👉 Market Outlook + Earnings

In partnership with

👉 Week in Review — Too Long; Didn’t Read:

Key Earnings Announcements:

• Cracker Barrel’s operating income declined by -81%

• Darden Restaurants continued to attract high-value customers

• Lennar expects to sell 23K homes on record-low margins

Investor Events / Global Affairs:

• The Fed has officially begun the rate cutting cycle.

• Nvidia made a major investment in Intel.

• The U.S. / China TikTok deal is apparently finalized.

Economic Updates:

• Retail sales topped expectations.

• The U.S. Leading Economic Index (LEI) is signaling further economic weakness.

Happy Sunday.

In case you’re new around here, I’m Austin Hankwitz — I’ve been publishing earnings analysis on publicly-traded companies for over half a decade. My podcast, Rich Habits, has hit #1 on Spotify’s Business Podcast chart four times since it’s inception only two years ago.

At the start of 2023, I began my journey of building a $2M Dividend Growth Portfolio from scratch. This twice-weekly newsletter is how I keep you all updated on my progress.

For me, early retirement means $2M invested. For you, it might mean something else. Regardless of your early-retirement number — I hope these weekly synopses of my portfolio progress + what’s been happening in the markets helps you on your own journey.

How Canva, Perplexity and Notion turn feedback chaos into actionable customer intelligence

Support tickets, reviews, and survey responses pile up faster than you can read.

Enterpret unifies all feedback, auto-tags themes, and ties insights to revenue, CSAT, and NPS, helping product teams find high-impact opportunities.

→ Canva: created VoC dashboards that aligned all teams on top issues.
→ Perplexity: set up an AI agent that caught revenue‑impacting issues, cutting diagnosis time by hours.
→ Notion: generated monthly user insights reports 70% faster.

Stop manually tagging feedback in spreadsheets. Keep all customer interactions in one hub and turn them into clear priorities that drive roadmap, retention, and revenue.

Get a personalized demo

👉 Portfolio Updates (YTD Performance):

Before we jump into the portfolio, I want to share my perspective on the markets.

Despite a rising unemployment rate, a “Trump tariff tantrum,” and a Fed pivot, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 remain resilient. Markets continue to trend in the right direction. With the Fed now announcing a -25 bps interest rate cut, I firmly believe we’re gearing up for a continuation of this “up and to the right” rally.

Will it come with shortcomings?

Of course. There will absolutely be pullbacks (-5% or more) along the way. But when you step back and consider what’s actually happening, a clearer picture emerges:

1. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is laying the groundwork for deregulation and tax cuts — these will begin and continue to flow through the economy.

2. The economy is… okay. Not great, not terrible — just okay. And that’s all it needs to be for the stock market to keep trending higher.

3. The Fed is cutting interest rates for the first time in several months, while signaling more cuts throughout 2025 and 2026.

4. Consumers remain resilient, borrowing and spending at record-high levels.

5. The “AI Arms Race” continues. Hyperscalers plan to spend well over $500B on AI-related CapEx by 2026. That money has to go somewhere — it’s never been more important to be on the right side of history in the markets.

6. Pre-revenue and speculative names are catching a bid — signaling investor appetite is only heating up.

Let me be very clear: this AI bull market will end in a bubble.

They always do.

That’s not the real question.

The real question is: Where are we in the cycle? And how do I ensure I’m properly allocated to benefit from the continuation higher while hedging against an unexpected pop?

Here’s my strategy right now: remain overweight in high-octane growth stocks (AI-related and beyond; Long Risky), keep a healthy allocation to the Magnificent Seven (Long Technology), maintain exposure to the “S&P 493” (Dividend Growth Stocks), and hold broad market exposure where necessary (VOO, BRK.B, QQQ).

This approach has outperformed the S&P 500 by ~2X year-to-date.

When you sprinkle in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies on top of this strategy, year-to-date returns have been 4X better than the S&P 500.

Looking ahead 6–9 months, I believe select names in the Russell 2000 — as well as the index itself — will continue to outperform. Many of these names live in the most speculative corners of the market, like space exploration and quantum computing. I have exposure to these sectors in smaller side portfolios. To be clear, I don’t take much pride in that — owning pre-revenue companies is very much gambling. That’s why they’re not included in the Portfolio Tracker available to all GRIT Premium subscribers.

Rest assured, the strategy I shared above is my bread and butter — and how I plan to continue riding this “AI Bubble” we’re obviously in. To reiterate, it has outperformed the S&P 500 by 2–4X, depending on crypto exposure.

Buckle up. The Fed cutting interest rates will only add more fuel to these markets.

The stock-only section of my portfolio is officially up +20% year-to-date, aided by the high-octane growth names inside of my “Long Risky” subsection of the portfolio (up +46% year-to-date).

It’s encouraging to see the “Long Technology” subsection now out-performing the S&P 500, up +15.7% year-to-date. The “Dividend Growth Stocks” subsection continues to act like a hedge against unwanted volatility.

The “Monthly Income” section of my portfolio keeps paying me — making me a happy investor! Couldn’t be happier with these year-to-date total returns.

Cryptocurrency remains a healthy chunk of my portfolio knowing very well that October has historically been a wonderful month for Bitcoin. I also believe we’ll see Ethereum trend toward $6K (maybe higher) before year-end.

👉 Key Earnings Announcements:

Cracker Barrel’s operating income declined by -81%, Darden Restaurants continued to attract high-value customers, and Lennar expects to sell 23K homes on record-low margins.

• Cracker Barrel (CRBL)

Key Metrics

Revenue: $868.0 million, compared to $894.4 million last year

Operating Income: $4.0 million, compared to $22.2 million last year

Profits: $6.7 million, compared to $18.1 million last year

Earnings Release Callout

“We thank our guests for sharing their voices and their passion for Cracker Barrel in recent weeks, and we've listened, switching back to our 'Old Timer' logo, hitting pause on remodels, and placing an even bigger emphasis in the kitchen and other areas that enhance the guest experience.

Many elements of our plan are working well and delivering results, as evidenced by five consecutive quarters of comparable store restaurant sales increases and 9% adjusted EBITDA growth in fiscal 2025. Looking ahead, there is much to be optimistic about, and our teams are focused on getting back to the momentum we created last fiscal year."

My Takeaway

• Darden Restaurants (DRI)

Subscribe to GRIT Premium to read the rest.