Software – Page 11

Here’s why you might not have to pay a 6% commission next time you sell a home

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Going back decades, if you wanted to buy or sell a stock on the open market, you had to pay a 2% commission to buy and a 2% commission to sell. Then the advent of discount brokerage, led by Charles Schwab Corp.
SCHW,
+1.64%,
made lower commissions available until eventually, with improved technology and efficiency, the entire industry changed to enable the average investor to avoid commissions completely.

But the internet hasn’t done much to reduce the cost of selling a home in the U.S. Sellers typically pay a 6% commission to a real-estate agent to list and sell a home, with the seller’s agent splitting that commission with the buyer’s agent. But all of that may change because of a verdict this week in a class-action lawsuit in federal court against the National Association of Realtors.

Aarthi Swaminathan covers the case, what may happen next and the implications for home sellers and buyers:

Real-estate advice from the Moneyist

MarketWatch illustration

Quentin Fottrell — the Moneyist — works with three readers to answer tricky real-estate questions:

Economic outlook

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell may have bolstered the case that the central bank is finished raising interest rates for this economic cycle. The federal-funds rate was left in its target range of 5.25% to 5.50%.

Jon Gray, the president of Blackstone Group, spoke with MarketWatch Editor in Chief Mark DeCambre and said he expected the Fed to succeed in bringing down inflation without pushing the U.S. economy into a deep recession.

Friday employment numbers: Jobs report shows 150,000 new jobs in October as U.S. labor market cools

Bond-market trend switches again

The U.S. Treasury yield curve has been inverted for nearly a year.

FactSet

Normally, longer-term bonds have higher yields than those with short maturities. But the yield curve has been inverted for nearly a year, with 3-month U.S. Treasury bills
BX:TMUBMUSD03M
having higher yields than 10-year Treasury notes
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y.

There has been elevated demand for long-term bonds, as investors have anticipated a recession and a reversal in Federal Reserve interest-rate policy. When interest rates decline, bond prices rise and vice versa.

As you can see on the chart above, the yield curve was narrowing until mid-October. Yields on 10-year Treasury notes were close to 5% on Oct. 19, but they have been falling the past several days as the three-month yield has remained close to 5.5%.

In this week’s ETF Wrap, Christine Idzelis reports on where all the money is flowing in the bond market.

In the Bond Report, Vivien Lou Chen summarizes the action as investors react to the Federal Reserve’s decision not to change its federal-funds-rate target range this week and to other economic news.

For income-seekers looking to avoid income taxes, here’s a deep dive into municipal bonds, with taxable-equivalent yields and a deeper look at those within four high-tax states.

Ford’s good news — in the bond market

Ford Motor Co.’s debt rating has been lifted by S&P to investment-grade.

Getty Images

Ford Motor Co.’s
F,
+4.14%
credit rating was upgraded to an investment-grade rating by Standard & Poor’s on Monday. This takes about $67 billion in bonds out of the high-yield, or “junk,” market, as Ciara Linnane reports.

A stock-market warning based on history

The original Magnificent Seven.

Courtesy Everett Collection

By now you have probably heard the term “Magnificent Seven” used to describe stocks of the tremendous tech-oriented companies that have led this year’s rally for the S&P 500
SPX
: Apple Inc.
AAPL,
-0.52%,
Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
+1.29%,
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
+0.38%,
Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
+3.45%,
Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
+1.26%

GOOG,
+1.39%,
Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
+1.20%
and Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
+0.66%.
With Tesla’s recent decline, that company is now the ninth-largest holding in the portfolio of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust
SPY,
which tracks the benchmark index. Here are the top 10 companies held by SPY (11 stocks, including two common-share classes for Alphabet), with total returns through Thursday:

