Finding strong, market-beating stocks with a positive earnings outlook becomes easier with the Focus List, a top feature of the Zacks Premium portfolio service.
Finding strong, market-beating stocks with a positive earnings outlook becomes easier with the Focus List, a top feature of the Zacks Premium portfolio service.
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Lithia Motors, Inc. ( LAD ) is an American automotive dealership group. Founded in 1946, Lithia is now a $6 billion (by market cap) car dealership aggregator that employs approximately 30,000 people. Lithia operates more than 450 dealerships representing more than 50 OEM brands across the US, the UK, and Canada. About 75% of annual revenue comes from Imp...
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Lithia Motors, Inc. ( LAD ) is an American automotive dealership group. Founded in 1946, Lithia is now a $6 billion (by market cap) car dealership aggregator that employs approximately 30,000 people. Lithia operates more than 450 dealerships representing more than 50 OEM brands across the US, the UK, and Canada. About 75% of annual revenue comes from Import and Luxury brands, with its top two brands (by annual sales) being Toyota and Honda. The company reports results across five categories: New Vehicle Sales, 50% of FY 2025 revenue; Used Vehicle Sales, 36%; Aftersales, 11%; and Finance & Insurance, 3%. The interesting thing is that the two smallest categories by revenue are actually the main profit drivers, as service/parts and finance/insurance combine to comprise about 70% of annual gross profit. And that brings me to the crux of the investment thesis. The dealership business model is ingeniously lucrative due to a self-reinforcing ecosystem. Only OEM-backed dealerships are allowed to sell new vehicles. Better yet, an OEM will only allow one branded dealership per geographic area, which creates a localized monopoly. This creates the initial sales opportunity. And since most people don’t have enough liquid capital to buy a car in cash, that leads right to high-margin financing and insurance opportunities. Once a customer actually owns a vehicle after financing, a long-lasting, sticky relationship is immediately cemented due to the fact that the customer must return to the dealership for maintenance and repairs. Only OEM-backed dealerships are allowed to provide warranty updates/repairs, further reinforcing the relationship between the customer and the dealership. Moreover, because of how complex vehicles have become over the years (they’re practically computers on wheels nowadays), it’s often only OEM-backed dealerships that have the technological know-how (via trained technicians, access to certain factory information, ...
onimate/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis Intel’s ( INTC ) has outperformed the market year-to-date, and the recent ~5.5% pullback since my last coverage looks less like a break in the narrative and more like a reset in expectations. The narrative remains compelling as a bullish thesis continues to develop. Notably, I see a new catalyst emerging in the form of CPU demand from agentic AI. T...
onimate/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis Intel’s ( INTC ) has outperformed the market year-to-date, and the recent ~5.5% pullback since my last coverage looks less like a break in the narrative and more like a reset in expectations. The narrative remains compelling as a bullish thesis continues to develop. Notably, I see a new catalyst emerging in the form of CPU demand from agentic AI. The market is underestimating the role of CPUs in the next phase, where orchestration, memory coordination and system control are just as important as compute. Intel already has strong server demand, supply constraints and the beginnings of pricing power, which has not been seen in the space for quite some time. As 18A continues to ramp and supply improves into the second half I see the ability to earn can accelerate more quickly than the market is pricing. Data by YCharts The Market Misread Intel’s Role in AI Intel has been stuck in a cycle of trying to catch up to a leader it’s already lost to for a long time. It’s a great narrative, one that has been true for a while. It goes something like this: GPUs dominate AI, AMD ( AMD ) keeps taking share, ARM ( ARM ) is reshaping the architecture and Intel is stuck playing catch-up. I think this narrative is no longer true because it ignores where the bottlenecks are occurring and how AI infrastructure is really changing beyond the initial hype cycle. What’s happening right now is a little more subtle. AI is going from experimentation to deployment. It’s going from individual workloads to systems and when that happens, the conversation is no longer about compute power. It’s about orchestration, memory management, data transfer and control of the system. These are not secondary aspects of a computer or a processing platform, these are primary aspects of a computer or a processing platform and that is where Intel sits, almost quietly at the core of the entire ecosystem. futurumgroup.com I see that the market is starting to understand...
Alones Creative/iStock via Getty Images January and February were great months: the Fed acted as expected, and my trades delivered more than I had anticipated. March, on the other hand, has been a month of headaches, and that’s meant quite literally. I have had sleepless nights and migraines since the beginning of this latest Iran conflict. But give me a difficult puzzle to solve, and I cannot sto...
