With the 10-year Treasury yield sitting at 4.34%, income investors face a genuine choice between risk-free government bonds and dividend-paying equities. For those willing to look beyond U.S. borders, international dividend ETFs have quietly delivered competitive returns over the past year while offering geographic diversification that purely domestic funds cannot. The four funds below cover ... 4...
With the 10-year Treasury yield sitting at 4.34%, income investors face a genuine choice between risk-free government bonds and dividend-paying equities. For those willing to look beyond U.S. borders, international dividend ETFs have quietly delivered competitive returns over the past year while offering geographic diversification that purely domestic funds cannot. The four funds below cover ... 4 High-Yield International ETFs Beating the S&P 500 Over the Past Year
BalkansCat Diageo ( DEO ) is in line for a cash windfall from the sale of the Indian Premier League Royal Challengers Bengaluru cricket team, which was sold to Aditya Birla Group, Blackstone ( BX ), The Times of India Group, and Bolt Ventures for just under $1.8B. Notably, Diageo ( DEO ) holds a controlling stake of 55.9% in team owner United Spirits Limited. The spirits company's ownership of Roy...
BalkansCat Diageo ( DEO ) is in line for a cash windfall from the sale of the Indian Premier League Royal Challengers Bengaluru cricket team, which was sold to Aditya Birla Group, Blackstone ( BX ), The Times of India Group, and Bolt Ventures for just under $1.8B. Notably, Diageo ( DEO ) holds a controlling stake of 55.9% in team owner United Spirits Limited. The spirits company's ownership of Royal Challengers Bengaluru traces back to Vijay Mallya’s original purchase of the franchise in the IPL’s inaugural 2008 auction, when the team was bought through the United Breweries group. Diageo ( DEO ) later gained control of the franchise indirectly by acquiring a controlling stake in United Spirits in 2013, then assuming full operational and management control after Mallya stepped down from United Spirits in 2016. Shares of Diageo ( DEO ) were up 1.7% in premarket trading as investors digested the cricket news. More on Diageo Diageo plc 2026 Q2 - Results - Earnings Call Presentation Diageo: Fundamentally Resilient But Limited Growth Prospects To Justify Upside Diageo: Sooner-Than-Expected Dividend Cut Fast-Tracks This Premium Leader's Recovery Constellation Brands holds top Quant rating among distillers ahead of St. Patrick’s Day Most sold large, mega-cap consumer staples amid U.S.-Iran tensions
Hong Kong’s biggest free-to-air broadcaster swung to a profit of HK$59 million (US$7.5 million) in 2025 from a loss of HK$491 a year earlier, as threefold growth in revenue from the Greater Bay Area helped shake off a streak of annual losses that began in 2018. Television Broadcasts (TVB) said in a stock exchange filing on Wednesday that 2025 revenue fell 2 per cent from a year earlier to HK$3.19 ...
Hong Kong’s biggest free-to-air broadcaster swung to a profit of HK$59 million (US$7.5 million) in 2025 from a loss of HK$491 a year earlier, as threefold growth in revenue from the Greater Bay Area helped shake off a streak of annual losses that began in 2018. Television Broadcasts (TVB) said in a stock exchange filing on Wednesday that 2025 revenue fell 2 per cent from a year earlier to HK$3.19 billion, while it trimmed total costs, excluding depreciation and amortisation, by 4.9 per...
Welcome back to Bloomberg’s Real Estate Monitor , a weekly breakdown of emerging trends, strategic challenges and blockbuster deals shaping the industry. Sign up now if you’re not already on the list. This week, find out how AI companies have bolstered the fortunes of New York City’s office market. You’ll also read about a massive financing for an ultra-luxury project in Beverly Hills , higher ins...
