Investing.com -- A blockchain protocol developed by Ant Group, the Chinese fintech giant behind Alipay and an affiliate of Alibaba Group, has powered the launch of the first institutional-grade onchain vault focused on emerging-market consumer lending, Investing.com has learned. R25, which traces its origins to Ant Financial’s protocol development, is expected to announce today that it has gone li...
Investing.com -- A blockchain protocol developed by Ant Group, the Chinese fintech giant behind Alipay and an affiliate of Alibaba Group, has powered the launch of the first institutional-grade onchain vault focused on emerging-market consumer lending, Investing.com has learned. R25, which traces its origins to Ant Financial’s protocol development, is expected to announce today that it has gone live on the Pharos blockchain with the Axil Consumer Credit Vault, which raised $50 million in pre-deposits and hit its cap within 48 hours. The vault has launched with $35 million in committed deposits and offers yields of up to 15% APY, sourced from the underlying consumer lending assets and protocol incentives. The launch is timed to coincide with visible stress in traditional private credit. The $1.8 trillion private credit market is in the midst of a sharp contraction, with BDC sales down 40% and some evergreen funds gating redemptions. The vault is expected to be positioned as a structural counterpoint to that market, offering exposure to hundreds of thousands of small-ticket retail loans with low correlation to corporate credit, denominated in USDC. According to sources, the vault’s smart contracts have been audited by blockchain security firm SlowMist. Pharos, the underlying network, raised $44 million in a Series A focused on real-world asset tokenization. Related articles Exclusive: Ant Group-backed R25 launches emerging-market consumer credit vault Goldman expects lower but still attractive stock market returns in 2026 Morgan Stanley CIO survey: Why AI hype isn’t boosting 2026 IT budgets
sompoch sivakosit/iStock via Getty Images Equities trade at the most outrageous valuations since the end of the Internet Boom, just over a quarter century ago. In addition, market concentration has increased dramatically over the past several years and is now at levels last seen just before the Internet Bust. GFD Fineaon, Bloomberg, BofA Global Investment Research In addition, from almost every ec...
sompoch sivakosit/iStock via Getty Images Equities trade at the most outrageous valuations since the end of the Internet Boom, just over a quarter century ago. In addition, market concentration has increased dramatically over the past several years and is now at levels last seen just before the Internet Bust. GFD Fineaon, Bloomberg, BofA Global Investment Research In addition, from almost every economic, geopolitical, and demographic metric, the end of the 20th century was much more supportive of both equities and GDP growth. Despite that, the market cracked in early 2000. This bust lopped off roughly 80% of the NASDAQ valuation peak to trough and cut the S&P 500 by over 40%. Shiller PE Ratio (Multpl) The similarities between the market now and 1999 are eerily similar in some ways. AI is the first true technology-driven paradigm shift since the birth of the internet in the late 1990s. The AI revolution has triggered a massive surge in tech spending. This in turn has seen a huge spike in the profits and revenues at the chipmakers providing the ' picks and shovels ' to this buildout, such as Intel ( INTC ) and NVIDIA Corporation ( NVDA ) . This has resulted in huge rises in profit margins for this notoriously cyclical industry. Charlie Biello, YCharts The same thing occurred in 1999 but was driven by the networking firms like Cisco Systems ( CSCO ), Qwest, and Nortel Networks. The surge of demand has pushed these margins way above historical norms at names like NVIDIA, just like they did at Cisco in the late 1990s. Of note, when demand stopped growing exponentially in 2000, so did profit margins, which reversed sharply, as did their stock prices. However, in comparing 1999 to 2026, it is clear that during the end of the 20th century, the environment and backdrop for the economy and equities were much more favorable. This article will explore these factors in more detail. U.S. Fiscal Situation This is one area where it is crystal clear that 1999 was much more favorable...
OR YEHUDA, Israel, May 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Formula Systems (1985) Ltd. (Nasdaq and TASE: FORTY) (“Formula” or the “Company”), a global information technology group engaged, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, in providing software consulting services and computer-based business solutions and developing proprietary software products, today announced its results of operations for the f...
