal is reached soon, markets could recover further. But if the war continues, markets could fall again, and possibly even further than before.

Besides geopolitics, there was also a lot of company news. Nvidia announced major investments in U.S. photonics companies Lumentum and Coherent. During GTC, Jensen Huang said demand for Blackwell and Rubin could reach $1 trillion through 2027. He also introduced Feynman as the next step after Rubin, and expanded partnerships with Uber, Adobe and BYD.

Uber moved further into autonomous driving, announcing partnerships with Zoox, Rivian, Wayve, Nissan and Nvidia to bring robotaxes onto the platform, and acquiring Blacklane to expand into premium rides.

The leak of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model showed how fast AI is moving, and investors started selling cybersecurity stocks.

Meta announced layoffs of around 20% of its workforce, shifting focus toward AI and moving away from the metaverse, shutting down parts of Horizon Worlds.

MercadoLibre plans to invest $3.4 billion in Argentina and $11 billion in Brazil across logistics, its marketplace and fintech platform MercadoPago.

Novo Nordisk and Hims & Hers resumed their partnership, with Wegovy available again on the platform as both a pill and pen.

Elon Musk introduced “Terafab,” a new initiative where Tesla and SpaceX plan to build massive AI compute in-house, instead of relying on external infrastructure.

So how did the markets respond to all of this? Let’s take a look at how the three major indexes performed in March:

S&P 500: -5.1% 📉 (-4.6% YTD)
Nasdaq: -4.8% 📉 (-6.0% YTD)
Dow Jones: -5.4% 📉 (-3.6% YTD)

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Portfolio Performance: How Did We Do?

How did our portfolios perform in March?

In this update, we break it all down: how we performed vs the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones, which stocks held up best, and which ones underperformed.

The falling stock prices gave us the chance to buy more of the companies we believe in at better prices.

Want to see what we bought and sold? Check out the full breakdown below 👇

Available exclusively for our paid members ✨

📦 Unpacked #11: Uber

The Future Investors — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:00:42 GMT

Welcome to the 11th edition of Unpacked, our monthly series where we take a deep dive into a company. This time, we’re taking a closer look at Uber — the world’s leading mobility and delivery platform, connecting millions of riders, drivers, couriers, and merchants across thousands of cities globally.

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 Uber and see how we score it!

History and Business Model

It all started in Paris. In December 2008, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp couldn’t find a taxi on a snowy night. That led to a simple question: what if you could request a ride by tapping a button?

Source: Caribbean Value Investor

In 2009, they launched UberCab in San Francisco as a premium ride service, later renamed Uber. The app connects riders with nearby drivers and includes navigation and payments in one platform.

The company later introduced lower-priced options like UberX and expanded into more cities worldwide. As smartphone use increased, Uber grew into a widely used transportation platform.

Over time, Uber expanded beyond ride-hailing. It launched Uber Eats in 2014 for food and grocery delivery and entered freight in 2017, connecting businesses with carriers.

Uber does not own vehicles or employ drivers directly. It offers a platform that connects users and earns a fee on each trip or delivery.

Today, Uber operates in thousands of cities globally and facilitates billions of trips and deliveries each year. This is reflected in its mission:

“We reimagine the way the world moves for the better.”

Source: Uber Reimagine Mobility Update

Business Model Explained

Uber is a global platform that connects riders, drivers, couriers, and businesses in one app.

Its business is built around three segments:

🚗 1. Mobility
Users request a ride in the app and can choose from options like UberX, Uber Comfort, or Uber Black. Drivers decide which trips to accept and complete the ride.

🍔 2. Delivery
Users order food, groceries, and other items with Uber Eats. Restaurants and stores prepare the orders, and couriers pick them up and deliver them.

🚛 3. Freight
Businesses use Uber to arrange transport for goods, while carriers use the platform to find loads.

How Uber makes money 💰
Each transaction works in the same way. A user makes a request, a driver or courier accepts it, and after the trip or delivery is completed, Uber takes a percentage of the total amount. This is called the take rate, so revenue increases as usage grows.

Uber also earns extra revenue from Uber One, a subscription with discounts and benefits, and from Uber Ads, where businesses pay for better visibility in the app.

Many users use more than one service in the same app, like rides and food delivery. More usage leads to more revenue, as rides, orders, and deliveries increase.

Mobility and Delivery are the core of Uber today, while Uber One and Uber Ads add extra revenue on top of the platform.

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Revenue Breakdown

On February 4, 2026, Uber reported its Q4 2025 results for the period ended December 31, 2025. Total revenue was $14.4 billion, up 20% year-over-year.

