George Eliot’s masterpiece of provincial life still has much to teach us about sympathy and tolerance Virgina Woolf declared Middlemarch “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people” . Henry James said that some of its scenes were the most intelligent in English fiction. Even Martin Amis, over 100 years later, called it “a novel without weaknesses” . Now this 900-page portrait of 19t...
George Eliot’s masterpiece of provincial life still has much to teach us about sympathy and tolerance Virgina Woolf declared Middlemarch “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people” . Henry James said that some of its scenes were the most intelligent in English fiction. Even Martin Amis, over 100 years later, called it “a novel without weaknesses” . Now this 900-page portrait of 19th-century provincial life has been voted the best novel of all time in a Guardian poll of writers, academics and critics. George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans) was already a highly successful novelist by the time Middlemarch was published in instalments in 1871 and 1872. Beginning with a marriage, and a deeply unhappy one, it upends “the marriage plot” established by Jane Austen. Nineteen-year-old Dorothea Brooke has “a passionate desire to know and to think”, and a longing “to lead a grand life here – now – in England”. Unfortunately, that England didn’t afford many opportunities for women, and she misguidedly hitches her idealism to the desiccated scholar Casaubon. This is not the novel’s only disastrous marriage. The ambitious young doctor Tertius Lydgate makes an ill-suited match to the vain and shallow Rosamond Vincy. Continue reading...
It is hard not to be impressed by the sheer energy Donald Trump displayed during his whirlwind visit to Beijing. Within just 43 hours, the 79-year-old president held two meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, inspected troops, attended a state banquet and walked around the Temple of Heaven in sweltering heat – not to mention making his characteristic social media postings in the wee hours of ...
It is hard not to be impressed by the sheer energy Donald Trump displayed during his whirlwind visit to Beijing. Within just 43 hours, the 79-year-old president held two meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, inspected troops, attended a state banquet and walked around the Temple of Heaven in sweltering heat – not to mention making his characteristic social media postings in the wee hours of the morning. Showing no signs of jet lag, Trump seemed to be in high spirits, glad-handing everyone...
Drs Producoes/E+ via Getty Images Royalty Pharma ( RPRX ) was one of our Strong Buy Recommendations in 2023 and has now delivered more than 100% in total return. The company released the Q1 printout, again, with solid results. For our new readers, RP is the world's largest buyer of biopharmaceutical royalties by market cap and by investment volume. Our buy rating has evolved during the years, and ...
Drs Producoes/E+ via Getty Images Royalty Pharma ( RPRX ) was one of our Strong Buy Recommendations in 2023 and has now delivered more than 100% in total return. The company released the Q1 printout, again, with solid results. For our new readers, RP is the world's largest buyer of biopharmaceutical royalties by market cap and by investment volume. Our buy rating has evolved during the years, and in 2025, the company closed the year with full-year receipts of $3.25 billion. You can check our last analysis called " Strong Execution And Visible Pipeline Support Our Buy View ." Thanks to a friendly shareholders' remuneration, an attractive valuation, and the merger with RP Management, we remained buyers. This proved to be the right call, and since February 2026 (Fig. 1), we are up by almost 19% in stock price, and the company has reached our target price. So, it is a good moment to review our 2026 forecast. Mare Evidence Lab's rating update Fig 1 Q1 Results The company reported a strong opening quarter for 2026, with results supported by broad-based royalty growth. Portfolio Receipts reached $925 million, with an increase of 10% yearly (Fig. 2), while Royalty Receipts rose 13% to $887 million from $788 million in Q1 2025. Looking at the press release (Fig. 3), Portfolio Receipts growth was primarily driven by key products, including Tremfya (up 79% to $64 million), Voranigo (up 140% to $47 million), and Evrysdi (up 51% to $80 million). This was partially offset by weaker contributions from Promacta, which continued to face pressure from U.S. generic competition. This product was down by almost 66%. We have always reported how the Vertex franchise poses a significant risk. This is related to the Cystic Fibrosis franchise. This still represents a 27% contribution of RP Royalty Receipts contribution; however, it is now less and less relevant. Going down to the P&L report, Royalty Pharma's adj. EBITDA reached $889 million, compared to $738 million in Q1 2025. This represen...
