Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Ethereum (ETH) fiyatı, kripto para piyasasında artan satış baskısıyla birlikte yüzde 5,67 gerileyerek 2.555 dolar seviyesine düştü. ETH piyasasında uzun pozisyon tasfiyelerinin haziran ayından bu yana en yüksek seviyeye ulaşması, yatırımcılar arasında endişeleri artırdı. Analistler, Ethereum’un kritik 100 haftalık üstel hareketli ortalama (EMA) desteğini test ettiğine dikkat çekerken bu seviyenin kaybedilmesi durumunda fiyatın 2.100 dolara kadar gerileyebileceği konusunda uyardı.

İlginizi Çekebilir: Altın Fiyatlarında Düşüş: Uzmandan Kritik Uyarı!

Ethereum’da 201 Milyon Dolarlık Tasfiye Ethereum piyasasında yaşanan sert düşüş, kaldıraçlı işlem yapan yatırımcıları olumsuz etkiledi. CoinGlass verilerine göre 7 Ekim’de ETH pozisyonlarında yaklaşık 201 milyon dolarlık tasfiye gerçekleşti. Bu rakam, 5 Haziran’dan bu yana kaydedilen en yüksek günlük uzun pozisyon tasfiyesine işaret ediyor. Aynı dönemde Bitcoin fiyatının 84.000 doların altına gerilemesiyle kripto para piyasasındaki toplam tasfiyeler 665 milyon dolara ulaştı. Binance üzerinde gerçekleşen 26 milyon dolarlık ETH/USDC işlemi ise en büyük tekil tasfiye olarak kaydedildi.

Kripto para analisti Ted Pillows, Ethereum fiyatının 2.600 dolar seviyesinin altına düşmesinin ardından 100 haftalık EMA desteğini test ettiğini belirtti. Analiste göre ETH’nin bu hareketli ortalamanın altında kapanış yapması, daha derin bir fiyat düzeltmesini tetikleyebilir. Bir diğer analist Daan Crypto ise Ethereum’un son yüzde 5’lik düşüşle birlikte iki ila üç haftadır işlem gördüğü fiyat aralığının altına indiğine dikkat çekti. Daan, güçlü bir toparlanma gerçekleşmediği sürece kısa vadeli teknik görünümün zayıf kalabileceğini ifade etti.

Ethereum ETF’lerinden Büyük Çıkış Ethereum fiyatındaki gerilemeye spot ETF piyasasında yaşanan fon çıkışları da eşlik etti. SoSoValue verilerine göre 7 Ekim’de ABD spot Ethereum ETF’lerinden yaklaşık 160 milyon dolarlık net çıkış gerçekleşti. Bu rakam, eylül ortasından bu yana görülen en yüksek günlük çıkış olarak kaydedildi. Haftalık bazda Ethereum ETF’lerinden toplam 252 milyon dolar çıkış yaşanırken bu miktar, Haziran 2026’dan bu yana en yüksek haftalık çıkış seviyesine ulaştı. Öte yandan aynı dönemde Bitcoin ETF’lerine 118 milyon dolar, XRP yatırım ürünlerine ise 3,14 milyon dolar giriş gerçekleşti.

Ethereum’un haftalık teknik grafiğinde 2.561 dolar seviyesindeki 100 haftalık EMA, kritik destek noktası olarak öne çıkıyor. Analistler, bu seviyenin altında gerçekleşecek haftalık kapanışların satış baskısını artırabileceğini değerlendiriyor. Geçmiş fiyat hareketlerinde benzer teknik kırılmaların ardından Ethereum’da sert düşüşler yaşanmıştı. Şubat 2025 ve Ocak 2026 dönemlerinde 100 haftalık EMA’nın kaybedilmesi, önemli fiyat düzeltmelerini beraberinde getirmişti. ETH’nin mevcut desteğini koruyamaması durumunda ilk olarak 2.400 doların altı, ardından 2.100 dolar bölgesi gündeme gelebilir.

Değerlendirme Ethereum fiyatındaki sert düşüş, artan kaldıraçlı pozisyon tasfiyeleri ve ETF çıkışlarıyla birlikte kripto para piyasasında dikkatleri ETH üzerine çevirdi. Analistlere göre 2.561 dolar seviyesindeki 100 haftalık EMA desteği, kısa vadeli fiyat hareketleri açısından belirleyici olabilir. Bu seviyenin kaybedilmesi durumunda 2.400 ve 2.100 dolar destekleri öne çıkarken 2.600 doların yeniden aşılması toparlanma beklentilerini güçlendirebilir. Yatırımcıların ETF akışlarını, tasfiye verilerini ve haftalık kapanışları yakından takip etmesi önem taşıyor.

Son Dakika kripto para haberleri için hemen tıkla.

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Circle says more than $14 trillion has moved through stablecoins over the past year, a growth rate of 151%. The company’s own USDC numbers are the main driver of that figure.

The numbers behind the headline figure Circle Internet Group, the issuer of USDC, released its second-quarter 2026 earnings in early August. The disclosure put USDC on-chain transaction volume at $14.8 trillion, up 151% year over year.

Daily on-chain volume averaged $163 billion.

Supply grew too, though more slowly. As of June 30, 2026, USDC in circulation stood at $73.3 billion, up 19% from a year earlier.

USDC is estimated to have processed around $32 trillion in adjusted transfers through August, which suggests it holds a dominant share of stablecoin transfer volume in 2026.

Where the money actually comes from Total revenue and reserve income for the quarter came to $701.3 million, up 7% year over year. Net income was $48 million, and adjusted EBITDA reached $143 million, an 8% increase.

About 95% of revenue, roughly $667.7 million, was interest income on the reserves backing USDC. Those reserves sit mostly in US Treasuries and cash equivalents.

Transaction revenue was only about $5.3 million.

Circle’s results noted that average circulation helped reserve income grow even though yields were lower, at roughly 3.5%.

The payments network is the one to watch The Circle Payments Network reached an annualized volume of $14.7 billion across 175 institutions. That figure grew 76% quarter over quarter.

How Circle got here Circle was founded in 2013 to provide infrastructure for moving dollars on-chain. USDC, its fiat-backed stablecoin, became a core tool in decentralized finance (DeFi) and in institutional payments.

Regulatory progress has helped. Circle has received approvals tied to Circle National Trust and New York Trust, which strengthens its standing with traditional financial players who need clear rules before getting involved.

What this means for USDC and the stablecoin market With roughly 95% of revenue coming from reserve income, Circle’s earnings are closely tied to interest rates. Lower yields of about 3.5% have so far been offset by a larger float.

$14.8 trillion in quarterly volume shows real demand for on-chain dollars, but Circle earns little directly from that activity, with transaction revenue of only $5.3 million against $667.7 million in reserve income.

The Circle Payments Network, with its 76% quarterly growth and 175 participating institutions, is the clearest test of whether volume can become something other than interest.

Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Key Takeaways BlackRock's record AUM and strategic acquisitions are expanding growth opportunities across key markets.BLK expects strong earnings growth as demand rises for private markets, ETFs and technology solutions.Rising expenses and a premium valuation could weigh on profitability and limit near-term upside. BlackRock, Inc. (BLK - Free Report) shares have risen 6.8% over the past six months, marginally outperforming the industry’s 6.3% growth. In the same period, the S&P 500 has gained 15.1%.

BLK has fared better than its peer, KKR & Co. Inc. (KKR - Free Report) , but trailed Franklin Templeton, Inc. (BEN - Free Report) during the same time period. Over the past six months, shares of KKR & Co. have declined 3.4%, while Franklin Templeton jumped 29.7%.

6-Month Price Performance

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Does BLK stock have more upside left despite recent price strength? Let us find out by looking at its fundamentals and growth prospects.

Key Factors Supporting BlackRockStrategic Acquisitions Expand Growth Opportunities: BlackRock continues to strengthen its competitive position through strategic acquisitions that broaden its capabilities across private markets, technology and investment solutions. The acquisitions of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), HPS Investment Partners, Preqin, ElmTree Funds and SpiderRock have expanded the company’s presence in infrastructure, private credit, alternative assets, data analytics and customized wealth solutions while complementing the Aladdin technology ecosystem. Management noted that the integration of GIP, HPS and Preqin is progressing ahead of plan, supporting the company’s 2030 growth strategy. The acquired businesses are already contributing to fundraising, higher-margin revenue streams, technology adoption and cross-selling opportunities across BlackRock’s global client base.

Record AUM And Diversification Support Revenue Growth: BlackRock’s broad product mix and consistently rising assets under management (AUM) provide a solid foundation for sustained top-line growth. AUM increased at a 10.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2020 through 2025, supported by market appreciation, client inflows and strategic acquisitions. This momentum continued in 2026, with AUM reaching a record $15.3 trillion as of June 30, 2026.

AUM Mix as of June 30, 2026

Image Source: BlackRock, Inc.

Demand remains strong across iShares ETFs, active strategies, private markets, retirement solutions and technology services. The integration of HPS, GIP and Preqin with Aladdin and eFront is further expanding BlackRock’s private-markets ecosystem and cross-selling potential. Total GAAP revenues increased at an 8.4% CAGR over the five years ended 2025, with the uptrend continuing in the first half of 2026.

Sales Estimates

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Capital Returns Strengthen Shareholder Value: BlackRock’s commitment to returning capital to shareholders adds to its investment appeal. The company has a long track record of dividend growth, with its latest increase announced in January 2026. Its board authorized an additional 7 million shares under the existing repurchase program. Management raised its 2026 quarterly buyback target to at least $550 million and expects to return more than $5.7 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks, up 16% from 2025.

BlackRock’s Share Repurchases

Image Source: BlackRock, Inc.

Record AUM, resilient organic base fee growth, increasing demand for private markets, ETFs and technology solutions and continued margin expansion should support long-term shareholder value creation.