🚗 Mobility – $8.2B (57%)
Uber’s largest segment. Revenue comes from ride-hailing services, where users pay for trips and Uber takes a percentage of each fare. Revenue grew 19% YoY, from $6.9 billion to $8.2 billion.

🍔 Delivery – $4.9B (34%)
Includes food, groceries, and other local commerce through Uber Eats. Customers place orders in the app, and Uber earns a fee on each order. Revenue increased 30% YoY, from $3.8 billion to $4.9 billion.

🚛 Freight – $1.3B (9%)
Focused on connecting shippers with carriers to move goods. Uber earns fees for matching and managing shipments. Revenue was $1.3 billion, the same as last year.

Mobility is still Uber’s largest segment, but Delivery is growing faster. Freight is relatively small and had limited impact on overall growth.

Recent Developments

Uber is expanding its platform across mobility, delivery, and logistics, while positioning itself at the center of the autonomous mobility ecosystem. Here are the key recent developments:

1️⃣ Autonomous Strategy & Partnerships
Uber is rapidly building a global network of autonomous partners instead of developing the technology itself. The company launched Uber Autonomous Solutions, a platform designed to help partners deploy and scale autonomous vehicles on Uber’s network, including tools for fleet operations, customer support, and in-vehicle experience.

Uber has signed 20+ partnerships globally across autonomous mobility and supporting infrastructure. Recent partnerships include:

Rivian → plans to deploy up to 50,000 robotaxis, starting in 2028
Motional → robotaxi rollout starting in 2026
Waymo → already live in cities like Austin and Atlanta through the Uber app
Lucid & Nuro → 20,000 premium robotaxis, with launches starting in 2026
Wayve & Nissan → robotaxi pilots in Japan around 2026
Zoox → robotaxi deployment expected from 2027
WeRide → up to 1,200 robotaxis in the Middle East
Baidu (Apollo Go) → expansion of robotaxi services in Dubai
Avride → robotaxi and delivery services already live in selected cities
Aurora → autonomous trucking integrated into Uber Freight

Uber is also investing $100 million in EV charging infrastructure to support autonomous fleets.

Robotaxi services are already live in multiple cities, with plans to expand to 15 cities by 2026. Uber’s strategy is clear: to become the largest platform for autonomous vehicle trips globally by 2029.

Source: Uber Q4 2025 Earnings, Autonomous Vehicles Spotlight

2️⃣ Delivery Expansion & Platform Growth
Uber is expanding its Delivery segment beyond food into groceries, retail, and everyday products.

This expansion is supported by a growing number of key partnerships across retail and grocery:

Kroger → nationwide grocery delivery through Uber apps
ALDI → on-demand grocery delivery across the U.S.
Sephora → on-demand beauty delivery across North America
Best Buy → delivery of electronics and tech products
Dollar Tree & Dollar General → everyday household essentials delivered nationwide

These partnerships show how Uber is moving beyond food into a broader commerce platform, increasing app usage.

3️⃣ New Monetization Layers
Uber is adding new revenue streams on top of its platform.

Uber Ads has grown into a $2B+ business, where merchants pay for sponsored listings and visibility in the app, with growth of over 50% last year.

Uber One is a subscription that increases customer retention and encourages people to use multiple services. It now has 30M+ subscribers.

These layers increase revenue per user and improve margins.

4️⃣ Expansion & Acquisitions
Uber continues to expand its ecosystem through acquisitions and new services.
The acquisition of SpotHero adds parking to the Uber app, while Getir / Trendyol Go strengthens its position in grocery and delivery in Turkey.

The company is also exploring new formats such as Uber Air, in partnership with Joby Aviation.

5️⃣ Profitability & Scale
Uber has reached a turning point in its financial profile. The company is now consistently profitable and generating strong cash flow.

In Q4 2025, adjusted EBITDA was $2.5 billion (+35%), and free cash flow was $2.8 billion. For the full year, Uber generated $10 billion in free cash flow, showing the strength of its platform at scale.

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Fundamental Analysis

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

Final Scoring

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

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

🎓 Value Trap or Turnaround? Spot the Difference

The Future Investors — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 13:17:37 GMT

Most investors think they’ve found a bargain when a stock looks cheap, like:

A low P/E
A big drawdown
A company that “used to be great”

It feels like an opportunity. But more often than not… it’s a value trap 🚩

At the same time, some of the best investments start exactly like that — beaten down and overlooked, right before they turn into big winners 🚀

So how do you spot the difference? On the surface, they look the same.
But underneath, the reality is very different.

