Fires that spread during drought in Georgia and Florida have blanketed cities hundreds of miles away in smoke Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Wildfires tearing through the south have forced hundreds of Georgia residents to flee in minutes, leaving them distraught about the homes and animals they left behind. The fires that spread this week during an ex...
Fires that spread during drought in Georgia and Florida have blanketed cities hundreds of miles away in smoke Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Wildfires tearing through the south have forced hundreds of Georgia residents to flee in minutes, leaving them distraught about the homes and animals they left behind. The fires that spread this week during an extreme drought in Georgia and Florida have blanketed cities hundreds of miles away in smoke, leading to more air quality warnings Thursday across the southeast. Continue reading...
Iranian’s 10-3 win sets up match against world No 1 Trump Former champion Murphy in strong position against Xiao Hossein Vafaei has claimed the Crucible must be respected and called it snooker’s answer to Wimbledon two years on from his scathing criticism of the world championship venue. In 2024 the Iranian described the Crucible as “smelly” and compared the practice facilities to “like playing in...
Iranian’s 10-3 win sets up match against world No 1 Trump Former champion Murphy in strong position against Xiao Hossein Vafaei has claimed the Crucible must be respected and called it snooker’s answer to Wimbledon two years on from his scathing criticism of the world championship venue. In 2024 the Iranian described the Crucible as “smelly” and compared the practice facilities to “like playing in a garage”. But after last month’s announcement that snooker’s showpiece will remain in Sheffield until at least 2045, Vafaei highlighted the importance of the Crucible to the sport. Continue reading...
ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. ( ALPKF ): Q1 Revenue of $29.76M. Gross profit of $2.98M More on ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. 2026 Q1 - Results - Earnings Call Presentation ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. (ALPKF) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. 2025 Q4 - Results - Earnings Call Presentation Historical earnings data for ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. Financial information for ALPEK, S.A.B....
ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. ( ALPKF ): Q1 Revenue of $29.76M. Gross profit of $2.98M More on ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. 2026 Q1 - Results - Earnings Call Presentation ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. (ALPKF) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. 2025 Q4 - Results - Earnings Call Presentation Historical earnings data for ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V. Financial information for ALPEK, S.A.B. de C.V.
Goldman: Fast Food's 'Bang For The Buck' Gains As Casual Dining Appeal Craters Goldman analyst Christine Cho has published her latest quarterly survey of 2,000 consumers for 1Q26, pointing to a softer restaurant environment. Muted demand backdrop suggests that the K-shaped economy continues to fester, with working-poor consumers still facing the greatest downward pressure. Respondents expect their...
Goldman: Fast Food's 'Bang For The Buck' Gains As Casual Dining Appeal Craters Goldman analyst Christine Cho has published her latest quarterly survey of 2,000 consumers for 1Q26, pointing to a softer restaurant environment. Muted demand backdrop suggests that the K-shaped economy continues to fester, with working-poor consumers still facing the greatest downward pressure. Respondents expect their visits to limited-service restaurants (LSRs), restaurants where customers generally order and pay at a counter, kiosk, drive-thru, or app, such as McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Chipotle, CAVA, Sweetgreen, Panera, and others, to hold steady for the next three months, while casual dining still has some room for visit growth, though at a slower pace than in prior quarters. The respondents under most pressure to spend on food away from home were among lower-income households, with roughly half of consumers earning under $70,000 saying they plan to dine out less. Another key takeaway is the growing divide in perceptions of value. Fast food's "bang for the buck" has improved since 3Q25, while casual dining's value perception has deteriorated to the lowest level in Goldman's dataset. Cho attributes the improvement in fast food partly to value menus, meal deals, and marketing tie-ins, which are boosting scores for value, quality, and willingness to pay more. "Consumers still see grocery as better value," Cho noted. Intention to spend was flat. GS Brand Scores — Major fast food brands showing sequential improvement with stepped-up value focus Exhibit 11: Summary of GS Restaurant Survey Scores - % change vs. 3Q25 Summary Exhibit 12: Summary of GS Restaurant Survey Scores - YoY % change Summary Cho then covered which restaurant stocks looked the strongest or weakest in the survey: Stock callouts. QSR was a standout in the monthly dashboard, showing trends consistent with higher brand scores vs. 3Q25 for Burger King (+6.5%), Popeyes (+3.6%), and Tim Hortons (+1.7%) in our survey. ...
Ployker U.S. financial regulators have increased their efforts to gather information on how much risk has accumulated in the $3T private credit industry, according to a media report. While the watchdogs aren't sounding dire alarms, investor fears have motivated some backers to pull their capital from the sector. The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened several enforcement probes of large ...
