Sasun Bughdaryan/iStock via Getty Images Prefatory Note 1: The Market Many in Service of the Long-Term-Investor Few – It’s a Real Thing Almost no thing in the financial markets is permanent—even permanence defined as only a few years. A thing like the popularity of an industry sector or investing style. A great exception is the behavior of crowds, the predictability of which is immortal beyond any...
Sasun Bughdaryan/iStock via Getty Images Prefatory Note 1: The Market Many in Service of the Long-Term-Investor Few – It’s a Real Thing Almost no thing in the financial markets is permanent—even permanence defined as only a few years. A thing like the popularity of an industry sector or investing style. A great exception is the behavior of crowds, the predictability of which is immortal beyond any lifetime. It is a force that makes mountains, that begot the mass preoccupations with—pick an interlude—biotech (the mid-80s and again in the early 2000’s); growth conglomerates (1960’s); small-cap stocks; Under construction - Awesome site in the making! tech; today’s AI-IT phenomenon; REITs (2000-2008); junk bond investing (1980s and the GFC), the energy sector (1998-2002 and again from 2007 onwards), gold (late 70’s to early 80’s ).... Surely, no need to go on. These all failed after their moment in the sun, despite lavish assistance from: the confirmation bias of rising prices; the fear of missing out; the imperative to not underperform; and every other cognitive impetus to join, like the affirmation of Wall Street research growth projections. Source: Factset, Bloomberg, Morningstar, Chicago Booth Center for Research in Security Prices (Conglomerate) At the end of the day, the “market” is just a crowd milling about in a marketplace, each constituent acting with a different analysis, expectations and vested interests, all of them moving money. This goes on every day and is usually fairly random. Once in a while, though, some plurality of buying interest begins to push money in one particular direction. Like water, it takes on an increasingly organized flow, and elements of the crowd begin to notice and add to the flow. Eventually, the professional monetizers of these flows add their self-reinforcing influence. But it can't last. What is a permanent feature of bubble behavior is the collateral effects. There's only so much capital available at any given time, so when mone...
The man charged with trying to kill US President Donald Trump during an attack at a gala in the nation’s capital last month is seeking to disqualify top Justice Department officials from being involved in his prosecution. Cole Tomas Allen said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and District of Columbia US Attorney Jeanine Pirro should be disqualified because they are potential crime-scene witnes...
The man charged with trying to kill US President Donald Trump during an attack at a gala in the nation’s capital last month is seeking to disqualify top Justice Department officials from being involved in his prosecution. Cole Tomas Allen said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and District of Columbia US Attorney Jeanine Pirro should be disqualified because they are potential crime-scene witnesses and have made public comments that are prejudicial to his defense. “There is a fine line between disinterested prosecution and a prosecution stained with apparent conflicts of interest,” Allen’s lawyers said in a court filing late Thursday. Blanche and Pirro were guests along with Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner last month when Allen was taken into custody for allegedly running through a security checkpoint and opening fire with a shotgun. “Both heard gunshots, which presumably forced them to duck below the tables with the rest of the occupants,” according to the filing. “Their active involvement in the prosecution of Mr. Allen therefore creates grave concerns about whether they are making prosecutorial decisions as representatives of the government or as witnesses.” The filing also cites comments that Blanche and Pirro have made publicly since the attack that Allen’s lawyers say could be viewed as prejudicial. The suspect’s lawyers argued that all prosecutors from Pirro’s office, which is leading the case, may have to be recused. Blanche and Pirro’s offices didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
JFrog (NASDAQ:FROG) reported first-quarter 2026 results that management said exceeded the top end of its guidance range across all metrics, citing accelerating cloud usage trends tied to AI-driven software development and continued demand for its software supply chain security products. “We entered
JFrog (NASDAQ:FROG) reported first-quarter 2026 results that management said exceeded the top end of its guidance range across all metrics, citing accelerating cloud usage trends tied to AI-driven software development and continued demand for its software supply chain security products. “We entered
In recent days, Baidu Inc. has come under investor scrutiny as earnings estimates for the current quarter and full fiscal year have been revised lower, even as projections for the next fiscal year point to possible improvement. This shift in expectations, combined with Baidu’s current Zacks Rank #4 (Sell), highlights a tension between nearer-term caution and longer-term optimism in analyst sentime...
In recent days, Baidu Inc. has come under investor scrutiny as earnings estimates for the current quarter and full fiscal year have been revised lower, even as projections for the next fiscal year point to possible improvement. This shift in expectations, combined with Baidu’s current Zacks Rank #4 (Sell), highlights a tension between nearer-term caution and longer-term optimism in analyst sentiment. We will now examine how these earnings estimate revisions and the Zacks Rank shape Baidu’s...
