Earnings Call Insights: Digi Power X Inc. (DGXX) Q1 2026 Management View "Q1 2026 results underscore a transformational year in which the company strengthened its balance sheet, commenced the ramping down of its cryptocurrency mining and positioned itself as a capital-light infrastructure scale AI computing platform with a clear path to 9-figure annual revenues." (Chairman & CEO Michel Amar) "Posi...
Earnings Call Insights: Digi Power X Inc. (DGXX) Q1 2026 Management View "Q1 2026 results underscore a transformational year in which the company strengthened its balance sheet, commenced the ramping down of its cryptocurrency mining and positioned itself as a capital-light infrastructure scale AI computing platform with a clear path to 9-figure annual revenues." (Chairman & CEO Michel Amar) "Positive adjusted EBITDA of $1.1 million from a negative $1.3 million last year, Q1 2025" and "Revenue of $6.8 million, reflecting the planned wind-down of legacy operations as the company transitions to AI compute and colocation revenues." (Chairman & CEO Michel Amar) "Balance sheet and liquidity as of May 15, 2026, approximately $125 million in cash and cash equivalents, about $15 million in digital assets and approximately $45 million in year-to-date capital expenditure deployed towards GPU equipment and data center buildout, principally at the Columbiana, Alabama facility." (Chairman & CEO Michel Amar) "NeoCloudz, the company's GPU cloud business will recognize its first revenue in May 2026 from its initial fleet of NVIDIA B200, B300 GPUs deployed at the company's Alabama facility." (Chairman & CEO Michel Amar) "We are actually live and getting AI revenues as of today through a contract that we signed and announced a few weeks ago." (Chairman & CEO Amar) "We signed a 10-year deal for $1.1 billion" under a colocation strategy, described as "a modified lease structure" intended to provide "stability and income without the enormous CapEx of GPUs." (Chairman & CEO Amar) No CFO or other senior-management prepared remarks were included in the transcript. Outlook "The company is targeting Phase 1 ready for service December of 2026 and completion Q1 2027." (Chairman & CEO Michel Amar) "We are in discussion with different lenders in order to mitigate dilution" and "We already signed a term sheet with a lender in order to grow our business through smart debt financing." (Chairman & C...
Frazao Studio Latino/E+ via Getty Images The last time I had compared the Roundhill Magnificent Seven Covered Call ETF ( MAGY ) and the YieldMax Magnificent 7 Fund of Option Income ETFs ( YMAG ) in September last year, I had argued around the structural limitations of both strategies despite attractive headline yields. The primary concern was around covered calls capping upside in strong bull run ...
Frazao Studio Latino/E+ via Getty Images The last time I had compared the Roundhill Magnificent Seven Covered Call ETF ( MAGY ) and the YieldMax Magnificent 7 Fund of Option Income ETFs ( YMAG ) in September last year, I had argued around the structural limitations of both strategies despite attractive headline yields. The primary concern was around covered calls capping upside in strong bull run phases. Since long term payout sustainability in equity income strategies is often indirectly funded by capital appreciation itself, sacrificing too much upside eventually weakens the engine supporting distributions. That looked especially true for covered call strategies based on the Magnificent Seven, where the option layer did not consistently generate enough alpha to compensate for lost upside capture (as per empirical data at that point). While MAGY had limited data at that point, YMAG's NAV erosion concerns due to a very high yield also challenged its use case for long term income generation. The situation has changed since. Tech leadership has rotated away from mega caps to AI infrastructure names. Geopolitical and stagflation risks have increased. Overall, the odds of a bull run in the Magnificent Seven looks lower now (at least for the next few quarters) as markets await more clarity on the AI economics and ecosystem, digesting strong earnings into elevated multiples and waiting for the FCF pressures to ease (due to heightened CapEx demands). We also have more data on MAGY to be able to say that its structure is less conducive to capture upside compared to YMAG. Both should be able to capitalize on an aggressive option layer in rangebound markets and higher volatility could even mean better income ahead, but YMAG looks a better Buy tactically, even despite its NAV-erosive higher yields. Change in Outlook for the Magnificent Seven In September 2025, my broader outlook on the Magnificent Seven was cautiously constructive. I saw the market regime still favoring mega c...
