Tamer Soliman/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Building on our analysis of Roche and following Novartis ( NVS ) ( NVSEF ) Q1 results, we are back to comment on the company. We were long on Novartis, given that it has repositioned itself as a focused, innovative medicines company, with margins and valuation benefiting from the spin-offs of Alcon and Sandoz. However, after a solid share price rally...
Tamer Soliman/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Building on our analysis of Roche and following Novartis ( NVS ) ( NVSEF ) Q1 results, we are back to comment on the company. We were long on Novartis, given that it has repositioned itself as a focused, innovative medicines company, with margins and valuation benefiting from the spin-offs of Alcon and Sandoz. However, after a solid share price rally, the company's upside appeared limited, and we shifted our rating to neutral. This proved to be a lucky call, given that our rating change was made before the escalation in the Middle East; however, over the past few weeks, Novartis shares have remained flat (Fig. 1). Our equal weight was backed by 1) a solid execution already reflected in the outlook, 2) limited upside on the capital allocation initiatives, including the $10 billion buyback and dividend growth expectation, and 3) incremental U.S. capex priced in. This leaves limited scope for further re-rating driven by capital efficiency. Mare Ev. Lab Rating Update Fig. 1 Q1 Results and Our Neutral Stance In a nutshell, Novartis did not report a solid Q1. Top-line sales declined by 5% due to US generic erosion, and, looking at Wall Street estimates, the company missed by 2%. This was driven by Entresto and Cosentyx, down 7% and 6%, and partially offset by Kisqali, which reported a 6% beat. Looking at the P&L results, Novartis' operating income declined by 11%. The core EBIT decline was largely due to lower sales and higher-than-anticipated R&D expenses. In the net income statement, Novartis was positively impacted by net financial income, but this effect was partially offset by higher corporate tax. So, net income was down by 15%. Bottom line: Novartis results in a 5% miss on EPS vs. the Wall Street consensus. Novartis Q1 Financials in a Snap Fig. 2 Why are we still Neutral? Businesswise, Q1 results, when compared with the strong full-year 2025 performance, illustrate the impact of the US generic on Entresto. The negativ...
Qatar opposes permanent legal fees for transit through the Strait of Hormuz, but a temporary toll is negotiable and could help restore normal passage through the key waterway, a top official said. A permanent fee would impact consumers and Qatar objects to any move to impose them, Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said at an Asian defense conference in Singapore on Saturd...
Qatar opposes permanent legal fees for transit through the Strait of Hormuz, but a temporary toll is negotiable and could help restore normal passage through the key waterway, a top official said. A permanent fee would impact consumers and Qatar objects to any move to impose them, Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said at an Asian defense conference in Singapore on Saturday. However, short-term charges used for mine clearing or similar purposes can be considered, he said. The comments were in response to a question about talks between Iran and Oman to impose a permanent toll system to formalize control of maritime traffic through Hormuz, one of the world’s most important trade routes. Iran has effectively closed the waterway in response to US-Israeli airstrikes that began late February, triggering an energy crisis. “Qatar and also the partners in the Gulf stated very clearly that charging fees will always impact the consumer, so we are against this,” Sheikh Saoud said at the Shangri-La Dialogue. “But for certain times that they say they will use it for mine-clearing or some usage of the fees for a temporary time, this is something that is negotiable.” The US, Europe and Middle East nations like the United Arab Emirates have rejected the notion of any tolls for passage through Hormuz. Iran has retaliated against the US strikes by hitting its military allies in the Gulf, including Qatar, with drones and missiles. Qatar is trying to balance its ties with both nations, and seek consensus within the Gulf Cooperation Council on a comprehensive strategy to deal with Iran, the deputy prime minister said. “We want to set up a clear strategy and a clear approach with Iran in order to have a strategy for all the relationships that we have with Iran, including the trading strategy and also the political strategy,” Sheikh Saoud said.
BING-JHEN HONG/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Nvidia is funding the customer that is burning natural gas to buy Nvidia’s GPUs . Nvidia ( NVDA ) trades at ~26-28x forward earnings on the consensus revenue assumption that will require more gigawatts of US data center power than the grid can deliver. The most-cited bull tailwind, sovereign AI and hyperscaler capex, is increasingly being funded by ...
