Today’s Digest: 

• Top Investment Themes of 2026. Don’t Miss The Next Rally…

• What’s Happening in the Markets? Venezuela’s Sanctioned Oil, Warren Buffett Retires as CEO and All Things CES 2026

• Deal Review: We found a cash flowing Porta Potty Business in Wisconsin ($308k of Cash Flow). Click HERE for the listing (Deal Review Below)

• 🚀 The Deal Team Applications 🚀
  Our community for investors & business buyers is launching this month! Applications go live next week - stay on the lookout. Limited spots!

• CES 2026: We’re live at CES all week (on YouTube) and diligencing the AI hype and finding our next best investment opportunity. Join the live and ask Qs!

Top Investment Themes for 2026

Every year starts with noise. The edge comes from focusing on what compounds quietly while others chase headlines. Heading into 2026, three themes stand out — each driven by structural demand, not hype.

1. AI Memory: The Unsexy Bottleneck
AI has already rewarded early equity investors. The obvious question now: what still hasn’t been fully priced?
Compute grabs attention, but memory and storage are the real constraint. Models don’t scale without faster, cheaper, and denser data access. Training, inference, and edge deployment all depend on it. After last year’s rally, returns won’t come from owning “AI” broadly — they’ll come from owning the infrastructure that every model must pass through. This layer compounds as usage grows, regardless of which model wins.

2. Extracurricular League Roll-Ups
Kids’ sports and enrichment are having a quiet renaissance. Parents are reallocating spend away from screens and toward structured, social, real-world activities. Local soccer leagues, camps, arts programs, and clinics are fragmented, cash-generative, and operationally simple.
The playbook is repeatable: consolidate locally, standardize ops, layer in software, hire seasonal labor, and expand via schools and municipalities. It’s unglamorous — and exactly why it works.

3. Electric Utility Maintenance Professionals
Electricity demand is at all-time highs. Data centers, EVs, and reshoring are pushing aging grids past their design limits. While capital flows toward generation and storage, maintenance, repair, and upgrade labor is the choke point.
Certified utility contractors with long-term service agreements are positioned for durable, non-discretionary cash flow.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE MARKETS?

• Venezuela to Ship Sanctioned Oil to the U.S. Indefinitely

  The Trump administration confirmed Venezuela will begin shipping sanctioned crude to the U.S. on an ongoing basis, starting with an initial 30–50 million barrels. Sanctions will be selectively rolled back, with proceeds flowing through U.S.-controlled accounts. Previously China-bound barrels will now be redirected to U.S. buyers, with Washington positioning U.S. oil majors to re-enter Venezuela’s energy infrastructure over time.

  Why It Matters:
  This is a geopolitical supply release, not a structural oil shock. At ~800k bpd, Venezuela is too small to reset global balances, but meaningful enough to cap upside in a fragile crude market. The bigger signal is political: energy sanctions are becoming transactional tools rather than binary weapons. Expect higher volatility and lower geopolitical risk premia as supply becomes more negotiable.

• Warren Buffett Steps Down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO

  After more than 60 years, Warren Buffett officially stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, handing operational control to Greg Abel while remaining chairman. Buffett leaves behind a $1T conglomerate built on disciplined capital allocation, insurance float, and long-duration ownership of high-quality businesses.

  Why It Matters:
  This marks the end of an era — but not a regime change. Berkshire’s investment framework is institutionalized, not personality-driven. The real question for markets isn’t succession risk, but capital deployment: with massive cash reserves and fewer obvious bargains, Berkshire’s future returns may look more bond-like than equity-like. Stability remains the asset — acceleration does not.

• CES 2026: AI Everywhere, Infrastructure Quietly Wins

  CES 2026 reinforced a familiar theme: AI dominates messaging, but infrastructure drives reality. Nvidia unveiled its Rubin architecture and autonomous vehicle models, AMD pushed AI PCs, Amazon expanded Alexa+, and robotics partnerships (Boston Dynamics + Google) highlighted physical-world AI applications. Hardware, memory, and compute upgrades — not consumer gadgets — carried the most weight.

  Why It Matters:
  CES confirms AI is moving from novelty to utility. The winners won’t be flashy devices, but companies controlling compute, memory, storage, and deployment layers. For investors, this reinforces a shift away from “AI stories” toward infrastructure bottlenecks — where pricing power and durable cash flows actually live.

SO YOU WANT TO BUY A BUSINESS…

Deal of the Week: Fire Stopping Contractor – Asking $999K

Opportunity Snapshot
This is a code-driven, non-discretionary specialty contractor operating in fire stopping and fireproofing — a niche embedded directly in life-safety and inspection requirements. Founded in 1992, the business serves healthcare systems, schools, arenas, commercial and industrial buildings across ~70 projects per year.

This is not cosmetic construction. If this work isn’t done correctly, buildings do not pass inspection.

Cash Flow & Valuation

• Revenue: $2.2M

• SDE: ~$487K

• Price: $999K (~2.0× SDE)

That is a compelling entry multiple for a specialty trade with institutional end customers and compliance-driven demand. Even with conservative normalization, this underwrites to an attractive free cash flow yield.

Why This Works

• Non-Discretionary Demand: Fire stopping is mandated by code, insurers, and regulators. Projects can’t close without it.

• Real Barriers to Entry: Specialized materials, trained crews, inspection familiarity, and GC relationships limit competition.

• High-Quality End Markets: Healthcare and institutional buildings mean repeat work, low churn, and priority payment.

• Scalable Model: Growth is labor- and relationship-driven, not CapEx-heavy.

What We Like

• 30+ year operating history

• Safety-critical, compliance-backed revenue

• Attractive multiple for a specialty contractor

• Institutional customer mix

• Central geography with multi-state reach

Key Diligence Focus

• Customer and GC concentration

• Crew depth, certification pipeline, and wage inflation exposure

• Backlog visibility and bid win rates

Bottom Line
This is a boring, essential, code-mandated trade priced like a commodity contractor. That mismatch creates the opportunity.

You’re not buying construction risk — you’re buying inspection approval.

Exactly the kind of overlooked specialty service that compounds quietly and exits well.

This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. The content is based on publicly available information, and the author makes no representations about its accuracy or completeness. Readers should conduct their own research before making any investment decisions.