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Takes

Ideas about where money will be made over the next six months to three years, each a basket of stocks with its record from the day it was published.

Insurers bid, marketplaces collect

Car insurers are profitable and spending more to win new drivers, and EverQuote and MediaAlpha, the two marketplaces that sell them shoppers, fell in September with no company news while their profits kept climbing.

9.0%Total returnPublished Oct 8

All takes

1Insurers bid, marketplaces collectCar insurers are profitable and spending more to win new drivers, and EverQuote and MediaAlpha, the two marketplaces that sell them shoppers, fell in September with no company news while their profits kept climbing.9.0%3AI still buys the dataThomson Reuters, RELX and FactSet are selling more data into AI tools while their shares still price the fear of being replaced, and we expect the gap to close by October 2028.7.0%5The cash tax feeds RemitlyA 1% federal tax on cash-funded transfers abroad started January 1, 2026, and Remitly, the app that avoids it, is winning those senders and turning the growth into profit at about 10 times this year's earnings.5.8%7More code, bigger monitoring billsAI makes software cheap to write, and the companies that charge by usage to watch it run are collecting the bigger bill.2.9%9The missing methanol paysSeven months into the Hormuz disruption, Gulf methanol is still off the market. Methanex and Celanese sell the missing tons from plants outside the Gulf, and we sell the energy sector against them, so the take is methanol, not the war.0.8%11Business lenders at 71 centsThe Fed raised rates on September 16, which lifts what floating-rate business lenders earn. Their loans are still paying, yet the best of them trade as low as 71 cents per dollar of book value while a smaller peer sells at $1.42. We own the discounts, sell the premium, and expect the gap to narrow by April 2028.0.4%13Few boats, higher day ratesOffshore oil work is picking up while almost no new support vessels are being built, so the companies that own the boats, the underwater robots and the seabed backlog will charge more through 2028.3.4%15Buy the plumbing inside memory toolsLam's NAND tool sales more than doubled in a quarter, and the small firms that build the gas and fluid systems inside those tools fell more than 20% in a week while their own guidance kept rising.3.7%17AI agents need permission slipsCompanies are giving AI software its own logins, and the identity security firms that already decide who may open which door are starting to bill for it.5.1%19Uranium's 2027 acid problemRussia has put sulfuric acid exports behind government approval, Kazakhstan's uranium mines cannot run without that acid, 2027 supply is still unsigned, and uranium stocks are priced as if nothing happened.6.6%21Amazon ordered its own powerGenerac's $2.4 billion Amazon generator order still stands, but the stock closed below our $195 exit line on October 16, 2026, so we sold the whole basket for a loss of about 6.9%.6.9%23Taller chips consume more chemistryChips now stack more layers and pack tighter connections, so factories buy more polishing, plating and filtering materials per chip, and we own the three approved suppliers that sell them: Qnity, Entegris and MKS.8.3%
2Humana won back its bonusMedicare's October 8 ratings put 95% of Humana's members back in bonus-paying plans, and we expect that money, repriced plans and cheaper administration to lift 2028 earnings to $30 a share, three times this year's guide.9.0%4Rate swings pay the exchangesThe Fed's September 16 rate hike set off a jump in hedging, and CME, ICE, Cboe and Tradeweb collect a fee on every one of those trades, whichever way prices move.6.5%6Lease cars are coming backLeases written in 2023 and 2024 are ending, the cars are going back to their lenders, and OPENLANE runs the online auctions where most of them get sold.4.5%8Buy Treasuries before the Fed stopsThe Fed raised rates into a 29,000-jobs month, and Treasury yields near their highest since 2002 now pay you about 5% a year to bet that weak hiring, not oil, decides what comes next.1.4%10Washington left. Sallie Mae stayed.Federal Grad PLUS loans closed to new borrowers on July 1, 2026, and Sallie Mae, the private lender on nearly every campus list, trades at about 7 times this year's earnings while new classes pile into the gap.0.1%12Fuel ships travel farther nowRefineries closed near the people who burn the fuel, so fuel now sails farther. Four low-cost product-tanker owners keep earning after the war premium fades, and we sell Frontline, the crude tanker owner that earned the premium, against them.2.3%14The tariff pays the smeltersA 50% U.S. tariff pays American aluminum smelters a large premium on every tonne they sell, and their stocks have been sold as if that premium were about to disappear.3.6%16China's classrooms are filling againChina's rebuilt tutoring leaders now earn real profit from learning centers they already paid for, and their stocks still trade near 2.3 times sales.4.6%18Google must open its auctionA federal court ordered Google to let rival ad exchanges bid on equal terms, and Magnite and PubMatic take a fee on every auction they win.6.1%20Full rooms, fearful sharesBrookdale's buildings have been fuller at the end of every month since March while short sellers add to their bet. We own it for $590 million of 2027 adjusted EBITDA that its $10 share price ignores, and sell Welltower, the landlord priced at 35 times for the same demand, against it.6.6%22AI designs chips, tools get paidAI agents now design chips at Cadence and Synopsys customers, and every design they try runs on the two companies' checking software, so the extra work turns into bigger software bills.7.2%24Fiber backlog becomes revenueDycom's order book hit a record $12.24 billion while its stock fell 37% in three months on a timing delay, and we buy the crews and the gear that turn that backlog into reported revenue through 2028.11.4%