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In San Francisco’s often foggy, dune-filled Outer Sunset neighborhood, landscape design firm Talc Studio transformed a small “sand pit” into a lush and characterful garden. While the garden is equal parts custom and artful, there are a number of design details and useful sources to glean. Here we detail our favorite components. Materials Furniture & […]
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Newspaper readers in 1799 were accustomed to finding a variety of items for sale on the front page. On this day, items from the late William Plumer’s estate were going up for auction at Old Town, including an ox, three…
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Maybe you have a hand-me-down couch or a thrifted floral confection that isn’t cutting it. Or maybe your seat cushions are sunken in and worse for wear. If you need a new sofa, you’ve come to the right place. A few of us here on the WIRED Gear team have spent several months testing a batch of couches you can order online—no need to leave the house. These are our favorites.
Much like bed-in-a-box mattresses, ordering a couch online is simpler than it sounds. You simply choose what you want, place an order, and voilà: Several boxes will arrive on your front porch. Assemble the parts and you’re good to go. But it’s important to do your research first. Many couch makers offer sample swatches of fabrics, which you should take advantage of to ensure that the color and feel are exactly what you want. Make sure to measure the area where your couch will be too, as well as doorframes and stairwells for walk-up apartments.
Updated March 2024: We’ve added two new picks and an honorable mention.
Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.
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Louryn Strampe, Gear Team
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With space at a premium, many people are looking to maximize their home environment as much as possible. Whether it’s to accommodate a home office or in-home classroom space for children or just create extra space to relax and unwind maximizing one’s home foot print is more important than ever.
The reality is, there are certain shapes that lend themselves better than others as far as saving space. Knowing how to make a space feel bigger as opposed to closed in and stuffed can also hinge on selecting pieces of the right shape and material. When looking to maximize space, here are some tips to help get you started.
— Select glass as opposed to wood for surfaces. Glass and transparency automatically add a sense of airiness to a space.
— Round shapes as opposed to those that are rectangular or square help to preserve space and make a room feel more spacious.
— A single piece of furniture to “ground” a space can help to prevent a room that may feel cluttered or cramped.
— Light colors as opposed to dark colors or dark tones will help to make as space feel more open, spacious and fresh.
— In a children’s room, single nightstands or desks can serve as a space saving technique.
— Mirrors can help to make ceilings feel taller and higher.
— Artwork hung vertically can help to add height to a space.
— Raising the location of where drapery is hung above a window can help add a sense of volume to a space.
— Using furniture of a smaller scale can help to preserve space.
— Experimenting with a unique shape can potentially help to preserve space in a room.
Cathy Hobbs, based in New York City, is an Emmy Award-winning television host and a nationally known interior design home staging expert and short-term rental/vacation home designer with offices in New York City and The Hudson Valley.
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By Cathy Hobbs | Tribune News Service
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A combination of AI, a wild 1970s plan to build underwater cities, and a designer creating furniture on the seabed around the Bahamas might be the solution to the widespread destruction of coral reefs. It could even save the world from coastal erosion.
Industrial designer Tom Dixon and technologist Suhair Khan, founder of AI incubator Open-Ended Design, are collaborating on regenerating the ocean floor. “Coral reefs are endangered by climate change, shipping, development, and construction—but they’re vital,” Khan explains. “They cover 1 percent of the ocean floor, but they’re home to more than 25 percent of marine life.”
Currently, Dixon says, coastal erosion is prevented by dropping concrete structures to strengthen the coastline. These damage marine life and ecosystems—but coral could be a “regenerative replacement.”
Dixon thought of the idea having come across architect Wolf Hilbertz’s plan to build a city underwater, then float it to the surface. In 1976, Hilbertz invented Mineral Accretion Technology: a charged metal framework that accumulates calcium carbonate in seawater like a kettle accumulates limescale in hard-water areas. The result is a limestone deposit known as Biorock.
“It also grows back eroded reefs and regenerates coral, and species like oysters and sea grass grow twice as fast,” explains Dixon, who has experimented with the technique by creating limestone furniture off the coast of the Bahamas. The duo now collaborate, using AI to predict the outcome of importing Biorock to different sites at different water temperatures, in different weather conditions, with different amounts of solar power.
They aim to trial their work off the coast of Northern Australia, according to Khan, and hope to recruit affected local communities to advise and champion their plans.
This article appears in the March/April 2024 issue of WIRED UK magazine.
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As Intel Corp.’s stock plunged to its biggest one-day drop in about three and a half years, analysts had some harsh words for the chip maker.
“How many times can you push the reset button?” Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon asked in a note to clients.
While he thought many investors were bracing for the company to miss on its first-quarter forecast, the outlook came in “extremely weak and clearly worse than feared.” Intel
INTC,
expects $12.7 billion in revenue at the midpoint, while analysts had been looking for $14.3 billion.
See more: Intel seen struggling to ‘find its footing’ as guidance miss sends stock tanking
“After yet another major reset this story probably just shifted to 2026 at the earliest for the bulls, and there is a lot of meat for the bears to sink their teeth into in the meantime,” Rasgon wrote, while sticking with his market-perform rating and $42 target price.
Baird’s Tristan Gerra highlighted challenges for Intel’s data-center and artificial-intelligence unit, which is “on track for a third consecutive year of revenue declines,” while his own revenue forecast implies a 14-year low.
Gaudi, the company’s accelerator chip for artificial-intelligence applications, “does not seem enough to lift [data-center] revenue, while gross margin will be impacted by higher depreciation inclusive of an expected U.S. Chip Act credit,” Gerra continued.
He also expressed some concerns about the company’s broader road ahead.
“Can top-line growth in future years be sufficient to fund continued node migration?” Gerra said. “Many hurdles remain, notably ramping units from this year’s small base (small baseline for Intel 4 makes it more challenging to yield at the next node), while [the Intel Foundry Service] revenue ramp entirely depends on future node execution including yield and performance.”
