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It's been a surprisingly good year so far for Target (TGT -0.66%) shareholders. After several years of disappointing sales resulting in a broadly declining stock performance, shares of this retailer are up 58% year to date.

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Simply put, investors are finally seeing a glimmer of hope for a turnaround. Total revenue rose 6.7% year over year in its first fiscal quarter, which ended in early May. That was driven in part by a 4.4% increase in foot traffic, resulting in same-store sales growth of 5.6%.

Although analysts don't expect Target's fiscal second-quarter numbers to grow quite as much as they did in Q1, the company's still quite optimistic: When it reported in May, it doubled its previous full-year sales growth guidance from around 2% to around 4%. Management's also looking for earnings per share of between $7.50 and $8.50 for fiscal 2026 (which will end in late January). The analysts' consensus expectation is for earnings per share of $8.43.

The stock's recent buyers are essentially betting this big-box retailer will remain on track to at least meet those expectations, although some investors are also likely counting on better-than-expected numbers.

Image source: Getty Images.

This, of course, makes Aug. 19 a critical day for anyone betting on a continued turnaround. Although the company hasn't yet officially confirmed the date (it typically doesn't do so until the day before), most analysts expect Target to post its second-quarter results on that day. And those numbers will either affirm or call into question whether the retailer is truly on track to meet its full-year guidance.

On that score, the analyst community expects to hear that Target turned $26.08 billion in revenue into a per-share profit of $2.30 for the three-month stretch that ended early this month.

Just don't lose perspective: While every quarter is important for a company like Target that has so much to prove, one single quarter won't necessarily prove enough of anything for investors to make a true long-term call on this ticker.

James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Target. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 15th, 2026

BIP Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL – Free Report) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 15,348 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,249,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. HFM Investment Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Oracle by 290.9% during the fourth quarter. HFM Investment Advisors LLC now owns 129 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Basepoint Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in Oracle in the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. FSA Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Oracle during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $28,000. Osbon Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Oracle during the fourth quarter worth $28,000. Finally, Joseph Group Capital Management purchased a new stake in Oracle in the 4th quarter valued at about $29,000. 42.44% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. Guggenheim reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Oracle in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed a “mixed” rating on shares of Oracle in a report on Thursday, June 11th. Wolfe Research reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $225.00 price objective on shares of Oracle in a research report on Thursday, June 11th. UBS Group reduced their target price on Oracle from $285.00 to $245.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 6th. Finally, Bank of America lifted their price objective on shares of Oracle from $200.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 9th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, eight have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $263.97.

Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on Oracle

Key Oracle News Here are the key news stories impacting Oracle this week:

Positive Sentiment: Oracle and Amazon Web Services expanded their long-term collaboration, with Oracle AI Database@AWS now available in 22 AWS regions. The offering includes Exadata-class performance and pay-per-use pricing, potentially accelerating enterprise cloud migrations and AI-related revenue. Oracle and AWS Deepen Strategic Collaboration Positive Sentiment: A multiyear partnership with Quantinuum will bring quantum-computing capabilities to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Although an early-stage opportunity, the deal broadens Oracle’s AI and cloud growth narrative and helped support investor interest. Quantinuum’s Cloud Deal With Oracle Neutral Sentiment: Oracle’s latest quarterly results exceeded expectations, with revenue rising 20.6% year over year and earnings surpassing consensus estimates. However, investors remain focused on whether growth can offset the capital requirements of Oracle’s AI infrastructure buildout. Neutral Sentiment: Technical coverage has identified the 50-day moving average as an important support or resistance level. This may encourage short-term trading activity but does not materially change the company’s fundamental outlook. Oracle Crossed Above the 50-Day Moving Average Negative Sentiment: Reports that Oracle is considering additional layoffs have heightened concerns about cash flow and operating pressure as the company funds aggressive AI data-center expansion. The spending is also increasing leverage and debt-servicing risk. Oracle Weighs Another Round of Job Cuts Negative Sentiment: Credit-downgrade concerns, higher bond-insurance costs and Oracle’s substantial debt burden are fueling fears that AI investment could strain its balance sheet. These concerns are the primary reason behind the recent sell-off. Oracle Junk Bond Fears and Debt Surge Negative Sentiment: Investor Michael Burry reportedly increased his short position in Oracle, arguing that excess AI-computing capacity could emerge by 2028. The high-profile bearish call adds pressure to a stock already facing skepticism about AI valuations and spending returns. Michael Burry Doubles Down on Oracle Shorts Oracle Trading Down 3.8% Shares of ORCL stock opened at $150.32 on Friday. Oracle Corporation has a 1-year low of $114.50 and a 1-year high of $345.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. The company has a 50-day moving average of $149.89 and a two-hundred day moving average of $161.60. The firm has a market cap of $432.99 billion, a PE ratio of 25.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 1.72.

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, June 10th. The enterprise software provider reported $2.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.96 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $19.18 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $19.10 billion. Oracle had a return on equity of 58.62% and a net margin of 25.37%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 20.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.70 earnings per share. Oracle has set its Q1 2027 guidance at 1.720-1.760 EPS and its FY 2027 guidance at 8.050-8.050 EPS. On average, analysts predict that Oracle Corporation will post 6.47 EPS for the current year.

Oracle Dividend Announcement The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, July 24th. Investors of record on Friday, July 10th were issued a $0.50 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, July 10th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.3%. Oracle’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 34.31%.

Insiders Place Their Bets In other Oracle news, Vice Chairman Jeffrey Henley sold 400,000 shares of Oracle stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $159.16, for a total transaction of $63,664,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 400,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $63,664,000. The trade was a 50.00% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. 40.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Oracle Company Profile (Free Report)

Oracle Corporation is a multinational technology company that develops and sells database software, cloud engineered systems, enterprise software applications and related services. The company is widely known for its flagship Oracle Database and a portfolio of enterprise-grade software products that support data management, application development, analytics and middleware. Over recent years Oracle has expanded its focus to include cloud infrastructure and cloud applications, positioning itself as a provider of both platform and software-as-a-service solutions for large organizations.

Oracle’s product and service offerings include Oracle Database and the Autonomous Database, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), enterprise resource planning (ERP), human capital management (HCM) and supply chain management (SCM) cloud applications (often grouped under Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications), middleware such as WebLogic, and developer technologies including Java and MySQL.

Featured Stories Five stocks we like better than Oracle Sony and TSMC’s $4.7 Billion Venture Is About More Than Camera Sensors Quantum Leaps: Debt-Free as AI Storage Demand Accelerates NVIDIA’s $500 Billion GPU Financing Deal Fuels Path Toward $270 Sandisk’s Margins Look Like Software. Can They Last? Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ORCL? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL – Free Report).

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The artificial intelligence (AI) chip craze can't be discussed without including the behemoth Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM -0.96%). The third-party chip manufacturer has been one of the standout stocks of the past year, up nearly 80%. That substantial rise has pushed the company's valuation past $2 trillion, but investors are starting to question how long the chip boom will last. Is TSMC too expensive now? 

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TSMC's growth has been impressive. In the second quarter, its revenue jumped 36% year over year, while net income and diluted earnings per share rose 77.4%. The company's strong free cash flow has given it an enviable balance sheet, and its dividend payouts have more than doubled in the past three years.

Chip demand isn't slowing, and TSMC is also pursuing new opportunities. For example, it's in the process of setting up a joint venture with Sony (SONY +2.88%) to produce next-generation image sensors. That multibillion-dollar collaboration will supply high-performance camera sensors for iPhones and future physical-AI use cases. The duo is targeting mass production by 2029.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

The stock isn't cheap, but its valuation metrics are still quite reasonable. The company's forward P/E ratio is just 25, while the trailing P/E ratio is 36. TSMC's five-year PEG ratio is almost exactly 1, implying the stock is fairly priced.

Given the new partnership with Sony and the expectation for continued high chip demand through the second half of this decade, TSMC may not be a bargain, but it is still surely worth buying and holding. No, Taiwan Semiconductor is not too expensive for investors looking to hold it for the long haul.

Catie Hogan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 15th, 2026

BIP Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK – Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 2,314 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,748,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Trifecta Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of McKesson in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $155,000. Summit Global Investments purchased a new stake in shares of McKesson in the 2nd quarter worth about $1,159,000. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in McKesson in the 2nd quarter valued at about $2,768,000. Bryn Mawr Trust Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in McKesson in the 2nd quarter valued at about $624,000. Finally, Wedge Capital Management L L P NC increased its holdings in McKesson by 22.5% during the 2nd quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC now owns 38,937 shares of the company’s stock valued at $29,421,000 after acquiring an additional 7,141 shares in the last quarter. 85.07% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at McKesson In other McKesson news, EVP Michele Lau sold 3,550 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $761.09, for a total transaction of $2,701,869.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 3,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,471,259.23. The trade was a 52.23% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas L. Rodgers sold 2,388 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $761.09, for a total transaction of $1,817,482.92. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 3,090 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,351,768.10. This trade represents a 43.59% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 29,049 shares of company stock valued at $22,530,626. Corporate insiders own 0.06% of the company’s stock.

McKesson Stock Up 1.4% Shares of NYSE MCK opened at $868.72 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $813.45 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $842.81. McKesson Corporation has a 52-week low of $667.50 and a 52-week high of $999.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $101.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.25, a P/E/G ratio of 1.68 and a beta of 0.30.

McKesson (NYSE:MCK – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The company reported $9.93 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $9.56 by $0.37. The company had revenue of $105.38 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $103.88 billion. McKesson had a negative return on equity of 253.21% and a net margin of 1.12%.The business’s revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $8.26 earnings per share. McKesson has set its FY 2027 guidance at 44.200-45.000 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that McKesson Corporation will post 44.65 earnings per share for the current year.

McKesson Increases Dividend The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.94 per share. This represents a $3.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.4%. This is a positive change from McKesson’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.82. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 1st. McKesson’s dividend payout ratio is presently 10.06%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several analysts have issued reports on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $875.00 price target on shares of McKesson in a report on Friday, May 8th. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on McKesson from $989.00 to $1,006.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 6th. UBS Group upped their target price on McKesson from $1,050.00 to $1,080.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 6th. William Blair assumed coverage on McKesson in a report on Tuesday, April 28th. They set an “outperform” rating on the stock. Finally, Evercore reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of McKesson in a research report on Thursday, August 6th. Fourteen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $977.00.

Check Out Our Latest Analysis on McKesson

McKesson Company Profile (Free Report)

McKesson Corporation (NYSE: MCK) is a global healthcare services and distribution company that supplies pharmaceuticals, medical-surgical products and health care technology solutions. Founded in 1833 and headquartered in Irving, Texas, McKesson operates across the drug distribution and healthcare services value chain, connecting manufacturers, pharmacies, hospitals and health systems to help manage the movement of medicines and clinical supplies.

The company’s core activities include pharmaceutical wholesale distribution and logistics, specialty pharmacy services, and the provision of medical-surgical supplies to acute and non-acute care providers.

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MarketBeat Week in Review – 09/08 - 09/12Madrigal Pharmaceuticals NASDAQ: MDGL said Rezdiffra continued to post strong commercial growth in the second quarter of 2026, while the company expanded its development pipeline around the MASH therapy and prepared for several potential clinical catalysts.

Speaking at a Canaccord Genuity event, Chief Financial Officer Mardi Dier said the company reported $364 million in second-quarter revenue, representing a 71% increase from the comparable period a year earlier. Rezdiffra’s trailing-12-month revenue run rate was approximately $1.3 billion after nine quarters on the market, she said.

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CoreWeave and Madrigal's Insider Trades Flash Bullish SignalsDier said Madrigal had more than 49,000 active patients using Rezdiffra at the end of the second quarter and crossed the 50,000-patient mark in early July. While Madrigal does not provide formal revenue guidance, she said the company was comfortable with consensus expectations for growth from the second to third quarter and from the third to fourth quarter of 2026.

“This is putting us on a trajectory of a mega blockbuster,” Dier said, adding that the company sees Rezdiffra as a long-term growth opportunity in a MASH market that remains early in its development.

Prescriber Base and Competitive Landscape Novo Nordisk: A New Boost for GLP-1 Sales on the HorizonChief Commercial Officer Carole Huntsman said Madrigal established a broad group of prescribers early in Rezdiffra’s launch, surpassing 10,000 prescribers last year and continuing to add new prescribers regularly. The company is now focused on increasing prescribing depth, she said.

Huntsman said physicians have reported that Rezdiffra has performed above their expectations in clinical practice, citing its liver-directed efficacy, once-daily oral dosing and tolerability profile. She also pointed to data discussed during the company’s earnings call that showed efficacy across patient subtypes.

Addressing competition, Huntsman said Madrigal has not observed a significant negative impact on Rezdiffra from Wegovy’s approval in MASH. She characterized Wegovy as more of a background therapy, noting that less than 1% of weekly Wegovy prescriptions are written by hepatologists or gastroenterologists for MASH patients, according to the company.

“We welcome competition,” Huntsman said. “Competition helps grow the market” by increasing education among providers and patients.

Pipeline Built Around Rezdiffra Combinations Madrigal has expanded from a pipeline consisting of Rezdiffra in two indications to a portfolio of 10 assets, Dier said. The company spent less than $300 million upfront to build that pipeline and expects to use the assets primarily in combination with Rezdiffra.

Chief Medical Officer David Soergel outlined the rationale for several programs. MGL-2086, a small-molecule GLP-1 agonist based on an orforglipron scaffold, is intended to deliver modest weight loss that could enhance Rezdiffra’s anti-fibrotic effects. Soergel said data from the MAESTRO-NASH study showed that patients losing 5% of body weight experienced a potentiated effect from resmetirom, Rezdiffra’s active ingredient.

The company has initiated a first-in-human study of MGL-2086 and anticipates starting a combination study with resmetirom in MASH patients next year.

Madrigal also licensed ervogastat, a DGAT-2 inhibitor, from Pfizer. Soergel said Pfizer had advanced the asset through a Phase 2b study and generated evidence of liver-fat reduction in MASH patients. Madrigal expects to begin a Phase 1 drug-drug interaction study later this year, followed by a Phase 2 program next year.

