Second chances rarely work out in the public markets.

The term “winners keep winning” gets used often in investing circles, but we don’t hear the term “losers keep losing” nearly as much. Unfortunately, the latter is perhaps a more apt description of the market. With less than 10% of individual stocks beating the broader market average, there are far more losers out there.

So when a company comes back on the public market — either emerging from a bankruptcy restructuring or private equity taking the public again — the chances of it being an overwhelming success is rather low. Sailpoint (NASDAQ: SAIL) came back on the public markets in February following its time under Thoma Bravo. Despite the private equity investment, the company continues to post losses, and its stock has remained stagnant.

This brings us to Phoenix Education Partners (NASDAQ: PXED). The parent company of the University of Phoenix is going public again after its private equity overlords — Apollo Global Management and Vistria — took it private in 2017.

Considering the track record of private equity retreads isn’t great, part of me didn’t think it would be worth looking at the IPO prospectus. I assumed I would find a company with an overleveraged balance sheet and a bare bones cost structure that made the experience worse for its customers.

That doesn’t appear to be the case, though.

Let’s dig in.

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I don’t think anyone who knows me or has read this newsletter for a while would call me a futurist. It’s not that often that I see a company and think “this is the future of [industry]”. Innovative companies rarely deliver the futuristic civilization we envision one day. I might even go so far to say that many of the significant advancements these days look more dystopian than utopian.

So I was a bit surprised when I read Neptune Insurance Holdings’ (NYSE: NP) IPO prospectus. It is the first time in many years that I have asked if this business model is the future of the insurance industry.

There are numerous regular insurance companies, oddball insurance companies, and insurance-adjacent companies listed on the public market (many of which are discussed here). Still, Neptune is one of the more unique business models. I’m unsure whether this is a futuristic innovation for the rest of the industry or a tool uniquely positioned to benefit from one of those “uninsurable” parts of the insurance market.

Let’s dig in.

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The word “unique” in the investing world relates to something positive. A unique opportunity is often a business or stock that possesses certain identifying traits that distinguish it from the competition in a positive way.

Fermi Inc.’s (NASDAQ: FRMI) IPO prospectus is one of the more unique prospectuses I’ve read and written about in this newsletter. In this case, however, I don’t think the term 'unique' has a positive connotation.

The most complimentary thing I can say about Fermi’s is that it is ambitious. Beyond ambition, I’m not sure what else to say because I can’t think of any other company with a similar business plan or corporate structure.

Let’s dig in.

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All businesses change. Some in more subtle ways than others.

Change is a necessity for any business. Otherwise, they can fall into obscurity. Unfortunately, change also means taking on new challenges where there is no certainty of success.

Not all business changes are necessary, though. They can sometimes be the brainchild of management looking to take the company in a different direction.

Nordson Corporation (NASDAQ: NDSN) doesn’t look like a company going through much of a change. The machinery company’s growth via acquisition playbook has been used since the 1970s. It's a playbook, I think, that most of its investors have appreciated.

What seems different is the type of investments the company has made in the past couple of years. Management appears to be charting a new course.

Let’s dig in.

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Investors lose interest in companies for many reasons.

More often than not, they move on because a company fails to deliver on its promises of generating returns. Or the comapny has delivered great returns and has matured into a slower growth business.

But what about companies where investors lose interest because the company stops talking to its investors?

There aren’t a lot of examples of this, but Ubiquiti (NYSE: UI) is one of those rare birds. The network hardware manufacturer used to get a lot of market buzz, but interest in the company has pretty much fallen off a cliff. The thing is, despite investors losing interest and Wall Street analysts all but giving up on covering this comapny, the stock has continued to deliver market-smashing returns.

The reason why investors lost interest is one of the more interesting corporate stories out there.

Let’s dig in.

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Investing rationally and dispassionately is harder than we’re all willing to admit.

Writers (myself included) proselytize the idea of not letting our emotions get the best of us when investing. More often than not, that message is specifically delivered to prevent people from getting FOMO about a fast-rising stock or to not panic after an inevitable 10%-15% drawdown.

What we investing proselytizers often neglect to cover is taking our emotions out of the equation when actually looking at the viability of a business.

A common phrase we have all heard is to invest in companies we like. That investing heuristic is most often used in reference to buying the companies that make the things you like. If you, the consumer, like the product, then chances are you are a barometer of a larger demographic that feels the same.

