Research firm Sensor Tower reports that OpenAI’s ChatGPT had one billion monthly app users last month. The lead based on this yardstick is long-standing in the industry. According to CNBC: “With its billion-MAU figure — achieved roughly 3.5 years after its November 2022 launch — ChatGPT became the fastest app ever to reach the milestone, ... ChatGPT Has One Billion Users
Research firm Sensor Tower reports that OpenAI’s ChatGPT had one billion monthly app users last month. The lead based on this yardstick is long-standing in the industry. According to CNBC: “With its billion-MAU figure — achieved roughly 3.5 years after its November 2022 launch — ChatGPT became the fastest app ever to reach the milestone, ... ChatGPT Has One Billion Users
Where's the Trump phone? We're going to keep talking about it every week . We've reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone's whereabouts. We don't have the phones we preordered yet, but this week included an unexpected in-person encounter with the T1. You see a lot of interesting phones when you're among tech journalists. I'm thinking of two in particular that I held this past week: One ...
Where's the Trump phone? We're going to keep talking about it every week . We've reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone's whereabouts. We don't have the phones we preordered yet, but this week included an unexpected in-person encounter with the T1. You see a lot of interesting phones when you're among tech journalists. I'm thinking of two in particular that I held this past week: One was solid gold, with ornate engravings. It was elaborately embellished, heavy - an actual work of art. The other was the Trump phone. I know. The Trump phone. The one announced almost a year ago that has shipped to almost nobody . But when you asso … Read the full story at The Verge.
Vikkkkkkkkkkkks/iStock via Getty Images Canadian National Railway ( CNI ) is a top railway franchise, and we saw their strength in the first quarter earnings. The network is running better, assets are being used more efficiently, CNI is generating free cash flow, and building a business around transporting Canadian grain, energy, and resource exports. Those are real positives. However, its current...
Vikkkkkkkkkkkks/iStock via Getty Images Canadian National Railway ( CNI ) is a top railway franchise, and we saw their strength in the first quarter earnings. The network is running better, assets are being used more efficiently, CNI is generating free cash flow, and building a business around transporting Canadian grain, energy, and resource exports. Those are real positives. However, its current nearly 52-week high price of $119 for its NYSE-listed shares reflects stretched valuation . It includes a good deal of operational improvement. Given that CNI’s financials were not as strong as their operations, with revenue slightly down and lower adjusted EPS, this is not the right price to pay for CNI. That does not make it a sell, however. This is a very strong company, and its long-term outlook is still appealing. But it does make me cautious. I rate Canadian National Railway a Hold. Q1: Operationally Strong, But Financially Mixed CNI’s Q1 numbers do not justify chasing the stock after the recent move. This is the key contrast here—the business is being managed better operationally, but that is not fully showing up in the income statement : Author The most attractive number here is C$0.9B—the free cash flow. This is up 44% YoY. The other positive number is the company repurchased about 6 million shares for C$870 million. That cash generation is important because it gives CNI a cushion. Even in a mixed quarter like Q1, they produced a good deal of free cash flow, repurchased shares, and kept leverage at about 2.7x. A lower-quality business with soft demand and poor margins could not have maintained this level of discipline. That is why I see the stock as a Hold rather than a Sell. Better Operations If the quarter was strong, that came from operational execution. Several important operational metrics improved: Author Together, these make for a very strong railway network, where network fluidity is the base for earnings. Cars moving faster, less congested terminals, long...
On this episode of Stock Movers with Alexis Christoforous: - Adobe (ADBE) shares are on the move as the company reports today. It fell in premarket trading on Friday after the software maker said that CFO Dan Durn would be departing the company June 15. The news comes after the CEO announced he would resign earlier this year. - Lennar (LEN) shares are lower after its forecasts for new orders and d...
On this episode of Stock Movers with Alexis Christoforous: - Adobe (ADBE) shares are on the move as the company reports today. It fell in premarket trading on Friday after the software maker said that CFO Dan Durn would be departing the company June 15. The news comes after the CEO announced he would resign earlier this year. - Lennar (LEN) shares are lower after its forecasts for new orders and deliveries trailed expectations, and as CEO Stuart Miller said the latest quarter was “defined by the same stubborn headwinds that have challenged the housing market for the past several years.” - SpaceX (SPCX) shares are pricing as it debuts today on the NASDAQ. Space stocks are up amid the IPO, including Rocket Labs (RKLB), EchoStar (SATS) and Redwire (RDW). (Source: Bloomberg)
J Studios JAB Holdings completed its systematic winddown of Keurig Dr Pepper ( KDP ) as a core platform investment. Keurig Dr Pepper's ( KDP ) path under JAB began with the take‑private deal for Keurig Green Mountain in 2016, followed by the 2018 merger with Dr Pepper Snapple Group that created the current beverage giant. JAB and partners initially controlled roughly 87% of the combined company, e...
