Year: 2020

(Bloomberg) — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s quarterly profit exceeded analyst estimates by the widest margin in six years, underscoring how its technological lead is helping the chipmaker weather the pandemic as well as U.S. curbs on No. 2 customer Huawei Technologies Co.Apple Inc.’s main iPhone chipmaker reported net income of NT$120.8 billion ($4.1 billion) on Thursday, beating the NT$110.6 billion analysts expected on average. That’s the biggest profit beat since the three months ended March 2014. TSMC also reported gross margin of 53%, exceeding its previous guidance of 50%-52%, according to today’s release.TSMC, a critically important link in the global …read more […]

German authorities pressed on for four years investigating investors who bet against Wirecard AG’s shares, even after a UK regulator concluded that their evidence against the short sellers was “not sufficient,” according to documents and people familiar with the matter. With encouragement from Wirecard’s lawyers and despite red flags about the company, financial markets watchdog Bafin and Bavarian state prosecutors in Munich moved swiftly against short sellers after a February 2016 research report alleged fraud and money-laundering at Wirecard, according to confidential documents related to the probe. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Asian stocks were lower Thursday along with European and U.S. equity futures as investors parsed a slew of economic data in China that showed the path of economic recovery from the pandemic remains bumpy. The dollar edged higher.Equities in China were down about 1.5%. Shares were also lower in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Australia. S&P 500 contracts slipped after a positive Wednesday session on signs of progress in developing a vaccine for the coronavirus. Twitter Inc. fell in after-hours trading after accounts of some of America’s most prominent political and business leaders were hacked. Crude oil …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — For years, two knocks against Tesla Inc. were that a constant churn of executive turnover would catch up to Elon Musk, and that an onslaught of electric models from Volkswagen AG and others would put him in his place.Now, the tables have turned.VW’s electric offensive has sputtered, with software issues plaguing its battery-powered ID.3. And it’s the German giant whose executive suites are turning over: in a matter of days, its trucks chief resigned, the leader of its van unit was demoted and its head of software was reassigned.Even Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess’s job looked insecure for …read more […]

(Bloomberg Opinion) — With the $28 billion he’s raised working from home, India’s richest man wants to step into the breach created by the technology cold war between America and China. The two Silicon Valley tech giants that gave him a third of the money will help put him there. It’s an audacious plan. Politicians in many nations, including the U.S., the U.K. and India, are reluctant to let Huawei Technologies Co., which they accuse of being an instrument of the Chinese state, become embedded in the fast-speed internet networks that will run everything from power stations to autonomous cars.Ambani’s …read more […]

(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 […]

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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 […]