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R.J. Hottovy, head of analytical research, says foot traffic at Starbucks is outpacing the competition and he says customers are confident they can get a drink quickly. Comparable sales in the US were up 7.7% in the fiscal quarter as earnings of 80 cents a share beat estimates.

Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) reported fourth-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company's fourth-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

Starbucks (SBUX - Free Report) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.8 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.73 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.52 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +9.59%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this coffee chain would post earnings of $0.66 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.85, delivering a surprise of +28.79%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times.

Starbucks, which belongs to the Zacks Retail - Restaurants industry, posted revenues of $9.14 billion for the quarter ended September 2026, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.41%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $9.57 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

Starbucks shares have added about 22.6% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 13.1%.

What's Next for Starbucks?While Starbucks has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Starbucks was favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.76 on $9.75 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $3.17 on $39.02 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Retail - Restaurants is currently in the bottom 40% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

One other stock from the same industry, Shake Shack (SHAK - Free Report) , is yet to report results for the quarter ended September 2026. The results are expected to be released on November 5.

This burger chain is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.33 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -8.3%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 0.1% higher over the last 30 days to the current level.

Shake Shack's revenues are expected to be $425.57 million, up 15.8% from the year-ago quarter.

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Intel shares plunged in after-hours trading on Thursday after the chipmaker issued a weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter outlook, overshadowing stronger earnings and rapid growth in its data-centre and artificial intelligence business.

The stock fell 17% to $75.84 after the company reported third-quarter revenue of $16.5 billion, up 21% year over year but slightly below Wall Street expectations of $16.6 billion.

Adjusted earnings per share reached 52 cents, beating analysts' forecast of 41 cents.

Intel's fourth-quarter guidance disappointed investors, with the company citing weaker-than-expected personal computer demand and production disruption following a fatal explosion at one of its facilities in Israel earlier this month.

The incident killed two employees and affected production, adding pressure to an outlook already challenged by weakness in the PC market.

Despite the after-hours decline, Intel shares remained up about 150% this year.

However, they had already fallen 35% from their record high on June 22 as of Thursday's regular-session close.

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Intel's weak outlook outweighs AI momentum, keeping pressure on the stock.

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Intel expects fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of 25 cents per share on revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion.

Analysts had forecast earnings of 45 cents per share and revenue of $17.3 billion, according to FactSet.

The outlook reflects challenges in Intel's client-computing business, which supplies chips for personal computers.

Revenue from the segment fell 5% year over year to $8.1 billion in the third quarter, missing analysts' expectations of $8.9 billion.

Investors have been concerned that rising memory prices could weaken demand for laptops and other personal computers.

John Pitzer, Intel's corporate vice president of investor relations, told MarketWatch that PC demand was weaker than anticipated.

He said the effect of rising memory prices came sooner and was deeper than the company had expected.

Pitzer also said the explosion at Intel's Israeli facility contributed to the weaker revenue outlook.

The combination of softer PC demand and production disruption has complicated Intel's near-term growth prospects despite strong performance in other parts of its business.

Intel's data-centre and AI business was the strongest performer in the third quarter, with revenue climbing 78% year over year to $7.3 billion.

The figure exceeded analysts' expectations of $6.7 billion and represented the segment's fastest growth rate in 15 years, according to the company.

The performance highlights the growing importance of AI-related infrastructure demand to Intel's business.

While the company benefited from strong sales in this segment, the gains were insufficient to offset weakness in its personal-computing operations and the disappointing outlook.

The contrasting results from Intel's two major business areas also illustrate how demand trends are diverging across the semiconductor industry.

Intel's third-quarter adjusted earnings of 52 cents per share more than doubled from 23 cents a year earlier and exceeded Wall Street's forecast.

Revenue rose to approximately $16.51 billion from the prior-year period, but narrowly missed the consensus estimate of $16.55 billion.

The earnings beat offered some evidence of improving profitability, but investors focused on the weaker outlook for the December quarter.

With expected revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion falling short of market expectations, Intel faces pressure to address both production constraints and slowing demand in its PC business.

Intel (INTC -3.62%) posted its strongest data center revenue growth in 15 years, then forecast lower revenue, gross margin, and earnings for the fourth quarter. Shares fell about 18% in early after-hours trading. Demand for its server chips is now outrunning what Intel can make, but the forecast shows that strength can't offset a PC slowdown management expects to last through the first half of next year.

INTC Intel$92.07-$3.46 (-3.62%)

NASDAQ · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/29/26

Key numbers

Revenue: $16.5 billion, up 21% from a year ago.

Data center and AI revenue: $7.3 billion, up 78%.

GAAP gross margin: 43%, up from 38.2%.

Fourth-quarter revenue guidance: $15.0 billion to $16.0 billion, below the third quarter's result.

What it means
Chipmaking carries heavy fixed costs, so extra volume through Intel's factories falls quickly to profit. Data center operating income roughly tripled to about $3.0 billion, even as PC sales slipped. Management's top priority is adding Xeon supply, so demand isn't the limit.

The forecast runs that math in reverse. Intel guides GAAP gross margin down to 37.1% from this quarter's 43%, and the release doesn't explain why. Lower sales spread across the same fixed costs would explain much of it.

GAAP earnings per share fell to $0.60 from $0.90 even as operating income rose sharply. Last year's quarter included a $5.45 billion gain from selling most of its stake in Altera. The diluted share count also jumped after heavy stock sales, including a $23 billion public offering this quarter, so profit is split across far more shares.

Image source: Getty Images.

What to watch next
Watch whether fourth-quarter gross margin holds near the 37.1% forecast and whether added Xeon supply keeps data center sales growing as PC sales slide.

Savannah Maxwell has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

The chipmaker, whose largest investor is the U.S. government, reported that the A.I. boom's domino effect had hurt sales to personal computer makers.

SummaryIntel Corporation delivered a double beat in Q3, but shares plunged over 20% due to weak Q4 guidance.INTC's data center and foundry units posted strong revenue growth, but consumer business declined, and foundry losses remain substantial.Q4 guidance forecasts a $1B revenue drop and EPS halved from Q3, sharply missing analyst expectations.I find INTC's 50x earnings multiple unjustified given slowing growth, subpar margins, and ongoing foundry losses; I remain on the sidelines.Looking for a helping hand in the market? Members of Cash Flow Club get exclusive ideas and guidance to navigate any climate. Learn More » hapabapa/iStock Editorial via Getty Images

Article Thesis Intel Corporation (INTC) reported its most recent earnings results on Thursday afternoon, delivering a double beat. The market still reacted very negatively, with INTC dropping by a hefty 15%+ after

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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of NVDA, AVGO either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Intel (INTC - Free Report) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.52 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.39 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.23 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +33.33%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this world's largest chipmaker would post earnings of $0.21 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.42, delivering a surprise of +100%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times.

Intel, which belongs to the Zacks Semiconductor - General industry, posted revenues of $16.51 billion for the quarter ended September 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.44%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $13.65 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

Intel shares have added about 158.9% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 13.1%.

What's Next for Intel?While Intel has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Intel was favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.42 on $16.8 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $1.50 on $62.48 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Semiconductor - General is currently in the top 10% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

One other stock from the same industry, Nvidia (NVDA - Free Report) , is yet to report results for the quarter ended October 2026.

This maker of graphics chips for gaming and artificial intelligence is expected to post quarterly earnings of $2.49 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +91.5%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 1% higher over the last 30 days to the current level.

Nvidia's revenues are expected to be $108.99 billion, up 91.2% from the year-ago quarter.

Adobe (ADBE -0.66%) stock hit its closing record of $688.37 on Nov. 19, 2021. Almost five years later, shares of the creative software company trade around $248 as I write this -- about 64% off that high. And at their June 25 closing low of $193.41, they were down about 72%, the stock's deepest drop since the dot-com crash.

Deep drops are nothing new to Adobe, though. Using daily closing prices since 1990 (adjusted for stock splits, with dividends left out), the stock had fallen at least 30% from a record close eight times before this slide. It then set a new record after every one.

But I don't think that history settles much, because the two slumps this one most resembles started with a problem today's Adobe doesn't have.

Image source: Getty Images.

The slow comebacks took around six yearsSix of the eight drops came in the 1990s, and they were deep, running from about 31% to 66%. But they were also mostly short.

Five of the six went from one record close to the next in around 18 months or less. The longest, which bottomed in August 1998, took about 3.4 years.

The two drops after that were another story. After peaking on Nov. 6, 2000, Adobe stock lost around 80% by August 2002, and it didn't close at a new record until Nov. 16, 2006.

The next slump, from an Oct. 24, 2007, peak, cut the stock around 67% by March 2009. Its next record was on July 12, 2013, about 5.7 years after the 2007 high.

Both times, the climb from the bottom back to the old high took over four years by itself. Today's slump is almost five years old, and as of this writing, the stock would have to gain around 177% to get back to its record.

In 2002 and 2009, the business shrank firstIn the first of those long slumps, Adobe's revenue shrank two straight years, from fiscal 2000's $1.27 billion to $1.16 billion by fiscal 2002. Net income fell around a third over the same stretch.

Then sales turned. Revenue climbed 11% in fiscal 2003 and accelerated to 29% growth in fiscal 2004, so investors who hung on could see the rebound in the numbers.

The 2008-2009 recession cut deeper. Fiscal 2009 revenue slid 18%, to around $2.9 billion.

Interestingly, the stock's 2013 record was in a year when revenue fell 8%. Adobe had stopped new releases of its Creative Suite software, which customers bought outright, to focus on Creative Cloud subscriptions, which spread out revenue over time. Investors pushed the stock to a record before the new model's sales caught up.

Is this time different?In one big way, it is: Adobe's business never shrank this time. Management expects fiscal 2026 revenue of around $26.6 billion, about 69% above the $15.8 billion it pulled in during fiscal 2021 -- the year the stock peaked.

Adobe's revenue climbed 13% year over year in its fiscal third quarter of 2026 (the period ending Aug. 28, 2026), hitting a quarterly record of $6.76 billion. Its non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings per share climbed even faster, up 15%.

The worry is what's next. Investors fear that artificial intelligence (AI) agents might take over tasks people now do with software like Adobe's, which bills subscribers per user, or seat.

If fewer people need a seat, Adobe's recurring revenue could shrink. That arguably makes this slump tougher to ride out than the past two. In 2002 and 2009, a sales recovery could show the hit was temporary. Now, Adobe needs to show that AI adds more to its business than it takes away.

ADBE Adobe$248.12-$1.64 (-0.66%)

NASDAQ · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/29/26

It has a start. On its fiscal Q3 earnings call, Adobe said its AI-first annualized recurring revenue (ARR) passed $650 million, up more than 150% year over year. But it's still a small slice of its $27.5 billion in total ARR.

In the end, eight recoveries don't guarantee a ninth. And this one likely depends on investors seeing AI help Adobe more than it hurts.

But the business keeps growing, and the stock doesn't cost much for a company doing that. At around $248, shares trade at about 10 times the adjusted earnings per share management is targeting for fiscal 2026. For comparison, the S&P 500 sells at almost 19 times its expected earnings over the next 12 months.

I'd consider buying shares at today's price, but I'd be ready to hold them for years to come.

FedEx Freight Hldg Co (NYSE:FDXF) reported third-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company's third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Merck & Co., Inc. ("Merck" or the "Company") investors who lost money may have claims to recover their losses. The Law Offices of Frank R. Cruz today announced it is investigating potential securities fraud claims on behalf of investors in Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK), examining whether the Company may have violated the federal securities laws. The investigation centers on the disclosure about Merck & Co., Inc. on October 22, 2026. If you lost money on.

, /PRNewswire/ -- Gap Inc. (NYSE: GAP) will report its third quarter fiscal 2026 financial results by press release on Thursday, November 19, 2026, at approximately 1:15 p.m. Pacific Time.

In addition, the company will host a conference call to review its third quarter fiscal 2026 results on Thursday, November 19, 2026, beginning at approximately 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

A live webcast of the conference call will be available online at investors.gapinc.com. A replay of the webcast will be available at the same location.

About Gap Inc.
Gap Inc., a purpose-driven house of iconic brands, is the largest specialty apparel company in America. Its Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta brands offer clothing, accessories, and lifestyle products for men, women and children available worldwide through company-operated and franchise stores, and e-commerce sites. Through Encore, its cross-brand membership program, Gap Inc. has created products and experiences that shape culture, while doing right by employees, communities and the planet through its commitment to bridge gaps to create a better world. For more information, please visit www.gapinc.com.

Investor Relations Contact:
Whitney Notaro
[email protected]

Media Relations Contact:
[email protected]

SOURCE Gap Inc.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)---- $GPRO--GPRO Investors Have Opportunity to Join GoPro, Inc. Fraud Investigation with SBS Law.

Agnico Eagle Mines Limited ( AEM ) Q3 2026 Earnings Call October 29, 2026 11:00 AM EDT Company Participants Ammar Al-Joundi - CEO, President & Director James Porter - Executive VP of Finance & CFO Dominique Girard - Executive VP and COO of Nunavut, Quebec & Europe Natasha Nella Vaz - Executive VP and COO of Ontario, Australia & Mexico Guy Gosselin - Executive Vice President of Exploration Conference Call Participants Fahad Tariq - Jefferies LLC, Research Division Richard Garchitorena - Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division Bennett Moore - JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division Lawson Winder - BofA Securities, Research Division Matthew Murphy - BMO Capital Markets Equity Research John Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research, LLC Tanya Jakusconek - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division Anita Soni - CIBC Capital Markets, Research Division Presentation Operator Good morning. My name is Julie, and I will be your conference operator today.

NEW YORK, Oct. 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of securities of Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) between November 18, 2025 and August 17, 2026, inclusive (the “Class Period”), of the important November 13, 2026 lead plaintiff deadline.

SO WHAT: If you purchased Baidu securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.

WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Baidu class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/cases/baidu-inc-2026/join or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than November 13, 2026. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.

WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually handle securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered billions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs’ Bar. Many of the firm’s attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.

DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period, defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Baidu had overstated the ability of its AI business to mitigate rapid declines in its legacy online marketing business; (2) as a result, Baidu’s revenue was reasonably likely to decline; and (3) as a result of the foregoing, defendants’ positive statements about Baidu’s business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.

To join the Baidu class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/cases/baidu-inc-2026/join or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] for information on the class action.

No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor’s ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.

Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/.

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

-------------------------------

Contact Information:

        Laurence Rosen, Esq.
        Phillip Kim, Esq.
        The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.
        275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor
        New York, NY 10016
        Tel: (212) 686-1060
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        [email protected]
        www.rosenlegal.com

New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - October 29, 2026) - Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Baidu, Inc. ("Baidu" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: BIDU) on behalf of investors that purchased or otherwise acquired Baidu securities, including call options, between November 18, 2025 and August 17, 2026 (the "Class Period").

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE CASE

If you are an investor in Baidu and have suffered losses, you may CLICK HERE to contact us. You may also contact Kaplan Fox by emailing [email protected] or by calling (646) 315-9003.

DEADLINE REMINDER: If you are a member of the proposed Class, you may move the court no later than November 13, 2026 for an opportunity to be lead plaintiff for the purported class. If you have losses we encourage you to contact us to learn more about the lead plaintiff process. You need not seek to become a lead plaintiff in order to share in any possible recovery.

According to the complaint, Baidu, the most popular internet search engine in China, made false and misleading statements to the market overstating the ability of its AI business to mitigate rapid declines in its legacy online marketing business and that the Company was likely to suffer a decline in revenue. Based on these facts, the Company's public statements were allegedly materially false and misleading throughout the Class Period.

According to the complaint, on February 26, 2026, Baidu American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") fell $7.50 per share, or 5.65%, after the Company reported fourth quarter and full year 2025 results revealing year-over-year revenue declines. Then, on August 18, 2026, Baidu ADSs fell $13.25 per share, or 12.73%, after the Company reported second quarter 2026 results revealing decelerating AI-powered business growth and steep legacy revenue declines.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

WHY CONTACT KAPLAN FOX?

Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP is a nationally recognized law firm focused on complex litigation, with offices in New York, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New Jersey. Founded in 1956, the firm has spent more than 50 years prosecuting securities, antitrust, and consumer protection actions in federal and state courts nationwide, recovering more than $10 billion for clients and the classes it has represented.

Kaplan Fox is widely regarded as one of the nation's premier plaintiffs' securities litigation firms and has received recognition from Chambers and Partners, Benchmark Litigation, Super Lawyers, and Lawdragon. Serving as lead or co-lead counsel in many landmark cases, the firm has secured some of the largest recoveries in the history of securities litigation, including a $2.425 billion recovery on behalf of Bank of America shareholders in In re Bank of America—the largest recovery ever obtained for claims under Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act—$800 million recovered for the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System and other pension funds in ATRS v. Allianz Global Investors, and a $475 million settlement in In re Merrill Lynch.

For decades, Kaplan Fox has represented public pension funds, institutional investors, businesses, and individuals in high-stakes litigation. Through its successful advocacy and precedent-setting victories, the firm has helped shape important areas of securities and corporate law while advancing accountability and protecting investor interests.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.

If you have any questions about this Notice, your rights, or your interests, please contact:

Contacting or submitting information to Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP does not create an attorney-client relationship, nor an obligation on the part of Kaplan Fox to retain you as a client.

https://www.kaplanfox.com/case/baidu-inc-nadsaq-bidu-class-action-lawsuit-learn-more-now/

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/320983

Source: Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP

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, /PRNewswire/ -- Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK), a global leader in tools and outdoor solutions, announced today that its Board of Directors approved a regular fourth quarter cash dividend of $0.84 per common share. The dividend is payable on Tuesday, December 22, 2026, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on Tuesday, December 1, 2026.

About Stanley Black & Decker

Founded in 1843 and headquartered in the USA, Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK) is a worldwide leader in Tools and Outdoor, operating manufacturing facilities globally. The Company's approximately 41,000 employees produce innovative end-user inspired power tools, hand tools, storage, digital jobsite solutions, outdoor and lifestyle products, and engineered fasteners to support the world's builders, tradespeople and DIYers. The Company's world class portfolio of trusted brands includes DEWALT®, CRAFTSMAN®, STANLEY®, BLACK+DECKER®, and Cub Cadet®. To learn more visit: www.stanleyblackanddecker.com or follow Stanley Black & Decker on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.

Stanley Black & Decker Investor Contacts

Michael Wherley
Vice President, Investor Relations
[email protected]
(860) 827-3833

Christina Francis
Senior Director, Investor Relations
[email protected]
(860) 438-3470

SOURCE Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) reported third-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

Benzinga APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ to learn more.

View the webcast at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/y4iy6tn9/

SummaryDigital Realty Trust reported an exceptionally strong third quarter, with a 11% growth in core FFO per share, surpassing expectations and prompting a nearly 2% increase in full-year guidance.

The company achieved record leasing activity of $855 million, significantly boosting its backlog to a new record of $2.5 billion, providing strong visibility through 2028.

Strategic private capital initiatives progressed with over $1.4 billion in equity commitments for a new perpetual capital strategy focused on hyperscale data centers in North America.

Operational highlights included a 16% year-to-date increase in recurring revenue, a dramatic acceleration in colocation and interconnection leasing, and continued expansion in global markets, including new entries into Turkey.

Management emphasized the importance of connectivity and AI-ready infrastructure, highlighting strong demand across all segments and regions, as well as a robust development pipeline of 1.5 gigawatts.

Digital Realty Trust maintained a strong balance sheet, raising approximately $3.5 billion recently, and noted Moody’s upgrade to Baa1, reflecting financial strength and strategic capital access.

Full TranscriptOPERATOR

Good afternoon and welcome to Digital Realty Trust third quarter 2026 earnings call. Please note this event is being recorded. During today’s presentation, all parties will be in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Callers will be limited to one question and we will aim to conclude at the top of the hour. I would now like to turn the call over to Jordan Sadler, Digital Realty Trust Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead.

Jordan Sadler (Senior Vice President, Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator, and welcome everyone to Digital Realty Trust’s third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me on today’s call are President and CEO Andy Power and CFO Matt Mercier. Chief Investment Officer Greg Wright, Chief Technology Officer Chris Sharp, and Chief Revenue Officer Colin McLean are also on the call and will be available for Q&A. Management will be making forward-looking statements, including guidance and underlying assumptions, on today’s call. Forward-looking statements are based on expectations that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ. For a further discussion of risks related to our business, see our 10-K and subsequent filings with the SEC. This call will contain certain non-GAAP financial information; reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the supplemental package furnished to the SEC and available on our website.

Before I turn the call over to Andy, let me offer a few key takeaways from our third quarter results. First, exceptionally strong execution across our global platform drove upside to revenues, adjusted EBITDA, and core FFO. 11% core FFO per share growth exceeded our expectations, and we are raising our full-year guidance range by almost 2%, now anticipating nearly 13% bottom-line growth. Second, total leasing for the quarter was a blowout at $855 million, or $627 million at our share, with new records set across several metrics.

Signings in the 0 to 1 megawatt plus interconnection category exceeded last quarter’s record by 40%. Total greater-than-a-megawatt leasing reached $689 million, or $474 million at our share, driven by a new high watermark in pricing. Third, these bookings pushed our total backlog to a new record of $2.5 billion, or $1.8 billion at Digital Realty Trust share, which provides us with strong visibility through next year and into 2028, bolstering our confidence in our multi-year double-digit growth expectations.

And lastly, we achieved another important milestone within our Strategic Private Capital Initiative in the last week, closing over $1.4 billion of initial cornerstone equity commitments to our new perpetual capital strategy focused on stabilized hyperscale data centers in North America. This capital will further fuel our efforts to support our customers’ fast-growing requirements for digital infrastructure. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Andy Power.

Andy Power (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Jordan, and thanks to everyone for joining our call. Digital Realty Trust delivered an outstanding quarter highlighted by strong execution across our global platform, robust financial results, record leasing activity, and continued progress against our long-term growth strategy. The digital infrastructure industry continues to evolve rapidly. The adoption of artificial intelligence is driving unprecedented demand for capacity while simultaneously increasing the value of highly connected environments, strategic locations, and global reach.

As enterprises, cloud providers, network operators, and AI innovators continue to expand their digital infrastructure footprints, they increasingly require the partners that can provide capacity and connectivity together with the capital, expertise, and operational capabilities necessary to execute at scale. Uniquely, our global platform spans six continents, bringing together colocation and connectivity hubs, hyperscale data centers, and strategic private capital capabilities. Over the past several years we have deliberately strengthened these three core growth pillars to better serve our growing customer base. Together they create a differentiated platform that combines global scale, connectivity-rich environments, development expertise, and capital flexibility together with a 20-plus-year track record that is increasingly important as development, power procurement, community engagement, and operations become more complex.

This combination distinguishes Digital Realty Trust in a market where reliable execution, speed to market, and connectivity have become just as important as capacity itself. The third quarter’s record leasing activity demonstrated the power of this differentiated global platform and the value proposition it delivers to customers around the world. We achieved record total bookings of approximately $855 million, or $627 million at Digital Realty Trust share, driven by record performance in each of our leasing categories. Importantly, demand was broad-based across geographies, customer segments, and deployment types, demonstrating the growing appeal of PlatformDIGITAL.

We continue to see the benefits of artificial intelligence extending well beyond large-scale training deployments and into enterprise adoption, inference workloads, connectivity-rich environments, and new geographies. We believe this broadening demand profile further strengthens Digital Realty Trust’s competitive position and long-term growth outlook. Pricing was strong throughout the quarter, particularly within our greater-than-1-megawatt category, reflecting robust and sustained demand and growing constraints around the development of new capacity.

These results add to our already substantial backlog and provide additional visibility into our growth over the next several years. The strength of our results this quarter reflects contributions from each of our three core growth pillars, starting with colocation and connectivity. Connectivity is becoming increasingly important as digital infrastructure architectures grow more distributed and data-intensive. Today, that trend is being accelerated by AI, cloud adoption, and the increasing need to move, access, and exchange data across multiple environments.

While AI is often discussed in terms of large-scale compute deployments, the reality is that AI workloads increasingly depend on a broader digital infrastructure architecture that connects compute and storage with cloud platforms, networks, customers, and inference locations. As AI deployments become more distributed, connectivity becomes increasingly important to performance, user experience, and scalability. AI agent encoding workloads make many round trips per task.

Placing capacity close to end users and cloud zones improves performance and supports in-region data handling. Today’s AI infrastructure buildout is driving demand for our connected environments in strategic locations around the world. Digital Realty Trust’s growing global footprint of connectivity-rich environments and growing roster of more than 6,000 customers position us to help customers deploy increasingly distributed enterprise, cloud, and AI architectures.

These trends were clearly reflected in our results during the quarter. Bookings within our 0 to 1 megawatt plus interconnection category exceeded $150 million at Digital Realty Trust share, increasing 80% year over year and 40% from the second quarter, marking our fourth consecutive quarterly record in this category. Matt will provide additional details in a few moments. These results reinforce our conviction that colocation and connectivity will continue to be a critical driver of long-term growth.

Turning to our second growth pillar, hyperscale data centers, demand for large-scale deployments was exceptionally strong during the quarter, reflecting the continued expansion of cloud platforms, AI infrastructure, and larger enterprise deployments. While AI is driving unprecedented levels of demand, delivering that capacity has become increasingly challenging. Customers today increasingly recognize the value of experienced partners with the technological and engineering capabilities, development expertise, and financial position required to deliver and operate critical infrastructure at scale.

Our leasing results during the quarter clearly reflected these dynamics. Total hyperscale bookings of $689 million, or $474 million at Digital Realty Trust share, set another quarterly record. Hyperscale demand was broad-based across our footprint, further demonstrating customers’ expanding needs for capacity beyond the U.S. In addition to two sizable hyperscale leases signed in early July in Northern Virginia, leasing was strong in APAC and exceeded our prior regional record by more than 600%.

When combined with the record pricing achieved in this category and our growing backlog of contracted leases, these results provide increased visibility into our future growth. Turning to our third growth pillar, strategic private capital, unprecedented demand for digital infrastructure and the extraordinary scaling of AI have clearly driven a corresponding increase in capital requirements across our industry. As infrastructure deployments grow larger, more complex, and more capital intensive, access to capital is becoming an increasingly important competitive differentiator. While newer entrants to the hyperscale data center field have emerged, most lack the scale, balance sheet strength, or funding sources necessary to pursue opportunities at the scale required by hyperscale customers today. In this sense, Digital Realty Trust has spent the last two decades positioning for the current opportunity. We received our first investment grade ratings in 2009, completed our first private capital venture in 2013, and have spent the last four years scaling our strategic private capital franchise to support the massive growth in hyperscaler demand that appeared on the horizon. Further accelerating these efforts, in the third quarter we closed on the acquisition of Columbia Capital, a 30-plus-year digital infrastructure-focused investment platform.

Columbia’s experienced investment team and established portfolio complement Digital Realty Trust’s global platform and strengthen investment capabilities to take advantage of the expanding AI infrastructure ecosystem. Today, our strategic private capital platform provides additional sources of capital, enhances our investment flexibility and financing options, and enables us to pursue a broader set of opportunities, all while accelerating Digital Realty Trust’s core FFO growth and maintaining its balance sheet strength.

Subsequent to quarter end, we successfully completed our initial cornerstone closing on a new strategy focused on stabilized hyperscale data centers in North America, and we welcome these partners to Platform Digital. Thank you for your partnership. We expect our strategic private capital platform to play an important role in the perpetual capitalization of hyperscale data centers and to drive long-term value creation for both our private institutional partners and Digital Realty Trust shareholders.

During the third quarter, we continued to see enterprises and hyperscalers expand across Platform Digital as AI inference continues to emerge around the world. A few examples include: a major AI platform is leveraging Platform Digital’s robust interconnection capabilities and global footprint by deploying inference and low-latency edge hubs in 15 different metros to enhance their ability to serve their customers’ needs. A global medical device and services provider is deploying distributed AI data hubs in four locations across our three global regions to enable faster capture and analytics.

A global financial services company chose to deploy on Platform Digital in three major financial centers around the world to meet low-latency requirements and support increasing demand from a growing customer base. And a leading global auto manufacturer is expanding on Platform Digital to support their immediate growth needs for computing infrastructure while leveraging robust network and cloud connectivity to meet growing demand. Together these wins show the value of a single platform that can serve customers wherever demand takes them, from large-scale AI capacity to low-latency edge, and that breadth is what converts today’s demand into durable long-term growth.

Before turning the call over to Matt, I’d like to address the increased public attention our industry is receiving and how Digital Realty Trust approaches its responsibility as a member of the communities where we operate. The concerns we hear from communities, elected officials, and regulators are understandable, and we welcome these conversations. The scale of the data center buildout is historic, and it is only natural that people want to know how data centers affect their utility bills, water resources, air quality, noise, and the overall fabric of their communities.

And they want to understand the benefits created by a data center project in their city or town. At Digital Realty Trust, we believe those are the right questions to ask, and we are at the table answering them openly and with transparency. We believe stakeholders should expect responsible development, the highest level of resource stewardship, job opportunities, and a committed partner in return for welcoming us into their community. Our perspective is informed by more than 20 years of developing and operating data centers around the world.

During that time, we have learned that successful projects are built on transparency, partnership, and a commitment to creating tangible community benefits alongside long-term shareholder value. That experience also led us, together with other like-minded providers, to launch Infrastructure for America, recognizing that our industry needs to do a better job of engaging transparently with communities, listening to their concerns, and sharing the facts about both the impacts and benefits of digital infrastructure.

One of the most common concerns involves energy consumption and electric grid capacity. It is undisputed that data centers require significant power, which is why we work closely with utilities, regulators, and local stakeholders long before construction begins. We have also signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, reflecting our commitment that the cost of infrastructure required to serve new data center demand should not be borne by residential customers and small businesses.

We also procure renewable energy to support our operations and continue to invest in solutions that improve efficiency and support grid reliability. Last year, 93% of our global electricity consumption was covered by clean energy. For 25 years, the grid in America has been starved of investment. Today, due to demand for digital products and services, billions of dollars are being invested in the grid across the nation. Everyone will benefit from these infrastructure investments in the form of a stronger and more resilient grid.

We can support grid reliability during peak demand events by relying on on-site backup generation, reducing our demand on the grid, thereby helping preserve capacity for other users. Water usage is another area of focus. Approximately 75% of our data centers utilize highly efficient closed-loop cooling systems or do not use water for cooling. Closed-loop systems are designed to limit the amount of water consumed to cool data centers. As technology continues to evolve, we remain committed to responsible water stewardship and ongoing efficiency improvements across our portfolio.

We also believe the economic benefits of data centers should be tangible and local. Data centers generate substantial recurring property tax revenue while requiring relatively limited ongoing demand for public services. Those revenues support schools, transportation infrastructure, public safety, and other community priorities, and these benefits help build and sustain communities for decades. We have seen this firsthand in Loudoun County, Virginia, home to Data Center Alley, the largest concentration of data centers in the world.

While many factors contribute to its success, decades of digital infrastructure investment have played an important role in supporting the county’s economic strength and tax base. Today, Loudoun County has the highest median household income in the United States and consistently ranks among the nation’s leading communities for schools, quality of life, and economic opportunity. Today, at Fort Gillem, near Atlanta, Digital Realty Trust is helping transform and remediate a former military installation, returning long-unused land to productive use as a major center for technology investment, employment, and economic activity.

Similarly, in DeSoto, Kansas, outside of Kansas City, we’ve engaged with community stakeholders to ensure our development plans for the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant site align with local priorities and contribute to the community’s long-term vision for growth, while supporting new infrastructure investment, job creation, and economic development opportunities. We’re also working to address misconceptions surrounding our industry. Over the last year, we have opened our doors around the world to provide data center tours to policymakers, students, community groups, and the media so they can see firsthand our world-class operations and commitment to transparency. We believe this approach will help separate fact from fiction surrounding data centers. In our view, informed dialogue leads to better decisions and better outcomes.