Where this investing heuristic starts to lead us astray is when we invest in a company because we think it will have some positive impact on society. Maybe it’s an innovative energy company, or a medical device company that claims to have solved a major medical issue. There are numerous examples of this, and I’m sure we all have that one company in our past that tugged on our idealistic heartstrings, only to leave us disappointed.

This brings me to a company set to go public this week: Via Transportation (NYSE: VIA). It is practically impossible not to root for this company on an emotional level. A company whose mission is to make public transit more accessible and affordable - what’s not to like?

Let’s dig in…and not let our investing heart get in the way of our investing head.

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One of my working theories is that some of the most durable businesses make good-but-not-great returns. Returns have to be above one’s cost of capital, but generating excessively high rates of return engenders competition.

Basically, you want to be good enough to make money without anyone noticing.

I’m opening with this statement because a couple of companies going public soon are prime examples of what happens when the returns are too good: Competitors come out of the woodwork.

It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to see why Legence (NASDAQ: LGN) and Black Rock Coffee Bar (NASDAQ: BRCB) are opting to go public. One is benefitting immensely from an artificial intelligence side bet, while the other looks an awful lot like a richly valued stock on the market today. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to see why both want to go public.

Let’s dig in

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How time flies…

When screening for stock ideas, it’s helpful to run the same screening criteria at regular intervals to see which companies (and industries) frequently appear or only show up once or twice.

One I built for this newsletter is a “Buffett screen”. It isn’t based on the common principles most people attribute to Warren Buffett, but is instead derived from a quote during the 1999 annual shareholders meeting. I had hoped to revisit this list about once every six months, but it’s now been over a year since I last visited it.

Let’s fix that.

One of the benefits of market screens is that they can not only provide a starting point for new investment ideas, but they can also teach valuable lessons about companies and industries.

One big takeaway from this current iteration? Brands aren’t as strong as you think they are.

Here are the stock screening criteria:

• Trading region of primary security: USA & Canada

• Market capitalization: Between $1 million and $10 billion

• Return on total capital over the past 12 months (TTM): greater than 15%

• Earnings before interest and taxes margin (TTM): Greater than 10%

• Price to Free cash flow: Less than 15 times

Let’s dig in.

I will share the results from a stock screen I created using Koyfin. It is one of the many functions I find myself using daily on the Koyfin platform; It also allows me to create watchlists to track many portfolios, review a decade of financials, or compare companies on various metrics. Unleash the power of Koyfin’s platform and transform your research process by signing up for Koyfin here and receiving 10% off.

Get my 10% off Koyfin!

Disclaimer: I have an affiliate partnership with Koyfin and receive compensation if you sign up via the link above. It helps me fund this endeavor. I would still recommend using it even if I didn’t have this partnership because it’s an awesome product, but I’d be stupid to turn down a revenue opportunity. You get a discount, Koyfin gets new business, and I get a commission. Win-win-win)

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I’m bewildered by the insurance industry.

Not because its a bad investment (most insurers are good) or because its a sleepy business (lots of good businesses are).

What bewilders me about this business is how those of us in financial media cover it.

There are two ways the industry is covered.

• Berkshire voyeurism: Insurance is just a float for Buffett’s endeavors in publicly traded companies. The Berkshire 13F is treated as if it came down from Mt. Sinai. Even Markel (NYSE: MKL), the closest asimile to Berkshire in terms of structure and with a significant equity & private company portfolio, barely raises the market’s eyebrows with its 13F.

• An emerging industry darling: There is always someone looking to “disrupt” the insurance market. Whether it be industry execs tackling an underserved (and highly profitable) segment of the market a la Kinsale Capital (NYSE: KNSL), or some technology-focused startup a la Lemonade (NASDAQ: LMND) that is “fixing” insurance.

There is some value in these discussions (although the Berkshire 13F thing is getting a little long in the tooth). What vexes me is that these are seemingly the only narratives worth discussing in insurance.

That’s where so many of us in the investment writing community fail. So many companies in this industry have stellar track records of value creation over time. And yet so few of them can get the time of day from retail investors and the mediasphere catering to them. I’ve covered a few of the oddball investments in insurance that have produced outstanding results. Still, just as many bread-and-butter insurance companies have run laps around the broader market without Wall Street fanfare or media attention.

Case in point: Old Republic International (NYSE: ORI)

Old Republic isn’t a glamorous business. The $9 billion makret cap insurer is nowhere near the largest in the markets it competes. It isn’t some plucky startup, either (it’s over 100 years old).

