Nike 's stock is still looking expensive despite the already steep slide this year, according to Piper Sandler. The investment firm downgraded Nike to neutral from overweight. It also lowered its price target on shares to $50 from $60. Nike shares have plunged 31% since the beginning of the year, fueled by expectations the sportswear company's sales could continue to slow amid a challenging macroe...
Nike 's stock is still looking expensive despite the already steep slide this year, according to Piper Sandler. The investment firm downgraded Nike to neutral from overweight. It also lowered its price target on shares to $50 from $60. Nike shares have plunged 31% since the beginning of the year, fueled by expectations the sportswear company's sales could continue to slow amid a challenging macroeconomic environment. Late last month, Nike issued a lackluster sales outlook, which caused the shares to plunge by 15%. The stock has yet to recover. "Stock reset after F3Q26 print but is still not cheap at 22x our FY28E EPS and given absence of a catalyst (Investor Day not until 2H26) is likely in penalty box for now," Piper Sandler analyst Anna Andreeva said Friday in a note to clients. NKE YTD mountain Nike shares are down 31% in the year to date. The sportswear company forecasted a sales dip in the range of 2% to 4% in the fiscal fourth quarter compared to the same period a year ago. That figure came in well below the 1.9% increase expected by analysts polled by LSEG. Nike pinned its expectations of a sales slump on its corporate strategy shift that has taken longer than anticipated to increase customers' appetites for its brand. Sales are also likely to slow as Nike faces stiffer competition in key product segments such as athleisure, where some demand seems likely to dry up, Piper Sandler said. "We worry that Athleisure (aka Sportswear for NKE) is becoming too saturated across the industry, with frequency metrics at peakish levels," Andreeva wrote. "Sport lifestyle (or athleisure, 37% of the space) is becoming more mature, with many brands looking similar and demand driven more by new entrants (like Solomon) as opposed to legacy players." Piper Sandler's call goes against consensus on the Street. Of the 40 analysts covering Nike, 21 have a buy or strong buy on the stock.
soumik das/iStock via Getty Images The market is currently selling off even high-performing business development companies (BDCs) ( BIZD ) due to concerns about AI disruption of software, potentially leading to losses on software loans. There are also broader concerns about the health of the private credit sector, and even the economy as a whole, in the wake of spiking energy prices. This is creat...
soumik das/iStock via Getty Images The market is currently selling off even high-performing business development companies (BDCs) ( BIZD ) due to concerns about AI disruption of software, potentially leading to losses on software loans. There are also broader concerns about the health of the private credit sector, and even the economy as a whole, in the wake of spiking energy prices. This is creating opportunities to buy high-yielding income machines at compelling valuations, and in today's article, I'm going to detail two that I've been buying recently. The Gold Standard of BDCs The first one I'm going to talk about is Ares Capital ( ARCC ), which is broadly considered to be the gold standard of externally managed BDCs. It is managed by Ares Management ( ARES ), which is a large and proven direct lending investor and manager, and ARCC itself has one of the longest and most impressive BDC track records, dating back to before the Great Financial Crisis. Over the long term, it has delivered stellar total returns for shareholders. ARCC is well diversified across 588 companies in its portfolio, and its portfolio is well diversified in a way that gives it an all-weather-type performance profile, with 66% allocated to senior secured loans. It also has meaningful exposure to junior debt and equity investments that can give it capital appreciation and higher-yielding potential. Given its skilled underwriting, it is able to balance these portfolio trades to deliver attractive total return without suffering too much downside during economic downturns. While 24% software exposure is likely one of the main reasons why the stock has sold off recently, it has a 40% weighted average loan-to-value along these lines and, to date, has an excellent track record. It has been underwriting AI risk for a while and is focused on names that are better positioned to weather potential AI disruption of the software space. ARCC's Rock-Solid Portfolio Metrics Its portfolio today also looks quite...