Company	Ticker	% of SPY portfolio	2023 total return	2022 total return	Total return since end of 2021
Apple Inc.	AAPL, -0.52%	7.2%	37%	-26%	1%
Microsoft Corp.	MSFT, +1.29%	7.1%	46%	-28%	5%
Amazon.com Inc.	AMZN, +0.38%	3.5%	64%	-50%	-17%
Nvidia Corp.	NVDA, +3.45%	3.0%	198%	-50%	48%
Alphabet Inc. Class A	GOOGL, +1.26%	2.1%	44%	-39%	-12%
Meta Platforms Inc. Class A	META, +1.20%	1.9%	158%	-64%	-8%
Alphabet Inc. Class C	GOOG, +1.39%	1.8%	45%	-39%	-11%
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B	BRK.B, +0.80%	1.8%	13%	3%	17%
Tesla Inc.	TSLA, +0.66%	1.7%	77%	-65%	-38%
UnitedHealth Group Inc.	UNH, -0.98%	1.4%	2%	7%	9%
Eli Lilly and Company	LLY, -2.15%	1.3%	60%	34%	115%
Sources: FactSet, State Street (for SPY holdings)

Five of these stocks (including the two Alphabet share classes) are still down from the end of 2021. SPY itself has returned 14% this year, following an 18% decline in 2022. It is still down 7% from the end of 2021.

Mark Hulbert makes the case that a decade from now, the Magnificent Seven are unlikely to be among the largest companies in the stock market.

A different market opportunity: India is seeing a multidecade growth surge. Here’s how you can invest in it.

The MarketWatch 50

The MarketWatch 50 series is back, with articles and video interviews starting this week, including:

PayPal soars after earnings report

PayPal CEO Alex Chriss.

MarketWatch/PayPal

After the market close on Wednesday, PayPal Holdings Inc.
PYPL,
+1.89%
announced quarterly results that came in ahead of analysts’ expectations, and the stock soared 7% on Thursday even though the company lowered its target for improving its operating margin.

In the Ratings Game column, Emily Bary reports on the positive reaction to PayPal’s new CEO, Alex Chriss.

A less enthusiastic earnings reaction: EV-products maker BorgWarner’s stock suffers biggest drop in 15 years after downbeat sales outlook

Consumers drive mixed reactions to earnings results

Apple Inc. reported mixed quarterly results.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Here’s more of the latest corporate financial results and reactions. First the good news:

And now the news that may not be so good:

Harsh verdict for SBF

It might seem that some legal battles never end, but it took only a year from the collapse of FTX for the cryptocurrency exchange’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, to be convicted on all seven federal fraud and money-laundering charges brought against him. The charges were connected to the disappearance of $8 billion from FTX customer accounts.

Here’s more reaction and coverage of the virtual-currency industry:

Want more from MarketWatch? Sign up for this and other newsletters to get the latest news and advice on personal finance and investing.

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November 3, 2023

Microsoft and Alphabet results show Wall Street only cares about AI

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Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc. both reported mostly strong results Tuesday, but the disparate reactions from investors showed that Wall Street only cares about artificial intelligence right now.

While Microsoft shares
MSFT,
+0.37%
rose 4% in after-hours trading following the company’s latest report, Alphabet shares
GOOG,
+1.61%

GOOGL,
+1.69%
dropped 6% as Wall Street got the sense that AI is manifesting differently in the companies’ cloud businesses.

Microsoft surprised investors with 28% constant-currency growth in its Azure cloud-computing business, above the company’s own forecast and the projection for 25.6% growth that analysts were modeling on average. While Microsoft continues to see “optimization” challenges as customers remain conscious about their spending, the company is also benefiting from AI tailwinds in the cloud.

Companies looking to beef up their AI offerings are often looking to add AI services for their customers through additional cloud services, so they don’t have to do as much internal development themselves. In addition, AI offerings ranging from chatbots to tools that can streamline the writing of reports require ever more computing power, and both Azure and Google Cloud are starting to offer new software applications to address those needs.

Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella called AI a “unique and different” factor that was helping Azure trends. “Given our leadership position, we are seeing complete new project starts, which are AI projects,” he said in response to an analyst question about the sustainability of cloud growth rates.

