Avista's second quarter arrived with the regulated Pacific Northwest utility doing what it does most quarters: producing a modest operating print and a fresh rate-case clock. Revenue was essentially flat at $413 million, and the headline earnings line - GAAP net income of $35 million, or $0.43 per diluted share - was more than double the prior-year $14 million, but the doubling is a single line on a $35 million quarter, not a $70 million turnaround. The real story sat in two places. The utility's own contribution was roughly flat year over year, holding at $23 million of non-GAAP utility net income for the quarter ($0.29 per share, the same as Q2 2025). The swing came from a $21 million gain at the non-utility "other businesses" line, driven almost entirely by the June IPO of one portfolio company inside a small venture fund the company holds, recognized on a quarter-lag. Strip that one item out and the company earned the same regulated EPS it earned a year ago. The more interesting second look is that the company is also telling investors, on the same page, that this gain will be followed by another $17 million recognition in the third quarter and a $13 million mark-down in the fourth quarter, based on the share price of that same portfolio company as of July 31. The report frame is not whether the company is doing better operationally; it is whether the regulatory pipeline - a four-year Washington rate plan pending a September evidentiary hearing, an Idaho step-up in the same window, and a paused 125-MW data-center MOU in a community that pushed back - delivers the rate base growth the current 14.2x multiple is underwriting.