Whether it’s an AI application or the 2-nm processor in the iPhone 18: A critical production step requires a lithography system from $ASML (+0,41 %) . With an estimated market share of around 90%, the Dutch company is effectively a monopoly and thus one of the more quiet beneficiaries of AI, the cloud, and digitalization.

The Q3 figures show just how well things are going right now. Revenue is up 55% from the previous year, operating profit has more than doubled, and the full-year forecast has been raised to €44 to 45 billion. Due to high demand, ASML also expects dynamic growth for 2027 and 2028, and the well-filled order book ensures a high degree of predictability.

However, the story isn’t entirely without its challenges;

about 70% of revenue comes from the ten largest customers, such as$2330 ,$SMSN (-3,27 %) or $INTC (-1,93 %) . China’s share of product revenue has fallen from about 41% to roughly 33%, and export restrictions have become increasingly stringent. Further tightening remains a real risk, as does the typical cyclicality of the semiconductor industry.

The question remains: Is the valuation premium for such a market position justified, or has much of it already been priced in?

👉 The complete analysis, including the business model, risks, and outlook, is available in the verlinkten Artikel.

This article is part of an advertising partnership with Société Générale

Monday, October 12

🇯🇵 All day: Tokyo Stock Exchange closed (Sports Day)

🇺🇸 All day: U.S. bond markets closed (Columbus Day – U.S. stock markets open as usual, with lower liquidity)

Tuesday, October 13

🇩🇪 8:00 a.m.: Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Germany (September, final)

🇺🇸 2:15 p.m.: ADP Employment Report

Wednesday, October 14

🇨🇳 3:30 a.m.: Consumer Price Index (CPI) & Producer Price Index (PPI) for China (September)

🇺🇸 2:30 p.m.: U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) & Core Rate (September) – The week’s most important event for interest rates, the U.S. dollar, and indices 🌶

Thursday, October 15

🇬🇧 8:00 a.m.: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) UK (August)

🇺🇸 2:30 p.m.: U.S. Retail Sales (September) 🌶

🇺🇸 2:30 p.m.: U.S. Producer Prices (PPI) (September)

🇺🇸 2:30 p.m.: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims

🇺🇸 2:30 p.m.: Philadelphia Fed Index (October)

Friday, October 16

🇪🇺 11:00 a.m.: Eurozone Consumer Price Index (CPI) (September, final) 🌶

🇺🇸 3:15 p.m.: U.S. Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization (September)

$UNH (+2,49 %)
$JPM (+0,9 %)
$GS (+0,52 %)
$WFC (+0,55 %)
$DMP (-1,44 %)
$JNJ (+0,1 %)
$ASML (+0,41 %)
$2330
$MS (+0,63 %)
$FAST (+0,39 %)
$AA (-4,1 %)
$WISE (-0,81 %)

In August, gold mines were the market's top performers. In September, they were the most expensive. Fresnillo
$FRES (-3,31 %) down 15 percent, Micron
$MU (-1,01 %) up 17. At the end of the month, the Wikifolio was up 1.03 percent, and one day later, I swapped out 18 of 30 positions.

September was all about interest rates and oil. Brent rose above $100 in the second week and, following a Saudi pipeline outage, briefly hit $110. U.S. inflation stood at 3.4 percent in August. On September 16, the Fed raised the benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to 3.75 to 4.00 percent, for the first time since July 2023. The 10-year U.S. yield subsequently climbed to 5.19 percent, a level last seen in 2007. This hardly bothered tech stocks. The Nasdaq hit a record high on September 21, and AMD has been worth one trillion dollars ever since. The situation was different in Europe. German inflation jumped to 3.3 percent, and the DAX lost about four percent over the month.

📊 Monthly performance: +1.03%

📊 Price as of September 30: €117.97

📊 Largest loss since inception: −14.6%

📊 Max performance: +18% (since March 13, 26)

Next rebalancing: Early January 2027

Performance & Comparison 🚀

The U.S. indices posted clear gains when calculated in euros, with the Nasdaq leading the way. The Wikifolio did not keep pace. It lagged behind the Nasdaq, S&P 500, and FTSE All-World, and outperformed only the DAX.

Performance Comparison (September 1–30, 2026, end of day):

Global Quant 6-Factor: +1.03%

NASDAQ 100: +4.18%

S&P 500: +2.90%

FTSE All-World: +1.95%

DAX: −4.07%

You can see what caused this in the two lists below. Tech stocks delivered, while mining stocks and a few individual stocks ate up a good chunk of those gains.

Purchases & Sales 💶

None in September itself. The model trades only on four dates per year, and the third was on October 1. What happened then is detailed in its own section below.

