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WELCOME TO BETA FINCH — SOUTHERN COMPANY (SO) Q2 2026

ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. I'm Alex, joined as always by Jordan, and today we're digging into Southern Company's second quarter 2026 results. Before we get into it — quick disclaimer: this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

JORDAN: And Alex, this is a fun one — because Southern Company isn't just beating numbers this quarter, they're sitting at the center of the whole AI infrastructure buildout story. Data centers, hyperscalers, nuclear — it's all here.

ALEX: Let's start with the headline numbers. Adjusted EPS for Q2 came in at $1.13 per share — that's $0.21 higher than Q2 last year, and $0.13 above what they'd guided last quarter. First half of the year, adjusted EPS is $2.46, well ahead of expectations.

JORDAN: And because of that strength, management now expects full-year 2026 adjusted EPS to land near or at the top of their guidance range of $4.50 to $4.60. They also gave Q3 guidance of $1.65 a share. So they're not just beating — they're raising the bar for the rest of the year.

ALEX: What's actually driving this? CFO David Poroch pointed to increased usage and customer growth, higher AFUDC — that's allowance for funds used during construction, basically a return utilities earn while big projects are being built — plus earnings from equity investments and some favorable tax impacts.

JORDAN: The sales growth numbers are honestly the headline for me. Weather-normal retail electricity sales were up 2.3% year-to-date — the strongest growth through June in almost two decades. And get this: data center usage was up 55% compared to Q2 last year, and system-wide data center load now exceeds 1.2 gigawatts.

ALEX: That's the story everyone's watching right now — power demand from AI data centers. And Southern just landed a massive one. Georgia Power signed a 3.2 gigawatt, 25-year contract with OpenAI for a site near Savannah.

JORDAN: Twenty-five years, Alex. That's the kind of contract length that makes utility investors sit up. And it's not a standalone number — combined with three new projects in Alabama totaling about 3 gigawatts, Southern's total contracted large-load demand is now over 17 gigawatts through the mid-2030s.

ALEX: And the pipeline behind that is enormous — CEO Chris Womack said their prospective pipeline of large industrial and data center projects remains "well above 75 gigawatts," with another 8 gigawatts in late-stage development, 3 of which could finalize soon.

JORDAN: What I liked in the Q&A was how much attention they paid to protecting existing customers from this growth. Chris Womack talked about the National Ratepayer Protection Pledge they just joined, and the contract structure — minimum bills that cover 100% of the incremental cost to serve, plus serious collateral backing.

ALEX: That collateral detail was wild. On a question from Wolfe Research's Steve Fleishman, David Poroch clarified that across the full 17-gigawatt portfolio of large-load contracts, Southern's holding about $21 billion in collateral — lines of credit, surety bonds, parent guarantees — enough to keep their effective credit exposure around an A-minus or better, even when the counterparty itself isn't quite investment grade.

JORDAN: That's a smart risk-management story for a company taking on this much new, concentrated demand. And it's part of why they can say retail base rates are staying stable in Georgia and Alabama through 2029 — even as they're plugging in gigawatts of new load.

ALEX: The OpenAI deal also included something new — one gigawatt of flexible demand response, meaning OpenAI's site can dial back u

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ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown! Today we're diving into Altria Group's second quarter 2026 results. I'm Alex, joined as always by Jordan. And before we get into it — this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

JORDAN: Good to be here, Alex. And there's actually a lot to unpack this quarter — Altria raised guidance, but the story underneath it is more nuanced than the headline suggests.

ALEX: Let's start with the numbers. Adjusted diluted EPS came in at $1.48 for the quarter, up 2.8%. For the first half of the year, that's $2.80, up a healthier 4.9%. And on the back of that first-half strength, Altria narrowed — and actually raised the low end of — full-year guidance to a range of $5.61 to $5.72, which works out to 3.5% to 5.5% growth off last year's base.

