Akcie společnosti Xanadu Quantum Technologies v úterý ráno vzrostly o 16,8 % poté, co firma oznámila víceleté partnerství s GlobalFoundries na výrobě fotonických kvantových čipů.
Shares of Xanadu Quantum Technologies (XNDU +15.93%) soared on Tuesday morning, slowing a deep downtrend over the last month. As of 11:25 a.m. ET, the Canadian quantum computing company was up by 16.8%.
The company announced a multi-year partnership with GlobalFoundries (GFS +0.44%), co-developing a large-scale manufacturing process for Xanadu's photonic quantum computing chips.
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From lab prototypes to 300 mm productionPhotonic quantum computers run on light, and reading their answers means counting photons one at a time. Xanadu does that with superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs). It then routes the photons through ultra-low-loss silicon nitride circuits that work like optical circuit boards. Both technologies are now headed for GlobalFoundries' 300 mm production line in Malta, New York.
Xanadu described the move as a shift from lab-scale prototyping to industrial-grade production. The output is meant to supply the company's upcoming fault-tolerant demonstrator systems, and the two companies are exploring additional projects. Neither side disclosed financial terms.
The relationship isn't new. Xanadu first announced a collaboration with GlobalFoundries in March 2022, designing error-correction components for the foundry's GF Fotonix platform. This is just a tighter collaboration.
Image source: Getty Images.
One good day doesn't erase a 50% dropToday's deal fits a recent pattern. Xanadu announced a lithography collaboration with ASML (ASML -1.86%) on Sept. 9, and both partnerships target optical loss. That's the main source of errors in Xanadu's photonic architecture.
With chip-production giants ASML and GlobalFoundries by its side, Xanadu has a strong cast of supporting characters for its quest to launch large quantum computing systems with effective error correction.
A supporting cast doesn't pay the bills, though. The company booked $1.5 million of revenue last quarter against a $42.1 million net loss, and it isn't targeting serious commercial sales until 2029 or 2030. It also sold 5.5 million new shares through its equity facility with Yorkville Advisors during the quarter.
Today's pop needs some context, too. The stock is down 45.7% over the last month, while industry rival IonQ (IONQ +1.12%) gained 10.6%. The GlobalFoundries deal is a credible manufacturing step, but it doesn't change Xanadu's development timeline or the dilution risk.
Anders Bylund has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends ASML, Globalfoundries, and IonQ. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
NVIDIA investovala 2 miliardy USD do Marvell Technology v rámci partnerství z března 2026; Marvell dodá vlastní XPU a síťová řešení kompatibilní s NVLink Fusion.
Key Takeaways Marvell Technology expanded its NVIDIA alliance around NVLink Fusion, custom XPUs and scale-up. NVIDIA's $2 billion investment reinforces Marvell Technology's role across its AI infrastructure. MRVL also teams up with Microsoft & Utimaco on Azure Payment HSM v2, a cloud-native payment security platform. Marvell Technology (MRVL - Free Report) is partnering with NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) on multiple fronts, including advanced networking, optical technologies like silicon photonics and advanced optical interconnect solutions. Both companies are bringing their capabilities together. MRVL has established capabilities in optical DSPs, silicon photonics and high-speed connectivity, and NVIDIA has NVLink Fusion.
Marvell Technology and NVIDIA started their initial 2025 collaboration to give hyperscalers greater flexibility in developing custom AI computing infrastructure while allowing them to leverage NVIDIA’s broader rack-scale architecture, networking and software ecosystem. In 2026, the partnership was expanded, connecting MRVL to NVIDIA’s AI factory and AI-RAN ecosystems through NVLink Fusion.
Under the expanded arrangement, Marvell Technology will provide custom XPUs and NVLink Fusion-compatible scale-up networking, while NVIDIA will provide supporting technologies including Vera CPUs, ConnectX NICs, BlueField DPUs, NVLink interconnects, Spectrum-X switches and rack-scale AI compute. NVIDIA has further demonstrated its strategic commitment to the relationship by investing $2 billion in MRVL as part of the March 2026 partnership.
The investment accompanies the expanded NVLink Fusion collaboration and reinforces Marvell Technology’s role within NVIDIA’s broader AI infrastructure ecosystem. Overall, the collaboration positions Marvell Technology as a key technology partner for customers seeking customized AI infrastructure while remaining connected to NVIDIA’s ecosystem. MRVL also collaborated with Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) , and Utimaco launched Azure Payment HSM v2, a cloud-native payment security platform combining Marvell Technology’s LiquidSecurity hardware security modules.
Utimaco is bringing in Atalla Payments Module software, and Microsoft is offering Azure in the collaboration. The service enables banks and payment providers to secure transactions, protect cryptographic keys and meet stringent PCI compliance requirements without managing physical infrastructure. MRVL is using its hardware in multiple use cases and making it meaningful with other technology giants like NVIDIA and Microsoft.
How Competitors Fare Against MRVLMarvell Technology competes with Astera Labs (ALAB - Free Report) and Broadcom (AVGO - Free Report) in the networking space. Astera Labs is benefiting from rising demand for PCIe 6 signal conditioning and AI fabric switching as hyperscalers expand rack-scale AI deployments, while Broadcom gains from traction in custom XPUs and AI networking, and VMware continues to support infrastructure software growth.
Broadcom isn’t collaborating with a single large partner. Broadcom has many integration partners for its VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 with integrated AI infrastructure from AMD, Intel and NVIDIA. The platform supports NVIDIA ConnectX-7 and BlueField-3 networking, while CrowdStrike enhances security and Arista Networks provides networking interoperability.
Unlike Broadcom’s broader integration approach and Astera Labs’ connectivity focus, Marvell Technology can leverage NVIDIA’s ecosystem to help hyperscalers build customized AI infrastructure while maintaining compatibility with NVIDIA’s rack-scale architecture. NVIDIA’s $2 billion investment further strengthens this relationship, potentially improving MRVL’s access to AI infrastructure opportunities and positioning it to compete more effectively with Broadcom and Astera Labs.
MRVL's Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesMarvell Technology shares have gained 239.5% year to date, outperforming the Zacks Electronics - Semiconductors industry's return of 39.5%.
MRVL YTD Performance Chart
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
MRVL shares are trading at a Price-to-Sales (P/S) multiple of 14.78X, higher than the Zacks Electronics - Semiconductors industry’s P/S multiple of 5.15X.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for MRVL’s fiscal 2027 earnings indicates a year-over-year growth of 48.2%. Estimates have been revised upward in the past 30 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Marvell Technology currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Společnost Paycom Software v minulém čtvrtletí překonala odhad analytiků ohledně zisku o 21,93 % a ukazatel Earnings ESP ve výši +4,01 % naznačuje možnost dalšího překonání očekávání.
If you are looking for a stock that has a solid history of beating earnings estimates and is in a good position to maintain the trend in its next quarterly report, you should consider Paycom Software (PAYC - Free Report) . This company, which is in the Zacks Internet - Software industry, shows potential for another earnings beat.
When looking at the last two reports, this maker of human-resources and payroll software has recorded a strong streak of surpassing earnings estimates. The company has topped estimates by 14.72%, on average, in the last two quarters.
For the last reported quarter, Paycom came out with earnings of $2.78 per share versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.28 per share, representing a surprise of 21.93%. For the previous quarter, the company was expected to post earnings of $2.93 per share and it actually produced earnings of $3.15 per share, delivering a surprise of 7.51%.
Price and EPS Surprise
Thanks in part to this history, there has been a favorable change in earnings estimates for Paycom lately. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the stock is positive, which is a great indicator of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with its solid Zacks Rank.
Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven.
The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is related to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.
Paycom has an Earnings ESP of +4.01% at the moment, suggesting that analysts have grown bullish on its near-term earnings potential. When you combine this positive Earnings ESP with the stock's Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), it shows that another beat is possibly around the corner.
When the Earnings ESP comes up negative, investors should note that this will reduce the predictive power of the metric. But, a negative value is not indicative of a stock's earnings miss.
Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, but that may not be the sole basis for their stocks moving higher. On the other hand, some stocks may hold their ground even if they end up missing the consensus estimate.
Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.
Key Takeaways GE HealthCare will acquire SOFIE Biosciences for $945M, with closing expected in the first half of 2027.SOFIE adds 15 U.S. CMO sites and 21 cyclotrons, strengthening GEHC's PET manufacturing and distribution.GEHC expects the deal to boost revenue growth, Adjusted EBIT margin and Adjusted EPS in its first full year. GE HealthCare Technologies Inc. (GEHC - Free Report) recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire SOFIE Biosciences, a U.S.-based contract manufacturing organization (CMO) specializing in PET radiopharmaceuticals, for $945 million in cash. The acquisition is expected to establish a “final mile” footprint for PET radiopharmaceutical supply in the United States and expand GE HealthCare’s presence in the growing radiopharmaceutical market. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.
Per management, the PET radiopharmaceutical market is witnessing strong growth, supported by innovative radiotracers, advances in precision care and the rising adoption of targeted therapies. SOFIE Biosciences is expected to grow in the low double digits, expanding GE HealthCare’s presence across the radiopharmaceutical value chain. GEHC plans to leverage its manufacturing expertise across the United States, Europe and Japan to expand SOFIE, strengthen supply reliability and improve patient access to next-generation precision care products, including its Flyrcado product.
GE HealthCare expects the acquisition to boost revenue growth, adjusted EBIT margin and adjusted earnings per share in the first full year of ownership.
GEHC Stock Trend Following the NewsFollowing the announcement, GEHC stock gained 2.3% at yesterday’s close. Year to date, shares of the company have fallen 19.9% compared with the industry’s 22.4% decline. However, the S&P 500 has risen 13.1% in the same timeframe.
The acquisition could strengthen GEHC’s growth profile by expanding its exposure to the high-growth radiopharmaceutical market and adding a broader U.S. manufacturing and distribution network. SOFIE Biosciences acquisition could improve GE HealthCare’s ability to serve time-sensitive PET demand while creating additional opportunities across the theranostics value chain. An expanded manufacturing footprint could improve patient access while creating opportunities to support both GEHC’s proprietary products and those of other radiopharmaceutical developers.
GEHC currently has a market capitalization of $29.04 billion.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
More on the NewsSOFIE Biosciences will add a significant U.S. manufacturing footprint to GE HealthCare’s Pharmaceutical Diagnostics (PDx) segment. It brings a network of 15 CMO sites with 21 cyclotrons across the United States, along with a theranostics-focused CDMO facility. The network is expected to support patient access to PET radiopharmaceuticals, where the 110-minute half-life of F18 products makes timely manufacturing and distribution critical.
The acquisition also gives GE HealthCare greater exposure to the industry’s radiopharmaceutical pipeline, which includes about 20 PET radiotracers and more than 30 radiotherapeutics in development. The company will gain U.S. rights to SOFIE Biosciences’ FAPI-74, a Phase III PET radiotracer with pan-cancer imaging potential. GEHC already holds outside-of-U.S. rights for the candidate. The asset could boost GEHC’s presence in the fast-growing PET imaging market, with potential diagnostic and theranostic applications across oncologic and non-oncologic indications. FAPI has the potential to further expand an already fast-growing global PET imaging market.
GE HealthCare will continue developing its own F18 portfolio while working with SOFIE Biosciences and other CMO partners. SOFIE Biosciences will remain an independent manufacturing partner for its customers after closing.
Industry Prospects Favoring the MarketAccording to a report by Precedence Research, the global radiopharmaceuticals market is estimated at $8.28 billion in 2026 and is projected to witness a CAGR of 7.3% through 2035.
Factors like the rising cancer burden, increasing adoption of PET imaging and radioligand therapies, expanding clinical validation and guidelines, and a strong pipeline of novel therapies are expected to support market growth.
Other NewsGE HealthCare recently advanced its portfolio across healthcare AI and imaging. The company launched CareIntellect for Operations, an AI-powered SaaS application that helps health systems anticipate capacity challenges up to 72 hours ahead, with Queen’s Health Systems and Duke Health as the first users. GEHC also submitted its next-generation StarGuide GX digital 4D CZT SPECT/CT system to the FDA for 510(k) clearance following its CE Mark. Its Photonova Spectra advanced photon-counting CT system received CE Mark, following FDA clearance and Japanese regulatory approval in March 2026.
Some better-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are OPKO Health (OPK - Free Report) , Globus Medical (GMED - Free Report) and West Pharmaceutical Services (WST - Free Report) .
OPKO Health, currently flaunting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), reported a second-quarter 2026 adjusted loss of 1 cent per share, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 87.5%. Revenues of $163.6 million beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 24.7%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
OPK has an estimated earnings growth rate of 23.3% for 2026. The company’s earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 95.1%.
Globus Medical, currently carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), reported a second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $1.34, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 19.6%. Revenues of $789.6 million beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.4%.
GMED has an estimated long-term earnings growth rate of 12.4%. The company’s earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 27.9%.
West Pharmaceutical, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $2.37, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 13.9%. Revenues of $872.3 million surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.2%.
WST has an estimated long-term earnings growth rate of 16%. WST’s earnings surpassed estimates in the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 17.4%.
Akcie Freshworks během úterního obchodování vzrostly o 6,8 % na nové 52týdenní maximum 14,37 USD. Čtvrtletní tržby meziročně stouply o 16 % na 237,38 mil. USD.
Freshworks Inc. (NASDAQ:FRSH – Get Free Report)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday. The stock traded as high as $14.37 and last traded at $13.9760, with a volume of 1798559 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $13.22.
Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of research firms have recently weighed in on FRSH. Robert W. Baird set a $13.00 target price on Freshworks in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. UBS Group raised their price target on Freshworks from $11.00 to $14.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Freshworks from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 8th. Guggenheim began coverage on Freshworks in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. They set a “buy” rating and a $25.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their target price on shares of Freshworks from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have assigned a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $14.46.
Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on FRSH
Freshworks Trading Up 6.8% The company has a fifty day moving average price of $12.52 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $10.32. The firm has a market cap of $3.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.10, a PEG ratio of 8.52 and a beta of 0.90. Freshworks (NASDAQ:FRSH – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The company reported $0.17 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.13 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $237.38 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $233.62 million. Freshworks had a return on equity of 5.52% and a net margin of 20.49%.Freshworks’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.18 EPS. Freshworks has set its FY 2026 guidance at 0.660-0.680 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.180-0.180 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Freshworks Inc. will post 0.05 EPS for the current year.
Insider Activity In other news, CAO Philippa Lawrence sold 3,492 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $12.98, for a total transaction of $45,326.16. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer owned 379,639 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,927,714.22. This represents a 0.91% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 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. 8.54% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.
Institutional Trading of Freshworks Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Tidal Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Freshworks during the second quarter worth about $374,000. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC grew its holdings in shares of Freshworks by 116.0% during the second quarter. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC now owns 44,010 shares of the company’s stock worth $445,000 after buying an additional 23,632 shares in the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Freshworks in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $110,000. IFP Advisors Inc raised its position in Freshworks by 51.6% in the 2nd quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 8,120 shares of the company’s stock valued at $82,000 after buying an additional 2,765 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Allworth Financial LP lifted its stake in Freshworks by 149.9% in the 2nd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 20,936 shares of the company’s stock valued at $212,000 after acquiring an additional 12,559 shares in the last quarter. 75.58% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.
About Freshworks (Get Free Report)
Freshworks Inc (NASDAQ:FRSH) develops cloud-based software designed to help businesses manage customer and employee experiences. Its products are intended for organizations of various sizes and emphasize ease of use, rapid deployment and integration with other business applications.
The company’s product portfolio includes Freshdesk for customer support and service management, Freshservice for IT service management, Freshsales for customer relationship management, Freshchat for messaging and conversational engagement, and Freshmarketer for marketing automation and optimization.
See Also Five stocks we like better than Freshworks AI Chip Demand Gives Linde a New Growth Catalyst Qualcomm’s Huawei Deal Adds Strategic Depth to Its AI Expansion 3 Sectors Where Volatility Is Creating Entry Points, Not Exit Signals D-Wave’s Gate-Model Tech Notches a Major Milestone Receive News & Ratings for Freshworks Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Freshworks and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
Carpenter Technology dosáhla ve fiskálním roce 2026 rekordního zisku a rozšiřování jejích výrobních kapacit pokračuje podle harmonogramu i v rámci rozpočtu, aby pokrylo poptávku v letectví a obraně.
AI Fatigue? These 3 Analyst-Upgraded Stocks Offer Real Growth PotentialCarpenter Technology NYSE: CRS said fiscal 2026 marked another record year for earnings, while the company continues to pursue a capacity expansion intended to support demand from aerospace and defense customers.
Speaking at the company’s virtual annual meeting of stockholders on Oct. 6, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Thene said fiscal 2026 produced the highest earnings in Carpenter Technology’s history, surpassing the prior record established a year earlier. He attributed the performance to the company’s market position, solutions portfolio and specialized capabilities.
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3 Materials Stocks Everyone Is Talking About Right Now“We believe Carpenter Technology is still in the early stages of a multi-year growth journey,” Thene said, citing aerospace and defense demand, differentiated capabilities and investments aimed at supporting future earnings and cash-flow growth.
Safety and Capacity Investment Thene said safety remains the company’s top priority and reported a total case incident rate of 1.4 for fiscal 2026. He said the company’s long-term goal remains a zero-injury workplace.
3 Steel Stocks Could Soar on New China TariffsThe company’s brownfield capacity expansion project remains on schedule and within budget, according to Thene. He said the project is intended to strengthen Carpenter Technology’s competitive position and add capacity to address growing customer demand.
Thene also said the company’s cash generation and balance sheet support what he described as a balanced capital-allocation strategy: investing in high-return growth opportunities while returning cash to shareholders. Looking ahead to fiscal 2027, he said Carpenter Technology enters the year with “confidence, momentum, and a clear vision for the future.”
Shareholders Elect Directors, Approve Proposals Stockholders elected Steven E. Karol, Charles D. McLane Jr. and Thene to three-year terms on the board, according to preliminary results announced during the meeting. Karol has served as a director since 2012 and is managing partner and founder of Watermill Group. McLane, a director since 2020, is the retired executive vice president and chief financial officer of Alcoa Corp.
Shareholders also ratified the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company’s independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2027. In addition, they approved, on an advisory basis, the compensation of Carpenter Technology’s named executive officers.
James Dee, the company’s senior vice president, general counsel and secretary, said final voting results will be reported in an SEC filing. The company reported that 49.6 million common shares were outstanding and entitled to vote as of the Aug. 7 record date, and that a quorum was present at the meeting.
Board Changes Thene recognized Colleen S. Pritchett and Howard H. Yu, whose board tenures concluded immediately before the annual meeting. He thanked both directors for their service.
The company also introduced two newer directors: Julie A. Beck, senior vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer of MSA Safety Inc., who joined the board in February 2025; and Kenneth J. Giacobbe, the retired executive vice president and chief financial officer of Howmet Aerospace Inc., who joined in August.
After the formal business concluded, Carpenter Technology opened the virtual meeting for stockholder questions and comments.
About Carpenter Technology (NYSE:CRS)Carpenter Technology Corporation is a manufacturer of specialty metals and engineered products for applications that require high performance, durability, and resistance to extreme conditions. Founded in 1889, the company produces stainless steels, nickel- and cobalt-based alloys, titanium alloys, and other specialty materials.
Its product offerings include specialty wire, rod, bar, strip, billet, and powder, as well as precision-engineered components and additive-manufacturing materials.
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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Shares of Mettler-Toledo International, Inc. (NYSE:MTD – Get Free Report) reached a new 52-week high on Tuesday. The stock traded as high as $1,585.72 and last traded at $1,552.22, with a volume of 6800 shares. The stock had previously closed at $1,541.63.
Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several research firms have recently weighed in on MTD. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on Mettler-Toledo International from $1,400.00 to $1,600.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 3rd. Barclays raised their target price on shares of Mettler-Toledo International from $1,300.00 to $1,575.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, August 3rd. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Mettler-Toledo International from $1,275.00 to $1,450.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 4th. Royal Bank Of Canada initiated coverage on shares of Mettler-Toledo International in a report on Tuesday, September 1st. They issued a “sector perform” rating and a $1,515.00 price target for the company. Finally, UBS Group initiated coverage on shares of Mettler-Toledo International in a research report on Wednesday, September 9th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $1,460.00 price objective for the company. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, nine have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $1,446.36.
View Our Latest Stock Report on Mettler-Toledo International
Mettler-Toledo International Price Performance The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 0.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 159.45. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $1,413.54 and a 200 day simple moving average of $1,292.85. The stock has a market cap of $30.46 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.11, a PEG ratio of 2.98 and a beta of 1.19. Mettler-Toledo International (NYSE:MTD – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, July 31st. The medical instruments supplier reported $11.46 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $10.78 by $0.68. Mettler-Toledo International had a net margin of 21.91% and a negative return on equity of 1,212.14%. The company had revenue of $1.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.03 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $10.09 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 4.5% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Mettler-Toledo International, Inc. will post 47.35 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Insider Buying and Selling at Mettler-Toledo International In other news, Director Thomas P. Salice sold 417 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $1,440.41, for a total transaction of $600,650.97. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 292 shares in the company, valued at $420,599.72. This represents a 58.82% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Shawn Vadala sold 2,240 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $1,432.00, for a total value of $3,207,680.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 5,579 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,989,128. The trade was a 28.65% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 4,254 shares of company stock worth $6,092,712 in the last three months. 0.71% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.
