⚽ Premier League updates from the 8pm BST kick-off ⚽ Live scoreboard | Latest table | And read Football Daily Friday night, who wants a fight? ? Not this peaceable Guardianista, that’s for sure, and not Nottingham Forest. They’re trying to escape a relegation fight – and can go a long way towards achieving that if they win at Sunderland tonight. Forest are 16th in the table, five points clear of T...
⚽ Premier League updates from the 8pm BST kick-off ⚽ Live scoreboard | Latest table | And read Football Daily Friday night, who wants a fight? ? Not this peaceable Guardianista, that’s for sure, and not Nottingham Forest. They’re trying to escape a relegation fight – and can go a long way towards achieving that if they win at Sunderland tonight. Forest are 16th in the table, five points clear of Tottenham with five games remaining. This time last year they were fourth, but although the change in Forest’s league position has made things a lot more complicated, their objective is essentially the same: to play Champions League and Premier League football next season. Continue reading...
Intel could be in for more upside — even after Friday's surge to all-time highs, according to Dan Niles, founder of Niles Investment Management. "I think you want to be biased long over the long term," the hedge fund manager said Friday on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." Intel shares surged more than 22% in Friday's session and notched a fresh intraday high. The chipmaker is on track to register on...
Intel could be in for more upside — even after Friday's surge to all-time highs, according to Dan Niles, founder of Niles Investment Management. "I think you want to be biased long over the long term," the hedge fund manager said Friday on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." Intel shares surged more than 22% in Friday's session and notched a fresh intraday high. The chipmaker is on track to register one of its biggest one-day gains in its more than five decades. Intel blew past analysts' expectations on both lines in the first quarter. Intel is benefiting from booming demand for its central processing units, a product known as CPUs that is key to powering agentic workloads. INTC 1D mountain Intel, 1-day Investors have taken a particular interest in Intel since the U.S. government took a stake in the stock last year. Shares have surged around 275% over the last 12 months. Niles, who listed Intel as his largest holding at one point this month, called CPUs an "orchestration engine." While he said CPUs were "given up for dead" as the AI industry initially focused on graphics processing units, they are now "at the beginning" of a growth story. "You're only a few months into this agentic stuff," Niles said. "You should see very strong demand — at least, I think, for the next year — as corporations put more agentic workflows in." Wall Street is largely on the sidelines after the stock's big run. The average analyst has a hold rating and price target insinuating shares can fall more than 32%, according to LSEG. Niles acknowledged that Intel is "ridiculously expensive" as a stock. But he said Intel looks similarly to how Nvidia did a few years ago. Nvidia shares have soared more than 670% over the last three years. "Let's face it: Intel's been a dead stock for a decade or so," Niles said. "It'll take a while for sentiment to change and for people to ... really buy into this."
jetcityimage/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Domino's Pizza ( DPZ ) was added as a new short idea at Hedgeye with the potential for 20% downside from current levels. "DPZ remains a comp-driven story, and we expect a meaningful 1Q U.S. comp miss with downside risk persisting through the rest of the year," Hedgeye analyst Bennett Cheer wrote in a note on Friday. "While data shows improved foot tra...
