BlackBerry   announced an expanded partnership with Baidu,   on automated high-definition mapping software that is used  in Baidu's autonomous vehicle technology.

The deal broadens Baidu’s use of BlackBerry’s operating system in its "Apollo" autonomous driving open platform.The integrated system will be available on Guangzhou Automobile Group electric vehicle arm’s upcoming GAC New Energy Aion models.

The two companies will form joint venture PLANeT Partnership LLC, that will combine PepsiCo's marketing with Beyond Meat's plant-based food production technology.In recent years, the beverage giant has been trying to add healthier options in its snacks and drinks portfolio.

"We are thrilled to formally join forces with PepsiCo in The PLANeT Partnership, a joint venture that unites the tremendous depth and breadth of their distribution and marketing capabilities with our leading innovation in plant-based protein.

Brown & Brown reported fourth quarter earnings that beat analysts' forecast.

The insurance company’s adjusted earnings came in at  $0.32 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.28 per share.The figure is also higher than the year-ago quarter’s $0.28 per share a year ago.

Over the last four quarters, the company has topped consensus EPS estimates four times.

Revenues of $642.10 million also exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.62%.

BancorpSouth Bank reported Q4 earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations.Revenue, too, beat estimates.

The bank’s earnings per share came in at $0.65, compared to expectations of $0.62.

Revenue rose +4.19% year-over-year to $255.76 million, exceeding the estimate of $255.4 million.

BancorpSouth Bank is a $13 billion bank based in Mississippi, with banking and insurance operations in eight different states through almost 300 branches.

General Electric’s adjusted non-GAAP earnings for the three months ending in December plunged -62% year-over-year to 8 cents per share, one penny shy of the Street consensus forecast.

Revenues fell -16.5% from the year-ago quarter to $21.9 billion, slightly above the $21.822 billion expected by analysts.

“As 2020 progressed, we significantly improved GE's profitability and cash performance despite a still-difficult macro environment.said CEO Larry Culp. 

Looking ahead, GE expects its adjusted earnings for the 2021 financial year in the range of 15 cents to 25 cents per share.

Looking through a bunch of weekly charts recently, there were two software companies that really jumped out at me.The weekly stochastic indicators recently reached oversold territory for the first time in a number of years.

Lockheed Martin (LMT) will report on Tuesday, January 26.Northrop Grumman (NOC) will release its fourth quarter results on Thursday, January 28.

All three companies have “buy” ratings on the Tickeron scorecards and all three are expected to see earnings growth compared to last year and compared to last quarter.

On Friday, Seagate  reported fiscal-second-quarter earnings and revenue that surpassed analysts' expectations.

For the quarter ended Jan. 1, the data storage company’s adjusted earnings came in at $1.29 a share, compared to the $1.13 expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue fell -2.7% year-over-year to $2.62 billion, also exceeding analysts’ forecast of $2.56 billion.

"Seagate delivered strong, double-digit revenue, earnings and free cash flow growth in the December quarter, supported by broad-based improvement across nearly every served market and geography, and we had solid customer demand for our mass capacity products," Chief Executive Dave Mosley mentioned in a statement.

On Friday, Oracle  got a sell rating from Goldman Sachs, as the bank initiated coverage of 12 software companies.

Goldman Sachs said, “when we asked CIOs which vendors will gain or lose share in DX [digital experience] budgets, amongst all vendors, ORCL did not perform well,”.

According to the Goldman Sachs analysts, Oracle had a “net strength of negative 39%, defined as the percentage gaining share less the percentage losing share.”

They also mentioned that for several years  Oracle has focused on organic development, and that it did not  make any major acquisitions.The net result of this strategy, according to Goldman Sachs analysts,  has been a “steady deceleration” in revenue growth from 4% in FY14-15 to 0.3% in FY20.

They think  that Microsoft is well positioned to double its $60 billion-plus commercial cloud business (Azure, Office 365, Dynamics, and LinkedIn Commercial) into a $120 billion to $140 billion business in the longer term.Microsoft’s installed base of on-premise Windows servers alone represents $80 billion to $90 billion in potential Azure business, according to the analysts’ thesis.

Volkswagen learned their lesson the hard way last year, as it rolled out its flagship EV called the ID.3.The learning curve for updating software remotely is higher than Volkswagen anticipated, and now any notion of overtaking Tesla has been pushed out for years. 

German automakers are resilient, however, and they have quickly identified problems in workflow, management, and depth of human capital needed to make the ID.3 competitive.

The wall of liquidity building up in the capital markets—due to direct payments from the federal government and hyper-accommodative monetary policy at the Fed—has led to M2 money supply rising at an unprecedented 25% year-over-year rate.

According to a new Boston College study, 51% of U.S. households are at risk of not being able to meet their standard of living in retirement.In other words, people half of the population is set to have to make sacrifices in their twilight years -- the opposite of which should be true. 

The figures keep getting worse.

Investors have been bullish on copper of late, and signs are pointing to more bullishness ahead.

Copper is trading near its highest levels since 2013, as investors anticipate an economic rebound led by China and the U.S. throughout 2021.As the economic recovery gains momentum when the pandemic risk fades, copper could be a commodity whose price is very sensitive to upticks in growth. 

Companies like Freeport McMoRan, which specialize in mining precious metals like copper, have also seen strong upside.

Tesla says it wants to increase vehicle from about 500,000 per year today to over 20 million annually by 2030.These are ambitious growth targets, but investors need to ask two questions:

1. Can Tesla maintain its market share with more competitors rolling out new products?
2. Is Tesla's future growth already priced into its current stock price?

Tickeron's A.I.

I'm a fan of big banks in 2021, and Goldman Sachs is near the top of the list.In Q4, the investment banking giant demonstrated how strong its operations and earnings-generating businesses are.

Thanks to the selling, Tickeron’s AI Trend Prediction tool generated bullish signals on Twitter and two other internet companies on January 19.The bullish predictions all three showed a confidence level of 88% for the stocks to move higher by at least 4% over the next month.

None of the three stocks do very well on the fundamentals with Farfetch and Snap both getting five negative ratings and no positive ratings.

Retail investing company Charles Schwab posted fourth quarter earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations.This is Schwab’s first earnings report following its $26 billion acquisition of rival TD Ameritrade.

The company’s adjusted earnings came in at 74 cents per share, beating the  71 cents per share expected by analysts polled by Refinitiv.

Revenue of $4.18 billion was also higher than the forecast $4.108 billon.

Total client assets for Schwab increased to a record $6.69 trillion as of the end of 2020, which reflects a 66% growth year-over-year – boosted by acquired TD Ameritrade assets.

Schwab added 15.77 million new clients in the fourth quarter, including 14.5 million new brokerage accounts from the TD Ameritrade merger.

The company’s daily average trades rose to 5.8 million in the fourth quarter, a record high.

Trading revenue surged +88% to $1.4 billion

Shares of Israeli cellphone communications equipment maker Ceragon Networks  got a double downgrade from analysts at Needham. 

Needham analysts lowered their rating on the shares to underperform from buy, amid valuation concerns.The analyst mentioned further that even a buyout would be unlikely to justify recent moves.

Ceragon  shares climbed more than +30% on Tuesday, and has more than doubled over the past three trading days.

Ceragon gained 33% on Tuesday as ARK Israel Innovative Technology ETF (IZRL) added 44,380 shares of Ceragon, bringing its total holdings to nearly 856,000 shares( according to Bloomberg).