Newsletter · · Ashutosh Agarwal

Ten Single-Name Stock Theses From the Week's Investor Podcasts - Weekly Podcast Idea Digest - Week of September 8, 2026

Weekly Podcast Idea Digest for the week of September 8, 2026 (episodes aired September 7 to 14). A cross-sector synthesis of ten single-name stock theses from investor podcasts, led by a deep-value case for Priority Technology (PRTH), a basket of financial exchanges (CME, ICE, OTCM), a defense of Uber (UBER) against robotaxi fears, and a Procept BioRobotics (PRCT) short.

Weekly Podcast Idea Digest

Week of September 8, 2026: Ten Single-Name Stock Theses From the Week's Investor Podcasts

This was a busy week for actual stock ideas on the podcasts, not vague market chatter but named investors and analysts laying out why they are buying, avoiding, or shorting a specific company. Ten single-name theses stood out over episodes aired September 7 to 14, spanning a deeply out-of-favor payments company, a "hide in plain sight" basket of financial exchanges, a medical-device short, and a rare wave of shareholder activism finally stirring in the UK.

A quick note on what made the cut: I only include episodes where someone actually argues a case on a named ticker and shows their reasoning. I've left out the pure macro and crypto talk, and the many mining-company interviews where the person pitching is the CEO of the company (an ad, essentially, not an independent view). Where a term needs explaining, I explain it the first time it shows up.

Here's the week, grouped by the type of call.

The buys

Priority Technology (PRTH): "trading like it's going out of business, when it's actually gushing cash"

Who: Zack Buckley of Buckley Capital, interviewed by Andrew Walker (both own the stock) on the Yet Another Value Podcast (Sept 10).

This was the most detailed pitch of the week. Priority Technology is a payments and financial-plumbing company that most investors lump in with the beaten-down payments group, but Buckley argues that misses what the company actually is.

The core numbers he laid out:

  • Over 90% of revenue is recurring or repeating, which makes the business very predictable.
  • 60% of the business is a treasury-services software operation that did about $215 million of revenue and roughly $180 million of adjusted EBITDA, an 84% margin. (EBITDA is a rough proxy for cash profit from operations; an 84% margin is software-like, not payments-like.)
  • That treasury unit has tripled its EBITDA in the last four years.
  • Despite all that, the whole company trades at just four to five times free cash flow (free cash flow is the actual cash left over after running and investing in the business), while growing free cash flow per share 10%+ a year.

The crown jewel inside treasury is a business called CFTPay, which came from Priority's 2021 purchase of a company called Fincera. In plain terms: when a consumer signs up with a debt-settlement company and starts depositing, say, $500–$700 a month into a dedicated account while their debts are negotiated, someone has to set up and run those accounts, handle the transfers, and pay creditors. CFTPay is that infrastructure, and crucially, Priority plugs into large enterprise partners, so one relationship brings "tens or hundreds of thousands" of end accounts. When acquired, Fincera already had a 93.5% gross margin and a 68% EBITDA margin; it's since grown to over 80% EBITDA margin.

"People think of Priority as a payments business. I think of it more as a sort of conglomerate of various businesses." (Zack Buckley)

On value, Buckley pointed to a real, recent transaction: a comparable payments business, Payoneer, was sold in June 2026 at about 8.3 times EBITDA. Apply that multiple (which he thinks undervalues Priority) and you get about $12 a share versus roughly $5.50 today, or more than 100% upside. His answer to the "will AI destroy payments?" worry: "AI is not going to set up bank accounts for customers... those things are all things that I think are sort of not at risk at all from AI."

The catalyst that has him and Walker "jazzed up": last November, Priority's own chairman and CEO, Tom Priore, made a preliminary offer to take the company private. Buckley published a public letter opposing it. His view is that an insider trying to buy the whole thing cheaply is itself a loud signal the stock is too cheap. On the balance sheet worry (the company carries meaningful debt), he noted leverage is now "the lowest... it's had in years" and debt is being paid down every quarter.

The financial exchanges: CME, ICE, and OTC Markets (OTCM), "an aggressive move dressed up as a hideout"

Who: Zeke Ashton, veteran value investor, on The Acquirers Podcast (Sept 10).

Ashton owns a basket of exchange operators, CME Group, Intercontinental Exchange, and OTC Markets, and his logic is that they were dumped for a while as part of the "AI losers" trade, even though trading activity is booming (markets moving toward 24-hour trading, options volume surging, new products everywhere).

Why he likes them:

  • ICE trades at under 20 times free cash flow.
  • CME owns a "hidden asset": a 27% stake in S&P Global's index business. Ashton calls it "a royalty and a call option" on the S&P 500: every dollar people pour into S&P 500 index funds quietly benefits CME, at almost no added cost to CME.
  • These are ~60% profit-margin businesses that are capital-light and, notably, don't need to spend on AI to keep running.

