Dow Jones Industrial Average – Page 7

Goldman Sachs leads gainers among the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average; Bank of America up handily

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Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s stock
GS,
+4.42%
is the biggest gainer among the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.66%
at midday Friday with a rise of 4%. The stock has risen 12.6% so far this week. It’s also on pace for largest percent increase since November 10, 2022, when it rose 4.51%, according Dow Jones Market Data. Meanwhile, Bank of America Corp.’s stock
BAC,
+2.90%
was up about 3% and is on track for a 13% gain this week, which would be its best since it rose by 16.5% in the week ending June 5, 2020.

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November 3, 2023

Dow logs best three-day stretch since April as Fed leaves interest rates on hold

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U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 capping off its biggest three-day percentage-point gain since March after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell again suggested that rising Treasury yields were likely aiding the central bank’s fight against inflation. This could potentially ease the pressure on the Fed to push interest rates even higher, which helped boost stocks. The S&P 500 SPX finished higher for the third straight day, rising 44.04 points, or 1.1%, on Wednesday to 4,237.84, according to preliminary closing data from FactSet. The index has gained nearly 3% over the last three trading days, its biggest…

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November 1, 2023

How stock-market investors can ride out a ‘fear cycle’ as S&P 500, Nasdaq fall into correction

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Many people like to feel at least a little bit of fright.

That has been the whole point of Halloween for ages. The spooky traditions might even be a sort of hedge, a way to limit carnage should darker days lurk around the corner.

Where it gets trickier is when fear impacts a nest egg, retirement fund or portfolio holdings. And fear of looming mayhem has been higher in October, with a sharp selloff causing the S&P 500 index
SPX
to break below the 4,200 level, landing it in a correction on Friday. It also joined the Nasdaq Composite Index in falling at least 10% from a summer peak.

In addition, a brutal bond-market rout has pushed the 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
up dramatically, with both recently dancing around the 5% level, which can drive up borrowing costs for the U.S. economy and cause havoc in financial markets.

“Round numbers matter,” said Rich Steinberg, chief market strategist at The Colony Group, which has $20 billion in assets under management. He said the backdrop has investors trying to figure out “where to put money” and wanting to know “where can we hide?”

“When you get into a fear cycle, the dynamics can get out of whack with reality,” Steinberg said. He thinks investors won’t go wrong earning roughly 5.5% on shorter term risk-free Treasurys, while penciling in stock prices they like.

“That’s where investors really get rewarded over the long-term,” he said, granted they have enough liquidity to ride out what could be elongated patches of volatility.

Increasingly, investor worries tie back to U.S. government spending, with the Treasury Department early next expected to release an estimated $1.5 trillion borrowing need to accommodate a large budget deficit. That would unleash even more Treasury supply into an unsettled market, and potentially strain the plumbing of financial markets.

Higher U.S. bond yields threaten to make it more expensive for the federal government to service its debt load, but they also can be prohibitive for companies, sparking layoffs and defaults.

Fed decisions, yields

The Federal Reserve is expected to hold its policy interest rates steady on Wednesday following its two-day meeting, keeping the rate at a 22-year high in the 5.25%-5.5% range.

The real fireworks, however, often appear during Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s afternoon press conference following each rate decision.

“I firmly believe they are done for good,” said Bryce Doty, a senior portfolio manager at Sit Investment Associates, of Fed hikes in this cycle, which he notes should set up bond funds for a banner 2024, after two rough years, given today’s higher starting yields.

Yet, Doty also sees two “wild cards” that could rattle markets. Heavy Treasury debt issuance could overwhelm liquidity in the marketplace, causing yields to go up higher and potentially force the Fed to restart its bond-buying program, he said.

War abroad also could expand, including with the Israel-Hamas conflict, which could spark a flight to quality and push down U.S. bond yields.

With that backdrop, Doty suggests adding duration in bonds
BX:TMUBMUSD03M
as longer-term yields rise above short-term yields, and the so-called Treasury yield curve gets steeper. “This is the time,” he said. Investors should “keep marching” out on the curve as it steepens.

“Yields, in my mind, have been the main challenge for the equity market,” said Keith Lerner, chief markets strategist at Truist Advisory Services, while noting that stocks have been wobbly since the 10-year Treasury yield topped 4% in July.

Lerner also said the near 17% drop in the powerful “Magnificent Seven” stocks, while notable, isn’t as bad as in some other S&P 500 index sectors, like real estate, were the retrenchment is closer to 20%.

“We’ve had a pretty good reset,” he said, adding that lower stock prices provide investors with “somewhat better compensation” for the uncertainties ahead.

“This is one of the most challenging investment environments we’ve seen in a long time,” said Cameron Brandt, director of research at EPFR, which tracks fund flows across asset classes.

With that backdrop, he expects investors to keep more dry powder on hand through the end of this year than in the past.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
shed 2.1% for the week and closed at its lowest level since the March banking crisis. The S&P 500 lost 2.5% for the week and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6% for the week.

Another big item on the calendar for next week, beyond the Treasury borrowing announcement and Fed decision Wednesday is the Labor Department’s October jobs report due Friday.

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October 29, 2023

Oil falls, markets hold steady as Israel launches Gaza ground offensive

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Oil futures dropped Sunday night as markets saw a calm opening following Israel’s launch of a ground offensive in Gaza that drew implied threats from Iran amid market fears of a wider conflict that could disrupt global crude supplies.

Oil declined as Israel “seems to be approaching the situation with caution, which has brought a sense of relief that the worst-case scenarios may not materialize,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, in a note.

Innes, however, said investors should remember “this is likely to be a long, drawn-out affair with many false dawns.”

West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery
CL00,
-1.51%

CL.1,
-1.51%

CLZ23,
-1.51%
fell 93 cents, or 1%, to $84.61 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Sunday night. December Brent crude
BRNZ23,
-1.34%,
the global benchmark, was off $1, or 1.1%, at $89.48 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, dipping back below the $90-a-barrel threshold.

