Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Key Takeaways Etsy's active buyers rose 0.1% sequentially to 86.6M, the first increase in two years.Gross buyer additions climbed 4.8% to 11.9M, led by new and reactivated buyers.App GMS rose 11.2% and made up about 47% of total GMS as users engaged more deeply. Etsy, Inc.’s (ETSY - Free Report) latest buyer metrics suggest a recovery is beginning, though the evidence remains early rather than decisive. First-quarter 2026 operating metrics paint a mixed but healthier picture of buyer engagement. For the first time in two years, active buyers grew 0.1% sequentially to 86.6 million. This marks a directional shift, even though active buyers remain down 2.1% year over year.

The more encouraging part of the story was buyer additions. Gross buyer additions rose 4.8% year over year to 11.9 million, driven by 5 million new buyers and 6.9 million reactivated buyers. New buyers increased 2.3%, while reactivated buyers rose 6.6%, suggesting Etsy is gaining traction both in attracting fresh shoppers and bringing back lapsed users.

Spending behavior also improved. Gross merchandise sales (GMS) per active buyer reached $122, up 1.5% year over year and 1.1% sequentially, marking the first year-over-year increase since late 2022 and the fourth straight quarter of sequential improvement. Still, purchase frequency remained modestly lower than the prior year. Repeat buyers and habitual buyers fell 3.2% and 5.7% year over year, respectively, though management noted moderation in sequential declines.

Etsy’s app momentum adds another positive signal. App GMS rose 11.2% year over year and represented about 47% of total GMS. With app users visiting more often, engaging more deeply and converting at higher rates, Etsy’s buyer turnaround appears to be gaining early momentum.

The company is using personalized search, home feed recommendations, AI-generated buyer profiles, targeted offers, and more relevant email and push messaging to improve discovery, strengthen loyalty and deepen direct relationships with buyers. The operating metrics support the view that buyer recovery is arriving sooner than expected, though stronger purchase frequency is still needed to confirm durability.

How eBay & Shopify Compare With EtsyeBay Inc. (EBAY - Free Report) reported that trailing 12-month active buyers increased 1% year over year to nearly 136 million, with U.S. buyer growth accelerating to nearly 6% during the first quarter of 2026. The company is improving discovery and engagement through AI-powered Agentic Search, enhanced eBay Live experiences, better event discovery within its app and partnerships that expand the reach of its marketplace. eBay believes these AI-native experiences and community-driven initiatives are making shopping more relevant while supporting higher buyer engagement.

Shopify Inc. (SHOP - Free Report) is expanding personalized discovery across multiple channels, including AI chats, the Shop App and marketplaces, while using Shop Pay and its buyer network to improve conversion and encourage repeat purchases. Shopify also highlighted that traffic from Catalog-powered AI searches converted at more than twice the rate of general AI search traffic, reinforcing its AI-driven commerce strategy. These initiatives position Shopify to strengthen buyer experiences by helping merchants drive more relevant discovery and higher conversion.

What the Latest Metrics Say About EtsyEtsy has seen its shares jump 42.7% over the past three months compared with the industry’s 8.1% rise. 
 

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

From a valuation standpoint, Etsy's forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio stands at 13.14, lower than the industry’s ratio of 21.27. ETSY is also trading below its 12-month median level of 20.
 

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Etsy's earnings per share has seen a downward revision. The consensus estimate for the current fiscal year has fallen from $5.55 to $5.41, while the estimate for the next fiscal year has declined from $6.40 to 6.29 over the past seven days.
 

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

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

Key Takeaways Taiwan Semiconductor posted a 66.2% Q1 gross margin, beating the high end of guidance by 120 bps.TSM expects Q2 gross margin of 66.5% at midpoint, helped by utilization and cost improvements.Taiwan Semiconductor expects N3 gross margin to reach the corporate average in the second half. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM - Free Report) reported a first-quarter 2026 gross margin of 66.2%, up 390 basis points (bps) sequentially. The improvement was driven by cost reduction efforts, a higher overall capacity utilization rate and a more favorable foreign exchange rate. Gross margin also exceeded the high end of management’s guidance by 120 bps. For the second quarter, TSM expects gross margin to increase by 30 bps to 66.5% at the midpoint, benefiting from higher utilization and ongoing cost improvement efforts, but partially offset by dilution from its overseas fabs.

Beyond the second quarter, the company expects several factors to influence profitability during the back half of 2026. The initial ramp-up of its 2-nanometer technology is projected to dilute full-year gross margin by 2% to 3%. The expanding overseas manufacturing capacity is expected to create gross margin dilution of 2% to 3% in the early stages, increasing to 3% to 4% as those facilities scale over the coming years.

Taiwan Semiconductor also indicated that recent developments in the Middle East could raise prices for certain chemicals and gases, although it is too early to estimate the potential financial impact. The company aims to generate more wafer output through enhanced manufacturing productivity and drive greater cross-node capacity optimization in its fab operations to support profitability. TSM expects N3 gross margin to cross over to the corporate average in the second half of the year. Foreign exchange movements remain another factor that could influence profitability.

TSM’s Peer UpdatesAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD - Free Report) announced plans to invest up to £2 billion over the next five years in the United Kingdom to accelerate AI innovation and research, and expand access to the compute resources needed for long-term economic growth and scientific leadership across the country. Building on its recently announced work with Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) and JPMorganChase, AMD also announced a collaboration with Imperial College London to advance computational science and support research that relies on large-scale computing resources, including healthcare innovation and climate modeling.

ON Semiconductor (ON - Free Report) , now branded as onsemi, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Synaptics in an all-stock transaction, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $7 billion. By adding Synaptics’ differentiated Edge AI compute franchise and strong portfolio of human-machine interface and wireless connectivity solutions, onsemi is expected to extend its capabilities beyond power and sensing to intelligent systems. The combined platform is intended to position onsemi at the center of Physical AI, with the potential to expand onsemi’s TAM by $30 billion to $243 billion by 2030.

TSM’s Price Performance, Valuation and EarningsOver the past 12 months, Taiwan Semiconductor shares have surged 89.1%, in line with the Zacks Semiconductor - Circuit Foundry industry.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

In terms of valuation, TSM trades at a forward, five-year Price/Sales (P/S) of 12.25X compared with its 8.12X median and the industry average of 12.25X.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Take a look at how estimates for Taiwan Semiconductor’s 2026 and 2027 earnings are shaping up.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

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

Key Takeaways ADM's Ag Services operating profit rose 26% YoY to $200M in Q1.ADM benefited from higher soybean and sorghum shipments to China and strong U.S. corn exports.ADM sees momentum continuing as China resumes normalized North American soybean purchases. Archer Daniels Midland Company’s (ADM - Free Report) Ag Services business showed encouraging signs of recovery in the first quarter of 2026, supported by stronger export activity across North America. The company benefited from higher shipments of soybeans and sorghum to China, while a robust U.S. corn export program also contributed to improved performance. These factors helped Ag Services operating profit increase 26% year over year to $200 million despite a challenging global trade backdrop. Management also noted that the prior-year comparison was affected by export duties, making this quarter's improvement even more notable. The stronger export performance highlights ADM's ability to capitalize on favorable trade flows and efficiently connect global agricultural supply with demand.

Management believes the momentum could continue through the remainder of the year. As part of its updated outlook, ADM assumes China will resume a more normalized purchasing pattern for North American soybeans, providing additional support to export volumes. The company also continues to leverage its extensive merchandising network to capture trading opportunities created by shifting commodity flows and evolving global demand. Combined with a more constructive biofuels environment, these factors contributed to management raising its full-year adjusted EPS guidance, reflecting growing confidence in the underlying business environment.

The outlook, however, is not without risks. Management acknowledged that global trade policies, tariffs and geopolitical developments remain key variables, particularly regarding China's purchasing behavior later in the year. Nevertheless, ADM believes its diversified global origination, merchandising and logistics capabilities position the company to adapt quickly as trade flows evolve. While external uncertainties persist, the first-quarter performance suggests that Ag Services is benefiting from improving export fundamentals and disciplined execution, providing an important earnings tailwind as ADM pursues stronger growth in 2026.

ADM’s Zacks Rank & Share Price PerformanceShares of this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company have gained 31.2% in the past six months, outperforming both the industry and the broader Consumer Staples sector, which rose 21.6% and 13.2%, respectively.

ADM Stock's Six-Month Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Is ADM a Value Play Stock?From a valuation standpoint, ADM trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 16.23X, higher than the industry’s average of 15.42X.

ADM P/E Ratio (Forward 12 Months)
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Other Stocks to ConsiderFomento Economico Mexicano (FMX - Free Report) participates in the beverage industry through Coca-Cola FEMSA, which is the world’s largest franchise bottler for Coca-Cola products. FMX currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for FMX’s 2026 sales and earnings suggests growth of 17.3% and 130.9%, respectively, from the year-ago reported figures. The company delivered a trailing four-quarter negative earnings surprise of 17%, on average.

United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI - Free Report) distributes natural, organic, specialty, produce and conventional grocery and non-food products in the United States and Canada. At present, United Natural carries a Zacks Rank of 2.

The consensus estimate for United Natural’s current fiscal-year earnings implies growth of 254.9% from the year-ago figures. UNFI delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 29.9%, on average.

Mama's Creations, Inc. (MAMA - Free Report) manufactures and markets fresh deli-prepared foods in the United States. At present, MAMA has a Zacks Rank of 2.

The consensus estimate for Mama's Creations’ current fiscal-year sales and earnings implies growth of 30% and 73.3%, respectively, from the year-ago figures. MAMA delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 129.2%, on average.

Every so often, a stock arrives at a genuinely interesting disconnect — where the underlying business is firing on all cylinders while the near-term earnings math tells a more cautious story.

Right now, Robinhood sits at a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), and that comes down to the engine that drives the Zacks Rank: earnings estimate revisions. First-quarter 2026 results disappointed back in April, with EPS of $0.38 falling short of the $0.41 consensus and revenue of $1.07 billion missing expectations, sending the stock down nearly 15% on the print.

Management also raised its full-year operating-expense outlook by $100 million to fund the build-out of the new “Trump Accounts” initiative, adding cost pressure. As a result, the 2026 Zacks Consensus Estimate has been trimmed to around $1.81 per share, which implies a year-over-year decline of roughly 12%.

That is not the rising-estimate profile that earns a top rank. But the stock has flipped back into an uptrend, sending shares surging more than 70% off the late-April bottom and warranting renewed attention.

Image Source: StockCharts

How Robinhood’s Rating Could Improve Now to the other side of the ledger — because it’s substantial. Strip away the quarterly earnings noise and Robinhood’s core growth metrics are, frankly, remarkable. Total platform assets reached $377 billion in May, a 48% year-over-year jump, while net deposits of $18 billion in the first quarter extended a streak of 20%-plus annualized growth that management has called its “North Star” metric.

Gold subscribers hit a record 4.3 million, up 36% relative to the same time last year, and now account for roughly 40% of new customers — a powerful signal that Robinhood is deepening its relationship with users, not just adding accounts.

This matters enormously because a larger, stickier asset base compounds into higher net interest income, securities-lending revenue, and transaction activity, creating durable, recurring income streams that cushion the company against the trading-volume volatility that has historically defined it.

The diversification story is where the bull case really takes shape. Robinhood is methodically transforming from a commission-free trading app into a full-spectrum financial platform. Robinhood Banking has grown fivefold in a single earnings cycle, with over $2 billion in net deposits and a 40% direct-deposit attach rate.

Gold credit cards surpassed 800,000 customers with $15 billion in annualized purchase volume, on track to exceed one million cards. And perhaps most intriguing is the push into prediction markets through Rothera, the exchange Robinhood built with Susquehanna. Event contracts have exploded — more than 12 billion traded in 2025 and over 16 billion so far in 2026 — and by routing this flow through infrastructure it controls, Robinhood can capture more economics, control listings, and tighten the customer experience.

With the World Cup providing a marquee mainstream test, Rothera represents exactly the kind of new revenue lever that doesn’t depend on stock-trading activity.

Crucially, management’s own guidance points toward recovery: it has projected second-quarter EPS around $0.45 and revenue near $1.23 billion. And while 2026 estimates imply a slowdown, the 2027 Zacks Consensus EPS Estimate of $2.49 implies about 37% growth — evidence that analysts see the current soft patch as temporary rather than structural.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

This brings us to the catalyst that could change the entire complexion of the story: the July 29th earnings release. The Zacks Rank is, at its heart, a momentum indicator for estimate revisions — and a strong second-quarter print, particularly one accompanied by raised guidance, could flip that trend from negative to positive.

If Robinhood delivers a beat and demonstrates that its banking, credit, and prediction-market initiatives are scaling faster than the market appreciates, upward estimate revisions would likely follow, and with them the potential for a Zacks Rank upgrade. In other words, the same mechanism keeping HOOD at a Hold today could work powerfully in its favor. That is precisely the kind of setup patient, forward-looking investors like to position ahead of.

Bottom LineThe current Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for HOOD exists for good reason — 2026 estimates are falling, the company missed last quarter, and elevated spending is pressuring near-term profitability. The valuation leaves little room for error, with Robinhood trading at a steep premium to its industry.

Yet Robinhood is a genuinely high-quality, fast-compounding fintech that has proven itself over the past few years. The underlying business tells a story of accelerating asset growth, deepening customer engagement, and a widening set of revenue engines that increasingly insulate the company from its trading-volume roots.

The late July date should be circled on the calendar: a strong print could be the spark that re-rates both the estimates and the stock. Robinhood hasn’t yet earned its way back to a Strong Buy — but it may be closer than the current rank suggests.

Disclosure: Robinhood (HOOD - Free Report) is a current holding in the Zacks Headline Trader portfolio.

Key Takeaways NBIX is driving growth with rising Ingrezza sales, increasing Crenessity uptake & reaffirmed 2026 guidance. NBIX advanced its late-stage and early-stage programs across schizophrenia, TD and obesity. Neurocrine added Vykat XR through the Soleno acquisition, expanding its commercial rare disease portfolio. Neurocrine Biosciences (NBIX - Free Report) continues to strengthen its growth profile through the solid commercial performance of its marketed therapies, a steadily advancing late-stage neuroscience pipeline and strategic business development initiatives.

