HAPPY THURSDAY TO THE STREET
We hope 2026 is already off to a profitable start, with more green screens than red ones and fewer surprise headlines before your first cup of coffee.
As we map out the year ahead, we want to stress-test our compass, to make sure the ambitious course we’re charting in the new year is headed in the right direction. So we put together a brief, 5-question survey on what you like most about The Street Sheet, and what you’d like to see more of going forward.
Responding should take a minute or less, but your input will make a marked impact on our content in the coming year. Thanks for reading, for sticking with us, and for helping steer the ship. Take the survey here.
🟨 | US stocks were mixed again as money continued to rotate out of tech, dragging the Nasdaq Composite lower.
📈 | One Notable Gainer: Defense firm Karman $KRMN ( ▲ 4.88% ) surged after it agreed to buy Seemann Composites and Materials Sciences for about $220M.
📉 | One Notable Decliner: Shell $SHEL ( ▲ 0.74% ) shares fell after warning Q4 Chemicals weakness.
— Brooks & Cas
Presented by Venture Trader
Most microcap breakouts begin long before the chart looks interesting.
Humans miss the early tells. Genetic AI doesn’t.
Designed by a 25-year market veteran, the system runs 15000+ strategy iterations per stock to uncover patterns hiding beneath the surface.
When conditions shift, you get an early alert, long before the crowd notices.
MARKET SNAPSHOT
All Stock Heatmap. Credit: Finviz
Market Movers
ALPHABET, COSTCO, GAP
Alphabet $GOOGL ( ▲ 0.96% ) jumped to a new all-time high after rolling out new Gemini AI features in Gmail.
Costco $COST ( ▲ 1.05% ) reported higher December sales year over year.
Gap $GAP ( ▼ 0.35% ) rose on expectations for a sales turnaround.
Alcoa $AA ( ▲ 4.22% ) slipped after JPMorgan downgraded the stock to Underweight.
Constellation Brands $STZ ( ▼ 0.65% ) topped Q3 earnings and revenue expectations.
To monitor hot stocks in real time, check out The Street Feed.
Tomorrow's Trade Idea, Today
POST COVID DRAG STARTS TO FADE
A Long Hangover Nears Its End
Danaher $DHR ( ▲ 1.43% ) spent the past few years in recovery mode. After surging during the Covid testing boom, demand for its diagnostics and research tools cooled sharply, leaving customers working through excess inventory.
That slowdown hit multiple regions at once. Europe softened. China weakened. Even routine testing volumes fell as pandemic urgency faded. The result was a stock that went nowhere while much of healthcare moved on.
But now Morgan Stanley $MS ( ▲ 0.89% ) thinks the setup is changing. The firm initiated coverage with an Overweight rating, arguing that many of the headwinds that defined the post Covid period are finally easing as 2026 approaches.
Budgets, Inventory, And A Clearer Path
The bull case rests on normalization. Danaher’s customers stocked up aggressively earlier in the decade and then slammed the brakes. That digestion phase appears closer to the finish line.
Morgan Stanley surveyed more than 50 biopharma R&D executives and found budgets are expected to rise about 9% in 2026 versus 2025. That matters for a company tied closely to lab spending and research activity.
Tariff uncertainty has also faded, reducing another source of noise. While growth is not snapping back overnight, the outlook looks steadier, with Street expectations now set at levels that Danaher can realistically exceed.
In short, the fundamentals seem solid, and the bar is low.
Valuation Leaves Room For Patience
After years of underperformance, Danaher trades at about 28x expected 2026 earnings, well below its five-year average north of 38x. That makes today’s entry point less demanding than it has been in years.
The company also continues to return capital. Buybacks remain active, and the balance sheet gives management flexibility as conditions improve.
Morgan Stanley analysts see an implied upside of 23% if growth stabilizes and sentiment turns. Danaher does not need another pandemic to work. It just needs normal lab budgets, clearer policy, and time.
Presented by Venture Trader
A 25-year market quant’s AI model just flipped a switch inside the market — where early money is flooding a sector no one is talking about.
More importantly, it shows how AI is redefining market edges — giving everyday investors the speed to spot new rotations as they happen.
Trained on decades of market data, this new “genetic AI” evolves thousands of trading rules until only the strongest survive.
OVERHEARD ON THE STREET
Axios: Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 0.25% ) launched Copilot Checkout, enabling in-chat purchases via Shopify, PayPal, Stripe, and Etsy.
CNN: Paramount $PSKY ( ▼ 1.71% ) reiterated its $30 per share bid for Warner Bros. Discovery $WBD ( ▲ 2.0% ), despite the board's rejection to favor Netflix’s $NFLX ( ▼ 1.18% ) deal.
TechCrunch: A US judge allowed Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI to proceed to trial.
Reuters: European Commission ordered X to preserve Grok documents through 2026 amid probes into unlawful AI-generated imagery.
QZ: China’s commerce ministry began reviewing Meta’s $META ( ▲ 1.08% ) $2B to $3B acquisition of Manus over tech and data export concerns.
WEDNESDAY’S POLL RESULTS
Are you bullish or bearish on Albermarle $ALB ( ▲ 1.88% ) over the next 12 months?
▇▇▇▇▇▇ 🐂 Bullish
▇▇▇▇▇▇ 🐻 Bearish
And, in response, you said:
🐂 Bullish — “Marginally bullish; if only for the fact that I hold a very small position. It would be nice to at least break even, if not turn a small profit.”
🐻 Bearish — “Better choices in this sector. Hard to pay the price on a company that cannot turn a profit.”