Top Movers in September 🟢

The month belonged to semiconductors and memory stocks. Midway through the month, Intel’s CEO said the company could currently only meet about half of the demand for processors. After that, the entire industry picked up steam. Micron
$MU (-1,01 %) topped the list with +16.91%, followed by SanDisk
$SNDK (-3,76 %) at +13.90% and TSMC
$2330 at +11.85%. Lam Research
$LRCX (+1,39 %) rose +11.12%, ASML
$ASML (+0,41 %) +10.06%. In between is Comfort Systems $FIX (-0,98 %) , a stock that has nothing to do with chips, up 10.47%. In August, Comfort Systems was still among the losers.

September’s Big Losers 🔴

Gold and silver declined in September, with silver falling much more sharply. Rising yields and a stronger dollar weighed on prices. Mining stocks followed suit. Fresnillo
$FRES (-3,31 %) lost −14.53%, Coeur Mining
$CDE (-6,59 %) −10.65%, and Endeavour Mining $EDV (-0,82 %) -7.50%. In August, all three were still on the other list with gains of over 25 percent. Merlin Properties fell −8.98%, Airtel Africa
$AAF (+0,58 %) down 7.76%, and Interactive Brokers
$IBKR (-0,12 %) fell by 6.79%.

Rebalancing on October 1 🔄

On October 1, the third rebalancing since the start took place. I swapped out 18 of 30 positions—more than ever before. In July, it was nine.

All nine banks are out: Bankinter
$BKT (+1,2 %) , CaixaBank
$CABK (+3,44 %) , BBVA
$BBVA (+1,28 %) , UniCredit
$UCG (+2,18 %) , BPER
$BPE (+2,19 %) , Monte dei Paschi $BMPS (+0,31 %) , Banca Mediolanum
$BMED (+1,07 %) , Swedbank$SWED A (+0,77 %) and HSBC
$HSBA (+0,3 %) . In addition, Interactive Brokers $IBKR (-0,12 %) , Antofagasta $ANTO (-2,39 %) , Coeur Mining
$CDE (-6,59 %) , AppLovin
$APP (-3,01 %) , Airtel Africa
$AAF (+0,58 %) , Merlin Properties and Solaria
$SLR (-3 %) . Investor AB
$INVE B (+1,33 %) and Pershing Square
$PSH (+0,42 %) are also no longer in the portfolio. So four of the six underperformers listed above are no longer in the portfolio.

Six stocks from the healthcare sector were added: Eli Lilly
$LLY (+1,9 %) , Bristol-Myers
Squibb
$BMY (+1,36 %) , Vertex $VRTX , Incyte
$INCY (-0,78 %) , Illumina
$ILMN (-2,14 %) and WuXi AppTec
$603259 . Five are from the semiconductor and storage sectors: Seagate
$STX (-0,66 %) , Marvell
$MRVL (-0,79 %) , Applied
Materials
$AMAT (+0,46 %), Teradyne
$TER (+0,49 %) and KLA
$KLAC (+2,14 %) . The rest is split among Fortinet
$FTNT (+1,1 %) , CF Industries
$CF (+3,11 %) , Marathon Petroleum
$MPC (+0,09 %) , APA
$APA (+2,3 %) , Pop Mart $9992 (+2,77 %) , Hong Kong Exchanges
$388 (-0,78 %) and Lion Finance
$BGEO (+1,87 %) .

Twelve remain: SanDisk, Micron, Western Digital, Nvidia, Lam Research, TSMC, ASML, Alphabet, Comfort Systems, Fresnillo, Endeavour and Newmont. All six of September’s top movers are included.

Two names stand out. Applied Materials and KLA I sold on July 1, up 92 and a gain of 90 percent. Now both are back in my portfolio. The model doesn’t remember what it has sold in the past. It only looks at where a stock stands in the ranking today.

Conclusion 💡

The portfolio looks different after October 1 than it did before. In September, about 41 percent was still in financial stocks; now there are two positions out of 30. Instead, 12 out of 30 are in semiconductors and memory, and six are in the healthcare sector. There’s no sector limit; the model sorts by score, not by industry. Trading won’t resume until early January.

How was your September? And did you hold onto your stocks after the pullback, or did you sell them? 👇

➡️ Every month, you’ll find the complete Wikifolio update here, along with research in between.

📈 Wikifolio $DE000LS9V052 (-0,1 %)

With a population of 5.63 million, that comes out to €28,419 per capita. The largest holdings are Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and TSMC. That’s how a stock-based pension works.

$AAPL (-0,05 %)
$MSFT (-1,35 %)
$NVDA (-5,05 %)
$2330

With a population of 5.63 million, that works out to €28,419 per capita. The largest holdings are Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and TSMC. That’s how a stock-based pension works. 🤑📈

First, I’d like to officially @Tenbagger2024 officially welcome back from the sidelines! 🫡 It’s great to have you back!

