Street

Everyone wants to invest in Nvidia. The computer chip giant now has a market cap of over $4 trillion, making it the largest company in the world. Other technology giants have been left in the dust, trailing the performance of Nvidia shares.

One underrated stock at the moment is Amazon (AMZN -3.07%). Over the last five years, Amazon’s stock is up just 57% compared to Nvidia’s 1,350% gain, with the former’s performance actually trailing the broad market indices such as the S&P 500, which is up 101%. This means this narrative may flip through 2030.

Here’s why investors are underrating Amazon as an artificial intelligence (AI) stock, and why it could be worth more than Nvidia five years from now in 2030.

An AI beneficiary, competing with Nvidia

Amazon is not thought of as a huge AI beneficiary. Or, at least, it doesn’t come to mind first when you think of AI stocks. The company’s cloud computing division — Amazon Web Services (AWS) — is growing slower than the competition from Alphabet and Microsoft. AWS revenue grew 17% year over year last quarter, while Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure both grew over 30%, gaining market share from Amazon.

However, I don’t think AWS should be thought of as an AI loser. It is the largest cloud computing partner of Anthropic, the fast-growing AI start-up. Anthropic has raised over $10 billion in funding for spending on AI workloads, a lot of which will go to AWS.

Anthropic’s revenue is growing rapidly, up from annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $1 billion to start 2025 to $5 billion in August, making it one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. For AWS, this likely means a huge boost in revenue from Anthropic, which will lead to accelerating revenue growth.

On top of a cloud computing partnership, AWS and Anthropic are working closely to build custom computer chips to compete with Nvidia. One of the largest costs to Amazon’s business is buying computer chips from Nvidia. To cut down on these costs, it is building its own line of chips called Trainium, which will be used to train and run Anthropic’s AI tools. This will not only hurt Nvidia’s sales if scaled up over the next five years, but will save on costs for AWS and lead to rising profitability.

Image source: Getty Images.

Efficiency in e-commerce

An area of Amazon’s business even more underrated when it comes to AI is e-commerce and digital media. Amazon has built up a vertically integrated e-commerce network, hosting its own delivery business, web platform, and fulfillment centers to connect buyers and sellers of online goods. Layered on top are its subscription services and advertising.

All these businesses can be helped with AI tools. For one, Amazon is utilizing AI generative content to help small businesses build advertisements to be played on Amazon’s website and its Prime Video service. Growing advertising revenue as a percentage of Amazon’s overall sales will help increase profit margins.

There are plenty of efficiency gains to be made by utilizing AI and robotics in warehouses, cutting down on the need for workers doing manual labor. Moonshot programs in self-driving could help cut down on costs for the delivery network over the long haul.

Today, Amazon’s North American retail operations (a division that houses everything except AWS) had a profit margin of just 7.5% over the last 12 months. These slim margins will start to reverse due to all the efficiencies and high-margin revenue getting layered into the e-commerce division, combined with solid revenue growth and earnings from e-commerce, which will keep soaring in the years to come.

AMZN EBIT (TTM) data by YCharts

Why Amazon can be larger than Nvidia

Looking at earnings before interest income and taxes (EBIT), Amazon and Nvidia are right around the same level. Nvidia’s EBIT is $96 billion, compared to Amazon’s $77 billion. Both figures have grown quickly over the last five years.

Nvidia won’t go bankrupt in the next five years, but its earnings growth may slow. The AI data center boom has been kind to the company’s profitability, and now competitors such as Amazon are trying to build their own chips. Pricing power may come down, and revenue could slow if the semiconductor market hits a cyclical downturn.

On the other side of the equation, Amazon’s EBIT growth will remain strong over the next five years. Revenue will keep chugging higher — especially when considering the Anthropic partnership — and consolidated profit margins will keep expanding. Amazon’s consolidated revenue was $670 billion over the last 12 months, while EBIT margin was just 11.5%. By 2030, revenue can grow to $1 trillion with a 15% EBIT margin, leading to $150 billion in consolidated earnings power for the business.

I believe that will be larger than Nvidia’s earnings in 2030, leading to Amazon surpassing Nvidia in market capitalization.

Nvidia (NVDA -2.79%) is one of the most beloved stocks on the market today. The company has a dominant lead in creating the GPUs designed specifically for artificial intelligence use cases.

Most analysts are big fans of Nvidia as both a business and as an investment. But one analyst, Jay Goldberg, has a $100 price target for Nvidia stock, the lowest on Wall Street. Whether or not you agree with him, every investor should understand why he expects the stock to fall over 40%.

3 reasons Goldberg is bearish on Nvidia stock

Nvidia is growing by leaps and bounds. Sales are up by more than 1,000% over the past five years. And given that the AI market is expected to grow by more than 30% annually for years to come, Nvidia’s double-digit growth rates should be here to stay. But shares trade at a lofty 27 times sales, and Goldberg thinks there are cracks beginning to show in Nvidia’s growth story.

His first issue is with Nvidia’s exposure to China. The ongoing trade war has disrupted the company’s ability to sell its marquee chips to the country, a country that has an AI industry growing by 50% or more per year. Nvidia reportedly struck a deal with the U.S. to resume exports, but ongoing issues with the Chinese government may allow Chinese chipmakers to catch up and secure domestic market share.

Image source: Getty Images

Goldberg is also concerned with Nvidia’s bullishness surrounding agentic technologies. While agentic services do pose a long-term growth story, Goldberg thinks that the world is still many years away from any meaningful real-world adoption of this technology.

Finally, Goldberg cautions investors that there may be a short-term limit to the skilled labor pool that can scale for AI demand as much as forecasts predict. Even Nvidia has admitted that a huge workforce retraining will be required in an AI-enabled world.

While you may not agree with Goldberg’s contrarian outlook, even Nvidia’s most bullish investors can benefit from understanding the challenges the company faces.

Sept. 23 (UPI) — The Wall Street Journal filed a motion Monday to dismiss President Donald Trump‘s $10 billion defamation lawsuit over the newspaper’s reporting on a 50th birthday letter he claims he did not write to Jeffrey Epstein more than two decades ago.

According to the filing, The Journal argued the case should be thrown out because “the article is true.”

“Epstein’s estate produced the Birthday Book, which contains the letter bearing the bawdy drawing and Trump’s signature, exactly as The Wall Street Journal reported.”

“While this case’s threat to the First Amendment is serious, the claims asserted by President Trump are meritless and should be promptly dismissed with prejudice,” the newspaper said.

Trump has denied writing the letter, saying, “This is not me,” and “This is a fake thing.” He is asking for $10 billion on two counts of defamation, which could total more than $20 billion.

The Journal’s filing asks the court to order Trump pay the defendants’ attorneys’ fees. The newspaper argues the article is not defamatory.

“Even if it had reported that President Trump personally crafted the letter — and it does not — there is nothing defamatory about a person sending a bawdy note to a friend,” according to the motion, which detailed the note that included a drawing of a naked woman.

