In today’s briefing:
- Microsoft. Acting Like There’s An AI Bubble Without Saying There’s An AI Bubble
- Worsening NVIDIA Earnings Quality
- NVIDIA Results: Taiwan Take-Aways — Demand Visibility Implies Strength for Key Suppliers
- Taiwan Tech Weekly: NVDA Results- Taiwan Supplier Winners; Silicon Valley’s Substrate- TSMC Slayer?
- Oriental Watch (398 HK) H1 FY26: Maintaining A 12% Yield With 60% Of Market Cap In Cash
- Ulta Beauty Vs CJ Olive Young (Let the Rumble Begin)!
- Decoding Asian Paints Execution Supremacy Amidst New Competition
- Arista Powers Into Full Rack Solutions—Could Its Blue Box JDM Model Crush Traditional OEMs?
- Sa Sa Intl (178 HK): Positive Trend Beyond the Results
- Formosa Prosonic: Special Dividend of 80 Cents
Microsoft. Acting Like There’s An AI Bubble Without Saying There’s An AI Bubble
- Microsoft has significantly course corrected on their compute capacity build out, demurred on their right of first refusal for OpenAI compute demand and adopted a risk off “fungible” compute strategy
- Mr. Nadella thinks AGI as more hype than substance, “jagged” intelligence will remain problematic for a longer, and the true measure of AI success will be measured by GDP growth
- Microsoft stopped reporting AI-driven ARR when the number hit $13 billion six months ago, but why? Broadly deploying AI into productivity tools is a marathon not a sprint.
Worsening NVIDIA Earnings Quality
- The market waited with bated breath as NVIDIA released their quarterly earnings yesterday on 19th November, 2025. To almost no one’s surprise, they beat the estimates again.
- The company is a juggernaut to say the least and has added $1.9 Trillion in market cap in the last 8 months!
- That is more than Tesla or Meta’s market cap themselves. The statistics are almost unbelievable.
NVIDIA Results: Taiwan Take-Aways — Demand Visibility Implies Strength for Key Suppliers
- NVIDIA’s AI Factory Buildout Signals Multi-Year Demand for Taiwan’s Supply Chain
- TSMC’s Growth Outlook De-Risked by NVIDIA’s Smooth Transition to GB300
- NVIDIA’s Networking Segment Surge Expands System-Level Product Integration Opportunity for Taiwan Ecosystem
Taiwan Tech Weekly: NVDA Results- Taiwan Supplier Winners; Silicon Valley’s Substrate- TSMC Slayer?
- NVIDIA Results: Taiwan Take-Aways — Demand Visibility Implies Strength for Key Suppliers
- NVDA Strong Quarter, Strong Guidance, Consensus ~20% Too Low, Stock Is Not Expensive
- Silicon Valley’s Substrate — ASML, TSMC Slayer Or Ideological Pipe Dream?
Oriental Watch (398 HK) H1 FY26: Maintaining A 12% Yield With 60% Of Market Cap In Cash
- Oriental Watch (398 HK) maintained its dividend yield of ~12% (annualized), declaring 20.8 HKD cents of dividend for H1FY26. Cash and Investments were ~ HKD1 billion (60% of market cap).
- The company highlighted that the environment is challenging, given trade wars and tempered HK/Chinese demand. On our conservative numbers, the stock trades at 8.6x FY26PE.
- Oriental Watch (398 HK) will maintain its high dividend payout ratio of ~100%. Over the past 8 years, the company paid dividends of 3.8 HKD/share (> the current share price).
Ulta Beauty Vs CJ Olive Young (Let the Rumble Begin)!
- In this insight, we discuss how Olive Young is likely to be a serious long-term threat to Ulta Beauty (ULTA US) (market cap of US$22.3 billion) in the United States.
- CJ Corp is the largest shareholder of CJ Olive Young. On 19 November, CJ Olive Young announced that it plans to open its first store in California in May 2026.
- There is a growing probability that CJ Olive Young could successfully grow its business in the US, especially due to the continued strong demand for Korean cosmetics.
Decoding Asian Paints Execution Supremacy Amidst New Competition
- Asian Paints achieved a 7-quarter high in Q2FY26 with 10.9% domestic volume growth, driven by easing raw material costs and strategic integration, leading to a 2% margin expansion.
- Despite heavy monsoons, strong execution drove a double-digit volume rebound, signaling stabilized consumer demand. This coupled with a key competitor’s executive loss, validates the firm’s defensive market position.
- Asian Paints’ strong performance deserves a premium valuation but justifying it hinges on the perfect execution of its backward integration project and defending its competitive position.
Arista Powers Into Full Rack Solutions—Could Its Blue Box JDM Model Crush Traditional OEMs?
- Arista Networks reported strong financial results for the third quarter of 2025, achieving a record revenue of $2.31 billion, a year-over-year increase of 27.5%.
- This growth was supported by the increasing demand for their networking solutions, particularly in the AI and cloud segments.
- Notably, Arista’s software and services accounted for approximately 18.7% of the quarter’s revenue, reflecting the company’s strategic emphasis on diversifying its revenue streams beyond hardware.
Sa Sa Intl (178 HK): Positive Trend Beyond the Results
- Sa Sa International Hldgs (178 HK)‘s 1H FY25/26 profit came in at the top-end of the guidance. Its 3Q sales growth has so far increased 11.3%, a further acceleration.
- Hong Kong and Macau should capture some of the diverted traffic as Sino-Japanese relations soured, while a weaker USD, as rates are cut, should make shopping cheaper.
- With its ROE reaching 10-13% in FY26-28F (the best ones since FY21), its 5-year-low P/B multiple makes the stock a bargain.
Formosa Prosonic: Special Dividend of 80 Cents
- Formosa Prosonic announced an 80-cent Special Dividend as the management decided to return excess cash
- 3rd quarter results showed EPS of 7.92 cents, though there is a gain on the sale of PPE of 35% of profits
- Management but given the stock trading below cash we remain positive on the stock
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For your kind consideration
This report has been prepared by Vriddhi Consulting, founded by Punit and Debjani Khanna. A portion of the research was contributed by Shubham Khanna, an individual on the autism spectrum. We are grateful to Smartkarma for providing a platform to share this research and amplify its impact.
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