Plug Power stock price has held steady in the past few weeks as investors reacted to the recent financial results, which showed that its business was doing well. PLUG, a top player in the hydrogen energy industry, was trading at $2.30 on Wednesday, up by 35% from its lowest level this year.
This recovery may continue in the foreseeable future as investors anticipate more revenue growth this year.
Analysts expect Plug Power revenue to keep growing
Plug Power’s business is doing well despite the ongoing challenges in the hydrogen sector. The most recent results showed that its revenue jumped by nearly 13% last year to $710 million. Its fourth-quarter revenue rose by 17.6% to $225 million.
This growth was driven by a big increase in the power purchase agreements segment, which continued seeing more demand in the United States and other countries. Its power purchase agreements made $107 million from the $77 million it made in the same period a year earlier.
The other segments of this business continued doing relatively well in this period. For example, fuel delivered to customers rose to $133 million from the previous $97.8 million. Also, the services offered on fuel cell system made over $94 million, up from $52 million in the same period in 2024.
The main challenge, however, is that its biggest equipment sales have continued weakening. Its revenue dropped to $371 million from the $390 million a year earlier. This is important as the segment made $711 million in 2023.
Wall Street analysts are highly optimistic that the company’s business will continue rising in the coming years, helped by the rising industrial demand, including companies like Walmart, Amazon, and DHL.
The average estimate is that its revenue will jump by 6.20% this year to over $142 million, while its annual figure will jump by 13% to over $802 million. It will then make $951 million this year.
Additionally, Plug Power’s losses are expected to continue narrowing. It made a loss per share of 85 cents last year, and analysts expect it to improve to 30 cents this year and 22 cents next year.
Still, despite these developments, the stock faces the major risk of dilution as it will need to raise capital in the coming months. It ended the last quarter with over $308 million in cash and $186 million in restricted cash.
Plug Power stock price technical analysis
PLUG stock chart | Source: TradingView
The daily timeframe chart shows that the PLUG stock has rebounded in the past few days, moving from a low of $1.72 in February to the current $2.32. It has formed a double-bottom pattern at $1.72 and a neckline at $2.64, its highest level in January this year.
The stock remains between the 50% and 61.8% Fibonacci Retracement levels. It has also moved above the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA).
Therefore, the stock will likely continue rising in the coming weeks, potentially to the neckline at $2.65. A move above that level will point to more gains, potentially to the psychological level at $3.10, which is about 35% above the current level.
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The ongoing LPG crisis in India, triggered by the Iran war, has exposed the country’s deep dependence on fuel imports.
“This is a wake-up call,” Alok Kumar, former power secretary in the Union Ministry of Power, India, and current DG of All India Discoms Association, told Invezz.
“It’s good that we discuss this and the government takes it up as a mission, not only because the government dependence (on imports) should decrease, but also because the entire energy transition is premised on the electrification of energy services.”
“You cannot achieve net zero without electrification, and so it serves the cause of long-term emission reduction as well,” he added.
India has launched several awareness campaigns and policies, including the ‘Go Electric’ campaign started in 2021 to promote the use of electric vehicles and household appliances such as induction cooktops and electric pressure cookers.
However, experts note that the efforts have yet to reach the scale needed to make a meaningful impact.
How the Iran war exposed India’s acute LPG import dependence
India’s reliance on imports of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has intensified in recent decades.
Currently, external sources meet as much as 60% of the country’s LPG needs, with the country spending roughly $26.4 billion annually on LPG imports.
Out of this, 90% of the imports move through the Strait of Hormuz, the critical passage for 20% of global crude supplies, which is facing a blockade and severe disruption due to the ongoing conflict.
According to the country’s ministry of shipping, 1.67 million tonnes of crude oil, 320,000 metric tonnes of LPG and about 200,000 tonnes of LNG are stuck on the 22 Indian-flagged ships stranded in the Persian Gulf, waiting to transit through the Strait.
Meanwhile, the crisis has hit home hard with restaurants and eateries struggling to procure cylinders, being forced to cut down on offerings, and taking big hits to their business.
At the peak of the crisis last week, some restaurants had to shut down temporarily as well as LPG stocks ran out.
Meanwhile, household consumers were seen queueing up outside gas agencies across the country, even as induction cookers flew off the shelves.
The Indian government on Wednesday noted that the situation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) is still worrisome and offered an additional 10% allocation of commercial LPG to States and Union Territories (UTs).
State of adoption of e-cooking in India and factors limiting its use
As per the Indian Residential Energy Survey (IRES) conducted in 2020, electricity use for cooking remains marginal in Indian homes, with only 5% of households using any electric cooking appliance.
As expected, the use of e-cooking is higher in urban India (10%) than in rural areas (3%).
Since e-cooking is not very affordable either, adoption rates were also six times higher among the top five wealth deciles than the bottom five.
Also, studies have found that even in houses that have adopted e-cooking, the primary fuel, either LPG or LNG, has not been replaced, but only complemented.
“Electric cooking is far more dispersed and hence more difficult work because it needs a lot of behavioural change,” says Kumar.
There are many factors that prevent the widespread use of electric cooking.
These include high upfront appliance costs, cooking habit adaptation, reliable electricity supply concerns, and gaps in repair and maintenance services.
The average price of a single-burner induction stove in India typically ranges from ₹1,500 to ₹3,000.
Premium/high power (2000W+) models range from ₹2,500 to ₹4,000 or more, offering faster cooking and advanced features.
Along with the purchase of an induction stove, a household also has to invest in utensils that are compatible with induction cooktops.