Gerra has a neutral rating and $40 target price on Intel’s stock.
Shares fell 11.9% in Friday trading, making for their worst single-day percentage decline since July 24, 2020, when they fell 16.2%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Needham’s N. Quinn Bolton, meanwhile, downgraded the stock to hold from buy in the wake of Thursday afternoon’s report, calling the earnings reset “unexpected.”
“In addition to an overall worsening risk-reward, Intel’s core [data-center] business is challenged by a shift to accelerated computing architectures and direct competition from AMD and ARM,” he wrote. “We expect AI to remain the spending priority in the data center for the next several quarters. To that end, dollars will continue moving away from Intel’s core competency.”
Read: Missed the boat on AMD’s stock surge? Why this analyst says you’re not too late.
Rosenblatt’s Hans Mosesmann took a similar view as he argued that Intel’s sales outlook is “contrary to the uber bullish messaging to the Street and is consistent with share losses to AMD, a lack of any perceivable AI growth vector that moves any dial, and points to another, yes another, transitional year.”
Artificial intelligence “seems like everywhere except at Intel,” he continued, noting that his stance on the stock “has not changed for many years.” Mosesmann continues to rate it at sell.
Opinion: Intel’s stock plunge shows that Wall Street still hasn’t learned its lesson on AI hype
Raymond James analyst Srini Pajjuri, however, was more upbeat about Intel’s ability to capitalize on AI. “While Intel won’t likely get much credit for AI in the near term, we are encouraged by the growing pipeline for Gaudi accelerators ($2b+) and expect meaningful revenue contribution” in the second half of 2024, he wrote, while sticking with his outperform call but cutting his target price to $52 from $54.
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The Russell 2000 Index soared 12% in December, which might reflect investors’ exuberance about the state of the U.S. economy — it appears the Federal Reserve has won its battle against inflation.
But if you are looking to broaden your exposure to the stock market beyond the large-cap S&P 500
SPX,
buying shares of a fund that tracks the Russell 2000 Index
RUT
might not be the best way to do it. This is because the Russell 2000 isn’t selective — it is made up of the smallest 2,000 companies by market capitalization in the Russell 3000 Index
RUA,
which itself is designed to capture about 98% of the U.S. public equity market.
A better choice might be the S&P Small Cap 600 Index
SML
because S&P Global requires companies to show four consecutive quarters of profitability to be initially included in the index, among other criteria.
Below is a screen of analysts’ favorite stocks among the S&P Small Cap 600, along with another for the Russell 2000.
Much of the small-cap buying in December might have resulted from covering of short positions by hedge-fund managers. This idea is backed by the timing of trading activity immediately following the Federal Open Market Committee’s announcement on Dec. 13 that it wouldn’t change its interest-rate policy, according to MacroTourist blogger Kevin Muir. The Fed’s economic projections released the same day also indicate three cuts to the federal-funds rate in 2024.
Heading into the end of the year, a fund manager who had shorted small-caps, and then was surprised by the Fed’s interest-rate projections, might have scrambled to buy stocks it had shorted to close-out the positions and hopefully lock in gains, or limit losses.
That buying activity and resulting pop in small-cap prices could set up a typical “head fake” for investors as the new year begins, according to Muir.
Looking at data for companies’ most recently reported fiscal quarters, 58% of the Russell 2000 reported positive earnings per share, according to data provided by FactSet. In other words, hundreds of these companies were losing money. These might include promising companies facing “binary events,” such as make-or-break drug trials in the biotechnology industry.
In comparison, 78% of companies among the S&P Small Cap 600 were profitable, and 93% of the S&P 500 were in the black.
Here are long-term performance figures for exchange-traded funds that track all three indexes:
| ETF | Ticker | 2023 | 3 years | 5 years | 10 years | 15 years | 20 years |
| iShares Russell 2000 ETF | IWM | 17% | 7% | 61% | 99% | 428% | 365% |
| iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF | IJR | 16% | 25% | 69% | 129% | 540% | 515% |
| SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust | SPY | 26% | 34% | 108% | 210% | 629% | 527% |
| Source: FactSet | |||||||
An approach tracking the S&P Small Cap 600 has outperformed the Russell 2000 for all periods, with margins widening as you go further back.
Brett Arends: You own the wrong small-cap fund. How to get into a better one.
For the first screen, we began with the S&P Small Cap 600 and narrowed the list to 385 companies covered by at least five analysts polled by FactSet. Then we cut the list to 92 companies with “buy” or equivalent ratings among at least 75% of the covering analysts.
