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Berkshire Just Backed This Little-Known Stock—Should You Chase It?
Reported by Ryan Hasson. Originally Published: 10/18/2026.
Key Points
- Berkshire Hathaway's $330 million private placement investment in Bending Spoons at $33 per share sent the stock surging more than 40% in a single trading session.
- Investors buying Bending Spoons shares today pay roughly 60% more than Berkshire's negotiated entry price.
- Despite the Berkshire-driven rally, analysts rate Bending Spoons a Hold with an average price target of $44, well below the current trading price.
- Special Report: Why This Clean Energy Well Escaped the Solar and Wind Cuts.
When Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) makes a move, the entire market pays attention. So when news broke on Oct. 14 that Berkshire had poured another $330 million into a relatively unknown Italian software company, the reaction was swift and dramatic.
Shares of Bending Spoons (NASDAQ: BSP) rocketed more than 40% in a single session. It’s the kind of headline and price action that grabs investors’ attention and raises an obvious question: with arguably the most famous name in investing doubling down, should you buy, too?
What Is Bending Spoons?
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See the ticker behind this Grand Canyon energy breakthrough nowMost investors have likely never heard of Bending Spoons, but they've probably used one of its products. The Milan-based technology company, founded in 2013, operates a portfolio of digital apps and software platforms featuring many familiar names from across the internet.
It owns Evernote, the note-taking app, along with WeTransfer, Meetup, StreamYard, the video platform Brightcove and Remini, a popular AI-powered photo-enhancement app.
The business model is what makes it interesting, and it is no coincidence that it caught Berkshire's eye. Bending Spoons acquires established digital businesses, streamlines them and runs them for cash flow, much the way Berkshire itself buys and holds operating companies. Essentially, it is an acquisition machine for software, and the fresh capital from Berkshire is explicitly earmarked to fund more deals. Led by co-founder and CEO Luca Ferrari, the company generates annual sales of roughly $3.3 billion and went public this past July.
The Berkshire Investment, and the Catch
Here is where the story becomes more nuanced than the headline and price action suggest. Berkshire's latest $330 million investment, which lifts its stake to 4% and makes it the sixth-largest shareholder, follows a $600 million initial investment made during Bending Spoons' July IPO. That brings Berkshire's total investment to nearly $1 billion—a genuine show of confidence in the company and its strategy.
But the details matter enormously. Berkshire did not buy its shares on the open market like an ordinary investor. It acquired 10 million newly issued shares through a private placement at $33 per share, a price that was already about 13% below the stock's pre-announcement level. With shares now trading near $54 after the surge, anyone buying today is paying roughly 60% more than Berkshire did.
That’s no small detail. Berkshire negotiated a fantastic, built-in margin of safety that anyone chasing the stock after a 40% pop simply won't get.
But Should You Chase It?
After accounting for the premium over Berkshire's entry price and this week's surge, Bending Spoons is now far from cheap. The stock trades at a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of nearly 70 and roughly 10 times sales, demanding multiples that leave little room for a misstep. The market has effectively priced in many quarters of flawless execution from the company's acquisition strategy.
And Wall Street isn't buying the hype just yet. Despite the Berkshire halo, analysts rate Bending Spoons a Hold, with an average price target of $44. That's well below the current share price—a clear sign that analysts think the stock has sprinted well ahead of its fundamentals. Put simply, the professionals covering the name see downside potential from here, not upside, at least until the valuation cools or the business grows into it.
Of course, none of these points make Bending Spoons a bad company. It is an interesting, fast-growing business with a proven operator at the helm and a strategy that has clearly impressed one of the world's largest companies, with projected earnings growth north of 79% to show for it. But even a wonderful business can be a poor investment if you overpay.
Admire the Buyer, Mind the Price
The instinct to follow Berkshire is natural, and Bending Spoons has earned a place on the watchlist for anyone drawn to a software roll-up with serious backing. But chasing the stock days after a 40% single-session surge, at a price nearly 60% above what Berkshire itself paid and well above the analyst consensus target, is a very different proposition from the deal Berkshire actually struck.
For investors drawn in by the headline and fundamentals, the wiser play may be patience: let the hype settle, watch whether the valuation and price reset, and remember that even when you admire the company doing the buying, the price you pay is what determines your return.
Morgan Stanley Beats on Earnings, But Shares Fall on Trading Mix
Author: Sam Quirke. First Published: 10/16/2026.
