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Evicting Wall Street From the Housing Market Will Be Messy

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Evicting Wall Street From the Housing Market Will Be Messy

A new law aims to make Wall Street investors feel unwelcome in the market for existing homes, while at the same time urging them to build more supply. It is a tricky balancing act, and failure would push up rents.

Under the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which passed into law last week despite President Trump’s refusal to sign it, investors who already own more than 350 family homes can’t buy any more from the existing housing stock. There are a couple of exceptions, however. One is to buy homes that need so much renovation that regular buyers don’t want them. Another is when the tenant is offered a right to eventually own the house.

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SK Hynix ADR Rebounds 4.29% to $158.84 as Its Wild Post-IPO Trading Volatility Persists Into Third Week

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SK Hynix ADR Plunges Nearly 8% to $162 as Wild

Shares of SK Hynix’s American depositary receipts climbed 4.29%, or $6.53, to $158.84 Friday morning, offering a partial rebound after a rough stretch that has seen the newly listed stock swing wildly in both directions since its blockbuster Nasdaq debut earlier this month.

The bounce comes after another turbulent overnight session for the memory chipmaker’s U.S.-listed shares. The stock closed Thursday at $152.31, having fallen sharply in premarket trading by as much as 5.80% at one point, before staging a partial recovery into Friday’s session. The recent swings extend a pattern that has defined SK Hynix’s ADR since it began trading on the Nasdaq, with the stock repeatedly posting double-digit percentage moves, sometimes within the same trading week, as investors continue working out how to value the newly listed security.

SK Hynix made history on July 10 when its ADRs began trading on the Nasdaq following a $26.5 billion offering, the largest first-time share sale ever completed by a foreign company on a U.S. exchange. The ADRs opened at $170 per share, a 14% premium above their $149 offering price, before finishing their first session at $168.01. Demand for the offering reportedly exceeded available supply by more than seven to one, according to Reuters, with roughly $5 billion of the ADRs allocated to three cornerstone investors: Baillie Gifford, Coatue Management and Situational Awareness Partners.

At the opening bell ceremony held in Times Square, SK Hynix Chief Executive Kwak Noh-Jung called the moment a milestone for the company. “Today is a very proud day, and today is a truly historic day for SK Hynix,” Kwak said, adding that high-bandwidth memory, the category of chips in which SK Hynix holds the leading global market position, “stands at the heart of the AI revolution.” SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, speaking separately to CNBC, described the listing as “a dream come true.” Proceeds from the offering are expected to fund the purchase of extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment and the construction of new production facilities, according to the company’s regulatory filings.

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Since that debut, the stock’s trading pattern has been anything but steady. The ADRs fell 9.3% the following Monday as a record selloff in South Korea’s own stock market bled into U.S. trading, before staging a dramatic 27% rebound the next day. That rally pushed the ADR’s premium over SK Hynix’s Seoul-listed common shares to more than 50%, according to Bloomberg data, far above the roughly 3% gap at which the ADRs were originally priced relative to the underlying Korean shares.

The volatility continued into this past week. The stock surged 17% on July 14 to a then-record high of $178.66, driven in part by heavy demand for short-term call options and the company’s announcement that it had officially begun mass production of its 12-layer HBM4 memory chips, a next-generation product central to SK Hynix’s position in the AI hardware supply chain. That rally was followed by a steep 9% decline the next session, then Thursday’s further slide to $152.31, before Friday’s partial rebound.

Wall Street’s outlook on the stock, despite the turbulence, remains notably bullish. According to data compiled by Investing.com, the average 12-month price target among covering analysts sits at $342.50, implying potential upside of more than 120% from current trading levels, with both analysts tracking the stock issuing buy recommendations and none recommending a sell. The stock’s 52-week range spans from $151.30 to $194.80, reflecting how much of that range has already been established in just the first two weeks of trading.

