My plan for the second half of 2026 is not to constantly buy more of every stock I own. I am already happy with several of my positions, and I do not want to force purchases just because money enters my account.

My main focus is simple: build cash while maintaining a steady DCA into $UBER and $BN. At the same time, I am watching the weakness in $NOW and $ZETA closely.

I am not becoming bearish. I just want more flexibility.

Why I’m Building Cash

Cash never feels exciting when the market is moving higher. It can feel like money that should be working somewhere else, but cash still has an important job in my portfolio.

It allows me to take advantage of real weakness without selling another position. It also keeps me from forcing money into companies I already own enough of or stocks that are not offering an attractive setup.

I would rather hold cash for a few months than buy something simply because I feel like I need to be doing something. If the market keeps running, I already have plenty of exposure. If we get a meaningful pullback, I will have money ready.

That is the balance I want heading into the second half of the year.

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Snap finally had its big Specs event, and I think the reaction was exactly what you would expect from a stock like $SNAP. The product itself is impressive. The price is hard to ignore. The stock sold off. Investors are split. And honestly, I think all of those reactions make sense.

I do not think today was a simple “this is amazing” or “this is terrible” type of event. It was more complicated than that. Specs clearly show that Snap is still one of the more interesting companies in augmented reality. They also show why investors continue to be frustrated with Snap. This company has a massive user base, real AR usage, a younger audience, a strong brand, and a lot of future optionality. But at the same time, the market wants Snap to prove it can turn all of that into a better business.

That is really the entire story right now. Snap is interesting because of what it could become. Snap is frustrating because of what it still has not fully proven. Specs sit directly in the middle of that debate.

The Product Is Actually Impressive

The product itself deserves credit. These are not the old Spectacles that were basically camera glasses. These are see-through augmented reality glasses. Snap is trying to build something closer to a real wearable computer. The new Specs come in two sizes, 47 mm and 52 mm, weigh around 132 grams for the smaller size and 136 grams for the larger size, use high-performance Swiss TR90 polymer, include removable prescription inserts, and have lenses that can adjust from clear to tinted.

The display uses Snap’s proprietary liquid crystal on silicon technology, with a 51-degree field of view and 16 million colors. Snap compared the display experience to a 24-inch desktop monitor or even a 115-inch home cinema screen from around 10 feet away. They are also standalone, which matters. No external puck. No wires. No separate device you need to carry around just to make them work. They run on dual Snapdragon processors, with one focused on computer vision and the other focused on Lenses and AR experiences.

The glasses support hand tracking, AI assistance, spatial computing, work tools, entertainment, shared AR experiences, virtual workspaces, navigation, and contextual AI that can see what you see. That is the part that stood out to me the most. This is not just Snap trying to put a camera on your face again. They are trying to make glasses that can become an actual computing platform. Whether you like Snap or not, that is a big swing.

The Price Is Where the Debate Starts

Now for the part everyone is talking about: the price.

Specs are priced at $2,195. That is expensive. There is no way around it. I think this is why investors immediately became skeptical. Snap’s core user base is young. A lot of Snapchat users are teenagers, college students, or younger adults. That does not mean they have no money, but a $2,195 pair of AR glasses is not an easy sell to that audience. This is not like selling a $299 pair of Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses. This is not a cheap accessory. This is priced more like a serious early adopter tech product.

When people compare Specs to Ray-Ban Meta glasses, Specs look expensive. Meta’s glasses are much cheaper and already have a much cleaner consumer price point. But that comparison is also not completely fair because Meta’s glasses are not full AR glasses. They are more of an AI, camera, and audio product. They do not overlay digital content into the real world the same way Snap is trying to do with Specs.

When you compare Specs to Apple Vision Pro, the price looks less crazy. Vision Pro starts at $3,499 and is a headset, not glasses. Snap is trying to offer something more wearable, lighter, and more social. So the price debate depends on what you compare it to. Compared to normal smart glasses, Specs are very expensive. Compared to full spatial computing products, Specs are actually cheaper. But the stock market does not care about technical nuance as much as it cares about adoption, margins, and return on investment.

That is why the price is such a big deal. At $2,195, I do not see Specs as a mass-market product right away. I see them more as an early adopter product. Developers. AR enthusiasts. Creators. Tech people. Maybe businesses experimenting with spatial computing. Maybe some high-income users who want to try the newest thing. But I do not think the average Snapchat user is going to go buy these in large numbers at this price point. And that is okay, as long as Snap does not pretend otherwise.

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Specs Are Optionality, Not the Core Thesis

This is the biggest point for me: Specs are optionality. They are not the main reason I would own $SNAP. The core reason to own Snap still has to come from the actual business. The app. The ad platform. Engagement. Snapchat+. Sponsored Snaps. Spotlight. Creator monetization. Snap Map. AR Lenses inside the app. Better ad tools. Better direct response performance. Better margins. Better free cash flow. That is the business that has to work first.

Specs can be a long-term upside lever, but they cannot be the only story. That is where I think some investors get nervous. Snap has spent years trying to prove it can become a stronger, more profitable company. The stock has been crushed from its highs. Investor patience is not unlimited anymore. So when Snap comes out with a $2,195 AR hardware product, the market is naturally going to ask whether this is a real business opportunity or another expensive distraction.

Honestly, I think both sides have a point. The bull case is that Snap is one of the few companies with real AR DNA. Augmented reality is already part of the Snapchat experience. Millions of users already use Lenses. AR is not some random new category for Snap. It has been part of the product for years. The bear case is that hardware is hard. Consumer AR adoption is still early. The price is high. Competition is intense. Meta, Apple, Google, and others have way more money. Snap cannot afford to waste years and billions chasing a product that never scales.

That is why discipline matters more than excitement.

I Like the Optionality, but I Want Cost Control

This is where my personal opinion lands. I like that Snap is still swinging. I like that Snap is not just trying to be another social media app. I like that they are thinking about the future of computing. I like that AR is actually connected to their existing product instead of being some random side project. But I do not want Snap burning endless cash on hardware.

That is the line for me.

If Snap can cut costs, keep improving the core business, and still invest in Specs in a disciplined way, I have no problem with it. In fact, I think that is probably the right strategy. Snap does not need Specs to become a massive consumer product overnight. They need Specs to prove there is a future platform opportunity. They need developers building for it. They need early users testing it. They need feedback. They need the product to improve over time.

This can be a long-term call option, but the core business has to fund it responsibly. That is the difference between smart optionality and reckless spending. If Snap is improving margins, cutting unnecessary costs, growing free cash flow, and showing better monetization, then I can live with them making a big bet on AR. But if the core business starts struggling and Specs becomes a cash drain, that is a different story.

Why Specs Still Matter

Even if Specs do not become a huge product near term, I still think they matter. They show that Snap has a real vision. A lot of social media companies are stuck fighting for attention inside the same apps, same feeds, same ad formats, and same short-form video loops. Snap is trying to do something different.

The company has always been built around the camera. Not the feed. Not search. Not long-form content. The camera. That is what makes AR so important to Snap. If computing ever moves from phones to glasses, Snap has a natural angle. The camera becomes even more important. Lenses become more important. Visual communication becomes more important. AI that understands what you see becomes more important. Spatial content becomes more important.

That is the upside case. Snap is not just trying to sell a pair of glasses. They are trying to position themselves for a future where the camera and real-world AR become a bigger part of computing. Will that happen soon? Probably not. Will it be easy? Definitely not. Will Snap win? No one knows. But I understand why they are trying.

The Stock Reaction Makes Sense

The stock reaction did not surprise me either. When a stock like $SNAP is already under pressure, investors are not going to give the company the benefit of the doubt on an expensive hardware launch. The market wants proof. It wants margin expansion. It wants stronger ad growth. It wants consistent profitability. It wants better guidance. It wants evidence that Snap can compete with Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and other ad platforms.

So even though Specs are cool, the stock market is asking a very simple question: how does this help earnings? In the near term, the answer is probably not much. That is why I think the selloff was more about investor frustration than the product itself. Specs might be a good product, but $SNAP is still being judged like a company that needs to prove its core business.

Near Term, the Core Business Matters More

Near term, I care way more about Snap’s core business than Specs. The stock is not going to re-rate just because the company launched AR glasses. The stock needs better numbers. I want to see revenue growth reaccelerate, ad platform improvements continue, direct response advertising get stronger, Snapchat+ keep growing, Sponsored Snaps show real progress, Spotlight and creator tools improve engagement, Snap Map become more monetizable, margins improve, free cash flow stay positive, and costs stay under control.

That is what matters over the next few quarters. Specs are exciting, but they are not going to fix the stock by themselves. If Snap reports weak ad growth and worse margins, nobody is going to care that the glasses are cool. But if Snap keeps improving the core business, cuts costs, grows free cash flow, and shows that Specs are being handled responsibly, then the story becomes more interesting. That is when Specs can be valued as upside optionality instead of a distraction.

The Bull Case After the Event

The bull case for Snap after this event is pretty clear. Snap has a massive audience. It has a younger user base. It has real AR engagement. It has a product that people still use every day. It has a subscription business with Snapchat+. It has multiple monetization levers that still feel underdeveloped. And now it has a real AR hardware product that could become important if the category grows over time.

That does not mean Specs need to be a huge revenue driver immediately. They just need to show that Snap still has a seat at the table in the future of AR. If AR glasses become a major computing platform over the next decade, Snap having years of experience with Lenses, camera-based communication, and AR tools could matter. That is the upside. You are not buying Snap today because Specs will sell millions of units tomorrow. You are buying Snap because the core business is cheap if execution improves, and Specs add a long-term option that the market may not fully value right now.

The Bear Case

The bear case is also obvious. Specs are expensive. The market may be small. Consumer AR may still be too early. Snap may not have the balance sheet or resources to compete with Meta and Apple. Hardware margins could be bad. Development costs could be high. The product could distract management. And Snap’s core ad business may still not be strong enough to support big moonshot bets.

That is the risk. This is why I do not think investors should blindly cheer this event. Specs are cool, but cool does not automatically mean profitable. There is a big difference between building exciting technology and building a business that creates shareholder value. Snap still has to prove the second part.

My Honest Take

My honest take is this: I liked the event more as a product fan than as a near-term investor.

The glasses are impressive. The technology is better than a lot of people probably expected. The form factor is moving in the right direction. The battery life is a big improvement. The standalone design matters. The AI and spatial computing features make sense. But the price is too high for mass adoption right now.

That does not mean Specs are a failure. It just means expectations need to be realistic. This is not an iPhone moment yet. This is not a product that changes Snap’s financials overnight. This is an early step toward a possible future platform. And that is why I keep coming back to optionality.

Specs give Snap optionality. The core business gives Snap value. That is how I am thinking about it.

What I Want to See Next

After this event, I want to see Snap stay focused. I do not want every conversation around $SNAP to become about glasses. I want the company to keep proving the main business is getting better. The most important things to watch near term are ad growth, margins, free cash flow, user growth, Snapchat+ growth, Sponsored Snaps, and cost control.

Specs can be part of the story, but they cannot become the whole story. If management keeps investing in AR while also cutting costs and improving monetization, I think that is the right balance. If they lose focus, investors will punish the stock. And honestly, they should. This company does not have unlimited room for mistakes.

Final Thoughts

Today’s Specs event showed both sides of Snap. The good side is that Snap is still innovative. They are still building. They still have a real vision for the future of AR and camera-based computing. The frustrating side is that investors still need proof that this vision can become a better business.

That is why I am not changing my view too aggressively based on one event. I like the optionality. I like the product progress. I do not like the price for mass adoption. And I still think the near-term stock story comes down to execution in the core business.

For me, $SNAP is still a high-risk, high-upside name. Specs make the long-term story more interesting, but they do not remove the need for Snap to execute right now. If Snap can cut costs, improve the ad business, grow Snapchat+, and keep Specs as disciplined optionality, I have no problem with this bet. But if Specs become another expensive project that distracts from the business, that is where I would start to get more concerned.

So my takeaway is simple: cool product, expensive price, interesting optionality, but the core business still has to carry the stock near term.

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Disclaimer: This article is not financial advice. I am not telling anyone to buy, sell, or hold $SNAP. These are just my personal thoughts as an investor following the company, the Specs event, and the near-term setup for the stock. Please do your own research and make decisions based on your own risk tolerance.

Reddit is one of those companies I probably should have taken more seriously sooner.

For a long time, I looked at it the same way a lot of people probably do. A giant message board. A place for memes. A place where people argue about stocks, sports, politics, gaming, and basically anything else you can think of.

And that is Reddit.

But it is also becoming more than that.

The more I research the business, the more I think Reddit is sitting on something very unique. It is part community platform, part search engine, part advertising business, and part data company.

That is a very interesting mix in today’s market.

What really changed my view is the data side. Reddit has years and years of real human conversations. People asking questions, reviewing products, debating ideas, sharing personal experiences, and explaining what actually worked or did not work for them.

That is not easy to recreate.

And in a world where the internet is getting filled with SEO content, sponsored reviews, bots, and AI-generated posts, Reddit’s messy human conversation might actually become more valuable.

I am not saying the stock is cheap. I am not saying there are no risks. $RDDT has already had a huge move, and expectations are much higher now.

But I do think the business is more interesting than a lot of people realize.

What Reddit Actually Is

The simple way to explain Reddit is that it is a community platform, but even that feels a little too basic.

People go to Reddit to talk about almost anything: stocks, sports, gaming, personal finance, careers, health, relationships, technology, travel, cars, parenting, and thousands of niche topics most platforms barely touch.