Welcome back to Bloomberg’s Real Estate Monitor , a weekly breakdown of emerging trends, strategic challenges and blockbuster deals shaping the industry. Sign up now if you’re not already on the list. This week, find out how AI companies have bolstered the fortunes of New York City’s office market. You’ll also read about a massive financing for an ultra-luxury project in Beverly Hills , higher insurance bills for US homeowners and how posh retailers are courting increasingly picky shoppers . Let’s dig in. — Christine Maurus Market Snapshot Vornado Realty Trust $26.12 +0.4% Simon Property Group Inc $178.27 -1.8% DR Horton Inc $138.33 -0.4% Blackstone Inc $107.98 -1.3% Market data as of 08:51 AM ET. Data is subject to provider delays. The big story Turns out AI-driven tech companies don’t just need data centers. They also need office space for their growing numbers of human employees, and they’re grabbing blocks of it in New York City . Artificial intelligence firms scooped up about 1 million square feet of offices in Manhattan alone in 2025, and they’re on the hunt for more. Their deals, together with a leasing surge by legacy tech companies, helped give New York’s office market its best year in more then a decade. It was a shot in the arm after a long post-Covid struggle that reaffirms the city’s status as a global business center. And while California’s Bay Area remains the biggest hub for AI and tech firms, New York is a solid runner up, Bloomberg’s Natalie Wong and Edison Wu reported. Its population of AI workers right now is ahead of those in Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles. “Every industry and company is thinking about how to implement AI technology, and New York is ground zero for that conversation,” said Julie Samuels, CEO of the trade group Tech:NYC. “Every company is here.” What’s more is that a bunch of those companies are insisting that their people show up in person five days a week, a shift from recent years when work-from-anywhere was the industry stan...
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction Back when I last covered Pfizer ( PFE ), I highlighted the company's peer-leading drug pipeline, strong cash flow and attractive valuation despite the medium-term patent cliff and broader macro headwinds. With the valuation still reflecting a careful approach in the face of their patent cliff and significant macro uncertainty, I reiterate PF...
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction Back when I last covered Pfizer ( PFE ), I highlighted the company's peer-leading drug pipeline, strong cash flow and attractive valuation despite the medium-term patent cliff and broader macro headwinds. With the valuation still reflecting a careful approach in the face of their patent cliff and significant macro uncertainty, I reiterate PFE's Buy rating, backed by solid fundamentals and high long-term potential to replace the ongoing lease expirations. Solid Fundamentals, Bracing For The LOE Cliff Pfizer IR PFE reported a strong Q4 and 2025 overall, beating the market's top- and bottom-line estimates and reiterating their 2026 guidance despite a 3% drop in Q4 revenue compared to 2024 due to a decline in COVID-19 product revenue, with the free cash flow reaching a solid $9.08 billion, below 2024's ~$9.84 billion. Pfizer IR For 2026, PFE expects a decline in revenue due to the patent cliffs I'll mention below, with the revenue expected to reach between $59.5 billion to $62.5 billion compared to $62.6 billion in 2025 (down 2% vs. 2024), for an Adjusted Diluted EPS between $2.80 to $3.00 compared to $3.22 in 2025 (up 4% YoY). Note that these also include the negative effects of policies like the Most-Favored-Nation drug pricing and TrumpRx, while also advancing significantly in high-growth and high-potential segments such as weight loss, planning to start about 20 key pivotal trials in 2026, half of them being related to obesity, acquired recently from Metsera. Pfizer IR Financially, based on PFE's latest report , we continue to see a good position, with the current assets covering their current liabilities and more than enough assets to offset their debt, even though most of them are in goodwill and intangibles thanks to their acquisitions. This can potentially allow them to spin off or divest a branch if they absolutely need it, which wouldn't be impossible to see if they want to trim the portfolio following s...
Images By Tang Ming Tung/DigitalVision via Getty Images On his company's fourth quarter conference call last month, Astronics ( ATRO ) chief executive office Peter Gundermann opened with an incredibly positive summary of the fourth quarter results. Revenue in the quarter was a new record, and in fact nearly 13% higher than the previous peak. Operating and EBITDA margins both reached post-pandemic ...