Purva Jain, lead energy specialist, gas & international advocacy, South Asia, at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, however, points out that there does exist a market gap when it comes to induction cooking in terms of both pricing and design.
Studies show e-cooking is more affordable than LPG/PNG
Even so, studies have held that e-cooking over the long term is more affordable than LPG or LNG.
According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, in urban and peri-urban areas, electric cooking is becoming an increasingly competitive option.
At current prices, annual cooking costs are estimated at INR 6,800–6,900 for LPG or PNG, compared to INR 5,800–5,900 for electric cooking.
This cost advantage persists even with a moderate increase in electricity tariffs.
Source: CSE
Further, a study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in 2023 found that over the course of five and ten years, the cost of ownership of cooking with electricity was about 20% lower than with LPG, but was comparable over the first year.
“Costs drop significantly as usage continues over time, and e-cooking becomes 17% cheaper than LPG over five years, and over 20% in 10 years. However, it must be kept in mind that these projections have not factored in rising gas prices or inflation,” the study said.
Impact on grid and possible ways to tackle it
One of the most crucial factors to consider is that increased demand for electricity from e-cooking can strain existing grid capacity, which means that even if households and other commercial users might be willing to adopt this mode of cooking in a big way, infrastructure upgrades will be required to support the additional load.
“From the distribution network aspect, the difficulty is that peaking load will go up. E-cooking does not envisage battery storage because it is not very economical to store solar energy and then use it for e-cooking,” Kumar says.
Kumar says to tackle this, some demand in peak hours can be shifted to non-solar hours through tariff incentives, to make space for electric cooking in the evening, when it will also compete with air conditioning.
“We will have to, in parallel, take steps for more demand-side management like demand flexibility, shifting some load from non-solar to solar. Because India will be a very solar-heavy system, and if you do not shift the demand, then the battery storage will become very expensive,” he says.
Why electric options are better for India’s energy security?
While households and some commercial establishments have quickly ensured they have an induction cooktop ready in the current crisis, the Indian government is encouraging both households and commercial users to shift to PNG (piped natural gas) instead.
The Centre announced it will raise commercial LPG allocation from 20% to 30% for states that commit to reforms boosting PNG penetration.
It is now encouraging wider adoption of PNG, particularly in urban areas where infrastructure is available.
About half of India’s PNG supply is domestic gas drilled from onshore and offshore fields, for example, by companies such as ONGC and Reliance.
The balance is met through LNG imports.
Imports totalled around 24–25 million tonnes in 2025, making India one of the world’s largest LNG buyers.
The conflict has not spared India’s gas imports either, with the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz already disrupting supplies.
However, the situation has worsened following Iran’s strike on Qatar’s energy infrastructure at Ras Laffan industrial city, hours after Israel targeted Iran’s South Pars gas field—the world’s largest natural gas reserve.
India sources roughly 20% of its natural gas imports from Qatar, heightening concerns over supply risks.
Jain says transitioning to gas would not be the best way to solve the issue of energy security.
“LPG and LNG, at least going by what we have seen in the past five years, have always been very volatile,” Jain tells Invezz, adding that gas has been volatile even before Covid-19.
According to an analysis she says they did two years ago, where they looked at different commodities like gold, NASDAQ, oil as well as gas, in the one-year time span of 2024, gas was the most volatile.
“In events of general geopolitical calm, too, gas was volatile—that is the nature of that fuel,” she says.
“Therefore, transitioning from LPG to gas would probably not help us solve the problems of energy security, subsidies, affordability, etc. But transitioning to electric could, as it is more affordable, more energy efficient, and actually gives us the energy security,” she said.
Lessons from India’s EV transition
According to Jain, EV adoption in India has seen success due to strong government policy, lower operational costs compared to conventional fuels, rising consumer awareness, and global campaigns and adoption.
A similar coming together of the right factors could also help position electric cooking (e-cooking) as a valid cooking fuel choice in India.
India’s electric vehicle (EV) market crossed a major milestone in 2025, with total EV sales reaching 2.3 million units, accounting for 8% of all new vehicle registrations, according to the Annual Report: India EV Market 2025 prepared by the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) based on Vahan Portal data.
However, it is still way behind the Indian government’s target for EVs to make up 30% of total passenger vehicle sales by FY 2030.
“India has managed to do very well on the front of EV adoption, I would say. In a span of less than a decade, we have managed to see good numbers, which is a big achievement,” Jain says, attributing the progress to clear policy direction such as demand and supply-side incentives and awareness programs.
In this context, the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME India) scheme launched in 2015, and concluded in 2024, played a major role as it was aimed at market creation and early adoption through infrastructure deployment, demand incentives and domestic manufacturing.
The FAME II program, which started in April 2019, focused on electrifying public and shared transportation.
“It happened because a collection of factors came together for it to happen and work. And this is something I have also talked about when I have compared the two, that electric cooking needs a collection of factors to sort of come together to make it work because it’s definitely an economically more viable solution,” she says.
In a study by Jain, published by the IEEFA, she recommends introducing a similar scheme to FAME, which could focus on market creation, such as demand incentives, and reducing upfront purchase costs for wider adoption.
“A policy promoting e-cooking in commercial spaces could also be beneficial, much like how state policies and the PM-eBus Sewa scheme were for electric buses,” the study says.
She adds that multiple awareness campaigns were run by the government that advocated the benefits of using EVs in India and helped address the initial transition challenges to some extent.
