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RBC Bearings Incorporated (RBC) Q1 2027 Earnings Call July 31, 2026 11:00 AM EDT

Company Participants

Mike Hartnett - Chairman, President & CEO
Robert Sullivan - VP & CFO

Conference Call Participants

Joshua Carroll
Kristine Liwag - Morgan Stanley, Research Division
Steve Barger - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division
Scott Deuschle - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division
Peter Skibitski - Alembic Global Advisors
Ronald Epstein - BofA Securities, Research Division
Alexandra Eleni Mandery - Truist Securities, Inc., Research Division

Presentation

Joshua Carroll

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for RBC Bearings Fiscal First Quarter 2027 Earnings Call. I'm Josh Carroll with the Investor Relations team. With me on today's call are Dr. Hartnett, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Daniel Bergeron, Director, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; and Rob Sullivan, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

As a reminder, some of the statements made today may be forward-looking and under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those projected or implied due to a variety of factors. We refer you to RBC Bearings' recent filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact the company's future operating results and financial condition. These factors are also listed in the press release, along with a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial information.

With all that said, I'll now turn the call over to Dr. Hartnett.

Mike Hartnett
Chairman, President & CEO

Thank you, Josh. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I'll begin today's call with a brief review of our first quarter results and discuss the trends we are seeing across the end markets before turning the call over to Rob, who will provide additional details on our financial performance.

We delivered a strong start to fiscal 2027

TL;DR: the proposal for Sei 6.6 is live, and it will be the release where Sei Giga starts touching mainnet. 6.6 will introduce the first pieces of two of the three major Giga upgrades: Eidos, a new storage layer that will begin moving the chain’s history into its own database, and Ares, a rebuilt execution engine that will become the default path for running transactions.

What the two upgrades actually areA blockchain has three key components. It agrees on the order of transactions (consensus), it runs them (execution), and it keeps a permanent record of everything it has ever done (storage). Sei 6.6 is where two of those three jobs will start becoming their Giga versions.

Eidos will upgrade Sei’s storage layer, and Ares will upgrade Sei’s execution client to the Giga executor. Both need to keep pace with the 200,000 TPS that Sei Giga is targeting.

These upgrades will begin in 6.6 and continue in future releases. Consensus, the third major part of the Giga Upgrade, will only go live later.

How Eidos changes storageEidos will begin moving the chain’s history out of a shared database and into one built for the job. In 6.6, the historical state migration will start.

Until now, Sei’s EVM history and Cosmos state have lived in the same database. That means history reads compete with live activity, and modules that have nothing to do with the EVM still pay write costs for EVM data.

Eidos will separate them. EVM history will move into its own dedicated database, so reading old history stops competing with the transactions happening right now, and non-EVM parts of the chain stop carrying the write cost of EVM data they never touch.

How Ares changes executionAres is a rebuilt execution client, and in 6.6 it will become the default execution path on mainnet. Every upgraded node will run it unless it opts out.

Ares is a different design from what came before. Where the old v2 engine used a Go-native path, Ares is built on an EVMC backend with evmone as the interpreter, and it runs its own state and cache stack.

The old engine will keep two roles.

First, it will act as a per-transaction fallback. When Ares hits something it can’t handle cleanly, that single transaction will rerun on the v2 engine instead of the new engine guessing at the result. Nothing gets dropped or approximated. The fallback catches the edge case and the block moves on.

Second, a full v2 node will run on every network as a live reference. It will process the same blocks as the new engine and compare results block by block. If the two ever disagree, it will page the on-call team. That means a mismatch between the old and new execution paths becomes an alert a human sees, not a silent divergence that surfaces later as a bug.

What comes next6.6 will be the release where Giga stops being a roadmap and starts being something running on mainnet. Eidos will have begun moving history into storage built for scale, and Ares will be the default execution path. Both are only the first step, and both continue across the releases that follow.

6.6 is a massive release, with many fixes that are unrelated to Sei Giga. The full list is in the 6.6 proposal.

SourcesSei v6.6 release: https://seistream.app/proposals/122The Giga Roadmap: https://giga.seilabs.io

Erie Indemnity Company (ERIE) Q2 2026 Earnings Call July 31, 2026 10:00 AM EDT

Company Participants

Scott Beilharz - Vice President of Capital Management & Investor Relations
Timothy NeCastro - President & CEO
Julie Pelkowski - Executive VP & CFO

Presentation

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Erie Indemnity Company Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. This call was prerecorded, and there will be no question-and-answer session following the recording.

And now I'd like to introduce your host for this call, Vice President of Investor Relations, Scott Beilharz. Please go ahead.

Scott Beilharz
Vice President of Capital Management & Investor Relations

Thank you, and welcome, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for this recorded discussion about our second quarter results. This recording will include remarks from Tim NeCastro, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Julie Pelkowski, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings release and financial supplement were issued yesterday afternoon after the market closed and are available within the Investor Relations section of our website, erieinsurance.com.

Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion may contain forward-looking remarks that reflect the company's current views about future events. These remarks are based on assumptions subject to known and unexpected risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties may cause results to differ materially from those described in these remarks. For information on important factors that may cause such differences, please see the safe harbor statements in our Form 10-Q filing with the SEC filed yesterday and in the related press release.

This prerecorded call is the property of Erie Indemnity Company. It may not be reproduced or rebroadcast by any other party without the prior written consent of Erie Indemnity Company.

With that, we will move on to Tim's remarks. Tim?

Timothy NeCastro
President & CEO

Key Takeaways DGX posted adjusted EPS of $3.12 as revenues rose 10.2% and requisition volume climbed 13.1%. Quest Diagnostics raised 2026 revenue guidance to $11.95B-$12.05B and adjusted EPS to $11.05-$11.25. DGX's elevated valuation, $5.63B debt and lower operating margin leave less room for execution missteps. Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX - Free Report) has rallied as earnings momentum improved, estimates moved higher and demand broadened across its testing platform.

The buy case is not one-sided. The stock’s advance has lifted valuation closer to its five-year high, while leverage, cost pressure and reimbursement uncertainty leave less room for execution missteps.

DGX Delivers a Strong Second-Quarter BeatQuest Diagnostics reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $3.12 per share, up 19.1% year over year. The result surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 11%, extending a period of positive earnings momentum.

Revenues rose 10.2% year over year to $3.04 billion and beat the consensus mark by 2.1%. Growth was supported by a 13.1% increase in requisition volume, with Diagnostic Information Services benefiting from physician, hospital and consumer channels.

Physician channel revenues increased in the high single-digit range, helped by new customer wins, higher business with existing customers and expanded health plan access. Hospital revenues grew at a double-digit rate, while QuestHealth.com continued to see demand for wellness panels and newer services such as thyroid testing.

Quest Diagnostics Raises Its 2026 OutlookQuest Diagnostics now expects 2026 revenues of $11.95 billion to $12.05 billion, up from its prior range of $11.78 billion to $11.90 billion. The revised outlook implies revenue growth of 8.3-9.2%.

Adjusted earnings are projected at $11.05 to $11.25 per share, compared with the previous range of $10.63 to $10.83. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings has also moved higher, with the current-year earnings estimate up 4.1% over the past four weeks.

The higher outlook reflects stronger testing demand and better expected earnings conversion. It also supports the case that Quest’s base business, acquisitions and advanced diagnostics portfolio are contributing to near-term growth.

DGX Valuation Leaves Less Room for ErrorValuation is the main counterweight after the share-price run. DGX trades at 20.34X forward 12-month earnings, above its five-year median of 16.16X and at the high end of its five-year range of 11.34X to 20.65X.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Shares recently traded at $235.22, compared with a $252 price target. That target still points to positive potential, but the upside is moderate after gains of 24.4% in the past three months and 39.4% over the past year.

The stock also trades slightly above the S&P 500 on a forward earnings basis. Investors are paying for improved visibility, but the valuation leaves less cushion if volumes slow, costs rise or margin recovery takes longer.

Quest Diagnostics Faces Debt and Margin RisksQuest Diagnostics ended the second quarter with $626 million in cash and cash equivalents, while long-term debt stood at $5.63 billion. Elevated debt could limit flexibility as the company invests in acquisitions, automation and Project Nova.

Margin trends also require monitoring. Adjusted operating margin declined 40 basis points to 16.5% in the second quarter, as higher service costs, Project Nova spending, supplemental deferred compensation and the lower-margin Corewell and Fresenius mix weighed on profitability.

Reimbursement remains another pressure point. Management continues to assume a 30-basis-point 2026 revenue impact tied to the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act exchange subsidies, with a larger second-half effect still possible.

Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH - Free Report) remains a relevant peer because it operates in the same diagnostics and laboratory services market where price, access, turnaround time and service quality matter. DaVita Inc. (DVA - Free Report) adds context for kidney-care exposure, an area where Quest has broadened capabilities through the Fresenius Medical Care collaboration.

Based on short-term price targets offered by 16 analysts, the average price target for Quest Diagnostics comes to $242.75, representing an increase of 3.2% from the last closing price. 

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

DGX Scores Favor Near-Term SelectivityDGX still has a constructive near-term profile. The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), which reflects favorable earnings estimate revision trends over the one-to-three-month horizon.

The Style Scores add nuance. DGX has a Momentum Score of A and a VGM Score of A, while its Value Score and Growth Score are both B. That mix points to solid overall characteristics, with momentum currently standing out more than the valuation margin of safety.

For investors, the stock remains worth watching, but selectivity is warranted. Earnings momentum, higher guidance and positive estimate revisions support the near-term case, while valuation, leverage and margin pressure argue against chasing the stock without regard to entry point.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Decentralized exchange (DEX) Hyperliquid has rolled out HIP-4 permissionless deployments on the testnet, marking the first step toward enabling developers to deploy their prediction markets. This comes as the HYPE token continues to face significant selling pressure, falling below the psychological $55 level.

Hyperliquid’s HIP-4 Permissionless Deployment Goes Live On Testnet In their latest announcement, the Hyperliquid team revealed that the initial implementation of HIP-4 permissionless deployments is live on testnet. They also mentioned plans to roll out additional features, including configurable fees and more testnet templates.

This follows the initial announcement of plans to launch permissionless deployment for HIP-4 prediction markets last week. The feature is expected to launch on mainnet soon following the rollout on testnet.

The feature notably enables developers to launch their prediction and outcome markets on Hyperliquid, similar to how these developers can launch perpetuals for any asset on the HIP-3 market. The DEX had initially rolled out HIP-4 earlier this year, in a move to rival platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi.

Blockworks data shows that the sports prediction markets have accounted for most of the open interest on Hyperliquid’s HIP-4 market. Interestingly, the open interest has been on a decline since the end of the 2026 FIFA World Cup earlier this month.