Strong Commercial Performance Aids NBIX’s GrowthNeurocrine is making steady progress, with strong commercial performance from its two marketed drugs, Ingrezza and Crenessity (crinecerfont). Ingrezza, the first FDA-approved VMAT2 inhibitor for tardive dyskinesia (TD), has remained the company's flagship product since its launch in 2017. The therapy established market leadership in TD and expanded its commercial opportunity with its approval for the treatment of Huntington's disease chorea in 2023. In the first quarter of 2026, the drug generated net product sales of $656.9 million, up 20% year over year, driven by double-digit prescription growth and record new patient starts. Management reaffirmed its full-year 2026 Ingrezza sales guidance of $2.7-$2.8 billion, highlighting continued confidence in the product's growth trajectory.

Neurocrine's second commercial product, Crenessity (crinecerfont), is also emerging as an important growth contributor. In December 2024, the FDA approved Crenessity as an adjunctive treatment to glucocorticoid replacement therapy to control androgen levels in adult and pediatric patients aged four years and older with classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Since its launch, the drug has delivered consistent quarter-over-quarter commercial growth, supported by robust physician adoption, increasing patient demand and expanding reimbursement coverage.

Year to date, shares of NBIX have risen 22.9% against the industry’s 2.9% decline.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Robust Pipeline Supports NBIX’s Long-Term Growth OutlookBeyond its marketed products, Neurocrine continues to strengthen its long-term growth outlook through a robust and diversified neuroscience pipeline spanning multiple high-value indications.

The company's lead late-stage candidate, direclidine (NBI-1117568), is in phase III development for schizophrenia while also being evaluated in a mid-stage study for bipolar mania. Another promising late-stage asset, osavampator (NBI-1065845), is being developed for major depressive disorder with cognitive impairment, a condition with substantial unmet medical need.

Neurocrine is also expanding the commercial opportunity for Crenessity through additional clinical development. The company initiated a phase II study this month to assess the safety and tolerability of Crenessity in pediatric patients younger than four years with classic CAH and completed target enrollment in a separate European Union phase II study involving children from birth to under two years of age. Successful development in these younger patient populations could further broaden the drug's addressable market.

The company has continued to advance its early-stage pipeline. During the year, Neurocrine initiated phase II studies evaluating NBI-1117570 for schizophrenia and NBI-1065890, a next-generation VMAT2 inhibitor for tardive dyskinesia. It also started a first-in-human phase I study of NBIP-2118, a first-in-class therapy for obesity.

These pipeline advancements strengthen Neurocrine's prospects for sustained innovation and long-term revenue growth across the neuroscience and rare disease markets.

Soleno Acquisition Strengthens NBIX's Commercial PortfolioThe company enhanced its long-term growth strategy through the acquisition of Soleno Therapeutics in May. The acquisition added Soleno’s Vykat XR (diazoxide choline), a first-in-class treatment for hyperphagia associated with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), to Neurocrine’s commercial portfolio. It is the first and only FDA-approved therapy for hyperphagia in adults and pediatric patients four years of age and older with PWS. Backed by a robust intellectual property portfolio extending into the mid-2040s, the therapy offers a sustainable platform for long-term value creation.

NBIX's Zacks Rank & EstimatesNeurocrine currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Over the past 60 days, earnings per share estimates for Neurocrine have risen from $8.04 to $9.47 for 2026 and from $9.54 to $10.79 for 2027.

Other Stocks to ConsiderSome other top-ranked stocks in the biotech sector are Immunocore (IMCR - Free Report) , Amarin Corporation (AMRN - Free Report) and Liquidia Corporation (LQDA - Free Report) , each currently sporting a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Over the past 60 days, estimates for Immunocore’s 2026 bottom line have improved from a loss per share of 88 cents to earnings of 6 cents per share. Over the same period, EPS estimates for 2027 have risen from 24 cents to 87 cents. IMCR shares have lost 6.3% year to date.

Immunocore’s earnings beat estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed in the remaining one, the average surprise being 46.66%.

Over the past 60 days, loss per share estimates for Amarin have narrowed from $15.20 to 65 cents for 2026. Over the same period, estimates for loss per share have also narrowed from $13.00 to 51 cents for 2027. AMRN shares have risen 17.3% year to date.

Amarin’s earnings beat estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed in the remaining one, the average surprise being 50.02%.

Over the past 60 days, estimates for Liquidia’s 2026 earnings per share have increased to $3.02 from $1.50. Over the same period, EPS estimates for 2027 have risen to $4.92 from $2.91. LQDA shares have surged 128.9% year to date.

Liquidia’s earnings beat estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed in the remaining one, with the average surprise being 54.40%.

With the Federal Reserve’s benchmark funds rate parked at 3.75% since Dec. 11, 2025, and the 10-year Treasury offering just 4.38%, income investors entering July are still hunting for yield well above the risk-free rate. Business development companies remain one of the cleanest ways to get it. BDCs are required to distribute at least 90% of taxable income to maintain their pass-through tax status, which forces consistent payouts but also makes their distributions vulnerable in credit downturns. With Q1 2026 results now in hand for all three names below, here is where the risk/reward looks most defensible heading into July.

Ares Capital (ARCC) Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC | ARCC Price Prediction) is the scale play. At a $18.70 share price against ARCC’s reported Q1 NAV of $19.59, the stock trades at a modest discount to book. Market cap sits near $13.43 billion, making it the largest publicly traded BDC.

The income story is straightforward. ARCC paid a 48-cent quarterly dividend on June 30, the same rate it has held since at least Q1 2024, and well above the 40-to-42-cent range it paid during 2020 to 2021. Core EPS of 47 cents covered the payout. The weighted average yield on debt investments was 10% at amortized cost, with 91% of new commitments in floating rate paper and 95% carrying rate floors. CEO Kort Schnabel pointed to “improving lending conditions with enhanced spreads and fees, lower leverage” on the Q1 call.

Bull case: Scale, a diversified portfolio, roughly $6 billion in available liquidity, and a well-covered dividend through a softer rate cycle.

Risk: Q1 carried $412 million in net unrealized losses, NAV slipped from $19.94, and non-accruals ticked up to 2% at amortized cost. GAAP EPS came in at just 13 cents. The stock is down more than 16% over the past year.

Main Street Capital (MAIN) Main Street Capital (NYSE:MAIN) is the quality compounder of the group. Shares trade at $52.46, a premium to Q1 NAV of $33.46, which is the market’s verdict on internal management, cost discipline and a dividend record that has never been cut since the 2007 IPO.

MAIN’s payout stack is what separates it. The company paid 26 cents monthly across April, May, and June 2026, then layered a 30-cent supplemental on June 30, marking the 19th consecutive quarterly supplemental. The regular monthly dividend is up 4% year over year, and the regular monthly component has grown from 20 cents in 2020 to 26 cents today. Q1 distributable net investment income of $1 per share just missed the $1.01 estimate, but NAV still climbed from $33.33 at year-end 2025, aided by an $18.0 million net realized gain.

Bull case: Monthly base plus quarterly supplementals, internally managed structure with a 1% operating expenses to assets ratio, a growing $1.8 billion external AUM business, and FY25 ROE of 17%.

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

Risk: Q1 revenue fell 18% year over year to $140.1 million, a $32.6 million net fair value decrease was recorded, and management flagged tariff and macro risk. The stock is down 11% year to date.

Trinity Capital (TRIN) Trinity Capital (NASDAQ:TRIN) is the high-yield, higher-risk leg of this basket. The venture and growth-stage lender trades at $17.78, a premium to Q1 NAV of $13.27 and has rallied more than 18% year to date and over 25% in the past year.

TRIN transitioned from quarterly to monthly distributions in January, and pays 17 cents per share each month, locked in through at least September via the June 17, declaration. That works out to roughly 51 cents per quarter, the 26th consecutive quarter at that level. The effective yield on average debt investments hit 16%, the highest of the three. Q1 NII of $44.49 million grew 37% year over year and covered the dividend at 104% of NII per share, with a $68.50 million undistributed income buffer behind it.

Bull case: Highest portfolio yield in the group, a $2.48 billion portfolio across 180 companies, 83% floating rate debt, and a managed funds platform that pushed fee income to $6.8 million from $2.7 million a year ago.

Risk: NAV slid from $13.42, Q1 logged $9.9 million in net realized losses, the weighted average risk rating ticked up to 3.0 from 2.9, and ATM share issuance of $78.4 million adds dilution risk. Venture lending also tends to crack first in credit downturns.

What to Watch in July The setup for July is favorable on the surface: The Fed has cut 75 basis points over the past year and the 10-year sits at a 77th percentile rank within its 12-month range, which keeps spreads attractive on floating-rate paper. Watch non-accrual trends and NAV direction in the next round of earnings reports. Any meaningful uptick in credit stress is the single variable that turns a 10% to 15% headline yield into a dividend cut.

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

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Alcoa Today

$50.88 +2.20 (+4.52%)

As of 11:33 AM Eastern

This is a fair market value price provided by Massive. Learn more.

52-Week Range$28.11▼

$84.38Dividend Yield0.79%

P/E Ratio12.82

Price Target$67.82

When an industrial sector powerhouse announces a multi-billion dollar acquisition, the market's first reflex is almost always to sell.

Institutional investors are notoriously skittish toward aggressive mergers and acquisitions in cyclical sectors unless they see immediate, verifiable free cash flow accretion.

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Investors are seeing this reaction play out with Alcoa Corporation NYSE: AA right now. After executing an agreement to acquire South32 Limited's bauxite, alumina, and aluminum assets for an upfront consideration of $4.1 billion, the market responded.

Shares of Alcoa Corporation plummeted 9%, slicing through an established 50-day range to close at $47.41.

Unearthing a Generational Upstream Aluminum MonopolyWall Street is intensely focused on the immediate financing burden, prioritizing balance sheet preservation over asset expansion. A deeper look into the mechanics of this deal reveals a completely different reality. By absorbing tier-one bauxite and alumina operations exactly as structural supply deficits loom, Alcoa just engineered a generational upstream monopoly at a deep discount.

Bauxite is the primary ore used to produce alumina, which is then smelted into aluminum. Controlling that entire pipeline from dirt to metal gives Alcoa immense pricing power. Investors willing to look past the bridge-financing noise are being presented with a rare opportunity to accumulate shares at heavily compressed multiples.

Sifting Through the Slag: Debt, Equity, and Market FearTo understand the 9% haircut, you have to look at how institutional block traders model risk. The $4.1 billion upfront price tag requires $3.1 billion in cash and the issuance of 17 million new Alcoa shares. That stock issuance guarantees immediate equity dilution of roughly 6%.

Compounding the dilution is the debt load. To quickly secure the cash requirement, Alcoa tapped a $3.1 billion bridge commitment from Goldman Sachs NYSE: GS. Bridge loans are temporary, highly expensive financing tools utilized to lock down a transaction before permanent capital can be raised. The market is irrationally pricing in the weight of this short-term paper as a permanent leverage overhang, pushing the maximum enterprise value of the transaction toward $5.6 billion when accounting for assumed lease obligations and contingent payouts.

Investors also have to factor in the existing sentiment surrounding Alcoa. During the most recent earnings report on April 16, Alcoa delivered a slight miss. Earnings of $1.40 per share trailed consensus estimates by 20 cents, while revenues declined 5.2% year-over-year. That earnings miss created a fragile psychological environment.

When the South32 Limited deal crossed the wire, institutional patience for the long-dated realization of projected cost savings and operational efficiencies snapped. High off-exchange short volume ratios exceeding 62% indicate aggressive risk-off repositioning by institutional block traders rather than a coordinated short attack. Short interest remains benign at 2.48%, totaling roughly 6.5 million shares. Put option volume expiring in early July is clustered heavily around the $48 and $49 strikes, validating immediate downside hedging against the newly announced capital outlay.

Despite the panic, Alcoa's underlying financial health remains intact. Before this transaction, the debt-to-equity ratio was conservative at 0.36, supported by a current ratio of 1.48. Alcoa has a definitive roadmap to permanently replace the bridge loan using balance sheet cash and long-term debt financing well ahead of the anticipated closing in the first half of 2027. Alcoa has the baseline balance sheet capacity to absorb these assets easily.

Locking Down the Vault: South32 Assets Transform AlcoaMoving past the financing noise, the actual assets being acquired fundamentally reshape the global aluminum landscape. The transaction secures full ownership of the Boddington bauxite mine and the Worsley alumina refinery in Western Australia, alongside vital processing interests in Brazil and South Africa.

Alcoa models $900 million in net present value savings across the combined portfolio. While analysts often discount long-term acquisition projections, the immediate cost savings are highly verifiable.

The integration of the Western Australia operations alone is projected to deliver $50 million in direct run-rate cost savings. These savings flow straight into the cost of goods sold within 12 months of the closing date, countering fears of short-term margin compression.

The strategic alignment here gives Alcoa a commanding scale advantage. With a market capitalization above $12 billion, Alcoa dwarfs two direct upstream competitors, Constellium NYSE: CSTM and Century Aluminum NASDAQ: CENX, which hover near $4 billion. Alcoa also maintains a 0.83% dividend yield, whereas both Constellium and Century Aluminum do not offer dividends, placing the newly expanded behemoth ahead in shareholder returns.

Refining the Balance Sheet With 1 Clever Contingency ClauseOne of the most misunderstood components of this buyout is the $750 million contingent value right attached to the deal. A contingent value right provides additional compensation to the seller only if specific performance metrics are met in the future.

In this case, the payout is tightly controlled and directly tied to alumina and aluminum prices through 2030. Alcoa only surrenders this maximum consideration if commodity pricing guarantees outsized free cash flow accretion. The company effectively neutralized downside risk, ensuring it only pays top dollar if the underlying London Metal Exchange commodities generate massive revenue. This keeps the balance sheet highly protected during cyclical downturns.

