Editor's Notes: * My hypothesis is that investors largely believe in AI's disruptive power and long-term value, but the excess liquidity, high valuation of a few concentrated names (e.g. NVIDIA and like), and narrative fatigue are turning investors away. The natural act now is to
Editor's Notes: * Companies I'd look into: Enerpac (hydraulic machinery space, 13x fwd EV/EBIT, ~6% FCF yield), Jabil (construction & engineering space, now focusing more on AI racks, 13.5x fwd EV / EBIT, ~6% FCF yield), Kobe Bussan (food products / grocery stores, 20x EV/EBIT, 2-
Editor's Notes: * As AI overvaluation debates continue, investors still reacted positively to memory chip shortages (memory chip shortages been going on for a while, but market still seems surprised by MU earnings). The broadening of AI impact may continue in 2026, as the investors find unexpected consequences / bottlenecks
Editor's Notes: * Generated the following recent development review on Luckin, given recent news (potential bid for Blue Bottle), and stock price jump yesterday (~10%), see earlier digest. * I love Luckin for 3 reasons: (1) low cost advantage at scale, which is a sustainable moat against others, (2) aggressive
Editor's Notes: * Rotation out of AI top names continued in the US, and investors looking for value opportunities outside the US. I am in the camp believing in the long-run continued demand for AI / compute, and success of AI apps, so I would look out to "
Investment
Editor's Notes: * Everything related to electricity is hot (e.g. GEV doubled this year)... so we surveyed the upstream electrical equipment sector a few days ago. Then we found everything is expensive, except Nidec. * Nidec's 12x P/E is super cheap relative to its positioning - making
Editor's Notes: * No significant new themes - caution around AI, EV, JP interest rate increase and China economy, overall pointing to short-term profit-taking at year end. * No names caught my eyes today. Crocs indeed is super cheap now, but lacking near-term catalyst. And the narrative-driven
Editor's Notes: * US listed hotels are either too expensive or face challenges (e.g. declining RevPAR), and I'd stay away given cycle phase. * Cruise line are getting too much positive attention than they deserve. See the newsletter from yesterday (incl. Jim Cramer's bullish call)
Investment
Editor's Notes: * A follow-up spotlight piece on an interesting Japanese brand from yesterday's Global Apparel & Footwear sector quick take. * "Streetwear" powerhouse - parent of the Onitsuka Tiger (casual fashion brand recently revived as a key growth driver). Globally diversified, with Europe largest (30%
Editor's Notes: Given some readers' interest, below is a short synthesis based on recent podcasts on the anticipated Japan interest hike (decision to announce by BOJ on Dec 19). Japan interest rate going from 0.5% to 0.75% (25bps) is highly certain at this point, and
We usually don't cover macro in our newsletters. This is an one-off experiment. Let us know if you do / don't like this type of content (info@distilla.ai). Editor's Notes: * Low birth / aging - "In the early stages of demographic transition, there'
Investment
Note: covers last 24 hours (incl. US trading) and includes repetitive content vs Dec 15 Asia brief 8 hours ago. Editor's Notes: * Year-end Garbage Time: A. continued technical pressures on AI stocks - (a) US retail investors burnt by recent pullback (Reddit read below), (b) holiday rotations / cash-