📉 The Illusion of “Cheap”

A stock doesn’t become cheap by accident. In most cases, the market isn’t wrong, it’s reacting to something real, like:

⏳ Slowing growth
⚔️ Increasing competition
📊 Declining margins
🧩 A broken business model

That’s why many stocks don’t just look cheap… they stay cheap, sometimes for years.

And that’s where investors get trapped. They look at the past, remember what the company used to be, and assume it will go back.

But the market isn’t pricing the past. It’s pricing the future. And if that future doesn’t improve, the stock won’t improve.

Because two stocks can look equally cheap, but for very different reasons. One is broken and getting worse. The other looks broken, but starting to improve. They may look the same… but they’re not.

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⚖️ Value Trap vs Turnaround

So how do you actually spot the difference? It comes down to one thing:

Is the business getting better or worse?

Value Trap 🚩
A value trap isn’t just a cheap stock, it’s a business that keeps moving in the wrong direction.

The problems don’t get fixed. In many cases, they get worse over time. Revenue growth slows or turns negative, margins come under pressure, and the company starts to lose market share.

The stock may look attractive. It’s down a lot. Valuation looks low. But the business is not improving. And without real improvement, the story doesn’t change. That’s why it stays cheap.

Turnaround 🚀
A turnaround can look the same at first. The stock is down, sentiment is weak, and valuation looks low.

But here, the direction is starting to change. Revenue begins to stabilize or grow again. Margins improve. The company starts to gain strength again. Management takes the right actions.

These changes are often small at first, but the business is improving and that’s where the opportunity lies.

The Difference That Matters
The biggest difference isn’t valuation. It’s direction. One business is not improving and keeps moving in the wrong direction. The other is improving and starting to move in the right direction. Over time, that difference compounds. And that’s what separates value traps from real opportunities.

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🔍 How to Spot the Difference

If you want to avoid value traps and find real turnarounds, you need to look beyond valuation. Ask yourself the following 3 questions:

🚀 Rising Star - March 2026

The Future Investors — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 13:35:41 GMT

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

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

However, we’re highly selective with these picks, and the early performance speaks for itself. Since January 2025, we’ve shared seven Rising Stars — including one that is already up +98% and another that has climbed +63% in just a few months 🚀

You can check all previous Rising Stars here.

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

This fast-growing mid-cap company is building a mission-critical platform for the AI era 🔥

🚀 Rapid growth: Revenue growing nearly 50% YoY
📊 Elite metric: Rule of 40 score of 67%
💰 Attractive valuation: trading 20% below its historical average P/S multiple

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

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🗣️ Investor Talk #56: Mark Mulhern

The Future Investors — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:01:30 GMT

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In this edition, we have the pleasure of interviewing:

Name: Mark Mulhern @ManuInvests
Age: 38
Residence/Country: United States
Invests since: 2008

Introduction
I’ve been interested in investing since high school. I was in college during the 2008/2009 financial crisis and it was an extremely cool education experience. We watched the stock market crash live on TV at night and analyzed government responses in class the next day.

I graduated with a degree in Economics and Finance and worked in the finance industry for nearly a decade. My background in finance mainly included accounting for investment funds/mutual funds, financial statement preparation, internal audit and 3rd party audit support, and eventually working on some popular ETFs. It is this background in accounting and financial statement analysis that I lean on when analyzing a company and I think differentiates the way I write about investing on Substack.

On a more personal note, I am very open about being in recovery from addiction. Today I have over 10.5 years sober/in recovery. As you can imagine, addiction takes everything. In my journey, I spent down my entire portfolio, retirement savings, and all discretionary funds to fuel it. I had spent ever cent I made in finance.

Eventually, I got help, prioritized my health and chose to leave my career in finance to begin working in the addiction recovery non-profit world. Today, I am the Executive Director (CEO) of a growing non-profit recovery organization and love what I do.

What is your investment strategy?
My investing style has been heavily inspired by people like Buffett. I have always leaned contrarian; I’m a value investor at heart. To me, that means I’m looking to buy companies that are fundamentally disconnected from their current prices. I like to anchor my portfolio in a set of ‘core’ businesses while also allocating a small percentage to smaller cap stocks crossing an inflection point.

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How many stocks are currently held in your portfolio?
I generally aim to hold 8 to 15 companies in my portfolio with a maximum of 20. Currently, I am holding 16 positions, with my top four holdings making up roughly 46% of the total and my top six holdings accounting for 62%.

Which sectors do you mainly focus on?
I wouldn’t say I am necessarily super focused on particular sectors but my portfolio leans towards tech and fintech – though I hold everything from construction to retail and in between. I will say, I do avoid certain sectors – pharma, health insurance, healthcare. Too much regulatory risk and unknowns for me.

