Eaton , a maker of power management solutions for AI data centers and other commercial markets, delivered a solid quarter on Friday that raised more questions for us than it answered. Earnings per share for the first quarter ended in March rose more than 33% from the year-ago period to $2.72, beating the LSEG compiled analyst consensus estimate by a penny. Revenue rose 7.3% to $6.38 billion, beating the LSEG compiled analyst consensus estimate of $6.26 billion. Organic sales grew 9%, far exceeding the Bloomberg estimate for a 6.8% increase. Eaton Why we own it: Eaton has exposure to several important megatrends like electrification, energy transition, and infrastructure spending. It is also a player in generative AI, where data centers use its power management solutions and electrical equipment to keep up with the heightened demand for more computing power. We see a long runway for growth. Competitors : Parker-Hannifin , DuPont and Honeywell Most recent buy : April 3, 2025 Initiated : Nov. 15, 2023 Bottom line Has Eaton’s stock peaked? During our Morning Meeting, Jim Cramer said he’s concerned about it. In afternoon trading, shares of Eaton turned positive in a strong overall market. However, the stock has been struggling to get back to its 2025 closing high of $371 on Jan. 22, which was just days before the Chinese startup DeepSeek’s more efficient artificial intelligence model slammed the AI trade. Jim said he’s not ready to give up on Eaton, because it’s “doing quite well,” referring to the company’s largely positive first-quarter results and guidance. Indeed, the company reported accelerating organic sales growth with record first-quarter margins. However, he did say he needs to rethink the position, given the Club’s positions in DuPont and Dover also have ties to the AI trade. He also has his eye on GE Vernova in the Bullpen to fill out the electrification/power generation theme. ETN YTD mountain Eaton YTD In addition to Eaton’s revenue and EPS beats, sales at three of the company’s five segments — Electrical Americas, Electrical Global, and Aerospace were better than expected, with solid growth. The other two segments, Vehicle and eMobility missed, with the former sinking nearly 15% year over year and the latter up just 2.5%. Orders for the Electrical Americas segment, which accounts for nearly half of total company revenue, fell 4% organically on a 12-month rolling average. Excluding one large multi-year data center order in the first quarter of 2024, orders rose 4%. Jeff Marks, director of portfolio analysis for the Club, said Friday the market seemed to be aware of the order slowdown as Eaton and all multinational companies try to figure out President Donald Trump ‘s tariff endgame. Slowing order growth has been a multi-quarter trend due to tough comps going back to 2023. “Book-to-bill remained above one, with 6% growth in our large $10.1 billion backlog, providing strong visibility for our organic growth in 2025 and beyond,” CFO Olivier Leonetti said on the company’s post-earnings call. The data center end-market makes up 17% of Eaton’s total revenue, according to the company’s 2025 growth assumptions. On the call, incoming CEO Paulo Ruiz referred to the tech companies that reported earnings this week, which included Club names Amazon , Meta Platforms , and Microsoft , saying, “all the calls we have had this week, all the hyperscalers have confirmed the level of capex. So, we believe that this 15% CAGR for data centers is still intact.” Capex stands for capital expenditures, and CAGR stands for compound annual growth rate. Ruiz will become CEO following the May 31 retirement of Craig Arnold, who has been at the helm since 2016. Management also talked about the data center designs of the future that require Eaton to work with not only the hyperscaler clients, the big tech companies that run the facilities, but also with chipmakers. “Therefore, you need to have open discussions with the likes of … Nvidia and so on. Not many companies, especially foreign companies, can have a dialogue with them. So again, this is another entry barrier that creates” opportunity for Eaton in this development area of the end market, Ruiz said on the call. Eaton, which aims to manage through the tariffs, plans to adjust its costs, supply chains, and prices as needed. Ruiz said, “We will see how the tariff evolves. We expect over time to recover from a margin standpoint, but not this year.” The company expects to fully offset the impact of tariffs through USMCA, the 2020 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, compliance, supply chain optimization, disciplined cost containment, and commercial actions. Eaton believes its region-for-region strategy provides a competitive advantage. Guidance Eaton raised its full-year organic sales growth guidance range to 7.5% to 9.5% from 7% to 9%, but slightly lowered its segment margins outlook as a result of tariff cost pass-through. The company reaffirmed its full-year EPS guidance. The company’s second quarter adjusted EPS guidance of $2.85 to $2.95 was short of estimates. Perhaps, management was being a little conservative here. The outlook for Q2 organic sales growth and segment margins was fine. Management said on the call that these forecasts reflect the “net impact of the announced tariffs and assumes the current 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs will persist to the end of the year.” (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long ETN, DD, DOV, AMZN, META, MSFT, NVDA. 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.
Eaton Corporation signage at the NYSE
Source: NYSE
Eaton, a maker of power management solutions for AI data centers and other commercial markets, delivered a solid quarter on Friday that raised more questions for us than it answered.
Although the Nissan Juke EV is set to debut next year, the crossover SUV may still be offered with a gas engine after all.
Nissan looks to sell gas-powered Juke SUV alongside EV
After announcing an investment of up to £3 billion ($3.9 billion) to upgrade its Sunderland, UK, plant, Nissan revealed plans to convert three of its top-selling vehicles to electric.
The new EV models include the next-gen LEAF, Qashqai, and Juke. All will be built at the Sunderland facility as part of the Japanese automaker’s brand revamp.
Nissan is preparing to launch the electric version of its iconic LEAF hatchback later this year, followed by the Juke EV in 2026 and the Qashqai EV in 2027. According to Automotive News, Nissan is looking to keep the gas-powered Juke SUV alive for a little longer.
