U.S. Gasoline Tops $4.50 As "Shock & Awe" Level Approaches WTI futures plunged more than 11% to the $90-a-barrel level after Axios reported earlier this morning that the U.S. is nearing a preliminary agreement with Iran to end the war. The sharp decline suggests traders are beginning to price in a potential geopolitical de-escalation and the potential reopening of the Hormuz chokepoint. At the pum...
U.S. Gasoline Tops $4.50 As "Shock & Awe" Level Approaches WTI futures plunged more than 11% to the $90-a-barrel level after Axios reported earlier this morning that the U.S. is nearing a preliminary agreement with Iran to end the war. The sharp decline suggests traders are beginning to price in a potential geopolitical de-escalation and the potential reopening of the Hormuz chokepoint. At the pump, however, the latest AAA data as of Wednesday morning show that the national average for regular 87-octane gasoline has climbed to $4.50 a gallon, the highest level since July 2022. There will be a lag. Even if the Trump administration and Tehran formalize a deal in the near term, the immediate result will not be a collapse in gas and diesel pump prices, but rather an approaching peak. Lower crude prices typically take a few weeks to work through wholesale markets, inventories, distribution networks, and retail outlets before meaningful declines in gas and diesel are visible at pump stations to consumers. During a Monday press conference, Trump said he expects the price of gasoline to drop "substantially" following the end of the US-Iran war. "I see it going down very substantially when this is over, I think very rapidly too, at levels that you've never seen because there's a lot of energy out there, ships all over the world that are loaded up with it," Trump said. "They can't do much with it because they got kidnapped by a pretty evil place. But we're taking care of it." Last week, Trump said pump prices would "come crashing down as soon as this war is over." GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan warned that the $5-a-gallon threshold is typically the "shock and awe" level that triggers demand destruction. With the national average for gas already near $4.50 a gallon, and California prices above $6, the political and consumer pressure backdrop for the Trump administration has intensified in recent weeks. The administration now appears to be pushing hard for a near-term Iran re...
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) just delivered its fifth consecutive quarter beating Wall Street’s EPS bar, and the trailing P/E of 33x is doing something that should not be possible for a business growing the way this one is. The thesis is simple. Amazon owns the rails of two enormous businesses, cloud computing and online retail, and is ... 60 Out of 65 Wall Street Analysts Say Buy Amazon. Not One Says Sel...
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) just delivered its fifth consecutive quarter beating Wall Street’s EPS bar, and the trailing P/E of 33x is doing something that should not be possible for a business growing the way this one is. The thesis is simple. Amazon owns the rails of two enormous businesses, cloud computing and online retail, and is ... 60 Out of 65 Wall Street Analysts Say Buy Amazon. Not One Says Sell.
A maritime coalition led by France and the UK is ready to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz if Iran agrees to a US proposal to end the war, according to a French official. France has moved its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to the Red Sea where it will soon be met by vessels from other partner countries, the official told reporters on Wednesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has s...
A maritime coalition led by France and the UK is ready to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz if Iran agrees to a US proposal to end the war, according to a French official. France has moved its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to the Red Sea where it will soon be met by vessels from other partner countries, the official told reporters on Wednesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken to US counterpart Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian , and France maintains its position that it is not a party to the war, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity to comply with government rules. Read More: Iran Evaluating US Proposal to End War as China Calls for Peace
Getty Images Digital Realty Trust ( DLR ) offers a solid platform for investing in the data center REIT sector, but the more compelling opportunity today is not in the common stock. While the common stock offers about 3.65% expected AFFO yield at a strong market valuation (Price/Book ~ 3.06 and forward AFFO ~27.36), DLR's preferred stock provides a current yield of about 6.4-6.5% and an investment...
