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Tucker Carlson is leaving Fox News, according to a statement from the network on Monday that sent Fox shares down 4%.
“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the company said in a terse statement. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
Carlson’s last program at the…
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A record share price for LVMH FR:MC alongside a strengthening euro pushed the luxury goods company to a market capitalization of $500 billion on Monday, the first European company to reach that landmark.
LVMH stock touched a fresh high of €904.60, valuing the group at €454.2 billion. With the euro EURUSD at one point edging up to $1.1020, this equated to $500.5 billion.
The…
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It’s the end of the road for Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., a company that was once a shining star of U.S. retail.
The troubled home-goods retailer BBBY filed for chapter 11 on Sunday, after spending several months teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. The company said it aims to achieve an orderly wind down of its operations, while also seeking to find an interested buyer for some or all of its assets. It has $240 million of debtor-in-possession financing to provide the liquidity needed to support its operations through the process….
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Put aside for a moment all that nutritional advice about eating fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins. Could one key to good health actually be a diet rich in … ice cream?
That’s the tantalizing question raised by a new story in the Atlantic, which states, “Studies show a mysterious health benefit to ice cream. Scientists don’t want to talk about it.”
The…
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The chief executive of the high-end office-furniture company MillerKnoll has gone viral. And probably not in a manner she would prefer.
In a leaked Zoom call of a MillerKnoll staff town hall last month, CEO Andi Owen addressed concerns from employees about the company’s decision to withhold bonuses. It quickly descended into her lambasting staff for complaining about the move.
“Questions came through about, ‘How can we stay motivated if we’re not going to get a bonus?‘ ” she says in the meeting recording. Owen — tapped in 2021 by Fast Company as one of the most creative people in business and celebrated that same year in the New York Times for her navigation of the coronavirus pandemic and swing-state sociopolitics — tells employees of the Zeeland, Mich., company to focus on things the company can control, such as customer service.
From the archives (April 2021): Herman Miller and Knoll to merge in $1.8 billion deal that will create design leader as companies reimagine office
“Don’t ask about: What are we going to do if we don’t get a bonus?” she says, growing animated, even, apparently, agitated. “Get the damn $26 million. Spend your time and your effort thinking about the $26 million we need and not thinking about what you’re going to do if you don’t get a bonus. All right? Can I get some commitment for that? I would appreciate that.”
Though she didn’t specifically identify the significance of the $26 million figure, the company’s operating expenses rose by exactly that amount in its third quarter due to “voluntary and involuntary reductions in the company’s workforce and charges for the impairment of assets associated with the decision to cease operating fully as a stand-alone brand.”
MillerKnoll’s third-quarterly filing showed that the furniture maker — the product of a 2021 merger of the Herman Miller and Knoll brands, behind products such as the Eames lounge chair and the Saarinen Tulip table, respectively — expects lower sales in the fourth quarter after posting a decline in orders and sales margins in the three months ending March 4.
Owen recalls in the video that a past employer told her, “You can visit Pity City, but you can’t live there.”
“So, people, leave Pity City,” she continues, exclaiming: “Let’s get it done.”
“You have to be a psychopath to say this stuff to your employees when you are taking a massive bonus. Does she think they won’t find out?” asked one Twitter user.
“Plenty going on here but one of many things that leapt out to me was that mere moments after she went with the ‘be kind to people’ bit, she was yelling at workers,” another said.
The company said that the widely shared video clip had been taken out of context.
“Andi fiercely believes in this team and all we can accomplish together, and will not be dissuaded by a 90-second clip taken out of context and posted on social media,” a spokesman said in a statement.
Owen made $5 million last year. The company has yet to say how much she will make this year. The company this year has expensed $15.7 million in stock-based compensation.
MillerKnoll shares
MLKN,
have dropped 12% in 2023, compared with the 8% gain for the benchmark S&P 500
SPX,
Other MillerKnoll brands include Design Within Reach, acquired by Herman Miller a decade ago and recognized as having made the iconic midcentury designs of Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, George Nelson, and others available to a wider, if affluent, audience without engaging an interior designer; the Danish design brand Hay; and Holly Hunt.
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During a period of high interest rates, it might be more difficult to impress investors with dividend stocks. But the stocks can have an important advantage over the long term. The dividend payouts can increase over the years, helping to push share prices higher over time.
When considering stocks for dividend income, yield shouldn’t be the only thing you consider. If a stock’s price has tumbled because investors are worried about the company’s business prospects, the dividend yield might be very high. A double-digit yield might mean investors expect to see a cut to the dividend soon.
There are many ways to look at companies’ expected ability to maintain or raise their dividend payouts. But one can also take a simple approach to begin researching stock choices.
At the moment, you can get a bank CD with a yield of close to 5% pretty easily. Here’s a look at current yields for CDs and U.S. Treasury securities and an approach for laddering them not only to protect your cash but to hedge against interest-rate risk.