Oil futures jumped nearly 3% on Friday, but suffered weekly declines, eroding the modest risk premium priced into the market.

Read: 4 reasons why oil prices have only seen a modest Middle East risk premium

Israeli solders had moved at least two miles deep into the Gaza Strip as of Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported, after beginning a delayed ground incursion into the enclave aimed at routing Hamas following its Oct, 7 attack on southern Israel that left more than 1,400 dead and saw more than 200 Israelis taken hostage.

A sustained bombardment of the densely populated Gaza Strip by Israel has resulted in more than 8,000 casualties, according to Palestinian authorities. Israel has been under pressure by the U.S. and others to minimize civilian casualties.

U.S. stock-index futures ticked higher, with S&P 500 futures
ES00,
+0.32%
up 0.3%, while futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average
YM00,
+0.20%
added 68 points, or 0.2%.

The biggest worry among investors is a conflict that sees Iran become more directly involved. Iranian crude exports have rebounded from lows seen after the Trump administration withdrew the U.S. from a nuclear accord with Tehran and reimposed sanctions in 2018.

A renewed crackdown on Iran could take up to 1 million barrels a day of crude off the market, while a spiraling conflict could see Tehran threaten transportation chokepoints, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, or otherwise attack infrastructure in the region, while driving up a fear premium.

Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi, in a post on X written in English, said Saturday that Israel had “crossed the red lines, which may force everyone to take action.”

U.S. warplanes on Friday struck two locations in eastern Syria, which the Pentagon said were linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, following a string of attacks on U.S. air bases in the region that started last week.

U.S. stocks are poised to book another round of monthly losses as October draws to an end, though pressure has been attributed largely to a surge in Treasury yields. The S&P 500
SPX
last week joined the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
in correction territory, while the Dow
DJIA
is down more than 2% year to date.

The rise in yields, which move opposite price, has come as U.S. government debt has failed to attract its usual haven-related buying amid rising Mideast tensions.

See: Israel-Hamas war sees investors shun most traditional havens, except for these two

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October 29, 2023

Jamie Dimon’s stock-moving trades show why investors should track CEOs’ buying and selling

