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Thomas Matthew Crooks appeared in a 2022 BlackRock ad 2024-07-15 15:58:00+00:00 - Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman who opened fire at a Saturday rally for former President Donald Trump, once appeared in an advertisement for investment firm BlackRock, the company said Monday. The ad, which was produced in 2022, was filmed at Bethel Park High School, where Crooks was a student at the time. BlackRock filmed the spot, part of a series aimed at teachers managing their retirement assets, in a classroom led by a real teacher and which featured real students. Crooks was one of those students, BlackRock told CBS MoneyWatch. He was not paid, nor was he hired by the company as an actor. "In 2022, we ran an ad featuring a teacher from Bethel Park High School, in which several unpaid students briefly appeared in the background, including Thomas Matthew Crooks," BlackRock said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. "We will make all video footage available to the appropriate authorities, and we have removed the video from circulation out of respect for the victims." BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, also condemned the violence that took place at the Trump rally over the weekend. "The assassination attempt on former President Trump is abhorrent. We're thankful former President Trump wasn't seriously injured and thinking about all the innocent bystanders and victims of this awful act, especially the person who was killed," BlackRock said in a statement. The company added that it "condemns political violence of any kind." The Secret Service fatally shot Crooks, whose motive for opening fire remains unknown. The FBI is investigating the shooting as an assassination attempt.
Massive Breakout: This ETF Signals Big Gains for Small-Cap Stocks 2024-07-15 15:55:00+00:00 - The iShares Russell 2000 ETF NYSE: IWM experienced a significant breakout above multi-year resistance last week, sparked by the release of the CPI inflation data on Thursday. This move was one of the most eye-opening events of the week, drawing significant attention to small-cap stocks. Get Joby Aviation alerts: Sign Up IWM's Impressive Rally iShares Russell 2000 ETF Today IWM iShares Russell 2000 ETF $217.19 +4.05 (+1.90%) 52-Week Range $161.67 ▼ $218.24 Dividend Yield 1.22% Assets Under Management $65.49 billion Add to Watchlist The iShares Russell 2000 ETF posted an impressive weekly gain of 6.11%, driven by lower-than-expected June inflation data. The CPI declined by 0.1% from May, putting the 12-month rate at 3%, around its lowest level in over three years, the Labor Department reported Thursday. This fueled speculation of potential interest rate cuts. This performance underscores a significant market shift, with interest rate-sensitive small and mid-cap stocks benefiting as investors redirect inflows away from mega-tech names into the broader market. Impact of Cooling Inflation on iShares Russell 2000 ETF The iShares Russell 2000 ETF seeks to match the price and yield performance of the Russell 2000 Index, which measures the performance of the smallest 2,000 issuers in the Russell 3000 Index. These small-cap stocks represent the smaller segment of the U.S. equity market. The recent surge in the Russell 2000 was driven by the latest inflation report from the Labor Department, showing an unexpected decline in consumer prices in June. This cooling inflation has increased market expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut in September. Lower borrowing costs are particularly beneficial for small-cap companies, which often have higher floating debt levels than larger firms. There is an increased urgency to raise capital to fuel growth and, in some cases, cover operational expenses when they are pre-revenue. Small Caps Breakout and Leading IWM Performers The IWM broke above its major $210 resistance zone, which has held firm since 2022. The ETF closed the week with a 6.11% gain at $213.14, confirming the breakout and signaling a significant sentiment and trend shift. If the IWM continues to consolidate above prior resistance, turning it into support, a more stable and higher timeframe trend could emerge, potentially leading to market outperformance for the remainder of the year. IWM holdings have an aggregate rating of Moderate Buy based on 398 analyst ratings covering 48 companies (12.5% of the portfolio). The aggregate price target for these holdings is $218.95, ranging from $169.38 to $262.21, forecasting just 2.7% upside. Several IWM holdings experienced notable gains last week. Here are just five of the standout movers: 1. Enovix Corporation NASDAQ: ENVX: Closed the week up over 13%, with significant upward momentum in recent months. This small-cap company has a high short interest of nearly 30%. Enovix Co. (ENVX) Price Chart for Monday, July, 15, 2024 2. Aurora Innovation NASDAQ: AUR: The stock surged over 26% last week. The $5.74 billion company trades above all major moving averages and has broken its downtrend. Aurora Innovation, Inc. (AUR) Price Chart for Monday, July, 15, 2024 3. Lantheus Holdings NASDAQ: LNTH: LNTH, a healthcare company with an $8.5 billion market capitalization, was one of the top-performing IWM members last week as shares surged over 56%. The significant gain came after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a proposed rule that would boost the Medicare reimbursement rate for diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals. Lantheus Holdings, Inc. (LNTH) Price Chart for Monday, July, 15, 2024 4. Sunrun Inc NASDAQ: RUN: This $3.8 billion company was one of the top performers of the IWM, soaring over 40% last week and breaking above its downtrend resistance. The stock saw a significant increase in trading volume on Thursday and Friday, adding to its momentum and breakout. Sunrun Inc. (RUN) Price Chart for Monday, July, 15, 2024 5. Joby Aviation NYSE: JOBY: This industrial company with a $4.6 billion market capitalization surged almost 28% last week. The positive momentum and surge came after the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) company reported a new milestone for its aircraft, completing a massive 523-mile-long eVTOL flight. Joby Aviation, Inc. (JOBY) Price Chart for Monday, July, 15, 2024 The breakout in the IWM and the strong performance of its holdings highlight the potential for continued gains in the small-cap sector, especially as inflation cools and the Federal Reserve considers rate cuts. Investors should watch for continued strength and consolidation above key resistance levels in the coming weeks. Before you consider Joby Aviation, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Joby Aviation wasn't on the list. While Joby Aviation currently has a "Moderate Buy" rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. View The Five Stocks Here
Trump Media stock price surges after assassination attempt seen as boosting Donald Trump's reelection odds 2024-07-15 15:51:00+00:00 - Trump Media & Technology Group's stock price soared 32% in Monday trading as Wall Street recalculated the odds of former President Donald Trump succeeding in his reelection campaign following Saturday's failed assassination attempt. The company, which owns the Truth Social platform, jumped $9.98 to $40.87 in morning trading. The jump reverses a six-week slump in Trump Media shares, which have exhibited volatile trading patterns since going public in March. Trump Media — whose ticker symbol, "DJT," is the same as the former president's initials — is viewed by some as a so-called meme stock because its wild swings are influenced largely by social media enthusiasm rather than the business fundamentals that investors typically look for, such as profit and revenue growth. The failed assassination attempt could bolster Trump's odds in the November presidential election, with The Economist's prediction model now giving Trump a 3 in 4 chance of winning, experts said. "[T]he events of the past few weeks — Joe Biden's shockingly poor debate performance, followed by Saturday's attempted assassination of Donald Trump — all but guarantee a strong Republican performance in November's U.S. elections," Louis Vincent Gave, CEO of investment research firm Gavekal, said in a report. Trump's wealth soars after shooting Monday morning's jump in Trump Media's shares adds about $1.9 billion to its market value, pushing its capitalization to $7.8 billion, according to financial data company FactSet. The value of Trump's stake — the former president is the company's largest shareholder, with 114 million shares — ballooned by $1.2 billion, putting his stake at $4.7 billion. The surge now gives the fledgling social media company a market capitalization that rivals many established businesses, such as U.S. Steel, which booked $4.2 billion in revenue in the first quarter. Trump Media, by comparison, had sales of $770,500 in the same period. Many of Trump Media's shareholders are small investors who have bought the stock to express their support for the former president. For that reason, some Wall Street observers have noted that the company tends to act as a barometer of Trump's reelection odds. On Truth Social, members of a group focused on DJT shares on Monday morning speculated that the stock could continue to gain steam following Saturday's shooting. Some speculated that investors who have shorted the stock could be caught in a so-called "short squeeze," or when short sellers must purchase shares to cover their position when a company's shares soar, rather than fall, as they had bet. "Don't even think about selling yet ... this is just the beginning," one member of the group wrote on Monday morning. Another added, "If you don't own DJT, you are not a patriot."
