Industrial conglomerate Dover reported better-than-expected third-quarter profits Thursday and gave skeptical investors plenty to like, sending the stock up more than 6%. Revenue rose 4.7% year over year to $2.08 billion, missing the consensus of $2.11 billion, according to estimates compiled by LSEG. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) in the three months ended Sept. 30 totaled $2.62, easily topping the $2.51 consensus, LSEG data showed. On an annual basis, adjusted EPS rose 15.4%. Shares of Dover climbed about 6.8%, to roughly $179 apiece, in Thursday’s session. That has the stock on pace for its second-best day of the year — behind only a 9.7% surge in the everything rally of April 9, when President Donald Trump paused most of his “reciprocal tariffs.” Dover’s stock desperately needed a boost. It entered Thursday’s session down more than 10% this year, trailing both the S & P 500 and the index’s industrial sector. Why we own it We own Dover as an industrial turnaround story with exposure to mega-themes, most notably the data center buildout to support artificial intelligence computing. The company’s key products for data centers are thermal connectors and heat exchangers. Dover’s business serving the biopharma industry is another attractive area. Dover’s active portfolio management and commitment to capital returns sweeten the investment case. Competitors : Ingersoll Rand , IDEX Corp ., Snap-On , Veralto , among others Most recent buy: July 30, 2025 Initiated : May 28, 2024 Bottom line Things are starting to look up. Coming into Thursday’s third-quarter release, Dover had struggled to gain traction this year in a market largely fueled by artificial intelligence excitement, a theme that lifted industrial players like Vertiv and Caterpillar , along with fellow Club names GE Vernova and Eaton , to impressive heights. While Dover has ties to the data center and the AI infrastructure buildout, it’s not as obvious a beneficiary as other industrial players thanks to a wide-ranging business portfolio that serves so many other markets — like can-making, digital printing, vehicle repair, and grocery store refrigeration, to name a few. The latter two businesses, in particular, have been major drags on growth this year, further complicating the Dover investment case. In search of cleaner growth stories within industrials, investors looked past Dover. They’re taking a closer look on Thursday. And rightfully so, considering the company painted an upbeat picture of its ability to benefit from lucrative trends, including AI, demonstrated strong profitability improvements and raised its full-year earnings guidance, and indicated that its sizable cash pile could soon be put to productive uses. “I thought it was a travesty that [the stock] fell this much,” but our patience is finally being rewarded, Jim Cramer said Thursday. DOV 1Y mountain Dover 1-year return We’re reiterating our buy-equivalent 1 rating and price target of $210 on the stock. Even with the strong move Thursday, shares are trading at just over 17 times next year’s consensus earnings. That’s a steep discount to a popular exchange-traded fund of industrial companies, known as the XLI , which trades at roughly 23 times 2026 earnings. Commentary At a very high level, Dover executives nailed the messaging on the company’s exposure to growth markets like data centers, the AI-related rise in electricity consumption, and growing demand for liquified natural gas (LNG) exports. Shifts within the pharmaceutical industry toward more complex biologic therapeutics and the adoption of safer, more efficient single-use components in manufacturing also benefit some of Dover’s businesses. On its earnings slideshow, the company made clear that more than 20% of its annualized revenue is now tied to “secular growth end markets.” And on the conference call, CEO Richard Tobin said these markets are also helping to drive margin expansion. Tobin also offered a detailed explanation of Dover’s ties to these compelling themes, going deeper than its business of selling thermal connectors and heat exchangers to cool server racks and data centers, which has been well-publicized up to this point. For example, Tobin mentioned how its OPW Clean Energy Solutions subsidiary supplies components to gas and steam turbines — a red-hot market, as GE Vernova has made clear — as well as specialized piping used to liquify natural gas, making it easier to ship overseas. LNG export capacity in the U.S. could more than double by 2029, the Energy Information Administration said last week . Tobin also explained how the recently acquired Sikora boosted its exposure to electricity infrastructure because Sikora’s measurement and control technology is used on high-voltage, polymer-coated wires and cables. After being acquired in June, Sikora has “really done fantastically, significantly better than our deal model would’ve incorporated for the base year,” added Tobin. Against that backdrop, Dover’s Pumps & Process Solutions segment — home to single-use biopharma components, thermal connectors, and Sikora — was the standout in the third quarter. Revenues rose 16.6% year over year, bookings grew by 14%, and its adjusted EBITDA margin came in at a better-than-expected 33.2%. Short for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, EBITDA