During a sit-down interview with Fortune on May 12, the president said that he wanted the government to gain an ownership stake in a pending railroad merger. The analyst said that whatever form the investment might take, making the acquisition deal contingent on giving the administration getting a stake would be highly unusual. “‘Write a check to get your merger approved’ seems less palatable,” Vernon said. He then paused, before adding: “I guess that’s possible.” “It would depend a lot on what the terms are,” Vernon said, allowing that some arrangement could potentially be worked out regarding the federal government investing in Union Pacific for specific growth that enhances U.S. economic security, such as expansions that UP wouldn’t normally undertake on its own. David Vernon, senior transportation analyst for Bernstein, said the government successfully negotiating a federal stake as part of the merger process is “probably not going to happen.” The White House and the STB did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the topic of a potential government ownership stake, nor did Union Pacific or Norfolk Southern. The proposed deal, which would be the biggest railroad merger ever, has inspired both political and industry opposition, driven by fears that the expanded Union Pacific Transcontinental Railroad, as the new company would be called, would consolidate monopoly power in freight shipping and lead to higher prices for consumers and fewer railroad jobs. At the same time, Trump’s second term has been marked by unprecedented federal investments in publicly traded companies —from Intel to rare earths miners and refiners —all in industries deemed critical for national security. Trump didn’t specifically name any railroads when discussing the idea with Fortune, citing a “very big” railroad merger. But Union Pacific’s acquisition of Norfolk Southern is the only known pending deal in an industry that has only four major players in the U.S. There’s no clear connec...

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey comments on the recent concerns about the private credit market during an interview with Bloomberg's Stephanie Flanders at a central banking conference in Iceland. (Source: Bloomberg)

Key Points Bloomberg reports that Qualcomm's custom AI processors will be deployed on a massive scale by TikTok parent ByteDance. Qualcomm could unveil more design wins for its AI chips next month. Qualcomm's attractive valuation is another reason to buy the stock right away. 10 stocks we like better than Qualcomm › Intel stock has turned in a stellar performance on the market over the past year, rising by an incredible 488% as of this writing, as demand for the company's chips has started to improve due to their deployment in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. Intel missed the AI chip boom initially, as its central processing units (CPUs) weren't suited for training large language models (LLMs) that required a lot of computational horsepower. Nvidia ran away with the AI chip market thanks to its graphics cards, which can perform massive parallel calculations, making them ideal for training AI models. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue » But as AI compute moves from the training to the inference phase to unlock the technology's productivity gains, demand for energy-efficient CPUs and custom AI processors has begun to rise. That's because the inference phase doesn't require as much computing power as training AI models. As a result, Intel is now witnessing healthy demand for its CPUs and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). However, the phenomenal rally in Intel stock means that investors will have to pay a whopping 904 times earnings to buy it right now. But they can buy shares of Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) at a significantly cheaper valuation, and doing so could turn out to be a smart move as this sleeping chip giant seems like a better play on AI inference than Intel. Let's look at the reasons why. Qualcomm can win big from several AI inference applications The smart...

The Trump administration continues to claim in lawsuits that ICE monitoring sites are doxing agents, without showing evidence that's happening. Most recently, the Department of Justice pointed to sites like ICEList.info and ICESpy.org in lawsuits it filed in an attempt to force four states to reverse policies blocking ICE agents from registering undercover license plates. The DOJ alleged that the states' policies are unconstitutional, unlawfully requiring federal officers to abide by different rules than state officers who can easily obtain undercover plates. Among risks to ICE agents denied undercover plates, the DOJ counted alleged threats of increased harassment and invasive tracking of officers, as well as the possibility that targets of ICE enforcement may more easily evade arrest. Read full article Comments

BP ( BP ) shares snapped six straight sessions of losses, as the stock was up 1% at $42.01 on Friday. The oil and gas company fell nearly 8% in the preceding six sessions. The stock has advanced about 20% so far this year, compared to a 10.5% rise in the broader S&P 500 Index ( SP500 ). BP is down 10% over the past one month. Recently, RBC Capital upgraded BP, saying the current windfall from higher crude prices presents "a second chance for BP to de-leverage and should help put the company on firmer footing for the coming years." Looking at Seeking Alpha's Quant Rating, BP has a Hold rating with a score of 3.5 out of 5. The company received an A+ in the prospect of profitability, while it got a D in growth factor. Turning to the Wall Street community , nine analysts gave BP a Buy and above rating. Six analysts have given the stock a Hold recommendation, while three recommended Sell or lower. Seeking Alpha analysts are cautious and see the stock as a Hold. More on BP p.l.c. Wall Street Lunch: BP Slips After Ousting Chairman Albert Manifold Over Governance Concerns BP p.l.c.: Risks Are Now To The Upside BP: The Market Still Underestimates This Turnaround BP to operate Babek gas field offshore Azerbaijan - Reuters BP’s ousted chair says no concerns were raised about conduct during tenure