Institutional Inflows and Outflows Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Andra AP fonden raised its stake in shares of Mettler-Toledo International by 125.6% during the 2nd quarter. Andra AP fonden now owns 9,123 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock worth $11,655,000 after purchasing an additional 5,080 shares in the last quarter. Reynders McVeigh Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Mettler-Toledo International by 9.2% during the second quarter. Reynders McVeigh Capital Management LLC now owns 827 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock worth $1,057,000 after buying an additional 70 shares during the last quarter. National Pension Service increased its holdings in Mettler-Toledo International by 7.9% during the second quarter. National Pension Service now owns 39,696 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock worth $50,712,000 after buying an additional 2,916 shares during the last quarter. WINTON GROUP Ltd raised its position in Mettler-Toledo International by 509.0% during the second quarter. WINTON GROUP Ltd now owns 4,141 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock worth $5,290,000 after acquiring an additional 3,461 shares in the last quarter. Finally, IFP Advisors Inc lifted its stake in Mettler-Toledo International by 4.2% in the second quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 221 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock valued at $282,000 after acquiring an additional 9 shares during the last quarter. 95.07% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.
(Get Free Report)
Mettler-Toledo International Inc is a global manufacturer of precision instruments and related services used in laboratory, industrial, food processing, pharmaceutical and retail applications. The company’s solutions help customers measure, analyze, inspect and control materials and products throughout research, manufacturing and distribution processes.
Its product portfolio includes laboratory balances and scales, analytical instruments, automated chemistry systems, titrators, density and refractometry equipment, process analytics, industrial weighing systems, product inspection technologies and retail weighing and labeling solutions.
Recommended Stories Five stocks we like better than Mettler-Toledo International AI Chip Demand Gives Linde a New Growth Catalyst Qualcomm’s Huawei Deal Adds Strategic Depth to Its AI Expansion 3 Sectors Where Volatility Is Creating Entry Points, Not Exit Signals D-Wave’s Gate-Model Tech Notches a Major Milestone Receive News & Ratings for Mettler-Toledo International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mettler-Toledo International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
Společnost Dominion Energy měla k červenci 2026 nasmlouvanou kapacitu datových center ve výši 53,8 GW, což je o 11 % více než v prosinci 2025, a do roku 2030 plánuje investovat 65 mld. USD.
Key Takeaways Dominion Energy had 53.8 GW of contracted data center capacity as of July 2026, up 11% from December 2025. Dominion Energy plans to invest $65B through 2030 to expand infrastructure for rising electricity demand. Dominion Energy retained its 5-7% long-term operating earnings growth outlook through 2030. Dominion Energy (D - Free Report) is positioned to benefit from rising electricity demand driven by the expansion of data centers in Virginia. Data-center growth is contributing to higher electricity sales and peak demand across Dominion’s service territory.
Dominion Energy Virginia had approximately 53.8 gigawatts (GW) of contracted data-center capacity as of July 2026, up about 5.3 GW or 11% from December 2025. The total included 12 GW under electric service agreements (ESAs), 9.4 GW under construction letters of authorization and 32.4 GW under substation engineering letters of authorization. Dominion also noted that data-center customers continue to view Virginia’s network density, connectivity and established ecosystem as key advantages. The company retained its 5-7% long-term operating earnings growth outlook through 2030.
The company is expanding its infrastructure to accommodate rising electricity demand and plans to invest $65 billion through 2030. Its large-load contracting framework also includes mechanisms to recover infrastructure costs from data-center customers, helping reduce the risk of stranded costs and cost shifts to existing customers. Dominion and Santee Cooper received regulatory approval to jointly develop the 2,200-megawatt Canadys Station natural gas-fired combined-cycle facility in South Carolina to support rising electricity demand.
Overall, Dominion’s expanding data-center pipeline, rising electricity demand and infrastructure investments can support rate-base expansion, revenue growth and long-term earnings potential.
Rising Data-Center Demand Drives Utility GrowthRising data center demand is increasing electricity consumption, creating opportunities for utilities to expand infrastructure and regulated investments. This can support electricity sales, rate-base growth and stronger long-term earnings prospects.
FirstEnergy Corp. (FE - Free Report) is capitalizing on rising data-center power demand, as its contracted and pipeline load increased to 24.8 GWs, marking about 30% growth from the first quarter.
PPL Corporation (PPL - Free Report) benefits from rising data-center demand across Pennsylvania and Kentucky, with nearly 31.8 GW of potential large-load demand in Pennsylvania, including nearly 11 GW under signed ESAs.
The Zacks Rundown on DD’s Earnings EstimatesThe Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 and 2027 earnings per share indicates a year-over-year increase of 4.97% and 6.21%, respectively.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Debt to CapitalD's debt-to-capital ratio currently stands at 61.38%, lower than the Zacks Utility - Electric Power industry’s 62.33%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
D’s Stock Price PerformanceIn the past six months, the company’s shares have plunged 2.7% compared with the industry’s 13.9% decline.
F5 dosáhla nového 52týdenního maxima 471,32 USD poté, co za čtvrtletí vykázala zisk na akcii (EPS) 4,73 USD a tržby 865,08 milionu USD, čímž překonala očekávání analytiků.
Shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV – Get Free Report) hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday. The stock traded as high as $471.32 and last traded at $470.1210, with a volume of 16210 shares. The stock had previously closed at $458.53.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Barclays raised their target price on F5 from $386.00 to $397.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Wall Street Zen upgraded F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 1st. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Thursday, July 16th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $416.62.
Read Our Latest Report on FFIV
F5 Trading Up 1.7% The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $412.39 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $378.96. The stock has a market cap of $26.40 billion, a PE ratio of 37.29, a PEG ratio of 4.30 and a beta of 1.03. F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.00 by $0.73. The company had revenue of $865.08 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $834.60 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.54% and a net margin of 21.95%.F5’s revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $4.16 earnings per share. F5 has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 17.210-17.330 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 13.65 earnings per share for the current year.
Insider Transactions at F5 In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $412.44, for a total transaction of $1,559,848.08. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,624,143.16. This trade represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Fountain sold 1,208 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $414.63, for a total transaction of $500,873.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,341,917.80. This trade represents a 13.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 16,829 shares of company stock worth $6,815,302. Company insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.
Institutional Inflows and Outflows Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. CX Institutional raised its position in F5 by 17.7% during the 3rd quarter. CX Institutional now owns 733 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $326,000 after purchasing an additional 110 shares during the last quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. increased its position in F5 by 14.5% during the 2nd quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,474 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $613,000 after buying an additional 187 shares in the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC grew its position in F5 by 14.6% during the 2nd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 22,144 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $9,211,000 after purchasing an additional 2,814 shares during the last quarter. National Pension Service raised its holdings in F5 by 10.5% in the 2nd quarter. National Pension Service now owns 14,091 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $5,861,000 after acquiring an additional 1,341 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the second quarter worth approximately $459,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
F5 Company Profile (Get Free Report)
F5, Inc develops application delivery, security and management technologies that help organizations deploy, protect and optimize applications across data centers, public clouds, edge environments and distributed networks. Its offerings are designed to support application availability, performance, scalability and security across hybrid and multi-cloud architectures.
The company’s portfolio includes BIG-IP application delivery and security solutions, NGINX web and application delivery technologies, and F5 Distributed Cloud services.
Further Reading Five stocks we like better than F5 AI Chip Demand Gives Linde a New Growth Catalyst Qualcomm’s Huawei Deal Adds Strategic Depth to Its AI Expansion 3 Sectors Where Volatility Is Creating Entry Points, Not Exit Signals D-Wave’s Gate-Model Tech Notches a Major Milestone Receive News & Ratings for F5 Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for F5 and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
Credo Technology v 1. čtvrtletí zvýšila tržby o 114,7 % na 479 milionů USD a její zisk na akcii (EPS) ve výši 1,20 USD překonal konsensus ve výši 1,17 USD.
Credo Technology has already handed investors gains that most stocks never deliver in a lifetime, and Wall Street thinks there is still room to run. A specific combination of product launches, rising estimates, and hyperscaler spending could push shares far…
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Credo Technology (NASDAQ:CRDO | CRDO Price Prediction) sells the wiring that keeps AI clusters talking. Its Active Electrical Cables (AECs) connect GPUs to switches across one to seven meters.
The lineup now also covers optical DSPs, silicon photonics chips, and ZeroFlap optics, which pair hardware with Pilot telemetry software to flag a weak link before it fails. Chief executive Bill Brennan says the portfolio “now spans connectivity from millimeters to kilometers.”
Shares are up 51.95% year-to-date through October 2 and trade at $209.86 this morning. Credo has posted seven consecutive quarters of triple-digit revenue growth. Several things would need to go right for Credo to reach $650 per share in 2027, a gain of about 210%.
Wall Street Already Sees 34% Upside, and Estimates Keep Rising The average analyst target is $281.09, which means about 34% upside. Analysts count 5 Strong Buy and 14 Buy ratings against one Hold. For fiscal 2027 (ending April), they expect EPS of $6.3063 on revenue of about $2.5 billion. In fiscal 2028, those forecasts rise to $9.6906 in EPS and $3.87 billion in revenue.
Recent results support those forecasts: first-quarter revenue reached $479 million, up 114.7%, and EPS of $1.20 exceeded the $1.17 consensus. That makes eight consecutive quarterly beats, which suggests Credo’s actual results could keep coming in above forecasts.
Here’s the Math Behind $650 per Share Credo currently trades at 33x fiscal 2027 estimates and 22x fiscal 2028 estimates. A move to $650 would put the stock at 67x fiscal 2028 earnings. Forecasts call for EPS to grow 54% in fiscal 2028, with management expecting revenue to rise more than 85% this fiscal year and a net margin in the vicinity of 50%.
What Could Push Credo to $650? Rising estimates: 90 days ago, analysts expected $8.9125 in fiscal 2028 EPS. Today the figure is $9.6906, with 14 upward revisions in 30 days against one cut. Optical ramp: Credo targets more than $600 million in optical revenue this year. ZeroFlap optics, silicon photonics chips, and optical DSPs should each contribute more than $100 million. Brennan called fiscal 2027 “just a stepping stone for where we’re going with our optical business.” Fiscal 2028 launches: Active LED Cables reach up to 30 meters, and OmniConnect could mean “thousands of dollars of Credo content per GPU.” Revenue from both is expected to start in fiscal 2028, along with a bigger push from 1.6T AECs. Near-term guidance: Second-quarter revenue guidance of $525 million to $535 million points to more sequential growth. Customer concentration remains a risk: the two largest customers made up 33% and 28% of revenue. A beta of 3.228 means any slowdown in AI spending would hit the stock hard.
Credo Nearly Tripled in Three Months This Year Credo’s history makes a 210% gain look less extreme. The stock rose 245% in 2024 and 114% in 2025. From the March 2026 close of $93.87 to the June close of $271.95, shares gained 190%.
Even the move from the 52-week low to the 52-week high was 257%. At a market value near $39.21 billion, repeating gains like that is harder, but it can still happen.
Is $650 Realistic? Here’s My Take Reaching $650 would take a gain of about 210%. Analysts see solid upside, estimates are rising, and Credo keeps beating them.
If optical sales grow as planned, the new products launch on schedule, and hyperscalers keep spending, $650 is within reach. Returns at this level are rare, but we’ve outlined the blueprint for how Credo could deliver exceptional gains by 2027.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Crescent Energy má před zveřejněním výsledků kladný ukazatel Earnings ESP ve výši 11,44 % a Zacks Rank #1; v minulém čtvrtletí překonala konsenzuální odhad EPS o 16,95 %.
Looking for a stock that has been consistently beating earnings estimates and might be well positioned to keep the streak alive in its next quarterly report? Crescent Energy (CRGY - Free Report) , which belongs to the Zacks Alternative Energy - Other industry, could be a great candidate to consider.
This oil and gas company has an established record of topping earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. The company boasts an average surprise for the past two quarters of 26.42%.
For the last reported quarter, Crescent Energy came out with earnings of $0.69 per share versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.59 per share, representing a surprise of 16.95%. For the previous quarter, the company was expected to post earnings of $0.39 per share and it actually produced earnings of $0.53 per share, delivering a surprise of 35.90%.
Price and EPS Surprise
Thanks in part to this history, there has been a favorable change in earnings estimates for Crescent Energy lately. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the stock is positive, which is a great indicator of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with its solid Zacks Rank.
Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven.
The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is related to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.
Crescent Energy currently has an Earnings ESP of +11.44%, which suggests that analysts have recently become bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This positive Earnings ESP when combined with the stock's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) indicates that another beat is possibly around the corner.
Investors should note, however, that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss, but a negative value does reduce the predictive power of this metric.
Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, but that may not be the sole basis for their stocks moving higher. On the other hand, some stocks may hold their ground even if they end up missing the consensus estimate.
Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.
Akcie společnosti Insmed v pondělí klesly téměř o 7 % poté, co finanční ředitelka Sara Bonstein oznámila, že k 30. říjnu odejde. Společnost potvrdila výhled tržeb přípravku Brinsupri na rok 2026 ve výši 1,25 až 1,40 mld. USD.
Key Takeaways Insmed shares fell nearly 7% after CFO Sara Bonstein announced she will step down on Oct. 30.Insmed reaffirmed 2026 revenue guidance, including $1.25-$1.40 billion for Brinsupri.Bonstein's exit follows her nearly seven-year tenure during Insmed's growth and $4.2 billion capital raise. Shares of Insmed (INSM - Free Report) declined nearly 7% on Monday after the company announced that its chief financial officer (CFO), Sara Bonstein, will step down from her role effective Oct. 30.
The departure came as a surprise to investors, given Bonstein’s nearly seven-year tenure as CFO and her role during a significant period of Insmed’s growth and transformation.
While Insmed did not specify the reason for this transition, it stated that Bonstein’s departure is not related to any disagreement with the company concerning accounting practices, financial statements, internal controls or operations.
Although the leadership change introduces some uncertainty for investors, Insmed reaffirmed its 2026 revenue guidance. This suggests that management has not made any changes to its current financial outlook following the CFO transition.
Why Did INSM Stock Fall on CFO Departure News?The sharp decline appears to be primarily due to investor uncertainty surrounding the unexpected departure of a long-serving senior executive. Bonstein oversaw Insmed’s finance organization during a period in which the company raised more than $4.2 billion in capital and transitioned into a commercial-stage biotech.
The timing of this departure may have further contributed to the negative reaction. Insmed is entering an important phase of growth, with Brinsupri rapidly scaling and the company targeting cash-flow positivity in 2027. Although Bonstein will remain in her role through the company’s third-quarter 2026 earnings release and conference call on Oct. 29, Insmed has already begun searching for her successor.
Year to date, shares of Insmed have lost 40% against the industry’s 3% growth.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Insmed Reiterates 2026 Revenue GuidanceDespite the CFO transition, the company reaffirmed its full-year 2026 revenue guidance for its marketed products, Arikayce and Brinsupri.
Insmed continues to expect Brinsupri revenues between $1.25 billion and $1.40 billion, while Arikayce sales are in the range of $450-$470 million. Notably, the Brinsupri outlook was raised during its second-quarter results announcement from the previous guidance of at least $1 billion, while the Arikayce guidance remained unchanged.
While Arikayce is approved to treat refractory mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) lung disease in certain adults with limited or no treatment options, Brinsupri is approved for non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis (NCFB) in individuals aged 12 years and above.
INSM’s Zacks RankInsmed currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Our Key Picks Among Biotech StocksSome better-ranked stocks in the sector include AC Immune (ACIU - Free Report) and Viking Therapeutics (VKTX - Free Report) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Over the past 60 days, estimates for AC Immune’s 2026 loss per share have narrowed from 84 cents to 60 cents. Over the same period, earnings estimate for 2027 remained unchanged at 17 cents per share. ACIU shares have lost about 14% year-to-date.
AC Immune’s earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 33.25%.
Over the past 60 days, estimates for Viking’s 2026 loss per share have narrowed from $4.50 to $4.47, while those for 2027 have narrowed from $4.11 to $4.08. VKTX shares have lost nearly 17% year-to-date.
Viking’s earnings beat estimates in one of the trailing four quarters and missed the mark on the other three occasions, with the average negative surprise being 26.47%.
Life Time otevře koncem roku 2027 v bostonském Commonwealth Pier atletický klub o rozloze přibližně 45 000 čtverečních stop. Půjde o jeho osmý klub v oblasti Velkého Bostonu.
45,000-square-foot destination will anchor comprehensive health & wellness offerings within landmark redevelopment while expanding Life Time's presence across Greater Boston
, /PRNewswire/ -- Life Time, (NYSE: LTH), the nation's premier healthy lifestyle brand, today announced plans to open a new athletic club and social wellness destination at Commonwealth Pier in late 2027. The club will be Life Time's eighth in the Greater Boston market since debuting in 2015 and will bring its distinctive healthy way of life ecosystem to one of the country's most dynamic waterfront neighborhoods.
Located in Boston's Seaport District, the approximately 45,000-square-foot destination will overlook Boston Harbor and occupy a prominent location within Commonwealth Pier, the historic waterfront property reimagined by Pembroke as a vibrant mixed-use destination featuring premier office, retail, hospitality and cultural experiences. Pembroke has transformed the historic pier into an iconic destination designed to foster connection with the waterfront, the Seaport neighborhood and the city's rich history and culture.
"The opportunity to introduce Life Time to the Seaport neighborhood makes Commonwealth Pier especially compelling as we look for locations where we can have the greatest impact on how people live," said Parham Javaheri, Executive Vice President, President Real Estate and Chief Property Development Officer. "We're excited to create an athletic club with fitness, wellness and social spaces and experiences that reflect the character and rhythm of the neighborhood and feel distinctly connected to Boston."
Life Time's architecture and design team is creating a destination that maximizes its first waterfront setting with dramatic floor-to-ceiling glass windows, soaring 40-foot ceilings and panoramic views of Boston Harbor. Once open, members will enjoy one of the most distinctive environments in the company's growing Boston portfolio, complete with Life Time's exclusive boutique studio formats and classes, dynamic personal training, a co-ed rejuvenation wet suite featuring sauna, warm and cold thermal experiences, and recovery-focused amenities designed to support overall well-being, performance and healthy aging. It will also feature a LifeCafe and bar.
"We are thrilled to welcome Life Time to Commonwealth Pier and bring its distinctive approach to health, wellness and community to Boston's waterfront," said Kristan McLaughlin, Director, Customer Experience and Asset Operations, Pembroke. "What is particularly exciting is the opportunity to extend that impact beyond Life Time's membership through free public fitness programming and broader community partnerships. Together with Life Time and the Museum of American Finance, we also look forward to exploring programming with Boston Public Schools that supports student enrichment across both mind and body."
Originally opened in 1913 as the largest pier building in the Northeast and later home to the Seaport World Trade Center, Commonwealth Pier has played an important role on Boston's waterfront for more than a century. Pembroke's redevelopment preserves that history while introducing a new mix of office, dining, retail, cultural and public spaces, including a revitalized Harborwalk that reconnects the property with Boston Harbor.
Life Time entered the Boston market in 2015 with the opening of Life Time Westwood, and today operates additional destinations in Burlington, Chestnut Hill, Framingham, Medford, and Peabody and, most recently The Prudential Center, which opened in October 2025. The addition of Commonwealth Pier further strengthens Life Time's presence in some of Greater Boston's most vibrant and desirable communities.
Atlantic Retail's Peter Considine and Sean Gildea represented Life Time in the transaction. Graffito's Dave Downing and Angela VanArsdale represented Pembroke in this transaction.
A waitlist has been established for those interested in learning more and having the opportunity to join as members. Further information will be announced in the coming months. For more information about Life Time, visit the Life Time Newsroom, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
About Life Time
Life Time (NYSE: LTH) empowers people to live healthy, happy lives through its more than 195 athletic country clubs across the U.S. and Canada, the complimentary and comprehensive Life Time app featuring its L•AI•C™ AI-powered health companion, and more than 30 iconic athletic events. Serving people ages 90 days to 90+ years, the Life Time ecosystem uniquely delivers healthy living, healthy aging, and healthy entertainment experiences, a range of unique healthy way of life programs, highly trusted LTH nutritional supplements and more. Recognized as a Great Place to Work®, the company is committed to upholding an exceptional culture for its more than 50,000 team members.
About Commonwealth Pier
Commonwealth Pier is a year-round waterfront destination that invites exploration, connection and community along Boston Harbor. Anchored in the Seaport neighborhood, it offers an experience where dining, work and leisure converge with the city's history, arts, culture and innovation. Originally opened in 1913 and known as Commonwealth Pier, later home to the Seaport World Trade Center for decades, the historic site has been comprehensively reimagined by Pembroke as today's Commonwealth Pier, honoring its legacy while embracing a new future. The new Commonwealth Pier brings together a dynamic mix of new restaurants and retail, modern office space, a waterfront plaza, a revitalized Harborwalk, the Seaport East and West office towers and the Seaport Hotel — all woven together through art and thoughtfully designed green spaces, connecting locals and visitors to the broader Boston community and waterfront. For more information, please visit commonwealthpier.com.
About Pembroke
Pembroke is an international real estate advisor that acquires, develops and manages properties and places, specializing in mixed-use, residential and office environments in the world's leading cities. The business facilitates private capital for its investors and takes a long-term approach to real estate, investing in markets with proven growth potential.
Pembroke has offices in Boston, Hamburg, London, Munich, San Francisco, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo and Washington, DC, and manages more than 9.8 million square feet / 915,000 square meters across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. By combining a global perspective with deep local expertise, Pembroke creates and manages world-class properties that deliver strong outcomes for their customers, investors and the communities they serve. Learn more at Pembroke.com and connect on LinkedIn.
