readies

On Tuesday, Eastover Investment Advisors disclosed that it sold 6,691 shares of RTX Corporation (RTX 0.41%) in the third quarter.

What happened

Eastover Investment Advisors sold 6,691 shares of RTX Corporation(RTX 0.41%) worth an estimated $1 million in the third quarter, according to a Form 13-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The fund reported holding 54,659 shares worth $9.1 million as of September 30.

What else to know

Eastover’s RTX position represents about 4% of the firm’s total assets.

Top holdings after the filing:

• NASDAQ:AVGO: $15.2 million (6.6% of AUM)
• NASDAQ:AAPL: $12.9 million (5.6% of AUM)
• NASDAQ:NVDA: $12.9 million (5.6% of AUM)
• NASDAQ:GOOGL: $11.4 million (5.0% of AUM)
• NASDAQ:MSFT: $11.4 million (4.96% of AUM)

As of Monday, shares of RTX were priced at $169.27, up 35% over the past year and outperforming the S&P 500 by about 17 percentage points.

Company Overview

Company Snapshot

• RTX provides aerospace and defense systems, including aircraft engines, avionics, cabin interiors, threat detection, and aftermarket services through its Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney, and Raytheon segments.
• Generates revenue primarily from the sale of products and long-term service agreements to commercial airlines, military, and government customers, leveraging a mix of original equipment manufacturing and aftermarket support.
• Serves commercial airlines, defense departments, and government agencies globally, with a significant presence in both U.S. and international markets.

RTX Corporation is a leading global aerospace and defense company with a diversified portfolio spanning commercial aviation, military systems, and advanced defense technologies.

Foolish take

Charlotte-based Eastover Investment Advisors’ sale of 6,691 shares of RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon Technologies)—worth about $1 million—could reflect profit-taking after a year of extraordinary gains. The aerospace and defense contractor’s stock has soared 46% year-to-date, handily outperforming the S&P 500’s 14% rise, as demand for both commercial aviation and defense systems surged.

RTX reported 9% year-over-year sales growth in the second quarter, with strength across all three business segments—Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney, and Raytheon—and particularly notable 16% commercial aftermarket growth. Adjusted earnings per share rose 11% to $1.56, and CEO Chris Calio highlighted a record backlog of $236 billion, calling the results proof that “we’re well positioned to drive long-term profitable growth.”

Investors will get a closer look at how RTX is executing when it reports third-quarter earnings on October 21. And with the recovery in commercial air travel and robust global defense spending, RTX offers dual exposure to cyclical and structural growth trends. For long-term investors, occasional pullbacks—like Eastover’s sale—may still represent opportunities, not exits.

Glossary

13F reportable assets: Assets that institutional investment managers must disclose quarterly to the SEC, showing their holdings.
Assets Under Management (AUM): The total market value of investments managed by a fund or firm on behalf of clients.
Fully liquidated: Sold all shares or holdings in a particular investment, resulting in a zero position.
Form 13-F: A quarterly SEC filing by institutional investment managers to disclose their equity holdings.
Aftermarket services: Support, maintenance, and parts provided after the initial sale of a product, often generating recurring revenue.
Original equipment manufacturing: Producing components or products that are sold to other companies for use in their end products.
Dividend yield: A financial ratio showing how much a company pays in dividends each year relative to its share price.
TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.

WASHINGTON — Hopes for a quick end to the government shutdown faded Friday as Republicans and Democrats dug in for a prolonged fight and President Trump readied plans to unleash layoffs and cuts across the federal government.

Senators were headed back to the Capitol for another vote on government funding on the third day of the shutdown, but there has been no sign of any real progress toward ending their standoff. Democrats are demanding that Congress extend healthcare benefits, while Republicans are trying to wear them down with day after day of voting on a House-passed bill that would reopen the government temporarily, mostly at current spending levels.

“I don’t know how many times you’re going to give them a chance to vote no,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said at a news conference Friday. He added that he would give Democratic senators the weekend to think it over.