Trump disagreed.

“The Wall Street Journal and News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social in July. “The press has to learn to be truthful and not rely on sources that probably don’t even exist.”

The Wall Street Journal’s motion to dismiss comes days after a federal judge threw out a $15 billion lawsuit, also filed by the president, against The New York Times. The judge called Trump’s allegations “superfluous.”

Last year, Trump won a $15 million settlement from ABC News in a defamation suit against the network over false statements. Trump also won a $16 million settlement from CBS News over what he called deceptively edited comments during the presidential election.

THIS is the horrifying moment a maniac brandishes an axe as he chases a man down the street in broad daylight.

Horrified neighbours can be heard yelling out at the two men as the terrifying confrontation unfolds.

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The footage was filmed in Bearwood, in the southern part of Smethwick, West Midlands.

A bald man wearing a dark gilet jacket and grey t-shirt wields the axe above his head as he confronts another man who tries to defend himself by holding his hand out and walking backwards.

Raised voices can be heard but it is unclear where they are coming from.

The dark-haired man wearing a grey tracksuit, who tries to defend himself, has his right arm stretched out in front of him as the bald man steps forward to take a swing at him with the axe.

As the man in the tracksuit steps backwards he stumbles and falls to the ground as the bald man steps forward and once again raises the axe above his head.

The bald man then stands towering over the other man who is sitting on the pavement with his arm stretched out.

Voices shout out as the bald man appears ready to attack.

Fortunately, the attacker then pauses as he appears to see sense and lowers his axe and walks away.

As he starts to walk away he then turns around pointing to the other man who is getting up off the floor and words are exchanged.

Luckily, there is no bloodshed and neither man appears to be injured.

A caption on the video says: “Man ain’t playing with the axe” while the footage was uploaded to the social media site X, formerly Twitter, on September 20.

Officers from West Midlands Police have launched an investigation into the horrifying incident and are attempting to “establish the full circumstances.”

A 39-year-old man has since been arrested on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon, section 18 wounding and possession of a bladed article.

He has now been bailed while detectives probe the incident further.

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West Midlands Police said: “We were called to Selsey Road, Bearwood just before 8.25am on Saturday (20 Sep) after reports of a man with an axe.

“A 39-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon, section 18 wounding and possession of a bladed article.

“He has been bailed pending further enquiries.

“We are still working to establish the full circumstances. Anyone with any information is asked to call 101 quoting 20/382697/25.”

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ITV’s Coronation Street aired shock scenes on Monday night which saw a villain killed off without any warning after subjecting two characters to a load of abuse

Coronation Street aired shock scenes on Monday night in which a villain was killed off without any warning. Richard Winsor, 43, has been playing homophobic church clerk Noah Hedley on the long-running serial for the past few months, and was placed at the centre of a controversial storyline.

When Theo Silverton (James Cartwright) made his debut on the programme, he was introduced as a married man who had two kids with wife Danielle (Natalie Anderson) before it was revealed that he had been put through conversion therapy earlier in life. After his wife left him once his affair with Todd Grimshaw (Gareth Pierce) was exposed, she struck up a relationship with Noah, and he has been on a campaign of hate ever since.

In the latest trip to the nation’s favourite street, viewers watched as Theo geared up for a custody hearing concerning his children Millie and Miles, with Todd and Noah sitting in on the whole thing in court as well. Throughout it all, Noah made homophobic comments , which led to an outburst from Todd. He left and waited at home, where Theo told him he had been granted a ‘shared care agreement order,’ and the pair went to the Bistro for lunch.

READ MORE: Coronation Street’s William Roache reveals two-year feud with legendary co-starREAD MORE: Coronation Street’s Todd Grimshaw left on verge of tears after vicious attack

However, Noah turned up and things between them immediately got heated as he subjected Todd and Theo to a torrent of abuse as he revealed that Danielle was set to appeal the decision.

He told them: “I’m concerned. People like you are allowed to live near kids, twisting their little minds so they end up like you.” Todd interjected with, ‘That’s enough!’ but Noah shot back: “I don’t think it, not while disgusting perverts like you are allowed to do what they want.” He labelled homosexuality as ‘a form of mental illness,’ and when Theo simply told him he ‘couldn’t get to them’ now, Noah simply said: “We’ll see…” and walked out.

A short time later, Todd and Theo had been joined in the Bistro by Todd’s adoptive daughter Summer (Harriet Bibby) and Dee Dee Bailey (Channique Sterling-Brown) to celebrate. But things took another dramatic turn when Natalie burst into the restaurant that Noah had died.

Looking for answers, she demanded: “What did you do to him? What did you do to Noah?! He’s dead! The last I heard he was coming to see you.” When asked how Noah had died, she explained through tears: “I found him in his front room, I called 999. The paramedic said he’d had a heart attack.”

Dee Dee assured Danielle that no one could make someone have a heart attack and it must have been an underlying condition. Danielle, hysterical by this point, then proclaimed: “This is all my fault. I did all this! Come on, Theo, you hate me!” but he insisted that was not the case, and they will always be connected in some form because of the children they have together.

Back at their flat, Theo had burst into tears over the shock news and admitted there was a time in his life that he ‘loved’ Noah. He explained: “He wasn’t always the bad guy. He was my friend. Maybe the best friend I’ve ever had. That’s why it was so much harder when he started to change. I loved him. I looked up to him. I thought he cared about me but maybe it was never real. Do you know what? I hate myself for saying this but I miss him. I always will.”

In recent weeks, viewers have seen Todd become a victim of control as he was forbidden from seeing former boyfriend Billy Mayhew (Daniel Brocklebank), and in disturbing scenes that aired last month, Theo grabbed hold of him and forced him to eat a kebab. The night before Noah’s death, Todd had thrown a small gathering to celebrate moving into their new flat together, but Theo took issue with the whole thing and made Todd sleep in the spare bedroom.

At the end of Monday’s episode, Theo told Todd: “I can’t do this without you. I mean it. If you ever left me…” before Todd assured him he wouldn’t. Theo warned him: “You’d better not!”

Coronation Street runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1. Episodes can also be downloaded on ITVX.

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A REAL life Coronation Street couple have shared a slew of snaps from their dreamy getaway to the posh Greek island of Santorini.

Actress Sally Carman and her co-star husband Joe Duttine appear to have had the trip of a lifetime after jetting off to the sought-after location in the Mediterranean.

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The Abi Webster actress looked glam as she uploaded a series of snaps from hers and Joe’s loved-up getaway.

Joe, who plays Tim Metcalfe, could be seen beaming alongside his proud wife in one of the couple’s shots from the getaway.

Sally simply captioned the snaps with: “Santorini sun.”

It appeared to be no expense spared as Sally shared a photo of the pool at their resort which overlooked the sea and featured a floating bed in the middle of the water.

