laddawan punna/iStock via Getty Images Commentary as of 12/31/25 The fund posted returns of 3.75% (Institutional shares)( MAGCX ) and 3.73% (Investor A shares, without sales charge)( MDGCX ) for the fourth quarter of 2025. The fund’s outperformance of its benchmark was led by strength across sentiment and macro-thematic measures, which helped to drive successful positioning around market themes. F...
laddawan punna/iStock via Getty Images Commentary as of 12/31/25 The fund posted returns of 3.75% (Institutional shares)( MAGCX ) and 3.73% (Investor A shares, without sales charge)( MDGCX ) for the fourth quarter of 2025. The fund’s outperformance of its benchmark was led by strength across sentiment and macro-thematic measures, which helped to drive successful positioning around market themes. From a sector- and country-positioning perspective, the fund remained largely neutral. It had slight overweight holdings in the information technology and financials sectors, and maintained slight underweight positions in the health care and consumer discretionary sectors. The fund had slight overweight allocations to the United States and the United Kingdom, and maintained slight underweight exposures to France and Switzerland. ★★★★ Morningstar OverallTM Institutional shares rated against 305 Us Fund Global Large-Stock Blend Funds, as of 12/31/25, based on risk-adjusted total return. Ratings are determined monthly and subject to change. The Overall Morningstar Rating for a fund is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its 3-, 5- and 10-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics.†† Portfolio management Raffaele Savi, Kevin Franklin, Richard Mathieson Top 10 holdings (%) Apple ( AAPL ) 5.11 Nvidia Corporation ( NVDA ) 4.93 Microsoft ( MSFT ) 4.59 Alphabet ( GOOGL ) 3.27 Amazon.com ( AMZN ) 3.08 JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ) 1.84 Morgan Stanley ( MS ) 1.81 TSMC ( TSM ) 1.59 Pfizer ( PFE ) 1.57 Cme Group Inc ( CME ) 1.52 Click to enlarge Investment approach Invests in equity securities or other financial instruments that are components of, or have market capitalizations similar to, the securities included in the MSCI All-Country World Index. Contributors Measures with a trend-following footprint drove positive performance, led by macro-thematic insights and sentiment measures capturing company linkages across key themes. Insights designed to e...
Keir Starmer will not intervene to give the assisted dying bill further time in the next session of parliament as he is wary of opening up new divisions among Labour MPs, senior ministers believe. The bill, which was passed by the Commons, is now certain to be blocked in the House of Lords without ever reaching a vote because of the sheer number of amendments its opponents have tabled and debated....
Keir Starmer will not intervene to give the assisted dying bill further time in the next session of parliament as he is wary of opening up new divisions among Labour MPs, senior ministers believe. The bill, which was passed by the Commons, is now certain to be blocked in the House of Lords without ever reaching a vote because of the sheer number of amendments its opponents have tabled and debated. MPs who spoke to the Guardian said they had been “radicalised” in favour of a serious overhaul of the House of Lords because of the way the bill had in effect been killed off by a handful of peers who oppose it, many former Tory MPs, including Thérèse Coffey and Mark Harper. Opponents have argued the number of amendments – more than 1,200 – has been necessary because of the bill’s flaws that could put vulnerable people at risk. It comes after the Scottish parliament voted down a similar bill on Tuesday night, by 69 votes to 57. The bill which would have given terminally ill people in England and Wales the right to end their lives is now expected to run out of time to pass on 24 April, its last scheduled day of debate before the end of this parliamentary session. The private member’s bill’s sponsors, the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and the Labour peer Charles Falconer, have said they hope to use the Parliament Act to bypass the House of Lords in the next session of parliament. That would require Starmer to allocate some government time to the bill – or for supporters to win another slot in the private members’ bill ballot to table the bill again. Starmer is personally supportive of assisted dying, and is angry with the conduct of the House of Lords in blocking the bill. But some of the bill’s most vocal advocates in parliament have said they do not believe there is any hope of the prime minister choosing to give time to the bill – because of the divisions it would reignite within Labour. “We are in a very different place to when this bill was introduced,” one senior minister s...
