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Futures Under Water As Tech Selloff Spreads, Yields Spike, Lira Implodes
Futures Under Water As Tech Selloff Spreads, Yields Spike, Lira Implodes US equity futures continued their selloff for the second day as Treasury yields spiked to 1.66%, up almost 4bps on the day, and as the selloff in tech shares spread as traders trimmed bets for a dovish-for-longer Federal Reserve after the renomination of Jerome Powell as its chair. At 8:00am ET, S&P futures were down 2.75 points or -0.05%, with Dow futures flat and Nasdaq futures extended their selloff but were off worst levels, down 41.25 points or 0.25%, after Monday’s last-hour furious rout in technology stocks. As repeatedly covered here in recent weeks, the Turkish currency crisis deepened with the lira weakening past 13 per USD, a drop of more than 10% in one day. Oil rebounded - as expected - after a panicking Joe Biden, terrified about what soaring gas prices mean for Dems midterm changes, announced that the US, together with several other countries such as China, India and Japan, would tap up to 50 million barrels in strategic reserves, a move which was fully priced in and will now serve to bottom tick the price of oil. In premarket trading, Zoom lost 9% in premarket trading on slowing growth. For some unknown reason, investors have been reducing expectations for a deeper dovish stance by the Fed after Powell was selected for a second term (as if Powell - the man who started purchases of corporate bonds - is somehow hawkish). The chair himself sought to strike a balance in his policy approach saying the central bank would use tools at its disposal to support the economy as well as to prevent inflation from becoming entrenched. “While investors no longer have to wonder about who will be leading the Federal Reserve for the next few years, the next big dilemma the central bank faces is how to normalize monetary policy without upsetting markets,” wrote Robert Schein, chief investment officer at Blanke Schein Wealth Management. Following Powell’s renomination, “the market has unwound hedges against a more ‘dovish’ personnel shift,” Chris Weston, head of research with Pepperstone Financial Pty Ltd., wrote in a note. Not helping was Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic who said Monday that the Fed may need to speed up the removal of monetary stimulus and allow for an earlier-than-planned increase in interest rates European stocks dropped with market focusing on potential Covid lockdowns and policy tightening over solid PMI data. Euro Stoxx 50 shed as much as 1.7% with tech, financial services and industrial names the hardest hit. Better-than-forecast PMI numbers out of Europe’s major economies prompted money markets to resume bets that the ECB will hike the deposit rate 10 basis points as soon as December 2022, versus 2023 on Monday. As Goldman notes, the Euro area composite flash PMI increased by 1.6pt to 55.8 in November — strongly ahead of consensus expectations — in a first gain since the post-July moderation. The area-wide gain was broad-based across countries, and sectors. Supply-side issues continued to be widely reported, with input and output price pressures climbing to all-time highs. In the UK, the November flash composite PMI came in broadly as expected, and while input costs rose to a new all-time high, pass-through into output prices appears lower than usual. Forward-looking expectations remain comfortably above historical averages across Europe, although today's data are unlikely to fully reflect the covid containment measures taken in a number of European countries over recent days. Key numbers (the responses were collected between 10 and 19 November (except in the UK, where the survey response window spanned 12-19 November). Euro Area Composite PMI (Nov, Flash): 55.8, GS 53.6, consensus 53.0, last 54.2. Euro Area Manufacturing PMI (Nov, Flash): 58.6, GS 57.7, consensus 57.4, last 58.3. Euro Area Services PMI (Nov, Flash): 56.6, GS 53.9, consensus 53.5, last 54.6. Germany Composite PMI (Nov, Flash): 52.8, GS 52.1, consensus 51.0, last 52.0. France Composite PMI (Nov, Flash): 56.3, GS 54.4, consensus 53.9, last 54.7. UK Composite PMI (Nov, Flash): 57.7, GS 57.7, consensus 57.5, last 57.8. And visually: Earlier in the session, Asian stocks fell toward a three-week low as Jerome Powell’s renomination to head the Federal Reserve boosted U.S. yields, putting downward pressure on the region’s technology shares. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index declined as much as 0.5%, as the reappointment sent Treasury yields higher and buoyed the dollar amid concerns monetary stimulus will be withdrawn faster. Consumer discretionary and communication shares were the biggest drags on Asia’s benchmark, with Tencent and Alibaba slipping on worries over tighter regulations in China. “Powell’s renomination was generally expected by the market,” said Chetan Seth, an Asia-Pacific equity strategist at Nomura. The market’s reaction may be short-lived as traders turn their attention to the Fed’s meeting in December and Covid’s resurgence in Europe, he added. Asia shares have struggled to break higher as the jump in yields weighed on sentiment already damped by a lackluster earnings season and the risk of accelerating inflation. The region’s stock benchmark is down about 1% this year compared with a 16% advance in the MSCI AC World Index. Hong Kong and Taiwan were among the biggest decliners, while Australian and Indian shares bucked the downtrend, helped by miners and energy stocks. India’s benchmark stock index rose, snapping four sessions of declines, boosted by gains in Reliance Industries Ltd. The S&P BSE Sensex climbed 0.3% to close at 58,664.33 in Mumbai, recovering after falling as much as 1.3% earlier in the session. The NSE Nifty 50 Index gained 0.5%. Of the 30 shares on the Sensex, 21 rose and 9 fell. All but one of the 19 sector sub-indexes compiled by BSE Ltd. advanced, led by a gauge of metal stocks. Reliance Industries Ltd. gained 0.9%, after dropping the most in nearly 10 months on Monday following its decision to scrap a plan to sell a 20% stake in its oil-to-chemicals unit to Saudi Arabian Oil Co. Shares of One 97 Communications Ltd., the parent company for digital payments firm Paytm, climbed 9.9% after two days of relentless selling since its trading debut. In rates, Treasuries dropped, with the two-year rate jumping five basis points, helping to flatten the yield curve. Bunds and Treasuries bear steepened with German 10y yields ~5bps cheaper. Gilts bear flatten, cheapening 1.5bps across the short end. 10Y TSY yields rose as high as 1.67% before reversing some of the move. In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed after earlier advancing to the highest level since September 2020 as markets moved to price in a full quarter-point rate hike by the June Fed meeting, with a good chance of two more by year-end; Treasury yields inched up across the curve apart from the front end. The Japanese yen briefly fell past 115 per dollar for the first time since 2017. The euro advanced after better-than-forecast PMI numbers out of Europe’s major economies prompted money markets to resume bets that the ECB will hike the deposit rate 10 basis points as soon as December 2022, versus 2023 on Monday. Sterling declined versus the dollar and the euro; traders are taking an increasingly negative view on the pound, betting that the decline that’s already left the currency near its lowest this year has further to run New Zealand’s dollar under-performed all G-10 peers as leveraged longs backing a 50 basis-point hike from the central bank were flushed out of the market; sales were mainly seen against the greenback and Aussie. The yuan approached its strongest level against trade partners’ currencies in a sign that traders see a low likelihood of aggressive official intervention. The Turkish lira (see above) crashed to a record low on Tuesday, soaring more than 10% and just shy of 14 vs the USD, a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended his pursuit of lower interest rates to boost economic growth and job creation. In commodities, crude futures rebounded sharply after Biden announced a coordinated, global SPR release which would see the US exchange up to 32mm barrels, or a negligible amount. Brent spiked back over $80 on the news after trading in the mid-$78s. Spot gold drops ~$8, pushing back below $1,800/oz. Base metals are well supported with LME nickel outperforming. Looking at the day ahead, the main data highlight will be the flash PMIs for November from around the world, and there’s also the Richmond Fed manufacturing index for November. Finally from central banks, we’ll hear from BoE Governor Bailey, Deputy Governor Cunliffe and the BoE’s Haskel, as well as ECB Vice President de Guindos and the ECB’s Makhlouf. Market Snapshot S&P 500 futures down 0.3% to 4,667.75 Brent Futures down 0.9% to $78.95/bbl Gold spot down 0.4% to $1,796.86 U.S. Dollar Index down 0.17% to 96.39 Top Overnight News from Bloomberg The volatility term structures in the major currencies show that next month’s meetings by monetary policy authorities are what matters most. Data galore out of the U.S. by Wednesday’s New York cut off means demand for one-day structures remains intact, yet it’s not enough to bring about term structure inversion as one-week implieds stay below recent cycle highs Lael Brainard, picked to be vice chair of the Federal Reserve, is expected to be a critical defender of its commitment to maximum employment across demographic groups at a time when other U.S. central bankers are more worried by inflation ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel said there’s an increasing threat of inflation taking hold, as she played down the danger that resurgent coronavirus infections might impede the euro zone’s recovery Regarding latest pandemic restrictions, “when it comes to the impact, I would say that while it will surely have a moderating impact on economic activity, the impact on inflation will actually be more ambiguous because it might also reinforce some of the concerns we have around supply bottlenecks,” ECB Governing Council member Klaas Knot says in Bloomberg Television interview with Francine Lacqua European Union countries are pushing for an agreement on how long Covid-19 vaccinations protect people and how to manage booster shots as they try to counter the pandemic’s fourth wave and safeguard free travel Germany’s top health official reiterated a warning that the government can’t exclude any measures, including another lockdown, as it tries to check the latest wave of Covid-19 infections The State Council, China’s cabinet, released three documents in the past several days, outlining measures to help small and medium-sized enterprises weather the downturn: from encouraging local governments to roll out discounts for power usage to organizing internet companies to provide cloud and digital services to SMEs A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk Asia-Pac stocks traded mixed following a similar performance in the US where participants digested President Biden’s decision to nominate Fed Chair Powell for a second term and Fed’s Brainard for the Vice Chair role. This resulted in bear flattening for the US curve and underpinned the greenback, while the major indices were choppy but with late selling heading into the close in which the S&P 500 slipped beneath the 4,700 level and the Nasdaq underperformed as tech suffered the brunt of the higher yields. ASX 200 (+0.8%) was positive with sentiment encouraged after stronger PMI data and M&A developments including BHP’s signing of a binding agreement to merge its oil and gas portfolio with Woodside Petroleum to create a global top 10 independent energy company and the largest listed energy company in Australia, which spurred outperformance for the mining and energy related sectors. KOSPI (-0.5%) was lacklustre and retreated below the 3k level amid broad weakness in tech which was not helped by concerns that South Korea could take another aim at large tech through a platform bill and with the government said to be mulling strengthening social distancing measures. Hang Seng (-1.2%) and Shanghai Comp. (+0.2%) continued to diverge amid a neutral liquidity effort by the PBoC and with the Hong Kong benchmark conforming to the tech woes, while the mainland was kept afloat after the State Council pledged to strengthen assistance to smaller firms and with Global Times noting that China will likely adopt another RRR cut before year-end to cope with an economic slowdown. Finally, Japanese participants were absent from the market as they observed Labor Thanksgiving Day, while yields in Australia were higher as they tracked global counterparts and following a Treasury Indexed bond offering in the long-end. Top Asian News Tiger Global Leads $210 Million Round by India Proptech Unicorn China’s Slowdown Tests Central Bank Amid Debate Over Easing Kuaishou Defies China Crackdown as Revenue Climbs 33% Evergrande Shares Jump in Afternoon Trading as Group Units Rally Major bourses in Europe are lower across the board, but off worst levels (Euro Stoxx 50 -1.1%; Stoxx 600 -1.3%) following on from the mixed APAC performance, but with pandemic restrictions casting a shower over the region. US equity futures are mostly lower but to a lesser extent than European peers, with the YM (+0.1%) the relative outperformer vs the ES (-0.1%), NQ (-0.3%) and RTY (-0.8%). Back to Europe, the morning saw the release of Flash PMIs which failed to spur much action across market given the somewhat stale nature against the backdrop of a worsening COVID situation in Europe. Losses in the UK’s FTSE 100 (-0.1%) are more cushioned vs European counterparts, with heavyweight miners doing the heavy lifting, and as the basic resources sector outpaces and resides as the only sector in the green at the time of writing amid a surge in iron ore prices overnight. Sticking with sectors, there is no clear or overarching theme/bias. Tech resides at the foot of the pile, unaided by the intraday rise in yields. Travel and Leisure also reside towards the bottom of the bunch, but more a function of the “leisure” sub-sector as opposed to the “travel” component, with Evolution Gaming (-3.7%) and Flutter (-3.5%) on the back foot. In terms of individual movers, Thyssenkrupp (-7.0%) tumbles after the Co. announced a secondary offer by Cevian of 43mln shares. Meanwhile, Telecom Italia (-3%) is softer following yesterday’s run, whilst Vivendi (-0.5%) said the current KKR (KKR) offer does not reflect Telecom Italia's value and it has no intention of offloading its 24% stake. Top European News U.K. PMIs Show Record Inflation and ‘Green Light’ for BOE Hike Kremlin Says New U.S. Sanctions on Nord Stream 2 Are ‘Illegal’ ECB’s Knot Says New Lockdowns Won’t Delay Wind-Down of Stimulus Telefonica Drops, Berenberg Cuts on Spain Margin Problems In FX, the Buck had already eased off best levels to relieve some pressure from its rivals, but the Euro also derived encouragement from the fact that a key long term Fib held (just) at 1.1225 before getting a rather unexpected fundamental fillip in the form of stronger than forecast flash Eurozone PMIs plus hawkish-sounding comments from ECB’s Schnabel. Eur/Usd duly rebounded to 1.1275 and the Dollar index retreated to 96.308 from a fresh y-t-d peak of 96.603, while the Yen and Franc also took advantage to varying degrees against the backdrop of deteriorating risk sentiment and in thinner trading volumes for the former due to Japan’s Labor Day Thanksgiving holiday. Usd/Jpy recoiled from 115.15 to 114.49 at one stage and Usd/Chf to 0.9301 from 0.9335 before both pairs bounced with the Greenback and a rebound in US Treasury yields ahead of Markit’s preliminary PMIs and Usd 59 bn 7 year note supply. TRY - Simply no respite for the Lira via another marked pull-back in oil prices on heightened prospects of SPR taps, the aforementioned Buck breather or even a decent correction as Usd/Try extended its meteoric rise beyond 11.5000 and 12.0000 towards 12.5000 irrespective of an ally of Turkish President Erdogan urging a debate on CBRT independence. Instead, the run and capital flight continues as talks with the IMF make no progress and an EU court condemns the country for detaining 400+ judges after the coup, while the President rules out a snap election after recent calls for an earlier vote than the scheduled one in 2023 by the main opposition party. NZD/CAD/GBP/AUD - It remains to be seen whether the RBNZ maintains a 25 bp pace of OCR normalisation overnight, but weak NZ retail activity in Q3 may be a telling factor and is applying more downside pressure on the Kiwi across the board, as Nzd/Usd hovers under 0.6950 and the Aud/Nzd cross tests 1.0425 on relative Aussie strength or resilience gleaned from another spike in iron ore that is helping to keep Aud/Usd above 0.7200. Conversely, the latest downturn in crude is undermining the Loonie and the Pound hardly derived any traction from better than anticipated UK PMIs even though they should provide the BoE more justification to hike rates next month. Usd/Cad has now breached 1.2700 and only stopped a few pips short of 1.2750 before fading ahead of comments from BoC’s Beaudry, while Cable topped out just over 1.3400 awaiting BoE Governor Bailey, whilst Haskel reaffirmed his stance in the transitory inflation camp, although suggested that if the labour market remains tight the Bank Rate will have to rise. SCANDI/EM - Hardly a shock that Brent’s reversal has hit the Nok alongside broader risk-aversion that is also keeping the Sek defensive in advance of the Riksbank, but the Zar is coping well considering Gold’s loss of Usd 1800+/oz status and test of chart support at the 100 DMA only a couple of Bucks off the 200. Similarly, the Cnh and Cny are still resisting general Usd strength and other negatives, with help from China’s State Council pledging to strengthen assistance to smaller firms perhaps. In commodities, WTI and Brent Jan'22 futures remain under pressure with the former back under USD 76/bbl (vs USD 76.59/bbl high) and the latter around USD 79/bbl (vs USD 79.63/bbl high). The WTI contract is also narrowly lagging Brent by some USD 0.30/bbl at the time of writing. Participants are keeping their eyes peeled for reserve releases from the US, potentially in coordination with other nations including China, Japan, and India – with inflation concerns being the common denominator. The move also comes in reaction to OPEC+ flouting calls by large oil consumers, particularly the US, to further open the taps beyond the group’s planned 400k BPD/m hikes. A source cited by Politico caveated that a final decision is yet to be made, and US officials are hoping that the threat of an SPR release would persuade OPEC+ to double their quotas at the Dec 2nd meeting. As it stands, Energy Intel journalist Bakr noted that she has not heard anything from OPEC+ officials about changing production plans, but delegates yesterday suggested that plans may be tweaked. Click here for the full Newsquawk analysis piece. Aside from this, US President Biden is also poised to give a speech on the economy, whilst the weekly Private Inventories will also be released today. Elsewhere, spot gold and have been drifting lower in what is seemingly a function of technical, with the yellow metal dipping under USD 1,800/oz from a USD 1,812/oz current high, with a cluster of DMAs present to the downside including the 100 DMA (around USD 1,793/oz), 200 DMA (around USD 1,791/oz) and 50 DMA (around USD 1,789/oz). Turning to base metals, LME copper holds a positive bias with prices on either side of USD 9,750/t, whilst Dalian iron ore surged overnight - with reports suggesting that steel de-stockpiling accelerated last week, and analysts suggesting that the market is betting on steelmakers in December. US Event Calendar 9:45am: Nov. Markit US Composite PMI, prior 57.6 9:45am: Nov. Markit US Services PMI, est. 59.0, prior 58.7 9:45am: Nov. Markit US Manufacturing PMI, est. 59.1, prior 58.4 10am: Nov. Richmond Fed Index, est. 11, prior 12 DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap A reminder that yesterday we published our 2022 credit strategy outlook. See here for the full report. Craig has also put out a more detailed HY 2022 strategy document here and Karthik a more detail IG equivalent here. Basically we think spreads will widen as much as 30-40bps in IG and 120-160bps in HY due to a response to a more dramatic appreciation of the Fed being well behind the curve. This sort of move is consistent with typical mid-cycle ranges through history. We do expect this to mostly retrace in H2 as markets recover from the shock and growth remains decent and liquidity still high. We also published the results of our ESG issuer and investor survey where around 530 responded. Please see the results here. Today is the start of a new adventure as I’m doing my first overseas business trip in 20 months. It took me a stressful 2 hours last night to find and fill in various forms, download various apps and figure out how on earth I travel in this new world. Hopefully I’ve got it all correct or I’ll be turned back at the Eurostar gates! The interesting thing about not travelling is that I’ve filled the time doing other work stuff so productivity will suffer. So if I can do a CoTD today it’ll be done on an iPhone whilst racing through the French countryside. Actually finishing this off very early in a long taxi ride on the way to the train reminds me of how car sick I get working on my iPhone! The delights of travel are all coming flooding back. After much anticipation over recent weeks, we finally heard yesterday that President Biden would be nominating Fed Chair Powell for another four-year term at the helm of the central bank. In some ways the decision had been widely expected, and Powell was the favourite in prediction markets all along over recent months. But the Fed’s staff trading issues and reports that Governor Brainard was also being considered had led many to downgrade Powell’s chances, so there was an element of uncertainty going into the decision, even if any policy differences between the two were fairly marginal. In the end however, Biden opted for continuity at the top, with Brainard tapped to become Vice Chair instead. Powell’s nomination will require senate confirmation once again, but this isn’t expected to be an issue, not least with Powell having been confirmed in an 84-13 vote last time around. Further, Senate Banking Committee Chair Brown, viewed as a progressive himself, noted last week there should be no issue confirming Powell despite rumblings from progressive lawmakers. More important to watch out for will be who Biden selects for the remaining positions on the Fed Board of Governors, where there are still 3 vacant seats left to fill, including the position of Vice Chair for Supervision. In a statement released by the White House, it said that Biden intended to make those “beginning in early December”, so even with Powell staying on, there’s actually a reasonable amount of scope for Biden to re-shape the Fed’s leadership. A potential hint about who may be considered, President Biden noted his next appointments will “bring new diversity to the Fed.” President Biden, flanked by Powell and Brainard, held a press conference following the announcement. He noted maintaining the Fed’s independence and leadership stability informed his decision, and that Chair Powell assured the President he would focus on fighting inflation. He was apparently also assured that the Chair would work to combat climate change, perhaps an olive branch to those in his party that wanted a more progressive nominee. Powell and Brainard both followed up with remarks of their own, but didn’t stray from the recent Fed party line. In response to the decision, investors moved to bring forward their timing of the initial rate hike from the Fed, with one now just about priced by the time of their June 2022 meeting, whilst the dollar index (+0.54%) strengthened to a fresh one-year high. This reflects the perception among many investors that Brainard was someone who’d have taken the Fed on a more dovish trajectory. Inflation breakevens fell across the curve as well in response. Indeed the 4-year breakeven, which roughly coincides with the term of the next Fed chair, was down -3.8bps after yesterday’s session, with the bulk of that dive coming immediately after the confirmation of Powell’s nomination. Nevertheless, that decline in breakevens was more than outweighed by a shift higher in real rates that sent nominal yields noticeably higher. By the close, yields on 2yr (+7.8bps) and 5yr (+9.5bps) Treasuries were at their highest levels since the pandemic began, and those on 10yr Treasuries were also up +7.7bps, ending the session at 1.62%. 2yr yields were a full 14.1bps higher than the intra-day lows on Friday after the Austria lockdown news. We had similar bond moves in Europe too, with yields on 10yr bunds (+4.0bps) moving higher throughout the session thanks to a shift in real rates. Another noticeable feature in the US was the latest round of curve flattening, with the 5s30s (-4.4bps) reaching its flattest level (+64.1bps) since the initial market panic over Covid-19 back in March 2020. The S&P 500 took a sharp turn heading into the New York close after trading in positive territory for most of the day, ultimately closing down -0.32%. Sector performance was mixed, energy (+1.81%) and financials (+1.43%) were notable outperformers on climbing oil prices and yields, while big tech companies across different sectors were hit by higher discount rates. The NASDAQ (-1.26%) ended the day lower, having pared back its initial gains that earlier put it on track to reach a record of its own. The other main piece of news yesterday came on the energy front, where it’s been reported that we could have an announcement as soon as today about a release of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, potentially as part of a joint announcement with other nations. Oil prices were fairly resilient to the news, with Brent crude (+1.03%) and WTI (+0.85%) still moving higher, although both are down from their recent peaks as speculation of such a move has mounted. This could help put some downward pressure on inflation, but as recent releases have shown, price gains have been broadening out over the last couple of months to a wider swathe of categories, so it remains to be seen how helpful this will prove, and will obviously depend on how much is released along with how the OPEC+ group react. For their part, OPEC+ members noted that the moves from the US and its allies would force them to reconsider their production plans at their meeting next week. Looking ahead now, one of the main highlights today will come from the release of the flash PMIs for November, which will give us an initial indication of how the global economy has fared into the month. As mentioned yesterday, the Euro Area PMIs have been decelerating since the summer, so keep an eye out for how they’re being affected by the latest Covid wave. It’ll also be worth noting what’s happening to price pressures, particularly with inflation running at more than double the ECB’s target right now. Overnight in Asia stocks are trading mixed with Shanghai Composite (+0.43%), CSI (+0.20%), KOSPI (-0.44%) and Hang Seng (-1.01%) diverging, while the Nikkei is closed for Labor Thanksgiving. The flash manufacturing PMI release from Australia (58.5 vs 58.2 previous) came in close to last month while both the composite (55 vs 52.1 previous) and services (55 vs 51.8 previous) accelerated. In Japan the Yen slid past an important level of 115 against the Dollar for the first time in four years after Powell was confirmed. This marks an overall slide of 10% this year making it the worst performer amongst advanced economy currencies. S&P 500 (-0.01%) and DAX futures (-0.31%) are flat to down with Europe seemingly catching up with the weak U.S. close. Before this, in Europe yesterday, equities continued to be subdued, with the STOXX 600 down -0.13% after trading in a tight range, as the continent reacted to another surge in Covid-19 cases. The move by Austria back into lockdown has raised questions as to where might be next, and Bloomberg reported that Chancellor Merkel told CDU officials yesterday that the recent surge was worse than anything seen so far, and that additional restrictions would be required. So the direction of travel all appears to be one way for the time being in terms of European restrictions, and even a number of less-affected countries are still seeing cases move in an upward direction, including France, Italy and the UK. So a key one to watch that’ll have big implications for economies and markets too. Staying on Germany, there was some interesting news on a potential coalition yesterday, with Bloomberg obtaining a preliminary list of cabinet positions that said that FDP leader Christian Lindner would become finance minister, and Green co-leader Robert Habeck would become a “super minister” with responsibility for the economy, climate protection and the energy transition. The report also said that both would become Vice Chancellors, whilst the Greens’ Annalena Baerbock would become foreign minister. It’s worth noting that’s still a preliminary list, and the coalition agreement is yet to be finalised, but it has been widely suggested that the parties are looking to reach a conclusion to the talks this week, so we could hear some more info on this relatively soon. There wasn’t much in the way of data yesterday, though the European Commission’s advance November consumer confidence reading for the Euro Area fell back by more than expected to -6.8 (vs. -5.5 expected), which is the lowest it’s been since April. Over in the US, there was October data that was somewhat more positive however, with existing home sales rising to an annualised rate of 6.34m (vs. 6.20m expected), their highest level in 9 months. Furthermore, the Chicago Fed’s national activity index was up to 0.76 (vs. 0.10 expected). To the day ahead now, and the main data highlight will be the aforementioned flash PMIs for November from around the world, and there’s also the Richmond Fed manufacturing index for November. Finally from central banks, we’ll hear from BoE Governor Bailey, Deputy Governor Cunliffe and the BoE’s Haskel, as well as ECB Vice President de Guindos and the ECB’s Makhlouf. d Tyler Durden Tue, 11/23/2021 - 08:31.....»»
