Shares of DICK’S Sporting Goods plunged as much as 27.58%, or $49.46, to $129.87 as of 11:41 a.m. EDT Tuesday, marking one of the sporting goods retailer’s worst trading sessions in years after the company missed second-quarter earnings estimates and slashed its full-year profit outlook, driven primarily by deepening weakness at its recently acquired Foot Locker business.

DICK’S reported second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $3.53, missing the analyst consensus of $3.78 by 25 cents, according to Investing.com. Revenue for the quarter reached $5.59 billion, falling short of the $5.65 billion analysts had projected, even as sales climbed 53.2% year over year, a gain driven primarily by the inclusion of the recently acquired Foot Locker business. On a GAAP basis, actual earnings came in slightly lower still, at $3.50 per share, down 26% from the same period a year earlier, according to The Motley Fool.

The results told two starkly different stories depending on which part of the business investors examined. According to BigGo Finance, the core DICK’S banner continued performing strongly, with comparable sales growth of 4.9%, building on a 5% gain in the same quarter last year, a result management said represented roughly 200 basis points of market share gains relative to the broader industry. The newly acquired Foot Locker business, by contrast, posted a proforma comparable sales decline of 3.6%, a result that badly missed leadership’s own expectations and dragged down the company’s overall results.

In response to that Foot Locker weakness, DICK’S slashed its full-year adjusted earnings guidance to a range of $11.00 to $12.00 per share, down sharply from its previous forecast of $13.50 to $14.50, representing an 18% cut at the midpoint, according to BigGo Finance. The company also lowered its annual sales outlook to a range of $21.9 billion to $22.2 billion, down from a prior forecast of $22.1 billion to $22.4 billion, according to Reuters coverage cited by the Lufkin Daily News. Perhaps most strikingly, DICK’S now expects its Foot Locker segment to post an operating loss of $80 million to $40 million for the year, a dramatic reversal from its earlier forecast of $110 million to $150 million in profit from that same business, according to BigGo Finance.

Executive Chairman Ed Stack offered a direct explanation for what drove the sudden deterioration, pointing to an increasingly promotional environment across the athletic footwear and apparel industry. “What changed is a number of brands got very promotional on their sites, and those promotions spilled into the broader marketplace,” Stack told analysts, according to BigGo Finance. Stack was similarly candid regarding the specific performance shortfall within Foot Locker’s product launches during the quarter. “Not only were there fewer launches in the second quarter, but those launches performed below both industry and our expectations,” Stack said, according to the Lufkin Daily News, adding that the company is now taking a more cautious view of the remainder of the year.

That cautious tone marked a notable reversal from the company’s messaging just months earlier. According to the Lufkin Daily News, DICK’S had struck an upbeat tone as recently as May, when it raised its annual guidance target and pointed to encouraging early “proof points” suggesting Foot Locker’s comparable sales could return to growth. Reuters reported that consumers have grown more selective about discretionary purchases, showing greater interest in fresher launches within categories such as wellness and health compared with legacy brand names, as household budgets face pressure from elevated gas and food costs.

Telsey Advisory Group analyst Cristina Fernandez characterized the scale of the guidance cut as a genuine surprise given the broader industry backdrop. “While several athletic brands had pointed softness in the US wholesale market during 2Q26, Dick’s large cut to its 2026 guidance came as a surprise and showed the sensitivity of the Foot Locker business to trends in the footwear market,” Fernandez wrote in a note following the results, according to Investing.com. She added that while the core DICK’S business remains more resilient and diversified, it too is beginning to show signs of pressure. “While the Dick’s business is more resilient and diversified, it also appears the company is seeing some pressure and needing to drive promotions, affecting its profitability in 2H26,” Fernandez wrote.

Company executives suggested the current weakness may prove temporary rather than reflecting a deeper structural shift in consumer preferences, according to BigGo Finance, citing strong performance from newer product launches including Nike Mind, Adidas women’s lines, UGG and Birkenstock. Management specifically flagged the EMEA region as facing more significant challenges than the U.S. market, characterized by a cautious consumer base and heavy promotional activity. DICK’S maintained its core comparable sales guidance of 2.5% to 4% growth for that segment specifically, though the company no longer expects the same degree of margin expansion it had previously anticipated, with the third quarter now expected to represent the most difficult stretch of the year.

As part of its response to the challenging footwear market conditions, DICK’S disclosed plans to close as many as 110 Foot Locker stores during fiscal 2026, according to TS2.Tech. The company also confirmed it received $59 million in tariff refunds under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a portion of which it has used to help fund increased promotional activity, according to the Lufkin Daily News.

Tuesday’s decline compounds an already difficult year for DICK’S shares. According to Blockonomi, the stock had already fallen 9.4% year-to-date prior to Tuesday’s session, lagging the broader S&P 500’s performance in 2026. TS2.Tech noted that heading into Tuesday’s release, Wall Street sentiment toward the stock remained largely favorable, with 13 of 17 covering analysts rating the shares a buy, four rating them a hold, and none recommending a sell, though those ratings and price targets all predate the earnings release and subsequent guidance cut, meaning they are likely to be revised in the coming days as analysts digest the scale of the shortfall.