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For the first time in nearly two decades running JPMorgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon will voluntarily sell stock in the bank. The disclosure, in a securities filing Friday, detailed next year’s planned sales — pressuring JPMorgan (JPM) shares and the Dow Jones Industrial Average and highlighting why tracking trades made by executives involving the companies they lead should be an important part of every investor’s homework. Dimon is setting up the trades through a predetermined plan that executives at publicly traded companies use to protect against insider trading accusations. It will mark the first time that the 67-year-old CEO has offloaded shares of JPMorgan for non-technical reasons, such as exercising options. The planned sales – amounting to roughly 12% of the JPMorgan stock owned by Dimon and his family – are being done for tax planning and personal wealth diversification reasons, the bank said. Both are common reasons for executives to sell stock in their firms. The bank also said Dimon continues to believe JPMorgan’s prospects are “very strong,” and his planned trades are not related in any way to succession. Such sales are often seen when CEOs get close to retirement. As you can see, making sense of insider transactions can sometimes be a tall task. When they buy, it’s generally seen as an encouraging sign by Wall Street — and there is, perhaps, no better example of this than another move by Dimon in 2016, when he purchased JPMorgan stock. Fears of a weakening global economy sent stocks into a tailspin in early 2016, driving shares of JPMorgan down nearly 20% and the S & P 500 down more than 10% at their lows. But that weakness didn’t last long. The trajectory of the market changed just six weeks into the new year. That’s when Dimon disclosed — after the closing bell on Feb. 11, 2016 — that he bought 500,000 shares of the bank, worth about $26 million at the time. Dimon’s stock purchase , intended to show confidence in the financial sector, has become legendary on Wall Street. It ultimately coincided with — or perhaps was the reason for — the closing lows for not only shares of JPMorgan in 2016 but also the S & P 500 overall. Jim Cramer has since dubbed Feb. 11, 2016: “The Jamie Dimon Bottom.” JPMorgan finished up 30% that year, while the S & P 500 ended more than 9% higher — both huge turnarounds. While executive stock sales — such as Dimon’s planned transactions next year — are not universally red flags, they can get complicated. Case in point: Moderna (MRNA) and Pfizer (PFE) executives made a series of sales during the Covid-19 pandemic, as their companies worked to develop a vaccine for the virus. The rebuke in the court of public opinion and on Capitol Hill was sharp. Despite executing the sales through the same kind of predetermined plan that Dimon will use, the executives nevertheless faced criticism around the appearance of the sales, including from Jim . To remove any questions, he said at the time: “Memo to Moderna: You don’t have to sell. You can sit on it.” Jim was pointing out that predetermined sales can be canceled. Monitoring executive trades — both sales and purchases – is one piece to the larger buy-and-homework process that Jim advocates for investors who wants to own individual stocks. “In many cases, the insider sale might be immaterial,” according to Eliezer Fich, a finance professor at Drexel University, who has extensively researched executive stock trades. Still, investors should “absolutely” keep an eye on both types of transactions for any signals they send to the market, he said. At the Club, we view stock purchases by executives and directors as bullish indicators. The decision to buy stock — when a sizable portion of executive compensation packages are already equity-related — appears like a straightforward sign of confidence in the enterprise. The only reason an insider would buy is to make money, Jim often says. Stock sales, on the other hand, are more nuanced and may be harder to draw conclusions from, particularly with predetermined plans. There are many reasons an executive might choose to sell shares, including everything from tax purposes to personal wealth diversification – just like Dimon’s stated reasons for his planned sales. The Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year enacted tougher disclosure rules for predetermined stock-trading arrangements — known as 10b5-1 plans — in an attempt to limit abuses, though many experts say there is still room for improvement. But, in general, the changes offer more assurance that stock sales are done in good faith. Plans made before then were grandfathered in. Insider stock sales Executive stock trades are usually disclosed through SEC filings known as Form 4 documents and accessible through the regulator’s EDGAR database — the electronic data gathering, analysis, and retrieval system. Thanks to the changes implemented earlier in 2023 , these filings now contain the most important piece of information for investors to make sense of a transaction: whether it took place as part of a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, or was done on the open market. Of course, open-market sales are not automatically nefarious. But they will be viewed differently and often more critically than one completed through a Rule 10b5-1 plan, according to Chester Spatt, a finance professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and a former chief economist at the SEC. The very nature of their jobs means executives are in possession of material, non-public information quite frequently — and deciding to buy, or sell, stock based on that confidential info is against the law. At the same time, the market recognizes there’s an “important, legitimate basis for selling” stock, Spatt said, particularly because equity grants nowadays make up a large portion of their total compensation package. Rule 10b5-1 trading plans came into the fold just over two decades ago to reconcile these two discordant facts. Adopting Rule 10b5-1 trading plans gives public-company executives a way to protect against allegations of illegal insider trading in the future. Essentially, these plans allow executives to establish a plan for how — and when — they want to sell stock over a given period. Executives are supposed to adopt a plan in “good faith,” at a time when they did not possess material, non-public information. The plans can vary in structure and complexity, but generally must specify the amount, price and date on which the security will be sold, or bought. More complex plans may be structured around a formula that determines when and how much stock will be sold. Third-party brokers execute the trades. “The executive could say, ‘I’m going to be selling X amount of shares in three-month intervals over the next two years,” Fich, the Drexel University professor, explained in an interview with CNBC. “Nine months from now, one of those transactions is executed, and all of a sudden it happened to coincide with a patent approval that’s thought to be really, really important for the firm, which causes its stock price to increase. [The executive] can say, ‘Well, I set this up about a year ago. I didn’t know this was going to happen.’” Under the new SEC rules to address perceived shortcomings with 10b5-1 plans, a company’s executive officers and directors are now subject to a mandatory “cooling-off” period, which requires them to wait at least 90 days from the time a 10b5-1 plan is adopted or modified before they can trade. In a 2021 paper , researchers at Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School argued that short cooling-off periods — or none at all, with trades occurring the same day as adoption — were among the biggest red flags with Rule 10b5-1 plans. “We find that trades of plans with short cooling-off periods avoid significant losses and foreshadow considerable stock price declines that are well in excess of industry peers,” researchers wrote later in the paper. They added, “With longer cooling-off periods, opportunistic trading disappears.” Under the SEC modifications, companies now must disclose in their quarterly 10-Q and annual 10-K filings whether any officers and directors adopted, modified or terminated a Rule 10b5-1 plan during the reporting period. For example, in its most recent 10-Q , Club holding Meta Platforms (META) disclosed that Chief Financial Officer Susan Li entered into a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan during the three months ended June 30. The plan is scheduled to end Dec. 31, 2024, according to the filing. This new requirement seeks to partially address a shortcoming that academics including Drexel’s Fich have highlighted in research on executive stock trades: The ability to opportunistically cancel, or change them, without notice to the investing public. While a plan cannot be modified if the executive is in possession of material, non-public information, it can technically be canceled at any time , Stanford and Wharton researchers noted. In the past, there would never be an SEC filing for a trade that didn’t occur because of a terminated plan. Not anymore, which is good news for investors because the additional information around plan adoption, modification and cancellation can, over time, help investors appropriately interpret the insider stock sales. Drexel’s Fich said he believes a major lingering “loophole” with Rule 10b5-1 trading plans is the use of limit orders, which in practice can prevent stock from being sold if it falls below a certain price on the day it was supposed to be sold. In its December 2022 report announcing amendments to Rule 10b5-1, the SEC said insiders may use limit orders in their trading plans to help protect against “significant market fluctuations” over the months “and even years” that the plans are in effect. In that same report, the U.S. regulator indicated it was concerned about “abnormally profitable insider trading under Rule 10b5-1,” which has been documented in various academic studies. However, it said it appears limit order use “cannot account for the entirety of the abnormal returns documented” in research studies. The SEC opted to still permit the use of limit orders, given that enhanced disclosure requirements may make it easier for other market participants to “gauge some information about the officer’s or director’s trading strategy,” and possibly sell ahead of them, pushing down the stock price by the time the executive’s next tranche of sales is executed. The SEC’s new rules also limited executives’ ability to have multiple overlapping plans and placed restrictions on the use of single-trade plans — two additional practices that had drawn scrutiny. Now, executives can only employ one single-trade plan over a 12-month period. 