Just_Super/E+ via Getty Images Investment Thesis Hims & Hers Health ( HIMS ) is one of the more emotionally traded stocks in consumer health. A 40% drawdown since my last coverage is generally a sign that something is broken. In this case, I see something else. Something that was broken is not the model, but rather a set of expectations that have increasingly moved into fairy-tale land. I think th...
Just_Super/E+ via Getty Images Investment Thesis Hims & Hers Health ( HIMS ) is one of the more emotionally traded stocks in consumer health. A 40% drawdown since my last coverage is generally a sign that something is broken. In this case, I see something else. Something that was broken is not the model, but rather a set of expectations that have increasingly moved into fairy-tale land. I think the question investors are asking themselves is, has HIMS finally topped out as a growth story, or is this the hard part where the platform moves from the growth story to the cash flow story? After reviewing the numbers, the earnings call, and the longer-term guidance provided by the company, I think it’s the latter. That does not make this a low-risk setup, but it does make it an investable one under the right framework. Data by YCharts Strong Numbers, Soft Margins: Why Growth Didn’t Break, Expectations Did So let’s start with what really happened operationally. Hims & Hers Health’s revenue increased year over year by nearly 50% in Q3 of 2025 to just under $600 million . Subscriber growth was still healthy, ARPU increased, and free cash flow was $79 million for the quarter. These are not numbers of a company with a broken business model. These are numbers of a company that’s gotten large and is feeling some friction as a result. Q3 Earnings The tension manifests itself in the margins. Gross margin fell to the 74% level from the high 70s that investors had grown used to seeing. Again, the change was significant rather than subtle, and the stock price reflected that change. However, if I dig deeper into the numbers, the vast majority of the change can be explained rather than being mysterious in nature. For example, the reduced GLP-1 ship cadence, price reductions to increase access, and the less efficient cost structure related to facility expansions all impacted the business at the same time. Again, management did not attempt to gloss over the fact that these were near-term ...
China’s Miao ethnic group is marked out from others thanks to their observance of a unique tradition known as “moving house at night”. The custom sees young men smear soot on their faces, dance, turn lights on and off and conclude the relocation by firing a hunting rifle before sunrise. The tradition is long-standing in a Miao ethnic township in Xiangyun county, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yun...
China’s Miao ethnic group is marked out from others thanks to their observance of a unique tradition known as “moving house at night”. The custom sees young men smear soot on their faces, dance, turn lights on and off and conclude the relocation by firing a hunting rifle before sunrise. The tradition is long-standing in a Miao ethnic township in Xiangyun county, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province, southwestern China. Advertisement The Miao people, who primarily live in the mountainous regions of southern China, including Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Guangdong and Hainan, have a population of around 11 million. A woman from the Miao ethnic group is in the process of moving to a new home. Photo: Baidu It is said that the ritual originated during the old society when Miao villagers, to avoid landlords demanding rent or repayment of debts, would secretly move houses in the middle of the night.
A new Chinese military special-ops drone has shown unprecedented accuracy in live-fire tests , hitting a human-sized target with every shot while using a standard infantry assault rifle. The drone fired 20 single rounds while hovering at a height of 10 metres (3.2 feet) and a distance of 100 metres from the human-sized target, a standard 50cm by 50cm (about 20 by 20 inches) chest board. The drone ...
A new Chinese military special-ops drone has shown unprecedented accuracy in live-fire tests , hitting a human-sized target with every shot while using a standard infantry assault rifle. The drone fired 20 single rounds while hovering at a height of 10 metres (3.2 feet) and a distance of 100 metres from the human-sized target, a standard 50cm by 50cm (about 20 by 20 inches) chest board. The drone achieved a 100 per cent hit rate during flight trials, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Gun Launch and Control on December 9. Advertisement The experimental unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was developed by Wuhan Guide Infrared in collaboration with the Chinese military’s Army Special Operations Academy, the study said. Among the 20 rounds that struck the target, half landed within an 11cm radius, comparable to a headshot. At a shorter range of 50 metres, the system hit the target 19 out of 20 times. Advertisement It was not a flaw in the system, according to the team led by Guide senior engineer Jiang Huajian. “The missed bullet landed at the edge of the chest target, and the miss was caused by inherent ammunition error,” which meant a bad bullet, Jiang and his colleagues wrote.
