Prediction markets are taking the financial world by storm. Kalshi and Polymarket have gone from under $1 billion in combined monthly trading volume to over $40 billion in just one year, a 30X explosion fueled by the World Cup, the NFL, elections, and even bets on AI milestones. In this episode of 7investing Live, Simon Erickson is joined by Brett Schafer and Ryan Henderson of the Chit Chat Stocks podcast to break down what this meteoric rise means for investors.We dig into how prediction markets actually work: peer-to-peer event contracts regulated by the CFTC, take rates of just 0.7-1.5% versus the 7-10% cut traditional sportsbooks capture, and why that efficiency gap could be a massive disruption threat to online sports betting giants like DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG) and FanDuel parent Flutter Entertainment (NYSE:FLUT). We also explore which brokerages stand to benefit; Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ:IBKR) and Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) are racing to bring event contracts onto their platforms, and whether derivatives exchange CME Group (NASDAQ:CME), now trading near its cheapest valuation in a decade, is being unfairly punished by the market.Plus: the ethical concerns around insider trading and political betting, the coming regulatory showdown between the states and federal government, and our panel's picks when forced to choose between Interactive Brokers, Robinhood, Kalshi, Polymarket, and DraftKings at today's valuations.0:00 - Introduction to Prediction Markets and Chit Chat Stocks1:56 - Predicting the Winner of the 2026 World Cup3:26 - Prediction Market Trading Volumes and the Growth Drivers8:28 - Overview of Kalshi and Polymarket and how they differ from Casinos and Online Sports Betting12:03 - Impact to Brokerages: Robinhood and Interactive Brokers14:07 - Controversial Topics: Government-related events and cracking down on bad behaviors16:19 - The shifting role of state-based and Federal regulations18:32 - DraftKings and the scalability of consumer-facing platforms26:15 - Robinhood and Interactive Brokers and the upside for brokerages29:02 - Closing Game! Which stock would you invest in: Interactive Brokers, Robinhood, Kalshi, Polymarket, or DraftKings? Publicly Traded Companies Mentioned:Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ:IBKR)Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD)DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG)Flutter Entertainment / FanDuel (NYSE:FLUT)CME Group (NASDAQ:CME)Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE)Spotify (NYSE:SPOT)Boeing (NYSE:BA)Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)Duolingo (NASDAQ:DUOL)SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX)Private / Pre-IPO Companies Mentioned:Kalshi (~$22B valuation, Series F)Polymarket (~$15B valuation)AnthropicFiscal AIWant to see all of our official stock recommendations? Visit https://7investing.com/subscribe get your first 7 days of premium access completely freeFind more of Brett and Ryan's stock research at chitchatstocks.substack.comand www.youtube.com/@UCG5Ni-SI-jyrEsoNUhqftNQ Hashtags#7investing #SimonErickson #PredictionMarkets #Kalshi #Polymarket #DraftKings #InteractiveBrokers #Robinhood #stocks #investing #sportsbetting #stockmarket