All Eyes on Fed Policy, Powell Speech
Prognosticators anticipating Fed Chair Powell being influenced by outside pressures to move on monetary policy have mostly come up empty so far. Wednesday, September 22, 2021Market participants are filling in some of the early-week selloff this morning, ahead of the Fed’s report due in the early afternoon regarding monetary policy going forward. Chair Jay Powell & Co. is expected unveil a new dot-plot regarding the tapering of asset purchases worth $120 billion per month ($80 billion in Treasury securities and $40 in mortgage-backed securities), and perhaps hint toward a timeline of raising interest rates from near-zero.Prognosticators anticipating Powell being influenced by outside pressures to move on monetary policy have mostly come up empty so far: Powell has shown rigid determination to let the liquidity in the market slosh around until not only inflation heats up past the optimum +2%, but also so that the labor market can pull itself back up to something like full employment. Thus, chances of the Fed making a move today are still up in the air, regardless how much assurance these prognosticators may issue ahead of 2pm ET today.One important aspect to predictions the Fed “can’t” move today has to do with the same thing that took down the markets -2% Monday: signs that China’s economy may be slowing significantly. Real estate giant Evergrande’s inability to pay a large bond come due this week shook global markets. But really, it was just the latest hard-line move from the Chinese government to punish risk-taking. However, this morning we find out the government blinked; Evergrande’s payment this week is settled.Inflation has been running hotter than 2% across the board this summer, and economic data (including Q3 earnings, which are beginning to trickle in) will let us know how hot we are this fall. Should the Fed continue backstopping the economy with these emergency buybacks, which were enacted back at the start of the pandemic? We know Powell believes inflation is “transitory,” but aren’t things like wage hikes more permanent than that?Anyway, that’s what’s on tap for today. Another important issue from the last time the Fed met was the Delta variant of Covid-19 marching through the South, taking down regional economies and putting a dent in the Great Reopening. Today, though Covid infection rates are very high, mostly among the voluntarily unvaccinated populations of the U.S., vaccine mandates and other incentives — including discussion of booster vaccines improving chances of not getting sick from Covid — have assuaged those fears.Indexes have slid a tad from early morning pre-market trading, but still nicely in the green: the Dow +190 points, the S&P 500 is +25 and the Nasdaq +60 points. Obviously, this afternoon’s Fed news is the pivotal moment for investors today, but it’s not keeping many participants from placing their bets ahead of time.Questions or comments about this article and/or its author? Click here>> Infrastructure Stock Boom to Sweep America A massive push to rebuild the crumbling U.S. infrastructure will soon be underway. It’s bipartisan, urgent, and inevitable. Trillions will be spent. Fortunes will be made. The only question is “Will you get into the right stocks early when their growth potential is greatest?” Zacks has released a Special Report to help you do just that, and today it’s free. Discover 7 special companies that look to gain the most from construction and repair to roads, bridges, and buildings, plus cargo hauling and energy transformation on an almost unimaginable scale.Download FREE: How to Profit from Trillions on Spending for Infrastructure >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Invesco QQQ (QQQ): ETF Research Reports SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY): ETF Research Reports SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here......»»
Markets Wait for the Fed"s FOMC Meeting Outcome
Markets Wait for the Fed's FOMC Meeting Outcome. Market participants are filling in some of the early-week selloff this morning, ahead of the Fed’s report due in the early afternoon regarding monetary policy going forward. Chair Jay Powell & Co. is expected unveil a new dot-plot regarding the tapering of asset purchases worth $120 billion per month ($80 billion in Treasury securities and $40 in mortgage-backed securities), and perhaps hint toward a timeline of raising interest rates from near-zero.Prognosticators anticipating Powell being influenced by outside pressures to move on monetary policy have mostly come up empty so far: Powell has shown rigid determination to let the liquidity in the market slosh around until not only inflation heats up past the optimum +2%, but also so that the labor market can pull itself back up to something like full employment. Thus, chances of the Fed making a move today are still up in the air, regardless how much assurance these prognosticators may issue ahead of 2pm ET today.One important aspect to predictions the Fed “can’t” move today has to do with the same thing that took down the markets -2% Monday: signs that China’s economy may be slowing significantly. Real estate giant Evergrande’s inability to pay a large bond come due this week shook global markets. But really, it was just the latest hard-line move from the Chinese government to punish risk-taking. However, this morning we find out the government blinked; Evergrande’s payment this week is settled.Inflation has been running hotter than 2% across the board this summer, and economic data (including Q3 earnings, which are beginning to trickle in) will let us know how hot we are this fall. Should the Fed continue backstopping the economy with these emergency buybacks, which were enacted back at the start of the pandemic? We know Powell believes inflation is “transitory,” but aren’t things like wage hikes more permanent than that?Anyway, that’s what’s on tap for today. Another important issue from the last time the Fed met was the Delta variant of Covid-19 marching through the South, taking down regional economies and putting a dent in the Great Reopening. Today, though Covid infection rates are very high, mostly among the voluntarily unvaccinated populations of the U.S., vaccine mandates and other incentives — including discussion of booster vaccines improving chances of not getting sick from Covid — have assuaged those fears.Indexes have slid a tad from early morning pre-market trading, but still nicely in the green: the Dow +190 points, the S&P 500 is +25 and the Nasdaq +60 points. Obviously, this afternoon’s Fed news is the pivotal moment for investors today, but it’s not keeping many participants from placing their bets ahead of time. Infrastructure Stock Boom to Sweep America A massive push to rebuild the crumbling U.S. infrastructure will soon be underway. It’s bipartisan, urgent, and inevitable. Trillions will be spent. Fortunes will be made. The only question is “Will you get into the right stocks early when their growth potential is greatest?” Zacks has released a Special Report to help you do just that, and today it’s free. Discover 7 special companies that look to gain the most from construction and repair to roads, bridges, and buildings, plus cargo hauling and energy transformation on an almost unimaginable scale.Download FREE: How to Profit from Trillions on Spending for Infrastructure >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here......»»
Stock market today: US stocks jump on fresh wave of AI enthusiasm
Apple's potential AI deal with Alphabet and Nvidia's GPU Tech Conference sparked a renewed rally in the AI theme on Monday. AP Photo/Jason DeCrow A renewed wave of AI enthusiasm helped push the stock market higher on Monday. Nvidia is set to unveil new products at its GTC conference, while a report says Apple and Google could strike a deal on AI. Investors are also paying attention to the Federal Reserve's upcoming FOMC meeting on Wednesday. A renewed wave of investor enthusiasm toward artificial intelligence helped push the stock market higher on Monday.Shares of Nvidia jumped just over 1% as the company hosted its annual GPU Technology Conference. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was kicking off a highly anticipated two-hour keynote address as the market headed into the closing bell, with investors expecting details on the company's upcoming launch of next-generation GPU chips, including the B100, which will be the successor to its wildly popular H100.Meanwhile, earlier in the day a report from Bloomberg helped spark a sharp rally in shares of Alphabet during the session. The search giant saw its stock price surge about 5% after Bloomberg said Apple may utilize Alphabet's Gemini AI chatbot in its upcoming iPhone release."We do think that GOOGL is best positioned to win any external deal for AI on AAPL's devices given the strong search partnership the two already have," CFRA analyst Angelo Zino said.Aside from AI developments, investors will turn their attention to the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting set to begin on Tuesday. While central bankers are expected to leave the benchmark rate unchanged, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's speech will be closely listened to by investors to gauge when the Fed may begin to cut interest rates.Here's where US indexes stood at the 4:00 p.m. closing bell on Monday: S&P 500: 5,149.42, up 0.63% Dow Jones Industrial Average: 38,790.43, up 0.2% (+75.66 points)Nasdaq Composite: 16,103.45, up 0.82% Here's what else happened today: Millennial women are taking over the economy as female participation in the prime-age workforce surges, according to Ned Davis Research. Wall Street is ramping up its bets that the US economy will experience a soft landing, meaning no recession ahead. A trade war between the US and China is likely regardless of who wins the Presidency in 2024, according to Capital Economics.The housing market is expected to stay exceptionally strong in the South due to strong employment trends and relative affordability. Bitcoin could soar 266% to $250,000 next year if inflows into bitcoin ETFs remain strong, according to Standard Chartered.In commodities, bonds, and crypto: West Texas Intermediate crude oil jumped 2.13% to $82.30 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, climbed by 1.97% to $87.02 a barrel. Gold rose by 0.12% to $2,164.00 per ounce. The 10-year Treasury yield rose one basis point to 4.33%.Bitcoin dropped by 2.06% to $66,953. Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»
Top 5 ETF Picks for March Madness Betting Frenzy
Investors should tap the three-week sports betting extravaganza with ETFs. The 2024 National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) Division I Men's Basketball Tournament will kick off on Mar 19, spreading “March Madness” among millions of Americans. This is especially true as the annual event will lead to crazy legal sports betting with increased legalization, pushing up stocks in this sector.The champion will be crowned on Apr 8 at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, AZ. Investors should tap the three-week sports betting extravaganza with VanEck Vectors Video Gaming and eSports ETF ESPO, Global X Video Games & Esports ETF HERO, Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF BETZ, VanEck Vectors Gaming ETF BJK and Pacer BlueStar Digital Entertainment ETF ODDS.Sports betting has never been more accessible to Americans than in recent years, as gambling is now legal in more states and growing in popularity. The legalization of sports betting across the United States has increased significantly since 2019, with online gambling now legal in 38 states and the District of Columbia.According to the American Gaming Association, Americans will legally bet $2.72 billion on the upcoming men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments with American sportsbooks. This represents roughly twice the amount legally wagered on this year’s Super Bowl, according to the AGA’s head of research, Dave Forman (read: 3 Sector ETFs to Win Despite Hot February Inflation Data).March Madness is available for betting at sportsbooks like DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM and BetRivers. DraftKings Sportsbook is known for its user-friendly interface and a wide selection of bets, making it a go-to for beginners and seasoned bettors. FanDuel stands out for its clean design and easy navigation, offering a variety of betting options, including popular same-game parlays. BetMGM combines the prestigious MGM brand with competitive odds and a broad selection of bets for March Madness. Known for its straightforward platform and rewarding loyalty program, BetRivers is a solid choice for placing your bets.Per estimates from the latest report from research firm Eilers and Krejcik Gaming, 35-40% of the amount bet on the men's NCAA tournament will come from in-game wagers and 5% of the handle will be generated from same-game parlays.We have highlighted the details of the above-mentioned ETFs.VanEck Vectors Video Gaming and eSports ETF (ESPO) VanEck Video Gaming and eSports ETF offers exposure to global companies involved in video game development, e-sports and related hardware and software by tracking the MVIS Global Video Gaming and eSports Index. ESPO holds 31 stocks in its basket, with a moderate concentration on the top firms. VanEck Video Gaming and eSports ETF is tilted toward American firms, which account for 45.9% of the portfolio, while Japan and China round off the next two, with double-digit allocation each.VanEck Video Gaming and eSports ETF has gathered $307.6 million in its asset base and trades in an average daily volume of 20,000 shares. ESPO charges 56 bps in annual fees from investors.Global X Video Games & Esports ETF (HERO)Global X Video Games & Esports ETF offers exposure to companies that develop or publish video games, facilitate streaming and distribution of video gaming or esports content, own and operate within competitive esports leagues, or produce hardware used in video games and esports, including augmented and virtual reality. This can be easily done by the Solactive Video Games & Esports Index (read: 3 Factors to Bet on U.S. Consumer ETFs).Holding 41 securities in its basket, Global X Video Games & Esports ETF has an AUM of $133.1 million and charges 50 bps in annual fees. It trades in an average daily volume of 32,000 shares.Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF (BETZ)Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF is designed to offer retail and institutional investors global exposure to sports betting and iGaming industries by tracking the Morningstar Sports Betting & iGaming Select Index.Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF holds 36 stocks in its basket and has amassed $93.4 million in its assets base. It charges 75 bps in annual fees and trades in an average daily volume of 21,000 shares.VanEck Vectors Gaming ETF (BJK)VanEck Vectors Gaming ETF provides investors with exposure to companies involved in casinos and casino hotels, sports betting, lottery services, gaming services, gaming technology and gaming equipment. It follows the MVIS Global Gaming Index, holding 38 securities in its basket.VanEck Vectors Gaming ETF has an AUM of $44.9 million and an average daily volume of roughly 4,000 shares. It charges 72 bps in annual fees.Pacer BlueStar Digital Entertainment ETF (ODDS)Pacer BlueStar Digital Entertainment ETF offers investors exposure to globally listed companies and depositary receipts that generate the majority of their revenues from online gambling, video game development or eSports. It follows the BlueStar Global Online Gambling, Video Gaming, and eSports Index, holding 50 stocks in its basket.Pacer BlueStar Digital Entertainment ETF has accumulated $0.9 million in its asset base and trades in an average daily volume of 200 shares. It charges 60 bps in fees per year. Want key ETF info delivered straight to your inbox? Zacks’ free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing ETFs, each week.Get it free >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Global X Video Games & Esports ETF (HERO): ETF Research Reports VanEck Gaming ETF (BJK): ETF Research Reports VanEck Video Gaming and eSports ETF (ESPO): ETF Research Reports Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF (BETZ): ETF Research Reports Pacer BlueStar Digital Entertainment ETF (ODDS): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research.....»»
"Guys, I F**ked Up" - SLERF Developer Accidentally Burns Millions As Memecoin-Mania Grows
"Guys, I F**ked Up" - SLERF Developer Accidentally Burns Millions As Memecoin-Mania Grows Authored by Prashant Jha via CoinTelegraph.com, Traders want to make their millions on Solana memecoins, but crypto proponents believe this is risky and would benefit the industry if it ends sooner rather than later... The Solana blockchain has become a hub for new memecoins as the new bull season kicks off with several new memecoins reaching market capitalizations in the billions of dollars within days of launching. One memecoin that has grabbed the crypto community’s attention is Slerf. The creator behind the project mistakenly burnt over $10 million in Solana before the launch, however, despite that the memecoin was launched and reached $500 million market cap within hours. The developer raised 535,000 Solana tokens to launch the memecoin but accidentally burnt $10.4 million worth of Solana tokens while trying to clear their wallet. Jeremy Arnold (@jdotarnold) provided a play-by-play on the farce on X... This guy and a small team created a new memecoin called Slerf. It has something to do with sloths? Who knows. Anyway they pre-sold half the tokens for ~$10m to some 25k buyers. Then the other half were supposed to go on sale starting a few hours ago. Except the guy who created them accidentally burned (deleted) the pre-sale tokens while releasing the new ones. (Don’t ask me how this works. I have no idea.) He’d also already revoked his ownership of the coin, so he couldn’t mint any replacements. Permanent deletion. The outcome was that the $10m got vaporized. Everyone who bought in early lost their deposits and got no Slerfs in return. Here is his initial post on X after realizing he screwed up... Developer burns $10 million of SOL. Source: Slerf on X "It's not my project anymore," the dev continued. "Obviously I don't have $10 million in my pocket to refund everybody, otherwise I'd 100% do it. That is what I'm working on." But this mistake was very good for attention, and attention is the true value of any memecoin. So the obvious thing happened and the new tokens that were released shot up around 5,000%. (This was partially because people realized no existing holders had any coins to sell to drive the price down.) As of the latest data over $1.5BN in volume has been traded on SLERF. The Slerf team later went to an X Spaces to elaborate further on the situation. "I'm sick to my stomach," team member Slorg said in a Space on X. "I'm literally about to throw up." "I'm lost for words," they added. "I don't know what to do." But the developer found a silver lining... The impact on Solana itself can be seen here... As TheBlock.co reports, the latest mishap follows a weekend rife with Solana-based memecoin presales, during which various random projects emerged and received significant funding, often amounting to millions of dollars. The memecoin frenzy has led to comparisons with the Ethereum initial coin offering (ICO) era bubble of 2017 when several crypto projects raised millions of dollars but many failed to deliver. It appears traders are swapping from ETH to SOL to jump on the memecoin mania Memecoins are cryptocurrencies stemming from an internet meme or having some other humorous characteristic, but they lack any real-world use case other than being a pop culture reference. These cryptocurrencies are highly speculative and supported by some enthusiastic online communities. Dogecoin is considered the OG memecoin and received support from Elon Musk during the 2021 bull market. In 2024, multiple memecoins, some barely a week old, have reached billions in market capitalization, creating new crypto millionaires by the hour. The recent comparison to the ICO presale era of 2017 comes amid many influencers managing to raise millions of dollars in presales to launch new memecoins. Users on X compared the current memecoin offerings (MCOs) to the Ethereum ICO bubble in 2017 when several crypto projects promised to deliver only to vanish after raising funds. A 2018 report indicated that over 90% of ICO projects failed. Similarly, there have been several instances where influencers have run away with the presale money or have dumped it on the market right after the launch. One user on X said the memecoin mania is a more honest version of the 2017 ICO craze and the 2021 nonfungible token/crypto-art bubble, as projects “no longer have to pretend to deliver on a fake white paper and investors no longer have to pretend to be in it for the art.” Scammer defrauding people during thememecoin frenzy. Source: ZachXBT on X Stories of a few traders making millions of dollars in a couple of days often attract several others to try their luck. However, on most occasions, they lose a significant chunk of their investment. A trader’s memecoin portfolio. Source: Elja on X Crypto proponents claim the memecoin bubble will eventually liquidate millions of new users who blindly put their money into technology with no utility. Tyler Durden Mon, 03/18/2024 - 10:50.....»»
