Worst News for Stocks in 50 Years

Wall Street’s declared what could be the worst news for the U.S. stock market in 50 years.

If Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are right... this won't be like the crashes we're used to. What's about to hit America next could keep your portfolio in the red for 10 years or longer - unless you make a big change now. 

To hear about this decade-long crisis now being predicted by multiple Wall Street banks... 

And to see what you can do to prepare your wealth before this hits... 

Click here to learn how to defend your portfolio. 

Regards, 

Keith Kaplan
CEO, TradeSmith 

P.S. You may have noticed we see "surprise" crashes every year now. Think about it: rate spikes in 2022... the bank crisis in 2023... $8 trillion wiped out in 2024... $11 trillion wiped out during the tariff crash in 2025... and, this year, $12 trillion was wiped out in 30 days during the Iran War. Something is off and Wall Street suggests this could continue (and worsen) well into the 2030s. Click here to learn the truth about this market and see what you must do now to prepare.

Capital One’s Big Bet Faces Rising Credit Risk

Author: Peter Frank. First Published: 5/6/2026.

It’s complicated, but just you wait. That’s the message from Capital One (NYSE: COF) after its first-quarter results, as the lender undertakes a significant reshaping of its business.

For many investors, that hasn’t been a convincing argument. The lender’s stock has fallen more than one-third since early January. But analysts still expect the shares to rebound. Investors trying to decide whether the recent selloff is a red flag or a buying opportunity need to dig into the numbers carefully.

Capital One's Road to Payments Giant

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Capital One is arguably one of the most closely watched bets in American banking. When the company completed its takeover of Discover in May 2025, it bought more than a credit card company. It acquired its own payments network.

Instead of running its cards on the Visa (NYSE: V) or Mastercard (NYSE: MA) platforms, which charge merchants interchange fees, Capital One can route transactions on its own rails, potentially saving billions over time.

The combined company now ranks solidly among the top four payment networks by purchase volume, alongside Visa, Mastercard, and American Express (NYSE: AXP).

From the deal, management has promised more than $2.5 billion in annual synergies, including $1.5 billion from cost savings and $1.2 billion from network efficiencies.

Much of that may not show up until 2027, after the planned technology merger and customer migration.

That’s the idea, but the first-quarter results told a more complicated story.

Earnings Missed Expectations

For the first quarter, Capital One reported adjusted earnings of $4.42 per share, missing analyst expectations of $4.61 per share. Revenue surged 52.3% year over year to $15.23 billion, thanks in large part to Discover. But even that fell short of Wall Street forecasts.

The number that drew the most attention, though, was net interest margin, which fell to 7.87%, down 39 basis points from the prior quarter. That key measure of the spread between what a bank earns on its loans and what it pays on deposits again disappointed.

For its part, the company blamed fewer calendar days in the first quarter compared with the last three months of 2025 and the seasonal impact of customers paying down debt after the holidays. But strong retail deposit growth and the impact of the company’s sale of the Discover Home Loans portfolio also played a role.

There was some good news. Earnings before the bank set aside reserves for potential troubled loans rose 8% quarter over quarter to $6.8 billion. And signs that the integration was progressing helped drive non-interest expenses down 9% to $8.5 billion, while marketing spend fell 23%.

Credit Losses Keep Climbing

Still, other trends were troubling. Capital One’s provision for possible credit losses surged 72% year over year to $4.07 billion—again coming in higher than analyst estimates. Overall, net charge-offs reached $3.8 billion for the quarter, up 41% year over year.

This is not the direction investors wanted to see. Capital One’s core business is consumer credit cards, and its customers have historically skewed toward subprime and near-prime borrowers. Even with Discover’s more affluent consumer profile, stressed household budgets amid elevated inflation and interest rates could keep Capital One’s loan losses eating into earnings.

In fact, management’s decision to add another $230 million to reserves, most notably in auto and consumer banking, could suggest tougher conditions ahead.

Capital Levels Provide Some Protection

The company does have room to absorb surprises. Capital One’s Tier 1 capital ratio stands at a healthy 14.4% and is in line with many in the financial sector. And while the dividend yields just 1.7% annually on a payout of $3.20 per share, the board approved a $16 billion buyback plan near the end of last year.

The bank’s efficiency ratio, which measures how much it spends to generate each dollar of revenue, stood at 55.57%. That’s not bad for retail banks with large branch networks, but it is above the sub-50% levels enjoyed by many digital-first banks. Still, the figure improved from the previous quarter and the year-ago period, and the gap suggests some redundancies remain. The migration of Discover’s credit card customers onto Capital One’s technology platforms, if completed as planned, could provide some relief on this front.

The Discover Deal Must Deliver

The central question remains whether the Discover acquisition will deliver on its promises. The strategic logic of the deal is clear. Owning a payments network may help expand the combined brands’ merchant acceptance globally, which remains a soft spot, and could unlock substantial revenue.

But the integration and cost savings need to arrive. That becomes even more interesting as Capital One also picked up another business in April, when the lender closed a $5 billion deal for Brex.

That additional strategic pivot moved the company even further beyond its traditional consumer business. Brex, a fintech platform that provides business payments and spend management services, gives Capital One an AI framework designed to automate accounting workflows. Beyond consumers, the purchase is a potentially neat fit for a lender focused on small businesses.