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The Juke is Nissan’s second-best-selling vehicle in Europe, behind the Qashqai. The report claims Nissan is worried about regulations and the demand for EVs in parts of Europe.
Nissan Juke and Qashqai (Source: Nissan)
Like it did with the Qashqai, Nissan could continue selling the Juke with an upgraded hybrid powertrain. Nissan launched the next-gen Qashqai last month, claiming its e-POWER hybrid powertrain has the “best in C-Crossover segment fuel efficiency, with 4.5L per 100km and a potential range of 1,200km (WLTP).”
Although it uses an electric motor to power the wheels, it still has a gas engine that acts as a generator to charge the battery.
Nissan Juke HEV (Source: Nissan)
The next-gen LEAF, Juke, and Qashqai were expected to be a key part of Nissan’s recovery plans. After quietly delaying the electric Qashqai, will the Juke EV be next?
A report from Japan’s Kyodo News (via Reuters) last month claimed Nissan is already cutting production plans for the 2026 LEAF.
2026 Nissan LEAF (Source: Nissan)
In the US, Nissan is pushing back the production of two electric vehicles that were scheduled to be built in Canton, Mississippi. Is it time for the Japanese automaker to sound the alarm?
Later this year, Nissan will launch the new and improved LEAF EV. After dropping its signature hatchback look for a more crossover SUV-like design, the LEAF is a significant upgrade from the outgoing model, offering longer range, faster charging, and much more.
Should Nissan keep the gas-powered Juke on sale? Or go EV-only as initially planned? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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The case attempts to place some responsibility on Tesla for creating complacency with drivers, who were led to believe Autopilot could do more than it actually could.
George McGee was driving his Model S on Autopilot in Key Largo in April 2019 when he dropped his phone and looked down to pick it up when the car blew past a stop sign at a T intersection, and crashed into a parked Chevrolet Tahoe.
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22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and her boyfriend Dillon Angulo were standing next to the parked Tahoe. Benavides died and Angulo was seriously injured.
The police charged McGee with reckless driving, but the families of the victims sued both McGee and Tesla. McGee settled with the plaintiffs, but Tesla hasn’t.
The trial lasted almost a month, but both parties had their closing arguments yesterday, and the jury is now deliberating.
The plaintiffs have asked the jury to award them nearly $345 million in damages, comprising $109 million in compensatory damages and $236 million in punitive damages.
They have alleged that Tesla was careless in how it released and marketed Autopilot, leading owners like McGee to become overconfident in the driver assistance system, which contributed to the crash.
Tesla has been putting all the blame on McGee, who admitted to being distracted.
The automaker has also attempted to claim that it has telemetry data indicating the driver pressed the accelerator pedal. Still, the plaintiffs’ counsel has raised concerns about Tesla’s handling of the data.
It will be interesting to see the results of this trial, which I expect to see any day now. It is a bit of a complicated case, but I don’t think the jury will take weeks of deliberation.
In recent months, Tesla settled two similar cases and we don’t know for how much.
At this point, it’s unclear why the case did not settle before trial, as the trial is not a good look for Tesla, regardless of the outcome. Tesla is working hard to keep most of the information confidential, but specific details are emerging that make the Company look bad.
It’s possible that Tesla tried to settle, but the plaintiffs wouldn’t, or Tesla felt confident about winning this case.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this specific case is being watched by many other legal teams working on other fatal crashes involving Tesla’s ADAS systems.
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Despite sales in the US rising 9%, Ford’s (F) EV sales remained flat in July. Ford says the Mustang Mach-E is back on track, but CEO Jim Farley promises the company will reveal its next “breakthrough” EV in just a few days.
Ford’s US sales rise in July, but EV growth remains flat
Ford sold a total of 198,313 vehicles in the US in July, up 5% year-over-year (YOY). Although it outpaced the estimated industry average of about 5%, Ford’s electric vehicle sales fell a modest 0.2%.
With 5,308 Mustang Mach-Es sold last month, Ford said the electric SUV had its best July ever and is now ahead of its 2024 pace. The Mach-E was hit with a recall earlier this year, affecting nearly 200,000 models in the US.
Overall, Ford sold a total of 8,229 EVs in July, down slightly from the 8,242 it handed over last year. F-150 Lightning posted slightly higher sales (0.3%) with 2,831 units sold.
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Meanwhile, sales of the E-Transit electric van continued slipping with only 90 units sold last month, a decrease of 89% from July 2024.
Ford Mustang Mach-E (left) and F-150 Lightning (right) (Source: Ford)
With 47,217 units sold through the first seven months of 2025, Ford’s EV sales are down 9.9% compared to the same period in 2024.
During Ford’s second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Farley announced that the company would unveil “plans to design and build a breakthrough electric vehicle and platform in the US.”
2025 Ford Mustang Mach-E (Source: Ford)
Farley called it “a Model T moment” for Ford, adding that it will offer “a chance to bring in a new family of vehicles” with advanced tech, efficiency, space, and features.
Rather than competing with Japanese and South Korean brands in the mass-market EV market, Ford will focus on what it does best — trucks and SUVs. Ford is developing a new, low-cost EV platform and plans to manufacture LFP batteries in Michigan, enabling more affordable and profitable electric models.
2025 Ford F-150 Lightning (Source: Ford)
The first electric model built on Ford’s new platform is expected to be a mid-size pickup truck, set to arrive in 2027. Ford will reveal more about its big EV plans on August 11 in Kentucky.
Following the success of its “From America, For America” campaign, which offered employee pricing to all, Ford launched a new promotion in July, “Triple Zero.” The new campaign offers $0 down, 0% interest, and zero payments for the first 90 days.
Looking to test one out for yourself? You can use our links below to find deals on the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning at a dealer near you.
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