Global fast-food chain KFC is adding more electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and McDonald’s is upgrading digital services, as the fast-food sector turns to digital convenience to draw more customers to drive-through stores amid fierce competition, according to analysts. KFC now operates over 7,000 drive-through restaurants nationwide, including kerbside pickups, according to the first-quarter...
Global fast-food chain KFC is adding more electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and McDonald’s is upgrading digital services, as the fast-food sector turns to digital convenience to draw more customers to drive-through stores amid fierce competition, according to analysts. KFC now operates over 7,000 drive-through restaurants nationwide, including kerbside pickups, according to the first-quarter earnings report of Yum China, operator of KFC and Pizza Hut in mainland China and Hong Kong. The...
asbe/iStock via Getty Images By Jennifer Nash The S&P 500 capped the week off with another record high, flirting with the 7,400 milestone. With a 2.3% weekly gain, the index has now climbed for six consecutive weeks, matching its longest winning streak since October 2024. Here is a snapshot of the index from the past week: The table below summarizes the number of record highs reached each year dat...
asbe/iStock via Getty Images By Jennifer Nash The S&P 500 capped the week off with another record high, flirting with the 7,400 milestone. With a 2.3% weekly gain, the index has now climbed for six consecutive weeks, matching its longest winning streak since October 2024. Here is a snapshot of the index from the past week: The table below summarizes the number of record highs reached each year dating back to 2013. Here is a snapshot of the index from the past six months with a 50-day moving average: S&P 500: A Perspective on Drawdowns On October 9, 2007, the S&P 500 reached an all-time high, closing the day at 1565.15. Then on March 9, 2009, the index dropped ~57% off of its high from exactly 17 months before, closing the day at 676.53. This time period became known as the Global Financial Crisis. It took over 5 years before the index reached a new all-time high on March 28, 2013, where it closed out at 1569.19. The chart below is a snapshot of record highs and selloffs since the 2007 peak reached on October 9, 2007. What happens if we take out the Global Financial Crisis? Here's a snapshot of the same chart above where the start date has been changed to the trough reached on March 9, 2009. Note the recent selloffs in 2022. Here are a few tables with the number of days of a 1% or greater change in either direction and the number of days of corrections (down 10% or more from the record high). And here is a linear chart of the index since October 9, 2007: Here is a linearly scaled version of the same chart with the 50- and 200-day moving averages. The index has been above the 50-day moving average since April 8th, 2026, and above the 200-day moving average since April 8th, 2026. Additionally, the 50-day moving average has been above the 200-day moving average since July 1st, 2025. S&P 500: A Perspective on Volatility For a sense of the correlation between the closing price and intraday volatility, the chart below overlays the S&P 500 since 2007 with the intraday price...
mdisk/iStock via Getty Images By Jim Iuorio Prior to November 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) was something most people associated with futuristic movies. Then OpenAI released ChatGPT, and everything changed. AI was no longer an invisible algorithm quietly powering the world’s most sophisticated companies. Suddenly, the average person could use it to write code, compose poems, edit articles and...
mdisk/iStock via Getty Images By Jim Iuorio Prior to November 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) was something most people associated with futuristic movies. Then OpenAI released ChatGPT, and everything changed. AI was no longer an invisible algorithm quietly powering the world’s most sophisticated companies. Suddenly, the average person could use it to write code, compose poems, edit articles and much more. The adoption was staggering. ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just two months, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history at the time, and it has never looked back. Over the next three years, AI became the single most dominant investment theme on Wall Street, working its way into business models across every sector of the economy. But is it a good thing? That seems to depend on who you ask. The general consensus is that powerful emerging technology ultimately benefits society and raises our standard of living. The transition, however, can be rocky. There is a growing perception that AI may already be stifling traditional job growth, as companies slow hiring in anticipation of reducing their need for employees. While that has far-reaching implications across the economy, I want to focus on one area: lending rates and mortgages in particular. A Housing Market Already Under Stress The housing market has been a serious concern and a source of heated debate for the past five years. In 2021, the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to combat sky-high inflation. In roughly one year, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage went from under 3% to well over 7%. Raising rates to fight inflation is designed to address the problem from the demand side. The theory in housing seems fairly straightforward: if money is more expensive to borrow, buyers will be less aggressive in pursuing new homes. But that is not quite what happened. Most housing analysts now conclude that raising mortgage rates so dramatically, after such a prolonged period of historic low...