In addition, Microsoft, which has invested heavily in ChatGPT-creator OpenAI, offers an Azure OpenAI service that more than 18,000 organizations are now using. Some of these customers are new to Azure.

Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood forecast that Azure revenue growth should be around 26% in constant currency in the fiscal second quarter, driven by new workload trends and with the growing contributions from AI.

Investors seem less confident that Alphabet is seeing the same tailwinds in its Google Cloud business, especially as that segment showed its slowest quarterly growth since Google began breaking out results that way back in 2019. Cloud revenue of $8.4 billion, with growth of 22%, was $250 million shy of consensus estimates on Wall Street, according to Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Baird. That overshadowed an upbeat performance in the company’s advertising business.

When one analyst asked Alphabet executives about the deceleration in the revenue growth of its cloud business, Chief Executive Sundar Pichai was vague but said that customers are being selective of where they are spending their IT budgets.

“On cloud, what I would say is overall, we have definitely started seeing customers looking to optimize spend,” Pichai said. “We leaned into it to help customers, given some other challenges they were facing, and so that was a factor.”

Alphabet is seeing “a lot of interest in AI,” but it remains to be seen whether that’s contributing materially to its financial performance just yet.

“Google Cloud missed consensus revenue expectations (although in line with Baird) on slowing growth, and we believe consistent with the view that newer Gen-AI workloads will take time to move the needle,” Sebastian wrote in a note to clients.

Insider Intelligence senior analyst Max Willens added that Google Cloud is facing tough competition, and while the business seems to have traction with AI startups that “may bear fruit in the long run, it is not currently helping Google Cloud enough to satisfy investors.”

Wall Street clearly is looking to AI to fuel better growth rates and help offset sluggish macroeconomic trends. The poster child for that dynamic is Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
+1.60%,
which is expected to single-handedly drive earnings growth for the information technology sector thanks to booming demand for its AI hardware.

Read: Big-tech results will decide ‘where we go from here’ amid investor caution. They would fall if it weren’t for this one company

Given economic pressures, it’s becoming obvious that companies without much of an AI story to contribute this quarter will continue to fall out of favor with investors.

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October 24, 2023

Microsoft Tops Estimates, Powered by Cloud Business

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Microsoft shares were trading higher after the company posted better-than-expected financial results for its September quarter, aided by better performance than expected from the company’s cloud computing business.

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October 24, 2023

AI stole the show this year, but earnings will drag Wall Street back to reality

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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,
+0.38%
have stirred up interest, Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
-4.68%
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,
-2.01%
and system maker Super Micro Computer Inc.
SMCI,
+2.35%,
as well as Marvell Technology Inc.
MRVL,
-0.91%,
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,
-1.24%
and Intel Corp.
INTC,
-1.37%
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,
-0.12%,
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.

“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,
-0.88%
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,
+0.89%
and Alphabet Inc.
GOOG,
+0.36%

GOOGL,
+0.45%
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,
-0.17%
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,
+1.70%,
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,
-0.81%,
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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October 17, 2023

Microsoft’s Activision Deal Gets Green Light From UK Regulator

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By Kim Mackrael

Microsoft’s acquisition of videogame company Activision Blizzard won approval from U.K. competition authorities, clearing a path for the companies to close the $75 billion deal after a lengthy struggle with regulators.

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority said Friday that the proposed deal no longer poses a major threat to competition in cloud gaming. The shift comes after Microsoft offered to restructure the deal by forfeiting cloud-streaming rights for “Call of Duty” and other popular Activision franchises in much of the world.

-Sarah E. Needleman contributed to this article

Write to Kim Mackrael at Kim.mackrael@wsj.com

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October 12, 2023

Ford, Microsoft, Delta, Walgreens, Birkenstock, and More Stock Market Movers

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Stock futures posted modest gains Thursday ahead of a report likely to show that U.S. inflation fell in September as gasoline price growth slowed and used-car costs declined.

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October 12, 2023

U.S. stocks end higher after blockbuster September jobs report as S&P 500 snaps 4-week losing streak

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U.S. stocks closed higher Friday, with the S&P 500 eking out a modest weekly gain, as investors assessed a monthly jobs report that showed both a blockbuster surge in jobs created along with a slowdown in wage pressures.