SK Hynix’s underlying business fundamentals remain strong even amid the share price volatility. The company holds roughly 33% of the global DRAM market and 21% of the NAND market as of the most recent available data, positioning it as the world’s second-largest supplier in both categories. Analysts covering the stock have pointed to SK Hynix’s long runway for growth as it capitalizes on the still-early artificial intelligence boom through its high-bandwidth memory products, though some have flagged the rapid expansion of Chinese memory manufacturers as a longer-term risk that could eventually pressure industry-wide pricing and returns if capacity growth outpaces demand.

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The broader memory chip sector has experienced a similarly turbulent stretch in recent sessions. Micron Technology has fallen roughly 17% over the trailing month even as the stock traded around $851 as of Friday, while Western Digital shares dropped 7.7% in a single morning session earlier this week to reach $474.24, pressured by a combination of competitive concerns within the sector. Market commentators have described the recent pullback across memory names as a pause rather than a reversal in the broader AI-driven memory investment cycle, with one analysis characterizing the sector as “catching its breath” following an extraordinary run higher earlier in the year.

SK Hynix’s underlying Korean shares are scheduled to receive an additional listing on South Korea’s KOSPI market on July 29, a step expected to further formalize the connection between the company’s dual listings in Seoul and New York. In the meantime, the wide and fluctuating premium between the ADRs and the Korean shares has continued to draw scrutiny from analysts, who have pointed to the relatively limited float of the newly issued ADRs, combined with the launch of several leveraged exchange-traded products tied specifically to the stock, as key factors amplifying the day-to-day price swings investors have witnessed since the listing.

With earnings from the broader chip sector, including recent reports from ASML and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, continuing to shape sentiment around AI-related hardware spending, traders said they expect SK Hynix’s ADR to remain one of the most closely watched and volatile securities on the Nasdaq in the weeks ahead, as the market continues working to establish a stable trading range for one of the largest and most closely followed foreign listings in recent Wall Street history.

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United Bankshares: Time To Cash That Check (Downgrade) (NASDAQ:UBSI)

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Janus Henderson Forty Fund Q4 2025 Commentary (MUTF:JACCX)

This article was written by

Daniel is an avid and active professional investor.
He runs Crude Value Insights, a value-oriented newsletter aimed at analyzing the cash flows and assessing the value of companies in the oil and gas space. His primary focus is on finding businesses that are trading at a significant discount to their intrinsic value by employing a combination of Benjamin Graham’s investment philosophy and a contrarian approach to the market and the securities therein. Learn more.

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

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NVIDIA Shares Dip as Market Digests AI Demand Strength Amid Valuation Concerns

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Nvidia To Report Quarterly Earnings

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — NVIDIA Corp. shares fell about 1.8 percent Tuesday to around 203.74, reflecting a pause in the semiconductor giant’s recent rally as investors weighed strong artificial intelligence demand against lofty valuations and potential cyclical risks in the chip sector.

The move came amid broader market fluctuations, with NVIDIA remaining a bellwether for AI infrastructure spending. The company dominates the market for graphics processing units essential for training and running large language models and other advanced AI systems.

NVIDIA’s latest quarterly results, reported in May, highlighted continued explosive growth. Revenue for the fiscal first quarter surged more than 260 percent year-over-year to 26 billion dollars, driven by data center sales that more than tripled. Data center revenue alone reached 22.6 billion dollars, underscoring the insatiable appetite for its Hopper and Blackwell architecture chips.

Gross margins remained robust at 78.4 percent, supported by high-demand products and pricing power in the AI accelerator market. The performance reinforced NVIDIA’s position as the primary beneficiary of the global AI buildout.

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Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has repeatedly emphasized the transformative nature of accelerated computing. “We are in the midst of a computing revolution,” Huang said during recent earnings discussions, highlighting how GPU-accelerated systems are reshaping industries from automotive to healthcare.

The company’s data center segment now accounts for the vast majority of revenue, shifting NVIDIA from its gaming roots to an enterprise infrastructure powerhouse. Blackwell platform shipments are ramping up, with expectations for significant contributions in the second half of the year.

