U.S. SMID FIRST TO MARKET

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U.S. SMID FIRST TO MARKET

North America Equity Research

U.S. SMID First to Market 28 July 2026

Top Stories

Equity Thematic Strategy (Dubravko Lakos-Bujas/Bhupinder Singh/Kamal Tamboli)

Reiterating Healthcare, Risk/Reward Attractive, High Conviction Franchise and Innovation Ideas

Healthcare offers a rare combination of durable growth, Technology-like profitability, attractive valuation and diversification

benefits at a time when many investors remain heavily concentrated in the AI theme. For much of the past three years, investor

capital has been singularly focused on AI and AI-adjacent themes, leaving one of the market’s largest and most durable growth

sectors increasingly overlooked.

AFL | | Paper & Packaging (Detlef Winckelmann)

Pricing cycle starting to pick up pace, increasing earnings expectations for corrugators; Upgrade

International Paper on better risk/reward set-up

Last Friday, Green Markets reported that PKG had announced a price increase of $140/t for US kraftliner, to be implemented

on 1 September 2026 (read first take here). While we think that a full implementation is unlikely, we take this opportunity to

address a couple of key debates. In this note, we discuss: (1) the current and implied price/cost potential of the US linerboard

market, (2) where we think prices should settle after considering the incentive price needed to add new capacity, (3) what this

price increase means for valuations, and (4) how this impacts peer companies differently.

Mentions

Media (David Karnovsky, CFA/Alexey Philippov, CFA)

Final Word After Previews and Before Media Earnings

AFL | Victoria's Secret (Matthew R. Boss, CPA) (VSXY, OW, PT $110.00)

Mgmt Access & Recent Fieldwork = Raising #’s > Consensus; Overweight Establishing $110 Dec ’27

PT

BellRing Brands, Inc.