What Could Weigh on BlackRock’s PerformanceBlackRock faces rising expenses while its expanding global footprint exposes it to a range of external risks. Total expenses increased at a 10.3% CAGR over the five years ended 2025, driven by higher employee compensation, general and administrative (G&A) costs and acquisition-related expenses. The pressure continued in the first half of 2026. Although management expects 2026 G&A expenses, excluding HPS and Preqin, to increase at a mid-single-digit rate, continued investments in private markets, technology, artificial intelligence and business expansion could keep the expense base elevated and limit operating leverage if revenue growth moderates.

BlackRock’s Total Expenses Trend

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

At the same time, nearly 40% of AUM is managed for clients domiciled outside the United States, increasing sensitivity to foreign exchange movements, regulatory changes, geopolitical uncertainty and regional economic slowdowns. Adverse global conditions or currency volatility could weigh on asset values, client activity and net inflows, creating additional pressure on BlackRock’s revenue growth and profitability.

BLK’s Earnings & Valuation AnalysisAnalysts are bullish on BlackRock’s prospects. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings is $55.73 for 2026 and $64.41 for 2027, up from $48.09 in 2025, suggesting continued growth. Record AUM, resilient organic base fee growth, increasing demand for private markets, ETFs and technology solutions, and continued margin expansion are expected to support sustained earnings growth.

Earnings Estimates

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In terms of its valuation, BlackRock stock is currently trading at a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 17.06X, compared with the industry average of 13.28X. This indicates that BLK is currently trading at a premium to its industry.

Price-to-Earnings F12M

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BlackRock trades at a premium compared with both Franklin Templeton and KKR & Co. At present, Franklin Templeton and KKR & Co. trade at a forward 12-month P/E of 10.11X and 13.47X, respectively.

Parting Thoughts on BlackRockBlackRock appears well positioned for long-term growth, supported by record AUM, strategic buyouts, diversified product offerings and strong demand for private markets, ETFs and technology solutions. The integration of GIP, HPS Investment Partners and Preqin is expanding its private-markets capabilities, cross-selling opportunities and higher-margin revenue streams, while continued organic base fee growth and capital returns should support shareholder value.

Although rising expenses, international exposure and sensitivity to foreign exchange, regulatory and geopolitical risks could weigh on profitability, BlackRock’s scale, diversified platform and expanding AUM provide a solid foundation for earnings growth. Also, its premium valuation limits near-term upside.

Currently, BLK stock carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Intel, AMD Stocks Tumbles as Chip Stocks Retreat. Terafab Questions Add to the Pressure Summary

Intel shares fell faster than major chip rivals as rising oil prices and Treasury yields pressured semiconductor stocks

Chip stocks slipped in morning trading Thursday as higher Treasury yields and a jump in oil prices weighed on technology shares. Intel (INTC) fell about 3%, while Nvidia (NVDA) declined around 1% and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) lost roughly 2%.

Brent crude climbed above $104 a barrel, while the 10-year Treasury yield reached 5.29%, close to a 24-year high. Rising yields can pressure growth stocks by making future earnings less valuable, while higher energy costs can revive inflation concerns.

Oil prices surged Thursday after a tanker was hit by projectiles near Qatar, adding to concerns over disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz. The move came as hopes for a U.S.-Iran agreement weakened, with President Donald Trump having rejected Iran's proposal to reopen the key shipping route.

Separately, Intel has a company-specific issue in focus. Elon Musk said his companies would build and operate the planned Terafab AI chip complex in Texas, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company may lease part of the site. Intel is expected to remain involved in the venture.

The project matters to Intel because its strategy includes expanding its contract manufacturing business. Any change to Terafab's structure could affect investor expectations for that effort as semiconductor shares face broader market pressure.

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.

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Key Takeaways Pfizer's oncology revenues rose 3% to $4.17 billion in Q2, or 2% operationally.Padcev, Lorbrena and Braftovi-Mektovi may offset declines in Ibrance and Adcetris in Q3.Pfizer is advancing PF-08634404 in nine studies, including two pivotal phase III studies. Pfizer (PFE - Free Report) is a major global player in oncology, with a diversified presence across breast, genitourinary, thoracic, gastrointestinal and hematologic cancers. Its established portfolio of marketed cancer treatments is complemented by a robust pipeline covering a range of therapeutic approaches, including small-molecule drugs, antibody-drug conjugates and immuno-oncology biologics.

Oncology sales comprise around 27% of its total revenues. In the second quarter of 2026, oncology revenues increased 3% to $4.17 billion, with 2% operational growth. Investors will be keen to know how its oncology segment performed in the third quarter when the company announces results on Nov. 3.

Pfizer’s oncology sales in the third quarter are expected to have been driven by higher sales of key drugs like Padcev, Lorbrena and the Braftovi-Mektovi combination, which should make up for declining sales of drugs like Ibrance and Adcetris. Sales of the new drug, Elrexfio, are also likely to have risen in the quarter.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Padcev is $692 million, while that for Ibrance is $1.01 billion.

Pfizer has ventured into the oncology biosimilars space and markets six biosimilars for cancer. Its oncology biosimilars are expected to have made a significant contribution to sales growth in the third quarter of 2026, similar to the past few quarters.

Pfizer is also likely to provide updates on its key oncology candidates on the third-quarter conference call. Several oncology candidates have entered late-stage development, such as atirmociclib, sasanlimaband sigvotatug vedotin.

A key candidate in PFE’s oncology pipeline is PF-08634404, a dual PD-1/VEGF inhibitor in-licensed from Chinese biotech 3SBio in 2025. Pfizer has initiated nine studies, including two pivotal phase III studies for PF-08634404 in first-line metastatic colorectal cancer and first-line NSCLC, and additional phase II studies in small-cell lung cancer and gastroesophageal cancers. Pfizer aims to establish PF-08634404 as a potential backbone therapy across multiple tumor types. An update on PF-08634404 is expected on the third-quarter conference call.

Competition in the Oncology SpacePfizer is one of the largest drugmakers of cancer medicines. Other large players in the oncology space are J&J (JNJ - Free Report) , AstraZeneca (AZN - Free Report) , Merck (MRK - Free Report) and Bristol-Myers.

Oncology accounts for nearly 29% of J&J’s total revenues. In the first half of 2026, oncology revenues increased 16.9% to $14.4 billion on an operational basis, fueled by continued momentum for Darzalex and Erleada, although weaker demand for Imbruvica partially offset these gains. J&J’s new cancer drugs, Carvykti, Tecvayli, Talvey and Rybrevant/Lazcluze, are contributing significantly to top-line growth, driven by market share gains.

For AstraZeneca, oncology sales now comprise around 46% of total revenues. Sales in its oncology segment rose 15% at constant exchange rate to $14.1 billion in the first half of 2026. AstraZeneca’s strong oncology performance was driven by medicines such as Tagrisso, Lynparza, Imfinzi, Calquence and Enhertu (in partnership with Daiichi Sankyo).

Merck’s key oncology medicines are the PD-L1 inhibitor Keytruda and the PARP inhibitor Lynparza, which it markets in partnership with AstraZeneca. Keytruda, approved for several types of cancer, alone accounts for more than 55% of the company’s pharmaceutical sales. Keytruda recorded sales of $15.8 billion in the first half of 2026, up 4% year over year.

PFE’s Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesPfizer’s stock has risen 12.5% so far this year compared with an increase of 9.8% for the industry.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

From a valuation standpoint, Pfizer appears attractive relative to the industry and is trading below its five-year mean. Going by the price/earnings ratio, Pfizer’s shares currently trade at 9.48 forward earnings, significantly lower than 17.65 for the industry. However, PFE trades slightly above the stock’s five-year mean of 9.25.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings has risen from $2.97 per share to $2.98 per share, while that for 2027 has risen from $2.94 per share to $2.95 per share over the past 60 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Pfizer has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Key Takeaways Halozyme won a Dutch ruling finding Keytruda SC infringes an MDASE patent.Merck must stop making and selling Keytruda SC across eight European markets.Halozyme's ENHANZE business remains separate and supports royalties from 10 commercialized products. Halozyme Therapeutics (HALO - Free Report) announced that a Dutch patent court has issued a ruling in its favor in a patent dispute with Merck (MRK - Free Report) over Keytruda’s subcutaneous (SC) formulation.

The court found that Merck’s Keytruda SC infringes one of Halozyme’s MDASE patents, which covers technology used to deliver drugs through SC injection. The ruling orders Merck to stop manufacturing and selling Keytruda SC in Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands. It also prevents Merck from allowing its affiliates to continue selling the drug in these markets, including through the use of its European marketing authorization.

However, the court order does not affect the intravenous (IV) version of Keytruda. Patients will continue to have access to Keytruda IV because it is not covered by Halozyme’s patent or the court’s injunction.

This is not the first legal victory Halozyme has secured against Merck over Keytruda SC. In December 2025, a German court granted Halozyme a preliminary injunction that stopped Merck from distributing or offering Keytruda SC in Germany. HALO has also filed a separate patent infringement lawsuit against MRK in the United States, alleging that Keytruda SC, marketed as Keytruda Qlex, infringes 15 of its MDASE patents.

MRK Seeks to Fight the RulingMerck strongly disagrees with the Dutch court’s decision, according to Reuters. It considers Halozyme’s patent to be invalid globally and said its infringement allegation is without merit. Merck is evaluating its next steps.

The ruling is nevertheless an important setback for Merck as it seeks to expand the use of Keytruda. The SC version is intended to help extend Keytruda’s commercial opportunity as Merck approaches the loss of U.S. patent protection for the original formulation, with biosimilar competition potentially beginning in December 2028. Currently, the IV and SC versions together generate nearly half of Merck’s topline, making Keytruda an important part of the company’s strategy to preserve and extend the franchise.