As a financial planner, I always say you don"t have to buy real estate to build wealth — a better strategy is much easier
Real estate can boost your balance sheet and play a part in growing your wealth, but you don't have to buy property to get rich, writes Eric Roberge. The offers and details on this page may have updated or changed since the time of publication. See our article on Business Insider for current information.Paid non-client promotion: Affiliate links for the products on this page are from partners that compensate us (see our advertiser disclosure with our list of partners for more details). However, our opinions are our own. See how we rate investing products to write unbiased product reviews.The author, Eric Roberge.Beyond Your Hammock Buying a home may be the "American Dream," but it's certainly not a prerequisite for building wealth. Owning a home is expensive, even if you rent it out, and you're never guaranteed a profit. Consider REITs instead, and maximize your investments in the market to build long-term wealth. We're often told that buying a home is one of the greatest investments we can make. But just because it's the "American Dream" and a tangible sign of success for many, it doesn't mean it's your best option if your goal is building wealth.While real property can boost your balance sheet and play a part in growing your wealth, it's critical to understand that you don't have to buy property to get rich.Let's break down some of the myths around real estate as an investment that can mislead you — and in the process, show why real estate isn't a prerequisite for building assets.Real estate isn't always a good investment (or an investment at all)"Always" and "never" don't have a place in a savvy investor's vocabulary. There are no sure bets or guarantees, especially when it comes to real estate, because there are so many variables that fall both within and outside of your control. Factors outside of your control include:Overall economic conditions, including the current interest rate environmentHow the housing market in your area performsYour specific location in a communityThe timing of buying and sellingIf you're interested in becoming a landlord or flipping properties, you may have a bit more influence even amid these variables. You may be able to hold onto a property until the market is more favorable, for example — but then questions of liquidity and expenses come into play.Homes are expensive, illiquid assets that come with expenses every step of the way, from upkeep and maintenance to the transaction to buy and sell. Every dollar that goes towards cost is a dollar that eats away at your potential profit.When you're talking about a single-family home that you live in as your primary residence and don't pull rental income from, the idea of an "investment" falls away entirely. At that point, a home is more of a utility than anything else.For many people, making money, breaking even, or losing out on a real estate deal comes down to timing and luck — which is a big reason banking on property as a way to grow wealth isn't the ideal strategy.Renting isn't throwing money away, and buying might be riskierMaybe you understand that homes are expensive to buy and maintain, but you still feel compelled to put your money into real estate because the alternative seems worse. After all, you get the opportunity to build equity in a house you own. Meanwhile, you throw your money away every month you remain a renter.Right?Not so fast. For one, so much depends on your location and the prices of rents and homes in your specific area.When I rented in Boston from 2015 to 2020, renting was actually considerably cheaper than owning — and I took the money I saved in housing expenses and invested in the stock market for a bigger return than I would have gotten from buying and selling a property in the same timeframe.Renting poses less financial risk than buying a home. The most you pay for your housing each month when you rent is the cost of that rent (and a small amount for renters insurance). When you own a home, the least you're likely to pay each month is the mortgage.But you're likely to spend far more between all the associated expenses of homeownership, from property taxes and homeowners insurance to upkeep and maintenance (which you can estimate will cost you around 4% to 5% of a home's value a year).Renting also gives you its own kind of leverage: By renting, you're more flexible and agile with your finances than you would likely be if you were saddled with a large, illiquid asset that may or may not be easy to offload when you want. When you rent, you purchase convenience and choice.You can build wealth while you rent by directing some of your available cash flow to savings, retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, or even other investments like education or a business startup.You don't have to purchase a property to invest in real estate, anywayNone of this is to say that buying real estate is a bad move or won't work out in your favor. The point here is that you don't have to in order to grow wealth.And you can even buy real estate without actually buying physical property. You can invest in REITs, or real estate investment trusts. By investing in an REIT, you invest in a company that professionally buys, sells, and manages real estate properties for profit.As an investor in an REIT, you receive some of that profit back to you. There are still no guarantees here, and REITs can and do lose value. But they give you an opportunity for exposure to real estate without directly taking on the risk and expense of owning and managing a specific property.Consider this path to wealth instead: systematically investing in financial marketsBuying a home can be part of your financial plan — but it doesn't need to be your main investment vehicle. If your goal is to build wealth, then you need a systematic, reliable, tested, and repeatable process to use over and over again for the long term. This is where real estate often falls short for the majority of people. It's hard to replicate because you need large upfront sums of capital for every purchase, and you're limited to the physical inventory that is available in a particular location at any given time.You're also taking on much more financial risk than you actually need to secure a reasonable rate of return (given that houses are expensive to maintain, tenants are unpredictable, and you're subject to market conditions in your specific location if you want to liquidate).Plus, it's just hard! There are much easier ways to grow wealth, especially if you start early. Namely, that's using a globally diversified investment portfolio to buy into financial markets.If you want what might be the simplest, most reliable, easily repeatable process to build wealth? Try this: Take advantage of any qualified retirement accounts available to you. These can provide tax benefits (by deferring taxes, or helping your wealth grow tax-free). These may include 401(k)s, a variety of IRAs, and HSAs. Aim to contribute the maximum allowable amount each year to the accounts you can access. Once you max out those accounts, open a taxable investment account. This is also known as a brokerage account. Contribute a set amount to that each year, as well. (We recommend our wealth management clients save 25% of their gross income each year to a mix of retirement and brokerage accounts.) Invest in a low-cost, globally diversified portfolio. Once you start using investment accounts, set up your portfolio using low-cost investment options (like mutual funds and ETFs). These are baskets of securities that can give you exposure to a range of asset classes and types, but spread your investment risk across a variety of sectors and locations. Contribute systematically. Consider using a dollar-cost averaging strategy to help you stay consistent. That means investing the same amount on a regular schedule, rather than investing a lump sum. Commit to leaving this money invested for the long-term. Compounding only works if you give it the time to do so. Once you set up your investment system and strategy, stick with it. That means not stopping and starting contributions depending on how you feel that month, or what current events happen, or what the market did recently. You don't need to invest in real estate, use complicated plans, buy expensive products, or know some financial secret that no one else does to grow wealth. You just need to set up a simple system that you can stick to over time, and then get to work.Finding a financial advisor doesn't have to be hard. SmartAsset's free tool matches you with up to three fiduciary financial advisors that serve your area in minutes. Each advisor has been vetted by SmartAsset and is held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests. Start your search now.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»
As a financial planner, I recommend pet insurance to most pet owners
The majority of pets aren't insured, but the cost of medical treatment for pets is high — as a financial planner, I encourage getting insured. The offers and details on this page may have updated or changed since the time of publication. See our article on Business Insider for current information.Affiliate links for the products on this page are from partners that compensate us (see our advertiser disclosure with our list of partners for more details). However, our opinions are our own. See how we rate insurance products to write unbiased product reviews.The author, Hanna Horvath.Courtesy Hanna Horvath It's easy to see pet insurance as optional for most pets, but the cost of pet care can be high. While pet insurance doesn't cover everything, it's essential for paying some of the big costs. Make sure to take time to compare the costs and policies of all the providers available to you. Your pet is a part of your family — so when it comes to insurance, you may want to treat them like one.Pet insurance can help you manage financial risk and prepare for the unexpected. And when it comes to pet care costs, vet bills can really take a bite.The average annual cost of owning a dog is around $2,500, according to the American Kennel Club. That includes routine expenses, like food or supplies, and vet care. Emergency procedures, medications, surgeries, or hospitalizations can increase that cost. A single accident or illness could easily exceed thousands in treatment, especially for more complex conditions.And yet less than 2% of the 151 million cats and dogs in the US are insured, according to a North American Pet Health Insurance Association report.As a financial planner, I know the importance of strategically using tools like insurance to protect your finances — and your health — if something happens. Here's why I think pet insurance is a non-negotiable for owners.Weighing the risksA frequent pushback I hear about pet insurance is that it seems unnecessary for a young, healthy animal without chronic conditions. Why not just self-insure and cover bills yourself if something comes up?I always respond by asking: How much are you prepared to spend if the treatment totals $5,000? Or $10,000? At what point is cost no longer a consideration versus saving your companion?Cats and dogs rapidly become members of the family. When our furry friends get sick, we often scrape together anything for their care.Accidents happen, as much as we don't like to think about it. Even if your pet is healthy, there's always a risk of an unfortunate incident — and a medical bill worth thousands. Pet insurance can ease that financial pain.Knowing in advance what health risks your particular breed faces is helpful. Some are prone to joint issues, heart conditions, and cancer, among other conditions. Knowing this information ahead of time can help you accurately estimate future costs and find the right insurance plan.Most pet insurance plans cover the big costsMany people also believe that pet insurance doesn't cover that much. Though some exclusions exist, pet insurance covers treatments for unexpected accidents, injuries, and illnesses.Most policies cover costs for things like surgery and emergency care.For example, a common claim would be a leg fracture or torn ligament from an injury. Or an overnight stay at an animal hospital, plus procedures due to an acute illness like pancreatitis. These expenses often reach thousands per incident, yet they're covered for most pets.There are, however, things to be aware of. Pet insurance doesn't cover pre-existing conditions or vet visits that the owner could have prevented. They also won't cover preventive care like teeth cleaning, vaccines, or nail trimming.While pre-existing conditions may not be covered, older pets can still benefit in case of new accidents or diagnoses.There are two types of pet insurance — illness and accident insurance and accident-only insurance. Illness and accident insurance is more robust but more costly. It's important to read the policy's fine print to know what's covered.Make sure the math works in your favorLike with human health insurance, pet insurance has a monthly premium you'll need to pay to maintain coverage. The average accident and illness premium for dogs and cats in 2022 was $53 a month and $32 a month, respectively.Your premium will depend on where you live, your pet's age and breed, and the type of policy you pick. Pet insurance also has an annual deductible you'll have to meet before coverage kicks in — typically below $1,000 a year.When shopping for pet insurance, you should compare different providers and find the policy that fits your needs for the best possible price.It's also important to be aware of reimbursement rates. When you receive a vet bill, you're responsible for paying it and then filing a claim with your insurer. Most pet insurers have high reimbursement rates — between 70% to 90%.Looking to the futureWhile it's not always pleasant, thinking through all the scenarios can help you pick the best pet insurance policy for you.While pet insurance isn't right for everyone, my advice boils down to one key question — can you comfortably cover a multi-thousand dollar vet bill? If that gives you pause, it may be worthwhile to get a policy.The idea of your pet falling ill or getting hurt is emotional — but so is the idea of not being able to afford their medical care. That's why I recommend getting insurance to gain peace of mind with your pet.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»
Stock market today: US stocks rally ahead of Nvidia"s big AI event and as traders prep for Fed meeting
Nvidia's GTC, the annual conference centered on artificial intelligence, will kick off on Monday with a keynote from CEO Jensen Huang. Traders on the floor react before the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange on March 9, 2020 in New York.Timothy Clary/AFP/Getty ImagesTechnology led the stock market higher on Monday as investors await Nvidia's big AI event.Nvidia is set to unveil its new GPU products like the B100 at its annual conference.The Fed will kick off its two-day policy meeting Tuesday, with markets expecting rates to be unchanged.US stocks jumped on Monday, led by the technology sector, as investors await Nvidia's big AI conference.Nvidia's GTC, the annual conference centered on artificial intelligence, will kick off on Monday with a keynote presentation from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.Huang is expected to give an update on the future of AI technologies, as well as unveil some of the company's new GPU products like the B100, its successor to the wildly popular H100. Shares of Nvidia jumped about 3% in early Monday trades.Following the AI-fueled excitement, investors will be turning their attention to the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting set to begin on Tuesday. While central bankers are expected to leave the benchmark rate unchanged, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's speech will be closely listened to by investors to gauge when the Fed may begin to cut interest rates.Recent economic data, including two hotter-than-expected inflation reports last week, have brought the odds of a June rate cutdown to about 55%.Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. opening bell on Monday: S&P 500: 5,165.95, up 0.95% Dow Jones Industrial Average: 38,849.45, up 0.35% (+134.68 points)Nasdaq Composite: 16,202.36, up 1.43% Here's what else is going on today: Millennial women are taking over the economy as female participation in the prime-age workforce surges, according to Ned Davis Research. Wall Street is ramping up its bets that the US economy will experience a soft landing, meaning no recession ahead. A trade war between the US and China is likely regardless of who wins the Presidency in 2024, according to Capital Economics.In commodities, bonds, and crypto: West Texas Intermediate crude oil jumped 1.05% to $81.43 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, climbed by 0.91% to $86.12 a barrel. Gold declined by 0.02% to $2,161.10 per ounce. The 10-year Treasury yield was flat at 4.32%.Bitcoin dropped by 0.65% to $67,918. Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»
My husband and I started dating at work. It never negatively impacted our professional lives.
Kimberly Gallina and her husband, Jim, met at a school they were both teaching at in Jamaica, Queens. They prioritized keeping work and love separate. Jim and Kimberly Gallina.Courtesy of Kimberly GallinaKimberly Gallina met her husband, Jim, at a school in Queens where she was a student teacher.They prioritized maintaining professional boundaries at work while nurturing their relationship.Once their family grew to five, Jim switched jobs and they stopped working together.This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kimberly Gallina, a 35-year-old high school teacher in Peekskill, New York. The following has been edited for length and clarity.I was student teaching sixth-grade English in Jamaica, Queens when I met Jim. He was a first-year teacher, too.Before teaching eighth-grade biology, Jim worked in the restaurant industry for 10 years, at a tire shop, on a boat, and even a short stint as a flight attendant. I loved Jim's positivity. He had a nice laugh.I was offered a permanent job for the following year, and on my first day, I went in early to set up my classroom. Jim's classroom was right next to mine.He helped me set up my Smartboard and hang bulletin board paper, and I helped him with the borders on his. I felt a connection, a butterfly-type feeling, but couldn't tell if he felt the same.I couldn't tell if Jim liked me as a coworker, or something moreAs the year went on, Jim and I would greet our students at our classroom door every morning and chat afterward. Our conversations turned from complaining, work-life balance, and lesson plans to Jim asking me what I was doing on the weekends.I still felt like he was being friendly in a platonic way. Then I had to take a sick day, and he called me on the phone to see if I was OK. I realized then that he thought of me as more than just a coworker.He started calling me on the phone often to tell me things other people would typically just text. About three months into the school year, Jim asked me out. I was so nervous that I slept at my friend's house the night before, and she helped me get ready for the date.Jim and I went to lunch and rode bikes on the Long Beach boardwalk. Lunch turned into dinner. He took me grocery shopping for shrimp taco ingredients. We went back to his apartment, and he cooked for me. Dinner led to dessert, and we went out for cake. We were an item from then on.The Gallinas.Courtesy of Kimberly GallinaI knew I was interested in pursuing the relationship, but I was hesitant to make it official because I was a new teacher and didn't want any judgment from coworkers and my principal.It wasn't long before the students caught onAfter our first date, Jim left me little treats on my desk — a fruit leather from Trader Joe's, dark chocolate, or seltzer (all my favorite things). I got so mad at first, thinking people would catch on. We kept our private life at home and, at school, we kept it strictly professional.Even though there were no policies against coworkers dating — and there was even another couple at our school, and I knew my principal was OK with them — I was terrified of people knowing. I didn't want to jeopardize my job. Jim was less afraid of people finding out, but I wanted to be certain that he was "the one" before we went public.I remember the first student who caught on. Every day during his lunch, Jim would pop into my classroom and ask for a spoon for his yogurt. One day one of my students looked at me with side eye and said "Miss, you know he doesn't need a spoon, right?" I blushed because I knew he was correct.By the spring, people started to figure it out and we decided to tell our administration before they found out on their own. When we finally told them, our principal joked that she was a matchmaker.Our relationship never negatively affected our jobs — if anything, it made us better teachers. Jim doesn't struggle with overthinking or anxiety as much as I do, but I was so afraid to mess up or seem unprofessional that I worked harder.It was important to us to keep work-life separateWhen we first moved in together, we rented an apartment by the beach an hour away from our school. We made a rule that we could only talk about school during our commute.Teaching can be all-consuming — you can work until midnight and never be done — and Jim and I wanted our home and work lives to be separate. When we got home from work, we'd go for a walk on the beach to reset.At school, we hardly talked about personal things. We would sometimes eat lunch together if something important came up.Working with my partner was wonderful — but it couldn't last foreverThe Gallinas and their first child.Courtesy of Kimberly GallinaWe lived together for two years before Jim proposed in Montauk during spring break. The following year, we got married, and a year after that, we got pregnant with our first child.I worked a pregnancy announcement into my lesson plan, an inference activity: I wore a shirt that said "This will be the best year yet" with arrows pointing to my belly. I asked students to make an inference based on clues from the shirt.I found a new teaching job at a school closer to home. During my interview, I mentioned that Jim was also looking for a job and they needed a science teacher, so they hired us both. We worked together for another two years.When the pandemic hit, we had twins, and I realized pretty quickly that when it came to childcare, having two teachers as parents of three kids was untenable.The Gallina family.Kendall Lee PhotographyJim left teaching and took a more flexible job working for my dad's auto engineering distribution company. Now he's less stressed, and I'm happy to have a more carefree husband.I miss commuting with him, though. With three kids, those few hours in the car together were our time.Teachers sometimes refer to dating each other as being 'recreationally responsible' because we have the same time off to have fun, travel, and live life together. It really is the best experience.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»
A complete timeline of Prince William and Kate Middleton"s relationship, from meeting at university to the photo-editing scandal
Kate Middleton has been the subject of social-media conspiracy theories in recent weeks due to a hiatus from public life and a photo-editing scandal. Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2023.Chris Jackson/Getty Images Kate Middleton has been the subject of social-media conspiracy theories in recent weeks. Prince William and Kate met at the University of St Andrews in 2001 and married in 2011. A photo-editing controversy and Kate's hiatus from the public signal a rift in their united front. Prince William and Kate Middleton's love story appears to be the stuff of fairy tales.Their relationship began when they were students at the University of St Andrews, culminating in a lavish royal wedding in 2011. They went on to have three children, and often present a united front — even in the face of major royal scandal.However, in recent weeks, the princess has become embroiled in social-media conspiracy theories amid a hiatus from public life following a planned abdominal surgery and a photo-editing controversy that has rocked Kensington Palace.Here's a timeline of Kate and William's relationship through the years. 2001: Prince William and Kate Middleton met as students at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.Prince William and Kate Middleton in university.Middleton Family/Clarence House/Getty ImagesIn their first interview together with The Telegraph after their engagement in 2010, Kate said she "went bright red" and "scuttled off, feeling very shy" when she met the young prince for the first time.While William didn't join in many of the university's first-week festivities, known as Freshers' Week, the two eventually became good friends."William wasn't there for quite a bit of the time initially, he wasn't there from Freshers' Week, so it did take a bit of time for us to get to know each other, but we did become very close friends from quite early on," she said.2002: They reportedly went from friends to something more after Kate caught William's eye with a sheer outfit during a student fashion show.The dress that caught William's eye.Ferdaus Shamim / Contributor / Getty ImagesAs Business Insider previously reported, Kate wore the $40 sheer skirt as a dress during a fashion show in 2002, and Prince William was in the audience.According to the documentary "The Day Will and Kate Got Married," which aired in the UK in April 2021, it was this appearance that changed their relationship."A switch had been flicked, he suddenly saw her in a different light, and I really believe that was the turning point in their relationship," Katie Nicholl, Vanity Fair's royal correspondent, said in the documentary.For his part, William has said their relationship changed after they spent more time together."We were friends for over a year first and it just sort of blossomed from then on," William told The Telegraph. "We just spent more time with each other and had a good giggle [...] and realized we shared the same interests."2005: The pair graduated in 2005. Kate got her degree in art history, and Prince William got his in geography.Prince William greets fans on his graduation day in 2005.Bruno Vincent/Getty ImagesBy the time they graduated, the pair had already lived together with other friends and were publicly dating.2006: Kate made her first public appearances with the royal family, and she showed her support for her boyfriend.Kate Middleton with her parents in 2006.Anwar Hussein Collection/ROTA/FilmMagicIn December 2006, the Middleton family attended the Sovereign's Parade at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, in which Prince William appeared.She was already the subject of intense media fascination.2007: She was frequently accosted by paparazzi.Kate Middleton on her 25th birthday in 2007.Getty/Gareth CattermoleAt the time, a royal family spokesperson told The Telegraph that "Prince William wants more than anything for the paparazzi to stop harassing her."2007: Tabloid newspapers reported that the couple had split up.William and his brother, Prince Harry, at a concert in 2007.GettySome of the reports were downright salacious. "He broke up with Kate because he's met someone else who's turned his head," an anonymous source told The Observer at the time. "She's from a decent background but is very naughty and he finds her much more exciting."But at least one insider had the right idea: "I don't think it's really over," an anonymous "pal" of Kate's told People magazine. "I don't think this is the last you'll see of the two of them."2007: But by summer, the couple had gotten back together.The happily reunited couple in 2008, when William got his Royal Air Force wings.AP/Michael DunleaYears later, both William and Kate acknowledged that their brief breakup was a good thing."We were both very young ... and we were both finding ourselves," William told The Telegraph. "It was very much trying to find our own way and we were growing up.""I, at the time, wasn't very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person," Kate added. "You find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn't realized. I think you can get quite consumed by a relationship when you're younger."October 2010: Prince William proposed to Kate while they vacationed in Kenya. "I just decided that it was the right time really," he later said.A closeup of the stunning engagement ring.Getty/Arthur Edwards/WPA PoolWilliam proposed with the same sapphire ring his mother wore when she got engaged. The ring was originally given to William's brother, Prince Harry, but he asked for it before proposing to Kate. Giving it to her was "my way of making sure my mother didn't miss out on today," William later said when they announced the engagement, according to The Guardian.William also described the proposal in his surprisingly candid interview with The Telegraph. "It was about three weeks ago on a holiday in Kenya. We had a little private time away together with some friends," he said. "And I just decided that it was the right time really.""It was very romantic," Kate added. November 2010: The couple announced their engagement to the public.Kate and Will pose for press photos after announcing their engagement.Chris Jackson/Getty Images"The Prince of Wales is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton," the royal family said in a statement.It added, "Prince William has informed The Queen and other close members of his family. Prince William has also sought the permission of Miss Middleton's father."Following the marriage, the couple will live in North Wales, where Prince William will continue to serve with the Royal Air Force."They appeared at a press conference and photo call at St James's Palace, London, after sharing the happy news."The timing is right now, we are both very, very happy," William said at the time, according to The Guardian. "We both have a very good sense of humor and we take the mickey out of each other a lot."2011: They got married on April 29 in Westminster Abbey. That's also the day they got the official titles Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.Pippa Middleton holds her sister Kate's dress before walking into Westminster Abbey.GettyHere's what royal titles like "duchess" actually mean.With a price tag of roughly $34 million and an estimated global audience of 3 billion, it was one of the most lavish weddings in history.William and Kate's wedding day.Getty/Julian FinneyHere are 13 other noteworthy royal weddings. June 2011: A few months later, William and Kate embarked on their first international trip for the royal family.Prince William and Kate Middleton in Canada.Getty/Chris JacksonThey were all smiles as they traveled through Canada and later attended a red-carpet event in Los Angeles, California.July 2012: Cameras caught the couple celebrating in the stands when London hosted the Summer Olympics.The royals embrace after a British cyclist wins a gold medal.Pascal Le Segretain/Getty ImagesThey could be seen embracing after a British cyclist won a gold medal.December 2012: The palace announced that Kate was pregnant.Will and Kate emerge from the hospital after announcing the pregnancy.Fred Duval/Stringer/Getty ImagesThree days later, she and William were spotted leaving the hospital. According to the BBC, Kate was undergoing treatment for severe morning sickness at the time. July 23, 2013: Prince George made his very first public appearance. He was one day old.The first glimpse of Prince George.ReutersJournalists had been camped outside the hospital for three weeks waiting for a glimpse of Will, Kate, and their firstborn.Before he was born, the couple didn't know if they were having a boy or a girl, Kate said in a 2020 interview on the "Happy Mum, Happy Baby" podcast."It was a surprise," she said. "But also seeing … you know, your husband, William ... seeing the pure joy of his face, it was really special."2013: The growing royal family posed for a portrait with their spaniel, Lupo, just after the prince's birth.William, Kate, and Prince George pose at the Middleton family home in Bucklebury, Berkshire.Getty ImagesLupo was a wedding gift from Kate's younger brother, James. 