After initially rising after hours following its fourth-quarter earnings release, Tesla shares started off Thursday morning, Jan. 29, in what has become familiar territory over the past month: the red. Tesla shares were down 1.3% at last check after the company reported falling deliveries for the ...
After initially rising after hours following its fourth-quarter earnings release, Tesla shares started off Thursday morning, Jan. 29, in what has become familiar territory over the past month: the red. Tesla shares were down 1.3% at last check after the company reported falling deliveries for the ...
What Happened? A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after a broad sell-off in the software sector was triggered by mixed earnings from industry leaders SAP and ServiceNow. The negative sentiment across the industry was sparked after SAP's cloud backlog and its cloud revenue outlook fell short of some forecasts. Similarly, ServiceNow's stock dropped despite reporting better-than-expecte...
What Happened? A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after a broad sell-off in the software sector was triggered by mixed earnings from industry leaders SAP and ServiceNow. The negative sentiment across the industry was sparked after SAP's cloud backlog and its cloud revenue outlook fell short of some forecasts. Similarly, ServiceNow's stock dropped despite reporting better-than-expected results, fueling concerns that rising AI-related costs could pressure profits for enterprise software companies. The news sparked broader fears that AI was transforming the sector faster than companies could capitalize on it, leading the S&P 500 Software and Services Index to fall. The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Among others, the following stocks were impacted: Zooming In On Oracle (ORCL) Oracle’s shares are very volatile and have had 24 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business. The previous big move we wrote about was 3 days ago when the stock gained 3.4% on the news that the deal for a stake in TikTok's U.S. operations was officially confirmed. The confirmation came from an internal memo to employees from TikTok CEO Shou Chew. As a result of the deal, Oracle, alongside private equity firm Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX, collectively owned 45% of TikTok U.S. The total non-Chinese ownership in the new joint venture amounted to 80%, while the Chinese parent company ByteDance kept a 20% stake. The new business was established in compliance with a previous executive order. Oracle is down 15.2% since the beginning of the year, and at $166.10 per share, it is trading 49.4% below its 52-week high of $328.33 from September 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Oracle’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment...
Oscar-nominee Helena Bonham Carter has joined Steve Coogan for the fourth season of HBO’s comedy drama The White Lotus. Bonham Carter is one of three new cast members officially announced today alongside Chris Messina and Marissa Long. Messina is known for roles in Sharp Objects, The Mindy Project and Julie & Julia, while Long is a model with only a short film to her name as an actor. They all joi...
Oscar-nominee Helena Bonham Carter has joined Steve Coogan for the fourth season of HBO’s comedy drama The White Lotus. Bonham Carter is one of three new cast members officially announced today alongside Chris Messina and Marissa Long. Messina is known for roles in Sharp Objects, The Mindy Project and Julie & Julia, while Long is a model with only a short film to her name as an actor. They all join previously announced actors Steve Coogan, Caleb Jonte Edwards, Alexander Ludwig, and AJ Michalka. Details on characters remain under wraps. The fourth season of The White Lotus will take place in France with locations set to include Paris, the Cannes film festival and a luxury hotel called the Château de La Messardière in Saint-Tropez on the Côte d’Azur. “For the fourth season, I want to get a little bit out of the ‘crashing waves against rocks’ vernacular,” creator Mike White said last year. Bonham Carter was most recently seen in Netflix’s Agatha Christie miniseries The Seven Dials and will next be seen in mystery adventure Enola Holmes 3. The third of season of White’s hit show reached new viewership highs and scored 23 Emmy nominations. While it’s not yet been revealed which actor will return for the fourth season as connecting characters tend to appear each season, acclaimed composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer has already stated he won’t be coming back after a feud with White. “We already had our last fight for ever, I think,” he said to the New York Times last year. “He was just saying no to anything.” White called into question a feud, calling his decision to speak about him to the Times “a bitch move” in an interview with Howard Stern. “We never really even fought,” White said. “He says we feuded. I don’t think I ever had a fight with him – except for maybe some emails. It was basically me giving him notes. I don’t think he liked to go through the process of getting notes from me, or wanting revisions, because he didn’t respect me.”
00:00 Speaker A I find it really interesting that sometimes investors hate more spending and sometimes they don't. Meta is an example of where they don't hate it today. Microsoft is an example where it is seemingly more alarming. Is it just because like Azure is missed maybe some estimates? What's going on here? 00:20 Rishi Yeah. Yeah, and and and thanks so much. It's always a pleasure to be on yo...