Institutional Money Anchors Alcoa's AscentGlobal analysts have recently raised their aluminum forecasts on the London Metal Exchange. Structural supply disruptions and geopolitical tensions are setting the stage for multi-year pricing highs. By aggressively acquiring raw-material capacity right before projected 2026 and 2027 supply squeezes, Alcoa is positioning itself to capture massive alpha when the commodity cycle peaks.

Smart money understands this positioning. While day traders focus on intraday block selling, heavy institutional anchoring remains firmly in place. BlackRock NYSE: BLK continues to hold a 9.0% stake, representing over 23 million shares. This deep-pocketed positioning acts as a floor for institutional conviction, offering a layer of baseline support beneath the recent volatility.

The valuation metrics support a bullish outlook. The trailing price-to-earnings ratio for Alcoa is 12.3, while the forward multiple has compressed to an incredibly attractive 6.3. Alcoa is generating $6.05 per share in cash flow, providing ample liquidity to navigate the integration phase.

Melting It Down: Does Alcoa Merit Watchlist Status?The market reaction to the South32 Limited asset acquisition highlights a disconnect between short-term institutional trading algorithms and long-term business fundamentals. The market is harshly punishing the execution risk and temporary debt load required to consolidate the industry.

Alcoa (AA) Price Chart for Monday, July, 6, 2026

The underlying data points to a brilliantly timed expansion. By locking down tier-one mining and refining assets ahead of a global supply deficit, Alcoa is insulating its supply chain and setting the stage for aggressive margin expansion.

Investors willing to look past the bridge financing noise are being handed a rare opportunity to accumulate shares at heavily compressed multiples. Cautious investors might consider adding this legacy materials producer to their watchlist as the market digests the realities of this newly formed upstream monopoly.

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While software providers and chipmakers grab the biggest headlines, the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is fundamentally a hardware story. The massive computing clusters required for artificial intelligence cannot run without two critical elements: staggering amounts of electrical power and highly sophisticated cooling systems.

Industrial companies Vertiv (VRT +8.32%) and Eaton (ETN +3.79%) help provide the essential infrastructure that keeps these artificial intelligence-focused data centers running.

Image source: Getty Images.

Vertiv, based in Westerville, Ohio, produces power and thermal solutions for data centers, mainly direct-to-chip liquid cooling, and has recurring revenue from its global services network.

Eaton, based in Ireland, is a power management company that designs and manufactures heavy-duty electrical infrastructure, including transformers, switchgear, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), and advanced liquid-cooling systems, essential for powering and protecting data centers, utility grids, and industrial facilities.

Here are three reasons why these two companies have compelling stocks to own right now:

1. Hyperscale backlogs are growing The massive capital expenditures committed by big tech hyperscalers are showing no signs of slowing, translating directly into a massive multiyear visibility window for both companies.

Vertiv, at the end of 2025, said its project backlog had skyrocketed to more than $15 billion, driven by a massive surge in data center orders. In the first quarter, Vertiv reported revenue of $2.65 billion, up 30% year over year, and earnings per share (EPS) of $0.99, up 136% over the same quarter a year ago. The company said it expects full-year revenue of $13.5 billion to $14 billion, compared with $10.2 billion in 2025. It also gave yearly EPS guidance of $6.30 to $6.40, up 87.6% from the same period last year.

Eaton is seeing a parallel boom with a backlog of $14.5 billion through Q1. The backlog grew by 48% in its electrical segment and by 28% in its aerospace segment in Q1.

Eaton is also seeing double-digit revenue growth. It set a Q1 record with $7.5 billion in revenue, up 17% year over year, while adjusted EPS rose 3% over the same period last year to $2.81.

Because building a data center takes years, these backlogs guarantee a long, highly visible revenue runway that insulates both companies from short-term tech market volatility.

2. Vertiv dominates the liquid cooling market Traditional data centers use air conditioning to stay cool. However, the next-generation chips powering AI generate intense heat densities that air alone cannot manage. The industry is rapidly pivoting to liquid cooling, and Vertiv is uniquely positioned to dominate this space.

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Vertiv has rapidly expanded its footprint, including opening high-capacity facilities, such as its new Johor, Malaysia site, to manufacture specialized liquid-cooling equipment, including its CoolChip coolant distribution units.

Through strategic partnerships with chip design leaders and tactical acquisitions such as its purchase of Strategic Thermal Labs, Vertiv provides end-to-end solutions from chip-level cold plates to facility-scale heat rejection, making it the absolute go-to partner for high-density AI clusters.

3. Eaton rules the in-demand gray space power market If Vertiv rules the thermal environment inside the server room (the white space), Eaton rules the massive electrical infrastructure that brings power from the utility grid into the building (the gray space). AI chips require immense amounts of power, and Eaton's technical moat is solving this bottleneck.

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Eaton provides heavy-duty transformers, switchgear, and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems to handle megawatt-class server racks.

Its next-generation 800-volt DC power distribution architecture streamlines power delivery directly to the server, eliminating multiple conversion steps and significantly reducing energy loss. Eaton's $9.5 billion acquisition in March of Boyd Performance Materials significantly expands its own advanced thermal capabilities, making it a more complete infrastructure powerhouse. The move is expected to be accretive to Eaton's adjusted EPS within two years, it said.

The pick-and-shovel plays are the safest ones in AI Chip architectures will evolve, and competing software models will come and go, but every single iteration of advanced AI will require massive power distribution and extreme heat management. Eaton and Vertiv effectively tax the entire ecosystem's growth, regardless of which tech giant wins the software race.

There are risks, however. Both stocks are now viewed as AI stocks, and with that come higher valuations and greater volatility.

Vertiv's shares have risen by more than 25% so far this year, and Eaton's are up an astronomically high 85%. With that, their price-to-earnings ratios (P/E) have climbed. Eaton trades at more than 38 times trailing earnings, while Vertiv trades at 75 times trailing earnings. That's a lot to live up to, and any type of AI slowdown could send either stock slumping.

Still, both companies are beneficiaries of rising AI spending, and that trend doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

Key Takeaways Delek completed the Big Spring refinery turnaround safely, on schedule and within budget.DK expects no more major turnarounds this year, supporting full-capacity summer operations.Delek says refinery upgrades improve crude flexibility, product yields and blending capabilities. Delek US Holdings, Inc. (DK - Free Report) entered the third quarter with a key operational milestone behind it. The company completed the planned turnaround at its Big Spring refinery, executing the project safely, on schedule and within budget. While refinery turnarounds typically weigh on near-term earnings because of downtime and maintenance costs, the completion of this project positions Delek to benefit from improved operating performance during a period of healthy refining fundamentals.

Image Source: Delek US Holdings, Inc.

Management emphasized that the turnaround was designed to improve refinery reliability, crude slate optimization, product yields and higher-octane blending capabilities rather than simply restore operations. These improvements should enable Big Spring to process a broader range of crude oils more efficiently while producing a more profitable product mix. With no additional major turnarounds planned for the remainder of the year, Delek expects the upcoming two quarters to represent its highest maintenance spending period, allowing the refinery system to operate at full capacity during the peak summer driving season.

The timing also appears favorable. Management noted that geopolitical disruptions have created tighter global refining markets, supporting stronger crack spreads and widening crude differentials. Delek believes its access to multiple domestic crude grades, combined with higher distillate and jet fuel yields, provides greater flexibility to capitalize on changing market conditions. This operational flexibility, coupled with a more reliable Big Spring refinery, could help the company capture stronger refining margins over the coming quarters.

How Does Delek Compare With Peers?Several U.S. refiners continue investing to improve refinery reliability and operating efficiency, although each follows a different strategy.

Marathon Petroleum (MPC - Free Report) has consistently prioritized refinery modernization and turnaround projects to improve utilization rates, reduce unplanned downtime and maximize margin capture across its refining network. By enhancing crude processing flexibility and operational efficiency, Marathon Petroleum has strengthened its ability to benefit from favorable crack spreads.

Delek's Big Spring turnaround reflects a similar objective, although the impact could be more pronounced given the refinery's importance to its overall operations. As Marathon Petroleum demonstrates, sustained investments in refinery reliability can translate into stronger long-term refining performance.

Likewise, Valero Energy (VLO - Free Report) has built a reputation for industry-leading refinery reliability through disciplined maintenance programs and continuous operational improvements. Valero Energy regularly invests in refinery turnarounds that enhance product yields, increase operational flexibility and support high utilization rates across its refining system. While Valero Energy operates a much larger refining portfolio than Delek, both companies share the goal of maximizing margin capture through reliable operations and efficient crude processing.

The successful completion of Big Spring's turnaround suggests Delek is adopting an approach similar to VLO, focusing on reliability and optimization to improve refining profitability under favorable market conditions.

DK’s Share Price, ROE and Earnings ExpectationsOver the past year, Delek stock rose 121.8%, beating the Oil Refining & Marketing sub-industry’s growth of 38.1%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Delek stock delivered a higher return on equity (“ROE”) of 22.9%, outperforming its sub-industry average of 15.64%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Analysts have become more optimistic about DK’s earnings outlook over the past 60 days, with 2026 EPS estimates revised sharply higher by 39.85%, while 2027 estimates saw a more modest increase of 5.91%, signaling stronger near-term earnings expectations.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

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

American Bitcoin Corp just added another 500 BTC to its treasury, pushing total holdings to 8,000 BTC. For a company that held roughly 5,401 BTC at the end of 2025, that’s a nearly 50% increase in about six months.

ABTC, a subsidiary of Hut 8 Corp that trades on Nasdaq, has been on a buying-and-mining spree that’s hard to ignore. The firm ranked as the 17th-largest public Bitcoin holder as of May 2026, and this latest addition likely nudges it a few spots higher on that leaderboard.

The accumulation playbook ABTC’s strategy combines mining output with strategic treasury purchases to build its stack. During Q1 2026 alone, the firm mined 817 BTC.

The holdings trajectory tells the story. At the end of 2025, ABTC sat at approximately 5,401 BTC. By mid-May 2026, that number had climbed to 7,500 BTC, representing roughly 30% growth in the first quarter and change of the year. Then came a bump to 7,300 BTC (reported alongside Q1 results), followed by additional purchases that brought the total to 7,500 BTC by mid-May. Now, with this latest 500 BTC addition, the company crosses the 8,000 BTC threshold.

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ABTC operates nearly 90,000 mining units as of May 2026.

The Trump connection and corporate maneuvering Eric Trump serves as co-founder and chief strategy officer. The company came into existence in 2025 following a merger with Gryphon Digital Mining.

ABTC executed a reverse stock split of 1-for-15, effective July 6, 2026. Every 15 shares got consolidated into one share, which mathematically boosts the per-share price. ABTC framed the move as addressing stock volatility and maintaining its Nasdaq listing.

Financing the machine ABTC has utilized financing through Bitmain, one of the world’s largest mining hardware manufacturers, and has pledged Bitcoin as collateral for miner acquisitions.

When you pledge your Bitcoin to buy more miners to mine more Bitcoin, you’re creating a feedback loop that works beautifully in bull markets. In bear markets, collateral calls, declining mining revenue, and hardware depreciation can compound quickly.

What this means for investors ABTC’s jump from 5,401 BTC to 8,000 BTC in roughly six months reflects a company that’s treating this as a land grab. The 17th-largest public Bitcoin holder designation puts ABTC among a cohort where most publicly traded companies hold zero Bitcoin.

The reverse stock split signals that the equity side of the business has faced pressure, even as the Bitcoin treasury has grown substantially. The Bitmain financing arrangement, where pledging Bitcoin to acquire miners creates leverage, amplifies both upside and downside. If Bitcoin prices decline meaningfully, ABTC could face margin pressure on those collateralized positions while simultaneously seeing reduced mining profitability.

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

President Donald Trump on Monday said he would not rule out the possibility of adding Bitcoin to the administration’s new Trump Accounts, telling reporters that “something could happen” when asked whether the government-backed savings programme could invest in the crypto asset, according to Reuters.

Trump Accounts are a federally backed savings and investment programme designed to give children an early stake in the US economy.

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The US Treasury has rolled out the nationwide launch of the Trump Accounts app, introducing full account functionality for families participating in the investment programme. Parents can now fund their accounts, monitor balances, review investment performance and manage contributions through the platform.

The app also includes 15 interactive financial education lessons covering key investment concepts, while adding features such as recurring deposits, linked bank accounts and personalised financial guidance. Treasury said the initiative is designed to expand stock ownership among young Americans and promote long-term financial security.

Officials said Trump Accounts are free to open, with contributions permitted from employers, charitable organisations and government programmes in addition to parents.

More than 50 companies have pledged to offer employer contributions, and enrolled families will be able to begin tracking investments from July 6.

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

TLDR A $1,000 investment in the first spot XRP ETF is now worth about $457. Brazil’s XRPH11 has declined 54.3% since its April 2025 launch. U.S. spot XRP ETFs now manage about $1.05 billion in assets. XRP traded near $1.14 after gaining 8.5% over the past week. A $1,000 investment in the spot XRP ETF launched in Brazil now holds an estimated value of about $457. The fund has lost more than half its value since its April 2025 debut. Meanwhile, XRP traded near $1.14 after posting an 8.5% weekly gain.

Brazil’s Early XRP ETF Records Sharp Decline Brazil introduced the first regulated spot XRP ETF on April 25, 2025, through Hashdex’s XRPH11 fund. The product launched with about $40 million in assets under management. It invested almost all holdings in physical XRP.

The spot XRP ETF tracks the “Nasdaq XRP Reference Price Index” through direct XRP exposure. The fund started trading at higher levels before entering a sustained decline. As of July 3, XRPH11 traded at 9.14 Brazilian reals, or about $1.74.

The spot XRP ETF has declined 54.3% since launch based on market data. Therefore, a $1,000 investment has fallen to about $457. Assets under management also dropped to roughly $22 million to $25 million.

U.S. Products Expanded the XRP ETF Market Brazil’s spot XRP ETF remained relatively small within the global crypto exchange-traded product market. The country represented less than 1% of worldwide crypto ETP assets. Consequently, the fund generated limited buying pressure for XRP.