May arabica coffee (KCK26) today is down by -3.10 (-1.05%), and May ICE robusta coffee (RMK26) is up +59 (+1.67%). Coffee prices are mixed today. The outlook for a bumper Brazil coffee crop is weighing on arabica prices, after StoneX raised its Brazil 2026/27 coffee production estimate to a record 75.3 million bags, up from its November estimate of 70.7 million bags. Rising ICE inventories are pre...
May arabica coffee (KCK26) today is down by -3.10 (-1.05%), and May ICE robusta coffee (RMK26) is up +59 (+1.67%). Coffee prices are mixed today. The outlook for a bumper Brazil coffee crop is weighing on arabica prices, after StoneX raised its Brazil 2026/27 coffee production estimate to a record 75.3 million bags, up from its November estimate of 70.7 million bags. Rising ICE inventories are pressuring arabica coffee prices as ICE-monitored arabica inventories rose to a 5.5-month high of 581,830 bags on Monday. Don’t Miss a Day: However, tighter ICE inventories have sparked short covering in robusta coffee, as ICE robusta inventories fell to a 2-month low today at 4,348 lots. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted global shipping and is supportive of coffee prices. The closure of the waterway has increased global shipping rates, insurance, and fuel costs, and raises costs for coffee importers and roasters. On Monday, arabica coffee fell to a 2-week low, and May robusta fell to a contract low, as abundant rains in Brazil eased crop concerns. Somar Meteorologia reported Monday that Brazil's largest arabica coffee-growing area, Minas Gerais, received 57.7 mm of rain last week, or 139% of the historical average. Coffee prices also saw support from recent news that Brazil's Feb green coffee exports fell by -27% y/y to 2.3 million bags, according to Cecafe. Meanwhile, Brazil's Trade Ministry reported last Thursday that Brazil's Feb coffee exports fell -17.4% y/y to 142,000 MT. Coffee prices in February sold off sharply, with arabica falling to a 16-month low on February 24 and robusta tumbling to a 7.25-month low on February 23 as signs of a bumper Brazilian coffee crop supported the global supply outlook. On February 5, Conab, Brazil's crop forecasting agency, said that Brazil's 2026 coffee production will climb by +17.2% y/y to a record 66.2 million bags, with arabica production up +23.2% y/y to 44.1 million bags and robusta production up +6.3% y/y to 22.1 ...
watch now VIDEO 7:41 07:41 The Fed has to look through the spike in oil prices, says Wharton's Jeremy Siegel Squawk Box Amid geopolitical turmoil, the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at the conclusion of its policy meeting on Wednesday. An energy shock and higher inflation expectations due to the war in Iran ruled out any possibility of an interest rate cut, analysts said. Since Decembe...
watch now VIDEO 7:41 07:41 The Fed has to look through the spike in oil prices, says Wharton's Jeremy Siegel Squawk Box Amid geopolitical turmoil, the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at the conclusion of its policy meeting on Wednesday. An energy shock and higher inflation expectations due to the war in Iran ruled out any possibility of an interest rate cut, analysts said. Since December, the federal funds rate has remained steady in a target range of 3.5% to 3.75%. The Fed's benchmark sets what banks charge each other for overnight lending, but also has a trickle-down effect on many consumer borrowing and savings rates . For Americans struggling in the face of surging gas prices and overall affordability challenges, the central bank's decision does little to ease budgetary pressures. "Higher fuel costs, along with the downstream effects on shipping, travel and trade, are likely to add further pressure to consumer prices," said certified financial planner Stephen Kates, a financial analyst at Bankrate. "Cutting rates while inflation is rising would be difficult to justify, even if it might receive political support." Powell under pressure President Donald Trump has been after Fed Chair Jerome Powell to lower the central bank's benchmark rate, arguing that inflation has been " defeated ." "Where is the Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome 'Too Late' Powell, today? He should be dropping Interest Rates, IMMEDIATELY, not waiting for the next meeting," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on March 12. Powell has just one more meeting before his term at the helm ends. Before the oil shock, inflation was holding above the Fed's 2% target but not worsening. Now the surge in energy costs could have longer-term inflation implications , experts say. "If tensions in the Iran conflict ease, inflation pressures will gradually subside. Until then, the economy may have to absorb a period of higher inflation again," Kates said. Read more CNBC personal finance coverage The Fed k...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. BP (NYSE:BP) has received U.S. approval to move ahead with its Kaskida project in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, marking the company's first brand new field development in the region since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The approval from the U.S. Department of the Interior comes after roughly a year long review of BP's development plan. The Kaskida fi...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. BP (NYSE:BP) has received U.S. approval to move ahead with its Kaskida project in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, marking the company's first brand new field development in the region since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The approval from the U.S. Department of the Interior comes after roughly a year long review of BP's development plan. The Kaskida field is expected to begin producing oil in 2029. In its first phase, the project is projected to produce about 275 million barrels of oil equivalent from a portion of the reservoir, which is estimated to contain as much as 10B barrels beneath the seabed. Despite being discovered nearly 20 years ago, the field remained largely undeveloped because the industry lacked the technology needed to safely handle the extreme pressure and challenging geology in the area. BP said the project reflects decades of advances in offshore drilling and engineering that now make the development possible.
