Wolterk/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Investment Thesis Motorola Solutions ( MSI ) appears to be trading for a small premium at this time, while offering a high-single-digit return potential. As such I believe a HOLD rating is appropriate, despite solid financial metrics and steady dividend growth. I'd prefer a little more margin of safety before I consider MSI. Company Description Motorola So...
Wolterk/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Investment Thesis Motorola Solutions ( MSI ) appears to be trading for a small premium at this time, while offering a high-single-digit return potential. As such I believe a HOLD rating is appropriate, despite solid financial metrics and steady dividend growth. I'd prefer a little more margin of safety before I consider MSI. Company Description Motorola Solutions is a provider of critical communication infrastructure, devices and software, specifically for public safety and municipal customers. The company reports through two segments, Products and Systems integration which focuses hardware related products like video security, access systems, along with radio and communication systems. The other segment is Software & Services which earns revenue through contracts for maintenance, managed services, dispatching and analytic related products. MSI has a current market cap of more than $70B and has more than 23,000 employees around the globe. Over the past decade Motorola Solutions has seen price appreciation more than double that of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust ( SPY ). Data by YCharts Quality Financial Metrics Let's take a look at some key quantitative financial metrics that all high-quality businesses possess. I'll be looking for a growing revenue stream, stable margins, and a healthy return on invested capital. The revenue per share has been incredibly consistent with average growth between 8-10% annually. The company saw a minor setback during the pandemic where the RPS declined by almost 8%, but it followed up 2020 with double-digit growth in 2021 and 2022. The growth has slowed minimally since then, but is still typically in the high-single-digit range. The gross profit margin has been expanding ever so slightly over the past ten years. Prior to 2020 this metric was a tick below 50%, but over the past two fiscal years, as the company has focused on higher margin software products, the GPM has eclipsed the 50% mark. I expect...
Dark-blue women end eight years of rivals’ dominance Light-blue crew power to four-length win in men’s race Oxford’s women ended eight years of Cambridge dominance in their Boat Race with a sensational performance led by the Olympic medallist Heidi Long, while Cambridge eventually overpowered their dark-blue rivals in the men’s race after a fiercely contested opening. On a breezy and largely overc...
Dark-blue women end eight years of rivals’ dominance Light-blue crew power to four-length win in men’s race Oxford’s women ended eight years of Cambridge dominance in their Boat Race with a sensational performance led by the Olympic medallist Heidi Long, while Cambridge eventually overpowered their dark-blue rivals in the men’s race after a fiercely contested opening. On a breezy and largely overcast day in London, Oxford’s women forged an early lead as the first race of the day sped away from Putney, and they led by about six seconds by Hammersmith Bridge, with tens of thousands of fans cheering the boats on from the riverside, lining the 6.8km course all the way. Continue reading...
Sinenkiy/iStock via Getty Images The editors of the Wall Street Journal signal that the new Trump administration budget is " Trump's Breakthrough Defense Budget. " " Washington has for years given priority to spending on butter over guns. The result is a shrunken military industrial base that has been exposed by wars in Iran and Ukraine. " " Credit then to President Trump, who is meeting the momen...
Sinenkiy/iStock via Getty Images The editors of the Wall Street Journal signal that the new Trump administration budget is " Trump's Breakthrough Defense Budget. " " Washington has for years given priority to spending on butter over guns. The result is a shrunken military industrial base that has been exposed by wars in Iran and Ukraine. " " Credit then to President Trump, who is meeting the moment by proposing a new and record increase in national defense. " A Wall Street Journal article on the defense budget makes clear that " Trump promised a $1.5 trillion military request in January, before the U.S. launched large-scale strikes on Iran. " This little bit of information causes us to add even more government spending to the agenda for next year's military budget. The proposed budget for 2027 will move the defense spending to " roughly double what it was in 2021 and more than 40 percent higher than this year, including the supplemental $155 billion that Congress provided in last summer's bill. " " Defense spending has fallen to 3 percent as a share of GDP, compared to some 6 percent in the 1980s and 8 percent in the 1960s. " " The White House budget would increase this to 4.5 percent , which is close to the 5 percent goal that the President has set for NATO members. " The president wants more defense spending. And, one way or another, the president is going to get more defense spending. My concern with this added spending is about how the added spending is going to be financed. And, the financing of the debt can have serious ramifications concerning how much of the debt is going to be monetized by the Federal Reserve. This further leads to a question about the ability of the Federal Reserve to conduct monetary policy in the way it has been operating since 2009. In 2009, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke introduced a new way to conduct monetary policy. In this "new approach, " the policymakers focused on setting out a program for how fast they would add...or subtract...securit...