00:00 Speaker A I find it really interesting that sometimes investors hate more spending and sometimes they don't. Meta is an example of where they don't hate it today. Microsoft is an example where it is seemingly more alarming. Is it just because like Azure is missed maybe some estimates? What's going on here? 00:20 Rishi Yeah. Yeah, and and and thanks so much. It's always a pleasure to be on your show. Look, I would say there's a couple of things going on. And and it's interesting you bring up the uh, you know, meta comparison because 90 days ago, everyone hated meta's uh capex plans, but obviously they had a strong quarter and you see uh that being reflected in their stock action today. With Microsoft, you know, candidly, it feels like a missing the forest for the trees uh type of moment. Um, you know, absolutely, people are picking on uh the capex numbers. The capex numbers were actually pretty in line with my expectations but but definitely above where I think the rest of the street was. And Microsoft has been telling us for a while now that they are capacity constrained, that they want to bring all this third-party capacity. You think about these deals they have with uh Oracle, Core Weave, Nevia. They want to bring all of that back in house. That means that's a lot more uh they need to spend to build out that capacity. And they're telling us that effectively the azure numbers would have been meaningfully higher if not for uh the capacity constraints that they're facing. And so, you know, it's almost like Microsoft's kind of stuck from an investor stand sentiment standpoint in the middle where, look, the Azure number I thought was strong, right? I mean, you could say, oh, it wasn't 39%, it was 38% constant currency. But the fact is they added something in the neighborhood of $9 billion of constant currency azure ARR sequentially and it was a broad-based beat. It wasn't just open AI or it wasn't just AI, it was everywhere in the portfolio. Um, you know, and and...
00:00 Speaker A I find it really interesting that sometimes investors hate more spending and sometimes they don't. Meta is an example of where they don't hate it today. Microsoft is an example where it is seemingly more alarming. Is it just because like Azure is missed maybe some estimates? What's going on here? 00:20 Rishi Yeah. Yeah, and and and thanks so much. It's always a pleasure to be on yo...
00:00 Speaker A I find it really interesting that sometimes investors hate more spending and sometimes they don't. Meta is an example of where they don't hate it today. Microsoft is an example where it is seemingly more alarming. Is it just because like Azure is missed maybe some estimates? What's going on here? 00:20 Rishi Yeah. Yeah, and and and thanks so much. It's always a pleasure to be on your show. Look, I would say there's a couple of things going on. And and it's interesting you bring up the uh, you know, meta comparison because 90 days ago, everyone hated meta's uh capex plans, but obviously they had a strong quarter and you see uh that being reflected in their stock action today. With Microsoft, you know, candidly, it feels like a missing the forest for the trees uh type of moment. Um, you know, absolutely, people are picking on uh the capex numbers. The capex numbers were actually pretty in line with my expectations but but definitely above where I think the rest of the street was. And Microsoft has been telling us for a while now that they are capacity constrained, that they want to bring all this third-party capacity. You think about these deals they have with uh Oracle, Core Weave, Nevia. They want to bring all of that back in house. That means that's a lot more uh they need to spend to build out that capacity. And they're telling us that effectively the azure numbers would have been meaningfully higher if not for uh the capacity constraints that they're facing. And so, you know, it's almost like Microsoft's kind of stuck from an investor stand sentiment standpoint in the middle where, look, the Azure number I thought was strong, right? I mean, you could say, oh, it wasn't 39%, it was 38% constant currency. But the fact is they added something in the neighborhood of $9 billion of constant currency azure ARR sequentially and it was a broad-based beat. It wasn't just open AI or it wasn't just AI, it was everywhere in the portfolio. Um, you know, and and...
Key Points This ETF is a nifty way to gain cryptocurrency exposure. It's potential-rich, but prospective investors need to look under the hood. Some of its holdings are spreading their wings beyond crypto. 10 stocks we like better than Bitwise Funds Trust - Bitwise Crypto Industry Innovators ETF › Broadly speaking, issuers of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are willing to try new things and address p...