Is Cerebras Systems the next great AI chip stock or a red-hot IPO priced for perfection? In this episode of 7investing Live, Simon Erickson and executive producer Heather Horton welcome back Nick Rossolillo, co-founder of Chip Stock Investor, to break down three of the market's biggest stories.First up: Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ:CBRS), the wafer-scale chip maker that just IPO'd at a $40+ billion market cap. With 44GB of SRAM embedded directly on the chip, Cerebras was purpose-built to solve AI's "memory wall" problem for inference workloads. Now it's reportedly landed a ~$10 billion order from OpenAI and a deal with Amazon Web Services that could top $20 billion. Simon and Nick dig into whether these massive orders are real, how Cerebras stacks up against NVIDIA's GPUs and hyperscaler custom silicon, the TSMC capacity bottleneck that could throttle its growth, and how to value a company trading near 20x sales without profits.Then the conversation turns to Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB), which has pulled back from $150 to around $70 per share. Simon shares the latest iteration of his discounted cash flow valuation, and the duo debates the proposed Iridium acquisition — a deal that could pull Rocket Lab to EBITDA-positive on a pro forma basis — plus what the long-awaited Neutron rocket launch means for the company's future.Finally: Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX). After another quarter of decelerating revenue guidance, is the streaming giant now a value stock rather than a growth stock? Nick explains why the advertising business hasn't reaccelerated growth the way he expected, and what he'd need to see before buying the dip.Plus: Nick's take on the recent chip stock sell-off across NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom, SanDisk, and Kioxia and why "stocks go up, stocks go down" might be the healthiest way to think about it.Subscribe for more deep dives on AI infrastructure, semiconductors, and innovative growth stocks!Start your FREE 7-day trial of 7investing: https://www.7investing.com/subscribeFollow Nick and Casey Rossolillo at Chip Stock Investor: https://chipstockinvestor.comRocket Lab Deep Dive videos mentionedPart 1 https://youtu.be/AMDd0-JKUH0 (Deep Dive)Part 2: https://youtu.be/Z76xTGFNwBA (Valuation)Companies MentionedPublicly Traded:Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ:CBRS)Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB)Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX)NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD)Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO)Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU)Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM)Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)Iridium Communications (NASDAQ:IRDM)SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK)Kioxia Holdings (TSE:285A)Globalstar (NASDAQ:GSAT)SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX)Private / Pre-IPO:OpenAIAnthropicVideos Mentioned:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z76xTGFNwBA&t=3shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMDd0-JKUH0&t=987sHere's the shifted chapter list, with all timestamps moved back 55 seconds:0:00 Welcome to 7investing Live0:54 Cerebras Systems: IPO recap & the Wafer-Scale Engine2:31 Is NVIDIA even the right comparison for Cerebras?5:38 The memory wall: why bigger AI models need new chips8:52 Latency vs. throughput — and the new AI alliances10:46 Are the $10B OpenAI & $20B Amazon orders real?14:02 Cerebras risks: how do you value a hot IPO?17:27 The TSMC capacity bottleneck20:01 Heather's take on Cerebras20:41 Rocket Lab: the sell-off & Iridium acquisition24:34 Simon's DCF valuation & price target for RKLB29:05 Why Neutron changes everything30:12 Q&A: Does Peter Beck carry an "Elon premium"?31:36 Netflix: buying opportunity or cheap for a reason?36:57 Q&A: Is Netflix a growth stock or a value stock?39:03 Chip stocks selling off: normal volatility or a warning?42:57 Wrap-up & final thoughts#7investing #Simonerickson #Cerebras #CBRS #NVIDIA #AIinvesting #semiconductors #chipstocks #RocketLab #RKLB #Netflix #NFLX #AIinference #stocks #investing #stockmarket #TSMC #AIdatacenters

Want access to all our investing content? Join at 7investing.com/subscribe Join the conversation on the 7investing discord: https://discord.com/invite/PT9ZQqdXXSEvery federal agency in the United States must be quantum-safe by December 2030. That NIST mandate is the starting gun for one of the most under-the-radar investment themes in the market, and Arqit Quantum Inc. (NASDAQ:ARQQ) is positioning itself directly in its path. Simon Erickson and Heather Horton dig into this $500 million micro-cap, its turbulent history, and why it might be one of the most intriguing early-stage ideas on the 7investing watch list.The threat Arqit is solving is real: the encryption that secures virtually all internet traffic today is built on mathematical problems classical computers can't break but quantum computers theoretically can. Arqit's answer is symmetric key encryption (the ARQ19 protocol), delivered through their QuantumCloud platform, which generates real-time quantum-safe encryption keys that a quantum computer couldn't reverse-engineer. Their newest product, Encryption Intelligence, monitors live network traffic for quantum vulnerabilities end-to-end — and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has integrated it into their accelerator hardware as a channel partner.The backstory is messy and worth knowing. Arqit raised $400 million in a 2021 SPAC IPO at a $1.4 billion valuation before having a commercial product, on claims from founder David Williams that the technology could secure "every connected device in the world." British cybersecurity researchers disputed those claims, Williams pushed back too hard, and he ultimately stepped down. New CEO Andy Lever, an engineer-turned-operator, has since grounded the company's ambitions in what actually works. The revenue base is tiny: $623,000 in H1 2026, up ~10x from $67,000 in H1 2025. Eleven contracts in place now versus seven for all of fiscal 2025. The math is early-stage but the trajectory is moving in the right direction.Simon isn't going all-in, a founder exit is a red flag worth respecting, and the valuation is built almost entirely on future promise. But Arqit is officially on the 7investing watch list alongside Quantinuum (NASDAQ:QNT), the much larger ~$20 billion quantum computing platform company. For investors willing to take a basket approach across early quantum names, Arqit represents exactly the kind of picks-and-shovels play that tends to produce 10x or 20x returns if you get in early enough in a foundational technology cycle.Stocks & Companies Mentioned:Arqit Quantum Inc. (NASDAQ:ARQQ)Quantinuum (NASDAQ:QNT)IonQ (NYSE:IONQ)Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)#ArqitQuantum #ARQQ #QuantumComputing #PostQuantumCryptography #CybersecurityStocks #QuantumSecurity #MicroCapStocks #GrowthStocks #TechStocks #EarlyStageInvesting #QuantumInvesting #CyberSecurity #StocksToWatch #InvestingIn2026 #7investing #Simonerickson

