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Judy Dutton

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Now that earnings season has finally wound down, it’s a good time to look back and marvel at just how far we’ve come in Q1. Between tariffs, trade wars, and plenty of “uncertainty,” everyone was bracing for a very bad quarter…but it didn’t turn out too shabby after all.

, higher than the five-year 77% average—though to be fair, that’s because a lot of companies were reporting earnings they’d reeled in 

-tariffs. Another Q1 fear that didn’t end up being that big a deal was all the fuss over companies yanking forward guidance: Only 3% of the 478 S&P 500 companies surveyed by FactSet 

 or didn’t update their forecast for FY2025.

Despite that good news, plenty of questions remain about the future of the US economy. Mentions of “

” appeared in 27% of 451 earnings calls by S&P 500 companies since March 15, the highest level since 2022. Wall Street analysts also 

 their second-quarter profit estimates by a wider range than average, according to FactSet, making many wonder: Will the other shoe drop in Q2?

Another trend that blew up this quarter was buybacks. A bunch of big firms, including Apple, Visa, Wells Fargo, and Delta, announced plans to 

 to the tune of $233.8 billion in April—the second highest total since 1984, according to Birinyi Associates. Some see this as a sign of company confidence, others of caution. Either way, it should serve to prop up the stock market for whatever curveballs could be coming next.

Let’s not forget that Q1 was packed with plenty of weirdness and wild moments, too. Here are a few worth remembering:

 during his earnings call. Since it was Bring Your Child to Work Day, Jefferies analyst Kaumil Gajrawala allowed his daughter to ask how the company’s dealing with the snack slump caused by GLP-1 weight loss meds. Gajrawala then allowed his 13-year-old son to crash 

 earnings call that day for Keurig Dr Pepper to inquire about a new blackberry soda. Might this open the floodgates to a bunch of kids chiming in on future calls? We sure hope so. 

plans to expand its Mexican-inspired fast food chain in 2026 to…

. Can this company sell a burrito bowl to the people who invented the burrito? It didn’t work for Taco Bell, which ended up closing shop south of the border when locals didn’t bite. 

CEO Mark Bristow admitted to forking over 

 to the Mali government, which took over its Loulo-Gounkoto gold mine, seized about $245 million in gold, and detained four Barick employees. Although the Canadian company has been trying to settle this dispute for over six months, its first-quarter profits still managed to surpass analysts’ estimates, thanks to a meteoric surge in gold prices. 

, the company behind the MSG sphere in Las Vegas, plans to revolutionize the entertainment industry as we know it by building…

. These venues will seat 5,000, about one-quarter the original’s size. Given the big one 

 in the first two months after it opened, watching what happens with its smaller doppelgangers should be entertaining, indeed.

Q1 earnings season is just about over

Here are the winners, losers, and weirdest moments of the quarter.

Winners, losers, and weirdest moments of earnings

Lucy Brewster

We may be kicking off Memorial Day weekend, but this summer Americans are trading lavish European beach vacations for lounging in their backyards next to the inflatable kiddy pool.

Amid a period of tariff-induced market anxiety and fears of a broader economic slowdown, travelers are feeling 

. When everyone is concerned about their own pocketbooks, discretionary indulgences like vacations are some of the first luxuries people are 

It certainly doesn’t help that many foreign tourists are avoiding 

, either out of fear of getting caught in an immigration snafu, or due to a more general sense of anti-American fervor. Either way, that poses yet another headwind for the economy in general, and the travel industry in particular.

Airlines were the first to admit they’ve been 

: Delta, American Airlines, Southwest, and Frontier all pulled their forward-looking financial guidance given the economic uncertainty caused by tariffs, while United offered two different forecasts, calling the situation “impossible to predict.”

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom summed up the predicament bluntly. “Aircraft cost too much already and I don’t want to pay more,” he explained during the company’s last earnings call.

Air travel is already a thin-margin, highly competitive business to begin with. Airline stocks enjoyed a strong post-Covid run as revenge spending gripped travelers who had been cooped up in lockdowns for far too long. That pop has long since faded, while business travelers—who often book more expensive first-class fares that bolster airlines’ bottom lines—are 

Throw in a consumer slowdown on top of all that, and it’s no wonder the Dow Jones US Airline Index has plunged 19.25% this year so far.