The Federal Reserve has been signaling for months that further interest-rate cuts were far from guaranteed. On Wednesday, that message finally fully sunk in for bond traders. US Treasuries slumped and short-term yields yields soared to their highest since August after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said central bankers needed to see progress on inflation before reducing their target rate further. “If we ...
The Federal Reserve has been signaling for months that further interest-rate cuts were far from guaranteed. On Wednesday, that message finally fully sunk in for bond traders. US Treasuries slumped and short-term yields yields soared to their highest since August after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said central bankers needed to see progress on inflation before reducing their target rate further. “If we don’t see that progress, then we won’t see the rate cut,” Powell said in remarks to reporters after central bankers left their target rate unchanged for a second meeting in a row. On paper, policymakers maintained their median projection for one rate cut this year. But it was Powell’s comments that tipped the balance for traders. Interest-rate markets now show the probability of even one reduction as essentially a coin flip — with the war in the Middle East and spike in oil only adding to a fraught debate. Declines in the $31 trillion market on lifted yields on two-year notes — most sensitive to the Fed’s policy changes — as much as 10 basis points to nearly 3.78%, the highest in seven months. The 10-year note’s yield rose as much as seven basis points to 4.27%. It’s not the first time the market has has been forced to realign in the face of Fed messaging, but the moves were sharp. Powell in his comments noted that as a group, there was “meaningful” movement towards fewer cuts, and confirmed that some talk surfaced, as it did in January, about the possibility of the next move being a rate hike. “If you look at the progression of the language over the last six months, the conviction on rate cuts has gone towards a conviction of maybe a rate cut, to we could be talking about a hike,” said Robert Tipp , head of global bonds and chief investment strategist at PGIM. Just three weeks ago, traders were leaning toward three Fed rate cuts this year as jitters swept financial markets over potential disruption from artificial intelligence and cracks in the private credit market. That ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Microsoft (MSFT, Financials) is thinking of suing Amazon and OpenAI over a $50 billion deal that might disrupt its cloud cooperation with the AI business. The argument is about Microsoft's present relationship with OpenAI, which is closely tied to its Azure cloud platform. A new partnership with Amazon might make that exclusivity less solid and disrupt how...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Microsoft (MSFT, Financials) is thinking of suing Amazon and OpenAI over a $50 billion deal that might disrupt its cloud cooperation with the AI business. The argument is about Microsoft's present relationship with OpenAI, which is closely tied to its Azure cloud platform. A new partnership with Amazon might make that exclusivity less solid and disrupt how the AI infrastructure market works. Microsoft has invested a lot of money in OpenAI and utilized its models in many of its cloud services and products. Working together is a significant part of Microsoft's ambition for AI. People could worry about access, costs, and long-term positioning if OpenAI collaborates with more cloud providers. Amazon's cloud business is getting more AI products, which makes it more competitive with Microsoft in the business and developer markets. The reported arrangement illustrates that companies are searching for more AI infrastructure and partnerships as they utilize AI more. This circumstance shows that big IT companies are competing more and more to be the best in AI and cloud computing. The next thing that will happen will depend on whether Microsoft goes to court and how the conditions of the agreement change.