And yet, the company continues to deliver the kind of performance investors wish they could achieve.

We’ve dug into lots of companies with similar underappreciated businesses like Old Republic. But if you stare at that chart and Old Republic’s deliberately bland business, you might start asking the same question I did.

Are we doing this investing thing right?

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Fintech IPOs have been a hot commodity so far this year. Between highly touted IPOs such as Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) and Chime Financial (NASDAQ: CHYM) and slightly less heralded ones such as eToro (NASDAQ: ETOR) or Accelerant Holdings (NYSE: ARX), the market has served up loads of disruption in banking and capital markets in 2025.

Most of them are looking to put a unique spin on staid industries like payment processing, insurance exchanges, and brokerages.

Miami International Holdings (NYSE: MIAX) is also looking to take market share from one of the oligopolies in finance: equities and options exchanges.

While most investors probably haven’t seen too many companies with a MIAX listing instead of a NYSE or a NASDAQ listing, the company is finding some profitable niches and taking market share from the big players.

Here’s a quick look at the upstart exchange company that recently went public.

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I like to keep an eye out for compelling investments in international markets. One that has popped up in surprising ways is Poland. I don’t (yet) have any investments in the Polish market, and I’m not intimately familiar with many companies in the market. I know one Polish company was a social media sensation for a brief moment (grocery chain Dino Polska (WSE: DNP)). Beyond that, I’m still finding my footing.

After scanning over what’s available on the Warsaw exchange, there is a lot to like here. Not only is the Polish economy one of the strongest in Europe right now, it’s stock market is littered with high-performing companies trading at what most investors would consider deep value territory.

So let’s all dig into what makes Poland a compelling place to park one’s capital. I’ll also share a stock market screen with plenty of ideas from the Warsaw Exchange.

I’m about to share the results from a stock screen I created using Koyfin. It is one of the many functions I find myself using daily on the Koyfin platform. It also allows me to create watchlists to track many portfolios, review a decade of financials, or compare companies on various metrics. Unleash the power of Koyfin’s platform and transform your research process by signing up for Koyfin here and receiving 10% off.

Get my 10% off Koyfin!

Disclaimer: I have an affiliate partnership with Koyfin and receive compensation if you sign up via the link above. It helps me fund this endeavor. I would still recommend using it even if I didn’t have this partnership because it’s an awesome product, but I’d be stupid to turn down a revenue opportunity. You get a discount, Koyfin gets new business, and I get a commission. Win-win-win)

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Of all of SpaceX’s accomplishments over the past several years, one stands out to me as incredibly impactful.

It proved that investors will be willing to throw mountains of money at space companies.

I’m being glib, but SpaceX’s was proof-of-concept that someone other than United Launch Alliance (ULA) could launch a rocket into space (and get the U.S. government to pay for it).

Like many other highly successful first entrants into an industry, SpaceX has ushered in a new wave of space companies.

This past week, Firefly Aerospace (NASDAQ: FLY) went public after two rather spectacular feats: It was the first commercial space company to land on the moon successfully and achieved the fastest turnaround time (from customer notification to launch) of 24 hours. Those are some rather spectacular achievements, and I’m sure that it will quickly move Firefly up the U.S. Government’s list of space vendors.

Firefly certainly has established its bona fides in the space industry, and investors are already piling into the stock.

The Firefly IPO certainly raises a few questions that investors should consider, though.

Let’s dig in.

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I thought I was going to be writing about the Figma (NYSE: FIG) IPO this week…

Considering how much fanfare surrounded the company’s IPO, I assumed there must be some stellar business behind all of it.

Needless to say, I was disappointed with what Figma has to offer to its investors. The more I read the prospectus, the more perplexed I became about why people were so excited about this company going public.

Perhaps even more discouraging is that there is a fair share of more compelling investments for individuals coming to market than what Figma is serving up to the public markets.

So instead of dwelling (too long, I have to rant a little) on Figma’s unappealing offering, I want to focus on another recent IPO: Carlsmed (NASDAQ: CARL). The early-stage medical device company may be entering a crowded space, but there is a lot to like in this offering.

Let’s dig in.

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One common phrase you hear these days is “AI will kill the [X] industry”. The number of industries this phrase applies to seems to grow by the day.

Professional services and education are two industries investors have mentioned as victims of AI. While AI may certainly disrupt the industry, it may be a little early to declare that the businesses in these respective industries are on their deathbeds.