Goldman Sachs raises banker pay and bonuses after 150% surge in quarterly profit 2024-07-15 15:51:00+00:00 - Goldman Sachs has increased banker pay including bonuses by 17% after profits more than doubled in the second quarter, following a rebound in dealmaking. The Wall Street firm said it spent $4.2bn (£3.2bn) on compensation and benefits for its 45,300 staff in the three months to June, up almost a fifth from the same period last year. That figure accounts for salaries and pensions, as well as the amount being put aside for individual bonuses that are distributed at the end of the financial year. Overall, Goldman has spent $8.8bn on compensation and benefits for staff since January, which the bank said reflected “improved operating performance”. Financial filings show that Goldman’s profits surged 150% to $3bn in the second quarter, up from $1.2bn last year. Profits were boosted by a jump in business deals, with its investment bankers helping guide firms through a fresh wave of mergers and takeovers. That includes ExxonMobil’s $60bn takeover of Pioneer Natural Resources in May, for which Goldman acted as a broker alongside the rival banks Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, David Solomon, said: “We are pleased with our solid second-quarter results and our overall performance in the first half of the year, reflecting strong year-on-year growth in both global banking and markets and asset and wealth management.” Investment bankers are emerging from a two-year slump in dealmaking, which was affected by high borrowing rates and economic uncertainty. A brighter economic outlook, as well as expectations that the Bank of England and US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, has boosted demand for services from banks such as Goldman Sachs. That is likely to translate into larger bonuses, including for Goldman’s 6,000 UK staff, who will no longer be bound by a banker bonus cap that previously limited bonuses to twice the individual’s salary. The UK bonus cap was originally part of changes introduced after the 2007-08 banking crash, and aimed to stamp out a bonus culture blamed for encouraging short-term profits over longer-term stability. Prior to Labour’s general election victory, the incoming chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said the party had no plans to reinstate the banker bonus cap. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Richard Gnodde, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs International, announced in May that the bank would be changing its pay structure, giving hundreds of its highest-earning staff the ability to make 25 times their salaries in bonuses.
Burberry must end emphasis on shock factor and focus on being loved again 2024-07-15 15:36:00+00:00 - Burberry has blessings that other brands would kill for. Everyone knows what a Burberry trenchcoat is, and pretty much everyone would be thrilled to have one. Burberry is a household name at a time when shoppers buying luxuries prize a prestige brand more than anything else. It is one of the elite labels that have meaning in the world of power and status, not only fashion. In the trenchcoat – a perennial wardrobe classic – it owns prized real estate on the Monopoly board of luxury. (Consider how much mileage Gucci makes out of owning the loafer.) It has 168 years of heritage, and a bone-deep authenticity as the outfitter of Scott and Shackleton. It makes coats that last a lifetime, which chimes with modern values of sustainability. It stands for Britishness and quality. Success should, surely, be an open goal. Fashion is seldom that simple, however, and Burberry’s advantages are also its problems. It is a coat brand in a world where bags and shoes, not clothes, are cash cows. It is synonymous with Britishness, leaving it beached and disconnected from the continental powerhouses of Paris and Milan. Burberry’s fashion glory days were under the designer Christopher Bailey, who over the course of almost two decades transformed it from a reliable but dull coat maker into a style powerhouse. Bailey grabbed British cultural references that spoke to a broad audience – the Beatles, Princess Margaret, David Hockney, Marianne Faithfull – to create a look that was aspirational but accessible, classy without being snobbish. View image in fullscreen Burberry is a coat brand in a world where bags and shoes, not clothes, are cash cows. Photograph: Patrick Riviere/Getty Images By packing his front rows with politicians and rappers, as well as actors and supermodels, he gave Burberry a context in culture. He popped the collar on the trenchcoat, streamlined it into a more flattering silhouette, and built out the colour palette from boring beige into soft neutrals. Bailey’s successors, the Italian designer Riccardo Tisci and, since 2022, the Yorkshire-born Daniel Lee, have attempted to take Burberry in a different direction – cooler, haughtier, edgier. Fickle consumers had grown tired of the cosy Burberry world that Bailey had built, and Tisci, who had enjoyed stellar success as a pioneer of luxury streetwear at Givenchy, believed he could bring the same magic to British shores. But neither Tisci nor Lee have found a way to join the dots between avant garde catwalk looks and what consumers want from Burberry. In recent seasons Burberry has taken the audience deliberately outside their comfort zone, with shows staged in huge tents in London parks with utilitarian stuffed bench seating and dark lighting. The vibe is one part explorers’ base camp, one part festival dance tent. The emphasis is on the shock – rather than the feelgood – factor. Burberry needs to create clothes – and, crucially, bags and shoes – that make fashion fall in love with the brand again. That the shake-up announced on Monday brings in Joshua Schulman – an alumnus of Coach and Michael Kors, the home of friendly-looking, accessible-level designer bags – as chief executive speaks to a change of direction. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Lee is a highly talented designer, with an instinct for the zeitgeist that led to him transforming Bottega Veneta from a relatively obscure Milanese house into an Instagram sensation, before he took on Burberry. A trench with soft scallop edging, a rugged parka lined in a deep olive version of the Burberry check, a storm-collared leather jacket, are just three from a lineup of extremely desirable pieces in his most recent show. But in aiming for cool, his Burberry sometimes ends up feeling chilly and sullen. Warm reviews mean nothing if the people aren’t buying it. In fashion, the customer is always right.
Major Gaming Stock to Watch: Why It's a Safe Bet Now 2024-07-15 15:16:00+00:00 - International Game Technology Today IGT International Game Technology $21.15 +0.30 (+1.44%) 52-Week Range $18.90 ▼ $33.99 Dividend Yield 3.78% P/E Ratio 20.14 Price Target $28.00 Add to Watchlist International Gaming Technology PLC NYSE: IGT provides worldwide electronic gambling, gaming, and lottery products and services. It’s well known for providing most of the slot machines in Las Vegas in the pre-pandemic era. The company has expanded to include digital games through its PlayDigital segment in addition to its Global Gaming and Global Lottery segments. PlayDigital develops online and mobile casino games in established regulated markets. They also partner with established land-based casinos and online gaming operators to include PlayDigital games on their platforms. In February, the company announced a complicated deal to split its Lottery and Gaming divisions. IGT operates in the consumer discretionary sector, competing with Light & Wonder Inc. NASDAQ: LNW, Playtech PLC OTCMKTS: PYTCY and DraftKings Inc. NASDAQ: DKNG. Get IGT alerts: Sign Up Deciphering IGT’s Division Split with Everi IGT announced a division split on Feb 29, 2024, between its lottery segment and gaming segments. Its Global Gaming and PlayDigital, which includes online casinos, iGaming and sports betting products, will be split from its Lottery segment. The two gaming divisions will be merged with Everi Holdings Inc. NYSE: EVRI, a rival gaming technology company, to form a new entity under the International Gaming Technology name and stock symbol in a $6.2 billion deal. Existing IGT shareholders will own 54% of the combined gaming company and Everi shareholders will hold the remaining 46%. The lottery business will change its name and receive a new stock symbol. The businesses will be separated through a taxable spin-off to IGT investors and merged with Everi. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2024 to early 2025. The lottery unit recently closed a 7-year deal with the Colorado lottery. The Goal of the Spin-Off Merger The goals for the transaction are clear. Management has felt that the market has undervalued the company's intrinsic value for too long. It also wants to ensure clarity of focus between the divisions so the lottery business can focus on lotteries and the gaming divisions focus on games. The confusing part of the deal is that the new entity will still trade under the IGT stock symbol and keep the International Gaming Technology name but merge with Everi to become a powerhouse gaming company. The lottery unit will also trade as an independent public company on the NYSE under a new stock symbol and a new name. IGT Stock is in a Descending Triangle Pattern The daily candlestick chart on IGT is in a descending triangle pattern. This pattern is comprised of a falling upper trendline connecting the lower highs on bounces, meeting the flat-bottom horizontal lower trendline at $19.80 at the apex. As time wears on, the trading channel between the upper and lower trendlines gets smaller until an imminent breakout through the upper trendline or breakdown through the lower trendline forms. The daily relative strength index (RSI) bounced to the 59-band as bulls attempted to break out again. Pullback support levels are at $19.80, $18.90, $17.52 and $16.46. Growth Slowing IGT reported Q1 2024 EPS of 46 cents, beating consensus analyst expectations by 15 cents. Revenues rose 1% YoY to $1.07 billion, beating $1.03 consensus estimates. The strength was carried mostly by its Lottery segment, which was partially offset by its gaming and digital product sales. Operating income of $256 million was in line with the year-ago period. Operating margin exceeded expectations by 400 bps at 24%. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 41.5% on its adjusted EBITDA of $443 million. Raising Full Year 2024 Forecasts International Game Technology MarketRank™ Stock Analysis Overall MarketRank™ 3.90 out of 5 Analyst Rating Moderate Buy Upside/Downside 32.4% Upside Short Interest Healthy Dividend Strength Moderate Sustainability -0.34 News Sentiment 0.00 Insider Trading N/A Projected Earnings Growth 30.72% See Full Details Based on its robust Q1 2024 performance, IGT raised its full-year 2024 revenue guidance to $4.4 billion, beating consensus estimates of $4.36 billion. However, Q2 2024 revenue expectations were soft at $1.05 billion versus $1.09 billion consensus estimates. IGT CEO Vince Sadusky commented, "Innovative game, hardware, and systems solutions drove better-than-expected Global Lottery and Gaming & Digital performance in the first quarter.” Sadusky concludes, "As a result, we are upgrading our full-year 2024 revenue and profit goals, which reflect broad-based momentum across key performance indicators in the balance of the year. We continue to make progress on separating Global Lottery from Gaming & Digital and preparing for the proposed transaction with Everi." International Gaming Technology analyst ratings and price targets are at MarketBeat. The consensus analyst price target of $28.00 implies a 24.3% upside. There are six analyst ratings for IGT comprised of four Buys and two Holds. Before you consider International Game Technology, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and International Game Technology wasn't on the list. While International Game Technology currently has a "Moderate Buy" rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. View The Five Stocks Here
Trading Free-Market Ideals for Protectionism, G.O.P. Goes Full Trump 2024-07-15 15:12:35+00:00 - Donald J. Trump’s presidency was a major turn away from the Republican Party’s long embrace of free-market economics. If the Republican platform is any indication, a second Trump term would be a near-complete abandonment. The 2024 platform, which was released last week and is expected to infuse the Republican National Convention that starts in Milwaukee on Monday, promises action on what have become Mr. Trump’s signature issues: It pledges to pump up tariffs, encourage American manufacturing and deport immigrants at a scale that has never been seen before. What it lacks are policy ideas that have long been dear to economic conservatives. The platform does not directly mention fiscal deficits, and, apart from curbing government spending, it does not make any clear and detailed promises to rein in the nation’s borrowing. Other policies it proposes — including cutting taxes and expanding the military — would most likely swell the nation’s debt. The Republican platform also does not mention exports or encouraging trade. And while the document insists that the party will lower inflation, long a pertinent issue for economic conservatives, it fails to lay out a realistic plan for doing that. Chapter One of the document, titled “Defeat Inflation and Quickly Bring Down All Prices,” suggests that oil-friendly policies, slashed government spending, decreased regulation, fewer immigrants and restored geopolitical stability will lower price increases. But few economists agree.