Key Points This ETF is a nifty way to gain cryptocurrency exposure. It's potential-rich, but prospective investors need to look under the hood. Some of its holdings are spreading their wings beyond crypto. 10 stocks we like better than Bitwise Funds Trust - Bitwise Crypto Industry Innovators ETF › Broadly speaking, issuers of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are willing to try new things and address perceived demand for products that extend beyond the plain-vanilla, pure-beta realm. Think about the explosion of ETFs addressing thematic investing. There's demand for these funds, as evidenced by their combined $779 billion in assets under management (AUM) globally as of the end of the third quarter of 2025. One of the success stories among thematic ETFs is the Bitwise Crypto Industry Innovators ETF (NYSEMKT: BITQ). 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 » This ETF has nearly $431 million in AUM and turns five years old in May, confirming it attracted investor interest and has staying power. The Bitwise fund could also generate impressive returns this year and beyond, but prospective investors need to know the following three things before getting involved. This isn't a spot Bitcoin ETF The largest cryptocurrency ETFs on the market today are spot funds designed to track the prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum, among other digital currencies. That's not what this Bitwise ETF does. Instead, it's an index fund that tracks the Bitwise Crypto Innovators 30 Index, a collection of stocks. Investors buying this ETF are purchasing a basket of crypto-correlated equities, not direct ownership of Bitcoin or similar assets. Indeed, the ETF's correlations to Bitcoin and Ethereum stood at 0.7 and 0.63, respectively, at the end of last year, confirming it provides investors with ample leverage to the upside (and downside) fortunes of the largest digital currencies. I...
No matter how good a quantum computing company's tech is, its stock may not pay off. Quantum computing could very well be the next big thing in the tech world. With its immense computing capacity, this emerging technology could completely revolutionize entire industries. One of the companies at the forefront of this computing revolution is quantum processing unit (QPU) maker Rigetti Computing (RGT...
No matter how good a quantum computing company's tech is, its stock may not pay off. Quantum computing could very well be the next big thing in the tech world. With its immense computing capacity, this emerging technology could completely revolutionize entire industries. One of the companies at the forefront of this computing revolution is quantum processing unit (QPU) maker Rigetti Computing (RGTI 9.77%). The market seems to agree: The company's stock has soared 137.1% over the last five years. Expand NASDAQ : RGTI Rigetti Computing Today's Change ( -9.77 %) $ -2.15 Current Price $ 19.86 Key Data Points Market Cap $7.3B Day's Range $ 19.27 - $ 21.57 52wk Range $ 6.86 - $ 58.15 Volume 1M Avg Vol 40M Gross Margin -6849.48 % But believing in Rigetti's technology isn't necessarily the same as believing in its stock. Here's why I think investors should forget Rigetti (at least for now) and consider an established AI giant that's a much safer play instead. Quantum computing is here... If you think quantum computing sounds futuristic, high-tech, and incredibly complicated, you're not far off. It is high-tech, involving particle physics, supercooling, and huge, expensive machinery. And it is pretty complicated. But it's not some dream that's far into the future: There are hundreds of working prototype quantum computers in existence today. Basically, instead of storing data as binary bits, which can represent either a 0 or a 1, quantum computers use subatomic particles called qubits, which can represent a range of possible options between 0 and 1. If that's hard to wrap your brain around, don't worry: The important thing you need to know is that quantum computers are incredibly fast. In 2025, for example, the Willow quantum chip from Alphabet's Google performed a computation in less than five minutes that would have taken the world's most powerful supercomputer trillions of years to complete. ...but it's not everywhere So why aren't we all using quantum computers at our des...
Federal Reserve Governor Chris Waller just played politics instead of economics. That’s a bad sign for the future of the institution, says Bloomberg Opinion columnist Jonathan Levin. (Source: Bloomberg)
Federal Reserve Governor Chris Waller just played politics instead of economics. That’s a bad sign for the future of the institution, says Bloomberg Opinion columnist Jonathan Levin. (Source: Bloomberg)
Earnings Call Insights: Valero Energy Corporation (VLO) Q4 2025 Management View Lane Riggs, CEO, President & Chairman, opened by noting "our continued commitment to safe, reliable and environmentally responsible operations resulted in record refining throughput and record ethanol production for both the fourth quarter and the full year." Riggs emphasized a record for mechanical availability in 202...
