market research – Page 2

These 10 college athletes are making over $1 million a year from NIL

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It now pays to be an amateur.

The NCAA started allowing college athletes to make money from their name, image and likeness in 2021, after decades of student-athletes saying it wasn’t fair that they didn’t receive any money while the games they played in generated millions of dollars — especially football and basketball contests. And today, many of these athletes are not just making some extra cash on the side — they’re making millions.

These NIL deals are negotiated by college athletes and their representation, and typically involve leveraging an athlete’s brand and influence through promotional means. For example, a car dealership near a university campus may ask the college’s high-profile quarterback to do a commercial for them in exchange for a monetary payment or a car. Similarly, an athlete can make money from social media, depending on how big their following is.

Football players are among the college athletes who make the most money from NIL deals, followed by men’s basketball, women’s volleyball and women’s basketball. That’s because college football and basketball have multibillion-dollar TV contracts to broadcast games, while most other sports generally have lower visibility.

With that in mind, here are the college athletes who make the most money from NIL deals according to On3’s proprietary NIL algorithm, which is based on NIL-deal data, performance, influence and exposure

10. J.J. McCarthy, $1.3 million

J.J. McCarthy of the Michigan Wolverines in action against the Georgia Bulldogs.

Getty Images

As the junior quarterback for the Michigan Wolverines football team, McCarthy is one of the six college football QBs in the top 10 of NIL earners.

McCarthy sports 276,000 followers across his social-media platforms, and has deals with Alo, Bose and Bowman.

Tie-8. Bo Nix, $1.4 million

Bo Nix of the Oregon Ducks throws a pass against the Stanford Cardinals.

Getty Images

The senior QB for the Oregon Ducks has led his team to a perfect 5-0 start this season.

Nix has 219,000 followers on social media and NIL deals with 7-Eleven, Bojangles and Celsius. Nix is considered one of the top players in the nation and has the third-best betting odds to win college football’s Heisman Trophy on DraftKings
DKNG,
-2.52%
sportsbook.

Tie-8. Spencer Rattler, $1.4 million

Spencer Rattler of the South Carolina Gamecocks warms up before a game against the Tennessee Volunteers.

Getty Images

The South Carolina Gamecocks senior QB has one of the more robust NIL profiles in the nation. He has deals with Mercedes-Benz
MBG,
-1.23%,
Leaf trading cards and Raising Canes.

Rattler also has 578,000 followers across TikTok, Instagram
META,
-0.71%
and X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

7. Angel Reese, $1.7 million

Angel Reese of the LSU Lady Tigers during the 2023 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament championship game.

Getty Images

Reese was one of the breakout stars of the women’s March Madness basketball tournament this year. The Louisiana State University hooper led her team to the 2023 title and famously flashed a “you can’t see me” gesture in the title game.

Reese has brand deals with Airbnb, PlayStation and Intuit TurboTax
INTU,
-0.50%
and has appeared in ads for Amazon
AMZN,
+0.01%
and Pepsi Co.’s
PEP,
+0.59%
Starry. She also has 5.2 million followers across her social-media platforms.

During LSU’s magical title run last season, Reese set an NCAA single-season record with her 34th double-double against the Iowa Hawkeyes and was named the most outstanding player of the Final Four.

Reese is one of just two female athletes inside the top 10 in On3’s NIL valuation tracker, and the top college basketball player on the list.

6. Travis Hunter, $2.3 million

Travis Hunter of the Colorado Buffaloes signals first down after a catch against the TCU Horned Frogs.

Getty Images

Hunter was one of the college football players who transferred to the University of Colorado from Jackson State last season to follow coach Deion Sanders.

Hunter, a five-star sophomore prospect, plays on both offense and defense — as a wide receiver and a cornerback — a rarity in a high-level college program. He has 1.9 million followers on social media, a successful YouTube
GOOG,
-0.08%
channel, and endorsements with Celsius Energy Drink and 7-Eleven.

Hunter entered the 2023 college season as the most highly touted NFL prospect at Colorado, and Deion Sanders contends rival schools have attempted to poach him via lucrative NIL deals.

“People offered Travis Hunter a bag — about $1.5 million to try to lure him and buy him out of the transfer portal,” coach Sanders told 247Sports over the summer. “But Travis is not the kind of guy that can be bought. He isn’t built like that. Travis is a relational young man that is built on relationships and stability. And that’s what he wanted and desired. That is why he decided to ride and stay with us.”

If and when Hunter decides to declare for the NFL draft, he will likely have a multimillion-dollar contract as a rookie that could dwarf his collegiate NIL earnings.

5. Caleb Williams, $2.7 million

Caleb Williams of the USC Trojans warms up before a game against the Arizona State Sun Devils.

Getty Images

The University of Southern California QB is seen as a generational NFL prospect and the presumptive No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft, but he isn’t the top NIL earner.

Williams has 347,000 followers on social media, and brand deals with United Airlines
UAL,
-1.24%,
Alo and Beats by Dre.

Once the USC junior QB declares for the draft, his rookie contract will likely be set above $37 million, per Spotrac’s estimates.

4. Arch Manning, $2.8 million

Arch Manning of the Texas Longhorns warms up prior to a game against the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Getty Images

The Texas Longhorns freshman QB is one of several top NIL earners whose family plays a role in their fame. Arch Manning is the nephew of Super Bowl champion QBs Peyton and Eli Manning, and the grandson of former NFL QB Archie Manning.

Despite being a backup quarterback with no recorded statistics, the younger Manning has 277,000 followers on social media and has a brand deal with Panini. That deal involved him autographing an extremely rare one-of-one Prizm Black card that was auctioned off for $102,500, which was later donated to charity.

Manning was a standout high school recruit, ranked No. 5 in the nation in the 2023 class, and could have an NFL future.

3. Livvy Dunne, $3.2 million

Olivia Dunne of LSU looks on during a PAC-12 meet against Utah.

Getty Images

Dunne is the only college athlete in the top 10 of NIL earners who doesn’t play basketball or football. The junior LSU gymnast is the top female NIL earner in the nation and has brand deals with Vuori clothing, Body Armor
KO,
+0.62%
and American Eagle Outfitters.

Dunne is the second most-followed college athlete on social media with 12.1 million followers on Instagram, TikTok and X combined.

For many years Dunne was seen as the poster child for NIL deals, and she said earlier this year that she could make as much as $500,000 from a single post.

“What I love with certain brands is getting long-term brand deals,” Dunne said on the Full Send podcast in June. “Those are probably the best because you build a relationship with the brand and they want you year after year.”

2. Shedeur Sanders, $4.8 million

Shedeur Sanders of the Colorado Buffaloes celebrates as he walks off the field following an NCAAF game against the Arizona State Sun Devils.

Getty Images

University of Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders has become a phenomenon in the sports world. The 21-year-old junior made headlines after throwing for 510 yards and four touchdowns in Colorado’s season-opening shocker against No. 17–ranked Texas Christian.

Colorado has become the center of the football world since Shedeur’s father Deion took over as coach. Coach Prime’s team is currently 4-2 — the team was 1-11 last season, good for last place in its conference.

The quarterback has more than 2.3 million followers on social media, and has already inked several deals with big brands, including with yogurt producer Oikos
0KFX,
-1.13%,
Gatorade and Mercedes-Benz. He has shown fans some of his new Mercedes cars on social media, too.

Overall, Shedeur Sanders’s NIL value currently sits at $4.8 million, according to On3, up from $1.5 million at the beginning of the year — that’s the highest value in all of college football. For context, that’s nearly twice the average NFL player’s salary.

1. Bronny James, $5.9 million

Bronny James playing at his high school, Sierra Canyon.

Getty Images

James has perhaps the most famous family member of any person on this list. He is the son of NBA legend LeBron James, and is currently set to begin his freshman basketball season at USC.

The younger James has yet to play a game at his new school, but will immediately be one of the most well-known players in college athletics. James has 13.5 million social media followers, the most of any college athlete, and has brand deals with Nike
NKE,
+1.10%
and Beats by Dre
AAPL,
-0.06%,
two brands his dad is also repped by.

Bronny James suffered cardiac arrest in July during a basketball practice and had to be taken to the hospital. But he’s on the road to recovery, and hopes to play basketball this season.

“Bronny is doing extremely well,” the older James said last week. “He has begun his rehab process to get back on the floor this season with his teammates at USC. (With) the successful surgery that he had, he’s on the up-and-up. It’s definitely a whirlwind, a lot of emotions for our family this summer. But the best thing we have is each other.”

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October 13, 2023

‘Fear trade’: What Israel-Hamas war means for oil prices and financial markets

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Oil traders on Sunday said crude prices were likely to remain supported in the near term, as investors assessed the fallout from the surprise attack by Hamas on Israel and focused on the role played by Iran and the potential impact on that country’s petroleum exports.

The conflict may also hold market-moving consequences for talks aimed at normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

“While in the short term there is no impact directly on supply, it’s obvious how things play out over the next 24 to 48 hours could change that,” Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago, told MarketWatch.

Brent crude futures
BRN00,
+4.17%,
the global benchmark, and West Texas Intermediate oil futures
CL00,
+4.35%

CL.1,
+4.35%
jumped more than 3% when the market opened Sunday night. U.S. stock-index futures
ES00,
-0.66%
traded lower, while traditional havens, including gold
GC00,
+0.98%
and the U.S. dollar
DXY
rose.