jetcityimage/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Domino's Pizza ( DPZ ) was added as a new short idea at Hedgeye with the potential for 20% downside from current levels. "DPZ remains a comp-driven story, and we expect a meaningful 1Q U.S. comp miss with downside risk persisting through the rest of the year," Hedgeye analyst Bennett Cheer wrote in a note on Friday. "While data shows improved foot traffic early in 2Q, transaction data from Second Measure contradicts this strength, indicating declines," Cheer added. "Carryout remains a structural headwind, with mix and ticket pressured as consumers tradeoff between delivery fees and gas costs." Domino's has short interest of 10%. The pizza chain is scheduled to report Q1 results on Monday. More on Domino's Pizza Domino's Pizza: A Durable Compounder Mispriced By Short-Term Noise Domino's Pizza: One Of The Few Winners In A Tough Restaurant Market - And Now Undervalued Domino's Pizza: Dividend Increase, One Of The Few Restaurant Stocks To Grow Domino's Pizza Q1 2026 Earnings Preview RFK Jr. says he'd support banning junk food TV ads
Baker Hughes beats on earnings, sees outlook hold despite Mideast disruption. Lorenzo Simonelli, president and CEO of Baker Hughes, says the “outlook for the business fundamentals remains unchanged,” excluding the ongoing impacts in the Middle East. He spoke with Dani Burger and Matt Miller on Open Interest. (Source: Bloomberg)
Baker Hughes beats on earnings, sees outlook hold despite Mideast disruption. Lorenzo Simonelli, president and CEO of Baker Hughes, says the “outlook for the business fundamentals remains unchanged,” excluding the ongoing impacts in the Middle East. He spoke with Dani Burger and Matt Miller on Open Interest. (Source: Bloomberg)
ipuwadol/iStock via Getty Images Investment Summary The Real Brokerage Inc. ( REAX ) has clearly built a real business and scaled agent count rapidly. It has taken share in a weak housing market with improved retention. Its cloud model seems to be structurally more efficient than office-based brokerage models. The stock looks cheap at first sight, especially on an EV/Gross profit basis, but the qu...
ipuwadol/iStock via Getty Images Investment Summary The Real Brokerage Inc. ( REAX ) has clearly built a real business and scaled agent count rapidly. It has taken share in a weak housing market with improved retention. Its cloud model seems to be structurally more efficient than office-based brokerage models. The stock looks cheap at first sight, especially on an EV/Gross profit basis, but the question is not top-line growth alone. It is whether enough of that growth is actually retained for shareholders. The problem is structural: REAX's fee structure that boosts growth also limits the business's monetization potential. The best agents are hitting annual caps, and revenue sharing with referrers is taking another significant chunk of remaining monetization. Stock-based compensation (SBC) is eating into a very large part of gross profits. At the same time, ancillary revenues like title, mortgage, and wallet are still too small to matter and offset the structural limitations of the brokerage business. All-in-all, REAX is a business with clear strength but whose economics still seem too constrained to support a bullish view. Business Overview REAX is a cloud-based real estate brokerage platform operating in the US and Canada with a fully remote, agent-centric model that removes the need for traditional physical brokerage offices. One of the main factors explaining REAX's success with agents is the fact that it has better economics for them than traditional brokerages, like attractive commission splits with annual caps and revenue sharing for referrals. It also provides SBC to its agents to incentivize them. Besides, REAX's fully digitalized platform removes the need for physical offices, replacing much of the traditional brokerage back office model. REAX mostly monetizes transaction commissions, which are mostly pass-through. It is expanding in the broader transaction lifecycle and thereby also monetizing adjacent lines like mortgage , title , and fintech (" wallet ")...
Fast-food chain Chick-fil-A Inc. sold $650 million of bonds in a private placement, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The Atlanta-based company known for its fried chicken sandwiches borrowed in part to refinance existing debt, said the person, who asked not to be named discussing private information. Bank of America Corp. arranged the financing, the person added. The investment-...
Fast-food chain Chick-fil-A Inc. sold $650 million of bonds in a private placement, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The Atlanta-based company known for its fried chicken sandwiches borrowed in part to refinance existing debt, said the person, who asked not to be named discussing private information. Bank of America Corp. arranged the financing, the person added. The investment-grade bonds were sold in four parts to at least two dozen investors, the person said. The biggest portion of the transaction, $475 million of five-year notes, were sold to yield 0.95 percentage point more than Treasuries. BofA declined to comment. Chick-fil-A didn’t respond to a request for comment. Chick-fil-A is one of the largest privately-held restaurant chains in the US. Started in 1967 — and famously closed on Sundays, in keeping with its founder’s Southern Baptist faith — the company has more than 3,000 locations and expanded into Europe and Asia last year. Read More: Bone-In Fried Chicken Is Making KFC ‘Irrelevant’ and ‘Invisible’ Chick-fil-A’s offering doesn’t require the same securities filings that are obligatory in public credit markets, allowing the closely-held company to keep a relatively low profile. Most investors in the private placement market are life-insurance firms. 2 years $25 million 75 bps 4.58% 3 years $50 million 85 bps 4.69% 5 years $475 million 95 bps 4.91% 7 years $100 million 105 bps 5.18%
Sundry Photography/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Believe it or not, the iShares Semiconductor ETF ( SOXX ) was essentially flat on the year as of March 30... less than four weeks ago. Since then, semiconductor stocks appear to have chugged something with serious kick: the sector is up 47% YTD(!!) , and given Intel's ( INTC ) print last night, it's probably adding to that today. Source: KoyFin ...