Such an understanding needs to be extended to e-cooking as well via public awareness and demonstration campaigns.
Actionable initiatives and the way forward
It is agreed upon by experts that the initial market to push e-cooking forward will be urban India, and within urban India, the start should be made with community kitchens and commercial spaces, as change at a household level is challenging.
“My view is that initially we should promote electric cooking in community kitchens, Anganwadis, and schools because it is also a bulk demand and it will make sense to make that investment,” says Kumar.
“Even restaurants can have dual cooking arrangements (of LPG/LNG and e-cooking) as the equipment is not very expensive. They can make use of electric cooking during solar hours in the day when the power is abundant, and we can make it cheaper for them, and in the evening, they can use a mix of sources,” he said.
Jain agrees and says mandates for commercial kitchens and anganwadis, government schools where mid-day meals are being provided, or even bigger institutions like hospitals, can be the first line of priority.
She also speaks of adopting certain international practices.
For example, in 2023, New York became the first state in the US to ban natural gas and other fossil fuels in most new buildings, with officials hoping it will encourage the use of more climate-friendly appliances, like induction stoves.
“The government could liaise with big developers and see that the first option that is being provided in new housing developments is electric cooking. Such mandates are likely to lead to massive uptake, and like we are seeing right now, if push comes to shove, the change will happen,” she says.
“And the best part is that in the longer term, you are looking at the greening of the grid, you are looking at higher deployment of renewable energy sources. We have those targets, and India is already working rapidly to deploy clean energy in the country,” she says.
Further, this is also an opportune time for companies manufacturing electric cooking appliances to invest in R&D and come up with more energy-efficient solutions, say experts.
After-sales services should also be strengthened, while local capacity should be augmented to ensure a smoother transition.
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Li Lu may not be a household name for retail investors, but in the halls of Berkshire Hathaway, he is revered.
Born in China and shaped by the 1989 student protests, Lu eventually found his calling at Columbia University after hearing a lecture by Warren Buffett.
His investment firm, Himalaya Capital, now manages $3.5 billion with a concentrated strategy that mirrors the “buy and hold” philosophy of his late mentor, Charlie Munger.
By the end of 2025, a staggering 75% of Lu’s portfolio was anchored in just three powerhouses: Alphabet, Bank of America, and PDD Holdings.
Alphabet Inc: the AI fortress and search dominant
Alphabet stock remains the crown jewel of Lu’s portfolio, representing a massive 44% stake split between Class A and C shares.
While critics once feared that generative AI would erode Google’s search hegemony, the company has proven remarkably resilient.
Recent legal victories against Department of Justice antitrust efforts have cleared significant regulatory clouds, allowing the tech giant to lean into its AI integration.
Beyond search, Alphabet’s ecosystem is diversifying rapidly; YouTube remains a dominant force in digital media, while Waymo leads the nascent autonomous ride-hailing sector.
Trading at roughly 26 times forward earnings, Googles shares offer a rare blend of “Magnificent Seven” growth with a multiple that value investors like Lu still find palatable.
Bank of America: scaling through economic volatility
Representing 16% of Himalaya’s capital, Bank of America serves as Lu’s primary bet on the enduring scale of the US financial system.
Despite recent geopolitical tremors in the Middle East driving energy price spikes, the banking sector has found a tailwind in a steepening yield curve and a shifting regulatory tide.
Investors are particularly optimistic about a ‘deregulation rally” as Federal Reserve officials signal a potential easing of the stringent capital requirements born from the 2008 crisis.
For a titan like Bank of America, lower capital mandates translate directly into higher shareholder returns through dividends and buybacks.
Its massive infrastructure allows it to absorb tech costs that smaller rivals simply can’t, making it a classic “scale play.”
PDD Holdings: a contrarian bet on Chinese e-commerce
The most controversial of Lu’s “Big Three” is PDD Holdings, the parent company of Pinduoduo and the global disruptor Temu.
At 15% of the portfolio, this position highlights Lu’s willingness to go against the grain.
While Chinese stocks have faced a gruelling five-year downturn due to sluggish consumer confidence and fierce margin wars, PDD offers a valuation gap that is hard to ignore.
Trading at a meagre 8 times forward earnings – compared to over 23x for US tech benchmarks – PDD shares are a high-conviction play on an eventual Chinese economic recovery.
For Lu, the risk of regional regulatory complexity is offset by the sheer efficiency and explosive global reach of Temu’s supply chain model.
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Amazon is developing a new smartphone within its devices and services unit, more than a decade after its first failed attempt in the category, according to a report by Reuters.
The project, internally dubbed “Transformer,” is being positioned as a personalised mobile device that can integrate with the Alexa voice assistant and act as a continuous touchpoint for Amazon users throughout the day.
However, details such as pricing, timeline and financial commitment remain unclear, and the project could still be shelved if strategic priorities shift.
A second attempt after Fire Phone failure
Amazon’s renewed push comes over ten years after it launched the Fire Phone in 2014, an effort to challenge Apple and Samsung in the smartphone market.
The device was discontinued within a year, becoming one of the company’s most notable product failures.
The new initiative reflects a long-standing vision championed by founder Jeff Bezos to build a voice-first computing platform, similar to the futuristic assistants depicted in science fiction such as Star Trek.
At the time, Amazon had aimed to centre its smartphone experience around shopping, offering Prime-linked benefits and deeper consumer insights.
AI and Alexa at the core of the device
The Transformer project is expected to rely heavily on artificial intelligence to deliver a seamless and personalised user experience.