View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/life-time-announces-plans-for-new-urban-athletic-club-with-panoramic-harbor-views-at-bostons-commonwealth-pier-302899962.html
BofA zahájila pokrytí společnosti Diodes (DIOD) doporučením „koupit“ a cílovou cenou 135 USD; očekává průměrný roční růst zisku na akcii o 58 % v letech 2026 až 2028.
Diodes (Nasdaq: DIOD), the analog semiconductor supplier, has been initiated with a buy rating and $135 price target by Bank of America (BofA), which expects the company to grow earnings per share at a 58% annual rate from 2026 to 2028, well ahead of the 35% forecast for analog chip peers.
The target rests on 17 times 2028 pro forma earnings per share, which reflects normalized earnings.
Diodes makes small, high-volume analog and discrete chips used in power management, timing and connectivity in cars, servers and factories, and ships 45 billion units a year to 50,000 customers.
The forward price-to-earnings multiple has dropped from about 38 to below 17 in recent months, reflecting concern that growth and earnings are near a peak, which the bank disputes.
Diodes has outgrown its market in every upturn since 2001 and holds less than 2% of a $134 billion addressable market, relying on acquisitions and early design wins.
Auto should lead the next phase, with Diodes' content per vehicle rising 50% in two years to $239 and further growth potential from connectivity, driver assistance and electric vehicles.
AI data center sales, now 12% of the total, could triple by 2030 as the value of Diodes chips in each server rack increases.
Gross margins have lagged the revenue recovery by six quarters, and customer notice data points to margin-boosting activity in the second half of 2026 and 2027, implying upside to consensus gross margins.
Larger analog rivals that can bundle products, and subsidized Chinese suppliers at the low end, could squeeze Diodes, which sits in the middle of the analog value chain.
Its hybrid manufacturing model can limit its ability to capture demand in an upturn and leaves it exposed to cost increases, and its small scale is a risk.
Shares of Diodes rose over 6% to trade at $109.85 on Tuesday afternoon.
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Darling Ingredients prodala společnosti SARIA divizi CTH, výrobce obalů na uzeniny, za nezveřejněnou cenu, aby zjednodušila své portfolio a snížila zadlužení.
Key Takeaways DAR sold its CTH-branded sausage casings business to SARIA for an undisclosed amount.The CTH sale supports DAR's efforts to simplify its portfolio and reduce debt.DAR cut net debt by $223 million in Q2 and targets year-end leverage below 2.0X. Darling Ingredients Inc. (DAR - Free Report) continues to streamline the portfolio as it focuses capital on businesses offering stronger integration and longer-term value creation. The company has completed the sale of its CTH-branded sausage casings business to SARIA for an undisclosed amount. The transaction reflects Darling Ingredients’ ongoing effort to optimize its portfolio, simplify the business mix and use divestiture proceeds to support further debt reduction.
The timing also aligns with Darling Ingredients’ balance-sheet priorities. During the second quarter, the company reduced net debt by $223 million and ended the period with a preliminary leverage ratio of 2.3X, compared with 2.9X at the start of 2026. Further supporting this effort, Darling Ingredients closed the sale of a majority of its trap business on July 22 for approximately $90 million. Darling Ingredients is targeting year-end net debt at or below $3 billion and a leverage ratio below 2X, with divestiture proceeds potentially helping advance that goal.
The CTH transaction further sharpens Darling Ingredients’ portfolio by directing greater focus toward businesses offering stronger integration and long-term value creation potential. This move also supports the company’s broader portfolio-optimization strategy and disciplined approach to capital allocation.
Meanwhile, Darling Ingredients’ Food Ingredients business remains supported by improving fundamentals. In the second quarter, segment sales increased 5.8% to $408.5 million, while adjusted EBITDA rose 55.1% to $108.5 million from $69.9 million a year earlier. The improvement was supported by stronger global collagen demand and expanding applications across food, nutrition and health products. These trends provide a firmer operating backdrop as Darling Ingredients continues to improve the Food Ingredients mix toward higher-value collagen and targeted health applications.
Darling Ingredients’ Zacks Rank & Share Price PerformanceShares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have gained 8.3% in the past three months against the broader Consumer Staples sector and the industry’s decline of 6.1% and 5.7%, respectively. DAR has also outperformed the S&P 500 index’s growth of 1.6% during the same period.
DAR Stock's Past Three Months Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Is DAR a Value Play Stock?Darling Ingredients currently trades at a forward 12-month P/E ratio of 9.11, which is down from the industry average of 13.51 and notably below the sector average of 15.99. This valuation positions the stock at a modest discount relative to both its direct peers and the broader consumer staples sector.
DAR P/E Ratio (Forward 12 Months)
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Stocks to ConsiderThe Chefs' Warehouse, Inc. (CHEF - Free Report) distributes specialty food and center-of-the-plate products in the United States, the Middle East and Canada. At present, CHEF flaunts a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The consensus estimate for Chefs' Warehouse’s current fiscal-year sales and earnings implies growth of 10.8% and 33.7%, respectively, from the year-ago reported figures. Chefs' Warehouse delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 30.4%, on average.
Mama's Creations, Inc. (MAMA - Free Report) manufactures and markets fresh deli-prepared foods in the United States. At present, MAMA holds a Zacks Rank of 2 (Buy). Mama's Creations delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 121.7%, on average.
The consensus estimate for Mama's Creations’ current fiscal-year sales and earnings implies growth of 30.3% and 66.7%, respectively, from the year-ago figures.
Utz Brands (UTZ - Free Report) engages in the manufacture, marketing and distribution of snack foods in the United States. It presently carries a Zacks Rank of 2. UTZ delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 1.8%, on average.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Utz Brands’ current financial-year sales indicates growth of 3.7% from the year-ago numbers.
Construction Partners kupuje aktiva společnosti J.H. Strain v Texasu, včetně dvou asfaltových provozů, vybavení a převzetí více než 125 zaměstnanců, čímž posiluje své působení v Abilene a západním Texasu.
Key Takeaways Construction Partners is adding two asphalt plants, crews and equipment through its Texas acquisition.ROAD gains more than 125 employees and J.H. Strain's experienced workforce and fleet.The deal strengthens Lone Star's presence in Abilene and expands its reach across West Texas. Construction Partners, Inc. (ROAD - Free Report) , or CPI, is expanding its Texas operations through the acquisition of J.H. Strain & Sons, Inc.’s asphalt manufacturing and construction assets. The transaction adds two hot-mix asphalt plants, related crews and equipment to Lone Star Paving, the company’s Texas platform.
Construction Partners Builds Its Position in AbileneThe acquisition also brings more than 125 employees to Lone Star and adds J.H. Strain’s fleet and experienced workforce to the platform. The acquired operations serve the greater Abilene area, while J.H. Strain brings a longstanding presence in the market.
Abilene is a growing Texas market with ongoing investment, including several data center-related developments. The added plants, equipment and workforce give Lone Star a local presence to serve public and private infrastructure customers across the greater Abilene area and West Texas.
Construction Partners’ Acquisition Strategy Broadens Its Growth BaseConstruction Partners has been using acquisitions to expand its local market presence and strengthen the vertically integrated operating network. The company completed its Oklahoma acquisition on Aug. 31, 2026, followed by the Florida acquisition on Sept. 21, before adding the Texas assets. The recent deals span asphalt production, transportation and roadway construction capabilities across its existing markets.
Construction Partners expects acquisitions to contribute about 22% of growth at the midpoint of its fiscal 2026 guidance, with approximately $140 million of acquired revenues carrying into fiscal 2027. The company also has an active pipeline of acquisition opportunities, including both tuck-in and platform opportunities.
ROAD Stock’s PerformanceShares of this Alabama-based civil infrastructure company have declined 15.2% over the past six months, underperforming the Zacks Building Products - Miscellaneous industry, the broader Zacks Construction sector and the S&P 500 Index.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Construction Partners has faced pressure from higher energy costs and weather-related disruptions that can affect project activity. The company has been dealing with energy cost inflation and periods of unusually wet weather across its markets. Its cost pass-through model helps address higher input costs, but these factors remain relevant to operating performance.
Nonetheless, the underlying demand environment remains favorable. The company is seeing healthy bid activity, project lettings and contract awards across its markets, supported by continued investment in transportation infrastructure. Data center construction is also becoming a growing part of commercial activity, with the company pursuing projects across its existing footprint.
ROAD’s Zacks Rank & Key PicksConstruction Partners currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Here are some better-ranked stocks from the same sector.
Sterling Infrastructure, Inc. (STRL - Free Report) currently holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Sterling delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 27.2%, on average. The stock has gained 36.9% in the past six months. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Sterling’s 2026 sales and EPS indicates growth of 65.1% and 84%, respectively, from a year ago.
EMCOR Group, Inc. (EME - Free Report) presently carries a Zacks Rank of 2. It has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 12.2%, on average. Shares of EMCOR have gained 3.8% in the past six months.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for EMCOR’s 2026 sales and EPS indicates growth of 19.6% and 27.5%, respectively, from the prior-year levels.
JACOBS SOLUTNS (J - Free Report) currently has a Zacks Rank of 2. It delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 3%, on average. JACOBS stock has jumped 9% in the past six months.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for JACOBS’ fiscal 2027 sales and EPS imply an increase of 6.4% and 14.5%, respectively, from a year ago.
SoFi shares have collapsed nearly 40% this year even as the company keeps beating forecasts and adding members at a record pace. The path to a dramatic recovery exists, but it depends on a few catalysts Wall Street has not…
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SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ:SOFI | SOFI Price Prediction) has been one of 2026’s toughest stocks to own. Shares sit at $15.97, down 39% year-to-date and well below the 52-week high of $32.73. The business continues to expand.
In the second quarter, SoFi added a record 2.2 million products. For the first time, it added twice as many products as members, a milestone CEO Anthony Noto called “a clear inflection point for SoFi.” With the stock close to its lows, I want to lay out how SoFi could reach $25 per share in 2027.
Wall Street Sees 27% Upside as 2027 Estimates Rise The consensus price target of $20.35 implies about 27% upside. Analysts expect 2027 EPS of $0.8240, compared with $0.5947 in 2026. That works out to roughly 39% growth, on about 25% revenue growth. Ninety days ago, the 2027 estimate stood at $0.8127. Over the past 30 days, analysts made five up revisions and two down ones.
SoFi has also met or beaten EPS expectations for six straight quarters, and revenue topped estimates in every one of them. In Q2, EPS came in at $0.12, above the $0.1092 forecast. A run like that suggests the current estimates may turn out to be conservative.
Here’s What It Takes for SoFi to Reach $25 SoFi trades at about 19x 2027 earnings, below the S&P 500’s forward multiple of roughly 22x. At $25, the multiple would be about 30x. That is a premium, but management’s medium-term guidance calls for 38% to 42% annual EPS growth through 2028, and the stock’s PEG ratio is just 0.596.
Here’s what could drive SoFi to $25.
SoFi Plus growth: The relaunched subscription passed 200,000 paid members in one quarter. Noto said, “I’d be disappointed if we are not at 1 million SoFi Plus members generating annual revenue of $120 million a year from now.” Record lending with better credit: Originations reached $14.80 billion, up 69%. Over the same period, the personal loan charge-off rate fell to 2.62% from 2.83%. Capital-light platform deals: Basepoint Capital signed a $3 billion small-business loan agreement, and Sixth Street committed up to $1 billion for personal loans. Deposit funding: Deposits rose to $45.5 billion, supporting a net interest margin of 5.98%. New growth drivers: Big Business Banking, the SoFiUSD stablecoin, and planned Mastercard (NYSE:MA) card settlement in SoFiUSD were all launched outside the original 2026 plan. Raised guidance: 2026 adjusted revenue guidance now stands at $4.75 billion to $4.85 billion. With a beta of 2.208, SoFi would gain more than most stocks from falling rates and a strong market. A downturn would make $25 toughest to reach.
SoFi’s History Says a 57% Gain Is Possible Reaching $25 requires a gain of about 57%. SoFi has cleared that bar in two of its last three full years. Shares rose 116% in 2023 and 70% in 2025. The 55% gain in 2024 fell just short. SoFi’s volatility works in both directions.
Is $25 Realistic? Here’s My Take A 57% gain is ambitious, but Wall Street already sees 27% upside, 2027 estimates are rising, and SoFi keeps beating forecasts.
Key hurdles remain: Technology Platform revenue fell 23% after a large client left, and consumer-credit risk never goes away. If cross-selling keeps accelerating and the market rewards that growth, $25 is within reach. Returns at this level aren’t an annual occurrence, but we’ve outlined the case for how SoFi could see outsized returns in 2027.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
MasTec očekává, že upravený EPS v roce 2026 meziročně vzroste o 42 % na 9,30 USD, a to po dosažení rekordního objemu zakázek ve výši 21,4 miliardy USD, který byl meziročně vyšší o 30 %.
Key Takeaways MasTec's Q2 revenues rose 23.4% year over year and adjusted EPS surged 48.8% to $2.22.MTZ's record $21.4 billion backlog climbed 30%, led by a 58% gain in Clean Energy and Infrastructure.The Superior Group acquisition adds 3,000 employees and strengthens MasTec's data-center capabilities. MasTec, Inc.’s (MTZ - Free Report) latest outlook underscores a strong 2026 growth trajectory, with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) expected to jump 42% year over year to $9.30. The upgraded guidance follows a record second quarter, supported by broad-based demand and improving profitability.
In the second quarter of 2026, revenues increased 23.4% year over year to $4.37 billion, while adjusted EBITDA climbed nearly 40% to $384.2 million. Adjusted EPS surged 48.8% to $2.22, with the adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 100 basis points (bps) to 8.8%. Backlog provides further visibility. MasTec’s record 18-month backlog reached $21.4 billion, up 30% year over year and $1.1 billion sequentially. Clean Energy and Infrastructure led the backlog gains, rising 58% year over year. The segment’s revenues surged 43.4%, while EBITDA advanced 53.9%.
Power Delivery also remained a solid contributor, with revenues up 19.2% and EBITDA rising 23.7%. Pipeline Infrastructure was another standout, delivering 19.1% revenue growth and a 91% increase in EBITDA. Broad-based growth across communications, clean energy, power delivery and pipeline infrastructure markets is aiding the growth trajectory. Higher project activity, particularly in energy infrastructure, along with improved execution and productivity, adds to the tailwinds.
MTZ also closed the acquisition of The Superior Group, adding about 3,000 employees and strengthening its data-center infrastructure capabilities. The deal broadens its exposure to growing power and digital infrastructure demand. The combination of accelerating backlog, margin expansion, segment diversification and Superior’s capabilities makes the 42% EPS growth outlook a compelling marker of MasTec’s improving earnings power.
Competitive Landscape: MasTec vs. EMCOR & QuantaAI-driven data-center expansion, grid modernization and digital infrastructure spending are creating a favorable demand backdrop for MasTec, alongside other renowned infrastructure peers including EMCOR Group, Inc. (EME - Free Report) and Quanta Services, Inc. (PWR - Free Report) .
EMCOR benefits from robust AI infrastructure and data-center demand, supported by $15.62 billion of remaining performance obligations and disciplined capital allocation spanning organic investment, acquisitions and shareholder returns. Quanta remains leveraged to grid modernization and power demand from data centers, while pursuing disciplined capital deployment.
However, labor shortages, tariffs, inflation, permitting delays, elevated rates and potential project-cost pressures remain near-term risks for MTZ as well as its peers, including EMCOR and Quanta. Yet, MasTec’s broader exposure to clean energy, pipelines, communications and mission-critical construction offers diversification against these peers.
MTZ Stock’s Price Performance & Valuation TrendShares of this Florida-based infrastructure construction company have plunged 35.2% over the past six months, underperforming the Zacks Building Products - Heavy Construction industry, the broader Zacks Construction sector and the S&P 500 index.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
MTZ stock is currently trading at a premium compared with its industry peers, with a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 18.28, as shown in the chart below.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
EPS Trend of MTZMTZ’s earnings estimates for 2026 have trended down over the past 30 days to $9.30 per share, while they grew over the same time frame to $12.83 per share for 2027. The estimated figures for 2026 and 2027 imply 42% and 37.9% year-over-year growth, respectively.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
MasTec stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:DNA – Get Free Report) reached a new 52-week high on Tuesday. The company traded as high as $18.22 and last traded at $15.5170, with a volume of 2024663 shares. The stock had previously closed at $14.98.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several analysts recently issued reports on DNA shares. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Ginkgo Bioworks to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, August 17th. Oppenheimer set a $5.00 price target on shares of Ginkgo Bioworks in a research report on Wednesday, September 9th. BTIG Research reissued a “sell” rating and issued a $5.00 price target on shares of Ginkgo Bioworks in a research note on Friday, September 4th. TD Cowen lowered shares of Ginkgo Bioworks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $12.00 to $9.00 in a report on Friday, August 7th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Ginkgo Bioworks in a research report on Friday, July 17th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and a consensus target price of $6.33.
Check Out Our Latest Research Report on Ginkgo Bioworks
Ginkgo Bioworks Stock Performance The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $8.22 and its 200 day simple moving average is $8.22. The company has a market cap of $874.81 million, a PE ratio of -2.55 and a beta of 1.79. Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE:DNA – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 5th. The company reported ($0.75) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.90) by $0.15. Ginkgo Bioworks had a negative return on equity of 60.27% and a negative net margin of 259.96%.The business had revenue of $20.16 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $24.05 million. Analysts forecast that Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. will post -3.2 EPS for the current year.
Insider Activity In other news, Director Christian Henry sold 5,000 shares of Ginkgo Bioworks stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.08, for a total value of $35,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 19,310 shares in the company, valued at approximately $136,714.80. This trade represents a 20.57% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders own 12.69% of the company’s stock.
Institutional Trading of Ginkgo Bioworks A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in DNA. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its holdings in Ginkgo Bioworks by 1.8% in the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 123,959 shares of the company’s stock valued at $760,000 after buying an additional 2,178 shares in the last quarter. Strategic Advocates LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ginkgo Bioworks by 808.9% during the 4th quarter. Strategic Advocates LLC now owns 4,381 shares of the company’s stock worth $36,000 after acquiring an additional 3,899 shares in the last quarter. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ginkgo Bioworks in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $50,000. Arizona State Retirement System acquired a new stake in shares of Ginkgo Bioworks in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $102,000. Finally, Entropy Technologies LP purchased a new position in Ginkgo Bioworks in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $67,000. 78.63% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Ginkgo Bioworks Company Profile (Get Free Report)
Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc is a biotechnology company that develops biological engineering technologies and services. Its platform is designed to help customers program cells and microorganisms to produce products or perform functions for applications in areas such as pharmaceuticals, agriculture, food, chemicals and materials.
The company combines biological research, laboratory automation, genetic engineering, data analysis and software through its cell-programming platform and foundry operations.
See Also Five stocks we like better than Ginkgo Bioworks AI Chip Demand Gives Linde a New Growth Catalyst Qualcomm’s Huawei Deal Adds Strategic Depth to Its AI Expansion 3 Sectors Where Volatility Is Creating Entry Points, Not Exit Signals D-Wave’s Gate-Model Tech Notches a Major Milestone Receive News & Ratings for Ginkgo Bioworks Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Ginkgo Bioworks and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
Key Takeaways KMT's Metal Cutting organic sales rose 22% in fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 on share gains and project wins.Infrastructure organic sales jumped 74%, driven by pricing and project execution across key markets.KMT targets a $500 million aerospace cutting-tools market with innovation and a three-year pipeline. Kennametal Inc. (KMT - Free Report) is benefiting from solid demand across both its segments. Its investment in product development and shareholder-friendly policies also bodes well.
KMT currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Let’s delve into the factors that have been aiding the firm for a while now.
Solid Momentum in Metal Cutting Segment: Kennametal’s Metal Cutting business continues to benefit from share gains, higher aerospace build rates and project wins in energy. In fourth-quarter fiscal 2026, its organic sales rose 22% year over year. On a constant-currency basis, the segment’s sales increased 36% in energy, 35% in aerospace & defense and 25% in general engineering end markets. The Metal Cutting segment’s growth was supported by data center power generation wins, higher aerospace build rates and indirect-channel share gains.
Recovery in Infrastructure Segment and Pricing Momentum: Kennametal’s Infrastructure segment is benefiting from pricing, share gains and project execution across several end markets. The segment’s organic sales rose 74% year over year in the fiscal fourth quarter. On a constant-currency basis, energy end market’s sales increased 135%, earthworks rose 76%, aerospace & defense advanced 63% and general engineering increased 37%. Earthworks end market’s growth reflected higher volume in surface mining and construction, including share gains tied to material availability. Energy end market’s growth was driven mainly by pricing in the Americas, while aerospace & defense end market benefited from pricing and strategic initiatives in the Americas and EMEA.
In the past year, the company’s shares have gained 54.4% compared with the industry‘s 9.8% growth.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Innovation and Portfolio Investment: Kennametal continues to invest in product development, digital capabilities and higher-growth applications. In aerospace, the company is targeting a roughly $500 million market for cutting tools used on carbon fiber reinforced plastics, which it estimates will grow 9% annually through 2028. Kennametal is pursuing the opportunity through proprietary geometry and material science, a broader product portfolio, application engineering, channel relationships and a three-year innovation pipeline. KMT also highlighted a recent customer win after it supplied a superior composite-cutting product and guaranteed supply during a competitor disruption.
Shareholder Returns With Discipline: Kennametal continues to return cash through dividends while adjusting repurchases to protect liquidity. In fiscal 2026, the company paid $60.8 million in dividends and repurchased $10.1 million of shares, returning about $71 million to shareholders. Since the $200 million repurchase program was authorized in February 2024, the company has bought back about $70 million of stock. However, the company has paused further repurchases until cash flow turns positive as tungsten-related working capital remains elevated.