We remain committed to earning the trust of the communities where we operate through transparency, responsible resource stewardship, and measurable local investment. Our annual impact report provides transparency into those efforts and helps hold us accountable for the commitments we make. And with that, I’ll now turn the call over to our CFO, Matt Mercier.

Matt Mercier (Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you, Andy. Digital Realty Trust delivered better-than-expected results across the board in the third quarter, with a dramatic acceleration in colocation and interconnection leasing and a new record in overall leasing that exceeded the prior record by 20%, which drove an almost 30% sequential increase in our backlog. We achieved these results while continuing to invest with conviction in future growth, further expanding our development and investment platform, advancing our private capital initiatives, and maintaining pro forma leverage below five times at quarter end, comfortably below our long-term target.

Turning to our operating performance, we continue to see strong momentum across our global platform supported by healthy customer demand, improving occupancy, favorable renewal spreads, and increasing contributions from new leasing commencements. Starting with our same-capital portfolio, cash NOI increased approximately 6% year over year in the third quarter, bringing year-to-date constant currency growth to approximately 5%. The underlying fundamentals remain very strong.

Stabilized occupancy increased nearly 90 basis points sequentially to 93.4%, churn reached a record low of just 0.7%, and cash re-leasing spreads approached 12%, our third-highest quarterly result on record. We also saw notable strength in our 0 to 1 megawatt business, which together with strong retention and favorable pricing is helping drive occupancy gains and organic growth across our existing portfolio. And importantly, that strength extends well beyond our stabilized portfolio.

Across our broader global platform, recurring revenue increased nearly 16% year to date, or more than 14% on a constant currency basis, with double-digit reported growth across all three regions. Taken together, these results highlight the strength and diversity of our global platform with multiple drivers of organic growth, an expanding portfolio, and a substantial backlog of contracted future revenue supporting our confidence in continued bottom-line growth.

Turning to leasing activity, bookings across our platform were robust, highlighted by another record quarter in our 0 to 1 megawatt plus interconnection business and increasingly global demand for hyperscale capacity. In the 0 to 1 megawatt plus interconnection category, we generated a record 165 million of total bookings, or 151.8 million at Digital Realty Trust share during the quarter, representing a 40% increase over last quarter’s record. This segment saw new records across all three regions, demonstrating the importance of highly connected infrastructure around the world.

This quarter the 500 kilowatt to 1 megawatt sub-segment was particularly strong, driven by large enterprise and service provider deployments. We also saw a large network architecture deployment by one of the leading AI labs across 15 of our sites in EMEA. The sites serve as interconnection hubs, giving the customer direct private connectivity to cloud providers, network carriers, and enterprise customers within each region. We expect to see similar space and power deployments across our portfolio as AI inference use cases continue to emerge, with two drivers gaining momentum: agentic AI, where general purpose agents are rolling out and massive user uptake is just beginning to unfold, and sovereign AI, where governments and regulated enterprises need in-region capacity and connectivity to keep models and data within their borders. Interconnection bookings totaled a record 23.9 million, or 22.2 million at Digital Realty Trust share, exceeding the previous quarterly record by approximately 8%.

Importantly, AI inference-related deployments spanned more than 15 separate markets during the quarter, further demonstrating that AI adoption is accelerating beyond large training deployments and into a broader set of enterprise- and inference-oriented use cases. We also marked a new record in the greater-than-a-megawatt category during the quarter, as strong global demand drove 689 million of total bookings, or 474 million at Digital Realty Trust share.

Activity in this segment was driven by the two previously disclosed hyperscale leases in Northern Virginia, as well as record signings in APAC with large leases in Seoul, Chennai, and Sifi. Renewal activity turned out strong once again in the third quarter as well. We signed another 261 million of renewals at a blended average 11.8% cash re-leasing spread, reflecting the value that our customers realize in our facilities, the tight availability in our markets, and our ability to capture pricing as contracts roll. Year to date, cash renewal spreads are up over 14%. Combined with limited churn and record new leasing activity, these results continue to demonstrate the favorable supply-demand dynamics across our key markets and support another increase to our full-year guidance.

Renewals in the 0 to 1 megawatt category accounted for 61% of total renewals and contributed a 4.7% cash mark-to-market. Greater-than-a-megawatt renewals accounted for 36% of the total and delivered a robust 26.3% mark-to-market, led by multiple hyperscale renewals in Northern Virginia. We commenced 207 million of annualized GAAP rent in the third quarter, consistent with the prior three quarters, providing a steady stream of new rental revenue over the past year.

Commencements are expected to accelerate over the next two quarters given an uplift from newly signed 0 to 1 megawatt leases and over 250 megawatts of upcoming pre-lease deliveries. These commencements will continue to drive revenue growth, further supporting the multiyear earnings growth forecast we provided last quarter. Combining strong leasing activity with minimal churn and steady commencements, our backlog reached a new record of 2.5 billion at quarter end, or 1.8 billion at Digital Realty Trust share.

Our booked-not-billed backlog now represents almost 40% of in-place rental revenue. As for earnings, we reported core FFO of $2.10 per share for the third quarter, an 11% increase year over year. This quarter’s results reflect strong commencements over the past several quarters, the uplift from the growing mark-to-market opportunity, and growing fee income. The third quarter also included a full quarter’s impact from the acquisition of a development partner’s interest in three assets that closed at the very end of last quarter, and nearly a half-quarter contribution from Columbia Capital.

With continued operational momentum and our record backlog, we remain confident in our outlook for the remainder of 2026 and 2027. Turning to investment activity, we continued to deploy capital in support of the significant demand that we see across our platform. During the third quarter, we invested $1.5 billion in development capex, bringing year-to-date capital spending to 3.3 billion net of our partner share. We continue to acquire sites for future organic development, investing over 700 million across seven different locations in the U.S. and Europe. These investments include expansion capacity for both colocation and hyperscale, including a 1 gigawatt development in the greater Indianapolis metro area.

We also expanded our footprint into Turkey, our 65th global metro, through a development joint venture with one of Turkey’s largest infrastructure, development, and investment conglomerates. The first project is for 22 megawatts of IT capacity in Ankara with meaningful expansion potential. The JV will then focus on expansion into Istanbul. The addition of Turkey further extends our presence in Southern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, providing another avenue for future growth in this strategically important region.

These activities reflect our continued focus on expanding the markets where we see strong customer demand, positioning the platform for future growth. During the quarter we delivered 50 megawatts of new IT capacity, which was 95% pre-leased. We also commenced development of 112 megawatts of capacity, including projects in five different countries in APAC along with other projects in EMEA and the Americas. As a result, our development pipeline expanded to 1.5 gigawatts under construction at a total expected cost of 22 billion, representing a 9% increase quarter over quarter.

The development pipeline remains 63% pre-leased and at an 11.6% average expected stabilized yield. Turning to the balance sheet, our investment-grade balance sheet, seasoned public shareholder base, and growing strategic private capital initiative have developed into a broad, diversified funding model with access to capital that is unique among global data center providers. Over the last several weeks we accessed capital across the stack, raising approximately 3.5 billion, further scaling the quantum of capital available to support our customers’ digital infrastructure requirements.

During the quarter we raised 450 million of common equity under the ATM, and in early October we raised 1.7 billion of total debt proceeds at a 4% blended average coupon from a 10-year euro bond and a multi-tranche Swiss franc bond with a weighted average term of nearly five and a half years. In the last week, we achieved another important milestone within our strategic private capital business, closing over 1.4 billion of initial cornerstone equity and commitments from a variety of institutional investors, pension funds, insurance companies, and consultants, advancing a new perpetual capital strategy focused on stabilized hyperscale data center in North America. The strategy leverages the institutional demand for digital infrastructure investments and significantly expands our access to long-term private capital.

We view this access to a broad and diverse array of public and private capital sources as a strategic advantage that should continue to create opportunity for Digital Realty Trust. Reflecting the company’s balance sheet position and demonstrated access to capital, as well as the company’s strong operating performance, in September, Moody’s upgraded our long-term issuer rating to Baa1. At the end of the third quarter, Digital Realty Trust’s leverage edged up to 5.2 times on a headline basis, or 4.9 times pro forma for the upcoming stabilization of the three 100% leased Northern Virginia developments we acquired at the end of last quarter.

We estimate that Digital Realty Trust maintains over 20 billion of capital available to support future development when combining our current liquidity and leverage capacity, as well as funding available through our private development venture, our closed-end fund, and our most recent perpetual capital strategy. I will conclude with guidance. We are raising our 2026 core FFO per share guidance, excluding net promote income, by $0.15, or nearly 2%, to a new range of $8.30 to $8.35 per share. The midpoint of the updated range represents almost 13% growth over 2025, which would mark our second consecutive year of double-digit core FFO per share growth. We also expect cash renewal spreads of 10% to 12%, up another 100 basis points from last quarter, driven by strong performance year to date; same-capital cash NOI growth of 5.25% to 5.75% on a constant currency basis, up 75 basis points at the midpoint; capex, net of partner contributions, remains consistent with our prior range at 4.25 to 4.75 billion; and we are raising our capital recycling guidance by another 500 million to a range of 1.5 to 2 billion to reflect the success of our new perpetual private capital strategy.

Importantly, strong execution across the 0 to 1 megawatt category, a record backlog of contractual commencements, an expanding development pipeline, and recent strategic initiatives provide increased confidence in our ability to extend our double-digit core FFO per share growth trajectory into 2027 and beyond. This concludes our prepared remarks, and now we’ll be pleased to take your questions. Operator, would you please begin the Q&A session?

OPERATOR

Thank you so much. And for the interest of time and to allow a larger number of people to ask questions, callers will be limited to one question. And if you do have a question, press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To remove yourself, press star 11 again. One moment for our first question. That comes from John Peterson with Jefferies. Please proceed.

John Peterson (Analyst)

Great. Thank you. Congrats on the strong leasing and the strong quarter. I wanted to ask some questions around the land bank. So you refilled or you added quite a bit to your land bank buying in Indianapolis and Charlotte this quarter and you did a big acquisition in Kansas earlier this year. Can you just remind us how you think about which markets you want to go into and if you can give us maybe some more color on who’s selling this land? Did these people intend on building data centers themselves and decided they couldn’t do it or something else?

Andy Power (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, John. So I would call the playbook of where we’ve been growing, expanding our markets is consistent in terms of focusing on places where we see both robust and diverse customer demand. That’s in terms of workloads serving digital transformation for the enterprise, cloud computing, and AI. Kansas City is a great example where we see a market with numerous fiber optic routes, a market where the cloud hyperscalers have been landing and expanding with self-builds, and a place where we could call land and essentially create a runway for growth.

Our expansion into Charlotte is also a similar example. We’d operated that market with a carrier connectivity location downtown, which we are expanding, but then expanded out by the airport with a larger footprint and had one of our largest leases in the history of the company at the beginning of this year supporting AI inference for a top, strong, investment-grade hyperscaler. I’ll let Greg touch on who are some of the sellers and what some of this land was before we’re going to turn it into data centers, which was also highlighted in our prepared remarks.

Greg Wright (Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, thanks, Andy. Look, I think as Andy touched on, John, we’ve addressed in the past sort of our logic and strategic rationale for both Charlotte, Kansas City, and the like. But I think when you think about Indiana, it’s not dramatically different, right. It’s consistent with these other large new market entries. It’s strategically located land in markets where we believe there’s going to be multiple use cases, whether it’s cloud, AI, or digital transformation.

But in the case of Indianapolis, you have a robust economy and significant corporate presence. It’s home to numerous Fortune 500 companies, including companies like Eli Lilly and Cummins. Advanced manufacturing is the cornerstone of that economy. It’s a $500 billion economy in that element alone, which makes up 25% of the state’s GDP, and it ranks first nationally in terms of manufacturing jobs per capita and really boasts a skilled trade workforce and supplier base.

But, you know, that’s sort of the general characteristics. When you look, Indiana is quickly becoming a top Midwest hyperscale market. You have more than 70 data center facilities there now and it ranks sixth in the U.S. in terms of number of data centers. And if you look back over the last three years, they’ve attracted more than $25 billion of hyperscale investment from the likes of AWS, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and others. And then it’s also benefiting from the fact that you have these long queues and power constraints across Ohio, you have numerous moratoriums across Michigan, and, for example, you have Illinois’s BIPA legislation pushing hyperscalers out of that state.

So as a result, Indiana, and outside of Indianapolis in particular, has become very well placed to capture these large deployments. And finally, back on Andy’s latency theme, if you will, you have strong latency—really what I would say is sitting at the crossroads of America. Indiana sits within a day’s drive of 80% of the U.S. population. And then you have long-haul fiber providers from groups like Zayo, Lumen, Great Plains, and Meta which deliver sub-10 millisecond latency to places like Chicago, Indianapolis, Columbus, and St. Louis. And then finally it’s really a low power cost. So you look at power rates of roughly $0.09 per kilowatt-hour, and it’s below—in some instances significantly below—most competing markets across the U.S. So that’s just to highlight a couple of the points.

Just one other thing—you asked about who’s selling this land. I mean these are great stories where we worked with, call it, local real estate developers—specifically Kansas City, Atlanta—taking sites that were industrialized. Those two in particular were former Army use cases years and years ago, and really we were able to revitalize the community with a great investment that’s going to benefit the broader community there.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Elias with TD Securities. Please proceed.

Michael Elias (Analyst)

Perfect. Thanks for taking the question. Andy, on the call I felt like you focused a lot on connectivity. As I consider the market landscape, we’re seeing edge and network nodes approaching, call it, 40 megawatts for some of the hyperscalers. You have edge AI inference nodes getting as large as 20 megawatts on a distributed basis in a bunch of different markets. And then you’re highlighting AI labs doing network nodes with you. As I consider the form factor of this against the broader landscape of data center developers, it does seem like you’re uniquely positioned to capture that opportunity.

How do you think about the medium- to long-term opportunity on the edge inference side? And as part of that, what does that imply for the interconnection opportunity for Digital? Thank you.

Andy Power (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Michael. I kind of boil down the value proposition to the enterprise or the connectivity service provider—unrelated to prior use cases or AI—into three buckets that we check all. One, global reach and scope. Now with our entry into Turkey, up to 65 global markets, we obviously have tremendous scale. Two, connectivity-rich environments. You can see that in terms of our cross-connects, which were a record, call it, 22 million, up 13% year over year, and that’s both physical and virtual cross-connects.

And then three, a trend that I think is our friend at Digital Realty is, call it, AI-ready infrastructure. So we’ve got increasing footprints, increasing power densities, and greater needs for liquid cooling. I can tell you today we’re already operationalized—live—with liquid cooling for the AI use cases in north of 25 different locations, different customers. At least half of that is in the, call it, 500 kilowatt to 5 megawatt-sized blocks in addition to some of the larger footprints.

And what we’ve called sold but not yet delivered in that backlog doubles those customer counts and locations and brings us close to a gigawatt of operational expertise in that category. Inside our zero to one megawatt bookings, lots of great records in there—four in a row, up 40% quarter over quarter, 80% year over year. If you kind of unpack the top signings just real quickly: number one was actually an enterprise signing, believe it or not—an enterprise signed with us outside the U.S.; number two was a traditional hyperscale signing; and number three and the next several were AI use cases, including what we highlighted in the prepared remarks was a 15-site basically backbone buildout for one of the major AI labs.

So I think we are very well positioned, and this quarter really highlights that.

OPERATOR

Thank you. One moment for our next question that comes from Eric Lupchow with Wells Fargo. Please proceed.