bjdlzx/iStock via Getty Images Oil futures were headed for their steepest weekly drop since last June, even as prices edged higher Friday on renewed worries about Saudi supply and shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude futures ( CO1:COM ) were trading at $95.98/bbl at press time, while the West Texas Intermediate futures ( CL1:COM ) were up 0.2% to $98.04. Brent and WTI benchmarks are...
bjdlzx/iStock via Getty Images Oil futures were headed for their steepest weekly drop since last June, even as prices edged higher Friday on renewed worries about Saudi supply and shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude futures ( CO1:COM ) were trading at $95.98/bbl at press time, while the West Texas Intermediate futures ( CL1:COM ) were up 0.2% to $98.04. Brent and WTI benchmarks are down 11-12% this week. However, fighting has continued, and the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz remains heavily restricted, keeping futures prices near $100 a barrel and pushing prices in the physical market to record highs. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained less than 10% of normal volumes as Tehran asserted its control by warning ships to keep to its territorial waters, Reuters reported. "The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively constrained and operation of the global oil system is far from normal," Saxo Bank analyst Ole Hansen said, adding that futures markets have priced in a partial normalisation but the physical market is reflecting acute scarcity. Elsewhere, attacks on Saudi energy facilities have cut the kingdom's oil production capacity by about 600,000 barrels per day and reduced its East-West Pipeline throughput by about 700,000 bpd, state news agency SPA reported on Thursday. About 50 infrastructure assets in the Gulf have been damaged by drone and missile strikes over nearly six weeks since the conflict started, with approximately 2.4 million bpd of oil refining capacity taken offline, investment bank JPMorgan said, as per the report. U.S. natural gas futures ( NG1:COM ) fell, with the front-month May contract down 0.3% to $2.66/MMBtu, down 4.7% for the week. ETFs: ( USO ), ( BNO ), ( UCO ), ( SCO ), ( USL ), ( DBO ), ( DRIP ), ( GUSH ), ( USOI ), ( UNG ), ( BOIL ), ( KOLD ), ( UNL ), ( FCG ), ( XLE ) More on Crude Oil Futures, Brent Futures, etc. Commodities: Oil Supported By Ongoing Supply Risks Reinventing The Petrodollar: How U...
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News The Artemis II astronauts are heading back to earth after a historic mission that launched the first crewed flight toward the moon in over half a century, with the Lockheed Martin ( LMT )-built Orion capsule set for splashdown Friday night. "The Artemis II astronauts have hit the 'halfway' mark between the Moon and the Earth," NASA posted late on Thursday. "They ...
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News The Artemis II astronauts are heading back to earth after a historic mission that launched the first crewed flight toward the moon in over half a century, with the Lockheed Martin ( LMT )-built Orion capsule set for splashdown Friday night. "The Artemis II astronauts have hit the 'halfway' mark between the Moon and the Earth," NASA posted late on Thursday. "They will splash down in the Pacific Ocean around 8:07 pm ET on Friday, April 10 off the coast of San Diego." During re-entry, the service module – which powers the spacecraft – will separate around 7:33 pm ET, about 20 minutes before Orion reaches the upper atmosphere southeast of Hawaii, according to NASA's website. At 7:37 pm, a final trajectory‑adjustment burn will fine‑tune the flight path before the spacecraft begins a series of roll maneuvers to safely distance itself from departing hardware. Orion will enter a planned six‑minute communications blackout at 7:53 pm as plasma forms around the capsule during peak heating. After emerging from blackout, Orion will jettison its forward bay cover, deploy its drogue parachutes and then unfurl its three main parachutes around 6,000 feet at 8:04 pm to slow the capsule for splashdown. The crew will be extracted from Orion within two hours after splashdown and flown to the USS John P. Murtha, where they will undergo medical evaluations before returning to shore. The Artemis II astronauts ventured farther into space than any human has before, flying around the far side of the moon. The crew reached a peak of 252,756 miles from earth, surpassing the previous record of ~248,000 miles set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970. More on Artemis II mission Artemis momentum lifts space outlook as BofA sees valuations steady Artemis II crew nears historic distance record during lunar flyby Artemis II: U.S. set to launch first crewed moon mission since 1972
Good morning . Anthropic’s new AI model just got spookier. NASA astronauts prepare for splashdown. And reading retreats are all the rage. Listen to the day’s top stories . — Angela Cullen Market Snapshot S&P 500 Futures 6,866.00 +0.0% Nasdaq 100 Futures 25,274.00 +0.1% Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index 1,199.70 +0.0% Market data as of 07:02 AM ET. Data is subject to provider delays. Scott Bessent and Je...