I hope you were able to enjoy your time off, recharge your batteries 🪫, and return with new energy 🔋 and your usual strength 💪. The community has definitely missed a familiar name—without your insights and analyses, things here were almost a little too quiet. 🙇‍♂️

And what can I say: Your comeback came even faster than that of the German national soccer team after their latest setbacks—so the bar wasn’t set too high. 😂⚽

With that in mind: Welcome back, my friend! I’m excited to see which companies you’ll pull out of your sleeve this time and which candidates will once again be scrutinized mercilessly. 💀

————————————————————————-

While the market focuses its attention on the usual suspects, there are always companies that fly largely under the radar. One such candidate has been on my watchlist for quite some time and is now on the verge of making the leap into my portfolio.

Today, I’d like to show you why I consider this company (another stock from Japan) to be an extremely exciting investment candidate.

Today’s focus is on Hoya Corp $7741 (-1,83 %)

HOYA Corp.: The Invisible Monopoly of the Optics & Chip World

While the stock market is fixated on $ASML (+0,41 %) ASML’s EUV lithography machines or the mass production of wafers by $2330 , a Japanese heavyweight has established itself in the shadow of the tech giants—one without which not a single sub-3nm processor can be manufactured in the age of AI and semiconductors: HOYA Corporation. $7741 (-1,83 %)

HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) does not manufacture finished microchips or hospital diagnostic devices. HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) supplies the physically perfect, high-precision materials upon which all global progress in the chip industry and medical technology is built.

The difference from ordinary suppliers is enormous: HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) combines the explosive, high-margin growth of the AI and semiconductor sectors with the crisis resilience of a global medical technology monopoly.

1. The Business Model: The Highly Profitable Dual Engine ⚙️👁️

HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) scales through a perfectly balanced two-pillar model that hedges the cyclical dynamics of the tech world with defensive healthcare cash flows:

① Information Technology (IT) Segment (~46–48% of revenue):

• EUV Photomask Blanks: High-purity quartz glass blanks that serve as photomasks for the most advanced chip manufacturers (sub-3nm, high-NA EUV). HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) holds a virtual global monopoly in this sector (>80% market share).
• HDD Glass Substrates: Ultra-flat glass substrates for high-capacity hard disk drives in data centers. Glass enables higher storage densities than aluminum—essential for the data deluge generated by AI hyperscalers.
• Operating Margin: A staggering ~54.1%! This segment is a true money-making machine that benefits directly from the AI and semiconductor boom.

② Life Care Segment (~52–54% of revenue):

• Products: Optometry (eyeglass lenses, contact lenses) and MedTech (PENTAX endoscopes, intraocular lenses for cataracts).
• Operating Margin: Extremely solid ~18.1%.
• Competitive advantage: Provides a crisis-resistant, non-cyclical foundation. Even if the semiconductor industry stagnates, people will still undergo eye surgeries and purchase vision aids.

2. The Technology: Why Sub-3nm & AI Data Centers Would Fail Without HOYA

HOYA’s unique physical selling point $7741 (-1,83 %) lies in its its mastery of glass and materials science at the nanometer scale. Two key drivers make HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) indispensable:

• EUV lithography & high-NA EUV: When exposing state-of-the-art chips with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light, the photomask must be free of any molecular deviations. A tiny defect on the mask can ruin millions of chips. HOYA’s blank materials offer a defect density close to zero. Without HOYA, $7741 (-1,83 %) , there would be no yield for $AAPL (-0,05 %) Apple Silicon, $NVDA (-5,05 %) Nvidia GPUs, or $AMD (+1,46 %) AMD processors.

• HDD glass substrates for AI data centers: Cloud storage space is growing exponentially. Conventional aluminum platters in hard drives bend under extremely high rotational speeds and multiple layers. HOYA’s specialty glass is stiffer, flatter, and enables significantly higher storage capacities per hard drive.

The Validation Moat: Just as with tooling suppliers, the approval of a new mask blank or glass substrate at TSMC $2330 , Samsung $005930 or Intel $INTC (-1,93 %) is a multi-year qualification process. The switching costs for chip manufacturers are immense.

3. Geographic Distribution: Global Players with Little Home Bias 🌍

HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) is listed in Tokyo, but generates just under 85–88% of its revenue abroad. This provides protection against Japan’s domestic demographic trends and yields massive currency advantages when the yen is weak:

REGION :

🇹🇼🇰🇷🇨🇳ASIA/China

Revenue share: ~35%–38%

Key drivers: semiconductor foundries (TSMC, $2330 Samsung $005930 ) IT packaging hubs

🇪🇺Europe

~28%–30%

Strong life care medtech business (eyewear & endoscopes)

🇺🇸North America

~20%–22%

Data center hyperscalers & U.S. chip design (EUV/HDDS)

🇯🇵Japan

~12%–14%

Medtech sales & optical R&D/manufacturing sites

4. Key Financial Metrics (Fundamental Analysis & Financial DNA) 📊

• Market Capitalization: ~6.8 to 7.2 trillion JPY (approx. 42–45 billion EUR) – A true global tech/medtech mega-cap on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
• Revenue Growth (Segment Dynamics):
• IT segment:
  +36% YoY (strongly driven by EUV blanks and AI-driven HDD demand).
• Life Care Segment:
  +9% YoY (stable, non-cyclical anchor).
• Consolidated EBIT margin:
  ~35–38% – Due to the IT division’s high profit contribution (54.1% margin), the overall performance is on par with the software sector.
• Return on Invested Capital (ROIC):
  >22% – Indicates excellent opportunities for reinvestment and high capital efficiency.
• Free Cash Flow Margin:
  >22% – HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) consistently converts operating profits into true FCF.
• Balance Sheet Strength: Net debt/EBITDA is negative (net cash). HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) has an extremely large cash reserve and faces absolutely no refinancing risk.

