Sector Atlas

Available Reports
54 Active research reports

The $105 Billion AI Bet: Is Oracle’s Bond Market Stress a Systemic Risk?

Oracle’s credit risk has sharply repriced, with its 5-year CDS spiking to the highest level since 2009—roughly tripling from mid-year—as investors hedge a debt-funded AI expansion with uncertain payback. Its balance sheet now resembles a leveraged AI infrastructure project, carrying about $105B in total debt and roughly $95B in U.S. bonds, making it the largest non-bank issuer in major indices; leverage is above 4× debt/EBITDA, and levered free cash flow is negative as capex surges. Rating agencies still keep Oracle investment grade but have moved outlooks to Negative, citing massive AI cloud commitments and sustained negative free cash flow. Across the AI complex, more than $200B in related bond issuance has come to market as hyperscalers and data-center operators raise capital aggressively. Systemic risk is creeping higher, but Oracle itself is viewed as a stress indicator—not a systemic trigger—in the emerging AI credit web.

Salesforce After Q3 FY26 Earnings: High-Margin AI Platform, Solid Growth

Salesforce delivered a quarter that was operationally excellent but not growth-explosive: Revenue around $10.3B, growing high single digits year-on-year. Non-GAAP operating margin in the mid-30s, at or near record levels. Free cash flow above $2B for the quarter, with healthy double-digit growth. AI stack (Agentforce, Data Cloud, Einstein) now represents meaningful, recurring ARR, scaling quickly off a small base. Guidance frames high-single-digit to low-double-digit top-line growth with mid-30s non-GAAP margin for the full year. The equity story is shifting from “hyper-growth CRM pioneer” to “AI-enhanced, cash-rich enterprise platform compounder.”

NVIDIA Buybacks: A Frank Assessment of Value, Signal, and Risk

NVIDIA’s buybacks do create shareholder value — just not in the dramatic, thesis-driving way some bulls think, nor in the self-destructive way critics like Michael Burry argue. The repurchase program works because it: Offsets very large SBC issuance, Provides real share-count shrink, Adds ~1% EPS uplift versus a no-buyback world, And acts as downside liquidity support. But the program is not the engine of NVIDIA’s stock performance. The stock trades on AI data-center earnings, TSMC/HBM/CoWoS supply, hyperscaler capex, and macro positioning, not on the authorization size.

The Data Center Cooling Trade: Who Wins After the CME Outage

When a single overheated facility can shut down one of the world’s most important futures exchanges, “data center cooling” stops being a boring line item and becomes systemic risk. That’s exactly what the CME outage highlighted: AI-heavy racks are now drawing so much power per square foot that cooling, not servers, is the choke point. Over the next 12–24 months, the easiest response for exchanges, hyperscalers, and colo operators is simple: spend more on cooling, and spend it faster. This piece maps the likely corporate winners from that shift and sketches out where the upside still looks compelling vs where the market is already paying full price.

Lumentum (LITE): InP Inside the AI Optical Super-Cycle – but Priced Like It Already Won

Lumentum is a high-quality, vertically integrated indium-phosphide (InP) optics supplier sitting directly in the slipstream of the AI data-center build-out, with record revenue, rapidly recovering margins, and a second growth engine emerging in optical circuit switching. The business is strong, strategically relevant, and executing well - but the stock, up ~240% YTD and trading near 195x trailing earnings, already reflects a lot of optimism. Great business, stretched valuation: accumulate on dips and use hedges or smaller sizing to keep the upside while managing risk.

Apple (AAPL) Options Trade: Exploiting Post-Earnings IV Compression and the iPhone 17 Catalyst

Wait until after tomorrow's (Oct 30) earnings, then enter a ratio call spread (buy 2x Dec $260 calls, sell 3x Dec $270 calls) for ~$400 credit when IV crushes to 23-24%. The edge: IV at 34th percentile will likely expand back toward its median (28-30%), generating 50-80% returns with max profit at $270. Downside capped at $256, but unlimited upside risk above $283 requires active management. Massive institutional call wall at 280-320 validates the bullish thesis on iPhone 17 strength and China recovery.

Credo Technology (CRDO): AI Connectivity Play at Premium Valuation

Credo Technology has emerged as a leading provider of high-speed connectivity solutions for AI infrastructure, delivering explosive 274% year-over-year revenue growth driven by Active Electrical Cable (AEC) shipments to hyperscalers. However, the stock trades at a substantial premium, approximately 40-44x trailing sales, pricing in continued flawless execution amid intensifying competition and potential technology disruption.

Figma: Paying $30B For An 800M-User Experiment

Figma's ChatGPT integration gives it access to 800 million users - if just 1.5% convert, that's $130-260M in new ARR reversing the deceleration that crushed the stock 57% from its August peak. At $60.94 (27.7x sales), yesterday's 7% pop priced in half the upside, leaving 23-35% to $75-82 if it works or 15-20% downside to $48-52 if it flops. Wait for pullback to $55-57 over the next month, validate at November earnings when management must show real ChatGPT user numbers, and use February's insider unlock as your entry window. For those wanting less risk, ServiceTitan trades at 10.9x sales with 32% upside and no experiments required.

Tesla: Reality Check at $460 – Energy’s Real, Robotaxi’s Years Away

At $460 per share ($1.48 trillion market cap) trading 225x earnings, Tesla needs flawless execution across automotive margin recovery, energy scaling, and autonomous deployment simultaneously. The probability is low. Also, Tesla just raised lease prices $70/month following expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit—the first real-world test of demand elasticity without subsidies begins now.

The Magnificent 7 vs. The AI Infrastructure Play

The Magnificent 7 are expensive, cash-burning AI believers trading at 31-40x free cash flow while promising returns that might not materialize. A better bet is the companies selling them the shovels - the AI Infrastructure Compounders 7 (AIC-7), who are generating cash today while the hyperscalers burn through $417 billion this year alone.