TheChek News Flow

The Week’s Biggest Funding Rounds: Saronic’s Massive Raise Tops List

For the second week in a row, big, $100 million-plus rounds rolled into startups. This week defense and artificial intelligence led the way with massive rounds, but healthcare, security and more also saw big raises.

1. Saronic, $600M, defense: Autonomous surface vessels maker Saronic locked up a $600 million Series C led by investor Elad Gil, which valued the startup at $4 billion. It was just last July when Saronic raised a $175 million Series B at a $1 billion valuation led by Andreessen Horowitz — meaning in seven months the firm’s valuation jumped 4x. Saronic plans to use the new cash to build a new shipyard, called Port Alpha, allowing it to expand its medium and large-class autonomous vessels. The Austin, Texas-based startup designs and manufactures autonomous surface vehicles — basically drones for the U.S. Navy that move along the water surface. Founded in 2022, the company has raised $845 million, per Crunchbase.

2. Lambda, $480M, artificial intelligence: Lambda, which offers cloud computing services and hardware for training artificial intelligence software, raised a $480 million Series D co-led by Andra Capital and SGW. The company did not disclose its valuation, but Reuters reported the round gave the startup a post-money valuation of $2.5 billion. Lambda is a provider of Nvidia’s — which also participated in the round — latest GPUs, which are highly sought after by AI developers. It was just a year ago when Lambda hit unicorn status after a $320 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation.

3. Together AI, $305M, artificial intelligence: Together AI, a developer of a cloud platform to allow developers to build on open and custom artificial intelligence models, raised a $305 million funding round led by General Catalyst and Saudi Arabia’s Prosperity7 Ventures at a $3.3 billion valuation. The new valuation is a more than 160% jump from The $1.25 billion it was valued at after Salesforce Ventures led a $106 million round for the Menlo Park, California-based startup last March. More than a dozen other investors joined the latest round, including Salesforce Ventures, Nvidia, Kleiner Perkins, Coatue and others. Together AI recently surpassed $100 million in annualized revenue, an increase from the $30 million in annualized revenue it had last February, per Bloomberg.

4. Abridge, $250M, healthcare: Abridge, which uses artificial intelligence to build medical documents, became the latest healthcare/biotech that uses AI to raise big. The Pittsburgh-based startup raised a $250 million round co-led by Elad Gil and IVP. While no valuation was released by the company, Fortune reported it is now valued at $2.75 billion post-money. Abridge helps medical professionals automate clinical notes and conversations through artificial intelligence. Founded in 2018, the company has raised nearly $458 million, per Crunchbase.

5. Verkada, $200M, security: Verkada, a developer of security systems for the real world, locked up a $200 million Series E led by General Catalyst that values the San Mateo, California-based firm at $4.5 billion. The company last raised in October 2023, closing a large $100 million round led by Alkeon Capital. While the focus is often on things such as network or application security, the physical world still needs securing. Verkada offers a plethora of products that include video security cameras, door-based access control, environmental sensors and more, and has recently added artificial intelligence into its security products. Founded in 2016, Verkada says it has raised more than $700 million in funding.

6. Loxo, $115M, human resource: Austin, Texas-based Loxo, a talent and recruiting software company, closed a $115 million round led by Tritium Partners. Founded in 2012, this is the company’s first announced round with a value.

7. (tied) Mercor, $100M, human resources: San Francisco-based Mercor, a recruiting startup for contract jobs, raised a $75 million Series B led by Felicis at a $2 billion valuation. Founded in 2023, the company has raised $134 million, per Crunchbase.

7. (tied) Safe Dynamics, $100M, virtual reality: Safe Dynamics, a San Diego-based immersive AI-powered VR training startup, raised $100 million from The Global Emerging Markets Group. Founded in 2006, the company has raised $132 million, per Crunchbase.

7. (tied) VitalConnect, $100M, healthcare: San Jose, California-based VitalConnect, which develops biosensors specializing in ambulatory cardiac monitoring, closed a $100 million round — a combination of equity and debt capital. The equity financing was led by new investor Ally Bridge Group. Founded in 2022, the company has raised $279 million, per Crunchbase.

7. (tied) Genspark AI, $100M, artificial intelligence: Palo Alto, California-based search startup Genspark raised $100 million in a Series A funding round, valuing the startup at $530 million, per Reuters. No investors were named. Founded in 2023, the company has raised $160 million, per Crunchbase.

China saw the largest deal of the week outside the U.S.

Harold Hamm warns executives will be wary of any peace deal between Trump and Putin

US oil producers are not going to rush back into Russia following any peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv because they have been badly burnt in the past, according to US shale magnate Harold Hamm.  

The Continental Resources’ founder and prominent donor to Donald Trump’s election campaign told the Financial Times that Russia had been a tough place to work for decades and he was thankful he had not followed others who ploughed money into the world’s third-largest oil producing nation.

“A lot of people lost a whole lot of money over there. I think they’re going to be very reticent to want to go back. Once in a while, peace breaks out over there, but not very often,” said Hamm in an interview.

The start of talks between US and Russian officials this week fuelled speculation that American companies could return to Russia, if a peace deal can be agreed and sanctions are relaxed on Moscow. Russian officials specifically flagged the potential for joint investments in hydrocarbons by US and Russian companies, including in the Arctic.  

“We know there are US oil companies which would like to return to Russia,” said Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, who attended the talks with US officials in Riyadh.

ExxonMobil and Chevron, the two largest American oil companies, declined to comment.