5. Why is this stock exciting? 🚀

The undisputed “hockey stick” segment (EUV boom): As the chip industry switches to high-NA EUV machines from ASML, the demand for even more precise mask blanks is rising dramatically. HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) benefits from every technological leap in the semiconductor industry.

Defensive safety net: If the semiconductor market enters a cyclical correction, the defensive MedTech segment (Life Care) cushions the valuation and ensures rock-solid cash flows.

At the heart of the AI infrastructure hub: HOYA $7741 (-1,83 %) benefits twice when it comes to AI: once through the production of logic chips (EUV) and once through the storage of massive amounts of AI data (HDD glass substrates).

6. Risks ⚠️

• Geopolitics in East Asia: Since the majority of the IT business is handled by foundries in Taiwan 🇹🇼 and South Korea 🇰🇷, there is a significant concentration risk in the event of a China-Taiwan conflict.
• U.S. Export Restrictions: Tighter U.S. sanctions against the Chinese chip industry could dampen shipments of high-end substrates and blanks.
• Exchange rate sensitivity (JPY): As a highly export-oriented company (85–88% of revenue from overseas), a sudden appreciation of the yen leads to foreign exchange losses on the balance sheet.

🎯 EARNINGS PREP: What to watch for in the next earnings report?

The upcoming quarterly results (Q1 of fiscal year 2027) from HOYA Corp. are just around the corner:

📅 Date:
Thursday, July 30, 2026 (or July 31, depending on the time zone)

⏱ Time: HOYA typically publishes $7741 (-1,83 %) releases its results around 1:30 p.m. JST (approx. 6:30 a.m. German time).

📊 Reporting Period: Just-ended first quarter (3 months ending June 30, 2026).

💡 Analyst expectations (consensus)

Revenue: ~$1.55 to $1.57 billion (driven largely by continued demand in the IT/EUV segment).

Earnings per Share (EPS): ~$1.15

For the upcoming earnings update, the key metrics will primarily focus on the IT division and margin trends. The following points should be on your radar:

1.🎭 EUV & High-NA Blank Volume: Will the strong year-over-year growth in the IT segment (+36%) be confirmed? Pay attention to statements regarding the ramp-up of high-NA EUV photomasks at TSMC and Intel.

2.🏭 HDD Glass Substrate Demand (Hyperscaler Capex): Will call-off volumes for glass substrates continue to rise due to AI data center expansion? This is the second major driver in the IT sector.

3. 🤖Margin Stability in the IT Segment: Can the operating margin in the IT sector hold at the extremely high level of >54% , or will R&D costs for the next sub-2nm generations put pressure on profitability in the short term?

4.🩺 Life Care Stability Check: Will the MedTech segment maintain its steady currency-adjusted growth of ~8–9% YoY with an operating margin of just under ~18%? (Any deviation would indicate weaknesses in the end-consumer market for eyeglass lenses).

5. 💴Yen Effect (FX Tailwinds/Headwinds): To what extent does the exchange rate distort the reported JPY figures compared to organic growth abroad (85–88% of revenue generated overseas)?

My Personal Conclusion & Reaper Rating 🧐

I find that Hoya Corp. $7741 (-1,83 %) has been incredibly exciting for quite some time now. To me, the company is the textbook example of a perfect hybrid model: On the one hand, it has a virtually irreplaceable monopoly business that supplies an essential key component for the world’s most advanced semiconductors. On the other hand, the strong, defensive medtech business, with its crisis-proof margins, provides stability that excellently cushions the cyclical fluctuations of the semiconductor sector.

It’s precisely this combination that makes Hoya $7741 (-1,83 %) so extraordinary to me. The company combines enormous structural growth with a defensive quality that is extremely rare to find in this form.

Of course, Hoya $7741 (-1,83 %) still highly valued, no question about it. However, the stock has already pulled back a bit from its ATH, thereby reducing part of its ambitious valuation. For me, this currently presents an exciting opportunity to gradually build a position in a company that’s been on my watchlist for a long time 👀🙇‍♂️

💀Jack’s Verdict:

Jack’s Take: “If you’re looking for the perfect CRV on the stock market, sooner or later you’ll end up at HOYA. While the masses, in search of the next hype, are chasing after every shovel seller, HOYA holds the monopoly on the specialty glass from which the shovels are forged in the first place.

