Episode summary
No Robots Allowed | Barron's Streetwise
Barron's Streetwise
· · 26 min · Hosts: Jack
Summary
The host and a guest frame the episode as a break from nonstop AI coverage and present eight stocks screened for growth, reasonable valuations, and financial strength. The point is not that these are anti-AI bets or a coherent portfolio, but that they are companies outside the tech-heavy AI trade that still have credible paths to strong earnings growth over the next five years.
The list starts with Royal Caribbean, where the host argues that the cruise operator has survived pandemic shutdowns, high-cost financing, and ongoing operational worries while still compounding shareholder value. Biomearin and Eli Liy represent drug companies with durable growth, one through rare-disease treatments and diversification, the other through GLP-1 medicines that may lower broader health-care costs and drive much higher free cash flow. Five Below is presented as a retailer that can capitalize quickly on viral toy trends, with management saying squishy-dumpling products were only a low-single-digit contributor despite strong same-store sales.
The second half includes Smurfett Westrock as a cost-savings story in corrugated packaging, Charles Schwab as a rebound play after cash-sorting pressure, Planet Fitness as a high-margin gym chain whose growth hit a rough patch, and Take Two Interactive as a video game company with a long monetization runway from the next Grand Theft Auto release. Across the names, the host repeatedly emphasizes that the appeal is earnings power, not an AI thesis.
Key takeaways
- Royal Caribbean is cited as a company that could double last year's earnings by 2030 despite post-pandemic worries and a possible delayed Mexico project.
- Biomearin is framed as a rare-disease specialist with a billion-dollar dwarfism drug and a path to diversify into two more treatments.
- Eli Liy's Zepbound is said to reduce health-care costs by more than $600 a month for older overweight patients in a Lilly-funded study.
- Five Below's same-store sales rose more than 14% in early September, helped by viral squishy-dumpling products and a halo effect.
- Charles Schwab is seen as recovering from cash-sorting pressure now that higher rates and client inflows are improving earnings.
- Planet Fitness and Take Two Interactive are presented as possible rebound-and-growth names, with the latter expected to benefit from Grand Theft Auto VI and ongoing online monetization.
Notable quotes
“we screened across different sizes, sectors, styles”
“It could ultimately hit $2 billion”
“This does not read like a business with fundamentals rolling over”
How the episode opens
Are you so into artificial intelligence that you wish you could hear people talking about it for 16 hours a day? If you are, this is probably not the episode for you. This is uh for the person who just maybe wants a break, just a little reprieve from all the AI talk to hear about some some growth stocks out there, some companies that can do well without a ton of AI.
Maybe you're maybe you're looking for stocks because you feel like your portfolio has wandered just a bit too far into the matrix. I'm going to give you some ideas. Eight of them in fact.
This is the Baron Streetwise podcast. I'm Jack How. Let's get into it.
Listening in is our audio producer, Emily Some. Hi, Emily.
Hi, Jack. We've got some stocks to talk about. I wrote a story for Baronss.
This is apart from the column which um by the time people are hearing this I surely will have written. I was asked to produce a roundup of nonAI stocks. And it's not because of any particular investment thesis.
It's not because of a prediction that AI is a is a bubble and it's going to go bust. It's not to say that these are the stocks that you should own instead of the S&P 500. It's just that folks are hearing a lot, right, about AI every week.
You got the people arguing about whether it's a fourth industrial revolution or about whether it's a super bubble. I heard people say it's going to set off a hyper productivity super cycle, which sounds like a good thing, or a crash, which doesn't sound that way. I've heard that it's going to conquer disease and poverty, but I've heard that it might lower the barrier for mass destruction.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai weariness
- non-tech growth
- robots and automation
- eight companies
Watch the episode
Watch “No Robots Allowed | Barron's Streetwise” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Barron's Streetwise, this episode and its artwork belong to Barron's. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