The platform is not really built around celebrities or polished influencer content. It is built around communities.

That is what makes it different.

People use Reddit when they want real opinions. They want to see what actual people think about a product, a city, a stock, a job, a health issue, a car, or some random problem they are dealing with.

I do this all the time. If I am researching something and I do not want the polished marketing answer, I usually end up on Reddit.

That habit matters.

Reddit has become one of the few places on the internet where people still go for messy, honest, human discussion. That might not sound like a traditional moat, but I think it could become a lot more important over time.

Why I’m Watching $RDDT

The main reason Reddit is on my watchlist is because the business is finally starting to look serious from a financial standpoint.

For years, Reddit had traffic, communities, cultural relevance, and a huge user base, but the business model never felt fully built out.

Now that seems to be changing.

Revenue is growing quickly. Margins are improving. The company is generating real free cash flow. The ad platform is getting better. Data licensing is becoming part of the story. Search behavior is becoming more important. International growth still has room.

That is what caught my attention.

This is not just “Reddit has a lot of users.”

It is Reddit finally starting to figure out how to turn its audience, communities, and data into a real business.

In Q1 2026, Reddit grew revenue 69% year over year to $663 million. Ad revenue grew 74% to $625 million. Net income was $204 million, adjusted EBITDA was $266 million, and free cash flow was $311 million.

Those are not small numbers.

This is not a company growing fast while burning a ton of cash. Reddit is showing revenue growth, profitability, strong margins, and free cash flow at the same time. That combination is why the stock is worth studying.

The user base is also much larger than people realize. Reddit reported 126.8 million daily active uniques in Q1 2026, with more than 100,000 active communities and over 25 billion posts and comments.

That is the part I keep coming back to. Reddit already has scale. The question is whether management can keep improving monetization while protecting what makes Reddit valuable in the first place.

Reddit’s Data Might Be The Biggest Piece

The data is probably the most interesting part of the Reddit thesis to me.

Reddit has years of human conversations across almost every topic imaginable. People are asking questions, giving reviews, comparing products, sharing mistakes, explaining what worked, and debating real experiences.

That is not the same as a normal social media feed.

A TikTok video might tell you what someone wants you to see. An Instagram post might show the polished version. A Google result might show you the page that ranked best for SEO.

Reddit is different. Reddit often shows you what people actually think.

That is valuable for users, but it is also valuable for AI.

AI companies need data, but not all data is equal. Human conversation, product feedback, opinions, comparisons, and real-world experiences are very useful. Reddit has a massive amount of that.

That is why the data licensing angle matters. Reddit has already shown it can monetize its data through deals with major AI players. It has also shown it is willing to protect that data when it thinks companies are using it without permission.

That tells me Reddit understands the value of what it owns.

Advertising is still the main business today, but I think the data side could become more important over time. If AI companies keep needing fresh human data, Reddit is one of the few platforms that has it at scale.

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Reddit Is Also A Search Story

Another reason I like the setup is because Reddit is already part of how people search.

A lot of people type something into Google and add “Reddit” at the end. That is not random. People do it because they want real answers from real people.

That behavior is powerful.

Reddit is not just a place people scroll. It is a place people research. That makes the intent on the platform very different from a lot of social media.

If someone is searching Reddit for running shoes, credit cards, gaming PCs, skincare, investing, travel, or home improvement, that is valuable attention. They are not just killing time. They are often trying to make a decision.

That matters for advertising.

It also matters for AI search. AI products want to summarize useful answers. Reddit has the kind of messy, human, experience-based answers that people actually want. That creates opportunity, but it also creates risk if AI search gives people the answer without sending traffic back to Reddit.

That is one thing I want to watch closely.

The Ad Business Still Matters Most

As much as I like the data story, Reddit is still mostly an advertising business right now.

That means the company has to keep improving its ad platform. Reddit has a huge audience and very specific communities, but advertisers need tools that are easy to use, measurable, and effective.

This is where Reddit still has room to improve.

The opportunity is that Reddit should be able to monetize better over time. The platform has strong intent, a lot of niche communities, and users who are already researching topics. That should be valuable to advertisers if Reddit can keep improving targeting, measurement, automation, and ad performance.

The challenge is doing that without ruining what makes Reddit useful.

I actually think that is one of the most important parts of this story. Reddit cannot just turn into another over-monetized feed. The value of Reddit is the community and the trust people have in the conversations. If management pushes ads too hard or makes the platform feel less authentic, that could hurt the long-term thesis.

So the balance matters.

The International Opportunity

Reddit is still much stronger in the U.S. than it is internationally.

That is a weakness today, but also a big opportunity.

A lot of Reddit’s best content is in English. If translation keeps improving, more of that content could become useful to people around the world. That could help Reddit grow users, build more local communities, and eventually improve international monetization.

This will take time. International users are usually harder to monetize at first, and Reddit has to build local communities in a way that feels natural. But I think this is still a real lever for the company.

If Reddit can grow internationally while improving ad monetization, the revenue opportunity gets a lot bigger.

Why I’m Becoming More Bullish

The bullish case is not that Reddit is perfect. It is not.

The bullish case is that Reddit has a rare combination of things: a massive user base, strong communities, real search behavior, improving advertising, growing profitability, and one of the most unique data assets on the internet.

That is not easy to find.

The part I like most is that Reddit is not just entertainment. People use it to make decisions. That gives the platform a different kind of value.

The community creates the content. The content creates search value. The search value creates intent. The intent helps advertising. The data creates AI licensing potential.

That is the flywheel I am watching.

If management keeps executing, Reddit could become a much bigger business over the next 3-5 years than a lot of people expected.

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What I Want To See

There are still a few things I want to watch before getting too bullish.

First, I want to see if ad revenue can keep growing at a strong rate. Advertising is still the main business, so that has to keep working.

Second, I want to see if data licensing becomes a meaningful long-term revenue stream or just a nice side business. The data is valuable, but I want to see how big that opportunity can actually become.

Third, I want to see if Reddit can build more direct search behavior on its own platform. Reddit gets a lot of value from Google traffic, but I do not want the whole thesis to depend on Google continuing to send traffic forever.

Fourth, I want to see international growth continue. Reddit has a lot of room outside the U.S., but that will take execution.

Fifth, I want to see profitability hold up. Reddit is investing in product, AI, safety, moderation, and international expansion. The business looks much better now, but I want to see if the margins are sustainable.

The Risks

The risks are real.

The first one is valuation. Reddit is not some ignored IPO anymore. The stock has already had a big move, and expectations are much higher. If growth slows, the stock could get hit hard.

The second risk is traffic dependence. A lot of Reddit discovery still comes through Google Search. If Google changes its algorithm, pushes more AI answers, or sends less traffic to forums and publishers, Reddit could feel that.

The third risk is AI data. Data licensing is exciting, but it could also create backlash. Users may not love the idea of their posts being licensed to AI companies, and regulators could eventually pay more attention to how user-generated data is monetized.

The fourth risk is competition. Reddit competes for attention with TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X, Discord, Google, and AI search products. It is a crowded internet.

That last point is probably the most important to me. Reddit’s biggest advantage is authenticity. If it loses that, the thesis changes.

How I Think About The Stock

I do not look at Reddit as a normal social media company.

To me, Reddit is a mix of community, search, advertising, and data. That is why it is interesting.

The company has real scale. It is growing fast. It is becoming profitable. It has a unique data asset. And it still feels under-monetized compared to what it could become.

But I also do not think this is a stock you can ignore valuation on. A good business can still be a bad stock if the price gets too far ahead of the fundamentals.

That is why I am watching it closely instead of blindly chasing it.

My Main Takeaway

Reddit is one of the more interesting internet businesses in the market right now.

It is not just a forum website. It is a community platform, a search behavior, an advertising business, and a data asset.

That combination matters even more in a world where the internet is getting flooded with AI-generated content. Real human conversation could become more valuable, not less.

That is why $RDDT is on my watchlist.

I am not saying it is an automatic buy at any price. I still want to keep studying the valuation, growth durability, data licensing opportunity, traffic risk, and execution.

But the more I look at Reddit, the more I understand why the market is paying attention.

Sometimes the best businesses are the ones people use every day but still underestimate.

Reddit might be one of them.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing here is financial advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any stock. I may own, buy, or sell shares at any time. Always do your own research and make decisions based on your own risk tolerance, time horizon, and financial situation.

I did not make any huge moves. I did not try to overtrade the volatility. I mostly stuck to the same plan I have been talking about for a while: continue building positions I want to own long term, keep some cash ready, and stay focused on the businesses rather than every short-term move in the market.

The main things I did this week were continue my DCA into $BN and add a little more $NOW on the small dip we saw.

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Uber is starting to get very interesting to me.

For years, Uber was one of those companies I loved as a product but was more cautious about as a stock. The app was obviously useful. The brand was everywhere. The scale was massive. But the business model was always the question. Could Uber actually turn all of that usage into real profits?

That is what looks different now.

Uber is no longer just a growth-at-all-costs rideshare company. It has become a profitable platform with real cash flow, improving margins, a massive user base, and multiple ways to keep growing. The more I look at the business, the more I think investors may still be underestimating how much Uber has changed.

Uber Is Becoming a Real Platform Business

The biggest mistake with Uber is looking at it like the old version of the company. Old Uber was about growth, subsidies, market share, and proving that rideshare could eventually become a real business. New Uber is about scale, operating leverage, free cash flow, and earnings power.

That is a very different conversation.

In Q1 2026, Uber reported 199 million monthly active platform consumers, 3.6 billion trips, $53.7 billion in gross bookings, and $13.2 billion in revenue. Trips grew 20% year over year, and gross bookings grew 25% year over year. The company is not just big anymore. It is still growing at massive scale while becoming more profitable.

That profitability shift is what matters most to me. Uber reported $2.5 billion in adjusted EBITDA in Q1 2026, up 33% year over year, and operating income grew 57% year over year to $1.9 billion. The thesis is no longer just “more people will use Uber.” The thesis is that Uber can keep growing while more of that growth turns into profit.

That is where the story gets interesting.

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The Moat Is Demand

Uber’s biggest advantage is not just the app. It is demand.

Uber already has the users, the brand, the driver network, the merchant relationships, the payment system, the routing data, and the consumer habit. That is extremely hard to recreate.

In Mobility, more riders bring more drivers. More drivers improve wait times. Better wait times improve the rider experience. Better experiences bring more riders. That loop gets stronger with scale. In Delivery, more customers bring more restaurants and merchants. More merchants create more selection. More selection creates more usage. More usage makes the platform more valuable.

That is why Uber is not just a simple transportation company. It is a marketplace, and marketplaces can become very powerful once they reach enough scale.

A competitor can copy the app. It is much harder to copy the liquidity, network, data, and habits behind the app.

Mobility Is Still the Core Engine

Mobility is still the heart of Uber. This is the original use case and still the core profit engine.

Need a ride to the airport? Open Uber. Need to get across town? Open Uber. Traveling in a new city? Open Uber. That habit matters. Uber has become a default option for transportation in a lot of markets, and default behavior is powerful.

I think about it similarly to Google with search. People do not always think about which search engine to use. They just Google it. That is the kind of consumer habit Uber has built in transportation.

The business model also becomes more attractive at scale. Uber does not need to own the cars. It connects supply and demand, takes a cut of the transaction, and uses technology to improve matching, pricing, routing, and utilization. That is why Mobility can become a strong cash flow engine and why it gives Uber room to build everything else around it

Delivery Is Bigger Than Food

Delivery is where I think people oversimplify the story.

DoorDash is clearly stronger in U.S. food delivery. That is true, and I am not ignoring it. But Uber is not just trying to be a food delivery app. Delivery gives Uber more app frequency, more merchant relationships, more advertising inventory, more Uber One value, and more ways to stay connected with consumers.

A rideshare app might only be opened when someone needs transportation. A delivery app can be opened multiple times a week. When you combine both inside one ecosystem, the platform becomes stickier.

Uber does not need to beat DoorDash in every single market for Delivery to matter. It needs Delivery to keep growing, improve profitability, and strengthen the overall Uber ecosystem. That is a very different way to look at it.

Uber’s recent delivery moves also show that the company is still building around local commerce. Uber agreed to acquire Delivery Hero’s foodpanda business in Taiwan, which gives it more scale in an important international market. It also agreed to acquire Getir’s delivery business in Turkey, adding more exposure to food, grocery, retail, and other local delivery categories.

That matters because it shows Uber is not just building a restaurant delivery app. It is building a broader local commerce platform. The more categories Uber adds, the more reasons people have to open the app. More frequency makes Uber One more valuable, gives Uber more ad inventory, and makes the platform harder to replace.

Freight is still part of Uber too, but it is not the main reason I am interested in the stock. For me, the bull case is really Mobility, Delivery, Uber One, Advertising, buybacks, and autonomy optionality.

Uber One Is More Important Than People Think

Uber One might be one of the most underrated parts of the entire story.

Membership programs change behavior. A casual user might order food or take a ride once in a while. A member is more likely to use the app repeatedly because they already feel invested in the ecosystem. That drives frequency, retention, cross-usage between rides and delivery, and lifetime value.

This is why Amazon Prime became so important to Amazon. Prime is not just a subscription. It is an engine. Uber One can become that for Uber.

Uber One has already passed 50 million members globally, and those members generated roughly half of Mobility and Delivery gross bookings in Q1 2026. That is a huge signal because it means Uber’s most loyal users are becoming a major part of the platform’s economics.

