| Unsubscribe |
There’s a number policymakers are watching right now – but you won’t hear it on CNBC.
Behind closed doors… this number is everything: 4.4%.
That’s where the 10-year Treasury yield starts to break the system.
Every time yields approach that level…
- Military action pauses…
- Ceasefire deadlines get extended...
- And suddenly, we hear about “productive talks”
This is not diplomacy. It’s damage control.
Once yields push higher…
The cost of servicing $39 trillion in U.S. debt starts to spiral.
At 5%, it becomes mathematically unsustainable.
My name is Garrett Goggin.
Porter Stansberry recently called me: “THE most knowledgeable gold investor in the world today.”
I don’t take that lightly.
Here’s the problem:
The forces pushing yields higher aren’t going away.
- Foreign buyers are stepping back from buying US paper...
- Oil is beginning to settle outside the dollar…
- Demand for Treasuries is weakening at the margins…
The 4.4% line will eventually break – and when it does…
There’s only one response available…
The Federal Reserve steps in. Aggressively.
Which means printing.
That’s when the shift happens.
Because once markets realize the Fed is funding the system…
Confidence in the currency becomes the only pillar holding up the system.
When confidence cracks… gold moves. Not all at once, but gradually, relentlessly and then… suddenly.
Go here now to see the top four gold miners positioned for what comes next.
Here’s what most investors will get wrong:
Gold is already pricing this move in. So, if you missed gold’s move past $4,800 and beyond, it’s too late to buy it at today’s prices. But you have NOT missed out.
Because certain miners are still valued as if gold were under $2,000…
That gap is where the real opportunity sits today.
Go here to see the four best miners positioned for the coming breakdown of the US dollar.
To your wealth,
Garrett Goggin, CFA, CMT
Lead Analyst and Founder, Golden Portfolio
P.S. 4.4% is the line holding the system together — and it won’t hold forever. When it breaks, gold moves fast. Go here to see my top four miners leveraged to that move.
Delta vs. United: Which Airline Is Better Built for Higher Fuel Costs?
Author: Chris Markoch. First Published: 7/18/2026.
Key Points
- Delta Air Lines and United Airlines both absorbed sharply higher jet fuel costs this quarter, but Delta's earnings and margins held up better than United's.
- Delta's Monroe Energy refinery and hedging gains provided more structural fuel-cost protection than United's liquidity-based approach of raising cash reserves.
- Both airlines successfully raised ticket prices to offset fuel inflation, with Delta achieving comparable unit-revenue growth while expanding capacity far less than United.
- Special Report: Everyone wanted SpaceX. Smart money wants this.
Airline stocks’ sensitivity to jet fuel prices is tested whenever fuel spikes. In 2026, fuel costs are putting every airline's balance sheet to the test. This quarter, both Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) and United Airlines (NYSE: UAL) passed that test on paper. But they did so in very different ways—and that difference matters more than the headline numbers.
Delta's adjusted fuel price rose to $3.93 a gallon, up 75% year over year. United's was worse: $4.19 a gallon, up nearly 80%. Neither number is small. United took a significant year-over-year hit to adjusted earnings per share (EPS) and now expects almost $6 billion in incremental fuel expense for full-year 2026, up from its original budget.
ALERT: Drop these 5 stocks before the market opens tomorrow! (Ad)
The Wall Street Journal is already raising the alarm about a potential market crash, and Weiss Ratings research points to the first half of 2026 as a particularly rough stretch for certain holdings.
Some of America's most popular stocks could take serious damage as a radical market shift plays out. Analysts at Weiss Ratings have identified five names you may want to remove from your portfolio before this unfolds.
If any of these are in your portfolio, now is the time to review your positions.
See the 5 stocks to avoidThat's real data that investors shouldn’t dismiss as quarterly noise. The question becomes which airline has the structural tools to keep passing those costs through to ticket prices without losing travelers?
