Independent research on the U.S. markets, Baptista Research

Baptista Research

Independent research on the U.S. markets

Baptista Research is an independent financial research house focused on the U.S. markets. We provide equity research as well as credit research reports on the top-listed U.S. companies with most of our focus on technology, consumer goods and services, automobiles, industrials, oil and gas, pharma, and healthcare. Our research has served more than 3000 institutional investors including mutual funds, hedge funds, banks, family offices, and various buy-side firms. We operate a research subscription service where institutions, as well as retail investors, can have priority access to all our research. We also have a wide distribution of our research reports across some of the top global financial platforms. Apart from equity research and credit research, we also provide advisory services with respect to mergers & acquisitions (M&A), private equity/ venture capital fundraising, valuation reports, and investment management services for corporates.
Baptista Research is owned and managed by Ishan Majumdar, an ex-Venture Capitalist/ Investment Banker, a Chartered Accountant, and a Masters’ degree holder in Management from HEC Paris. Ishan has nearly a decade of experience in Mergers and Acquisitions, Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs), Venture Capital Investing, Corporate Strategy, and Valuation in front-office roles at the likes of BNP Paribas CIB, Credit Agricole CIB, Groupe Danone, and TIW Private Equity. He has worked on and closed multiple acquisition deals, leveraged buyouts, and start-up investment transactions.

Equity Bottom-Up

IonQ, Inc. operates as a computing hardware and software company. The Company develops a general-purpose trapped ion quantum computer and software to generate, optimize, and execute quantum circuits. IonQ serves customers worldwide.

<ul><li>IonQ is accelerating its expansion beyond quantum computing with a definitive agreement to acquire privately held cybersecurity firm Elisity in an all-stock transaction valued at up to $1.3 billion.</li><li>Announced on October 12, 2026, the deal includes $1.15 billion in initial stock consideration and up to $150 million in performance-based earnouts.</li><li>Founded in 2019, Elisity specializes in Zero Trust cybersecurity and microsegmentation, helping organizations prevent ransomware, unauthorized access, and cyberattacks from spreading across enterprise networks.</li></ul>

IonQ is accelerating its expansion beyond quantum computing with a definitive agreement to acquire privately held cybersecurity firm Elisity in an all-stock transaction valued at up to $1.3 billion.Announced on October 12, 2026, the deal includes $1.15 billion in initial stock consideration and up to $150 million in performance-based earnouts.Founded in 2019, Elisity specializes in Zero Trust cybersecurity and microsegmentation, helping organizations prevent ransomware, unauthorized access, and cyberattacks from spreading across enterprise networks.

IonQ’s $1.3 Billion Elisity Buyout: Four Reasons This Deal Could Reshape Its Future!

External broker reports(aggregated public sources), CMB International

CMB International

External broker reports(aggregated public sources)

Incorporated in Hong Kong, supported by the mainland and targeting in global market, CMB International Capital Corporation Limited (“CMBI”) is an integrated financial institution providing comprehensive and professional services. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Merchants Bank ("CMB"), by leveraging on the Group’s synergy and coordination in domestic and overseas markets, as well as CMB’s strong resources and outstanding social reputation, CMBI and its subsidiaries have been actively implementing diversified business strategies and set up an overall layout of main business segments including Corporate Finance, Asset Management, Wealth Management, Global Markets and Structured Finance, etc. Adhering to the philosophy of “being clients oriented and increasing our own values by the way of creating value for clients”, CMBI endeavors to provide quality and integrated financial services to institutional, corporate and individual customers both domestic and overseas including Hong Kong IPO sponsorship and underwriting, share placement and rights issue for listed companies, financial advisors, bonds issuance services, asset management, direct investment, wealth management, equity sales and trading, etc.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul><li>We analysed a sample of 83 Hong Kong- and US-listed software and related technology companies (49 software and 34 related technology companies) to identify the drivers of their recent share price recovery.</li><li>By comparing revenue growth, margin changes and AI commercialisation progress, we seek to quantify AI's tangible contribution to fundamentals and assess whether software has the potential to become a new major trading theme.</li><li>Our key findings are: 1) supported by continued economic resilience, revenue growth of software companies accelerated at a broader range in 2Q26 than a year earlier, although AI's tangible contribution to fundamentals still varies across subsectors; 2) the current US software share price rebound (25 Jun to 8 Oct, same below) has been driven mainly by valuation recovery, with stronger recoveries among stocks whose fundamentals benefit from AI; and 3) among all software subsectors, infrastructure software delivered the largest revenue growth acceleration and margin improvement in 2Q26, followed by cybersecurity.</li></ul>Content is external broker report sourced from online content aggregator through publicly available sources and is displayed below for general informational purposes only. Refer full disclaimer below.

