Rubrik, Zscaler and Microsoft look very bearish: their reliance on cheap H-1B labor leaves their P&Ls exposed, and those P&Ls are expected to worsen. x.com
Bill 'Latency Lord' Brennan
Fundamental Growth Investor, B2B/Sector Leaders & Picks-and-Shovels
Cloudflare, CrowdStrike, Datadog and Snowflake are near peak multiples while still not making money, and this almost certainly won't end well. Multiples are higher than in 2020-21 in some cases while growth is about a quarter of what it once was. Unless their earnings surprise the way Palantir's did, holders should protect themselves. x.com
Anthropic's S-1 and @UncleAlpha007's claim that Microsoft is growing despite a 27% headcount cut have turned the near-term tech-equity view bullish. At least a tradable rally is expected; further upside depends on Iran developments and PCE. Stay nimble. x.com x.com
Rubrik is too expensive now against a $70-80 valuation, even though its very strong platform drives nearly 40% growth that can continue for many years as a cybersecurity and data-recovery play. x.com
Hyperscalers' forward P/E has contracted 20% even as estimates ramped, making it rare to see things get much worse. Rising GPU rents and new lows in availability make the AI fears a fade; hyperscalers should lead. The next two weeks will be gut-wrenching amid the OpenAI raise, Anthropic S-1, Fed, midterms and mutual-fund selling into year-end, but that is the time to buy. x.com
Zscaler's management is undermining trust in the stock even after a quarter that beat on revenue, EPS, billings and guidance. On the call the CFO offered a 16-17% FY27 guide before FY26 ended and contradicted himself, leaving investors scared. FCF margin guidance fell on higher data center capex, with 2027 capex guided another 200bp of revenue higher. Mythos looks like the real value-add, making cybersecurity names look like resale wrappers around AI LLMs. Very tough for long-term holders. x.com … Show more
Microsoft is a secular loser trading at a high multiple, a profile that struggles in this market. It finished red on a day the Dow rose over 1,000 points. x.com
Rubrik's high switching costs and emerging AI-security demand underpin growth that looks attractively valued. At 12.9x forward EV/sales, it trades below the cybersecurity peer median relative to expected revenue growth. Subscription ARR grew 32.6% YoY and net dollar retention reached 119%. Agentic AI security adoption remains early; non-GAAP operating margin hit 7.8%, though GAAP net income remains negative partly due to stock-based compensation. x.com
Hyperscalers' incremental return on capital is cratering, so hard spending decisions are coming. In the June quarter, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet grew LTM EBIT 20% but needed 38% more deployed capital, before token prices cratered and with much demand from non-self-sustaining OpenAI. Compute and models may become a utility-like commodity. Insiders are selling, with Jeff Bezos filing to sell $4B of Amazon stock, and Google's $25B bond deal widened hyperscaler credit spreads. x.com x.com
Microsoft and Oracle are down and out because they are software businesses, and the market is rational to trade them like the software sector rather than like pure GPU scalers such as CoreWeave and Nebius, or Alphabet, a scaler without software exposure. Meta is an outlier with its own issues: secular uncertainty and no cash flow after capex. x.com x.com
A ten-year low in forward P/E makes hyperscaler valuations look more than reasonable. Goldman Sachs' chart tracks Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle as a basket. x.com
Zscaler is now better used as a source of funds, since many cheap companies look better than it. It was attractive when it was cheap and nothing else was. At $150 it would become a great trade and source of funds. x.com x.com