There’s a strategy behind the Iran war.
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He walked me through the real purpose.
The real objective.
And the massive deal tied to it.
I verified every piece.
This isn’t random.
It’s planned.
The better positioned you’ll be.
Exclusive Headlines
Sandisk Committed Half Its 2027 Supply at 80% Margins
Sandisk beat consensus by close to five dollars a share and the stock fell for three sessions running. Revenue grew 372%. Gross margin reached a level almost unheard of for a NAND manufacturer. The company still lost value on the print. The reaction is telling.
The quarter is the clearest picture yet of what the memory shortage is doing to pricing. Roughly two-thirds of the sequential revenue growth came from higher prices rather than higher volumes. Cost of revenue actually fell year over year while revenue quadrupled. That is not operating leverage in the usual sense. That is a supply-demand mismatch flowing directly through to the top line at close to full drop-through. The extraordinary margin is the direct footprint of a shortage that Samsung has now said will extend into 2028.
The signing activity underneath the print is where the harder question sits. Sandisk has now committed more than half of fiscal 2027 supply under long-term agreements, and the number rises toward two-thirds in 2028. Management framed this as trading peak-cycle uncertainty for multi-year visibility. That reads as prudent. The catch is the margin those contracts carry. Management said the contract book runs at roughly 80% gross margin against the 84.6% just delivered. As contracted volume rises from half of supply toward two-thirds, more of the business shifts to the lower figure. Sandisk is trading peak pricing for durability.
The September guide sharpens the question. Revenue was guided below consensus but earnings and margin were guided above the record just posted. The market focused on the revenue gap. What the guide actually signals is that Sandisk is willing to leave revenue on the table to protect the margin structure it has locked in. Whether that discipline holds as spot pricing eventually normalizes is the multi-year test.
The buyback pace deserves attention. Sandisk returned close to 90% of adjusted free cash flow through repurchases and added another $14 billion of authorization. The company is treating the current cycle as an opportunity to shrink the share count aggressively while cash flow allows. That is defensible at peak margins. It is also a bet that the contract book preserves enough of that cash flow when the cycle turns.
The August 13 investor day is where management has to bridge the near-term pricing story to the long-term contract structure. Until then, the market is pricing what it can see and marking down what it cannot.
Ryan Lance Is Leaving Before His 2029 Number Arrives
ConocoPhillips reported a strong quarter and replaced its chief executive and chief financial officer on the same morning. Lance retires after 14 years. CFO Andy O'Brien becomes CEO September 1. Konnie Haynes-Welsh becomes CFO. Both are first-time appointments to those roles at this scale. The market reaction was mild in both directions, which is itself worth reading.
The quarter came from price, not operations. Realized prices rose 36% and drove earnings to more than double. Production actually fell, hurt by the Middle East conflict's effect on Qatar and higher royalties at Surmont. The Permian carried the operating story with record output. Everything below the price line was harder than the reported earnings suggest. That is a familiar pattern for the sector this year. What separates ConocoPhillips is the succession announcement stacked on top of it.
JPMorgan's Arun Jayaram flagged the underlying question. The share price had carried what he called a premium for Lance. Lance bought Concho and Shell's Permian assets when prices were low. Those deals built the position that now sets Permian records. The 2029 free-cash-flow target investors have been pricing was Lance's target on Lance's portfolio. He is now leaving before the year it lands. ConocoPhillips joins Occidental, Devon, and Diamondback in changing chief executives inside a year.
The strategic slate the incoming team inherits is heavier than usual. The $5 billion divestiture program is largely complete. The company is entering Iraq via a joint venture and re-entering Syria using existing infrastructure. LNG offtake keeps rising. The second-half production step-up guidance assumes a Qatar recovery that may not arrive on schedule. None of that is a soft handover.
The capital return pace deserves attention. Distributions doubled sequentially. The buyback ran at a level the company can sustain only if prices hold and the second-half production ramp arrives. If either slips, the payout ratio starts pressing against cash generation. That is a first-year test for a new CFO who has never held the role.
What Lance has built is durable. What has to prove out is whether a first-time CEO and CFO can execute a transitional Middle East expansion and hit a 2029 cash flow number that was set before either of them held the pen. The share price has not decided yet. That is the honest read of the reaction.
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