A Property Tax Rebellion Is Emerging In America Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times, At a petition table inside a Cleveland area gun show on a drizzly Saturday afternoon, citizens talk of an American Dream derailed. There’s the elderly couple who paid off their mortgage decades ago but can’t afford the property taxes on their home. Their local government, theoretically, can seize the pro...
A Property Tax Rebellion Is Emerging In America Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times, At a petition table inside a Cleveland area gun show on a drizzly Saturday afternoon, citizens talk of an American Dream derailed. There’s the elderly couple who paid off their mortgage decades ago but can’t afford the property taxes on their home. Their local government, theoretically, can seize the property and auction it off to someone else if the annual bills remain unpaid. Then there’s the recent retiree who took a part-time job at Lowe’s to pay property taxes on his rental property and avoid raising his tenants’ rent. Add empty nesters who can’t downsize to smaller houses because interest rates are too high, farmers describing an impossible situation, and recent college graduates groaning about moving further away from home to an affordable place. Show goers, guns and ammo in hand, pause at Beth Blackmarr’s table on their way out and share with her those concerns. If 413,000 residents throughout the Buckeye State sign a petition before July 1, a public vote to eliminate local property taxes will appear on the November ballot. If the signature count falls short, whatever is collected can be applied the following year, or however long it takes, said Blackmarr, media coordinator and a main volunteer for the 3,000-plus member Citizens for Property Tax Reform group. “We are really hurting in Ohio,” she told The Epoch Times. “People never thought they’d be in this situation.” Beth Blackmarr, a volunteer with Ohio-based Citizens for Property Tax Reform, organizes forms during a petition drive at a gun show near Cleveland on April 25, 2026. The group is seeking enough signatures to place a measure eliminating local property taxes on the November ballot. Aaron Gifford/The Epoch Times Ohio isn’t alone. Forty-six states and the District of Columbia already have limits on annual local property tax levy increases, and leaders in Florida and Texas are pursuing additional legislati...
The image was posted by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign as part of its petition to cancel Maureen Lipman's upcoming performance in Aberdeen.
The image was posted by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign as part of its petition to cancel Maureen Lipman's upcoming performance in Aberdeen.
Elon Musk reportedly reached out via text to OpenAI ( OPENAI ) President Greg Brockman about a potential settlement two days before his lawsuit against the company went to trial. “When Mr. Brockman responded with a suggestion that both sides drop their respective claims, Mr. Musk shot back: ‘By the end of this week, you and Sam [Altman] will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it w...
Elon Musk reportedly reached out via text to OpenAI ( OPENAI ) President Greg Brockman about a potential settlement two days before his lawsuit against the company went to trial. “When Mr. Brockman responded with a suggestion that both sides drop their respective claims, Mr. Musk shot back: ‘By the end of this week, you and Sam [Altman] will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be,’” according to a filing made Sunday by OpenAI's lawyers, CNBC reported Monday . According to CNBC, OpenAI's attorneys have moved to have the text entered as evidence of Musk's motives for filing the suit. “It tends to prove motive and bias, and, in particular, that Mr. Musk’s motivation in pursuing this lawsuit is to attack a competitor and its principals,” the attorneys wrote in their filing, according to CNBC. Brockman could be called to testify as early as Monday, CNBC added. Musk is suing OpenAI for over $130B, claiming he was manipulated into investing $38M in the company when it was a non-profit, only to have management later convert it into a for-profit entity for their own enrichment. Musk co-founded OpenAI ( OPENAI ) in 2015 along with a group of technologists and investors that included Brockman and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Co-defendants in the suit include Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft ( MSFT ), which has invested heavily in the company. The case is currently being heard by a federal court in Oakland, Calif., with Musk wrapping up his testimony last week. The trial is expected to run until mid-May. Musk served on OpenAI's board until 2018. He later went on to establish his own AI company, xAI ( X.AI ), which is now part of SpaceX ( SPACE ). OpenAI ( OPENAI ), meanwhile, has denied Musk was misled, asserting he left the board after failing to convince OpenAI's leadership that the company should be merged with Tesla ( TSLA ). OpenAI has also accused Musk of filing the suit to slow down its progress, as the company competes in the same space as xAI. Both Ope...