JORDAN: Right, but here's the interesting wrinkle — one analyst on the call pointed out that even with that raised low end, it's still below what they delivered in the first half. So the second-half math implies things moderate a bit. CEO Sal Mancuso's answer basically boiled down to: the consumer is still under pressure — elevated gas prices, inflation — and they're stepping up investment behind new launches, so don't expect the same pace of growth to just continue in a straight line.

ALEX: That's a good instinct as a listener — when a company raises guidance but the low end still trails first-half performance, it's worth asking why. In this case it sounds like a mix of planned investment spend and just conservative phasing.

JORDAN: Exactly. Now let's talk about where the real growth engine is: smokeable products. That segment's adjusted operating income grew 4.2% in the first half, with margins expanding to nearly 65%. Cigarette volume declines are actually moderating — down about 5% industry-wide when you adjust for inventory, and that's the fourth straight quarter of that decline rate improving.

ALEX: Why is that happening? Management pointed to something pretty specific — fewer smokers switching over to illicit flavored disposable vapes, largely because of stepped-up enforcement. Federal seizures topped $250 million this quarter alone, plus a Minnesota AG lawsuit against a major illicit vape manufacturer.

JORDAN: Which is a fascinating dynamic — Altria's traditional cigarette business is getting a tailwind from regulators cracking down on unregulated vape products. That's basically the whole thesis of tobacco harm reduction policy playing out in real time, just not in the direction some might expect.

ALEX: Meanwhile, within cigarettes, there's a real trade-down story happening. Discount segment share grew 2.6 points as lower-income consumers feel the pinch. Marlboro held its premium leadership — 59.6% share of premium — but its overall share dipped 1.5 points as some smokers shift to value options.

JORDAN: And Altria's playing both sides of that. They launched Marlboro Cowboy Cut — a value-oriented Marlboro line tied to America's 250th anniversary, clever branding there — while also growing their Basic discount brand, which saw share up 2.3 points year-over-year. Management was clear: the strategy is to participate in discount without accelerating the category's growth, protecting Marlboro's premium position as much as possible.

ALEX: Let's shift to the smoke-free side, because this is where the long-term story lives. The oral tobacco segment actually had a rough quarter on paper — adjusted OCI down 8% — but that's largely due to tough prior-year comparisons and heavy investment behind on! PLUS, their new nicotine pouch line.

JORDAN: Right, and context matters here. Nicotine pouches are now nearly 60% of the enti

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ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. Today we're digging into Starbucks' fiscal Q3 2026 results, and Jordan, this one's got some real momentum behind it.

JORDAN: It really does, Alex. But before we get into all the green apron talk and coffee comps, quick disclaimer for everyone tuning in: this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

ALEX: Well said. Okay, let's get into it. Starbucks posted its fourth consecutive quarter of positive global comps — global comps up 7.9%, which actually accelerated sequentially from Q2. U.S. comps came in at 7.9% too, with a healthy split between transactions up 4.2% and ticket up 3.6%.

JORDAN: And that composition really matters. It's not just price hikes doing the work — pricing only added less than a point to ticket growth. This is genuine traffic and spend growth, which is a much healthier story than an earnings beat propped up by inflation.

ALEX: Right, and the profitability story is where things get really interesting. Consolidated operating margin expanded 430 basis points year-over-year to 14.4%. EPS jumped 70% year-over-year to $0.85.

JORDAN: Now, a chunk of that margin story includes some noise — tariff refunds that offset tariffs incurred earlier in the fiscal year. CFO Cathy Smith was upfront about that, pointing analysts to the year-to-date COGS rate of 32.3% as the more "normalized" number. But even stripping out those refunds, North America margin still expanded over 100 basis points year-over-year. That's the real signal — the underlying operating model is actually getting better, not just benefiting from a one-time tailwind.

ALEX: Big milestone too — North America operating margin grew year-over-year for the first time since Q1 fiscal 2024.

