Flashpop/DigitalVision via Getty Images Back in late December of last year, I decided to downgrade shares of MarineMax ( HZO ) from a "Buy" to a "Hold." I did not make this decision lightly. However, fundamental performance for the business was weakening, and I was becoming increasingly concerned about the state of the economy. The high net debt that the business has also didn't help here. Since t...
Flashpop/DigitalVision via Getty Images Back in late December of last year, I decided to downgrade shares of MarineMax ( HZO ) from a "Buy" to a "Hold." I did not make this decision lightly. However, fundamental performance for the business was weakening, and I was becoming increasingly concerned about the state of the economy. The high net debt that the business has also didn't help here. Since then, however, things have gone better than expected. Rising revenue has resulted in pushing shares of the business up 9.2% at a time when the S&P 500 is down 6.3%. Management is forecasting a meaningful improvement in profitability this year. And, at least in some respects, it's not like the stock is particularly pricey. Having said that, I do think that there are still legitimate reasons to be worried. Although management might have created some optimism through the announcement of a new share buyback program, the amount of debt that the business has is still concerning. And when you add on top of this my own view that the economy is almost certain to experience a recession in the next 12 months, remaining cautious with a "Hold" rating is the obvious choice. Taking Another Spin on MarineMax At this time, the only new data that investors have access to regarding MarineMax covers through the first quarter of the company's 2026 fiscal year . But before we get into that, I do think that a brief discussion of what the business is and what it does is warranted. For those new to the company, it operates as the world's largest recreational boat and yacht retailer, marina operator, and superyacht services company. It has over 70 retail locations spread across 21 states, from which it sells both new and used recreational boats and marine-related products. For those interested in this space, that is certainly attractive. And when you layer on top of this other operations that the company has, such as its ownership of Fraser Yachts Group, a superyacht brokerage and luxury yacht servic...
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Soundbite. We’ve been covering Netflix Inc.’s foray into podcasts closely in this newsletter, and today, one company is providing an early look at who’s winning on the platform and just how many households might be watching. We got an exclusive first look. Let’s get into it. If you appreciate this kind of work, please support it and subscribe . Reach me through email...
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Soundbite. We’ve been covering Netflix Inc.’s foray into podcasts closely in this newsletter, and today, one company is providing an early look at who’s winning on the platform and just how many households might be watching. We got an exclusive first look. Let’s get into it. If you appreciate this kind of work, please support it and subscribe . Reach me through email . Up first, here’s what I’m reading and writing this week. Spotify Technology SA is making its AI prompted playlist feature — which lets you type a prompt and receive a playlist in return — available for podcast queries . I haven’t had a chance to play around with it yet, but I love the idea. The MeidasTouch Network, a progressive YouTube-first media outlet, raised money with George Soros’ family fund leading the round. This follows the firm’s investments in Crooked Media and Audacy Inc. A massive story is playing out in the music world after investor Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management submitted an offer to buy the world’s largest record label, Universal Music Group NV, for $65 billion and take it public in the US. While Ackman remained bullish on the music industry as a whole, he believes the company can communicate better with them and that the label is undervalued, he said during a call with investors. Planet Money published a book this week through W.W. Norton & Company, a major textbook publisher. The podcast team put out a series dedicated to the launch, taking readers inside the economics of how publishing deals work and explaining their effort to get it (eventually) into the hands of students in addition to everyone else. The team says their advance came in between $1 million and $2 million. If you aren’t already tapped out on analysis about OpenAI buying the live-streamed tech podcast TBPN , great, I have a video for you all about it. Inside Netflix’s podcast play The entire media industry is watching closely as Netflix pushes deeper into podcasting....
Salt Lake City, UT, April 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TAP Real Estate (OTC: RWAX) is pleased to welcome Jeff Jarrard as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), where he will lead the buildout and development of TAPRealEstate.com, the company’s residential platform focused on homeowner reporting, property valuation, and cloud-based home management. The TAPRealEstate.com platform is being developed to deli...