These users are not just opening the app once and leaving. They are using Uber more often, across more categories, and likely staying inside the ecosystem longer. That is exactly what I want to see from a platform business.

Uber One is not just a discount program. It is the loyalty layer that connects the entire ecosystem. If members use Uber more often and across more categories, Uber can improve retention, reduce reliance on promotions, increase lifetime value, and create more opportunities for advertising.

That is why I think Uber One is more important than most people realize.

Advertising Could Be the Hidden Margin Lever

Uber’s advertising business is one of the biggest reasons I am paying more attention.

Ads can be extremely high margin. Uber already has the users, restaurants, merchants, grocery partners, rides, delivery orders, local intent, and transaction data. Advertising lets Uber monetize what it already has.

That is powerful.

I do not think Uber Ads needs to become like Meta or Google to matter. That is the wrong comparison. The better comparison is retail media. Amazon built a massive advertising business because it sits close to the transaction. People go to Amazon when they are ready to buy something. That makes the ad inventory valuable.

Uber has its own version of that. If someone is ordering food, restaurants want placement. If someone is browsing grocery or convenience stores, brands want visibility. If someone is opening the app frequently, Uber has inventory to monetize.

Uber Ads has already scaled to a multi-billion-dollar run-rate and is still growing fast. That matters because this revenue should be much more profitable than the core transaction business.

I also think the advertising opportunity is bigger than just Uber Eats. Delivery is the obvious starting point because restaurants, grocery brands, and merchants want placement. But over time, Uber can monetize more surfaces across the app. Mobility, ride screens, journey ads, local offers, sponsored placements, and other app surfaces could all become part of the ad opportunity.

This is where the margin story can get interesting. Uber does not need ads to become the entire company. It just needs advertising to keep becoming a larger part of the profit mix. That could make Uber look less like a transportation company over time and more like a platform with high-margin revenue streams layered on top.

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Autonomy Is the Big Optionality

Autonomy is the most debated part of Uber’s story.

Some investors see robotaxis as a huge threat. If Tesla, Waymo, or another autonomous vehicle company owns the vehicle, the software, and the customer relationship, Uber could lose economics. That risk is real.

But I think there is another side to it.

Uber does not need to build the best robotaxi to benefit from autonomy. Uber needs to be one of the best platforms for people to book autonomous rides. That is a much more realistic strategy.

Uber already has the app, the users, the payments, routing experience, marketplace, demand network, and consumer habit. If autonomous vehicle companies want utilization, they need riders. Uber has riders.

That is why the partnership model makes sense. Uber can work with multiple autonomous vehicle companies instead of betting everything on one internal technology stack. That lowers the capital risk and gives Uber flexibility.

The Lucid and Nuro partnership is a good example. Lucid brings the vehicle. Nuro brings the autonomous driving system. Uber brings the demand platform. Lucid and Nuro have described the program as combining Lucid’s Gravity vehicles, Nuro’s self-driving technology, and Uber’s global ride-hailing platform.

The Rivian deal adds another layer. Uber agreed to invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian through 2031, tied to autonomous milestones, with plans to deploy Rivian R2 robotaxis through Uber’s platform. Reports said the plan starts with 10,000 robotaxis in 2028, with the potential to expand by another 40,000 vehicles starting in 2030.

The Wayve partnership adds even more to the story. Uber has opened sign-ups in London for robotaxi rides powered by Wayve, with a launch expected after regulatory approval. The early version is expected to include safety operators, but it shows Uber is not only thinking about autonomy in the U.S. The company is trying to build a global AV platform.

Uber and Wayve are also working with Nissan on a robotaxi pilot in Tokyo, which is another example of the same strategy. Uber provides the demand platform. Partners provide the vehicles and autonomous technology.

That matters because Uber is not betting on just one winner. Lucid, Nuro, Rivian, Waymo, Wayve, WeRide, Nissan, and other partners all point to the same strategy: Uber is trying to become the marketplace layer for autonomy.

That is the key point. Uber does not need to win the hardest part of autonomy by itself. It needs to remain the app people open when they want a ride. If robotaxis scale, Uber could still be one of the main ways consumers access them.

The bear case is that autonomous vehicle companies go directly to consumers and bypass Uber. The bull case is that Uber becomes the demand aggregator for robotaxis. Both are possible. But I think Uber is better positioned than the market sometimes gives it credit for.

Autonomy is not automatically bullish for Uber. It is bullish if Uber stays the demand layer. It becomes a threat if AV companies successfully build their own consumer networks at scale.

That is the debate.

Uber may not own the cars. But it owns a massive consumer habit.

Other Platform Optionality

One thing I do not want to overstate, but still think is worth mentioning, is that Uber has more use cases than just consumers ordering rides and food.

Uber for Business gives companies a way to manage rides, meals, and local deliveries. Uber Health focuses on healthcare transportation and delivery solutions. These are not the main reason I am bullish, but they support the broader idea that Uber can keep expanding the use cases attached to its network.

That is what platform companies do well. Once the network exists, they can keep layering more services on top of it.

Buybacks Make the Story Cleaner

Another thing I like is that Uber is now in a position to return capital.

This is a major change from the old Uber. Uber is producing real free cash flow, and the company still has billions remaining under its share repurchase authorization.

That matters because Uber is no longer just asking investors to wait for profits someday. The profits are showing up, the cash flow is very real, and buybacks can help support EPS over time.

Uber can still invest in growth, advertising, Uber One, autonomy partnerships, and international expansion while also returning capital to shareholders. That is a much better business than the one investors were debating years ago.

Why I Am Starting to Get Bullish

The reason I am getting more interested in Uber is not just one thing. It is the combination.

Mobility is the core cash engine. Delivery increases frequency. Uber One improves loyalty. Advertising adds high-margin revenue. Autonomy creates long-term optionality. Buybacks support EPS. The platform is still growing at scale.

That is a strong setup.

The business is better than it used to be, but the market still debates a lot of the old risks. That is the type of situation I like studying.

I am not saying Uber is risk-free. Autonomy could still become a threat. Regulation could pressure margins. Competition is still real. Delivery is tough. Macro weakness could slow demand. And if growth slows, the multiple could compress.

I would also keep an eye on take-rate and driver economics. If riders feel prices are too high, drivers feel they are not earning enough, or regulators decide Uber is taking too much of the fare, that could create pressure. This is still a marketplace, and marketplaces only work if both sides keep showing up.

But the bull case is becoming much easier to understand.

Uber is not just trying to prove the model anymore. It is trying to show how much cash flow this platform can produce at scale. That is a much better question.

What I Am Watching

For me, the Uber thesis comes down to a few key metrics: monthly active platform consumers, trips growth, gross bookings growth, adjusted EBITDA margin, free cash flow, Uber One membership growth, advertising revenue growth, share buybacks, delivery profitability, and autonomy partnership progress.

The stock price will move around, but these are the numbers/metrics that will tell me whether the business is actually getting stronger.

Final Thoughts

The reason I am getting more interested in Uber is simple: the business has changed.

This is no longer just a rideshare company trying to prove it can make money. Uber is now a profitable platform with several ways to keep growing.

Mobility is the core engine. Delivery is becoming broader than food. Uber One is building loyalty. Advertising is adding a high-margin layer. Buybacks are supporting EPS. Autonomy gives Uber long-term optionality if it can remain the demand layer for robotaxis.

There are still real risks. Regulation, competition, driver economics, autonomy, and valuation all matter. But I think the setup is becoming much more attractive than it was a few years ago.

Uber went from:

“Can this business model work?”

To:

“How much cash flow can this platform produce at scale?”

That is a major shift, and it is the main reason I am starting to get bullish on $UBER.

Disclaimer: I do not currently own shares of $UBER, but it is a stock I am actively researching and considering. This article is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.

Amazon is not a hidden stock.

Everyone knows the company. Everyone uses the company. Everyone understands that Amazon is more than just online shopping.

But I still think a lot of investors underestimate the actual machine that Amazon has built.

This is not just an e-commerce company, a cloud company, an advertising company, or an AI infrastructure company. It is all of those businesses connected together in one ecosystem.

That is what makes Amazon so powerful.

Amazon has the consumer relationship through Prime. It has the marketplace through third-party sellers. It has the cloud infrastructure through AWS. It has the advertising layer built on purchase intent. It has the fulfillment network. It has subscriptions. It has logistics. It has AI infrastructure. It has data.

Most companies would love to have one of those businesses.

Amazon has all of them.

That is why I own $AMZN.

The Amazon Ecosystem

The easiest mistake with Amazon is trying to value it like one simple business.

Amazon is not simple.

The company reports in three main operating segments: North America, International, and AWS. But underneath that, Amazon has multiple revenue streams: online stores, physical stores, third-party seller services, subscription services, advertising services, AWS, and other revenue.

In 2025, Amazon generated roughly $717 billion in total net sales. AWS alone produced nearly $129 billion. Advertising services generated almost $69 billion. Third-party seller services generated over $170 billion. Subscription services generated nearly $50 billion.

Those numbers matter because they show how diversified Amazon really is.

Amazon is not dependent on one single lever. Retail creates the customer relationship. Third-party sellers create marketplace depth. Prime increases loyalty. Ads monetize purchase intent. AWS monetizes enterprise cloud demand. AI infrastructure expands the AWS opportunity. Logistics improves speed and efficiency.

Each part strengthens another part.

That is the Amazon flywheel.

The more customers use Amazon, the more valuable the marketplace becomes. The more sellers join the marketplace, the more selection improves. Better selection and faster delivery make Prime more valuable. More shopping activity creates more valuable ad inventory. More scale gives Amazon more data, more efficiency, and more negotiating power.

This is not a normal business model.

This is a machine.

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Retail Is Still the Foundation

Retail is not the highest-margin part of Amazon, but it is still the foundation of the entire company.

The retail business gives Amazon scale, customer trust, Prime relationships, seller relationships, fulfillment density, and daily consumer relevance.

That matters.

A lot of companies have great apps. Fewer companies have a product people use constantly. Amazon is one of those rare companies that has become part of everyday life.

The retail business also gives Amazon a massive advantage in advertising. When someone searches for a product on Amazon, they are usually much closer to buying than someone scrolling through a social media feed.

That is why Amazon advertising is so valuable.

Retail may not be the flashiest part of the story, but without retail, Amazon does not have the same Prime ecosystem, marketplace power, ad opportunity, or logistics advantage.

The bullish case is not that retail suddenly becomes a software-margin business.

The bullish case is that Amazon keeps making retail more efficient while the higher-margin businesses built on top of retail become a bigger part of the profit mix.

That is where the earnings power can come from.

Third-Party Sellers Are a Huge Part of the Story

One of the most underrated pieces of Amazon is third-party seller services.

Amazon is not just selling products directly. It is also providing infrastructure for millions of sellers.

Sellers use Amazon for access to customers, fulfillment, payments, logistics, advertising, and trust. In return, Amazon collects fees from seller services, fulfillment, and ads.

This is a very important part of the model because it turns Amazon into a platform, not just a retailer.

The more sellers use Amazon, the more selection customers get. The more selection customers get, the more valuable Prime becomes. The more customers shop, the more sellers need Amazon. The more sellers compete, the more valuable Amazon advertising becomes.

That is a powerful loop.

Third-party seller services also help explain why Amazon’s retail business is better than it looks on the surface. The company is not only earning money from direct product sales. It is earning money from the infrastructure behind commerce.

That is a better business than traditional retail.

AWS Is the Profit Engine

AWS is still one of the most important parts of the Amazon thesis.

Cloud infrastructure is one of the most important markets in the world, and AI is only making it more important.

Every company wants to use AI. But to use AI, companies need compute, storage, databases, networking, security, chips, and developer tools.

AWS sits directly in the middle of that.

In Q1 2026, AWS revenue grew 28% year over year to $37.6 billion. That was a major acceleration and showed that AWS is still a serious growth engine even at massive scale.

Even more important, AWS produced $14.2 billion of operating income in the quarter.

That is why AWS matters so much.

Amazon’s retail business creates scale. But AWS creates profit.

This is also why I view Amazon as one of the better AI infrastructure plays in the market. Amazon is not just talking about AI. It is building and selling the infrastructure that companies need to run AI workloads.

AWS has Bedrock, Trainium, Graviton, custom silicon, cloud infrastructure, and a massive enterprise customer base. Amazon is spending aggressively because demand for compute is growing aggressively.

The market may debate whether AI capex is too high in the short term.

That is fair.

But if Amazon is right, this spending can strengthen AWS for the next decade.

Advertising Might Be Amazon’s Best Hidden Profit Lever

Amazon advertising is one of the most attractive businesses inside the company.

The reason is simple: Amazon owns purchase intent.

Google knows what people search for. Meta knows what people engage with. Amazon knows what people are actually trying to buy.

That is incredibly valuable.

If a customer searches for running shoes, protein powder, headphones, or a laptop on Amazon, brands want to show up at that exact moment. That makes Amazon’s ad inventory very different from traditional display ads.

It is closer to the point of purchase.

In Q1 2026, Amazon advertising revenue was about $17.2 billion, up roughly 22% year over year.

That is a massive business by itself.

The other important part is margins. Advertising should be much higher margin than traditional retail. So as advertising becomes a larger part of Amazon’s business mix, it can help overall profitability improve.

This is one of the biggest reasons I am bullish on Amazon long term.

Amazon does not need retail margins to become amazing if AWS and advertising keep becoming larger profit drivers.

The business mix is changing.

That is what matters.

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Prime Is the Glue

Prime is one of the most important consumer products in the world.