Exxon has a long history of investing in Russia but has pulled back following the imposition of western sanctions following Moscow’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The company pulled the plug on a joint venture with oil company Rosneft to explore Arctic waters in 2018. Four years later Exxon took a $3.4bn impairment charge when it wrote down the value of its stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil project in Russia’s far north-east.

Other western companies got hit harder. BP reported a nearly $25bn writedown linked to its shareholding in Rosneft and other businesses while Shell made a $5bn writedown on its Russian assets in 2022.

Most analysts agree with Hamm that US oil majors will think long and hard before investing following any peace deal due to the geopolitical risks, and opportunities elsewhere.

“Political risks remain sky-high — sanctions relief could be reversed with a US administration change. Companies won’t rush back into a market where rules shift overnight,” said Tatiana Mitrova, a research fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

Hamm, who co-ordinated fundraising among oil and gas interests during Trump’s election campaign worth at least $75mn, said the president had a big decision to make on whether to lift sanctions.

“They can be very effective. Particularly with secondary sanctions, which apply to anyone who transports or handles or trades,” he said.

Hamm said US liquefied natural gas exports would continue to play a critical role in ensuring Europe’s energy security. Europe could depend on the US, despite tensions over Ukraine, he said, adding that the continent’s leaders would be “silly” if they went back to relying on Russian piped gas.

“Europe, those countries are allies, and we’ve always stood up for them. I think they generally stood up for America. I think they should trust President Trump to look out after their best interests as well . . . We’re a country with a rule of law,” said Hamm.

He rejected allegations made by Democrats and other critics that Trump was ignoring the rule of law through some of his actions, which include curtailing birthright citizenship and giving Elon Musk access to government departments to slash spending and jobs.

“Obviously, [Musk] is doing a tremendous service. You know we have had runaway government for the last four years,” he said.

Hamm said Trump was the “most consequential president in modern history” by accomplishing so much in his first 30 days, including exiting the Paris climate accord and slashing environmental rules restricting industry.

Despite concerns within the oil industry that Trump’s threat to impose steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico would raise costs and increase petrol prices, he said they were necessary to tackle other problems.

“The border was number one consideration. Immigration and we had to stop the flow of drugs into this country,” said Hamm. “With Mexico and Canada, the tariffs are probably not going to be big factors if they will co-operate in the future.”

Asked if he thought Trump might try to seek a third term in office, even though this ran contrary to the US constitution, he said he could not contemplate such a thing.

“Thank God we have someone standing up there beside the president — JD Vance. I think he is looking forward to the next term.”       

Soaring demand for reasoning models will consume electricity, microchips and data-center real estate for the foreseeable future

Despite a brief period of investor doubt, money is pouring into artificial intelligence from big tech companies, national governments and venture capitalists at unprecedented levels. To understand why, it helps to appreciate the way that AI itself is changing.

The technology is shifting away from conventional large language models and toward reasoning models and AI agents. Training conventional large language models—the kind you’ve encountered in free versions of most AI chatbots—requires vast amounts of power and computing time. But we’re rapidly figuring out ways to reduce the amount of resources they need to run when a human calls on them. Reasoning models, which are based on large language models, are different in that their actual operation consumes many times more resources, in terms of both microchips and electricity.

Since OpenAI previewed its first reasoning model, called o1, in September, AI companies have been rushing to release systems that can compete. This includes DeepSeek’s R1, which rocked the AI world and the valuations of many tech and power companies at the beginning of this year, and Elon Musk’s xAI, which just debuted its Grok 3 reasoning model.

DeepSeek caused a panic of sorts because it showed that an AI model could be trained for a fraction of the cost of other models, something that could cut demand for data centers and expensive advanced chips. But what DeepSeek really did was push the AI industry even harder toward resource-intensive reasoning models, meaning that computing infrastructure is still very much needed.

Owing to their enhanced capabilities, these reasoning systems will likely soon become the default way that people use AI for many tasks. OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said the next major upgrade to his company’s AI model will include advanced reasoning capabilities.

Why do reasoning models—and the products they’re a part of, like “deep research” tools and AI agents—need so much more power? The answer lies in how they work.

AI reasoning models can easily use more than 100 times as much computing resources as conventional large language models, Nvidia’s vice president of product management for AI, Kari Briski, wrote in a recent blog post. That multiplier comes from reasoning models spending minutes or even hours talking to themselves—not all of which the user sees—in a long “chain of thought.” The amount of computing resources used by a model is proportional to the number of words generated, so a reasoning model that generates 100 times as many words to answer a question will use that much more electricity and other resources.

Things can get even more resource-intensive when reasoning models access the internet, as Google’s, OpenAI’s and Perplexity’s “deep research” models do.

These demands for computing power are just the beginning. As a reflection of that, Google, Microsoft and Meta Platforms are collectively planning to spend at least $215 billion on capital expenditures—much of that for AI data centers—in 2025. That would represent a 45% increase in their capital spending from last year.

To demonstrate the projections of future AI demand, we can lay out a simple equation.

The first value in our equation is the amount of computing resources needed to process a single token of information in an AI like the one that powers ChatGPT.

In January, it appeared that the cost per token—in both computing power and dollars—would crash in the wake of the release of DeepSeek R1, the Chinese AI model. DeepSeek, with its accompanying paper, showed it was possible to both train and deliver AI in a way that was radically more efficient than the approaches previously disclosed by American AI labs.