Movements in oil prices, meanwhile, will also serve as a gauge for broader market worries around the conflict, analysts said.

See: Israeli stocks slump in first day of trade since Gaza attack

Hamas, the Iran-backed, Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, staged a sweeping attack on southern Israel early Saturday. News reports put Israeli deaths at more than 700. The Gaza Health Ministry said 413 people, including 78 children and 41 women, were killed in the territory as Israel retaliated, according to the Associated Press. Injuries in Israel and Gaza were both said to be around 2,000.

Israeli troops on Sunday were engaged in fierce fighting in an effort to retake territory in southern Israel as Hamas launched further barrages of missiles. Israeli citizens and soldiers were captured and are being held hostage in Gaza, according to the Israeli military.

Read: Israel declares war, approves ‘significant’ steps to retaliate after surprise attack by Hamas

The Wall Street Journal reported that Iranian security officials helped Hamas plan the attack. U.S. officials said they haven’t seen evidence of Iran’s involvement, the report said.

“Iran remains a very big wild card and we will be watching how strongly [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu blames Tehran for facilitating these attacks by providing Hamas with weapons and logistical support,” said Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, in a Sunday morning note.

Iranian crude exports have risen in recent years, indicating the Biden administration has adopted a soft approach to sanctions enforcement, Croft said. Some analysts have put Iranian crude production at more than 3 million barrels a day and exports above 2 million barrels a day — the highest levels since the Trump administration pulled the U.S. out of the Iranian nuclear accord in 2018, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sales fell to around 400,000 barrels a day in 2020 as the U.S. reimposed sanctions.

RBC Capital Markets

Hedge-fund manager Pierre Andurand, one of the world’s best energy traders, said in a social-media post that a large price spike for oil isn’t likely in coming days, but emphasized the market focus on Iran.

“Now, over the last six months we have seen a very large increase in Iranian supply due to weak enforcement of sanctions. As Iran is also behind Hamas’ attacks on Israel, there is a good probability that the U.S. administration will start enforcing those sanctions on Iranian oil exports more tightly,” he wrote. “That would further tighten the oil market. Also the probability that this will lead to direct conflict with Iran is not zero.”

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal late Friday reported that Saudi Arabia had told the White House it would be willing to boost oil production next year if crude prices remained high, as part of an effort aimed at winning goodwill in Congress for a deal that would see the kingdom recognize Israel and in return get a defense agreement with the U.S.

A Saudi production cut of 1 million barrels a day that was implemented in July and recently extended through the end of the year has been given much of the credit for a rally that took global benchmark Brent crude within a few dollars of the $100-a-barrel threshold before retreating this past week. The U.S. benchmark last week briefly topped $95 a barrel for the first time in 13 months.

In a statement, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry called on both sides to halt the escalation and exercise restraint, but also recalled its “repeated warnings of the dangers of the explosion of the situation as a result of the continued occupation, the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, and the repetition of systematic provocations against its sanctities.”

With the Israeli government vowing an unprecedented response, “it is hard to envision how Saudi normalization talks can run on a parallel track to a ferocious military counteroffensive,” said RBC’s Croft.

Beyond oil, much will depend on the potential for the conflict to widen.

Stocks have stumbled, retreating from 2023 highs set in late July, as yields on U.S. Treasurys have jumped. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond
BX:TMUBMUSD30Y
rose 23.2 basis points last week to end Friday at 4.941%, its highest since Sept. 20, 2007. The 10-year Treasury note yield
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
topped 4.80% on Oct. 3, its highest since Aug. 8, 2007, and ended the week at 4.783%. Yields and debt prices move opposite each other.

The U.S. bond market will be closed Monday for the Columbus Day and Indigenous People’s Day holiday, while U.S. stock markets will be open.

The S&P 500 index
SPX
rose 0.5% last week, breaking a streak of four straight weekly declines, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
fell 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
gained 1.6%.

“I think there will be a negative reaction. However, I don’t see a meltdown,” Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities, told MarketWatch.

Traditional haven plays, including gold, the dollar and U.S. Treasurys may see a strong move upward, with price gains for Treasurys pulling yields down.

“Geopolitical crises in the Middle East have usually caused oil prices to rise and stock prices to fall,” said economist Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research Inc., in a note. “More often than not, they’ve also tended to be buying opportunities in the stock market.”

The broader market reaction will depend on whether the crisis turns out to be a short-term flare-up or “something much bigger, like a war between Israel and Iran,” he said. The latter is unlikely, but tensions between the two are likely to escalate.

“The price of oil may be a good way to assess the likelihood of a broader conflict,” he said.

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October 8, 2023

These 20 stocks in the S&P 500 are expected to soar after rising interest rates have pushed down valuations

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Two things investors can be sure about: Nothing lasts forever and the stock market always overreacts. The spiking of yields on long-term U.S. Treasury securities has been breathtaking, and it has led to remarkable declines for some sectors and possible bargains for contrarian investors who can commit for the long term.

First we will show how the sectors of the S&P 500

have performed. Then we will look at price-to-earnings valuations for the sectors and compare them to long-term averages. Then we will screen the entire index for companies trading below their long-term forward P/E valuation averages and narrow the list to companies most favored by analysts.

Here are total returns, with dividends reinvested, for the 11 sectors of the S&P 500, with broad indexes below. The sectors are sorted by ascending total returns this year through Monday.

Sector or index	2023 return	2022 return	Return since end of 2021	1 week return	1 month return
Utilities	-18.4%	1.6%	-17.2%	-11.1%	-9.6%
Real Estate	-7.1%	-26.1%	-31.4%	-3.0%	-8.8%
Consumer Staples	-5.4%	-0.6%	-6.0%	-2.2%	-4.4%
Healthcare	-4.2%	-2.0%	-6.1%	-1.7%	-3.3%
Financials	-2.5%	-10.5%	-12.7%	-2.5%	-4.7%
Materials	1.3%	-12.3%	-11.2%	-1.9%	-7.0%
Industrials	3.5%	-5.5%	-2.1%	-1.8%	-7.3%
Energy	4.0%	65.7%	72.4%	-1.9%	-1.4%
Consumer Discretionary	27.0%	-37.0%	-20.0%	-0.6%	-5.2%
Information Technology	36.5%	-28.2%	-2.0%	0.8%	-5.9%
Communication Services	42.5%	-39.9%	-14.3%	1.1%	-1.3%

S&P 500	13.1%	-18.1%	-7.4%	-1.1%	-4.9%
DJ Industrial Average	2.5%	-6.9%	-4.5%	-1.7%	-4.0%
Nasdaq Composite Index COMP	28.0%	-32.5%	-13.7%	0.3%	-5.1%
Nasdaq-100 Index	36.5%	-32.4%	-7.7%	0.5%	-4.2%
Source: FactSet

Returns for 2022 are also included, along with those since the end of 2021. Last year’s weakest sector, communications services, has been this year’s strongest performer. This sector includes Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL
and Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
which have returned 52% and 155% this year, respectively, but are still down since the end of 2021. To the right are returns for the past week and month through Monday.

On Monday, the S&P 500 Utilities sector had its worst one-day performance since 2020, with a 4.7% decline. Investors were reacting to the jump in long-term interest rates.

Here is a link to the U.S. Treasury Department’s summary of the daily yield curve across maturities for Treasury securities.

The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes

jumped 10 basis points in only one day to 4.69% on Monday. A month earlier the 10-year yield was only 4.27%. Also on Monday, the yield on 20-year Treasury bonds

rose to 5.00% from 4.92% on Friday. It was up from 4.56% a month earlier.

Market Extra: Bond investors feel the heat as popular fixed-income ETF suffers lowest close since 2007

The Treasury yield curve is still inverted, with 3-month T-bills

yielding 5.62% on Monday, but that was up only slightly from a month earlier. An inverted yield curve has traditionally signaled that bond investors expect a recession within a year and a lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve. Demand for bonds pushes their prices down. But the reverse has happened over recent days, with the selling of longer-term Treasury securities pushing yields up rapidly.

Another way to illustrate the phenomenon is to look at how the Federal Reserve has shifted the U.S. money supply. Odeon Capital analyst Dick Bove wrote in a note to clients on Friday that “the Federal Reserve has not deviated from its policy to defeat inflation by tightening monetary policy,” as it has shrunk its balance sheet (mostly Treasury securities) to $8.1 trillion from $9 trillion in March 2022. He added: “The M2 money supply was $21.8 trillion in March 2022; today it is $20.8 trillion. You cannot get tighter than these numbers indicate.”

Then on Tuesday, Bove illustrated the Fed’s tightening and the movement of the 10-year yield with two charts:

Odeon Capital Group, Bloomberg

Bove said he believes the bond market has gotten it wrong, with the inverted yield curve reflecting expectations of rate cuts next year. If he is correct, investors can expect longer-term yields to keep shooting up and a normalization of the yield curve.