Images By Tang Ming Tung/DigitalVision via Getty Images On his company's fourth quarter conference call last month, Astronics ( ATRO ) chief executive office Peter Gundermann opened with an incredibly positive summary of the fourth quarter results. Revenue in the quarter was a new record, and in fact nearly 13% higher than the previous peak. Operating and EBITDA margins both reached post-pandemic highs. Backlog at the end of 2025 too was at a record level. Favorable sentiment remained through the call, which felt like the culmination of several years of post-pandemic normalization. As Gundermann noted, Astronics's revenue growth did slow last year (though the company expects a return to double-digit increases in 2026), but margins continued to improve. Catch-up pricing after the bout of inflation a couple of years back has been a key driver (unusually favorable mix in Q4 helped as well). And with commercial aircraft demand growing for years (decades?) to come, there very much a sense that Astronics was closer to the beginning of its growth than the end. On the whole, coming out of February, Astronics seemed to be in an incredibly strong position. And the equity market had responded in kind (five-year chart through February 27, 2026): Data by YCharts But March has been a different story. Even with a 3.6% bounce on Monday, ATRO stock is down 18% so far this month. The obvious culprit is the strikes in Iran by the United States and Israel, which have led aerospace plays down. Other sector plays like Howmet Aerospace ( HWM ) and Heico ( HEI ) too have dipped since the strikes began (though ATRO has in that context underperformed). The sudden geopolitical risk colors what looks like an absolutely fantastic story. I wrote in January there remained significant room for upside in shares, and coming out of Q4 that still seemed to be the case. The new unexpected (and unwelcome) developments in the Middle East do color the story a bit. For now, I still expect investors to take...
Ildo Frazao/iStock via Getty Images The debate about BDC headwinds has shifted from interest rate risk to credit risk being as the main source for potential value destruction. Starting from about mid-2025 almost everyone expected mounting BDC dividend cuts due to falling base rates. To some extent it has already materialized as many players have recently synchronized their dividend payouts with th...
Ildo Frazao/iStock via Getty Images The debate about BDC headwinds has shifted from interest rate risk to credit risk being as the main source for potential value destruction. Starting from about mid-2025 almost everyone expected mounting BDC dividend cuts due to falling base rates. To some extent it has already materialized as many players have recently synchronized their dividend payouts with the new interest rate reality. Yet, because of the oil price shock, incremental base rate cuts seem unrealistic this year. In fact, currently, we can see that the market has started to chat about potential rate hikes . While this should, theoretically, provide a relief to BDCs (in the context of their dividend coverage), what we see is the complete opposite. Namely, the market has sent the BDC world ( BIZD ) into a heavy (almost distressed-like) zone. And it makes perfect sense if the assumption is that there will be huge manifestation of credit risk. The credit risk is more important and with more tangible consequences than the interest rate risk, which what really does is simply aligns BDC dividend yields to the lower-yield environment (while, actually, boosting the credit risk protection layer as the underlying companies can enjoy cheaper debt service). Now, in my humble opinion, what does not make sense is the level of discount that has been currently assigned by the market. The BDC median P/NAV is 0.73x - i.e., a discount of 27%. How I see it is that the market has once again overreacted to a situation in which the direction of travel moves from positive to negative. Sure, in the prevailing market situation, it would be only reasonable to expect higher default rates and thus some discounts to account for potential NAV declines. Yet, the question is whether we should really expect "more than 3 standard deviation move from the mean". I don't think so. I don't see evidence of that, nor do I see similar precedents in the past, which include such periods as GFC, 2015/2016 cru...
NiseriN/iStock via Getty Images Looking for high-yield debt exposure? Certain closed-end funds, "CEFs", such as the BlackRock Debt Strategies Fund ( DSU ), specialize in that corner of the market, pooling together multiple debt instruments of various types. Fund Profile DSU's "primary investment objective is to provide current income by investing primarily in a diversified portfolio of US companie...
NiseriN/iStock via Getty Images Looking for high-yield debt exposure? Certain closed-end funds, "CEFs", such as the BlackRock Debt Strategies Fund ( DSU ), specialize in that corner of the market, pooling together multiple debt instruments of various types. Fund Profile DSU's "primary investment objective is to provide current income by investing primarily in a diversified portfolio of US companies’ debt instruments, including corporate loans, which are rated in the lower rating categories of the established rating services (BBB or lower by S&P’s or Baa or lower by Moody’s) or unrated debt instruments, which are, in the judgment of the investment adviser, of equivalent quality. The Fund’s secondary objective is to provide capital appreciation. Corporate loans include senior and subordinated corporate loans, both secured and unsecured." (DSU site) DSU was incepted in March 1998 and is just shy of being in the 50 biggest debt CEFs, as measured by market cap. As of 2/27/26, it had 1301 holdings, with 303K in average daily volume. Management uses leverage, which was at 15.73%, so the 1.69% expense ratio includes ~1% in interest expense. Hidden Dividend Stocks Plus Holdings As of 2/27/26, Term Loans were by far the biggest exposure, comprising 73.67% of the portfolio, followed by Industrial High Yield Bonds, at 15.5%, Equities, at 6.2%, High Yield Bonds-Financials, at 3.13%; and Investment Grade Bonds, at 2.08%. DSU also held less than 1% each in Utilities High Yield Bonds, Convertibles, and Preferred Equity. DSU DSU's top 3 sector/industry exposures were Capital Goods, at 16.11%, Consumer Cyclicals, at 15.71%, and Tech, at 15.43%. It also had exposures to several other sectors, running from ~10% for Consumer Cyclicals, down to 2.82% for Energy: DSU Maturities are mainly intermediate terms, with 2-3 years at 12.56%, 3-5 years at ~40%, and 5-7 years at 42.27%. There's also ~5% in 0-1 year and 1-2 year maturities. DSU DSU's holdings are mostly non-investment grade - BB and...