Three massive semiconductor and computing developments are reshaping the future of AI infrastructure — and 7investing's Simon Erickson sits down with Nick Rossalillo of Chip Stock Investor to break them all down. First up: Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ:CBRS), which just went public on May 13th at $185/share (~$40 billion valuation) and is now trading near $46 billion at 90x trailing sales. The company's Wafer Scale Engine, a chip that uses an entire silicon wafer rather than individual diced chip, was designed specifically for AI inference workloads that NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) GPUs struggle to handle efficiently due to on-chip SRAM limitations. With potential $20 billion in orders from OpenAI and access via AWS, Cerebras is real, but neither Simon nor Nick is buying at this price. Their rule: wait a year before touching a fresh IPO.Next, SpaceX's freshly-raised $75 billion gets put under the microscope, specifically Elon's ambition to build orbital data centers. Nick walks through the SpaceX diagram: 70-meter solar panel wingspan, laser-based networking between compute modules, and the massive engineering challenges around power, heat dissipation, and in-orbit assembly. This isn't imminent, Starlink's next-gen constellation comes first — but if Elon can crack the economics, it would rewrite the rules of data center infrastructure entirely.Finally, Huawei's Tau Scaling announcement: a new architectural approach to chip performance that bypasses the need for extreme ultraviolet lithography (which China can't access due to ASML export controls). Tau temporal scaling focuses on minimizing signal travel time between transistors using logic folding, new materials, and 3D stacking. Huawei claims it could reach 1.5 nanometer equivalent performance by 2031. Simon and Nick are skeptical — 381 chips in six years is not mass production, and TSMC (NYSE:TSM) will be well past that node by then but it's worth watching as China continues building workarounds to Western export restrictions.Whether Moore's Law is dead or simply rerouting, the chipmaking industry is more innovative and more investable than it's been in decades.Join the conversation on the 7investing discord: https://discord.com/invite/PT9ZQqdXXSWant access to all 7investing research? Join at 7investing.com/subscribe Follow Chip Stock Investor  @chipstockinvestor  and https://chipstockinvestor.com/0:00 - Introduction to 7investing and Chip Stock Investor0:54 - Is Moore's Law Dead? A review of scaling semiconductor manufacturing3:08 - Cerebras Systems' recent IPO. How is their Wafer Scale Engine different than NVIDIA's GPUs, how does this impact Moore's Law, and is the stock a buy today?21:12 - SpaceX's recent IPO. Elon wants to build and launch orbital data centers. How does SpaceX plan to use the $75 billion it raised, what are the challenges it faces, and is the stock a buy?28:16 - Huawei's Tau scaling. Could this new chip architecture make ASML's extreme ultraviolet lithography obsolete, and what are its chances of succeeding?39:39 - Outro, final thoughts, and audience questionsStocks & Companies Mentioned:Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ:CBRS)NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)AMD (NASDAQ:AMD)SpaceX (SPCX)Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company / TSMC (NYSE:TSM)ASE Technology Holding / ASE Group (NYSE:ASX)Vicor Corporation (NASDAQ:VICR)ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML)Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT)Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX)Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)Amazon / AWS (NASDAQ:AMZN)Alphabet / Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL)AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS)Samsung Electronics (KRX:005930)Huawei — private (Chinese company)OpenAI — privateLuckin Coffee (OTC:LKNCY) — mentioned as cautionary example#Semiconductors #MooresLaw #CerebrasSystems #CBRS #AIChips #NVIDIA #SpaceX #OrbitalDataCenters #HuaweiTech #TauScaling #ChipStocks #AIInvesting #TechStocks #GrowthStocks #StockMarket #InvestingIn2026 #7investing #Simonerickson

