Industry & Themes

Aira Factoring Public Company Limited, or AF, has set a target for total loan disbursements in 2026 of approximately 18 to 19 billion baht, while continuing to prioritise asset quality management alongside growth. Chief Executive Officer Akarawit Suksai said the company will focus on lending to roughly four main industry groups: medical and healthcare businesses, businesses related to clean energy, packaging and eco-friendly materials businesses, and food and beverage businesses, with particular emphasis on medical and healthcare, which is supported by an ageing society. In 2027, the company plans to place greater weight on expanding lending in this industry. As for ESG Finance loans, which have been operating for about two years, they are expected to grow by no less than 15% this year compared with last year. Overall loan disbursements this year are expected to expand at a rate similar to last year, or grow by no more than about 5 to 6%. Non-performing loans, or NPLs, are expected to remain at a level close to the roughly 9% seen at the start of the year, and the company estimates that industry NPLs for the full year may be in a range of about 9 to 11%. For its strategy in the fourth quarter of 2026, the company will increase the weight of lending to business groups that benefit from the peak season, especially services, food, and beverages. If the government's economic stimulus measures, such as the "Thai Help Thai" scheme, are extended or additional measures are introduced, this will support purchasing power and liquidity in the system, which in turn will benefit the factoring business.

IBM has placed its z17 system at the heart of Marist University's new AI Innovation Incubator, giving students and researchers hands-on access to enterprise-grade computing infrastructure. The incubator could tackle projects ranging from autonomous marketing agents and AI-enhanced polling to quantum-assisted portfolio allocation, with IBM supplying the z17 and opening up the same class of high-volume, security-focused infrastructure it sells to large enterprises. No commercial value was disclosed, so the deployment is less about an immediate revenue win and more about putting IBM technology directly into the hands of future developers, researchers and enterprise decision-makers. IBM shares were nearly flat at $231.70 on Tuesday, sitting 4.58% below the $242.82 GF Value estimate. The payoff from Marist will not appear as a big contract today, but reusable applications, stronger recruiting pipelines and broader institutional adoption could turn a relatively small academic deployment into something more valuable over time.

JetaBac Public Company Limited, or GTB, has secured an order for a Waste Heat Recovery Boiler from a customer in the United Kingdom. The boiler has been designed and manufactured to the European standard EN 12952, the standard for water tube boilers, under the control of PED 2014/68/EU, the European Union's mandatory safety requirements for pressure equipment and vessels. This boiler will form part of a production system in the global chemicals and renewable energy industry, which places emphasis on energy efficiency, process stability, and reducing environmental impact. JetaBac stated that this order marks another important step in elevating its capabilities in overseas markets and reaffirms its readiness to be a leader in industrial thermal energy solutions, while driving the JetaBac brand to become a leader in low-carbon thermal energy solutions.

Dexon Mechanical Solutions Co., Ltd., or DMS, a subsidiary of Dexon Technology Public Company Limited, or DEXON, participated in ONS 2026 in Stavanger, Norway, one of the key stages of the global energy industry, spending four days meeting partners both at the event and on the sidelines to discuss ways to apply technology to Inspection, Maintenance and Asset Integrity work, particularly subsea pipelines and structures, in order to serve customer demand in Thailand and the wider Asian region. Key topics included Integrity Clamp for repairing and strengthening subsea pipelines, which helps reduce the need for shutdowns, the CP Retrofit System for preventing corrosion and extending the life of structures, and the Mini Powerful ROV, which helps reduce the need for big operations, adding flexibility and lowering the cost of underwater inspection and maintenance. For subsea inspection work, DMS places emphasis on adopting new inspection technologies and methods to improve the efficiency and accuracy of assessing structural condition, and on using the data to plan repairs and maintenance and manage Asset Integrity, as well as seeking solutions for Splash Zone work to improve safety in areas at high risk of corrosion. The company's participation this time reflects DMS's approach of combining global technology with local expertise to develop solutions that meet real on-site needs, focusing on reducing downtime, improving safety, lowering risk and extending service life, while building on its capabilities in Mechanical Solutions, Subsea Solutions and Asset Integrity to deliver solutions that are safe, cost-effective and suited to the future of the energy industry.

SpaceXAI's Grok Bot has topped 400,000 weekly users roughly a month after its launch, offering an early look at demand for Elon Musk's push into AI agents. The AI agent, which is separate from the flagship Grok chatbot, drew 418,000 users in data effective September 14th, a 24% week-on-week jump, after being released on August 11th. Designed to operate more like an always-on employee, Grok Bot is a much more enterprise-focused product than Meta's consumer-focused Muse, and SpaceXAI is competing with OpenAI and Anthropic in the growing market for AI agents. Shares moved back toward session highs after the report, up one and a half percent. Bloomberg Tech's Ed Ludlow reported the figures.