What are your 3 highest conviction stocks?
$GOOGL - Alphabet
$META - Meta
$UBER - Uber

What is the stock in your portfolio with the highest return?
Currently, $IESC – IES Holdings. A picks and shovel play on the data center buildout. I trimmed recently at highs on about a 200% return but it’s come down a bit in last week.

I am proud to say however that I am still holding many META shares I bought as low as $103 in 2022.

What is the biggest investing mistake you have made?
Not having a plan or not knowing fully what I own. There has been many times along my journey that I didn’t do enough research when I first opened a position and that makes it hard to have conviction when they market is saying your wrong. It is always important for me to understand and know what I own and why so that when the market, or my stocks, inevitably experience a downturn I am not shaken out.

Also, wanting to get rich fast. When I first got back on my feet I was eager to make up for lost time and started to invest using options without an appropriate plan. It didn’t go well. Today I have rules for myself in what I do and why to prevent hard, past lessons from happening again.

If you could give one piece of advice to investors, what would it be?
At the risk or being repetitive, know what you own and why. It’s ok to be inspired by others, I certainly am, but it needs to go deeper than that. In investing, emotion is the enemy and trusting your work is key to keeping a steady temperament.

Mark’s Favorites

📖 Favorite book: 100 Baggers by Chris Mayer.

🎧 Favorite podcast: The Compound with Josh Brown and Michael Batnick

💬 Favorite quote: “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.” - Warren Buffett

👤 Favorite FinX account: Not one in particular but I’ll give a shout to Aria @qualityinvest5 because he has been a big supporter of me to find my voice. And I also enjoy Dimitry @DimitryNakhla.

Where can we find more info about you?
On X @manuinvests or at my Fundamentally Sound Substack: manuinvests.substack.com.

I also have a discord and plans for an upcoming youtube channel. Stay tuned!

That’s a wrap!
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Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments — we’d love to hear from you 💬

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 - March 2026

The Future Investors — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 14:31:43 GMT

Hey friends,

It’s time for our Best Buys for March.

Every month, we search the market for great companies trading at fair prices — and highlight three stocks we believe are particularly interesting right now.

Since december 2024, we’ve shared 45 Best Buys with our paid members.

And the results have been outstanding! 🔥

We picked:
🚀 TransMedics at $62.35 (+108%)
🚀 Alphabet at $168.95 (+77%)
🚀 ASML at $662,63 (+95%)
🚀 AMD at $97.35 (+98%)

Our selection combines fundamentals and valuation, but we always prioritize quality. After all, it’s better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

If you’re curious how we score companies, you can read more in our Fundamental Scoring Framework article.

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

Now let’s dive into our Top 3 Best Buys for March 👇 Especially No.1 really looks like a steal right now! 🎯

#3: MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI)

This is the third time we’re tipping MercadoLibre as one of our Best Buys — and for a good reason.

The stock has moved lower again, making the valuation even more attractive. Today, MercadoLibre trades about 32% below its all-time high, while nothing has changed about the quality of the business. In fact, it has only gotten stronger.

The company has delivered 28 consecutive quarters of revenue growth above 30%, which is extremely impressive at this scale. No other company holds this record. In the most recent quarter, revenue growth even accelerated to 44.6% year over year.

Source: X Profile Dimitry Nakhla, Babylon Capital

Sometimes business performance and stock prices move in different directions. These are often the rare moments long-term investors can buy great companies at discounted prices.

What Happened?

On 24 February, MercadoLibre reported its Q4 2025 earnings. The results were strong on the revenue side, with revenue coming in at $8.76B versus $8.47B expected, showing that the company continues to grow faster than analysts had projected.

However, despite the strong revenue performance, the stock still declined after earnings. Earnings per share came in slightly below expectations at $11.03 versus $11.43 expected, mainly due to margin pressure from continued heavy investments in growth initiatives.

The company is increasing spending on logistics expansion, credit services, and infrastructure development to support long-term growth. While this can pressure short-term profitability, we see this as a strong signal that the business is focused on long-term value creation.

Why MercadoLibre looks attractive now

MercadoLibre scores an excellent 85 🔵 (High-Quality) in our Fundamental Scoring Framework. It is a high-quality, founder-led company with strong revenue growth and a massive total addressable market (TAM).

The great thing for long-term investors is that the valuation of this outstanding business has only become more attractive. Today, MercadoLibre trades at a 2026 forward P/E of 31, which is close to the lowest valuation level in the past decade. The PEG ratio of 0.98 and a Price to Free Cash Flow of 8.4 are exceptionally low for a company growing this fast.

