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4r5ubi
1 month ago
On September 16, Air Products (NYSE:APD) said it had signed a long-term deal to supply high-purity gases to a leading chipmaker, backed by roughly $250 million of its own money in Arizona. It is the company's second semiconductor supply win, and the two projects together carry more than $900 million of investment. That is a notable turn for a company that has been pulling back from big clean-energy projects.
The Arizona project plays to what Air Products already does. It will build, own, and operate the equipment, from hydrogen generation units and carbon dioxide purification to bulk supply for three gases: helium, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide. That means the customer's gas supply runs through equipment Air Products owns. Supply is targeted to start in phases, so the buildout can move alongside the customer's expansion plans. And this is familiar ground. Air Products has supplied electronics makers for more than 40 years, and its Chandler facility has served the Phoenix chip cluster since 1981, with a pipeline system carrying ultra-high purity nitrogen around the area.
The core business gives the deal a solid floor. In the fiscal third quarter, reported on July 30, adjusted earnings per share rose 12% to $3.47, and management lifted its full-year outlook to an adjusted $13.39 to $13.49 per share. Margins widened as well, so growth is showing up as profit. Chips appear elsewhere in the results too, since the company announced a deal to build four large air separation units to serve a chipmaker's growth in Taiwan.
The cost of the pivot is hard to ignore. On June 30, Air Products announced it would not go ahead with its Louisiana Clean Energy Complex and would discontinue a zero-carbon liquid hydrogen facility in Casa Grande, Arizona, plus other smaller clean energy distribution projects. The exits triggered roughly $2.9 billion in pre-tax charges, which is why the company posted a GAAP loss of $6.47 per share in the third quarter even as its underlying earnings grew. Adjusted results leave that hit out, but the GAAP numbers show what the retreat cost.
Owning the ****** ets also means funding them. Air Products expects about $3.5 billion of capital spending in fiscal 2026, and the Arizona plant alone is a commitment of approximately $250 million, with supply arriving in phases. The release also leaves gaps: it does not name the customer or say how long the contract runs, so the length of the revenue stream is unclear. Elsewhere, Europe's operating income rose only 2% as costs climbed, and management says it is still cautious about the economic backdrop.

#clean #adjusted
4r5ubi
1 month ago
On September 11, a caller praised The Boeing Company's (NYSE:BA) CEO and asked when the company would overcome the ongoing labor uncertainty and finally move beyond years of sideways stock performance. Mad Money host Jim Cramer replied:
I think that Boeing is ready to go up. But here's the problem. Every time crude goes up a dollar, the stock goes down a dollar. And that, think about it, that was actually the ratio. I did some work on this. And because today crude was down, Boeing went up $5... No, it's so stupid because, in truth, the airlines need more planes because the planes are more fuel-efficient. So they actually do better in this environment, but ******* ody cares. They know that airlines have to borrow money to buy planes and rates are higher, and they think that oil somehow's bad. But what ends up happening is the stock does nothing. I think it's about to go up because I think oil might be peaking unless there's some catastrophe over there.
The Boeing Company's (NYSE:BA) second-quarter results showed improving cash generation, but profitability remained weak. Revenue rose 8% year over year to $24.6 billion, while operating cash flow reached $1.4 billion and free cash flow was $631 million. Its total backlog reached a record $715 billion, including more than 6,200 commercial airplanes. CEO Kelly Ortberg said, "We're ramping up production just as we planned. That's driving higher revenues and improved cash flow." He also said there's more work ahead to ramp production, complete commercial-aircraft certifications and uphold customer commitments. Boeing said the 737-7 and 737-10 had completed flight testing, with deliveries expected to begin in 2027.
The Boeing Company's (NYSE:BA) large backlog has yet to translate into consistent commercial-aircraft profitability, leaving execution and margins as important concerns for investors. Commercial Airplanes delivered 171 aircraft in the second quarter but still posted a $322 million operating loss and a negative 2.7% operating margin. It also reported a $428 million GAAP net loss.
The balance sheet leaves less room for further setbacks. The company ended June with $45.9 billion of consolidated debt against $20 billion of cash and investments in marketable securities. The FAA certified the 737-7 on August 3, while Boeing continues working toward certification of the 737-10. First deliveries of the variants are expected in 2027. The company also recorded $280 million of losses on the VC-25B program in the quarter.

#boeing #cash #commercial
4r5ubi
1 month ago
4r5ubi
1 month ago
4r5ubi
2 months ago
US stock futures sank on Monday morning after the two leading frontier artificial intelligence companies called for an industrywide slowdown of AI development, sending tech stocks tumbling. Rising oil prices and an upcoming Fed meeting this week also put pressure on stocks.
Futures on the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 (NQ=F) fell 1.5%, led by losses in chip stocks, including Nvidia (NVDA). Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F) fell 0.3%, while those on the S&P 500 (ES=F) declined by 0.6%. In Asia, shares of memory chip makers SK Hynix (SKHY) and Samsung (005930.KS) dropped.
Tech stocks were poised to fall after Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) CEO Dario Amodei wrote a 3,800-word essay over the weekend, arguing that AI companies should slow the pace of improving AI models in order to address safety concerns. Sam Altman, the CEO of rival AI lab OpenAI (OPAI.PVT), agreed in a post on X, putting the two AI companies at odds with Wall Street, which has banked on a brisk pace of improvement.
Worries about AI safety also led OpenAI to delay its initial public offering until 2027, Altman told Fortune. Anthropic still plans to list in the fall and has reportedly chosen the Nasdaq for its highly anticipated IPO.
Oil prices, meanwhile, continued to climb after Saudi Arabia shut down a key pipeline in the Middle East and as the war in the Middle East spread. Brent crude (BZ=F) traded near $108 per barrel.

#stocks #NASDAQ #openai