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Equities on Wall Street rose intraday as President Donald Trump laid out conditions that Iran must a Upgrade to read this MT Newswires article and get so much more. A Silver or Gold subscription plan is required to access premium news articles.

July ICE NY cocoa (CCN26) today is down -177 (-4.32%), and July ICE London cocoa #7 (CAN26) is down -113 (-3.66%). Cocoa prices are under pressure today from rising supplies. ICE cocoa inventories rose to a 1.75-year high of 2,810,211 bags on Thursday. Don’t Miss a Day: Last Friday, cocoa prices fell to 3-week lows amid an outlook for abundant supplies. On May 14, the Ivory Coast boosted its cocoa delivery estimate to 2.2 MMT for the 2025/26 season, up from a previous projection of 1.8-1.9 MMT, citing favorable weather. Increased cocoa supplies from the Ivory Coast are bearish for prices. Monday's cumulative data from the Ivory Coast showed that farmers shipped 1.64 MMT of cocoa to ports in the current marketing year (October 1, 2025, through May 24, 2026), up +2.5% from the same period a year ago. On May 11, cocoa prices soared to 4-month highs amid concerns that the formation of an El Niño weather pattern could lead to warmer, drier conditions in West Africa, potentially damaging cocoa production there. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates an 82% probability that El Niño conditions will emerge between May and July and persist through the end of the year, with a 67% chance of a "Super El Niño." Cocoa prices also have support from early surveys of the 2026/27 West African cocoa crop that show below-average cherelle formation on cocoa trees, signaling a weak outlook for the main cocoa harvest, which begins in October. Signs that consumer demand for chocolate is holding up are a positive factor for cocoa prices. Recent earnings results from top chocolate makers Hershey and Mondelez International were better than expected and show consumer chocolate demand remains steady despite high prices. However, Circana reported on April 14 that chocolate candy sales in North America in the 13 weeks ending March 22 fell 1.3% from the same period a year ago. The prospects of a smaller global surplus are also supportive for cocoa prices. On April 2...

July arabica coffee (KCN26) today is down -7.40 (-2.70%), and July ICE robusta coffee (RMN26) is down -76 (-2.14%). Coffee prices are retreating today after updated weather forecasts called for dry conditions next week in Brazil's coffee-growing regions, allowing the coffee harvest to resume after being delayed this week by heavy rains. Don’t Miss a Day: Coffee prices have ratcheted lower over the past month, with arabica falling to a 1.5-year nearest-futures low last Tuesday, amid an improved global supply outlook. On May 7, the Coffee Trading Academy projected Brazil's 2026/27 coffee harvest will increase by 12% y/y to 71.4 million bags. On March 19, Marex Group Plc projected a record 2026/27 Brazilian coffee crop of 75.9 million bags, surpassing Sucafina's forecast of 75.4 million bags (+15.5% y/y). On March 12, StoneX raised its Brazil 2026/27 coffee production estimate to a record 75.3 million bags, up from a November estimate of 70.7 million bags. Meanwhile, StoneX projected the 2026 global coffee surplus will expand to 10 million bags from 1.8 million bags in 2025, the biggest surplus in 6 years. Soaring coffee exports from Vietnam, the world's largest robusta producer, are bearish for robusta prices. On May 9, Vietnam's National Statistics Office reported that Vietnam's 2026 coffee exports (Jan-Apr) rose by +15.8% y/y to 810,000 MT. Vietnam's 2025 coffee exports jumped by +17.5% y/y to 1.58 MMT. Also, Vietnam's 2025/26 coffee production is projected to climb +6% y/y to a 4-year high of 1.76 MMT (29.4 million bags). ICE coffee inventories have trended lower over the past 2 months, which is supportive of coffee prices. ICE arabica coffee inventories fell to a 3.25-month low of 440,785 bags on Thursday. Also, ICE robusta inventories fell to a 2-year low of 3,631 lots on May 15, but recovered to a 6-week high of 3,968 lots last Friday. Global weather risks are supportive for coffee prices. Excessive dryness in Vietnam is raising concerns about the robusta coffee...