In addition, the company licensed an siRNA targeting PNPLA3 from Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals. Soergel said PNPLA3 is a genetic driver of MASH severity, particularly among Hispanic patients, and that up to 30% of Hispanic patients have mutations that could potentially be addressed through PNPLA3 silencing.

Madrigal expects to have three Phase 2 combination studies beginning next year, subject to discussions with regulators. Soergel said the company will use those data to decide which programs, if any, advance into Phase 3. He stressed that the threshold for advancing a combination is high because Rezdiffra already has broad efficacy and intellectual-property protection through 2045.

Upcoming Studies and International Plans Soergel said Madrigal has two ongoing Phase 3 studies. The 54-month continuation of MAESTRO-NASH, expected in 2028, is designed to confirm benefit in the F2-F3 population following accelerated approval. A separate event-driven MAESTRO-NASH Outcomes study is evaluating patients with F4 disease.

According to Soergel, positive results from either study could support full approval in F2-F3, while positive F4 outcomes data could support an expanded indication in F4 disease. Huntsman said there are approximately 245,000 diagnosed F4 compensated-cirrhosis patients in the U.S. and that the opportunity could potentially double Rezdiffra’s addressable market across F2 through F4 compensated cirrhosis.

Outside the U.S., Madrigal has received European Union approval, launched in Germany last September and received approval in the U.K., Huntsman said. However, she said sales in Europe will likely remain negligible in 2026 as the company works through reimbursement issues and uncertainty related to the U.S. administration’s most-favored-nation strategy.

About Madrigal Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:MDGL)Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Inc is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of innovative therapies for cardiovascular, metabolic and liver diseases. The company's pipeline centers on novel, liver-directed agents designed to address significant unmet medical needs, with an emphasis on nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and related metabolic disorders.

The lead product candidate, resmetirom (MGL-3196), is an orally administered, selective thyroid hormone receptor-β agonist in Phase 3 development for the treatment of NASH.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected].

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Archer Aviation (ACHR -5.02%) is buying Boeing's (BA +0.58%) Wisk Aero, Insitu, and SkyGrid subsidiaries, and the price is a piece of itself. At closing, Archer will issue Boeing new stock equal to 19.75% of its shares outstanding just before the deal completes -- which leaves Boeing owning about 16.5% of the company, or about a sixth.

The sixth buys a revenue base Archer doesn't have. Insitu, a maker of unmanned military aircraft used by the armed forces of 35 nations, brings more than $200 million of annual revenue -- profitable revenue, Boeing's release notes.

Archer's own trailing-12-month revenue is $6.9 million. The acquired revenue is about 29 times that.

Wisk Aero builds autonomous aircraft, and SkyGrid runs digital airspace-management software. Neither's revenue was disclosed.

Image source: Getty Images.

The rest of the terms
Boeing also receives two warrants, each covering about $100 million of stock, struck at $13.00 and $17.88 per share. It gains the right to nominate a director. And it agreed to buy up to $55 million of stock in a future Archer offering of at least $400 million, at Archer's election.

The deal is expected to close by the end of 2026, pending the antitrust waiting period and national-security approvals.

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Of course, stock is a currency that moves. The 19.75% is fixed as a slice of the share count, not as a dollar figure, so what the sixth ends up costing Archer's current owners depends on where the stock trades at closing.

For scale, Archer's market value is about $4.8 billion, so the new shares Boeing is taking were worth about $950 million at Monday's close. The company's second-quarter revenue was $5.0 million, its net loss $263.2 million, and its cash and investments $1.56 billion.

Existing shareholders end up owning about a sixth less of a company with far more revenue in it. What the stock rides on, though, hasn't changed. Archer's valuation still rests mostly on Midnight, its electric air taxi -- the acquired businesses account for about $200 million of annual revenue at a company valued near $4.8 billion. What Wisk and SkyGrid grow into could change that arithmetic. For now, the rest of the valuation is still the aircraft.

Ether.fi [ETHFI] has been on the higher side in the past, delivering an 18% gain, with the asset now on a 90-day streak of roughly 5.3% performance for the first time in a while.

The performance is closely linked to the on-chain market outlook, which shows there has been growing usage of the protocol, especially through fee generation and activity.

On-chain activity supports ETHFI’s growth
The clearest indication of growing usage of the protocol comes from its performance, which shows that users remain active.

The protocol’s fees have surged on a week-on-week basis to their highest level since the week starting June 1. Fees have reached $2.8 million, up from a low of $2.39 million for the week between June 22 and 28.

Higher fee generation points to growing activity on the protocol, with annualized revenue reaching over $50.56 million and revenue over the last 30 days standing at $2.93 million.

Source: DeFiLlama
The total value locked also shows steady growth, indicating that investors continue to deposit and lock their assets on the platform for long-term price performance and yield.

During the week between June 22 and 28, when fees dropped to their recent low, TVL also surged at the time of writing, rising from $2.83 billion to $3.532 billion, an increase of roughly $702 million.

On a short-term scale, the growth remains visible, with the protocol’s TVL growing by $74 million between August 11 and the time of writing.

Liquidation heatmap points to a possible pullback
The liquidation heatmap analysis shows there is potential for the price to witness a local swing based on the cluster level.

The liquidation cluster on the chart shows a dense concentration of liquidity at the higher part of the chart. This local level is around $0.45, with roughly $180,000 worth of orders at this level.

Source: CoinGlass
Clusters tend to act as magnets, pulling price toward them. In this case, with the cluster positioned above the price, it represents a sell cluster. When price trades into this zone, a pullback could occur.

For now, the setup shows a rally-to-retracement narrative. Notably, continued capital inflows, especially through on-chain flows, could strengthen accumulation, outweigh sell pressure at this level, and push ETHFI higher.

ETHFI buybacks remain at zero in Q3
One major concern over whether ETHFI can sustain its run is its buyback activity. Token buybacks allow teams to reduce the circulating supply of their tokens, which can affect price dynamics positively.

For Q3, there has been no token buyback, with $0 spent so far. This stands in sharp contrast to previous quarters, such as Q2 and Q1, when $30,000 and $3.28 million were spent, respectively.

Source: DeFiLlama

Ether.fi’s buyback program is designed to use part of protocol revenue to buy ETHFI.

For now, token holder data shows that buying activity remains in the market, with the number of token holders climbing to 131,940 on the chart. This implies that demand for the token remains present despite the lack of recent buyback spending.

With little incentive from buybacks, the analysis shows that holders in the market are more hinged on the protocol’s performance as a whole.

Final Summary

Rising fees and TVL point to growing activity on Ether.fi, while token holders have also climbed to 131,940.
ETHFI faces potential sell pressure near $0.45, with no buyback spending recorded in Q3 so far.

According to monitoring by EmberCN, the monthly unlock of tokens held by the Pump.fun team and investors was completed 5 hours ago, releasing a total of 4.94 billion PUMP tokens valued at approximately $13.6 million. Data shows the unlocked tokens were subsequently distributed to 125 wallet addresses. It remains unclear whether the related wallets will sell the tokens on the market, but large-scale unlocks typically increase short-term circulating supply pressure, and the market will closely monitor subsequent fund movements.

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ABFinance officially announced it will shut down in approximately five months and is currently initiating an orderly liquidation.

Crypto finance platform ABFinance, founded by former Bybit co-CEO Helen Liu, announced it will not proceed with its planned launch and is now in the process of orderly shutdown. ABFinance stated on social media that it thanks all team members, community users, and partners involved in its development, adding: "Thank you for your trust, support, and belief along the way." In March this year, after leaving Bybit, Helen Liu announced the launch of her startup ABFinance, which aimed to build a one-stop financial platform connecting fiat and crypto assets, integrating functions such as deposits, yields, trading, and payments, and emphasized that it would be built under the U.S. compliance license framework from day one. According to prior reports, Bybit announced that Helen Liu would step down on April 30, 2026, to embark on her personal entrepreneurial journey. However, just about five months after ABFinance unveiled its project plan, the platform announced it would halt its launch and enter the shutdown process. The specific reason for the shutdown has not been disclosed by officials so far.

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A $550,000 community audit contest uncovered two critical vulnerabilities in XRP Ledger features that could have drained user accounts without private keys. The findings reveal how Ripple’s audit-before-release model diverges sharply from the broader crypto industry’s patch-after-exploit norm.

Summary

Sherlock’s two-week audit contest, which opened on April 13, 2026, uncovered 96 valid vulnerabilities across five proposed XRP Ledger amendments, including 2 critical and 6 high-severity bugs, before any of them reached mainnet. Ripple paid $309,000 in RLUSD bounties from a $550,000 prize pool, marking the first collaboration between Sherlock and Ripple and one of the largest audit contests of 2026. The most severe finding was a signature-validation flaw in the Batch amendment that would have allowed attackers to execute transactions from any account without holding its private keys, first identified on February 19, 2026, by researcher Pranamya Keshkamat and Cantina’s AI tool Apex. A separate critical bug in Permission Delegation allowed malicious actors to silently drain XRP balances through repeated fee charges on invalid delegated transactions, because the code checked permissions before verifying signatures. DeFi exploits exceeded $840 million across more than 50 incidents in the first five months of 2026 alone, a 70% year-over-year increase, and 70% of exploited contracts had been audited but lacked post-deployment monitoring. XRP Ledger version 3.3.0 shipped on August 6, 2026, carrying five proposed amendments and a bundled cleanup patch. On paper it looked like a routine infrastructure release. Underneath, the update represented the conclusion of a six-month security gauntlet that caught two account-draining bugs, rewrote two entire feature implementations from scratch, and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to outside researchers who found problems the internal team had missed. The process raises a pointed question for the wider blockchain industry: if Ripple can catch critical flaws before deployment, why does so much of crypto still treat security audits as a post-launch checkbox?

This piece breaks down what the two critical vulnerabilities actually were at a technical level, examines how the audit-vote-activate pipeline compares to competing chains’ security models, and assesses whether the findings strengthen or undermine the case for XRPL as institutional-grade infrastructure.

What the Sherlock contest actually found The scope covered five pillars of upcoming XRPL functionality: Batch Transactions, Permission Delegation, Multi-Purpose Token (MPT) DEX integration, Confidential Transfers for MPTs, and Sponsored Fees and Reserves. Sherlock, a Web3 security firm that ranks researchers by performance and structures engagements as adversarial contests, opened the audit on April 13, 2026, with a $550,000 RLUSD prize pool. The contest page on Sherlock’s platform listed the engagement as “XRP Ledger – April 2026 Contest – 550,000 RLUSD,” signaling that Ripple paid the bounties in its own stablecoin.

Over two weeks, participants submitted reports that surfaced 96 valid findings: 2 critical, 6 high, 29 medium, and 59 low-severity issues. Ripple distributed $309,000 in RLUSD to contributors. The remaining pool covered Sherlock’s operational costs and lower-tier findings that did not meet the payout threshold.

The contest marked the first formal collaboration between Sherlock and Ripple, and it arrived at a moment when the XRP Ledger’s feature pipeline was expanding faster than at any point in its history. Five amendments shipping simultaneously meant five distinct attack surfaces, each with its own transaction logic, authorization model, and cryptographic requirements. For context, Sherlock’s audit contest model has previously been used by protocols including Aave, Euler, and Olympus DAO, but an engagement covering C++ protocol-level code for a layer-one blockchain was atypical for a platform more commonly associated with Solidity smart contracts.

The severity distribution itself tells a story. The 29 medium-severity findings suggest a category of bugs that would not individually compromise accounts but could create unexpected behavior under specific transaction sequences. The 59 low-severity issues likely include code quality concerns, documentation gaps, and edge cases that could compound under adversarial conditions. The two critical and six high-severity bugs, however, represented exploitable vulnerabilities that warranted immediate remediation.

The Batch amendment bug that could have emptied accounts The most dangerous vulnerability predated the Sherlock contest by two months. On February 19, 2026, security researcher Pranamya Keshkamat and Cantina’s autonomous AI audit tool Apex independently identified a signature-validation flaw in the original Batch amendment while it was still in its validator voting phase.

The technical failure was precise. Batch Transactions allow up to eight operations to execute atomically under a single outer transaction. The outer transaction’s signature-validation code contained an early-exit condition that could be satisfied without properly verifying who was authorizing the inner transactions. In practice, an attacker could have constructed a Batch transaction containing inner Payment operations targeting a victim account, draining it down to its reserve balance, without ever holding that account’s private keys. The same logic gap would have permitted unauthorized AccountSet, TrustSet, or AccountDelete operations.

The vulnerability disclosure report published on xrpl.org detailed the mechanics: the signer check in the outer transaction could pass without confirming that the entity submitting the batch actually controlled the accounts referenced in the inner transactions. This meant that the atomicity feature designed to improve user experience could have been weaponized to empty any account on the network in a single transaction.

RippleX responded with an emergency release. Rippled version 3.1.1, published on February 23, 2026, four days after discovery, marked both the original Batch amendment and its companion fixBatchInnerSigs as unsupported, preventing validators from voting on or activating them. No funds were lost because the amendment had not yet cleared the 80% validator threshold required for activation. The replacement, BatchV1_1, shipped in version 3.3.0 with the early-exit condition removed, additional authorization guards added, and the signing check scope tightened to verify each inner transaction against the correct signer independently.

Permission Delegation’s silent fee-drain exploit The second critical vulnerability operated through a subtler mechanism. A September 2025 disclosure documented how the original Permission Delegation implementation allowed an attacker to silently bleed a victim account’s XRP balance without accessing its keys.

The exploit relied on a design feature of the XRP Ledger’s transaction processing that has existed since the network’s earliest days. On XRPL, a transaction that fails with a “tec”-class error still incurs a fee charge, while errors caught earlier in the pipeline, before signature verification, do not. This distinction exists because tec-class failures indicate transactions that were properly formed and signed but failed for business-logic reasons, and the fee prevents spam. Permission Delegation’s original code checked whether a delegate account held the relevant permission before it verified the transaction’s signature. An attacker could repeatedly submit invalid offline-signed transactions with elevated fees against a delegated account, and each failed transaction would still deduct the fee from the victim’s balance.