How Higher Jet Fuel Costs Are Impacting Delta and United
As noted above, United's adjusted EPS fell 48.6% year-over-year, from $3.87 to $1.99. Delta's adjusted EPS fell 26%, from $2.12 to $1.56. The same pattern was evident in margin compression. United's adjusted pre-tax margin fell just over six points, from 11% to 4.8%. Delta's fell four points, from 11.7% to 7.7%. Delta's earnings base shrank by a smaller proportion, even though both carriers faced comparable fuel inflation.
To be fair, not all of the weakness in United’s EPS and margin numbers was due to fuel costs. The company absorbed $184 million in one-time labor contract charges this quarter, versus $561 million a year ago.
Delta's Fuel Hedging Strategy Vs. United's Liquidity Approach
At the crux of the "built for higher fuel costs" question is fuel hedging. Most U.S. major airlines walked away from large-scale hedging years ago. Unlike European carriers such as Air France-KLM (OTCMKTS: AFLYY) or Ryanair (NASDAQ: RYAAY), which routinely lock in 70%–90% of fuel needs through derivative contracts extending a year or more out, U.S. legacy carriers have largely stopped using the strategy.
Industry reporting has pegged the impact of that exposure, and it explains the problem well. A 1-cent move in jet fuel can cost a major U.S. carrier roughly $50 million a year, with no derivative book absorbing the blow.
Delta is the partial exception because it owns Monroe Energy, a Trainer, Pennsylvania refinery that supplies a meaningful share of its jet fuel needs. Third-party refinery sales hit $2.09 billion this quarter, up 83% year over year, and Delta credits the refinery with an 11-cent-per-gallon benefit this quarter, including a 5-cent hit from a temporary outage.
Delta's earnings report showed $301 million in mark-to-market hedge adjustments and settlements this quarter alone. That's not the 80%+ coverage ratios you see at Ryanair or Air France-KLM, but it's meaningfully more structural protection than a pure spot-market buyer.
United's approach is based on liquidity. Management raised $3.7 billion in new liquidity through private bank transactions this quarter, explicitly described as "low-cost insurance" against a further oil spike.
Per sources, United has also secured select fuel supply contracts that limit some exposure, but these reportedly fall well short of the large-scale, derivative-based hedging programs that European carriers or Delta's refinery model provide.
Can Delta and United Pass Higher Fuel Costs to Travelers?
Rising jet fuel costs only matter if passengers aren’t willing to pay. So far, that hasn’t been the case. United grew capacity 3.5% year-over-year while still pushing adjusted unit revenue (TRASM) up 12.1%. Delta grew capacity roughly 1% while pushing TRASM up 12.4%.
Delta is generating comparable unit-revenue growth on a fraction of United's capacity growth—a tighter, lower-risk version of the same pricing story. United is growing into demand more aggressively, which raises the ceiling if travel stays strong, and the downside if it doesn't.
Why Travel Demand Remains Strong Despite Higher Airfares
Both United and Delta cited increases in premium and economy/main-cabin demand. United's Basic Economy revenue rose 11%, and its overall economy-cabin unit revenue rose 12%. That was the airline’s second consecutive quarter of positive economy growth after a long soft patch. Delta's main cabin ticket revenue rose 8%, also its second straight quarter of positive main-cabin growth, while premium ticket revenue rose 17%.
At first glance, that pattern looks contradictory. The broader travel narrative through 2025 and into 2026 has been a "K-shaped" split: strong premium demand alongside a documented pullback in budget-conscious leisure travel, with ultra-low-cost carriers absorbing the brunt of that softness. If the price-sensitive traveler is genuinely pulling back across the industry, why are Delta and United both showing their cheapest cabins turning positive at the same time?
It may come down to a share shift rather than a demand surge. Neither Delta nor United built its brand around the price-sensitive flyer, but both have spent recent years building lower-tier fare products. United’s Basic Economy and Delta's comparable main-cabin fares are designed to compete for that traveler when needed.
As ultra-low-cost carriers cut capacity or struggle with their own economics, some of that traffic doesn't vanish. It shifts, "below the line," to a legacy carrier's cheapest available seat. That would reconcile positive economy-cabin growth at Delta and United with a well-documented pullback at the dedicated budget carriers.
Which Airline Is Better Positioned for Higher Fuel Costs?
