Tom Yeung here with your Sunday Digest.
In 2023, shares of shoemaker On Holding AG (ONON) began an inexplicable rise.
In January, shares jumped 33% to $23…
By July, the stock had risen another 52% to $35…
Eighteen months later, ONON broke past $60…. a 250% return in just two years!
Now, the fundamentals were only part of the story. On was already growing rapidly before its massive 250% surge. In fact, revenue growth began slowing in percentage terms during this time.
Institutional investors were also not involved. At the time, Louis Navellier’s quantitative “follow the money” Stock Grader (subscription required) score awarded ONON a paltry “D” grade simply because smart money was staying away.
Instead, On was driven higher by a force that’s often invisible to those on Wall Street:
Retail interest.
Between 2023 and 2025, the Swiss shoe company inked multiple partnerships with popular Gen Z stars, including social media breakout Zendaya. The brand surged in popularity among younger runners, and its share price followed suit.
Now, it’s easy to write off On as another retail trader fad. After all, the past month has seen Reddit-driven pumps like Opendoor Technologies Inc. (OPEN) and Beyond Meat Inc. (BYND).
But social media has become a force that extends well beyond small-cap swarm buying. Firms like Tesla Inc. (TSLA) maintain sky-high valuations (170X forward earnings) thanks to millions of rabid fans. Fashion firms, from Crocs Inc. (CROX) to Under Armour Inc. (UA), live and die by how popular they are among young consumers. And investors who can stay one step ahead of the crowd stand to benefit enormously.
Now, I’ll admit that staying ahead can be tricky. Social media is fragmented across dozens of platforms, thousands of hashtags, and millions of users. Besides, it’s often unclear whether a company is truly popular or if it’s a handful of spam bots behind the effort.
Fortunately, the team at TradeSmith has created a system called a Social Heat Score that pulls millions of data points from across the web – from social media posts to AI queries, search volumes to web traffic trends. They then combine these into a 0 to 100 score that pinpoints how popular a company is. The system was flagging On Holding well before any Wall Street investor took notice.
Even better, we quickly realized that the Social Heat Score pairs perfectly with Louis’ Stock Grader system, which considers a longer-term outlook. The combined system picks out popular winners with lasting potential.
To demonstrate this system, Louis will team up with Andy and Landon Swan for a presentation they’re calling The Ultimate Stock Strategy event. In this talk on October 28 at 10 a.m. ET, they will cover how this system works… and give away two free stocks they’re buying now. (You can save your seat for that free event right here.)
Until then, I’ve been given permission (as usual) to reveal to InvestorPlace Digest readers three companies that both systems are already flagging…
The Dollar Store King
For those who avoid dollar stores, these cut-price retailers can all look (and sound) the same. Family Dollar… Dollar Tree… Dollarama… not to mention the hundreds of regional players with names like Dollar Castle, Dollar Dream, and Dollar Planet.
But one of these companies stands out with a Social Heat Score of 91.5:
Dollar General Corp. (DG).
America’s largest discount store chain has an astonishingly strong following, particularly among rural customers. Dollar General’s prices are extremely low, thanks to its scale of 20,000 stores, and it has become known as a go-to place for everything from groceries to exclusive lines of Dolly Parton kitchenware. According to data from Numerator, the average customer spends $522 annually at Dollar General — almost twice as much as they do at rival Dollar Tree Inc. (DLTR).
In addition, Dollar General has attracted high-income customers looking to save cash. During his most recent earnings call, CEO Todd Vasos noted that middle- and higher-income customers are trading down.
“It really shows, and what we see in our data is not only our existing customers, but those new customers coming in,” he said. “And those new customers coming in have a little extra money in their pocket to spend on nonconsumable categories.”
Even better, Dollar General’s fundamentals are rock solid. Operating margins sit at 4.2% — comparable to Walmart Inc.’s (WMT) 4.3% – and the average payback period for new stores is less than three years.
That’s turning Dollar General into a company too cheap to ignore. The company earns a top “A” grade under Louis’ Stock Grader, and investors shouldn’t be surprised if shares soon return to the $250 range they achieved just two years ago.
A Potential Turnaround Play
Advance Auto Parts Inc. (AAP) sits at the other end of the quality scale. The firm began falling behind its rivals in the 2000s, and its 2014 acquisitions of Carquest and Worldpac only made things worse. Operating margins fell to one-third of its two key rivals, and AAP is now on its third turnaround team since 2008.
