Yet another record week for stocks. Strong first-quarter earnings and a war-driven spike in oil made for another historic week on Wall Street. Investors also made sense of a spate of economic data and the Federal Reserve's latest interest rate decision. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained 0.9% and 1.1%, respectively, over the last five sessions. Both indexes closed at records three times (Mo...
Yet another record week for stocks. Strong first-quarter earnings and a war-driven spike in oil made for another historic week on Wall Street. Investors also made sense of a spate of economic data and the Federal Reserve's latest interest rate decision. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained 0.9% and 1.1%, respectively, over the last five sessions. Both indexes closed at records three times (Monday, Thursday and Friday). Thursday also marked the end of April trading, which was the S & P 500 and Nasdaq's best month since 2020. It was the fifth straight week of gains for both indexes. The blue-chip Dow was up 0.55% for the week, but all those gains came Thursday; it finished in the red on the other four days. It's unclear if stocks can keep up this magnificent run into next week, when the collection of companies reporting earnings is more diverse and at risk of disappointing . Until then, here are three takeaways from the past five trading sessions. Oil didn't scare investors out of stocks Oil prices spiked as Wall Street monitored the latest Middle East developments. In the first few weeks of the war, the two mostly had an inverse relationship. But concerns around the Strait of Hormuz closure and supply disruptions aren't driving investors out of equities quite like they did in March. Just look at Monday's trading. International benchmark Brent and U.S. oil standard West Texas Intermediate both jumped after President Donald Trump scrapped plans for ceasefire talks with Iran over the weekend. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq still managed to close at record highs on Monday. Thursday is another example. Brent hit a four-year high following media reports that the U.S. military would brief the president on potential action against Iran. That same day, both indexes hit their second record close for the week. What really captivated Wall Street, though, was corporate earnings. Although a ton of Club names reported last week, Wednesday was the standout. Meta Platforms , Microsoft...
Some investors may be wondering whether Alphabet is starting to look expensive or still offers value, even after a strong run in its share price. The stock last closed at US$385.69, with returns of 12.0% over 7 days, 29.7% over 30 days, 22.4% year to date and 135.9% over the past year, which naturally raises questions about growth expectations and risk. Recent headlines have focused on Alphabet's ...
Some investors may be wondering whether Alphabet is starting to look expensive or still offers value, even after a strong run in its share price. The stock last closed at US$385.69, with returns of 12.0% over 7 days, 29.7% over 30 days, 22.4% year to date and 135.9% over the past year, which naturally raises questions about growth expectations and risk. Recent headlines have focused on Alphabet's ongoing investments in artificial intelligence and cloud services, as well as regulatory...
ozgurdonmaz/iStock via Getty Images Foreword While most of this collection of Dow Industrials is too pricey and reveals only skinny dividends, May (again) finds only Verizon ( VZ ), living up to the dogcatcher ideal of annual dividends from $1K invested exceeding single share price and it is also 'safer' because it has more-than-enough free-cash-flow to support its dividend. In late February, 2024...
ozgurdonmaz/iStock via Getty Images Foreword While most of this collection of Dow Industrials is too pricey and reveals only skinny dividends, May (again) finds only Verizon ( VZ ), living up to the dogcatcher ideal of annual dividends from $1K invested exceeding single share price and it is also 'safer' because it has more-than-enough free-cash-flow to support its dividend. In late February, 2024 Dow Jones replaced the low priced high yield dividend payer Walgreens, with Amazon ( AMZN ), a high-priced non-dividend payer. More recently, in November 2024, Intel ( INTC ) was replaced by Nvidia ( NVDA ) and Dow Inc ( DOW ) was supplanted by Sherwin-Williams ( SHW ). With renewed downside market pressure up to 70.3% all ten of the top 'safer' May Dow dividend dogs could become elite fair-priced buys with annual yield (from $1K invested) meeting or exceeding their single share prices. [See a summary of top ten fair-priced Dow Dogs in A ctionable Conclusion 21 near the mid-point of this article.] Actionable Conclusions (1-10): Brokers Expect 19.08% To 49.46% Net Gains From Top-Ten Dow Dogs By May 2027 Four of ten top dividend-yielding Dow dogs (tinted gray in the chart below) were among the top ten price gainers for the coming year based on analyst 1-year target prices. So, this May, 2027 yield-based forecast for Dow dogs, as graded by Wall St. wizard estimates, was 40% accurate. Dividend-returns estimated from $1,000.00 invested in each of the ten highest-yielding Dow stocks and one-year analyst median target prices, as reported by YCharts, produced the following 2026-27 data points. (Note: one-year target-prices estimated by lone analysts were not applied.) Ten likely profit-generating trades for May, 2027 were: Source: YCharts.com Salesforce ( CRM ) was projected to net $494.58, based on dividends, plus the median of target price estimates from 51 analysts, less broker fees. The Beta number showed this estimate subject to risk/volatility 14% over the market as a whole....