10b5-1 sale questions To place executive stock sales in the proper context, investors should consider how much stock in the company the insider owns after the trade is completed. Fich told CNBC he asks that question regularly. As an example, he pointed to sales by a handful of executives at Coca-Cola (KO) earlier this year that he chalked up as the non-concerning variety. “There might be some troubling sales, in general, when many executives are selling a lot of shares at the same time,” Fich acknowledged, but Coke’s recent history doesn’t rise to that level when considering the larger picture. “Coca-Cola insiders sold about $2.7 million worth of shares over the past three months, but these guys own $1.8 billion worth of shares” in a company with a market value over $200 billion, Fich explained in early August. “So, I’m not worried.” In a follow-up exchange with CNBC, Fich also noted the net effect of Coke’s insider sales was partially offset by the exercise of stock options. Such was the case with Chief Technical Officer Nancy Quan’s trades in early May, according to Form 4 filings . Quan exercised stock options that resulted in the acquisition of 75,826 shares, on May 2, and the same day sold 85,906 shares. She owned 219,790 shares of Coke before the two transactions, and ended the day owning 209,710 — a decrease of only 4.6%. This illustrates that, with insider sales, the devil is in the details. Putting it all together, executive stock sales that amount to only a tiny fraction of an insider’s overall holdings are unlikely to be cause for immediate concern — just like recent transactions from Salesforce co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff. Despite a steady series of sales since mid-July, Benioff’s overall stake in Club name Salesforce (CRM) has declined only 4.6%, to around 25.27 million shares, securities filings show. Benioff remains the largest individual shareholder in Salesforce, owning a 2.6% stake that’s worth around $5.2 billion based on recent stock prices. Put another way, Benioff’s sales have been relatively minor, considering how much Salesforce stock he still owns, and how much his economic interests still align with the rest of the customer-relationship-management software group’s shareholders. Another assuring fact: Benioff’s sales continued to occur, even as Salesforce’s stock declined from around $229 per share in July, to around $205 this month. CRM YTD mountain Salesforce YTD Investors should also consider executives’ individual histories when assessing their latest transactions, Carnegie Mellon’s Spatt suggested. “If the executive has a history of selling a certain number of shares — or a fraction of his portfolio — each period, I’d be less concerned about that than I would be with very spikey and unusual sales,” Spatt said. This is hardly the first time Benioff has steadily sold shares of Salesforce, not in conjunction with the conversion of stock options. For example, a similar sequence took place beginning in September 2020 and continued through October. He also sold a basket of stock in November 2021 and November 2022, according to SEC filings reviewed by CNBC. Insider stock buys After the stock market closed on May 12, 2022, then-interim Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz disclosed in an SEC filing that he had bought roughly $10 million worth of the coffee chain’s stock. It came at a rocky time for the company, as it sought to counter a growing unionization push among its baristas. On that day, Starbucks (SBUX) shares had closed under $70 each for the first time since April 7, 2022 — in the throes of the first wave of the Covid pandemic while stores were temporarily shuttered. In the first trading session after Schultz’s May 2022 announcement, shares of Starbucks soared 8.15%. The market’s reaction to Schultz’s purchase demonstrates that Wall Street — and the Club, too — likes to see insiders buying their own stock. We started a position in August 2022, shortly after the Schultz buy. It’s typically interpreted as a sign of confidence in the company’s outlook. Otherwise, the thinking goes, why would the executive put their own cash to work when so much of their compensation is already coming in the form of securities? “It’s not so common for the executives to be buying stock in the company,” said Carnegie Mellon’s Spatt. “In and of itself, that’s part of the reason why it’s a pretty positive signal. … The executive is naturally so long in the stock, because of the structure of his compensation. For the executive to be buying … that must mean he’s very optimistic.” That’s the message we took in June 2018, when Nikesh Arora was appointed CEO of Palo Alto Networks (PANW). Not long after, Arora bought around $20 million worth of stock in the cybersecurity firm in open-market transactions. PANW mountain 2019-06-01 Palo Alto Networks’ stock performance since June 2019, when Nikesh Arora took over as CEO. Arora’s big bet helped attract us to Palo Alto Networks for the first time, realizing that the executive was quite literally putting his money where his mouth was. Although we left the stock for a few years, beginning in September 2019, we returned in February as the seeds Arora planted upon his arrival were sprouting a story too good to ignore any longer. More recently, Broadcom (AVGO) board member Check Kian Low bought $9.6 million worth of stock in the company following its post-earnings decline — more than tripling his stake, to 15,951 shares. AVGO YTD mountain Broadcom YTD Jim believes there was initial confusion about Low’s reason for buying — namely, was it to meet minimum-ownership levels required by Broadcom board members? That has since been proven to be an open-market purchase. And, we take that as a very encouraging sign for one of the newest Club holdings. In moments of market-wide turmoil, executive stock purchases can take on broader importance to the rest of the investment community, soothing collective fears. Such was the case with Dimon’s now-legendary purchase in 2016. The increased insider buying activity observed in March 2020, as the pandemic roiled global stock markets, also was viewed at the time as a strong expression of confidence on top of the unprecedented monetary stimulus unleashed by the Federal Reserve. The S & P 500’s Covid-era low came on March 23, 2020. Since then, the index has roughly doubled. Insider buying in March 2020 – including about $5 million from Charles Scharf, CEO of Club holding Wells Fargo (WFC) — reached its highest level since March 2009, CNBC reported at the time , citing data from Washington Service, a firm that tracks such transactions. As it happens, March 2009 is the same month the S & P 500 hit its global financial crisis low . To be sure, even though executive stock purchases are a bullish signal, that doesn’t mean future gains for the stock are automatic, cautioned Columbia Business School professor Sehwa Kim. Investors should be mindful that some executives may be “overconfident about their capability” to create value at a firm when they decide to buy its stock, Kim said in an interview with CNBC. “Whether the firm’s prospect is truly good or not, they have a strong belief in their ability,” he said. Club holding Foot Locker (FL) offers a lesson in interpreting insider purchases, and the patience that investing in the stock market requires. FL YTD mountain Foot Locker YTD This year, Foot Locker CEO Mary Dillon, revered for turning around at Ulta Beauty (ULTA), has twice bought stock in open-market transactions — buying about $501,000 worth of shares on March 28, then nearly $250,000 worth about two months later, on May 30. The first purchase of 12,614 shares came at an average price of $39.74, not long after Foot Locker held an Investor Day that detailed Dillon’s revitalization strategy for the company. That excited Wall Street analysts and investors, including our portfolio managers at the Club. The second buy, which totaled 9,525 shares, came at $26.20 each, on average. As those dramatically different price levels indicate, a lot happened to the market’s perception of Foot Locker between those two transactions. The main turning point arrived May 19, when the company’s disappointing first-quarter earnings report and revised guidance sent shares tumbling 27%. Right now, Dillon may very well be as optimistic on Foot Locker’s long-term prospects as she was in late March when buying that first tranche of stock — even if she’s underwater on that lot. She signaled as much to the market with May’s purchase and in September when she bought $100,000 worth of Foot Locker stock, at an average of $18.17 per share. These transactions might offer a modicum of assurance, but don’t completely change the reality that this year has been a roller coaster for shareholders. Foot Locker shows that the favorable signal being sent by an executive stock purchase might be obscured, or forgotten, by other, more-pressing facts. In the retailer’s case, its first-quarter results and lowered outlook — dragged down by discounting and inventory issues – painted an uglier near-term picture than any insider buys. Indeed, even after Dillon’s second buy on May 30, Foot Locker shares fell on May 31 and June 1. To be sure, the message Dillon attempted to send may breakthrough down the road as the turnaround plan progresses. While disappointed in the performance of Foot Locker shares, we recognize that overhauling a troubled company takes time — even if it’s taking longer than we thought. Bottom line As part of the buy-and-homework process, we keep tabs on how executives, particularly in the C-suite, are trading their own stock while recognizing it’s only one piece of the larger investment-research puzzle. Insider stock sales are best analyzed with a big-picture context, given we know that some sales can be misinterpreted for reasons that include optics, like when the CEOs of drug companies making Covid vaccines were selling stock through predetermined plans and making huge profits. The necessary context starts with understanding whether the trade was made pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 plan. Fortunately, the new SEC rules should enhance transparency. Then, taking into account the selling executives’ remaining ownership and previous history adds a more robust frame of reference. On the other side, the market views executive stock purchases quite favorably, and so does the Club. Compared with a tiny stock sale executed through a predetermined plan, executive stock buys generally send a much stronger signal: The executive wants to make money, too. And in some cases, like in the case of huge stock buybacks by a company, we’re happy to be right there to buy alongside them. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long WFC, META, AVGO, FL, CRM and SBUX. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co. says the new U.K. government should be “given the benefit of the doubt.”

Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

For the first time in nearly two decades running JPMorgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon will voluntarily sell stock in the bank.

The disclosure, in a securities filing Friday, detailed next year’s planned sales — pressuring JPMorgan (JPM) shares and the Dow Jones Industrial Average and highlighting why tracking trades made by executives involving the companies they lead should be an important part of every investor’s homework.

Dimon is setting up the trades through a predetermined plan that executives at publicly traded companies use to protect against insider trading accusations. It will mark the first time that the 67-year-old CEO has offloaded shares of JPMorgan for non-technical reasons, such as exercising options.

The planned sales – amounting to roughly 12% of the JPMorgan stock owned by Dimon and his family – are being done for tax planning and personal wealth diversification reasons, the bank said. Both are common reasons for executives to sell stock in their firms. The bank also said Dimon continues to believe JPMorgan’s prospects are “very strong,” and his planned trades are not related in any way to succession. Such sales are often seen when CEOs get close to retirement.

As you can see, making sense of insider transactions can sometimes be a tall task.

When they buy, it’s generally seen as an encouraging sign by Wall Street — and there is, perhaps, no better example of this than another move by Dimon in 2016, when he purchased JPMorgan stock.

Fears of a weakening global economy sent stocks into a tailspin in early 2016, driving shares of JPMorgan down nearly 20% and the S&P 500 down more than 10% at their lows.

But that weakness didn’t last long.

The trajectory of the market changed just six weeks into the new year. That’s when Dimon disclosed — after the closing bell on Feb. 11, 2016 — that he bought 500,000 shares of the bank, worth about $26 million at the time.

Dimon’s stock purchase, intended to show confidence in the financial sector, has become legendary on Wall Street. It ultimately coincided with — or perhaps was the reason for — the closing lows for not only shares of JPMorgan in 2016 but also the S&P 500 overall.

Jim Cramer has since dubbed Feb. 11, 2016: “The Jamie Dimon Bottom.” JPMorgan finished up 30% that year, while the S&P 500 ended more than 9% higher — both huge turnarounds.

While executive stock sales — such as Dimon’s planned transactions next year — are not universally red flags, they can get complicated.

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October 28, 2023

The Nasdaq just fell into a correction. Now what?

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The Nasdaq Composite Index fell into its 70th correction in history on Wednesday, as surging long-term Treasury yields increased borrowing costs and weighed on stocks.

The interest rate sensitive Nasdaq
COMP
barreled higher in the year’s first half, in part on optimism about a potential Federal Reserve pivot away from rate hikes to fight inflation, but stocks have been under fire in recent months as the Fed dialed up its message that interest rates could will stay higher for longer.

The tech-heavy equity index fell 2.4% on Wednesday to close below the 12,922.216 threshold, marking a drop of a least 10% from its prior peak, which was set in mid-July at 14,358.02, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

That met the common definition for a correction in an asset’s value and is the Nasdaq’s 70th close in correction territory since the index’s inception in February 1971.

Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth Management, said the sharp rise in long-term Treasury yields has spooked investors, especially those in highflying, high-growth technology stocks where rising rates can be particularly corrosive.

Pavlik likened the dynamic to the spending power of a lottery winner hitting a jackpot when rates are at 2% versus someone who wins when rates are closer to 10%.

He also expects the 10-year Treasury yield
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y,
which rose to 4.952% Wednesday, to top out at 5.25% to 5.5% and likely complicate any recovery for the Nasdaq.

In the past 20 corrections for the Nasdaq, it took an average of three months for performance to improve, with index then gaining 14.4% on average a year later, according to Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Nasdaq corrections are usually followed by a bounce in a few months

Dow Jones Market Data

The damage on Wednesday was most acute in shares of highflying technology stocks, including Alphabet Inc.
GOOG,
-9.60%
as shares skid 9.5%, after it reported earnings that were overshadowed by downbeat performance for its Google Cloud business. Spillover also hit shares of rival cloud computing giant Amazon.com Inc.,
AMZN,
-5.58%
with its shares slumping 5.6%

“You’re feeling the pressure in some big-name stocks,” Pavlik said. “But this too will, at some point, end. But concerns about the Fed are still in the forefront of everybody’s minds.”

The Nasdaq was still up 22.5% on the year through Wednesday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
was down 0.3% and the S&P 500 index
SPX
was up 9% in 2023, according to FactSet.