Signed at 13 and dropped by 16, Beer’s path to stardom has not been easy. Now 26, she says she’s finally making music for herself and happy to wear her heart on her sleeve Madison Beer may only be 26, but she is something of a veteran in the pop industry. She got her start at 13, after Justin Bieber tweeted a link to a YouTube video of her covering Etta James’s At Last , and has spent the interven...
Signed at 13 and dropped by 16, Beer’s path to stardom has not been easy. Now 26, she says she’s finally making music for herself and happy to wear her heart on her sleeve Madison Beer may only be 26, but she is something of a veteran in the pop industry. She got her start at 13, after Justin Bieber tweeted a link to a YouTube video of her covering Etta James’s At Last , and has spent the intervening decade-plus toiling away in mainstream pop, amassing a huge gen Z fanbase in the process – including more than 60 million followers between Instagram and TikTok. It’s an understatement to say that her career has been a slow burn: the day before we speak, it’s announced that her single Bittersweet, released in October, has become her first song to reach the US Hot 100 chart, entering at No 98. When I suggest congratulations are in order, she shrugs off the achievement. “I’m obviously super excited and thankful whenever a song performs well, but I think I’m at the point where I love what I make, and I’m proud of it regardless,” she says amiably, before laughing. “Only took me like, 15 years ! But it’s cool.” Beer’s attitude is indicative of someone whose career has progressed in fits and starts, a far cry from the kind of meteoric rise that fans and onlookers sometimes expect to see in aspirant pop stars. As she prepares for the release of her third album, Locket, she is in prime position to break through to pop’s upper echelon: Her 2023 album Silence Between Songs featured the sleeper hits Reckless and Home to Another One, the latter a sorely underrated Tame Impala-inspired cut, and in 2024 she released Make You Mine, a Top 50 single in the UK which was nominated for a best dance pop recording Grammy. Continue reading...
Wearing helmets, gas masks and camouflage fatigues, the federal agents took aim and prepared to open fire. “It’s like Call of Duty,” one could be heard saying via a TV mic, referring to a first-person shooter military video game. “So cool, huh?” This was the scene on the streets of Minneapolis on Saturday after armed agents, wearing masks and tactical vests, wrestled 37-year-old Alex Pretti to the...
Wearing helmets, gas masks and camouflage fatigues, the federal agents took aim and prepared to open fire. “It’s like Call of Duty,” one could be heard saying via a TV mic, referring to a first-person shooter military video game. “So cool, huh?” This was the scene on the streets of Minneapolis on Saturday after armed agents, wearing masks and tactical vests, wrestled 37-year-old Alex Pretti to the ground and shot him dead. The killing took place just over a mile from where Renee Good was fatally shot on 7 January, a scene that itself was less than a mile from where police murdered George Floyd in May 2020. “How many more residents, how many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?” the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, demanded at a press conference on Saturday, referring to the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. An angry crowd gathered and swore profanities at federal officers, calling them “cowards” and telling them to go home. Donald Trump spoke of “American carnage” in his first inaugural address nine years ago. The US president has surely delivered it by deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the streets of a major city in order to create a spectacle of terror reminiscent of a civil war – or a video game. In the first year of his second presidency, Trump’s ICE deployments have been carefully aimed at cities that are Democratic-led and often Black-led, as if imposing collective punishment for their defiance. In this, he is borrowing from an authoritarian playbook reminiscent of Saddam Hussein of Iraq targeting the Kurds or Soviet leader Joseph Stalin causing the Holodomor, or “death by hunger”, in Ukraine. It is the same vengeful petulance that in the past week alone has seen Trump lash out at Canada and other Nato allies over perceived slights in Davos during his quest to conquer Greenland. Trump seems to reserve a special loathing for Minnesota because he lost the presidential...