is a gauge of operating profitability. With Dover making productivity improvements and cost-cutting measures a focus across the company, it was encouraging to see all five segments beat the FactSet consensus for adjusted EBITDA in the quarter. Tobin’s commentary on 2026 was also a highlight. “I’m not aware of any business within the portfolio that’s forecasting down revenue for next year,” he said, adding that it’s “probably the first time” in a couple of years that Dover is not expecting at least one unit to see a cyclical decline. This includes its grocery refrigeration business, where shipments of door cases across the industry are at a 20-year low, Tobin said, as tariff uncertainty caused customers to pause maintenance and replacement spending. “These projects cannot be delayed indefinitely,” Tobin said. And encouragingly, we saw a material acceleration in booking rates in the quarter, which signals volume improvement moving forward.” This business is housed within its Climate & Sustainability Technologies segment, which saw 25% growth in year-over-year bookings in the quarter. The slowdown in refrigeration — not something Dover anticipated at the start of the year — has been a drag on organic growth in 2025 of roughly 1.5 to 2 percentage points, Tobin said. In dollar terms, that amounts to a $140 million to $150 million headwind. “Do we get it all back next year? We’ll see, but I think we’re going to get a significant portion of it back if the Q4 trajectory holds as we go through the end of the year,” Tobin said. Another major problem child in 2025 has been the vehicle service market, contained within Dover’s Engineered Products segment. This includes products like the vehicle lifts and wheel aligners used at the auto repair shop. Encouragingly, Dover is expecting to see a quarter-over-quarter improvement in the fourth quarter. Dover also delivered with its commentary on the company’s cash pile, which grew considerably last year when it sold off its subsidiary that made trash trucks and compactors for $2 billion . Asked directly by JPMorgan’s Steve Tusa whether Dover is considering buying back stock given its depressed valuation, Tobin said: “If you go back and look in the transcript, you’ll see the corporate speak for, ‘We think our shares are cheap, and we’re likely to intervene.’” In August, Dover announced a $500 million share repurchase program, but at the end of September, the company had only spent $40.7 million repurchasing common stock during the first nine months of the year, according to a securities filing Thursday . As for whether Dover might use any of its cash to buy additional companies, Tobin said Dover is “being selective as usual.” However, he continued, “We’ve got enough in the pipeline that I would expect that we’d close on a couple of things over the next 12 months.” Earlier on the conference call, Tobin noted that the majority of Dover’s acquisitions in the past five years have been geared toward the aforementioned faster-growing markets, and he said they “remain top priorities for continued investment.” In the coming quarters, one more potential growth driver for Dover is the pharmaceutical companies that plan to build manufacturing plants in the U.S. to avoid Trump’s tariffs. Not only does Dover sell the single-use pumps and connectors used in drug production, its Imaging & Identification segment sells serialization and traceability software through its Systech subsidiary, acquired in 2020 . Dover expects the entire segment to continue its “long-term steady growth trajectory,” while calling out “additional upside from serialization software.” The serialization software business is “levered almost exclusively to pharma,” Tobin said later on the call. “So, as pharma builds out production lines, that’s when we sell the software and the recurring revenue associated with it. I think that everybody is pretty well aware of what’s going on in … incentivized reshoring of pharma. And I think that we’ll get our fair share of that.” Guidance Here’s Dover’s revised earnings guidance for the full year: EPS in the range of $9.50 to $9.60. The midpoint of $9.55 is ahead of the $9.48 consensus, according to FactSet. That implies fourth-quarter EPS between $2.40 and $2.50. Ahead of Thursday’s results, the FactSet consensus for the fourth quarter stood at $2.49. It continues to forecast full-year 2025 revenue growth in the 4% to 6% range. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long DOV. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Calvin Klein Inc. today announces the U.S. launch of Re-Calvin, a new take-back program designed to make it easy for customers to responsibly part with their pre-loved items.
Developed in partnership with Trove, the leader in branded resale and customer trade-in, and Debrand, a comprehensive sortation and circular logistics partner, Re-Calvin is a free service from Calvin Klein that gives U.S. customers a simple, accessible way to extend the useful life of clothing, shoes and accessories from any brand through donation, recycling, downcycling or, when necessary, responsible disposal that is converted from waste to energy. Re-Calvin also accepts intimates such as bras, swimwear and underwear – a category often excluded from circularity programs.