The stock’s decline also weighed on related names within the athletic retail sector Tuesday, with Nike and Academy Sports and Outdoors shares both trading lower in sympathy, according to Seeking Alpha, reflecting broader investor concern that the promotional pressures DICK’S described could be affecting the wider athletic footwear and apparel industry rather than representing an isolated, company-specific issue tied narrowly to the Foot Locker integration.

Shares of AbCellera Biologics surged 14.85%, or $1.58, to $12.19 as of 11:48 a.m. EDT Tuesday, touching a fresh 52-week high and extending a remarkable rally that has now added roughly 233% to the stock’s value over the past six months, driven by continued investor enthusiasm surrounding the company’s experimental menopause drug and a wave of bullish analyst price target increases.

Tuesday’s gains build on a monthslong surge that began Aug. 10, when AbCellera announced positive Phase 2 clinical trial results for ABCL635, its experimental non-hormonal antibody targeting the neurokinin 3 receptor, developed as a potential treatment for moderate-to-severe hot flashes associated with menopause. According to Investing.com, the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial enrolled 92 postmenopausal women and demonstrated an 83% mean reduction in hot flash frequency at week four, with a placebo-adjusted difference of 8.8 fewer daily events compared with 3.5 events in the placebo group.

That trial data sent AbCellera shares surging as much as 41% on Aug. 10, according to Bloomberg, giving the Vancouver-based biotechnology company a market value of nearly $3 billion at the time. AbCellera Chief Executive Carl Hansen expressed extraordinary confidence in the drug’s commercial potential during a conference call with investors following the results. “We believe ABCL635 has potential to be a blockbuster product,” Hansen told investors, according to Bloomberg. He described the strength of the trial data as exceeding even his own most optimistic expectations heading into the results. “The efficacy data is beyond even the most aggressive upside scenario we had dared to consider,” Hansen said.

The rally has continued building in the weeks since that initial announcement. According to Trefis, AbCellera shares moved higher for six consecutive trading days in mid-August, delivering a cumulative gain of 85% over that stretch and adding approximately $1.5 billion to the company’s market value, which stood at roughly $3.4 billion at the time, with the stock reaching a then-new 52-week high of $10.97. Trefis noted that the stock had returned 130% over the trailing three months and 156.9% over the trailing 12 months as of that point.

Tuesday’s continued advance pushed the stock to an even higher 52-week peak. According to Investing.com, AbCellera shares hit a fresh 52-week high of $12.15, reflecting a one-year change of 172.54%, a six-month surge of 232.6%, and a year-to-date gain of 210.23%. Despite that extraordinary run, Investing.com’s analysis cautioned that its InvestingPro platform currently assesses the stock as overvalued relative to its calculated fair value, placing it among companies flagged on the platform’s most overvalued list, while separately noting that the stock’s relative strength index suggests it remains in technically overbought territory, and that analysts do not currently anticipate the company reaching profitability this year.

Wall Street analysts have continued raising their price targets on AbCellera following the strong trial results. According to StockAnalysis, JonesResearch analyst Debanjana Chatterjee raised the firm’s price target on AbCellera to $25 from $13 while maintaining a buy rating on the shares. That increase followed earlier target hikes from other firms; according to StocksToTrade, both Stifel and Cantor Fitzgerald raised their price targets on AbCellera to $9 and $12, respectively, in the immediate aftermath of the Aug. 10 trial results, while maintaining bullish ratings on the stock at that time, targets that have since been surpassed by the stock’s continued rally.

Beyond the ABCL635 trial results, AbCellera has also benefited from a series of business development deals that have provided the company with non-dilutive cash while validating its broader antibody discovery platform. According to StocksToTrade, AbCellera secured a collaboration with Vertex Pharmaceuticals to research, develop, manufacture and commercialize multispecific T-cell engagers for autoimmune diseases and other conditions, bringing AbCellera $28 million in upfront payments plus potential future milestone and royalty payments, with Vertex funding the associated research and development work through Phase 1 while retaining commercialization rights. StocksToTrade noted that combined upfront cash from that Vertex agreement and a separate T-cell engager collaboration with Jazz Pharmaceuticals exceeded $100 million, helping offset a second-quarter earnings and revenue miss the company reported around the same time.

AbCellera’s underlying financial profile shows a company still generating significant losses even as its revenue grows rapidly. According to StockAnalysis, AbCellera’s 2025 revenue reached $75.13 million, an increase of 160.56% compared with the prior year’s $28.83 million, while the company’s losses totaled $146.41 million, a modest 10.10% improvement from 2024. AbCellera published its second-quarter 2026 earnings results Aug. 5, and followed with additional business updates through Aug. 10, the date of the pivotal ABCL635 trial announcement.

