Two earnings stories, one continent exposed to the harder one
The third-quarter 2026 earnings season sorted finance chiefs into two camps. One camp is growing on AI-related spending and says supply, not demand, is its limit. The other is cutting costs and managing cash while fuel and energy prices bite. For a European business reader, the second camp is the more familiar one, and the dossier gives it the stronger verified data.12
A note on trust before the numbers. The earnings-call summaries behind this piece come from NewsEOD, whose claims have been measured: 61% of 1,119 checked claims held up.124 That is better than a coin flip, not a guarantee. We therefore separate what comes from SEC filings (checked) from what comes from call summaries (usable, but weaker).
Dow: the European energy problem in a CFO's words
Dow Inc. is a US chemicals group, but its CFO described conditions that European manufacturers will recognise. Jeffrey Tate said: “Persistently high energy costs continue to challenge industry economics.”2 The dossier also notes that record-low Rhine water disrupted logistics.2 That is a European-specific fact, though the dossier does not quantify its cost to Dow.
Dow's filings show why the company is leaning on cost cuts. Revenue fell from $44.6 billion in fiscal 2023 to $43.0 billion in 2024 and $40.0 billion in 2025.3 That is a drop of roughly 10% over two years. Operating cash flow fell much faster, from $5.2 billion to $2.9 billion to $1.0 billion, a fall of about 80%.3 Earnings per share went from $0.82 to $1.57 and then to a loss of $3.70 per share in 2025.3 These are SEC-sourced, fidelity-checked figures.
The 2026 call summary shows the response. Net sales were up 13% year over year, with growth in every operating segment, and the company says it will cut about 4,500 Dow roles, with roughly 70% already implemented.2 Tate said selling, administrative and R&D costs, which Dow abbreviates SARD, “was actually down $130 million” sequentially.2 He added: “we remain focused on our commitment to implement approximately $1.3 billion in net benefits this year as well as $1.3 billion in 2027.”2 To picture that scale, $1.3 billion is close to the full $1.5 billion of operating EBITDA (a measure of operating profit) that Dow reported for the quarter.2
Liquidity: a bigger cushion than the balance sheet usually shows
Tate said Dow has “approximately $14 billion of liquidity and no substantive debt maturities until 2029.”2 Liquidity includes credit lines, so it is not the same as cash. Dow's year-end cash was $3.8 billion in fiscal 2025, so the quoted liquidity is roughly 3.7 times that.3 Cash itself has swung widely: $1.5 billion in Q1 2025, $4.6 billion in Q3 2025 and $4.1 billion in Q1 2026.3 Tate also cited third-quarter free cash flow of “$1.1 billion” and an expected 2027 cash conversion of 70% to 80%.2
One more verified number is worth a retail investor's attention. Dow's share count rose from 702 million (FY2023) to 718 million (FY2025) and 721 million in Q1 2026.3 Share count rising while profit falls spreads results across more shares. The dossier does not explain the increase, and we do not guess at it.
For Q4, Tate said seasonality would be “largely offset by more than $100 million of lower sequential turnaround spending,” and expected polyethylene integrated margins to improve by about $0.02 per pound.2 Those are management expectations, not results.
Lam Research: the AI side of the split
Lam Research supplies the equipment used to make chips. CFO Douglas Bettinger guided to December-quarter revenue of $8.6 billion, “plus or minus $400 million.”1 That single quarter equals roughly a fifth of Dow's entire 2025 revenue.13 CEO Timothy Archer put preliminary 2027 wafer fab equipment (WFE) spending at “more than $200 billion,” led by DRAM memory, then leading-edge foundry/logic and NAND.1 That is about five times Dow's 2025 revenue.13 Lam also reported operating margin above 40% for the first time.1
The constraint is supply. Bettinger said: “This revenue guide would have been a bit higher, if not for some near-term supply chain constraints that we are actively managing.”1 Asked about 2027, he declined to give a figure: “I'm not going to put a number on what the unconstrained demand would be,” though he said it would be higher.1 Reporting on the call also points to a falling China share of Lam's business.1
The European link is ASML, which our entity graph records as a Lam competitor.7 The dossier contains no ASML figures, so we cannot say how ASML is faring. It also records Lam as supplying high-bandwidth memory, which is a part of AI hardware, and as a member of the S&P 500.7 If you hold a US index fund, you likely own some Lam. The dossier gives no weighting, so we will not state one.
Rail and fuel: the same squeeze, on tracks
Union Pacific is the clearest case of cost pressure outside chemicals. CFO Jennifer Hamann said fuel expense grew 69% on a 64% rise in average fuel price, from $2.56 to $4.21 per gallon.4 The company still reported record net income of $2.1 billion and adjusted earnings per share up 15% to $3.53, on 6% volume growth.4 It has affirmed high-single-digit reported EPS growth for 2026 and lifted capex to $3.5 billion.4 Hamann also said: “We will continue growing our cash reserves in anticipation of closing the Norfolk Southern merger in the second half of 2027.”4 The dossier also notes a CFO transition at the company.4
AI as a cost tool, and a European software signal
Outside the chip makers, AI shows up in two small ways. AudioEye's CEO credited “efficiencies and increased AI use across the company” for record revenue and raised its Q4 adjusted EBITDA run-rate expectation to over $17 million from $15 million.5 And SAP, the German software group, said on 6 October that its Autonomous Enterprise tools are being put to work, naming Morgan Foods among customers.6 That SAP release is a company press statement and the least independently checked item here. Its source group is measured at 52% of 6,220 checked claims holding up.6
What Via News's analysis suggests
Our reading of this evidence is that AI demand is real but narrow. It sits with the companies selling equipment into a few chip categories, and even there supply limits growth. Industrial and chemical firms, which resemble much of Europe's manufacturing base, are doing what Dow describes: cutting roles, trimming overhead and banking liquidity while energy remains expensive. This is our interpretation, not a claim from any of the companies.
What to watch
- Whether Dow's promised $1.3 billion of 2027 benefits arrives, and whether operating cash flow recovers from the $1.0 billion of fiscal 2025.23
- Whether Lam's supply constraints ease, given the unquantified “unconstrained” 2027 demand.1
- Fuel and energy prices, which both Dow and Union Pacific name as the main cost pressure.24
- Union Pacific's cash build ahead of the Norfolk Southern merger closing in the second half of 2027.4