For Halozyme, the widening restrictions on Keytruda SC could provide greater leverage in its broader patent dispute with Merck. While the latest ruling does not guarantee a financial benefit for HALO, additional court wins could strengthen its position in any future licensing or settlement discussions with Merck.

Year to date, the company’s shares have surged 65% compared with the industry’s 1% growth.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Dispute Does Not Affect HALO’s ENHANZE BusinessHalozyme stated that the MDASE technology involved in the Merck dispute is separate from its ENHANZE technology and licensing program. This is particularly important for investors, given that ENHANZE is a major source of the company’s royalty revenues.

Halozyme has collaboration agreements with large pharma companies, like J&J (JNJ - Free Report) and argenx (ARGX - Free Report) , among others, which use its ENHANZE technology to develop SC formulations of their various approved drugs.

J&J uses the technology to administer the multiple myeloma therapy Darzalex (marketed as Darzalex Faspro/SC). On the other hand, argenx uses the same to deliver the generalized myasthenia gravis therapy Vyvgart, marketed as Vyvgart Hytrulo.

Per Halozyme, ENHANZE has been used in 10 commercialized products across more than 100 markets, while its growing number of partnerships provides further opportunities for milestone payments and royalties as new programs advance toward commercialization.

HALO’s Zacks RankHalozyme currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Campbell's just made its most painful dividend decision in over two decades, and the debt load behind it raises a bigger question about whether even the new, smaller payout can survive what's coming in 2027.

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Campbell’s (NASDAQ:CPB | CPB Price Prediction) cut its quarterly dividend 36% from $0.39 to $0.25 per share on September 3, 2026 to pay down debt faster. The new $1.00 annualized payout yields about 5.3%. The stock is down 35.08% over the past year. The real question is whether the smaller payout will hold.

Chief Executive Mick Beekhuizen addressed the cut directly on the earnings call:

“Reducing the dividend is obviously a difficult decision, but it’s an unfortunately necessary decision that we needed to take.”

Smaller Dividend Is Much Easier to Cover In fiscal 2026, Campbell’s generated $1.039 billion in operating cash flow and spent $361 million on capital expenditures, leaving about $678 million of free cash flow. Dividends took $470 million, or roughly 69% of it, leaving little for debt reduction.

At the new rate, the dividend costs about $298 million per year, roughly 44% of last year’s free cash flow. Management expects fiscal 2027 adjusted EPS of $1.65 to $1.80, so the dividend would take between 56% and 61% of earnings. In the fourth quarter, operating cash flow was only $200 million while capex was $291 million.

Acquisition Debt Forced the Cut Total debt reached $7.137 billion at fiscal year-end, up from $4.689 billion in fiscal 2023 before the Sovos (Rao’s) acquisition. Debt stands at about 4.4 times EBITDA of $1.62 billion. The company holds just $394 million in cash. Bills due within a year total $3.336 billion, more than the $2.72 billion of current assets. CFO Todd Cunfer said fiscal 2027 interest expense will rise about $25 million. A $500 million bond comes due in March, and a second La Regina payment is due May 4, 2027.

Snacks Are Shrinking While Soup Holds Up In the fourth quarter, Meals & Beverages increased organic sales 3% while Snacks fell 6% with operating earnings down 34%. Management expects fiscal 2027 organic sales to fall 4% to 2%. Campbell’s raised prices on about 60% of its portfolio and plans for elasticity of 1.5 times, expecting lower volume.

“We need to protect those margins. We need to take some unfortunate pricing activities to make the math work on our P&L.”

Other packaged food companies face similar pressure. General Mills (NYSE:GIS) yields 7.58% with trailing EPS of -$1.64. Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:KHC) yields 7.33% with trailing EPS of -$2.89 and cut its dividend in 2019. Both still pay yields above 7% while reporting GAAP losses. Campbell’s has adjusted its payout to match its finances.

Verdict: Safe at $0.25, but Don’t Count on Raises The new dividend is safe, using well under half of last year’s free cash flow. Raises are unlikely until debt goes down and everything settles. The quarterly payment reached $0.39 in January 2025, but that progress is gone. Watch adjusted EPS against the $1.65 bottom of guidance. Inflation at 5% to 6% and weakening Snacks could pressure earnings below that floor, threatening safety.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Key Takeaways AbbVie's Temab-A earns two FDA Breakthrough Therapy designations for CRC and NSCLC.Temab-A is being studied as a c-Met-directed ADC with a topoisomerase 1 inhibitor payload.AbbVie is also evaluating Temab-A in head and neck, pancreatic, ovarian and other cancers. AbbVie (ABBV - Free Report) announced that the FDA has granted two Breakthrough Therapy designations (BTDs) to its investigational next-generation antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), telisotuzumab adizutecan (Temab-A; ABBV-400), for two different types of cancer indications – colorectal cancer (CRC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

One BTD covers Temab-A in combination with bevacizumab for treating adults with refractory, metastatic CRC who were previously treated with fluoropyrimidine, irinotecan, oxaliplatin, anti-VEGF monoclonal antibody (mAb), and, if indicated, anti-EGFR mAb therapy.

The second BTD is for Temab-A as a monotherapy for treating adults with locally advanced or metastatic EGFR wild-type, c-Met protein-expressing, non-squamous NSCLC who previously received platinum-based chemotherapy and an anti-PD-(L)1 antibody therapy.

The two new designations from the FDA mark the first BTDs for Temab-A.

ABBV’s Price PerformanceYear to date, shares of AbbVie have rallied 21.6% compared with the industry’s increase of 11.7%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Both the above designations for Temab-A were based on data from the first-in-human M21-404 study. Temab-A is being evaluated as a c-Met-directed ADC with a topoisomerase 1 inhibitor payload across several advanced solid tumors, including CRC and NSCLC.

Besides CRC and NSCLC, AbbVie is evaluating Temab-A in other advanced solid tumors, including head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and ovarian cancer. The development program includes several phase III and phase II/III studies evaluating the drug as a monotherapy and in combination with other therapies.

Strong Pipeline Expands ABBV’s Growth OpportunitiesAbbVie boasts a robust pipeline. The company recently announced positive top-line data from the phase III CERVINO study on etentamig for treating third-line-plus multiple myeloma. The study met both its primary goals, showing that treatment with etentamig significantly improved the objective response rate and progression-free survival compared with standard available therapies.

AbbVie is strengthening its portfolio of oncology medicines with the addition of ADCs, which are being considered a disruptive innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. ADCs will allow better treatment of cancer by harnessing the targeting power of antibodies to deliver cytotoxic molecule drugs to tumors.

AbbVie expects pivotal data readouts for some other key pipeline candidates, including Temab-A in metastatic CRC and lutikizumab in hidradenitis suppurativa. The company is also developing ABBV-706, an ADC for treating relapsed/refractory small-cell lung cancer, as well as some other candidates that are in early-stage development.

ABBV’s Zacks Rank & Stocks to ConsiderAbbVie currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Some better-ranked stocks in the biotech sector are Actuate Therapeutics, Inc. (ACTU - Free Report) , Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY - Free Report) and CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP - Free Report) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Over the past 60 days, estimates for Actuate Therapeutics’ 2026 loss per share have narrowed from 86 cents to 73 cents, while loss per share estimates for 2027 have declined from 78 cents to 59 cents during the same time. ACTU’s shares have plunged 88.2% year to date.

Actuate Therapeutics’ earnings beat estimates in three of the trailing four quarters, while missing the same on the remaining occasion, with the average surprise being 8.21%.

Over the past 60 days, estimates for Bristol Myers’ 2026 earnings per share have risen from $6.81 to $6.91, while estimates for 2027 have increased from $6.42 to $6.46 during the same time. BMY’s shares have risen 15.6% year to date.

Bristol Myers’ earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 14.43%.

Over the past 60 days, estimates for CRISPR Therapeutics’ 2026 loss per share have narrowed from $4.53 to $4.47, while loss per share estimates for 2027 have declined from $3.63 to $3.61 during the same time. CRSP’s shares have lost 0.1% year to date.

CRISPR Therapeutics’ earnings beat estimates in two of the trailing four quarters, while missing the same on the remaining two occasions, with the average negative surprise being 1.38%.

There is a criticism of Palantir Technologies (PLTR +1.07%) that refuses to go away. For all the praise surrounding its artificial intelligence (AI) software, Palantir sends engineers directly into customer organizations to solve problems. On the surface, this sounds like consulting.

While there is some truth to that comparison, Palantir's forward deployed engineers work alongside customers rather than simply handing them a software toolkit and walking away. Focusing on this process misses what Palantir is actually selling -- and, more importantly for investors, the economics of the business.

If Palantir were really a consulting firm disguised as an AI company, its financial statements would eventually expose that. Instead, they're telling almost the exact opposite story.

Image source: Getty Images.

Palantir's engineers are not traditional consultants Palantir calls its sales approach forward deployed engineering. The idea is straightforward: engineers go directly into organizations, learn how those businesses operate, integrate Palantir's technology with their systems, and build data workflows around real-world problems.

Although this has consulting characteristics, there's an important difference. A traditional consulting firm like Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, or McKinsey, primarily monetize the time and expertise of its employees. Palantir's engineers are deploying the company's Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), a suite of software programs that can be used across an entire organization in different departments.

Palantir's AIP Bootcamps reinforce the business model. Prospective customers can demo AIP and work directly with Palantir to build use cases in a matter of hours or days. Once customers see how the software works against their own pain points, Palantir can expand the relationship quickly -- keeping customers sticky in the process.

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Palantir's financials look nothing like a consulting firm Palantir's second-quarter results were remarkable. Total revenue surged 93% year over year to $1.94 billion. U.S. commercial revenue accelerated 149% to $764 million, while U.S. government revenue climbed 90% to $809 million.

