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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/in-pennsylvania-its-open-season-on-undocumented-immigrants.html

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In Pennsylvania, it’s open season on undocumented immigrants

ICE agents detain workers outside a business. Joshua Lott | Reuters From the time they first flirted at a party, Anne and Ludvin Franco were inseparable. It did not matter that Anne, a waitress, was Pennsylvania Dutch going back generations, while Ludvin, a cook, had grown up in the scrublands of eastern Guatemala. It also did not matter to Anne or her open-armed family that Lulu, as they called him, was undocumented. At their wedding in 2013, the Americans and the Guatemalans danced the night away with Latin DJs imported from Queens. On lawyers' advice, the Francos waited to start legalizing his status through their marriage until late 2016, after he had lived a productive, crime-free decade in the United States. They never anticipated that President Trump's promised immigration crackdown would be so swift, and so ruthless in their region. More from ProPublica: From border-crosser to felon A new state department order to revoke visas could have far-reaching effects After officials sign off, Cleveland clinic doctor secretly returns home By last spring, when Pennsylvania roads were starting to feel like a dragnet for immigrants without papers, Ludvin Franco had mostly stopped getting behind the wheel of a car. Often he relied on his wife to drive him, their twin toddlers buckled into the backseat. But the night his soccer team faced a rival in the semifinals of an indoor league, his wife was in the queasy first trimester of a second pregnancy. He headed out alone. As Franco drove north on Route 309, a Hyundai pulled out of Bubba's Pot Belly Stove Restaurant and crossed into his lane. He swerved to avoid hitting it, he later said, but failed. Nobody was injured. Franco got a couple of tickets. A few weeks later, as Franco was leaving for work at dawn, lights flashed. Men in police vests approached: federal agents from the ICE section that normally pursues violent criminals. They knew about the crash. "Oh, God," Franco thought. "I'm done." By October, when his wife gave birth to their baby girl at an Allentown hospital, Franco had already been deported. He was 3,200 miles away, forced to watch the delivery on the tiny screen of his cellphone from his mother's sweltering house in Zacapa, Guatemala. Since Trump took office, deportation officers have been unshackled, as the White House describes it, from an Obama-era mandate to focus limited enforcement resources on deporting immigrants with serious criminal convictions. Across the country, they have been rounding up people like Franco who have sunk roots in this country, living for years, if not decades, with little fear of apprehension. Nowhere, however, have federal agents more aggressively embraced their newfound freedom than in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Delaware, an investigation by ProPublica and the Philadelphia Inquirer found. In 2017, the Philadelphia office of ICE, with agents fanning out into communities across its three-state region, arrested more undocumented immigrants without criminal convictions than any of the 23 other ICE offices in the country. This is especially striking given that Pennsylvania's undocumented population ranks 16th in the country, with West Virginia's and Delaware's far behind that. The reception has been decidedly mixed. In Pennsylvania, as across the country, many officials see undocumented immigrants as lawbreakers who burden the American economy, and they heartily applaud the way in which deportation officers here have worked hard to turn Trump's campaign pledge of mass deportations into a reality. "Obviously those numbers reflect that ICE in Pennsylvania is doing their job; they're doing the work they're supposed to do," said U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, a Republican known for a hard line against illegal immigration. "People here in Pennsylvania realize illegal immigration is a problem and it's not only a threat to our national security, but it's also a threat to families' jobs." At the same time, with 11 million undocumented immigrants nationwide, the government has to choose whom to pursue. And as deportation officers increasingly venture outside jails and prisons — where the majority of their arrests still occur — they are making choices that can seem random, unfair, or sometimes unlawful, not only to immigrants but also to some officials inside the immigration system. Many of the immigrants arrested in this region last year were simply hapless: They lived in buildings or worked in restaurants or traveled on rural roads that ICE was staking out. They were mushroom pickers in vans that got pulled over without cause; dishwashers in pizzerias that got raided without warrants; Latino men who loosely resembled other Latino men who were ostensibly ICE's intended targets. Philadelphia ICE Leads in Going After Those With No Criminal History In 2017, the Philadelphia ICE office made more "at-large" arrests of immigrants without criminal convictions than any of their 23 regional counterparts. "At-large" arrests like theirs are the ones that terrify the immigrant community, break up families, disrupt workplaces, and drive people further into the shadows. And it is in carrying out these kinds of arrests that Philadelphia ICE appears to be an outlier, or perhaps, the statistics suggest, a harbinger. For this series, reporters obtained and analyzed unpublished data showing monthly at-large arrests in each of ICE's 24 regional offices in 2017. The analysis showed a large majority — 64 percent — of the immigrants arrested in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Delaware had no criminal convictions. That compares with a minority — 38 percent — in the country as a whole, though the national percentage trended upward over the course of last year. To understand these arrests and their effects, reporters set out to track down as many regional cases as possible in a system that is notoriously opaque. There are no public records akin to police blotters in criminal cases. The names of ICE arrestees, and the circumstances of their arrests, are not released. Court records, too, are confidential, purportedly to protect immigrants' privacy, though the policy protects the immigration system from scrutiny, too. Reporters ended up examining more than 175 immigration arrests, which occurred during three large, multiday enforcement operations last winter, spring, and fall as well as during routine, daily apprehensions. Together, these cases paint the picture of an ICE region emboldened by a new commander-in-chief to disregard previous norms that distinguished among undocumented immigrants based on their family ties, work records, and conduct in this country. They reflect an organization that valued high arrest numbers and sometimes skirted the law, with little accountability in a system that rarely scrutinizes arrests. Reporters found that ICE officers under the jurisdiction of the Philadelphia regional office: Routinely swept up immigrants they encountered by chance when they set out to arrest somebody else, with what they called "collateral" arrests becoming the mainstay of their crackdown. Informally expanded their definition of "criminal alien" to include immigrants who got traffic tickets or committed minor infractions like loitering. Revived cases that they previously disregarded, using addresses in their database to pick up immigrants they had once deemed harmless, sometimes sending carloads of armed officers to arrest them. Took advantage of state and local officials' willingness to conduct their own informal immigration investigations, call ICE and detain immigrants for hours until federal agents arrived — despite the questionable legality of these practices. Occasionally stepped over the legal line themselves, according to interviews, sworn affidavits, and court filings, by trespassing, conducting warrantless searches, engaging in racial profiling, fabricating evidence, and even soliciting a bribe. In a statement, agency officials said: "ICE and its employees have been given the honor of a special public trust. In keeping with this trust, ICE's enforcement activities are conducted with integrity and professionalism.'' They added: "ICE conducts targeted immigration enforcement in compliance with federal law and agency policy." All told, the crackdown bombarded a system already overwhelmed. There were 11,643 cases pending in Pennsylvania's immigration courts on March 1 — a 62 percent increase over the end of fiscal 2016. Immigration judges staggered under their growing caseloads. After his retirement in December, Walter A. Durling, a veteran immigration judge in York who took a relatively hard line on the bench, questioned the wisdom — and cost-effectiveness — of an approach that no longer puts "more serious aliens" first. "Why take into custody an individual who has been here for 15 to 20 years, has U.S. children, and one arrest for harassment, public intoxication or some such piddling infraction?" he asked. "Or aliens with no arrest record but who were arrested by ICE looking for someone else?" In 2016, the government would have considered it a waste of limited resources to track down, arrest, detain, and deport a taxpaying family man like Ludvin Franco just because a traffic accident brought him to its attention. The Springfield Township Police Department in Bucks County, where Franco's accident occurred, did not report him to ICE, Chief Michael A. McDonald said. Rather, it was ICE that called Springfield, seeking to confirm that citations had been issued to Franco for careless driving and driving without a license. Deportation officers also took the additional step of interviewing the driver and passenger of the other car. That interview provided a dollop of innuendo to the deportation officers' arrest report. As if to bolster their case that Franco warranted removal, the officers wrote that the driver's wife suffered a stroke approximately two weeks after the accident. "It was unknown if this traffic accident caused his wife's stroke," the report said. But Lisa Knedler, the driver's wife, told reporters that her doctor did not think her seizure, as she called it, was in any way related to the crash, in which she was a passenger. She added that she was nonetheless glad Franco had been deported. "Let's hope he doesn't come back," she said. Came Out Swinging Shortly after his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order called "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States," which greatly expanded the population of undocumented immigrants who could be deported. While immigrants with serious criminal convictions would still "come first," any unauthorized immigrant would become fair game, Thomas Homan, acting director of ICE, told Congress: "If you're in this country illegally and you committed a crime by entering this country," he said, "you should look over your shoulder." Still, in their first big enforcement operations under the new rules, ICE offices in Los Angeles and New York effectively operated under the old rules. L.A. arrested 161 immigrants over five days, 94 percent of whom had criminal convictions, and New York arrested 41 over three days, 93 percent with convictions. Philadelphia's ICE office, in contrast, came out of the gates swinging. In an "ops plan" submitted to Washington, it proposed a 12-day arrest blitz named Operation Cross Check that would take aim at 255 targets, 70 percent of them "criminal aliens," according to agency e-mails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. By the 12th day, agents had located only 92 of their intended targets but made up almost all the difference by arresting other immigrants they encountered along the way. In the end, they rounded up 248 people; only 35 percent had a conviction record. Philadelphia ICE Office Is Nation's Most Aggressive The Philadelphia ICE field office arrests more immigrants without criminal convictions than any other ICE region: 64 percent of its "at-large" arrests last year. The office oversees ICE enforcement in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia. Nationally, 38 percent of those arrested had no criminal convictions. And a pattern was established. By year's end, Philadelphia ICE would arrest three times as many "noncriminal immigration violators," in the agency's term, as either Los Angeles or New York. In a statement, ICE noted that "immigration violators without criminal convictions include aliens who have been charged but not convicted with crimes, immigration fugitives, and repeat border crossers." Each ICE field office has its own culture, and sometimes its own policies and procedures. Each office, too, has a different regional context, some working in urban centers under the watchful eye of established immigrant communities, others in more rural or suburban areas newly grappling with the immigration issue. Philadelphia ICE's region runs the gamut. It faces resistance in Pittsburgh and especially in Philadelphia, where most of the region's undocumented immigrants live. But it has found allies in its rural and Rust Belt zones, where anti-immigrant sentiment runs hotter and where some local economies benefit from federal immigration detention contracts. (ICE paid York County $19.65 million in fiscal 2017 to house immigrant detainees in its prison.) Getting direct insight into the Philadelphia ICE office itself has been difficult. The agency denied reporters' requests to interview those who have run the office during the Trump administration. The National ICE Council, which represents 7,600 agency employees, declined to talk. Individual deportation officers, reached on their personal phones, declined too. As best as could be determined, behind the office's aggressive immigration enforcement lies some synergy of national, state, local, and ICE office politics. But the critical context is clearly an antagonistic relationship between ICE and the city of Philadelphia that predates the Trump administration. Like other major cities, Philadelphia does not let ICE agents into its jails and declines to provide ICE advance notice of a suspect's or inmate's release without a judicial warrant. "Some jurisdictions shut the door in our face: San Francisco was one, Philly was another," said Sarah Saldaña, ICE's national director for Obama's two final years. This posture made it harder for Philadelphia's Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO, to produce high arrest numbers when the emphasis was on criminals. And high arrest numbers are the yardstick of ICE's success, given that Congress judges the agency by how many detention beds it fills, Saldaña said. Catherine Schack, who retired last year as an ICE lawyer in Philadelphia, said she instantly perceived a tougher mind-set there when she transferred from the Los Angeles office during the Obama era. "The first thing I noticed was, 'Holy mackerel, this town is supposed to be the City of Brotherly Love? Good grief,'" she said. "What I always saw in Philly was distinctly, 'We need to bump up numbers.' But after Trump took over, it was like somebody gave them an injection of testosterone. It was ERO on steroids." In the last year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has singled out Philadelphia for special denunciation as a so-called sanctuary city, and Philadelphia has sued Sessions over his attempt to withhold federal grant money in retribution. In response to questions about the Philadelphia ICE office's high volume of noncriminal arrests, the agency portrayed the city itself as partly responsible. "When cities do not honor ICE detainers, ICE officers are required to arrest aliens at large and may be more likely to encounter other removable aliens," said Jennifer D. Elzea, a spokeswoman for the agency. Still, noncriminal arrests did not soar equivalently in other sanctuary cities last year. A third of the arrests in the San Francisco ICE region, for instance, were immigrants without criminal convictions, compared with 64 percent for Philadelphia. Also, only 33 of 248 arrests in Philadelphia ICE's first big operation last year took place in Philadelphia proper, an analysis of internal records shows. Most of the collateral arrests, it appears, did not in fact result from searches for criminal immigrants whom the City of Philadelphia declined to hand over. Defenseless On a cold, dark morning early last year, Guillermo Peralta huddled in the entryway of a small, aluminum-sided apartment house on a modest residential street in York Springs. He was waiting for a ride to his job, packing eggs on a farm. Peralta is short and stout, with a shy, ready smile for whomever crosses his path. That morning, it was two federal agents named Joe Vankos and Chad Noel. They were on a mission to capture a 29-year-old convicted cocaine dealer from Mexico. Instead, they stumbled across and arrested Peralta. Though regional ICE agents had picked up bystanders in the past, they were not supposed to. But in a new era where every undocumented immigrant is a potential target, Peralta was one of the first "collaterals" to be taken into custody. And one of the most defenseless. It should have been immediately apparent that Peralta, who has difficulty speaking, had serious cognitive disabilities. A neuropsychologist who later examined him wrote in an assessment for the court that Peralta cannot read, write, or identify colors and that he is not competent to give informed consent "or to understand any but the simplest instructions, requests or commands." Yet ICE maintained in its arrest report that Peralta not only willfully engaged with Vankos but confessed his undocumented status, stated he was 46, and claimed he had a child in Florida. Peralta, however, is childless and does not know his age, his pro bono lawyer, Craig Shagin, said. He was abandoned as a youth in rural Pennsylvania and has for decades made ends meet as an apple picker, pumpkin harvester, and construction worker in the Gettysburg area. "I don't think he knows what deportation is, what it is to be a national or a citizen of a place," said Shagin. "So how was he answering the ICE officers' questions? Either they made it up or maybe he was just saying, 'Sí,' to everything they asked. It's easy to do when somebody has a gun and handcuffs in front of you." While Shagin is trying to get Peralta's arrest thrown out, ICE is rarely willing to let anybody go without a fight. Prosecutorial discretion, encouraged during the Obama years partly as a way to show leniency where merited, has been all but eliminated. In Peralta's case, ICE lawyers argued that "even diminished intelligence does not necessarily mean that the respondent is incompetent." Still, the government doesn't seem in a terrible hurry to deport him; the next hearing in his case is not until January 2020. After two months behind bars, Peralta was granted bail and returned to his home: a narrow room in a basement apartment, outfitted with a twin bed and a makeshift shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Visited there by a reporter, he was welcoming but unable to respond to even rudimentary questions. Asked his birth date, he said, "One, two." Asked his address, he answered in halting Spanish, "I just live here." Rural Impact On another morning last winter, also in the darkness before dawn, a van made its way through Reading, stopping every few blocks to pick up the Latino immigrants heading to work at a mushroom farm in Southeastern Pennsylvania. After the last of 14 workers had boarded, the red and blue lights of a patrol car flashed behind them. A man wearing a police vest asked the driver for his license and registration, as if he were a local law enforcement officer. But he was with ICE. ICE says in its press releases that it does not do indiscriminate sweeps and that reports of such sweeps are "false, dangerous and irresponsible." While "additional suspects" are frequently encountered and arrested, its enforcement operations are targeted, it says. But several times last year, federal immigration agents pulled over full vanloads of Hispanic workers in rural Pennsylvania without justification, immigrant advocates say. "Nobody in that van was a target," said Bridget Cambria, the driver's lawyer. "It was not a proper stop." The driver and six passengers were arrested. Within minutes an ICE van arrived to cart them away. Pennsylvania is the top mushroom producer in the country, and the industry is dependent on Mexican and Central American laborers. Pickers work long, hard days on farms that stink of steaming compost. Despite Trump's assertions that such immigrants are stealing jobs, few Americans are willing to do that kind of labor, farm owners say. "That argument doesn't hold any water in agriculture," said Mark O'Neill, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. The raid on the van, like subsequent arrests in mushroom country, frightened the mushroom pickers, their supervisor said in an interview. Two dozen quit, and they were hard to replace, forcing others to work even longer shifts. There and at neighboring farms, workers were offered referral bonuses for new hires. Posters said, "Any employee referring a new employee will receive a $150 bonus AFTER the new employee completes their 90-day probationary period." In April, ICE moved on to another industry in rural Pennsylvania. Sweeping past "No Trespassing" signs, five officers stormed a poultry transport company and blocked the exits with their vehicles. They said they were searching for a man named Alix who worked at a company called MainJoy Unlimited. The agents were told: This is not MainJoy, and nobody named Alix works here. So the officers turned their attention to those who did work there, according to interviews with the workers and a company spokesperson. They lined up all the Latino employees — seven chicken catchers — with their faces against a wall. They made no move against some 14 non-Latinos standing nearby; instead they asked the coworkers to lead officers to any other Hispanic employees on the premises. (There were none.) Under duress, the chicken catchers admitted they were undocumented. And off they went to jail. Afterward, Luke Brubaker, a prominent dairy farmer from their region, mentioned the poultry transport raid in a meeting between Trump and agriculture-industry representatives. The president maintained that his immigration crackdown was not aimed at their farms, but Brubaker said he told the president that ICE had nonetheless been arresting essential workers in Pennsylvania agriculture. While the poultry workers were detained, their company hired legal workers in their stead. But chicken catching is grueling, filthy work inside vast, sweltering coops where dust, feathers, and the stench of feces clog the air. The new workers didn't last more than an hour. Held Without Warrants Given what ICE's Philadelphia field office saw as the City of Philadelphia's recalcitrance, it looked elsewhere for assistance. Early last year, it reached out to local law enforcement leaders in a concerted effort to make them "force multipliers," emails obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in Pennsylvania show. No departments signed formal agreements with ICE, but they understood that a new day had dawned. "Some of the state troopers had incidents in which they were quite shocked when they called ICE and they got an immediate response," said Thomas L. Day Jr., the police chief in Mount Holly Springs, Cumberland County. In their eagerness to collaborate, some state troopers and local police officers took it upon themselves to question drivers and passengers about their immigration status during traffic stops, to make "courtesy calls" to ICE after car accidents, and to detain immigrants without warrants until ICE arrived for the handoff, which sometimes took hours. Traffic cops were not the only locals willing to give ICE an assist. Early last year, a magisterial district judge in Camp Hill preempted the wedding of a Tajik couple by calling ICE on the groom and his best man, who were led away in handcuffs. The judge, Elizabeth Beckley, also called ICE after Alexander Curtis Parker and Krisha Amber Schmick showed up at her courthouse last May. Sweethearts since high school, they had always dreamed of a glamorous wedding venue, but, impatient to tie the knot, they settled on District Court 09-1-02, a squat, uninspired structure with mirrored windows, sandwiched between a car wash and a paint store. When the constable announced he would be detaining Parker for ICE, the couple was stunned. Though born in Guatemala, Parker, 21, had been adopted by American parents when he was 8 months old. At that moment, he was technically undocumented, with his green-card renewal being processed. But he does not speak Spanish or consider himself an immigrant, much less a deportable one. Philadelphia ICE was in the midst of its second big enforcement operation of 2017, and federal agents rushed to the courthouse with their biometric identification device. At about the time Parker had hoped to be slipping a ring onto his wife's finger, he was reluctantly putting his own hand into a fingerprint machine. But in this case, as rarely happened last year, ICE backed off. The judge, who did not respond to calls, emails, or visits to her courthouse, apologized and offered to proceed with the nuptials. Having already paid the $45 fee, Parker and Schmick uncomfortably allowed the judge to marry them, and celebrated afterward at a LongHorn Steakhouse. A few months later, expecting a child, the Parkers decided to put the whole unsettling experience behind them. They left Pennsylvania and moved to Kissimmee, Fla., where Parker said he feels "safer from people like the judge that would try to do anything to have me deported." Rounding Up Traffic Violators In press releases about its enforcement operations, ICE highlights — without naming — those with the worst criminal records, portraying its crackdowns as public safety measures intended to rid the country of the "bad hombres" Trump excoriated in his campaign speeches. Operation Cross Check, for instance, yielded "a 34-year-old male citizen of Guatemala with criminal convictions for sexual abuse of a minor." But most immigration arrestees with criminal records did not commit crimes against children or crimes of violence; the most common single offense in Operation Cross Check was driving under the influence. And in contrast with previous years, ICE rounded up new categories of offenders. Rather than focusing solely on those convicted of crimes, ICE's Philadelphia office apprehended immigrants who had been arrested for criminal offenses but had not yet had their day in court. Regional officers also arrested immigrants with little prospect of deportation because their homelands habitually refuse to accept deportees. Last winter, they picked up Cho Van Le, a 65-year-old Vietnamese refugee who was serving one year of house arrest for helping his nephew run a marijuana grow house in Berks County. Because Le entered the United States before diplomatic relations resumed with Vietnam in 1995, he cannot be repatriated under an agreement between the two countries. Nonetheless, he has been held for 14 months in immigration custody, longer than his criminal sentence, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars to taxpayers. And he is not alone. Vietnamese refugees filed a nationwide class-action lawsuit in February claiming that dozens like Le have been picked up over the last year and are being subjected to prolonged and pointless detention. ICE officers in Pennsylvania also aggressively pursued immigrants for traffic violations, or infractions too minor to qualify as misdemeanors, or offenses both minor and dated. One Mexican man who lived in York was interviewed by immigration agents during the George W. Bush administration after he was sentenced to a weekend in jail for his third driving-without-a-license offense. They let him go, and left him alone. For a decade. Early one morning last February, however, four armed agents from ICE's violent criminal alien section seized the man, now 42, as he left his house. He spent three weeks behind bars, until he scrounged together $10,000 for bail. "ICE had his address for 10 years and he didn't even bother to move," said his lawyer, Stephen Converse. "This is a flight risk?" As with that man, ICE Philadelphia began making muscular shows of force to take into custody people who'd been checking in regularly with immigration authorities for years. Almost from the day that Adriz Iboy de Chiché, 23, crossed the border into Texas in 2015, with her baby, Sheynnon, in a sling on her back, ICE knew precisely where to find her: at a Doylestown apartment complex that is home to scores of other undocumented Guatemalan immigrants. After Trump was elected, Chiché was ordered to wear an electronic monitor, and relinquish her passport and her son's. Knowing their days in the U.S. were numbered, she tried to arrange for a departure on her own terms. On July 25, however, as she, her son, and her husband settled into her sister's car for their biweekly drive to the ICE office in Philadelphia, they were surrounded. One ICE officer removed the keys from the ignition, and the others pushed the Chichés onto the ground to be handcuffed. Inside the car, 2-year-old Sheynnon wailed. On the Run

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/11/as-bakken-shale-boom-eases-williston-north-dakota-looks-for-a-second-act.html

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As Bakken boom eases, North Dakota looks for a second act

Roughly half of crude oil leaves the Bakken region by rail. This spring, construction is set to begin on a 1,100-mile pipeline for faster, cheaper transport. watch now watch now watch now The change in Williston, North Dakota, is palpable. Yes, the shale oil-rich economy is still booming. Unemployment stands at 2.3 percent, well below the national average. Household median income is more than $83,000, well above the national average. And construction workers plug away on the city's much needed infrastructure projects. But there's no denying that optimism, so prevalent here a year ago, is mixing with caution for many in this North Dakota boomtown that has come to symbolize America's energy revolution. In the mid-2000s, a few pioneering drillers realized that hydraulic fracking would let them unlock crude in North Dakota's massive Bakken Shale play. Before long, the whole industry was scrambling to set up operations in the region. Thousands of out-of-state workers flooded in, looking to land a high-paying job. Nearly everyone seemed to be headed for Williston, the tiny town at the heart of the Bakken. In 2007, Williston's population was just over 12,000. Today, it's nearly 31,000. And the town's economic expansion has experienced the same meteoric rise. Over that same period, 25,000 jobs were created. More than 1,300 businesses were launched. Restaurants and hotels were built. Hospitals and community centers were overhauled. Read MoreInside North Dakota's latest fracking problem But with the price of oil now well off its 2014 highs of over $100 a barrel, many drillers have cut back on their Bakken positions, announcing layoffs, or pulling out of the state altogether. WTI crude oil prices recently were trading under $40 a barrel. Continental Resources , one of the companies that led the fracking revolution in the state, stopped completing wells in the third quarter of last year. Whiting Petroleum , one of the state's biggest producers, made the same announcement last month. They'll wait for oil prices to climb before they frack the wells. That means hundreds of wells won't produce any oil, and thousands workers will be without jobs. As drillers have left Williston, so have many of the men and women who came to the city looking for work. In 2014, the workforce in Williams County topped out at 43,000. That figure is down to 34,000. And it's the combination of lower oil prices and more modest growth that has some locals and oil watchers concerned that leaner times could be on the horizon. Feeling the pinch Andy Njos, along with his cousin, started Dacotah West Crane Services in 2011. The duo were among the first to cash in on the oil rush. Brad Quick | CNBC "It is definitely a different mindset now," said Andy Njos. Andy and his cousin Aaron Volesky started Dacotah West Crane Services in 2011. "Drillers have had to cut costs, and we have to figure out how to do jobs cheaper," Andy said. The duo bought their first crane in Houston and took two weeks to drive the machinery 1,600 miles back to their home town of Williston. They were the first among friends to cash in on the oil rush, but they would not be the last. Success came quickly. The cousins worked long hours, but couldn't keep up with the seemingly endless flow of work orders by themselves. They grew out of necessity. In just a few years, they expanded their fleet to nine cranes, hired 25 workers, and built a new corporate headquarters. In 2014, revenues at Dacotah West peaked with the price of oil. Since then, business is down 50 percent. Andy Njos shed overtime shifts, cut his staff to 10, and returned any equipment he did not own outright. Read More North Dakota wakes up to hangover as oil swoons "We've had to downsize. We had to restructure the company," said Njos. "We went from nine to four cranes." Njos says his business is OK, thanks in no small part to how quickly he and his cousin scaled down overhead costs. He thinks 2016 will be a lean year in the Bakken. "Right now it's kind of stagnant. It's, 'Wait until oil prices go up a little bit,'" he said. "Everyone's just trying to survive." Marcus Jundt opened the Williston Brewing Company in North Dakota in 2013. The restaurant has seen lower foot traffic and revenues. Brad Quick | CNBC The cousins aren't the only business owners feeling the pinch. Marcus Jundt, a Minneapolis-based developer, opened the Williston Brewing Company in North Dakota in 2013. The restaurant has been a hit, with revenues cut in half. When times were good, every night was busy at his restaurant, and a two-hour wait for a table was not uncommon. But Jundt says his customer base took a steep drop last year. "It varies week to week, but every week keeps getting worse," he said. "We don't know where the bottom is, but we're not there yet." Jundt has had to lay off friends. His restaurant, like many other businesses in Williston, has had to cut wages. He says workers who aren't tied to Williston are leaving. Without the high paychecks to keep them rooted, and a national economy that's better than it was a few years ago, many out-of-state workers are leaving to find jobs closer to home. "Since we opened this restaurant three years ago, 32 restaurants have opened up," said Jundt. "There are too many restaurants for the number of people we have. But I think you can say that about gas stations, apartment buildings, houses. Almost everything in town is overbuilt." Hotels have also seen business decline. In January, the city's occupancy rate fell to 27 percent, compared with 62 percent in 2015. That's a dramatic shift from a few years ago, when parking lots were filled with men sleeping in their cars because they couldn't find a place to stay. Trailers without running water were fetching as much as $2,500 a month. Capital Lodge - one of the Bakken's largest crew camps with 1,100 beds and cost $40 million to buil - now sits abandoned. Brad Quick | CNBC Capital Lodge — one of the Bakken's largest crew camps — now sits abandoned. The 1,100-bed temporary housing facility east of Williston cost $40 million to build. The camp went under after the county raised annual permitting fees, coupled with plummeting demand for beds. While there are female oil workers, the crew camps have become known as "man camps." Another "man camp" operator, Target Logistics, has 3,900 beds on 12 properties spread across the Bakken. Their occupancy hovers between 40 percent and 50 percent. Other camps in Williston, with names like "Black Gold" and "ATCO," have been abandoned or torn down. Beyond the oil patch, agriculture is a big economic driver in North Dakota. Top agricultural products include wheat, cattle and calves and soybeans. 'I believe in Williston' Despite all the challenges, many in Williston remain cautiously optimistic. The city has laid out a five-year, $1-billion infrastructure spending plan, including a new $250 million airport. Shawn Wenko, who leads Williston Economic Development, says despite anticipated lower oil revenues, he doesn't expect wholesale changes to development plans. "Do I believe 2016 is going to be a quiet year? Yes," Wenko wrote in an op-ed for the Grand Forks Herald last month. "But he oil and gas industry, as it has always done in the past, is going to recover from this." Wenko says while some projects may be put on hold, he does expect them to be completed. "We are at a crossroads in developing the future of the City of Williston. We can chose to dwell in the now or we can plan for the future," Wenko said. And while construction on apartment complexes and hotels is slowing, developers are shifting focus to the region's more pressing pipeline needs. "Right now, we don't have enough pipeline capacity to put [Bakken crude] in pipes and get it down to Cushing, Oklahoma," a major energy hub, said Patrick McGarry, a property consultant who moved to Williston six years ago. Read MoreThe Big Apple takes a bite out of solar energy McGarry arrived with plans to build 40 homes. But he's had success helping others navigate the real estate market. He sees a big opportunity in developing the region's infrastructure. This spring, construction is expected to begin on the $3.7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. The project, headed by a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners , received approval from regulators in Iowa on Thursday, ending the last major permitting hurdle for the pipeline. The plan has already been approved in North Dakota, South Dakota and Illinois. A truck driver holds a supply line while preparing to transload liquid propane from his truck to a rail car at the Red River Supply rail yard in Williston, North Dakota. Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images

https://www.cnbc.com/id/45685403

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Raymond James: Our Best Picks May Double in 2012