To help fund its continued clinical development work, AbCellera also completed a capital raise during this period of stock market strength. According to Stocktwits, the company announced pricing of an oversubscribed $200 million public offering of common shares and pre-funded warrants, taking advantage of the elevated stock price and strong investor demand generated by the positive trial results to shore up its balance sheet.

AbCellera’s broader identity has evolved significantly in recent months from a company primarily known for antibody discovery services toward what StocksToTrade described as “an AI-enabled antibody pipeline story,” reflecting the company’s growing emphasis on advancing its own proprietary drug candidates, including ABCL635, rather than functioning solely as a discovery and development partner for other pharmaceutical companies. That shift appears to be resonating strongly with investors, given the stock’s dramatic outperformance relative to the broader biotechnology sector over the trailing 12 months.

With AbCellera shares now trading at a fresh 52-week high and Wall Street price targets having been revised sharply upward following the ABCL635 Phase 2 results, investors are likely to continue closely watching the company’s next steps toward advancing the drug through later-stage clinical trials, given the substantial commercial opportunity management has outlined for a treatment addressing the significant unmet need among postmenopausal women experiencing moderate-to-severe hot flashes, a condition affecting a large proportion of women globally with limited existing non-hormonal treatment options currently available on the market.

Ask most HR leaders what makes a job offer competitive, and salary will still top the list. Ask employees the same question, and the answer looks increasingly different. New research indicates that flexibility, autonomy and wellbeing now carry more weight than pay when people decide where to work.

Agility EOR set out to answer that question properly, surveying 78,150 remote workers across the globe for its latest Work Life Statistics Report. The results don’t leave much room for employers still betting on salary alone to win the war for talent.

What the Research Found

Three figures stand out from the research carried out by Agility EOR, each pointing in the same direction. Just over half of respondents, 53%, say flexible scheduling has improved their work-life balance. A third, 33.1%, report that working remotely has actually boosted their productivity rather than dented it. And nearly one in five, 19.6%, say flexibility is the single most valuable form of support an employer can provide, ranking it above financial extras.

The pattern isn’t unique to Agility’s dataset either. The CIPD has separately reported that more than a million UK workers have walked away from jobs in recent years over the lack of flexible working. Businesses losing staff this way aren’t facing a recruitment problem so much as a retention one, and the fix looks the same either way.

Standard Benefits Aren’t Enough Anymore

A standard employee benefits package used to mean private healthcare, a company car allowance, and annual leave set at the statutory minimum. None of that has disappeared, but it’s stopped being the thing that wins an offer. Candidates are now looking beyond it, weighing up whether a role genuinely supports caring responsibilities, protects mental health, and gives them real control over how their day is structured.

Let’s look at how traditional packages weigh up against 2026 benefits:

Salary Is No Longer the Final Word

One of the more unexpected findings is how many candidates are now willing to accept a lower salary if it means greater flexibility, autonomy, and control over their time. This represents a meaningful change in how people approach the classic pay-versus-conditions trade-off.

Chief HR Officer at Agility EOR, Scott Winter, explains: “Increasingly, we’re seeing candidates treat benefits as core compensation, not extras. Flexibility is now a dealbreaker. Employers relying on outdated benefit structures risk losing strong candidates, even when the salary is competitive. However, the future is more adaptable packages, not necessarily a bigger package.”

Rethinking the Employer’s Approach

For organisations still designing their benefits strategy around a fixed list of perks, this research points to a need for a rethink. It’s not about spending more, but about prioritising the kind of flexibility that actually changes how people experience their working lives.

That could mean rethinking core hours, expanding remote and hybrid options, formalising support for carers, or simply giving staff more say over how their leave is structured. The common thread is control: employees want a genuine say in how their working life fits around everything else going on, from school runs to caring for elderly relatives to simply protecting time for rest.

None of this means salary has become irrelevant. Pay still matters, and employers who fall well below market rate will always struggle to compete. But the evidence suggests that, once salary is broadly competitive, it stops being the deciding factor, and flexibility takes over as the thing that actually tips a decision one way or another.

Employers who treat this as a strategic priority, rather than a line in a job advert, are best placed to attract and keep talent in a market where flexibility, not salary, is increasingly the deciding factor. As a global Employer of Record in the UK and beyond, Agility EOR works with businesses to build exactly this kind of adaptable, benefits-led approach into their hiring from day one.

Walk into any independent convenience store in Britain this year and the shelf behind the till tells a story about where the nicotine market is heading.

The vape displays that dominated 2022 and 2023 have ceded space to small round cans, and the cans doing the briskest trade are not the mild ones. They are the extreme-strength products — led conspicuously by Pablo nicotine pouches, the red-and-white brand that has become shorthand for the top end of the strength scale.