The stock market may be near all-time highs, helped by the Magnificent Seven, but a look under the hood is showing some troubling breadth patterns. The S & P 500 soared more than 10% in April, its best month going back to November 2020, as strong earnings from the Magnificent Seven companies once again revived investors' risk appetite. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS) ended last month up...
The stock market may be near all-time highs, helped by the Magnificent Seven, but a look under the hood is showing some troubling breadth patterns. The S & P 500 soared more than 10% in April, its best month going back to November 2020, as strong earnings from the Magnificent Seven companies once again revived investors' risk appetite. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS) ended last month up by more than 14%. The broad market index also reached a fresh high and closed at a record on Friday. But take a look at the Invesco S & P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) , which was higher by just 6% last month, and lagged the other measures. The ETF tracks the equal-weighted S & P 500 which, unlike the market cap weighted benchmark, gives every company in the index the same exact allocation — thereby giving investors a more accurate portrayal of the health of the overall market. "It speaks to how narrow this market has once again become, led by a small group of high-flying momentum names," Wolfe Research's Rob Ginsberg wrote over the weekend. RSP 1D mountain RSP, 1-day Technology was once again the best-performing sector, with the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) higher by 20% in April, Ginsberg pointed out. That was followed by real estate , by a large margin, up just over 8%, he also noted. Think also of consumer discretionary, with the State Street Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLY) also having rallied more than 8% last month, but Amazon — accounting for roughly 30% of the sector — has been doing the heavy lifting, Ginsberg wrote. In comparison, the Invesco S & P 500 Equal Weight Consumer Discretionary ETF (RSPD) fell behind. "While the two rallied together at first, the past week has told a different story with a divergence now growing," Ginsberg wrote. "It's nothing worth flipping your portfolio to cash over obviously, but it is another sign that things aren't as strong as they seem on the surface." It's worrisome that the broader market is relyin...
Jonathan Ferro, Lisa Abramowicz and Annmarie Hordern speak daily with leaders and decision makers from Wall Street to Washington and beyond. No other program better positions investors and executives for the trading day. (Source: Bloomberg)
Jonathan Ferro, Lisa Abramowicz and Annmarie Hordern speak daily with leaders and decision makers from Wall Street to Washington and beyond. No other program better positions investors and executives for the trading day. (Source: Bloomberg)
mbbirdy/E+ via Getty Images Beating earnings estimates this season is coming with an unusually small reward, according to Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, and the data suggests investors are not giving companies much credit for topping the bar in a market defined by macroeconomic uncertainty and elevated volatility. The median stock beating consensus EPS estimates has outperformed the S&P...
mbbirdy/E+ via Getty Images Beating earnings estimates this season is coming with an unusually small reward, according to Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, and the data suggests investors are not giving companies much credit for topping the bar in a market defined by macroeconomic uncertainty and elevated volatility. The median stock beating consensus EPS estimates has outperformed the S&P 500 by just 20 basis points on the day after reporting, one of the slimmest post-beat rewards on record, and a sharp contrast to the long-run historical average of approximately 100 basis points. Goldman notes that the backdrop of macro uncertainty and high stock volatility creates a particularly challenging environment for investors attempting to generate alpha around earnings releases, as elevated uncertainty compresses the signal value of any individual beat. The sector breakdown, however, reveals a wide dispersion in how markets are rewarding earnings surprises. Consumer Staples tops the table with a median 1-day excess return of 316 basis points following an EPS beat, by far the strongest response of any sector, followed by Health Care at 300 basis points and Energy at 240 basis points. These three sectors have been the primary beneficiaries of defensive rotation in 2026, and the outsized rewards for earnings beats within them reflect how starved investors have been for positive fundamental signals in traditionally stable industries. At the other end of the spectrum, the picture is far less encouraging. Information Technology stocks beating EPS estimates have actually underperformed the S&P 500 by 4 basis points on the day after reporting, a negligible and slightly negative response that speaks to how much good news has already been priced into the sector. Consumer Discretionary and Real Estate fared even worse, with excess returns of negative 79 and negative 105 basis points respectively following EPS beats, suggesting that even outperforming companies in these secto...