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October 25, 2023

Nasdaq finishes in correction territory after worst day since February

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U.S. stocks tumbled on Wednesday, with the Nasdaq Composite seeing its biggest pullback since February, as Google parent Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
-9.51%
shares cratered, weighing on the broader market. The Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-2.43%
fell 318.65 points, or 2.4%, to 12,821.22, finishing in correction territory for the first time since late December 2022, according to preliminary closing data from FactSet. The S&P 500
SPX,
-1.43%
fell 60.91 points, or 1.4%, to 4,186.77. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.32%
fell 105.45 points, or 0.3%, to 33,035.93.

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October 25, 2023

Dow opens higher, lifted by Microsoft’s post-earnings rally

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher on Wednesday as a post-earnings rally in shares of Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
+3.71%
helped lift the blue-chip gauge while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite sunk. The Dow gained 91 points, or 0.3%, at to trade at 33,218, according to FactSet data. Meanwhile, the S&P 500
SPX,
-1.02%
shed 22 points, or 0.5%, to 4,225, and the Nasdaq
COMP,
-1.43%
fell by 135 points, or 1.1%, to 13,000. The Dow had snapped a four-day losing streak on Tuesday as U.S. stocks rebounded following the worst stretch of the year.

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October 25, 2023

CNBC Daily Open: Strong earnings pave the way for markets

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Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

What you need to know today

Dow snaps four-day losing streak
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained over 200 points on Tuesday, ending a four-day streak of declines as investors shifted focus to strong earnings reports from companies including Coca-Cola and Verizon. After the close, results from tech giants Microsoft and Alphabet rolled in. Hong Kong led a rebound in Asia markets, while investors also assess Australia’s third-quarter inflation figures.

Microsoft profit pops
Microsoft issued quarterly revenue guidance above Wall Street estimates. The company also reported a surge in profit thanks to a slower pace of operating expense growth. Net income, at $22.29 billion, increased 27% from $17.56 billion, or $2.35 per share in the same quarter a year ago. The software maker’s shares jumped as much as 6% in extended trading on Tuesday.

Alphabet cloud business in spotlight
Alphabet reported 11% revenue growth in the third quarter, as a rebound in advertising pushed expansion into double digits for the first time in over a year. Its shares dropped almost 7% in extended trading as the cloud business missed analysts’ estimates. For the quarter, it reported earnings per share of $1.55 vs. $1.45 expected by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv. Google Cloud revenue was $8.41 billion vs. $8.64 billion, according to StreetAccount.

Snap shares seesaw
Snap shares initially soared as much as 20% in after-hours trading as the company beat on the top and bottom lines. It later settled to gain a little over 1% as investors digested news that some advertisers had paused spending following the onset of the war in the Middle East.

[PRO] Rising yields and war
Yields are still rising, a war is raging, and it’s uncertain whether interest rates will stay higher for longer. Last week, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note was above 4.9% for the first time since 2007. Investors continued to consider geopolitical risks from the Israel-Hamas war and the United States’ restrictions on artificial intelligence chip exports to China. Here’s how to trade the volatility, according to fund managers.

The bottom line

Markets are now slowly starting to come away from the tumultuous swings of last week when Treasury yields were high, and catalysts were few. That no longer seems an issue as investors can now look to a heavy flow of earnings to make their next call.

The Dow snapped four straight sessions of losses to end higher on Tuesday. U.S. Treasury yields were steady after slipping back below 5%, though they remained near 16-year highs.

Investors also had a spate of quarterly reports to parse. Coca-Cola posted earnings and revenue above estimates. Verizon recorded its best daily performance in almost 15 years after beating analysts’ expectations for both earnings and revenue. Audio streaming giant Spotify posted third-quarter results that topped expectations.

But the elephant in the room was Big Tech earnings.

Cloud revenue was key for both Microsoft and Alphabet. It’s a business that’s becoming even more significant with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, which runs hefty workloads in the cloud.

The clear winner of this quarter’s cloud battle was Microsoft, powered by Azure as clients flocked to new generative AI tools in the cloud that have been enhanced with software from Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI.

Alphabet’s cloud unit tried to catch up with Azure and Amazon Web Services. But Google’s core advertising also weakened due to economic softening last year and increased competition from TikTok.

“If you want this stock to keep going higher, you’ve got to have cloud become more profitable,” said Lee Munson, chief investment officer of Portfolio Wealth Advisors. “It’s a third-rate cloud platform. We need to see it make money.”

Keeping to the AI theme, Qualcomm announced two new chips on Tuesday designed to run AI software — including the large language models, or LLMs, that have captivated the technology industry — without having to connect to the internet.

This could potentially boost the speed with which a high-end smartphone chip processes AI models.

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October 24, 2023

CNBC Daily Open: Strong earnings are the catalyst markets need

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People walk by the Fearless Girl bronze sculpture outside the New York Stock Exchange on April 21, 2023.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images News | Getty Images

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

What you need to know today

Dow snaps four-day losing streak
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained over 200 points on Tuesday, ending a four-day streak of declines as investors shifted focus to strong earnings reports from companies including Coca-Cola and Verizon. After the close, results from tech giants Microsoft and Alphabet rolled in. Europe’s Stoxx 600 snapped a five-session losing streak.

Microsoft profit pops
Microsoft issued quarterly revenue guidance above Wall Street estimates. The company also reported a surge in profit thanks to a slower pace of operating expense growth. Net income, at $22.29 billion, increased 27% from $17.56 billion, or $2.35 per share in the same quarter a year ago. The software maker’s shares jumped as much as 6% in extended trading on Tuesday.

Alphabet cloud business in spotlight
Alphabet reported 11% revenue growth in the third quarter, as a rebound in advertising pushed expansion into double digits for the first time in over a year. Its shares dropped almost 7% in extended trading as the cloud business missed analysts’ estimates. For the quarter, it reported earnings per share of $1.55 vs. $1.45 expected by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv. Google Cloud revenue was $8.41 billion vs. $8.64 billion, according to StreetAccount.

