#analysis

Did you know Arista is half the market cap of Cisco and only has 5100 employees compared to 86,000 employees at Cisco?

Q2 is out. Revenue basically flat. Free cash flow flat for the half. And yet the letter reads like a highlight reel: double-digit growth here, “strong performance” there, three bold priorities for the back half. Look closer, and the growth is concentrated in exactly the places you’d expect if the story were built on acquisitions rather than the underlying business.
Automation up 3%. Sounds modest until you remember that’s the segment carrying HashiCorp and Apptio (both bought, both being folded into the base, both getting a full year of “integration growth” before the comparison gets tough). Data up 18%, presented like IBM is winning the AI battle. Except Data is also where Confluent landed. Strip out an acquisition that closed months ago and ask what the legacy products in that category actually did on their own (that’s the number nobody puts in bold).
This is the oldest trick in inorganic growth: buy a company, fold its revenue into your segment, get a full year of easy comps while contracts get renewed and “blue-washed” under the new parent, and call the blended number your own performance. It works, for about a year. Then the acquisition anniversaries into the base, the easy comp disappears, and the segment needs the next acquisition to keep the story going. That’s not a growth engine. That’s a treadmill with a one-year lap time.
Meanwhile the parts of the business that were never propped up by an acquisition tell a rougher story. Infrastructure down 7%. Transaction Processing down 9% (they’re the same story told twice). Transaction Processing is the software that rides on Z. No mainframe refresh, no new Z capacity, no large deals closing (no new MLC licensing booked either). Hardware and software here aren’t two separate lines on a slide, they’re one engine: when Z doesn’t sell, the software tied to it doesn’t sell either, and both numbers fall together because they were never actually independent.
Which raises the uncomfortable question: how much of this business is actually layered on top of itself? Acquired revenue propping up Automation and Data while the base underneath goes quiet. Mainframe hardware and mainframe software rising and falling as one, dressed up as two separate growth stories. Each piece needs the piece below it to keep moving, or the whole structure stalls at once. Call it what you want (a treadmill, a house of cards, a pyramid where each new acquisition is there to cover for the last one’s fading comp): the pattern is the same, nothing underneath is generating growth on its own, it’s all leaning on something else that has to keep being fed.
Revenue flat overall at $17.2 billion. Free cash flow flat at $4.8 billion for the half. If the “real” IBM (the part that isn’t riding a recent purchase or a hardware refresh cycle) is shrinking while acquisitions and mainframe timing carry the average, the honest question isn’t “is IBM a software company.” It’s “whose growth is this, actually, and what happens the quarter the props stop arriving on schedule?”
And right on schedule, the answer on offer is another reshuffle (new titles, new coverage models, a new operating structure for the back half). But renaming jobs doesn’t change what’s underneath them. If the growth was never really organic to begin with, no amount of reorganizing who sells it or what they’re called is going to make it real.
And this isn’t a new discovery. The pattern has been visible on the ground for years (it just took a bad quarter for the market to finally notice what employees already knew). That’s the part worth sitting with: this wasn’t leadership missing a hidden signal. It was leadership seeing it, for years, and being too arrogant to admit the story needed correcting. Too invested in a stock price number (chasing $300 a share) to step back and ask whether the growth underneath it was real.
And even if the July reorg were the right diagnosis, it isn’t the right timeline. Deployment takes months to show up as revenue under the best conditions, longer when the team doing it just got reshuffled and has to relearn who owns what. A reorg launched mid-year, needing to prove itself by year-end, is asking for a “wow” effect on a clock that deployment has never once run on. Nobody deploys enterprise software in one or two quarters just because leadership needs a good Q4 slide. So the real question isn’t whether the numbers improve by December; it’s whether anyone at the top is honest enough to say, out loud, that they won’t, and that expecting otherwise is expecting a miracle from a plan that was never built with that timeline in mind.
Numbers tell the truth when you sit with them long enough. Put makeup on them (bold a growth rate, bury the segment it came from, skip the base it’s being compared against) and they’ll tell you whatever story needs telling that quarter. This quarter’s story needed rescuing. The last-minute reorg landing on top of it isn’t the fix. It’s one more coat of makeup on a number that’s going to need a lot more than that to hold up next quarter, when the acquisitions currently doing the heavy lifting start looking like ordinary IBM again.

