Capital One’s Discover Deal Is Done. The Quant Model Still Isn’t Convinced.
Capital One’s quant score fell from 53 to 19 in a week and stayed a D, while 89% of analysts say buy. Which reading of a 37% revenue jump and a 48% profit drop is…
Alex Carter
Alex Carter is the byline for StockVane's markets and macro commentary: sector trends, the rate cycle, and where the data says value is building. Pieces are researched and written from StockVane's own data and editorial process (see Editorial Standards) and reflect a point of view, not personalized investment advice.
Booking Holdings Is Cheaper Than It’s Been in Years
Booking’s P/E and price-to-sales both sit at the bottom of their five-year range, but the average behind that claim is distorted by 2020. How cheap is it if earnings per share only recover to $10.74?…
TJX Keeps Winning the Recession That Never Quite Arrives
TJX grew sales 5.4% last quarter and EPS 23.6%, yet the stock sits 25% below its high at 23.6 times earnings, the 9th percentile of its own range. Eight quarters of data test the recession-trade…
Corning’s Fiber Business Has Turned Into an AI Trade
Corning stock is up 90% in a year, and optical communications is 46% of segment sales. Is the fiber business an AI trade priced fairly at 69 times earnings? We check margins, the September stock…
IBM Spent Twenty Years as a Value Trap. Is the Turnaround Real This Time?
IBM grew revenue five years in a row while gross margin rose from 48.3% to 58.2%, yet the June quarter grew just 1%. Is the twenty-year value trap over, or is the stock paying for…
PepsiCo, GLP-1 Fears, and the Case an Activist Could Make
PepsiCo sits at the 0th percentile of its own valuation range and 0.2% above its 52-week low. GLP-1 gets the headlines, but the number I care about is free cash flow covering the dividend exactly…
Cadence and Synopsys Sell the Same Tools. One Costs 56 Times Earnings and the Other 67.
Cadence costs 56.2 times earnings and Synopsys 67.3, but on sales the order flips, 13.3 against 8.1. We trace the gap to the Ansys acquisition and name the December report that will show which of…
Goldman Sachs Is 18% Below Its High. What Happens When the Cycle Turns?
Goldman Sachs booked $20.3 billion of revenue in one quarter, yet the stock at $942 sits 18.0% below its $1,148 high. At 14.5 times trailing earnings, does the price already allow for the next downturn…
Qualcomm’s Biggest Customer Is Trying to Leave. Here’s Why I’m Not Worried Yet.
About 85 cents of every Qualcomm revenue dollar comes from chips, not licensing, and revenue fell 4% last quarter. I show what the Apple modem risk means in dollars, why the two EPS bases disagree,…
McDonald’s Recession-Proof Reputation Has a Traffic Problem
McDonald’s sits 59 cents above its 52-week low at $248.24, 26% under its high. Earnings per share are up 3% in two years, so is 20 times earnings a bargain or a fair price for…