JPMorgan Chase & Co. hired Will Boyle from Morgan Stanley to lead its team that advises private equity firms on structuring private deals, as the bank looks to build out its capital advisory business for sponsors. Boyle will serve as global head of secondary advisory in New York, JPMorgan’s global head of private capital advisory and solutions Keith Canton said in an interview. Boyle will report t...
JPMorgan Chase & Co. hired Will Boyle from Morgan Stanley to lead its team that advises private equity firms on structuring private deals, as the bank looks to build out its capital advisory business for sponsors. Boyle will serve as global head of secondary advisory in New York, JPMorgan’s global head of private capital advisory and solutions Keith Canton said in an interview. Boyle will report to Canton and will work closely with the bank’s strategic investors group mergers and acquisitions team to advise financial sponsors and institutional investors on private market deals, such as secondary sales and continuation vehicles. The move is to tap into what Canton sees as a $100 billion opportunity where financial sponsors seek to execute deals that can provide investors with liquidity beyond a traditional sale or initial public offering, the banker said. The team under Boyle will work with JPMorgan’s more than 40 people globally dedicated to private capital markets, he said. Read More: Goldman, Morgan Stanley Predict IPO Resilience as Revenue Climbs “The private placement secondary market is $200 billion to $225 billion in size, with the general partner-led portion close to $100 billion, and that’s what we’re targeting,” said Canton. “Compare that to the IPO market, which we expect to be about $60 billion in 2026, excluding the rumored mega IPOs, and we think sponsor-backed IPOs will be about a third of that volume,” he said. “Private alternatives dwarf those numbers so it’s a large opportunity.” Private equity firms have been challenged with finding exits through IPOs to return cash to investors over the past several years with capital markets bankers anticipating a rush of deals in 2026 that has yet to play out. That has pushed sponsors to use different structures from continuation vehicles to dividend recapitalizations to secondary stake sales, which JPMorgan will push to take advantage of. “We’re having a number of conversations with investors who are looking to...
Admaxxer announced four operating milestones for the first quarter of 2026, including 5,000 active direct-to-consumer brands, $1.2 billion in cumulative tracked gross merchandise value, a 92% Conversions API match rate, and the launch of bring-your-own-key support for 10 large-language-model providers and a Model Context Protocol server. Admaxxer announced four operating milestones for the first q...
Admaxxer announced four operating milestones for the first quarter of 2026, including 5,000 active direct-to-consumer brands, $1.2 billion in cumulative tracked gross merchandise value, a 92% Conversions API match rate, and the launch of bring-your-own-key support for 10 large-language-model providers and a Model Context Protocol server. Admaxxer announced four operating milestones for the first quarter of 2026, including 5,000 active direct-to-consumer brands, $1.2 billion in cumulative tracked gross merchandise value, a 92% Conversions API match rate, and the launch of bring-your-own-key support for 10 large-language-model providers and a Model Context Protocol server.
Andrii Dodonov/iStock via Getty Images I, personally, like to build dividend portfolios that consist primarily of individual stocks. The reason for this is that by implementing value investing principles along with intelligent diversification, I can get maximum risk-adjusted total returns over time and can also implement an opportunistic capital recycling program that can lead to additional divide...