With the AI and high-NA EUV boom in full swing, the IT division is raking in profits thanks to >54% margin , it’s printing money like a printing press. If the semiconductor cycle stutters briefly, HOYA remains completely unfazed and continues to sell millions of eyeglass lenses, endoscopes, and cataract lenses. You’re not buying a highly speculative tech bet here, but a highly profitable, net-debt-free fortress with a built-in airbag.”

• REAPER RATING: 🟢 BUY (Quality Compounder)
• REAPER SCORE:
  8/10 · Anchor 7–9 (Monopoly-like dual compounder)

@Get_Rich_or_Die_Tryin
@Tenbagger2024
@Raketentoni
@PikaPika0105
@Stocktective
@schlimmschlimm
@Multibagger
@Dividendenopi
@Simpson and, of course, all the others ✌️

China's AI company Moonshot unveiled its new flagship model "Kimi K3" —and in independent tests, it’s nearly on par with the best models from Anthropic and OpenAIin independent tests, which may have contributed to the sharp decline in AI stock prices.

What happened?

Moonshot AI, a Chinese AI company with a valuation of approximately $31.5 billion, has unveiled its new model, Kimi K3. By comparison, Anthropic and OpenAI are each projected to be valued at over $1 trillion —more than 30 times that amount.

Key figures:

Size: 2.8 trillion parameters (= the “adjustment screws” that store the model’s knowledge—roughly speaking: the more there are, the more powerful the model, but also the more expensive it is to run). This makes K3 the largest model ever to come out of China.

Open-Weight: Moonshot plans to make the model available for free download by July 27—companies could then run it on their own hardware without paying licensing fees to Moonshot. As of now, however, it’s only available through Moonshot’s paid interface.

Context: Capable of processing 1 million tokens at a time (tokens = text units; 1 million tokens correspond roughly to 750,000 words).

Unknown: The actual training costs. Anthropic also published evidence in February 2026 that Chinese labs had copied U.S. models via “distillation” (= a model learns by querying and imitating vast amounts of responses from another model). Whether and to what extent this plays a role in K3 remains unclear.

The comparison: How much do the models cost—and how smart are they?

Pricing is per 1 million tokens, broken down by input (what you send to the model) and output (what it responds with):

Kimi K3 (Moonshot): $3 input / $15 output – Intelligence Index: 57

Claude Fable 5 (Anthropic): $10 / $50 – Intelligence Index: 60 (1st place)

GPT-5.6 Sol (OpenAI): $5 / $30 – Intelligence Index: 59

Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic): $5 / $25 – Intelligence Index: 56

Grok 4.5 (xAI): $2 / $6 – the most affordable model among the top performers

DeepSeek V4 Pro (China): approx. $0.44 / $0.87 – low-cost segment, but index only 44

The Intelligence Index comes from Artificial Analysis, an independent testing provider that compares models across nine task areas (programming, logic, knowledge work) on a scale of up to 100.

Strengths – K3 trails the leader, Fable 5, by only 3 points, but costs only one-third as much per output token ($15 instead of $50) and half as much as GPT-5.6 Sol. In Artificial Analysis’s practical test, completing a task with K3 cost an average of $0.94—compared to $1.04 for GPT-5.6 Sol and $1.80 for Opus 4.8. When it comes to building web interfaces, K3 even took first place in blind tests with real developers.

Weakness – K3 isn’t quite as cheap as the headline suggests: It costs three to four times as much as its predecessor, is the most expensive model among its Chinese competitors, and, according to tests, “burns” up to 1.9 times as many tokens as GPT-5.6 Sol for the same task—so the cost advantage per token effectively disappears in practice. And the promised free model weights have not yet been released.

What could this mean for the market?

The AI stock boom hangs by a thread: U.S. labs like Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI have committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars—on chips, data centers, and electricity. Chip manufacturers, data center operators, energy providers, and construction companies have seen their stock valuations rise because this money is expected to flow to them. The plan is to refinance this through high prices for cutting-edge AI.

If a model now delivers nearly the same performance for a fraction of the price—and is soon expected to be available for free download—it could create the impression that the U.S. labs’ pricing power is crumbling (“commoditization of intelligence”: cutting-edge AI is becoming an interchangeable mass-market commodity). This wouldn’t immediately cost revenue, but it sows doubt about the business case behind the massive investments—and in overheated market phases, even a single doubt can trigger a chain reaction.

Opportunities – Cheaper AI could accelerate AI adoption overall: More adoption means greater demand for computing power for ongoing operations (inference)—and K3 is just as hardware-intensive in operation as U.S. models. Chip and infrastructure providers would benefit from this, regardless of which model is running.

The latest quarterly figures support this interpretation: On Tuesday, ASML raised its annual forecast for the second time (to €43–45 billion in revenue) and reported that its capacity is nearly fully booked through 2027. On Wednesday, TSMC increased its capital expenditure budget to a record-high $60–64 billion and stated that investments over the next three years would once again be significantly higher than those of the past three years—and that it is monitoring the construction progress of data centers to ensure its own chips do not end up in inventory. This can be interpreted as a sign that the demand side remains strong.