MercadoLibre still has significant long-term growth potential. E-commerce, fintech, and digital financial services in Latin America are still early in their adoption cycle. The company is positioning itself for many more years of growth by investing heavily in logistics, technology, and financial products. While this can impact short-term results, these investments help strengthen the business for the long term — which we see as a very positive signal of long-term strategic thinking.

In our view, this is a rare opportunity to own one of the best growth companies in the world at an unusually attractive valuation. Exactly the kind of opportunity long-term investors should look for.

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

Fundamental score: 85 🔵 → High-Quality
Current stock price: $1,787.86

The next two? Two high-quality companies trading at very attractive valuations right now.

💰 One of the highest-margin businesses in the world. Trading at a surprisingly attractive valuation.

💎 The other is a world-class company — trading at its lowest forward P/E ever.

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📈 Portfolio Update – February 2026

The Future Investors — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 11:15:19 GMT

February has come to an end and it was a volatile month across global markets 🌍📈📉

In this recap, we break down what moved the markets last month. How did the major indexes perform? How did our portfolios do? Which stocks held up best, which ones underperformed, and what moves did we make along the way?

Read our full February Recap below 👇

📢 Our Best Buys for March are coming later this week — don’t miss out! 🎯

What Moved the Markets in February?

February was a volatile month for global markets.

Geopolitically, things were relatively calm compared to January. But on the very last day of February, everything changed. The United States and Israel launched a major military attack on Iran. In that attack, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed. Iran responded quickly with missile and drone attacks on U.S. and Israeli forces in the Middle East. What this means for the markets will likely become clear in the coming days, and much will depend on how Iran chooses to respond further.

Earlier in the month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that former President Trump’s tariffs were unlawful. Trump responded quickly by announcing a new 10% global tariff, with the intention to increase it to 15% under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. This added a new layer of uncertainty to global trade policy.

February was another tough month for software stocks. Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4.6, while OpenAI introduced OpenAI Frontier. Investors are increasingly worried that AI agents could replace (parts of) traditional software. Wondering how we think about this? You can read our full view in The Software Reset: Who Survives?

Markets also weakened late in February after a report from Citrini Research warned of a potential “2028 Global Intelligence Crisis.” The report describes a scenario where AI is not a bubble, but instead develops so quickly that many white-collar workers are replaced by AI and laid off. This would reduce consumer spending, weaken the economy, and push companies to rely even more on AI to cut costs — leading to even more layoffs and creating a vicious cycle. According to the report, this dynamic could eventually result in deep economic crisis and a market downturn by 2027–2028.

Big Tech companies generally reported good earnings, but most of the shares still fell. The reason: worries that capital spending (capex) is rising fast. Hyperscaler capex (the big cloud and AI infrastructure spend) is now expected to be well over $600 billion this year, which makes investors nervous about future profits.

Then let’s look at the most important company highlights from last month:

Walmart crossed a major milestone, reaching a $1 trillion market cap for the first time ever. At the same time, Amazon reported higher annual revenue than Walmart for the first time in history.

In healthcare, Hims & Hers launched a copy of Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy. The FDA made clear that these copies are only allowed during official shortages and reminded companies to follow the rules. Soon after, Hims & Hers removed the product from its platform. Novo Nordisk then sued the company for selling an unauthorized version of its drug. As a result of the regulatory pressure and the lawsuit, Hims & Hers shares fell sharply during the month.

Novo Nordisk also disappointed investors with weaker-than-expected results for its new drug CagriSema, showing 23% weight loss compared to 25.5% for Tirzepatide from Eli Lilly. Novo Nordisk shares dropped 15% in one day after the news.

Adyen fell around 20% after giving a slightly weaker outlook for 2026. The company now expects revenue growth of 20–22%, instead of the earlier 20–25% range.

Finally, Meta announced a multi-year deal with Nvidia to buy millions of next-generation AI chips, including Vera Rubin GPUs and standalone CPUs. This clearly shows that investment in AI infrastructure remains very strong.

Many individual stocks are trading well below their 52-week highs, but the major indexes remain relatively stable. Under the surface, however, a lot is happening. Software stocks are under strong pressure, and we are seeing a rotation away from high-growth names toward more defensive sectors such as consumer staples and utilities. Investors are becoming more cautious and positioning for more uncertainty in the months ahead.

So how did the three major indexes respond? Let’s take a quick look at their February performance:

S&P 500: -0.9% 📉 (+0.5% YTD)
Nasdaq: -3.4% 📉 (-2.5% YTD)
Dow Jones: +0.2% 📈 (+1.9% YTD)

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Portfolio Performance: How Did We Do?

