Year: 2020

It is far from certain that Twitter would be able to outbid Microsoft Corp and complete such a transformative deal in the 45 days that U.S. President Donald Trump has given ByteDance to agree to a sale, the sources said on Saturday. The news of Twitter and TikTok being in preliminary talks and Microsoft still being seen as the front-runner in bidding for the app’s U.S. operations was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal. …read more […]

It’s a mixed start to the day. A Bitcoin move back through to $11,800 should support the broader market. …read more […]

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Saturday directing the Education Department to extend an interest-free payment pause for 40 million student loan borrowers until at least the end of 2020. …read more […]

It’s a busy week ahead, with economic data, monetary policy, U.S foreign policy, and the path of the U.S stimulus package to drive the markets. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — The federal agency that announced a $765 million loan to Eastman Kodak Co. less than two weeks ago said the offer is on hold pending probes into allegations of wrongdoing.“Recent allegations of wrongdoing raise serious concerns,” the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation said in a tweet Friday night. “We will not proceed any further unless these allegations are cleared.” Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the deal, and Kodak’s board said Friday it is also opening a review of the loan disclosure.The development bank loan announced July 28 was the first of its kind under …read more […]

* Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors during periods of uncertainty. * A notable activist investor added to his stake in an old-school tech company. * Health care tech companies saw some insiders buying last week.Conventional wisdom says that insiders and 10% owners really only buy shares of a company for one reason — they believe the stock price will rise and they want to profit from it. So insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors, particularly during periods of uncertainty.Insiders continued to add shares despite overall market volatility and economic …read more […]

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The retirement crisis in America is real…
According to a recent Bankrate study…

20% of Americans have NOTHING saved for retirement
Another 20% have saved less than 5% of their annual income
Less than 33% of Americans have saved 11% or more of their annual income.

And the COVID-19 pandemic is about to make it all a lot worse…

Watch Video
A whole lot worse.
According to Richard Johnson – the director of the Program on Retirement Policy at the Urban Institute – the value of Americans’ retirement accounts has shrunk from $18 trillion in 2019 to $14 trillion this year (through April 3).
That’s a staggering 22% decrease!
It’s …read more […]

* This weekend’s Barron’s cover story discusses how to prepare a portfolio for the upcoming elections. * Other featured articles look at stand-out dividend growth stocks, how to play dual-share stocks and who wins and loses from the shift in moviegoing. * Also, the prospects for Warren Buffet’s empire, a cosmetics giant, a pawn shop operator and more.Cover story “2020 Election: How to Prepare Your Portfolio” by Lisa Beilfuss explains what three potential election outcomes could mean for stocks from Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) to Tesla Inc(NASDAQ: TSLA) and for industry sectors and the U.S. …read more […]

The standard method of determining what industry a company is in is by looking at its underlying business. By that standard, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is clearly in the auto business. Virtually all of the company’s revenues and costs are related to building, selling, and servicing automobiles. But there is another way of checking whether a company is an […] …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — When Bank of America Corp. recently elevated its next class of senior executives, one name was conspicuously absent: Fab Gallo.Few would have bet against the marathon-running head of the firm’s global equities division, especially after he set a revenue record early this year amid the messiest markets in a generation. Yet after a leaked recording of a conference call thrust Gallo’s blunt communications style into the public, and turbulence emerged in parts of his business, the bank’s bosses left him behind.While eight colleagues got invited to join the firm’s elite management team in late July, Gallo was told …read more […]

On CNBC’s “Options Action,” Mike Khouw suggested that investors with a long position in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd – ADR (NYSE: BABA) should consider a less risky alternative going into earnings.Khouw wants to sell the September $235 put for a credit of $8 and buy the September $260/$285 call spread for total cost of $7. With the options structure, he collects a premium of $1. If the stock rallies through $285, Khouw is going to make a profit of $26 or a little over 10% of the current price. If the stock drops below $235, he would have to buy …read more […]

Horizon Therapeutics Public Limited Company’s (NASDAQ:HZNP) price-to-earnings (or “P/E”) ratio of 27.8x might make it… …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Warren Buffett’s dire airline predictions have hit close to home.After dumping his stakes in airlines earlier this year with a warning that the pandemic had unleashed fundamental change on that business, Buffett’s own Berkshire Hathaway Inc. took a roughly $10 billion impairment charge tied to Precision Castparts, its massive maker of plane parts. A vaccine may be the only remedy for the pandemic’s “particularly severe” impact on the aerospace market, Berkshire said.“The Covid-19 pandemic produced material declines in commercial air travel during the second quarter,” Berkshire said Saturday in a regulatory filing discussing second-quarter results. “Airlines responded by …read more […]

Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it’s exciting to see Eli Lilly… …read more […]