During the quarter, Palantir closed 220 deals worth at least $1 million, including 73 worth at least $10 million. Meanwhile, U.S. commercial remaining deal value (RDV) increased 124% to $6.24 billion.

Margins tell investors the most important part of the story. Palantir generated $1.2 billion in adjusted operating income, producing a jaw-dropping 62% adjusted operating margin. Adjusted free cash flow also reached $1.2 billion, representing a 63% margin. Those aren't the economics of a consulting company.

PLTR Operating Margin (TTM) data by YCharts

Consulting is inherently labor intensive, meaning it is low-margin. Palantir, by contrast, is demonstrating impressive operating leverage as revenue scales. Think of it this way: Palantir's software can be deployed across customers without expenses rising proportionately with sales.

What's even more encouraging is Palantir has multiple avenues for expansion. AIP and Foundry are penetrating commercial enterprises while Gotham is increasingly embedded across defense agencies and national security workloads. In addition, sovereign governments increasingly want AI capabilities and secure data infrastructure. This gives Palantir exposure to commercial AI, defense modernization, and sovereign technology spending all at once.

Palantir's valuation is another blemish Another argument against Palantir stock revolves around valuation. As of this writing (Oct. 5), Palantir trades at roughly $189 per share and commands a market capitalization around $453 billion. The stock boasts a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 78 and a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 160.

PLTR PS Ratio data by YCharts

Under conventional valuation frameworks, those multiples are difficult to justify. I see another side to the argument, though. A P/S ratio becomes considerably less informative when revenue is growing 93% year over year while operating margins simultaneously expand. Likewise, as the chart above illustrates, a P/E ratio can fall surprisingly quickly when earnings compound rapidly.

While this does not mean I'd buy into Palantir's momentum at any price, I do think the trends above should encourage investors to think more deeply about what the company's profitability profile could look like several years from now rather than simply looking at today's ratios and stopping there.

All told, Palantir's forward deployed engineers might make the company look like a consultancy, but its financial trajectory resembles an unusually scalable software business. This makes Palantir one of the most interesting long-term AI stocks.

I view Palantir as a stock to accumulate selectively rather than chasing after big rallies. By using dollar-cost averaging, investors can steadily build a position in Palantir at different price points over a long-term time horizon. This will give you the flexibility to build or trim your position as you see fit based on the company's growth over the next several years.

HWG Holdings LP purchased a new position in Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU – Free Report) in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 4,492 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock, valued at approximately $4,784,000. Micron Technology comprises about 1.1% of HWG Holdings LP’s portfolio, making the stock its 23rd biggest holding.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Denali Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Micron Technology during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $7,364,000. Castleark Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Micron Technology in the first quarter valued at approximately $3,709,000. Legacy Wealth Management LLC MS raised its stake in shares of Micron Technology by 73.3% in the 2nd quarter. Legacy Wealth Management LLC MS now owns 3,544 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock worth $4,091,000 after buying an additional 1,499 shares in the last quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. lifted its holdings in Micron Technology by 16.0% in the 2nd quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. now owns 48,520 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock valued at $56,006,000 after acquiring an additional 6,702 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC boosted its holdings in Micron Technology by 2,461.4% during the second quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 37,141 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock worth $42,871,000 after buying an additional 35,691 shares in the last quarter. 80.84% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Headlines Impacting Micron Technology Here are the key news stories impacting Micron Technology this week:

Positive Sentiment: Zacks upgraded Micron to “Strong Buy.” The rating change reinforces the bullish view following Micron’s recent earnings beat and stronger-than-expected outlook. Micron Technology Stock Rating Upgraded by Zacks Research Positive Sentiment: DA Davidson raised its price target to $3,000 from $2,100 while maintaining a Buy rating. Analyst Gil Luria expects AI infrastructure spending to keep memory demand ahead of supply potentially through 2028, implying substantial long-term upside. Why Is Micron Stock Rising? Positive Sentiment: Micron’s record results continue to support the AI memory-supercycle thesis. Fiscal fourth-quarter revenue reached $54.23 billion and adjusted EPS was $33.42, while first-quarter fiscal 2027 guidance calls for $37.15–$39.15 of EPS. More than 75% of expected fiscal 2027 shipments are reportedly committed, improving visibility and reducing reliance on spot memory prices. Micron’s Latest Earnings Reveal Why the AI Memory Supercycle Could Run for Years Positive Sentiment: Reports highlighting Samsung’s record profit and Micron’s long-term customer agreements suggest memory suppliers may enjoy stronger pricing power and less severe boom-bust cycles. Data-center SSDs, high-bandwidth memory and AI-agent workloads are expanding Micron’s growth opportunities. Why Micron Investors Should Pay Attention to Samsung’s Record Profit Neutral Sentiment: Micron agreed to pay Netlist $600 million for a five-year patent license and settlement, resolving litigation but creating a sizable cash expense. Micron Technology and Netlist Settle Patent Dispute Negative Sentiment: A Taiwan union representing Micron workers authorized a strike over bonus negotiations. No walkout was announced, but disruption at a major manufacturing hub could threaten production and raise costs. Micron’s Taoyuan Union Secures Authorization to Strike Negative Sentiment: Some analysts warn that slowing memory-price growth, potentially lower margins and Micron’s enormous prior rally leave the stock vulnerable if supply catches up with AI-driven demand. Investor Michael Burry’s reported longer-dated put positions add to the caution. Micron NAND Is Not One Market Anymore Insider Activity at Micron Technology In other news, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra sold 40,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $968.90, for a total transaction of $38,756,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 264,503 shares in the company, valued at $256,276,956.70. The trade was a 13.14% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Sumit Sadana sold 15,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $934.29, for a total value of $14,014,350.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 191,021 shares in the company, valued at approximately $178,469,010.09. This trade represents a 7.28% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last three months, insiders sold 95,879 shares of company stock valued at $90,939,466. 0.24% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of analysts have commented on the stock. DA Davidson upped their price objective on shares of Micron Technology from $2,100.00 to $3,000.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Daiwa Securities Group lifted their price target on Micron Technology from $1,600.00 to $1,700.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 17th. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $1,400.00 target price on shares of Micron Technology in a research report on Monday, September 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Micron Technology from $550.00 to $1,540.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 25th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Micron Technology in a report on Thursday, October 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-one have issued a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $1,407.88.

Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on MU

Micron Technology Stock Up 4.1% Shares of NASDAQ MU opened at $1,088.00 on Thursday. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $972.71 and its 200-day moving average is $836.22. The company has a current ratio of 3.31, a quick ratio of 2.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. Micron Technology, Inc. has a 1 year low of $179.61 and a 1 year high of $1,255.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.23 trillion, a PE ratio of 14.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.18 and a beta of 2.22.

Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, September 30th. The semiconductor manufacturer reported $33.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $31.77 by $1.65. The company had revenue of $54.23 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $51.33 billion. Micron Technology had a return on equity of 92.62% and a net margin of 63.80%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 379.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.03 EPS. Micron Technology has set its Q1 2027 guidance at 37.150-39.150 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Micron Technology, Inc. will post 175.82 EPS for the current year.

Micron Technology Announces Dividend The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 29th. Investors of record on Wednesday, October 14th will be given a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 14th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.1%. Micron Technology’s dividend payout ratio is 0.81%.

Micron Technology Profile (Free Report)

Micron Technology, Inc is a semiconductor company that develops and manufactures memory and storage solutions. Its product portfolio includes dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), NAND flash memory, three-dimensional XPoint-related technologies, solid-state drives, and high-bandwidth memory products designed for demanding computing applications.

The company serves customers across the data center, artificial intelligence, networking, automotive, industrial, mobile, consumer electronics, and embedded markets.

See Also Five stocks we like better than Micron Technology Skydance Just Became a Media Giant—With an $80 Billion Debt Load Could Velo3D Be the Next Defense Buyout Target? Penguin Solutions Is Soaring as AI Memory Demand Explodes Alphabet’s Chart Is Coiling—and the Fundamentals May Be Ready to Back It Up

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Zcash has moved Network Upgrade 7 onto public testnet, putting the privacy chain’s next consensus change under live conditions ahead of a November 2026 mainnet target.

The Zcash Foundation shipped Zebra 7.0.0-rc.0, the first release candidate for NU7, on October 2, 2026.

That build is written to activate the upgrade on the public test network at block height 4,465,026, a point the teams expected around October 6.

Operators of testnet nodes were told to update before that height if they want to remain on the NU7 chain and help exercise the rules under real traffic.

Mainnet operators were told not to act yet: no production activation height has been locked in, and the package is still a candidate rather than a stable release.

The schedule was set in mid-September after sentiment collection and talks among the Zcash Foundation, Project Tachyon, Valar, ZODL, and Shielded Labs.

Developer Sean Bowe reported unanimous agreement on scope and timing.

The checklist called for feature completion by September 30, testnet activation on October 6 at the height agreed by the Zakura and Zebra teams, a final mainnet decision on October 20, and a provisional production activation on November 5.

That November date stays contingent on how the test network behaves.

The October 20 review, scheduled about a week before Zcon, is where engineers are due to choose a mainnet height or delay the cutover if testing shows problems.NU7 is narrower than some earlier proposals.

It does not introduce a new transaction format, and the teams have said ordinary wallets should see little change.

Full nodes, indexers, and block explorers are more likely to need updates.

The headline protocol change, specified in ZIP 218, shortens the target interval between blocks from 75 seconds to 25 seconds.

That interval has been in place since Zcash launched in 2016.

A first confirmation would therefore arrive, on average, in about a third of the time it does today, which matters for point-of-sale payments, exchange deposits, and bridges that wait for a fixed number of confirmations.