The numbers behind that shelf reshuffle are striking. Research published in The Lancet Public Health by UCL in December 2025 found that adult nicotine pouch use in Great Britain rose from 0.1 per cent to 1 per cent between 2020 and 2025 — roughly 522,000 users — with growth concentrated overwhelmingly among men under 25, of whom one in thirteen now uses pouches. Grand View Research valued the UK pouch market at $247.6 million in 2024, forecasting 7.6 per cent compound annual growth to 2030, and the major specialist platforms reported sales volumes up around 60 per cent in 2025 alone. Within that expanding category, retailers consistently report the same pattern: the strong end grows fastest. Search behaviour bears it out — “strongest nicotine pouches” is now one of the category’s most-queried phrases in the UK, and brand searches for Pablo outstrip almost every rival.

For a product that most British adults had never heard of five years ago, that is a remarkable trajectory. It is also a commercially unusual one, because in most consumer categories the mainstream mid-market grows first and the extreme niche follows. In nicotine pouches, the arms race started early — and understanding why explains a great deal about who the customer actually is.

What “strong” actually means — and why the labels mislead

The first thing any retailer entering this category learns is that strength labelling is close to anarchic. Some brands state nicotine per pouch; others state milligrams per gram of pouch material; some print a number with no unit at all. Because a typical pouch weighs 0.5 to 0.8 grams, the difference matters enormously. A can labelled “50” that means 50mg/g contains roughly 30mg per pouch — still formidable, but 40 per cent less than the label implies at a glance.

Mapped onto a per-pouch basis, the UK market splits into three tiers:

For context, a cigarette delivers roughly 1–2mg of absorbed nicotine. A single extreme-tier pouch therefore carries a nicotine payload many times that of any product the mainstream tobacco industry sells over a British counter — one reason the big multinationals (Philip Morris with ZYN, BAT with VELO, JTI with Nordic Spirit) have largely stayed out of the extreme tier, leaving it to independent European manufacturers. Strength is not the whole story — pH, moisture and pouch format all affect how fast nicotine absorbs — but per-pouch milligrams remain the number the market trades on.

That corporate caution created a vacuum. One company filled it more decisively than anyone else.

The Pablo case study: owning a segment the majors wouldn’t touch

Pablo is made by NGP Empire, the Danish manufacturer behind Killa, and its rise is a textbook example of category positioning. While the multinationals fought over the 6–11mg mainstream with heavyweight marketing budgets, NGP Empire planted its flag at 30mg/g and simply stayed there. The brand’s flagship Exclusive line — around 30mg per pouch — became the default answer to the question “what’s the strongest thing you sell?”, and in retail, owning the superlative is worth more than owning a segment.

Notably, many consumers still search for the brand as “Pablo snus”, a hangover from the Scandinavian products that inspired the format. Technically the term is wrong — genuine snus contains tobacco and cannot legally be sold in the UK, whereas Pablo’s pouches are tobacco-free and legal — but the persistence of the search term shows how completely the brand has absorbed the identity of the category’s strong end.

What began as a single ultra-strong product is now a tiered portfolio of more than 25 flavours. Pablo Exclusive sits at the top at roughly 30mg per pouch; Pablo Gold occupies the 17mg “strong but survivable” bracket; Pablo Silver, at around 10mg, gives the brand an on-ramp for users who want the name without the knockout. That laddering is commercially shrewd: the extreme product generates the reputation, the mid-strength lines generate the repeat volume, and the brand captures customers at every stage of tolerance. It is the same architecture premium spirits brands use — a headline-grabbing cask-strength release above an accessible core range — applied to nicotine.

The result is a brand that, by search volume, out-pulls names with a hundred times its marketing spend. In the UK, monthly searches for Pablo’s brand terms comfortably exceed those for most established vape brands — demand that flows almost entirely through independent and online retail, since the extreme tier rarely appears in supermarket ranging reviews.

Who is buying — and the economics underneath

The demographic data points one way: the UCL study found 72 per cent of pouch users are men and nearly half are under 25. But the commercially significant cohort is switchers. ONS figures show UK adult smoking at 10.6 per cent in 2024 — the lowest since records began — while vaping overtook smoking for the first time. Both populations are migrating, and heavy smokers and high-strength vapers arrive with tolerances that a 6mg pouch simply does not register against. A 20-a-day smoker or a user of 20mg/ml disposable vapes who tries a mainstream pouch and feels nothing concludes the category doesn’t work; the extreme tier exists substantially to stop that first impression from killing the switch.

Then there is the arithmetic, which retailers underestimate at their peril. A can of 20 extreme-strength pouches typically retails between £5 and £7 and carries several hundred milligrams of nicotine; a packet of 20 cigarettes now averages around £16 and is consumed in a day by the heaviest users. On a pence-per-milligram basis, strong pouches are among the cheapest nicotine legally available in Britain — and heavy users, the segment with the least elastic demand, are precisely the ones who do that maths. For retailers, the strength segment combines high purchase frequency, strong brand loyalty (strength-seekers rarely trade back down) and healthy margins relative to cigarettes, where duty swallows most of the ticket price.