This has set up a brutal environment for utility stocks, which are typically desired by investors who are seeking dividend income. In a market in which you can receive a yield of 5.5% with little risk over the short term, and in which you can lock in a long-term yield of about 5%, why take a risk in the stock market? And if you believe that the core inflation rate of 3.7% makes a 5% yield seem paltry, keep in mind that not all investors think the same way. Many worry less about the inflation rate because large components of official inflation calculations, such as home prices and car prices, don’t affect everyone every year.

We cannot know when this current selloff of longer-term bonds will end, or how much of an effect it will have on the stock market. But sharp declines in the stock market can set up attractive price points for investors looking to go in for the long haul.

Screening for lower valuations and high ratings

A combination of rising earnings estimates and price declines could shed light on potential buying opportunities, based on forward price-to-earnings ratios.

Let’s look at the sectors again, in the same order, this time to show their forward P/E ratios, based on weighted rolling 12-month consensus estimates for earnings per share among analysts polled by FactSet:

Sector or index	Current P/E to 5-year average	Current P/E to 10-year average	Current P/E to 15-year average	Forward P/E	5-year average P/E	10-year average P/E	15-year average P/E
Utilities	82%	86%	95%	14.99	18.30	17.40	15.82
Real Estate	76%	80%	81%	15.19	19.86	18.89	18.72
Consumer Staples	93%	96%	105%	18.61	19.92	19.30	17.64
Healthcare	103%	104%	115%	16.99	16.46	16.34	14.72
Financials	88%	92%	97%	12.90	14.65	14.08	13.26
Materials	100%	103%	111%	16.91	16.98	16.42	15.27
Industrials	88%	96%	105%	17.38	19.84	18.16	16.56
Energy	106%	63%	73%	11.78	11.17	18.80	16.23
Consumer Discretionary	79%	95%	109%	24.09	30.41	25.39	22.10
Information Technology	109%	130%	146%	24.20	22.17	18.55	16.54
Communication Services	86%	86%	94%	16.41	19.09	19.00	17.43

S&P 500	94%	101%	112%	17.94	19.01	17.76	16.04
DJ Industrial Average	93%	98%	107%	16.25	17.49	16.54	15.17
Nasdaq Composite Index	92%	102%	102%	24.62	26.71	24.18	24.18
Nasdaq-100 Index	97%	110%	126%	24.40	25.23	22.14	19.43

There is a limit to how many columns we can show in the table. The S&P 500’s forward P/E ratio is now 17.94, compared with 16.79 at the end of 2022 and 21.53 at the end of 2021. The benchmark index’s P/E is above its 10- and 15-year average levels but below the five-year average.

If we compare the current sector P/E numbers to 5-, 10- and 15-year averages, we can see that the current levels are below all three averages for four sectors: utilities, real estate, financials and communications services. The first three face obvious difficulties as they adjust to the rising-rate environment, while the real-estate sector reels from continuing low usage rates for office buildings, from the change in behavior brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Your own opinions, along with the pricing for some sectors, might drive some investment choices.

A broader screen of the S&P 500 might point to companies for you to research further.

We narrowed the S&P 500 as follows:

Current forward P/E below 5-, 10- and 15-year average valuations. For stocks with negative earnings-per-share estimates for the next 12 months, there is no forward P/E ratio so they were excluded. For stocks listed for less than 15 years, we required at least a 5-year average P/E for comparison. This brought the list down to 138 companies.
“Buy” or equivalent ratings from at least two-thirds of analysts: 41 companies.

Here are the 20 companies that passed the screen, for which analysts’ price targets imply the highest upside potential over the next 12 months.

There is too much data for one table, so first we will show the P/E information:

Company	Ticker	Current P/E to 5-year average	Current P/E to 10-year average	Current P/E to 15-year average
SolarEdge Technologies Inc.	SEDG	89%	N/A	N/A
AES Corp.	AES	66%	75%	90%
Insulet Corp.	PODD	18%	N/A	N/A
United Airlines Holdings Inc.	UAL	42%	50%	N/A
Alaska Air Group Inc.	ALK	51%	57%	N/A
Tapestry Inc.	TPR	39%	49%	70%
Albemarle Corp.	ALB	39%	50%	73%
Delta Air Lines Inc.	DAL	60%	63%	21%
Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc.	ARE	59%	68%	N/A
Las Vegas Sands Corp.	LVS	96%	78%	53%
Paycom Software Inc.	PAYC	61%	N/A	N/A
PayPal Holdings Inc.	PYPL	33%	N/A	N/A
SBA Communications Corp. Class A	SBAC	27%	N/A	N/A
Advanced Micro Devices Inc.	AMD	58%	39%	N/A
LKQ Corp.	LKQ	92%	44%	78%
Charles Schwab Corp.	SCHW	75%	54%	73%
PulteGroup Inc.	PHM	94%	47%	N/A
Lamb Weston Holdings Inc.	LW	71%	N/A	N/A
News Corp Class A	NWSA	93%	73%	N/A
CVS Health Corp.	CVS	75%	61%	67%
Source: FactSet

Click on the tickers for more about each company or index.

Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.

News Corp
NWSA
is on the list. The company owns Dow Jones, which in turn owns MarketWatch.

Here’s the list again, with ratings and consensus price-target information:

Company	Ticker	Share “buy” ratings	Oct. 2 price	Consensus price target	Implied 12-month upside potential
SolarEdge Technologies Inc.	SEDG	74%	$122.56	$268.77	119%
AES Corp.	AES	79%	$14.16	$25.60	81%
Insulet Corp.	PODD	68%	$165.04	$279.00	69%
United Airlines Holdings Inc.	UAL	71%	$41.62	$69.52	67%
Alaska Air Group Inc.	ALK	87%	$36.83	$61.31	66%
Tapestry Inc.	TPR	75%	$28.58	$46.21	62%
Albemarle Corp.	ALB	81%	$162.41	$259.95	60%
Delta Air Lines Inc.	DAL	95%	$36.45	$58.11	59%
Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc.	ARE	100%	$98.18	$149.45	52%
Las Vegas Sands Corp.	LVS	72%	$45.70	$68.15	49%
Paycom Software Inc.	PAYC	77%	$260.04	$384.89	48%
PayPal Holdings Inc.	PYPL	69%	$58.56	$86.38	48%
SBA Communications Corp. Class A	SBAC	68%	$198.24	$276.69	40%
Advanced Micro Devices Inc.	AMD	74%	$103.27	$143.07	39%
LKQ Corp.	LKQ	82%	$49.13	$67.13	37%
Charles Schwab Corp.	SCHW	77%	$53.55	$72.67	36%
PulteGroup Inc.	PHM	81%	$73.22	$98.60	35%
Lamb Weston Holdings Inc.	LW	100%	$92.23	$123.50	34%
News Corp Class A	NWSA	78%	$20.00	$26.42	32%
CVS Health Corp.	CVS	77%	$69.69	$90.88	30%
Source: FactSet

A year may actually be a short period for a long-term investor, but 12-month price targets are the norm for analysts working for brokerage companies.

Don’t miss: This fund shows that industry expertise can help you make a lot of money in the stock market

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October 3, 2023

Apple says it will fix app software problems blamed for making iPhone 15 models too hot to handle

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Apple Inc. is blaming a software bug and other issues tied to popular apps such as Instagram and Uber for causing its recently released iPhone 15 models to heat up and spark complaints about becoming too hot to handle.

The Cupertino, Calif., company
AAPL,
+0.30%
said Saturday that it is working on an update to the iOS17 system that powers the iPhone 15 lineup to prevent the devices from becoming uncomfortably hot and is working with apps that are running in ways “causing them to overload the system.”

Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms
META,
-1.23%,
modified its social media app earlier this week to prevent it from heating up the device on the latest iPhone operating system.

Read: The Magnificent Seven could be considered the messy seven after a ‘meh’ third quarter

Uber
UBER,
-0.33%
and other apps such as the video game Asphalt 9 are still in the process of rolling out their updates, Apple said. It didn’t specify a timeline for when its own software fix would be issued but said no safety issues should prevent iPhone 15 owners from using their devices while awaiting the update.

“We have identified a few conditions which can cause iPhone to run warmer than expected,” Apple in a short statement provided to The Associated Press after media reports detailed overheating complaints that are peppering online message boards.

The Wall Street Journal amplified the worries in a story citing the overheating problem in its own testing of the new iPhones, which went on sale a week ago.

Read: Here’s what Apple’s iPhone 15 says about the world

It’s not unusual for new iPhones to get uncomfortably warm during the first few days of use or when they are being restored with backup information stored in the cloud — issues that Apple already flags for users. The devices also can get hot when using apps such as video games and augmented reality technology that require a lot of processing power, but the heating issues with the iPhone 15 models have gone beyond those typical situations.

In its acknowledgement, Apple stressed that the trouble isn’t related to the sleek titanium casing that houses the high-end iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max instead of the stainless steel used on older smartphones.

Apple also dismissed speculation that the overheating problem in the new models might be tied to a shift from its proprietary Lightning charging cable to the more widely used USB-C port that allowed it to comply with a mandate issued by European regulators.

Although Apple expressed confidence that the overheating issue can be quickly fixed with the upcoming software updates, the problem still could dampen sales of its marquee product at time when the company has faced three consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines in overall sales.

The downturn has affected iPhone sales, which fell by a combined 4% in the nine months covered by Apple’s past three fiscal quarters compared with a year earlier.