J Studios JAB Holdings completed its systematic winddown of Keurig Dr Pepper ( KDP ) as a core platform investment. Keurig Dr Pepper's ( KDP ) path under JAB began with the take‑private deal for Keurig Green Mountain in 2016, followed by the 2018 merger with Dr Pepper Snapple Group that created the current beverage giant. JAB and partners initially controlled roughly 87% of the combined company, embedding their long‑term, coffee‑centric investment thesis into the capital structure. From 2024 onward, JAB pivoted from being a control investor to a seller via staged secondary offerings in a move that was described as “ownership optimization” that increased public float while funding buybacks. Looking ahead, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Piccolo thinks Keurig Dr Pepper ( KDP ) should re-rate on fundamentals. He noted sector read-throughs include Monster Beverage Corp. ( MNST ), PepsiCo ( PEP ), and Coca-Cola Company ( KO ) on large-cap beverage valuation dynamics. Piccolo thinks JAB's full exit could also accelerate speculation around whether Keurig Dr Pepper ( KDP ) will become an attractive strategic M&A target at its current trading multiples. Of course, Keurig Dr Pepper ( KDP ) already has a major deal underway. The plan is to acquire JDE Peet’s and then split the business into two U.S.‑listed companies. One will be Global Coffee Co., combining Keurig and JDE Peet's, and the other will be Beverage Co., which will house Dr Pepper, Snapple, 7UP, and other cold drink brands. The company is targeting completion of the separation by the end of this year. More on Keurig Dr Pepper Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. (KDP) Presents at 23rd annual dbAccess Global Consumer Conference - Slideshow Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. (KDP) Presents at 23rd annual dbAccess Global Consumer Conference Prepared Remarks Transcript Keurig Dr Pepper: Good Dividend And Excellent Growth Prospects At A Bargain Price JAB sells remaining 4.3% stake in Keurig Dr Pepper Coca-Cola posts best quarter in years, puttin...
Devrimb/iStock via Getty Images Thesis Summary For quite some time, the word on the street was “tokenmaxxing .” Companies were racing to spend as much on AI as possible in order to see how quickly it could transform their operations. But the bill came due, and companies began to think twice about their AI spend. Microsoft cancelled its Claude Code subscriptions, and Uber raised questions after blo...
Devrimb/iStock via Getty Images Thesis Summary For quite some time, the word on the street was “tokenmaxxing .” Companies were racing to spend as much on AI as possible in order to see how quickly it could transform their operations. But the bill came due, and companies began to think twice about their AI spend. Microsoft cancelled its Claude Code subscriptions, and Uber raised questions after blowing through its yearly AI budget in one quarter. Now, spending in tokens is beginning to fall, and this could be a troubling sign. But just because spending is pulling back, for now, doesn't mean this AI era and trade is over; it simply means it’s taking on a different shape. The Subsidy Era Is Over For the last three years, AI could be described as a cost leader. Everyone was trying to get a slice, gain market share, and use AI as much as possible to really test its limitations. Labs priced inference below cost to win developers, and hyperscalers bundled it into enterprise agreements to lock in workloads. But that arrangement was never going to work long-term. All the major AI providers have now moved towards compute-metered billing in recent months. No more flat rates; you pay what you use. The data confirms this, as we can see below. LLM Token expenditure (Silicon Data) The Silicon Data LLM Token Expenditure Index, a daily benchmark of spending across the traded LLM market, has rolled over hard in June and keeps falling. Is this something we should be worried about? Price Is Finally Doing Its Job What we’ve now entered is an era of AI free market, and that means that price can now do its balancing job. Prices adjust supply and demand by signaling scarcity or abundance, diverting resources to the highest-return projects, and, where possible, bringing about valid, more affordable substitutes. Compute, power, cooling, and memory bandwidth are real constraints, and token bills are how those constraints reach the income statement. But the recent pullback doesn’t indicate a t...