Eric Lupchow (Analyst)

Great, thanks for taking the question. Maybe just touch on kind of the recent changes in cost of capital that we’ve seen across really the whole industry, and just wondering if you look at market rent growth today, do you think that’s rising faster than your implied cost of development? It looks like that averages around 15 million a megawatt across your global portfolio. And then maybe you could just touch on things you’re doing to try to mitigate development cost inflation, whether that comes from procuring long lead-time equipment, procuring labor supply, or anything else that Digital’s doing.

Thank you.

Andy Power (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Eric. So lots to unpack in there. I’m going to try to tag-team this and work it backwards with Matt for a second. You’ve obviously seen great strength in our rates across our segments, across our geographies—always a little bit mixed depending on what the quarter is—but definitely seeing great pricing increases. I look at it at a high level. Our development pipeline is, call it, up from 10 now to 22 billion, so a 100% increase or more since just the beginning of the year, and our net yields have really gone up, call it, over 11.5%.

And our pre-leasing, our de-risking of that, has been maintained, call it, north of 63%. And if you net the colo—which is more of a, call it, closer delivery sign-and-move-in—you’re probably close to 70% pre-leasing on that pipeline. So I think we’ve been able to press rates to really recognize the value we’re delivering with these precious capacity blocks, in addition to the value we’re delivering to our enterprises, and outpacing the inflationary environment that we and the broader industry are experiencing.

I think our team is doing a very nice job getting ahead of that on supply chain. Our consistency in markets—we’re growing to 65 markets, but we’re actually only operating 58. We’ve got eight that are, call it, in the works, including those recent announcements. We’re basically bringing on new capacity in 35 of those. So significant breadth of new growth for our customers. But being consistent, having extended supply chains, vendor-managed inventory programs, and I think we’re faring better than many or most when it comes to that, given our scale and breadth of consistency and track record in that capacity.

I don’t think we want to waste time on the broader capital markets dynamic that everyone’s seeing with interest rates and the like, but I think Matt can speak to just the last few weeks or months—what we’ve done in terms of bolstering our liquidity at fairly attractive cost of capital.

Matt Mercier (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, Eric. I mean, the fact that we have global reach and scale, it’s given us an ability to access a diverse set of capital sources. Both on—as recently on the debt side, hopefully you saw we raised basically 1.7 billion at an average rate of close to 4%, both through the euro and Swiss market. On top of that, given the expansion in our, call it, private capital strategy, as was noted on the call, raised another 1.4 of equity that will be able to be leveraged as well.

So it gives us a significant amount, I think, of capital to continue to pursue what has been a great opportunity ahead of us.

OPERATOR

One moment for our next question, please. It comes from Michael Ng with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Michael Ng (Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon. Thank you for the question. I wanted to ask about the stabilized hyperscale data center acquisition strategy. Could you talk a little bit about the buy box and opportunities that you have to drive additional returns, whether that be value add or other things? Thank you.

Andy Power (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Michael. So I think I’ll have Greg speak to really what the evolution of our funding model here that’s led up to some pretty big milestones from the beginning of this year till just weeks ago to address that question.

Greg Wright (Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Michael. Look, I think let’s go back and just, I mean this, where we are right now is really the next evolution of our strategic capital platform. As you recall, we completed our closed-end fund earlier this year with an initial target of two and a half billion and we ultimately raised 3.2 billion. The strategy for that vehicle was geared more towards development. It would be more, you know, development opportunities like you would expect, high teens, low 20s and the like.

So that kind of vehicle is geared towards that kind of risk-return. I think when you look and see what we’re doing now, again this is the next evolution of our strategic private capital platform and this is focused more on a perpetual life strategy that’s designed really to match, call it, long-term duration institutional capital with long-lived stabilized data center assets. You know, quite frankly that gets to partner with an industry leader that’s got a 20-plus year track record.

You know, look, with these initial closings we’re going to continue — and again it’s perpetual, this is just the first closing of a cornerstone process. There’ll be several closings between now and the beginning of next — or, excuse me, the first quarter of next year. But again, as a perpetual strategy, we’re going to continue to raise capital around that over time. So it’s not just, you know, it’s a living, breathing vehicle as growth opportunities come around and that will be geared towards, you know, more stabilized core-plus type returns.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Our next question is from Ari Klein with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Ari Klein (Analyst)

Thanks and good afternoon. Wanted to follow up just on the 0 to 1 megawatt business. It’s clearly inflected higher here in terms of how you see things moving forward and kind of what the — is this the level which you kind of expect to grow off of? And then just relatedly, your peer talked about some of the pricing opportunities in 0 to 1 specifically, how are you thinking about that or seeing that?

Andy Power (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Ari. So I’ll have Colin walk through, which was really a fantastic quarter to cap off what’s been tremendous progress this year, and we’re already out of the gates in 4Q stronger than we ever have been. So Colin, why don’t you speak to that?

Colin McLean (Chief Revenue Officer)

Yeah, thanks, Ari, for the question. Appreciate that. Yeah, we’re really pleased with Q3, obviously. Fourth quarter, fourth consecutive quarter of record bookings, up 40% from a record quarter in Q2. Bunch of key drivers in that — we’re seeing this digital transformation and hybrid cloud continue to be resilient use cases; data sovereignty and localization are really standing out, particularly in EMEA. And Andy highlighted infrastructure is becoming more and more distributed with higher density requirements across the globe.

So that really fits the use case that we support across the globe. And as it relates to the pipeline of activity, we’re seeing more and more partner contribution there, where really a full solution offering is particularly important with our partners as we think about pipeline on the whole. Remarkably, coming off a record quarter, we have as strong a pipeline as we’ve had in the 0 to 1 megawatt category. And that really is across-the-board commentary — that’s across all the regions. We’re seeing particular strengths, and as Andy highlighted, that’s across all use cases.

But just to highlight, AI is becoming a more and more prevalent piece of that 0 to 1 megawatt conversation. So 44% of our bookings in Q3 were associated with AI. So again we’re seeing strength both in current activity and futures. And really pleased with what we’ve seen thus far in Q4, where we’re already at 60% of our 0 to 1 megawatt booking number.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Our next question is from Michael Rollins with Citi. Please proceed.

Michael Rollins (Analyst)

Thanks and good afternoon. Congratulations. If I could just ask about hyperscale for a couple moments. So on the hyperscale side, curious if you could talk a bit more of the pricing yields that you achieved in the quarter and whether that’s a bouncing off point of where things are going or if there is some specific factors that influence the significant level that you achieved on a per kilowatt basis. And then just taking a step back, curious if you could give us an update with the development pipeline now at about 10 gigawatts.

Curious if you could frame how much is left to sell for ’27 vintage, ’28 and ’29 vintages as we think about kind of that flywheel that you’re generating on a go-forward basis. Thank you.

Andy Power (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Michael. So, I mean, really standout quarter and a standout year when it comes to hyperscale as well. So I mentioned already, the total development pipeline now stands at 22 billion, north of 11.5% ROI, 63% leased. If you look at just the signings, we did 855 million total share signings — that’s 18% higher than our prior quarterly record roughly two years ago. If you look at our total signings year to date, we’re, call it, up 40% from the prior full-year record — and that’s just with three quarters, not four.

So really dramatic volumes. Another standout is the weighted average lease length of the total signings — call it 16 years. As you know, our enterprise colo are on the shorter end, meaning our hyperscale is on the higher end to blend down to only 16 years, which is another standout. Great customer mix. If you look at, call it, the last seven quarters, we’ve had six different great hyperscale customers as our top signing customer. The markets — I mean the mix. Throughout the quarter I think we had the three biggest signings were each three different contracts, each 60-plus megawatts each.

We started, as you may remember from the last quarter’s call, with some strong contribution in Northern Virginia. We ended the quarter with some strong contribution in APAC and we had some great wins in between as well. I think this goes back to really focusing on delivering for the hyperscalers where we can add the most value. We’ve stayed to those markets where we see robust and diverse demand, where supply constraints are tight and not really improving, and making sure that we can curate to all these hyperscale customers who we are already serving in 30, 40, 50-plus locations the growth capacity that they really need.

Going to the second part of your question: our ’27–’28 hyperscale-oriented capacity blocks roughly total just shy of the 1.5 gigawatts that we currently have under development right now. So we’ve got a lot of conversations going as we speak, as those capacity build blocks are becoming much more of a focus for our customers.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Nicknam with Truist. Please proceed.

Matt Nicknam (Analyst)

Hey guys, congrats on a great quarter. Thanks so much for taking the question. High-level question: what’s the latest you’re seeing on the M&A front in terms of opportunities and valuations? And I guess the reason I’m asking is you’ve got a much cleaner balance sheet than you had several years ago. You’ve got global scale and I’m wondering if that affords a more unique opportunity to introduce value through M&A amidst the current market backdrop.

Andy Power (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Matt. So, I mean, I don’t think we’ve got a great — we’re obviously in a very dynamic world with the cost of capital really changing as we speak. We’ve been very active on all things inorganic M&A that I’ll have Greg walk you through, and all of those have been with a strategic lens towards our growth pillars.

Greg Wright (Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, thanks, Andy. Thanks, Matt. Look, I think as Andy mentioned, our M&A strategy — again I just want to be clear — has been and will continue to be aligned to the three pillars of growth that Andy outlined. And it’s really across the globe with a continued strategic focus on expanding in existing markets and entering new markets. You know, the first pillar, colocation enterprise. As you may recall, just going around the globe: in APAC, in early ’25 we entered Jakarta, Indonesia with a partnership with Bersama Digital Infrastructure. We then in 2Q26 entered into Cyberjaya, Malaysia. Going over to EMEA, in 4Q25 we entered into Lisbon, Portugal, and then in 1Q26 Milan, Italy. Also in 1Q26 we did a strategic acquisition of a business called Telepoint in Sofia, Bulgaria. And in this quarter you saw we entered into Turkey through a partnership with a group called Renaissance Infrastructure, which is really a leading infrastructure construction group based in Turkey.

We then had existing market expansion in Frankfurt as well as in Crete. Then coming over to the Americas — just again this is on the colocation side — we had expansion in Franklin Park, Chicago in 4Q24; Uptown Charlotte in 1Q25; again the expansion of the existing market, a new submarket with an expansion in Fort Gillem, Atlanta, because there’s a component there that’s colocation as well; and then Vernon, California. And then, not finally, but in the hyperscale side — again, good activity. In Europe in 1Q26 we went into Milan, Italy. We expanded in Marseille, France in 2Q26. Then this quarter we acquired a freehold from a large hyperscale asset we have outside of Paris. Then in America, we’ve mentioned this somewhat on the call already, but expansion of our hyperscale business in Charlotte, Fort Gillem (Atlanta), Cartersville (Atlanta) in 1Q26; Kansas City; we had the Blackstone acquisitions of the three assets in Northern Virginia; in this quarter we’re expanding again in Charlotte, North Carolina; and then the Indianapolis acquisition that I already discussed.

And then finally for the third leg of the stool, which is the strategic private capital, in the second quarter, as you recall, we completed the strategic acquisition of Columbia Capital. So I would say M&A has been and continues to be an important part of our business, and that’s how we align it.

OPERATOR

Thank you. One moment for our last question. It comes from the line of Michael Funk with Bank of America. Please proceed.

Michael Funk (Analyst)

Great. Thank you all for the question tonight. So there’s a pretty widely reported development delays across industry. Curious if Digital Realty Trust has seen any delays and, if you’re not, how you’re managing and avoiding delays others are experiencing.

Andy Power (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Mike. So we really are leaning into our expertise, our heritage, and just two-plus decades of solely focused on this. So whether it’s an existing market where we’ve been operating or building for years or new markets, it’s making sure that we, call it, get on the ground. We work with the local community, we make sure all the benefits that we’re going to deliver as a thriving member of that community — make sure that we are explaining that we’re supporting mission-critical infrastructure that is running their daily lives and making sure we’re giving back and doing it in a sustainable long-term fashion.

It’s about making sure our vendors and partners know that we’re in this together with them. When hiccups happen, we can respond and use our supply chains. And the fact that we’re building across so many markets in our various regions always gives us, call it, swing capacity for certain components, whether it’s on the electrical side or the data center side. And that planning ahead and expertise has allowed us, by and large, to really, call it, keep our track record intact. Yes, there’s always here and there a delay. Often our customer needs some type of rework, and we’ll work with them. But I think this is where our business is really shining — that operational excellence — and that’s why we’re going to continue to deliver for our customers.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And this will conclude our Q&A portion of today’s call. I would like to turn the call back to Andy Power for his closing remarks.

Andy Power (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you, Carmen. Digital Realty Trust’s momentum continued in the third quarter with strong execution, record leasing, and double-digit core FFO per share growth that supports another increase to our full-year guidance. While our record backlog provides strong visibility into 2027 and beyond, we are seeing strong demand across customers, geographies, and deployment types with the emergence of AI inference, enterprise adoption, and increasingly distributed architectures.

These trends play directly to our strengths and our global full-spectrum platform and reinforce our confidence in the opportunity ahead. We are also strengthening our ability to capitalize on that opportunity as our scaling strategic private capital platform and investment-grade balance sheet provide the capital needed to support our customers as their requirements grow in size and complexity. These results are a team effort and I am incredibly proud of our talented colleagues around the world. Our momentum is strong and I’ve never been more excited about the opportunity ahead. Thank you all for joining us today, and thanks to our dedicated team for keeping the digital world turning.

OPERATOR

Thank you ladies and gentlemen and this concludes our conference. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company’s SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants’ and analysts’ statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.

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

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Take-Two Interactive CEO and chairman Strauss Zelnick speaking at Business Insider's The Long Play in New York on October 29, 2026.

Carl Timpone/BFA

Strauss Zelnick is relentlessly focused on making "the best entertainment on earth." There's no confusion about that mission among his employees, he said.

"I have 13,000 colleagues," the Take-Two Interactive CEO said at Business Insider's The Long Play event in New York City on Thursday. "100% of them can and will tell you exactly what I just said."

His management philosophy — "establish a mission, establish a strategy, and promulgate collective culture" — is about to get its biggest test in years.

Take-Two is the publisher behind popular games like "Red Dead Redemption" and "NBA 2K," and, on November 19, they'll launch a new "Grand Theft Auto." The wildly popular series hasn't had a new mainline installment since 2013 and has delayed its launch twice in an effort to meet the studio's exacting standards. GTA 6 is central to Take-Two's forecast for at least $8 billion in net bookings for fiscal 2027.

Zelnick has run the company since 2007. To align employee incentives with Take-Two's big expectations, he believes compensation should be based on a formula aligned with the company's mission — not left to manager discretion.

"I personally believe that discretionary compensation programs are toxic," he said, adding that they create "politics and get you the wrong results, especially over time."

"So, we're all formulaic," he said. "You perform, the company performs — you get paid. You perform, the company doesn't perform — you don't get paid. Company performs, you don't perform — if you still have your job, you get paid."

Zelnick also said he has no chief of staff, is available on Slack 24/7, and shares his cellphone number with employees.

"If you're not president of the United States, you have no reason to have a chief of staff," he said.

That doesn't mean he will swoop in and override an employee's manager, said Zelnick, who considers himself an empathetic listener. He said workers should feel heard — and that he will try to help them solve a problem.

Still, he doesn't believe his formula at Take-Two is necessarily the right approach for every leader.

"Leadership comes in all flavors," he said. "You have to be your own kind of leader, and I don't think anyone should adopt my skills, because you're not me."

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Ben Shimkus

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Ben Shimkus is a reporter for the Business News desk. He writes about cars, transportation, retail, and jobs. Ben's reporting has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Verge, Automotive News, USA Today, AutoBody News, LGBTQ Nation, TopSpeed, and Out Magazine. He's also held staff writing positions at The U.S. Sun and the Daily Mail. He graduated from NYU with a Master's in journalism in 2024. Email Ben at [email protected] or message him privately on Signal at bshimkus.41. 

The Long Play

First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) reported third-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

This transcript is brought to you by Benzinga APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ for a consultation.

View the webcast at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/596409292

SummaryFirst Solar achieved approximately $1.2 billion in net sales for Q3 2026, with a gross margin of 58% and adjusted EBITDA of $744 million.