Apple is trying to pump up its sales in part by raising the starting price for its top-of-the-line iPhone 15 Pro Max to $1,200, an increase of $100, or 9%, from last year’s comparable model.

Investor worries about Apple’s uncharacteristic sales funk already have wiped out more than $300 billion in shareholder wealth since the company’s market value closed at $3 trillion for the first time in late June.

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September 30, 2023

Instagram, other social media should be banned for anyone 16 and under, Ramaswamy says at GOP debate

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Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy took aim at social-media companies during the second GOP presidential debate, saying Wednesday night that he would aim to ban anyone age 16 or under from using those companies’ platforms.

“If you’re 16 years old or under, you should not be using an addictive social-media product — period,” said Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who ranks fourth in GOP primary polls, according a RealClearPolitics average.

He said this move would help with improving mental health and stopping the fentanyl epidemic. Earlier, Ramaswamy had talked about a mom and dad in Iowa whose son died after the teen bought Percocet laced with fentanyl through Snapchat.

That type of ban would hit companies such as Meta Platforms
META,
-0.41%,
the parent of Instagram and Facebook; Snap
SNAP,
+1.80%,
the parent of Snapchat; X, formerly known as Twitter; and ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok.

Ramaswamy has started using TikTok in his White House campaign, and another GOP presidential candidate, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, attacked him over that at another point in the debate.

“TikTok is one of the most dangerous social-media apps we could have,” she said. “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.”

Now read: Could Congress actually ban TikTok in the U.S.? Analysts see ‘procedural and practical hurdles’

And see: GOP presidential debate: DeSantis says Trump’s spending ‘set the stage for the inflation that we have now’

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September 27, 2023

FedEx, Klaviyo, KB Home, CrowdStrike, and More Stock Market Movers

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This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-cd3606a2

Updated Sept. 21, 2023 6:20 am ET / Original Sept. 21, 2023 4:34 am ET

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September 21, 2023

KB Home stock slips despite earnings beat, raised forecast and ‘steady’ demand

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KB Home shares declined in the extended session Wednesday even after the home builder reported results that topped Wall Street estimates, hiked its revenue forecast for the year and reported steady demand amid rising mortgage rates.

KB Home KBH shares slid more than 2% after hours, following a 0.7% decline in the regular session to close at $48.06.

The…

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September 20, 2023

Instacart, Ford, Pinterest, Coty, Dollar General, Intel, and More Stock Market Movers

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This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-457cee3b

Updated Sept. 20, 2023 7:54 am ET / Original Sept. 20, 2023 4:37 am ET

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September 20, 2023

Tech’s wild week: How Apple, Google, AI, Arm’s mega IPO could set the agenda for years

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The second week of September, as in the NFL, marks a kickoff of sorts for the tech year.

Headlined by Apple Inc.’s
AAPL,
+0.72%
seminal iPhone event on the second Tuesday of the month at Apple Park, and anchored by Salesforce Inc.’s
CRM,
+0.33%
wildly popular Dreamforce conference up the road in San Francisco, these several days set a tempo as well as establish a road map for the industry over the next 12 months. They also open the floodgates on tech conference season, with shows stacked up over the next several weeks for Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
+3.33%,
Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
+1.21%,
and Oracle Corp.
ORCL,
+0.32%.

Oh, and there’s that initial public offering from Arm Holdings Plc, the chip designer owned by SoftBank Group Corp.
9984,
+3.86%
that is expected to value Arm at $50 billion to $54.5 billion on a fully diluted basis. Another IPO candidate, delivery startup Instacart, also plans a public offering that would value it at $7.5 billion. Both deals could jump-start what has been a somnolent tech IPO market the past few years.

For that reason alone, this jam-packed tech week might hold even more import, and consequences, than previous years. A confluence of legal tussles, macroeconomic conditions, a trade war with China, and regulatory bluster have raised the stakes.

“It’s a tale of two cities with this week’s events highlighting both the issues and opportunities in tech,” Silicon Valley analyst Maribel Lopez said in an interview, assessing the week. “Arm’s IPO showcases the strength of tech and AI at a time when the AI forum and Google-DoJ shine a light on the concern that a few companies are wielding tremendous power for the future of the world.”

Consider: Hours before Apple is expected to unveil a new crop of iPhones more noteworthy for pricing than features, Alphabet Inc.’s
GOOGL,
+0.51%

GOOG,
+0.47%
Google faces off with the Justice Department in a federal court in Washington, D.C.

Justice Department officials argue that Google illegally leveraged agreements with phone makers such as Apple and Samsung Electronics Co.
005930,
+0.71%
and with internet browsers like Mozilla to be the default search engine for their customers, thus preventing smaller rivals from gaining access to that business.

“This is a backwards-looking case at a time of unprecedented innovation, including breakthroughs in AI, new apps and new services, all of which are creating more competition and more options for people than ever before,” Google General Counsel Kent Walker said in a statement.

The following day, Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., convenes an all-star panel of CEOs from Meta, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and Palantir Technologies Inc.
PLTR,
+4.82%.

As lawmakers ruminate on how to harness AI responsibly, bipartisan legislation is in the works. Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., are among those crafting a bill.

Even Apple and Salesforce aren’t immune from recent events: Apple has endured a relatively rough patch of disappointing (for them) revenue and iPhone sales while balancing risk/reward with its huge investment in China, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has threatened to relocate Dreamforce to Las Vegas after more than two decades in his hometown of San Francisco if drug use and homelessness disrupt this year’s event.

The most pressing concern, when all is said and done, is AI — which hovers like the Death Star over the tech landscape.

“The biggest concern is the forum is behind closed doors, which could lead to regulatory capture, where dominant players in the industry help influence the regulations being imposed,” Kimberlee Josephson, associate professor of business administration at Lebanon Valley College (Pa.), said in an interview. “It’s almost as if it puts them in the hot while giving them a seat at the table at the same time.”

“At the very least, it sends the signal that something is being done,” she said. “Antitrust cases are so subjective. What constitutes barriers to entry? DoJ adds a level of seriousness.”

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September 11, 2023

Here’s an easy way to make a more concentrated play on the ‘Magnificent Seven’ stocks

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Investors in index funds have been well rewarded by a high concentration in the largest technology companies over the past decade. But there are also continuing warnings about the risk of such heavy concentrations, even in index funds that track the S&P 500. Solutions are offered to limit this risk, but if you expect Big Tech to continue to drive the broad market returns over the coming years, why not make an even more focused bet?

Comparisons of three index-fund approaches highlight how successful concentration in the “Magnificent Seven” has been.

The Magnificent Seven are Apple Inc.
AAPL,
+0.16%,
Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
+0.72%,
Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
-2.03%,
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
+2.17%,
Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
-0.27%

GOOG,
-0.32%,
Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
+9.37%
and Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
+1.67%.
We have listed them in the order of their concentration within the Invesco S&P 500 ETF Trust
SPY,
which tracks the S&P 500
SPX.
The U.S. benchmark index is weighted by market capitalization, as is the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP
and the Russell indexes.

SPY is 27.6% concentrated in the Magnificent Seven. One way to play the same group of 500 stocks but eliminate concentration risk is to take an equal-weighted approach to the index, which has worked well for certain long periods. But here, we’re focusing on how well the concentrated strategy has worked.

Let’s take a look at the group’s concentration in three popular index approaches, then look at long-term performance and consider what happened in 2022 as rising interest rates helped crush the tech sector.

Here are the portfolio weightings for the Magnificent Seven in SPY, along with those of the Invesco QQQ Trust
QQQ,
which tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index
NDX
and the Invesco S&P 500 Top 50 ETF
XLG
:

Company	Ticker	% of SPY	% of QQQ	% of XLG
Apple Inc.	AAPL, +0.16%	7.05%	10.85%	12.46%
Microsoft Cor.	MSFT, +0.72%	6.65%	9.53%	11.76%
Amazon.com Inc.	AMZN, +2.17%	3.30%	5.50%	5.84%
Nvidia Corp.	NVDA, -2.03%	3.02%	4.44%	5.33%
Alphabet Inc. Class A	GOOGL, -0.27%	2.17%	3.12%	3.83%
Alphabet Inc. Class C	GOOG, -0.32%	1.88%	3.11%	3.32%
Tesla Inc.	TSLA, +9.37%	1.79%	3.10%	3.17%
Meta Platforms Inc. Class A	META, +1.67%	1.77%	3.60%	3.12%
Totals		27.63%	43.25%	48.83%
Sources: Invesco Ltd., State Street Corp.

The same group of seven companies (eight stocks with two common share classes for Alphabet) is at the top of each exchange-traded fund’s portfolio, although the top seven for QQQ aren’t in the same order as those for SPY and XLG. QQQ’s weighting was changed recently as the underlying Nasdaq-100 underwent a “special rebalancing” last month.

Here’s a five-year chart comparing the performance of the three approaches. All returns in this article include reinvested dividends.

FactSet

QQQ has been the clear winner for five years, but it is also worth noting how well XLG has performed when compared with SPY. This “top 50” approach to the S&P 500 incorporates many stocks that aren’t listed on the Nasdaq and therefore cannot be included in QQQ, which itself is made up of the largest 100 nonfinancial companies in the full Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
+0.45%.

