FarstarCapital
Research desk

The archive. Every report, fully sourced.

Nine published reports and two in production, filed under seven sector categories. Each runs 12,000–21,700 words, ships with its own data appendix, and is revised after every earnings cycle.

Published09
In production02
Total words157,200
Next releaseQ4 2026
Big Tech 4 published
NASDAQ: MSFT Published 24 sections 21 charts

Microsoft Corporation — The Franchise and the Furnace

Microsoft has the best business model in the compute stack and the largest fixed-cost commitment ever made by a software company. Azure crossed $100 billion and reaccelerated to 43%; the commercial backlog reached $678 billion, roughly a third of it traceable to a single customer; capital expenditure hit $115.9 billion; and the useful life of the assets it buys was extended from 15 years to 25 in the same year the depreciation arrives. Against that, long-term debt fell 22.6% to $31.1 billion, debt-to-equity is 0.29, and return on invested capital of 26.2% still clears the cost of capital by sixteen points. We rate the shares Constructive at $512.

Azure & AI capex Copilot economics Depreciation & useful life OpenAI position
Constructive
18 Sep 2026
19,000 words
62 min read
Open →
NYSE: IBM Published 26 sections 30 charts

IBM Corporation — The Displaced Incumbent

IBM is the enterprise vendor whose customers are the ones paying for the AI build-out: Software now carries 61% of segment profit but decelerated from 14% to 5% growth, IBM Z fell 42% in the quarter it lapped the strongest mainframe launch on record, and Consulting has been flat for two years. Against that, free cash flow is guided to $15.7 billion — a 7.0% yield — while net debt has risen $13.3 billion in six quarters to fund $17 billion of acquisitions, and $9.8 billion of pension underfunding sits behind a 116%-funded headline. We rate the shares Neutral at $248.

Hybrid cloud & Red Hat Mainframe cycle Free cash flow quality Pension & balance sheet
Neutral
17 Sep 2026
17,200 words
69 min read
Open →
NASDAQ: GOOGL Published 26 sections 27 charts

Alphabet Inc. — The Mark and the Machine

Alphabet's operating business has never performed better and its reported earnings have almost nothing to do with it. Google Cloud grew 82% at a 35.6% margin with $513.9B of contracted backlog; Search grew 17% through the rollout of the technology meant to destroy it. Against that, $200B of annual capital expenditure, the first negative free cash flow quarter since the 2004 IPO, a buyback cut to zero, and $99B of unrealised equity gains inside a single quarter's income statement. We separate the machine from the mark and rate the shares Constructive at $385.

Google Cloud & TPU Equity mark-ups Search under AI Capital intensity
Constructive
16 Sep 2026
17,900 words
72 min read
Open →
NASDAQ: AMZN Published 26 sections 19 charts

Amazon.com, Inc. — The Cost of Capacity

Amazon is now three businesses wearing one ticker: an accelerating cloud franchise at 37% growth with a $496B contracted backlog, a structurally improving retail machine, and a $190B stake in a private AI lab that never touches operating income but now determines a third of book equity. Against $220B of 2026 capital spending and negative free cash flow, we separate the operating business from the paper gains and ask what $248.42 per share already requires to be true.

AWS & AI capex Anthropic mark-ups Retail media Free cash flow
Neutral
16 Sep 2026
17,400 words
70 min read
Open →
AI No coverage yet
Biotech 1 published
NASDAQ: MRNA Published 32 sections 20 charts

Moderna, Inc. — The Platform and the Price

On 19 August 2026 intismeran autogene became the first individualised neoantigen therapy to meet a Phase 3 primary endpoint, and the shares rose 177% in two sessions. The science is real. The commercial base beneath it is not: revenue has fallen 89% from its peak, the US reimbursement channel has been closed by injunction since March, and the 2028 breakeven commitment requires growth of roughly 33% a year from a base that has been shrinking for four. We price the pipeline programme by programme and rate the shares Underweight at $110.

mRNA platform Neoantigen therapy Reimbursement policy Cash runway
Underweight
23 Sep 2026
21,700 words
86 min read
Open →
Digital Assets 1 published
NASDAQ: MSTR Published 29 sections 20 charts

Strategy Inc. — The Reverse Flywheel

846,000 bitcoin, a $63.8 billion cost basis, and a software business that is now a rounding error: the treasury is the company. For four years the machine worked because the shares traded above the value of the coins behind them — that condition no longer holds. Behind the bitcoin sit $21.2 billion of senior claims, a $1.76 billion annual dividend strip, and 88% of the convertible stack puttable inside twelve months. We work through what $153.92 already requires to be true, and why we rate the shares Neutral at $145.