For investors who would rather aim for long-term growth to go along with dividend income, or take a relatively conservative approach to growth while reinvesting dividends, a screen of stocks in the S&P 500
SPX,
produces only 10 stocks with dividend yields of 4.5% or higher with majority “buy” or equivalent ratings among analysts polled by FactSet. Here they are, sorted by dividend yield:
| Company | Ticker | Dividend Yield | Expected payout increase through 2025 | Share “buy” ratings | April 16 price | Consensus price target | implied 12-month upside potential |
| Comerica Inc. |
CMA, |
6.56% | 10% | 58% | $43.30 | $60.53 | 40% |
| Citizens Financial Group Inc. |
CFG, |
5.77% | 12% | 74% | $29.10 | $39.29 | 35% |
| Healthpeak Properties Inc. |
PEAK, |
5.71% | 9% | 60% | $21.01 | $27.69 | 32% |
| Hasbro Inc. |
HAS, |
5.34% | 8% | 69% | $52.40 | $69.27 | 32% |
| Philip Morris International Inc. |
PM, |
5.11% | 11% | 67% | $99.48 | $113.56 | 14% |
| Realty Income Corp. |
O, |
5.04% | 7% | 56% | $60.77 | $70.00 | 15% |
| Fifth Third Bancorp |
FITB, |
4.99% | 3% | 72% | $26.44 | $34.55 | 31% |
| VICI Properties Inc. |
VICI, |
4.82% | 12% | 95% | $32.35 | $37.73 | 17% |
| Organon & Co. |
OGN, |
4.71% | 5% | 55% | $23.80 | $31.89 | 34% |
| Iron Mountain Inc. |
IRM, |
4.69% | 15% | 78% | $52.76 | $56.00 | 6% |
| Source: FactSet | |||||||
Click on the ticker for more about each company.
Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.
The dividend yields for this group of 10 companies are based on current annual regular payout rates, with all paying quarterly except for Realty Income Corp.
O,
which pays monthly.
These two oil and natural gas producers would have passed the above screen based on their most recent dividend payments and analysts’ sentiment, however, they pay a combined fixed-plus-variable dividend every quarter, with the fixed portion relatively low:
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NEW YORK — The Delaware judge overseeing a voting machine company’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News announced late Sunday that he was delaying the start of the trial until Tuesday. He did not cite a reason.
The trial, which has drawn international interest, had been scheduled to start Monday morning with jury selection and opening statements.
The case centers on whether Fox defamed Dominion Voting Systems by spreading false claims that the company rigged the 2020 presidential election to prevent former President Donald Trump’s reelection. Records produced as part of the lawsuit show that many of the network’s hosts and executives didn’t believe the allegations but aired them, anyway.
Representatives for Dominion and for the two entities it’s suing — Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp.
FOX,
— did not immediately return requests for comment on the delay. In his statement, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said only that the trial, including jury selection, would be continued until Tuesday and that he would announce the delay in court on Monday.
That’s when Fox News executives and the network’s star hosts were scheduled to begin answering for their role in spreading doubt about the 2020 presidential election and creating the gaping wound that remains in America’s democracy.
Jurors hearing the $1.6 billion lawsuit filed against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems would have to answer a specific question: Did Fox defame the voting machine company by airing bogus stories alleging that the election was rigged against then-President Donald Trump, even as many at the network privately doubted the false claims being pushed by Trump and his allies?
Yet the broader context looms large. A trial would test press freedom and the reputation of conservatives’ favorite news source. It also would illuminate the flow of misinformation that helped spark the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and continues to fuel Trump’s hopes to regain power in 2024.
Fox News stars Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and founder Rupert Murdoch are among the people who had been expected to testify.
Barring a settlement, opening statements are now scheduled for Tuesday.
“This is Christmas Eve for defamation scholars,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a University of Utah law professor.
If the trial were a sporting event, Fox News would be taking the field on a losing streak, with key players injured and having just alienated the referee. Pretrial court rulings and embarrassing revelations about its biggest names have Fox on its heels.
Court papers released over the past two months show Fox executives, producers and personalities privately disbelieved Trump’s claims of a fraudulent election. But Dominion says Fox News was afraid of alienating its audience with the truth, particularly after many viewers were angered by the network’s decision to declare Democrat Joe Biden the winner in Arizona on election night in November 2020.
Some rulings by the judge have eased Dominion’s path. In a summary judgment, Davis said it was “CRYSTAL clear” that fraud allegations against the company were false. That means trial time won’t have to be spent disproving them at a time when millions of Republicans continue to doubt the 2020 results.
Davis said it also is clear that Dominion’s reputation was damaged, but that it would be up to a jury to decide whether Fox acted with “actual malice” — the legal standard — and, if so, what that’s worth financially.
Fox witnesses would likely testify that they thought the allegations against Dominion were newsworthy, but Davis made it clear that’s not a defense against defamation.
New York law protects news outlets from defamation for expressions of opinion. But Davis methodically went through 20 different times on Fox when allegations against Dominion were discussed, ruling that all of them were fully or partly considered statements of fact, and fair game for a potential libel finding.
