Key Points Tesla expects the rollout of its autonomous ride-sharing service will make significant progress in 2026. The company plans to start production of a humanoid robot later this year. To support its growth initiatives, Tesla expects a more than doubling of its capital expenditures in 2026. These 10 stocks could mint the next wave of millionaires › With electric-car maker Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA...
Key Points Tesla expects the rollout of its autonomous ride-sharing service will make significant progress in 2026. The company plans to start production of a humanoid robot later this year. To support its growth initiatives, Tesla expects a more than doubling of its capital expenditures in 2026. These 10 stocks could mint the next wave of millionaires › With electric-car maker Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) launching its Robotaxi ride-sharing service in 2025 and with management expecting to begin production of its Optimus humanoid robot this year, it's a great time to buy shares of the growth stock, right? After all, hasn't the stock's 9% year-to-date pullback created a timely buying opportunity? Not necessarily. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now, when you join Stock Advisor. See the stocks » While Tesla's ambitious plans for the future are admirable, that doesn't automatically make the stock a buy. Underneath the surface, the company is facing some issues that investors should be aware of. Not only did Tesla's vehicle sales struggle in 2025, but profits are moving in the wrong direction. Even more, profits could remain underwhelming in 2026 as the company ramps up spending on growth initiatives. As investors weigh Tesla's mix of bold plans with its near-term challenges, I'd encourage investors to give heavy weight to these near-term challenges and risks. Why? The stock's valuation demands it. Big ambitions You don't have to look far for evidence of Tesla's big ambitions. The company's bold growth initiative that has been in the spotlight the most recently is its autonomous ride-sharing service, called Robotaxi. Powered by its own vehicles, Tesla believes that once the service is in full swing, its owners will be able to check their vehicles in and out of the Robotaxi fleet's inventory, similar to how homeowners can list their homes on home-sharing platforms like Airbnb. Tesla executives...
10'000 Hours/DigitalVision via Getty Images Flexsteel Industries ( FLXS ) reported strong fiscal Q2 results from the October-December period. The furniture manufacturer’s results have remained highly impressive in a turbulent industry environment, not showing a slowdown despite tariffs and weak demand. I believe that the results underline a strong investment case, as Flexsteel’s stock valuation st...
10'000 Hours/DigitalVision via Getty Images Flexsteel Industries ( FLXS ) reported strong fiscal Q2 results from the October-December period. The furniture manufacturer’s results have remained highly impressive in a turbulent industry environment, not showing a slowdown despite tariffs and weak demand. I believe that the results underline a strong investment case, as Flexsteel’s stock valuation still doesn’t reflect the company’s earnings resilience. Tariff changes weigh on Flexsteel, but not enough to mitigate the bullish thesis. I maintained a Buy rating in my previous August 2025 article on the stock, titled “Flexsteel Q4: Impressive Earnings, But Note Peso Tailwind.” The stock has since lost -2% of its value, losing to the S&P 500’s 8% gain. My Rating History on FLXS (Seeking Alpha) Setting the Scene: The Furnishings Industry’s Weakness Continues The industry backdrop was challenging for Flexsteel in the late-2025 quarter. Industry-wide U.S. furniture sales slumped to a -1.4% decline for the latest published November data, slowing from some previous gains in early 2025. The industry’s absolute sales level remains subdued, reflecting housing sales below the long-term trend line, pricing pressure from tariffs on furniture, and general consumer uncertainty . U.S. New Home Sales ( Trading Economics ) Peer results clearly reflect industry weakness. Ethan Allen ( ETD ) last reported a -4.7% year-on-year sales decline, and Lovesac ( LOVE ) reported subdued 0.2% growth . I covered Hooker Furnishings’ ( HOFT ) sharp weakness in a December article . Flexsteel also notes the industry environment to have remained “highly dynamic” in the Q2 report . The furniture industry’s demand is highly dependent on housing sales, weakening recovery prospects for now. While mortgage rates have moderated somewhat, with the 30-year rate at 6.1% as of writing, down by 1.7 percentage points from the peak, the rate remains high compared to the longer-term average. Housing affordability has im...
The work of strengthening social cohesion begins with a commitment to responsible language and civility that goes beyond legislation Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast As I travel the world, I am reminded again and again that the health of a society is revealed not only in its laws or its institutions but in the way its people speak to, and about, one another. My father t...
The work of strengthening social cohesion begins with a commitment to responsible language and civility that goes beyond legislation Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast As I travel the world, I am reminded again and again that the health of a society is revealed not only in its laws or its institutions but in the way its people speak to, and about, one another. My father taught that nonviolence begins with language and the discipline to choose words that uplift rather than degrade, that clarify rather than distort and that build community rather than fracture it. Last month in the United States, we marked the holiday that bears his name at a time when our own social cohesion is under immense strain. The rhetoric of public life has grown sharper, more cynical and more divisive. Too often, we speak as if our neighbours are adversaries rather than fellow citizens. But this erosion of respect is not unique to America. It is a global challenge and Australia is not exempt. Continue reading...
Capital expenditures—capex, meaning the big-ticket purchases that fund the data centers, servers, and power infrastructure undergirding the AI race—is fueling record-high, multi-trillion dollar tech valuations when investors think the spending is warranted. But companies get punished when investors worry they might not see returns that justify hundreds of billions in spending. Alphabet is the late...
Capital expenditures—capex, meaning the big-ticket purchases that fund the data centers, servers, and power infrastructure undergirding the AI race—is fueling record-high, multi-trillion dollar tech valuations when investors think the spending is warranted. But companies get punished when investors worry they might not see returns that justify hundreds of billions in spending. Alphabet is the latest example. During its Wednesday fourth quarter earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai and chief financial officer Anat Ashkenazi revealed that the $4 trillion tech giant will spend between $175 billion to $185 billion in capex in 2026, possibly doubling the $91.4 billion it spent in 2025 and a far cry from the $52.5 billion spent as recently as 2024. In Q4 alone, Alphabet’s capex investment reached $27.9 billion. The move is part of what Pichai described as maintaining a brutal pace to compete in AI, which is driving every single dominant player in the space—Alphabet, Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and others—to invest heavily in innovation and infrastructure in a fierce competition that shifts quarter to quarter. “We are in a very, very relentless innovation cadence, and I think we are confident about keeping that momentum as we go through 2026,” Pichai said on the company’s Q4 earnings call Wednesday. At the same time, when asked what keeps him up at night during the call, Pichai’s response showed his concern about the capex surge and the longer timeline needed to convert that investment into actual working data centers, to overcome power bottlenecks, increase chip manufacturing, and master the skills needed to make it all happen. “I think specifically at this moment, maybe the top question is definitely around compute capacity [and] all the constraints—be it power, land, supply chain constraints,” Pichai said. “How do you ramp up to meet this extraordinary demand for this moment, get our investments right for the long term, and do it all in a way that we are driving effi...