In this article MBG-DE Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Mercedes-Benz vehicles sit parked, on the day U.S. President Donald Trump is set to announce new tariffs, at a dealership in Copiague, New York, U.S., April 2, 2025. Shannon Stapleton | Reuters Mercedes-Benz could find itself shut out of the U.S. auto market — banned from making or selling new vehicles in the country — under legislation making its way through Congress. New bipartisan legislation aimed at limiting Chinese involvement in the U.S. auto market may sweep in Mercedes-Benz unless the bill is changed or the German automaker's largest shareholder sells its stake. The bill, the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026 , would prohibit automakers that have "any direct or indirect equity interest by a foreign-adversary government," such as China , from importing, selling or manufacturing vehicles for sale in the U.S. Mercedes-Benz's largest individual shareholder is the state-owned Chinese automaker BAIC, formerly the Beijing Automotive Industrial Corp., with a 9.98% share. The potential implications of the legislation on the automaker are previously unreported. Several people familiar with the legislation who spoke to CNBC cited grey areas in the bill that, depending on how they're interpreted, could ban Mercedes-Benz from operating in the U.S. Two sources who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions or because they weren't authorized to speak publicly said they believe the bill, as it's currently written, would ban the company. "The language is unambiguous," said a former automotive policy advisor and lobbyist who was consulted about the bill. A cap on foreign ownership The bill comes as lawmakers in both parties seek to prevent Chinese automakers from gaining a foothold in the U.S. market, even as Chinese ownership already runs through parts of the global auto industry. The bill, which is sponsored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie...

格隆汇5月30日｜洲际交易所：截至5月26日当周，布伦特原油投机者将净多头头寸减少56,568份合约，降至278,720份。

Key Points Visa, Mastercard, and American Express are integrating stablecoins into their networks. PayPal launched its own stablecoin three years ago, but its moat is drying up. 10 stocks we like better than Visa › Stablecoins, which have risen in popularity in recent years, are pegged to the U.S. dollar and can be transferred cheaply and instantly over blockchain rails rather than traditional payment networks. That makes them a potential threat to payment companies like Visa (NYSE: V), Mastercard (NYSE: MA), American Express (NYSE: AXP), and PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL). However, stablecoins probably won't impact Visa, Mastercard, and American Express as much as PayPal. Let's see why those three credit card stocks are still worth buying in the stablecoin era, and why it might be smarter to avoid PayPal's stock. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue » Why stablecoins can't derail the credit card leaders Visa and Mastercard don't issue their own cards. Banks and other financial institutions issue those co-branded cards and handle the actual accounts. At the same time, Visa and Mastercard generate most of their revenue by charging merchants 1%-3% "swipe fees" for processing those cards. On the surface, stablecoins appear to be a major threat to Visa and Mastercard, as merchant groups have repeatedly demanded lower swipe fees. But in reality, most businesses will still accept Visa and Mastercard ubiquitous cards rather than dropping them and alienating a large portion of their customer base. Most businesses and consumers also probably won't want to manage crypto wallets or private keys just to save a few dollars. Visa and Mastercard also provide strong consumer protection, fraud prevention, and dispute resolution services that stablecoins don't offer on their own. Instead of directly competing with ...

