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Investing.com -- S&P Global Ratings has upgraded AZZ Incorporated's (NYSE:AZZ) issuer credit rating to ‘BB’ from ‘BB-’, citing accelerated debt repayment and sustained improvements in the company's leverage profile. The rating agency also raised its issue-level rating on the company’s senior secured debt to ‘BB+’ from ‘BB’, while maintaining a ‘2’ recovery rating.

(Updates with market moves at the end of the day, and other changes, if any.) The Nasdaq Composit

Amid rising business activity, U.S. companies this year have grown more pessimistic about future inflation.

The popular view of CrowdStrike (CRWD) is that AI has made a fast-growing security company grow even faster. The stock returned 98% over the past year. The S&P 500 returned 18.5% over the same period. For that view to be right, two things must both be true. The faster growth has to last, and it has to turn into real profit. So far, only the first one clearly holds.

Snap (SNAP) generates free cash worth 7.4% of its market value a year, against 4.5% for the median S&P 500 company. A yield that high usually points one of two ways: a bargain, or a business the market expects to shrink. Snap is not shrinking: revenue grew 19% year over year in Q2 2026. So the market is pricing something else, the profit that sits underneath the cash.

S&P Global is buying code auditor OpenZeppelin days after backing Kaiko. Here is what the ratings giant is building.

Qualcomm (QCOM) throws off free cash worth 5.2% of its market value each year, against 4.4% for the median S&P 500 company. A yield above the median means one of two things: a bargain or a business the market expects to shrink. Here it is mostly the second: the cash comes from smartphone chips, and Apple is leaving.

Chasing the biggest dividend yields can quietly sabotage long-term income, and three mega-cap businesses with some of the smallest payouts on the market reveal exactly why the math works against most income investors.

If you own Autodesk (ADSK) or Fair Isaac (FICO), you own the same idea: software that customers keep paying more for. Fair Isaac grows by charging more for a score it already owns. Autodesk now grows partly by buying a business it did not have. Both raised guidance, and that fork makes the two raises different kinds of news.

Cloudflare (NET) stock has gained about 45% in three months while the S&P 500 returned 2.8%, and sits at the top of its 52-week range. That price is paying for more than the growth: a business Cloudflare has only started to build, charging AI agents for the requests they send.

The company participated in a fundraising round for a privately held peer.

Coinbase Global (COIN) stock has gained about 18% over the past month, and it is still down about 44% over the past year. At about $175 a share, the market pays 7.3 times sales against 3.2 for the S&P 500, more than double the market's price for revenue that is shrinking. The question is whether what Coinbase is building is worth more than what it is losing.

Meta Platforms (META) trades at about $653, roughly 16% below its 52-week high, and at 11.3 times operating cash flow against 15.2 for the S&P 500. A discount of this scale on a business delivering 28% top-line growth presents a notable valuation divergence, though one largely explained by the company's surging capital commitments. The cash flow that multiple is priced on is money Meta plans to spend.

On August 3, SBA Communications (NASDAQ:SBAC) reported second-quarter results that told two very different stories at once. The tower operator earned its first-ever investment-grade credit rating from S&P, upgrading to BBB, in the same quarter that net income attributable to the company fell 12.9% year over year to $198.8 million. Diluted earnings per share dropped […]

Aurora Innovation (AUR) trades at about $6.30 a share, a market value of about $12.5 billion, on $2 million of revenue in the second quarter of 2026. The stock trades at 2,498 times trailing twelve-month sales against 3.2 for the S&P 500. The multiple is not measuring anything. What you are buying is a truck count and the rate each truck earns.

A number of stocks jumped in the afternoon session after Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller signaled support for holding interest rates steady amid emerging signs of disinflation. During a Reuters NEXT Newsmaker interview, Governor Waller stated that if the positive economic trends seen over the last few months continue in the data due over the next two weeks, he would be inclined to support holding the federal funds target rate at its current setting. Waller pointed out that the three-

Applied Digital (APLD) has fallen 44.3% over the past three months while the S&P 500 returned 1.4%, and at about $24.90 the stock sits roughly 50% below its 52-week high. It still trades at 12.4 times sales against 3.2 for the S&P 500. Both are true at once, because the price has little to do with the business you can see today.

PayPal (PYPL) trades at 9.8 times earnings while the S&P 500 trades at 23.2. The profitability underneath is ordinary: an 18.4% operating margin against 18.5% for the market. The discount is not about whether the company makes money. It is about what each dollar it moves is worth.

(Updates with market moves at the end of the day, and other changes, if any.) US equity benchmark

When eBay falls in a crisis, the damage is concentrated in the depth of the drop, not the time it takes to climb back out.

The multiple rests on a launch vehicle that has yet to fly and an acquisition that has yet to close, while most of the revenue arriving today comes from satellites.

The market is offering a creative software giant at a steep discount, but the price tag comes with a question about the company's next chapter.

Financial institutions play a critical role, offering everything from consumer banking to wealth management and specialized financial solutions. Furthermore, supportive sentiment has created ideal market conditions, a trend that has enabled the industry to return 14.4% over the past six months. At the same time, the S&P 500 was up 10.5%.

S&P Global's margin gains, recurring revenue growth & buybacks support earnings, but a premium valuation & falling estimates keep the near-term setup cautious.

XPO has had its debt rating upgraded by S&P Global Ratings. The post XPO upgraded by S&P, just one notch below investment-grade appeared first on FreightWaves.

Its largest peers all trailed the market over the same year, so the re-rating was about what Alphabet's own spending started to earn rather than about artificial intelligence in general.

Here's what changed.

Pershing Square argues investors have exaggerated AI disruption while overlooking S&P Global's dominant ratings, indices and commodity benchmarks.

Let’s face it: Nvidia (NVDA) can’t grow the way it already has. The money now is in finding the next beaten-down or ignored stocks. So let’s learn from two Wall Street giants who spend their days doing exactly that — Michael Burry and billionaire Bill Ackman. Ackman’s Buy: S&P Global (Down 15% YTD) Ackman disclosed […]

The Russell 2000 (^RUT) has been outperforming the S&P 500 (^GSPC) this year as investors rotate into small-cap stocks. Janus Henderson Investors Small Cap Growth Portfolio Manager Jonathan Coleman joins Brooke DiPalma on Market Catalysts o explain what’s fueling the small-cap rally and why the group could have more room to run.