JORDAN: That's a notable inflection point. It tells you the "Back to Starbucks" plan under CEO Brian Niccol is finally translating into bottom-line results, not just top-line traffic.

ALEX: Speaking of the plan, let's talk Green Apron Service — this is basically the operational backbone of the turnaround. It's been a year since launch, and two-thirds of North America company-operated stores are now hitting four or more "shots" on their internal ranking system, up over 40 points since launch.

JORDAN: And food availability is now near 99%, up about 10 points from a year ago. Store leader retention is up too — leaders who've been in place two-plus years rose about 7 points year-over-year. That stability piece is easy to overlook, but management specifically called out that it correlates strongly with store performance.

ALEX: They also rolled out a new incentive — the Best of Starbucks Reward — letting eligible partners earn up to $300 a quarter for hitting performance goals. A nice retention lever.

JORDAN: On the brand side, some striking numbers: brand affinity, consideration, and purchase intent all hit five-year highs. Starbucks Rewards now has 35.8 million 90-day active U.S. members, and Refreshers delivered double-digit revenue growth in the U.S. Management's clearly leaning into that platform — they're even testing a sparkling "Spritzer" version.

ALEX: The store uplift program is another one to watch — they crossed 1,000 remodeled stores in North America, hit their full-year goal early, and now they're targeting at least 1,500 by the end of fiscal 2026, accelerating further into 2027. Cathy Smith mentioned these average around $150,000 each and get done overnight without taking stores offline.

JORDAN: Efficient capital use, basically — cheap relative to a full remodel, and the early data shows transaction lift across all dayparts and formats. Meanwhile, internationally, the China busin

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ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. Today we're digging into Qualcomm's fiscal Q3 2026 results — a quarter that's part strong execution, part serious cost headwinds. Before we get into it, quick note: this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

JORDAN: Alright, let's get into the numbers. Qualcomm posted revenue of $9.9 billion, high end of guidance, and non-GAAP EPS of $2.21. QCT — that's their chip business — brought in $8.5 billion, and licensing added $1.3 billion. On the surface, solid. But there's a real story underneath these numbers.

ALEX: Right, and that story is memory prices. CEO Cristiano Amon was upfront that the whole industry is dealing with a spike in memory costs, plus higher manufacturing and packaging costs, and supply shortages tied to data center demand sucking up capacity. That's squeezing QCT gross margins below their historical range this quarter.

JORDAN: Their answer is price increases — double-digit, broad-based across end markets, according to CFO Akash Palkhiwala. But here's the nuance: it phases in gradually because of existing contracts and product cycles. Amon actually made an interesting point on the call — even a double-digit chip price increase is small compared to the magnitude of memory cost inflation hitting device bills of materials.

ALEX: So this isn't really Qualcomm gouging anyone, it's a pass-through of what's happening across the whole supply chain. And notably, they said they expect fiscal 2027 top-line growth despite all this, driven by an inflection in their non-handset businesses.

JORDAN: And that's really the headline of this call — the diversification story. At their recent Investor Day, they raised their fiscal 2029 non-handset revenue target from $22 billion to $40 billion. That includes over $24 billion from automotive and IoT, plus more than $15 billion from data center.

ALEX: Let's talk data center, because this is the new frontier for Qualcomm. They're rolling out four product lines over the next few years — connectivity starting this year, custom silicon and AI accelerators in fiscal 2027, and server-class CPUs by fiscal 2028. They've already got two custom silicon deals with what they describe as global-scale hyperscalers, and revenue from those starts in the December quarter.

JORDAN: They also completed the tape-out of their High Bandwidth Compute chip — HBC Gen 1 — which integrates compute directly with high-density memory. First commercial HBC product is targeted for mid-2027. And they closed the acquisition of Modular, an AI software company, to build out an end-to-end, hardware-agnostic software stack. Worth noting though — Stacy Rasgon from Bernstein asked about margin drag from data center, and Akash confirmed it: expect a 1.5 to 2 percentage point drag on QCT's weighted average gross margin as that early revenue comes online, since it's mostly lower-margin custom chip work initially.

