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This corporate earnings season: what companies don't say could be as telling as what they do.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace

In Baltimore, I'm Amy Scott in for Kai Rizdahl.

It's Thursday, the 10th of July.

Good to have you with us.

It's the time of the summer, just after the end of the second quarter, when corporate earnings start rolling out.

And today, Delta Airlines said something notable in its quarterly report.

The company reinstated its profit outlook for the rest of the year, something Delta had canceled back in April when tariffs were first erupting onto the scene.

Things were just too uncertain to confidently predict where bookings were headed.

Now, with a little more clarity, the airline is predicting a weaker 2025 than originally expected.

It's a challenge companies across the stock market are dealing with.

How do you forecast out three, six, twelve months or more when everything could change tomorrow?

Marketplace's Sabri Benishore has the story.

Each quarter, corporations tell their shareholders, hey, this is how we're doing, and this is how we think we're going to do.

They don't have to do that.

They don't have to tell you anything.

It is totally up to the company.

There's no legal requirement.

Michael Tang is an associate professor of accounting at the Florida International University.

They don't have to, but it helps.

One of those most important reasons is to build a reputation for transparency.

Which investors reward with a higher stock price.

The problem is that investors can also punish companies if they turn out to be wrong.

Eric Gordon is a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

There is probably no securities lawsuit that's more common than claims that your forecasts were false or misleading in some way.

But it is hard to forecast anything accurately when so much is up in the air, tariffs being the big one.

And yet that is exactly when companies get the most questions from investors.

Just when it's riskiest to make a forecast, that's when you're under the most pressure to do it.

After the big tariff unveil in April, several companies just said, nope, we are not even going to try.

We are not predicting anything, which investors did not love.

Oh, gosh, they don't know what's going on either.

Sean Naughton is a senior vice president at RBC Wealth Management.

He is the audience for earnings reports.

But if they can provide us some details, that really helps us as investors.

That is what many companies have started doing, offering different tariff scenarios or giving a wider range of how things might go.

Jill Hall is U.S.

equity strategist at B of A Global Research.

She says a lot of companies seem to be threading the needle in offering some kind of forecast.

Given the uncertainty, it hasn't been that dramatic.

But as second quarter earnings roll in, investors will be hanging on every word.

In New York, I'm Sabri Benishore for Marketplace.

On Wall Street today, investors seemed pleased enough.

We'll have the details when we do the numbers.

As part of its drill, baby drill agenda, the Trump administration has been rolling back environmental protections in the name name of unleashing American energy, at least the fossil fuel kind.

The EPA has proposed relaxing more than 30 clean air and water regulations.

And this spring, Congress repealed a Biden-era rule that limited seven hazardous pollutants emitted by oil refineries and chemical plants.

That has people like Juan Flores concerned about the long-term health impacts.

I spent some time with him at his house near Houston recently.

I've been exposed to refineries all my life.

I've seen this area.

It's part of it.

All you gotta do is look in that direction.

You see all the smokestacks and everything like that.

Flores grew up in the shadow of the country's largest petrochemical complex, the Houston Ship Channel, in the city of Galena Park, Texas.

He shares his small house with his wife and daughter, a couple dogs, and some exotic and musical birds.

What a nice little little song.

Thank you.

Like many in the area, Flores has roots in the oil industry.

My dad worked at Chevron for 20 plus years.

And you know, my dad always told me growing up, me who don't do what I do.

So I'm doing the complete opposite of what he did.

Flores works at Air Alliance Houston, a non-profit environmental justice group trying to reduce the public health impacts of pollution.

He manages the group's community air monitoring program.

A network of sensors placed throughout the area tracks levels of ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and other pollutants.

Last year, Amnesty International called Galena Park and other so-called fenceline communities surrounding the complex a sacrifice zone, where predominantly low-income and minority residents pay a high price for living in a pollution hotspot.

The life expectancy rates here are lower.

The asthma rates are off the charge.

The cancer rates are higher.

I mean, the closer you are to the refineries, the more it is.

The amnesty report found that petrochemical companies routinely flout permitted limits on air pollution.

For Flores, it's personal.

He's been diagnosed with a blood disorder that can be a precursor to multiple myeloma.

If you look it up to see what causes myeloma and all these blood cancers, it's too much exposure to benzene and all these VOCs in the area, which we believe me living here, we got plenty of it.

Benzene is a natural component of crude oil that's released into the air during the refining process.

It's one of several VOCs or volatile organic compounds linked to cancer.