But analysts are still bullish on airlines long term: Delta and United both have a “buy” rating from the majority of analysts who cover the stocks, according to the Wall Street Journal, while the consensus rating for American Airlines is “overweight.” Frontier and Southwest both have a more lukewarm consensus rating of “hold.”

While their cousins in the sky suffer through turbulence, cruise lines could fare better. After all, even amid a consumer slowdown, cruises are a 

 option, and cruise companies also benefit from lower fuel prices.

Though some analysts highlight fears that a weaker dollar means travellers may not feel like spending big bucks on international cruises, there’s no shortage of domestic options. And if cruise lines do start to feel the same consumer squeeze that airlines are gripped by at the moment, stocks won’t feel the pain for a while yet: Cruise booking windows are usually much farther out than airlines—about six months or so—giving cruise companies plenty of time to change course if sales start to sag.

Royal Caribbean Cruises, Carnival Corp., and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings all have “overweight” consensus ratings from analysts, according to the WSJ.

Another group of stocks that might be better off than airlines are humble rental car companies.

 this Memorial Day, thanks to low prices at the pump. 30.4 million Americans will drive this Memorial Day weekend, a 3% jump from last year, while only 3.61 million people plan to fly, a mere 1.7% increase from last year, according to AAA, which also mentioned that gas is almost 50 cents a gallon cheaper than in May 2024, and domestic flights are 2% more expensive this Memorial Day weekend compared to last year.

More holiday driving, plus auto tariffs, minus cheap air travel, equals 

 for used and rental car stocks like Hertz and Avis Budget Group.

That being said, analysts aren’t optimistic across the board. The consensus of analysts covering Hertz gave it an “underweight” rating, while Avis got a consensus “overweight” rating.

Regardless, you’ve clearly got plenty of options for your holiday travel and your portfolio.—

Airlines vs cruise lines: Which industry is a better investment?

Travel is struggling 

Airlines vs cruise lines

Mark Reeth

The good news: All the drama around the Republican tax and spending bill will soon be over, as the House of Representatives voted 215-214 to push the bill through to the Senate for a final vote that could happen as soon as today.

The bad news: Deep amid the 1,000 pages of legislation and 42 amendments was one key revision. In order to get the bill across the finish line in the House, Congress completely 

It’s a serious blow to renewable energy companies, which only a few weeks ago were popping higher on the news that the clean energy credits included in the bill would stick around 

. The original language of the bill still cut the credits granted to these companies as part of the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, but they would be slowly phased out through the end of 2031. Now, those credits will go the way of the dodo by the end of 2028.

Those credits were essential to reduce the high costs of rooftop solar panel installation in American homes, and help companies recoup up to 50% of installation costs, 

. That’s why Sunrun, the biggest rooftop-solar company in the country, plunged 37.05%. Inverter manufacturers Enphase and SolarEdge Technologies crumbled 19.63% and 24.67%, respectively.

Solar projects at the bigger, utility level will be punished as well. The bill also kills the credits for renewable energy power plants that begin construction 60 days after the legislation is enacted or enter service after December 31, 2028, which is why Array lost 3.09% and Nextracker sank 3.13%.

It’s not just solar getting axed today. Wind power projects are losing credits as well, sending shares of NextEra Energy tumbling 6.43% and Vestas 5.22% lower.

: The Senate may make further amendments to the bill that reduce today’s carnage to a mere massacre—but with the bill passing in the House by razor-thin margins, don’t bet on senators rocking the boat by standing up for clean energy.

Solar stocks plunged thanks to Congress

The Republican tax and spending bill axed clean energy credits.

The solar industry's future is cloudy

When the robots come for human jobs, they’ll start the takeover on Wall Street. Here are just a few of the AI-related investing headlines that have crossed our desk lately that you need to know about just in case the Terminator comes knocking.