Source: Blockworks The HIP-4 market’s open interest currently stands at $182,000, according to Blockworks data. Meanwhile, the notional trading volume is $881,000.

HYPE Price Falls Below $55 The Hyperliquid price has fallen below the psychological $55 level amid the rollout of the HIP-4 permissionless deployment on testnet. The DEX token is currently trading at around $54.700, down almost 2% in the last 24 hours.

Source: TradingView The Hyperliquid price has fallen along with Bitcoin, which dropped below $64,000 as the U.S. and Israel discuss a land blockade on Iran, which could escalate the U.S.-Iran war. HYPE also faces significant selling pressure as whales continue to unstake and offload their coins.

Onchain analytics platform Lookonchain drew attention to a whale that bought HYPE at an average price of $18 months back and unstaked the tokens today and deposited them to FalconX and Coinbase Prime, likely in a move to sell them.

Whales keep selling $HYPE!

A whale that bought 1.02M $HYPE at an average price of $18 17 months ago unstaked the tokens today and deposited them into #FalconX and #CoinbasePrime 2 hours ago, likely to sell.https://t.co/sokAtSnie9 pic.twitter.com/fqgN3G5788

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 31, 2026

For more on prediction markets, please check out our page on Best Crypto Prediction Markets In 2026

Pump.fun cut employees shortly before their PUMP token grants were due to vest, according to a Sandmark investigation. Documents and recordings reviewed by the publication indicate that at least one former employee lost a token allocation now worth seven figures.

After rapid expansion, the leading Solana meme coin launchpad laid off employees in late March and early April, the report says. In a recorded meeting, Pump.fun’s co-founder Noah Tweedale told employees that the layoffs were necessary because the company had expanded too quickly.

Workers whose contracts ended in early April reportedly received severance based on tenure, but many were dismissed just weeks before the first tranche of their PUMP token allocations was scheduled to vest under agreements signed in June 2025.

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Pump.fun also faced fresh layoff claims after former employees alleged a second round of job cuts in mid-July.

A newly created X account under the handle “ex pump employee” claimed it had been fired by Baton Corp., the development firm behind pump.fun, after more than a year with the company. The account owner said he was among 40 employees laid off one day before their PUMP token grants were due to vest.

The user also claimed there were never any plans for a PUMP airdrop, adding that the company did not believe in “giving free money” to users. Pump.fun has not publicly responded to the allegations.

PUMP changed hands at about $0.002 at press time, up nearly 5% in the last 24 hours, per CoinGecko. The token has plunged 77% from its all-time high set last September.

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

SBI Holdings has reiterated its belief in Ripple’s investment despite the recent price slump in XRP even though it has dropped in value.SBI Holdings has confirmed that it remains invested in Ripple and now holds a stake valued at ¥6.6 trillion ($41.2 billion) despite the recent XRP price declines.

SBI Holdings Doubles Down On Massive $41.2 Billion Stake In Ripple The update was made during SBI’s first quarter earnings call when it was revealed that the “cryptocurrency business remains sluggish, as if waiting to determine whether the CLARITY Act will be enacted.” However, the firm said it stressed that the “Ripple shareholding alone is worth ¥6.6 trillion.” This is a good sign of the SBI Group’s trust in Ripple and XRP in the midst of the market slowdown.

The remarks are part of the U.S. Senate’s deliberation on the CLARITY Act. Recently, Senator Cynthia Lummis indicated that legislators remain hopeful that they will be able to cast their vote on the bill prior to the August recess.

“We have one more week here in Washington,” Lummis said. She said a continuing resolution, a nomination and a sanctions vote are vying for floor time.

She also said Senate Majority Leader John Thune “has kept a place for the Clarity Act on the agenda before the August recess” and added, “I believe he does intend to go through with it.” However, she noted the vote could take place “tomorrow, or Monday, or Tuesday.”

About SBI Group’s Earnings Results In addition, SBI recorded its most successful first quarter ever.

Revenue grew to ¥571.0 billion, and profit before tax rose to ¥225.8 billion. Net profit attributable to shareholders was ¥148.1 billion, which rose by 149.9% year over year. The group’s ROI on equity for the past year was 29%, well above the medium-term target of 15%.

SBI said its crypto asset business, which posted a ¥1.4 billion loss before tax, was weak, but the global crypto market maker B2C2 was profitable.

The company is also building its digital asset reputation. It recently introduced crypto lending and support services via its JPYSC stablecoin through SBI VC Trade and is looking to its planned acquisition of Bitbank to expand the number of cryptocurrency accounts to about 3 million, assets under custody, to ¥870 billion.

For seamless crypto trading in Japan, visit our page on 8 Best Crypto Exchanges and Platforms in Japan.

The Ethereum validator entry queue has swelled to roughly 2.5 million ETH, with new stakers waiting approximately 43 days to activate while the exit queue remained largely empty, according to data from Beaconcha.in.

Thomas Brunner, Head of Custody and Staking at Sygnum Bank, said the backlog is not the clean bullish signal it appears to be on the surface.

"The queue is genuinely long, and part of that is real demand we've observed with spot ETF and at our own level," Brunner said in a written interview with The Block. "But a meaningful share of this staking backlog is mechanical, not directional and it stems from last year's Pectra upgrade."

The Dencun upgrade lowered the daily validator entry rate to roughly 57,600 ETH, Brunner said, and Pectra did not raise it. Pectra also allows validators to hold up to 2,048 ETH each and compound automatically, so large operators are now topping up existing validators. Every top-up, some as small as 1 ETH, waits in the same queue as fresh stakers.

"This backlog reflects operators rearranging and compounding stake they already hold, not just new appetite for ETH," Brunner said.

The largely empty exit queue, by contrast, offers an unambiguous signal.

"Almost no one is un-staking, which points to genuine conviction," he said. "The entry queue measures as much plumbing as demand."

Ethereum's (ETH) staking base has continued to grow alongside the queue. About 41.2 million ETH, or 33.8% of the circulating supply, is currently staked, according to Beaconcha.in.

Expand Chart

Institutional conviction  Brunner said institutions are not deterred by softer ETH prices.

Ether was trading at above $1,800 on Friday, down 1.7% on the day, according to The Block's ETH price page. Separately, TD Cowen on Thursday lowered its year-end 2026 ether price forecast to $2,371 from about $3,650, citing slower-than-expected progress toward a U.S. regulatory framework for tokenized financial assets while maintaining its long-term Ethereum thesis.

"A lot of institutions now see the staking yield as native to the asset and the utility case as still intact," he said. "When the longer economic and technical story holds up, temporary soft prices matter less. Capital keeps moving in because the horizon is measured in years, not quarters."

He added that long-term holders have little reason not to stake: "It will protect you against any protocol inflation during low activity phases and provide you with a good yield through transaction fees and MEV when activity picks up and ETH becomes deflationary due to the burn."

Privacy remains a barrier  Brunner identified validator privacy as a key remaining barrier to institutional participation.

"On Ethereum everything is visible by design," he said. "Deposit address, validator, withdrawal credential, all linked in a straight line that anyone with basic analytics can follow. That means an institution's size, timing, even rough strategy is sitting out in the open. For a lot of professional money that is not some abstract risk. It is enough to make them hesitate on scaling."

He said the EIP-8222 lean staking proposal could help address that by closing the final validator-to-withdrawal link. The proposal, however, also comes with tradeoffs, including fixed denominations that can hurt capital efficiency and variable claim waiting periods that complicate institutional operations.

“The players who win will be the ones who can take the new privacy layer and still satisfy their own auditors and control requirements,” Brunner noted. “Privacy helps entry. It does not erase the need for serious infrastructure underneath.”

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2026 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has compared the blockchain’s current state with its performance in 2024. 

Speaking during a recent livestream, Hoskinson said Cardano is far stronger from a technical standpoint than it was in 2024. He credited the ecosystem’s continued innovation, particularly the upcoming Ouroboros Leios upgrade, as evidence of the network’s engineering progress.

Currently undergoing testing, Leios is expected to significantly increase Cardano’s transaction throughput and scalability. Once deployed, the upgrade could reinforce the blockchain’s reputation as one of the industry’s most research-driven networks. 

However, Hoskinson acknowledged that these technical achievements have not translated into stronger market performance or wider industry recognition.

According to him, Cardano’s brand, market position, and overall level of respect within the crypto industry remain below where they should be. While praising the ecosystem’s engineering accomplishments, he stressed that Cardano must make important strategic decisions if it hopes to regain its competitive edge.

Cardano Has Lost Ground Since 2024 Hoskinson’s remarks come as Cardano continues to recover from a prolonged market decline.

Following the 2024 U.S. election, ADA emerged as one of the market’s strongest-performing cryptocurrencies, climbing to $1.31 and comfortably holding a position among the industry’s top 10 digital assets. 

Since then, however, the token has experienced a sharp downturn. ADA currently trades around $0.17, representing a 87% decline from its December 2024 peak. The cryptocurrency has also slipped to become the 14th-largest digital asset by market cap.

Beyond the price decline, Cardano has faced several ecosystem challenges, including project shutdowns, EMURGO’s withdrawal from Pentad, and ongoing governance-related controversies that have weighed on community sentiment.

Hoskinson Pledges to Push Cardano Forward Despite the setbacks, Hoskinson made it clear that he has no intention of slowing down.

Addressing the Cardano community, he said he plans to continue to advance the ecosystem regardless of whether everyone agrees with his approach. He emphasized that he already knows the direction he wants to pursue and invited supporters who share his vision to help execute it rather than wait for universal consensus. 

He also urged the community to focus on getting ADA “back on track” and restoring what he described as Cardano’s winning culture.

Reaffirming his long-term confidence in the project, Hoskinson described Cardano as a blue-chip blockchain that has already secured its place among the industry’s foundational networks. In his view, changing market cycles and growing competition will not diminish the network’s long-term relevance.

Governance Reform Forms Part of His Strategy As part of his broader plan to revive Cardano’s momentum, Hoskinson revealed that he intends to establish a political party that would create a Delegate Representative (DRep) to participate directly in Cardano’s on-chain governance.

He believes this initiative could help counter what he sees as growing cynicism and pessimism within the ecosystem while encouraging more constructive participation in governance.

According to him, stronger leadership and clearer strategic direction will be essential if Cardano is to strengthen its market position and restore confidence among investors and the broader crypto community. 

DisClamier: This content is informational and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author's personal opinions and do not reflect The Crypto Basic opinion. Readers are encouraged to do thorough research before making any investment decisions. The Crypto Basic is not responsible for any financial losses.

In brief Coinkite says a build error meant seeds on its Coldcard hardware wallets were drawn from a software fallback instead of the hardware generator. It believes an attacker used AI on its open-source code, and says its own AI review weeks earlier found nothing. Every current model is affected to some degree, and updating the firmware does not repair a seed already created. Coinkite believes an attacker used AI to find a flaw that has cost owners of its Coldcard hardware wallets tens of millions of dollars in Bitcoin, and says its own AI review of the same code weeks earlier turned up nothing. 