Sundry Photography/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Believe it or not, the iShares Semiconductor ETF ( SOXX ) was essentially flat on the year as of March 30... less than four weeks ago. Since then, semiconductor stocks appear to have chugged something with serious kick: the sector is up 47% YTD(!!) , and given Intel's ( INTC ) print last night, it's probably adding to that today. Source: KoyFin I am a tad bit surprised that after three and a half years since ChatGPT was released in November 2022, there was still so much money to be made in the “picks and shovels” of this AI revolution. I’m not sure people are looking at Semi’s valuation that much anymore, given that consensus seems to be clustering around the view that we may simply have not enough compute as far as the eyes can see. Given such “reassurances”, SOXX ETF is currently trading at valuation multiples not seen at least since 2001 (I don’t have data prior to 2001; I’m also taking LTM instead of NTM because KoyFin doesn’t have NTM data that far back). Imagine for a moment you are in the early 2000s and you just read Hans Moravec’s seminal paper, “ When will computer hardware match the human brain? ” Let’s say the paper is compelling enough for you to start believing in “ the compute theory of everything ” and you then decide to buy SOXX to express such view through a diversified instrument. Even though your broader view on the unrelenting value of more compute would be correct, you would experience a disorienting volatility over the next two decades. At this point, we are indeed perhaps starting to price “the compute theory of everything” given today’s stratospheric valuation demands fundamentals to remain rosy for years to come for investors to make an acceptable return from here. Source: KoyFin Having said that, I will acknowledge that MBI Deep Dives has utterly missed the boat on the picks and shovels in the last 3-4 years. As a generalist, I knew very little about semis when ChatGPT was released, and ...
Primeop76/iStock via Getty Images Introduction I've made my bones on Seeking Alpha by writing mostly about upstream energy and oilfield service companies, in them, often sharing my in-depth knowledge of the industry gained in an almost 40-year career chasing drilling rigs around the planet. I am not going to get too deep in the weeds in this writing to keep this piece a manageable size. Rather, I ...
Primeop76/iStock via Getty Images Introduction I've made my bones on Seeking Alpha by writing mostly about upstream energy and oilfield service companies, in them, often sharing my in-depth knowledge of the industry gained in an almost 40-year career chasing drilling rigs around the planet. I am not going to get too deep in the weeds in this writing to keep this piece a manageable size. Rather, I will paint this picture with broad brushstrokes that will give the reader some insight into the shift in the energy market and my expectations for its permanence. I will pair that commentary with where I see undervalued opportunities for investors to enhance their portfolios. For what it's worth, I do analysis of this type in a weekly portfolio update for my subscription service, The Daily Drilling Report , to help members as they make investing decisions. If you find some value here, feel free to join us. The energy world we knew In the post-WWII era, cheap energy fueled growth in the global economy from a few hundred billion to over $123 trillion estimated for 2026. This growth was facilitated by a global supply and distribution system that emerged with low labor costs, mostly in eastern hemisphere countries, developing export economies that supplied the consumption economies of the western world. From an energy standpoint, there were three primary linchpins of this globalization trend. First, the massive oil reserves of the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia in particular, gave them an inherent cost advantage over producers in other countries. That enabled them to largely set the world price for oil, and sea-based shipping firms sprang up, delivering Middle East crude to points west. Second, the Arab oil embargo of 1973 sent price and supply shockwaves through the United States. In 1974, the Petrodollar was born in a pact with Saudi Arabia that established that, in exchange for sales of military hardware and other security guarantees, oil would be priced in U.S. dollars and s...
Palantir ( PLTR ) is reportedly helping the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS ) analyze dozens of data sets on American citizens to investigate a vast range of financial crimes. The IRS’ Criminal Investigation Division has used the military contractor’s Lead and Case Analytics platform since 2018 to analyze and aggregate diverse lists of federal databases and data sets, The Intercept reported. Americ...