Here are the 20 remaining stocks among the S&P Small Cap 600 with the highest 12-month upside potential indicated by analysts’ consensus price targets:
| Company | Ticker | Share “buy” ratings | Dec. 29 price | Consensus price target | Implied 12-month upside potential |
| Vir Biotechnology Inc. |
VIR, |
88% | $10.06 | $32.00 | 218% |
| Arcus Biosciences Inc. |
RCUS, |
82% | $19.10 | $41.00 | 115% |
| Xencor Inc. |
XNCR, |
92% | $21.23 | $39.83 | 88% |
| Dynavax Technologies Corp. |
DVAX, |
100% | $13.98 | $24.80 | 77% |
| ModivCare Inc. |
MODV, |
100% | $43.99 | $75.50 | 72% |
| Xperi Inc |
XPER, |
80% | $11.02 | $18.20 | 65% |
| Thryv Holdings Inc. |
THRY, |
100% | $20.35 | $32.75 | 61% |
| Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. |
LGND, |
100% | $71.42 | $114.80 | 61% |
| Green Plains Inc. |
GPRE, |
80% | $25.22 | $40.30 | 60% |
| Patterson-UTI Energy Inc. |
PTEN, |
75% | $10.80 | $17.00 | 57% |
| Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. Class A |
IRWD, |
83% | $11.44 | $17.83 | 56% |
| Catalyst Pharmaceuticals Inc. |
CPRX, |
100% | $16.81 | $26.20 | 56% |
| Payoneer Global Inc. |
PAYO, |
100% | $5.21 | $8.00 | 54% |
| Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. |
HLX, |
83% | $10.28 | $15.00 | 46% |
| Arlo Technologies Inc. |
ARLO, |
100% | $9.52 | $13.80 | 45% |
| Pacira Biosciences Inc. |
PCRX, |
100% | $33.74 | $48.40 | 43% |
| Privia Health Group Inc. |
PRVA, |
100% | $23.03 | $32.53 | 41% |
| Semtech Corp. |
SMTC, |
92% | $21.91 | $30.90 | 41% |
| Talos Energy Inc. |
TALO, |
78% | $14.23 | $20.00 | 41% |
| Digi International Inc. |
DGII, |
100% | $26.00 | $36.14 | 39% |
| Source: FactSet | |||||
Any stock screen should only be considered a starting point. You should do your own research to form your own opinion before making any investment. one way to begin is by clicking on the tickers for more about each company.
Moving on to the Russell 2000, when we narrowed this group to stocks covered by at least five analysts polled by FactSet, we were left with 936 companies. Among these, 355 have “buy” or equivalent ratings among at least 75% of the covering analysts.
Among those 355 stocks in the Russell 2000, these 20 have the highest implied upside over the next year, based on consensus price targets:
| Company | Ticker | Share “buy” ratings | Dec. 29 price | Consensus price target | Implied 12-month upside potential |
| Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc. |
KPTI, |
75% | $0.87 | $6.00 | 594% |
| Rallybio Corp. |
RLYB, |
100% | $2.39 | $16.50 | 590% |
| Vor Biopharma Inc. |
VOR, |
100% | $2.25 | $15.44 | 586% |
| Tenaya Therapeutics Inc. |
TNYA, |
100% | $3.24 | $19.14 | 491% |
| Compass Therapeutics Inc. |
CMPX, |
86% | $1.56 | $9.17 | 488% |
| Vigil Neuroscience Inc. |
VIGL, |
88% | $3.38 | $18.75 | 455% |
| Trevi Therapeutics Inc. |
TRVI, |
100% | $1.34 | $7.33 | 447% |
| Inozyme Pharma Inc. |
INZY, |
100% | $4.26 | $21.00 | 393% |
| Gritstone bio Inc. |
GRTS, |
100% | $2.04 | $10.00 | 390% |
| Actinium Pharmaceuticals Inc. |
ATNM, |
83% | $5.08 | $23.36 | 360% |
| Lineage Cell Therapeutics Inc. |
LCTX, |
86% | $1.09 | $4.83 | 343% |
| Century Therapeutics Inc. |
IPSC, |
86% | $3.32 | $14.67 | 342% |
| Acrivon Therapeutics Inc. |
ACRV, |
100% | $4.92 | $21.13 | 329% |
| Avidity Biosciences Inc. |
RNA, |
100% | $9.05 | $37.50 | 314% |
| Longboard Pharmaceuticals Inc. |
LBPH, |
100% | $6.03 | $24.17 | 301% |
| Omega Therapeutics Inc. |
OMGA, |
100% | $3.01 | $12.00 | 299% |
| Allogene Therapeutics Inc. |
ALLO, |
82% | $3.21 | $12.79 | 298% |
| X4 Pharmaceuticals Inc. |
XFOR, |
86% | $0.84 | $3.26 | 289% |
| Caribou Biosciences Inc. |
CRBU, |
89% | $5.73 | $22.25 | 288% |
| Stoke Therapeutics Inc. |
STOK, |
78% | $5.26 | $19.33 | 268% |
| Source: FactSet | |||||
That’s right — this Russell 2000 list is all biotech. And in case you are wondering if any companies are on both lists, the answer is no.
Don’t miss: 11 dividend stocks with high yields expected to be well supported in 2024 per strict criteria
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(Updated with Friday’s closing prices.)
The 2023 rally for stocks in the U.S. accelerated as more investors bought the idea that the Federal Reserve succeeded in its effort to bring inflation to heel.
The S&P 500
SPX
ended Friday with a 24.2% gain for 2023, following a 19.4% decline in 2022. (All price changes in this article exclude dividends). Among the 500 stocks, 65% were up for 2023. Below is a list of the year’s 20 best performers in the benchmark index.
This article focuses on large-cap stocks. MarketWatch Editor in Chief Mark DeCambre took a broader look at all U.S. stocks of companies with market capitalizations of at least $1 billion, to list 10 with gains ranging from 412% to 1,924%.
The Fed began raising short-term interest rates and pushing long-term rates higher in March 2022 by allowing its bond portfolio to run off. That explains the poor performance for stocks in 2022, as bonds and even bank accounts because more attractive to investors.
The central bank hasn’t raised the federal-funds rate since moving it to the current target range of 5.25% to 5.50% in July, and its economic projections point to three rate cuts in 2024.
Investors are anticipating the return to a low-rate environment by scooping up 10-year U.S. Treasury notes
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y,
whose yield ended the year at 3.88%, down from 4.84% on Oct. 27 — the day of the S&P 500’s low for the second half of 2023.