The economic impact would have compounded quickly. Because the attacker could set arbitrarily high fees on these transactions, a sustained attack could drain an account far faster than normal transaction fees would suggest. The victim would see their balance declining with no corresponding outbound payments, making the attack difficult to diagnose without examining raw transaction metadata.

The fix reclassified the relevant error from tec to ter and reordered the checks so that no fee can be deducted before signature verification passes. The replacement amendment, PermissionDelegationV1_1, carries a default “No” designation in the 3.3.0 registry, meaning validators must actively vote to enable it. This conservative default reflects the sensitivity of the original flaw: even after the rewrite, Ripple chose to require explicit validator opt-in for the feature.

BREAKING: XRP Ledger sustains over 140 TPS and blocks with up to 987 transactions during today’s big activity wave, maintaining cent-level fees and 3-4 second settlement pic.twitter.com/yaAyCH4wGy

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) April 10, 2026 Why both rewrites shipped in a single release Packaging two security-rewritten amendments alongside three entirely new features in one version was a deliberate choice. RippleX published xrpld 3.3.0 on August 6, 2026, with the code for all six proposals (including a bundled cleanup amendment called fixCleanup3_3_0) present but none of them activated. Under the XRP Ledger’s amendment process, each proposal must sustain more than 80% validator support for two consecutive weeks before going live.

This separation between code availability and feature activation is a structural advantage that most smart-contract platforms lack. On Ethereum, a deployed contract is live the moment it hits the blockchain. On XRPL, code can ship, undergo further review during the voting window, and still be blocked if validators lose confidence. The Batch and Permission Delegation rewrites had already survived the Sherlock contest, a Halborn re-audit that found zero critical or high-risk issues, and months of internal testing. The voting period adds yet another layer of defense before any code touches real funds.

The version also retired five legacy amendments, including Clawback, fixDisallowIncomingV1, fixInnerObjTemplate, fixNFTokenReserve, and fixUniversalNumber, removing dead code paths that could otherwise accumulate as latent attack surface over time.

The five feature amendments in 3.3.0 represent the broadest single expansion of XRPL capabilities to date. Confidential Transfers bring EC-ElGamal encryption and zero-knowledge proofs to Multi-Purpose Tokens, shielding individual balances and transfer amounts from public view while preserving compliance access for authorized parties. Sponsored Fees allow applications to cover network costs on behalf of users, addressing the onboarding friction that has kept consumer-facing applications off decentralized networks. DynamicMPT lets issuers modify token properties after creation, supporting evolving regulatory and business requirements. Together with the Batch and Permission Delegation rewrites, these features target a specific audience: regulated financial institutions that need privacy, atomic settlement, and delegated operations without sacrificing auditability.

Audit before release versus patch after exploit The contrast between Ripple’s approach and the broader industry’s security track record is stark. DeFi exploits exceeded $840 million across more than 50 incidents in the first five months of 2026, a 70% year-over-year increase over the same period in 2025. North Korea-linked actors accounted for 76% of global crypto hack losses in the first four months of the year. And the most damning statistic: 70% of exploited contracts had been audited but lacked any form of post-deployment monitoring. Only 4% of tracked projects combined audits, active bug bounties, and third-party monitoring controls together.

The Ethereum ecosystem, home to the largest concentration of smart-contract value, operates under a fundamentally different security model. Contracts deploy to mainnet through an immutable transaction. If a vulnerability surfaces afterward, the options are limited: deploy a new contract and migrate users, implement a proxy upgrade pattern that introduces its own attack surface, or accept the risk. The Wormhole bridge hack of 2022 cost $320 million because a deprecated verification function remained in production code. Ronin’s August 2024 exploit cost $12 million because a contract upgrade failed to initialize operator weights correctly. In both cases, audits had been performed; the failures happened after deployment.

The KelpDAO hack on April 18, 2026, which drained approximately $293 million, was the largest single DeFi exploit of the year. The Drift Protocol exploit on Solana on April 1, which cost roughly $286 million, was the largest ever recorded on that chain. These figures are not fringe events. They represent the baseline failure rate of an industry that has collectively lost $16.69 billion to hacks, bridge exploits, and security incidents according to DeFiLlama data.

XRPL’s amendment voting process inverts this sequence. Code ships in a release, but features remain dormant until validators approve them. During the voting window, researchers, node operators, and competing auditors can examine the live codebase with full context. If a problem surfaces, validators simply withhold their votes. No emergency patch, no migration, no proxy contract. The February 2026 Batch bug followed exactly this path: the amendment was in its voting phase, the vulnerability was identified, and an emergency release prevented activation. Zero funds at risk, zero user impact.

This is not to say that the XRPL model is flawless. The amendment process works for protocol-level features but does not extend to applications built on top of the ledger. A poorly coded trust line or MPT integration could still lose funds. And the 80% validator threshold creates its own risks: if too few validators upgrade to a new version, legitimate security patches can stall. But for core protocol changes, the audit-vote-activate pipeline represents a materially different security posture than deploy-and-hope.

NEW: Coinbase has enabled Trade at Settlement for $XRP futures on May 1, placing XRP alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum, gold and crude oil for institutional block trading pic.twitter.com/d00uPssPxy

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) May 3, 2026 What this means for XRPL’s institutional pitch Ripple has spent 2026 building an institutional infrastructure stack at an aggressive pace. The $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road, a multi-asset prime broker rebranded as Ripple Prime, gave the company a regulated on-ramp for traditional finance. RLUSD reached a $1.72 billion market capitalization in under a year and moved more than $18 billion in transaction volume during Q1 alone. Goldman Sachs disclosed a $153.8 million position across four XRP ETFs. Ripple secured a full Electronic Money Institution license from Luxembourg in February, UK Financial Conduct Authority permissions in January, and a MiCA Crypto-Asset Service Provider license on July 6.

The institutional DeFi features arriving in version 3.3.0 are the technical counterpart to this business development push. Confidential Transfers address the privacy requirements of banks that cannot expose transaction details on a public ledger. Sponsored Fees solve the onboarding friction that has kept retail banking applications off decentralized networks. Permission Delegation, once its rewrite clears the voting process, enables the kind of controlled access models that compliance departments require.

But institutional adoption depends on trust, and trust in blockchain infrastructure ultimately comes down to security track record. The fact that Ripple caught two critical bugs, rewrote two entire feature implementations, paid outside researchers $309,000 to find problems, and still delivered all five features on schedule is a stronger institutional selling point than any individual feature. It suggests a security culture where finding bugs is rewarded and where shipping is subordinate to verification.

Over 300 financial institutions across 55 countries currently use RippleNet, with active On-Demand Liquidity corridors in more than 70 markets. For those institutions, the Sherlock audit results are not abstract. They are evidence that the code running their cross-border payments has been stress-tested by adversarial researchers with financial incentives to break it. Ripple’s four-phase quantum-resistance roadmap, targeting completion by 2028, further signals that the company is engineering for institutional time horizons measured in decades, not deployment cycles.

The opposing case: why skeptics are not convinced The strongest argument against reading too much into the Sherlock audit runs in two directions.

First, finding 96 bugs before release can be framed as evidence of thorough testing or evidence of sloppy development. Both the Batch and Permission Delegation vulnerabilities were in the original implementations, meaning they cleared internal review before external researchers caught them. The February 2026 Batch bug was not identified by Ripple’s own team but by an independent researcher and an AI tool. If external auditors are the primary safety net, the internal development process may have quality gaps that will eventually produce a vulnerability that no external reviewer catches in time.

Second, the XRPL amendment model’s strength, the ability to prevent activation during the voting window, is also a speed constraint. Ethereum’s willingness to deploy and iterate has enabled a pace of innovation that XRPL cannot match. The five amendments in version 3.3.0 have been in development and review cycles for months. The original Batch amendment was proposed in 2025. For protocols competing for developer attention in fast-moving markets, a six-month security pipeline may be too slow to attract the builder ecosystem that drives network effects.

There is also a concentration risk in the validator set. The 80% activation threshold means that a relatively small number of validators, many of which are operated by entities with close ties to Ripple, control whether amendments go live. Critics argue this is not truly decentralized governance but a curated approval process dressed in consensus language. When Ripple’s own validator voted “yes” on lending amendments in recent weeks, it underscored how much influence the company retains over its nominally decentralized network.

Finally, the $309,000 payout from a $550,000 pool raises a practical question about incentive alignment. Top-tier security researchers command rates that exceed what contest models typically pay per hour of effort. If the most skilled auditors skip XRPL contests because the expected payout per finding is lower than private engagements, the adversarial review may be broad but not deep enough to catch the most sophisticated attack vectors.

These objections have weight. XRP traded near $1.03 in late July 2026, roughly 71% below its $3.65 cycle high set on July 17, 2025, suggesting the market has not yet priced in the institutional narrative. Whether the security track record translates into adoption depends on factors beyond code quality: regulatory clarity, competitive positioning against Ethereum layer-2 solutions, and whether institutions care more about pre-deployment audits than they do about ecosystem size.

What to watch Validator voting thresholds for the five 3.3.0 amendments: if BatchV1_1 and PermissionDelegationV1_1 clear 80% support within the first voting cycle, it signals validator confidence in the rewrites. A stall would suggest lingering concerns about the rewritten code.

Post-activation bug reports: the real test of the Sherlock audit’s thoroughness comes after features go live. Zero critical findings in the first 90 days would validate the pre-release model; any post-activation vulnerability would undermine the entire thesis.

RLUSD adoption on Confidential Transfers: institutional stablecoin usage on shielded rails would confirm demand for privacy-compliant settlement. Volume metrics in the first quarter after activation will be the clearest signal of whether banks are ready to transact on a public ledger with privacy guarantees.

Sherlock’s next XRPL engagement: whether Ripple continues with adversarial audit contests for future amendments or reverts to traditional private audits will indicate how deeply the pre-release model is embedded in the development culture.

Competing chain security incidents: every major exploit on Ethereum or Solana that traces back to a post-deployment vulnerability strengthens the case for XRPL’s audit-vote-activate pipeline. The comparison is only as strong as the industry’s continued failure to adopt similar processes.

What did the Sherlock audit of XRP Ledger find? The two-week audit contest, which opened on April 13, 2026, uncovered 96 valid vulnerabilities across five proposed XRPL amendments: 2 critical, 6 high, 29 medium, and 59 low-severity issues. Ripple paid $309,000 in RLUSD bounties from a $550,000 prize pool. All findings were addressed before any of the affected features activated on mainnet.

What was the critical Batch amendment bug? The original Batch amendment contained a signature-validation flaw that allowed an attacker to execute inner transactions from any account without holding its private keys. The bug was an early-exit condition in the outer transaction’s signing check that could be satisfied without proper authorization verification. Researcher Pranamya Keshkamat and Cantina’s AI tool Apex identified it on February 19, 2026. RippleX patched it in emergency release version 3.1.1 four days later.

How did the Permission Delegation vulnerability work? The original implementation checked delegate permissions before verifying transaction signatures. On XRPL, transactions that fail with “tec”-class errors still incur fees. An attacker could repeatedly submit invalid transactions with elevated fees against a delegated account, draining its XRP balance without ever holding its keys. The fix reclassified the error type and reordered the verification checks.

Were any funds lost from these vulnerabilities? No funds were lost. Both critical vulnerabilities were identified before their respective amendments activated on mainnet. The Batch bug was caught during the validator voting phase, and the Permission Delegation flaw was disclosed and patched before activation. The XRP Ledger’s amendment process, which requires 80% validator support for two consecutive weeks, provided a structural buffer that prevented exploitation.

What is Sherlock and how does its audit model work? Sherlock is a Web3 security firm that structures audits as adversarial contests, ranking researchers by performance and offering financial incentives through prize pools. The XRP Ledger engagement was Sherlock’s first collaboration with Ripple and one of the largest audit contests of 2026. The model differs from traditional private audits by inviting broad participation from independent security researchers competing for bounties, which surfaces a wider range of attack vectors than a small internal team can cover.

How does XRPL’s security model differ from Ethereum’s? XRPL’s amendment process separates code deployment from feature activation. New features ship in a software release but remain dormant until validators vote to activate them, creating a review window where vulnerabilities can be caught without emergency patches. Ethereum’s smart contracts are live upon deployment, and fixing vulnerabilities requires deploying new contracts, migrating users, or implementing proxy upgrades. In the first five months of 2026, DeFi exploits exceeded $840 million, and 70% of exploited contracts had been audited but lacked post-deployment monitoring.

What features does XRP Ledger version 3.3.0 include? Version 3.3.0, released on August 6, 2026, contains code for five feature amendments and a cleanup patch. The features include Confidential Transfers for Multi-Purpose Tokens using zero-knowledge proofs, rewritten Batch Transactions for atomic multi-operation settlement, rewritten Permission Delegation for controlled account access, Sponsored Fees allowing applications to cover user costs, and DynamicMPT enabling issuers to modify token properties after creation.

Does this audit make XRPL a safe investment? The Sherlock audit reflects a rigorous pre-release security process, but code quality is one factor among many that influence investment outcomes. XRP traded near $1.03 in late July 2026, roughly 71% below its cycle high, and market performance depends on regulatory developments, institutional adoption rates, competitive dynamics, and macroeconomic conditions. This is educational analysis, not investment advice. **Disclaimer**: This article was published on August 14, 2026. It is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, investment, or legal advice. Cryptocurrency markets are volatile and carry substantial risk. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals before making any investment decisions.

Cover image via U.Today Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.

In a recent announcement, Binance revealed its decision to cease support for deposits and withdrawals of tokens on selected networks.

In this regard, Binance identified the affected token as Sophon (SOPH) on the BNB Smart Chain network. Binance will be ceasing support for deposits and withdrawals of Sophon (SOPH) through the BNB Smart Chain network from August 21 at 08:00 (UTC).

After August 21 at 08:00 (UTC), any deposits of Sophon sent through the BNB Smart Chain network will not be credited and may lead to asset loss.

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This week, Binance performed some delistings. The crypto exchange will remove and cease trading on the following spot trading pairs: APT/BTC, AR/BTC, A/USDC, BTTC/TRY, CYBER/USDC, LPT/BTC and WAL/FDUSD today, August 14 at 03:00 (UTC).

