This guide shows you the exact 15-minute window I trade, and how to spot the same setups the big funds are watching.
It’s yours for free.
Thomas Wood
P.S. This isn’t a 100-page novel. It’s a short, actionable guide you can read in about 10 minutes and put into action by tomorrow morning. Get it here.
Today’s editorial pick for you
Adobe Q3 Earnings Beat Expectations as AI Revenue Accelerates
The bigger change, however, is that AI-first ARR has now surpassed $650 million, up more than 150% year over year, while Adobe crossed 1 billion monthly active users and pushed Creative freemium MAUs above 100 million.
A few days ago, I went into this earnings report wondering whether all those new users could become meaningful Adobe customers. Q3 gives us a better answer than another quarter of user-growth statistics could have, but it also points me toward a different part of the company.
Wall Street is not waiting for this company to become famous.
Institutions already control 88% of its shares.
This business generates billions in operating income, controls a massive American energy footprint, and is now using Palantir’s AI technology to improve its operations.
Yet the market still values it at less than $8 billion.
Adobe Has Started Monetizing AI, But Firefly Is Only The Beginning
The cleanest evidence is Firefly, where ending ARR across the Firefly app and credit packs grew 40% sequentially, while AI-first ARR crossed $650 million. Adobe also said AI credit consumption accelerated across Creative Cloud and Firefly, with customer growth in Firefly Enterprise moving alongside that usage.
That is a meaningful change from the setup I wrote about before earnings. Back then, the concern was straightforward: Adobe could acquire millions of people through Firefly, Express and Acrobat, but a larger audience would do little for shareholders if those people never moved into paid products.
Now we have an actual monetization number attached to the AI strategy.
Still, I wouldn’t confuse rapid AI-first ARR growth with a companywide growth acceleration. Adobe’s total ARR reached $27.50 billion, but its growth rate fell to 11.2% from 12.5% in Q2, while RPO was $22.16 billion. The AI business is growing fast, but it is still a small piece of a much larger machine.
Why Enterprise Customers Could Be The Bigger AI Opportunity
Adobe already has more than 20,000 global enterprises using its products, and the company is now putting agentic AI directly into the systems those customers use to create, manage and deliver digital experiences.
In Q3, ending ARR grew more than 20% for each of Adobe Experience Manager and agentic web apps, GenStudio, and Adobe Experience Platform and apps. Adobe also doubled the number of paid customers for its Brand Visibility solutions quarter over quarter.
Then there is CX Enterprise Coworker, which became generally available in June and already has more than 1,700 customers and early adopters. The product is designed to execute marketing and customer-engagement workflows rather than simply answer prompts.
The potential economics have changed, and now, Adobe is taking AI into content production, customer data, web experiences, campaign optimization and workflow execution, areas where companies already spend heavily.
Which means that the conversation has now transcended from how Adobe could get people through its new AI-powered front door into how the company is now selling more intelligence to the enterprises already inside the building
The Old Business Is Still Paying For The New One
There is a temptation to frame this as Adobe desperately reinventing itself because AI has put Creative Cloud under pressure. But the Q3 numbers don’t support that interpretation.
Business Professionals & Consumers subscription revenue grew 16% to $1.91 billion, while Creative & Marketing Professionals subscription revenue rose 13% to $4.65 billion. Total customer-group subscription revenue reached $6.56 billion, up 14%.
Adobe is therefore attempting something more attractive than replacing its existing business with AI. It is expanding its audience through freemium products, adding AI monetization through Firefly and Acrobat, while placing agentic capabilities across a professional and enterprise ecosystem that continues to produce double-digit subscription growth.
The potential advantage is the installed base, as AI can make Adobe’s products easier to use and make the existing workflow more valuable. Someone who starts with Firefly can eventually need Photoshop. Someone using Acrobat’s AI capabilities can move into broader document productivity. An enterprise using GenStudio can bring AI into the rest of its customer experience operations.
Adobe has spent decades assembling those pieces. The next phase is about getting them to work together.
The Numbers Still Give The Bears Plenty To Work With
There is no point pretending the market has imagined Adobe’s slowdown. Total ARR growth has fallen from 13.8% in Q1 FY24 to 11.2% today, and the company isn’t forecasting some dramatic snapback. Its updated FY26 target calls for ending ARR growth of 10.2%, while FY26 revenue is now expected at $26.576 billion-$26.626 billion.