Getty Images Digital Realty Trust ( DLR ) offers a solid platform for investing in the data center REIT sector, but the more compelling opportunity today is not in the common stock. While the common stock offers about 3.65% expected AFFO yield at a strong market valuation (Price/Book ~ 3.06 and forward AFFO ~27.36), DLR's preferred stock provides a current yield of about 6.4-6.5% and an investment-grade credit rating. DLR's overview (Digital Realty) DLR has close to $48.8 billion in total assets at the end of the first quarter of 2026. Its total debt is close to $19.45 billion, and its total revenue is around $6.31 billion. The EBITDA is approximately $2.88 billion. The company has over 300 data centers and over 55 metros. The current market capitalization of DLR is around $71 billion. It has credit ratings from the major credit agencies: a "BBB+" by S&P, a "BBB" by Fitch, and a "Baa2" by Moody's. Below you can see its top 20 customers and its diversified customer base: customer base (Digital Realty) 8% of its investment portfolio is in "Floating Rate Debt" and 92% in "Fixed Rate Debt": DLR's capital structure (Digital Realty) From Q1, we calculated the asset yield of the company to be close to 5.77% and the asset coverage ratio around 251%. The operating expenses, excluding depreciation and amortization, are around 55.4% of the revenue. The interest expenses are close to 2.34% of the total debt. We use the price/book ratio, which at the timе of writing is 3.06, to cаlculаte the market-adjustеd ratios. The market-adjusted asset yield is around 2.8%, and the market-adjusted asset coverage ratio is close to 520%. The expected AFFO yield of DLR is around 3.65%—the forward price to AFFO is close to 27.36. Below are shown the basic valuation metrics of the company: DLR's basic valuation metrics (Seeking Alpha) Preferred Stocks DLR's preferred stocks (author's database) DLR has three preferred stocks: ( DLR.PR.J ), ( DLR.PR.K ) and ( DLR.PR.L ). All three are currently tr...
The post 1.5M+ People Spend Their Work Week In Headsets. The Under-$1 Pre-IPO Company Behind It Is Soon Closing Its Round for Retail Investors by Benzinga Contributors appeared first on Benzinga . Visit Benzinga to get more great content like this. Most private tech startups sell you promises and hype. Immersed is delivering real-world results. It built the #1 work app on Meta Quest, where 1.5M+ p...
The post 1.5M+ People Spend Their Work Week In Headsets. The Under-$1 Pre-IPO Company Behind It Is Soon Closing Its Round for Retail Investors by Benzinga Contributors appeared first on Benzinga . Visit Benzinga to get more great content like this. Most private tech startups sell you promises and hype. Immersed is delivering real-world results. It built the #1 work app on Meta Quest, where 1.5M+ professionals are logging up to 60 hours a week inside virtual offices. “I can’t emphasize enough how big a deal it was to find a place to focus in virtual reality,” a longtime tech reporter wrote in their review of Immersed. “The fact that VR cuts you off from the world always seemed to be a bug, not a feature. Now, I realize it can be both.” That kind of sustained use is rare. Here’s what that looks like in numbers: Over 2,000 cumulative years worked inside the platform $7M+ in revenue generated $29M raised from 7,000+ investors 75,000+ professionals on the hardware waitlist This isn’t based on assumptions. The usage is already there. “I have a choice between being in a public space, grabbing a collab room with some friends or just going solo in my own space,” one Redditor wrote of Immersed. “The community has been very supportive and I’ve made a lot of friends along the way.” Now, the company is building on that foundation. $71M in projected hardware demand Reserved NASDAQ ticker: IMRS Partnerships with Meta, Samsung, and Qualcomm You can still invest Pre-IPO at $0.72/share, before a potential IPO. Early investors include Tim Tebow and executives from Facebook, Reddit, Intel, and SailPoint. An investment opportunity you don’t want to miss Immersed changed the game in Spatial Computing (AR/VR), developing the Meta Quest store’s most-used AR/VR productivity app. They develop enterprise-grade software that enables professionals and teams to work full-time in shared virtual environments using AR/VR, supporting multiple virtual hi-res displays, real-time collaboration, and sea...
Alina Rudya/Bell Collective/DigitalVision via Getty Images Main Thesis & Background The purpose of this article is to evaluate the PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund ( PCQ ) as an investment option at the current market price. The fund invests primarily in California municipal bonds and therefore seeks to provide current income that is exempt from federal and California income tax. It seeks to...