Palantir ( PLTR ) is reportedly helping the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS ) analyze dozens of data sets on American citizens to investigate a vast range of financial crimes. The IRS’ Criminal Investigation Division has used the military contractor’s Lead and Case Analytics platform since 2018 to analyze and aggregate diverse lists of federal databases and data sets, The Intercept reported. American Oversight, a non-profit watchdog group, obtained public records detailing Palantir’s IRS contract and shared them with the Intercept. The public records revealed the vast amount of data plugged into Palantir’s software. According to the article, the documents revealed that Palantir’s Lead and Case Analytics platform allows the IRS to search and visualize connections from millions of records with thousands of links between databases maintained by other federal agencies and the IRS. The data includes Affordable Care Act data, individual tax forms and tax returns, bank statements and transactions, and other available data compiled by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Treasury Department. The documents suggest that its reach extends to cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Ripple. According to the contract documents, the IRS has paid over $130M to the military contractor for its services to date. Palantir and the IRS did not immediately respond to a Seeking Alpha request for comment. American Oversight director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement to The Intercept that the real concern is the consolidation of vast amounts of sensitive personal data into a single system with minimal transparency, especially one built and operated by a contractor like Palantir, whose business model is premised on integrating data and expanding surveillance capabilities. “When the government can map relationships, track behavior, and generate investigative leads across data sets at this scale, the question isn’t just what it can do—it's who it will be used agai...
Yahoo Finance Senior Producer John Hyland tracks Friday's top moving stocks and biggest market stories. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is on track for its fourth straight week of gains. Intel (INTC) stock is skyrocketing after the company reported earnings, reaching a new all-time high. Crypto miner Hut 8 (HUT) is reportedly tapping the bond market to raise money for a Google-backed (GOOG, GOOGL) data center...
Yahoo Finance Senior Producer John Hyland tracks Friday's top moving stocks and biggest market stories. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is on track for its fourth straight week of gains. Intel (INTC) stock is skyrocketing after the company reported earnings, reaching a new all-time high. Crypto miner Hut 8 (HUT) is reportedly tapping the bond market to raise money for a Google-backed (GOOG, GOOGL) data center.
Intel stock hits record high, Hut 8's Google-backed data center Yahoo Finance Intel's stock soars 20% as results top estimates, with chipmaker showing signs of growth CNBC Intel stock soars to all-time high on strong earnings The Business Journals
Intel stock hits record high, Hut 8's Google-backed data center Yahoo Finance Intel's stock soars 20% as results top estimates, with chipmaker showing signs of growth CNBC Intel stock soars to all-time high on strong earnings The Business Journals
Earnings Call Insights: NBT Bancorp (NBTB) Q1 2026 Management view CEO Scott Kingsley said performance reflected “disciplined balance sheet management, the growth of our diversified revenue streams and the continued benefits of integrating Evans Bancorp,” adding, “Operating return on assets was 1.29% for the first quarter with a return on tangible equity of 15.50%.” Kingsley highlighted capital an...
Earnings Call Insights: NBT Bancorp (NBTB) Q1 2026 Management view CEO Scott Kingsley said performance reflected “disciplined balance sheet management, the growth of our diversified revenue streams and the continued benefits of integrating Evans Bancorp,” adding, “Operating return on assets was 1.29% for the first quarter with a return on tangible equity of 15.50%.” Kingsley highlighted capital and shareholder returns: “Our capital utilization priorities remain focused on supporting organic growth while continuing our long-standing commitment to annual dividend growth,” and “we repurchased 250,000 of our own shares again in the first quarter of 2026,” while also noting, “our strong capital levels continue to allow us to evaluate a variety of M&A opportunities.” Kingsley pointed to Upstate New York semiconductor-related activity: “Site development and infrastructure build-out for the first fabrication facility are now underway,” and “we are already seeing tangible benefits with more than a dozen of our customers securing contracts tied to the project.” CFO Annette Burns reported, “For the first quarter, we reported net income of $51.1 million or $0.98 per diluted common share,” and said results included “a 4.5% year-over-year growth in our fee-based income.” Outlook CFO Burns framed expense expectations: “our run rate in the first quarter was right around $112 million,” adding, “We still think that… overall operating expenses… typically runs between 3% and 4% annually… for 2026.” On margin, Burns said, “our margin right now stands today at 3.72%,” and added, “as we look forward… it’s stabilization as well as maybe a few basis points of improvement depending on that yield curve.” On loan growth, Kingsley said residential solar runoff is “roughly $100 million a year… $25 million in the quarter,” and added, “We think we start to get back to more of that low to mid-single-digit growth rates for the balance of the year.” Financial results CFO Burns said, “Total loans at $...
