Buy ONTO Immediately
Buy Onto Innovation (ONTO).
The man who invented one of the most popular buying and selling indicators on Wall Street says this stock could soon benefit from a big surge in Wall Street "smart money."
But BEFORE you act on this information, we strongly urge you to view his full briefing.
He found this stock by using the Power Gauge.
It's a system that shows you stock ratings of thousands of companies that trade on the U.S. market... built by a Wall Street legend who's been profiled on CNBC for the accuracy of his predictions and recommendations.
The last time he used his system to issue a free recommendation, it went on to soar 100%.
Click here for the full details.
Regards,
Kelly Brown
Host, Chaikin Analytics
P.S. We're sharing his recommendation with you (free of charge) because his system is pointing to an even bigger, once-in-a-generation opportunity right now...
Here's just a snapshot of the massive runups his bullish ratings have pointed to over the last 18 months ALONE:
- 934% in 2 months on NEGG
- 2,754% in 13 months on AZ
- 2,234% in 2 months on QUBT
- 2,164% in 3 months on BSGM
- 253% in 12 months on VRT
- 114% in 10 days on PHAT
- 142% in 2 months on SEZL
- 145% in 14 days on DFDV
- 496% in 3 months on AEVA
Click here to learn why he recommends ONTO right now.
3 Major Buybacks Just Dropped—Here's the Signal Investors See
Reported by Leo Miller. Date Posted: 2/23/2026.
Key Points
- Walmart, Lyft, and Equitable each announced sizable repurchase authorizations, signaling continued focus on per-share value creation.
- Lyft’s buyback capacity is the most aggressive relative to market cap, while Walmart’s is the largest in absolute dollars.
- Equitable pairs buybacks with a dividend and a rebound narrative, with analysts still forecasting meaningful upside.
- Special Report: [Sponsorship-Ad-6-Format3]
Several major companies just expanded their share repurchase authorizations, giving them fresh capacity to retire stock in 2026. In a market where buybacks are increasingly important for per-share results, that kind of firepower can provide a meaningful tailwind—especially when growth is uneven and investors are scrutinizing capital allocation.
The headlines span three very different corners of the market: a consumer staples heavyweight, a beaten-down ride-hailing name, and a financial services firm overseeing more than $1 trillion in assets. The scale also varies widely, from sizable to outsized, with one new authorization totaling nearly 18% of the company's market value.
Walmart Announces Biggest Buyback Ever as Shares Climb
1,500 Banks Just Handed the Fed Your Bank Account (Ad)
Currently, $2 TRILLION worth of transactions go through the traditional network every single day. But soon, it will be funneled through the new network that the Federal Reserve has built, operates and can see in real time.
That's the part buried in the Federal Reserve Docket No. OP-1670.
In fact, on page 84 of the 93-page document, they admit that it will make it easier to track the spending of Americans.
First up is retail behemoth Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT). Walmart delivered an impressive performance in 2025, with a total return of roughly 24%. Even after a post-earnings pullback, the stock remains up about 10% in 2026 as investors have rotated into consumer staples early in the year.
Despite the recent pullback, Walmart continues to demonstrate solid financial momentum, especially around its e-commerce push. E-commerce sales rose 24% year-over-year (YOY) last quarter and reached a record 23% of revenue. Advertising revenue increased 37% and membership income rose 15%—important drivers of margin improvement for the company.
Capping its strong year, Walmart announced the authorization of a $30 billion share buyback program—its largest to date. The new program equals roughly 3.1% of Walmart's about $980 billion market capitalization, giving the company substantial ability to reduce outstanding shares and providing a tailwind to earnings-per-share growth. Notably, shares outstanding fell by around 0.8% in 2025.
Walmart also announced a 5% increase to its quarterly dividend, underscoring a two-pronged strategy of returning capital to shareholders. The stock's indicated dividend yield now sits near 0.8%.
LYFT Holds +15% Buyback Capacity as Shares Get Hit in 2026
Ride-hailing company LYFT (NASDAQ: LYFT) produced a very strong 50% return in 2025. The stock has fallen sharply in the new year, down more than 25%, after LYFT's latest earnings report—revenue of $1.59 billion, up 3% YOY versus $1.76 billion expected—triggered a drop of more than 20% over two days.