Look at Nike’s stock price over the past 50 years. There have been ups and downs, but nothing compares to the decline since 2020. The five-year downward trend is crazy.

It’s hard not to see this as the point where Nike went off the rails. Leadership, business strategy, and company culture all changed for the worse. I wonder how business analysts will explain what happened years from now.

Recent acquisitions over last 5 years that haven’t worked out and why?

Go

These analysts are hilarious st-----g Bill. There hasn’t been a worse performing bank ceo in decades.

UnitedHealth reported Q2 earnings this morning, and it’s worth looking beyond the headline. Digging in we see:

Highlights:

• Revenue: $111.6B (+14%)
• Adjusted EPS: $6.38, well above expectations
• Medical Loss Ratio: 86.7%, better than expected
• Raised full-year guidance
• Continued emphasis on improving the quality and profitability of the book of business, even if it means fewer members.

Official results:
https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/newsroom/2026/2026-07-16-uhg-reports-second-quarter-2026-results.html

The contrast with Centene couldn’t be much clearer. Both companies are dealing with membership pressure. The difference is that UnitedHealth is framing fewer members as a strategic choice in pursuit of a stronger operating model. Pricing, product decisions, analytics, AI, clinical execution, and disciplined growth all appear to be moving in the same direction.

Centene has spent the last year talking about Mission Simplify, reorganizations, buyouts, cost discipline, and a smaller organization. The stock has rebounded sharply from last year’s selloff, but that’s regained investor confidence… not necessarily proof the operating model has materially improved. It’s easy to look at the stock price this year vs. same time last year when it was in the dumpster.

The key takeaway and where the focus should be: Healthcare is no longer a game of who has the most members. It’s become who can generate the best outcomes with the members they have. With me so far?

Both companies will definitely end up serving fewer people. The difference is whether that’s the result of a stronger operating model… or simply a smaller organization. Both companies are getting smaller. UnitedHealth is treating it as a strategy. Centene is trying to convince investors it’s an opportunity.

And then there’s AI. UnitedHealth isn’t starting from scratch. While they’ve been embedding analytics and AI deeper into the operating model, Centene was very slow out of the blocks… and it has spent much of the last year restructuring, reducing costs, and trying to regain its footing. That’s a lot of ground to make up as AI becomes the next competitive battleground. Maybe they have the core competency internally, but I’ve never seen it, and you definitely can’t outsource it.

One of Centene’s guiding principles the past couple of years, “We do what’s right, not what’s easy.” The easy part was making the company smaller. The hard part is proving it became better.

The stage gets much bigger on the 27th. That’s where leadership has to show investors that Mission Simplify wasn’t just about reducing costs, but it’s resulted in a fundamentally stronger company. That’s what the market will be listening for. I’m not very optimistic they’ll pull it off.

The stock prices is down 2% YTD and most analysts expect very little upside. Also, with very high technology spending and in employee salaries, seems like we should expect a sizable layoffs in the near future. Thoughts?

Wells Fargo analysts started coverage of AT&T with a sell rating and price target of $18, implying nearly 15% downside. They are worried the telecom giant will likely lose ground to SpaceX's Starlink in broadband internet and, further down the road, could be threatened by Starlink's mobile ambitions. These aren't exactly new concerns. Just take a look at AT&T's stock chart, with shares down over 20% in three months.

What is the difference or how are they related?

Why do we keep seeing these bull headlines for Nike with nothing to back it up to show that they can do it. This says Nike could have a 40+ % swing my July of Nike year. What are you thoughts?