Although Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, the Senate’s filibuster rules make it necessary for the government funding legislation to gain support from at least 60 of the 100 senators. That’s given Democrats a rare opportunity to use their 47 Senate seats to hold out in exchange for policy concessions. The party has chosen to rally on the issue of healthcare, believing it could be key to their path back to power in Washington.

Their primary demand is that Congress extend tax credits that were boosted during the COVID-19 pandemic for healthcare plans offered under the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “Understand this, over the last few days and over the next few days, what you’re going to see is more than 20 million Americans experience dramatically increased healthcare premiums, co-pays and deductibles because of the Republican unwillingness to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”

The shutdown gamble

Democrats are running the high-risk strategy of effectively voting for a government shutdown to make their stand. Trump has vowed to make it as painful as possible for them.

The Republican president has called the government funding lapse an “unprecedented opportunity” to make vast cuts to federal agencies and potentially lay off federal workers, rather than the typical practice of furloughing them. White House budget director Russ Vought has already announced that he is withholding billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in states with Democratic senators.

On Friday morning, Vought said he would withhold $2.1 billion for Chicago infrastructure projects to extend its train system to the city’s South Side.

Jeffries has displayed no signs of budging under those threats.

“The cruelty that they might unleash on everyday Americans using the pretense of a shutdown is only going to backfire against them,” he said during an interview with the Associated Press and other outlets at the Capitol.

Still, the shutdown, no matter how long it lasts, could have far-reaching effects on the economy. Roughly 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and they could lose out on $400 million in daily wages. That loss in wages until after the government reopens could drive down wider demand for goods and services.

“All around the country right now, real pain is being endured by real people because the Democrats have decided to play politics,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday.

Who will take the blame?

The American public usually spreads the blame around to both major political parties when it comes to a government shutdown. While Trump took a significant portion of the blame during the last partial government shutdown in 2018 as he demanded funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, this standoff could end differently because now it is Democrats making the policy demands.

Still, lawmakers were relentlessly trying to make their case to the American public with a constant beat of news conferences, social media videos and livestreams. Congressional leaders have been especially active.

Both sides expressed confidence that the other would ultimately be found at fault. And in the House, party leaders seemed to be moving further apart rather than closer to making a deal to end the shutdown.

Jeffries on Thursday called for a permanent extension to the ACA tax credits. Meanwhile, Johnson and Thune told reporters that they would not negotiate on the tax credits until the government is reopened.

Talks in the Senate

A few senators have engaged in bipartisan talks about launching negotiations on extending the ACA tax credits for one year while the Senate votes to reopen the government for several weeks. But those discussions are in their early stages and appear to have little involvement from leadership.

As senators prepared for their last scheduled vote for the week on Friday, they appeared resigned to allow the shutdown to continue at least into next week. Thune said that if the vote failed, he would “give them the weekend to think about it” before holding more votes.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), in a floor speech, called for Republicans to work with her and fellow Democrats to find “common ground” on the ACA subsidies, saying their expiration would affect plenty of people in states with GOP senators — especially in rural areas where farmers, ranchers and small business owners purchase their own health insurance.

“Unfortunately, right now our Republican colleagues are not working with us to find a bipartisan agreement to prevent the government shutdown and address the healthcare crisis,” she said. “We know that even when they float ideas — which we surely do appreciate — in the end the president appears to make the call.”

Groves and Brown write for the Associated Press. Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

Bangkok, Thailand – Over several years in the mid-1960s, the crumbling ruins of an ancient temple in northeast Thailand were picked clean by local looters.

Possibly hundreds of centuries-old statues that were long buried beneath the soft, verdant grounds around the temple were stolen.

To this day, all the known artefacts from the pillaging spree, collectively known as the Prakhon Chai hoard, sit scattered thousands of miles away in museums and collections across the United States, Europe and Australia.

In a matter of weeks, though, the first of those statues will begin their journey home to Thailand.

The acquisitions committee of San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum recommended the release last year of four bronze statues from the hoard, which had been held in its collection since the late 1960s.

San Francisco city’s Asian Art Commission, which manages the museum, then approved the proposal on April 22, officially setting the pieces free.

Some six decades after the late British antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford is suspected of spiriting the statues out of the country, they are expected to arrive back in Thailand within a month or two.