Robinhood rolled out its new robo-advisor back in March, a digital financial manager that constructs your investment portfolio for you. That sounds great—until you remember that the more trades you make on Robinhood, the more money the company collects. 

, 67% of Robinhood’s 2024 revenue came from payment-for-order-flow, or executing trades using specific market makers like Citadel in return for a cut of the profits.

That’s why trading volume is so important for the company, and it’s also why initial reactions indicating that the robo-advisor tends to make copious and risky investments are so troubling. More than 40,000 Robinhood customers have handed over $100 million to their new robo-advisors—but whose side are these digital money managers really on?

Meanwhile, at UBS, humans are handing AI the keys to the kingdom.

 that it has been using OpenAI and Synthesia to record analysts on video and recreate them as digital avatars. Then, AI models read through the human analysts’ stock reports, synthesize them, and create an AI-tailored script for the AI analyst to read on camera—leaving humans to simply double check the end product for accuracy.

Early indications are that these AI videos are getting the same level of engagement as videos featuring flesh-and blood-analysts, but with 30% to 40% less effort to create them, UBS gleefully declared even as it laid the groundwork for a world where human analysts are no longer needed.

In lighter news, the online investing platform Public just unveiled a new tool called Generated Assets. Not only is that a fantastic AI/finance pun, it also allows investors to simply describe an idea that the tool instantly turns into a unique index. 

 include "CEOs that are under 40," or "stocks that are unaffected by US tariffs," according to Public.

As Axios pointed out earlier this week, this new tech has the potential to 

 the ETF industry. Assets under management across ETFs around the world rose by a record 27% in 2024 to $14.6 trillion, according to PWC, and the market could 

 by the end of 2029—unless, of course, AI can offer a customizable and cheaper alternative.

We’re not trying to be alarmist here, we’re just saying that the world of investing is always evolving. AI has accelerated that process dramatically, and investors who can’t keep up will be left behind.

AI is sweeping through Wall Street

AI threatens to revolutionize the investing world.

The AI revolution has begun

Brew tunes illustration for Matty Merritt

Matty Merritt

After years of acting like a dog trying to eat an old cigarette butt under someone’s patio chair, Wall Street firms have 

 snagged a private market win. 401(k) manager Empower announced last week that it will start allowing individual investors to access private credit, equity, and real estate.

Private equity investments were ushered into retirement savings during the first Trump administration, but Biden’s Labor Department cautioned investors when including them in their portfolio. However, Empower’s plan that will let people invest 5% to 20% of their retirement portfolio in alternative investments is the largest adoption so far. Empower manages $1.8 trillion across retirement plans for 19 million people.

Private equity firms like Apollo Global Management and Partners Group have long touted the diversity private equity investments can offer everyday investors, especially as fewer private companies choose to go public these days. Only about 13% of US companies with annual revenues of $100+ million are publicly traded, according to Partners Group.

You might remember private equity firms as folks who 

 Red Lobster? Or the groups hoovering up music catalogs? It’s even worth noting that private equity’s rapid growth over the last 20 years is a 

 that investment options across the public market have dwindled.

The hesitation retirement managers and investors have about betting their nest egg on private equity is warranted. There’s a lot less transparency when a company doesn’t have to report quarterly earnings, and determining valuation can be trickier. Most private investments also require longer commitments, meaning less liquidity. And while mutual funds or ETFs might charge a management fee, private equity usually collects a much higher performance fee (and a management fee).

Overall it’s a much riskier bet, which is why a lot of 401(k) managers and employers tend to avoid it.

Right now, private equity manages less than 1% of the estimated $12.5 trillion in assets held in 401(k)s, but not even a shock collar will hold back its quest for a bigger slice.

Elderly couple talking to financial planner

Private equity is coming for your 401(k)

Should you invest your nest egg in private equity?

Should you trust private equity with your nest egg?

Last week was a big one for phallic mergers and acquisitions, with both Dick’s and Cox part of some major M&A news. In case you missed it, Dick’s Sporting Goods bought Foot Locker for 

, while Charter Communications acquired rival Cox Communications for 

Schoolyard jokes aside, after months of quiet in the usually wild world of dealmaking, there’s been a sudden surge in the number of deals being signed, sealed, and delivered:

Coinbase Global acquired crypto derivatives exchange platform Deribit for 

 acquisition of Frontier Communications the go-ahead late last week.

 takeover of Discover Financial yesterday.

