#valuation

#valuation

Brown-Forman is the largest American-owned global spirits company. It sells whiskey, bourbon, tequila, rum, gin, and more. Its crown jewel is Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey, one of the most recognizable spirit brands on the planet, but the portfolio also includes Woodford Reserve, Old Forester, Herradura, el Jimador, Diplomático Rum, Gin Mare, and GlenDronach Scotch. You're looking at a company commanding an estimated 34% of the total U.S. Whiskey & Bourbon Distilleries industry revenue.

Sonoco Products ( NYSE: SON) shares reached a 52-week high of $57.83 this week after strong 2025 results and 2026 guidance. That marks a 30% year-to-date surge that has far outpaced the S&P 500's fractional gain. The packaging company's rally accelerated following the February 17 earnings. With the stock at 52-week highs and technical indicators flashing warning signs, investors face the critical question of whether this momentum is sustainable or the valuation catch-up has run its course.

Snowflake Inc. ( NYSE:SNOW) provides the data cloud infrastructure that AI applications depend on, but its path to profitability remains uncertain. The company reported Q3 2026 revenue of $1.21 billion, beating estimates of $1.18 billion with 29% year-over-year growth. Product revenue reached $1.16 billion, while the company maintained a strong 125% net revenue retention rate. CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy highlighted that Snowflake Intelligence, the company's AI capabilities platform, achieved the fastest adoption rate of any product launch in company history.

Big Tech keeps raising its spending plans for artificial intelligence infrastructure, yet shares of Nvidia Corp., one of the biggest beneficiaries of that flood of cash, have been largely stagnant for months. The stock is up less than 1% since the beginning of the fourth quarter and has been largely range bound despite hitting a record high in late October.

However, alongside these tangible indicators sits another layer of value, one that does not always surface cleanly in financial statements and may even remain invisible if it is not properly understood or articulated: Put simply, intangible assets are the non-physical elements a company has built that enable it to generate revenue, scale efficiently, or defend its market position. In technology companies, this typically includes proprietary software, intellectual property, datasets, customer relationships, brand equity, and internal systems or processes.

The Trade Desk operates a demand-side platform (DSP), a type of adtech software that helps media buyers plan, measure, and optimize data-driven campaigns across digital channels. The most recent version of its DSP, called Kokai, leans on artificial intelligence (AI) to manage budgets, customize bids, and dynamically target audiences. The investment thesis for The Trade Desk revolves around its independent business model, meaning it does not own media content that might bias ad spending on its platform.

Snap SNAP reported fourth-quarter revenue of $1.72 billion, up 10% year over year, largely due to strength in average revenue per user. Adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 21%, up 300 basis points from the prior year, owing to growing operating leverage and a favorable sales mix. Why it matters: Despite a 5% year-over-year decline in global daily active users, or DAUs, traction in high-margin offerings such as Snapchat+, Sponsored Snaps, and Memories Storage Plans improved core platform monetization, supporting both top-line and profitability expansion.

Anyone in marketing gawking at the near-billion price tag attached to TikTok creator Khaby Lame and his deal with Rich Sparkle Holdings isn't really looking at innovation. They're witnessing faith. Faith in what this industry has collectively agreed to let numbers represent. Because that $975 million valuation doesn't seem to be rooted in the nuts and bolts of Lame's company Step Distinctive Limited's financials so much as the gravitational pull of his audience.

According to The New York Times, the new Waymo funding came from Alphabet, Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital. The fact that investors outside Alphabet put money in is a vote of confidence. The investment puts Waymo's valuation at $126 billion. Ford's market cap is $55 billion and GM's is $78 billion. The disparity highlights the hurdles to the industry's growth.

Shares of AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP), the volatile, mobile game-focused adtech stock, were moving lower last month as the company faced another short-seller attack, software valuations came under scrutiny due to threats from AI, and Google unleashed a new platform for AI game creation, which was seen as a threat to gaming stocks. As a result, AppLovin stock fell sharply last month, closing January down 30%, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Elon Musk has suggested timing a possible initial public offering of SpaceX to coincide with a planetary phenomenon and his birthday in June, the Financial Times reported. The owner of the rocket maker is considering timing the offering to coincide with when Jupiter and Venus appear very close together, the FT reported, citing five people familiar with the matter. That suggests a date in the middle of June, the same month the billionaire turns 55.

ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML) just delivered the numbers Wall Street has been waiting for. The Dutch semiconductor equipment maker reported Q4 2025 orders that smashed analyst estimates, driven by insatiable demand for the advanced lithography systems that make cutting-edge AI chips possible. This isn't just a beat on expectations. It's confirmation that the AI infrastructure buildout is accelerating, not slowing down.

Anthropic has doubled the amount of VC funding it aims to raise, the FT reports, increasing the target from $10 billion to $20 billion. The round, expected to close soon, will give the company a valuation of $350 billion, sources told the FT. Anthropic, which makes the popular AI Claude and the equally popular Claude Code, decided to double its funding target due to booming investor interest.

On Wednesday, the startup announced that it raised an additional $250 million in Series D funding at a $12 billion valuation, co-led by Thrive Capital and DST. That's double the valuation from its last raise in October: $200 million at $6 billion, led by GV. It has now raised a total of $700 million, the company says, from backers including Sequoia, Nvidia, Kleiner Perkins, Blackstone, Bond, Craft Ventures, Mayo Clinic, and others.

Elon Musk moved within reach of an unprecedented $800 billion net worth after private investors sharply increased the valuation of xAI Holdings, his artificial intelligence and social media company. A newly confirmed $20 billion funding round valued the business at $250 billion, adding an estimated $62 billion to Musk's fortune and widening his lead as the world's wealthiest individual. Forbes confirmed that xAI Holdings was valued at $250 billion following its $20 billion funding round.

The JPMorgan Active Growth ETF ( NYSEARCA:JGRO) delivered a 14.2% return over the past year, trailing the S&P 500's 17.9% gain by nearly 4 percentage points. For investors paying a 0.44% expense ratio for active management, underperformance raises a key question: what should you watch to understand whether this fund can close the gap? JGRO's $8.5 billion portfolio reveals a critical vulnerability through its concentration strategy. The fund's top three positions control over a quarter of assets, creating exposure to mega-cap technology headwinds.

With the first full trading week of 2026 now in the books, investors might be wondering if the strong early start in the S&P will precede even more strength. Undoubtedly, a lack of a Santa Claus rally has seemingly paved the way for a rather hot start to 2026, with some memory chip stocks really picking up momentum while certain semiconductor equipment makers made up for lost time.

Thermo Fisher posted Q3 revenue of $11.12 billion, up 4.9% year over year, and delivered $5.79 in earnings per share against estimates of $5.50. That marked the company's 14th earnings beat in the last 16 quarters. The consistency reflects a diversified product portfolio across scientific instruments, reagents, and consumables serving research labs, hospitals, and biopharma customers. Danaher's Q3 was more complicated. Revenue reached $6.05 billion, up 4.4%, and the company beat estimates with $1.89 per share versus $1.72 consensus.

Paramount said in a letter on Thursday that it valued WBD's cable TV networks at $0.00 per share, when including expected debt and other costs. The letter came a day after WBD rebuffed Paramount's attempted acquisition for an eighth time in favor of Netflix's offer. In the letter, Paramount acknowledged "the theoretical possibility" that WBD's cable assets "could trade with up to ~$0.50 per share" of value.