Snap shares seesaw
Snap shares initially soared as much as 20% in after-hours trading as the company beat on the top and bottom lines. It later settled to gain a little over 1% as investors digested news that some advertisers had paused spending following the onset of the war in the Middle East.

[PRO] Bitcoin just broke above a key level
At last, bitcoin has broken out of a tight trading range, potentially heralding greater highs from here. After oscillating between $25,000 and $30,000 for most of the year, touching the top end several times and stepping out of it briefly at one point in July, the flagship cryptocurrency shot up to $35,000 late Monday. Here’s what investors should expect.

The bottom line

Markets are now slowly starting to come away from the tumultuous swings of last week when Treasury yields were high, and catalysts were few. That no longer seems an issue as investors can now look to a heavy flow of earnings to make their next call.

The Dow snapped four straight sessions of losses to end higher on Tuesday. U.S. Treasury yields were steady after slipping back below 5%, though they remained near 16-year highs.

Investors also had a spate of quarterly reports to parse. Coca-Cola posted earnings and revenue above estimates. Verizon recorded its best daily performance in almost 15 years after beating analysts’ expectations for both earnings and revenue. Audio streaming giant Spotify posted third-quarter results that topped expectations.

But the elephant in the room was Big Tech earnings.

Cloud revenue was key for both Microsoft and Alphabet. It’s a business that’s becoming even more significant with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, which runs hefty workloads in the cloud.

The clear winner of this quarter’s cloud battle was Microsoft, powered by Azure as clients flocked to new generative AI tools in the cloud that have been enhanced with software from Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI.

Alphabet’s cloud unit tried to catch up with Azure and Amazon Web Services. But Google’s core advertising also weakened due to economic softening last year and increased competition from TikTok.

“If you want this stock to keep going higher, you’ve got to have cloud become more profitable,” said Lee Munson, chief investment officer of Portfolio Wealth Advisors. “It’s a third-rate cloud platform. We need to see it make money.”

Keeping to the AI theme, Qualcomm announced two new chips on Tuesday designed to run AI software — including the large language models, or LLMs, that have captivated the technology industry — without having to connect to the internet.

This could potentially boost the speed with which high-end smartphone chip processes AI models.

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October 24, 2023

Equity strategist who called stock rally in first half says S&P 500 won’t resume climb until spring 2024

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A Wall Street strategist who foresaw the U.S. stock-market rally in the first half of the year now sees stocks treading water through the end of 2023, unlikely to extend the previous momentum until at least April 2024.

Barry Bannister, chief equity strategist at Stifel, extended his 4,400 target for the S&P 500
SPX
to April 2024 from the end of this year, as higher interest rates could pressure corporate earnings, weighing on stock prices, he said.

“We believe the rally off the Oct. 2022 lows is over, and our view since summer 2023 has been a sideways trading range,” Bannister said in a Monday note. “The updated view is that we now believe our year-end 2023 target of 4,400 applies through Apr. 30, 2024.”

Bannister was one of the few Wall Street strategists who correctly anticipated the U.S. stock-market rally in the first half of 2023. He also said economic risk for equities will rise in late 2023 as stock gains would stall in the second half of the year. He set his 4,400 year-end target for the S&P 500 in May, a roughly 4.3% advance from Monday’s close of 4,217.04, according to FactSet data.

“We traded the relief rally [in early 2023], turned neutral in summer 2023 and discouraged bullishness before the third quarter of 2023,” Bannister said. He said he thinks a new record-high for the S&P 500 by year-end 2023, as some of the most bullish strategists on Wall Street have projected, is “exceptionally unlikely.”

See: S&P 500 has another high 2023 price target. Here’s a look at Wall Street’s official stock-market outlook.

Meanwhile, Bannister thinks the key 10-year U.S. Treasury yield
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
will peak around 5% in the current cycle, but he projects a “normalized” 10-year yield of 5% or 6% in the mid-2020s, which could put pressure on corporate earnings.

The 10-year Treasury yield flirted with 5% on Monday for the first time since 2007, touching an intraday high of 5.02% in the morning trading before retreating to finish the New York session at 4.836%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

“It is not ‘Fed high for longer’ — the Fed has returned to ‘policy modulation at normalized rates,’” Bannister wrote.

Bannister also pointed to the health of the U.S. labor market as a source of economic resilience and a reason for “the Fed rate normalization,” which could tighten financial conditions and weigh on price-to-earnings ratios for stocks.

The price-to-earnings ratio, sometimes known as the price multiple, is a ratio of a stock price divided by a public company’s yearly earnings per share. It is a way to determine stock valuation.

That’s why the strategist sees the S&P 500 will remain flat or “range-bound” for the rest of the 2020s decade as price-to-earnings ratios across U.S. firms will be halved due to tightening financial conditions, but it could offset growth in earnings-per-share (EPS). Bannister forecasts the S&P 500 EPS will at least double from $156 in 2019 to a range of $300-325 in 2030.

EPS is a company’s net profit divided by the number of common shares it has outstanding, and it usually indicates how much money a company makes for each share of its stock.

U.S. stocks finished mostly lower on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
down 190 points, or 0.6%, to end at 32,936, but the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
edged up 0.3%, according to FactSet data.

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October 23, 2023

5 things to know before the stock market opens Monday

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Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:

1. Bond yield boost

U.S. stock futures slid Monday morning as the 10-year Treasury note yield again ticked above 5% — a level it hit Thursday for the first time since 2007. Earnings and inflation data will help to shape whether equities bounce back from a down week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.6%, the S&P 500 dropped 2.4% and the Nasdaq Composite shed 3.2% last week. A string of major earnings reports are due Tuesday through Thursday. The personal consumption expenditures data out Friday will offer clues about whether the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates again this year. Follow live market updates here.

