Dougal Waters/DigitalVision via Getty Images 2026 Outlook & Overview of IWX The iShares Russell Top 200 Value ETF ( IWX ) is a passively managed exchange-traded fund (also known as an ETF) that invests in large-cap American-listed stocks. The point of this ETF is to measure the performance of large U.S. companies based on their fundamental size and weight, with the fund manager rebalancing and rev...
Dougal Waters/DigitalVision via Getty Images 2026 Outlook & Overview of IWX The iShares Russell Top 200 Value ETF ( IWX ) is a passively managed exchange-traded fund (also known as an ETF) that invests in large-cap American-listed stocks. The point of this ETF is to measure the performance of large U.S. companies based on their fundamental size and weight, with the fund manager rebalancing and reviewing the fund quarterly or less for investment opportunities. In 2025, the fund returned around 16%, good in comparison to any other year, but below the S&P 500, other countries, and other value benchmarks. That said, amidst market turmoil, including the war in the Middle East and tariff rebuttals by the Supreme Court, IWX has held up pretty well in Q1 2026 and remains a decent investment vs. other passively managed peers. The fund has historically struggled against other large-cap funds that have some growth characteristics, along with also underperforming some of its value peers like iShares S&P 500 Value ETF ( IVE ), which doesn't screen out as many names as IWX does. Since my last article in January, the fund has done pretty well, and over the last 6 months, it has outperformed IVE and SPY. Bank economists expected the U.S. market to do increasingly well in their end-of-year review, with all major bank analysts predicting another rise. I was a bit skeptical when all economists were lined up on one side of the trade, and Trump decided to shoot the market in the foot after a brief stint of recovery. From a fundamental point of view, Vanguard's 2026 outlook highlighted an imbalance, noting that U.S. growth stocks dominated by large-cap technology firms face higher expectations and competitive pressures that could hinder returns. In contrast, value stocks have demonstrated more consistent earnings growth but have been left for dead by investors over the past few years, which is why taking a deep dive into some options, like IWX, is important. IWX's benchmark target is the...
lyash01/iStock via Getty Images Cheniere Energy ( LNG ) down 3.7% in Wednesday's trading as CEO Jack Fusco said the company is already running at full capacity , while Asian customers are asking for more liquefied natural gas with supplies from Qatar cut as a result of the Middle East war. But Fusco told the CERAWeek conference in Houston that he hopes Cheniere ( LNG ) can start commercial opera...
lyash01/iStock via Getty Images Cheniere Energy ( LNG ) down 3.7% in Wednesday's trading as CEO Jack Fusco said the company is already running at full capacity , while Asian customers are asking for more liquefied natural gas with supplies from Qatar cut as a result of the Middle East war. But Fusco told the CERAWeek conference in Houston that he hopes Cheniere ( LNG ) can start commercial operations at its Train 5 expansion at Corpus Christi, Texas, by Friday to get more cargoes to Asia. The CEO said the last cargoes from QatarEnergy has arrived in Asia with no clear sense of when Qatar, the world's second-largest LNG exporter, would resume operations after its plants shut due to severe damage sustained in airstrikes from Iran. "We are trying to do whatever we can do. We're looking at our maintenance schedules really hard, but at the end of the day, we have to be safe and we have to be reliable. We don't want to sacrifice anything to get that last drop out," Fusco told CERAWeek. Shocks to the LNG market are harmful to demand growth because higher prices take some countries out of the market, Fusco said, also reiterating the Middle East war has emphasized the need for diversity of supply . More on Cheniere Energy Cheniere Energy: The Biggest Win Is Not Spot Price Arbitrage Cheniere Energy: LNG Demand, AI Power Needs And Buybacks Support Long-Term Upside Cheniere Energy Can Benefit From The Current Geopolitical Turmoil
Travelers wait in line at a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Monday, March 23, 2026. Elijah Nouvelage | Bloomberg | Getty Images President Donald Trump said he's considering sending the National Guard to U.S. airports, two days after the administration sent Immigration and Customs Enforceme...