War with Iran may slow the pace of dealmaking but it’s unlikely to dent overall M&A activity, according to Lazard Inc. ’s global head of mergers and acquisitions. “The key question for the Iran conflict is the duration — how long will it last,” Mark McMaster said, adding that investors are watching oil prices, inflation and potential supply-chain disruptions. A short-lived conflict would likely al...
War with Iran may slow the pace of dealmaking but it’s unlikely to dent overall M&A activity, according to Lazard Inc. ’s global head of mergers and acquisitions. “The key question for the Iran conflict is the duration — how long will it last,” Mark McMaster said, adding that investors are watching oil prices, inflation and potential supply-chain disruptions. A short-lived conflict would likely allow dealmaking to proceed with limited interruption, he said Wednesday in a Bloomberg TV interview. Beyond geopolitical uncertainty, McMaster pointed to several trends supporting dealmaking. Large corporate buyers remain active, with deals of more than $10 billion up about 120% from this point last year and now accounting for roughly 30% of the market — a shift he expects to continue. At the same time, midsize companies are streamlining their portfolios, shedding slower-growing businesses and focusing on areas with stronger long-term growth. McMaster said. Take-private deals are also continuing, particularly among smaller companies that lack scale or face operational challenges. On financing, McMaster said capital remains available across both public and private markets, though at higher costs. Companies are increasingly pursuing multiple financing options in parallel to secure the best terms. “Clients are best served to run a dual track and look at both simultaneously,” he said. Lenders are becoming more selective, with greater emphasis on underwriting standards. “Good companies will get financed and the mediocre companies will probably have more trouble getting financed,” he added McMaster highlighted persistent valuation gaps in public company deals, with buyers and sellers still struggling to agree on price in volatile markets. Leverage is likely to amplify swings in sectors such as software, he said. McMaster predicted artificial intelligence will remain a key driver of deal activity, particularly in infrastructure and AI-focused transactions. He said that while 2025 w...
sitox/E+ via Getty Images Investment Thesis The following model portfolio was designed for investors seeking income, either building a portfolio for retirement or withdrawing income immediately. It uses the best ideas of BDCs, MLPs, CEFs, Option Income funds and REITS that I currently invest in to produce an annual income. Within the portfolio, some investments pay out a consistent monthly or quar...
sitox/E+ via Getty Images Investment Thesis The following model portfolio was designed for investors seeking income, either building a portfolio for retirement or withdrawing income immediately. It uses the best ideas of BDCs, MLPs, CEFs, Option Income funds and REITS that I currently invest in to produce an annual income. Within the portfolio, some investments pay out a consistent monthly or quarterly income, and some are chosen to grow the dividend over time. The result is an income flow that can be withdrawn monthly and will continue to grow, adjusting for inflation. Assume investing the same amount (5%) in each security. For a $100,000 portfolio, that’s $5,000 in each position. For a higher conviction portfolio, choose 10-15 investments. The securities that I cover here will have the following criteria in common: Top-tier investment companies with sophisticated research and knowledge. 20 securities with a weighting of 5% each to ensure diversification, avoid idiosyncratic risk. A mix of quarterly and monthly distributions, assuming an investor will want to withdraw monthly. Proven investments with history, unlikely to surprise investors. Liquidity, easy to trade, given size and volume of trading. Have ratings of Hold to Strong Buy with the majority of analysts. Focused on income as a priority. Many of the securities are tax efficient, but it is not the focus. Total return is important in selecting quality securities that will last over time. Full disclosure, I own every security mentioned in this article and am continually researching the best ideas. In some cases, I’ve owned them for years, understanding the pros and cons. That also helps me drop some ideas in the current environment and highlight others that are ideal under the circumstances. Many of the selections were introduced to me through Seeking Alpha by like-minded investors trying to achieve a level of income for retirement or building toward it. Model Portfolio The chart below shows the model portfol...