Risks – If price compression were to actually hit U.S. labs, training investments could be stretched out or cut back—which would eventually affect the recipients of this spending (chips, data centers, energy). Furthermore, those who train using distillation save precisely the billions in GPU costs that make the U.S. approach so expensive. The cost bases of the providers are therefore not directly comparable, but the price risk for U.S. labs still exists. A countervailing factor is that Chinese models are unlikely to be considered for security-critical U.S. applications (government agencies, robotics) due to potential backdoors.

Context

The bottom line, in my view, is that Kimi K3 is less a “DeepSeek moment 2.0” than a reality check for the valuation logic:

In 2025, the question was which chips China would use for training—now the question is whether cutting-edge intelligence permanently justifies premium prices.

The supply chain’s response (ASML, TSMC) has been clear so far: demand exists—the response at the model level is less certain.

Limitations

Initial benchmarks are partly based on manufacturer specifications = independent long-term tests are still pending.

Training costs and the potential distillation ratio for K3 cannot be verified.

Moonshot’s valuation ($31.5 billion) is from a private funding round; the trillion-dollar valuations of Anthropic and OpenAI are prospective—neither is directly comparable to market capitalizations.

Sources:

Artificial Analysis – Kimi K3 Benchmarks: https://x.com/ArtificialAnlys/status/2077832874183860404

OpenRouter – Kimi K3 Prices & Specs: https://openrouter.ai/moonshotai/kimi-k3

Anthropic – Official API Pricing Documentation: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing

OpenRouter – Grok 4.5 Pricing: https://openrouter.ai/x-ai/grok-4.5

Price Comparison: Kimi K3 / Fable 5 / GPT-5.6 Sol: https://drawpie.com/blog/kimi-k3-vs-fable-5-vs-gpt-5-6-sol-price-benchmarks/

Decrypt – Cost per Task in Benchmark Comparison: https://decrypt.co/373716/china-kimi-k3-largest-open-source-ai-model-ever-beats-claude-fable-gpt-5-6-sol

The Decoder – K3 Classification & Price Level: https://the-decoder.com/kimis-open-model-k3-nears-gpt-5-6-sol-and-fable-5-while-signaling-the-end-of-super-cheap-chinese-ai/

ASML – Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript: https://www.investing.com/news/transcripts/earnings-call-transcript-asml-q2-2026-beats-guidance-as-ai-demand-lifts-outlook-93CH-4792156

TSMC – Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript: https://www.investing.com/news/transcripts/earnings-call-transcript-tsmc-lifts-2026-outlook-as-ai-demand-stays-hot-in-q2-2026-93CH-4794777

Anthropic – Report on Distillation Attacks (February 2026): https://anthropic.com/news/detecting-and-preventing-distillation-attacks

$NVDA (-5,05 %)
$2330
$ASML (+0,41 %)
$MSFT (-1,35 %)
$AMZN (+1,69 %)
$GOOGL (-0,31 %)

June was marked by a Fed shock and a rotation away from the winners of the previous months. On June 17, the Fed, under its new chair Kevin
Warsh , the Fed kept interest rates at 3.50–3.75%, the dot plot signaled a possible rate hike rather than a cut—after months of hopes for easing —a real blow to the markets. On top of that came a bombshell regarding defense stocks: The Ministry of Defense scrapped the multi-billion-euro F126 frigate program, and Rheinmetall $RHM (+1,85 %) subsequently lost over 16% —one of the stock’s worst trading days in decades. While speculative and cyclical stocks were sold off, investors fled to quality: defensive large-cap stocks and established software stocks held up significantly better.

In line with this more selective market environment, my portfolio slipped slightly into the red but held up more robustly than the DAX and Nasdaq:

📊 Monthly performance: -0.39%

📊 Portfolio value: ~€43,298

📊 Peak performance (Jan. 6, 2022): +39.16%

📊 YTD performance: ~+7.68%

Performance & Comparison 🚀

June was a month of contrasts: While the DAX and Nasdaq suffered from the Fed shock and the rotation out of risk assets, the S&P 500 and FTSE All-World held up significantly better thanks to their broader, more defensive composition. My portfolio was in the middle of the pack at -0.39%—more stable than the DAX and Nasdaq, but weaker than the two broad U.S. and global indices.

Performance Comparison (June 1–June 30, 2026, end of day):

My portfolio: -0.39%

FTSE All-World: +1.24%

S&P 500: +0.85%

DAX: -0.53%

NASDAQ 100: -0.96%

Purchases, Sales & Allocation 💶

In June, €300.00 was invested in the MSCI ACWI USD (Acc) $ACWI and €50.00 into the MSCI World Small Cap $WSML via the ongoing savings plans. The following were added via buy orders: Solaria Energia $SLR (€250.97), BE Semiconductors (€501.00), a Euro Overnight Rate Swap ETF (€101.00), and Tempus AI $TEM (€101.00).