“A lawsuit is a little bit like hitting a home run,” said Cary Coglianese, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “You have to go through all of the bases to get there.” The judge’s rulings “basically give Dominion a spot at third base, and all they have to do is come home to win it.”
Both Fox and Dominion are incorporated in Delaware, though Fox News is headquartered in New York and Dominion is based in Denver.
Fox angered Davis this past week when the judge said the network’s lawyers delayed producing evidence and were not forthcoming in revealing Murdoch’s role at Fox News. A Fox lawyer, Blake Rohrbacher, sent a letter of apology to Davis on Friday, saying it was a misunderstanding and not an intention to deceive.
It’s not clear whether that would affect a trial. But it’s generally not wise to have a judge wonder at the outset of a trial whether your side is telling the truth, particularly when truth is the central point of the case, Jones said.
The lawsuit essentially comes down to whether Dominion can prove Fox acted with actual malice by putting something on the air knowing that it was false or acting with a “reckless disregard” for whether it was true. In most libel cases, that is the most difficult hurdle for plaintiffs to get past.
Dominion can point to many examples where Fox figures didn’t believe the charges being made by Trump allies such as Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani. But Fox says many of those disbelievers were not in a position to decide when to air those allegations.
“We think it’s essential for them to connect those dots,” Fox lawyer Erin Murphy said.
If the case goes to trial, the jury will determine whether a powerful figure like Murdoch — who testified in a deposition that he didn’t believe the election-fraud charges — had the influence to keep the accusations off the air.
“Credibility is always important in any trial in any case. But it’s going to be really important in this case,” said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and the Law at the University of Minnesota.
Kirtley is concerned that the suit may eventually advance to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could use it as a pretext to weaken the actual malice standard that was set in a 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. That, she feels, would be disastrous for journalists.
Dominion’s lawsuit is being closely watched by another voting-technology company with a separate but similar case against Fox News. Florida-based Smartmatic has looked to some rulings and evidence in the Dominion case to try to enhance its own $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit in New York. The Smartmatic case isn’t yet ready for trial but has survived Fox News’ effort to get it tossed out.
Many experts are surprised Fox and Dominion have not reached an out-of-court settlement, though they can at any time. There’s presumably a wide financial gulf. In court papers, Fox contends the $1.6 billion damages claim is a wild overestimate.
Dominion’s motivation may also be to inflict maximum embarrassment on Fox with the peek into the network’s internal communications following the election. Text messages from January 2021 revealed Carlson telling a friend that he passionately hated Trump and couldn’t wait to move on.
Dominion may also seek an apology.
The trial has had no apparent effect on Fox News’ viewership; it remains the top-rated cable network. Fox’s media reporter, Howard Kurtz, said earlier this year that he had been banned from covering the lawsuit, but the network has since changed direction. Kurtz discussed the case on his show Sunday, saying he would be in Wilmington for the beginning of the trial.
“The real potential danger is if Fox viewers get the sense that they’ve been lied to. There’s a real downside there,” said Charlie Sykes, founder of the Bulwark website and an MSNBC contributor.
There’s little indication that the case has changed Fox’s editorial direction. Fox has embraced Trump once again in recent weeks following the former president’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, and Carlson presented an alternate history of Capitol riot, based on tapes given to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
Just because there has been limited discussion of the Dominion suit on Fox doesn’t mean its fans are unaware of it, said Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative watchdog Media Research Center.
“There’s a certain amount of tribal reaction to this,” Graham said. “When all of the other networks are thrilling to revealing text messages and emails, they see this as the latest attempt by the liberal media to undermine Fox News. There’s going to be a rally-around-Rupert effect.”
Fox Corp. and MarketWatch parent News Corp. share common ownership.
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Democrats largely have closed ranks behind President Joe Biden ahead of next year’s election, but he isn’t completely without challengers for the party’s nomination.
Author and activist Marianne Williamson has thrown her hat in the ring, pursuing a longshot bid that comes after her 2020 presidential campaign fizzled out before the Iowa caucuses.
Why isn’t she falling in line and supporting her party’s incumbent president? What’s her pitch to people who think she’s not a serious candidate? What are her top economic proposals?
Williamson, 70, tackled those questions and more in a phone interview earlier this week.
Our Q&A with the Democratic presidential hopeful has been edited for clarity and length.
MarketWatch: In a nutshell, could you explain why you’re running for president?
Williamson: I’m running for president because I believe that some things need to be said and some changes need to be made, in order to repair some serious damage that’s been done to our democracy, to our country, to our people and to our environment over the last 50 years.
MarketWatch: You’ve talked about running to address “systemic economic injustices endured by millions of Americans” because of the “undue influence of corporate money on our political system.” What do you see as the top examples of that?