Salt Lake City, UT, April 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TAP Real Estate (OTC: RWAX) is pleased to welcome Jeff Jarrard as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), where he will lead the buildout and development of TAPRealEstate.com, the company’s residential platform focused on homeowner reporting, property valuation, and cloud-based home management. The TAPRealEstate.com platform is being developed to deliver a more automated, self-directed, and data-driven experience for the ownership, management, valua
Tom Werner/DigitalVision via Getty Images Xerox Holdings Corporation ( XRX ) is due to report its Q1 ’26 earnings on the 28 th of April, before the market opens, and given the plummet in share price since my last article on the company, where I was rooting hard for the company’s recovery, it is a good time to have a look at what happened and what is still ahead. Are we truly witnessing the demise ...
Tom Werner/DigitalVision via Getty Images Xerox Holdings Corporation ( XRX ) is due to report its Q1 ’26 earnings on the 28 th of April, before the market opens, and given the plummet in share price since my last article on the company, where I was rooting hard for the company’s recovery, it is a good time to have a look at what happened and what is still ahead. Are we truly witnessing the demise of a juggernaut, or is there still some hope that we will not see the company throw in the towel? The Story So Far About a week after my article back in July, the company reported its Q2 ’25 results, which showed revenues of about $1.58B, not bad, but a sharp deterioration in profitability was the big killer. The company’s adjusted EPS, or should I say adjusted earnings loss, came in at around $0.64, while free cash flow also turned negative at about $30m. With the Lexmark acquisition only finalizing on the 1 st of July, no effect on XRX’s operations was expected, apart from some commentary regarding the integration aspect of it all. On the day of the report, which was rather disastrous, the company’s share price fell by over 25%. Following the report, the coverage of the company’s prospects was pointing towards the IT solutions growth and early Lexmark benefits that were just not enough to offset the print headwinds. The next quarter print came out at the end of October, with a massive beat on adjusted EPS and a miss on revenue by around $80m; however, top-line growth came in at 28% y/y, helped by the Lexmark acquisition. Pro forma revenue declined around 8%, and the overall bottom line was a GAAP net loss of around $760m, or -$6.01 per share. Narrowing the loss but still deep in the red. Operating margin dropped 190 bps to 3.3% as well. On top of these results, the management reduced its 2025 guidance to around 13% revenue growth and around 3.5% adjusted operating margin. A couple of days before the earnings, the company’s share price began to drop, and after the report, ...
Eos Energy Enterprises (NASDAQ:EOSE), designer and manufacturer of zinc-based energy storage solutions, closed Thursday at $5.95, up 29.63%. The stock jumped after delivering preliminary Q1 revenue guidance and record shipments, while investors wait for the upcoming full results.
Eos Energy Enterprises (NASDAQ:EOSE), designer and manufacturer of zinc-based energy storage solutions, closed Thursday at $5.95, up 29.63%. The stock jumped after delivering preliminary Q1 revenue guidance and record shipments, while investors wait for the upcoming full results.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on April 08, 2026 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images Stock futures were little changed on Thursday night as traders kept an eye on the fragile two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures traded marginally lower. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average ...
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on April 08, 2026 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images Stock futures were little changed on Thursday night as traders kept an eye on the fragile two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures traded marginally lower. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 19 points, or less than 0.1%. Stocks advanced on Thursday, extending their gains this week after President Donald Trump agreed to pause attacks on Iran for two weeks. The S&P 500 rose 0.62%, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.83%. The 30-stock Dow climbed 275.88 points, or 0.58%, in the session and crept into positive territory for 2026. Oil prices came off their highs of the day and the S&P 500 rose after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the country had agreed to negotiate with Lebanon "as soon as possible." Tehran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf cited Israel's continued attacks on Lebanon as a violation of the ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran. On Tuesday night, Trump agreed to a two-week extension of his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Middle East conflict, which has already been going on for five weeks, resulted in the closure of the key waterway. Stocks surged on Wednesday following the news of the ceasefire, with all three major indexes jumping more than 2%. The Dow notched its best day since April 2025 . Stephen Parker, co-head of global investment strategy at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, believes that the relief rally has sustainable legs going forward. "The size of the drawdown that we've seen in equity markets, particularly in the U.S., probably doesn't feel big enough relative to the move and the shock that we saw in energy markets, but I think that's reflective of a view that energy prices are likely to come down," he said on CNBC's " Closing Bell: Overtime " on Thursday afternoon. "Ou...
