Hot Picks: ​Three U.S. stocks spanning consumer brands and AI software

Consumer brands and AI software are drawing attention as the holiday shopping season approaches. The three U.S. picks span household appliances, software, and sports and outdoor brands.

BNN Bloomberg spoke with Ryan Modesto, CEO and portfolio manager at i2i Capital Management, about his picks: SharkNinja, Dynatrace and Amer Sports.

Key Takeaways

• SharkNinja’s share price has held up while the broader consumer discretionary sector has struggled, a divergence Modesto views favourably.
• Modesto says SharkNinja’s growth depends on its ability to keep developing products that attract consumers.
• He sees potential for Dynatrace to grow as businesses seek tools to monitor how their AI applications behave.
• Modesto says Amer Sports’ improved outlook makes its recent share price decline look overdone.
• A consumer slowdown remains a risk for both consumer-focused picks, though Modesto expects holiday spending to hold up.

Read the full transcript below:

ROGER: All right, time for Hot Picks. Our next guest is finding opportunities in consumer goods and potential in a company building on its niche in cybersecurity. Let’s welcome Ryan Modesto, CEO and portfolio manager at i2i Capital Management. Ryan, thanks as always for joining us.

RYAN: Glad to be on.

ROGER: Okay, let’s get to a brand. Well, two brand names. I mean, same company, but people recognize them: Shark and Ninja. SharkNinja. What are you liking there?

RYAN: Yeah, SharkNinja is a consumer appliances company. They do kitchen appliances and cleaning appliances. A lot of viewers are probably familiar with their air fryers and their blenders. So overall, just a really innovative company, really innovative product cycle, and one of the kind of their, we think, is going to be the upcoming viral product for the season is this water filter that they have, and it’s so good that we had to triple-check that it was actually real and not some sort of AI video. So it’s just a good example of kind of the innovation that this company brings. But why we like this company is because they’ve been bumping along on 52-week highs and all-time highs, which on its own is a signal we really like to see. But in addition to this, the consumer discretionary sector has actually been in a bit of a drawdown, and we — that’s, we think, kind of an extra kind of bonus flag to look out for when a company is doing — the share price of a company is doing really well, but the sector itself is in a drawdown. So overall, there’s been a lot of concern over the consumer and resilience of the consumer, but month over month, quarter over quarter, the consumer continues to remain resilient and strong. And we think that’s a pretty good setup heading into the holiday season here. The company trades at about 22 times forward earnings, growing mid-teens, and we think it can — has potential to kind of grow at a 10 per cent pace over the medium term, as long as they can keep that innovation cycle going.

ROGER: Okay, I have to ask you about the water filter. I mean, you thought it was AI. What was so unusually unique about it?

RYAN: It’s — you just gotta — it’s just really impressive. Like, and then you get some of the, you know, the Instagram influencer videos and things like that of their filtering out just things you don’t think you could filter into water or whatever. It’s — it’s worth checking out. But it’s a pretty interesting product.

ROGER: Any concerns with something like SharkNinja? It pulls from the top and bottom of the K. The lower end of the K is struggling that they might drop off a little bit.

RYAN: That’s always a concern, but, you know, again, they — they do a really good job at kind of just continually releasing new products with different — that attract different niches. And again, people are concerned about the consumer, but continually the consumer seems to be resilient and finds ways to spend money, for better or worse.

ROGER: Okay, let’s get to Dynatrace.

RYAN: Yeah, so Dynatrace is a cybersecurity company. I’m sure everyone’s familiar with the fears going on with AI right now, and because of that, AI’s modelled new capabilities. It sent a lot of cybersecurity companies on a tear. Dynatrace is one of them as well. What we really like about Dynatrace is they have a foothold in the observability space, which is a higher-growth niche in cybersecurity right now, and they also purchased a company whose main focus is observability. And so, so why that’s important is because observability allows companies to kind of monitor what these AI models and AI tools are doing, and if they start to see that the models are drifting, maybe to areas they shouldn’t be, it allows them to kind of catch it quickly and make whatever adjustments need to be made. So it’s a higher-growth niche in an already kind of high-growth area that Dynatrace is increasing their exposure to. So we think they’re going to see a bit of an acceleration in their growth rate. And cybersecurity companies generally trade at a fairly high valuation, but DT shares actually don’t look too bad. They’re at 26 times forward earnings, which we think is an okay setup, and we think that they’ve been a laboured over the longer term, hitting one-year highs essentially now, and we think there might be a bit of a catch-up trade here.

ROGER: And any concerns with AI that niches may cease to exist?

RYAN: Yes, on the software side of things, but for the cybersecurity side of things, we think the demand is only going to increase right now.

ROGER: All right, let’s get to the last one, Amer Sports. Perfect timing, winter’s coming.

RYAN: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Amer Sports has a couple — they’re, they’re a clothing retailer. They have a couple growthy brands and then some more steady Eddie stalwart type of brands. So people are probably familiar, maybe, with Arc’teryx, Wilson and Salomon are kind of probably their most recognizable brands. And this is also in the consumer discretionary sector. But unlike SharkNinja, this one has taken part in the general discretionary drawdown that we’ve seen. However, while the shares have gotten cheaper and the stock price has gone down, the outlook has actually improved in the recent quarter. The quarter, they increased their outlook for the next quarter. They’ve also increased their mid-term total revenue growth outlook as well to kind of a mid-teens rate at the high end. So now you have a company that’s in a bit of a drawdown, but they’re trading at 17 times forward earnings with some nice brands that are kind of in style right now, and a bit more of, kind of, call it that active-life focus, which we think is on trend as well.

ROGER: And I mean, this — this brand has a history; it’s something that survived downturns before, hasn’t it?

RYAN: Yeah, yeah, and they’re actually a newer public company as well. So we do think they’ve been trained maybe for two or three years, but we — overall, we think it’s a lesser-known brand, and it’s getting overlooked in a lot of cases.

ROGER: And any concerns about that — that market at all, or do you see improving?

RYAN: The main concern is really just, again, it’s that consumer slowdown type of risk if that happens. But I think almost every year for the last five years, that’s been kind of the risk that people are worried about, right? And usually, you get a lull in the next, like, month or two here in terms of consumer demand because everybody’s sort of saving up for the holiday season. So we think, kind of looking, you know, forward maybe three months or so, it’s a — it’s a pretty good setup for these types of names because we think the consumer spending season, the holiday season, will be — will be quite fine.

ROGER: All right, we have to wrap it up there. Ryan, thanks very much for joining us. Ryan Modesto, CEO and portfolio manager at i2i Capital Management.

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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Sept. 23, 2026 interview with Ryan Modesto are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.