The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based firm, which doesn't offer updates during the year, says the companies are chosen by its analysts. All companies carry a "buy" rating based on fundamentals, growth prospects and risk. Management's ability to deliver on growth expectations during a slow economic environment also plays a role. How successful have Raymond James analysts been? In 14 of the previous 15 years, the group of picks outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. In the previous decade, they rose 17.5 percent, better than the S&P 500's 6.2 percent increase. Raymond James' 2011 picks were a disappointment, however, with a decline of 1.2 percent. Most the poor performance was pinned to Bank of America, which has tumbled more than 60 percent. On the positive side, Panera Bread has been the best-performing pick of the year, up nearly 30 percent. The investing environment has been tough, though, and next year's favorites would have been disappointments in 2011. The group has fallen 3.7 percent this year, with three names down more than 24 percent. The S&P 500, a broader measure of the largest stocks in the U.S., has slumped 3.3 percent. Of Raymond James' group of favorite stocks, Nuance Communicationsis the best performer so far this year, up 30 percent, while BMC Softwarelags the most, with a 29 percent drop. "Once again, our analysts have been challenged to find the best stocks to own in 2012 from among the approximately 900 companies we actively follow," Chief Investment Officer David Henwood wrote in an introduction to this year's list. The encouraging elements during a year of great market turbulence, Henwood says, are that corporate earnings and cash flows have grown impressively for most companies. Analysts at Raymond James offer their best picks, with returns expected to be between 15 percent and 104 percent, based on price forecasts. The 13 stocks on Raymond James' list are arranged below in order of potential upside, based on the firm's 12-month price target and the stock's price as of Dec. 14. 13. Brinker International Company Profile: Brinker International owns or franchises more than 1,500 casual dining restaurants in 32 countries under the names Chili's Grill & Bar and Maggiano's Little Italy. Share Price: $24.21 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 15.7 percent based on a price target of $28 Investment Thesis: Analyst Bryan Elliott says Brinker's is in phase II of its Chili's transformation, which should lead to a big margin and free cash flow opportunity. "Brinker shares have been range-bound for most of 2011 despite management consistently meeting its goals from Phase I of the transformation (improved labor productivity)," Elliott writes. "We expect similar success with Phase II initiatives (a significant kitchen technology upgrade and a major store remodel program). If we are correct, investor sentiment should improve, which could materially increase EAT's valuation metrics." 12. Post Properties Company Profile: Post Properties is a developer and operator of upscale multifamily communities. The company operates as a real estate investment trust, or REIT. Share Price: $41.17 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 19 percent based on a price target of $49 Investment Thesis: Analyst Buck Horne says Post Properties should outperform in 2012 as the apartment REIT sector is poised for near-record earnings growth in 2012. "As part of that favorable backdrop, we believe Post Properties' accelerating rent growth, low rent/income ratios, and attractive development pipeline present a compelling multi-year earnings growth profile at a valuation that remains quite attractive," Horne writes. 11. Chevron Company Profile: Chevron is one of the largest corporations in the U.S. and is engaged in oil and gas exploration, production and refining. Share Price: $102.04 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 22.5 percent based on a price target of $125 Investment Thesis: Analyst Pavel Molchanov says Chevron is structurally the best-positioned of the super-major oil giants, like Exxon Mobil . "Despite Chevron's currently high capital intensity as it spends heavily on the long-term [liquid natural gas] projects, the free cash flow yield remains robust," Molchanov writes. 10. Nuance Communications Company Profile: Nuance is a provider of voice- and language-software services. The company makes the Nuance Dragon voice-recognition software. Share Price: $23.59 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 27.2 percent based on a price target of $30 Investment Thesis: Analyst Shyam Patil says Nuance should see "unprecedented business momentum" drive a strong 2012. Patil says that with the success of the Apple iPhone 4S and its voice recognition software, speech recognition is starting to become mainstream. "Nuance is seeing the strongest momentum in mobile and expect this segment to grow the fastest in 2012," Patil says. "The strong business momentum combined with what we view as conservative FY12 guidance should allow for upward estimate revisions throughout the year." 9. BB&T Corp. Company Profile: BB&T offers a range of financial services to consumers and businesses. The company has about 1,800 branches in 12 states with $168 billion in assets. Share Price: $23.46 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 28 percent based on a price target of $30 Investment Thesis: Analyst Michael Rose calls BB&T "a bank stock for the times," noting that the U.S. banking sector remains "plagued by economic uncertainty, increasing regulatory burdens, and European debt/banking issues." Rose says market share gains and specialty business should fuel BB&T's loan growth. "In sum, BBT is a bank stock for the times as continued progress in many fundamental areas will drive superior operating results and profitability relative to peers which in turn will benefit shares," Rose writes. 8. VeriFone Systems Company Profile: VeriFone is a provider of secure electronic-payment technologies. Share Price: $40.66 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 30 percent based on a price target of $53 Investment Thesis: Analyst Wayne Johnson says VeriFone is Raymond James' top investment idea in the payments sector, "given the company's strong market position, exposure to secular tailwinds, and significant company-driven revenue and profitability expansion opportunities." Johnson adds that VeriFone should benefit from favorable market dynamics such as improved competitive landscape, new payment products, adoption of electronic payments in traditionally cash-based industries like taxis, and the demand for value-added services such as multimedia, advertising, and mobile payments capabilities. 7. TW Telecom Company Profile: TW Telecom is the third-largest business Ethernet provider in the U.S. Share Price: $18.94 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 32 percent based on a price target of $25 Investment Thesis: Analyst Frank Louthan says the proliferation of data makes TW Telecom the name to own since it's best positioned in the highly competitive telecom industry. "The company has valuable assets that we believe are positioned to benefit from the same data demand trends we see in that sub-sector, which can ultimately produce higher top-line growth than its peers," Louthan writes. 6. Stanley Black & Decker Company Profile: Stanley Black & Decker makes tools. The company's brands include Black & Decker, Baldwin, DeWalt, Kwikset, and Stanley. Share Price: $63.76 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 33.3 percent based on a price target of $85 Investment Thesis: Analyst Sam Darkatsh says Stanley Black & Decker is "significantly undervalued" headed into 2012 thanks to an attractive free cash flow yield. "Valuation has reached a point where it may act as its own catalyst via a disproportionately heavy share repurchase and/or a business portfolio review," Darkatsh writes. "While macro trends in Europe and the U.S. housing market are certainly not favorable, modest low single-digit organic growth seems a reasonable expectation given potential revenue synergies from Black & Decker." 5. Lincoln National Company Profile: Lincoln National , with assets of $153 billion, offers annuities, life insurance, 401(k) plans, savings plans and financial planning. Share Price: $18.61 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 45 percent based on a price target of $27 Investment Thesis: Analyst Steven Schwartz says Lincoln National remains undervalued as fundamentals improve. Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analysts agree, picking Lincoln National as one of their top stock picks for 2012. "Lincoln National has the potential for substantial share price appreciation," Schwartz writes. "Lincoln continues to perform as a top-ten player in various life insurance product arenas and remains well suited to continue to benefit from the demand for the investment and insurance guarantees provided by the life insurance industry." 4. BMC Software Company Profile: BMC Software is a provider of Cloud computing and IT service management. Share Price: $33.36 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 47 percent based on a price target of $49 Investment Thesis: Analyst Michael Turits calls BMC Software "a good defensive pick in the event of a worsening economic environment," noting that the stock was a top relative performer during the downturn of 2008 and 2009. "We believe BMC has taken aggressive steps to address sales force compensation and quotas that should begin to 'right the ship' in the next twelve months," Turits writes. 3. Whiting Petroleum Company Profile: Whiting Petroleum is an oil and gas exploration and production company. It owns and operates properties in the Permian Basin, Rocky Mountain, Mid-Continent, Gulf Coast and Michigan regions of the U.S. Share Price: $44.21 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 58.3 percent based on a price target of $70 Investment Thesis: Analyst John Freeman offers an extensive list of catalysts for Whiting in 2012, including the company's so-called Lewis and Clark play, which he says will alleviate inventory concerns. "In addition to Lewis and Clark, well results from several other areas across the Williston Basin (Hidden Bench, Starbuck, Tarpon, and Missouri Breaks) will help unlock the resource potential across the smaller plays in the Rocky Mountain region," Freeman writes. "While Whiting boasts an attractive balance sheet (net debt/book cap of 29 percent), the company is also exploring monetization options including joint ventures and/or royalty trusts to fund operations before drawing further on its $1.5 billion borrowing base." 2. Superior Energy Services Company Profile: Superior Energy Services is a provider of oilfield services and equipment. It provides oil and gas companies with brand name rental tools and integrated well intervention services and tools. Share Price: $26.65 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 76.4 percent based on a price target of $47 Investment Thesis: Analyst J. Marshall Adkins is poised for outperformance in 2012 thanks to its growth strategy through a merger with Complete Production Services, an attractive valuation, and a recovery of activity in the Gulf of Mexico. "Superior Energy Services continues to establish itself as one of the strongest performing companies in our coverage universe," Adkins writes. "A top-tier management team paired with organic expansion as well as the recent acquisition of Complete Production Services should position Superior to reap the benefits of nearly every burgeoning fundamental theme we see unfolding in the oil service universe in 2012 and beyond." 1. Nvidia Company Profile: Nvidia is a visual computing technologies company and the inventor of the graphics processing unit. Share Price: $13.71 (Dec. 14) Potential Upside: 104 percent based on a price target of $28 Investment Thesis: Analyst Hans Mosesmann says that the bear case for Nvidia has been overstated and that headwinds won't materialize in the company's fiscal 2013. "Investors have been increasingly concerned about Nvidia's applications processor, Tegra, and its ability to compete given new dynamics in the tablet and smartphone market," Mosesmann notes. "In essence, we believe Qualcomm will be successful in targeting the lower end of the market, but Nvidia's early lead at quad core will allow the company to have meaningful traction for Tegra in FY13." Additional News: Chevron Spent $2.1 Million in Third-Quarter Lobbying Additional Views: 5 Stocks to Absolutely Avoid, JPMorgan Warns ______________________________ CNBC Data Pages: ______________________________ Disclosures: TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits staff editors, reporters and analysts from holding positions in any individual stocks. Disclaimer

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/16/click-for-a-full-transcript-of-trumps-first-solo-press-conference.html

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Mid-America Apartment Communities