“As Calvin Klein continues its sustainability journey, we are proud to introduce a program that makes circularity more accessible for our customers and delivers alternative uses for pre-loved items,” said David Savman, Global Brand President, Calvin Klein. “It was important that we partner with experts with a proven ability to build and scale programs that handle a wide range of products andcategories, making it easier than ever for customers to responsibly extend the life of their items.”
How It Works
Customers in the United States can visit calvinklein.us/re-calvin to print a free shipping label and send in items from any brand. Once received, each package is processed and routed according to Calvin Klein’s diligent, established standards:
Reuse: Items in good condition are donated or sent to secondhand distribution partners.
Recycle / Downcycle: Items that cannot be reused, including intimates, are recycled into new fibers whenever possible, or downcycled into materials such as insulation or padding.
Responsible Disposal: As a final step, if no reuse, recycling or downcycling option is available, items are to be converted from waste to energy or alternative fuel conversion.
Only items suitable for a new owner are directed to reuse. Garments with significant wear, damage, heavy stains and all intimates are directed to end-of-use streams, including recycling, downcycling and responsible disposal. Customers receive an email update after their parcel is processed, detailing how their items were routed, ensuring transparency throughout the process.
Powered by Trove’s Takeback Plug-In
Re-Calvin is powered by Trove’s new Takeback Plug-In, which enables Calvin Klein to seamlessly manage item intake, routing and transparency at scale. The plug-in integrates directly into Calvin Klein’s existing U.S. website, enabling the brand to operate a multi-brand takeback program that includes complex categories such as intimates.
The Takeback Plug-in expands Trove’s suite of circular solutions, which also includes the Resale Plug-in, Trade-in Plug-in and a range of API integration options. Together, these tools give brands the flexibility to build customized circular programs that meet their unique needs.
“Re-Calvin marks the first implementation of Trove’s new Takeback Plug-In,” said Terry Boyle, CEO of Trove. “With this launch, Calvin Klein is showing how technology can make responsible choices simple for every customer, accepting items from any brand and across all categories, including intimates, to help keep more textiles in circulation.”
By accepting items from any brand and across all categories, Re-Calvin reflects Calvin Klein, Trove and Debrand’s shared belief that every item should have as many chances as possible to find a second life.
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An autistic man who was let go as an unpaid shelf stacker at a Waitrose supermarket despite volunteering there for years has been offered a job at Asda.
Tom Boyd, 28, had worked in the Cheadle Hulme Waitrose store since 2021 with a support worker, as his mother, Frances Boyd, said the role gave her son “a sense of purpose and belonging”.
In a Facebook post last Friday, she wrote that her “autistic son has been treated so unfairly, and we feel deeply let down” by Waitrose. She said the supermarket declined to give him a paid job despite him offering more than 600 hours to the store “purely because he wanted to belong, contribute, and make a difference”, and that he was a well-liked member of the team by his co-workers.
Boyd added that they had only asked for a few hours of paid work “not as charity, but as recognition for all the time, effort, and heart” Tom had given to the store, and that she and her family were “shocked by how dismissive and cold” the management’s response was, and that Tom was asked not to return.
The post also claimed that Waitrose had not made any reasonable adjustments for Tom, who has limited communication skills, despite it being mandated by the Equality Act 2010, and that he received “no apology, no thanks, and no recognition for his commitment. Just silence.”
The post led to an outpouring of support for Tom, with Boyd telling the BBC on Thursday that she had been “overwhelmed” by people’s responses and that her son had been offered a job by another supermarket.
“We’ve had some great news – Asda have offered him two five-hour paid shifts a week,” Boyd said. “It’s overwhelming and they are flexible to say if at any time he is struggling they are fine. How amazing that a company could do this.”
As well as support, Boyd’s Facebook post also led to intense criticism being directed towards Waitrose for its handling of the situation, with some customers claiming on social media that they would no longer visit the store.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, decried the company’s “truly terrible” treatment of Tom in a post on X.
After the backlash, Waitrose offered Boyd his job back in a paid capacity, but it is understood this offer was declined.
Burnham also pledged to support Boyd and others like him, saying that the Greater Manchester Combined Authority “would encourage all employers, including Waitrose, to sign up to our brand new Bee Neuroinclusive code of practice”, a guide for how companies should support neurodivergent employees. He offered Boyd’s mother the chance to be an ambassador for campaign, which she accepted.