In recent years, NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR) stock has soared. Last year, the small modular reactor developer saw its stock surge to $57 per share, creating a highly attractive opportunity for early investors to take profits at a sky-high valuation. One company taking advantage of NuScale's surging stock price was Fluor (NYSE: FLR) , the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) company. Fluo...
In recent years, NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR) stock has soared. Last year, the small modular reactor developer saw its stock surge to $57 per share, creating a highly attractive opportunity for early investors to take profits at a sky-high valuation. One company taking advantage of NuScale's surging stock price was Fluor (NYSE: FLR) , the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) company. Fluor was a very early investor in NuScale, taking a stake in the company back in 2011, and decided now was a good time to take profits on its stake. Here's how much Fluor made, and where it goes from here with its recent windfall. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading
ZeroHedge Fertilizer Debate: Hormuz Closure Could Usher In New Arab Spring On Friday, ZeroHedge, in partnership with the Macro Dirt Podcast, hosted a debate focused on the implications for agriculture, inflation, and global supply chains given the current situation in Iran . The discussion was illuminating and worth a rewatch if you missed it. The discussion featured former Bridgewater head of com...
ZeroHedge Fertilizer Debate: Hormuz Closure Could Usher In New Arab Spring On Friday, ZeroHedge, in partnership with the Macro Dirt Podcast, hosted a debate focused on the implications for agriculture, inflation, and global supply chains given the current situation in Iran . The discussion was illuminating and worth a rewatch if you missed it. The discussion featured former Bridgewater head of commodities Alex Campbell , Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital, and was hosted by Tony Greer and Jared Dillian . The Damage Has Been Done Even in a best case scenario where shipping lanes reopen immediately, Santiago Capital’s Brent Johnson says the damage is already embedded in the system. “If everything opens tomorrow in the strait and goes back 100% to normal, there’s a five to six week open spot where ships are not arriving where they typically arrived.” The warning came during last night’s ZH deep dive into a potential fertilizer and farming crisis, with possible Arab Spring-level disruptions in the Third World, but as Johnson said “the U.S. is not immune” . Johnson joined Tony Greer and Jared Dillian of the Macro Dirt Podcast and former Bridgewater head of commodities Alex Campbell who now writes at campbellramble.ai . Here were the key moments for those short on time: “Perfect Storm” The five to six week wartime-gap (assuming that’s all) is colliding directly with the agricultural calendar. Johnson: “The planting season is largely already over. And the fertilizers that would have normally been available were not. And those that were available were higher priced… You look at the number of bankruptcies that are being filed by farmers in the United States and it’s spiked.” At the same time, weather risk is rising. “This is an El Niño year… and that throws all kinds of havoc with weather patterns.” The combination, he says, raises the probability of a delayed but meaningful shock. “You could have a perfect storm six to nine months from now.” Johnson points to prior episodes ...
On Thursday, Elon Musk told a California courtroom that he backed OpenAI with millions of dollars under the belief it would remain a nonprofit focused on humanity. Musk Says OpenAI Abandoned Its Original Nonprofit Mission During cross-examination, Musk testified that while he was aware of preliminary discussions about restructuring OpenAI in 2017, he did not fully review the legal details, Reuters...
On Thursday, Elon Musk told a California courtroom that he backed OpenAI with millions of dollars under the belief it would remain a nonprofit focused on humanity. Musk Says OpenAI Abandoned Its Original Nonprofit Mission During cross-examination, Musk testified that while he was aware of preliminary discussions about restructuring OpenAI in 2017, he did not fully review the legal details, Reuters reported. "My testimony is I didn't read the fine print, just the headline," Musk said. The Tesla I
⚽ Updates from the 5.30pm BST kick-off at the Emirates ⚽ Scores | Premier League table | Read Football Daily Happiness is an illusion glimpsed in the aftermath of victory. Most of the time, watching our team play football is mostly a miserable, desperate, hard-faced experience – one that is entirely worth it for the moments of euphoria that little else can provide. Nick Hornby nailed it in Fever P...