The hardware wallet manufacturer published an advisory for its Mk3 and a technical breakdown on Thursday, after learning that seeds generated by its devices were far more guessable than intended.

COLDCARD Mk3 Security Advisory

If you generated a seed on a Mk3 after firmware 4.0.1, your funds may be at risk.

Mk4, Q and Mk5 are not affected based on our early analysis.

Read the advisory and migrate carefully:https://t.co/3vgPHOjMS7

— COLDCARD (@COLDCARDwallet) July 30, 2026

The losses to the flaw, which was exploited early Friday, are estimated at 594 BTC, around $38 million. Funds were drained from roughly 500 wallets inside 25 minutes, with 562 BTC since consolidated into a single address.

Coinkite said it has to assume "someone used AI to review previous versions of our firmware" in order to uncover the flaw. The firm said it had run one of the best available models over its own code a few weeks earlier, and the model "did not find this bug or anything serious." Attackers and defenders have the same tools, it wrote, but this time "it did not help us, and only helped the bad guys."

What went wrongColdcard's firmware calls a function to fetch randomness, and two implementations of it sat in the codebase with identical signatures: the hardware generator Coinkite wrote, and a software fallback inherited from MicroPython. A preprocessor guard checked only whether a setting was defined, without testing its value, so the build completed against the fallback without complaint. Seed generation had been drawing on it since a March 2021 migration.

Every current model is affected to some degree. Coinkite estimates the effective search space for an Mk3 seed at about 40 bits, against the 128 a seed is meant to have. Extra entropy from the secure elements on the Mk4, Q and Mk5 lifts theirs to roughly 72 bits, which the company says materially improves the position without reaching the target. Tapsigner, Opendime and Satscard use different code and are unaffected.

What owners must doCoinkite has shipped an emergency hotfix, version 5.6.0 for the Mk4 and Mk5 and 1.5.0Q for the Q. Updating does not repair a seed already created on affected firmware. Owners need a new seed generated on patched hardware, and the company recommends a strong BIP-39 passphrase, at least 99 dice rolls, or both. Mk3 owners, whose model is out of support, are pointed to a separate migration path.

1/ Earlier today, our Bitcoin engineering and security teams at Block began investigating reports of non-Bitkey wallets being drained. To proactively protect our customers, we began investigating immediately. Here’s what we found 🧵

— Max Guise (@max_guise) July 31, 2026

A seed created on an affected Coldcard stays weak after being restored to another brand's device, a point rival hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor made while telling its own users their funds are safe. Block, which published an independent analysis on Friday, said none of its products are affected, and its hardware lead Max Guise urged anyone exposed to move funds as soon as they safely can.

Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.

by Todd Bishop on Jul 31, 2026 at 8:28 amJuly 31, 2026 at 8:33 am

The number of product research and development roles at Microsoft declined for the second straight year, according to the company’s annual regulatory filing, offering a new indication of how the tech giant is reshaping its workforce in the AI era.

Microsoft’s total headcount declined by 5,000 people to 223,000 as of June 30, according to its Form 10-K, filed with the SEC this week. It’s the first annual employment decline for Microsoft since 2016, when the company was writing off and winding down its Nokia smartphone business.

The trend is notable in part because, over the same time period, Microsoft’s revenue rose 18%, or $50.1 billion, to $331.8 billion — the largest one-year increase in the company’s history.

Here’s how the employment trends break down:

Product R&D roles represented the majority of the net decline, falling by 3,000, to 77,000 — down from a peak of 81,000 in 2024. Operations roles, now Microsoft’s largest employment category, held steady at 89,000 after growing by 3,000 the year before. It includes datacenter operations, product support, consulting, and manufacturing and distribution. Sales and marketing roles declined by 1,000, to 43,000, and general and administration by 1,000, to 14,000. The reductions fell disproportionately on Microsoft’s U.S. workforce, which declined by 4,000, to 121,000. International employment declined by 1,000, to 102,000. The numbers reflect the roughly 9,000 jobs Microsoft cut on July 2, 2025, two days into its fiscal year. They do not reflect the 4,800 cuts announced July 6 of this year — spanning sales, consulting and Xbox — or the thousands of U.S. employees who left in early July under the company’s first voluntary retirement program.

On the earnings call Wednesday, CFO Amy Hood confirmed that “total company headcount declined 2% year over year.” She linked a 10% increase in operating expenses to “continued investment in R&D compute capacity, talent, and data to support product development across the portfolio.”

AI coding tools — including Microsoft’s own GitHub Copilot — have become a standard part of how software is built at Microsoft and across the industry, reducing the number of people and the amount of time it takes to ship products, while often expanding the total scope of the work.

Microsoft has repeatedly declined to link its job cuts to AI. Chief People Officer Amy Coleman said in a memo earlier this month that the roles being eliminated were not being directly replaced by AI, while acknowledging that “AI is changing how work gets done.”

Tech companies have been keeping a tighter rein on operating expenses, primarily through job cuts, in part to offset soaring capital expenses to support their AI infrastructure buildouts. Microsoft’s capex reached $41 billion in the June quarter alone.

Microsoft is also moving engineers out of product development and into customer-facing roles. The Microsoft Frontier Company, a $2.5 billion initiative announced July 2, brings together more than 6,000 people to embed engineers inside customers building AI systems — a group drawn “primarily from Microsoft’s existing engineering and forward-deployed teams,” according to the company.

Shares of AMD (NASDAQ:AMD | AMD Price Prediction) are trading at $485.39, while the average analyst price target sits at $575.49, implying roughly 19% upside. The loudest bull on the Street is calling for something dramatically larger.

AMD designs the CPUs and GPUs powering hyperscale AI data centers. After Q1 revenue climbed 37.85% year over year on a 57% Data Center surge, the story centers on how much of the AI accelerator market Lisa Su can capture from NVIDIA. The recent pullback matters: the stock has cooled just as its most important customer, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), delivered results that reset the AI capex ceiling.

A July Slide Meets a Microsoft Reset AMD entered July near record levels and gave back 10.26% across the month, with the sharpest damage in the final week at -10.06%. Fed uncertainty, softer GDP prints, and broader AI trade concerns drove the decline.

On July 30, AMD rallied 13% as Microsoft’s July 29 report landed. Azure grew 43% and full-year FY2026 capex reached $115.95 billion, validating accelerating hyperscaler spend. Two days earlier, Synopsys, AMD, and Microsoft announced an expanded agentic-AI EDA collaboration on Microsoft Discovery, cutting debug cycle time by 40%. For AMD’s Data Center segment selling directly into Azure’s buildout, that is the catalyst.

Why Baird Doubled Its Target to $1,250 Baird’s Tristan Gerra just doubled his AMD price target from $625 to $1,250, reiterating Outperform and setting the Street high. Against the current print, that implies roughly 155% upside, well beyond the consensus $575.49 figure.

Gerra’s thesis rests on two pillars. First, he models $147 billion in AI GPU revenue for AMD by 2030, assuming AMD captures 15% of global data center AI workloads. Second, he sees the full-stack story landing: Helios rack-scale platforms, MI450 accelerators, and next-gen “Venice” EPYC CPUs deployed together at Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and Oracle. Lisa Su’s commentary aligns: “Customer engagement around MI450 Series and Helios is strengthening, with leading customer forecasts exceeding our initial expectations.”

Q1 non-GAAP EPS came in at $1.37, free cash flow surged 252.96% to $2.57 billion, and management guided Q2 revenue to ~$11.2 billion, a 46% jump. Prediction markets assign an 88.5% probability that AMD beats on its next print.

Ratings back the posture. Alpha Vantage tallies 5 Strong Buy, 37 Buy, 9 Hold, with no Sell calls, and recent revisions have skewed toward reiterations and raises.

AMD Fell Alone While the AI Group Diverged AMD’s July drawdown stands out against every close comparable in the AI peer group.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) trades at $195.04 against a $302.83 average target, roughly 55% upside, and slipped only 2.52% in July. With 58 Buys, 2 Holds, and 1 Sell, sentiment remains firmly bullish.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and AMD didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) rose 2.67% in July to $387.84, versus a $527.88 target and 44 Buys against 4 Holds, implying about 36% upside as custom AI silicon demand compounds.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) cratered 34.73% in July to $91.13 against a $115.27 target and a mixed 13 Buy, 32 Hold, 4 Sell posture.

The widest analyst-implied upside sits with AMD once Baird’s Street-high call is included: NVDA and AVGO barely moved, INTC’s rating quality is worse, and AMD gets the biggest bull thesis attached to the deepest recent pullback.

The Numbers Behind the Dislocation AMD trades at $485.39 versus a consensus target of $575.49 from 51 covering analysts, roughly 19% consensus upside, stretching to about 155% at Baird’s Street high. The 52-week range runs from $149.22 to $584.73, and the stock sports a forward P/E of 63x.

AMD is up 126.65% year-to-date versus the S&P 500’s 8.76% gain, and up 170.4% over the past year. Even after the July slide, the longer-term chart remains intact.

Bull Case Wins If MI450 Ramps Cleanly The bull case holds if MI450 and Helios ship on time in the second half, hyperscalers keep spending at the pace Microsoft validated, and Baird’s 15% share assumption in AI GPUs proves directionally right. In that world, $575 is a base case and $1,250 becomes a genuine multi-year target.

The bear case holds if the July selloff was signal: cheaper AI models eroding accelerator demand, MI450 slipping, or margin compression as AMD chases NVIDIA on price. With a forward P/E of 63x and heavy insider selling flagged recently, execution needs to be near-flawless.

On balance, the Microsoft print reaffirmed demand right into AMD’s catalyst window, and the analyst community is not budging. The dislocation looks more like opportunity than trap, provided investors size for the volatility a 2.47 beta implies.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and AMD didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Item 1 of 2 The Alibaba logo is seen in this illustration taken on January 29, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

[1/2]The Alibaba logo is seen in this illustration taken on January 29, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

July 31 (Reuters) - Chinese AI firm Moonshot has a computing agreement with Alibaba Group (9988.HK), opens new tab for the use of about 20,000 ​Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab chips, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar ‌with the matter.

Alibaba, one of Moonshot's largest investors, expects portfolio companies to use its cloud, the report said. The Nvidia chip cluster Alibaba provides accounts for a key portion of the ​computing power behind Moonshot's Kimi models, it added.

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Moonshot earlier this ​month unveiled Kimi K3, a 2.8-trillion-parameter model. It said Kimi K3 was the world's largest ⁠open-weight AI system and delivered performance approaching U.S. giant Anthropic's frontier Fable model.

