The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund ETF (NYSEARCA: XLE ), which tracks the S&P 500 energy sector, surged over 34% in the first quarter of 2026, heavily outperforming the Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 ( SP500 ) index, which slipped nearly 5% during the quarter. The fund, which includes companies involved in oil production, drilling, refining, and transportation, was the biggest quarterly gainer in...
The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund ETF (NYSEARCA: XLE ), which tracks the S&P 500 energy sector, surged over 34% in the first quarter of 2026, heavily outperforming the Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 ( SP500 ) index, which slipped nearly 5% during the quarter. The fund, which includes companies involved in oil production, drilling, refining, and transportation, was the biggest quarterly gainer in the S&P 500 sectors, as oil prices soared in Q1 over geopolitical tensions. Crude oil futures ( CL1:COM ) surged a whopping 80% in the last three months, compared to a 2.3% fall in the corresponding period in the previous year. The sharp rally in Q1 2026 was driven by supply disruptions and elevated geopolitical risk. Rising tensions in key producing regions, including the Middle East and Eastern Europe, heightened fears of export constraints, while bottlenecks at critical transit routes such as the Strait of Hormuz added to supply concerns. At the same time, continued output discipline from the OPEC+ alliance further tightened the market. On the demand side, resilient activity in major economies like the U.S. and India, alongside stronger travel and seasonal consumption, supported higher crude demand. As a result, energy equities outperformed sharply, with oil majors and upstream companies benefiting from stronger earnings momentum and increased investor inflows. Industries performance: In Q1, the Energy Equipment & Services ( SP500-101010 ) industry advanced 29.2%, while the Oil Gas & Consumable Fuels ( SP500-101020 ) added about 35% in the quarter. Fund Flows XLE reported fund inflow of $6.31B during the last quarter. Image source: State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF Q1 top performers: APA ( APA ) +73.5% Texas Pacific Land ( TPL ) +65.23% Occidental Petroleum ( OXY ) +58.07% Valero Energy ( VLO ) +51.78% Marathon Petroleum ( MPC ) +50.14% Expand Energy ( EXE ) was the only energy stock that slipped this quarter, with a 0.53% decline. What Quantitative Measures Sa...
KanawatTH Chip and AI-related stocks recovered late on Thursday as markets tried to digest U.S. President Donald Trump's speech related to the Iran war. However, Wall Street’s major market averages erased earlier losses on Thursday. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite ( COMP:IND ) and the benchmark S&P 500 ( SP500 ) were largely flat but in the red, while the blue-chip Dow ( DJI ) dipped nearly 0.2%...
KanawatTH Chip and AI-related stocks recovered late on Thursday as markets tried to digest U.S. President Donald Trump's speech related to the Iran war. However, Wall Street’s major market averages erased earlier losses on Thursday. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite ( COMP:IND ) and the benchmark S&P 500 ( SP500 ) were largely flat but in the red, while the blue-chip Dow ( DJI ) dipped nearly 0.2%. In a rare prime-time address on Wednesday, Trump said that the U.S. will strike Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks. However, he also signaled that the conflict could be short-lived and that talks with Tehran remain ongoing. In addition, Trump blamed Iran for the recent spike in U.S. gasoline prices, saying attacks on oil tankers and regional targets have driven the increase. Meanwhile, lawmakers offered sharply divided responses. Oil prices were still elevated on Thursday following Trump's speech. Brent Futures ( CO1:COM ) surged about 6.8%, while Crude Oil Futures ( CL1:COM ) soared nearly 10.9%. Shares of AI chipmaker Nvidia ( NVDA ) climbed about 1%, while Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD ) jumped nearly 3%. Qualcomm ( QCOM ) dipped about 1%, while Broadcom ( AVGO ) was also in the red. Several other AI and networking-related stocks also recovered late on Thursday. Applied Optoelectronics ( AAOI ) surged about 21%, while Ciena ( CIEN ) soared around 8%. Lumentum ( LITE ) jumped about 6%, Coherent ( COHR ) climbed nearly 5%, and Corning ( GLW ) grew about 3%. Cisco ( CSCO ) rose about 2%, while Celestica ( CLS ) and Arista Networks ( ANET ) each climbed nearly 1%. Intel ( INTC ) soared about 4%. Meanwhile, other chip stocks also pared losses. Micron Technology ( MU ), GlobalFoundries ( GFS ), and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing ( TSM ) each dipped around 1%. Lattice Semiconductor ( LSCC ), Analog Devices ( ADI ), and Texas Instruments ( TXN ) each fell about 2%, while Marvell Technology ( MRVL ) was largely flat but in the red. However, Arm ( ARM ) sl...
For the past two years, enterprises evaluating open-weight models have faced an awkward trade-off. Google's Gemma line consistently delivered strong performance, but its custom license — with usage restrictions and terms Google could update at will — pushed many teams toward Mistral or Alibaba's Qwen instead. Legal review added friction. Compliance teams flagged edge cases. And capable as Gemma 3 ...