It needs saying plainly, because responsible retailers say it themselves: nicotine is addictive, these are adult products, and a 30mg pouch is genuinely unsuitable for anyone who is not already a heavy nicotine user — the “nic-sick” experience of a novice trying Pablo Exclusive is unpleasant enough to be a category-wide reputational risk.

The regulatory clock is ticking — and structured retail will benefit

Until this year, nicotine pouches occupied a genuine legal grey zone. Containing no tobacco, they fell outside tobacco and vaping law entirely and were governed by the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 — meaning, extraordinarily, no statutory minimum age of sale, a gap ASH campaigned to close. The Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, which received Royal Assent on 29 April, ends that: from 29 October 2026 selling pouches to under-18s becomes illegal, and the Act hands ministers powers to regulate flavours, packaging, point-of-sale display and — most significantly for this segment — nicotine limits.

That last power is the one the strength segment watches. Several EU states have imposed per-pouch caps (the Netherlands and Belgium have banned pouches outright), and if the UK were to follow with a cap near the mainstream tier, the extreme segment would be legislated out of existence overnight. Nothing currently before Parliament proposes that, and the government’s stated focus is youth access and marketing rather than adult strength choice — but no one building a business on 30mg pouches should assume the ceiling is permanent.

In the meantime, the compliance burden is quietly reshaping distribution. Age verification, batch traceability and informed staff favour established nicotine pouches UK specialists over the grey-market importers and social-media sellers who currently account for a worrying share of extreme-strength volume — Trading Standards has already warned publicly about unregulated pouches reaching children. Consolidation toward compliant specialist retail, online and off, is the likeliest structural outcome of the Act, and arguably a healthy one for a category that needs legitimacy more than it needs another distribution channel.

The strength arms race, in other words, is entering its regulated phase. The demand is demonstrably real, the leading brands are entrenched, and the winners from here will be the businesses that treat an extreme product with appropriate seriousness.

FAQ

What is the strongest nicotine pouch in the UK?

Among widely distributed brands, Pablo Exclusive is the benchmark at roughly 30mg of nicotine per pouch (labelled 50mg/g). A handful of niche imports such as Cuba Black claim higher figures, but their labelling is inconsistent and availability through compliant UK retailers is patchy. In practical terms, 30mg per pouch is the ceiling of the mainstream UK market.

How strong is Pablo snus, and is it actually snus?

Pablo is not snus — it contains no tobacco, which is why it can be legally sold in the UK while genuine snus cannot. The flagship Pablo Exclusive line delivers around 30mg per pouch, Pablo Gold about 17mg, and Pablo Silver about 10mg. All are made by NGP Empire, the manufacturer also behind Killa.

Are extreme-strength nicotine pouches legal in the UK?

Yes. There is currently no UK cap on pouch nicotine content. From 29 October 2026, under the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, sales to under-18s become illegal, and the government holds new powers to regulate strengths, flavours and packaging — so the rules governing the strongest products are likely to tighten over time.

Some Blink Security customers reported difficulty accessing their smart home camera systems Monday, according to outage-tracking service Downdetector, though independent status monitors offered mixed signals on whether the disruption represented a confirmed, widespread outage or a more limited connectivity issue.

Downdetector posted on its official account on the social platform X that “user reports indicate problems with Blink Security since 11:34 AM EDT,” tagging the post with the hashtag #BlinkSecurityDown and directing affected users to its outage-tracking page for further updates. The post had drawn more than 1,600 views within roughly 20 minutes of being published.

Blink Security, a wireless smart home camera and video doorbell brand owned by Amazon since the company’s 2017 acquisition, relies heavily on cloud connectivity and its companion smartphone app to allow customers to view live camera feeds, receive motion alerts and control connected devices remotely. Because the system’s core functionality depends on that server-side connection rather than purely local device operation, any disruption to Blink’s backend infrastructure can leave customers effectively locked out of monitoring their own home security cameras.

Independent status-tracking services offered a somewhat inconsistent picture of Blink’s operational status around the time of Monday’s reported issues. According to Downscanner, Blink Security’s status was listed as operational, with the tracker noting that “some users have reported problems, but a major outage is not confirmed.” The service’s most recent status change was recorded weeks earlier, suggesting no confirmed platform-wide disruption had been logged immediately prior to Monday’s spike in Downdetector reports.

User complaints compiled by a separate outage-tracking service, IsDownUs, painted a more frustrated picture of the kinds of connectivity problems Blink customers have periodically experienced. One user wrote, “No server connection. Notification should be sent to customers when there is a large scale outage like this!” Another described a more persistent technical problem affecting multiple devices simultaneously. “I have two blink modules that went down almost the same time. My network is good. Have tried changing networks. It keeps saying it can not connect, password is most likely wrong, but its not wrong,” the user wrote. A separate commenter simply confirmed the scope of a prior disruption, writing, “Yes it’s down all around the country!”