Shares of major banks, insurers and online travel agencies slid on Tuesday as investors feared that tools like Meta Platforms Inc.'s personal AI agent could disrupt businesses that benefit from so-called consumer inertia. The S&P 500 Financials Index dropped as much as 2.4% to its lowest levels since July, with JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co. all declining more than 2.5%, while insurer Allstate Corp. and brokerage Charles Schwab Corp. fell more than 5%. Travel booking companies were also hit, with Expedia Group Inc. down 3.7% and Booking Holdings Inc. falling 3.9%, and in Europe telecommunications was the worst performing sector in the benchmark Stoxx 600 as France's Orange SA and British carrier BT Group Plc each dropped about 4%. The downturn came as Muse, Meta's new AI agent, rose to the top of Apple Inc.'s US app store, sending Meta shares up 11% on Monday. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s trading desk said telecoms, insurance and utilities are the industries to watch if AI agents make it easier and cheaper to switch service providers, naming AT&T Inc., T-Mobile US Inc., Allstate, Progressive Corp., Netflix Inc., Paramount Skydance Corp., Expedia and Booking among its basket of consumer inertia stocks at risk.

OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX have reached a combined valuation of roughly $5.2 trillion, eclipsing the $4.1 trillion first-day value generated by 3,365 U.S. technology IPOs between 1980 and 2025. That $5.2 trillion total includes approximately $2 trillion for SpaceX, $2 trillion for Anthropic and $1.2 trillion for OpenAI, with OpenAI and Anthropic alone accounting for about $3.2 trillion, or roughly 62% of the three-company total, despite neither having reached public markets. SpaceX priced its June IPO at $135 per share, initially valuing it around $1.75 trillion, then opened at $150 and finished its first session at $160.95, pushing its market capitalization to roughly $2.1 trillion after raising about $75 billion. The stock later reached an intraday record of $225.64 before retreating sharply, closing Monday at $151.85, about 5.7% below its first-day close and nearly 33% below its record high. OpenAI has pushed back its IPO timetable and is not expected to list in 2026, while Anthropic has reportedly been considering a November offering at a valuation as high as $2 trillion, although timing and terms could still change.

B. Riley Securities is maintaining bullish ratings on IonQ, D-Wave Quantum and Rigetti Computing ahead of Quantum World Congress, betting that a shift in government policy from pure research toward commercialization could open a more meaningful revenue path for the quantum-computing sector. The firm kept Buy ratings with price targets of $100 for IonQ, $40 for D-Wave and $35 for Rigetti. Analyst Craig Ellis pointed to the Department of Energy's From Lab to Market session at the September 23-25 conference as a sign that federal policy may increasingly focus on moving quantum technologies into commercial applications. The event will also feature a two-hour National Quantum Updates session with more than 10 governments, participation from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and back-to-back keynotes from Microsoft and IBM. B. Riley's thesis is sector-wide, but the report provides no fresh revenue forecasts, cash-flow estimates, technical milestones or new valuation work behind the three price targets, leaving the stocks dependent on long-term expectations rather than near-term financial evidence.

NVIDIA expects roughly a quarter of its fiscal 2028 business to come from AI labs it will back with its own balance sheet, a concentration management acknowledged some will call circular financing. NVIDIA has already invested nearly $50 billion in frontier AI labs, and for one more lab it will provide credit support for nearly 2 gigawatts of computing capacity, while guaranteeing minimum revenue on part of some cloud partners' facility capacity. Business Insider reported that NVIDIA's overall equity portfolio has reached $99 billion, up from roughly $7 billion in summer 2025, a 14-fold increase. Days of sales outstanding rose to 60 days, which management attributed to extended payment terms for large purchases by certain investment-grade customers shipped over multiple quarters. OpenAI's existing and planned commitments represent about 12 gigawatts of NVIDIA computing, with deployments committed through 2030, and NVIDIA's next update comes at its fiscal Q3 2027 earnings call on November 17.

Root, Inc. extended its exclusive embedded insurance partnership with Carvana through at least August 2028, keeping its products integrated into Carvana's vehicle-purchase experience and preserving access to the used-car platform's national buyer base at the point of sale. The extension supports Root's push beyond Direct acquisition as it broadens partnerships and independent-agent distribution; those channels represented about 51% of new writings in the second quarter of 2026, up from about 44% a year earlier, after Root reduced Direct performance marketing as competitors increased spending and lowered prices. The embedded model lets customers purchase and bind coverage within a partner experience without visiting a Root website, which could support policy growth and more efficient customer acquisition if the economics meet Root's target returns. The deal secures distribution access but does not guarantee premium growth, since results depend on Carvana's retail unit volumes and attachment rates; policies in force rose 6.2% year over year to 483,921 at the end of the second quarter, but management expects year-end 2026 policies in force to be relatively flat if current competition persists. Root currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), while its Value, Growth, Momentum and VGM scores are all A.

