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Cannabis Slowdown In Canada: Analyst Spotlights What Still Sells And Where The Money Is Going - Aurora Cannabis (NASDAQ:ACB), Auxly Cannabis Group (OTC:CBWTF) 2024-06-03 21:56:00+00:00 - Loading... Loading... In a recent report, Pablo Zuanic of Zuanic & Associates analyzed trends in Canada's recreational cannabis market through May 2024. The report highlights a deceleration in market growth and notable shifts in sales dynamics among leading licensed producers (LPs). Market Growth Deceleration The report points to a significant deceleration in Canada's recreational cannabis market. Official data from Statistics Canada shows a mere 2% year-over-year (YoY) increase in recreational sales in the first quarter of 2024, a decline from 11% YoY growth in the previous quarter. However, Hifyre scanner data suggests a potential rebound, with 7% and 10% YoY growth projected for April and May, respectively. Top LP Sales Trends Among the top five LPs, Village Farms International VFF, Organigram Holdings OGI, and Cronos Group CRON saw double-digit sales growth from January to May 2024, while Decibel Cannabis Company DBCCF and Tilray Brands TLRY experienced declines. Specifically, Tilray's sales fell 17% YoY during the March-May period, whereas Village Farms grew by 41%, OGI by 24%, and Cronos by 34%. Village Farms now holds an 8.6% market share, up from 6.8% in the fourth quarter of 2023. Loading... Loading... Leading Players By Segment Village Farms International has significantly increased its share in the flower category, from 10% in the first quarter of 2022 to 16% in the first quarter of 2024. Decibel Cannabis Company leads the pre-roll segment with a 14% market share, up from 5% two years ago. On a proforma basis (including HEXO and Redecan), the biggest segment share loser in pre-rolls has been Tilray, with its share down to 11% in 1Q24 from approximately 24% in 1Q22. Canopy also dropped by 6 points over the same period. In the vape category, Motif Labs has emerged as a leader, growing its share from 3% in the first quarter of 2022 to 20% in the first quarter of 2024. Auxly Cannabis Group CBWTF is down from 19% to 10%, and Tilray also shed a share from 17% to 6%. Growth Trends By Formats The three-month data through May shows that flower remains the largest category, accounting for 37% of sales. This is followed by pre-rolls at 31%, vape products at 16%, concentrates at 5%, edibles at 5%, beverages at 2%, and oils at 2%. Zuanic notes that "compared with the US market, pre-roll over indexes in Canada, while vape under indexes." For context, the flower segment was 41% of sales in the first quarter of 2023, down from 48% in the first quarter of 2022 and 57% in the first quarter of 2021. Pre-rolls have grown from 17% in the first quarter of 2021 to 27% in the first quarter of 2023. Vape products have shown a steady increase from 14% in 2021 to 16% in 2023. Edibles have remained relatively stable, while concentrates have seen slight growth over the same period. Learn more about leading cannabis companies and stocks, at the Benzinga Cannabis Market Spotlight in New Jersey on June 17th! Grow your business, raise money, and capitalize on the booming NJ recreational market. Don’t miss this must-attend event in New Brunswick. Secure your tickets now. Very few spots are left. Use the code "JAVIER20" for 20% off! Other Significant LPs Between the #6 to #14 LPs, Motif Labs, Cannara Biotech LOVFF, and Ayurcann AYUR have shown robust growth. Rubicon Organics ROMJF also reported gains. On the other hand, companies like Canopy Growth Corporation CGC, SNDL Inc. SNDL, and Aurora Cannabis ACB have faced challenges with their market shares either declining or remaining stagnant. Photo: AI-Generated Image.
'Roaring Kitty' post seems to show trader held onto giant GameStop stake after Monday's rally 2024-06-03 21:41:00+00:00 - Keith Gill, known on Reddit under the pseudonym DeepF-------Value and as Roaring Kitty, is seen on a fragment of a youtube video displayed on a smartphone screen in front of GameStop logo. Meme stock leader Keith Gill, who's behind GameStop 's recent roller-coaster ride, appeared to hold onto his big position in the video game retailer even after Monday's big rally. Gill, whose handle is "DeepF------Value" on Reddit and "Roaring Kitty" on YouTube and X, posted another screenshot of his portfolio showing the same common stock and call option holdings Monday after the stock market closed as those he shared Sunday evening. He still owned 5 million shares of GameStop and 120,000 call options with a strike price of $20 that expire on June 21, the screenshot showed. The post on Reddit's r/SuperStonk forum could not be independently verified by CNBC. Shares of GameStop climbed about 4% in extended trading following his latest Reddit post.
Microsoft doubles down on quantum computing and other science projects in latest reorg 2024-06-03 21:35:02+00:00 - Microsoft on Monday cut hundreds Azure jobs to focus on AI investments, Business Insider reported. An internal memo said a focus to "define the AI wave" was behind the changes. The company is also increasing investments in quantum computing and other science projects. Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time by visiting our Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email. Advertisement Quantum computing is a gnarly technical challenge that tech giants have been hacking away at for more than a decade. Microsoft isn't giving up, according to an internal memo detailing cuts in other parts of the company's operations. Business Insider broke the news on Monday that Microsoft is cutting hundreds of jobs from its Azure cloud business. Executive Jason Zander blamed the cuts on Microsoft's need to purse AI investments, according to an internal memo obtained by BI. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in .