In this article COST MCD Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch now VIDEO 5:53 05:53 Pain at the pump adds up: Rising concerns about higher gas prices impact on spending Squawk Box Americans have spent nearly $450 extra per household on rising energy costs during the Iran War , according to an analysis shared exclusively with CNBC's Steve Liesman. The average household has shelled out $447.19 for additional fuel-related expenses since the conflict began, data from Moody's Analytics found. That's cumulatively cost American consumers nearly $60 billion as gas prices and airline fares surge. Moody's data puts a dollar amount on a portion of the economic pain Americans are feeling as the U.S.-Iran war reaches its three-month mark. Higher energy costs can force consumers to raid their savings and lean more on debt to cover expenses. "Unless the war ends soon, financially pressed consumers will have no option but to turn more cautious in their spending, threatening the already soft economy," said Mark Zandi , Moody's chief economist. If prices stay at current levels, the average household could take a hit of almost $2,000 at the one-year mark of the war, Zandi said. Roughly half of the increased energy spending so far comes from higher gasoline prices. The average unleaded gallon in the U.S. cost about $4.39 on Friday, up more than 47% since the start of March, according to AAA . Pricier diesel, which is used in vehicles like delivery trucks and boats, has resulted in more than $20 billion in additional expenses for consumers. The price of diesel has similarly jumped roughly 47% since March began to around $5.52 a gallon, per AAA. Consumers have given up nearly $10 billion extra as a result of rising costs for jet fuel. Airline fares climbed more than 20% in April compared with 12 months ago, federal government inflation data shows. That nearly $450 impact more than erased the boost of $384 per household from bigger tax returns this year under President Don...

Just days after SpaceX issued its S-1 report, the company is already scaling back its IPO goals. Elon Musk’s space exploration, satellite internet, and AI company is now reportedly targeting a valuation of at least $1.8 trillion in its public offering, down from an earlier goal of at least $2 trillion. In a post on X, Musk said the news was “false,” and it’s unclear if the dialed-down target is a response to a lack of investor enthusiasm, though it could be a needed dose of reality for the space juggernaut. Image source: SpaceX. What is SpaceX worth? SpaceX’s S-1, the SEC filing required of all companies going public, was mostly a disappointment. It revealed a company with only moderate growth and widening losses, especially after its acquisition of xAI. In 2025, SpaceX’s revenue rose 33% to $18.7 billion, though it reported a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) operating loss of $2.6 billion, compared to a profit of $466 million in 2024, due to a surge in R&D spending, driven by an increase in spending on its AI segment, formerly xAI. In the first quarter of 2026, revenue growth slowed to 15.4% to $4.7 billion, and its GAAP operating loss was $1.94 billion, again due to R&D expense more than doubling to $3.5 billion. However, SpaceX sees its valuation determined by its future, which includes a mission to colonize Mars and the moon, rather than its current results. The company claims an actionable total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, roughly the size of U.S. GDP, and calls it the largest addressable market in human history. Most of that comes from AI enterprise applications, which it values at $22.7 trillion, which is the estimated size of the global digital economy according to the Digital Cooperation Organization. What the valuation cut means for investors If you’re hoping to buy into the SpaceX IPO when it goes public, a lower price is a good thing, but the early sign that the company may be overshooting its worth on Wall Street is concerning. ...

The S&P 500 Index ($SPX) is routinely described as a broad, diversified proxy for the health of the United States economy. A look under the index’s mathematical hood reveals that this diversification is officially dead. Right now, the top 25 largest stocks in the S&P 500 account for a staggering 52% of the total index weight. Think about the sheer weight of that calculation. The index contains 500 distinct corporate entities, yet the top 5% of those companies (25 out of 500) control the majority of the capital. If you own a standard, cap-weighted S&P 500 index fund like the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), your money isn’t being distributed across an entire economic landscape. Instead, over half of every dollar you invest is being funneled into a highly concentrated basket of mega-cap operators heavily dominated by the artificial intelligence, semiconductor, and hyperscaler trade. To understand just how extreme and fragile this setup has become, we have to contextualize it within long-term market history. The Historical Trajectory of the Top 10 Concentration While data for the top 25 specifically swings based on index rebalancings, Wall Street tracks the top 10 holdings as the primary indicator for systemic market concentration. Historically, the top 10 stocks held a cumulative weight of roughly 18% to 23% of the S&P 500, based on data from S&P Dow Jones Indices. When you track the historic yearly figures for the top 10 companies’ market share, you can see exactly when the index transformed from a diversified basket into a top-heavy danger. And this informs the top 25 in that the top 10 are naturally higher-weighted stocks than the next 15. It is when that relationship goes to extremes that we have to start looking out below. 1990 – 1995: Stable concentration. The top 10 companies represented a healthy 18% to 19% of the total index. Stable concentration. The top 10 companies represented a healthy of the total index. 1999 – 2000: Extreme concentration. Driven by the par...