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/prediction-nike-stock-set-25-141550863.html

The FDA has delayed a decision on Praxis Precision Medicines' rare epilepsy dr-g. The dr-g, relutrigine, treats SCN2A and SCN8A encephalopathies. The agency requires three additional months to review new sensitivity analyses. This pushes the decision date back to December 27. Analysts suggest FDA staff cuts likely contributed to this review extension.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/praxis-faces-fda-delay-analysts-point-finger-agency-layoffs

https://ionanalytics.com/insights/debtwire/optimum-creditors-have-leverage-to-challenge-troubled-telecoms-controversial-asset-transfers-legal-analysis/

What is the difference between CA and CR?
Serious analysis only ;)

I wonder if any leadership reads anything on this site (director and above)?

I do see various financial analyst articles about CDW touch on info that was mentioned here.

I also noticed Google AI include some of the info from posts on this site as analysis.

Just curious.

California

• ServiceNow is cutting 63 workers in San Diego, with keywords including software, headcount, layoff, and CEO pledge.
• Coinbase has layoffs affecting an unknown number of workers in San Francisco, with keywords including AI, job cuts, tech, and automation.
• Palo Alto hotel has layoffs affecting an unknown number of full-time workers in Palo Alto, with keywords including hotel, contract workers, staff replacement, and April layoffs.
• Gallo is cutting 20 workers in Lodi, with keywords including Turner Road plant, grape crush, winemaking, and Modesto-based.
• IGN is cutting 4 tech workers in an unspecified location, with keywords including tech workers, Summer Game Fest, union, and IGN Creators Guild.

Colorado

• CAE is cutting an unknown number of workers in Pueblo, with keywords including site closure, flight training, Air Force pilots, and fall shutdown.

Connecticut

• Stamford Public Schools has layoffs affecting 5 educators in Stamford, with keywords including teachers union, layoffs, reassignments, grievance, and school budget.

Illinois

• Hawthorne Race Course warns of 290 potential layoffs in Illinois, with keywords including horse track, potential layoffs, sale, and regulators.

Iowa

• Iowa state IT workers face potential layoffs or job disruption in Des Moines, with keywords including outsourcing, IPERS, service disruptions, and state government.

Louisiana

• St. Landry Parish Schools faces potential layoffs affecting an unknown number of workers in St. Landry Parish, with keywords including financial crisis, school closures, debt, and superintendent warning.

Maryland

• University System of Maryland has layoffs affecting at least 84 workers across UMD, Bowie State, and UMBC, with keywords including AFSCME, Board of Regents, University of Maryland, and state campuses.

Massachusetts

• Takeda is cutting hundreds of workers in Cambridge, with keywords including biotech, Massachusetts, thousands of jobs, and July layoffs.

Minnesota

• Mankato Clinic is cutting nearly 100 workers in Mankato, with keywords including healthcare costs, 10 percent, clinic employees, and rising costs.

New York

• The New School is cutting 90 workers in New York City, with keywords including budget deficit, university, AAUP, and firings.

Pennsylvania

• JBS is cutting nearly 1,500 workers in Souderton, with keywords including beef plant, closure, Montgomery County, and production plant.

Texas

• El Paso ISD is cutting 250 workers in El Paso by June 19, with keywords including exigency vote, school district, funding issues, and teacher layoffs.
• Hilton Houston NASA Clear Lake is cutting 65 workers in Houston, with keywords including hotel closure, renovation, Compass Hotel, and July 31.

Vermont

• University of Vermont Health has layoffs affecting an unknown number of workers in Vermont, with keywords including healthcare, second straight year, budget cuts, and projections.