After Trump’s felony convictions, Republicans visit El Salvador and gush over an authoritarian 2024-06-03 21:29:50+00:00 - A bunch of MAGA Republicans appeared in El Salvador over the weekend in yet another demonstration of the conservative movement’s allegiance to authoritarians around the globe. Several Republicans, including Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Donald Trump Jr. and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, traveled to El Salvador to cheer the second inauguration of Nayib Bukele, the country’s authoritarian president. Bukele, who has branded himself as the “coolest dictator in the world,” has become known for extrajudicial violence against suspected gang members and for using military force to pressure lawmakers to bend to his will. He also has become known for suppressing women’s rights and banning school discussions about gender, which has endeared him to American conservatives. Because El Salvador is a strategic ally of the U.S., the Biden administration sent a single representative — Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — to the inauguration. On X, Mayorkas gave a fairly boilerplate statement in which he vowed to continue cooperating on economic and security matters. Republicans, however, were fawning in their praise, signaling support not just for partnership with the U.S., but also for Bukele’s particular style of illiberal leadership. This struck me as noteworthy amid the right-wing rage over Donald Trump’s felony convictions in New York. Gaetz, who has baselessly called the judge in Trump’s case “corrupt,” praised Bukele over the weekend — saying the leader, among other things, “throws out the corrupt judges.” Gaetz went on to call Bukele an “inspiration to the Western World.” Republicans, however, were fawning in their praise, signaling support not just for partnership with the U.S., but also for Bukele’s particular style of illiberal leadership. Trump Jr. claimed that “we need more like” Bukele and congratulated him for “winning a second term without even having to try to imprison his political opponents!” He also praised Javier Milei, Argentina’s far-right strongman, who was in attendance. And Lee, meanwhile, took a thinly veiled swipe at President Joe Biden, saying Bukele had “made no attempt” to lock up his opponent. This is all pitiful, disturbing and quite ironic. Biden had nothing to do with Trump’s guilty verdict. And praising Bukele for not locking up political opponents is certainly a choice, considering we’re talking about a man known for a spate of mass incarcerations that has drawn condemnation from human rights groups. But it seems clear why members of today’s MAGA-fueled GOP are drawn to Bukele: He’s every bit the strongman they see in Trump — but with more freedom to repress people in his own country, particularly perceived opponents. For that reason, the sight of these Republicans hyping up Bukele should sound alarm bells for Americans. This display of authoritarian affection comes right as conservatives have been openly discussing the need for Trump to mete out punishment against liberals — including executions — after his felony convictions. As I see it, this was a clear endorsement of Bukele’s violent and vindictive style of leadership.
When Anti-Fur Protesters Are at the Front Door 2024-06-03 21:28:28+00:00 - A new frontier has opened in fashion’s fur wars, as protesters targeted the homes of more than a dozen employees of Marc Jacobs in recent months, using signs, noisemakers and fake blood in an effort to force the designer to officially renounce the use of fur in his collections. Over the weekend, Mr. Jacobs accused the protesters of “bullying” in a statement on Instagram, but averred: His brand “does not work in, use or sell fur, nor will we in the future.” He also emphasized that he had not used fur in any of his own brand’s collections since 2018. “This organization has made it clear that they will not stop their violence toward Marc Jacobs unless they get the statement they want,” Mr. Jacobs wrote. “While I don’t condone the behavior of this organization, I will always do what I can to protect, honor and respect the lives and well-being of the people I work with.” The organization referenced by Mr. Jacobs is the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade, or CAFT, a group that selects targets and disseminates information and resources to anti-fur activists on the ground.
USPS workers are attacked by dogs every day. Here are the bite-iest U.S. cities. 2024-06-03 21:23:00+00:00 - Mail carriers asking for more security on dangerous routes Mail carriers asking for more security on dangerous routes 01:10 U.S. Postal Service workers are facing a growing number of dog attacks, with 5,800 letter carriers suffering bites last year, according to the USPS. "Letter carriers are exposed to potential hazards every day, none more prevalent than a canine encounter. All it takes is one interaction for a letter carrier to possibly suffer an injury," said Leeann Theriault, USPS Manager, Employee Safety and Health Awareness, in a news release to highlight a promotional campaign running this week to draw attention to the problem. By state, California saw the greatest number of incidents in which dogs bit mail delivery personnel last year, with 727 cases, up from 675 in 2022. Texas ranked No. 2, with 411 incidents, followed by Ohio (359), Pennsylvania (334) and Illinois (316). New York, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan and Missouri round up the top 10 states. National Dog Bite Awareness Campaign U.S. Postal Service Here are the top 20 U.S. cities for dog attacks in 2023, according to the USPS, along with the number of individual incidents: Los Angeles (65) Houston (56) Chicago (48) St. Louis (46) Cleveland (44) San Diego (41) Dallas (39) Cincinnati (38) Philadelphia (34) Columbus, Ohio (33) Kansas City, Mo. (32) Indianapolis (30) Memphis, Tenn. (29) Louisville, Ky. (28) Minneapolis (27) Albuquerque, N.M. (26) San Antonio (26) Sacramento, Calif. (26) Milwaukee (23) Dayton, Ohio (23) Dog owners can face legal repercussions The potential harm can include a financial bite for dog owners, the USPS cautioned. The average cost per insurance claim for a dog bite is $64,555, according to the postal service, citing information from the Insurance Information Institute. "When a postal employee suffers an injury, the owner could be responsible for medical bills, lost wages, uniform replacement costs, and pain and suffering for the employee," USPS stated in a news release. To avoid a canine confrontation, letter carriers are trained to: Make a non-threatening noise or rattle a fence to alert a dog if entering a yard Never startle a dog Keep their eyes on any dog Never assume a dog will not bite Never attempt to pet or feed a dog Place their foot against an outward swinging door to prevent a dog from escaping But If a dog does attack, carriers are also trained to stand their ground and use repellent, if necessary. Most people know roughly when their letter carrier arrives each day, so secure your dog inside the house, behind a fence or on a lease beforehand to minimize the potential danger, the USPS advised. Dog owners should also not have children take mail directly from a letter carrier as the dog might then view the postal worker as a threat to the child, it added. If dangerous dog issues are not resolved, owners can be required to rent a post office box to get mail.
E-Trade is debating whether to ban meme stock star Keith Gill from its platform, WSJ reports 2024-06-03 21:20:00+00:00 - E-Trade is having internal discussions about whether to ban Keith Gill — the meme stock trader who just disclosed a big position in GameStop — from the trading platform over concerns regarding potential market manipulation, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The brokerage, owned by Morgan Stanley , hasn't reached a decision yet, the Journal said, citing people familiar with deliberations inside the firm. GameStop shares shot up early Monday after Gill, who goes by "DeepF------Value" on Reddit, posted a screenshot of what could be his portfolio holding a significant amount of GameStop common shares and call options. The meme stock leader holds 5 million shares of GameStop and a position of 120,000 call options with a strike price of $20 that expire on June 21, purchased for about $5.68 each, the screenshot showed. E-Trade declined comment to CNBC, noting "we don't publicly discuss the individual activity of our clients." Morgan Stanley's global financial-crimes unit and external counsel began debating if it should cancel Gill's account as the firm monitored his account activity, the Journal said. The brokerage found that in May Gill had bought call options before he posted on social media platform X, the Journal said, adding that some of those contracts expired that week, meaning he likely made a profit. The meme stock mania in 2021 led to a series of congressional hearings, including testimony by Gill, around brokers' practices and gamifying retail stock trading. Gill also faced several class action lawsuits, including one alleging that he pretended to be a novice trader despite being a licensed professional. Gill worked as a marketing and financial education employee at MassMutual in 2019 and 2020. — Click here to read the WSJ story.