How stock indexes traded

The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
rose 288.01 points, or 0.9%, to close at 33,407.58.
The S&P 500
SPX
gained 50.31 points, or 1.2%, to finish at 4,308.50.
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP
climbed 211.51 points, or 1.6%, to end at 13,431.34.

For the week, the Dow slipped 0.3% while the S&P 500 edged up 0.5% and the Nasdaq gained 1.6%. The Dow fell for a third straight week, while the S&P 500 snapped a four-week losing streak and the Nasdaq saw back-to-back weekly gains, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

What drove markets

U.S. stocks climbed Friday, after reversing course from their slide earlier in the session as investors parsed a U.S. employment report that was stronger than forecast.

“Wages slowed down,” said José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers, in a phone interview Friday. “That was a great development” as the Federal Reserve aims to bring down inflation through monetary tightening.

Investors have worried that a hot labor market will keep wage growth elevated, adding to inflationary pressures that could see the Fed keep interest rates higher for longer or potentially hike its benchmark rate one more time this year.

A report Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the U.S. economy created 336,000 jobs in September, far surpassing economists’ expectations for 170,000 new jobs. Also, the report said job gains in August and July were revised higher.

See: Jobs report shows big 336,000 gain in hiring in September. Labor market still hot.

But other details from the report were slightly more favorable in terms of monetary policy concerns.

For example, average hourly wages rose a mild 0.2% in September, bringing the 12-month rate of change through September to 4.2%, a slower pace than the prior month’s year-over-year rate of 4.3%.

“Even though the headline number was 2.5 times what Wall Street had anticipated, the more important detail below the surface was that wage inflation actually cooled,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA, during a phone interview with MarketWatch.

Renaissance Macro Research’s Neil Dutta said in a note that the jobs report was consistent with a soft landing for the economy and the Fed’s objective to lower the inflation rate back to 2%.

Also see: Why another Fed rate hike this year ‘still a close call’ after jobs report, according to JPMorgan’s David Kelly

“The strong labor market gives credence to the base case still being a soft landing,” said Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management, in a phone interview Friday. But that soft-landing narrative is “somewhat fragile and data dependent,” he said.

See: U.S. stocks stage a surprising rally on Friday. But can the party last?

Investors will be watching for data scheduled to be released next week on September inflation from the consumer-price index and producer-price index.

Meanwhile, economists from Goldman Sachs Group said in a note Friday that “the continued rebalancing of the labor market” is consistent with their expectation that the Fed is done raising rates this year, despite senior Fed officials projecting another hike in their latest batch of forecasts, released last month.

Federal-funds-futures traders are expecting the Fed will keep its benchmark rate at the current range of 5.25% to 5.5% at its policy meetings in November and December, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

“I’m of the belief that the Fed will not hike again this year,” BMO’s Ma said. “I don’t think it needs to.”

Meanwhile, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
climbed 6.8 basis points to 4.783%, rising for five straight weeks, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Rising Treasury yields, particularly on the long end of the yield curve, have been blamed for a selloff in stocks over the past couple months. But the S&P 500 is now up so far in October, with a small gain of 0.5%, according to FactSet data.

Companies in focus

Pioneer Natural Resources Co.
PXD,
+10.45%
shares jumped 10.5% following a report in The Wall Street Journal that Exxon Mobil is closing in on a deal to buy the Texan shale driller for about $60 billion. Exxon Mobil
XOM,
-1.67%
shares declined 1.7% on the news.
Levi Strauss & Co.
LEVI,
-0.83%
shares fell 0.8% after the retailer late Thursday cut its outlook for the full year and its executives noted a “continued softness in the wholesale channel, primarily in the U.S.”
Tesla
TSLA,
+0.18%
edged up 0.2% after the automobile maker cut the price of its Model 3 cars from $40,240 to $38,990 and dropped the cost of its model Y electric vehicles from $50,990 to $45,990 in the U.S.
Koninklijke Philips‘
PHG,
-7.20%
shares dropped 7.2% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration called for more testing of its recalled sleep and respiratory devices, following concerns about foam used in millions of recalled products.