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Speaking on Wednesday, a Waitrose spokesperson said the company was “well experienced in making reasonable adjustments to help people succeed at work”, adding: “We are sorry to hear of Tom’s story and whilst we cannot comment on individual cases, we are investigating as a priority.”
A spokesperson for Asda said the company “has a supported internship programme and partnership with DFN Project Search – a national charity for young people with autism or a learning disability – through which we have welcomed over 30 talented new colleagues into roles across our stores”.
“We have seen the positive impact this has for the individuals who join and for our colleagues and customers too. So when we heard about Tom and his desire to find meaningful work, we knew he’d be a fantastic fit and we are delighted to offer him a role at his local store,” they added.
A trio of issuers filed with the SEC this month for permission to launch dozens of new leveraged funds, some offering to amplify daily returns of hot stocks like Nvidia by as much as 5 times
Over the past few weeks, at least three ETF issuers sought permission from the SEC to launch new leveraged funds. Some say the prospects push the boundaries of what might be permitted under existing regulations.
Wall Street’s push to launch ever-riskier leveraged exchange-traded funds is picking up steam, as issuers test the boundaries of what is legally permissible in the U.S. with a recent flurry of filings.
Over the past few weeks, at least three ETF issuers – Volatility Shares, ProShares and T-Rex – have sought permission from the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch new leveraged funds. If approved, these products would offer investors the opportunity to magnify daily swings in the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA; shares of artificial-intelligence darlings Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) and CoreWeave (CRWV); and cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin (BTCUSD) and XRP, by as much as 5x.
Many of the filings pitched funds that aim to amplify daily moves by 3x. But Volatility Shares has filed for permission to launch at least 21 funds advertising 5x daily swings on a number of individual stocks, cryptocurrencies, stock-market indexes or existing ETFs.
Representatives for Volatility Shares, ProShares and T-Rex all declined to comment on the filings when contacted by MarketWatch.
Since the beginning of October, issuers have filed for permission to launch more than 100 funds targeting 3x or 5x leverage, according to a MarketWatch analysis of securities filings.
Volatility Shares files for 21 5x levered ETFs
Fund name Target Issuer Date of filing
5x AMD ETF Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x AMZN ETF Amazon.com Inc. Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x COIN ETF Coinbase Global Inc. Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x CRCL ETF Circle Internet Group Inc. Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x GOOGL ETF Alphabet Inc. Class A Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x MSTR ETF Strategy Inc. Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x NVDA ETF Nvidia Corp. Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x PLTR ETF Palantir Technologies Inc. Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x TSLA ETF Tesla Inc. Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x Bitcoin ETF Bitcoin Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x Ether ETF Ethereum Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x Solana ETF Solana Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x XRP ETF XRP Volatility Shares 10/14/2025
5x GDX ETF VanEck Gold Miners ETF Volatility Shares 10/21/2025
5x GLD ETF SPDR Gold Shares Volatility Shares 10/21/2025
5x MAGS ETF Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF Volatility Shares 10/21/2025
5x SLV ETF iShares Silver Trust Volatility Shares 10/21/2025
5x SOXQ ETF Invesco PHLX Semiconductor ETF Volatility Shares 10/21/2025
5x SPY ETF SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust Volatility Shares 10/16/2025
5x QQQ ETF Invesco QQQ Trust Series I Volatility Shares 10/16/2025
5x IWM ETF iShares Russell 2000 ETF Volatility Shares 10/16/2025
Source: SEC
These filings caught the attention of individuals who closely follow the ETF industry. Some questioned whether these products would comply with current SEC regulations or run afoul of the regulator’s restrictions.
That’s because SEC regulations from 2021 include provisions that can effectively limit how much leverage a mutual fund or ETF can achieve using derivatives. The specific rule, known as 18f-4, states that firms must carefully manage how volatile their derivatives holdings might be – inclusive of swaps, futures or written options contracts.
Derivatives holdings are subject to a common risk-management calculation that compares their risk of loss to an underlying benchmark, said Rahul Sen Sharma, president and co-CEO of Indxx, which provides benchmarking services for ETFs that uses derivatives.
“Our understanding of 18f-4 is that it requires a designated reference portfolio to calculate a value at risk amount,” he told MarketWatch. While he called the rule “kind of long and complicated,” he figured it can be satisfied if a benchmark is provided – at least when it comes to 2x single-stock products, which have been approved in the past.