Warren Buffett has been one of the most outspoken critics of airline stocks. Buffett’s argument comes down to high operating costs outweighing travel demand, which can be fickle. But every rule has occasional exceptions. In 2026, the airline industry is having a moment where, for now, math is working in its favor.
That doesn’t mean this time is different. It just means that there’s an opportunity for growth despite higher jet fuel prices. That is, as long as travelers are willing to absorb the higher costs.
If stock price growth is the only consideration, both UAL and DAL are attractive targets. In fact, an argument could be made that United has more short-term upside. But for an investor looking for long-term growth, Delta’s hedging strategy should do a better job of protecting its margins. Plus, DAL's dividend increased about 15% (from $0.1875 to $0.2150 per share) and will be paid on July 30, 2026, to shareholders of record as of July 9.
Blueprint for a Billion: Nebius Group Secures the AI Floor
Author: Jeffrey Neal Johnson. First Published: 7/15/2026.
Key Points
- Nebius Group's stock dropped roughly 6% on 15 million shares traded as macroeconomic concerns triggered a broad sell-off across high-beta technology names.
- A $1 billion, NVIDIA-backed Reflection AI contract running through 2029 expanded Nebius Group's contracted backlog to an estimated $50 billion, bolstering revenue visibility.
- Insider share sales by Nebius Group's CEO and CTO appear to reflect routine liquidity events rather than diminished confidence, given the company's operational progress.
- Special Report: Everyone wanted SpaceX. Smart money wants this.
The broader technology sector is currently navigating a sharp, liquidity-driven rotation. Recent macroeconomic shifts and tepid June payroll data have prompted institutional capital to lock in profits, triggering a broad sell-off across high-beta momentum equities.
Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS) has found itself caught in the crossfire, falling about 6% on heavy trading volume of 15 million shares.
ALERT: Drop these 5 stocks before the market opens tomorrow! (Ad)
The Wall Street Journal is already raising the alarm about a potential market crash, and Weiss Ratings research points to the first half of 2026 as a particularly rough stretch for certain holdings.
Some of America's most popular stocks could take serious damage as a radical market shift plays out. Analysts at Weiss Ratings have identified five names you may want to remove from your portfolio before this unfolds.
If any of these are in your portfolio, now is the time to review your positions.
See the 5 stocks to avoidWhen looking past the noise, Nebius's underlying fundamentals suggest a structural advantage that the market may be mispricing.
Initial reactions to macroeconomic data often lead to blanket selling across an entire sector, regardless of individual company execution.
For diligent investors, these sector-wide rotations can create opportunities to evaluate infrastructure providers that are expanding their operational moats while their share prices consolidate.
Reflection AI Deal Cements the Neocloud Foundation
Nebius Group recently executed a $1 billion forward compute contract with Reflection AI. The agreement secures raw infrastructure supply for the startup through 2029, cementing Nebius Group as an indispensable provider in the generative AI ecosystem and helping de-risk its long-term revenue pipeline.
By locking in a billion-dollar forward contract, Nebius Group achieves something incredibly rare in the volatile tech sector: financial clarity. Investors often worry about software churn and the risk that a trending AI application could lose users overnight to a faster competitor.
Nebius Group bypasses this software risk. It operates strictly as the digital landlord, leasing the physical compute required to run complex models regardless of which software application ultimately wins the consumer race.
Beyond the sheer size of the deal, the strength of the counterparty helps support the agreement. Reflection AI is directly backed by NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) and is currently finalizing a funding round at a $25 billion valuation. Reflection AI also recently executed a similar multi-billion-dollar compute contract with SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), underscoring an inelastic enterprise demand cycle. This scale gives added credibility to the $1 billion contract for Nebius Group, turning it into a revenue floor rather than a speculative projection.
Trading CPUs for Next-Gen GPUs
To understand the magnitude of this catalyst, it helps to break down the mechanics of the neocloud business model. Traditional cloud providers operate legacy data centers built heavily around CPUs. Neoclouds like Nebius Group are engineered from the ground up to host high-density GPU clusters, which are essential for training frontier artificial intelligence models.