The device could act as a constant interface between Amazon and its customers, enabling easier access to services such as shopping, streaming and food delivery.
The report added that the phone may reduce reliance on traditional app stores by leveraging AI to perform tasks without requiring users to download separate applications.
While Alexa is expected to be a central feature, it may not function as the device’s primary operating system.
The push into AI-powered hardware comes at a time when several companies are experimenting with alternatives to conventional smartphones.
Recent attempts such as the Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1 have struggled to gain traction, highlighting the challenges of building viable AI-native devices.
Rising competition in AI and hardware
Amazon’s move also comes as rivals intensify efforts to integrate AI into consumer hardware.
OpenAI is collaborating with former Apple designer Jony Ive on new hardware concepts, while Google and Meta are developing AI-enabled wearables such as smart glasses and headphones.
Although Amazon’s cloud unit remains a leader in infrastructure, the company has faced criticism for lagging in consumer-facing AI applications.
Its voice assistant Alexa underwent a major overhaul before relaunching in 2025 and is seen as central to Amazon’s long-term strategy.
Possible design and configuration of the project
Three people familiar with the Transformer project told the news agency that the device remains under development, with Amazon exploring both a conventional smartphone and a simplified “dumbphone” variant with limited features aimed at reducing screen dependence.
The company has yet to approach wireless carrier partners for the device, they added.
The report also adds that the concept draws inspiration from the Light Phone, a minimalist $700 handset offering only basic functions such as a camera, maps and a calendar, without an app store or web browser.
A feature phone version could also be positioned as a secondary device to complement primary smartphones such as iPhones and Samsung Galaxy models.
Devices in this category, including Light Phone-style handsets and flip phones, accounted for around 15% of global handset sales in 2025, according to Counterpoint Research.
Market challenges remain significant
Analysts caution that breaking into the smartphone market will be difficult.
Colin Sebastian, an analyst at R.W. Baird, said Amazon’s earlier failure in the smartphone market does not rule out another attempt, though he cautioned that the challenge remains significant.
“Amazon will have to give consumers a compelling reason to switch phones and people are pretty attached to the existing app stores,” he said in the Reuters report.
The challenge is compounded by the dominance of Apple and Samsung, which together accounted for roughly 40% of global smartphone shipments last year, according to Counterpoint Research.
The broader market outlook is also weakening.
According to International Data Corporation, global smartphone shipments are expected to decline by 13% in 2026, driven by rising component costs, particularly for memory chips.
Even so, Amazon appears willing to take another shot at redefining mobile computing, betting that advances in AI could succeed where its earlier efforts fell short.
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US stock futures slipped on Friday morning as oil prices picked up steam again after a brief pause.
Dow futures fell about 200 points, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures also edged lower, despite earlier signals pointing to a positive open.
Wall Street is facing some serious headwinds as a hawkish Fed tone and escalation of the Middle East war continue to drag the indices down.
The investors recovered some losses on Thursday after Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu said that they are assisting the US to open the Strait of Hormuz.
5 things to know before Wall Street opens
1. Oil market swings have been shaping investor sentiment ever since the US and Israel’s conflict with Iran began.
The prices remained choppy on Friday, as they initially slipped before turning slightly higher as trading progressed.
The similar volatility is seen across gold and silver prices.
Gold rebounded to some level of Friday and was trading around 0.3% higher at $4,662.51 an ounce, but silver prices continue to tank and were seen around 1.7% lower at $71.62 an ounce.
2. Some activity is also seen around the M&A sector on Friday as Unilever said it is in talks with McCormick & Co. over a possible sale of its foods business.
Both companies said discussions are continuing, but cautioned that there is no certainty that any deal will be reached.
If completed, the transaction would bring Unilever brands, including Marmite and Colman’s, under the same roof as McCormick’s Cholula hot sauce.
This will mark another step in Unilever’s push toward higher-growth beauty and personal care categories.
3. Treasury yields ticked higher early Friday as investors attempted to determine the impact of the Middle East crisis on the markets.
The 10-year yield, a key benchmark for borrowing costs, climbed about 1.7 basis points to 4.3%.
Meanwhile, the more rate-sensitive 2-year yield rose 3 basis points to 3.87%, and the 30-year yield edged up 1 basis point to 4.87%.
4. The relative easing in oil prices on Friday couldn’t help the investors in Asian markets sustain gains.
Trading across the region was uneven, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng falling 1%, Shanghai slipping 1.2%, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 losing 0.8%.
In contrast, South Korea’s Kospi edged up 0.3%, and India’s Sensex rose 0.4%. The muted session in Asia came after modest losses on Wall Street overnight.
5. The sentiment was similar across Europe, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 up about 0.9% in early trade on Friday.
Germany’s DAX rose 1.4%, France’s CAC 40 gained 0.9%, and London’s FTSE 100 added 0.6%, as banking and construction shares helped lead the recovery.
The investors are treading cautiously as the central banks across Europe kept interest rates unchanged in their recent meeting and flagged the Iran conflict as a fresh source of uncertainty.
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The Middle Eastern conflict has severely affected the stock markets.
From the US to Europe to Asia, markets are bleeding, and stocks that have enjoyed a strong run prior are coming down to reality.
At this juncture, underdog investment strategies such as value are outperforming conventional winners such as growth, quality, and momentum, which perform well during bull markets.
Should investors pile into these stocks as a hedge during the conflict?
Value for the win?
The value investment strategy has so far outperformed the broader US market and other strategies in 2026 so far.
The MSCI US Value ETF has gained around 5% in the year.