Analysts Still Expect Upside

With all the numbers and news to digest, analysts remain broadly bullish on the company, though some lowered their targets after the first-quarter results.

As of now, the consensus rating on the stock is Moderate Buy, with an average price target of $258.14, implying roughly one-third upside from current levels near $190. Price targets for 12 months range from $215 at the more cautious end to $310 at the most optimistic.

An agreement to pay $425 million to settle a class action suit alleging that Capital One had practiced deceptive marketing tactics also knocked the stock price in late April.

Investors Face a High-Risk Bet

For investors, there is still plenty to consider. Capital One is a high-conviction bet wrapped in genuine near-term uncertainty. For investors with a two-year time horizon and a stomach for volatility, the current price near $190 may prove to be an attractive entry point.

The 30%-plus decline from a recent peak may have already priced in a meaningful amount of bad news. If credit quality stabilizes and integration milestones are met, the stock has clear room to recover toward analyst targets.

But the risks remain. The company’s 1.7% dividend yield is unremarkable for income investors. And credit losses are still rising, while questions over two integrations remain. If you enjoy the uncertainty of prediction markets, this stock may be for you.

Corning Beats Q1 Estimates but Drops 9% on Guidance Miss

Reported by Ryan Hasson. Date Posted: 4/29/2026.

Corning (NYSE: GLW) has been one of the market’s most impressive stories this year. Heading into Tuesday’s Q1 2026 earnings report, the stock had surged nearly 80% year to date. A simple but powerful thesis has driven that outperformance: as hyperscalers spend hundreds of billions of dollars building the AI data centers of the future, Corning’s optical fiber is the backbone connecting them all. Given the industry’s strength, along with GLW’s, its Q1 2026 earnings report was eagerly anticipated not only by its own investors but also by industry stakeholders.

The Quarter Itself Was Strong

Corning’s Q1 2026 results, reported on April 28, were a clear beat across the board. Revenue grew 18% year over year to $4.35 billion, reaching the high end of management’s guidance. EPS rose 30% to 70 cents, beating the consensus estimate of 69 cents.

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Core operating margin expanded 220 basis points to 20.2%, reflecting both the mix shift toward higher-value optical solutions and ongoing productivity improvements across the business. GAAP EPS of 43 cents was up 139% year over year, and free cash flow continued to strengthen. It marked the company’s eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year sales growth.

The standout segment was Optical Communications, where sales grew 36% year over year and 8.5% sequentially to $1.85 billion. That acceleration, from 24% growth in Q4 2025 to 36% in Q1 2026, is the number that matters most.

It reflects surging demand for Corning’s newest Gen AI fiber and cable innovations from both enterprise data center operators and carriers expanding their fiber-to-the-home footprints.

The Hyperscaler Demand Signal Is Getting Louder

The most strategically significant disclosure from the earnings call was not in the headline numbers. It was in the contract announcements. Corning previously revealed a multi-year agreement with Meta (NASDAQ: META) worth up to $6 billion to supply optical fiber, cable, and connectivity solutions for AI infrastructure. On Tuesday, management revealed that two additional hyperscale customers have now signed agreements of the same size and duration as the Meta deal. That gives Corning three large, long-term hyperscale commitments on the books, with management indicating it is in discussions that could lead to more.

These agreements are not purchase orders. They are multi-year, large-scale commitments from some of the world’s largest technology companies, locking in Corning as a critical supplier for the AI infrastructure buildout over the coming years. When hyperscalers of this scale sign contracts of this duration, it is a direct statement about where they expect demand to go. Corning’s guidance also noted that management is extending its Springboard strategic plan through 2030, previously targeting incremental annualized sales of $6.5 billion by the end of 2026, citing increasing demand from both AI and solar innovation. That forward extension is a confidence signal.

What Spooked the Market, and Why It May Not Matter

The 9% drop came down to one thing: Q2 revenue guidance of $4.6 billion came in just below the consensus expectation of $4.65 billion. A $50 million shortfall relative to consensus in a quarter where the company guided for 14% revenue growth and 25% EPS growth is not a fundamental problem. It is the cost of having run so far, so fast, that the expectations bar became nearly impossible to clear perfectly. Management also flagged an additional $30 million in Q2 expenses related to a maintenance shutdown at its solar wafer facility, a one-time item that further weighed on the near-term read.

But it’s also important to remember that Corning’s stock had surged from around $85 in mid-January to a recent peak near $179 ahead of earnings. When a stock nearly doubles in a matter of months, a modest guidance miss is often all the market needs to take some profits. From a technical perspective, investors will want to see the stock firm up near its rising 50-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) at $147, which would confirm that the short-term uptrend and momentum remain intact.

Analysts maintain a consensus Moderate Buy rating across 16 analysts, with a consensus price target of $143.85, which sits well below the current price after the recent run. That disconnect reflects how rapidly the market has repriced Corning’s AI infrastructure exposure relative to where analyst estimates have been able to keep up.

In the days and weeks ahead, it will be interesting to see how analysts respond to the latest earnings report. Along with analyst action, investors should also continue monitoring institutional flows. As of April 28, institutional ownership stood at 69.8%, with net inflows of close to $2.5 billion over the prior 12 months.