Alibaba dropped Qwen3.5 earlier this week, timed to coincide with the Lunar New Year, and the headline numbers alone are enough to make enterprise AI buyers stop and pay attention. The new flagship open-weight model — Qwen3.5-397B-A17B — packs 397 billion total parameters but activates only 17 billion per token. It is claiming benchmark wins against Alibaba's own previous flagship, Qwen3-Max , a m...
Alibaba dropped Qwen3.5 earlier this week, timed to coincide with the Lunar New Year, and the headline numbers alone are enough to make enterprise AI buyers stop and pay attention. The new flagship open-weight model — Qwen3.5-397B-A17B — packs 397 billion total parameters but activates only 17 billion per token. It is claiming benchmark wins against Alibaba's own previous flagship, Qwen3-Max , a model the company itself has acknowledged exceeded one trillion parameters. The release marks a meaningful moment in enterprise AI procurement. For IT leaders evaluating AI infrastructure for 2026, Qwen 3.5 presents a different kind of argument: that the model you can actually run, own, and control can now trade blows with the models you have to rent. A New Architecture Built for Speed at Scale The engineering story underneath Qwen3.5 starts with its ancestry. The model is a direct successor to last September's experimental Qwen3-Next, an ultra-sparse MoE model that was previewed but widely regarded as half-trained. Qwen3.5 takes that architectural direction and scales it aggressively, jumping from 128 experts in the previous Qwen3 MoE models to 512 experts in the new release. The practical implication of this and a better attention mechanism is dramatically lower inference latency. Because only 17 billion of those 397 billion parameters are active for any given forward pass, the compute footprint is far closer to a 17B dense model than a 400B one — while the model can draw on the full depth of its expert pool for specialized reasoning. These speed gains are substantial. At 256K context lengths, Qwen 3.5 decodes 19 times faster than Qwen3-Max and 7.2 times faster than Qwen 3's 235B-A22B model. Alibaba is also claiming the model is 60% cheaper to run than its predecessor and eight times more capable of handling large concurrent workloads, figures that matter enormously to any team paying attention to inference bills. It's also about 1 /18th the cost of Google's Gemini 3 Pro. ...
Apple is accelerating work on three new wearables, part of a shift towards AI-powered hardware, according to people with knowledge of the plans. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman joins Ed Ludlow on “Bloomberg Tech.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Apple is accelerating work on three new wearables, part of a shift towards AI-powered hardware, according to people with knowledge of the plans. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman joins Ed Ludlow on “Bloomberg Tech.” (Source: Bloomberg)
While most hybrids are said to use one to two litres of fuel per 100km, a study claims they need six litres on average Plug-in hybrid electric cars (PHEVs) use much more fuel on the road than officially stated by their manufacturers, a large-scale analysis of about 1 million vehicles of this type has shown. The Fraunhofer Institute carried out what is thought to be the most comprehensive study of ...
While most hybrids are said to use one to two litres of fuel per 100km, a study claims they need six litres on average Plug-in hybrid electric cars (PHEVs) use much more fuel on the road than officially stated by their manufacturers, a large-scale analysis of about 1 million vehicles of this type has shown. The Fraunhofer Institute carried out what is thought to be the most comprehensive study of its kind to date, using the data transmitted wirelessly by the PHEVs while they were on the road, from a variety of manufacturers. Continue reading...
Chicago O’Hare International Airport is looking to borrow about $476 million from the municipal bond market as it undergoes a multi-billion dollar overhaul. The city plans to borrow on behalf of O’Hare to support terminal redevelopment and capacity enhancements at the airport as new routes and flights are added to one of the busiest US airports, according to preliminary bond documents . The bonds,...
Chicago O’Hare International Airport is looking to borrow about $476 million from the municipal bond market as it undergoes a multi-billion dollar overhaul. The city plans to borrow on behalf of O’Hare to support terminal redevelopment and capacity enhancements at the airport as new routes and flights are added to one of the busiest US airports, according to preliminary bond documents . The bonds, which are expected to price on Wednesday, will support O’Hare’s roughly $12 billion capital plan, which has gone over the original $8.6 billion budget first laid out in 2018. The plan includes redeveloping and adding new terminals, as well as new transport between concourses and baggage handling systems. The terminal area plan is expected to be completed in 2033. Chicago’s chief financial officer declined to comment on the sale. The sale comes as O’Hare’s two dominating hub airlines, United Airlines Holdings Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc. , are embroiled in a turf war, fighting for increased gate space and flights at one of the world’s busiest airports. United announced at the end of January that the airline is adding new routes and increasing flying from Chicago. The announcement came a few days after American added new routes from Chicago and Los Angeles that overlapped with United. Read More: United Air to Add Chicago Routes as Industry Turf War Heats up O’Hare’s location in the Midwest has made it a key connecting hub for the region. In 2024, O’Hare had 40 million passenger enplanements, compared to roughly 17 million enplanements in Detroit, according to bond documents. “The fact that folks are willing to really pinch and claw each other so much, kind of speaks to the really high position that the airport does have in the aviation market,” said Kevin Archer, an analyst at S&P Global Ratings. The conflict has had little impact on the airport’s credit grades, though S&P is keeping a close eye on if it will impact the airport’s operating expenses, operating revenu...
