Qantas Airways Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Vanessa Hudson is ramping up pressure on struggling Air New Zealand Ltd. , adding close to 1 million seats on trans-Tasman routes to squeeze the ailing rival. Both airlines are grappling with soaring fuel costs stemming from the Iran war, forcing flight cuts and higher fares. But Qantas, buoyed by record profits, is pouring capacity into New Zealand to g...
Qantas Airways Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Vanessa Hudson is ramping up pressure on struggling Air New Zealand Ltd. , adding close to 1 million seats on trans-Tasman routes to squeeze the ailing rival. Both airlines are grappling with soaring fuel costs stemming from the Iran war, forcing flight cuts and higher fares. But Qantas, buoyed by record profits, is pouring capacity into New Zealand to grab market share in the struggling carrier’s backyard. Australia is New Zealand’s largest source of international visitors. Speaking in Wellington, Hudson made clear Qantas intends to capitalize on Air New Zealand’s predicament. Qantas and its low-cost carrier Jetstar have added more than 800,000 seats on flights between Australia and New Zealand in the past 12 months, she said. Qantas will also start daily Auckland-New York services next month. “What the Qantas Group is committing to New Zealand right now is the biggest investment we have ever made in this market,” Hudson said at a Wednesday evening industry event attended by New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon . “We want to be the airline that realizes” Auckland’s potential, she said. Hours after Hudson’s speech, Auckland-based Air New Zealand released a bleak trading update that highlighted the financial toll of the Middle East conflict. The airline said it expects to report a loss before tax of between NZ$340 million ($202 million) and NZ$390 million in the year ending June, wider than the NZ$275 million analysts had forecast. It also flagged further capacity cuts if fuel prices remain elevated. Read More: Further Flight Cuts Mulled as Air NZ Forecasts Full-Year Loss Air New Zealand shares fell 3.5% after the filing. Jet fuel cost $85 to $90 a barrel before the war but has traded at between $160 and $230 in the past 10 weeks, Air Zealand said Thursday. At the same time, demand for domestic flights and services to and from Australia has softened, it said. Though airlines worldwide have raised fares and scaled ba...
The Hidden Cost To The American Worker From The AI Boom Authored by Steven Edginton via American Intelligence , While many warn that artificial intelligence itself will displace American workers, far less attention is paid to the fact that the very companies building AI are already replacing American employees with cheaper foreign labor. In many cases, though, the immediate threat to American work...
The Hidden Cost To The American Worker From The AI Boom Authored by Steven Edginton via American Intelligence , While many warn that artificial intelligence itself will displace American workers, far less attention is paid to the fact that the very companies building AI are already replacing American employees with cheaper foreign labor. In many cases, though, the immediate threat to American workers is not the technology itself, but the hiring practices of the firms developing it. In 2025, 406,348 H-1B visas were given to foreign workers in the United States , according to the latest U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. For hundreds of thousands of Americans, that figure is a nightmare. The H-1B visa program, created in the 1990s as a temporary work visa supposedly for highly-skilled migrants, has flooded America with millions of cheap foreign workers. For the last few months, I have been investigating the issue of the H-1B program and its impact on Americans for a new documentary for GB News. During that process, I received a flood of messages from workers across the country describing how they were forced to train their foreign replacements, saw their jobs were sent overseas, or witnessed ethnic tribalism in hiring that shut Americans out of jobs altogether. The largest users of the H-1B program are Big Tech companies, many of which lobby Congress aggressively against reforms that could disrupt their pipeline of foreign labor. Tech workers in Silicon Valley, one of America’s great civilizational achievements, are now overwhelmingly foreign born . According to the 2025 Silicon Valley Inde, roughly two-thirds of Silicon Valley tech workers were born outside the United States. There are more Indian-born tech workers there than those born in California. Highly-educated tech workers from India and China outnumber those from the United States, making up 41 per cent of the workforce compared with 30 per cent. Lawmakers should evaluate the national security im...
lcva2/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Back in February, I upgraded Microsoft Corporation ( MSFT ) from a buy rating to a strong buy rating. I cited strong Azure momentum, resilience in their software performance, and a contraction in the valuation as the reasons for my increasing bullishness on the stock. After the recent rebound, Microsoft is basically unchanged from levels when my previous upd...