On its face, this would seem to indicate that AI’s future demand for computing power would be some fraction of its current amount—say, a tenth, or even less. But the increase in demand from reasoning models when they are answering queries could more than make up for that. To look at in the most simplistic way, if new, more efficient AI models based on the insights that went into DeepSeek slash demand for computing power for AI by a tenth, but reasoning models become the standard and increase demand for those models by a factor of 100, that’s still a 10-fold increase in future demand for power for AI.

This is just the starting point. As businesses are discovering that the new AI models are more capable, they’re calling on them more and more often. This is shifting demand for computing capacity from training models toward using them—or what’s called “inference” in the AI industry.

Tuhin Srivastava, CEO of Baseten, which provides AI computing resources to other companies, says that this swing toward inference is already well under way. His customers consist of tech companies that use AI in their apps and services, such as Descript, which allows content creators to edit audio and video directly from a transcript of a recording, and PicnicHealth, a startup that processes medical records. Baseten’s customers are finding that they need more AI processing power as demand for their own products rapidly grows, says Srivastava.

“For one customer, we brought their costs down probably 60% six months ago, and within three months, they were already consuming at a higher level than they were consuming initially,” he adds.

All of the big AI labs at companies like OpenAI, Google and Meta are still trying to best one another by training ever-more-capable AI models. Whatever the cost, the prize is capturing as much of the still-nascent market for AIs as possible.

“I think it’s entirely possible that frontier labs need to keep pumping in staggering amounts of money in order to push the frontier forward,” says Chris Taylor, CEO of Fractional AI, a San Francisco-based startup that helps other software companies build and integrate custom AIs. His company, like Baseten and many others in the blossoming AI ecosystem, relies on those cutting-edge models to deliver results for its own customers.

Over the next couple of years, new innovations and more AI-specific microchips could mean systems that deliver AI to end customers become a thousand times more efficient than they are today, says Tomasz Tunguz, a venture capitalist and founder of Theory Ventures. The bet that investors and big tech companies are making, he adds, is that over the course of the coming decade, the amount of demand for AI models could go up by a factor of a trillion or more, thanks to reasoning models and rapid adoption.

“Every keystroke in your keyboard, or every phoneme you utter into a microphone, will be transcribed or manipulated by at least one AI,” says Tunguz. And if that’s the case, he adds, the AI market could soon be 1,000 times larger than it is today.

The legendary investor wrote in Saturday’s annual letter that Berkshire Hathaway will never prefer cash over ‘good businesses’

Warren Buffett says Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B -0.64%decrease; red down pointing triangle still prefers owning businesses.

Berkshire’s chairman and chief executive told shareholders in his annual letter Saturday that while the company’s ownership of stocks declined last year, the value of the operating businesses it owns increased. Berkshire runs a range of subsidiaries in such industries as rail, utilities and insurance.

A recent buildup in the Omaha, Neb., conglomerate’s mountain of cash and Treasury bills has drawn attention among investors. Berkshire ended 2024 with $321.4 billion in cash and Treasury bills, after accounting for a payable it recorded for buying the short-term government debt. That marked a new record and a 3.6% increase from three months earlier.

“Despite what some commentators currently view as an extraordinary cash position at Berkshire, the great majority of your money remains in equities,” Buffett wrote. “That preference won’t change.”

Buffett said Berkshire’s ownership of “marketable equities” declined last year. But the famed stock picker offered assurance that the company hasn’t changed its investment approach.

“Berkshire shareholders can rest assured that we will forever deploy a substantial majority of their money in equities—mostly American equities although many of these will have international operations of significance,” he wrote. “Berkshire will never prefer ownership of cash-equivalent assets over the ownership of good businesses, whether controlled or only partially owned.”

Berkshire also released its results for 2024, reporting a profit of $89 billion, down from $96.2 billion in 2023. The company’s operating earnings, which exclude some investment results, rose to $47.4 billion.

Buffett encourages shareholders to pay attention to operating earnings. Berkshire’s net income includes unrealized gains and losses from its stock investments, causing the bottom-line earnings figure to fluctuate when markets are volatile.

Its stock has risen to start the year, with both Class A and Class B shares up about 5.6%, compared with the S&P 500’s 2.2% gain. Both Berkshire share classes closed at records this week.

The U.S. stock market continues to stand out as the place where investors can generate the most attractive returns, lending new meaning to the term “American exceptionalism.” In the past 12 months, the S&P 500 has risen 24.3%, compared with gains of 12.45% in the Stoxx Europe 600 index and 14.81% in the MSCI Emerging Markets index.

The U.S. now represents nearly 70% of the world’s equity-market valuation, and more than 70% of the net investment flows into the $13 trillion global market for private investments, including equities and credit.

These trends are pushing U.S. asset valuations to extremes relative to the rest of the world, as the outperformance of the U.S. has accelerated over the past decade. But investors repeatedly have brushed off warnings of a financial bubble, just as the market has shrugged off concerns about things like tariffs that might have triggered selloffs in the past.

At what point do growth expectations and valuations get so large, however, that investors head for the exits? A number of factors could prompt a retreat from U.S. market exceptionalism.

One is valuation. The S&P 500 currently trades for 24.9 times this year’s expected earnings, compared with a historic price/earnings multiple of 16.

There may be fundamental shifts in the economy, such as productivity gains from AI, that support these higher valuations and mean traditional multiples no longer apply. Productivity gains and innovation could lead investors to believe that businesses can sustain growth for longer, thereby justifying a higher valuation than traditional metrics and analysis would suggest. But, at some point, the market’s P/E ratio will fully reflect those expectations.

