Edition #175
Investing Unlocks: How to Capitalize on the Hot Topics From The Last 7 Days
We analyze recent trends and opportunities, offering strategic insights that help you manage risks and identify growth opportunities for your portfolio.
🏦 Tech Keeps Stocks Afloat After Fed Hike
Last week, the Fed raised interest rates for the first time in more than three years and signaled another hike could come this year, which jolted stocks midweek. Tech shares bounced back and crypto stocks jumped, while banks stumbled and companies facing higher fuel costs struggled.
This week, the calendar is light on data but heavy on Fed talk, with about 10 policymakers set to speak as investors look for clues on how many more hikes may be coming. Restaurant and retail earnings from Darden and Costco will add a read on how shoppers are handling high prices. With yields near 5% and oil elevated, expect choppy trading, since higher borrowing costs can weigh on stock prices.
Hot Topics
CNN, MS NOW and Politico to Sue Jointly Over White House Ban
Anthropic, Accenture to invest $2 billion in AI model evaluation
Warner Bros, Paramount Rise as Settlement Talks Ease Merger Hurdle
Weekly Series: The Small-Cap Advantage
Exploring why the smallest corners of the public markets can sometimes create the biggest opportunities for individual investors.
#5 When Doing Your Homework Still Pays
In the large-cap world, you are competing against hundreds of analysts, institutional trading desks, and algorithms that process every data point within minutes. Your edge there is essentially zero. In small caps, the landscape is different. Many companies have no analyst coverage at all. Their earnings calls might have five people listening. Their SEC filings go unread for days. The investor who takes the time to read a 10-K, listen to a quarterly call, and check the footnotes has a genuine informational advantage that simply does not exist at the top of the market.
Small caps have historically produced nearly twice as many stocks gaining 50%+ in a calendar year as large caps as reported by Polen Capital. This suggests that extreme large-cap concentration has overshadowed the richer opportunity set in small caps, particularly for managers with the flexibility to look beyond conventional screens.
That advantage is available to anyone willing to do the work. You do not need a Bloomberg terminal or a Wall Street network. Company filings are free on the SEC website. Many small-cap earnings calls are publicly accessible. Industry data is increasingly accessible online. The opportunity in small caps is not about having access to information that others do not have. It is about being one of the few people who actually bothers to look at information that is sitting in plain sight. In this corner of the market, diligence is still a genuine competitive edge.
This is #5 in our Small-Cap Advantage series, exploring where individual investors may still hold an edge over larger institutions. Read #4 Why Nobody Wants It Until They Do, in last week’s edition.
Earnings Performance
LuxExperience (NYSE: LUXE)
LuxExperience (NYSE: LUXE) posted its best quarter yet since buying YNAP. June quarter sales rose 7.6% excluding currency swings, all three businesses grew, and adjusted profit stayed positive for a third straight quarter. Shares jumped more than 20% on the news, helped by FY27 growth guidance and a $50M buyback. But this may still be more promise than payoff. Mytheresa carries nearly all the profit, and the group’s 7% to 9% margin target is still a long way off.
Other Earnings Updates
Vera Bradley (NASDAQ: VRA): Reports Q2 Profit, Sales Up 1.1%
Forgent (NYSE: FPS): Posts Record Backlog, Revenue Up 94%
Trip.com Group (NASDAQ: TCOM): Posts Q2 Net Loss After SAMR Penalty
Analyst Strong Buy Ratings This Week! 📈
Looking for stocks with strong analyst backing? These companies have earned top-tier "Strong Buy" ratings from analysts, signaling potential upside for investors.
Whether you’re eyeing small-to-mid cap opportunities in the U.S. and Canada or want to stick with trusted S&P 500 blue-chip picks, this list highlights stocks that experts believe could outperform.
🔍 Do your research and see if any of these fit your portfolio!
Big Tech’s Long Battery Bet
Meta and Google are starting to build long-duration batteries into their data center plans. Standard lithium-ion batteries hold power for only a few hours, while these systems can store it for many hours or even days. That suits AI data centers, which need steady power around the clock as their owners also lean on wind and solar. BloombergNEF counts at least 150 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of new US projects announced, permitted or financed since the start of 2025, more than five times the total planned at the end of 2024. Google plans a 30 GWh system in Minnesota, and Meta has reserved up to 100 GWh from Noon Energy. Big buyers could help these technologies scale and get cheaper.
The catch is that this technology has long been costly and unproven at scale, and a pipeline is not a working battery. Much of the 150 GWh is still on paper. Meta’s 100 GWh is a reservation, and its first project is only 2.5 GWh, due in 2028. The upside case is that AI demand turns a niche clean-energy idea into a real market. The downside is delays and costs that stay high. Watch whether the first large systems come online on time and on budget.