2014: William and Kate brought Prince George along for a three-week royal tour of New Zealand and Australia.Prince George prepares to depart Australia in April 2014.AP/Rob GriffithIt was their first royal tour as a family of three.2014: The same year, the royal family announced Kate's second pregnancy.The couple during Kate's second pregnancy.Getty/Chris JacksonShe battled severe morning sickness with her second pregnancy, too, according to an official statement.May 2, 2015: Princess Charlotte was born.Will and Kate leave the hospital with newborn Charlotte.Getty/John Stillwell/WPA PoolA group of diehard royal fans spent weeks sleeping in tents across the street from the hospital, waiting for a glimpse of the new royal baby.The then-duke and duchess were so touched that they sent hot coffee and a box of pastries to the makeshift camp a few days before the birth, according to the Daily Mail.2015: After Charlotte's birth, Prince William and Kate left London to settle in a remote country village.William and Kate share an umbrella on Christmas 2015.Getty/Chris JacksonTheir 10-bedroom country home, Anmer Hall, was a wedding gift from the Queen, and it reportedly brought both normality and privacy to the family's day-to-day life. "They are rarely bothered," an anonymous local source told Vanity Fair in 2016. "We are used to having royals in this part of the world. We often see them out with George and Charlotte, but no one takes pictures or tries to talk to them. That's why they love it here."March 2016: They took their first vacation as a family of four.The young royal family enjoys their skiing vacation.John Stillwell/WPA Pool/Getty ImagesThe skiing trip to the French Alps marked the first time George and Charlotte had ever played in the snow, according to Vanity Fair.September 2016: Later that year, they made their first royal tour as a family of four, spending eight days in Canada.The family deplanes after arriving in Canada.Getty Images/Chris JacksonHere are some of their best looks from the trip. 2017: They made a major announcement that they would be officially moving the family back to London to live in Kensington Palace.Kate and Will walk a London red carpet in early 2017.Getty/Gareth CattermoleReports said that they were planning on building a massive basement extension to the historic property, which spans four floors and has over 20 rooms.2017: They settled into life as busy city-dwelling parents.Prince William and Kate Middleton use their air horns as they watch the London Marathon in April 2017.Getty/Chris JacksonHowever, they still knew how to relax. In April 2017, William and Kate revealed they watch "Homeland" and "Game of Thrones" once the kids are asleep. They also order takeout when they watch TV, especially curry, Kate told Radio 1. April 23, 2018: The couple welcomed their third child, Prince Louis.Prince William and Kate Middleton pose for photos after the birth of Prince Louis outside the Lindo Wing.Chris Jackson/ Getty ImagesPrince Louis was born just a few weeks before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's royal wedding.May 2018: William and Kate attended Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.Prince William, Kate Middleton, and Prince George leave Windsor Castle after the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle.Gareth Fuller/WPA Pool/Getty ImagesIt was revealed in Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's 2021 Oprah interview that there was drama between Kate and Meghan leading up to the big day. Meghan claimed in the interview that Kate made her cry over a dispute over Princess Charlotte's flower girl dress.March 2020: The royal couple took part in their last royal tour before the coronavirus pandemic.Prince William and Kate Middleton on March 5, 2020, in Galway, Ireland.Julien Behal Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty ImagesThe visit to Ireland was made at the request of Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office.2020: While the UK was on lockdown due to the coronavirus, the royal couple made regular appearances on video call engagements.William and Kate speak with Casterton Primary Academy students via video chat on April 9, 2020.Chris Jackson/Getty ImagesFor their first Zoom appearance, they video-called children of essential workers in April 2020.The following month, they hosted a video call to mark the first anniversary of the charity they co-founded, Shout, the UK's first 24/7 crisis text line.April 12, 2021: Three days after the death of Prince Philip, William shared a tribute on behalf of himself and Kate.Prince Philip and Prince William in 2015.Chris Jackson/WPA Pool/Getty Images"My grandfather's century of life was defined by service – to his country and Commonwealth, to his wife and Queen, and to our family," he wrote in a statement on Instagram. "I feel lucky to have not just had his example to guide me, but his enduring presence well into my own adult life – both through good times and the hardest days. I will always be grateful that my wife had so many years to get to know my grandfather and for the kindness he showed her.""My grandfather was an extraordinary man and part of an extraordinary generation," he continued. "Catherine and I will continue to do what he would have wanted and will support The Queen in the years ahead. I will miss my Grandpa, but I know he would want us to get on with the job."April 17: William and Kate attended Prince Philip's funeral.Prince William and Kate Middleton pictured at Prince Philip's funeral.Yui Mok/WPA Pool/Getty ImagesThey were pictured sitting together during the funeral. Prince William also was seen speaking with Prince Harry after the service.April 29, 2021: The couple celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary.Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 27, 2021.ANDY COMMINS/POOL/AFP/Getty ImagesHowever, they are by no means the longest-married royal couple. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's epic love story spanned over 70 years.September 28, 2021: William and Kate dazzled at the "No Time to Die" premiere in London.Prince William and Middleton attend the "No Time To Die" World Premiere at Royal Albert Hall on September 28, 2021 in London.Chris Jackson - WPA Pool/Getty ImagesRami Malek, who said that he sat behind William and Kate at the "No Time to Die" premiere, said he thought the royal couple looked to be enjoying the James Bond flick. "You can see a lot from what someone's body language was doing," he told E News' "Daily Pop." "I think they loved the film."December 10, 2021: The couple shared their 2021 Christmas card featuring their three children.Prince William and Kate Middleton's 2021 Christmas card photo.The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge/Handout/Getty ImagesThe Christmas card featured a photo taken of the family during a visit to Jordan earlier in 2021.The image was noticeably more casual and intimate than other photos of the royals, especially of Prince William, who will presumably become king in his lifetime. Kate and William showed a rare display of affection by placing their hands on each other's knees.March 2022: Prince William and Kate faced backlash on their first official overseas visit together since March 2020.Prince William and Kate Middleton in Jamaica.Chris Jackson/Getty ImagesWhile touring the Caribbean to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, which marks her 70th anniversary on the throne, the royal couple was met with backlash and criticism, a distinct turn from past royal tours.William and Kate canceled their first stop on the tour in Belize after locals organized protests around the couple's arrival and criticized the monarchy's colonial past. The couple was later met by protesters in Jamaica, who advocated for the United Kingdom to pay reparations as a result of the slave trade there. Jamaica is currently in the process of removing the Queen as its head of state, according to The Independent.William alluded to the backlash at a dinner held by the governor-general of Jamaica on March 23, expressing his "profound sorrow" over the history of slavery in the country."Slavery was abhorrent and it never should have happened," William said in the speech that was sent to Business Insider by Kensington Palace. "I strongly agree with my father, the Prince of Wales, who said in Barbados last year that the appalling atrocity of slavery forever stains our history."April 17, 2022: William and Kate attended Easter services with their two very grown-up-looking oldest children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prince George, and Princess Charlotte attend the Easter Matins Service at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle on April 17, 2022.Jeff Gilbert-WPA Pool/Getty ImagesThe royal family looked sharp in coordinating powder-blue outfits. It was their first time attending Easter services as a family unit. Prince Louis, the couple's youngest child who turned 4 on April 23, was not in attendance. April 29, 2022: William and Kate celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary.Kate Middleton and Prince William attend the Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving commemorating Anzac Day on April 25, 2022.Mark Cuthbert/UK Press/Getty ImagesA few days before their anniversary, William and Kate attended the Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving commemorating Anzac Day at Westminster Abbey on April 25, 2022.August 2022: Prince William, Kate, and their three children moved from London to Windsor.Prince George, Kate Middleton, Prince Louis, Prince William, and Princess Charlotte arrive at Lambrook school on September 7, 2022.Jonathan Brady/Pool/Getty ImagesOn August 22, palace officials announced that the royal family would move from their home at Kensington Palace in west London to Adelaide Cottage in Windsor, allowing them to be closer to Queen Elizabeth II.Prince George, then 9, and Princess Charlotte, then 7, who previously attended Thomas's Battersea in southwest London, started at the private Lambrook School in Ascot in early September.September 8, 2022: Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the ascension of King Charles III, Prince William became heir to the throne.A crowd gathers at Buckingham Palace following Queen Elizabeth II's death.Yui Mok - PA Images / Contributor / Getty ImagesCharles, the former Prince of Wales, became King Charles III on Thursday, September 8, when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, passed away at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Prince William is now heir to the throne and is expected to ascend to the throne upon his father's death. Prince William and other royal family members traveled to Balmoral to be with the Queen in her final hours. Kate remained in Windsor to see Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis off to their first day of school. September 9, 2022: King Charles III announced that Prince William and Kate would become the Prince and Princess of Wales.Kate Middleton and Prince William.Max Mumby/Indigo/Pool/Getty ImagesKing Charles III announced in his first official address to the UK as reigning monarch that his son Prince William and Kate Middleton, formerly the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, would take on the titles of Prince and Princess of Wales."Today, I am proud to create him Prince of Wales," the king said Prince William's new title. "The country whose title I have been so greatly privileged to bear, during so much of my life."Charles held the title for over six decades. When he married Princess Diana on July 29, 1981, she assumed the title of Princess of Wales. She is the most recent royal to hold the title. King Charles III's second wife, Camilla, held the title of Duchess of Cornwall before becoming Queen Consort."With Catherine beside him, our new Prince and Princess of Wales will, I know, continue to inspire and lead our national conservations, helping to bring the marginal to the center ground, where vital help can be given," the king said. William and Kate's Instagram handle changed to The Prince and Princess of Wales after the king's speech aired.January 9, 2023: Kate celebrated her 41st birthday amid shocking claims from Prince Harry about his broken relationship with William.Kate Middleton and Prince William in 2022.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesAhead of the release of his memoir, "Spare," Prince Harry spoke with Anderson Cooper on an episode of "60 Minutes" that aired on January 9.In the interview, Harry spoke about his fractured relationship with William and detailed an altercation at Kensington Palace in 2019 in which he said William knocked Harry to the ground during an argument concerning Meghan Markle. This accusation was also laid out in a leaked excerpt of Harry's upcoming autobiography."He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog's bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me," Harry wrote, according to a paragraph from the book published by The Guardian. "I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out."Buckingham Palace has not commented on the memoir. Despite the ongoing drama surrounding William and Harry, royal family members took to social media to wish the Princess of Wales a happy birthday."Wishing The Princess of Wales a very Happy Birthday today," the official royal family Instagram account, helmed by King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla, captioned a photo of Kate taken during a recent visit to Wales.December 25, 2023: Kate made her last public appearance, accompanying her husband and three children as they attended church at Sandringham on Christmas morning.Kate, William, and their children attend the Christmas morning service at Sandringham Church on December 25, 2023.Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty ImagesThe family was photographed smiling and waving to onlookers. This marked the last time, as of March 18, 2024, that Kate was photographed at an official royal engagement. January 17, 2024: The palace issued a statement that Kate had undergone a "planned abdominal surgery."Kate Middleton in September 2023.Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty ImagesThe palace said Kate's surgery was successful and that she was expected to remain under hospital care for 10 to 14 days, and then would return home to finish her recovery. The statement also announced that Kate would be suspending public engagements until likely after Easter. "The Princess of Wales appreciates the interest this statement will generate. She hopes that the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible; and her wish that her personal medical information remains private," the statement read.On January 29, the palace issued a statement that Kate had been discharged from the hospital. February 7, 2024: Prince William thanked well-wishers following Kate's abdominal surgery and the news of his father's cancer diagnosis.Prince William talks with Air Ambulance pilots, doctors, and paramedics as he attends the London Air Ambulance Charity Gala Dinner.DANIEL LEAL/POOL/AFP/Getty ImagesThe palace issued a statement on February 5 that King Charles had been diagnosed with cancer after having treatment for an enlarged prostate in January, at which point the cancer was discovered. The statement also said Charles would be refraining from "public-facing duties" following the diagnosis, per his medical advisors' advice. Two days later, Prince William returned to his public duties and addressed the news about his father publicly, as well as Kate's recent medical status."I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you, also, for the kind messages of support for Catherine and for my father, especially in recent days," William said in a speech at the London Air Ambulance gala, People reported. "It means a great deal to us all."March 6, 2024: After speculation over Kate's whereabouts and medical status began to grow, William issued a brief statement.Prince William leaves the stage after delivering a speech during London's Air Ambulance Charity Gala Dinner on February 7.DANIEL LEAL/POOL/AFP/Getty ImagesKate had not been seen publicly since Christmas Day, aside from a paparazzi photo published by TMZ on March 4 that showed the royal wearing sunglasses and sitting next to her mother in a car.Another dimly lit photo published by the Daily Mail on March 11 showed Kate riding in a car with William, her face turned away from the camera. The princess' monthslong absence from public life has sparked conspiracy theories about her health and whereabouts, but a palace spokesperson appeared to try to dispel the speculation. "His focus is on his work and not on social media," a spokesman for the Prince and Princess of Wales told People.March 10, 2024: The couple's official accounts share a Mother's Day photograph of Kate and her three children, sparking controversy.A picture shows stories in Britain's national newspapers, about the altered Mother's Day photo released by Kensington Palace on March 10.PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images"Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months. Wishing everyone a Happy Mother's Day," Kate captioned the photo, which was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, and taken by Prince William. However, within hours of news outlets reporting on the image, the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse announced they would no longer distribute it over concerns it had been "manipulated." Many were quick to notice oddities in the photo, like Princess Charlotte's pink cardigan which appeared to be starkly cut off. On March 11, Kate released a statement apologizing for the photo, writing on X, "Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused."On March 14, ABC News reported that the photo had been processed in Photoshop twice, once on March 8 and again on March 9 before it was released on Sunday.However, the scandal has taken hold in the press, with many wondering why the palace would release an edited photo."'Photogate' is a PR disaster, no matter how you look at it," royal historian Marlene Koenig told Business Insider. "It's a major, major story, whether the fangirls like it or not. It's not about Kate being sick. It's not about Kate being a member of the royal family. It's about someone who manipulated a photograph to make it look better. Now there's definitely a lack of trust."Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»
Futures Surge Led By Tech Meltup Ahead Of Fed, BOJ Decisions
Futures Surge Led By Tech Meltup Ahead Of Fed, BOJ Decisions US stock futures and global markets are higher led by Tech with the Mag7 and semis higher pre-mkt while small-caps underperform ahead of two key central bank decisions - by the Fed, BOJ and BOE - while Nvidia has two key events this week which may be even more market-moving. As of 8:00am, S&P futures were 0.73% higher while Nasdaq futures gained 1.1%. Tech was boosted by news from Bloomberg that Apple may use Google's woke AI chatbot Gemini to power the iPhone's AI features. Bond yields and USD are flat, while commodity strength is seen in both Ags and Energy, where oil hit a fresh four-month high as macro-economic data from China came in ahead of expectations, and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries heightened geopolitical risks. According to JPM's weekly preview, this is a catalyst-heavy week as the markets may be approaching an inflection point with Mag7 appearing extended, positioning getting stretched, and the potential for bond yields to reprice higher as economic growth is elevated amid above-target inflation. Today's US data calendar is light and keeps focus on Tuesday’s Bank of Japan meeting, where first rate hike in 17 years is expected, as well as Wednesday’s Fed policy announcement. In premarket trading, Google parent company Alphabet rallied almost 4% in premarket trading after Bloomberg reported that Apple is in talks to build Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence engine into the iPhone; Nvidia and Tesla added more than 2%. Here are some other notable premarket movers: B. Riley Financial (RILY US) fell 12% after the boutique investment bank failed to file its audited results after an extension period ended. Nvidia (NVDA US) rose 2.3% after HSBC raised it price target on the chip giant. The bank says the company’s 2025 AI road map provides more pricing power and will help overcome 2H24 product transition risks. PepsiCo (PEP US) advanced 1.7% after the beverage and snack company was upgraded to overweight from equal-weight at Morgan Stanley, which said the issues driving their downgrade of the stock last year have now played out. Shift4 Payments (FOUR US) fell 9.0% after CEO Jared Isaacman said bids from potential suitors have failed to value firm adequately. The Federal Reserve’s meeting on Wednesday is set to dictate the direction of global stocks for the next quarter, with policymakers likely to stick to forecasts for three interest-rate cuts in 2024. Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan is widely expected to hike interest rates tomorrow, potentially ending the world’s last negative interest rate regime. In the US, the main focus comes Wednesday, when Fed policy makers gather for a meeting that has the potential to set the tone for global stocks for the next quarter. While Fed Chairman Jerome Powell indicated the central bank was close to having the confidence to cut, bond traders appear to have painfully surrendered to a higher-for-longer reality. The 10-year Treasury yield held near a three-week high on Monday, having risen more than 20 basis points last week. A gauge of the dollar was steady. “The recent market repricing has put policy expectations essentially at Fed estimates,” said Anthi Tsouvali, multi asset strategist at State Street Global Markets. The decision will likely provide “another signal that easing of economic conditions is coming, pushing equity markets higher,” Tsouvali said. European stocks hover near record levels ahead of rate decisions from the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England later this week. The Stoxx 600 Index was largely unchanged, with autos, real estate and the energy sector among top gainers. Among individual stocks, Haleon falls after Pfizer said it plans to sell about £2 billion of its shares. Here are some of the biggest movers Monday: Aston Martin gains as much as 11% in early trading as Bank of America upgrades the stock to buy from neutral, saying the British carmaker will turn the corner after a trough in 1Q24. Reckitt Benckiser advances as much as 5.9%, rallying from Friday’s record drop triggered by a US verdict related to baby formula. Barclays says the move was a “substantial over-reaction.” LPP gains as much a 11% after plunging 36% on Friday following a report by activist short-seller Hindenburg Research that said the company’s withdrawal from Russia was a “sham.” Alstom gains as much as 10% after the French rail systems firm saw its rating upgraded to buy from hold at Deutsche Bank, which bets that the “worst is now behind the group.” Signify gains as much as 8.5%, the most in almost five months, after Barclays double-upgrades the lighting manufacturer to overweight, citing a “compelling” risk-reward. Discovery shares rise as much as 3.8% before turning negative, after the financial services company said it expects normalized profit from operations to increase by between 10% and 15% y/y. Chemring rises as much as 5.9% after the defense market supplier won new work in Europe worth just under £90m, partly thanks to the EU’s efforts to boost supplies of ammunition to Ukraine. Richemont shares fall as much as 2%, after ZKB cut its recommendation on the luxury firm to market perform from outperform, seeing risks from the high prior-year baseline. Haleon shares fall as much as 3.2%, the most since Nov. 2, as biggest shareholder Pfizer plans to reduce its stake in the UK consumer health company to about 24% from 32%. Logitech shares fall as much as 8.2% after the Swiss manufacturer of computer peripherals said CFO Chuck Boynton will step down after just 13 months in the role. Meyer Burger shares fall as much as 18% after the solar panel maker announced a CHF200m rights issue, which is larger than the company’s market cap. Hannover Re shares rose, recouping earlier losses, following a stronger-than-expected dividend and in-line results. Earlier in the session, Asian stocks climbed, led by Japan and China, as investors brace for an event-heavy week that includes monetary policy outcomes in Japan and the US. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained as much as 0.8%, the most since March 8, with technology and industrial stocks contributing the most. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index climbed the most in a month and the yen traded weaker against the dollar, amid signs markets have priced in the potential for an interest-rate increase. “Japanese stocks are rising, driven by weakness of the yen, and expectations that the currency won’t strengthen even if the central bank hikes,” said Charu Chanana, a strategist at Saxo Capital Markets based in Singapore. “The weaker yen from widening US-Japan rates and reduced uncertainty for the BOJ meeting should push Japanese stocks higher today,” said Shoji Hirakawa, chief global strategist at Tokai Tokyo Intelligence Laboratory. US yields have been gaining amid bets on fewer rate cuts this year. “Defensives are likely to rise, including electric power and gas, land transportation, materials, non-ferrous metals and steel.” Mainland China pared early gains as data released on Monday pointed to continued troubles for the property sector and weakness consumer spending. Property development investments slid 9% from last year in February, while retail sales missed expectations. In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is also little changed. The yen falls 0.1% even as speculation mounts the Bank of Japan will raise interest rates on Tuesday. In rates, treasuries are steady ahead of the Fed decision on Wednesday. US 10-year yields are flat at 4.3% with front-end outperforming, steepening the curve. US front-end yields richer by 1.3bp on the day with intermediate and long-end little changed, steepening 2s10s and 5s30s by 1bp-2bp; Bunds are underperforming by 2bp in the sector. Germany’s bond market sees bigger bear-steepening move, with long-end around 3bp cheaper on the day after erasing gains. Treasury auctions this week include $13b 20-year bond reopening Tuesday and $16b 10-year TIPS reopening Thursday. In commodities, oil hit a fresh four-month high as macro-economic data from China came in ahead of expectations, and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries heightened geopolitical risks. Morgan Stanley increased its Brent crude price forecast to $90 a barrel by 3Q, citing tightening supply-demand balances. Over the weekend, BHP is reported to have stood down around a quarter of the workers constructing its West Musgrave nickel and copper project in Western Australia, according to the Australian Financial Review. Spot gold is unchanged at $2,156/oz. Bitcoin holds just above $68k after volatile price action over the weekend; Ethereum is also lower trading around $3,500. The US economic data calendar includes March New York Fed services business activity (8:30am) and NAHB housing market index (10am); later this week are housing starts/building permits, manufacturing PMI and new home sales. Nvidia CEO Huang is set to speak on AI at 4pm ET. There are no Fed speakers scheduled before March 20 policy decision. Market Snapshot S&P 500 futures up 0.2% to 5,193.25 STOXX Europe 600 little changed at 504.60 MXAP up 0.9% to 176.23 MXAPJ up 0.3% to 534.99 Nikkei up 2.7% to 39,740.44 Topix up 1.9% to 2,721.99 Hang Seng Index little changed at 16,737.12 Shanghai Composite up 1.0% to 3,084.93 Sensex up 0.2% to 72,815.76 Australia S&P/ASX 200 little changed at 7,675.85 Kospi up 0.7% to 2,685.84 German 10Y yield little changed at 2.45% Euro little changed at $1.0896 Brent Futures up 0.9% to $86.10/bbl Gold spot down 0.2% to $2,152.61 US Dollar Index little changed at 103.39 Top Overnight News China’s YTD (Jan/Feb) industrial production came in solidly ahead of plan (+7% vs. the Street +5.2%), and fixed asset investment beat expectations too, while retail sales were essentially inline (+5.5% vs. the Street +5.6%) and property investment remained in the doldrums. RTRS China’s marriage rate rose in 2023, the first increase in nine years. SCMP Brazil launches a slew of anti-dumping investigations into Chinese products (this is the latest sign of pushback by a government concerned about China responding to slow domestic growth by flooding the world with imports). FT South Ossetia, a region that broke away from Georgia and calls itself an independent state, has discussed becoming part of Russia with Moscow officials, Russian news agency RIA cited the head of South Ossetia's parliament as saying on Sunday. RTRS Trump advisors presented him with three names to become Fed chair: Kevin Hassett, Arthur Laffer, and Kevin Warsh. WSJ Mike Pence said he will not endorse Trump, reflecting the deep divisions between the two men. The Hill Evidence is mounting that many Americans have reached their limit for tolerating higher prices, raising questions about how much consumer expenditures will continue to power US economic growth this year. FT One of the most pressing issues facing Donald Trump is the financial disparity he and allied groups now face with Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party. Democrats have boasted of entering February with $130 million. The Trump operation did not release a full total, but his campaign account and the Republican National Committee had around $40 million. NYT GOOGL is in talks to license its Gemini AI technology to Apple for use in the iPhone (Apple will incorporate some of its own AI technology in the next iPhone, but lacks the powerful generative AI models of Google and OpenAI). BBG A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk APAC stocks were somewhat mixed after quiet weekend newsflow and as participants brace for this week's busy slate of central bank announcements including tomorrow's crucial BoJ decision, while better-than-expected Chinese activity data had little lasting effect. ASX 200 traded cautiously with the index contained by underperformance in real estate and energy. Nikkei 225 outperformed despite weak Machinery Orders and with many anticipating a policy shift at tomorrow's BoJ announcement, while momentum in the index was helped by currency weakness and softer yields. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp. were both ultimately positive after the Hang Seng pared earlier losses with the help of tech strength but with gains capped by weakness in property, while the mainland was gradually underpinned following better-than-expected Chinese Industrial Production and Retail Sales data. Top Asian News China's NBS said with macro policy, the economy continued to recover but noted that the property market is still in the process of adjustment and stated that China can achieve this year's growth target. China’s Vice Commerce Minister said they are studying cutting new energy vehicle insurance premium rates and improving NEV maintenance service capabilities to reduce buyer worries, according to Yicai. China’s air passenger numbers rose 44.6% Y/Y to 62.48mln trips in February with international passenger traffic up 593.4% Y/Y to 81.8% of 2019 levels and domestic air passenger traffic up 35.5% Y/Y in February. India is to begin voting in the national elections on April 19th which will end on June 1st and India will count the votes in the national elections on June 4th. China’s strong factory output and investment growth at the start of the year raised doubts over how soon policymakers will step up support still needed to boost demand and reach an ambitious growth target, according to Bloomberg European bourses are mostly firmer, though with clear underperformance in the SMI (-0.6%), which is hampered by losses in Logitech (-7.5%). European sectors are mixed; Real Estate takes the top spot, whilst Telecoms is found at the foot of the pile. US equity futures (ES +0.3%, NQ +0.6%, RTY +0.2%) are entirely in the green, with clear outperformance in the NQ; Google (+2.5%) benefits from Apple/Gemini related news and Nvidia (+2.1%) gains ahead of its GTC Top European News EU is reportedly mulling joining the US in reviewing risks of Chinese legacy chips, according to Bloomberg sources; flagging potential risks to national security and supply chains. UK PM Sunak’s strategists are planning another tax-cutting budget in September ahead of an election in October or November if he can survive amid doubts about his leadership spreading in the Conservative Party, while Sunak’s government is said to be facing the same levels of economic misery that led to the Conservative Party’s defeat in 1997, according to Bloomberg citing the Misery Index. ECB’s de Cos said it is normal that they should begin cutting rates if their macroeconomic forecasts are met in the coming months and that June would be a good date to start, while he believes the current degree of consensus is very high and he hopes this will continue, according to an interview with Spanish newspaper El Periodico. ECB's Knot said the eurozone has avoided a recession and that he has pencilled in June to start cutting rates, while he added that where they take it from there will be data dependent. Fitch affirmed Germany at AAA; Outlook Stable and affirmed Malta at A+; Outlook Stable, while S&P affirmed Spain at A; Outlook Stable. FX Contained trade for DXY within tight parameters of 103.36-51 with markets in "wait-and-see" mode ahead of a slew of risk-events (Fed, BoJ, RBA, BoE, PMIs). EUR is touch firmer vs. the USD but in quiet newsflow with the pair running out of steam ahead ahead of Friday's 1.0899 peak and the psych 1.09 mark. GBP is flat vs. the Dollar and marginally softer vs. the EUR. UK newsflow over the weekend has been non-incremental ahead of a busy week of UK updates including, CPI, PMIs, Retail Sales and the BoE policy announcement. For now, Cable is stuck within Friday's 1.2725-59 range. JPY is a touch softer vs. the USD with USD/JPY back on a 149 handle. However, conviction in price action is likely to be limited ahead of the BoJ tomorrow, trading within a 149.32-148.92 range. Antipodeans are both firmer vs. the USD alongside the favourable risk environment. AUD/USD went as high as 0.6574 but unable to test Friday's peak of 0.6582. NZD/USD also edging higher but still shy of the 0.61 mark. PBoC sets USD/CNY mid-point at 7.0943 vs exp. 7.1995 (prev. 7.0975) Fixed Income USTs are incrementally softer given the modestly constructive risk tone after China's activity data while the US looks to the Nvidia keynote this evening and then the FOMC on Wednesday. A contained start for Bunds ahead of a blockbuster week, including policy announcements from the Fed, BoJ and the BoE. Currently holds around 131.70 and garners support at 131.60 (1st March) and resistance at 132.78. Gilts are similarly contained and slightly closer to the unchanged mark than EGB peers, perhaps given the relative underperformance seen in Gilts during the second half of last week; currently holds around 98.30. Commodities A firm session for the crude complex following constructive Chinese activity data coupled with a weekend of geopolitical headlines, including Ukraine ramping up its targeting of Russian oil facilities; Brent currently holds just above USD 86.00/bbl. Subdued trade for precious metals with the market on standby ahead of this week's major risk events; XAU trades within a tight range (2,146.15-2,157.60/oz). Base metals are mostly subdued despite the constructive Chinese activity data overnight but following the notable run higher in prices last week. Ukraine’s SBU security service attacked three Rosneft oil refineries in Russia’s Samara region with drones. It was separately reported that a fire broke out at the Slavyansk refinery in the Krasnodar region following a drone attack, while the Syzran oil refinery reportedly experienced a fire which was put out. BHP said 30% of Australian nickel mines have shut and 30% more are under pressure on low prices, according to Reuters. China's NDRC maintained retail gasoline and diesel prices as of March 19th. Geopolitics: Middle East Israeli official says they will offer in Qatar a truce for 6 weeks in exchange for the release of 40 detainees, according to Reuters; the official estimated that negotiations could take at least two weeks Israeli PM Netanyahu said US Senate Majority Leader Schumer’s speech commenting on Israeli elections was inappropriate and they will continue military pressure on Hamas. Netanyahu said Israel’s goal of eliminating Hamas battalions goes hand in hand with enabling civilians to leave Rafah. Israel’s Mossad chief Barnea was expected to resume Gaza ceasefire talks with Qatar’s PM and Egyptian officials on Sunday with the meeting a direct response to the latest proposal from Hamas and talks will focus on the remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, according to a source briefed on the talks cited by Reuters. Israel is to send a delegation to Qatar for talks on achieving a hostage deal after Israeli security cabinet approval, according to Kann correspondent Amichai Stein. Egyptian President El-Sisi said Egypt and EU leaders agreed on rejecting any Israeli military operation in Rafah, while EU’s von der Leyen said it is critical to achieve an agreement on a ceasefire in Gaza rapidly now and that Gaza is facing famine which they cannot accept. German Chancellor Scholz said they cannot stand by and watch Palestinians starve, while he added that lasting security for Israel lies in a solution with Palestinians, meaning a two-state solution. A Syrian soldier was injured in an Israeli strike on the southern region, according to Syrian state TV. Iran and the US held secret talks on proxy attacks and a ceasefire, according to the New York Times. UKMTO noted an incident off Yemen’s Aden where an explosion was reported near the Master of Merchant vessel although there was no damage to the vessel and the crew were reported safe. US offical says Houthis are unable to continue escalation, US can always escalate against the Houthis OTHER Russian President Putin won 88% of the votes in the Russian election where the opposition was banned, according to FT. Russian President Putin said Russia should be stronger and more effective and his win will allow Russia to consolidate society and shows how Russia was right to choose its current path. Russian President Putin commented on the French proposal for a ceasefire during the Olympics in which he stated that they are ready for talks and will proceed from Russia's interests on the front line, while he added they will think about with whom they can talk with about peace in Ukraine and he doesn't rule out setting up a 'sanitary zone' in Ukraine-controlled territories amid Ukraine attacks. White House commented the Russian election was not free nor fair given how Putin has imprisoned opponents and prevented others from running against him, while Ukrainian President Zelensky said there is no legitimacy in Russian imitation of elections and that Putin seeks to rule forever, according to Reuters. Russian air defence systems downed 35 Ukraine-launched drones over eight regions, while Russia launched 14 drones against Ukraine’s Odesa which damaged agricultural enterprises and infrastructure. Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of stepping up ‘terrorist activities’ during the Russian election to attract more aid and weapons from the West, while Russia said Ukraine dropped a shell from a drone on a polling station in the Zaporizhzhia region. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman commented on French President Macron’s idea of a ceasefire in Ukraine during the Olympics and proposed for him to stop weapons supplies to Ukraine, according to TASS. Head of parliament in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia said a possible inclusion into Russia is being discussed with Moscow, according to RIA. SpaceX is building hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with the US National Reconnaissance Office, according to Reuters sources. North Korea fired projectiles believed to be ballistic missiles which landed shortly after their firing outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone. In relevant news, - North Korea’s leader Kim oversaw warfare drills and urged realistic preparation for combat, according to KCNA. US Secretary of State Blinken told South Korean President Yoon that the two countries are to consult to upgrade extended deterrence and work together on the North Korean threat, according to Yonhap. Japanese PM Kishida said North Korea's missile launch threatens not only the peace and stability of the region but also of the international community and Japan strongly condemns North Korea’s actions. Kishida stated that Japan lodged a stern protest against North Korea and will further advance close trilateral cooperation with the US and South Korea. US Event Calendar 08:30: March New York Fed Services Business, prior -7.3 10:00: March NAHB Housing Market Index, est. 48, prior 48 DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap This could be a landmark week in markets as the last global holdout on negative rates looks set to be removed as the BoJ likely hikes rates from -0.1% tomorrow. That could slightly overshadow the FOMC that concludes on Wednesday that will have its own signalling intrigue given recent strong inflation. We also have the RBA meeting tomorrow (DB preview here) and the SNB and BoE (DB preview here) meetings on Thursday to close out a big week for global central bankers with many EM countries also deciding on policy. We’ll preview the main meetings in more depth below but outside of this we have the global flash PMIs on Thursday as well as inflation reports in Japan (Thursday) and the UK (Wednesday). US housing data also permeates through the week as you'll see in the full global day-by-day week ahead at the end as usual. Let’s go into detail now, starting with the BoJ tomorrow. We’ve had negative base rates now for 8 years which if I have my history correct is the longest run ever seen for any country in the history of mankind. In fact I doubt pre-historic man was as generous as to charge negative interest rates on lending money prior to this! It also might be one of the longest global runs without any interest rate hikes given the 17 year run that could end tomorrow. So a landmark event. Our Chief Japan economist previews the meeting here and e xpects the central bank to revise its policy and abandon both NIRP and the multi-tiered current account structure and set rates on all excess reserves at 0.1%. He also sees both the yield curve control (YCC) and the inflation-overshooting commitment ending, replaced by a benchmark for the pace of the bank’s JGB purchasing activity. Our house view forecast of 50bps of hikes through 2025 is more hawkish than the market but risks are still tilted to the upside. On Friday, the Japan Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) announced the first tally of the results of this year's shunto spring wage negotiation. The wage increase rate, including the seniority-based wage hike, is 5.28%, which was significantly higher than expected. This year will probably see the highest wage settlements since 1991 which given Japan’s recent history is an incredible turnaround. This wage data news has firmed up expectations for tomorrow. See our economists’ piece on it here. With regards to the FOMC which concludes on Wednesday, our economists (see their preview here) expect only minor revisions to the meeting statement that saw an overhaul last meeting. With regards to the SEP, the growth and unemployment forecasts are unlikely to change but the 2024 inflation forecasts potentially could. DB expect the Fed to revise up their 2024 core PCE inflation forecast by a tenth to 2.5%, although they see meaningful risks that it gets revised up even higher to 2.6%. In our economists' view, a 2.5% core PCE reading would allow just enough wiggle room to keep the 2024 fed funds rate at 4.6% (75bps of cuts). However, if core PCE inflation were revised up to 2.6%, it would likely entail the Fed moving their base case back to 50bps of cuts, as this would essentially reflect the same forecasts as the September 2023 SEP. Beyond 2024, DB expect officials to build in less policy easing due to a higher r-star. If two of the eight officials currently at 2.5% move up by 25bps, then the long-run median forecast would edge up to 2.6%. This could be justified by a one-tenth upgrade to the long-run growth forecast. After all this information is released the presser from Powell will of course be heavily scrutinised, especially on how Powell sees recent inflation data. Powell should also provide an update on discussions around QT but it is unlikely they are ready yet to release updated guidance. One additional global highlight this week might be a big fall in UK inflation on Wednesday with our economists' preview here suggesting that headline CPI will slow to 3.4% (vs 4% in January) and core to 4.5% (5.1%). Elsewhere there is plenty of ECB speaker appearances including President Lagarde on Wednesday. They are all highlighted in the day-by-day guide at the end. Asian equity markets are climbing this morning with the Nikkei (+2.13%) rising sharply ahead of what could be the first baby step towards normalising policy tomorrow. Elsewhere, the CSI (+0.51%) and Shanghai Composite (+0.49%) are also moving higher after data showed that the world’s second biggest economy kicked off the year on a stronger note (more below). Meanwhile, the KOSPI (+0.60%) is also up while the Hang Seng is struggling to gain traction this morning. S&P 500 (+0.26%) and Nasdaq (+0.45%) futures are higher. US Treasury yields are fairly stable. . Coming back to China, industrial production grew +7.0% in the first two months of 2024, well above Bloomberg’s forecast of +5.2% with businesses continuing to engage in strong capital spending as fixed asset investment grew +4.2% in the two-month period, more than the +3.2% expected. Meanwhile, retail sales advanced +5.5% YTD y/y, v/s +5.2% expected, indicating that the Chinese economy is performing better than expected helped by extra demand during the Lunar New Year period. Elsewhere, in one of the more predictable electoral events of 2024, Vladimir Putin secured another term as Russia’s president. Peter Sidorov has published a short reaction on the result and on things to watch in its aftermath, here. Recapping last week now, concerns about stubborn inflation proved to be at the forefront of investors’ minds. The main drivers of these renewed inflation worries were the stronger than expected US CPI and PPI reports, which showed that both consumer and producer prices were rising faster than expected. And markets found little relief in Friday’s data, with the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index falling to 76.5 in March (vs 77.1 expected), while the 5-10yr inflation expectations were unchanged at 2.9% as expected. Adding to the inflation fears, oil prices surged last week. Brent crude rose +3.97% (-0.09% on Friday) to $85.34/bbl, its highest weekly close since late October, and WTI crude jumped +3.88% ( -0.27% on Friday) to $81.04/bbl. Off the back of this, markets revisited their expected timing of Fed cuts. For example, futures are now pricing only a 61% chance that the Fed will cut by June. At the start of March, markets had seen a 96% chance of a cut by June. The number of cuts expected by the December meeting were dialled back by -23.1bps last week (and -4.8bps on Friday), with just 72bps of cuts priced in for the year, the lowest this has been in four months. The prospect of fewer rate cuts led to a strong upward move in global yields. US 2yr Treasury yields surged +25.3bps last week (and +3.4bps on Friday). Longer dated Treasuries also jumped. For example, 10yr yields rose +23.1bps to 4.31% (+1.6bps on Friday), bringing them back to their February levels. European fixed income was far from immune to these moves, as 10yr bunds gained +17.5bps (and +1.6bps on Friday). Increasing expectations that the BoJ was looking to cut at this week’s meeting also added to this upward pressure on global yields, with 10yr Japanese bond yields up +5.1bps (and +0.9bps on Friday). The equity reaction was not as negative but they also struggled after last week’s hot inflation prints, as well as with the softer US retail data. The S&P 500 was down -0.13% last week, and fell -0.65% on Friday against a risk-off backdrop. The small cap Russell 2000 struggled the most, down -2.08% over the week, despite a +0.40% rise on Friday. Technology also underperformed on the week, as the NASDAQ fell -0.70% (and -0.96% on Friday). The Magnificent 7 were down -1.04% on Friday (-0.30% on the week), though Nvidia (+0.35% on the week) managed to narrowly secure 10 weeks of consecutive gains. Equity markets were more optimistic in Europe, with the STOXX 600 up +0.31% (-0.32% on Friday). The German DAX and French CAC outperformed, up +0.69% and +1.70% on the week, respectively. Tyler Durden Mon, 03/18/2024 - 08:18.....»»
"We"re So Sick Of It": Northern Border Crisis Gets Worse
"We're So Sick Of It": Northern Border Crisis Gets Worse Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), At dawn or dusk, Kristy Brow used to enjoy alone time walking in the woods on her 21-acre property in Highgate, Vermont, a small rural town near the U.S.–Canada border. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, U.S. Supreme Court, Allan Stein/The Epoch Times, U.S. Border Patrol photo) Lately, however, she’s cautious—she’s worried about potential encounters with illegal immigrants along the remote logging trail. “I don’t go out by myself anymore—especially at night,” said Mrs. Brow, who runs a dog obedience business from her home. “It’s unsettling. You can’t feel relaxed anymore,” she said. “You want to be safe in your own house and on your property. “It’s getting bad. Sometimes, you see them on the interstate, looking for a ride.” Mrs. Brow and her husband are both avid hunters and have deer stands set up on their property. Their game cameras often record illegal immigrants passing through. The illegal immigrants travel alone or in small groups, discarding unwanted belongings as they trudge further south into Vermont, headed for destinations unknown. “We find clothes out here. We found shoes and a bicycle. We see Border Patrol out there on snow dogs following footprints,” Mrs. Brow told The Epoch Times. Once a place of peace and solitude, she said the woods behind her house are now a shortcut for illegal immigrants. And it’s only gotten worse since President Joe Biden took office, she said. In fiscal year 2023, border officials encountered 189,401 illegal and inadmissible immigrants along the U.S.–Canada border, including at the ports of entry. Of those, 10,021 were caught crossing illegally between ports of entry. In fiscal 2021, that number was 916. Mrs. Brow’s property falls within the Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Swanton Sector, a 295-mile stretch of largely unguarded border with Canada. Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia wrote on social media earlier this month that border agents in his sector apprehended more illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2023 than “the prior 11 fiscal years combined.” The Swanton Sector encompasses 24,000 square miles and includes all of Vermont and several counties in New Hampshire and New York State. Kristy Brow stands in an open field on her 21-acre property in Highgate, Vt., on March 8, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) Traveling on foot in the area is especially challenging during the winter months. Border officials have encountered illegal immigrants marching across miles of snow-covered wilderness, swamps, muddy fields, and meadows in sub-freezing temperatures. Many succumb to the elements. This month, eight illegal immigrants from Albania and India died while trying to cross the St. Lawrence River in New York State. In February, a Mexican man traveling in a group near Holland, Vermont, collapsed and died after crossing illegally into the United States. “It cannot be stressed enough: not only is it unlawful to circumvent legal means of entry into the United States, but it is extremely dangerous, particularly in adverse weather conditions, which our Swanton Sector has in incredible abundance,” Mr. Garcia said in a statement. Border officials often use snowmobiles and tracked all-terrain vehicles to pursue illegal immigrants. “Despite sub-freezing temperatures, Swanton Sector continues encountering family groups with young children, including infants, illegally crossing from Canada into the U.S.,” according to the CBP website. A woman who lives in New Hampshire told The Epoch Times an illegal immigrant swam across Wallace Pond in Canaan, arriving soaking wet on her neighbor’s doorstep asking for help. In a separate incident, Mrs. Brow recalled her neighbor returning home one afternoon to find an illegal immigrant sitting on her front steps. “He wanted to charge his phone at her house,” Mrs. Brow said. While the neighbor allowed the man to charge his cellphone outside the house, she also called Border Patrol, who came and arrested him. In yet another incident, a neighbor informed Mrs. Brow that three illegal immigrants were on her property. “They just walked down my driveway and turned around and came back onto my property,” Mrs. Brow said. “The way I see it, if you have nothing to hide, you do things legally.” Illegal immigrants are caught walking through the snow in the Swanton Sector that borders Canada, in this recent Border Patrol photograph. (U.S. Border Patrol) Border Patrol agents apprehended 6,925 illegal immigrants from 79 different countries in fiscal 2023, Mr. Garcia wrote on X, an “astonishing 550-percent increase compared to last year.” And during the first four months of fiscal year 2024, apprehensions have already doubled the same period in fiscal 2023, he wrote. Last month, “a citizen’s report in Champlain, NY, led to the arrest of 10 Bangladesh citizens,” Mr. Garcia wrote. Mr. Garcia highlighted the arrest of a Mexican national who had crossed illegally into the United States. The man was arrested in September 2023 in North Troy, Vermont. “He was in possession of drugs, ammunition, and multiple weapons. He was sentenced to 10 months for unlawful possession of a firearm,” Mr. Garcia wrote on X. Swanton Sector Local 2266, the union that represents border agents working in the sector, didn’t respond to a request from The Epoch Times seeking comment for this story. “We are also seeing a lot of movement at the Canada–U.S. border,” said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Charles Poirer, Division C communications officer in Quebec. “The trend of ’southbound' crossing (illegal crossings from Canada to the U.S.) is growing. Our patrol officers are intercepting a lot of migrants almost every day and every night along the border,” he told The Epoch Times. Although Canadian law enforcement “can only speculate at the motives of those individuals,” it appears a “sizable proportion” is using Canada as a stepping stone to gain entry to the United States, Mr. Poirier said. “They land at one of Canada’s international airports (Montreal or Toronto), and within a few hours of their arrival, we intercept them at the border.” The RCMP recently launched a number of investigations into human smuggling operations, several of which resulted in criminal charges in Canada, he said. Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers greet asylum-seekers as they arrive at the Roxham Road border crossing in Champlain, N.Y., on March 25, 2023. (Lars Hagberg/AFP via Getty Images) ‘It’s Frustrating’ Matt, an employee at the Derby Four Seasons Motel in Derby, Vermont, said that illegal immigrants come expecting rides and other assistance from the locals after Border Patrol drops them off in town. From that point on, the illegal immigrants are on their own, he said. “We’re so sick of it. It’s frustrating. It’s the [language] barrier. They can’t speak English. That’s where the barriers take so much out of us. “They’re coming from everywhere,” Matt told The Epoch Times. “They’re trying to go to New York. They say they have no money, but somebody comes up with the money. Their shoes are high-end. We had a family with a baby with a $300 baby crib. They have money somewhere.” Matt said the illegal immigrants usually walk into the motel lobby in the cold morning hours to warm themselves or wait for transportation. “They always have the phone in your face, trying to translate. Oh, I get so mad. I can’t handle that,” Matt said. “The problem is they expect from us. They expect from the taxpayers. We’re all struggling. They expect us to go out of our way and give them free rides. Some of them thought we offered free rides here. “It’s not our job to babysit them. That’s how we feel here—we have to babysit them a lot.” ‘Abdication of Duty’ In North Dakota, 1,600 miles west of the Swanton Sector, Gov. Doug Burgum said he’s concerned about the worsening northern border problem under the Biden administration. Read more here... Tyler Durden Mon, 03/18/2024 - 06:30.....»»