Honeywell completes a big acquisition. But it's not enough to bolster the lagging stock 2024-06-03 21:00:00+00:00 - Honeywell International completing its $4.95 billion acquisition of Carrier 's security business exemplifies how the disparate industrial conglomerate must lean into core businesses. It's not enough. "More and more people will realize that this [Global Access Solutions] was a good acquisition," Jim Cramer said Monday. But it's how to value Honeywell without the dead weight that must be addressed. To revive its lagging stock, management must also figure out which businesses are better on their own — kind of like the split announced last month by fellow Club stock DuPont . Jim Cramer pointed to Honeywell's underperformance compared to peers like RTX . Honeywell stock has dropped 4.6% year-to-date. RTX has advanced 27%. The S & P 500 has gained 10%. Investors need to see that Honeywell can strip away weaker businesses and put more of its cash to work from its massive balance sheet to buy more profitable ones, Jim added. HON RTX YTD mountain Honeywell vs. RTX year-to-date Following the close of the Global Access Solutions deal, Honeywell hiked its 2024 outlook for adjusted earnings-per-share to $10.15 and $10.45 from $9.80 to $10.10. While rising guidance is good, it was not a needle-mover for our investment thesis in this case because it was more of an accounting change. The deal follows criticism from Wall Street analysts and the Club that Honeywell has its hands in too many industries with limited growth prospects. Honeywell's Aerospace Technologies, which accounted for more than a third of companywide revenue in the first quarter, has shined . Smaller units have struggled like Building Automation, where management hopes to get a lift from Global Access Solutions. Honeywell's Industrial Automation segment was also soft in Q1. To be sure, management has acknowledged these issues. Honeywell has said it will divest up to 10% of overall revenue from its businesses that don't align with the future of aviation, the transition to sustainable energy, and automation. CEO Vimal Kapur was only a few months on the job when he identified these megatrends as ones to focus on. The Global Access Solutions deal, which was his biggest move to date, closed in the month of his first anniversary as chief exec. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long HON, DD. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. Honeywell International Inc. signage is displayed on a monitor on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Justice Alito's nonrecusal in Trump, Jan. 6 cases can't be ignored 2024-06-03 20:47:26+00:00 - Justice Samuel Alito last week tried to rationalize his failure to recuse from Jan. 6-related cases. Unfortunately, his explanation hasn’t become more persuasive with time, as key rulings are due from the high court on Donald Trump’s criminal immunity and obstruction charges against Jan. 6 defendants more broadly (which could also affect Trump’s case). In fact, one of his former law clerks took to the op-ed pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday to argue for his recusal. “Flying the flag, upside down, at your home is more than a hint of political impropriety — it irrefutably calls into question impartiality and bias toward the former president,” wrote Susan Sullivan, a professor who clerked for Alito when he was a judge on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Sullivan noted that she’s a progressive liberal who “often admired Alito “as a person for his integrity and honesty.” However well-reasoned her thoughts are, the justice would likely dismiss them due to her politics. He wrote in letters to congressional Democrats last week: “I am confident that a reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude that the events recounted above do not meet the applicable standard for recusal.” Yet, Alito’s strained logic on this matter demonstrates his own partisanship and motivated reasoning. To recap the justice’s narrative, he claimed in his letters that he had nothing to do with the inverted flag flying outside his Virginia home in the days following the Jan. 6 attack (or with the “Appeal to Heaven” flag flying outside his New Jersey beach house last summer). He said that his wife did it in response to a neighborhood dispute. He still hasn’t explained what — again, according to him — his wife sought to convey in flying the flag that also was carried by Jan. 6 rioters or what he thought about it — then or now. Amazingly, he wrote that his wife’s reasons for flying the inverted flag “are not relevant for present purposes” before going on to excuse her behavior by chalking it up to her great distress over a neighborhood dispute. If that awkward half-justification isn’t bad enough, Alito effectively conceded his knowledge of the inverted flag’s connection to the “Stop the Steal” movement by writing that neither he nor his wife were aware of the movement’s connection to the other flag at issue (Appeal to Heaven). He didn’t write that about the inverted flag. So even accepting Alito’s story on its terms, his dubious explanation bolsters the appearance of impropriety here. And though he’d likely dismiss his former clerk’s plea because her politics differ from his, one doesn’t have to be a lawyer or have any particular political view to see the problem with him sitting on these cases. The justice has seemingly built a circular logical trap, whereby people calling for his recusal are necessarily unreasonable and reasonable people would necessarily see no need for him to recuse. With justices judging the validity of their own recusals or nonrecusals, it’s easy to see how Alito sides with himself here. But he can’t ignore that the reasonable people bound by the court’s rulings will see his participation in these cases — and the decisions themselves — as tainted. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
Ukraine is facing training problems, but it's handling its new combat troops better than the Russians, war analysts say 2024-06-03 20:45:37+00:00 - Ukrainian commanders are having to train new combat troops at the front amid problems with training centers. There are advantages among the headaches with this kind of training, war experts say. And it's better than Russia's approach, which is pushing poorly trained troops into frontal assaults. Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time by visiting our Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email. Advertisement Ukrainian commanders are having to train new combat troops at the front due to training issues, but war experts say that even with the problems, it's better than what the Russians do. While there's the possibility of a decrease in the overall quality of the Ukrainian forces as new combat troops replace experienced troops at the front, especially as newly mobilized forces come into play, the quality is still likely to be higher, at least for the time being, than that of the Russians, war analysts from the Washington, DC-based Institute for the Study of War said. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in .
