Victoria Kotlyarchuk /iStock via Getty Images The messy marketplace Calumet Specialty Products ( CLMT ) endured over the past few years wasn't wasted time. Management took full advantage where others might have simply marched in place, hoping and waiting. The company spent its resources and time in cost cutting, market honing, and/or process understanding, followed by development. We judge manager...
Victoria Kotlyarchuk /iStock via Getty Images The messy marketplace Calumet Specialty Products ( CLMT ) endured over the past few years wasn't wasted time. Management took full advantage where others might have simply marched in place, hoping and waiting. The company spent its resources and time in cost cutting, market honing, and/or process understanding, followed by development. We judge managers by their ability to control what they can. Others may choose a different definition, such as total success; again, we don't. Now, perhaps there are some hidden surprises to investigate. Thinking about hidden surprises, paper bags are interesting toting containers and make for an interesting analogy. One can't see, unless you're Superman, what's inside until you open the top or rip it apart and peek. Paper bags are easy to open. Investors often miss major opportunities in investing simply because they can't or won't take the time to view the easy. For Calumet, it is really quite simple: just open the top and pull out the investments. Shall we go grab that bag and carefully open it, or is ripping more fun? This continues our coverage of Calumet, the last being Calumet: Specialty Products' Businesses Coming Together Financially . In the article, we wrote about marketplace changes that support future positive cash flows, including changes in RVO, high specialty margins, and a startup of higher SAF capacity at MRL. We continue monitoring and updating progress with these changes. The results aren't small but rather transformative. 2025 Results We begin with last year. The December quarter results included the 2025 summary. The results are listed in the next table along with 24 for comparison. EBITDA (Millions) 25 24 Specialty $292 $223 Performance Brands $48 $57 MRL (Renewables) -$1 $25 Asphalt $33 -$3 *Bonus MRL PTC $8 Corporate -$78 Totals $301 $229 Click to enlarge * After the year ended, Calumet was informed that by law it generated an additional $8 million in PTC for 2025....
Afya (AFYA) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.41 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.38 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.36 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +7.90%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this medical education company would post earnings of $0.32 per shar...
Afya (AFYA) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.41 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.38 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.36 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +7.90%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this medical education company would post earnings of $0.32 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.38, delivering a surprise of +18.75%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. Afya, which belongs to the Zacks Schools industry, posted revenues of $169.03 million for the quarter ended December 2025, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.57%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $145.28 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Afya shares have lost about 9.9% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's decline of 1%. What's Next for Afya? While Afya has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the ...
The Philippines is bracing for more pain ahead in its labor market due to the Middle East conflict, after joblessness surged to the highest in nearly four years. The unemployment rate rose to 5.8% in January, the highest since June 2022 and equivalent to nearly three million Filipinos without jobs. Agriculture and retail shed the most jobs due to seasonal factors, according to the Philippine Stati...
The Philippines is bracing for more pain ahead in its labor market due to the Middle East conflict, after joblessness surged to the highest in nearly four years. The unemployment rate rose to 5.8% in January, the highest since June 2022 and equivalent to nearly three million Filipinos without jobs. Agriculture and retail shed the most jobs due to seasonal factors, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. The Iran war could have a “more significant effect” on the Philippine labor market compared to the war in Ukraine, as some of the millions of Filipino workers in the Middle East may opt for repatriation, Deputy National Statistician Divina Gracia Del Prado said at a briefing on Friday. Millions of Migrant Workers in Gulf at Risk as War Rages On Returning Filipino workers can be trained for higher-value jobs, Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said in a statement after the jobs data release. Around 10 million Filipinos live and work abroad, of which 2.4 million are in the Middle East. “The government continues to pursue a comprehensive response to support affected workers in the short term while fostering a dynamic and robust labor market in the medium and long term,” Balisacan said.
Across two online worlds that are normally splintered, over the last few months there has been a mirroring of sorts. On TikTok and Instagram, young people are diving into the joys of Chinese culture – from drinking hot water to playing mahjong – all under the banner of “Chinamaxxing”. On the Chinese internet, however, the US is losing its decades-long grip on soft power, and is instead being repla...