Read the full transcript of Trump's first solo press conference

We have made incredible progress. I don't think there's ever been a president elected who in this short period of time has done what we've done. I had this time, we've been negotiating a lot of different transactions to save money on contracts that were terrible, including airplane contracts that were out of control and late and terrible. Just absolutely catastrophic in terms of what was happening. And we've done some really good work and we're proud of that. Right after that, you prepare yourselves for questions, unless you have no questions, that's always a responsibility. I'm here today to update the American people on the incredible progress that has been made in the last four weeks since my inauguration. I just wanted to begin by mentioning that the nominee for secretary of the Department of Labor will be Mr. Alex Acosta. He has a law degree from Harvard Law School, great student, former clerk for Justice Samuel Alito, and he has had a tremendous career. He's a member and has been a member of the National Labor Relations Board, and he's been through Senate confirmation three times, confirmed, did very, very well. And so Alex, I wished him the best. We just spoke, and he's going to be a tremendous secretary of Labor. And, also, as you probably heard just a little while ago, Mick Mulvaney, former congressman, has just been approved, weeks late. I have to say that, weeks, weeks late, Office of Management and Budget, and he will be, I think, a fantastic addition. Paul Singer just left. As you know, he was very much involved with the anti-Trump or as they say, Never Trump, and Paul left and gave us total support. It's all about unification. We're unifying the party and hopefully we'll unify the country. It's very important to me. I've been talking about that for a long time, but it's very, very important to me. I thank Paul for being here, coming up to the office, he was very strong opponent, and now he's a very strong ally, and I appreciate that. I think I'll say a few words and take some questions. Just got here. I got here with no Cabinet. Again, each of the actions is a promise I made to the American people, going over just some of them. We have a lot in the next week and weeks coming. We have withdrawn from the job killing disaster known as Trans-Pacific Partnership. We're going to have trade deals but we're going to have one-on-one deals, bilateral. One-on-one deals. So if the Democrats. all you have to do is look where they are right now. The only thing they can do is delay because they screwed things up royally. Believe me. Let me list things we've done in just a short period of time. So we have a wonderful group of people that's working very hard, that's being very much misrepresented about, and we can't let that happen. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine. Despite the fact that I can't get my Cabinet approved. They are outstanding people. Like Senator Dan Coats, who is there, one of the most respected men in the Senate. He can't get approved. How do you not approve him? He's been a colleague, highly respected, brilliant guy, great guy, everybody knows it, but were waiting for approval. I'm here following through on what I pledged to do. That's all I'm doing. I put it out before the American people, got 306 electoral college votes. I wasn't supposed to get 222. They said there's no way to get 222. 230 is impossible. 270, which you need — that was laughable. We got 306. Because people came out and voted like they have never seen before. So that's how it goes. I guess it was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan. In other words, the media is trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made, and they are not happy about it for whatever reason. And, but a lot of people are happy about it. In fact, I'll be in Melbourne, Florida, at 5 on Saturday, and I heard, just heard the crowds are massive that want to be there. I turn on the TV, open the newspaper and I see stories of chaos. Chaos. Yet it is the exact opposite. One promise after another after years of politicians lying to you to get elected. They lied to the American people In order to get elected. Some of the things I'm doing probably aren't popular, but they're necessary for security and or other reasons. And then coming to Washington and pursuing their own interests, which is more important to many politicians. So we do not go abroad in the search of war. We really are searching for peace. It's peace through strength. At home, we have begun the monumental task of returning the government to the people to a scale not seen in many, many years. In each of these actions, I'm keeping my promises to the American people. These are campaign promises. Some people are so surprised that we are having strong borders. Well that's what I've been talking about for a year and a half, strong borders. They are so surprised. Oh, he is having strong borders. Well, that's what I've been talking about to the press and everybody else. They don't have the right equipment, and their equipment is old. I used it. I talked about it. At every stop. Depleted. It's depleted. It won't be depleted for long. One of the reasons I'm standing here instead of other people is, frankly, I talked about we have to have a strong military. We have to have strong law enforcement also. I've had great support from the Senate. I've had great support from Congress, generally. We've pursued this rebuilding in the hopes that we will never have to use this military. I will tell you, that is my — I would be so happy if we never had to use it, but our country will never have had a military like the military we're about to build and rebuild. We have the greatest people on earth in our military. Another mess I inherited. We have imposed new sanctions on the nation of Iran, who has totally taken advantage of our previous administration. And they are the world's top sponsor of terrorism. And we're not going to stop until that problem is properly solved, and it's not now. It's one of the worst agreements I've ever seen drawn by anybody. I've ordered plans to begin for the massive rebuilding of the United States military. I have directed our defense community headed by our great general, now Secretary Mattis, he's over there now working very hard, to submit a plan for the defeat of ISIS, a group that celebrates murder and torture of innocent people in large sections of the world. Used to be a small group. Now it's in large sections of the world. They've spread like cancer. ISIS has spread like cancer. We've had great conversations with the United Kingdom and meetings, Israel, Mexico, Japan, China and Canada. Really, really productive conversations. I would say far more productive than you would understand. We've even developed a new council with Canada to promote women's business leaders and entrepreneurs. Very important to me. Very important to my daughter, Ivanka. Mass instability overseas, no matter where you look. The Middle East, a disaster. North Korea, we'll take care of it, folks. We're going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know. I inherited a mess. Beginning on day one, our administration went to work to tackle these challenges. On foreign affairs, we've begun enormously productive talks with foreign leaders, much of which you've covered, to move forward to security, stability and peace in the most troubled regions of the world, which there are many. As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government and across the economy. To be honest, I inherited a mess. A mess. At home, and abroad. A mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country. You see what's going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places. Low pay, low wages. The press has become so dishonest that if we don't talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it. We have to find out what's going on because the press, honestly, is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control. I ran for president to represent the citizens of our country. I am here to change the broken system so it serves their families and their communities well. I am talking, and really talking, on this very entrenched power structure and what we're doing is we're talking about the power structure. We're talking about its entrenchment. As a result, the media's going through what they have to go through to oftentimes distort — not all the time — and some of the media's fantastic, I have to say, honest and fantastic — but much of it is not. The distortion, and we'll talk about it, you'll be able to ask me questions about it. We're not going to let it happen because I'm here, again, to take my message straight to the people. The stock market has hit record numbers, as you know, and there's been a tremendous surge of optimism in the business world, which means something different than it used to. Now it means it's good for jobs. Very different. Plants and factories are already starting to move back into the United States, big league, Ford, General Motors. I'm making this presentation directly to the American people with the media present, which, it's an honor to have you this morning because many of our nation's reporters and folks will not tell you the truth and will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect that they deserve. And I hope going forward we can be a little bit different, and maybe get along a little bit better, if that's possible. Maybe it's not and that's OK too. Unfortunately, much of the media in Washington, DC, along with New York, Los Angeles, in particular, speaks not for the people, but for the special interests and for those profiting off a very, very obviously broken system. A new Rasmussen poll, in fact, because the people get it, much of the media doesn't get it, they actually get it but they don't write it, let's put it that way, but a new Rasmussen poll came out a short while ago, and it has our approval rating at 55 percent and going up. We directed the elimination of regulations that undermine manufacturing and called for expedited approval of the permits needed for America and American infrastructure, meaning plants, equipment, roads, bridges, factories. People take 10, 15, 20 years to get disapproved for a factory. They go in for a permit, it's many, many years, and at the end of the process, they spend tens of millions of dollars on nonsense, and at the end of the process, they are rejected. They may be rejected with me, but it's going to be a quick rejection. Not going to take years, but, mostly, it's acceptance. We want plants and factories built. We want the jobs. We don't want the jobs going to other countries. We've imposed a hiring freeze on nonessential federal workers. We've imposed a temporary moratorium and new federal regulations. We issued a game-changing new rule that says for each one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. Makes sense. Nobody's ever seen regulations like we have. You go to other countries, and you look at industries they have, and you say, let me see your regulations. They are a fraction, just a tiny fraction of what we have. I want regulations because I want safety. I want environmental, all environmental situations to be taken properly care of. It's very important to me. You don't need four or five or six regulations to take care of the same thing. We've stood up for the men and women of law enforcement, directing federal agencies to ensure they are protected from crimes of violence. We've directed the creation of a task force for reducing violent crime in America, including the horrendous situation — take a look at Chicago and others — taking place right now in our inner cities. Horrible. We've ordered the Department of Homeland Security and Justice to coordinate on a plan to destroy criminal cartels coming into the United States with drugs. We're becoming a drug-infested nation. Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars. We're not going to let it happen any longer. We've undertaken the most substantial border security measures in a generation to keep our nation and our tax dollars safe and are now in the process of beginning to build a promised wall on the southern border. [I] met with general, now Secretary Kelly, yesterday, and we're starting that process. And the wall is going to be a great wall, and it's going to be a wall negotiated by me. The price is going to come down, just like on everything else I've negotiated for the government. And we're going to have a wall that works. We're not going to have a wall like they have now that is either nonexistent or a joke. We ordered a crackdown on sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with federal law and that harbor criminal aliens, and we've ordered an end to the policy of catch and release on the border. No more release. No matter who you are. We've begun a nationwide effort to remove criminal aliens, gang members, drug dealers, and others who pose a threat to public safety. We are saving American lives every single day. Court system has not made it easy for us. And we've even created a new office in Homeland Security dedicated to the forgotten American victims of illegal immigrant violence, which there are many. We've taken decisive action to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country. Though parts of our necessary and constitutional actions were blocked by judges, in my opinion, incorrect, an unsafe ruling. Our administration is working night and day to keep you safe — including reporters — and is vigorously defending this lawful order. I will not back down from defending our country. I got elected on defending our country. I keep my campaign promises, and our citizens will be very happy when they see the result, they already are. I can tell you that. Extreme vetting will be put in place, and it already is in place in many places. In fact, we had to go quicker than we thought because of the bad decision we received from a circuit that has been overturned at a record number. I've heard 80 percent, I find that hard believe. That's just a number I heard, that they are overturned 80 percent of the time. I think that circuit is — that circuit in chaos and that circuit is frankly in turmoil. But we are appealing that and we are going further. We're issuing a new executive action next week that will comprehensively protect our country, so we'll be going along the one path and hopefully winning that. At the same time we will be issuing a new and very comprehensive order to protect our people and that'll be done sometime next week in the beginning or middle at the latest part. We've also taken steps to begin construction of the Keystone pipeline and Dakota Access pipelines, thousands and thousands of jobs, and put new buy American measures in place to require American steel for American pipelines. In other words, they build a pipeline in this country and we use the powers of the government to make that pipeline happen, we want them to use American steel. And they are willing to do that, but nobody ever asked before I came along. Even this order was drawn, and they didn't say that and I'm reading the order and I say why aren't we using American steel? They said, that's a good idea. We put it in. To drain the swamp of corruption in Washington D.C., I've started by imposing a five-year lobbying ban on White House officials, and a lifetime ban on lobbying for a foreign government. We've begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare. Obamacare is a disaster, folks. It's a disaster. You can say, oh, Obamacare. They fill up our alleys with people that you wonder how they get there, but they're not the republican people that our representatives are representing. So, we've begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare and are deep in the midst of negotiations on a very historic tax reform to bring our jobs back. Bring our jobs back to this country, big league. It's already happening. Big league. I've also worked to install a Cabinet over the delays and obstruction of Senate Democrats. You've seen what they've done over the last long number of years. That will be one of the great cabinets ever assembled in American history. You look at Rex Tillerson. He's out there negotiating right now. General Mattis I mentioned before. General Kelly. We have great, great people, makers with us now. We have great people. Among their responsibilities will be ending the bleeding of jobs from our country and negotiating fair trade deals for our citizens. Now look, fair trade. Not free. Fair. If a country is taking advantage of us, we're not going to let that happen anymore. You know, every country takes advantage of us, almost. I may be able to find a couple that don't, but for the most part, that would be a tough job for me to do. Jobs have already started to surge. Since my election, Ford announced it will abandon its plans to build a new factory in Mexico, and will instead invest $700 million in Michigan, creating many, many jobs. Fiat Chrysler announced it will invest $1 billion in Ohio and Michigan creating 2,000 new american jobs. They were with me a week ago. You know, you were here. General Motors likewise committed to invest billions of dollars in its American manufacturing operation, keeping many jobs here that were going to leave, and if I didn't get elected, believe me, they would have left, and these jobs, these things that I'm announcing would never have come here. Intel just announced that it will move ahead with a new plant in Arizona that probably was never going to move ahead with. And that will result in at least 10,000 American jobs. Wal-mart announced it will create 10,000 jobs in the United States just this year because of our various plans and initiatives. They'll be many, many more, many more. These are a few that we're naming. Other countries have been taken advantage of us for decades, decades, and decades and decades, folks, and we're not going to let that happen anymore. Not going to let it happen. And one more thing, I have kept my promise to the American people by nominating a justice of the United States Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, from my list of 20, and who will be a true defender of our laws and our constitution. Highly respected. Should get the vote from the Democrats. You may not see that, but he'll get there one way or another. He should get there the old fashioned way, and he should get those votes. This last month has represented an unprecedented degree of action on behalf of the great citizens of our country. Again, I say it, there's never been a presidency that's done so much in such a short period of time, and we haven't even started the big work that starts early next week. Some very big things are going to be announced next week. So we're just getting started. We will be giving a speech as I said in Melbourne, Florida, at 5 p.m., I hope to see you there. And with that, I just say God bless America, and let's take some questions. Mara? Mara, go ahead, you were cut off pretty violently at our last news conference. Reporter: [ inaudible ] Mike Flynn is a wonderful person, and I asked for resignation, he respectfully gave it. He is a man who there was a certain amount of information given to Vice President Pence, who's with us today, and I was not happy with the way that information was given. He didn't have to do that because what he did wasn't wrong. What he did in terms of the information he saw. What was wrong was the way that other people, including yourselves, in this room, were given that information. Because that was classified information that was given illegally. That's the real problem. You know, you can talk all you want about Russia, which was all, you know, "fake news" fabricated deal to try to make up for the loss of the Democrats and the press plays right into it. In fact, I saw a couple of the people supposedly involved with all of this. They know nothing about it, never in Russia, never made a phone call, never received a phone call. It's all fake news. It's all fake news. The nice thing is I see it starting to turn where people are now looking at the illegal — I think it's very important — the illegal giving out classified information, and let me just tell you, it was given out so much. For example, I called, as you know, Mexico. It was a very confidential classified call, but I called Mexico, and in calling Mexico, I figured, oh, well that's nice, I spoke to the president of Mexico, had a good call, all the sudden it's out there for the world to see. It was supposed to be secret. Supposed to be either confidential or classified in that case, same thing with Australia. All of the sudden, people are finding out exactly what took place. The same thing happened with respect to General Flynn. Everybody saw this. And I'm saying, the first thing I thought of when I heard about it, is how does the press get this information that's classified? How do they do it? You know why? Because it's an illegal process, and the press should be ashamed of themselves, but more importantly, the people that gave out information to the press should be ashamed of themselves. Really a shame. Trump: Yes, go ahead. Reporter: Why did you keep your vice president in the dark for almost two weeks? Trump: Because when I looked at the information, I said, I don't think he did anything wrong. If anything, he did something right. He was coming into office, looked at the information, and he said, "huh, that's fine." That's what they are supposed to do. They are supposed to be — he just didn't call Russia, he called, and spoke to both ways, I think, there were 30-some odd countries, just doing his job. You know, he was just doing his job. The thing is he didn't tell our vice president properly, and then he said he didn't remember, so either way, it wasn't very satisfactory to me. And I have somebody that I think will be outstanding for the position, and that also helps, I think, in the making of my decision, but he didn't tell the vice president of the United States the facts, and then he didn't remember, and that just wasn't acceptable to me. Yes? Reporter: Since you brought up Russia, I'm looking for some clarification here. During the campaign, did anyone from your team communicate with members of the Russian government or Russian intelligence, and if so, what was the nature of the conversations? Trump: Well, the failing New York Times wrote a big long front page story yesterday, and it was very much discredited, as you know. It was— it's a joke. The people mentioned in the story, I noticed they were on television today saying they never even spoke to Russia. They weren't even a part, really, I mean, there was such a minor part. I had not spoken to them—I think the one person, I don't think I've ever spoken to him or ever met him, and he actually said he was a very low level member of, I think, committee for a short period of time. I don't think I ever met him. Now it's possible I walked into a room and he was sitting there, but I never met him, I never talked to him ever, and he thought it was a joke. The other person said he never spoke to Russia, never received a call, looked at his phone records, et cetera, et cetera, and the other person people knew that he represented various countries, but I don't think he represented Russia, but represented various countries. That's what he does. People know that. That's Mr. Manafort, by the way, a respected man, a respected man, but I think he represented the Ukraine or Ukraine government or somebody, but everybody knew that. Everybody knew that. So these people... and he said that he has absolutely nothing to do and never has with Russia. He said that very forcefully. I saw his statement. He said it forcefully. Most of the papers do not print it because it's not good for their stories. So the three people they talked about all totally deny it, and I can tell you, speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don't have any deals in Russia. President Putin called me up nicely to congratulate me on the win of the election. He called me up extremely nicely to congratulate me on the inauguration, which was terrific, but so did almost all other leaders from almost all other countries. That's the exception. Russia is fake news. Russia — this is fake news put out by the media. The real news is the fact that there are people probably from the Obama administration because they are there. We have new people going in place right now, as you know, Mike Pompeo is now taking control of the CIA, James Comey at the FBI, Dan Coates is waiting to be approved. I mean, he's a senator, a highly respected one, and he's still waiting to be approved. But our new people are going in. Just while you're at it, because you mentioned this, the Wall Street Journal did a story today that was almost as disgraceful as the failing New York Times story yesterday. And it talked about — you saw it, front page — so director of national intelligence just put out, acting, a statement, any suggestion that the United States intelligence community — this was just given to us — is withholding information and not providing the best possible intelligence to the president and his national security team is not true. So they took this front page story out of the Wall Street Journal top, and they just wrote the story, but it's not true. I'll tell you something. I'll be honest. I sort of enjoy this back and forth, and I guess I have all my life, but never seen more dishonest media than frankly the political media. I thought the financial media was much better and more honest, but I will say that I never get phone calls from the media. How do they write a story like that in the Wall Street Journal without asking me or how do they write a story in the New York Times put it on the front page. That was the story they wrote about the women and me, front page, big massive story. And It was nasty. And then they called, they said, we never said that. We like Mr. Trump. They called up my office. We like Mr. Trump. We never said that. And it was totally — they totally misrepresented those very wonderful women. I have to tell you. Totally misrepresented. I said, give us a retraction. They never gave us a retraction, and, frankly, I then went on to other things. Okay. Go ahead. Reporter: Mr. President, you said today that you have biggest electoral margins since Reagan with 350 electoral votes, and, in fact, president Obama got 365 -- [Trump mumbles in response] why should America — [ Trump tries to protest in response] why should America trust you when you accuse the — [ inaudible ] Trump: Actually, I've seen that information around. It was a substantial difference, do you agree with that? Reporter: You're the president. Trump: Okay. [laughing] Reporter: Can you tell us, can you determine that General Flynn never wronged you? What evidence — did you ask your transcripts [inaudible] you said you'd aggressively pursue [inaudible] Trump: We are. Reporter: [inaudible] review of the intelligence community — what can you tell us? Trump: First of all, about that. We now have Dan Coates, hopefully soon, Mike Pompeo, and James Comey, and they are in position, so I hope that we'll be able to straighten that out without using anybody else. The gentleman you mentioned is a very talented man, a very successful man, and he's offered his services, and you know, it's something we may take advantage of, but I don't think we'll need that at all because of the fact that, you know, I think that we're going to be able to straighten it out easily on its own. As far as the general is concerned, when I first heard about it, I said, huh, that doesn't sound wrong. My counsel came, Don McGahn, White House Counsel, and he told me, and I asked him, and he can speak very well for himself. He said he doesn't think anything is wrong. You know, really didn't think — really what happened after that — but he didn't think anything was done wrong. I didn't either, because I waited a period of time and thought about it. Well, I said I don't see, to me, he was doing the job. The information was provided by, who I don't know, Sally Yates, and I was a little surprised because I said, "Doesn't sound like he did anything wrong there," but he did something wrong with respect to the Vice President, and I thought it was not acceptable as far as, as far as, the actual making the call. In fact, I've watched various programs, and I've read various articles where he was just doing his job. That was very normal. You know, first everybody got excited because they thought he did something wrong. After they thought about it, it turned out he was just doing his job. So, and I do — and, by the way, with all of that being said, I do think he's a fine man. Yes, john? Reporter: What will you do on the leaks? You have said twice today [inaudible] Trump: I've actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks. Those are criminal leaks. They're put out by people either in agencies you'll see it stopping because now we have our people in. You know, again, we don't have our people in because we can't them approved by the Senate. We just had Jeff Sessions approved and just as an example. So, we are looking into that very seriously. It's a criminal act. You know what I say, when I was called out on Mexico, I was shocked. Cause all this equipment, all this incredible phone equipment. When I was called out on Mexico, I was, honestly, I was really, really surprised. But I said, you know, it doesn't make sense. That won't happen. But that wasn't that important to call. It was fine. I could show it to the world, and he could show it to the world, the president, who is a very fine man, by the way, same thing with Australia. I said, that's terrible that it was leaked, but it was not that important. But then I said to myself, what happens when I'm dealing with the problem of North Korea? What happens when I'm dealing with the problems in the Middle East? Are you folks going to be reporting all of that very, very confidential information? Very important, very, you know, I mean, at the highest level, are you going to be reporting about that too? So I don't want classified information getting out to the public. In a way, that was almost a test, so I'm dealing with Mexico, I'm dealing with Argentina. We were dealing with this case on Mike Flynn, all the information gets put into the Washington Post and gets put into the New York Times, and I'm saying, what's going to happen when I deal on the Middle East? What's happening when I'm dealing with really, really important subjects like North Korea? We got to stop it. That's why it's a criminal penalty. Yes? John? Reporter: Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to get you to clarify, because it's a very important point, can you say definitively that nobody on your campaign had any contacts with the Russians during the campaign, and on the leaks, is it fake news or are these real leaks? Trump: Well, the leaks are real. You're the one that wrote about them and reported them. I mean the leaks are real. You know what they said. You saw it and the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake. So one thing that I felt it was very important to do, and I hope we can correct it, because there's nobody I have more respect for— well, maybe a little bit, but than reporters, than good reporters. It's very important to me. Especially in this position. It's very important. I don't mind bad stories. I can handle a bad story better than anybody as long as it's true and over the course of time, I'll make mistakes, and you'll write badly and I'm okay with it. But I'm not okay when it is fake. I mean I watch CNN, and it's so much anger, hatred, and just the hatred, I don't watch it anymore because it's very good — he's saying now, it's okay, Jim, you'll have a chance. But I watch others too. You're not the only one, don't feel badly. But I think it should be straight. I think it should be, I think it should be frankly more interesting. I know how good everybody's ratings are right now, but I think it'll actually be better. People, you have a lower approval rate than Congress — I think that's right, I don't know Peter is that one right? I think they have, I think I heard lower than Congress. But, honestly, the public would appreciate it. I would appreciate it. I don't mind bad stories when it's true, but we have an administration where the Democrats are making it very difficult. I think we're setting a record or close to a record in the time of approval in the cabinet. Numbers are crazy. Some of them had them approved immediately. I still have a lot of people that we're waiting for. And that's all they're doing is delaying. You look at Schumer the mess that he's got over there. And they have nothing going. The only thing they can do is delay. And you know, I think they would be better served by, you know, approving and making sure that they're happy and everybody's good. And sometimes, and I know President Obama lost three or four, and you lose them on the way, and that's okay. That's fine. I think it would be much better served, John, if they just went through the process quickly. This is pure delay tactics. And they say it. And everybody understands it. Yeah, go ahead, Jim. Reporter: The first part of my question is can you definitively say [inaudible] Trump: I had nothing to do with it. I have nothing to do with Russia. I told you, I have no deals there. I have no anything. Now, when Wikileaks — which I have nothing to do with —comes out and happens to give, they are not giving classified information. They are giving stuff, what was said in an office about Hillary cheating on the debates, which, by the way, nobody mentions. Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates. Can you imagine, seriously, can you imagine if I received the questions? It would be the electric chair, okay? He should be put in the electric chair and you'd even call for the reconstitution of the death penalty, okay? Maybe not you, John. Yes, you next. Reporter: Mr. President, I just want to clarify an important point, I think. Did you direct Mike Flynn to discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador? Prior to your inauguration? Would you have fired him if that information hadn't leaked out? Trump: I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence. Very simple. Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries, his counterparts, so it certainly would have been okay with me if he did it. I would have directed him to do it if I thought he was not doing it. I did not direct him, but I would have directed him because that's his job. It came out that way, and, in all fairness, I watched Dr. Charles Krauthammer the other night say, he was doing his job. And I agreed with him. Since then, I've watched many other people say that. You know, I didn't direct him, but I would have directed him if he did not do it, okay? Jim? Reporter: Just for the record, We don't hate you. Trump: Okay. Reporter: Pass that along. Trump: Well, ask Jeff Zucker how he got his job. Reporter: If I may follow-up on questions taking place here sir, well, not too many -- Trump: I don't know which microphones to hold. You have other people and your ratings are not as good as some of the others. Reporter: They are pretty good right now, actually, Mr. President. Trump: Go ahead. Reporter: If I may ask sir, you said earlier that WikiLeaks was revealing information about the Hillary Clinton campaign during the election cycle. You welcomed that at one campaign rally, you said you loved WikiLeaks, and in a press conference, you called on the Russians to find the missing 30,000 e-mails. I'm wondering, sir if you Trump: Well, she was missing 33, and that was extended with Reporter: Maybe my numbers are off Trump: I did say 30, but it was higher. Reporter: I'm asking, sir, it sounds you don't have much credibility here when it comes to leaking if that is something that you encouraged in the campaign. Trump: Fair question. Reporter: If I may ask you -- Trump: Do you mind me saying something? Reporter: Yes, sir. Trump: So in one case, you are talking about highly classified information. In the other case, you're talking about John Podesta saying bad things about the boss. If John Podesta said that about me and working for me, I would have fired him so fast your head would have spun. He said terrible things about her. But It was not classified information. In one case, you are talking about classified. Regardless, if you look at the RNC, we had a very strong, at my suggestion, and I give Reince great credit for this. At my suggestion, because I know something about this world, I said I want a very strong defensive mechanism. I don't want to be hacked. And we did that. And you have seen that they tried to hack us and failed. The DNC did not do that. If they did it, they could not have been hacked. They were hacked. Terrible things came in. You know, the only thing I think is unfair is some of the things were so — when I heard some of those things, I picked up the papers next morning, and said, "Oh, this will be front page," but it was not even in the papers. Again, if I had that happen to me, it would be the biggest story in the history of publishing or newspapers. I would have been the headline in every newspaper. I mean, think of it. They gave her the questions to the debate, and she should have reported herself. Why didn't Hillary Clinton announce that, I'm sorry, I have been given the questions to a debate or a town hall, and I feel that it's inappropriate, and I want to turn in CNN for not doing a good job. Reporter: If I may follow up on that what was asked about. You said the leaks are real, but the news is fake. I don't understand. It seems there's a disconnect there. If the information coming from the leaks is real, then how can the stories be fake? Trump: The reporting is fake. Reporter: I have to ask — yes, sir? Trump: Here's the thing. The public is — you know, they read newspapers, they see television, they watch. They don't know if it's true or false. Because they are not involved. I'm involved. I've been involved with the stuff all my life. But I'm involved. I know when you are telling the truth or when you are not. I just see many, many untruthful things. And I'll tell you what else I see. Tone. I see tone. You know the word tone. The tone is such hatred. I'm really not a bad person, by the way. No, but You know, but the tone is such — I do the get good ratings, you have to admit that. But the tone is such hatred. I watched this morning a couple of the networks, and I have to say, Fox and Friends in the morning, they are very honorable people — not because they are good — because they hit me when I do something wrong, but they have the most honest morning show. That's all I can say. It's the most honest, but the tone, Jim, if you look, the hatred, the — I mean, sometimes — Reporter: We don't hate you, sir. Trump: Well, you look at your show that goes on at 10 in the evening. You just take a look at the show. It's a constant hit. The panel is almost always exclusive anti-Trump. The good news is he doesn't have good ratings, but the panel is almost exclusive anti-Trump, and the hatred and venom from his mouth. And hatred from other people on your network. I'll say this. I watch it. I see it. I'm amazed by it. And I just think you'd be a lot better off. I honestly do. The public gets it. You go to rallies, they're screaming at CNN, they want to throw their placards at CNN. You know, I think you would do much better by being different. But you just Take a look. Take a look at some of your shows in the mornings and evening. If a guest comes out and says something positive about me, it's brutal. Now, they'll take this news conference, I'm actually having a very good time, okay, but they'll take this news conference — don't forget, that's the way I won. I used to give you a news conference every day and made a speech, which was every day. That's how I won, with news conference and probably speeches. I certainly did not win by people listening to you people. That's for sure. But I'm having a good time. Tomorrow, they will say, Donald Trump rants and raves at the press. I'm not ranting and raving. I'm telling you you're dishonest people, but I'm not ranting and raving. I love this. I'm having a good time doing it, but tomorrow's headlines are going to be Donald Trump, rants and rants. I'm not ranting. Go ahead — Reporter: A follow-up — Trump: Should I let him more — sit down — well — Reporter: Just because of the attack of fake news and attacking our network, I just want to ask you, sir — Trump: Changing it from fake news, though. Reporter: I know — Trump: To very fake news — Reporter: I know but aren't you— Trump Go ahead. Go ahead. [ laughter ] Reporter: Real news, Mr. President — Trump: You're not related to our new — Reporter: I am not, sir. [ laughter ] I do like the sound of Secretary Acosta — Trump: I looked at the name, and said wait a minute, is there any relation — Reporter: I'm sure you checked it out. Trump: Yeah I checked it and they said, no, sir, I said, do me a favor, go back and check the family tree. Reporter: Aren't you concerned, sir, you are undermining the people's faith in the first amendment, freedom of the press, the press in the country when you call stories you don't like fake news? Why not just say it's a story I don't like — Trump: I do. Reporter: When you call it fake news, you're undermining the confidence in the news media. Trump: Here's the thing, I understand, you're right about that. Except I know when I should get good and when I should get bad. And sometimes I say, wow, that's going to be a great story, and I'll get killed. I know what's good and bad, I'd be a good reporter, but not as good as you. I know what's good. I know what's bad. And when they change it, and make it really bad, something that should be very positive, they'll make it okay. They'll even make it negative. I understand it. So because I'm there. I know what was said. I know who is saying it. I'm there. So it's very important to me. Look, I want to see an honest press. When I started out today by saying it's so important to the public to get an honest press. The public doesn't believe you people anymore. Maybe I had something to do with that, I don't know. But they don't believe you. If you were straight and really told it like it is as Howard used to say, right, of course, he had some questions also, but if you were straight, I would be your biggest booster. I would be your biggest fan in the world, incoming bad stories about me. But If you go, as an example, you're CNN, I mean, it's story after story after story is bad. I won. I won. The other thing, chaos. There's zero chaos. We are running — this is a fine-tuned machine. Reince happens to be doing a good job, but half his job is putting out lies by the press. You know, I said to him yesterday, you know, this Russia scam you are billing so that you don't talk about the real subject, which is illegal leaks. But I watched him yesterday working so hard to try to get the story proper. I'm saying, here's my chief of staff, a really good guy, did a phenomenal job at RNC, I may have won the election, right, won the presidency, but we got some senators, all over the country, take a look. He's done a great job. I said to myself, you know, I said to somebody there, look at Reince working so hard putting out fires that are fake fires. They are fake. They are not true. Isn't that a shame because he'd rather be working on health care. He'd rather be working on tax reform, Jim. I mean that. I would be your biggest fan in the world if you treated me right. I understand there's bias, maybe, by Jeff, whatever reason, but I understand that. But you've got to be at least a little bit fair. That's why the public sees it. They see it's not fair. You take a look at some of your shows and you see the bias and the hate, and the public is smart. They understand it. Okay. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. [ inaudible reporter question ] I think they don't believe it—I don't think the public — that's why the Rasmussen poll has me through the roof. I don't think they believe it. I guess one of the reasons I'm here today is to tell you the whole Russian thing, that's a ruse. That's a ruse. And by the way, it would be great if we could get along with Russia, just so you understand that. That tomorrow you'll say: "Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia. This is terrible." It's not terrible. It's good. We had Hillary Clinton try and do a reset. We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country. You know what uranium is, right? A thing called nuclear weapons and other things like lots of things that are done with uranium including some bad things. Nobody talks about that. I didn't do anything for Russia. I've done nothing for Russia. Hillary Clinton gave them 20 percent of the uranium. Hillary Clinton did a reset, remember, with the stupid plastic button made us look like a bunch of jerks. Here take a look. He looked at her, like, what the hell is she doing, with that cheap plastic button? Hillary Clinton — that was a reset. Remember it said reset. Now, if I do that, oh, I'm a bad guy, but if we could get along with Russia, that's a positive thing. We have a very talented man, Rex Tillerson, who is going to be meeting with them shortly and I told them, I said, I know politically it's probably not good for me. Hey, the greatest thing I could do is shoot that ship that's 30 miles offshore right out of the water. Everyone in this country is going to say, oh, it's so great. That's not great. That's not great. I would love to be able to get along with Russia. Now, you had a lot of presidents that have not taken that tack. Look where we are now. Look where we are now. So if I can — now, I love to negotiate things. I do it really well and all that stuff. But it's possible I won't be able to get along with Putin. Maybe it is. I just want to tell you, the false reporting by the media, by you people, the false, horrible fake reporting makes it much harder to make a deal with Russia. And probably Putin said, you know, he's sitting behind his desk saying, you know, I see what's going on in the United States, they follow it closely. It's going to be impossible for President Trump to ever get along with Russia because of all the pressure he's got with this fake story. Okay? And that's a shame. Because if we could get along with Russia, and by the way, China and Japan and everyone, if we could get along, it would be a positive thing, not a negative thing. Tax reform's going to happen fairly quickly. We are doing Obamacare, we are in the final stages. We should be submitting the initial plan in March, early March. I would say. And we have to, as you know, statutorily and for reasons of budget. We have to go first. Frankly, the tax would be easier, in my opinion, but for statutory reasons and for budgetary reasons, we have to submit the health care sooner, so well submitting health care sometime in mid-March, and after that, we're going to come up, and we're doing very well on tax reform, yes. Reporter: Mr. President, you mentioned Russia. Let's talk about some serious issues that have come up in the last week that you had to deal with as president of the United States. Trump: Okay. Reporter: You mentioned the spy vessel off the coast of the United States. Trump: Not good. Reporter: There was a ballistic missile test that many interpreted as... Trump: Not good. Reporter: ...a violation of an agreement between the two countries and a Russian plane buzzed a U.S. Destroyer. Trump: Not good. Reporter: I listen to you. Trump: Excuse me, when did it happen? It happened when, if you were Putin, right now, you would say, hey, we're back to the old games with the United States. There's no way Trump can ever do a deal with us because the public — you have to understand, if I was just brutal on Russia right now, just brutal, people would say — you would say — oh that's wonderful, but I know you well enough, then you would say, oh, he was too tough, he shouldn't have done that. Look. Reporter: I'm just trying to find out your orientation to those. Trump: Excuse me. Reporter: I'm just trying to find out what you'll do about it, Mr. President. Trump: All the things you mentioned are recent because probably Putin assumed he cannot make a deal with me because it's politically not popular for me to make a deal, so Hillary Clinton tries to reset. It failed. They all tried. But I'm different than those people, go ahead. Reporter: How are you interpret those moves and what do you intend to do about them? Have you asked Rex Tillerson for any advice or counsel how to deal? Trump: I have. I have and I'm so beautifully represented, I'm so honored that the senate approved him. He's gonna be fantastic. Reporter: Is Putin testing you, do you believe, sir? Trump: No I don't think so. I think Putin probably assumes that he can't make a deal with me anymore because politically it's unpopular for a politician to make a deal. I can't believe I'm saying I'm a politician, but I guess that's what I am now. Look, it'd be much easier for me to be tough on Russia but then we're not going to make a deal. Now, I don't know that we're going to make a deal. I don't know. We might. We might not. But it would be much easier for me to be so tough, the tougher I am on Russia, the better, but you know what? I want to do the right thing for the American people, and to be honest, secondarily, I want to do the right thing for the world. If Russia and the United States actually got together and got along, and don't forget, we're a very powerful nuclear country, and so are they. There's no upside. We're a very powerful nuclear country and so are they. I've been briefed. I can tell you one thing about a briefing, that we're allowed to say because anybody that ever read the most basic book can say it, nuclear holocaust would be like no other. They're a very powerful nuclear country, and so are we. If we have a good relationship with Russia — believe me — that's a good thing, not a bad thing. Reporter: So when you say they are not good, do you mean… Trump: Who did I say is not good? Reporter: No when I read off the three things that have recently happened each one of them you said are not good… Trump: No, it's not good but they happen… Reporter: Do they damage the relationship, undermine this country's ability to work with Trump: They all happened recently, I understand what they are doing because they are doing the same thing. Now, again, maybe I'm not going to be able to do a deal with Russia, but, at least, I will have tried, and if I don't, does anybody really think that Hillary Clinton would be tougher on Russia than Donald Trump? Does anybody in this room really believe that? Okay. But I'll tell you one thing, she tried to make a deal. She had the reset. She gave all that valuable uranium away. She did other things. You know, they say I'm close to Russia. Hillary Clinton gave away 20% of the uranium in the United States. She's close to Russia. You know what I gave to Russia? You know what I gave? Nothing. Reporter: Can we conclude there will be no response to these particular provocations? Trump: I'm not going to tell you anything about what response I do. I don't talk about military response. I don't say I'm going in Mosul in four months. "We are going to attack Mosul in four months." Then three months later, "we are going to attack Mosul in one month." "Next week, we are going to attack Mosul." In the meantime, Mosul is very very difficult. You know why? Because I don't talk about military, and I don't talk about certain other things. You're going to be surprised to hear that. And, by the way, my whole campaign, I'd say that, so I don't have to tell you. Reporter: Right, so there will be a response? Trump: I don't have to tell you. I don't want to be one of those guys that says, "yes, here's what we're going to do." I don't have to do that. I don't have to tell you what I'm going to do in North Korea... Reporter: In other words, there will be a response. Trump: Wait a minute, I don't have to tell you what I'm going to do in North Korea. And I don't have to tell what I'm going to do with Iran. You know why? Because they shouldn't know. And eventually, you guys are going to get tired of asking that question. So when you asked me, what am I going to do with the ship, the Russian ship as an example, I'm not going to tell you. But hopefully I won't have to do anything, but I'm not going to tell you. Okay. Reporter: Thanks. Next reporter: Let me just ask you... Trump: Where are you from? Reporter: BBC Trump: Huh, there's another beauty. Reporter: It's a good line. Impartial free and fair. Uh, Mr. President... Trump: Just like CNN. Reporter: ...on the travel ban, we can banter back and forth, but on the travel ban, would you accept that was a good example of the smooth running of government? Trump: Yeah, I do. I do. Let me tell you about… Reporter: Were there any mistakes in that? Trump: Wait, wait, wait, I know who you are, just wait. Let me tell you about the travel ban. We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban. But we had a bad court. We had a bad decision. We had a court overturned, again, maybe wrong, but I think it's 80 percent of the time, a lot. We had a bad decision. We're going to keep going with the decision, we're going to put in a new executive order next week sometime. But we had a bad decision. That's the only thing that was wrong with the travel ban. You had Delta with a massive problem with their computer system at the airports. You had some people that were put out there, brought by very nice busses and they were put out at various locations, despite that, the only problem that we had is we had a bad court. We had a court that gave us what I consider to be, with great respect, a very bad decision. Very bad for the safety and security of our country. The rollout was perfect. Now, what I wanted to do was do the exact same executive order that said one thing, and I said this to my people. Give them a one-month period of time. But General Kelly, now Secretary Kelly, said, if you do that, all these people will come in, the bad ones. You do agree there are bad people out there, right? Not everybody that's like you. You have some bad people out there. So Kelly said, you can't do that, and he was right. as soon as he said it, I said wow, never thought it of it. I said well how about one week, he said no good. You gotta do it immediately. Because if you do it immediately, they don't have time to come in. Now, nobody ever reports that. But that's why we did it quickly. Now if I would've done it in a month, everything would have been perfect. The problem is we would have wasted a lot of time, and maybe a lot of lives because a lot of bad people would have come into our country. Now, in the meantime, we're vet ing very, very strongly. Very, very strongly. But we need help, and we need help by getting that executive order passed. Uh-- Reporter: Just a brief follow-up, but if it's so urgent, why not introduce-- Trump: Yes. Reporter: A yes or no answer one one of these questions involving Russia, can you say whether you are aware anyone who advised your campaign had contact with Russia during the course of the election. Trump: Well I told you, General Flynn obviously was dealing, so that's one person, but he was dealing, as he should have been — Reporter: During the election? Trump: No, nobody that I know of. Reporter: So you're not aware of any contacts in the course of the election? Trump: Look, look, look. How many times do I have to answer this question? Reporter: Just say yes or no. Trump: Russia is a ruse. Yeah, I know you have to get up and ask a question, so important. Russia is a ruse. I have nothing to do with Russia. Haven't made a phone call to Russia in years, don't speak to people in Russia, not that I wouldn't, but I just have nobody to speak to. I Spoke to Putin twice, called me on the election. I told you this. He called me on the inauguration a few days ago. We had a very good talk. Especially the second one, lasted for a pretty long period of time. I'm sure you probably get it because it was classified, so I'm sure everybody in this room perhaps has it, but we had a very, very good talk. I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with, does. Now Manafort has totally denied it, Denied it, now, people knew that he was a consultant over in that part of the world for a while, but not for Russia, I think he represented Ukraine or people having to do with Ukraine or people that, whoever. But people knew that, everybody knew that. Report: But in his capacity as your campaign manager, was he in touch with Russian officials during the election? Trump: I have—you know what, he said no. I can only tell you what he—now. He was replaced long before the election. You know that, right? He was replaced long before the election. When all of this stuff started coming out, it came out during the election, but Paul Manafort, who is a good man, also, by the way, Paul Manafort was replaced long before the election took place. He was only there for a short period of time. Trump: How much longer should we stay here, folks? Five more minutes, is that okay? Five? Wait, who is, I want to find a friendly reporter. Are you a friendly reporter? Reporter: I'm friendly. Trump: Watch how friendly, he is. Go ahead. Reporter: So, first of all, my name is Jake [ inaudible ] magazine and, I, despite what so many colleagues might be reporting, I haven't seen anybody in my community accuse either yourself or anyone on your staff of being anti-semitic. However, what we are concerned about and what we haven't really heard you address is an uptick in anti-semitism and how in this climate you're going to take care of it. There have been reports out that 48 bomb threats have been made against Jewish centers all across the country in the last couple of weeks. There are people who are committing anti-semitic acts or threatening to -- Trump: You know he's said that he's going to ask a very simple, easy question. And it's not. It's not a fair question. Sit down. I understand the rest of your question. So here's the story, folks. Number one, I'm the least anti-semitic person you've seen in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person. In fact, we can very well relative to other people running as a Republican — [ inaudible ] Quiet, quiet, he lied about getting up asking a straight, simple question, so, you know, welcome to the world of the media. Let me just tell you something, that I hate the charge. I find it repulsive. I hate even the question because people that know me, and you heard the Prime Minister. You heard Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday. Did you hear him? Bebe, he said, "I've known Donald Trump for a long time. Then he said, forget it." So you should take that instead of having to get up and ask a very insulting question. Go ahead. Reporter: thank you, I'm Lisa — Trump: shows you about the press, but that's the way the press is. Reporter: Thank you, Mr. President. Lisa from the PBS NewsHour. Trump: Good. Reporter: On national security and immigration, can you give us details on the executive order you've planned for next week, even broad outlines? Focused on specific countries, and in addition, on the program for immigration, what is your plan? Do you plan to continue that program or to end it? Trump: We're going to show great heart. DACA a very difficult subject for me. To me, it's one of the most difficult subjects. You have incredible kids, in many cases, not all cases. In some of the cases, they are gang members and drug dealers, too. But you have some absolutely incredible kids. I would say mostly. They were brought here in such a way — it's a very, very tough subject. We are going to deal with DACA with heart. I have to deal with a lot of politicians, don't forget, and I have to convince them what I'm saying is right. I appreciate your understanding on that, but the DACA situation is a very, very — it's a very difficult thing for me because, you know, I love these kids. I love kids. I have kids. And grandkids. I find it very, very hard doing what the law says exactly to do, and the laws rough. I'm not even talking about new laws, I'm talking about the existing law and the existing law is rough. It's very, very rough. As far as the new order, the new order is going to be very much tailored to the, what I consider to be a very bad decision, but we can tailor the order to that decision and get just about everything, in some ways more, but we're tailoring it now to the decision. We have some of the best lawyers in the country working on it, and the new executive order is being tailored to the decision we get down from the court. Okay? Reporter: Reopening of the white house visitors office. Trump: Yes. Reporter: She does a lot of great work for the country as well. Can you tell us about what personally Melania Trump does for the country and unique levels in the administration, so by opening the white house visitors office [inaudible] Trump: Now, that's what I call a nice question. That is very nice. Who are you with? Reporter: [ inaudible ] Trump: Good, I'm going to start watching. Thank you very much. Melania is terrific. She was here last night. We had dinner with Senator Rubio and his wife, who is, by the way, is lovely, and we had discussions on Cuba. We have similar views on Cuba. Cuba was good to me in the Florida election as you know, the Cuban-Americans. And I think Melania will be outstanding. And that's right, she just opened up the visiting center, touring of the White House. She, like others that she's working with, feel very, very strongly about women's issues. Women's difficulties, very, very strongly. She's a very, very strong advocate. I think she's a great representative for this country. And funny thing happens. She gets so unfairly — the things they say, I've known her for a long time. She was a very successful person, she was a very successful model. She did really well. She would go home at night and didn't even want to go out with people. She was a very private person. She was always the highest quality that you'll ever find, and the things they say — and I've known her for a long time — the things they say are so unfair. And actually, she's been apologized to, as you know, by various media, because they said things that were lies. But I'll just tell you this. I think she is going to be a fantastic first lady. She's going to be a tremendous representative of women and of the people and helping her and working her will be Ivanka, who is a fabulous person and a fabulous, fabulous woman.And they are not doing this for money, they are not doing this for pay. They are doing this because they feel it, both of them; and Melania goes back and forth and after Baron finishes school, because it's hard to take a child out of school with a few months left, she and Baron will be moving over to the White House. Thank you that's a very nice question. Go ahead. Reporter: Mr. President Trump: Yes, I know this is going to be a bad question, but that's okay. Reporter: No it's not going to be a bad question. Trump: Okay, good, because I enjoy watching you on television. Reporter: Well, thank you so much. Mr. President, I need to find out from you, you said something, as it relates to inner cities, that was one of your platforms during your campaign. Trump: Fix the inner cities.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/30/opec-deal-hope-fuels-spike-in-oil-as-stocks-continue-trump-rally.html

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Mid-America Apartment Communities

OPEC deal hope fuels spike in oil, as stocks continue Trump rally

Trump nominated Wall Street veteran Steven Mnuchin as treasury secretary, and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross for commerce secretary. Appearing on CNBC, they said they want to boost the economy through tax and trade reforms. (CNBC) Trump has picked ex-George W. Bush labor secretary Elaine Chao to head the Transportation Department. Chao, an establishment Republican, is married to Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (CNBC) In sharp contrast to previous criticism, Mitt Romney offered effusive praise for Trump's transition effort, after dining together last night, their second meeting about the secretary of state position. (NBC News) Trump plans to announce tomorrow a deal with United Technologies (UTX) to keep in Indiana close to 1,000 jobs at UTX-owned Carrier, a leader in heating, air-conditioning and refrigeration. (CNBC) Kellogg (K) has confirmed it'll discontinue advertising on Breitbart.com, the far-right news and commentary site that was formerly run by a top Trump aide Steve Bannon. (USA Today) After a disastrous election, House Democrats are expected to decide today whether to stick with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi another term or pass the gavel to lost-shot challenger Rep. Tim Ryan. (NBC News) President Barack Obama won't be sending a formal delegation to Cuba for Sunday's planned funeral of the ex-Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, instead dispatching a top White House aide. (NY Times) Three people have died in wildfires around Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee, and firefighters were bracing for another round of lightning and high winds. (NBC News) A tornado that hit northeastern Alabama killed at least three people in a mobile home. Four others were critically injured after a 24-hour daycare center was "completely destroyed." (NBC News) The illegal party drug ecstasy has been approved by the FDA for trial in treating PTSD. After three doses of the drug MDMA, patients in one study averaged a 56 percent decrease in symptom severity. (NY Times)

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/01/trump-aides-deal-with-chinese-firm-raises-fear-of-tangled-interests.html

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Mid-America Apartment Communities