Persistent inflation could also pose problems for companies and stocks. The Trump administration’s deportation of undocumented immigrants and a projected reduction in immigrant flows are likely to put upward pressure on U.S. wages, while higher tariffs on trade could boost consumer prices for steel and energy. The 4.5% yield on the 10 year U.S. Treasury reflects market concerns that inflation isn’t yet sufficiently subdued, and could revive.

A third potential trigger for a material market selloff is the U.S. government’s worsening fiscal situation. Scott Bessent, the new Treasury secretary, has set a “3-3-3” target of 3% average annual growth in gross domestic product, three million barrels of additional daily oil production (up from a current 21.6 million barrels a day), and a reduction of the U.S. budget deficit to 3% of GDP.

Investors are likely to hone in on the Trump administration’s progress in reducing the budget deficit, in particular, as the deficit now stands at 6.4% of GDP and is expected to rise. Efforts by the Trump-authorized Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut government spending by $2 trillion could help move the deficit-to-GDP ratio toward Bessent’s goal.

Although the U.S. dollar enjoys reserve-currency status, both the large deficit and the current debt-to-GDP ratio—not to mention annual interest expense of roughly $1 trillion on government debt—are a concern for markets. Investors could be spooked if there isn’t at least a material dent in projected debt levels and the deficit.

Finally, there is a risk that, given the rapid growth in private credit, leverage in the financial system could become a drag on the broader economy, as happened during the 2008-09 financial crisis. According to S&P Global, so-called shadow banks, or non-bank lenders, held $63 trillion in financial assets globally at the end of 2022, representing 78% of global GDP. Markets likely would react vigorously, and negatively, to any hint of a credit crunch.

On a structural basis, the U.S. is hard to bet against. It is the world’s strongest economic bloc and a producer of low-cost energy. Its risk-taking culture, combined with deep capital markets, will continue to drive technological innovation, and allow companies to develop and grow to scale. These factors place a floor on the value of U.S. assets.

It is impossible to know how high U.S. asset prices will rise. But investors must remain alert to the potential risks that could spur a new wave of market carnage.

Moving to a pure-play model could heighten interest in the complicated media giant’s stock, which is already trading at a discount.

Comcast has a discounted stock, a lucrative business, and a restive shareholder base.

That’s a good setup for investors. Plenty could go right for the cable and entertainment conglomerate, including a corporate breakup, with Comcast’s low valuation offering downside protection. The company has attractive assets that are valued at a fraction of its replacement cost.

Comcast controls the largest broadband footprint in the U.S. with 31.8 million subscribers. It owns NBC, Universal Pictures, Universal theme parks, European satellite TV operator Sky, the Peacock streaming service, and cable properties including CNBC, MSNBC, USA Networks, and Bravo. The Philadelphia-based company even owns the hometown Flyers of the National Hockey League.

Barron’s Jack Hough earlier this year called Comcast “America’s most complicated company,” and that highlights the simplification opportunity.

The shares, at about $36, are down 40% from their 2021 peak of $61 and badly trailed the S&P 500 index over the past one, five, 10, and 25 years.

Comcast is valued at just eight times projected 2025 earnings, a discount to its major cable and telecom peers and one of the lowest price/earnings ratios in the S&P 500. It has a secure 3.6% dividend yield and bought back about 5% of its stock last year. Analysts see similar repurchases in 2025. Bulls like analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson Research have price targets of over $50 a share.

Yet investors don’t appear crazy about Comcast’s conglomerate model. It wouldn’t be surprising to see an activist investor like Elliott Investment Management surface this year. In early February, Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino laid out what could become an activist playbook in an open letter to Comcast CEO and controlling shareholder Brian Roberts, 65. Supino urged the company to split into three parts: cable and broadband, NBC/Universal Sky, and cable TV networks.

The company is already focused on six growth areas: consumer broadband, wireless, business broadband, streaming, parks, and movies, which account for more than 60% of its revenue. It announced plans in November to spin off a group of cable networks in 2025, led by USA Networks, CNBC, and MSNBC, into an unnamed company—Bravo is excluded.

Those cable businesses, with a total of $7 billion in annual revenue, are viewed as slow growers. Supino says they may get valued at $8 billion to $10 billion, or just four to five times his estimate of annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda.

Supino thinks more is needed. The proposed spinoff isn’t large relative to Comcast’s $140 billion market value and wouldn’t have much impact on the stock price. Comcast’s enterprise value—its market value plus net debt—is about $230 billion.

A problem with the breakup scenario is that CEO Roberts, the son of Comcast founder Ralph Roberts, isn’t on board with it. The stock trades as if the scenario won’t materialize. The company’s view is that a diversified model is best, as was demonstrated during the pandemic. A 2022 study by Bain analysts found that corporate spinoffs often generate little or no benefit to shareholders.

Roberts controls the company through a small slice of supervoting stock—some nine million shares—that give him a one-third vote. His economic interest in the company is just 1%. While he owns over $1 billion of stock, he controls one of the smaller percentage stakes of any major family-controlled company.

In his letter, Supino criticized Roberts for his compensation of $340 million over the past 10 years—and for acquiring “zero shares of Comcast in the open market” over that span. Much of his compensation comes in stock.

What about the competition? Comcast has a better balance sheet than the No. 2 cable and broadband company, Charter Communications, and is returning far more cash to shareholders.

But Comcast trades at a discount to Charter at six times estimated 2025 Ebitda based on its enterprise value, against 6.6 times for Charter. That could reflect an investor preference for the pure-play Charter, which is focused on broadband and cable.

