A Message From Banyan Hill Publishing

Dear Reader,

Here's a question almost nobody is asking:

What does America get in return?

A powerful Middle Eastern government is reportedly seeking U.S. help against Iran-backed forces.

American intelligence.

Targeting assistance.

Military protection.

But why?

Why should the United States put its military power behind another government?

That's precisely why this latest development stopped me cold.

Because on January 7th…

During a private meeting just outside Washington, D.C…

My anonymous source told me that military protection was one side of an extraordinary bargain.

And on the other side?

Something potentially worth trillions of dollars to America.

I can't reveal my source.

His family connections make that impossible.

But I could investigate what he told me…

And I uncovered a trail involving Trump…

Iran…

A powerful Middle Eastern government…

And what could become one of the biggest economic deals in decades.

Click here to see what America may be getting in return.

Once you know the identity of the government involved…

The Iran headlines begin to look very different.

And so do the potential investment opportunities.

Go here to uncover the massive deal behind the military protection.

Regards,

Addison Wiggin

Founder, Grey Swan Investment Fraternity

3 Stocks Built for Higher Rates—And 2 That Could Break

Authored by Bridget Bennett. Date Posted: 9/8/2026.

The August jobs report landed Friday morning with 162,000 new positions, well ahead of forecasts for 56,000. The bond market read it as a reason to keep bracing. The 10-year Treasury yield pushed back toward 4.79%, near its highest level since late 2023, and a hike at the Fed's Sept. 15-16 meeting is now close to a coin flip.

That comes a week after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh used his Jackson Hole keynote to say inflation is still running too hot. Headlines have reached for the scariest available framing: rates at a 25-year high.

That framing hides more than it shows. The last 25 years produced the cheapest money in recorded history, including a long stretch of negative real rates. Five percent only looks extreme against that backdrop.

The number that actually matters is the spread between what a company pays to borrow and what it earns on that money.

A 5% Rate Only Hurts Companies Earning Less Than 5%

Joel Litman and Rob Spivey of Altimetry Research view the current rate move as a symptom of corporate demand for capital rather than a verdict on the economy. Estimates put AI-related corporate debt issuance at roughly $1.5 trillion this year, and that supply is doing more to push up the long end of the curve than any fear of default.

A company borrowing at 5% to fund projects returning 30% or 40% will take that trade every time. A company borrowing at 5% to fund projects returning 4% is quietly destroying itself. The rate is the same, but the outcome is opposite.

Negative Free Cash Flow Is Not Always a Warning

The clearest example is the one spooking investors right now. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) posted its first negative free cash flow since its 2004 IPO, burning $5.9 billion in the second quarter as capital expenditure (CapEx) hit $44.9 billion. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) swung to negative $7.6 billion on a trailing basis. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the last of the group still generating positive cash flow.

Spivey's point is that negative free cash flow driven by investment, rather than operating losses, has historically been a buy signal. Amazon went deeply cash-flow negative while building AWS in the late 2000s, and that stretch marked one of the best entry points in the stock's history. The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE: HD) and Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) turning free cash flow positive in the early 2000s signaled the opposite: growth had stopped.

The most aggressive version of that pattern is happening outside the public markets. Litman and Spivey have spent months tracing how capital raised around SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is being routed into xAI and the suppliers serving both, and their research on where that money is actually landing names companies most investors have not yet connected to the buildout.

ASML Holds the One Bottleneck Nobody Can Copy

ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ: ASML) builds the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems required to make the world's most advanced chips, and it has no competitor.

Order intake has been strong enough for the company to raise full-year guidance to €43 billion to €45 billion (approximately $49.9 billion to $52.2 billion) and lay out a two-year capacity sprint: roughly 65 low-NA EUV systems this year, an increase of about 30% in 2027, with another 30% under study for 2028. Management says that added output is already nearly fully spoken for.

Pricing power is the newer part of the story. ASML has signaled that it wants to charge for the full value of its tools rather than throughput alone, a shift that has reportedly frustrated Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE: TSM). Litman's favorite illustration of the moat: A Chinese manufacturer took an ASML machine apart to reverse-engineer it and could not put it back together. The blueprint was never the product. The calibration is.

GE Vernova Is Sold Out Into the Next Decade

Nuclear may be the long-term answer to AI's power problem, but gas turbines are the only answer available today.

GE Vernova Inc. (NYSE: GEV) ended the second quarter with 116 gigawatts of gas turbine equipment across its backlog and slot reservation agreements, up from 100 gigawatts three months earlier. It now expects at least 125 gigawatts under contract by year-end.

Manufacturing is scaling toward 20 gigawatts of annualized output, with a stated path to 30 gigawatts by 2030.

The volatility since June has tracked sentiment around the AI buildout rather than anything in the numbers.

The services and maintenance stream attached to every installed unit is the part the market keeps underweighting. Altimetry's adjusted return on assets for the business runs near 20%, compared with a reported figure closer to 5%.

Comfort Systems Turned HVAC Into an AI Trade

Comfort Systems USA, Inc. (NYSE: FIX) is a mechanical and electrical contractor, which sounds unglamorous until you look at its backlog: $14.06 billion at the end of the second quarter, compared with roughly $8 billion a year earlier. Technology work now accounts for 58% of revenue.

The advantage is modular prefabrication. Building as much as possible in company-owned facilities cuts time on-site, helping the company sidestep the labor scarcity choking competitors.

Only a company with this footprint can run that model at scale.

2 Stocks the Rate Math Is Working Against

Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) is the exception among the big spenders.

S&P cut it to BBB- in July, one notch above speculative grade, and free cash flow was negative $23.7 billion in fiscal 2026. Shares are down roughly 20% year to date.

The problem is not the spending; it is what the spending buys. Oracle is building capacity closer to what Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: DLR) or Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ: EQIX) sells than to the services layer that hyperscalers monetize.

Litman and Spivey see returns on assets sliding sharply as that investment lands, and fiscal first-quarter results on Sept. 10 will be the next read on whether the market agrees.

Rocket Companies, Inc. (NYSE: RKT) is a different problem with the same root. After absorbing Redfin and Mr. Cooper, Rocket touches roughly one in six United States mortgages.

That scale is an asset when rates fall and a liability when they do not, while corporate borrowing demand is doing its best to keep the long end elevated. Altimetry's read is that the current price requires returns on assets to roughly triple.

Watch the spread between borrowing costs and returns on invested capital, not the headline rate. That gap separates the companies compounding through this cycle from those financing their own decline.