Ployker U.S. financial regulators have increased their efforts to gather information on how much risk has accumulated in the $3T private credit industry, according to a media report. While the watchdogs aren't sounding dire alarms, investor fears have motivated some backers to pull their capital from the sector. The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened several enforcement probes of large private credit managers, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Additionally, the U.S. Treasury Department has asked for information from private fund managers and insurance companies about their business models. The Federal Reserve is also looking into banks' lending and exposure to private credit, the report said. Regulators have been monitoring risk from the burgeoning private credit market for years, but the scrutiny has been intensifying as investors' requests to exit the space have exceeded the standard limits that most funds place on redemptions. Earlier this month, the Financial Times calculated that investors sought to get back more than $20B from private credit firms. Just over 50% of the requests were fulfilled. The SEC enforcement investigations, which are in early stages, are assessing how credit managers value the loans they hold and whether they're adhering to policies they disclose to investors, the WSJ said . Separate from the enforcement division, SEC examiners have also been asking more questions, it added. Some people told the WSJ that examiners are engaged in a wide-ranging inspection of Blue Owl Capital Inc. ( OWL ). That began when the firm faced opposition to its plan to merge two of its retail-focused loan funds. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department has sent requests to private credit fund managers and insurance companies after months of individual meetings with fund managers. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has expressed concern about the potential for spillover into the regulated financial system. The Treasury, th...
Keir Starmer knows a thing or two about throwing away a lead. Let us remember the full extent of his thumping general election victory back in 2024: a majority just short of Tony Blair’s; the worst Tory defeat in centuries; Scotland’s nationalists wiped from much of the electoral map; and even positive approval ratings for his incoming Chancellor of the Exchequer. Labour was on top of the world bu...
Keir Starmer knows a thing or two about throwing away a lead. Let us remember the full extent of his thumping general election victory back in 2024: a majority just short of Tony Blair’s; the worst Tory defeat in centuries; Scotland’s nationalists wiped from much of the electoral map; and even positive approval ratings for his incoming Chancellor of the Exchequer. Labour was on top of the world but took only weeks to fall from this peak. Rachel Reeves dulled the economy with a shadow of looming tax hikes, while the emergence of mid-summer riots tested Starmer’s image as a rigorous and reliable former chief prosecutor. The leadership’s approval ratings sank deep into the red, worsened by newspaper stories about Starmer accepting thousands of pounds’ worth of free tickets to events including football matches. The PM is a rare thing in politics — a party leader who genuinely loves football (unlike many who pretend to love it, through desire for the common touch.) So, as his team* Arsenal were knocked off the top of the Premier League last night, having been in first place since October, Starmer must have rued another kick in the shins from Lady Luck. He’d already endured a second bruising of the week in the House of Commons, where MPs took turns to go in two-footed over the seemingly interminable Peter Mandelson saga. It’s tempting to think that both Starmer and Arsenal are doomed, respectively to losing the most prestigious job in the country and to ending a sixth successive season without silverware. However, all is not quite lost for Starmer nor his beloved Gunners. Firstly, they both benefit from a lack of serious rivals. In the Premier League, several big spenders like Chelsea and Liverpool have all but given up on the current season, while the gap to Man Utd is considerable. In Westminster, significant doubts linger over the favourites (Wes Streeting, Angela Rayner and Shabana Mahmood) to replace Starmer. Ed Miliband has said he doesn’t want the job. The main thr...
Analysts at DZ Bank just put their stamp of approval on one of Wall Street’s most-watched AI names, launching coverage of Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:PLTR) with a Buy rating and a $175 price target. A fresh initiation carries a different weight than a routine target hike. It means a new institutional voice has taken the time ... DZ Bank Just Launched Palantir at Buy With a $175 Target: The AI Da...
Analysts at DZ Bank just put their stamp of approval on one of Wall Street’s most-watched AI names, launching coverage of Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:PLTR) with a Buy rating and a $175 price target. A fresh initiation carries a different weight than a routine target hike. It means a new institutional voice has taken the time ... DZ Bank Just Launched Palantir at Buy With a $175 Target: The AI Darling Gains Another Believer
Trevor Williams/DigitalVision via Getty Images Introduction to the iShares Global Tech ETF The iShares Global Tech ETF ( IXN ) is a $7.5B-sized financial product (by assets under management) that is issued by Blackrock, Inc. under their ‘iShares’ brand of ETFs. IXN, which initially got listed in November 2001, is priced at an expense ratio of 0.39%, and offers an annualized distribution yield of l...
