AppLovin Corp. is preparing to build a social networking platform after the mobile advertising company’s failed bid to buy TikTok’s assets outside of China last year. The plans were outlined by a senior AppLovin executive in a recent Chinese-language podcast and detailed in a job posting seeking someone to “architect the digital backbone of our next-generation social platform.” Chief Product and E...
AppLovin Corp. is preparing to build a social networking platform after the mobile advertising company’s failed bid to buy TikTok’s assets outside of China last year. The plans were outlined by a senior AppLovin executive in a recent Chinese-language podcast and detailed in a job posting seeking someone to “architect the digital backbone of our next-generation social platform.” Chief Product and Engineering Officer Giovanni Ge described the move in The Valley 101 podcast as the opposite to that of Meta Platforms Inc. , which first built up an audience on Facebook and Instagram before monetizing it with advertising. AppLovin already has an ad placement system but predominantly delivers those ads into other companies’ apps, after selling a portfolio of games it owned last year. Read More: AppLovin Sales Jump, Sells Mobile-Games Unit to Tripledot The transition, if successful, could give Palo Alto-based AppLovin access to more user data and control over the mobile advertising market, while placing it into direct competition with social media giants like Meta, TikTok, and Snap. AppLovin exploded in value in recent years, driven by its advertising technology that helps mobile apps and games acquire new users and monetize their platforms. In December, AppLovin’s market value reached an all-time high of $248 billion. The stock has been rattled by shortseller reports and investor skepticism over whether AppLovin can successfully expand into e-commerce advertising. The challenges come amid broader concerns about how AI could disrupt the advertising industry . Shares are down roughly 40% this year, bringing the company’s market value to around $137 billion. AppLovin expressed an interest in buying TikTok’s business outside of China after the US threatened to ban the app unless owner ByteDance Ltd. sold it to a US-based entity. This triggered bids from several companies before it was acquired by a consortium including Oracle Corp. , Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz . The jo...
gece33 Oil futures ( CL1:COM ), ( CO1:COM ) have surged more than $10 year-to-date as markets price in “near-term moderate escalation” surrounding Iran. About $8 of that rise is driven by recovering positioning on the financial futures side, with the market now factoring in a significant geopolitical risk premium, according to Daan Struyven, Goldman Sachs co-head of global commodities research. Th...
gece33 Oil futures ( CL1:COM ), ( CO1:COM ) have surged more than $10 year-to-date as markets price in “near-term moderate escalation” surrounding Iran. About $8 of that rise is driven by recovering positioning on the financial futures side, with the market now factoring in a significant geopolitical risk premium, according to Daan Struyven, Goldman Sachs co-head of global commodities research. The failed Iran nuclear talks in Geneva have heightened focus on the Strait of Hormuz, a critical channel through which 20% of global oil supply and 20% of global LNG supply passes. During a CNBC interview, Struyven noted that markets are “continuously reassessing not only the biscuits, but especially the probability of this tail risk of large oil disruptions in the Middle East region, which is critical for global markets.” Despite a clear global surplus, physical supply hasn’t significantly depressed prices. The reason: roughly 375M barrels of sanctioned crude from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela are currently stuck at sea. “For now, that supply is not really available to refiners and not really depressing prices,” Struyven explained, noting that about one-third of crude builds over the past year have been sanctioned barrels floating in the ocean. Goldman’s base case assumes no sustained large-scale supply disruptions. However, Struyven outlined a scenario where a 1M barrels per day drop in Iranian exports lasting one year would cause “$8 of upside from a fundamental perspective.” The oil futures ( CL1:COM ) curve already reflects this uncertainty, with notable spikes in the spring driven by heavy call options buying. Industrial metals face a different dynamic, with Struyven pointing to a structurally strong demand outlook driven by AI, defense, and electrification. However, copper prices ( HG1:COM ) have “risen too fast, too quick,” triggering a demand slowdown despite the long-term bullish thesis expected over the next five to 10 years. The copper market illustrates how commod...
(RTTNews) - Reflecting a surge in imports and a slump in exports, the Commerce Department released a report on Thursday showing the U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly widened in the month of December.
(RTTNews) - Reflecting a surge in imports and a slump in exports, the Commerce Department released a report on Thursday showing the U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly widened in the month of December.
Welcome to Bloomberg’s Banking Monitor . Every Thursday we’ll deliver you the top news of the global banking industry with emerging trends, winners and losers and market opportunities. Sign up now if you’re not already on the list. The comp figures are in for the big US banks, and it’s a clean sweep: With Citigroup’s Jane Fraser and Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan taking home $42 million and $41 ...