ALEX: Automotive was the clear bright spot this quarter — record revenue of $1.6 billion, up 61% year-over-year. They also signed a landmark expanded deal with BMW to be the lead compute silicon provider for next-gen ADAS and digital cockpit, plus a Stellantis collaboration stretching into the 2030s.

JORDAN: And they raised their automotive run-rate target — previously $6 billion annualized exiting fiscal 2026, now bumped up to about $7 billion. That's a meaningful upward revision in just one quarter.

ALEX: Now let's talk about the elephant in the room — Apple. This was probably the most eyebrow-raising part of the call.

JORDAN: Yeah, Akash disclosed that Qualcomm's share of the upcoming iPhone launch will be materially lower than

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MSFT Q4 FY26 script.

ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. I'm Alex.

JORDAN: And I'm Jordan. Today we're digging into Microsoft's fiscal fourth quarter and full-year FY2026 numbers.

ALEX: Before we get into it — this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

JORDAN: Solid disclaimer out of the way, let's talk numbers, because this was a genuinely strong quarter for Microsoft.

ALEX: Big picture first: full fiscal year revenue crossed $331 billion, up 18%, and that growth actually accelerated through the year. Microsoft Cloud alone did over $214 billion, up 27%, and Azure crossed the $100 billion mark, up 41% for the year.

JORDAN: And for the quarter itself, revenue was $90 billion, up 18%. EPS came in at $4.74, up 23% when you adjust for the OpenAI investment impact. There were some one-time items too — a $3.2 billion gain from their Anthropic investment, some savings from a voluntary retirement program, offset partly by Xbox severance and impairment charges.

ALEX: Azure was really the headline. Growth hit 43% this quarter, and CFO Amy Hood said they expect it to accelerate into the mid-40s next quarter. That's remarkable for a business already this large.

JORDAN: Right, and what stood out to me is *why* it accelerated — it wasn't just demand, which is still outstripping supply, by the way. It was efficiency. They shaved dock-to-live time for new GPUs by nearly 50% over the year, and any capacity they free up gets monetized almost immediately because demand is so far ahead of supply.

ALEX: That supply-demand gap is clearly the story of this whole AI infrastructure buildout. They added 31 new data centers this quarter alone, 88 for the year, and they're on track to roughly double total capacity in just two years.

JORDAN: Which explains the capex number — $41 billion this quarter, and guidance for next fiscal year points to over $175 billion, partly due to an accounting change where more data center leases shift from finance leases to operating leases. That's not new spending, just a reclassification, but it's worth knowing so you don't misread the capex jump.

ALEX: Let's talk Copilot, because the seat growth was eye-catching — over 30 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats, and net seat adds more than doubled quarter over quarter.

JORDAN: What I found more interesting than the seat count was the usage data. Conversations per user nearly doubled year-over-year, and time from deployment to high usage across a customer's workforce dropped from months to just days. Satya Nadella also mentioned the number of customers with 50,000-plus seats grew over 7x year-over-year. NHS England alone is rolling Copilot out to over 500,000 clinicians and staff.

ALEX: And they're clearly trying to move the business model beyond simple per-seat pricing. The new E7 suite bundles Copilot, E5, Entra, and Agent 365 together, and they're layering in usage-based billing on top of seats — same playbook they used with GitHub Copilot, where consumption revenue jumped after a June pricing change and Copilot revenue accelerated over 60% quarter-over-quarter.

JORDAN: That model-choice strategy came up a lot in the Q&A too. An analyst asked Satya directly about open and custom models potentially cutting into Microsoft's own frontier-model partnerships, like OpenAI.