5 ways to maximize your vacation days 2024-06-03 20:43:00+00:00 - D3sign | Moment | Getty Images watch now About 21% of Americans who work in the private sector don't get paid vacation, and 20% do not get paid holidays, according to the BLS. Those who work in service jobs, earn lower wages, have part-time or non-union roles or work at smaller companies are much less likely to get them, agency data shows. Here's how you can maximize your vacation time, whether paid or unpaid — both for efficiency and overall quality, according to experts. 'Play a little Tetris' Grouping vacation days with other guaranteed time off helps extend your time away without sacrificing additional paid time off, experts said. In other words: Take advantage of weekends and paid holidays. For example, July 4 this year falls on a Thursday. Taking off just one day (Friday, July 5) would give you a four-day weekend. "Play a little Tetris" with your calendar, Saunders said. There's often a trade-off with this approach, however. For example, traveling around holidays or flying on weekend days like Friday and Sunday are generally busier and more expensive, said Sally French, a travel expert at NerdWallet. Leverage business travel, remote work Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty Images Workers may be able to bookend business trips with vacation time, French said. If your company sends you to a conference in another state for part of the workweek, you might take a vacation day to spend an extra day in your destination city, French explained. If coupled with a weekend, workers may not even need to use any paid time off, she said. The company may also cover a portion of the costs like airfare, she added. Additionally, those who work remotely or only part time in the office may be able to leverage those arrangements to get away without taking time off, French said. (There's even a practice especially among younger workers known as "quiet vacationing," whereby workers work around a dearth of PTO by secretly taking time off.) Hotels leaned into this trend during the Covid-19 pandemic, offering amenities like rooms for video calls and co-working spaces free for guests, she said. "That trend really has not died off even in 2024," she said. Workers with this flexibility can also more easily take advantage of traveling on cheaper days, like midweek for flights, she added. Pace PTO in a 'measured' way Pacing vacation days throughout the year in a "measured" way helps prevent burnout, Saunders said. She recommends taking at least one day off every month — or at least every couple months — even if it's just a staycation. People who don't take a vacation until "feeling really burnt out" get to a point where they don't enjoy work and need two or three days of vacation just to feel "normal" again, she said. Workers who don't get many days off (perhaps 10 total, for example) may want to consider taking one longer trip that requires four or five PTO days and bundling their remaining days with paid holidays, Saunders said. Boost that 'refreshed' feeling People may feel more "refreshed" by PTO if they take days off strategically during different periods of busy-ness at work, Saunders said. Taking time off during busy periods feels more "refreshing" than doing so when things are more chill, for example, she said. Of course, people may not be able to get away during crunch time or may not have people to whom they can delegate work while they're away; for such people, taking time off during chiller periods may be more beneficial to avoid work stress while on vacation. Likewise, it may help to give yourself an extra day before returning to work — by returning Saturday instead of Sunday, let's say — to take care of errands like laundry, French said. That buffer may give some additional peace of mind, she said. Give yourself an 'acceptable minimum'
A longtime skeptic on Best Buy now says buy the stock — here's what changed their mind 2024-06-03 20:41:00+00:00 - A longtime bearish analyst on Best Buy has jumped over to our side the debate after its head-turning earnings report last week. Citigroup on Monday double upgraded Best Buy to buy from sell and hiked its price target on the electronics retailer's stock to $100 a share from $67. The analysts cited the personal computer refresh cycle, the upcoming launch of artificial intelligence-enhanced laptops and management's ability to manage margins as positive catalysts that create "multi-year opportunity ahead" for Best Buy. Analysts had rated Club holding Best Buy a sell since they started covering the company for Citi more than three years ago, in March 2021. Citi's newfound optimism on Best Buy follows the company's better-than-feared fiscal 2025 first quarterearnings report last week , which sent shares surging 13% on Thursday and another 4% Friday. The report proved Best Buy has "best-in-class" gross margin execution, according to Citi analysts. "Simply put, that was a thesis changer" [versus] our prior negative thesis," they wrote. Shares of Best Buy added another 2.5% Monday, reaching a fresh 52-week high during in the session. When we initiated our stake in Best Buy in late March as a bet on the AI-fueled PC refresh cycle, we acknowledged we could be a little early. But with the stock sporting a healthy dividend payout, we argued it was worth starting the position and waiting for the market to come around to our investment rationale. We added to our position four times in April as the stock sold off. "If we did not get ahead of the 40% [exclusivity comment], we would have missed all of this" upside in recent days, Jim Cramer said Monday, referring to a significant disclosure from Best Buy CEO Corie Barry on the company's earnings call last week. Barry said Best Buy expects to have the largest assortment of AI PCs on sale later this month from brands such as Dell, Microsoft and HP, with "more than 40% of the assortment retail exclusive to Best Buy." Preorders for the devices are running a bit ahead of early expectations, Barry added. Everything we heard from Best Buy indicated our investment thesis is playing out, which is why we reiterated our buy-equivalent 1 rating and $95 per share price target. Even with its recent rebound, Jim argued Monday the stock is still cheap. "You're not buying anything that's expensive," Jim said. "This is one that has suffered during the Covid sell-off, so for it to come back, it's really not up anything when you think about pre-Covid." Best Buy's all-time closing high of $138 a share came on Nov. 22, 2021, the same day the Nasdaq peaked during the pandemic-era bull market. Based on Monday's prices, Best Buy would need to gain nearly 59% to take out its old highs. Shares currently trade a little more than 14 times fiscal 2025 consensus earnings of $6.09, according to FactSet. BBY 1Y mountain BBY stock 1-year performance. Considering the innovation pipeline ahead, Citi analysts are optimistic Best Buy shares can go even higher. Although Best Buy's same-store declined 6.1% in the just-reported quarter, analysts believe the key retail metric for the company is "approaching a positive inflection point" as customers who bought laptops during the early days of the Covid pandemic begin to shop for replacements. "This portion of the business is leading the recovery and should build momentum as new AI innovation trickles into the assortment likely providing a higher [average-selling price] benefit," Citi said. Citi acknowledged that Best Buy has suffered from a shift in consumer spending toward services away from pricier discretionary items such as electronics. However, analysts see that trend reversing in the coming quarters from lower interest rates, with consumer wallet share shifting to durable goods. This creates "a favorable setup for growth to return, especially in appliances and consumer electronics," they wrote. Those two categories represent about 45% of company revenue, according to Citi. We also have argued that Best Buy is also a secondary play on the housing market because people tend to shop for TVs and upgrade appliances when they buy a new home. Lower interest rates and, by extension mortgage rates, would spur activity in that area. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long BBY, MSFT. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. People walk into a Best Buy store in a Brooklyn mall on August 29, 2023 in New York City. Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Microsoft confirms layoffs in mixed reality but will keep selling HoloLens 2 headsets 2024-06-03 20:40:00+00:00 - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at a media briefing at the company's campus in Redmond, Washington, on May 20, 2024. Microsoft will lay off some employees who work on mixed reality, a spokesperson told CNBC on Monday. Although the cuts will affect the department that contributes to the HoloLens 2 augmented reality headset, Microsoft plans to continue selling the device. The reduction comes a year after the software maker said it would make changes to its hardware lineup as part of a round of layoffs that hit 10,000 employees, including some in mixed reality. In the following months, Microsoft discontinued several keyboard models, causing frustration for some dedicated customers. "Earlier today we announced a restructuring of the Microsoft's Mixed Reality organization," the spokesperson said in an email. "We remain fully committed to the Department of Defense's IVAS program and will continue to deliver cutting edge technology to support our soldiers. In addition, we will continue to invest in W365 to reach the broader Mixed Reality hardware ecosystem. We will continue to sell HoloLens 2 while supporting existing HoloLens 2 customers and partners." Microsoft has not found great success with the HoloLens since its introduction in 2015. But the U.S. Defense Department gave a contract to the company for a modified HoloLens named the Integrated Visual Augmentation System. Soldiers who used the devices, however, reported dealing with nausea and other conditions, Bloomberg reported. Tests suggested that an updated model looked promising. Since then, Microsoft and its highly valued technology peers have poured billions into commercializing artificial intelligence. Microsoft has raced to deploy Nvidia graphics processing units so people can use a Copilot chatbot and Microsoft-backed OpenAI's popular ChatGPT. Premium AI features in Microsoft 365 productivity applications can write memos, draft presentations and summarize meetings. In December, Microsoft further reduced investment in augmented reality and virtual reality, which blocks out the surrounding world, when it deprecated Windows Mixed Reality, which included tools for running applications in head-mounted displays. The spokesperson said Microsoft will keep selling the HoloLens 2 headset that was released in 2019 but did not indicate that a new model would be coming. Insider reported in 2022 that the company had canceled a third version. Apple brought out its own augmented reality headset, the Vision Pro, in January. Microsoft continues to support a feature called Mesh that lets people in headsets participate in three-dimensional Teams video calls with colleagues. At the Microsoft Ignite conference in Seattle in November, CEO Satya Nadella said the company was "reimagining the way employees come together and connect using any device, whether it's their PC, HoloLens, or Meta Quest." WATCH: The headset wars: How Apple Vision Pro stacks up against competition
I stayed in Carnival's cheapest, $90-a-day cabin on its new ship. It was ugly and windowless but shockingly spacious. 2024-06-03 20:39:22+00:00 - I booked the cheapest interior cabin for my four-night cruise on Carnival's new Carnival Firenze. It was ugly, dated, and lacked decor, but shockingly spacious. Interior staterooms in Carnival's newest ship start at $90 per person per day in 2024. Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time by visiting our Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email. Advertisement One of the best parts about cruising is feeling the open ocean's cool breeze rush around your skin. So imagine how grumpy I was when I had to book a windowless interior cabin for my most recent sailing — on my first Carnival cruise, no less. As a travel reporter, I go on several of these vacations at sea every year. I'm usually put up in balcony staterooms, the most popular cabin category.
See inside Ford's new tech campus, a century-old Detroit train station restored for $950 million 2024-06-03 20:35:00+00:00 - DETROIT — Ford’s latest project out of the Motor City is the restoration and reopening of an abandoned train station, for decades a symbol of Detroit’s downfall and now the automaker’s new technology campus. The $950 million project encompasses the 18-story former train station called Michigan Central Station — once the state’s marquee transit building — an adjacent 270,000-square-foot building and other, supporting facilities. The 30-acre “Michigan Central” campus and station was initially announced in 2018 and slated to open by 2022. However, the coronavirus pandemic and the extensive work needed to renovate the station delayed its reopening. Ford is celebrating the restoration of the century-old train station on Thursday. Following the event Thursday, the ground floor of the train station building will be open to the public through June 16, before the first commercial occupants begin moving in this fall. The new campus comes at a precarious time for Ford investors as the company continues to restructure its business. It also comes as many companies attempt to downsize office space and fill their current buildings with employees who grew accustomed to working from home during the pandemic. A photo of Michigan Central’s main concourse prior to its renovation sits in the newly restored room toward the back of the building. Michael Wayland / CNBC Specifically in Detroit, a stark juxtaposition has emerged: In April, Ford’s crosstown rival General Motors announced it would be downsizing from its towering Renaissance Center headquarters along the city’s riverfront to two floors in a nearby building that’s under construction. Yet Ford Chair Bill Ford Jr. said he believes the investment made in the historic train station is a crucial part of the automaker’s future, including in aspects of talent acquisition and retention. “We’re in a war for talent, our industry and our company,” Ford, who spearheaded the project, told CNBC. “And you need to give talent two things: You need to give them, first, really interesting problems to solve, and then you have to give them a great place to work. With Michigan Central, we checked both those boxes.” Bill Ford decided to purchase the dilapidated building after years of trips to Silicon Valley for his Fontinalis venture capital firm and during his tenure as a member of the eBay board of directors. He’s long been outspoken about the need for the traditional automotive industry to compete with newer tech companies in both product and talent acquisition. Ford said attracting top talent to Detroit is “getting better” but noted that “it’s a tall order” to convince workers from California or the East Coast to relocate to Detroit and work for Ford. “If you can show them a place like Michigan Central, not just in its beauty, which alone is incredible, but then talk about the kind of things that will be going on there, then it becomes, I think, a really valuable resource for the company going forward,” he said. Train station campus The Michigan Central campus is located southwest of Detroit’s main business district in a trendy neighborhood known as Corktown. It’s about 10 miles down the road from Ford’s world headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. The Michigan Central campus in total spans 1.2 million square feet of commercial space, including retail, restaurants and hospitality. It was awarded $300 million in state, local and historic rehabilitation tax incentives, according to officials. The restored grand waiting room inside Ford’s Michigan Central Station in Detroit. Michael Wayland / CNBC Ford officials went to great lengths to restore the station to its original glory after decades of vandalism and decay. The project involved 3D-scanning the rooms, matching materials and referencing historical photos to recreate parts of the building. This was especially true for the first floor of the train station, where a grand room features massive windows, an arcade and a large concourse full of marble and terrazzo flooring, Mankato stone and other unique materials. Architects and designers opted to leave some graffiti on walls to represent the station’s dormant years after closing in 1988. As one measure of Ford’s determination, officials traced the facility’s original limestone to a quarry in Indiana only to find out it had since closed. Michigan Central worked with the owners to reopen the quarry. “It has been painstakingly and lovingly restored to, wherever possible, to its original condition,” said Josh Sirefman, Michigan Central CEO, during a tour of the project. “Before we start activating it with lots of things, it’s probably in its most pristine condition.” Some