Month: July 2020

(Bloomberg) — Carson Block and Elon Musk can agree on at least one thing: betting against Tesla Inc.’s stock is a bad idea.Block, the longtime Musk critic and short-selling founder of Muddy Waters Capital LLC, said on Wednesday that he doesn’t have any bearish wagers against Tesla even though he thinks the business is unsustainable.“I’m not short the stock, thank God,” Block said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal on the Odd Lots podcast. “We used to joke that Tesla, when it files for bankruptcy, will probably have a $30 billion market cap. Short it at …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Mukesh Ambani’s slew of announcements at the annual shareholder meeting of his flagship company Reliance Industries Ltd. failed to meet investor expectations, that are running high, according to analysts’ reviews.Among positives, the chairman of Reliance named Alphabet Inc.’s Google as the latest investor in Jio Platforms, promised a rollout of its own 5G solutions, and said he plans to induct investors into the Indian firm’s retail and oil to chemicals businesses. Still, a delay in a $15 billion deal with Saudi Aramco and a dampening in the optimism that prevailed before the AGM saw the stock price fall …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — California Resources Corp. filed for bankruptcy, kicking off what could turn into the next wave of collapses among oil drillers and the businesses that depend on them.The company joins more than 200 oil explorers that have filed for court protection since 2015, and more may be coming in a matter of weeks. Denbury Resources Inc. and Noble Corp. missed their July debt payments, and Chaparral Energy Inc. asked lenders for more time, setting them on course for a possible default.With oil prices hovering around $40 a barrel, the industry simply isn’t able to support debts taken on when …read more […]

…read more […]

A stock with a 6-month gain of over 1500% is normally certain to raise some eyebrows. But, “normally” is a long distance away from the current reality, and that figure is the upside posted by shares of molecular diagnostics player Co-Diagnostics (CODX) since the turn of the year.While certainly not common place, these massive gains are not completely out of the ordinary in 2020, although primarily reserved for one specific group of stocks: those in the hunt for coronavirus related solutions.And CODX belongs squarely in that group. Actually, that’s not quite on point – Co-Diagnostics already has a solution, in …read more […]

Monday’s market selloff skipped past BioNTech (BNTX). The German biotech ended the session posting a 12% gain after news that two of the COVID-19 vaccine candidates it is co-developing with partner Pfizer were given Fast Track designation status by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).Any positive development in the search for a desperately needed coronavirus treatment or vaccine has prompted optimistic headlines accompanied by surging stock prices. However, J.P. Morgan analyst Cory Kasimov believes the headlines illustrate how much the public has taken to biotechs during these pandemic driven times, while the news amounts to… well, not much really.“The …read more […]

Tesla’s only U.S. vehicle factory in California was shut for some six weeks of the quarter. The report released on Wednesday showed registrations in California, a bellwether market for the electric-car maker, plummeted almost 48% from a year earlier to 9,774 vehicles in the three months ended June 2020. Model 3 registrations in the state, which accounted for more than half of the total registrations, fell 63.6% to 5,951 vehicles. …read more […]

Note: I’ll be taking the reins of today’s dividend safety column while Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld is on vacation. I’ll be using his proprietary research system SafetyNet Pro to pull back the curtain on a reader request.
That’s one of the great things about this system…
While it’s a winning combination when matched with Marc’s income investing expertise, it was designed with all users in mind, from financial professionals to investors who are just starting out.
And today, I’m excited to take a deep dive into what the numbers have in store for this week’s featured dividend payer.

Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM) is …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — The New York University professor who developed one of the best-known formulas for predicting corporate insolvencies has a warning for U.S. credit investors: this year’s spate of “mega” bankruptcies is just getting started.More than 30 American companies with liabilities exceeding $1 billion have already filed for Chapter 11 since the start of January, and that number is likely to top 60 by year-end after businesses piled on debt during the pandemic, according to Edward Altman, creator of the Z-score and professor emeritus at NYU’s Stern School of Business. Companies globally have sold a record $2.1 trillion of bonds …read more […]

As I told you in yesterday’s edition of Trade Talk Tuesdays, I’ll be coming out with a special AMA (ask me anything) issue next week.
If you have a question for me, here’s your chance to ask it!
Nothing is off the table – so ask away!
Just click on the video link above – and then post your question in the comments section of the Carvana video. And next week, I’ll do my best to answer it.
And just like that, you’ll be YouTube famous. (Kidding, obviously!)
In the meantime…
We’re starting to get a ton of great questions – one of which I’d like …read more […]

After the coronavirus fears subside and the U.S. counts the economic toll, the legalization of cannabis is a potential beneficiary. Most states have huge budget deficits with an eye on legalization of especially recreational cannabis as a major source of new tax revenues.One state pushing forward with recreational cannabis approval is New York. Governor Andrew Cuomo is one of the few governors pushing aggressively for approval and the state would probably be very close to legalization, if not for the ongoing setback from COVID-19.The flip side of this setback is the need for cannabis tax revenues is further enhanced by …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — The Twitter accounts of some of the U.S.’s most prominent political and business leaders, from Barack Obama and Joe Biden to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, were hacked Wednesday afternoon in an apparent effort to promote a Bitcoin scam.The attacks were stunning in scope and almost certainly coordinated. Others whose Twitter accounts appeared to be hacked included Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Kanye West, Uber Technologies Inc., Apple Inc. and Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP. The accounts sent out tweets promising to double the money of anyone sending funds via Bitcoin …read more […]

John Grace, Founder and President of Investor’s Advantage Corp., joins The Final Round to highlight what bank earnings means for investors and his outlook for the second half of 2020.
…read more […]

Twitter’s thin veil of security went into full meltdown at 19:00 UTC on Wednesday. Within hours, even Barack Obama’s account was compromised. …read more […]

…read more […]