Deere unveiled its first self-driving tractor. The equipment can be controlled by a farmer from a smartphone and they will also be able to watch the equipment work through a field from a live video. A standard 8R tractor and the 2430 chisel plow will cost over $500,000. The company said that it aims to lease out the tractors with the new autonomous equipment already attached. Jahmy Hindman,...
Mortgage rates climbed to a 20-month high this week, following the Federal Reserve’s tilt towards a more hawkish monetary approach. The 30-year fixed-mortgage rate averaged 3.22% for the week ended Thursday, vs. 3.11% last week and 2.65% a year earlier, according to Freddie Mac. The latest week’s level was the highest since May 2020. Sam Khater, the mortgage agency’s chief economist,...
Earnings Wholesale retailing giant Costco (COST) is getting ready to release its fiscal second quarter results for 2021. The report is due out on March 4, after the closing bell. With the report, the company will be looking to maintain the momentum in its earnings growth that has helped push the stock higher in recent years. Costco has seen its EPS grow at a rate of 19% per year over the last...
Since the beginning of 2021, the software sector has underperformed the overall market. Using the iShares North American Tech-Software ETF (IGV) as a barometer for the industry, the group has dropped 5.75% from the start of the year through March 18. During the same time period, the S&P is up 4.24%. Not all software firms have seen their stocks decline, but there does seem to be a disparity...
McDonald's shares were upgraded to overweight from neutral by a Piper Sandler analyst. Analyst Nicole Miller Regan also raised her price target on the fast food chain's shares to $282 from $232. According to Regan, McDonald's is "uniquely positioned" to gain market share notwithstanding cost pressures and operational headwinds. The analyst mentioned that recent survey work led to her being...
Barclays boosted its rating on Wells Fargo shares, citing higher interest rates and improved internal controls. Barclays raised rating on Wells Fargo to overweight from equal weight, mentioning that the stock is expected to gain the most of its coverage universe from higher interest rates. It has also made significant investments in control function since its retail banking sales practice...
Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech got approval from The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for authorizing Covid booster shots in children aged 12 to 15. This is an emergency use authorization, amid omicron variant spread. The FDA also narrowed the time for administration of a booster dose from at least six months to at least five months following completion of the primary series for people 12 and...
Tesla will recall hundreds of thousands of its Model 3 and Model S sedans, due to an issue with vehicles’ front trunk. According to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) , the recall dated December 21, will affect 356,309 Model 3s manufactured between 2017 and 2020, as well as 119,000 Model S sedans produced between 2014 and 2021. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that...
Biogen shares took a hit, after Samsung BioLogics denied a report that claimed that it's discussing takeover plans that at a value of around $42 billon. Korea Economic Daily report mentioned ties between the two groups including FDA approval of key treatments, as well as Biogen's 50% stake minus one share in biosimilars unit Samsung Bioepis Co. The report also stated plans from the Samsung...
This is your lane for heightened precautions, safety measures, and so on.
In the other lane, I think you maintain a positive, long-term outlook on how the economy and market are likely to stage a full recovery, with asset prices swinging back to new highs perhaps even by the end of the year.But in my view, it’s views like this that separate the smart money from the not-so-smart money over time.
The fact that volatility tends to strike in scary clusters makes this kind of long-term thinking very difficult for many investors.
The iconic American company, General Electric, cut its workforce by 78,000 in 2019, bringing its total number of employees back to levels not seen since 1951.
As General Electric slashed jobs and made efforts to cut costs, companies within the services sector went on a hiring spree – the healthcare sector added 361,000 jobs over the last 12 months, transportation and warehousing added 106,000, leisure and hospitality added 288,000 jobs, and professional and business services added 390,000.
This anecdote for the 21st Century economy is a display of the continued rotation of the economy from a manufacturing/industrial economy to a services and consumption based economy.In my view, investors should be posturing over time for this evolution to continue apace, with no looking back.
If you could go back in time to 1990, which industries would you invest in? An article in the Los Angeles Times, written on January 2, 1990, recommended IBM, Eastman Kodak, and McDonald’s Corp as the “hot stocks” for that year. Have they stood up for three decades? IBM has been declining since 2009, so it almost made the twenty-year mark. Kodak is still around but opened under $10 a share...
Activist investor Starboard Value LP disclosed an $800 million stake in web services group GoDaddy. Starboard revealed this investment in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. 6.5% stake was made in part because shares in the group were "undervalued" and therefore were an attractive investment opportunity. GoDaddy reported fourth quarter earnings of 58 cents per share last month,...
On Tuesday, Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management sold 20,446 shares of Tesla. That is estimated to be around $22.3 million. The sale took place via the Ark Innovation ETF, the Ark Next Generation Internet ETF, and the Ark Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF. These three ETFs held 1.84 million shares of Tesla worth about $2.01 billion ahead of Tuesday’s trade. Tesla is Ark’s largest...
U.S. retail sales increased the most in nearly two decades during the holiday season, according to a report from Mastercard. This indicates healthy consumer demand notwithstanding historic inflation rates and Covid uncertainty. Retail sales for the period between November 1 and December 24 climbed +8.5% year-over-year—as revealed by Mastercard’s annual SpendingPulse report. This increase is...
Bright Scholar Education posted its first quarter earnings that fell short of analysts' expectations. The education service company incurred a loss per share was -2.4 on revenue of 320.02 million. Analysts polled by Investing.com expected loss of -0.46 on revenue of 844.43 million. Bright Scholar shares are down -72.05% year-to-date...
Paychex second quarter earnings increased +25% from the year-ago quarter to 91 cents, vs. 80 cents expected by analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue rose +13% to $1.109, compared to the $1.062 billion anticipated by analysts. Looking ahead, the payroll management company now forecasts 2022 EPS growth of 18%-20% and revenue growth of 10%-11%. That's higher than its September forecast for EPS...
Cintas posted its fiscal second quarter results that surpassed Wall Street expectations. The uniform rental company’s diluted earnings per share came in at $2.76, higher than the Street expectations of $2.65 per share. Sales rose +9.4% from the year-ago quarter to $1.92 billion vs. $1.76 billion expected by analysts polled by FactSet. CEO Todd Schneider said that EPS grew significantly...
Artificial intelligence is here to stay. But as governments, companies, and people adapt to the reality of a world with AI, a revolutionary concept has been co-opted into a buzzword. AI as a sales tool has led to false claims and misinformation, making it difficult to parse facts about legitimate AI from the hype. Here are some tips to help you tell the difference between real AI and fake AI...
Blackberry posted its third-quarter loss of -5 cents a share on a diluted basis, compared with a loss of -23 cents a share in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted earnings, which exclude stock-based compensation expenses and other items, were break-even a share. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected a loss of -7 cents a share. Revenue fell to $184 million from $218 million in the year-ago period...