Microsoft (MSFT) Delays Fable Release to February 2027 GuruFocus

Veteran Bank Sets Stunning Price Target for Micron Stock on AI Boom GuruFocus

Key Points NetApp's fiscal Q4 results beat analyst estimates by wide margins. The stock finally surpassed its all-time high from the dot-com era. The company helps enterprises clean up messy data for AI training and inference, and that's a tremendously valuable service nowadays. 10 stocks we like better than NetApp › NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) investors are having a nice Friday. The massive-scale data storage specialist's stock jumped as much as 35.3% around 10:25 a.m. ET. The stock backed down a bit from that extreme gain, but was still up 26% at 12:45 p.m. ET. Yep, that's what a strong earnings report can do, especially when paired with bullish guidance targets. Another dot-com peak bites the dust With this surge to more than $170 per share, NetApp's stock finally eclipsed a long-standing record price of $148.63, set in the fall of 2000. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue » NetApp crushed analyst targets in fiscal Q4 2026. Earnings rose 26% year-over-year to $2.43 per diluted share. Revenue increased 13% to $1.95 billion. The consensus Street view had called for earnings near $2.27 per share on sales in the neighborhood of $1.87 billion. And that's not even the best part. Management's guidance targets for the next quarter and fiscal year 2027 consistently landed well above current analyst projections. Messy data is NetApp's best friend As expected, NetApp CEO George Kurian celebrated the ongoing AI boom. The company helps enterprise customers manage huge arrays of raw, disorganized data. Real-world data is often messy, especially if it includes input by real, imperfect, wonderful humans. AI systems prefer working with clean, structured datasets. A quick round of NetApp's data cleanup and organization makes a significant difference to the speed and quality of AI training or inference. "As e...

The United States market has shown robust performance, climbing 1.8% over the last week and 28% in the past year, with earnings forecasted to grow by 17% annually. In this thriving environment, identifying high growth tech stocks involves focusing on companies that demonstrate strong innovation and adaptability to capitalize on these positive trends. Top 10 High Growth Tech Companies In The United States Name Revenue Growth Earnings Growth Growth Rating AppLovin 21.01% 21.70% ★★★★★★ Sandisk 39.91% 40.96% ★★★★★★ Krystal Biotech 29.09% 36.48% ★★★★★★ Reddit 21.88% 25.36% ★★★★★★ Palantir Technologies 30.22% 31.80% ★★★★★★ Fabrinet 21.38% 23.34% ★★★★★★ Marker Therapeutics 64.28% 69.04% ★★★★★★ Tenaya Therapeutics 59.68% 60.87% ★★★★★☆ Gorilla Technology Group 60.70% 164.86% ★★★★★☆ KVH Industries 28.67% 146.09% ★★★★★☆ Click here to see the full list of 68 stocks from our US High Growth Tech and AI Stocks screener. Here we highlight a subset of our preferred stocks from the screener. Simply Wall St Growth Rating: ★★★★☆☆ Overview: Natera, Inc. is a diagnostics company that focuses on developing and commercializing molecular testing services globally, with a market cap of approximately $29.09 billion. Operations: The company generates revenue primarily through the development and commercialization of molecular testing services, amounting to $2.50 billion. Natera's strategic focus on enhancing cancer treatment precision through its SIGNAL-ER 101 trial and Panorama NIPT improvements highlights its innovative approach in the high-growth tech sector. The company's R&D efforts, instrumental in these advancements, have significantly shaped its product offerings. For instance, the recent enhancements to Panorama NIPT are supported by a robust clinical validation study, showcasing Natera's commitment to addressing complex medical needs through technological innovation. These developments not only reinforce Natera’s position in prenatal and cancer diagnostics but also demonstrate potent...

