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

<ul><li>Applied Materials recently concluded their fiscal year of 2025 with encouraging results, achieving record highs in revenue, gross margin dollars, operating profit, and earnings per share, despite facing significant headwinds.</li><li>The company reported a 4% year-over-year growth in revenue to $28.4 billion.</li><li>Notably, the Semiconductor Systems and Applied Global Services (AGS) divisions posted record revenues, even amidst tightened trade restrictions that notably impacted their market presence in China.</li></ul>

Applied Materials recently concluded their fiscal year of 2025 with encouraging results, achieving record highs in revenue, gross margin dollars, operating profit, and earnings per share, despite facing significant headwinds.The company reported a 4% year-over-year growth in revenue to $28.4 billion.Notably, the Semiconductor Systems and Applied Global Services (AGS) divisions posted record revenues, even amidst tightened trade restrictions that notably impacted their market presence in China.

Applied Materials: How ICAPS, PVD Innovation, & AI Packaging Are Expanding Its Moat!

Pan-Asia Index Rebalances/ Events/ Delta One, Periscope Analytics

Brian Freitas

Pan-Asia Index Rebalances/ Events/ Delta One

Periscope Analytics

Periscope Analytics focuses on event-driven trades across Asia Pacific and provides comprehensive, timely and systematic coverage of index changes to major Asia Pacific indices in a structured manner.

The analysis includes forecasted inclusions and exclusions to all major Asian indices that have significant amount of tracking assets, including estimates of passive buy/sell flow on the stocks. The service also provides commentary and impact of market consultations, ground rule changes, and other events (IPOs, spin-offs, M&A) that could lead to index changes and passive flow.

Periscope Analytics works with multi-strategy hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, stat arb trading groups and long-only investors that invest and trade in the Asia Pacific region with the data being used to trade index rebalances, avoid pre-positioning and passive flow, and to time entry into and exit from stocks.

Event-Driven Trades Across Asia Pacific

Index Rebalance

<ul>
<li>There are no constituent changes for the <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/vaneck-vectors-semiconductor" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:32807:1" rel="noopener">VanEck Vectors Semiconductor (SMH US)</a> ETF in December but there are a lot of float and capping changes.</li>
<li>Estimated one-way turnover is 7.5% resulting in a round-trip trade of US$5.5bn. There are 3 stocks with over half a yard to trade.</li>
<li>The largest flows will be in <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/nvidia-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:5891:1" rel="noopener">NVIDIA</a>, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/micron-technology-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:13382:1" rel="noopener">Micron Technology</a>, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/applied-materials-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:283:1" rel="noopener">Applied Materials</a>, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/lam-research-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1116:1" rel="noopener">Lam Research</a>, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/intel-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:16764:1" rel="noopener">Intel Corp</a>, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/texas-instruments-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:18804:1" rel="noopener">Texas Instruments</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/taiwan-semiconductor-manufacturing-adr" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:8587:1" rel="noopener">TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing) - ADR</a>. </li>
</ul>


There are no constituent changes for the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor (SMH US) ETF in December but there are a lot of float and capping changes.
Estimated one-way turnover is 7.5% resulting in a round-trip trade of US$5.5bn. There are 3 stocks with over half a yard to trade.
The largest flows will be in NVIDIA, Micron Technology, Applied Materials, Lam Research, Intel Corp, Texas Instruments and TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing) - ADR. 


MV US Listed Semiconductor 25 Index Rebalance: Capping Leads to US$5.5bn Trade

AI | Semiconductors | Commodities, Mint Finance

Raghav Vashisht

AI | Semiconductors | Commodities

Deep Fundamental Analysis

Mint Finance

Mint Finance's investment research blends deep fundamental analysis with technical & quant insights. Investment strategies straddle across multiple asset classes with risk management embedded into every trade to deliver an outsized reward-to-risk ratio.

Mint Finance's research is centered around three key themes. First, energy transition and climate change. Second, artificial intelligence. Third, shifting world order with its impact across politics and monetary economics.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul>
<li>Three distinct ways to play AI bandwidth. LAZR buys upstream components, LYTE buys transceiver assembly, and EUV buys the semiconductor capital stack.</li>
<li>Our holdings analysis shows LAZR’s equal-weighted and current-weighted returns aligned efficiently, while LYTE’s complex leverage and cash positioning blunted its upside.</li>
<li>EUV provides diversified capex exposure, sacrificing pure-play optics for a highly balanced bet on the broader semiconductor manufacturing system required for AI scale-out.</li>
</ul>


Three distinct ways to play AI bandwidth. LAZR buys upstream components, LYTE buys transceiver assembly, and EUV buys the semiconductor capital stack.
Our holdings analysis shows LAZR’s equal-weighted and current-weighted returns aligned efficiently, while LYTE’s complex leverage and cash positioning blunted its upside.
EUV provides diversified capex exposure, sacrificing pure-play optics for a highly balanced bet on the broader semiconductor manufacturing system required for AI scale-out.