Trump Aide’s Deal With Chinese Firm Raises Fear of Tangled Interests

Anthony Scaramucci, SkyBridge Capital Founder and aide to President-elect Donald Trump, arrives at Trump Tower in New York last month. Albin Lohr-Jones | Pool via Bloomberg | Getty Images A secretive Chinese company with deep ties to the country's Communist Party has become one of the biggest foreign investors in the United States over the past year, snapping up American firms in a string of multibillion-dollar deals. But it is one of its smaller deals that is apparently stalling the White House career of a top adviser to President Trump. Anthony Scaramucci, a flamboyant former campaign fund-raiser for Mr. Trump whom the president has appointed as the White House liaison to the business community, has been in limbo for more than a week since he agreed to sell his investment firm to a subsidiary of the Chinese conglomerate, HNA Group. Mr. Scaramucci is on the job but has yet to be sworn in, partly because of concerns about the Jan. 17 deal, according to two administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters. It is the second known transaction between a politically connected Chinese company and an incoming White House official. And it is evidence of the unusual confluence of interests between superrich members of the new Trump administration who need to unwind complex financial portfolios to comply with government rules and international firms eager to buy American assets. "You are not going to get an administration with thousands of political appointees and not have people who have contacts with the Chinese," said Derek Scissors, a China specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning research organization in Washington. Still, he said, no one should have any illusions about the Chinese motivation behind such deals. "HNA is looking for influence in an administration that looks like it is positioning itself to be anti-China," he said. "They all are." Previous administrations have rarely faced such issues, partly because the surge of Chinese investment in the United States is relatively recent. Chinese companies are on a buying spree, investing about $50 billion in American companies and projects last year alone. HNA Group, a conglomerate focused heavily on aviation, burst onto the American business scene last year when it bought a quarter of the hotelier Hilton Worldwide Holdings for $6.5 billion, and paid $6 billion for the information technology giant Ingram Micro. watch now Last year, Anbang Insurance Group, a Chinese financial colossus, began negotiating an investment in a Manhattan apartment tower owned by Mr. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Kushner, 36, is now one of the president's most influential advisers, with a White House portfolio that is expected to include handling America's relationship with China. Mr. Trump has taken a hawkish stance toward China, threatening to raise tariffs on Chinese imports, and demanding that China abandon the artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea in an attempt to bolster its claim to the vast area. Compared with Mr. Kushner, Mr. Scaramucci appears to be making a clean break from his business, SkyBridge Capital. Although the sale price could rise as high as $230 million, depending on the company's future performance, Mr. Scaramucci's payment is fixed, he said in an interview on Monday. HNA is a newcomer to the asset management field in the United States, and companies like SkyBridge — so-called funds of funds that act essentially as middlemen investing clients' money in hedge funds — have experienced pain in recent years. Citing high fees and disappointing performance, investors have withdrawn billions from such firms. SkyBridge's asset pool has shrunk by more than $2 billion since mid-2015, and its flagship fund posted its second straight year of negative returns in 2016. While Mr. Kushner's negotiations with Anbang apparently raised few eyebrows in Mr. Trump's inner circle, some White House officials appear to view Mr. Scaramucci's sale of his firm to HNA with more suspicion. Mr. Scaramucci was left out of the group of about two dozen White House aides who were sworn in on Jan. 22. More from the NYT: Picking One Justice, Trump Has Eye on Choosing a Second Where Immigrants From Banned Nations Live in the U.S. Fear of Protesters Prompts Cancellation of Trump Trip One White House official cited concerns that it could take as long as three months for the SkyBridge deal to close and be approved by the ethics office. Mr. Scaramucci's lawyer said this period of time was standard for any large, complex deal. A White House spokesman did not comment on Mr. Scaramucci's status. Allies of Mr. Scaramucci's said the sale of his company was a red herring, and attributed the delay in his swearing-in to objections from Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, who they said had not favored giving Mr. Scaramucci a White House position. Mr. Priebus's allies denied that. In an interview, Mr. Scaramucci rejected any notion that HNA was seeking a friend in the administration, saying that his company was a highly attractive investment and that HNA was a logical buyer. HNA has described the purchase as an important toehold in the American market for its growing asset management businesses. Even if HNA was hoping for influence, Mr. Scaramucci said, he has walled himself off from any discussions with the Chinese company. David Boies, his lawyer, said Mr. Scaramucci went well beyond what was required to rule out any perception of a conflict of interest. watch now "They know they cannot talk to me, so what influence are they buying?" Mr. Scaramucci said in the interview. "If people are saying that HNA is trying to buy access, then people are saying HNA is stupid." "I took their bid because it would protect my clients, partners and investors," he said. "So what did I do wrong?" An irrepressible self-described "diva" nicknamed "the Mooch," Mr. Scaramucci, 53, is as outspoken as HNA's owners are tight-lipped. His support for Mr. Trump in the Republican primaries came late, and only after he initially attacked Mr. Trump as a "hack politician" with "a big mouth." He first backed Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, and then Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor. Still, he was one of the first Wall Street financiers to sign up with Mr. Trump's campaign, and has been a relentless cheerleader for him since May, using the blunt, colorful speech that made him a frequent news show guest. At a national business conference sponsored by SkyBridge in May, Mr. Scaramucci said that Mr. Trump was only "saying cuckoo-la-la things" because he knows that "the red-meat-eating Middle American loves the swipes at the know-it-alls." Analysts of Chinese politics and strategy say the ties between administration officials and companies like Anbang and HNA bear careful watching, because while such firms are ostensibly privately owned, their very survival depends on the good will of the Chinese government. "They will do, and they have time and time again done, many, many things at the behest of the Chinese government," said Victor Shih, a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego who specializes in the nexus between business and politics in China. And few private companies have as obvious ties to the Chinese government as HNA, whose connections rival even those of Anbang, whose chairman married the granddaughter of Deng Xiaoping, China's former paramount leader. Faxes and emails sent to HNA press offices in Beijing and in Hainan were not responded to, and phone calls were not answered. A company spokesman in the United States declined to comment for the record. Chen Feng, the firm's chairman and founder, has the Chinese political titles that are the equivalent of a peerage or knighthood. He has been a delegate since 2002 to the high-level Communist Party conclaves held every five years that pick the country's leadership, a streak almost no other private company executive can match. While HNA's ownership structure is murky, it has paired with a company run by the son of a former member of the party's top ruling body, the Politburo Standing Committee. In 2008, HNA formed a venture in the northern city Tianjin with Womei Investment Management, part of a group of firms led by a son of He Guoqiang, then the Communist Party's powerful discipline chief, Chinese corporate records show. With more than $90 billion in assets, HNA has been showered with cheap loans that have helped fuel its overseas purchases. The amounts are extraordinary for a private company. HNA Group's biggest lenders are two government policy banks, followed by a gaggle of state-owned commercial banks that as of the end of 2015 gave HNA a combined $67.4 billion line of credit, according to a bond prospectus. One major shareholder, Guan Jun, who records show may indirectly own more than a quarter of the company, lists his address in a rundown apartment block in Beijing. In the filthy hallway outside his door, a decaying bed lies upright, a bag of trash suspended from its frame. Some in Mr. Trump's inner circle argued that Mr. Scaramucci's skills as a salesman made him the perfect fit to head the White House Office of Public Liaison. Mr. Scaramucci said he was so eager to serve his government that he took the job for $1 a year and gave up a "phenomenal" company. Mr. Scaramucci, who had a controlling interest in the firm, said three other entities bid for SkyBridge besides HNA, including one that offered him more money but would have laid off 40 employees. HNA, which teamed up with a second firm to buy the company, will become its majority owner. Whether selling his firm to join the White House will prove a wise move still seems uncertain. "Why are people so stupid to blow up their lives to serve the country they love?" Mr. Scaramucci said in the interview on Monday. "Maybe that is the story you should be writing." WATCH: Trump vs. Obama: Here's who inherited the better economy

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/12/the-problems-with-the-fbis-email-investigation-went-well-beyond-comey.html

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Mid-America Apartment Communities

The problems with the FBI’s email investigation went well beyond Comey

Rosenstein's memo does reflect genuine frustration inside the Justice Department about the FBI's handling of the Clinton emails, and betrays long-standing fissures between the two institutions, which are headquartered across from each other on Pennsylvania Avenue. Rosenstein, a Trump appointee who was previously the U.S. attorney in Maryland, titled his memo "Restoring Public Confidence in the F.B.I." In the wake of Comey's ouster, the FBI's impartiality and competence remains an essential issue, making understanding what actually happened in the Clinton email inquiry urgent as well. It is now clear that the aim of Rosenstein's memo was simply to provide a pretext for Comey's firing. White House officials may have thought it would be a persuasive rationale because Comey has come in for criticism from leaders of both political parties. Trump had been harboring a long list of grievances against the FBI director, including his continued pursuit of the Russia probe. On Thursday, Trump confirmed in an interview with NBC News' Lester Holt that, even before he received the deputy attorney general's memo, he had already made up his mind to dismiss Comey. In the end, Comey's conspicuous independence — for so long, his greatest asset — proved his undoing, making him too grave a threat to Trump but also giving the president a plausible excuse to fire him. Comey's dismissal came just as his Russia probe appeared to be widening. Just last week, the FBI director went to Rosenstein, who had been in his job only for a few days, to ask for significantly more resources in order to accelerate the investigation, according to The New York Times. Tensions between the Trump administration and Comey had been escalating already, and Trump's fury over the FBI's Russia probe remained full-throated. On Monday, Trump tweeted that the inquiry was a "taxpayer funded charade." In the aftermath of Comey's firing, Democrats and some Republicans in Congress have proposed a far more credible explanation for Trump's action, accusing the President of trying to halt the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the election and possible collusion with his campaign. Some of those legislators, as well as many critics in the press, have said that Trump has ignited a constitutional crisis, and they called for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to carry out the Russia investigation. This was a puzzling assertion from the Trump administration, not least because Trump is widely acknowledged to have reaped the benefits of Comey's actions on Election Day. After the FBI director sent his letter to Congress , on Oct. 28, about the discovery of new Clinton emails and the Bureau's plans to assess them, Trump praised Comey for his "guts" and called the news "bigger than Watergate." In a three-page memorandum attached to Comey's termination letter, the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, cited concern for the FBI's "reputation and credibility." He said that the director had defied Justice Department policies and traditions and overstepped his authority in the way he handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation. On Tuesday, when Donald Trump abruptly dismissed the FBI director , James Comey , his administration insisted that he was merely following the recommendation of his attorney general and deputy attorney general, the two most senior officials in the Justice Department. I could see two doors and they were both actions. One was labelled 'speak'; the other was labelled 'conceal.' Comey's announcement about the discovery of the new Clinton emails did break with written and unwritten Justice Department guidelines against interfering with elections. Last week, during testimony before Congress, Comey cast the move as a singularly difficult decision and an act of principled self-sacrifice, driven by events far beyond his control­­. "I knew this would be disastrous for me personally," he said. "But I thought this is the best way to protect these institutions that we care so much about.'' A close examination, however, of the FBI's handling of the Clinton emails reveals a very different narrative, one that was not nearly so clear-cut or inevitable. It is one that places previously undisclosed judgments and misjudgments by the Bureau at the very heart of what unfolded. "I could see two doors and they were both actions," Comey recounted in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "One was labelled 'speak'; the other was labelled 'conceal.' ... I stared at 'speak' and 'conceal.' 'Speak' would be really bad. There's an election in eleven days — lordy, that would be really bad. Concealing, in my view, would be catastrophic, not just to the FBI but well beyond. And, honestly, as between really bad and catastrophic, I said to my team, 'We got to walk into the world of really bad.' I've got to tell Congress that we're restarting this, not in some frivolous way — in a hugely significant way." But by the time Comey elected, on Oct. 28, to speak, rather than conceal, he and his senior aides had actually known for more than three weeks that agents sifting through files on a laptop belonging to the former congressman Anthony Weiner, as part of a sex-crimes investigation, had stumbled across emails sent by Clinton when she was secretary of state. The agents had been unable, legally, to open the emails, because they fell outside the bounds of their investigation of Weiner. FBI officials kept the discovery to themselves. Without consulting or even informing the Justice Department lawyers who had worked on the email inquiry, FBI officials concluded that they lacked the evidence to seek a search warrant to examine the emails right away. Several legal experts and Justice Department officials I spoke to now say that this conclusion was unnecessarily cautious. FBI officials also ruled out asking Weiner or his wife, Huma Abedin, one of Clinton's closest aides, to allow access to the laptop — permission their lawyers told me they would have granted. Instead, New York agents working the Weiner investigation, which centered on allegations of an explicit online relationship with a 15-year-old girl, were told to continue their search of his laptop as before but to take note of any additional Clinton emails they came across. In the days that followed, investigators slowly sorted through the laptop's contents, following standard protocols in a case that was anything but standard, and moving with surprisingly little dispatch to assess the significance of the emails. After weeks of work, the agents concluded that the laptop contained thousands of Clinton messages, a fact they waited at least three more days to share with Comey. Finally, as Comey recounted before Congress last week, the FBI director convened his top aides in his conference room at Bureau headquarters to weigh the political and institutional consequences of what to do next. At this point, Comey and his deputies were venturing far beyond their typical purview as criminal investigators. Under normal circumstances, department policies discouraged public discussion of developments in ongoing cases of any kind; with the election fast approaching, there was the added sensitivity of avoiding even the perception of interference with the political process. But FBI officials worried that agents in New York who disliked Clinton would leak news of the emails' existence. Like nearly everyone in Washington, senior FBI officials assumed that Clinton would win the election and were evaluating their options with that in mind. The prospect of oversight hearings, led by restive Republicans investigating an FBI "cover-up," made everyone uneasy. One more misjudgment informed Comey's decision. FBI officials estimated that it would take months to review the emails. Agents wound up completing their work in just a few days. (Most of the emails turned out to be duplicates of messages collected in the previous phase of the Clinton investigation.) Had FBI officials known that the review could be completed before the election, Comey likely wouldn't have said anything before examining the emails. Instead, he announced that nothing had changed in the Clinton case — on Nov. 6, just two days before the election, and after many millions had already cast their ballots in early voting. The debate over Comey's effect on the 2016 election and, now, his historic dismissal, is likely to persist for years. In the months since Donald Trump became the nation's 45th president, a number of media organizations — most recently, The New York Times — have scrutinized Comey's handling of the Clinton emails. They have also examined Comey's accompanying silence about the Bureau's investigation of possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, an inquiry that began in July of 2016. Clinton traces her loss directly to Comey; she asserted recently that if the election had been held on Oct. 27, "I would be your president." Trump retorted, in a tweet, that the FBI director was "the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!'' This account is based on interviews with dozens of participants in the events leading up to the election. They include current and former officials from the FBI and the Justice Department who were eager to have their actions understood but unwilling to be quoted by name. Comey himself declined my requests for an interview. Back in early January, however, he replied politely to a written interview request, acknowledging that he was aware of my "ongoing work." He wrote from an email address whose whimsical name, he said, "the Russians may have a harder time guessing." Comey added a note of intrigue, suggesting that there were unappreciated complexities to the story that hadn't yet become known: "You are right there is a clear story to tell — one that folks willing to actually listen will readily grasp — but I'm not ready to tell it just yet for a variety of reasons." During his testimony before Congress last week, Comey said that the possibility that he'd influenced the outcome of the Presidential election made him "mildly nauseous." Previously, over two decades of public service, Comey had made independence from partisan politics the foundation of his political identity. Comey, who is 56 years old, had been the rarest of creatures in Washington: A Republican even Democrats could love. A registered Republican for most of his adult life, Comey had made a point of telling a congressional committee last July that he was no longer affiliated with either party. (His distance from partisan politics extends to the voting booth; records show that Comey hasn't voted in a primary or general election in the past decade.) Comey rose to prominence through the Justice Department, first as a federal prosecutor in New York and Virginia, and then as the United States attorney in Manhattan, and the deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush. From early on, colleagues say, Comey carefully cultivated a reputation for integrity and nonpartisanship. Until the events of the past year, it had always served him well. "He knew what was the right thing to do," a former federal prosecutor who worked with Comey told me. "But he figured out how to execute it in a way that, whatever the result, Jim Comey would be protected. I say that respectfully. He has an exceptional gift for that." Comey liked to map out the ramifications of major decisions, often in lengthy meetings with deputies. At critical moments in his career, Comey showcased his independence — too eagerly, in the view of some who accuse him of "moral vanity." "I think he has a bit of a God complex — that he's the last honest man in Washington," a former Justice Department official who has worked with him told me. "And I think that's dangerous." Daniel Richman, a Columbia law professor and close friend of Comey who has served as his unofficial media surrogate, acknowledged Comey's penchant for public righteousness. "He certainly does love the idea of being a protector of the Constitution," Richman said. "The idea of doing messy stuff and taking your lumps in the press." But Richman, who worked with Comey as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan, insisted that Comey's motivations were sincere. "More than most people, he thinks that when it comes to making really difficult decisions, transparency and accountability have incredible value," Richman said. Among scores of people I interviewed, not even Comey's harshest critics believe that he acted out of a desire to elect a Republican president. Comey built his reputation by taking on powerful figures of both parties. Most famously, while serving as acting attorney general under George W. Bush, he'd raced to the hospital bedside of the ailing attorney general, John Ashcroft, to confront administration officials seeking Ashcroft's reauthorization for a domestic surveillance program that the Justice Department considered illegal. Comey's congressional testimony, in 2007, about the confrontation raised his public profile, earning him encomiums from both parties. In 2013, after Comey completed a seven-year interlude in the private sector, Barack Obama chose the Republican lawyer as the director of the FBI. "To know Jim Comey is also to know his fierce independence and his deep integrity," the president declared, in a Rose Garden ceremony. The Senate confirmed him 93 to 1. The FBI is a division of the United States Department of Justice, and its director reports to the attorney general. But, from the start of his 10-year term at the FBI, Comey asserted a belief in the agency's right to chart its own course. "The FBI is in the executive branch," Comey likes to say, "but not of the executive branch." The investigation of Clinton's emails was exactly the sort of challenge Comey seemed to have spent his career preparing for. The FBI formally opened its probe on July 10, 2015, just three months after Clinton announced her candidacy for president. "We all recognized it was a no-win situation," the former FBI Executive Assistant Director John Giacalone, who helped oversee the investigation's first seven months, said. At the outset, the goal was to finish the investigation by the end of 2015 — before the first primary votes were cast. It took twice that long, barely ending before the party conventions in July 2016. The focus of the inquiry, run out of FBI headquarters because of its sensitivity, was whether Clinton's use of an unclassified email system housed on private servers in the basement of her Chappaqua home violated any laws or allowed hackers and foreign governments to access government secrets. It was staffed by a core team of a dozen FBI agents and analysts, along with two prosecutors from the Justice Department's National Security Division and two from the Eastern District of Virginia. Much of their time was taken up trying to find and examine all of the roughly 62,000 messages from Clinton's four years as secretary of state, which began in January 2009; two of Clinton's lawyers had deleted about half of the emails, deeming them purely personal. This had sent the FBI on an often frustrating hunt for the missing emails. Agents fanned out to locate, examine and reconstruct scattered hardware and data backup systems from Clinton's private network, as well as all the BlackBerrys, iPads, computers and storage drives that Clinton, her aides and her lawyers had used. Forensic recovery would eventually help the FBI to find 17,448 deleted emails, including thousands that agents deemed work-related. Even as thousands of messages remained elusive, the investigators ultimately reached consensus that the evidence didn't warrant criminal charges, which required proof of intentional misconduct, gross negligence or efforts to obstruct justice. After nearly a year and more than 90 interviews, they had identified 81 message chains deemed to be classified that passed through her private server. Clinton's practices were sloppy, irresponsible and in defiance of State Department policies, but investigators found no proof of criminal conduct — just a misguided effort by Clinton to maintain control over what the public, and her opponents, could learn about her. As the inquiry neared its end, Comey, who had closely monitored it from the start, requested summaries of more than 30 government prosecutions involving mishandling of classified information. He waded through the records, seeking to understand the cases' rationale and how they had been resolved. In the end, he agreed with the investigators' unanimous conclusion: Clinton should not face criminal charges. By June 2016, the FBI and the Justice Department were jointly weighing the question of how to reveal their decision in the midst of the presidential campaign. FBI and Justice officials had been discussing for weeks a major departure from the usual handling of a criminal inquiry that ended without charges. The final interview, with Clinton herself, was scheduled for Saturday, July 2, at FBI headquarters. Agents planned to spend the next week completing a confidential memo detailing their findings, assuming nothing new materialized. Then, in accord with standard Justice Department procedure, the supervising prosecutors and agents, along with top officials from both the Justice Department and the FBI, would privately brief the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, on their recommendation against bringing charges. She would accept, closing the case. Lynch was a widely respected 17-year Justice Department veteran who had previously served as the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, under President Bill Clinton and, then, President Obama. In April 2015, a Republican-controlled Senate confirmed her to replace Eric Holder as attorney general. The first African-American woman to serve as attorney general, Lynch was a graduate of Harvard Law School, the daughter of a librarian and a Baptist preacher and the sister of a Navy SEAL. She'd prosecuted corrupt politicians from both parties and was viewed as a career prosecutor, not a political figure. But the Trump campaign and conservative websites called her integrity into question. Any exoneration of Clinton, they said, would be tainted because Lynch was an Obama appointee. So the Justice Department and the FBI together plotted an unusual strategy. Over weeks of meetings, they discussed a plan in which Comey and Lynch would appear together at a news conference. After announcing the FBI's recommendation and the attorney general's acceptance of it, they would affirm their mutual confidence in the thoroughness and integrity of the investigation. Given the public appetite for more information, officials also considered sending a limited summary of their findings to the inspector general for the intelligence community. He had referred the matter for investigation in the first place, and could choose to make the summary public. "It hadn't all been sketched out," a former Justice Department official familiar with the matter told me. "But there were conversations about how it could go. There were these discussions between the buildings, leadership to leadership. Everyone knew how this rolled out was really important." Comey had his own ideas. Unbeknownst to his Justice Department colleagues, Comey had resolved to proceed alone with the announcement. Since May, he had been holding a parallel series of meetings with top FBI confidants to thrash through his plan. He would publicly announce — and explain — the Clinton decision without Lynch at his side. "We had discussions for months about what this looked like," Michael Steinbach, who retired as the FBI's executive assistant director for national security in February 2017, said. "This, for us, was the best course of action, given the political situation that we were in — for us to do it independently." As Comey saw it, according to Steinbach and others familiar with his thinking, the public doubted Lynch's independence and would be less likely to accept the decision if she were involved in announcing it. Comey and his aides had another motivation for acting alone. In their view, the American people were entitled to hear the investigators' views of Clinton's conduct, something they believed Lynch would not allow. Justice Department policies frown upon officials commenting on investigations, especially if they are making subjective remarks about people whom prosecutors have declined to charge. But with Election Day just four months away, FBI officials felt that it was essential to provide a fuller accounting "that allowed the American people to make an informed decision," Steinbach said. "Our concern, as we got closer to the election, was to make sure that the American people understood we found no evidence of a crime but we did find evidence of misconduct.'' FBI officials began drafting a lengthy statement that explained their recommendation not to prosecute but was, nevertheless, harshly critical of Clinton. "For the director to get that out, he's either doing it alone or he's not doing it," Steinbach told me. "DOJ's not going to let it happen." Then, on the evening of June 27, former President Bill Clinton and Lynch both happened to be on the tarmac at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, and the ex-president strode aboard her government plane. When news of the visit inevitably spilled out, both Lynch and Clinton insisted that they'd merely discussed golf and family matters during a 30-minute conversation. For those who felt that the Obama administration was doing everything it could to help Hillary Clinton win, the encounter was conclusive proof. "SNAKES ON A PLANE," the New York Post screamed. "Bill's shady meeting taints probe." Lynch declined to recuse herself from the case but said that she fully expected to accept whatever recommendation the FBI agents and career prosecutors made. The tarmac episode reinforced Comey's conviction to act on his own. The FBI interviewed Clinton the following Saturday, July 2. Justice Department officials settled in to wait for a draft of the FBI's report. Instead, at about 10:30 a.m. on July 5, Justice Department officials received an informal heads-up: In 30 minutes, Comey was going to hold a live televised press briefing at FBI headquarters. Before stepping in front of cameras, Comey sent an email to all FBI employees with a copy of his prepared remarks and an explanation of why he was speaking so freely and on his own. "I am doing that," Comey wrote, "because I think the confidence of the American people in the FBI is a precious thing, and I want them to understand that we did this investigation in a competent, honest, and independent way." Moments later, Comey delivered what he called "an update on the FBI's investigation." He told reporters, "This is going to be an unusual statement in at least a couple of ways. First, I'm going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest. And, second, I have not coordinated this statement or reviewed it in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I'm about to say." Comey then described Clinton as "extremely careless" in handling "very sensitive, highly classified information." As "any reasonable person" in her position "should have known," Comey declared, a private, unclassified email server "was no place for that conversation." Despite these statements, Comey concluded that, because there was no evidence of intentional misconduct or efforts to obstruct justice, "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." Late the following afternoon, Lynch met with the FBI director, agents and prosecutors for their formal briefing. In a two-sentence statement, the Justice Department announced that the attorney general had accepted their "unanimous recommendation." Partisan outrage was immediate. Conservative media and Trump surrogates accused Comey of protecting Clinton and preventing rank-and-file FBI agents from pursuing the truth. During nine hours of congressional hearings in which Comey elaborated further on his opinions of Clinton's conduct, Republicans repeatedly questioned his reasoning for ending the investigation without charges. Perhaps more worrisome to Comey was the rising discontent within the FBI. The retired assistant director James Kallstrom, a Trump backer who had run the New York field office from 1995 to 1997, became a fixture on Fox News and Fox Business, where he attacked Comey's "nonsensical conclusion" in the Clinton probe and highlighted the "disgust" of "hundreds" of active and retired agents, including some "involved in this thing" who "feel like they've been stabbed in the back." Kallstrom said, "I think we're going to see a lot more of the facts come out in the course of the next few months. That's my prediction." For their part, Justice Department officials were incredulous at Comey's decision to proceed without them. On Tuesday, in his Comey memo, Rosenstein said that the FBI director was "wrong to usurp the Attorney General's authority" by announcing "his own conclusions about the nation's most sensitive criminal investigation." He added, "It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement," and "the Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation." A recent report in The New York Times raised the prospect of another factor in Comey's calculations. Early last year, another FBI investigative team had found a memo or email hacked by the Russians in which a Democratic operative expressed confidence that Lynch would protect Clinton. According to the Times, Comey worried that if Lynch were involved in the Clinton announcement and the Russians leaked the document, then voters would not trust the inquiry. But Comey did not confront Lynch, demand that she recuse herself or raise the matter with the deputy attorney general, Sally Yates, former Justice Department officials told me. Instead, he sent an aide to confer with David Margolis, a respected senior Justice Department official, who has since died. Margolis never raised the issue with department leadership. Two former officials who have seen the document told me that it was never a real concern. Comey and his defenders, they insisted to me, are now engaged in "revisionist history." In May 2016, just as the FBI's investigation into the Clinton emails was nearing its final stages, a young woman in Indiana named Sydney Leathers received a Facebook message from someone she did not know. Three years earlier, Leathers had earned notoriety as Anthony Weiner's most famous sexting partner. Leathers, then a 23-year-old college student, had come forward, at first anonymously, with details about her online relationship with the disgraced former congressman, who had gone by the screen name Carlos Danger. Leathers's story inspired countless tabloid headlines and ended Weiner's political comeback as a candidate for mayor of New York City. Leathers quickly cashed in, selling her story to tabloid media, letting "Inside Edition" record her cosmetic surgery makeover, starring in porn films and charging for phone sex and webcam services. The messages Leathers received in 2016 were from someone who identified herself as a 15-year-old in North Carolina. The sender said she had been sexting with Weiner, but Leathers was skeptical. "I just thought it was a crazy person," she told me. Leathers changed her mind after the girl sent screen shots from months of exchanges with the former congressman. The teenager wanted to go public, but Leathers urged her to call the police instead. "I don't claim to be a morality queen," Leathers said. "I don't care if he was sexting another adult. But, if it's a child, it's another story. I felt a little protective of her." After it became clear that the teenager was determined to tell her story, Leathers said she shifted to "damage control." "How can I at least make you some money?" she said she asked the teenager. "I basically said, 'The only way you should do this is if they pay you.' Certain outlets will pay you to talk, and I had made deals with a lot of them." Leathers' agent alerted dailymail.com, the online version of a British tabloid with which she'd previously done business. Both Leathers and the girl received a sizable fee; the teen's father, an attorney, helped negotiate her payment. On July 30, Leathers took another step. She had not communicated with Weiner for years, but she decided to send him a private Facebook message that amounted to a half-warning, half-scold: "This is super awkward but you need to know something. There's a 15-year-old girl named [redacted] messaging me and she's claiming you guys sext and skyped. And that you know how old she is. For once I'm keeping my mouth shut. I want nothing to do with this. Frankly, I hope it isn't true. But she showed me a screenshot that looks legit to me. How have you not learned your lesson? This is another level of fucked up. I suggested to her not to talk to the press so you're welcome but you may want to refrain from messaging anyone under 18 for gods sake. If she is really someone you've been talking to, you better cut that off quickly. She's talking about potentially messing with Hillary's campaign. I am kind of pissed to be put in this situation to be honest." The Daily Mail story appeared on Sept. 21. The 2,200-word article was accompanied by dozens of screen captures, displaying half-clad photos and suggestive texts that Weiner had sent the teenager, a high school sophomore whose name was withheld. She told the Daily Mail that she had contacted Weiner, then 51, in late January 2016. During online video chats, she said, Weiner had invited her to undress and masturbate. She said he'd urged her to engage in "rape fantasies." The girl's father said that he'd learned of the relationship in April but did not alert the police because his child believed the relationship was "consensual" and "I didn't want to exacerbate anything that she has mentally going on." The article included four pictures of Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, including one of her with Hillary Clinton. Abedin was perhaps Clinton's closest aide, often described as a surrogate daughter. She had met Clinton in 1996, while she was a White House intern, and spent her entire adult life working for her. When Abedin married Weiner, in 2010, Bill Clinton officiated at the ceremony; the couple had a son a year later. When the FBI began investigating the Clinton emails, in 2015, agents had taken special interest in Abedin because she was one of the four aides who served as conduits for most of Clinton's State Department messages, screening them, forwarding them and printing them out for her boss. When agents interviewed Abedin on April 5, 2016, she told them that she had used Yahoo and state.gov accounts while working in the State Department, as well as an email address on Clinton's private basement server, huma@clintonemail.com. They asked Abedin what devices she used for email, at work and home, and whether she'd kept any archive. According to FBI notes of the interview, Abedin said that she had already turned over everything she had to the State Department. The agents did not ask to inspect any personal computers at her Manhattan apartment, where she lived with Weiner and their son. Her lawyer would later publicly insist that Abedin had no idea that her exchanges with Clinton were on his laptop. The couple has since separated. The Daily Mail story raised the possibility of serious criminal charges for Weiner. If he had encouraged an underage female to take explicit photos or video of herself, he could be charged with producing child pornography, a felony that carries a minimum prison term of 15 years. FBI agents in New York immediately began investigating. On Sept. 26, after federal prosecutors in New York obtained a search warrant, and the FBI collected Weiner's iPhone, iPad and laptop. Agents began examining the computer — a silver, 15.6-inch 2015 Dell Inspiron 7000 — for any pictures, videos or other evidence involving Weiner's teenage sexting partner. An agent sorting through the contents of the hard drive came across a jolting find: a State Department memo and some emails between Abedin and Hillary Clinton. The documents were not covered by the sex-crimes warrant, which meant that the FBI had no legal right to examine them. The presidential election was five weeks away. The agent went to the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for guidance. Prosecutors there wanted no part of the email case, which had been staffed by a special team of agents, FBI analysts, and Justice Department lawyers working out of FBI headquarters, in Washington. The New York prosecutors told the agent to seek advice from that team. They said nothing to their own bosses at Justice Department headquarters. By Oct. 3, senior officials at the FBI — including Comey — had been alerted that the Weiner laptop contained an unknown number of Clinton emails. By this point, the email controversy had receded as an issue in the presidential race. Any news of the discovery would surely have profound consequences for the Clinton campaign, especially as the election drew ever closer. Yet, over the following three weeks, FBI agents proceeded unhurriedly with their investigation, on the premise that what they knew of the discovery was not, as one official put it to me, "investigatively significant." FBI officials decided not to share news of the new emails on the laptop with the Justice Department prosecutors who had worked with them on the Clinton case. A former high-ranking Justice Department official, who dealt frequently with the FBI, blamed the failure on institutional distrust. "There is a general tendency, with everything at the Bureau, to keep things inside the Bureau until they figure out what to do," he told me. Without the involvement of their Justice Department colleagues, the FBI eschewed options that might have expedited matters. Former Justice Department officials familiar with the case told me that the FBI's failure to move more quickly in this phase of the investigation represented a serious blunder. "It probably would have helped to have the prosecutors on the investigation involved at the earliest moment," the former high-ranking official told me. A crucial question was whether the discovery of the first few emails and a State Department document was sufficient to obtain a new search warrant to locate and examine all the Clinton messages right away. The former federal magistrate judge John Facciola, now an adjunct law professor at Georgetown University, told me that he would have granted such a warrant request, even after the discovery of just a "handful" of Clinton emails. The FBI's earlier investigation had revealed that some messages from the Clinton server contained improperly stored classified information, Facciola noted. "If the headers show transmittal from Clinton to Abedin, it follows as night to day that others bearing that header may also be classified, and we have a right to search. What more you need than that, I don't know." Former Justice Department officials told me that they also could have sought consent from Weiner and Abedin to examine the emails without a warrant. Lawyers for both told me that they were never asked and would have readily acceded. FBI officials, who were not fond of consent agreements, reportedly did not do this because they worried that Weiner would have sought concessions on any sex-crime charges; lawyers familiar with the matter dismiss the notion that he had any bargaining leverage. Officials at FBI headquarters instructed the New York agent examining Weiner's hard drive for evidence of sex crimes to continue his work as before and to keep a log of any further Clinton emails he came across. By all accounts, this phase of the process went slowly. The software that the Bureau used to inventory the contents of Weiner's laptop kept crashing. It would take about ten days before agents were able to retrieve a complete record of the messages saved on the laptop, showing dates, senders and recipients. But, even then, the FBI did not immediately seek a warrant. By mid-October, inside the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, the handful of officials who knew about the discovery of the Clinton emails were openly wondering what was going on. Any effort to obtain a second warrant would have to go through their office, and they had heard nothing. On Friday, Oct. 21, Joon Kim, the deputy U.S. attorney for the Southern District, called an official in the deputy attorney general's office at Justice Department headquarters to ask what was being done about the Clinton emails on Weiner's laptop. Recognizing the importance of the call, Kim wrote a memo noting it.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/03/the-worlds-best-places-to-retire-in-2017-commentary.html