While the market chases AI stocks and IPOs at 90x sales, Simon Erickson is looking in the opposite direction, at CME Group (NASDAQ:CME), the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a business that doesn't care if markets go up or down. It just needs them to move. CME Group sits at the center of global derivatives trading across six asset classes, interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agriculture, and metals, capturing the bid-ask spread on every contract that clears through its platform. Q1 2026 delivered all-time records in both revenue (up 14% to nearly $2 billion) and average daily volume (36.2 million contracts/day, up 22%), with record volumes across all six product lines simultaneously.0:00 - Introduction and Overview of CME Group as a business3:31 - Review of CME's six product classes 6:41 - Review of Q1 2026 Results (from our 7investing Community Forum)8:42 - Why Kevin Warsh as the new Fed Chair will be important for CME Group10:48 - New Retail product lines: Crypto, e-mini futures, and even compute pricing14:18 - A look at CME Group's current valuation and why the stock has been selling off16:19 - Why we recently upgraded CME Group to a "Strong Buy" conviction rating 18:32 - Q&A with audience questions + a review of CME Group's capital allocation policiesThe business model is exceptional: near-zero variable costs as volumes scale, massive network effects, and a 70% operating margin in Q1 2026, up 250 basis points year over year. With geopolitical uncertainty (Iran oil prices, Russia/Eastern Europe conflict, China tariff tensions) and a brand new Federal Reserve Chairman in Kevin Walsh navigating rate policy, Simon believes 2026 and 2027 will bring more volatility, not less. That's directly in CME Group's favor. The company is also launching new products including Bitcoin volatility futures, e-mini S&P 500 and NASDAQ options at one-tenth standard contract size (opening the door to retail investors), and a first-of-its-kind AI compute futures product in partnership with Silicon Data Partner.CME Group is also returning serious capital to shareholders: a longstanding variable dividend policy that pays out 50% of annual earnings, plus a $3 billion share repurchase authorization, $500 million of which was deployed just last quarter, with $2.5 billion still available. CEO Terry Duffy is transitioning out after a decade at the helm, handing off to 20-year company veteran Lynn Fitzpatrick (currently President and CFO), in what Simon views as seamless succession planning. This is a company that knows exactly what it is and executes flawlessly.7investing upgraded CME Group to strong buy conviction in November 2024, the stock returned 51% by March 2026, nearly tripling the S&P 500 return over the same period. They've just upgraded it to strong buy again in June 2026. The stock has pulled back significantly from its March highs, and valuation multiples on price-to-earnings, price-to-sales, and price-to-free-cash-flow are all at five-year lows. If you want a stock that hedges against market chaos rather than suffering through it, CME Group is worth a serious look.Discuss CME Group with us in our 7investing Community Forum! https://discord.com/invite/PT9ZQqdXXSStocks & Companies Mentioned:CME Group (NASDAQ:CME)Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) — teased for upcoming Friday episodeKalshi — private (prediction markets competitor)FMX Exchange — private (interest rate futures competitor)FanDuel — private (CME prediction markets partner)Silicon Data Partner — private (CME compute futures partner)#CMEGroup #CME #StockAnalysis #ValueInvesting #DividendStocks #HiddenGems #MarketVolatility #DerivativesTrading #InterestRates #Bitcoin #CryptoFutures #InvestingIn2026 #UndervaluedStocks #GrowthStocks #7investing #Simonerickson