Flores' daughter was born with a tumor that required chemotherapy and multiple surgeries.

I even celebrated her six-month birthday because I didn't know she was going to make it past the year.

She did make it and turned nine this year.

Flores says he does think about moving.

People always tell me, you know, when you just leave, I'm like, yeah, if I wanted to, I guess I do have the means to do it.

Not everybody does,

but why should we?

We were here first.

This is our community.

So for now, he stays, working to educate his neighbors on the dangers they face and giving toxic tours to students and donors.

They can go straight and make a ride at the stop sign.

And journalists like me.

So that's our baseball fields over there, and you can see the dread sites all around it.

This is MacArthur Elementary.

It's the school I graduated elementary from when I was a kid.

Flores was in sixth grade when explosions at a Phillips Petroleum Company plastics plant killed 23 workers and blew out the windows at his school in 1989.

We pull over to check out one of Air Alliance's monitors rigged on an old light pole across across from a big petroleum product storage terminal.

That one reports some of the highest levels of VLCs in the area.

They're very high here.

As we hop out, I'm struck by a chemical smell.

How would you describe that smell?

Man, I'm so immune to it.

I can kind of taste it in my mouth a little bit.

Definitely a VLC, maybe even benzene.

Flores pulls up the Air Alliance dashboard on his phone and checks the monitor's readings.

I'm just going to bring it up.

It's actually not bad.

The overall air quality index is 38.

Any reading under 51 is considered safe.

The PM numbers are a little high.

They're in the yellow.

That's a particular matter.

Yeah.

And this is the VOC level.

You can see that one really spiked earlier.

Maybe that's what we're tasting.

Flores says he's a realist.

The petrochemical industry employs more than 130,000 people in Texas, including many in his community.

I have to admit, my dad worked at Chevron and he supported our family.

If it wasn't for that, you know, we would have lived a harder life.

But be good neighbors.

You guys are making so much profit.

Why not invest and try to make it better?

We reached out to the companies Air Alliance has named as the top three polluters in the area, ExxonMobil, Liandell Basel Industries, and Chevron Phillips Chemical.

Only Chevron responded with a statement saying the company continues to take action to reduce air emissions and is committed to improving environmental performance.

You can hear more of our reporting on the Texas oil industry on the latest season of our climate podcast, How We Survive.

As other Texas communities begin the long process of recovery from last weekend's deadly floods, we're going to check in on another part of the country still navigating its own recovery from disaster, Asheville, North Carolina, where extreme flooding caused by Hurricane Helene just over nine months ago wiped out Jesse Dean's business, Asheville Tea Company.

Since last fall, we've been checking in to hear her progress as she gets her business back up off the ground.

Jesse, it's good to talk with you again.

Amy, it's so good to talk with you also.

How have you been?

I have been well

overall.

I think we're, you know, still in the process of recovery from such a big hit, both as a community and as a company.

But I feel like we're making progress.

So what's new?

Have you resumed

somewhat regular sales?

Are you producing again in Asheville?

We are resuming sales, definitely.

Not yet producing in Asheville.

We're working with a great co-manufacturer in Canada, actually.

And they have been just a wonderful friend and partner through this whole process.

So that's a very new and different workflow for us, but

they've been so helpful in getting us back on our feet.

So we're still working with them.

We do plan to move into our own space early next year.

So we're working towards that in all kinds of ways so that we can manufacture in-house again.

And in the meantime, though, you know, we've been trying to rebuild our inventory.

And June was the first month where we actually went off of pre-sale and into actual sales.

So that was a really exciting milestone for us.

Yeah, talk about that difference.

How do pre-sales work versus just regular sales?

Right.

Well, because we had lost all of our inventory, it took us a while to build back to, you know, any kind of level of inventory where we could sell things consistently.

And that's partly because

we're dedicated to working with our regional and smallholder farmers.

And so we've had to wait a little bit until we got into the growing season.

Also,

there are challenges with shipping back and forth to Canada right now.

We haven't

heard there's a trade war going on.

Have you been impacted by that?

Right.

Yes, we have.

And, you know, we haven't directly been tariffed.

So that's been helpful.

You know, we're still falling at the moment as duty-free under the USMCA agreement.

However, we're working with brokers and shipping companies whose costs are increasing.

And, you know, the logistics of things getting held up at the border has pushed our inventory timelines back multiple times.

So it's something that we're trying to navigate best we can.

But we did finally get some inventory back.

And as of June, that meant that we could start to fill orders back on sort of a more regular cadence, like a more regular timeline.