In another candid snap, Sally looked the picture of happiness as she sipped on a cocktail through a straw as she enjoying a sunset tipple.

She wore a leopard-print headband in the picture and kept her make-up simple.

In one of the other photos, Sally could be seen laid by the front of a boat wrapped in blankets as it appeared she had taken a tumble.

Their Corrie co-star Samia Longchambon commented on the snaps: “Gorgeous every bit”

Another fan added: “Lovely photo of you Sally. Enjoy yourself.”

As fellow soap actress Sue Devaney added: “Oooooooh I want to hug you in all that there cuteness of yours!!

“Stunning stylish sexy Sal in Santorini! So beautiful xx.”

Sally and Joe began romancing one another after meeting on the set of the ITV soap opera.

They tied the knot in Salford in 2022.

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Remember when the notion of government censorship in the U.S. seemed like the plot of an Orwellian novel, or something that happened in other places, countries where masked militia kidnap people off the street and disappear them? Our 1st Amendment rights as Americans seemed to guarantee that would never happen here. The state could not take away our free speech.

It turns out we don’t need a state-sponsored crackdown to punish those who express sentiments that offend, because the private sector has stepped in to do the job. An office supply store, a news network and an airline carrier are among companies that recently fired staff who made comments about influencer Charlie Kirk’s death that were interpreted as celebratory, insensitive or blaming the conservative activist’s polarizing viewpoints for his targeted killing.

Now Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah says that she was unfairly fired over thoughts she expressed following the assassination of Kirk last week in Utah. She wrote: “The Post accused my measured Bluesky posts of being ‘unacceptable’, ‘gross misconduct’ and of endangering the physical safety of colleagues — charges without evidence, which I reject completely as false.”

“They rushed to fire me without even a conversation,” Attiah said. “This was not only a hasty overreach, but a violation of the very standards of journalistic fairness and rigor the Post claims to uphold.” She said that in her posts she exercised “restraint even as I condemned hatred and violence.”

Her comments were largely about gun violence and issues of race. Attiah mentioned Kirk directly in just one post, paraphrasing from a comment he made about Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and former Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, both of whom are Black. “’Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot’ — Charlie Kirk,” she wrote.

Attiah didn’t celebrate the death of Kirk in her posts or make light of his slaying, but she didn’t mourn him either. In the current political environment, that alone could be enough to make her employer nervous, even compared to all the other truly awful stuff out there.

Sadly, the cruel, inhumane and politicized responses that followed Kirk’s tragic killing shouldn’t surprise anyone. Social media behaved as it always does — as a repository for every good, bad and really bad impulse experience following a tragedy or crisis.

The same quotient of 20% civility, 80% ugliness enveloped X, YouTube, TikTok and the like when three months ago Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were assassinated in their home in a politically motivated attack. Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also allegedly shot by the same suspect in their home but survived.

The difference back in June? There wasn’t a mass movement to fire, cancel or silence those who minimized the tragic killings or, worse, turned them into a trolling opportunity. Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah blamed the killings on the left — “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way,” he wrote on X — and posted a picture of suspect Vance Boelter with the caption “Nightmare on Waltz Street.” It was a crass reference to Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, who was Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 presidential election. Lee (who is now publicly mourning Kirk’s death) was taking his cues from the top.

President Trump’s short condemnation of Hortman’s killing on Truth Social stated that “such horrific violence will not be tolerated.” There was no lengthy eulogy, he did not attend the funeral, and when asked the day after Hortman’s killing if he had called Walz, the president said, “I could be nice and call, but why waste time?”

In response to Kirk’s killing, Trump issued an order to lower American flags to half-staff at the White House, all public buildings, U.S. embassies and military posts. He announced he would posthumously award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And during an appearance Friday on “Fox & Friends,” he promised vengeance against the left for Kirk’s killing, though the suspect — let alone his motives — were still unknown at the time.

“I’ll tell you something that’s going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less,” Trump said. “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. They don’t want to see crime. They’re saying, ‘We don’t want these people coming in. We don’t want you burning our shopping centers. We don’t want you shooting our people in the middle of the street.’ The radicals on the left are the problem. And they’re vicious, and they’re horrible, and they’re politically savvy.”

The prospect of retribution from a thin-skinned leader leaves no mystery as to why major media outlets such as the Post, “60 Minutes” and MSNBC appear to be reshaping their newsrooms to be less critical of the current administration. The same now goes for break rooms, shop floors and office cubicles across all sectors of American working life. It’s not the Big Brother scenario envisioned in George Orwell’s cautionary tale about a totalitarian state, “1984,” but it’s a start.

Despite periods of turmoil in the stock market this year, most of the “Magnificent Seven” stocks have stayed hot. Those tech-focused megacaps have histories of generating strong earnings and free cash flows, and they’re all investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI). Many investors expect them to be the primary beneficiaries of the AI revolution, which helps explain why their market caps have all now surpassed $1 trillion.

Despite their sheer size, some Wall Street analysts still foresee their shares making big moves upward. According to certain analysts, these two Magnificent Seven stocks could rise by 31% and 19%, respectively, over the next year.

Image source: Getty Images.

Microsoft: Reaping the rewards of AI investment

There was a time when investors had questions about Microsoft‘s (MSFT -0.44%) investments in artificial intelligence. But recent quarters have largely put those doubts to rest, and Microsoft’s stock has risen about 20% so far this year. In the company’s fiscal 2025 fourth quarter (which ended June 30), Microsoft’s Azure and other cloud services division, which houses a lot of its AI offerings, generated astounding revenue growth of 39% year over year.

“Cloud and AI is the driving force of business transformation across every industry and sector,” said CEO Satya Nadella in Microsoft’s latest earnings release.

Following the earnings release, Truist Securities analyst Joel P. Fishbein Jr. issued a research report, maintaining a buy rating on Microsoft and raising his price target on the stock to $675, forecasting a gain of about 31% over the next 12 months. Fishbein thinks the tech giant will continue to see strong growth from its cloud business, as well as tailwinds in the broader AI ecosystem. “Sustained strong cloud growth at scale & growing AI demand capture can lead to at least low teens double-digit rev, profit & CF (cash flow) growth over an extended period, while consistently returning cash via divs/repurchases,” he wrote.

Microsoft has been able to monetize AI by integrating AI models from OpenAI and charging clients that use these templates. Additionally, Microsoft sells its Azure clients enterprise AI tools through Azure Foundry that allow them to build and implement AI chat, conversational AI, and AI agents, among other tools. Further growth is likely as AI begins to spread to more parts of the economy and different types of businesses across sectors.

Though it can be hard to gauge how much more room for growth a company with a more than $3 trillion market cap might have, I don’t have any issue recommending Microsoft to long-term investors. In addition to AI, the company has a tremendous slate of businesses, including its popular suite of office productivity software, its traditional cloud business, video games, and social media platforms. Plus, Microsoft is one of the only companies with a debt rating higher than the U.S. government.