MAA

Mid-America Apartment Communities

The world's best places to retire in 2017

Mexico has always offered arguably the easiest transition to expat life around: Low-cost, conveniently close, friendly locals and plenty of expats—Mexico offers an appealing balance of exotic foreign culture and familiar First-World lifestyle. Over recent years, crime and insecurity across the border have made headlines—and yes, there are parts of Mexico we don't recommend. But this is a big country…and while the mainstream media may bash Mexico, we've actually noticed a trend of people gravitating there. Seasoned expats, folks who have lived in countries like Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Belize, are moving to Mexico. After all, there's a reason over 1 million Americans call Mexico home. The cost of living is great—expats report living well for as little as $1,200 a month—and has gotten even better with the weakening of the peso against the dollar in recent years. Your dollars now buy nearly 50% more pesos than they did just a few short years ago. The weak peso also means you can pick up great-value real estate (to buy or rent) for even less than you could a few years ago—an apartment that cost $1,300 to rent in 2014 costs $980 now. Those dollars also go even further when it comes to Mexican healthcare. You can get healthcare that's even better quality than what you're used to and for one half to one third the price to boot. According to IL's Roving Latin America Editor Jason Holland, who lives on the Riviera Maya, there are first-rate hospitals throughout the country—every major city has one. "Even paying cash at private facilities costs a fraction of what it would in the U.S. Most doctors have received at least part of their training in the U.S. or Europe…and many speak English," Jason says. English is widely spoken in popular expat spots like Lake Chapala and the Riviera Maya. This makes it easy for you to fit right in. And heck, you can drive down, or fly home for as little as $200 round-trip—so getting home is convenient. This proximity also makes it an ideal destination for snowbird living, perfect for escaping from the worst of the winter weather. And the diverse selection of climates spread out across this massive country, ranging from hot weather on the beach to spring-like in the highlands, means you're guaranteed to find weather that's perfect for you. "The cost of living in Mexico allows me to live a fun life on my Social Security check," says San Francisco-native Jack Bramy. Living half a block from the beach in Puerto Vallarta, Jack's not scrimping. "There are great restaurants and tons of cool bars on the malecón (promenade). My rent is $575 a month for a two-bedroom apartment with a great modern bathroom and nice kitchen." If you prefer to live in the Colonial Highlands, there are the picturesque historic towns like San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, and Ajijic on Lake Chapala. Chicago native Steve Garcia, 67, has lived in Guanajuato for four years. "I live well here on Social Security. My expenses are $1,200 a month, including rent. I have a two-bedroom house with a terraced garden," says Steve. "With the dollar going up I've got 50% more to spend." After you become a legal resident of Mexico, which is quite easy to qualify for, you can also take advantage of its retiree benefits. Those over 60 get discounts on airline and bus tickets, medical care, museum entrance fees, and much more. "I love my senior discount card," says expat Marty Kramer who lives in Playa del Carmen. "All Mexican citizens, including resident expats, can get one when they turn 60. With it, I get discounts on almost everything: healthcare, public transportation, groceries, restaurants, hotels, and even some airlines. It's up to the business how much of a discount they offer, but it's usually around 10%." If you acquire official residence in Mexico, you can get an INAPAM Card—and all the discounts that come with it. These can range from 5% up to 50%. And recent changes in the law now provide an easier and faster path than ever to permanent Mexican residence. Most retirees qualify for residence by showing they have the funds to support themselves. And—also unusually—Mexico gives you two ways to qualify. You can show monthly income from Social Security or a pension. Alternatively, you can use assets, such as funds in a savings or investment account, to qualify. You don't need to transfer these assets to Mexico; you only need to prove that you have them. "Life here is easy and relaxed," says IL Mexico editor Glynna Prentice. "And also rich and complex in sensations and experiences. People are friendly and welcoming, their warmth as genuine as the Mexican sun. And roots are deep. "Whether you're looking at the mighty ruins of Teotihuacan, the face of a local Maya vendor, or the cool patio of a Spanish colonial hacienda, you sense a depth of history and tradition around you. "Mexico isn't perfect—no place is. But its flaws pale when weighed against the vividness of life here." For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/22/covid-vaccines-pfizer-moderna.html

MRNA

Moderna

Here’s what Pfizer and Moderna say is next for their Covid vaccines

In this article PFE MRNA Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT A pharmacist prepares to administer Covid-19 vaccine booster shots during an event hosted by the Chicago Department of Public Health at the Southwest Senior Center in Chicago, Illinois, Sept. 9, 2022. Scott Olson | Getty Images Three years and billions of Covid vaccinations into the pandemic, Pfizer and Moderna say their work is far from over. The two pharmaceutical companies, whose Covid vaccines have become household names, are ushering in a new era for their shots that will elevate the role they play in protecting public health, but also simplify what people need to do to coexist with the virus. That involves developing new versions of the vaccines that aim to provide broader and longer-lasting immunity against the virus, and combination jabs that protect against Covid and other respiratory diseases in a single dose, among other efforts. Those plans coincide with a broader shift in the Covid pandemic landscape. The U.S. and global-level public health emergencies are over, vaccine uptake and sales growth have slowed, and both Pfizer and Moderna will sell their shots directly to health-care providers at around $110 to $130 per dose as soon as the fall, when the federal stockpile of free vaccines is expected to run out. Neither company provided CNBC with an update on the exact private market price of their shots. Many of Pfizer's and Moderna's plans for their vaccines may not reach the public for a few more years, and the success of those efforts isn't guaranteed. "One of the greatest things about Moderna is the company's willingness to lean in, even if it's not obvious where exactly things will go," Dr. Jacqueline Miller, Moderna's therapeutic area head of infectious diseases, told CNBC. Here's what Moderna and Pfizer say is next for their Covid shots. Annual Covid shots Pfizer and Moderna aim to keep up with a shift in the U.S. toward annual Covid shots rather than frequent booster doses. Regulators are transitioning toward a flu shot-like model for Covid vaccines, meaning people will get a single shot every year that is updated annually to target the latest variant expected to circulate in the fall and winter. A panel of independent advisors to the FDA will meet in June to select which Covid strain new vaccines should target when they roll out later this year. Moderna and Pfizer both told CNBC that messenger RNA technology will allow them to keep pace with new Covid variants each year. That technology, which is used in Covid shots from both companies, teaches human cells to produce a protein that initiates an immune response against a certain disease. Miller, who helped lead the development of Moderna's Covid shot in 2020, said the advantages of using mRNA became evident earlier on in the pandemic. That includes the ability to rapidly scale up the manufacturing of a shot and easily alter the variants they target. "The vaccine became proof of the value of mRNA in a pandemic when you need to make something quickly," Miller told CNBC. "The speed of that platform — it allows us to do things three times as fast." A healthcare worker administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic in the Peabody Institute Library in Peabody, Massachusetts, U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022. Vanessa Leroy | Bloomberg | Getty Images Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer's chief scientific officer, hopes that annual Covid vaccines will improve public sentiment around getting vaccinated. He said the public grew increasingly dissatisfied with health mandates during the earlier stages of the pandemic, and "unfortunately some people see vaccines as part of that." An annual schedule may help people view Covid shots as another "very natural part" of protecting their health and encourage more of them to vaccinate each year, according to Dolsten. "I think of it like the introduction of seat belts for cars. People didn't want to wear them at first, but over time they realized how much seat belts protect them. Now everyone uses them today," Dolsten told CNBC. "That's kind of how the vaccine story needs to be reimagined." 'Next-generation' Covid shots Pfizer's and Moderna's Covid vaccines both deliver robust protection against the virus, but that immunity can start to fade after four to six months. Part of Pfizer's strategy for shifting to an annual Covid vaccine schedule is developing "next-generation" versions of the shot, which aim to broaden and extend the protection people get to a full year. "Protection is still there but gradually waning, and we're working with two different approaches to make it a bit more like an annual durability for the majority of people," Dolsten told CNBC. Pfizer and its Covid vaccine partner BioNTech are working on a shot that will elevate the level of antibodies a person gets after vaccination by "severalfold," according to Dolsten. The vaccine won't work too differently from the company's current shot, which teaches cells how to make harmless copies of Covid's spike protein. The immune system detects that protein and creates protective antibodies that help fend off the virus but decrease over time. The main difference is that the next-generation shot will teach cells how to make copies of an "enhanced" spike protein, which will generate a far higher level of antibodies that could last for an entire year. "If we're elevating antibodies, let's say threefold, that means they will last and protect for a year," Dolsten said. The company is working on a second vaccine that aims to boost T-cells, another form of protection that targets and destroys cells infected with Covid. In addition to antibodies, Pfizer's existing shot triggers the creation of T-cells against the spike protein. T-cells wane slower than antibodies, meaning they offer longer-term protection against the virus. Pfizer is adding another strain of mRNA in its new shot that will broaden that T-cell response. The strain will specifically trigger an increase in T-cells against other parts of the coronavirus called non-spike proteins. Those T-cells, in addition to the ones generated against the spike protein, will provide protection against "all corners of Covid's viral landscape," according to Dolsten. Non-spike proteins also mutate slower than the spike protein, which means that any T-cells generated against them will likely protect against a wide range of Covid variants. Empty vials of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) children's vaccines are pictured at Skippack Pharmacy in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, U.S., May 19, 2022. Hannah Beier | Reuters Dr. Paul Burton, Moderna's chief medical officer, said the company has its own "next-generation" Covid vaccine, which aims to improve how shots are stored and administered. The company's current shot must be kept in ultra-cold storage. Once thawed, the vaccine can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 30 days, according to Food and Drug Administration guidance. Burton said Moderna's new shot will be "refrigerator stable," meaning it would have a longer refrigerator shelf life. The company will accomplish that by shortening the length of the mRNA strand in the vaccine, according to Burton. The shot could increase the number of vaccine providers around the world, especially in developing countries that may not have freezer capabilities. Moderna is studying the shot in a phase 3 trial, Burton said. The company's existing Covid shot is its only commercially available product. Combination shots Pfizer and Moderna are both banking on a new slate of combination vaccines, expected to provide robust protection against Covid and certain respiratory diseases in a single dose. Dolsten said there's an increasing need for that kind of shot because certain shifts in society are creating a "more thriving environment" for infections. Climate change is driving up the Earth's temperature. Populations are living longer but becoming more vulnerable to disease as they grow older. A growing number of people are moving within countries and across borders. Dolsten said those factors have contributed to the spread of different diseases, sometimes at the same time. The U.S., for example, experienced a so-called tripledemic of Covid, respiratory syncytial virus and the flu last winter. Dolsten said people may not remember or even feel comfortable taking three different shots for those respiratory diseases on an annual basis. So creating a shot that will help people fight more than one of them at once will "simplify life for them," he said. Bottles of vaccines in a medical clinic. Angelp | Istock | Getty Images

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/18/covid-new-vaccines-will-likely-protect-against-eris-variant.html

MRNA

Moderna

New Covid vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax will likely protect against Eris variant

A pharmacist prepares to administer Covid-19 vaccine booster shots during an event hosted by the Chicago Department of Public Health at the Southwest Senior Center in Chicago, Illinois, Sept. 9, 2022. New Covid vaccines from Pfizer , Moderna and Novavax will likely provide protection against the new "Eris" variant, now the dominant strain of the virus in the U.S. The drugmakers designed their updated vaccines to target the omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, which is slowly declining nationwide. But health experts and initial data suggest that the new shots will still be effective against Eris, or EG.5, and other widely circulating variants – all of which are descendants of omicron. "I think that these vaccines will provide very substantial protection against EG.5. Maybe just a little bit of loss, but it's nothing that I'm very concerned about," Dr. Mark Mulligan, director of the NYU Langone Vaccine Center, told CNBC. "It looks like we're going to be OK." All three companies are still waiting for the Food and Drug Administration to approve their vaccines, meaning those jabs won't be available to the public for a month or so. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has to decide which Americans should get the shots and how often. Still, the upcoming arrival of those vaccines offers some reassurance to Americans as Eris and other Covid variants fuel a slight uptick in cases and hospitalizations across the country but remain below the summer peak that strained hospitals this time last year. Eris accounted for 17.3% of all cases in the U.S. as of earlier this month, according to the latest data from the CDC. The new strain surpassed XBB.1.5, which accounted for roughly 10% of all cases. The World Health Organization earlier this month designated Eris a "variant of interest," meaning it will be monitored for mutations that could potentially make it more severe. But the health agency and experts said Eris does not appear to pose a significant threat – or at least no more than any of the other omicron variants currently circulating in the U.S. It's also not expected to cause a huge wave of Covid cases like other strains have in previous years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/04/moderna-mrna-earnings-q1-2023.html

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Moderna

Moderna posts surprise quarterly profit despite waning demand for Covid vaccines

Moderna on Thursday blew past estimates for first-quarter earnings and revenue, posting a surprise quarterly profit, despite lower demand for Covid vaccines, its only marketable product. The biotech company generated first-quarter sales of $1.9 billion, driven by Covid shot revenue deferred from 2022. That's down more than 60% from the $6.1 billion it recorded in the same period a year ago amid a resurgence of Covid cases. Moderna posted net income of $79 million, or 19 cents per share, for the quarter. That's compared with $3.66 billion in net income, or $8.58 per share, reported during the same quarter last year. Here's what Moderna reported compared with Wall Street's expectations, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv: Earnings per share: 19 cents per share vs. a loss of $1.77 per share expected 19 cents per share vs. a loss of $1.77 per share expected Revenue: $1.86 billion vs. $1.18 billion expected The Massachusetts-based company's stock closed 3% higher Thursday. Its shares are down nearly 25% for the year through Thursday's close, putting the company's market value at around $51.8 billion. Costs of sales for the quarter came in at $792 million. That included a $148 million write-off for vaccines that have exceeded their shelf life and $135 million from unused manufacturing capacity, among other expenses. Moderna maintained its full-year guidance of a minimum of $5 billion in revenue from its Covid vaccine, which will come from signed government contracts for the shot. CEO Stéphane Bancel said Thursday on CNBC's "Squawk Box" he believes the company is "well on our way to execute" that target. The company is also having discussions about new contracts with customers in Europe, Japan and in the U.S. The U.S. will transition the federal Covid vaccination program to the private market as soon as the fall. Bancel noted the company is in active discussion with U.S. government agencies, pharmacy chains and hospital systems about new vaccine contracts. Moderna expects more clarity around those contracts over the next four to six weeks. The company is set to roll out more boosters after the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month authorized additional vaccines targeting the omicron variant for seniors and people with weak immune systems. The FDA is also gearing up for a vaccine meeting in June where external advisors will select which Covid strains new vaccines will target when they roll out in the fall. Moderna expects the U.S. to need 100 million vaccine doses annually. But Covid shot demand is still falling as the pandemic eases and the U.S. shifts to an annual vaccination schedule rather than repeated booster doses. That's left Moderna and rival drugmaker Pfizer scrambling to pivot away from their Covid jabs, which made both companies household names during the peak of the pandemic. "It's going to be a transition year," Bancel told CNBC. He added that Moderna is "investing aggressively to grow the company." That means beefing up Moderna's mRNA-based drug pipeline. The company's products utilize messenger RNA technology, which teaches human cells to produce a protein that initiates an immune response against a certain disease. Moderna President Stephen Hoge on the company's earnings call highlighted its efforts to make vaccines that target more than one respiratory disease in a single dose, which he said will be "the future of our respiratory franchise." The company has five different combination vaccines in early clinical trials, he said. Bancel told CNBC the company hopes to launch a combination vaccine that targets Covid and the flu by 2025. Those shots will be adapted to the dominant flu and Covid strains circulating. "So you can just walk into your pharmacy and have one shot and be set for winter," he told CNBC. Moderna in April said it hopes to offer a new set of lifesaving vaccines targeting cancer, heart disease and other conditions by 2030. That lineup includes Moderna's experimental vaccine that targets respiratory syncytial virus. The company expects to file for full approval of the shot for adults ages 60 and older this quarter. It also includes Moderna's personalized cancer vaccine, a highly anticipated mRNA shot being co-developed with Merck to target different tumor types. Moderna is also developing a flu vaccine, but the company said the shot did not meet the criteria for early success in a late-stage clinical trial. Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that Moderna's first-quarter revenue was down more than 60%.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/11/moderna-2027-covid-rsv-flu-shot-sales-guidance.html

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Moderna

Moderna says it expects up to $15 billion in sales of Covid, RSV, flu vaccines in 2027

The Moderna Covid-19 vaccine awaits administration at a vaccination clinic in Los Angeles, California on December 15, 2021. Moderna on Tuesday said it expects to see between $8 billion and $15 billion in sales from its Covid, RSV, flu and other respiratory vaccines in 2027. The biotech company said it sees a corresponding operating profit in the range of $4 billion to $9 billion. Those respiratory product estimates are supported by additional research investments of $6 billion to $8 billion "over the next few years," Moderna added. The announcement came ahead of Moderna's Vaccine Day on Tuesday. At the annual event, the company presented updates on its vaccine portfolio to investors and analysts eager to see how the company will navigate its post-pandemic boom. Moderna said earlier this year it expects $5 billion in mRNA Covid vaccine sales in 2023, a steep drop from the $18 billion the shot raked in last year. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company's Covid vaccine remains its only commercially available product. Moderna's highly anticipated flu vaccine did not meet the criteria for early success in a late-stage clinical trial, the company said. Moderna highlighted efforts to beef up its pipeline, saying it expects to launch six major vaccine products "in the next few years." The new 2027 guidance "represents an upside to the low profitability expected this year given the smaller" Covid market, Jefferies Analyst Michael Yee wrote in a Tuesday note. But Yee said to expect investors to debate the guidance because it's unclear "where seasonal viruses are going especially COVID for now."

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/20/moderna-and-ibm-to-use-ai-quantum-computing-on-mrna-vaccines.html

MRNA

Moderna

Moderna teams up with IBM to put A.I., quantum computing to work on mRNA technology used in vaccines

Moderna and IBM are teaming up to use generative artificial intelligence and quantum computing to advance mRNA technology, the development at the core of the company's blockbuster Covid vaccine, the companies announced Thursday. "We are excited to partner with IBM to develop novel AI models to advance mRNA science, prepare ourselves for the era of quantum computing, and ready our business for these game-changing technologies," Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement. Moderna shares dipped slightly Thursday, while IBM's stock was about flat. The companies said they signed an agreement for Moderna to access IBM's quantum computing systems. Those systems could help accelerate Moderna's discovery and creation of new messenger RNA vaccines and therapies, according to Dr. Dario Gil, director of IBM research. IBM will also provide experts who can help Moderna scientists explore the use of quantum technologies, the companies added. Unlike traditional computers, which store information as either zeroes or ones, quantum computing hinges on quantum physics. That allows those systems to solve problems too complex for today's computers. Under the deal, Moderna's scientists will also have access to IBM's generative AI model known as MoLFormer. Generative AI describes algorithms that can be used to create new content based on the data they have been trained on. The companies said Moderna will use IBM's model to understand "the characteristics of potential mRNA medicines" and design a new class of vaccines and therapies. The agreement comes as Moderna navigates its post-pandemic boom driven by its mRNA Covid vaccine. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company became a household name for its messenger RNA technology, which teaches human cells to produce a protein that initiates an immune response against a certain disease. Moderna is trying to harness that technology to target other diseases as the world emerges from the pandemic and demand for blockbuster Covid vaccines and treatments slows. The company is already working to develop a vaccine targeting respiratory syncytial virus and a shot that can target different types of cancer when combined with Merck's immunotherapy Keytruda. The new agreement also comes as IBM ramps up its investment in AI with new partnerships. Earlier this year, the Armonk, New York-based company announced a deal with NASA to help build AI foundation models to advance climate science. Those efforts fall in line with a recent boom in AI, largely driven by the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT. The AI-powered chatbot answers questions in clear, concise prose, and immediately caused a sensation after its launch. ChatGPT kicked off an AI arms race and prompted questions about the full extent of artificial intelligence's capabilities and risks.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/03/stocks-making-the-biggest-moves-premarket-qualcomm-moderna-paypal-and-more.html

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Moderna

Stocks making the biggest moves premarket: Qualcomm, Moderna, PayPal and more

Check out the companies making headlines before the market opens. Qualcomm — The chipmaker slipped 8.5% after it posted $1.87 in adjusted earnings per share on $8.44 billion in revenue for the second quarter, while analysts polled by Refinitiv respectively anticipated $1.81 and $8.5 billion. Qualcomm also gave soft guidance and noted weak smartphone chip sales. Deutsche Bank downgraded shares to hold from buy following the report, while JPMorgan and UBS maintained their respective overweight and neutral ratings. Moderna — Shares added 1.6% after the biotech company released its second-quarter results. Despite posting a quarterly loss and drop in revenue, Moderna raised its full-year outlook for its Covid vaccine, its only marketable product. Southwest Airlines — Shares of Southwest slid more than 3% after Jefferies downgraded the airline stock to underperform from hold. Jefferies said low-cost airlines appear to be struggling relative to premium peers, citing a key revenue margin for Southwest that shrunk during the second quarter. Albemarle — The energy stock added 5.4% following a mixed second-quarter report. Albemarle notably beat Wall Street expectations for earnings, reporting $7.33 per share excluding items against a consensus estimate of $4.44 compiled by Refinitiv. But revenue fell short at $2.37 billion on a $2.43 billion forecast. PayPal — Shares declined more than 8% after the company posted earnings that were in line with analysts' predictions Wednesday post-market. The payments company reported adjusted earnings of $1.16 per share, the same estimated by analysts polled by Refinitiv. Revenue came in higher than anticipated, with PayPal posting $7.29 billion, versus analysts' estimates of $7.27 billion. DoorDash — Shares jumped 3.5% after the company's second-quarter results came above analyst estimates. The company reported its best-ever quarter for revenue and total orders. Management also cited improvements in expense management. Roku — The streaming platform's stock shed 2% following a downgrade from Citi to neutral from buy. Citi said it would be moving to the sidelines, citing limited upside for shares. Clorox — The household goods manufacturer's shares jumped nearly 7% after posting an earnings and revenue beat in the second quarter. Clorox reported $1.67 in earnings per share on $2.02 billion in revenue. Analysts had estimated $1.18 in earnings per share on revenue of $1.88 billion, according to Refinitiv. The company also offered a strong full-year outlook. Etsy — Shares tumbled 9% after the company released its quarterly earnings report Wednesday after the bell. Although its earnings and revenue topped analysts' expectations, the company's guidance for the third quarter was lighter than expected. Qorvo — The stock rallied 6.8% after the company beat analysts' expectations on top and bottom lines in the second quarter. Management said it expects September quarterly revenue to increase sequentially more than 50%, "driven primarily by content gains" from Apple. Traeger — Shares jumped more than 24% following Traeger's second-quarter earnings announcement Wednesday post-market. The company posted 4 cents in earnings per share on $171.5 million in revenue. Analysts polled by FactSet had estimated a loss of 2 cents per share and $154.9 million in revenue. The company also raised its full-year revenue and earnings guidance. Unity Software — The software company surged about 5% after Unity exceeded analysts' estimates for revenue in the second quarter. The company posted $533 million in revenue, while analysts polled by Refinitiv estimated $518 million. DXC Technology — DXC Technology tumbled 24% after reporting earnings and revenue that missed estimates. The information technology firm reported adjusted earnings of 63 cents per share on revenue of $3.45 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet expected earnings of 82 cents per share on revenue of $3.56 billion. Separately, BMO Capital Markets downgraded the company to market perform from outperform following the results. — CNBC's Alex Harring, Sarah Min and Jesse Pound contributed reporting.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/13/moderna-shares-pop-7percent-after-cowen-upgrades-stock-saying-it-will-be-a-leader-in-rsv-vaccines.html

MRNA

Moderna

Moderna shares pop 7% after Cowen upgrades stock, saying it 'will be a leader' in RSV vaccines

A healthcare worker prepares a syringe with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a pop-up vaccination site operated by SOMOS Community Care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Manhattan in New York City, January 29, 2021. Moderna shares jumped by nearly 7% on Monday after TD Cowen upgraded the stock, saying the company will "be a leader" in the RSV vaccine market. TD Cowen also highlighted Moderna's other vaccine candidates for diseases like the flu, a pipeline that can help the company become "less reliant" on new Covid-19 waves. Shares closed at $147.90 apiece. "It's clear that mRNA vaccines could be disruptive to the traditional vaccine market as they can target complex antigens simply and with rapid, cell-free manufacturing that can lead to an approved product in record time," wrote Cowen analysts led by Tyler Van Buren, upgrading the stock from market perform to outperform. "Moderna's near-to-mid-term valuation is becoming less reliant on the emergence of new COVID variant epidemic waves, and more so on PCV, RSV, and flu." The upgrade comes as Moderna navigates its post-pandemic-era boom driven by its mRNA Covid vaccine. The company became a household name for its messenger RNA technology, which teaches human cells to produce a protein that initiates an immune response against a particular disease. Cowen pointed to the company's potential RSV vaccine, noting that key opinion leaders believe RSV will be a "three-player vaccine market" between Moderna and drugmakers Pfizer and GSK. The three companies are in a race to approve the world's first vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, which infects the lungs and respiratory tract and usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms. While most people recover in a week or two, RSV can be serious, particularly for infants and older adults. Moderna's RSV vaccine performed well in clinical trials and was well tolerated by patients, the note said. Moderna's RSV vaccines for adults ages 60 and older received Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the Food and Drug Administration in late January. The designation is intended to expedite the development and review of drugs for serious or life-threatening conditions, and was based on positive topline data from Moderna's phase 3 clinical trial on the vaccine. Moderna's vaccine was 83.7% effective in preventing RSV with two or more symptoms in people ages 60 and older, and 82.4% effective at preventing lower respiratory tract disease with three or more symptoms. No safety concerns were identified during the trial, and the company said it intends to publish the full data set and share results during an upcoming medical conference. The Moderna shot's efficacy is on par with GSK's: An FDA review of the company's data found it was around 83% effective at preventing lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV during its trial. But GSK and Pfizer are still one step ahead of Moderna. Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration's independent panel of advisors recommended GSK's RSV vaccine for adults ages 60 and older, and a shot from Pfizer for that same age group. Cowen noted that Moderna believes the regulatory support of its competitors' RSV candidates "should read-through" to its own. Correction: The article has been updated to reflect that the stock jumped on Monday.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/10/moderna-hopes-to-offer-new-vaccines-for-cancer-heart-disease-by-2030.html

MRNA

Moderna

Moderna says it hopes to offer new vaccines for cancer, heart disease, and other conditions by 2030

The Moderna Covid-19 vaccine is prepared for administration ahead of a free distribution of over the counter rapid Covid-19 test kits to people receiving their vaccines or boosters at Union Station in Los Angeles, California on January 7, 2022. Moderna hopes to offer a new set of life-saving vaccines targeting cancer, heart disease and other conditions by 2030, a spokesperson for the company told CNBC on Monday. The spokesperson confirmed remarks Moderna's chief medical officer, Dr. Paul Burton, made to the Guardian on Saturday. Burton said he's confident those jabs will be ready by the end of the decade, adding that Moderna could possibly offer them in as little as five years. He noted that advancements in messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology since the outset of the Covid pandemic have ushered in a golden age for new injections. "I think what we have learned in recent months is that if you ever thought that mRNA was just for infectious diseases, or just for Covid, the evidence now is that that's absolutely not the case," Burton told the Guardian. "It can be applied to all sorts of disease areas; we are in cancer, infectious disease, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases, rare disease." Studies on shots for those disease areas have shown "tremendous promise," he added. Burton's remarks come as Moderna navigates its post-pandemic boom driven by its mRNA Covid vaccine. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company became a household name for its messenger RNA technology, which teaches human cells to produce a protein that initiates an immune response against a certain disease. Burton's remarks also come ahead of Moderna's Vaccine Day on Tuesday. At the annual event, the company typically presents updates on vaccine development. He highlighted Moderna's personalized cancer vaccine, a highly anticipated mRNA shot being co-developed with Merck to target different tumor types. Burton told the Guardian the vaccine will be "highly effective" and "save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives." In February, the Food and Drug Administration granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to Moderna's personalized cancer vaccine in combination with Merck's immunotherapy drug Keytruda for patients with a deadly form of skin cancer called melanoma. That designation is intended to expedite the development and review of drugs for serious or life-threatening conditions. The FDA's decision came two months after Moderna highlighted a phase two clinical trial that showed the vaccine in combination with Keytruda reduced melanoma's recurrence by 44%. Burton also underscored messenger RNA's ability to tackle rare diseases with no treatments available yet. Those mRNA therapies could be available a decade from now, he said. "I think we will have mRNA-based therapies for rare diseases that were previously undruggable, and I think that 10 years from now, we will be approaching a world where you truly can identify the genetic cause of a disease and, with relative simplicity, go and edit that out and repair it using mRNA-based technology," he told the Guardian. Among those diseases is respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. Moderna is among the few drugmakers racing to launch the world's first vaccine against the deadly virus, which infects the lungs and respiratory tract and usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms. The virus kills 6,000 to 10,000 seniors and a few hundred children younger than five each year. Like the cancer shot, Moderna's potential RSV vaccine for adults ages 60 and older received Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the FDA earlier this year. The designation was based on positive topline data from Moderna's phase three clinical trial on the vaccine. Moderna's vaccine was 83.7% effective in preventing RSV with two or more symptoms in people ages 60 and older, and 82.4% effective at preventing lower respiratory tract disease with three or more symptoms. No safety concerns were identified during the trial, and the company said it intends to publish the full data set and share results during an upcoming medical conference.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/26/ubs-upgrades-moderna-says-potential-from-new-vaccines-is-underappreciated.html