Other Stocks to ConsiderSome other top-ranked companies are discussed below:
Helios Technologies (HLIO - Free Report) currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
HLIO delivered a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 13.1%. In the past 60 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Helios Technologies’ 2026 earnings has increased 10%.
Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT - Free Report) presently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). It has a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 4.3%.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AIT’s fiscal 2027 earnings has increased 1.4% in the past 60 days.
Crane Company (CR - Free Report) presently carries a Zacks Rank of 2. It has a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 10.4%.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CR’s 2026 earnings has increased 0.4% in the past 60 days.
Key Takeaways SharkNinja is expanding AI across consumer research, product development and marketing.AI is shortening early design work and broadening insights into consumer conversations.SharkNinja expects AI benefits to become more visible in 2027 as initiatives scale. SharkNinja, Inc. (SN - Free Report) is expanding its use of Artificial Intelligence across consumer research, product development and marketing. Through its Jailbreak SharkNinja initiative, employees develop tools to address business challenges. Management aims to turn deeper consumer understanding into faster innovation, stronger product decisions and more effective marketing across established franchises and emerging categories.
The initiative is progressing alongside strong business momentum. Second-quarter 2026 sales increased 22.2% year over year to $1.77 billion, while adjusted earnings per share rose 29.9% to $1.26. Domestic and international sales grew 15.5% and 36.6%, respectively. Research and development spending increased 22.3% to $109.3 million, supporting product development and expansion.
AI is broadening SharkNinja’s visibility into consumer conversations beyond branded hashtags, which appear in fewer than 20% of user content. These insights increasingly guide marketing and product development. The technology is also shortening early design work that previously took months, supporting core categories that receive roughly 20 of the company’s 25 annual product launches.
Execution centers on eight major AI projects and 20 smaller initiatives, with leadership reviewing progress every two weeks. Early results from Palantir’s promotions optimization work prompted a second phase. On its second-quarter earnings call, management expected fourth-quarter benefits from this partnership and initial gains from an Amazon Web Services media optimization system, with broader scaling in 2027.
SharkNinja raised its 2026 sales growth outlook to 16-17% from 11.5-12.5%. Management expects AI’s influence on product innovation and consumer insights to become more visible in 2027. It also sees opportunities to grow with roughly flat headcount, allowing resources to support further expansion while faster development and better consumer intelligence strengthen the product pipeline.
SN’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesShares of SharkNinja have jumped 75.4% over the past six months against the industry’s 0.3% decline.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, SN trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 3.16, above the industry’s average of 3.03.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SharkNinja’s fiscal 2026 earnings implies year-over-year growth of 23.9%, while the same for fiscal 2027 indicates an uptick of 15.6%. Estimates for fiscal 2026 and 2027 have been revised upward by 38 cents and 45 cents, respectively, over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
SharkNinja currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Other Key PicksLifetime Brands (LCUT - Free Report) is a leading designer, marketer and distributor of kitchenware, cutlery & cutting boards, bakeware & cookware, pantryware & spices, tabletop and bath accessories. It currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Lifetime Brands’ current financial-year sales and earnings indicates growth of 4.4% and 156.8%, respectively, from the year-ago reported figures. LCUT delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 271.1%, on average.
Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc. (ALH - Free Report) is a provider of commercial laundry systems. It currently carries a Zacks Rank of 2.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Alliance Laundry’s current financial-year earnings and sales suggests growth of 31.4% and 6.3%, respectively, from the year-ago actuals. ALH delivered a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 19.7%.
G-III Apparel Group, Ltd. (GIII - Free Report) designs, sources, distributes and markets a broad range of apparel and accessories under owned, licensed and private-label brands. The company also holds a Zacks Rank of 2 at present.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for G-III Apparel’s current financial-year earnings and sales indicates decline of 13.8% and 8.4%, respectively, from the year-ago actuals. GIII delivered a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 1.4%.
Akcie společnosti AST SpaceMobile v úterý vzrostly o 8,38 % poté, co USA podpořily partnerství firmy s Rakuten v oblasti satelitní infrastruktury na nízké oběžné dráze Země (LEO).
Washington just put AST SpaceMobile's name in a bilateral tech deal with Japan, sending shares surging while rivals barely moved. The question now is whether a billion-dollar satellite award and superpower backing can overcome the company's persistent cash burn.
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AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS) gained 8.38% to $63.34 in Tuesday trading. The jump came after Washington publicly backed the company’s satellite partnership with Japan’s Rakuten. Before the move, the stock had fallen 11.62% between September 8 and October 5, and it is still down 12.79% year to date.
Washington Backs the Rakuten Partnership by Name The White House science chief Michael Kratsios met Japanese minister Toshiharu Furukawa in Kyoto on October 4, 2026. The joint statement on the U.S.-Japan Technology Prosperity Deal issued after that meeting named AST SpaceMobile directly:
“Both sides welcomed Japan’s Rakuten Group and the U.S.-based AST SpaceMobile cooperation for the development and deployment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite infrastructure.”
The two governments also committed to Indo-Pacific connectivity work “through the use of government financing and assistance that mobilizes the private sector.”
Japan’s J-LEO Award Could Pay for Half of Its Satellites Japan’s communications ministry has initially selected the Rakuten joint venture for its J-LEO initiative, a deal worth up to approximately $1 billion. On the August call, President Scott Wisniewski framed the award as part of a wider trend:
“We see the J-LEO project as a real proof point for how countries, large countries, are thinking about their own infrastructure. This is infrastructure they can control and get access to.”
Management said the Japanese-flagged satellites represent “roughly half of the investment on those satellites” in capital that is “non-dilutive and non-debt.” Asked whether other countries might follow, management said: “I don’t know why a G20 country wouldn’t want this kind of capability given the price.”
That outside funding matters because the company is still burning cash. Q2 revenue came in at $31.52 million, missing expectations of $34.40 million. EPS of -$0.77 also missed the -$0.29 consensus. Pro forma liquidity tops $3.70 billion, and the company confirmed its 2026 revenue guidance of $150 million to $200 million.
Globalstar and Iridium Have Already Rallied This Year The two closest peers have far outperformed AST SpaceMobile in 2026. Globalstar (NASDAQ:GSAT) is up 36.65% year to date. Iridium Communications (NASDAQ:IRDM | IRDM Price Prediction) has rose 185.59%. On Tuesday, though, Globalstar dropped 0.16% and Iridium added 1.2%, which points to a rally specific to AST SpaceMobile.
Valuation shows how much growth investors are already expecting. AST SpaceMobile trades at 197 times trailing sales, compared with 39 for Globalstar.
Morgan Stanley’s SpaceX Call Put Space Stocks in Play Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) analyst Adam Jonas repeated his Outperform rating on SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) with a $300 price target. He said that investors have only a few weeks to act before the next Starship test flight. SpaceX itself rose just 2%, while AST SpaceMobile posted the largest gain in the sector, 24/7 Wall St. reported.
Approvals and Satellite Launches Will Decide What Comes Next The J-LEO award still needs government approvals and final agreements. The company is aiming for about 45 satellites in orbit by early 2027, up from 13 today, and plans beta service later this year. CEO Abel Avellan said:
“Our growing commercial and government programs, expansive spectrum portfolio, and fortified balance sheet provide us with the flexibility to capture opportunities across an expanding total addressable market.”
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Key Takeaways SoundHound is extending OASYS across IoT, automotive systems, TVs and Voice Commerce.New deals bring OASYS agents to automotive diagnostics, TVs and in-car transactions.SOUN posted 45% revenue growth but remained loss-making and used nearly $60M in operating cash. SoundHound AI (SOUN - Free Report) is widening the reach of its agentic AI beyond traditional voice applications as it pushes deeper into connected devices, automotive systems and Voice Commerce. The strategy centers on OASYS, its self-learning agentic platform, which allows AI agents to operate independently of a specific channel and extend across physical and digital touchpoints. Management says OASYS agents can support vehicle assistants, retail transactions and other complex workflows across multiple verticals.
IoT Deals Broaden OASYS ReachMomentum is becoming visible in the Internet of Things (IoT) market. During the second quarter, SoundHound secured an IoT deal with an automotive maintenance and diagnostic company that plans to use AI agents to improve on-site productivity. The customer will integrate with OASYS, enabling purpose-built agents to work across multiple channels.
SoundHound is also moving into consumer electronics. A multinational electronics manufacturer agreed to deploy its technology for agentic transactions directly through TVs, while the company signed another automotive brand for in-car Voice Commerce. These initiatives could turn connected devices into transaction points, expanding monetization opportunities beyond licensing and voice assistance.
Growth Opportunity Comes With Execution RiskThe broader business provides encouraging momentum. Second-quarter revenues increased 45% year over year to $61.9 million, while SoundHound raised its 2026 revenue outlook to $230-$260 million. However, the company remained loss-making and used nearly $60 million of operating cash during the first half.
The completed LivePerson acquisition further expands SoundHound across voice, web, mobile, SMS and social channels. If OASYS can successfully connect these digital channels with cars, TVs and other devices, SoundHound could materially broaden its agentic AI addressable market.
SoundHound Faces Competition From Cerence and AlphabetCerence (CRNC - Free Report) remains a key competitor as SoundHound expands agentic AI across connected vehicles and IoT environments. Cerence offers generative AI-powered in-car assistants that can be embedded or cloud-connected, giving automakers control over branded, context-aware voice experiences. Cerence’s deep automotive specialization and established OEM relationships could make it harder for SoundHound to expand in vehicle-based commerce and connected-device applications.
Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) represents another major competitive threat as Google broadens the reach of Gemini across its device and automotive ecosystem. Gemini is being integrated into Android, Android Auto and vehicles equipped with Google built-in, allowing users to complete increasingly complex tasks through AI-driven interactions.
Alphabet’s extensive Android footprint gives it a significant distribution advantage as agentic AI expands across smartphones, vehicles and connected devices. Its automotive ambitions are also deepening through partnerships such as Mahindra, where Gemini-powered capabilities are being incorporated into in-vehicle experiences.
Still, SoundHound’s channel-independent OASYS platform and focus on OEM-controlled deployments could help it differentiate against both Cerence and Alphabet.
SOUN’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesSoundHound’s shares have lost 40.9% year to date (YTD), underperforming the industry, as shown below.
SOUN’s YTD Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, SOUN trades at a forward price-to-sales (P/S) multiple of 9.29, slightly lower than the industry’s average.
SOUN’s P/S Ratio (Forward 12-Month) vs. Industry
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Over the past 60 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for SoundHound’s 2026 and 2027 loss per share has narrowed to 19 cents and 14 cents, respectively, as shown below. The expected loss for 2026 remains wider than the previous year’s loss of 13 cents per share.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
SOUN currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Petrobras a Ecopetrol dokončily v kolumbijském Karibiku průzkumnou kampaň v hodnotě zhruba 1 miliardy USD, která vedla k objevům zemního plynu ve vrtech Sandia-1 a Copoazú-1.
Key Takeaways PBR and EC completed a two-and-a-half-year campaign with five wells and $1 billion invested.Sandia-1 and Copoazu-1 discoveries reinforce the Colombian Caribbean's gas-bearing potential.Petrobras and Ecopetrol will focus on appraisal, resource assessment and development planning. Petrobras (PBR - Free Report) is strengthening its position in Colombia’s offshore natural gas sector with the completion of a large-scale exploration campaign in the deepwater Caribbean. Recently, PBR and Ecopetrol (EC - Free Report) declared the completion of the two-and-a-half-year program, which involved drilling five exploration wells and approximately $1 billion in investment. Petrobras served as operator with a 44.4% interest, while Ecopetrol, a Colombia-based integrated oil and gas company, held the remaining 55.6% stake in the GUA-OFF-0 contract with the country’s National Hydrocarbons Agency.
The campaign is important for Petrobras because it extends the exploration portfolio beyond the core Brazilian operations while creating exposure to a potentially significant natural gas province. More importantly, the program has moved beyond pure exploration activity, producing discoveries that could support future resource development and strengthen Colombia’s domestic gas supply.
Successful Exploration Campaign Expands Gas PotentialThe campaign covered a demanding offshore operating environment and required substantial technical and logistical coordination. Petrobras led the planning and execution of activities spanning geoscience, engineering, maritime operations, aviation, port services and oceanographic work.
According to Ecopetrol, the project required more than 1,000 helicopter flights and 1,400 hours of flight time to move more than 16,000 passengers. Maritime operations transported more than 147,600 tons of cargo and 45 million liters of fuel, while vessels covered more than 22,000 nautical miles.
For investors, the scale of the campaign demonstrates Petrobras’ ability to manage complex deepwater exploration programs while maintaining operational discipline. The companies reported no accidents or operational incidents during the two-and-a-half-year campaign, supporting the partners’ execution track record in a technically challenging region.
Discoveries Improve the Investment CaseThe exploration effort has already produced encouraging results. On Aug. 3, 2026, Petrobras and Ecopetrol announced a natural gas discovery at the Sandia-1 exploratory well in the GUA-OFF-0 block. The well was drilled in about 1,285 meters of water and is located close to the Sirius and Copoazú discoveries, reinforcing the geological potential of the broader area.
The Sandia discovery followed the Copoazú-1 gas discovery announced in March 2026. Copoazú-1 was drilled in approximately 964 meters of water and further expanded the companies’ understanding of the gas-bearing system in the Colombian Caribbean.
These developments are strategically relevant for Petrobras. Exploration success can help replenish oil and gas resources over time and create additional opportunities to participate in future production growth. While discoveries alone do not immediately translate into cash flow, successful appraisal, development and commercialization could enhance the long-term value of the company’s Colombian portfolio.
Gas Demand Provides a Strategic TailwindThe Colombian Caribbean is becoming increasingly important as the country seeks to develop domestic natural gas resources. Ecopetrol has highlighted energy security and greater gas availability as key objectives of its offshore exploration strategy.
For Petrobras, the opportunity fits with its broader approach of exploring new frontiers through partnerships while leveraging the deepwater capabilities. The company has previously identified offshore Colombia as a long-term exploration focus and has a track record in the region, including an earlier gas discovery in 2014.
The partnership structure also distributes exploration exposure between Petrobras and Ecopetrol. Petrobras contributes its offshore operating expertise, while Ecopetrol maintains the larger economic interest in the block. Such arrangements can help the companies share the capital requirements and technical risks associated with frontier exploration.
What Should Investors Watch Next?The completion of the campaign marks a transition from drilling activity toward evaluating the commercial potential of the discoveries. Further geological analysis, appraisal work and development planning will be important before investors can determine the size and economic value of the resources.
Investors should therefore focus on the pace of appraisal activity, resource assessments and any future development decisions linked to the Sirius, Copoazú and Sandia discoveries. The ability to convert exploration success into economically viable production will ultimately determine the financial impact on Petrobras.
Overall, the completion of the Colombia campaign represents a constructive development for Petrobras. The company has expanded its knowledge of a promising offshore gas basin, added another discovery to the region’s growing resource base and demonstrated the ability to execute a complex exploration program. With natural gas demand and energy security remaining key priorities in Colombia, the company’s offshore position could provide a longer-term growth opportunity alongside its broader exploration portfolio.
PBR's Zacks Rank & Key PicksCurrently, PBR has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), while EC sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
Investors interested in the energy sector might consider some better-ranked stocks, such as Marathon Petroleum (MPC - Free Report) and Delek US Holdings (DK - Free Report) , each sporting a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Marathon Petroleum is valued at $123.29 billion. The company is a leading U.S. independent refiner, marketer and transporter of petroleum products, with a strong refining footprint and an extensive midstream business. Marathon Petroleum benefits from its integrated operations, strategic refining assets and diversified earnings streams across the energy value chain.
Delek US Holdings is valued at $4.54 billion. It is a diversified downstream energy company engaged in petroleum refining, renewable fuels, asphalt production and logistics operations. Delek US Holdings operates multiple refineries in the United States and is committed to delivering safe, reliable energy while investing in cleaner energy initiatives.
Key Takeaways D-Wave Quantum entered Q3 focused on converting $35.5 million in first-half bookings into revenues. QBTS secured access to up to $100 million in CHIPS Act funding to advance U.S. quantum capabilities. AT&T cut network optimization time from about one hour to under 15 seconds using D-Wave technology. D-Wave Quantum (QBTS - Free Report) entered the third quarter with a key focus on converting its strong booking pipeline into reported revenues. First-half bookings reached $35.5 million, up 1,120% year over year, while production applications accounted for 37.3% of first-half QCaaS revenues.
On Sept. 8, the company entered into a definitive agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, building on its previously announced Letter of Intent. The agreement provides D-Wave access to up to $100 million in funding under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, supporting its efforts to advance domestic quantum computing capabilities.
On Aug. 5, D-Wave also reported a research advance published in Nature involving its superconducting dual-rail architecture and quantum error correction. This development adds to the company’s ongoing efforts to advance its quantum computing architecture and improve the reliability and scalability of its systems.
Meanwhile, on Jul. 27, D-Wave and AT&T (T) signed an agreement to expand AT&T’s use of D-Wave’s quantum computing technology. In early work, AT&T reduced network optimization processing time from approximately one hour to less than 15 seconds using D-Wave’s quantum technology, highlighting the potential of quantum computing to improve the efficiency of complex network-related processes.
Peer UpdateIonQ (IONQ - Free Report) entered the third quarter with a significant change in its financial outlook. It completed the SkyWater acquisition on July 31, adding semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging capabilities to its quantum platform. IonQ updated its 2026 revenue outlook to $450-$460 million, including SkyWater's contribution from the acquisition date through year-end. The company also launched its Superion 256 platform, with first customer deliveries expected in 2027.
Rigetti’s (RGTI - Free Report) third-quarter growth is likely to be driven primarily by government-backed technology investment and efforts to strengthen its commercialization infrastructure, rather than near-term revenue acceleration. In September, the Commerce Department finalized up to $100 million in CHIPS R&D funding for the company, supporting the development of superconducting quantum computing, including fabrication and related technologies. Rigetti also established a dedicated Systems Delivery organization in August to support and scale on-premises customer deployments.
QBTS’ Price PerformanceOver the past year, QBTS’ shares have lost 55.3% compared with the broader Internet Software industry’s 3.9% decline.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
QBTS’ Expensive ValuationQBTS currently trades at a forward 12-month Price-to-Sales (P/S) of 81.42X compared with the industry average of 4.40X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
QBTS Stock Estimate TrendIn the past 30 days, the company’s loss per share estimate for 2026 has remained unchanged.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
QBTS stock currently has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Expand Energy si vybrala Thoughtworks jako technologického partnera pro zavedení umělé inteligence napříč podnikem. Řešení připravené pro produkční provoz chce nasadit do konce roku 2026.
Key Takeaways Expand Energy selected Thoughtworks to scale AI beyond isolated projects across its business.The three-pronged effort targets AI opportunities, enterprise platforms, governance and solution delivery.Expand Energy aims for a production-ready AI solution by the end of 2026. Expand Energy Corporation (EXE - Free Report) is taking a major step toward scaling artificial intelligence (AI) across its business by selecting Thoughtworks as its strategic technology partner. The engagement is designed to help the company move beyond isolated AI projects and build an enterprise-wide capability spanning AI strategy, platform development and production deployment.
Building an Enterprise-Wide AI CapabilityAs North America's largest independent natural gas producer, Expand Energy operates across exploration and production as well as energy marketing. These businesses offer significant opportunities to use AI to improve processes and unlock value. The company aims to take a coordinated approach by identifying its highest-value AI opportunities and developing the infrastructure needed to scale them across the organization.
The multi-phase engagement with Thoughtworks will combine AI strategy, use-case prioritization, machine learning platform implementation and production deployment. Expand Energy plans to have a production-ready AI solution in place by the end of 2026, aligning the initiative with its long-term strategic priorities.
Three-Pronged Approach to AI DeploymentThoughtworks will support Expand Energy through three connected workstreams. The first will focus on identifying and prioritizing high-value AI opportunities by working with business and technical stakeholders across the company. This is intended to ensure AI investments are closely aligned with Expand Energy's strategic objectives.
The second workstream will establish the enterprise AI foundations required for broader adoption. This includes designing and beginning to implement data, platform and governance capabilities that can support AI at scale.
The third will focus on solution delivery and workforce enablement. Thoughtworks will build and deploy a high-priority AI solution while establishing an operating model for continued AI development. Expand Energy teams will also be enabled to adopt and scale AI responsibly across the organization.
EXE Is Moving From AI Pilots to ProductionExpand Energy's initiative is aimed at addressing the challenges that often arise when companies attempt to scale AI beyond individual experiments. Rather than separating planning from implementation, the engagement combines strategy and delivery from the outset.
Early proof-of-concept development will provide practical insights into data readiness, integration requirements, adoption challenges and potential business value. These findings can then be used to refine the company's AI roadmap and operating model based on real-world evidence.
Laying the Groundwork for Agentic AIThe partnership also establishes an operational foundation for expanding AI into business operations. Thoughtworks highlighted the importance of moving from isolated AI experimentation toward agentic AI capable of delivering business value at scale.
For Expand Energy, the initiative combines its industry expertise and leadership commitment with Thoughtworks' experience in AI strategy, enterprise machine learning platforms, machine learning operations, responsible AI governance and workforce enablement.
By integrating AI strategy, infrastructure and solution delivery into one program, Expand Energy is positioning itself to identify promising applications and build the capabilities needed to deploy them across the business. The initiative represents an important step in the company's broader digital transformation as it seeks to make AI a scalable part of its operations.