Read: Treasury yields end mostly higher but little changed on year after wild 2023
Before looking at the list of best-performing stocks of 2023, here’s a summary of how the 11 sectors of the S&P 500 performed, with the full index and three more broad indexes at the bottom:
| Sector or index | 2023 price change | 2022 price change | Price change since end of 2021 | Forward P/E | Forward P/E at end of 2022 | Forward P/E at end of 2023 |
| Information Technology | 56.4% | -28.9% | 11.5% | 26.7 | 20.0 | 28.2 |
| Communication Services | 54.4% | -40.4% | -7.6% | 17.4 | 14.3 | 21.0 |
| Consumer Discretionary | 41.0% | -37.6% | -11.4% | 26.2 | 21.7 | 34.7 |
| Industrials | 16.0% | -7.1% | 8.0% | 20.0 | 18.7 | 22.0 |
| Materials | 10.2% | -14.1% | -4.9% | 19.5 | 15.8 | 16.6 |
| Financials | 9.9% | -12.4% | -3.4% | 14.6 | 13.0 | 16.3 |
| Real Estate | 8.3% | -28.4% | -21.6% | 18.3 | 16.9 | 24.7 |
| Healthcare | 0.3% | -3.6% | -3.3% | 18.2 | 17.7 | 17.3 |
| Consumer Staples | -2.2% | -3.2% | -5.4% | 19.3 | 20.6 | 21.4 |
| Energy | -4.8% | 59.0% | 51.8% | 10.9 | 9.8 | 11.1 |
| Utilities | -10.2% | -1.4% | -11.4% | 15.9 | 18.7 | 20.4 |
|
S&P 500 SPX |
24.2% | -19.4% | 0.4% | 19.7 | 16.8 | 21.6 |
|
Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA |
13.7% | -8.8% | 3.8% | 17.6 | 16.6 | 18.9 |
|
Nasdaq Composite COMP |
43.4% | -33.1% | -3.5% | 26.9 | 22.6 | 32.0 |
|
Nasdaq-100 NDX |
53.8% | -33.0% | 3.5% | 26.3 | 20.9 | 30.3 |
| Source: FactSet | ||||||
A look at 2023 price action really needs to encompass what took place in 2022 for context. The broad indexes haven’t moved much from their levels at the end of 2022 (again, excluding dividends). We have included current forward price-to-earnings ratios along with those at the end of 2021 and 2022. These valuations have declined a bit, which may provide some comfort for investors wondering how likely it is for stocks to continue to rally in 2024.
Here are the 20 stocks in the S&P 500 whose prices rose the most in 2023:
| Company | Ticker | 2023 price change | 2022 price change | Price change since end of 2021 | Forward P/E | Forward P/E at end of 2022 | Forward P/E at end of 2021 |
| Nvidia Corp. |
NVDA, |
239% | -50% | 68% | 24.9 | 34.4 | 58.0 |
| Meta Platforms Inc. Class A |
META, |
194% | -64% | 5% | 20.2 | 14.7 | 23.5 |
| Royal Caribbean Group |
RCL, |
162% | -36% | 68% | 14.3 | 14.9 | 232.4 |
| Builders FirstSource Inc. |
BLDR, |
157% | -24% | 95% | 14.2 | 10.7 | 13.3 |
| Uber Technologies Inc. |
UBER, |
149% | -41% | 47% | 56.9 | N/A | N/A |
| Carnival Corp. |
CCL, |
130% | -60% | -8% | 18.7 | 41.3 | N/A |
| Advanced Micro Devices Inc. |
AMD, |
128% | -55% | 2% | 39.7 | 17.7 | 43.1 |
| PulteGroup Inc. |
PHM, |
127% | -20% | 81% | 9.1 | 6.3 | 6.2 |
| Palo Alto Networks Inc. |
PANW, |
111% | -25% | 59% | 50.2 | 38.0 | 70.1 |
| Tesla Inc. |
TSLA, |
102% | -65% | -29% | 66.2 | 22.3 | 120.3 |
| Broadcom Inc. |
AVGO, |
100% | -16% | 68% | 23.2 | 13.6 | 19.8 |
| Salesforce Inc. |
CRM, |
98% | -48% | 4% | 28.0 | 23.8 | 53.5 |
| Fair Isaac Corp. |
FICO, |
94% | 38% | 168% | 47.1 | 29.3 | 28.7 |
| Arista Networks Inc. |
ANET, |
94% | -16% | 64% | 32.7 | 22.3 | 41.4 |
| Intel Corp. |
INTC, |
90% | -49% | -2% | 26.6 | 14.6 | 13.9 |
| Jabil Inc. |
JBL, |
87% | -3% | 81% | 13.5 | 7.9 | 10.3 |
| Lam Research Corp. |
LRCX, |
86% | -42% | 9% | 25.2 | 13.5 | 20.2 |
| ServiceNow Inc. |
NOW, |
82% | -40% | 9% | 56.0 | 42.6 | 90.1 |
| Amazon.com Inc. |
AMZN, |
81% | -50% | -9% | 42.0 | 46.7 | 64.9 |
| Monolithic Power Systems Inc. |
MPWR, |
78% | -28% | 28% | 49.1 | 27.3 | 57.9 |
| Source: FactSet | |||||||
Click on the tickers for more about each company.
Don’t miss: Nvidia tops list of Wall Street’s 20 favorite stocks for 2024
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What a strange year 2023 was for Intel.
Continue reading this article with a Barron’s subscription.
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Updated Dec 27, 2023, 7:34 am EST / Original Dec 27, 2023, 4:26 am EST
Stock futures traded slightly lower Wednesday after the S&P 500 finished higher Tuesday and just 0.45% below its record close of 4,796.56 hit Jan. 3, 2022. The broad market index has risen 24% this year and has gained 4.5% this month as traders bet the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates as soon as March.
Continue reading this article with a Barron’s subscription.
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U.S. stocks closed higher Tuesday, building on a streak of eight straight weekly gains as the final, holiday-shortened week of 2023 got under way.
On Friday, stocks finished a choppy pre-holiday trading session mostly higher, with the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq each scoring an eighth straight weekly gain. The S&P 500 finished 0.9% away from its record close of 4,796.56, set on Jan. 3, 2022.