OR YEHUDA, Israel, May 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Formula Systems (1985) Ltd. (Nasdaq and TASE: FORTY) (“Formula” or the “Company”), a global information technology group engaged, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, in providing software consulting services and computer-based business solutions and developing proprietary software products, today announced its results of operations for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026. Financial Highlights for the First Quarter of 2026 On February 24, 2026, Matrix IT Ltd. (“Matrix”) and Magic Software Enterprises Ltd. (“Magic Software”), both subsidiaries of the Company, announced the completion of their merger agreement. The transaction, which was effected through a reverse triangular merger, resulted in Matrix acquiring all of the issued and outstanding share capital of Magic Software in consideration for the allotment of 28,861,564 ordinary shares of Matrix to Magic Software’s shareholders (0.5878202 Matrix ordinary shares for each Magic Software ordinary share). Following completion of the merger, Magic Software became a wholly owned (100%) subsidiary of Matrix, its shares were delisted from trading on Nasdaq and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, and it ceased to be a public company. Revenues for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026 increased by 19.2% year over year, reaching a first quarter record-breaking $738.3 million, compared to $619.4 million in the same period last year. Operating income for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026 increased by 65.6% year over year, reaching a first quarter record-breaking $82.0 million compared to $49.5 million in the same period last year. Operating income for the first quarter of 2026 included a capital gain of $16.8 million resulting from exercise of employee stock-based compensation and a secondary private placement transaction completed by our affiliate, TSG IT Advanced Systems Ltd. (“TSG”), in January 2026. On January 13, 2026, TSG’s Board of Directors approved a capital ra...
SoFi CEO Anthony Noto has been quietly putting his own money to work in his company’s stock all spring. According to Form 4 filings, Noto made open-market purchases of SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI) common stock on March 2, March 17, May 8, and May 11, 2026, accumulating a total of 116,323 shares at prices ranging ... SoFi CEO Anthony Noto Has Bought the Dip 3 Times This Year. Should You?
SoFi CEO Anthony Noto has been quietly putting his own money to work in his company’s stock all spring. According to Form 4 filings, Noto made open-market purchases of SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI) common stock on March 2, March 17, May 8, and May 11, 2026, accumulating a total of 116,323 shares at prices ranging ... SoFi CEO Anthony Noto Has Bought the Dip 3 Times This Year. Should You?
The AI trade is heating up just in time for summer, and as we enter the month of June, the SpaceX IPO could crank up the heat several notches as a flood of investors finally get a chance to own a piece of Elon Musk’s space and AI empire. Who knows? It’s speculated that Tesla ... The Bitcoin-Miners-Turned-AI-Neocloud Plays Might Still Be an Underappreciated Trade in AI
The AI trade is heating up just in time for summer, and as we enter the month of June, the SpaceX IPO could crank up the heat several notches as a flood of investors finally get a chance to own a piece of Elon Musk’s space and AI empire. Who knows? It’s speculated that Tesla ... The Bitcoin-Miners-Turned-AI-Neocloud Plays Might Still Be an Underappreciated Trade in AI
Futures Fall, Oil Rises As Mideast Violence Flares Up US futures are but well off session lows, as part of a weaker risk tape after the US and Iran exchanged strikes, fueling doubts whether an end to the war is imminent and crushing hopes for a Hormuz deal ( gasp). Overnight, US forces carried out airstrikes on an Iranian military site which Centcom described as "purely defensive" and designed to ...
Futures Fall, Oil Rises As Mideast Violence Flares Up US futures are but well off session lows, as part of a weaker risk tape after the US and Iran exchanged strikes, fueling doubts whether an end to the war is imminent and crushing hopes for a Hormuz deal ( gasp). Overnight, US forces carried out airstrikes on an Iranian military site which Centcom described as "purely defensive" and designed to maintain the ceasefire; it also imposed new sanctions to prevent Tehran from profiting from vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz. In response, Iran targeted the American airbase from which the attack originated. Centcom said that Kuwait also intercepted a ballistic missile launched toward it. While S&P futures initially tumbled as much as 0.5% on the news in overnight trading, they since recovered much of the losses, but were still down 0.2% as of 8:00am, with Nasdaq futures down 0.5%. In premarket trading, Mag7 names are mostly lower as Semis are sold and Software bid post earnings releases. Defensives and Energy are the notable outperformers as the market resumes its US / Iran playbook; EM likely to underperform DM. Bond yields are up 1-2bp as the yield curve bear flattens; the 10Y is up to 4.50%, after earlier rising to 4.53%. Crude prices are not seeing as dramatic of a response as earlier in the conflict; natgas is trading lower, Ags higher, and metals for sale as USD sees a bid. Today’s macro data focus is on PCE, Income, and Spending to gauge the depth of the impact from the Middle East Conflict with add’l updates to Durable / Cap Goods, Jobless Claims, and 26Q1 GDP revisions. Aside from a resumption of the kinetic conflict / failure for a deal, JPMorgan views inflation as the biggest risk to Equities with bond yields as the transmission mechanism. Today’s print will be important but given the status of the conflict, next month’s CPI print is likely the more important print. In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are mostly lower (Microsoft +0.9%, Meta +0.2%, Apple -0...