The company is advancing its manufacturing expansion, with Series 7 CURE replication beginning in India in early 2027 and a focus on U.S. manufacturing to benefit from a supportive trade environment.

First Solar’s backlog includes 44 gigawatts under contract, with significant bookings at 35 to 36 cents per watt. The company is shifting toward project-specific contracts for better allocation and delivery optimization.

Plans include strategic initiatives such as advancing perovskite R&D and securing technology licensing agreements to bolster its next-generation technology roadmap.

The company is considering the future of its Malaysia facility, with a decision on operations expected in the first half of 2027, while continuing to evaluate market conditions and trade policies.

Full TranscriptOPERATOR

Good afternoon and welcome to First Solar’s third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. This call is being webcast live on the Investors section of First Solar’s website at investor.firstsolar.com. All participants are in a listen-only mode, and please note that today’s call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Byron Jeffers, Head of Investor Relations.

Byron Jeffers (Head of Investor Relations)

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. With me today are Mark Whitmar, Chief Executive Officer, and Alex Bradley, Chief Financial Officer. Mark will begin with an update on the business, followed by Alex with our financial results and outlook. Before we begin, today’s discussion will include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties can be found in our earnings press release, other SEC filings, and the earnings material available on our Investor Relations website at investor.firstsolar.com. We undertake no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events.

During today’s call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are provided in our earnings press release and accompanying presentation. We encourage investors to review those reconciliations, as non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation or a substitute for financial information prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. With that, I’ll turn it over to Mark.

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you and good afternoon. Getting on slide 4, we continue to execute with discipline this past quarter, advancing our U.S. manufacturing expansion, CURE deployment, and perovskite R&D program while delivering strong financial results. We generated approximately $1.2 billion in net sales, expanded gross margin to approximately 58%, and delivered adjusted EBITDA of $744 million. Operationally, our continued CURE deployment across the fleet is being executed through a disciplined learning pace approach that began with our Perrysburg Series 6 conversion in Q1 of this year. That approach now extends to our first Series 7 conversion at our India facility, expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027, which marks the start of Series 7 CURE replication across the fleet. Beginning in India allows us to first refine the deployment process in a low earnings impact environment before replicating across our U.S. Series 7 fleet during the subsequent U.S. conversions.

Assuming a supportive trade environment, India front-end output is planned to be flexed to supply U.S. facilities, supporting U.S. back-end throughput and preserving partial domestic content and Section 45X eligibility during the transition. Accordingly, India’s finished good production in 2027 is expected to range from 2.2 gigawatts to 2.6 gigawatts. The pace and sequencing of subsequent Series 7 U.S. conversions will be informed by learnings from the India launch, consistent with the disciplined learning pace approach we have taken across all periods of technology transition.

In South Carolina, our Series 6 finishing facility is being brought online in two phases as part of an integrated manufacturing flow from Vietnam. The first phase started production in Q3. The second phase is expected to reach commercial launch in mid-2027. As we previously shared, we delayed the second phase by approximately a quarter so that the CURE could be incorporated at commercial launch. Together, these two phases are expected to result in 2027 South Carolina production of 2.2 to 2.5 gigawatts.

Beyond CURE, we continue to advance our next-generation technology roadmap. Our Ohio pilot line, designed to produce Series 6-size perovskite modules, remains on track to reach operational readiness in the first half of 2027. We expect this line will enable field deployment of modules to further capture learnings and validate the manufacturing performance and durability profile of this next-generation thin film technology before we undertake broader scaling decisions.

Our licensing agreement with Cubic PV announced earlier today, together with our previously announced intellectual property agreement with Oxford PV, continues to support the development roadmap, providing access to foundational perovskite IP as we advance our technology roadmap. Turning to the market environment on slide 5, the Section 232 proclamation issued in August represents a meaningful shift for U.S. solar manufacturing, and we believe First Solar is well positioned to benefit as this shift takes effect. Combined with fundamentals such as continued demand strength from load growth and data center expansions, we see a long-term opportunity to translate this position into earnings growth. Section 232 represents a structural change in how the United States approaches solar manufacturing.

As the U.S. competes for global leadership in artificial intelligence and the emerging low Earth orbit economy, secure and affordable power will be foundational to both. The country cannot afford to depend on adversarial nations for technologies and supply chains increasingly central to our long-term economic prosperity and national security. As a technology company and the only fully integrated utility-scale solar manufacturer without dependency on a Chinese crystalline silicon supply chain, we believe we are structurally positioned to benefit from this environment.

Note, by 2027 nearly 80% of our global module manufacturing footprint will be located in the U.S. Long-term demand fundamentals also remain strong. AI-related infrastructure, electrification, and the onshoring of U.S. manufacturing are driving significant load growth. These customers need large-scale power quickly, and solar plus storage remains one of the fastest and lowest-cost solutions. They are increasingly focused on availability, delivery certainty, bankable warranties, and supply chain security—attributes we have built our business around.

As it relates to bookings, we believe the market is working through a transition following the Section 232 announcement, with significant influence from other key factors. As a reminder, a substantial portion of our existing backlog is comprised of multi-year framework agreements that are intended to supply customers with projects in various stages of development. While entering into these types of agreements has historically driven significant additions to our backlog, they can also be more challenging for us to plan for and allocate against because of the inherent delivery timing uncertainty associated with projects in early stages of development.

Over the course of this year, while not closing the door on framework agreements with appropriate contractual protections, our customer engagements have shifted more towards project-specific contracting with defined projects and delivery schedules. From our perspective, the enhanced certainty surrounding project-specific contracts allows us to optimize module allocation and delivery, with a potential trade-off of slowing the pace of an extended multi-year contracted backlog.

At the same time, customers are focused on advancing mid- and late-stage projects where modules have already been secured, while deferring procurement on early-stage projects requiring delivery later in the decade. We see several factors driving this behavior, including increased NIMBYism among community residents and growing state and local government opposition. In addition, the overall inflationary environment, together with the continuously evolving tariff landscape, have challenged near-term project economics and require greater strategic planning on behalf of our development customers to address system cost increases unrelated to module pricing. As one example, in certain cases surging battery prices is challenging both projects in construction as well as projects at the PPA bid stage.

Lastly, an incomplete regulatory picture with regards to the final ITC guidance, as well as the potential for Section 232 tariffs to continue to evolve, particularly as it relates to minimum import prices and the effectiveness of anti-stocking measures, has generated volatility in the module procurement market and inhibited customer clarity as it relates to module pricing discovery. The impact of these current dynamics on recent bookings is most pronounced from our Malaysia facility. While Vietnam is expected to supply the semi-finished product for our South Carolina finishing facility, Malaysia retains the capacity to produce fully finished international modules. We continue to evaluate demand for this product based on core unit economics, tariffs and trade conditions, and customer contracting terms.

We expect the operating decision regarding our Malaysia facility to be binary, resulting in either operations at full or near full capacity of 1.8 gigawatts annually, or a shutdown of production, with that decision expected in the first half of 2027. Given Malaysia’s relatively small contribution to our manufacturing footprint, limited Series 6 blending opportunity in the U.S. absent Section 45X credits, and freight and tariff burdens, we do not expect either outcome to materially impact our run-rate earnings profile.

Against this backdrop, we remain deliberate on bookings, and we are pleased with the results of this approach. Through today, in the U.S., our largest market, we have booked approximately 4.9 gigawatts at approximately 35 to 36 cents per watt inclusive of adjusters. Moreover, our 44-gigawatt backlog gives us the ability to focus our contracting approaches on two strategic initiatives. First, we seek to improve pricing on new module sales relative to our current backlog ASPs.

Note, pricing will continue to vary by product—Series 6 and Series 7—and by U.S.- versus internationally made. Second, we seek to improve contract structures to further mitigate the risk of cost increases beyond our control, strengthen credit support and payment terms, and firm up product delivery schedules. Our objective is to optimize across both upfront ASPs as well as long-term earnings profile through disciplined pricing, appropriate contractual protections, strong counterparties, and alignment with our manufacturing and delivery strategy.

In summary, our focus on project-specific versus framework agreements, customer focus on near-term project execution versus late-dated procurement, evolving market price discovery, and our contracting discipline have moderated recent bookings on a volume basis but, on an economic basis, has generated improved pricing relative to our overall backlog. In addition, we remain focused on our ability to effect our contracting strategic initiatives and are confident in demand for our domestically produced product, particularly for 2020, 24.9 and beyond when we have available supply.

With that, I turn the call over to Alex to discuss our bookings, financial results, and outlook.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks, Mark. Turning to our bookings and backlog on Slide 6. We ended the quarter with 44 gigawatts under contract, representing approximately $13.5 billion contracted value exclusive of technology adjusters, with scheduled deliveries extending through 2030. Since our last earnings call, we recorded approximately 1.4 gigawatts of additional U.S. gross bookings at an average selling price of approximately $0.36 per watt, inclusive of applicable technology adjusters.

Importantly, substantially all of this volume was contracted or in late-stage negotiations and pricing and terms were largely set ahead of the Section 232 announcement. In addition, there remains approximately 4 gigawatts of variable volume associated with previously signed contracts not currently part of the contracted backlog but pricing reflective of the pre-Section 232 environment which our customers have the ability to exercise as of a date.

Approximately half of this volume has a decision date within the next five months with the other half spread across the remainder of 2027 and 2028. Should our customers elect to receive this volume, it will be recognized as incremental bookings at the time of such election. During the quarter, we also continued customer notifications related to contractual technology adjusters aligned with our production plan and intended deployment sequence. These notifications represent a meaningful source of incremental backlog value as CURE deployment advances across the fleet, with the majority of the adjusted value expected to be realized in 2027 and 2028.

With respect to adjuster-eligible volume, we would note that the ultimate realization of these adjustments is subject to the achievement of the underlying technology milestones, timing of future customer notifications and module delivery schedules, and other contractual conditions, and therefore the final value and timing may differ from the amounts and periods described. Of that potential adjusted value, approximately 20% is currently associated with 2027 deliveries, with the remainder weighted to 2028 and beyond.

As we continue to progress customer notifications associated with existing bookings tied to our CURE deployment sequence, together with new bookings removing the adjuster concept as we sell our CURE product with the technology embedded in the base ASP, the value of the adjusters will roll off over time. So, on to Slide 7. Net sales for the third quarter were approximately $1.2 billion, a decrease of approximately 23% year over year. The decrease was primarily driven by lower module volumes sold to third parties compared to the prior-year period. Gross margin was approximately 58%, up roughly 20 percentage points year over year. The year-over-year increase was driven primarily by a high mix of U.S.-produced margins. Gross margin also benefited from lower sales rate underutilization costs, tariffs and duties, partially offset by lower termination-related revenue.

Operating expenses were approximately $167 million. Research and development expense was approximately $67 million, reflecting continued investment in our technology roadmap including perovskite development. Net income was $571 million, up approximately 25% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $744 million, near the upper end of our previously communicated Q3 preview range, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 60%. Diluted earnings per share were $5.30 compared with $4.24 in the prior-year period.

Turn to our balance sheet and capital allocation on Slide 8. We ended the quarter with approximately $1.5 billion of net cash, remaining within our long-term target net cash range of $1.5 to $2 billion. Our balance sheet and projected cash generation continue to provide substantial financial flexibility. In February we laid out our approach to capital structure and capital allocation. This prioritized maintaining the aforementioned $1.5 to $2 billion of net cash to provide resiliency to cyclicality and industry volatility and to use additional cash to focus on growth, technology deployment, innovation, R&D technology roadmap advancements and M&A, especially related to complementary technology-adjacent opportunities. We further stated that we would evaluate applying cash generation in excess of the above capital priorities to share repurchases pending clarity around certain factors including policy catalysts, new bookings, volume and tax credit monetization.

In line with this approach and following the Section 232 proclamation issued in Q3, our board has authorized a share repurchase program of up to $500 million, effective immediately with no expiration date. This authorization reflects confidence in the long-term value of the business while preserving our disciplined approach to capital allocation and ability to continue investing in technology development and growth. Turning to Slide 9, our full-year 2026 guidance is updated to reflect a lower range of India domestic and international Series 6 and U.S. finishing volume sold, with an associated reduction in revenue and adjusted EBITDA. As we stated in our original guidance in February, we entered the year assuming our India facility would flex production as needed to match acceptably priced India-based demand in an inherently short book-to-bill cycle market. We’ve accordingly reduced our full-year India domestic volume sold forecast by approximately 0.7 gigawatts.

We also stated in February that we entered the year assuming limited in-year demand for our Series 6 international product, and bookings activity for 2026 deliveries has remained consistent with that assumption. While the low end of our total U.S. component volume sold forecast reflects a modest reduction based on reduced Series 6 WIP share products sold, our forecast range for fully domestic product sold remains unchanged. As we look forward to next year, subject to a supportive policy and trade environment, we expect to increase exports from our India facility to the U.S. market to optimize the margin potential from this factory.

As Mark discussed, we expect to make a decision on the long-term operating path for our Malaysia facility in the first half of 2027. Core operating expenses primarily increase as a function of increased legal spend associated with defending our TOPCon intellectual property position, which we believe has the potential to drive future revenue and earnings upside, and increased R&D spend on perovskite development. Note our full-year perovskite-related spend, originally forecast at approximately $100 million, is now expected to total approximately $120 million.

This is forecast to increase in 2027 as we seek to advance this next-generation advanced technology. Core OPEX increases were offset by a delay in certain startup expenses at our South Carolina facility, now expected in mid-2027, leaving our total 2026 operating expense guidance unchanged. Net cash guidance remains unchanged, with reduced cash inflows from volume sold offset by a reduction to forecasted capex. In summary, we remain well positioned as we close out 2026 and look forward to 2027, driven by a U.S. policy framework supporting true domestic manufacturing, continued load growth as the United States competes to lead in AI, and utility-scale solar’s ambition to meet the cost and speed-to-power requirements of a rapidly modernizing U.S. economy. These drivers align well with our 44 gigawatt contracted backlog for mostly nearer-term deliveries and greater module supply availability in the 2028 and beyond timeframe, which we expect to see further improvements in pricing and contractual terms relative to our existing backlog.

We continue to invest in our future, including our staged CURE technology replication across the fleet and increased perovskite spend in R&D, IP partnerships, and our Perrysburg pilot line. Our strong balance sheet allows us continued investment in the business while concurrently enabling capital return to shareholders. With that, operator, please open the line.

OPERATOR

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to one question. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star-1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press Star-1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Moses Sutton with BNP Paribas.

Moses, your line is now open.

Moses Sutton (Analyst at BNP Paribas)

Thanks for taking that question, and thanks for all the color. Maybe you could elaborate on what seems like literally zero urgency for developers to book ’29 volumes. I sort of get the point on there’s NIMBYism, there’s project economics, there’s carrots. But we also hear from developers they expect to really do a lot of safe harbor volume in ’20—you know, panel prices will structurally go up 50%. They don’t have inventory that extends that far out, even if they do for the next two years.

So, sorry for the long question, but would there be a strategy change that’s necessary? Would you cut price to 34–35 cents and book the rest of the decade? It would seem there’s a little more urgency for ’29 than there used to be. Maybe to elaborate a little more, because we do still expect at least tens of gigawatts of TAM each year in ’29 and ’30.

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, look, I think the first thing I think we just need to maybe step back and reflect on is that everyone obviously is evaluating the execution against their development pipeline, and there’s near-term initiatives and areas of focus that they’re concentrating on right now. And disruptions at certain times, as we indicated, even as it relates to whether it’s battery costs or other component costs, or impact of tariffs that are swinging various projects around—people are all trying to work through that.

They’re trying to secure their financing. There’s still interconnection challenges that people are working through. And then probably the biggest issue that people are continuing to struggle with right now is just the challenges that are continuing to happen in local communities, even at the state level in particular from a government standpoint, and trying to push back on deployment of data centers, as we indicated, maybe as a comment that we had in our prepared remarks.