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Shares of Ansys Inc. soared 18% in trading Friday on reports the company is in discussions to be acquired by Synopsys Inc. in a deal that would create a design-software behemoth.
The potential deal would kick off 2024 with a mega-merger, even as the Federal Trade Commission attempts to crack down on such transactions. Talks remain fluid and a third party might still emerge as a possible suitor of Ansys, according to a Wall Street Journal report, which cited people familiar with the situation.
Ansys
ANSS,
which has a market value of nearly $26.3 billion, makes software that helps predict how products in aerospace, healthcare and automotive applications will work in the real world. A deal could be struck early in 2024, according to people familiar with the matter. Ansys reported revenue of $2.1 billion in 2022.
Synopsys
SNPS,
with a market value of $85.1 billion, makes software that engineers use to design and test silicon chips used in smartphones, self-driving cars and other forms of artificial intelligence. Its stock has climbed 65% this year as investors have hopped on the AI bandwagon boom. Shares of Synopsys dipped 6% in late trading Friday.
Synopsys’s customers include Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
Intel Corp.
INTC,
and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
AMD,
Representatives from Synopsys and Ansys were not immediately available for comment.
Should the companies strike a merger, it would offer a fresh test for the FTC and its chair, Lina Khan, who have opposed large tech mergers and acquisitions. The agency unsuccessfully sued Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
in its pursuit of VR developer Within, as well as Microsoft Corp.’s
MSFT,
$69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard Inc.
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This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you purchase through our links. Please read our full disclosure here.
This post will show you tons of aesthetic college apartment living room ideas.
Have you been looking for the perfect way to create a cozy and comfy vibe for your college apartment living room? If so, then this post is definitely for you!
Getting your first college apartment may seem daunting because there are so many things that you need to buy. But this post will make creating your dream living space so much easier! You will get all the inspo you need to create a comfy and cozy living room that you will never want to leave.
The key to creating the perfect college apartment living room is ensuring you have all the necessities while adding fun items to give it that comfy and cozy vibe.
{RELATED POST: College Apartment Decor: 26 Stylish & Functional Ideas}
And there are a few key items that you should be considering when creating your dream living space. For example, you will need the perfect furniture and seating to fit your space, as well as the proper lighting and storage.
And don’t forget to spice up your living space with cute decor! Adding some decor to your space may be just what you need to make your space incredible.
So, if you are curious about creating the perfect college apartment living room, check out this list of comfy and cozy but super cute ideas.
A key item you will need for your living room is a coffee table! Not only will you need a table to complete your space (and a place to put your coffee in the morning), but you can also use it as a way to show off some fun decor items that you have for your space!
So, if you are looking for the perfect table to complete your living room, you may want to check out this coffee table. This round coffee table would be a great addition to any living room space and will go well with any decor you have!
Not only is it important to have a larger table in your living room, but also you may want to consider a smaller table to place some of your necessities.
For example, to help transform your living space into a comfy place, you will want to make sure that you have a smaller table so that you can eat or even do work while in your living room.
This table set will be a great addition if you are looking for something to be able to lounge but also be comfy while multitasking!
If you are trying to maximize the space in your living room, this furniture piece may be exactly what you are looking for!
This bench can work as a table or even a place to sit, so if you are looking for something that can be used for different things, this is for you.
You will also want to ensure that you have a smaller table near your seating area to place smaller items or even use for lighting.
For example, adding a smaller table like this one to your seating area would be perfect so you can have somewhere to place smaller decor items or a lamp.
Seating is also an important part of creating your dream living space, so you will want to ensure that you have exactly what you need.
An accent chair is a great addition to the living room area where you need just a little more seating to complete the space.
A comfy chair like this teddy accent chair may be just the seating you need to create that comfy and cozy vibe for your living room.
Also, you will, of course, need some larger seating areas so that you have plenty of space for you and your friends to lounge.
So, you will need to purchase some kind of sofa. I recommend purchasing this memory foam futon sofa to make your living space extra comfy and cozy.
This sofa will be a great comfy seating addition to your living room that will make you not want to leave! As a bonus, it doubles as a spare bed when you have guests.
If you are looking for another smaller seating option for your living room, another great one is this folding saucer chair. These chairs are great when you need additional seating for your living space.
These are one of my favorite types of chairs because you will definitely not want to leave them because you’re so comfy!
For a really comfy and cozy vibe for your living room, you will love having a sleeper chair like this one!
This chair is perfect for those of us who love to lounge around in our living room areas. With this chair, you will be able to sit with friends as well as lay back and relax.
You will also definitely need to get some lighting for your living room to create the perfect living space.
For example, this mushroom light will give you just the right amount of light in your living room to create a relaxing vibe!
I also love this mushroom lamp because it is a cute and trendy piece that you can add to your living area for decor.
You can also add some lighting to your living room area with some decor lighting, such as this neon light.
This pink neon light will give off a super cute vibe for your living room area and will also be a great way to add some cute decor to your living space.
Another fun way to add to your living space is with a floor lamp with shelves where you can add some decor or even some of the books you want to keep in your living room.
This shaded lamp will also give you that comfy, cozy feel you are looking for for your living room area!
One of my favorite ways to add fun lights to a space is by using string lights like these!
These lights are even better than the usual string lights because you can add some of your photos to show off some of the fun pictures you have taken with friends and family.
Therefore, this makes these string lights not only perfect for your living room so everyone can see your super cute photos, but they will also help to create a cozy and chill vibe for your living space.
Decor is also a super fun way to spice up any college dorm or apartment, so you will want to ensure that you have plenty of decor that shows off a little bit of your personality while also making your living space comfy and cozy.
For example, you could get this throw blanket, which is not only going to be super comfy, but you can also get it in multiple different colors like this green to add something colorful to your living space!