⚽ Updates from the 5.30pm BST kick-off at the Emirates ⚽ Scores | Premier League table | Read Football Daily Happiness is an illusion glimpsed in the aftermath of victory. Most of the time, watching our team play football is mostly a miserable, desperate, hard-faced experience – one that is entirely worth it for the moments of euphoria that little else can provide. Nick Hornby nailed it in Fever Pitch when he remembered his first visit to Highbury. What impressed me most was just how much most of the men around me hated, really hated, being there. As far as I could tell, nobody seemed to enjoy, in the way that I understood the word, anything that happened during the entire afternoon. Within minutes of the kick-off there was real anger (‘You’re a DISGRACE, Gould. He’s a DISGRACE!’ A hundred quid a week? A HUNDRED QUID A WEEK! They should give that to me for watching you.’); as the game went on, the anger turned into outrage, and then seemed to curdle into sullen, silent discontent… Entertainment as pain was an idea entirely new to me, and it seemed to be something I’d been waiting for. It might not be too fanciful to suggest that it was an idea which shaped my life. Continue reading...
As Covid-era funding dries up and bus services are cut, a food insecurity crisis is brewing from Tennessee to Rhode Island Zen’Yari Winters’ job, at a pet shop in East Memphis, Tennessee , should be a 20-minute trip from her house. She leaves herself three hours to get there. “The bus is always, always late,” she said – if it shows up at all. It’s not just her work commute that’s affected by the t...
As Covid-era funding dries up and bus services are cut, a food insecurity crisis is brewing from Tennessee to Rhode Island Zen’Yari Winters’ job, at a pet shop in East Memphis, Tennessee , should be a 20-minute trip from her house. She leaves herself three hours to get there. “The bus is always, always late,” she said – if it shows up at all. It’s not just her work commute that’s affected by the time-consuming guessing game that is riding with the Memphis Area Transit Authority (Mata). The only full-service grocer in the Chelsea-Hollywood area where she lives closed in 2025. To shop for food in person, she could take two buses for a 13-mile (20km) trip to Walmart. But she risks waiting at bus stops for hours with perishables – or shelling out about $24 for an Uber back. Continue reading...
Welcome to The Brink . We’re Libby Cherry and Isolde MacDonogh , reporting from Frankfurt, where we’ve been following the accounting debacle at Gerresheimer, a German packaging company . But first, our colleagues have the latest on Spirit Airlines, which is preparing to shutter its operations. Follow this link to subscribe . Send us feedback and tips at debtnews@bloomberg.net . The Latest on... Sp...
Welcome to The Brink . We’re Libby Cherry and Isolde MacDonogh , reporting from Frankfurt, where we’ve been following the accounting debacle at Gerresheimer, a German packaging company . But first, our colleagues have the latest on Spirit Airlines, which is preparing to shutter its operations. Follow this link to subscribe . Send us feedback and tips at debtnews@bloomberg.net . The Latest on... Spirit Airlines Spirit Airlines is winding down operations after the troubled US discount carrier buckled under the weight of surging fuel prices and a government bailout dangled by US President Donald Trump fell through, Allyson Versprille reports. All Spirit flights have been canceled, and passengers have been advised not to go to the airport, after the airline failed to secure a deal with the Trump administration for funding. “Sustaining the business required hundreds of millions of additional dollars of liquidity that Spirit simply does not have and could not procure,” said Dave Davis , Spirit’s chief executive officer, in a statement on Saturday. “This is tremendously disappointing and not the outcome any of us wanted.” The US government had been considering providing Spirit with $500 million in exchange for warrants to purchase up to 90% of the airline once it emerged from bankruptcy. But key creditors wouldn’t agree to the deal, which would have given the government’s claims priority if the carrier were to fail in the future. The airline, whose biggest hubs include Fort Lauderdale and Orlando in Florida as well as Las Vegas, has been struggling for years but its problems were compounded by rising jet fuel prices prompted by the US and Israeli war on Iran, now into its third month. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August, the second time it had done so in under a year. High Alert Ares Management wrote down the value of loans to three Clearlake Capital -owned software businesses, as it warns of difficult conversations ahead with companies vulnera...
Get ahead of the market by subscribing to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Week Ahead, a preview of key events scheduled for the coming week. The newsletter keeps you informed of the biggest stories set to make headlines, including upcoming IPOs, investor days, earnings reports, and conference presentations. Wall Street closed out the week on a strong note Friday, with Apple shares climbing nearly 4% a...