Travelers wait in line at a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Monday, March 23, 2026. Elijah Nouvelage | Bloomberg | Getty Images President Donald Trump said he's considering sending the National Guard to U.S. airports, two days after the administration sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to several major U.S. airports following hourslong waits for travelers because of the partial government shutdown. In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump blamed Democrats for the shutdown, which began Feb. 14 . "Thank you to our great ICE Patriots for helping. It makes a big difference," he wrote in his post . "I may call up the National Guard for more help." Elevated absences of Transportation Security Administration officers, who are required to work though they're not getting paid during the shutdown, have contributed to long lines at major U.S. airports, including in Atlanta, Houston and New York. Airlines have been warning customers about potentially long security lines , while executives grow increasingly frustrated with lawmakers about the impasse. On Tuesday, Delta Air Lines said it suspended its airport escorts and other special services for members of Congress and their staff because of the ongoing partial shutdown of the DHS . The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees both ICE and and TSA, didn't respond to requests for comment on what the ICE agents' duties at airports. ICE agents are getting paid in the shutdown. The shutdown comes as Democrats in Congress have demanded changes to how federal immigration enforcement operates in exchange for releasing DHS funding after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by ICE officers in Minneapolis. Read more CNBC airline news Airlines raise revenue guidance despite rising fuel costs, citing growth in demand United CEO Scott Kirby says higher airfare could be ahead after fuel price spike Iran war th...
kontekbrothers/iStock via Getty Images Written by Nick Ackerman, co-produced by Stanford Chemist Cohen & Steers Infrastructure Fund Inc ( UTF ) provides a portfolio of diversified infrastructure exposure spread across the globe. The fund primarily invests in equity infrastructure positions, but it also carries some exposure to preferred and fixed-income instruments. This combination helps fuel its...
kontekbrothers/iStock via Getty Images Written by Nick Ackerman, co-produced by Stanford Chemist Cohen & Steers Infrastructure Fund Inc ( UTF ) provides a portfolio of diversified infrastructure exposure spread across the globe. The fund primarily invests in equity infrastructure positions, but it also carries some exposure to preferred and fixed-income instruments. This combination helps fuel its monthly distribution to investors, making it an appealing choice for income-focused investors. A distribution that was also recently increased. This is a closed-end fund, and the market price can trade wildly different from its actual underlying net asset value per share. They had conducted a rights offering last year, which ended up putting pressure on the share price. As we usually do, we sidestepped the rights offering event by selling out after it was announced. We then revisit near the expiration date, which can often lead to a better entry level. This strategy once again played out in our favor. That said, I recently added even further to my UTF position on the back of a still-widened discount, continuing to make it look like an appealing entry-level. On the other hand, the share price and NAV recently have started to decline quite materially, but that was after a solid surge in both prior. Taking a bit of a breather is not all that uncommon after something rallies so sharply. That's put a dent in some of the total returns we had seen since our prior write-up . UTF Performance Since Prior Update (Seeking Alpha) UTF Basics 1-Year Z-score: -1.44. Discount/Premium: -8.78%. Distribution Yield: 7.80%. Expense Ratio: 1.36%. Leverage: 29.71%. Managed Assets: $4.5 billion. Structure: Perpetual. UTF's objective and general strategy is: "Total return, with an emphasis on income through investment in securities issued by infrastructure companies." They define infrastructure companies as those that "typically provide the physical framework that society requires to function on a ...
In Win For Putin, India Buys 60 Million Barrels Of Russian Oil, As Refiners Increasingly Transact In Yuan, Dirham Indian refiners have bought about 60 million barrels of Russian oil for delivery next month, which is set to ease some supply concerns as the Middle East war chokes flows. Citing people familiar, Bloomberg reports that the cargoes were booked at premiums of $5 to $15 a barrel to Brent....
In Win For Putin, India Buys 60 Million Barrels Of Russian Oil, As Refiners Increasingly Transact In Yuan, Dirham Indian refiners have bought about 60 million barrels of Russian oil for delivery next month, which is set to ease some supply concerns as the Middle East war chokes flows. Citing people familiar, Bloomberg reports that the cargoes were booked at premiums of $5 to $15 a barrel to Brent. The volume is similar to the amount of purchases for this month, but more than double than that for February, according to data intelligence firm Kpler. The buying spree followed a US waiver that allowed India to take Russian oil that was already loaded onto vessels before March 5 to offset shortages caused by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The measure was subsequently expanded to include other countries and updated to allow purchases of crude already at sea before March 12. India has bought ~60 million barrels of Russian oil in March, and already booked a similar amount for delivery in April. The purchases are at a premium of $5-$15 a barrel **above** the Brent benchmark. And current prices, that’s worth >$6.5 billion for each month. Putin wins. — Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) March 25, 2026 The South Asian nation has been among the heaviest hit by the Hormuz blockade and the plunge in oil supply as it is heavily reliant on imported oil, and became a major buyer of discounted Russian crude following the invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. However, India sharply cut back purchases from late last year under US pressure, turning instead to barrels from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, much of which then became trapped inside the Persian Gulf after the outbreak of the war. Indian officials expect the US waiver to be extended as long as disruptions in Hormuz persist, the people said. Refiners such as Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals and Hindustan Mittal Energy, which had avoided Russian oil since December, have returned to the market, they said. Separately, Bloomberg also ...