Bitcoin treasury Digital credit mNAV & the flywheel Index eligibility
Neutral
21 Sep 2026
18,400 words
73 min read
Open →
Fintech 1 published
NASDAQ: HOOD Published 28 sections 22 charts

Robinhood Markets, Inc. — The Rent on Restlessness

A record $1.31 billion quarter with a 57% adjusted EBITDA margin — and 23% of the profit came from a one-off accounting gain. Event contracts now contribute $156 million a quarter while roughly twenty US states litigate whether the product is illegal gambling, two federal circuits disagree, and crypto revenue has fallen 60% from its peak. We separate the brokerage from the wager and ask what $119.82 per share already requires to be true.

Prediction markets Crypto cycle Tokenised equity Net interest spread
Neutral
19 Sep 2026
16,200 words
64 min read
Open →
Semi 1 published
NASDAQ: NVDA Published 24 sections 16 charts

NVIDIA Corporation — The Price of a Bottleneck

NVIDIA is the most valuable company in the world and, on our numbers, the most misunderstood. This report separates the operating business from the financial engineering around it: $96.2B in quarterly revenue, 75% gross margins, and a $99B buyback authorization — alongside a 64-day DSO, $24.9B of new debt, and $23.7B of non-operating equity gains booked in six months. We model three futures and arrive below consensus.

AI accelerators Export controls Circular financing Valuation
Constructive
15 Sep 2026
12,400 words
42 min read
Open →
Platform Economy 1 published
NASDAQ: SHOP Published 28 sections 20 charts

Shopify Inc. — The Storefront and the Agent

Shopify earned $3.58 billion of revenue in the June quarter, up 34%, at an 18% free cash flow margin, with payments penetration at 68% of a $115.6 billion GMV base — and the stock is down 19% this year. This report tests the reason: whether AI agents standing between the merchant and the buyer are a threat to the storefront or the reason to own it. We work through the agentic disclosures, the take rate, a lending book growing at 50% a year with limited disclosure, and arrive at a genuinely two-sided distribution. We rate the shares Neutral at $132.

Agentic commerce Payments take rate Merchant credit Enterprise migration
Neutral
21 Sep 2026
16,400 words
66 min read
Open →
In production Thematic · multi-issuer
HBM / Advanced packaging In production Est. 11,000 words

The Narrowest Bottleneck — HBM4, CoWoS, and the Cost of Stacking

Every accelerator is gated by memory bandwidth and packaging capacity. We map SK hynix, Micron, and Samsung's HBM4 ramp against TSMC's CoWoS-L expansion and ask a simple question: who captures the economics of the constraint?

Pending
Target: Q4 2026
Status: drafting
Coverage: 6 issuers
Power & thermal In production Est. 9,500 words

Megawatts Before FLOPS — The Grid Becomes the Constraint

Interconnection queues now run longer than construction schedules. We model turbine backlogs, transformer lead times, and liquid-cooling attach rates to size the real ceiling on AI capacity additions through 2030.

Pending
Target: Q1 2027
Status: research
Coverage: 8 issuers
Standards

Publication standards

Revision policy

Reports are living documents. Each is re-cut after the issuer's quarterly filing, and the revision history is published at the foot of the report with a dated changelog. We do not silently edit a thesis.

Sourcing standard

Figures are attributed to a filing, a press release, a transcript, or a named third-party dataset. Where a number is our estimate, it is labeled as an estimate in the chart note.

Conflict policy

We hold no positions in covered issuers at publication. Any future position will be disclosed in the report footer and on this page, updated within five business days.

Error policy

Material errors are corrected in place with a dated note. We publish a correction even when the error is immaterial to the conclusion, because the alternative is a slow erosion of trust.