The spot XRP ETF market changed after several U.S. products launched in November 2025. Funds from Canary Capital, Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, 21Shares, and REX-Osprey entered the market. Those products attracted substantially larger investment flows.

The spot XRP ETF market in the United States now manages about $1.05 billion in assets. Collectively, those funds hold nearly 971 million XRP. Combined net inflows have exceeded $1.4 billion since launch, including $118 million during May 2026.

XRP Price Stayed Within a Narrow Trading Range Canada also expanded the spot XRP ETF market through the Purpose XRP ETF. The fund launched during June 2025 and now manages about 72 million Canadian dollars. That product increased regulated investment access outside the United States.

The broader XRP market still traded within a narrow range despite growing institutional participation. Prices moved mostly between $1.15 and $1.40 during recent months. Market performance largely matched broader cryptocurrency trends.

The spot XRP ETF story shows stronger institutional participation without a matching price recovery. XRP traded at $1.14 at press time after gaining about 1% daily. The token also recorded an 8.5% gain over the previous week.

Brad Garlinghouse called Strategy’s sliding preferred shares a damning indictment of financial engineering. Traders answered with an uncomfortable observation: Ripple also funds itself from the asset it champions, one billion escrowed XRP at a time. The feud between crypto’s two most leveraged evangelists says more about both companies than either intended.

Summary

Brad Garlinghouse criticised Strategy’s Bitcoin treasury model, prompting traders to argue that Ripple also relies on regular XRP sales from escrow to fund its operations. The report says both companies depend on recurring market demand for the assets or securities they sell, although their funding structures and financial risks differ significantly. Strategy’s model faces pressure from fixed dividend obligations, while Ripple’s escrow based funding is presented as more flexible but remains dependent on sustained demand for XRP. In the last days of June 2026, with Strategy’s flagship preferred stock trading roughly 25 percent below its $100 par value, Ripple chief executive Brad Garlinghouse decided to say what he thought about it. Financial engineering, he argued across a CNBC appearance and a run of posts, does not drive long-term value; utility does. The slide in Strategy’s preferreds was, in his words, a damning indictment of a model built on perpetually selling paper against Bitcoin.

The crypto market being what it is, the counterattack arrived within hours, and it did not come from Strategy. It came from traders pointing at Ripple’s own balance sheet. One widely shared critique put it in five words: two giants, same model. Ripple, the observation went, funds its operations by selling XRP released from escrow every month, tokens it received for nothing at the network’s genesis. Strategy funds Bitcoin purchases by selling preferred shares and debt against coins it bought on the open market. Both companies are, structurally, perpetual sellers of claims connected to the asset their communities want to appreciate.

The comparison is not perfect, and the imperfections are where it gets interesting. But the fact that it landed at all, and stung, reveals something true: the two loudest corporate evangelists in crypto both run treasuries that lean on their chosen asset, and each has built a machine that only works while the market keeps buying what the machine sells. Garlinghouse’s attack on Saylor was accurate. So was the response.

This is an autopsy of the feud: what Garlinghouse actually said, what is really breaking at Strategy, how Ripple’s own funding machine works, where the symmetry holds and where it fails, and why the fight matters for holders of both assets.

What Garlinghouse said, and why now The Ripple chief executive’s late-June comments were unusually pointed for a man who spends most of his public time on regulatory diplomacy. Utility drives long-term value, he argued, and financial engineering does not; companies that exist to hold an asset, funded by issuing securities against it, are running a trade, not a business. The specific exhibit was Strategy’s preferred stock complex, and above all STRC, the retail-focused instrument that had slipped to around 25 percent below its $100 par before a partial recovery toward $84.

He also reached for history. Michael Saylor had spent years dismissing XRP, at one point in 2022 calling it an unregistered security that would be regulated out of relevance, a comment the Ripple community has never forgotten and the SEC case ultimately did not vindicate. Garlinghouse returning fire in Strategy’s weakest quarter was, among other things, a settling of accounts four years in the making.

The timing was not random. Strategy’s model is under its most sustained pressure since the company began accumulating: Bitcoin spent June grinding to 21-month lows near $57,750 before a modest bounce, and the mathematics of the treasury trade turned openly ugly. The company holds 847,363 BTC at an average cost near $75,650, which at June’s lows put the position more than $10 billion underwater on paper for the first time in the current cycle. The market value of the company converged with the value of its coins, with the closely watched mNAV ratio touching 0.99, meaning the equity briefly priced the entire corporate structure at less than the Bitcoin inside it.

For a company whose whole premise is that its securities deserve a premium to their Bitcoin backing, an mNAV below one is not a data point. It is the thesis inverting.

Garlinghouse chose his moment the way prosecutors choose theirs, when the defendant is already bleeding.

Four years of accumulated grievance The feud reads as sudden only to observers who missed its long fuse. Saylor and Garlinghouse have been running opposed theories of crypto value since 2020, and each man’s theory requires the other’s asset to be a mistake.

Saylor’s Bitcoin maximalism was never quiet about XRP. His 2022 dismissal of the token as an unregistered security destined for regulatory oblivion came during the darkest stretch of the SEC lawsuit, when Ripple’s survival was an open question and the token was delisted across American platforms. The comment did not age well in its specifics; the 2023 ruling found XRP itself was not a security in exchange sales, the case settled, and by late 2025 the token had spot ETFs trading in New York. But it cemented a personal dimension that ordinary corporate rivalry lacks. In the XRP community’s memory, Saylor kicked them at the bottom, and Garlinghouse’s June offensive was received there less as analysis than as overdue payback.

The structural rivalry deepened as the companies converged on the same buyers. Strategy’s pitch to institutions is Bitcoin exposure through familiar securities; Ripple’s pitch, increasingly, is regulated crypto infrastructure, custody, stablecoins, prime brokerage, sold to the same treasurers and asset managers. Each chief executive now spends his public life arguing that institutional capital should flow through his door, which makes every stumble by one a sales document for the other. When Strategy’s preferreds slid, Ripple’s sales narrative improved by exactly that much, and Garlinghouse’s decision to narrate the slide personally was, among other things, marketing with a decade of receipts attached.

There is also a generational symmetry neither would enjoy hearing. Both men are the last of crypto’s founder-evangelist chief executives still running at full volume: survivors of multiple cycles, personally synonymous with their assets, and increasingly graded by markets that have stopped awarding style points. The 2026 bear market is auditing both legacies at once, which is why a single CNBC hit escalated so fast.

Neither side is arguing about a preferred stock. They are arguing about which of two life’s works the next cycle vindicates.

What is actually cracking at Strategy Strategy’s machine has three moving parts: buy Bitcoin, issue securities against the story, use the proceeds to buy more Bitcoin. The genius of the design in a bull market is reflexivity; every part reinforces the others. The problem in a bear market is the same reflexivity running in reverse.

The preferred stock complex is where the stress concentrates, because the preferreds are the instruments that carry mandatory-feeling obligations. STRC and its siblings pay rich fixed dividends, marketed to income investors as a way to earn double-digit yield on a Bitcoin-adjacent instrument. Those dividends must be paid in cash, and Strategy’s operating software business generates only a sliver of the required amount. The rest comes from issuing more securities, which works while prices cooperate and compounds the obligation when they do not. Analysis circulating from CryptoQuant put the company’s cash and equivalents against its dividend run rate at roughly 14 months of coverage, a runway, not a crisis, but a runway that shortens every quarter the capital markets stay closed to new issuance at acceptable prices.

The company’s response has been to reframe. A newly published Digital Credit framework recasts the preferred complex as a deliberate credit structure rather than an equity kicker, alongside disclosures of a cash position near $3.8 billion intended to reassure preferred holders that dividends are funded regardless of Bitcoin’s path. The reframing had an effect; STRC bounced from its lows toward $84. But a bounce toward 84 cents on the dollar is still a market pricing meaningful doubt into a par instrument, and the underlying arithmetic, fixed cash obligations against a volatile treasury asset, is unchanged.

The bond market’s verdict has been quieter but harsher than the equity market’s. Instruments marketed on the premise that Bitcoin’s ascent makes their coupons safe are being repriced on the premise that the coupons must survive Bitcoin’s descent, which is a different underwriting question entirely, and one the complex was never really sold to answer.

None of this means Strategy is broken. The company has survived worse drawdowns, holds an asset with a history of violent recoveries, and has never been forced to sell a coin. What has cracked is the premium, the market’s willingness to pay more than one dollar for a dollar of Strategy’s Bitcoin, and the premium was the engine. A treasury company at mNAV 1.0 is just a fund with expenses and a dividend bill.

Ripple’s machine, examined honestly To weigh the two giants claim, the Ripple side of the ledger needs the same unsentimental treatment.

Ripple received the bulk of XRP’s fixed 100 billion supply at the network’s creation. In December 2017, it locked 55 billion of those tokens into ledger-enforced escrow, releasing a maximum of one billion per month, a system whose mechanics are worth understanding in full because it is the load-bearing structure of the company’s finances. Each month, Ripple keeps a portion of the release, typically returning 600 to 800 million tokens to new escrows, and the kept portion, generally 200 to 300 million XRP, funds institutional sales, ecosystem investment, and operations.

Strip away the terminology and the structure is this: a private company holding tens of billions of tokens it did not buy, selling a bounded stream of them into the market, every month, for going on a decade. The July 1 release moved one billion XRP, worth about $1.04 billion, through the machine on schedule. The sales are real supply that holders absorb; back-of-envelope, the net release adds an effective inflation of several percent per year to circulating XRP. When Garlinghouse says utility drives value, critics answer that whatever the utility, the most reliable flow in the XRP market is Ripple selling.

The company’s defense is disclosure and discipline. The schedule is public, protocol-enforced, and has never been broken; the relock rate shows restraint; the sales increasingly go to institutional buyers off-exchange; and the proceeds built an actual business, spanning payments, custody, a stablecoin, and the institutional finance stack growing on the XRP Ledger. Ripple processed some $16 trillion in payments volume last year by its own telling, though almost none of it moved through digital assets, a caveat that critics note does heavy lifting.

The war chest the machine built is the part critics skip. A decade of escrow-funded operations left Ripple with cash, an investment portfolio, and acquisition capacity that let it buy its way into prime brokerage and custody during the bear market, spending when leveraged competitors were retrenching. Whatever the model’s fairness, its output is a company that does not need favorable markets to survive them, which is precisely the resilience Strategy’s structure lacks. The same tokens that fund the machine also hang over it: Ripple still holds tens of billions of XRP inside and outside escrow, a treasury whose paper value swings billions with every large move in the token, and whose eventual disposition is the largest known variable in XRP’s long-term supply.

The honest summary: Ripple’s funding model is a slow, transparent, rule-bound liquidation of a genesis grant. That is neither fraud nor utility. It is a financial structure, the very category Garlinghouse aimed at Saylor.

Where the symmetry holds The two companies rhyme in more ways than either community likes to admit.

Both are structural sellers of claims tied to their asset. Ripple sells the asset itself from escrow; Strategy sells securities collateralized by the story of the asset. In both cases, the community holding the asset provides the bid that the corporate machine sells into, and in both cases the machine’s health depends on that bid persisting. The dynamic is familiar from every corner of crypto where a large holder must sell to operate, from foundations to the miners whose forced selling set records this year: the entity most invested in the asset’s success is also its most dependable source of supply.

Both are bets that a corporate structure can capture value from a decentralized asset. Saylor’s claim is that Strategy transforms Bitcoin into yield-bearing instruments the traditional market can buy, and deserves a premium for the packaging. Ripple’s claim is that a company can build enough utility around XRP that the token appreciates despite the company’s own selling. Each asks holders to believe the corporate layer adds more than it extracts.

Both have concentrated key-man risk and evangelist chief executives whose personal credibility is a balance sheet asset. And both, crucially, have never been tested by the one scenario their critics model: a market that stops absorbing the machine’s output for years rather than months. Strategy has never had to sell Bitcoin into weakness; Ripple has never faced a market that could not soak up its net release. The 2026 bear market is the closest either has come, which is exactly why the feud erupted now.

Where the symmetry breaks The differences matter as much as the rhyme, and they cut in both directions.

Ripple’s advantages are structural. It sells an asset it was granted, not one it bought with leverage, so there is no cost basis to defend and no margin for a drawdown to destroy. Its obligations are discretionary; the company can slow sales, and owes nobody a dividend. Its escrow is a ceiling, not a floor, and a decade of relocking is a real track record of restraint. Strategy, by contrast, carries fixed cash obligations against a volatile asset, the classic shape of every leveraged treasury accident in financial history. On pure survivability, the comparison flatters Ripple.

Strategy’s advantages are about alignment. Saylor bought his Bitcoin; every coin on the balance sheet was paid for at market, and shareholders chose the leverage knowingly. Ripple’s XRP cost it nothing, which means every sale is nearly pure proceeds, and the buyers funding the company are, in the main, believers in the token the company was given. Critics of Ripple find that arrangement more troubling than Strategy’s, not less: Saylor is levered alongside his holders, while Ripple is structurally the counterparty to its own community. The SEC agreed in part, finding in 2023 that Ripple’s institutional XRP sales were unregistered securities offerings, litigation Strategy never faced for buying an asset regulators treat as a commodity.

There is also a difference in what failure looks like. If Strategy’s model fails, the damage is concentrated: preferred holders and shareholders eat losses, and Bitcoin absorbs a large forced seller. If Ripple’s model fails, meaning the market permanently stops absorbing escrow releases at viable prices, the company slows the machine and lives off its accumulated war chest and businesses, from custody to its stablecoin and consortium positions. One machine is fragile and aligned; the other is durable and extractive. Pick your indictment.

What breaking would actually look like Since both communities spend the bear market gaming the other machine’s failure, it is worth specifying, mechanically, what failure would require for each. The exercise is clarifying, because neither breaking point is where the rhetoric puts it.