Across two online worlds that are normally splintered, over the last few months there has been a mirroring of sorts. On TikTok and Instagram, young people are diving into the joys of Chinese culture – from drinking hot water to playing mahjong – all under the banner of “Chinamaxxing”. On the Chinese internet, however, the US is losing its decades-long grip on soft power, and is instead being replaced by a darker trend: the kill line. The kill line is a dangerous place to be. In gaming, the term refers to the point at which a player’s strength is so depleted that one more blow could lead to total wipeout. In China, the term refers to the risks that come with daily life in the US. In recent months, the Chinese media has been flooded with discussion of the so-called “kill line” that exists in US society. The social media posts, news articles, podcasts and blogs describe a vision of the US as a dystopian capitalist hell. One video shared by a state-run account on RedNote shows a homeless man talking about how he used to earn a six-figure salary. (The post claims that the video comes from the US and that the man earned $450,000; in fact the clip is taken from an old video about homelessness on the streets of London). View image in fullscreen People practise Tai Chi at the Bund in the morning in Shanghai, China. Social media users in the US are adopting traditional Chinese habits. Photograph: VCG/Getty Images Another case that has gone viral is that of Tylor Chase, a former Nickelodeon star who was recently spotted homeless on the streets of California. One Chinese news presenter said: “Tylor’s fate confirms the existence of a ‘kill line’ in American society where the middle class plummets into the underclass … This ‘kill line’ exposes America’s dual nature: the winners achieve ultimate success, while the losers fall into an abyss from which there is no return.” In total, hashtags related to the US “kill line” have been viewed more than 600m times on Weibo, a Chinese soci...
The last time Palantir Technologies (PLTR +0.82%) fell as much as it has currently was in April 2025. Investors who bought on the pullback finished the year with a sizzling 140% gain. History is chock-full of examples of how investing in promising growth stocks when they were down significantly can pave the way for life-changing returns. Could buying Palantir today set you up for life? Expand NASD...
The last time Palantir Technologies (PLTR +0.82%) fell as much as it has currently was in April 2025. Investors who bought on the pullback finished the year with a sizzling 140% gain. History is chock-full of examples of how investing in promising growth stocks when they were down significantly can pave the way for life-changing returns. Could buying Palantir today set you up for life? Expand NASDAQ : PLTR Palantir Technologies Today's Change ( 0.82 %) $ 1.24 Current Price $ 152.19 Key Data Points Market Cap $361B Day's Range $ 151.18 - $ 153.69 52wk Range $ 66.12 - $ 207.52 Volume 510K Avg Vol 49M Gross Margin 82.37 % Only the beginning? The answer to that question could be a resounding "yes" if Palantir Technologies co-founder and CEO Alex Karp is right. Karp wrote in his latest letter to shareholders, "We are at the outset, the very beginning, of a generational project." Assuming Palantir truly is at the beginning of its growth curve, it's off to a great start. Palantir's total revenue soared 70% year over year and 19% sequentially in Q4 to $1.4 billion. In the past, the company relied primarily on government contracts. That isn't the case anymore. Palantir's U.S. commercial revenue skyrocketed 137% year over year in Q4 to $507 billion, not too far behind its U.S. government revenue of $570 million. With that kind of impressive growth, why has Palantir's stock declined sharply year to date? It has been caught up in a massive sell-off of SaaS stocks. But there's a strong case to be made that Palantir's pullback isn't warranted. Karp would likely argue with anyone who maintained that Palantir is a typical AI stock. He stated in the recent shareholder letter that AI models "must be tethered to objects in the real world, and it is that tether, that means of grounding and orientation, that we have built." Based on Karp's take, investing in Palantir right now makes a lot of sense. Valuation vs. vision There's one glaring problem, though. Even after Palantir's steep sha...
(RTTNews) - Indian shares are seen opening on a sluggish note Friday as investors fret over the stability of global energy flows following Iran's relentless attacks on shipping traffic and energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf. Brent crude futures traded above $100 a barrel this morning. The war in the Middle East is creating the biggest oil supply disruption in history, the International Ener...
(RTTNews) - Indian shares are seen opening on a sluggish note Friday as investors fret over the stability of global energy flows following Iran's relentless attacks on shipping traffic and energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf. Brent crude futures traded above $100 a barrel this morning. The war in the Middle East is creating the biggest oil supply disruption in history, the International Energy Agency said in its latest monthly oil market report, a day after the agency agreed to release a record volume of oil from strategic stockpiles. The Trump administration has issued its second authorization for buyers to take Russian oil cargoes already at sea and announced it was considering loosening shipping rules in a bid to ease growing pressure on prices. Goldman Sachs has revised its crude oil forecast for the second time in a week and warned of a 2008-like spike to near $150 a barrel. Meanwhile, India's consumer price inflation increased more-than-expected in February to the highest level in nearly a year, official data showed. Consumer price inflation rose to 3.21 percent in February from a revised 2.74 percent in January while economists had expected inflation to rise to 3.1 percent. This was the highest inflation rate since April 2025 but nonetheless remains within the RBI's tolerance range of 2 to 6.0 percent. Experts expect the RBI to keep policy rates unchanged at the next monetary policy meeting scheduled for April, considering the conflict and disruptions in West Asia impacting prices of oil and gas and food products. Benchmark indexes Sensex and Nifty fell around 1 percent each on Thursday as the prospect of a quick end to the war in West Asia thinned and trade tensions resurfaced. The rupee settled 16 paise lower at 92.17 against the U.S. dollar due to concerns over elevated oil prices and continued foreign fund outflows amid the raging war in West Asia. Foreign investors net sold shares worth Rs 7,050 crore on Thursday while domestic institutional invest...