While that may seem minuscule, the broader S&P 500 has fallen 3.41% in the same time period.
The MSCI US Growth index fell 7.3% in the same period, while the quality index was down 2.5%.
The performance of the value index has been driven by stocks like Micron (46% gain), ExxonMobil (28% uptick), and Johnson and Johnson (14% surge).
The Middle Eastern conflict has rattled global equity markets, triggering a broad-based selloff across regions and prompting investors to reassess portfolio positioning.
Against this backdrop, value stocks have emerged as relative outperformers, raising a key question: can they serve as a hedge in times of geopolitical stress?
Why are value stocks outperforming right now?
Ipek Ozkardeskaya, Senior Analyst at Swissquote Bank, said the rotation into value stocks began even before the latest geopolitical tensions.
“Value stocks have been popular since the last quarter of last year as investors rotated from highly valued US big tech stocks toward relatively cheaper non-tech and non-US pockets of the market,” she said.
She added that softening financial conditions and rising concerns over the scale of Big Tech’s AI investments have supported this shift.
However, she noted that the macro backdrop is now evolving.
“The Middle East tensions and rising energy prices are fueling global inflation expectations, leading to a hawkish shift in central bank expectations,” Ozkardeskaya said.
Lacie Zhang, Research Analyst at Bitget Wallet, said the current outperformance reflects a broader rotation away from concentrated growth trades.
She noted that investors are moving “toward more attractively valued segments of the market,” supported by improving fundamentals in cyclical sectors and moderating interest-rate expectations.
“At the same time, strategies such as quality and momentum… have faced headwinds from concentration risk and early signs of mean reversion,” Zhang said, adding that value has historically acted as “a stabilising factor during periods of market transition.”
Which sectors and stocks are driving the rally?
Ozkardeskaya pointed to strong inflows into energy, mining, industrials, and financials, though she cautioned that financials are now facing pressure from private credit risks.
Zhang said financials have been a major driver of value’s strength.
“Financials have been among the largest contributors to value’s relative strength, supported by improving net interest margins, solid balance sheets, and strong returns on equity,” she said.
She added that communication services and select energy and industrial companies have also contributed, benefiting from cyclical recovery and improved earnings outlooks.
This is reflected in the performance of Micron, ExxonMobil, and Johnson & Johnson, which have helped lift value indices this year.
Are value stocks a safe hedge during the conflict?
Ozkardeskaya said the current macro environment could support value in the near term.
“A period of tighter financial conditions could continue to support value names — as they’re less cyclical and more stable,” she said.
However, she cautioned that the trend may not be permanent.
“I still believe that tech-led growth names have a higher upside potential in the coming years due to AI adoption,” she said, warning that “waning global risk appetite could reverse rotation flows.”
Zhang echoed that value’s role may be more cyclical than structural.
“In this context, value’s strength underscores its historical role as a stabilising factor during periods of market transition,” she said.
Can value leadership sustain going forward?
Ozkardeskaya suggested that while value may benefit from current conditions, shifting sentiment could alter the trend.
“Waning global risk appetite could reverse rotation flows, and the latter could favour Big Tech, again,” she said.
Zhang said value could continue to lead in the near term as markets rebalance, but highlighted the long-term strength of quality strategies.
“Value leadership may persist in the near term as markets continue to rebalance,” she said.
However, she added that “quality factors tend to reassert their leadership due to durable earnings growth, strong balance sheets, and lower volatility.”
For investors, Zhang recommended a diversified approach.
“The more resilient approach is not choosing one factor over the other but blending both value and quality exposures,” she said.
Bottom line
Value stocks have outperformed in 2026 and may continue to benefit from the current mix of geopolitical uncertainty, inflation risks, and tighter financial conditions.
However, their role as a hedge may be temporary.
Over the longer term, growth and quality stocks—particularly those tied to AI—could regain leadership.
For investors, balancing exposure across both value and quality factors may offer the most resilient strategy in an uncertain market environment.
The post Can value stocks like Micron, Exonn hedge Middle East conflict risk? appeared first on Invezz
That’s no longer a speculative headline — it’s a question the Pentagon quietly brushed past in its new doctrine.
The US Department of Defense’s January 9, 2026, AI strategy contains a single line that may outlast the memo itself:
“We must accept that the risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment.”
It’s one of the clearest official acknowledgements yet that, inside the US defence establishment, the priority has shifted.
The goal is no longer to slow AI until accountability catches up, but to move faster — and deal with the consequences later.
That logic leapt off the page and into reality within weeks, when Anthropic clashed with the Pentagon over military-use restrictions.
The company was soon blacklisted after refusing to adopt broader “any lawful use” terms.
The memo that triggered the debate is more than bureaucratic jargon.
It orders the Department to become an “AI-first” warfighting force, to deploy frontier models into military systems within 30 days of public release, and to weave AI “from campaign planning to kill chain execution.”
The document even instructs agencies to use models “free from usage policy constraints” and to hardwire “any lawful use” language into all AI service contracts within six months.
This isn’t a distant debate about future ethics. It’s a procurement order, a policy shift, and a deployment race underway.
And it leaves one haunting question hanging in the silence:
When an AI-enabled system produces an unlawful strike — who is accountable?
The law still assumes human intent, command authority, and judgment. Yet modern military AI is built to shrink timelines, blur decision chains, and multiply actors until no one clearly owns the outcome.
That’s where the accountability problem doesn’t just begin — it accelerates.