Strategy does not break at any particular Bitcoin price. An unrealized loss, even the ten-figure one June produced, forces nothing by itself. The machine breaks at the intersection of three conditions: capital markets closed to new issuance at tolerable terms, the cash runway for preferred dividends exhausted, and Bitcoin still depressed when the runway ends. The CryptoQuant-style coverage math, roughly 14 months at recent burn, is therefore the number to watch, along with every successful or failed issuance that extends or shortens it. If the company reaches the runway’s end with markets still shut, the choices collapse to suspending preferred dividends, which detonates the income story the complex was sold on, or selling Bitcoin, which detonates the never-sell story the equity was sold on. Either detonation is survivable as finance and devastating as narrative, and Strategy is, before anything else, a narrative company.

Ripple’s machine breaks differently, because its obligations are soft. The company cannot be forced to sell escrow releases into a bid that is not there; it can relock more, spend reserves, and wait. What actually breaks the model is a demand-side regime change that outlasts the war chest: exchange volumes, institutional sales, and ETF absorption persistently below the net release for years, forcing the company to choose between starving its operations and visibly capitulating on price. The tell would appear first in the monthly relock data, months where Ripple returns far more than 800 million because it cannot place the difference, and in the ETF creations that have so far run inflows even through the June collapse. Ripple’s breaking point, in other words, is measured in years of demand drought, whereas Strategy’s is measured in months of dividend runway. That asymmetry, more than any quote from either chief executive, is the real difference between the giants.

The shared vulnerability is the reflexivity of reputation. Each machine runs on the founder’s credibility with a specific buyer base, income investors for Saylor, the XRP faithful and institutional partners for Garlinghouse, and credibility is the one input that cannot be relocked or refinanced once spent. Public feuds draw down exactly that account, which is the best argument that this fight, entertaining as it is, was unwise for both.

What the feud is really about Beneath the personal history, Garlinghouse and Saylor are arguing about the only question that matters for corporate crypto: what entitles a company to trade at a premium to the assets it touches?

Saylor’s answer is packaging and leverage: transform a volatile commodity into instruments with yields, durations, and risk profiles that traditional capital can hold, and the transformation deserves a spread. The 2026 drawdown is testing whether that spread survives an mNAV of one, and the original exchange that started this feud happened precisely because the test is live.

Bitcoin will evolve by changing less at the protocol layer and mattering more everywhere else.

The base layer will harden.
The capital markets will deepen.
Digital Credit will expand.

The world will build on Bitcoin. $BTC https://t.co/2ptwt4XJdu

— Michael Saylor (@saylor) July 6, 2026 Garlinghouse’s answer is utility and adoption: build payment corridors, custody, stablecoins, and bank integrations, and the token underneath appreciates on fundamentals. The awkwardness is that after a decade of building, XRP trades near $1.15, down roughly 70 percent over a year, while the company thrives, a divergence that suggests corporate success and token appreciation are far more loosely coupled than the utility thesis promises.

The stakes extend well past the two companies, because each man is the reference implementation for a sector. Strategy spawned an entire class of digital asset treasury companies, dozens of firms across Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and beyond, that copied the playbook of issuing securities to accumulate tokens, and the whole class has compressed toward or below net asset value in the 2026 drawdown. If the original cannot hold a premium, the copies have no argument at all, and the capital markets window that funded the sector’s accumulation closes for everyone at once. Ripple, meanwhile, is the reference case for the token-issuer-as-operating-company model, the template every foundation and labs entity with a treasury full of its own token quietly studies. How the market ultimately judges a decade of escrow-funded operations sets the discount rate on every project financed the same way.

Neither man can point at the scoreboard right now. Strategy’s premium has evaporated; Ripple’s token has detached from its company. Both models produced billion-dollar enterprises, and both have so far failed, in this bear market, to produce what their communities actually bought in for.

The question holders should actually ask For all its entertainment value, the feud offers one genuinely useful lens to holders of either asset: identify the machine, then ask what keeps it fed.

Strategy’s machine is fed by capital markets. The question for its investors is not whether Saylor believes, but whether new buyers of preferreds and converts keep showing up at prices that let the dividends get paid without selling coins. Watch issuance windows, coverage runway, and the mNAV, because those are the machine’s vital signs, and the recent bounce in STRC is the market betting, tentatively, that the framework holds.

Ripple’s machine is fed by the XRP market itself. The question for its holders is not whether the company wins customers, but whether the demand side, exchange flow, institutional sales, the new ETFs that have been quietly absorbing supply, keeps outrunning a permanent, transparent seller. Watch the monthly net release against those flows, because that ratio, not partnership headlines, is what the last decade says actually governs the float.

Two giants, same model was meant as a gotcha, and it worked because it was half true. The fuller truth is sharper: two giants, two machines, one shared dependency. Both run on belief that renews monthly, and in a market like this one, belief is the scarcest collateral either company holds.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile and you can lose your entire investment. Always do your own research. Information current as of July 6, 2026.

While XRP holders everywhere else argue about ETF flows and price charts, one country quietly turned the token into working infrastructure. Regulated prepaid money on the XRP Ledger, a Deloitte-attested stablecoin, tokenized bonds paying XRP bonuses, and a financial giant that pays shareholder dividends in the token. This is what the utility thesis looks like when someone actually builds it.

Summary

Japan has built the world’s most extensive real world XRP ecosystem through SBI with licensed prepaid tokens, RLUSD distribution, tokenized bonds, and shareholder rewards. SBI Ripple Asia’s regulated prepaid token framework opens access to Japan’s 30 trillion yen prepaid payments market using the XRP Ledger. Japan is proving XRP’s infrastructure utility through regulated adoption even as the token’s market price remains driven largely by ETF flows and speculation. In March 2026, a Japanese travel company began selling prepaid payment tokens to ordinary consumers, issued on the XRP Ledger, under a license from Japan’s Financial Services Agency. No press cycle followed, no price candle marked the moment, and most XRP holders outside Japan never heard about it. It was, nonetheless, a first that the token’s global community has waited more than a decade for: real, regulated, consumer-facing money moving on the ledger, in the world’s third-largest economy, under the full supervision of a G7 regulator.

The company behind the license, SBI Ripple Asia, is one arm of a structure with no parallel anywhere else in crypto. SBI Holdings, the Tokyo financial conglomerate spanning brokerage, banking, insurance, and asset management, has spent a decade wiring Ripple’s technology and the XRP token into the machinery of Japanese finance: a joint venture for payments, an exchange business distributing RLUSD with audited reserves, tokenized corporate bonds that pay bonuses in XRP, bank remittance corridors, loyalty-point conversion, and, in a flourish no Western public company has matched, XRP paid out to SBI’s own shareholders as a benefit.

The result is a natural experiment the rest of the XRP world should study closely. Everywhere else, the token’s story in 2026 is financial: ETF flows, escrow releases, a price near $1.15 that has lost roughly 70 percent in a year. In Japan, and effectively only in Japan, the story is operational. One country took the utility thesis literally, and the gap between that country and everywhere else has become the sharpest lens available on what XRP actually is.

This is the anatomy of the SBI empire: how the alliance was built, what each piece does, what the 30 trillion yen prepaid experiment means, and what Japan proves, and fails to prove, about the token underneath.

JUST IN: Japan tokenizes prepaid payments on the XRP Ledger with SBI and Tobu Top Tours issuing tokens for the 30 trillion yen prepaid market pic.twitter.com/1zYYC57IeE

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) April 19, 2026 A decade of patient wiring The SBI-Ripple relationship is old by crypto standards, and its age is the point. SBI Ripple Asia was founded in 2016 as a joint venture to bring Ripple’s settlement technology to Japanese and Asian financial institutions, back when the pitch was replacing correspondent banking messaging. SBI Holdings became one of Ripple’s largest outside shareholders, and its chief executive, Yoshitaka Kitao, one of the token’s most senior corporate evangelists anywhere, a position he has held through two bear markets that silenced most of his peers.

What distinguishes the Japanese build-out is that it advanced through the regulator, not around it. Japan’s Payment Services Act and its licensing regimes for exchanges, stablecoins, and prepaid instruments are among the strictest in the world, drafted in the shadow of Mt. Gox. Every piece of the SBI-Ripple stack exists because it cleared that bar: the exchange arm is licensed, the stablecoin distribution is licensed, and the newest layer, prepaid tokens, required SBI Ripple Asia to register as a prepaid payment instrument issuer, which it completed on March 26.

The strategy compounds slowly and survives drawdowns, which is precisely what the rest of the XRP ecosystem has struggled to do. While the token’s price detached from Ripple’s corporate success everywhere else, a divergence now so stark that the company’s own funding machine has become the subject of open debate, the Japanese structure kept adding licensed capabilities through the decline. Bear markets kill speculative adoption; they barely register against regulatory roadmaps measured in years.

The depth of commitment shows in details that would be unthinkable at a Western firm. SBI has distributed XRP to its own shareholders as a shareholder benefit, a program renewed in 2026 with distributions beginning May 1, effectively paying dividends in the token to hundreds of thousands of Japanese retail investors. Whatever one thinks of the token, no other public financial conglomerate on earth compensates its owners with it.

The regulator that Mt. Gox built None of the SBI structure is intelligible without Japan’s regulatory history, because the country’s crypto framework was forged by catastrophe earlier and more thoroughly than anywhere else on earth.

Tokyo hosted the industry’s first systemic disaster: the 2014 collapse of Mt. Gox, then the world’s dominant Bitcoin exchange, which vaporized hundreds of thousands of customer coins and put crypto on the front page of every Japanese newspaper as a consumer-protection failure. The political response was not prohibition but codification. Japan amended the Payment Services Act to license exchanges years before Western peers had any framework at all, then tightened again after the 2018 Coincheck hack, building a regime of segregated custody, cold-storage mandates, listing reviews, and capital requirements that made Japanese licenses among the hardest and most valuable in the industry.

The same instinct produced the world’s first comprehensive stablecoin law, in force since 2023, which restricted issuance to banks, trust companies, and licensed money transfer agents, and the prepaid instrument framework that SBI Ripple Asia’s March registration slots into. Where American crypto policy spent a decade as litigation and Europe’s arrived only with MiCA, Japan built its rulebook early and then, crucially, stopped changing it. Predictability, not permissiveness, is the Japanese advantage: a firm that plans a five-year build on the Payment Services Act can trust the act will still be there.

That environment selected for exactly the kind of player SBI is. The compliance costs that strangle startups are a rounding error for a conglomerate; the decade-long timelines that venture capital cannot tolerate are ordinary corporate planning in Tokyo; and the regulator’s preference for long-standing, capitalized, domestically accountable issuers hands incumbents the field. Japan did not set out to build the world’s best jurisdiction for a Ripple alliance, but a decade of post-Gox rulemaking produced precisely that, and SBI was the institution positioned, and patient enough, to notice.

The history also explains the strategy’s export problem, which shadows everything that follows: the model works because the rules are stable and the champion is native. Neither condition can be shipped.

The prepaid breakthrough: 30 trillion yen in reach The March registration is the piece with the largest addressable prize, because Japan’s prepaid economy is enormous and structurally ready for tokenization.

Japanese consumers hold prepaid value everywhere: transit cards, convenience store balances, gaming credits, gift instruments, corporate points. The market’s annual scale runs around 30 trillion yen, roughly $200 billion, and it operates under the Payment Services Act’s prepaid instrument framework, a regime that already accommodates digital value issued against fiat. SBI Ripple Asia’s registration lets it issue those instruments as tokens on the XRP Ledger, converting a paper-and-database industry into on-chain balances without asking regulators for anything novel.

The first live deployment made the strategy legible: Tobu Top Tours, the travel arm of the Tobu railway group, launched a prepaid token for travel spending, issued and redeemed under the PSA framework, running on XRPL mainnet. A tourist’s prepaid travel balance is now a ledger asset, transferable and programmable within the license’s limits, settling on the same infrastructure that carries XRP itself.

Two properties make this bigger than one travel product. First, it is a template, not a bespoke integration; the registration covers a category, and every subsequent issuer, a retailer, a game publisher, a transit operator, can reuse the same rails. Second, it seeds the ledger with regulated, yen-denominated value at consumer scale, the raw material for the payments network Ripple has promised for a decade. Prepaid tokens do not require anyone to hold or even know about XRP, but they generate transaction flow, wallet adoption, and institutional operating experience on the ledger, the boring accumulation that the XRPL’s institutional finance stack needs far more than another partnership announcement.

The realistic caveat: 30 trillion yen is the market’s size, not SBI’s share, and incumbent prepaid giants will not concede it because a competitor found a better database. Japan’s cashless economy is already crowded with entrenched closed-loop systems, QR wallets with tens of millions of users, transit cards tapped billions of times a year, point programs woven into every retail chain, and each incumbent owns its float, its data, and its customer relationship precisely because its system is closed. The XRPL pitch to those players is interoperability and issuance cost, real advantages that nonetheless ask incumbents to open ecosystems they profit from keeping shut.

SBI’s likelier early wins are exactly what Tobu Top Tours represents: mid-sized issuers in travel, gaming, and regional retail for whom building proprietary rails never made sense, aggregated one license at a time. The breakthrough is the license and the template. The land grab is still ahead, and it will be fought store by store against some of the stickiest payment habits on earth.

RLUSD with a Japanese passport The second pillar arrived five days after the prepaid registration. On March 31, SBI VC Trade, the group’s licensed crypto exchange, began distributing Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin to Japanese customers, making it among the first foreign-issued stablecoins to enter Japan through the front door of its regulatory regime.

The distribution came with reserve attestations by Deloitte showing approximately $1.568 billion in assets backing roughly 1.49 billion RLUSD in circulation at the time of the review. In a country where the yen-stablecoin framework is strict enough that domestic issuance has moved slowly, a dollar token with a Big Four attestation and a licensed local distributor is a product with genuine institutional reach, and one whose paperwork alone signals which market it was dressed for.

RLUSD’s Japanese beachhead matters to the global picture more than its size suggests. Ripple’s stablecoin strategy, from its role in the Open USD consortium to its positioning against Circle and Tether, depends on proving RLUSD can win regulated distribution that rivals cannot easily replicate. Japan is the proof case: Tether has never cleared Japanese listing requirements, and the market’s stablecoin shelf is nearly empty. Being early on an empty, heavily regulated shelf is how USDC won Europe under MiCA, and SBI is running the same play for RLUSD in Asia.

