Wix.com Ltd. shares surged Monday, climbing 9.64% to $56.37 on the Nasdaq, adding $4.96 as the battered web-development platform’s stock staged one of its sharpest single-day rallies in recent weeks ahead of its upcoming quarterly earnings report.

The gain marks a notable bounce for a stock that has been under significant pressure for much of 2026, following a disappointing first-quarter earnings report, a major corporate restructuring, and mounting legal scrutiny from securities law firms.

A Rough Year for Wix Shareholders

Monday’s rally comes against the backdrop of a brutal 12 months for Wix investors. The stock has experienced an 83.9% decline over the past five years, though some analysts suggest it may now be undervalued based on sales metrics. Even after Monday’s jump, the stock’s 52-week range extends from a low of $40.16 to a high of $190.93, reflecting just how far shares have fallen from their prior highs.

Prior to Monday’s gains, some valuation models had pegged the stock’s fair value estimate at $186.75, more than triple its recent trading price, with a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 9.7 times significantly below the company’s historical five-year median of 102.5 times.

A Disappointing Quarter Triggered the Slide

Much of Wix’s recent struggles trace back to a weak first-quarter earnings report. Wix reported first-quarter 2026 earnings per share of $0.68, missing analyst estimates of $1.00 by 32%, a sharp reversal from the $1.55 per share the company posted in the same quarter a year earlier. The stock’s decline was severe enough that investors saw the price of their shares fall $20.56, or 27%, on a single day in mid-May, wiping out more than $1.1 billion of the company’s market value.

Major Restructuring in Response

In the wake of that disappointing performance, Wix moved swiftly to overhaul its cost structure and refocus its strategy around artificial intelligence. Wix announced plans to cut about 20% of its workforce, or roughly 1,000 jobs, citing the stronger Israeli shekel against the U.S. dollar and the impact of AI on staffing needs, while reiterating its full-year 2026 revenue growth guidance.

The company’s organizational realignment, announced June 8, includes scaling down or discontinuing certain activities, initiatives, products and subsidiaries, alongside the workforce reduction communicated in late May. Wix also revised its earnings guidance for both the second quarter and full fiscal year 2026, adjusting expected revenue growth from mid-teens percentage growth to a range of low-to-mid-teens percent.

Legal Scrutiny Adds Pressure

Beyond the operational challenges, Wix has also faced a wave of securities law firm investigations in recent months. Multiple law firms, including Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP and The Portnoy Law Firm, announced investigations into Wix.com for potential securities fraud following the stock’s sharp declines earlier this year. Those investigations have added a layer of legal uncertainty to a stock already grappling with operational and competitive headwinds.

A Pivot Toward AI

Central to Wix’s turnaround strategy has been a deeper push into artificial intelligence tools for website building and development. With its acquisition of Base44, the company has moved into what’s known as vibe coding, a software development approach in which artificial intelligence generates code based on natural language instructions.

Wix has also been selected as a partner for OpenAI’s Codex Enterprise launch, offering a dedicated plugin that connects Codex-built frontends directly to Wix Headless and the company’s broader suite of business tools. That partnership builds on Wix’s earlier collaboration with Microsoft, through which the company brought its Wix Harmony AI website builder into Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Mixed Signals From Wall Street

Analyst sentiment on Wix has remained divided in recent weeks, with several firms trimming price targets even as some maintain positive ratings on the stock. Recent analyst commentary following the mixed first-quarter results has highlighted margin pressures tied to higher AI compute costs, the Base44 acquisition, and heavier marketing spend, with several firms cutting price targets even as many continue to maintain Buy or Overweight ratings.

Other firms have taken a more cautious stance. Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock to Equal Weight from Overweight, while Wells Fargo, Citi and Scotiabank have each lowered their price targets in recent weeks, reflecting broader skepticism about the pace of Wix’s recovery. Bank of America, by contrast, has maintained a Buy rating on the shares despite trimming its own price target.

Earnings on the Horizon

Investors are now looking ahead to Wix’s next quarterly report, which will offer the clearest signal yet of whether the company’s restructuring efforts are translating into improved financial performance. Wix is expected to release its next earnings report on August 4, 2026, with analysts forecasting earnings per share of $0.98 for the quarter.

That report will be closely watched for updates on how the workforce reduction and broader organizational realignment are affecting the company’s cost structure, as well as any fresh commentary on how Wix’s AI-focused product initiatives, including its OpenAI and Microsoft partnerships, are contributing to revenue growth.

