If You Missed Palantir at $25... It's Happening Again

Sponsor / Disclosure

• Sponsor: Gold Group Mining Inc. (NYSE-listed; segment “disseminated on behalf of” sponsor)
• Disclaimer (explicit): “not financial advice” / educational purposes

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Key Investing Framework & Methodology (“3 checks” + ladder)

For each stock, the presenter evaluates:

• Check 1: Free Cash Flow (FCF)
  • Focuses on cash still sitting in the bank after paying everything, including buildings/equipment
  • Goal: measure true cash generation vs. accounting profit
• Check 2: Sales Growth
  • Whether the company is selling more vs. the prior year
• Check 3: Operating Margin Trend
  • Wants operating margin steady or rising
  • Note: operating margin can improve even if FCF is less visible, because margin and cash depend on factors like capex and working capital

The “Investment Ladder”

The presenter uses a ladder concept (from a prior video) with steps based on how far the stock has fallen:

• trim → starter → buy → averaging down

If the stock falls too far below the buy range, the ladder can shift from “buy” to a posture of:

• “go back and read the business from scratch / wait”

Analyst / macro / government “signals”

• Treated as noise unless they align with the fundamentals checks

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Stocks / Instruments Mentioned

• Palantir (mentioned historically only; not part of the 4-stock ladder set)
• GE Vernova (ticker not stated in subtitles)
• Uber (ticker not stated in subtitles)
• PayPal (ticker not stated in subtitles)
• Intuitive Surgical (ticker not stated in subtitles)
• Gold and bonds (general comparison only; no specific ETF/ticker)
• Gold Group Mining Inc. (sponsor; NYSE-listed; no ticker stated)

Other companies referenced (context)

• Hertz (partner in Uber’s autonomy operations)
• Lucid, Rivian, Nuro, Wave (Uber investments/partners for autonomy)

Competitor referenced

• Johnson & Johnson (J&J) (J&J surgical robot “Otava”)
• HP (referenced as CEO background for PayPal)

Macro timeline references

• Phrases like “past year,” “since January,” “last month,” and discussion of timing around year-end 2026 / 2028 for autonomy risk

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The Four-Stock Thesis (with Numbers + Recommendations)

1) GE Vernova — “All three checks pass”

Presenter’s fundamental results (last 12 months unless noted)

• Free Cash Flow (FCF): $12.4B
  • Up from $2.7B the year prior (“more than four times”)
• Sales Growth: +13%
• Operating Margin: 1.9% → 4.4%
  • More than doubled

Price context & ladder logic

• Stock is ~19% below its high
• Ladder buy range: $1,300 (top) to $1,100 (bottom)
• Since the current price is below the whole buy range, the presenter says:
  • he’s not yet jumping in
  • wants to ensure nothing is fundamentally broken

Key concern discussed: cash timing / customer deposits

• CFO says $6.4B cash is from customers paying deposits upfront to reserve turbine capacity
• Bears argue deposits may be “not real,” and that H2 cash may be smaller
• Counter-argument:
  • 116 GW of gas turbine orders/reservations on books
  • 20 GW signed in a single quarter
  • Target: at least 125 GW by end of this year

Analyst “tape”

• 37 analysts covering; 18 changed estimates
  • 8 raised, 10 lowered
  • Average estimate about where it started (split/down the middle)

Near-term catalyst / risk (implied)

• Pullback could run another quarter
• Would improve if future guidance and order strength keep confirming expectations

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2) Uber — “All three checks pass,” but ladder says wait/read again

Fundamentals

• FCF: $10.0B (up 19%)
• Sales Growth: +17%
• Operating Margin: 9.5% → 12.5%

Price context

• Stock is ~28% below its high

Primary risk theme: autonomy partnership unraveling

• Integration mentions Waymo (“Whimo” in subtitles)
• Waymo ended Phoenix version in June 2026
• Expected that Waymo likely exits Austin after 2028
• Risk framing: when Waymo leaves the app, it becomes a competitor rather than a partner

Uber’s autonomy spending / commitments (explicit numbers)

• Presenter frames autonomy spending as bets funded by cash flow:
  • ~$500M into Lucid
    • order up to 35,000 vehicles
    • plus >11% stake
  • Up to $1.25B into Rivian
  • ~$500M into Nuro
  • $300M into Wave
• Job cuts: 3,300 jobs (~10%)
• Target scale: ~$10B to deploy self-driving cars at scale
• “~120,000 vehicles committed by partners” (as stated)