Earnings Call Insights: Valero Energy Corporation (VLO) Q4 2025 Management View Lane Riggs, CEO, President & Chairman, opened by noting "our continued commitment to safe, reliable and environmentally responsible operations resulted in record refining throughput and record ethanol production for both the fourth quarter and the full year." Riggs emphasized a record for mechanical availability in 2025, attributing these achievements to "the hard work, expertise and dedication of our entire team." Riggs highlighted strong financial results, stating "we captured favorable refining margins during the quarter driven by strong product cracks and widening sour crude discounts and our fourth quarter performance capped off excellent financial results for the year." Riggs announced continued progress on the $230 million SEC unit optimization project at the St. Charles refinery, expected to begin operations in the second half of 2026. He added that refining fundamentals are expected to remain supported by "continued demand growth and tight supply environment driven by limited capacity additions" and cited the benefit of increased Canadian and Venezuelan crude supply. On strategic direction, Riggs reiterated the company's commitment to "our disciplined capital allocation framework that prioritizes balance sheet strength, disciplined capital investments and shareholder returns." CFO Homer Bhullar reported "net income attributable to Valero stockholders was $1.1 billion or $3.73 per share" for Q4 2025, compared to $281 million or $0.88 per share for Q4 2024. Adjusted net income was $1.2 billion or $3.82 per share for Q4 2025. Bhullar also noted, "the refining segment reported $1.7 billion of operating income for the fourth quarter of 2025." Bhullar detailed, "refining throughput volumes in the fourth quarter of 2025 averaged 3.1 million barrels per day or 98% throughput capacity utilization," and described record throughput for both the quarter and the full year. Bhullar confirmed ...
Earnings Call Insights: CSW Industrials (CSW) Q3 2026 Management View CEO Joseph Armes reported that "our team delivered record fiscal third quarter results in both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, despite market headwinds and economic uncertainty that has been present for most of this fiscal year and which has been most pronounced in the residential HVAC/R end market." Armes highlighted that the comp...
Earnings Call Insights: CSW Industrials (CSW) Q3 2026 Management View CEO Joseph Armes reported that "our team delivered record fiscal third quarter results in both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, despite market headwinds and economic uncertainty that has been present for most of this fiscal year and which has been most pronounced in the residential HVAC/R end market." Armes highlighted that the company completed three acquisitions in the quarter, including the $650 million purchase of MARS Parts, marking CSW's largest acquisition to date, and the acquisitions of Hydrotex Holdings and ProAction Fluids for $26.5 million in total. Over the past 12 months, four synergistic transactions totaling approximately $1 billion were executed. Armes noted, "We've invested $70 million in open market share repurchases during the quarter, emphasizing our dedication to maximizing shareholder returns." CFO James Perry stated, "During the third fiscal quarter of 2026, we delivered a record revenue of $233 million, up 20% as compared to the prior year, driven primarily by our acquisitions over the last year." He added, "Adjusted consolidated EBITDA grew 7%. Adjusted EPS for the fiscal third quarter was $1.42, demonstrating resilience amid challenging market conditions. Recognizing that this reflects a 21% reduction compared to the same period last year, the reduction in adjusted EPS was primarily driven by $10 million of higher interest expense." Perry also explained that "we now expect to exceed this initial objective" of $10 million in run rate synergies from the MARS Parts acquisition and to reach a 30% EBITDA margin for this business within 12 months. Outlook Management maintained a cautiously optimistic tone regarding emerging order patterns and inventory normalization, with Armes stating, "We confidently maintain our expectations to achieve our operational and financial goals for this acquisition." The company reiterated the long-term expectation of mid- to high single-digit organic...
Earnings Call Insights: Liberty Energy Inc. (LBRT) Q4 2025 Management View CEO Ron Gusek stated that Liberty's "strong fourth quarter results capped a year marked by heightened oil market uncertainty and softer industry completions activity," highlighting a focus on technological innovation and operational execution that produced a 13% CROCI. Gusek reported revenue of $4 billion, adjusted EBITDA o...
Earnings Call Insights: Liberty Energy Inc. (LBRT) Q4 2025 Management View CEO Ron Gusek stated that Liberty's "strong fourth quarter results capped a year marked by heightened oil market uncertainty and softer industry completions activity," highlighting a focus on technological innovation and operational execution that produced a 13% CROCI. Gusek reported revenue of $4 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $634 million, and $77 million in capital returns through dividends and buybacks, while also investing for growth. Gusek announced strategic milestones, including expanding simulfrac offerings, deploying AI-driven asset optimization, and launching the Atlas and Atlas IQ cloud-based completions data platforms, which "transform real-time data into actionable insights, enabling faster decision-making and improved operational efficiency." The company reduced maintenance cost per unit of work by approximately 14% and highlighted the LPI execution platform as a growth engine anchored by partnerships and targeted investments. Gusek emphasized Liberty’s position in distributed power, referencing agreements with Vantage Data Centers for at least 1 GW of high-efficiency power solutions, including a firm 400 MW reservation for 2027 and a separate preliminary ESA for a 330 MW expansion in Texas. Gusek projected U.S. power demand rising at the fastest pace in decades, driven by AI, onshoring, and industrial electrification, positioning Liberty to capitalize. He remarked, "LPI is well positioned to support this call, providing power consumers with predictable long-term power prices." CFO Michael Stock stated, "We drove this achievement by delivering operational and safety records quarter after quarter, leveraging our vertical integration to deliver superior service and capture a larger part of our customers' spend and advancing our industry-leading AI enhanced digital solutions." Outlook Management expects 2026 revenue to be "approximately flat year-over-year, as we expect higher fleet ...