Multi-State: Not Specified

• Dow is cutting approximately 4,500 workers across unspecified locations, with keywords including Transform to Outperform, workforce layoffs, costs, and restructuring.
• Microsoft Xbox reportedly plans major layoffs affecting an unknown number of workers across unspecified locations, with keywords including gaming division, July layoffs, reset, and budget cuts.
• Salesforce is cutting an unknown number of workers across Agentforce, Mulesoft, and Marketing Cloud locations, with keywords including tech layoffs, second round, AI, and software.
• Meta has cut roughly 8,000 workers across unspecified locations, with keywords including AI restructuring, workforce shift, 10 percent, and no further company-wide layoffs.
• Oracle is finalizing its largest reduction in force affecting an unknown number of workers across unspecified locations, with keywords including AI-driven layoffs, tech industry, reduction in force, and Healthcare IT.
• ABA Centers of America has layoffs affecting an unknown number of workers across unspecified locations, with keywords including behavioral health, staff cuts, social media posts, and varied roles.
• Sam Altman's biometric ID venture is laying off an unknown number of workers across unspecified locations, with keywords including eyeball-scanning, Orb, government pushback, and startup.
• UPMC is laying off hundreds of workers across unspecified locations, with keywords including nonclinical workers, healthcare, previous layoffs, and workforce reduction.
• Worldcoin or Sam Altman's Orb startup is laying off an unknown number of workers across unspecified locations, with keywords including biometric ID, Orb, government scrutiny, and startup layoffs.

United States

• Western Illinois University has been ordered to reverse layoffs affecting 124 faculty and staff in Illinois, with keywords including librarians, back pay, reinstatement, and 2024 layoffs.
• Tyson has recent mass layoffs affecting an unknown number of workers in Nebraska, with keywords including workers, Trump, Nebraska, and plant layoffs.
• PVUSD approved about 150 layoffs in December 2025 after earlier avoiding about 100 layoffs in February 2025 in California, with keywords including consultant, budget troubles, trustees, and teacher layoffs.

Bangladesh

• Bangladesh garment and industrial employers have layoffs affecting an unknown number of workers across Bangladesh, with keywords including garment orders, industrial sector, energy shortages, and worker reinstatement.

Nigeria

• Nigeria food and beverage employers face potential mass layoffs affecting an unknown number of workers across the sector, with keywords including rising costs, forex crisis, FOBTOB, and food industry.

Potential/Unconfirmed Layoffs

• Ubisoft reportedly attempted to embargo reporting on layoffs and studio closures affecting an unknown number of workers in unspecified locations, with keywords including mass layoff reporting, studio closures, employees, and embargo.
• Xbox Game Studios faces potential studio closures and layoffs affecting an unknown number of workers in unspecified locations, with keywords including upcoming layoff round, studio closure, financial crisis, and Xbox.
• Microsoft has considered spinning off Xbox while layoffs loom for an unknown number of workers in unspecified locations, with keywords including subsidiary, joint venture, margins, and gaming division.
• Stamford Public Schools has proposed or disputed reassignments affecting dozens of educators in Stamford, with keywords including teachers union, transfers, grievance, and fall staffing.
• St. Landry Parish Schools may close schools and cut an unknown number of workers in Louisiana, with keywords including financial problems, superintendent warning, retreat, and budget crisis.

Company-wide/Location Not Specified

• Innovaccer is eliminating an unknown number of workers in an unspecified location, with keywords including AI-driven layoffs, healthcare IT, tech industry, and reduction in force.
• Amazon and Microsoft laid off a millennial tech worker in unspecified locations, with keywords including job search, tech future, career shift, and prior layoffs.
• Meta laid off a 24-year-old data scientist in an unspecified location, with keywords including job security, AI, large companies, and career rethink.
• Meta laid off an employee who was later detained by ICE in an unspecified location, with keywords including ICE detention, former employee, layoff, and whereabouts unknown.