Binance conducts periodic reviews of all listed spot trading pairs to protect users and maintain a high-quality trading market and may delist selected spot trading pairs due to factors including poor liquidity and trading volume.

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Binance Margin and Loan will also delist and cease trading on all margin trading pairs for BTTC (BitTorrent) and POWR (Powerledger) on August 14. Binance Margin will delist the aforementioned tokens from Cross and Isolated Margin.

In addition, Binance Flexible Loan will close all outstanding loan positions for these tokens as loanable and collateral tokens on the same date. VIP Loan will close all outstanding loan positions for the aforementioned token(s) as collateral tokens. Users are strongly advised to repay their outstanding loans before the automatic closure to avoid any potential losses, where applicable.

Binance Bitcoin reserve jumpsAccording to CryptoQuant, Binance's Bitcoin reserves have increased to 667,500 BTC, which is the highest level since February. This remains noteworthy given the market's continued sensitivity to supply movements on centralized exchanges.

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This increase follows a period of decline in Binance's Bitcoin reserves, which have now started to recover in recent months.

Coinbase and Ripple executives have been named among the expected attendees at an Aug. 19 White House meeting involving at least six crypto and prediction market companies.

Summary

Six crypto and prediction market firms are expected to have representatives at the White House meeting. Coinbase, Ripple, a16z, Chainlink, Paradigm, and Kalshi are among the reported participants. The CLARITY Act faces a Sept. 15 procedural vote requiring at least 60 Senate votes. CFTC advisers will meet one day later to discuss crypto, AI, and prediction markets. Semafor reporter Eleanor Mueller said executives from Coinbase, Ripple, a16z, Chainlink, Paradigm and Kalshi were expected to attend the White House meeting, citing people familiar with the plans.

News: Executives from Coinbase, a16z, Ripple & Chainlink plus Kalshi & Paradigm (a Kalshi backer) as well as Digital Chamber are among those expected to attend Wednesday's meeting at the WH, people familiar with it tell me.

Trump plus Selig & Atkins are also expected to partake,… https://t.co/9eUjjV0xpI

— Eleanor Mueller (@Eleanor_Mueller) August 14, 2026 The report did not identify the individual executives who will represent each firm. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse have both supported the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which remains stalled in the Senate after lawmakers left Washington for their August recess.

President Donald Trump may attend with members of his administration, according to the original report supplied for this story. However, an earlier crypto.news report said the White House had not released a formal participant list and that Trump’s attendance remained unclear.

CFTC Chairman Michael Selig and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins are also expected to participate, according to people familiar with the planning. Neither the White House nor the two regulators had published a formal agenda for the meeting at the time of writing.

Coinbase and Ripple bring CLARITY Act interests For Coinbase and Ripple, the meeting comes before a scheduled Senate test for legislation that could decide how the two main U.S. market regulators divide responsibility for digital assets.

The CLARITY Act would place spot markets for qualifying digital commodities under CFTC oversight while keeping crypto assets classified as securities within the SEC’s authority. It would also establish federal requirements for exchanges, brokers, dealers, advisers, and digital asset custodians.

American investors could be directly affected by that division because a token’s regulatory status can determine where it may trade, which disclosures apply, and whether a platform must register with the SEC or comply with CFTC market rules.

Coinbase has supported the legislation while continuing to raise concerns about provisions governing stablecoin rewards and decentralized finance. In an Aug. 7 statement, Armstrong called the Senate delay disappointing but said adoption would continue regardless of Congress’ timetable.

“The momentum behind this technology keeps growing with or without a congressional calendar,” Armstrong said.

An Aug. 8 report on Armstrong said the Coinbase chief pointed to stablecoin use, tokenized assets and perpetual futures as areas where activity could continue while lawmakers negotiate. He also argued that a consistent federal framework could support investment and offer stronger protections for U.S. consumers.

Garlinghouse has also backed the bill during negotiations. Ripple and Coinbase were part of a coalition of more than 120 companies that urged lawmakers to advance the proposal in April, according to a May report on Garlinghouse.

Andreessen Horowitz, better known as a16z, has also supported the legislation, while Chainlink works with financial companies on blockchain infrastructure. Paradigm invests in crypto businesses and is a backer of Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated prediction market operator.

CLARITY Act faces a Sept. 15 Senate test Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the motion to proceed with the CLARITY Act before the chamber began its August recess. The Senate Daily Press schedule says the motion will ripen at 2:15 p.m. on Sept. 15, one day after senators return for regular business.

The procedural vote would not pass the bill or send it to Trump. Clearing cloture would allow the Senate to begin formal consideration, after which lawmakers could debate the proposal, introduce amendments, and hold a separate vote on final passage.

At least 60 senators must support cloture. Republicans cannot reach the threshold alone, making Democratic votes necessary even if most Republican senators back the measure.

The House approved its version in July 2025 by a 294–134 vote, with 78 Democrats joining Republicans. In May 2026, the Senate Banking Committee advanced its part of the legislation by a 15–9 vote after Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks voted with Republicans.

Any text approved by the Senate that differs from the House measure would require another House vote or negotiations between the two chambers before reaching the president.

Unresolved disagreements include political ethics provisions, rules for rewards paid on stablecoin balances, protections for software developers, illicit finance controls, and consumer safeguards. The White House has not said whether any of those subjects will appear on the Aug. 19 meeting agenda.

Prediction markets remain doubtful about passage Prediction markets have continued to price in a low chance that the CLARITY Act will become law in 2026, even as the Senate prepares for its September procedural vote.

Polymarket traders placed the probability at 19%. Since such contracts trade continuously, the figure has moved as participants respond to the White House meeting reports and the Senate timetable.

Source: Polymarket On Aug. 14, the contract briefly showed a 21% probability, rising from 17% one day earlier. Another recent reading placed the chance at 16%, down from an 82% peak in February.

Galaxy Research reportedly assigned a 10% chance of passage during 2026, citing unresolved policy disputes and the limited number of Senate working days before the midterm election recess.

"Regardless of the CLARITY Act's.. outcome, we expect the Commission to publish the texts of Reg Crypto, the Innovation Exemption, or both in the next several weeks, another reminder that the crypto industry is poised for… a positive reg environment even without CLARITY" https://t.co/rzWahIIGyi

— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) August 14, 2026 A separate Kalshi contract provided a more favorable reading for an earlier procedural event. As of Aug. 11, traders assigned an 88% probability that the Senate would vote on the legislation before Oct. 1, with about $1.23 million traded on the contract. The date aligns with Thune’s Sept. 15 cloture schedule but does not indicate whether senators will ultimately approve the bill.

CFTC meeting will follow on Aug. 20 People involved in the planning have described the White House event as a kickoff for the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee’s first meeting, which is scheduled for Aug. 20 in Washington.

According to the CFTC’s published agenda, the three-hour session will run from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern time. Committee members will attend in person, while the public will be able to watch the proceedings online.

The first 50-minute panel will examine the history of crypto regulation, state licensing requirements, overlapping jurisdictions, and the lack of a complete federal market structure framework. Members will also discuss how the CFTC could modernize existing rules within its current legal authority and support future legislation from Congress.

A second session will cover artificial intelligence in trading, compliance, surveillance and risk management, including autonomous systems capable of carrying out transactions or managing portfolios.

During the final panel, members will examine prediction markets, event contracts, market surveillance, manipulation risks, and customer protections. The agenda also lists questions involving federal and state authority, an issue directly relevant to Kalshi and other regulated event-contract platforms.

The advisory committee will not vote on a proposed crypto rule, and its recommendations do not automatically become CFTC policy. Members of the public may submit written statements about the meeting through Aug. 27, with qualifying submissions entering the public record.

Separately, the SEC canceled an Aug. 14 open meeting that had been scheduled to consider a proposed offering framework for certain crypto-related investment contracts. The agency’s cancellation notice did not provide a reason or announce another date.

Grayscale withdrew its Cardano, Polkadot, and Hedera ETF registrations in under four minutes on August 7, exactly two days before ADA cleared the SEC seasoning threshold. With Bitwise and Canary still in the race, the retreat says more about the economics of altcoin ETFs than about Cardano itself.

Summary

Grayscale filed three Form RW withdrawals with the SEC on August 7, 2026, pulling its Cardano Trust ETF, Polkadot Trust ETF, and Hedera Trust ETF registrations in a span of 190 seconds, with no shares issued, sold, or distributed under any of the three.

– Cardano completed its six-month CME futures seasoning period on August 9, 2026, two days after Grayscale walked away, clearing the threshold that would have allowed a spot ADA ETF to list under the SEC generic listing standards in as few as 75 days.

– Five other issuers, including Bitwise, Canary Capital, VanEck, and 21Shares, still have active ADA ETF filings, with the earliest possible SEC decision window falling around October 23, 2026.

– Grayscale reported a 20 percent revenue decline in its IPO filing, with GBTC and ETHE generating 88 percent of the firm’s roughly $318.7 million in nine-month revenue while bleeding a combined $30 billion in cumulative outflows since their ETF conversions.

– ADA trades near $0.196 with a $6.55 billion market cap, DOT sits at $0.805, and HBAR has fallen to $0.068, all down more than 60 percent from their all-time highs and collectively representing a fraction of the institutional demand that drove Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF launches.

At 4:33 p.m. Eastern on August 7, 2026, Grayscale Investments filed a Form RW with the SEC to withdraw its Cardano Trust ETF registration. Ninety seconds later, the Hedera Trust ETF followed. Two minutes after that, the Polkadot Trust ETF joined them. Three products, gone in 190 seconds, with identical boilerplate language and no public explanation beyond a statement that the company “no longer intends to proceed with the planned distributions.”

What makes the timing remarkable is not the speed of the filings but the date itself. Cardano’s CME futures contract, which launched on February 9, was two days away from completing its six-month seasoning period, the exact regulatory milestone that would have opened the door for a spot ADA ETF under the SEC’s streamlined listing framework. Grayscale did not just exit the altcoin ETF race. It exited on the finish line.

This piece examines why Grayscale pulled back, what the withdrawal reveals about the economics of altcoin ETFs in a soft market, whether Cardano’s institutional case was ever as strong as its community believed, and what the remaining filers face as they pursue products that the largest crypto asset manager in the world decided were not worth the trouble.

Three withdrawals, one message
The mechanics of the withdrawal are straightforward. Under SEC Rule 477, an issuer can voluntarily withdraw a registration statement before it becomes effective, provided no securities have been sold under it. Grayscale filed its S-1 registration statements for the Cardano, Polkadot, and Hedera trusts in late 2025 and early 2026 as part of a broader push to convert its private trust products into publicly traded ETFs, the same playbook that had already succeeded with GBTC and ETHE.

All three Form RW filings contained identical language. None cited a specific reason for withdrawal. The SEC accepted them without comment. Unlike a rejection, a voluntary withdrawal carries no stigma and no waiting period. Grayscale could refile tomorrow if it chose to.

But the coordinated nature of the withdrawals, three filings dispatched within minutes of each other at the close of a Thursday trading session, suggests a deliberate strategic decision, not a procedural adjustment. This was not a pause. It was a retreat.

The crypto market noticed. ADA fell more than 2 percent in the 24 hours following the news, while DOT dropped nearly 2 percent to $0.805 and HBAR slipped 2.24 percent to $0.068. The declines were modest in absolute terms but notable for tokens whose communities had been counting on ETF approval as a catalyst.

The seasoning clock and what it meant for Cardano
To understand why the timing matters, it helps to understand the regulatory machinery that Grayscale was walking away from.

In September 2025, the SEC approved new generic listing standards for crypto exchange-traded products. The framework allows eligible funds to list without undergoing the full 19b-4 rule-change process that had previously stretched approval timelines to 240 days or more per product. Under the new standards, a crypto asset qualifies for streamlined review if it has traded on a regulated futures market for at least six months.

CME Group launched Cardano futures on February 9, 2026. The six-month clock expired on August 9. On that date, ADA became the newest cryptocurrency to meet the SEC’s eligibility threshold, joining Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP in the small club of assets with a clear path to a spot ETF.

Grayscale knew this. Every issuer in the space knew this. The August 9 milestone had been widely discussed in industry circles for months, with multiple analysts noting that a filing activated on or after that date could see an SEC decision as early as October 23.

Yet Grayscale chose to withdraw two days before the clock expired. The company did not wait to see whether the newly eligible status would generate fresh institutional interest. It did not pause the filing to reassess. It killed it. For a company that spent years lobbying regulators to create the very framework that makes these products possible, the decision to abandon three of them on the eve of eligibility is a striking and deliberate reversal of strategy.

The economics of a product nobody wanted
The most likely explanation for Grayscale’s withdrawal is the simplest one: the numbers did not work.

Launching an ETF is not free. Legal fees, compliance infrastructure, market-making arrangements, custodial agreements, marketing, and ongoing regulatory reporting all carry costs. For a Bitcoin or Ethereum product with billions of dollars in potential demand, those costs are trivial relative to the revenue from management fees. For an altcoin ETF tracking a $6.55 billion asset with tepid institutional interest, the calculus is different.

Consider the existing data points. The Canary Capital HBAR ETF, which launched on Nasdaq in October 2025 as the third crypto asset to receive US spot ETF status, held approximately $49.14 million in net assets as of July 2, 2026. Its market-price return was negative 37.32 percent for the year and negative 63.32 percent since inception. Even at a generous 2 percent management fee, a $49 million fund generates under $1 million in annual revenue, a figure that may not cover the cost of running the product.

The broader altcoin ETF landscape tells a similar story. While XRP ETFs have accumulated roughly $1.5 billion in cumulative inflows and Solana funds have gathered about $1.15 billion, those figures pale next to the tens of billions that flowed into Bitcoin products. Below the top tier, demand drops off sharply. As CryptoSlate reported, “strong demand for three altcoins contrasts with weak, sporadic flows across the rest of the altcoin fund market.”

Grayscale already has a way to offer ADA exposure. Its CoinDesk Crypto 5 ETF, trading under the ticker GDLC, tracks an index that includes Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, and Cardano. For investors who want a small allocation to ADA within a diversified crypto portfolio, that product already exists. A standalone ADA ETF would have to compete not only with GDLC but also with direct ADA purchases on exchanges, an increasingly frictionless process for institutional buyers.

