Linde plc LIN

Bloom Energy (BE) earned nearly 90% of its latest quarterly revenue from selling its power equipment. In fiscal Q2 2026, a record quarter for the company, those equipment sales reached $935 million. Over the past year, the stock returned 314%, against 16.8% for the S&P 500. A stock that has run this far would be exposed if those sales slowed. Should investors in Bloom Energy worry that its record quarter came mostly from one kind of sale.

While Dow and LyondellBasell handed shareholders painful dividend cuts, a handful of chemical names kept raising their payouts through the same downcycle. The structural reasons behind that divide reveal which corner of the sector actually belongs in a retirement portfolio.