ALEX: And his answer was essentially: enterprises want to control their own "learning machine" — keep the harness, memory, and context separate from any single model so they're never locked in. Microsoft's building itself as the neutral platform where that choice happens, whether it's OpenAI, Anthr

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ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown! Today we're diving into Meta Platforms' Q2 2026 results. Before we get into it — this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

JORDAN: And there's a lot to unpack this quarter. Meta posted $60.8 billion in total revenue, up 28% year-over-year. Ad revenue alone hit $59.4 billion, up 27%.

ALEX: Zuckerberg opened by pointing out 3.6 billion people use at least one Meta app daily. Instagram hit 2 billion daily actives, Threads crossed 500 million monthly actives, and WhatsApp set an all-time messaging record during the World Cup final — 30 million messages a second.

JORDAN: That scale is the whole thesis here, honestly. Everything Meta wants to do with AI — better recommendations, better ads, agents — it all rides on that massive built-in audience. But let's talk numbers first, because there's some nuance. GAAP operating income was actually down 8% year-over-year, to $18.8 billion.

ALEX: Right, but that's a bit misleading on its face. That includes a $2.4 billion legal charge and $1.2 billion in severance from the May headcount reduction — about 8,000 employees.

JORDAN: Exactly, strip those out and operating income would've been up 9% year-over-year. Net income landed at $15.8 billion, or $6.18 per share. Free cash flow, though, only $784 million — that's a steep drop, mostly because CapEx is running hot.

ALEX: Which brings us to the big number everyone's watching: capital expenditures. $31.1 billion this quarter, and full-year 2026 guidance got narrowed upward to $130-145 billion.

JORDAN: That's an enormous number. And they just announced a new venture with BlackRock for a one-gigawatt data center in El Paso, Texas — a sign they're leaning on outside capital, not just their own balance sheet, to fund this build-out.

ALEX: Susan Li made a point of that on the call — evolving their capital structure to include more debt, plus these external partnerships, to keep funding infrastructure without straining the core business.

JORDAN: Now let's get into the strategy, because Zuckerberg laid out basically three pillars. One, AI accelerating the core business — ads and recommendations. Two, personal agents as the next big consumer product. Three, an enterprise play — selling APIs, business agents, and even compute directly to other companies.

ALEX: The core business numbers back that up already. They introduced something called Meta Generative Recommender — using LLMs to match ads and users together rather than scoring ads one by one. That drove an 8.3% increase in ad clicks and a 15.7% uplift in conversions on Facebook.

JORDAN: Those are real, tangible performance gains, not just hype. And on the content side, Instagram time spent grew double digits year-over-year, largely from better Reels and feed recommendations powered by these LLM systems.

ALEX: Then there's the more speculative stuff — personal agents. Zuckerberg was pretty candid that they haven't shipped this yet. He talked about it a lot but kept saying "we'll have more to share soon."

JORDAN: Which is interesting contrast to business agents, where they actually have traction now — over 1 million businesses using Meta Business Agents weekly across WhatsApp and Messenger. There was a great example: Movida, a Brazilian rental car company, saw a 44% increase in daily bookings through WhatsApp, with 85% of conversations resolved entirely by AI without human help.

ALEX: That's a concrete enterprise proof point. On the Q&A front, one exchange stood out to me — Morgan Stanley's Brian Nowak asked which of

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ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown, bringing you the numbers and the narrative from Wall Street's biggest movers. I'm Alex, joined as always by Jordan. Today we're digging into Lam Research's June quarter, fiscal Q4 2026 — and Jordan, this one's a barnburner.

Before we get into it, quick disclaimer: this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

JORDAN: With that out of the way — Alex, Lam just closed out fiscal 2026 with records stacked on records. Fourth straight quarter of record revenue, highest gross margin in 20 years, record operating margin, record EPS. This is a semiconductor equipment maker riding the AI capex wave about as well as anyone.

ALEX: Let's hit the headline numbers. June quarter revenue came in at $6.72 billion, up 15% sequentially and 30% year-over-year. Gross margin hit 52%, operating margin 38.4%, diluted EPS a record $1.82 — all above the high end of guidance. For the full fiscal year, revenue was $23.2 billion with EPS of $5.82, up 41% from fiscal 2025.