su tim/E+ via Getty Images This monthly article offers a top-down analysis of the materials sector based on value, quality, and momentum metrics. It may also help analyze sector ETFs such as the Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF ( XLB ) and Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Materials ETF ( RSPM ), whose holdings are used to calculate these metrics. Shortcut The next two paragraphs in italics describe th...
su tim/E+ via Getty Images This monthly article offers a top-down analysis of the materials sector based on value, quality, and momentum metrics. It may also help analyze sector ETFs such as the Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF ( XLB ) and Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Materials ETF ( RSPM ), whose holdings are used to calculate these metrics. Shortcut The next two paragraphs in italics describe the dashboard methodology. They are necessary for new readers to understand the metrics. If you are used to this series or if you are short of time, you can skip them and go to the charts. Base Metrics I calculate the median value of five fundamental ratios for each industry: Earnings Yield ("EY"), Sales Yield ("SY"), Free Cash Flow Yield ("FY"), Return on Equity ("ROE"), and Gross Margin ("GM"). The reference universe includes large companies in the U.S. stock market. The five base metrics are calculated on the trailing 12 months. For all of them, higher is better. EY, SY, and FY are medians of the inverse of Price/Earnings, Price/Sales, and Price/Free Cash Flow. They are better for statistical studies than price-to-something ratios, which are unusable or unavailable when the "something" is close to zero or negative (for example, companies with negative earnings). I also look at two momentum metrics for each group: the median monthly return (RetM) and the median annual return (RetY). I prefer medians to averages because a median splits a set into a good half and a bad half. A capital-weighted average is skewed by extreme values and the largest companies. My metrics are designed for stock-picking rather than index investing. Value And Quality Scores I calculate historical baselines for all metrics. They are noted respectively as EYh, SYh, FYh, ROEh, and GMh, and they are calculated as the averages on a look-back period of 11 years. For example, the value of EYh for packaging in the table below is the 11-year average of the median Earnings Yield in packaging companies. The Val...
Veronique D/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Investment Overview The stock of Biogen Inc. ( BIIB ), the central nervous system ("CNS") specialist pharmaceuticals company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sank in value by >5% yesterday after the company shared a couple of key business updates - firstly the completion of its acquisition of Apellis Pharmaceuticals for ~$5.6bn, and secondly,...
Veronique D/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Investment Overview The stock of Biogen Inc. ( BIIB ), the central nervous system ("CNS") specialist pharmaceuticals company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sank in value by >5% yesterday after the company shared a couple of key business updates - firstly the completion of its acquisition of Apellis Pharmaceuticals for ~$5.6bn, and secondly, data from a Phase 1b study of its investigational antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapy diranersen (BIIB080), in individuals with Alzheimer's Disease. Biogen stock is priced at $193 pre-market today, and its market cap valuation stands at ~$28.25bn. In 2025, the Pharma earned total revenues of $9.89bn, up ~2% year-on-year, and net income of $1.29bn, or GAAP earnings per share of $8.83 - down >20% year-on-year. Biogen says revenues will fall by a "mid-single digit" percentage for 2026, but expects to earn adjusted EPS of $15.25 - $16.25, compared to $15.28 per share in 2025. Biogen's price to sales ("P/S") ratio based on 2025 revenues (likely to be similar to 2026 revenues, I'd speculate), is therefore <3x, and its forward price to earnings ("P/E") ratio ~12x. Both ratios are substantially lower than the "Big Pharma" sector average, which may imply Biogen stock is good value today, and worth investor's money. In my past two notes on Biogen, however, I have awarded a Strong Sell rating (in February 2025 ), and a Sell rating (in January of this year ), arguing that there are multiple flaws in Biogen's model - deteriorating multiple sclerosis division revenues, underperforming commercial products, a weak pipeline, and poor management. The reality is that Biogen stock is up >35% since my Strong Sell call, and up >10% since my Sell call, so am I mistaken to be bearish on Biogen? In this note I'll update on these two latest pieces of news, and try to see how they affect the overall investment picture, but first, I'll briefly cover Q1 earnings and updates, which were shared at t...
Getty Images Quarterly review • The fund underperformed the Russell 1000 Value Index for the first quarter. • Stock selection in the utilities and health care sectors contributed the most to relative performance. • Stock selection in the information technology (IT), materials, and consumer staples sectors detracted the most from relative performance. Market review January and early February saw a ...