On the obvious risk (that these are just a bet on frothy markets that would crater in a downturn), Ashton's rebuttal is diversification within CME itself: it earns money across oil, metals, and interest rates, not just stocks. "There will be volatility somewhere. And there will be people that need to hedge risk somewhere." He stressed the exchanges profit from people hedging risk as much as from people taking it, and in a jittery, highly-correlated market, the need to hedge is likely to grow. He also flagged that owning ICE and CME specifically matters because both run their own clearing operations, which protect investors if the other side of a trade can't pay, a real edge as risky new products (leveraged ETFs, zero-day options, perpetual futures) flood the market.

Uber (UBER): "the market thinks the robots are coming for it; we think it's mispriced"

Who: Shawn O'Malley and Daniel Mahncke on The Intrinsic Value Podcast (Sept 9). Uber is their largest holding.

Their framing: over three years, Uber tripled its free cash flow to about $10 billion a year, yet the stock trades below where it was when they first pitched it 15 months ago. Meanwhile Waymo (Alphabet's self-driving unit) just raised money at a $126 billion valuation (roughly Uber's entire market cap) despite a fraction of the revenue and no profits. The market, in other words, is betting robotaxis win and Uber loses.

The business, in plain terms: Uber is a marketplace that owns no cars and (mostly) employs no drivers. It connects ~200 million monthly riders and eaters with drivers and couriers across 70 countries, and takes roughly a 20% cut ("take rate") of the **$190 billion** of orders flowing through its apps each year.

Why they think it's a great business getting better:

  • Operating margin has swung from negative 43% in 2020 to positive 12% today, a 55-percentage-point improvement in under six years. Mahncke called the margin chart "one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen."
  • The advertising business went from nothing to a $2 billion+ annual run rate, growing 50%+ a year, and ad dollars are almost pure profit.
  • 1.5 million+ merchant partners now, well beyond restaurants (grocery, cosmetics via an Ulta Beauty partnership, alcohol, florists).
  • Car-insurance costs, a huge post-COVID headwind, are easing: this year's renewals came in at low-single-digit increases ("the most benign in many years"), helped by state insurance reforms.

On the autonomy debate (the whole reason the stock is cheap), their argument is that hybrid networks beat pure robotaxi fleets because ride demand is wildly spiky (roughly 4-to-1 peak-to-trough within a single day). A fixed robotaxi fleet is either idle in the quiet hours or overwhelmed at rush hour, while Uber flexes millions of human drivers in and out in real time. Their evidence: in Austin, Waymo cars on Uber's own network were busier than 99% of human drivers because Uber's demand kept them full, and opening the standalone Waymo app in California reportedly means an ~18-minute wait versus a few minutes on Uber. The risk they name honestly: a prolonged price war if Waymo decides to go it alone.

BBB Foods / Tiendas 3B (TBBB): "industrializing Mexico's informal grocery market"

Who: Leandro Hatoum of the Best Anchor Stocks newsletter, a frequent guest, on Chit Chat Stocks (Sept 9).

This is a fast-growing "hard discount" grocery chain in Mexico: think Aldi or Lidl, but tuned for an emerging market. The stores are small, sit in dense, walkable urban neighborhoods, carry a deliberately limited number of products (with a growing share of cheaper, higher-margin private-label goods), and the average basket is under $5. The company does roughly $4 billion in revenue and had about 3,600 stores at the end of Q2.

Hatoum's key insight is who they're actually taking business from. Founder-CEO Anthony Hatoum modeled the company on a Turkish discounter called BİM, opening the first Mexican store around 2004. In both countries, roughly half the grocery market is "informal": tiny mom-and-pop shops ("tienditas" in Mexico). So the real story isn't a brawl with big supermarkets; it's converting that informal half of the market into modern, cheaper, industrialized retail:

"A lot of people think about Tiendas 3B as a company that's fiercely fighting against the incumbents... a lot of share is being taken from the informal market. Tiendas 3B is basically industrializing the informal market in Mexico." (Leandro Hatoum)

The "hard discount" flywheel he described: few products → huge volume per item → lower costs → prices passed back to customers → more volume. He noted the middle of the grocery market (neither cheapest nor most premium) is the part that historically gets crushed, and 3B sits firmly at the low-cost, high-frequency end. They don't yet sell fresh produce or meat but are piloting fresh, and true to the model, when a new category goes in, an underperforming one comes out.

Pure Storage, now "EverPure" (P): "the next Arista, if they can survive the volatility"

Who: Nicholas and Kasey Rossolillo on the Chip Stock Investor Podcast (Sept 10). It's a small position for them.