AI-Powered Insurance Disruptor: This Stock Is a Growth Machine 2024-07-15 15:00:00+00:00 - Lemonade Today LMND Lemonade $20.64 +1.05 (+5.36%) 52-Week Range $10.27 ▼ $24.81 Price Target $18.86 Add to Watchlist The insurance industry is being rattled by fintech disruptors like Lemonade Inc. NYSE: LMND. Critics will say that underwriting policies are an art form and that human actuaries and adjusters can’t be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI). Insurance policies are best drawn up face-to-face with an actual agent. Lemonade is trying to prove otherwise. Compared to industry giants, Lemonade’s revenues are a drop in the bucket. However, their operating model, which relies heavily on leveraging AI, may become the new paradigm. Investors should take note as Lemonade moves closer to cash flow breakeven, which was just bumped up by a quarter. Lemonade operates in the finance sector and competes with insurers like The Allstate Co. NYSE: ALL, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. NYSE: BRK.B, and Root Inc. NASDAQ: ROOT, which operates a direct-to-consumer (DTC) model. Get Lemonade alerts: Sign Up Lemonade is Growing Its Portfolio of Coverage Potential customers can conveniently onboard with a Lemonade insurance plan in a matter of minutes through its mobile app. The variety of insurance products, including homeowners, renters, car, term life, and pet insurance, continues to expand. Customers can enjoy additional savings by bundling these insurance products. Lemonade thrives on convenience and lower rates to lure customers to try their policies and continue to add on and bundle them. Here’s How Lemonade Leverages AI Users of Lemonade come in contact with AI immediately when applying for coverage or placing a claim. Its AI chatbot, Maya, walks users through the steps towards completion and onboarding. Numerous factors determine premiums, and 50 machine learning (ML) models are used to analyze the customer. It uses predictive analytics to determine if they will buy, churn, cross-sell, or file claims. AI algorithms analyze customer data and property information to assess risks and provide personalized quotes. When claims are filed, AI analyzes photos and damage reports to automate claims assessment and expedite payouts for simple cases while kicking up more complex cases to its human adjusters. AI is used to streamline operations and offer a more efficient experience. The company also focuses on social good, which appeals to millennials and Gen-Z-ers. LMND Stock Triggers an Inverse Head and Shoulders Breakout The daily candlestick chart on LMND illustrates an inverse head and shoulders breakout pattern. This is comprised of three valleys that share a neckline, which serves as the breakout trigger. The left shoulder formed at $15.95 on May 23, 2024, and touched the neckline on a pullback before bottoming to form the head at $14.03 on June 17, 2024. The pullback occurred, retesting the neckline before forming the right shoulder at $15.95. The neckline breakout was triggered on July 8, 2024, through the $16.60 neckline as shares roared toward the $20.19 swing high. The daily relative strength index (RSI) surged through the 80-band. Pullback support levels are at $16.92, $15.95, $15.05, and $14.03. Lemonade's Q1 2024 Results: Setting the Stage for Future Growth Lemonade reported a Q1 2024 EPS loss of 67 cents, beating consensus estimates by 14 cents. Revenues rose 25.1% YoY to $119.1 million, exceeding expectations of $114.13 million. In-force premiums (IFP) grew 22% YoY as total revenues rose 25% YoY. IFPs are the total value of premiums associated with active policies helped by customers. The gross loss ratio was 79% versus 87% a year ago. This metric measures profitability by comparing the total amount paid out in claims to the total amount of premiums collected. The lower the gross loss ratio, the more profitable the insurer may be since they are paying less in claims than the premiums coming in. Gross loss ratio focuses on underwriting profitability. Lemonade's Mixed Guidance for Q2 and 2024 Lemonade MarketRank™ Stock Analysis Overall MarketRank™ 2.46 out of 5 Analyst Rating Reduce Upside/Downside 8.6% Downside Short Interest Bearish Dividend Strength N/A Sustainability -0.76 News Sentiment 1.00 Insider Trading Acquiring Shares Projected Earnings Growth Growing See Full Details For Q2 2024, Lemonade issued lower guidance of $118 million to $120 million versus $123.05 consensus estimates. IFP is expected to be between $839 million and $841 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected around a loss of $49 million to $47 million versus a loss of $33.9 million in its prior quarter. Lemonade provided in-line guidance for full-year 2024 with revenues between $511 million and $515 million. IFP is expected to be between $940 million and $944 million. Full-year Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be a loss of $155 million to $151 million, better than previous expectations for a loss of $160 million to $155 million. IFP is expected to be between $940 million and $944 million, up from earlier estimates of $938 million to $938 million and $942 million. Achieving Cash Flow Breakeven: Lemonade's Strategic Progress Lemonade has revised its expectations for reaching cash flow breakeven, now anticipating this milestone by the end of 2024, ahead of its previous guidance for the first half of 2025. Lemonade CEO Dan Schrieber commented, “In fact, we're happy to update that we now project the net cash flow positive by the end of this year. This acceleration in our cash flow profitability is made possible by a couple of factors, the most notable being how technology, in general, and AI, in particular, continue to deliver on the promise at the very core of Lemonade's thesis. This quarter, for example, saw a 22% top-line growth but only a 2% increase in operating expense and an 11% decrease in headcount, all of these metrics year-on-year.“ Lemonade analyst ratings and price targets are at MarketBeat. Before you consider Lemonade, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Lemonade wasn't on the list. While Lemonade currently has a "Reduce" rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. View The Five Stocks Here
Caterpillar Factory in Mexico Draws Complaint of Labor Abuses 2024-07-15 14:48:59+00:00 - Over the past few years, as major manufacturers have announced plans to ramp up production in Mexico, labor unions have raised concerns that American jobs will be sent abroad. Now, the concerns have prompted the United Automobile Workers union, a prominent backer of President Biden, to criticize an administration decision not to pursue accusations of labor abuses by a Mexican subsidiary of Caterpillar, the agriculture equipment maker. In late June, the administration informed a group of unions that it would not pursue a complaint that the subsidiary had retaliated against striking union members by making it difficult for them to find alternative employment, a form of blacklisting. The government’s ability to police such violations, under a provision of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, is meant to reduce the incentive for American employers to move jobs to Mexico in search of weaker labor protections. The U.A.W. argues that, by declining to use its authority under the trade agreement in this case, the Biden administration may be encouraging companies to relocate work.