Daily issuance is meant to stay the same: remaining halving intervals are stretched by a factor of three, each scheduled block subsidy is divided by three, and funding-stream periods are adjusted to match.

The 21 million ZEC cap and the familiar four-year halving pattern are both preserved.A second piece is the Network Sustainability Mechanism.

Under the design in ZIP 235 and ZIP 237, 60 percent of each block’s transaction fees is taken out of circulation and held in a reserve, while miners keep 40 percent so they still have a reason to include user transactions.

Later blocks reissue a small, predictable slice of that reserve on top of the normal subsidy.

Public reserves are seeded with the historical shortfall from before NU6.

Coinholder polling backed keeping halvings and pointed to February 2031 as the start of fee reintroduction.

On testnet, the adjusted third halving sits at height 4,497,948, and reserve reissuance begins at 7,305,222.

Faster blocks also raise shielded capacity while trying to limit spam.

NU7 sets per-block caps of 330 Orchard or Ironwood actions, 300 Sapling inputs and outputs, a shared budget of 330 across pools, and no new Sprout JoinSplits.

The Foundation says those limits more than double Orchard protocol throughput and cut the worst-case sync load a spammer can push onto light wallets by about 37 percent.

Zebra applies the same ceilings when building templates and when admitting transactions to the mempool.

Version 4 transactions are disabled as part of the upgrade.

Because the coinbase now depends on selected fees and on the parent block’s reserve, mining templates list only time as mutable; pools are expected to request a fresh template rather than rewrite the transaction set themselves.

Zebra’s state database moves to format v29, which stores the new reserve, and a compatible v28 database is migrated automatically on first start.

Downgrades are not supported.

Testnet configs that pin old consensus values can prevent the node from starting until those overrides are removed.

The testnet window is deliberate.

Consensus, mining, wallets, and node storage all change, so the candidate release is meant to surface issues before production. A final mainnet height is still to be set after that review, with November 5 remaining the working target rather than a guaranteed activation.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’s newly formed asset management vehicle has asked US regulators for permission to list a fund that would hold the privacy coin Zcash outright, proposing a sponsor charge far below the fee already collected by the only live US product of its kind.

On October 6, 2026, Winklevoss Asset Services, LLC submitted a preliminary Form S-1 registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the Winklevoss Zcash ETF.

The document describes a Delaware statutory trust organized as an exchange-traded product, not a mutual fund registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Its stated aim is passive: to give shareholders exposure to the market price of ZEC held by the trust, reduced by operating costs and other liabilities, without trying to outperform the token.

The shares are expected to trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker WINK, subject to a notice of issuance.

Before the offering there is no public market for them.

Creations and redemptions would occur in baskets.

Authorized participants would deliver cash equal to the ZEC represented by a basket, and the trust would buy or sell the token as needed; the preliminary prospectus also contemplates limited use of ZEC itself in certain transfers.

Net asset value would be struck each business day against a pricing benchmark still left blank in the filing—described only as a 60-minute time-weighted average drawn from an index of trades on major ZEC platforms.

The sponsor, formed on October 1, 2026 and wholly owned by Winklevoss Asset Services Holdings, LLC, would receive an annual unified fee of 0.25 percent of the trust’s ZEC holdings.

That fee accrues daily in ZEC and is payable monthly in ZEC or cash.

In return, the sponsor assumes ordinary expenses—administrator, custodian, trustee, listing, audit, regulatory, and website costs among them—with no stated cap.

Extraordinary items such as taxes, litigation, and certain brokerage costs stay with the trust.

The sponsor may waive all or part of the fee for stated periods at its discretion, without any obligation to continue a waiver.

Custody would sit with Gemini Trust Company, LLC, an affiliate of the sponsor and a New York State-chartered limited liability trust company supervised by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

The filing says Gemini would keep the trust’s ZEC in segregated cold-storage addresses verifiable on the Zcash blockchain, separate from other clients’ coins, moving coins to hot wallets only temporarily to process withdrawals or clearing. CSC Delaware Trust Company is named trustee.

Several other service-provider roles remain bracketed and unfinished.

The trust has also contracted Cypherpunk Technologies Inc. as its “Zcash Ecosystem Partner.”

Under that agreement, Cypherpunk may assist with coinholder polling and voting, offer guidance on protocol and technical developments, and supply related advisory work.

Separately, Winklevoss Capital Fund, LLC has signaled, through affiliates, an interest in buying up to $100 million of shares from authorized participants or in the open market.

The prospectus stresses that the indication is not a binding commitment; the potential buyers could take more, less, or none.

The registration statement is preliminary and subject to completion.

Several commercial terms—the precise benchmark, seed pricing, and basket size—are still open. An S-1 filing does not itself authorize listing or trading; effectiveness and exchange approval remain outstanding. Investors would not receive the protections that apply to registered investment companies or to commodity pools.

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Key Takeaways Teladoc adds SoloVitals and SoloScribe to strengthen its connected care platform for hospitals.SoloVitals uses smartphone cameras to estimate heart and respiratory rates during virtual assessments.SoloScribe creates clinical notes and transfers summaries to EHRs, reducing repetitive documentation work. Teladoc Health, Inc. (TDOC - Free Report) is expanding its Solo connected care platform with two new AI-powered tools designed to make virtual consultations more useful for clinicians and less cumbersome for hospitals. SoloVitals and SoloScribe address different bottlenecks in remote care: obtaining timely patient information and documenting visits without pulling attention away from patients.

SoloVitals uses the camera on a smartphone or tablet to estimate heart and respiratory rates by detecting subtle changes in facial skin color. The contactless approach could give clinicians another source of information during virtual assessments. SoloScribe, meanwhile, generates structured clinical notes and transfers summaries into electronic health records (EHR), potentially reducing repetitive documentation work.

By bringing these capabilities together within Solo, Teladoc is making its platform more useful for hospitals seeking to simplify their technology systems. Already installed in more than 15,000 care locations worldwide, Solo integrates with EHR systems such as Epic and Oracle Health. SoloScribe is now generally available, while SoloVitals is currently available to select customers through a private preview. Teladoc expects SoloVitals to reach full general release in December 2026.

The expansion could also strengthen Teladoc's position in the increasingly competitive virtual healthcare market. By combining clinical documentation and remote patient assessment within one platform, Teladoc could help hospitals reduce administrative workloads, improve clinical workflows and deliver more efficient patient care.

The introduction of these tools adds another dimension to Teladoc's efforts to strengthen its enterprise healthcare business. Growing demand for AI-enabled healthcare solutions provides an opportunity to expand its reach, while its established presence among hospitals and health systems offers a foundation for adoption. Wider adoption of these capabilities could strengthen customer retention, increase platform utilization and support sustainable revenue growth, contributing to Teladoc's long-term growth prospects.

TDOC’s Price PerformanceOver the past six months, TDOC’s shares have gained 5.9% compared with the industry’s growth of 11.6%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

TDOC’s Zacks Rank & Key PicksTDOC currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks in the Medical space are Concentra Group Holdings Parent, Inc. (CON - Free Report) , Phibro Animal Health Corporation (PAHC - Free Report) and GeneDx Holdings Corp. (WGS - 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.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Concentra Group’s current-year earnings of $1.65 per share has witnessed two upward revisions in the past 30 days against no movement in the opposite direction. CON beat earnings estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 16.3%. The consensus estimate for current-year revenues is pegged at $2.4 billion, suggesting 8.7% year-over-year growth.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Phibro Animal Health’s current-year earnings of $3.50 per share has witnessed one upward revision in the past 30 days against no movement in the opposite direction. PAHC beat earnings estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 18.4%. The consensus estimate for current-year revenues is pegged at $1.6 billion, suggesting 3.8% year-over-year growth.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for GeneDx Holdings’ current-year earnings of 11 cents per share has witnessed one upward revision in the past 60 days against no movement in the opposite direction. WGS beat earnings estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed once. The consensus estimate for current-year revenues is pegged at $478 million, suggesting 11.8% year-over-year growth.

Medtronic (MDT +3.12%), one of the world's largest medical device makers, raised its dividend for the 49th consecutive year this June. If it raises its dividend again next year, it will cross the 50-year threshold required for becoming a Dividend King.

But over the past five years, Medtronic's stock has declined 31%. Even with reinvested dividends, it delivered a negative total return of 19%. Let's see why Medtronic's stock slumped, and why it might be worth buying as an income-generating turnaround play.

Image source: Getty Images.

What happened to Medtronic? Medtronic was once considered a reliable blue chip stock. But in fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024 (which ended in April 2024), its EPS declined as it struggled with supply chain constraints, inflation, forex headwinds, a lumpy recovery in elective procedures after the pandemic, and regulatory hurdles for its diabetes unit. It also faced tougher competition, quality-control issues, and the rise of GLP-1 drugs, which could reduce demand for certain medical procedures.

Medtronic spun off and restructured some of its lower-margin businesses to offset that pressure, but those near-term costs reduced its net income and EPS. In fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026, its EPS grew again as its component costs normalized, its new diabetes products were approved, and it expanded its higher-growth cardiovascular and neuroscience businesses. It also completed the spin-off of its diabetes unit, MiniMed (MMED +3.30%), this March.

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Why is Medtronic worth buying? In fiscal 2026, Medtronic's revenue grew 8.4% (5.8% organically), marking its strongest top-line growth in a decade. That acceleration was mainly driven by its cardiovascular business, which grew 9.3% organically and accounted for over 38% of its enterprise revenue. All of Medtronic's other business segments also grew organically.

Medtronic expect its organic revenue to rise 7.25%-7.75% in fiscal 2027. From fiscal 2026 to fiscal 2029, analysts expect its reported revenue and EPS to grow at CAGRs of 5% and 15%, respectively. At $87 per share, it still looks like a bargain at 18 times this year's earnings.