How did our portfolios perform in February?

In this update, we compare our results to the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones, highlight our top performers, and walk you through the key moves we made throughout the month.

Market volatility created attractive opportunities, allowing us to add high-quality companies at fair prices and further strengthen our long-term positioning.

Curious about the exact moves we made? Discover the full breakdown below 👇

✨ Available exclusively to our paid members.

📦 Unpacked #10: Salesforce

The Future Investors — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 12:51:01 GMT

Welcome to the 10th edition of Unpacked, our monthly series where we take a deep dive into a company. This time, we’re taking a closer look at Salesforce — a global cloud software leader and the world’s #1 CRM platform, helping businesses manage sales, service, marketing, data, and AI in one ecosystem.

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 Salesforce and see how we score it!

History and Business Model

Salesforce was founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff and a small team in San Francisco. At the time, most business software had to be installed on company servers. It was expensive, complex, and slow to update. Salesforce changed that.

From day one, it focused on delivering software through the cloud. Customers could simply log in through a browser and pay a subscription fee. No installation. No heavy IT setup. This “Software-as-a-Service” (SaaS) model was revolutionary at the time.

The company started with one product: Sales Cloud. Over time, it expanded into Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce, Analytics, Integration, Collaboration, and now AI.

Salesforce also grew through major acquisitions, including:

MuleSoft (integration software)
Tableau (data visualization & analytics)
Slack (workplace collaboration)

Today, Salesforce is one of the largest enterprise software companies in the world, serving businesses of all sizes across nearly every industry.

Its mission is simple:

“To bring out the best in one another, deliver success to our customers and inspire the entire industry through our actions.”

The video below gives a clear overview of what Salesforce is and what it does 🎥👇

Business Model Explained

Salesforce is a cloud-based enterprise software company. It sells digital tools that help businesses manage customer relationships, data, and internal workflows through one integrated platform.

Its ecosystem is built around Customer 360, a unified system that connects sales, service, marketing, commerce, data, and AI in one place.

Source: Salesforce Investor Relations

The company operates mainly through subscriptions. Customers typically sign 1–3 year contracts and pay per user, per month. This creates predictable and recurring revenue.

Salesforce organizes its products into different “Clouds,” each focused on a business function. Here’s how the model works:

☁️ 1. Sales Cloud
Helps sales teams manage leads, track deals, and forecast revenue. This was Salesforce’s first product and remains one of its largest.

🎧 2. Service Cloud
Customer support software for help desks, call centers, and digital support channels.

📢 3. Marketing & Commerce Cloud
Tools for digital marketing, personalization, and online commerce experiences.

📊 4. Data Cloud & Analytics
Data Cloud unifies customer data from multiple sources into one real-time platform. This powers better insights, automation, and AI use cases. Analytics tools like Tableau help companies visualize and understand that data.

🔗 5. Integration & Platform
MuleSoft and the Salesforce Platform allow companies to connect different systems and build custom applications on top of Salesforce.

🤖 6. AI Layer (Einstein & Agentforce)
AI is built across the Salesforce platform. Einstein looks at data in Customer 360 and Data Cloud to provide predictions, insights, and suggestions — for example, which leads are most likely to close or the next step in a service case. Agentforce takes these insights and automates tasks, like handling sales activities, solving service requests, or helping employees — all using trusted company data.

⚖️ Why this model works
Salesforce benefits from:

High switching costs (once embedded, companies rarely leave)
Recurring subscription revenue
Upselling across multiple Clouds
A strong partner ecosystem
Large enterprise contracts

Once a company starts with one Cloud, it usually expands into others, creating long-term relationships and steady growth.

Over time, Salesforce becomes deeply embedded in daily operations, making it complex and risky to replace. That’s what makes the business model so durable.

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Revenue Breakdown

On December 3, 2025, Salesforce reported its Q3 FY26 results for the period ended October 31, 2025. Total revenue was $10.3 billion, up about 9% compared to last year.

🧠 Sales – $2.3B (22%)
Steady growth from Sales Cloud as more companies use Salesforce for managing leads and deals.

🎧 Service – $2.5B (24%)
Service Cloud is a core driver, with customers relying on it for support and help desk operations.

📊 Platform, Slack & Other – $2.2B (21%)
Above-average growth as customers adopt multiple Clouds and build custom apps and workflows.

📢 Marketing & Commerce – $1.4B (14%)
Strong growth here, driven by digital marketing and online commerce tools.

📈 Integration & Analytics – $1.4B (14%)
Rapid growth from Data Cloud and Tableau, which provide unified data and analytics that power AI and automation.