NVIDIA’s software ecosystem, including CUDA and various AI frameworks, creates strong lock-in for developers and enterprises. This moat has proven difficult for competitors to overcome despite heavy investments in alternative architectures.

Tuesday’s trading reflected profit-taking after a strong run, with the stock still up substantially year-to-date. NVIDIA’s market capitalization has soared into the trillions, making it one of the world’s most valuable companies and a key component of major indices.

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Analysts largely maintain bullish outlooks, citing multi-year AI tailwinds. Consensus revenue forecasts for the current fiscal year point to continued triple-digit growth, though at a moderating pace as comparisons become more challenging.

Potential headwinds include export restrictions on advanced chips to certain markets, supply chain constraints for advanced packaging and increased competition from custom silicon developed by hyperscalers. NVIDIA has navigated these dynamics by expanding production capacity and diversifying its customer base.

The company continues to invest heavily in research and development, with annual spending in the billions to maintain technological leadership. New architectures like Rubin are already in development, promising further performance leaps for future AI workloads.

Gaming and professional visualization segments provide diversification, though they contribute less to overall results than in previous years. Automotive and robotics initiatives represent longer-term growth avenues as autonomous systems advance.

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NVIDIA’s financial strength supports ongoing innovation and capital returns. The company pays a quarterly dividend and has conducted share repurchases, balancing growth investments with shareholder returns.

Geopolitical factors remain a focus. U.S. restrictions on shipments to China have impacted a portion of sales, though NVIDIA has adapted by developing compliant products for those markets while prioritizing unrestricted regions.

Tuesday’s dip occurred on solid volume as traders reassessed near-term momentum. Broader semiconductor sector performance was mixed, with some names facing pressure from AI spending digestion concerns.

NVIDIA’s Blackwell ramp is a key focus for the second half. Production yields and customer adoption timelines will influence whether the company meets elevated expectations for sequential growth.

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The stock trades at a premium valuation reflecting its growth profile. Forward price-to-earnings multiples remain elevated but are supported by projected earnings expansion as AI adoption accelerates across enterprises.

Industry analysts project the total addressable market for AI infrastructure to expand dramatically over the next several years. NVIDIA’s current share dominance positions it to capture a disproportionate portion of that opportunity.

Partnerships with major cloud providers and system integrators have expanded reach. NVIDIA’s DGX Cloud offerings and sovereign AI initiatives with governments further broaden its footprint.

Sustainability efforts include energy-efficient chip designs and data center optimization tools. As AI computing demands strain power grids, efficiency becomes a competitive differentiator.

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NVIDIA’s culture of innovation, led by Huang, emphasizes long-term thinking. The company has successfully pivoted multiple times, from gaming to professional graphics to deep learning and now full-stack AI solutions.

Tuesday’s trading provided little new fundamental information, with the move appearing largely technical. Attention now shifts to upcoming industry events and potential updates on Blackwell availability.

The semiconductor cycle has historically featured booms and busts, but many observers believe AI represents a structural shift with more durable demand. NVIDIA’s exposure to this trend has driven its extraordinary market performance.

Risks include potential slowdowns in hyperscaler spending, technological disruptions or intensified regulatory scrutiny. Execution on new product ramps will be critical to sustaining momentum.

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NVIDIA’s ecosystem effect, where software and hardware reinforce each other, creates barriers to entry. CUDA’s widespread adoption among developers ensures continued preference for its hardware.

As enterprises move beyond experimentation to production AI deployments, demand for high-performance computing infrastructure is expected to remain robust. NVIDIA is uniquely positioned to serve this need.

The stock’s recent volatility highlights its sensitivity to sentiment around AI investment levels. Periods of digestion often follow strong runs, creating potential entry points for long-term investors.

NVIDIA continues to shape the future of computing. Its GPUs power everything from scientific research to entertainment, with AI representing the latest frontier of exponential growth.

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Tuesday’s share price adjustment came against a backdrop of strong fundamentals. The company’s ability to deliver on guidance and innovate will determine whether current valuations prove justified.