Medtronic pays a forward dividend yield of 3.4%. It has plenty of room to raise that payout, which only consumed 70% of its EPS and 60% of its free cash flow (FCF) over the past 12 months. So when more investors notice that Medtronic's business is growing again and it's on track to become a Dividend King next year, it could finally command a higher valuation.

Key Takeaways APD to build Malaysia's first LNG-based ASU, set to start by early 2027.The new ASU will produce over 600 tons of industrial gases daily for Malaysia's industrial market.APD will harness LNG regasification cold energy to cut energy use and emissions while expanding gas supply. Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (APD - Free Report) has entered a definitive agreement with PG Cold Energy 1 Sdn. Bhd. to design, build and operate the country’s first LNG-based air separation unit (ASU), expanding Air Products’ production capabilities in Southern and Central Malaysia. The project, located at the Pengerang LNG regasification terminal in Johor, is expected to come online by early 2027.

The facility will produce more than 600 tons per day of liquid oxygen, nitrogen and argon. The company plans to supply the merchant market and meet rising demand from the electrical and electronics, petrochemical, aerospace and manufacturing sectors. This adds to APD’s LNG-based ASUs in Asia.

The project is particularly beneficial for its energy efficiency. It will use cold energy generated during the LNG regasification process to liquefy air at low temperatures, reducing energy consumption and production-related emissions. This should enable Air Products to provide customers with lower-emission industrial gas solutions.

The investment also reinforces the company’s long-standing relationship with PETRONAS Gas Berhad. With operations in Malaysia dating back to 1974, Air Products has established a broad network of production facilities and depots across the country. The new ASU is expected to enhance Air Products’ supply capabilities, strengthen its position in key industrial hubs and support long-term growth in Malaysia’s expanding manufacturing sectors.

APD shares have gained 5.8% in the past year against the industry’s 0.3% decline in the same period.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

APD’s Zacks Rank & Other Key PicksAPD currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Some other top-ranked stocks in the Basic Materials space are Reliance, Inc. (RS - Free Report) , Axalta Coating Systems Ltd. (AXTA - Free Report) and Cabot Corporation (CBT - Free Report) .

RS, AXTA and CBT carry a Zacks Rank #2 each. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RS’ 2026 earnings is pegged at $23.23 per share, indicating a 62.9% year-over-year increase. RS’shares have gained 41.8% over the past year.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AXTA’s fiscal 2026 earnings is pegged at $2.63 per share, indicating a rise of 5.62% year over year. Its earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, with an average surprise of 6.45%.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CBT’s current fiscal-year earnings is pinned at $6.53 per share. Its earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, with an average surprise of 4.56%. CBT’sshares have gained 5.8% over the past year.

Earlier this year, video game company Roblox (RBLX -1.93%) implemented a set of more restrictive safety features on its interactive entertainment platform in an effort to protect its younger users. Those moves to provide more effective protection for its core user base were necessary, but they have created some significant headwinds and challenges for the business.

The number of daily active users (DAUs) on Roblox's platform declined substantially on a sequential basis in the second quarter, and its bookings of $1.56 billion in the quarter missed  Wall Street analysts' consensus estimate by approximately $40 million. The company's midpoint guidance also calls for bookings to decline roughly 16% in the current quarter. As a result of these challenges, the company's share price is down roughly 44% across 2026's trading -- but one stat suggests that the stock has strong recovery potential.

Image source: Getty Images.

Despite declining on a quarter-over-quarter basis, Roblox's 123 million DAUs in Q2 still represented roughly 10% growth year over year. Seasonal variability in user engagement is nothing new for the company. It's encouraging that the business's platform has managed to continue adding new users, even as it faces headwinds connected to safety concerns and user protection initiatives.

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While much of its year-over-year user growth is being driven by big gains in some markets that monetize at lower levels, the company's DAUs in the U.S. and Canada were still up 6% year over year last quarter. With the company still bringing new players and creators onboard at a solid clip, there's little indication that Roblox's platform is losing its long-term viability.

Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Roblox. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) announced Thursday that it has signed a new multiyear licensing agreement with Joe Rogan, extending a podcast partnership that began in 2020.

The agreement will keep The Joe Rogan Experience available on Spotify, with new episodes released weekly. Listeners can also continue watching or streaming the podcast on other platforms.

Joe Rogan’s Podcast Remains a Major DrawThe Joe Rogan Experience has 18 million followers and has remained Spotify’s most-followed podcast since the partnership began six years ago.

The show also ranked as the top podcast across major platforms in 2025, according to Spotify.

Its popularity stems from long-form conversations covering a wide range of subjects, helping the podcast attract a large international audience.

Rogan expressed enthusiasm about extending the agreement, describing his relationship with Spotify as highly successful and praising the company’s support.

Spotify Strengthens Its Podcast BusinessJordan Newman, Spotify’s head of content partnerships, said Rogan has built a lasting franchise that continues to attract listeners worldwide.

Newman also highlighted the growth of Spotify’s podcast business alongside the show and expressed confidence in the partnership’s future.

The renewal allows Spotify to maintain its association with one of the industry’s most popular podcasts while continuing to reach audiences across multiple platforms.

Spotify did not disclose the financial terms or specific duration of the new licensing agreement.

Deal Reportedly Mirrors Previous $250 Million AgreementAccording to a Thursday report by The Wall Street Journal, the new multiyear agreement gives Spotify licensing and advertising sales rights for The Joe Rogan Experience.

The deal reportedly carries terms similar to Rogan’s previous agreement, which allowed the podcast to reach audiences across multiple platforms and offered him potential earnings estimated at $250 million. The report cited people familiar with the matter.

The podcast also remains No. 1 in U.S. listenership, underscoring its importance to Spotify’s podcast and advertising businesses.

Separately, Piper Sandler analyst James Callahan initiated coverage of Spotify on Thursday with a Neutral rating and a $540 price forecast.

SPOT Price Action: Spotify Technology shares were up 1.34% at $519.79 at the time of publication on Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Image via Shutterstock

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© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Graphics processing units (GPUs) are the data center chips that do most of the heavy lifting in artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. Nvidia (NVDA -2.70%) supplies the world's best GPUs, and sales have been so strong that the company's market capitalization has grown from $360 billion to a whopping $5.8 trillion since the start of 2023.

However, it will be hard for Nvidia to replicate those returns going forward because of its enormous size, which is why its stock has only mustered a 28% gain so far in 2026 (at the market close on Monday, Oct. 5). Corning (GLW -5.84%) stock, on the other hand, has rocketed higher by 82% this year.

Corning is a 175-year-old glass manufacturer with a wealth of experience serving the electronics industry. It supplied the glass for Thomas Edison's original lightbulb in 1879, and today, it makes the glass for all of Apple's iPhones. But the company is now at the center of the AI boom thanks to its fiber-optic data center cables, and here's why its stock probably isn't done going higher over the long term.

Image source: Getty Images.

The shift to optical fiber presents a big opportunity The typical Nvidia NVLink 72 data center rack includes 72 GPUs, 36 central processing units (CPUs), and various networking components, which are connected using two miles of copper cables. However, there is an ongoing shift toward fiber-optic cables instead, because they can transmit data much faster and with better energy efficiency -- a great combination for AI developers who want to maximize processing speeds while keeping costs down.

Corning developed an entire portfolio of optical connectivity products for the AI industry under a new brand called GlassWorks AI Solutions. One of them is Multicore Fiber (MCF), which packs four cores into a single strand of 125-micron fiber. Since MCF is effectively four-times as dense as a traditional fiber-optic cable, data center operators can achieve the same performance with 75% fewer cables, which will be particularly useful as GPU clusters grow larger over time.

According to Corning, clusters of 130,000 (or more) GPUs typically require an extra optical layer which adds around 50% more fiber content. MCF could be the ideal solution in those settings.

Corning is already working with an impressive list of AI companies, including Nvidia, Meta Platforms, and Amazon. Meta plans to buy $6 billion worth of optical connectivity solutions from Corning over the next few years, and the Amazon deal could be worth a similar amount.

Corning's AI revenue is growing rapidly Corning generated $9.1 billion in core revenue during the first half of 2026 (ended June 30), an 18% increase from the year-ago period. The optical communications segment contributed $3.9 billion in revenue, and it grew at a much faster pace of 34%. During the second quarter (April to June), AI-related sales in the optical communications segment almost doubled.

The optical communications business also delivered $825 million in net income during the first half of the year, up 84% compared to the first half of 2025. The incredible demand for optical fiber solutions is a massive tailwind for Corning's profit margins, because it's giving the company the ability to dictate prices.

Corning believes AI-related demand will drive its annualized revenue to $20 billion by the end of 2026, and then to $30 billion by the end of 2028, and to $40 billion by the end of 2030. Simply put, this growth story appears to be in the very early stages.

Corning stock is pricey, but watch for a pullback Corning delivered adjusted (non-GAAP) earnings of $2.87 per share over the last four quarters (to June 30), placing its stock at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 55.5. For some perspective, Nvidia stock is trading at a P/E of just 30.2, so Corning definitely isn't cheap.

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However, if we assume Corning will double its annual revenue between now and 2030 as management expects, its earnings could grow at a similar rate, which would make its stock quite attractive on a forward basis. But that means investors who buy the stock today must be prepared to hold it for at least the next four years to maximize their chances of yielding a positive return.

Alternatively, if Corning stock were to suffer a decline of around 30% from its current price of $159 (at the market close on Monday, Oct. 5) amid a correction in the broader market, that could be a better buying opportunity for investors. Therefore, it might be a good idea to watchlist this stock for the time being.