Monday’s reported issues follow a pattern of previous confirmed outages affecting Blink’s smart home ecosystem. According to a report from TechBuzz covering an earlier nationwide disruption, Amazon’s Blink security camera app went down across the country, leaving users locked out of their home security systems and displaying cryptic 503 and 403 server error codes. That earlier outage began around 4:54 p.m. Eastern time, prompting hundreds of frustrated posts across Reddit and Amazon’s own support forums, with affected customers reporting identical access problems from states including California, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas and Washington.

TechBuzz’s coverage of that prior incident highlighted a structural vulnerability inherent to Blink’s product design. Unlike traditional home security systems that include dedicated physical monitors or local storage options, Blink’s entire value proposition centers on smartphone-based access, meaning that when the app or its underlying servers go down, customers lose their primary, and in many cases only, interface for monitoring their home security investment. That earlier outage also affected Blink’s integration with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant platform, according to the report, meaning affected users could not even fall back on voice commands to check their camera feeds while the core app remained inaccessible.

Blink maintains an official status page hosted through Statuspage.io specifically for tracking service uptime and incidents, though it is worth noting that Blink Wallet, a separate cryptocurrency service formerly known as Bitcoin Beach Wallet, maintains its own similarly named status page, a naming overlap that can occasionally cause confusion for users searching for information about the home security brand’s operational status specifically.

Given the discrepancy between Downdetector’s spike in user reports and the more measured “operational” status shown by other independent monitoring services, Monday’s disruption may reflect a more limited or regionally concentrated connectivity issue rather than a confirmed, full-scale nationwide outage comparable to the earlier 503-error incident. Users experiencing difficulty connecting to their Blink cameras or sync modules are generally advised to attempt standard troubleshooting steps before assuming a broader service-wide outage is underway, including refreshing the app or restarting it completely, verifying a stable internet connection, clearing app data or cache, testing on an alternative device, and checking Blink’s official status page directly for any confirmed, company-acknowledged service disruptions.

Blink’s smart home product lineup has grown to include a range of battery-powered outdoor and indoor cameras, video doorbells and companion Sync Module hardware that connects individual cameras to a customer’s home Wi-Fi network and, in turn, to Blink’s cloud servers. That architecture, while enabling the wireless, long-battery-life design that has made Blink a popular budget-friendly entry point into home security compared with more expensive competing systems, also means the product’s core functionality remains entirely dependent on consistent connectivity between individual devices, a customer’s home network, and Amazon’s broader cloud infrastructure supporting the Blink service.

As of this report, Amazon and Blink had not issued a public statement specifically addressing Monday’s reported connectivity problems beyond what independent outage-tracking services had documented through user-submitted reports. Given the product’s history of periodic, sometimes significant service disruptions, affected customers are likely to continue monitoring both Downdetector and Blink’s official channels for updates as the company works to confirm and, if necessary, resolve whatever underlying issue prompted Monday’s wave of user complaints regarding access to their home security cameras.

Only 37.2% of stocks in the Nifty Smallcap 250 have outperformed the benchmark in 2026, the lowest proportion in eight years, even as the index delivered the strongest return among large, mid and smallcap benchmarks, according to a YES Securities report.

The divergence suggests that headline returns are being driven by a shrinking pool of winners rather than broad participation. While 24% of smallcap stocks have gained more than 25% this year, most constituents have failed to beat the index, raising the execution risk for investors chasing the segment’s recent performance.

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The picture is almost the reverse in largecaps. About 65% of Nifty 100 constituents are outperforming their benchmark, the highest level in eight years and sharply above 46.5% in 2025. That breadth improvement has emerged despite the Nifty 100 underperforming the broader market, indicating that largecap weakness is concentrated in a relatively small group of stocks.
Across the NSE 500, market participation has improved materially. About 54.9% of constituents are beating the Nifty 500, up from 36.4% last year and the second-highest reading in eight years. But the rewards from picking outperformers are diminishing: median alpha generated by winning NSE 500 stocks has slipped to 18.3% from 19.1% in 2025 and remains well below the 37.5% peak recorded in 2021.

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Also Read | Small, microcaps offer better alpha opportunities; midcaps look expensive: Equitree CIO Pawan Bharaddia
The market is, therefore, becoming broader but less rewarding at the individual-stock level, turning the next phase of the rally into a more demanding stock-picker’s market.“Investors almost always chase recent returns,” said Shridatta Bhandwaldar, chief investment officer-equities at Canara Robeco AMC. “Small and mid-caps have sizably outperformed large caps over the last 3 years and thus those categories have been receiving larger flows.”

That pattern remains visible in mutual fund allocations. Smallcap funds received net inflows of ₹7,770 crore in July, the highest among equity-oriented categories, while midcap funds attracted ₹6,190 crore. In contrast, largecap funds recorded net outflows of ₹1,320 crore.

Bhandwaldar said investors should not overlook the margin of safety available in largecaps, though their performance would require an improvement in earnings momentum.

“The challenge is that a few large cap sectors like large banks, IT, FMCG, O&G have lacked earnings acceleration over the last few quarters,” he said. “That needs to change.”