It is not just free shipping.

Prime is shipping, video, music, deals, convenience, habit, and loyalty. It keeps customers inside the Amazon ecosystem.

That matters because the best businesses are not just the ones that acquire customers. They are the ones that keep customers and expand the relationship over time.

Prime does that.

A Prime member is more likely to shop on Amazon, watch Prime Video, use Amazon devices, see Amazon ads, and stay inside the ecosystem. Prime gives Amazon a recurring relationship with customers instead of needing to win every transaction from scratch.

It also gives Amazon more ways to monetize.

Prime Video can support ads. Prime shopping creates purchase data. Prime delivery reinforces convenience. Prime Day drives volume. The subscription itself creates recurring revenue.

This is why I think Amazon’s ecosystem is so hard to compete with.

Competitors can copy pieces of Amazon.

It is much harder to copy the entire system

The Margin Expansion Story

The biggest reason I like Amazon today is the margin expansion story.

Amazon already has the scale.

The question now is how much profit the company can produce from that scale.

For years, Amazon spent heavily on fulfillment, logistics, AWS, content, international expansion, and new growth areas. That made the company look less profitable than it could eventually become.

Now the business is starting to show more operating leverage.

In Q1 2026, Amazon reported total net sales of $181.5 billion, up 17% year over year. Operating income reached $23.9 billion. That is a massive number.

This is the key point: Amazon’s revenue base is already enormous. Even small improvements in margin can create huge increases in operating income.

That is why I think Amazon can look cheaper than it appears.

A surface-level multiple does not fully capture what happens if AWS keeps growing, advertising keeps scaling, retail efficiency improves, and international losses continue moving in the right direction.

Amazon does not need every segment to be perfect.

It just needs the profit mix to keep improving.

That is the setup I like.

AI Capex Is the Main Debate

The biggest risk in the Amazon thesis right now is capex.

Amazon is spending a massive amount of money on AI infrastructure, data centers, chips, and AWS capacity.

In Q1 2026, free cash flow fell sharply to around $1.2 billion on a trailing twelve-month basis, mainly because of increased property and equipment purchases tied to AI investment.

That is the bear case.

Amazon is generating a lot of operating cash flow, but it is also reinvesting aggressively. If AI demand disappoints, or if returns on capex are lower than expected, investors could get frustrated.

That risk is real.

But I do not automatically view heavy capex as bad.

The question is not whether Amazon is spending a lot. The question is whether that spending earns attractive returns over time.

If AI demand keeps growing, AWS capacity becomes more valuable. If Trainium and Graviton help Amazon lower costs and improve performance, AWS becomes more competitive. If companies keep moving workloads to the cloud, Amazon’s infrastructure advantage becomes even more important.

This is the tradeoff investors have to accept.

Short-term free cash flow may look messy.

Long-term earnings power may be getting stronger.

For me, that is a tradeoff I am willing to study and hold through as long as the demand signals stay strong.

What Could Go Wrong

No stock is risk-free, and Amazon is no exception.

The biggest risk is that AI capex does not produce the returns investors expect. If Amazon keeps spending heavily but AWS growth slows or margins compress, the stock could struggle.

Competition is another risk. AWS competes with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Advertising competes with Google, Meta, TikTok, retail media networks, and others. Retail competes with Walmart, Costco, Target, Temu, Shein, and many more.

Regulation is also a real risk. Amazon is massive, and massive platforms always attract regulatory attention.

Consumer weakness could pressure retail. Cloud optimization could pressure AWS. International markets could remain lower margin. Logistics investments could take longer to pay off.

These risks are real.

But the question is whether the upside is still worth the risk.

For me, the answer is yes.

What I Am Watching

For Amazon, I care about a few key things.

First, AWS growth. If AWS continues accelerating or holding strong growth at scale, that supports the AI infrastructure thesis.

Second, AWS margins. Growth is great, but operating income matters.

Third, advertising growth. This is one of Amazon’s highest-quality revenue streams, and I want to see it keep compounding.

Fourth, retail margin improvement. The stores business does not need huge margins, but efficiency gains can matter a lot because the revenue base is so large.

Fifth, free cash flow after the AI capex cycle. I am okay with heavy investment if returns show up later. But eventually, those investments need to turn into cash flow.

Sixth, Prime engagement. Prime is the glue holding the consumer ecosystem together.

Those are the numbers I care about more than daily stock price movements

Final Thoughts

Amazon is one of the best businesses in the world.

That does not mean the stock goes up every quarter. It does not mean valuation never matters. It does not mean the AI capex risk should be ignored.

But I think the long-term setup is still very strong.

Amazon has multiple ways to grow earnings. AWS can keep scaling. Advertising can become a larger profit driver. Retail can become more efficient. Prime can keep customers locked into the ecosystem. Third-party seller services can keep expanding. AI infrastructure can create another wave of demand.

That is why I own $AMZN.

This is not a simple “Amazon is more than retail” thesis.

Most people already know that.

My thesis is that Amazon’s earnings power is still not fully appreciated.

The company has spent years building the infrastructure, customer relationships, marketplace, cloud platform, ad network, logistics network, and AI capacity.

Now the question is how much profit all of that can produce.

I think the answer could be a lot more than people expect.

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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. I own $AMZN. This article is for research and educational purposes only.

Some of the best-performing stocks this year were sitting right in front of everyone.

Not penny stocks.

Not random names nobody has heard of.

Large companies tied to AI infrastructure, memory, storage, semiconductors, and turnarounds.

That is what makes this year so interesting. A lot of the biggest winners were not hidden in some tiny corner of the market. They were companies investors already knew, but many either ignored them, misunderstood them, or did not realize how powerful the underlying trend had become.

So I wanted to look at a simple question:

What would $10,000 invested on January 1st be worth today?

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$SNDK: $10,000 Would Be $56,653.50

If you invested $10,000 in Sandisk on January 1st, you would have $56,653.50 today.

That is an unbelievable move for a company of this size. Sandisk has been one of the craziest large-cap winners of the year as the market realized AI infrastructure is not just about GPUs. Memory and storage matter too.

Everyone loves talking about the obvious AI winners, but AI creates a ridiculous amount of data. That data has to be stored, moved, processed, and accessed. Sandisk has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of investors waking up to that part of the AI supply chain.

$DELL: $10,000 Would Be $30,860.70

If you invested $10,000 in Dell on January 1st, you would have $30,860.70 today.

Dell has been a huge winner because of the AI server buildout. A lot of people still think of Dell as just an old PC company, but the real story this year has been enterprise demand, AI servers, and infrastructure spending.

That is the lesson with Dell. Sometimes the market uses an old label for a company while the business is quietly becoming something more important. Investors who only saw “PC company” missed the AI infrastructure angle.

$STX: $10,000 Would Be $29,473.50

If you invested $10,000 in Seagate on January 1st, you would have $29,473.50 today.

Seagate has been another major winner from the storage side of the AI trade. As data explodes, the need to store it becomes more important. Sometimes the biggest winners are the companies powering the backbone of the trend.

This is what a lot of investors miss about AI. It is not just about the company with the best model or the hottest chip. There is an entire infrastructure stack underneath it. Storage is a major part of that stack.

$MU: $10,000 Would Be $27,392.70

If you invested $10,000 in Micron on January 1st, you would have $27,392.70 today.

Micron has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the memory cycle turning. AI workloads need massive amounts of memory, and once the market realized how important that would be, the stock took off.

This is also a good reminder that cyclical stocks can move violently when the setup changes. When an industry goes from hated and oversupplied to needed and in demand, the upside can happen fast.

$WDC: $10,000 Would Be $27,263.20

If you invested $10,000 in Western Digital on January 1st, you would have $27,263.20 today.

Western Digital has also been a huge winner as investors chase storage and data infrastructure plays. AI is creating insane amounts of data, and that makes storage more important than ever.

The interesting thing with Western Digital is how obvious the theme looks in hindsight. More AI usage means more data. More data means more need for storage. But the market does not always price these second-order winners right away.

$INTC: $10,000 Would Be $25,185.40

If you invested $10,000 in Intel on January 1st, you would have $25,185.40 today.

Intel has been one of the more surprising winners this year. Expectations were low, sentiment was terrible, and that created room for a big move once investors started buying into the turnaround story.

This is why beaten-down stocks can be so interesting when expectations get low enough. A company does not always need to become perfect for the stock to work. Sometimes it just needs to become less bad than the market expected.

That is basically the turnaround setup.

$AMD: $10,000 Would Be $20,870.40

If you invested $10,000 in AMD on January 1st, you would have $20,870.40 today.

AMD has been a monster this year as the market keeps pricing in a bigger AI accelerator opportunity and stronger data center demand. The key is simple: AMD does not need to beat Nvidia to be a huge winner. It just needs to keep taking a piece of a massive market.

That is one of the most important parts of the AMD thesis. The AI market is big enough for multiple winners. If AMD can stay relevant, keep improving its products, and win even a small piece of a giant opportunity, the stock can still work.

The Bigger Lesson

The biggest takeaway from this list is not that everyone should have magically known to buy these stocks on January 1st. That is easy to say with hindsight.

The real lesson is that huge opportunities can come from understanding the full supply chain behind a major trend.

AI is not just one stock.

It is chips, servers, memory, storage, networking, power, cooling, software, and infrastructure. The market often starts with the obvious winners, but over time, money flows into the companies that make the entire ecosystem possible.

That is why I like looking at these charts. They make the move simple to understand. You do not need a complicated model to see what happened. A $10,000 investment turning into $56,653.50 in Sandisk or $30,860.70 in Dell tells the story immediately.

Final Thoughts

The best-performing stocks are not always the ones that feel the safest at the start of the year.

Sometimes they are misunderstood.

Sometimes they are hated.

Sometimes they are tied to a theme the market has not fully priced in yet.

This year, many of the biggest winners came from AI infrastructure, memory, storage, semiconductors, and turnarounds. The names were not hidden. They were sitting right in front of everyone.

The hard part is seeing the trend early enough, understanding why it matters, and having the conviction to hold when the move starts.

I made these return charts with Chartloom:

https://www.chartloom.com/?ref=ASHTON

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice. I am not telling anyone to buy, sell, or hold any stock mentioned. Always do your own research and make decisions based on your own risk tolerance, financial situation, and time horizon.

Oscar Health has become one of the most interesting positions in my portfolio. It is now my 3rd largest holding, and while that may sound aggressive to some people, I am comfortable with it because I think the market is still missing the bigger picture.

Oscar is not a perfect company. It operates in healthcare, which means regulation, policy risk, medical cost volatility, and execution risk are all very real. But the opportunity is also real. This is a company growing fast, scaling into profitability, and attacking one of the most frustrating parts of the U.S. economy: health insurance.

What Oscar Health Actually Does

Oscar is mainly focused on the individual and family health insurance market, which includes people buying coverage through the ACA marketplace. That means Oscar serves people who are not getting traditional employer-sponsored insurance, including self-employed workers, freelancers, gig workers, small business owners, families, people between jobs, and early retirees.

That market matters because the way people work is changing. Not everyone has one lifelong employer with one traditional health plan anymore. More people are working flexible jobs, switching careers, building businesses, or choosing independent work. Oscar is built for that world.

The company is trying to make health insurance feel more modern, simple, and consumer-friendly. That sounds basic, but healthcare is still one of the most confusing industries in America. People hate trying to figure out what is covered, what something costs, where to go, who to call, and whether a bill is even correct.

Oscar’s bet is simple: if healthcare is broken and confusing, there is room for a company that makes it easier. That is the core thesis.

Why The Market Opportunity Is Bigger Than People Think

The reason I am bullish is because Oscar is no longer just an interesting idea. It has real scale now.

In Q1 2026, Oscar had roughly 3.17 million members, up from around 2.04 million in Q1 2025. Revenue came in at about $4.65 billion, up around 53% year-over-year. That is not small growth. That is a company becoming much larger very quickly.

Scale matters a lot in insurance. More members can mean better data, better pricing, better fixed cost leverage, better provider relationships, better brand awareness, and better efficiency over time. For years, the knock on Oscar was that it was growing but had not proven the economics could work. Now that question is starting to change.

The market is not just asking, “Can Oscar grow?” It is starting to ask, “Can Oscar grow profitably?” That is where the story gets interesting.

Q1 2026 Was A Major Statement

Q1 2026 was a huge quarter for the thesis. Oscar reported $679 million in net income attributable to the company and $727 million in adjusted EBITDA. Medical loss ratio improved to 70.5%, compared to 75.4% in the prior year period. SG&A expense ratio also improved to 15.2%, compared to 15.8% last year.

Those numbers matter because they show what the business can look like when growth, pricing, medical costs, and operating leverage are all moving in the right direction. For a while, $OSCR was viewed as a “growth but no profits” story. Q1 showed that the model can produce real profits when the company executes.

Yes, one strong quarter does not prove everything. Q1 is seasonally strong for health insurers, and Oscar still has to prove this over a full year and through different market environments. But the quarter showed the upside inside this business if Oscar keeps scaling correctly.

Why Medical Loss Ratio Matters

Medical loss ratio is one of the most important numbers for an insurer. In simple terms, it shows how much of premium revenue is being spent on medical claims. If that number gets too high, profitability gets crushed. If it improves, the earnings power can change quickly.

Oscar’s MLR improvement in Q1 was a big deal because medical cost control has always been one of the biggest bear arguments against the company. Bears have said Oscar can grow members, but growth does not matter if the company cannot manage claims and price risk correctly.