The first single-stock leveraged ETFs to trade in the U.S. launched in 2022, according to data from Morningstar Direct.
Dozens of funds aimed at 3x the daily move in an underlying index were grandfathered in because they launched before the 18f-4 SEC rule was finalized. That includes the ProShares UltraPro QQQ ETF TQQQ, which aims to amplify daily swings in the Nasdaq-100 index NDX. That fund consistently ranks among the most heavily traded by clients of Interactive Brokers Group Inc. (IBKR), according to data shared with MarketWatch.
Of note, in the U.S., no ETF currently trading targets 3x the daily move on an individual stock. A spokesperson for the SEC said the agency isn’t able to respond to many press inquiries due to the ongoing government shutdown.
The higher the targeted leverage, the greater the challenge for getting these funds to pass muster with the SEC, said Dave Nadig, president and head of research at ETF.com and co-author of book titled “A Comprehensive Guide to Exchange-Traded Funds.” However, SEC rules governing derivative-linked volatility could probably be gamed to a certain extent, he said.
Others were more upbeat about the possibility that the SEC could permit the new batch of proposed funds to come to market, including the ones targeting 5x leverage.
A top executive at one ETF issuer, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly to the press, said he thinks these funds could be allowed under current SEC rules. Ultimately, whether or not they are approved will depend on how deeply opposed the SEC is to allowing these products to come to market, the executive said.
“Remember what happened with spot bitcoin? It wasn’t allowed, everyone filed for it, now it’s huge,” the executive said. In 2024, after a years-long saga, the SEC finally approved ETFs that could hold bitcoin directly.
Booming issuance
Issuance of new ETFs has boomed over the past couple of years as companies gravitated toward increasingly complex products. Funds that use derivatives, either to supercharge daily swings or offer dividend income or downside protection, have proven particularly popular.
Leveraged equity funds are the largest category in the leveraged-fund universe, encompassing 750 funds and $164.37 billion in total assets, according to data from EPFR, an ISI Markets company. The number of existing leveraged equity funds has increased by 40% year to date, and the vast majority of funds in the leveraged-equity category are ETFs.
Firms have also launched 164 leveraged alternative funds, which track cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and commodities like gold. These have accumulated $46 billion in assets, while leveraged bond funds have taken in $7.6 billion across 56 funds, EPFR data showed. These figures include both ETFs and mutual funds.
In the U.S., leveraged funds can be purchased on Robinhood Markets Inc. (HOOD) and other brokerages popular with individual investors, making them particularly popular with amateur speculators, experts said. Professional investors can trade them as well.
European regulators, so far, have demonstrated a higher tolerance than their U.S. counterparts for allowing leveraged products that everyday investors can tap. While some products tied to individual stocks have proven popular, one such fund went bust earlier this month, offering a lesson to investors.
On Oct. 6, the GraniteShares 3x Short AMD Daily ETP was terminated by its issuer after shares of AMD rose by more than 33% intraday, driving the value of the exchange-traded product to zero. This fund was what is known as an inverse fund. Seen as a sibling to leveraged funds, inverse funds aim to profit when the targeted asset or index declines in value. A 33% gain for a given stock would be large enough to wipe out a 3x inverse fund.
In a statement shared with MarketWatch, GraniteShares described the liquidation as a “standard outcome.”
“The closure of a 3x long or short ETF following an extreme price move is a standard outcome in both U.K. and U.S. markets. In this instance, a 33%+ intraday move in AMD triggered the predefined mechanism that results in a 100% loss for a 3x short position, exactly how the product is designed to operate,” a representative for GraniteShares said in a written statement to MarketWatch. Investors who owned the fund ahead of the wipeout lost their entire investment.
Liquidations like that one could follow in the U.S. if any or all of the current crop of filings for single-stock leveraged funds are approved, according to Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Balchunas crunched the numbers and found 350 instances over the past five years where one of 66 stocks included in a filing for a 3x leveraged product swung by 33% or more in a single session. Such a move could be large enough to wipe out a fund aiming to amplify a daily move by 3x in either direction. A drop of just 20% would be enough to push a fund targeting 5x leverage on a single stock to liquidate.
Despite these risks, ETF.com’s Nadig said products targeting 5x leverage on stocks like Nvidia would probably prove popular with investors.
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