(RTTNews) - European stocks closed on a firm note on Wednesday, reacting to some encouraging earnings updates and economic data from the region, and on expectations of more monetary easing by a few central banks. Easing geopolitical tensions contributed as well to the positive mo
(RTTNews) - European stocks closed on a firm note on Wednesday, reacting to some encouraging earnings updates and economic data from the region, and on expectations of more monetary easing by a few central banks. Easing geopolitical tensions contributed as well to the positive mo
The Brazilian has seen this before, football has seen this before and yet why does it feel like nothing ever changes? José Mourinho: against provoking opposition fans. José Mourinho: in favour of restrained celebrations. José Mourinho, once of the poke-in-the-eye, sprint-down-the-touchline, accost-the-referee-in-the-car-park school of footballing expression: now apparently very big on showing resp...
The Brazilian has seen this before, football has seen this before and yet why does it feel like nothing ever changes? José Mourinho: against provoking opposition fans. José Mourinho: in favour of restrained celebrations. José Mourinho, once of the poke-in-the-eye, sprint-down-the-touchline, accost-the-referee-in-the-car-park school of footballing expression: now apparently very big on showing respect to the game. Well, it seems like we’ve all been on a journey here. “I told him the biggest person in the history of this club was Black,” Mourinho recounted when asked about his conversation with Vinícius Júnior on Tuesday night. “This club, the last thing that it is, is racist.” And doubtless these words will have been a profound source of comfort to Vinícius in his lowest moment, having been insulted on the pitch by an opposition player in a Champions League playoff. Continue reading...
Hiroshi Watanabe/DigitalVision via Getty Images But in such an expensive global market, where relative equity valuations remain in the upper part of the twenty-year distribution , can a market with positive expected returns really exist? It is a doubt that continues to widen every day in investors’ minds. And to answer it, lately I have been trying to analyze ex-US markets, and when you go down th...
Hiroshi Watanabe/DigitalVision via Getty Images But in such an expensive global market, where relative equity valuations remain in the upper part of the twenty-year distribution , can a market with positive expected returns really exist? It is a doubt that continues to widen every day in investors’ minds. And to answer it, lately I have been trying to analyze ex-US markets, and when you go down this path, it is impossible not to come across State Street SPDR Portfolio Developed World ex-US ETF ( SPDW ). Going back to the initial question: in my opinion, yes. We must not make the mistake of thinking that in order to generate returns, a multiple expansion is necessarily required . And the case of SPDW could be an example of this: this ETF emphasizes the weight of other components of the total return of an investment, such as competitive dividends (>3% as of today) and a potential linearity in EPS that may not be so obvious in 2026. But before looking at this… What is SPDW Since 2017, this ETF has been tracking the S&P Developed Ex-U.S. BMI Index with an expense ratio that I must admit I find particularly competitive in the sector (only 0.08%), to which is added an average 30-day bid/ask spread of just 0.03%. SPDW - Profile (Seeking Alpha) Not surprisingly, it has a very high AUM of ~$38 billion, precisely because it is considered by many a benchmark ultra-low-cost/ultra-diversified vehicle for the developed ex-US market with a strong value/cyclical tilt. Strategy and Holding distribution The index includes 5,208 stocks , and SPDR introduces inclusion criteria based on float-adjusted market cap (it must be greater than $100 million) and liquidity criteria. This leads to about 2,393 stocks; it remains a very broad and diversified exposure to the ex-US market. This clearly makes SPDW a pure global ex-US beta rather than a real thematic bet. In fact, the top 10 weigh less than 11% , and there is no stock exceeding 1.5%. SPDW - Top 10 Holdings (Seeking Alpha) Moving to the...