For the past two years, enterprises evaluating open-weight models have faced an awkward trade-off. Google's Gemma line consistently delivered strong performance, but its custom license — with usage restrictions and terms Google could update at will — pushed many teams toward Mistral or Alibaba's Qwen instead. Legal review added friction. Compliance teams flagged edge cases. And capable as Gemma 3 was, "open" with asterisks isn't the same as open. Gemma 4 eliminates that friction entirely. Google DeepMind's newest open model family ships under a standard Apache 2.0 license — the same permissive terms used by Qwen, Mistral, Arcee, and most of the open-weight ecosystem. No custom clauses, no "Harmful Use" carve-outs that required legal interpretation, no restrictions on redistribution or commercial deployment. For enterprise teams that had been waiting for Google to play on the same licensing terms as the rest of the field, the wait is over. The timing is notable. As some Chinese AI labs (most notably Alibaba’s latest Qwen models, Qwen3.5 Omni and Qwen 3.6 Plus) have begun pulling back from fully open releases for their latest models, Google is moving in the opposite direction — opening up its most capable Gemma release yet while explicitly stating the architecture draws from its commercial Gemini 3 research. Four models, two tiers: Edge to workstation in a single family Gemma 4 arrives as four distinct models organized into two deployment tiers. The "workstation" tier includes a 31B-parameter dense model and a 26B A4B Mixture-of-Experts model — both supporting text and image input with 256K-token context windows. The "edge" tier consists of the E2B and E4B , compact models designed for phones, embedded devices, and laptops, supporting text, image, and audio with 128K-token context windows. The naming convention takes some unpacking. The "E" prefix denotes "effective parameters" — the E2B has 2.3 billion effective parameters but 5.1 billion total, because each decoder ...
PM Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images Written by Nick Ackerman, co-produced by Stanford Chemist JPMorgan ( JPM ) launched the JPMorgan Equity Premium Yield ETF ( ROCY ) recently, a fund that is specifically focused on providing tax-advantaged distributions. As the ticker would suggest, they are looking at return of capital distributions. These are advantages because they defer tax obligations f...
PM Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images Written by Nick Ackerman, co-produced by Stanford Chemist JPMorgan ( JPM ) launched the JPMorgan Equity Premium Yield ETF ( ROCY ) recently, a fund that is specifically focused on providing tax-advantaged distributions. As the ticker would suggest, they are looking at return of capital distributions. These are advantages because they defer tax obligations for investors. For the distributions that are classified as ROC, this defers tax obligations because it reduces the cost basis. Therefore, putting off the potential tax obligations until the sale of the shares. One of my greatest hesitations for something like ( JEPI ) was specifically because of the exchange-linked notes (ELNs), which meant a call writing fund was producing ordinary income distributions. This can make it less appealing for investors who hold a lot of investments in a taxable account— which is admittedly a first-world problem. With ROCY, that is now not the case as they provide a tax-advantaged emphasis like most other call writing funds. With new competition in the ETF space, this is a natural progression for JPM to provide, as there are a number of funds that now provide distributions that are heavily characterized as ROC to their investors. This also competes against the old school closed-end funds, primarily from Eaton Vance, which have also shown a considerable level of ROC distributions over the years. ROCY Basics Dividend Frequency: Monthly Dividend Yield: TBD Expense Ratio: 0.35% Leverage: N/A Managed Assets: $98.66 million Structure: Active ETF ROCY's investment objective is "to deliver current yield while maintaining prospects for capital appreciation and total return." To achieve that and the key highlights, they provide severa l bullet points for investors: Generates yield through a combination of selling call option spreads and investing in U.S. large cap stocks, seeking to deliver monthly distributions from associated option premiums and stock ...
A flood of foreign money into Brazil’s biggest companies in the first quarter has left small caps trading at their cheapest versus larger peers in over six years, with some investors saying the shift has gone too far. Small caps, which typically trade at a premium on forecasts of faster profit growth than larger companies, are now valued at around 9.31 times forward earnings, compared with roughly...
A flood of foreign money into Brazil’s biggest companies in the first quarter has left small caps trading at their cheapest versus larger peers in over six years, with some investors saying the shift has gone too far. Small caps, which typically trade at a premium on forecasts of faster profit growth than larger companies, are now valued at around 9.31 times forward earnings, compared with roughly 9.41 for the Ibovespa index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It is first time in over six years that small caps have not commanded a clear premium against their larger peers. The reversal in valuations comes as overseas investors plowed more than 50 billion reais ($9.7 billion) into Brazilian stocks in the three months through March, the most for the first quarter since 2022. Those flows were largely directed to large-cap companies, including commodity producers and financials. But with interest rates now on a downward path after the central bank cut rates by 25 basis points in March, small caps may be ready for a comeback. “Investors often shift away from the index and begin buying the stocks that were left behind and are now trading at more attractive valuations,” said João Luiz Braga , a portfolio manager at Encore Asset Management. “Rate cuts can serve as a trigger for this rotation, but the valuation gap alone may already be enough to bring attention back to small caps.” The Ibovespa benchmark gauge has leaped 15% this year, triple the 4.2% rally in the country’s Small Cap Index on the back of the foreign inflows. The flows remained resilient in March, despite the risk-averse sentiment across global markets due to the conflict in the Middle East that sent oil prices soaring. Brazilian stocks have been hit, with both the Ibovespa and the Small Cap Indexes posting losses in March. As Brazil’s central bank is expected to further ease rates further, domestically focused companies and small caps could benefit, potentially narrowing the gap with the Ibovespa, said ...
