Affirm Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFRM) ranks among the best rebound stocks to buy right now. On March 11, Affirm Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFRM) outlined its plan at the Wolfe FinTech Forum, emphasizing robust growth and developing partnerships in the face of a competitive fintech landscape. Financially, Affirm Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:AFRM) recorded 39% GMV growth over the previous […]
Affirm Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFRM) ranks among the best rebound stocks to buy right now. On March 11, Affirm Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFRM) outlined its plan at the Wolfe FinTech Forum, emphasizing robust growth and developing partnerships in the face of a competitive fintech landscape. Financially, Affirm Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:AFRM) recorded 39% GMV growth over the previous […]
Maximusnd/iStock via Getty Images Covered call exchange-traded funds have exploded in popularity. Assets in options-overlay strategies surpassed $100 billion in 2025, as investors chased headline yields of ten, twelve, even fifteen percent. 1 The appeal is intuitive: sell call options against a stock portfolio, collect premium, and distribute it as income. In a sideways or gently rising market, th...
Maximusnd/iStock via Getty Images Covered call exchange-traded funds have exploded in popularity. Assets in options-overlay strategies surpassed $100 billion in 2025, as investors chased headline yields of ten, twelve, even fifteen percent. 1 The appeal is intuitive: sell call options against a stock portfolio, collect premium, and distribute it as income. In a sideways or gently rising market, the math works. In any other environment, serious cracks begin to appear. The structural problem is straightforward. When a fund writes call options against one hundred percent of its holdings, it caps every dollar of upside. In a sustained rally, the portfolio is called away and must be repurchased at higher prices. Over time, net asset value erodes. Several well-known covered call funds have experienced significant NAV erosion since inception, even as they continued to pay monthly distributions. 2 Investors collecting income with one hand have been returning principal with the other. The Hidden Cost of Full-Portfolio Coverage Yield and value preservation are often at odds in covered call strategies. Writing options across an entire portfolio generates the maximum premium income in any given month. It also guarantees that the fund participates in zero upside beyond the strike price. This dynamic compounds over years and market cycles. Each rally the fund misses is capital it never recovers. The result is a pattern familiar to anyone who has studied these products: distributions remain stable or slowly decline, while the underlying share price trends lower. The total return often trails a simple index fund, despite the higher yield. For retirees and income-focused investors, this is a dangerous illusion of safety. Illustrative comparison of portfolio options coverage and its long-term NAV impact. Typical covered call ETFs write options on 100% of holdings, while ICAP covers only 30–40%. Data obtained from Bloomberg. ICAP’s Differentiated Approach: Partial Coverage, Dividend G...
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news Middle East crisis live: Trump pausing strikes on Iran energy sites; Houthis say ‘no reason’ to halt Red Sea shipping A long-running measure of consumer confidence has confirmed that UK households are losing faith in the ability of the economy and their own finances to grow since the Middle East conflict began. Amid forecasts of a jump in ...
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news Middle East crisis live: Trump pausing strikes on Iran energy sites; Houthis say ‘no reason’ to halt Red Sea shipping A long-running measure of consumer confidence has confirmed that UK households are losing faith in the ability of the economy and their own finances to grow since the Middle East conflict began. Amid forecasts of a jump in inflation as Brent crude prices remained above $100 a barrel, GfK said its confidence index was down two points to -21 in March – the weakest level since Donald Trump announced sweeping import tariffs in April last year. At the time, the index sank to -23. “A ripple of fear is spreading as is evident from the six-point fall in perceptions of the general economic situation over the next 12 months.” Continue reading...
Banco Santander SA Executive Chair Ana Botin said the lender’s efficiency will improve in the current quarter and she also said profit will increase for the year as a whole. “For the first quarter of 2026, we have continued the positive trends of previous years, growing both our customer base and revenue, while costs are expected to decline in constant euros year-on-year,” Botin said Friday in rem...