Grayscale’s fee problem and the IPO calculus
The withdrawal also needs to be read in the context of Grayscale’s broader financial position. The company filed for an IPO in late 2025, planning to list on the NYSE under the ticker GRAY. The S-1 filing revealed a business under significant pressure.

GBTC, charging 1.5 percent annually, and ETHE, charging 2.5 percent, together generate approximately 88 percent of Grayscale’s total revenue, roughly $345 million of an estimated $425 million annually. But both products have been hemorrhaging assets. GBTC has recorded approximately $25 billion in cumulative net outflows since its January 2024 ETF conversion, while ETHE has seen about $4.8 billion leave since July 2024. Investors are rotating into lower-fee alternatives: BlackRock’s IBIT charges 0.12 percent, and Fidelity’s FBTC charges 0.25 percent.

Grayscale responded by launching Mini versions of both products at 0.15 percent, which have attracted $3.3 billion in combined inflows since 2024. The company has also expanded into new product categories, filing for ETFs covering Solana, Chainlink, Zcash, Hyperliquid, and Canton, among others.

But expansion costs money. Every new product requires regulatory filings, compliance oversight, and operational infrastructure. For a company preparing to go public while watching its revenue decline 20 percent year over year, the question is not just “can we launch this product?” but “will this product generate enough revenue to justify the resources it consumes at the expense of higher-priority launches?”

For ADA, DOT, and HBAR, the answer appears to have been no. Meanwhile, Grayscale continues to pursue ETFs for assets where it sees stronger demand or strategic differentiation, including a Zcash ETF that would be the first US-listed privacy coin fund and a Canton Coin product tied to institutional blockchain infrastructure.

What the remaining filers face
Grayscale’s exit does not kill the Cardano ETF. Five other issuers have active filings, and the August 9 seasoning milestone remains valid regardless of who chooses to use it. Bitwise, Canary Capital, VanEck, 21Shares, and at least one additional filer are still in the queue.

But the remaining applicants face a market that has not been kind to altcoin ETF launches. The Canary HBAR ETF’s experience is instructive. Despite being one of the first altcoin spot ETFs in the United States, it launched with just $47.8 million in assets and has struggled to attract meaningful inflows since. The lesson is that regulatory approval alone does not create demand. Without institutional buyers willing to allocate capital to a specific token through an ETF wrapper, the product sits on the shelf.

Cardano has some advantages that HBAR lacked at launch. Its market cap of $6.55 billion is substantially larger. It has 16 consecutive months of net inflows into ADA investment products, according to Blockworks data. Clearstream added ADA to its MiCA-regulated custody earlier in 2026, creating a pathway for European institutional demand. And the Cardano community, whatever its other characteristics, is large and vocal.

But “large and vocal” does not always translate to “willing to buy an ETF.” Much of Cardano’s holder base consists of retail investors who already own ADA directly and have no reason to pay a management fee for wrapper exposure. The institutional demand that drove Bitcoin ETFs, pension funds, endowments, and registered investment advisors seeking regulated access to an asset they could not otherwise hold, may simply not exist at scale for a $0.20 token that remains down more than 90 percent from its all-time high of $3.10.

There is also a structural question about what an ADA ETF would actually hold. Unlike Solana and Ethereum, which have attracted issuers partly because staking yields can offset management fees and generate a positive carry for the fund, Cardano staking within a US ETF wrapper remains untested. Grayscale’s Solana Staking ETF and its Ethereum Staking Mini ETF both offer yield as a differentiator. A plain vanilla ADA spot product without staking would compete for capital against yield-bearing alternatives, a disadvantage that grows more acute as the ETF market matures and investors become more sophisticated about total return.

The fee question compounds the problem. Morgan Stanley launched Ethereum and Solana ETFs at 0.14 percent, setting a new floor for the industry. Any ADA ETF entering the market would face pressure to match or undercut that rate, further compressing the already thin revenue projections for a fund that might attract only a fraction of the assets that Solana products have gathered.

The October 23 decision window, if a filing activates promptly after August 9, will be the first real test. If an ADA ETF launches and attracts meaningful flows, the altcoin ETF thesis survives. If it launches to the same tepid reception that greeted HBAR, the market will have its answer.

The opposing case at full strength
The bearish reading of Grayscale’s withdrawal, that altcoin ETFs are a dead end and institutional demand for anything below the top four crypto assets is negligible, deserves a serious challenge.

First, the timing may not be as significant as it appears. Grayscale could have decided weeks earlier to withdraw and simply waited for a convenient filing window. The proximity to August 9 may be coincidental rather than calculated.

Second, Grayscale’s withdrawal is a single data point from a company with specific financial pressures that do not apply to every issuer. Bitwise, for example, operates a leaner business model and has built its brand around altcoin exposure. A product that does not pencil out for Grayscale, with its overhead and IPO-related cost scrutiny, might be perfectly viable for a smaller issuer willing to accept thinner margins in exchange for market positioning.

Third, the altcoin ETF market is young. Bitcoin ETFs attracted modest flows in their first weeks before institutional allocators gradually built positions over quarters. The same pattern could repeat with ADA, particularly as the October decision date coincides with a period when institutional investors typically make fourth-quarter allocation decisions.

Fourth, Cardano’s fundamentals have continued to develop. The network processed its highest transaction volumes in early 2026, governance mechanisms are active, and the Ouroboros consensus protocol remains one of the few proof-of-stake systems with formal academic verification. An ETF issuer could reasonably argue that the market has not yet priced in these fundamentals.

Fifth, and most important, the thesis would be invalidated if an ADA ETF launches in October and attracts more than $200 million in its first 90 days. That would suggest institutional demand exists and that Grayscale simply miscalculated. It would also likely prompt Grayscale to refile, as the company has shown no reluctance to reverse course when market conditions shift.

The 190-second signal the market missed
There is a detail in the withdrawal filings that has received less attention than it deserves, and that a competitor publication is unlikely to have noticed.

The three Form RW filings were submitted in a specific order: Cardano at 4:33:37 p.m. ET, Hedera at 4:34:55 p.m., and Polkadot at 4:36:47 p.m. The gaps between them, 78 seconds and then 112 seconds, suggest a single operator submitting sequential EDGAR filings, not three independent decisions happening to arrive at the same conclusion.

This matters because the order tracks roughly with market capitalization at the time of filing. ADA, the largest of the three at $6.55 billion, went first. HBAR, at roughly $3.1 billion, went second. DOT, at approximately $1.5 billion, went last. If Grayscale had withdrawn in alphabetical order or reverse chronological order by filing date, the sequence would have been different.

The implication is that even the largest of the three, Cardano, was not considered worth salvaging. Grayscale did not withdraw DOT and HBAR while keeping ADA alive for another few days to see how the seasoning milestone played out. It treated all three as a single portfolio decision, suggesting that the threshold for “worth pursuing” sits somewhere above ADA’s $6.55 billion market cap and below the market capitalization of the assets for which Grayscale is still filing, such as Solana at roughly $80 billion.

That threshold has implications far beyond Cardano. If the cutoff for a viable standalone crypto ETF sits at tens of billions in market capitalization, then the long tail of altcoin ETF filings currently working through the SEC, covering everything from Chainlink to Worldcoin, may face the same economic headwinds. The broader question of whether altcoin ETF demand can sustain product expansion is one the industry has been reluctant to confront.

What to watch
October 23 decision window: If an issuer activates a spot ADA ETF filing promptly after August 9, the SEC’s 75-day review period points to late October. The size of first-week inflows will reveal whether institutional demand for Cardano exists at scale or remains a community aspiration.

Canary and Bitwise filing amendments: Watch for S-1/A amendments from the remaining ADA ETF applicants. Active amendments signal continued commitment. Silence or withdrawal notices would confirm Grayscale’s assessment that the market is not ready.

HBAR ETF flow trajectory: The Canary HBAR ETF’s performance over the next 60 days serves as a leading indicator for ADA. If HBAR flows stabilize or reverse, it suggests growing comfort with altcoin ETF exposure. Continued outflows would validate the bearish thesis.

Grayscale IPO pricing and product roadmap: When Grayscale sets its IPO price and releases an updated product strategy, look for whether altcoin ETFs feature in the forward plan or are quietly dropped from the narrative. The company’s selective approach to new filings, prioritizing niche products with differentiation over large-cap altcoin duplicates, may become the template for the industry.

ADA price action relative to ETF catalysts: If ADA fails to rally on actual ETF approval after failing to rally on eligibility, the disconnect between community expectations and market reality will be impossible to ignore. A sustained move above $0.30 on ETF-related news would challenge the thesis that the token lacks institutional appeal.

The information presented in this article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk, including the potential loss of all invested capital. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified financial advisors before making any investment decisions. Crypto.news does not endorse the purchase, sale, or holding of any cryptocurrency or financial instrument. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Published August 14, 2026.

Is the ADA ETF still happening without Grayscale?
Yes. Five other issuers, including Bitwise, Canary Capital, VanEck, and 21Shares, have active spot ADA ETF filings. Grayscale’s withdrawal is a business decision by one company, not a regulatory barrier. The August 9 seasoning milestone remains valid for any issuer that chooses to proceed, and the earliest SEC decision window falls around October 23, 2026.

Why did Grayscale withdraw all three at once instead of keeping the Cardano filing?
The coordinated withdrawal, completed in 190 seconds, suggests Grayscale treated ADA, DOT, and HBAR as a single portfolio decision rather than evaluating each asset independently. The most likely explanation is that none of the three met an internal threshold for projected demand, and the company chose to reallocate resources toward products with stronger revenue potential.

What is the CME futures seasoning period and why does it matter?
The SEC’s generic listing standards require a crypto asset to trade on a regulated futures market for at least six months before it can qualify for streamlined spot ETF review. CME launched Cardano futures on February 9, 2026, and the six-month period ended on August 9. Meeting this threshold allows an ETF to list in approximately 75 days rather than the 240 days required under the old per-product approval process.

How much would a Cardano ETF need to attract in assets to be commercially viable?
Based on the Canary HBAR ETF’s experience, a fund with under $50 million in assets generates less than $1 million in annual fee revenue, even at a 2 percent management fee. A standalone ADA ETF would likely need at least $200 million to $300 million in assets under management to cover operating costs and generate meaningful returns for the issuer. By comparison, XRP ETFs have attracted roughly $1.5 billion and Solana funds about $1.15 billion.

Could Grayscale refile for a Cardano ETF later?
A voluntary withdrawal under SEC Rule 477 carries no penalties, waiting periods, or stigma. Grayscale could refile an S-1 registration statement for a Cardano Trust ETF at any time. The company has previously shown willingness to adjust its product strategy based on market conditions, and a surge in ADA institutional demand could prompt a reversal.

What does Grayscale’s withdrawal mean for DOT and HBAR prices?
The immediate price impact was modest: ADA fell about 2 percent, DOT dropped nearly 2 percent to $0.805, and HBAR slipped 2.24 percent to $0.068. The withdrawals removed a potential catalyst for these tokens but did not change their underlying fundamentals. For HBAR, the Canary ETF already exists, so the loss of a Grayscale competitor may actually reduce selling pressure from fee competition.

Are altcoin ETFs still worth pursuing for issuers?
The market is splitting into tiers. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs have attracted tens of billions. Solana and XRP funds have crossed the $1 billion mark. Below that level, flows are sporadic and concentrated among a handful of products. The question is whether assets like Cardano can reach the second tier or whether the viable ETF universe stops at four or five cryptocurrencies.

Should investors buy ADA ahead of a potential ETF approval?
Every previous crypto ETF approval in the United States has followed a pattern where the token price rallied on anticipation and was flat or lower on actual approval day. ADA has already failed to rally meaningfully on its eligibility milestone, suggesting the market may have priced in the possibility. Any investment decision should account for the significant gap between ETF eligibility and actual investor demand for an ETF product. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.

By PYMNTS  |  August 14, 2026

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Mastercard is proposing to pay half the amount demanded by Brazilian merchant acquirers that were impacted by the collapse of Will Financeira, also known as Will Bank, a FinTech tied to the failed Banco Master, Bloomberg reported Friday (Aug. 14), citing unnamed sources.

In addition, Mastercard is proposing to provide the firms with services such as fraud protection for multiple years, according to the report.

The offer follows an earlier one that Mastercard offered amid the fallout of the collapse of Will Bank, the report said.

Mastercard said in the report: “We have been working through this situation closely with the liquidator and the regulator to minimize any potential impact on the payments ecosystem,” adding that it is waiting for another transfer from the liquidator. “That settlement will happen once when those outstanding funds are received from the liquidator.”

The January collapse of Will Bank left Mastercard on the hook to pay the equivalent of about $950 million to other parts of the network. Mastercard settled about half that amount but has been disputing the other half with the acquirers, according to the report.

Mastercard said it was required to pay for bills due the month after Will Bank’s liquidation, while acquirers argued that it is responsible for the full amount, per the report.

It was reported in November that Brazil’s central bank halted the operations of Banco Master and named a liquidator to handle creditor claims and sell assets. On the same day, police arrested the bank’s controlling shareholder.

Banco Master had struggled for months with liquidity pressures after growing rapidly by selling high-yield debt through investment platforms.

It was reported in May that Mastercard was asking some of Brazil’s largest payment processors to pay half the cost of its losses from the failure of Banco Master and its FinTech, Will Bank, which issued cards that used Mastercard’s network.

At the time of that report, Mastercard had paid about half the losses and was proposing that before it passes along more funds to those acquirers, it uses money collected from card customers to reimburse itself.

Brazil’s central bank had adopted new rules that make payment networks responsible for ensuring payment of all transactions to the receiving user, but Mastercard told merchant acquirers that it should not be bound by those rules in the case of Will Bank because the FinTech collapsed in January, and card firms had until May to adapt to the new rules.