Steve Goldstein contributed to this report.

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October 6, 2023

Amazon, Microsoft Cloud Services Face UK Competition Probe

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By Michael Susin

The U.K.’s communications regulator has referred the cloud market to the country’s competition watchdog for an investigation, alleging that certain features by market leaders Amazon and Microsoft could limit competition.

The Office of Communications regulator said Thursday that a market study found that high fees for transferring data, committed spend discounts and technical restrictions could make it difficult for customers to switch cloud provider or to use multiple providers.

“Some U.K. businesses have told us they’re concerned about it being too difficult to switch or mix and match cloud provider, and it’s not clear that competition is working well. So, we’re referring the market to the [Competition and Markets Authority] for further scrutiny, to make sure business customers continue to benefit from cloud services,” Ofcom’s director responsible for the market study, Fergal Farragher, said.

The regulator said Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft had a combined market share in the U.K. of 70% to 80% in 2022.

The CMA will now start an independent investigation to decide whether there is an impact on competition.

Neither Amazon nor Microsoft were immediately available for comment.

Write to Michael Susin at michael.susin@wsj.com

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October 5, 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

SmileDirectClub’s stock plummets 85% after Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing

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SmileDirectClub Inc. shares plummeted in the extended session Friday after the company said it had voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as founders seek to recapitalize the teeth-straightening business.

SmileDirectClub shares SDC, which had been halted while up 0.9% in after-hours trading pending news, promptly dropped as much as 85% when trading in the stock reopened.

The…

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September 29, 2023

Micron, Peloton, GameStop, Workday, Nike, CarMax, 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-299270e4

Updated Sept. 28, 2023 6:18 am ET / Original Sept. 28, 2023 4:40 am ET

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September 28, 2023

Apple leverages idea of switching to Bing to pry more money out of Google, Microsoft exec says

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WASHINGTON — Apple was never serious about replacing Google with Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine in Macs and iPhones, but kept the possibility open as a “bargaining chip” to extract bigger payments from Google, a Microsoft executive testified Wednesday in the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century.

“It is no secret that Apple is making more money on Bing existing than Bing does,’’ Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft’s chief of advertising and web services, said in U.S. District Court in Washington. The comment drew a laugh from the courtroom. Parakhin was describing Microsoft’s years of futility trying to supplant Google on Apple devices.

Analysts estimate Apple collects $15 billion to $20 billion a year in revenue-sharing payments from Google in return for giving its search engine the coveted default slot on Apple’s devices. The revenue is generated when users click on advertisements in search results.

The U.S. Department of Justice accuses Google of using similar agreements to lock out rival search engines such as Bing and Yahoo, stifling innovation. The trial began Sept. 12 and is expected to continue into November.

Another witness, the founder of startup Branch Metrics, testified that Google’s exclusive contracts with phone companies and equipment manufacturers sabotaged his company’s attempts to market a search engine for apps on smartphones.

Alexander Austin said his Palo Alto, California-based company was forced to scale back what its product could do to avoid running afoul of Google’s agreements with companies like Samsung and Verizon that make Google’s search engine the default choice on digital devices. Branch Metrics had hoped to do for smartphone apps what Google had done for searching the internet — and to collect advertising revenue when users clicked on apps such as DoorDash.

“We had very high hopes and good feedback from advertisers,’’ he said.

But Branch Metrics’ potential partners worried that the app search product, called Discovery, would violate their lucrative agreements with Google. Branch Metrics had to limit the app results and to avoid links to the internet. The result was that it could not monetize its app search engine.

“It felt like there was injustice being done that a product like this could not see the light of day,” Austin said.

Google lawyer Ken Smurzynski, questionng Parakhin earlier, sought to knock down one of the government’s key arguments: that Google’s existing market dominance allows it to collect massive amounts of user data to improve search results and widen its lead over competitors.