lcva2/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Back in February, I upgraded Microsoft Corporation ( MSFT ) from a buy rating to a strong buy rating. I cited strong Azure momentum, resilience in their software performance, and a contraction in the valuation as the reasons for my increasing bullishness on the stock. After the recent rebound, Microsoft is basically unchanged from levels when my previous update came out. Late last month, the company reported their FY2026 Q3 results , and today I'll be conducting another analysis to see if I was overly optimistic or whether current levels continue to be attractive for entry. Seeking Alpha Below, it is shown that Microsoft's business is performing in a fine manner. Growth for the company as a whole is accelerating, and profitability is in a solid position as well. Resilient results in their Productivity and Business Processes segment dispel SaaSpocalypse fears, while Azure is seeing robust numbers. Guidance for Q4 wasn't perfect, but the outlook remains strong for Azure, and given that key metrics are indicative of unrelenting demand, the growth story seems to be highly intact. Meanwhile, the valuation still remains very near multiyear lows after a recent rebound, and so at this point, I would say that the market is focussing on the wrong things. As a result, I'm reiterating my strong buy rating on Microsoft. Financial Performance Microsoft Q3 Slides We'll get into their segments a little later, but let's start with an overview of their financial performance in FY2026 Q3. As shown above , for the company as a whole, they generated revenues totaling $82.9 billion, up 18% YoY or 15% in constant currency. For the reported growth rate, there was acceleration from Q2's 17% while the constant currency growth rate was unchanged. Nonetheless, it seems that business activity has overall remained solid, and the fact that they beat analysts' top line expectations by $1.46 billion is a signal that Q3 was a robust quarter, all things conside...
lcva2/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Back in February, I upgraded Microsoft Corporation ( MSFT ) from a buy rating to a strong buy rating. I cited strong Azure momentum, resilience in their software performance, and a contraction in the valuation as the reasons for my increasing bullishness on the stock. After the recent rebound, Microsoft is basically unchanged from levels when my previous upd...
lcva2/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Back in February, I upgraded Microsoft Corporation ( MSFT ) from a buy rating to a strong buy rating. I cited strong Azure momentum, resilience in their software performance, and a contraction in the valuation as the reasons for my increasing bullishness on the stock. After the recent rebound, Microsoft is basically unchanged from levels when my previous update came out. Late last month, the company reported their FY2026 Q3 results , and today I'll be conducting another analysis to see if I was overly optimistic or whether current levels continue to be attractive for entry. Seeking Alpha Below, it is shown that Microsoft's business is performing in a fine manner. Growth for the company as a whole is accelerating, and profitability is in a solid position as well. Resilient results in their Productivity and Business Processes segment dispel SaaSpocalypse fears, while Azure is seeing robust numbers. Guidance for Q4 wasn't perfect, but the outlook remains strong for Azure, and given that key metrics are indicative of unrelenting demand, the growth story seems to be highly intact. Meanwhile, the valuation still remains very near multiyear lows after a recent rebound, and so at this point, I would say that the market is focussing on the wrong things. As a result, I'm reiterating my strong buy rating on Microsoft. Financial Performance Microsoft Q3 Slides We'll get into their segments a little later, but let's start with an overview of their financial performance in FY2026 Q3. As shown above , for the company as a whole, they generated revenues totaling $82.9 billion, up 18% YoY or 15% in constant currency. For the reported growth rate, there was acceleration from Q2's 17% while the constant currency growth rate was unchanged. Nonetheless, it seems that business activity has overall remained solid, and the fact that they beat analysts' top line expectations by $1.46 billion is a signal that Q3 was a robust quarter, all things conside...
Earnings Call Insights: Similarweb (SMWB) Q1 2026 Management View "I will continue to serve as the CEO through the conclusion of the search and the transition period with my successor, with the leadership transition expected to be completed by mid-2027." (Co-Founder, CEO & Director Or Offer) "Revenue and operating profits came in the top end of the guidance range." (CEO Offer) "We delivered 10 qua...