For now, Monday’s rally offers a rare bright spot in what has otherwise been a difficult year for Wix shareholders. Whether the gains can be sustained will likely depend heavily on the company’s ability to demonstrate progress on its cost-cutting initiatives and AI strategy when it reports earnings in early August, particularly given the stock’s steep decline from its 52-week high and the overhang of ongoing securities litigation. Investors appeared willing Monday to look past the company’s recent struggles, at least for one trading session, as they positioned ahead of what could be a pivotal report for the web-development platform’s turnaround story.

PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG have significantly reduced their presence on London’s AIM market in the last three years

Mid-tier audit firms have capitalised on a wave of new clients as the Big Four heavyweights made a deliberate withdrawal from London’s junior market.

Three years ago, PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG audited almost half of the FTSE Alternative Investment Market (AIM) 100 index with 49 clients between them. Today, however, that market share has slumped to just 30 clients, according to a new report by Adviser Rankings.

In the FTSE AIM UK 50, the Big Four’s share of constituents has fallen from a commanding 58 per cent three years ago to 42 per cent over the second quarter of 2026.

Mid-tier firm BDO has seized high-profile mandates directly from Big Four rivals, among them oil and gas company Serica Energy PLC from EY and agricultural group Camellia PLC from Deloitte.

Freshly bolstered by private equity backing, Grant Thornton added the greatest number of new clients in the FTSE AIM 100 during Q2, rising to fifth place, and doubled its client count in the FTSE AIM UK 50 to draw level in fourth place alongside KPMG and RSM UK, as reported by City AM.

AIM specialist PKF Littlejohn extended its client lead over BDO from 12 to 21 clients, reaching 90 total AIM mandates — the firm’s highest client count in two years and the highest overall tally recorded by any auditor since January 2025.

Meanwhile, London-listed MHA audit services added two new clients to break into the total AIM top 10 for the first time, leaping from eleventh to ninth place.

Following a series of high-profile audit failures that resulted in substantial fines from the watchdog, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the Big Four have systematically stripped their client lists of higher-risk companies in a bid to safeguard reputations and prevent future regulatory penalties.

As AIM is fundamentally a junior, growth-oriented market, it presents a greater risk of failure than main market blue chips.

Also, the heightened pressure from the FRC for improved audit quality, coupled with escalating audit costs, has made audits unaffordable for many mid-cap and small-cap AIM companies. Meanwhile, the Big Four dominate the FTSE 100 audit market.

A recent report disclosed that, for the first time in almost eight years, Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC were locked in a three-way tie at the top of the FTSE 100 audit rankings.

Frank Holmes says Wales can no longer afford to think small or continue to operate with a fragmented strategy.

Capital is a restless, pragmatic force. It does not invest on sentiment, nor does it anchor itself to history.

It flows predictably towards environments where the regulatory, financial and physical frameworks make long term risk viable.

Ultimately, this reality dictates a harsh truth: a nation’s standard of living is entirely bound to its competitiveness, namely its fundamental ability to unlock domestic potential and attract global capital.

For Wales to claim its place in this global arena, we must build a cohesive economic architecture, and this demands a fundamental reorientation of Welsh economic policy.

We can no longer afford to think small, nor can we continue to operate with a fragmented strategy.

To secure a prosperous future, we must learn to think and act as an ambidextrous nation by mastering two distinct capabilities at once.

With one hand the nation must optimise, modernise and defend its industrial strengths With its other hand, Wales must boldly explore, fund and create the high-value, intellectual-property-led industries of the future.

Welsh economic policy is currently too one-handed; to avoid stagnation, we must quickly learn to use both.

This ambidextrous shift is not an academic preference; it is an urgent structural necessity. Modern economic growth is increasingly defined by a sweeping global transition away from physical capital and towards intangible assets, specifically patents, algorithms, software and brand equity.

These intangible assets operate under a different set of economic rules, where capital alone cannot solve the problem, especially when early stage small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) remain so highly vulnerable.

Globally, SMEs represent the bedrock of economic activity, yet they are significantly less productive than large, established firms. The mortality rate is brutal: approximately 20% of these enterprises close within their first year, and more than 55% fail to survive beyond their fifth.

Helping these companies scale requires a dedicated infrastructure that makes intangible assets State bankable for the very first time by introducing specific market making instruments, and removing the baseline risk that currently prevents commercial lenders and investors from financing pure ideas.

Simultaneously, we must intentionally connect these early-stage companies with venture capital accelerators providing immediate access to investor ready bootcamps, sector specific experts and seasoned entrepreneurial mentors.

Wales possesses world class universities and genuine regional depth, but their potential is currently outweighed by archaic spin out commercialsation rules, startups and scaleups missing venture grade ambition, a lack of competitive funding and a lack of realistic understanding of what global scale truly requires.