There are a number of reasons investors might want to buy into used-car retailer Carvana (CVNA 5.48%). One is simply momentum over the past three years, where the stock price has soared 4,300% compared to the S&P 500's 70% gain. Perhaps investors are buying into its more profitable, stable, and healthy growth, rather than growth at all costs from its early years. Savvy investors perhaps saw someth...
There are a number of reasons investors might want to buy into used-car retailer Carvana (CVNA 5.48%). One is simply momentum over the past three years, where the stock price has soared 4,300% compared to the S&P 500's 70% gain. Perhaps investors are buying into its more profitable, stable, and healthy growth, rather than growth at all costs from its early years. Savvy investors perhaps saw something many overlooked during Carvana's fourth quarter that could be the biggest buy signal yet. What is "valuation allowance"? During Carvana's fourth quarter, the company posted a record net income for the full year of $1.895 billion. Savvy investors also noticed the note that reads, "Net income in FY 2025 was positively impacted by ~$685 million associated with the release of our valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets and recording of the full tax receivable agreement liability." There's a lot to unpack in that one sentence, but let's start with deferred tax assets (DTAs). When a company loses money for an extended period of time, it accumulates DTAs that can reduce future tax obligations. Now, to have tax obligations means you have to have profits, but in the scenario that companies believe there is a greater than 50% chance it will never have the profits to claim these DTAs against, the company is required to set up a "valuation allowance." Essentially, Carvana's past losses have accumulated DTAs that, in the past, management didn't believe they would be profitable enough to use. This has changed. Because Carvana is now comfortably profitable, and management now sees it as more likely that the company will need to use those DTAs to offset actual income tax obligations, it must release the valuation allowance. When the valuation allowance is released, it's recorded as a deferred income tax benefit, which immediately increases net income -- the significant benefit of $685 million savvy investors picked up on. While most of this is simply changes on paper and th...
(RTTNews) - Following a two-day monetary policy meeting, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced its widely expected decision to once again leave interest rates unchanged. The Fed said it decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 3.50 to 3.75 percent after also leaving rates unchanged after its last meeting in January. Most Fed officials voted in favor of keeping rates ...
(RTTNews) - Following a two-day monetary policy meeting, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced its widely expected decision to once again leave interest rates unchanged. The Fed said it decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 3.50 to 3.75 percent after also leaving rates unchanged after its last meeting in January. Most Fed officials voted in favor of keeping rates unchanged, although Fed Governor Stephen I. Miran continued to prefer cutting rates by a quarter point. The accompanying statement described the implications of the Middle East conflict for the U.S. economy as "uncertain" and said the Fed is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual goals of maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. With regard to the outlook for rates, central bank officials' projections were unchanged from last December, suggesting they expect to cut rates by just a quarter point this year. Meanwhile, officials upwardly revised their inflation forecasts, with core consumer prices expected to surge by 2.7 percent this year compared to the 2.5 percent jump forecast in December. The forecast for GDP growth in 2026 was also upwardly revised to 2.4 percent from 2.3 percent, while the forecast for the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.4 percent. The statement reiterated that officials will be prepared to adjust the stance of monetary policy as appropriate if risks emerge that could impede the attainment of the central bank's goals. The Fed's next monetary policy meeting is scheduled for April 28-29, with CME Group's FedWatch Tool currently indicating a 96.9 percent chance rates will be left unchanged once again. The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) shares climbed about 2% on Wednesday morning as investors assessed valuation levels across semiconductor stocks ahead of key earnings. The company was highlighted in a comparison of chipmakers ranked by forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios. Intel's forward P/E stands at 91.21, placing it at the top of the list among compan...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) shares climbed about 2% on Wednesday morning as investors assessed valuation levels across semiconductor stocks ahead of key earnings. The company was highlighted in a comparison of chipmakers ranked by forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios. Intel's forward P/E stands at 91.21, placing it at the top of the list among companies with market capitalizations above $2 billion. The metric measures a stock's current price relative to expected earnings over the next year. Meanwhile, Micron Technology (MU) is scheduled to report results after the closing bell, with market participants watching for updates tied to artificial intelligence-related demand. Memory and data-center trends remain a focus for investors tracking the sector. The comparison of valuations showed enormous differences between companies, as some of them were selling at sky-rocketing forward P/E multiples. Forward P/E ratios are based on what analysts think the earnings will become and are a popular method of observing how investors are assessing the anticipated growth.