As the AI era unfolds, NVIDIA remains at its center. Its performance will continue influencing technology sector sentiment and broader market narratives around artificial intelligence.

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Corcept Therapeutics CFO Mokari sells $3.5m in shares

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Corcept Therapeutics CFO Mokari sells $3.5m in shares

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Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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OneWater Marine Inc. (ONEW) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Fifth Third’s Second Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the conference over to Matt Curoe, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

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Matt Curoe
Senior Director of Investor Relations

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Fifth Third’s Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. This morning, our Chairman, CEO and President, Tim Spence; and CFO, Bryan Preston, will provide an overview of our second quarter results and outlook.

Please review the cautionary statements in our materials, which can be found in our earnings release and presentation. These materials contain information regarding the use of non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the GAAP results as well as forward-looking statements about Fifth Third’s performance. These statements speak only as of July 17, 2026, and Fifth Third undertakes no obligation to update them. Following prepared remarks by Tim and Bryan, we will open up the call for questions.

With that, let me turn it over to Tim.

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Timothy Spence
Chairman, CEO & President

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. At Fifth

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The Biggest Operational Risk Facing Growing Businesses Isn’t What Most CEOs Think

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Pound rallies after Donald Trump considers limits to tariffs plan

When business leaders talk about risk, the conversation usually turns to the threats that feel most dramatic. Economic uncertainty, rising costs, cyber attacks, regulation, supply chain disruption and changing customer behaviour all tend to dominate boardroom discussions.

These issues deserve attention, but they can also distract from a quieter and often more damaging risk: the possibility that a business has grown faster than its internal systems can support.

For many growing companies, the greatest operational threat is not a sudden external shock. It is the gradual widening of the gap between commercial ambition and organisational capability. A business can continue winning customers, increasing turnover and expanding its team while becoming less consistent, less coordinated and less resilient behind the scenes. By the time those weaknesses become visible, they are often already affecting performance, culture and customer experience.

This is a risk that Sanjeev Kumar Soosaipillai believes growing businesses need to take far more seriously. The companies that scale successfully are not always the ones that move fastest or hire most aggressively. More often, they are the ones that recognise when their operating model needs to evolve. They understand that a business designed for twenty people cannot simply be stretched to accommodate two hundred without consequence.

Growth Can Hide Weakness as Easily as It Reveals Success

The early stages of a business are often powered by speed, instinct and close personal oversight. Founders and senior leaders usually sit at the centre of decision-making, staying close to customers, managing key relationships, overseeing recruitment and maintaining a detailed understanding of the company’s financial position. This can be a powerful advantage because it allows the organisation to move quickly and respond to opportunities without unnecessary delay.

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The challenge begins when that same style of operation is expected to support a much larger business. As headcount increases, customers multiply and responsibilities spread across departments or sites, direct oversight becomes harder to maintain. Decisions that were once made through informal conversations now require clear processes. Knowledge that previously sat with one or two senior people must be shared across teams. Standards that once felt obvious need to be written down, communicated and managed consistently.

This is where many companies misread the situation. Strong sales figures can create the impression that the organisation is healthy, even when internal strain is increasing. Revenue may be rising while teams are becoming overstretched, managers are applying inconsistent standards and employees are relying on outdated processes. Growth can therefore mask weakness for longer than leaders expect, particularly when commercial results remain strong enough to distract from operational warning signs.

The danger is that these problems rarely announce themselves clearly. They appear as small frustrations: duplicated work, unclear accountability, missed deadlines, inconsistent customer service, poor handovers, slow decision-making or managers interpreting priorities differently. Individually, each issue may seem manageable. Collectively, they point to a business that has outgrown the way it is run.

Why More People Do Not Automatically Mean More Capability

One of the most common responses to operational pressure is recruitment. When teams are stretched, the instinctive answer is often to hire more people. In some cases, that is exactly what is needed. Yet recruitment alone cannot fix a business that lacks structure. Adding people to unclear processes can increase complexity rather than reduce it, because every new employee needs direction, context, management and a clear understanding of how their role fits into the wider organisation.