Khanchit Khirisutchalual/iStock via Getty Images Fund performance Columbia Short Term Bond Fund Institutional Class shares returned 0.48% for the three months ending March 31, 2026. The fund's benchmark Bloomberg 1-3 Year Government/Credit Index returned 0.28% for the same period. For monthly performance information, please check online at columbiathreadneedleus. com . Fixed-income sectors recorde...
Khanchit Khirisutchalual/iStock via Getty Images Fund performance Columbia Short Term Bond Fund Institutional Class shares returned 0.48% for the three months ending March 31, 2026. The fund's benchmark Bloomberg 1-3 Year Government/Credit Index returned 0.28% for the same period. For monthly performance information, please check online at columbiathreadneedleus. com . Fixed-income sectors recorded mixed excess returns relative to similar-duration Treasuries during the first quarter, with spreads mostly widening. (Duration is a measure of a bond's sensitivity to changes in interest rates.) The fund's out-of-benchmark allocation to structured products was the largest contributor to relative outperformance. Duration and yield-curve positioning, along with investment-grade corporates, also contributed, while high-yield corporates detracted. The fund's duration was slightly long relative to the benchmark, with exposure to maturities longer than three years. The fund was underweight in one-to-three-year maturities to balance the overweight to longer maturities. This positioning resulted in a contribution to relative performance during the quarter. Yields across the curve sold off during the quarter. The two-year Treasury yield increased 32 basis points (bps), while the five-year Treasury yield increased 19 bps. (A basis point is 1/100 of one percent.) Market overview Treasury yields were relatively stable to open the quarter and drifted lower in early February, as the market appeared to view the U.S. Federal Reserve as maintaining a tilt toward at least modest policy easing. However, the beginning of the U.S.-Iran conflict at the end of February marked a shift in tone, as a disruption in Middle East shipping led to spiking prices for crude oil and fertilizer, among other key commodities. As a result, inflation expectations shifted upward, and the outlook for Fed rate cuts was called into question. After successive cuts in September, October and December of 2025, the Fed ...
halbergman/iStock via Getty Images Three months after my previous coverage , Helmerich & Payne, Inc. ( HP ) increased further and delivered another 15% returns to justify my buy rating. The market stays highly volatile, but growth opportunities are still present and increasing. Its fundamentals also reflect its preparedness and proper positioning for these aspects. However, valuation is already hi...
halbergman/iStock via Getty Images Three months after my previous coverage , Helmerich & Payne, Inc. ( HP ) increased further and delivered another 15% returns to justify my buy rating. The market stays highly volatile, but growth opportunities are still present and increasing. Its fundamentals also reflect its preparedness and proper positioning for these aspects. However, valuation is already high enough and fully priced to pause for now. Technicals are still generally bullish, but caution appears. HP Q1 2026: Market Volatility Continued The start of 2026 was characterized by highly volatile oil and gas markets. It intensified in the latter part of Q1 as the civil unrest in Iran escalated into a war. With its high exposure to upstream activities, Helmerich & Payne, Inc. also felt the impact of sharp oil and gas price swings. This was fueled by inflation reacceleration and higher tariffs. Even so, we also saw its efforts to cope with the increasing cost pressures through its operational efficiencies. In Q1 2026, its operating revenue amounted to $932.4 million , down by -8.3% YoY from $1.02 billion. This was its weakest YoY performance in seven quarters and the first time its revenue dropped YoY. This should not be surprising for several reasons. First, the full impact of its M&A has already been included since 2025, so there was no major difference in 2026. Second, oil benchmark prices weakened in the first half of Q1 2026. If you look at the five-year chart , you can see the continued decrease in the oil price from August 2023 to January 2025. Even if the oil price recovered on a monthly basis in February 2026, the trend was still weaker than the year before. Natural gas prices also weakened during the quarter after reaching $5 per MMBtu in 2025. With that, oil and gas explorers and producers became cautious or lowered their activity as prices remained unfavorable for them. Another was the Middle East tension. The tension sent the prices above $100, which could h...
US consumer sentiment rose in early June for the first time in four months as the University of Michigan’s preliminary sentiment index increased to 48.9 in June from a record low 44.8 in May. Joanne Hsu, director of University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, provides background on the numbers. (Source: Bloomberg)
US consumer sentiment rose in early June for the first time in four months as the University of Michigan’s preliminary sentiment index increased to 48.9 in June from a record low 44.8 in May. Joanne Hsu, director of University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, provides background on the numbers. (Source: Bloomberg)