EXE’s Zacks Rank & Key PicksExpand Energy is a leading U.S.-based natural gas producer formed through the merger of Chesapeake Energy Corporation and Southwestern Energy Company. Currently, EXE has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Investors interested in the energy sector may consider some top-ranked stocks like Drilling Tools International Corporation (DTI - Free Report) , Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. (FET - Free Report) and Montauk Renewables, Inc. (MNTK - Free Report) , each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Drilling Tools International is a global oilfield services provider focused on supplying downhole tools used in horizontal and directional drilling. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for DTI’s 2026 revenues indicates 1.6% year-over-year growth.
Forum Energy is a global oilfield products company, serving the subsea, drilling, completion, production and infrastructure sectors of the oil and natural gas industry. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for FET’s 2026 earnings indicates 536.5% year-over-year growth.
Montauk Renewables is a fully integrated renewable energy company that specializes in the management, recovery and conversion of biogas into renewable energy. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for MNTK’s 2026 earnings indicates 1100% year-over-year growth.
Planet Labs vypustila 20 satelitů včetně Tanageru-2, 18 satelitů SuperDove a prototypu Suncatcher, čímž rozšiřuje kapacitu pro téměř každodenní globální monitoring Země.
Key Takeaways Planet Labs launched 20 satellites, including Tanager-2, 18 SuperDoves and a Suncatcher prototype.Tanager-2 uses hyperspectral imaging to identify methane emissions and support several applications.The SuperDoves are set to boost PlanetScope capacity for near-daily global monitoring and diverse customers. Planet Labs PBC (PL - Free Report) has successfully launched 20 satellites aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, marking another step in expanding its satellite constellation and Earth-observation capabilities. The launch included the company’s second Tanager satellite, 18 SuperDoves and the first demonstration mission associated with Google’s Project Suncatcher.
The company established initial contact with Tanager-2, the Suncatcher prototype and two SuperDove satellites following deployment. The remaining 16 SuperDoves are expected to be deployed through D-Orbit’s ION satellite carrier as planned. The mission represents Planet Labs’ 40th successful launch and brings the total number of satellites the company has built and delivered to orbit to 718.
The Suncatcher demonstration is designed to test the feasibility of using Google Tensor Processing Units in space for machine-learning workloads. Meanwhile, Tanager-2, developed with Carbon Mapper, is equipped with hyperspectral imaging capabilities designed to identify methane emissions and support applications such as rare-earth element identification, water-quality monitoring and agricultural intelligence. The satellite captures imagery across 426 contiguous spectral bands with approximately 5-nanometer spectral resolution and 30-meter spatial resolution. Planet Labs expects to launch at least three additional Tanager satellites.
The 18 SuperDoves are part of PL’s Flock 4J mission and are expected to add capacity to the company’s PlanetScope constellation, which provides near-daily global monitoring. The expanded fleet is intended to support commercial customers as well as civil government, defense and intelligence applications.
Planet Labs plans additional launches to further expand its satellite constellations and support growing demand for satellite services, data and vertically integrated geospatial intelligence solutions. The company’s latest launch therefore adds capacity across multiple satellite platforms while advancing its efforts to broaden Earth-observation coverage and capabilities.
Taking a Look at PL’s CompetitorsRedwire Corporation (RDW - Free Report) benefits from a record backlog, better revenue visibility, repeat defense awards and rising UAS and ISR demand. Margin improvement reflects better execution as the business scales. Capacity projects in Huntsville and Georgetown are aligned with real demand areas and backed by stronger liquidity. RDW invested in phased-array antenna technology for space communications. Redwire also reaffirmed its full-year 2026 revenue forecast of $450-$500 million. The $475 million midpoint implies 41.6% year-over-year growth. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is pegged at $471 million, which is lower than the midpoint of the company's guided range.
Satellogic (SATL - Free Report) is gaining from strong sovereign and defense demand, rising adoption of persistent monitoring and improving operating leverage. The successful launch of its first Merlin satellite strengthens SATL’s path toward daily global remapping and full operational service in the second half of 2027. In the second quarter, revenues surged 259% year over year to $15.9 million, while adjusted EBITDA turned positive at $2.8 million. Growth was supported by sovereign satellite deliveries and expanding Aleph Observer subscriptions. Satellogic also ended the quarter with $80.7 million in contracted backlog, including $45.8 million expected within 12 months, providing solid revenue visibility.
PL’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesPlanet Labs’ shares have lost 50.6% over the past six months compared with the Satellite and Communication industry’s 21.4% decline.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Planet Labs’ shares are trading at a forward 12-month price-to-sales multiple of 11.89X, significantly higher than the industry’s ratio of 2.93X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PL’s earnings for fiscal 2027 has been revised upward over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
PL currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Planet Labs zvýšila ve 2. čtvrtletí fiskálního roku 2027 tržby o 58 % na 116 mil. USD a zvedla spodní hranici výhledu celoročních tržeb na 430–441 mil. USD.
Key Takeaways Planet Labs' 51% slide contrasts with 58% revenue growth and rising defense demand.PL had an $815M backlog and expects fiscal 2027 revenues to be in the range of $430-$441M. Planet Labs has $865M in liquidity to fund expansion, though valuation and execution risks remain. Planet Labs PBC’s (PL - Free Report) shares have declined 50.6% over the past six months, raising a familiar question for investors: Is the selloff a warning sign or an opportunity to buy?
Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Planet Labs provides daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions. The company has a differentiated position in the Earth-observation industry, combining daily global monitoring with a decade-long imagery archive.
However, a lower share price alone does not establish a buying opportunity. Let’s discuss the company’s growth factors and the risks it faces to assess investment prospects and make an informed decision.
Defense Demand Main Driver for Planet LabsRevenues surged 58% year over year to $116 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2027. Defense and Intelligence revenues (including satellite services revenues) rose more than 90% year over year, while commercial and civil-government revenues increased over 15% and 5%, respectively.
The handover of the Pelican satellite to the Swedish Armed Forces supported top-line growth. In August, the company was awarded a satellite services tender by Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior, making the country the first civil government to procure Planet Labs’ dedicated Constellation Services. The tender includes options and has a maximum possible value of €25 million over five years.
At its last earnings call, Planet Labs also highlighted an $8 million August award from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for its Global Monitoring Service.
Management raised the lower end of fiscal 2027 revenue guidance to $430-$441 million, representing 40-43% growth. It also projected adjusted EBITDA profit of $3-$10 million and targeted positive annual adjusted free cash flow.
PL’s Backlog Provides Revenue VisibilityThe company had a backlog of approximately $815 million, up about 11% year over year at the end of the fiscal second quarter. Roughly 50% of the backlog applies to the next 12 months and 70% to the next 24 months. Within Planet Labs’ eligible annual contract value book, recurring contracts represented 98%, and net dollar retention was 109%. Remaining performance obligations (“RPO”) totaled approximately $753 million, up 9% year over year.
Management estimates that executing contracts already in backlog could generate more than $400 million in revenues over the next four quarters, excluding new business and renewals. Management added that the company is confident it can sustain “high growth rates in future years,” supported by near-term visibility and pipeline strength.
This visibility is important as Planet Labs ramps up its satellite services business. On the last earnings call, management added that it had identified more than $4 billion in satellite-services opportunities, with over 25% qualified as near-term.
Planet Labs is also expanding capacity to support this opportunity. The company recently opened its Berlin manufacturing facility, which is expected to produce Pelican satellites and eventually scale to as many as 60 satellites per year.
AI and Satellite Upgrades Expand PL’s OpportunityCommercial applications are already emerging. An expanded six-figure renewal with a hyperscaler AI developer covers monitoring of global data centers and semiconductor-facility construction, illustrating how Planet Labs can participate in AI infrastructure growth through intelligence services.
The company is also advancing its satellite roadmap. On Oct.1, Planet Labs announced the launch of 20 satellites which includes a Google Project Suncatcher prototype, Tanager-2 and 18 SuperDoves. This launch was the 40th for Planet Labs, which now has a total of 718 satellites built and delivered into orbit. Suncatcher satellite will test Google’s Tensor Processing Units in space for the first time.
Looking ahead, Planet Labs is accelerating Owl, its upcoming next-generation monitoring satellite. Owl is expected to upgrade Planet Labs' monitoring capabilities from 3-meter to 1-meter-class resolution while providing roughly 10 times more data at about 10 times the speed, added management.
PL’s Sizable Financial ResourcesPlanet Labs exited the second quarter of fiscal 2027 with approximately $865 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, up more than 200% year over year. This increase was driven by positive free cash flow and proceeds from capital transactions over the past year.
The company generated $68.4 million in net cash from operating activities, while free cash flow was $21.3 million for the six months ended July 31, 2026. Adjusted free cash flow (excluding nonrecurring payments related to litigation settlements) was $28.8 million. PL generated nearly $120 million from stock sales under its ATM program. This sizable liquidity position gives Planet Labs ample flexibility to accelerate investments as demand for its satellite services and AI-enabled solutions grows.
No Case Is Without RisksQuarterly performance will remain uneven owing to the timing of satellite deliveries. Sweden’s satellite handover pulled revenues into the fiscal second quarter from the fiscal third quarter. Fiscal third-quarter guidance of $101-$105 million therefore implies a sequential revenue decline, alongside an expected adjusted EBITDA loss of $1-$6 million.
Growth also requires substantial investment. Planet Labs spent about $29 million in capital expenditures in the fiscal second quarter and expects fiscal 2027 capex of $100-$115 million. Management expects capex to increase in future quarters as it plans to channel spending toward manufacturing expansion in San Francisco and Berlin, supply-chain resiliency and next-generation satellite fleets.
Moreover, the increasing competition in the Earth observation space leaves less room for execution missteps. New satellites and AI offerings must deliver commercially, not merely meet development milestones. Planet Labs faces competition in the space from players such as BlackSky Technology (BKSY - Free Report) , Satellogic (SATL - Free Report) and Intuitive Machines, Inc. (LUNR - Free Report) .
PL’s ValuationPlanet Labs is trading at a forward 12-month price/sales ratio of 11.89X, higher than the Satellite and Communication sector’s multiple of 2.98X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The premium valuation to an extent is justified by its stronger growth profile, expanding backlog and rising defense exposure.
In comparison, BlackSky Technology trades at a forward 12-month P/S multiple of 4.51X, while Satellogic and Intuitive Machines are trading at a multiple of 12.62X and 2.97X, respectively.
Over the past six months, BKSY, SATL and LUNR have registered losses of 37.2%, 23.4% and 37.1%, respectively.
PL: A Buying Opportunity?At present, PL carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Planet Labs’ sharp share-price decline appears to offer a favorable entry point given its strong revenue growth, sizable backlog and expanding opportunities across defense. Its solid liquidity position provides room to fund expansion, while execution risks and elevated valuation remain key considerations.
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Akcie společnosti Centrus Energy v úterý vzrostly o 11,3 % poté, co ministerstvo energetiky USA oznámilo, že společnosti Vistra poskytne půjčku ve výši 4,2 mld. USD, přestože nic nenasvědčuje tomu, že Vistra je zákazníkem společnosti Centrus.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced it will loan nuclear power company Vistra Corp (VST +11.95%) $4.2 billion to finance nuclear plant upgrades "across Vistra's nuclear fleet in Pennsylvania and Ohio," igniting a rally in nuclear power stocks Tuesday.
Shares of Vistra soared more than 11% through noon ET. Centrus Energy (LEU +10.89%) did even better, running up 11.3%.
Image source: Getty Images.
Vistra and CentrusPresident Trump has announced an "American nuclear renaissance," and the loan to Vistra is part of this plan. The $4.2 billion will be used to preserve capacity and extend the service life of Vistra's plants, and to expand electricity production by more than 10% by adding 433 megawatts (MW) of new nuclear capacity.
Investors probably think that this good news for Vistra is good news for Centrus Energy, too. After all -- Vistra uses nuclear fuel; Centrus produces (or more commonly, buys and resells) nuclear fuel. It seems logical that more power generation at Vistra should translate directly into Vistra buying more nuclear fuel from Centrus.
And yet, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, at least, there's no indication that Vistra is a customer of Centrus -- and no solid reason to believe that Vistra's expansion will in fact benefit Centrus stock.
Today's Change
(
10.89
%) $
15.41
Current Price
$
156.85
What it means for Centrus stockThat's not to say othercompanies won't buy more fuel from Centrus, of course. If the DOE loan is the start of a string of similar loans expanding nuclear power production across the U.S., for example, this could very well happen.
It's just not a given.
And "given" that Centrus stock is currently free cash flow-negative, and costs 83.5 times earnings today, I'm not convinced it's a great idea to bid up Centrus shares even more, on news that might not relate to it at all.
Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Vistra. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Key Takeaways Morgan Stanley sees about 75% upside for SpaceX, citing Starship and AI growth catalysts.SpaceX shares jumped about 7.7% on Monday following Morgan Stanley's bullish call.SpaceX-heavy ETFs provide a diversified way to tap into SpaceX's growth story. After reaching highs in the initial days following its mid-June IPO, SpaceX (SPCX - Free Report) shares fell sharply, declining about 48% through late July. However, since the start of August, the aerospace company’s stock has turned the tables, rebounding about 58%.
Morgan Stanley’s (MS - Free Report) bullish call on Sunday added to SPCX’s momentum, with shares rising about 7.7% on Monday to their highest level since mid-June. SPCX rose about 0.40% during pre-market hours on Tuesday.
According to analysts at Morgan Stanley, SpaceX is “cheap” at current prices, highlighting potential catalysts, including “future AI product releases, Starship progress, and additional neocloud contracts,” as quoted on a CNBC article.
With a Buy recommendation, Morgan Stanley analysts have set a $300 price target, suggesting about 75% upside from Monday’s close of $171.09. As quoted on the abovementioned article, Morgan Stanley analysts recommended buying SpaceX shares ahead of the next planned Starship test flight and the company’s third-quarter earnings report, which is expected in late October.
What's Driving Morgan Stanley's Bullish SpaceX Call?According to analysts at the investment bank, a successful attempt to catch the Starship upper-stage ship in the upcoming test flight, Starship flight 15, could mark the company’s most significant positive development since its IPO.
Adding to the bullish case for SPCX is the company’s AI business. SpaceX’s AI unit. Elon Musk said on Sunday that it is expected to be named SpaceXSI. It is generating significant revenues by renting out computing capacity. SpaceX’s AI business is gaining traction, with Anthropic and Google already among its major customers and it has signed multibillion-dollar deals. Microsoft is expected to become another key customer.
As reported by Reuters, according to Anthropic’s confidential IPO prospectus, Anthropic is expected to spend as much as $84.5 billion through 2029 on NVIDIA-powered computing capacity supplied by SpaceX’s AI unit.
Into SPCX’s Stock OutlookSpaceX currently has an average brokerage recommendation (ABR) of 1.77 on a scale of 1 to 5 (Strong Buy to Strong Sell), calculated based on the actual recommendations made by 39 brokerage firms. The current ABR compares to an ABR of 1.83 two months ago based on 35 recommendations.
Of the 39 recommendations deriving the current ABR, 25 are Strong Buy and three are Buy. Strong Buy and Buy, respectively, account for 64.1% and 7.69% of all recommendations. Two months ago, Strong Buy made up 62.86%, while Buy represented 5.71%, indicating that the majority of the analysts remain bullish.
Based on short-term price targets offered by 35 analysts, the average price target for SpaceX comes to $221.97, ranging from a low of $75.00 to a high of $800.00. The average price target represents an increase of 29.74% from the last closing price of $171.09 (as of market close on Oct. 5). SPCX has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and a Momentum Score of A.
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Tap Into SpaceX's Growth With These ETFsHere, we have highlighted ETFs with exposure to SpaceX.
Roundhill Space & Technology ETF (MARS - Free Report) has an exposure of 26.76%.
Global X Space Tech ETF (ORBX - Free Report) has an exposure of 24.94%.
VanEck Space ETF (WARP - Free Report) has an exposure of 22.38%.
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Tim Cook had enormous shoes to fill when he took over the Apple (AAPL -0.07%) CEO role from Steve Jobs in 2011. Jobs was a visionary leader, and skeptics weren't sure Cook was the right person to lead the consumer tech company into its next chapter. Fifteen years later, and the proof is in the pudding: Over Cook's tenure, the tech giant experienced massive growth as its market cap ballooned from $350 billion to approximately $4.75 trillion.
John Ternus took over from Cook on Sept. 1, and as his time at the helm of Apple begins, he faces the same sort of questions. Long-term investors want to know: Can Ternus match Cook's incredible run? How will the growth curve bend now?
New Apple CEO John Ternus. Image source: Apple.
Apple is a dominant global player Apple is in terrific shape, and that's both good and bad news for Ternus. The company is a well-oiled machine, but expectations will remain elevated. In its fiscal third quarter, revenue grew 16% year over year. The growth was driven by iPhone sales that rose 21.7% and services revenue that rose 12%. Total revenue reached $109.4 billion.
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Ternus is inheriting a business with immense recurring, high-margin, and diversified revenue. The downside is that the company's latest revenue guidance was fairly muted -- only 9% to 11% for the current quarter -- as management anticipates intensifying supply constraints. This will mark Ternus' first challenge, and investors will closely watch how he navigates this period.
There's also the problem with China. Under Cook, Apple became extremely reliant on Chinese manufacturing. Ternus will need to work through geopolitical tensions, the need to geographically diversify its manufacturing footprint, and U.S. pressure to onshore more of its manufacturing. And there are plenty of questions about Apple's long-term position in the artificial intelligence race.
Apple will be just fine The good news is that Ternus is a 25-year Apple veteran and has had a front-row seat to all that the iPhone maker has endured over the last quarter-century. If the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra (priced at more than $2,000) are successful, those will be not only morale wins but also economic ones.
Duplicating Cook's run won't be easy. I'd expect Ternus to usher in a new era of steady, but dialed-back growth over the next several years. A return to a focus on excellent design and innovation will be the real mark of success for the engineer-turned-executive.
Apple isn't a young, scrappy tech start-up. It's one of the largest companies in the world, and its cash-generating ability is astounding. It's still worth investing in, but it's not the growth stock it once was, and that's OK.
Google Cloud just posted 82% revenue growth while the stock sits nearly 16% below its 52-week high, and the gap between what Wall Street sees and what the market is pricing in keeps widening.
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The 24/7 Wall St. price target for Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG | GOOG Price Prediction) is $434.48. That implies 27.66% upside from the $340.35 close. Our rating is buy, and the model’s confidence is fairly high.
24/7 Wall St. Price Target Summary Metric Value Current Price $340.35 Price Target from 24/7 Wall St. $434.48 Upside/Downside 27.66% Recommendation BUY Confidence Level 70% The 64% figure in our headline comes from the model’s September 26 reading. On that date it set a target of $559, which was 63.89% above the price at the time. The latest update lowered the target and the confidence level. Even so, it still points to large gains from here.
A $514 Billion Cloud Backlog Has Not Moved the Stock Yet Over the past week GOOG fell 0.57%. It is up 1.68% over the past month, 8.29% year to date and 37.99% over the past year. Shares trade about 15.7% below the 52-week high of $403.96 and about 44.2% above the low of $236.07.
Second-quarter revenue rose 24.23% to $119.80 billion, ahead of the $116.91 billion estimate. EPS came in at $9.11 against expectations of $3.04, though a $99.03 billion unrealized equity gain inflated that number.
Google Cloud revenue grew 82% to $24.77 billion. Alphabet also suspended its buyback and raised about $70 billion in equity and debt.
Why Bulls See $451 and Beyond Google Cloud’s backlog reached $514 billion, with management expecting to recognize just over 50% as revenue within 24 months. Cloud operating margin expanded to 35.6% from 20.7% a year earlier.
API usage rose to 22 billion tokens per minute from 16 billion one quarter earlier. The Gemini app has 950 million monthly users. TPU system sales should add another lift, with most revenue from existing deals expected in 2027.
Wall Street generally agrees. Among covering analysts, 13 rate GOOG a strong buy, 42 a buy and 5 a hold, with no sell ratings. The consensus target is $419.65. The bull case points to $451.50.
What Could Go Wrong With a $185 Billion Spending Plan Alphabet guided 2026 CapEx to $175 billion to $185 billion. Second-quarter spending of $44.92 billion drove free cash flow to negative $5.86 billion. Long-term debt grew from $46.5 billion to $98.2 billion. Management also warned that leasing third-party capacity will pressure Cloud margins in the near term. The bear case is $367.87.
Operating cash flow was $185.7 billion over the trailing 12 months, and interest coverage stands at 175.5x. Alphabet remains supply limited, meaning demand is running ahead of the expansion.
How Alphabet Compares to Microsoft, Meta and Amazon Company Trailing P/E Operating Margin Alphabet 14 32.06% Microsoft 29 46.8% Meta 27 41.4% Amazon 35 11.2% Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is Alphabet’s closest cloud rival. Azure grew 43%, well below Google Cloud’s 82%, yet Microsoft trades at about double Alphabet’s earnings multiple.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) competes with Alphabet for digital ad dollars. Its EPS missed expectations by 14.42%, and its operating margin fell to 31%.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is spending heavily on AI too. Its trailing free cash flow has turned negative at $7.6 billion, and AWS grew 37%. Equity gains inflate Alphabet’s P/E, but even after accounting for that, the peer group makes our target look conservative.
Cloud Momentum Tips the Scale Toward Upside The 24/7 Wall St. price target of $434.48 has a buy rating at 70% confidence. Cloud growth speeding up at a discount valuation points to upside. Watch whether the backlog converts to revenue at higher margins and whether free cash flow turns positive.