Data-storage company Pure Storage (rebranded EverPure in the discussion) is their speculative "could-be-a-compounder" bet, explicitly compared to Arista Networks a decade ago, a slow starter that became one of their largest positions. The bull case: revenue is closing in on $6 billion (roughly where rival NetApp sits), growth is spiking toward the high-30s% this year thanks to a Meta deal plus a second hyperscaler customer, and profitability is trending up.

But they were refreshingly blunt about the risks, and this is the rare "buy" they framed with a lower fair value than the current price:

  • Free cash flow just went deeply negative (about negative $240 million, a -20% margin) in the quarter, because they had to pre-pay roughly $500 million for components amid sky-high memory prices.
  • Stock-based compensation keeps rising (partly offset by ~$60 million of buybacks).
  • Running a reverse DCF (working backwards from today's ~$92–93 share price to see what growth the market is baking in), the stock is pricing in 32% profit growth for 10 years, "a pretty high bar." On near-term profits alone, one host said "you could look at this and say this should be a $20 business."

Their conclusion was a conditional one: if you can stomach extreme swings, "buy on the dips... and wait this out." Not a slam-dunk: a watch-and-accumulate idea for the patient.

The skeptics (avoids and shorts)

Procept BioRobotics (PRCT): "the tech works, the business doesn't"

Who: Kasey Rossolillo, solo, on the Chip Stock Investor Podcast (Sept 10). Clearly bearish.

Procept makes a robotic system (Aquablation) that treats enlarged prostates using a heat-free water jet, genuinely good technology, with 65% gross margins, FDA clearance, and Medicare coverage in all 50 states. The stock is down about 80% from its 2025 highs, which usually gets bargain hunters interested. Rossolillo's point: this is a working product bolted onto a business that has never generated positive cash flow and keeps cutting its own forecasts.

Her bottom-up teardown of the "huge market" story:

  • The bull pitch is 40 million U.S. men with the condition. But only about 400,000 procedures happen a year, and Aquablation is ~10% of them. Each procedure uses one $3,550 single-use handpiece; the machine itself runs ~$495,000. They have 816 systems installed and guide to 54,000–56,000 procedures this year.
  • Realistically that's a "low single-digit billion dollar" market, not tens of billions. They'll do ~$350 million in U.S. revenue this year against a $400 million goal.
  • Reimbursement problem: hospitals get paid about $540 for the procedure versus ~$529 for the old-school alternative (TURP), essentially no financial incentive to switch. Procept itself petitioned Medicare saying the current payment level is a "financial barrier."
  • They don't even own their core technology, they license the foundational patents from two entities tied to a co-founder, with terms running to 2039. As she put it, "It would be like if Apple licensed the iPhone to a separate holding company that was owned by Steve Jobs."
  • The guidance keeps slipping: procedure-growth forecast for 2026 was cut from 39–48% down to 25–29%, while revenue guidance was held, a combination she flagged as a red flag. Against ~$400 million revenue and ~$350 million of operating expenses, that's a planned ~$90 million operating loss in a supposed turnaround year. Margins actually went backwards year-over-year in the first half (a -33% operating margin versus -30% a year earlier).

Oscar Health (OSCR): "a 'great quarter' that isn't what it looks like"

Who: Nicholas and Kasey Rossolillo on the Chip Stock Investor Podcast (Sept 10). More a cautionary lesson than a short, but the message is skeptical.

Oscar Health, a health insurer focused on the self-employed and small businesses, posted growing revenue, a growing member base (just over 3 million group members), and positive free cash flow, everything looks great on the surface. The hosts' warning: for an insurer, free cash flow is a misleading number. By law, Oscar must pay out at least 80% of premiums as claims (its "medical loss ratio," guided to 81–82% for 2026), so most of that incoming cash isn't really theirs to keep: it's like Berkshire's insurance "float," money they hold temporarily and can earn interest on, but must eventually pay out.

Their practical advice for valuing a company like this: ignore reported revenue and free cash flow; use GAAP earnings per share and dig into the balance sheet. They flagged an easily-missed item, over $6 billion in payables owed to Medicare/Medicaid (CMS) under an Affordable Care Act rule where healthier insurers subsidize sicker ones, as exactly the kind of liability that can't be seen in the headline numbers. The takeaway isn't "short it today," but "don't trust the shiny top-line metrics here."

Copart (CPRT): "great business, but the math says wait"

Who: Daniel Mahncke and Shawn O'Malley on The Intrinsic Value Podcast, covered across two episodes this week (Sept 10 and Sept 13). They previously owned it and sold; they're not buying back yet.

Copart runs the auctions where insurance companies sell off totaled cars, a high-quality, high-margin business in a duopoly. But the reason the stock has fallen is simple: revenue growth has collapsed from the mid-teens to near zero, and a competitor is taking share. The hosts' recurring lesson (from their "biggest losers" review) is that stock prices tend to follow revenue growth, and they've been burned before buying quality businesses whose growth was decelerating.