So there’s a lot that they’ve got going on right now. So engagements that we are having right now with customers—and we are starting to book a pipeline of opportunities that are going out into that horizon, and some even beyond ’29, going into ’30 and beyond as well—but everyone’s kind of like, I’ve got all these near-term things I’m focused on at this point in time; I’ve got to work through these, get everything addressed. They’re trying to digest the implications of what happens with the full implementation around 232.

People are still trying to think through, well, the guidance is going to come out sometime either later this year or beginning of next year. And so I think there’s clarity that everybody’s looking for at that point in time. So I think it’s just a matter of the timing of letting some of this work its way through and where their near-term priorities are to then think through the balance of the decade and what they still need to do. I mean everyone’s really concerned now with meeting their 48 safe harbor requirements, which these projects have to be safe harbored by and completed and commissioned by the end of 2028.

And there’s not as much focus going further out into the horizon, and that’s largely what we’re seeing from customers. Just a couple of other comments. So we said on the call that we were seeing this year challenges in near-term book-to-bill on our international volume, and if that ties into what we said before, we don’t want to be in the spot market. That’s a challenging place for us to be. But if you look at our contracted backlog, we’re still booked out a couple of years in advance. So when you talk about urgency around booking 2029, obviously we’d like to see bookings momentum, we’re open for business, but I don’t think we have a desperate urgency to be booking in that horizon right now.

And we also talked on the call in the prepared remarks around how we’re thinking about contracting, and we’re looking increasingly at individual projects versus large frameworks. And we’re happy to take framework deals with the right set of structural protections within them, but we’ve seen more and more customers actually looking at individual project deals and we’ve been looking at that. And generally speaking, that’s going to give you shorter-term visibility relative to 2029.

So if it’s trying to book specific deals, specific projects, the amount of clarity you have for 2029 is a lot less than if you were looking at framework horizons. So there’s that piece to factor in as well. And one thing I should have mentioned too, I think it’s just a really good example to highlight the dynamics that are going on right now. We were in negotiations with a customer for a 2 gigawatt procurement decision that was largely into final negotiations and documentation associated around the agreement. And the particular state that this project was being developed put a moratorium in place and the whole project stopped. Right. And this has happened after the announcement of the 232.

So, you know, customers are just uncertain. And when that level of uncertainty does happen, then they’re not going to be making commitments until they get better clarity.

Moses Sutton (Analyst at BNP Paribas)

Very helpful, thank you.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes in the line of Joseph Osha with Guggenheim. Joseph, your line is now open.

Joseph Osha (Analyst at Guggenheim)

Thanks very much. Following a little bit on Moses’s question, you know, Alex, you mentioned that bookings we’re seeing now reflect conversations that were undertaken prior to 232. Can you maybe give us a little bit of a preview on where conversations are landing for conversations that commenced post 232? Thank you.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, maybe I’ll add a little bit of color around that. Since the announcement of 232, we have revised and increased our pricing. In some cases they were deals that were still in the early stage of negotiations, so we have increased pricing in those negotiations with customers. And if it’s a new opportunity that’s come in our way, that wasn’t even in any form of conversation prior to the 232, then those prices have gone up relative to what we would have been indicating previously.

We still have to work through all those issues, right? And I think anytime you get through here in an environment of rising prices, there’s a lot of price discovery that’s going to get done. You know, everyone’s going to go out and they want to evaluate all of their options and sort of discover where they think the pricing can be for different dynamics and whether they need the domestic content or how much of the domestic content from a point standpoint do they need.

You know, so they’re going to do a lot of heavy lifting to sort of figure out and triangulate what makes the most sense, partly because they also have to, in most cases, go back and get approval through their boards. And when you see a price point in the market that was there previously and now that price point has increased significantly, then everybody has to then sort of do their due diligence around that. So what I would say is the deals that, some of the deals that we have announced in this quarter were priced before the 232. In cases where we were in earlier negotiations with customers after the 232, we have looked to try to increase that, and then clearly any new opportunities that have kind of informed a more comprehensive view of what we think the pricing environment’s like today. But like I said, the price discovery is going to take a while before you’ll start to see that volume being executed.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes in the line of Philip Shen with Roth Capital. Philip, your line is now open.

Philip Shen (Analyst at Roth Capital)

Hey all, thanks for taking the questions. In terms of price, just to continue with the conversation, the price discovery may take some time. It sounds like you have 4 gigawatts of which maybe 2 gigawatts needs to be decided on in the next five months. And so just curious, what are we talking about now in terms of where pricing could go to? In the crystalline silicon world, we’ve quantified it as pricing has gone up 10 to 20 cents a watt, depending on the product and maybe timing, and so that’s a big move.

And I understand the price discovery kind of patience or timing that people need because they have to process kind of this upside shock to their economics. And so I was wondering if you can share with us a little bit of what you could book in the next quarter, and then what kind of price do you think you might get? Thanks.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, Phil, the one thing on price too, I just want to make sure that we’ve highlighted this before. It does vary by, and we have it in our prepared remarks. I mean, the price for us for our Series 6 product is different than our Series 7 product. Our high domestic content product is different than a fully international, you know, imported module. So there’s going to be a distribution of what that pricing could look like. And so if I’m selling something that’s being imported from Malaysia, as an example, that’s going to be at the low end of that continuum.

And if I’m selling our Series 7 product that’s domestically manufactured here in the US, then that’s going to be at the high end. So there’s going to be a continuum around pricing. You know, as it relates to, we just announced again, I think another quarter at 36 cents or something like that since the last call — call to call, I think it was around 36 cents. And, you know, we have deals — that’s an average — we have deals that are above that, and that’s a momentum that we’d like to continue to carry forward. But, you know, I also want to be careful — we’ve got to put a marker out there with so much that still is fluid and still evolving.

I don’t want to give an indication of what that price realization could be. We’re just going to work to try to see how we can engage the market and capture the highest value relative to, you know, competitive alternatives. And if crystalline silicon stays in the range that you reference, then that gives us quite a bit of opportunity to improve pricing dynamics for our technology. But a lot of work still to go to get there.

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

So maybe just two other comments. As it relates to the volume that we already have that may get elected by customers, that’s going to range from somewhere close to the current backlog average to somewhere close to where we’re pricing now. So you’re going to see a variety in that, but it’s going to be between what we see historically and what we’re seeing currently. And then as you think about future pricing, crystalline silicon pricing is still most likely for deals in the next 12 to 24 months. And I don’t think there’s a good marker for that price point when you get out into the late ’28, ’29, ’30 timeframe, which is when we have most available product to sell. So one of the reasons I think customers are still doing price discovery is they don’t necessarily have a good benchmark that far out that’s reliable or trustworthy.

And so we’re still working through our pricing relative to where we think the market is and customers trying to understand our pricing relative to where they think that market point will be.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, and I think the other point maybe I’ll highlight as well, Phil, is that, look, we still have a little bit of time before we get to full implementation on the 232. And what I will say is I’ve been very happy to hear the kind of enforcement focus that Commerce has to address stockpiling. The problem is there’s such an aggressive posture and risk-taking that people are willing to do in order to get a module into the US at some pre-232 MIP. And so we’re hearing a lot of stories of the extent people are going to in order to try to get product into the market, whether it’s at the cell level or whether it’s at the module level, and just aggressively pushing the envelope. And I know Commerce is doing a great job of trying to enforce that and to prevent that from happening and stopping that. But, you know, the onslaught of this stuff is coming from every angle.

And so I think there’s also that piece that people are waiting for — let’s let, you know, maybe there’ll be a lot more product that does make it into the market somehow. And a customer may say, I’m willing to wait and buy some time because maybe I can get an opportunity to get some pre-232 volume that’s been imported into the market at some crazily low price. And that’s informing their decision, or at least creating a willingness to wait. And, you know, we obviously are there to encourage Commerce to do whatever they can to ensure that enforcement of preventing that stockpiling.

But it’s not stopping the activities. You know, people are willing to take a lot of risk and it’s very aggressive, and we’ll have to see how effective Commerce could be. So far, you know, we applaud them for their efforts. There’s no doubt about that.

Philip Shen (Analyst at Roth Capital)

Yeah, so far they’ve blocked, I think we’ve learned about 60 importers blocked up until about two weeks ago, and that’s out of an importer count of, I think, 400. Pre-232 we learned that it was 200, and then post-232 that jumped up to 400. They’ve blocked at least close to 60, so looks like they’re working — the enforcement is pretty aggressive. Any thoughts on that? And then how much higher MIPs could go up and what kind of timing that could be?

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, I think on the enforcement, I mean, I don’t know if some of you may know that we did our ribbon cutting for our new factory in South Carolina and the secretary was there and a number of his key members of his team were there. So it gave us a great opportunity to talk with them and to sort of continue to emphasize the importance of this enforcement, and they’re 100% committed on the enforcement side and to do everything they can to prevent those types of things from happening.

And where we can, we are sharing insights with them and things we think could be helpful from that standpoint. It’s just, to your point, I mean, the risk tolerance that people are willing to take, knowing that there’s going to be that level of enforcement, is not slowing things down very much. I mean, yes, you can get 60 out of the, you know, if the number of importers of record went up from 200 to 400 and it’s great that we caught 60 of them, but that means there’s another 140 that potentially are still getting around the current enforcement levels, right.

So, and then as it relates to the MIPs, and look, I think it’s very clear, and if you haven’t seen Luckman’s remarks at our ribbon cutting, I think you just ought to watch it. There’s a couple of videos that are out there and he’s 100% clear on the strategic intent of what we’re trying to do here, which is to create US manufacturing, US jobs, US supply chain, US technology, and things that can help enable energy independence and national security.

And so they’re going to enforce this and they’re going to put the right requirements in place to ensure the domestic manufacturing can thrive and then put as many incentives as possible to encourage people to manufacture more here in the US, which I think is great.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Brian, your line is now open.

Brian Lee (Analyst at Goldman Sachs)

Hey guys, thanks for taking the questions. I know we’re kind of all dancing around the same topic, so I’ll try my best as well. But, you know, it sounds like you guys are moving from being a contract go-to-market strategy to more of a spot market go-to-market strategy, which, you know, I think most of your peers do and that was the case even for First Solar cycles ago. So, you know, maybe as you said, Mark, the bookings cadence moderates here with all the uncertainties, but the bookings cadence can potentially be more fluid on a quarter-to-quarter basis, I guess.

Is that fair and are you equipped, I guess from a salesforce perspective, to be able to manage through that? And then again, on the pricing entitlement side of things that you keep referring to, developers and all the uncertainties that they’re having to grapple with, I guess what are you tasking your sales force with in terms of this price discovery process post 232? I would imagine they’re not going to go anywhere lower than what you’ve been booking at recently, which is 36 cents. But, you know, is it a range of like 36 to 40, 40 cents plus? What are the puts and takes around what they’re going out to market with?

Thank you.

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah. So I think what we were trying to say, Brian, just as it relates to a lot of the deals that we announced going back three, four years ago, we built our contract backlog. A lot of these were multi-year framework agreements that had indicative delivery schedules associated with them. And then, as we said before, they had certain rights of annual shift rights or quarterly shift rights. Things could move around from that contracted schedule, but it wasn’t tied to a specific project.

And what’s happened when we do that is the volatility of our customers’ development pipeline, for various reasons, it just whipsaws stuff all over the place, right, in terms of, hey, this is what the contract was and now this is what the current requirements are given the state of their development portfolio and projects and what have you. And what we’re trying to do now a little bit—and not that we won’t get back to that; we’ve got a couple of very large deals where they’d be more of that legacy kind of framework agreements, strategic partnerships, and we’ll clearly do those—but near term what we’re seeing more is that everybody’s like, I’ve got a particular project and I want to negotiate this particular project.

And that gives us better clarity and certainty of the project: where it sits in its permitting process, where it sits in its interconnection process, where it is in its financing—if it’s approaching that—or at least we know what the timeline, the profile looks like, and it gives us better clarity of the timing of when the shipments need to occur. So that’s where the near-term focus is on that. But what I would say is that after this price discovery kind of gets better understood, I think we may see some customers moving in that other direction to say I really want to lock in and secure my project pipeline going out into ’29, ’30. And I said we have some customers that are even wanting to start having some conversations that go beyond 2030. So as it relates to the salesforce—as someone alluded to that—first off, from a capacity standpoint, I don’t think it’s an issue with our capabilities of our sales team to handle that pivot to more project-specific versus framework structures.

But as I somewhat alluded to, we have gone and we’ve repriced deals that were in the early negotiation phase, and any deals that have come to us now are obviously reflective of what we believe the current market pricing should be. So I’m not going to give you an indication of what that looks like, but we have recalibrated and I think the market fully understands that. But I also want to continue to go back: there is a continuum of what those prices are going to be in the near term, and I think I’ve even alluded to this in prior calls. What we have right now available to book is more, you know, Malaysia finished good module coming into the U.S. or an India product coming into the U.S. And so that profile, in terms of ASP entitlement, is going to be on the lower end of that continuum.

As I indicated, the lowest price point we would have for a module will be for that international product—fully finished international product—coming into the U.S., and then the highest will be kind of 100% domestically manufactured Series 7. So it can move around. That average is reflected in the numbers that we’ve been giving you, but at any particular quarter, if I’m heavy on maybe international modules coming to the U.S., that would drive that average ASP down and clearly we’ll provide color around that.

But, yeah, pricing is re-establishing itself at a higher point than it has been historically and we’ll continue to see how price discovery works through.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Brian, just one follow-on point to that framework discussion, and one of the challenges that we’ve talked about over the last couple of years now is the period cost that we’ve been incurring around the amount of inventory we have to keep, the storage cost of that inventory, overall sales rate. If you think about when there’s an ability to move volume around, or when customers need to do that because the timing of their projects shift, I have to keep inventory to make sure I can service all the available contracts that I have.

So that generally means my overall inventory position is worse, my working capital position is worse. At the same time then, if that product all does move to the right from a schedule perspective, now I end up having to warehouse materially more volume than I expected. So generally speaking it’s become harder for us to plan around that and we’re seeing a significant financial impact from that. If we move to more of a project-based model where there’s a certainty around an individual project, the timing of that project, and delivery schedule, that allows me to plan on the operational side much more efficiently, reduce working capital, reduce storage costs as well. So it provides that operational financial efficiency that we’re looking for.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of John Wyndham with UBS. John, your line is now open.

John Wyndham (Analyst at UBS)

Hey, perfect. Mark and Alex, I appreciate you taking the questions. We’ll get onto the exciting topic of filing your taxes. So in the presentation you note there’s 1.9 billion of government grant receivables. My understanding is that’s payable two to three months after you file your annual returns. Can you just give us an indication of how your planning is for that cash actually going to your balance sheet and then into your bank account, and then any comments around the liquidity in the second-hand market if you were to decide to try to monetize those early.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks again. Yeah, so you’re right. On the balance sheet there’s about 1.9 billion. About 100 of that’s related to India. So you’ve got about 1.8 in the U.S., and then part of that 1.8 relates to credits that were generated last year. And we’ve yet to file. Yet. We have just filed our tax return, but yet to receive refundability for those. But if you look at this year’s credit generation, the forecast is about 2.1 billion of credit to be generated this year. If you look at the 2024 credits, we sold most of those. We did keep a portion of them and filed our 2025 tax return in October of 2025, and we received a refund for what was about 120 million in about three months’ time. And importantly, even within that three months, the government was actually shut down for about a month of that.

So the turnaround time from filing to receiving the cash relatively short. As it relates to this year, we haven’t made a decision yet. We’ve not made any assumption around a reduction in the carrying value of those credits if we were to sell them. We’ve seen that the market through the first half of this year I think was a little softer for credit sale values. That’s picked up pretty significantly towards the back end of the year as large corporates just have better position and understanding of their tax position coming into year-end and looking for tax planning strategies.

