Dear Reader,
With stocks hitting record after record…
It’s hard to deny we’re in a bull market.
America’s Economist, Dr. Mark Skousen, believes the greatest money rush of our lives has already begun.
But he’s also worried.
Skousen has called some of the biggest turns of the last 40 years.
He told his readers to sell everything a few weeks before Black Monday.
And in March 2009, the exact month stocks hit bottom, he told them to get back in. Sure enough… the market turned around and soared.
And today he’s out with a stunning new warning:
“A few of these companies could become the next Qualcomm. Hundreds more could become the next Pets.com.”
When we checked the record books, we were shocked.
In 1999 alone, Qualcomm soared up to 26-fold.
At the time, most people had barely heard of it.
And now, the same setup is here once again.
The trick is knowing which companies to buy… and when to walk away.
We recently sat down with Dr. Skousen to get the full story. And we recorded everything.
To watch it free of charge, click here now.
Good investing,
Rachel Gearhart
Publisher, The Oxford Club
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Shopify Reports Tuesday. The Guide Matters More Than the Number.
Analyst Targets
- Morgan Stanley: Overweight, $192 target, preview titled “Delivering Against a Higher Bar”
- Baird: Outperform, raised to $190 from $160, expects GMV, revenue, and operating profit to all beat consensus
- Jefferies: Buy, $175 target, third-party data suggests GMV could exceed expectations
- Cantor Fitzgerald: Neutral, $158 target
The Market Shopify Is Reporting Into
Three software companies reported beats last week. Three lost significant market value. ServiceNow fell sharply the day after its results, as weaker-than-expected guidance renewed fears that AI is disrupting traditional software demand. Fortinet beat revenue estimates and raised its billings outlook, then dropped roughly 20% anyway after trimming its 2026 service revenue outlook. Twilio topped both EPS and revenue estimates on October 29, raised full-year guidance, and still fell sharply the following session as investors focused on slowing organic growth and a deceleration implied in Q4 guidance.
The pattern now has a name on trading desks. Beating the quarter no longer buys goodwill. What the market is grading is the quality and durability of forward growth. That distinction matters enormously for Shopify, which reports before the open on Tuesday, November 3.
The Numbers Consensus Expects
- Revenue: $3.74 billion, +32% year over year against a Q3 2025 comparable of $2.84 billion
- EPS (non-GAAP): approximately $0.46, up 35% from $0.34 in Q3 2025
- Gross profit growth: Morgan Stanley models 31% to 32%
- Free cash flow margin: Guidance set at high-teens to low-twenties; Q2 actual was 18%
- GMV growth: Street near 30%; Morgan Stanley models roughly 33%
- Q4 revenue consensus: $4.75 billion
Shopify enters the report having delivered 34% revenue growth in both Q1 and Q2 2026. Last quarter’s free cash flow margin was 18%. That stumble kept expectations grounded heading into Tuesday.
Why the Guide Is the Only Number That Counts
Morgan Stanley’s preview framing says it plainly: Shopify must deliver “against a higher bar.” The firm sees Q4 revenue growth guidance in the low-30% range and gross profit growth in the high-20% to low-30% range. Street forecasts sit near 30% and 28%, respectively. A guide that threads that needle matters; one that falls even modestly short of it risks the same treatment other software names just received.
The Q4 holiday quarter is where the real money moves for commerce platforms. Management’s tone on Black Friday and Cyber Monday volume, attach rates on Shopify Payments, and any early signal from the Meta Muse integration will carry as much weight as the headline Q3 figures. Shopify added Meta Muse as an AI channel in September, with Shop Pay positioned for agentic checkout inside the Muse experience. The holiday quarter will be the first real test of whether this channel moves meaningful volume.
The Muse channel is not a small experiment. Meta’s own revenue math behind Muse shows how quickly the platform captured consumer attention after launch.
Bull / Base / Bear
Bull
GMV clears 33%, free cash flow margin prints at the top of the guidance range, and Q4 guidance implies sustained low-30% revenue growth. Management quantifies early Muse-driven GMV volume. The stock reclaims the $180 resistance zone and moves toward the $190 Baird target.
Base
Revenue lands at $3.74 billion, EPS roughly in line, Q4 guidance at the midpoint of Street expectations. The stock digests within a $155 to $170 range as investors wait for November GMV data before committing.
Bear
Gross profit margin comes in below the mid-to-high 20s guidance, or Q4 revenue growth guidance is framed below 30%. Given how Fortinet was treated on guidance, SHOP could gap toward the $144 to $148 support zone rapidly.
The Fortinet comparison is not an isolated case. Zscaler beat every headline metric and still fell 24% when guidance language unsettled investors.
Technical Overlay
SHOP closed Friday near $157, down roughly 5.6% on the week, pulling back from the mid-$160s range where it had traded. The 90-day resistance sits at $180.88; the 120-day moving average is near $154. A clean beat with a strong Q4 guide pushes the stock back toward the $175 to $180 zone. A guidance disappointment puts $144 into play as the next meaningful support.
Bottom Line
Shopify’s business is structurally sound. Expanding free cash flow margins and a credible strategic position in agentic commerce through the Muse partnership separate it from the software names that just got punished. But the market just made clear it will not pay for headlines alone. Tuesday’s report lives or dies on one question: does Q4 guidance confirm that 30% plus revenue growth is durable through the holiday cycle, or does it show the deceleration that investors have already started pricing into every software name that hesitates?
At roughly 59 times forward earnings estimates, Shopify has no margin for ambiguity in the guide.