Why Consumer Stock Is Citigroup Analysts' Top Choice Right Now 2024-07-15 14:18:00+00:00 - It’s no secret that most of the market’s attention has been centered around the technology sector, especially in stocks dealing with the advancement and global adoption of artificial intelligence, names like NVIDIA Co. NASDAQ: NVDA and even Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing NYSE: TSM. While these stocks have outperformed this year, investors should focus on the road ahead. Procter & Gamble Today PG Procter & Gamble $164.58 -2.03 (-1.22%) 52-Week Range $141.45 ▼ $169.41 Dividend Yield 2.45% P/E Ratio 26.89 Price Target $171.74 Add to Watchlist That road may have a different sector in mind for the market’s attention, and it won’t be the exciting tech names or even pending patents for a biotech stock. This time, Wall Street is starting to favor a rotation out of technology and consumer discretionary names into the consumer staples sector, providing investors with more stability and predictable cash flows. Get Unilever alerts: Sign Up To prove this trend, analysts at Citigroup recently boosted their price targets for Procter & Gamble Co. NYSE: PG up to $190 a share, where they previously valued the stock at $177 a share, so that’s a boost of 7.3% roughly. While it may not be as aggressive as the boosts and price action of the shiny stocks taking over the S&P 500 today, it is worthy of investor attention considering the company’s $393.2 billion market capitalization. Why Today's Economy Calls for Stocks Like Procter & Gamble Not many know what is happening in the U.S. economy today, but economists have dreaded it since the last time it happened, in the 1970s. That condition is called stagflation, and it’s a sticky one, making the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed) job a lot harder than it already is. Why? Well, this condition is defined as low economic growth with high inflation. The last quarter of U.S. GDP growth was revised to only 1.3%, while inflation came in above 3%. This means that investors need to look for businesses that can provide not only above-inflation and GDP growth but also stability in a shaky economic environment. Procter & Gamble MarketRank™ Stock Analysis Overall MarketRank™ 4.20 out of 5 Analyst Rating Moderate Buy Upside/Downside 4.3% Upside Short Interest Healthy Dividend Strength Strong Sustainability -3.23 News Sentiment 0.82 Insider Trading Selling Shares Projected Earnings Growth 6.41% See Full Details That’s where Procter & Gamble stock comes into play. Because the company’s products are not highly exposed to the business cycle and the ebbs and flows of the manufacturing or services PMI indexes, it provides the stability and predictability investors should look for during economic environments like today’s. Whether the economy is booming or busting, free cash flow (operating cash flow minus capital expenditures) will carry investors through, and that’s how Procter & Gamble’s advantages can be quantified through the company’s financials. Starting with margins, Procter & Gamble operates under a 51.5% gross margin, which makes sense since the company’s products are monopolized, and there aren’t many options to replace them. This pricing power and market share trickles down into net margins of 18%, enabling management to retain more capital to reinvest and keep the business expansion plans underway. Investors can double-check this fact by noticing a return on invested capital (ROIC) rate of 21.2%, which is where the compounding capabilities of Procter & Gamble stock will be found. Over the long term, annual stock price performance tends to follow the average ROIC rate, which investors can use to pinpoint a stock’s potential to beat inflation and GDP growth. How the Market Views Procter & Gamble Stock Right Now Starting with price action as a gauge, investors can assume that the overall market is behind the same trend that Citigroup analysts spotted, as the stock now trades at 98% of its 52-week high. More than that, investors can compare Procter & Gamble to other stocks in the staples space, like Clorox Co. NYSE: CLX and Unilever NYSE: UL. Investors can compare valuation metrics and spot which company is commanding the most premium in the sector, or at least compared to its peers. On a forward P/E basis, Procter & Gamble stock trades at a 23.9x valuation, placing it above its peers. Since Clorox stock trades at a 23.1x multiple and Unilever trades at 19.6x, these peers are trading at a discount of 10% and 24%, respectively. The same trend remains in the price-to-sales (P/S) ratio: Procter & Gamble trades at 4.6x today, while Clorox and Unilever trade at 2.3x and 2.6x. Stocks trade at a premium to peers for a good reason, especially when large capitalization stocks are being compared. To crystalize the further upside ahead of Procter & Gamble stock, Guinness Asset Management (Procter & Gamble’s largest shareholder) boosted its stake by 0.4% as of July 2024. While this may not seem much on percentage terms, this boost brought the asset manager’s net investment to $187 million today. The Procter & Gamble Company (PG) Price Chart for Monday, July, 15, 2024 Before you consider Unilever, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Unilever wasn't on the list. While Unilever currently has a "Hold" rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. View The Five Stocks Here
AI Race Intensifies: Major Acquisition Shakes Up the Market 2024-07-15 14:05:00+00:00 - Advanced Micro Devices Today AMD Advanced Micro Devices $179.83 -1.78 (-0.98%) 52-Week Range $93.11 ▼ $227.30 P/E Ratio 264.46 Price Target $192.47 Add to Watchlist Fabless semiconductor developer Advanced Micro Devices Inc. NASDAQ: AMD stock had been largely unresponsive during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom as its shares peaked at $227.30 on March 8, 2024. On the other hand, rival NVIDIA Co. NASDAQ: NVDA has taken all the spotlight, hitting all-time highs and rocketing 36%. The market made its verdict, casting AMD as a deep laggard regarding AI chips. However, this lack of interest may soon conclude as AMD regains momentum again on news of its acquisition Silo AI. Advanced Micro Devices operates in the computer and technology sector and competes with rival semiconductor companies, including NVIDIA, Intel Co. NASDAQ: INTC, Qualcomm Inc. NASDAQ: QCOM and International Business Machines Co. NYSE: IBM. Get Unilever alerts: Sign Up Is AMD The Rodney Dangerfield of AI Chips? The iconic comedian Rodney Dangerfield was famous for his catch line, purporting he got "No respect." AMD is in a similar boat when it comes to AI chips. Even despite news that major hyperscaler customers include Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META), Microsoft Co. NASDAQ: MSFT, and Oracle Co. NYSE: ORCL, the market doesn’t place them in the same boat as NVIDIA. In fact, all 3 of the aforementioned hyperscalers are also major customers for NVIDIA. It appears that due to the backlog of NVIDIA H100 GPUs, AMD is getting some overflow business as hyperscalers want choice. At the Microsoft Build conference, AMD showcased its end-to-end computer capabilities for Microsoft developers and customers. These included AMD Instinct MI300X accelerators, ROCm open software, Ryzen AI processing, and Alveo MA35D media accelerator to provide a powerful suite of tools for AI-based deployments. ARM Versus x86 Architecture In addition to the more than 90% market share that NVIDIA commands in the AI chip space, it also uses the Arm Holdings plc NASDAQ: ARM ARM architecture versus x86 architecture with AMD chips. With the latest Armv9 rollout, its architecture is more versatile and power efficient than the Intel-based x86. This is why Apple Inc. NASDAQ: AAPL also switched from the x86 to the ARM architecture. Does the Silo AI Acquisition Buy AMD the Respect It Needs with Investors? On July 10, 2024, AMD announced the acquisition of Silo AI for $665 million in cash. Silo AI is Europe’s largest private AI lab. The company has over 200 successful innovations and more than 125 AI scientists with PhDs. The company accelerates the development and deployment of AMD-power AI models and software solutions to enhance training and inference on AMD compute platforms. Silo AI develops state-of-the-art large language models (LLMs). Silo AI works with every vertical, from energy to automotive, and is expected to fortify AMD's AI business meaningfully. Past customers of Silo AI include Unilever plc NYSE: UL, developing a machine learning (ML) tool to improve packaging efficiency, and Intel for quality control technology. In other words, AMD has finally addressed the software void regarding AI, which could improve sentiment in its stock. Silo AI will become part of AMD's AI Group. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2024. AMD Completes a Daily Cup Pattern The AMD candlestick chart completed a cup pattern. The cup lip line formed at $187.11 on April 1, 2024, before shares fell to a low of $141.16 on May 2, 2024. AMD shares staged a rally back to $174.55 and pulled back to $153.64 support. AMD surged back to retest the cup lip line hitting multi-month highs after releasing news of its deal to acquire Silo AI. The daily relative strength index (RSI) initially tested the 70-band but hasn’t been able to burst through it. Pullback support levels are at $174.55, $162.00, $153.74, and $141.16. AMD Hasn’t Felt Major Tailwinds from AI, Yet Advanced Micro Devices MarketRank™ Stock Analysis Overall MarketRank™ 4.02 out of 5 Analyst Rating Moderate Buy Upside/Downside 6.6% Upside Short Interest Healthy Dividend Strength N/A Sustainability -1.97 News Sentiment 0.78 Insider Trading Selling Shares Projected Earnings Growth 68.20% See Full Details In its Q1 2024 earnings release, AMD reported EPS of 62 cents, which met consensus expectations. Revenues rose just 2.2% YoY to $5.47 billion, missing the consensus estimates of $5.8 billion. AMD's Data Center segment revenues rose 80% YoY to $2.3 billion, driven by AMD Instinct GPUS and 4th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs. The Client segment revenues grew 85% YoY, driven by AMD Ryzen 8000 chips, but fell 6% sequentially. The Gaming segment revenues tanked 48% YoY and 33% sequentially to $922 million due to a decrease in semi-customer revenue and lower AMD Radeon GPU sales. Guidance was also in line for Q2, with revenue expected between $5.4 billion and $6 billion versus $5.73 billion consensus estimates. This caused AMD shares to sell off to the $141.16 swing low. AMD analyst ratings and price targets are at MarketBeat. The consensus analyst price target of $191.00 implies a 5.17% upside. There are 30 analyst ratings comprised of 27 Buys and three Holds. Before you consider Unilever, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Unilever wasn't on the list. While Unilever currently has a "Hold" rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. View The Five Stocks Here