U.S. ​export controls on advanced Nvidia chips have made access to computing ​power a key constraint for Chinese companies.

Moonshot can access Nvidia's newer Blackwell processors through Southeast Asia and is seeking additional chips to train its next AI model, Bloomberg ​reported.

Separately, the roughly 20,000 Nvidia chips Moonshot has access to are from the ​chip giant's earlier Hopper generation, the report said.

Before Nvidia rolled out its Blackwell lineup, ‌Hopper ⁠chips were used across the AI industry to train and deploy models.

An Alibaba spokesperson denied to Bloomberg that the company provides H200-powered computing services to Moonshot.

Moonshot's Kimi model surpassed Alibaba's Qwen on key performance measures ​despite access to ​similar training ⁠resources, disappointing some Alibaba employees, the report said.

Reuters could not independently confirm the report. Moonshot and Alibaba could ​not be reached for comment outside regular business hours.

The White ​House, the U.S. ⁠Commerce Department and Nvidia did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

The report comes as Moonshot faces growing scrutiny from U.S. officials. The ⁠U.S. ​government had information indicating Moonshot distilled Anthropic's ​Claude Fable 5 model to develop Kimi K3, the White House's top tech adviser, Michael ​Kratsios, said last week.

Reporting by Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas

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

Key Takeaways ExxonMobil posted Q2 adjusted earnings of $3.52 and revenue of $116 billion, topping revenue estimates.ExxonMobil's upstream segment earned $9.19 billion, supported by Permian output above 1.8 million barrels.ExxonMobil generated $17.2 billion in free cash flow and reduced net debt by more than $7 billion. ExxonMobil Holdings Corporation (XOM - Free Report) has reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $3.52, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.68 by 4.3%. Revenues of $116 billion topped the consensus estimate of $95.8 billion by 21.1%. Adjusted earnings increased from $1.61 in the year-ago quarter, while revenues rose 42.3% year over year from $81.5 billion.

The lower-than-expected quarterly earnings can be attributed to higher expenses due to scheduled maintenance activities and increased depreciation tied to recent investments. The company faced production disruptions related to Middle East conditions.

The results were partially offset by strong operating execution, with upstream production reaching 4,514 thousand oil-equivalent barrels per day and record Permian output above 1.8 million oil-equivalent barrels per day. ExxonMobil highlighted portfolio strength, cost savings and supply-chain optimization as the key contributors to its results.

XOM Benefits From Upstream Production GrowthExxonMobil’s upstream segment remained a major earnings contributor, generating adjusted earnings of $9.19 billion in the second quarter. The company reported its highest upstream production in more than two decades, excluding Middle East disruptions, supported by strong reliability and growth from advantaged assets.

The Permian Basin was a key operational driver, with production exceeding 1.8 million oil-equivalent barrels per day. Management said that Permian growth is expected to support a planned 9% compound annual growth rate through 2030. The fifth Guyana FPSO also set sail, with production startup expected in the fourth quarter and capacity expected to increase by 250 thousand barrels per day.

ExxonMobil Captures Energy Product GainsXOM’s Energy Products segment delivered adjusted earnings of $4.10 billion, helped by stronger refining conditions, optimization efforts and structural savings. Energy Products sales volumes increased to 5,698 thousand barrels per day from 5,630 thousand barrels per day in the prior quarter.

The company achieved record second-quarter diesel production as global supply conditions tightened. Management noted that its integrated system helped redirect products and optimize assets during market disruptions. However, scheduled maintenance affected reported results during the quarter.

XOM Sees Chemical And Specialty RecoveryExxonMobil’s Chemical Products segment posted adjusted earnings of $1.21 billion, improving from $110 million in the first quarter. The company benefited from North American feedstock advantages and stronger chemical margins, with management citing reliability across its Gulf Coast manufacturing assets.

Specialty Products adjusted earnings reached $969 million, supported by higher basestock margins and growth in high-value products. The segment continued to offset pressure from Middle East disruptions through stronger product performance.

ExxonMobil Expands Investments While Cutting CostsXOM continued investing in growth opportunities, with cash capital expenditure of $6.8 billion during the quarter and $13 billion for the first six months of 2026. The company said that 2026 planned investments are 20% higher than the nearest international oil company, with spending focused on advantaged assets and high-value products.

Cost efficiency remained a significant earnings support. The company reported cumulative structural cost savings of $16.3 billion, which it said exceeded the combined savings reported by other international oil companies.

XOM Strengthens Cash Flow & Balance SheetExxonMobil generated $23.6 billion in cash flow from operating activities and $17.2 billion in free cash flow during the second quarter. Shareholder distributions totaled $9.4 billion, including $4.3 billion in dividends and $5.1 billion in share repurchases.

The company ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $10.6 billion and long-term debt of $32.2 billion. ExxonMobil also reduced net debt by more than $7 billion during the second quarter, improving its net debt-to-capital ratio to 11%.

ExxonMobil Outlines Q3 ExpectationsXOM expects third-quarter upstream results to reflect lower Guyana net entitlement volumes of about 100 thousand barrels per day due to production-sharing adjustments. Management said that this change does not reflect weaker operating performance or lower gross production.

The company also expects corporate and financing expenses of $0.8-$1 billion in the third quarter. Scheduled maintenance in Product Solutions is expected to be lower than in the second quarter, while Middle East production impacts remain a key factor for the outlook.

Zacks Rank & Stocks to ConsiderExxonMobil currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks from the energy sector are HF Sinclair Corporation (DINO - Free Report) , Valero Energy (VLO - Free Report) and Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI - Free Report) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here.

HF Sinclair’s operations are anchored by its refining business, which consists of seven complex refineries located across the Mid-Continent, Southwest, Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest regions. These facilities have a combined crude processing capacity of approximately 678,000 barrels per day, and are equipped to process discounted heavy and sour crude oils into higher-value refined products, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. The company’s renewables segment comprises the Artesia, Cheyenne and Sinclair renewable diesel facilities, which together have an annual production capacity of about 378 million gallons.

Valero is a leading refining player with a robust network of 14 refineries and a combined high-complexity throughput capacity of 3 million barrels per day, which distinguishes it from other independent refiners. Valero’s refineries have a combined Nelson Complexity Index of 11.5, which implies that they can process a wide variety of feedstocks, convert them into higher-value products and shift product yields according to market conditions.

Kinder Morgan operates one of North America's largest natural gas infrastructure networks, consisting of approximately 58,600 miles of transmission pipelines, 6,800 miles of gathering systems and 1,300 miles of natural gas liquids pipelines. KMI transports nearly 40% of U.S. natural gas production and controls more than 700 billion cubic feet of storage capacity, representing roughly 15% of the nation's total storage capacity.

Just a few short years ago, General Motors and Ford were all-in on electric vehicles, spending billions of dollars on those efforts. Now, the two biggest American automakers are hardly talking about EVs with their investors.

TechCrunch teamed up with Hudson Labs, a New York-based financial research firm, to analyze the last seven years of GM and Ford quarterly earnings calls and found that both companies are talking about EVs at a lower rate than they did before the pandemic.

This shouldn’t shock anyone who’s followed the news over the last two years. Both companies have altered, delayed, or outright abandoned plans for new EV models, prompting layoffs and scaled back factory plans. And while GM and Ford still sell EVs and have new models in their product pipelines, their collective focus has shifted, and it shows in the data.

Jim Cain, a spokesperson for GM, said that “quality counts more than quantity.”

“We’ve been very clear and consistent in communicating our view that EVs are the end game, the strength of our portfolio today, the loyalty of EV customers to the technology, awards we’ve won, our growing EV market share, and our commitment to continue investing in technologies like LMR (lithium manganese-rich) to improve profitability,” he said in an emailed statement.

But, he added: “we devote time on the calls to discuss growth opportunities like software and services and autonomous technology, and address complex topics of analyst/investor interest like trade and regulatory policy impacts, operating performance, capital allocation, regional performance, headwinds and tailwinds — all while making sure at least half the call is devoted to Q&A.”

Ford spokesperson David Tovar, meanwhile, pointed to the company’s planned launch of its new “Universal Electric Vehicle” platform next year. “[W]e think the first product rolling off the line, a midsize pickup truck, will hit the sweet spot of the EV market for cost, price, and technology,” he said.

For this analysis, TechCrunch excluded the ostensible third of the Detroit Big Three, Stellantis, for a few reasons. The automaker, which emerged in 2021 from the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA Group, traditionally lagged behind its U.S. counterparts in EV adoption. Stellantis also, until the first quarter of this year, held comprehensive earnings calls only twice a year, instead of four times annually, like most public companies.

Hudson Labs sourced earnings call transcripts from S&P Market Intelligence dating back to 2019, and used its Co-Analyst — an AI research tool purpose-built for high-precision financial research — to assign topic tags to each sentence. It then counted the frequency of those topics as well as each topic’s share of the discussion to produce the charts below

General Motors GM bet on mass-market EVs before most other major automakers. It debuted the Bolt EV at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2016, and put the car on sale by the end of that year — a healthy six months or so ahead of Tesla’s first deliveries of the Model 3.

EVs really became a focus of GM’s earnings calls as its investment ramped up in 2019 and into 2020. At that point, the company was teasing new made-in-the-U.S. models and talking about transforming Cadillac into an all-electric brand. GM spent an increasing amount of time talking about its EV plans through early 2021, with more than 100 references to electric vehicles on each of its last two earnings calls in 2020. That meant EVs accounted for roughly a third of the overall discussion on those calls.

Aside from a dip in the first quarter of 2021, when companies around the world were dealing with a major chip shortage, GM spent nearly the next four years — notably while President Biden was in office — dedicating around a quarter of each earnings call to discussing EVs. (Another notable dip came in the first quarter of 2025 was attributable to President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, which dominated that earnings call.)

After Trump regained office, he slashed environmental regulations that incentivized zero-emissions vehicles, and his party tore up the $7,500 federal tax credit for new EVs. At the same time, GM’s talk of EVs dropped significantly, from 82 mentions on the second-quarter call in 2025, to just 21 on its most recent call covering Q2 2026.

While GM remains the second-largest seller of EVs in the U.S., the company that once made the lofty promise to go all-electric by 2035 is now talking more about how it has “align[ed] our EV capacity and manufacturing footprint with the changes in regulatory policy” — when it talks about EVs at all.

Ford Ford’s first serious entry into the world of mass-market EVs was the Mustang Mach-E, which debuted in late 2019. As the company got closer to delivering the first models in late 2020, it started talking more and more about electric vehicles on its earnings calls.

Aside from a similar dip in mentions on the Q1 2021 call, which was bogged down by talk of the global semiconductor shortage, Ford — like GM — started spending around a third of each quarterly investor check-in talking about EVs. Those discussions were buoyed by the launch of its second major EV model, the F-150 Lightning, in 2021. And that level of focus largely held through the Biden years, as his administration freed up federal money for charging stations and EV manufacturing credits, while shaping policy around the battery material supply chain.