The stock is now reflecting that skepticism as ADBE closed at $248.83, sitting around its 50-day moving average near $251.78 and below its 200-day moving average near $266.96 and 20-day moving average near $272.79. After recovering from roughly $190 in July toward $290, the stock has now given back much of that move.
For traders, $250-$252 is the first level I’d watch. Reclaiming it would put the stock back above the 50-day; getting through $267 would reclaim the 200-day and repair more of the recent damage. A move toward $275-$280 would tell me the summer recovery is back in play.
I’m Buying ADBE, But I Want The Chart To Catch Up
I’m buying because the story has moved beyond the concern I had going into earnings: Adobe is no longer asking investors to take AI monetization entirely on faith, with more than $650 million in AI-first ARR and Firefly ARR growing 40% sequentially, providing the first real receipts.
Even more compelling is the fact that Adobe is embedding AI into a platform already used by more than 20,000 enterprises, with several of those enterprise businesses growing ARR at more than 20%.
So now, the stock doesn’t need to explode for this thesis to work. I want $250-$252 reclaimed first, $267 next, and if buyers can push ADBE back toward $275-$280, I’ll be considerably more comfortable adding to the position.
Today’s editorial pick for you
Shopify’s Strong Growth Makes Its AI Sell-Off Look Overdone
Posted On Sep 11, 2026 by Ian Cooper
Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP) could be ready for a comeback after getting caught up in this year’s artificial intelligence-driven sell-off, according to Bernstein. The firm recently initiated coverage of the e-commerce software company with an Outperform rating and a $160 price target.
Table of Contents
Shares have had a rough 2026, falling about 21% as investors pulled back from software stocks during the so-called “SaaSpocalypse.” The sell-off was fueled by concerns that rapidly advancing AI tools could eventually take market share from traditional software companies. Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik thinks those fears may be overdone.
The two investment legends who picked Nvidia 10 years ago…
Are coming together to answer that question.
Jeff Brown is a former tech executive who picked Nvidia in early 2016…
Marc Chaikin is a 60-year-old Wall Street titan who's worked with billionaires and hedge fund legends like Paul Tudor Jones, George Soros, and Steve Cohen.
And they recently came to a shocking conclusion.
They both believe you need to make this move before September 30.
Shmulik describes Shopify as sitting at the intersection of three major technology markets: e-commerce, software and payments. In his view, AI could ultimately expand the company’s opportunity rather than threaten its business. AI is making it easier for entrepreneurs to launch companies, and those new businesses will still need tools to sell products, accept payments and manage their operations. That puts Shopify in a potentially favorable position.
Shmulik said Shopify is a company he would “circle” as one that could eventually be reclassified as an AI winner, rather than an AI victim. Recent results provide some support for that.
Second-quarter revenue jumped 33.6% year over year to $3.58 billion, beating Wall Street expectations by about $140 million. The company also provided third-quarter revenue guidance above consensus estimates.
Gross merchandise volume, or GMV, climbed 32% to $115.6 billion, showing that merchants continued to move significant amounts of business through Shopify’s platform.
Other financial metrics were strong as well:
Monthly recurring revenue increased to $221 million, up from $185 million
Free cash flow reached $654 million, representing an 18% margin.
Operating income rose to $488 million, compared with $291 million a year earlier.
Net income increased to $1.50 billion, up from $906 million.
Shopify President Harley Finkelstein also pointed to AI as an opportunity for the company, saying that the technology is expanding what merchants can do through the platform.
Rosenblatt Is Bullish, Too
Bernstein isn’t the only Wall Street firm taking a bullish position.
Rosenblatt also recently initiated coverage of SHOP with a Buy rating and a $175 price target.
Analyst Scott Devitt called Shopify a dominant e-commerce software platform serving everyone from smaller merchants to major enterprise brands.
Rosenblatt also sees two areas of the company’s business as particularly underappreciated: B2B commerce and international expansion. Both could provide Shopify with additional room to grow as the company moves beyond its traditional base of online merchants.
The firm also pointed to Shopify’s free cash flow generation and operating leverage as positives. As revenue continues to grow, the company has been able to convert more of that growth into cash flow.
AI Could Actually Strengthen Shopify’s Position
One of the more interesting parts of the SHOP bull case is the company’s push into agentic commerce, a future in which AI assistants help consumers discover products and complete purchases. Rosenblatt argues that even if AI changes how shoppers find products, those transactions will still need infrastructure to handle catalogs, payments and checkout.
