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52,303 |
+0.1% |
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$86,179 |
+0.3% |
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SEPTEMBER 23, 2026 |
1. KB Home Feels the Squeeze. It Won’t Be the Last. |
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Turns out, plenty of homebuyers are looking at today’s mortgage rates and saying, “Yeah, no thanks.” At KB Home, one of America’s largest homebuilders, the average buyer’s household income was $134,000 last quarter. That’s a snapshot of the broader housing market: high rates have raised the bar so high that everyday families are getting screened out. Here’s what that means for investors. |
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The big housing pivot: The builders’ golden era is fading fast. For years, owners locked into cheap mortgages refused to sell, so new homes were the only option. Now resale supply is at its highest level in over a decade, and builders are fighting for buyers with price cuts and rate buydowns. That fight is harder with the 30-year mortgage hovering near 7%.
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The domino effect: KB Home is one of the first large builders to report each quarter. When a builder focused on first-time buyers says conditions worsened over the summer, it suggests more margin pressure is coming across the sector. Big-box retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s Companies could bear the brunt too, because people won’t buy new couches and appliances for homes they haven’t bought.
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2. AI Agents Rattle Travel Stocks |
Meta’s new artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, Muse, shot up to the top spot on Apple’s free app charts this month. Travel stocks took it personally, with Expedia, Booking, TripAdvisor, and Airbnb all falling on Tuesday. |
Muse can book flights and hotels, which means it could cut travel sites out of a transaction they’ve owned for decades. Rivals like Instinct and agentic payment tools from PayPal and others are chasing the same toll booth. Meta, a recommendation of Team Hidden Gems and Team Rule Breakers, is up over 10% this week alone. |
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The toll booth is what’s at risk: Bloomberg Intelligence estimates AI agents could siphon 5% to 10% of business from travel, ride-sharing, and delivery firms. That could cost those industries $5 billion in combined revenue. Airbnb and Booking, also recommended by Team Hidden Gems and Team Rule Breakers, fell 3% and 2.6% Tuesday, respectively.
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Integration could beat elimination: Expedia has already partnered with Muse, and there could be a lesson for every travel platform. AI agents will decide which booking sites get paid. Those who own the inventory and data could win. The ones that just process a booking may not. The number to watch is the take rate, and the slice of each booking a platform eventually keeps.
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3. Viking’s Obesity Drug Trims 22% Off the Scale |
Rule Breakers recommendation Viking Therapeutics is chasing the obesity market’s next edge: fewer shots for the same result. Its experimental drug VK2735 produced 16% to 19% weight loss after 21 weeks of once-weekly dosing in a mid-stage trial of roughly 180 adults. Placebo patients lost almost nothing. A higher-dose group continued to shed weight through week 33, reaching 21.7% without plateauing. That contrasts with Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, whose drugs often level off. All three stocks were largely unmoved in early trading, though, signaling the market’s wait for a bigger trial. |
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Fewer shots, similar results: Patients who switched to every-other-week or monthly dosing maintained 97% and 90% of their weight loss. That points to a friendlier long-term regimen than today’s weekly shots, and side effects stayed manageable as dosing frequency dropped. Viking now plans to test an oral maintenance option, which could allow patients to hold their results without any injections.
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A rival looks beyond weight loss: Novo, Viking’s much larger competitor, is reportedly eyeing hair-loss treatments as part of a broader post-Wegovy diversification push. That underscores how competitive—and creative—the race for dominance has become.
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4. IonQ Rallies Nearly 10% on Korea Deal |
IonQ just signed a multi-year deal with South Korea’s SDT. The deal covers its Superion 256 quantum computer and a dedicated manufacturing hub in the industrial city of Gumi. Shares rallied nearly 10% over the past week on the news. That follows a rough stretch: the stock is down almost 24% over 90 days and nearly 46% over the past year. For long-term investors, the SDT deal matters more than the week’s bounce. It’s evidence IonQ can convert research promise into real commercial revenue, still rare in an industry years from turning a profit. |
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A hub built for the long haul: Setting up physical manufacturing in Gumi points toward durable, geographically diversified revenue instead of one-off contracts. That’s the kind of infrastructure that’s hard to unwind if a single customer walks away.
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Cheap by one measure, not by another: IonQ trades 65% below the average analyst price target. Its price-to-book ratio of 4.9 still tops the broader semiconductor industry. The stock, recommended by both Team Hidden Gems and Team Rule Breakers, isn’t cheap so much as it reflects a market that hasn’t caught up to the Gumi build-out yet. Team HG has a 5-year price prediction of $79.43; shares trade around $40 today.
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5. Karooooo Is Fleet of Foot |
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TEAM HIDDEN GEMS |
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Karooooo, whose cloud software tracks commercial vehicle fleets in real time, let its free cash flow fall about 82% year over year in its latest quarter. Management spent that cash on tracking devices to sign up new customers faster. We recommended the stock again weeks later at $64.69. |
That makes for 30 times Team Hidden Gems has recommended Karooooo, starting at $41.58 in October 2024, and now following it about 60% higher. Aggressive spending that spooks the market in the short term and pays off over the years is one of our favorite setups. |
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Hiding in plain sight: Karooooo runs out of Singapore, reports in South African rand, and trades roughly only 104,000 shares on an average day, so most American investors scroll right past it. Underneath sits a 68% gross margin, a 95% customer retention rate, and a 22% return on invested capital.
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Owners spending like owners: Its device buildout tanked free cash flow but bought scale in return. Subscribers on Cartrack, its core tracking service, passed 2.8 million, up about 18% year over year, while revenue grew 23%. Founder and CEO Zak Calisto and fellow insiders hold nearly 68% of the company, so nobody has more riding on this buildout.
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Team Hidden Gems has a 5-year price prediction of $128.44, close to double the $67.53 shares fetch today. A founder who invested in winning long-paying subscribers, with early traction toward that goal, earns our patience. |
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6. Today’s Question! |
What’s the one earnings report you never skip, even if you don’t own the stock? |
Discuss with friends and family, or become a member to hear what your fellow Fools are saying! |
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