Analyst “tape” & “political” signal

• 24 of 55 analysts changed estimates in the last month:
  • 21 raised, 3 lowered
  • average earnings estimate +9%
• Nancy Pelosi purchased $500k–$1M shares (end of May)
  • presenter says it’s the weakest signal and doesn’t change his view

Ladder buy range & action

• Ladder buy range: $103 (top) to $85 (bottom)
• Current price is below all of them
• Like GE Vernova: ladder indicates go back and read the business, not blindly buy

What would change his mind

• Monitoring item: whether autonomy commitments grow faster than free cash flow
• He suggests the “robo-taxi fear” may be a 2028 story, implying near-term monetization could lag and delay the worst outcome

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3) PayPal — “Cash and sales pass, margin fails,” but ladder says buy

Fundamentals

• FCF: $6.6B (up 25%)
• Sales Growth: +6% (12-month)
• Operating Margin:
  • 16.4% last quarter
  • down ~1.7 points YoY
  • management frames the decline as deliberate spending to regain branded checkout (“PayPal button”)

Valuation / market context

• Implied market cap: ~$45B
• Cash-yield framing: for every dollar to buy the business, it returns about ~15 cents/year in FCF
• Price is down 32% from the high

Event backdrop & timeline

• Late August 2026: Stripe + private equity offered $60.50/share to acquire PayPal
• “Now” (per subtitles): stock is priced well below that offer
• Board/management changes:
  • CEO replaced in early 2026
  • HP CEO brought in
• Branded checkout growth slowed to ~1%
• Buyers walked away over valuation disagreement; stock fell 13% the next day

Analyst “tape”

• 43 analysts covering; 34 changed in last month:
  • 31 raised (most bullish)
• Average price target implies only a couple percent more than current price
  • presenter’s framing: market views it as fully priced despite raises
• 33 of 43 ratings: Hold

Ladder buy range & recommendation

• Ladder says buy:
  • starter step begins at $74
  • full position starting at $66
  • current price is below both, so he would buy based on cash-flow focus
• Constraint / failure condition:
  • he says he would be wrong if margin keeps deteriorating after two quarters

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4) Intuitive Surgical (Da Vinci) — “All three checks pass,” but ladder says wait

Fundamentals

• Stock down 42% from high
• Sales Growth: +21%
• Operating Margin: 28% → 31%
• FCF: +62% to $3.2B

Business model details

• Da Vinci robots: ~11,700 installed globally
• Instruments/accessories are consumables:
  • $1.7B from instruments/accessories last quarter
  • $2.9B total revenue last quarter

Key negative catalyst / competitive threat

• Two events, 6 days apart: 1) Company beat its own numbers (July 2026) but stock fell 14% - US robot surgeries grew 12% vs usual 14% 2) FDA cleared Johnson & Johnson surgical robot “Otava” - approved for 10 general surgery procedures
• Presenter characterizes this as the first meaningful competitor after ~20 years of Intuitive Surgical dominance in soft tissue surgery

Analyst positioning & short-selling risk

• 25 of 33 analysts raised estimates; none lowered (described as a “clean sweep”)
• But presenter highlights short-selling risk:
  • ~7.0M shares sold short, up from 6.6–6.7M earlier (+5%)
  • Other shorts fell:
    • PayPal: short position -38%
    • GE Vernova: short position -22%
    • Uber: short position -10%
• He treats rising shorts as a specific caution signal here

Ladder recommendation

• Ladder does not say buy/starter; it says wait
• Starter band: $374 down to $333
• Since the price has only just dropped into the top of that band, he says:
  • he will wait until $333 is reached
  • “waiting is definitely not the same as selling”

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Cross-Stock Conclusion (Presenter’s Summary)

• Not one stock is “green all the way across” on his combined checklist:
  • GE Vernova: analyst split; ladder still not an immediate buy because it’s below the buy range
  • Uber: fundamentals pass; risk is cash burn vs autonomy commitments
  • PayPal: margin fails, but cash generation + sales growth pass; ladder says buy
  • Intuitive Surgical: fundamentals pass, but competitive threat + rising short interest → wait

Final argument

• If you require perfection (all signals aligned), you may wait too long and end up paying full price.

Final reminder/disclaimer

• Not financial advice; educational purposes

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Presenters / Sources

• Presenter: Brian (first-person narration; identity given only as “I’m Brian”)
• Sponsor company: Gold Group Mining Inc. (referenced in the video)
• Referenced external parties: Target and Amazon (presenter’s past employers), FINRA, and investor/political figure Nancy Pelosi