JORDAN: And the guide for September is even bigger — $8.1 billion, plus or minus $400 million. That's more than 20% sequential growth. CEO Tim Archer also raised his calendar 2026 wafer fab equipment spending outlook to the "low $150 billion range," up from the prior $140 billion call.

ALEX: What jumped out to me was NAND. Revenue there literally doubled sequentially. Archer tied that directly to AI — bigger context windows, persistent memory requirements, all of it pushing customers to upgrade their fabs to 200-plus layer NAND architectures.

JORDAN: Right, and this is where the story gets interesting for the long haul. Archer said Lam's served available market — SAM — per wafer in NAND could double again as layer counts climb from 128-layer to 500-plus layer devices. More layers means more etch and deposition steps, and etch and deposition is Lam's bread and butter.

ALEX: They also talked a lot about advanced packaging — TSV etch and electroplating for things like HBM. That segment's growth outlook has basically been revised upward every quarter this year — from 40%, to 50%, now to over 70% year-over-year growth.

JORDAN: And it's not just chasing today's demand. Archer mentioned future AI packages could be nine times the size of a standard reticle — three times larger than today's chips — which is pushing the whole industry toward panel-level packaging instead of traditional wafers. Lam's already shipped panel-format tools into development programs, so they're trying to get ahead of that transition.

ALEX: Let's talk margins for a second, because CFO Doug Bettinger got some pointed questions on this. Analysts pushed him on how Lam gets from today's 51-52% gross margin to the "mid-50s" long-term target they've now laid out — up from the "high-40s to 50%" framework from their 2025 investor day.

JORDAN: His answer was basically: it's a mix of scale, operational efficiency — a lot of credit went to their global manufacturing footprint, including that Malaysia facility JPMorgan's analyst asked about — plus new product introductions and, yes, pricing. But he was clear it's going to take "several years," not quarters.

ALEX: One exchange I loved was the debate over 2027. Multiple analysts tried to get Bettinger to put a number on next year's growth, and he wouldn't bite, but he kept saying things like "pretty darn good year" and that he feels "incrementally good" about each successive quarter. The industry is still undersupplied — there are reportedly eight to ten new fabs coming online globally between now and the end of 2027.

JORDAN: That undersupply point matters. Bettinger also updated a framework they'd f

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ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown! Today we're digging into Amphenol's second quarter 2026 results — ticker APH — and, Jordan, buckle up, because this one's a doozy.

Before we get into it, quick disclaimer: This podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

JORDAN: Doozy is right. Record sales of $8.8 billion, up 55% year-over-year, 30% organically. Record orders of $10.7 billion, up 94%. A book-to-bill of 1.23. I mean, Alex, when's the last time you saw literally every end market post a positive book-to-bill in the same quarter?

ALEX: Rare air. And it wasn't just top-line noise either — adjusted operating margin hit 29.8%, up 420 basis points from last year. Adjusted EPS came in at a record $1.35, up 67%. This beat the high end of their own guidance.

JORDAN: The margin story is really what stood out to me. Part of it's an $80 million tariff recovery benefit, sure, but even stripping that out they were still near 29% margins. That's operating leverage on serious volume, plus real progress cleaning up profitability at CommScope, which they acquired last year.

ALEX: Let's talk CommScope, because that's the headline strategic story here. Amphenol just upgraded their full-year expectations for that business from $4.1 billion in sales to $4.6 billion, and — this is the wild part — accretion guidance basically doubled, from $0.15 to $0.30 a share.

JORDAN: And CFO Craig Lampo was pretty clear on the call that this wasn't a pricing story. It's operational execution — factory efficiency, SG&A discipline, leveraging the growth they're getting. CommScope did over $1.2 billion in sales in the quarter alone and is now operating above 20% margins.