That is a fair concern, but Q1 pushed back on that argument. It showed Oscar can produce strong profitability when the model is working. This is one of the numbers I will be watching every quarter.

The Operating Leverage Story

The other part I like is operating leverage. Oscar’s revenue is growing fast, but SG&A as a percentage of revenue is starting to move in the right direction. That is exactly what I want to see from a company scaling.

The dream scenario is simple: members grow, revenue grows, the platform becomes more efficient, expenses become smaller as a percentage of revenue, and earnings grow faster than sales. That is the path to a much more valuable company.

This is also why 2026 guidance matters so much. Oscar is guiding for $18.7 billion to $19.0 billion in revenue, medical loss ratio of 82.4% to 83.4%, SG&A expense ratio of 15.8% to 16.3%, and earnings from operations of $250 million to $450 million.

That would be a massive improvement from 2025, when Oscar generated strong revenue but still posted a full-year loss. In my opinion, 2025 was the reset year. 2026 is the year where they need to prove the model can generate real profitability.

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The Valuation Is What Makes This Interesting

Valuation is where this gets even more interesting. Oscar is expected to do close to $19 billion in revenue this year, but the market is still valuing the company like it has a lot to prove.

To be clear, health insurers should not trade like software companies. Margins are lower, regulation matters, and medical costs can be unpredictable. But that is not the bull case.

The bull case is not that Oscar deserves some crazy SaaS multiple. The bull case is that Oscar is being valued like an uncertain healthcare story while the company may be turning into a profitable growth story. That difference is where the upside could come from.

If Oscar can eventually produce even a few percentage points of operating margin on a much larger revenue base, the earnings power could become meaningful. The company does not need perfection. It just needs to prove that the profits are real and sustainable.

The CEO Buying Stock Matters

One thing I also think is worth paying attention to is insider alignment. CEO Mark Bertolini bought 1 million shares at $11.92 per share in April 2026, worth roughly $11.9 million. That is not a tiny symbolic buy. That is a major purchase from the person running the company.

Insider buying does not guarantee anything. CEOs can be wrong too. But I do think it matters when the CEO is willing to put that much personal capital behind the business, especially at a time when Oscar is trying to prove it can turn scale into profitability.

That kind of move tells me management believes in the long-term setup. Again, it does not remove the risk, but it does add conviction to the story.

The ICHRA Opportunity

Another part of the Oscar thesis that I think gets overlooked is ICHRA, which stands for Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement. The simple version is that instead of offering one traditional group health plan, employers can give workers money to buy their own insurance on the individual market.

This is still early, but it could become a meaningful long-term tailwind if more employers want flexibility and more workers want portable benefits. Oscar is already built around the individual market, so if ICHRA grows, Oscar could be positioned well.

That fits the bigger picture: more flexible work, more consumer choice, more people shopping directly for healthcare, and more demand for simpler digital insurance experiences. Oscar does not need ICHRA to explode overnight for the thesis to work, but it is another potential growth lever that I think investors should pay attention to.

The Risks Are Real

I am bullish on $OSCR, but this is not a risk-free stock. The biggest risk is policy. Oscar is tied to the ACA marketplace, and changes to subsidies, enrollment rules, risk adjustment, or regulation can impact the business. Enhanced premium tax credits are especially important to watch because they affect affordability and enrollment in the marketplace.

The second risk is medical cost volatility. If claims come in higher than expected, margins can get hit quickly. That is why MLR is one of the most important numbers I will be watching every quarter.

The third risk is competition. Oscar is going up against larger insurers with more scale, more capital, and deeper industry relationships. The fourth risk is execution. Oscar has to keep growing, pricing correctly, controlling costs, improving margins, and hitting guidance. That is not easy.

So yes, $OSCR is risky. But I think the risk/reward is attractive because the company is finally showing numbers that support the thesis.

What I Need To See Going Forward

From here, I want to see member growth remain strong, but not at the expense of profitability. Growth only matters if the company can price risk correctly and keep medical costs under control.

The biggest things I will be watching are MLR, SG&A leverage, profitability, and whether management can hit or beat 2026 guidance. I also want to see Oscar keep building toward something bigger than just another health insurance company.

That last part is important. I do not view Oscar as just an insurer. I view it as a consumer healthcare platform trying to use insurance as the entry point. If they can make healthcare easier, more digital, and more understandable while also improving the economics of the business, the upside is much bigger than what many investors are giving it credit for.

My Bull Case

My bull case is that Oscar keeps growing in the individual market, benefits from long-term ACA and ICHRA adoption, improves pricing, controls medical costs, expands margins, and proves that it can generate consistent earnings at scale.

If that happens, I think the market will stop viewing Oscar as a risky, unproven health insurer and start viewing it as a profitable healthcare growth company. That is when the stock could get re-rated.

The stock does not need everything to go perfectly. It just needs the market to believe the earnings power is real. That is why I am bullish.

Final Thoughts

Oscar Health is not for everyone. It is volatile, tied to healthcare policy, exposed to medical cost risk, and still has a lot to prove. But I think that is exactly why the opportunity exists.

The company has gone from an interesting idea to a real business with millions of members, billions in revenue, improving profitability, and a CEO putting serious money behind the stock.

$OSCR is now my 3rd largest holding because I think the market is still too focused on the old story. The old story was: can Oscar survive? The new story might be: how profitable can Oscar become at scale?

That is the question that matters to me. And if the answer is better than the market expects, I think $OSCR could be one of the more interesting healthcare growth stories over the next few years.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice, and I am not telling anyone to buy, sell, or hold any stock. I currently own shares of $OSCR, so I am biased. Always do your own research and make decisions based on your own risk tolerance, financial situation, and time horizon.

“Scared money does not make money” is one of those phrases that sounds aggressive on the surface, but I think there is a very important investing lesson inside it.

It does not mean you should be reckless. It does not mean you should throw money into random stocks, ignore risk, chase hype, or pretend every dip is a buying opportunity. That is not investing. That is gambling.

To me, the phrase means fear cannot be the thing making your financial decisions.

Fear can keep you from investing when opportunities are obvious. Fear can make you sell when the market is down. Fear can make you wait for the “perfect” time that never comes. Fear can convince you that sitting in cash forever is the safe move, even when your long-term goals require your money to actually compound.

That is the real problem.

Most people do not lose because they are not smart enough. They lose because they let emotion control the process.

Fear Sounds Smart in the Moment

The hardest part about investing is that fear usually sounds very reasonable when you are in the middle of it.

When stocks are falling, the bearish argument always feels stronger. The headlines are negative. The comments are negative. People start talking about recessions, rate hikes, inflation, layoffs, overvaluation, debt, wars, politics, and everything else that could go wrong.

In those moments, doing nothing feels safe. Selling feels responsible. Waiting for a better time feels logical.

But the problem is that the market rarely gives you a perfect moment to invest. The best opportunities usually come with something uncomfortable attached. If the opportunity was obvious, clean, and risk-free, everyone would already be buying it and the price would reflect that.

That is why investing is so hard. The market usually gives you lower prices when the story feels worse, not when it feels better.

Everyone wants to buy great companies at cheaper prices until those cheaper prices come with fear attached.

The Data Says Staying Invested Matters

Long-term investing works because investors get paid to sit through uncertainty. Stocks do not create higher long-term returns because they are comfortable. They create higher long-term returns because owning businesses comes with volatility, drawdowns, recessions, and years where things feel terrible.

That is the tradeoff.

Aswath Damodaran’s long-term historical return data shows that from 1928 through 2024, U.S. stocks returned roughly 9.94% annually, compared to 4.50% for 10-year Treasury bonds and 3.31% for cash-like Treasury bills. That does not mean stocks win every year. They absolutely do not. But over long periods, productive businesses have historically compounded wealth far better than cash.

That is why staying invested matters.

Fidelity looked at a hypothetical $10,000 portfolio tracking daily total stock returns from 1988 through 2024. The investor who stayed fully invested ended with a portfolio worth just over $500,000. But missing only the five best market days reduced the ending value by 37%.

That is a massive difference from missing just five days.

The scary part is that the best days often happen close to the worst days. Some of the biggest upside days happen during bear markets, recessions, crashes, and rebounds off ugly lows. That means when investors sell out because they are scared, they are not only avoiding downside. They are also risking missing the recovery.

That is why timing the market is so dangerous. You do not just have to know when to get out. You also have to know when to get back in. Most people fail at one of those, and many fail at both

Volatility Is Normal, Not Rare

A lot of investors treat pullbacks like something is broken. But pullbacks are part of the game.

J.P. Morgan’s Guide to the Markets shows that from 1980 through 2025, the S&P 500 had an average intra-year decline of about 14.2%. In other words, even in normal years, the market often gives investors a scary drawdown at some point.

But here is the important part: over that same period, annual returns were positive in 35 of 46 years.

That means the market can fall hard during the year and still finish positive.

This is why reacting to every drop can be so costly. A 10% pullback does not automatically mean the market is broken. A 15% drawdown does not automatically mean the long-term thesis is dead. Volatility feels unusual when you are living through it, but historically it is very normal.

Schwab defines a market correction as a decline of more than 10% but less than 20%, and a bear market as a decline of 20% or more. Schwab also notes that past bear markets have averaged around a 34% decline, with the 2007-2009 financial crisis being much worse at roughly 59%.

That is real risk.

Stocks can fall a lot. Portfolios can look ugly. Investors can feel like they made a huge mistake. That is why risk management matters. But it is also why you need a plan before the volatility shows up. If you wait until your portfolio is down big to decide what kind of investor you are, emotion is probably going to make the decision for you.

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Investor Behavior Is Usually the Weak Link

The biggest threat to most investors is not the market.

It is their own behavior.

DALBAR’s 2025 Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior found that the average equity investor earned 16.54% in 2024, while the S&P 500 returned 25.02%. That is an 8.48 percentage point gap in just one year.

Think about that.

The market had a strong year, but the average investor still lagged badly. That gap usually comes from bad timing, emotional buying and selling, chasing performance, panicking during volatility, and moving money around at the wrong times.

That is why investing is not just a math problem. It is a behavior problem.

You can know what to do and still not do it. You can understand compounding and still interrupt it. You can say you are long term and still panic after one bad quarter.

That is what fear does. It shortens your time horizon. It turns investors into traders. It makes you focus more on avoiding short-term pain than building long-term wealth

Losses Feel Worse Than Gains Feel Good

There is a reason fear is so powerful.

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s work on prospect theory helped show that people tend to feel losses more intensely than gains. Losing $1,000 usually hurts more than gaining $1,000 feels good.

That matters in investing because short-term losses can make people irrational.

A red portfolio makes people want to do something. Selling feels like taking control. Sitting in cash feels like safety. Avoiding volatility feels responsible. But those decisions can quietly damage long-term returns if they cause you to abandon a good plan at the wrong time.

Benartzi and Thaler also studied myopic loss aversion, which basically means investors can become too conservative when they focus too much on short-term losses. If you check your portfolio too often and judge long-term investments by short-term moves, you are more likely to make fear-based decisions.

That is why the phrase “scared money does not make money” matters.

It is not saying losses do not hurt. They do.

It is saying you cannot let the pain of short-term losses make you abandon the long-term math

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Cash Is Useful, But It Is Not Always Safe

Cash has a place.

I do not think people should be fully invested with no emergency fund. That is dangerous. You need cash for bills, emergencies, job loss, car repairs, rent, a house down payment, or anything else you may need in the near term.

Cash gives you flexibility. Cash helps you sleep at night. Cash keeps you from being forced to sell stocks at the worst possible time.

But too much cash for too long can become its own risk.

The long-term historical return data shows why. Cash-like Treasury bills returned about 3.31% annually from 1928 through 2024, while stocks returned closer to 9.94% annually over the same period. That gap compounds massively over decades.

Inflation also matters. A dollar today will not buy the same amount 20 or 30 years from now. So if your goal is long-term wealth building, sitting in cash forever may feel safe, but it can quietly reduce your future purchasing power.

This is why every dollar needs a job.

Money you need soon should be safe. Money for emergencies should be liquid. Money for long-term wealth should be given a chance to compound.

The mistake is treating all money the same

Risk Management Is Not Fear

This is where people misunderstand the phrase.

“Scared money does not make money” does not mean risk management is bad. Risk management is extremely important. The goal is not to be fearless. The goal is to be prepared.

Risk management is having an emergency fund. Fear is refusing to invest at all because the market might drop.

Risk management is position sizing. Fear is selling a good company just because the stock is red.

Risk management is diversification. Fear is owning 50 stocks you do not understand because you are scared to have conviction.

Risk management is knowing what would prove your thesis wrong. Fear is thinking every bad headline means the thesis is broken.

Risk management is keeping cash for life and real opportunities. Fear is sitting in cash forever waiting for a perfect entry.

Those are very different things.

The best investors are not reckless. They understand risk better than most people. They know what they own, why they own it, how much they can afford to risk, and what would make them change their mind.

That is the balance.

You need enough courage to invest, but enough discipline to not be stupid.

The Market Does Not Pay You for Comfort

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that comfort usually has a price.

If everyone loves a stock, the valuation probably reflects that. If every headline is positive, the easy money may already be made. If the story is obvious and clean, you are probably not getting a massive discount.

The best opportunities usually feel uncomfortable for a reason.

A stock is down because investors are worried. A sector is hated because something went wrong. A company is cheap because the market does not fully trust the story. A turnaround is ignored because people are tired of waiting.

That does not mean every hated stock is a buy. Most hated stocks have real problems, and some deserve to be cheap.