🖥️ Professional Services & Other – $0.5B (5%)
Implementation and consulting services are just a small part of total revenue.

Sales and Service are the largest segments, but Marketing, Platform, and Analytics are growing fastest, showing Salesforce’s push into AI, automation, and cross-cloud adoption.

Recent Developments

Salesforce has entered a new phase focused on AI acceleration, strategic acquisitions, and large enterprise deals. Here are the latest key developments:

1️⃣ AI Revenue Acceleration
In the Q3 FY26 earnings report, Salesforce reported that its Agentforce and Data 360 products reached nearly $1.4 billion in annual recurring revenue, growing 114% YoY. This shows that AI is becoming an increasingly important driver of revenue growth.

2️⃣ Strategic Acquisitions
Salesforce announced the acquisition of Informatica, a major step to improve how companies organize and manage their data. It also acquired smaller AI-focused companies such as:

Cimulate
Spindle AI
Momentum

These acquisitions help improve data organization, automation, and sales intelligence within the platform.

3️⃣ Partnerships & Model Integrations
Salesforce expanded partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

Agentforce now connects with models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, allowing enterprises to securely link external AI models to Salesforce data.

4️⃣ Major Government Deal
Salesforce signed a $5.6 billion agreement with the United States Army, underlining its continued strength in large, long-term contracts.

5️⃣ FY30 Target: $60 Billion Revenue
At Investor Day, management reaffirmed its goal of reaching $60 billion in revenue by FY30. The company also expects to return to double-digit revenue growth in the coming years.

Source: Salesforce Investor Day Presentation

6️⃣ Stock Decline & AI Concerns
The stock has fallen about 50% from its all-time high. A major reason is growing uncertainty around AI.

Some investors believe powerful AI agents could take over many business tasks on their own. The fear is that if AI can manage workflows directly through APIs, companies may need fewer software licenses, or see parts of platforms like Salesforce as replaceable. For example, if one AI agent can handle the workload of five customer service employees, companies may need fewer paid user licenses. That could directly pressure Salesforce’s traditional per-seat pricing model. This is the core risk investors are debating today.

The key question is simple: will AI make traditional software less important, or will it increase the need for platforms that organize data and workflows?

Later in the fundamental analysis, we will take a deeper look at this topic.

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Fundamental Analysis

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

Final Scoring

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

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

⚔️ 96: Micron vs SK hynix

The Future Investors — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 12:51:55 GMT

Every month we host a Stock Battle on our X page between two competing companies. Which one is the favorite of our followers? And which one do we believe has the stronger fundamentals?

This round: Micron vs SK hynix — two companies powering the AI memory era 🤖💾

Both sit at the center of the memory market, building the chips that power today’s AI revolution. Memory demand has exploded over the past year, and stock prices reflect it, with both up 300% YoY 📈

Which of the two stands out as the stronger, higher-quality business? 🏆

Micron and SK hynix are two dominant players in the global memory industry. Samsung is the third key player.

Micron is an American company, founded in 1978, and has long focused on both DRAM and NAND. It sells memory chips to a wide range of markets, from PCs and smartphones to data centers and cars. Micron designs and produces its own chips and has recently increased its focus on High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), the type of memory used in AI servers. A meaningful part of its revenue still comes from more traditional memory markets.

SK hynix is a South Korean company, founded in 1983, and runs a very similar business. The key difference today is its stronger position in advanced HBM. SK hynix supplies a large share of the latest HBM chips used in AI accelerators, making it an important supplier in the AI build-out. Like Micron, it also sells DRAM and NAND to a broad range of end markets.

We asked our followers to choose their long-term winner and one company clearly came out on top:

With 71% of the votes, you crowned Micron as the winner of this stock battle! 👑

Curious which company we believe has the stronger fundamentals, and how they score on our 0–100 Fundamental Scoring Model?

Unlock our complete analysis below by becoming a paid member 🔓👇

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Micron and SK hynix are both at the center of the AI memory cycle, but which company has the stronger fundamentals?

In our fundamental framework, we look at three key areas:
1️⃣ Management
2️⃣ Market
3️⃣ Financial strength & growth

Let’s start with management 👇

🔥 The Best of The Future Investors

The Future Investors — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 17:04:36 GMT

Hey Investors,

As you know, we’re building the most comprehensive Substack for quality- and growth-minded investors like you ✨.

So far, we’ve published over 375 articles filled with exclusive insights, strategies, and investment ideas.

Now it’s time for an overview of our 🏆 10 best and most popular articles.
These are the 10 articles every serious quality & growth investor must read.