Andrii Dodonov/iStock via Getty Images I, personally, like to build dividend portfolios that consist primarily of individual stocks. The reason for this is that by implementing value investing principles along with intelligent diversification, I can get maximum risk-adjusted total returns over time and can also implement an opportunistic capital recycling program that can lead to additional dividend growth beyond what is generated by the companies themselves. However, the cost of such an approach is that you have to do more due diligence, and many retirees lack the desire and/or the time to do this, as many of them want to be able to maximize their free time to spend on other pursuits. They simply want their investments to work quietly in the background without them having to spend any more time than necessary on them. In many cases, they do not even mind earning a lower return on their investments, as the time and/or hassle trade-off is worthwhile for them. Of course, many other retirees love managing their investments closely, and doing company due diligence and tracking stocks is very much a hobby for them, with the potential to generate higher income and even higher total returns serving as "icing on the cake." However, for those who do not want to spend the time and effort necessary to pursue higher total returns and achieve a 7% plus yield from individual stocks, in this article I'm going to detail a simple yet, what I believe to be, a fairly effective approach towards generating around a 7% yield from a portfolio made up exclusively of funds, thereby removing the need to do due diligence. Gold With a Covered Call Twist The first fund we're going to discuss is the NEOS Gold High Income ETF ( IAUI ), which has been operating for just under a year. For some, this is a deal breaker because they want a fund with a long track record. With IAUI, this underlying holding is about as basic as it gets: namely, gold ( GLD ) exposure. Meanwhile, it overlays a dynamically ...
photosvit/iStock Editorial via Getty Images I previously rated Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. ( RCL ) as a Buy in March 2026, thanks to their robust performance metrics and the ongoing fleet expansion. In this article, I shall discuss why I am reiterating my Buy rating here, thanks to their likely to remain resilient operations despite the ongoing fuel risks. RCL Faces Near-Term Fuel Pain RCL 1Y Sto...
photosvit/iStock Editorial via Getty Images I previously rated Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. ( RCL ) as a Buy in March 2026, thanks to their robust performance metrics and the ongoing fleet expansion. In this article, I shall discuss why I am reiterating my Buy rating here, thanks to their likely to remain resilient operations despite the ongoing fuel risks. RCL Faces Near-Term Fuel Pain RCL 1Y Stock Price (Trading View) Since my last Buy rating, RCL has further retraced by -7.3% compared to the wider market at +6.7%, thanks to the ongoing fuel risks arising from the prolonged Iran conflict. With Spirit Airlines already being the " first Iran war casualty, " it remains to be seen when the Iran conflict may be resolved and when fuel prices may normalize afterwards. In light of this, it is unsurprising that the cruise and airline sectors have underperformed over the past few months. FQ1'26 Booking Trends On the other hand, I believe that RCL's intermediate-term prospects are likely to be resilient, given the robust booking trends and the consequently growing customer deposits at $6.54B in FQ1'26 ( +14.1% QoQ / +3.3% YoY ). These numbers are impressive indeed, despite the Iran conflict contributing to the " short-term moderation in demand trends for 2026 for high-yielding Mediterranean sailings, which modestly impacted our outlook for the upcoming summer season." If anything, RCL has reported the booking trends turning the corner in recent weeks, as they highlight the "improved demand for the limited inventory we have remaining for Q2 and Q3 sailings." This is especially since the management has competently repositioned two of their cruise ships sailing in the Middle East region to Mediterranean sailings from May 2026 onwards, which is likely to mitigate some of the travel disruption/revenue risks. Combined with the management's promising commentaries and the more than decent, updated FY2026 guidance (to be discussed in the next segment), I am cautiously optimistic abou...
Within the utilities sector, short sellers remain heavily concentrated in electric utilities, with several electricity producers and multi-utility companies ranking among the most heavily shorted stocks in the market as of the April end. Oklo ( OKLO ) and Otter Tail ( OTTR ) recorded the highest short interest among utilities stocks with a market capitalization of over $2B. The utilities sector ( ...