By 8 January, Iran’s anti-regime protests that began in late December had spread across the country with reports of at least 45 people killed by security forces. Over the next three days the regime appears to have instigated a brutal crackdown on protesters that is now estimated to have led to the deaths of more than 5,000 people. By the time I reached the hospital in Tehran on Thursday (8 January...
By 8 January, Iran’s anti-regime protests that began in late December had spread across the country with reports of at least 45 people killed by security forces. Over the next three days the regime appears to have instigated a brutal crackdown on protesters that is now estimated to have led to the deaths of more than 5,000 people. By the time I reached the hospital in Tehran on Thursday (8 January) night, the sound of the city had already changed. Up until a few hours earlier, doctors and patients were still sending me photos on WhatsApp; pellet wounds to the back, the hands, the head. Painful injuries, frightening injuries – but survivable. The kinds of wounds that could be treated, that suggested the violence still had limits. Then, at eight o’clock, everything went dark. Internet, mobile phones, messages, maps – all gone. Minutes later, the gunfire started. From about 8.10pm or 8.20pm, I could hear shots echoing through the streets, along with screaming and the sound of explosions. I was called into the hospital. By the time I arrived, it was immediately clear that we were no longer dealing with the same situation. The patients coming in now were not hit by pellets – they had been shot with live ammunition. War bullets. These were not warning shots. These were bullets designed to pass through the body. Bullets that entered on one side and exited from the other. View image in fullscreen X-ray showing pellets after police shot at demonstrators in Tehran. Photograph: Vahid Online I am a surgeon who deals mostly with torso injuries, and that night the operating rooms filled with wounds to the chest, abdomen and pelvis. I did not see arms or legs, others dealt with those, but I saw the injuries that decide whether someone lives or dies within minutes. The injuries where there is no margin for delay, no room for error. Many of the shots had been fired from close range. The damage they caused was severe. In some cases, catastrophic. Very quickly, the hospital became a m...
No homeowner wants to be faced with a hefty bill for household repairs – and when those charges are the result of botched insulation under a UK government-run scheme, individual misfortune turns to national scandal. That has been the experience of tens of thousands of households after what MPs have condemned as the “catastrophic failure” of the energy company obligation (Eco) insulation programme ...
No homeowner wants to be faced with a hefty bill for household repairs – and when those charges are the result of botched insulation under a UK government-run scheme, individual misfortune turns to national scandal. That has been the experience of tens of thousands of households after what MPs have condemned as the “catastrophic failure” of the energy company obligation (Eco) insulation programme run by the last Conservative government, the results of which have only recently been uncovered. In the worst case, one household was faced with a £250,000 bill for fixing the damage caused by poor installation. Thousands more were hit with bills ranging from £250 to £18,000 to rectify work so poorly done that in some cases it posed a direct threat to health from mould and damp. While the Serious Fraud Office is being urged to investigate, the government must now try to repair not just the damage to houses, but the reputation of a battered industry that is vital to efforts to reduce the cost of living and tackle the climate crisis. This week, the government set out its long-awaited “warm homes plan”, a £15bn investment to help reduce bills and increase clean energy. It will fund solar panels, batteries and low-carbon heat pumps, as well as home insulation measures. Although hailed by ministers as the UK’s biggest public investment in home upgrades, the plan has been greeted with concern by some campaigners and experts, because of its perceived emphasis on generating low-carbon energy rather than saving it through insulation. “Some of the wording in the plan seems to deprioritise insulation,” said Christopher Hammond, the chief executive of UK100, a group of local government leaders for climate action. “But we know it [insulation] works. We are worried about the emphasis.” Of the £15bn, a third will go to upgrading homes for vulnerable people and those on low incomes. However, it is not known how much of that will be spent on insulation, compared with green energy. The secto...
The trillion-dollar club features three artificial intelligence (AI) chip stocks, and another could soon join the ranks. Although artificial intelligence (AI) has made its mark across various pockets of the technology realm, perhaps no industry has transformed more than semiconductors. Before the AI revolution, Nvidia (NVDA +1.60%), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM +2.29%), and Broadcom (AV...