Ford began talking less about EVs before the 2024 election, though. By the middle of that year, the company was already backing away from some of its largest contemporary EV investments in favor of a skunkworks project that ultimately became the Universal Electric Vehicle platform. Talk of EVs dipped further after Trump took office, with CEO Jim Farley spending more time discussing support for the president’s protectionist trade policy and the company’s near-term focus on its higher-margin gas F-Series trucks.

Still, on Ford’s most recent call, Farley talked up the idea that the company “will become a major scaled competitor as we invest in affordable, versatile EVs.” But for that to happen, investors will have to wait until at least next year.

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, /PRNewswire/ -- Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL), a Fortune 500 global branded food company, today announced the successful completion of the sale of its Brazilian operations, operated under the CERATTI® brand, to Zanchetta Alimentos LTDA, a Brazilian food company with an established presence in the market.

The transaction follows the definitive agreement announced on June 29, 2026, and reflects Hormel Foods' ongoing efforts to simplify and streamline its portfolio while focusing its international strategy on markets with the strongest long-term growth opportunities.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. As previously communicated, Hormel Foods expects the sale to have a minimal impact on its adjusted fiscal 2026 financial results. Additional information will be shared during the company's third-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call.

About Hormel Foods
Hormel Foods Corporation, based in Austin, Minnesota, is a global branded food company with over $12 billion in annual revenue. Its brands include PLANTERS®, SKIPPY®, SPAM®, HORMEL® NATURAL CHOICE®, APPLEGATE®, WHOLLY®, HORMEL® BLACK LABEL®, COLUMBUS®, JENNIE-O® and more than 30 other beloved brands. The Company is a member of the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, was named one of the best companies to work for by U.S. News & World Report and one of America's most responsible companies by Newsweek, was recognized by TIME magazine as one of the World's Best Companies and has received numerous other awards and accolades for its corporate responsibility and community service efforts. For more information, visit hormelfoods.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This news release contains forward-looking statements, which are based on the current assumptions and expectations of Hormel Foods Corporation ("Hormel"). These statements are typically accompanied by the words "expect," "will," "would," or similar words or expressions. The principal forward-looking statements in this news release include statements regarding Hormel's sale of its Ceratti business in Brazil, international growth opportunities, and the expected impact of the transaction on Hormel's fiscal 2026 financial results.
All such forward-looking statements are intended to enjoy the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Although Hormel believes there is a reasonable basis for the forward-looking statements, its actual results could be materially different. The most important factors which could cause Hormel's actual results to differ from its forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, risks related to the deterioration of economic conditions; risks related to acquisitions, joint ventures, equity investments, and divestitures; risks and uncertainties associated with intangible assets, including any future goodwill or intangible assets impairment charges; the risk of disruption of operations; the risk that Hormel may fail to realize anticipated cost savings or operating profit improvements associated with strategic initiatives, including the Transform and Modernize initiative and Hormel's recent corporate restructuring plan; risk of unfavorable changes in Hormel's relationships with third parties; risk of Hormel's inability to protect information technology (IT) systems against, or effectively respond to, cyber-attacks, security breaches or other IT interruptions; labor relations and labor availability risks; food safety risks; fluctuations in commodity prices and availability of raw materials and other inputs; fluctuations in market demand for Hormel's products; risks related to Hormel's ability to respond to changing consumer preferences; damage to Hormel's reputation or brand image; risks of litigation; risks associated with government regulation; risks related to trade policies, export and import controls, and tariffs; and the other risks and uncertainties described in Item 1A – Risk Factors of Hormel's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, which can be accessed at www.hormelfoods.com in the "Investors" section. Though Hormel has attempted to list comprehensively these important cautionary risk factors, Hormel cautions that other factors may in the future prove to be important in affecting Hormel's business or results of operations. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Hormel does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement except as otherwise required by law.

SOURCE Hormel Foods Corporation

A Three-Way Push Into Corporate Payroll@Zebec_HQ has joined forces with @StellarOrg and @Tangem to roll out custom, hardware-based wallets aimed squarely at the global employee payroll market. The initiative marks the latest step in Zebec's expanding relationship with the Stellar network, which selected the company as its global stablecoin payroll infrastructure provider earlier in 2026.

Announced in March 2026, Zebec's integration with Stellar allows businesses to pay employees continuously in USDC on a per-second basis, a feature selected by the Stellar Development Foundation. The new hardware wallet programme takes that infrastructure one step further by putting a physical, branded device directly into workers' hands at the point of onboarding.

Employees and contractors can receive salaries rapidly into their digital wallets, spend funds via Zebec's Mastercard-powered cards, and convert digital dollars into local fiat currencies. The addition of Tangem's hardware layer is designed to make that experience accessible to staff who may have little or no prior crypto experience.

Seedless Security at the Point of OnboardingThe wallets use NFC technology to deliver a tap-to-sign experience, removing the friction that has historically made self-custody impractical in a corporate setting. Critically, the setup eliminates the need for traditional seed phrases while keeping the wallet non-custodial. Tangem generates and stores the master key securely on a chip within the wallet card, reducing the risk of theft or loss from unprotected backups, with recovery achieved through additional cards rather than written phrases.

When a Tangem wallet is initialised, the chip's hardware random number generator creates a private key that never leaves the secure element, not during setup, not during transactions, and the key is stored in tamper-resistant hardware that will physically destroy itself if extraction is attempted.

For Zebec, the partnership addresses one of the most persistent barriers in crypto payroll adoption: key management. By handing employees full key ownership upon onboarding, the company removes the corporate intermediary from the salary pipeline entirely, a meaningful step for businesses operating across multiple jurisdictions where wage portability and financial access remain uneven.

Founded in 2021, Zebec Network has built a broad portfolio spanning crypto-linked payment cards, streaming payroll systems, and cross-border settlement tools. The Tangem collaboration is the latest in an ongoing hardware wallet partnership between the two firms, with a prior co-branded wallet run having reportedly sold out.

Sources
Zebec Launches Stablecoin Payroll on Stellar for Global Workforces (FX Daily Report)
How Seedless Wallets Work (Tangem Blog)
AllUnity and Zebec Deploy EURAU-Powered Employee Benefits on Stellar (Business Wire)

July Brings Another Month of Steady AccumulationThe Chainlink Reserve closed July 2026 with its largest single-month token haul yet, adding more than 706,000 $LINK throughout the month. The latest purchases were valued at over $5.7 million, bringing total Reserve holdings to 5,210,976 LINK.

The pace of accumulation marks a significant step up from earlier in the programme's life. Early inflows averaged 80,000 to 90,000 LINK per week in late 2025, rising to between 125,000 and 137,000 LINK per week by early 2026. July's figure implies the programme has continued to accelerate from there.

How the Reserve Works and Why It MattersThe Chainlink Reserve is an on-chain reserve that accumulates its native LINK token using revenue from fees paid by large institutions and decentralised applications. It is funded through Payment Abstraction, an on-chain infrastructure that converts payments made in gas tokens and stablecoins into LINK using decentralised exchange infrastructure.

Chainlink has said it does not expect any withdrawals from the Reserve for multiple years, and the balance is expected to grow as more enterprise revenue is directed on-chain. The Reserve operates transparently through a public dashboard and a time-locked Ethereum contract.

Launched on August 7, 2025, the initiative is part of the Chainlink Economics 2.0 upgrades. Since then it has grown from roughly $1 million at inception to a holding now worth well into the tens of millions of dollars at current market prices. Reported milestones driving that growth include DTCC's approval of tokenisation, UBS's launch of tokenised funds, and Coinbase's bridging of $7 billion in wrapped assets using Chainlink infrastructure.

The Reserve's long-term effect on LINK tokenomics depends on whether revenue growth outpaces ongoing token unlocks. For now, the trajectory points firmly upward, with each monthly update reinforcing the programme's role as a structural demand driver for the token.

Sources
Chainlink Reserve official dashboard
Chainlink blog: Introducing the Chainlink Reserve
CoinDesk: Chainlink Launches LINK Reserve to Fuel Network Growth

Direct Funding Replaces Manual Bridging@MoonPay has deployed its MoonPay Trade execution layer to @MiracleTrade, automating capital flows across the @Hyperliquid ecosystem and removing a friction point that has long slowed traders entering the platform.

Until now, funding a Hyperliquid trading account required a manual, multi-step process: buying $USDC on an external exchange, bridging it through @Arbitrum, and then depositing it into the DEX. Previous workarounds required users to buy USDC on another chain, bridge it to Arbitrum (Hyperliquid's settlement layer), and then deposit it into the DEX, with each step taking time, costing gas fees, and introducing opportunities for mistakes. The MoonPay Trade integration collapses that workflow into a single action, allowing traders to fund their wallets directly using $BTC, $SOL, or $ETH.

How MoonPay Trade WorksThe system relies on deterministic routing to execute cross-chain swaps in the background, keeping the process non-custodial while consolidating fragmented liquidity. Unlike standard bridge or DEX aggregators, MoonPay Trade handles cross-chain routing and settlement automatically. Cross-chain trades are routed and settled automatically, meaning users do not need to manually manage bridges, wrapped assets, or gas on the destination chain.

MoonPay Trade is powered by the technology and team from Decent.xyz, the Y Combinator-backed cross-chain routing company MoonPay acquired. Decent developed proprietary bridge infrastructure, routing algorithms, and an aggregation layer that delivers optimized execution across 200-plus chains and millions of assets.

MoonPay Trade is designed to reduce that burden by combining transaction execution, settlement, conversion, and payment support for more than 120 fiat currencies on one platform. Where MoonPay once handled the entry and exit points, MoonPay Trade now powers everything in between: cross-chain execution, collateral movement, tokenized fund subscriptions, and onchain settlement, all backed by institutional-grade compliance infrastructure.

The Miracle integration extends those capabilities directly to Hyperliquid traders, giving the platform's users a faster path to capital deployment without leaving a non-custodial environment.

Sources:
MoonPay launches MoonPay Trade (PR Newswire)
MoonPay launches Trade and expands Hyperliquid access (CFO Tech)
MoonPay Gateway adds Hyperliquid (PR Newswire)

Lemonade's (LMND -0.15%) stock slumped after it posted its second-quarter earnings report on July 29. The online insurance company's revenue surged 79% year over year to $294 million, beating analysts' estimates by $3 million, and it narrowed its net loss from $43.9 million to $43.4 million, or $0.56 per share, which matched the consensus forecast.

Those headline numbers looked healthy, but Lemonade's full-year in-force premium (IFP) outlook slightly missed analysts' estimates. Let's see if that miss means that its growth story is ending -- or if its valuations are simply cooling off after a big multi-year rally.