3 Stocks Ready to Pop When the Fed Cuts Interest Rates 2024-07-15 13:47:00+00:00 - The June CPI was much better than expected and has the broad market set up to rally over the next six to 12 months. The rally is driven by the expectation for FOMC interest rate cuts, which will reduce the cost of money and reinvigorate the bull market, assuming no recession unfolds. While most stocks should see the benefit of lower rates, specific sectors, industries, and stocks are in better positions. Among them are small and mid-caps, viewed as more agile and able to make quicker shifts, consumer-oriented names, and anything with exposure to credit conditions. Get Ford Motor alerts: Sign Up Home Builders Business Will Only Get Better KB Home Today KBH KB Home $76.61 +0.48 (+0.63%) 52-Week Range $42.11 ▼ $78.19 Dividend Yield 1.31% P/E Ratio 10.13 Price Target $71.63 Add to Watchlist The housing market is among the most impacted by high rates. High rates and rising costs have home buyers on the sidelines despite the historically high demand. The situation has the home builders in the catbird seat because people who want or need to move have virtually no choice but to seek new construction. That dynamic has home builders in a growth phase that lower rates will accelerate. Lower rates will reduce the cost of borrowing, lower monthly payments for new homeowners, and widen the market for builders and buyers. The takeaway is that homebuilders generate robust cash flow, improve their balance sheets (which are in historically strong positions), and build leverage for their investors, including capital returns, dividends, and share repurchases. The CPI data itself was enough to catalyze these stocks. Names like KB Home NYSE: KBH, D.R. Horton NYSE: DHI, and Lennar NYSE: LEN gained an average of 13.5% on the news, with KB Home setting a new high. KB Home is the U.S. 6th largest home builder and rated a consensus of Hold by thirteen analysts. The analysts are in an upgrade cycle, issuing eleven price target revisions this year, ten of them higher. The stock is outpacing the increase in the consensus, but its price is being led to the high end of the analysts' range. The next catalyst for this market will be the FQ3 results scheduled for mid-September. Analysts forecast a return to sequential and YoY growth with a solid margin. Home Improvement Stocks Will Shine, Too Williams-Sonoma Today WSM Williams-Sonoma $154.87 -3.73 (-2.35%) 52-Week Range $62.11 ▼ $174.26 Dividend Yield 1.46% P/E Ratio 19.01 Price Target $131.06 Add to Watchlist A home building and sales boost will reinvigorate the home improvement market. Not only will new homeowners and builders need to buy supplies and decor, but the homeowners who choose to stay put will also have easier access to those same supplies, fueling a remodeling cycle to go with the housing boom. This has names from Home Depot NYSE: HD and Lowe’s Companies NYSE: LOW to Sherwin-Williams NYSE: SHW and Williams-Sonoma NYSE: WSM moving higher. Stocks on this list advanced 7.5% to 13.5% on the CPI news, led by Williams-Sonoma. Williams-Sonoma is a high-quality retailer with several advantages. Its clientele is more affluent and less impacted by higher rates, so it is better positioned to spend more on its homes when the economic shift begins. It is also among the best-run companies on Wall Street. CEO Laura Alber has focused on profitable growth, quality margin, and shareholder value, resulting in significant cash flow, FCF, capital return, and shareholder value increases. Highlights from the latest report include a historically high margin, a 4x cash build, a 2% reduction in average share count, 0.05x leverage, and a 50% increase in shareholder equity. Lower Rates Will Unstick the Car Market Ford Motor Today F Ford Motor $14.23 +0.20 (+1.43%) 52-Week Range $9.63 ▼ $14.63 Dividend Yield 4.22% P/E Ratio 14.67 Price Target $14.10 Add to Watchlist Auto sales have been sluggish since 2020 but are on track to boom once interest rates are lowered. Stocks like Ford Motor Company NYSE: F, gaining share from its most significant rival, General Motors NYSE: GM, are in a good position to benefit. Its business is growing today and is expected to accelerate over the next few quarters. However, the forecasts for next year are light and do not factor in lower rates, setting the market up for an upgrade cycle. As it is, the forecast for 2025 is for revenue to grow a little faster than 1%. Shares of Ford advanced 10% on the CPI news and set a one-year high. The market is in rally mode, tracking to break out of a range and set up for a sustained uptrend that could increase the share price by 50% or more. Assuming the company can grow earnings over the next year, the low 7x P/E ratio suggests a deep value today (relative to historical averages) and a chance for earnings-driven share price appreciation and a price-multiple expansion over the next twelve months. Before you consider Ford Motor, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Ford Motor wasn't on the list. While Ford Motor currently has a "Hold" rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. View The Five Stocks Here
Germany to close key rail corridor for months to tackle ailing train network 2024-07-15 13:46:00+00:00 - One of Germany’s main rail corridors is to be closed for months as part of a major overhaul of the ailing train network of Europe’s largest economy that is expected to last until the end of the decade. Years of underinvestment and lack of political direction are being blamed for the state of the German railways, which have in recent years been beset by a massive increase in breakdowns, delays, cancellations and other major technical mishaps and led to unflattering comparisons with infrastructure in the developing world. Deutsche Bahn, the national railway company of Germany, a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government, has also become the butt of international jokes at the Euro 2024 football championships. Over the four-week tournament, football fans from England to Georgia discovered often to their surprise just how unreliable the trains were. “If it wasn’t already clear, the [experience during the] Euros showed just what a problem Deutsche Bahn has with reliability and punctuality,” wrote Die Zeit on Monday. The phrase “made in Germany”, long considered an internationally recognised hallmark for quality, should be changed as a result of the myriad miserable experiences of fans, to “late in Germany”, one commentator quipped during the Euros due to the large numbers of fans arriving late to matches or not getting to them at all. “When even the British, who are not exactly spoilt when it comes to the state of their railways … are complaining [about our trains], we know something is really wrong,” he added. Deutsche Bahn issued a grovelling apology and a promise of financial compensation, though as many pointed out this may be cold comfort for foreign fans for whom the Euros come but every four years. The overhaul will start with the 70km (43-mile) stretch between Frankfurt and Mannheim, a key national and international rail route on which one in seven long-distance trains – 300 a day, carrying 15,000 passengers – run and which is also vital for freight traffic. Passengers reliant on it will have to use alternative routes, switch to replacement bus services, or use cars. Freight traffic is being forced to find alternative routes or turn to lorries. The stretch will be closed for five months, in which time Deutsche Bahn says it will replace tracks, points, sleepers, signal boxes, overhead wires and thousands of tons of gravel. The 20 railway stations along the route are also due to be modernised and noise barriers replaced or installed. The necessary replacement parts have been under construction in factories across Germany, Europe and Asia for the past few months. Affected routes include Berlin-Hamburg, Munich-Salzburg, Wiesbaden-Koblenz-Köln and Köln-Dortmund-Hamm. Hamm has been nicknamed the most miserable rail stop in Germany due to the large number of incidents there in which the coupling and decoupling of train wagons has gone awry, leaving passengers stranded. The entire Deutsche Bahn board, along with the transport minister, Volker Wissing, of the pro-business FDP, met on Monday in the picturesque town of Gernsheim for a celebratory opening of the construction site. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Headlines Europe Free newsletter A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion The first stage is one of a total of 40 stretches totalling 4,000km (2,500 miles) that Deutsche Bahn wants to renovate by 2030 at a current estimated cost of €40bn (£34bn) with the aim of transforming the railway into the efficient, fast-speed service for which it long held a solid reputation worldwide. However, funding for the remaining 39 corridors has only partly been secured, and Germany faces a federal election next autumn at the latest, raising questions about the plan. Doubt has also been cast over its feasibility by the governing body of the German construction industry, which has said the schedules are unrealistic owing to the size and complexity of the project, as well as the lack of personnel. Germans haunted by other recent major building projects of a less sprawling nature, such as Berlin airport, the Elbphilharmonie and the ongoing Stuttgart railway station, which have come in vastly overbudget and years over schedule, are also sceptical. While welcoming the overhaul, environmentalists have bemoaned the lack of investment in a transport network on which climate protection is dependent, and voiced their fears that commitment to the reconstruction is half-hearted. The disruption to commuters and business could permanently turn users away from trains and on to the road, they argue. The entire process, the biggest rail restoration project Germany has ever undertaken, according to Deutsche Bahn, is to be captured in a TV documentary series, which, it is hoped, will help ensure passengers stay onboard. Wissing defended the restoration project, saying: “We’re no longer just patching things up, we’re completely renewing everything.”