The rules are clear, accountability isn’t
The first mistake in this debate is to assume autonomous weapons sit outside the law.
They do not.
International humanitarian law still applies. States can still be held responsible for internationally wrongful acts. Individuals can still, in principle, face prosecution for war crimes.
That much is not especially controversial.
As Dr. Vincent Boulanin, Director of the Governance of AI Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), puts it simply, while speaking with Invezz.
“States have agreed in the context of their diplomatic talks at the UN … that humans must retain responsibility for the development and use of autonomous weapon systems because machines cannot be held accountable for violations of international humanitarian law.”
That is the formal position. The difficulty starts when theory meets operations.
Boulanin’s formulation is useful because it is more precise than the popular phrase “accountability gap.”
He does not argue that the law disappears when AI enters the chain. He argues that the mechanisms for tracing, scrutinising, and attributing violations become much harder to use in practice.
His point is not that state responsibility and individual criminal responsibility are irrelevant.
It is that both become difficult to operationalise when the relevant conduct is distributed across programmers, commanders, acquisition officials, operators, intelligence analysts, and commercial vendors.
That is also why the issue is bigger than “killer robots.”
In practice, the pressure point is not only fully autonomous weapons, but AI decision-support systems that shape targeting, recommend objects of attack, rank threats, compress intelligence review, and present conclusions to humans under severe time pressure.
Once the machine narrows the field and the human is reduced to a fast confirmation step, the formal presence of a person in the loop does not necessarily mean meaningful human control still exists.
Michael N. Schmitt, one of the best-known scholars in the law of armed conflict, captures that distinction well.
The problem, as he has argued, is not that the law of armed conflict stops applying to autonomous systems.
It becomes far harder in practice to determine who made which decisions, on what information, and with what level of intent.
That is the difference between law on paper and accountability in the real world.
The Pentagon memo says “speed wins.” It orders the Department to “weaponise learning speed,” measure cycle time as a decisive variable, and treat the risks of delay as greater than the risks of imperfect alignment.
Those are not neutral management choices.
They change how much time humans have to understand, question, and override machine-generated outputs.
When a human is present, but no longer deciding
The strongest way to understand the accountability problem is through battlefield practice rather than legal abstraction.
The clearest public case remains Israel’s use of the Lavender system in Gaza, which multiple reports said was used to identify large numbers of potential targets.
Reporting by The Guardian, citing Israeli intelligence sources, said Lavender at one stage identified up to 37,000 Palestinian men allegedly linked to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The same reporting said the military used pre-approved civilian casualty thresholds for some categories of strikes.
That case matters not only because of the scale, but because it shows what happens when AI-assisted targeting becomes routinised.
The machine does not need to fire the weapon itself to reshape responsibility. It only needs to structure the decision.
Once an officer is reviewing machine-produced outputs inside an accelerated workflow, the legal image of a commander calmly weighing proportionality and distinction begins to look less like reality and more like a procedural fiction.
Richard Moyes, managing partner at Article 36, gets to the heart of this better than most policymakers do.
“If we do not know how an autonomous decision was made, or where the information computers present to commanders has come from, or how recent it is, then human decision-making stops being meaningful,” he told Invezz.
“International law in conflict is based upon human decisions, human moral engagement and accountability for those choices.”
That line matters because it moves the debate away from slogans. The real issue is not whether a human being technically touched the process somewhere.
The issue is whether the human still exercised judgment in a way the law can recognise.
If the data provenance is unclear, the system logic opaque, the timeline compressed, and the institutional expectation tilted toward speed, then the person at the end of the chain may be acting less like a decision-maker and more like a legal shock absorber.
The Pentagon memo points directly toward that world.
Its “Agent Network” project calls for “AI-enabled battle management and decision support, from campaign planning to kill chain execution.”
Another initiative, “Open Arsenal,” aims to accelerate the “TechINT-to-capability development pipeline,” explicitly “turning intel into weapons in hours, not years.”
Those phrases are unusually candid. They show the Department is not experimenting at the margins. It is trying to compress the full path from information to action.
The black box problem is not just technical
Boulanin identifies four reasons accountability becomes especially difficult in the autonomous weapon systems (AWS) context.
First, the law itself remains unsettled on how some international humanitarian law (IHL) rules should be interpreted and applied to autonomous systems.
Second, AI unpredictability compounds existing disputes about state and individual responsibility.
Third, the development and use of these systems involves a large number of actors, making responsibility hard to distribute or attribute.
Fourth, the “black box” nature of AI complicates efforts to investigate specific incidents and trace conduct back to particular agents.
That last point is often misunderstood. The black box problem is not only about engineers failing to explain model outputs. It is also institutional.
Even if some technical logging exists, investigators still need access, chain-of-custody integrity, and a legal framework capable of translating logs into responsibility.
Boulanin notes that digital logs and auditing mechanisms could, in theory, help trace conduct back to one or more actors.
But he also warns that the practical implications are not well understood.
That caveat is crucial. The existence of data is not the same as accountability.
A digital trail only matters if courts, investigators, and military institutions are willing and able to use it. So far, there is little evidence that they are.
No major legal system has yet produced a settled, high-profile precedent showing how AI-assisted battlefield decisions would be reconstructed in court across the full chain of design, procurement, deployment, and use.
Diplomacy is stalling as deployment speeds up
The accountability problem would still be serious if states were racing to build a stronger international regime around it. They are not.
Reuters reported this month that 128 states are discussing whether they can reach a consensus on a non-binding text on lethal autonomous weapons systems before the current mandate ends in September.