Workday Inc (NASDAQ:WDAY), the cloud software company, retained its 'hold' rating from Jefferies, the investment bank, with a $210 price target, as the bank waits for subscription revenue growth to exceed 11%.

Workday is expected to operate at a Rule of 43 in calendar year 2027, meaning revenue growth plus operating profit margin totals 43, which ranks below most large software companies.

Workday grew 13% in calendar year 2025, slightly faster than SAP and Oracle, but Jefferies expects its growth to slow to 10% in 2028, making it the slowest-growing back-office software company.

Backlog growth slowed to 14% in the second calendar quarter, compared with 26% at SAP, while Workday's operating margin in the low 30s trails peers near 40%.

Workday cut its financial year 2028 subscription revenue growth target to 11% from 13% to 14%, and its operating margin target to 33% from 35%, after four years of slowing growth.

Artificial intelligence (AI) annual recurring revenue, the annualized value of recurring AI revenue, is about $600 million, or 6% of revenue, and Sana, Workday's AI product, only became generally available in March 2026.

Workday gained less than two points of market share in key markets over four years, while SAP is benefiting from S/4HANA migrations and Oracle is benefiting from a halo effect from its cloud infrastructure business.

International markets are 50% of Workday's $160 billion addressable market but about 25% of revenue, and growth has slowed for seven years.

Shares are down 13% this year and trade at a 20% discount to peers on 2027 enterprise value to free cash flow, but growth is two points slower.

Leadership changes add risk, as the chief executive, chief revenue officer and chief technology officer have all left Workday in the last eight months, ahead of its Rising conference next Tuesday.

Key Takeaways AMAT's AGS revenues hit a record $1.78 billion, up 22% year over year in fiscal Q3 2026.More than 37,000 chambers connect to Applied Materials' AIx software.AMAT expects AGS revenues to grow more than 20% in 2026 and mid-teens annually over the long term. Applied Materials’ (AMAT - Free Report) Applied Global Services (“AGS”) is growing alongside fab utilization and the need to improve output, yield and ramp speed. AMAT’s third-quarter fiscal 2026 revenues reached a record $1.78 billion, up 22% year over year, while non-GAAP operating margin rose to 30.1% from 27.3%. More than 37,000 chambers are connected to AIx software for monitoring, diagnostics and predictive analytics.

AMAT’s AGS business also benefits from the doubling of its manufacturing space over the past several years. AMAT plans to double quarterly system output from current levels by 2028. AMAT added more than 1,500 manufacturing and AGS support employees in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 and is planning further capacity for demand through 2030. This visibility can improve supply-chain readiness and execution across customer ramps.

Applied Materials' recurring AGS revenues, more than 37,000 AIx-connected chambers and value-based pricing provide operating support for that durability. AGS is becoming an important part of Applied Materials’ long-term earnings model. Its combination of subscription services, parts demand, advanced AI-enabled services and expanding margins gives AMAT a growing stream of revenue associated with supporting customers throughout their manufacturing operations.

In the third quarter of fiscal 2026, China represented 28% of its total revenues in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from 27% in the second quarter, which includes Semiconductor Systems plus AGS revenues. AMAT now expects China revenues to increase in 2026, led by 28-nanometer foundry-logic investment. AMAT now expects AGS revenues to grow more than 20% in 2026 and maintain a sustainable long-term annual growth rate in the mid-teens.

How Competitors Fare Against AMATSince AMAT serves its own installed base through the AGS business, there are no competitors in this segment. But in the broader product category, AMAT competes with Lam Research (LRCX - Free Report) and ASML Holding (ASML - Free Report) .

ASML is experiencing strong demand from DRAM and logic customers, who are ramping leading-edge nodes using ASML’s NXE:3800E EUV systems. Additionally, ASML Holding noted that multiple DRAM customers are adopting EUV lithography, which helps in shortening cycle time and lowering costs. However, AMAT offers a broad range of WFE products that do not compete directly with ASML and Lam Research, making the stock worth holding.

Lam Research secured multiple critical etch wins at a major DRAM manufacturer with its new Akara etch system, which supports 3D DRAM architectures. This was supported by LRCX’s customer investments in DDR5, LPDDR5 and high-bandwidth memory. Additionally, Lam Research’s Aether dry-resist technology was recently selected as the production tool of record for a leading DRAM customer, securing a foothold in this high-growth segment.

AMAT’s Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesApplied Materials shares have surged 102.6% year to date, outperforming the Zacks Electronics - Semiconductors industry’s appreciation of 36.7%.

AMAT YTD Performance Chart
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The rise in stock price has made AMAT stock trade at a premium. Currently, AMAT has a price-to-sales (P/S) multiple of 9.20X, which is much above the industry’s P/S of 5.14X. AMAT’s value score of F also suggests its overvaluation.

AMAT Forward 12-Month (P/S) Valuation Chart
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Applied Materials expects non-GAAP earnings of $4.02 per share (+/- 20 cents), indicating 85% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. The Zacks Consensus Estimate suggests year-over-year growth of 87%. The estimates have been revised upward in the past 60 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Applied Materials currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Western Digital survived two brutal price halvings, a five-year dividend blackout, and an activist breakup campaign before AI storage demand rewrote the story. Whether that rewrite holds depends on one unpredictable customer group controlling 89% of revenue.

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A Flash Detour, Two Busts, Then a Hard Drive Revival Ten years ago, Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC | WDC Price Prediction) had just absorbed SanDisk in 2016. The deal turned a disk-drive manufacturer into a combined flash and HDD giant, and it also linked the company to NAND pricing. NAND busts in 2018-2019 and 2022-2023 gutted earnings. Activist Elliott Management then pressed for a breakup, and in February 2025 the flash unit was spun off as Sandisk (NASDAQ:SNDK). That left WD as a pure-play hard drive company.

The timing lined up with AI storage demand. AI workloads create data that has to be stored somewhere cheap, and management says “roughly 80% of data stored in a hyperscale data center resides on hard disk drives.” Fiscal 2026 revenue rose 35.7% to $12.92B, and non-GAAP EPS reached $10.22.

Your $1,000 Became $10,176, Despite a Five-Year Dividend Gap All figures assume every dividend was reinvested into more shares. They also treat the Sandisk shares from the spin-off as rolled back into WD. The S&P 500 figures use the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) on a price-only basis.

1-Year Return

Initial Investment: $1,000 Current Value: $3,342 (price only: $3,336) Total Return: 234.18% S&P 500 (same period): $1,158 (15.78%) 5-Year Return

Initial Investment: $1,000 Current Value: $9,398 (price only: $9,352) Total Return: 839.75% Annualized Return: 56.53% S&P 500 (same period): $1,769 (76.94%) 10-Year Return

Initial Investment: $1,000 Current Value: $10,176 (price only: $9,021) Total Return: 917.64% Annualized Return: 26.11% S&P 500 (same period): $3,603 (260.28%) Over the decade, reinvested dividends added about $1,156. Almost all of it came from the $0.50 quarterly payouts made through April 2020. After that, the record shows no payments until June 2025, so reinvestment stopped compounding for five years. That gap is why the 5-year figures barely differ. The dividend came back at $0.10 and now stands at $0.15.

Holding on took heart. The adjusted price fell 58.8% between March and December 2018 and 51.6% during 2022. A 2016 buyer paid $39.31 (adjusted) and was sitting at just $42.57 five years later. Today the stock sits 50% below its 52-week high of $799.62 after a sharp October 2 selloff.

What Must Go Right Before Another Halving Currently, the case for Western Digital today holds if AI keeps exabyte demand growing “25% plus” and long-term agreements stretching toward 2031 lock in pricing. Guidance calls for about $4.10B in revenue and $4.00 in EPS next quarter, and the stock trades at about 23x forward earnings.

The case weakens if hyperscaler capex cools. Cloud customers make up 89% of revenue, and storage cycles have halved this stock twice in a decade.

The result hinges on whether hyperscaler demand holds. This decade shows what it takes to hold a cyclical business: you sit through five flat years and two halvings, and nearly all the return shows up in one year. The investors who got paid were the ones still holding when the cycle turned.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Crypto lending has grown 55% since July, according to Cointelegraph. More borrowing means more money parked in smart contracts, and more money in smart contracts means a bigger target.

Aave, the largest decentralized lender by market share and total value locked (TVL), is responding by stacking its defenses for the V4 rollout. Attackers now have AI tools of their own, and DeFi protocols are wired together closely enough that one failure can spread to its neighbors.

Inside the security stack Aave Labs is treating V4 security as a year-long program instead of a one-time checkup. The Aave DAO, the token-holder body that governs the protocol, approved a $1.5 million budget for the effort.

A governance post from March 2026 set out five commitments. They are early embedding of formal verification, sustained layered auditing, continuous verification, a permanent bug bounty program, and AI-assisted smart contract scanning.

Formal verification uses mathematical proofs to show certain failures cannot happen at all, unlike normal testing, which only confirms the code behaves correctly in the cases someone thought to check.

V4 went through about 345 cumulative days of security review across internal teams and external auditors. A public contest attracted more than 900 participants. None of them turned up a critical or high-severity finding.

An August 2026 blog post reported that AI scans of the V3 and V4 codebases surfaced 71 issues. Every validated finding was rated low or informational severity, with no critical threats identified.

Lending’s bumpy comeback Galaxy Research recorded a 28% quarter-over-quarter fall in Aave borrowing volumes during Q2 2026. Deposits grew 41% and active loans rose 32% during Q3 2026. By early October 2026, deposits on V4 had passed $1 billion.

In April 2026, KelpDAO suffered a $292 million incident, one of the year’s largest DeFi losses. Aave expanded its asset-listing criteria to include cybersecurity and carried out a wide-ranging overhaul of its risk framework afterward.

On October 2, 2026, a third-party exploit targeted a FlashLoopAdapter module and drained approximately 114 ETH, worth roughly $310,000. Aave’s core V3 contracts were not affected.