Inflation is cooling, yet many Americans say they're living paycheck to paycheck 2024-07-15 04:57:00+00:00 - U.S. inflation is cooling faster than expected, but will consumers feel it? U.S. inflation is cooling faster than expected, but will consumers feel it? 03:16 Even as inflation continues to cool into the second half of 2024, many Americans say they're still struggling to make ends meet. Roughly one-third of U.S. workers say they're living paycheck to paycheck and have nearly no money for savings after paying their monthly bills, according to a survey from personal finance website Bankrate. Relying on one's full earnings each week to pay off living expenses has been a harsh reality for some Americans dating back even before the pandemic. About 38% of full-time workers nationwide said they were living paycheck to paycheck in 2016, according to job-search firm CareerBuilder. The Bankrate survey, based on 2,400 respondents polled in mid-May, found that more low-income workers, people who earn $50,000 a year or less, are living paycheck to paycheck than any those in other income bracket. Living paycheck to paycheck is generally defined as an immediate lack of ability to pay for living expenses in the case of loss of income. Americans are feeling pinched these days, as inflation has made purchasing everyday items more expensive. Falling gas prices in June showed promising signs for consumers, but the rising cost of auto insurance and housing negates those savings for many. Inflation has led to "an outright destruction of wages" for Americans whose pay hasn't kept up with inflation, Sarah Foster, Bankrate analyst, said in a statement. As economists are quick to point out, wage growth has outpaced inflation since February 2023. Recent federal data shows that average wages grew 3.9% year over year in June, according to the most recent federal data, while consumer prices grew only 3% during that same time period. Despite those metrics, Americans still say they feel their dollar isn't stretching as far as it used to. For Americans living paycheck to paycheck, grappling with everyday expenses "feels akin to walking a tightrope with no safety net, where the balance between expenses and earnings becomes a delicate dance," said Foster. "Inflation is the silent thief, and it comes with a price — often Americans' chances of living a comfortable life." To be sure, the cost of many of the basics, including food, shelter and transportation have increased dramatically since 2019, as CBS' price tracker shows. Between groceries and restaurants, Americans are spending more of their income on food than they have in 30 years. "Living comfortably costs a lot more than it used to," said Foster. "Prices are up almost 21% since the pandemic first began in February 2020, requiring an extra $210 per every $1,000 someone used to spend on the items they both want and need." Middle-income households falling behind Other recent research has indicated that a significant share of Americans say they are on shaky financial ground. A survey earlier this month from Primerica found that two-thirds of middle-income U.S. households feel they're falling behind their cost of living. Most of those households are cooking meals at home more often to help save money, the Primerica research found. A June survey of 4,000 Americans by Jenius Bank found that half of respondents are losing sleep because of their dire financial situation. Many respondents blame persistent inflation and rising debt for their increased stress over finances, the bank said. A LendingTree report released this week found that one-third of American households are financially insecure, meaning they find it somewhat or very difficult to pay for expenses like food, housing, car payments and medicine. "It's troubling that 1 in 3 American households are financially insecure, but it shouldn't be terribly surprising," Matt Schulz, LendingTree's chief credit analyst, said in a statement. "The perfect storm of record debt, sky-high interest rates and stubborn inflation has resulted in many Americans' financial margin of error shrinking to virtually zero."
Global Markets Ramp Up the ‘Trump Trade’ After Rally Attack 2024-07-15 04:00:00+00:00 - (Bloomberg) -- As world financial markets started to reopen after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, one thing seemed likely: The Trump trade will get even more momentum. Most Read from Bloomberg The series of wagers — based on anticipation that the Republican’s return to the White House would usher in tax cuts, higher tariffs and looser regulations — had already been gaining ground since President Joe Biden’s poor performance in last month’s debate imperiled his re-election campaign. But the trades were expected to take deeper hold, with Trump galvanizing supporters and drawing sympathy by exhibiting defiant resilience after being shot in the ear on stage at a Pennsylvania rally. The dollar — which would gain if loose fiscal policy kept bond yields elevated — started to move higher against most peers early in Asia trading. Bitcoin rose above $60,000, potentially reflecting Trump’s crypto-friendly stance. “For us, the news does reinforce that Trump’s the frontrunner,” said Mark McCormick, global head of foreign-exchange and emerging-market strategy at Toronto Dominion Bank. “We remain US dollar bulls for the second half and early 2025.” The one caveat to all this is that the emergence of political violence may deepen concern about instability in the US and push investors into haven assets, potentially overshadowing some of the market positioning that has already taken place in the run-up to the election. Treasuries tend to rally when investors seek temporary safety, so that may distort the Trump trade in the bond market, which hinges on wagering that the yield curve will steepen as long-term bonds underperform on anticipation that Trump’s fiscal and trade policies will fan inflation pressures. Moreover, some investors may want to book early gains or be wary of getting deeper into an already crowded position. “Political risk is binary and hard to hedge, and uncertainty was high as it is with the close nature of the race,” said Priya Misra, a portfolio manager at JPMorgan Investment Management. “This adds to volatility. I think it further increases the chance of a Republican sweep,” she said, adding that “could put steepening pressure on the curve.” Equity investors are preparing for at least a near-term jump in volatility when S&P 500 futures start trading at 6 p.m. in New York. Story continues While traders generally don’t expect Trump’s assassination attempt to derail the stock-market trajectory in the long run, a pick-up in near-term price swings is likely. The market has already been contending with speculation that valuations have become too stretched, given the boom in artificial-intelligence stocks and the risks posed by elevated interest rates and political uncertainty. But investors have also been anticipating that bank, health-care and oil-industry stocks would benefit from a Trump victory. “The attack will boost volatility,” said David Mazza, CEO at Roundhill Investments, predicting investors could seek temporary safety in defensive stocks like mega-cap companies. He said it “also adds support for stocks that do well in a steepening yield curve, especially financials.” The early reaction echoes what was seen after the first presidential debate in late June, when Biden’s weak performance was seen as fueling Trump’s election odds. The dollar advanced during that event, and investors soon began embracing a wager that involves buying shorter-maturity notes and selling longer-term ones — known as a steepener trade. That trade has been paying off, with the 30-year Treasury yields jumping to nearly 5 basis points below 2-year ones from around 37 basis points below ahead of the debate. “If the market sense that Trump’s chances to win are higher than they were on Friday – then we would expect the back end of the bond market to sell off in the manner we saw in the immediate aftermath of the debate,” Michael Purves, CEO and founder of Tallbacken Capital Advisors, wrote in an email. While bond traders have been pricing in at least two interest-rate reductions in 2024, a major boost in Trump’s election odds could push the Federal Reserve toward staying on hold for longer, according to Purves. “Trump’s stated policies are (at least now) more inflationary than Biden’s,” he wrote, “and we think the Fed will want to accumulate as much dry power as possible.” --With assistance from Liz Capo McCormick, Isabelle Lee, Sid Verma, Edward Dufner, Esha Dey and Michael G. Wilson. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek ©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
Could This Undervalued Stock Make You a Millionaire One Day? 2024-07-15 03:24:00+00:00 - Understanding stock valuations can be difficult. What's more, the seemingly countless varieties of ratios don't make it any easier: price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-sales (P/S), etc. However, grasping these ratios is critical to understanding how expensive a stock truly is. Similarly, simply checking the share price doesn't reveal that information -- a stock trading at $2,000 could be far "cheaper" than a stock that trades at $20, depending on the underlying financial condition of the two stocks. Accordingly, let's delve into why I think investors should consider Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) based on its valuation. Image source: Getty Images. Amazon's current valuation gives investors a tremendous opportunity It might seem impossible, but Amazon's stock is currently making new all-time highs while also sporting a very low valuation. So, how is that possible? In short, it's happening because Amazon is operating at its most efficient level ever -- thanks to massive capital investments. The company ramped up capital expenditures in response to the COVID pandemic, expanding and improving its logistics network that supports its massive e-commerce business. As it did so, the company's free cash flow dried up, as cash was funneled into construction projects, equipment, and machinery. However, after the end of the pandemic, Amazon scaled back some projects and ended others entirely, resulting in a significant drop in capital expenditures spending and a surge in free cash flow. Accordingly, Amazon's price-to-free-cash-flow -- a critical stock valuation metric for a mature company like Amazon -- has decreased considerably. Amazon now sports a price-to-free-cash-flow valuation of 46x. That's down from the 400x valuation the stock had just last year. Moreover, its current valuation by that metric is one of the lowest for the stock dating back 10 years. AMZN Price to Free Cash Flow Chart Why Amazon can keep growing and produce more millionaires Make no mistake: Valuation is an important metric -- but it isn't everything. For an investment to have staying power, it's important to understand what a stock's future prospects are. Amazon's potential for growth is not limited to its e-commerce division. The company operates a diverse range of business lines, each with its own growth potential. Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company's cloud services division, is a standout example. It now generates over $100 billion in annual revenue, a figure that surpasses most other companies. In fact, if AWS were a stand-alone entity, its annual revenue would be on par with Bank of America, Tesla, or PepsiCo. Story continues What's more, AWS is not just a revenue generator, it's a growth engine. As organizations increase their cloud spending and the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution gains momentum, AWS is growing at an impressive rate. In the most recent quarter, AWS saw a 17% revenue growth, outpacing Amazon's overall revenue growth of 13%. To sum up, Amazon's operations are running more smoothly than ever -- thanks to huge capital investments made during the pandemic. Moreover, the company's chief growth engine, AWS, shows no signs of stopping. Given how much free cash flow the company is producing, Amazon's management has numerous options to create value. They could return cash to shareholders through a regular or special dividend; they could repurchase shares; they could invest in further capital spending; they could pay down debt; or they could make a strategic acquisition. In any event, Amazon's river of free cash flow is a good reason for investors to consider the stock now. Should you invest $1,000 in Amazon right now? Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $791,929!* Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 8, 2024 Bank of America is an advertising partner of The Ascent, a Motley Fool company. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Jake Lerch has positions in Amazon and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Bank of America, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Could This Undervalued Stock Make You a Millionaire One Day? was originally published by The Motley Fool