“We are the righteous owners,” Disapong Netlomwong, senior curator for the Office of National Museums at Thailand’s Fine Arts Department, told Al Jazeera.

“It is something that our ancestors … have made, and it should be exhibited here to show the civilisation and the belief of the people,” said Disapong, who also serves on Thailand’s Committee for the Repatriation of Stolen Artefacts.

The imminent return of the statues is the latest victory in Thailand’s quest to reclaim its pilfered heritage.

Their homecoming also exemplifies the efforts of countries across the world to retrieve pieces of their own stolen history that still sit in display cases and in the vaults of some of the West’s top museums.

From Thai temples to the Acropolis in Athens

Latchford, a high-profile Asian art dealer who came to settle in Bangkok and lived there until his death in 2020 at 88 years of age, is believed to have earned a fortune from auction houses, private collectors and museums around the world who acquired his smuggled ancient artefacts from Thailand and neighbouring Cambodia.

In 2021, Latchford’s daughter, Nawapan Kriangsak, agreed to return her late father’s private collection of more than 100 artefacts, valued at more than $50m, to Cambodia.

Though never convicted during his lifetime, Latchford was charged with falsifying shipping records, wire fraud and a host of other crimes related to antiquities smuggling by a US federal grand jury in 2019.

He died the following year, before the case against him could go to trial.

In 2023 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York agreed to return 16 pieces tied to Latchford’s smuggling network to Cambodia and Thailand.

San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum has also previously returned pieces to Thailand – two intricately carved stone lintels taken from a pair of temples dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries, in 2021.

While Thailand and Cambodia have recently fared relatively well in efforts to reclaim their looted heritage from US museum collections, Greece has not had such luck with the British Museum in London.

Perhaps no case of looted antiquities has grabbed more news headlines than that of the so-called “Elgin Marbles”.

The 2,500-year-old friezes, known also as the Parthenon Marbles, were hacked off the iconic Acropolis in Athens in the early 1800s by agents of Lord Elgin, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Greece at that time.

Elgin claimed he took the marbles with the permission of the Ottomans and then sold them in 1816 to the British Museum in London, where they remain.

Greece has been demanding the return of the artefacts since the country’s declaration of independence in 1832 and sent an official request to the museum in 1983, according to the nongovernmental Hellenic Institute of Cultural Diplomacy.

“Despite all these efforts, the British government has not deviated from its positions over the years, legally considering the Parthenon marbles to belong to Britain. They have even passed laws to prevent the return of cultural artefacts,” the institute said.

‘Colonialism is still alive and well’

Tess Davis, executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, a Washington-based nonprofit campaigning against the illicit trade of ancient art and artefacts, said that “colonialism is still alive and well in parts of the art world”.

“There is a mistaken assumption by some institutions that they are better carers, owners, custodians of these cultural objects,” Davis told Al Jazeera.

But Davis, who has worked on Cambodia’s repatriation claims with US museums, says the “custodians” defence has long been debunked.

“These antiquities were cared for by [their] communities for centuries, in some cases for millennia, before there was … a market demand for them, leading to their looting and trafficking, but we still do see resistance,” she said.

Brad Gordon, a lawyer representing the Cambodian government in its ongoing repatriation of stolen artefacts, has heard museums make all sorts of claims to defend retaining pieces that should be returned to their rightful homelands.

Excuses from museums include claiming that they are not sure where pieces originated from; that contested items were acquired before laws banned their smuggling; that domestic laws block their repatriation, or that the ancient pieces deserve a more global audience than they would receive in their home country.

Still, none of those arguments should keep a stolen piece from coming home, Gordon said.

“If we believe the object is stolen and the country of origin wishes for it to come home, then the artefact should be returned,” he said.

Old attitudes have started breaking down though, and more looted artefacts are starting to find their way back to their origins.

“There’s definitely a growing trend toward doing the right thing in this area, and … I hope that more museums follow the Asian Art Museum’s example. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go,” Davis said.

Much of the progress, Davis believes, is down to growing media coverage of stolen antiquities and public awareness of the problem in the West, which has placed mounting pressure on museums to do the right thing.