Within the utilities sector, short sellers remain heavily concentrated in electric utilities, with several electricity producers and multi-utility companies ranking among the most heavily shorted stocks in the market as of the April end. Oklo ( OKLO ) and Otter Tail ( OTTR ) recorded the highest short interest among utilities stocks with a market capitalization of over $2B. The utilities sector ( XLU ) comprises companies involved in services like electricity, natural gas, and water, among other services. Oklo ( OKLO ) was the most shorted stock in the utilities sector, with short interest at 16.45% of its shares outstanding, followed by Otter Tail ( OTTR ) at 12.94%, reflecting elevated bearish positioning in both stocks. Oklo’s shares have risen nearly 1% year-to-date, underperforming the benchmark S&P 500, which has gained over 5% in the same period. Seeking Alpha Quant ratings and analysts are bearish, rating OKLO a Hold. On the other hand, Wall Street analysts are bullish, rating it a Buy. Otter Tail ( OTTR ) was rated a Hold by Seeking Alpha Quant ratings. However, Seeking Alpha analysts and Wall Street analysts are bullish and have rated OTTR a Buy. At the other end of the spectrum, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners ( BIP ) and MGE Energy ( MGEE ) were among the least shorted utilities stocks, with short interest of 0.20% and 1.18%, respectively. The top five most shorted utilities stocks with a market capitalization above $2B (as a percentage of shares outstanding) are: Oklo ( OKLO ) 16.45% short interest Otter Tail ( OTTR ) 12.94% Black Hills ( BKH ) 12.35% H2O America ( HTO ) 11.41% Hawaiian Electric Industries ( HE ) 10.14% The five least shorted utilities stocks, with a market capitalization above $2B, are: PG&E Corporation ( PCG ) 1.81% short interest Sempra ( SRE ) 1.52% Essential Utilities ( WTRG ) 1.50% MGE Energy ( MGEE ) 1.18% Brookfield Infrastructure Partners ( BIP ) 0.20% More on State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF Finding The Opportu...
New York City’s risk of seeing a credit-rating downgrade has increased, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists. As New York State looks less likely to approve major personal and corporate tax hikes that would help the city overcome its expected budget gaps, the analysts say that revenue options look limited. “We believe downgrade risk, which was already elevated, has increased as Albany app...
New York City’s risk of seeing a credit-rating downgrade has increased, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists. As New York State looks less likely to approve major personal and corporate tax hikes that would help the city overcome its expected budget gaps, the analysts say that revenue options look limited. “We believe downgrade risk, which was already elevated, has increased as Albany appears unlikely to approve meaningful new revenue sources,” JPMorgan strategists led by Peter DeGroot wrote in a report published Friday. Moody’s Ratings and Fitch Ratings have already revised their outlook on the city to negative, as the city faces a roughly $5.4 billion two-year budget deficit . New York City is currently rated Aa2 rating by Moody’s, the third-highest level of investment grade, and an equivalent AA by S&P Global Ratings and Fitch. Governor Kathy Hochul has resisted several tax proposals put forth by Mayor Zohran Mamdani . For instance, he’s proposed that the state limit a tax credit used by hedge funds, private equity firms and other businesses. He and City Council Speaker Julie Menin said the change would raise $1 billion of additional city revenue, but Hochul said she opposes the proposal. Related: Mamdani Pushes to Shrink NY Hedge-Fund, Private-Equity Tax Break Meanwhile, Hochul and Mamdani have agreed on a potential surcharge for owners of second homes in New York City worth more than $5 million. The New York City comptroller’s office said in an April 30 report that this proposed tax on pied-à-terre properties is “one of the most likely, and possibly only, new tax revenue.” Based on commentary from ratings firms, the JPMorgan analysts said the city’s credit rating could “hinge on the final adopted budget achieving two conditions simultaneously: narrowing projected gaps, and doing so through recurring measures that preserve reserves.” A spokesperson for the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reserves on Watch Without new revenue,...