But sometimes the market takes a real problem and prices it like a permanent death sentence. Sometimes investors give up right before the business starts improving. Sometimes a company is still building value while the stock price says the opposite.

That is where opportunity can show up.

The goal is not to buy everything that is down. The goal is to find the situations where the fear is bigger than the actual long-term damage.

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Courage and Recklessness Are Not the Same Thing

There is a big difference between being bold and being reckless.

Courage is investing when your research says the opportunity is real, even if the chart looks ugly. Recklessness is buying something just because it is down.

Courage is holding through volatility when the business is still improving. Recklessness is ignoring new information because you refuse to admit you might be wrong.

Courage is adding to a high-conviction position when the market is too negative. Recklessness is going all in on one stock with money you cannot afford to lose.

Courage is staying consistent when everyone else is panicking. Recklessness is confusing blind confidence with conviction.

This is why “scared money does not make money” needs to be understood the right way.

It is not permission to gamble.

It is a reminder that wealth is rarely built by avoiding every ounce of discomfort

How I Think About It

The way I think about risk is simple.

First, I want to know what I own. If I cannot explain the company, the thesis, the risks, and what needs to go right, I probably should not own it.

Second, I want position sizes to make sense. Not every stock deserves the same weight. A core holding should not be sized the same as a speculative idea.

Third, I want my time horizon to match the investment. If I am buying for the next five years, I cannot let a bad week control my decision. But if the business starts moving in the wrong direction, I need to pay attention.

Fourth, I want cash for real life. Investing is much easier when an emergency does not force you to sell at a bad time.

Finally, I want to stay honest. If the facts change, I need to be willing to change my mind. Patience is good. Stubbornness is dangerous.

That is how I think about the phrase.

Do not be scared.

But do not be careless either.

Final Thoughts

Scared money does not make money because fear usually pushes people into the wrong decisions at the wrong time.

It makes them sell low. It makes them wait too long. It makes them chase after the recovery. It makes them avoid volatility, even though volatility is the price of long-term returns.

But the answer is not to ignore risk. The answer is to manage risk correctly.

Build an emergency fund. Know your time horizon. Size positions responsibly. Diversify when needed. Understand what you own. Keep cash for real-life needs. Have a plan before the market gets stressful.

Then, once the risk is managed, do not let fear run the portfolio.

Because building wealth usually requires doing the uncomfortable thing before it becomes obvious.

And that is why scared money does not make money.

Disclosure

This article is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. I may or may not own positions in the companies or assets discussed. Please do your own research and make investment decisions based on your own goals, risk tolerance, and time horizon.

Snap is one of the more interesting companies in the market to me right now because the stock and the business seem to be telling two completely different stories.

If you only looked at the stock chart, you would probably think Snapchat is dead. The stock has been destroyed, sentiment is terrible, and most investors have completely moved on. I get it. Snap has disappointed investors before. The company has struggled to monetize its massive user base, the ad business has been inconsistent, costs were too high, and competition from Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and others is not going away.

But when I look at the actual business, I do not see a dead company. I see a company with almost a billion monthly users, improving free cash flow, a real subscription business, strong AR usage, a better ad platform, and a management team that finally seems focused on becoming more disciplined.

That is what makes $SNAP interesting to me. This is not a perfect business, and it still has a lot to prove. But I think the market may be treating Snap like its problems are permanent, while the company is quietly getting better.

The Simple Thesis

My thesis on Snap is pretty simple. The market is pricing $SNAP like a broken social media company, but the business is still very much alive. Snapchat still has a massive user base, revenue is still growing, free cash flow is improving, Snapchat+ is becoming meaningful, the ad platform is being rebuilt, costs are being cut, and the company still has one of the most unique social products in the world.

The biggest question with Snap has never been whether people still use Snapchat. They do. The platform still has massive attention.

The real question is whether Snap can turn that attention into a stronger business through better ad monetization, higher-margin revenue streams, improved cost discipline, and real shareholder value.

That is the entire bet.

If Snap can improve monetization, grow direct revenue, control costs, and keep users engaged, I think the stock could re-rate in a big way. If it cannot, then this stays a frustrating value trap. That is why I find the setup so interesting. It is messy, but sometimes messy is where the opportunity is.

Snapchat Is Not Dead

The biggest misconception with Snap is that nobody uses Snapchat anymore. That is just not true. In Q1 2026, Snap reported 483 million daily active users and 956 million monthly active users. That is almost a billion people using Snapchat every month. A dead app does not have that kind of scale.

I think the stock chart has made people assume the product is dying, but the product is still clearly relevant, especially with younger users. Snapchat is different from Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. It is not just about building an audience or trying to go viral. Snapchat is much more personal. It is built around close friends, messaging, pictures, streaks, stories, lenses, Snap Map, and quick communication.

That matters because people use Snapchat in a more private way. It is not always about content consumption. A lot of the value is communication. That makes the platform harder to compare directly to other social media apps, but it also gives Snapchat a unique place in people’s daily lives.

The users are there, and the attention is there. Now Snap has to prove it can monetize that attention better.

The Business Is Bigger Than People Think

One reason I like studying Snap is because the business is much larger than the market narrative makes it seem. In 2025, Snap generated $5.93 billion in revenue, up 11% year over year. Free cash flow was $437 million, compared to $219 million in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA was $689 million, compared to $509 million the year before.

Then in Q1 2026, revenue grew 12% year over year to $1.53 billion. Free cash flow was $286 million, adjusted EBITDA was $233 million, and net loss improved to $89 million.

Those numbers do not scream “dead company” to me. They tell me Snap still has a real business. The company is growing, cash flow is improving, and profitability is moving in the right direction. That does not mean Snap is fixed, but it does mean the market may be too negative.

For years, the market wanted Snap to prove it could become more than a popular app. Now the company is finally starting to show better financial discipline. That is what I want to see.

The Ad Business Is Still the Main Problem

The ad business is still the biggest part of Snap, and it is also the biggest issue. Snap has a massive audience, but it has never monetized that audience anywhere close to Meta. That is the problem. If Snap had stronger monetization, this would be a completely different stock.

In Q1 2026, advertising revenue was $1.24 billion, up only 3% year over year. That headline number is not amazing, but the details underneath are more interesting. Snap said Dynamic Product Ads revenue grew more than 30% year over year, App Purchases revenue grew 87%, and Goal-Based Bidding revenue grew 27%. Snap also said nearly 70% of ad spend now uses at least one of its AI-powered automation solutions.

That tells me Snap is working on the right things. Advertisers do not just want views. They want performance. They want better targeting, better measurement, and better return on ad spend. If Snap can make its ad platform more automated and more effective, the business can become much more valuable over time.

The ad business does not need to become Meta overnight. It just needs to get better.

The Large Advertiser Issue

One of the biggest issues Snap still has is with larger advertisers, especially in North America. Smaller and mid-sized advertisers have been more encouraging, but the large brand advertisers have been slower to come back. That matters because those companies control huge ad budgets.

This is one of the biggest things I will be watching. Snap needs to earn more trust from larger advertisers. It needs to prove that Snapchat can drive real results, not just engagement. That is why the improvements in measurement, automation, and direct-response ads are so important.

Snap said North America upfront commitments for 2026 grew around 10% year over year. That is a positive sign. It does not solve the entire problem, but it shows that advertiser confidence may be moving in the right direction. For the stock to work, this trend needs to continue.

Sponsored Snaps Could Be a Big Opportunity

Sponsored Snaps are one of the most interesting parts of the story to me because Chat is some of the most valuable real estate inside Snapchat. That is where people are actually communicating with friends. Historically, Snap has had to be careful monetizing that part of the app because it cannot ruin the user experience. If ads in Chat become annoying, that could hurt the product.

But if Snap can make Sponsored Snaps feel natural and not disruptive, it creates a new ad surface inside one of the most engaged areas of the app. In Q1 2026, nearly 75% of U.S. Chat daily active users viewed ads in Chat. Snap also said Sponsored Snaps saw a 226% improvement in per-impression click-through rate and a 59% increase in 7-day conversion volume.

That is early, but I think it matters. Snap needs better monetization. Sponsored Snaps could help unlock that.

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Snapchat+ Is Becoming a Real Business

This might be the most underrated part of the Snap story. Snap is no longer only an advertising business. It is starting to build a real direct revenue stream through subscriptions and paid products.

In February 2026, Snap announced that its direct revenue business passed a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate and that its subscription community surpassed 25 million Snapchatters. That is a big deal.

This includes Snapchat+, Lens+, Snapchat Premium, Memories Storage Plans, and other paid products. I like this because it gives Snap another way to make money that does not depend only on advertising. Advertising can be inconsistent. It can be cyclical. It can be impacted by competition, the economy, platform changes, or advertiser budgets.

Subscription revenue is different. If Snap can keep giving its most loyal users features they are willing to pay for, that makes the business more durable. It also proves that Snapchat has a base of users who care enough about the product to spend money on it.

A lot of investors assume younger users will not pay for social apps. Snapchat+ is proving that some of them absolutely will.

Memories Storage Is Sneaky Important

Memories Storage is not the flashiest part of the business, but I actually think it is important. Snapchat has years of personal photos, videos, conversations, and memories stored inside the app. That is emotional value. People do not want to lose old moments with friends, family, relationships, vacations, pets, and different stages of their life.

If Snap can turn some of that storage demand into a paid product, that could be meaningful over time. It also makes Snapchat stickier. The more personal content someone has inside Snapchat, the harder it becomes to leave.

That is one of the things I like about the app. It is not just entertainment. For many users, Snapchat is personal history, communication, identity, friends, and daily habits all in one place. That is valuable.

AR Is Still Snap’s Biggest Differentiator

AR is still one of the biggest reasons Snapchat feels different. Lenses are not just some random feature. They are part of the identity of the app. They are one of the reasons Snapchat became so popular in the first place, and they still drive a massive amount of engagement.

In Q1 2026, Snap said more than 75% of Snapchatters engaged with AR every day on average. Users engaged with Lenses in the Snapchat camera more than 9 billion times per day. Snap also said more than 400,000 Lenses were submitted in Q1, up more than 150% year over year.

That is real usage. Meta has the better ad machine. TikTok has a stronger short-form video product. YouTube has better creator economics. But Snap has always had a strong position around the camera, AR lenses, Bitmoji, filters, and visual communication.

I do not think AR alone is the reason to own Snap today, but it is a reason the company is still unique. If AR becomes more important over the next decade, Snap has already spent years building the tools, habits, and creator ecosystem around it.

Spectacles Are Optionality, Not the Main Thesis

Spectacles are interesting, but I would not make them the main reason to own the stock. Hardware is hard. AR glasses are expensive. Competition is going to be brutal. Meta, Apple, Google, and others have much deeper pockets. Snap also has to be careful not to spend too aggressively on future hardware while the core business is still trying to prove stronger profitability.

So I completely understand why investors are skeptical. At the same time, I do not think Spectacles should be ignored. Snap is trying to build for a future where computing becomes more visual, more camera-based, and more connected to the real world.

If smart glasses become a real consumer platform over time, Snap has some real experience here. It already has AR tools, Lens Studio, Snap OS, creators, developers, and a user base trained to use camera-first experiences.

My view is simple: Spectacles are optionality. They are not the main thesis. The main thesis is that Snapchat remains relevant, the ad platform is improving, direct revenue is growing, costs are coming down, and free cash flow is improving. If Spectacles work one day, that is upside. But the core business still has to stand on its own.

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The Cost-Cutting Story Matters

The cost side is one of the biggest reasons I am interested in Snap right now. For years, Snap spent too much money relative to the profitability of the business. The company had scale, but it was not producing the earnings or cash flow investors wanted. That is one of the reasons the market lost trust.

Now Snap is being forced to become more disciplined. In Q1 2026, Snap generated $286 million of free cash flow, up 150% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $233 million, up 115% year over year. Over the trailing twelve months, free cash flow was $609 million. The company also said it expects to reduce its annualized cost structure by more than $500 million in the second half of 2026.

That is exactly what I want to see. Snap does not just need growth. It needs profitable growth. It needs to show that revenue can actually fall through to adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow, and eventually better bottom-line results.

In Q1, Snap had 75% adjusted EBITDA flow-through, which means a large portion of incremental revenue turned into adjusted EBITDA. That is what operating leverage looks like. If Snap can grow revenue while cutting unnecessary costs, the financial story can change quickly.

This is one of the most important parts of the thesis.

Stock-Based Compensation and Dilution Still Matter

The other major issue Snap needs to keep addressing is stock-based compensation and dilution. This has been a real concern. Revenue growth means less if shareholders do not actually benefit from it.

Snap seems aware of this. The company has talked about reducing stock-based compensation as a percentage of revenue and limiting dilution through more disciplined equity compensation and opportunistic share repurchases. In Q1, Snap completed $350 million in share repurchases and ended the quarter with around $400 million remaining under its repurchase authorization.

That is a step in the right direction. I still want to see continued progress here. If Snap wants the market to take the stock seriously again, shareholders need to see that the business improvement can actually translate into shareholder value.

The Balance Sheet Gives Snap Time

Snap ended Q1 with around $2.8 billion in cash and marketable securities. That matters because turnarounds do not happen overnight. Ad platforms take time to improve. Large advertisers take time to return. Subscriptions take time to scale. Cost cuts take time to show up in the numbers.

Snap has room to keep executing, but the market is going to want consistent proof. That is fair.