Another fun way to decorate, which you may have seen before because it is pretty trendy, is with a big floor mirror like this one!
This floor mirror will be a great piece to add to your living room so that you can take a bunch of super cute mirror selfies with your friends.
A shaggy rug is another great addition to any living space to make it a bit more comfy and cozy.
You can also get decorative with the rug you choose for your living area by purchasing a rug such as this pink shaggy rug with a fun design!
I think that a rug is definitely a must-have for any living room to complete the space and add a bit of design, so make sure to check out this rug when shopping for your college living room.
Of course, you will also need some super cute and comfy pillows for your living room because you will want to ensure you and your friends are cozy while lounging around!
You can also get decorative with your pillows by purchasing a plush flower pillow like this one which will add a super cute and comfy item to your living space.
This will also be another great way to add some personality to your space with some color and design while also ensuring you are creating the comfy and cozy vibe you want for your college living space.
You may not have thought about storage furniture, but these are also a must-have for a living space because you will need areas where you can store the many items that you will have in your apartment.
But you can get some fun items for your living room to add to your comfy and cozy vibe while also ensuring you have plenty of storage space!
For example, you could get this storage ottoman with a table top, making it the perfect disguised storage item for any living area.
It will also give you additional tabletop space in your living room if needed!
This is totally a must-have for any college apartment! A bar cart is a super cute way to store food and drinks or decorate with other items like flowers and signs.
So, if you want to add a bar cart to your living room space, I highly recommend checking out this trendy tiered bar cart that will look adorable in your living area, especially if you get this pink one!
A media console is also a really great item to add to any living space where you will want to lounge around and relax with your friends so that you have a place to put your TV, video game console, etc.
And, what’s great about media consoles is you can also use them for storage if you purchase one like this one that has additional space underneath to put some of your items or even to display some of your decor on top.
This media console will be exactly what you need to ensure you have all the gadgets to have fun while also relaxing in your living room while watching TV or playing video games with your friends.
Also, you will probably want a cabinet for additional storage space if needed. So, I recommend purchasing an accent cabinet like this one that is smaller but also very good for storage and will go well with anything you have in your living area.
If this sounds like something you need, check out this accent cabinet to complete your space with extra storage!
Which items do you like the most for your living room? How will you be decorating your college living room?
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Ashlyn – University of Florida
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U.S. stocks ended sharply higher Friday, more than shaking off weakness seen the previous session in the aftermath of a poor Treasury bond auction and fresh signs that interest rates may stay higher for longer.
Technology stocks drove the bounce, with the Nasdaq Composite leading major indexes to the upside as it and the S&P 500 logged their highest finishes since September.
The rally left the Dow with a weekly gain of 0.7%, while the S&P 500 advanced 1.3% and the Nasdaq booked a rise of 2.4%. The Dow saw its highest close since Sept. 20, while the S&P 500 ended at its highest since Sept. 19 and the Nasdaq at its highest since Sept. 14.
Tech was in the driver’s seat. Shares of Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
jumped 2.5%, with the Dow component scoring its third record close in four sessions. Intel Corp. shares
INTC,
rose 2.8% to lead Dow gainers.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 tested important chart resistance at the 4,400 to 4,415 level, which marks the confluence of previous resistance and the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of the July-October drop, according to Matthew Weller, global head of research at Forex.com, in a note (see chart below).
“From a bigger picture perspective, bulls will need to see the index conclusively break above 4415 before declaring that the post-July streak of lower lows and lower highs is over,” Weller wrote.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite ended their longest winning streaks since November 2021 on Thursday, after a poorly-received $24 billion sale of 30-year Treasury bonds.
A calmer bond market may have helped set the tone for stocks. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond
BX:TMUBMUSD30Y
fell 3.2 basis points to 4.733%, after it nearly notched its biggest one-day jump since June 2022. The yield still saw a weekly decline, its third straight.
It was unclear whether the Treasury auction had been affected by a reported ransomware attack against the U.S. unit of the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China that apparently disrupted the U.S. Treasury market.
See: How ransomware attack on ICBC rattled the Treasury market and shook up a 30-year bond auction
Thursday’s setback was also tied to comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who told an International Monetary Fund panel on Thursday that the central bank was wary of “head fakes” from inflation, and the “2% goal was not assured.”
Much of Powell’s language was nearly identical to remarks he made on Nov. 1, when investors rallied stocks and bonds after the Fed chair didn’t explicitly commit to a further interest rate hike. But the subsequent rally for stocks after the Nov. 1 Fed meeting, with the S&P 500 jumping more than 6% over eight days, and a 50 basis point drop in the 10-year Treasury yield were “overdone and not governed by facts,” said Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research, in a note.
“Meanwhile, if we think about what the Fed said last week, namely that the rise in the 10-year yield was doing the Fed’s work for it and as a result they may not have to hike rates, then the short/sharp decline in the 10-year yield we’ve seen could essentially remove the reason for the Fed not having to hike rates — and that could put a rate hike back on the table!” he wrote. “That’s essentially what Powell reminded us of yesterday and that, along with the poor Treasury auction, pushed yields higher,” setting up pressure on stocks.
U.S. consumer sentiment fell in November for the fourth month in a row due to worries about higher interest rates as well as war in the Middle East. The preliminary reading of the sentiment survey declined to 60.4 from 63.8 in October, the University of Michigan said Friday. It’s the weakest reading since May.
Investors were also tuning into more comments by Fed officials Friday, including San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, who said she didn’t know if rates were high enough to bring inflation back down to the central bank’s 2% target.
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Shares of Sleep Number Corp. tanked 30% in the after-hours session Tuesday after the mattress maker and retailer swung to a surprise quarterly loss, predicted a loss for the full year and said it reached an agreement with a shareholder that had been pushing for change.