Good morning . Anthropic’s new AI model just got spookier. NASA astronauts prepare for splashdown. And reading retreats are all the rage. Listen to the day’s top stories . — Angela Cullen Market Snapshot S&P 500 Futures 6,866.00 +0.0% Nasdaq 100 Futures 25,274.00 +0.1% Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index 1,199.70 +0.0% Market data as of 07:02 AM ET. Data is subject to provider delays. Scott Bessent and Jerome Powell summoned Wall Street CEOs to warn of potential cyber risks from Anthropic’s latest AI model and others, people familiar said. They want to make sure banks are taking precautions to defend their systems. Mythos is so powerful that Anthropic has limited its release to just a handful of tech and finance firms, including Amazon, Apple and JPMorgan. They’re part of “Project Glasswing,” which will work to secure the most important systems before similar AI models become available. Spooked? One Anthropic employee said Mythos “should feel terrifying.” Iran latest: Donald Trump demanded that Tehran reopen the Strait of Hormuz, increasing pressure ahead of peace talks due to start in Pakistan tomorrow. Stocks took a breather , while oil rose amid little sign of increased traffic through the waterway. Treasuries were on track to snap a four-day run of gains as investors await US inflation data this morning, the first to reflect fallout from the war. Here’s how Trump’s second big shock to the world economy since he returned to the White House might affect interest rates around the globe. And this is the price US consumers may pay . Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s top negotiator sees Ukraine nearing a peace deal with Vladimir Putin. While efforts to end Europe’s longest conflict since World War II have yielded few results, Kyrylo Budanov expressed optimism in an interview that the talks are grinding toward a settlement. Ukraine’s former top military spy said he believes Russia also wants to stop the war. Separately, Zelenskiy said Ukraine would receive financial, energy and technical ...
Ares Management Corp. is planning a significantly smaller flagship US direct lending fund than its previous record-breaking vehicle of $33.6 billion to speed up deployment of capital, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Los Angeles-based firm, one of the world’s biggest private credit managers, is sounding out investors about the planned fund ahead of a formal launch sometime in ...
Ares Management Corp. is planning a significantly smaller flagship US direct lending fund than its previous record-breaking vehicle of $33.6 billion to speed up deployment of capital, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Los Angeles-based firm, one of the world’s biggest private credit managers, is sounding out investors about the planned fund ahead of a formal launch sometime in the summer, said the people who asked not to be identified discussing confidential talks. The preliminary total target size is expected to be closer to $20 billion. The expected size of the new vehicle, Ares Senior Direct Lending Fund IV, underscores how the $1.8 trillion private credit market is adapting to a prolonged downturn in private equity dealmaking and concerns over rising credit risks. A representative for the US firm declined to comment on the new fund. Major alternative asset managers such as Ares, which are responsible for driving much of the sector’s growth, are now also contending with a retail investor base that’s grown increasingly wary of underwriting standards and the disruption from artificial intelligence. Speaking recently at a conference in Phoenix, Ares Chief Executive Officer Mike Arougheti said he hoped that “rational minds prevail” on the day that another of the firm’s vehicles — the $10.7 billion Ares Strategic Income Fund — capped withdrawals at 5% of shares after redemption requests reached 11.6%. Read More: Ares, Apollo Cap Private Credit Withdrawals as Exodus Grows Still, a smaller target size means a faster timeline for funds like Ares to raise and deploy capital, the people said, adding that plans are at an early stage and can change. Away from retail, there are also signs that appetite from institutional investors remains largely robust. Ares earlier this year raised $9.8 billion and $7.1 billion for opportunistic credit and credit secondaries strategies, respectively. The previous fund from Ares was the largest institutional direct lendin...