National/Other Commentary and Analysis

• BNY Investments reported steady hiring and fewer layoffs nationally, with keywords including May jobs report, payroll growth, labor market, and layoffs down.
• Axios Colorado Springs discussed tech layoff prediction markets for college students nationally, with keywords including Kalshi, tech careers, prediction markets, and career planning.
• Robin J Brooks discussed AI and white-collar job losses nationally, with keywords including AI narrative, structural change, labor market, and layoffs.
• AOL and Business Insider reported that job growth remains positive while job seekers face difficulty nationally, with keywords including economy, hiring, low layoffs, and wage growth.
• Fortune reported that AI job disruption may be compounded by low unemployment benefit applications nationally, with keywords including AI layoffs, economic uncertainty, benefits, and jobless workers.
• WION and YouTube discussed whether AI job cuts are real or overstated nationally, with keywords including AI washing, corporate America, mass layoffs, and debate.
• Fast Company or LinkedIn discussed making layoffs feel less inhumane nationally, with keywords including layoffs, workplace, management, and humane process.
• MSN discussed the hidden cost of layoffs nationally, with keywords including income loss, unemployment, layoff cost, and workers.
• Fathom Journal discussed unemployment and layoffs across U.S. states, with keywords including families, living costs, industries, and economic uncertainty.
• Reuters and related outlets reported Zuckerberg's comments ruling out further Meta company-wide layoffs in 2026, with keywords including AI transition, mistakes, stability, and workforce overhaul.
• WIRED and Technology Org reported Meta employee unrest over AI restructuring without a new specific layoff event, with keywords including AI unit, hackathon, employee backlash, and reassignments.
• Yahoo Finance discussed Dow layoffs and valuation implications nationally, with keywords including cost cuts, Xylem deal, long-term returns, and restructuring.
• Politico reported DOJ approval of Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. amid layoff concerns, with keywords including merger, competition, DOJ, and concerns.
• Vanguard News reported food industry layoff risk in Nigeria as sector commentary, with keywords including rising costs, forex crisis, mass layoffs, and industry warning.

We used to see financial analysis of Oracle after earnings in this channel talking about layoffs. Any thing happening ?

Optimum's outlook 'more aspirational than realistic' – analyst
Optimum's new multi-year outlook sees its broadband business stabilizing at 3.8 million subs by the end of 2028. That's a 'tall order,' says New Street Research, which expects broadband losses to continue.

Picture of Jeff Baumgartner
Jeff Baumgartner,Senior Editor,Light Reading
June 10, 2026

It’s now evident that the XOM’s Permian factory has reached an inflection point and starting to experience technical and operational challenges. Please share your experiences and potential outcomes.

Will XOM make another purchase? Who and when? Certainly missed the last opportunity and now candidate companies are overvalued by +66%.

How long will XOM maintain a +22 rig line? It’s cheaper to buy production then it is to develop your own acreage.

Investors bid the stock up on short‑term good news (earnings, investor stake, dividend), but the Q1 beat could be misleading because it’s pro‑forma and boosted by Lexmark purchase‑accounting adjustments rather than pure organic profit or cash‑flow improvement.

Our closest competitor is ki-ling us.

Here are some new sheet ideas for those workbooks that guide leaderships decisions. I know that our country and our citizens welfare will not be factored in.

1. Plot visa sponsorship against recalls
2. Plot cumulative layoffs against recalls
3. Plot them both against labor cost per dollar earned.
4. Plot visa sponsorship growth in groups, I bet it's exponential.

Here are some of the largest and most prominent companies currently sitting near the bottom of their yearly range:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/uss-big-bet-on-quantum-computing-may-not-be-entirely-legal/

It clearly falls outside the confines of the CHIP Act intent.

Article also points out how utterly ridiculous the idea of a "quantum chip foundry" is in 2026.

Hearing some great intel and insights that Kaskida is being challenged by Meg for potentially not meeting economic and technical hurdles…
Please share your insights on this complex project that was rammed into FID by Murray’s go team…What does Elliot Management think about their capital6 deployed and possibly destroyed? When the the technical class challenges sanctioning

I've seen post on here dissecting and criticizing some of the collabs Nike has at the moment. Some of which has been relatively successful, like the Travis Scott collab. I haven't seen anyone pick apart the Drake line tho. That may have been one of the worst investments by Nike.

Nocta has really been a lackluster for the Nike and considering how big of an artist Drake is, he's never been someone people looked to for style, like never. Definitely wasted opportunity there.