It was a “challenging” quarter for Sleep Number
SNBR,
and the bedding industry, Chief Executive Shelly Ibach said. “The consumer demand trajectory changed abruptly midway through the quarter,” Ibach said.
Sleep Number “acted quickly to further reduce costs, recalibrate our sales and marketing approach, and amend our credit agreement to provide additional covenant flexibility through the end of 2024,” she said.
Sleep Number lost $2.32 million, or 10 cents a share, in the third quarter, versus earnings of $5 million, or 22 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.
Revenue dropped 13% to $473 million, the company said.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected the company to earn 16 cents a share on sales of $509 million in the quarter.
Sleep Number also kicked off a plan to reduce costs in light of the lower demand. It hopes the plan will result in about $50 million less in operating expenses next year, the company said.
The cost-restructuring actions are “broad-based” and include layoffs as well as store closures, the company said.
The layoffs will occur “across all areas of the organization,” including in corporate and research and development, the company said. It plans to close 40 to 50 stores by the end of next year, and slow down the rate of new-store openings and remodels.
The restructuring will result in up to $20 million in one-time costs, with about $10 million of the costs falling in the fourth quarter, the company said.
Sleep Number also dialed back its 2023 EPS outlook, calling for a per-share loss of up to 70 cents, including the fourth-quarter restructuring charges.
That compares with a July guidance of 2023 EPS in a range between $1.25 and $1.75.
Separately, Sleep Number appointed Stephen E. Macadam and Hilary A. Schneider to its board, effective immediately, expanding the board to 12 people.
In conjunction with the appointments, Sleep Number entered into a cooperation agreement with shareholder Stadium Capital Management LLC.
As part of the agreement, the board has established a “capital allocation and value enhancement committee” to review capital use and investments, it said.
Independent director Michael J. Harrison said that the company was “grateful to have reached an agreement with Stadium Capital on a constructive path forward and are looking forward to working with Steve and Hilary toward our common goal of delivering long-term value for our shareholders.”
Stadium Capital, which owns about 9% of Sleep Number, published a letter in September criticizing the company, its executives, and the “abysmal” shareholder returns.
Shares of Sleep Number have lost 38% so far this year, contrasting with gains of about 14% for the S&P 500 index
SPX.
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Intel Corp. shares were popping nearly 8% in Thursday’s extended session after the chip maker delivered a rosy forecast, while talking up new customers for its foundry business and traction related to artificial intelligence.
For the fourth quarter, Intel
INTC,
anticipates $14.6 billion to $15.6 billion in revenue, whereas analysts were looking for $14.4 billion. The company is also modeling 44 cents in adjusted earnings per share, while the FactSet consensus was for 33 cents.
“While the industry has seen some wallet share shifts between CPU and accelerators over the last several quarters, as well as some inventory burn in the server market, we see signs of normalization as we enter Q4,” Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger said on the earnings call.
Gelsinger expressed confidence about Intel’s positioning — and the future of central processing units — as AI becomes more dominant in the technology world.
“Training of these large models is interesting, but the deployment of those models, the inferencing use of those models is what we believe is truly spectacular for the future,” he said. “And…some of that will run on the accelerators, but a huge amount of that is going to run, right, on Xeons.”
He also shared that Intel now has three customers for its 18A foundry process technology that have made commitments. The company previously disclosed one customer made prepayments, but Gelsinger added Thursday that Intel has two other customers.
“The other thing that we saw this quarter, which was a little bit unexpected, was this huge surge in interest for AI customers and Intel’s advanced packaging technology,” he said.
Intel is in the midst of a big push to build a foundry business through which it would manufacture chips for other companies, though not all on Wall Street are sold yet on the move.
The company also delivered an upbeat third-quarter report, easily clearing Wall Street’s bar on profit and topping expectations on revenue as well.
The company reported net income of $297 million, or 7 cents a share, compared with $1.0 billion, or 25 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. On an adjusted basis, Intel earned 41 cents a share, down from 59 cents a share a year prior, while analysts were looking for 22 cents a share.
Revenue dropped to $14.2 billion from $15.3 billion, while the FactSet consensus called for $13.6 billion.
The company saw revenue from its personal-computer segment, known as client-computing, drop 3% to $7.9 billion, whereas analysts were looking for $7.3 billion. Data-center and AI revenue fell 10% to $3.8 billion, narrowly missing the FactSet consensus, which was $3.9 billion.
Intel recorded a 45.8% adjusted gross margin, compared with 39.8% in the second quarter. The company’s forecast had been for about 43%.
Intel shares have climbed 24% so far this year, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
has lost about 1%.
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Nearly a year ago, OpenAI released ChatGPT 3 into the world, and investors got visions of dollar signs in their heads as they imagined the ways that artificial intelligence could make big money for businesses.
Wall Street’s now coming to terms with the fact that those sorts of paydays are going to take time. As investors have already seen from the past two quarters of earnings, AI has only really delivered financial benefits for a select few hardware companies so far — while spurring new costs for many others.
“The AI boom has already bifurcated into the contenders and pretenders,” said Daniel Newman, chief executive and principal analyst of Futurum Research. And while Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel Corp. and Arm Holdings PLC
ARM,
have stirred up interest, Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
has established itself as far and away the greatest “contender,” with AI driving strong demand for its chips tuned for AI training.
Nvidia last quarter reported record earnings, including a 141% jump in revenue for its graphics chips used in AI infrastructure building up data centers. Nvidia, which reports near the end of earnings season on Nov. 21, posted record revenue of $13.5 billion last quarter and is expected to easily top that with $16 billion in the most recent quarter, a surge of 170% versus a year ago. Those estimates include $12.3 billion of revenue coming from data-center sales.
Other chip companies could post gains from AI as well, but to far lesser extents. Candidates include Broadcom Corp.
AVGO,
and system maker Super Micro Computer Inc.
