October 19, 2026
3 Key Issues We’re Watching Wednesday What we would act on: (1) With Capex expected to exceed $41bn, we are looking for updates on a return to positive FCF in 2027, 2028; (2) ad revenue…
October 19, 2026
Gen Z traction and mix are critical leading indicators given long-term demographic share shifts. inInOctober’s analysis of 102 companies across sectors we note diverging trends in JACK, BJRI, BKE, BROS, WING, GME, UA, BOOT. We…
October 18, 2026
Summary: (1) The new Fed Survey of Consumer Finances showed dramatic shifts in net worth by age cohort from 2022 to 2025. Median net worth fell 23% for households headed by Americans under age 35….
October 18, 2026
Summary: (1) MAR, BBY, W, HD are the highest measured names in AI / agentic impact, see Fig 1; (2) AI inflections are positive across all four categories (Travel, Autos, Retail, Apparel), see Fig 2;…
October 16, 2026
The Optimal Advisory Cost Factor edged up 0.3% this week, now +25.3% y/y, up from just +3.5% y/y in early July — primarily on energy costs. The surge in y/y trend threatens all 2027 CPG…
October 15, 2026
(1) In advance of META earnings and our preview next week we note META+AAPL announce open-weight Muse models available on Macs. We’ve been more bearish on META given CAPEX surge and with JPM joining the…
October 14, 2026
Charts of the Week: The Rise of Prediction Markets The rapid growth of prediction markets and threat to sportsbooks has become a frequent topic in our conversations about sports betting. On a dollars-spent basis (comparable…
October 13, 2026
We attended the JohnWallStreet Youth Sports Summit, which brought together operators, brands, and investors to discuss the trends, opportunities, and the future of the sector. The conversations ranged from league strategy and brand influence to…
October 12, 2026
Summary: (1) We consistently field questions about short-term and longer-signs of consumer shifts – off-price momentum (and the better and worse positioned names), frozen activity in housing transactions and the follow-on effects in related retail…
October 9, 2026
The Optimal Advisory Cost Factor moved higher again this week after a brief respite last week. For the year, costs are up (+22.9% y/y, up from +3.5% y/y in early July) primarily on energy costs….
October 8, 2026
(1) META and AI startup Sierra announced the Personal Agent Protocol (PAP) to govern how personal AI agents interact with enterprise systems. Industry partners include WMT, SHOP, Stripe, Rocket, Genesys, NICE, and Instinct. Muse users…
October 7, 2026
Chart of the Week: Youth Sports Participation Climbing as the Price of Lessons Outpaces Inflation One consistent theme in our client discussions is whether rising costs are holding back demand for youth sports. Despite rising…
October 4, 2026
Summary: (1) While bond, energy, and equity markets all react to jobs and inflation data these days, we continue to consistent signal from the employment breakdown by sector and Friday’s BLS jobs report showed more…
October 2, 2026
After eight straight weeks of increases, the Optimal Advisory Cost Factor finally fell, by 1.6% w/w. Don’t break out the champagne just yet. Costs still sit 21.6% above last year’s level, up from 3.5% y/y…
October 1, 2026
(1) GOOG latest frontier model Gemini 4 Argon underscores our theme and conversations. We see increasing commoditization as benchmark leaders change every month and value accrues to companies owning more of the stack, customer graphs,…