Gina Carano says Saturday's featherweight fight against Ronda Rousey has "saved my life" after going through some of the most difficult years of her career prior.
Gina Carano says Saturday's featherweight fight against Ronda Rousey has "saved my life" after going through some of the most difficult years of her career prior.
The man was bitten just before 10:00 (03:00 BST) at Horseshoe Reef - north-west of the popular Rottnest Island near the city of Perth, local police said.
The man was bitten just before 10:00 (03:00 BST) at Horseshoe Reef - north-west of the popular Rottnest Island near the city of Perth, local police said.
Even as Singapore positions itself at the frontier of AI technology, human intelligence still remains critical, according to the city state’s foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan. “We should beware of just trying to throw every problem, and every step in a solution, at a large-language model (LLM),” he said on Saturday at the AI Engineer conference, referring to deep-learning technology behind gen...
Even as Singapore positions itself at the frontier of AI technology, human intelligence still remains critical, according to the city state’s foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan. “We should beware of just trying to throw every problem, and every step in a solution, at a large-language model (LLM),” he said on Saturday at the AI Engineer conference, referring to deep-learning technology behind generative AI services such as ChatGPT. Balakrishnan warned against discarding traditional AI models...
ribeirorocha/iStock via Getty Images In my last article on Vale ( VALE ), my main argument was that even though the valuation was attractive, some risks made me cautious about the stock, such as Brazil exposure and high iron ore dependence. That was at the beginning of the year, and in the meantime the company reported Q1 earnings, showing some important points such as the relevance that Nickel ha...
ribeirorocha/iStock via Getty Images In my last article on Vale ( VALE ), my main argument was that even though the valuation was attractive, some risks made me cautious about the stock, such as Brazil exposure and high iron ore dependence. That was at the beginning of the year, and in the meantime the company reported Q1 earnings, showing some important points such as the relevance that Nickel has in EBITDA over the next few years, something quite bullish in my view. And although I do not think it is a “crystal clear” case, I believe that the dividend potential that the company may be able to deliver over the next few years still makes it possible to maintain a “hold” rating. Vale Continues To Be A Very Solid Company In Q1 , Vale increased iron ore production by 3% and iron sales by 4% (consuming inventory). It may seem small, growing ‘only’ single digits YoY, but since it is an extremely mature business, it is an interesting milestone. In Q1 the company managed to produce 70 million tons of iron ore. Besides that, the expectation is that with the ramp-up of projects by the end of 2026, this can improve a little more, with the potential to reach production above 330 Mt in 2026. For the base metals segment, growth is even more impressive. Copper production increased 13% and Nickel production increased 12%, with the ramp-up of mines such as Salobo. In fact, not only has production growth been impressive, but all-in costs were extremely positive in Q1. The all-in costs/t in Q1 for copper were actually “negative” (Vale actually made money from extraction), and that is because by-product revenue such as gold was very positive during the quarter (higher than the extraction costs). For Nickel it was also positive, falling to $8.2/t versus $15.7 last year. Vale Earnings Presentation Still in this division, Vale announced an update on EBITDA generation for the coming years for the Nickel division. If the price remains around $18,000/t, Vale has guidance for EBITDA generatio...
SweetBunFactory/iStock via Getty Images Introduction MKSI Inc. ( MKSI ) delivered a solid Q1 2026 earnings beat, with both top-line and bottom-line coming ahead of consensus estimates. Since my initiation in March, MKSI has experienced a 31% rally, outperforming the S&P 500. Despite this rally, the stock still remains a Buy in my view due to the incremental upside from my initial expectations. Fir...