BING-JHEN HONG/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Nvidia is funding the customer that is burning natural gas to buy Nvidia’s GPUs . Nvidia ( NVDA ) trades at ~26-28x forward earnings on the consensus revenue assumption that will require more gigawatts of US data center power than the grid can deliver. The most-cited bull tailwind, sovereign AI and hyperscaler capex, is increasingly being funded by Nvidia itself, with $40B+ committed to customers in the first four months of 2026 . The Cisco analogy is the wrong reference. The Lucent vendor financing is the right one, where the equipment maker funded customer purchases that turned out to be unsustainable. Catalysts arrive in the next 12-18 months as power constraints throttle deployment, circular-financing scrutiny intensifies, and Huawei/DeepSeek close the China gap. Nvidia is a sell at these prices, and it’s hardly an argument. Examining the Print Q4 FY 2026 reported revenue of $68.1 billion, with data center revenue growth showing gross margins of 75%. Purchase commitments nearly doubled to $95.2 billion from $50.3 billion in one quarter. This is the hidden data point that shows the bear case. The Gigawatt Ceiling Every Nvidia GPU in a data center needs many kW; for example, a single GB200 NVL72 rack draws approximately 120 kW , with hyperscale buildouts requiring 1 MW per 8-10 racks. The US power grid cannot deliver enough new capacity to support consensus 2026-2028 NVDA revenue estimates. This is not a forecast; it is already happening. Nvidia is beginning to hit a grid ceiling. The macro picture: PJM is projecting a 6 GW data center power shortfall by 2027 . Approximately $98 billion of US data center projects were blocked by interconnection denials between March and June 2025 , with another $41.7 billion cancelled in Q1 2026. The ERCOT large-load interconnection queue sits at 233 GW which is roughly 70% of data center demand the grid cannot accommodate on requested timelines. Transformer lead times, for example,...
BING-JHEN HONG/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Nvidia is funding the customer that is burning natural gas to buy Nvidia’s GPUs . Nvidia ( NVDA ) trades at ~26-28x forward earnings on the consensus revenue assumption that will require more gigawatts of US data center power than the grid can deliver. The most-cited bull tailwind, sovereign AI and hyperscaler capex, is increasingly being funded by ...
BING-JHEN HONG/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Nvidia is funding the customer that is burning natural gas to buy Nvidia’s GPUs . Nvidia ( NVDA ) trades at ~26-28x forward earnings on the consensus revenue assumption that will require more gigawatts of US data center power than the grid can deliver. The most-cited bull tailwind, sovereign AI and hyperscaler capex, is increasingly being funded by Nvidia itself, with $40B+ committed to customers in the first four months of 2026 . The Cisco analogy is the wrong reference. The Lucent vendor financing is the right one, where the equipment maker funded customer purchases that turned out to be unsustainable. Catalysts arrive in the next 12-18 months as power constraints throttle deployment, circular-financing scrutiny intensifies, and Huawei/DeepSeek close the China gap. Nvidia is a sell at these prices, and it’s hardly an argument. Examining the Print Q4 FY 2026 reported revenue of $68.1 billion, with data center revenue growth showing gross margins of 75%. Purchase commitments nearly doubled to $95.2 billion from $50.3 billion in one quarter. This is the hidden data point that shows the bear case. The Gigawatt Ceiling Every Nvidia GPU in a data center needs many kW; for example, a single GB200 NVL72 rack draws approximately 120 kW , with hyperscale buildouts requiring 1 MW per 8-10 racks. The US power grid cannot deliver enough new capacity to support consensus 2026-2028 NVDA revenue estimates. This is not a forecast; it is already happening. Nvidia is beginning to hit a grid ceiling. The macro picture: PJM is projecting a 6 GW data center power shortfall by 2027 . Approximately $98 billion of US data center projects were blocked by interconnection denials between March and June 2025 , with another $41.7 billion cancelled in Q1 2026. The ERCOT large-load interconnection queue sits at 233 GW which is roughly 70% of data center demand the grid cannot accommodate on requested timelines. Transformer lead times, for example,...
Artificial intelligence (AI) helped many tech leaders improve their businesses. Nvidia saw surging demand for its GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), Meta Platforms used the technology to increase engagement on its apps through algorithms, and the hyperscalers -- Amazon , Alphabet , and Microsoft -- launched a variety of AI services they offer through the cloud. Meanwhile, many thought that Apple (N...