Editorial: State must ensure patient care is not prematurely disrupted amid Beth Israel closure
Mount Sinai Beth Israel’s pending closure will disrupt care for patients in the area. The state must ensure the disruption does not happen before the hospital actually closes.Hospitals provide a public good and rely on taxpayer money to function, whether it’s in the form of Medicaid funding or tax breaks for private nonprofit hospitals like Beth Israel. That means that they are subject to regulation and oversight to make sure they are delivering on their promises to society: to keep people healthy and care for the sick.Executives say that insurmountable financial losses in excess of $1 billion have forced the hospital to shutter. The decision to do so technically requires state approval, but Beth Israel has set a closure date of July 12.It is currently unclear if the state has approved Mount Sinai to end certain services at Beth Israel; the state has not made any public statements or answered reporter questions about the subject.Crain’s reporter Jacqueline Neber was the first to report the results of an investigation by the state Department of Health and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that found that doctors at Beth Israel failed to properly document the benefits and risks of transferring patients with emergency medical conditions to other facilities for care.The evaluation found that Beth Israel was not in violation of a law that prohibits hospitals from refusing to examine or treat patients with an emergency medical condition.However, the contingencies put forth by the agencies are notably toothless. The federal government ordered the hospital to create a corrective plan that outlines how it will monitor quality assurance to minimize future violations. If the hospital doesn’t meet requirements by the end of May, Medicare could “begin” to remove the hospital from the program at the beginning of June. Twenty-six percent of the hospital’s revenue came from Medicare in 2022, the latest year for which this data is available.Cutting off Medicare revenue would be a serious blow, even to the most financially stable institutions. But the lax timeline, coupled with the fact that Beth Israel is already closing, waters down the threat.The hospital has already ended some services; the health system decided not to renew Beth Israel’s designations for stroke and cardiac services, which expired on March 10. That came after the state ordered the hospital to “immediately stop” closing beds and services in a cease and desist letter in December 2023.The state must make its stance on Beth Israel’s closure clear to the public. Then, it must dedicate its full attention and regulatory powers to make sure patients are not suffering prematurely and that the hospital is not flouting its responsibility to the public......»»
Age 70 Is Not The Best Time to Claim Social Security. Here’s Why
Choosing when to claim Social Security is like walking on a tightrope. One misstep and…well, let’s just say retirement security might look much different than you envisioned. Many face this precarious position when deciding when to claim Social Security. While waiting until you’re 70 maximizes your monthly benefit, it’s a gamble that could leave you […] The post Age 70 Is Not The Best Time to Claim Social Security. Here’s Why appeared first on 24/7 Wall St.. Choosing when to claim Social Security is like walking on a tightrope. One misstep and…well, let’s just say retirement security might look much different than you envisioned. Many face this precarious position when deciding when to claim Social Security. While waiting until you’re 70 maximizes your monthly benefit, it’s a gamble that could leave you with less overall income, especially if you don’t live a long life. Feeling a little dizzy? Don’t worry. This article offers a safety net. We’ll guide you through the tightrope of when to claim Social Security (Spoiler: it isn’t 70). Besides aiming to only maximize your benefits, we’ll explore other strategies to make the most of your Social Security benefits. Here at 247Wallst, we’ve written extensively on Social Security. We have a whole hub page dedicated to it, where we collect all of our articles. You can trust us to guide you through the complicated tightrope walk and when to claim. So, take a deep breath, step off the ledge of uncertainty, and let’s start by exploring why waiting for that seemingly “golden age” of 70 might not be the best move for everyone. Risks of Delaying Social Security You may be surprised to learn that retiring at 70 isn’t always the best choice. While a larger monthly check tempts many, claiming Social Security at 70 presents several challenges. Waiting to claim until you’re 70 is akin to navigating a tightrope – there is a lot that can go wrong. Let’s delve into some of the potential pitfalls of waiting until 70: The Uncertainty of Life We’d all like life to go exactly as we have planned. However, this is rarely the case. Life expectancy is a gamble. Harvard has reported that life expectancy has been declining in the U.S. for decades. Currently, the average life expectancy in America is only 77 years. For men, it’s even lower at 74.5 years. That’s not many years to enjoy your retirement if you wait until you’re 70. Delaying benefits to age 70 means forgoing years of retirement. Plus, even though your benefits increase monthly after you reach full retirement age, you still miss out on a monthly check. If you don’t live a long life, you may miss out on a substantial portion of the total benefits you’re entitled to receive. The Value of Guaranteed Income Social Security after you retire is a guaranteed income. You get it each month, period. As you age, unexpected medical bills and unexpected expenses can arise. Social Security works as a safety net through your golden years if you claim it. If you decide to delay retirement, there is always a chance that you will become sick before 70. You could miss out on weeks or even months of work. It’s best to have a steady income stream ready before that happens. Trying to apply for Social Security benefits from a hospital bed can be challenging. You can claim disability benefits, which is a different type of Social Security in some cases. However, this is often a long, drawn-out process. We explored the differences in the three types of Social Security in a different article. The Impact on Other Plans Retirement is a large retirement puzzle. Claiming Social Security should only be a small piece of your retirement plans. Potentially, delaying your retirement can throw off the balance of all your other plants. For example, if you delay claiming Social Security, you may need to draw more from your other retirement savings. If you continue working after full retirement age, you may even have more money than you can reasonably spend in your lifetime. There is little reason to keep working when you’ve already met your retirement needs. Alternatives to Claiming at 70 If you plan to travel, you’ll need to have more saved up for retirement. Stepping off the precarious tightrope of waiting until 70 doesn’t mean sacrificing a comfortable retirement, though. There are lots of alternative strategies that can help you find your footing. Understanding Your Full Retirement Age (FRA) Your full retirement age is when you’re eligible for your full Social Security benefit. This age isn’t the same for everyone; it depends on your birth year. You can figure out your full retirement age on this official Social Security chart. Knowing your FRA is crucial, as it impacts how much you’ll get depending on your age. You can claim benefits as early as 62, no matter when you were born. However, for every month you claim before your full retirement age, your benefit will be permanently reduced. The good news is that you will receive your complete benefits if you claim at your full retirement age. Your benefits do increase if you wait past the monthly benefit age. However, we recommend not planning for this extra. We have a full guide on how Social Security works if you want more of the nitty-gritty details. Considering Your Individual Circumstances There is no one-size-fits-all approach when claiming Social Security (you never know when the tightrope will wobble). The best age for you depends on several factors that influence the best path for you: Health: If you have a health condition that might shorten your lifespan, claiming earlier can ensure you receive more of the benefits you’re entitled to. In some cases, you may even want to claim before your full retirement age. Life Expectancy: You can never know how long you’ll live. However, your family history, sex, and overall health can offer you clues about your potential life expectancy. Men tend to live shorter lifespans than women, for instance. Other Retirement Income: Your other retirement income will also play a role in when you retire. If you have plenty, you may be able to retire earlier, even with the reduced Social Security benefits. A diversified retirement income stream can provide you with extra flexibility when deciding whether or not to claim Social Security. Exploring Spousal Benefits Don’t forget your partner! If you’re married, your partner’s potential benefits should also play a role when you choose to begin receiving Social Security. Ensure you understand your spouse’s retirement age and work history, as these will impact their benefits and may differ from yours. Coordinate your claiming strategy so that you can maximize your total income. ALERT: 5.25% Yield Is 8x National Average (Sponsored) Robinhood Gold just rolled out a wild 5.25% APY yield for members, a whopping 8x the national average and way better than treasuries. Earn an eye watering amount of money while you sleep. Sign up today — click here to start earning today. The post Age 70 Is Not The Best Time to Claim Social Security. Here’s Why appeared first on 24/7 Wall St.......»»
4 red flags that your partner won"t make a good parent — at least, not yet
If you're considering having children with your partner, a therapist shared some red flags to watch out for before you commit to parenthood together. Westend61/Getty ImagesHaving kids with an emotionally immature partner can have lifelong consequences.A psychologist shared some of the biggest red flags that a person isn't ready to be a parent.Trouble controlling their anger and being highly critical are signs to look out for.Long-term relationships are often defined by huge milestones: moving in together, getting married, and having kids.But while you can always move out or get divorced should you choose to split up, children are a lifelong commitment. And co-parenting with someone who is emotionally immature can be a nightmare.Annie Wright, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Berkeley, California, said the period after the honeymoon stage in a relationship is "a more accurate indicator of how people might be able to show up as parents."Speaking as both a therapist and parent herself, Wright said that having kids ramps up any issues "times one million.""It is hard and requires self-sacrifice, biological deprivation, financial strain usually, and a lot of prioritizing of the other above self or the romantic partner," she said.While she said there is no crystal ball to knowing exactly how a person will be as a parent, she said paying attention to how they react in times of stress or inconvenience can say a lot about what to expect in your future together.She shared four major red flags that a partner just isn't ready to be a parent — at least, not anytime soon.1. They have clear anger issuesEveryone experiences emotions like stress sometimes. If you're with a partner who struggles to regulate their emotions, Wright said you should "probably reimagine what is an appropriate baseline is" if they express anger through screaming or raging.But even if you aren't personally bothered by it, your future child is a different story. "If there's a partner with explosive rage who yells, stomps, throws things, punches holes in walls — that is going to be very scary to a child," Wright said.Furthermore, she said a reactive parent could influence how the child deals with their own feelings, as well as how they believe they deserve to be treated from future romantic partners or friends.2. They're highly critical of themselves and othersIf your partner incessantly nitpicks you, your friends, or themselves, it's a pretty good sign they'll treat your child the same way, according to Wright."Never will you see a very compassionate, warm, self-accepting person then turn and become incredibly critical and harsh and judgmental of their child," she said of her own clinical experience.She said to pay attention to how your partner speaks about and judges other people, and how often they do it. People who see others as losers or worthy of ridicule over innocuous mistakes are likely to become overly critical, perfectionistic parents.3. They can't cope with change or disappointmentWright said that many people can be incredibly romantic partners during the honeymoon period, or when only your best sides are on display, because "that's not real life.""How they respond when things aren't going their way can reflect on how they might be down the road," she said. If you feel sick and can't have sex with them, will they respect that or make you feel a little bad? If a family emergency comes up and you can't go to the $300 Broadway show you'd planned on for months, will they check in with how you're doing or just rush to find someone else to go with?"How much empathy do they have for us versus how much are they shaming and blaming us?" she said. Because so much of having children — and aging in general — involves ups and downs that they'll have to handle with grace, Wright said.4. They check out when you really need themIn a healthy relationship, couples respectfully argue and support each other through tough times. But if your partner is already incapable of things like compromise or doing a little bit more around the house when you're stressed at work, Wright said it'll only get worse with kids as they can become emotionally absent parents unwilling to engage with any uncomfortable feelings.Plus, she said, life is full of unpleasant surprises as we get older, such as illness, accidents, or death in the family. "Who this person is when circumstances are not ideal can shine a light into who they might be as a parent and non-parent," she said.Even if you never end up having kids together, suspecting that your partner couldn't treat them with respect and kindness can be a sign you're in the wrong relationship to begin with.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»
DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 14, 2024 DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here). Operator: Good morning. My name is Dennis, and I will be your conference operator today. At […] DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 14, 2024 DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here). Operator: Good morning. My name is Dennis, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Nate Gilch, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Nate Gilch: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results. On today’s call will be Lauren Hobart, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Navdeep Gupta, our Chief Financial Officer. A playback of today’s call will be archived in our Investor Relations website located at investors.DICKS.com for approximately 12 months. As a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. Any such statements should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements in our earnings release and risk factor discussions in our filings with the SEC, including our last annual report on Form 10-K and our most recent Form 10-Q, as well as cautionary statements made during this call. We assume no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements or information. Please refer to our Investor Relations website to find the reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures referenced in today’s call. And finally, a few admin items. First, a reminder about our comparable store sales reporting for fiscal 2023. It’s important to note that fiscal 2023 was a 53-week year. Our comp sales calculations exclude the extra week from both our full year 2023 and fourth quarter 2023 results. Thus, these metrics have been calculated on the 52 week and 13 week comparable basis. Second, beginning in fiscal 2024, we are revising our comparable store sales calculations to include revenue from our GameChanger business. Next, we’ll be playing a short year-end video in advance of our prepared remarks and starting toward the end of Navdeep’s prepared remarks, we’ll also be sharing slides to visually support key discussion points. And finally, for your future scheduling purposes, we are tentatively planning to publish our first quarter 2024 earnings results on May 29, 2024. With that, let’s play the video. [Commercials] Lauren Hobart: Good morning, everyone. I hope you enjoyed the video. DICK’S is a really special company with 75 years of history reinventing sport. It’s been a terrific year, and I’m really proud of the team for their extraordinary efforts. Since our founding in 1948, DICK’S has believed in the power of sports to change lives. We bring this to life every day through the experience we provide for our athletes, the differentiated products we offer, the marketing we create to connect our athletes deeply with our brand, and most importantly, our teammates. Through these strategic pillars, we are actively creating and defining our future. And during this past year, it’s evident just how far we’ve extended our leadership position. For the full year, we delivered record sales of $13 billion. On a 52-week comparable basis, our comps increased 2.4%, driven by growth in transactions as we continued to gain market share. We added nearly 7 million new athletes during the year and reached record highs in our active athlete database. It’s clear that sport and leading healthy active lifestyles are priorities for our athletes. And they are increasingly looking to DICK’S Sporting Goods to meet these needs. With our industry-leading assortment and strong execution, we capped off the year with an incredibly strong fourth quarter and holiday season. Including week 53, our quarterly sales grew 7.8% to $3.9 billion. On a 13-week comparable basis, our comps increased 2.8%, which was on top of a 5.3% comp increase last year. On a non-GAAP basis, our gross margin expanded more than 200 basis points, driven by higher merchandise margin. Our non-GAAP EBT margin was 11%. And we delivered non-GAAP EPS of $3.85, which included $0.19 for the extra week. On a 13-week comparable basis, our non-GAAP EPS was $3.66, an increase of 25% versus the prior year. For 2024, we’re guiding to another strong year and expect to grow both our sales and earnings through positive comps, higher merchandise margin and productivity gains. Our inventory is well-positioned and we’re excited about the assortment we have curated for our athletes. We expect our comp sales to be in the range of 1% to 2%, and expect our EPS to be in the range of $12.85 to $13.25. We’re excited to continue redefining the future of retail. With the continued success of our growth initiatives, we will increase our capital investment to drive our business forward, both digitally and in-store, and continue gaining market share in this fragmented $140 billion industry. A key driver of this growth is the repositioning of our portfolio, including House of Sport, our next-generation 50K, which completely revolutionizes our most typical 50,000 square foot DICK’S store, and Golf Galaxy Performance Center. Navdeep will share greater detail on House of Sport’s compelling unit economics. I’d like to thank all our teammates for delivering another strong year and for their passion, hard work, and dedication to our business. At DICK’S, it’s our people who make us great, and none of what we accomplished is possible without our exceptional team. Before I go deeper into our growth strategies, I’ll first turn the call over to Navdeep to share more detail on our financial results, 2024 outlook and capital allocation. Navdeep Gupta: Thank you, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. Let’s begin with some highlights of our full year 2023 results, which was a 53-week year. Consolidated sales increased 5% to $12.98 billion, which included $170 million from the 53rd week. On a 52-week comparable basis, our comps increased 2.4%, and we continued to gain market share. Our comps were driven by a 1.6% increase in transaction and a 0.8% increase in average ticket. On a non-GAAP basis, gross profit for the full year was $4.55 billion or 35.01% of net sales, an increase of 36 basis points from last year. This increase was driven by lower supply chain cost which leveraged 80 basis points. This was partially offset by lower merchandise margin of 53 basis points, which was entirely due to higher shrink. To be clear, absent the headwind from shrink, our merchandise margin would have been flat. Non-GAAP EBT was $1.4 billion or 10.8% of net sales. And we delivered non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $12.91, which included $0.19 from the 53rd week. On a 52-week comparable basis, our non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $12.72. This compares to a non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $12.04 in 2022, an increase of 5.6% on a 52-to-52 week basis. I will remind you that our 2023 tax rate was lower than our typical tax rate, driven by the favorable impact of vesting of employee equity awards and exercises during the year. This positively impacted earnings per diluted share by $0.44 compared to the prior year. As we have discussed on our prior calls, to continue fueling our long-term growth, during the second half of 2023, we took actions to better align talent, organizational design and spending in support of our most critical strategies while also streamlining our overall cost structure. This included actions to change our resourcing and organizational structure primarily at our customer support center as well as the optimization of our outdoor specialty business. As part of this, we integrated operations of Moosejaw into Public Lands and made decisions about the go-forward outdoor inventory assortment consistent with our prior expectations. Additionally, we conducted a comprehensive review of our store portfolio with respect to our outdoor specialty business. We completed our business optimization review during the fourth quarter. In total, we incurred pre-tax charges of $84.8 million for the full year 2023. These charges were included in our GAAP earnings per diluted share of $12.18. For additional details, you can refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation in the tables of the press release issued this morning. Now moving to our results for Q4, which also included the extra week. We are very pleased to report a consolidated sales increase of 7.8% to $3.88 billion, which included $170 million from the 53rd week. On a 13-week comparable basis, this was the largest sales quarter in the history of the company. Also on a 13-week comparable basis, our comps increased 2.8% on top of a 5.3% increase in the same period last year. Our strong comps were driven by a 2.8% increase in average ticket on flat transactions. Within our portfolio, we were very pleased with the performance of our key holiday categories, modestly offset by the performance of our outerwear business due to warm weather. On a non-GAAP basis, gross profit in fourth quarter was $1.34 billion or 34.57% of net sales, and expanded 213 basis points compared to last year. This year-over-year expansion was a sequential improvement from Q3 and in line with our expectations. Gross margin expansion for Q4 was driven by higher merchandise margin of 124 basis points as well as lower supply chain costs and leverage on occupancy costs. This increase in merchandise margin was primarily driven by the quality of our assortment and favorable sales mix. This was partially offset by a higher shrink of approximately 50 basis points, in line with prior quarter. On a non-GAAP basis, SG&A expenses increased 12.6% to $915.8 million, or 23.63% of net sales, and deleveraged 102 basis points compared to last year. As we have highlighted on prior calls, the year-over-year deleverage in fourth quarter and throughout 2023 was driven by investments in our hourly wage rate, talent, and technology to create better athlete experience as well as investments in marketing. Savings from our business optimization actions helped to offset these investments. Driven by strong sales and higher gross margin, non-GAAP EBT in fourth quarter was $427.7 million, or 11.03% of net sales. This is up from non-GAAP EBT of $350.5 million, or 9.74% of net sales in Q4 of 2022. In total, we delivered non-GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter of $3.85, which included $0.19 from 53rd week. On a 13-week comparable basis, our non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $3.66. This compares to a non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $2.93 in 2022, an increase of 24.9% on a 13-to-13 week basis. During the quarter, we incurred pre-tax charges of $32.3 million related to our business optimization. These charges were included in our GAAP earnings per diluted share of $3.57. For additional details, you can refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation in the tables of the press release issued this morning. Now, looking to our balance sheet, we ended Q4 with approximately $1.8 billion of cash and cash equivalents and no borrowings on our $1.6 billion unsecured credit facility. Our year-end inventory levels increased 1% compared to last year. We believe our inventory is clean and well-positioned, and in fact, our clearance penetration ended the year amongst the lowest it’s ever been. Turning to our fourth quarter capital allocation. Net capital expenditures were $151 million and we paid $81 million in quarterly dividends. Now moving to our outlook. In 2024, we expect to grow both sales and profitability. Consolidated sales are expected to be in the range of $13 billion to $13.13 billion. We anticipate comparable store sales growth in the range of 1% to 2%. EBT margin is planned to be at 10.9% at the midpoint. We anticipate gross margins to be approximately 35% and in line with 2023 non-GAAP results. Within this, we expect merchandise margin to expand modestly, offset by occupancy deleverage as we invest to reposition our portfolio. SG&A expenses are expected to leverage modestly compared to 2023 non-GAAP results, driven by our ongoing focus on improving productivity and reducing discretionary costs, as well as the expected benefits from our business optimization action. We anticipate full year earnings per diluted share to be in the range of $12.85 to $13.25. Our earnings guidance is based on approximately 83 million average diluted shares outstanding and an effective tax rate of approximately 24%. As you model 2024, I want to point out a few things that we expect to impact comparability of our financial results. First, keep in mind that the extra week in 2023 will create a shifted calendar. As a result, when we report our comp sales results, we will compare week one through 52 in 2024 with week two through 53 in 2023. We do not expect this shift to have a material impact on comp sales for the full year. However, we do expect our reported sales to be positively impacted by the shifted calendar in the first half, but then offset in the second half. During the first quarter, we will be investing in several exciting brand campaigns, as well as support our Q1 House of Sport grand openings. Next, as a reminder, in Q1, we will see an unfavorable impact to our gross margin from higher shrink rates, which we will anniversary starting in Q2. And finally, recall that our Q1 2023 tax rate was meaningfully lower than normal, driven by favorable impact of the vesting of employee equity awards and exercises. We do not anticipate this again in 2024. I’ll now discuss our capital allocation priorities. Investing in our business to drive profitable, organic growth remains our top priority. And as Lauren said, in 2024, we will increase our capital investment to drive our business forward. For 2024, our capital allocation plan includes net capital expenditure of approximately $800 million. As we continue to reposition our portfolio, these investments will be concentrated in store growth, relocations, and improvements in our existing stores, along with ongoing investments in technology and supply chain expansion. Our 2024 CapEx plan also includes purchase of certain real estate assets related to House of Sport, for which we are evaluating potential sale leaseback opportunities. House of Sport is one of the most exciting concepts in retail today, and in 2024, we expect to open eight new locations. As we elevate our store portfolio, seven of these are planned relocations or conversions of existing DICK’S stores, along with one new store at Prudential Center in Boston. We expect to begin construction on approximately 15 House of Sport locations that are scheduled to open throughout 2025. We will also open 16 next-generation 50K DICK’S stores in 2024. As part of this, we will relocate or remodel 12 existing DICK’S stores into this innovative new format and open four new locations. Across our footprint, we will add approximately 50 premium full-service footwear