SL Green Realty signed 129 Manhattan office leases totaling 1.76 million square feet from the start of the year through Sept. 14, 2026, with replacement-lease mark-to-market 15.8% above previous fully escalated rents. Manhattan same-store leased occupancy rose to 94.7% as of June 30, 2026, from 93% at year-end 2025, and same-store cash NOI increased 4.3% year over year in the second quarter of 2026, excluding lease termination income, with management expecting leased occupancy to reach 95% by year-end 2026. In July 2026 the company signed a 10-year, 98,420-square-foot lease at 11 Madison Avenue, bringing 2026 office leasing volume to nearly 1.5 million square feet, while first-half 2026 Manhattan office leases carried an average term of 8.5 years. On the capital side, SL Green agreed in September 2026 to sell 110 Greene Street in SoHo to Natora Group for $226 million, with the deal expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, after selling 10 East 53rd Street, which had been contracted for $312.2 million, in August 2026. The SLG Opportunistic Debt Fund deployed $306.4 million year-to-date through June 2026, including $94.7 million in the second quarter, and SL Green repurchased $14.1 million of common stock in the second quarter of 2026.

BYD's overseas business has overtaken its home market, generating roughly 53% of total revenue in the first half of 2026 even as the company's overall results declined. Revenue fell 7.1% year over year to RMB 344.8 billion, and net profit attributable to shareholders dropped 20.5% to RMB 12.3 billion, as brutal price competition squeezed China's EV market. Overseas revenue reached RMB 181.3 billion in the first half, up about 34% year over year, and first-half margin improved to 18.85% from 18.01%, driven largely by the overseas vehicle business, which Reuters reported carried a margin of 22%. The monthly sales data sharpened the trend: in August, BYD sold 440,293 new-energy vehicles globally, up 17.8% from a year earlier, with overseas sales jumping 134.6% to 188,746 vehicles while domestic sales fell 14.3%. The shift marks a change in the investment story for the world's largest new-energy vehicle maker, which has largely been a China play over its history.

TD Cowen told clients on Tuesday that the recent sell-off in auto stocks over fears of Chinese automakers entering the US market is "overdone," as President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for three days of talks with President Trump. Senior analyst Itay Michaeli wrote that a shift in US import policy at the summit is "very unlikely," though he urged investors to prepare for that eventuality anyway, noting that most industry contacts share that view. A coalition led by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, joined by the American Automotive Policy Council, dealer group NADA, and supplier association MEMA, has urged the administration in a letter to Trump to "keep the door firmly shut to Chinese automakers seeking to sell, import, or manufacture vehicles inside the US," crediting Trump's 100% tariffs on Chinese vehicles and a Commerce Department rule barring Chinese connected-car software with shielding the US from the surge seen in Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, Mexico, and South America. TD Cowen laid out likely guardrails for any Chinese entry, including minority-owned joint ventures with domestic players and a probable ban on building full-size trucks, and Michaeli argued such JVs "might even prove EPS accretive given sizable D3 EV losses," with Stellantis arguably having the most to gain given its lower North America EBIT starting point. The firm named EV suppliers and charging networks like ChargePoint and EVgo as beneficiaries of faster US EV adoption, and parts makers with existing ties to Chinese OEMs, including BorgWarner and Aptiv, as "better positioned" than most, while calling the math mixed for Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid.

Dave's Hot Chicken franchisee TIG Reaper LLC, which operates locations in Pennsylvania, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after Bank Midwest, a division of NBH Bank, filed a complaint against it. The Langhorne, Pa.-based franchisee filed its petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Sept. 21, 2026, listing $10 million to $50 million in assets and liabilities, and court papers indicate the debtor will have funds available to distribute to unsecured creditors. The filing followed a Sept. 8 complaint by Bank Midwest in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleging TIG Reaper may have failed to meet certain debt obligations, and all litigation against the debtor is subject to an automatic stay while the case proceeds. TIG Reaper operates franchises at 9113 Roosevelt Blvd. in Philadelphia and 122 Park Ave. in Willow Grove, Pa., while the Dave's Hot Chicken franchisor itself has not filed for bankruptcy. The broader fried chicken sector is in significant expansion mode in 2026, with chains including Wingstop, Raising Cane's, Slim Chickens and Dave's Hot Chicken collectively planning to open more than 750 new locations by the end of the year, and Dave's Hot Chicken alone targeting 140 new restaurants in 2026 with a $1.6 billion sales goal, up $400 million from 2025.

