Billionaire investor Ken Griffin is placing a major bet on a company that’s far outperformed expectations this year.

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel has acquired 3,824,329 shares of NioCorp Developments Ltd (NB), a company advancing critical minerals development in the United States.

NioCorp’s flagship project in Nebraska aims to produce rare earth minerals like niobium, scandium and titanium.

Citadel’s holdings of NB represent 5.4% of its total portfolio, and 5.2% of the total outstanding shares.

NB, with a market cap of just $229 million, is trading at $3.16 after opening the year at $1.41 in January – a gain of 124% so far.

Citadel’s positioning in the company appears to underscore a focus on the energy sector, given its recent win on Chevron’s $53 billion takeover of competitor Hess Corporation.

Citadel Advisors, Adage Capital and HBK Investments were part of a group of investors betting on the acquisition as part of a merger arbitrage strategy, which involves betting on the outcome of a merger or acquisition, typically by taking long and/or short positions in the stocks of the companies involved.

Citadel and HBK each had the equivalent of $1 billion in shares, according to the firms’ latest filings, says Bloomberg.

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Shares of GE Vernova (GEV 13.85%) stock, the power generation equipment division spun off from General Electric last year, reported powerful earnings this morning, boosting its stock 14.8% through 11:30 a.m. ET.

Analysts forecast GE Vernova would earn $1.50 per share on $8.8 billion in Q2 sales. Instead, the company reported a profit of $1.88, and sales of $9.1 billion.

Image source: Getty Images.

GE Vernova Q2 earnings

Given the distortions caused by last year’s spinoff, comparing this year’s Q2 results and last year’s is hard. Still, sales grew 11%, and this suggests the business did well, despite earnings declining 60% and free cash flow falling more than 76% to $194 million.

Management noted it took in $12.4 billion in new orders in the quarter, making for a 1.4 book-to-bill ratio that foreshadows strong sales growth ahead. CEO Scott Strazik claims the company can “continue to accelerate our growth and margin expansion from here.”

Is GE Vernova stock a buy?

Strazik raised guidance for revenue, profit margin, and free cash flow expectations for the year. Revenue is now expected to come in close to $37 billion in 2025 with adjusted EBITDA margins between 8% and 9%. Free cash flow, previously predicted between $2 billion and $2.5 billion, could now reach from $3 billion to $3.5 billion, says management — potentially 30% better than the company’s $2.7 billion trailing FCF number.

Still, at the low end of guidance this would value the stock at close to 50 times FCF — and nearly 43 times even at the high end of guidance. Even with 30% growth, that’s kind of a stretch. I realize I’m in the minority today, but I won’t be buying GE Vernova stock at these kinds of prices.

There’s nothing like an unexpected payout to juice interest in a stock. The market was clearly caught a little off guard by PagSeguro Digital‘s (PAGS 12.20%) announcement of a special cash dividend, and it reacted accordingly. Investors piled into the Brazilian fintech to the point where it closed the day nearly 13% higher, a far better improvement than the under 1% gain posted by the S&P 500 index.

A special announcement

That morning, PagSeguro announced that it will pay its stockholders $0.12 per each of its common shares as a special dividend. This is to be dispensed on Aug. 15 to investors of record as of July 16.

Image source: Getty Images.

That’s only the first in a series — the company added that it aims to make two additional special dividend payouts. These should match that $0.12 per share distribution and be paid within the coming three quarters.

Dividends have been a theme for PagSeguro lately. The company, which went public on the U.S. market at the start of 2018, declared its first regular dividend in mid-May. This amounts to $0.14 per share and was paid out to stockholders earlier this month.

Like the inaugural special dividend, this isn’t intended to be a one-off. PagSeguro said that it aims to pay an annual dividend every year corresponding to roughly 10% of its distributable net income.

Quite the shareholder-pleasing measure

The Brazilian fintech space certainly has vast room to grow, given the cutting-edge offerings of PagSeguro and its peers in the vast yet under-banked country.

The company’s new(ish) dividend policy adds to the attractiveness of the stock, which has already been bolstered by solid financial performance — even if the company’s first quarter was considered by some to be lackluster — and consistent profitability.

Investors see-sawed in their sentiment on Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI 23.93%) stock these past two trading days. The optical communications products specialist’s shares were down 0.6% Friday, following the publication of its latest quarterly earnings report the day before, but soared 24% on Monday.

Revenue jumped

That release was Applied’s first set of figures for 2025. These revealed that the company’s revenue was a shade under $100 million for the fourth quarter, well above the $40.7 million it reaped in the same period of 2024.

Image source: Getty Images.

In terms of profitability, the company managed to narrow its non-GAAP (adjusted) loss. Its shortfall was $900,000 ($0.02 per share), compared to a loss of $12 million in the year-ago quarter.

The top-line figure wasn’t far away from the average analyst estimate of $99.4 million. Applied landed precisely on the consensus pundit projection of $0.02 for net loss, meanwhile.

The company proffered guidance for its current (first) quarter of the new fiscal year. It’s anticipating $100 million to $110 million in revenue, filtering down into an adjusted net loss of $0.09 per share to $0.03. What’s uncomfortable about this is that analysts are collectively modeling a $0.07 per share profit for the period, on $114 million in revenue.

The Monday bounce-back

One element dampening sentiment on Applied stock was its presence in China, where it has operated a manufacturing plant in the municipality of Ningbo for many years. With Monday’s announcement of a pause/reduction — at least — on the Trump administration’s tariffs on that country, investors breathed a big sigh of relief. They expressed this by pushing Applied’s stock up by 24% that day.

I think the company has a fine opportunity in front of it with the data center segment, but it really needs to flip those bottom-line numbers into the black. It’s been profitable before, and investors will be expecting it to return to that state before long.