Williamson: During the 1970s, the average American worker had decent benefits, could afford a home, could afford a yearly vacation, could afford a car and could afford to send their child to college. In the last 48 years, there has been a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1% of Americans. That transfer has decimated our middle class. We are now at a point where if you are among 20% of Americans, then the economy’s doing pretty well for you. But, unfortunately, that 20% is surrounded by a vast sea of economic despair. We have 60,000 people in the United States who die every year because they can’t afford healthcare
XLV,
one in four Americans living with a medical debt, and 18 million Americans unable to fill the prescriptions that their doctors give to them.
If you are in the club in America, if you are making it in America — and I have sold some books, so I understand the high side of the free market and have benefited, and I’m grateful for that — but no conscious persons wants to feel that they create wealth at the expense of other people having a chance. That is not American. It’s not what the American Dream is supposed to be.
I’m not trying to whitewash and romanticize American capitalism before this era. I’m not saying we were ever perfect, but it does seem to me that when I was growing up, the social consensus is that we were supposed to try. We knew that the higher good was that there would be this balance between individual liberty, including economic liberty, and a concern for the common good. But today concern for the common good has become almost derided as some quaint notion, and that we shouldn’t really give much more than lip service to it. And that’s a lot of human suffering that occurs because of that change in the social contract.
MarketWatch: Here’s kind of a two-part question. What would be your top economic priorities, and how in particular would you address high inflation and the recent banking
KBE,
crisis?
Williamson: I’d like to see universal healthcare. I want to see tuition-free college at state colleges and universities, which is what we had in this country until the 1960s. There should be free childcare. There should be paid family leave. There should be guaranteed sick pay and a livable wage. And I think Americans are waking up to the fact that those things that I just mentioned are considered moderate issues in every other advanced democracy. They should not be considered left-wing fringe issues. They are granted to the citizens of every other advanced democracy.
That was your first question. The second has to do with high inflation. A lot of that high inflation has to do with price gouging by huge corporations, whether it has to do with food companies, transportation companies and so forth. All of those CEOs should testify before Congress and talk about the ways that they have — for the sake of their own profits — gouged the American people, particularly at such a time as this. And this is what happens when we normalize such a lack of conscience and such a lack of ethics within our system.
In terms of what happened with the bank in Silicon Valley
SIVBQ,
which is what your third question was, right? I think the depositors should be made whole, but the bank executives who were taking multimillion-dollar bonuses for themselves, both before and right after the crash, they certainly should not get those bonuses. And also it’s concerning that some of the tech investors that would benefit the most from those deposits were the ones who caused the run on the bank. I don’t think that they should receive the benefit of what happens when those deposits are made whole. But the average depositor absolutely should be made whole in such cases.
MarketWatch: You mentioned free tuition and child care. Where would the funding for that come from?
Williamson: The funding should come, first of all, from taxation. The 2017 tax cut in this country was a $2 trillion tax cut, and 83 cents of every dollar went to the highest-earning corporations and individuals. Now that tax cut also included the middle-class tax cut, and the middle-class tax cut was good.
That tax cut for the highest earners should be repealed, but the middle-class tax cut should be put back in immediately.
Secondly, we should stop all the corporate subsidies. Why are we giving subsidies to these companies that are already making multibillions of dollars in profit and often then price gouging the American people?
Third, I believe there should be a wealth tax. If somebody has $50 million, I don’t have any problem with their paying an extra 2% tax. And if they have $1 billion, let them pay another 1%. Somebody with a $50 million portfolio, much less $1 billion in assets, would not even feel that change, but the changes in people’s lives that would be created by those shifts would be huge.
MarketWatch: Your campaign often gets described as a real longshot bid. Why are you running when so many people say you have a low chance for success?
Williamson: Well, certainly Donald Trump was considered a longshot. For that matter, when he began Barack Obama was considered a longshot. Surely we remember when Hillary Clinton was considered a shoo-in.
MarketWatch: A recent Monmouth University poll of Democratic voters found 11% had a favorable view of you, 16% had an unfavorable view, 21% had no opinion, and 52% had not heard of you. How do you win over those voters who have an unfavorable view, and how do you reach the folks who haven’t heard of you?
Williamson: Well, there was a poll that came out last week that put me at 10%, including 18% with independents and 21% with people under 30.
It’s very difficult for someone like myself to get the message out when you have such institutional resistance to my even being in the conversation, and that is displayed in various ways. But there is independent media today. God knows there’s TikTok, where my information seems to be doing quite well.
This early, no candidate should be allowing the polls to determine their path forward. I didn’t go into this expecting the approval of institutional forces. And I, as a matter of fact, expected the kind of resistance that I’ve received, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that a certain agenda be placed before the American people, and I am providing that option — the option of that alternative agenda.
I believe that agenda is the way for the Democrats to win in 2024. But even more importantly, I think it’s the agenda that will lead to the repair of this country.
MarketWatch: You mentioned TikTok, and that has been a hot topic in Washington, D.C., in recent weeks. Do you have a view on the Democratic and Republican proposals to ban TikTok in the U.S.?