Alones Creative/iStock via Getty Images January and February were great months: the Fed acted as expected, and my trades delivered more than I had anticipated. March, on the other hand, has been a month of headaches, and that’s meant quite literally. I have had sleepless nights and migraines since the beginning of this latest Iran conflict. But give me a difficult puzzle to solve, and I cannot stop - I had to figure this out. After sifting through numerous datasets, research reports, and news articles over the past three weeks, I believe I can reasonably estimate the events that may transpire this April. In summary, I expect that this conflict will escalate someday between April 10 and 20 because the probability of a ceasefire is almost negligible. Despite that minimal chance of an agreement, President Trump may try to force an agreement by asserting control over Iran’s oil export facilities. Iranians will view that as an existential threat, which may cause them to retaliate by destroying oil assets in any of the states that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council ( GCC ). Such an event will lead to a sustained and global oil supply and price shock. Given the high likelihood of such an event, I recommend a ‘strong sell’ for the two major equity ETFs, SPY and QQQ . Mission Not Accomplished According to the US Department of War and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Operation Epic Fury’s objectives are: The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused: Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure – and they will never have nuclear weapons. The first part of the mission statement makes sense: destroy. But the second part - “and they will never have nuclear weapons” - confuses me. On March 19, Hegseth stated that this will not be a forever-war, and that the objectives remain the same as they were on day one. In that briefing, he again mentioned that they want to ensure that Iran never gets a nu...
Vice-president promises ‘to get to the bottom of’ reports of US government files about unidentified flying objects Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox JD Vance , the vice-president of the United States, said this weekend that he considers aliens to be “demons”. As the war in Iran continues, petrol and grocery prices soar and chaos continues at US airports ...
Vice-president promises ‘to get to the bottom of’ reports of US government files about unidentified flying objects Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox JD Vance , the vice-president of the United States, said this weekend that he considers aliens to be “demons”. As the war in Iran continues, petrol and grocery prices soar and chaos continues at US airports as a partial government shutdown endures, Vance appeared on the conservative Benny Show podcast , released Saturday, to promise that he would spend time looking into what he called his “obsession” with UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors. Continue reading...
As one in six children worldwide is affected by war, a UK charity is providing children in refugee communities from Ukraine to Ethiopia with flatpack timber climbing frames Like many new parents, photographer Alexander Meininger found his world changed after he had kids. “You end up spending a lot of time observing them in playgrounds – whether you want to or not,” he says. Meininger, who grew up ...
As one in six children worldwide is affected by war, a UK charity is providing children in refugee communities from Ukraine to Ethiopia with flatpack timber climbing frames Like many new parents, photographer Alexander Meininger found his world changed after he had kids. “You end up spending a lot of time observing them in playgrounds – whether you want to or not,” he says. Meininger, who grew up in Germany but now lives in London, likes making things. So when he saw how much his young sons enjoyed the jungle gym and play forts at the local park, he made an indoor treehouse for them. That was as far as it went – until the Ukraine war. Watching the destruction of infrastructure on television, Meininger wondered what he could do to help Ukrainian children, and alighted on the idea of playgrounds. This was his first step towards creating Playrise , a charity he launched this week in London that makes flatpack play equipment and furniture for displaced families living in disaster relief zones. Continue reading...
In this article AC-CA Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT An Air Canada Express CRJ-900 sits on the runway after colliding with a Port Authority fire truck at LaGuardia Airport on March 24, 2026 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images Air Canada announced Monday its CEO will retire later this year, after Michael Rousseau was criticized for his English-only message of condo...
In this article AC-CA Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT An Air Canada Express CRJ-900 sits on the runway after colliding with a Port Authority fire truck at LaGuardia Airport on March 24, 2026 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images Air Canada announced Monday its CEO will retire later this year, after Michael Rousseau was criticized for his English-only message of condolence following this month's deadly crash in New York. Canada's largest airline, based in French-speaking Quebec, said Rousseau told the board he will retire by the end of the third quarter. Canada is an officially bilingual nation, and Prime Minister Mark Carney had said the English-only message showed a lack of compassion and judgment. Quebec's premier and others called on the airline executive to resign. Michael Rousseau, chief executive officer of Air Canada, speaks to members of the media after speaking at the Montreal Chamber of Commerce in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021. Christinne Muschi | Bloomberg | Getty Images Antoine Forest, one of the two pilots killed in the crash at LaGuardia Airport, was a French-speaking Quebecer. Forest and Mackenzie Gunther died when the Air Canada Jazz flight from Montreal collided with a fire truck on the runway shortly after landing. Canada's largest airline is headquartered in Montreal. Rousseau previously had been criticized for not speaking French. He delivered his condolence video message in English, with French subtitles. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages has received hundreds of complaints about it. Quebec Premier François Legault noted that when Rousseau was appointed president of the airline in February 2021, he promised to learn French. Quebec's identity has been contentious since the 1760s, when the British completed their takeover of what was then called New France. Quebec is about 80% French-speaking. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the m...
