In a one-two punch of centibillion-dollar offers, the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery is over. David Ellison-owned Paramount will acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Netflix has lost.
In a one-two punch of centibillion-dollar offers, the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery is over. David Ellison-owned Paramount will acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Netflix has lost.
Wasan Longthara/iStock via Getty Images Quarterly review The Allspring SMID Cap Growth Fund underperformed the Russell 2500 Growth Index benchmark during the fourth quarter. Security selection within the industrials and information technology (IT ) sectors detracted from returns. Select holdings within financials, consumer discretionary, and health care contributed positively to performance. Marke...
Wasan Longthara/iStock via Getty Images Quarterly review The Allspring SMID Cap Growth Fund underperformed the Russell 2500 Growth Index benchmark during the fourth quarter. Security selection within the industrials and information technology (IT ) sectors detracted from returns. Select holdings within financials, consumer discretionary, and health care contributed positively to performance. Market review - 2025 in review U.S. equities delivered a third consecutive year of positive returns in 2025, with gains once again concentrated in growth-oriented parts of the market. Stocks in the IT and communication services sectors remained central to index performance as investors continued to reward companies positioned to capture outsized demand from the buildout of artificial intelligence (AI )—particularly those showing business momentum and pricing power. The year was also a reminder that markets can “climb a wall of worry” even when policy headlines are destabilizing. Early spring delivered the most dramatic test: The White House’s April 2 “Liberation Day” action jolted risk assets, reviving trade-war fears and forcing investors to reconsider inflation and margin assumptions. Over time, the tariff story became more iterative, marked by pauses and modifications that reduced the immediate sense of worst-case outcomes even as it remained a persistent overhang in corporate and consumer sentiment. Fundamentals ultimately mattered more than headlines. Earnings tied to end markets with strong demand—especially AI—proved resilient, helping offset macroeconomic crosscurrents that ranged from trade policy and politics to immigration debates and gradually cooling labor markets. At the consumer level, conditions looked increasingly uneven: Higher-income households continued to spend, while middle- and lower-income cohorts showed clearer signs of trade-down behavior amid ongoing affordability pressure. Against that backdrop, market breadth improved episodically, but overall perfor...
Scion Asset Management founder Michael Burry, best known for shorting subprime mortgages before the 2008 market crash, has made another dire warning. And this time, he is cautioning about the artificial intelligence (AI) darling Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA). As per Burry, Nvidia’s purchase ...
Scion Asset Management founder Michael Burry, best known for shorting subprime mortgages before the 2008 market crash, has made another dire warning. And this time, he is cautioning about the artificial intelligence (AI) darling Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA). As per Burry, Nvidia’s purchase ...
ISerg/iStock via Getty Images The ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF ( UCO ) is a daily resetting leveraged ETF that gives investors a relatively cheap (compared to borrowing on margin) way to apply leverage to long-oil bets. The oil price dynamics can be broken down into: Actual supply dynamics (OPEC+ supply cuts, exploration, and imminent production elsewhere) Speculative structural supply ...
ISerg/iStock via Getty Images The ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF ( UCO ) is a daily resetting leveraged ETF that gives investors a relatively cheap (compared to borrowing on margin) way to apply leverage to long-oil bets. The oil price dynamics can be broken down into: Actual supply dynamics (OPEC+ supply cuts, exploration, and imminent production elsewhere) Speculative structural supply dynamics contingent on geopolitics (motivating hedging activity against geopolitical risks) Actual demand dynamics (dependent on big industrial buyers like China and US) We don't see major demand catalysts from the US and China as major oil consumers, nor is there any actual supply coming back online, for example, from Venezuela, though the fruit for further production is not hanging low in that complex market. The oil price's recent increase reflected in the UCO's performance recovery is overwhelmingly driven by speculative factors, namely around Iran. While we think that the rhetoric points to another surge of conflict, perhaps another targeted attack by the US, the lift to oil prices could be short-lived and we don't see a backstop from a favorable longer-term picture should the geopolitical bump retreat. UCO could resume a negative direction. Data by YCharts A Note on Leveraged ETFs Because they reset daily after mimicking changes in the index that day by a 2x factor in the case of UCO, there is the problem of value erosion. While a 2% rebound after a 3% drop isn't so bad for the underlying index, having a 6% drop and a 4% rebound is more of a problem. There is a reason why Warren Buffett's #1 rule is, don't lose money. If you lose money, you have less to recover with, meaning for every drop you need a bigger percentage recovery to bring you back to square 1. If an asset drops 33%, you need an almost 50% recovery to recover. If an asset drops 50%, you need 100% recovery to break even. Even if the next day is a bigger rebound than what you lost the previous day, with lev...
The fund sold some of its top-performing stocks, including European luxury goods companies, to invest in beaten-down software stocks. In recent weeks, it has targeted Microsoft Corp, accounting software firm Intuit Inc and tech giant SAP SE, according to Chief Investment Officer Doug Tynan.