decks, taking this elevated athlete experience to nearly 90% of our DICK’S locations. In 2024, we are also excited to grow the footprint of our Golf Galaxy business and plan to open 10 Golf Galaxy Performance Center locations. As part of this, we will relocate or remodel five existing Golf Galaxy stores into this immersive new format and open five new Golf Galaxy Performance Center locations. Through these investments, we expect to increase our square footage by approximately 2% in 2024, marking our most significant expansion since 2017. Lastly, we plan to begin construction on a new regional distribution center opening in 2026. This new DC will play an important role in supporting the long-term growth of our business. Before continuing, I want to share why we are so excited about these investments, especially the House of Sport and our next-generation 50K DICK’S locations. As you will see on the slide, for a new House of Sport, in year one, we expect approximately $35 million in omnichannel sales and a very strong profitability with a target of approximately 20% EBITDA margins. In terms of capital, it will take about $11.5 million of net CapEx to open House of Sport location, resulting in an expected year-one cash-on-cash return of approximately 35%. We also expect attractive returns from our next-generation 50K DICK’S store investments, where we are targeting approximately $14 million in year-one omni-channel sales and a comparable EBITDA margin of approximately 20%. We also remain committed to returning significant capital to our shareholders through our quarterly dividend and opportunistic share repurchases. During 2023, we returned $1 billion to shareholders while continuing to invest in the profitable long-term growth of our business. All of this is underpinned by our commitment to a healthy balance sheet and maintaining our investment-grade credit ratings. Today, we announced an increase in our quarterly dividends of 10% on an annualized payout of $4.40 per share, at $1.10 on a quarterly basis. This is on top of a 105% increase last year and marks the 10th consecutive year that our shareholders have benefited from a dividend increase. In addition, our 2024 plan includes our expectation for share repurchases of $300 million, which is included in our EPS guidance. As always, we will opportunistically look at additional share repurchases throughout the year. With that, I’ll turn it back over to Lauren to review some of the key initiatives that will drive our profitable growth in 2024 and over the long term. Lauren Hobart: Thanks, Navdeep. As we turn to 2024, our focus is on driving sustained profitable growth by innovating within the omnichannel athlete experience, curating a compelling and differentiated product assortment, providing a best-in-class teammate experience, and driving deep engagement with the DICK’S brand. Industry leaders consistently innovate from a foundation of strength, positioning themselves ahead of the curve. With this mindset, a key part of our growth strategy for this year and future years is continuing to drive omnichannel athlete engagement by repositioning our portfolio and experiences through House of Sport and our next-generation 50K DICK’S store. With House of Sport, we are truly redefining sports retail. Since we launched our first location in 2021, this highly experiential destination has brought very strong engagement with our athletes, brand partners, and communities, and has delivered powerful financial results. Compared to a typical DICK’S store, athletes are traveling farther to visit House of Sport, increasing the time they spend in the store, and visiting more frequently. Because of the engagement and experience at House of Sport, our national brand partners are providing access to unique and expanded assortments, while new and emerging brands see it as a platform for growth. With a total of 12 House of Sport locations now open, we look forward to opening another eight locations in 2024. Next month, we are so excited to open a House of Sport in our hometown of Pittsburgh and at the Prudential Center in Downtown Boston. We will support these grand openings with high-impact marketing. With the compelling economics Navdeep outlined, House of Sport is a significant part of our future growth story. As we’ve said, by 2027, we expect to have between 75 to 100 House of Sport locations across the country. The vast majority of these will be relocations or conversions of existing DICK’S stores into House of Sport. At the same time, we’re continuing to innovate with our next-generation 50K, which completely revolutionizes our most typical 50,000 square foot DICK’S store. Inspired by House of Sport, this store has a similar elevated assortment and service model, premium experiences, and enhanced visual expressions, and the format is delivering great results. We opened 11 next-generation 50K locations in 2023 and are excited to open another 16 locations in 2024. This one-two punch of House of Sport and our next-generation 50K is the future of our DICK’S stores and will serve as the hub for our athletes’ omnichannel experience. Golf Galaxy is another important part of our growth story. This past year, we grew our Golf Galaxy footprint to over 100 locations. As Navdeep said, we plan to further grow our footprint through Golf Galaxy Performance Centers, which offer an immersive experience for golf enthusiasts of all levels. With 14 performance centers now open, we’re excited to open another 10 locations throughout 2024. This spring, we’re investing in marketing to drive market share and elevate the Golf Galaxy brand perception in a memorable and relatable way for golfers. During 2023, golf rounds played in the U.S. hit an all-time high, and we believe golf is a compelling long-term growth opportunity. When we talk about drivers of success, it’s critical to mention our strong brand relationships. With these strategic partnerships, we’ve built our industry-leading assortment, making DICK’S the go-to destination for differentiated and on-trend product. We’ll continue to make big bets with our partners while also actively seeking to work with new and emerging brands. At the same time, we will continue to invest in our highly-profitable portfolio of powerhouse vertical brands, including VRST, DSG, and CALIA that are gaining meaningful traction with our athletes. For DSG, which is our largest vertical brand, we expect to build on the success of our Q4 campaign with an always-on approach, focused on family, value and sport. With CALIA, our second largest women’s apparel brand behind only Nike, we recently launched the Inspire collection. This is our most versatile collection yet and features an innovative new fabric. We’re supporting this important launch through a campaign that uniquely positions CALIA as a performance brand that embodies strength as beautiful. Our digital capabilities are also core to our omnichannel success, and we continue to see growth in our omnichannel athletes who spend more with us and shop more frequently than single channel athletes. As part of this, we continue to rapidly advance our capabilities in getting product into the hands of our athletes very quickly. And throughout 2024, we’ll look to drive consideration for DICKS.com through a marketing campaign where we’re teaming up with A-list celebrities and adding some humor to really make it memorable. As we expand our leadership position in youth sports, GameChanger, another incredibly strong digital capability we have, plays a pivotal role. GameChanger has become a leader in the multibillion dollar youth sports technology market. It is a go-to destination for millions of parents, grandparents, and fans to watch games, track stats, and share video highlights for athletes of all ages. Last year, over 1 million teams used GameChanger to capture moments from 7 million games and create 110 million highlight clips. In fact, more games are covered on GameChanger in the single spring month than have been played in the entire history of Major League Baseball. As a recurring revenue software as a service platform, GameChanger is very profitable and has grown sales at over a 35% CAGR since 2017. We expect GameChanger to reach approximately $100 million in sales this year. Importantly, GameChanger families are some of DICK’S Sporting Goods’ most valuable customers. A GameChanger customer who also has a DICK’S ScoreCard spends over 2 times more per year at DICK’S than a typical ScoreCard member. With customers visiting the app over 13 times a month, we believe there are numerous opportunities for DICK’S to reach these customers in unique and authentic ways to drive brand loyalty and sales. Lastly, we will continue to invest in DICK’S brand building through our Sports Change Lives campaign. At DICK’S, we believe sports have the power to change lives, and our objective with this work is to unequivocally communicate who we are and what we stand for. We’re pleased with the first year results and the way the campaign is resonating with our athletes and increasing brand connection. In the second year of this campaign, you’ll see new creative expressions during high-profile sports moments, like the NCAA tournament, the Summer Olympics, and NFL games. In conclusion, we are extremely optimistic about our future and the opportunities ahead of us. We’re very pleased with our results and accomplishments in 2023, especially our progress in advancing House of Sport, our next-generation 50K, and upgrades to our existing footprint to enhance the athlete experience. We’re continuing to innovate our omnichannel approach, which is further improving convenience and satisfaction and driving higher sales and market share gains. Our decision to step up our investments in 2024 to fuel our future growth clearly demonstrates the confidence we have in our business and our team. I’m incredibly proud to be working alongside such a talented and motivated group across every part of our company, from stores, to our corporate team, to our distribution centers, to our GameChanger team. And I’m so excited about the future. This concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you for your interest in DICK’S Sporting Goods. Operator, you may now open the line for questions. See also 15 Best Cities to Retire in the Midwest and 17 Best AOL Mail Alternatives in 2024. Q&A Session Follow Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. (NYSE:DKS) Follow Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. (NYSE:DKS) or Subscribe with Google We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question is from the line of Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Simeon Gutman: Hi, good morning everyone. My first question is on margins and growth going forward. The business looks like it’s rebased and you now have the House of Sport coming in which sound very positive to both growth and to margin. Curious how we should think about the business from this point going forward? Are you thinking about in terms of earnings growth, or should we think about the margin growing and making this a margin story as well? Lauren Hobart: Thanks, Simeon. We are incredibly excited about the momentum that we have in our business just coming off of this Q4 with a 2.8% comp on top of a 5.3% comp. And then looking forward to the year, we are driving growth in top-line, margin and profitability overall. And I think the key driver of the margin story is really the differentiated product that we continue to have access to and expand access to. That product is resonating with athletes. It’s creating newness and innovation and just a feel in the store of energy. And it’s also enabling us to navigate — this past Q4, a fairly promotional environment where we were able to navigate without having to be extremely promotional, and actually, we drove over 200 basis points of gross margin. So, House of Sport is a great lever and that it enables us to provide a completely immersive experience for athletes. We’ve got rock climbing walls and track and field and a whole bunch of elevated service and visual presentation. But importantly, from a margin standpoint, House of Sport does encourage our brand partners, both our strategic partners and our new and emerging branded partners, to experiment. We can bring a brand to life in our collab space in a really exciting way, and therefore enabling us to drive even deeper partnerships and more access to new and different products. So overall, very confident about the long-term margin story. Simeon Gutman: Okay. And I’ll paraphrase, but I don’t want it to be my follow-up. But to paraphrase, it sounds like in the future, a combination of margins and earnings growth, it’s not just about dollar growth, but margins can expand as well. And then, my follow-up is thinking about the industry and market share for 2024 among the categories that you sell, it’s just hard because we don’t see a clean benchmark for what the industry can grow, but do you assume the industry grows? And are we reaching some type of normal industry growth CAGR and market share growth CAGR? And how do you — how should we think about that for the next several years? Lauren Hobart: Yes. So, our strategy is to continue to gain market share in this industry, and we’re doing that in several ways. We’re doing it with the strategic pillars that we talked about, be it the differentiated products, our investment in athlete experience, our investment in our brand, and our teammate experience, which is really an incredible asset that we have because we have the best teammates in the business and they have incredible momentum. So, when we look at the growth, it’s coming from market share gains. We’re also reimagining our portfolio such that we’re going to have 20 House of Sport and 27 new prototypes of our 50K, new experience, which is really a takedown of House of Sport and a super exciting place. So, to answer your question directly, we’re not counting on a significant amount of category growth because we think we have so much momentum to drive share. Navdeep Gupta: Simeon, I’ll just build on what Lauren said. If you look at it, right, it’s a $140 billion overall industry, which is highly fragmented. And what we reiterated today is our core strategies are working really well. And we actually gained almost 50 basis points of a market share over 2023. So, really exciting about the results we are posting as well as the core strategy and how those core strategies are resonating with our athletes. Lauren Hobart: I’m going to add one last thing and to Navdeep’s comments, which is the consumer has held up incredibly well. We saw that in Q4. We saw it all last year where we didn’t see a trade down from best to better, better to good. We saw growth across all income demographics. So, we do have a healthy consumer and they are increasingly choosing DICK’S to meet their needs. Simeon Gutman: Okay. Thanks. Good luck. Lauren Hobart: Thanks. Operator: Your next question is from the line of Adrienne Yih with Barclays. Please go ahead. Adrienne Yih: Good morning, Lauren and Navdeep. Congrats on the quarter and the year. Really great phenomenal execution. So, Lauren, I’m going to stick with the House of Sport. The notion that the kind of four-wall EBITDA is higher than the core. What exactly — and I know you touched on this earlier, but can you describe sort of the revenue model, how much is from goods, I guess, primarily versus services? The goods that are in there, I assume, they sound like they’re better and best. And then, how much of the House of Sport is sort of exclusive and differentiated versus core decks? And then, for Navdeep, my follow-up is I mean, inventory is so clean, right, across kind of like the landscape. So, two things here. Can you first discuss the level of innovation and trends that you’re seeing in 2024? And then secondarily, can you talk about sort of the need and potential for replenishment given that inventory levels are pretty low? Thank you. Lauren Hobart: Thanks, Adrienne. Yes. So, when you look at a House of Sport store, it’s important to note that all of our core strategies are coming to life in just — even in a dialed-up way. So, our differentiated product, the access we have there, the service model, the experiences, all coming to life in a really fantastic way. So, the vast majority of our revenue still comes from product. Obviously, we also have service revenue in there, but, it’s a typical business model. And I think what’s really driving that is how the athlete is responding. We’ve got athletes who are driving further. They’re coming more frequently. They’re spending more time when they get to a House of Sport, and overall, the sales square foot as a result of that is higher......»»
UiPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
UiPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript March 13, 2024 UiPath Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.22, expectations were $0.15. PATH isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here). Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the UiPath Fourth Quarter […] UiPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript March 13, 2024 UiPath Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.22, expectations were $0.15. PATH isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here). Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the UiPath Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Kelsey Turcotte, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Kelsey. You may begin. Kelsey Turcotte: Great. Thank you. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today to review UiPath’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal 2024 Financial Results, which we announced in our earnings press release issued after the close of the market today. On the call with me are Rob Enslin, Chief Executive Officer, and Ashim Gupta, Chief Financial Officer. They will deliver our prepared comments and answer questions. Also, on the call is Daniel Dines, UiPath’s Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, who will be available for questions. Rob will start the discussion, then turn the call over to Ashim, who will review our results and provide guidance. Then we will open the call for questions. Earnings press release and financial supplemental materials are posted on the UiPath Investor Relations website, ir.uipath.com. These materials include GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations. We will be discussing non-GAAP metrics on today’s call. This afternoon’s call includes forward-looking statements about our ability to drive growth and operational efficiency and to grow our platform, as well as our financial guidance for the first fiscal quarter and full fiscal year 2025. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements due to many factors, and therefore, investors should not place undue reliance on these statements. For a discussion of the material risks and uncertainties that could affect our actual results, please refer to our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2023, and our subsequent reports filed with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2024, to be filed with the SEC. Forward-looking statements made on this call reflect our views as of today. We undertake no obligation to update them. I would like to highlight that this webcast is being accompanied by slides. We will post the slides and a copy of our prepared comments to our Investor Relations website immediately following the conclusion of this call. In addition, please note that all comparisons are year-over-year, unless otherwise indicated. Finally, we invite you to join our Annual AI Summit, which will be live-streamed on our website at 11 a.m. Eastern Time on March 19. You can register at uipath.com. Now I’d like to hand the call over to Rob. Rob Enslin: Thank you, Kelsey. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. I want to start by extending a massive thank you to our team. Your hard work, dedication, and innovative spirit are the driving forces behind our success. And I can’t wait to see what we accomplish together in 2025. We reported a strong close to the fiscal year, exceeding our guidance across both top and bottom line metrics, driven by demand for the depth and breadth of our platform and the team’s focus on customer success, which is at the core of everything we do. Our momentum also reinforces my confidence in the strategic role we play for our customers and the investments we are making in our future. We delivered fourth quarter net new ARR of $86 million, ending the year with a total ARR of $1.46 billion, an increase of 22% year-over-year, and record quarterly revenue of $405 million, up 31% year-over-year. On the bottom line, fourth quarter non-GAAP operating margin was a record 27%. This drove fiscal year non-GAAP operating margin to 18%, an increase of over 1,100 basis points year-over-year. This was also our first quarter of GAAP profitability as a public company. I am very pleased with the team’s ongoing cost management and discipline around capital deployment, which focuses our energy on the right initiative and sets us up for future success. C-level executives are no longer solely prioritizing digital transformation. They’re also prioritizing AI transformation. In a recent UiPath and Bain joint study, the state of AI powered automation, 70% of executives asserted that AI driven automation is either very important or critical in fulfilling their organization’s strategic objective. Our business automation platform is the foundation to deliver the value across every organization. We make AI actionable, unlocking the promise of this next evolution in technology. And I believe that the combination of AI and automation is the strategic change enabler for our customers. For example, a leading UAS based financial services firm and one of our top 25 customers started their automation journey with RPA in 2018 and have since adopted our full platform. This includes process mining, document understanding and test suite. As the automation program has expanded across business lines they have over 15,000 robots in production with automations across several thousand processes. And as part of a seven figure fourth quarter deal, they plan to deploy communications mining in the corporate investment bank, commercial bank and HR department. Our platform drives ROI for both large organizations and smaller ones like innovative toll solutions, a compliance and toll management solution for trucking fleets which has leveraged automation to drive efficient growth. In the fourth quarter, they invested in additional AI powered automation including document understanding to automate complex toll documents for their customers, test suite for QA and application testing and automation hub to grow and prioritize their automation pipeline. The value of our business automation platform has never been more evident to regional partners, global SIs, go-to-market partners like SAP who understand the power of AI combined with automation and the value it provides to our joint customers. Our SAP partnership is progressing well and we are pleased with the momentum and pipeline generation across geographies. During the quarter, we continue to see combined success in closing deals including one of Switzerland’s largest retail and wholesale companies, a new logo to UiPath. Disappointed with the performance of a competitive RPA and application performance monitoring solutions, they are migrating both of these to UiPath. They’re also in the process of rolling out document understanding to automate invoice processing with the goal of expanding company-wide. Another great example combines the power of UiPath, SAP and EY. Working with EY, Marks and Spencer selected UiPath based on our ability to both automate and test across all applications. They also plan to utilize UiPath to assist in their migration to SAP S/4HANA RISE and to automate finance processes with the goal of reducing complexity and vendor spend. Partners also help customers build a holistic approach to automation. Together with Deloitte and C-level sponsorship, Indosat, a leading Indonesian communications provider and a UI-powered customer since 2021, expanded to the full platform this quarter. They are looking to drive further operational efficiencies, increase revenue growth, and improve their customer and employee experience. Using our NorthStar program, the team crafted a three-year roadmap encompassing hundreds of automations across all business lines within the organization. Beyond Indosat’s internal use, we are forming a strategic go-to-market collaboration, expanding our presence in Indonesia to empower local businesses to revolutionize operations, equip workers to focus on higher-value tasks. And in partnership with the GSI, we supported TD Bank through our NorthStar program to create a list of top automation opportunities across various lines of business, focusing on improving customer experience, empowering colleagues, optimizing controls, driving productivity and cost efficiency. And as a result, they have expanded the UiPath deployment in this quarter as they look to accelerate this and scale the automation program across the bank. We also recently announced the first of its kind co-innovation market collaboration between UiPath and Deloitte. Deloitte’s smart finance for growth companies leverages automations built by UiPath and customized by Deloitte into value-driven packages tailored for the needs of early-stage innovative companies which require speed and agility. And finally, we continue to deepen our partnership with Microsoft to build best-in-class automation experiences and integrations. This brings AI-powered automation to customers using Microsoft Azure. We see opportunities to expand this collaboration to accelerate our joint customers’ move to the cloud with AI-infused industry solutions and enterprise modernization with Microsoft. This quarter, we have some notable joint wins, including an expansion deal on Microsoft Marketplace. This includes a British multinational company which is in the process of migrating to the cloud while growing the automation program. We plan to continue making strategic investments in our partner ecosystem in 2025, focused on cultivating quality partners with expertise in automation which can fully enable our customers to realize the benefits of our platform. This updated approach includes a dedicated partner deal desk as well as new enablement plans and certifications to better align UiPath with our most trusted partners as we work side-by-side. The momentum we bring into 2025 was evident at our February DevCon event held in India. Hosted by Daniel and the team, more than 1,000 professionals, including developers, partners, and customer specialists, learned about new features that bring AI-powered productivity to the developer community. They also participated in over 24 breakout sessions featuring growth products like intelligence document processing or IDP, and Test Suites. 