Escalation of geopolitical risk in the Middle East has added a risk premium to crude oil, supporting prices. The Wall Street Journal said last Wednesday that the US has discussed seizing tankers carrying Iranian oil. Also, the US is sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East to prepare for military action should nuclear talks with Iran fail. The US Department of Transportation recently issued a maritime advisory stating that American-flagged ships should stay as far as possible from I ...

On Feb. 3, 2026, Arena Capital Advisors, LLC- CA disclosed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing that it sold out its entire position in Diebold Nixdorf (NYSE:DBD), with an estimated transaction value of $34.9 million based on quarterly average pricing. What happened An SEC filing dated Feb. 3, 2026, shows Arena Capital Advisors, LLC- CA liquidated its full holding of 611,495 shares in Diebold Nixdorf. The estimated transaction value was $34.9 million, calculated using the average clo ...

Thrive Capital just raised $10 billion for a new fund — the largest fund it has ever raised and nearly double the size of its last fund. Of this, $1 billion is dedicated to early-stage investments, while the rest is for growth-stage investments, according to an announcement from the firm. Thrive told Bloomberg that this latest fundraise was oversubscribed. This is the firm’s 10th fund — called Thrive X — and comes as some of the firm’s biggest investments, including OpenAI, Stripe, and SpaceX, continue t ...

Most dividend announcements don't move the needle for investors. This one might. Dell Technologies came into its fiscal third-quarter earnings call already riding high on a wave of AI momentum. But it was a single commitment buried in the financial framework that caught income investors off guard: Dell (DELL) pledged to increase its quarterly dividend by at least 10% each year through fiscal 2030. What makes the news even more compelling is the backdrop. AI is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here — and ...

Bitcoin price just did something it hasn’t done in 12 years. It broke its long-term trend against gold. That line held through bull markets, crashes, bans, ETFs, everything. Now it is gone. And some analysts are not calling it random noise. They are pointing at something much bigger. Quantum computing. On-chain analyst Willy Woo argues that the breakdown aligns with rising awareness of quantum risk. The concern is simple but heavy. Bitcoin relies on ECDSA cryptography. In theory, a powerful enough quant ...

Key Takeaways Comfort in retirement depends on factors like your lifestyle, the cost of living, and how long you’ll need your money to last. The age at which you retire impacts how long your savings need to last and how much income you’ll need each year. In 2025, BlackRock, the asset manager, surveyed Americans to see how much they thought they needed to retire comfortably. The average was $2.09 million. "That's a lot," BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wrote. "More than I was expecting. And almost no one is ...

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) voice controls are finding users in drive-through windows, phone menu systems, and in-car infotainment systems. A billion-dollar backlog of long-term contracts has started to generate revenues, management expects break-even EBITDA profits in 2025, and the total addressable market for voice-driven human-to-computer communication is enormous. Starting from a $3.13 billion market cap and a share price of $7.46, it seems reasonable to expect roughly 15% of compound annual growth r ...

In my January 9, 2026, Barchart report on the soft commodities sector, I concluded with the following: Commodity cyclicality also suggests that prices rise to levels where production increases, inventories build, demand decreases, and prices turn lower. In 2025, the soft commodity sector, excluding world sugar and cotton, experienced cyclical effects. Time will tell if cotton and sugar prices can recover in 2026, but cyclicality favors the upside.  The continuous ICE cotton futures contract fell 6.04% in ...

This is where the issue of minimum viable scale becomes a problem for domestic energy producers. Renewables are cannibalizing energy production, and as in our toll road example, there may no longer be adequate revenues to support two parallel fossil fuel infrastructures for electricity production. Coal-fired power generation requires extensive mining operations and rail connections, while gas-fired plants require drilling, processing, and pipelines. In a weakening pricing environment with shrinking demand, ...

Management said unit volumes declined in the quarter, which Nahmad framed as expected given a strong comparison in the prior year’s fourth quarter, when unit growth exceeded 20%.In the fourth quarter, Nahmad said Watsco achieved “double-digit pricing gains” on new A2L products and increased gross margin by 40 basis points to 27.1%. He reiterated the company’s longer-term gross margin objective of reaching 30% and said Watsco has ongoing initiatives intended to support that trajectory.Watsco also announced a ...