The alliance stacked a third pillar the same quarter: tokenized corporate bonds. SBI issued 10 billion yen of its START digital bonds through BOOSTRY’s blockchain platform, retail-accessible instruments paying 1.85 to 2.45 percent, sweetened with XRP bonuses for bondholders through 2029. A conglomerate paying bond incentives in XRP is marketing, but it is also plumbing: it normalizes the token inside conventional Japanese retail finance, one coupon at a time.

The rest of the web Around the three pillars runs a mesh of smaller commitments, individually minor and collectively the texture of real adoption.

Banking: Tottori Bank, a regional institution, uses Ripple-powered rails for remittances, continuing the original SBI Ripple Asia mission of wiring Japanese regional banks into modern settlement. The corridor work is the oldest and least glamorous layer of the stack, and in some ways the most telling: regional bank integrations survive on reliability metrics and audit trails, not conference keynotes, and a rail that has cleared retail remittances under FSA supervision for years is the kind of reference customer that no marketing budget can buy. The regional banking sector, with its aging customers, thin margins, and heavy reliance on slow legacy transfer systems, has always been the most natural Japanese customer for the technology.

Consolidation: SBI has been in talks to fold Bitbank, one of Japan’s larger independent crypto exchanges, into its orbit, a move that would concentrate even more of the country’s licensed trading infrastructure inside the group. In a market where licenses are the moat, buying licensed capacity is buying distribution.

Loyalty: Rakuten’s vast points ecosystem connects to crypto conversion paths that include XRP, linking the token to one of the most widely held loyalty currencies in the country. Points-to-crypto is a small pipe, but it is a pipe pointed at tens of millions of ordinary consumers.

Venture and events: Ripple has committed a $500 million fund for Japanese and Asian corridor development, and the ecosystem’s confidence shows in the calendar: XRP Tokyo 2026, staged with participation from investors including a16z, made the city the token’s de facto global capital this year. Even the group’s hedging tells a story; SBI signed a memorandum with Fasset that contemplates multi-network token issuance, a reminder that the conglomerate’s loyalty is to its strategy, not to any single ledger.

Talent and standards flow through the same mesh. Japanese engineers trained on XRPL integrations inside SBI subsidiaries seed the domestic developer base; the group’s participation in industry associations shapes how Tokyo writes the next round of token rules; and every licensed deployment produces compliance playbooks that shorten the path for the deployment after it. None of this appears in any adoption dashboard, and all of it is why institutional ecosystems, once rooted, prove so hard for competitors to displace.

Ripple, for its part, keeps feeding the region: its acquisition of BC Payments Australia on March 11 extended licensed payment capacity in the neighboring corridor, the kind of unglamorous license-shopping that built the Japanese position in the first place.

JUST IN: Rakuten Wallet launches $XRP as a listed asset and payment method starting from April 15, allowing users to buy with Rakuten Points and spend at over 5 million merchants in Japan pic.twitter.com/cYTZajrmyO

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) April 13, 2026 Kitao’s long bet Institutional strategies this durable usually trace to one person, and in this case the person has never hidden. Yoshitaka Kitao built SBI out of the SoftBank orbit in the late 1990s into one of Japan’s most aggressive financial groups, and he adopted the Ripple thesis early, publicly, and with a conviction that has outlasted every cycle since. He has used shareholder meetings to talk price targets, put XRP into the group’s shareholder benefit program, and steered corporate development, the joint venture, the exchange arm, the mining and Web3 subsidiaries, around the thesis for a decade.

The bet’s texture is worth appreciating. Kitao committed a regulated, listed conglomerate to a foreign startup’s token in 2016, when the token had no legal clarity anywhere, then held the position through the SEC lawsuit that made XRP untouchable in America, through delistings, through an 80 percent drawdown, and through the 2026 slide. Japanese corporate governance gives a founder-chairman latitude that few Western boards would extend, and Kitao has spent that latitude on patience. The feud now raging between Ripple’s and Strategy’s chief executives over whose model creates value has a quiet third participant: the only major institution that took the utility thesis and actually financed a decade of it.

The dependence runs both directions. For Ripple, SBI is not one partner among many; it is the distribution, licensing, and political capital behind effectively every Japanese achievement the company can point to, which is why Ripple’s regional commitments, the $500 million corridor fund, the Tokyo flagship events, concentrate there. For SBI, Ripple’s technology and token are a differentiator no domestic rival can copy quickly, a moat made of licenses and relationship-years.

Which is also the risk. Kitao is in his mid-seventies. The strategy’s continuation is a succession question as much as a market one, and conglomerates have a long history of new management quietly unwinding a founder’s signature enthusiasms. The Fasset memorandum’s multi-network language, and the group’s general drift toward network-agnostic tokenization, read naturally as institutional hedging around exactly that mortality, corporate and personal. The empire is real. It is also, in the end, one man’s conviction wearing a conglomerate’s balance sheet.

What Japan proves, and what it cannot The Japanese experiment is the strongest evidence anywhere for the utility thesis, and its limits are just as instructive as its successes.

What it proves: the technology clears real regulatory bars. The XRP Ledger now carries licensed consumer prepaid money, a Deloitte-attested stablecoin, and tokenized bonds inside a G7 regulatory perimeter. The perennial skeptic’s claim that no serious regulator would ever bless the stack is, as of this spring, simply false. It also proves the institutional patience model works: a decade of joint-venture building through the regulator produced compounding capabilities that no bull-market partnership spree ever has.

What it cannot prove: that any of this accrues to the token’s price. Prepaid tokens settle in yen value; RLUSD is a dollar instrument; tokenized bonds pay yen coupons. XRP itself is the bridge and gas asset of the ledger they run on, and holders’ monthly reminder of the supply side arrives from escrow regardless of how many travel tokens Japan issues. The uncomfortable arithmetic of 2026 is that the year of Japan’s breakthroughs was also the year XRP fell to $1.01 lows, because the flows that price the token, ETF creations, exchange speculation, escrow absorption, dwarf the ledger’s operational activity and will for years.

The 2026 market backdrop makes the divergence vivid. Spot XRP ETFs launched in the United States in November 2025 to a $1.3 billion opening surge, saw their first outflows in the spring, then settled into a steady multi-week inflow streak even as Bitcoin funds bled through June, leaving roughly a billion dollars under management. Those flows, plus the escrow’s net release, plus exchange speculation, are the entire visible price formation of XRP, and not one of the three has anything to do with a travel token in Saitama. Japanese adoption enters the price, if ever, through a channel so long and indirect, ledger activity to institutional confidence to allocation decisions, that no honest analyst would model it inside a single cycle.

There is a second, subtler limit: the Japanese stack mostly does not need XRP the asset even where it uses XRPL the network. Prepaid instruments are yen claims; RLUSD is a dollar stablecoin with its own reserve economics; bond bonuses denominated in XRP are marketing budget, not settlement demand. The ledger burns trivial XRP in fees and uses it as a bridge only where a corridor chooses it. The utility thesis, stated carefully, was always that ledger adoption would eventually require the asset at scale. Japan is proving the adoption half at a pace no other country matches, and leaving the requirement half exactly as unproven as it was.

The honest framing is that Japan has built the world’s best answer to the wrong question, if the question is next quarter’s price, and the world’s only serious answer to the right one, if the question is whether XRP’s infrastructure ever hosts a real economy. Both questions have constituencies, and they talk past each other daily.

The lonely experiment The sharpest fact about the SBI empire is its solitude. Nothing comparable exists in the United States, where XRP’s 2026 story is entirely financial, ETFs, escrow, and litigation memories. Nothing comparable exists in Europe, where Ripple’s presence is licenses without a champion. The model requires a specific, rare configuration: a large domestic financial group with equity in Ripple, a regulator with clear token frameworks, and an executive willing to spend a decade on it. Japan had all three. No second country currently has two.

The near-misses elsewhere underline how demanding the recipe is. The Gulf states have friendly regulators and sovereign capital, but no domestic conglomerate has married its balance sheet to the token; Ripple’s licenses there are doors without a house behind them. Korea has retail enthusiasm and, soon, won-denominated stablecoins, but its regulatory posture toward foreign-token infrastructure remains cautious, and its chaebol have their own chains to champion. The United States has the ETFs and now the legal clarity, but American institutions buy exposure, not plumbing; nobody is issuing licensed consumer money on XRPL between the coasts. Each jurisdiction supplies one ingredient. Only Japan supplies all three, and it took ten years even there.

That solitude cuts both ways. It makes Japan the indispensable proof case, the one jurisdiction the utility thesis can point to without hedging. It also makes the thesis fragile in a way believers rarely price: a strategy embodied in one conglomerate and one 70-something evangelist is a strategy with key-man and key-country risk. If the SBI experiment stalls, succession, strategy drift, or simply the gravitational pull of that Fasset-style multi-network hedging, there is no second Japan behind it.

For now, the experiment is accelerating, not stalling: three new licensed pillars in a single spring, a consumer market of $200 billion newly addressable, and a shareholder base literally paid in the token. Whether that ever moves a chart is the question the rest of the XRP world obsesses over. Japan, characteristically, is not waiting for the answer. It is issuing the next token and the one after that.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile and you can lose your entire investment. Always do your own research. Information current as of July 6, 2026.

A major decentralized finance transaction on the Ethereum network ended with an estimated $2 million loss after a large swap was routed through a low-liquidity pool. According to blockchain analytics group Lookonchain and security firm GoPlus Security, the user exchanged 1,126.44 ETH—worth about $2.01 million at the time—in a single transaction.

Price impact from pool route deepened lossesInstead of receiving assets close to the original amount, the trader ended up with just 5,776 LIT tokens, valued at around $14,200. GoPlus Security clarified that the loss was not caused by a hack or a standard front-running scenario. Rather, it resulted from a backrunning arbitrage mechanism operating within the same block, exploiting price inconsistencies caused by the trade. GoPlus Security is widely recognized for its work on blockchain and smart contract risk assessment.

GoPlus Security emphasized that this was not a security breach or typical front-running, but rather price manipulation from a backrunning arbitrage opportunity occurring within the same block.

The ill-fated swap was routed through the AVAIL/WETH pool on Uniswap V3. With extremely limited liquidity in this pool, the large ETH order instantly pushed the AVAIL token price far above its actual market value. This forced the trader to purchase the token at a dramatically inflated price, resulting in severe losses.

Backrunning arbitrage within the same block draws attentionThe transaction continued across additional trading routes. After the AVAIL tokens were swapped for USDC, the trader then bought LIT on Uniswap V4. However, due to unfavorable price execution along each step, almost the entire value of the original ETH was wiped out.

As explained by GoPlus Security, after the large swap disrupted prices in the AVAIL/WETH pool, a backrunning participant acquired AVAIL at or near the fair market value from another source. That trader then sold the tokens into the artificially inflated pool, extracting more than 1,072 WETH as profit.

Glossary: MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) refers to the extra profit gained from prioritizing and ordering transactions during block production. A “backrunner” is a participant who quickly moves in to profit from temporary price swings caused by a large order.

On-chain data showed that roughly 1,018 ETH was subsequently sent to Titan Builder as a block producer payment.

Low liquidity raises risk for large tradesBlockchain records reveal that about 1,018 ETH was later paid to Titan Builder as a block builder fee. This highlights how MEV participants can seize pricing imbalances during block production to generate significant revenue. Titan Builder stands out as a key transaction organizer within the Ethereum block-building ecosystem.

The incident has reignited debate about the risks associated with processing large orders through pools with limited liquidity. When a sizable transaction passes through such markets, even a single order can cause rapid and extreme price fluctuations. While arbitrageurs often restore price equilibrium after the fact, users may end up paying far above the true market value during these episodes.

Ultimately, this example underscores the need for smarter routing technologies in decentralized trading. Systems that avoid illiquid pools and better estimate transaction costs on a route-by-route basis could help prevent similar costly errors in the future.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Key Takeaways URBN grew revenues 11.4% to $1.48 billion, supported by retail, wholesale and subscription gains.URBN's Wholesale segment revenues increased 24.8% as demand from specialty retail partners improved.URBN's subscription revenues rose 34.5%, driven by growth in average active subscribers. Urban Outfitters Inc. (URBN - Free Report) continues to benefit from the strength of its diversified operating model, with its Retail, Wholesale and Subscription businesses each contributing meaningfully to growth. By generating revenues through stores, digital channels, wholesale partnerships and its rapidly expanding Nuuly rental platform, the company has built a balanced business that is helping drive consistent performance across varying consumer spending environments.

The strategy delivered another strong quarter. In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, URBN reported record revenues of $1.48 billion, an increase of 11.4% from the prior-year period, marking its seventh consecutive quarter of record sales and earnings. Retail remained the company's largest business, with segment sales rising 8% to $1.22 billion. Comparable retail sales increased 5.6%, supported by high-single-digit growth in digital sales and mid-single-digit growth in store sales, highlighting healthy customer engagement across channels.

Wholesale provided a significant boost to overall performance. Segment revenues climbed 24.8% to $93.2 million, driven primarily by strong demand for FP Group products and increased sales to specialty retail customers. Management noted that wholesale growth was broad-based, extending across both specialty and department store accounts, underscoring the segment's growing contribution to URBN's revenue diversification strategy.

Meanwhile, Nuuly remained one of the company's fastest-growing businesses. Subscription revenues increased 34.5% to $167.3 million, fueled by a 33.3% increase in average active subscribers. Management highlighted that Nuuly added more than 110,000 average active subscribers compared with the prior-year quarter and is approaching the milestone of 500,000 active subscribers. The business generated an operating profit during the quarter, demonstrating that subscriber growth is being accompanied by improving profitability as the platform scales.

Management expects high-single-digit total sales growth in the second quarter. The outlook is supported by anticipated high-single-digit comparable sales growth at FP Group and Urban Outfitters, along with low- to mid-single-digit comparable sales growth at Anthropologie. With digital demand remaining strong, wholesale momentum continuing and Nuuly steadily expanding its subscriber base, URBN appears well-positioned to sustain growth across its Retail, Wholesale and Subscription segments.