Welcome to Bloomberg’s Banking Monitor . Every Thursday we’ll deliver you the top news of the global banking industry with emerging trends, winners and losers and market opportunities. Sign up now if you’re not already on the list. The comp figures are in for the big US banks, and it’s a clean sweep: With Citigroup’s Jane Fraser and Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan taking home $42 million and $41 million respectively, the complete cohort of top executives earned more than $40 million each last year, making 2025 the best year for pay since the financial crisis. The award was particularly notable for Fraser, the latest executive tasked with Citigroup’s turnaround . Fraser was lowest-paid among her peers when she assumed the corner office; her best-paid rivals made more than 50% more. In the past two years, though, the markets have begun to reward her progress . Shares have more than doubled since the beginning of 2024, and were the best performing in the KBW Bank Index last year . But really, it was a good year across the board, the best for net income since 2021. In addition to CEO comp, the payouts for bankers and traders are set to rise, with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase boosting the bonus pool by at least 10% . How long can this boom last? Ask ChatGPT. Or better yet, Claude. Fears about artificial intelligence continued to weigh on financial services stocks , as tech firms introduce new AI tools designed to do tasks that previously required humans. Anthropic is first among the notable culprits , with its latest efforts to automate financial research and legal services and an upgrade that, the company said in a blog post, is better at using a computer for multi-step tasks, though it still “lags behind the most skilled humans.” Bank CEOs say they’re of course eager to explore the efficiencies — aka money-saving potential — of AI, but it’s far too soon to know whether the new tools will giveth or taketh away. Meanwhile, history offers a cautionar...
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Why NRG Sits at the Center of the Grid Transformation Electricity in the U.S. is a hot topic that keeps intensifying month after month. We are talking about record levels after record levels , as after the estimated 4,195 TWh for 2025, 4,268 TWh are projected for 2026 and 4,372 TWh for 2027, a situation that has clearly become structural. We can find clu...
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Why NRG Sits at the Center of the Grid Transformation Electricity in the U.S. is a hot topic that keeps intensifying month after month. We are talking about record levels after record levels , as after the estimated 4,195 TWh for 2025, 4,268 TWh are projected for 2026 and 4,372 TWh for 2027, a situation that has clearly become structural. We can find clues as to what is driving this situation; for example, in Texas, ERCOT has been managing a “large load” request queue of around 205 GW versus a peak demand that was considered historic at around 85 GW. Basically, this means that just the pipeline of interconnection requests is already roughly equivalent to 2x the maximum load the system has needed on a day of very high intensity. 10Q NRG In PJM, I see a similar tone , as the operator’s plan to manage this surge in demand is that either new consumers, i.e., data centers, start bringing their own generation, or they will have to enter into a scheme where they accept curtailment in case of system stress. To me, these are figures that practically compete with the total installed capacity of entire countries, which fits perfectly with the upward revisions in CapEx that we are seeing, as well as with grid planning that can support the new environment. And this is where NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NRG ) comes in. That is why I decided to write about it, because in this new scenario it is a piece that fits in a fairly natural way. The business model combines retail, generation, and demand management, but with the closing of the LS Power deal, NRG adds 13 GW of gas generation, practically doubling its capacity to around 25 GW. This scale has led to an update of its guidance for 2026 to a range of $5.32B to $5.82B of adjusted EBITDA and $2.8B to $3.3B of FCF before growth. 10Q NRG There are clearly tailwinds, and the company seems positioned to capture part of this new reality. However, I still need to check how much of this demand actual...
Could Investing $10,000 in Micron Technology Make You a Millionaire? Yahoo Finance Where Will Micron Stock Be in 5 Years? The Motley Fool Micron Shareholders Received Amazing News at a Recent Investor Conference Nasdaq
Could Investing $10,000 in Micron Technology Make You a Millionaire? Yahoo Finance Where Will Micron Stock Be in 5 Years? The Motley Fool Micron Shareholders Received Amazing News at a Recent Investor Conference Nasdaq
The youngest son of former Zimbabwean ruler Robert Mugabe was in police custody after a gardener was shot at his South Africa home on Thursday, media reported. Police said they were investigating a case of attempted murder after the shooting in a wealthy suburb north of Johannesburg and had taken two men in for questioning. A police spokeswoman declined to identify the men but several South Africa...
