Hertz Global Holdings narrowed its second-quarter loss and returned to positive adjusted corporate EBITDA for the first time in almost two years, sending the shares up about 16 % in early trading on Thursday. The car-rental group reported an adjusted loss of 34 cents a share on revenue of $2.19 billion, both ahead of Wall Street forecasts. The net loss shrank to $294 million, an improvement of roughly half a billion dollars from a year earlier, as Chief Executive Officer Gil West cited "smarter fleet management, improved utilisation and disciplined cost control." Key operating metrics continued to improve. Fleet utilisation reached 83 %, up three percentage points year on year, while vehicle depreciation per unit fell to $251 a month after the company halved depreciation expense. Hertz also said nearly 80 % of its U.S. rental fleet is less than a year old and that it has secured all of its 2025-model-year vehicles at pre-tariff prices. The company ended the quarter with $1.45 billion in liquidity. In private markets, Carlyle Group recorded a stronger-than-expected quarter as a spate of successful exits boosted earnings. Second-quarter non-GAAP profit rose to 91 cents a share, topping estimates by two cents, while revenue climbed to $1.57 billion. Management said momentum in private credit and secondary transactions, coupled with continued asset-under-management growth, underpinned the performance. Cryptocurrency infrastructure firm Hut 8 swung to a profit, helped by higher Bitcoin prices and expanded energy assets. The company posted revenue of $41.3 million, net income of $137.5 million and adjusted EBITDA of $221.2 million. Hut 8 held 10,667 Bitcoin—valued at about $1.1 billion—at quarter-end and managed 1,020 megawatts of energy capacity, with a 10,800-megawatt development pipeline aimed at power-hungry computing and AI projects.