Roundtable 100 analysts move Tesla's ranking after the rocket Roadster reveal

Tesla showed off a Roadster with rocket thrusters this week. The Roundtable 100's committee responded by moving the stock up 32 spots but not for the reason you'd think.

Tesla (TSLA) climbed from #97 to #65 on the Roundtable 100, the analyst-driven ranking of 100 future-facing assets, after Blue Ribbon Committee member Sam Badawi, an AI infrastructure investor and host of The Solid Report, filed the case for it.

Badawi was blunt about the headline-grabbing car: don't price it. "The Roadster reveal yesterday was exciting and reinforces Tesla's engineering ambition, but I would not assign much financial value to it today," he wrote, saying he doesn't expect meaningful production "until around 2030."

His argument is about everything except the car. "The much bigger thesis is Tesla transitioning toward high-margin software, autonomous transportation and humanoid robotics," he wrote — self-driving software, the Robotaxi network, and the Optimus robot, which he called "another massive long-term opportunity."

On Elon Musk, Badawi didn't hold back: "the closest thing we have today to a living Einstein, although his ambitious timelines and execution risk justify keeping this score below the highest tier."

The ranking's analysts accepted the move with a caution attached, calling it "an explicitly speculative autonomy/robotics thesis" and noting the thruster Roadster "proves engineering ambition, not near-term earnings."

See the full Roundtable 100 list here.

The week's biggest riser overall was Gold (XAU), up 58 spots to #40 — powered by a submission from Blue Ribbon Committee member John Divine, who handles institutional crypto execution at BlockFills.

His case is macro. "The Fed can still raise rates a quarter point," Divine wrote. "It cannot charge the United States the rate that would actually break inflation while a $40 trillion Treasury refinances a growing pile of debt."

Meanwhile, the official buyers keep coming: central banks added about 289 tonnes in the second quarter, Poland is walking toward a 700-tonne target, and a record 45% of reserve managers say they plan to add more over the next year, per his submission.

His closing line made the whole argument in nine words: "Treasuries have to be rolled when they mature. Gold just sits there."

Cybersecurity firm Varonis Systems (VRNS) crashed from #6 to #54 — and the reason is an acquisition, not a stumble. A $49.75-a-share cash takeover caps how far the stock can run on its own, the analysts noted: "This is now partly a deal-arbitrage position, not the same growth thesis."

Translation for lay readers: once a company agrees to be bought at a fixed price, its stock mostly just drifts toward that price. The growth story is over; what's left is waiting for the deal to close.

Stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) jumped from #71 to #31, and Blue Ribbon Committee member John Slazas, founder of trading platform MKT.TRADE, filed the week's most detailed case for it.

His evidence: USDC in circulation hit $73.3 billion, up 19%, and on Oct. 14 the European Banking Authority classified USDC as the first "significant e-money token" under the EU's crypto rules — moving its reserves under direct European supervision. In the U.S., Circle won final approval for a national trust bank charter.

"The reserve and redemption side of USDC is moving under named supervisors on both sides of the Atlantic," Slazas wrote. He flagged the risks too: the CFO is stepping down by year-end, and Circle's income moves with interest rates.

Divine filed the committee's busiest week, and his Bitcoin submission is the one traders will quote.

His argument for the asset, trading near $81,000 to $83,000: "Public miners spent about $75,500 in cash to produce one coin in the second quarter." At today's prices, he wrote, "the weaker machines can stay online and the coins already mined are less likely to be dumped just to cover power" — in plain terms, the cost of making a Bitcoin acts as a floor under its price.

He added the Washington angle: the House Financial Services Committee voted 28-21 on Sept. 16 to advance a bill locking roughly 325,000 federal coins for twenty years. The bill hasn't cleared Congress, but, as he put it, Bitcoin is "the only digital asset large pools can hold at size through ETFs, bank custody, and corporate treasuries."

His other calls ran the full map:

• Intuit: "A software franchise that is still growing high single digits next year... is not a broken business."• Cisco: hyperscalers placed "$9.3 billion of AI infrastructure orders" — "real orders from the people building the AI clusters."• American Express: its cardholders' delinquencies run near 1.2% while the national card book runs near 7% — "Amex's customer is the other side of that split."• NEAR: its cross-chain rail "has cleared about $35 billion all-time" — treating it like a side experiment undersells live plumbing.• Absci: a clean safety readout on its AI-designed hair-loss drug, but "twenty-two is the slot for a trial that has not shown the product works yet."• Strive: a leveraged Bitcoin holder, not an operating business — "Thirty-eight treats it like a business that earns money even if bitcoin goes nowhere."• Root: "an auto insurer that finally underwrites like one."

Slazas spent the week doing what he did last cycle: hunting scores that no longer match the filings.

His sharpest case was American Express. The card giant took a $350 million penalty on Oct. 8 over anti-money-laundering failures — the OCC found about $13 billion of suspected trade-based money laundering went unreported on time over a decade. Real findings, Slazas acknowledged. But the orders came with "no asset cap" and "no change to guidance," while AmEx grew revenue 10% with write-offs flat.

His verdict: the stock was being scored "as if the review were still open" — a penalty that is "now known and priced" shouldn't read as an open wound. "This review raises Safety only," he wrote, his standard closing discipline.

Beyond Tesla, Badawi proposed moving Shopify from #41 to #34 — and his reasoning is a preview of where commerce coverage is heading.

"AI commerce moves from a future concept toward an actual transaction layer," he wrote. As shopping starts inside AI assistants instead of websites, Shopify's tools let "AI agents move from product discovery through checkout while keeping Shopify underneath the transaction."

The numbers behind it: revenue up 34% in the second quarter, an 18% free cash flow margin, and more than 14% of U.S. e-commerce already running through the platform. His bet: "Shopify can potentially become the transaction layer connecting merchants to multiple AI platforms rather than relying on any single consumer destination."

• Samsara (IOT) rose 15 spots to take #1, leading a top ten where fintech holds three seats.

• Interactive Brokers (IBKR) jumped 25 spots to #7 on delivered third-quarter results, higher revenue, higher earnings, a raised dividend.

• Salesforce (CRM) climbed to #17 after the UK's tax authority selected it for an agreement worth up to 2 billion pounds over 15 years.

• TSMC (TSM) surged to #25 on record quarterly revenue and a 66.4% gross margin.

• Rocket Lab (RKLB) fell to #91 after its Neutron rocket slipped into 2027, "a concrete schedule setback," per the analysts.

Check where every asset landed on the full list.

The complete, updated ranking of all 100 assets — with five-variable scores and star ratings — is live at roundtable100.com.

The Roundtable 100 is an analyst-driven ranking of 100 future-facing U.S.-accessible assets: equities listed on Nasdaq or the NYSE and digital assets available on major U.S.-accessible exchanges. Each asset is scored on five variables — Leadership, Safety, Innovation, Growth, and Market Dominance — with the Power Ranking as the average of the five. Scores change only on verifiable new information such as filings, earnings, regulatory actions and product launches, never on price action alone, and every score is defended by named analysts on Roundtable's Blue Ribbon Committee. Membership of the 100 is fixed between quarterly rebalances; ranks move weekly, membership does not. The ranking refreshes every Friday after the U.S. market close.

The Roundtable 100 is published by RTB Digital, Inc. (NASDAQ: RTB) for informational purposes only and is not investment advice, an offer, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security or digital asset. Rankings reflect the views of Roundtable analysts as of the ranking date. Committ