$108 was considered the highest possible outcome by analysts.
Have to imagine this ~$100 range won’t last past earnings.

If you are fired, please do the below analysis on this doc you get: Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA)

If you are older than 40 (or 50?) years old, you should get a OWBPA document (it shows ages and job titles of the fired people). MAKE SURE to save it locally immediately!!! If you view it and then leave the page, the document will show as read and you may not be able to access it again (at least that happened to me). You may be able to get GEMINI to help you do the analysis (turn AI against big dirty red!).

My guess it would be eye opening (to a judge:)) to see the breakout/comparison of job title and age for higher paying jobs (engineering and technology) versus job titles and age for lower paying jobs (help desk, admin assistants, etc..). Would not be surprising to see this output - just as an example of what might be uncovered: 50 people that are 55+ years old fired and all in high paying jobs.... and then another 50 people that are 20 to 35 years old and all in lower paying jobs (and MUCH easier to backfill or put a contractor in later). If you just looked at ages, you would say it looks ok. But, if you included wages, AND job titles, you would see a definite bias in the example.

• Intel shares rallied sharply, helped by optimism around AI, foundry improvements, and possible Apple manufacturing talks.
• The stock reportedly rose more than 100% in April and kept gaining in May.
• Barron’s says Intel was Tuesday’s top performer in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100.
• Technical signals look bullish, including strong volume and a possible “golden cross.”
• The analyst expects the stock may pause around $100 before any next move higher.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/intel-moved-from-laggard-to-leader-where-chart-is-heading-e4997799

RBC Economics analyzed Canada's labor market conditions. They anticipate a modest gain of 25,000 jobs in April. This gain should reduce the unemployment rate to 6.6%. Shrinking labor force growth means less employment growth is needed. RBC expects gradual improvements in the job market this year.

https://www.mpamag.com/ca/mortgage-industry/industry-trends/rbc-sees-canadas-jobs-engine-steady-even-as-labour-pool-thins/573824

The 3 benchmarks are AI, S&P500 and cd’s/treasuries for 5 years total return

AI. 100%+
S&P500. 85%
CD’s/Tr. 15%
Waters 0%

Waters is clearly not a growth company, but stagnant.

Why is it above 60s now ?

Are the people who have been hired before, to analyze the company for layoff advice, holding clipboards? If so, saw them at a HQ today.

I only see a few options.

1 - Keep under performing as a smaller, poorly managed Oil & Gas company?
2 - Buy something, incurring more debt?
3 - Sell all or part of Ovintiv now that Anadarko is closed and add in a heavy haricut to reduce headcount?

Good luck everyone.

My analyst su-ks. Who hires these kids?

Just think, it was trading near 170 five years ago. Today it’s trading at 45. Make your own conclusions.

Total opposite of other analysts and certainly no belief in management. Mayo hasn’t been this tough and we know how he feels about BillyBob and his management.

Jefferies initiated coverage on Truist Financial Corp. (NYSE:TFC) with an underperform rating and set a price target of $35.00, representing a significant 23% downside from the current stock price of $45.39. This bearish stance contrasts sharply with the broader analyst consensus of Hold, with price targets ranging from $48.50 to $69.
The firm cited execution risk related to the bank achieving its return on tangible common equity target of 15% in fiscal year 2026, up from 13% in fiscal year 2025. The challenge appears substantial given that Truist’s return on common equity currently stands at just 8% as of the last twelve months. According to InvestingPro analysis, 8 analysts have revised their earnings downwards for the upcoming period, though the stock trades at a P/E ratio of 11.86 and offers a dividend yield of 4.59%.
Jefferies said intensifying competition in the Southeast may hinder loan and deposit growth and add friction to the company’s hiring plans.
The firm noted that even if Truist Financial meets its ROTCE target, it would trail peers at 17% in fiscal year 2027.
Jefferies said the expected performance gap warrants a discounted valuation for the stock.

Lots of analyst predicting it will decline.