However, there are signs that this latest group, led by CEO Shane O’Kelly, might have found the right formula. Since its 2023 debut, the team has overseen an uptick in operating earnings and a return to meaningful profitability. Analysts expect net income to rise 58% to $166 million next year and 48% to $246 million the next.
Much of this has to do with consumer perception, which is captured by Advance Auto Parts’ rising Heat Score. Its latest number comes in at 74 – comfortably within the 70-100 “Buy” zone. Indeed, the American Customer Satisfaction Index now ranks AAP solidly, rather than at the bottom of the pile.
That means shares of Advance Auto Parts are finally worth watching.
“In Q2, we… achieved an important milestone in our turnaround journey with the return to profitability,” O’Kelly noted in his most recent earnings call. “The pro business… continued to deliver positive comp growth. In our DIY business, we are encouraged by emerging signs of stabilization as comparable sales were consistent with Q1 and improved on a two-year basis.”
Valuations are also compelling after a 75% selloff that was compounded recently by the bankruptcy of First Brands, a supplier. Shares trade at just 14X 2027 (still depressed) earnings, and so a further uptick in analyst forecasts could launch shares from around $55 today into the $100 range.
In July, I recommended the relative safety of O’Reilly Automotive Inc. (ORLY) to ride the summer doldrums. Shares rose 10% through September. The Social Heat Score now suggests a more aggressive investment in Advance Auto Parts.
The ChatGPT Rival
Finally, if you asked someone, “Who makes the smartest chatbots?” most Americans would instantly say OpenAI, Grok, or Gemini.
But one firm now makes a large language model (LLM) that’s almost as good.
It’s not Meta Platforms Inc.’s (META) Llama…
Nor is it China’s DeepSeek…
Or France’s Mistral…
Instead, it’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s (BABA) Qwen3 – a model that’s just four months behind the best Western models. The model ranks fourth in “Humanity’s Last Exam” and is cheaper to run than Gemini 2.5 or Grok 4.
Wall Street analysts equally overlook BABA stock. The median price target by brokerages is just $177.50, a meager 3% upside from current prices.
That could soon change.
Over the past year, Alibaba has seen multiple waves of good news, including easing competition, rising profit margins, and major wins in tech innovation (including chatbots). Its cloud computing services now generate more profits than its legacy e-commerce segment, and its latest AI inferencing chips are now undergoing testing.
Unlike Huawei’s AI chips, Alibaba’s versions are compatible with Nvidia Corp.’s (NVDA) platform, making them far more attractive to Chinese customers seeking to diversify from U.S.-made hardware.
Institutional and retail investors are showing interest. Alibaba now scores an “A” in Louis’ Stock Grader, and an 86 Social Heat Score. And with shares trading at just 18X earnings, there should be plenty more room for this rising stock to run.
Knowing When to Buy… Knowing When to Sell
The wonderful thing about the Social Heat Score is that it can also tell when companies turn into “bear traps.” These are stocks that have gone down a lot… and then keep on going down.
In a recent report, Andy Swan goes into how his system helped steer investors away from Lululemon Athletica Inc. (LULU), a firm that has since declined another 10%.
When we pulled the data, we were expecting to find a potential rebound signal. Instead, we found evidence that LULU hasn’t reached its consumer bottom yet…
Main Street interest is shifting away from athleisure and toward denim…
The most viral apparel campaign right now isn’t leggings – it’s Sydney Sweeney’s Good Jeans for American Eagle Outfitters…
Consumers are flagging LULU for lower-than-expected quality, lack of innovation, and in some cases, store-related negatives like thefts or bizarre incidents (like twerking parties in stores)…
The Swans’ Social Heat Scores can also act as an early warning sign for previously popular firms, including Allbirds Inc. (BIRD), Celsius Holdings Inc. (CELH), and Starbucks Corp. (SBUX). These companies currently have Social Heat Scores of 20 or below, suggesting they’re not as hot as they once were.
So once again, I encourage you to sign up for their Ultimate Stock Strategy event on Tuesday, October 28 at 10 a.m., where they will share more details on how their combined system works.
Click here to sign up.
Until next week,
Thomas Yeung, CFA
Market Analyst, InvestorPlace