The trillion-dollar club features three artificial intelligence (AI) chip stocks, and another could soon join the ranks. Although artificial intelligence (AI) has made its mark across various pockets of the technology realm, perhaps no industry has transformed more than semiconductors. Before the AI revolution, Nvidia (NVDA +1.60%), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM +2.29%), and Broadcom (AVGO 1.67%) were each viewed as cyclical chip businesses with unpredictable growth prospects. Today, these three companies are trillion-dollar enterprises fueling the future of generative AI development. GPUs, accelerators, and custom application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) have become the hardware backbone supporting how data workloads are processed and transferred. Smart investors have started to look beyond the obvious winners of the AI semiconductor market and are beginning to look at which companies could emerge as the next member of the trillion-dollar club. By year-end 2026, I predict that Micron Technology (MU +0.52%) will be the chip stock on everyone's radar. Let's dig into Micron's importance in the chip value chain and understand why the company is positioned for explosive growth in the AI infrastructure era. What is Micron's role in the AI chip industry? Perhaps the biggest impact on generative AI so far has been the introduction of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT. Although LLMs have proven to be incredibly useful, training these text-based models is really only just beginning to scratch the surface of what AI can do. Hyperscalers like Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta Platforms have ambitions well beyond building chatbots. These companies have their eyes on next-generation services featuring agentic AI, autonomous systems, and robotics. These more sophisticated applications require enormous investments in inference -- the ability for a trained model to make decisions. This means that AI workloads are expanding at an unprecedented pace. ...
A highly anticipated Fed meeting and the start of Magnificent 7 earnings highlight this week’s calendar. The Federal Reserve isn’t expected to move on interest rates at this week’s meeting. Still, market watchers will parse comments from Chair Jerome Powell amid pressure from the White House to lower rates. Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Tesla, and Apple are scheduled to report earnings this week, giv...
A highly anticipated Fed meeting and the start of Magnificent 7 earnings highlight this week’s calendar. The Federal Reserve isn’t expected to move on interest rates at this week’s meeting. Still, market watchers will parse comments from Chair Jerome Powell amid pressure from the White House to lower rates. Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Tesla, and Apple are scheduled to report earnings this week, giving investors a look at the artificial intelligence trade and the state of play at some of the world's biggest companies. Investors will also be following reports from Caterpillar, Boeing, General Motors, Visa, Mastercard, Exxon, and Chevron. Read to the bottom for our calendar of key events—and one more thing. Fed to Issue First Interest Rate Decision of 2026 We won't know until it happens: Will the Federal Reserve start the year with another cut to interest rates? Investors will find out on Wednesday when the Federal Open Market Committee issues its latest decision on the influential federal-funds rate. The FOMC has lowered rates at three consecutive meetings, but some officials have indicated that they wanted to see more economic data on inflation and the labor market before following up with additional cuts. Market participants have priced in a likelihood that the Fed will keep interest rates steady at the meeting after inflation data last week showed that prices remained elevated in November. Market watchers will get a handful of additional economic data this week, including a delayed report on December wholesale inflation and an update on the U.S. trade balance. Mag 7 Stalwarts, Telecom and Industrial Firms Highlight Earnings Calendar Wednesday is also when several Magnificent 7 companies are scheduled to report, with investors watching for updates from Microsoft, Meta Platforms, and Tesla. On Thursday, Mag 7 member Apple is due to report. Other noteworthy tech, auto, manufacturing, and financial firms are also slated to report financial updates. Microsoft will report...
Prediction: This Will Be the Next Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chip Stock to Join Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor, and Broadcom in the Trillion-Dollar Club (Hint: It's Not AMD) The Motley Fool
Prediction: This Will Be the Next Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chip Stock to Join Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor, and Broadcom in the Trillion-Dollar Club (Hint: It's Not AMD) The Motley Fool
MikeDot/iStock Editorial via Getty Images The Roundhill TSLA WeeklyPay ETF ( TSLW ), according to the company's description , is built to provide investors with the potential to generate income and growth. Roundhill's goal is to pay out distributions on a weekly basis of "1.2 times the total return of Tesla common shares." Other than a distribution of $0.1693 paid out on 1-13-2026, the distributio...