When an Australian tech entrepreneur with no background in biology or medicine said ChatGPT helped save his dog from cancer, the story couldn’t help but spread. It’s the kind of validation Big Tech has long craved: proof that AI will revolutionize medicine and take on one of its deadliest diseases. The reality, as usual, is more complicated. The version of the story that made the rounds online, fi...
When an Australian tech entrepreneur with no background in biology or medicine said ChatGPT helped save his dog from cancer, the story couldn’t help but spread. It’s the kind of validation Big Tech has long craved: proof that AI will revolutionize medicine and take on one of its deadliest diseases. The reality, as usual, is more complicated. The version of the story that made the rounds online, first reported by The Australian, was relatively straightforward. In 2024, Sydney-based Paul Conyngham learned that his dog Rosie had cancer. Chemotherapy slowed the disease but failed to shrink the tumors. After vets said “nothing could be done” for the Staffordshire bull terrier-shar pei mix, Conyngham said “I took it upon myself to find a cure.” Conyngham said he used ChatGPT to brainstorm treatment ideas. The chatbot surfaced immunotherapy as an option and pointed him toward experts at the University of New South Wales, who then genetically profiled Rosie’s cancer. He then used ChatGPT and Google’s protein structure AI model AlphaFold to help make sense of the results. With the help of UNSW professor Pall Thordarson, he pursued a personalized mRNA vaccine tailored to Rosie’s tumor mutations. Thordarson told The Australian he thinks it’s the first time such a treatment has been designed for a dog. A few weeks after Rosie’s first injection last December, Conyngham said her tumors had shrunk and she’s doing better, even chasing rabbits in the park. They’ve not disappeared entirely, though, and one tumor didn’t respond at all. “I’m under no illusion that this is a cure, but I do believe this treatment has bought Rosie significantly more time and quality of life,” Conyngham told The Australian. That nuance was lost as the story proliferated. Newsweek ran the headline “Owner With No Medical Background Invents Cure for Dog’s Terminal Cancer,” while the New York Post declared that a “Tech pro saves his dying dog by using ChatGPT to code a custom cancer vaccine.” On social media...
The greater likelihood that the U.S. economy suffers through a patch of stagflation means a group of small cap stocks are especially attractive, according to Bank of America Securities. Stocks fell Wednesday, after a surprisingly hot producer prices report added to fears that the economy may be headed for a period of low growth and rising inflation. The latest wholesale inflation data for February...
The greater likelihood that the U.S. economy suffers through a patch of stagflation means a group of small cap stocks are especially attractive, according to Bank of America Securities. Stocks fell Wednesday, after a surprisingly hot producer prices report added to fears that the economy may be headed for a period of low growth and rising inflation. The latest wholesale inflation data for February showed headline PPI at 3.4% on a 12-month basis, with core at 3.9%. The latest jobs data for February, reported last week, showed an unexpected contraction in the labor market. Perhaps as a result, volatility is rising in the stock market, with the CBOE Volatility Index recently at about 23. VIX levels 20 signal higher market uncertainty and investor fear. An "all weather" playbook offering high quality plus cash returns to shareholders is most attractive for traders in this environment, especially in the small cap universe, according to Jill Carey Hall, equity and quantitative strategist at Bank of America Securities. Top performing factors "High quality stocks and those returning cash to shareholders have historically been the best performing styles amid a rising VIX, and Value has fared better than Growth," Hall wrote recently. "And if stagflation risks rise if the oil shock is long-lasting, Quality and Cash Return have similarly been the top-performing styles (along with Momentum)." The Wall Street bank identified Russell 2000 stocks that are in the top quintile in both value and quality, looking for companies that pay dividends or have lowered share count over the last 12 months. It excluded stocks with total daily volume below $10 million. Here are 12 of those stocks. Bread Financial , a financial services company offering private label credit cards, is rated buy at Bank of America. It was also upgraded to outperform from in line last month at Evercore ISI, which cited an improving earnings trend. The stock is down 12% from its recent high, but is higher this month b...