Welcome to Going Private , Bloomberg’s twice-weekly newsletter about private markets and the forces moving capital away from the public eye. Today, we crunch the date on private markets’ exposure to software amid fears about the rise of artificial intelligence. But first we take a look at Jamie Dimon’s thoughts on private equity and IPOs. If you’re not already on our list, sign up here . Have feed...
Welcome to Going Private , Bloomberg’s twice-weekly newsletter about private markets and the forces moving capital away from the public eye. Today, we crunch the date on private markets’ exposure to software amid fears about the rise of artificial intelligence. But first we take a look at Jamie Dimon’s thoughts on private equity and IPOs. If you’re not already on our list, sign up here . Have feedback? Email us at goingprivate@bloomberg.net Dimon’s Surprise Jamie Dimon ’s comments about private credit lacking rigor in its valuations grabbed plenty of attention this week, but less heed was paid to his thoughts on the private equity managers that own many of the companies that borrowed from direct lenders. “With stock markets at all-time highs in recent months, it is a little surprising that private equity firms, which own close to 13,000 companies, have not taken greater advantage of healthy markets to take their companies public,” the JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer wrote in his annual letter to shareholders. Private equity investments are now typically held for seven years, he pointed out, double the previous norm. That’s important because assets held for more than six years are considered potentially stranded, meaning they’re at risk of write downs due to declining performance or a lack of new funds available for reinvestment, according to With Intelligence , an alternative investment data provider owned by S&P Global . Its data suggests median holding periods are 5.4 years. Sponsors are holding onto assets for longer because many managers failed to hedge their borrowing costs during the cheap money era, leaving them exposed when central banks began rapidly increasing interest rates in an attempt to moderate inflation. Higher debt costs meant many companies could not find buyers or be floated on the stock market at valuations that the sponsors deemed acceptable. Limited distributions from disposals to investors in the earlier vintages has also made new fund...
Welcome to Tech In Depth, our daily newsletter about the business of tech from Bloomberg’s journalists around the world. Today, Ian King reports on Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang’s latest pitch to take the long view on the benefits of artificial intelligence. Tech Across the Globe Intel’s win : Alphabet’s Google committed to using future generations of Intel’s data center chip and sai...
Welcome to Tech In Depth, our daily newsletter about the business of tech from Bloomberg’s journalists around the world. Today, Ian King reports on Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang’s latest pitch to take the long view on the benefits of artificial intelligence. Tech Across the Globe Intel’s win : Alphabet’s Google committed to using future generations of Intel’s data center chip and said it would work with the semiconductor maker on custom designs. OpenAI’s edge : OpenAI told investors it has “rapidly and consistently” added more computing capacity than its leading rival, Anthropic, giving it an advantage in the competition for AI products. Iran’s internet blackout : SpaceX’s Starlink satellite terminals, smuggled into Iran, have helped some residents connect to the outside world after the regime shut down access to the web. Revalued SiFive Inc. raised $400 million in a funding round that valued the chip startup at $3.65 billion as part of its efforts to gain a bigger share of the market in AI data centers. Investors, led by Atreides Management, included Nvidia, Apollo Global Management and Point72. Many questions Jensen Huang , a central figure in the artificial intelligence explosion, used a video appearance this week at the HumanX conference in San Francisco to embark on a topic that’s currently top of mind for him: urging business leaders to ignore the yearnings of the market and take the long view of the technology. Be open-minded about the potential of AI and patient in waiting for benefits that can be measured, the Nvidia chief executive officer said during a conversation with conference organizer Stefan Weitz. This admonition is rooted in Huang’s belief that the widespread adoption of AI is a unique event that’s akin to the Industrial Revolution. We’re just at the beginning of that massive change and we shouldn’t allow near-term goals to obscure the big picture, he argues. “I would err on being more playful, on being more open-minded, on being les...