(RTTNews) - Brent crude futures for August delivery were down 0.8 percent at $92.32 a barrel, reversing gains from earlier in the session after the U.S. military said that it had 'completed' its latest round of airstrikes targeting Iran. WTI crude futures fell half a percent to $
(RTTNews) - Brent crude futures for August delivery were down 0.8 percent at $92.32 a barrel, reversing gains from earlier in the session after the U.S. military said that it had 'completed' its latest round of airstrikes targeting Iran. WTI crude futures fell half a percent to $
LRCX soars 86.8% YTD as AI/HPC fuel demand for its chipmaking tools, while strong quarterly sales of more than $5 billion and margin gains keep bulls interested.
LRCX soars 86.8% YTD as AI/HPC fuel demand for its chipmaking tools, while strong quarterly sales of more than $5 billion and margin gains keep bulls interested.
LRCX soars 86.8% YTD as AI/HPC fuel demand for its chipmaking tools, while strong quarterly sales of more than $5 billion and margin gains keep bulls interested.
LRCX soars 86.8% YTD as AI/HPC fuel demand for its chipmaking tools, while strong quarterly sales of more than $5 billion and margin gains keep bulls interested.
PSNI receive reinforcements from Great Britain amid further condemnation of violence Police have fired plastic bullets and received reinforcements from Great Britain in an effort to contain race riots in Northern Ireland. The force has fired 17 of the projectiles since disturbances erupted on Tuesday, pitting officers against crowds that have thrown rocks, petrol bombs and other missiles. Continue...
PSNI receive reinforcements from Great Britain amid further condemnation of violence Police have fired plastic bullets and received reinforcements from Great Britain in an effort to contain race riots in Northern Ireland. The force has fired 17 of the projectiles since disturbances erupted on Tuesday, pitting officers against crowds that have thrown rocks, petrol bombs and other missiles. Continue reading...
John Kevin/iStock via Getty Images JPMorgan Income ETF ( JPIE ) is an actively managed, multi-sector fixed-income ETF that might be framed less as a benchmark-beating bond fund and more as a yield-parking vehicle with an above treasury return attribution due to incremental credit exposure. The ETF runs an unconstrained mandate, with managers able to allocate across securitized, corporate, sovereig...
John Kevin/iStock via Getty Images JPMorgan Income ETF ( JPIE ) is an actively managed, multi-sector fixed-income ETF that might be framed less as a benchmark-beating bond fund and more as a yield-parking vehicle with an above treasury return attribution due to incremental credit exposure. The ETF runs an unconstrained mandate, with managers able to allocate across securitized, corporate, sovereign, and cash positions rather than tracking a fixed index. The current 30-Day SEC yield is ~5.61% , with a broadly identical trailing 12-month distribution yield at ~5.62% . This largely remains an allocation for investors seeking an above-cash income stream without having much exposure to interest rate sensitivity. Active Mandate (Fact-sheet) The fund charges a net expense ratio of ~0.39%. That is not cheap for fixed income, and as with any active fund, the cost is only justified if the manager actually adds value net of fees. JPIE was launched on October 28, 2021, has grown to roughly $8.72 billion in net assets, and spreads capital across a very large number of positions, which is genuinely relevant to its credit-risk profile, as discussed below. The allocation case rests on two fronts. The first is straightforward; the fund offers a ~5.6% yield with low-rate sensitivity and a track record of outperforming both the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Index and some other multi-sector peers. The second is more conditional; it depends on whether one believes a 'higher-for-longer' rate path holds, because that is the environment in which JPIE’s short-duration, credit-heavy structure appears most attractive relative to longer-duration alternatives. Portfolio, Duration, and Performance From an asset allocation perspective, the portfolio is predominantly exposed to securitized assets. Agency and non-agency mortgage-backed securities together account for roughly 45% of assets, with commercial mortgage-backed securities and asset-backed securities contributing a further ~24%. Corporate bond...
Pregnant woman in Scotland ‘stressed’ and unsure what will happen as result of UK government visa clampdown A heavily pregnant mother living and working in the UK legally fears the Home Office could try to separate her from her unborn baby after her husband and first child were sent “go home” letters. Sachintha Warnakulasuriya lives in Scotland with her husband, Indika Kumara and their six-year-ol...
Pregnant woman in Scotland ‘stressed’ and unsure what will happen as result of UK government visa clampdown A heavily pregnant mother living and working in the UK legally fears the Home Office could try to separate her from her unborn baby after her husband and first child were sent “go home” letters. Sachintha Warnakulasuriya lives in Scotland with her husband, Indika Kumara and their six-year-old daughter Heily. Warnakulasuriya, 36, has a visa permitting her to work in the UK as a care worker and is sponsored by her employer. Her husband, also 36, and daughter are legally entitled to live in the UK as her dependents. Continue reading...
Robert Way/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Summary I gave a sell rating to Under Armour ( UAA ) in September 2025 as revenue continued to fall, tariffs were a big drag on earnings, and management revised guidance downwards sharply. For this update, my view is still the same (sell-rated). UAA looks less bad than in my last update, with revenue decline easing, footwear stabilizing, DTC improving, ...