Google’s team counters that dramatic improvements in artificial intelligence mean search engines can improve results without relying on user data. Smurzynski introduced a document in court that included comments about that from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

“AI will fundamentally change every software category, starting with the largest category of all – search,” Nadella said in February blog post for Microsoft.

But Parakhin compared AI to driverless cars: not quite ready for prime time. Asked by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta whether a search engine could be built solely off machine learning, he replied: “We’ve seen companies try. We haven’t seen anybody succeed.”

Mehta likely won’t issue a ruling in the antitrust case until early next year. If he decides Google broke the law, another trial will determine how to curb its market power.

One option would be to bar the Mountain View, California-based company from paying Apple and others to make Google the default search engine.

_____

AP Business Writer Michael Liedtke contributed to this story.

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September 27, 2023

Duet Partner Launches Innovative Music Studio Management Tool

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Music Studio Management Software Will Empower Music Teachers While Enhancing Their Business Practices

SALT LAKE CITY, September 27, 2023 (Newswire.com)
–
Duet Partner, a music studio management platform, has launched a new digital product to redefine how independent music teachers manage their studios. After conducting extensive interviews with hundreds of music educators, Duet Partner proudly launched this innovative tool on Aug. 1, 2023.

The new music studio management tool boasts a suite of four key features designed to enhance the teaching experience and streamline studio operations:

Student Information Organizer: A comprehensive solution to effortlessly manage student profiles, track progress, maintain essential contact information, and engage in communications with studio parents.

Responsive Calendar: A dynamic calendar system that adapts to teacher and student schedules, coordinating changes and cancellations and sending lesson reminders.

Daily Dashboard for Lesson Notes and Attendance: Simplify lesson notes and attendance records, making the teaching process more organized and efficient.

Season Smart Scheduler: The crown jewel of the product launch, the Season Smart Scheduler, is a tool that will modernize how teachers plan their teaching schedules. By automatically pairing teachers’ availability with their students’ schedules, it generates a draft teaching schedule within minutes, saving valuable time and reducing scheduling headaches.

Duet Partner’s commitment to innovation, inspired by insights gathered from dedicated music educators, is set to redefine the future of music studio management. Neylan McBaine, Owner and CEO of Duet Partner, stated, “Our new tool is not just about streamlining administrative tasks; it’s about empowering music teachers to increase confidence in their business practices. As the daughter and mother of musicians, and as a musician myself, it is my personal mission to continue to support independent music teaching as a viable and rewarding career path.”

The Duet Partner legacy product, which has been around for 18 years, will continue to serve existing customers as long as they prefer. Concurrently, the new digital platform will introduce additional features over the upcoming months, inviting users to migrate at their convenience to the new and comprehensive platform.

To learn more about Duet Partner’s innovative music studio management tool and how it can transform your music teaching business, please visit duetpartner.com.

About Duet Partner

Duet Partner has been a trusted name in music studio management for nearly two decades, providing essential tools to music teachers worldwide. With a mission to empower music educators to run their businesses with the same level of mastery they have over their instruments, Duet Partner offers digital solutions that simplify the administrative side of their studios. The company continues to innovate and evolve its platform to meet the ever-changing needs of music educators.

Source: Duet Partner

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September 27, 2023

Hollywood writers strike declared over after boards approve new contract with studios

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LOS ANGELES — Leaders of the screenwriters union declared their nearly five-month-old strike over Tuesday after board members approved a contract agreement with studios, bringing Hollywood at least partly back from a historic halt in production.

The governing boards of the eastern and western branches of the Writers Guild of America and their joint negotiating committee all voted to accept the deal, two days after the tentative agreement was reached with a coalition of Hollywood’s biggest studios, streaming services and production companies. After the vote they declared that the strike would be over and writers would be free to start on scripts at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

Late-night talk shows — the first to go dark when writers walked out on May 2 — are likely the first shows that will resume. Scripted shows will take longer to return, with actors still on strike and no negotiations yet on the horizon.