Shopify is positioning itself to be part of that infrastructure. The company co-developed the Universal Commerce Protocol with Google, while its Shop Pay system provides a checkout layer designed to work within emerging AI-powered shopping experiences.
So, What’s Next for Shopify?
Shopify expects Q3 revenue to increase at a low-thirties percentage rate year over year. Gross profit dollars are expected to grow at a mid-twenties percentage rate. That means the company is still forecasting growth at a pace that would be impressive for a business of Shopify’s size. The bigger question for investors is whether the market will continue to view SHOP as a software company threatened by AI or as a beneficiary of the AI story.
Paid advertisement from Porter & Co. Not investment advice. Investing involves risk including loss of principal.
TODAY'S BEAT - RISC-V / ISA
China bets $295M on RISC-V outside US export reach
EVAS Epoch on Swiss-governed ISA - architecture, not another Ascend clone.
This morning was US capital on purpose-built inference silicon. Tonight is a different layer: the instruction set.
TechTimes reported that Beijing-based EVAS Intelligence closed nearly RMB 2 billion, about $295 million, at a post-money of nearly RMB 15 billion, about $2.21 billion. More than twenty institutions participated. Lead names include Huatai Innovation, Eastern Bell Capital, and Zhongxin Juyuan, a fund linked to SMIC.
The product is Epoch, built on the RISC-V ISA and the RISC-V Vector extension. On top sits EVAMIND, the company's own domain-specific accelerator. TechTimes describes a TPU-style matrix engine with embedded RISC-V cores as choreographers, not as the compute itself. Block-quantized FP8 is the workhorse precision the company claims.
The architectural bet is the Swiss nonprofit. RISC-V International moved governance to Switzerland in 2019, citing US trade-regulation exposure. An open ISA owned by that body is not a US company's proprietary GPU. Washington can restrict Nvidia shipments. It has not restricted the ISA the way it restricts a chip.
That is not an Ascend clone story. Huawei's path is a proprietary architecture. EVAS is betting the governance layer sits outside the perimeter that bites CUDA-class parts. US lawmakers urged RISC-V licensing restrictions in 2023. Those restrictions have not been enacted.
Performance claims are company statements. Epoch has not been submitted to MLPerf. EVAS calls Epoch China's "first RISC-V cloud chip." Manufacturing node is undisclosed. SMIC-linked capital in the round makes the foundry question material, because an open ISA does not invent EUV.
At WAIC 2026 in Shanghai, EVAS showed a RISC-V SuperNode: Epoch chips, ELink interconnect at 3.2 terabits per second, and a backplane-free rack with liquid cooling. The company talks 64 to 128 chips per scale-up rack. Software names are EVACA, KernelFab, and a VISA layer pitched against CUDA lock-in. Production track record at cluster scale, outside domestic Chinese deployments, is not in this report.
The scarce layer is not another China GPU copy. It is whether an open ISA plus a domestic stack can win cloud workloads when CUDA lock-in and foundry node still bind. Export-control architecture versus export-control chip. $295 million just financed the test.
Swiss governance is the product
RISC-V International is a Swiss nonprofit with thousands of members. That relocation in 2019 is why this round is not another Ascend story. The ISA is the thing Washington has not walled the way it walls a GPU shipment.
No MLPerf, no node
Parity claims are company-only. Foundry and process are undisclosed. SMIC Capital in the cap table does not close that gap. An open ISA does not beat a closed software stack or a missing EUV line by itself.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Companies Building AI's Future
Every AI breakthrough requires more data centres, more power, more infrastructure. That buildout is creating opportunities well beyond the AI stocks everyone already knows.
Paid advertisement from Stock Earnings. Not investment advice.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Seven Stocks You May Never Need to Sell
Fortress balance sheets, long dividend histories, and the resilience to perform through both bull and bear markets. Some are Dividend Kings, others are on their way there. Built to deliver for decades rather than the next quarter. Free report.
Paid advertisement from MarketBeat. Not investment advice.
THE LONG GAME
Even if the ISA sits outside US export reach, the rack still needs a process node, an interconnect that holds signal integrity, and a compiler stack operators will actually write to. Copper already struggles past roughly 128 accelerators at current high-speed lanes. ELink is the company's answer. Proof is still a claim.
CUDA is a decades-deep habit. Cloud clusters are a different problem than IoT design share. The long game is whether SuperNode plus EVACA can pull workloads, not the fundraising calendar.