Adjusted EBITDA rose 37% to $154 million, beating estimates, but Q1 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $120 million to $140 million was weak.
LYFT also announced a $1 billion share repurchase plan. With a market capitalization of around $5.6 billion, that program represents roughly 17.8% of the company's value. LYFT accelerated buybacks in 2025, spending about $500 million on repurchases—tenfold what it spent in 2024—which allowed outstanding shares to decline for the first full year. The company's share count fell by around 3.7% in 2025, supporting per-share metrics, and the new authorization suggests that trend can continue.
EQH Expects to Rebound in 2026, Announces $1B Buyback
Last up is financial services company Equitable (NYSE: EQH). Equitable shares returned just 3% in 2025 and are down more than 5% in 2026. The company offers insurance, annuities and retirement planning, and manages $1.1 trillion in assets under management and administration—a figure that rose about 10% in 2025.
The stock has struggled over the past year, with Equitable missing adjusted EPS estimates for five consecutive quarters and sales estimates in three of those periods. After adjusted EPS rose only 1% in 2025, Equitable expects a stronger 2026, forecasting EPS growth above its long-term target of 12%–15%.
Supporting that outlook, the company announced a $1 billion share buyback program, equal to roughly 8% of its $12.5 billion market capitalization.
In 2025, Equitable appears to have taken advantage of a weaker share price, repurchasing about $1.45 billion and reducing outstanding shares by roughly 9% year-over-year. The new authorization preserves the firm's ability to continue returning sizable capital. The stock also carries an indicated dividend yield near 2.4%.
Analysts Express Confidence in EQH Going Forward
Overall, WMT, LYFT and EQH all look positioned to keep reducing their share counts in 2026. Aligning with its rebound narrative, Equitable shows the most upside potential among these names, according to Wall Street analysts. The MarketBeat consensus price target for EQH of just over $62 implies about 41% upside. The consensus price target for LYFT implies a similar upside, though targets fell sharply after the company's latest report.
AI Is Separating Software Winners From Losers, 2 Experts Explain
Written by Bridget Bennett. Article Posted: 2/26/2026.
Key Points
- The software sell-off looks less like an industry collapse and more like a market-driven separation between AI beneficiaries and AI-disrupted businesses.
- Altimetry’s Uniform Accounting work argues select leaders have been repriced for pessimistic growth assumptions despite durable moats and strong fundamentals.
- Some beaten-down SaaS names may still be risky because switching costs, data advantages, and product breadth matter more than “down big” charts.
- Special Report: [Sponsorship-Ad-6-Format3]
The software correction has been relentless. Charts continue trending lower, and investor confidence is starting to crack. Asked whether this is a falling knife or a rare buying window, Rob Spivey and Professor Joel Litman of Altimetry Research framed the moment not as a collapse, but as a separation.
Litman drew an immediate parallel to last year's semiconductor scare following China's DeepSeek headlines. At the time, fear dominated the narrative. Today, semiconductor leaders sit at new highs.
1,500 Banks Just Handed the Fed Your Bank Account (Ad)
Currently, $2 TRILLION worth of transactions go through the traditional network every single day. But soon, it will be funneled through the new network that the Federal Reserve has built, operates and can see in real time.
That's the part buried in the Federal Reserve Docket No. OP-1670.
In fact, on page 84 of the 93-page document, they admit that it will make it easier to track the spending of Americans.
"This is very similar," Litman explained. "We are in that kind of an AI productivity boom… it is still a bull market."
The key difference now: investors must distinguish between software companies positioned to benefit from AI and those vulnerable to disruption.
The Market Is Pricing Panic—Not Fundamentals
Spivey described how Altimetry approached the sell-off: they evaluated 126 software companies using Uniform Accounting and ranked them on AI durability, switching costs, system of record status, and integration strength.
The result, Spivey said, is a stark divide.
"It's really separating the wheat from the chaff," Litman added.
While some SaaS firms face legitimate risk, others are being repriced as if their businesses are collapsing—despite solid fundamentals and durable competitive moats.
Litman emphasized that corrections inside bull markets typically recover quickly. "You're talking quarters, not years, for this kind of recovery," he said.
With that backdrop, Spivey highlighted three software names he thinks investors should be leaning into—not away from.
Microsoft: At the Center of AI, Not at Risk From It
First up: Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).