Also Read |India Inc’s blockbuster Q1 earnings may not last as 3 key tailwinds fade in H2

Earnings provide support

The smallcap rally is not entirely disconnected from fundamentals. Smallcap companies covered by Motilal Oswal delivered 31% year-on-year earnings growth in the June quarter, comfortably ahead of its 22% estimate. About 75% of the smallcap coverage universe met or exceeded expectations.

Financials and oil and gas led the earnings performance, while NBFC lenders, private banks, NBFC non-lenders and chemicals also contributed. Together, these sectors accounted for about 69% of the incremental year-on-year increase in smallcap earnings.

The forward earnings differential also remains in favour of smaller companies. FY27 profit growth is estimated at about 16% for the Nifty 100, 20% for midcaps and 34% for smallcaps, according to Venugopal Manghat, chief investment officer-equity at HSBC Mutual Fund.

“This provides room for mid and smallcaps to catch up with earnings,” Manghat said. “However, given that smallcaps continue to trade at a premium, selectivity remains critical, with a focus on balance sheet strength, cash flow visibility and sustainable returns.”

Manghat said the valuation gap alone does not justify a decisive move toward largecaps, particularly as key largecap sectors such as information technology and consumer staples may continue to face weak earnings growth. Manufacturing-led opportunities, meanwhile, are more heavily represented among mid and smallcap companies.

“Our preference remains a diversified approach across market caps, driven by stock-level opportunities rather than a binary large-cap versus mid-/small-cap call,” he said.

The valuation fault line

Elevated valuations complicate the investment case despite stronger earnings. Mid and smallcap stocks were the primary drivers of market performance in the first half of 2026, supported by retail and domestic institutional flows, resilient economic growth and improving earnings expectations. Manufacturing, capital expenditure, defence, infrastructure and consumption-linked companies were among the key beneficiaries.

But the sharp appreciation has reduced the margin for error, particularly where valuations already assume sustained high growth.

Pawan Bharaddia, co-founder and CIO at Equitree Capital Advisors, said dispersion within market cap segments is now greater than the differences between them, making broad allocation calls less useful.

“The broad midcap segment is where we would currently exercise the most valuation discipline,” he said. “Median valuations remain high, median PEG ratios in our work remain above 2, and nearly seven out of ten companies in our analysed midcap universe were trading above 30x trailing earnings.”

Bharaddia continues to see mispricing opportunities among select small and microcap companies, particularly in the ₹1,000 crore to ₹5,000 crore market-cap bracket. But that does not mean the overall segment is inexpensive.

“We are not looking for inexpensive companies because they are small,” he said. “We are looking for businesses capable of compounding earnings at 20% plus, with strong balance sheets, capable management, improving competitive positions and sensible valuations.”

Midcap breadth has remained relatively stable, with 42.9% of Nifty Midcap 150 stocks outperforming the benchmark, broadly in line with the five-year average. However, median alpha in the segment has dropped sharply to 15.5% from 21.8% in 2025.

The proportion of stocks delivering gains above 25% has also declined to 15% among largecaps and 16% among midcaps, from 24% in both categories last year. Returns are increasingly clustering around moderate gains and declines, further shrinking the universe of outsized winners.

Hemant Kanawala, senior executive vice president and head of equity at Kotak Life Insurance, said largecaps offer valuation comfort, particularly in banks and IT, while mid and smallcaps remain a source of alpha because of their exposure to faster-growing sectors.

“We favour financials, hold quality compounders across the cap curve, and prefer mid and small cap selectively for an alpha kicker,” Kanawala said. “A durable leadership shift ultimately needs earnings to sustain it.”

The smallcap rally may not be a trap in its entirety. Earnings growth remains strong and a meaningful subset of companies continues to deliver outsized gains. But with participation at an eight-year low, premium valuations and widening dispersion, buying the benchmark’s recent success indiscriminately carries growing risk.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Club wants to ‘enhance the stadium’s potential as a multi-use venue’

More concerts and live events could become a permanent fixture at Everton’s waterfront stadium after the club made a bid to Liverpool Council. The Toffees’ second season got underway at Hill Dickinson Stadium on Saturday after the historic move from Goodison Park in 2025.

Alongside its inaugural set of Premier League fixtures, the Bramley-Moore Dock ground has already hosted two rugby events and an England Women’s international match. There are also plans in place for festive occasions such as Oktoberfest and Christmas markets later this year.

Now the club have asked the city council for permission to expand the terms it currently has to hold non-sporting events on Regent Road. This could double to eight from the four originally granted back in 2021.

The Blues have asked Liverpool Council to vary the conditions of its planning permission granted five years ago during the initial construction of the stadium. This allowed the club to stage four non-sporting events, such as concerts, to take place at full capacity within the stadium in any calendar year.

Should this change be agreed, Hill Dickinson Stadium would be given the go-ahead to host up to eight concerts. Of those no more than two may continue up until 11.30pm with all music concerts finishing by 11pm.