For many years, India was a key training ground for many of Bangladesh ’s senior officials, as well as a source of support and regional guidance. Now, some are being trained in Pakistan , a symbolic shift that has unsettled New Delhi and offered an early clue to how Dhaka’s new government wants to deal with its neighbours. A delegation of 12 senior Bangladeshi bureaucrats attended an executive tra...
For many years, India was a key training ground for many of Bangladesh ’s senior officials, as well as a source of support and regional guidance. Now, some are being trained in Pakistan , a symbolic shift that has unsettled New Delhi and offered an early clue to how Dhaka’s new government wants to deal with its neighbours. A delegation of 12 senior Bangladeshi bureaucrats attended an executive training programme at the Civil Services Academy in Lahore from May 4 to May 21, a move analysts said reflected Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s attempt to give Bangladesh more diplomatic room after years of close alignment with India under ousted former leader Sheikh Hasina. The outreach comes as India closely watches Bangladesh’s foreign policy direction, particularly the normalisation of ties with Pakistan and the growing domestic influence of Islamist parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami, which Delhi fears could revive security concerns along its eastern flank. Advertisement Indian observers noted that only a small number of officials had gone to Pakistan, while Delhi continued to host multiple Bangladeshi delegations across areas including e-governance, public policy and education. At the same time, Rahman’s government has moved to reset diplomatic ties with India after an extended period of strain under a previous interim government. Advertisement Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman visited Delhi last month, the first high-level political engagement between the two countries after the new government in Dhaka took office following elections in February.
China Asset Management (Hong Kong) launched a new gold exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Thursday, giving retail investors low-cost access to physical gold as the city pushes to link traditional financial products with digital-asset infrastructure. The ChinaAMC Digital Gold ETF, to be listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday, carries a 0.4 per cent management fee and a minimum board lot invest...
China Asset Management (Hong Kong) launched a new gold exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Thursday, giving retail investors low-cost access to physical gold as the city pushes to link traditional financial products with digital-asset infrastructure. The ChinaAMC Digital Gold ETF, to be listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday, carries a 0.4 per cent management fee and a minimum board lot investment of about HK$355 (US$45) – lower than all existing gold ETF products in the city – as the firm seeks to lure younger investors. The fund will trade in Hong Kong dollar, US dollar and yuan counters, tracking the London Bullion Market Association’s morning gold benchmark price through holdings of physical gold stored in Hong Kong vaults Advertisement “Its value is relatively independent because the underlying asset is the physical gold itself rather than exposure to a company or issuer, which makes it more attractive to investors,” said Don Ng, director of digital assets at ChinaAMC (HK), at a media briefing on Thursday. The launch comes as gold prices fluctuate amid geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic uncertainty, with investors shifting between safe-haven demand and pressure from a stronger US dollar. Physically backed gold ETFs in Hong Kong attracted a record US$732 million in inflows in April, according to the World Gold Council. The fund will trade in Hong Kong dollar, US dollar and yuan counters, tracking the London Bullion Market Association’s morning gold benchmark price through holdings of physical gold stored in Hong Kong vaults. Photo: Jelly Tse For most retail investors, the listed ETF will function like a traditional physically backed gold ETF traded on the stock exchange. The tokenised element currently applies only to the fund’s unlisted share class, which is built entirely on the Ethereum blockchain and accessible through regulated digital channels with a minimum investment starting from US$1.
Strattec ( STRT ) has authorized a new share repurchase program allowing the company to buy back up to $40M of its common stock. Strattec terminated its previous share repurchase program, which had been in place since 1996. Before terminating the old program, the company repurchased 110,269 shares during Q4 at an average price of $67.10 per share. More on Strattec Security Strattec Security Corpor...