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.: So you sell both direct to consumer and also to wholesalers, restaurants, and grocery stores and that kind of thing.

Have you lost any customers or have they mostly come back?

Most of them have come back, which is pretty wonderful.

We did lose some places that also had to close due to Helene.

But that's been one of the

most beautiful parts too for us is that so many of our customers have waited for us, you know, and one of them in particular, a food co-op here, left the shelf blank and empty until they could refill it with our tea.

Oh, wow.

You know, like our little portion on the shelf to help customers understand the impact of what had happened.

What do the next six months look like for you?

Well, we are trying hard now to kind of continue to look at the financial piece so that we can repurchase equipment.

And we're starting to look for spaces, which is really exciting.

So we'll be looking to find a new space to move into

and replenish all the equipment and the inventory that we lost.

And we hope to have that open in early 2026.

And so, we're just going to be working hard to build towards that.

So, we have a little tradition with our interviews.

I always have to end asking you about some tea.

So, obviously, it's hot.

I'm thinking iced tea is where we should go with this.

What's your go-to iced tea at Asheville Tea Company?

Oh, yes, it is iced tea season for sure.

So we produce a few iced teas.

Yeah, we make, we call them cold brews.

And my personal favorite is the Blue Ridge Mountain Mint because it's made with three locally grown mint varieties and blended with blue butterfly pea flour.

So it brews this bright blue.

And when you add lemon to it, it turns purple.

So it's a super fun summer iced tea.

Sounds cool.

All right, Jesse Dean, So good to talk to you.

She runs Asheville Tea Company in Asheville, North Carolina.

Thanks so much.

Thank you so much, Amy.

So good to talk to you too.

Coming up.

You can also get protein water, which has 20 grams a bottle.

But why?

First though, let's do the numbers.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 192 points, 4 tenths percent, to close at 44,650.

The NASDAQ ticked up 19 points, a tenth of a percent, to finish at 20,630.

And the S ⁇ P 500 rose 17 points, 3 tenths percent, and at 6,280.

Sabri Benesher was telling us about how Delta Airlines and many other companies are struggling with business forecasts in this uncertain economy.

Delta soared 12%.

United Airlines rocketed 14 and 1 third percent.

JetBlue Airway climbed 7 and 8 tenths percent.

Southwest Airlines ascended 8 and 1 tenth percent.

Bonds fell.

The yield on the 10-year T-Note rose to 4.35%.

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Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows, and they need to be there in time for International Sleep Day.

You've got AT ⁇ T 5G, so you're fully confident, but the vendor isn't responding.

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This is Marketplace.

I'm Amy Scott.

Earlier in the show, we looked at some of the health consequences of fossil fuel production.

Now let's look at just how much of that production might happen in the years to come.

Many groups, including the International Energy Agency, predict that peak oil is close and global demand will drop starting in the next decade as more renewables come online.

Then there's OPEC.

Today, the oil cartel released its annual World Oil Outlook, which forecasts an increase in demand for crude oil by the year 2050 of about 20%,

and no peak oil in sight.

So, what gives?

Daniel Ackerman takes a look.

It should come as no surprise that OPEC projects a rosy view of the future of oil, says Ed Herz, Energy Fellow at the University of Houston.

You have to remember OPEC's in the business of selling oil.

In its outlook, the group is banking on increasing demand in developing economies in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, says Ellen Wald of the Atlantic Council.

They see huge population growth and urbanization occurring in these areas.

And as a general rule, that leads to higher energy demand.

Think natural gas for electricity and gasoline for cars.

But not all expert groups see it that way, says R.

V.

Indravi Kumar, energy researcher at UT Austin.

OPIC's in a completely different planet.

He says even some oil companies, including BP, predict oil demands to peak in the next decade.

Developing economies will buy more cars, for example, but they may not burn gas.

In those countries, what you're going to see is China trying to take over their auto industry by exporting all of its electric vehicles.

He says China is also investing in battery factories in those regions.

It's not just selling cars, it's exporting an off-ramp from oil dependents.

And as for generating electricity, only some of the growth there will come from oil, says Matthew Zaragoza Watkins, an economist at UC Davis.

If somebody wants to build the cheapest, most reliable electricity generating unit right now, it's probably going to be a combination of wind, solar, and natural gas.

Even OPEC's top oil producer, Saudi Arabia, is investing billions in solar farms.

I'm Daniel Ackerman for Marketplace.

All right, not to get too personal, but how much protein do you get every day?

Any idea?

