Framework
I seek companies that have moved beyond proof-of-concept but remain under-appreciated — captured at the moment when fundamentals are inflecting but before the market narrative has fully caught up.
Core Thesis
My edge comes from recognizing two systematic market failures that create repeatable mispricings in growth equities.
First, markets consistently under-appreciate TAM expansion. Analysts tend to linearly extrapolate existing markets rather than recognizing when the total addressable market is fundamentally expanding — the NVDA datacenter TAM explosion with AI, META's creation of the social advertising market. These are not incremental stories; they are structural step-changes that conventional models miss.
Second, there is a persistent narrative lag of 6–18 months between when fundamental business inflection occurs and when market narratives — and sell-side models — adjust. Revenue acceleration, margin expansion, or new product traction is often visible in the data long before consensus upgrades its estimates. I focus on that window.
What Qualifies
Quantitative Screen
The following criteria operationalize the philosophy — filtering for companies demonstrating durable growth, operating leverage, and healthy financial structure. This screen produced NuScale Power (SMR) as the semester investment idea.
In Practice
On NuScale Power, the philosophy surfaced as a probability mismatch. A reverse DCF revealed the market was pricing 45.2% pipeline conversion — aligned with early-stage infrastructure projects. But four concurrent milestones (PPA legal drafting, financing term sheet, site identification, TVA board authorization) placed the program in a materially higher-probability stage. The 20-point gap was the edge.
On ULTA Beauty, the framework flagged narrative lag. Proprietary Placer.ai traffic data showed ULTA gaining share (+3.8% YoY) while specialty retail declined (−2.1%). This was a leading indicator — observable in foot traffic data months before it would appear in same-store sales comps or Street model revisions. The market was still anchored to the prior narrative of saturation.
The HP Inc. credit report extended the philosophy into fixed income. The same logic — finding where the market's implied probability or spread level reflects stale assumptions — applies across asset classes. HP's net leverage path to ~0.99× by FY27 was not reflected in current OAS positioning, creating a carry trade with upgrade optionality at low risk.
The common thread across all three: the market was pricing a stage or narrative that the data no longer supported. Identifying that gap — and building a falsifiable, quantified case for why — is the core of the process.