In the past couple of weeks (I’m still catching up from some time off), two legacy professional services companies have gone public: Data analytics company NIQ Global Intelligence (formerly NielsenIQ) (NYSE: NIQ) and education publisher McGraw Hill (NYSE: MH). Both have been in their respective businesses for decades, but the past few years have involved significant investments in digitization and artificial intelligence to defend their turf.

Now that all the spending is (largely) complete, the private equity owners of these two companies are bringing both to the public markets in hopes that these investments will pay off.

Let’s dig in.

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The original idea of a Misfit stock was those underappreciated stocks. Underappreciated doesn’t mean obscure, though. Sometimes, it can mean more well-known businesses that are seemingly left for dead.

Cummins (NYSE: CMI) fits into that latter category. By no means is a company with 22 Wall Street analysts an obscure or undercovered company.

It’s also not hard to see why investors have thrown a company as quality as Cummins into the “no, thanks” pile. I don’t agree with why I think Cummins gets overlooked these days, though, and I think by the end of this, you’ll agree. Even though its business is “dying,” it has posted market-beating results over the past 1, 3, 5, 10, 20-year investment period.

Cummins also poses a challenging question for its management and investors in industries under long-term threat of obsolescence, and how to appropriately compensate a team to facilitate change.

Let’s dig in.

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Man, the market was busy while I was away.

The past couple of weeks have seen quite a few IPOs, and not just the uninvestible ones like the blank check companies and the likely nano cap pump-and-dump slop (although the prevalence of these going public might also be a signal of market sentiment).

Of the recent IPOs, a few stood out as more interesting than others. The one that popped off the page immediately was Accelerant Holdings (NYSE: ARX). Of the companies going public this year, this is one that, in my opinion, is tackling a unique problem in a market that has been dominated by the same sets of rules for hundreds of years. It certainly isn’t the perfect IPO (none are), but there is something there.

Let’s dig in.

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Editorial note: I confess my publishing schedule has been less frequent lately. Unsurprisingly, the slower cadence started right when school got out for the summer. It’s fair to say that I underestimated how much more chaotic the Mifit household would become when school got out for the summer. (I can see you parents nodding violently in agreement).

The editorial team (of one) will be taking some time off after this piece. We’ll see you all again on August 1st.

Every time I profile a company here, I try to follow a single through-line or explore a larger topic that the company represents. For months, I have been trying to find a single through-line for Cal-Maine Foods (NASDAQ: CALM).

Here’s my dilemma. There are so many investing topics to explore with Cal-Maine that I can’t quite pin it down to just one.

So, rather than try to mix all of Cal-Maine’s ingredients into a single dish, we’re going to look at Cal-Maine tapas style.

(I promise. I won’t make any more hamfisted food puns).

Let’s dig in. (THIS DOESN’T COUNT AS A FOOD PUN!!!)

Shoutout to Koyfin for their data and charts. Koyfin has become an integral part of how I screen for, track, and analyze companies. It has made the analysis process much faster thanks to having a decade of data at my fingertips instead of manually going through stacks of quarterly and annual filings.

Up your analysis process by Signing up for Koyfin. Click on the link below and receive 10% off your annual subscription.

Claim my 10% off Koyfin now!

Disclaimer: I have an affiliate partnership with Koyfin and receive compensation if you sign up via the link above. It helps me fund this endeavor. I would still recommend using it even if I didn’t have this partnership because it’s an awesome product, but I’d be stupid to turn down a revenue opportunity. You get a discount, Koyfin gets new business, and I get a commission. Win-win-win).

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While the market has been thoroughly impressed with some of the recent IPOs to hit the market, I must say that many of these fintech darlings do not look particularly compelling to me. They already look like stocks that trade on hype rather than fundamentals.

I’m still of the belief that the better investments in the IPO market will come from those less heralded offerings. The IPO market was so busy that some have flown under the radar. Recent;y, two insurance companies — Slide Insurance Holdings (NASDAQ: SLDE) and Ategrity Specialty Holdings (NYSE: ASIC) — went public, both of which look like much more appealing investment options.

Insurance businesses are an acquired taste for most investors, but there’s no denying the long-term compounding ability of this industry. Fortunately for us, these two insurers roughly resemble two other companies in the insurance business that can help us better understand the potential in front of them.

Let’s dig in.

Shoutout to Koyfin for their data and charts. Koyfin has become an integral part of how I screen for, track, and analyze companies. It has made the analysis process much faster thanks to having a decade of data at my fingertips instead of manually going through stacks of quarterly and annual filings.