Walk down the grocery aisle, and you might get the impression it's not nearly enough based on all the items that now come with added protein, from popcorn to chocolate to seltzer.

Lila Schroff is an assistant editor at The Atlantic, where she wrote about this trend and joins me now.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you for having me.

What got you started down this path of looking at all the protein supplemented foods out there?

You know, it's a funny story.

I was at the gym a few weeks ago, and there was a member appreciation weekend, and they were giving out goodies.

And one of the treats was protein iced tea.

And I'd noticed protein products slowly taking over the grocery store, but protein iced tea was totally new.

And so it got me thinking, what is going on that it has come to this?

Yeah.

And what is going on?

Why do people seem all of a sudden obsessed with getting more protein?

You know, I think there's many things happening, one of which is that there's been some debate for years over whether the current federal guidelines for our recommended daily allowance of protein are indeed sufficient.

And so you have some experts starting to suggest maybe we need more protein.

At the same time, you have protein kind of being offered as an answer to all sorts of dietary goals.

Maybe you want to build strength, maybe you want to lose weight, maybe you're getting older and you want to fend off frailty.

But then influencers and other people online start kind of positing that, you know, protein could help with virtually anything.

And some of the claims start getting absurd.

And that's how we end up in today's protein mania.

So for this story, you went shopping for a high-protein meal and you found some pretty wild stuff.

Talk about the meal that you built.

Yeah.

So I went on a mission and I wasn't just trying to find the most protein, right?

I could just probably eat a bunch of meat if I wanted to do that, but to find the most ridiculous, unpredictable products.

So one of my favorites was you can get your mixed greens, but protein style.

They mix in a naturally protein-rich sweet pea leaves.

And this isn't really all that much protein.

You're getting five grams of serving, but it tasted pretty good.

I liked the zing.

You can also get protein water, which has 20 grams a bottle.

And that one I was a little bit less thrilled with.

But

name a product, whether it's pasta sauce or hale ale, and there's there's a protein version.

I mean,

so many questions.

Protein, water.

But for this meal, I think you consumed like, what, 170 grams of protein.

And that's, I don't know how many times the daily recommended level, but how did you feel afterwards?

You know, I felt pretty full, but I think it wasn't really something I wanted to do again.

I calculated it was about 31 medium eggs worth of protein.

Ew.

I imagine there's a lot of money to be made here.

You mentioned

Cargill, the big, you know, agribusiness, advertising protein as something that can even save marriages.

Like, what are the companies that have a lot at stake in us thinking we're not getting enough protein?

Yeah, the food industry loves to take a trend to the extreme.

We've seen in recent years plant-based move as a label that's been applied to alternative meats into plant-based candies and even plant-based peanut butters and things that seem like they were plant-based to begin with.

And so I think there's a lot of incentive here for companies to really double down because if you think about the other macronutrients, fat and carbs, you know, extra fat or extra carbs, people don't want that.

But extra protein seems to be a pretty popular thing.

And so as long as there is consumer interest, of course, they're going to want to roll out new product lines and take advantage of it.

it.

All right, before I let you go, we started with your anecdote about the protein iced tea.

How did it taste?

You know what?

I, at the time, didn't even try it because I was so caught off guard.

I declined the protein iced tea.

So I have to go on a mission to go find that.

I'll have to report back next time.

I probably would have declined it too.

All right, Lila Schroff with The Atlantic wrote about the obsession with protein.

Thanks so much for your time.

Thank you.

This final note on the way out today.

So if you thought the Birkin bag was expensive with a retail price tag of more than $12,000 for the smallest version made by Hermes.

How about $10 million

used?

That's the price the first ever Birken bag designed for the British actor and singer Jane Birkin fetched in an auction at Sotheby's today, including fees.

According to CNN, during a live stream of the sale, gasps could be heard as the bidding pushed higher and higher.

The winner of the most expensive handbag ever sold at auction, a private collector from Japan.

Our daily production team includes Andy Corbin, Nicholas Guillong, Maria Hollenhorst, Iru Ekwinobi, Sarah Leeson, Sean McHenry, and Sophia Terenzio.

I'm Amy Scott.

Hope to see you back here tomorrow.

This is APM.

And now, a next level moment from ATT Business.

Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows and they need to be there in time for International Sleep Day.

You've got ATT 5G, so you're fully confident, but the vendor isn't responding.

And International Sleep Day is tomorrow.

Luckily, ATT 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease, so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you.

ATT 5G requires a compatible plan and device.

Coverage not available everywhere.

Learn more at ATT.com/slash 5G network.