Examples of stocks held by XLG that aren’t held by QQQ include such non-tech stalwarts as Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
BRK.B,
+0.77%,
Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
+0.79%,
Procter & Gamble Co.
PG,
+0.94%,
Home Depot Inc.
HD,
-0.12%
and Nike Inc.
NKE,
-0.42%.

Now let’s go deeper into long-term performance. First, here are the total returns for various time periods:

ETF	3 Years	5 Years	10 Years	15 Years	20 Years
SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY	40%	69%	223%	370%	531%
Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ	41%	113%	430%	882%	1,158%
Invesco S&P 500 Top 50 ETF XLG	41%	85%	262%	404%	N/A
Source: FactSet

Click on the tickers for more about each ETF, company or index.

Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.

There is no 20-year return for XLG because this ETF was established in 2005.

For five years and longer, QQQ has been the runaway leader, but for 5, 10 and 15 years, XLG has also beaten SPY handily, with broader industry exposure.

Something else to consider is that during 2022, when SPY was down 18.2%, XLG fell 24.3% and QQQ dropped 32.6%.

For disciplined long-term investors, the tech pain of 2022 may not seem to have been a small price to pay for outperformance. And it may have been easier to take the pounding when holding SPY or even XLG that year.

Here’s a look at the average annual returns for the three ETFs:

ETF	3 years	5 years	10 years	15 years	20 years
SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY	11.8%	11.0%	12.4%	10.9%	9.6%
Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ	12.0%	16.3%	18.2%	16.4%	13.5%
Invesco S&P 500 Top 50 ETF XLG	12.2%	13.1%	13.7%	11.4%	N/A
Source: FactSet

So the question remains — do you believe that the largest technology companies will continue to lead the stock market for the next decade at least? If so, a more concentrated index approach may be for you, provided you can withstand the urge to sell into a declining market, such as the one we experienced last year.

Here is something else to keep in mind. In a note to clients on Monday, Doug Peta, the chief U.S. investment strategist at BCA, made a fascinating point: “The only novel development is that all the heaviest hitters now hail from Tech and Tech-adjacent sectors and are therefore more prone to move together than they were at the end of 2004, when the seven largest stocks came from six different sectors. “

Nothing lasts forever. Peta continued by suggesting that investors who are tired of big tech taking all the glory “need only wait.”

“[I]f history is any guide, their time at the top of the capitalization scale will be short,” he wrote.

Don’t miss: These four Dow stocks take top prizes for dividend growth

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September 11, 2023

Just how much is the AI discourse helping stocks? An analyst scoured earnings calls for clues

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Talking about AI alone has been pixie dust for big technology stocks this year. And as executives look for any way to shoehorn AI into their business plans, more S&P 500 index companies during their second quarter earnings calls mentioned “AI” than at any point since at least 2010, according to a report published on Friday.

What’s more, according to the report from FactSet, the companies talking about AI — even the ones that aren’t the big, obvious tech names — have seen their stocks fare better than shares of companies that haven’t.

For S&P 500 companies that mentioned “AI” on their second-quarter earnings calls, shares on average since June 30 dipped 0.8%, while rising 13.3% since Dec. 31, FactSet said. For companies that didn’t talk about AI on those calls, shares on average fell a bit more since the end of June — 2.3% — while inching only 1.5% higher since the end of last year.

“Even excluding the ‘Magnificent Seven’ (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla), the S&P 500 companies that cited ‘AI’ still outperformed the S&P 500 companies that did not cite ‘AI’ on average during these periods,” FactSet Senior Earnings Analyst John Butters said in the report.

Meanwhile, Wall Street has long believed corporate America’s profits would rebound for the second half of 2023, after a year ruled by anxieties over inflation’s impact on the economy. Still, that collective bounce-back, as it has through this year, will hinge on strong results from the world’s biggest tech players.

Wall Street analysts expect S&P 500 companies to eke out a 0.5% gain in per-share profit growth during the third quarter, according to the FactSet report. If that number holds, it would be the first quarter of earnings growth since the third quarter of last year.

Those potential gains, however, will largely depend on results from Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
+0.28%,
Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
-0.26%
and Alphabet Inc.
GOOG,
+0.73%

GOOGL,
+0.83%
— outsized companies with outsized influence on markets and S&P 500 company financials overall. Financials for those companies have rebounded this year, after big tech retrenched amid a drop-off in pandemic-related digital demand from people spending more time at home and online.

This week in earnings

Three years of supply disruptions have upended the economy and driven prices higher, forcing the Federal Reserve to embark on a delicate effort to bring them lower by discouraging borrowing and spending through a series of interest-rate hikes. But what about the impact on bowling? For answers, we turn to results this week from bowling-alley chain Bowlero Corp.
BOWL,
-3.43%,
which saw a jump in demand following the economy’s reopening but now faces questions about that demand as it shows signs of returning to Earth. Convenience-store chain Casey’s General Stores Inc.
CASY,
+0.85%
and homebuilder Lennar Corp.
LEN,
+0.50%
also report.

The call to put on your calendar

Adobe results: Digital-media, analytics and design firm Adobe Inc. reports quarterly results on Thursday. But Mizuho analyst Gregg Moskowitz said his focus was on the company’s broader digital transformation.

He cited stronger Web traffic, the potential for more deals with bigger customers, signs of improving trends in Adobe’s
ADBE,
-0.02%
analytics segment, as well as the segment that includes design tools like Photoshop. But he said the company’s moves in generative AI could be “a significant growth driver.” Adobe this year unveiled Firefly, an AI image and text-enhancement model that can be incorporated into Adobe’s software. Moskowitz said that “while very early, our checks indicate an already high level of large customer interest in GenAI projects, including Firefly for Enterprise.” However, he said the company’s $20 billion acquisition of online design platform Figma was still “a big question mark,” as costs and regulatory scrutiny accumulate.

The number to watch

Oracle results, supply situation: Cloud and IT-network developer Oracle Corp.
ORCL,
+0.98%
reports results on Monday. Like much of the tech world, Wall Street sees the company as an AI play. But UBS analysts said that as businesses race to secure the components that power AI, Oracle could have an “underappreciated edge” over rivals.

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September 10, 2023

Sorry, Elon, a ‘super app’ is never going to fly in the U.S.

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“Super apps” have never truly existed in the United States, and it is apparent at this point that they never will.

That isn’t stopping some executives and investment analysts from still dreaming of becoming one-stop shops for their users’ needs, something only a small handful of apps in Asia have managed to do. The most prominent is Elon Musk, the Tesla Inc. TSLAchief executive who purchased Twitter last year and has proclaimed that he will turn it into an “everything app” called X that resembles super apps in China.

“I…

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September 7, 2023

Is the Stock Market Open Today? These Are the Trading Hours for Labor Day.

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Is the Stock Market Open Today? These Are the Trading Hours for Labor Day.

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September 3, 2023

My not-so-empty nest and the dirty little secret that no one talks about

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Ever since my daughters entered high school, I was preparing myself for the dreaded “empty nest.” While it was years away, I worried about how I would adjust to the reality of kids in college and no more time-sucking chores to do.

Even though I have been a working mother in a two-income household, family always was a priority, and I was devoted to caring for our daughters. So, I did wonder how I would adjust to the hole left in my daily calendar when our girls went off to school, graduated or moved on and launched their own lives.

But here’s the dirty little secret that no one talks about until it happens. After decades of marriage and three years of COVID quarantine, I’ve got a different problem: I can’t get my husband to leave the house.

It’s a topic of conversation among my girlfriends, all of us looking for some solitude but instead faced with our husbands, always in their sweatpants, happily hanging out around the house.

Of course, COVID was the trial run, the big disrupter, for being at home. My husband, pre-COVID, was a human tourism brochure, constantly digging up great activities we could go to. Most of them were things we did together but since we weren’t holed up together at home, it didn’t feel stifling.

The COVID pivot

But once COVID hit, all those activities came to a screeching halt and my husband proclaimed that with all the books, CDs and vinyl from his youth along with tchotchkes he’s collected over decades, he could be more than happy to stay home forever and read, listen to music and peruse his collections.

Maybe I have done such a good job of creating a comfortable nest that my husband just doesn’t feel the need to leave. Perhaps COVID caused him to re-evaluate just how important it was to get some fresh — and possibly contaminated — air.

Maybe, like so many men his age, he doesn’t have enough friends — Jane Fonda has expounded on that of late, explaining to anyone who will listen how vital her women friends are to her well-being, while all men want to do is sit next to each other and watch sports or cars or women from afar. And she’s right, women have friends that are soul mates, advisers, co-conspirators. Most men haven’t thrown each other that emotional lifeline.

The timing is unfortunate. I’m working less than full time at this stage of life. Now that I’ve gotten accustomed to my children being gone and look forward to some time to myself, my husband has had to rethink his motivation to get out of the house every day.

Still working, but from home

The fact that he continues to work, but now fully from home, hasn’t helped. After stressful workdays I understand that he also needs some downtime.

Many men are at the stage of life where a decision about whether to retire is also on the table. But here is a word of warning to husbands considering that as their next chapter: Check your Rolodex for friends you want to spend time with because we can’t be your constant companions.