The fund sold some of its top-performing stocks, including European luxury goods companies, to invest in beaten-down software stocks. In recent weeks, it has targeted Microsoft Corp, accounting software firm Intuit Inc and tech giant SAP SE, according to Chief Investment Officer Doug Tynan.
Democracy Volunteers say they saw 32 cases of apparent collusion – the highest levels in its 10-year history An election observer group has raised concerns over people appearing to collude on voting in the Gorton and Denton byelection. Democracy Volunteers, an organisation founded by Dr John Ault, and supported by Conservative peer and psephologist Prof Robert Haywood, deployed four accredited ele...
Democracy Volunteers say they saw 32 cases of apparent collusion – the highest levels in its 10-year history An election observer group has raised concerns over people appearing to collude on voting in the Gorton and Denton byelection. Democracy Volunteers, an organisation founded by Dr John Ault, and supported by Conservative peer and psephologist Prof Robert Haywood, deployed four accredited election observers across the constituency. Continue reading...
Julio Embun/iStock via Getty Images Capstone Green Energy ( CGEH ) is a producer of microturbines that came out of bankruptcy but is making an impressive turnaround, reducing debt, and benefiting from secular tailwinds like the AI data center buildout and increasing grid instability. Technology Capstone is the global leader in microturbine technology, small-scale jet engines used to generate on-si...
Julio Embun/iStock via Getty Images Capstone Green Energy ( CGEH ) is a producer of microturbines that came out of bankruptcy but is making an impressive turnaround, reducing debt, and benefiting from secular tailwinds like the AI data center buildout and increasing grid instability. Technology Capstone is the global leader in microturbine technology, small-scale jet engines used to generate on-site power. Its turbines can run on natural gas, propane, biogas, renewable natural gas - RNG, and hydrogen blends. The company holds 120-plus US and EU patents, and its air-bearing technology doesn't require lubrication and has only one moving part, reducing downtime and maintenance. The company is aggressively targeting data centers, microgrids, and industrial applications where grid reliability is crucial. The company offers systems with a range from the C65 (65 kW) to the C1000S (1 MW), which can be stacked to provide up to 30 MW of power. New products CGEH IR Presentation The new Ultra-Low NOx Combustion Liner is still being tested, although that's now 60% complete, for a new liner capable of delivering 5 ppm NOx. This provides a significant advantage, stretching the limit from 85 MW to 380 MW of installed capacity before triggering a Title V air permit. Other new products coming soon are: The 800-volt DC product A Smart Power Switch (SPS) prototype for data center integration. The latter is expected by the end of February 2026, followed by a five-month test cycle. Prototypes of the C250 engine are meeting output and efficiency targets, with emissions results exceeding expectations. The goal is to package these into new 1-megawatt and 1.5-megawatt units with significant cost reductions. There's also a new prototype of a Heat Recovery Module (HRM), at present on the test rig. The HRM is producing better heat recovery, pushing cycle efficiencies into the high 80s to low 90 percentiles. Market CGEH IR Presentation The market offers significant opportunities as demand is boo...
"Hyperwoke" Journo Self-Downgrades From First Class Because It Had Too Many White Men Former Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson proudly announced that she had downgraded herself from first class to business class on a flight to Milan , apparently unable to endure a cabin populated predominantly by white middle-aged men, the Daily Mai l reports. In a lengthy Threads post that has since drawn bot...
"Hyperwoke" Journo Self-Downgrades From First Class Because It Had Too Many White Men Former Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson proudly announced that she had downgraded herself from first class to business class on a flight to Milan , apparently unable to endure a cabin populated predominantly by white middle-aged men, the Daily Mai l reports. In a lengthy Threads post that has since drawn both fawning admiration from her ideological allies and widespread incredulity elsewhere, Karefa-Johnson described the scene: "In a cabin of six, five of the passengers were white middle-aged men... then there was me, a 30-something black woman who travels in that cabin often, and a male flight attendant who thought I'd be okay with substandard service and persistent micro-aggression from the moment I sat down." " He was... wrong,' the "hyperwoke" journalist continued. " I don't suffer fools, and I would sacrifice physical comfort to protect my emotional and mental well-being any day. " Unsurprisingly, Karefa-Johnson offered no specifics about the alleged “substandard service” or the nature of the supposed microaggressions that purportedly rendered first-class intolerable. The post, heavy on grievance and light on detail, quickly garnered praise among those who view everyday encounters through the lens of perpetual racial trauma. One supporter gushed that she “deserve[s] to be anywhere and everywhere. They belong in economy,” with “they” evidently referring to the white male passengers whose mere presence proved so oppressive. “Hard agree!” Karefa-Johnson replied. “It's just such a bummer that humiliation is part of gratification for racists. Protecting my peace felt like letting him win and I hate that.” Karefa-Johnson departed Vogue in 2023 amid controversy over her inflammatory commentary following the October 7 Hamas massacre in Israel. In the wake of the terror attacks that killed more than 1,400 Israelis, the journalist accused Israel of “genocide” and likening the Israe...