Key Points
- Morgan Stanley shares fell 2.7% on Oct. 14 despite beating Q3 earnings expectations, reflecting investor skepticism similar to that seen with Citigroup.
- Record wealth management revenue of roughly $9 billion and over $230 billion in net new client assets supported the bull case for steady, fee-based growth.
- Analysts including TD Cowen and UBS maintain price targets of $210 and $236, respectively, both above the stock's post-earnings price of around $180.
- Special Report: Why This Clean Energy Well Escaped the Solar and Wind Cuts.
In what is shaping up to be a big week for bank earnings, Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) delivered its Q3 report on Oct. 14, comfortably beating analyst expectations on the headline numbers. However, as with Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) the day before, the market sold off the stock.
Morgan Stanley shares fell 2.7% in the Oct. 14 session, leaving them at around $180. That is roughly where they began the year and represents a 20% decline from July’s high. For a headline beat, that was a chilly reception, pointing to a familiar tension in how major banks are being judged this quarter. Like many of its peers in recent days, Morgan Stanley’s results looked strong on the surface, but the underlying fundamentals gave investors reason to pause.
Trump goes "all-in" on Grand Canyon energy breakthrough (Ad)
A drilling crew near the Grand Canyon uncovered a clean energy well producing nearly eight times the output of Saudi Arabia's largest oil field, with potential to last two million years.
While the One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated federal credits for solar, wind, and EVs, this energy source was reclassified alongside oil and nuclear power and given eight years of tax credits. Google signed a 15-year contract, and Bill Gates committed $100 million.
One company controls the entire supply chain behind this discovery.
See the ticker behind this Grand Canyon energy breakthrough nowSo just how good was the quarter beneath the headline, and what do the results say about where the stock goes next?
The Wealth Engine Did Its Job
The best part of the quarter came from the part of Morgan Stanley that is supposed to be boring, and that may be the most reassuring thing in the entire report. Its wealth management arm generated record revenue of roughly $9 billion while gathering more than $230 billion in net new client assets, much of it through fee-based flows that continue generating revenue year after year.
This is the heart of the bull case as we head into the final few months of the year. For a long time, Morgan Stanley has been reshaping itself from a cyclical trading house into a fee-driven wealth manager, and a quarter like this shows the strategy is working. The more of its earnings that come from steady advisory and management fees, the less exposed the broader business should be to the market’s changing moods.
A Beat That Leaned on Trading
Look closer, though, and the quarter was less tidy than the headline and solid wealth management results suggested. A large portion of the strength came from equities trading, a notoriously fickle business that happened to boom last quarter, while fixed-income trading slipped and investment-banking fees barely grew. While a trading boom feels good when it arrives, it is the least reliable kind of beat and cannot be counted on to repeat itself.
There were softer edges elsewhere, too. Profitability eased from an unusually strong prior quarter, the firm set aside more for potential loan losses, and a larger share of revenue went toward employee compensation. None of it was alarming, but together these factors made the beat look more cyclical and less durable than the top line implied.
That’s why a seemingly strong quarter still sent the shares lower. The market has no doubt that Morgan Stanley can beat when trading conditions are favorable; it simply wants more proof that the wealth business can carry the load when trading inevitably cools.
How It Stacks Up Against the Pack
It may be some comfort, though perhaps not much, to investors that Morgan Stanley was far from alone in selling off after earnings. It has been a consistent theme, with equities desks and dealmaking running hot, fixed-income trading running cold, ordinary lending holding steady and bank reserves for potential loan losses edging higher. Shares have sold off regardless of how strongly results beat expectations.
For all the fuss, however, the longer-term case has not changed and may even have strengthened. A record wealth management quarter and a flood of new client assets are exactly the kind of results long-term bulls would have wanted to see. With the stock back to roughly flat for the year, much of the summer’s froth has likely been shaken out.
The Upside Potential Is Still Strong
At the same time, the stock still holds a Moderate Buy consensus, and even cautious analysts see upside. TD Cowen reiterated a Hold last week with a $210 target, while UBS maintained a Buy rating and a more aggressive $236 target.
Both targets sit comfortably above the roughly $180 at which Morgan Stanley shares traded after their post-earnings decline, suggesting the market may have been too quick to mark down a quarter that was, underneath it all, rather good.
The risk, as ever, is that the trading tailwind fades before the rest of the business can fully pick up the slack, and the stock is not yet priced as if that will happen. But for investors willing to look through near-term uncertainty, Morgan Stanley just reminded them why its long-term story is worth backing.
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