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This is an area where Sanjeev Kumar Soosaipillai takes a practical view. Businesses do not become stronger simply because they become bigger. They become stronger when growth is matched by capability. That means investing in leadership, systems, communication and accountability at the same time as investing in headcount. Without those foundations, even talented people can struggle to perform effectively because the environment around them does not allow them to succeed.

A growing company needs more than activity. It needs coordination. Employees need to know who owns which decisions, how information should flow, what standards are expected and how success is measured. Managers need to understand not only their operational responsibilities but also their role in developing people, communicating priorities and maintaining consistency. When these elements are missing, businesses often find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having more employees but no greater clarity.

This is why operational risk is so closely connected to leadership capability. As businesses grow, leadership becomes more distributed. The founder or chief executive can no longer be involved in every decision, which means managers at different levels must be equipped to lead with judgement and consistency. If those managers are promoted quickly without support, or if expectations are never clearly defined, the organisation begins to depend too heavily on individual personality rather than shared standards.

Communication Is Often the First System to Break

Communication is one of the clearest indicators of whether a business is scaling well. In a small organisation, information moves naturally. People sit close to each other, decisions are explained quickly and employees often have direct access to senior leaders. As the company expands, that informality becomes harder to sustain. Teams become more specialised, new layers of management appear and employees may no longer hear the same message at the same time.

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Poor communication rarely feels like a major strategic risk at first. It feels like a series of minor misunderstandings. One department believes a project is urgent while another has not been told it is a priority. A manager interprets a policy differently from a colleague in another team. Employees hear about changes informally before they receive any official explanation. Customers receive inconsistent answers because internal guidance has not been properly shared.

Over time, these issues become expensive. They slow execution, damage trust and create unnecessary friction between teams. They also make leadership less effective, because even the right strategy will fail if it is not understood by the people expected to deliver it. A growing business therefore needs communication to become more intentional. That does not mean flooding employees with corporate messaging. It means ensuring that priorities, responsibilities and decisions are explained clearly enough for people to act with confidence.

This is particularly important during periods of change. Expansion, restructuring, new investment, leadership changes and shifts in commercial direction all place additional pressure on communication. Employees do not need to know every confidential detail, but they do need enough clarity to understand what is changing, why it matters and what is expected of them. Without that clarity, uncertainty fills the gap.

The Role of Governance in Preventing Operational Drift

Governance is sometimes treated as a formal concern reserved for larger or more regulated organisations. That is a mistake. Good governance is not about creating bureaucracy or slowing down entrepreneurial decision-making. At its best, it provides clarity around authority, responsibility and accountability. It helps a business understand who makes decisions, how performance is monitored and how risks are escalated before they become crises.

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For growing companies, governance is especially important because operational drift can happen quietly. Decisions may be made differently across departments. Policies may exist but not be followed. Financial controls may struggle to keep pace with expansion. Performance data may be available but not properly interpreted. Without governance, leaders can find themselves relying on presumptions rather than evidence.

Sanjeev Kumar Soosaipillai has consistently approached growth as a question of organisational discipline as much as commercial ambition. Businesses need the confidence to move quickly, but speed without control can create fragility. Governance allows leaders to retain agility while ensuring that decisions are made within a framework that protects the long-term health of the organisation.

This balance matters. Too little structure creates inconsistency, while too much structure can make a business slow and defensive. The aim is not to turn an entrepreneurial company into a rigid corporate machine. The aim is to build just enough structure to ensure that growth does not depend on constant personal intervention from a small number of senior people.

Operational Strength Is Becoming a Competitive Advantage

The most resilient businesses are often those that treat operations as a source of competitive advantage rather than a back-office concern. They understand that customers notice consistency, employees notice clarity and investors notice whether growth is being managed responsibly. A company with strong internal systems can respond to opportunity more confidently because it has the infrastructure required to absorb additional demand.

