September 11, 2026
Bonus Content: Clorox Just Spent $580 Million on a New Brain. Now the Stock Is Near a 5-Year Low.
Editor’s Note: For nearly two decades, Whitney Tilson managed money for wealthy investors – growing a hedge fund launched from his spare bedroom into a firm running more than $200 million. Today, at least five billionaires follow his daily research notes. Now, he’s revealing what he believes is Warren Buffett’s final “hidden” legacy move – and three ways to get in early before a newly-IPO’d power company lights the blue touchpaper. See below for the details…
Dear Reader,
I think we can all agree Warren Buffett is one of the greatest investors who ever lived.
He compounded his money at around 20% a year for six decades…
By turning a dying textile mill into the most famous holding company on Earth – one valued at $1 trillion today.
But hardly anyone is paying attention to what I believe is his final – and least understood – bet in the market.
The details are all laid bare in a story ex $200M hedge fund firm manager Whitney Tilson calls “Project Vulcan”… and what it says about Buffett’s last bet is truly astonishing.
For years, Berkshire has been quietly building a dominant position in a niche type of energy production to fuel the AI build-out…
A fuel source The Economist says is “better than nuclear.”
And one the International Energy Authority predicts could be flooded with over $2.5 trillion of investment in the next decade.
It’s been overlooked by mainstream investors for years.
But an imminent power station switch-on – slated for this October – could be about to light the blue touchpaper in this sector.
And now Whitney is sharing all the details on this story… including three ways you could potentially profit before the big money piles in.
Get the full details on Whitney’s 3 “Project Vulcan” plays now.
Sincerely,
Matt Weinshenck
Publisher and Director of Research, Stansberry Research
P.S. The clock started ticking on this opportunity the moment Buffett handed the keys to his empire over to his hand-picked CEO. Watch my presentation now so you don’t get left behind.
Clorox Just Spent $580 Million on a New Brain. Now the Stock Is Near a 5-Year Low.
Hey there, bargain hunter. Two days ago, Clorox CEO Linda Rendle and CFO Luc Bellet sat down at the Barclays 19th Annual Global Consumer Staples Conference and told investors the company is entering fiscal 2027 from a stronger position than a year ago. The stock is near $89. Five years ago it traded above $170. The gap between the confidence and the price is the story.
Scoreboard
Clorox finished fiscal 2026 with trailing revenue of roughly $6.7 billion and net earnings attributable to Clorox of about $587 million, good for an ~8.7% net margin. Q3 2026 adjusted EPS came in at $1.64, beating the ~$1.53 consensus by about 7%. The stock has still shed about 47% over five years. The market is not celebrating a margin recovery. It is asking whether the recovery lasts.
The Real Reason This Is in Play Now
Clorox just completed a five-year, $580 million digital transformation investment that included an ERP overhaul, replacing technology that was roughly 20 years old. The transition created a mess: retailers pre-ordered inventory ahead of the U.S. cutover, which inflated fiscal 2025 sales and then deflated fiscal 2026 sales as those shelves drained. That timing quirk is now fully lapped.
Management has said fiscal 2027 organic sales growth should land between 3.5% and 4.5%, with more than 3.5 percentage points of that coming specifically from lapping the ERP-related inventory drawdown. Strip that tailwind out and underlying volume growth is thin. That is the honest read.
What the Business Actually Looks Like
Clorox sells bleach, Pine-Sol, Glad bags, Hidden Valley, Brita, Burt’s Bees, Fresh Step cat litter, and now Purell, added through acquisition. The Health and Wellness segment is the biggest, combining consumer Cleaning with Professional Products (now including Clorox Purell). Management has positioned Cleaning as a core growth engine, expanding well beyond bleach into a broader platform.
The EcoClean line is a professional-focused platform built around EPA Safer Choice and Design for the Environment-certified ingredients. It is real, awards-validated, and growing. Whether it moves revenue at scale is a different question.
The Numbers That Matter
- Trailing revenue: ~$6.7 billion
- Net margin: ~8.7%
- Net earnings attributable to Clorox (FY2026): ~$587 million
- FY2027 organic growth guide: 3.5% to 4.5%
- Input cost inflation headwind: $200 million or more, more than double the historical $75 million to $100 million range
- Digital transformation investment total (including ERP): ~$580 million over five years
Is It Cheap?
CLX trades at a trailing P/E in the high teens and a forward multiple around the mid-teens. The valuation looks lower than it has been in years, but the exact gap versus the broader Consumer Defensive group depends on which index and data set you use.
One caveat: the $200-plus million input cost wall is not a rounding error. It dwarfs anything Clorox has absorbed in recent history and limits how much margin expansion the ERP can deliver in the near term.
Bull / Base / Bear
Bull: ERP optimization accelerates into fiscal 2028, eco innovation holds pricing power, and the Purell platform scales. Margins grind toward 13%.
Base: Organic growth comes in at the low end of the 3.5% to 4.5% range, input costs stay elevated, and the stock drifts sideways near current levels as the margin recovery proves gradual.
Bear: Consumer spending tightens further, private-label cleaning products take share, and input costs worsen. The dividend, currently yielding above 5%, comes under scrutiny.
Action Plan
This is a scale-in situation, not a full position day one. A starter at current prices makes sense for income-oriented bargain hunters given the yield and the sector discount. Add only if Q1 fiscal 2027 results confirm ERP efficiency gains are flowing through to gross margin.
Cheap Investor Checklist
- Does Q1 FY2027 gross margin expand year over year?
- Does organic growth ex-ERP tailwind come in above 1%?
- Is the $200 million input cost hit shrinking or growing?
- Is EcoClean gaining distribution in mass retail channels?
- Does Purell contribute positive revenue in the first full fiscal year?
- Is the dividend covered by free cash flow?
Bottom Line
If the ERP delivers real cost savings by mid-fiscal 2028 and the $200 million input cost headwind starts to normalize, CLX at a mid-teens forward multiple looks like a patient buyer’s entry. If input costs stay elevated and volume growth disappoints, the discount is a warning sign, not an invitation. Watch gross margin in early November 2026. That decides which scenario you are actually in.
