In this cyclical, market‑driven brokerage industry, Interactive Brokers ($Interactive Brokers(IBKR.US)) is an outlier: it barely advertises, and its terminal interface long deterred retail novices. Brand awareness was so limited that it once failed to crack the top 10 in investment app download rankings.

Compared with the meteoric rise of HOOD over the past five years and the deep brand equity of SCHW, IBKR appears understated. Yet it has consistently delivered 70%+ OPM and approx. $2 mn revenue per employee per year. Dolphin Research believes the edge lies in 'licenses and technology'...

In Part I, we unpacked SoFi's business framework and identified its growth engines: expansion of the Loan Platform Biz. (LPB) and the revival of student lending.

Per Dolphin Research's prior note on Oracle, our core takeaway is that Oracle is essentially a scaled-up CoreWeave. The bull case hinges on explosive AI compute demand that could lift its compute-rental revenue by 10x or more.

Long-rumored Kunlun Chip spin-off is now official as $Baidu(BIDU.US) announced it.

On Jan 2, BIDU proposed to spin off Kunlun Chip Technology for an independent listing on the HKEX Main Board, while retaining control (59.45%).

BIDU has filed confidentially, and the detailed prospectus is not yet public.

Based on available information, Dolphin Research will first outline a few key questions.

1. Kunlun Chip's origins and evolution? It traces back to BIDU's FPGA accelerator project launched in 2011...

In the prior piece, Dolphin Research reviewed Meitu's history, product suite, and competitive landscape in depth. This follow-up focuses on Meitu's growth potential.

1) Will large models eat Meitu's lunch? To evaluate its growth, we must ask how vertical platforms defend against general-purpose platforms.

As seen across internet cycles, a few lucky players evolved into 'small but mighty' vertical champions. Tencent Music, Kanzhun, and even Bilibili endure thanks to distinctive attributes. Most others faded into the background, becoming stepping stones as tech giants broadened their ecosystems...

Google’s full-stack AI strategy has been unfolding for over a month, and cracks in OpenAI’s circular financing narrative have prompted a seemingly sudden shift in the AI storyline.

These days, it's rare to see trillion-dollar giants fluctuating by 10% or 20% in a single day, but Meta is an exception. It took Meta just one quarter to fall from grace. After the Q3 earnings report, investors' panic seemed to have just been digested. Recently, with the expectation of interest rate cuts rising, $Meta Platforms(META.US) has rebounded 10% from the bottom. In terms of narrative, first, Meta has the most extensive application scenarios, and the AI investment process will be accompanied by accelerated revenue, the "AI darling" narrative; then came the Q3 combination of increased investment and slowed revenue growth guidance...

A good company also needs a good price.

Through the previous article, we can attribute the ability of $Charles Schwab(SCHW.US) to achieve intergenerational growth across users to two key factors: (1) "product innovation" centered around all customers, and (2) timely and aggressive promotion of "price reduction." After developing into a comprehensive financial platform with a complete ecosystem, Schwab leveraged its scale advantage to fully play the cost-effectiveness card. However, in 2022, due to improper handling of asset liquidity (misjudging the timing of interest rate hikes and locking too much short-term liquidity into long-term government bonds for small gains, which greatly increased the risk of a run)...

In the previous article "Dell: AI Wave Rising, Is the Old Giant Making a Comeback?", we mainly discussed Dell's historical ups and downs, as well as its current competitiveness in the server market. In this article, we will focus on the investment value perspective, discussing the following two questions: 1) Transitioning from PC to AI PC, how much potential does this really have? 2) With the support of AI servers and AI PCs, how much investment value does Dell truly hold? Regarding $Dell Tech(DELL.US) in the next article...