Alphabet: Overcoming challenges all year

It’s been a tremendously volatile year for Alphabet (GOOG 0.14%) (GOOGL 0.03%). Toward the end of 2024, a federal judge sided with the Department of Justice in a lawsuit, agreeing that the Google parent had employed monopolistic practices to protect its domination of the search engine space, as well as in its digital advertising practices.

The Justice Department then asked U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to make Alphabet divest itself of its Google Chrome unit, a key element of the company’s search business, which drives over half of Alphabet’s revenue. But recently, Judge Mehta ruled that the company would not have to do this.

Furthermore, Mehta said Alphabet can continue to pay distributors like Apple to make Google the default search engine on their web browsers. Alphabet reportedly paid Apple over $20 billion in 2022 to make it the default engine on the Safari browser, which is installed standard on all iPhones. However, Mehta said that exclusive contracts will not be allowed and that Google would have to share some of its search data with rivals. Overall, investors considered this a positive outcome for Alphabet.

Many were also concerned earlier this year that AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT might significantly cut into Google’s search business. However, the AI Overviews results powered by Google Gemini that now top the responses to most Google search queries appear to be making progress and meeting the needs of consumers. Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney said the judge’s ruling had removed a clear overhang on the stock, which will allow investors to focus on the company’s fundamentals.

“What we see is a Core Catalyst, with Google Search revenue growth likely to remain DD% [double digit] for the foreseeable future,” Mahaney wrote in a research note. While generative AI  will undoubtedly continue to provide competition, Mahaney believes Google’s ability to innovate will keep its search engine competitive and allow the company to continue to generate solid growth. His new 12-month price target on Alphabet stock is $300, implying about 19% upside from current levels.

I largely agree with Mahaney, although I think investors should monitor competition from the likes of ChatGPT. But Alphabet also has many other strong and growing businesses, among them its cloud business, YouTube, its Waymo self-driving vehicle unit, and even its own AI chip design business. Even after its big run-up, Alphabet still trades at about 24 times forward earnings. Given that the company’s relevance is unlikely to fade any time soon, at that level, it looks like a good long-term buy.

Coronation Street boss Iain MacLeod has revealed to the Mirror that a fan favourite will be killed off in the next few months which will send ripple effects down the cobbles

A Coronation Street favourite is set for a brutal exit, the soap’s boss has teased. Speaking ahead of the ITV show’s 65th anniversary in December, Iain MacLeod hinted a big character is set for the chop as the show plans a series of huge episodes to mark the milestone.

Promising “shocking twists”, Iain said fans will be shocked with what he has in store. “The soap gods demand a sacrifice when you have an event of this kind,” Iain, executive producer for continuing drama at ITV, shared. “It’s going to be shocking. There will be lots of trauma, lots of drama, lots of twists.”

Teasing the drama will surround characters we’ve come to know and love, Iain said he’s not scared to be ruthless. “Sometimes the biggest and best exits are for characters that you care the most about.

“There’s always that equation where you think, ‘If they were to go, the viewers will really care, but what damage will it do to the landscape of the show in terms of the ability to tell stories?

“It’s a big responsibility so we do agonise about it quite a lot and argue about it. Our story conferences are fiery places at times and this period of the show is no different.”

Corrie will mark its 65th anniversary in December. There have been few details revealed about what the soap has planned to mark to momentous occasion but what we can expect is drama.

And some much-loved character will return. “There will be a few familiar faces coming back,” teased Iain. A huge episode for 2026 which will see the worlds of Corrie and Emmerdale come together in a momentous celebration of our soaps.

“All of it is feeding into this crossover episode we are doing in January,” explained Iain. “It’s going to get bigger and bigger. Things will peak in a big way.”

The show’s biggest names are set to take centre stage late this year. Corrie legends Bill Roache, Michael Le Vell and Sally Dynevor all recently signed new year-long contracts earlier this year to remain on the ITV soap and are expected to play a role in the big scenes.

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International Business Machines (IBM 1.15%), which is usually referred to by its ticker IBM, is a global icon in the technology sector. The company has a surprising ability to change with the times, and it’s been doing so for more than 100 years now. Indeed, when IBM was founded back in 1911, it made things like scales and clocks. Today, it makes all sorts of equipment, including quantum computers, and it supports the cloud computing industry, which is the backbone of artificial intelligence (AI).

Wall Street loves IBM again

Even after a fairly sizable drawdown since July, shares of IBM still trade up around 20% or so over the past year. Over the trailing three years, the stock has nearly doubled in price. That’s a pretty sizable return and highlights the fact that Wall Street is obsessed with IBM shares again. As noted, the company has shifted into key areas like quantum, cloud computing, and AI.

Image source: Getty Images.

But what’s special about IBM is that it hasn’t always been focused on these areas. Just a few years ago, investors pretty much hated the stock because it was out of step with the technology sector. The concern about IBM was so bad that between 2012 and 2020, the stock actually lost roughly half of its value. Contrarian investors with a long-term view, however, realized that IBM had updated its business many times before.

IBM is worth loving most of the time

The business revamp was difficult and took many years. It involved a large corporate spin-off, asset sales, and acquisitions, the largest of which was Red Hat. But IBM did what needed to be done to remain relevant. So while IBM is popular again because of its current business focus, the real reason to be obsessed with IBM for long-term investors is its proven ability to change with the world around it.

If you’ve been paying attention to the tech world for the past couple of years, you’ve likely noticed how unavoidable artificial intelligence (AI) is. Even if you haven’t been tuned into tech news, chances are good that you’ve come across AI in some form or fashion.

This AI hype has made many tech stocks go-tos for investors looking to capitalize on the new technology, but there have been very few stocks that Wall Street has obsessed over quite like Palantir Technologies (PLTR 4.14%). The stock is up over 120% year to date through Sept. 10, and up over 378% in the past 12 months.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why the obsession with Palantir?

The reason why Wall Street has become obsessed with Palantir is that the company has demonstrated that it’s not a one-trick pony.

For a while, Palantir was viewed as a niche data software company that served government agencies like the U.S. Department of Defense and CIA. However, the growth of its U.S. commercial business — thanks to its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) — has shown that the company can scale in the private sector and compete in the mainstream enterprise AI space.

In the second quarter, Palantir’s U.S. commercial business increased its revenue 93% year over year to $306 million. Although it didn’t earn more than Palantir’s U.S. government revenue ($426 million), it was easily its fastest-growing segment.

Should you also be obsessed with Palantir?

Palantir showing additional revenue streams is encouraging, but if you’re not currently an investor, you should proceed with caution before going all in on the stock because of its extremely high valuation. Palantir is currently trading at close to 267 times its forward earnings, which is one of the highest in history on the stock market, regardless of the company.

This doesn’t make Palantir a bad investment, but such a high valuation means that investors have priced a lot of growth into the stock, and anything short of meeting these lofty expectations could result in a sharp pullback.