Artificial intelligence (AI) helped many tech leaders improve their businesses. Nvidia saw surging demand for its GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), Meta Platforms used the technology to increase engagement on its apps through algorithms, and the hyperscalers -- Amazon , Alphabet , and Microsoft -- launched a variety of AI services they offer through the cloud. Meanwhile, many thought that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) was lagging its similarly sized tech peers in capitalizing on AI, but as the industry shifts toward agentic AI -- or systems that can autonomously plan and execute tasks -- could it become a tailwind for Apple? Image source: The Motley Fool. Wall Street is starting to recognize Apple's potential in the AI industry , with several analysts expressing bullish sentiment. For instance, Wamsi Mohan , an analyst at Bank of America , recently increased his price target for the stock to $380, up from $330. The reason: Apple could be a winner of the shift to agentic AI. Mohan thinks that the iPhone maker could generate between $15 billion and $30 billion in AI-related revenue by the fiscal year 2030. Note that this is not that much revenue by Apple's standards, which generates over $400 billion in annual sales. However, provided agentic AI reaches the heights some expect -- Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang predicted we will eventually have billions of AI agents -- it could be just the beginning for Apple. Continue reading
Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock via Getty Images The iShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF ( USHY ), managed by BlackRock, launched on 10/25/2017, and has grown into a colossus with over $26.7 billion in assets under management. The fund's average yield to maturity is around 7%, and its weighted average is around 7.33%, but when we look deeper and get under the hood, we see that things are not q...
Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock via Getty Images The iShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF ( USHY ), managed by BlackRock, launched on 10/25/2017, and has grown into a colossus with over $26.7 billion in assets under management. The fund's average yield to maturity is around 7%, and its weighted average is around 7.33%, but when we look deeper and get under the hood, we see that things are not quite like that, and in fact, the yield is lower than presented. USHY overview The fund has 1908 positions. Its weighted average maturity is 3.75 years, and its effective duration is 2.99 years. The weighted average coupon is 6.65%. It pays monthly distributions with a dividend yield of close to 6.88%. The sector allocation is dominated by Consumer Cyclical (18.44%), Communications (14.39%), and Consumer Non-Cyclical (11.34%). In terms of credit quality, the picture is typical for the market: 53.9% BB-rated, 32.6% B-rated, and 10.6% CCC. Virtually zero investment-grade exposure (only 0.8% BBB). The maturity allocation is concentrated in the 3–5 year segment (39.3%), followed by 2–3 years (19.4%). USHY portfolio characteristics (ishares.com) 7.33 % - Are they real? The official average yield to maturity is 7.00%, and the weighted average yield to maturity is around 7.32% - it sounds tempting. But this figure hides something important. We analyzed all 1908 positions in the portfolio and ranked them by YTM. The result is: USHY holdings YTM and Weight (author's database) 63.7% of positions have a yield to maturity of less than 7%. The median YTM is just 6.54%, almost half a percentage point below the general average weighted YTM. If we exclude positions with YTMs over 10% (only 6.61% of the holdings), the normalized average weighted YTM on the remaining 93% of the portfolio is around 6.62%. What are the distressed positions? 90 positions with YTMs above 15% carry only 2.51% weight in the portfolio but contribute disproportionately to the average value. Here are the main ones: di...
⚽ All the latest pre-match news for PSG v Arsenal ⚽ Arsenal fans’ race to Budapest | Mail us here To witness a Champions League final in person, first you have to get there. And that’s far from straightforward. “Ben Boxhall is flying to Kraków with two friends. They plan to catch a bus from Kraków to Budapest at 5am on Saturday. The trio have not got a hotel booked in Budapest and, after joining t...
⚽ All the latest pre-match news for PSG v Arsenal ⚽ Arsenal fans’ race to Budapest | Mail us here To witness a Champions League final in person, first you have to get there. And that’s far from straightforward. “Ben Boxhall is flying to Kraków with two friends. They plan to catch a bus from Kraków to Budapest at 5am on Saturday. The trio have not got a hotel booked in Budapest and, after joining the thousands of fans expected at the Uefa meeting point where the game will be shown, plan to pull an all-nighter before catching the first bus back to Kraków. “We were looking at flying to Budapest but it was about £500 to £600 on Wizz Air,” said Adam Wares.” Instead they paid £170 for their return flights.” Continue reading...
Hong Kong authorities have slashed the time needed to send emergency mobile alerts to residents from an hour to 15 minutes under a HK$150 million (US$19 million) system, while messages can now be tailored to specific districts, the security chief has revealed. A hearing session into the deadly Wang Fuk Court fire in April had exposed the lengthy time needed to trigger the alert. But security chief...
Hong Kong authorities have slashed the time needed to send emergency mobile alerts to residents from an hour to 15 minutes under a HK$150 million (US$19 million) system, while messages can now be tailored to specific districts, the security chief has revealed. A hearing session into the deadly Wang Fuk Court fire in April had exposed the lengthy time needed to trigger the alert. But security chief Chris Tang Ping-keung on Saturday stopped short of specifying the types of incidents, such as major...