Getty Images Quarterly review • The fund underperformed the Russell 1000 Value Index for the first quarter. • Stock selection in the utilities and health care sectors contributed the most to relative performance. • Stock selection in the information technology (IT), materials, and consumer staples sectors detracted the most from relative performance. Market review January and early February saw a broadening of the markets and a continuation of the “low-quality trade reversal” that started in mid-October. During this period, we saw our portfolio perform well as investors focused on higher-quality factors and rotated toward less-speculative stocks. However, the economic and inflation data that was released in mid-February had a significant impact on future interest rate and economic growth expectations. Expectations of further rate cuts quickly reversed and softer labor statistics sparked fears of a period of more challenging economic growth, putting pressure on many of our industrials, materials, and consumer/housing-exposed stocks. The quick reversal in macroeconomic data also led to significant hedge fund de-risking during this period. The Iran conflict broke out at the end of February, causing global energy prices to spike. Energy producers rallied, and many of the stocks that consume energy performed poorly. The duration of the conflict will be the key determinant on how sustainable higher energy prices are, but past energy shocks have typically followed a similar pattern: energy shock to feedstock spike to margin compression to price hikes to inflation to margin expansion. We look to lean into the stocks that we believe have the pricing power to absorb and pass on rising input costs as we have successfully done in the past. High yield credit spreads have begun to widen in recent weeks as concerns around growth uncertainty, prolonged inflation, higher interest rates, and private credit liquidity issues have intensified. An increase in private credit redemptions/g...
Advent International LP seeks to sell about a third of a €4.2 billion ($4.9 billion) buyout loan for Polish parcel-locker company InPost SA to a group of banks, before the rest is marketed to institutional investors. The private equity firm is set to offload between €1 billion to €1.5 billion of the debt backing the acquisition of InPost to international lenders, including Polish banks, following ...
Advent International LP seeks to sell about a third of a €4.2 billion ($4.9 billion) buyout loan for Polish parcel-locker company InPost SA to a group of banks, before the rest is marketed to institutional investors. The private equity firm is set to offload between €1 billion to €1.5 billion of the debt backing the acquisition of InPost to international lenders, including Polish banks, following a number of expressions of interest in the deal, according to people familiar with the matter. The buyout is led by Advent and FedEx Corp . The banks will be buying InPost’s term loan B, denominated in euro and in zloty for the Polish banks, the people said asking not to be identified because the talks are private. It is the latest leveraged loan to attract bank liquidity as lenders get increasingly comfortable with risk, especially for high-profile, well-known brands. A pre-launch order book on a €4.5 billion debt financing backing the acquisition of a division of BASF SE this month was heavily subscribed and anchored by a €600 million-equivalent yuan loan from Bank of China. InPost’s loan is also gaining traction as one of the few new money deals in the market, as anxiety over the impact of artificial intelligence on various industries and war in Iran curtails M&A activity. A spate of recent debt transactions involved private equity firms tapping Europe’s high yield market to pay themselves dividends as a dearth of sales and IPO activity limits their ability to cash out. Read More: Dividend Recap Deals Launch in Europe’s Junk Debt Market The sale is similar to what Advent did last year with a loan backing its purchase of most of the home-care arm of Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc. September Launch The rest of the €4.2 billion InPost loan is expected to launch for syndication to investors around September, the people said. The financing also comprises a revolving credit facility of around €750 million. Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barclays P...
Shares of Ford (NYSE:F) are getting hit hard in mid-morning trading on Friday, down 7% intraday and changing hands around $13.50 after closing at $14.48 on Thursday. The drop essentially erases yesterday’s 7% auto-sector rally, and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is sliding alongside it. Tesla is off 4% on the session, giving back a chunk of a ... Car Wreck: Ford Falls 7%, Tesla Slides 4%
Shares of Ford (NYSE:F) are getting hit hard in mid-morning trading on Friday, down 7% intraday and changing hands around $13.50 after closing at $14.48 on Thursday. The drop essentially erases yesterday’s 7% auto-sector rally, and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is sliding alongside it. Tesla is off 4% on the session, giving back a chunk of a ... Car Wreck: Ford Falls 7%, Tesla Slides 4%
Florida's attorney general says the NFL's Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for top jobs, is discriminatory. Trump's EEOC has challenged such policies elsewhere. (Image credit: Kevin C. Cox)
Florida's attorney general says the NFL's Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for top jobs, is discriminatory. Trump's EEOC has challenged such policies elsewhere. (Image credit: Kevin C. Cox)
(OVO/Republic) It’s possible that the world’s biggest rapper is using this epic content drop to get out of his record deal, but aside from some bright spots on Iceman, should the public really be subjected to it? It is easy to over-estimate Drake’s fall from grace. True, he was unanimously declared the loser in the most high-profile rap beef of recent times, and is currently engaged in a protracte...