Professor Kevin Waite had just finished a seminar on the run-up to the American Civil War on Friday morning when a student cautiously raised her hand.

“Can I ask about the Charlie Kirk situation?” she said in Waite’s classroom at the University of Texas at Dallas.

The student, he said, wondered whether recent events carried any echoes of the past. Hyperbolic comparisons between modern political conflict and the horrific bloodshed of past centuries have previously been the stuff of doomsday prepper threads on Reddit, but this week’s shooting made it a mainstream topic of conversation.

While cautioning that the country is nowhere near as fractured as it was when the Civil War erupted, Waite and other scholars of the period say they do increasingly see parallels.

“Our current political moment is really resonating with the 1850s,” the historian said.

He and other scholars note similarities between the deployment of troops to American cities, widespread disillusionment with the Supreme Court, and spasms of political violence — especially from disaffected young men.

“What we call polarization, they called sectionalism, and in the 1850s there was a growing sense that the sections of the country were pulling apart,” said Matthew Pinsker of Dickinson University.

Even before Kirk’s alleged assassin was publicly identified as a 22-year-old who left antifascist messages, President Trump blamed the shooting on “radical left political violence.”

Conservative influencers amplified the rhetoric, with Trump ally Laura Loomer posting on X, “More people will be murdered if the Left isn’t crushed with the power of the state.”

Violence was far more organized and widespread in the late 1850s, historians caution. Congressmen regularly pulled knives and pistols on one another. Mobs brawled in the streets over the Fugitive Slave Law. Radical abolitionist John Brown and his sons hacked five men to death with swords.

But some aspects of modern politics are worryingly similar, scholars said.

“What almost scares me more than the violence itself is the reaction to it,” Waite said. “It was paranoia, the perception that this violence was unstoppable, that really sent the nation spiraling toward Civil War in 1860 and ’61.”

Top of mind for Waite was the paramilitary political movement known as the Wide Awakes, hundreds of thousands of of torch-toting, black-capped abolitionist youths who took to the street out of frustration with their Republican representatives.

“There was this perception that antislavery Republicans hadn’t been sufficiently aggressive,” Waite said. Wide Awakes, he said, believed “that it was the slaveholders that were really pushing their agenda much more forcefully, much more violently, and antislavery [politicians] couldn’t just sit down and take it anymore.”

Most Democratic politicians of the era were fighting to expand slavery to the Western territories, extend federal power to claw back people who’d escaped it, and enshrine slaveholders rights to travel freely with those they held in bondage.

The Wide Awakes struck terror in their hearts.

“For their political opponents, it was a really scary spectacle,” Waite said. “Any time a cotton gin burned down in the South, they pointed to the Wide Awakes and other more radical antislavery Northerners and said, ‘This is arson.’”

For Waite, the Wide Awakes can be compared to an antebellum antifa, while the paramilitaries of the South were more like modern Proud Boys.

“The South was highly militarized,” he said. “Every adult white man was part of a local militia. It was like a social club, so it was easy to take these local militias and turn them into anti-abolitionist defense units.”

Still, incursions by abolitionists into the South were rare. Incursions by slave powers into the North were common, and routinely enforced by armed soldiers.

Legal scholars have already noted striking similarities between Trump’s use of the military to aid his mass deportation effort. The Trump administration has leaned on constitutional maneuvers used to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act — a divisive law that empowered slave catchers from the South to make arrests in Northern states — in legal arguments to justify the use of troops in immigration enforcement.

“I argue it was the fugitive crisis, more than the territorial crisis, that drove the coming of the Civil War,” Pinsker said. “The resistance in the North essentially made the Fugitive Slave Law dead-letter. They broke the enforcement of that law through legal, political and sometimes protest resistance.”

Many Northern states had passed “personal liberty laws” to prevent Black people from being snatched off the streets and returned to slavery in the South — a move Waite and others compare to sanctuary laws across the country today.

“The attempt to uphold these personal liberty laws and simultaneously the government’s attempts to take these Black fugitives led to violence, and to perceptions that the so-called slave-power was the aggressor,” Waite said.

By the late 1850s, Northerners were equally fed up with the Supreme Court, which under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney was seen as a rubber stamp for slaveholders’ goals.

“The Supreme Court in the 1850s was dominated by Southerners, mostly Southern Democrats, and they were pro-slavery,” said Michael J. Birkner of Gettysburg University. “I think the Dred Scott case and the court being on one side is absolutely a parallel with today.”

The Dred Scott decision, which ruled Black people ineligible for American citizenship, is widely taught in schools.

But far fewer Americans know about the Lemmon case, a New York legal battle that could have effectively legalized slavery in all 50 states had the Taney court heard it before the war broke out in 1861.

“Slaveholders were eager to get that case before Taney, because that would have nationalized slavery,” Waite said.

Despite the similarities, scholars say that there is nothing inevitable about armed conflict, and that the imperative now is to bring the political temperature down.

“Donald Trump has not been offering that message with the clarity it needs,” Pinsker said. “He says he’s a big fan of Lincoln, but now is the moment for him to remember what Lincoln stood for.”

When it comes to parallels with America’s deadliest conflict, “there’s only one lesson,” the historian said.

“We do not want another civil war,” Pinsker said. “That’s the only message that matters.”

Jonathan Howard, who plays Carl Webster on ITV’s Coronation Street, has been left horrified after his car was smashed in Manchester

Coronation Street actor Jonathan Howard has spoken out after his car was vandalised in Manchester, calling it a “welcome back gift” from local troublemakers.

Howard, 38, who plays Carl Webster on the ITV soap, returned to the UK earlier this year after a stint in Hollywood.

His homecoming, however, took a frustrating turn when he parked his car in Manchester and later discovered that the back windows had been smashed.

Thieves in the area are known for opportunistic attacks, targeting vehicles for quick thefts. Posting a picture of the damaged car, Jonathan joked: “Nice little welcome back gift from the Manchester scallies.”

Since joining the cobbles, Howard has made a big impact as Kevin and Debbie Webster’s previously unseen younger brother.

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Carl’s arrival quickly stirred drama as he seduced his brother’s wife, Abi, and turned his business ventures into a dodgy garage offering fake MOTs.

His willingness to bend the rules caused even more drama when he became involved with stolen cars, trying to raise money to pay off blackmail from Tracy Barlow, who discovered his affair with Abi.

However, Carl’s love life endevours didn’t stop there. Fans were stunned last month when it was revealed that he had embarked on a new relationship with former footballer James Bailey.

Howard explained the motivation behind his character’s bold moves as he explained: “Carl likes living life on the edge, he is a hedonist and a free spirit, he is attracted to a person regardless of their gender and if he sees something he wants he goes for it with no real thought to the consequences of his actions.