graffiti from when Michigan Central sat dormant for more than 30 years was purposely preserved to represent that part of the station’s history. Michael Wayland / CNBC Amid national commercial real estate challenges, about two-thirds of the tower has scheduled tenants or planned use cases, officials said. That includes an unnamed restaurant and hotel, pending rezoning approval. The adjacent building, known as the Detroit Public Schools Book Depository, already houses more than 600 employees from nearly 100 startup companies. “It really is the beginning of the ecosystem that I want to create,” Bill Ford said. “There’s going to be a lot of experimentation taking place down there.” Ford plans to house at least 2,500 employees in the building, primarily members of the company’s electric vehicle and connected services teams. Roughly 1,000 of those employees are expected to move into the station’s tower by the end of this year, Ford said. Other building occupants could include local universities, other businesses and a restaurant. However, officials declined to release a full list of expected tenants. Google, a founding partner of the project, runs its “Code Next” program, which teaches students how to code, from the Book Depository building. Ford said he expects future automaker employees to be able to collaborate with other occupants of the station’s tower as well as the startups occupying the Book Depository building. Michigan Central’s main concourse newly restored room. Michael Wayland / CNBC 'Legacy project' Resurrecting the train station and surrounding campus is the latest project Bill Ford, a great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, has undertaken in the Motor City. He was instrumental in moving the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions from suburban Pontiac to a new stadium, appropriately named Ford Field, in downtown Detroit in 2002. He also was part of the team that brought the Super Bowl to the city in 2006. And he redeveloped the company’s River Rouge Assembly plant into a “green” production facility amid calls to close it. It’s now a tourist destination for the production of the Ford F-150 full-size pickup. The renovated “reading room” off of the grand waiting room at Ford’s Michigan Central Station in Detroit. Michael Wayland / CNBC Ford, who served as CEO of the automaker from 2001 to 2006, described Michigan Central as a continuation of such projects. He called the effort a “legacy project” for himself as well as for those who have been able to work on it. “I’m very proud of both of those [prior projects], but I think this is going to kind of put an exclamation point on it because this will be a wonderful place to work but it will also be a wonderful place for the public to come,” Ford said.
With its top editor abruptly gone, The Washington Post grapples with a hastily announced restructure 2024-06-03 20:25:21+00:00 - NEW YORK (AP) — The struggling Washington Post found itself in some turmoil on Monday following the abrupt departure of the newspaper’s executive editor and a hastily announced restructuring plan aimed at stopping an exodus of readers over the past few years. Post publisher Will Lewis and Matt Murray, a former Wall Street Journal editor named to temporarily replace Sally Buzbee, met with reporters and editors at the Post on Monday to explain changes that had been outlined in a Sunday night email. The plan includes splitting the newsroom into three separate divisions with managers who report to Lewis — one that encompasses the Post’s core news reporting, one with opinion pieces and the third devoted to attracting new consumers through innovative uses of social media, video, artificial intelligence and sales. Although Murray is temporarily replacing Buzbee through the November presidential election, the eventual plan places no one in the role of an executive editor who oversees the entire newsroom. Buzbee was said to disagree with the plan and chose to leave rather than be put in charge of one of the divisions, the Post reported. Lewis was not made available for an interview Monday, and Buzbee did not immediately return a message. “It definitely kind of blindsided people,” said Paul Farhi, a recently retired media reporter at the Post. “But it shows you that Will Lewis is working out of a sense of crisis and urgency. He’s only been there five months and he’s making gigantic changes to the newsroom.” LOSING MONEY, LOSING READERS Like most news organizations, the Post has lost readers — a decline more acute because the Washington-based outlet boomed with the interest in politics during the Trump administration. The Post’s website had 101 million unique visitors a month in 2020, and had dropped to 50 million at the end of 2023. The Post lost a reported $77 million last year. “Although (Post owner) Jeff Bezos is very rich, it has been my observation that billionaires don’t like to lose money,” said Margaret Sullivan, a former Post columnist and now the executive director for the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at the Columbia Journalism School. Lewis told staff members on Monday that “I’m not interested in managing decline. I’m interested in growth,” according to a person who attended the meeting. The new publisher also bluntly told staffers that “people are not reading your stuff. We need to take decisive action.” The new division designed to attract new customers — the Post called it a “third newsroom” — is steeped in some mystery. While the Post at one time headquartered the people running its digital products in a separate building, for several years it has integrated that and social media into the regular newsroom, as have many organizations. It’s hard to predict how the new structure will work, and there are likely to be changes as they are put in place, Sullivan said. “Maybe it’s brilliant and innovative,” she said. “But it just strikes me as being odd.” LOOKING FORWARD OR LOOKING BACK? There are significant questions surrounding the restructuring — including suggestions that dividing the newsroom into three parts could create fragmentation of the Post’s overall news report. Will separation into different units hinder the kind of collaboration that creates fluid multiplatform journalism? “It feels so retro — reminiscent of search engine optimization, social media and pivoting to video, just as AI and agents threaten to become a new web,” said Jeff Jarvis, Jarvis, author of “The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and its Lessons for the Age of the Internet.” Murray will be in charge of this division following the election. After that, Robert Winnett, a longtime editor at the Telegraph in England who worked with Lewis there, will take over the core reporting functions at the Post, the newspaper said. There was some concern expressed by Post staff members about three men — all of them new to a newspaper that takes some pride in journalists working their way up through the ranks and two of them British-born — being in charge at a crucial time. “In a few months, two British-born editors will be running the leading newspaper in the capital of the United States,” Farhi said. “It was kind of unimaginable a couple of months ago.” They won’t be alone. Other U.S.-based news organizations with British-born leaders included The Wall Street Journal, with editor in chief Emma Tucker; CNN, with chairman and CEO Mark Thompson; and The Associated Press, with Daisy Veerasingham as president and CEO. Lewis was also questioned about his commitment to diversity after the first woman to be the editor in charge of the Post has left. He said he was committed to it “and you’ll see it going forward,” according to the person at the meeting. Lewis has said that the Post will be experimenting with different pay tiers for digital subscriptions, for people who may be interested in particular topics or stories instead of the entire package, similar to products offered by Politico, for example. As editor, Buzbee has been beefing up the Post’s coverage on topics like cooking and climate that appeal to particular readers. Lewis has talked about searching for ways to reach millions of Americans who want to keep informed but don’t feel like traditional news products serve their needs. In one sense, efforts to make organizations like the Post and the Times more attractive to subscribers may contribute to the trends hurting local news, Farhi said. As the newspapers seek out more national and international customers, he said, they are much less likely to invest in covering local news. ___ David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.