Comcast’s stock weakness over the past year reflects investor concerns about steady but modest subscriber losses in broadband, its most important business. Broadband and cable account for about 80% of its pretax cash flow.

The broadband concerns intensified after Comcast’s fourth-quarter results in late January showed a decline of 139,000 subscribers, against estimates of close to 100,000. While Roberts lauded “the best financial performance” in the company’s 60-year history, analysts weren’t happy that revenue was up less than 2% during the year.

“Closing the Books on a Miserable 2024” was how Moffett titled his report, noting ongoing broadband losses and the stock being 40 percentage points behind the S&P 500 over the prior year.

The stock fell 10% in the wake of the earnings news, although it has since recouped much of that loss.

The company didn’t give 2025 guidance, but investors were rattled by a comment by Comcast President Michael Cavanagh that broadband “competitive conditions remain intense, dynamic, and varied” with “no signs of this changing in the near term.”

Telecom companies like AT&T are taking on Comcast in broadband with fiber, as well as fixed wireless internet services that offer less speed than cable broadband but are also less expensive. Consumers increasingly have two—or more—choices for home broadband. Looming, as well, is potential competition from Elon Musk’s satellite-based service Starlink.

Comcast’s plan is to more aggressively market a combination of broadband and wireless, which already has had some success, but that could depress revenue growth this year. Indeed, Wall Street analysts see no growth in revenue or earnings per share this year.

That outlook, however, appears discounted in the company’s stock, with Wall Street fearing a steady bleed of broadband subscribers this year.

Moffett remains bullish, arguing that broadband losses “likely have peaked.” He wrote that the stock “looks cheap” valued at 10 times this year’s projected free cash flow and five times estimated 2028 free cash flow.

“Comcast needs to copy Charter’s strategy by marketing cable’s key advantage far more aggressively—a converged wireline/wireless bundle that cannot be offered in most cases by their competitors,” says Jeff Wlodarczak, a Pivotal Research Group analyst. He says it may take some time for the company to demonstrate success with the strategy.

In terms of its other businesses, Comcast highlighted that Peacock operating losses were cut by more than 50%, to $372 million, in the fourth quarter. But Supino noted that the service has lost a cumulative $9 billion, “with no articulated path to profitability.” It serves just 36 million subscribers against 300 million-plus for Netflix. Comcast hasn’t said when it expects Peacock to turn a profit.

The Universal theme parks are underappreciated assets—especially the one in Orlando, Fla., which will be better able to compete with Disney World with the opening of the Epic Universe in the spring at an estimated cost of $6 billion to $7 billion. The Universal parks generated Ebitda of $3 billion in 2024 and could be worth $40 billion or more.

One final area of potential upside is the tantalizing prospect of a merger of Comcast and Charter.

Media mogul and influential Charter investor John Malone said at Liberty Media’sinvestor day in November that it’s time to allow such a once-unthinkable combination, given growing competition from telecom companies and others in broadband that have depressed cable stocks in recent years.

One benefit of the addition-by-subtraction cable spinoff would be jettisoning President Donald Trump–unfriendly MSNBC from Comcast. That could make Trump antitrust regulators more willing to approve a potential Comcast/Charter deal. The companies have little overlap of their cable and broadband footprints.

Comcast is a rare big company with an inexpensive stock, ample capital returns, and what Wall Street calls optionality, or several ways to win.

Its investors should be in for a satisfying ride.

President Donald Trump’s estimates of Ukraine’s strategic mineral wealth are probably much exaggerated. Way back on Feb. 3, when Washington and Kyiv were still allies, Trump told reporters that the U.S. could reap $500 billion from a half-share of Ukraine’s “rare earths and other things.”

That volume of mining would require massive, long-term greenfield investment that investors will hardly sink into a war-torn, energy-challenged nation with a hostile superpower breathing down its neck. Postwar Ukraine could meaningfully contribute to more-mature, but still critical, supply chains like uranium and titanium.

Trump’s interest in Ukraine’s subsoil is understandable. China’s strongest weapon in an escalating trade war is its near-monopoly on so-called rare-earth metals like terbium and dysprosium that are essential to modern electronics and weaponry alike.

Ukraine could in theory dent that dominance. It sits on 23 of the 50 minerals the U.S. government defines as essential, says Nataliya Katser-Buchkovska, founder of the Ukrainian Sustainable Investment Fund. It has a deep bench of experienced mining engineers, adds Ksenia Orynchak, CEO of the National Extractive Industries Association in Kyiv. And, of course, the European Union is next door.

Obstacles are formidable, however. A third of Ukraine’s mineral resources are in territory currently occupied by Russia, estimates Katser-Buchkovska.

Rare earths in raw form aren’t actually rare. “They are everywhere,” notes Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Exploration is under way in more stable jurisdictions from Brazil to Namibia.

Commercially viable rare-earth mining, not to mention processing, requires abundant cheap energy. It also requires a high tolerance for environmental damage: Every ton of rare earths minded produces 20,000 tons of toxic waste, according to the Harvard International Review. It takes lots of time, too: The average mining project of any kind globally takes 15 years to produce its first ore and pays back over at least 40 years, says Baskaran. “The private sector is not racing to make that kind of investment next door to [President Vladimir] Putin,” she says.

Ukraine won’t have to start from scratch everywhere, though. The country was a power in titanium before Russia’s February 2022 invasion. It provided most of the raw metal, or sponge, to Russian producer VSMPO-AVISMA, which in turn supplied 15% or so of the global market. Titanium’s combination of lightness and strength makes it essential for aerospace and power-generating turbines.

