Disclaimer: All information provided herein by Cedar Grove Capital Management (“CGCM”) is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or an offer or solicitation to buy or sell an interest in a private fund or any other security. An offer or solicitation of an investment in a private fund will only be made to accredited investors pursuant to a private placement memorandum and associated documents. Cedar Grove Capital Management, LLC (fund operating Cedar Grove Research) may hold positions mentioned in the report and may change its views about or its investment positions in any of the securities mentioned in this document at any time, for any reason or no reason.

Hello everyone,

In keeping with tradition, we’re attaching the six themes we’re examining for 2026 and also including our stock watchlist. This deck is a high-level overview of the topics that are on our minds, from various Trump policies to U.S. housing.

We hope that this piques your interest in a few areas and gives you a better starting point on themes before the start of the new year.

If you need a recap of the 2025 themes, we’ve included the link here for you to take a look. Below is also the one-pager of our 2025 themes and the stocks that we had on that watchlist.

As always, we appreciate your support of our work. If you have any questions, please message or comment below. If you think others would benefit from the research/commentary we release, we would greatly appreciate your sharing.

Happy holidays, everyone, and enjoy the report below!

12.22.25 - CGCM - 6 Themes Heading into 2026.pdf

12.22.25 - CGCM - 6 Themes Heading into 2026.pdf

1.42 MB • PDF File

Until next time,

Paul Cerro | Cedar Grove Capital Management

Personal Twitter: @paulcerro

Fund Twitter: @cedargrovecm

Fund Website

Disclaimer: All information provided herein by Cedar Grove Capital Management, LLC (“Cedar Grove Capital”) is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or an offer or solicitation to buy or sell an interest in a private fund or any other security. An offer or solicitation of an investment in a private fund will only be made to accredited investors pursuant to a private placement memorandum and associated documents.

Cedar Grove Capital may change its views about or its investment positions in any of the securities mentioned in this document at any time, for any reason or no reason. Cedar Grove Capital may buy, sell, or otherwise change the form or substance of any of its investments. Cedar Grove Capital disclaims any obligation to notify the market of any such changes.

The enclosed material is confidential and not to be reproduced or redistributed in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Cedar Grove Capital. The information in this material is only current as of the date indicated and may be superseded by subsequent market events or for other reasons. Statements concerning financial market trends are based on current market conditions, which will fluctuate. Any statements of opinion constitute only current opinions of Cedar Grove Capital which are subject to change and which Cedar Grove Capital does not undertake to update. Due to, among other things, the volatile nature of the markets, and an investment in the fund/partnership may only be suitable for certain investors. Parties should independently investigate any investment strategy or manager, and should consult with qualified investment, legal and tax professionals before making any investment.

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Rodrigo Dorador Madrigal11 months ago

Paul, I just started following you recently. I appreciate the research, the angles, and the dedication to the craft. How are you thinking about the housing trend for 2026 - are you thinking about looking into mispriced stocks in the housing space or are you more so looking at housing as an indicator of macro trends?

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Paul CerroAuthor11 months ago

Hey Rodrigo, thanks for the comment. It's hard to say because any way you cut it, someone has to lose. I don't believe it's an "everyone loses" scenario like in 08 but in order for more volume to be sold, more housing needs to come online to alleviate upward pressure on prices, which a) affects current homeowners' equity (i.e. their home values decline) and b) REALLY hurts builder margins because prices are coming down

I briefly wrote about it at the end of 2023

Generally, I think many are trying to catch the bottom in builders in hopes that lowering rates will spur growth -> similar to what people thought at the end of 2024 for 2025, and it panned out to be wrong. But as I mentioned in the above post, it's hard to know who will benefit or lose the most as of right now because there's a ton of push and pull dynamics that can make one part of the trade win and the other lose, and vice versa. It's too early to tell, but there's definitely a trade to be made here

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Rodrigo Dorador Madrigal11 months ago

I agree that there are a lot of dynamics at play with the builders as they try to stay busy getting into the build-to-rent (BTR) space and buying down interest rates to maintain pricing on homes. On the BTR side, it's tough to raise capital to construct new communities, and buying down rates hurts margins. It does seem from the conferences I have attended that builders are hurting, but they are looking forward to further rate decreases. They seem optimistic that the demand for housing and shortage will keep them profitable, but it's tough to gauge the timing and what will happen to margins as you stated. Many of them have also off loaded land to private land bankers, so builders don't have as big of a balance sheet problem as they used to have since they are in on land at a fraction of the cost than previously.

It will be interesting to follow your research on this one.

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Paul CerroAuthor11 months ago

Trump is expected to make an announcement in the next two weeks about his plan to fix this problem (allegedly), so that should give us some clues on what direction parts of this trade will be going in

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Paul Cerro10 months ago

There's your partial answer

Trump says U.S. to ban large investors from buying homes

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/07/trump-housing-affordability.html?__source=androidappshare

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