Tony Anderson/DigitalVision via Getty Images Summary Following my coverag e on The Middleby Corporation ( MIDD ) in Aug’25, in which I recommended a hold rating because the near-term outlook remained weak due to soft QSR demand and tariff headwinds, this post is to provide an update on my thoughts on the business and stock. Q1 2026 showed the first real evidence that the setup is improving. CF org...
Tony Anderson/DigitalVision via Getty Images Summary Following my coverag e on The Middleby Corporation ( MIDD ) in Aug’25, in which I recommended a hold rating because the near-term outlook remained weak due to soft QSR demand and tariff headwinds, this post is to provide an update on my thoughts on the business and stock. Q1 2026 showed the first real evidence that the setup is improving. CF organic growth turned positive, FP delivered strong growth, orders, and backlog ahead of the Midera spin, and valuation still does not look stretched. I am upgrading MIDD to Buy. Q1 2026 Earnings Review Things have gotten a lot better vs. my last update. Net sales from continuing operations were up 15% y/y in Q1 , with organic sales growth of ~12% y/y. This brought revenue up to $839.9 million, and it was driven by both segments. Commercial Foodservice [CF] revenue grew 9.4% y/y, with organic sales growth of 8.1%, benefiting from continued double-digit growth with dealer partners. Food Processing [FP] revenue was up even more, by ~34% y/y, to $224.4 million, with organic sales growth of 25%. The FP segment also delivered Q1 orders of $231 million, while backlog increased to $416 million. As a result, MIDD delivered solid profitability for the quarter. Adj. EBITDA came in at $180.6 million vs. $161.5 million in Q1 2025, with CF adj. EBITDA of $158.4 million and FP adj. EBITDA of $41.4 million. On a consolidated basis, total adj. EBITDA margin was 21.5%, and EBIT was $133 million. On a per-share basis, adj. EPS was $2.16 vs. $1.87 last year. CF Is Finally Showing the Inflection I Was Waiting For The biggest update, I believe, is in the CF segment. In my previous update, this was the main reason I gave a hold rating. The segment was weak, with organic sales down 5.5% in Q2 2025, and large QSR chain customers were pulling back. The replacement cycle was interesting, but the numbers did not show up in the P&L. Fast forward to today, things have changed for the better. CF organic sa...
《有毒的人》一书试图通过微表情和情绪泄露等科学手段帮助大众识别暗黑人格者。 心理学家利安娜·坦恩·布林克（Leanne ten Brinke）的《有毒的人：识别并应对你身边的暗黑人格者》，可能是最快从英文翻译成中文的科普著作之一：今年3月刚由西蒙和舒斯特尔出版社推出了精装原版，4月中译本就已全面上市。这神速，似乎很能说明其主题及其重点解析的对象——暗黑人格者——在如今这个动荡和充满不确定性的时代，...
《有毒的人》一书试图通过微表情和情绪泄露等科学手段帮助大众识别暗黑人格者。 心理学家利安娜·坦恩·布林克（Leanne ten Brinke）的《有毒的人：识别并应对你身边的暗黑人格者》，可能是最快从英文翻译成中文的科普著作之一：今年3月刚由西蒙和舒斯特尔出版社推出了精装原版，4月中译本就已全面上市。这神速，似乎很能说明其主题及其重点解析的对象——暗黑人格者——在如今这个动荡和充满不确定性的时代，堪称“普天之下”都备受关注。 识别术的科学基础：从“微表情”到“暗黑四联征” 布林克是加拿大英属哥伦比亚大学的心理学副教授，听上去算不上很“权威”，但她主持的“真相与信任实验室”（Truth and Trust Lab）在国际心理学界颇具声望，长期聚焦于一个核心问题：人类的欺骗行为在非语言层面留下了哪些可观察的痕迹？ 实验室最具代表性的早期研究，是对78名在电视上公开恳求失踪亲属归来的当事人影像进行逐帧编码——其中一半人实际上对失踪者的死亡负有责任。通过分析言语内容、肢体语言和情绪性面部表情，布林克试图建立一套区分“高风险真实欺骗”与真实悲痛的行为指标体系。 此后，在她与史蒂芬·波特（Stephen Porter）合作的一系列研究中，“情绪泄露”（emotional leakage）的概念得到了系统性检验。所谓情绪泄露，指的是当人们试图掩盖真实情绪时，真实的情感状态会以极短暂的面部肌肉运动——即所谓“微表情”（microexpressions，持续时间仅为1/25到1/5秒）——短暂地透过伪装表面浮现。布林克还利用“薄片”（thin-slice）分析方法，通过极短暂的行为片段来评估人格特质。她发现，朴素观察者在极短暂地接触某人的行为后，就能够相对准确地推断其精神病态特质水平——耐人寻味的是，这种准确性随接触时间的延长反而会下降，这暗示了高精神病态特质者具有在长期互动中构建欺骗性印象的能力。 布林克认为，人类的表情系统受两套神经路径控制：一套是有意识的“伪装”，另一套是无意识的“本能”。对于那些暗黑人格者，这两套系统时刻处于激烈的交火中。在其实验中，布林克重点标注了几个关键的识别维度。首先是“情感的时间差”。实验发现，真诚的情感往往是“全脸联动”且爆发式的，而暗黑人格者的表情则呈现出一种逻辑驱动的延迟。例如，在表达悲伤时，他们的嘴角可能已经下拉，但眼周的肌肉（眼轮匝肌）却在0...