is a London-based reporter at The Verge covering all things AI and a Senior Tarbell Fellow. Previously, he wrote about health, science and tech for Forbes. This week, an AI training startup called Shift said it would clean New Yorkers’ homes for free. It has plans to expand into other cities as well, including London, and looking around my flat, I get the appeal. But there’s a catch. There’s always a catch. In exchange for the cleaning, Shift wants footage of its cleaners at work: scrubbing dishes, wiping counters, dusting tables, mopping floors. It wants everything. Video of all the boring domestic labor we’d happily outsource if we could — and that robotics companies are racing to teach machines to do so they can sell us something to do it for us. That’s harder than it sounds. Unlike chatbots, image generators, and other AI tools that have exploded in recent years, robots have to deal with the physical world. That means understanding space, motion, force, friction, weird shapes and materials, awkward lighting, and everything else that humans — and other organics — tend to grasp instinctively. It’s why things that are generally easy for us, like folding clothes, picking up an apple, or pouring a glass of water, have proven so maddening for roboticists to codify. Teaching machines to do those things takes data. Lots of it. Text, images, and videos could be easily scraped from the internet at an industrial scale. And they were, often without compensating the people who made them. The physical world is harder to scrape, and harder still to scrape quietly without paying for it. This means access to high-quality data is a massive bottleneck for companies developing physical AI. It’s a lucrative opportunity, so companies like Shift are getting creative. They’re not alone. In India, recent reporting revealed that home services platform Pronto has been using clients’ homes as a source of AI training footage for chores like cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Pronto says it onl...

The UN has added Israel and Russia to a blacklist for sexual violence in conflict, citing abuse by security forces including rape of male detainees. . The UN verified sexual abuse of 31 Palestinian men, women and children from the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank between 2023 and 2025. Israeli attacks included repeated gang-rapes and the use of sexual violence as a form of torture, the report said. Other violations include rape with objects, attempted rape, attacks on genitals, targeted shooting of genitals, touching of breasts and genitals, forced nudity and threats of rape. These cases were “indicative of incidents and patterns” rather than a comprehensive summary of conflict-related sexual violence by Israelis, because of restrictions on UN investigators. Israel barred UN experts from detention centres, blocked travel to Gaza, and has threatened Palestinian detainees if they report abuse after their release. Russia also obstructed investigations into “systemic” sexual violence against Ukrainians, barring monitors from accessing prisoners of war and civilians in detention, the UN said. Despite these challenges, investigators verified 310 cases of abuse, including rape and gang-rape, genital mutilation and applying electric shocks to genitals. Most victims were men, with 26 women and four girls also abused. Russia deploys systematic sexual torture against Ukrainians, both civilians and prisoners of war, in “almost all” detention centres, the UN previously found. In two-thirds of cases, Russian forces used multiple forms of sexual violence, and more than half of survivors endured repeated sexual attacks, the report said. Most were interviewed in Ukrainian-held territory after their release. Israel and Russia both deny the use of sexual violence by their military. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said the country had cut ties with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, in response to the blacklisting. View image in fullscreen This 2024 photo prov...

Catherine Delahaye/DigitalVision via Getty Images Introduction Since "Operation Epic Fury" began in late February 2026, investors have feared that higher inflation, mostly due to gasoline prices rising to near $5 per gallon nationally, would be detrimental to consumer spending, especially in the lower-to-middle income segment. However, as consumer/retail earnings have evolved, we argue that these concerns were largely exaggerated. Many retailers and restaurant companies have reported better-than-expected quarterly results and either reiterated or increased full-year guidance. In this article, we will highlight our views on a few select names in this sector, as well as provide our macro thesis. S&P Retail ETF ( XRT ) Underperforming S&P 500 ETF Trust ( SPY ) Data by YCharts As the chart above clearly illustrates, XRT has significantly underperformed the broader S&P 500 index year-to-date, with a 0.4% modest gain compared to a solid 10.7% increase. We contend this variance has been due to persistent investor fears about growing inflation leading to stubbornly high interest rates, which in turn would result in muted consumer discretionary spending growth. However, we intend to illustrate in the remainder of this article how consumer spending remains strong, even with elevated gasoline prices and overall higher-than-expected CPI and PCE monthly readings. Data by YCharts Contradictory Story Lines In The News This week, I first read an article about how Kroger ( KR ), the largest grocery store company in the United States, is planning to slash prices for thousands of items, to better compete with Costco ( COST ) and Walmart ( WMT ). Clearly, this would be welcomed by consumers and likely lead to deflation for grocery prices. Yet, a day or so later, I read another article titled " Americans Are About to Pay Even More at the Grocery Store " apparently due to rising prices for beef and produce, with one consumer quoted as saying that he has begun growing potatoes in his back...

I keep hitting the buy button on Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) because the stock has gotten cheaper while the business has gotten stronger. The shares are down 13.06% year to date and down 7.24% over the past year, sitting at $418.57. Meanwhile, the company just told me its AI business is running at a $37 billion annualized ... One Reason I Can’t Stop Buying Microsoft Stock