In 2022, the popular US comedy show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver dedicated a whole episode to the topic. As Oliver said, if you go to Greece and visit the Acropolis you might notice “some odd details”, such as sections missing from sculptures – which are now in Britain.

“Honestly, if you are ever looking for a missing artefact, nine times out of 10 it’s in the British Museum,” Oliver quips.

Gordon also believes a generational shift in thinking is at play among those who once trafficked in the cultural heritage of other countries.

“For example, the children of many collectors, once they are aware of the facts of how the artefacts were removed from the country of origin, want their parents to return them,” he said.

Proof of the past

The four bronze statues the San Francisco museum will soon be returning to Thailand date back to the 7th and 9th centuries.

Thai archaeologist Tanongsak Hanwong said that period places them squarely in the Dvaravati civilisation, which dominated northeast Thailand, before the height of the Khmer empire that would build the towering spires of Angkor Wat in present-day Cambodia and come to conquer much of the surrounding region centuries later.

Three of the slender, mottled figures, one nearly a metre tall (3.2 feet), depict Bodhisattva – Buddhist adherents on the path to nirvana – and the other the Buddha himself in a wide, flowing robe.

Tanongsak, who brought the four pieces in the San Francisco collection to the attention of Thailand’s stolen artefacts repatriation committee in 2017, said they and the rest of the Prakhon Chai hoard are priceless proof of Thailand’s Buddhist roots at a time when much of the region was still Hindu.

“The fact that we do not have any Prakhon Chai bronzes on display anywhere [in Thailand], in the national museum or local museums whatsoever, it means we do not have any evidence of the Buddhist history of that period at all, and that’s strange,” he said.

The Fine Arts Department first wrote to San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum about the statues’ illicit provenance in 2019, but started to make progress on having them returned only when the US Department of Homeland Security got involved on Thailand’s behalf.

Robert Mintz, the museum’s chief curator, said staff could find no evidence that the statues had been trafficked in their own records.

But they were convinced they had been looted and smuggled out of Thailand – and of Latchford’s involvement – once Homeland Security provided proof, with the help of Thai researchers.

“Once that evidence was presented and they heard it, their feeling was the appropriate place for these would be back in Thailand,” Mintz said of the museum’s staff and acquisition committee.

‘Pull back the curtain’

The San Francisco Asian Art Museum went a step further when it finally resolved to return the four statues to Thailand.

It also staged a special exhibit around the pieces to highlight the very questions the experience had raised regarding the theft of antiquities.

The exhibition – Moving Objects: Learning from Local and Global Communities – ran in San Francisco from November to March.

“One of our goals was to try to indicate to the visiting public to the museum how important it is to look historically at where works of art have come from,” Mintz said.

“To pull back the curtain a bit, to say, these things do exist within American collections and now is the time to address challenges that emerge from past collecting practice,” he said.

Mintz says Homeland Security has asked the Asian Art Museum to look into the provenance of at least another 10 pieces in its collection that likely came from Thailand.

Tess Davis, of the Antiquities Coalition campaign group, said the exhibition was a very unusual, and welcome, move for a museum in the process of giving up looted artefacts.

In Thailand, Disapong and Tanongsak say the Asian Art Museum’s decision to recognise Thailand’s rightful claim to the statues could also help them start bringing the rest of the Prakhon Chai hoard home, including 14 more known pieces in other museums around the US, and at least a half-dozen scattered across Europe and Australia.

“It is indeed a good example, because once we can show the world that the Prakhon Chai bronzes were all exported from Thailand illegally, then probably, hopefully some other museums will see that all the Prakhon Chai bronzes they have must be returned to Thailand as well,” Tanongsak said.

There are several other artefacts besides the Prakhon Chai hoard that Thailand is also looking to repatriate from collections around the world, he said.

Davis said the repatriation of stolen antiquities is still being treated by too many with collections as an obstacle when it should be seen, as the Asian Art Museum has, as an opportunity.

“It’s an opportunity to educate the public,” Davis said.

“It’s an opportunity to build bridges with Southeast Asia,” she added, “and I hope other institutions follow suit.”