Getty Images We are living in one of the most transformative phases in human history thanks to AI. I don't think I need to introduce you to the transformative potential of generative AI. Today, the focus has shifted to agentic AI. If you monitor the tech space closely, you'd have noticed the launch of Perplexity Computer a couple of weeks ago, which brings agentic AI to a whole new level. Claude C...
Getty Images We are living in one of the most transformative phases in human history thanks to AI. I don't think I need to introduce you to the transformative potential of generative AI. Today, the focus has shifted to agentic AI. If you monitor the tech space closely, you'd have noticed the launch of Perplexity Computer a couple of weeks ago, which brings agentic AI to a whole new level. Claude Cowork has followed up with some major upgrades as well, including features to automate tasks on the local drive. While the primary focus of the tech world is fixed on automating workflows using agentic AI, I built a small web application over the weekend to organize our twice-weekly badminton games in Dubai. I vibe-coded this application. It took me less than an hour to add almost all the features I expected to add to this application. I have very limited coding knowledge, and I most certainly did not use any of that limited knowledge to vibe-code this application. Exhibit 1: A screengrab from the web app Author Vibe-coding, or the ability for any person to use natural language (such as English) to design and develop applications, has completely overhauled the app development industry in the past 12 months. A few days ago, Alphabet Inc. ( GOOG ) launched its own vibe-coding feature housed within the Google AI Studio ecosystem. This feature is called Build . So far, startups such as Cursor, Lovable, and Replit have dominated the vibe-coding market. For context, Cursor has surpassed $2 billion in ARR. As I discuss in this analysis, Google's entry into vibe-coding opens doors for the company to capture a share of a multi-billion-dollar market that is growing exponentially. Understanding Google AI Studio Build Google AI Studio Build functions as a full-stack application generator. Using Build, you can develop a fully deployable cloud-based application with a customer-facing interface and a server-side runtime that combines advanced features such as API calling and NPM integrati...
Getty Images We are living in one of the most transformative phases in human history thanks to AI. I don't think I need to introduce you to the transformative potential of generative AI. Today, the focus has shifted to agentic AI. If you monitor the tech space closely, you'd have noticed the launch of Perplexity Computer a couple of weeks ago, which brings agentic AI to a whole new level. Claude C...
Getty Images We are living in one of the most transformative phases in human history thanks to AI. I don't think I need to introduce you to the transformative potential of generative AI. Today, the focus has shifted to agentic AI. If you monitor the tech space closely, you'd have noticed the launch of Perplexity Computer a couple of weeks ago, which brings agentic AI to a whole new level. Claude Cowork has followed up with some major upgrades as well, including features to automate tasks on the local drive. While the primary focus of the tech world is fixed on automating workflows using agentic AI, I built a small web application over the weekend to organize our twice-weekly badminton games in Dubai. I vibe-coded this application. It took me less than an hour to add almost all the features I expected to add to this application. I have very limited coding knowledge, and I most certainly did not use any of that limited knowledge to vibe-code this application. Exhibit 1: A screengrab from the web app Author Vibe-coding, or the ability for any person to use natural language (such as English) to design and develop applications, has completely overhauled the app development industry in the past 12 months. A few days ago, Alphabet Inc. ( GOOG ) launched its own vibe-coding feature housed within the Google AI Studio ecosystem. This feature is called Build . So far, startups such as Cursor, Lovable, and Replit have dominated the vibe-coding market. For context, Cursor has surpassed $2 billion in ARR. As I discuss in this analysis, Google's entry into vibe-coding opens doors for the company to capture a share of a multi-billion-dollar market that is growing exponentially. Understanding Google AI Studio Build Google AI Studio Build functions as a full-stack application generator. Using Build, you can develop a fully deployable cloud-based application with a customer-facing interface and a server-side runtime that combines advanced features such as API calling and NPM integrati...