The writers still have to vote to ratify the contract themselves in early October, but lifting the strike will allow them to work during that process, the guild told members in an email.

After Tuesday’s board votes, the contracts were released for the first time to the writers, who had not yet been given any details on the deal, which their leaders called “exceptional.”

The three-year agreement includes significant wins in the main areas writers had fought for — compensation, length of employment, size of staffs and control of artificial intelligence — matching or nearly equaling what they had sought at the outset of the strike.

The union had sought minimum increases in pay and future residual earnings from shows of between 5% and 6%, depending on the position of the writer. The studios had wanted between 2% and 4%. The compromise deal was a raise of between 3.5% and 5%.

The guild also negotiated new residual payments based on the popularity of streaming shows, where writers will get bonuses for being a part of the most popular shows on Netflix
NFLX,
-1.44%,
Max and other services, a proposal studios initially rejected. Many writers on picket lines had complained that they weren’t properly paid for helping create heavily watched properties.

The writers also got the requirement they sought that shows intended to run at least 13 episodes will have at least six writers on staff, with the numbers shifting based on the number of episodes. They did not get their desire for guaranteed staffs of six on shows that had not yet been ordered to series, settling instead for a guaranteed three.

Writers also got a guarantee that staffs on shows in initial development will be employed for at least 10 weeks, and that staffs on shows that go to air will be employed for three weeks per episode.

On artificial intelligence, the writers got the regulation and control of the emerging technology they had sought. Under the contract, raw, AI-generated storylines will not be regarded as “literary material” — a term in their contracts for scripts and other story forms a screenwriter produces. This means they won’t be competing with computers for screen credits. Nor will AI-generated stories be considered “source” material, their contractual language for the novels, video games or other works that writers may adapt into scripts.

Writers have the right under the deal to use AI in their process if the company they are working for agrees and other conditions are met. But companies cannot require a writer to use AI.

Still-striking members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists returned to the picket lines earlier Tuesday for the first time since the writers struck their tentative deal, and they were animated by a new spirit of optimism.

“For a hot second, I really thought that this was going to go on until next year,” said Marissa Cuevas, an actor who has appeared on the TV series “Kung Fu” and “The Big Bang Theory.” “Knowing that at least one of us has gotten a good deal gives a lot of hope that we will also get a good deal.”

Writers’ picket lines had been suspended, but they were encouraged to walk in solidarity with actors, and many were on the lines Tuesday, including “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner, who picketed alongside friend and “ER” actor Noah Wyle as he has throughout the strikes.

“We would never have had the leverage we had if SAG had not gone out,” Weiner said. “They were very brave to do it.”

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios in negotiations, chose to deal with the longer-striking writers first, and leaders of SAG-AFTRA said they had received no overtures on resuming talks. That’s likely to change soon.

Actors also voted to authorize their leadership to potentially expand their walkout to include the lucrative videogame market, a step that could put new pressure on Hollywood studios to make a deal with the performers who provide voices and stunts for games.

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists announced the move late Monday, saying that 98% of its members voted to go on strike against videogame companies if ongoing negotiations are not successful. The announcement came ahead of more talks planned for Tuesday.

Acting in videogames can include a variety of roles, from voice performances to motion capture work as well as stunts. Video game actors went on strike in 2016 in a work stoppage that lasted nearly a year.

Some of the same issues are at play in the video game negotiations as in the broader actors strike that has shut down Hollywood for months, including wages, safety measures and protections on the use of artificial intelligence. The companies involved include gaming giants Activision Blizzard
ATVI,
-0.05%,
Electronic Arts
EA,
-1.13%,
Epic Games, Take 2 Productions
TTWO,
-0.99%
as well as Disney
DIS,
-1.19%
and Warner Bros.′
WBD,
+0.28%
videogame divisions.

“It’s time for the videogame companies to stop playing games and get serious about reaching an agreement on this contract,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement.

Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for videogame producers, said they are “continuing to negotiate in good faith” and have reached tentative agreements on more than half of the proposals on the table.

So far this year, U.S. consumers have spent $34.9 billion on videogames, consoles and accessories, according to market research group Circana.

The threat of a videogame strike emerged as Hollywood writers were on the verge of getting back to work after months on the picket lines.

The alliance of studios, streaming services and producers has chosen to negotiate only with the writers so far, and has made no overtures yet toward restarting talks with SAG-AFTRA. That will presumably change soon.

SAG-AFTRA leaders have said they will look closely at the writers’ agreement, which includes many of the same issues, but it will not effect their demands.

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September 26, 2023

Microsoft’s Revised Activision Deal Addresses Competition Concerns, Says UK Regulator

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By Elena Vardon

Microsoft’s proposals to modify its $75 billion Activision acquisition address the concerns with the U.K. antitrust authority, the regulator said in a provisional decision Friday.

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority said that the new deal submitted by Microsoft should lessen any harm to competition in cloud gaming.

The CMA said that the restructured transaction–through which Activision would sell its cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft–opens the door to the deal being cleared.

The regulator is consulting on remedies put forward by Microsoft to address residual concerns it has before making a final decision, it said.

The CMA opened a consultation on these remedies which will last until Oct. 6, it added.

Write to Elena Vardon at elena.vardon@wsj.com

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September 22, 2023

By buying Splunk, Cisco is closer to becoming a software company

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With Cisco Systems Inc.’s pending acquisition of Splunk Inc., the networking giant is making another major step toward becoming a software company.

On Thursday, Cisco CSCO said it was buying Splunk SPLK in a deal valued at about $28 billion, or $157 a share in cash, for the cloud-security company. The match had been speculated about for years, and Cisco has been on a buying binge this year, as it seeks to grow with more security and software offerings.

“Together, we will become one of…

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September 21, 2023

Cisco to Buy Cybersecurity Company Splunk in $28 Billion Cash Deal

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Cisco to Buy Cybersecurity Company Splunk in $28 Billion Cash Deal

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September 21, 2023

Here’s a rapid-fire update on all 35 stocks in the Club’s portfolio, including a new buy

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Jim Cramer ran through all 35 Club stocks during our September Monthly Meeting on Thursday.

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September 21, 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

Tag: Software

Here’s why you might not have to pay a 6% commission next time you sell a home

Real-estate advice from the Moneyist

Economic outlook

Bond-market trend switches again

The U.S. Treasury yield curve has been inverted for nearly a year.

Ford’s good news — in the bond market

Ford Motor Co.’s debt rating has been lifted by S&P to investment-grade.

A stock-market warning based on history

The original Magnificent Seven.

The MarketWatch 50

PayPal soars after earnings report

PayPal CEO Alex Chriss.

Consumers drive mixed reactions to earnings results

Apple Inc. reported mixed quarterly results.

Harsh verdict for SBF

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

AI stole the show this year, but earnings will drag Wall Street back to reality

Microsoft’s Activision Deal Gets Green Light From UK Regulator

U.S. stocks end higher after blockbuster September jobs report as S&P 500 snaps 4-week losing streak

How stock indexes traded

What drove markets

Companies in focus

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

Screening for lower valuations and high ratings

Micron, Peloton, GameStop, Workday, Nike, CarMax, and More Stock Market Movers

These Stocks Are Moving the Most Today: Micron, Peloton, GameStop, Workday, Nike, CarMax, and More

Apple leverages idea of switching to Bing to pry more money out of Google, Microsoft exec says

Duet Partner Launches Innovative Music Studio Management Tool

Hollywood writers strike declared over after boards approve new contract with studios

Microsoft’s Revised Activision Deal Addresses Competition Concerns, Says UK Regulator

By buying Splunk, Cisco is closer to becoming a software company

Cisco to Buy Cybersecurity Company Splunk in $28 Billion Cash Deal

These Stocks Are Moving the Most Today: FedEx, Klaviyo, KB Home, CrowdStrike, and More