Trump's UFC walkthrough was a sad picture of MAGA masculinity 2024-06-03 20:09:33+00:00 - Following his conviction on felony fraud charges in New York last week, Donald Trump is facing legal — potentially, even political — peril. So, it was revealing that Trump, in his first public appearance following the conviction, chose to visit a venue rich in a resource he’s long tapped for political power: ornery men with a thirst for violence. Trump’s appearance at UFC 302 over the weekend wasn’t unusual for a man who’s made similar visits in the past. But the scenes that emerged on the heels of Trump’s conviction made for a perfect distillation of MAGA masculinity, which is characterized by perpetual victimhood, bigotry and a thirst for violence. Trump entered the arena alongside UFC president and admitted wife-slapper Dana White, an avowed supporter of the former president. These two objectionable men have a well-documented history. I’ve written previously about how White has used the UFC to promote Trump to the company’s predominantly male audience. I also highlighted a Media Matters report on how White’s “Powerslap” tournament — a bizarre venture considering the condemnation he received for slapping his wife on camera — has become a gateway to introduce young viewers to conservative views. Trump’s supporters posted clips from UFC 302 over the weekend that highlight the angsty, hypermasculine energy swirling around him. Basically, it was a bunch of men gushing over him and cursing Joe Biden’s name. Homophobic fighter Sean Strickland encapsulated the vibes, whining that it’s a “damn travesty” what’s being done to Trump in New York and vowing to donate to Trump’s campaign. Trump even stopped for a public photo op with Khabib Nurmagomedov, a Russian fighter known for publicly aligning himself with homophobes and transphobes. These are important snapshots of the Trump campaign because they highlight the power center of the MAGA movement: irritable, whiny men. And it also shows how hypermasculinity, performative manhood and broader conversations around gender are playing a role in this year’s political campaigns. I’m planning to highlight more snapshots of what I call “MAGA masculinity” in the weeks ahead — everything from podcast clips to conservative articles and far-right discussion panels. I truly believe this year’s election could hinge on men’s ability to reject right-wing appeals to their oppressive, hypermasculine id. And the best way to guard against those appeals is to call them out as we see them. Stay tuned for “This week in MAGA masculinity!” A limited series.
Here's how much your summer cooling costs could increase as mercury rises 2024-06-03 20:09:00+00:00 - High temperatures will do more than beat down American bodies this summer: They'll hit their wallets hard, too. The financial burden on families of cooling their homes will jump nearly 8% across the United States, from an average cost of $661 from June through September to $719, according to projections from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) and the Center for Energy Poverty, and Climate (CEPC). "There are two components to a summer electric bill — one is the cost of fuel, and second is how much you use," CEPC director Mark Wolfe said during a press conference on Monday. The steamy temperatures are likely to have an even more acute impact on cooling costs in the Mid-Atlantic, East South Central and Pacific regions, where energy prices are forecast to increase by up to 12% this summer compared with a year ago. The rising cost of cooling your home is one of the myriad impacts of climate change on Americans, and illustrates some of the financial implications of global warming for individuals and families. Nearly 20% of low-income families lack air conditioning, which can pose a health risk in periods of high heat, according to the NEADA and CEPC report. In some cases, meanwhile, families may have AC but choose not to turn it on for fear of not being able to afford the electricity bill. "One way families cope with the high cost of cooling is they just don't use it," Wolfe said. Solutions for families that can't afford to properly cool their homes are also outdated, failing to account for the long periods of intense heat afflicting parts of the U.S. during the summer. "In less extreme situations, a family can ride out a hot day by opening their windows, taking a cool shower and hoping it cools down at night. But when the heat persists for weeks, or the outside air is dangerous, opening a window will only make things worse," the report's authors wrote. For example, cooling centers — air conditioned facilities that families can retreat to during extreme heat — often can't accommodate enough people. "You cant ask a family to go move into a cooling center. They also don't have capacity," Wolfe said. Possible remedies offered by the groups include providing bill payment assistance for low-income families. For example, in Connecticut eligible families receive a 50% discount on utility bills. The report's authors also favor rules that would prohibit utility companies from shutting off power during heat waves for households that fall behind on their utility bills. Currently, only 17 states and Washington, D.C., have such summer shutoff protections. and many are limited to specific dates.
