Planet MicroCap · Oct 18, 2026 · 54m · 45m saved
With Todd Wenning, President and CIO of KNA Capital Management, Publisher of Flyover Stocks and Director of the Hanley Center for ESG Investing at the University of Dayton
AI has moved the debate over many companies from what they will look like in 10 years to what they will look like next year, Todd Wenning, president and CIO of KNA Capital Management, told Robert Kraft on Planet MicroCap.
Most moat analysis asks how wide a company's competitive advantage is. Todd now asks whether it is getting wider or narrower, because AI is testing advantages that went unchallenged through a long, stable decade.
"It's brought forward the debate for a lot of these companies from what does this company look like in ten years to what about next year." — Todd Wenning
Todd came to investing through corporate governance work at Morningstar, publishes the Flyover Stocks newsletter, and teaches at the University of Dayton, where he directs the Hanley Center for ESG Investing.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 54 minutes of audio, 9 minutes of reading.
Here are the 7 insights that matter.
Key Takeaways
A moat's direction now matters more than its width, because AI is testing advantages that sat unchallenged for a decade
Network effects and software switching costs are the moats most at risk, since buyers can now ask whether to build the software themselves
AI shopping agents threaten companies that depend on shopper inertia, and Amazon has already shut out Meta's Muse
A 10-year Treasury above 5% is drawing older investors' money out of stocks
Todd's median holding trades around the 39th percentile of its 10-year valuation range
In microcaps, an emerging moat shows up first in capital allocation, before it reaches returns on capital
A business whose edge is human creativity may do better without AI, as one of Todd's UK holdings does
1. Teaching Sharpens Investing
Since his last appearance on the show about three years ago, Todd has taken a regular teaching post at the University of Dayton, after an earlier adjunct role at Xavier. He also directs the university's Hanley Center for ESG Investing, a field he reached mostly through governance work at Morningstar rather than through ESG itself.
Todd Wenning points out that the investors he admires most are all teachers
"All of the people that we love as investors, Ben Graham, Warren Buffett, Joel Greenblatt, Michael Mauboussin, right? They're all teachers." — Todd Wenning
Students push him back to first principles, such as what return on equity and free cash flow measure and why they matter, and that has made him more confident explaining his own work. He also uses the classroom as an informal survey. Students back from summer internships tell him most big companies are adopting AI without a real strategy or a culture that knows how to use it.