What Needs to Go Right

This entire thesis comes down to execution. Snap needs to prove that it is more than a popular app. It needs to prove that Snapchat can become a stronger business. It needs to prove that the user base can be monetized better. It needs to prove that subscriptions can become a meaningful second revenue stream. It needs to prove that AR and Sponsored Snaps can create new monetization opportunities. And it needs to prove that cost cuts are real and margins can improve.

Those are the things I will be watching.

Why I Like the Setup

What I like about $SNAP is that expectations are low, but the business is not dead. That is where interesting risk/reward setups can appear.

The company has real problems, but the stock already reflects a lot of doubt. Bad sentiment alone is not bullish. A hated stock can stay hated for a long time. But bad sentiment combined with improving fundamentals is different.

That is what I see with Snap. The business is still growing. Free cash flow is improving. Direct revenue is becoming real. AR engagement is strong. The ad platform is being rebuilt. Costs are being cut. Management is trying to prove operating discipline.

None of this guarantees success, but it does make the company worth paying attention to.

Final Takeaway

$SNAP is not dead, but I do think it is misunderstood. Snap has already proven people use the product. Now it has to prove the business model can scale profitably.

If management can execute, I think the stock could re-rate in a meaningful way. If they fail, this will stay a frustrating value trap. That is the bet.

For me, $SNAP is not a clean story. It is messy, hated, and still has a lot to prove. But sometimes the messy stories are where the opportunity is.

Disclosure

I may or may not own shares of $SNAP. This article is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. Please do your own research and make investment decisions based on your own goals, risk tolerance, and time horizon.

ServiceNow is one of those companies that a lot of investors know is high quality, but not everyone can clearly explain what it actually does. People hear “enterprise software,” “workflow automation,” or “AI platform,” and it can start to sound like every other SaaS company in the market. That is why I think ServiceNow is misunderstood.

The simple way I think about ServiceNow is this: it helps large companies get work done more efficiently.

That may sound almost too simple, but inside a large business, getting work done is not always simple. Big companies have thousands of employees, multiple departments, old systems, different software tools, approval chains, security requirements, HR requests, customer issues, IT problems, and operational bottlenecks. A lot of work still gets stuck in emails, spreadsheets, meetings, chat messages, and disconnected software platforms.

ServiceNow tries to solve that problem by becoming the digital workflow layer across the enterprise. Instead of work being scattered everywhere, ServiceNow gives companies one platform to organize, route, automate, track, and complete that work.

That is the core of the business.

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ServiceNow Is A Workflow Platform

To understand ServiceNow, you first have to understand what a workflow is. A workflow is just the process of getting something done. Every company has thousands of them.

For example, say an employee needs a new laptop. That sounds easy, but inside a large company, that request may need approval from a manager, review from IT, security checks, procurement, finance approval, and then someone has to actually fulfill the request. Without a platform, that process can become messy quickly.

ServiceNow takes a process like that and turns it into a digital workflow. The employee submits the request, the right people are notified, approvals happen inside the system, IT knows what to do, the employee can track the status, and the company can measure how long the process took.

That is one small example, but the same idea applies across the whole business. IT tickets, HR requests, customer service cases, security incidents, legal requests, finance approvals, employee onboarding, software access, and operational issues can all become workflows.

This is why ServiceNow can be so valuable. It is not just helping companies store information. It is helping them move work from request to resolution.

It Started In IT, But The Opportunity Is Much Bigger

ServiceNow originally became known for IT Service Management. In simple terms, that means helping companies manage internal IT problems. If an employee cannot log in, needs software access, has a broken laptop, or reports a system issue, ServiceNow helps the company handle that request.

That was the starting point, but it is not the full story anymore.

Over time, ServiceNow expanded beyond IT into other areas of the business. Today, the platform touches areas like customer service, HR, security, risk, operations, finance, developers, and industry-specific workflows. The company is no longer just trying to be the place where IT tickets go. It is trying to become the place where enterprise work gets managed.

That is a much bigger vision.

This is also why the stock can be misunderstood. If someone still thinks of ServiceNow as an IT ticketing company, they are probably missing the bigger picture. The real thesis is that ServiceNow can become a core operating platform for large companies.

Why Companies Need ServiceNow

The bigger a company gets, the harder it becomes to stay organized. Different departments use different systems. Data lives in different places. Employees waste time figuring out who owns what. Managers lack visibility. IT teams get buried in requests. Customer service teams lack context. Security teams need to move quickly. Leadership wants more automation, but they also need control.

ServiceNow helps by connecting people, systems, data, and workflows in one platform. It gives companies a better way to manage the work happening across the business.

This matters because inefficiency is expensive. If employees waste time waiting for approvals, chasing updates, switching between tools, or manually doing work that could be automated, that hurts productivity. ServiceNow’s value proposition is that it can help companies reduce friction, automate repetitive tasks, speed up service, improve visibility, and lower costs.

That is why large companies are willing to pay for it.

ServiceNow is not just selling software because software is cool. It is selling a way for companies to run better.

The Business Model Is Powerful

ServiceNow has a strong business model because it sells subscription software to large enterprises. Customers pay to use the platform over time, which creates recurring revenue. That recurring revenue gives the company better visibility than a business that has to restart from zero every quarter.

The other powerful part of the model is expansion. A customer may start with ServiceNow for IT, but over time they can add more products and more workflows. They may expand into HR, customer service, security, risk, finance, operations, and AI products.

This is the “land and expand” model. ServiceNow lands inside a company with one use case, then expands deeper as the platform becomes more valuable.

That is important because once a large business builds important workflows inside ServiceNow, it becomes harder to replace. The more workflows ServiceNow powers, the more embedded the platform becomes. That stickiness is a major part of the thesis.

The AI Control Tower Narrative

This is where the story gets really interesting.

AI is creating a new problem for large companies. Every business wants to use AI to improve productivity, automate work, reduce costs, and move faster. But as companies start using more AI tools, AI agents, models, and automated workflows, they also need a way to manage and control all of it.

That is where the “AI Control Tower” narrative comes in.

The basic idea is that if AI agents are going to start doing more work inside companies, businesses need a central place to monitor, govern, secure, and measure them. Companies need to know what AI tools are being used, what agents are operating, what data they have access to, what risks exist, what value they are creating, and whether they are following company rules.

ServiceNow wants to be that control center.

This is a big deal because AI will not just live in one app. It will show up across IT, HR, customer service, security, finance, operations, sales, legal, and software development. That creates a huge governance and coordination problem. The more AI spreads across the enterprise, the more companies need visibility and control.

ServiceNow’s pitch is simple: companies cannot control what they cannot see.

If ServiceNow can become the platform that discovers, monitors, governs, and connects AI agents to real business workflows, the company could become even more important in the AI era.

Why AI Could Make ServiceNow More Important

A lot of investors are worried that AI could disrupt traditional software companies. That is a real risk for the software sector, and I do not think investors should ignore it. If AI changes how software is built, how employees interact with applications, or how companies buy software, some businesses could face pressure.

But I think ServiceNow has a different setup.

ServiceNow is not just a single-purpose software tool. It is a platform that helps companies organize and execute work. AI still needs somewhere to operate. It needs workflows. It needs business context. It needs approvals. It needs governance. It needs security. It needs integration with existing systems. It needs humans in the loop for certain processes.

That is why ServiceNow could actually benefit from AI.

AI without workflow is just an assistant. AI connected to workflows can actually get work done.

This is the key point. ServiceNow is not just adding AI features to make the platform sound more exciting. The company is trying to make AI part of the way enterprise work gets done. That means AI can help summarize issues, route tickets, automate tasks, recommend next steps, assist employees, help developers, improve customer service, and eventually coordinate agents across different parts of the business.

If ServiceNow becomes the platform where AI connects to real enterprise workflows, the long-term opportunity could be massive.

The Financials Still Look Strong

ServiceNow is already a large business, but it is still growing at an impressive rate.

In Q1 2026, ServiceNow reported subscription revenue of $3.671 billion, up 22% year over year. Total revenue came in at $3.770 billion, also up 22% year over year. For a company of this size, that is still very strong growth.

One of the most important metrics for ServiceNow is cRPO, or current remaining performance obligations. This is basically contracted revenue that the company expects to recognize over the next 12 months. In simple terms, it gives investors a better look at future demand that is already under contract.

For Q1 2026, ServiceNow reported cRPO of $13.53 billion, up 24% year over year. That matters because it shows customers are still committing to the platform.

This is one reason I like ServiceNow. It is not a small speculative software company hoping to figure things out. It is a large, profitable enterprise software platform that is still growing revenue above 20%, expanding its product set, and positioning itself for AI-driven demand.

What Investors Should Watch

For me, the most important things to watch with ServiceNow are subscription revenue growth, cRPO growth, operating margins, free cash flow, AI adoption, and large customer expansion.

Subscription revenue tells us whether customers are still spending more on the platform. cRPO gives a look into future contracted demand. Margins and free cash flow show whether the company can turn growth into real earnings power. AI adoption will show whether the AI Control Tower narrative is actually becoming a real business driver. Large customer growth matters because ServiceNow’s model becomes more powerful when big enterprises keep expanding their spending.

I do not need every quarter to be perfect, but I do want to see the long-term thesis continue to strengthen. If ServiceNow keeps growing at a strong rate, expanding into more workflows, improving profitability, and proving that AI increases the value of the platform, I think the stock can continue to compound over time.

The Risks

ServiceNow is a great business, but it is not risk-free.

The first risk is valuation. High-quality software companies often trade at premium valuations. If growth slows or investors become less willing to pay up for software, the stock can get hit hard.

The second risk is AI disruption. I believe AI can make ServiceNow more important, but this still needs to be watched closely. If AI changes enterprise software in a way that weakens traditional platforms, that would matter.

The third risk is competition. ServiceNow competes with large and capable companies across different workflow categories, including Microsoft, Salesforce, Atlassian, Workday, and others. The company has to keep proving why its platform deserves more enterprise spending.

The fourth risk is execution. ServiceNow has a huge vision, but it still has to execute. It needs to keep growing, launching useful AI products, expanding into more departments, and showing customers real value.

My Bottom Line

ServiceNow is not the easiest company to explain, but once you simplify the business, the thesis becomes much clearer.

Big companies have messy work. ServiceNow helps organize that work.

Big companies want automation. ServiceNow helps automate that work.

Big companies want AI. ServiceNow helps connect, govern, and control that AI inside real business processes.

That is why I own $NOW.

I own it because I think it can become one of the most important enterprise software platforms over the next decade.

The company already has a strong subscription model, deep enterprise relationships, durable revenue growth, and a platform that becomes more valuable as more workflows move onto it. Now, with AI, the opportunity could get even bigger.

If ServiceNow becomes the AI Control Tower for the enterprise, the market may eventually realize this is not just another software company. It is a core platform for how large companies get work done.

That is the thesis.

Simple, but powerful.

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Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only. This is not financial advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stock. I am sharing my personal research and opinion. Always do your own research and make investment decisions based on your own goals, risk tolerance, and financial situation.

Brookfield Corporation is not the type of stock that gets a ton of hype online.

It is not a trendy software company.

It is not a chip stock.

It is not a meme turnaround.

But that is actually one of the reasons I like it.

Brookfield is one of those companies where the thesis is not built around one product, one quarter, or one headline. The thesis is built around assets, capital allocation, cash flow, infrastructure, and long-term compounding.

In simple terms, Brookfield is a global investment holding company with exposure to some of the most important parts of the global economy.

Infrastructure.

Renewable power.

Real estate.

Private equity.

Credit.

Insurance.

Asset management.

Data centers.

AI infrastructure.

Power.

These are not businesses that disappear overnight. These are real assets and financial platforms that can compound over very long periods of time.

That is why I started a position in $BN.

Not because I think it is going to be the fastest stock in my portfolio.

But because I think it can become one of the most durable

.

What Brookfield Actually Does

Brookfield can seem complicated at first, but I think the easiest way to understand it is through three main engines:

1. Asset Management

2. Wealth Solutions

3. Operating Businesses

The asset management business is where Brookfield raises capital from institutions, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, retail investors, and other clients. Brookfield then invests that capital across real assets, infrastructure, credit, private equity, renewable power, and other long-term strategies.

This is attractive because asset management can be a very scalable business. Brookfield earns fees on the capital it manages, and as fee-bearing capital grows, the earnings power of the platform can grow too.

The Wealth Solutions business is Brookfield’s insurance and retirement platform. This business is important because insurance assets can become a major source of permanent capital. Brookfield can invest that capital into its own strategies and earn attractive returns over time.

The Operating Businesses are the real assets and companies Brookfield owns directly or through its ecosystem. This includes infrastructure, energy, real estate, and private equity assets.

The simple version:

Brookfield raises capital.

Brookfield invests capital.

Brookfield owns real assets.

Brookfield earns fees, distributions, investment returns, and carried interest.

That is the machine.

And the bigger the machine gets, the more powerful it can become.

The Numbers Are Strong

Brookfield’s Q1 2026 results showed why I think the business deserves more attention.

Distributable earnings came in at $1.6 billion for the quarter.

Over the last 12 months, Brookfield generated $6.0 billion of distributable earnings.

Distributable earnings before realizations were $1.4 billion for the quarter and $5.5 billion over the last 12 months.

This matters because Brookfield is not just an asset story. It is a cash flow story.

The company is producing real earnings, real cash flow, and real capital that can be reinvested back into the business.

The Asset Management segment generated $765 million of distributable earnings in the quarter and $2.8 billion over the last 12 months.

Fee-bearing capital increased to $614 billion, up 12% year over year.