A defaulted bond issued by an old Venezuelan power company and long regarded as a lost-cause by investors has almost doubled in value this year as investors look for ways to profit from Venezuela’s new-found rapport with the US. The notes , issued by Electricidad de Caracas , or Elecar, have leaped 98% to about 31 cents on the dollar since December, according to Trace data, triple the return on an...
A defaulted bond issued by an old Venezuelan power company and long regarded as a lost-cause by investors has almost doubled in value this year as investors look for ways to profit from Venezuela’s new-found rapport with the US. The notes , issued by Electricidad de Caracas , or Elecar, have leaped 98% to about 31 cents on the dollar since December, according to Trace data, triple the return on any other corporate debt in Latin America. That has handed outsize gains to investors like Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC , which has owned around a quarter of the debt for many years. The $650 million of bonds are drawing attention from investors hunting for ways to bet on a recovery in South America’s most distressed debt, after the capture of Nicolas Maduro paved the way for the US to reestablish diplomatic relations. With the nation’s sovereign debt up more than 40% this year — getting a fresh boost from surging oil prices amid the war in the Middle East — traders are looking to smaller, illiquid securities to continue profiting from an eventual restructuring. “As the entire Venezuelan bond complex has gapped higher this year after the ousting of Maduro, investors begin to look for lower priced claims, even if they are less liquid,” said Carl Ross , a partner and sovereign credit analyst at GMO. Nationalization Elecar issued the bonds in 2008, shortly after late President Hugo Chavez nationalized the country’s power grid and bundled up several electricity firms — including Elecar — into a state-managed corporation. The notes expired in 2018, and have been in a years-long default along with the rest of the country’s debt. They had traded as low as five cents on the dollar as the US ramped up sanctions against the Maduro administration. Now, as Washington eases sanctions on the energy industry and restores diplomatic ties with Venezuela’s acting administration under Delcy Rodriguez, bondholders see increasing odds of getting paid on their investments. Sovereign bonds ...
Ellington Credit Company ( EARN ) announced on Wednesday the commencement of an underwritten public offering of unsecured notes due 2031. The public offering price, interest rate, and other terms will be determined through negotiations between the fund and the underwriters. The 2031 Notes have been rated ‘BBB’ by Egan-Jones Ratings Company, an independent rating agency unaffiliated with the Fund. ...
Ellington Credit Company ( EARN ) announced on Wednesday the commencement of an underwritten public offering of unsecured notes due 2031. The public offering price, interest rate, and other terms will be determined through negotiations between the fund and the underwriters. The 2031 Notes have been rated ‘BBB’ by Egan-Jones Ratings Company, an independent rating agency unaffiliated with the Fund. The Fund intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase additional 2031 Notes at the same price and on the same terms and conditions to cover overallotments, if any. The Fund expects to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, including funding purchases of additional assets in accordance with the Fund’s investment objectives and strategies and (ii) repaying short-term borrowings under reverse repurchase agreements, which the Fund uses to finance many of its investments. The 2031 Notes are expected to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and to trade thereon within 30 days of the original issue date under the ticker symbol “ELLA”. EARN -0.91% premarket to $4.36. Source: Press Release More on Ellington Credit Company Ellington Credit: Chasing High Carry In CLO Equity And Mezzanine Tranches (Hold) Dividend scorecard for Ellington Credit Company