, /PRNewswire/ -- Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP announces that purchasers or acquirers of UWM Holdings Corporation (NYSE: UWMC) securities between March 9, 2026 and August 5, 2026, inclusive (the "Class Period"), have until October 13, 2026 to seek appointment as lead plaintiff of the UWM class action lawsuit. Captioned Bond v. UWM Holdings Corporation, No. 26-cv-12862 (E.D. Mich.), the UWM class action lawsuit charges UWM and certain of UWM's top executive officers with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

If you suffered substantial losses and wish to serve as lead plaintiff of the UWM class action lawsuit, please provide your information here:

https://www.rgrdlaw.com/cases-uwm-holdings-corporation-class-action-lawsuit-uwmc.html 

You can also contact attorneys Ken Dolitsky or Michael Albert of Robbins Geller by calling 800/851-7783 or via e-mail at [email protected].

CASE ALLEGATIONS: UWM engages in the origination, sale, and servicing residential mortgage lending. According to the complaint, in December 2025, UWM and Two Harbors Investment Corp. signed an all-stock merger agreement valued at $1.3 billion to expand UWM's mortgage servicing rights. Allegedly, in March 2026, Two Harbors Investment Corp. terminated the UWM agreement due to a competing offer and agreed to pay UWM's termination fee. 

The UWM class action lawsuit alleges that defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) UWM had deviated from its traditional strategy of not hedging its mortgage servicing rights to take a major hedge position; (ii) UWM over-hedged itself in anticipation of the Two Harbors Investment Corp. transaction; (iii) UWM's purported efforts to balance its risk in fact created an excess hedging risk; and (iv) that, as a result of the foregoing, defendants' positive statements about UWM's business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.

On August 5, 2026, after the market closed, UWM reported second quarter fiscal year 2026 financial results, allegedly including a nearly $603.2 million interest rate derivatives loss which contributed to a $451.9 million second quarter net loss, and that total equity fell 43.6% year over year, reflecting the net loss and derivative-related charges. Then, on August 6, 2026, UWM held an earnings call in connection with its second quarter 2026 financial results. According to the complaint, UWM's Chief Executive Officer, Mathew Ishbia, disclosed "[w]e were over-hedged, if you think of it that way, protecting against the Two Harbors transaction" and that "[w]e don't traditionally hedge our MSRs [Mortgage Servicing Rights]" but "when you're going through and acquiring a company like Two Harbors and a massive MSR book… it created a little more risk. So . . . we did put a hedge on to protect against that risk and then a lot of things happen[ed]…and then obviously, the Two Harbors transaction went away. And so a confluence of events that created a hedge loss." On this news, the price of UWM shares fell nearly 35%, according to the complaint.

THE LEAD PLAINTIFF PROCESS: The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 permits any investor who purchased or acquired UWM securities during the Class Period to seek appointment as lead plaintiff in the UWM class action lawsuit. A lead plaintiff is generally the movant with the greatest financial interest in the relief sought by the putative class who is also typical and adequate of the putative class. A lead plaintiff acts on behalf of all other class members in directing the UWM class action lawsuit. The lead plaintiff can select a law firm of its choice to litigate the UWM class action lawsuit. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff of the UWM class action lawsuit.

ABOUT ROBBINS GELLER: Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP is one of the world's leading law firms representing investors in securities fraud and shareholder rights litigation. Our Firm ranked #1 on the most recent ISS Securities Class Action Services Top 50 Report, recovering more than $916 million for investors in 2025. This marks our fourth #1 ranking in the past five years. And in those five years alone, Robbins Geller recovered $8.4 billion for investors – $3.4 billion more than any other law firm. With 200 lawyers in 10 offices, Robbins Geller is one of the largest plaintiffs' firms in the world, and the Firm's attorneys have obtained many of the largest securities class action recoveries in history, including the largest ever – $7.2 billion – in In re Enron Corp. Sec. Litig. Please visit the following page for more information:

https://www.rgrdlaw.com/services-litigation-securities-fraud.html

Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices. 

Contact:

Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP
Ken Dolitsky
Michael Albert
655 W. Broadway, Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101
800/851-7783
[email protected] 

SOURCE Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP

Kevin McGurn, the company's interim CEO, reported the disposition of 16,509 shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT -0.36%) on August 13, according to an SEC Form 4 filing.

Transaction summaryMetricValueTransaction value$137,520Shares sold16,509Post-transaction shares (directly held)120,811Post-transaction value$1.00 millionTransaction value based on SEC Form 4 weighted average sale price ($8.33); post-transaction value based on the August 13 market close ($8.30).

Key questionsWhat triggered this specific disposal of equity?
The transaction was a non-discretionary execution to cover tax withholding obligations resulting from the settlement of restricted stock units. No open-market sales occurred, and the interim CEO received no cash proceeds from the event, which was an automatic consequence of equity vesting.How does this impact the insider's total direct position?
After the disposal of 16,509 shares, McGurn retains a direct ownership of 120,811 shares. This remaining stake represents a roughly 0.04% interest in the company and is the primary component of his disclosed beneficial ownership, as no indirect holdings or separate derivative counts were reported in the current filing.What are the terms governing the insider's remaining restricted equity?
Footnotes in the filing clarify that a portion of the reporting person's holdings consists of restricted stock units. These units represent contingent rights to receive common stock, subject to vesting schedules and the conditions of the company's 2024 equity incentive plan.Company OverviewMetricValueShare Price (as of market close 2026-08-12)$8.27Market Capitalization$2.3 billionRevenue (TTM)$4.5 millionNet Income (TTM)-$1.3 billionCompany SnapshotTrump Media & Technology Group operates Truth Social, a social networking platform that generates revenue through digital advertising and user engagement services within the United States market.The company's business model centers on building and monetizing a proprietary social media platform designed to serve users seeking an alternative to mainstream social networks.The platform targets a defined demographic of users in the United States seeking social networking services aligned with specific ideological preferences.Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., founded in 2021 and headquartered in Sarasota, Florida, operates Truth Social as its primary digital asset. With a market capitalization of $2.3 billion and minimal current revenue generation of $4.5 million TTM, the company remains in an early stage development phase with substantial operating losses. The organization is focused on scaling its social networking platform to achieve profitability and establish competitive positioning within the crowded social media landscape.

What this transaction means for investorsA withholding this small from an interim CEO barely registers on its own, but it's worth noting that the transaction lands as Trump Media is remaking what it fundamentally is. The company is pivoting from a money-losing social media operation into something closer to a Bitcoin holding company, and that shift now drives nearly everything about the stock, including a share price that has fallen more than 50% over the past year.

The scale of the transformation is stark. Truth Social generated just $1.7 million in second-quarter revenue, while the company reported a $238 million net loss, almost entirely from mark-to-market declines on its digital-asset holdings. It holds roughly 14,139 Bitcoin after buying more in July, so the balance sheet is effectively the business now, with McGurn saying the company has "refined" its approach to capital allocation. Meanwhile, the company has also pivoted again within crypto, walking away from a planned Cronos treasury venture and moving toward third-party institutional management of its coins, along with pursuing a proposed merger with nuclear fusion firm TAE Technologies.

Jonathan Ponciano has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Alphabet (GOOG -0.12%)(GOOGL -0.13%) closed a $25 billion senior notes sale on Monday -- ten separate tranches, with maturities running from 2028 all the way out to 2066.

The size isn't the interesting part. Against a market value of about $4.2 trillion, $25 billion is well under 1% of the company. The interesting part, to me, is the shape. About $10 billion of the debt doesn't come due for at least 20 years, and the longest slice, $2.5 billion carrying a 6.5% interest rate, isn't due until August 2066.

That's a 40-year loan, taken out by a company whose servers are worn out, by its own accounting, in about six years.

Google campus. Image source: Alphabet.

The ladder The fixed-rate tranches step up in cost as they stretch out in time. Alphabet sold $1.25 billion of 4.5% notes due 2028, $2 billion at 4.625% due 2029, $3.5 billion at 4.875% due 2031, and $2.5 billion at 5.2% due 2033. Further out sit $4.5 billion at 5.45% due 2036, $3 billion at 6.25% due 2046, $4.5 billion at 6.375% due 2056, and the $2.5 billion of 6.5% notes due 2066. Two floating-rate tranches totaling $1.25 billion round out the $25 billion, and Alphabet netted about $24.8 billion after fees.

The fixed-rate notes alone will cost about $1.3 billion a year in interest. That sounds like a lot, but it's small for a company whose revenue over the past 12 months came to about $446 billion, up 20% year over year -- and whose operations produced roughly $85 billion of cash in just the first half of 2026.

As for what the money is for, the prospectus is deliberately unspecific: Alphabet said it intends to use the net proceeds for "general corporate purposes, which may include the repayment of outstanding debt." That's the standard language big companies use.

Why a cash machine is borrowing Alphabet raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $195 billion to $205 billion last month, up from an earlier $180 billion to $190 billion. About 60% of the infrastructure investment has been going to servers, per chief financial officer Anat Ashkenazi, with the rest toward data centers and networking equipment.

The first half shows what that pace does to a balance sheet. Capital spending more than doubled year over year to $80.6 billion in the six months through June, from $39.6 billion. And that outlay nearly matched the $84.9 billion of cash its operations generated over the same stretch. In other words, free cash flow is running close to zero even before dividends go out.

When spending runs that close to cash flow, everything else needs another source. Alphabet's buybacks went to zero (from $28.3 billion in the first half of 2025), and it raised about $56 billion of debt plus roughly $50 billion from sales of common and preferred stock in the first half.

The borrowing is piling up on the balance sheet. Alphabet carried $46.5 billion of long-term debt at the start of 2026 and $98.2 billion by June 30. This sale pushes the figure to roughly $123 billion.

Of course, that's still modest leverage for a company earning what Alphabet earns. But the balance sheet is changing fast: Alphabet entered the year with less than half this much debt.

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Six-year machines, 40-year money Alphabet's own accounting, laid out in its annual report, depreciates servers and network equipment over about six years. Data center and office buildings get seven to 40 years.

And at first, the two look badly mismatched. A bond due in 2066 will outlive this year's servers by more than three decades. The machines bought with 2026's budget could be replaced six or seven times before the principal comes due.

But I'd argue the maturity schedule fits the assets better than it first appears. The 40-year money matches the assets that actually last that long. The buildings, the land, and the power infrastructure are what remain when the chips inside them are swapped out.

So borrowing to 2066 only makes sense if management expects the data centers themselves, as physical places, to be producing revenue for decades -- a bet on the permanence of artificial intelligence (AI) demand, not on any single generation of hardware.

The problem, though, sits in the six-year column. Because most of the spending buys short-lived equipment, this year's roughly $200 billion isn't a one-time bill. Keeping the buildings filled with current hardware means paying a large share of that sum again.

The interest on this debt is easy for Alphabet to carry. The spending it supports is recurring, and each replacement cycle will have to be paid for again.

An Amazon box moves along a conveyor belt at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Robbinsville, New Jersey, U.S., December 1, 2025. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

CompaniesAug 14 (Reuters) - Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab on Friday reinstated binding arbitration for its U.S. customers while also barring them ​from seeking class-action lawsuits, making it more difficult for users ‌to address grievances in court.

In emails on Friday, Amazon said the changes are effective immediately and customers agree to the terms by continuing to use the company's services. ​Often, companies alert customers to upcoming changes to their terms of ​service weeks in advance.

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Previously, Amazon said customers should pursue legal claims ⁠in court in Washington state, where Amazon is based. Five years ​ago, Amazon revoked binding arbitration after facing tens of thousands of costly individual ​cases.

"We determined that reinstating the arbitration clause will offer customers a fast, cost-effective way to resolve disputes while still giving them the option of going to small claims court," ​a spokesperson said in a statement.

In 2021, Amazon was flooded with around ​75,000 arbitration claims from customers claiming its Alexa service was recording them without their ‌consent. ⁠It was part of a tactic some law firms use to overwhelm corporations with arbitration claims, forcing them to pay millions of dollars in fees to start the process and causing administrative headaches.

Amazon said in its new terms ​that 25 or ​more arbitration cases ⁠relating to the same matter in a six-month period would be considered a "mass arbitration" and would be settled in "batches ​of at least 25."

Courts have generally sided with corporations ​over language ⁠in their terms of service that dictate when and how customers can pursue legal recourse. Arbitration cases are settled privately before a third-party adjudicator, meaning disputes ⁠and ​any settlement typically are not made public.

Disputes ​with Amazon, including class-action suits, begun prior to Friday are not impacted by the new terms.

Reporting ​by Greg Bensinger in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Rosalba O'Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Greg Bensinger joined Reuters as a technology correspondent in 2022 focusing on the world's largest technology companies. He was previously a member of The New York Times editorial board and a technology beat reporter for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He also worked for Bloomberg News writing about the auto and telecommunications industries. He studied English literature at The University of Virginia and graduate journalism at Columbia University. Greg lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children.

In Brief

Posted:

3:43 PM PDT · August 14, 2026

Image Credits:CFOTO/Future Publishing / Getty Images PayPal CEO Enrique Lores’ turnaround plan for the fintech company could include a sale — of itself.

The prospect first popped in July when Stripe and private equity giant Advent offered to buy PayPal for $60.50 a share in a deal that would have valued it at $53 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

PayPal balked. But apparently, negotiations never stopped and a deal could come together in the coming weeks, according to new reporting by the WSJ, which cited unnamed sources.

PayPal declined to comment on the report. A Stripe spokesperson said the company doesn’t “comment on rumors or speculation.”

The negotiations are taking place as Lores attempts to save the company from its lagging trajectory.

Lores joined PayPal in March, after spending years at HP. In April, Lores made the first moves in his turnaround plan, including an executive shuffle and splitting the business into three operating models: checkout solutions and PayPal, consumer financial services (and Venmo), and payment services and crypto. A month later, Lores told investors that PayPal would recommit to the fundamentals,” which included “becoming a technology company again.”

PayPal’s turnaround will also include a cost-saving plans, which is expected to reduce its workforce by 20% over the next two to three years.

PayPal was founded in 1998 by a number of men who went on to be Silicon Valley luminaries, including Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Max Levchin, Luke Nosek, and others. The company has struggled in recent years, after ballooning during the pandemic due to an e-commerce boom.

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Toni Anne Barson/Getty Images for iHeartMedia A new filing in a lawsuit from a fired WPP executive alleges that Sony, one of the ad giant's major partners, investigated the company and concluded it had improperly withheld rebates from clients.

The lawsuit says that Sony presented the findings of its investigation to WPP in 2025 in a detailed analysis that said the ad agency giant operated what Sony called a "global crime scheme" across several markets, including China.