Image source: Getty Images.

How fast is Lemonade growing? Lemonade simplifies the Byzantine process of buying insurance through AI-powered chatbots and claims processing services. That digital-first approach made it a popular choice among younger and first-time insurance buyers.

Today's Change

(

-0.15

%) $

-0.08

Current Price

$

48.50

Lemonade initially only offered homeowners and renters insurance at the time of its 2020 IPO, but it subsequently launched pet health, term life, and auto insurance products. It significantly expanded its auto business by acquiring Metromile in 2022.

Lemonade ended the second quarter of 2026 with 3.31 million customers. That's up 23% from a year earlier and more than triple its 1.00 million customers at the end of 2021. Its IFP, gross earned premium (GEP), and gross margins have consistently risen since its public debut, while its gross loss ratio has steadily declined.

Metric

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

Customer Growth (YOY)

56%

43%

27%

12%

20%

23%

IFP Growth (YOY)

87%

78%

64%

20%

26%

31%

GEP Growth (YOY)

110%

84%

68%

37%

23%

28%

Gross Loss Ratio (TTM)

71%

90%

90%

85%

73%

64%

Adjusted Gross Margin

33%

36%

25%

23%

33%

41%

Data source: Lemonade. YOY = Year-over-year. TTM = Trailing 12 months.

Was Lemonade's guidance that bad? For 2026, Lemonade expects its IFP to rise 32%-33%, its GEP to grow 31%, and its revenue to increase 65%. That guidance was actually higher than its full-year guidance in the first quarter, which called for 32% IFP growth, 30%-31% GEP growth, and 62%-63% revenue growth. It also reiterated its prior outlook for achieving a positive adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) by the fourth quarter of 2026.

The only issue was that the high end of Lemonade's IFP guidance (between $1.632 billion and $1.639 billion) fell short of Wall Street's target of more than $1.642 billion. Therefore, Lemonade's guidance wasn't bad at all -- it simply wasn't as aggressive as Wall Street's target.

With an enterprise value of $4.03 billion, Lemonade still looks like a bargain at three times this year's sales. It's still an undervalued growth stock, and its latest pullback is a great buying opportunity for long-term investors.

Key Takeaways Thermo Fisher grew bioproduction with 3% organic Life Sciences Solutions growth and a filtration acquisition.TMO opened a U.S. Bioprocess Design Center to expand customer collaboration and process development.TMO added Clario's clinical data capabilities as integration and revenue-synergy efforts progressed. Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO - Free Report) is building around three growth forces in life sciences: biologic-drug manufacturing, AI-enabled workflows and closer customer collaboration.

These themes can support longer-term expansion, but they also raise the bar. Thermo Fisher must keep launching relevant technologies, integrating acquisitions and proving that scale can translate into better execution.

Year to date, TMO shares have slipped 0.5%, compared with the industry's steeper 11.7% decline.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

TMO Expands Its Bioproduction PlatformBioproduction remained a key growth driver in the second quarter. Demand for tools and services used in biologic-drug development and manufacturing helped Life Sciences Solutions deliver 3% organic growth.

The Solventum filtration and separation acquisition broadens Thermo Fisher’s bioproduction offering across upstream and downstream workflows. Management expects the business to support revenue and cost synergies over time.

Thermo Fisher Brings AI Into WorkflowsThermo Fisher is expanding AI capabilities across its software portfolio. Those tools are designed to support smarter workflows and faster analysis in complex scientific applications.

The company is also applying AI within its PPI Business System. That matters because productivity, quality and customer responsiveness are becoming more important as laboratories handle larger datasets and more integrated workflows.

TMO Deepens Customer CollaborationThermo Fisher opened its flagship U.S. Bioprocess Design Center in Massachusetts during the quarter. The site expands its network of customer collaboration centers.

The center allows teams to work with pharma and biotech customers on process development, manufacturing optimization and commercial scale-up. TMO also announced a Singapore precision-health collaboration that combines Olink proteomics with the Orbitrap Astral platform.

Thermo Fisher Advances Clinical Data CapabilitiesThe Clario acquisition adds digital endpoint data solutions to Thermo Fisher’s portfolio. These capabilities can generate deeper clinical insights and improve drug-development productivity.

Clario also fits with Thermo Fisher’s clinical research business. The business exceeded management’s expectations in the second quarter, while integration remained on track and the revenue-synergy pipeline continued to grow.

TMO Innovation Must Outrun CompetitionCompetition remains a real constraint. Thermo Fisher operates in markets where technology changes quickly and customer requirements keep evolving.

Rivals can introduce alternative platforms, compete on pricing or bundle products and services more aggressively. That makes timely product launches, customer adoption and acquisition integration essential to sustaining share gains.

Danaher (DHR - Free Report) and Agilent Technologies (A - Free Report) remain relevant peers for investors watching innovation in life sciences tools, diagnostics and laboratory technologies. Danaher describes itself as a life sciences and diagnostics innovator, while Agilent supplies application-focused solutions across life sciences, diagnostics and applied chemical markets.

Thermo Fisher Momentum Supports the Trend StoryThe bottom line is that Thermo Fisher is aligned with attractive life-science trends, especially bioproduction, AI-led workflow improvement and clinical data capabilities. The case depends on execution as much as market demand.

Here’s how Thermo Fisher’s five-year sales multiple looks like compared to the industry average.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

TMO currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). That indicates the long-term technology and demand themes have not yet translated into a stronger short-term rating.

The Momentum Score of A is encouraging because it points to favorable near-term trading characteristics. However, the Value Score, Growth Score and VGM Score of C call for measured expectations, especially after the stock’s recent earnings-driven support.

You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Key Takeaways Rockwell Automation is expected to post Q3 EPS of $3.39 on $2.26B in sales, both up y/y.ROK may benefit from pricing, supply-chain optimization and projected 6.8% organic sales growth.ROK's Software & Control and Intelligent Devices are seen growing, while Lifecycle Services may decline. Rockwell Automation Inc. (ROK - Free Report) is scheduled to report third-quarter fiscal 2026 results on Aug. 4, before the opening bell.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Rockwell Automation’s earnings has moved 2.1% north in the past 60 days to $3.39 per share. The consensus mark implies 20.2% growth from the year-ago actual. The consensus estimate for sales is pegged at $2.26 billion, indicating a 5.2% year-over-year rise.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

ROK’s Earnings Surprise HistoryRockwell Automation’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimates in the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 10.2%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

What the Zacks Model Indicates for Rockwell AutomationOur model predicts an earnings beat for ROK this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an earnings beat. That is precisely the case here.

Earnings ESP: Rockwell Automation has an Earnings ESP of +1.71%. You can uncover the best stocks before they are reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: The company currently carries a Zacks Rank of 3.

Factors Likely to Have Shaped ROK’s Q3 PerformanceRockwell Automation is expected to have continued to benefit from price increase actions to mitigate the impacts of inflationary pressures, which are likely to have improved margins. ROK has been planning to mitigate tariff costs through pricing actions and supply-chain optimization. These tailwinds are likely to have aided growth in the to-be-reported quarter.

Our model, thus, predicts an organic sales improvement of 6.8% for the quarter.

The broader manufacturing environment remained supportive during the quarter, as reflected in the Institute for Supply Management reporting readings above 50 (denoting expansion). The index was 52.7% in April, 54% in May and 53.3% in June. The New Orders Index also remained above 50 throughout this period. This is likely to have reflected in Rockwell Automation’s orders.

However, ROK has faced margin headwinds in recent quarters, including higher logistics prices due to increased energy prices and constrained air freight lanes. Increased spending on talent and growth, an unfavorable mix and currency are expected to have impacted its margins.

Q3 Expectations for Rockwell Automation’s SegmentsWe expect the Intelligent Devices segment’s fiscal third-quarter sales to improve 7.3% year over year to $1.04 billion. Our prediction for the segment’s operating profit is $211 million, indicating a year-over-year rise of 16.2%.

Our model predicts sales of $698 million for the Software & Control segment, indicating 11.1% growth from the prior year’s actual. The segment’s operating profit is pinned at $230 million, which implies 15.5% growth from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

We expect the Lifecycle Services segment’s sales to be $502 million, indicating an 8.3% dip from the prior-year period’s actual. The estimate for the segment’s operating profit is pegged at $77 million, suggesting a 5.4% increase from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

ROK Stock’s Price PerformanceIn the past year, Rockwell Automation’s shares have gained 36.1% compared with the industry’s 58.9% rally.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Other Stocks That Warrant a LookHere are some other companies with the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat in their upcoming releases.

CECO Environmental Corp. (CECO - Free Report) , slated to release second-quarter 2026 results on Aug. 6, has an Earnings ESP of +30.23% and sports a Zacks Rank of 1 at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CECO Environmental’s second-quarter 2026 earnings is pegged at 22 cents per share, suggesting a year-over-year dip of 8.3%. CECO has a trailing four-quarter average surprise of 46.5%.

Xometry, Inc. (XMTR - Free Report) , slated to release second-quarter 2026 results on Aug. 4, currently has an Earnings ESP of +66.67% and a Zacks Rank of 3.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Xometry’s second-quarter 2026 earnings is pegged at 36 cents per share, indicating a year-over-year rise from 9 cents. XMTR has a trailing four-quarter average surprise of 46.2%.

Ferguson Enterprises Inc. (FERG - Free Report) , slated to release second-quarter 2026 results on Aug. 10, has an Earnings ESP of +1.22% and a Zacks Rank of 3 at present.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Ferguson’s second-quarter 2026 earnings is pegged at $3.23 per share. Ferguson has a trailing four-quarter average surprise of 6.5%.

Zcash [ZEC] gained 3.2% over the past 24 hours and is trading at $475.95 at the time of writing, outperforming a largely flat Bitcoin [BTC] after the successful rollout of its highly anticipated Ironwood network upgrade. Activated on July 28, the upgrade fixed a previously disclosed counterfeiting flaw by replacing the older Orchard shielded pool with a more secure version.

Within the first 24 hours, approximately 176,000 ZEC worth about $80 million had already moved to the new system, indicating strong early adoption and that confidence has been reinstated in the network as a whole.

With Bitcoin trading largely sideways, ZEC’s gains appear to have been driven primarily by its own network developments rather than broader market momentum. With that said, is this upgrade enough to sustain this increase?

Is ZEC’s rally the start of a reversal?

Zcash has rebounded 3.2% over the past 24 hours, but the move may not be enough to signal a broader trend reversal. On the daily chart, ZEC is trading above a long-standing support zone between $361.59 and $377, an area that has repeatedly attracted buyers since early May. While this has helped prevent a deeper decline, the token has yet to establish a convincing higher high, leaving the broader bearish structure intact.