Postwar Ukraine could expand uranium mining, riding a global resurgence of nuclear power, predicts Koray Köse, founder of supply-chain consultant Köse Advisory. The currently dominant uranium source is Russian proto-satellite Kazakhstan, with nearly half of global production. Western customers would be happy to diversify, particularly France, which has up to 14 new nuclear reactors on the drawing board and just lost a reliable supplier thanks to a coup in its ex-colony Niger.

Ukraine’s biggest uranium deposits are mostly outside occupied territory, in Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad provinces, Köse adds.

Ukraine led the world in production of neon gas before the war. This element is used in excimer lasers that etch minute patterns onto semiconductors. It’s a byproduct of steel production, though, much of which has been either overrun or damaged by Russia. Ukraine’s steel output has fallen by two-thirds since the invasion.

It’s unlikely that critical-minerals mining will drive Ukraine’s eventual rebuilding and recovery, much less provide a “security shield,” as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asserted in Kyiv on Feb. 12. But it might help around the edges.

It’s not all about oil, one of the president’s top priorities. Why natural gas leads our list of the industry’s most promising investments. Even some solar and wind stocks could climb.

nergy has taken center stage in the first month of President Donald Trump’s second term. It’s the linchpin of his plan to tame inflation, because oil drilling can drive down prices at the pump. And Trump sees oil and gas as America’s most powerful asset in trade negotiations. The U.S. has an abundance of those resources, and some of its biggest rivals, like China, don’t.

Energy has taken center stage in the first month of President Donald Trump’s second term. It’s the linchpin of his plan to tame inflation, because oil drilling can drive down prices at the pump. And Trump sees oil and gas as America’s most powerful asset in trade negotiations. The U.S. has an abundance of those resources, and some of its biggest rivals, like China, don’t.

“We’re going to make more money than anybody’s ever made with energy,’’ Trump said in the Oval Office earlier this month.

It’s less certain that energy investors will be rolling in dough, too.

Trump’s early moves in energy have been dramatic and controversial—and haven’t been great for stocks. Some, like his decision to halt already-approved payments on energy loans and grants, quickly landed in court. Others, like his tariffs on Canadian and Mexican energy and other products, have unsettled American companies and upset allies. Those tariffs are on hold until early March. But the fallout, and the possibility that Trump will remove sanctions on Russian oil, have knocked oil prices and stocks lower. The Energy Select Sector exchange-traded fund, which mostly reflects shares of large oil producers, is down 1.2% since the day before his inauguration, and up 3.8% since he won the election, versus the S&P 500 indexs 5.8% gain.

Some of the best opportunities in energy align with Trump’s interests, but they tend to be in areas that have demand drivers beyond federal policy. As things stand today, natural gas looks best positioned among energy segments, followed by, in order, nuclear power, oil, solar, and wind.

The centerpiece of Trump’s plan has been to declare an energy emergency, which he says gives his administration broad powers to do things like approve pipelines and power plants without going through the usual regulatory hoops. Trump describes the state of American energy in dire terms, calling it “dangerous” and “precariously inadequate.” But there’s ample evidence to the contrary. U.S. oil production is at record highs, and the country produces so much natural gas that suppliers had to curtail production last year to avoid an all-out crash. Even with those production cuts, natural-gas prices fell to their lowest inflation-adjusted levels ever.

“There’s not an emergency, as an objective matter,” says Ari Peskoe, director of the electricity law initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program. If the U.S. were really in an emergency situation, Trump wouldn’t have also curbed permits for new renewable-energy resources, and made it easier for oil and gas producers to send U.S. resources overseas, he says. Peskoe adds that it’s “not at all clear” which special powers Trump’s emergency order will give him. Any attempt to bypass normal permitting will probably end up in court. If Trump loses there, it could markedly slow some of his plans.

Another problem with his orders is what they leave out. In defining energy sources subject to his emergency declaration, Trump listed every major source of electricity and combustion in the country except three: wind, batteries, and solar. But renewables are the fastest-growing electricity sources in the country, accounting for more than half of new generation. A recent Dallas Federal Reserve report said that solar and battery power “saved the Texas grid last summer.” Solar output in Texas rose more than 40% in the brutally hot summer of 2024 from 2023 levels, and battery storage nearly tripled. Even though power loads hit a record in August, state regulators didn’t have to ask consumers to cut back their electricity use even once, after having to do so 11 times in 2023.

To expand on that success, renewables could use help from the federal government in areas like speeding the rollout of new electricity transmission lines—one factor holding back deployment of renewables today. But the Trump administration’s early moves don’t point to much help for renewables.

Asked why wind and solar didn’t make the list of important energy sources, a White House official wrote that Trump will support “any energy infrastructure projects that increase our energy supply and security, whether it’s the Keystone XL Pipeline or a similar project, because a reliable energy supply is essential to our economy, national security, and well-being.”

When it comes to energy, Trump is clearly focused on expanding fossil-fuel development and transportation. As evidenced by the past month’s drop in oil stock prices, choosing winners won’t be as easy as picking his favorite industries.

Natural gas has long played second fiddle to oil. Historically, its price was even pegged to crude prices . But it’s now taking on a more central role in U.S. energy policy, and the stocks of producers and exporters have benefited handsomely.

The industry has two major growth drivers in the years ahead: growing exports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Europe and Asia, and rising electricity demand from artificial-intelligence data centers and industrial uses. Together, those industries are likely to boost natural-gas demand 10% to 20% by 2030. An end to sanctions on Russian gas could dent that growth but not derail the investment thesis.