URBN’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesShares of Urban Outfitters have gained 6.3% over the past three months compared with the industry’s 3.2% growth.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

From a valuation standpoint, URBN trades at a trailing price-to-sales ratio of 0.99X, down from the industry’s average of 1.45X. It has a Value Score of A.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Urban Outfitters’ fiscal 2027 earnings implies year-over-year growth of 11.8%, whereas the same for fiscal 2028 indicates an uptick of 9.8%. Estimates for fiscal 2027 and 2028 have been revised upward by 11 cents and 13 cents, respectively, over the past 30 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

URBN currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Key PicksWe have highlighted three better-ranked stocks in the retail space, namely Tapestry, Inc. (TPR - Free Report) , Genesco Inc. (GCO - Free Report) and Levi Strauss & Co. (LEVI - Free Report) .

Tapestry is the designer and marketer of fine accessories and gifts for women and men in the United States and internationally. The company sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Tapestry’s current fiscal-year earnings and sales indicates growth of 36.3% and 13.8%, respectively, from the year-ago actuals. TPR delivered a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 15.6%.

Genesco is a Nashville-based specialty retail and branded company, sells footwear and accessories in retail stores. The company flaunts a Zacks Rank #1 at present.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Genesco’s current fiscal-year earnings indicates growth of 55.2% from the year-ago actuals. GCO delivered a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 3.8%.

Levi Strauss designs and markets jeans, casual wear and related accessories for men, women and children. It currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Levi Strauss’ current fiscal-year earnings and sales suggests growth of 12.7% and 5.2%, respectively, from the year-ago actuals. LEVI delivered a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 21.4%.

BitTorrent has unveiled a long-term BTT token buyback and burn program that will use 100% of revenue from its decentralized services for quarterly market purchases starting in the third quarter of 2026.

Summary

BitTorrent will use all revenue from its decentralized services to buy back BTT every quarter starting in the third quarter of 2026. Repurchased BTT tokens will be permanently burned, with on chain transaction details published after each quarterly burn. The company said additional revenue from BTTInferGrid is expected to increase the funds available for future BTT buybacks. According to BitTorrent’s official announcement, all revenue generated by its decentralized services will be allocated to buying back BTT tokens on the open market every quarter, with the repurchased tokens permanently removed from circulation through scheduled burns.

📢 Announcement on the Launch of BTT Buyback Program

We are excited to announce the launch of BitTorrent’s long-term BTT Buyback Program starting in Q3 2026.

As part of this initiative, 100% of revenue generated from BitTorrent’s decentralized services will be allocated to… pic.twitter.com/h0hAMDLrRV

— BitTorrent (@BitTorrent) July 6, 2026 The company said the first round will begin with buybacks during the third quarter of 2026. The corresponding token burn is scheduled for the middle of October, when BitTorrent also plans to publish the total number of tokens destroyed, the percentage of total supply affected, and the on-chain transaction hash verifying the process.

Each quarterly burn report will be released during the middle of the first month of the following quarter, allowing users to independently verify the transactions on-chain, according to the announcement.

Under the program, the funding source will come entirely from revenue generated by BitTorrent’s decentralized services rather than treasury reserves or newly raised capital. The company added that revenue available for future buybacks is expected to increase following the launch of BTTInferGrid, which it said will contribute additional income to the ecosystem.

Instead of holding the repurchased tokens, BitTorrent said all acquired BTT will be transferred to a designated burn address, permanently removing them from circulation after each quarterly buyback cycle.

The announcement described the initiative as a long-term mechanism that ties token buybacks directly to operating revenue while providing publicly verifiable records of every burn.

BitTorrent and its products, including BitTorrent and µTorrent, serve more than 100 million active users and have been installed on over one billion devices. The platform became part of the TRON ecosystem after TRON acquired BitTorrent and its products in July 2018, adding blockchain capabilities to its decentralized file-sharing network.

Justin Sun-linked firms remain in focus The latest announcement comes weeks after another company linked to crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun drew attention over compliance-related actions. 

In June, HTX delisted the USD1 stablecoin after stating that World Liberty Financial had frozen certain on-chain addresses associated with the exchange, prompting HTX to suspend USD1 trading and convert eligible balances into USDT at a one-to-one ratio. 

World Liberty Financial said at the time that it maintained risk-based sanctions compliance controls, while HTX disputed any connection between the sanctioned Huobi Global S.A. entity and its current exchange operations.

The short, but glib, answer to the headline question posed for Viking Therapeutics (VKTX 0.32%) investors is "no," because the likelihood is that the $4.6 billion market cap company will be bought up by a larger pharmaceutical company if it has success in its clinical trials, and particularly with its lead drug candidate VK2735. Still, that doesn't mean the company can't deliver substantial value to investors. Here's why.

A competitive market for VK2735 VK2735 is a dual GLP-1/GIP agonist in development for weight loss and diabetes management. It's part of a growing and popular class of drugs that already dominate the weight loss market, thanks to blockbuster drugs like Eli Lilly's (LLY +1.35%) Zepbound (tirzepatide) and Novo Nordisk's (NVO +3.29%) Wegovy (semaglutide).

Image source: Getty Images.

At which point, investors are entitled to ask how Viking can hope to grab market share in a competitive market. It's a market where Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk already have blockbusters, have oral weight loss pills approved, and continue to develop new drugs in the GLP-1 class.

What makes VK2735 different Viking's VK2735 has a couple of qualities that set it apart from the competition.

First, it's in development as a dual-formulation therapy. This raises the potential for it to be initially administered as an injectable to rapidly lose weight, then shifted to a less intrusive, more convenient oral dose for maintenance.

Second, VK2735 has demonstrated, in both injectable and oral form, an ability to significantly reduce weight loss. Note that the mid-teens percentage baseline weight loss in the two phase 2 VK2735 trials occurred at 13 weeks, compared to much longer periods for the Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk oral offerings.

This raises the prospect of rapid weight loss over, say, a few months using the injectable form, before switching to the oral form for maintenance or to continue weight loss. This sort of option might be more attractive for many over taking oral pills for a year and a half to produce similar results.

Company

Clinical Trial

Drug Name

Formulation

Peak Weight Loss

Time to Peak Results

Current status

Novo Nordisk

Phase 3

Wegovy (semaglutide)

Oral

16.6%

64 weeks

Approved December 2025

Eli Lilly

Phase 3

Foundayo (orforglipron)

Oral

12.4%

72 weeks

Approved April 2026

Viking

Phase 2

VK2735

Subcutaneous

14.7%

13 weeks

Phase 3 results due mid to late 2027

Viking

Phase 2

VK2735

Oral

12.2%

13 weeks

Phase 3 results due late 2028 or early 2029

Data source: Company presentations.

To that end, Viking is conducting a phase 1 maintenance study in which participants will take injectable VK2735 for 19 weeks before moving to a maintenance dose, including weekly, biweekly, and monthly injectable dosing, as well as daily and weekly oral dosing. The results from the subcutaneous dosing are due for release in the third quarter of this year, but investors will have to wait until early 2027 for the oral dosing data.

The bears' viewpoint The glass-half-empty view holds that, aside from the phase 1 maintenance data, it won't be until late 2027 that Viking starts reporting phase 3 results for subcutaneous VK2735, and until 2028 for oral VK2735. Investors will need to be patient, and a lot can happen in that time.

In addition, the phase 2 oral trial has questionable safety and tolerability data, with a 20% discontinuation rate due to adverse events in the treated group, compared with 13% in the placebo group.

Today's Change

(

-0.32

%) $

-0.12

Current Price

$

37.36

A stock to buy? The bullish case argues that the titration in the phase 2 oral trial was too aggressive (note the 13-week dosing period) and that the phase 3 data will likely improve on it after management adjusts the titration. In addition, the phase 1 maintenance trial is expected to be successful and demonstrate the potential of the dual-formulation approach.

All told, there's a lot to like about Viking Therapeutics, and it wouldn't be surprising to see a larger company move in if the phase 1 maintenance trial data are good.

Key Takeaways Alto Ingredients returned to profitability in Q1 2026 after posting losses in the prior-year period.Stronger export, higher ethanol crush margins and richer product mix lifted gross profit to $9.2 million.Pekin upgrades aim to boost reliability, efficiency and capacity while expanding 45Z tax credit eligibility. Alto Ingredients, Inc. (ALTO - Free Report) posted a notable turnaround in the first quarter of 2026, returning to profitability after reporting losses in the prior-year period. The bigger question now is whether this improvement represents the start of a sustained trend or simply reflects favorable market conditions.

Several factors behind the quarter suggest the gains were not driven by a single event. In the first quarter of 2026, gross profit improved to $9.2 million from a gross loss of $1.8 million a year ago, supported by stronger export sales, higher ethanol crush margins and a richer product mix. Importantly, management stated that the company would have remained profitable even without the contribution from Section 45Z tax credits, indicating that core operations also improved.

Alto Ingredients is also working to make those gains more durable. The company is investing in projects aimed at improving plant reliability, increasing production efficiency and expanding capacity at its Pekin facility. These initiatives are expected to enhance operating performance while allowing more production to qualify for 45Z tax credits.

Still, sustaining profitability will depend on maintaining healthy industry margins. Management acknowledged that ethanol margins have historically weakened when higher production creates oversupply. However, it believes stronger export demand and broader adoption of E15 fuel could help balance the market and support margins.

For now, Alto Ingredients’ return to profitability appears to be supported by both operational improvements and a favorable market backdrop. The consistency of these drivers will determine whether the company's profitability momentum can be sustained over the coming quarters.

How ALTO's Profitability Momentum Compares With PeersGreen Plains Inc. (GPRE - Free Report) strengthened profitability in the first quarter of 2026 through higher ethanol margins, improved plant utilization and operational excellence. While treating 45Z tax credits as an additional benefit rather than the primary driver of returns, Green Plains also continues to invest in yield improvements and lower-energy operations to enhance its base business. Green Plains believes these initiatives will support durable profitability over the long term.

MGP Ingredients, Inc. (MGPI - Free Report) is improving profitability by emphasizing operational reliability, cost discipline and a richer product mix despite a challenging industry backdrop. Supported by ongoing efficiency initiatives, MGP Ingredients expanded Ingredient Solutions’ gross margin in the first quarter of 2026 through higher specialty protein and starch sales. MGP Ingredients expects these operational improvements and productivity measures to support stronger margins over time.

ALTO Stock Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesShares of Alto Ingredients have surged 352.1% over the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 8.2%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

From a valuation standpoint, ALTO trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 0.43, lower than the industry’s average of 3.21.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Alto Ingredients’ 2026 and 2027 earnings per share implies a year-over-year rise of 671.4% and 53.7%, respectively.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

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

July 06, 2026 08:00 ET  | Source: Rogers Communications, Inc.

Signs agreement to buy Kilmer Sports 25% ownership stake in MLSE

New global sports and entertainment powerhouse will deliver more for fans and customers 

TORONTO, July 06, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rogers Communications Inc. announced today it has signed an agreement to buy the remaining 25% ownership stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) from Kilmer Sports Inc. for C$4.35 billion, increasing Rogers ownership in MLSE to 100%. 

“This is a defining moment for Rogers. Our full ownership of MLSE brings together Canada's premier communications company with Canada's premier sports and entertainment organization,” said Tony Staffieri, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers. “It gives us even more opportunity to invest in championship-calibre teams, create unique experiences for customers and fans, and unlock long-term value for shareholders.”

Investing to bring championships to Canada
Rogers has a long track record of investing in Canadian sports. With this transaction, Rogers will continue to invest to bring championships to Canada, to continuously improve the fan experience, and to deliver the best sports content to all Canadians.

Beyond MLSE, the Rogers sports portfolio includes ownership of the Toronto Blue Jays, Rogers Centre and Sportsnet, the number one sports media brand in Canada. The company also has strategic partnerships with the Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, the NHL, the NBA, MLB and Live Nation. 

“Sports is a great unifier, it rallies us and brings us together in a truly unique way,” said Edward Rogers, Executive Chair, Rogers. “Winning is everything for fans and we’re committed to investing to bring championships to Canada as a proud owner and long-term steward of these beloved teams.”

“We want to recognize Larry Tanenbaum for his contributions to MLSE and to sports in Toronto,” added Rogers. “For decades, Larry has helped shape MLSE and we thank him for his partnership and his lasting impact.”

Delivering more value to fans and customers
Rogers will bring together its full sports and entertainment portfolio to deliver unique and compelling offers and experiences to fans and to Rogers customers. This will include investments to expand affordable options and access to tickets, ticket-giveaways, and unique once-in-a-lifetime experiences like attending the World Series or the Stanley Cup Finals.

“We will create more opportunities for fans to connect with the teams they love, and we will invest to deliver unique and compelling rewards for our customers,” added Staffieri. 

Investing to grow shareholder value
MLSE continues to be a highly valuable and appreciating investment. Full ownership of these iconic teams will strengthen Rogers ability to drive long-term growth across its communications, sports and entertainment businesses.

“Sports and entertainment are a core part of our business, and we plan to bring our world-class sports and entertainment assets together and surface more value for our shareholders long-term,” added Staffieri. “The strategic value of our sports business is even greater when you combine it with our core connectivity business – it gives us a unique value proposition to compete in a very crowded marketplace.”

Rogers intends to finance this transaction with its committed liquidity. As previously disclosed, Rogers intends to sell a minority stake in the consolidated Rogers sports, media and entertainment assets over the course of the next year.

The transaction is subject to league approvals. Rogers expects the transaction to close in Q4 2026.

About Forward-Looking Information
This news release includes “forward‐looking information” and “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively, “forward-looking information”) about, among other things, the transaction and related financing, including our receipt of any required league approvals, the anticipated benefits of the transaction and our sale of a minority stake in our sports, media and entertainment assets.