I 'escaped' Texas for Tennessee. I loved the food and tech scene, but got tired of the heat and rising property taxes. 2024-06-03 19:57:55+00:00 - By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time by visiting our Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jim Ward, a 61-year-old who works in cybersecurity and moved from Dallas, Texas, to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2022. The essay, which also incorporates quotes from emails between Ward and BI, has been edited for length and clarity. I am not a native Texan, but I have lived there during three different time frames of my life: Houston from 1991 to 1993, Dallas from 1994 to 1995, and then Dallas again from 2002 to 2022. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Texas has never really factored into any of my life plans, but job and family situations just kept pulling me there. When I relocated to Texas in 2002, I intended to stay for only four to five years so that I could attend a graduate school program in Dallas and then move elsewhere. But my oldest had just started middle school, and had become very active in school and our church. I did not want to uproot my kids, so we stayed. Related Video After 20 years of living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, my wife and I finally escaped to Tennessee two years ago. Texas has its pros and cons Over the years, I have developed a love-hate relationship with Texas. There are definitely a lot of positives about living in the state. For instance, it has many great public schools and restaurants, especially Tex-Mex ones. And from a financial standpoint, its biggest advantage is that there is no state income tax — though that is more than offset by property taxes. There are problems though, like oppressive heat and humidity, a lack of natural beauty, and enjoyable outdoor activities. Advertisement There's also a lot of distance between key destinations, causing far drives. It's way too hot in Texas and there's not much to do One of my primary problems with Texas is its climate and weather. It gets quite hot during the summer, and throughout the year there are also severe ice and hailstorms. Sometimes it can result in periods of extended power outages during both summer and winter months. As far as geography goes, in the Dallas area, the terrain is predominantly flat with few trees. Consequently, outdoor activities are limited, and there are few opportunities for hiking and camping. Advertisement The lack of foliage also means there is minimal shade. Even activities like running are affected by the relentless heat. I always had to go early in the morning or later in the evening. That said, there are many lakes, and people do like to go boating or water skiing. Texas has a great tech scene Just about every major corporation in the US has a presence in the Dallas-Fort Worth area — all of them with their own internal technology needs. Related stories As a result, there are numerous technology companies, particularly in cities like Las Colinas and Plano. This makes DFW a great place for tech workers because there are many professional networking opportunities, such as associations, events, and conferences. Advertisement The Dallas Love Field airport. HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images While living in Texas, I had a job that required a lot of traveling. DFW's central location was a plus because it was convenient for air travel. The area has two major commercial passenger airports: Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field Airport. Depending on your destination, numerous air carriers offer direct nonstop flights to almost anywhere, greatly reducing travel time — though it may limit your frequent-flyer miles. Taxes are higher in Texas but the homes are more affordable We owned and lived in four different houses across Texas, while also investing in two houses in Irving and Fort Worth, which we rehabilitated and rented out. We sold both of those rental houses shortly before we left Texas. Advertisement The last home we owned and lived in was in Highland Village, a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth, which was our favorite. My wife and I purchased our 3,600-square-foot home in 2015, and it appreciated by 50% over six years. Our property taxes only went up by about $1,000 since we purchased our home, but were still significantly higher than in the previous states I lived in, Virginia and North Carolina. Ward's Highland Village home. Courtesy of Jim Ward The real estate market favored us when selling the Highland Village house, but we weren't as lucky when purchasing a new house in Tennessee. We ended up buying a home that was 1,000 square feet smaller but 30% more expensive than the house we sold in Texas. We chose Tennessee because our two daughters moved here. We live in a suburban area fairly close to downtown Knoxville. We're in an apartment as we wait to move into our new house. Advertisement Our quality of life has improved in Tennessee There are certainly several similarities between Tennessee and Texas, but I also see a lot of differences. For instance, while the summers can be quite hot here, the weather doesn't stay that way for long. Tennessee actually experiences all four seasons. Ward hiking on the Alum Cave Trail to Mount LeConte in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Courtesy of Jim Ward In Knoxville, there are a lot of the same amenities that you might find in a city like Dallas, but there are also a lot more outdoor activities. My wife and I have really enjoyed hiking and being near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — the trailhead is about 50 miles from our home in Knoxville. We visit the national park numerous times throughout the year. Advertisement Knoxville, Tennessee. Kevin Ruck/Shutterstock Knoxville is a sizable city, but it's nowhere near the size of Dallas or Houston, so that's been a big change. Even still, we've enjoyed living here so far. I never really enjoyed downtown Houston or Dallas. But in Knoxville, we go downtown almost every weekend — there's a lot you can do without leaving the city. It is very "walkable" and easily accessible, with numerous dining and entertainment options as well as frequent special events. We have season tickets for Broadway musicals at the Tennessee Theatre. While there are some things about Texas I miss, like the abundance of air travel options and its restaurant scene, I do wish we had moved to Tennessee a little earlier.
With AI writing so much code, should you still study computer science? This new data point provides an answer. 2024-06-03 19:57:44+00:00 - By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time by visiting our Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview One of the most persistent concerns around generative AI is whether the technology will put workers out of a job. This idea has particularly caught on in the context of software coding. Github Copilot can write a lot of code these days, so is it even worth studying computer science now? That's been a question on the minds of math-minded high schoolers since ChatGPT burst on the scene in 2022. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. There's a new data point that helps answer at least part of this question: Students are still lining up in droves to take computer science in college. An eye-popping data point Let's take The University of California Berkeley as an example, as this college at or near the top for computer science. Advertisement First-year applications to UC Berkeley's College of Computing, Data Science, and Society CDSS increased 48% this year. There were 14,302 (non-transfer) applications for these CDSS majors in the Fall 2024 incoming class, versus 9,649 the previous year. For context, the number of first-year applications to UC Berkeley as a whole didn't change much from a year earlier. Related stories This was announced last week by Professor Jennifer Chayes, the dean of Berkeley's College of CDSS. She popped these eye-popping stats during a fireside chat with Governor Gavin Newsom and Stanford Professor Fei-Fei Li at the at the Joint California Summit on Generative AI in San Francisco. There's a role for human software developers Afterwards, I got in touch with John DeNero, Computer Science Teaching Professor at UC Berkeley, to talk about this some more. Advertisement He's also chief scientist at Lilt, a generative AI startup, and he was previously a researcher at Google working on Google Translate, one of the first successful AI-powered consumer apps. "Students express some concern that generative AI will affect the software engineering job market, especially for entry-level positions, but they are still excited about careers in computing," he wrote in an email to Business Insider. "I tell them that I think many of the challenging aspects of software development can't be performed reliably by generative AI at this point, and that I expect there will still be a central role for human software developers long into the future." AI can't do new things very well Generative AI is currently very good at replicating parts of software programs that have been written many times before, DeNero explained. That includes computer science homework assignments! See BI's coverage on how much ChatGPT is used to cheat on homework. Advertisement What if you want to create something new? This is where smart human coders will still be needed. (This makes logical sense as AI models are trained on data. If that information doesn't exist yet or it's not part of the training dataset, the models often get in trouble). Generative AI "requires a lot of thoughtful human intervention to produce something new, and all consequential software development projects involve quite a bit of novelty," DeNero said. "That's the hard and interesting part of computing that currently requires clever and well-trained people." "Generative AI can speed up the more mundane parts of software development, and software developers tend to adopt efficiency tools quickly," he added. What happens at Lilt? This applies to what's happening at Lilt, which is building an AI platform for translators. Advertisement Google Translate first came out 18 years ago. And still, human linguists have jobs and are relied upon when translations are really important. For instance, you can use Google Translate to read a Japanese train timetable maybe, but would you use the app to translate your business's most important contract without having a human expert check it? Probably not. "To reliably produce publication-quality translations, human expert linguists are still at the center of the process, but by using Lilt's task-specific generative AI models, those experts are much faster, more accurate, and more consistent," DeNero said. "As a result, more text gets translated at higher quality into more languages." He expects this same pattern to play out in software development: A small team of highly trained human developers will have an even greater capacity to build useful high-quality software. "And so, future Berkeley graduates will have plenty of opportunities to use their computing skills to improve the world," DeNero said. "Hopefully some more of them will come work for Lilt."