"In the first quarter of 2025, the term “tariff” or “tariffs" was cited on 455 earnings calls conducted by S&P 500 companies—the highest number recorded in at least a decade.¹ By the fourth quarter of 2025, that figure had declined to 220, a drop of more than fifty percent from the peak.¹ The conventional reading of this decline is that companies adapted, absorbed the costs, and moved on. The forensic reading is different—and far more consequential for institutional investors."

"In the twelve months ending September 2025, S&P 500 companies spent a record $1.02 trillion repurchasing their own shares—the second time in history that annual buyback expenditure surpassed the trillion-dollar threshold, and a figure that exceeded the prior twelve-month period by more than eleven percent.¹ By early 2026, authorizations for new repurchase programs were on pace to reach $1.2 trillion for the calendar year, a figure that would represent yet another record.² Across the index, 387 companies executed at least some repurchase activity during the third quarter of 2025 alone, and the top twenty repurchasers alone accounted for 49.5 percent of total buyback spending—well above the pre-pandemic historical average of 44.5 percent.¹"

"On January 15, 2025, Nate Anderson posted a brief note on the Hindenburg Research website announcing that he was disbanding the firm. There was no external threat, no health crisis, no legal judgment. Anderson simply said the intensity had become all-encompassing—that he often woke from dreams because he had thought of an investigative thread to pull—and that, after seven years, he was done."