A mom wrote a kids' book on grief. She was just convicted of her husband's murder toggle caption Rick Bowmer/Pool AP A year after her husband's sudden 2022 death, Utah mother-of-three Kouri Richins self-published a children's book about coping with grief, called Are You With Me? In promotional interviews with local media, Richins said she had written the book with her kids, the oldest of whom was ...
A mom wrote a kids' book on grief. She was just convicted of her husband's murder toggle caption Rick Bowmer/Pool AP A year after her husband's sudden 2022 death, Utah mother-of-three Kouri Richins self-published a children's book about coping with grief, called Are You With Me? In promotional interviews with local media, Richins said she had written the book with her kids, the oldest of whom was 10. She told NPR member station KPCW in April 2023 that the process "brought a little peace to me and my boys." "It was a really good distraction from this last year and going through the first holidays without my husband, his birthday, like our anniversary, all these things, and it gave us something to work towards," she added. Sponsor Message Weeks later, Richins was charged with killing her husband, Eric. And on Monday, a jury in Summit County, Utah, convicted her of his murder. Prosecutors alleged that Kouri Richins spiked Eric Richins' cocktail with fentanyl in March 2022, after several earlier attempts, because she was millions of dollars in debt and believed she would inherit his estate. She did not know that Eric had quietly cut her out of his will years earlier after discovering that some of that debt had been racked up in his name. Prosecutors also said she had taken out multiple life insurance policies on her husband while having an affair. "She wanted to leave Eric Richins, but she did not want to leave his money," Summit County chief prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said in his closing argument on Monday. Kouri Richins has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to the five charges against her in this case. She declined to testify during the trial, which lasted three weeks and featured testimony from some 40 witnesses. Her defense attorney, Wendy Lewis, said Eric had Lyme disease and was addicted to painkillers, and called the investigation into his death "nothing but sloppy" and "driven by bias." After three hours of deliberation, the jury found Richins guilty of a...
We’ll have closer trade relations with the EU, be the fastest adopters of AI in the G7, shift some tax revenues to the regions and squash the Nimbys if they stand in the way of growth “corridors”. It’s a plan. Or, at least, it’s a sketch of a plan since the EU will surely have its own ideas on what it wants from trade renegotiations. Still, Rachel Reeves’ big resetting speech this week set a direc...
We’ll have closer trade relations with the EU, be the fastest adopters of AI in the G7, shift some tax revenues to the regions and squash the Nimbys if they stand in the way of growth “corridors”. It’s a plan. Or, at least, it’s a sketch of a plan since the EU will surely have its own ideas on what it wants from trade renegotiations. Still, Rachel Reeves’ big resetting speech this week set a direction. But then one comes to the elephant in the room: the sky-high cost of energy for UK industry. The fact the UK has some of the highest prices in the developed world would, you’d think, trouble more deeply a chancellor who blames the slowdown in UK productivity since the financial crisis on “anaemic levels of investment”. After all, those globe-trotting AI firms will be scrutinising electricity costs when choosing where to plant their power-hungry datacentres. Reeves described high energy bills for business as an inherited problem (correct) but the message from half the boardrooms in the land is that the government’s response is too timid. Instead of selective tweaks, a mighty yank on the lever is required. Reeves mentioned the established “supercharger” scheme which will carry bigger discounts on energy bills from next month, but that covers only 500 heavy users. As for the “British industrial competitiveness scheme” (BICS) for 7,000 firms from April next year, it has a long name but we’re still waiting for key details, such as how it will be paid for and what a discount of “up to” 25% means. In terms of a wider effort to reset the cost of energy for the whole of UK industry, or to remove levies that push upwards, there was nothing new. So one can’t blame industrial lobby groups for continuing to point out the obvious. Here’s Stephen Phipson, the chief executive of the manufacturing body Make UK, liking the EU and regional themes but stating: “The overwhelming priority for business is the need to get energy prices down and ensure the security of supply of oil as a criti...