📊 2026 IPO Watchlist

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Happy Sunday!

I hope you all had an incredible Christmas and New Year surrounded by friends and family.

• And a warm welcome to the hundreds of new subscribers who recently joined us.

• We are now 44,300+ investors and growing.

Going forward, the structure of the newsletter will be straightforward.

• Each Sunday, you’ll receive a flagship edition like this one, covering the most important infographics and market insights.

• Every 2 weeks or so, I’ll also share a deep dive on a specific company, offering a clear viewpoint and a hard take on the story.

Looking forward to navigating another year in the markets together in 2026.

Key Data Bites From This Week:

• Bloomberg compiled 2026 outlooks from more than 60 institutions.

• Bank of America said 6 stocks will lead the $1T chip surge in 2026.

• Nvidia plans to buy Israel-based AI startup AI21 Labs for up to $3B.

• Meta will acquire AI startup Manus for more than $2B.

• Meta’s Reels has achieved an annual run rate exceeding $50B.

• OpenAI has average stock-based compensation of $1.5M per employee.

• Sam Altman is offering a $555K salary for the most daunting role in AI.

• Tesla reported a 16% decline in fourth quarter deliveries.

• World’s richest people added record $2.2T to their collective wealth.

• Global dealmaking crossed $4T for the third time ever in 2025.

• Five things to know about Nvidia’s $20B Groq licensing deal.

• SoftBank has completed its $40B investment in OpenAI.

• SoftBank will buy AI infrastructure investor DigitalBridge in $4B deal.

In today’s newsletter:

• 📈 Best S&P 500 Stocks In 2025

• 📉 Worst S&P 500 Stocks In 2025

• 🕰️ 98 Years Of The S&P 500

• 🏋️‍♀️ Nvidia & Google Carried The S&P 500

• 🔎 2026 IPO Watchlist

Let’s jump right in.

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Memory is in a full-blown supercycle.

• Some of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 this year share a common thread.

• They sit at the center of AI data storage and memory, where high-capacity hardware has become a critical bottleneck for model training and data centers.

SanDisk led the group with nearly 600% returns, driven by surging demand for NAND flash after its spinoff from Western Digital.

• Western Digital followed close behind, while Seagate also ranked among the top performers.

• Micron posted another standout year as high-bandwidth memory became essential for powering advanced GPUs.

Outside of the memory players, Palantir made the list yet again, marking its third consecutive year of triple-digit returns.

Not every stock benefited from the AI wave.

Among the worst performers in the S&P 500 were Trade Desk and Fiserv.

• Trade Desk struggled after posting its first revenue miss in eight years, alongside heavier competition in digital advertising.

• Fiserv sold off sharply after cutting guidance unexpectedly, triggering an ongoing lawsuit tied to alleged inflated growth claims.

Consumer names like Deckers and Lululemon also suffered as valuations reset and domestic growth slowed.

Research firms such as Gartner and FactSet were hit as well, as AI is increasingly viewed as a structural threat to premium data and research models.

Time in the market continues to beat timing the market.

• As Peter Lynch once said: far more money has been lost preparing for corrections than in corrections themselves.

• The past few years have proven that lesson once again.

• Despite widespread concerns about froth, sitting on the sidelines would have been costly.

The S&P 500 closed 2025 up 18%, marking its third straight year of double-digit gains.

• In 2023 and 2024, the index rose 26% and 25% respectively.

• Three or more consecutive years of double-digit returns have occurred only a handful of times in history.

So who powered the S&P 500’s gains? A very small group.

• Nvidia and Alphabet alone drove nearly 30% of the index’s 2025 return.

• The top four stocks accounted for 43.55%.

• Everyone else? 56.45%.

This should serve as a clear reminder of just how concentrated market leadership has become.

Massive names could enter the market in 2026.

After a year where a handful of mega-cap stocks drove index returns, the next wave may be just as big.

• SpaceX is reportedly targeting an IPO later in 2026 at a valuation near $1.5T, with plans to raise more than $30B.

• That would make it the largest public listing in history.

• OpenAI and Anthropic are also rumored to be preparing IPOs, at valuations of roughly $1T and $350B.

If even part of this pipeline materializes, 2026 could become the biggest IPO year ever.

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Notable Companies Reporting Earnings Week of January 4th, 2025:

Buys

• Josh Gottheimer (D)

  • Company: CSW Industrials ($CSW)

    • Amount Purchased: $1K - $5K

Sells

• Josh Gottheimer (D)

  • Company: Fidelity National Information Services ($FIS)

    • Amount Sold: $15K - $50K

Buys

• Lesaka Technologies ($LSAK)

  • Insider: Ali Mazanderani (Executive Chairman)

    • # of Shares Purchased: 1,800,000

    • $ Amount: $9,000,000

    • SEC Forms: [1]

• Nike ($NKE)

  • Insider: Elliott Hill (President & CEO)

    • # of Shares Purchased: 16,388

    • $ Amount: $1,001,307

    • SEC Forms: [1]

Sells

• Intuit ($INTU)

  • Insider: Scott Cook (Director)

    • # of Shares Sold: 150,000

    • $ Amount: $100,874,038

    • SEC Forms: [1], [2]

• Snap ($SNAP)

  • Insider: Evan Spiegal (CEO)

    • # of Shares Sold: 1,258,850

    • $ Amount: $10,072,059

    • SEC Forms: [1]