Year Price Target from 24/7 Wall St. 2026 $362.61 2027 $439.13 2028 $525.02 2029 $571.83 2030 $635.79 Alphabet needs to keep executing its AI infrastructure strategy for these projections to hold. Returns on the spending increase, along with antitrust pressure, could swing outcomes significantly in either direction.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Amazon ve 3. čtvrtletí očekává zisk nad horní hranicí výhledu; analytik uvádí srovnatelnou úroveň 21,7 miliardy USD s ohledem na loňské jednorázové vlivy.
SummaryAmazon.com, Inc. remains a Strong Buy as AWS demand outpaces supply, with 2027 capacity largely reserved and recent price hikes boosting profitability.AMZN's $98 billion in new debt funds both data center expansion and major stakes in Anthropic and OpenAI, with interest expenses rising but still manageable relative to operating profit.The real Q3 profit bar is $21.7 billion, not $17.4 billion, due to prior-year one-offs; I expect AMZN to potentially exceed the top end of guidance.Key risks include heavy AWS backlog concentration in Anthropic and OpenAI, but even a significant stumble would not materially alter my bullish stance. HJBC/iStock Editorial via Getty Images
Back in August, I wrote that Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) owns something most companies would love to have, which is a stake in Anthropic large enough to help pay for its data centers without
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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of AMZN either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Amazon spustil AI platformu Ads Agent pro plánování a optimalizaci reklamních kampaní; testy Full-Funnel přinesly o 67 % vyšší dlouhodobou návratnost investic do reklamy.
Cantor retained its $320 target after Amazon unified campaign creation, placement, optimization and measurement. Summary
Amazon is turning commerce data into automated advertising workflow before proving durable revenue gains.
Amazon, the commerce, advertising and cloud-computing company AMZN, rose approximately 0.8% at 10.20am to $253.41 as of October 6, while its AI advertising push kept Cantor Fitzgerald bullish. According to Investing.com's report, the firm maintained its Overweight rating and $320 target after Amazon's latest product launches. That leaves roughly 26.3% upside to the target. The valuation snapshot puts shares just 1.26% above GF Value™ of $250.26, suggesting a price close to estimated fair value.
Amazon wants advertisers spending less time managing campaigns and more money running them. The company introduced Amazon Ads Agent as a unified platform for sponsored ads, Full-Funnel Campaigns, and display, video and audio advertising. Advertisers can hand campaign planning and optimization to AI, retain manual control or combine both. Investing.com reported that Full-Funnel testing delivered 67% higher long-term returns on advertising spending and 29% lower costs to acquire customers new to a brand. Strong numbers. Still test results.
The investment case rests on what happens after the rollout. Easier campaign setup could bring smaller businesses into Amazon's advertising ecosystem and encourage existing customers to spend more. But better advertiser returns do not automatically translate into higher profits for Amazon. Investors need evidence of broader adoption, sustained advertising growth and stronger incremental margins. The tools open the door. The earnings have to walk through it.
Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.
Amazon is spending $200 billion in a single year to dominate cloud infrastructure, but its free cash flow just turned negative and its stock has slipped 8% from its post-earnings peak. The data centers being built today will not produce…
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Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) trades at $251.40. The stock has given back part of its post-earnings rally even though AWS is growing at its fastest pace in 18 quarters.
Amazon runs the world’s largest e-commerce operation and the leading cloud platform, and it is spending at a record pace to stay on top. Management plans roughly $200 billion in capex this year. Alongside that expansion came the “Built Together” push: a $1 billion investment in AWS Forward Deployed Engineering, with early customers including the NFL, NBA and Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV). Shares rose to $274.48 a week after the report, then slid back.
AWS Acceleration Gives Bulls a Record Backlog to Point To AWS revenue rose 36.7% to $42.2 billion, with a 39.4% operating margin. Backlog hit $496 billion. The AI and chips businesses each run above $25 billion annually with triple-digit growth. OpenAI committed about 2 GW of Trainium capacity, and Anthropic will secure up to 5 GW.
Demand is already locked in. The CEO said the lion’s share of 2027 capacity is reserved, and servers break even in a little under three years on contracts of at least five years. Analysts back it: 58 rate it Buy.
Negative Free Cash Flow Shows Where the Push Is Straining The spending has exceeded the cash. Trailing free cash flow turned negative at -$7.6 billion after quarterly capex of $54.21 billion, up 68.4%. The company’s long-term debt reached $119.1 billion, up from $65.6 billion. The free cash flow yield is a thin 0.28%.
Earnings quality is unclear too. GAAP EPS of $5.75 leaned on a $53.4 billion Anthropic gain, while comparable EPS was $1.88. Management never mentioned Forward Deployed Engineering on the earnings call, and memory, hard drive and SSD inflation is pressuring costs. Sentiment has slid 6.21 points in 30 days.
Capacity Timing Decides Who Wins This Argument The CEO admitted data center capital goes out two years before servers start making. That leaves a gap between spending and revenue. Profits are still growing: operating income rose 43.2%, so the bear case has limits. Negative cash flow caps the upside too.
It would take three things to settle this: Q3 operating income against guidance of $22.5 billion to $26.5 billion, steady AWS margins, and early revenue from Forward Deployed Engineering customers.
Shares Lag the Market Since Their Post-Earnings Peak Despite a 31% Target Gap The average analyst target of $330.59 implies 31.5% upside. That target comes from 60 rated analysts, and targets carry no guarantee:
Buy: 58 Hold: 2 The stock trades at about 35 times earnings and is up 8.92% year to date. Since the Q2 report, it has gained 9.3% while the S&P 500 rose 3.7%. Since its post-earnings peak, though, Amazon has fallen 8.4% while the S&P 500 added 0.2%.
Data Center Cash Flow Is the Test Investors Cannot Ignore At $251.40, Amazon’s case depends on cash flow.
The business is strong and the cash flow is weak. The upside improves if Q3 operating income lands near the top of guidance and AWS margins hold near 39% despite component inflation. The downside improves if capex goes well beyond $200 billion while AWS growth stalls. Market-implied probability of 2026 capex topping $210 billion stands at 71%.
Each quarter, compare capex with operating cash flow, which was $45.39 billion last quarter. Track how Amazon reports the backlog, and look for any revenue tied to Forward Deployed Engineering. The market has already reduced much of the post-earnings premium. The current price assumes capacity due online through 2027 will be fully used (a free report on seven AI infrastructure names covers the power, cooling, and networking suppliers feeding that expansion, here).
Watch whether the data centers Amazon is paying for start producing cash.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) is entering fiscal 2027 with multiple AI-driven growth engines, as Azure demand, its OpenAI economics, and emerging consumption-based Copilot pricing create additional monetization opportunities across the business.
BNP Paribas Sees Multiple AI TailwindsBNP Paribas analyst Stefan Slowinski said Microsoft is increasingly positioned to benefit from a second layer of AI monetization beyond infrastructure demand.
He highlighted Microsoft’s OpenAI revenue share and consumption-based pricing across Microsoft 365 Copilot as potential sources of upside to current expectations.
With OpenAI reportedly approaching nearly $70 billion in annual recurring revenue exiting Microsoft’s fiscal first quarter of 2027, Slowinski sees a path for Azure growth to reach as high as 46% in constant currency during fiscal first-quarter and approach 50% in fiscal second-quarter.
Ahead of Microsoft’s fiscal first-quarter results, BNP Paribas expects the company to benefit from accelerating revenue growth while continuing to generate positive free cash flow.
Copilot Consumption Could Lift M365 GrowthSlowinski pointed to GitHub Copilot as an early example of how consumption-based billing can outperform initial expectations.
He sees the potential for a similar pattern as usage-based Copilot revenue begins contributing more meaningfully to Microsoft 365.
BNP Paribas estimates that Copilot consumption could add roughly one percentage point of incremental Microsoft 365 Commercial Cloud growth by the fiscal fourth quarter.
Slowinski therefore sees potential for Microsoft to beat Azure expectations, issue stronger fiscal second-quarter guidance and deliver upside in Microsoft 365 Commercial Cloud while maintaining management’s commitment to positive free cash flow.
Cramer Sees Copilot Supporting MicrosoftCNBC’s Jim Cramer also identified Microsoft as one of a small group of AI leaders helping offset pressure from rising interest rates.
"Here, I think there’s tremendous distortion caused by some very big winners, namely NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), Microsoft and Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META)," Cramer said.
He pointed to improving sentiment around Copilot as a key catalyst for Microsoft. At the same time, Nvidia benefits from strong AI chip demand and Meta gains momentum around its Muse personal AI agent.
Microsoft accounted for roughly 5.8% of the S&P 500 as of Friday’s close, giving moves in the company an outsized influence on the broader index.
Ignite Could Become The Next CatalystBNP Paribas also identified Microsoft’s Ignite conference as a potential catalyst.
Microsoft is expected to hold a Financial Community Briefing on Nov. 17, with CEO Satya Nadella addressing investors in that format for the first time in many years.
Slowinski said the return of the briefing could indicate Microsoft’s willingness to provide more strategic and financial detail about its next phase of AI-driven growth and any potential capital-unlock strategy tied to its recent re-segmentation.
BNP Paribas Raises Microsoft Price ForecastBNP Paribas maintained its Outperform rating and raised its price forecast to $604 from $549, implying about 15% upside from Microsoft’s Oct. 5 price of $525.20.
Slowinski increased his fiscal 2027 revenue and earnings-per-share estimates by 1% to 2%.
He now models Azure growth of 46% in fiscal first-quarter 2027 and 49% in fiscal second-quarter.
BNP Paribas values Microsoft using a sum-of-the-parts framework based on 27.5 times fiscal 2028 earnings, up from 25 times previously, while also incorporating Microsoft’s stake in OpenAI.
Slowinski said the broader sector re-rating primarily drove the higher price forecast.
MSFT Price Action: Microsoft shares were up 1.35% at $532.25 at the time of publication on Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Key Takeaways NIKE's 20.12X forward P/E exceeds the industry average of 17.3X despite recent stock weakness.FY27 revenues are expected to fall in the high single digits, while EBIT is projected to decline faster.NIKE faces weakness in Sportswear, Jordan Brand and Greater China as turnaround benefits remain delayed. NIKE Inc. (NKE - Free Report) stock has been volatile in recent months, reflecting weakening demand, margin pressure and ongoing business-reset actions. However, its current forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 20.12X raises valuation concerns. This multiple exceeds the Zacks Shoes and Retail Apparel industry average of 17.3X, making NIKE’s stock appear relatively expensive.
Adding to investor caution, the company’s elevated price-to-sales (P/S) ratio affects enthusiasm. The Beaverton, OR-based athletic giant trades at a forward 12-month P/S of 1.11X, above the industry’s 1.04X. Together with its Value Score of D, this suggests that NIKE may not present a compelling value opportunity at current levels despite its strong fundamentals and brand leadership.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
NIKE’s Premium Valuation Surpasses PeersAt 20.12X P/E, the Swoosh brand owner is trading at a much higher valuation than its competitors. Its peers, such as adidas AG (ADDYY - Free Report) , Steven Madden (SHOO - Free Report) and Wolverine World Wide (WWW - Free Report) , are delivering solid growth and trade at more reasonable multiples. adidas, Steven Madden and Wolverine have forward 12-month P/E ratios of 12.57X, 17.84X and 10.52X — all lower than that of NIKE. At such levels, NKE’s valuation seems out of step with its growth trajectory, especially given the recent decrease in its stock price.
NIKE’s elevated valuation underscores investors’ high growth expectations. However, compared with key competitors, the company appears increasingly vulnerable as market participants turn cautious toward overpriced Consumer Discretionary stocks. NKE’s ability to consistently deliver on or exceed these expectations will be critical to sustaining its premium valuation.
NIKE shares have lost 22.9% in the past three months compared with a 19.7% decline in the broader industry. The stock has also underperformed the Consumer Discretionary sector’s 5.7% decline and the S&P 500’s 2% growth in the same period.
NIKE’s performance has been relatively dismal compared with its peers. Shares of Wolverine World Wide and Steven Madden have outperformed NKE in the past three months, recording 10.4% and 14.6% growth, respectively. Meanwhile, shares of adidas have underperformed NKE with a 24.9% decline.
NKE’s 3-Month Stock Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
At the current price of $33.96, the NKE stock trades close to its 52-week low of $31.94 reached on Oct. 2, 2026. The recent fall to the 52-week low was led by the company’s dismal first-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Oct. 1. The current stock price is 53.1% below its 52-week high mark of $72.39. NKE trades below its 50 and 200-day moving averages, indicating a bearish sentiment.
What’s Hurting NIKE’s Stock PerformanceNIKE’s recent share-price pressure appears fundamentally tied to concerns that its turnaround will take longer and involve greater near-term earnings pain. First-quarter fiscal 2027 revenues declined 4% on a reported basis and 5% on a currency-neutral basis, underscoring persistent weakness across several key businesses.
NIKE Sportswear, Jordan Brand and Greater China remain the primary drags, offsetting solid momentum in the Performance portfolio. Sportswear declined in the low double digits, hurt by a nearly 50% reduction in Dunk revenues, weaker-than-expected sell-through of aged footwear and softer lifestyle traffic. Management also acknowledged broader marketplace pressure and a lack of energy in the lifestyle category.
Jordan Brand is another near-term headwind. Revenues fell in the mid-teens as NIKE deliberately reduces the volume and frequency of retro launches to restore scarcity and strengthen brand positioning. While strategically necessary, these actions are expected to weigh on sales, particularly in North America.
Greater China remains even more challenging, with revenues down 26% as NIKE restructures digital distribution, removes discount-heavy channels and works to improve inventory health. Management expects revenues and profitability in China to remain pressured for multiple seasons.
The outlook further explains investor caution. NIKE expects fiscal 2027 revenues to decline in the high-single-digit range, with EBIT falling faster than sales due to gross-margin pressure, fixed-cost deleverage and higher input costs. Although the Pace restructuring is expected to generate $2.5 billion in savings, most benefits are not expected until fiscal 2029-2030, reinforcing a prolonged “pain before gain” narrative.
NIKE’s Estimate Revision TrendThe Zacks Consensus Estimate for NIKE’s fiscal 2027 and 2028 earnings per share (EPS) have moved south, with estimates declining 3% and 2.3%, respectively, in the past seven days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
For fiscal 2027, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for NKE’s revenues implies a 7% year-over-year decline, while the same for EPS suggests 1.3% growth. The consensus mark for fiscal 2028 revenues and EPS indicates 9.5% and 32.6% year-over-year growth, respectively.
Is NIKE Still Worth a Shot?NIKE’s first-quarter fiscal 2027 performance underscores the near-term pains surrounding its turnaround. Persistent weakness in Sportswear, Jordan Brand and Greater China, coupled with expectations for a high-single-digit revenue decline and greater pressure on EBIT, suggests that a meaningful recovery may take time. Against this backdrop, NIKE’s premium valuation looks difficult to justify, particularly as the stock continues to decline and trades near its 52-week low.
The negative estimate revision trend adds another concern. Although management’s restructuring efforts and Performance portfolio strength could support longer-term improvement, the current outlook remains subdued and execution risks are elevated.
Given the combination of a premium valuation, deteriorating share-price performance, downward earnings estimate revisions and a weak near-term operating outlook, investors may be better off staying on the sidelines. NIKE currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell), and it appears prudent to avoid the stock until clearer signs of revenue stabilization, margin recovery and improving earnings momentum emerge.
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Berkshire keeps buying Lennar shares even as the stock sinks below what it paid, a short seller questions the company's reported deliveries, and Greg Abel himself admits he sees no quick recovery in housing. That raises a question worth answering.
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Over two days last week, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-B | BRK-B Price Prediction) bought about 2.4 million more Class A shares of Lennar (NYSE:LEN), paying between $78.37 and $81.90 in a roughly $193 million purchase.
By Monday’s close, Lennar had fallen to $74.44 after a 6.73% one-day drop. The stock now trades below the range Berkshire paid and below its $75.70 52-week low.
Berkshire has permanent capital, and it is adding to a stock that keeps falling. It is doing so deliberately, because its chief executive, Greg Abel, said in early September that he does not see a quick recovery in housing.
Wall Street is unconvinced too. The consensus target sits only modestly above the price. The ratings lean toward hold and sell, and a short seller has just questioned the quality of Lennar’s reported deliveries. That raises a fair question: why does a long-horizon buyer keep buying a stock analysts will not defend?
What Berkshire’s Form 4 Filing Shows Berkshire also bought about 15,000 Class B shares. Afterward, Berkshire held 28,438,045 Class A shares and 568,028 Class B shares, a stake of more than 11%.
That size is why you can see these trades at all. An investor owning more than 10% of a company’s registered stock becomes an insider for reporting purposes and must file a Form 4 within two business days. Berkshire’s buying now reaches the market almost in real time, and recent reporting noted its pace of purchases has slowed.
A Bearish Initiation and a Short Report in One Week The first setback came when Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) initiated coverage at Underweight with a $65 target, well below the current price. The second came from Hunterbrook, which is short both Lennar and Millrose Properties (NYSE:MRP). Hunterbrook says that Millrose, the land company Lennar spun off in 2025, bought more than 700 finished Lennar homes worth about $200 million, including at least 356 in the final week of the quarter.
Builders are judged on deliveries against guidance. A related party buying homes at quarter end raises the question of whether reported deliveries reflect real end buyers or an internal transfer.
These remain allegations from a firm that profits if both stocks fall, and Lennar has not responded as of this writing, so the conflict calls for independent confirmation even if the claims prove accurate.
A $79 Target Offers Almost No Cushion The consensus target of $79 implies upside of just 6.86%. Lennar is down 26.45% this year while the S&P 500 gained 13.62%.
The ratings show one Strong Buy and one Buy against nine Holds, three Sells and five Strong Sells. That mix leans heavily toward Hold and Sell ratings.
Analysts point to recent results. Adjusted EPS of $1.23 missed the $1.30 consensus, home sales gross margin slipped to 15.8% from 17.5%, and full-year delivery guidance was cut to 80,000 to 81,000 homes.
They are modeling today’s rates, which CEO Stuart Miller put at approximately 7%. Berkshire is underwriting the next cycle instead, which likely explains why it keeps buying.
Berkshire Is Paying for Land, Scale and Survival Abel added that housing is an industry Berkshire is “invested in for the long term.” Lennar owns roughly 2% of its homesites and controls the rest through third parties.
Miller said Lennar is “compromising margin in order to maintain volume,” using incentives of 12%. High rates hurt smaller builders most because they lack the scale to fund that spending.
Berkshire’s $6.8 billion acquisition of Taylor Morrison already made it the fourth-largest U.S. homebuilder. If rates stay high for years, this thesis works for permanent capital but fails for anyone needing a return inside a normal holding period.
What Long-Term Lennar Holders Need to Know Now Lennar’s setup likely rewards only holders whose horizon spans a full housing cycle, while management, its largest outside shareholder, and most analysts all expect a slow recovery, and the short report remains unanswered. Miller said the land drag “will not finish quickly,” and fourth-quarter gross margin guidance of 15.5% to 16.0% shows no turn yet.
Berkshire itself offers another path to this exposure. Its shareholders get Lennar and Taylor Morrison exposure, buffered by insurance, rail, and utility earnings, without needing housing to recover on your schedule.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has created some enormous multibaggers for investors, but none are quite on the same level as Nvidia (NVDA +0.68%). When ChatGPT helped ignite the generative AI boom in late 2022, Nvidia was worth less than $400 billion. Today, the chipmaker's market capitalization has ballooned to roughly $5.6 trillion -- making it the most valuable company in the world.
NVDA Market Cap data by YCharts
This parabolic ascent shows how Nvidia evolved from a generic semiconductor company known for gaming GPUs into the undisputed king of AI infrastructure. Let's assess what might happen if you invested $500 in Nvidia every month from now through the end of 2030. Spoiler alert: Big gains could be in store.
How big can Nvidia get? Before crunching any numbers, I need to come up with a baseline of where Nvidia might be headed over the next several years. The company generated $96.2 billion in revenue during its most recent quarter, representing a staggering 106% increase from the prior year. Even more impressive, Nvidia's data center business generated $89 billion, growing 117% year over year.
The next chapter is already quietly unfolding. Nvidia's Vera Rubin architecture is moving into full production. The company says the platform can deliver 10x the agentic AI throughput of its previous generation Grace Blackwell architecture. This matters because AI spending is moving beyond simply training large language models (LLMs). Reasoning models, AI agents, robotics, and other inference workloads require enormous amounts of continuous computing power.
Meanwhile, infrastructure commitments from big tech are getting larger. The big five hyperscalers -- Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, and Oracle -- plan to spend approximately $800 billion in capital expenditures (capex) in 2026 alone and roughly $1.3 trillion in 2027. Meanwhile, Anthropic has reportedly committed at least $518 billion to AI infrastructure over the next decade.
Nvidia is also expanding how it can monetize data centers. The company isn't merely selling GPUs anymore. AI factories now combine GPUs with other solutions from Nvidia, including CPUs, NVLink, networking, BlueField data processing units, storage infrastructure, and software platforms like CUDA.
I think complementing the legacy GPU business with adjacent solutions should help Nvidia expand its market share in the data center realm. Against this backdrop, I think the company can rise from a $5.6 trillion market value today to $15 trillion by 2030.
Image source: Nvidia.
What investing $500 a month in Nvidia looks like An investor putting $500 into Nvidia every month would invest $6,000 over the course of a full year. Assuming the strategy begins in October 2026 and continues through December 2030, the contributions would total $25,500.