Mahncke's updated valuation work:

  • Base case: 5–6% revenue growth, ~9% EPS growth (helped by newly-resumed buybacks and slight margin gains), exit multiple of 20 → about a 10% annual return, just shy of their 12% hurdle.
  • A reverse DCF says the market is currently pricing in only ~5% growth.
  • Their scenario weighting: 40% chance growth reaccelerates to double digits (which would deliver mid-to-high-teens returns), 40% chance of a mid-single-digit "fairly valued, market-like return," and 20% chance growth stays near zero (meaning big underperformance).

The nuance: the founder-CEO Jay Adair has returned to run it, and management restarted meaningful buybacks (the first in over a decade), both signs insiders see value. But the hosts flagged "yellow flags" around the abrupt CEO change and vague strategy statements. Verdict: a good business they'd happily own once the cycle turns, but not compelling enough right now to sell something else to buy it.

The activist angle

ZigUp (ZIG, London) and the "UK is dirt cheap" theme

Who: Swen Lorenz of Undervalued-Shares, with host Andrew Walker (who owns a little of the stock), on the Yet Another Value Podcast (Sept 11). The episode was timed to a shareholder letter Lorenz was publishing.

The big-picture argument: after years of UK stocks being ignored, Lorenz thinks "the dam is about to break for M&A and activism in the UK." He's not alone: he noted that £500 billion fund manager M&G publicly complained that too many UK companies get sold off too cheaply. His analogy is Japan, where corporate reform was talked about for years and then moved fast once it caught on. "Undervaluation you can cure really quickly," Walker added: buy back a lot of stock, cut the dividend, run a big tender offer.

The specific target is ZigUp (the former Redde Northgate; ticker ZIG on the London exchange), the UK's largest renter of commercial vehicles (vans, specialty/refrigerated vehicles) plus fleet and accident-claims management, with operations in Ireland and Spain. (Note: UK shares are quoted in pence, so "430" means 430p, i.e. £4.30.) Lorenz's case:

  • Management runs the business well, but it's absurdly cheap, under 4 times EBITDA (he first wrote it up at 3x). Free cash flow jumped from £17 million to £96 million last year and management targets £200 million+ by FY28. Yet "the share price has gone nowhere for 18 years."
  • What drew both of them in is an unusual management incentive plan (a "value creation plan"): seven executives share up to £69 million (the CEO alone up to £19 million) but only if the share price clears 521 pence (it's ~430p now), capped at 800p, and only by a tight April 2028 deadline. Walker calls this kind of scheme his "corporate dark heart signal": management is now powerfully motivated to get the stock up.
  • The frustration: despite that incentive, ZigUp has not actually bought back shares since the plan was set, sticking with its dividend and investing into Spanish growth assets instead. Lorenz is pushing them to cut the dividend, do a tender offer, and even sell the Spanish assets to a private-equity buyer at a premium and buy back stock, before a PE firm swoops in and buys the whole company cheap. His bet: "I don't think in two or three years this will still be an independent company."

Quick hits: heard, but lighter conviction

  • Apple (AAPL), mildly bullish. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management, on the RiskReversal Pod (Sept 11), was enthusiastic about the new foldable "iPhone Duo," raising his estimate of its contribution to ~5% of Apple's fiscal-2027 revenue (from his prior 2–2.5%). His honest caveat: this is "not game changing," and the Wall Street analysts who updated numbers after the event actually trimmed their absolute revenue estimates by about 1%, so the crowd is more skeptical than he is. He also flagged the still-unfinished "new Siri" (in English beta, excluding the EU and China) as the event's disappointment.
  • SpaceX (private), long-term moonshot. Dan Held, on The Rollup (Sept 9), laid out a thesis that SpaceX could reach a $100 trillion valuation in 20 years. He entered under a $100 billion valuation; the crux is Starship driving launch costs to ~$10/kg (a 2,000x drop from the space-shuttle's ~$20,000/kg), unlocking a market "larger than global GDP," with downside cushioned by Falcon 9 and Starlink alone being potentially trillion-dollar businesses. Not investable in public markets, but a widely-discussed private idea.
  • What I left out. A cluster of mining and resource names got airtime, Power Metallic (PNPN), ATHA Energy, Rainbow Rare Earths, Marimaca Copper, and several junior gold and silver explorers on shows like The KE Report and Company Interviews, but almost all were interviews with the companies' own executives pitching their own stock, not independent investor theses, so I've excluded them as promotional. Likewise, several strong episodes this week were macro-only (gold to $8,000–9,000, oil, bonds, Bitcoin, XRP) with no single-stock idea attached.
  • No major idea-conference pitches this week. I specifically looked for fresh Sohn, Delivering Alpha, Robin Hood, ValueX, MOI Best Ideas, or 13D Summit content in the trailing seven days and found none in our library; this was a week of fund-manager and analyst interviews rather than conference pitches.