On the selling side, I took profits on two positions in which I’ve been a shareholder for a good two years: In Datadog $DDOG (-0,81 %) , I closed out the entire position after the stock had performed strongly in recent months. With Snowflake $SNOW (+1,73 %) , I sold about a quarter of the position and am holding onto the rest. Both were purely profit-taking after a strong run; there has been no fundamental change in my assessment of the companies.

Top Movers in June 🟢

Despite the generally nervous sentiment, there were a few stocks that bucked the rotation trend and benefited from the flight to quality.

Tempus AI $TEM (-3,85 %) posted the strongest gain at +19.99% (+37.02 €)—AI diagnostics remain in demand, even as more speculative stocks were sold off. TSMC $2330 followed with a gain of +15.56% (+€72.12): Demand for chips related to AI expansion remains consistently high, regardless of the interest rate debate. Ferrari $RACE (-0,23 %) rose by +9.63% (+€78.63)—luxury goods proved resilient in the face of macroeconomic concerns. Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.B (+2,47 %) benefited significantly from the flight to defensive quality, rising +7.37% (+€142.01), while Crowdstrike $CRWD (-0,32 %) posted the largest euro gain in the portfolio with a +6.97% (+161.62 €) rise—cybersecurity remains structurally in demand. Cloudflare $NET (+4,52 %) rounded out the list of winners with a gain of +4.92% (+€105.74).

June’s Biggest Losers 🔴

The losers in June were almost exclusively the stocks that had performed the strongest in previous months or are particularly sensitive to interest rates.

IREN was hit the hardest $IREN (-7,41 %) , down -26.48% (-€316.39): Falling Bitcoin prices and ongoing disagreement among analysts regarding the company’s transition from a Bitcoin miner to an AI cloud provider weighed on the stock. Rheinmetall $RHM (+1,85 %) lost -23.36% (-€376.76) after the Ministry of Defense scrapped the F126 frigate program, which affected the entire defense sector. Alibaba $BABA (-2,29 %) fell by -21.25% (-€158.86)—Chinese tech remains under pressure due to general risk aversion toward Chinese stocks. American Lithium fell -21.21% (-€64.45), weighed down by persistently weak commodity prices and higher interest rate expectations, which particularly affect unprofitable growth stocks. BYD $1211 (-1,24 %) fell by -18.40% (-254.16 €) amid the ongoing price war in the Chinese electric vehicle market. Solaria $SLR (-3 %) rounded out the list of top losers with a -15.86% drop (-€63.35)—the hawkish Fed is weighing noticeably on interest-rate-sensitive solar and renewable energy stocks.

Conclusion 💡

June was a month of rotation: away from the more speculative winners of previous months, toward quality and established names. The Fed shock and the Rheinmetall slump showed how quickly sentiment can shift—a good reminder of why diversification across sectors and regions remains important.

❓ Question for the Community

That was my month in numbers—how did your portfolio fare through the Fed shock? Did you buy more Rheinmetall shares, or did you pull the plug?

👇 Let us know in the comments!

➡️ Follow @codeandcapital26 for transparent portfolio updates!

🔗 Link in bio: Wikifolio, Getquin & Parqet Portfolio

🗞️ Newsletter: codeandcapitalquant.beehiiv.com

📈 Wikifolio: https://www.wikifolio.com/de/de/w/wf0gquant6

Hello, community,

I hope you’ve all managed to “cool off” and get through the heat over the last few days/weeks 🥵

Today, I’d like to introduce you to another company from Japan.

Today’s focus is on Rorze Corp $6323

🦾 Rorze Corp: The Indispensable Robotic Hand of the Chip Boom

Rorze Corp isn’t a traditional semiconductor developer that designs complex circuits or builds machines that etch patterns onto silicon. It is the ultimate mechanical bottleneck in global chip production. While ASML $ASML (+0,41 %) builds the lithography giants, Rorze masters the delicate world of contamination-free transport. Rorze builds the high-precision handling robots that must move wafers in ultra-high vacuum and under extreme cleanroom conditions—a task where the slightest error can cost billions.

1. The Business Model: The “Toll Booth” in the Cleanroom 🎢

Rorze $6323 serves as an exclusive and mission-critical supplier to the world’s most valuable factories (TSMC $2330 , Intel $INTC (-1,93 %) , Samsung $005930 ) as well as for the leading (Applied Materials $AMAT (+0,46 %) , Lam Research $LRCX (+1,39 %) ).

The mechanism: When state-of-the-art semiconductors (3 nm and below) are produced, not a single speck of dust is allowed to touch the wafer. Rorze $6323 makes its money by developing and selling atmospheric and vacuum robotic systems that transfer the wafers back and forth between individual manufacturing steps in a contactless and sterile manner.