Maybe it’s a “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” kind of thing. But after watching all the episodes of “The Sopranos” for the first time recently, I feel that if only there was a Bada Bing club — without the Bada Bing. Maybe someone should start a Daddy Daycare to literally take care of Daddy.

Guys of a certain age need a place to meet and schmooze, a clubhouse where someone can make them a plate and just create an inviting space to shoot the breeze. I have no idea what they would talk about, though.

See: ‘It’s just a nice place for an old guy to go, I guess’: Men’s Sheds offer camaraderie and connection

Women know that building deep friendships has paid huge dividends as we all have gotten older. Long-married spouses need more time with their friends — a respite from too much togetherness at home and an opportunity to discuss something beyond what’s for dinner.

I did gently mention a few weeks ago to my husband that he rarely leaves the house these days and maybe he could take an outing one afternoon a week that didn’t include me.

“What do you mean I never leave the house?” he said, incredulous. “I went to Ralph’s just the other day.” And proud hunter-gatherer that he is, we’ve got the boxes and cans of unheard-of sale items we will probably never use to prove it.

Also see: Am I lonesome? ‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ How single men can prepare to age alone.

Growth of gray divorces

I have found women are often more adventurous, even as we age. We are less willing to just hang back and “relax.” For an increasing number of women, gray divorce has become a term that sociologists are noticing, as more older women have chosen to approach their senior years alone.

See: Gray divorce can be financially devastating — especially for women

For others, independent travel is an answer. There are so many blogs, Instagram and Facebook
META,
+0.17%
accounts by women traveling alone that we are practically our own demographic. In my independent solo travels, I have encountered many women who got tired of asking their reluctant husbands to come along and have happily set out on their own.

Once you arrive in a strange city, it is totally liberating to explore when you don’t have to check in with anyone else about what to do when, how to get wherever, or what time or what to eat each day. And it’s easier to engage in conversations with strangers when you are by yourself. I find I’m more open to those encounters when I’m on my own.

See: This 82-year-old woman ended up traveling alone in France for three weeks. It turned out pretty great.

Dolly Parton’s secret

I heard a story recently from a photographer who was photographing Dolly Parton. The soon-to-be-married photographer asked the performer her secret to her long marriage. Parton’s answer: “Travel a lot. Separately.”

While it’s important to get away, for me, who never described myself as a homebody, it’s essential to have some alone time that doesn’t involve leaving the house. As we age, the one thing that is certain is that the future is unpredictable.

There may come a time when leaving the house is not a safe or viable option. While we are healthy and active enough, let’s give each other the space to enjoy one of life’s guilty pleasures — moments of solitude at home where you have a chance to think, regroup, dream and sometimes to just do absolutely nothing.

The added bonus will be that the time we do spend together will be all the more interesting, with new adventures to hear about.

Iris Schneider has been a journalist and photographer since the 1970s, starting in New York City while teaching at PS 97 on the Lower East Side. She became a staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times in 1980. Her work can be seen on her website or on Instagram (@schneidereye).

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September 3, 2023

Labor Day is just a ‘milestone’ in the marathon to get workers back to the office

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The U.S. Labor Day holiday will mark another milestone in the marathon to bring workers back to the office, but it won’t be a quick fix for landlords, according to Thomas LaSalvia, head of commercial real estate economics at Moody’s Analytics.

Employers from Facebook parent Meta
META,
+0.27%
to Goldman Sachs
GS,
-0.26%
recently laid out mandates for staff to return to the office more frequently, starting this fall, including the big one — the federal government.

“A lot of companies are saying that after Labor Day, ‘We expect more out of you,” LaSalvia said, referring to days in the office. Still, office attendance, he argues, likely only stages a fuller comeback if a job or promotion is on the line.

Amazon.com Inc.’s
AMZN,
+2.18%
Chief Executive Andy Jassy has been trying to drive home the point by warning staff to return at least three days a week, or face the consequences.

That could prove difficult, with Friday’s U.S. jobs report for August expected to show U.S. unemployment at a scant 3.5%, near the lowest levels since the late 1960s, even if hiring has been slowing. The labor market, so far, appears unfazed by the Federal Reserve’s benchmark rate reaching a 22-year high.

It has been a different story for landlords facing a roughly 19% vacancy rate nationally and piles of debt coming due, especially for owners of older Class B and C office buildings with a bleak outlook or properties in cities with wobbling business centers.

See: San Francisco’s office market erases all gains since 2017 as prices sag nationally

As with shopping malls, LaSalvia said it’s largely a problem of oversupply, with many office properties at risk of becoming obsolete as tenants flock to better buildings and locations staging a rebirth. The trend can be traced in leasing data since 2021, with Class A properties in central business districts (blue line) showing a big advantage over less desirable buildings in the heart of cities (orange line).

Return to office isn’t going to save the entire office property market

Moody’s Analytics

“Little by little, we are finding the office isn’t dead,” LaSalvia said, but he also sees more promise in neighborhoods with a new purpose, those catering to hybrid work and communities that bring people together.

Another way to look at the trend is through rents. Manhattan’s Penn Station submarket, with its estimated $13 billion overhaul and neighboring Hudson Yards development, has seen asking rents jump 32% to $74.87 a square foot in the second quarter since the fourth quarter of 2019, according to Moody’s Analytics. That compares with a 2% bump in asking rents in downtown New York City to $61.39 a square foot for the same period.

The push for a return to the office also doesn’t mean a repeat of prepandemic ways. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that part-time remote work in the U.S. has stabilized around 20%-25%, in a late August report, but that’s still up from 2.6% before the 2020 lockdowns.

Furthermore, the persistence of remote work will likely add another 171 million square feet of vacant U.S. office space through 2029, a period that also will see tenants’ long-term leases expire and many companies opting for less space. The additional vacancies would roughly translate to 57% of Los Angeles roughly 300 million square feet of office space sitting empty.

“The fundamental reason why we had offices in the first place have not completely disintegrated,” LaSalvia said. “But for some of those Class B and C offices, the writing was on the wall before the pandemic.”

U.S. stocks were mixed Thursday, but headed for losses in a tough August for stocks, with the S&P 500 index
SPX
off about 1.5% for the month, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
2.1% lower and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
down 2% in August, according to FactSet.

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August 31, 2023

Nvidia may be the AI stock for now, but here are the picks for later, says Goldman Sachs

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Wall Street looks ready to build on Monday’s gains, the first in five sessions for the S&P 500
SPX
and Nasdaq Composite
COMP.
That’s as expectations build around Nvidia, which has had a lackluster August, to knock it out of the park with earnings on Wednesday.

Investors have had months to focus on AI darlings such as Nvidia. In our call of the day, Goldman Sachs takes a look at stocks to trade after the big AI trade. A team led by strategists Ryan Hammond and David Kostin complied a basket of companies with the biggest potential long-term earnings per share boost from the impact of AI adoption on labor productivity.

Their analysis indicates that following widespread AI adoption, EPS for the median stock in that basket could be 72% higher than the baseline, versus 19% for the median Russell 1000 stock.

“We estimate the potential productivity-related EPS boost from increased revenues or increased margins, using a combination of company-level estimates of the share of the wage bill exposed to AI automation and the labor cost to revenue ratio,” said the Goldman team.

Since early 2023, when AI emerged as a theme for investors, they note their long-term basket of stocks has outperformed the equal-weight S&P 500 by just 6 percentage points, far less than near-term beneficiaries such as Nvidia
NVDA,
-0.49%,
Microsoft
MSFT,
+0.94%
or Meta
META,
+0.51%.

Goldman Sachs Investment Research

“The estimated AI-driven earnings boost is likely to occur over the next few years, but should be reflected in stock valuations sooner. However, the eventual share price impact will depend on the ability of companies to use AI to enhance earnings,” said Goldman.

While unable to pin it exactly, Goldman expects AI adoption will start to a have a “meaningful macro impact” between 2025 and 2030, with regulatory constraints and data privacy concerns likely to slow widespread adoption. Nearly 75% of CEOs see AI take-up impacting companies or cutting labor needs within the next five years, even if they don’t right now.

Firms with the biggest workforce exposure to AI and larger and more innovative ones, will likely adopt generative AI earlier than others, say the strategists. They say to “expect valuation multiples for these companies to increase first as the adoption timeline crystallizes, even if actual adoption and the associated EPS boost is occur later.”

Goldman’s estimates on the potential earnings boost for those long-term AI beneficiaries consist of several factors: the share of each company’s wage bill exposed to AI automation, how much of a company’s wage bill is exposed to AI automation and labor cost as a share of revenue.

“For the typical Russell 1000 stock, 33% of the wage bill is potentially exposed to AI automation and labor costs currently represent 14% of total sales. The potential boost from higher sales would increase earnings by 11% and reduced labor costs would increase earnings by 26%, all else equal,” say the strategists.

Here is a taster of their long-term AI beneficiaries basket:

And a few more:

Read: U.S. stocks may bounce this week, but summer selloff is only halfway done, analysts warn

The markets

U.S. stocks
SPX

COMP
are trading mixed. The yield on the 10-year Treasury
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
is steady at 4.33%.

For more market updates plus actionable trade ideas for stocks, options and crypto, subscribe to MarketDiem by Investor’s Business Daily.