Unfortunately, calculating the ending value isn't as simple as multiplying $25,500 by Nvidia's expected return. The reason is because you will be using a dollar-cost averaging strategy over the lifetime of the investment. This means the initial $500 invested in October 2026 has more than four years to appreciate, while a $500 investment made near the end of 2030 has almost no time to compound.
If I assume Nvidia's market capitalization rises gradually from $5.6 trillion to $15 trillion by the end of 2030, that works out to a 163% cumulative increase, or roughly 26% annualized or 1.9% per month when compounded. While this is a bit aggressive, I think it is also a reasonable upside scenario considering it's nowhere near the returns Nvidia generated during earlier stages of the AI boom.
If I run the calculated return across all 51 monthly investments, the $25,500 investment could finish 2030 worth approximately $43,400. That represents roughly $17,900 in investment gains, or 70% upside.
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Remember to think long-term Obviously, no one knows what Nvidia will be worth four years from now. If the company reaches a $10 trillion valuation by the end of 2030, the same $500 per month strategy would grow to roughly $34,400. If the AI infrastructure supercycle sends Nvidia all the way to $20 trillion, the investment could approach $51,600 -- nearly a 100% gain.
The first takeaway here is that Nvidia has enough structural tailwinds to support meaningful share price appreciation over the next several years. The second takeaway is to understand is that my estimates assume Nvidia's share price generally follows a smooth, compounded path toward the 2030 target.
In reality, the stock's movement will almost certainly be messier. This means the price could rise or fall significantly from month to month. That's actually the entire point of dollar-cost averaging: rather than trying to time the market and predict exactly when Nvidia's stock will rise or fall, investors consistently put the same amount of money to work. For someone investing consistently every month, patience will ultimately matter just as much as finding the right opportunities.
Key Takeaways Netflix expects live programming to consume 5% of 2026 content spend but only 1% of viewing hours.Content asset additions rose 32% to $9.8 billion, while free cash flow fell to $1.5 billion.Disney's sports income fell 17% as programming costs rose 10%, while Amazon monetizes sports via ads. Netflix's (NFLX - Free Report) expanding live sports slate is turning into a cost line investors can no longer treat as experimental. In September, the streamer kicked off its NFL schedule with the league's first regular-season game in Australia, part of an extension through the 2029-30 season covering a Week 1 game, a Thanksgiving Eve matchup, Christmas Day, a Week 18 finale and the NFL Honors. Netflix also confirmed that Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua will fight live on Dec. 11, while 2027 brings exclusive U.S. and Canada rights to the FIFA Women's World Cup.
The economics are lopsided. Netflix expects live programming to absorb just over 5% of 2026 content spend while generating only about 1% of view hours. Its defense rests on acquisition: live events accounted for six of the 10 biggest new-member sign-up days over the past five years. Yet that payoff is episodic, while rights costs recur.
Cash outlays are rising faster than earnings. Additions to content assets jumped 32% year over year to $9.8 billion in the first half of 2026, outpacing the 11% rise in content amortization, while capital expenditure climbed 46% to $415 million. Second-quarter operating margin contracted 70 basis points to 33.4%, and free cash flow fell to $1.5 billion from $2.3 billion, partly due to higher cash taxes.
Guidance offers partial comfort. Netflix narrowed 2026 revenues to $51.0-$51.4 billion and maintained a 31.5% operating margin target versus 29.5% in 2025, with ad revenues expected to double to about $3 billion. Third-quarter margin is projected at 33.2%.
However, the full-year target implies a fourth-quarter margin near 27%, in a quarter loaded with NFL holiday games and the Fury-Joshua bout. With content obligations at $25.1 billion and a cash content-to-amortization ratio of about 1.1x, sports escalation could test margin expansion beyond 2026.
How Disney and Amazon Are Managing Live Sports CostsDisney (DIS - Free Report) offers a direct read on sports cost inflation. In third-quarter fiscal 2026, Disney's Sports segment operating income fell 17% to $858 million, as programming and production costs rose 10% to $3.05 billion despite 4% revenue growth. Disney is pushing more ESPN games onto Disney+ this fall to broaden reach. Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) presents a monetization-led contrast. Amazon's advertising revenues grew 26% year over year to $19.8 billion in the second quarter of 2026, with Thursday Night Football, NBA, WNBA and NASCAR inventory selling out. However, Amazon does not separately disclose the profitability of its Prime Video sports rights.
NFLX’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesNetflix’s shares have plunged 28% year to date, underperforming the Zacks Broadcast Radio and Television industry and Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector’s decline of 20.1% and 14.7%, respectively.
NFLX’s YTD Price Performance
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Netflix’s valuation remains elevated, with the stock trading at a forward 12-month price/sales ratio of 5.04X versus the industry’s 3.52X. NFLX carries a Value Score of D.
NFLX’s Valuation
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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for NFLX’s 2026 earnings is pegged at $3.59 per share and remains unchanged over the past 30 days. This indicates a 41.9% increase from the previous year.
Tržby Walmart Connect ve 2. čtvrtletí fiskálního roku 2027 vzrostly o 43 %, zatímco tržby Walmart U.S. z e-commerce stouply o 24 %, což podpořilo růst marží.
Key Takeaways Walmart Connect grew 43% as U.S. e-commerce sales rose 24% in the fiscal second quarter. Advertising and membership revenues helped Walmart U.S. e-commerce achieve double-digit margin growth. Digital ad growth improved Walmart U.S. gross profit mix, while the Vibe deal expanded ad capabilities. Walmart Inc. (WMT - Free Report) is seeing its digital business become a more meaningful contributor to its overall economics as e-commerce and related commerce solutions continue to expand. Advertising is playing an increasingly important role in that mix, supported by Walmart’s growing online business and broader digital platform capabilities.
In the second quarter of fiscal 2027, Walmart’s global advertising business increased 38%. Walmart U.S. advertising, including VIZIO, also rose 38%, while Walmart Connect grew 43%. The gains came alongside 24% growth in Walmart U.S. e-commerce sales, reflecting strength in store-fulfilled delivery, advertising and marketplace.
The profitability picture is also improving. Walmart U.S. e-commerce achieved double-digit incremental margins in the first half of fiscal 2027. Strong advertising and membership revenues contributed to that progress, along with greater delivery-network density, growth in fee-based fast deliveries and benefits from automation.
Advertising also supported Walmart U.S. business mix during the quarter. The company said a better business mix, primarily from growth in digital advertising, contributed to gross profit improvement. Walmart also expanded its advertising capabilities through the acquisition of Vibe, which provides self-service tools and enables advertisers to measure results against shopping behavior.
The second quarter shows that advertising is becoming a more important part of Walmart’s improving digital economics. Walmart Connect’s 43% growth, together with continued e-commerce expansion, supported the broader shift toward commerce solutions. Continued progress in these areas will remain important to Walmart’s ability to sustain the incremental-margin improvement already achieved in its U.S. e-commerce business.
What Do the Latest Metrics Say About Walmart?Walmart, which competes with Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST - Free Report) and Target Corporation (TGT - Free Report) , has seen its shares gain 1.8% over the past year compared with the industry’s breakeven performance. Shares of Costco have climbed 1%, while Target has surged 71.4% in the aforementioned period.
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From a valuation standpoint, Walmart's forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio stands at 33.82, higher than the industry’s 30.74. The company is trading at a premium to Target (with a forward 12-month P/E ratio of 15.68) while trading at a discount to Costco (40.03).
JPMorgan Chase jmenovala Roba Sweeneyho globálním předsedou investičního bankovnictví, aby radil především klientům ze spotřebitelského a maloobchodního sektoru.
JPMorgan Chase logo is seen in this illustration taken January 22, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
CompaniesNEW YORK, Oct 6 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase has appointed former Goldman Sachs and Sycamore executive Rob Sweeney as a global chair of investment banking, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
In the role, Sweeney will advise major corporate clients, particularly in the consumer and retail sector, and work with senior bankers on key relationships. He will also help lead the bank's efforts around its security and resilience initiatives, Filippo Gori and John Simmons, co-heads of global banking, said in a note.
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The hire comes as banks race to win a larger share of a rebounding dealmaking market after several subdued years for mergers and equity issuance. JPMorgan has hired more than 1,000 bankers globally this year, a source said, and has been expanding coverage teams across industries and regions as corporate activity picks up.
JPMorgan has made a series of senior hires across its global banking division in recent months including Amy Lissauer, who joined as global head of shareholder activism, and Michael Flynn, who was named head of small-cap investment banking.
In the second quarter, JPMorgan's investment banking fees rose 30% from a year earlier, their highest level since 2021.
Co-President Doug Petno in September said JPMorgan expected investment banking fees in the third quarter to rise by a mid-to-high teens percentage from a year earlier, supported by a strong deal pipeline and broad-based strength across its investment banking business.
Reporting by Nupur Anand in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama
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Divize MedTech společnosti Johnson & Johnson očekává ve třetím čtvrtletí zrychlení díky segmentům Vision, Orthopedics a Surgery, zatímco segment Cardiovascular brzdí slabší výsledky Abiomedu. Konkurence zůstává protivětrem pro některé oblasti MedTech.
Key Takeaways J&J's MedTech growth slowed in Q2 as weaker Cardiovascular sales offset strong Shockwave growth.Abiomed's weakness may persist, but Vision, Orthopedics and Surgery are expected to accelerate in Q3.China's VBP program and competition remain headwinds, though MedTech is expected to improve in H2. Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ - Free Report) medical devices segment, known as MedTech, offers products in the orthopedics, surgery, cardiovascular and vision markets. The MedTech segment accounts for around 36% of J&J’s total revenues. In MedTech, J&J is a global leader in electrophysiology, circulatory restoration and heart recovery.
The MedTech segment delivered a mixed performance in the second quarter of 2026, with growth remaining positive but below the pace seen in its Innovative Medicine business. Sales were hurt by weaker sales in Cardiovascular, as competitive pressure in electrophysiology and lower Abiomed sales offset continued double-digit growth at Shockwave. Abiomed sales declined in the second quarter due to slow procedural volumes for the Impella heart pump franchise.
On its third-quarter conference call, investors will await information on whether sales in the MedTech segment improved from the first-quarter slowdown. Here’s what we expect.
J&J expects only modest Abiomed growth in the second half of 2026. While J&J’s Cardiovascular sales may continue to be slow in the third quarter due to weakness in Abiomed, its other three businesses, Surgery, Vision and Orthopedics, are likely to have continued to accelerate in the third quarter. While Abiomed procedures slowed, J&J claimed that overall procedure volumes were stable in the second quarter and there was no broad-based slowdown in medical procedure volumes across its MedTech business. An update on procedure trends in the third quarter is expected on the conference call.
The company continues to face headwinds in China from the government's volume-based procurement (VBP) program, with these pressures expected to continue in the second half. Competitive pressures are also expected to continue to hurt sales growth in some MedTech businesses in the third quarter.
Overall, the MedTech business is expected to perform better in the second half of the year than it did in the first half, driven by strength in Vision, Orthopedics, Surgery and better performance in Cardiovascular. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for J&J’s MedTech segment stands at $8.78 billion.
J&J’s Key Competitors in the Medical Devices MarketJ&J’s MedTech unit faces strong competition from several major players in the medical device industry, such as Medtronic (MDT - Free Report) , Abbott, Stryker (SYK - Free Report) and Boston Scientific (BSX - Free Report) .
While Medtronic has a strong presence in cardiovascular, neuroscience and surgical technologies, Stryker is a major player in orthopedics and surgical equipment. Boston Scientific markets products for cardiovascular, endoscopy, urology and neuromodulation. Abbott is known for its medical devices across cardiovascular, diagnostics and diabetes care.
JNJ’s Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesJ&J’s shares have outperformed the industry so far this year. The stock has risen 22.2% this year compared with 9.4% appreciation of the industry.
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From a valuation standpoint, J&J is slightly expensive. Going by the price/earnings ratio, the company’s shares currently trade at 20.43 forward earnings, higher than 17.60 for the industry. The stock is also trading above its five-year mean of 15.65.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings has declined from $11.59 to $11.54 over the past 60 days, while that for 2027 earnings has declined from $12.80 per share to $12.64 over the same time frame.
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J&J has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Prodeje Fordu v USA ve 3. čtvrtletí klesly o 6,6 % na 509 764 vozů, zatímco prodeje modelu Maverick Hybrid vzrostly o 59,6 % na rekordních 27 793 kusů.
Key Takeaways Ford's U.S. sales fell 6.6%, but core-model sales were flat as retail share rose 0.4 points to 12.1%.F-Series, Super Duty and Maverick Hybrid gains highlight strong demand for Ford's higher-value vehicles.Paid software subscriptions topped 1.7M, while Ford expects the supplier issue to stay within EBIT guidance. Ford (F - Free Report) heads into its upcoming third-quarter earnings report with encouraging underlying trends in its core truck and SUV businesses, despite a decline in overall U.S. vehicle sales. Ford's third-quarter U.S. sales fell 6.6% year over year to 509,764 vehicles, primarily reflecting the planned phase-out of Escape and Corsair.
The strength of Ford's higher-value vehicle portfolio remains a key positive heading into earnings. F-Series sales increased 2.4% in September, while Super Duty production rose 4.4% to 110,275 units, marking its best quarterly performance in 19 years. Maverick Hybrid sales surged 59.6% to a record 27,793 units, and Bronco also recorded its strongest third-quarter sales.
Demand for large SUVs, including Explorer and Expedition, further supports the company's product mix and pricing position. Additionally, active paid software subscriptions surpassed 1.7 million through September, increasing more than 40% year over year and strengthening the potential for recurring, higher-margin revenues. Although a temporary supplier issue affected F-150 production late in September, management expects the financial impact to remain within its existing 2026 adjusted EBIT guidance of $10-$11 billion.
However, electric vehicle sales were the weak spot. According to Electrek, Ford’s U.S. EV sales plunged 80% year over year to 6,047 vehicles in the third quarter of 2026, Mustang Mach-E sales fell 72.4% to 5,574 units, while F-150 Lightning sales tumbled 97% to just 289 units.
Competitive Context: GM & TMGeneral Motors (GM - Free Report) provides a useful comparison, as its third-quarter U.S. deliveries declined 5.5% to 670,974 vehicles, broadly reflecting the pressure on industry volumes. Nevertheless, GM's Silverado light-duty sales increased 13.3%, while Trax and Trailblazer posted gains of 16.3% and 51.1%, respectively. These results highlight that, much like Ford, GM continues to benefit from demand for selected trucks and affordable SUVs even as overall deliveries soften.
It also witnessed a steep pullback in EV demand. Chevrolet Equinox EV deliveries plunged 92.4% year over year to 1,905 units, Blazer EV sales declined to 1,261 units and Silverado EV deliveries fell 58% to 1,655 units. Cadillac LYRIQ sales dropped 50.5%, while GMC HUMMER EV and Sierra EV sales decreased 72.9% and 50.8%, respectively. GM noted that its overall third-quarter sales decline partly reflected a substantially smaller EV market.
The comparison becomes more nuanced when comparing Toyota (TM - Free Report) , which delivered 633,223 vehicles in the United States during the third quarter, up 0.6% year over year, with Toyota division sales rising 0.5% and Lexus sales increasing 1.6%.
Toyota's electrified vehicle sales, including hybrids, jumped 28.5% to 363,367 units and represented 57.4% of its total quarterly sales, underscoring the strength of its multi-path electrification strategy. Toyota also continues to benefit from a broad electrified lineup, with 32 electrified vehicle options available across the Toyota and Lexus brands.
The Zacks Rundown for FordShares of F have gained 1.49% in a year against its industry’s 3.4% decline.
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Ford is currently trading at a forward 12-month price-to-earnings of 6.33X, lower than the industry’s average of 82.96X. It carries a Value Score of A.
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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2026 earnings implies year-over-year growth of 70.6%.
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The consensus estimate for EPS for fiscal 2026 has been flat over the past 60 days.
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F currently carries a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Verizon ve druhém čtvrtletí roku 2026 získal 184 000 zákazníků mobilních tarifů s měsíčním vyúčtováním a 348 000 zákazníků širokopásmového připojení, avšak vysoké investice a dluh zůstávají rizikem.
Key Takeaways Verizon added 184,000 postpaid phone customers as churn and acquisition costs declined.Broadband growth and Verizon One are strengthening customer retention and lifetime value.High capital spending and debt remain challenges despite improving operating trends. Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ - Free Report) has declined 6.5% in six months against the Wireless National industry’s growth of 131.2%. The stock has underperformed the Zacks Computer & Technology sector during this period.
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The company has outperformed its peers like AT&T Inc. (T - Free Report) and T-Mobile US, Inc. (TMUS - Free Report) . Shares of AT&T have declined 14.1%, while T-Mobile has declined 18.5% during this period.
Key Growth Drivers for VerizonVerizon added 184,000 postpaid phone customers in the second quarter of 2026, up 193,000 year over year, while Consumer postpaid phone churn declined to 0.84% compared with 0.90% in the first quarter and 0.95% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Promotional acquisition and retention costs declined approximately 15% and 17%, respectively, year over year. The combination of stronger net additions, lower churn and better acquisition economics is improving operating leverage.
Broadband expansion remains another major growth catalyst for the company. Verizon added 348,000 broadband subscribers in the second quarter, taking its total broadband base above 17.1 million. The company remains on track to reach more than 32 million fiber passings by year-end. The Frontier acquisition is also creating opportunities to cross-sell mobility and broadband services.
The newly launched Verizon One plan, which combines Mobility and Broadband into a single offering, is also gaining traction. Management believes bundled mobility and broadband offerings improve retention and customer lifetime value by encouraging households to consolidate services. Verizon continues to compete with AT&T, which is also investing heavily in converged wireless and fiber offerings, making customer retention an increasingly important differentiator.
One of the most significant longer-term opportunities is Verizon's plan to leverage its extensive fiber infrastructure to support the rapid expansion of AI-related data centers. The company has signed an agreement worth more than $1 billion with Google to use Verizon's dark fiber to connect data centers. Verizon is also positioning itself for the next generation of wireless technology through its expanded 6G Innovation Forum, which added nine major technology companies, including AWS, NVIDIA, Intel and Cisco. Verizon has already conducted real-world trials involving integrated sensing and communications, as well as AI-enabled applications and wearables.
Key ChallengesVerizon operates in a highly competitive wireless market where pricing, promotional offers and network quality can quickly influence customer decisions. It faces competition from major players such as AT&T, T-Mobile and Charter. Although Verizon has improved postpaid churn and customer acquisition economics, maintaining that momentum without resorting to aggressive promotions will be critical.
Verizon continues to invest heavily in fiber, wireless spectrum and network infrastructure while simultaneously returning capital to shareholders. Capital expenditures reached $8.2 billion in the first half of 2026, with full-year capital spending guided at $16-$16.5 billion. These investments will likely support growth in the long run, but this is putting pressure on free cash flow in the near term.
Verizon reduced debt and paid off substantially all of Frontier's debt six months ahead of schedule. However, its net unsecured debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio stood at 2.5X at the end of the second quarter. At the end of second-quarter 2026, total unsecured debt stood at $136.5 billion, while net unsecured debt totaled $128.7 billion.
Estimate Revision Trend of VZEarnings estimates for VZ for 2026 have remained unchanged for the past 60 days while for 2027 it has increased.
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Key Valuation Metric of VZFrom a valuation standpoint, VZ appears to be trading relatively cheaper compared to the industry and its mean. Going by the price/earnings ratio, the company’s shares currently trade at 8.75, lower than 37.6 for the industry.
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End NoteImproving wireless customer trends and broadband expansion are the primary growth engines for Verizon. Its convergence strategy is strengthening retention, while cost reductions are expanding margins. However, Verizon's improving operating trends do not eliminate the risks facing the company. Stiff competition and high debt burden remain major concerns. Verizon must execute its transformation and Frontier integration, manage a substantial investment program and convert its emerging AI infrastructure opportunity into durable revenue. With a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), VZ appears to be treading in the middle of the road, and new investors could be better off if they trade with caution. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Key Takeaways Royal Caribbean enters 2027 with bookings ahead of historical levels and record pricing.New ships in 2027 should expand Royal Caribbean's capacity and add differentiated experiences.AI pricing, app use and loyalty growth are helping Royal Caribbean optimize yields and customer spending. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL - Free Report) is entering 2027 with strong booking momentum and record pricing, reinforcing confidence that its growth run can extend beyond 2026. Management said early 2027 bookings were pacing ahead of historical levels and were being secured at higher prices, while booked load factors remained elevated.
The company’s expanding portfolio provides additional support for 2027. Hero of the Seas is scheduled for delivery in the third quarter of 2027, while Celebrity Compass and Celebrity Seeker are expected to enter service during the second and third quarters, respectively. These additions should broaden capacity while introducing differentiated experiences that can support pricing.
Royal Caribbean is also leveraging technology and loyalty to protect yields and deepen customer engagement. Its AI-driven pricing models manage roughly $20 million and growing price points, helping optimize revenues rather than simply fill cabins. Meanwhile, Points Choice and Status Match have generated more than half a million new loyalty enrollments; more than 90% of guests use the company’s app, and over half of onboard revenues are purchased before embarkation. These trends give RCL more opportunities to personalize offers, strengthen repeat demand and capture incremental spending.
Still, sustaining record pricing will depend on healthy consumer demand and disciplined capacity growth. Geopolitical disruptions have already affected some European itineraries, underscoring the sensitivity of bookings to external events. Even so, strong 2027 pricing, expanding vacation offerings, deeper loyalty engagement and new capacity give Royal Caribbean multiple levers to sustain its growth momentum into next year.