hapabapa/iStock Editorial via Getty Images HubSpot exited 2025 with solid double-digit growth, better retention, better billings, higher margins, and strong cash generation. It also showed improvements in upmarket selling, multi-product adoption, and AI usage. If the question is whether HubSpot has improved operationally, my answer is yes. If the question is whether the recent price decline has tu...
hapabapa/iStock Editorial via Getty Images HubSpot exited 2025 with solid double-digit growth, better retention, better billings, higher margins, and strong cash generation. It also showed improvements in upmarket selling, multi-product adoption, and AI usage. If the question is whether HubSpot has improved operationally, my answer is yes. If the question is whether the recent price decline has turned the stock into a clear value opportunity, my answer is still no. That distinction matters. The stock is clearly less expensive than it used to be, but I still do not see a wide enough margin of safety for a disciplined value investor, especially when the company still faces short contract duration, meaningful stock-based compensation, and uncertainty around how AI may reshape software pricing and seat economics over time. Business and market overview HubSpot provides a customer platform as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) including marketing, sales, service, content, operations, commerce, CRM, and AI-powered tools. As of December 31, 2025, it had almost 290,000 customers in more than 135 countries. The company generated $3.064 billion of subscription revenue in FY2025, representing 98% of total revenue, while professional services and other revenue accounted for $67.3 million, or 2% of the total revenue. Which means HubSpot remains primarily a recurring software business where seat and subscription numbers are very important. Profitability has improved at the same time. In Q4 2025, GAAP operating margin increased to 5.7% from -1.5% in Q4 2024 . For the full year, HubSpot reported GAAP operating income of $7.4 million, compared with a GAAP operating loss $67.7 million in FY2024. This also marked the company's first full year of positive earnings based on GAAP. Operationally, the company appears to be getting more effective at expanding customer relationships. Management highlighted that 62% of new Pro Plus customers landed with multiple hubs in 2025, while 40% of the Pro Pl...
Roman Tiraspolsky/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction It has been a while since I last reviewed Intel ( INTC ), which was at one point the most interesting story in the stock market. Since my last Buy rating , the company has lost around 2% of its value, actually beating the broad S&P 500. It has continued on its turnaround and I’ll dive into the current dynamics to see if Intel can cla...
Roman Tiraspolsky/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction It has been a while since I last reviewed Intel ( INTC ), which was at one point the most interesting story in the stock market. Since my last Buy rating , the company has lost around 2% of its value, actually beating the broad S&P 500. It has continued on its turnaround and I’ll dive into the current dynamics to see if Intel can claw its way back to the top. Current Dynamics I’ll first start with a review of Lip-Bu Tan’s leadership as I believe that he is the right man for the job, considering that he was recruited to solve the execution gaps that had negatively impacted Intel for more than a decade. He is essentially capacity-gating, which is a refusal to build speculative factory space without firm external customer commitments. More so, the firm is even more tilting toward a service-based foundry model with examples in the data center and AI segment, in which Tan focuses resources on the 16-channel Diamond Rapids and accelerates the introduction of Coral Rapids, which reintroduces multi-threading back into the server roadmap. In all, Tan is essentially betting on bringing back the engineering-first environment that made Intel so dominant to begin with. 2026 is also centered on the 18A process node, which has officially moved into high-volume manufacturing in Arizona and Oregon, and this node will be key to the company’s turnaround. It will introduce new tech like RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors as well as PowerVia backside power delivery. These are not set to be deployed by TSMC ( TSM ) until the end of the year or even 2027. The commercial use, Panther Lake , is designed to deliver a 50% multi-threaded performance leap and massive gains in its NPU for local AI workloads. This platform is set to power over 200 designs from global OEMs, making it the most broadly adopted AI pc platform in the company’s history. Though right now, Intel is surfing on a normalization phase in terms of yields, as ...