MRNA

Moderna

UBS upgrades Moderna, says potential from new vaccines is underappreciated

Investors aren't fully appreciating the broader uses for Moderna's mRNA vaccines, creating a big buying opportunity, UBS said Monday. The bank upgraded Moderna to buy from neutral. UBS did lower its price target to $191 from $221, though the new forecast implies upside of 61% from Friday's close. Moderna shares have struggled in 2023, losing more than 34%. MRNA YTD mountain Moderna stock has declined nearly 35% so far this year. UBs analyst Eliana Merle noted that while the future of the Covid-19 market is uncertain — which is thus putting a question mark on 2023 revenues — the stock's decline could present a buying opportunity as it only factors in the downside risk from coronavirus vaccines without the potential upside from other products. Merle pointed toward vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus, the flu and cytomegalovirus as promising upside drivers for the company. "We think MRNA's CMV vaccine could be a major potential upside driver over the next 1-2 years, with limited priced in (leading cause of birth defects, no approved vaccines)," Merle said. "We think latent viruses could be a large [opportunity] for mRNA (high public health needs, lack of successful vaccines) and success in CMV would have reads to other programs (e.g. EBV)." — CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/16/moderna-cancer-vaccine-with-mercks-keytruda-delays-return-of-deadly-skin-cancer.html

MRNA

Moderna

Moderna cancer vaccine with Merck's Keytruda delays return of deadly skin cancer

Moderna's sign is seen outside of their headquarters in Cambridge, MA on March 11, 2021. An experimental mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna combined with Merck's blockbuster immunotherapy Keytruda cut the risk of death or recurrence of the most deadly skin cancer by 44% compared Keytruda alone, U.S. researchers reported at a medical meeting on Sunday. The findings suggest that adding a personalized cancer vaccine based on mRNA technology to Keytruda, which revs up the immune response, could prolong the time patients have without recurrence or death, said Dr. Jeffrey Weber of the NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center, who presented the findings. "From a general cancer therapeutic standpoint, this is a potential major breakthrough," Dr. Ryan Sullivan, a melanoma expert at Mass General Cancer who worked on the study, said in a statement. The results, presented at American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Orlando, Florida, add data details to partial findings released by the companies in December. The Merck/Moderna collaboration is one of several combining powerful drugs that unleash the immune system to target cancers with mRNA vaccine technology. BioNTech and Gritstone Bio are working on competing cancer vaccines based on mRNA technology. Moderna's vaccine is custom-built based on an analysis of a patient's tumors after surgical removal. The vaccines are designed to train the immune system to recognize and attack specific mutations in cancer cells. Merck's Keytruda, which is approved to treat melanoma and many other cancers, belongs to a class of widely used immunotherapies known as checkpoint inhibitors designed to disable the PD-1, or programmed death 1, protein that helps cancer evade the immune system. The midstage trial enrolled men and women at high risk of their melanoma returning. Among 107 study subjects who received both the experimental vaccine, mRNA-4157/V940, and Keytruda, cancer returned in 24 subjects (22.4%) within two years of follow-up, compared with 20 out of 50 (40%) who received Keytruda alone. There was little difference in response rates among people whose tumors had a lot of mutations - a typical predictor of immunotherapy response - and those whose tumors did not. Severe side effects were similar between the two arms of the study, the scientists reported. Fatigue was the most common side effect reported by patients specifically associated with the vaccine. Merck said the companies are in talks with U.S. regulators about the design of a late-stage trial, which is likely needed for approval of the combination regimen. It could take three or four years before the results of the larger trials are known, Eliav Barr, Merck's head of global clinical development and chief medical officer, said in an interview. Barr said it took Moderna about eight weeks to design a personalized mRNA vaccine for each patient. In the past, similar experimental cancer vaccines were developed targeting a single tumor mutation, or neoantigen. Moderna's mRNA technology allowed for the inclusion of as many as 34 neoantigens, which Barr called "astonishing." Currently, scientists cannot predict which single mutation is important in generating an anti-tumor response. With mRNA technology in combination with Keytruda, "we can create this shotgun approach ... that can create a more potent immune response," Barr said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/these-stocks-are-best-positioned-in-the-us-china-trade-war.html

MHK

Mohawk Industries

These stocks are best positioned if there is a US-China trade war, Wall Street analysts say

President Donald Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping on November 9, 2017 in Beijing, China. While some analysts found stocks with a defensive focus, others found companies that were nearly immune to the trade battle. The Dow is down more than 700 points in this week's sell-off while the S&P 500 has lost more than 3% after Trump said last weekend that tariffs would rise on China. As negotiations and posturing continue between the U.S. and China, some individual company analysts this week used the drama to tout stocks they cover which are positioned well if there is a trade war. One stock steering clear of any tariff trouble is Atkore International, according to analysts at RBC. Atkore manufactures electrical distribution products and reported solid earnings on Tuesday. "Management remains confident in its ability to manage tariff headwinds. The company has minimal direct tariff exposure, and for the products that it does import from overseas, its competitors source these products from overseas too," RBC said. Shares are up 11% over the last month. Power and utility stocks such as American Electric and Entergy are, "made for performing in rising trade tension," say UBS analysts. "Within utilities the most defensive names will be fully-regulated companies," analyst Daniel Ford wrote. Both stocks are down slightly in midday trading but up over 20% the last year. AquaVenture Holdings , which provides water purification system solutions also reported solid earnings this week. The company has, "essentially zero exposure to US-China tariffs or recent news headlines of escalating trade tensions," said RBC analyst Deane Dray. Here are other stocks analysts say to play in a U.S. China trade war:

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/22/housing-market-is-on-solid-footing-expert-ivy-zelman.html

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Mohawk Industries

Housing Market Is On Solid Footing: Expert Ivy Zelman

Housing expert Ivy Zelman--famous for calling the housing peak in 2005 and bottom in 2012--joined the "Halftime Report" to discuss her outlook for the sector. This comes after a report released today showed existing home sales rose to 14.7% in December, which is a record monthly increase. Ivy Zelman thinks today's report is indicative of the sector as a whole. While Wall Street experiences record volatility swings, the housing market is in good shape. Zelman notes that inventories are at 30-year lows, while affordability is at record highs. She argues that people--especially millennials--are thinking about buying homes again, which will continue to drive up demand and sales. So while the sector has been recovering since 2012, there is still a long way to go. Zelman believes there are some beaten-down names in the sector that make for attractive plays at current levels. The market is pricing in a recession, which she doesn't anticipate coming to fruition. On the builders side, she's looking at KB Home and CalAtlantic . Mohawk tops her list for building products, and Lowe's beats out Home Depot for Zelman's top home center trade. Some of these names are trading below or near liquidation level, and Zelman believes that once people realize the housing market is on solid footing, these stocks will be rated as "outperforms."

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/12/builders-assure-customers-after-lumber-liquidators-scare.html

MHK

Mohawk Industries

Builders assure customers after Lumber Liquidators scare

No surprise that some of the nation's largest home builders have also been quick to check and recheck their product lines and assure customers they are safe. While about half of all laminate flooring comes from China, according to industry sources, it is not widely used by major builders. Still, they do use some. We contacted some of the biggest and asked if customers should be concerned: Phones have been ringing off the hook at flooring companies nationwide in the wake of allegations that Chinese laminate flooring from Lumber Liquidators contains excessive levels of formaldehyde. D.R. Horton (the nation's largest publicly traded home builder): "D.R. Horton does not buy anything directly from Lumber Liquidators, and laminate flooring is only installed in a small percentage of our homes. All of the manufacturers we purchase laminate flooring from have provided us responses outlining why the Lumber Liquidators issue is not expected to be a problem for D.R. Horton and they have all confirmed to us that they are CARB compliant. (CARB refers to California air regulations, which are the strictest.) Pulte : "PulteGroup does not work with Lumber Liquidators, as the company purchases its flooring products through contracts with three of the largest flooring manufacturers in the United States. We have asked for and received confirmation from each of these suppliers that their laminate flooring products have been tested and are CARB compliant." Lennar : "We buy our flooring from Mohawk and Shaw [a Berkshire Hathaway company]. They do import laminate flooring from China but have given us written assurance that it meets the formaldehyde requirements. They are compliant with the law. They are independently checked in accordance with CARB. Our suppliers assure us that their suppliers meet the formaldehyde requirements." Read More Lumber Liquidators says products safe, offers free tests Since the bulk of the builders source their wood from large material providers, we contacted some of the largest of those: Mohawk : "All engineered hardwood and laminate flooring produced and sold by Mohawk Industries meet CARB Phase 2 standards for formaldehyde emissions. The company uses CARB-approved third-party inspectors to check regularly to ensure all products remain compliant with CARB Phase 2 requirements." Armstrong: "Armstrong sources laminate flooring made to our specifications. Our product specifications require adherence to all environmental, health and safety requirements, including formaldehyde emissions, of the U.S. federal government and, where applicable, state regulations such as the California Air Resources Board (CARB II). Our suppliers have their products tested at independent certified labs and then provide the test results to us on a regular basis. We only accept products that are certified to meet CARB requirements. In addition, on an annual basis, we randomly test our products at the Hardwood Products Veneer Association (HPVA) lab in Virginia for OSHA requirements." Armstrong admitted their phones have been ringing off the hook since the news broke on Lumber Liquidators, but since they put out that information, they say they've seen a positive reaction. It seems one company's nightmare could be another's bonus. Read More Lumber Liquidators founder: 'Real story' coming out Analysts say the laminate flooring scare could be a boon for other, more pricey flooring options, like tile and hardwoods. Credit Suisse did a survey of homeowners in the wake of the March 1 CBS News report and asked what other type of flooring, instead of laminates, would they consider buying, to gauge what other flooring types could possibly pick up market share amid the fallout. "Hardwood and ceramic tile were the big winners, with each garnering 50 percent or more of respondents' interest. Resilient (vinyl or LVT), stone, and carpet and rugs were small winners, with each type of flooring garnering between 20 percent and 40 percent of respondents' interest," according to the survey. Lumber Liquidators has defended the safety of its products and dismissed the CBS report as untrue. It challenged CBS' methodology and claimed it was the victim of short sellers.

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/08/26/cramer-can-top-sp-stocks-keep-climbing.html

MHK

Mohawk Industries

Cramer: Can top S&P stocks keep climbing?

He says, by identifying the top performing stocks within the index, investors can learn much more about the rally. That is, if gains are driven by fundamentals, the rally should endure. However, if gains are generated by special circumstances, then they may not. Although the S&P 500 is widely considered a proxy for U.S. stocks, rather than look at the index as a single referendum on sentiment, Jim Cramer prefers to dig down into the index. You can't turn around on Wall Street without hearing that the S&P 500 printed 2,000 on Tuesday, making yet another all-time high. Those same superlative-loving investors are also quick to tell you that the S&P 500 is on track to have the best August in 14 years. Monster Beverage "While Monster has been a monster mover, up 30 percent in August, I think it can go higher," Cramer said. However, the lion's share of the advance was due to a stake taken by Coca-Cola. Therefore, the "Mad Money" host views gains as due to a special circumstance. "Although I think it can grind higher from here, the big advance is probably over." Mohawk Industries As a maker of carpet, Cramer said the sharp advance in Mohawk reflects the Street's interest in catch-up housing plays, as a play on improving economic fundamentals. "Despite its 17 percent run this month, Mohawk is still down for the year. It could just be beginning its move," Cramer said. Gilead Although Gilead turned lower on Tuesday after a 17 percent gain this month, Cramer thinks this stock has more room to run due to the success of its Hepatitis C drug. "It is the cheapest drug stock I follow, selling at only 11 times earnings." Given these fundamentals, Cramer said, "I think it can go to $125 before it even gets as expensive as the average big pharma dinosaur." Dollar General Cramer believes gains in Dollar General are due to a special circumstance; its bid for Family Dollar. "And I suspect that gains could be rolled back if rival Dollar Tree is successful in arguing that there are serious antitrust concerns with the merger." Ross Stores Cramer said Ross Stores was somewhat of a coiled spring, having fallen well behind the market. "Pros wanted a better than expected quarter and they got it," Cramer said. Looking forward, if the company keeps executing (a tenet of fundamental investing), Cramer says it's reasonable to think, despite its 14 percent gain this month, Ross could take out its old high. Gap "If gasoline keeps going down and expectations remain low I believe Gap could rally further, simply because it's not expensive versus the historical average," Cramer said. For August shares have already rallied 14 percent. Netflix Up 13 percent in August, Cramer remains bullish on the long-term business prospects. "Netflix got enough publicity from its Emmy nominations that I can see them easily winning more subscribers." Southwest Although shares have climbed 13 percent this month, Cramer said Southwest is all about bookings and the price of jet fuel. "The former is still going up while the latter is still going down. That's a terrific combination." And as long as these fundamentals remains intact, Cramer sees shares continuing their ascent. Tenet Healthcare Up 13 percent for the month, Cramer believes the advance in Tenet is due to Obamacare. "Say what you want, the health care legislation has been terrific for hospitals and health maintenance organizations." Masco With gains of 13 percent for August, Cramer says the advance in Masco represents better than expected demand for home goods. Although he thinks the stock seems extended, he also thinks the advance should continue as long as interest rates remain low. Home Depot With a monthly advance of 12 percent, Cramer again views gains in Home Depot as another play on better than expected demand for home goods. Again, as long as rates stay low, "it should have more room to run." First Solar Even with gains of 12 percent, Cramer says, "First Solar is way too cheap even after its run and I expect it to lead us throughout the rest of the year. "

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/11/retail-stock-investors-having-a-tough-year.html

MHK

Mohawk Industries

Retail stock investors having a tough year

May retail sales rose 1.2 percent, roughly in line with expectations. Auto sales were especially strong, up 2 percent. But the rebound was bigger than that. May retail sales Building/garden: up 2.1% Clothing stores: up 1.5% Online stores: up 1.4% Dept. stores: up 0.8% Furniture: up 0.8% It looks like the consumer is a bit stronger, certainly stronger than in April. "Core" retail sales (excluding autos, gas, building materials and food services) were up 0.7 percent, better than an expected increase of 0.5 percent. The prior month was revised upward as well, to 0.1 percent. This suggests second quarter GDP numbers will be revised upward. While this is good news, retail sales year-over-year are up only 2.7 percent. That's a respectable but not great improvement.

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/19/market-showing-signs-of-fatigue-as-traders-ignore-data.html

MHK

Mohawk Industries

Market showing signs of fatigue as traders ignore data

Facebook's late-day announcement of a plan to buy WhatsApp for $16 billion in stock and cash could stir up interest in Internet and other tech names Thursday. Facebook fell nearly 5 percent at one point in late trading. But stocks could continue to waffle after traders found excuses Wednesday to sell following the release of Fed minutes and against the backdrop of deadly protests in Ukraine. Stocks did not cave on a 16 percent drop in housing starts, however, as traders blamed bad January weather for disrupting building activity. Even if Thursday's economic data comes up punk, markets may just write it off to bad weather. Since hitting bottom Feb. 3, the stock market has galloped higher, and the S&P had recovered nearly all its 2014 losses by Wednesday morning. It touched briefly on 1,847, just below its record close of 1,848. But traders found plenty of reasons to lighten up during the day, including an IMF report at midday cautioning on emerging markets problems. Stocks initially seesawed after the 2 p.m. release of Fed minutes but then sold off into the close. While the minutes were viewed as revealing little new, that several members said it would soon be time to raise rates got some attention and made the Fed sound a little more hawkish than it has been. Overall, though, it appeared to be signaling no changes and to be committed to tapering its bond-buying program. The minutes also noted that weather may have affected jobs data. Treasury prices fell, and the 10-year was yielding 2.74 percent after the release. (Read more: Winter weather freezing corporate profits) "There's a lot of noise and counterforces in the market at this point," said Ian Lyngen, senior Treasury strategist at CRT Capital. "On a day when you had weak housing data, easy to dismiss inflation data and a relatively benign Fed minutes, we're under a little pressure here." Since the beginning of 2013, the stock market has closed higher just twice on the 10 days the Fed minutes were released. "We've had real big gains in the market, so people start looking for excuses to take profits, and ... the Fed minutes days for more than a year now have been bad days for equities," said Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke. The S&P 500 ended the day down 12 at 1,828, while the Dow was down 89 at 16,040. The Nasdaq had its first negative session in nine, falling 34 points to 4,237. (Read more: Foreigners hit sell button on US assets in December) "It's tired," said Steve Massocca of Wedbush Securities. "We're back to the same issue we had at the beginning of the year. Stocks are potentially fully valued, and now I think it's more of an excuse than anything else for a decline in the market. The market's heavy. It's technically a sale right now." The advance/decline may also be signaling that the market is overbought, according to Bespoke. "The rally has been so strong that the 10-day advance/decline line for the S&P 500 is currently near its highest levels since at least 1990," the firm said in a note. The A/D line measures the 10-day rolling total of the net number of advancing stocks in the S&P 500 each day. At the current level of 1,944, it is near the highest levels of the bull market, and two times in late 2009 were the only instances since 1990 that the 10-day advance/decline line has been higher than it is now. "It's an indicator you use to gauge the short-term stance of the market," Hickey said. "When you've seen it get to these extreme levels in the short term, the next week you see below-average returns. But when you see real big surges, like we've had in the last week, it tends to be more of a positive than negative." The line could indicate that the market is just ready to take a brief pause before resuming its move higher, he said. (Read more: Watch out for resistance) As for the economic data Thursday, traders will be watching unemployment claims and CPI at 8:30 a.m. Leading indicators are reported at 10 a.m., as is the Philadelphia Fed survey. Manufacturing PMI is released at 8:58 a.m.

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/21/stocks-defy-gravity-with-bad-data.html

MHK

Mohawk Industries

Move along, nothing to see here: Stocks keep rising as data falls short

Tuomas Kujansuu | E+ | Getty Images Why are stocks still advancing, with such poor economic data? Though not all indices are up this week, the S&P 500 Index has a good shot at posting three up weeks. Most of the disappointing macroeconomic data is getting a pass due to weather. Plenty of traders mentioned the the positive data from Markit on flash U.S. manufacturing was the reason the market held up yesterday. One thing's for sure: much of the market leadership is in speculative technology stocks. I mean Priceline , Google , Linkedin , Netflix , Tesla , Facebook , even Workday is where large amounts of the trading action is. So far, no one wants to sell on up days, while buying is restricted on down days. We'll see how long that lasts. Elsewhere 1) Biotech/medical initial public offering (IPO) mania may be waning. Last night, Semler Scientific (SMLR), which does blood flow measurement tests in-office, priced 1.4 million shares—more than expected—at $7, but it was below the price talk of $7.50-$9.50. This company was supposed to go public last week, but was delayed until this week. There were six biotech/medical IPOs last week, and as you can see their reception in the market has been decidedly mixed: company ( percent change from offering price) Amedica (AMDA) up 23% Flexion Tehrapeutics (FLXN) up 14% Concert Pharmaceuticals (CNCE) flat Inogen (INGN) down 3% Nephrogenex (NRX) down 7% Eagle Pharmaecuticals (EGRX) down 22% This doesn't mean the IPO market is slowing, but after a year of intense biotech offerings, it's not surprising if we see a slowdown. watch now

https://www.cnbc.com/2013/12/13/busy-next-week-with-fed-meeting-in-focus.html

MHK

Mohawk Industries

Busy next week with Fed meeting in focus

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Considering it's close to Christmas, next week will be busy. While everyone knows about the Fed meeting Wednesday, there is considerable interest in the Federal Reserve's very large Permanent Open Market Operation (POMO) operation on Thursday...the Fed typically conducts bond-buying operations every day, but the size is usually $1 to $3 billion. On Thursday, it is $6 to $7.5 billion; many believe that it is no coincidence it is the day after the Fed meeting. There is no POMO on Wednesday, however. The Senate vote on Janet Yellen as the new Fed chief will be next week, date to be determined. Tuesday: Senate begins debate on budget deal Wednesday: Fed announcement with press conference Thursday: Huge Fed POMO; $6 billion to $7.5 billion over two operations Friday: Quadruple witching expiration (quarterly expiration of individual stock and index futures options), S&P 500 quarterly rebalancing (Facebook , Alliance Data Systems , and Mohawk Industries to go into S&P 500), and Nasdaq 100 annual rebalancing

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/15/homebuilder-and-construction-stocks-enter-bear-market.html

MHK

Mohawk Industries

Homebuilder and construction stocks enter bear market

A sign advertising a sale sits outside a Lumber Liquidators store on April 29, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. Stocks of major home construction companies fell on Wednesday, beleaguered by a slump in U.S. equity trading and a decline in homebuilder sentiment. Declines in Lumber Liquidators and American Woodmark pushed the Home Construction exchange-traded fund (ITB) into bear market territory, down more than 21 percent from its 52-week high notched in January. The moves came just after the National Association of Home Builders said that its monthly index of builder sentiment fell 1 point to 67 in August, the lowest level in 11 months. Anything above 50 is considered positive sentiment, yet there are signs of growing concern among builders. The index hit a recent high of 74 last December. Almost 80 percent (37 of 47) of ITB components were trading in correction level or worse Wednesday afternoon, including all homebuilding companies. Beazer Homes USA , which designs and builds family homes for entry-level, move-up, or retirement-oriented home buyers, fell more than 3 percent Wednesday, adding to a 46-percent drop since its 52-week high. Shares of townhouse and condominium builder Hovnanian Enterprises , meanwhile, lost 1.5 percent Wednesday and remain more than 52 percent below January levels. — CNBC's Diana Olick contributed reporting.

https://www.cnbc.com/2013/09/09/most-homebuilders-are-not-investable-right-now-pros.html

MHK

Mohawk Industries

Most homebuilders are ‘not investable’ right now: Pros

In a rising interest rate environment and market uncertainty on future Federal Reserve actions, investors should be particularly cautious when it comes to homebuilder stocks, two market pros told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" Monday. "The builders are pretty much a one-trick pony these days," said Megan McGrath, senior homebuilder analyst at MKM Partners. "They're really trading off of rates. If you have a view on rates that you really like, you can trade these but otherwise I don't think they're investable right now." (More real estate: Fannie, Freddie making billions—why shut them down?) McGrath said that her firm has been "cautious" on the group for most of 2013 but has become increasingly so with rates rising. "Uncertainty is no good for these stocks, and until we get some certainty around the taper and around mortgage rates, I think they're just going to trade up and down and probably end up in the same place," she said. "They're tradable but not necessarily investable." For homebuilders, "the impact of rising interest rates will lead to slack demand, and that's going to translate into slow earnings growth," said Bob Wetenhall, managing director at RBC Capital Markets. Wetehall advised investors to move away from the group in favor of building-product companies, which he said offer better risk-adjusted returns. He suggested Fortune Brands , Masco Brands and Mohawk Industries because they participate in both new residential construction and increased remodeling activity through home improvement stores. (Related: Home prices push past rising rates, says report) Wetehall said his firm is "particularly enthusiastic" about stocks in that position and thinks they have a "strong tailwind" through year-end. One name that McGrath likes is Toll Brothers , because it is primarily involved in higher-end housing, where buyers are less sensitive to interest rates.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/24/anthem-chief-denies-cigna-deal-in-jeopardy.html

MOH

Molina Healthcare

Anthem chief denies Cigna deal in jeopardy

watch now Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish denies reports his firm and Cigna have been at loggerheads in their attempt to gain approval from the Department of Justice for their $54 billion merger. "The reality is the process is working very well," Swedish said, speaking at a panel at the UBS Global Healthcare conference in New York City. "The two teams are working extremely well together. We're meeting deadlines on all the submittals." On Sunday, a report in The Wall Street Journal said a series of letters showed the Cigna and Anthem officials are squabbling and accusing each other of missing deadlines on DOJ requests for documents. An earlier report in the New York Post suggested regulators were not convinced the companies had made a strong enough case that the $2 billion in savings achieved through the merger would actually benefit consumers. That report cited unnamed DOJ officials. "I think we will get a determination from the DOJ in the not too distant future," Swedish said, expressing confidence the deal will be approved. Joseph Swedish, chief executive officer of Anthem Inc. T.J. Kirkpatrick | Bloomberg | Getty Images Hospitals and doctors' groups have opposed megainsurance mergers, and have been particularly vocal about the Anthem-Cigna deal because Anthem is already the nation's largest Blue Cross operator and the deal could increase the Blue Cross network's dominance. Others have raised concerns that the combination of the two companies will reduce competition and result in higher prices in the national market for employer-based insurance. "I still feel very comfortable that we'll be able to demonstrate that there is not a national market for national accounts," Anthem general counsel Tom Zielinski said at the UBS panel. He added that the deal wouldn't be scuttled if the company were required to make divestitures. "If I have to get there, I do believe there are ways that we could construct a remediation plan ... that the DOJ would be comfortable with," Zielinski said. Anthem and Cigna's march toward a merger has been contentious from the beginning. Nearly a year ago, Cigna laid bare the conflicts that arose in their negotiations, saying the complexities of the deal would make it hard to win regulatory approval. Anthem later disclosed that one of the biggest points of contention was who would lead the combined company; Cigna CEO David Cordani wanted assurances that he would succeed Swedish as chief executive. Centene CEO Michael Neidorff said he expects Swedish and Cordani to find a way to resolve their differences as they had previously in order to reach their merger agreement. "They're both smart people and I think as they move through this, they'll work it out and they'll able to structure the deal," Neidorff said in an interview at the UBS Global Healthcare Conference. "At some point, cool minds have to prevail." Stifel analyst Thomas Carroll said he expects Centene and its Medicaid-focused rivals Molina Health and Wellcare could become attractive acquisition targets for Anthem and Cigna if their own deal falls apart.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/09/stocks-and-bonds-can-both-go-down-in-volatile-trading-following-wildest-week-in-two-years.html

MOH

Molina Healthcare

Stocks, bonds set to remain under pressure after wildest trading week in 2 years

Stocks come off a punishing week, ready for more volatility as the market continues to search for a floor and stock investors keep an eye on rising interest rates. The was down 5.2 percent to 2,619, its worst week of trading since January 2016. The Dow, also off 5.2 percent, and the S&P both saw their first 10 percent correction since early 2016. Culprits behind the selling were an ugly shakeout in funds that bet against market volatility and the building pressure of higher interest rates on stocks. Stock futures were higher Sunday evening, but the early trading is not always indicative of where the market will open. Treasury yields for the 10-year note and 30-year bond were slightly higher on the week, but the was lower at 2.05 percent. Rising yields pressured stocks, but when stocks sold off, investors turned to the Treasury market as a safe haven. That in turn sent rates back down, since yields move opposite price. The 10-year was at 2.85 percent Friday, below its 2.88 percent high for the week. Despite extremely wide swings and days with 1,000-point Dow losses, stock strategists are mostly looking for the market to bottom soon and expect stocks will ultimately adjust to rising interest rates. But that process could be rocky, with many bond strategists now seeing the 10-year yield at 3 percent or above, much sooner than expected. Bank of America Merrill Lynch chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett, who has long been looking for a correction, said he expects that a good buying level would be at about 2,500 on the S&P 500 and 3 percent on the 10-year yield. "My gut here is 2,500 and 3 percent on the 10-year. They are big, big levels. You expect the market to find a reason to buy at that particular moment," he said. The markets in the week ahead will focus on their own action, particularly the tensions between stocks and bonds, but there are a few key data points that could impact trading. The CPI, consumer price index, is released Wednesday and it is an important inflation reading that investors are watching for any surprise pickup in inflation. That is released Wednesday morning, as are January retail sales. "The next big event we know that's on the calendar is CPI, and that could impact the Fed. The next big date for the bond market after that, assuming stocks calm down, which is a shaky assumption, is the 28th, when [Fed chair Jerome] Powell testifies," said Michael Schumacher, director of rate strategy at Wells Fargo. Powell started as Fed chair this past week, and markets have been anxious to hear his views on market volatility. Powell testifies before Congress Feb. 28, and the Fed is expected to raise rates at its next meeting in March. But market pros are watching the volatility, and there's a view the Fed holds off on that hike if the turbulence persists. Bond yields have been rising as global central banks, including the Fed, step back from easy policies and raise rates. Treasury yields have also been rising as investors eye the steep increase in U.S. Treasury issuance, expected to rise to $1.25 trillion this year. Another big catalyst for the market is the improvement in global growth and the potential for inflation to rise as a result. Now the stock and bond markets are so closely correlated, the action in one feeds off the other. Stocks will be a big factor for bonds in the week ahead. Gluskin Sheff and Associates' David Rosenberg said, in a note Friday, that the fact both stocks and bonds are selling off at the same time is unusual, and it is similar to time periods with significant market turmoil. He noted that the 10-year yield was rising as the S&P fell sharply Thursday, down more than 10 percent from its January record high. "I cannot tell you how rare a market condition this is — that yields are rising into this risk pullback," he wrote in a note to clients Friday. Rosenberg cited how bonds rallied during the financial crisis in 2008 when the market fell and during other big corrections. Other times were 1987 and 1994. As for currency markets, the U.S. dollar had a powerful week, with the dollar index rising 1.3 percent, its best week since October. As the dollar rose, oil fell, with West Texas Intermediate losing 9.9 percent for the week to just above $59.20 per barrel, its worst week in two years. Hartnett expects a rising dollar and other de-risking moves will be necessary before the shakeout in stocks ends. "Maybe we need to see the dollar move up, and that's the thing that causes investors to do things they least like to do: sell winners — tech, high yield, emerging markets. In these corrections, you sell hubris and buy humiliation. One measure of humiliation is everything goes through the wringer. Nothing is left unscathed," he said. "The dollar rally would be the ultimate risk off. That's part and parcel of the story." Earnings in the week ahead include consumer companies, such as Pepsi on Tuesday and Coca-Cola and Campbell Soup on Friday. Some energy names also report, such as Diamond Offshore on Monday and Occidental Petroleum on Tuesday. JP Morgan strategists, in a late Friday note, said they believe that commodity trading advisors and risk parity hedge funds were at the core of the correction, but they believe that most of the unwind by those investors is over. "This, combined with the low equity exposures of Discretionary Macro and Equity Long/Short hedge funds, leaves retail investors as the main residual risk for equity markets going forward," they wrote in a note. Unlike in other corrections, many strategists said they did not see a fundamental reason behind the selling, and the market became hostage to big round technical numbers that seemed to drive trading. After breaking the 50- and 100-day moving averages, the S&P 500 bounced off the closely watched 200-day moving average Friday, at 2,538, and rebounded to close 1.5 percent higher. "There's a little bit of ... technical activity around what is happening with volatility and how hedge funds have to readjust their strategies, given where volatility is," said Patrick Palfrey, equities strategist with Credit Suisse. "Going forward, we're not really seeing a point where the economic cycle is coming to an end and with the earnings backdrop as strong as it is, volatility should come back in over the next couple of weeks, as people start to look more closely at those underlying factors." Hartnett said there were plenty of warnings the correction was coming. "Certainly, the first tremors were the very rate-sensitive areas of the equity markets — utilities, the REITs, the homebuilders and bitcoin , which ... reminded people of the famous phrase 'fear of missing out.' Whether it was FOMO, or BTD, 'buy the dip,' or TNA, 'there is no alternative,' all these acronyms come back in vogue, and that's always going to be a dangerous moment," said Hartnett.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/13/health-insurers-say-obamacare-payments-are-not-a-bailout.html

MOH

Molina Healthcare

Health insurers say Obamacare payments not a 'bailout,' warn Trump admin cutoff will hurt patients

A trio of major insurance industry groups on Friday decried the cutoff of billions of dollars of subsidy payments to insurers by the Trump administration, warning that patients will now find it "harder" to get the care they need. Two of those groups, America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association also disputed claims by President Donald Trump that the cost-sharing reduction payments are a "bailout" for Obamacare insurers. "We need constructive solutions that increase consumer choice, lower consumer costs, and stabilize local markets," the two groups said in a joint statement. "Terminating this critical program will do just the opposite. This action will make it harder for patients to access the care they need. Costs will go up and choices will be restricted." "Millions of hard-working Americans with modest incomes depend on cost-sharing reduction benefits to get access to medical care," the groups said. "These benefits help real people every day, and if they are ended, there will be real consequences. These payments are not a bailout — they are passed from the federal government through health plans to medical providers to help lower costs for patients who see a doctor to treat their cancer or fill a prescription for a life-saving medication." Trump previously referred to the CSR payments as "bailouts" when he threatened to kill them last summer. Tweet Ceci Connolly, CEO of the Alliance of Community Health Plans, said, "We are deeply disappointed in the administration's actions this week to undermine access to affordable coverage for millions of Americans." "While Washington continues to play politics,families across the country are wondering if they will have coverage this month or next," Connolly said. The CSR reimbursements were estimated to be worth $7 billion to the nation's Obamacare insurers this year, and $10 billion or so next year. If the payments are not restored, insurers will have to raise premiums to cover the costs of discounts that they must, by law, offer to qualified low-income Obamacare customers for out-of-pocket health charges. About 6 million Obamacare customers qualify for those discounts to their copayments, coinsurance and deductibles. Connolly said that those customers on average earn just $19,000 annually. Trump administration health officials on Thursday decided to immediately cease paying insurers the CSR reimbursements after Attorney General Jeff Sessions advised them that the federal government had no legal authority to make those payments. The Affordable Care Act says that the federal government is supposed to pay insurers the reimbursements. But the Republican-led Congress refused to specifically appropriate the funds to make those payments. House Republicans sued the Obama administration when Obama officials kept making the payments despite lacking such authorization. Although the House won that suit, the payments continued as the Obama administration appealed the case. After taking office in January, Trump had continued the payments until Thursday. Trump reportedly has told at least one lawmaker he would be open to the idea of restoring the payments if Republicans and Democrats in Congress could agree on a deal. AHIP and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association said, "We are committed to pursue every possible path to ensure that all Americans who depend on these benefits can continue to get the care they need when they need it." Shares of health insurers were trading lower Friday, including Molina Healthcare , which shed more than 3 percent; Anthem , which fell more than 2 percent, and Centene , which was down more than 4 percent.

https://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/28/the-second-coming-of-obamacare-website--will-it-work.html

MOH

Molina Healthcare

The second coming of Obamacare website—will it work?