shih-wei/iStock via Getty Images Broadcom Inc. ( AVGO ) doesn't look like a misunderstood stock at first glance. It’s a widely held stock, well covered and has one of the biggest themes in the market. Yet there’s a disconnect here. Broadcom is being treated like a late-stage AI winner, but its earnings profile looks like an earlier stage growth company with unusually high visibility. This is impor...
shih-wei/iStock via Getty Images Broadcom Inc. ( AVGO ) doesn't look like a misunderstood stock at first glance. It’s a widely held stock, well covered and has one of the biggest themes in the market. Yet there’s a disconnect here. Broadcom is being treated like a late-stage AI winner, but its earnings profile looks like an earlier stage growth company with unusually high visibility. This is important because Broadcom isn’t just a chip company anymore. It’s an AI infrastructure gatekeeper with custom silicon, networking and the high stickiness of the VMware layer. Broadcom Is Building the AI Backbone Broadcom differentiates itself from a lot of the AI exposure stocks because its exposure isn’t just based on volumes. It’s in two different layers and its exposure becomes more valuable as the customer tries to optimize away from a one-size-fits-all compute solution. The CEO said that their customers are building long-duration AI platforms and we’re helping them design the silicon, package it, connect it, and secure the supply several years ahead. This is a much better position than just supplying a component into a hot market. The first quarter of the fiscal year 2026 made it hard to ignore. Revenue was up 29% year over year at $19.3 billion . AI semiconductor revenue was up 106% year over year at $8.4 billion and the Free cash flow reached $8 billion. Guidance for the second quarter was about $22 billion in revenue and $10.7 billion in AI semiconductor revenue. Data by YCharts Another part of the narrative that I think is being misunderstood is the Broadcom AI business. The way the market is looking at it is the simplistic: is it ASIC or is it GPU? The reality is Broadcom is not asking anyone to pick one or the other. They will participate in either case because the Ethernet business will still be the winner. Tan mentioned that AI networking was one-third of their AI revenue in Q1 . It should be about 40% in Q2 with the introduction of the Tomahawk 6 and the demand fo...
Booming prediction market sites, such as Kalshi and Polymarket, face scrutiny from states and Congress Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox The US government sued Illinois on Thursday to stop what it described as the state’s unlawful efforts to regulate prediction markets. The booming industry of online prediction markets – which allow users to bet on virtu...
Booming prediction market sites, such as Kalshi and Polymarket, face scrutiny from states and Congress Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox The US government sued Illinois on Thursday to stop what it described as the state’s unlawful efforts to regulate prediction markets. The booming industry of online prediction markets – which allow users to bet on virtually anything from Oscar winners to the weather to ongoing military conflicts – has been facing greater scrutiny as companies continue to fight state-led efforts to regulate the fast-growing industry – which many argue is “basically gambling but with another name”. Continue reading...
Abdullah Baig alleged Meta ignored flaws putting billions at risk, but a US judge ruled he lacked sufficient evidence A US court has dismissed a lawsuit from WhatsApp ’s former security chief, who alleged that parent company Meta ignored internal flaws he flagged about the messaging app’s digital defenses. Abdullah Baig, who claims he was fired in retaliation for raising these concerns, had allege...
Abdullah Baig alleged Meta ignored flaws putting billions at risk, but a US judge ruled he lacked sufficient evidence A US court has dismissed a lawsuit from WhatsApp ’s former security chief, who alleged that parent company Meta ignored internal flaws he flagged about the messaging app’s digital defenses. Abdullah Baig, who claims he was fired in retaliation for raising these concerns, had alleged that billions of users had been put at risk because of these vulnerabilities. Thousands of employees could view sensitive user data, including profile photos and location, Baig claimed in the lawsuit filed in September. A judge ruled he had not presented enough evidence to move forward. Continue reading...
(RTTNews) - After a weak start and a subsequent long spell fairly deep down in negative territory, European stocks staged a good recovery around late afternoon on Thursday. A few markets even managed to move above the flat line by the time the market ended.
(RTTNews) - After a weak start and a subsequent long spell fairly deep down in negative territory, European stocks staged a good recovery around late afternoon on Thursday. A few markets even managed to move above the flat line by the time the market ended.