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images In late November, I reiterated my Hold rating on Blackstone Inc. ( BX ) and you can see below that the stock has actually just slipped below the price when my update was published. In that article, I found robust fundamentals but I believed the valuation to be excessive. Some readers have correctly pointed out in the comments section that Blackstone is a...
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images In late November, I reiterated my Hold rating on Blackstone Inc. ( BX ) and you can see below that the stock has actually just slipped below the price when my update was published. In that article, I found robust fundamentals but I believed the valuation to be excessive. Some readers have correctly pointed out in the comments section that Blackstone is asset-light and so a higher P/B ratio versus other mangers may not necessarily mean overvaluation. I'll take that into consideration in today's analysis. Seeking Alpha Below, it is shown that Q4 was generally a solid quarter for Blackstone as investment performance was solid, inflows were strong, and Perpetual Capital grew significantly. Quite recently, the stock sold off on President Trump's plans to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes but it's discussed later that this was more than likely an overreaction. With the forward P/E now near multiyear lows, I believe there is considerable opportunity in BX stock, and so I'm upgrading to a Buy rating. Q4 Financial Performance Was Decent Blackstone Q4 Earnings Let's start off today with a broad view at the company's financial performance in their 2025 Q4. First off, note that fee related earnings saw some weakness as there was a 16% decline YoY to $1.5 billion. Back in Q3, there was a quite significant increase YoY and so results in Q4 seem to be a little bit soft. However, while you can see that fee related performance revenues were a drag on fee related earnings overall, their management and advisory fees actually saw decent growth at 11% to show that their core business has remained resilient. As for distributable earnings, Blackstone reported $2.2 billion, up 3% YoY. This is an indication that their profitability as a whole remained at respectable levels. Distributable earnings did see 48% of growth in the previous quarter, however, and so there is some deceleration. At the end of the day, Blackstone po...
Melpomenem/iStock via Getty Images Brazilian digital bank Nubank ( NU ) has won approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a de novo U.S. bank, it said on Thursday. The company applied in September for the national bank charter, seeking to operate under a comprehensive federal framework and facilitate the launch of deposit accounts, credit cards, lending and digital a...
Melpomenem/iStock via Getty Images Brazilian digital bank Nubank ( NU ) has won approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a de novo U.S. bank, it said on Thursday. The company applied in September for the national bank charter, seeking to operate under a comprehensive federal framework and facilitate the launch of deposit accounts, credit cards, lending and digital asset custody. With the approval, Nu ( NU ) is now in the bank organization phase, in which Nu satisfies certain OCC conditions alongside pending required approvals from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve. During this phase, the company will focus on fully capitalizing the institution within 12 months and opening the bank within 18 months. “This approval isn't just an expansion of our operation; it’s an opportunity to prove our thesis that a digital-first, customer-centric model is the future of financial services globally," Nu Holdings ( NU ) Founder and CEO David Vélez said in a statement. " While we remain fully focused on our core markets in Brazil , Mexico, and Colombia , this step allows us to build the next generation of banking in the United States," he added. The new Nubank, N.A., unit will be led by N ( NU ) Co-Founder Cristina Junqueira , who has relocated to the U.S. Roberto Campos Neto , former president of the Central Bank of Brazil, will serve as chairman of the board. NU shares slipped 0.8% in midafternoon trading. More on Nu Holdings Nu Holdings: The Flywheel Thesis At Fair Value Inter & Co Vs. Nu: Which Is The Best Neobank Option For 2026? Nu Holdings: A Top Fintech Pick For 2026 Nu becomes official team partner of Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 in multi-year deal NuBank stock gains after Q3 earnings, revenue beat on strong customer base