Mercer International Inc. ’s bonds slumped after it sought to ditch rules requiring equal treatment for all creditors — a move that would give the struggling pulp producer the power to pick and choose which lenders to favor in a restructuring. The company asked owners of its bonds due in 2028 and 2029 to remove a provision that forces it to pay all lenders equally when it seeks to strike a debt de...
Mercer International Inc. ’s bonds slumped after it sought to ditch rules requiring equal treatment for all creditors — a move that would give the struggling pulp producer the power to pick and choose which lenders to favor in a restructuring. The company asked owners of its bonds due in 2028 and 2029 to remove a provision that forces it to pay all lenders equally when it seeks to strike a debt deal, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Separately, a group of Mercer’s creditors has organized in anticipation of debt talks with the company and plans to sign a cooperation pact binding them to act together, according to the people. By stripping this so-called payments for consent rule, Mercer would in theory gain the ability to provide a deal to a specific group of creditors and not to others. Typically, a company only needs to win a simple majority to amend its debt documents. The effort reflects a rising tide of aggressive borrower behavior, as companies increasingly erode covenant protections to facilitate restructurings that can leave minority lenders at a disadvantage. Representatives for Vancouver-based Mercer declined to comment. Mercer’s 5.125% bonds due in 2029 traded at around 55 cents on April 1 and changed hands at 43 cents on Thursday. But some broker runs also on Thursday showed bids at around 35 cents, other people familiar said. Mercer is grappling with weak earnings and dwindling cash flow that’s left it struggling under the weight of its debt, which stood at about $1.6 billion at the end of last year, according to a filing . S&P Global Ratings downgraded the firm to CCC+ in February, deep into junk, citing an unsustainable capital structure amid rising fiber costs and lower pulp prices that contributed to a “significant cash flow deficit.” Mercer, with operations in Germany, the US and Canada, embarked on a program last year to cut around $100 million in costs by the end of 2026. In...
Jonathan Kitchen/DigitalVision via Getty Images Last spring, I wrote my first analysis for the ProShares S&P MidCap 400 Dividend Aristocrat ETF ( REGL ). I rated the fund as a Buy not only for its strong track record of gains when compared to its peers but also the downside protection that it offers when the market is not offering rising tides to lift all boats. Since that article was published on...
Jonathan Kitchen/DigitalVision via Getty Images Last spring, I wrote my first analysis for the ProShares S&P MidCap 400 Dividend Aristocrat ETF ( REGL ). I rated the fund as a Buy not only for its strong track record of gains when compared to its peers but also the downside protection that it offers when the market is not offering rising tides to lift all boats. Since that article was published on May 15 , REGL has produced a total return of 13.9%. This is about 1.5% less than the gains produced by the S&P 500 and 2.5% less than the total return of the State Street SPDR S&P MidCap 400 ETF Trust ( MDY ), which I used as a comparison for my previous analysis. Justification for investing in mid-cap stocks can be presented in a number of ways, but perhaps the most compelling is the graph below . From July of 1991 through the end of 2025, the S&P MidCap 400 has outperformed the S&P 500 by 54 basis points when comparing their compound average growth rates. It has topped the Russell 2000 by an even wider margin. The question then becomes one of uncovering the most effective way to invest, based on one’s own investment goals. In the case of REGL, the focus is on mid-cap companies that have exhibited dependable earnings, strong underlying fundamentals, and track records of profitability and growth that allow them to increase their dividends to shareholders on a consistent basis. Proshares.com I consider myself to be a conservative investor, which means capital preservation is more important to me than it might be for someone 20 years younger. The advantage that REGL still presents is one of growth without exceessive risk. The fund has a strong history of positive returns that is not going away anytime soon, and the next few months may be a great example of that. Already in 2026, a year in which the S&P 500 has lost almost 1% of its value, REGL has gained 7.2%, topping the more popular large-cap index by 8% but also outpacing MDY by 0.2%. I am still a believer that REGL is th...
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, Nio (NYSE:NIO) closed Thursday at $6.07, down 4.86%. Shares declined after the launch of its flagship ES9 SUV, and investors will be watching to see how the model is received in the competitive EV market.
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, Nio (NYSE:NIO) closed Thursday at $6.07, down 4.86%. Shares declined after the launch of its flagship ES9 SUV, and investors will be watching to see how the model is received in the competitive EV market.