App Economy Insights
📊 October earnings visualized. https://t.co/7OlwR2BKfK
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App Economy Insights
📊 How They Make Money — October Report

The latest edition is out!

🔥 70+ companies visualized across tech, finance, entertainment, and more.

What caught your eye this month?

👇 Download the full report:
https://t.co/PMf7sukbSW
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Quiver Quantitative
BREAKING: Microsoft just signed a $9.7B contract with $IREN.

We spent the last three months sounding the alarm on a purchase of $IREN stock by a US congressman.

The stock has now risen 330%.

Follow for more! https://t.co/XVXaeC9qIb
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Dimitry Nakhla | Babylon Capital®
A quality valuation analysis on $MA 🧘🏽‍♂️

•NTM P/E Ratio: 30.01x
•3-Year Mean: 31.65x

•NTM FCF Yield: 3.43%
•3-Year Mean: 3.20%

As you can see, $MA appears to be trading slightly below fair value

Going forward, investors can receive ~5% MORE in EPS & ~7% MORE FCF per share 🧠***

Before we get into valuation, let’s take a look at why $MA is a great business

BALANCE SHEET✅
•Cash & Short-Term Inv: $10.65B
•Long-Term Debt: $18.98B

$MA has a strong balance sheet, an A+ S&P Credit Rating, & 23x FFO Interest Coverage

RETURN ON CAPITAL✅
•2020: 40%
•2021: 45%
•2022: 59%
•2023: 61%
•2024: 64%
•LTM: 68%

$MA maintains strong returns on capital, highlighting the financial efficiency of the business

REVENUES✅
•2015: $9.67B
•2025E: $32.69B
•CAGR: 12.95%

FREE CASH FLOW✅
•2015: $3.92B
•2025E: $15.30B
•CAGR: 14.58%

NORMALIZED EPS✅
•2015: $3.43
•2025E: $16.44
•CAGR: 16.96%

SHARE BUYBACKS✅
•2015 Shares Outstanding: 1.14B
•LTM Shares Outstanding: 0.91B

By reducing its shares outstanding by 20%, $MA increased its EPS by 25% (assuming 0 growth)

MARGINS✅
•LTM Gross Margins: 100%
•LTM Operating Margins: 58.9%
•LTM Net Income Margins: 45.3%

***NOW TO VALUATION 🧠

As stated above, investors can expect to receive ~5% MORE in EPS & ~7% MORE FCF per share

Using Benjamin Graham’s 2G rule of thumb, $MA has to grow earnings at a 15.01% CAGR over the next several years to justify its valuation

Today, analysts anticipate 2026 - 2028 EPS growth over the next few years to be greater than the (15.01%) required growth rate:

2025E: $16.44 (13% YoY) *FY Dec

2026E: $19.09 (16% YoY)
2027E: $22.19 (16% YoY)
2028E: $25.86 (17% YoY)

$MA has a good record of meeting analyst estimates ~2 years out, but let’s assume $MA ends 2028 with $25.86 in EPS & see its CAGR potential assuming different multiples

32x P/E: $827💵 … ~14.2% CAGR

31x P/E: $801💵 … ~13.1% CAGR

30x P/E: $775💵 … ~11.9% CAGR

29x P/E: $750💵 … ~10.7% CAGR

28x P/E: $724💵 … ~9.5% CAGR

As you can see, $MA appears to have attractive return potential if we assume >30x earnings multiple

Given its growth, quality, & historical averages, a >30x multiple appears more than reasonable for $MA

$MA currently trades at roughly the same forward valuation it did ahead of “Liberation Day,” when it traded down to $480 on April 8, 2025

Today, at $552💵 $MA appears to be a good consideration for investment

At $500💵 $MA offers a stronger margin of safety, supporting a ~12% CAGR while assuming a 27x multiple
___

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐄‼️

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞, 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫, 𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐮𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲.

𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥® 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝. 𝐀𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞.

𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐛𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬. 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬.
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Quiver Quantitative
BREAKING: Insiders are saying that Nancy Pelosi will not run for another term in Congress, per NBC News.

If she retires from Congress, you will no longer be able to track her portfolio on Quiver.
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Dimitry Nakhla | Babylon Capital®
Trash stocks are now suffering some of their sharpest drawdowns in five years 📉

$WM -19%
$RSG -21%
$WCN -17% https://t.co/TU5qu8T00r
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AkhenOsiris
$ORCL new lows since the massive earns gap up 👀
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AkhenOsiris
$LYFT $UBER $DASH

The Verge:

Let me ask you about some stuff that is changing, that I think you’re going to have to make some decisions about. And honestly, it will stress some of your structure. AI is here, and it’s happening in a lot of ways. Every CEO of a service company, whether that’s TaskRabbit or Uber or whoever has come on the show, I’ve asked this question. I’ve been calling it the DoorDash problem. I should probably get the people from DoorDash on the show to actually ask them directly about this thing that I’ve been calling the DoorDash problem for six months.

But just a couple of days ago, OpenAI had DevDay, and they showed a bunch of integrations where you could ask ChatGPT to go do stuff for you, including booking an Uber. We’ve seen other agentic products. Amazon announced Alexa+, which will be able to book a flight for you and will traverse websites; it’s built into Chrome now. We’re going to traverse websites on your behalf and do stuff for you.

The backend of that, whether it’s you or Zocdoc or whoever else is, well, we have a database of information, we know where all the drivers are. If you want to buy a sandwich, we know where all the sandwiches are. And so your agent’s going to come and order a sandwich on our website, and we won’t get the customer.

We will just become a service provider to some chatbot interface, and we won’t be able to do upsells. We won’t say, “Hey, there are Dua Lipa tickets,” or whatever we’re going to say, and that’s going to shrink our margins, and we’ll just become commodity service providers. This feels like a very big problem. I’ve been asking everybody about it. Does that feel like a big problem to you?

Lyft CEO:

I mean, maybe for the reasons you just said, but I wouldn’t say it’s one of the top five that I worry about. And a big part of it is, first of all, remember what you’re doing: you’re trusting something. You’re trusting that this thing, this person, is going to come and pick you up, and they’re going to just be on time, and it’s going to be safe. And if I leave my iPhone there, I’m not going to get the thing stolen. All these different things. And it’s physical, it’s safety, and it’s real-world stuff. And so the most extreme version of what you’re saying is I go to ChatGPT and I say, “Please come pick me up.” And some rando comes to pick me up, and there’s no guarantee, there’s no service, there’s no... That would be bad. I don’t think a lot of people would be super excited about just some rando coming, picking me up in an unbranded service, and whatever it is.

So if it’s not going to be an unbranded, just a rando picking me up, then it probably has to be one of the guys who are doing existing rideshare, and that’s us. And then we’ve got all sorts of ways where I think we can compete. So we want to compete on relationships, by the way, not just on transactions. And what does that look like? That [is something] you already mentioned: you choose us, among other reasons, because you get points on your credit card, an unnamed credit card, when you do that. Well, that’s still going to be the case in the future. And so you might have a preference for us that you push through ChatGPT. If they try to disintermediate, you say, “Well, no, I actually have a preference here.” And we’re going to do a whole bunch of different things to make sure that you have a very, very strong preference for asking for us by name, not just saying, “I want to get to a place.” And then second of all, remember that-

Verge:

Wait, can you tell me what those things are? Because right now on my phone, the apps are side by side, and I open them both, and I will... if it’s within $5, I’ll pick the credit card points, but I will almost always pick the cheaper one. And I feel like an agent going off onto the web and finding the cheapest one is actually the most direct threat to your margins, to everyone’s margins.

Lyft CEO:

Read here: https://t.co/d6pypIDqEm tweet