Earnings Call Insights: Similarweb (SMWB) Q1 2026 Management View "I will continue to serve as the CEO through the conclusion of the search and the transition period with my successor, with the leadership transition expected to be completed by mid-2027." (Co-Founder, CEO & Director Or Offer) "Revenue and operating profits came in the top end of the guidance range." (CEO Offer) "We delivered 10 quarters of positive normalized free cash flow." (CEO Offer) "We have decided to raise the lower end of our guidance for 2026 to reflect increased confidence." (CEO Offer) "Revenue grew 10% year-over-year to $73.9 million at the top end of our guidance range." (CEO Offer) "Sales productivity increased for the third quarter in a row, and this has contributed to the best Q1 increase in ARR since 2022." (CEO Offer) "Net revenue retention for all customers was 98% and 103% for customers above $100,000." (CEO Offer) "We are focused on driving an improvement in NRR, specifically in the upsell motion in 2026 by executing our customer expansion playbook and leveraging our diverse product portfolio." (CEO Offer) "During the quarter, we signed one of the large LLM contracts that were pushed back from the fourth quarter of 2025." (CEO Offer) "We continue to progress on the second and third deal as well as on multiple deals for our unique digital data in view of the digital world." (CEO Offer) "Today, I'm super proud to share that we have launched MCP integration with ChatGPT." (CEO Offer) "Yesterday, we announced an expansion of our partnership with Manus, which we told you about last quarter." (CEO Offer) "Non-GAAP operating profit for the quarter was $2.4 million, reflecting a 3% margin compared to a loss of $1.3 million in the first quarter of 2025." (Chief Financial Officer Ran Vered) "Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.01 compared to a loss per share of $0.03 in Q1 2025." (CFO Vered) "We are proud that 64% of our ARR is contracted under multiyear contracts, up from 52% last ...
Earnings Call Insights: Energous (WATT) Q1 2026 Management View "On this call, we will discuss a series of firsts, in other words, new milestones we have achieved on our path to profitability and cash flow breakeven" (CEO, CFO, & Director Mallorie Burak). "In 2022, we made the strategic decision to reposition Energous entirely around enterprise IoT" and "our operations and results today reflect a ...
Earnings Call Insights: Energous (WATT) Q1 2026 Management View "On this call, we will discuss a series of firsts, in other words, new milestones we have achieved on our path to profitability and cash flow breakeven" (CEO, CFO, & Director Mallorie Burak). "In 2022, we made the strategic decision to reposition Energous entirely around enterprise IoT" and "our operations and results today reflect a company that has crossed from technology validation into volume production" (CEO, CFO, & Director Burak). "Our flagship product, the PowerBridge PRO has shipped in meaningful volume, has yielded 0 returns since commercial production began in 2024" and "has received regulatory approval, including FCC, U.K. and EU market approval" (CEO, CFO, & Director Burak). "Earlier this year, we added a second contract manufacturer based entirely in the United States" and "we have no plans for additional ATM usage this year" (CEO, CFO, & Director Burak). "Supply chain visibility has moved from a competitive advantage to an operational and regulatory requirement" and "a single PowerBridge transmitter can deliver power to multiple receiver-enabled devices with range simultaneously" (Chief Strategy & Growth Officer Giampaolo Marino). "Our first Fortune 10 commercial deployment is with a leading national retailer" where "the first phase deployment program started at approximately 4,700 U.S. locations" and "the customer has completed installation at over 1,500 of those locations" (Chief Strategy & Growth Officer Marino). "This program has now expanded internationally with over 14 completed installations outside of the United States to date" and "we are planning to continue supporting this customer's international expansion... to complete installation at approximately 35 facilities in 2026" (Chief Strategy & Growth Officer Marino). "During the 3 months ended March 31, 2026 and 2025, we recorded revenue of $3.1 million and $0.3 million, respectively" (Chief Accounting Officer Gregory Sadikoff). ...
Ford Motor Co. has unveiled a new, wholly owned subsidiary, Ford Energy, aimed at manufacturing Energy Storage systems at its Kentucky facility, targeting the manufacturing of deployments worth 20GWh annually. Ford Energy To Commence Deliveries In 2027 The company will...
Ford Motor Co. has unveiled a new, wholly owned subsidiary, Ford Energy, aimed at manufacturing Energy Storage systems at its Kentucky facility, targeting the manufacturing of deployments worth 20GWh annually. Ford Energy To Commence Deliveries In 2027 The company will...
The AI chipmaker's growth story is still extraordinary, but rising competition and a premium valuation make another name in the space look more attractive.
The AI chipmaker's growth story is still extraordinary, but rising competition and a premium valuation make another name in the space look more attractive.