Read our Top 10 articles below 👇

Our Top 10 picks for 2026. Stocks we believe are best positioned to outperform the S&P 500 in 2026.

Why trying to time the market hurts returns. Discover our smarter strategy for long-term success.

Three high-risk, high-reward bets with 100x potential over the next 10 years.

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That’s less than $0.95 a day! 💸

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Why selling is one of the hardest parts of investing and the rules we follow to decide when to sell, trim, or hold for the long term.

AI is putting software stocks under heavy pressure. See which stocks are most at risk and which will benefit.

AI is driving a new energy boom, see which stocks are best positioned to benefit from this transition.

The new “Magnificent 7”, which stocks we see leading the market in 2035.

How many stocks should you really own? Discover the right number for maximizing returns.

Discover how we score stocks on fundamentals from 0 - 100. With real examples!

Our top stock picks for February 2026. The stocks we believe are best positioned to buy right now.

✅ Join 4,300+ smart investors who already trust us! Don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what others are saying 👇

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

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

🔍 The Software Reset: Who Survives?

The Future Investors — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 13:27:53 GMT

AI developments are putting software stocks under heavy pressure. In this article, we look at which software companies are most at risk and which are best positioned, by dividing them into four categories 👇

🔄 The Replaceables
Software that AI can replace faster than most expect.

🍋 The Squeezed
Software that stays in use but faces pressure on growth and pricing.

⚓ The Anchors
Mission-critical software that stays essential, without faster growth from AI.

🏆 The Beneficiaries
Software that directly benefits from AI and sees growth accelerate.

📉 What Happened?

Software stocks have been under pressure for months. Last week, the pressure increased, resetting the entire sector. The trigger was a wave of new developments around AI agents, plugins, and end-to-end workflows.

The launch of Claude Cowork, together with 11 new AI plugins, showed how fast work is shifting away from individual software tools. With these plugins, AI can now find new leads, review contracts, and prepare financial reports. Users no longer have to move between different apps. They explain what needs to be done, and the AI plans the steps, does the work, and takes care of follow-up.

OpenAI Frontier shows the same trend: AI built for companies that can plan tasks and get things done across multiple tools.

The reset hit many parts of the software sector, from enterprise software and design tools to productivity platforms and data analytics. There was no distinction between more speculative names and high-quality software — everything was sold. Because of the scale of the sell-off, the decline is now being called the “SaaSpocalypse.”

Below is an overview of the stocks that have been hit hardest year-to-date 👇

Source: Koyfin

After these declines, valuations of software stocks are much lower. The median EV/Revenue multiple now stands at 3.9x, the lowest ever. The EV/FCF (NTM) tells a similar story, currently trading at 25x — also an all-time low.

Source: Altimeter Capital Management

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🏷️ Why Software Is Being Re-Priced

This reset is not just about falling share prices. It reflects a real shift in how software creates value in an AI-driven world.

For years, the SaaS model was simple: more users inside the tool meant more seats, more revenue, and steady growth. AI breaks that link. If AI agents can draft, analyze, schedule, and follow up, fewer people need to log in and do the work themselves. And when fewer humans are active inside the product, seat-based growth slows down.

At the same time, customers start to think differently about pricing. They don’t want to pay for a growing number of seats if an AI agent can do the job. They want to pay for the task or the result. That changes pricing power. It becomes harder to raise prices, harder to expand revenue per customer, and easier to replace multiple tools with one AI-driven workflow.

This also changes who controls the workflow. AI agents increasingly decide which tools to use and when. In many cases, software becomes the “back-end,” while the AI layer becomes the main interface. That shift matters, because the company that owns the workflow captures more of the value.

This shift is also visible in the changing total addressable market for software in the coming years. As the chart below shows, value is increasingly moving from traditional SaaS toward AI agents.

Source: Gartner, Goldman Sachs Research

So the market is re-pricing software. Not because software is dead, but because not all software will matter in the same way. Some products will be replaced. Others will stay in place but see slower growth as pricing power and margins come under pressure. There are still clear winners. Mission-critical platforms that are deeply embedded will remain essential. And a smaller group will benefit directly from AI, where demand and growth can accelerate.

That brings us to the key question: which software companies will survive?
Which are most at risk and which can win in an AI-driven world?

To answer that, we divide software companies into the following four categories:

🔄 The Replaceables
Software that AI can replace faster than most expect.

🍋 The Squeezed
Software that stays in use but faces pressure on growth and pricing.

⚓ The Anchors
Mission-critical software that stays essential, without faster growth from AI.

🏆 The Beneficiaries
Software that directly benefits from AI and sees growth accelerate.

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