ALEX: CEO Adam Norwitt got almost sentimental about it, honestly. He talked about meeting the CommScope team early on, calling them "a team of people whose capabilities... maybe weren't being tapped into" before the acquisition. Now plugged into Amphenol's culture, they're firing on all cylinders.

JORDAN: The engine behind all of this, though, is AI and data centers. IT datacom was 43% of total sales this quarter and grew 63% organically. Sixty-three percent, Alex. That's not a market, that's a rocket ship.

ALEX: And there was a great exchange in the Q&A about whether this is a "copper versus fiber" story for AI infrastructure. Norwitt basically said that framing is wrong — customers want more of everything. More copper, more fiber, more power interconnect. Amphenol plays across all three, which is really the crux of their competitive positioning.

JORDAN: That power piece is underrated too. He had this great line — paraphrasing here — that AI is really just "the conversion of electrons into tokens," and anywhere along that chain where Amphenol can make that conversion more efficient, they're creating value. Power interconnect, high-speed copper, optics — they're positioned at basically every step.

ALEX: Not every market was firing though. Let's give listeners the balanced picture. Communications networks — that's telecom infrastructure — actually declined organically by 6%, and they're guiding to a mid-teens sequential decline next quarter due to softness from network operators and wireless equipment makers.

JORDAN: Right, and automotive was more modest too — 6% organic growth, expected to be roughly flat next quarter with typical summer seasonality. But everywhere else — industrial up 18% organically, defense up 24%, commercial air up 21%, mobile devices up 14% — broad-based strength.

ALEX: Mobile devices had a fun aside too. Norwitt talked about hinges — yes, hinges — as a real growth driver in foldable devices, plus wearables. He even brought up

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ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. Today we're digging into Procter & Gamble's fiscal Q4 and full-year 2026 results — and there's a lot to unpack, from a CEO transition on the board to a fresh look at fiscal 2027 guidance.

But before we get into it, quick disclaimer. This podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

JORDAN: Alright, so let's start with the news that isn't really about the numbers — Jon Moeller is retiring from the board after 38 years at P&G. He's held basically every top job there: CFO, COO, CEO, Executive Chairman. That's a long goodbye for someone who shaped the company's current structure.

ALEX: Right, and CEO Shailesh Jejurikar spent real time on the call thanking him before handing it to CFO Andre Schulten for the actual numbers. So let's get into those. For the full fiscal year, organic sales grew just over 1%, core EPS came in at $6.89, up about 1%. Not a blowout year, but they hit their guidance ranges despite what they called a "very volatile environment."

JORDAN: And that volatility really showed up in the fourth quarter specifically. Core EPS was $1.43, down 3% year-over-year — on a currency-neutral basis, down 5%. They pointed to a spike in energy, transportation, and material costs, about six cents a share, that was mostly offset by tariff refunds.

ALEX: There was also this interesting wrinkle in the U.S. business — a gap between what's called "sell out" versus "sell in." Basically, consumer purchases at retail — sell out — were up 2%, but P&G's shipments to retailers — sell in — were down 1%. That's a three-point gap.

JORDAN: Yeah, and management explained that pretty clearly — Amazon Prime Day shifted into late June this year instead of early July, which changed how promotional spending got recognized, plus retailers were drawing down inventory. It's a timing issue more than a demand issue, and honestly analysts pushed hard on this exact point during Q&A.

ALEX: They did. One analyst basically asked, "Is this a P&G-specific problem?" And Schulten's answer was pretty blunt — he said it's simply because P&G is bigger and has higher velocity than competitors, so when retailers want to cut inventory fast, they trim the biggest, fastest-moving brand on the shelf. It's math, not strategy failure.

JORDAN: What stood out to me geographically was China. Organic sales there grew 4% for both the quarter and the year, and P&G said they're growing share in China for the first time in 15 quarters. Baby care was the star — they highlighted this premium diaper using silk materials that's delivered double-digit growth for six straight quarters and now has them back as the number one baby care brand in the country.