The chair of the Geneva talks said progress on rules is “urgently needed,” a phrase that reflects how late this process already is.
That timeline matters because the military and diplomatic tracks are moving in opposite directions. In Geneva, states are still debating baseline rules.
In Washington, the Pentagon is already accelerating battlefield AI adoption, model deployment, and contract redesign.
The US memo makes no meaningful attempt to pause for a clearer global framework. Instead, it treats speed itself as a strategic advantage.
Moyes is blunt about the political blockage.
“International law needs to be updated to ensure a baseline of human judgment, control and accountability in the use of autonomous weapons and AI targeting systems,” he told Invezz.
“Some of the same states that are using these systems are blocking the adoption of new legal rules – and it is civilian populations that will pay the price.”
That observation deserves more attention than it gets.
The states with the greatest capability and strongest operational incentives to preserve flexibility are also the states best positioned to slow or dilute new rules.
Consensus-heavy diplomatic formats make that easier.
So the gap does not persist because nobody sees it. It persists because the actors most capable of closing it often benefit from leaving it open.
Pentagon memo institutionalised the void
It is important not to overstate what the January 9 memo does. It does not repeal the law of armed conflict.
It does not formally abolish human responsibility. It does not, by itself, authorise unlawful strikes.
But it does something arguably more consequential.
It institutionalises a doctrine under which speed, scale, model freshness, and the removal of vendor-imposed use constraints become official procurement priorities.
The memo’s language is revealing all the way through. It calls for experimentation with America’s leading AI models “at all classification levels.”
It says denials of CDAO data requests must be justified within seven days and can be escalated to senior leadership.
It creates a “Barrier Removal Board” with authority to waive non-statutory requirements. It says the Department must “approach risk tradeoffs … as if we were at war.”
None of that proves illegality. But it does show an institution trying to strip friction out of the system.
And friction, in this context, is often where accountability lives.
Slow review is friction. Documentation is friction. Legal hesitation is friction. Model restrictions are friction. Human doubt is friction.
Once the institutional mission becomes the removal of blockers, those safeguards begin to look, from inside the system, like inefficiencies rather than protections.
There is another revealing detail in the memo.
It says that “special initiatives outlined in classified annexes” and in “the Classified Annex provided by separate cover” will also be accelerated.
So even the public version of the strategy points toward a larger classified architecture that remains outside public scrutiny.
That does not mean the hidden material is necessarily unlawful.
It does mean the public is being asked to trust a system whose accountability mechanisms are already strained, while some of its most consequential details remain secret.
The real question is smaller, but more damning
The most persuasive version of this narrative is not that autonomous weapons have created a complete legal vacuum. They have not.
It is that they are helping produce a world in which legal responsibility remains available in theory but less reachable in fact.
Because if Boulanin is right, the legal routes are there, but hard to use.
If Moyes is right, human judgment ceases to be meaningful when the machine’s reasoning is opaque and the data foundation uncertain.
And if Schmitt is right, the central difficulty is practical enforceability: identifying who decided what, on what basis, and with what intent.
Put those three arguments together, and the Pentagon memo starts to read less like a technology strategy and more like a governance document for the erosion of accountability.
It does not announce that erosion openly. It normalises the trade-offs that make erosion likely.
Someone will bear the cost of moving fast before accountability is solved. The memo makes clear that the Department is prepared to accept that risk.
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The Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD) has slumped to its lowest level since February 4 this year. SCHD has dropped by 4.40% from its highest point this year, and this trend may continue falling before rebounding.
SCHD ETF stock has dropped as American shares dump
The Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF has suffered a big drop in the past few weeks, mirroring the performance of other American stock indices.
Most of its constituents have dropped after the start of the US-Iran war. However, unlike the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indices, it is better positioned to handle the ongoing crisis.
That’s because the energy segment is the biggest part of the fund, with a 20% share. This includes companies like ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and EOG Resources. Most of these stocks have done well as crude oil and natural gas prices have soared.
Other large companies in the index are not highly affected by the ongoing Iran war. The health care segment is another major one, accounting for about 16.3%. This includes companies like Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck, Amgen, and AbbVie. Like in the energy segment, the health care one is not highly exposed to the ongoing war.
The same is happening in other large companies like Texas Instruments, Verizon, Altria, and PepsiCo.
Meanwhile, the fund has a minimal presence in the technology industry, which has come under pressure as analysts start to question the potential for an AI bubble.
Hawkish Federal Reserve
The SCHD ETF has retreated amid the ongoing fear that the Federal Reserve will embrace a more hawkish tone amid the ongoing Iran war. In a statement on Wednesday, the bank decided to leave the interest rate unchanged between 3.50% and 3.75%.
Officials signaled that they were concerned about the rising inflation data as energy, transportation, and fertilizer costs jumped. As a result, analysts believe that the bank will deliver at least two interest rate hikes this year.
Historically, the SCHD ETF tends to beat the broader market whenever the Federal Reserve is hiking interest rates because it is made up of value stocks.
Data shows that the fund is relatively undervalued compared with the broader market. The SCHD has a price-to-earnings (PE) ratio of 19, lower than the S&P 500 Index average of 23. Its price-to-cash-flow of 10 is also lower than that of the broader market.
SCHD ETF stock technical analysis
Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF chart | Source: TradingView
The daily chart shows that the Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF has slumped in the past few days. It has dropped from a record high of $31.95 to the current $30.60.
The ongoing retreat has brought the Relative Strength Index (RSI) from the overbought level of 86 to the current 40. Also, the Stochastic Oscillator has moved to the oversold level.