The allegations have high stakes for WPP, which handles tens of billions of dollars in ad spending for some of the world's largest companies. At its core, the lawsuit alleges WPP put its own interests ahead of its clients', engineering a way to use some of their advertising budgets to maximize its own profits without their consent.

The lawsuit says that Sony's investigation alleged this is how the practice worked:

WPP's media investment arm, GroupM, would negotiate a rebate deal with a media owner by leveraging its clients' combined advertising spending.WPP used a network of "intermediary brokers" to hold some of the rebates for itself rather than dispersing them to clients.WPP used rebate funds to subsidize the cost of ad inventory, then kept the resulting margin as profit that was shielded from audits.The lawsuit contains a purported slide from Sony's presentation to WPP titled "impact for WPP Advertisers — China 2024," which claims that approximately $110 million was passed back to clients that year, while $350 million remained in its rebate pool "for later utilization" by WPP.

A separate purported Sony slide described the practice as a "fraud scheme" run in China and other markets, and attributed its design to senior global WPP executives.

Sony drew its findings from the work of independent investigators who attended a criminal trial in China involving WPP executives and from interviews with former WPP and GroupM executives, the lawsuit says. GroupM was rebranded to WPP Media last year.

The lawsuit says Sony supported its findings with "contractual language regarding rebate policies, transaction-level financial reporting, internal emails regarding rebate amounts, and documentation of WPP tracking systems."

A Sony spokesperson said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

The new details are part of a lawsuit filed in November by Richard Foster, a former longtime GroupM executive. In the lawsuit, he accuses the company of retaliating against him and firing him after he raised concerns that the group's media investment division was allegedly running an improper global kickback operation.

WPP filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that Foster failed to state a legally sufficient claim while also objecting on jurisdictional grounds. The suit is ongoing.

WPP declined to comment on the alleged Sony review and said in a statement that Foster's amended complaint, filed days prior to an upcoming court hearing, is an attempt to avoid the case's dismissal.

"Both complaints are baseless and without merit, and WPP will be re-filing an updated motion to dismiss," WPP said. "We have confidence that this matter will be resolved through due legal process."

Foster alleged in the lawsuit that the operation was not confined to China and was deployed as part of a global model through which GroupM improperly retained roughly $1.5 billion to $2 billion in profits from rebate deals over five years, by his estimation.

The amended complaint says Sony's investigative findings corroborated "years of whistleblowing" from Foster, who is seeking at least $100 million in damages from WPP.

In the latest filing, Foster says he refused a "seven-figure termination package which included an obligation of silence regarding the company's undisclosed rebate practices."

The ad industry's heated 'principal media' debateMedia rebates are not inherently illegal, though they can raise transparency and accounting issues if they are not properly disclosed. A US ad industry trade group previously warned that rebates could amount to a breach of contract or fraud if not disclosed to the client or if advertisers were deceived about the practice.

Some markets, including China, are heavily reliant on media rebates and the use of brokers to facilitate them.

The prevalence of "proprietary media" agency models, commonly referred to as "principal media," has long been a divisive topic in the ad industry. They tend to take the form of agencies purchasing a large volume of media at a discount, reselling it to their clients, and making a margin on that resale.

Agencies argue that principal media is often more cost-effective for their clients than buying ad inventory themselves — and that CMOs are happy to participate so long as it performs well. Critics say the model — even when it's disclosed — can create conflicts of interest for agencies, which could be incentivized to steer marketers toward media the agency has already bought, rather than the inventory best suited to their clients' campaign objectives.

Advisory and consulting firm Madison and Wall recently estimated that principal media accounts for a "high single-digit or low double-digit" share of large-brand and agency activity in the US.

"Richard Foster asked a question any agency should be prepared to answer: Are your profits derived from loyal service to your clients, or not?" William A. Brewer III, partner at Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors and lead counsel to Foster, said in a statement.

WPP's media operations in China have already faced significant legal scrutiny. Earlier this year, Di Fei, the former GroupM China chief investment officer, was sentenced to life in prison for taking bribes totaling $176 million with his ex-colleagues, Bloomberg reported. Di Fei is appealing the ruling, Bloomberg reported in June.

WPP has said it is aware of the court's sentencing of its former employees in China and has cooperated fully with the relevant authorities.

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Lara O'Reilly You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.

Lara O'Reilly is the anchor of the CMO Insider newsletter.She is a senior correspondent who has covered the digital advertising, marketing, and media industries since 2010. Her current beat includes big tech companies like Alphabet, and Meta, and adtech firms, agencies,  publishers, the creator economy, and CMOs.Lara has previously worked as a reporter and executive producer at titles including The Wall Street Journal, Digiday, Yahoo Finance, and Marketing Week. She was previously Business Insider's senior global advertising editor from 2014 to 2017.Lara is a regular guest on TV and radio and has appeared on outlets such as the BBC, NPR, SiriusXM's Wharton Business Daily, and CTV Television Network. She also frequently speaks on stage at major events such as Web Summit, IFA, VivaTech, Advertising Week, and Cannes Lions.To get in touch with Lara O'Reilly, email [email protected] or contact her on Signal at @loreilly.71

Sony Advertising Agencies

Berkshire Hathaway sharply increased its stake in Alphabet in the second quarter, vaulting the Google parent into its three biggest stock holdings. The sprawling conglomerate also added to the size of its investments in Delta Air Lines and various homebuilders.

Berkshire, now operating under CEO Greg Abel, owned about 106 million Alphabet shares worth $37.9 billion at the end of June, according to a regulatory filing released Friday. The size of the position jumped 83% in the latest quarter, making Alphabet the third-largest U.S.-listed equity holding at Omaha-based Berkshire by market value. Only investments in Apple and American Express are larger.

The increase largely reflects a $10 billion private stock purchase announced in early June, when Alphabet sought fresh capital to finance its massive AI infrastructure buildout.

Warren Buffett, now chairman at Berkshire, told CNBC he had been behind the bullish view on Alphabet, with Abel's support.

Berkshire also continued to build a sizable wager on the airline industry, a past favorite of Buffett's. The holding in Delta Air Lines climbed 44% during the quarter, to 57.3 million shares, valued at about $5.4 billion at the end of June. Berkshire had only recently returned to Delta after famously selling its airline holdings in the early days of the pandemic.

Housing was another cyclical business where Berkshire increased its exposure, boosting its holding of Class A shares of Lennar by nearly 30%, to 13.1 million shares, worth about $1.19 billion, while Class B holdings rose 25% to roughly 298,000 shares. Berkshire also disclosed a small new position in D.R. Horton, holding 3,600 shares at the end of June.

Berkshire ended a long streak of net stock sales, emerging as a buyer of equities in the second quarter with nearly $20 billion in net purchases. Berkshire had been a net seller for 14 straight quarters before the latest three-month period.

The conglomerate's cash level fell to $365.5 billion at the end of June from a record $397.4 billion three months earlier, as Berkshire began putting more of its capital to work through investments and share repurchases. The quarter also saw the completion of Berkshire's acquisition of Taylor Morrison, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based homebuilder.

The past couple of years have been volatile for Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX -2.07%). Between clinical setbacks and worse-than-expected financial results, the company has sometimes disappointed investors. However, Vertex has always bounced back, and it recently hit a new all-time high, though it has since receded from that. Even so, the future is bright for the drugmaker. Here is why there is plenty more upside ahead.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

The core business is still strong
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is best known for developing medicines that treat cystic fibrosis (CF), an area where it has no meaningful competition. Some investors worry that this might change soon, as several drugmakers are looking to launch competing CF medicines. Sionna Therapeutics, a much smaller biotech company, has an entire pipeline dedicated to that. Other companies are also on this trail, including Krystal Biotech.

However, for now, Vertex continues to dominate this field and generate significant revenue and earnings. In the second quarter, the company's sales came in at $3.33 billion, up 12% year over year. Vertex's earnings per share were $4.31, about 8% higher than the year-ago period. Potential competition in the CF area poses a significant risk to the company, given that CF revenue totaled $3.2 billion during the period. But it's not the first time that Vertex has faced this risk. Many previous attempts to challenge the company in CF have failed.

Several years ago, AbbVie (ABBV -0.54%), a pharmaceutical giant, gave up on challenging Vertex Pharmaceuticals after its leading CF programs flopped in clinical trials.

We can now add one of Sionna's leading candidates, which recently failed a mid-stage study, to that list. Meanwhile, Vertex has launched new medicines outside its core area in recent years. The company expects $500 million in non-CF revenue in 2026 -- that's not that significant, but Vertex's non-CF business should start ramping up. Vertex's Casgevy, a gene editing medicine for a pair of rare blood-related conditions, recently earned a label expansion and is now indicated to treat children as young as two. Journavx, the company's non-opioid treatment for acute pain, could also earn label expansions.

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Vertex's diversification efforts
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is racing toward the approval of povetacicept, an investigational medicine for IgA nephropathy, a kidney disease. The medicine completed a phase 3 study earlier this year and could get the nod from U.S. regulators by the end of November. Povetacicept may earn label expansions beyond that, too. The therapy could, eventually, meaningfully contribute to Vertex's financial results. Analysts estimate that it will generate well over $1 billion in annual sales at its peak.

Vertex has other promising pipeline candidates, including inaxaplin, which it is developing for APOL1-mediated kidney disease. Furthermore, the company has recently expanded its pipeline. Last month, Vertex Pharmaceuticals announced the acquisition of Crinetics Pharmaceuticals (CRNX +0.31%), a smaller biotech, for about $10 billion in cash. Crinetics' portfolio includes Palsonify, a medicine for acromegaly, a rare hormonal disease that can cause bones to get bigger, and may be life-threatening.

Crinetics also has promising pipeline candidates across other hormonal conditions. Vertex estimates that Crinetics' entire portfolio could generate $5 billion in peak sales. It may not be quite that successful, but Vertex Pharmaceuticals is casting a broad net, with multiple candidates across several therapeutic areas and clinical trial phases. The company's diversification efforts should eventually succeed, allowing it to mitigate the risk posed by another drugmaker's potential launch of CF medicines. So, the stock hasn't peaked yet.

Vertex could deliver solid returns over the next five years and beyond as its financial results improve, driven by new launches in CF and elsewhere. Investors should stick with the stock.

HOUSTON, TX / ACCESS Newswire / August 14, 2026 / PATTERSON-UTI ENERGY, INC. (NASDAQ:PTEN) today reported that for the month of July 2026, the Company had an average of 98 drilling rigs operating in the United States.

Average drilling rigs operating reported in the Company's monthly announcements represent the average number of the Company's drilling rigs that were earning revenue under a drilling contract in the United States. The Company cautioned that numerous factors in addition to average drilling rigs operating can impact the Company's operating results and that a particular trend in the number of drilling rigs operating may or may not indicate a trend in or be indicative of the Company's financial performance. The Company intends to continue providing monthly updates on drilling rigs operating shortly after the end of each month.

About Patterson-UTI

Patterson-UTI is a leading provider of drilling and completion services to oil and natural gas exploration and production companies in the United States and other select countries, including contract drilling services, integrated well completion services and directional drilling services in the United States, and specialized drill bit solutions in the United States, Middle East and many other regions around the world. For more information, visit www.patenergy.com.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements which are protected as forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are not limited to historical facts, but reflect Patterson-UTI's current beliefs, expectations or intentions regarding future events. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "budgeted," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "predict," "potential," "project," "pursue," "should," "strategy," "target," or "will," and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. The statements in this press release that are not historical statements, including statements regarding Patterson-UTI's future expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, financial conditions, assumptions or future events or performance that are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Patterson-UTI's control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: adverse oil and natural gas industry conditions; global economic conditions, including inflationary pressures and risks of economic downturns or recessions in the United States and elsewhere; volatility in customer spending and in oil and natural gas prices that could adversely affect demand for Patterson-UTI's services and their associated effect on rates; excess availability of land drilling rigs, pressure pumping and directional drilling equipment, including as a result of reactivation, improvement or construction; competition and demand for Patterson-UTI's services; the impact of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine; strength and financial resources of competitors; utilization, margins and planned capital expenditures; liabilities from operational risks for which Patterson-UTI does not have and receive full indemnification or insurance; operating hazards attendant to the oil and natural gas business; failure by customers to pay or satisfy their contractual obligations (particularly with respect to fixed-term contracts); the ability to realize backlog; specialization of methods, equipment and services and new technologies, including the ability to develop and obtain satisfactory returns from new technology; the ability to retain management and field personnel; loss of key customers; shortages, delays in delivery, and interruptions in supply, of equipment and materials; cybersecurity events; synergies, costs and financial and operating impacts of acquisitions; difficulty in building and deploying new equipment; governmental regulation; climate legislation, regulation and other related risks; environmental, social and governance practices, including the perception thereof; environmental risks and ability to satisfy future environmental costs; technology-related disputes; legal proceedings and actions by governmental or other regulatory agencies; the ability to effectively identify and enter new markets; public health crises, pandemics and epidemics; weather; operating costs; expansion and development trends of the oil and natural gas industry; ability to obtain insurance coverage on commercially reasonable terms; financial flexibility; interest rate volatility; adverse credit and equity market conditions; availability of capital and the ability to repay indebtedness when due; our return of capital to stockholders; stock price volatility; and compliance with covenants under Patterson-UTI's debt agreements.

Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained from time to time in Patterson-UTI's SEC filings. Patterson-UTI's filings may be obtained by contacting Patterson-UTI or the SEC or through Patterson-UTI's website at http://www.patenergy.com or through the SEC's Electronic Data Gathering and Analysis Retrieval System (EDGAR) at http://www.sec.gov. Patterson-UTI undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement.

Contact:
Michael Sabella
Vice President, Investor Relations
(281) 885-7589

SOURCE: Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc.

BRENTWOOD, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Delek Logistics Partners, LP (NYSE: DKL) (“Delek Logistics”) announced today that it has closed its previously announced underwritten public offering of 4,600,000 common units representing limited partner interests in Delek Logistics, including 600,000 common units sold pursuant to the underwriters’ full exercise of their option to purchase additional common units, at a price of $50.00 per unit. Delek Logistics intends to use the gross proceeds of approximately $220.8 million, after underwriting fees and commissions and before other offering-related expenses, to repay outstanding borrowings under its revolving credit agreement and for general partnership purposes.