MikeDot/iStock Editorial via Getty Images The Roundhill TSLA WeeklyPay ETF ( TSLW ), according to the company's description , is built to provide investors with the potential to generate income and growth. Roundhill's goal is to pay out distributions on a weekly basis of "1.2 times the total return of Tesla common shares." Other than a distribution of $0.1693 paid out on 1-13-2026, the distribution has been above $0.20 per share, with the majority of them being over $0.31 per share. For an ETF using leverage as TSLW does, this is an impressive showing on the income side of the equation. Even so, the distributions can significantly vary from week-to-week. When taken on average together, the monthly totals reflect a successful execution of its strategy. Its share price has been volatile over the last year, ranging from a 52-week low of $25.45 to a 52-week high or $51.90. In this article we'll look at the strengths and weaknesses of TSLW and what its future looks like for investors. Seeking Alpha The underlying A single-stock ETF like TSLW will perform as well as the underlying, which in this case is Tesla ( TSLA ). How one views Tesla will determine the expected performance of TSLW going forward. There's not much to say about Tesla that isn't already known, but the key thing to consider as it relates to TSLW is the overall areas it competes in. For example, AI, energy generation, energy storage, EVs, leasing, and robotics. With a PE (FWD) of 275, it's obvious that the valuation of the company is based upon future growth expectations, which have been driving up the share price of the company since April 2025, when on April 7, 2025 it hit its 52-week low of $214.25, and has more than doubled to $448.00 per share as I write. What's interesting about the performance of TSLW is it hasn't participated in the upside movement of TSLA's share price on a consistent basis but has rather moved in a wide range during that time; not holding the top, it has jumped to. For that reaso...
Key Points Royal Caribbean benefits from high demand for cruises and rising profits. Its valuation remains reasonable despite its growth. Royal Caribbean stock could face competition from Viking, whose stock debuted in 2024. 10 stocks we like better than Royal Caribbean Cruises › Investors have long had a unique take on Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL) stock. Despite its position as the second-largest ...
Key Points Royal Caribbean benefits from high demand for cruises and rising profits. Its valuation remains reasonable despite its growth. Royal Caribbean stock could face competition from Viking, whose stock debuted in 2024. 10 stocks we like better than Royal Caribbean Cruises › Investors have long had a unique take on Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL) stock. Despite its position as the second-largest cruise line behind Carnival, it supports a market cap twice the size of its larger rival. Royal Caribbean tends to attract a higher-spending customer, and observers tend to perceive its ships as more innovative. Such conditions may leave investors wondering how to approach Royal Caribbean stock. Should they hold for the long-term or treat it as a trade? 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 » The state of Royal Caribbean and its stock Long-term investors will probably like what they see in Royal Caribbean stock. The cruise line has capitalized on a revived demand for cruise vacations that appears unaffected by an uncertain economy. In the third quarter of 2025, it reported 112% occupancy in an industry that defines 100% occupancy as two passengers in every cabin. Consequently, it earned just over $3.5 billion in net income in the first nine months of 2025, a 51% year-over-year increase. These rising profits have allowed it to service and pay down its $21 billion debt load left over from the pandemic. The increased income has also helped Royal Caribbean build new ships. It launched the Star of the Seas in 2025 and plans three additional ships over the next three years to help it meet the strong demand for cruise vacations. Not surprisingly, such conditions have helped its stock outperform the S&P 500 over the last five years. Investors may also like its valuation. Although its 18 P/E ratio is slightly higher than Carnival's at 16 times earnings or...
Live Events as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Addas a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now! (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel An international group of plaintiffs has sued Meta Platforms, Inc. , alleging the company made false claims about the privacy and security of WhatsApp chats, according to a Bloomberg report. The lawsuit was f...
