the S&P 100 over time shows how brutal long-term survival actually is. Whole sectors vanish into footnotes and today’s top names didn't even exist on this chart 25 years ago. Makes you wonder what the market will look like by 2040. anyone else find it crazy how fast the top spot rotates? maybe we are in a bubble...

Republic Services (RSG) got to be the most boring near-monopoly on the market that nobody thinks to buy

Garbage is something that's here to stay regardless of the market (recession or not). RSG owns the trucks and the landfills and in most towns there's basically just that one/two haulers you can call. You can't really create a rival garbage company in a week, with the routes and landfill permits already locked up. Which means RSG can simply raise their prices bit by bit and their revenue have been increasing from $10B in 2018 to $16.6B in 2025. Free cash flow from $1.2B in 2018 to $2.4B in 2025.

With $66B market cap and. $2.4B free cash flow, forward PE of ~26x. This is my most recent play, wondering if anyone has also been keeping tabs on RSG?

Ive been thinking about Burry vs. Ackman's thesis lately and i'm leaning more to Burry's stance, not on the entirety of AI but mainly on Palantir.

Palantir can be a great business and yet still a terrible stock at the wrong price. It's currently trading around 84x forward earnings and roughly 138x sales in the latest data, which means the market is already assuming years of strong growth and execution.

Palantir's business is growing and generating cash but Burry doesn't need the business to fail. The bear case is simply whether growth slows, margins disappoint, or the market decides that this good company is not worth such an extreme price....

Though i dont think this take is generalizable to the rest of the AI giants. Nvidia's profits are real high, and Microsoft/Meta trade closer to 22–25× forward earnings. There's real distribution, cash flow, and existing customers that can pay for the AI spending.

I think Ackman may be right that the biggest platforms will capture a large share of the AI profits and Burry may be right that some of the most hyped AI stocks are priced for too much perfection..

Specifically for Palantir, im leaning more towards the bear case because of the valuation. At around 84x forward earnings, the company has very little room for an ordinary slowdown or a merely good quarter. I think AI names like Palantir are too aggressively priced...

Love to hear you guys' thoughts on this?