2 No-Brainer Stocks to Buy With $300 Right Now 2024-07-15 02:30:00+00:00 - The U.S. stock market has seen significant volatility in the past few years, swinging sharply between bull and bear phases. In an uncertain market environment, it becomes essential for retail investors to find stocks that can grow in bull markets and demonstrate stability in bear markets. Online trading platforms also play a key role in making investing more accessible to a larger audience. By doing away with deposit requirements and high fees, these brokerages have made it possible for people with limited budgets to invest meaningfully in the stock market. Even if you have just $300 in extra cash set aside for investing, you can make smart buys, including these two stocks. Palantir The first stock you should consider adding to your portfolio is data mining and artificial intelligence (AI) specialist Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR). Known for helping clients derive insights from huge and complex datasets, the company's data mining capabilities have been further strengthened by its recently launched Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP). Management has noted that while some of its competitors may claim "only 10% of my customers have data that's even AI-ready to begin with," AIP is able to analyze unstructured data from various sources such as emails, Slack messages, PDFs, text messages, and images. Palantir's U.S. commercial business is seeing rapid growth, driven mainly by the increasing adoption of AIP by existing and new customers. The company's U.S. commercial revenues grew 40% year over year to $149.7 million in the first quarter as its U.S. commercial customer count rose 69% to 262. Growth for the company's core U.S. government business has also started reaccelerating with revenue up 8% year over year (versus 3% in the previous quarter). The company secured a $178.4 million direct contract from the U.S. Army, under the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) program. Being a "software prime" -- or the first software company to have a direct contract with the U.S. army for a hardware project -- Palantir is poised to capture multiple new opportunities in the defense sector. Analysts expect Palantir's revenue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 21.5%, from $2.23 billion last year to $5.87 billion in 2028. Considering the multiple catalysts driving this healthy growth projection, Palantir is an easy choice for a long-term investment. Confluent The second no-brainer stock that makes for an exceptional buy is cloud-native data streaming platform provider Confluent (NASDAQ: CFLT). The company enables clients to process and analyze data streams across hundreds of custom, operational, and analytical applications to derive valuable, real-time insights. Story continues Confluent was co-founded by the creators of the open-source platform Apache Kafka. The company offers an on-premise solution called Confluent Platform and a fully managed cloud-native solution called Confluent Cloud. The latter has become the fastest-growing offering for the company and now accounts for a majority of its subscription revenues. Confluent Cloud is expected to continue growing as it increasingly attracts enterprise customers away from the more cumbersome and difficult-to-operate Kafka platform. The company's shift in its go-to-market strategy for its cloud business, from an upfront commitment to a consumption-based model, is also bearing fruit. Confluent added 160 clients in the first quarter and ended the period with a total of 5,120 customers. The company is also expanding its product portfolio to include data streaming products (DSPs) such as Connect, Process, and Govern. These DSPs accounted for nearly 10% of the company's first-quarter cloud revenue, and they're growing even faster than the overall cloud business. Customers using three or more of these products (from the customer cohort contributing over $100,000 annually) grew 47% year over year in the first quarter. This multi-product strategy is helping the company benefit from network effects and build a sticky customer base. Subsequently, the company is well-positioned to capture a significant share of the data streaming market, estimated to be worth $100 billion by 2025. The general availability of Apache Flink (a data stream processing service obtained through the acquisition of Immerok) in the first quarter is expected to add another major revenue stream for Confluent. The company's data streaming platform is also playing a critical role in providing real-time, contextual, and trustworthy data from multiple business systems and transforming it into the formats required for AI and machine learning workloads. Confluent is not yet profitable on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis. However, the company is guiding for a break-even non-GAAP operating margin and break-even free-cash-flow margin in full-year 2024. The company has a strong balance sheet as well with $1.91 billion in cash and marketable securities, allowing it to continue investing in growth initiatives. Finally, Confluent is now cheaper on a price-to-sales (P/S) basis than it has been in the past. Its P/S ratio of 9.8 is almost half its three-year average multiple of 18.4, further adding to the stock's appeal. Should you invest $1,000 in Palantir Technologies right now? Before you buy stock in Palantir Technologies, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Palantir Technologies wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $791,929!* Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 8, 2024 Manali Pradhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Confluent and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 2 No-Brainer Stocks to Buy With $300 Right Now was originally published by The Motley Fool
4 Threats to Nvidia Every Investor Needs to Know 2024-07-15 02:10:00+00:00 - The artificial intelligence (AI) gold rush is well underway and investors are looking for opportunities to strike it rich. The November 2022 launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT for public use sparked the rush, helping push numerous stocks to new heights and contributing heavily to the S&P 500 index being up almost 42% over that timeframe. One of the biggest beneficiaries has been semiconductor specialist Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). The chipmaker's rise has been quite the story of the last few years; it's up about 726% since ChatGPT's launch. Over the past five years, it's up nearly 3,000%. Nvidia keeps reporting massive earnings growth quarter after quarter, justifying an ever-higher stock price. The company is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) only slightly higher than at the close of 2022. That's impressive considering the outstanding stock price appreciation over that time. Take a look at the company's earnings growth below compared to its share price over the past three years. Notice how the two keep pace with each other? NVDA Chart Nvidia is keeping up with market expectations, at least thus far. Its dominance of the AI chip market and the vision it displayed to get there is impressive. Past performance has been great, but investing is more about anticipating future performance and buying based on where you think the company is going. Investors should also consider what obstacles stand in the way of a company continuing to find success. Let's take a look at four potential threats that could significantly impact Nvidia's business (and its stock) in the future. 1. Nvidia will see increased competition from multiple directions When you become one of the largest companies in the world in a relatively short time, you better expect competition to heat up. Nvidia proved that providing chips to the AI industry is a massively lucrative business, and others want in on the action. The most obvious competition comes from other chipmakers, most notably Advanced Micro Devices. The longtime rival of Nvidia has set its sights on taking market share. AMD CEO Lisa Su said at a recent unveiling of AMD's latest chips that in no uncertain terms, "AI is our No. 1 priority." While this will put pressure on Nvidia, a bigger threat might actually involve the Big Tech clients currently fueling Nvidia's massive revenue growth. A significant portion of Nvidia's revenue is concentrated among firms like Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Amazon. If that business dries up, it spells trouble for Nvidia's bottom line. Story continues Why would it dry up? The cost of AI chips is so great that some of these companies are working to design their own, in-house. This will take time, and success is far from guaranteed -- it turns out that designing advanced microchips that can be built at scale is really hard -- but any one of these companies, let alone several or all, replacing Nvidia chips with their own would likely be disastrous. 2. Changes in the AI models that use Nvidia chips could lead to a drop in demand Without going into too much technical detail (which I'm in no way qualified to discuss) about the way AI algorithms function (especially large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT), they seem to be suited perfectly to the kind of chip Nvidia designs, and they require a lot of them. This led to the massive demand that is driving Nvidia's revenue. However, technology can change, sometimes very quickly. A different kind of AI model could come into vogue that favors a different kind of chip or is significantly more efficient and needs fewer chips to function. A recent scientific paper proposes a new AI model that does just that, requiring only 10% of the chips used by current models. This would likely drive the demand for Nvidia's chips down significantly and wreak havoc on the company's bottom line. 3. Shifts in geopolitics could impact on Nvidia's ability to operate Nvidia designs its chips and the software needed to operate them, but it shops out the production of those chips primarily through Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, which is based in Taiwan. Although it's unlikely to happen in the near future, the threat of China invading Taiwan should be taken seriously. If that happens, relations between China and the U.S. would be extremely fraught. Even if direct military conflict was avoided, it's very possible that Nvidia's operations in Taiwan would be shut down completely or boycotted by multiple countries. Relocating the manufacturing of Nvidia chips would be extremely costly for the company. 