Shareholders of Omnicom Group, Inc. (Symbol: OMC) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 4.6% annualized dividend yield can sell the July covered call at the $77.50 strike and collect the premium based on the $2.50 bid, which annualizes to an additional 8.8% rate of re
Shareholders of Omnicom Group, Inc. (Symbol: OMC) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 4.6% annualized dividend yield can sell the July covered call at the $77.50 strike and collect the premium based on the $2.50 bid, which annualizes to an additional 8.8% rate of re
Shareholders of Jacobs Solutions Inc (Symbol: J) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 1% annualized dividend yield can sell the July covered call at the $145 strike and collect the premium based on the $8.00 bid, which annualizes to an additional 14% rate of return a
Shareholders of Jacobs Solutions Inc (Symbol: J) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 1% annualized dividend yield can sell the July covered call at the $145 strike and collect the premium based on the $8.00 bid, which annualizes to an additional 14% rate of return a
hapabapa BofA said Arista's 10-K filing indicated that Microsoft ( MSFT ) accounted for 26% of the company's total 2025 revenues, while Meta Platforms ( META ) accounted for 16%, and highlighted implications of the contributions. BofA kept its Buy rating and $185 price target on Arista's stock. Analysts led by Tal Liani said they previously assumed the opposite contribution between the two, given ...
hapabapa BofA said Arista's 10-K filing indicated that Microsoft ( MSFT ) accounted for 26% of the company's total 2025 revenues, while Meta Platforms ( META ) accounted for 16%, and highlighted implications of the contributions. BofA kept its Buy rating and $185 price target on Arista's stock. Analysts led by Tal Liani said they previously assumed the opposite contribution between the two, given Microsoft's delay in migrating from InfiniBand to Ethernet for AI back-end networks. The analysts noted that Microsoft did not yet deploy Ethernet at scale for AI back-end networks in 2025 with only less than 100K graphics processing unit, or GPU, deployments, but still grew an impressive 67% year-over-year, or about $1B on a dollar basis. This growth is almost purely attributed to front-end switching, which supports management’s claims for strong pull through from back-end buildouts, according to the analysts. "This bodes well for Arista in 2026, as Microsoft ramps its Ethernet back-end deployments and as Arista retains meaningful share, together with Nvidia, on limited participation of white box deployments at Microsoft. We flag the disparity between the significant ramp in deferred revenues versus the slower revenue ramp, which increases the potential for large revenue recognition as Microsoft reaches certain deployment milestones at their Fairwater data centers," said Liani and his team. White box networking refers to using unbranded, commodity hardware switches combined with independent, often open-source, network operating systems. A white box switch is a network switch that is assembled from standardized commodity parts. The analysts noted that Meta grew 41% year-over-year in 2025, supported by large Ethernet back-end deployments, with Arista present in the Leaf and Spine layers, while Celestica and Accton are mostly in the top-of-rack layer. Leaf and spine is a two-layer network topology designed for high-speed communication in data centers. The analysts added that ...
Shareholders of FedEx Corp (Symbol: FDX) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 1.5% annualized dividend yield can sell the January 2028 covered call at the $570 strike and collect the premium based on the $20.50 bid, which annualizes to an additional 2.8% rate of retu
Shareholders of FedEx Corp (Symbol: FDX) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 1.5% annualized dividend yield can sell the January 2028 covered call at the $570 strike and collect the premium based on the $20.50 bid, which annualizes to an additional 2.8% rate of retu
Shareholders of BXP Inc (Symbol: BXP) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 4.6% annualized dividend yield can sell the July covered call at the $62.50 strike and collect the premium based on the $4.30 bid, which annualizes to an additional 17.1% rate of return agains
Shareholders of BXP Inc (Symbol: BXP) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 4.6% annualized dividend yield can sell the July covered call at the $62.50 strike and collect the premium based on the $4.30 bid, which annualizes to an additional 17.1% rate of return agains
Shareholders of Zoetis Inc (Symbol: ZTS) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 1.7% annualized dividend yield can sell the January 2028 covered call at the $165 strike and collect the premium based on the $8.00 bid, which annualizes to an additional 3.3% rate of retur
Shareholders of Zoetis Inc (Symbol: ZTS) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 1.7% annualized dividend yield can sell the January 2028 covered call at the $165 strike and collect the premium based on the $8.00 bid, which annualizes to an additional 3.3% rate of retur
Shareholders of Wells Fargo & Co (Symbol: WFC) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 2% annualized dividend yield can sell the December 2028 covered call at the $115 strike and collect the premium based on the $9.00 bid, which annualizes to an additional 3.6% rate
Shareholders of Wells Fargo & Co (Symbol: WFC) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 2% annualized dividend yield can sell the December 2028 covered call at the $115 strike and collect the premium based on the $9.00 bid, which annualizes to an additional 3.6% rate