Banco Santander SA Executive Chair Ana Botin said the lender’s efficiency will improve in the current quarter and she also said profit will increase for the year as a whole. “For the first quarter of 2026, we have continued the positive trends of previous years, growing both our customer base and revenue, while costs are expected to decline in constant euros year-on-year,” Botin said Friday in remarks prepared for Santander’s annual general meeting. As a result, she anticipated “an improvement in efficiency of approximately 250 basis points.” Still, Botin also highlighted higher economic uncertainty, saying that “the world now faces the scenario of higher inflation and lower growth, threats that become more likely with each passing day.” Read More: Santander Vows €20 Billion in 2028 Profit After Webster Deal Santander earlier this year agreed to buy US lender Webster Financial Corp. for $12 billion in a deal that would mark the largest-ever takeover of a US lender by a continental European bank. It’s also the third transaction under Botin in less than a year after she sold a majority stake in Santander’s Polish unit to Austria’s Erste Group Bank AG for €7 billion ($8.1 billion) in April and subsequently bought the UK lender TSB from Banco Sabadell SA . The Spanish bank’s profitability has surged over the past few years amid higher interest rates. Its share price, which long trailed peers, more than doubled in 2025, turning the bank into continental Europe’s most highly-valued lender.
Rasi Bhadramani/iStock via Getty Images John Patrick Lee, CFA - For 70 years, VanEck has built its reputation on a simple principle. Identify structural change early and then build disciplined investment vehicles to express it. Early on, the firm's founder, John van Eck, had a high conviction belief in gold, right before one of the largest inflationary periods in modern history. He was right. We f...
Rasi Bhadramani/iStock via Getty Images John Patrick Lee, CFA - For 70 years, VanEck has built its reputation on a simple principle. Identify structural change early and then build disciplined investment vehicles to express it. Early on, the firm's founder, John van Eck, had a high conviction belief in gold, right before one of the largest inflationary periods in modern history. He was right. We focused on emerging markets before they were institutionalized. We leaned into semiconductors well before AI became mainstream. The pattern is consistent - recognize durable macro change; design intelligent exposure; execute with discipline. That brings us to today. We believe that India represents one of the next biggest structural opportunities available to investors. One that demands a purpose-built vehicle designed to capture India's long-term opportunity for investors. Angus Shillington - So I think the best place to start is to really understand the exceptional equity returns from India over the past 10 or 20 years. India's stock market returns, in US dollars, really have been remarkably close to those from the United States. And I look really over 5, 10 and 20 years, which is head-spinning in and of itself. So that's to say that very few other major markets even approach this level of performance. And that performance has not been driven by speculation or cyclicality; it's been driven by sustained compounding of real returns in both the cases of the US and India. And just to drill down into that, if the aggregate of companies in the index delivers return on equity or return on capital employed that exceeds GDP return, that excess return compounds up over time. You don't see that really anywhere else in the world at these kinds of levels. Other markets tend to have cyclicality from commodities or from interest rates. Very rarely do you see this compounding structure as you do in the United States and India on the same broad level. And that's really just persistent high...
Richard Drury/DigitalVision via Getty Images Total construction spending rises, with months prior revised higher; power, residential and public lead, manufacturing lags. This data continues to be in the right direction for reshoring supply lines, AI spend and a residential recovery. Power site construction is outpacing manufacturing, likely due to the completion of earlier supply line initiatives,...
Richard Drury/DigitalVision via Getty Images Total construction spending rises, with months prior revised higher; power, residential and public lead, manufacturing lags. This data continues to be in the right direction for reshoring supply lines, AI spend and a residential recovery. Power site construction is outpacing manufacturing, likely due to the completion of earlier supply line initiatives, while the greenfield manufacturing sites (site clearing and prep work), which have been spurred by tariff policy, have yet to ramp up to the more expensive stage of actual construction. It can take more than 1yr to acquire sites to manufacture post-Trump's tariff policy, develop and gain approvals for site plans before even the site clearing and prep work begin. But, we do see the ramp in construction employment even with the implementation of deportations for illegal workers that have been part of this report. All in all, reshoring and tariff policy should continue to boost these numbers, real personal income, and retail sales 3yr-5yr in my estimation. Alta Equipment Group ( ALTG ), InTest Corp. ( INTT ), Builders FirstSource ( BLDR ), QXO ( QXO ), Core & Main( CNM ), Exponent ( EXPO ), XPO ( XPO ), RXO ( RXO ), GXO ( GXO ), Myers Industries ( MYE ), Core Molding Technologies ( CMT ) and others will benefit from the trends shown. Original Post Editor's Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.