So we’re seeing a lot more outreach and interest around those credits. We’re in some discussions around potential sales there, but we’ll look to balance how much we would like to sell to pull some liquidity forward versus how much we’re comfortable filing for refundability for, because then you’re not taking a discount on that sale. So it’s a balancing act and we’re in discussions around those at the moment.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. David, your line is now open.

David Arcaro (Analyst at Morgan Stanley)

Well, hey, thanks so much for taking my questions. I was wondering, with the shift toward individual project booking, typically, you know, what’s the time frame for how far in advance you would end up getting that order into your backlog, relative to, I guess, the timing of the project? And I think you had suggested that the decision on Malaysia could be made in the first half of 2027. Are you thinking that we’ll get enough kind of visibility by that time that you’ll be able to make that call on what to do with that capacity?

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, I’ll take the first one. I’ll let Alex take the Malaysia comment. So, yeah, basically what happens if you’re bidding specific to a project, modules are usually at the forefront of your procurement-led decision. You want to secure that technology because it also drives your design of the factory — or the design of the project, excuse me. So, you know, crystalline silicon and cad-tel will design your factory and your plant, excuse me, differently.

There’s different string count, different voltage, and other parameters you would want to optimize for. Generally we don’t have the same constraints as it relates to the tracking/backtracking requirements because we don’t deal with the same adverse impact of shade or diffuse light and those types of things. So there’s a lot that has to be done early on, and you’re going to want to source that module and lock that up so you can be unencumbered to figure out how you want to design and optimize at the project level.

So it could be, you know, 18 months, two years before the first delivery would start to happen, or at least for sure until the project would be commissioned. So it shortens your timeline a little bit from a visibility standpoint, but it doesn’t really significantly shorten it. But it gives you better certainty, there’s no doubt about that. You know, people would be willing to go out into 2030 in a framework kind of construct, and projects normally would be commitments that would go out into, you know, ’28 or into early ’29 is probably about as far out as they would want to go, but still more than enough visibility to properly understand the project and price it appropriately.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

And David, as it relates to Malaysia, yeah, I do believe we’ll have enough visibility going into the first half next year. We’ve effectively been carrying that asset running at very low throughput for the whole of this year. And we’ve done that deliberately. We could talk — the underutilization costs associated with that was worth the option value of having the ability to run what would be up to about 1.8 gigawatts of international volume. As we look through the 232 announcement, as Mark said, the customer base is still in a transition, fully understanding what that looks like and trying to work through what their need is going to be.

We want to make sure we have the optionality in Malaysia in the event that that significant demand does materialize. We’ve also said that we have an order of how we want to make sure our factories sell. So first we look to make sure our U.S. content is sold. Secondly, we look to make sure we’re selling our finishing line production out of our new facility in South Carolina, and then after that the full international product. We’re also going to be bringing more volume from India over into the U.S. next year, subject to a trade and tariff environment that makes sense.

So I think we’ll have the understanding of the marketplace that we’ll need by the first half of next year, and we’re still looking at that as an option value and seeing how the effect of the 232 plays out.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Vikram Bagri with Citi. Vikram, your line is now open.

Vikram Bagri (Analyst at Citi)

Good evening, everyone. Apologize for another question on pricing, but this is important. On this call itself, we’ve heard pricing either go down by a couple of cents or go up by 20 cents. Mark, fully appreciate the lack of clarity about the environment. But for Series 7, is there a construct you can provide for pricing that we should keep in mind? So if pricing for silicon-based panels moves higher, we should assume a certain discount to that which some people will characterize as quality discount.

And I imagine pricing also depends on several other factors — project and contractors. But all else being equal, is there a construct where, if pricing for silicon-based panels moves higher than $0.40 or $0.45, we should assume a certain fixed discount for U.S. Series 7? And then related to that, Mark, you talked about a number of items limiting ability of developers to make long-term plans. Is competition in panel manufacturing also one of the factors which is sort of prohibiting them from committing to the supply of panels? Do you think the lack of urgency to book 2029 is also a function of new capacity coming online potentially in the U.S. from other suppliers of panels? Or how do you see the competition evolve over the next couple of years in the sector?

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you. Yeah, so I’ll talk on. So if you take Series 7 as an example — and just one thing to make clear, you made a comment about a quality discount. I don’t know if you’re familiar with how energy predictions are done for crystalline silicon technology. They actually have a quality factor that they use which basically reduces the energy profile of the technology as part of the energy prediction, which does not apply at all to First Solar technology.

So we don’t have any quality factors that are assumed in the energy predictions that are underwritten by, supported by, the IES and the banks. So I’m not sure what your point is around that. But crystalline silicon clearly does — they have a meaningful quality factor that is being used when they do the energy prediction for that technology. What I would say, if you take a Series 7 CuRe product and you compare it from an energy profile — because, again, energy is what our customers pay for and what the value of that product would be — relative to a PERC technology, it would be advantaged to PERC, so there’d be no discount to PERC. It would also vary with where it is, because obviously our technology does not have — cure will have better bifaciality than our CuRe product; our bifaciality is lower than crystalline silicon.

So if you were to go further Northeast where you get a better impact of bifaciality, then you’ll see a different outcome. If you go to the desert Southwest or to the Southeast and more hot and humid climates, you’re going to see a better outcome for our technology. And then if you compare us to TOPCon — which, again, the vast majority of anyone producing or selling any TOPCon product in the U.S. is an infringing IP, which we will stand by and completely enforce — then you’ll have a slightly different outcome.

We would actually be, on average, slightly disadvantaged to TOPCon by a few pennies. So it depends. I mean, you’ve got different situations, different geographies, different terrains — a lot of different things factor into that and determine the relative competitiveness of the technology. But I would say, general rule of thumb: Series 7 CuRe is going to be advantaged against PERC and disadvantaged by pennies relative to TOPCon. As it relates to the competition and how that all plays out, you have to think through how much are you willing — first off, is the competition and the manufacturing that’s coming into the U.S. truly FEOC-free, truly unencumbered by any dependency from the Chinese, whether it’s the supply chain, whether it’s the tools and the manufacturing equipment, whether it’s the IP? A lot of our customers do their own subjective analysis and have concluded that there’s a substantial risk, still, that these entities are not FEOC-free and they don’t want to take on that risk.

That puts us in a much better position, there’s no doubt about that. And that’s also why I think you’re going to find customers leaning into developing partnerships with First Solar that go longer-dated. I believe I remember reading one of the filings recently for one of the U.S. manufacturers, and I believe almost 100% of the sales that they’re generating this year is to a related party, and I understand that related party to be a Chinese counterparty.

So, I mean, it tells you — just looking at that as an example — that, you know, in certain situations customers are not willing to take on that risk. And we still don’t have full clarity around FEOC yet, and I think that’s why people are being a little gun-shy.

OPERATOR

Our final question comes from the line of Dimple Gosai with Piper Sandler. Dimple, your line is now open.

Dimple Gosai (Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. My question is regarding just December 4th in terms of outcomes and what you’re hearing. I mean, there’s been a lot of news recently. T1 recently filed for a waiver around cell imports. We’re hearing a lot about lobbying for exclusions, and we also know utilities are pretty price sensitive here. So, are we, in your view — is there risk to the upside or downside, just in terms of the outcome there? And then separately, just kind of talking about some of the news that we’re hearing about, there’s also news on the Swift Current lawsuit that’s been in the news. Is there anything you can speak about here? Is there any merit to that? Is there a size associated with it, and any merit, really? Thank you.

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

As it relates to the exclusions. Look, I do believe because, again, the program’s intent and motivation is to try to ensure manufacturing here, reshoring of manufacturing, true manufacturing, truly unencumbered by Chinese or adversarial countries’ dependencies. Each one of those will be determined on a circumstances basis and worked through with Commerce to say, is there true substance to this? And then, in general, the focus with Commerce is to limit the period of time which that exclusion would be provided.

I don’t stay on top of it. I don’t know. My team may have better insights than I do in terms of, have any exclusions been granted at this point in time? It’s not clear to me that there have been any granted exclusions. I know there’s been some representation of statements that have been made, but I don’t believe there’s any actual exclusions that have been communicated publicly at this point in time. But that’s something that we’re going to have to stay close to and understand.

I’m perfectly fine, though, competing. You know, we’ve always said, you know, U.S. manufacturing on a level playing field. First Solar is more than happy to compete on our own merits and our technology and the competitiveness of our manufacturing process and our supply chain. So if some of that does happen, then it’ll evolve and that’ll create the domestic industry that I do believe still is a strategic thread that’s important for us as a country, assuming we do it right, assuming it truly is U.S. technology, U.S. manufacturing, U.S. supply chains creating U.S. jobs and supporting American families.

There’s no doubt about that. That’s absolutely critical from that standpoint. As it relates to the lawsuit, I really can’t comment much of anything around that. We actually will be filing our response here shortly per the required timeline, and I think there’ll be better clarity around the issues and the allegations that have been raised during that, as part of that lawsuit. What I will say is that we have always, and even with engagement with Swift, we’ve always said we will stand by and we will support, under the parameters of our limited liability warranty, the obligations that we have.

Again, that largely is reflective of and relates to the Series 7 initial product launch, that we had indicated that there were a couple of issues that came out as part of that launch that resulted in an initial stabilization of that technology to be below expectations. And then, underneath that program we put in place, we said we would remedy those issues with customers, and we engaged even with Swift to have that conversation. I think where the challenge comes in is where people are asking for remedies that are outside the parameters of the warranty, and that’s just, you know, that’s not something that we will do, but we will be more than, you know, we’ll stand behind the technology. And we had that conversation with Swift in this case, and they chose to try to pursue a different approach where they think they could be successful. And again, you should see our response in our filing coming out here in the next several weeks.

OPERATOR

We have reached the end of the Q and A session. This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

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The biopharmaceutical company said it now expects full-year product sales of $31 billion to $31.3 billion, up from $30.1 billion to $30.4 billion.

Gilead Sciences (GILD - Free Report) came out with quarterly earnings of $2.55 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.17 per share. This compares to earnings of $2.47 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +17.51%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this HIV and hepatitis C drugmaker would post a loss of $7.07 per share when it actually produced a loss of $6.75, delivering a surprise of +4.53%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times.

Gilead, which belongs to the Zacks Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry, posted revenues of $8.3 billion for the quarter ended September 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 6.21%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $7.77 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

Gilead shares have added about 29.7% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 13.1%.

What's Next for Gilead?While Gilead has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Gilead was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $2.05 on $8.23 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and -$0.48 on $30.76 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Medical - Biomedical and Genetics is currently in the top 40% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (TARS - Free Report) , another stock in the same industry, has yet to report results for the quarter ended September 2026.

This company is expected to post quarterly loss of $1.43 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -376.7%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days.

Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s revenues are expected to be $188.8 million, up 59.1% from the year-ago quarter.

DaVita HealthCare (DVA - Free Report) came out with quarterly earnings of $3.82 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.78 per share. This compares to earnings of $2.51 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +1.06%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this kidney dialysis provider would post earnings of $4.01 per share when it actually produced earnings of $4.02, delivering a surprise of +0.25%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times.

DaVita HealthCare, which belongs to the Zacks Medical - Outpatient and Home Healthcare industry, posted revenues of $3.58 billion for the quarter ended September 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.34%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $3.42 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

DaVita HealthCare shares have added about 61.9% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 13.1%.

What's Next for DaVita HealthCare?While DaVita HealthCare has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for DaVita HealthCare was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $4.72 on $3.69 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $14.57 on $14.28 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Medical - Outpatient and Home Healthcare is currently in the bottom 38% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

One other stock from the same industry, Option Care (OPCH - Free Report) , is yet to report results for the quarter ended September 2026. The results are expected to be released on November 4.

This infusion and home care services company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.48 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +6.7%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days.

Option Care's revenues are expected to be $1.47 billion, up 2.4% from the year-ago quarter.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE: PINS) today announced financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2026.

Revenue was $1,174 million, growing 12% year over year on a reported and constant currency basis. Global Monthly Active Users ("MAUs") increased 10% year over year to 661 million. GAAP net income was $22 million and Adjusted EBITDA was $339 million. Net cash provided by operating activities was $316 million and free cash flow was $300 million. "Pinterest reached an all-time high of 661 million monthly active users in Q3, with revenue growing 12% year over year,” said Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest. “Our differentiated AI-driven visual search and shopping experiences are making Pinterest increasingly valuable for users and advertisers alike. We are focused on sharpening our execution, scaling our performance advertising solutions, and building an ecosystem that captures high-intent discovery and converts it into durable, long-term growth."

Q3 2026 Financial Highlights

The following table summarizes our consolidated financial results (in thousands, except percentages, unaudited):

Three Months Ended
September 30,

% Change

2026

2025

Revenue

$

1,173,929

$

1,049,205

12

%

Constant currency % growth(1)(2)

12

%

Net income

$

21,515

$

92,108

(77

)%

Net income margin

2

%

9

%

Non-GAAP net income(2)

$

270,285

$

262,925

3

%

Adjusted EBITDA(2)

$

339,207

$

306,051

11

%

Adjusted EBITDA margin(2)

29

%

29

%

Net cash provided by operating activities

$

315,733

$

321,652

(2

)%

Free cash flow(2)

$

300,268

$

318,421

(6

)%

Q3 2026 Other Highlights

The following table sets forth our revenue, MAUs and average revenue per user (ARPU) based on the geographic location of our users (in millions, except ARPU and percentages, unaudited):

Three Months Ended
September 30,

% Change

2026

2025

Revenue - Global

$

1,174

$

1,049

12

%

Revenue - U.S. and Canada

$

894

$

786

14

%

Revenue - Europe

$

193

$

193

—

%

Revenue - Rest of World

$

87

$

70

24

%

MAUs - Global

661

600

10

%

MAUs - U.S. and Canada

107

103

4

%

MAUs - Europe

161

150

7

%

MAUs - Rest of World

394

347

13

%

ARPU - Global

$

1.80

$

1.78

1

%

ARPU - U.S. and Canada

$

8.38

$

7.64

10

%

ARPU - Europe

$

1.21

$

1.31

(7

)%

ARPU - Rest of World

$

0.23

$

0.21

9

%

Guidance

For Q4 2026, we expect revenue to be in the range of $1,425 million to $1,475 million, representing 8% - 12% growth year over year, which assumes a modest headwind from foreign exchange based on current spot rates. We expect Q4 2026 Adjusted EBITDA* to be in the range of $538 million to $588 million.

We intend to provide further details on our outlook during the conference call.

Webcast and conference call information

A live audio webcast of our third quarter 2026 earnings release call will be available at investor.pinterestinc.com. The call begins today at 2:30 PM (PT) / 5:30 PM (ET). This press release, including the reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures to their nearest comparable GAAP measures and slide presentation are also available. A recording of the webcast will be available at investor.pinterestinc.com for 90 days.

We have used, and intend to continue to use, our investor relations website at investor.pinterestinc.com as a means of disclosing material nonpublic information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.