President Barack Obama's healthcare law is facing its biggest test this weekend since its disastrous October 1 launch, as Americans find out whether the administration has met a self-imposed deadline to fix its insurance shopping website. Another major outage of glitch-ridden HealthCare.gov could spell more political trouble for the president, who was forced to apologize for the botched rollout and admit burdening Democratic Party allies in their bids for re-election to Congress in 2014. If the website does not work on Saturday's deadline, that could turn off millions of uninsured Americans, especially young and healthy consumers whose participation in the new insurance exchanges are critical for keeping costs in check. Democratic leaders in Congress might also find it necessary to extend open enrollment beyond the March 31 deadline and delay fines mandated by the law for people who do not have insurance by that date - a prospect that insurers warn would destabilize the market. (Read more: Obamacare rationing coming? No doubt, analyst says) Obama officials are confident that this second coming of HealthCare.gov will be much improved from the Oct. 1 debut. Millions of people looked into the website in its first month, but only about 27,000 cleared the gauntlet of technical obstacles to sign up for insurance. The portal is the gateway for health insurance plans in 36 states under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, which was passed in 2010. It is intended to move the United States closer to universal care by subsidizing insurance sold by the private sector for less affluent families. Officials have said that by Saturday the website will be able to load quickly and work accurately for at least 80 percent of users. They have said it will be able to handle 50,000 simultaneous visitors, for a daily total of about 800,000, twice the capacity seen even on Wednesday before a final flurry of hardware and software fixes over the Thanksgiving holiday. And officials have warned that the website will still suffer some delays and outages in the weeks to come. To help consumers left hanging when traffic exceeds capacity, they have created a new "queuing system" to tell consumers when to come back. (Read more: Obamacare: CNBC Explains) Short of a major outage, it may be difficult to immediately measure the administration's success because officials only release enrollment figures once a month. That will make anecdotes from consumers and enrollment groups all the more important. "Even if it's working well, people will encounter problems," said Mark Hall, a Wake Forest University professor of law and public health. "You hope there's more good stories than bad stories." Obama's approval rating drops The abysmal launch of Obamacare has hurt the president and congressional Democrats, with Obama's approval ratings dipping to the lowest point of his presidency. A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week showed 56 percent of Americans disapprove of how Obama is doing his job, while 38 percent approve. If the situation worsens, Democrats could risk losing control of the Senate in 2014, when 20 Democratic senators face reelection, and many are in tight races. Republicans have called for the law to be scrapped because they consider it an unwarranted expansion of the federal government and believe it will push up insurance costs. Obama's chief of staff Denis McDonough now meets every other week with Democratic senators running in 2014 to reassure them Obamacare is on the mend, a White House official said. (Read more: Insurers' Obamacare boon: More reinsurance payouts proposed) The administration has prioritized fixes that consumers see, leaving other parts of the system for a later date. On Wednesday, officials said they would delay online enrollment for small businesses for a year. Obama issued a rare apology earlier this month for mishaps with the rollout. But as Nov. 30 has drawn closer, Obama has become more assertive. "The website is continually working better, so check it out," Obama said in a speech on Tuesday. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, told a group of state and local officials on a call this week that "we are definitely on track to have a significantly different user experience by the end of this month." Insurance companies have also noticed the difference. (Read more: Obamacare tech team tackles turkey of a Web site on Thanksgiving) "I don't expect this to be an overnight change because it appears they have been making improvements as they go," said J. Mario Molina, chief executive of Molina Healthcare , a company offering plans in nine states, including California. "It is easier to navigate. It's working better. It's faster," Molina said. Even if the website does stand up to increased traffic, there are issues on the system's "back end" that need to be addressed. As much as 30 to 40 percent of the site still needs to be built to handle payments and federal subsidies, a federal official told lawmakers earlier this month. And the administration is planning a "soft launch" with small volumes for long-delayed Spanish language enrollment tools for more than 10 million uninsured Latino Americans. Once the website is fixed, the White House also faces the challenge of raising awareness about the law. More than 35 percent of people without insurance say they have heard nothing about the new marketplace, according to polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/trump-administration-wont-commit-to-obamacare-outreach-deals.html

MOH

Molina Healthcare

Trump administration could zap Obamacare enrollment by dropping outreach deals

President Donald Trump walks towards the White House on the South Lawn after disembarking Marine One in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Trump was inaugurated shortly before the end of open enrollment in individual health plans for 2017. The federal Health and Human Services Department, which had been Obamacare's biggest booster, immediately began reversing enrollment promotion efforts for the little time that remained in the sign-up season. Those efforts seemed to be at risk with the election of avowed Obamacare opponent Donald Trump as president last November. For the past four years each fall, the Obama administration had coordinated its open-enrollment promotion efforts with a wide array of churches, advocacy groups and private companies. And if those subsidies, known as cost-sharing reduction payments, are ended, insurers could end up charging individual plan customers much higher premiums next year. The administration's stance, coupled with its similar refusal to commit to key Obamacare subsidies to insurers through next year, could result in fewer people signing up for health coverage in the individual insurance plans for 2018 after open enrollment starts in November. The Trump administration refused Monday to commit to partnering with outside groups to promote enrollment in Obamacare health plans, potentially reversing four years of those cooperative efforts. That pullback may have contributed to the first-ever drop in enrollment in Obamacare plans. On Monday, a story on the news site Talking Points Memo reported there was no sign that the Trump administration would work with outside groups this fall to encourage people to sign up for health insurance for 2018. That's despite the fact the Affordable Care Act requires nearly all Americans to have some form of health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Amanda Hooper, the National Women's Law Center's director of engagement and mobilization, told CNBC that "we have no indication from them that there will be reach out," as the Obama administration did with that organization every year since 2013. "It is the silence that is speaking volumes," said Hooper, noting that the Obama administration would start reaching out to the law center and other groups in the summer to prepare for the fall enrollment season. "We are very interested in hearing what their plans are," Hooper said of the Trump administration. CNBC reached out to HHS and asked whether the Trump administration would end the long-standing partnership, and, if so, why. In response, HHS spokeswoman Alleigh Marrè said, "As Obamacare continues to collapse, the administration is considering its options on how to address the challenges Americans are facing by cancelled plans, higher costs, and failing markets." Hooper said that even if the Trump administration doesn't want help from the National Women's Law Center in boosting Obamacare enrollment, the group will continue outreach efforts on its own to potential insurance customers. "We will be sure to get the message to clarify for people that [Obamacare] is still here, and you should still sign up ... we will let people know when to sign up," Hooper said. "Obamacare is the law of the land." She said that in past years her group, which received no federal funding for its Obamacare promotion efforts, worked in tandem with other advocacy groups to encourage sign-ups. One example of that was a Facebook Live event in December hosted by the NWLC, with participation from the Center for American Progress, the National Partnership for Women and Families, and Raising Women's Voices, as well as two members of the Obama administration. "The video reached 168,000 people and has been viewed 16,000 times," Hooper said. In addition to being coy about its open-enrollment promotion strategy, the Trump administration has refused to say whether the cost-sharing reduction, or CSR, payments will continue being made to insurers through 2018. Those CSR payments, worth billions of dollars, compensate insurers for discounts in out-of-pocket health-care charges offered to low- and middle-income Obamacare customers. Trump has threatened to end the CSR payments. But if the payments end, insurers would still be legally responsible for giving the discounts to qualified customers, cutting into the insurers' bottom lines. That, in turn, would lead insurers to seek higher premiums from customers to cover their operating costs. Late last week, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees Obamacare, gave insurers almost three extra weeks to submit their proposed prices for individual 2018 plans because of the lack of certainty about the CSRs. The new deadline for proposed Obamacare premiums is now Sept. 5. Meanwhile, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to release a report Tuesday that will outline the risks of terminating the CSR payments. The analysis, which is being done in conjunction with the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, will look at the impact on the federal budget, health insurance coverage, market stability and premiums. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Saturday reported that insurers in Ohio have begun filing new, much-higher premium rate increase requests with state regulators in case Trump ends the CSR payments. The newspaper noted that insurers already were asking for price hikes averaging 20 percent or more for next year. But the state insurance department asked for new requests that assume an end to CSR payments, as well as other factors. One insurer, Molina Healthcare of Ohio, said last week that it wants to add an extra 21.4 percent average price increase on top of its existing request of a 24 percent increase, according to the Plain Dealer. Paramount Insurance filed an average rate hike of 35.9 percent assuming an end to the CSRs, and Summa said it would need to raise prices of its most popular individual plans by an average of 41.1 percent, the newspaper said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/25/centene-sees-strong-obamacare-profits-amid-headline-noise-of-repeal.html

MOH

Molina Healthcare

Largest Obamacare insurer sees strong profits in ACA market despite 'headline noise' of repeal

Centene CEO Michael Neidorff said he remains bullish on the Obamacare exchange business, and he's confident congressional leaders won't pull the plug on people who have gained health coverage over the last three years. Neidorff's comments came just hours before Senate Republicans voted by a narrow margin to begin debate on repealing the Affordable Care Act. "I genuinely believe in the time I've spent in Washington, that there is not the appetite across the broad perspective of both houses to take the most vulnerable populations and leave them without insurance, when there are programs that are working very well," Neidorff said on the company's second-quarter earnings conference call, referring to much of the political wrangling between the White House and Congress as "headline noise." Centene reported a quarterly profit of $1.42 per share, on an adjusted basis, well above the Thomson Reuters analyst expectations for $1.32 per share. Revenue of $11.95 billion also exceeded analyst estimates. The company said profit margins on its marketplace exchange plans exceeded its expectations, contributing 12 cents per share to earnings. So far, medical costs on its exchange plans remain in line with its projections. Centene specializes in Medicaid plans, but has grown over the last three years to become the nation's largest insurer on ACA marketplaces, with more than 1.1 million insured in six states this year. The company plans to expand coverage to three more states in 2018. Executives also told analysts that its Medicare Advantage plans for seniors are also performing well, and that they plan to increase spending on expanding that part of its business into markets where it will be offering individual health plans for individuals under 65 years of age. Centene's expansion plans stand in contrast to its smaller Medicaid and Obamacare exchange rival Molina Health's announcement to employees Monday that the firm will be cutting 10 percent of its workforce over the next two months, in an effort cut costs. Molina's acting CEO, Joe White, told employees in a memo obtained by CNBC that the firm would cut 1,400 jobs across all levels, "from senior leader to front line staff," in order to improve the company's operations and financial performance. A spokesperson for Molina said the company would not comment on the job cuts, first reported by Reuters. Shares of Molina Health were recently down more than 1 percent. Centene shares surged more than 5 percent in opening trade to a historic high of $87.94 before edging lower during the session, as the Senate geared up for an afternoon procedural vote on dismantling Obamacare. Shares of Anthem , which reports second-quarter earnings Wednesday, remained fractionally positive. Centene, Anthem and Molina are among the last of the publicly traded insurers who are still planning to offer health coverage in the individual exchange marketplaces next year, despite the continuing regulatory uncertainty over the rules which will govern Obamacare plans. With just over three months until 2018 open enrollment is scheduled to begin, insurers still don't know whether the Trump administration will commit to funding cost-reduction subsidies known as CSRs, whether the individual mandate to buy coverage will remain in effect, or whether the Trump administration will try to boost enrollment next year. Centene's Neidorff urged officials to maintain funding for cost-sharing reduction subsidies, which reduce out-of-pocket costs for lower-income Obamacare enrollees. "At the state and federal level, leadership understands that to eliminate the CSRs is to create havoc to the insured marketplace," he said. "We are corporately convinced that when the dust settles, there will be subsidies in some form." As for the near-term uncertainty about the 2018 marketplace, insurers have until Sept. 27 to make their final commitment on exchanges for next year. Neidorff said he's willing to wait until the rules are firmed up over the next couple of months. "To try do the 'what ifs' — that's where you end up with what I call paralysis by analysis," he said. "So, as we get closer, we'll continue to look at the facts and we'll make those decisions based on where we are."

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/health-insurer-stock-fall-after-trump-administration-seeks-aca-overturn.html

MOH

Molina Healthcare

Health insurer stocks fall after Trump administration seeks overturn of Affordable Care Act

Participants hold signs in New York, NY while protesting efforts to repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act on July 29, 2017. Health insurers came under pressure Tuesday after the Trump administration asked the courts to completely overturn the Affordable Care Act, going beyond its prior position in a Texas lawsuit pending in the court of appeals fifth circuit. The biggest decliners were Molina Health , which fell nearly 10 percent during Tuesday's session, and Centene which fell nearly 5 percent. The two insurers are among the most highly exposed to the Obamacare Medicaid and individual exchange markets. In December, a federal judge in Texas ruled that the ACA was no longer valid, after Republicans in Congress overturned the individual mandate tax penalty for not having insurance. Previously, the Trump administration had argued that only the law's pre-existing conditions and coverage requirement were invalidated. But the Department of Justice changed course in a filing Monday, saying the whole law should be thrown out. "We said before that the district court's decision was misguided and wrong. So, too, is the government's reversal to now support it," said Matt Eyles, the president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans said in a statement, criticizing the administration's position. The government's move won't have an immediate impact on market regulations, because the case will likely make its way to the Supreme Court. However, the renewed questions about the fate of Obamacare comes as insurers are preparing to file rates for 2020. "Increased uncertainty around the outcome of pending court cases may impact rates," said Dave Dillon, a fellow of the Society of Actuaries, adding " If the markets are perceived as being more volatile… carriers could increase rates to help address these uncertainties." Repealing and replacing Obamacare was a key campaign promise by President Donald Trump, but the administration's efforts to pass legislation came up short in 2017. Analysts say it would be difficult to undo all the pieces of the law in one fell swoop if the courts overturned it, but the administration's new legal position comes in the midst of aggressive regulatory reforms on drug prices which is already creating uncertainty. The Affordable Care Act gives the Health and Human Services secretary tremendous discretion over health care market matters. The Trump administration has used Medicaid waivers built in the legislation, to allow Republican states to add work requirements for Medicaid recipients. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation is one of the law's key creations, which allows the administration to experiment with new payments models, like President Trump's proposal to base Medicare Part B drug prices on international prices for pharmaceuticals. "CMMI is the most powerful tool that an executive has right now to reform health care … If you repeal the ACA, that would go away," said professor Craig Garthwaite, of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Without the measure, the Trump administration might lose the executive authority to carry out one of its proposals to bring down drug prices, basing Medicare Part B pharmaceutical reimbursement rates on lower international drug prices. "That's a pretty big administration initiative to reform how we pay for all Medicare Part B drugs," explained Garthwaite. "Technically, it's a pilot. Half the country would have it, and half wouldn't to start with. CMMI is supposed to be a vehicle for testing these things … They would lose the statutory ability to do that," he said. While legislation repealing the ACA would likely build in a transition period for moving to a new system, if the law were overturned, that time frame might not happen in the same way. "Could you reset the clock and go back to the status of federal payment … pre-ACA?" asked Katherine Hempstead, senior policy advisor at eh Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "The ACA is very interwoven into many aspects of the health care financing and delivery system now, in ways that I think are pretty hard to unravel." She notes that the law changed payment models to hospitals and Medicaid funding for states that expanded the safety net program to the working poor. President Trump, meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill, defended his administration's decision, declaring "The Republican party will be known as the party of health care." The party's failed efforts to repeal the ACA in 2017 in many ways helped make health care a top concern for voters last year, leading to the Democrats winning a majority in the House of representatives. "Be careful what you wish for, because I think people are really holding their federal and state policy makers accountable to improve the situation," when it comes to health prices, said Hempstead.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/03/your-first-trade-for-wednesday-may-3.html

MOH

Molina Healthcare

Your first trade for Wednesday, May 3

The "Fast Money" traders shared their first moves for the market open. Tim Seymour was a buyer of Yahoo . Karen Finerman said not to buy Molina Healthcare . Dan Nathan was a buyer of the PowerShares technology ETF (QQQ). Guy Adami was a buyer of Xilinx . Trader disclosure: On May 2nd, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Tim Seymour is long ABX, AAPL, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, C, CLF, CVX, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWN, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD, MAT, MOS, MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, SQ,T, TWTR, VALE, VRX, VZ, XOM. Short: EEM, SPY, XRT; Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EEM, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, TCEHY, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG, HYG, IWM. Karen Finerman is long AAL, BAC, BAC; short calls, C, DAL, EEM, EPI, EWW, DVYE, FB, FL, GLMP, GOGO, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS calls, KORS puts, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, TACO, WFM. Her firm is long ANTM, BAC, C, C calls, FB, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, PLCE, SPY puts, SPY put spreads, WIFI; her firm is short IWM, MDY. Dan Nathan is long SPY May put spread, XLV long June put, XLI long June put spread, XRT long June put. Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/30/data-shows-improvement-on-the-jobs-front.html

MOH

Molina Healthcare

Data shows improvement on the jobs front

I said Wednesday the chances of a Fed rate hike in June were extremely small, and I still believe that. But the very low initial claims report for this week (262,000 vs. 290,000 expected) may be a sign that March's low nonfarm payroll report will be revised upward—which is certainly a requirement for the Fed to even consider a hike. The Employment Cost Index, which measures the cost of labor for businesses, was up 0.7 percent quarter over quarter, better than an expected 0.6 percent increase. It rose 2.6 percent year-over-year, another sign of modest wage pressures. The dollar strengthened, and the 10-year Treasury yields rose on the news. Elsewhere: 1) Energy has turned from loser to winner, while healthcare is flat. Energy, which was the loser for the year going into April, has turned into one of the gainers as oil went from $48 to $59 a barrel. Healthcare was the big gainer going into April, but a volatile month for biotech combined with some real down moves in other sectors. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF is flat . Sectors in April Energy: up 7 percent Tech: up 3.9 percent Materials: up 3.9 percent Industrials: up 0.8 percent Healthcare: flat Indeed it's not biotech that investors should be looking at; the bloom is off the rose for many sub-sectors of healthcare, including pharmacy benefits managers like CVS Health (down 2.3 percent for the month), HMOs like Health Net (down 11 percent), managed Medicaid providers like Molina (down 11 percent), and device makers like Medtronic (down 2.9 percent) Much of this seems to be simple de-risking toward the end of the month. Healthcare as a group was the big winner this year and was a very long trade.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/18/gop-obamacare-retreat-will-hit-insurers-on-the-tax-front.html

MOH

Molina Healthcare

GOP Obamacare retreat will hit insurers on the tax front

For health insurers, the biggest fallout from the GOP's retreat from health reform will be the scheduled return of the Obamacare health insurance fee next year, after a one-year suspension. UnitedHealth executives called it the chief drag on their results next year. "The return of the insurance fee will be the single largest headwind in 2018," said Stephen Hemsley, UnitedHealth CEO, on the company's earnings conference call, though he added that the company has included the tax in its rate submissions for next year. The tax affects all private health insurance plans, including exchange plans, employer coverage and Medicare Advantage plans. Insurers have argued that it has contributed to higher insurance rates under Obamacare. "Despite the return of the tax and program funding pressures at large, we do intend to keep our benefit offerings as stable as possible," he said. UnitedHealth's shares rose on the day, after the insurance giant reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings, and medical cost controls were boosted by its exit from the Obamacare exchanges this year. Shares of UnitedHealth's rivals — Aetna , Cigna , Anthem and Humana — all fell Tuesday. Analysts say investors had begun to price in the potential for an earnings boost in 2018 from the GOP repeal of the fee. "The big (insurers) were generally insulated from coverage effects of repeal but would have benefited from health insurer fee repeal," said analyst Michael Newshel of Evercore ISI. "Humana, in particular, had earnings upside from the health insurance fee repeal … and so is underperforming today." The insurers most highly tied to Obamacare's individual exchange market and Medicaid expansion bucked the trend and actually gained on the session. Centene rose 0.9 percent, while Molina Healthcare edged up 0.4 percent. Ironically, the major Obamacare exchange insurers Centene, Anthem and Molina have been the biggest gainers among the health insurers year to date, as opposition to the House and Senate repeal bills has grown. "For the last 3-4 months the story on health care has been very positive," said William Herkelrath, manager at TIM Group, a financial data and trade ideas network for investment banks and brokerages. "We haven't seen any ebbs and flows as political moments happen." Herkelrath said investors have been consistently bullish on the near-term fundamentals for health care. "All the comments are based on fundamentals — that near-term earnings are going to be strong," he said. "Whatever happens is going to take a long time to play out." Among insurers, equity sales side traders have grown most bullish on Humana, in the wake of its merger with Aetna being dissolved, according to data from TIM Group. Investors and insurers aren't the only ones watching the next steps from Washington on Obamacare taxes. Large employers had been hoping that the Senate would repeal the so-called Cadillac excise tax on high-cost insurance plans. "It's going to make tax reform a trillion dollars tougher," without repealing Obamacare, said James Gelfand, the ERISA Industry Committee's vice president of health policy. Large employers lobbied hard to maintain the current tax exemption for employer health benefits, but Gelfand thinks the fight may only get harder. "It's creating a giant risk that members of Congress will create a new tax in employer-sponsored health insurance benefits," he said. "We are extremely vulnerable heading into tax reform."

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/02/here-is-why-beer-prices-are-going-up-according-to-our-data.html

TAP

Molson Coors Beverage Company

Here's how the price of your beer has changed over time

Beer isn't as much of a bargain as it used to be. Americans are drinking fewer brews, and the sector is steadily losing market share to spirits. Beer companies, faced with rising operating costs in areas like packaging and transportation, have raised prices and seen bigger profits, with consumers footing the bill. The price of beer bought at retail locations such as grocery stores rose 5.9% for the 12 months through April 2023 compared with the prior year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rate topped the overall 4.9% inflation for the same period. Since 2000, retail beer consumed at home has increased more than 72%. The cost of beer has climbed even more for people drinking outside the home, jumping 102% during that time.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/02/brewers-embrace-dry-january-as-us-beer-consumption-declines.html

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Molson Coors Beverage Company

Brewers embrace Dry January as US beer consumption declines

Americans are drinking less beer, encouraged by trends like Dry January. But brewers like Molson Coors Beverage and Heineken are trying to use the monthlong sobriety challenge to promote their beer. Dry January started in the United Kingdom in 2013. Since then, the movement has spread worldwide, including the United States, where overall alcohol consumption continues to fall. Over one-fifth of Americans participated in Dry January in 2019, according to Nielsen. And some consumers, dubbed "sober curious," are also making an effort to reduce their alcohol intake during the other 11 months of the year. That shift, as well as competition from other kinds of alcohol, is hitting beer companies. U.S. beer volumes declined by 1.6% in 2018, according to data from IWSR. The firm, which tracks alcohol trends, found that cider and hard seltzers are taking share from beer. Younger consumers are drinking less overall, including beer. But all hope is not lost for brewers. No- and low-alcohol beer is the fifth-fastest growing type of beer in the U.S., according to Nielsen. According to IWSR data, the most frequent consumers of low- and no-alcohol drinks are between 21 to 44 years old — an age bracket that mostly includes millennials, with some Generation X consumers — and male. Molson Coors is promoting its low-alcohol beer Miller64 through an advertising campaign, starring Nicholas Braun of "Succession," asking consumers to participate in "Dry-ish January." Miller64, which relaunched in September, is aimed at health-conscious drinkers with its low-calorie count. The campaign comes as Molson Coors tries to adapt to consumers' shifting tastes — even by changing the company name. In January, the company's name changed from Molson Coors Brewing Co. to Molson Coors Beverage Co. It also announced a restructuring effort that will result in 400 to 500 lost jobs. Heineken launched its nonalcoholic beer, Heineken 0.0, in the U.S. in January last year. This year, the brewer is giving away cans of the alcohol-free beer in its January Dry Pack. Customers can claim the free 31-pack at januarydrypack.com. Anheuser-Busch InBev tested Budweiser 0.0 in certain U.S. markets in 2019. The drink launched in India last year, but the company has not shared any plans to introduce it stateside. Anheuser-Busch's nonalcoholic portfolio also includes O'Doul's, the best known alcohol-free beer in the U.S.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/40151506

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Molson Coors Beverage Company

Early Glance: Beverages companies

Shares of some top beverages companies are down at 10 a.m.: Coca-Cola fell $.12 or .2 percent, to $62.68. Molson Coors fell $.29 or .6 percent, to $49.01. PepsiCo fell $.20 or .3 percent, to $64.70.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/37066136

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Molson Coors Beverage Company

Midday Glance: Beverages companies

Shares of some top beverages companies are up at noon: Coca-Cola rose $1.27 or 2.4 percent, to $53.94. Molson Coors rose $1.51 or 3.6 percent, to $43.47. PepsiCo rose $1.84 or 2.8 percent, to $66.41.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/37062739

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Molson Coors Beverage Company

Early Glance: Beverages companies

Shares of some top beverages companies are up at 10 a.m.: Coca-Cola rose $1.22 or 2.3 percent, to $53.89. Molson Coors rose $1.31 or 3.1 percent, to $43.27. PepsiCo rose $1.65 or 2.6 percent, to $66.22.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/calls-of-the-day-general-electric-molson-coors-deere.html

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Molson Coors Beverage Company

Here are the biggest analyst calls of the day: General Electric, Molson Coors, Deere & more

Citi downgraded L Brands on its view that its Victoria's Secret brand may not see a turnaround. "Our former (positive) view on the stock was based on our belief that a turnaround at VS could be successful if the brand adopted a more inclusive approach. However, with mgmt slow to implement meaningful change, and cultural norms shifting away from them, it may be too little too late for VS (to execute a turnaround the way we hoped)."

