The Drone Company That Quietly Returned 1,000%

A company you've likely never heard of just saw its stock surge 1,000% in one year by betting on the future of warfare.

The Drone Company That Quietly Returned 1,000%

Ondas Holdings (ONDS) has delivered a 1,000% return over the past twelve months—not through memes or hype, but by positioning itself at the center of a fundamental shift in how wars are fought. While most investors were chasing AI stocks, this small company was quietly building the infrastructure for drone warfare.

Ondas provides autonomous drone systems and the private wireless networks that control them. Their technology inspects railways and monitors energy infrastructure, but the real money is in their counter-drone division—systems that can hijack and neutralize hostile drones mid-flight. The numbers tell the story: revenue is projected to explode from $7.2 million in 2024 to $379 million in 2026, a 53-fold increase that would make even the hottest tech startup jealous.

The contracts backing these projections are real. Ondas will provide counter-drone security for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and landed a piece of Israel's $1.7 billion border security program. By acquiring specialists like Airobotics and Sentrycs, they've assembled a complete solution for a world where $500 consumer drones can cripple airports and cheap swarms can overwhelm billion-dollar warships.

Gobble's Take: War is becoming a video game, and the players with the best controllers are getting very rich.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Lilly's Weight-Loss Pill Hits an FDA Speed Bump

Eli Lilly's stock dropped after the FDA threw up a caution flag on Foundayo, the company's newly approved oral weight-loss drug. Just as Lilly was celebrating approval of a pill that could reshape the $100 billion obesity market, regulators demanded more safety data on potential heart and liver risks.

The FDA wants Lilly to run post-approval trials tracking major cardiovascular events, drug-induced liver damage, and delayed stomach emptying. Most concerning: they want 15 years of data on thyroid cancer risk, the same rare cancer that already carries a black-box warning on competing drugs like Wegovy. The issue isn't that Foundayo is dangerous—it's that the active ingredient, orforglipron, is a completely new molecule without the decades of safety data that competitors have.

Wall Street had priced Foundayo as a potential blockbuster that could generate billions in annual revenue. While analysts call the FDA's requests "manageable," the uncertainty around launch timing and additional trial costs was enough to send investors running for the exits.

Gobble's Take: The FDA giveth and the FDA taketh away—even a green light comes with conditions when billions are at stake.

Source: Barron's

Alcoa Missed Earnings, But Aluminum Prices Tell a Different Story

Alcoa reported disappointing first-quarter results that sent its stock lower, but the real story isn't what the company sold—it's the skyrocketing price of what they're selling. Revenue and shipments both fell short of expectations, hampered by Middle East conflicts and an Australian cyclone that snarled global supply chains.

Behind the weak headlines, aluminum prices have surged to four-year highs, up over 60% from 2025 lows. The same geopolitical chaos hurting Alcoa's logistics is crushing global aluminum supply. A major UAE smelter will be offline for up to a year after a shutdown caused liquid aluminum to solidify in its pipes—imagine trying to restart a facility where molten metal has turned into a giant paperweight.

Despite missing quarterly targets, Alcoa's profits doubled from the previous quarter, driven entirely by higher aluminum prices. With electric vehicle production ramping up and renewable energy infrastructure demanding more aluminum, analysts are betting the supply squeeze will overwhelm any short-term shipping delays.

Gobble's Take: Sometimes it's better to sell less of something expensive than more of something cheap—Alcoa is about to learn this lesson in real time.

Source: MarketBeat

Quick Hits

• Lockheed Martin stumbles: Defense giant's stock dips despite market gains after $1.6B in program losses and Pentagon F-35 order cuts. Yahoo Finance

• Apple's rally questioned: Analysts debate whether the iPhone maker's strong one-year run leaves room for new investors after recent gains. Yahoo Finance

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