(OVO/Republic) It’s possible that the world’s biggest rapper is using this epic content drop to get out of his record deal, but aside from some bright spots on Iceman, should the public really be subjected to it? It is easy to over-estimate Drake’s fall from grace. True, he was unanimously declared the loser in the most high-profile rap beef of recent times, and is currently engaged in a protracted legal battle with his own record company over said rap battle that everyone except Drake and his lawyers seems to think smacks of the worst kind of bad loserdom. He is also fighting lawsuits alleging that he illegally misled viewers during gambling livestreams – pretending to bet his own money while actually using funds from an online casino he promotes – and that he furthermore channelled funds from said online casino into artificially inflating streaming figures (Drake has not commented on the allegations; Stake, the casino, described one of the lawsuits as “nonsense”). Also in the lawsuits is Adin Ross, a denizen of the manosphere who Drake has been palling around with, unbothered that the other guests on Ross’s stream have included Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes. Equally, Drake is still the most-streamed rapper in the world. Had all this really impacted on his mainstream popularity, his last album – Some Sexy Songs 4 U , 2025’s collaboration with PartyNextDoor – would have died at the box office, rather than entering the US charts at No 1 and going on to sell a million copies. If his public reputation is looking a little tarnished, well, we live in an era of short attention spans and shorter memories: it would probably only take one unequivocal banger – a One Dance or Hotline Bling 2.0 – for the slate to be wiped clean. Continue reading...
ridham supriyanto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images I'm assigning a 'Hold' rating to Ajinomoto Co., Inc. ( AJNMY ) ( AJINF ). It defines fiscal 2025 as the year ended March 31, 2026. I see mixed read-throughs from AJNMY's results and guidance. The outlook for two of its key businesses is also divergent. Corporate Overview AJNMY is described by Baron as "a leading Japanese food company with a near ...
ridham supriyanto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images I'm assigning a 'Hold' rating to Ajinomoto Co., Inc. ( AJNMY ) ( AJINF ). It defines fiscal 2025 as the year ended March 31, 2026. I see mixed read-throughs from AJNMY's results and guidance. The outlook for two of its key businesses is also divergent. Corporate Overview AJNMY is described by Baron as "a leading Japanese food company with a near monopoly in a component (Ajinomoto Build-up Film/ABF) used in insulated packaging for semiconductors." Food-Related Operations Factsheet Non-Food Divisions Databook Another institutional investor, Touchstone, calls it "the world’s largest producer of amino acids by market share." This compound is the raw material for Ajinomoto's various businesses, as per the chart presented below. Amino Acids' Multiple Applications Corporate Slides The "Seasoning & Foods" unit generated 59% of AJNMY's FY2025 top-line. The balance came from "Healthcare & Functional Materials" (22%), "Frozen Foods" (18%), and "Others" (1%). During the same period, Asia accounted for nearly two-thirds of the group's turnover. It also has a presence in the Americas and EMEA markets. Consider Both Earnings Outperformance And Guidance Miss AJNMY's latest full-year financials were disclosed in a presentation deck issued last Thursday, May 7. Headline EPS jumped 98% to ¥138.4/share in FY25. That's 3.3% better than the sell-side's projection based on S&P Capital IQ data. The firm attributed the strong profit numbers to a "gain of ¥40.6 billion on transfer of head office land and structures" in its slides. But my calculations suggest that its full-year normalized bottom-line increase, adjusted for non-operating factors, was still a solid +18%. The group refers to "core operating income" as "Business Profit/BP." Its FY2025 BP rose by ¥21.8B or 14%, of which +¥20.5B was contributed by the "Healthcare & Functional Materials" division. This is mainly attributable to the over 20ppts expansion in the ABF business's BP mar...
Investing.com -- Bank of America reiterated its Buy rating on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in a note Friday following the chipmaker's technology symposium in Taiwan.
Investing.com -- Bank of America reiterated its Buy rating on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in a note Friday following the chipmaker's technology symposium in Taiwan.