Forward-looking statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, about us and our industry that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts and are often characterized by the use of words such as "believes," "estimates," "expect," "may," "will," "can," "could," "would", "might," "continue," "intends," "plans," "forecasts," "strategy," "projections," "goals," "trends," "projects," "targets," "anticipates," "potential," "looking ahead," "long-term" or and similar expressions, or by discussions of strategy, plans or intentions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors that could cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to differ materially from historical results or any future results, performance or achievements expressed, suggested or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, statements about: general economic uncertainty in global markets and a worsening of global economic conditions or low levels of economic growth, including inflation, tariffs and related retaliatory actions and other trade protection measures, stress in the banking industry, foreign exchange fluctuations and supply-chain issues; the effect of general economic and political conditions; our financial performance, including revenue, cost and expenses and cash flows; our ability to attract, retain and recover users and maintain and grow their level of engagement; our ability to provide content that is useful and relevant to users' personal taste and interests; our ability to develop successful new products or improve existing ones; our ability to maintain and enhance our brand and reputation; potential harm caused by compromises in security, including our cybersecurity protections and resources and costs required to prevent, detect and remediate potential security breaches; potential harm caused by changes in online application stores or internet search engines' methodologies, particularly search engine optimization methodologies and policies; discontinuation, disruptions or outages in third-party single sign-on access; our ability to compete effectively in our industry; our ability to scale our business, including our monetization efforts; our ability to attract, retain, and manage advertisers, advertising agencies, and vertical concentration risk, and scale our revenue model; our ability to attract and retain creators and publishers that create relevant and engaging content; our ability to develop effective products and tools for advertisers, including measurement tools; our ability to expand and monetize our platform internationally; our ability to effectively manage the growth of our business; our ability to continue to use and develop artificial intelligence ("AI") as well as managing the challenges and risks posed by AI; our ability to successfully manage our flexible work model with a more distributed workforce; our ability to sustain profitability; decisions that reduce short-term revenue or profitability or do not produce the long-term benefits we expect; fluctuations in our operating results; our ability to raise additional capital on favorable terms or at all; our ability to realize anticipated benefits from mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic partnerships and other investments; our ability to protect our intellectual property; our ability to receive, process, store, use and share data, and compliance with laws and regulations related to data privacy and content; current or potential litigation and regulatory actions involving us; our ability to comply with modified or new laws and regulations applying to our business, and potential harm to our business as a result of those laws and regulations; real or perceived inaccuracies in metrics related to our business; disruption of, degradation in or interference with our use of Amazon Web Services and our infrastructure; our ability to achieve the expected benefits of our restructuring plan; and our ability to attract and retain personnel. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are more fully detailed in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2026, which is available on our investor relations website at investor.pinterestinc.com and on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. All information provided in this release and in the earnings materials is as of October 29, 2026. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements in this press release, which are based on information available to us on the date hereof. We undertake no duty to update this information unless required by law.

About non-GAAP financial measures

To supplement our condensed consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States ("GAAP"), we use the following non-GAAP financial measures: Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA margin, non-GAAP costs and expenses (including non-GAAP cost of revenue, research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative), non-GAAP income (loss) from operations, non-GAAP net income (loss), non-GAAP net income (loss) per share, constant currency revenue, non-GAAP operating expenses and free cash flow. The presentation of these financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation, as a substitute for or superior to the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. Investors are cautioned that there are material limitations associated with the use of non-GAAP financial measures as an analytical tool. In addition, these measures may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies, limiting their usefulness for comparative purposes. We compensate for these limitations by providing specific information regarding GAAP amounts excluded from these non-GAAP financial measures.

We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) adjusted to exclude depreciation and amortization expense, share-based compensation expense, payroll tax expense related to share-based compensation, interest income (expense), net, other income (expense), net, provision for (benefit from) income taxes and certain other non-recurring or non-cash items impacting net income (loss) that we do not consider indicative of our ongoing business performance. Adjusted EBITDA margin is calculated by dividing Adjusted EBITDA by revenue. Non-GAAP costs and expenses (including non-GAAP cost of revenue, research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative) and non-GAAP net income (loss) exclude amortization of acquired intangible assets, share-based compensation expense, payroll tax expense related to share-based compensation and restructuring charges. In addition to these exclusions, we also subtract an assumed provision for income taxes to calculate non-GAAP net income. We calculate the non-GAAP income tax provision using a fixed long-term projected tax rate in order to provide better consistency across reporting periods. The fixed long-term projected tax rate uses a financial projection that excludes the direct impact of our non-GAAP adjustments and eliminates the effects of items that can vary in size and frequency. For 2025 and 2026, we used a long-term projected tax rate of 20%, which reflects currently available information, as well as other factors and assumptions. The non-GAAP tax rate could be subject to change for a variety of reasons, including significant changes in the geographic earnings mix or changes in tax laws and regulations. We re-evaluate this long-term rate on an annual basis or if any significant events that may materially affect this long-term rate occur. Non-GAAP income (loss) from operations is calculated by subtracting non-GAAP costs and expenses from revenue. Non-GAAP net income (loss) per share is calculated by dividing non-GAAP net income (loss) by diluted weighted-average shares outstanding. We calculate constant currency revenue by translating our current period revenue using the corresponding prior period’s monthly exchange rates for currencies other than the U.S. dollar. We define free cash flow as net cash provided by operating activities less purchases of property and equipment. Free cash flow is not intended to represent our residual cash flow available for discretionary expenditures. We use these non-GAAP financial measures to evaluate our operating results and for financial and operational decision-making purposes. We believe these measures help identify underlying trends in our business that could otherwise be masked by the effect of the income and expenses they exclude. We also believe these measures provide useful information about our operating results, enhance the overall understanding of our past performance and future prospects and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics we use for financial and operational decision-making. We present these non-GAAP measures to assist potential investors in seeing our operating results through the eyes of management and because we believe these measures provide an additional tool for investors to use in comparing our operating results over multiple periods with other companies in our industry. There are a number of limitations related to the use of non-GAAP financial measures rather than the nearest GAAP equivalents. For example, Adjusted EBITDA excludes: (i) certain recurring, non-cash charges such as depreciation of fixed assets and amortization of acquired intangible assets, although these assets may have to be replaced in the future, and (ii) share-based compensation expense and payroll tax expense related to share-based compensation, which have been, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, significant recurring expenses and an important part of our compensation strategy. In addition, constant currency revenue excludes the effect of changes in foreign currency exchange rates, which have an actual effect on our operating results, and free cash flow does not reflect our future contractual commitments arising from purchases of property and equipment.

For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, please see the tables under "―Reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results" included at the end of this release.

Limitation of key metrics and other data

The numbers for our key metrics, which include our MAUs and ARPU, are calculated using internal company data based on the activity of user accounts. We define an MAU as an authenticated Pinterest user who visits our website, opens our mobile application or interacts with Pinterest through one of our browser or site extensions, such as the Save button, at least once during the 30-day period ending on the date of measurement. The number of MAUs does not include Shuffles users unless they would otherwise qualify as MAUs. Unless otherwise indicated, we present MAUs based on the number of MAUs measured on the last day of the current period. We measure monetization of our platform through our ARPU metric. We define ARPU as our total revenue in a given geography during a period divided by the average of the number of MAUs in that geography during the period. We calculate average MAUs based on the average of the number of MAUs measured on the last day of the current period and the last day prior to the beginning of the current period. We calculate ARPU by geography based on our estimate of the geography in which revenue-generating activities occur. We use these metrics to assess the growth and health of the overall business and believe that MAUs and ARPU best reflect our ability to attract, retain, engage and monetize our users, and thereby drive revenue. While these numbers are based on what we believe to be reasonable estimates of our user base for the applicable period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring usage of our products across large online and mobile populations around the world. In addition, we are continually seeking to improve our estimates of our user base, and such estimates may change due to improvements or changes in technology or our methodology.

PINTEREST, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(In thousands, except par value)

(Unaudited)

  September 30,

December 31,

2026

2025

ASSETS

Current assets:

Cash and cash equivalents

$

654,344

$

969,342

Marketable securities

815,677

1,497,811

Accounts receivable, net

916,757

997,849

Prepaid expenses and other current assets

145,360

90,735

Total current assets

2,532,138

3,555,737

Property and equipment, net

97,134

66,451

Operating lease right-of-use assets

142,351

150,399

Intangible assets, net

80,533

6,083

Goodwill

475,290

100,227

Deferred tax assets

1,603,484

1,592,153

Other assets

19,938

21,082

Total assets

$

4,950,868

$

5,492,132

LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY

Current liabilities:

Accounts payable

$

153,793

$

129,810

Accrued expenses and other current liabilities

437,677

335,663

Total current liabilities

591,470

465,473

Convertible notes, net (1)

982,091

—

Operating lease liabilities

214,242

220,581

Other liabilities

58,742

60,840

Total liabilities

1,846,545

746,894

Commitments and contingencies

Stockholders’ equity:

Class A common stock, $0.00001 par value, 6,666,667 shares authorized, 499,381 and 584,866 shares issued and outstanding as of September 30, 2026 and December 31, 2025, respectively; Class B common stock, $0.00001 par value, 1,333,333 shares authorized, 73,263 and 79,680 shares issued and outstanding as of September 30, 2026 and December 31, 2025, respectively

6

7

Additional paid-in capital

3,077,648

4,612,205

Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss)

(3,283

)

4,333

Retained earnings

29,952

128,693

Total stockholders’ equity

3,104,323

4,745,238

Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity

$

4,950,868

$

5,492,132

PINTEREST, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

(In thousands, except per share amounts)

(Unaudited)

  Three Months Ended
September 30,

Nine Months Ended
September 30,

2026

2025

2026

2025

Revenue

$

1,173,929

$

1,049,205

$

3,361,097

$

2,902,420

Costs and expenses:

Cost of revenue

261,585

212,325

757,491

614,604

Research and development

428,079

371,253

1,259,878

1,062,542

Sales and marketing

336,997

296,679

1,029,121

863,674

General and administrative

112,823

110,432

354,220

342,891

Restructuring

4,107

—

65,539

—

Total costs and expenses

1,143,591

990,689

3,466,249

2,883,711

Income (loss) from operations

30,338

58,516

(105,152

)

18,709

Interest income (expense), net

6,022

28,536

31,142

83,851

Other income (expense), net

(1,232

)

144

(3,521

)

15,623

Income (loss) before provision for (benefit from) income taxes

35,128

87,196

(77,531

)

118,183

Provision for (benefit from) income taxes

13,613

(4,912

)

21,210

(21,602

)

Net income (loss)

$

21,515

$

92,108

$

(98,741

)

$

139,785

Net income (loss) per share:

Basic

$

0.04

$

0.14

$

(0.17

)

$

0.21

Diluted

$

0.04

$

0.13

$

(0.17

)

$

0.20

Weighted-average shares used in computing net income (loss) per share:

Basic

567,154

677,819

588,708

677,069

Diluted

582,652

694,532

588,708

691,247

PINTEREST, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

(In thousands)

(Unaudited)

  Three Months Ended
September 30,

Nine Months Ended

September 30,

2026

2025

2026

2025

Operating activities

Net income (loss)

$

21,515

$

92,108

$

(98,741

)

$

139,785

Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash provided by operating activities:

Depreciation and amortization

7,952

7,205

28,563

19,143

Share-based compensation

291,694

235,136

847,657

649,796

Deferred income taxes

11,661

(8,279

)

10,293

(36,278

)

Non-cash charitable contributions

—

—

12,198

13,495

Net amortization of investment premium and discount

(2,533

)

(4,123

)

(7,961

)

(13,636

)

Other

5,615

(6,447

)

5,045

10,445

Changes in assets and liabilities:

Accounts receivable

15,119

(40,724

)

110,123

94,573

Prepaid expenses and other assets

(26,734

)

17,883

(54,480

)

(4,970

)

Operating lease right-of-use assets

7,958

7,575

27,688

21,820

Accounts payable

10,556

(1,141

)

2,123

7,611

Accrued expenses and other liabilities

(18,136

)

31,793

84,281

17,508

Operating lease liabilities

(8,934

)

(9,334

)

(30,148

)

(26,241

)

Net cash provided by operating activities

315,733

321,652

936,641

893,051

Investing activities

Purchases of property and equipment

(15,465

)

(3,231

)

(54,758

)

(21,530

)

Purchases of marketable securities

(252,713

)

(356,135

)

(691,521

)

(1,234,446

)

Sales of marketable securities

1,744

9,758

438,355

22,648

Maturities of marketable securities

285,925

255,521

933,139

1,065,121

Acquisition of business, net of cash acquired, and intangible assets

(2,250

)

—

(449,204

)

—

Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities

17,241

(94,087

)

176,011

(168,207

)

Financing activities

Proceeds from exercise of stock options, net

—

—

—

8,053

Repurchases of Class A common stock

—

(197,387

)

(2,024,886

)

(425,013

)

Shares repurchased for tax withholdings on release of restricted stock units and restricted stock awards

(100,681

)

(114,792

)

(281,213

)

(314,260

)

Proceeds from issuance of convertible notes, net of issuance costs (1)

—

—

979,894

—

Purchase of capped calls related to convertible notes

—

—

(99,187

)

—

Other financing activities

(375

)

—

(2,265

)

—

Net cash used in financing activities

(101,056

)

(312,179

)

(1,427,657

)

(731,220

)

Effect of exchange rate changes on cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash

(52

)

77

(2

)

2,355

Net increase (decrease) in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash

231,866

(84,537

)

(315,007

)

(4,021

)

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, beginning of period

428,489

1,221,737

975,362

1,141,221

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, end of period

$

660,355

$

1,137,200

$

660,355

$

1,137,200

PINTEREST, INC.

RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP FINANCIAL RESULTS

(In thousands)

(Unaudited)

  Three Months Ended
September 30,

2026

2025

Share-based compensation by function: (1)

Cost of revenue

$

7,574

$

5,173

Research and development

191,114

152,907

Sales and marketing

48,925

40,324

General and administrative

40,636

36,732

Total share-based compensation

$

288,249

$

235,136

Payroll tax expense related to share-based compensation by function:

Cost of revenue

$

137

$

96

Research and development

3,235

3,073

Sales and marketing

1,485

1,306

General and administrative

761

719

Total payroll tax expense related to share-based compensation

$

5,618

$

5,194

Amortization of acquired intangible assets by function:

Cost of revenue

$

3,680

$

798

Sales and marketing

916

135

General and administrative

158

197

Total amortization of acquired intangible assets

$

4,754

$

1,130

Reconciliation of total costs and expenses to non-GAAP costs and expenses:

Total costs and expenses

$

1,143,591

$

990,689

Share-based compensation (1)

(288,249

)

(235,136

)

Payroll tax expense related to share-based compensation

(5,618

)

(5,194

)

Amortization of acquired intangible assets

(4,754

)

(1,130

)

Restructuring charges

(4,107

)

—

Total non-GAAP costs and expenses

$

840,863

$

749,229

PINTEREST, INC.

RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP FINANCIAL RESULTS

(In thousands, except per share amounts)

(Unaudited)

  Three Months Ended
September 30,

2026

2025

Reconciliation of net income to Adjusted EBITDA:

Net income

$

21,515

$

92,108

Depreciation and amortization

10,895

7,205

Share-based compensation (1)

288,249

235,136

Payroll tax expense related to share-based compensation

5,618

5,194

Interest (income) expense, net

(6,022

)

(28,536

)

Other (income) expense, net

1,232

(144

)

Provision for (benefit from) income taxes

13,613

(4,912

)

Restructuring charges (2)

4,107

—

Adjusted EBITDA

$

339,207

$

306,051

Reconciliation of net income to non-GAAP net income:

Net income

$

21,515

$

92,108

Share-based compensation (1)

288,249

235,136

Payroll tax expense related to share-based compensation

5,618

5,194

Amortization of acquired intangible assets

4,754

1,130

Restructuring charges (2)

4,107

—

Income tax effects and tax adjustments (3)

(53,958

)

(70,643

)

Non-GAAP net income

$

270,285

$

262,925

Basic weighted-average shares used in computing net income (loss) per share

567,154

677,819

Weighted-average dilutive securities (4)

15,498

16,713

Diluted weighted-average shares used in computing non-GAAP net income per share

582,652

694,532

Non-GAAP net income per share

$

0.46

$

0.38

Reconciliation of free cash flow:

Net cash provided by operating activities

$

315,733

$

321,652

Less:

Purchases of property and equipment

(15,465

)

(3,231

)

Free cash flow

$

300,268

$

318,421

________________________________ (1) Excludes share-based compensation expense of $3.4 million for the three months ended September 30, 2026, which is included in restructuring charges.

(2) We have excluded restructuring charges associated with our Restructuring Plan from Adjusted EBITDA because they are non-recurring and not reflective of our ongoing business operations or the underlying trends in our business.

(3) Includes the income tax effect of our non-GAAP adjustments using a long-term projected tax rate of 20% and other tax adjustments.

(4) Gives effect to potential common stock instruments such as stock options, unvested restricted stock units and unvested restricted stock awards.

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