Spivey was unequivocal: Microsoft isn't threatened by AI—it is powering it. Between Azure infrastructure, enterprise integration, authentication layers, and ecosystem depth, switching costs are extraordinarily high.
Despite that dominance, Microsoft shares have fallen roughly 20% in recent months. Under Uniform Accounting, Spivey says the valuation disconnect is glaring.
"This is only a 20-times uniform P/E company right now," Spivey said. (P/E is short for price-to-earnings ratio.)
Altimetry's analysis suggests the market is pricing Microsoft for just 6% annual earnings growth, while the firm believes 14% growth is achievable. With Azure demand constrained not by weakness but by data-center capacity, Spivey suggested sentiment—not fundamentals—is weighing on the stock.
AppLovin: Narrative Fear vs. Marketplace Reality
The second name: AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP), the mobile app advertising marketplace.
Recent fears around "vibe-coded" AI ad platforms sparked sharp selling, pushing shares down more than 30%. But Spivey argues those fears ignore the company's real moat: data.
AppLovin operates a marketplace used by major tech platforms to place ads in mobile apps. Its proprietary dataset, combined with integrated AI optimization, creates a feedback loop that is difficult to replicate. According to Spivey, the market is paying roughly 22 times earnings for a business expected to grow earnings north of 60% annually over the next few years—yet current pricing implies just 20% growth.
For Spivey, this disconnect reflects narrative panic, not competitive deterioration.
Intuit: Security, Ecosystem, and Switching Costs
The third opportunity: Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU).
Shares have fallen roughly 40% amid fears that AI tools could replace TurboTax and QuickBooks. Spivey pushed back, arguing that security, integrations, and ecosystem depth provide durable protection. Are consumers truly going to upload sensitive tax documents and financial histories to experimental AI tools? Spivey is skeptical. Beyond security, Intuit's ecosystem—from payments to budgeting tools—creates meaningful friction for users considering switching.
Uniform Accounting also tells a different profitability story. While GAAP numbers look modest, Altimetry's adjustments reveal a business generating returns roughly five times corporate averages.
At approximately 16 times Uniform earnings and priced for minimal growth, Spivey sees asymmetric upside potential.
The Software Names to Avoid
If some stocks are mispriced to the upside, others remain vulnerable—even after large declines.
Litman highlighted HubSpot (NYSE: HUBS) and DocuSign (NASDAQ: DOCU) as two examples.
Both have fallen 35% to 40%. Yet, even after Uniform adjustments, Litman says they trade at elevated multiples—roughly 65 to 70 times earnings.
HubSpot's risk lies in its customer base. Serving primarily small and mid-sized businesses, its clients can switch platforms far more easily than large enterprises with embedded systems of record.
"Without the switching costs, what's the reason that they can't continue to lose against the AI tools that are coming online?" Litman asked.
DocuSign faces a different issue: product concentration. E-signature technology, while useful, lacks proprietary data advantages or meaningful barriers to replication by larger platforms.
In Litman's framework, high multiples combined with limited moats and rising AI competition create unfavorable risk-reward setups.
Separation, Not Collapse
The broader takeaway from Spivey and Litman is not that software is broken—it's that investors must be selective.
The AI productivity cycle remains intact. Uniform Accounting suggests several leaders are being mispriced as casualties rather than beneficiaries. At the same time, not every beaten-down SaaS name deserves a rebound.
For investors navigating the volatility, the message is clear: distinguish between companies at the center of AI infrastructure and those exposed to commoditization.
Corrections can feel indiscriminate in the moment. But as this conversation made clear, the recovery—when it comes—may reward those who focus on fundamentals rather than fear.
This email message is a sponsored email from Chaikin Analytics, a third-party advertiser of Earnings360 and MarketBeat.
This ad is sent on behalf of Chaikin Analytics, 201 King Of Prussia Rd., Suite 650, Radnor, PA 19087. If you would like to optout from receiving offers from Chaikin Analytics please click here.
If you need assistance with your account, please don't hesitate to email our South Dakota based support team at contact@marketbeat.com.
If you no longer wish to receive email from Earnings360, you can unsubscribe.
Copyright 2006-2026 MarketBeat Media, LLC. All rights protected.
345 North Reid Place, Sixth Floor, Sioux Falls, S.D. 57103. United States..
No comments:
Post a Comment