Oat_Phawat/iStock via Getty Images Santacruz Silver Mining Analysis Data by YCharts I spend a lot of time screening silver producers, and Santacruz Silver Mining ( SCZM ) wasn't a name I had on my watchlist until recently, as I've been more focused on larger silver miners ( SIL ). But here's a company producing over 14 million silver equivalent ounces per year across five operations, with big prod...
Oat_Phawat/iStock via Getty Images Santacruz Silver Mining Analysis Data by YCharts I spend a lot of time screening silver producers, and Santacruz Silver Mining ( SCZM ) wasn't a name I had on my watchlist until recently, as I've been more focused on larger silver miners ( SIL ). But here's a company producing over 14 million silver equivalent ounces per year across five operations, with big production growth upside, generating real cash flow, and trading at a valuation that would look cheap even if silver traded $20-$30 lower. The company got a recent boost when it started trading on NASDAQ in January and also recently ranked first on the 2026 TSX Venture 50 list, based on its stock price performance. I think the stock is a buy here for several reasons. Santacruz: The Multi-Asset Advantage Santacruz Silver Presentation One thing I like about Santacruz is the diversification you get from owning the stock. The Zimapan mine in Mexico is the largest contributor at 3.98 million silver equivalent ounces in 2025. In Bolivia, the company operates the Bolivar mine (2.37 Moz AgEq), Caballo Blanco group (2.78 Moz AgEq), Porco mine (1.38 Moz AgEq), and the San Lucas ore feed sourcing business (3.88 Moz AgEq). Overall, investors get a diversified asset base with four producing mines in two countries, reducing single-mine and single-country risk that can crush investors in this sector. I also like that it has a diverse mix of metals - silver, zinc, lead, and copper. Q3 2025: Resilience, Despite The Bolivar Setback The Q3 2025 results weren't great. But I think that they serve as a reminder that mining can sometimes throw you curveballs. Here's what happened: A flooding event at Bolivar in May 2025 restricted access to the high-grade Pomabamba and Nané zones, gutting silver production at that mine. Silver output at Bolivar ended up falling 57% quarter-over-quarter and 73% year-over-year. Mine AgEq Produced QoQ Change (AgEq) Silver Zinc Tonnes Milled Bolivar (100% basis) 420,612 ...
FDA Unveils New Platform For Tracking Side Effects Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Food and Drug Administration on March 11 made public a new, consolidated platform for tracking side effects experienced by people following receipt of vaccines and drugs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in White Oak, Md., on June 5, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Ti...
FDA Unveils New Platform For Tracking Side Effects Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Food and Drug Administration on March 11 made public a new, consolidated platform for tracking side effects experienced by people following receipt of vaccines and drugs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in White Oak, Md., on June 5, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times Officials are folding a number of existing platforms into the Adverse Event Monitoring System , which they are describing as a unified system that will be easier to search on. “The FDA’s previous adverse event reporting systems were outdated and fragmented and made important data difficult to access. These clunky systems also wasted millions of taxpayer dollars and created blind spots in our postmarket surveillance of products ranging from drugs and vaccines to cosmetics,” Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA’s commissioner, said in a statement. “ We’re fixing the problem through a major modernization initiative . Starting today, the FDA will have a single, intuitive adverse event platform that will better serve agency scientists, researchers, and the public.” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has previously criticized health agencies’ reporting of adverse events following vaccination and has said that fixes were coming. The new FDA system is already providing data previously accessible in separate places, including the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System. Other systems, such as the Center for Tobacco Products Adverse Event Reporting System, are slated to be added in May. The FDA receives more than two million reports of adverse events and medication errors each year. Regulators use those reports to monitor the safety of approved products, including vaccines. Utilizing seven databases for the reports was expensive and made for a poor user experience, FDA officials said. They pegged the cost of running those databases at $37 million a year. The new system is estimated to save t...