The alpha Brief: Insights on Quant Investing and the alpha Brief Portfolio (aBP)

Albemarle owns advantaged lithium capacity and high-margin specialty chemistries essential to EV and AI battery stacks. I see durable cash generation from expansions and disciplined capital allocation—hence Strong Buy

I am rating Seagate Technology (STX) a STRONG BUY because the company is positioned to capture explosive, multi-year capacity demand from AI and hyperscaler growth. This is while trading at a valuation that underestimates its near-term margin and cash-generation upside.

I rate Talen Energy a Strong Buy since it is positioned at the intersection of surging electricity demand from AI/data centers and a constrained supply of reliable, dispatchable power.

The AI boom is increasing semiconductor complexity, not just semiconductor demand. Advanced AI workloads are driving node transitions, rising HBM demand, and more sophisticated packaging architectures, all of which increase process intensity and support stronger demand for Lam’s technology.

I believe SanDisk Corp (SNDK) warrants a STRONG BUY rating primarily due to its pivotal role in the burgeoning AI landscape. The advent of AI technologies is significantly increasing the demand for rapid data processing and storage solutions. SanDisk, a pioneer in flash storage, stands to benefit immensely from these trends.

Nvidia remained at the center of investor attention, but the market increasingly rewarded companies tied to the infrastructure needed to support AI growth, including semiconductors, networking, power systems, cooling, and data-center expansion. The S&P 500 closed the week up roughly 1.4%, while the Nasdaq gained around 2.4%.

I am rating JinkoSolar a Strong Buy because it is the undisputed global leader in solar module shipments, trading at a deeply depressed valuation that prices in permanent earnings impairment rather than a cyclical trough followed by a structural recovery.

I rate GE Vernova a Strong Buy since it is directly positioned at the existing AI bottleneck which is power. Data center demand collides with grid limitations, interconnection delays and infrastructure bottlenecks and GE Vernova is directly positioned at the constraint.

I rate Constellation Energy a strong buy because it directly solves the binding constraint of the AI era through its unmatched fleet of nuclear baseload generation, giving it a structural and hard to replicate advantage as electricity demand from data centers accelerates.

I am rating NextEra Energy a Strong Buy because electricity is now the binding constraint on the AI trade and that makes it an important infrastructure company for you to own.

Bloom Energy is a strong buy due to its strategic position in the growing clean energy sector and its capability to address electricity demand constraints with its distributed, on-site energy systems that offer reliable, grid-independent power.

I am rating ASE Technology Holding a strong BUY because the company is entering a structural earnings acceleration phase driven by advanced packaging leadership and rising AI-driven semiconductor demand.

AI demand now includes power and cooling infrastructure, which can bottleneck performance. Vertiv offers technologies to optimize efficiency, highlighting the need for robust systems in AI deployments.

I am rating Vistra Corp a Strong Buy because AI is moving from a chip shortage phase to a power shortage phase. Vistra Corp is the largest independent power producer in the United States, and it sits directly at the center of this structural shift.

Sempra is becoming one of the clearest utility beneficiaries of the AI-driven electricity buildout in the United States. As AI infrastructure expands, hyperscale data centers are consuming significantly more electricity than traditional cloud infrastructure. This is creating rising demand for transmission networks, grid modernization, and utility investment, particularly in Texas where Sempra’s Oncor business operates.

Last week’s market action once again showed that investors are still heavily focused on artificial intelligence infrastructure, but the conversation is slowly evolving. Earlier in the cycle, almost all attention went toward semiconductors and GPUs. Now the market is increasingly looking deeper into the infrastructure layer supporting AI growth, including networking, power systems, cooling, and electricity demand.

Sterling is strategically positioned in rapidly expanding sectors particularly data centers, semiconductors, and e‑commerce infrastructure driving outsized revenue growth and long-term demand visibility.

ExxonMobil achieved stronger core results in the first quarter of 2026, despite disruptions in the Middle East, demonstrating the business's resilience in challenging conditions. As reported in the 1Q 2026 Earnings Release, earnings were $4.2 Bn, or $8.8 Bn when excluding identified items and estimated timing effects.

I rate a Microchip Technology a Buy because it is a durable embedded semiconductor compounder with long product lifecycles and high switching costs that provide stability through cycles.

I am rating Silicon motion a strong buy because the company is undergoing a structural shift toward AI centric enterprise controllers and boot drive solutions, driving higher growth, higher ASPs, and more durable margins.