SMCI,
as well as Marvell Technology Inc.
MRVL,
which last quarter told analysts that it expects to end the year at a revenue run rate of about $800 million this year from cloud/data-center chips related to AI.
“This is well above what we had outlined last quarter. Put this in perspective: This would put us at the run rate we had previously communicated for all of next year,” Marvel Chief Executive Matthew Murphy told analysts.
Super Micro is also riding the AI wave with its customized data-center servers that are designed to consume less power. But revenue in the September quarter is forecast to rise just 15% from a year ago and drop on a sequential basis, as supply constraints from Nvidia likely hampered Super Micro’s ability to meet all its demand.
Much as Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
AMD,
and Intel Corp.
INTC,
want to be in the AI conversations with the graphics chips they hope will be used for AI data-center applications, they won’t see much of an impact yet from AI revenue. Plus, those companies are experiencing a slowdown in PC sales that may overshadow any small benefit from AI chips.
The AI boom in chips is clearly not providing enough of a boost to lift finances for the overall semiconductor sector, which is forecast to see earnings fall 3.3% in the third quarter and post a revenue decline of 0.6%, according to FactSet. The industry is being dragged down in part by Micron Technology Inc.
MU,
which reported a 40% drop in revenue and a whopping fiscal fourth-quarter loss in late September for the quarter ended Aug. 31, which is included in FactSet’s third-quarter data. Even so, the company called a bottom to the memory-chip downturn.
Read also: Micron’s AI focused chip won’t help financial results anytime soon.
“Most of the consumer-based tech is still struggling, [including] PCs, laptops and to a certain extent smartphones,” said Daniel Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Co. Wall Street has tempered expectations related to the impact of Apple Inc.’s
AAPL,
iPhone 15 launch on the quarter, as estimates call for an overall 1% drop in September-quarter revenue. Last quarter, Apple executives forecast that both Mac and iPad sales would be down by double-digits and that revenue performance would be similar to its June quarter, when revenue fell 1.3%
In addition, when asked about AI, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company views AI and machine learning “as core fundamental technologies that are integral to virtually every product that we build.” Those comments, though, can also apply to the bulk of tech companies, where AI is built into software as another layer to improve a product. Internet companies such as Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
and Alphabet Inc.
GOOG,
GOOGL,
incorporate AI into their software and algorithms but don’t treat it as a specific, revenue-generating product.
Other software companies are building AI into their products as separate features or add-ons, but they are still in the early stages of seeing whether or not customers will pay more for them. Take Microsoft Corp.,
MSFT,
which has showed off Copilot, an extra AI feature for customers of Microsoft 365.
“[Microsoft] can distinguish itself by providing more details around its AI revenue
ramp since we don’t expect much information from Google, who really doesn’t seem
to have the monetization plan for Bard and AI-assisted search (SGE) ready to
articulate yet,” Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes said in a note to clients this week. He also noted that the cost of offering AI products to consumers is steep, and requires lots of investment.
“There are sophisticated issues to contend with for Microsoft, including balancing the potential for higher revenue from Copilots with the high costs per query and much-needed investment,” Reitzes said. “The balance of AI adoption vs. cost was implied when Microsoft guided to flat operating margins year over year for fiscal 2024.”
Earlier this year, the Information reported that OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and recipient of a hefty investment from Microsoft, has costs of up to $700,000 a day, because the massive amounts of computing power needed to run queries. In February, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Plus, for $20 a month, a service that will give subscribers access to its AI during peak times and faster response times.
Another example is Adobe Inc.
ADBE,
which has a few AI offerings, including a subscription service called Generative Credits, tokens that let customers turn text-based prompts into images. Another is Firefly, a generative AI service for images, and an AI option in Photoshop, currently called Photoshop Beta AI, to help users fill in images and other collaborative tools. Adobe did not provide any forecasts on potential revenue generation during its analyst day earlier this month.
Toni Sacconaghi, a Bernstein Research analyst, said AI could drive a massive increase in enterprise productivity, and companies could dramatically increase IT spending on servers in order to invest in productivity-enhancing AI. “However, we note that enterprise adoption appears to be in early stages,” he said in a recent note to clients, adding that it was feasible that spending on AI infrastructure could take money away from other IT projects in process. “We do worry that projected AI infrastructure build out may be occurring too quickly, necessitating a digestion period, which could result in a commensurate stock pullback in AI-related names.”
Overall, the information-technology sector itself is expected to see anemic revenue growth this quarter. The consensus on FactSet forecasts a meager 1.35% revenue uptick in the third quarter, with earnings growth of 4.65%. FactSet’s estimates for IT companies exclude internet companies like Meta and Alphabet, which are under the category of communications/interactive media services. That sector is expected to see sales growth of 12%, and earnings growth of 51%, thanks to a 116% boost in Meta’s net income, after it hit a low point in the year-ago quarter.
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
in the category of consumer discretionary/broadline retail, is forecast to see earnings growth of 109%, and revenue growth of 11%. Amazon’s cloud services business, AWS, is expected to also see a potential uplift from customers spending money on AI projects, according to a TD Cowen & Co. survey, in which 41% of respondents said they were “highly considering” allocating a budget for generative AI.
“This trend could bode well for Amazon’s AWS,” TD Cowen analyst John Blackledge said in a recent report, adding that he expects AWS revenue growth to reaccelerate in the second half of this year and in 2024, boosted by the move of additional workloads to the cloud, possibly including generative AI.
As companies build up their infrastructure, or their spending on cloud computing to add or improve AI capabilities, they are seeing higher costs, which is affecting margins — especially if revenue has slowed down, as it has in some sectors. Across both the broader S&P 500
SPX,
and the IT sector, earnings are lower than a year ago.
As Newman of Futurum pointed out, “AI stole the budget this year.” And that is a mixed bag for tech.
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-457cee3b