The ingenious part: Rorze $6323 has made itself indispensable. The major chip manufacturers physically cannot operate their multi-billion-dollar factories without integrating Rorze’s automation systems. Every new chip factory worldwide—whether in Arizona, Taiwan, or Dresden—means a large automatic order for Rorze.

Recurring Cash Flows: In addition to the pure sale of outrageously expensive robotic systems, there’s a high-margin service and spare parts business. Since the robots operate continuously under extreme conditions, maintenance is a reliable cash cow.

2. Key Figures (as of July 2026) 📊

Market capitalization: approx. 850 billion JPY (approx. 5.4 billion USD).

Stock price: Currently approx. 4,940 JPY (The stock is currently surging sharply after more than doubling from ~2,400 JPY since the beginning of the year).

P/E Ratio: approx. 42–45. Due to the recent surge in the order book and the market’s revaluation, the stock is no longer a bargain, but it does reflect its massive growth potential.

Return on Equity (ROE): Outstanding ~25–28%. For a capital-intensive mechanical engineering company, this level of efficiency is absolutely staggering.

Debt: Extremely solid balance sheet. High net cash reserves protect the operating business from interest rate risks.

3. Why is this stock exciting? 🚀

✅1. An explosive surge in orders wipes out the “profit warning”: In April 2026, Rorze $6323 reportedly posted a slight decline in earnings for the past fiscal year—triggered by one-time costs related to a U.S. lawsuit and high upfront investments in its subsidiary Nanoverse. The market, however, looked deeper and saw record order intake in the fourth quarter and a forecast of 46% profit growth for the coming year. The stock subsequently shot up to the daily limit.

✅2. The Advanced Packaging Lever: Due to the AI boom, memory chips (HBM) must be stacked in extremely complex configurations. Rorzes’ U.S. subsidiary Nanoverse is developing next-gen equipment specifically for this purpose. Rorze is evolving from a mere “wafer pusher” into a key player in physical AI infrastructure.

✅3. Geopolitical tailwind: The U.S. 🇺🇸, Europe 🇪🇺, and 🇯🇵 are subsidizing the construction of local semiconductor factories with hundreds of billions. Who equips these factories is irrelevant—Rorze’s robots are needed in nearly every one of them. They win, no matter which chip manufacturer comes out on top.

✅4. A unique competitive moat through cleanroom validation: Chip manufacturers are extremely risk-averse. Once a Rorze robot is certified and validated for a TSMC production line, it’s never replaced—out of fear of production downtime. The barriers to switching are astronomical.

✅5. Index knighthood: Rorze $6323 was recently included in the prestigious JPX Prime 150 Index . This continuously attracts fresh institutional ETF and fund money to the stock.

5. Risks ⚠️

❗️Extreme dependence on the semiconductor cycle: If the tech world were to slip into a deep recession and the tech giants were to freeze their new factory construction (Capex), Rorze—as a cyclical equipment supplier—would feel the impact with a time lag, but it would hit hard.

❗️The competition never sleeps: Players such as Daifuku $6383 (+1,46 %) or Brooks Automation are also making inroads into the field of factory automation. Rorze must absolutely maintain its technological lead in the vacuum sector.

❗️Investment Rating: With a P/E ratio above 40, the potential for an earnings surge over the next 12–24 months is already largely priced in. Setbacks in the volatile semiconductor market are possible at any time.

6. Personal Conclusion & Reaper Bonus 🧐

Rorze Corp $6323 is the ultimate “shovel stock” for the global semiconductor and AI frenzy. They don’t build chips; they make production possible in the first place. Following the explosion in order volume in the summer of 2026, the market has finally realized what a gem has been lying dormant here in the Japanese small/mid-cap sector. It’s on my watch list 👀

💀Jack’s Verdict:
"If ASML builds the priceless high-tech camera for a Hollywood blockbuster, Rorze supplies the indispensable tripod: Without its vacuum robots, the entire chip production process would be thrown off balance. The market has underestimated this unassuming monopolist for years, which is why the stock is now delivering its well-deserved payoff at 4,940 JPY. Don’t be put off by the seemingly high P/E ratio of 42—as soon as the latest record orders are fully reflected in the income statement and the projected profit growth of nearly 50 percent kicks in, the valuation will shrink rapidly. Those who missed the entry point should lie in wait for the next collective semiconductor hiccup, pick up shares on the pullback, and let the robots in the cleanroom work for them."

Reaper Rating: 🔥 BUY ON DIPS (Fundamentals are extremely strong, but the chart has become overheated after the stock doubled in price).

Reaper Score:
8/10 (Quality anchor 8–9. The fundamental monopoly position deserves a 9, but the current valuation pushes the score down slightly to a well-deserved 8)

I’m curious to hear your thoughts🙇‍♂️

@Get_Rich_Or_Die_Tryin @Tenbagger2024
@PikaPika0105
@Raketentoni
@Multibagger
@schlimmschlimm
@Stocktective
@Dividendenopi and, of course, everyone else ✌️