Robert Way/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Summary I gave a sell rating to Under Armour ( UAA ) in September 2025 as revenue continued to fall, tariffs were a big drag on earnings, and management revised guidance downwards sharply. For this update, my view is still the same (sell-rated). UAA looks less bad than in my last update, with revenue decline easing, footwear stabilizing, DTC improving, and inventory discipline getting better. But I still do not see a real turnaround. North America remains weak, and traffic is unresolved. As such, I remain sell-rated. Stabilization Is Not Recovery UAA is not looking much better than in my September update. To be fair towards UAA, in the recent quarter , revenue was down only 1% y/y to $1.2 billion, footwear stopped declining with revenue flat at $282 million, DTC grew 5% to $406 million, and inventory was down 3% to $915 million. Management has also reduced SKUs by 25% over the past two years. These do show that management has better control of the business. But this still does not look like a real turnaround to me. It looks, at best, like stabilization. My simple view is that a recovery means the consumer is coming back. It means stronger traffic, better full-price sell-through, and demand momentum that can last several quarters. UAA has not shown that yet. What it has shown is better execution, and that should indeed help the business run cleaner. Specifically, with a narrower product range, it should mean fewer bad products and fewer forced markdowns, which means a better margin profile and easier-to-manage marketing (which products to push forward). The issue is that better discipline does not automatically mean better demand. You can see this in the Footwear category. While the improvement from a sharp decline (in my previous update) to flat y/y growth (in Q4 2026) is better, note that flat y/y growth means stabilization, not demand improvement. From here, UAA needs to show that it can rebuild credibility and pull con...
Nico De Pasquale Photography/DigitalVision via Getty Images Income investors spend a lot of time debating which dividend aristocrats belong in their portfolios and not nearly enough time thinking about the preferred stock segment of the market. I think that's a mistake, especially in an environment where the risk-free rate of return has fallen under 4% on short-duration bonds and the Fed is in a h...
Nico De Pasquale Photography/DigitalVision via Getty Images Income investors spend a lot of time debating which dividend aristocrats belong in their portfolios and not nearly enough time thinking about the preferred stock segment of the market. I think that's a mistake, especially in an environment where the risk-free rate of return has fallen under 4% on short-duration bonds and the Fed is in a holding pattern under new leadership. Preferred stocks blend characteristics of bonds and equities into a single security that prioritizes income generation, and preferred shareholders sit higher in the capital structure than common shareholders when it comes to getting paid. The Virtus InfraCap U.S. Preferred Stock ETF ( PFFA ) remains my first choice for getting exposure to a diversified basket of preferred stocks, and the fund has continued to trade within a range, pay the dividend each month, and grow the distribution along the way. In January, PFFA raised its monthly distribution to $0.1725 per share, which is $2.07 on an annualized basis. With shares trading around $21.12, that works out to a forward yield of roughly 9.69%. The 12-month Treasury bill is yielding around 3.91%, so PFFA is generating an income stream that's roughly 578 basis points above the risk-free rate of return. That spread is actually wider today than it was when I wrote my previous article, and I think income investors who have their sights set exclusively on traditional dividend equities could benefit from diversifying into PFFA's protected income streams. Seeking Alpha Following Up on My Previous Article About PFFA The last time I wrote about PFFA was in the summer of 2025 ( can be read here ) when it was trading at $21.30 and paying $2.03 per share. Since then, shares of PFFA have declined by -1.82% and generated a 6.28% total return after the dividend is accounted for. At the time, the Fed hadn't cut rates yet, and the CME Group's FedWatch Tool was projecting at least 100 basis points of cuts o...
A KKR-led group on Thursday launched a new company with more than $10 billion in committed capital to finance the build-out of AI infrastructure, the latest effort by an alternative asset manager to capitalize on growing demand for AI services. The Kuwait Investment Authority, AI chip giant Nvidia and utility firm Vistra are anchor investors in the company, called Helix Digital Infrastructure, ...
A KKR-led group on Thursday launched a new company with more than $10 billion in committed capital to finance the build-out of AI infrastructure, the latest effort by an alternative asset manager to capitalize on growing demand for AI services. The Kuwait Investment Authority, AI chip giant Nvidia and utility firm Vistra are anchor investors in the company, called Helix Digital Infrastructure, which is led by former Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky. Nvidia will help Helix with its expertise in designing AI data-centers, while Vistra will be the preferred power provider.
Economic slowdowns rarely arrive with a flashing warning sign. More often, they show up in obscure data releases, weaker spending patterns, and subtle shifts in consumer behavior long before the headlines catch up. That’s why investors should pay attention to a little-followed report from the Chicago Federal Reserve. While Wall Street focused on May’s inflation ... The Fed Just Quietly Released Su...
Economic slowdowns rarely arrive with a flashing warning sign. More often, they show up in obscure data releases, weaker spending patterns, and subtle shifts in consumer behavior long before the headlines catch up. That’s why investors should pay attention to a little-followed report from the Chicago Federal Reserve. While Wall Street focused on May’s inflation ... The Fed Just Quietly Released Surprisingly Bad Economic News. Is a Recession Already Starting?