Trevor Williams/DigitalVision via Getty Images Introduction to the iShares Global Tech ETF The iShares Global Tech ETF ( IXN ) is a $7.5B-sized financial product (by assets under management) that is issued by Blackrock, Inc. under their ‘iShares’ brand of ETFs. IXN, which initially got listed in November 2001, is priced at an expense ratio of 0.39%, and offers an annualized distribution yield of less than 1% (distributions are made twice a year). What Does IXN Do? IXN is a passively managed ETF that attempts to track the performance of an index crafted by another independent party (S&P Global) called the S&P Global 1200 Information Technology 4.5/22.5/45 Capped Index [SG1IT]. SG1IT, in turn, is a subset of the S&P Global 1200 index [SG1] , and seeks to pick out stocks from the latter which are defined as “information technology”. Note that SG1 captures the top 70% of the overall global market cap (making it tilt mainly to giant and large-caps, while it also weights its constituents on the basis of their free float market-cap) and picks up stocks from specific regions such as the US (represented by the S&P 500), Europe (S&P Europe 350), Japan (S&P TOPIX 150), Canada (S&P TSX 60), Australia (S&P/ASX All Australian 50), Asia (S&P Asia 50), and Latin America (S&P Latin America 40). Based on the indices mentioned above, it looks like SG1IT attempts to source tech stocks from all global regions except Africa, and the Middle East. SG1IT, which rebalances its constituents four times per year, also seeks to impose certain caps on individual holdings to ameliorate concentration effects. For instance, during each quarterly rebalance, no single stock is permitted to account for more than 22.5% of the entire index, and all stocks with individual weights of over 4.5% are not permitted to “jointly aggregate” to 45% of the total index. It appears that IXN, which covers 127 stocks in total, does an acceptable job of tracking its target index, as its tracking errors across different ...
The Iran war came as an unwelcome shock to the stock market and the global economy. Between Feb. 27 (the day before U.S. military strikes on Iran began) and March 30, the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index lost 8% of its value. With the news full of alarming headlines, investors fled to safe-haven assets and moved away from tech stocks. A longer, more destructive Iran war would have longer-lasting and mo...
The Iran war came as an unwelcome shock to the stock market and the global economy. Between Feb. 27 (the day before U.S. military strikes on Iran began) and March 30, the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index lost 8% of its value. With the news full of alarming headlines, investors fled to safe-haven assets and moved away from tech stocks. A longer, more destructive Iran war would have longer-lasting and more damaging impacts on the economy. Higher oil prices would drive up prices all over, which could cause higher-for-longer inflation. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading
akinbostanci/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis Marvell Technology, Inc. ( MRVL ) had a strong bull run and is up ~90% since my last coverage in just one quarter, a hard-to-ignore move, although importantly, fundamentals continue supporting the momentum. Revenue from data centers remains the leading contributor, driven by hyperscalers’ needs for interconnect, optical devices, and AI network...
akinbostanci/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis Marvell Technology, Inc. ( MRVL ) had a strong bull run and is up ~90% since my last coverage in just one quarter, a hard-to-ignore move, although importantly, fundamentals continue supporting the momentum. Revenue from data centers remains the leading contributor, driven by hyperscalers’ needs for interconnect, optical devices, and AI networking. Strengthening collaboration with Nvidia ( NVDA ) cements Marvell’s position as an integral part of future AI platforms. Custom silicon is evolving into a reliable source of organic growth, while operational efficiency and higher average selling prices drive margins. Although the stock is seeing a dramatic move higher, I am optimistic about the path ahead, maintaining a buy rating. Data by YCharts Marvell's Quiet Bet On The Next AI Bottleneck I believe the market has seriously mispriced what Marvell just accomplished. Marvell acquired Polariton Technologies to strengthen its optical portfolio with plasmonics-based modulation aimed at enabling faster, more efficient next-generation data center interconnects. This is no longer an optional acquisition, but this is a direct bet on how the AI infrastructure bottleneck is going to evolve in the future. All eyes have been on the GPUs, yet the bottleneck is slowly moving towards data transfer. Traditional silicon photonics is reaching its limits, particularly with respect to 3.2T interconnects. Enter plasmonics: higher speeds, increased density, and improved energy efficiency, precisely what hyperscalers need. Therefore, I believe this marks a paradigm shift in the industry as a whole. The chokepoint shifts from computing power to connectivity, and Marvell is positioning itself for this move. For the industry, it shows that optics will be the new frontier. For Marvell, it makes its stack stronger and gives it a fighting chance at capturing more value. Data Center Interconnect And Custom Silicon Market Expansion Marvell has topl...