Earnings Call Insights: ScanSource (SCSC) Q3 2026 Management View “Our team delivered strong third quarter results with adjusted EBITDA, EPS, free cash flow, and ROIC all increasing versus the prior year,” said CEO Mike Baur (Founder, Chairman, CEO & President), adding that “improved hardware demand drove 9% growth in net sales with growth across most technologies, but especially networking and se...
Earnings Call Insights: ScanSource (SCSC) Q3 2026 Management View “Our team delivered strong third quarter results with adjusted EBITDA, EPS, free cash flow, and ROIC all increasing versus the prior year,” said CEO Mike Baur (Founder, Chairman, CEO & President), adding that “improved hardware demand drove 9% growth in net sales with growth across most technologies, but especially networking and security.” Baur outlined a go-to-market change: “we're taking the next step to help our partners grow their business by launching a new Converged Communications business unit to deliver a unified, 1 ScanSource partner experience.” He said the unit “will include the business development and sales resources, pre-sales engineering, marketing and supplier management functions,” combining “the ScanSource specialty communications team and the Intelisys CX cloud-based solutions team into one combined business unit.” On leadership, Baur said, “The Converged Communications business unit will be led by Katherine White, who brings 5 years of ScanSource experience across both our specialty business and Intelisys.” On AI-related demand in customer experience, Baur said, “Our partners are finding excellent opportunities for AI adoption in the CX solutions area,” and framed recent wins around “AI as automation” and “AI as augmentation.” CFO Steve Jones (Senior EVP & CFO) said, “We're pleased with our Q3 results with consolidated net sales and non-GAAP EPS growing 9% year-over-year,” and added, “We also delivered strong free cash flow in the quarter and feel very well-positioned to deliver our fiscal year 2026 outlook.” Outlook Jones said, “We are maintaining our full year projections for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA,” and added, “for FY '26 free cash flow, we are raising our expectations to at least $90 million.” In Q&A about the cadence implied by the full-year outlook, Jones said, “Q3 delivered on that, and we're confident that we can deliver our full year guidance, but we don't want ...
Guido Mieth/DigitalVision via Getty Images JPMorgan Nasdaq Equity Premium Income ETF ( JEPQ ) is one of the most trusted double-digit-yielding income ETFs out there. It currently offers a 10-12% yield, with a 30-day SEC yield around ~12.70% and a 12-month rolling dividend yield near 11%. Total return has been ~28-29% and ~78%, respectively, over the past 1 and 3 years. Both numbers are well above ...
Guido Mieth/DigitalVision via Getty Images JPMorgan Nasdaq Equity Premium Income ETF ( JEPQ ) is one of the most trusted double-digit-yielding income ETFs out there. It currently offers a 10-12% yield, with a 30-day SEC yield around ~12.70% and a 12-month rolling dividend yield near 11%. Total return has been ~28-29% and ~78%, respectively, over the past 1 and 3 years. Both numbers are well above the ETF median. For most investors, those numbers would be good enough reasons to buy and hold JEPQ indefinitely. But a closer look reveals other details that present a more nuanced picture. Price returns lag 14-15% against the S&P 500 over a one-year period, and nearly 50% over a 3-year period. People do not buy a product like JEPQ expecting a huge equity-like performance; however, in an ideal world, that gap between price return and total return should have been narrower. In a market where many newer covered-call ETFs are offering diverse trade-offs between yield, growth, and tax efficiency—key considerations of income investment—this large gap makes one ask: what is JEPQ paying investors for? As I will argue here, that gap reflects the cost of generating a high income today, trading off with future growth. In the current market environment—characterized by uneven growth, elevated volatility, and uncertain direction in large-cap tech—that trade-off becomes more relevant. For investors who want consistent cash flow from one of the most dependable names in the industry and are happy to look for full upside capture elsewhere, JEPQ is still one of the best core allocations in an income portfolio. The JEPQ Strategy JEPQ combines a large-cap growth equity portfolio with an options strategy on top. There are some 100-110 stocks, using the Nasdaq-100 as the benchmark. Top 10 holdings constitute 40-45% of the portfolio and are in mega-cap tech stocks like NVIDIA Corporation ( NVDA ), Apple Inc. ( AAPL ), Microsoft Corporation ( MSFT ), Amazon.com, Inc. ( AMZN ), and Alphabet Inc. ...