The buzz

Microsoft
MSFT,
+0.94%
has proposed a Ubisoft license to win U.K. regulatory approval for its Activision Blizzard
ATVI,
+1.09%
buyout. Activision shares and Ubisoft
UBI,
+9.93%
surged in Paris.

On the heels of a 7% surge, EV-maker Tesla
TSLA,
+2.77%
is up 1.8%.

Opinion: SoftBank’s Arm is going public, but it faces a rapidly growing threat

Lowe’s shares
LOW,
+3.34%
are up after the DIY retailer’s earnings topped expectations, though it notes lower discretionary demand.

Among Monday’s late earnings news: Fabrinet
FN,
+27.25%
is up 18% after the high-tech manufacturing services company upbeat forecast, with new AI products helping drive results. Videoconferencing group Zoom Video Communications
ZM,
-4.15%
is up 4% after reporting an earnings jump and guidance.

Read: Why Amazon is this analyst’s top internet stock pick

The world’s biggest miner BHP
BHP,
-0.98%
reported a 58% slump in annual profit amid tumbling commodity prices in part due to China’s economic troubles. U.S.-listed shares are up 4%.

Arm Holdings filed its long-awaited IPO, which could be the year’s biggest. The chip designer aims to raise up to $10 billion with a valuation of $60 billion to $70 billion.

Existing home sales for July are due at 10 a.m., with several Fed speakers throughout the day: Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin at 7:30 a.m. and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee and Fed. Gov. Michelle Bowman both at 2:30 p.m.

Best of the web

‘Own what the Mother of All Bubbles crowd doesn’t.’ This market strategist expects stagflation and is investing for it now.

New video shows the day police raided 98-year old Kansas newspaper owner’s home.

Hitler’s birth house in Austria will be turned into a police station with a human rights training center.

The tickers

These were the top tickers on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m.:

Ticker	Security name
TSLA, +2.77%	Tesla
NVDA, -0.49%	Nvidia
AMC, -17.31%	AMC Entertainment
NIO, -1.87%	Nio
APE, -11.32%	AMC Entertainment Holdings preferred shares
TTOO, -6.13%	T2 Biosystems
GME, -3.63%	GameStop
AAPL, +0.63%	Apple
MULN, -19.19%	Mullen Automotive
AMZN, +0.15%	Amazon.com

The chart

Is tech dancing to the beat of its own drum? The Chart Report flagged this one from Scott Brown, founder of Brown Technical Insights, showing performance of the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF
XLK
:

“It’s only been a week, but consensus and conventional wisdom suggest higher yields are bad for Growth/Tech stocks. Meanwhile, Tech is acting like it never got the memo. It’s still too early to tell if Tech is trying to tell us something, but Scott points out that the sector is facing a crucial test this week at the March 2022 highs (around $163). $XLK is solidly above $163 after today’s bounce, but where it ends the week will likely hinge on $NVDA, as the company releases earnings on Wednesday evening,” says Patrick Dunuwila, editor and co-founder of The Chart Report.

Random reads

“We are the champions.” Spain erupted in celebrations to welcome its Women’s World Cup victors. And England’s Lionesses got a 1,000 soccer-ball tribute.

No, Tropical Storm Hilary didn’t flood Dodger Stadium.

These thirsty beer-drinking thieves are raccoons.

Need to Know starts early and is updated until the opening bell, but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box. The emailed version will be sent out at about 7:30 a.m. Eastern.

Listen to the Best New Ideas in Money podcast with MarketWatch financial columnist James Rogers and economist Stephanie Kelton.

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August 22, 2023

Chip designer Arm files for long-awaited IPO, as smaller transistors send costs skyrocketing

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Arm Holdings Ltd. filed its long-awaited initial public offering late Monday, following last year’s failed bid by Nvidia Corp. to acquire the U.K.-based chip architecture company.

Arm has reportedly been seeking to raise $8 billion to $10 billion at a valuation of $60 billion to $70 billion, making its IPO the biggest of the year so far, and a number of large tech companies, including Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
+1.10%,
Intel Corp.
INTC,
+1.19%
and Nvidia
NVDA,
+8.47%,
are reportedly in the mix to be anchor investors.

In a late Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Arm said it was offering to list its U.S. traded shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “ARM.”

Arm, which is owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.
9984,
+1.16%,
was the target of an unsuccessful $40 billion acquisition by Nvidia last year. After Nvidia scrubbed the deal and paid a $1.36 billion breakup charge following the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s unanimous decision to block it, Nvidia disclosed it paid Arm $750 million for a 20-year license to its technology.

At the time of the breakup, chips sales had hit record highs in 2021, surging 26.2% to a record $555.9 billion, fueled by pandemic-triggered shortages. But the chip industry has since swung to a glut.

Arm listed Barclays, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Mizuho, BofA Securities, Citigroup, and Deutsche Bank Securities among the IPO’s underwriters.

Recent reports said SoftBank was in discussions to purchase the 25% stake in Arm that it does not outright own, which is held by its Vision Fund 1, ahead of the IPO.

Read from Feb. 2022: Wall Street’s reaction to death of Nvidia-Arm deal: No duh

Arm reported net income of $524 million, or 51 cents a share, on revenue of $2.68 billion for fiscal 2023, which ended March 31, compared with net income of $549 million, or 54 cents a share, on revenue of $2.7 billion, in fiscal 2022, and $388 million, or 38 cents a share, on revenue of $2.03 billion in fiscal 2021.

Arm uses an architecture that is different from the once-standard x86 one built by Intel in the early days of computing.

The company said it has shipped more than 250 billion Arm-based chips since its started in 1990 as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple
AAPL,
+0.77%
and VLSI Technology. In fiscal 2023, Arm said it shipped 30.6 billion chips.

The company said it is going public as the “resources required to develop leading-edge products are significant and continue to increase exponentially as manufacturing process nodes shrink.” Transistors are expressed in scales of nanometers, with design costs running about $249 million for a 7-nanometer chip and about $725 million for a 2-nm chip.

“As the world moves increasingly towards AI- and [machine language]-enabled computing, Arm will be central to this transition,” the company said in the filing. “Arm CPUs already run AI and ML workloads in billions of devices, including smartphones, cameras, digital TVs, cars and cloud data centers.”

Arm said it is working with Alphabet Inc.
GOOG,
+0.64%

GOOGL,
+0.71%,
GM’s
GM,
+0.45%
Cruise, Mercedes-Benz
MBG,
+0.78%,
Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
+2.35%,
and Nvidia “to deploy Arm technology to run AI workloads.”

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August 21, 2023

Stock-index futures gain ground after three-week losing streak

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U.S. stock futures moved higher early Monday, as Wall Street looks to snap a three-week losing streak.

How are stock-index futures trading

S&P 500 futures
ES00,
+0.51%
rose 15 points, or 0.3% to 4397
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
+0.36%
gained 79 points, or 0.2% to 34644
Nasdaq 100 futures
NQ00,
+0.70%
rose 86 points, or 0.5% to 14830

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
rose 26 points, or 0.07%, to 34501, the S&P 500
SPX
declined 1 points, or 0.01%, to 4370, and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
dropped 26 points, or 0.2%, to 13291.

What’s driving markets

Futures are striving to find their footing as Wall Street comes off a three-week losing streak.

“Global markets have recently experienced a series of stumbles due to concerns about China’s economy and higher sovereign bond yields. Last week the S&P 500 dropped 2.1 %, worryingly, with every sector ending in the red,” noted Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI asset management.

Neither of those factors are providing much succor early Monday. A trimming of interest rates over the weekend by China’s central bank has underwhelmed the market, while the 10-year Treasury yield is up about 4 basis points to 4.29%, holding near 15-year highs.

The rising borrowing costs have been a particular problems for some of the big technology stocks that tend to lead the market, according to Innes.

“Last week, several prominent stocks within the S&P 500, such as
GOOGL,
-1.89%,

AAPL,
+0.28%,
and
NVDA,
-0.10%,
all underperformed compared to the broader market index. This dip in performance is attributed to the recent surge in interest rates…This upward rate movement has exerted downward pressure on longer-duration assets,” Innes added.

With that in mind, the reception afforded Nvidia’s results, due on Wednesday, may shape market sentiment for a while. The chipmaker is among the stragglers of an earnings season that has generally beaten forecasts but failed to deliver additional bullish propulsion to the market.

“This picture simply means that the fear of a further Fed tightening, prospects of higher interest rates, combined [with] the set of bad news from China simply didn’t let investors enjoy the better-than-expected earnings,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank.

However, Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat, reckons the recent sell-off will be halted at or before Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell makes a speech at the Jackson Hole symposium at the end of the week.

“Over our many conversations with institutional investors in the past week, the vast majority cite the rise in interest rates as the most concerning for equities,” Lee wrote in a note published over the weekend.

And he thinks the Fed is worried by the surge in 10-year yields, too, because it represents a meaningful tightening of financial conditions for markets, companies and households.

“I think the Fed likely says something dovish-ish [sic]. Why? Does Fed want to risk another ‘something breaking’ ala Feb 2023? While some look back at August 2022 when Fed Chair Powell’s statement was hawkish and marked the local top in 2022 (stocks fell -19% next 8 weeks), we think the context is the opposite.” Lee concluded

Zoom video Communications
ZM,
+1.42%
will report results after Monday’s closing bell. There are no top drawer U.S. economic data due Monday.