The S&P 500 ( SP500 ) is approaching oversold territory but lacks the strong rally effort needed to confirm a market bottom, according to Frank Cappelleri, founder and president of CappThesis. With the market failing to close above its intraday midpoint in 11 of the last 12 trading days, Cappelleri warns that sustained strength remains elusive despite the pullback creating potential buying opportu...
The S&P 500 ( SP500 ) is approaching oversold territory but lacks the strong rally effort needed to confirm a market bottom, according to Frank Cappelleri, founder and president of CappThesis. With the market failing to close above its intraday midpoint in 11 of the last 12 trading days, Cappelleri warns that sustained strength remains elusive despite the pullback creating potential buying opportunities. In an interview with CNBC, Cappelleri explained that the percentage of S&P 500 ( SP500 ) stocks trading above their 20-day moving average has dropped to roughly 13%, nearing the sub-10% threshold that has historically marked major turning points. “I think we’re close to that, and really not much more needs to happen at this point,” he said, noting that key support at 6,150 remains critical, with a downside target of 6,040 if the current range fails to hold. The lack of follow-through buying presents a significant concern for the market technician. “Over the last two weeks, the market has been failing to close above its midpoint,” Cappelleri noted, contrasting the current weakness with the 70% success rate seen during the strongest periods of the previous year. This pattern suggests buyers are not yet committed to stepping in with conviction. Semiconductor stocks ( SMH ), ( SOXX ), ( SOXL ) represent a critical focal point for the broader market’s direction, with the SMH ETF ( SMH ) forming what Cappelleri described as a “bearish formation” below its 50-day moving average. NVIDIA ( NVDA ) and TSM ( TSM ) together comprise 30% of the semiconductor ETF, which itself accounts for 15% of the S&P 500 ( SP500 ) and 25% of the Nasdaq 100 ( COMP:IND ). An “air pocket of light support” below current levels makes holding these levels essential. While energy stocks ( XLE ), ( AMLP ), ( VDE ), ( XOP ) have outperformed, Cappelleri cautioned that the sector appears overextended. The weekly RSI on energy reached 86, the highest level since 1999, historically preceding declines of ...
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares are really starting to come in, and with the stock lower than many of us thought possible going into 2026, questions linger as to how the enterprise software titan can hit bottom. As the pain threshold of some gets exceeded, there’s really no telling how low the high-tech blue chip can go. ... One Analyst Sees Microsoft Soaring 90%. Here’s What the Market Might Be Mi...
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares are really starting to come in, and with the stock lower than many of us thought possible going into 2026, questions linger as to how the enterprise software titan can hit bottom. As the pain threshold of some gets exceeded, there’s really no telling how low the high-tech blue chip can go. ... One Analyst Sees Microsoft Soaring 90%. Here’s What the Market Might Be Missing
Pavel_Chag/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis Northrop Grumman ( NOC ) is looking to benefit from both tailwinds and multiple long-duration programs as it recovers from a period of margin compression. The B-21 Raider transition into full-scale production is one of the most important catalysts, where a margin headwind turns into a multi-year revenue and earnings driver. With the recent produ...
Pavel_Chag/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis Northrop Grumman ( NOC ) is looking to benefit from both tailwinds and multiple long-duration programs as it recovers from a period of margin compression. The B-21 Raider transition into full-scale production is one of the most important catalysts, where a margin headwind turns into a multi-year revenue and earnings driver. With the recent production increase not reflected in guidance, there will likely be upward revisions. Although there has been some near-term pressure from the Sentinel program, it appears priced in, and cancellation of the project is unlikely due to necessity. Northrop is also moving into autonomous aircraft, with contracts from both the Marines and Air Force. This makes them one of the first in collaborative combat aircraft, which has the potential to match or surpass the value of the current fighter programs over time. Defense spending is higher than ever, and with market share in multiple defense segments, Northrop should benefit. This is why I'm rating the stock a Buy, with a 12-month price target of $754.75 per share. B-21 Raider The B-21 Raider is the replacement for the B-2 Spirit as the US Air Force's stealth bomber. A contract worth $4.5 billion was recently signed, which will increase production of the bomber by 25%. This contract was not included in the company's guidance, which leaves room for upward revisions as the year goes on. As B-21 production accelerates, revenue and margin benefits should begin showing. The program has had its challenges with a $477 million loss provision related to low-rate initial production (LRIP), ultimately putting a drag on margins. These should recover as the company moves past the LRIP phase and increases production. The B-21 Raider (Northrop Grumman) Sentinel ICBM The Sentinel ICBM program has made trouble for Northrop, exceeding both cost and timeline targets. It was, at one point, 81% over budget and three years late. While the program is still co...