Where Is the True Value in the Optics Trade? A Comparison of 3 ETFs

Asian Hedge Fund Manager, Long Short Equity, Macro

David Mudd

<ul>
<li>In the AI takeover of global markets, enablers are beating hyperscalers by an ever-widening margin.  Hyperscalers' unprecedented capex is fueling revenue growth across the AI enabler ecosystem.</li>
<li>The semiconductor chip sector has gone parabolic with an unsustainable rise in share prices.  The SOX momentum and % increase far exceed its rise during the Dotcom bubble period</li>
<li>The AI Memory subsector is the only segment that has significantly outperformed hyperscalers in both returns and fundamentals, primarily due to a structural high-bandwidth memory (HBM) supercycle.</li>
</ul>


In the AI takeover of global markets, enablers are beating hyperscalers by an ever-widening margin.  Hyperscalers' unprecedented capex is fueling revenue growth across the AI enabler ecosystem.
The semiconductor chip sector has gone parabolic with an unsustainable rise in share prices.  The SOX momentum and % increase far exceed its rise during the Dotcom bubble period
The AI Memory subsector is the only segment that has significantly outperformed hyperscalers in both returns and fundamentals, primarily due to a structural high-bandwidth memory (HBM) supercycle.


THE AI GOLD RUSH: Hyperscalers and Enablers

Technical Analyst, Vermilion Research

Joe Jasper

Technical Analyst

Technical and Quantitative Research

Vermilion Research

Vermilion’s objective is to deliver timely, actionable, and unique technical research to professional investors through the application of our various technical indicators.

Our research strategists seek to highlight securities which we believe are at major inflection points, based on our various technical and quantitative indicators, and offer asymmetric risk/return profiles. Our unique research methodology, centered on relative strength, enables our strategists to deliver superior investment recommendations.

Our process begins by organizing the universe of actively traded stocks into discrete sectors, then into industry groups. We then apply our technical and quantitative tools to identify developing price trends. Once attractive trends are identified within a selected sector or group, we screen for individual stocks which we believe offer the best risk/reward profile. We provide a historical perspective that often reveals, through our long-term charts, how price patterns often repeat themselves over time.

Technical Analysis

<ul>
<li>We remain bullish (as of 4/21/26) on the SPX, Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), and Russell 2000 (IWM), and we recently recommended buying the pullback in our June 9 U.S. Macro Vision</li>
<li>As discussed June 9, we continue to expect roughly one pullback per month to test the 20-day MA on SPX, QQQ, IWM, and that was all the recent pullback was.</li>
<li>While price dipped below the 20-day MAs, the decisive reclaim of the 20-dayMAs late last week was exactly what we discussed to look for to confirm a brief, buyable pullback.</li>
</ul>


We remain bullish (as of 4/21/26) on the SPX, Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), and Russell 2000 (IWM), and we recently recommended buying the pullback in our June 9 U.S. Macro Vision
As discussed June 9, we continue to expect roughly one pullback per month to test the 20-day MA on SPX, QQQ, IWM, and that was all the recent pullback was.
While price dipped below the 20-day MAs, the decisive reclaim of the 20-dayMAs late last week was exactly what we discussed to look for to confirm a brief, buyable pullback.


Buy Software Stocks; Bullish Outlook Intact; Buy Gold and Silver

United States

Applied Materials, Inc. develops, manufactures, markets, and services semiconductor wafer fabrication equipment and related spare parts for the worldwide semiconductor industry.  The Company's customers include semiconductor wafer and integrated circuit manufacturers, flat panel liquid crystal displays, solar photovoltaic cells and modules and other electronic devices manufacturers.

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Applied Materials (AMAT US)

Applied Materials: How ICAPS, PVD Innovation, & AI Packaging Are Expanding Its Moat!

Applied Materials recently concluded their fiscal year of 2025 with encouraging results, achieving record highs in revenue, gross margin dollars,...

Baptista Research

MV US Listed Semiconductor 25 Index Rebalance: Capping Leads to US$5.5bn Trade

There are no constituent changes for the index in Dec but there are float and capping changes. Estimated one-way turnover is 7.5% resulting in a...

Brian Freitas

Where Is the True Value in the Optics Trade? A Comparison of 3 ETFs

Three new ETFs target the AI bandwidth bottleneck, but perform very differently. We analyse LAZR, LYTE & EUV to show why upstream components easily...

Mint Finance

THE AI GOLD RUSH: Hyperscalers and Enablers

In the AI takeover of global markets, enablers are beating hyperscalers by an ever-widening margin. Hyperscalers' unprecedented capex is fueling...

David Mudd

Buy Software Stocks; Bullish Outlook Intact; Buy Gold and Silver

Buy Software Stocks $RBRK $FROG; Bullish Outlook Intact $SPX $QQQ $IWM; Buy Gold and Silver $GLD $SLV $GDX $SIL. Normal Pullback is Over

Vermilion Research

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