This forward-looking information is based on a number of expectations and assumptions as of the date of this news release. Actual events and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied by forward‐looking information if the underlying expectations and assumptions prove incorrect or our objectives, strategies or intentions change or as a result of risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond our control, including, the following: the transaction or the minority stake sale may not be completed on the anticipated terms or timeline or at all; we may instead fund all or a portion of the transaction through alternate sources, due to league requirements, general economic and market conditions, or other internal and external considerations; the anticipated benefits of the transaction may not be realized; the transaction is subject to closing conditions and termination rights; and the other risks outlined in our 2025 MD&A. We are under no obligation to update or alter any statements containing forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

About Rogers Communications Inc.
Rogers is Canada’s communications, sports and entertainment company and its shares are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RCI.A and RCI.B) and on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: RCI). For more information, please visit rogers.com or about.rogers.com/investor-relations.

Investor Relations
[email protected]
1-844-801-4792

Sandisk stock price has suffered a harsh reversal recently as the recent bull run hits a wall. SNDK dropped by 14% on Friday, reaching its lowest level since June 11. It has now slumped by 25% this year, even as top Wall Street analysts have maintained their bullish outlook.

Sandisk stock has done well in the past 18 months, making it the best gainer in the S&P 500 Index. It jumped by 4,000% in the last 12 months, with its market capitalization crossing the $300 billion mark.

Despite these gains, analysts are highly bullish on the stock, with most of them hiking their forecasts. In a recent note, Bernstein hiked its target from $2,100 to $2,500, citing the strong demand for memory products after the robust Micron earnings.

Bank of America hiked its target from $1,700 to $3,400, noting that its multi-year contracts were helping it avoid the cyclical issues that have affected the industry in the past. With SNDK trading at $1,745, a surge to $3,000 implies a 71% jump. 

Citigroup has also hiked the target price from $2,025 to $2,500, while Cantor Fitzgerald boosted from $1,800 to $2,900. Other companies that have hiked their targets are Mizuho and Morgan Stanley.

Sandisk’s growth to continue but risks remainThere is a possibility that Sandisk’s revenue growth will accelerate in the coming months as memory prices rise. A recent report showed that DRAM and NAND contract prices rose by 18% and 15% in the second quarter, respectively. While this was a strong growth, it was lower than the 60% experienced in Q1.

Sandisk primarily sells memory equipment like SSDs, memory cards, and USB flash drives. Yet, the cooling DRAM and NAND prices mean that its business too may be affected.

Data shows that analysts are predicting that its revenue jumped by 335% in the last quarter to $8.29 billion. For the year, the revenue is expected to grow by 168% to $19 billion, followed by 141% to $47 billion. These are strong numbers for a company that was spun out by Western Digital last year.

READ MORE: Sandisk stock is firing on all cylinders: is a day of reckoning coming?

The risk, however, is that the soaring memory prices may lead to overproduction, which will affect the global supply. Historically, the memory industry has experienced such periods of strong growth followed by slumps.

On the positive side for Sandisk, its stock is not highly overvalued. Ideally, you would expect a high-margin company growing by triple digits to have high price-to-earnings multiples. In its case, it trades at a forward PE ratio of 26, slightly higher than S&P 500 Index’s 22.

The challenge for Sandisk is that any sign that memory prices are cooling will have a negative impact on its stock. 

SNDK stock chart | Source: TradingView

The other risk facing SNDK stock is that its technicals have worsened recently, a sign that it has moved to the distribution phase of the Wyckoff Theory. This phase is then followed by the markdown stage.

The stock’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) has formed a bearish divergence pattern, moving from a high of 81 to 46 today. It also remains much higher than the 100-day moving average, which is at $1,285.

The bearish divergence and a potential mean reversion may push it lower in the near term. On the other hand, a move above the key resistance at $2,360 will invalidate the bearish outlook.

Computer motherboard and chip appear in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

CompaniesJuly 6 (Reuters) - Honeywell spinoff Solstice Advanced Materials (SOLS.O), opens new tab ​said on Monday it will buy Element Solutions (ESI.N), opens new tab at ‌about $14.5 billion, including debt, in a cash-and-stock deal.

The deal comes less than a year after Solstice completed its spin-off from industrial ​conglomerate Honeywell International (HON.O), opens new tab.

The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.

The combination would create a larger supplier ​of materials used in semiconductor manufacturing, electronics and ⁠industrial applications.

Shares of Element Solutions rose 3.5% in premarket ​trading, while those of Solstice were down 3%.

Solstice said the ​transaction would strengthen its exposure to AI infrastructure by connecting its electronics, packaging and thermal management capabilities with data center cooling and ​refrigerant application solutions.

Element Solutions supplies specialty chemicals used in ​electronics manufacturing, semiconductors, communications infrastructure and automotive applications.

The transaction is expected to ‌close ⁠in the first half of 2027.

Element Solutions shareholders will receive $10.00 in cash and 0.500 shares of Solstice common stock for each share of Element common stock.

Morris Plains, New Jersey-based ​Solstice manufactures ​refrigerants and applied ⁠solutions as well as electronic and specialty materials used in semiconductor production.

The company was spun ​out of Honeywell's advanced materials business in ​October 2025 ⁠as part of the industrial conglomerate's broader plan to separate into three publicly traded companies focused on automation, aerospace and ⁠advanced ​materials.

Honeywell completed the Solstice separation eight ​months before spinning off its aerospace business in June 2026.

Reporting by Katha ​Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Shinjini Ganguli

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

The InclusionSpaceX will become a component of the Nasdaq-100 Index prior to market open on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. The Nasdaq-100 is tracked by more than 200 investment products with over $800 billion in assets under management globally, meaning every index fund and ETF tracking the benchmark will be required to own SpaceX shares as of Tuesday’s open.

Estimates suggest passive investors could purchase up to $4.3 billion in shares from the QQQ ETF alone, with total Nasdaq-100 and Russell index tracking fund buying potentially reaching $27 billion.

SpaceX Shares Edge HigherSPCX Price Action: At the time of publication, SpaceX shares are trading 2.44% higher at $165.96, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

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This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

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

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella George Chan/Getty Images Microsoft announced plans to lay off around 4,800 employees, or 2.1% of its global workforce, on Monday, confirming Business Insider's earlier report.

The cuts mostly impact the sales and Xbox gaming organizations, Microsoft HR chief Amy Coleman wrote in an email to employees. Microsoft's Xbox division also plans to cut 20% of its workforce this fiscal year. Xbox will account for 1,600 of Monday's cuts.

Microsoft is cutting costs as it spends heavily in AI infrastructure, while facing growing investor concerns that AI could upend traditional software. Those worries helped send Microsoft's stock down 19% in June, its worst monthly performance since the dot-com era.

Microsoft typically cuts jobs around the start of its new fiscal year on July 1. Last year, the company eliminated 6,000 roles in May and an additional 9,000 employees, or about 4% of the company's workforce, in July.

Microsoft had more than 220,000 employees prior to the cuts.

As part of cost-cutting, Microsoft also earlier this year launched a voluntary retirement program offering buyouts to some employees.

About one-third of nearly 9,000 eligible employees took the buyout, in line with expectations, according to a person familiar with the program. That allowed Microsoft to cut a lower percentage of its workforce compared to last year, this person added.

Microsoft's latest layoffs reflect a broader balancing act playing out across Big Tech. Even as tech companies pour record amounts of money into AI infrastructure, they are looking for ways to offset those costs by trimming their workforce and operating more efficiently. In May, Meta laid off around 8,000 employees, accounting for about 10% of the company's total workforce. Amazon, Coinbase, Google, and Block have also laid off employees in recent months.

Read the memo Coleman sent to employees:

"When I stepped into this role, I promised to communicate more openly with you and share the "why" behind our decisions.

Today we are eliminating around 4,800 roles, about 2.1% of our global workforce, as we focus our people, investments, and energy on the priorities that will keep Microsoft positioned to deliver for customers in a fast-changing industry. The people whose jobs are impacted today are our colleagues and friends. They have made meaningful contributions to Microsoft, and we are deeply grateful for everything they have done.

Decisions like these are never easy, and you have my commitment that we are constantly looking for ways to reduce the need for job eliminations. Whenever possible, our priority is to place people into new roles aligned to the company's highest priorities and greatest areas of opportunity. Over the past year, we have redeployed more than 4,000 employees into new roles, including another 500 this month. We will also transition four of our gaming studios to operate independently under new management, with the goal of preserving both their intellectual property and ongoing projects. In addition, more than 30% of eligible employees chose to participate in our recent voluntary retirement program, and we will continue exploring similar approaches in the future. While this doesn't change the difficulty of today's news, we will continue to do everything we can to create opportunities for our people, reduce the need for job eliminations where possible, and responsibly support those affected with care and respect.

The "why" is this: our business is changing because the world around it is changing. The way technology is built, deployed, and used is transforming faster than at any point in my time here. Our customers' needs are shifting, the business models that serve them are shifting, and that means the work itself — what we do, where we focus, and how we're organized — has to transform too. Companies don't get to choose whether their industry changes; they only get to choose whether they change with it. That means we will need to adjust resources and roles and shift how we operate so we can have the greatest impact for our customers.

I also want to be direct that the roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI. At the same time, what is true is that AI is changing how work gets done. Some of the tasks we do every day can now be automated, and that means we all need to keep learning, keep building new skills, and keep adapting as the work evolves. Our customers are navigating this same shift, and they're counting on us to help them through it. We can't do that well unless we're doing it ourselves. This comes down to two commitments: making the decisions needed to drive differentiated customer value, and supporting the people affected by them.

First, we will make the hard changes required to build differentiated products and services that deliver differentiated customer value. We are aligning our investment, people, and energy to our business priorities. Today's changes mostly impact our Commercial and XBOX organizations. In our Microsoft Commercial Business, they build on last week's Frontier Company announcement, reshaping how we work and embedding our engineering experts alongside customers so we can help them accelerate their technology deployments. In XBOX, we are restructuring to position the business for long-term success. Engineering teams across the company will also continue to evolve their structure and priorities to meet customer needs and innovate for the future.

Second, we will do this thoughtfully. As mentioned above, we are working on alternative solutions to job eliminations and beyond this, we will continue to invest in equipping employees with new skills, including in AI. For those who are impacted, we provide financial support and resources to help them take their next step.

I know many of you want to help those who are leaving but aren't sure how. Reach out and check in on your colleagues. Use your network to bring people together, share what makes them exceptional, and help create connections to opportunities that might not happen otherwise.

We are still early on this journey, and there will be more changes ahead; other parts of our business will need to make similar changes. Each time, you can hold us to the two commitments.

During my time at Microsoft, I've seen this company reinvent itself again and again. What makes that possible has always been our people — their resilience, creativity, and willingness to keep learning.

Thank you for everything you bring to Microsoft.

Amy"

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Microsoft Layoffs Artificial Intelligence More Big Tech

Key Takeaways NVDA's cash flows surged in the first quarter of 2026, supporting buybacks, dividends and AI investments.NVIDIA returned about $19.5B to shareholders in Q1 and now has roughly $119B available for buybacks.NVIDIA expects Q2 revenues of about $91B, reflecting 95% YoY growth and a 16% sequential increase. NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA - Free Report) is generating enormous cash flows from the global artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure boom, giving it ample flexibility to reward shareholders while continuing to invest for future growth. The company’s latest financial results suggest its aggressive share repurchase strategy is well supported by its expanding business.

In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, NVIDIA generated a record $50.3 billion in operating cash flow, up from $27.4 billion a year earlier. Free cash flow also climbed sharply to $48.6 billion from $26.1 billion in the prior-year quarter. These gains were driven by record revenues of $81.6 billion, supported by booming demand for Blackwell AI systems and data center products.

Strong cash generation enabled NVIDIA to return approximately $19.5 billion to shareholders during the first quarter through stock buybacks and dividends. The company also raised its quarterly dividend from a penny to 25 cents per share and authorized an additional $80 billion for share repurchases. Combined with roughly $39 billion remaining under its previous authorization, NVIDIA now has approximately $119 billion available for future buybacks.

Importantly, the company continues to invest heavily in long-term growth. Multi-year cloud service commitments reached $30 billion at the end of the first quarter, while inventory and supply-related commitments also rose to support future AI demand. At the end of the first quarter, inventory was $25.8 billion, while total supply-related commitments were $119.0 billion. This shows NVIDIA is balancing shareholder returns with strategic investments.

Management expects second-quarter revenues of about $91 billion, even without assuming data center compute revenues from China. The top-line forecast reflects year-over-year growth of 95% and a sequential increase of 16%. If AI infrastructure spending remains strong, NVIDIA's growing cash flows should comfortably support continued share repurchases while funding product innovation and global expansion.

How Do NVIDIA’s Peers Fare in Shareholder Return Policy?Broadcom Inc. (AVGO - Free Report) and Texas Instruments Incorporated (TXN - Free Report) are leveraging strong AI-driven cash generation to strengthen shareholder returns.

Broadcom has built a solid capital return strategy backed by robust cash flows. In the first half of fiscal 2026, the company generated $18.3 billion in free cash flow, representing roughly 44% of revenues. Broadcom has consistently returned excess cash through dividends and share repurchases while continuing to invest in AI technologies. In the first six months of fiscal 2026, it returned $14.6 billion to shareholders through share buybacks and dividend payments.

Texas Instruments is also benefiting from rising AI demand. The company generated an operating cash flow of approximately $1.52 billion in the first quarter of 2026. During the quarter, it repurchased stocks worth $158 million and paid $1.29 billion in dividends. Supported by growth in industrial, automotive and data center markets, Texas Instruments appears well-positioned to generate higher cash returns for shareholders in the coming years.

NVIDIA’s Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesShares of NVIDIA have risen around 23.1% over the past year compared with the Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s gain of 34.9%.

NVIDIA One-Year Price Return Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

From a valuation standpoint, NVDA trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 18.87, below the sector’s average of 22.73.

NVIDIA Forward 12-Month P/E Ratio
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for NVIDIA’s fiscal 2027 and 2028 earnings implies a year-over-year increase of approximately 89% and 35%, respectively. Estimates for fiscal 2027 and 2028 have been revised upward over the past 30 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

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