Volume also offers little confirmation that buyers are regaining control. The On-Balance Volume (OBV) indicator has remained largely flat before gradually turning lower, suggesting buying demand has been too weak to outweigh selling pressure.

Momentum indicators paint a similar picture. The MACD recently crossed below the zero line, a sign that bearish momentum continues to dominate, and the Relative Strength Index (RSI) remains below the neutral 50 level, indicating that the recent price bounce has yet to be supported by stronger market momentum.

The four-hour chart reinforces this cautious outlook. While ZEC was trading around $474 at the time of writing after recovering over the past day, the move appears more consistent with a short-term relief rally than the start of a sustained uptrend.

OBV continues to trend lower, showing that sellers still hold the advantage despite the recent recovery. Meanwhile, the MACD crossover below the zero line, along with the RSI remaining just below the neutral 50 level, indicates that bullish momentum is still limited.

Final summary The success of the Ironwood upgrade has restored confidence in Zcash’s network, resulting in the token’s recent price increase. Unless buyers return with stronger momentum, ZEC may struggle to extend its rally and remain within its broader downtrend.

THORSday Community Podcast #221 ft. CBarraford, KentonC137 & Patriotsounds | July 30, 2026 | Watch the full episode on YouTube

By Raynalytics

TL;DRv3.20 is in testing, and Chad hopes it is done this week or early next. It targets the exploit's second-order mainnet instability and carries the fix that would let more affiliates onto the dynamic fee model.ADR31 passed on option 1, and ADR27 passed with it. Minimum slip is now zero bps, so the Rujira app layer can arb pools tighter than the 10 to 20 bps band arbitrageurs hold today, once Rujira's side is switched on.Monero's code is essentially ready and the churn is the blocker. Zcash probably takes the next churn, with Monero after. Chad's separate churn-removal work would not cover $XMR, which brings its own signing algorithm.The plan settled on air is to launch Monero as a soft launch, an openly labelled beta period with its length still open, on what Denny called the most complicated chain client THORChain has added.Protocol-owned liquidity should switch on with v3.20, Chad hopes, and would pick its own pools by comparing depth against revenue. Gas assets are enabled by default, while stablecoins and ERC20s each need a node vote.1. v3.20 Is in Testing, and It Takes the Post-Exploit Wobble With Itv3.20 is being tested now, and Chad hopes testing wraps this week or early next. From there, as he recalls the sequence: exchanges are notified, the release is cut, and community adoption follows roughly a week behind.

Much of the mainnet trouble since the exploit has not been the exploit itself but second-order damage from it, and v3.20 aims at that directly. Chad expects a good percentage of the instability to go away, not all of it.

The stable reserve is in the v3.20 code, but Chad wants more data analysis and simulations before he is confident in it, so he does not expect this release to activate it.

v3.20 also fixes the small bug currently gating additional affiliates on the dynamic fee model, and changes the protocol-owned liquidity Mimir from an economic setting to an operational one.

2. ADR31 and ADR27 Pass, and Minimum Slip Drops to ZeroDenny opened the show wearing a celebratory hat for what he called his Rujira boys: ADR31 passed on option 1, which last week's recap covered as continuing the Rujira relationship as it stands. Denny's read was that the nodes are overwhelmingly excited for the app layer.

ADR27, which passed alongside it, is the one with immediate mechanical consequences. Minimum slip is now zero bps. Arbitrageurs currently pull pools to within roughly 10 to 20 bps on either side of market, and with the floor gone, the app layer can push them as close to zero as is reasonably possible once Rujira's arbing code is switched on. Chad's understanding is that roughly half the income earned doing it would route back to the base protocol.

The dynamic fee model currently discounts swaps partly to absorb slippage. Take the slippage out and Chad thinks THORChain could raise its prices and theoretically hold the same volume.

CodeHans told him it would be done toward the end of the week.

"He's a dev like I'm a dev. So sometimes our timelines aren't exactly on point." (Chad)Chad expects a week or two after it flips on before the effect is readable. Rujira also posted its highest trade volume day on record the day of recording, though Denny did not have the figure to hand. Live ADR vote counts sit on Ray's governance tracker on raynalytics.net.

3. Chad Wants Chain Launches to Stop Waiting on a ChurnMonero is, in Chad's words, pretty much ready to go. THORChain has not been able to churn for a while because of the instability around the exploit, and both Zcash and Monero need a churn to launch.

So Chad started writing a code change to take the churn out of adding a chain, with one carve-out: he said a chain bringing a new signing algorithm would still need a churn, and $XMR is exactly that. The change removes the churn for ordinary chains that reuse an algorithm THORChain already has.

The churn is fragile: every node has to be online and communicating inside a reasonable window, and one node fumbling it forces a retry. THORChain churns every three days, while Chainflip does it roughly once every seven months.

It also gets more fragile as THORChain grows. Every added chain is another way for a churn to fail, since a broken Litecoin means no transactions and no churn. Every added signing algorithm is another key: Monero needs its own private key, making three instead of two, DKLS would be a fourth, and Schnorr a fifth.

"If we lean towards the more secure route, we'll also lean towards a less reliability route. Those two things kind of push against each other." (Chad)The insight underneath the change: you need one key per signing algorithm, not one per chain. From one public key you can derive an address on any chain sharing the same algorithm. Chad's illustration was the TON chain: if it uses an algorithm THORChain already holds a key for, and he guessed EdDSA without being sure, the network could derive a TON address today with none of the TON code written.

Chad rates the work as mid, not a lot of code but a lot of thinking, architecture and edge cases. The branch is most of the way through and needs a large amount of testing.

Zcash probably takes the next churn, unless stagenet testing turns up something significant. Monero follows.

4. Monero Gets a Soft LaunchKenton has been flip-flopping on when to push Monero: promote it at launch and ride the momentum, or wait two months for the pool to stabilize and risk losing that window.

Denny's answer was to announce it and be honest that there could be bugs. Chad supplied the phrase that settled it: soft launch. A beta period, caution advised, in a term everyone already understands.

Denny called this the most complicated chain client THORChain has added, and the team has been testing it for over a month.

"This is the jungle. No one's ever done this." (Denny)Monero locks UTXOs, and Chad was not sure whether the lock runs 20 blocks or about 20 minutes. Either way, no other chain THORChain supports does it. He thinks THORChain consolidates once it holds more than 8 or 13 UTXOs and would have to check the code to confirm what Monero does by default, but applying the same logic there would lock all those funds at once, and an outbound could arrive with nothing spendable behind it.

He said the existing logic might be good enough. If it is not, his fallback is lazy UTXO consolidation: cap how many UTXOs a single spend may use, then work through successive batches until there is enough.

Chad expects arbitrage not to be the worry, since it happens mostly internally rather than on the layer 1. Organic volume is. Worst case is a backlog of outbound transactions, which THORChain Swap could reflect in its outbound time estimate. He thinks that is more likely than not, and would still rather let the network's own data name the real problem than build for it now.

On wallets, Trezor support is now live on THORChain Swap and open for testing, prioritized partly because Kenton called it one of the more popular Monero wallets.

Denny's longer ambition is that THORChain becomes Monero's center of liquidity and sets the real price of $XMR. Chad put a floor of six months on that, probably more, and listed what it needs: chain stability, depth in the pools, and more wallets integrating. He would not call it crazy. Continued $XMR delistings from centralized exchanges only make the case easier.

5. Protocol-Owned Liquidity Returns, and It Picks Its Own PoolsPOL should kick in with v3.20, Chad hopes, since its Mimir moved from economic to operational. He believes that makes it votable but would have to check the code to verify. If it is, Kenton noted, nodes could vote it on and back off if they disagreed. The percentage then goes to a node vote: 5%, 20%, 80%, whatever the community sets.

POL compares a pool's depth against its revenue and favors low depth and high revenue over deep and quiet. It is self-correcting, because as a pool deepens, clearing that revenue-to-depth bar gets harder and the allocation moves on.

Chad does not think anyone can add liquidity to the Bitcoin pool, protocol or otherwise, so $BTC and some other assets would not be eligible.

"I want the liquidity to go to Solana, Zcash and Monero, to build those smaller pools. Bitcoin's got enough." (Chad)Gas assets are enabled by default. Non-gas assets are not, deliberately: Chad did not want protocol income automatically invested into every ERC20 on the network. Stablecoins and specific ERC20s would each need a node vote. He expects $USDC and $USDT to pass without argument, while a more divisive token would draw real debate. Kenton flagged TRON $USDT as one he wants moving.

Chad thinks the allocation runs daily but was not certain without rechecking the code. He expects Solana or Monero to take the early allocations, assuming Monero carries the highest volume in its opening days.

The treasury typically seeds a new pool with about $100k. Kenton asked whether Monero warrants more; Chad said probably not, especially with POL there to supplement, and it is the treasury's call. Kenton's firm ask was that POL be on before Monero goes live.

https://raynalytics.net/dashboards/dynamic-fees6. Dynamic Fees Add Another 0.7% at ShapeShiftShapeShift is still the only affiliate with dynamic fees switched on. Maybe one or two more follow once v3.20 lands, which Chad expects in a week or two.

Chad went back for a baseline. In May, 5.6% of ShapeShift's total swap volume routed to THORChain, with the vast majority of the rest going to Chainflip. June came in around the same 5 to 6%, though he called June a weak data source given how much of it THORChain spent offline after the exploit. The two months agree, which he called consistent.

Last week's July figure was significantly up, but Chad suspected an anomalous $RUNE trader sat inside it, so he pulled a fresh chart with one more week of data. On that longer read, THORChain's share is up another 0.7%, with NEAR Intents and Chainflip down 0.7%. He called it not very much, slightly up rather than significant.

The sample is small, deliberately: Chad puts ShapeShift at roughly $5 million a month in volume, and THORChain picked it rather than testing an experimental feature on SwapKit or another large affiliate first.

7. ADR29 Rev-Share, and Why SwapKit Would Get the ExperimentADR29 would let a partner take a percentage of THORChain's fees instead of charging its own affiliate fee on top. The vote is still in progress.

Kenton relayed Scorch's questions from the governance discussion as he remembered them: could this be net negative? Why give away fees, and what is the proof it worked?

Kenton answered in two parts. For new providers the math is trivial, because their current volume is zero, so anything they bring is additive. For existing partners he agreed with the objection: hand rev-share to the partners THORChain already has and revenue drops 10 to 20% instantly. He does not think they should.

SwapKit is the proposed exception, mechanically rather than sentimentally. Under the design, it would not keep the rev-share: it would put the money into discounting future trades, which is the dynamic fee model again, pushed out from the core of the protocol to the edge where the real-time information is better. Chad's condition for any existing partner is a number attached.