Strattec ( STRT ) has authorized a new share repurchase program allowing the company to buy back up to $40M of its common stock. Strattec terminated its previous share repurchase program, which had been in place since 1996. Before terminating the old program, the company repurchased 110,269 shares during Q4 at an average price of $67.10 per share. More on Strattec Security Strattec Security Corporation (STRT) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript Strattec Security Corporation 2026 Q3 - Results - Earnings Call Presentation Strattec: Profitability Transformation Is Driving The Story Strattec expects Q4 revenue down 3%-4% y/y while targeting 18%-20% gross margin over next few years Seeking Alpha’s Quant Rating on Strattec Security
AI melt up puts SOX near dotcom records as NVDA, INTC soar Semiconductor stocks are in a vertical climb, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up about 75 percent this year as hyperscalers race to build AI data centers. The move has minted fresh megacaps and revived old ones: Nvidia has vaulted past 5 trillion dollars in market value, Intel has surged more than 200 percent, and AMD has doubled...
AI melt up puts SOX near dotcom records as NVDA, INTC soar Semiconductor stocks are in a vertical climb, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up about 75 percent this year as hyperscalers race to build AI data centers. The move has minted fresh megacaps and revived old ones: Nvidia has vaulted past 5 trillion dollars in market value, Intel has surged more than 200 percent, and AMD has doubled. Samsung now sits in the trillion dollar club. The tape looks and trades like 1999, but the underlying driver is different: a global capital spending binge to stand up AI compute and memory at industrial scale. The question now is whether the buildout pace can outrun rising bubble talk and the hard limits of power, packaging, and policy. AI data center capex ignites semiconductor rally Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and a swarm of AI startups have turned a two year GPU shortage into an arms race. Budgets once earmarked for cloud expansion are now pointed squarely at training clusters and inference racks. The result is a multiyear order book that stretches from accelerators to high bandwidth memory to the networking gear that ties it together. Lead times remain long in advanced packaging and HBM, pushing visibility for suppliers well into 2027. The capex math is blunt: tens of billions per company, per year, to chase model quality and latency. That spending has repriced semis from the top down, pulling in anything with exposure to AI compute cycles and punishing anything that looks cyclical without it. SOX up 75 percent as leaders log dotcom era moves Broad indices tell the story. The SOX is clocking gains that echo the late 1990s. Single name performances would have looked implausible a year ago: Intel up roughly 230 percent year to date, AMD up about 107 percent, Nvidia above 5 trillion dollars in value, Samsung past 1 trillion dollars. Micron, Broadcom and ASML trade at or near record highs. The rally has pulled the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new closing records even as in...
PM Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images Summary Investors looking for a way to diversify out of the technology sector and into a more defensible sector can consider tobacco stocks. Japan Tobacco Inc. ( JAPAY ) ("JT") is a member of the group Big Tobacco and sits in the middle between Philip Morris and British American Tobacco in terms of valuation and dividend yield. JT's earnings are expected to...
PM Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images Summary Investors looking for a way to diversify out of the technology sector and into a more defensible sector can consider tobacco stocks. Japan Tobacco Inc. ( JAPAY ) ("JT") is a member of the group Big Tobacco and sits in the middle between Philip Morris and British American Tobacco in terms of valuation and dividend yield. JT's earnings are expected to grow by around 10% per year over the next few years as it moves into the heated tobacco sticks segment. The absolute dividend has seen a CAGR of 6% since 2012 and is projected to increase from $1.57 per share in 2025 to $2.05 by 2029. Given the current yield of 4%, this stock is attractive for investors seeking income. Company Background—Big Tobacco Japan Tobacco Inc. is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under code 2914 and is also listed in the US OTC market under code JAPAY. JT is one of the largest tobacco companies in the world and is part of Big Tobacco, which includes China Tobacco, Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, and Imperial Tobacco. JT's core products include tobacco and nicotine products such as cigarettes that include brands such as Winston, Camel, and Mevius, which are distributed globally. JT also produces reduced-risk products (RRPs) such as heated tobacco devices and sticks, which include the Ploom brand. RRPs through heat produce nicotine without burning tobacco that produces smoke. RRPs result in fewer toxins due to the lack of smoke and are considered to be relatively less unhealthy. In addition to tobacco products, JT also has a processed/frozen foods business that is only 4% of total revenue as of March 2026. Ploom device (Japan Tobacco) Most Recent Earnings—Beat Consensus JT reported a strong set of earnings for the period ending March 2026 . Overall revenue increased to JPY924bn (+15% yoy), and adjusted operating profit rose to JPY316bn (+23% yoy). Net profit increased to JPY 197bn (+27% yoy). Revenue and net income both beat consensus by 5%...