Next week, the Magnificent Seven ride again.

Google $GOOGL ( ▲ 0.65% ) and Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 1.1% ) kick off earnings season for the megacaps, and expectations are sky-high. Together, the group is forecast to deliver more than 14% earnings growth — while the rest of the S&P 500 scrapes together just 3.4%.

Big Tech is driving the rally. But is its foot hovering over the accelerator, or the brakes?

— Brooks & Cas

The golden era of $200 trans-Atlantic flights felt like a flash in the pan after Norwegian Air Shuttle $NWARF ( ▼ 10.53% ) exited the long-haul game in 2021. But a new wave of budget airlines is bringing back the low-cost, long-distance playbook.

According to Cirium data, budget carriers plan to fly 2.7 million monthly seats on wide-body jets like Boeing’s $BA ( ▼ 0.37% ) 787 and Airbus’s $EADSY ( ▼ 1.64% ) A350 this summer — surpassing pre-pandemic highs. European outfits like French Bee and Norse Atlantic are making moves, and IAG’s $IAG.L ( 0.0% ) Level is rebooting operations out of Barcelona.

These carriers are stepping into a gap left by US network giants, which have pulled back from connecting smaller airports abroad. That opens space for point-to-point challengers, even if the economics remain tricky.

Big names like United Airlines $UAL ( ▼ 1.7% ), American Airlines $AAL ( ▲ 1.46% ), and Delta Air Lines $DAL ( ▼ 0.66% ) aren’t standing still. United launched routes this summer from Newark to Bilbao and Palermo, while American added new links from Charlotte to Athens and Philadelphia to Edinburgh.

This marks a break from the traditional “hub-and-spoke” strategy that prioritized business-class demand. Now, they’re experimenting with routes typically left to budget players.

JetBlue $JBLU ( ▲ 2.06% ), which has struggled domestically, is also pivoting. The airline cut unprofitable routes and is focusing on transatlantic leisure travel using Airbus’s new A321XLR. Its recent partnership with United at JFK hints at a deeper international push.

Asia-Pacific may be where long-haul low-cost flights gain the most traction. Carriers like VietJet, T’way Air, and Zipair Tokyo are putting wide-body jets into service, targeting price-sensitive travelers across vast distances.

Singapore’s Scoot and Middle Eastern players like flydubai and flyadeal are also scaling up, supported by their legacy parent airlines. Their wide-body fleet expansions could tap into growing demand from emerging middle classes.

Whether these upstarts evolve into global challengers or remain niche operators is unclear. But with demand shifting and travel habits evolving, the next chapter in budget flying may already be cruising at 35,000 feet.

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After a disappointing first-quarter earnings report, Barron’s predicts DexCom $DXCM ( ▲ 1.3% ) will bounce back in the second quarter with a bright outlook ahead in the coming years.

Bullish analysts consider shares to be attractively priced. The medical device maker has underperformed the S&P 500 over the last five years, but they believe its potential market could balloon in the near future.

DexCom specializes in its patented glucose monitoring systems, which function as wearable tech. Known as Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) technology, it allows users to keep track of their glucose levels and avoid attacks.

The firm last year switched focus from Type 1 diabetes to Type 2, causing a dip in sales of the former. That was seen by some at the time as a bad decision, but according to Barron’s, the reality was just poor implementation.

It argues that a focus on Type 2 makes perfect sense for the long term, given the much higher number of potential customers.

DexCom has had mixed fortunes in the first part of the year. In May, it came to light that its devices were not emitting an audible alert when glucose was low. That led to a product recall that eventually amounted to 700,000 devices and dented short-term confidence.

But the vast majority of analysts maintain a bullish stance, despite the recent wobbles. 18 of 20 covering the stock recommend investors Buy. Why? For one thing, DexCom’s G7 device got critical FDA approval in April this year and promises to be a game-changer with its 15-day use period. With only about a third of covered people using CGM, there’s plenty of room for growth — and that’s just stateside.

Sad as it is to say, diabetes is on the rise worldwide. While DexCom has built a sizeable market presence in America, the next step now is to roll this tech out globally. With an ever-expanding potential customer base and solid tech, DexCom’s future is in its own hands.

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National Fuel Gas’ $NFG ( ▼ 0.08% ) stock reached a record high last week following a double upgrade by Bank of America $BAC ( ▲ 0.61% ).

But analyst Kalei Akamine’s new price target of $107 suggests the stock — which closed just below $90 on Friday — still has room to climb.

Akamine attributed his renewed outlook to improved natural gas production from NFG’s Pennsylvania Utica shale formation, which it acquired from Shell $SHEL ( ▲ 1.18% ) in 2020. This so-called Eastern Development Area has progressively improved, Akamine said, and production now exceeds NFG’s own forecasts by 16%.

NFG may also be benefiting from a strong balance sheet and an increasing dividend that marks the company’s 55th consecutive year of dividend increases.

The US Energy Information Administration reported that, while data shows drilling activity in Pennsylvania has declined over the past decade or more, operators have been adept at improving well productivity using advanced hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques. Pennsylvania remains the number two producer of natural gas, behind Texas, according to the EIA.

Barron’s noted that, while rare, a double stock upgrade is not unheard of.

The publication added that NFG may further benefit from supply agreements and new regional projects, boosted as well by the possibility of federal regulatory support for new gas pipelines.

A double upgrade is noteworthy. But according to BoA, stronger well productivity and improving capital returns may be the real story.

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