4. It's possible that the promise of AI never materializes If AI turns out to be a bust, that is perhaps the biggest threat to the company. The promise of AI to revolutionize multiple sectors of the economy has been so hyped that most investors expect it is a foregone conclusion at this point. The sizeable amount of money flowing into the space is largely built on the promise of strong future returns. Nvidia's revenue over the past two years is real; I'm not disputing that. However, the demand for its chips will ultimately only be as strong as the demand for end-user AI technologies -- technologies that deliver real economic value on par with the money being spent to develop and implement them. I am not saying this won't happen, only that it wouldn't be the first time a technology failed to deliver on the hype surrounding it (the hype around the metaverse is just the latest example of this). It's important to maintain a healthy skepticism in the midst of a run like Nvidia has had. Knowing this and knowing about the other potential threats will make you an informed Nvidia investor. Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now? Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $791,929!* Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 8, 2024 Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Johnny Rice has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 4 Threats to Nvidia Every Investor Needs to Know was originally published by The Motley Fool
3 Things You Need to Know if You Buy Walgreens Boots Alliance Stock Today 2024-07-15 02:05:00+00:00 - If you're thinking about buying shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ: WBA) anytime soon, you'll need to appreciate the position that the well-known pharmacy and retailer is currently in. Amidst an attempt to integrate into healthcare markets outside of its traditional wheelhouse, the company's financial position has deteriorated, and it's on the road to becoming downright precarious. But some investors may see the potential for things to improve where others might only appreciate risks. So let's investigate three items you need to understand before buying this stock. 1. It's facing stiff competition in its only real growth segment Over the last few years, Walgreens has tried to enter the primary-care market by providing some basic services through its VillageMD subsidiary. The move was a bid to enter into a quickly growing market so Walgreens could get exposure to a tailwind for its growth. There is some evidence that the plan is working. Sales in its healthcare segment rose by 8% year over year in its third fiscal quarter, reaching $2.1 billion. That's a significantly larger amount of growth than in the core retail pharmacy business, which grew revenue by 2.3% to arrive at $28.5 billion, while adjusted gross profit fell by 6.7%. So even if the healthcare segment isn't very large in comparison to the others, it's the fastest-growing. And it's on track to yield operating profits, as its adjusted operating losses were just $22 million, an improvement of $150 million from a year prior. But if CVS Health has anything to say about it, Walgreens will face a stiff headwind to its growth segment. At the moment, CVS generates far more free cash flow (FCF) each quarter than Walgreens does. It's also more profitable, and a larger business. And it's making the same diversification attempt into primary care, right when Walgreens is. Put differently, with Walgreens in retreat and CVS on the advance, the gap between the two in the primary-care segment will only grow from here. That's something you need to know if you're thinking of buying either stock. 2. It doesn't have a great track record for investing its capital efficiently As an investor, it's important to know whether a business is going to make good use of the capital it has on hand, as well as the capital it can draw on in the form of debt and shareholders' equity. On that basis, Walgreens leaves a lot to be desired, and it has for a long time. Take a look at this chart: WBA Operating Margin (Quarterly) Chart As you can see, over the last 10 years its three-year median return on invested capital (ROIC) and its return on assets (ROA) have decreased and are negative. Effectively that means its capital investments over the last three years have largely been value-destroying rather than value-generating, and that its existing assets are not being operated in a way that creates a positive return. Story continues For a retail footprint-intensive company like Walgreens, another takeaway from these figures is that its retail locations are, on average, no longer the good investments that they may have been in the past. This is substantiated by its plans to shutter many of its stores over the coming years. An additional risk is that as those stores are closed and the real estate is sold off, the company won't be able to recoup the cost of buying the land in the first place. 3. It's unclear how management is planning to turn things around In its third-quarter earnings announcement, when Walgreens announced a significant reduction in its number of locations, management signaled that a general transformation of the business was ahead. But there were few specifics about what the result would be after the transformation was complete -- an ambiguity that any potential investors need to understand in full. For instance, it's clear that the pharmacy segment will continue on. Beyond that, it's hard to see how management is going to rekindle growth, or at least to stem the substantial and growing losses from operations. The diversification play into providing primary care via the VillageMD subsidiary is now at risk, with management mentioning that it may be necessary to "unlock liquidity." That could mean anything from backing out of advance purchasing deals to recoup cash, to selling off assets that might currently be productive. A temporary retreat from the far reaches of its primary-care ambitions would imply the opportunity to return later, when financial conditions improve. But a fire sale would likely slam that door shut. Management simply isn't sharing enough information for investors to know which route is favored, and it's key for anyone considering an investment to appreciate that. Should you invest $1,000 in Walgreens Boots Alliance right now? Before you buy stock in Walgreens Boots Alliance, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Walgreens Boots Alliance wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $791,929!* Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 8, 2024 Alex Carchidi has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends CVS Health. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 3 Things You Need to Know if You Buy Walgreens Boots Alliance Stock Today was originally published by The Motley Fool
4 charts show why Wall Street's most bullish strategist expects the stock market to triple by 2030 2024-07-15 02:01:00+00:00 - Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Yahoo; iStock; Rebecca Zisser/BI Fundstrat's Tom Lee expects the S&P 500 to top 15,000 by 2030. Demographic trends, millennial spending habits, and technology advancements will be key drivers. Here are the four charts that show why Lee is so bullish on the stock market. Fundstrat's Tom Lee raised eyebrows last month when he made an extremely bullish prediction: the S&P 500 will nearly triple by 2030. In an interview with Bloomberg's Odd Lots, Lee said he expects the S&P 500 to top 15,000 by the end of the decade. The index traded at around 5,630 on Friday. "If this is a normal S&P cycle following demographics…S&P should be potentially 15,000 by the end of the decade. To me, as you move into a longer timeframe that's probably where I think we're moving towards," Lee said. In the interview, Lee said he was looking at a handful of charts that back up his bullish long-term prediction. Here are the four charts Lee shared with Business Insider that show why the already upbeat forecaster is so bullish on the stock market. 1. Thank you, millennials Fundstrat Lee put the chart above together several years ago, but his thesis remains the same. The average age of millennials is now around 31 years old, and the global cohort of 2.5 billion people is starting to enter its prime age years of 30-50 years old. "This would be the third time that stocks entered a cycle where annual returns compound at high teens. You had the roaring 20's, and then you had the 50's through the late 60's, and this is a third cycle," Lee told CNBC last month. "They all coincided with a surge in the number of people aged 30-50, so in other words the number of prime age adults, and this time it's powered by millennials and Gen Z." "It's a demand story. When you get to your prime years, 30-50, Urban Institute shows you start to borrow more money, you're making big life decisions, this is what powers the economy." 2. Stock market peaks and demographics Fundstrat The stock market has a history of peaking right around the same time a population hits its peak prime age of around 50 years old, as they are closer to retirement and often spend less money. For example, when the greatest generation peaked in 1930, that coincided with a multi-year bear market in stocks. Fast-forward to 1974, when the silent generation saw its prime age peak. This occurred around the same time as a painful stock market correction of about 35% that lasted years. And the peak in the baby boomer population's prime age was in 1999, just a year before a multi-year bear market hit stocks. Story continues The average millennial is not set to hit their peak prime age until 2038, suggesting plenty of upside ahead for the stock market between now and then, according to Lee. 3. Tech will address a global labor shortage Fundstrat According to Lee, spending on technology will boom in the coming years as the world grapples with a growing labor shortage. "We have a really big opportunity for US technology companies because of AI, which is supplying the global digital labor, because there's a global labor shortage. So these two forces are combining to I think power almost a decade of extraordinarily good stock returns," Lee said. "I think that there's going to be a lot of dollars spent on US technology product because the world is short 80 million workers by the end of this decade, that's roughly $3 trillion of labor salary that's turning into silicon, so that means US suppliers of silicon and AI are going to have a $3 trillion revenue run rate." 4. Money will flow into US tech stocks Fundstrat As more companies spend trillions of dollars on technology to address a global labor shortage, that will catapult the technology sector to make up 50% of the S&P 500. The information technology sector currently makes up about 30% of the index. "If US companies are growing earnings at this speed, the P/E multiple of the US should go up. There's going to be capital flows into the US. Where else in the world do you find the best and most important technology companies, they're all basically in America," Lee said. Read the original article on Business Insider