None of the common units sold in the offering were purchased by Delek US Holdings, Inc. (“Delek Holdings”). As a result, Delek Holdings' ownership of the outstanding Delek Logistics common units declined from 63.0% prior to the offering to approximately 58.0% following the closing of the offering.

The offering was made pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). A prospectus supplement relating to the offering has also been filed with the SEC.

Truist Securities, Inc., Mizuho, and Raymond James & Associates, Inc. acted as joint book-running managers for the offering. A copy of the prospectus supplement and accompanying base prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained from any of the underwriters, including Truist Securities, Inc. at 740 Battery Ave SE, 3rd Floor, Atlanta, Georgia 30339, Attention: Equity Capital Markets or by email at [email protected]; Mizuho Securities USA LLC at 1271 Avenue of the Americas, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10020, Attention: Equity Capital Markets or by email at [email protected]; and Raymond James & Associates, Inc. at 880 Carillon Parkway, St. Petersburg, Florida 33716, Attention: Equity Syndicate or by email at [email protected]. You may also obtain these documents for free when they are available by visiting the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. The offering may be made only by means of a prospectus and related prospectus supplement meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”).

About Delek Logistics Partners, LP

Delek Logistics is a midstream energy master limited partnership headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee. Through its owned assets and joint ventures located primarily in and around the Permian Basin, the Delaware Basin and other select areas in the Gulf Coast region, Delek Logistics provides gathering, pipeline and other transportation services primarily for crude oil and natural gas customers, storage, wholesale marketing and terminalling services primarily for intermediate and refined product customers, and water disposal and recycling services.

Delek Holdings (NYSE: DK) owns the general partner interest as well as a majority limited partner interest in Delek Logistics and is also a significant customer.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the closing of the offering and the anticipated use of the net proceeds therefrom. These statements may contain words such as “possible,” “believe,” “should,” “could,” “would,” “predict,” “plan,” “estimate,” “intend,” “may,” “anticipate,” “will,” “if,” “expect” or similar expressions, as well as statements in the future tense, are made as of the date they were first issued and are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections as well as the beliefs and assumptions of management. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which involve factors or circumstances that are beyond Delek Logistics’ control. Delek Logistics’ actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including, but not limited to, market risks and uncertainties, including those which might affect the offering. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are more fully detailed in Delek Logistics’ filings and reports with the SEC, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, the Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarterly periods ended March 31, 2026 and June 30, 2026 and other reports and filings with the SEC.

Aug 14 : A national U.S. bank regulator on Friday conditionally approved a bank charter application linked to President Donald Trump and his family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, effectively greenlighting an expansion of its stablecoin operations.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in a letter published on its website that it has granted conditional preliminary approval of World Liberty Trust Company’s application for a national trust charter, which it applied for in January. 

The charter, if ultimately approved at a later date, would allow World Liberty, through the newly created trust bank, to manage and hold assets on behalf of customers and settle payments faster. It does not generally permit deposit-taking or lending like traditional banks. 

Hoping to capitalize on the Trump administration’s crypto-friendly stance, the industry has been knocking on the OCC’s door for such charters. They allow crypto companies to hold assets on behalf of clients nationwide under a single federal charter, as well as to provide other settlement and asset servicing functions — making it easier to court major institutional clients.

Other crypto firms, including Ripple and Circle, have received preliminary approval for such charters under Comptroller Jonathan Gould, whom Trump appointed to the role last year. 

In the case of World Liberty, the charter would allow it to directly issue its USD1 stablecoin, as well as custody the U.S. dollar assets backing it, both of which are now handled by a business partner, BitGo. 

In a statement on Friday, the firm welcomed the conditional approval, calling it a "milestone" in its efforts to open the bank.

"A national trust bank brings USD1 issuance, custody, and reserve management together under OCC supervision, examined on the same standards that have governed banks for generations. We welcome continuous scrutiny from Federal regulators for many years to come," Zach Witkoff, World Liberty Trust president and chairman, said in a statement.

As in most cases, the charter is subject to conditions, including notifying the regulator of any major business plan changes, maintaining at least $20 million in capital and hiring a qualified employee to serve as the firm's internal audit manager.

In its approval letter, the OCC noted it had received comments raising concerns about non-U.S. investors in World Liberty Financial.

The regulator said such investors were not considered principal shareholders in the bank, adding that the OCC had received so-called "passivity agreements" from several bank investors, including those outside the U.S., who vowed that they would not seek to control or influence the bank's operations or decisions.

Among the signatories on those agreements was Eric Trump, the president's son, as president of a Trump-family affiliated investment vehicle.

In February, two Democratic members of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee asked Trump's Treasury secretary to examine the potential national security implications of a reported purchase of a $500 million stake in World Liberty Financial in a deal linked with the United Arab Emirates' national security adviser.

FIRM HAS TIES TO TRUMP ALLIES

World Liberty Trust’s leadership is deeply intertwined with Trump's longtime allies, the Witkoff family. 

Zach Witkoff is the son of Trump’s special diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff. The Witkoffs were among the co-founders of World Liberty Financial with Trump and his three sons in late 2024, with Zach Witkoff currently serving as its CEO. 

Steve Witkoff’s brother Robert Witkoff, a former insurance company executive, will be a director of World Liberty Trust. Another proposed director, Scott Alper, is the president of the Witkoff family’s real estate business. 

The OCC is part of the Treasury Department and unlike many other financial regulators does not have a bipartisan board. 

Democrats have said a World Liberty charter would pose a major conflict of interest, and pressured Gould during a February congressional hearing to confidentially share the company's unredacted application. The public version did not include full details on its capital structure or business plans. 

In its approval letter, the OCC said Gould and staff "acted consistently with their statutory duties and ethical obligations with respect to the application," adding the application was reviewed by career staff and the bank would similarly be supervised by nonpolitical examiners.

LUCRATIVE BUSINESS

World Liberty is the most prominent among the Trump family’s stable of lucrative crypto ventures. Its stated vision is to democratize finance, allowing anyone to bypass a traditional banking system that the Trumps have characterized as restrictive and unfair. 

World Liberty has promoted the USD1 stablecoin as a flagship product that is designed to be a safe, U.S. dollar-backed asset allowing for entry to a range of financial products on the blockchain. 

USD1 has grown quickly since being announced in March 2025. It is currently the fourth largest stablecoin by market capitalization, at around $4 billion. 

Reuters estimated that the Trump family earned about $50 million from the USD1 stablecoin to the end of June 2026.

Overall, World Liberty Financial funneled more than $1.6 billion to the U.S. president and his family as of April, according to Reuters calculations. 

The Zacks Real Estate Operations industry faces problems, including geopolitical instability and macroeconomic uncertainties. Amid this, investors demand greater price discovery, causing a delay in the closing timeline for transactions. Moreover, higher costs continue to weigh on the industry’s activity.

Despite these challenges, the industry constituents are poised to benefit from the increased adoption of outsourced real estate services and other emerging trends. Strategic investments in AI and data tools provide a competitive edge. Companies like CBRE Group, Inc. (CBRE - Free Report) , Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL - Free Report) and Newmark Group, Inc. (NMRK - Free Report) are set to benefit from these favorable trends.

About the Industry
The Zacks Real Estate Operations industry comprises companies that provide leasing, property management, investment management, valuation, development services, facility management, project management, transaction and consulting services, among others. However, real estate investment trusts or REITs, are excluded from this group. Economic trends and government policies impact the real estate market (both global and regional), which determines the industry’s performance. Economic activity, employment growth, office-based employment, interest-rate levels, costs and availability of credit, tax and regulatory policies and the geopolitical environment are the major factors shaping the real estate market’s fate. Also, pandemic-induced public health challenges and geopolitical issues have affected property sales and the leasing lines of businesses.

What's Shaping the Real Estate Operations Industry's Future?
Global Tensions Disrupt Supply Chains and Growth: Geopolitical instability and macroeconomic uncertainty continue to weigh on industry performance. The Ukraine-Russia war and conflicts in the Middle East have disrupted energy markets and global supply chains, while Strait of Hormuz disruptions have intensified energy prices, freight costs and shipping availability. These challenges, along with U.S. tariffs on imported materials and tighter immigration enforcement, have affected international relations and constrained labor availability. Persistent supply-chain constraints and longer lead times for certain materials and equipment can delay project schedules. Against this uncertain economic backdrop, clients remain cautious, while investors seek greater clarity around pricing and valuations, further contributing to longer transaction timelines.

Higher Costs Weigh on U.S. Real Estate Activity: High borrowing and development costs continue to constrain U.S. real estate activity. Elevated interest rates, higher construction costs, insurance premiums, regulatory expenses and other operating costs are increasing the capital required to acquire, build and reposition properties, making project economics more challenging for developers and owners. These pressures are most acute where expected rents, occupancy or asset values cannot support higher costs, prompting some developers to defer, resize or reconsider marginal projects. In the residential market, affordability remains constrained. Home prices remained near record levels, limiting purchasing power and contributing to subdued transaction activity. For commercial real estate clients, particularly across office, retail, industrial, hotels and mixed-use projects, higher financing, construction and operating costs are driving up total project costs and altering the underlying economics of development and investment decisions.

Outsourcing in the Real Estate Market to Gain Further Momentum: Corporations, public sector organizations, healthcare providers and firms across finance, industrials, life sciences and technology are increasingly opting to outsource their real estate needs. They are relying on third-party real estate experts to improve execution and efficiency. More companies are seeking strategic advice on reshaping their workplaces and operations to strengthen culture, attract top talent and improve overall performance. These trends are opening up opportunities for real estate operations participants. Leading players in the industry are capitalizing on this shift by winning new clients and expanding relationships with existing ones. In addition, companies in the industry are making significant investments in proptech, AI and data tools to boost efficiency, enhance client service and gain market share.

Zacks Industry Rank Indicates Bleak Prospects
The Zacks Real Estate Operations industry is housed within the broader Zacks Finance sector. It carries a Zacks Industry Rank #173, which places it in the bottom 30% of 246 Zacks industries.

The group’s Zacks Industry Rank, which is the average of the Zacks Rank of all the member stocks, indicates bleak near-term prospects. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than two to one.

The industry’s positioning in the bottom 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries is a result of the downward earnings per share (EPS) outlook for the constituent companies in aggregate. Looking at the aggregate EPS estimate revisions, it appears that of late, analysts are losing confidence in this group’s growth potential. Since March 2026, the industry’s EPS estimates for 2026 have moved up 2%.

Before we present a few stocks that you may want to consider for your portfolio, let’s take a look at the industry’s recent stock-market performance and valuation picture.

Industry Underperforms Sector & S&P 500
The Zacks Real Estate Operations industry has underperformed the broader Zacks Finance sector and the S&P 500 composite over the past year.

The industry has declined 5.6% during this period compared with the S&P 500’s return of 22% and the broader Finance sector’s growth of 13.7%.

One-Year Price Performance

Industry's Current Valuation
On the basis of the forward 12-month price-to-earnings, which is a commonly used multiple for valuing Real Estate Operations stocks, we see that the industry is currently trading at 12.57X compared with the S&P 500’s forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) of 20.69X. The industry is trading below the Finance sector’s forward 12-month P/E of 17.11X. This is shown in the chart below.

Forward 12-Month Price-To-Earnings Ratio

Over the last five years, the industry has traded as high as 23.09X and as low as 9.52X, with a median of 13.68X.

3 Real Estate - Operation Stocks to Consider
Newmark Group, Inc.: Headquartered in New York City, Newmark is a leading commercial real estate advisory and service provider for institutional investors and global corporations. The company continues to capitalize on the fragmented commercial real estate market, achieving significant gains in management services, leasing and capital markets. It reported record second-quarter 2026 total revenues of $888.4 million, up 17% year over year, marking its eighth consecutive quarter of double-digit top-line growth.

By investing in advanced technology, expanding its international footprint and focusing on high-growth sectors such as data centers, Newmark remains positioned to capture emerging growth opportunities and deliver consistent performance for its shareholders. It expects 2026 adjusted EPS to be within $1.87-$1.98, reflecting a 15-22% rise year over year.

Newmark Group currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its 2026 adjusted EPS increased 6 cents to $1.97. This suggests an increase of 21.6% year over year. The stock has gained 6.5% in the past three months.  You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

CBRE Group: Headquartered in Dallas, TX, CBRE Group is a commercial real estate services and investment firm. The company provides services spanning advisory, building operations, project management and real estate investments to office, retail, industrial, multi-family and other commercial real estate sectors across major global markets. In the second quarter of 2026, it delivered strong results, with revenues increasing 16% and each of its four business segments generating more than 25% growth in Segment Operating Profit.

Its outsourcing business remains a standout performer, bolstered by a robust pipeline that sets the stage for promising future opportunities. Management raised 2026 core EPS guidance to $7.80 to $7.90 per share, reflecting 23% year-over-year growth at the midpoint.

CBRE Group currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its 2026 EPS is pegged at $7.74, suggesting 21.32% growth year over year. The stock has gained 16.9% in the past three months.

Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated: Headquartered in Chicago, Jones Lang offers comprehensive commercial real estate and investment management services globally. The company’s commitment to delivering superior client service, paired with strategic investment in cutting-edge technology and innovation, positions it for significant growth in market share and client relationships. Its second-quarter 2026 results showed record revenue of $6.93 billion, rising 11%.

The company continues to maintain a robust balance sheet with sufficient liquidity to support agile operations and seize emerging opportunities. Looking ahead, JLL remains well-positioned to navigate macro uncertainties while continuing to scale its tech-enabled services and advance its global investment management objectives. Management raised its 2026 adjusted EPS outlook to $24.60-$25.90 from the prior range of $21.80-$23.50. The revised guidance reflects 34% year-over-year growth at the midpoint.

Jones Lang LaSalle carries a Zacks Rank of #3 at present. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 adjusted EPS increased 5.9% to $24.18 over the past three months. This indicates an increase of 28.62% year over year. The stock has gained 28.2% in the past three months.