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This is especially important in uncertain markets. When external conditions are difficult, businesses with weak internal structures are exposed quickly. Rising costs, changing demand or new regulation can place pressure on decision-making and reveal gaps that were previously hidden. Companies with stronger operating models are better placed to adapt because they already have clearer information, stronger accountability and more reliable processes.

The lesson for growing businesses is straightforward but often ignored. Operational risk should not only be addressed when something breaks. It should be considered early, while the company is still performing well and has the capacity to strengthen its foundations. Waiting until systems are under visible strain usually makes change harder, more expensive and more disruptive.

For Sanjeev Kumar Soosaipillai, the difference between growth and sustainable scale lies in this discipline. Growth can be achieved through demand, ambition and commercial energy, but scale requires an organisation capable of delivering consistently as complexity increases. That means investing in people, leadership, governance, communication and systems before weaknesses become impossible to ignore.

The biggest operational risk facing growing businesses is therefore not always the one that appears on a risk register. It is the presumption that yesterday’s way of working will be strong enough for tomorrow’s business. Companies that challenge that assumption early give themselves a far better chance of turning growth into lasting success.

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LARRY KUDLOW: What is JD Vance doing?

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LARRY KUDLOW: What is JD Vance doing?

Kim Strassell writing today in the Wall Street Journal argues that Vice President Vance has gone AWOL. 

The leader of the Senate could bring Congress together, but he’s hawking a book. 

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My pal Ben Domenech, writing in the Daily Wire, suggests that Mr. Vance is in desperate need of a “nineties summer”.

Right now, Mr. Domenech explains, Mr. Vance is too online. The vice president pays too much attention to social media that he appears to be blaming Israel for a peace deal with Iran that was poorly put together from the very beginning, and of course ripped to pieces by Iran

The nineties summer? Chill out with minimal screen time, maximum outdoor time, and major family time. 

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The New York Post editorial board is even more direct: Mr. Vance is wrong to blame Israel for his Iran peace deal’s failure thus far. 

And the Post warns that Mr. Vance is flirting with rank antisemitism.  

Just as baffling was Mr. Vance’s podcast with The Daily Wire where he attacked the free-market, free-enterprise, school-choice icon, Milton Friedman, then attacked the equally capitalist free enterprise iconic British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. And then later in the interview attacked the concept of meritocracy. Huh?

President Trump has done all he can to get rid of woke DEI affirmative action on steroids produced by President Obama and then President Biden, in order to restore the great American principle of merit-based achievement. And Mr. Vance is attacking that?

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Or we have all these howling far-left socialists — Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Bernie Sanders, virtually the whole Democratic Party — screaming for big-government socialism or communism in order to nationalize the economy and continue their antisemitic, hate-based policies railing against Israel and Jewish people in general. And Mr. Vance is somehow cross-ruffing to that?

I’m sure he means well and I don’t want this to sound personal because I’ve always gotten along with him. Frankly, though, I don’t understand what he’s doing and I truly believe he needs to step back a moment for a great reset of his policy priorities and his own actions.

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Debt Collectors Chase More Consumers in Court

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Debt Collectors Chase More Consumers in Court

Lawsuits filed by debt collectors over unpaid credit-card bills and other outstanding balances have surged to their highest levels in years, according to a report released Thursday by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The number of debt collection lawsuits filed in several states and metropolitan areas in 2025 outpaced prepandemic levels, continuing a trend that began a year earlier, according to the Pew report.

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Oil soars nearly 16% for the week, WTI’s best advance since start of the Iran war

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Northern business leaders ask Andy Burnham for stability to help them grow

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Former Greater Manchester Mayor set to become Prime Minister on Monday

Business leaders say Andy Burnham needs to help unlock private investment across the UK

Business leaders say Andy Burnham needs to help unlock private investment across the UK(Image: Getty Images)

Northern business leaders have welcomed Andy Burnham’s election as leader of the Labour Party and as next Prime Minister – and say they now want to see stability in Government to give businesses the confidence to invest.