“He is frustrated that Abi has gone away with Kevin and he needs something to distract himself. There is a spark between him and James so he goes for it. Tracy was also offering herself to him but he isn’t stupid and he knows that would be a dangerous move, James on the other hand is less complicated and more fun.”

Carl’s escapades have made him one of the most unpredictable characters on Coronation Street between his romantic entanglements and his shady business dealings.

Whether he’s facing police scrutiny for stolen cars, trying to manage tension and drama with his family, or navigating affairs, his wild storylines have been keeping viewers hooked and on the edge of their seats.

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By&nbspAP with Doloresz Katanich

Published on
11/09/2025 – 8:13 GMT+2

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Klarna stock opened at $52 (€45) a share on Wednesday, a 30% premium on the company’s $40 pricing. It took roughly three-and-a-half hours for the specialists on the floor of the NYSE to manually price the first batch of trades of the company. The shares rose as high as $57 before losing some momentum and ending at $45.82, up 14.6%.

More than 34 million shares worth approximately $1.37 billion (€1.17bn) were sold to investors, making it the largest IPO this year, according to Renaissance Capital. That’s notable because 2025 has been one of the busier years for companies going public.

Founded in 2005 as a payments company, Klarna entered the US buy-now-pay-later market in 2015 in partnership with department store operator Macy’s. Since then, Klarna has expanded to hundreds of thousands of merchants and embedded itself in internet browsers and digital wallets as an alternative to credit cards. The company recently announced a partnership with Walmart.

The company is trading under the symbol “KLAR”. While Klarna was founded in Sweden and is a popular payment service in Europe, company executives said they made the decision to go public in the US as a signal that Klarna’s future growth opportunities lay with the American shopper.

“It’s the largest consumer market in the world, and it’s the biggest credit card market in the world. It’s a tremendous opportunity, from our perspective,” said CEO and co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the IPO.

Over the years and in multiple interviews, Siemiatkowski has made it clear that Klarna wants to steal away customers from the big credit card companies and sees credit cards as a high-interest, exploitative product that consumers rarely use correctly.

Klarna’s most popular product is what’s known as a “pay-in-4” plan, where a customer can split a purchase into four payments spread over six weeks. The company also offers a longer-term payment plan where it charges interest. The business model has caught on globally, particularly among consumers who are reluctant to use credit cards. The company said 111 million consumers worldwide have used Klarna.

The buy-now-pay-later market is booming

Klarna and other buy-now-pay-later companies have attracted increased public interest in recent years as the business model has caught on. State and federal regulators, as well as consumer groups, have expressed some degree of worry that consumers may overextend themselves financially on buy-now-pay-later loans just as much as they do with credit cards.

Siemiatkowski says the company is actively monitoring how consumers use their products, and the average balance of a Klarna user is less than $100 (€85.50). Because the company issues loans that are six weeks or less, Klarna argues it can more easily adjust its underwriting standards depending on economic conditions.

With Klarna going public, its co-founders are now billionaires. At Klarna’s IPO price of $40, Siemiatkowski’s 7% stake in the company is worth around $1bn (€850 million), while Victor Jacobsson, who left the company in 2012, owns an 8.4% stake in the company now worth $1.3bn (€1.11bn). Siemiatkowski said he did not sell shares as part of the IPO.

But with Klarna’s 20-year-long incubation period before going public, and several fundraising rounds, major parts of Silicon Valley are walking away with a handsome return for their patience. Sequoia Capital, the storied venture capital firm that was an early backer in the company, has accumulated a 21% ownership in Klarna worth roughly $3.15bn (€2.69bn). Silver Lake, another major VC firm, owns roughly 4.5% of the company.

Klarna reported second-quarter revenue of $823 million (€703.64mn) in August before going public and had an adjusted profit of $29m (€24.8mn). The delinquency rate on Klarna’s “pay-in-4” loans is 0.89% and on its longer-term loans for bigger purchases, the delinquency rate is 2.23%. Those figures are below the average 30-day delinquency rates on a credit card.

Klarna will now be the second-largest buy-now-pay-later company by market capitalisation behind Affirm. Shares of Affirm have surged more than 40% so far this year, putting the value of the company around $28bn (€23.94bn), helped by a belief among investors that buy-now-pay-later companies may take away market share from traditional banks and credit cards. Affirm fell slightly on Wednesday.

Klarna’s primary underwriters for the IPO were JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

Actor Raymond Cruz was held in custody for five hours on Monday after a sudsy spat with three women in his Los Angeles neighborhood.

Cruz — who portrayed the drug lord Tuco Salamanca on “Breaking Bad” — was washing his car on the street in front of his Silver Lake-area home when another car with three female occupants parked inches away from him, said Raphael Berko, his agent with Media Artists Group.

Cruz asked the women, who appeared to be in their 30s, to move their car at least a foot away so it wouldn’t get wet, according to Berko.

“The women were very rude to him and said no,” Berko said, adding that ample parking was available elsewhere on the street.

Instead, the women took out their phones and started to record Cruz, Berko said.

The actor, who also played detective Julio Sanchez in “The Closer” and its spin-off series “Major Crimes,” became uncomfortable and turned around, hose in hand, to tell them to “stop recording,” Berko said.

In doing so, Berko says some water may have inadvertently splashed on the women. But the women — one of whom was the daughter of a housekeeper on the block — said Cruz intentionally sprayed them, and they called the police to report an alleged assault.

Cruz was handcuffed by the Los Angeles Police Department and taken into custody for five hours, but Berko said he and his client expect the case will be dropped.

Berko characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, and said Cruz doesn’t have a criminal record.

The actor has a court hearing scheduled for Oct. 1, but online records do not show any charges as of Tuesday afternoon.

PRET A Manger is set to launch meal deals in a bid to take on major supermarkets, which have been offering them for years.

The high street sandwich chain’s move comes after Tesco and Sainsbury’s hiked their prices on lunchtime meal deals.

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Pret plans to trial the meal deal format in the final three months of the year.

Boss Pano Christou said the chain’s focus is on “offering great value for money” as part of its medium-term strategy to grow and return to sustainable profits.

Details on pricing and locations for the trial have yet to be revealed.

While major supermarkets have long offered meal deals – typically including a sandwich, snack and drink – Tesco recently hiked its price by 25p, blaming ongoing food inflation.

Pret’s latest accounts showed a pre-tax loss of £525.2 million for the year to January 2 – largely due to a £552.9 million write-down after a reassessment by owner JAB, which bought the chain in 2018.

This followed a £61.7 million loss the year before.

Despite the losses, Pret said its earnings before adjustments rose 36 per cent to £98 million for the year.

Meanwhile, total revenue dipped 4.2 per cent to £868.4 million compared to the previous year.

Like-for-like sales grew by 2.8 per cent, helped by an 11 per cent expansion to 717 shops as the business continued to grow internationally.

Pret said it is keen to expand further in the US, especially around city centres and travel hubs.