Williamson: I think the United States government does need to be concerned with tech
XLK,
surveillance, but I wish they were as concerned when it comes to American-run companies as when it comes to Chinese. It’s a serious issue, it’s a valid issue — the whole issue of surveillance. But it’s a gnarly issue as well, and rushing to shut something down, which is so obviously a platform depended on by millions and millions of Americans for information sharing, is never something that should be done lightly.
MarketWatch: Some Americans may know you only for your spiritual work, and these folks may not think you’re a serious presidential candidate. The White House press secretary indicated she’s in that camp. What’s your message to win those folks over?
Williamson: First of all, I don’t think of my campaign as quote-unquote trying to win anyone over. There’s something that I read years ago that has always guided my work: “If there’s something you genuinely need to say, there’s someone out there who genuinely needs to hear it.” I am speaking to people who I know agree with me. I wouldn’t be doing this if I weren’t aware that millions of people agree with me.
I think it’s very sad that the president would allow a presidential press podium to be used to mock a political opponent, and I think that many people were and are offended by that. This is a democracy. We should have as many voices out there as possible. We should have as many people running in an election as feel moved. Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. There are ideas on the left and ideas on the right. There are ideas all across the spectrum, and this is a point in American history where we as Americans should hear them all.
MarketWatch: What do you think are some of the main things that President Biden has gotten right, and in what areas has he gone wrong?
Williamson: Well, the first thing he did right was he defeated Donald Trump. The president has taken an incremental approach to America’s problems, and I believe that he does wish to alleviate the suffering of many people whose lives are affected by some deeply unjust systems. But I don’t think that the alleviation of stress is enough right now. We need fundamental economic reform.
We also need a serious answer to climate change, and the president’s approval of the Willow project is not that. The president has said that he recognizes that climate change is an existential crisis, and yet he has given more oil
CL00,
permits than even Donald Trump did, and he has approved the Willow project.
He also said that there will be a raise in the minimum wage. He did that for federal workers, but when it came to the Senate parliamentarian saying that he couldn’t put that raise in a bill, then he conveniently stopped right there and simply acquiesced to what the parliamentarian had said.
The Democratic House and Senate — they did cut child poverty in half with the child tax credit, but then, when that expired six months later, they didn’t bother to permanentize it.
These are the kinds of half-measures and incremental measures which are not enough to change the fundamental economic patterns in this country that lead to so much chronic economic anxiety and despair.
AFP via Getty Images
MarketWatch: One thing that comes up often with President Biden is his age, which is 80, while you’re 70. Do you think his age should be a concern, or is it ageism to bring it up?
Williamson: I think the individual has to consider this themselves. I have a problem, of course, contributing to the conversation because of the issue of ageism. But on the other hand, everybody can see for themselves what they can see for themselves.
I can only say if I were 80, I wouldn’t be running. But you know, I will not take potshots at the president, and I think that veers into potshots.
MarketWatch: Let’s talk about taking on Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or whomever the Republican nominee ends up being. Why do you think you’re the Democrat who could end up beating one of them?
Williamson: Republicans are going to throw some big lies at the Democrats in 2024, and the only way that we’re going to defeat them, in my opinion, is to tell some big truths. Franklin Roosevelt said we would not have to worry about a fascist takeover in this country as long as democracy delivered on its promises. Democracy has not delivered on its promises. The only way to beat Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis in 2024 is to propose an agenda in which democracy once again delivers on its promises to the majority of the American people. And that would mean the issues I mentioned before: universal healthcare, tuition-free college, free child care, a guaranteed livable wage and paid family leave. Those are given to the citizens in every other advanced democracy, and there is no good reason whatsoever why they are not delivered to the average citizen in the United States.
MarketWatch: There are Democrats who could be challenging President Biden for the party’s 2024 nomination, but they aren’t and instead they’re supporting him. Why aren’t there more efforts in the party to get people to run for president?
Williamson: Well, you’d have to ask them why they’re not running. But there’s clearly a trope that the field should clear, and everybody should simply get in line with the opinion of the Democratic establishment that Biden is the man because they have decided so. I don’t see it that way. I believe the Democratic primary voters — and independent voters and anyone else, if it’s an open primary — they should decide who the Democratic candidate is. To me, that’s what democracy is. That’s what elections are about.
MarketWatch: The Democratic Party is not expected to hold presidential primary debates for 2024. What can you do to change that and get some time on a debate stage?
Williamson: Well, I hope to have a successful campaign. I hope to have high poll numbers. I hope to have a lot of people in those primary states yelling foul. It’s a government of the people, by the people, for the people. The American people should hear what their options are, and that’s what a debate would be. If enough people realize that and believe it and make laws about it, then that is what will happen.
I think sometimes there’s a kind of learned powerlessness on the part of the American people today. We forget the radicalism of the American experiment, which is that the governance of this country is supposed to be in our hands. But the American people have been trained to expect too little and almost trained to give up the power of independent thought. I hope that my campaign and other things that occur in this campaign season will awaken people, and I think a certain kind of awakening is happening already.