An ambidextrous nation does not allow its startup ecosystem to exist in isolation from its industrial base. Inward investment must be strategically anchored within our existing regional sectors of strength: advanced manufacturing, particularly our world class compound semiconductor cluster, the creative industries, life sciences and fintech.

Highly competitive industrial clusters rely on deep, collaborative partnerships where large market integrators directly raise the operational standards of local SME suppliers. By actively transferring knowledge, coordinating long term demand planning and building management capabilities, anchor firms help smaller partners improve efficiency and access entirely new markets.

This creates a resilient, win win economic fabric. The steady, muscle bound scale of the global anchor supports and shields the quick, agile innovation of the local SME. This integration provides the crucial fuel for scaling, effectively preventing the dangerous customer concentration and dependency that so often cripples an SME before it is strong enough to expand operationally and geographically.

To accelerate this integration, the state must step forward as an active market maker. This means co financing collective branding programmes to position regional SME clusters in global markets, and, Nordic-level integration, leveraging strategic public procurement as a primary growth driver.

Rather than deploying passive subsidies, the public sector can use its massive purchasing power to offer commercial contracts for necessary services. This establishes the critical, first customer relationships that transform pre-revenue SMEs into mature, venture backed entities.

Since high value, IP led economies rely so heavily on geographic clustering, they are uniquely fragile and often highly dependent on human capital.

liveability as two sides of the same coin.

Direct response to shifting market demands is paramount. At the same time, we must treat community liveability as a core strategic asset. High performing schools, affordable modern housing, reliable public transport and excellent healthcare are not secondary luxuries; they are the primary determinants of whether high value talent chooses to relocate and remain in Wales.

You only have to look at Ireland, which despite is enviable economic success, an acute shortage of affordable housing in the Dublin area is driving its talent overseas.

Moving beyond narrow material metrics, economic data consistently reveals that robust economic growth fosters trust in government, and shared prosperity boosts social cohesion. When liveability factors underperform, the consequences are stark: underperforming schools, crumbling public services and communities left in managed decline. To prevent this brain drain, our institutional framework must be firmly embedded in statute. This ensures a durable, stable and legally grounded environment that makes long-term capital commitment and talent retention rational across unpredictable political cycles

Finally, exploiting modern technologies and productivity multipliers, such as artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and automated manufacturing require a resilient digital and energy infrastructure whilst high value technology clusters cannot operate without a constant, energy supply to power modern data centres, automated supply chains and high-speed digital connectivity.

In our midst is the biggest natural gift, the second highest tidal range in the world capable of generating multi-Gigawatts of clean, predictable, affordable energy, whilst delivering unprecedented sovereign national wealth.

Upgrading our physical energy grid to power the digital, IP led economy is the ultimate act of national ambidexterity. To maximise the economic return on these investments, our institutions and government must execute their infrastructure strategies with absolute rigour ruthlessly removing bureaucratic barriers and guaranteeing resilience to unexpected market headwinds.

The lesson across all economic history is clear: competitiveness, innovation and long term survival are not passive occurrences. They do not happen by accident, and they cannot be sustained through wishful thinking or political rhetoric. They are the direct result of deliberate, structurally sound choices.

Ecosystems that thrive are those that systematically bridge the productivity gap between large and small enterprises, construct lean, fast moving validation vehicles to capture emerging opportunities, and back every single strategic decision with an uncompromising commitment to timely and to- budget delivery.

Economic growth is not everything for everyone, but the evidence indicates it is very close to being so. Historically, it has created remarkable progress and elevated living standards across the globe.

Our current societal challenges indicate that we do not have too much economic growth, but that we have had far too little.

By executing an ambidextrous strategy with absolute operational and flawless execution, Wales can secure its prosperity, protect its communities and command its economic future.

• Frank Holmes is partner with Gambit Corporate Finance and chairs the investment board of the Cardiff Capital Region.

Average income for islanders is 12% lower in real terms than five years previously, a survey says.

More than 2,000 people responded to the 2023/24 Household Expenditure Survey to find the average cost of living in Guernsey.

It said while gross income – before taxes and other costs are factored in – of £77,619 per year was 12% higher in nominal terms compared to 2018/19, it was lower by the same percentage point in real terms once adjusted for inflation.

The survey also showed average expenditure – £67,411 per year – in real terms for 2023/24 was 6% lower than in 2018/19, despite being 19% higher nominally.