McDonald's is bringing back its Monopoly promotion on October 6, 2026, with a $1 million grand prize, as the fast-food chain's stock trades near a two-year low. The grand prize is paid as a $50,000-per-year annuity over 20 years with no interest, not a lump sum, according to the official rules. The prize pool also includes a 2027 Jeep Cherokee, a Carnival Cruise vacation, a trip to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, five 2026 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited prizes via Bonus Play running through November 2, Coca-Cola experience packages, $50,000 toward a home down payment or college debt via Chance Cards, and a Free for a Year McDonald's gift card worth roughly $1,040. Gameplay now runs entirely through the McDonald's app, with customers peeling physical game piece codes off eligible food and drink purchases and scanning them in the app, and customers can pre-register between September 29 and October 5 for 500 bonus MyMcDonald's Rewards points. The promotion will not return to the UK or Australia in 2026. McDonald's traded at $250.32 as of 11:35 AM Eastern on September 22, 2026, up 0.98% in the session, but down 16.49% year to date from $299.76 at the end of last year, down 15.08% over one year, and down 6.96% over the past month, while up 15.69% over five years. The stock hit a new 52-week low on the same day it reached Dividend King status with 50 consecutive years of dividend increases, and US comparable sales softened to 0.8% in the second quarter of 2026, with global comparable sales decelerating to 1.3%. Analysts have cut their price targets broadly, with TD Cowen going to $282 from $300 with a Hold, Deutsche Bank to $300 from $325 while keeping a Buy, Morgan Stanley to $308 from $319 at Equalweight, Citi to $310 from $345, RBC to $290 from $295, and UBS to $320 from $340.

Advertised pay in the most AI-exposed US occupations has climbed roughly 46% since the start of 2021, compared with 25% for the least-exposed jobs, according to an Indeed Hiring Lab report published last week. The divergence is sharpest in software, where the entry-level share of job postings in AI-exposed occupations fell from 29% to 10% between 2021 and 2026 while the senior share rose from 22% to 47%, and senior advertised pay in exposed roles is up 45% since 2021 versus 28% for less-exposed senior work. Indeed's economists estimate a post-ChatGPT advertised-pay premium of around 5.7% for AI-exposed jobs, falling to roughly 2.4% after controlling for seniority, suggesting most of the premium reflects experience directing AI systems. Indeed's CEO warned Fortune that the market is stuck in a vicious cycle in which employers refuse to train juniors who could become the seniors they will later bid up, and RAND economist Carter Price has flagged the fiscal risk given that roughly two-thirds of federal revenue comes from wages and salaries. The broader labor market shows no distress signals, with unemployment at 4.1% in August 2026, initial jobless claims at 196,000 for the week ending September 12, job openings at 7.27 million in July, and average hourly earnings of $37.75 in August 2026, while information-sector value added reached $1.79 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, or 5.6% of GDP, up from 5.3% in 2022.

Bank of America has joined other major banks in pushing for tighter safeguards around AI shopping agents as autonomous commerce moves closer to mainstream payments. The banks want autonomous transactions to clearly disclose when an AI agent is involved, explain important purchasing decisions and protect customer information while keeping platforms interoperable. The bigger concern is what happens when a bot gets a transaction wrong, since automated purchasing could expose card credentials, steer consumers toward options with weaker protections and make responsibility for fraud harder to untangle. The stakes are large at Bank of America's scale: the company processed roughly $1.2 trillion in payments during the second quarter, while credit- and debit-card spending totaled about $266 billion. The bank's shares traded at $57.435 on Tuesday, and the stock sits 6.94% above its $53.71 GF Value.

Meritage Hospitality Group, one of Wendy's largest franchisees, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week after several quarters of declining same-store sales across the Wendy's system left it unable to maintain profitability. Revenue declined 7.6% to $618 million in 2025 compared to about $669 million in 2024, and fell 14% to $274 million in the first half of 2026, while same-store sales dropped 7.2% in 2025 and 8.3% in the first half of this year. An $8 million net income in 2024 flipped to a nearly $32 million net loss in 2025, followed by a net loss of $23 million in H1 2026. The operator, which spent $400 million growing its Wendy's portfolio to more than 370 units and today owns 314 Wendy's restaurants plus one Bojangles and five independent concepts, closed about 60 underperforming restaurants and completed sale-leaseback deals netting $41 million and over $11 million. Wendy's franchisor organization, Quality Is Our Recipe, sent a termination of franchisee rights and lease occupancy rights on Sept. 16, claiming Meritage owes over $27 million in past due royalties and more than $119 million in continuous operations fees, a notice Meritage disputes as ineffective.