"If we give you 20%, we want to see 30% improvements or something like this." (Chad)Nobody knows the answer, SwapKit included, which is why he calls it an experiment: small, low risk to the protocol, and switched off if it does not work. He wants community approval before trying it. He also likes a side effect: a working rev-share would make SwapKit reliant on THORChain, because Chainflip and NEAR Intents do not currently offer the same thing.

8. Why an Engaged Community Beats a Bigger Market CapAn audience question asked why $TAO is being lined up ahead of $HYPE, $TON or $LINK, if bigger assets mean more volume.

Kenton accepted market cap and volume as a starting point. What matters more is whether the chain's community is engaged and wants to be on THORChain, because that community brings volume with it. Bittensor is engaged, and $TAO is not listed on any other DEX, which would make THORChain the first. Add a large cap whose users are indifferent, Hyperliquid being his example, and he expects little more than some traders and some arb volume.

Same for the smaller privacy coins: Dash, Firo and Zano all have communities that want in, and Kenton expects more activity from those engaged communities than from randomly added tokens.

Chad's read matched. Zcash was added because competitors were doing real volume in it, which is the market telling you the value is there. Monero was added because it is Monero. $TAO has real support behind it, if not quite as much.

"It's not an exact science. You just kind of lick your finger and put it up in the air to get a vibe check to decide what's next." (Chad)Chad added that the process is not political, and market cap is one attribute among several. Kenton expects $HYPE, $TON and $LINK eventually, and said he and StarSquid both want a lot more chains. The churn has been holding the queue up.

9. Chad's Plan to Put Huginn on Mainnet WatchTwo Huginn threads, both early.

The first is documentation. Chad has just started wiring it up: Huginn will read the docs against the codebase and open a code change when it finds a discrepancy, so the docs stop drifting behind fast-moving code.

The second he has wanted for a long time and kept deferring behind the dynamic fee model. A model cannot watch mainnet in real time, because it is too much data and would cost far too much, which Chad called completely impractical. So in his design, mathematical heuristics would do the watching and post to Discord when something looks anomalous, whether slow block times, strange prices or odd logs. Huginn would read that channel, open a thread on the event, run a deep analysis, and post its report where developers, node operators and community members all see the same data at the same time.

Chad named the failure mode: false positives. His example was Huginn hallucinating that the Bitcoin pool is empty, with a co-host adding the Dev Discord screenshot landing on Twitter while the pool sits perfectly fine. The thread is the mitigation, because technical node operators can look and say so publicly. He does not think false positives can ever be eliminated, since today's AI is non-deterministic in much the way humans are.

Huginn does already re-audit. Whenever a new model ships, Chad points it at the codebases again, and it re-reviews any file changed since its last pass and opens a GitLab issue when it finds something significant.

Separately, THORChain is working on being legible to AI agents. A community question about the Robinhood talks brought it up, and Kenton pointed to Robinhood's agent-facing interface: he said IBEC, who works on THORChain Swap with Unstoppable Wallet, could build something comparable. Chad has a developer assigned to AI work and handed over the MCP server code he wrote for Badlands, an unlaunched THORChain project, which already reads THORNode and Midgard data. He is asking for community ideas, on Discord rather than Twitter or Telegram, and floated an online AI developer conference with $RUNE for the top three entries.

What to Watchv3.20 shipping: testing wraps this week or early next, Chad hopes, then exchanges are notified, the release is cut, and community adoption follows about a week behind, he thinks. Maybe one or two more affiliates join the dynamic fee model once it lands, which would finally give it a larger sample.Zcash first, Monero second: Zcash probably takes the next churn, unless stagenet testing turns up something significant, then Monero as an openly labelled soft-launch beta.POL's percentage: if v3.20 turns POL on as hoped, a node vote sets the allocation percentage, with likely follow-up votes to enable stablecoins and specific ERC20s.ADR29 and TOR anchors: both votes are still in progress. If the community approves ADR29, watch the SwapKit trial against Chad's condition of returning more than it costs, with a switch-off if it misses. On TOR anchors, adding more stablecoins for valuing TOR, his default is yes.Huginn's mainnet watch: still a design rather than a deployment. Expect false positives when it does land, since Chad does not think they can be eliminated.Possible Bitcoin forks, and a Discord gap: Kenton flagged talk of one or two Bitcoin forks, his read being that they concern data and ordinals in blocks, which he put at about half right. As the code stands, forked coins in THORChain's Bitcoin pool would most likely be burned, and Chad would only spend engineering time rescuing them if the amount justifies it. Separately, the community Discord is closing with a few channels expected in the dev Discord, so THORChain Swap ticket support may pause for a week or two.Next up: Depouch joins on Saturday. Next Thursday is a Rujira focus with Pragmatic Monkey and CodeHans while Chad is on vacation.More THORChain data, check out raynalytics.net

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3 of the Most Highly Anticipated IPOs of 2026Franklin Resources NYSE: BEN reported positive long-term net inflows across every asset class and geography during its fiscal third quarter ended June 30, 2026, as the asset manager cited broad demand for public markets, private markets, exchange-traded funds and customized portfolio solutions.

Chief Executive Officer Jenny Johnson said the company generated $18.4 billion of long-term net inflows in the quarter, bringing fiscal year-to-date long-term net inflows to $63.3 billion. Long-term inflows reached a record $122 billion, while assets under management rose to a record $1.8 trillion.

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Safe Space? 3 Dividend Aristocrats With 5% Yield “This was another strong quarter for Franklin Templeton that demonstrated our strategy is working,” Johnson said, pointing to positive flows across all asset classes and geographies and record assets in alternatives, ETFs, retail separately managed accounts and Canvas, its custom portfolio platform.

Private-Market Fundraising Exceeds Original Target Alternatives AUM reached a record $294 billion after $3 billion of realizations and distributions. The company raised $11.8 billion across its alternatives platform during the quarter, including $10.3 billion in private markets. Fiscal year-to-date fundraising totaled $33 billion, exceeding Franklin’s original full-year private-markets fundraising target of $25 billion to $30 billion.

Johnson said the company expects to end the fiscal year with about $40 billion in private-markets fundraising. She said Lexington Partners accounted for roughly 40% of quarterly private-markets fundraising, with contributions from its flagship, middle-market, continuation and perpetual strategies. However, she emphasized that more than 30 strategies across secondaries, real estate, private credit and venture capital contributed to fundraising.

Franklin’s Evergreen platform, which includes secondary private equity, private credit and real estate strategies for wealth-management clients, grew to $8.9 billion in AUM. Wealth management represented about 20% of private-markets fundraising year to date across Evergreen and drawdown vehicles.

Co-President and Chief Commercial Officer Daniel Gamba said the wealth channel raised $3 billion for alternative strategies during the quarter and $6.6 billion year to date. He added that 29% of alternative sales came from international markets, including 18% from Europe and the Middle East and 11% from Asia-Pacific.

Public Markets and Credit Platform Draw Inflows Equities returned to positive net flows of $2 billion, supported by demand for U.S. large-cap value and core, international equity, infrastructure and systematic strategies. The global fixed-income platform posted $2.6 billion in net inflows, driven by enhanced liquidity, municipal, multi-sector and stable-value strategies, as well as customized institutional mandates.

Excluding Western Asset, Franklin Templeton Fixed Income reported its 10th consecutive quarter of positive net flows, totaling $3.5 billion. Johnson said Franklin is integrating its liquid and private credit capabilities more closely, with $520 billion in fixed-income AUM and more than $100 billion in private-credit AUM.

Gamba said the company won a U.S. public-pension multi-asset credit mandate and is participating in additional requests for proposals. Franklin has also repositioned a target-date strategy, Retirement Advantage Plus, to include between 2% and 8% in private real estate and private credit, he said.

Multi-asset solutions generated $4.7 billion of positive net flows, led by Canvas, the Franklin Income Fund and Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions.

ETF, SMA and Canvas Businesses Set Records Franklin’s ETF business ended the quarter with a record $75.6 billion in AUM and $7.1 billion in net inflows. Active ETFs accounted for 61% of ETF net flows, according to Johnson.

Retail SMA AUM reached $187.6 billion after $4.4 billion of net inflows. Canvas, which provides custom portfolio and tax-overlay capabilities, reached $30.3 billion in AUM and recorded $3.7 billion of net inflows.

Johnson said Canvas has expanded from $2 billion in AUM when Franklin acquired it to $30 billion. Gamba said the platform added 26 partners during the quarter, bringing its total to 220. The company also introduced a preferred-partner program that allows strategic partners to use Canvas’s tax-overlay technology with their active investment strategies.

Profitability, Capital Returns and Corporate Name Change Adjusted operating income was $508.9 million, up 7% sequentially and 35% from a year earlier. Johnson attributed the increase to higher average AUM, expense management and efficiency initiatives.

Chief Financial Officer Matt Nicholls said Franklin expects its effective fee rate to remain in the mid-to-high 37 basis-point range in the fiscal fourth quarter. The company expects to be near a 30% operating margin in the fourth quarter and at least in the mid-27% range for fiscal 2026. Nicholls said Franklin expects a full-year operating margin of roughly 29% to 30% in fiscal 2027, assuming flat markets.

The company returned $521.5 million to shareholders during the quarter, including $348.1 million in share repurchases. Nicholls said the repurchase total included an opportunistic transaction with Great-West Lifeco, which sold more than 1% of Franklin’s outstanding shares above its previously disclosed 4.9% long-term strategic investment.

Franklin also said it will change its corporate name from Franklin Resources Inc. to Franklin Templeton Inc. effective Aug. 17, 2026. The company said the change will not affect its capital structure, shares, CUSIP number or shareholder rights, and its stock will continue trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the BEN ticker.

Digital Assets and AI Investments Digital-asset AUM ended the quarter at $3.2 billion, including $2.4 billion in tokenized funds and about $600 million in crypto ETFs. Franklin completed its acquisition of 250 Digital, launched Franklin Crypto, and announced partnerships with MoonPay and Payward, Kraken’s parent company, to expand access to tokenized investment products.

Johnson said Franklin’s Microsoft-supported Intelligence Hub has helped territories increase client visits or contacts by 25% and sales by more than 11%. The company is also using artificial intelligence across investment research, operations, marketing, risk management and other functions, while tracking the costs and expected productivity benefits of its AI initiatives.

About Franklin Resources (NYSE:BEN)Franklin Resources, Inc, doing business as Franklin Templeton, is a global investment management organization that offers a wide range of asset management solutions to institutional and individual investors. The firm's core focus is on delivering active portfolio management across equities, fixed income, multi-asset strategies and alternative investments. Franklin Templeton's product lineup includes mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), closed-end funds, separately managed accounts and sub-advisory services designed to meet varying risk-return objectives and income needs.

Founded in 1947 by Rupert H.

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

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MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Franklin Resources wasn't on the list.

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View The Five Stocks Here

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