2. Tech torrent

The tech sector, which has largely driven market gains this year, will headline a busy stretch of earnings this week. Other key reports will come from the transportation and food and beverage spaces. Investors will focus on General Motors and Ford results as executives will answer questions about the effects of the more than month-long United Auto Workers strike. Here are the major reports this week:

3. Aid arrives in Gaza

The first humanitarian aid convoys since the start of the Israel-Hamas war arrived in Gaza over the weekend, and more shipments of food, water and medical supplies are expected Monday. U.S. President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, and said there will be a “continued flow” of aid into Gaza. Israel intensified airstrikes on the besieged area in recent days, as it holds off on a potential ground invasion. Leaders around the globe are trying to prevent the conflict from turning into a broader war. Follow live updates on the conflict here.

4. Oil consolidation ramps up

5. More Google scrutiny

Another country is probing Alphabet’s Google for potential anticompetitive practices. Japan’s Fair Trade Commission said it would investigate potential antitrust violations related to Google’s search engine and its apps and platforms. The move in Japan follows scrutiny over allegations of anticompetitive conduct in the European Union and United States. A Google spokesperson told CNBC that Android is an open platform that ensures “users always have a choice to customize their devices to suit their needs, including the way they browse and search the internet, or download apps.”

– CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han, Ruxandra Iordache, Matt Clinch and Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.

— Follow broader market action like a pro on CNBC Pro.

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October 23, 2023

CNBC Daily Open: Feeling of uncertainty is hard to shrug off for investors

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Gold bars of different sizes lie in a safe on a table at the precious metals dealer Pro Aurum.

Sven Hoppe | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

What you need to know today

Markets tumble
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed nearly 300 points lower on Friday after a surge in the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yield prompted broader concerns about the economy. Asia-Pacific markets started the week lower ahead of inflation readings from across the region, while gold hit a three-month high and gained for the second straight week amid fears of heightening conflict in the Middle East.

Tesla clocks worst week of the year
Tesla shares dropped more than 15% last week to close at $211.99 on Friday, marking the worst weekly performance for the stock this year as CEO Elon Musk sounded pessimistic about macroeconomic issues on a recent earnings call. Shares of the electric automaker are still up 96% year-to-date.

Big earnings week
Investors will be watching out for an action-packed week of earnings as companies including Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Amazon, Alphabet, General Motors and Ford among others gear up to post their quarterly results. The carmakers will be under the radar this week amid ongoing strikes and contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers union.

X to launch new subscription tiers
Owner Elon Musk said X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, will launch two new tiers of subscriptions for users. One tier will be “lower cost with all features, but no reduction in ads,” while the other is “more expensive, but has no ads,” Musk said.

[PRO] The U.S. is trying to tighten the screws on Chinese AI
The artificial intelligence behind ChatGPT-like products and autonomous driving is driving enormous demand for Nvidia’s chips in China. In the past week, however, analysts cut their Nvidia price targets after news the U.S. plans to ban the sale of more high-end semiconductors to China. Here’s what that means for stocks.

The bottom line

Rising Treasury yields, looming interest rate hikes to fight inflation and the heightening conflict in the Middle East drove investors away from risky assets last week.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury crossed 5% for the first time since 2007 on Thursday, a level perceived by markets as a potential drag on the U.S. economy as it could translate to higher rates on mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and more.

A move into safe-haven gold seemed like a sensible bet, given the worsening crisis in the Middle East. Gold was up 2.5% last week, recording its second consecutive weekly rise after adding 5.22% in the prior week.

Investors are now bracing for a heavy week of earnings as Big Tech companies including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft will take centerstage.

“We’re hopefully going to see some continued positive strength there on the economy and what they see going forward,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group. “The headlines are scary, for sure. But the fundamentals to us are pretty strong. We’re still seeing earnings season that’s going to come in better than expected.”

This will arrive after a mixed batch of earnings from behemoths like Tesla and Netflix last week. Tesla marked its biggest weekly decline after Elon Musk shared his pessimistic view on the macroeconomic landscape, while Netflix shares soared as markets cheered its new ad-tier subscription plan.

Given the huge role advertisers and subscriptions play for the bottom lines of such firms, it was no surprise that Musk turned his attention to improving the usability of social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Musk said. X is gearing up to launch two new tiers of subscriptions for users, in hopes that it could improve the company’s finances and open new revenue streams. Musk’s sweeping changes across the company, including firing most of its employees and reinstating previously banned accounts, scared advertisers away.

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October 22, 2023

CNBC Daily Open: Investors can’t shake off the feeling of uncertainty

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This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

What you need to know today

Markets tumble
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed nearly 300 points lower on Friday after a surge in the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yield prompted broader concerns about the economy. Europe’s Stoxx 600 index ended at its lowest level since the start of the year, while gold hit a three-month high and gained for the second straight week amid fears of heightening conflict in the Middle East.

Tesla clocks worst week of the year
Tesla shares dropped more than 15% last week to close at $211.99 on Friday, marking the worst weekly performance for the stock this year as CEO Elon Musk sounded pessimistic about macroeconomic issues on a recent earnings call. Shares of the electric automaker are still up 96% year-to-date.

Big earnings week
Investors will be watching out for an action-packed week of earnings as companies including Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Amazon, Alphabet, General Motors and Ford among others gear up to post their quarterly results. The carmakers will be under the radar this week amid ongoing strikes and contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers union.

X to launch new subscription tiers
Owner Elon Musk said X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, will launch two new tiers of subscriptions for users. One tier will be “lower cost with all features, but no reduction in ads,” while the other is “more expensive, but has no ads,” Musk said.

[PRO] Earnings playbook
Big Tech takes center stage in what could be a make-or-break week for S&P 500 earnings. About 150 S&P 500 companies are slated to report, including Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Alphabet. Those results come during a tough time for Wall Street, as higher rates and conflict in the Middle East rattle investor sentiment. Here’s how to trade a busy week of earnings.