The youngest son of former Zimbabwean ruler Robert Mugabe was in police custody after a gardener was shot at his South Africa home on Thursday, media reported. Police said they were investigating a case of attempted murder after the shooting in a wealthy suburb north of Johannesburg and had taken two men in for questioning. A police spokeswoman declined to identify the men but several South African media outlets reported that one of them was Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe. Photographs on the IOL...
Daniel Grizelj/DigitalVision via Getty Images I previously covered PayPal Holdings, Inc. ( PYPL ) in November 2025, discussing how the fintech's ongoing focus on innovation had delivered renewed growth across Venmo and BNPL, albeit triggering impacted profit margins—with it likely contributing to the stock's prior underperformance against its high growth, profitable fintech peers. Assuming that th...
Daniel Grizelj/DigitalVision via Getty Images I previously covered PayPal Holdings, Inc. ( PYPL ) in November 2025, discussing how the fintech's ongoing focus on innovation had delivered renewed growth across Venmo and BNPL, albeit triggering impacted profit margins—with it likely contributing to the stock's prior underperformance against its high growth, profitable fintech peers. Assuming that the new management was able to drive the further acceleration in its top lines and the future expansion in its profit margins, I had reckoned that the market might eventually re-rate the stock nearer to its historical trends and its fintech peers—with the rich upside potential triggering my reiterated Buy rating then. In this article, I shall discuss why I am reiterating my contrarian Buy rating for the PYPL stock, with the steep meltdown post FQ4'25 earnings call resetting growth expectations and the consequently cheap valuations offering an excellent deep-value opportunity, if the new management is able to drive their future reversal. This is especially since the fintech has delivered promising growth opportunities in Venmo, BNPL, and PSP, with the eventual improvement in the legacy, online branded checkout segment likely to drive the future recovery in market sentiments. PYPL Faces Numerous Headwinds & Tailwinds PYPL 1Y Stock Price ( TradingView ) Since my last buy rating, PYPL's sideways trading cadence since early 2022 has already broken down, as observed in the stock's steep meltdown of -23% since the poorly received FQ4'25 earnings call. 1. Pessimistic Market Sentiment Otherwise, it is also important to note that the wider fintech/banking sector has already underperformed since early 2026, attributed to the seemingly healthier macroeconomic environment arising from the cooling inflationary pressure and the healthier US labor market in January 2026 being negated by the increased likelihood of a consecutively paused Fed rate cut in the upcoming FOMC meeting in March 2026...
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 20, 2025. Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters The Trump administration is ramping up pressure on colleges to ensure their graduates and other former students repay their federal student loans . The U.S. Department of Education issued guidance on Wednesday for higher education institu...
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 20, 2025. Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters The Trump administration is ramping up pressure on colleges to ensure their graduates and other former students repay their federal student loans . The U.S. Department of Education issued guidance on Wednesday for higher education institutions, reminding them to institute practices to keep their students' delinquency and default rates low. The department said that doing so should be a priority not just for a college's financial aid office but also for its institutional leadership. There was also a warning in the announcement: Colleges with high student loan default rates could lose eligibility for federal student aid programs, the administration said. More than 1,800 higher education institutions have student loan nonpayment rates of 25% or higher, the Education Department said in its press release. The nonpayment rate was based on students who entered repayment on their Direct loans between January 2020 and May 2025 and were greater than 90 days delinquent. Read more CNBC personal finance coverage Trump officials warn hundreds of colleges with low student loan repayment rates As AI puts the squeeze on entry-level jobs, teens remain optimistic: report Trump administration finds more borrowers eligible for student loan forgiveness More used cars are for sale, but ones under $20,000 are 'harder to find': Expert How to claim Trump's 'no tax on overtime' deduction this season Parents with student debt face deadline to secure affordable repayment, forgiveness Secure 2.0 let employers pair emergency savings and 401(k)s, but few have done so Home sellers start getting lower prices at 70, research shows — here's why Average IRS tax refund is up 10.9% so far this season, early filing data shows Early estimates point to lower Social Security COLA for 2027 Senators call for longer Social Security Fairness Act lump-sum...
(RTTNews) - Shares of Pool Corporation (POOL) are moving down about 12 percent during Thursday morning trading after the company announced its fourth-quarter earnings, which declined to $31.59 million, or $0.85 per share, from $37.30 million, or $0.98 per share, last year.
(RTTNews) - Shares of Pool Corporation (POOL) are moving down about 12 percent during Thursday morning trading after the company announced its fourth-quarter earnings, which declined to $31.59 million, or $0.85 per share, from $37.30 million, or $0.98 per share, last year.