MarketWatch: We’re a financially focused publication, so here’s a question along those lines. I looked at your financial disclosure from your 2020 presidential run. It showed some investments in big public companies like Apple
AAPL,
and Mastercard
MA,
…
Williamson: Wait, what are you talking about?
MarketWatch: That’s from your 2019 executive-branch personnel public financial disclosure report. It shows investments in various stocks and funds. The question — for our readers who are investors or people saving for retirement — is could you describe your own approach to investing and preparing for retirement?
Williamson: Socially responsible investing, and that’s why I said, “Whoa, what?” Because I believe in investing in socially responsible companies.
MarketWatch: One last question: What else would you like people to know?
Williamson: America has some serious problems, but we have infinite potential to solve those problems. We need to revisit our first principles, as John Adams said, and find that place in our hearts where, as Americans, as adults in this generation, we recognize that this profound idea of American democracy is put in our hands for safekeeping. And that doesn’t just give us rights; it gives us responsibilities. The political system in the United States speaks to us too often like we’re children, like we’re seventh-graders. Our public dialogue is too often on this kind of seventh-grade level. This is not a time to be an immature thinker, and it’s not a time to get into mean-spiritedness or cynicism either. If we allow ourselves to rise to the occasion, no matter what our politics are, we’re going to repair what has been broken, and we are going to initiate a new beginning. I think that’s possible. Other generations have done it, and we can do it, too.
MarketWatch: Thank you for being available to chat.
Williamson: Thank you very, very much.
Now read: Here are the Republicans running for president — or seen as potential 2024 candidates
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There is currently no dispute over who wears the crown of world’s wealthiest person. It isn’t Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk.
The net worth of Bernard Arnault, the founder and chairman and chief executive officer of LVMH Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE
MC,
stood at $210 billion as of Thursday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. That makes him the world’s richest person by that marker, with an increasingly comfortable lead over Tesla’s
TSLA,
Musk, who also leads SpaceX and Twitter and whose wealth stands at $180 billion. At times the two have been in a neck-and-neck race for that top spot.
LVMH shares closed at a record €883 on Thursday, helping lift the French CAC-40
PX1,
to an all-time high. That followed forecast-beating first-quarter sales from the luxury giant, thanks to returning China shoppers as COVID-19 restrictions eased, and rebounding international travel that drove duty-free sales. Up 7% so far this week, LVMH shares rose another 0.5% on Friday to €888.70.
The stock surge padded Arnault’s fortune by $11.6 billion on Thursday, the second-biggest single-day gain ever for him and a fresh record fortune, according to Bloomberg. Musk didn’t do badly.
He increased his wealth by $3.83 billion on Thursday, before Tesla and U.S. equities
SPX,
generally retreated a bit on Friday.
Read: Who is Bernard Arnault, the world’s richest person after surpassing Elon Musk?
LVMH owns jewelers Bulgari and Tiffany, alongside fashion houses Louis Vuitton and Dior. Results released late Wednesday showed the luxury standard-bearer beating expectations across every division, led by fashion and leather goods, the latter of which is significant, Berenberg analysts observed.
“As the most profitable division, this also bodes well for margin development,” said Berenberg analyst Graham Renwick, in a note to clients on Friday.
“This performance sets the standard for [first quarter] luxury reporting and gives encouragement on China’s recovery from pandemic disruption. Overall, we think these results continue to demonstrate LVMH’s strong momentum and best-in-class execution — again reaffirming its high quality and strong track record, which we believe investors are favoring in this uncertain macro environment,” said Renwick, who reiterated a buy rating on LVMH’s stock and lifted his share-price target to €960.
The luxury sector got another confidence boost on Friday, as Hermès International SCA
RMS,
revealed sales momentum in the first quarter, driven by a bump in tourism and new stores. The maker of the legendary Birkin handbag saw a 23% annual increase in first-quarter sales and backed “ambitious” organic revenue-growth targets.
Luxury stocks have seen an impressive rebound in 2023, after a weak 2022 — LVMH shares fell 6% in 2022 as travel restrictions in China and overall economic worries weighed on shoppers.
LVMH shares are up 30% so far in 2023, with Hermès up 36% and Christian Dior SE
CDI,
and Gucci owner Kering SA
KER,
up 26% and 21%, respectively.
As for Musk, his wealth is divided among his businesses. While Tesla accounts for $76 billion, Bloomberg estimates his share of SpaceX is worth $49 billion, and his share of Tesla is worth nearly $10 billion. He paid $44 billion for Twitter last year, after an attempt to wriggle out of the deal, and its current valuation is a matter of much speculation. Musk has fired thousands of employees and claimed this week that a return to profitability is now just around the corner.
Tesla is slated to report quarterly results next week, and some analysts aren’t optimistic due to persistent price cuts of its models.
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After a long period of underperformance when compared with the U.S. equity market, stocks in other countries are holding their own this year. One way to lower your overall risk with real diversification is to add exposure to an active international management style that doesn’t mirror a broad stock index.
