Joseph Carlson — Portfolio Update June 2026

Google is Carlson's biggest holding, and he thinks it's getting stronger, not weaker, despite fears that AI chatbots will eat search. His reasons: Google has locked in Chrome, its cloud business is growing into a bigger and more reliable ("Moody-er") slice of revenue, and Waymo has graduated from a science project into a real, money-making business. Stripping out a one-time accounting boost from assets that rose in value, the underlying business is growing around 20–21% a year. He notes even Chris Hohn — a famously moat-obsessed investor — has bought in.

Amazon faces competitors on every front — Walmart in groceries, streaming rivals against Prime Video, Shopify in retail, DoorDash/Uber in last-mile delivery — yet Carlson agrees its overall moat widened this year. The cloud business (AWS) is reaccelerating, advertising keeps scaling, its delivery network is getting denser (which is hard to copy), Prime membership keeps growing, and its AI infrastructure reinforces the whole ecosystem. Growing roughly 13–14%, it's a core holding he's comfortable owning.

Meta is the holding where Carlson sees the clearest jump in competitive strength. It used to be "just" a social-media company; now it's a social-media company sitting on top of an enormous AI supercomputing operation that no other social network can match. That feeds straight into the numbers — better engagement, sharper ad targeting, new creative tools and more ways to make money — while revenue grows about 19.5% (earnings growth is temporarily held back by heavy AI spending). It's where his fresh money has been going, with higher conviction than any other holding.

Microsoft keeps getting more deeply woven into how companies operate — Azure cloud, the Office suite, GitHub, security — and adding AI tools makes it even harder to rip out. That's the bet Bill Ackman made: the value businesses get from Office so far exceeds what they pay that they simply won't cancel. Carlson agrees the moat is strengthening (revenue ~17%, earnings ~15%) but rates his conviction just a notch below Meta, because there's a credible argument (from Chris Hohn) that AI assistants could pressure Azure and Microsoft's customer relationships.

Netflix's stock is "in the gutter," but Carlson thinks the business is healthier than ever — more subscribers, more global scale (it spreads content costs over more viewers), and an ads business growing about 100% a year toward $3 billion-plus. Earnings look muted this year mainly because Netflix front-loads a big content budget, and he expects the 7% estimate to push toward 10%+. He's confident "it's just a matter of time until investors get the magic back in this stock."

Costco is one of his few winners this year, and the one company he says he's "never selling." It grows earnings ~10% "like clockwork" on rising membership and new warehouses, and its moat — membership value, sky-high renewal rates, growing digital, and deep customer trust — is strengthening. His own packed-parking-lot trip is his anecdote for an enduring (not faddish) popularity: people love Costco because it delivers real value, year after year.

Moody's is half of the ratings duopoly, and Carlson bought more because he thinks its moat is widening. The fear is that AI tools make its data and ratings unnecessary; Moody's says it sees no such thing — in fact customers who lean hardest on AI use more Moody's, not less. He slightly prefers S&P Global for new money only because Moody's trades a bit richer, but he rates both very durable.

S&P Global grows its top line slowly (~7% once you strip out acquisitions) but converts it into ~13% earnings growth thanks to very high margins. Carlson rejects the worry that AI chatbots replace it: a bank lending billions of dollars "can't make these loans based on whatever Claude spat out" — when that much capital is on the line, institutions pay for the real, authoritative data and analysis. It's his preferred buy of the ratings pair on valuation.

Mastercard keeps compounding earnings in the high teens (~16%) on a payments network that's hard to dislodge. Carlson pushes back on the popular "the moat is weakening" story: stablecoins (which Mastercard already partners on) and government-run payment systems won't meaningfully dent it — Mastercard keeps adding millions of users even in countries that have their own state rails. He sees the moat as essentially unchanged, i.e. still excellent.

ASML makes the lithography machines that print the most advanced chips, and it's the standout grower this year — revenue ~22–23% and an exceptional ~33% earnings growth on the AI/semiconductor capex wave. Carlson trimmed it because the share price ran up even faster than that and the business carries more cyclicality than his other names, but he's adamant the moat is "crystal clear": layered technological supremacy no rival can replicate, plus logistics, deep customer relationships and an ever-growing installed base. "If you can't see the moat today in ASML, there's no convincing you."

DoorDash is a brand-new holding, growing revenue ~20% and earnings ~40%. Carlson has "very high conviction" its moat improved over the past year: it's doing far more deliveries and taking more US restaurant-delivery share, and in a delivery network, more density automatically makes the moat wider (faster, cheaper, more reliable than a smaller rival can be). The open question he's watching is whether margins hold up a decade out as it expands into new categories.

Uber is his other new buy — "really cheap on the surface" by its P/E while growing earnings ~33%. The same network logic applies: the sheer volume of rides and deliveries keeps widening its moat as it adds members and improves the apps. The big long-term risk is self-driving cars (Waymo), but Carlson thinks Uber's ride volume is far too large for autonomous players to displace it any time soon.

Carlson added $5,000 to Texas Roadhouse and it "raced up" — a bright spot. It grows ~9% revenue with an earnings spike coming as beef-cost pressure eases, plus 20–30 new restaurants a year (it also owns Jaggers and a bar-and-grill concept). The one nuance: its moat is "stable to maybe slightly weakened," not because Texas Roadhouse slipped but because rivals like Chili's and Longhorn have sharpened up. He's unconcerned — TXRH runs its kitchens near 100% efficiency and is "always busy."

Duolingo is the one holding whose moat Carlson openly concedes is "under test." Because AI makes it much easier to build a personalized language-learning app, new competitors are popping up, and the earnings outlook is so uncertain that analyst estimates are "all over the place." But he still owns every share, arguing the real moat is much more than how hard the app is to code: a trusted brand, a free-to-use price, daily streaks and leaderboards, a social layer where friends cheer each other on, a data-flywheel from millions of daily learners, and a structured curriculum that takes years to build well. He thinks it stays prosperous even with the moat being tested.

McDonald's isn't a buy recommendation here — it's the proof picture for Carlson's core lesson from Peter Lynch: over the long run a stock's price tracks its earnings almost perfectly ("100% correlation"). A chart from 1985 to 2026 overlays McDonald's earnings-per-share on its share price, and the two move together for decades, separating only briefly (like the 2020 Covid crash, where the price dropped then bounced back even faster than earnings). Those temporary gaps between price and earnings are exactly where a patient investor can buy great companies cheap.