Samsung employees in South Korea are protesting for more competitive wages. | Photo: Seong Joon Cho / Bloomberg via Getty Images The RAM shortage caused by demand from AI datacenters is already driving up prices on phones , PS5s , and Raspberry Pis , but it could be about to get even worse. Samsung is facing employee protests over demands for wages that are more competitive with rival chip manufac...
Samsung employees in South Korea are protesting for more competitive wages. | Photo: Seong Joon Cho / Bloomberg via Getty Images The RAM shortage caused by demand from AI datacenters is already driving up prices on phones , PS5s , and Raspberry Pis , but it could be about to get even worse. Samsung is facing employee protests over demands for wages that are more competitive with rival chip manufacturer SK Hynix, including removing Samsung's cap on bonus pay, allocating more money for bonuses, and raising base salaries. According to AP News , an estimated 40,000 union members attended a rally on Thursday outside Samsung's Pyeongtaek, South Korea chip manufacturing facility. If the union and management can't come to an agreement, the union is planning an 18-day strike begi … Read the full story at The Verge.
The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) was up 0.51% to 7,144.39, the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) climbed 1.21% to 24,734.24 on chip strength as of 11.30 am Eastern time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES:^DJI) slipped 0.37% to 49,127.05 as cyclicals and financials la
The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) was up 0.51% to 7,144.39, the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) climbed 1.21% to 24,734.24 on chip strength as of 11.30 am Eastern time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES:^DJI) slipped 0.37% to 49,127.05 as cyclicals and financials la
Hello and welcome to the newsletter, a grab bag of daily content from the Odd Lots universe. Sometimes it’s us, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway, bringing you our thoughts on the most recent developments in markets, finance and the economy. And sometimes it’s contributions from our network of expert guests and sources. Whatever it is, we promise it will always be interesting. If you like chatting ...
Hello and welcome to the newsletter, a grab bag of daily content from the Odd Lots universe. Sometimes it’s us, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway, bringing you our thoughts on the most recent developments in markets, finance and the economy. And sometimes it’s contributions from our network of expert guests and sources. Whatever it is, we promise it will always be interesting. If you like chatting with us, check out the Odd Lots Discord , where you can hang out and talk with us and with other listeners 24/7. Here’s what Tracy’s thinking about I think it’s pretty clear that without the Iran War, we’d be talking a lot more about what’s going on in private credit. And on that topic, it’s worth highlighting a recent headline, with Reuters getting the scoop this week that private equity sponsor Thoma Bravo is preparing to hand over the proverbial keys of software firm Medallia to creditors. As Pitchbook reports : Private equity sponsor Thoma Bravo, which bought the company for $6.4 billion in 2021, is set to lose over $5 billion in equity it has invested in the company with co-investors, though restructuring negotiations are ongoing, sources said. Reuters first reported on the restructuring. Private credit lenders provided a $1.8 billion recurring-revenue loan to support the company’s LBO , in a club including Blackstone, Apollo, KKR, and Antares. Lenders have marked down the value of Medallia’s debt for months, with Blackstone marking down the value of its first-lien debt to the company to 60 cents on the dollar as of March 31, from about 78 cents as of Q4, according to a BCRED 8-K filing earlier this week. This example highlights two important things when it comes to private credit. Firstly, when we talk about ‘troubles in private credit,’ we’re really talking about troubles emanating from private equity , given that equity holders are the first in line to get knocked out in the capital structure. Private credit has grown in tandem with PE, as sponsors increasingly turn...