Christou, Pret’s CEO, said: “2024 was another year of growth for Pret, where we took disciplined decisions to protect sales, despite intense strains on the hospitality industry.

“Going forward our priority will be to drive transactions and sustainable growth by offering great value for money for Pret customers.

“Our focus will be on growing Pret’s market share in the UK and internationally, prioritising city centres and travel hubs, backed by the experience and expertise of additional world-class board members and a strengthened management team.”

Pret opened its first shop in London in 1986 and now employs 12,500 staff across over 700 locations in 21 countries.

Christou, who has been the chain’s CEO since 2019, started out as an assistant manager at a central London branch aged 22.

The minicab driver’s son, now 45, grew up in Tooting, South London – and earns over £400,000 a year.

The Luxembourg-based firm JAB Holding – which also owns Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Keurig Dr Pepper – bought Pret for £1.5 billion in 2018.

But the pandemic hit hard, with the chain posting a £343 million loss in 2020 as its key customers – office workers and commuters – stayed home.

To win them back, Pret launched cut-priced food and coffee subscription services, which helped sales jump 20 per cent in 2023.

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It’s the end of an era on Wall Street. In less than four months, Berkshire Hathaway‘s (BRK.A -1.26%) (BRK.B -1.40%) Warren Buffett will retire from the CEO role he’s held for six decades. During his 60 years at the helm, he’s overseen a roughly 6,140,000% cumulative gain in his company’s Class A shares (BRK.A), which compares quite favorably to the roughly 43,300% total return, including dividends, delivered by the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.32%) over the same timeline.

The Oracle of Omaha’s outperformance has made him the most-followed money manager on Wall Street, with some investors riding his coattails to substantial long-term gains.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. Image source: The Motley Fool.

But the other factor — aside from market-crushing returns — investors have come to appreciate about Buffett is his willingness to share his thoughts and the company traits he looks for when taking stakes in wonderful businesses. Whether it’s Berkshire’s annual shareholder letter or the company’s yearly meeting, Buffett is no stranger to offering up nuggets of wisdom.

While books have been written about Warren Buffett’s investment ideals, four ominous words from Berkshire’s latest shareholder letter perfectly encapsulate why he’s such a phenomenal investor, and explain why his recent investment activity sends a clear warning to Wall Street.

Warren Buffett sends a $344 billion warning to Wall Street using just four words

Investors are likely aware of some of the Oracle of Omaha’s core principles. For example, Buffett prefers to buy stakes in companies with sustainable competitive advantages, strong management teams, and hearty capital return programs. He also looks at investments as multiyear or multidecade commitments, with eight stocks in Berkshire’s portfolio currently considered “indefinite” holdings.

But possibly the best investment advice Buffett has ever offered, which perfectly encapsulates the promise and peril of the stock market, was penned in Berkshire Hathaway’s latest annual shareholder letter. While discussing where his company has money allocated, Buffett proclaimed, “Often, nothing looks compelling.”

At his core, Berkshire’s billionaire boss is an unwavering value investor. Though there are some unwritten “Buffett rules” that sometimes get broken, such as investing for the short-term via an arbitrage opportunity, Berkshire’s head honcho isn’t willing to buy a stock if its valuation doesn’t make sense.

Warren Buffett Indicator hits 215%, the most expensive stock market valuation in history 👀 pic.twitter.com/kjnbGN67be

— Barchart (@Barchart) August 29, 2025

At the moment, stock valuations are historically expensive. Keeping in mind that valuation is subjective, the affably dubbed “Buffett Indicator” recently hit an all-time high. This valuation measure adds up the cumulative market cap of all public companies in the U.S. and divides this figure by U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).

The market cap-to-GDP ratio, which has averaged closer to 85% of U.S. GDP when back-tested to 1970, surpassed 214% in late August. In other words, finding value has been exceedingly difficult for Buffett and his team.

Beginning in October 2022, the Oracle of Omaha began selling more stock than he was purchasing. This net-selling activity has been ongoing for 11 consecutive quarters (Oct. 1, 2022 – June 30, 2025), totaling $177.4 billion in net stock sales. All the while, Berkshire Hathaway’s cash pile, which includes cash, cash equivalents, and U.S. Treasuries, has ballooned to a near-record $344.1 billion.

Despite sitting on $344 billion in capital, Buffett prefers to be a net-seller of stocks, and isn’t even buying shares of his own company any longer. It’s as direct a warning as Wall Street will get from Berkshire’s billionaire chief.

Image source: Getty Images.

Patience pays off handsomely in the stock market

Though Buffett’s ominous advice – “often, nothing looks compelling” — perfectly explains why he’s been more of a seller than a buyer amid a historically pricey stock market, it also provides a backdrop of how Berkshire’s boss has been able to deliver outsized returns spanning six decades.

Fundamentally, Warren Buffett is well aware that the U.S. economy and stock market have both expanded over the long run. Even though recessions and stock market corrections are normal and inevitable aspects of respective economic and stock market cycles, optimism prevails over long periods. This means being patient and waiting for price dislocations to become apparent is a winning and time-tested strategy — in case the nearly 6,140,000% aggregate return for Berkshire’s Class A shares didn’t give it away.

In August 2011, shortly after the worst of the financial crisis, the Oracle of Omaha engineered a $5 billion stake in Bank of America (BAC -1.29%) preferred stock. While Bank of America wasn’t desperate for cash, it wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to shore up its balance sheet amid ongoing litigation and a still-uncertain loan portfolio.

When Buffett initially made this investment, Bank of America’s common stock was trading at a 62% discount to its book value. But in the summer of 2017, Berkshire exercised its warrants to purchase 700 million shares of BofA stock at $7.14 per share. This August 2011 price dislocation instantly netted Berkshire a $12 billion (unrealized) profit, which has since grown even larger.

Berkshire’s billionaire CEO recognized a price dislocation with Apple (AAPL -0.16%), as well, in early 2016. The maker of the beloved iPhone was trading at just 10 to 15 times forward-year earnings nine years ago, which is an inexpensive valuation for a company that had been consistently growing by high single digits to low double digits annually. Apple stock has jumped approximately tenfold since Buffett first entered the position, with artificial intelligence euphoria and the company’s rapidly growing services segment doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Although it can be frustrating waiting for Warren Buffett and his top advisors to deploy Berkshire Hathaway’s treasure chest, being patient has paid off handsomely for decades. When price dislocations do become apparent in the future, Buffett or his successor Greg Abel will be ready to pounce.

Investors in search of stocks that can produce dramatic gains in a short time frame will want to turn their heads toward the healthcare sector. A handful of stocks in the space more than doubled in price recently.

Shares of Precigen (PGEN -4.61%) and Mineralys Therapeutics (MLYS 4.86%) have already risen more than 100% since the end of July. Despite the recent run-ups, Wall Street experts who follow these stocks believe they could soar even further.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Precigen

From the end of July through Friday, Sept. 5, shares of Precigen shot 155% higher. The market cheered because the drugmaker earned approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its first treatment. Papzimeos is a cell-based immunotherapy for the treatment of recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP), a rare disease that results in tumors lining the respiratory tract.

