Most investors would be happy to match the market.
Eric Jackson wants to beat it by a hundred times.
The founder of EMJ Capital has built his career hunting for 100-baggers, stocks that can climb 100 times from where he buys them. His floor for a new position is a 50x return over five years. His target is 100x. “That’s what gets my juices flowing,” he says, and it’s the same thing that draws the retail investors who follow him, most of whom aren’t interested in a double or a triple when a handful of the right picks could change their financial future entirely.
Jackson is always hunting for companies the market has pegged as one thing when he believes they’re really another. He leans on AI to screen for ideas, comparing it to a watering hole where he knows the elephants will show up. But from there, he says, it comes down to human judgment. Knowing that Opendoor could bring back a strong operator was one signal. Watching Carvana executives buy up stock a year before the turnaround was another.
Jackson runs a concentrated book, typically 10 to 12 names, with the potential for each to be a 100-bagger over five years. “I’d rather have some diversification through those names,” he says, “rather than only plowing my money into one Carvana and having the rest of the portfolio in a bunch of indexes.”
That diversification doesn’t mean a smooth ride. Jackson points to Carvana’s own run as proof. Along the way, the stock pulled back 30 to 40 per cent five or six times, and once dropped 62 per cent. “You feel really stupid,” he says, watching that kind of paper wealth vanish. But he argues the drawdowns are the price of admission. “It wouldn’t be a potential 100x stock if there wasn’t also that potential for the drawdowns.”
With that framework in mind, here are the 10 stocks he highlighted.
The stock that started it all. Jackson bought in around $15 in December 2022, after the stock had bottomed near $3.50. It’s since climbed above $487. What keeps him in it now is the business model. Carvana is fully vertically integrated, from the online purchase to delivery at your door or one of its car vending machines, and Jackson believes the profit potential is still ahead of it. “I’m really excited to see what they continue to do with the fully integrated approach they have.”
Opendoor (OPEN)
Jackson’s most talked-about pick from last year. The story has changed since he first raised it. Opendoor now has a new CEO, Kaz Nejatian, the former Shopify COO who walked away from valuable stock options to take the job. Jackson met him recently at Opendoor’s Toronto office and says he’s cleaning up a mess left behind. “There is significantly good news to come for Opendoor and Opendoor shareholders.”
IREN (IREN)
A company Jackson flagged early as an AI story hiding inside what looked like a Bitcoin miner. That view is now consensus. What keeps him in the stock is IREN’s real estate position, which he thinks gives it the best shot at landing major data center deals with companies like Microsoft and Amazon, plus a direct partnership with Nvidia.
Cipher Mining (CIFR)
A smaller version of the same trade, which Jackson thinks gives it more room to run. Where IREN builds out land it owns, Cipher tends to line up partnerships first, then build. Jackson believes Cipher has more big deals in the pipeline that haven’t been announced yet.
The least followed of the three, which Jackson thinks works in his favor. Hut 8 runs a similar playbook to Cipher, lining up partnerships ahead of construction, under a young management team led by CEO Asher Genoot. Jackson says the company tends to play its cards close to the vest, and believes there’s more in the works that hasn’t been unveiled yet.
A company building defenses against a future quantum computer capable of breaking today’s encryption, which Jackson sees as a growing risk to banks and crypto platforms alike. He points to Google research estimating that kind of attack could be possible by 2029. Only a handful of public companies are addressing the problem directly, and Jackson likes BTQ’s focus on protection rather than just building faster quantum machines.
Better Home & Finance (BETR)
A small mortgage company waiting on interest rates to move in its favor. In the meantime, Jackson points to a new partnership with OpenAI that lets users check what they’d qualify for directly inside a ChatGPT conversation, with a path from there into a full mortgage application. He thinks that positions the company well once rates start to fall.
A former pandemic darling that Jackson thinks the market has left for dead. He likes it precisely because it’s polarizing, which usually means the stock is cheap. Under a new CEO, Peloton just posted its first cash-flow-positive quarter since the COVID years. Jackson also points to upcoming IPOs from wellness names like Oura Ring and Loop, expected to price at much richer multiples, as a reason Peloton could see its own valuation re-rate.
Dave (DAVE)
Jackson describes Dave as payday loans built for an AI world. Instead of asking a family member to cover a short-term gap, users can get a cash advance through the app, typically around $200 for about eight days, based on cash flow rather than credit score. Jackson bought in around $165 a share in April; the stock now trades above $400. He thinks the U.S. market for this kind of lending is still in its early days.
Nextdoor (NXDR)
Jackson calls it the Reddit for local neighborhoods, with one key difference: every member has to prove they live there, which keeps out spam and bots. He sees an AI advantage in that verified, hyperlocal data, allowing local businesses to reach the right customers with the right offer at the right time. Under founder Nirav Tolia, now two years into his return as CEO, the company just posted its first free-cash-flow-positive quarter.
The Ticker Take
None of these are safe, predictable bets. Jackson’s entire framework depends on being early to a story the market hasn’t figured out yet, and being wrong is part of the process.
But for investors willing to hunt in unloved corners of the market and hold on through the volatility, his portfolio is a real-time look at what that hunt actually looks like.
Jon Erlichman is a BNN Bloomberg contributor and the host of Ticker Take on YouTube.