We analysed a sample of 83 Hong Kong- and US-listed software and related technology companies (49 software and 34 related technology companies) to identify the drivers of their recent share price recovery.By comparing revenue growth, margin changes and AI commercialisation progress, we seek to quantify AI's tangible contribution to fundamentals and assess whether software has the potential to become a new major trading theme.Our key findings are: 1) supported by continued economic resilience, revenue growth of software companies accelerated at a broader range in 2Q26 than a year earlier, although AI's tangible contribution to fundamentals still varies across subsectors; 2) the current US software share price rebound (25 Jun to 8 Oct, same below) has been driven mainly by valuation recovery, with stronger recoveries among stocks whose fundamentals benefit from AI; and 3) among all software subsectors, infrastructure software delivered the largest revenue growth acceleration and margin improvement in 2Q26, followed by cybersecurity.Content is external broker report sourced from online content aggregator through publicly available sources and is displayed below for general informational purposes only. Refer full disclaimer below.

Software & IT Services - Broad recovery, a selective opportunity

Independent Investment Research, The IDEA!

The IDEA!

Independent Investment Research

The Idea-Driven Equities Analyses company (the IDEA!) is an employee-owned boutique providing independent investment research and financial consultancy services with a clear focus on the Benelux countries. The company was founded in the summer of 2007 by Henk Slotboom and Maarten Verbeek, both with more than 35 years of professional experience in the financial sector. The IDEA! differentiates itself by focusing on adding value through self-initiated in-depth, idea-driven investment research, as well as by bespoke research assignments for institutional investors, hedge funds and private equity. In addition, we provide market intelligence, strategic research and – together with our business partners – consultancy services to businesses. In case you are interested in receiving more information, a sample of our products or an introductory meeting, please send a message to info@theidea.nl.

ING Groep N.V. offers financial services to individuals, corporations, and other institutions.  The Company offers corporate, investment, and private banking services, asset and portfolio management, treasury services, and insurance.  ING Groep has offices throughout the world.

<ul><li>In this edition: • Ahold Delhaize | cybersecurity incident disrupts operations across the Atlantic • ING | offloads EUR 5bn project finance credit risk to PGGM in Dutch SRT • TomTom | expands EV suite to accelerate deployment for automakers</li></ul>

In this edition: • Ahold Delhaize | cybersecurity incident disrupts operations across the Atlantic • ING | offloads EUR 5bn project finance credit risk to PGGM in Dutch SRT • TomTom | expands EV suite to accelerate deployment for automakers

What's News in Amsterdam - 13 October (Ahold Delhaize | ING | TomTom)

Japan Specialist

Mark Chadwick

<ul>
<li>Indexes: Dow +0.4%, S&amp;P 500 -0.1%, Nasdaq −0.4%; chipmakers sold off on Chinese competition</li>
<li>Meta rose 3.4% as early data suggested its new Muse AI agent is holding on to users</li>
<li>IonQ agreeing to buy cybersecurity firm Elisity; positive read-across for Japanese cyber firms</li>
</ul>


Indexes: Dow +0.4%, S&amp;P 500 -0.1%, Nasdaq −0.4%; chipmakers sold off on Chinese competition
Meta rose 3.4% as early data suggested its new Muse AI agent is holding on to users
IonQ agreeing to buy cybersecurity firm Elisity; positive read-across for Japanese cyber firms


Semiconductor & Technology Specialist, Ingenuity

William Keating

Semiconductor & Technology Specialist

Ingenuity

Our focus is exclusively on in-depth research & consulting in the broader semiconductor industry. We focus on the key players, namely Intel, Micron, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, NVIDIA, AMD, TSMC & Global Foundries - as well as some of the lesser known, but nonetheless critical, companies such as ASML (for EUV), Mellanox, Cavium, Xilinx etc. We specialise in their products, roadmaps, process technologies, competitive advantages & threats etc. We also help our clients understand the implications of new and emerging technologies, e.g. 3D X-Point, 3D NAND, Carbon Nanotubes, Autonomous Driving, Graphene, Silicon Photonics, Wafer-Level Optics, Artificial Intelligence, FPGA, GPU, ASIC etc. 

Semiconductor Analysis & Research

Alphabet, Inc. operates as a holding company. The Company, through its subsidiaries, provides web-based search, advertisements, maps, software applications, mobile operating systems, consumer content, enterprise solutions, commerce, and hardware products.

<ul>
<li>Google's latest frontier model, Argon, delivers frontier performance and complex workflows across knowledge work, real-world software engineering, and cybersecurity defense.</li>
<li>The Chrome team (3 billion users) has been using Argon to refactor features that span millions of lines of code. Normally, this would take months. They've done it in weeks</li>
<li>Gemini is the agent. The model underneath is a separate choice, and it is yours. From Argon at the frontier to Flash for speed and to the latest Claude models. </li>
</ul>


Google's latest frontier model, Argon, delivers frontier performance and complex workflows across knowledge work, real-world software engineering, and cybersecurity defense.
The Chrome team (3 billion users) has been using Argon to refactor features that span millions of lines of code. Normally, this would take months. They've done it in weeks
Gemini is the agent. The model underneath is a separate choice, and it is yours. From Argon at the frontier to Flash for speed and to the latest Claude models. 


Gemini at Work 2026. Impressive Enterprise AI Strategy Is Revealed. Key Takeaways & Full Transcript