Live Events as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Addas a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now! (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel An international group of plaintiffs has sued Meta Platforms, Inc. , alleging the company made false claims about the privacy and security of WhatsApp chats, according to a Bloomberg report. The lawsuit was filed on Friday in the US District Court in San Francisco and targets Meta’s claims that WhatsApp messages are protected by end-to-end encryption and cannot be accessed by the company.WhatsApp has made end-to-end encryption a core feature of its service. The company says the feature is turned on by default and tells users inside chats that “only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share” messages. Meta has said this encryption ensures messages are accessible only to the sender and recipient, not the company.The plaintiffs allege these claims are false. The lawsuit says Meta and WhatsApp “store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications,” the Bloomberg report said. The suit accuses the companies and their leaders of misleading WhatsApp users across the world.Meta has denied the allegations and dismissed the case. A spokesperson said the company plans to seek sanctions against the lawyers who filed the suit.“Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in an email, according to Bloomberg. “WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade. This lawsuit is a frivolous work of fiction.”The group of plaintiffs includes users from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa. The complaint alleges Meta stores the content of user communications and that employees can access them.The lawsuit refers to information provided by “whistleblowers,” but does not identify them or explain their role, the report said...
The Labour party must do all it can to avoid a “psychodrama” over Andy Burnham’s possible return to parliament, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, has warned. Mahmood is chair of Labour’s national executive committee (NEC), which was due to meet later on Sunday to decide whether Burnham should be allowed to seek selection for the Gorton and Denton byelection, which would involve him giving up hi...
The Labour party must do all it can to avoid a “psychodrama” over Andy Burnham’s possible return to parliament, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, has warned. Mahmood is chair of Labour’s national executive committee (NEC), which was due to meet later on Sunday to decide whether Burnham should be allowed to seek selection for the Gorton and Denton byelection, which would involve him giving up his Greater Manchester mayoralty. Speaking to Sky News, Mahmood said her role as chair meant she could not comment on whether it was a good idea for Burnham to seek to return as an MP, widely seen as a route for him to challenge Keir Starmer as prime minister. But she warned that voters would not tolerate a long period of turmoil and internal struggle from the government, as happened under the Conservatives, who cycled through five prime ministers in six years. “Everyone has to make their own decisions. What I would say is, I think everybody could do with less psychodrama,” Mahmood said. “And my clear message to all of my colleagues, whether they are in cabinet, or elsewhere in the country, is: we get to decide if we indulge in a psychodrama. “The country was absolutely fed up to the back teeth of the Tories and all of their psychodramas, the constant arguing. “So my clear message to all colleagues everywhere is, just calm down. We’re in government. Labour governments don’t come along that often in the history of our great country. We have the absolute privilege of being the government of our country. We should all pull together and make a success of it.” She did, however, praise Burnham, indicating that she felt he could add to the party in parliament. “He’s an exceptional politician, and of course I always think we should have all of our best players making their contribution to the Labour government,” she said. Burnham said on Saturday afternoon he wanted to contest the seat after the sitting MP, Andrew Gwynne, said he intended to stand down. Burnham’s allies – including m...
Elliott Investment Management and British housing tycoon Jeff Fairburn , joint-venture partners in UK homebuilder Avant Homes Group , are suing Lloyds Banking Group Plc over who should pay to fix properties that fail to meet post-Grenfell fire-safety standards, the Times reported. Avant, which faces remediation costs of at least £107 million ($146 million) for potentially dangerous cladding, argue...
Elliott Investment Management and British housing tycoon Jeff Fairburn , joint-venture partners in UK homebuilder Avant Homes Group , are suing Lloyds Banking Group Plc over who should pay to fix properties that fail to meet post-Grenfell fire-safety standards, the Times reported. Avant, which faces remediation costs of at least £107 million ($146 million) for potentially dangerous cladding, argues that Lloyds should shoulder part of the bill because most of the developments were built before 2014, when the homebuilder was under the bank’s ownership, the Times reported. Cladding has become a contentious issue in the UK following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, in which dozens died after flames spread rapidly through flammable exterior cladding on the West London high-rise, laying bare deep failures in Britain’s building safety regulations. More than eight years on, the Labour government is introducing tougher safety rules and overhauling leasehold laws as it seeks to shift liability from taxpayers to developers, protect residents and restore confidence in the housing market. Lloyds said it rejects Avant’s claim and is “preparing to defend it robustly,” in a statement to Bloomberg on Sunday. Avant and Elliott didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg’s requests for comment. Read More: UK Sets Out Reforms to Address Failures in Grenfell Tower Fire