ALEX: That silk diaper story is a nice example of their broader playbook — figure out what consumers actually want, translate it into product innovation, and let that drive both category growth and share. They gave a bunch of these: Vicks cough and cold in Latin America, Pantene in Germany leaning into influencer marketing, SK-II shifting to lifestyle content on social commerce.

JORDAN: The Tide story was probably my favorite, though. They did the biggest upgrade to original Tide liquid in over two decades — same price, much better performance — and it went from declining sales to high single-digit growth. Jejurikar said flat out it beat their own expectations.

ALEX: And that's really the "stronger core" half of their strategy — fix what you already have. The other half is "bigger more," which is Tide Evo, this new unit-dose detergent with no plastic packaging, built on over 50 patents. National rollout is h

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ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. Today we're diving into Boston Scientific's second quarter 2026 results — and Jordan, this one's got some real drama in it.

JORDAN: It really does. Before we jump in, quick disclaimer for everyone listening: this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

ALEX: Right, so let's set the scene. Boston Scientific actually beat expectations in Q2 — organic sales grew 7%, ahead of their 5-7% guide, and adjusted EPS came in at 86 cents, up 15% year-over-year and above the high end of guidance.

JORDAN: On paper, that sounds like a great quarter. But here's the twist — right after touting the beat, management turned around and cut full-year guidance. Full-year organic revenue guidance moved down to 5-6%, and full-year EPS guidance came in at $3.28 to $3.32.

ALEX: And the culprit? Two of their hottest businesses over the last couple years — WATCHMAN and electrophysiology, or EP.

JORDAN: Let's start with WATCHMAN, the left atrial appendage closure device. This is a fascinating case of clinical evidence essentially colliding with commercial momentum. New studies — OCEAN, CHAMPION-AF — have been published over the past several months, and they're changing how doctors think about referring patients for the procedure.

ALEX: CEO Mike Mahoney was pretty candid about it. He said the U.S. market has "slowed sharply and unexpectedly." Standalone WATCHMAN procedures — meaning not done alongside another heart procedure — are actually declining in the low teens percentage-wise.

JORDAN: The one bright spot is "concomitant" procedures — done at the same time as another cardiac procedure — which grew over 60%. But even that's expected to slow in the second half because of tougher comparisons.

ALEX: So full-year WATCHMAN growth guidance is now flat to low single digits, with the second half actually expected to decline mid-to-high single digits. That's a big swing from where this business has been.

JORDAN: Then there's EP, the electrophysiology business built around their FARAPULSE technology — that's the pulsed field ablation, or PFA, platform for treating atrial fibrillation. Management admitted they simply underestimated competitive pressure in the U.S.

ALEX: Which is almost ironic, because Boston Scientific basically created this PFA market boom. Mahoney noted PFA now makes up something like 80% of the U.S. AFib ablation market — a shift that happened faster than anyone expected, and that success invited competitors in quicker than the company modeled.

JORDAN: Meanwhile, international EP growth is still humming along around 20%. It's really a U.S.-specific share story, not a "the technology doesn't work" story.

ALEX: Here's something I found reassuring, though. Management pointed out that roughly 75% of Boston Scientific's revenue — everything outside WATCHMAN and EP — is still expected to grow about 6% in the second half, which is right in line with their historical trend.

JORDAN: Right, and there were genuinely strong pockets. Neuromodulation grew 12%. Interventional cardiology grew 15%. Interventional oncology grew 12%. This isn't a company falling apart — it's two specific franchises hitting an air pocket.

ALEX: Let's talk strategy, because they also announced a restructuring program targeting about $500 million in run-rate savings by the end of 2029, with more than half of that realized by exiting 2027.

JORDAN: That's a real signal — they're bracing for a tougher stretch and want to fund future growth catalysts without blowing up margins. CFO Jon Monson said savings will show up first in SG&A, then in cost of goods sold over time.

ALEX: And on th

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