How Cruise Peers CCL and NCLH Are Positioning for 2027Carnival Corporation Ltd. (CCL - Free Report) is also entering 2027 with strong pricing momentum. The company is already about half booked for the year, with both occupancy and pricing at record levels. Carnival expects only modest capacity growth in 2027, which should support its strategy of managing the booking curve for price. Its expanding destination portfolio, including Celebration Key, is another lever to differentiate the product and strengthen yields, while continued loyalty initiatives are aimed at increasing repeat demand and lifetime value.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (NCLH - Free Report) , meanwhile, is rebuilding its pricing and demand-generation strategy. The company is shifting toward a baseloading approach that establishes more competitive pricing earlier in the booking curve to build demand sooner, preserve price integrity and reduce close-in discounting. NCLH expects the first half of 2027 to remain pressured, particularly the first quarter, but sees sequential improvement as marketing, revenue-management and demand-generation initiatives gain traction. Investments in Great Stirrup Cay and its new Great Tides Waterpark are also intended to strengthen differentiation and improve revenue potential.
RCL’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesShares of Royal Caribbean have declined 12.6% in the past year compared with the industry’s 7.2% fall.
RCL Stock’s One-Year Price Performance
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From a valuation standpoint, RCL trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 14.06, below the industry’s average of 15.81.
RCL’s P/E Ratio (Forward 12-Month) vs. Industry
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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RCL’s 2026 earnings implies a year-over-year increase of 13.8%. The EPS estimates for 2026 have increased in the past seven days.
Key Takeaways PepsiCo is refining price-pack architecture as North America organic revenues fell 0.5%.Portion-control multi-packs topped $3.5B in annual net revenues and grew volume and sales.Record productivity savings are expected to help fund affordability investments and offset costs. PepsiCo Inc. (PEP - Free Report) is stepping up its affordability efforts as pressure on consumer budgets weighs on demand, particularly in North America. In the second quarter of 2026, U.S. food and beverage category trends moderated as inflationary pressures tightened household spending.
North America organic revenues declined 0.5%, while PepsiCo Foods North America posted a 2% net revenue decline, primarily reflecting lower effective net pricing. Against this backdrop, PepsiCo is sharpening its price-pack architecture to enhance affordability, while continuing to invest in value-oriented initiatives across its portfolio.
The strategy is also being supported by portfolio formats that give consumers greater choice at different price points. Portion-control multi-packs, which generate more than $3.5 billion in annual net revenues, delivered both volume and net revenue growth in the quarter. Meanwhile, PepsiCo's permissible portfolio, representing roughly $3 billion in annual net revenues, also recorded strong volume and sales growth. These trends suggest that targeted pack sizes and differentiated offerings can help the company address affordability without relying solely on broad-based pricing actions.
However, affordability investments carry a near-term profitability trade-off. North America's core operating margin contracted in the quarter, partly reflecting investments in convenient-food affordability, while PepsiCo expects higher input-cost inflation in the second half.
Management plans to lean on record productivity savings to help offset these pressures and fund investments aimed at accelerating growth. If sharper price-pack architecture can improve consumer value perception, support volumes and deepen household penetration, PepsiCo's affordability push could become an important lever for restoring North American momentum.
Highlighting KO & MNST’s Affordability InitiativesThe Coca-Cola Company (KO - Free Report) and Monster Beverage Corporation (MNST - Free Report) are also refining their price-pack strategies to offer consumers greater value while navigating persistent cost pressures and cautious spending.
Coca-Cola is leaning on revenue growth management to keep its beverages accessible as lower-income consumers remain pressured. The company is using different package formats and entry price points, including mini-can multi-packs in retail and single mini cans in convenience stores, to enhance affordability. Management noted that its RGM toolkit will continue addressing both affordability and premiumization, helping Coca-Cola stay close to changing consumer needs.
Monster Beverage is broadening its affordability strategy by offering energy drinks across multiple price points and expanding lower-priced brands in key international markets. Management highlighted growing momentum for its affordable portfolio in EMEA, including Bang Energy, while also targeting further expansion of affordable brands in China and India. These initiatives could help Monster recruit new consumers and deepen household penetration as the global energy-drink category continues to expand.
PEP’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesShares of PepsiCo have lost 13.6% in the past three months compared with the industry’s decline of 4%.
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From a valuation standpoint, PEP trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 14.21X compared with the industry’s average of 18.49X.
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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PEP’s 2026 and 2027 earnings per share (EPS) implies year-over-year growth of 5.3% and 4.3%, respectively. The EPS estimates for 2026 and 2027 have moved south in the past seven days.
Akcie Shopify od květnového minima vzrostly o 80 % a překonaly rezistenci na úrovni 221 USD. Tržby mají letos podle průměrného odhadu vzrůst o 31,9 % na 15,25 mld. USD.
Buy Shopify (SHOP). The stock broke key resistance ($221), invalidated the double-top, and is showing bullish continuation signals (golden cross, above Ichimoku cloud, PPO > 0). The Muse/Meta partnership strengthens the “agentic commerce” story: more AI-driven shopping should lift merchants’ activity, which increases Shopify’s take-rate and payment processing. Fundamentals are also improving (GMV and payment processing up sharply).
Key Risk: Valuation crush: SHOP’s forward P/E (~79) is so high that even “good” results or slower growth triggers a fast multiple contraction.
E-commerce software momentum
Buy Shopify’s ecosystem exposure via e-commerce software/merchant-enablement names (e.g., Square/Block (SQ) as a payments beneficiary, or a basket of high-quality e-commerce enablers). The news is a demand-side catalyst: if AI agents drive more transactions, payment volume and merchant tooling usage rise across the stack, not just on Shopify’s platform. Momentum is already working in SHOP; the second wave is broader payments/merchant adoption.
Key Risk: Platform share loss: merchants choose other platforms/tools for AI shopping, so transaction growth concentrates away from these beneficiaries.
Shopify stock has rebounded in the past few months, reaching its highest level since January 13 this year. It has soared by 80% from its lowest level in May, bringing its market capitalization to over $205 billion. This rally may continue after invalidating the double-top pattern at $158.
SHOP stock has been in an upward trend in the past few weeks, helped by its recent partnership with Meta Platforms. In a statement, Shopify said that users can use Muse to manage their stores, including adding products, collections, inventory, and orders. The partnership came after Amazon blocked Muse.
Investors believe that Shopify may benefit from the new era of agentic shopping as people will use these agents to shop. Indeed, data shows that traffic to American retail sites from AI sources has jumped by 393% this year, and this trend may continue.
Shopify will benefit from all this because it is the biggest provider of e-commerce software globally. Its business strategy involves making money by charging website owners a monthly free. In addition to this, the company makes money by taking a cut for all transactions made by the websites. As such, as agentic commerce grows, so does the commission it makes.
The most recent earnings report showed that its revenue and profits are doing relatively well and that more companies are moving to its platform. Some of the recent additions to the platform are Guess, Fred Segal, AVON, and Arhaus.
Its results showed that the GMV jumped to $116 billion from $101 billion in the first quarter and $88 billion in the same period last year. Its payment processing jumped to over $78 billion in the quarter from $36 billion in Q1’24.
Analysts expect that Shopify’s business will continue to grow in the near term. The average estimate is that its annual revenue will jump by 31.9% this year to $15.25 billion. After that, the company is expected to hit $19.1 billion. At the same time, its earnings per share (EPS) is expected to keep rising.
The main challenge that Shopify investors face is that its valuation has become elevated. It now has a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 79.2, much higher than the technology sector average of 23. The multiple is also much higher than other companies, including faster growers like Micron and Nvidia.
These multiples likely explain why analysts have a mild outlook for the company. For example, Mizuho has a target of $180, while Wedbush has a target of $176.
SHOP stock chart | Source: TradingView
The daily chart shows that the SHOP stock bottomed at $128.97 in May this year and then started an uptrend. This rally continued after it published its financial results in August this year.
The stock has now moved above the important resistance level of $221, its highest point on August 13. It has invalidated the double-top pattern whose neckline is at $171.30.
Shopify has also formed a golden cross pattern, a common bullish continuation sign. Also, it remains above the Ichimoku cloud indicator, while the Percentage Price Oscillator (PPO) has moved above the zero line. Also, it formed an inverted head-and-shoulders pattern.
By invalidating the double-top pattern, chances are that it will continue rising, potentially to the psychological level of $250.
Key Takeaways Merck's stock fell 7.2% in a month after gaining roughly 60% over the past year.Keytruda drives growth, while Winrevair, Welireg and Ohtuvayre add to the top line.Merck faces Gardasil weakness, generic pressure and Keytruda's 2028 patent expiration Merck’s (MRK - Free Report) stock has declined 7.2% in a month. Investors are looking at this correction as a pullback after a strong run rather than a deterioration in its core business. The stock has surged roughly 60% over the past year. It also reached a 52-week high of about $157 in late August.
In general, investors have become more confident in Merck’s growth outlook and ability to offset the eventual patent cliff of its blockbuster cancer drug, Keytruda, after 2028. Keytruda continues to deliver solid growth, while newer products such as Winrevair, Welireg and Ohtuvayre are scaling rapidly. Merck has also been aggressively building its pipeline through acquisitions and partnerships, and investors are increasingly giving credit to these efforts. Merck's partnership with Moderna (MRNA - Free Report) around the personalized cancer vaccine intismeran autogene has also become more important.
Let’s understand all these factors in detail and analyze Merck’s strengths and weaknesses to understand how to play the stock in such a scenario.
Merck’s Keytruda Engine Continues to Power Top-Line GrowthMerck has more than six blockbuster drugs in its portfolio, with Keytruda as the primary top-line driver. Keytruda, approved for several types of cancer, alone accounts for more than 55% of the company’s pharmaceutical sales. In the United States, Keytruda is approved for more than 45 indications spanning 19 tumor types, along with two tumor-agnostic approvals, as well as for many of these indications worldwide.
The drug has played an instrumental role in driving Merck’s steady revenue growth over the past few years. Keytruda sales are gaining from continued strong momentum in metastatic indications and rapid uptake across earlier-stage launches. The company expects the growth to continue till it loses patent exclusivity in 2028. More than 2,800 clinical studies are currently evaluating Keytruda across multiple cancer types and treatment settings.
Merck is working on different strategies to drive Keytruda's long-term growth. These include innovative immuno-oncology combinations, including Keytruda with LAG3 and CTLA-4 inhibitors. In partnership with Moderna, Merck is developing a personalized mRNA therapeutic cancer vaccine called intismeran autogene in combination with Keytruda in pivotal phase III studies for earlier-stage and adjuvant NSCLC and adjuvant melanoma. The combo therapy recently met both primary and secondary endpoints in a phase III study in certain patients with high-risk melanoma.
Merck’s subcutaneous formulation of Keytruda, known as Keytruda Qlex, was approved in the United States and EU in 2025 and generated sales of $590 million in the first half of 2026. Keytruda Qlex can offer substantially quicker administration time than the intravenous infusion of Keytruda.
Merck expects Keytruda to achieve peak sales of $35 billion by 2028. Merck’s other oncology drugs, Welireg, AstraZeneca (AZN - Free Report) -partnered Lynparza and Eisai-partnered Lenvima, are also contributing to top-line growth.
Merck’s Animal Health business is also a key contributor to its top-line growth, with sales expected to more than double by the mid-2030s.
Merck’s Pipeline Strengthens Its Outlook Beyond KeytrudaMerck’s expanding drug pipeline and potential new blockbuster drugs beyond Keytruda look encouraging.
Its phase III pipeline has almost tripled since 2021, supported by in-house progress as well as the addition of candidates through M&A deals. Merck expects to launch 20 new drugs by 2030, with many already launched.
Its new products, pulmonary arterial hypertension drug Winrevair, cancer drug Welireg and 21-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine Capvaxive, have begun to contribute significantly to top-line growth.
Some new products approved/launched recently are RSV antibody, Enflonsia (clesrovimab), Idvynso, a once-daily, single-tablet two-drug regimen of doravirine and islatravir, and Lipfendra (enlicitide), an oral PCSK9 inhibitor to help reduce LDL cholesterol in adults with hypercholesterolemia.
Some key candidates in late-stage development are sacituzumab tirumotecan or sac-TMT, an anti-TROP2 antibody-drug conjugate for multiple tumor types, MK-8591D/islatravir plus lenacapavir, a once-weekly oral treatment for HIV, and alimatravir, a monthly oral HIV PrEP candidate.
Merck is actively pursuing acquisitions to prepare for Keytruda’s 2028 patent expiration. Recent deals added Ohtuvayre through Verona Pharma, influenza candidate MK-1406 through Cidara, and potential blockbuster cancer drug MK-4208 through Terns Pharmaceuticals.
Declining Sales of MRK’s Gardasil & Other VaccinesMerck’s Gardasil/Gardasil 9 franchise is facing a significant slowdown, with sales declining 9% in the first half of 2026 due to weaker demand in China, Japan and the United States. China remains the biggest challenge, as economic weakness has dampened demand and led to elevated channel inventories at partner Zhifei, prompting Merck to halt shipments temporarily.
Although limited shipments resumed in China in the second quarter under a revised agreement, the growing availability of lower-cost domestic HPV vaccines could further put pressure on Gardasil, an imported premium-priced vaccine. Gardasil China revenues are expected to remain immaterial for Merck in 2026. In the United States, Gardasil demand is being hurt by changes in vaccination recommendations, including greater use of single-dose schedules.
Sales of some other Merck vaccines, like Proquad, M-M-R II, Varivax, Rotateq and Vaxneuvance, also declined in the first half of 2026.
Keytruda’s 2028 Patent Loss a Key Risk for MerckMerck is heavily reliant on Keytruda. Though Keytruda may be Merck’s biggest strength and a solid reason to own the stock, the company is excessively dependent on the drug. Keytruda’s core U.S. patent is expected to expire around 2028, with additional patents expiring slightly after that. Keytruda is expected to face significant biosimilar competition around 2028-2029. Once biosimilars enter, Keytruda’s sales are likely to decline sharply.
Also, competitive pressure might increase for Keytruda in the near future from dual PD-1/VEGF inhibitors that inhibit both the PD-1 pathway and the VEGF pathway at once. They are designed to overcome the limitations of single-target therapies like Keytruda.
Merck’s Januvia and Other Drugs Face Generic PressureMRK is seeing declining demand for its diabetes products (Januvia/Janumet) and the generic erosion of some drugs like Isentress/Isentress HD and Bridion in the European Union and Dificid in the United States. Bridion lost market exclusivity in the United States in July 2026 and sales are expected to decline further in future quarters. Januvia and Janumet lost market exclusivity in the United States in May 2026 and Janumet XR in July 2026. Sales of Januvia/Janumet are expected to decline steeply in future quarters due to the government price setting in 2026 and 2027, the patent expiry in 2026 and ongoing competitive pressure.
MRK Share Price, Valuation & EstimatesMerck’s shares have risen 32.6% so far this year compared with an increase of 9.4% for the industry. The stock has also outperformed the sector as well as the S&P 500 index, as seen in the chart below.
From a valuation standpoint, Merck is slightly expensive. Going by the price/earnings ratio, the company’s shares currently trade at 17.44 forward earnings, slightly lower than 17.60 for the industry. The stock is trading above its 5-year mean of 12.98.
MRK Stock ValuationImage Source: Zacks Investment Research
Estimates for MRK’s 2026 earnings have declined from $3.04 per share to $2.77 per share over the past 60 days, while those for 2027 have declined from $9.72 per share to $9.61 per share.
MRK Estimate MovementImage Source: Zacks Investment Research
Stay Invested in MRK StockMerck has one of the world’s best-selling drugs in its portfolio, generating billions of dollars in revenues. Though Keytruda will lose patent exclusivity in 2028, its sales are expected to remain strong until then.
It expects more than $70 billion of potential non-risk-adjusted commercial opportunity for the current pipeline by the mid-2030s. This estimate is more than double the peak consensus sales estimate for Keytruda of $35 billion in 2028.
Merck faces several near-term challenges, including persistent challenges for Gardasil, potential competition for Keytruda, and rising competitive and generic pressure on some of its drugs. Near-term profitability remains affected by costs related to Merck’s various acquisitions. However, these acquisitions eventually benefit the company.
Meanwhile, its new products, strong progress in its pipeline, and business development and acquisitions have increased confidence that Merck may be able to maintain growth even after Keytruda loses exclusivity. Investors can continue to retain this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock as its long-term prospects remain intact. Given the recent decline, MRK could prove to be a potential buying opportunity for long-term investors. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Key Takeaways Chevron is raising its PEL 90 stake to 45.1% through a $11 million deal with Trago Energy.Nabba-1X is planned for Q4 2026, making the well a key near-term catalyst for Chevron.Equinor's entry shares exploration exposure as Chevron maintains operatorship of PEL 90. Chevron Corporation (CVX - Free Report) is strengthening its position in Namibia’s Orange Basin as a key exploration catalyst. The company’s affiliate Harmattan Energy Ltd. recently agreed to acquire Trago Energy Pty Ltd.’s 10% participating interest in Petroleum Exploration License 90 (PEL 90). Trago, a subsidiary of Custos Energy (Pty) Ltd., will receive $11 million in cash at closing, along with contingent consideration linked to future appraisal and production milestones. The transaction remains subject to government, regulatory and third-party approvals.
This agreement is notable because it follows Chevron’s decision in August to farm out a 17.4% interest in PEL 90 to Equinor (EQNR - Free Report) . Rather than simply reducing its exposure to the license, Chevron is now adding another 10% interest. The transaction would increase Chevron’s participating interest in PEL 90 if both the Equinor farm-out and the Trago acquisition are completed.
Chevron Reshapes Its PEL 90 PositionBefore the Equinor transaction, Chevron held a 52.5% participating interest in PEL 90. QatarEnergy owned 27.5%, while Trago Energy and Namibia’s state-owned oil company NAMCOR each held 10%. Equinor’s planned acquisition would lower Chevron’s interest to 35.1% once completed. The latest agreement would lift it to 45.1%, assuming both transactions close.
That ownership structure gives Chevron a sizeable economic interest without carrying the entire exploration burden. Equinor’s planned entry would add another major international energy company to the PEL 90 partnership. Chevron, meanwhile, continues to operate PEL 90, preserving control over the exploration program.
The transaction comes as Chevron prepares for another exploration well on PEL 90. PEL 90 covers Block 2813B in the Orange Basin, a frontier region that has drawn major industry attention because of discoveries in the broader basin. The license covers about 5,433 square kilometers, according to Sintana Energy, and is located near the Venus discovery operated by TotalEnergies (TTE - Free Report) .
Nabba-1X Offers a Near-Term CatalystFor investors, the next major development to watch is the planned Nabba-1X exploration well. Chevron plans to drill the Nabba-1X exploration well on PEL 90 in the fourth quarter of 2026 as part of a wider multi-well exploration campaign across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Nabba-1X will be Chevron’s second exploration well offshore Namibia after Kapana-1X reached total depth in January 2025. The earlier well did not encounter commercial hydrocarbons, although the drilling program generated geological information that the company can use in planning future activity.
That makes Nabba-1X a potentially important value driver. A commercial discovery would strengthen the case for further appraisal and development across PEL 90 and could increase the long-term value of Chevron’s position. However, the project remains at the exploration stage, so investors should not treat potential resources as established reserves.
Broader African Exploration PushThe Namibia transaction also fits Chevron’s broader push to expand its frontier exploration portfolio in Africa. The company has outlined activity across Namibia, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea as part of a multi-well program designed to pursue high-impact opportunities. In September, Chevron outlined exploration activity across several Sub-Saharan African basins as part of its broader exploration program.
For Chevron, this strategy can add future production opportunities without relying solely on mature assets. Frontier exploration, however, comes with significant geological and execution risks. The outcome of individual wells can be difficult to predict, and unsuccessful drilling can delay development plans while increasing capital requirements.
Investment TakeawayThe Trago transaction gives Chevron a larger stake in PEL 90 at an important point in the asset’s exploration cycle. The $11 million upfront payment is modest relative to Chevron’s scale, but the additional interest increases its exposure to any success from Nabba-1X and subsequent appraisal activity. Contingent consideration tied to commercial production also underscores the potentially longer-term nature of the transaction.
At the same time, investors should recognize that the deal does not remove the uncertainty surrounding the asset. Completion of the transaction still requires approvals, while the upcoming well must establish commercial potential before PEL 90 can become a meaningful production asset.
Overall, Chevron’s decision to increase interest in PEL 90 signals that it sees sufficient potential in the acreage to justify a larger position ahead of Nabba-1X. The well’s result should therefore be the key near-term event to watch, with a successful outcome capable of improving the long-term growth profile of Chevron’s upstream portfolio.
CVX's Zacks Rank & Another Key PickCurrently, CVX and EQNR carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) each, while TTE has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Equinor is a Norway-based integrated energy company with operations spanning oil and gas, renewables and low-carbon solutions. The company’s upstream portfolio is anchored by the Norwegian Continental Shelf, while its international operations include oil and gas assets across the United States, Brazil, Angola, the United Kingdom and Canada. On the other hand, TotalEnergies is a France-based global integrated energy company engaged in oil, natural gas, biofuels, renewables and electricity. The company operates across the energy value chain in about 120 countries and produced 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2025, including 46% from natural gas.
Investors interested in the energy sector might consider another top-ranked stock, such as Delek US Holdings (DK - Free Report) , sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Delek US Holdings is valued at $4.54 billion. It is a diversified downstream energy company engaged in petroleum refining, renewable fuels, asphalt production and logistics operations. Delek US Holdings operates multiple refineries in the United States and is committed to delivering safe, reliable energy while investing in cleaner energy initiatives.