In a planning statement submitted to the city council, CBRE Limited – on behalf of Everton – explained why they were seeking to make the change. It said: “While maintaining its principle role as a football stadium, the proposed amendment seeks to enhance the stadium’s potential as a multi-use venue.

“This will support wider regional aims to increase the live music offer in the city region, and in turn boost the tourism and visitor economy.” According to the document, the existing conditions are “restricting” Hill Dickinson Stadium “despite the interest from events promoters”.

The planning agents added: “It provides the opportunity for Liverpool to capitalise on its status as a designated UNESCO City of Music, by allowing a greater number of live music events to be held in the city, which in turn will increase tourism in Liverpool.” The application comes as Everton have outlined how the club will continue to develop the site around Hill Dickinson Stadium.

This includes bringing the grade II listed hydraulic tower back into use. Andrew Middleton, the club’s president of business operations, told the BBC’s Giulia Bould how work was underway to transform it into a sports bar for matchdays and beyond.

The Western Terrace steps will also be made accessible to fans on non-matchdays. Mr Middleton said the move to hold more concerts and non-football events would not hold the club back in terms of making further improvements.

While work is in progress to secure the first artists to play at Hill Dickinson, no dates or acts have been confirmed for the stadium at this stage. Liverpool Council is yet to announce if and when the planning application will go before committee members for a decision.

Keeping a team happy when you’re running a small or medium sized business isn’t always easy. It’s hard to match the salaries that larger companies can offer and in a smaller organisation employees sometimes face more intense pressures.

To keep people on side it’s essential to find other differentiators – which often comes down to making sure that employees are treated well and offering practical perks that show they’re appreciated.

Improving employees’ experience of business travel may not always have been a director’s first thought when it comes to staff wellbeing, but it turns out that it matters a lot. Research from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) found that 83% of business travellers in Europe say their business travel experience affects their job satisfaction. This figure rises to 88% among millennials – suggesting that for younger generations of employees, a smoother experience has become an expectation.

Travel is an inevitable and important part of growing an SME, whether it’s travelling to meet vendors and suppliers in person, attending industry events or bringing a remote-working team together. Unlike larger organisations, however, many SMEs do not have dedicated travel managers or large finance teams to handle the admin of booking transport, filing receipts, reconciling payments and monitoring policy compliance.

See it from the traveller’s point of view

The reality is that employees in smaller organisations are often responsible for their own trip logistics, including the purchase of tickets and booking of hotels and meals. When it comes to taxis they will almost always be expected to pay for this out of their own pocket and recover the cost from their employer. It’s an extra layer of admin that most people could do without – and frequently means delays before reimbursement.

Employees want flexibility and convenience. If they do have to book transport themselves they want it to be simple – and ideally charged directly to their employer. A large credit card bill that has been spent on your employer’s behalf is not motivational – nor is the knowledge that time has been spent managing travel admin instead of getting on with the job.

Another aspect of travel that can be discouraging for employees is finding something to eat. When you’re travelling, you’re tired enough already without having to find food too. An employee may be working irregular hours, arriving at accommodation late at night or travelling between different meetings during the day. If as an employer you’re able to take away this stress, it will make a difference to how they feel during a trip.

Better travel management – better for the business

While keeping team members happy is a top priority, as a business owner, it’s also important that you maintain visibility and control. This includes knowing how much employees are spending when travelling and whether staff are following travel policy. If you’ve agreed prices with one supplier you want to avoid your team going rogue and booking rides with someone else. Safety is also a concern. While you don’t want to track your employees’ every move, the company has a duty of care towards them so it helps if you are able to know where they are.

Another consideration is whether you’re capturing and using data from travel. Clear and consistent data can be beneficial to businesses for all sorts of reasons. Gathering data on spend, for example,can help you to manage costs and improve budget planning.

Making it easier to travel and eat

So what does a good business travel experience look like?

Clear policies on travel, meals and expenses help, so employees know where they stand when booking a ride or ordering a meal while away. If you can remove the need for staff to pay up front and automate expense capture and reconciliation, this takes away those admin-heavy tasks. And when people are travelling to unfamiliar locations, being able to track their location gives you extra reassurance that they are safe and well.

Digital tools are now making it far easier for companies to provide a better travel experience and enabling them to spend more time running their business, rather than focusing on paperwork. These tools are quick to set up, are either free or low-cost, and can easily integrate with existing systems, without a complicated integration process or the need for upfront investment.

With a centralised platform, for instance, you can set controls on journeys, capture data about trips and spend, and automate the expense process. Meanwhile apps which people are familiar with in their personal lives can also be used to conveniently book travel during a work trip.

Business travel shouldn’t be a burden. Managed well, it can help SMEs grow and strengthen client relationships. It can also leave employees feeling productive, energised and more satisfied in their roles.

Andrew Laughlan

Andrew Laughlan at Uber for Business

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