Against the backdrop of ceremonial grandeur at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday, US President Donald Trump leaned on centuries of shared history to set the stage for the future of China-US relations. In his state banquet address capping a long day of talks, tourism and toasts, Trump blended calculated callbacks with personal touches – carefully crafted to appeal to the hosts, including Pre...
Against the backdrop of ceremonial grandeur at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday, US President Donald Trump leaned on centuries of shared history to set the stage for the future of China-US relations. In his state banquet address capping a long day of talks, tourism and toasts, Trump blended calculated callbacks with personal touches – carefully crafted to appeal to the hosts, including President Xi Jinping. He framed the relationship as “one of the most consequential” in world history,...
Recent performance snapshot Xiaomi (SEHK:1810) has had mixed share performance recently, with the stock edging up over the past month and past week, but down over the past 3 months and year to date. Over the past month, the stock is up about 2.7%, and it has gained roughly 1.9% over the past week. That contrasts with a decline of about 13.9% over the past 3 months and a fall of roughly 21.3% year ...
Recent performance snapshot Xiaomi (SEHK:1810) has had mixed share performance recently, with the stock edging up over the past month and past week, but down over the past 3 months and year to date. Over the past month, the stock is up about 2.7%, and it has gained roughly 1.9% over the past week. That contrasts with a decline of about 13.9% over the past 3 months and a fall of roughly 21.3% year to date. Looking at a longer horizon, the total return over the past year is down about 36.7%...
Turnover soars as Cathay takes off By Jerry Norton This article was first published on May 16, 1986 Cathay Pacific Airways had a memorable take-off in the stock market yesterday, accounting for a massive $446 million worth of turnover, more than the combined value of all other shares traded. The action in the rest of the market was strictly pedestrian, however, as the excitement over Cathay failed...
Turnover soars as Cathay takes off By Jerry Norton This article was first published on May 16, 1986 Cathay Pacific Airways had a memorable take-off in the stock market yesterday, accounting for a massive $446 million worth of turnover, more than the combined value of all other shares traded. The action in the rest of the market was strictly pedestrian, however, as the excitement over Cathay failed to spill over to other shares and the Hang Seng index dropped 27 points. In volume terms, 86.6...
suriya puhoy/iStock via Getty Images By Ryan McMaken In the year since Donald Trump’s “liberation day” in April 2025 - on which he began raising import taxes on Americans - 1.2 million fewer Americans are now working, and inflation-adjusted hourly earnings are still below where they were in 2021. Meanwhile, total manufacturing employment has fallen back to 2022 levels. As price inflation increases...
suriya puhoy/iStock via Getty Images By Ryan McMaken In the year since Donald Trump’s “liberation day” in April 2025 - on which he began raising import taxes on Americans - 1.2 million fewer Americans are now working, and inflation-adjusted hourly earnings are still below where they were in 2021. Meanwhile, total manufacturing employment has fallen back to 2022 levels. As price inflation increases, thanks to the Trump administration’s war on Iran, the increasing cost of living, combined with this stagnating job market, will ensure further economic hardship for many Americans, especially those younger workers who were not able to buy up assets before the Great Inflation of 2022. According to the latest employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released last week, the total number of payroll jobs increased by 115,000 in April, month over month. That might seem robust, but if we look beyond this single headline number, we find that the true situation is far less impressive. For example, if we look at the household survey, which measures employed persons rather than jobs, we find that the employment level has fallen, month over month, for the past four months. Household employment fell by 226,000 from March to April. This survey also shows that total employment is down by 1.2 million since one year earlier - the same month as the “liberation day” in April 2025. Over the past four months, the total number of employed persons has fallen by nearly 1.4 million. So, how could there be so much payroll job growth but declining numbers of employed persons? Part of the discrepancy can be found in the fact that the payroll survey measures both full-time and part-time jobs. For April, the month-over-month measure shows that full-time employment fell by 424,000, while part-time employment rose by 123,000 in the same period. Year-over-year, however, full-time employment is down by 1.1 million, and part-time employment is down by 109,000. We can note that since 2023, full-...