Alina Rudya/Bell Collective/DigitalVision via Getty Images Main Thesis & Background The purpose of this article is to evaluate the PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund ( PCQ ) as an investment option at the current market price. The fund invests primarily in California municipal bonds and therefore seeks to provide current income that is exempt from federal and California income tax. It seeks to be “AMT-free” by investing only up to 20% in bonds generating interest that may subject individuals to the alternative minimum tax. PCQ is a fund I cover a few times a year, and it had a strong 2025 when I was bullish on it. This sentiment continued when 2026 got underway, but it has certainly disappointed thus far. Since my January article , PCQ has actually posted a negative total return, and that is hard to stomach in this backdrop! Fund Performance (Seeking Alpha) As the title of this review reads, this has surprised me somewhat. I see PCQ having a strong value proposition, I believe there is a favorable backdrop for munis overall, and I think the fund's income stream is attractive for highly taxed individuals (especially those residing in California). As such, this weakness suggests to me there is an argument for buying here. The poor performance of late is something I see changing in the second half of the year, and I believe a "buy" rating is still warranted. I will explain why in detail below. The Income Remains Competitive Given PCQ's marginal movement on share price, it should not be surprising that its income stream is similar to where it stood back in January. While some may not find this "good" on the surface, I see it that way because the fund's monthly yield is quite high. Even with inflation and interest rates elevated compared to where some thought they would be in mid-2026, a 5% yield from quality securities is still going to generate attention: PCQ's Monthly Payout (Seeking Alpha) What I see here is a yield nearing double digits on a tax-equivalent basis...
Capital Southwest (NASDAQ:CSWC) keeps writing checks while the high-yield BDC space struggles this year. The Dallas-based business development company pays a $0.1934 monthly regular dividend plus a $0.06 quarterly supplemental, working out to roughly $0.64 a quarter on a stock trading near $24, an annualized yield investors depend on. The question worth answering is whether ... Capital Southwest’s...
Capital Southwest (NASDAQ:CSWC) keeps writing checks while the high-yield BDC space struggles this year. The Dallas-based business development company pays a $0.1934 monthly regular dividend plus a $0.06 quarterly supplemental, working out to roughly $0.64 a quarter on a stock trading near $24, an annualized yield investors depend on. The question worth answering is whether ... Capital Southwest’s 11.3% Yield Holds Firm While BDCs Stumble in 2026
Eoneren/E+ via Getty Images Introduction Lumen Technologies, Inc. ( LUMN ) is down significantly on Wednesday, before the market opens, as I'm writing this article, following mixed quarterly results . This is an interesting company, which is positioning itself to benefit from this explosive AI data center buildout demand, and I'm sure most of the investors are here for this business segment. The c...
Eoneren/E+ via Getty Images Introduction Lumen Technologies, Inc. ( LUMN ) is down significantly on Wednesday, before the market opens, as I'm writing this article, following mixed quarterly results . This is an interesting company, which is positioning itself to benefit from this explosive AI data center buildout demand, and I'm sure most of the investors are here for this business segment. The company isn't new, though. It had been performing well in the past but started shrinking a couple of years ago, losing market share in the telecommunications industry. Right now, it is still in the turnaround stage, and it often results in higher volatility, which can be bad news for value investors but good news for risk-tolerant investors, who are open to trading Lumen or accounting for the market sentiment. Price Seeking Alpha I'm mainly focused on the tech industry, and I am bullish on AI, which makes me constantly look for new ideas in the space. Since AI-related stocks have been on a rally in the last month, often reaching all-time-high levels, Lumen looks like a potential candidate for me, especially if this 10% discount we see today is an overreaction. Today I'll try to answer this question for myself and share my findings and views with you. Since this is my first Lumen coverage, I'll start with a short explanation about the company, but if you're familiar, you can skip this section and jump directly to the quarterly overview and the news the company has shared. About Lumen As I already said, Lumen was a telecommunication company in the past, but they have been working for the last couple of years to become more than just an internet provider. The trajectory the company has picked involves innovation and investment in becoming the main network for AI, which looks very promising as of today. With the massive data center buildout, data center providers are constantly hitting a wall with different bottlenecks that have to be resolved. There is even a whole strategy in ...