Legacy data centers face severe thermal and structural limitations when retrofitting their facilities to meet the power-dense requirements of modern AI training. Nebius Group purpose-builds its facilities to accommodate the extreme liquid-cooling and power loads required by the latest hardware. This architectural foresight gives the company a distinct technical advantage, allowing it to lease capacity at a premium to startups and enterprises that cannot afford deployment delays.
Unpacking a $50 Billion Backlog Buffer
The Reflection AI deal pushes Nebius Group's total reported contracted backlog to an estimated $50 billion. For investors modeling future cash flows, a backlog of this magnitude acts as a shock absorber against cyclical uncertainty. Recent quarterly filings highlight a staggering 684% year-over-year revenue surge.
When reviewing the headline financials, a stated net margin of over 95% immediately stands out. Investors need to strip away accounting anomalies to evaluate the true operating reality. Recent filings indicate that a $781 million non-cash gain skewed quarterly net income significantly. Adjusted operating metrics actually show a 20% widening in net losses.
Far from being a red flag, that widening loss is a direct result of the heavy infrastructure capital expenditures required for hardware procurement. Nebius Group is deploying significant capital to scale its data centers today, which should translate into leased capacity tomorrow. It is a classic infrastructure build-out phase — if you build it, they will come — that typically precedes strong free cash flow generation.
Securing the NVIDIA GB300 Hardware Pipeline
A prevailing bear thesis surrounding Nebius Group centers on the imminent threat of traditional hyper-scalers entering the third-party hardware leasing market. The fear is that if tech giants pivot to leasing out their excess compute, the resulting surge in supply will compress margins across the specialized neocloud sector.
This perspective mischaracterizes Nebius Group's strategic positioning. Market data confirms that Nebius Group holds active partnership agreements with both Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT).
Rather than acting solely as competitors, these hyper-scalers often use specialized neocloud infrastructure to handle overflow compute demand and run distinct, segregated workloads. Nebius Group is effectively hedging against hyper-scaler encroachment by embedding itself directly into broader operational supply chains.
More importantly, Nebius Group maintains a highly privileged strategic alliance with NVIDIA. In an environment defined by global semiconductor bottlenecks, capital alone is not enough to build a data center; you must have guaranteed access to hardware. Nebius Group holds prioritized allocations for next-generation GB300 clusters. This hardware pipeline serves as an operational moat.
Finding Asymmetry in the Infrastructure Cycle
It is entirely natural for a stock with a $49.5 billion market capitalization on $529.80 million in trailing 12-month sales to experience sharp volatility. Trading at a trailing price-to-sales multiple of 93, Nebius is undeniably priced for flawless execution. When the market rotates away from technology, high-multiple stocks inevitably face the heaviest selling pressure. The recent pullback aligns logically with this sector consolidation.
Some market participants have pointed to recent insider distributions as a reason for caution. Regulatory filings show a 16,937-share sale by the chief technology officer and a more than $10 million block sold by the company's CEO. Contextualizing these sales against the total outstanding share count of over 250 million shows them to be standard liquidity events, largely tied to routine compensation structuring.
Systematic selling can be a warning sign, but these specific distributions do not indicate a fundamental lack of executive conviction, given the scale of recent operational victories.
The artificial intelligence gold rush requires immense physical infrastructure, and the market is rapidly separating speculative software developers from foundational hardware providers.
Nebius has successfully secured its position as a premier pick-and-shovel operation, insulated by a robust backlog and anchored by multi-year tier-one counterparty contracts. Patient capital may view its selloff as a compelling entry point into a business that has locked in its revenue pipeline for the rest of the decade.
This email content is a paid sponsorship for Golden Portfolio, a third-party advertiser of InsiderTrades.com and MarketBeat.
If you have questions about your subscription, please email MarketBeat's South Dakota based support team at contact@marketbeat.com.
If you no longer wish to receive email from InsiderTrades.com, you can unsubscribe.
© 2006-2026 MarketBeat Media, LLC. All rights protected.
345 North Reid Place, Sixth Floor, Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57103-7078. USA..
No comments:
Post a Comment