Want access to all our investing content? Join at 7investing.com/subscribe Join the conversation on the 7investing discord: https://discord.com/invite/PT9ZQqdXXSRocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) peaked near $150 a share earlier this year, powered by SpaceX IPO excitement and space sector momentum. Now it's trading at $83. Simon Erickson and Heather Horton revisit the full discounted cash flow model Simon built three weeks ago and walk through the three things that will actually determine where Rocket Lab goes from here.First, and most importantly: Space Systems, not launch, is the real business. The launch vehicle gets all the headlines, but manufacturing satellites and signing long-term contracts with the Space Defense Agency, NASA, and the Department of Defense is what's building Rocket Lab's moat. Total backlog stood at $2.2 billion in Q1 2026, and Simon has already modeled that nearly doubling to $4.3 billion by year-end, an aggressive assumption that he thinks the business can support. By the end of the forecast window (fiscal 2041), space systems could represent 85–90% of total revenue. The launch is just the delivery mechanism.Second: operating leverage is real and accelerating. Rocket Lab is redeploying headcount from R&D into production — meaning their employee base is essentially converting from overhead into cost-of-goods-sold as Neutron approaches the pad. SGNA and R&D headcount both declined even as the business grew in fiscal 2025. This is CFO Adam Spice making a deliberate call that Neutron is no longer an R&D project, it's a product. Gross margin and scalability metrics look unusual right now as a result, but that's a transition signal, not a warning sign.Third: Rocket Lab's cost of capital is about to get a lot cheaper. The company is almost entirely equity-funded right now, which carries a ~10.3% discount rate in Simon's model. But with real assets in the ground, a credible operating history, and convertible debt already in the toolkit, Simon expects Rocket Lab to access debt markets at 5-6% in 2026 and 2027. If the WACC drops from 10.3% to even 8%, it directly and materially boosts the DCF fair value. The $150 price wasn't justified. The $83 price is much more interesting but watch those three variables.Stocks & Companies Mentioned:Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB)SpaceX (NASDAQ — newly IPO'd June 2026)Arqit Quantum (NASDAQ:ARQQ) — teased for upcoming Monday episodeQuantinuum — teased for upcoming Monday episode#RocketLab #RKLB #SpaceStocks #StockAnalysis #DCFValuation #GrowthStocks #SpaceInvesting #NeutronRocket #Starlink #SpaceX #StocksToWatch #InvestingIn2026 #ValueInvesting #TechStocks #7investing #Simonerickson

SpaceX just made history, raising $75 billion in the largest IPO the stock market has ever seen, now trading on NASDAQ at a $1.8 trillion valuation. 7investing's Simon Erickson break downs what you actually need to know as an investor. The SpaceX empire spans X (formerly Twitter, 600M users), xAI (the Grok-powering AI infrastructure running out of the 2-gigawatt Colossus data center), and 10,000 Starlink satellites serving 10 million subscribers across 164 countries. The scale is genuinely unprecedented.But the numbers tell a more complicated story. SpaceX did $20 billion in revenue last year, pricing it at 90x trailing sales, and generated just $1 billion in Q1 operating cash flow against $10 billion in quarterly capital expenditures. The company is burning cash aggressively, and the entire long-term thesis rests on Elon Musk executing on missions no company has ever attempted: orbital data centers, Starship, and eventually a Mars colony. This isn't a software company where you flip a switch and double revenue. These are physical, capital-intensive bets measured in decades.Simon and Heather are both passing on the IPO. The key man risk alone, Elon simultaneously running SpaceX, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), X, and xAI, is the largest concentration of founder dependency in stock market history. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) fans know this playbook: extraordinary vision, breakthrough results, but timelines that consistently slip years past what Elon says publicly. Full self-driving still isn't there. Orbital data centers won't be either, at least not on the schedule the prospectus implies.Near term, Starlink is the real business the only one generating meaningful cash flow and it's what will sustain SpaceX while Elon bets big on everything else. Expect another capital raise in 2026 and again in 2027. The real question for investors isn't whether SpaceX can change the world. It probably will. The question is whether a $1.8 trillion valuation gives you any margin of safety while it gets there. Right now, Simon and Heather say no.Join the conversation on the 7investing discord: https://discord.com/invite/PT9ZQqdXXSWant access to all our investing content? Join at 7investing.com/subscribe Stocks & Companies Mentioned:SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX)Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB)xAI — private (subsidiary within SpaceX conglomerate)X (formerly Twitter) — private (subsidiary within SpaceX conglomerate)OpenAI — private#SpaceX #SpaceXIPO #ElonMusk #Starlink #IPOInvesting #SpaceStocks #TechIPO #GrowthStocks #StockMarket #StocksToWatch #TechStocks #SpaceInvesting #InvestingIn2026 #7investing #Simonerickson