Why interconnected risk changes the math DeFi’s composability means protocols snap together so that a token from one platform can serve as collateral on another and then get looped through a third. A crack in one component can spread through the whole structure. Cointelegraph’s reporting flags this cascade risk as a key danger for the current lending upswing, alongside the rise of AI-assisted attacks.

By rating the cybersecurity of assets before accepting them as collateral, Aave’s updated listing criteria are designed to keep other protocols’ problems from becoming its own.

What this means for DeFi lending For rival lending protocols, Aave has raised the baseline. A $1.5 million DAO-approved security budget, a permanent bug bounty and published AI-scan results set a public standard that competitors may face pressure to meet.

The October 2 adapter exploit points to a specific weak spot: core contracts tend to get the most scrutiny, but add-on modules and third-party integrations around them may not receive the same treatment.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

A single on-chain wallet has pulled $150 million in USDT out of Aave and parked it in Spark’s USDT Savings product, known as spUSDT.

The withdrawals coincided with double-digit borrowing rates. Stablecoin borrowers usually expect single digits, so that kind of reading tends to be a sign of strain rather than a feature.

Why a $150 million move matters When a depositor of this size walks away, the pool gets thinner. On rate models driven by supply and demand, a thinner pool means pricier loans for everyone still borrowing.

The destination matters too. Spark operates within the Sky ecosystem, and its pitch leans on rate limits and peg stability rather than the free-floating, supply-and-demand approach Aave uses.

The KelpDAO hangover The story starts on April 18, 2026, when the KelpDAO rsETH exploit hit. The incident left Aave with roughly $195 million in bad debt, largely because rsETH used as collateral turned out to be unbacked.

The reaction was swift. Aave saw estimated net outflows of $10 to $16 billion shortly after the exploit, according to the research findings, with total value locked falling from approximately $48.5 billion to $30.7 billion in just over three days.

Spark was one of the clearest beneficiaries. It recorded $2.4 billion in net deposit inflows after the KelpDAO incident, capturing more than 15% of Aave’s outflows. Broader estimates of SparkLend and its savings vaults put net inflows over the period somewhere between $1 billion and $2.4 billion.

The spUSDT vault in particular had a moment. By April 23, 2026, it had surpassed $1 billion in deposits with yields around 3%, before settling at approximately $600 million by October 7, 2026.

Integrations helped. Spark’s savings products have been plugged into platforms such as the OKX app, which lowers the friction for users who might otherwise never touch a DeFi interface directly.

A flight to boring The $150 million transfer is a useful snapshot of what large holders appear to want right now. The motivation, based on the research, looks like a preference for liquidity and risk controls over squeezing out the last basis point of yield.

It also shows how concentrated DeFi liquidity can be. One wallet moving $150 million is enough to register on a lending market, and a handful of similar moves can shift borrowing costs for thousands of smaller users who never made a decision at all.

What this means for Aave, Spark and DeFi lenders For Aave, the immediate issue is confidence. The protocol remains one of the largest lending markets in crypto, but sustained withdrawals by big depositors keep pressure on utilization, and the double-digit borrowing rates seen alongside this exit show how quickly that pressure can reach borrowers.

For Spark, the challenge is different. Winning deposits during a competitor’s crisis is one thing, and the slide in spUSDT from over $1 billion to around $600 million suggests some of that capital is restless. A fresh $150 million deposit helps that number, but it also adds concentration risk.

For the wider DeFi lending sector, the episode is a live stress test of design choices. Aave’s market-driven rates react fast to supply and demand, while Spark’s approach prioritizes stability and controlled flows. The research frames the post-KelpDAO shift as a possible reassessment of protocols around sustainability and reliability rather than raw yield.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Rivian Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:RIVN) received the full $1 billion commitment from Volkswagen Group (XETRA:VOW) on Wednesday, with the proceeds distributed to the electric-vehicle maker for general corporate purposes.

The funding was provided under the companies’ existing joint venture agreement through two linked $1 billion loans involving the joint venture and a Rivian subsidiary.

The joint venture borrowed $1 billion from a Volkswagen entity under Loan A at a fixed interest rate of 5.93%, while a Rivian subsidiary borrowed $1 billion under Loan B at a fixed rate of 6.03%.

The Rivian subsidiary used proceeds from the second loan to make a distribution to Rivian, providing the electric-vehicle maker with the full $1 billion commitment.

The Loan B facility is non-recourse to Rivian and is secured by the company’s 50% equity interest in the joint venture.

Both loans mature on October 7, 2036, with principal repayments beginning in 2029 at $100 million a year through two $50 million installments.

The remaining balances will be due when the loans mature in 2036, according to the filing.

Rivian said neither loan is guaranteed by the company, limiting its liability under the second loan to certain agreements, representations and warranties.

The structure allows Rivian to access the committed funding while using its equity interest in the joint venture as security rather than providing a broader corporate guarantee.

The transaction comes under the companies’ existing partnership, through which Volkswagen has committed substantial funding to support Rivian’s technology and electric-vehicle development.

Rivian can use the $1 billion distribution for general corporate purposes, providing additional funding as the electric-vehicle maker continues to invest in its operations and vehicle programs.

AI agents are getting remarkably good at reasoning, planning, and taking action. What they have not had (until now) is safe, programmable guardrails.

Giving an AI agent access to your wallet is not a solution. Handing over private keys introduces risk that no guardrail can fully offset. And relying on human approval for every transaction defeats the purpose of autonomous AI. The result is a gap that has quietly limited what agents can actually do in the real world: they can think, but they cannot transact.

Hedera Agent Accounts are built to close that gap.

Introducing Hedera Agent Accounts: programmable, non-custodial spending accounts on Hedera that give your AI agent the ability to transact autonomously (paying for APIs, accessing data, settling invoices, and making purchases on your behalf) within a set of rules you define, enforced on-chain, with your private keys never leaving your wallet.

What is a Hedera Agent Account? An Agent Account is a spending account you create for your AI agent, funded from your existing Hedera wallet. Think of it as giving your agent its own budget with strict guardrails; not access to your full account.

Using the Agent Account web app, you connect your existing Hedera wallet, assign an agent to the account, and configure the rules that govern how and where it can spend. Those rules (daily spending limits, per-transaction caps, an approved list of merchants and recipients) are then locked into a smart contract on the Hedera network itself. Not stored on a company server. Not adjustable by anyone except you.

From that point, your agent can transact autonomously within those boundaries, 24/7, without you needing to approve every action.

How it works Connect your existing Hedera wallet
No new wallet to set up. Agent Accounts work with your existing Hedera account. You provision the account, assign an agent, and set an overall spending allowance; all from the Agent Account app.

Set your rules
Before your agent spends a single dollar, you define exactly how it can operate: a total spend limit, a daily cap, a per-transaction maximum, and an allowlist of recipients and merchants the agent is permitted to pay. These rules are written to a smart contract on the Hedera network and cannot be overridden; not by the agent, and not by Hedera.

Let your agent run
Once configured, your agent handles the rest. It can pay for APIs, access gated data, purchase services, and settle transactions; all without waiting on you. Any endpoint, merchant, or seller that accepts HBAR or USDC on Hedera can receive payment from an autonomous AI agent.

Inspect every action
Every policy, transaction, and agent action is preserved on Hedera’s Consensus Service, giving you a verifiable, tamper-proof audit trail of exactly what your agent did and what you authorized.

Your money stays yours A few things worth being explicit about, because they matter:

Funds never leave your account until the moment of purchase. The agent does not hold a balance. It sends spend requests to the smart contract, which validates them against your rules and executes the transaction. Nothing moves until the moment a valid, policy-compliant purchase is made.

Your agent never sees your private key. Ever. The Agent Account system is designed so that authorization lives at the smart contract layer; your keys are never exposed to the agent runtime.

You can shut it all down in one click. If you want to pause or revoke an agent’s spending, you can do it instantly from your wallet. No support ticket. No waiting period.

Works with any agent, any token Agent Accounts are backed by the Agentic Payment Services (an MCP server, REST API, and relayer) which means any AI agent that speaks MCP or REST can plug in. Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, self-hosted agents, custom-built runtimes; if it can make an API call, it can transact with an Agent Account.

Agents can pay in HBAR, USDC, or other Hedera tokens, making Agent Accounts practical for real-world commerce, not just on-chain activity. Agent Accounts are also compatible with x402 purchases, opening the door to a growing ecosystem of pay-per-request APIs and services.

For API and service providers on the receiving end: payments arrive from verified, policy-bound agents with cryptographic proof of user authorization. No chargeback risk. No signup friction for the agent.

One account per agent Each AI agent you work with gets its own Agent Account with its own budget and rules. A research agent and a shopping agent do not share funds or permissions; they operate independently, within their own policy boundaries. This separation makes it practical to trust different agents with different levels of access without any of them interfering with each other.

For enterprise teams, companies can run their own Agentic Payment Services endpoint and manage agent spending at an organizational level; with delegated controls, team-wide audit trails, and compliance built in from the start.

What’s coming Hedera Agent Accounts are coming to testnet in Q4 2026 for limited partner validation, alongside an early release of the Pay-per-API marketplace with initial partner endpoints. Public testnet access follows in Q1 2027, with mainnet availability targeted for Q2 2027, pending security review and legal sign-off.

If you are building AI agents and want early access, or if you run an API or service that wants to accept payments from autonomous agents, we want to hear from you.

Get started with Hedera Agent Accounts Explore the landing page: hedera.com/agent-accounts

Request early access: hedera.com/agent-accounts/#early-access

Learn more about Hedera AI Studio: hedera.com/product/ai-studio

Join the conversation: discord.gg/hedera

Questions about integration or testing? Email us at [email protected]