LNG faced some uncertainty last year after President Joe Biden paused approvals of new LNG export terminals to study their environmental and economic impacts. Enough terminals had already been approved to ensure that the industry’s capacity would double by 2028, but the industry’s fate after that was up in the air. Trump quickly reversed the pause, and announced his administration’s first new LNG permit approval earlier this month for a project that could go into service in 2029.

Exporting LNG is a lucrative business. The stock of industry leader Cheniere Energy doubled in the past three years. But the field is getting more competitive, and analysts see a glut of LNG emerging by 2027. Those challenging economics may be one reason that Venture Global, another top LNG firm, has seen its stock fall 30% since going public in January.

Some think natural-gas producers can benefit as Trump opens up more LNG exports. Doug Rachlin, portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman, says he likes Antero Resources because it’s positioned to sell 75% of its gas into the LNG market. While the stock rose some 50% in the past year, it still trades at a reasonable 13.3 times expected 2025 earnings.

The companies providing equipment for new LNG plants are also well positioned to benefit. That includes Chart Industries, a Georgia company that makes equipment like cryogenic tanks and modular liquefaction plants. Chart just signed a multiproject deal with Exxon Mobil, one of the top global names in LNG. Analysts expect Chart’s earnings to jump 36% this year. “We think it deserves a revaluation,” says Rob Uek, a portfolio manager at Essex Global Environmental Opportunities Strategy, which owns Chart stock. Chart trades at 15.5 times its expected earnings, but Uek thinks it will eventually fetch a multiple of at least 20 times, more like other high-growth industrial companies. That would take the stock to $240 from a recent $195.

Nuclear power also came into 2025 with enormous momentum. In 2024, the industry woke up suddenly from a decadelong slumber. Tech and industrial companies turned to upstart nuclear developers for clean, reliable power for facilities like AI data centers. Microsoft even agreed to buy nuclear power from a shuttered Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania, at what analysts said was a major premium to market electricity prices.

The Trump administration appears to be pro-nuclear. Trump has included the technology in his energy executive orders, and appointed nuclear advocate Chris Wright as secretary of energy. Wright served on the board of nuclear company Oklo, and has listed “commercialization of affordable and abundant nuclear energy” as one of his department’s top priorities. Enthusiasm about the industry continues to grow, as do valuations of the stocks. Attendance was up 50% at the Nuclear Energy Institute’s annual finance summit in New York earlier this month.

The Biden administration was also pro-nuclear, offering loans and grants to several projects—including the restart of a shuttered Michigan nuclear plant. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act was generous to the industry, using tax credits to help establish a baseline price for nuclear-power generation and ensure that no current plants retire early.

The industry has a few requests for Trump. They want him to keep the tax credits Biden introduced, and they hope that low-rate loans will remain available.

Their other request is to get the federal government more directly involved in funding new nuclear plants, by agreeing to cover cost overruns when they get built. The last big U.S. nuclear plant expansion came in more than $15 billion over budget. “We have to have federal dollars,” says Caroline Golin, Google’s global head of energy market development and innovation, at the Nuclear Energy Institute conference. Google, part of Alphabet, has lately been investing in nuclear plants, agreeing to buy electricity from private reactor developer Kairos Power in the future.

Investors in nuclear stocks profited handsomely last year, but it could be hard to match those gains in 2025. The start-up nuclear stocks look extremely pricey, particularly given that none has built commercial plants yet. Oklo and Nuscale Power, which make next-generation reactors, were up 300% and 680%, respectively, in the past year.

The more promising stocks today are providers of fuel for nuclear plants, says Arthur Hyde, portfolio manager at Segra Capital, a hedge fund that invests in nuclear companies. That includes Cameco, a Canadian company that mines uranium in Canada and the U.S. and owns a stake in nuclear-reactor designer Westinghouse. He also likes smaller uranium miners, including Uranium Energy and enCore Energy. Hyde, whose firm also funds private companies, thinks that public-market investors could get more options soon. “I expect additional go-public activity across the nuclear technology space in the next 12 months,” he says.

The Biden administration put few lasting restrictions on the oil industry but often criticized the companies for their policies on share buybacks and the environment. Oil company executives appreciate the change in rhetoric around fossil fuels now. Trump “recognized that oil and gas has been disfavored in recent years, and I think his intent is to make sure that the country takes advantage of all the energy sources that it’s blessed with, including oil and gas,” said Chevron CEO Mike Wirth in an interview with Barron’s. Trump plans to ease environmental restrictions and open up more federal land to drilling, including in Alaska—though recent lease sales there have drawn few, if any, bidders.

The outlook is shaky for oil stocks today. Trump wants U.S. oil companies to drill more to force gasoline price down. But lower prices will quickly discourage plans for new projects. Instead, oil companies are slowing their production growth in the face of tepid demand and hesitancy from investors.

What’s more, there’s an iceberg ahead. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia, have been holding more than six million barrels of oil a day off the market, and have said they’ll start bringing it back later this year. Even if they don’t, the mere threat of a flood of supply should hold the stocks back. Historically, oil stocks have almost always trailed the broader market when that much spare production capacity is being held back.

Solar and wind power face a treacherous road ahead because of Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress that is looking to cut climate-related funding. Congress is working on bills that could eliminate the tax credits that have sustained the industry in recent years. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act offers renewable projects 30% tax credits related to the value of a project or the energy it produces, and the opportunity for more credits. A complete withdrawal of those credits would cause a steep downturn in renewables stocks, most of which have already been falling steadily. Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco doesn’t expect a wholesale repeal, but thinks that some tax credits could be axed or end well before their 2032 sunset date.