Three massive semiconductor and computing developments are reshaping the future of AI infrastructure — and 7investing's Simon Erickson sits down with Nick Rossalillo of Chip Stock Investor to break them all down. First up: Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ:CBRS), which just went public on May 13th at $185/share (~$40 billion valuation) and is now trading near $46 billion at 90x trailing sales. The company's Wafer Scale Engine, a chip that uses an entire silicon wafer rather than individual diced chip, was designed specifically for AI inference workloads that NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) GPUs struggle to handle efficiently due to on-chip SRAM limitations. With potential $20 billion in orders from OpenAI and access via AWS, Cerebras is real, but neither Simon nor Nick is buying at this price. Their rule: wait a year before touching a fresh IPO.Next, SpaceX's freshly-raised $75 billion gets put under the microscope, specifically Elon's ambition to build orbital data centers. Nick walks through the SpaceX diagram: 70-meter solar panel wingspan, laser-based networking between compute modules, and the massive engineering challenges around power, heat dissipation, and in-orbit assembly. This isn't imminent, Starlink's next-gen constellation comes first — but if Elon can crack the economics, it would rewrite the rules of data center infrastructure entirely.Finally, Huawei's Tau Scaling announcement: a new architectural approach to chip performance that bypasses the need for extreme ultraviolet lithography (which China can't access due to ASML export controls). Tau temporal scaling focuses on minimizing signal travel time between transistors using logic folding, new materials, and 3D stacking. Huawei claims it could reach 1.5 nanometer equivalent performance by 2031. Simon and Nick are skeptical — 381 chips in six years is not mass production, and TSMC (NYSE:TSM) will be well past that node by then but it's worth watching as China continues building workarounds to Western export restrictions.Whether Moore's Law is dead or simply rerouting, the chipmaking industry is more innovative and more investable than it's been in decades.

Join the conversation on the 7investing discord: https://discord.com/invite/PT9ZQqdXXSWant access to all 7investing research? Join at 7investing.com/subscribe Follow Chip Stock Investor  @chipstockinvestor  and https://chipstockinvestor.com/

Stocks & Companies Mentioned:

Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ:CBRS)

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD)

SpaceX (SPCX)

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company / TSMC (NYSE:TSM)

ASE Technology Holding / ASE Group (NYSE:ASX)

Vicor Corporation (NASDAQ:VICR)

ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML)

Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT)

Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX)

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)

Amazon / AWS (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Alphabet / Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS)

Samsung Electronics (KRX:005930)

Huawei — private (Chinese company)

OpenAI — private

Luckin Coffee (OTC:LKNCY) — mentioned as cautionary example

#Semiconductors #MooresLaw #CerebrasSystems #CBRS #AIChips #NVIDIA #SpaceX #OrbitalDataCenters #HuaweiTech #TauScaling #ChipStocks #AIInvesting #TechStocks #GrowthStocks #StockMarket #InvestingIn2026 #7investing #Simonerickson