Earlier today, asset manager Blackstone announced it’s buying power provider TXNM Energy for 

Heading into 2025, Wall Street was largely confident that it would be a good year for deals. A second Trump presidency promised a lighter regulatory touch, with the departure of SEC chair Gary Gensler and FTC head Lina Khan signaling that the floodgates for mergers and acquisitions would soon be opened.

But tariff tumult put a pause on all that, with companies eyeing each other for an acquisition suddenly seized by cold feet as they worried about the economic consequences of a trade war. Now, however, those fears have diminished thanks to a tariff pause and a US/China ceasefire, and suddenly deals are back in business.

Tariffs also temporarily plugged the IPO pipeline, as companies that were planning to make their public debuts took a step back amid market mayhem. But with the initial chaos subsiding and a risk-on wind rising, IPOs are cropping up left and right.

Digital health company Hinge Health is poised to go public this week, and early indications are pointing toward 

Earlier this year, BNPL provider Klarna and ticket seller StubHub 

 to IPO, but expectations are high that they, too, will soon join the fray.

: Sentiment has swung toward optimism over the last few weeks thanks to a tariff pause, and companies that have been waiting in the wings to go public or lock in deals are jumping at the chance. It’s great news not only for Wall Street bankers collecting fat bonuses for getting these deals across the finish line, but also for investors in general—a healthy M&A market and IPO pipeline can help sustain bullish market momentum.

M&A and IPOs are making a comeback: Stocks to watch

Big deals are dropping left and right as bullish sentiment sweeps markets.

Mergers are back on the menu

Don't touch that dial—two of the biggest cable providers in the country are joining forces to form a TV & internet provider powerhouse.

 privately-owned Cox Communications in a $34.5 billion deal. This combined colossus will change its name to Cox Communications, while Charter’s Spectrum will become the consumer-facing brand, offering cable, broadband, mobile, and other services.

The megadeal, if and when it closes, will bring together two sizable customer bases: Charter boasts 31.4 million broadband users and 12.7 million cable TV subscribers across 41 states, while Cox has 6.5 million broadband clients in 18 states.

News of this potential cable tie-up caused Charter’s stock to pop by 1.83%—a welcome surge at a time when seemingly every company on the planet is rolling out a streaming service. In such a cutthroat environment, deals like these have become critical for survival: It’s merge, or die.

It wasn’t very long ago that cable TV was the only game in town. But now, cord cutting has become commonplace, forcing Charter and Cox into an uncomfortable self-reckoning.

“Charter’s core market of cable television is seeing declining subscriber growth,” wrote managing director at global consultancy Stax Palash Misra. “The goal of the merger is presumably to broaden its portfolio to better compete against wireless carriers offering 5G home internet services and streaming platforms that are eroding traditional cable TV viewership.”

This merger comes on the heels of Charter’s acquisition of Liberty Broadband in 

. Charter expects there will be about $500 million in annualized cost synergies within three years of closing, further strengthening Charter’s position in a crowded field.

While streaming has stolen plenty of cable customers, that's not the only problem companies like Cox and Charter are facing. Wireless services are eroding the broadband approach to delivering high speed internet to customers, with new competitors like Starlink eating into the incumbents’ market share. But Charter can offer higher speeds at lower costs than these startups thanks to the economies of scale, and today’s deal with Cox was likely designed to underscore those slim advantages.

“Cable is a scale business; added size should help Charter compete better with the larger telcos, tech companies, and Starlink,” explained Co-CIO of Value at Gabelli Funds Chris Marangi.

 Today’s deal will likely test how tough President Trump’s administration will be with 

. Charter is already lobbying hard for regulatory approval: Its 

 talks about “putting America first” by bringing its overseas customer-service jobs back to the US.

 until the company “committed to ending its DEI practices,” that certainly sounds like the right way to woo regulators.

Charter Communications, Cox Communications logos