It said once income tax, social insurance contributions and other sources of funding for expenditure such as savings or loans were taken into account, it was estimated the average money available for expenditure per household was £69,067 per year.

Oil prices tumbled sharply Monday, with the non-expiry crude contract dropping 8.21% to $82.24, as a weekend pause in hostilities between the United States and Iran raised hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough that could restore normal shipping traffic through one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints.

Oil prices tumbled more than 5% Monday after the U.S. and Iran paused strikes over the weekend following two weeks of attacks, raising hopes of a diplomatic solution that would de-escalate the conflict and allow shipping to resume in the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude futures fell $5.70, or around 5.9%, to $91.08 a barrel by early morning trading, briefly slipping under the key support level of $90 during the session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude traded at $84.51 a barrel, down $4.80, or roughly 5.4%.

Iran Signals Willingness to Hold the Pause

Oil prices fell further after Iran reportedly indicated it would suspend its own attacks as long as the U.S. pause in hostilities remains in place, easing concerns after nearly two weeks of escalating conflict in the region. International benchmark Brent crude futures for September delivery fell 7.4% to around $89.58 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures for September delivery dropped 6.8% to $83.25 a barrel.

Iran indicated it would stop carrying out attacks as long as the United States also refrains from striking, according to a senior Iranian official cited by Reuters on Sunday. The pause follows Washington’s decision to suspend its bombing campaign after President Trump’s advisers reportedly warned that the military was running low on viable targets and raised concerns about depleting U.S. munitions stockpiles.

Shipping Traffic Remains Thin Despite the Pause

Even with the de-escalation, actual maritime traffic through the region’s most critical waterway has yet to meaningfully recover. Fewer than 10 commodity vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz daily during the weekend, according to shipping data from Kpler. MST Marquee analyst Saul Kavonic said any rebound in flows through the Strait is likely to prove slow and only partial, since many shippers remain cautious and will want greater confidence in vessel safety before sending more empty ships back into the waterway.

In addition, ship traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb strait fell Sunday after Yemeni Houthi forces attacked Saudi oil installations along the Red Sea coast, though a third Chinese supertanker did manage to exit through the strait during the same period.

Analysts Remain Cautious on the Durability of the Pause

Despite Monday’s sharp price move, market analysts cautioned that a pause in fighting does not guarantee a swift return to normal oil flows from the region. One analyst noted that a stay of military strikes might look like an improvement on paper, but it comes with no guarantees that oil will soon resume flowing from the area, adding that prices are more likely to keep falling if elevated energy costs once again weigh on global demand rather than because of fragile, short-term ceasefires.

Continued Attacks Complicate the Picture

The optimism driving Monday’s selloff comes even as fighting has not fully stopped. Despite renewed prospects for peace, strikes continued in recent days, with Iranian forces firing ballistic missiles at Kuwait and sending attack drones toward the Strait of Hormuz. That continued military activity has left analysts wary of declaring the conflict fully resolved, even as headline oil prices react favorably to diplomatic signals.

A Volatile Stretch for Global Oil Markets

Monday’s decline is only the latest swing in what has been an extraordinarily volatile period for crude prices this year, as the Middle East conflict has repeatedly pushed prices sharply higher during periods of active fighting, only to see them retreat just as quickly whenever ceasefire talks gain momentum. Both Brent and WTI contracts were trading at their lowest levels in nearly a week on Monday, following three consecutive weeks of price increases driven by the escalating conflict. Brent crude had climbed as high as $100 per barrel at the peak of the conflict, as fighting disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz and spilled over into the Red Sea, hindering exports from Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, through the Bab el-Mandeb strait.

The pullback in oil prices has had ripple effects across broader financial markets, easing inflation concerns and boosting risk appetite among investors. Major U.S. stock indices advanced Monday as falling energy costs reduced pressure on interest rate expectations, with the retreat in crude prices seen as a modestly positive development for consumers and businesses that had been bracing for a prolonged period of elevated energy costs tied to the conflict.

What Comes Next

With Iran’s willingness to maintain the pause contingent on the U.S. continuing to refrain from strikes, the durability of Monday’s price relief remains uncertain. Traders and analysts will be watching closely in the coming days for signs of whether shipping volumes through the Strait of Hormuz begin to meaningfully recover, or whether the current lull in fighting proves to be only a temporary reprieve in a conflict that has repeatedly flared back up after periods of apparent calm. For now, markets appear to be pricing in cautious optimism, even as the underlying security situation in the Gulf remains far from fully resolved.

Rob Gronkowski, the card collector?

The New England Patriots legend said he has been in the “collecting game” since he was a kid and is diving back in as the hobby has surged in popularity once again.