Join the conversation on the 7investing discord: https://discord.com/invite/PT9ZQqdXXSWant access to all our investing content? Join at 7investing.com/subscribe Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) just reported $11 billion in Q1 fiscal 2027 revenue, and the stock is still trading at less than 13x free cash flow, a valuation that Salesforce itself apparently finds too cheap. The company borrowed $25 billion in a single quarter to execute an accelerated share repurchase, reducing its diluted share count by 10% in 90 days as part of a $50 billion buyback authorization. Simon Erickson breaks down why this is one of the most aggressive and under-appreciated capital return stories in enterprise software right now.Beyond the buyback, the real growth engine is Agentforce, Salesforce's AI agentic platform, which is tripling year over year and now generating $3.4 billion in annual recurring revenue combined with its Data 360 customer record platform. With 1.6 billion agentic work unit interactions already logged and a $67 billion remaining performance obligation backlog, Salesforce is positioning itself as the largest and most embedded AI enterprise software platform in the world, one that has spent two decades accumulating the customer data that AI agents actually need to work properly.Simon argues Salesforce has successfully navigated the transition that's destroyed many SaaS peers: moving from per-seat licensing to usage-based AI credits, internalizing AI to reallocate 4,000 customer service jobs into revenue-generating roles, and growing its AI revenue at 200% year over year. With a long-term target of $63 billion in fiscal 2030 revenue (already raised from $60B), a growing dividend, and a management team putting real capital behind the buyback, this is a very different company than the hyper-growth Salesforce of a decade ago, and possibly a more reliable one for long-term investors.0:00 - Introduction and Overview of Salesforce's business1:13 - Review of Q1 2027 results4:36 - A closer look at the Agentforce AI platform6:48 - Why Salesforce is an "Underappreciated Winner in the AI Software World"7:55 - Investor Day Commitments for Fiscal 20309:48 - Why Salesforce's Accelerated Repurchase Plan is important11:06 - Review of Salesforce as an investment opportunity12:20 - Q&A and audience questionsStocks MentionedSalesforce (NYSE:CRM)Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:PLTR)Oracle (NYSE:ORCL)Informatica (NYSE:INFA) — acquired by Salesforce#Salesforce #CRM #AIAgents #EnterpriseAI #SaaSStocks #TechStocks #ShareBuyback #StockAnalysis #Q1Earnings #GrowthStocks #StocksToWatch #InvestingIn2026 #7investing #Simonerickson

Both CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) and Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) just reported strong results, 24% ARR growth and a 34% free cash flow margin for CrowdStrike, and 25% revenue growth with 600%+ year-over-year flexible booking growth for Zscaler. But the stocks couldn't be more different: CrowdStrike is up 56% over the last 12 months trading at 128x free cash flow, while Zscaler is down 54% and now trading at just 24x free cash flow. Simon Erickson breaks down what's actually driving the divergence and which one he'd buy today.The key story in both earnings reports is Falcon Flex and Z Flex, flexible subscription platforms that let enterprise customers bundle modules and swap product lines without being locked into rigid contracts. CrowdStrike's Falcon Flex is now $2 billion of its $5.5 billion ARR, up 99% year over year, with 26% of customers proactively renewing early. Zscaler's Z Flex bookings jumped from $65 million to $480 million in a single year. This flexibility is becoming the dominant go-to-market model in cybersecurity, and both companies are executing it well.So why is Zscaler so cheap? Conservative 2027 guidance of 15-16% growth, partly because of its Red Canary acquisition for AI agent security, spooked the market. But Simon argues this is classic Zscaler sandbagging: the company consistently beats conservative guidance, Red Canary is already exceeding internal expectations (guidance raised from $130M to $137M ARR), and at 7x sales and 24x free cash flow, the valuation gap versus CrowdStrike is hard to justify. His verdict: if he's buying one today, it's Zscaler.Stocks Mentioned:CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD)Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS)SentinelOne (NYSE:S)ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML)Alphabet / Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL)#CrowdStrike #Zscaler #Cybersecurity #CybersecurityStocks #AIStocks #GrowthStocks #TechStocks #StockAnalysis #BuyTheDip #StocksToWatch #InvestingIn2026 #7investing #Simonerickson