— Editor’s note: Nobody reads year-in-review stories because there is no news in them. The stories tend to be long and boring. I will keep this one brief and I hope not too boring.
Jan. 1, 2026
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
2025 was a drab year for Lehigh Valley stocks. Shopping at home was not a good idea.
The big Kahuna is Air Products (NYSE:APD). Shares in the maker of industrial gases fell this year, jumping to a 52-week high early in 2025 when there was a boardroom battle but otherwise doing nothing.
Chief Executive Seifi Ghasemi was forced out and Eduardo Menezes took his place. Activist investors sought to move away from Ghasemi’s investments in hydrogen as the clean fuel of the future, instead preferring to focus on the traditional business of making gases.
The activist investors — one speculated that shares could reach $425 — won the battle but shareholders lost. The stock has been a laggard for years. Air Products shares started 2025 at $277.95 and finished at $247.02 for a decline of 11%. The Upper Macungie Township-based company paid dividends of $7.14 per common share in 2025, for a yield of 2.9%.
PPL (NYSE:PPL) fared better, starting 2025 at $32.18 and finishing at $35.02, up 8.1%. It paid $1.09 over the year, a yield of 3.1%.
The Allentown-based utility is in the middle of trying to raise the price of delivering electricity to its regional customers. It’s not a popular move, but I expect PPL to get most or all of what it wants, raising monthly bills by about $12 per customer by next July or so.
Shift4 lost Chief Executive and founder Jared Isaacman to NASA, though it took two tries to get him appointed. He was succeeded by Taylor Lauber. The shares (NYSE:FOUR) of the payment-processing company (it handles credit-card transactions for hotels, restaurants and other businesses) were up and down this year.
The 52-week high was $127.50, it started 2025 at $108.34 and finished at $62.97 for a whopping 42% decline. Shift4, based in Upper Saucon Township, does not pay a dividend.
Then there’s OraSure (NASDAQ:OSUR). The south Bethlehem-based maker of home test kits and other medical products flounders on.
OraSure’s revenue keeps falling, the company loses money, speaks in jargon and burns cash. It set an oddly conceived buyback (buying shares that are falling is not good for a retail investor or a company).
CEO Carrie Eglinton Manner has shown staying power through it all. She is in her fourth year.
OraSure started 2025 at $3.54 and finished at $2.42, down 32%. The stock jumped briefly, very briefly, after it announced the share buyback, and when there were reports of takeover interest.
OraSure dawdles on. It’s been a losing bet since the Covid-19 pandemic. No, it does not pay a dividend.
And that’s the year in stocks. PPL chugged along while Air Products, Shift4 and OraSure fell hard.
Let’s hope for a better 2026, and really, can things get much worse? On the positive side, there is no Lehigh Valley Index Fund or ETF. Maybe I’ll start one, add invent a tracking stock for the Bethlehem Co-Op Boondoggle.
— Disclosure: I own shares of PPL and Shift4. I used to own Air Products and now and then I gamble a little on OraSure, trying to make a quick killing to pay for a pizza. It doesn’t always work.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 