Up your analysis process by Signing up for Koyfin. Click on the link below and receive 10% off your annual subscription.

Claim my 10% off Koyfin now!

Disclaimer: I have an affiliate partnership with Koyfin and receive compensation if you sign up via the link above. It helps me fund this endeavor. I would still recommend using it even if I didn’t have this partnership because it’s an awesome product, but I’d be stupid to turn down a revenue opportunity. You get a discount, Koyfin gets new business, and I get a commission. Win-win-win).

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Certain companies become so deeply ingrained in our memories that we often make comparisons to them.

For me, in certain parts of the healthcare industry, Theranos is that codified company. Whenever I read SEC filings for a healthcare company that involves novel detection or diagnosis, my inner monologue says, “Maybe it’s another Theranos”.

It’s not fair to those companies, but I reflexively read healthcare company reports from a more defensive position than other industries. Something has to pop off the page to convince me it’s the real deal.

Enter Caris Life Sciences (NASDAQ: CAI). The company went public recently (the IPO market has been so active lately, I can’t seem to keep up). The diagnostic and testing company has developed some groundbreaking testing regimes for precision medicine.

Even though I immediately put my guard up when I started reading the IPO prospectus, there were a few things in the report that made me glance over my boxing gloves.

Let’s dig in.

Shoutout to Koyfin for their data and charts. Koyfin has become an integral part of how I screen for, track, and analyze companies. It has made the analysis process much faster thanks to having a decade of data at my fingertips instead of manually going through stacks of quarterly and annual filings.

Up your analysis process by Signing up for Koyfin. Click on the link below and receive 10% off your annual subscription.

Claim my 10% off Koyfin now!

Disclaimer: I have an affiliate partnership with Koyfin and receive compensation if you sign up via the link above. It helps me fund this endeavor. I would still recommend using it even if I didn’t have this partnership because it’s an awesome product, but I’d be stupid to turn down a revenue opportunity. You get a discount, Koyfin gets new business, and I get a commission. Win-win-win).

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The market may be irrational, but it isn’t stupid.

I’m pretty sure someone else has made that statement before, but I can’t remember who.

Every so often, the market presents situations that are hard to explain. Either it’s that a company’s stock is irrationally priced (either too expensive or too cheap), or it’s two seemingly close competitors whose stocks trade for wildly different valuations.

Whenever one of these situations presents itself, the easy (and hubristic) thing to do is proclaim “the market is irrational!” and act on your conviction. Our entire existence as individual stock pickers is based on this core idea. It is therefore hard to envision a world where the market is acting rationally.

Even if we believe the market is acting irrationally, there is always some logical thread behind that irrational behavior. As investors, a crucial skill is having the ability to understand the market’s logic thread and then assessing the rationality (or the degree of irrationality) of that thread.

I bring this up because it’s the lens through which I want to look at Quanta Services (NYSE: PWR). Quanta is the nation’s largest electrical contractor and has generated the types of returns you would expect from some Sillicon Valley darling over the past 20 years.

What I find peculiar about Quanta is how it compares to the #2 electrical contractor on the market, EMCOR Group (NYSE: EME). Quanta is considerably larger in terms of revenue and market capitalization. That said, many of the metrics we use to assess quality would suggest EMCOR is the better business. And yet, the market has almost always priced Quanta at a premium to EMCOR. Today, the market seems to think you should pay a premium that is double EMCOR’s to own Quanta.

The knee-jerk reaction is to say the market is irrational here. It was certainly mine, but I own shares of EMCOR, so I may perhaps be a little biased.

So let’s dig into why a company with seemingly better metrics trades at such a discount to its direct competitor and see what logic thread the market may be following to arrive at what looks like an irrational conclusion.

Shoutout to Koyfin for their data and charts. Koyfin has become an integral part of how I screen for, track, and analyze companies. It has made the analysis process much faster thanks to having a decade of data at my fingertips instead of manually going through stacks of quarterly and annual filings.

Up your analysis process by Signing up for Koyfin. Click on the link below and receive 10% off your annual subscription.

Claim my 10% off Koyfin now!

Disclaimer: I have an affiliate partnership with Koyfin and receive compensation if you sign up via the link above. It helps me fund this endeavor. I would still recommend using it even if I didn’t have this partnership because it’s an awesome product, but I’d be stupid to turn down a revenue opportunity. You get a discount, Koyfin gets new business, and I get a commission. Win-win-win).

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