One example is the $2.7 billion Columbia Overseas Value Fund COSZX, which is rated four stars out of five by Morningstar in its Foreign Large Value category. Fred Copper and Daisuke Nomoto co-manage the fund and described…
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This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-94b3c433
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Moderna Inc. said Tuesday it’s working to develop its first bacterial vaccine to protect against Lyme disease, the tick-borne illness that causes a range of painful symptoms, including fever, headaches, fatigue, joint pain and rash.
The biotech
MRNA,
whose first product to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was its mRNA-based COVID vaccine, said it has two candidates in development to address Lyme disease, named mRNA-1982 and mRNA-1975.
It announced the news at its fourth Vaccine Day, where it offered a full update on its clinical pipeline, which includes vaccines to protect against flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, as well as HIV, Epstein-Barr virus and herpes simplex virus, among others.
There are about 120,000 cases of Lyme disease in the U.S. and Europe every year, creating a “significant quality of life burden,” the company said in a statement. Rising temperatures are helping the disease spread more easily, and it is difficult to diagnose, because the symptoms are similar to those of many other diseases. It most seriously affects children below the age of 15 and older adults.
“Older adults appear to have higher odds of unfavorable treatment response as compared with younger patients, and neurologic manifestations are more common at presentation for this older adult population,” said the statement.
The mRNA-1982 candidate is designed to create antibodies for Borrelia burgdorferi, the pathogen that causes almost all Lyme disease in the U.S., while mRNA-1975 is designed to elicit antibodies specific to the four major Borrelia species that cause the disease in the U.S. and Europe.
Other new candidates in Moderna’s pipeline include mRNA-1405 and mRNA-1403, which aim to address the enteric virus norovirus. Norovirus is highly contagious and is the leading cause of diarrheal disease globally, Moderna said. It’s associated with about 18% of all such illnesses worldwide and causes about 200,000 deaths every year.
Overall, Moderna is expecting to launch six major vaccine products in the next few years, all of them with large addressable markets.
The company expects the annual global endemic market for COVID boosters alone to be worth about $15 billion.
It has dosed the first participant in a late-stage trial of its next-generation, refrigerator-stable COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1283. The vaccine “has demonstrated encouraging results in multiple clinical studies,” the company said.
See now: Moderna CEO defends price increase for COVID vaccine to Congress
A separate trial of a flu vaccine called mRNA-1010 fared less well, however.
That trial “did not accrue sufficient cases at the interim efficacy analysis to declare early success in the Phase 3 Northern Hemisphere efficacy trial and the independent DSMB recommended continuation of efficacy follow-up,” the company said.
The company expects the market for respiratory-product sales to range from $8 billion to $15 billion by 2027 and for operating profit that year to range from $4 billion to $9 billion.
The stock was down 4% Tuesday and has fallen 15% in the year to date, while the S&P 500
SPX,
has gained 7%.
See also: Moderna’s stock slides as earnings fall short of estimates amid steep decline in COVID-vaccine sales
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This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-88cae2de
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Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook, GQ’s latest cover boy, has a sales pitch for a mixed-reality headset.
“The idea that you could overlay the physical world with things from the digital world could greatly enhance people’s communication, people’s connection,” Cook told GQ, without confirming the rumored June 5 announcement of Apple’s
AAPL,
Reality Pro headset.
Apple’s plunge into the so-called metaverse would offer a jolt to a flagging industry as well as serious competition to Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
Alphabet Inc.’s
GOOGL,
GOOG,
Google, Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
Snap Inc.
SNAP,
and others.
“ ‘It’s the idea that there is this environment that may be even better than just the real world — to overlay the virtual world on top of it might be an even better world.’ ”
Creative users, the lifeblood of Apple’s business model, stand to gain the most from virtual-reality products, according to Cook.
“It’s the idea that there is this environment that may be even better than just the real world — to overlay the virtual world on top of it might be an even better world,” Cook told GQ. “If it could accelerate creativity, if it could just help you do things that you do all day long and you didn’t really think about doing them in a different way.”
Cook also looked inward during the far-ranging interview, explaining his persona and the challenges in succeeding the legendary Steve Jobs as Apple CEO. Jobs died in 2011.
“I always hate the word normal in a lot of ways, because what some people use to describe normal equals straight,” Cook said. “Some people would use that word in that kind of way. I don’t know — I’ve been described as a lot of things, but probably normal is not among those.”
Added Cook: “I knew I couldn’t be Steve. I don’t think anybody could be Steve. I think he was a once-in-a-hundred-years kind of individual, an original by any stretch of the imagination. And so what I had to do was to be the best version of myself.”
From the archives (October 2011): Steve Jobs: MarketWatch’s CEO of the Decade
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DOVER, Del. (AP) — A voting-machine company’s defamation case against Fox News over its airing of false allegations about the 2020 presidential election will go to trial after a Delaware judge on Friday ruled that a jury must decide whether the network aired the claims with actual malice, the standard for proving libel against public figures.