SweetBunFactory/iStock via Getty Images Introduction MKSI Inc. ( MKSI ) delivered a solid Q1 2026 earnings beat, with both top-line and bottom-line coming ahead of consensus estimates. Since my initiation in March, MKSI has experienced a 31% rally, outperforming the S&P 500. Despite this rally, the stock still remains a Buy in my view due to the incremental upside from my initial expectations. First, management indicated WFE spending to potentially rise to $170-180 billion for 2027, which will benefit MKSI as a critical subsystem provider to Lam Research ( LRCX ) and Applied Material ( AMAT ). To prepare for this, the company is preparing for a major capacity expansion in Malaysia, which is expected to be completed in June 2026. Furthermore, MKSI is seeing new developments to its business through LEO rigid PCB and optical equipment applications, which could provide incremental upside in the long term. At just 25.8x FY2026 P/E, the stock is trading at a bargain relative to its high-flying SPE peers, which is unwarranted given that it is benefitting from the same industry tailwind. Q1 FY2026 Earnings Review For Q1, revenue reached $1.08 billion, which represents a 15% YoY increase (beating consensus expectations of $1.05 billion). MKSI's EPS, on the other hand, grew 35% YoY to $2.30 per share, and beat consensus estimates of $2.05 by 12%. The beat was mainly driven by better-than-expected margins by MKSI, as non-GAAP gross margins reached 47%, which was the high end of management's guidance, and adjusted EBITDA margins reached 26%. Primarily, we are seeing the thesis for MKSI playing out, as the growth was driven by its two main earnings drivers - the Semiconductor and Electronics & Packaging segments—both of which increased sequentially due to the proliferation of AI applications in both logic and PCB. Figure 1: MKSI's FY2026 Financial Results against Consensus Estimates, Source: Quartr Quartr Figure 2: MKSI's Q1 FY2026 Key Financial Highlights, Source: MKSI IR MKSI ...
Mikel Arteta’s side will be deeply unpopular champions, but this probably says more about us than it does about them There was a minor stir a few years back when some American scientists bred a strain of “gene-edited” hamsters with the chemical that causes anger removed, presumably so they could achieve one of humanity’s historic goals: the dream of a more docile hamster. Unfortunately the opposit...
Mikel Arteta’s side will be deeply unpopular champions, but this probably says more about us than it does about them There was a minor stir a few years back when some American scientists bred a strain of “gene-edited” hamsters with the chemical that causes anger removed, presumably so they could achieve one of humanity’s historic goals: the dream of a more docile hamster. Unfortunately the opposite happened. What the scientists created was a race of hyper-angry hamsters. These were described a little glibly in the media as Mutant Rage Monsters. But science is always more nuanced than this. We shouldn’t put angry hamsters in a box, even when we are literally putting angry hamsters in a box. Longer studies have shown more varied results. Sarcastic hamsters. Hamsters that hold grudges. Hamsters that retreat into silence on long car journeys. Even a subset of passive-aggressive hamsters who are, seriously, just fine with this. It’s pretty much what they expected from you, anyway. Continue reading...
webking/iStock via Getty Images It was rough. And I'm not referring to Iran war negotiations or President Trump's Beijing trip. The bond rout was global. "Treasury Buyers Get 5% Long Bond for First Time Since 2007." Treasury long bond (30yr) yields jumped 18 bps this week to 5.12%, surpassing the October 2023 gilt crisis spike to the highest yield all the way back to ("still dancing") July 2007. T...