Mr Burnham was confirmed as labour leader on Friday, when he pledged: “I will be a pro-business leader of the Labour party as I was a pro-business mayor of Greater Manchester.”

Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “We congratulate Andy Burnham on his election as Leader of the Labour Party and look forward to working constructively with him as he prepares to become Prime Minister next week.

“The Manchester model has demonstrated what can be achieved through long-term leadership, strong civic institutions and collaboration with universities and business. Over the Pennines, the productivity transformation of the site of the Battle of Orgreave thanks to the Advanced Manufacturing Park, termed Rotherhamism, shows the path for re-industrialisation again here drawing on private investor Harworth, the university and local councils.

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“Crucially, both those successes have also been built on creating the conditions to unlock private investment. We must now go further on funding and finance for new rail stations on Northern Powerhouse Rail to energy projects like carbon capture and Small Modular Reactors.

“The North has a central role to play in the UK’s future prosperity. By giving places the control of future tax revenues and wider investment they need to succeed, there is a real opportunity to accelerate growth, raise productivity and improve living standards – not just in the North, but across the entire country.”

Ben Booth, CEO of Manchester-headquartered contact centre technology provider MaxContact, said: “I warmly welcome Andy Burnham’s appointment to the role of Prime Minister. As a business leader based in Manchester, I’ve always felt that he is someone willing to listen to local businesses and who understands the challenges facing businesses outside of London. For too long, many of the UK’s most innovative companies have had to operate under uncertain policies which have made growth harder rather than easier.

“What we need now is stability, predictability and a long-term vision that gives companies the confidence to invest, hire and grow.”

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He added: “I’m particularly excited that we now have the prospect of a Prime Minister who understands the potential of the Northern economy. The North has all the right features in place to become a technology powerhouse, with exceptional universities, thriving business communities and an increasingly attractive investment landscape. We’re already seeing evidence of this, with venture capital and private equity firms increasingly opening offices in Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool because they recognise the opportunities here. With the right support from the government, this momentum can grow and deliver benefits for the entire UK economy.

“However, businesses need confirmation on where Mr Burnham stands across a range of major policy issues. Without that, there’s a risk of the same unpredictability that we’ve experienced in recent years. Consistent decision-making and a stable operating environment will be essential if we are to unlock long-term investment and job creation.”

Gary Jenkins, MD of Warrington-based PR and search agency No Brainer, said: “I’ll be looking for policies from the new Prime Minister that give SMEs the confidence to invest, recruit and grow. The last couple of years have been challenging enough without further increases to the cost of employing people, and the rise in employer National Insurance contributions has undoubtedly made expansion more difficult for many businesses.

“I’d like to see a clear commitment to supporting entrepreneurship, investment in digital skills and AI adoption. That’s as well as creating an environment where ambitious businesses can plan for the long term. Stability is hugely important. Most SMEs don’t expect governments to solve every problem, but they do need certainty and a tax system that encourages growth rather than making it harder to create jobs.”

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Richard Caten, CEO of planning and infrastructure consultancy Ardent, said: “Andy Burnham has shown that when local leaders are trusted with the right powers and resources, they can deliver projects that have a tangible impact on people’s lives. As he prepares to lead the country, there is an opportunity to bring that delivery-focused approach to national infrastructure policy.

“The UK doesn’t lack ambition when it comes to growth; the challenge has often been translating ambition into projects on the ground. Whether it’s housing, transport, energy or regeneration, successful delivery depends on clear planning, early collaboration and the confidence to invest for the long term.

“As the government sets out its priorities, creating the right conditions for infrastructure delivery will be essential. A planning system that provides greater certainty, alongside political stability and a consistent long-term vision for infrastructure, will help unlock development, give investors the confidence to back UK plc, attract private capital and accelerate the projects that underpin economic growth.

“The opportunity now is to build on the progress already being made across the UK’s regions and create an environment where nationally significant infrastructure projects can move from ambition to delivery more efficiently. That will be key to creating lasting economic value for communities across the country.”

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