A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar appears to have transited the Strait of Hormuz, marking the country’s first export out of the region since the Iran war began. The Al Kharaitiyat , which loaded at the Ras Laffan export plant earlier this month, exited the strait and is in the Gulf of Oman, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg shows. The vessel lists Pakistan as its next desti...
A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar appears to have transited the Strait of Hormuz, marking the country’s first export out of the region since the Iran war began. The Al Kharaitiyat , which loaded at the Ras Laffan export plant earlier this month, exited the strait and is in the Gulf of Oman, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg shows. The vessel lists Pakistan as its next destination, according to the data. The ship appears to have navigated the Tehran-approved northern route that hugs the Iranian coast through the strait, the data showed. The effective closure of the waterway has choked off global LNG supplies, sending prices higher and causing shortages across Asia. Vessels continue to face security threats as both Iran and the US have implemented de facto blockades. While the Al Kharaitiyat’s journey offers tentative signs that more LNG flows could resume, it’s a far cry from prewar levels of roughly three shipments a day out of the Persian Gulf. At least two LNG tankers that loaded from Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.’s export plant have traversed the strait since the conflict began, Bloomberg reported earlier this week. The move comes after Qatar made several previous attempts to send shipments through Hormuz, but eventually the tankers turned around. The country, which produced almost a fifth of global LNG supply last year, hasn’t been able to move any LNG out of the Persian Gulf since the conflict began at the end of February. Qatar’s Nakilat owns the Al Kharaitiyat, according to ship database Equasis. Nakilat and QatarEnergy did not respond to a request for comment.
Key PointsYou know it first and foremost as a personal computer company, but Dell is making a big splash in the artificial intelligence platform space too.
Key PointsYou know it first and foremost as a personal computer company, but Dell is making a big splash in the artificial intelligence platform space too.
Margarita-Young/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Just two months ago, I published my initial analysis on H&R Block which highlighted the 6x P/E ratio at the time. Despite the low valuation, there were no signs of business deterioration; the rapid selloff was purely the result of AI fears that not only affected H&R Block, but also software stocks . Whenever a consistently profitable company with a...
Margarita-Young/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Just two months ago, I published my initial analysis on H&R Block which highlighted the 6x P/E ratio at the time. Despite the low valuation, there were no signs of business deterioration; the rapid selloff was purely the result of AI fears that not only affected H&R Block, but also software stocks . Whenever a consistently profitable company with a decades-long track record of rewarding shareholders crashes because of what might happen, I love to dive deeper, because in many cases those fears never materialize. While the tax preparation industry has its fair share of long-term risks, I believed the market's pessimism was overdone, and H&R Block remains a resilient, essential business with significant shareholder returns. The company has a long history of rewarding shareholders, paying dividends for over 60 years, while simultaneously aggressively buying back shares. This has resulted in a doubling of the dividend in a decade, representing a CAGR of 7.18%. At the same time the payout ratio declined from 53% to 34%, meaning EPS grew at an even stronger rate. With a payout ratio this low, H&R Block has plenty of dry powder to aggressively retire shares and the company is doing just that. At single-digit P/E ratios, the mathematics behind buybacks are compelling. After paying dividends, the company could retire 8.5% of its shares every year without issuing new debt. Add the current 4.55% dividend yield, and we're talking about a 13% shareholder yield. H&R Block just released its Q3 FY2026 results . The shares gained 24% on the day of the release, and another 2% the day after. While momentum investors might start to get excited soon, I tend to turn more cautious. I'm a valuation-oriented investor, and the higher the valuation, the less bullish I become. The reason behind is simple and rooted in mathematics: the higher the valuation we pay, the more risks we face and the lower the forward total returns we can expect. But e...