webking/iStock via Getty Images It was rough. And I'm not referring to Iran war negotiations or President Trump's Beijing trip. The bond rout was global. "Treasury Buyers Get 5% Long Bond for First Time Since 2007." Treasury long bond (30yr) yields jumped 18 bps this week to 5.12%, surpassing the October 2023 gilt crisis spike to the highest yield all the way back to ("still dancing") July 2007. Ten-year Treasury yields surged 24 bps this week to a one-year high of 4.59%, the largest weekly rise since the Treasury market "liberation day" dislocation the week of April 11th, 2025. Two-year Treasury yields jumped 18 bps to 4.07% - the highest level since February 25, 2025. Benchmark Fannie Mae MBS yields spiked 27 bps to a 10-month high of 5.57% - the largest weekly jump since "liberation day." May 15 - Bloomberg (James Hirai): "UK government bonds tumbled after Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham secured a pathway to potentially challenge Keir Starmer as prime minister, threatening political instability that investors fear could result in more expansive fiscal policy. The yield on 30-year gilts, the most sensitive maturity to political risk, surged as much as 20 bps to 5.86%, the highest since 1998. Concerns about high energy costs and inflation also contributed to the move. Burnham's announcement that he intends to run for Parliament - a prerequisite to challenge Starmer - put the pound on track for its worst week since 2024 against the dollar." It's a formidable list of issues bedeviling the UK bond market. Thirty-year gilt yields jumped 27 bps this week to close Friday trading at 5.85%, the high back to May 1998 (a few months prior to the Russia/LTCM crisis). Ten-year gilt yields surged 26 bps this week to 5.17% - the high back to June 2008 (shortly before all hell broke loose). United Kingdom government debt has expanded to a dismal 150% of GDP - up from 2019's 85%. The UK almost appears fiscally responsible these days compared to Japan's 210% (other sources have Japan'...
Kenneth Cheung/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images Intro Antitrust Trip.com Group Limited ( TCOM ) is in the middle of two problems. Firstly, the SAMR is probing TCOM's monopolistic practices as small hotel operators in China have been expressing grievances . Stock has dropped to about $50 vs . $80 before the investigation. Deriving from the first problem, investors are suing TCOM for misrepresenti...
Kenneth Cheung/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images Intro Antitrust Trip.com Group Limited ( TCOM ) is in the middle of two problems. Firstly, the SAMR is probing TCOM's monopolistic practices as small hotel operators in China have been expressing grievances . Stock has dropped to about $50 vs . $80 before the investigation. Deriving from the first problem, investors are suing TCOM for misrepresenting and understating the regulatory risks in their earlier filings, where the SAMR investigation was treated like a hypothetical, in contrast to the $8 billion market cap drop after the announcement. Historically, similar cases like Alibaba and Luckin Coffee were fined low single-digit percentages of the wiped-out market cap. The SAMR fine would likely result in a range of RMB 0.6-6 billion, about 1-10% of its FY25 revenue ( 2025 20F ) as defined by anti-monopoly laws. Historically, similar cases like Alibaba ( BABA ) and Meituan ( MPNGY ) were fined 3-4% of their previous fiscal year revenue (see investigation snapshot below). The range could be used as a reference for what TCOM could potentially face. That said, there are reasons to be optimistic about the final rate. Central to the investigation is its accommodation reservation market, which represents less than 50% of revenue in FY25. This is different from the precedents mentioned, where the vast majority of their earnings were in markets that the investigations focused on. The concerns expressed by hotel owners were also caused by the supply glut in the industry, placing significant competitive pressure on hotel fares. It is also questionable as to how the market should be carved in an already concentrated market dominated by other big techs ( see current market analysis ). Namely, any market share that TCOM forgoes will go to some of the largest tech giants in China. It is true that TCOM has significant market power in the accommodation booking space. However, its major competitors, Alibaba and Meituan, were also oper...
Swedish firm Maurten’s high-carb drinks, bicarb sludges and hydrogels are giving super spikes a run for their money Inside an unremarkable Gothenburg office building rented from the local university are a series of conference spaces named after the modern greats of distance running. There is the Eliud Kipchoge room, the Keely Hodgkinson room and, the latest addition, the Sabastian Sawe room, in ho...
Swedish firm Maurten’s high-carb drinks, bicarb sludges and hydrogels are giving super spikes a run for their money Inside an unremarkable Gothenburg office building rented from the local university are a series of conference spaces named after the modern greats of distance running. There is the Eliud Kipchoge room, the Keely Hodgkinson room and, the latest addition, the Sabastian Sawe room, in homage to the man who recently redefined the limits of human endurance. When Sawe last month in London became the first person to run an official marathon in under two hours , much of the coverage focused on the Kenyan’s carbon-plated shoes. But here, on the west coast of Sweden, a team of scientists, nutritionists and technicians believe another factor was just as significant, if not more so. Continue reading...