Therefore, the stock will likely remain under pressure for a while and then stage a strong comeback. If this happens, it may drop to the 23.6% retracement level at $29.85 and then resume the uptrend.
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US stock futures are trading on a muted note on Thursday, a day after the Dow Jones index hit a new low for 2026 in the previous session.
Dow futures edged down by 21 points, or 0.1%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively.
The tepid numbers came as the Wall Street indices faced some strong action on Wednesday, after hotter-than-expected PPI data and the Fed’s hawkish stance dragged the stocks down.
5 things to know before Wall Street opens
1. Oil prices are again dominating the headlines amid the conflict in the Middle East.
Brent crude price surged nearly 8% and is trading over $114 a barrel at the time of writing this report.
US WTI numbers have also gained and are hovering around $97 a barrel.
The sharp surge in oil prices followed Iranian missile strikes on Ras Laffan, home to Qatar’s key liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing hub.
Operations at the Ras Laffan facility, responsible for roughly one-fifth of global LNG supply, were halted after the attack.
The disruption fueled fresh volatility in energy markets, with European gas prices also jumping more than 35%.
2. The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on March 18, keeping the benchmark federal funds rate in the 3.5%–3.75% range.
The FOMC voted 10-2 in favor of the hold, with Trump appointee Governor Stephen Miran dissenting.
The decision came against a backdrop of surging oil prices tied to the ongoing Iran conflict and a weak February jobs report.
The Fed also revised its inflation outlook upward, now projecting its preferred gauge at 2.7% by the end of 2026.
The updated dot plot showed the median FOMC member pencilling in just one rate cut for the year.
3. Micron stock witnessed a sharp sell-off after releasing its fiscal second-quarter results.
Despite beating the Wall Street estimates and posting record revenue, the memory giant is over 6% down in pre-market trading on Thursday.
The plunge came as Micron said it would raise its 2026 capital spending plan, a move that appeared to unsettle investors despite optimism around AI-driven demand.
4. Alibaba’s December-quarter results showed how expensive its AI pivot is becoming.
The tech giant missed estimates to post a revenue of 284.8 billion yuan, while the company’s net income plunged 66% from a year earlier.
The numbers suggest Alibaba is sacrificing near-term profitability as it pours tens of billions of dollars into AI.
For investors, the key question is whether these investments can drive faster cloud growth and stronger adoption of AI products.
It also comes down to whether Alibaba can win a broader re-rating beyond its core e-commerce business.
5. Globally, fear sentiment dominated among the investors as most of the indexes witnessed a sharp sell-off.
European markets took a hit on Thursday as the conflict involving Iran intensified.
The Stoxx 600 dropped more than 2% by mid-morning in London, with losses across almost every major market.
The story was similar for Asia, where tech stocks led the losers with South Korea’s memory chip leaders SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics dropping 2.23% and 1.8%.
The post Dow futures muted on Thursday: 5 things to know before market opens appeared first on Invezz
Unilever share price remains in a technical correction after falling by 13% from its highest point this year.
It has dropped to 4,800p from the year-to-date high of 5,492p, as investors focus on its upcoming turnaround.
Unilever is considering spinning off its food business
Unilever, one of the biggest players in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry, is continuing its turnaround strategy.
According to Bloomberg, the company is considering separating its food business, which includes its brands like Knorr, Hellmann’s, Maille Dijon, Colman’s, and Namdong instant noodles.
This is a big business, with Hellmann’s and Knorr making 60% of its food business.
Its most recent results showed that its food business made over €12.9 billion, down 3.2% YoY.
It is the second-biggest business after its personal care, which made €13.2 billion.
The food business has been slowing in the past few months because of inflation, which has pushed more customers to cheaper brands.
Analysts also warn that the popularity of GLP-1 drugs will push customers to eat less calorie-dense products.
The spin-off, if it goes through, comes a year after the company separated its ice cream business into Magnum Ice Cream, of which it still owns 20% stake. It plans to continue selling it down in the coming years.
The spin off will likely be in the form of a sale, possibly to companies in the private equity sector. It may also plan to spin it into a separate publicly traded company.
The most recent results showed that Unilever’s business remained under pressure last year. Its turnover dropped by 3.8% last year to €50.5 billion, with all its segments falling.
The beauty and well-being turnover dropped by 2.3% to €12.8 billion, while personal care, home care, and foods dropped to €13.2 billion, €11.6 billion, and €12.9 billion, respectively.
On the positive side, its operating profit rose by 2.4% to €9 billion, while the net profit jumped to €6.2 billion.
As a result, it launched a new €1.5 billion share buyback and raised its dividend by 3%.
A key concern about Unilever is that the ongoing Iran war will likely affect its business, including affecting its supply chains and increasing the cost of doing business.
Another concern is that its business is highly overvalued, with its forward price-to-earnings ratio being 18, higher than the sector median of 15.
Unilever share price technical analysis
ULVR stock chart | Source: TradingView
The three-day chart shows that the Unilever stock price has been in a freefall in the past few weeks. It has dropped from 5,480p to the current 4,800p.
This retreat has pushed it below the 50-day and 100-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMA).
The stock also dropped below the Ichimoku cloud indicator and the Strong Pivot Reverse point of the Murrey Math Lines tool.
Therefore, the stock will likely continue falling this month, with the next key target being the Ultimate Support level at 4,087p.
On the positive side, the stock has formed a hammer candlestick pattern, pointing to a potential rebound in the near term.
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