Superior Court Judge Eric Davis ruled that neither Fox nor Dominion Voting Systems had presented a convincing argument to prevail on whether Fox acted with malice without the case going to trial. But he also ruled that the statements Dominion had challenged constitute defamation “per se” under New York law. That means Dominion did not have to prove damages to establish liability by Fox.
“ ‘The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.’ ”
“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote in his summary judgment ruling.
The decision paves the way for a trial start in mid-April.
Dominion is suing the network for $1.6 billion, claiming Fox defamed it by repeatedly airing false allegations by then-President Donald Trump and his allies in the weeks after the 2020 election claiming the company’s machines and its accompanying software had switched votes to Democrat Joe Biden. The network aired the claims even though internal communications show that many of its executives and hosts didn’t believe them.
The company sued Fox News and its parent, Fox Corp.
FOX,
FOXA,
which shares ownership with News Corp
NWS,
NWSA,
parent company of MarketWatch publisher Dow Jones.
Fox has said it was simply covering newsworthy allegations made by a sitting president claiming his re-election had been stolen from him. In his ruling, Davis said Fox could not escape potential liability by claiming privileges for neutral reporting or opinion.
“FNN’s failure to reveal extensive contradicting evidence from the public sphere and Dominion itself indicates that its reporting was not disinterested.” the judge wrote.
In a statement issued after the ruling, Dominion said it was gratified that the court had rejected Fox’s arguments and found “as a matter of law that their statements about Dominion are false. We look forward to going to trial.”
Fox emphasized that the case is about the media’s First Amendment protections in covering the news. “Fox will continue to fiercely advocate for the rights of free speech and a free press as we move into the next phase of these proceedings,” the network said in a statement.
See: ‘A complete nut’: Fox News hosts didn’t believe 2020 election fraud claims
Also: Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity among potential witnesses at Fox News trial
The coverage fed an ecosystem of misinformation surrounding Trump’s loss in 2020 that has persisted ever since.
MarketWatch contributed.
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Electronic Arts Inc. on Wednesday announced intentions to slash 6% of its workforce as the videogame publisher looks to cut costs.
“As we drive greater focus across our portfolio, we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy, reviewing our real estate footprint, and restructuring some of our teams,” Chief Executive Andrew Wilson said in a note to employees that was also shared publicly.
Wilson…
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Data on the U.S. consumer and housing market, plus several notable earnings reports, will be this week’s highlights. Barring any surprises, federal financial regulators’ Congressional testimony will be the main event on the banking front.
On Wednesday, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg are scheduled to testify before the House Financial Services Committee. They’ll discuss the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and efforts to maintain confidence in the U.S. banking system.
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… .wsj.com/articles/marijuana-cannabis-edibles-pot-cbd-health … Original Author Link click here to read complete story.. … Read More
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Shares of Nike Inc. rallied after hours on Tuesday after the athletic-gear giant reported third-quarter results that topped expectations.
The maker of sneakers and sports apparel reported third-quarter net income of $1.24 billion, or 79 cents a share, compared with $1.4 billion, or 87 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago. Revenue increased 14% to $12.39 billion, compared with $10.87 billion in the prior-year quarter.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected earnings per share of 56 cents, on sales of $11.48 billion.
Nike’s
NKE,
gross margin fell 330 basis points to 43.4%. Inventories stood at $8.9 billion, up 16%, amid “higher product input costs and elevated freight costs.”
For Nike’s fourth quarter, FactSet estimates called for earnings per share of 81 cents, on revenue of $12.55 billion. For the full year, those analysts expected earnings of $3.15 a share, on sales of $50.11 billion.
Shares rose 3.5% after hours. The stock also jumped after Nike’s last earnings report, in December, which also topped estimates.
Nike reported earnings after it cut prices in an effort to clear clothing and other items from its warehouses, following supply-chain hiccups that led to an excess of off-season goods and rising prices for basics. Those higher prices made customers less interested in dropping money on a new pair of sneakers.
However, Jefferies analyst Randal Konik, in a research note last week, suggested that rival Adidas AG’s struggles could become Nike’s gains, as Adidas
ADDYY,
finds itself stuck with a bunch of Kanye West-branded shoes. West’s antisemitic remarks last year led to the termination of a collaboration between the two.
“The athletic footwear space is highly fragmented, and we believe that NKE will likely continue to benefit as Adidas regroups,” he said in a note.
Konik said that Jefferies’ own data suggested that holiday-season interest in sneakers was still strong, despite inflation. And he said trends in China were getting better, as that nation’s economy reopens.
Foot Locker Inc.
FL,
on Monday said that it had “revitalized” its relationship with Nike — to focus on data-sharing and sneaker culture — after Nike began focusing on selling products online and through its own retail stores. And after weaker sales of Nike products in the past, Foot Locker Chief Executive Mary Dillon said the new arrangement with Nike would return both to growth in 2024.
Shares of Nike are down 4.4% over the past 12 months. By comparison, the S&P 500 Index
SPX,
is down 10.4% over that period.
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