That is a key metric for Brookfield because fee-bearing capital is what supports the long-term growth of fee-related earnings. The more capital Brookfield manages, the more fees the platform can generate.

Brookfield also raised $67 billion year-to-date, including $21 billion in the first quarter.

That tells me demand for Brookfield’s investment strategies is still strong.

This is important because alternative asset managers need capital inflows to keep growing. Brookfield is still attracting capital at scale.

Wealth Solutions Could Become a Bigger Growth Engine

One of the more underappreciated parts of the Brookfield story is Wealth Solutions.

This segment generated $430 million of distributable earnings in the quarter and $1.7 billion over the last 12 months.

Brookfield’s insurance platform is scaling quickly, and the acquisition of Just Group increased total insurance assets to around $180 billion.

That is a big deal.

Insurance gives Brookfield access to long-duration capital. This is capital that can be invested across Brookfield’s platform, creating a flywheel between insurance assets and Brookfield’s investment capabilities.

The company also held $13.2 billion of book equity in Wealth Solutions, generating $2.0 billion in annualized cash flows. Management says that supports a 15% return on equity and values the business around $30 billion.

This is one of the reasons I think Brookfield is more than just a collection of assets.

It is becoming a bigger financial ecosystem.

Asset management brings in outside capital.

Insurance brings in permanent capital.

Operating businesses create real cash flow.

Together, this creates a model that can compound in multiple ways.

The Operating Businesses Add Stability

Brookfield’s Operating Businesses generated $360 million of distributable earnings in the quarter and $1.5 billion over the last 12 months.

This part of the company is not always the easiest to value, but it is very important to the thesis.

Brookfield owns and operates infrastructure, energy, real estate, and private equity businesses that generate cash flow.

These are the kinds of assets that tend to matter in almost any economy.

People need electricity.

Companies need data centers.

Goods need transportation.

Cities need infrastructure.

Businesses need real estate.

The global economy needs capital.

Brookfield sits in the middle of a lot of these areas.

That gives it a level of durability that I really like.

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The AI Infrastructure Angle

Brookfield is not the traditional AI stock.

It does not make GPUs.

It does not build large language models.

It does not sell AI software subscriptions.

But AI still matters a lot to the Brookfield thesis.

Why?

Because AI needs infrastructure.

AI needs data centers.

Data centers need land.

They need power.

They need cooling.

They need energy infrastructure.

They need transmission.

They need capital.

And Brookfield is one of the few companies in the world with the scale, relationships, and assets to help build and finance that infrastructure.

Brookfield launched a $100 billion AI infrastructure program in partnership with NVIDIA and the Kuwait Investment Authority.

The initial Brookfield Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Fund has a target of $10 billion in equity commitments, with the goal of acquiring up to $100 billion of AI infrastructure assets when including co-investors and financing.

This program is focused on the physical backbone of AI.

Energy.

Land.

Data centers.

Compute.

Behind-the-meter power.

AI factories.

This is what I like about Brookfield’s AI exposure.

It is not trying to win the AI race by guessing which app or model becomes dominant.

It is trying to own and finance the infrastructure that the entire AI economy needs.

That is a much different type of AI exposure.

It is less flashy.

But it may also be more durable.

Brookfield Has Massive Capital to Deploy

Another reason I like Brookfield is the amount of capital it has available.

Brookfield ended Q1 2026 with $188 billion of deployable capital.

That includes $74 billion of cash, financial assets, and undrawn credit lines across the corporation, affiliates, and wealth solutions business.

It also includes $114 billion of uncalled private fund commitments.

This matters because Brookfield is at its best when it has capital to deploy during periods of uncertainty.

When markets are calm, everyone wants to buy assets.

When markets are volatile, fewer players have the capital and patience to act.

Brookfield can be opportunistic.

The company invested $53 billion across the business since last quarter and executed $17 billion of asset sales during the quarter.

That is the model.

Buy assets when they are attractive.

Operate them.

Improve them.

Sell or monetize mature assets.

Recycle capital into new opportunities.

Repeat.

Over time, this is how Brookfield compounds.

Management Is Buying Back Stock

One of the biggest things that stood out to me was the buyback activity.

Brookfield repurchased $470 million of BN shares year-to-date at an average price of $41.

Management said that price represented roughly a 40% discount to their view of intrinsic value at quarter end, which was around $66 per share.

That does not mean management’s intrinsic value estimate is guaranteed to be correct.

But it does show how they are thinking.

If management believes the stock is trading significantly below intrinsic value, buybacks can be one of the best uses of capital.

This is especially true for a company like Brookfield, where the gap between public market price and private market value can become a major part of the thesis.

The public market may look at Brookfield and see complexity.

Management may look at Brookfield and see assets, cash flows, capital, and long-term value that are not being fully reflected in the stock.

That is exactly the type of setup I like

The Valuation Case

Brookfield is not easy to value.

That is one of the reasons the opportunity may exist.

This is not a simple P/E stock.

You have to look at asset management earnings, insurance value, operating businesses, carried interest, real estate, infrastructure, energy, private equity, and corporate capital.

That complexity can scare investors away.

But complexity can also create mispricing.

Management’s estimate of intrinsic value was around $66 per share at quarter end.

If the stock is trading around the mid-$40s, that implies a meaningful discount to management’s view of intrinsic value.

Again, I am not saying management’s estimate should be treated as a perfect target.

But I do think it is useful.

Especially when management is actually buying back shares at a large discount to that number.

For me, the valuation case is simple:

Brookfield owns high-quality assets.

Brookfield generates billions in distributable earnings.

Brookfield has a growing asset management platform.

Brookfield has a scaling insurance platform.

Brookfield has massive deployable capital.

Brookfield has exposure to AI infrastructure, power, data centers, real assets, and alternative investments.

And the stock appears to trade below what management believes the business is worth.

That is enough to make it interesting.

Why I Like $BN in My Portfolio

My portfolio already has plenty of higher-upside growth exposure.

I own names like $SOFI, $AMD, $SNAP, $OSCR, and $ZETA.

Those stocks can offer big upside, but they also come with more volatility.

Brookfield plays a different role for me.

$BN is more of a long-term compounder.

It gives me exposure to real assets, infrastructure, AI infrastructure, asset management, insurance, renewable power, private equity, and global capital flows.

It is not the type of stock I expect to move 20% in a week.

But that is not the point.

The point is to own a business that can compound capital over years.

A business that can benefit from multiple long-term trends.

A business that can be opportunistic when markets get volatile.

A business that has real assets and real cash flow behind it.

That is what I want from Brookfield.

The Risks

No investment is perfect, and Brookfield definitely has risks.

The first risk is complexity.

Brookfield is not the easiest company to understand. The structure, different entities, asset classes, and valuation methods can be confusing. That can make it harder for public market investors to fully appreciate the business.

The second risk is interest rates.

Brookfield owns real assets and invests heavily across infrastructure, real estate, credit, and other capital-intensive areas. Higher rates can impact valuations, financing costs, and investor demand.

The third risk is execution.

Brookfield has a lot of moving parts. The company has to keep raising capital, deploying capital, monetizing assets, integrating acquisitions, simplifying its structure, and managing risk across a global portfolio.

The fourth risk is valuation transparency.

Because many of Brookfield’s assets are privately held or valued based on internal estimates, investors have to trust management’s valuation framework more than they would with a simpler public company.

The fifth risk is the AI infrastructure buildout itself.

I like Brookfield’s AI infrastructure exposure, but the scale of investment across data centers and power is massive. If the AI infrastructure boom slows, becomes overbuilt, or sees weaker-than-expected returns, that could impact part of the long-term thesis.

These risks are real.

But I do not think they break the thesis.

They are the risks you accept when investing in a complex, global, alternative asset and real asset compounder.

My Bottom Line

Brookfield is not the easiest stock to explain in one sentence.

But that might be part of the opportunity.

The market loves simple stories.

Brookfield is not simple.

It is an asset manager.

It is an insurance platform.

It is an infrastructure owner.

It is a real estate investor.

It is a power and energy investor.

It is an AI infrastructure play.

It is a capital allocator.

It is a long-term compounder.

And right now, I think the market is still underappreciating how powerful that combination can be.

$BN gives me exposure to some of the most important long-term themes in the world:

Infrastructure.

Power.

AI data centers.

Insurance.

Alternative assets.

Global capital flows.

Real assets.

Long-term compounding.

That is why I started my position.

And from here, I plan to build it slowly over time.

I do not need Brookfield to be the fastest stock in my portfolio.

I need it to be durable.

I need it to compound.

I need it to give my portfolio more balance.

And I think $BN can do exactly that.

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Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only. This is not financial advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stock. I am sharing my personal research and opinion. Always do your own research and make investment decisions based on your own goals, risk tolerance, and financial situation.

This is something I have wanted to build for a while. Over the last few years, I have shared a lot of my investing journey through social media, whether that is stock research, portfolio updates, market thoughts, charts, lessons, or just honest thoughts about what I am learning along the way.

But as the brand has grown, I have realized something important.

Not every investing idea fits into a short post.

Some companies deserve more than a quick caption. Some portfolio moves deserve more context. Some market thoughts need more room to breathe. And some lessons are too important to squeeze into a few lines on X or Threads.

That is why I am building this space.

Ashton Invests on Substack will be where I can slow down, go deeper, and share more complete research with the people who want more than just quick market takes.

Why I’m starting this now

I am a self-taught long-term investor. I did not learn investing through a finance degree, a Wall Street job, or a traditional path.

I learned by reading, researching, making mistakes, studying companies, watching markets, and putting real money behind my own ideas.

That process has shaped how I think about investing.

I care about fundamentals. I care about business quality. I care about valuation. I care about management. I care about whether a company is actually improving underneath the surface, even when the stock price is telling a different story.

Most of all, I care about keeping investing simple enough for everyday people to understand.

That is the goal of this publication.

I do not want Ashton Invests to be filled with complicated language just to sound smart. I do not want to write research that only a finance professional can understand. I want to break companies down in a way that is simple, useful, and honest.

Investing can feel overwhelming when you are first getting started. There are endless opinions, charts, earnings reports, headlines, price targets, and narratives. It is easy to feel like you are always behind or missing something.

I want this Substack to help cut through some of that noise.

What this publication will be about

Ashton Invests will focus on long-term investing, stock research, portfolio transparency, and the process of building wealth over time.

Some posts will be deep dives on individual companies. These will break down the business model, financials, valuation, risks, catalysts, and long-term opportunity.

Some posts will be portfolio updates. I want to share what I am buying, what I am selling, what I am watching, and why I am making certain decisions.

Some posts will be market commentary. When the market is volatile, confusing, or emotional, I want to share how I am thinking through it.

Some posts will be educational. These may cover things like valuation, free cash flow, margin expansion, concentration, risk management, or how to think about different business models.

And some posts will simply be honest reflections from my own investing journey.

I am still learning. I am still improving. I am still making mistakes. But I believe there is value in sharing that process openly.

What makes this different

There are a lot of investing newsletters out there.

Some focus on trading. Some focus on macro. Some focus on options. Some focus on short-term catalysts. Some try to sound as complex as possible.

That is not what I want this to be.

My focus is long-term ownership of businesses.

I want to find companies that I believe can be much larger and more valuable over time. I want to understand what the market may be missing. I want to study the gap between perception and fundamentals.

Sometimes that means looking at a stock that is hated while the business is quietly improving.

Sometimes that means studying a high-quality compounder that looks expensive on the surface but may still be undervalued when you think five years out.

Sometimes that means admitting a thesis is not working and moving on.

The goal is not to be right every time.

The goal is to think clearly, stay honest, and get better.

What free subscribers can expect

Free subscribers will still get value here.

I plan to publish occasional public posts, market thoughts, and select stock research for everyone.

I want this publication to be useful whether someone is just following casually or deciding to become a paid subscriber.

The free side will give readers a feel for how I think, what I am researching, and the type of content I am building.

What paid subscribers can expect

Paid subscribers will get the deeper research and more complete access.

This will include full stock deep dives, portfolio updates, buy and sell notes, watchlist updates, valuation work, exclusive research, and access to the full archive.

The paid side is where I will spend more time breaking down companies in detail and sharing the thought process behind my portfolio decisions.

I want paid subscribers to feel like they are getting real value, not just extra posts for the sake of having extra posts.

My goal is to make the research practical.

I want readers to understand what the company does, why it matters, what the numbers say, what could go right, what could go wrong, and how I am personally thinking about the opportunity.

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The community I want to build

I do not want this to be just another newsletter.

I want Ashton Invests to become a community of people who are serious about getting better as investors.

Not perfect investors.

Not investors who pretend they never make mistakes.

Just people who want to learn, research, think long term, and build wealth over time.

I want this to be a place where people can ask questions, challenge ideas, share thoughts, and follow the journey as I continue building my portfolio and brand.

A lot of investing content online is built around hype.

I want this to be built around transparency.

What am I buying?

What am I selling?

What am I researching?

What am I learning?

What did I get wrong?

What am I watching next?

That is the type of content I want to create here.

My promise to readers

I will not act like I have everything figured out.

I do not.

I am young, I am still learning, and I know I will make mistakes along the way.

But I will always try to be honest about my process.

I will share what I actually think. I will explain why I believe something. I will show my work when possible. I will talk about risks, not just upside. And I will keep trying to make investing easier to understand.

This publication will grow over time.

The website is still a work in progress. The format will improve. The content will evolve. I will learn what readers find most valuable and continue building around that.

But the mission will stay the same:

Simple, honest, long-term investing research.

Thanks for being here early.

This is just the beginning.

Ashton