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August 21, 2023

‘Magnificent Seven’ stocks are losing some of their shine, but their bonds are doing fine

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The so-called Magnificent Seven grouping of technology stocks lost some of its luster this week after four of the seven moved into correction territory, meaning their stocks have fallen at least 10% from their recent peaks.

The corporate-bond market, in contrast, seems to like all seven names.

The group is made up of Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
-0.65%,
Apple Inc.
AAPL,
+0.28%,
Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
-0.13%,
Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
-0.10%,
Amazon. com Inc.
AMZN,
-0.57%,
Google parent Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
-1.89%

GOOG,
-1.80%
and Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
-1.70%.

One caveat: Tesla has no outstanding bonds. In the past, the electric-car maker issued convertible bonds, but they have all been converted into equity.

The group is credited with helping drive the stock market’s gains in the first half of the year, driven by excitement about artificial intelligence. But the rally has stalled in recent weeks as investors have fretted over the potential for U.S. interest-rate increases, surging Treasury yields and China worries, with property developer Evergrande filing for U.S. bankruptcy protection late Thursday.

On Thursday, Meta followed Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia into correction territory, as MarketWatch’s Emily Bary reported. Tesla, meanwhile, is in a bear market, meaning it’s down more than 20% from its recent peak.

Read: Have AI stocks like Nvidia reached bubble territory? Here’s what history can tell us.

The following series of charts from data-solutions provider BondCliQ Media Services show how many bonds each company has issued by maturity and how they have traded as the stocks have pulled back.

The first chart shows that Microsoft has by far the most bonds, mostly in the 30-year bucket. The software and cloud giant has more than $50 billion in long-term debt, according to its 2023 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Outstanding Magnificent Seven debt by maturity bucket.

Source: BondCliQ Media Services

This chart shows trading volumes over the last 10 days, divided by trade type. The green shows customer buying, while the red is customer selling. The blue shows dealer-to-dealer flows. Microsoft, for example, has seen almost $1.3 billion in customer buying from dealers in the last 10 days and $960 million in customer sales to dealers.

This chart shows that every name in the group has enjoyed better net buying in the last 10 days, with Microsoft leading the way.

Net customer flow of Magnificent Seven debt (last 10 days).

Source: BondCliQ Media Services

This chart shows spread performance over the last 50 days for an intermediate-term bond from each of the seven issuers. Most have tightened or remained steady over the period.

Historical spread performance of Magnificent Seven debt.

Source: BondCliQ Media Services

Apple’s stock entered correction Wednesday upon falling more than 10% from its July 31 peak of $196.45. The company sells mainly discretionary products, and right now “consumers are still being pinched” and thinking more carefully about where they spend their money, according to Matt Stucky, senior portfolio manager for equities at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management.

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August 18, 2023

Nasdaq falls to 6-week low as rising bond yields weigh on ‘Magnificent 7’ stocks

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U.S. stocks traded lower for a third straight day on Thursday as rising bond yields spurred weakness in some of the so-called Magnificent Seven megacap stocks, helping to drive the Nasdaq to a six-week low.

How are stocks trading

The S&P 500
SPX
was down 2 points, or 0.1%, to 4,401.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
shed 42 points, or 0.1%, to 34,725.
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP
fell by 46 points, or 0.3%, to 13,428.

The Dow and S&P 500 were on track to extend a losing streak to a third straight session as major indexes headed for another week in the red. The S&P 500 hasn’t fallen for three weeks in a row since February, FactSet data show.

What’s driving markets

Bonds have resumed command of the stock market of late as higher yields lash shares of megacap technology stocks, undermining their status as the undisputed market leaders.

Long-dated Treasury yields continued to rise Thursday, with the 10-year yield
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
touching its highest level since the 2008 financial crisis, rising north of 4.31%. Bond yields move inversely to prices.

Rising yields helped heap more pressure on shares of some of this year’s highflying tech stocks, including Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
-0.34%,
Apple Inc.
AAPL,
-0.91%
and Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
-0.01%

The elite group of megacap tech stocks which also includes Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms Corp.
META,
-0.24%
and Alphabet Inc.’s Class A
GOOGL,
+2.42%
and Class C
GOOG,
+2.48%
shares has been credited with driving much of the Nasdaq Composite’s nearly 30% run-up year-to-date. But their market dominance has faded in recent weeks as investors have favored other cyclical sectors like energy and materials stocks. Those two sectors were the best performers on the S&P 500 on Thursday.

“That’s a theme that’s been bubbling up here over the last three to four weeks, but there’s more of an exclamation point on it now,” said David Keller, chief market strategist at Stockcharts.com, during a phone interview with MarketWatch.

“First you had Microsoft and Apple breaking down a few weeks ago, now you’re getting Meta breaking below its 50-day moving average.”

Keller added that rising bond yields tend to have a bigger impact on growth stocks like technology names, while sectors like energy are more resilient.

“Energy can do just fine in a rising rate environment. energy and materials should probably do better in a relative basis,” he said.

Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s July meeting released Wednesday afternoon were being blamed for the latest leg higher in global bond yields. They showed that Fed policy makers could continue raising interest rates amid concerns that inflation could reaccelerate, potentially pushing bond yields even higher.

“It’s really uncertain where terminal interest rates will land given the economy isn’t giving us a decisive picture of being too strong or too weak. It’s keeping the window open for more rate hikes potentially,” said Mohannad Aama, a portfolio manager at Beam Capital Management, during a phone interview with MarketWatch.

Corporate earnings were also in focus as investors received results from Cisco Systems
CSCO,
+4.06%
and retail giant Walmart Inc.
WMT,
-1.74%.
Cisco reported strong quarterly results after Wednesday’s close. Walmart also reported stronger than expected earnings, helping to offset some concerns about the strength of the consumer spurred by Target Corp.’s
TGT,
+1.94%
lackluster earnings and guidance from Wednesday.

Shares of Cisco rose 2.6%, while Walmart shares turned lower, down 1.2%.

Economic updates released Thursday helped support the notion that the U.S. economy is growing at a faster pace than economists had expected, potentially complicating the Fed’s efforts to tamp down inflation.

First-time jobless-benefit claims fell by 11,000 to 239,000 last week, a sign that layoffs in the U.S. labor market remain low. The Philadelphia Fed factory index also shot higher to 12 in August, up from negative 13.5 during the prior month, a sign that manufacturers in the U.S. could be exiting a slump.

Companies in focus

Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc.
HE,
-15.24%
shares fell after The Wall Street Journal reported that the utility has engaged in talks with restructuring advisers to consider its next steps after the deadly Maui wildfires.
Shares of Ball Corp.
BALL,
+3.41%
rose 3% after agreeing to sell its aerospace unit to BAE Systems for $5.5 billion.
Chesapeake Energy Corp.
CHK,
+6.03%
will replace Mercury Systems Inc.
MRCY,
+2.99%
on the S&P MidCap 400, S&P Dow Jones Indices said on Wednesday. Shares of Chesapeake were up 6%.
Shares of Cigna Group
CI,
-7.10%
and CVS Health
CVS,
-8.89%
dropped following a report that a major nonprofit health insurer was preparing to shun the pharmacy-benefit industry.

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August 17, 2023

Tag: market research

10. J.J. McCarthy, $1.3 million

J.J. McCarthy of the Michigan Wolverines in action against the Georgia Bulldogs.

Tie-8. Bo Nix, $1.4 million

Bo Nix of the Oregon Ducks throws a pass against the Stanford Cardinals.

Tie-8. Spencer Rattler, $1.4 million

Spencer Rattler of the South Carolina Gamecocks warms up before a game against the Tennessee Volunteers.

7. Angel Reese, $1.7 million

Angel Reese of the LSU Lady Tigers during the 2023 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament championship game.

6. Travis Hunter, $2.3 million

Travis Hunter of the Colorado Buffaloes signals first down after a catch against the TCU Horned Frogs.

5. Caleb Williams, $2.7 million

Caleb Williams of the USC Trojans warms up before a game against the Arizona State Sun Devils.

4. Arch Manning, $2.8 million

Arch Manning of the Texas Longhorns warms up prior to a game against the Alabama Crimson Tide.

3. Livvy Dunne, $3.2 million

Olivia Dunne of LSU looks on during a PAC-12 meet against Utah.

2. Shedeur Sanders, $4.8 million

Shedeur Sanders of the Colorado Buffaloes celebrates as he walks off the field following an NCAAF game against the Arizona State Sun Devils.

1. Bronny James, $5.9 million

Bronny James playing at his high school, Sierra Canyon.

Screening for lower valuations and high ratings

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This week in earnings

The call to put on your calendar

The number to watch

The COVID pivot

Still working, but from home

Growth of gray divorces

Dolly Parton’s secret

Return to office isn’t going to save the entire office property market

The markets

The buzz

Best of the web

The tickers

The chart

Random reads

How are stock-index futures trading

What’s driving markets

Outstanding Magnificent Seven debt by maturity bucket.

Magnificent Seven debt trading volumes (last 10 days).

Net customer flow of Magnificent Seven debt (last 10 days).

Historical spread performance of Magnificent Seven debt.

How are stocks trading

What’s driving markets

Companies in focus