Get ahead of the market by subscribing to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Week Ahead, a preview of key events scheduled for the coming week. The newsletter keeps you informed of the biggest stories set to make headlines, including upcoming IPOs, investor days, earnings reports, and conference presentations. Wall Street closed out the week on a strong note Friday, with Apple shares climbing nearly 4% after the company posted its best-ever March quarter, capping a week that saw Alphabet smash Q1 estimates with $109.9B in revenue and Google Cloud surging 63% year-over-year past $20B for the first time. Oil prices gapped down Friday after Iran reportedly submitted its response via Pakistani mediators to the latest U.S. amendments to a draft deal to end the Middle East war, reviving hopes for an agreement to end the conflict. Still, U.S. President Donald Trump said later in the day he is “not satisfied” with the new offer. Investors will be looking forward to the Federal Reserve speakers for next week, with Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr scheduled to speak on banking regulation on Tuesday and Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee and St. Louis President Alberto Musalem scheduled to speak at separate events on Wednesday. The consumer confidence data, along with housing numbers, is scheduled for Tuesday. On Thursday, jobs data and the quarterly GDP numbers will be released. ISM PMI data is scheduled for Friday. _______________________________________________________________ Earnings spotlight: Monday: Palantir Technologies ( PLTR ), Tyson Foods ( TSN ). See the full earnings calendar. Earnings spotlight: Tuesday: AMD ( AMD ), Pfizer ( PFE ), Marriott ( MAR ), Rivian ( RIVN ). See the full earnings calendar. Earnings spotlight: Wednesday: Disney ( DIS ), Uber ( UBER ), Arm Holdings ( ARM ), Instacart ( CART ), Shopify ( SHOP ). See the full earnings calendar. Earnings spotlight: Thursday: Coinbase ( COIN ), Airbnb ( ABNB ), DoorDash ( DASH ), Gilead...
Shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: REGN) are down more than 11% this year, and fell 5% on April 29, a day after the biotech company announced better-than-expected first-quarter earnings. Investors may be concerned about declining sales of eye therapy Eylea, one of its top-selling drugs, thanks to competition from Vabysmo, developed by Roche . Total Eylea sales fell 10% to $941 million, i...
Shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: REGN) are down more than 11% this year, and fell 5% on April 29, a day after the biotech company announced better-than-expected first-quarter earnings. Investors may be concerned about declining sales of eye therapy Eylea, one of its top-selling drugs, thanks to competition from Vabysmo, developed by Roche . Total Eylea sales fell 10% to $941 million, including Eylea HD sales, which rose 52% to $468 million. The earnings report came just days after the FDA granted accelerated approval for Otarmeni, a gene therapy for patients with hearing loss. Here are three reasons why this might be a good time to buy Regeneron stock: Continue reading
Michael M. Santiago Berkshire Hathaway ( BRK.A ) ( BRK.B ) CEO Greg Abel reviewed results for the investment conglomerate's sprawling collection of businesses, noting that technology, including artificial intelligence, "touches the whole franchise of Berkshire." The new CEO emphasized the importance of leveraging technology to fuel growth. At some point, management realized, "We're going to be a b...
Michael M. Santiago Berkshire Hathaway ( BRK.A ) ( BRK.B ) CEO Greg Abel reviewed results for the investment conglomerate's sprawling collection of businesses, noting that technology, including artificial intelligence, "touches the whole franchise of Berkshire." The new CEO emphasized the importance of leveraging technology to fuel growth. At some point, management realized, "We're going to be a builder of technology, rather than just a buyer of technology," he said in his first annual meeting as CEO. In terms of AI, "it has to be additive to our businesses. We're not going to have AI just to have AI," Abel said. Earlier, the company delivered Q1 operating earnings of $11.3B , climbing 18% from the year-ago period, helped by a 29% jump in its insurance underwriting profit. Its cash pile grew 6.5% Q/Q to $397.4B. In his discussion of Q1 results, Abel attributed part of the company's improvement in insurance underwriting profit to the $860M after-tax charge related to California wildfires the company recorded in 2025 results. By contrast, 2026 results didn't reflect any catastrophic events. The CEO stated that its Geico business is focused on restarting growth. It has to "get the price to risk right," retain customers, and grow its policies in force, he said. There's much to do there. Geico's policies in force, or PIF, rose 2% in Q1, while its closest competitor, Progressive's ( PGR ) PIF climbed 11%. "It's not going to be easy to just restart the growth engine," he said. Abel also mentioned Berkshire Hathaway's ( BRK.B ) $1.8B investment in Tokio Marine ( TKOMY ) ( TKOMF ), calling it a long-term strategic partnership. The company's railroad, BNSF, has made progress, but there's "a lot more to be done," he said, pointing to the unit's operating margin expansion to 34.4% in Q1 from 32.1% in last year's Q1. "We see a lot of opportunity here to become better," he added. "That's going to require a step-change in how we approach our operations." Technology will be key, he...