Papzimeos is the first and only treatment approved by the FDA to treat an estimated 27,000 patients with RRP. The agency granted the drug full approval instead of waiting for a confirmatory study. In the single-arm trial supporting its application, 18 out of 35 patients responded well enough to avoid tumor removal surgery for at least 12 months after treatment with Papzimeos.

The agency and analysts following Precigen were encouraged by the fact that 15 out of the initial 18 responders remained surgery-free 24 months after treatment with Papzimeos. In response, Swayampakula Ramakanth from HC Wainwright reiterated a buy rating and an $8.50 price target that implies a 95% gain in the year ahead.

2. Mineralys Therapeutics

Shares of Mineralys Therapeutics rose 146% from the end of July through Sept. 5. Investors were excited about a successful new funding round to support continued development of lorundrostat, its lead candidate. On Sept. 2, Mineralys suspended an at-the-money equity offering and, within a couple of days, completed a secondary offering that ended up raising $287.5 million.

In August, investors hardly noticed a presentation of phase 3 trial results regarding lorundrostat. Patients who added the aldosterone inhibitor to the medications they were already taking reduced their systolic pressure by 16.9 millimeters of mercury after six weeks on treatment, compared to just 7.9 millimeters of mercury for patients who received a placebo.

Mineralys’ stock shot higher after AstraZeneca reported arguably inferior 12-week data for an aldosterone inhibitor it’s developing called baxdrostat. At week 12, it reduced patients’ systolic pressure by 15.7 millimeters of mercury, compared to 5.8 millimeters of mercury for the placebo group.

Less than a week ahead of Mineralys’ successful secondary stock offering, Bank of America analyst Greg Harrison boosted his target for the stock to $43 per share. The raised target implies a gain of about 24% from recent prices.

Time to buy?

Before you get too excited about Mineralys and its hypertension candidate, it’s important to realize the pre-commercial-stage business finished June with $325 million in cash, or enough to last into 2027. Diluting shareholder value to raise additional capital that could now push the stock price higher means the company isn’t super confident that it can quickly submit an application and earn approval for its lead candidate before the beginning of 2027.

MLYS Shares Outstanding data by YCharts.

At recent prices, Mineralys sports a huge $2.7 billion market cap that could shrink significantly if it looks like timing will become an issue that allows AstraZeneca’s candidate to gain and maintain a large share of the market for new hypertension drugs. It’s probably best to wait and see whether this company can earn approval for lorundrostat in a timely manner before adding the stock to your portfolio.

With a market cap of $1.3 billion at recent prices, expectations for Precigen are lower than they probably should be. Papzimeos is already approved and will launch unchallenged in its niche market.

Papzimeos’ addressable patient population is small, but a list price north of $200,000 per year per patient means it could rack up more than $1 billion in annual sales at its peak. Since drugmaker stocks generally trade at mid- to high-single-digit multiples of total sales, adding some shares to a diversified portfolio now looks like a smart move.

HIGH streets across the UK are facing more closures as major retailers shut their doors today. 

 Poundland, Game, and The Original Factory Shop are among the chains cutting back on stores, leaving shoppers with fewer options. 

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These closures are part of wider restructuring plans as businesses adapt to changing shopping habits and financial pressures.

Here are all the stores shutting on your local high street today.

Game

Game is closing its Metrocentre store in Gateshead today (September 7).

The closure is part of changes by its owner, Frasers Group.

The company is reducing the number of stores as more shopping moves online and into concessions.

The chain has around 240 stores across the UK. Another store in the Galleries Shopping Centre, Bristol, will close on September 25.

However, a Game concession inside the Sports Direct store in the same shopping centre will stay open.

Both closing stores are holding big sales to clear stock.

Shoppers can get discounts of up to 20%.

Poundland

Poundland’s Pontypool store is set to close today (September 7), followed by the closure of its Irvine branch on 14th September.

Recently, discount chain avoided going into administration by getting creditors to agree to restructuring plans, which included closing stores and cutting jobs.

Poundland’s restructuring will see the chain close a total of 68 stores.

The restructure also includes rent cuts at up to 180 stores and the closure of its frozen food and online shopping.

Meanwhile, the Darton frozen food distribution centre will shut later this year.

This will mean online shopping and frozen food will no longer be offered by Poundland.

The Bilston national distribution centre is also set to close in early 2026.

Come September 16, shoppers will no longer be able to buy products online and its loyalty scheme, Poundland Perks, will be axed.

Customers who have signed up to the Poundland Perks app have until January 15, 2026, to use their reward vouchers.

But Poundland plans to expand its £1 product range and focus on womenswear and seasonal items if the restructure goes ahead.

Original Factory Shop

The Original Factory Shop has been closing stores across the UK as part of a major restructuring plan.

Branches in Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, Normanton, West Yorkshire, and Kirkham, Lancashire, are among those that have already shut their doors.

Next in line are the Chard store, which closed today (September 7) and the Market Drayton branch, set to shut on September 20.

The Original Factory Shop was bought by Modella Capital, a private equity firm, in February.

Modella is known for taking on struggling retailers and has also recently bought Hobbycraft and WHSmith’s high street shops.

The firm quickly launched a restructuring effort to renegotiate rents at 88 The Original Factory Shop stores.

At the end of April, Modella drew up plans to initiate a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) for the retailer.

Companies often use CVAs to avoid insolvency, which could otherwise force stores to close or trigger the collapse of the entire business.

They allow firms to explore different options, such as negotiating reduced rents with landlords.

But The Original Factory Shop previously told The Press and Journal that a “number of loss-making stores would have to close” in the restructuring.

What else is happening on the high street?

Bodycare, which begun as a market stall in Lancashire back in the 1970s and has 147 UK stores, appointed administrators from Interpath Advisory on Friday.

Exactly 32 stores closed with immediate effect, with around 450 employees made redundant.

Currently, 115 stores remain open and are trading as usual while administrators explore options for the future of the business.

However, if a buyer cannot be found, further store closures may occur.

Like many of its peers, Bodycare has felt the burn of risings cost coupled with shoppers having less money to spend at the till.

Recently, River Island avoided going into administration by getting creditors to agree to restructuring plans, which included closing stores and cutting jobs.

River Island will close up to 33 stores in January to help write off the fashion brand’s debts.

Locations in major UK cities including Edinburgh, Leeds, Oxford, Brighton and Perth are all expected to close.

Meanwhile, fashion retailer New Look has closed a dozen sites in the UK this year and also exited Ireland.

Last month, Claire’s also collapsed into administration and stopped online orders for its customers.

Plus, H&M-owned fashion chain Monki closed the last of its high street stores in August.