There’s reason for hope, however, say industry CEOs and bankers. For one thing, renewables did OK during Trump’s first term and struggled during the Biden years, even though they got more support; their problems had more to do with interest rates.

Companies making investments in renewables have to look at time horizons that span multiple presidential administrations. “The projects pay back over a much longer period,” says PJ Deschenes, co-head of Nomura Greentech, which helps finance sustainable energy transactions.

In fact, some savvy buyers think that the stocks have gotten way too cheap. Brookfield Asset Management, one of the world’s largest renewables developers, is considering buying beaten-down public companies that it could take private, says Jehangir Vevaina, global chief investment officer of Brookfield’s renewable power and transition group. “We follow the sector closely, and we do see opportunities out there,” he says. “Given valuations, we would absolutely look at it, consider it, and do it.”

Solar energy looks best positioned to keep growing in the Trump years. Industry executives think the president’s early actions are evidence of benign neglect. While changes to the Inflation Reduction Act would hurt solar equipment companies, Trump’s domestic manufacturing agenda could lift them. Domestic solar factories can now produce enough modules to nearly meet all domestic demand, though the precursor materials that go into modules are still largely sourced from Asia. America’s leading manufacturer, First Solar, is down 25% since the election, and trades at just 7.9 times its expected 2025 earnings. Even if tax credits go away, First Solar should benefit from high tariffs on foreign solar panels, says Maheep Mandloi, an analyst at Mizuho Securities. Mandloi thinks the shares could rise to $259 from a recent $164.

Wind power is in more precarious shape. Offshore wind, an industry that had just started to take off in the U.S. under Biden, is facing significant challenges. Trump has paused new offshore wind permits and even directed his administration to review older approvals, with the possibility they could be clawed back. Onshore wind, which needs fewer federal permits, could still persevere. Installations are on track to increase 31% this year, according to Bloomberg NEF. And market expectations are as low as ever; Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s leading turbine maker, is trading around where it did at the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, despite ending 2024 with its largest backlog ever. Citi analyst Martin Wilkie thinks the stock can more than double.

At the right price, even wind power attracts bullish investors. It’s another sign that surprises could abound in energy investing for the next four years.

WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will sign a memorandum on Friday that will direct the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to restrict Chinese investments in strategic areas, a White House official said.

The national security memorandum is aimed at promoting foreign investment while protecting U.S. national security interests from threats posed by foreign adversaries like China, the official told Reuters.

"China is exploiting our capital and ingenuity to fund and modernize their military, intelligence, and security operations, posing direct threats to United States security with weapons of mass destruction, cyber warfare, and more," the official said.

Under the directive, the United States will establish new rules "to curb the exploitation of its capital, technology, and knowledge by foreign adversaries such as China to ensure that only those investments that serve American interests are allowed," the official said.

The official also said the Trump administration will consider new or expanded restrictions on U.S. outbound investment to China in sensitive technologies, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum, biotechnology, aerospace and more.

Trump Should Opt for Jefferson Over Jackson

Political change doesn’t require a crude persona or disregard for constitutional norms.

Like Mr. Trump, the roughhewn Jackson claimed his mandate from the frustrations of the “common people.” Mr. Trump once bragged that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without consequence. Jackson did shoot and kill someone in a duel. The voters didn’t care. But political change doesn’t require a crude persona or disregard for constitutional norms. The Jeffersonian Revolution of 1800 expanded democracy and reduced central-government overreach.

If they could speak to us, every president who served more than four years might warn about the second-term curse. While Mr. Trump may avoid it, his reputation will be more secure if he emulates Thomas Jefferson rather than Andrew Jackson.

Geoffrey Evans Moore

San Diego

Ms. Noonan refers to the “rabble mob,” people from all walks of life who showed up in Washington in 1829 when Jackson was sworn in as president. In his own observation that day, Sen. Daniel Webster said: “Persons have come from five hundred miles to see General Jackson and they really seem to think that the country has been rescued from some dreadful danger.”

That allusion to the threat of “some dreadful danger” isn’t dissimilar to Mr. Trump’s warnings that, “if we lose this election, we won’t have a country anymore.” It sounds to me as if there was a precursor to the MAGA movement nearly 200 years ago—along with the same skeptics who didn’t understand the message. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Barbara Fotine Atkins

North Las Vegas, Nev.

Alan Dershowitz makes several good points in his Feb. 13 letter “The Echoes of Jefferson in Trump’s Presidency,” but we shouldn’t overread the similarities. While Jefferson agreed to purchase the Louisiana Territory without prior congressional approval, he nevertheless adhered to the Constitution’s provision that the president “shall have Power . . . to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.”

Mr. Dershowitz also writes that he “railed against the judiciary for taking too much power.” It wasn’t so simple. Upon becoming president, Jefferson sought to remove many of the “midnight judges” that President John Adams had installed with the Judiciary Act of 1801. His attack, then, wasn’t so much on the judiciary as it was against his predecessor.

Finally, Mr. Dershowitz notes that Jefferson “imposed trade restrictions on foreign countries.” Jefferson ordered an embargo on trade with France and Britain because both nations were engaged in the Napoleonic Wars. Britain would impress American seamen into the Royal Navy to augment its ranks. Jefferson’s action was a way of preventing that practice and maintaining American neutrality, a precedent set by George Washington.

President Trump may do well to emulate Jefferson, but he’s not there yet.