Roman Tiraspolsky/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction It has been a while since I last reviewed Intel ( INTC ), which was at one point the most interesting story in the stock market. Since my last Buy rating , the company has lost around 2% of its value, actually beating the broad S&P 500. It has continued on its turnaround and I’ll dive into the current dynamics to see if Intel can cla...
Roman Tiraspolsky/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction It has been a while since I last reviewed Intel ( INTC ), which was at one point the most interesting story in the stock market. Since my last Buy rating , the company has lost around 2% of its value, actually beating the broad S&P 500. It has continued on its turnaround and I’ll dive into the current dynamics to see if Intel can claw its way back to the top. Current Dynamics I’ll first start with a review of Lip-Bu Tan’s leadership as I believe that he is the right man for the job, considering that he was recruited to solve the execution gaps that had negatively impacted Intel for more than a decade. He is essentially capacity-gating, which is a refusal to build speculative factory space without firm external customer commitments. More so, the firm is even more tilting toward a service-based foundry model with examples in the data center and AI segment, in which Tan focuses resources on the 16-channel Diamond Rapids and accelerates the introduction of Coral Rapids, which reintroduces multi-threading back into the server roadmap. In all, Tan is essentially betting on bringing back the engineering-first environment that made Intel so dominant to begin with. 2026 is also centered on the 18A process node, which has officially moved into high-volume manufacturing in Arizona and Oregon, and this node will be key to the company’s turnaround. It will introduce new tech like RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors as well as PowerVia backside power delivery. These are not set to be deployed by TSMC ( TSM ) until the end of the year or even 2027. The commercial use, Panther Lake , is designed to deliver a 50% multi-threaded performance leap and massive gains in its NPU for local AI workloads. This platform is set to power over 200 designs from global OEMs, making it the most broadly adopted AI pc platform in the company’s history. Though right now, Intel is surfing on a normalization phase in terms of yields, as ...
⚽️ FA Cup updates from 5.15pm BST at Stamford Bridge ⚽️ Burslem Globetrotters plot another shock | Mail Emillia Right, time for some team news… Manchester City sailed through to the semi-finals with a huge 4-0 win over Liverpool earlier today. Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick to send his team through, with Antoine Semenyo getting on the scoresheet as well. Goalkeeper James Trafford also played a ...
⚽️ FA Cup updates from 5.15pm BST at Stamford Bridge ⚽️ Burslem Globetrotters plot another shock | Mail Emillia Right, time for some team news… Manchester City sailed through to the semi-finals with a huge 4-0 win over Liverpool earlier today. Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick to send his team through, with Antoine Semenyo getting on the scoresheet as well. Goalkeeper James Trafford also played a huge part by saving a penalty from Mohamed Salah in the second half. Continue reading...
Costco (NASDAQ: COST) is a club store, meaning its customers pay membership fees to shop at its stores. This changes the retailer's profit equation in a very important way. That's both a positive and a negative when you consider Costco as an investment. Costco's stock fell just shy of 20% in the back half of 2025, hitting a bottom just before the end of the year. That's a big drawdown, but one tha...
Costco (NASDAQ: COST) is a club store, meaning its customers pay membership fees to shop at its stores. This changes the retailer's profit equation in a very important way. That's both a positive and a negative when you consider Costco as an investment. Costco's stock fell just shy of 20% in the back half of 2025, hitting a bottom just before the end of the year. That's a big drawdown, but one that is fairly normal for this retailer. Over the past decade, the stock has fallen by 15% or more on multiple occasions. Given that Costco's share price is just 7% below its all-time high, each one of the drawdowns over the past decade was a buying opportunity. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading
JD.com (NasdaqGS:JD) has partnered with Spanish food company BayMar to expand its premium imported food offerings in China. The company has launched an online "Spanish Food & Drinks Festival" to promote Spanish brands and products on its platform. The initiative focuses on premium international goods, using JD.com's logistics and marketing network to reach Chinese consumers. For JD.com, one of Chi...
JD.com (NasdaqGS:JD) has partnered with Spanish food company BayMar to expand its premium imported food offerings in China. The company has launched an online "Spanish Food & Drinks Festival" to promote Spanish brands and products on its platform. The initiative focuses on premium international goods, using JD.com's logistics and marketing network to reach Chinese consumers. For JD.com, one of China's largest e commerce platforms, this move aligns with its focus on higher quality retail and...