18 months ago, we drove the evolution of the automation market from RPA to a full AI-powered business automation platform. Our growth products have played a key role in our platform’s evolution, setting us apart from the competition and serving as the link that connects AI and automation into actionable results. Our platform also enables us to close larger, more strategic deals. Almost every organization has processed an onslaught of forms, invoices, and documents, which is why document understanding resonates so well with customers, particularly in finance, insurance, healthcare, and public sector. In the fourth quarter, 65 of our top 100 deals included intelligent document processing, a testament to customer engagement and the power of our platform. Our unique approach combines specialized AI and more than 70 pre-trained models and verticalized package solutions to help customers streamline processes, identify continuous process improvements, and rapidly scale the document understanding projects. At CareSource, a customer since 2019, our platform has played a vital role in their digital transformation journey. Leveraging core automation and document understanding, they’ve been able to efficiently process over 2.5 million transactions in 2023. Given their success to date, they expanded the document understanding initiative across finance and claims processing departments and plan to move into medical records processing. The combination of IDP and Automation not only drives efficiency and quality, but allows UiPath customers to change how they interact with external stakeholders. At our AI Summit next week, we are planning to unveil a new UiPath large language model, which combines open source LLMs, our specialized AI, proprietary knowledge of business documents and communication data. This robust LLM combined with our industry leading IDP solution provides customers access to what we believe is the most powerful documents and communications AI model on the market. And we plan to continue to invest to widen our leadership in the IDP space. Test Suite, which initially emerged as a tool for automation testing, is quickly becoming a disrupt in the application testing market. With Test Suite customers growing more than 75% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. A recent UiPath and IDC joint study found that customers using our capabilities have experienced on average more than 4 million in annualized benefits, a 529% three-year ROI and have only six months payback on investment. A great example of the significant ROI Test Suite delivers to our customers is a Fortune 100 global digital communications corporation. In just six months, they were able to automate 80% of the 3000 end-to-end test cases in the global logistics department, improving test coverage from 30% to 93%. This resulted in significantly fewer operational incidents and enabled them to keep their complex ID landscape running smoothly. We expect returns like these to be further accelerated with the introduction of our latest innovation, Autopilot, a newer set of AI powered experiences that leverage generative AI, specialized AI and automation across the platform. Autopilot makes it easier for people of all skills to build automations, accelerate time to development and discover process improvements. Both Autopilot for Studio, where we have the largest number of preview participants in company history and Autopilot for Test are in public preview. While Autopilot for process mining and Autopilot for communications mining are in private preview. Lastly, on the technology front, our business automation platform is now available on the Google Cloud Marketplace, making it easier for joint customers to deploy and scale the automation initiatives on Google Cloud infrastructure. To help customers and prospects get the most out of our capabilities, we plan to continue our investments in targeted sales areas, weighting our resources towards large enterprise customers where we see the biggest opportunity for expansion. This includes investments in growth specialists, sales engineers to support our customers and further industry verticalization in areas like financial services, insurance, healthcare and public sector. This approach has been instrumental in driving momentum in North America, including large strategic deals and we are investing in other regions where we are seeing early traction. Our team did an excellent job positioning our platform for a strategic customer in the U.K., which resulted in a competitive displacement of Blue Prism. The customer will be migrating their more than 250 processors to UiPath. They’re also creating an intelligent automation team to strategically manage the UiPath deployment while working to identify use cases for communication, mining and document understanding. This kind of industry focus is also driving growth in our public sector business. This quarter, the Scottish Government doubled the adoption of UiPath on renewal as it continues to automate core areas of finance and HR. They’re also expanding their reach to additional departments and agencies that include Social Security Scotland, Student Awards, Scottish Public Pension Agency and Agriculture and Rural Economy. In addition, they are scaling our AI products, particularly document understanding and process discovery. And in our U.S. Federal government vertical, UiPath partner, Fed Results, was awarded an enterprise software initiative agreement for UiPath products and services by the U.S. Department of Defense for up to $95 million. The five-year base period agreement will streamline the acquisition process and reduce the cost of delivery of UiPath products and services to the DoD, Department of Defense, Intelligence Community and the U.S. Coast Guard. This will enable these federal organizations to significantly accelerate the adoption of UiPath and put AI to work in a safe and secure manner. Before I hand over the call to Ashim, I’d like to personally welcome June Yang to our board of directors. June is a proven strategic and transformational executive who brings extensive experience in AI and Cloud, as well as decades of experience in fostering emerging technologies. I am confident we will benefit from our technical expertise and industry insights and look forward to many years of collaboration. In summary, we delivered a strong close to the year demonstrating the continued momentum of our AI-powered business automation platform. We’re transforming industries and revolutionizing the way businesses operate. And as we look to 2025, I believe our strategic investments in innovation and our go-to-market ecosystem position us well for continued momentum. And with that, I’ll hand over to Ashim. Ashim Gupta: Thank you, Rob, and good afternoon, everyone. Unless otherwise indicated, I will be discussing results on a non-GAAP basis, and all growth rates are year-over-year. Please note that year-over-year foreign exchange rates had an immaterial impact on fourth quarter and full year 2024 results. Turning to the quarter, we had a strong close to the year, which is a testament to the team’s execution in what continued to be a variable environment. And our laser focus on operational excellence and profitable growth initiatives. ARR totaled $1.464 billion, an increase of 22%, driven by net new ARR of $86 million. Our cloud-first approach is driving adoption across our customer base, and we ended the year with over $650 million in cloud ARR, up 70% year-over-year. A great example is a global media and entertainment company. After successfully completing their cloud migration, they expanded this quarter, selecting UiPath as their preferred automation vendor due to the breadth of our platform capabilities, specifically testing and specialized AI products like document understanding. A major Japanese telecommunications operator expanded to the full platform during the fourth quarter. They plan to migrate to the cloud and drive their automation program across multiple divisions by leveraging document understanding, communications mining, and process mining, with the goal of an additional 1 million hours saved. We ended the quarter with 10,830 customers, including new logos like Five Guys, Workday, Coca-Cola Beverages Florida, Allegis, Global Solutions, and Tesco, a testament to our strategy of acquiring enterprise customers with a propensity to invest. The vast majority of customer attrition continues to be in smaller customers, which in aggregate represent an immaterial portion of the overall business. Customers with $100,000 or more in ARR increased to 2,054, while customers with $1 million or more in ARR grew 26% to 288. Our largest customers are also continuing to expand on our platform, and during fiscal year 2024, customers with $5 million or more in ARR grew 50%. Moving on, double dollar-based gross retention of 98% continues to be best-in-class, and our dollar-based net retention rate as of the fourth quarter was 119%. Expansions are driven by the quick time to ROI and the broad applicability of our automation. At Fujitsu, Automation has revolutionized their business operations globally across their accounting, HR, and IT departments. With C-level sponsorships, they are incorporating the UiPath platform into their company-wide digital transformation project, including automating mission-critical systems such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, and SAP. Fourth quarter revenue grew to $405 million, an increase of 31% year-over-year. We had good linearity in the quarter as we benefited from a strong calendar year close and demand from our enterprise customers. Please remember that under ASC 606, revenue growth rates vary quarter-to-quarter depending on timing of license deliveries and renewals. Looking at revenue on a trailing 12-month basis, our revenue and ARR growth continues to be aligned. Total revenue for the fiscal year 2024 was $1.3 billion, an increase of 24% year-over-year. As of the end of fourth quarter, our customers with ARR of $100,000 accounted for approximately 86% of total revenue, while customers with ARR of $1 million or more accounted for 52% of our revenue. Strategic investments made by customers in our platform also drove growth in remaining performance obligations, which increased to $1.16 billion, up 30%. Current RPO increased to $707 million, up 26%. Turning to expenses, fourth quarter overall gross margin was 89%, driven by cost control and efficiencies. Software gross margin was 92%. Fourth quarter operating expenses were $250 million, highlighting the leverage in our business and our commitment to expense management and operating discipline. We ended the year with 4,035 total employees. In the fourth quarter, we achieved our first quarter of GAAP profitability as a public company, delivering operating income of $15 million. This included $89 million of stock-based compensation expense. Full year GAAP operating loss was $165 million, including $372 million of stock-based compensation. Non-GAAP operating income was $111 million, resulting in a fourth quarter non-GAAP operating margin of 27%, reflecting both our operational rigor and fourth quarter seasonality. Full year non-GAAP operating income was $233 million. Full year non-GAAP operating margin increased over 1,100 basis points year-over-year to 18%, a testament to the team’s disciplined execution and well ahead of the plan we laid out at the beginning of the year. I’m really pleased with our adjusted non-GAAP free cash flow generation for the fourth quarter and full year. Fourth quarter non-GAAP adjusted free cash flow was $146 million. And for the full fiscal year, non-GAAP adjusted free cash flow was $309 million. As of January 31st, we had $1.9 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities and no debt. Under our $500 million buyback program, we repurchased 2.6 million shares of our Class A common stock at an average price of $19.21 from November 1st, 2023, through January 31st, 2024. Since January 31st, under a 10b5-1 plan, we repurchased an additional 938,000 shares at an average price of $23.46 through March 12th, 2024. Now turning to guidance, I’m going to start with some color. We are initiating full year guidance for ARR, revenue, and non-GAAP operating income above current expectations. Starting on the top line, as the business has grown past $1 billion, it has matured into a consistent seasonal pattern, with the second half of the year being stronger than the first. This is a reflection of our renewal portfolio, which is weighted to our fourth quarter, consistent with other companies in the software industry, and our growing U.S. federal vertical. As a result, we expect first half revenue to be approximately $675 million, first half net new ARR to be approximately $105 million, and second half net new ARR and revenue to reflect similar seasonality as fiscal year 2024. On the bottom line, as I mentioned earlier, we significantly outperformed our non-GAAP operating margin expectations, which we laid out at the beginning of this fiscal year, and I’m really proud of the team for this achievement. We have a strong business model, with high gross margins and increasing economies of scale, which when combined with our disciplined operating cadence, we expect to deliver considerable shareholder value over time. Our platform is highly differentiated, and customers are making meaningful commitments to UiPath. We don’t just allow customers to use AI, we enable them to take action. We believe there is a tremendous opportunity in front of us, and we plan to continue to make strategic investments in technology, like IDP and generative AI, as well as our go-to-market resources to help capture this large and growing market. With this as the background, we plan to deliver growth and profitability in fiscal year 2025, with our goal of driving at least 100 basis points of non-GAAP operating margin expansion year-over-year. Turning to the specifics of our guide, which assumes the macroeconomic environment continues to be variable. For the first fiscal quarter 2025, we expect revenue in the range of $330 million to $335 million, ARR in the range of $1.508 billion to $1.513 billion, non-GAAP operating income of approximately $55 million, and we expect first quarter basic share count to be approximately 570 million shares. For the fiscal year 2025, we expect revenue in the range of $1.555 billion to $1.560 billion, ARR in the range of $1.725 billion to $1.730 billion, non-GAAP operating income of approximately $295 million. Before I close, I want to leave you with a few modeling points. We expect full year non-GAAP gross margins to be approximately 85% as we scale our cloud platform and offerings. Non-GAAP operating income to reflect similar seasonality to our top-line metrics. Fiscal year 2025 non-GAAP adjusted free cash flow of approximately $350 million also to follow normal seasonal patterns, and we’re assuming FX to be net neutral year-over-year. Lastly, we are committed to managing stock-based compensation, and for the fiscal year 2025, we expect dilution to be approximately 3% year-over-year. Thank you for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with many of you during the quarter. With that, I will now turn the call over to the operator. As a reminder, Daniel is in the room with us to answer questions as well. Operator, please poll for questions. See also 50 Cities With The Largest Population In The US and 20 Countries with Highest Net Migration. Q&A Session Follow Nupathe Inc. (NASDAQ:PATH) Follow Nupathe Inc. (NASDAQ:PATH) or Subscribe with Google We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy. Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Kirk Materne with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question. Kirk Materne: Yes, thanks very much, and congrats on the quarter. Rob, I was wondering, based on the study you referenced earlier, when your customers are thinking about automation and sort of their AI strategy, do they need to wait on automation to get their AI strategy mapped out or vice versa? I’m just kind of curious how there’s a lot of experimentation going on with Gen AI right now. And I was just kind of wondering what that means in terms of people making bigger bets with you all. Obviously, this quarter looks good, but just wondering if you got some more color there, because I think that the cadence is what, I think some folks get tripped up on a little bit. Thanks. Rob Enslin: Thanks, Kurt. Yes, we feel, and in my discussions, I’ve just come back from Europe. In my discussions in Europe, what you see now is the head of AI hubs and the Chief AI Officer calling us into conversations to expand automation using Gen AI. And they really like how we’ve infused Gen AI into our solution, and they get immediate benefits from the Gen AI work that we’re doing today. So we see more and more automation expanding to the broader set of C-level executives in companies today. And that was what we had, positioned the platform early on, and I think we’re getting tailwind with AI and automation in that space in terms of the discussions that we’re having today. And we’re very real and practical in what customers are looking for. We’re not looking to deliver use cases to them. We’re actually showing that our product infused with AI adds significantly more value and adds it much faster. Kirk Materne: If I could just have a quick follow-up for Ashim. Ashim, I know you managed the business to ARR, but obviously a pretty big jump in licenses this quarter. Can you just address that, just what sort of drove that? And then obviously, I realize it doesn’t have much to do with the go-forward ARR guides, but just curious about what drove that this quarter. Thanks. Ashim Gupta: Yes, I mean, it was a mix of various things. I mean, fourth quarter is typically, a heavier quarter for us in general. And then we did have a significant number of license deliveries. Some of that was from prior deals, but the volume of current quarter deals obviously was very good as well. Kirk Materne: Thank you all. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jake Roberge with William Blair. Please proceed with your question. Jake Roberge: Hi, thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the strong results. Clear the combination of AI and automation is helping raise the profile of the broader platform, but I’m curious when you look across the base, are there any specific use cases that, that infusion of AI and automation is really resonating with, whether it be front office or back office or any vertical use cases that’s helping you maybe break down new doors for the platform? Rob Enslin: Yes, I would say we clearly feel that in the healthcare insurance space, we are pretty advanced with our intelligent document processing and what we’re doing in that space. We also see, as I mentioned earlier, test suite taking on broader applicability more than just automation testing and becoming more relevant in that space. And then we mentioned a little earlier as well in the that our autopilot preview customers, it’s the largest in the history of UiPath that we have preview customers having a look at it. And in some cases up to 1000 companies are looking at autopilot. So in all of those aspects, it’s adding more value to the platform. And I would actually add to that discussion is because the platform has a discovery piece to it, where process mining and task mining, communication mining is able to uncover automation together with that process tied to the Gen AI and our specialized AI capabilities. I think many, many companies are now starting to see the benefit of actually driving it faster. Jake Roberge: Okay, helpful. And then it was great to hear that comment on the 1000 early adopters of autopilot. Just curious what the early feedback that you’ve gotten from those early adopters have been. And then anything that you’ve seen in terms of the speed at which those customers are now able to develop new automations after adopting autopilot? Daniel Dines: Yes, I can take this one. We are seeing quite a good retention week of the week of the people that are using the autopilot. And for instance, in the autopilot for developers, we are seeing an acceptance rate in excess of 65% of the automations that we are proposing to them, which is quite good. It’s really early to come with a number estimate on how much they save in the development time, but we feel there is a material saving. And in our industry, the implementation and maintenance of automation is the largest part of total cost of ownership. So we estimate really a broad adoption that will increase also the adoption of our platform. Jake Roberge: Very helpful. Congrats again on the great results. Rob Enslin: Thank you very much. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Murphy with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question. Mark Murphy: Thank you and I’ll add my congrats. So Rob, you have this very strong partnership with SAP. Clearly you have some momentum with the test suite. Can you comment on the tailwind that you’re seeing for the ERP cloud migrations? And I’m wondering if you sense that tailwind can grow into the SAP end of support deadline, but there’s a pretty big one, I believe, coming up in 2027......»»
My daughter is on track to become high school valedictorian. I"m not sure it"s worth the effort and stress.
A mother has watched as her daughter worked hard to be the valedictorian. It won't guarantee admission to college, so she isn't sure it was worth it. The author's daughter, not pictured, is on track to be valedictorian.Jupiterimages/Getty ImagesMy daughter decided to become valedictorian, so she worked extra hard to make that a reality. She couldn't take days off or enroll in some classes because her GPA was more important.Since she isn't guaranteed admission to college, I'm not sure it was worth the stress.Throughout grade school, my daughter was one of the top students in her class. During a class in the first semester of her freshman year of high school, her teacher asked her to set goals. My daughter decided being valedictorian would be a good goal to set. Ever since then, she's been pursuing that goal with complete focus.Now that she is nearing the end of her junior year, she is academically at the top of her class. But neither of us is sure the pursuit of being valedictorian is actually worth it.Trying to be valedictorian is stressfulIt's not a surprise that the path to being a valedictorian is filled with stress. In addition to the usual worries about taking tests, my daughter stresses over variables out of her control, such as doing extra work to get a good grade when she is assigned group projects with students who blow off the assignment.Even calling in sick is a major concern because she is taking a challenging schedule of advanced courses and fears falling behind. There were classes she wanted to take because they looked fun, but felt she couldn't because they weren't weighted and would ruin her grade point average.Last year, my daughter doubled up on math courses, taking Algebra II and Geometry in the same year. She was incredibly nervous about it but knew if she did well in both classes, it would boost her grade point average, keeping her number one.She got high As in both courses, which taught her a valuable lesson: She shouldn't talk herself out of accepting a challenge just because she finds it intimidating.But she doesn't feel like she's missed out on other thingsOne concern my daughter and I shared when she decided to make an effort to become valedictorian is that it shouldn't stop her from having a complete high school experience. I didn't want being number one in her class to become her only identity. And she didn't want that for herself, either.She joined three sports in high school, as well as a number of clubs and organizations. She does volunteer hours for community participation and has a seasonal job, too.We both feel she hasn't let her studying time hold her back in any way. She's been to all the high school dances, has a boyfriend, and has good friends.Being valedictorian won't likely open any doors for her, thoughIf a student is interested in attending an Ivy League college, being valedictorian may matter or give them an edge. But my daughter wants to attend the same college my son does. He was number seven in his class and received the top merit scholarship at his college. The college doesn't offer any additional scholarships for being valedictorian, and honestly, I don't think many colleges care whether a prospective student was number one in her class versus being second or third.My son teases my daughter about how they'll have the same scholarship offers even though she worked much harder in high school than he did.We're not sure it was worth the effort she put in, but we have no regretsJust the other day, I asked my daughter if she thought trying to be valedictorian was worth the effort, and she said she wasn't sure — and I completely agreed.Sure, she'll get to give a brief speech at her graduation, but she doesn't love public speaking and gets embarrassed in the limelight, so that doesn't feel like a reward to her.There were fun moments that we'll always treasure, though. She and I will both have great memories of all the nights we spent together when I would quiz her for upcoming tests. While sometimes those nights were stressful, we always found a lot to laugh about.We don't regret the effort, though, because there will be some long-term benefits.When she heads off to college, she will be armed with the great study habits and amazing organizational skills she developed in high school. Plus, she will have gained confidence from setting and completing a difficult goal, and that's a feeling she will carry with her for the rest of her life.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»
Ethereum (ETH) 2030 Price Prediction: Bull, Bear, and Base Forecasts
Ethereum’s (CRYPTO: ETH) been ripping higher. Most investors who aren’t living under a rock already know this. Now trading around $4,050 per token at the time of writing, Ethereum is officially making a move toward a new all-time high. And given its vertical trajectory, there’s no shortage of investors betting this token will get there. […] The post Ethereum (ETH) 2030 Price Prediction: Bull, Bear, and Base Forecasts appeared first on 24/7 Wall St.. Ethereum’s (CRYPTO: ETH) been ripping higher. Most investors who aren’t living under a rock already know this. Now trading around $4,050 per token at the time of writing, Ethereum is officially making a move toward a new all-time high. And given its vertical trajectory, there’s no shortage of investors betting this token will get there. The question is, just how high could Ethereum fly by 2030? And what’s a more reasonable base case scenario (and its “look-out” bear case potential). Here’s our take on where the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency could be headed over the next six years or so. Ethereum Bull 2030 Forecast Ethereum portrayed as a gold coin There really are three potential catalysts we see as likely reasons why Ethereum could not only make new all-time highs, but surge to multiples of its current value, by 2030. These are: a potential SEC approval of spot Ethereum ETFs, a surge in network activity tied to Ethereum’s upcoming Dencun upgrade, and broader secular tailwinds tied to decentralized finance (DeFi) adoption. The most recent parabolic move we’ve seen across the board for most cryptocurrencies has to do with the fact that Bitcoin is surging higher. The approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs by the SEC in January paved the way for a flood of institutional capital into this sector. For now, all that fresh money is being fed into warping Bitcoin’s supply and demand further. But if the SEC approves similar ETFs for Ethereum, all bets are off with respect to what that would mean for this token, given its recent shift toward being a deflationary token after its previous “Merge” upgrade. That brings us to our second point – Ethereum’s upcoming Dencun upgrade, scheduled to unfold this week, could drive some serious user adoption. This upgrade is aimed at improving the efficiency of Layer-2 networks operating on top of Ethereum. Given that’s where most DeFi activity takes place, that’s bullish for the real-world utilitarians out there, who own Ethereum specifically because it “does something.” This could supercharge the macro bull thesis around Ethereum, that it’s the lifeblood and core infrastructure of DeFi and Web3. As more projects are built on Ethereum, and its user base grows, these network effects get stronger. Thus, there’s a self-contained value loop that ultimately feeds into higher Ethereum prices. If these catalysts continue as expected, we fully expect Ethereum could break through the $10,000 level by 2030. It’s our view that a $15,000 price target on Ethereum in six years’ time is reasonable (if everything goes right). Ethereum Bear 2030 Forecast Ethereum logo But what if everything doesn’t go right? What if DeFi adoption stalls, users move away from blockchain-based gaming and other decentralized applications, and Solana or other higher-throughput and lower-cost networks eat Ethereum’s lunch for the NFTs that are still valuable? Well, that’s possible. Ethereum’s value is largely based on its status as the essential plumbing of the DeFi and nascent Web3 worlds. Right now, thousands of developers are building such applications, many of whom choose to build on Ethereum. But if there are no users, there’s no ecosystem, and those network effects dry right up. Ethereum’s core infrastructure has also proven to be quite secure for a long time. There aren’t the kinds of outages Solana has seen, for example, plaguing this network. Developers and users like this, because there’s value in stability. But given the increasingly-centralized nature of Ethereum staking (with the vast majority of staking taking place over an astoundingly low number of nodes – ahem, Lido and Coinbase), this thesis could get blown out of the water. Then there are the competitors nipping at Ethereum’s heels, looking to take a larger and more profitable slice of the DeFi and Web3 pie. Name your contender – Solana, Avalanche, Cardano – there are reasons why other investors prefer these blockchains over Ethereum. Though, notably, the key reason is cost – and that’s something these constant upgrades are attempting to improve. So, if Ethereum’s high-cost network becomes unstable, or we see a marked drop in DeFi activity, it’s entirely possible Ethereum could go back to trading in the triple-digit realm. Our bear case prediction for this token is a reversion back to around $800 per token. Ethereum Base 2030 Forecast Exchange listing showing Ethreum and three other tokens Splitting the difference, a $10,00 price target certainly seems achievable for Ethereum over the coming six years. Even if we factor in some serious volatility, sprinkle in another crypto winter, and add a few hiccups here and there, the reality remains that Ethereum will likely retain its pole position as “king of DeFi.” It’s our view that Ethereum’s value is really unparalleled in the world of blockchain-based application building and utility generation. So long as Ethereum can fend off its competition (as it’s been able to do successfully for nearly a decade), investors should certainly bank on a little more than a double-up from here. That would be a fair risk-adjusted return over this time frame, in our view. Sponsored: Want to Retire Early? Here’s a Great First Step Want retirement to come a few years earlier than you’d planned? Or are you ready to retire now, but want an extra set of eyes on your finances? Now you can speak with up to 3 financial experts in your area for FREE. By simply clicking here you can begin to match with financial professionals who can help you build your plan to retire early. And the best part? The first conversation with them is free. Click here to match with up to 3 financial pros who would be excited to help you make financial decisions. The post Ethereum (ETH) 2030 Price Prediction: Bull, Bear, and Base Forecasts appeared first on 24/7 Wall St.......»»