MUST READS
Wall Street Was Wrong About AI. Twice. First they called it a bubble. Then they told you to pile into the Magnificent Seven. Green recommended Apple under $1, Amazon under $2, Netflix at $1.62 and Nvidia in 2004.
The Ultimate Unicorn Investment Out of 23,281 stocks... ONLY ONE is this wildly profitable and undervalued. It has more operating income than Chipotle, Hilton, or Airbnb. But its cheaper than any of them.
YOU'RE EARLY. KEEP IT THAT WAY.
Most desks will file this under China chips. The live question is ISA governance. If Epoch never sees MLPerf, that silence was the tell.
The gauge is 72 and flat. Credit held on a sessionless Sunday. Valuation and Froth remain estimated.
- Knox Bennett, Lead Strategist, Strategic Compute
AI ARMS RACE A Guardian Financial Publishing title
WHY YOU'RE RECEIVING THIS EMAIL You're receiving this email because at some point, you opted in to receive updates, news, or information on a specific topic we've previously discussed or shared. Whether it was through a subscription, a form submission, or another form of communication, your information was shared willingly, and we respect your decision to connect with us.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. This message is part of an ongoing conversation between us, and we want you to have full transparency about why you received it, how your information is handled, and what to expect from future emails.
SUBSCRIPTION & DELIVERY Your subscription is confirmed and your delivery preferences are up to date. You are currently receiving content based on the schedule and frequency associated with your registration. If you need to adjust your delivery window, change your email frequency, or pause updates temporarily, reply to this message and our team will process your request within one business day. A confirmation of your original registration is available upon request.
UNSUBSCRIBING OR MANAGING YOUR PREFERENCES Everyone's inbox is different. If you ever find our emails no longer relevant, there's no hard feelings — use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email and it takes effect on the first click. If you'd rather adjust what you receive than leave entirely, reply with the word PREFERENCES and our team will help you tailor your delivery.
We don't use tricks or gimmicks to keep you subscribed. Our priority is that these emails add value to your day, and if they don't, we respect your decision to part ways.
CONTACTING US Questions about your subscription or anything you read here? Reply to this email or write to contact@guardian.pub. Mail can be sent to Stable Financial Publishing, 1013 Centre Road, Suite 403-D, Wilmington, DE 19805. We read every reply.
SOURCING AND ATTRIBUTION Our analysis is written from primary facts - filings, contracts, earnings figures, agency data, and reporting from outlets we name. When a fact comes from another publication we say so in the text and link the original article so you can read it yourself. Quotes are reproduced accurately and attributed. Figures are drawn from named sources and stated with their context.
If you believe we've published something incorrectly, reply with the detail and the source. We check it and print the correction.
HOW WE MAKE MONEY AI Arms Race is free to read. We keep it that way by including paid advertisements and affiliate links in some emails. If you click a link or make a purchase, we may receive compensation from the advertiser at no cost to you. Sponsored placements never change our editorial views, and every paid placement is labeled where it appears.
PAYMENTS & FRAUD PROTECTION We will never ask you to provide payment card numbers, bank account details, or login credentials by email. Any message requesting this information should be considered fraudulent and reported to our team immediately. If you have a question about a purchase made through us, reply within 30 days of the transaction date and a member of our team will provide your records.
REPORTING SUSPICIOUS EMAILS If you receive a message claiming to be from AI Arms Race or Guardian Financial Publishing that looks suspicious, do not click any links in it. Forward it to our support team so we can investigate and protect other readers.
PRIVACY & DATA HANDLING We take your privacy seriously and we do not sell your personal information. This section describes how we collect, use, and protect it; full details are in the Privacy Policy linked below.
What we collect. The information you give us at signup or later by reply - typically your email address, and sometimes your name or phone number. We also receive technical information when you open an email or visit one of our pages, including IP address, browser and device type, and operating system. Our emails contain tracking pixels and tagged links that tell us whether a message was opened and which links were clicked, which is how we measure what is worth sending.
How we use it. To deliver the content you signed up for, respond to your inquiries, maintain your subscription records, and improve what we publish.
A FINAL NOTE Email is one of the many ways we stay connected, but we understand it isn't perfect for everyone. If there's another way you'd prefer to hear from us, let us know - and we're open to finding what works.
This email may contain paid advertisements and affiliate links. Guardian Financial Publishing may receive compensation if you click a link or make a purchase.
AI Arms Race is a publication of Guardian Financial Publishing (D/B/A) Stable Financial Publishing Privacy Policy · Terms · Disclaimer