英伟达7连涨创新高，新贵上市首日高开，市场提醒“别贪婪” 美股5月14日，多只AI芯片股走高。英伟达（NVDA.O）涨4.39%，市值5.7万亿美元，创历史新高。英伟达股价已连涨7天，累计上涨19.97%。博通（AVGO.O）涨5.52%，市值2.1万亿美元，市值突破2万亿美元，AMD（AMD.O）涨0.94%，台积电（TSM.N）涨4.48%。 投资者对AI芯片股的热情也蔓延至新上市的股票。“最大AI芯片”公司Cerebras Systems（CBRS.O）5月14日在纳斯达克上市，盘中一度大涨89%，收涨68.15%，股价收311.07美元/股，远超185美元/股的发行价，但低于350美元/股的开盘价。该股首次公开募资55.5亿美元，是2019年以来美国科技公司最大规模的首次公开募股，上市首日收盘市值670亿美元。 这家AI芯片新秀成立于2015年，产品采用晶圆级芯片设计，面积大于一般的芯片，将数十万个计算核心集成在单一处理器上，属于ASIC（专用集成电路）。这种芯片路线与英伟达等GPU厂商不同，更偏专用性，通过晶圆级芯片设计降低了模型训练与推理过程中的通信延迟，但在通用性上弱于GPU。 去年Cerebras Systems收入5.1亿美元，同比增长76%，净利润0.88亿美元，同比扭亏。其中有86%的收入来自阿联酋客户组合，市场认为相关客户是G42和一家阿联酋人工智能大学，客户结构的单一构成了一定的风险。该公司今年还在扩大收入来源，今年1月与OpenAI达成合作，计划在2028年前向OpenAI交付750兆瓦的计算能力。今年3月与亚马逊AWS合作，计划在AWS上提供算力。 近日业界对于AI和AI芯片需求增长有一些积极的预计。Cerebras Systems CEO Andrew Feldman表示，公司通过训练制造人工智能，并通过人工智能推理来应用，随着模型越来越智能，人们使用量将会爆炸式增长。 在5月14日台积电2026年技术论坛前的演示资料中，台积电则预计，人工智能预计将推动全球半导体市场规模增长，2030年将达到1.5万亿美元，超过公司此前预测的1万亿美元。1.5万亿美元市场中，来自人工智能和高性能计算的市场规模预计将占55%，智能手机占20%。台积电还预计，从2022年到2026年，来自AI加速芯片的需求将增长11倍。 不过，市场上近期也有偏向谨慎的声...
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosures show that he made a slew of stock and bond purchases with major American companies in the first quarter of the year totaling in the tens of millions of dollars and possibly more. Most Read from BloombergHormuz Oil Flows Creep Higher as More Supertankers ExitIran’s Kharg Island Oil Jetties Empty Again Yesterday, Satellite ShowsWha...
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosures show that he made a slew of stock and bond purchases with major American companies in the first quarter of the year totaling in the tens of millions of dollars and possibly more. Most Read from BloombergHormuz Oil Flows Creep Higher as More Supertankers ExitIran’s Kharg Island Oil Jetties Empty Again Yesterday, Satellite ShowsWhat Is The Thucydides Trap and Why Did Xi Raise It With Trump?Xi Tells US CEOs on Trump Visit That Chi
China's top contract chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, on Friday said orders from overseas clients are increasing as the global artificial intelligence boom tightens capacity at foreign foundries. "There are still quite a lot of semiconductor capacity expansion projects and companies in China," co-CEO Zhao Haijun said during an earnings call. "These are among the few pla...
China's top contract chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, on Friday said orders from overseas clients are increasing as the global artificial intelligence boom tightens capacity at foreign foundries. "There are still quite a lot of semiconductor capacity expansion projects and companies in China," co-CEO Zhao Haijun said during an earnings call. "These are among the few places with available production capacity, so we are seeing many overseas customers shift their orders to be manufactured in China."