“That’s when collecting trading cards was huge,” Gronkowski told FOX Business. “That was at its peak and then it kind of dipped a little bit, and now it’s at its super peak.”

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Rob Gronkowski #87 of the New England Patriots watches from the sidelines in a game against the Buffalo Bills at New Era Field on Oct. 30, 2016, in Buffalo, New York. (Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

“I collected baseball cards and NHL cards. Those were my two favorite hobbies to do.”

Before taking the stage at The National Sports Collectors Convention on Aug. 1, Gronkowski is teaming up with eBay Live to launch “Gronk Geeks Out.” The new series will follow the 37-year-old as he dives headfirst into the world of collecting and learns the ins and outs of the hobby.

One of Gronkowski’s friends made it a point to collect as many cards of the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight end as possible during his playing days. 

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Founders FFC tight end Rob Gronkowski during the Fanatics Flag Football Classic at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, California, on March 21, 2026. (Kirby Lee/Imagn Images)

“My buddy was a big collector throughout my career, and he was buying cards on eBay of myself,” Gronkowski said. “He did it for like 10 years straight. Then he finally told me, and he has like a hundred of my playing cards, and he said he bought them all off of eBay. He says they’re worth even more now. So he’s all pumped.”

As for Gronkowski, he said there is one player’s card that he would want to pull more than anything else. 

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New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski (87) gains yards after a catch during the first half of an AFC divisional playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on Jan. 15, 2016. (The Providence Journal/Bob Breidenbach)

“If I ever pulled like a one-of-one, or even a number like a one-of-10 Michael Jordan card, that would be absolutely legendary,” Gronkowski said. “I don’t even know if it’s possible anymore or not, but a Michael Jordan pull, a numbered Michael Jordan would be my ideal pull.”

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Shein lost $99m (£74.1m) in the first three months of the year, against net income of $395m a year earlier, the fast-fashion group said in a filing lodged ahead of its planned stock market debut in Hong Kong.

The company, which has its headquarters in Singapore but was founded in China, said the removal of a US import duty exemption on low-value packages had cut into sales.

“The removal of the US de minimis exemption has had an adverse impact on our sales in the US and the overall growth of our net revenues,” Shein said in the filing.

The de minimis exemption had allowed goods valued at $800 or less to enter the United States without paying tariffs. US consumers used it to buy low-cost goods from online sellers including Shein and Temu.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending the exemption globally, which came into effect on 29 August 2025. It broadened an earlier presidential action targeting cheap products from China and Hong Kong to cover the rest of the world. The White House said the global exemption was being used to “evade tariffs and funnel deadly synthetic opioids” to the US.

The order also raised costs for UK exporters shipping low-value goods into the American market.

Shein said it was considering how to respond to the higher charges. “In response to the increased duties and taxes, we are pursuing a wide range of options, including increasing our prices in the US market to offset a portion of the increased costs,” the company said in the filing.

Paper loss on investor shares

The first-quarter figure partly reflected a paper loss of $328m arising from an accounting change relating to special investor shares. Those shares can be converted into ordinary stock at a later date, and their value can move before a listing.

Shein also said the Iran war had hit demand, increased costs and delayed deliveries in some markets. Uncertainty remains over the US-China tariff dispute, which is currently paused.

The filing showed that in the year to the end of March 2026, Shein had 281 million active customers, a rise of more than 16 per cent on a year earlier, who placed more than one billion orders in total.

Hong Kong listing

The China Securities Regulatory Commission approved a Hong Kong share sale on 10 July, after failed attempts to list in New York and London. The listing is expected in the coming months.

The filing did not give details on the size, timetable or pricing of the initial public offering.

Shein had targeted the third quarter of 2025 for a London listing at a projected valuation of £50bn, but paused those preparations after the US tariff changes.

EU levy takes effect

Earlier in July, the European Union imposed a €3 (£2.56; $3.42) levy on low-value e-commerce imports, aimed at what the bloc has said is unfair competition from China.

The European Commission said the temporary duty applies from 1 July 2026 to parcels worth up to €150 imported from outside the EU, and is charged per tariff classification rather than per item. It runs until July 2028.

The UK has taken a slower route. The government has confirmed it will abolish the £135 de minimis customs relief, but not until 2029, citing the need for a gradual transition to avoid border disruption. Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said in June: “Every day the government delays introducing a new customs system for low-value imports is another day that harms British businesses.”

A Treasury spokesman said the reform “backs our businesses to compete and grow, controls safety and flow of goods at our border, and keeps the UK in line with our international partners”.

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.