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/25/these-are-the-most-hated-stocks-on-wall-street.html

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Molson Coors Beverage Company

These are the most hated stocks on Wall Street

As the market stalls near a record, CNBC Pro screened the S & P 500 for stocks that analysts and investors dislike the most right now. For investors navigating the bumpy trading in the market, these names could be particularly vulnerable to volatility and overall market weakness. Here's the criteria we used for the screening process, using data from FactSet: Buy ratings by less than 50% of analysts Analysts' average price target for the next 12 months is predicting a decline Elevated short interest (above 5% of float shares) Telecom firm Lumen Technologies is one of the most hated stocks, with Wall Street analysts seeing a more than 20% decline in the next 12 months on average. Only about six analysts have a buy rating on the stock. Shares of Lumen Technologies have rallied more than 40% this year alone. Classic reopening trade American Airlines is also among the least popular stocks on Wall Street. Analysts are predicting a 23% drop from here after the stock rebounded nearly 50% this year. The stock also has relatively high short interest, with FactSet data showing 14% of American's float shares sold short. Gap — another stocks tied to a successful reopening — is also hated by analysts on valuation concerns. The retailer has climbed more than 60% in 2021 as the company called for net sales to return to a more normalized level in the second half of the year. Other consumer names like Kroger and Molson Coors Beverage are also on the list. To be sure, recent market behavior has shown that it's not always bad news to be a hated stock on Wall Street. Case in point — GameStop, the stock with the highest short interest earlier this year, managed to pull off a jaw-dropping rally thanks to a band of enthusiastic retail investors. But in this case, these shares could be vulnerable if analysts and hedge funds turn out correct. Traders on the floor of the NYSE. Source: NYSE

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/28/coca-cola-one-top-staples-stock-this-month-could-get-even-hotter.html

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Molson Coors Beverage Company

One of the best-performing staples stocks this month could get even hotter

Consumer staples stocks have been in the express checkout lane this month. The XLP , the ETF that tracks consumer staples stocks, is up more than 1% in August and has bucked the S&P 500's 3% drop. Its top performers include Tyson Foods , Coca-Cola , Kroger , Estee Lauder , Kellogg and Costco . Gains in those stocks have been enough to offset losses in some of its laggards including Coty , J.M. Smucker , Monster , Archer-Daniels , and Molson Coors . It's about to get even better for one of the top performers, said Matt Maley, equity strategist at Miller Tabak "One I like most on a technical basis is Coca-Cola," he told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Tuesday. "Its earnings were actually in line in February, but their guidance was lower than expected, and the stock got crushed, but it held that $44.50 level. In fact, it bounced very strongly off of it, and rallied strongly up through its old highs of 2018, and beat those highs by a considerable margin with a series of higher lows and higher highs." Coca Cola is up 4% this month, and Maley said the soda company has a protection element in case markets continue to swing. "This is a stock that, I would also mention pays a 3% dividend, so gives you a little protection if the stock market becomes more volatile again, but also provides some more upside, but again you have to pick your spots a little bit more nowadays in this group," Maley said. The overall sector still has enough strength to keep the rally going, he added. "If you look at the broad group, it still looks quite good," Maley said. "We had a nice double bottom late last year with the December low. It's rallied strongly since then, making a series of higher highs and higher lows." Its double bottom and that string of higher lows suggest to Maley that the XLP ETF may continue to build on strong momentum. "Late in the spring, it broke above its old 2018 all-time highs by a considerable margin. It did see another dip during the summer, but it held that old high, so that new support held very nicely, and it has bounced again," Maley said. Chad Morganlander, portfolio manager at Washington Crossing Advisors, is also putting this sector in his shopping cart. "We're well over two times exposure to the consumer staples sector. ... In the big-picture perspective, the global macro backdrop, we still continue to believe this is an ideal sector to be overweight," said Morganlander. Consumer staples is the third best-performing sector this year, having risen more than 18%, and Morganlander says you can find many names within the XLP that provide safety "You can find many companies that are consistently growing, consistently profitable, well-capitalized, meaning they don't have a lot of debt on their balance sheet," Morganlander said. "They're paying a rising dividend with great consistency. So yes, there may be many companies that are individually overvalued within the sector, but as a whole sector in aggregate, we would be overweight this, and we think that it's going to continue to outperform over the course of the next six to 12 months." The staples sector is one of the top dividend-paying groups, yielding an average 2.8%. By comparison, the S&P 500 yields 2%. Disclosure: Washington Crossing Advisors is overweight consumer staples. Disclaimer

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/07/stocks-making-the-biggest-moves-midday-netflix-united-airlines-levi-strauss-more.html

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Molson Coors Beverage Company

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Netflix, United Airlines, Levi Strauss & more

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. SunPower — Shares of the solar company jumped more than 13% to a new 52-week high after Piper Sandler initiated coverage on the stock with an overweight rating. The firm called SunPower a "favorite idea," noting that it has "a path toward generating positive operating cash flow nearer-term, generating FCF longer-term, and decreasing net recourse debt to <$0 while reducing its reliance on capital markets." Netflix — Shares of the streaming service provider jumped more than 4% after Pivotal Research lifted its price target on the stock to a Street high of $650. "The larger their subscriber base grows ... the more they can spend on original content, which increases the potential target market for their service (and reduces existing subscriber churn) + enhances their ability to take future price increases," the firm said. Carnival , Norwegian Cruise Line , Royal Caribbean — Shares of the major U.S. cruise operators moved higher on the back of optimism around additional fiscal stimulus. Carnival and Norwegian gained 2% each, while Royal Caribbean rose 1.2%. Levi Strauss — Shares of the retailer gained 7% after the company reported stronger-than-expected third quarter results. Levi Strauss earned 8 cents per share on an adjusted basis, compared with the 22-cent loss analysts surveyed by Refinitiv expected. The retailer said it saw a 52% jump in digital sales during the quarter. Molson Coors — Shares of Molson Coors jumped 4% after Guggenheim called the beverage maker a "best idea." The Wall Street firm reiterated its buy rating on Molson Coors and said it's bullish on the company's new launch of Topo Chico Hard Seltzer. Guggenheim also expects the company to reinstate its dividend during the second quarter of 2021. American Airlines , United Airlines , Delta Air , Southwest — Shares of the major U.S. airlines rose on Wednesday after President Donald Trump said he would sign a stand alone aid package for the industry. American Airlines and Delta advanced 3.7% and 2.2%, respectively. Southwest Airlines gained 1.6% and Alaska Air Group rose 2.6%. The group also got a boost after JPMorgan upgraded several names. Boeing — Shares of Boeing jumped nearly 4%, rebounding from sharp losses in the previous session. The stock fell 6.8% Tuesday after Boeing slashed its 10-year forecast for new aircraft demand by 11%. Separately, the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday issued new proposed training procedures for Boeing's grounded 737 MAX, a key milestone to the plane's eventual return to service. Sirius XM — The satellite radio company gained 4.2% after Credit Suisse upgraded the stock to outperform from neutral. The firm said in a note that it thinks the stock has priced in much of the concerns around competition from Spotify and the potential departure of Howard Stern. American Eagle Outfitters — The retailer jumped more than 6% after an upgrade to overweight at Barclays. The firm said American Eagle Outfitters should "materially benefit from sales recovery." DraftKings — Shares of the sports gaming company fell 4.1% after DraftKings announced the pricing of a secondary stock offering at $52 per share, and after there were more positive Covid-19 test results in the NFL. ESPN reported that there were additional positive tests for the Tennessee Titans and New England Patriots, raising concerns about two of this week's games. - CNBC's Yun Li, Maggie Fitzgerald and Jesse Pound contributed reporting. Subscribe to CNBC PRO for exclusive insights and analysis, and live business day programming from around the world.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/18/shorting-cannabis-stocks-is-getting-costly.html

TAP

Molson Coors Beverage Company

Shorting cannabis stocks is getting costly

An employee checks nearly matured medical marijuana plants in a climate controlled growing room at the Tweed Inc. facility in Smith Falls, Ontario, Canada, on Nov. 11, 2015. Betting against cannabis stocks has come with large losses and big fees this summer. A case in point: Aurora Cannabis. Short sellers, investors who profit when a stock price falls, have poured into the Canadian cannabis company's stock since the start of August. The number of shares shorted rose 76 percent over that period. Their price, though, has climbed 46 percent, including an 18 percent gain Monday after BNN Bloomberg reported that Coca-Cola had held talks with Aurora to develop beverages. That rise has cost short sellers $50 million over the past six weeks, according to S3 Partners, a financial technology and analytics firm. Since the start of August, shares of publicly traded pot stocks have gained 30 percent, on average, according to IHS Markit. Over that period, short sellers have lost $626 million, according to S3 Partners. More from The New York Times: Chinese I.P.O.s are bringing casino trading to New York Business titans turn their backs on the G.O.P. Trump's trade war finally hits consumers What has driven the rally? Deregulation and interest from some of the biggest beverage companies in the world. As cannabis becomes legal in more countries — in Canada, for example, recreational use will become legal on Oct. 17 — beverage companies are trying to buy into the industry before they become disrupted by it. This summer, Constellation Brands, which makes Robert Mondavi wine and Svedka vodka, invested $4 billion in Canopy Growth, a publicly traded Canadian cannabis producer. Heineken's Lagunitas brand has started selling nonalcoholic sparkling water featuring THC, the active component of marijuana. And Molson Coors has formed a joint venture with Hexo, a weed producer, to make cannabis-infused beverages. The industry has attracted enough interest from beverage companies that Riposte Capital this month called on Hexo to sell itself or seek a direct investment from Molson Coors. The industry's skeptics haven't given up in the face of this run-up. Over the last two weeks, short sellers have increased their bets against a number of cannabis companies, but the bets come with high costs. Short sellers borrow shares and then sell them in the hopes of buying them back later at a lower price to profit on the difference. Those lending the shares charge a fee, which can go up as it becomes more difficult to get ahold of the shares. That's the problem facing those shorting cannabis stocks: There are few shares to borrow. The $1.5 billion short bet against cannabis stocks is costing $2.4 million a day, or 200 times more than an equivalently sized bet against a basket of stocks including Apple, Amazon, IBM and Goldman Sachs, said Ihor Dusaniwsky, head of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/mondelez-to-take-majority-stake-in-perfect-bar-parent-perfect-snacks.html

MDLZ

Mondelez International

Oreo-owner Mondelez to take majority stake in Perfect Bar-parent, Perfect Snacks

Oreo-owner Mondelez is taking a majority stake in Perfect Snacks, the owner of refrigerated protein bar Perfect Bar, the companies announced on Wednesday. The deal gives Mondelez a further foothold into snacking as more people eat on-the-go. It comes on the heels of its roughly $500 million acquisition of premium cookie brand, Tate's Bake Shop, in 2018 and the innovation hub it launched for new snacking brands, SnackFutures, the same year. Perfect Snacks has roughly $70 million in sales and is posting double-digit growth year-over-year. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. For the Keith family, the deal is an achievement. Bill Keith, along with six of his 13 siblings, founded the company in 2005, when their father was diagnosed with cancer and they needed a way to support themselves. The Perfect Bar recipe is based on a treat their dad, who has since passed, made the family to try to get the kids to swallow their vitamin supplements. "We started the company to save our family," Keith explained. Since then, Perfect Snacks has expanded beyond their "Original Refrigerated Protein Bar," an organic, non-GMO nut-butter-based protein bar into a kids' line and bite-sized Perfect Bites. As bars and snacking have exploded in popularity, Perfect Snacks continues to distinguish itself by the refrigeration its products require, which the Keith family says helps offer a fresher product. As a whole, refrigerated snacks like soup, hummus and yogurt, generate roughly $20 billion in annual sales, according to Mintel. Mondelez sees an opportunity to further expand in the segment, said Glen Walter, executive vice president of Mondelez and president of North America. "There is still a lot of runway in building overall category leadership in refrigerated snacking," he said. Mondelez, which also owns BelVita and Toblerone, has spoken openly about its intent to push further into snacking through its own products, as well as through dealmaking, should the opportunity arise. "We want to take a very disciplined approach. We've studied the market and we're looking at different targets. We think we have a great deal of opportunity in our business ... and we will continue to take a disciplined approach to explore opportunities that make sense to exploit the advantages we have," said Walter. After the sale, Bill, Leigh and Charisse Keith, as well as the rest of the company's leadership team, will continue to run the business out of its San Diego, California headquarters. The company's manufacturing operations will also stay in place.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/mondelez-ceo-dirk-van-de-put-outlines-long-term-strategy.html

MDLZ

Mondelez International

Oreo cookie maker Mondelez outlines new snack strategy, financial targets

Snack food giant Mondelez International on Friday affirmed its earnings targets for the year and provided new forecasts for 2019 as new CEO Dirk Van de Put outlined the snack giant's long-term strategy at its annual investor day in Boston. In his first interview since taking the helm last year, Van de Put told CNBC that Mondelez is undervalued. Shares slid 3.3 percent Friday and have dipped nearly 2 percent this year. "We are at the moment a biscuit, chocolate, gum and candy company. But if you think about Oreos, where you already can see the example, Oreos is in ice cream, Oreo's in yogurt, you can find Oreo brownie," Van de Put said. "So we have brands that can play across these categories and we're gonna do a bigger driver towards that also." The maker of Nabisco biscuits, Ritz crackers and Chips Ahoy cookies expects revenue to grow 1 percent to 2 percent this year. It also plans to buy back approximately $2 billion in shares. For next year, Mondelez anticipates revenue to rise by 2 percent to 3 percent and adjusted earnings per share to grow by 3 percent to 5 percent. The company is projecting approximately $2.8 billion in free cash flow. Over the long term, Mondelez said, it's targeting annual revenue growth of 3 percent or more, adjusted earnings per share in the "high-single" digits, free cash flow of $3 billion or more and dividend growth that outpaces adjusted earnings per share growth. Its revenue forecasts are "organic," meaning they exclude fluctuations in sales from acquisitions or divestitures. Mondelez gave its financial targets as it unveiled a new tagline, "snacking made right." The company said this builds on Mondelez's promise to offer consumers "the right snack, for the right moment, made the right way." The new strategy comes as Van de Put settles into his new role. He took over as CEO of the snack giant last fall after longtime CEO Irene Rosenfeld retired. The packaged food category has struggled as consumers ditch boxed and canned food in favor of more fresh foods and niche brands. Snacks are a growth opportunity, though, especially among younger consumers.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/28/bernstein-smuckers-mondelez-are-most-unprepared-for-amazon-in-food.html

MDLZ

Mondelez International

Bernstein says Smucker's and Mondelez are the food companies most unprepared for Amazon

J.M. Smucker and Mondelez are the food companies worst positioned to compete with Amazon when it comes to selling their packaged foods online, according to a research note from Bernstein. Amazon has been disrupting retail ever since it only sold books. Now the e-commerce giant is poised to take market share from the giants of the consumer packaged goods industry as more Americans start shopping for food online. Bernstein estimates that e-commerce represents only about 1 percent of U.S. packaged food sales, but that the could grow to 5 or 6 percent in the coming years. Ever since it acquired Whole Foods in 2017, Amazon has been promoting the grocery store's private label brand online, in addition to its private label lines. It has also changed its website to feature its brands more prominently as it experiments with what private label products are selling well. "While we expect private label shelf space to normalize over time as Amazon separates winners from losers, we continue to believe that Amazon's private label could pose a meaningful threat to branded food manufacturers, especially as its 365 Everyday Value Brand is already highly credible with consumers," Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard wrote in the note. McCormick took the top spot in Bernstein's rankings because of its strong online presence and the overall strength of the seasoning category. Seasoning is one of the most profitable food categories, according to the note, because salt and pepper are light weight — saving on shipping costs — but still priced relatively high per unit. By its estimates, chocolate is another highly profitable category, helping Hershey take the second spot in the rankings. Bernstein also noted that the company has invested heavily in digital strategies. Smucker's, which owns Folgers Coffee and distributes Dunkin' Donuts coffee, is the worst positioned because rivals are doing a better job of hawking their wares online, Bernstein said. Mondelez ranked second-worst, with Bernstein saying that the company under-indexes its cookie brands like Oreo and Chips Ahoy online. Kellogg , General Mills , Kraft Heinz and Campbell Soup landed in the middle of Bernstein's rankings. Many food companies have argued that shifting to selling online hasn't been affecting their margins, but Howard says that can't be true. To keep up with the shift to e-commerce, brands have to sell more of their products in bulk, list sponsored products and participate in Amazon programs like Prime Pantry. Some companies are also teaming up with the e-commerce giant to launch exclusive brands available only on Amazon. Equal, the sweetener brand, announced a partnership with Amazon on Monday to develop an exclusive line of sugar substitutes. WATCH: How Amazon's Whole Foods deal will change the US grocery business

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/01/hershey-rejects-23-billion-mondelez-takeover-offer.html

MDLZ

Mondelez International

Hershey rejects $23 billion Mondelez takeover offer

Hershey said on Thursday it had rejected a $23 billion takeover bid by Mondelez International that would seek to expand the latter's limited U.S. footprint and create the world's largest confectioner. The snub underscores the challenges Mondelez Chief Executive Irene Rosenfeld faces in wooing Hershey's controlling shareholder, the Hershey Trust, a $12 billion charity created by the eponymous company's founder a century ago. The maker of Hershey's Kisses and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups saw its shares trade above Mondelez's bid of $107 per share in cash and stock, indicating investors expected a new offer. A merger of two of the world's top five candy makers would add Hershey's strong U.S. business to Mondelez's global footprint. Earlier, a source said that Mondelez had sought to provide assurances to Hershey that it would keep its name and preserve jobs. Mondelez sees little antitrust risk given the limited geographic overlap of the two companies' businesses, the source added. "The board of directors of the company unanimously rejected the indication of interest and determined that it provided no basis for further discussion between Mondelez and the company," Hershey said in a statement. Hershey shares ended trading on Thursday up 16.8 percent at $113.49, while Mondelez rose 5.9 percent to $45.51. Mondelez, the maker of Oreos cookies, is the second-largest confectionary company globally, while Hershey ranks number five. Their merger would put them in the top place at 18 percent of the market, according to market research firm Euromonitor International Ltd. The combined company would leapfrog Mars Inc, which has 13.3 percent of the global market.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/14/mondelez-soars-after-report-that-kraft-heinz-is-planning-to-acquire-it.html

MDLZ

Mondelez International

Mondelez climbs after report that Kraft-Heinz is planning to acquire it

Shares of Mondelez International spiked as much as 12 percent in extended trade Wednesday after a report surfaced that Kraft-Heinz is planning to acquire the snack giant. Bloomberg News reported the merger talk, citing Swiss economic magazine Bilanz. The cookie maker pared its gains and was up less than 6 percent after Reuters reported, citing sources, that Mondelez has not heard from Kraft-Heinz. Mondelez told CNBC that it does not comment on market rumors or speculations. Mondelez separated from Kraft in 2012 and has focused on widening its profit margins by reducing costs through divestitures and asset sales. It is currently in the middle of a $3 billion cost saving program, which runs through 2018. In June, the Hershey board unanimously rejected an offer from Mondelez to acquire the company. At the time, observers speculated Mondelez was seeking the merger in order to remain an independent company and not become a target for acquisition itself. Mondelez had been under pressure from activist investor William Ackman to either grow revenue faster or sell itself to a rival. Kraft-Heinz declined to comment to CNBC. Kraft-Heinz shares gained about 3 percent in extended trade, following the news. Mondelez shares are down a little more than 4 percent year to date, but up slightly more than 3 percent in the past month. —Reuters and CNBC's Christina Cheddar Berk contributed to this report.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/30/stocks-making-the-biggest-moves-after-hours-apple-amd-mondelez.html

MDLZ

Mondelez International

Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Apple, AMD, Mondelez and more

The Apple logo is seen on the window at an Apple Store on January 7, 2019 in Beijing, China. Check out the companies making headlines after the bell: Shares of Apple soared more than 5% in extended trading Tuesday following the release of the tech giant's better-than-expected earnings for the fiscal second-quarter. Tim Cook's company reported earnings per share of $2.46 on revenue of $58.02 billion. Wall Street estimated earnings per share of $2.36 on revenue of $57.37 billion, according to Refinitiv consensus estimates. Apple's iPhone revenue came in at $31.05 billion, slightly lower than the $31.10 billion expected. Services revenue beat estimates of $11.37 billion at $11.45 billion. For the third quarter Apple expects to see revenue between $52.5 billion and $54.5 billion, guiding higher than the $51.94 billion in revenue that analysts had projected. AMD shares surged as much as 7% after hours Tuesday after reporting strong first-quarter earnings and guidance in line with estimates. The semiconductor company earned $1.27 billion in revenue, topping estimates of $1.26 billion. Earnings per share were 6 cents, slightly higher than the forecast of 5 cents per share, according to Refinitiv. Gross margin was in line with estimates at 41%. AMD expects to earn about $1.52 billion in revenue during the company's second quarter. Analysts had projected $1.53 billion in revenue for that period. Shares of Amgen fell as much as 1% after the bell Tuesday despite better-than-expected first-quarter earnings. The biotech copany posted earnings per share of $3.56, beating Refinitiv estimates of $3.48. Revenue came in at $5.56 billion, higher than the $5.54 billion expected by analysts. Mondelez shares seesawed after market close Tuesday after the food company reported mixed first-quarter earnings. The Oreo cookie maker earned $6.54 billion in revenue, compared to the $6.55 billion forecast by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. Earnings per share were 65 cents, topping estimates by 4 cents per share. The snack giant's organic revenue increased 3.7%, beating estimates of a 2.3% increase. Shares of insurance company Chubb ticked 1% higher in extended trading Tuesday following the release of its disappointing first-quarter earnings. Missing on the top and bottom lines, Chubb reported earnings per share of $2.54 on revenue of $6.73 billion. Wall Street expected earnings per share of $2.56 on revenue of $6.86 billion, according to Refinitiv.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/warren-buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-has-been-selling-shares-in-these-stocks-latest-filing-shows.html

MDLZ

Mondelez International

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire trimming holdings, keeping new stock secret

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sold a number of stocks last quarter during the volatile market, according to a new regulatory filing. The Omaha-based conglomerate dumped its remaining $780 million stake in General Motors , a stock Berkshire has been trimming for a few quarters. Berkshire also sold its $650 million stake in materials company Celanese , while exiting smaller positions in United Parcel Service , Johnson & Johnson , Mondelez International and Procter & Gamble. Meanwhile, Berkshire trimmed its stakes in Amazon and Aon slightly, the filing showed. These holdings were still worth more than $1 billion each at the end of September, however. The conglomerate was also downsizing its top bets HP and Chevron . Some of these moves, especially ones involving smaller positions, could have been done by Buffett's investing lieutenants Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who each manage about $15 billion for Berkshire. It was previously revealed that Berkshire was a net seller of publicly traded stocks in the third quarter, buying $1.7 billion worth of equities while selling nearly $7 billion. The S & P 500 shed more than 3% last quarter before bouncing back this month. Besides these moves, the "Oracle of Omaha" kept his top holdings unchanged. Apple continued to be the conglomerate's biggest bet by far, with a value north of $156 billion. Bank of America, American Express, Coca-Cola, Kraft Heinz and Moody's were also Berkshire's longtime holdings. Buffett has been in a defensive mode as of late. Not only was he selling stocks, he was also hoarding a record level of cash. Berkshire's cash pile, mainly parked in short-term Treasury bills, hit $157.2 billion at the end of September thanks to a surge in bond yields. Berkshire has also asked the SEC to keep the details of one or more of its stock holdings confidential.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/mondelez-shares-tumble-after-buffett-says-kraft-heinz-isnt-interested-in-buying-it.html

MDLZ

Mondelez International

Mondelez shares tumble after Buffett says Kraft Heinz isn't interested in buying it

Shares of Mondelez erased earlier gains Wednesday after investing legend Warren Buffett suggested Kraft Heinz isn't interested in buying the snack company. Mondelez's stock was trading about 0.7 percent higher in the morning. It fell 3.1 percent after Buffett's remarks and was down 1.81 percent midday. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is Kraft Heinz's largest shareholder, owning 26.7 percent of outstanding shares, according to FactSet. Buffett was asked if Kraft Heinz would be interested in buying Mondelez on CNBC's "Squawk Alley." "I think the answer is no on that," he said. Analysts have been expecting Kraft Heinz to pursue another merger or acquisition after the company's failed hostile $143 billion takeover bid for Unilever earlier this year. Wall Street has speculated Mondelez could be a possible target. The company was once part of Kraft until it was spun off into a separate snack food company. A Kraft Heinz takeover of Mondelez is one of the "most logical and likely" large-scale mergers and acquisitions in the food industry, RBC Capital's David Palmer wrote in a May research note. "We believe that Mondelez represents the best chance for Kraft Heinz to achieve global scale after the failed Unilever acquisition." But Buffett suggested that buying Mondelez wouldn't help Kraft Heinz negotiate with retailers as they fend off the threat from Amazon and Whole Foods. "That doesn't really help you that much in the fight," he said. The size of the company selling a brand isn't as important to retailers as the strength of the specific brand, Buffett said. What grocers care about is whether products will sell. Buffett quashed rumors that Kraft Heinz would go after a Unilever takeover again. He said the first attempt was a "misunderstanding." "We will not make hostile takeover offers, and we did not intend that to be hostile," Buffett said. "But it turned out it was, and we immediately — the next day when I learned about it — we called it off. It was a misunderstanding." — CNBC's Fred Imbert contributed to this report.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/08/why-warren-buffetts-kraft-heinz-isnt-interested-in-buying-mondelez.html

MDLZ

Mondelez International

Here's why Warren Buffett might not be interested in buying Mondelez

Warren Buffett shocked the food world last month when he said Kraft Heinz isn't interested in buying Mondelez . Buffett is a co-investor in Kraft with its owner Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital. 3G has made a name for itself acquiring well-known consumer companies and squeezing out costs. The food industry's favorite parlor game over the past year has been guessing what Kraft's next acquisition will be, and many had placed their bets on Mondelez, which owns such brands as Oreo cookies. Mondelez was part of Kraft until it was spun off into a separate company in 2012. Buffett was asked in an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Alley" whether Kraft would be interested in buying Mondelez. "I think the answer is no on that," he said. Buffett's answer left analysts at RBC Capital Markets "pretty confused," the firm's David Palmer wrote in a research note. However, Palmer identified five reasons that could be influencing Buffett. 3G's cost-cutting prowess would have limited impact on some of Mondelez's biggest challenges: powerful retailers that can squeeze brands on price and slowing sales that require investment in sales and marketing. Kraft's failed bid for dial soap owner Unilever meanwhile, shows the company is interested in the home and personal care sector, which could offer Kraft more room to grow. Plus, activist investors own significant shares of Mondelez, and the company has minority stakes in Keurig Green Mountain and Jacobs Douwe Egberts. Both present unknown issues for 3G Capital and Buffett, Palmer wrote. Buffett said "the answer is no," but he really means "not now" because food companies are getting cheaper thanks to Amazon, Palmer wrote. "In other words, Mr. Buffett and 3G are not going to get in the way of a good discount that will impact Mondelez's stock more than the direct Amazon effect is impacting Mondelez's business," Palmer wrote. Berkshire Hathaway did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. Disclaimer

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/03/8-of-our-stocks-report-earnings-next-week-what-we-want-to-see.html

MPWR

Monolithic Power Systems

8 more of our stocks report earnings next week. Here's what we want to see

The three major averages posted gains for the fourth week in row, lifted by strong quarterly earnings results for most of the Big Tech companies and a strong jobs report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite rose about 1% for the week, while the S & P 500 gained 1.2%. We are now nearly halfway through this earnings season. Of the 46% of the S & P 500 companies that have reported December quarter results so far, 72% had an upside earnings surprise, while 65% reported better-than-expected revenue results. On the macroeconomic front, it was all about jobs. A weaker ADP Employment report on Wednesday provided no read-through to the monster January jobs report Friday. The U.S. added 353,000 jobs in last month, way above the 185,000 economists had predicted. Moreover, both the December and November numbers were revised higher by a combined 126,000 jobs. Wage inflation was also hotter than expected, rising 4.5% versus the year ago period, above the 4.1% estimate. That initially caused a slight pullback in the futures of all three major averages, but the selling was short-lived as investors took comfort in the idea that the economy continues to chug along despite the elevated interest rates. It looks like good news is good news for the time being. Should inflation bounce back, that may not be the case. But the latest data shows inflation is coming down to more manageable levels, and folks are still at work and companies are growing sales and earnings as a result. The soft landing remains very much in play. Here's what we're keeping an eye on in the coming week: 1. Services. It will be a very light week on the macroeconomic front, but the ISM Services PMI will kick things off on Monday. Economists are looking for a reading of 52.3% for January, which would represent an accelerated expansion versus the 50.6% reading in December. As a reminder, the ISM report measures the rate of contraction/expansion, measured by the distance from that 50-level benchmark; the further below 50, the faster the contraction and the further above 50, the faster the rate of expansion. 2. Earnings: It's another big earnings week head for the portfolio, with 8 more of our companies reporting. Estee Lauder , out Monday, has been highly problematic for a while now. Management's inability to forecast has resulted in disappointment after disappointment. We have a 4 rating on the name, meaning we're pretty much on the sidelines until we get more and better information. With China proving awful for Apple , Starbucks and Procter & Gamble , we aren't getting our hopes up for the luxury cosmetics company that relies heavily on tourism spending in the world's second largest economy. If Estee can simply maintain guidance, that may spark a relief rally. It's likely nothing to get too excited about, but we would consider that a win as it would buy managment some time to get back on track. On Tuesday, Eli Lilly earnings is all about an update on the sales of its blockbuster Type 2 diabetes and weight-loss drug Mounjaro and the rate of growth for obesity treatment Zepbound. A positive update on Zepbound weekly subscriptions helped propel shares higher in January. We trimmed our position in GE Healthcare this past week to hedge against weak orders from China. However, we're keeping shares on the view that the rollout of Alzheimer's treatments and the integration of artificial intelligence into its products will lead to stronger pricing and higher margins. We'll listen for confirmation of this thesis when the company reports Tuesday. DuPont already preannounced the quarter, so expectations are low for Tuesday's report. As a result, the focus is entirely on the post-earnings conference call with investors. We'd like management's view on where the operating environment goes from here to help inform whether we stick with the troubled industrial name or move on. We need to better understand how bad the China destocking dynamic, and would love the announcement of a buyback to stop the bleeding in the stock. Consistency is what we appreciate most from nat gas giant Linde , so we're hoping for another quarter of solid earnings growth Tuesday. More broadly, we'd like to know if the company is benefiting from the global transition toward clean energy, along with management's expectation for volume growth in 2024. For Ford earnings, also out Tuesday, electric vehicle losses will be a key watch item. Given the waning demand for EVs, we're looking for management to really emphasize its new focus on hybrid vehicles, the sweet spot between EVs and traditional ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles. We're looking for signs Ford can replicate the results at General Motors , which reported a profit beat in the fourth quarter and forecasted a stronger-than-expected 2024. One of the keys this year for the automaker is minimizing self-inflicted wounds. Too much money was left on the table last year because of warranty costs. Ford must fix its quality issues. Disney, which reports Wednesday, has to show continued progress on cost savings and efficiency initiatives. The pressure is on with activist investor Nelson Peltz of Trian Partners back in the picture. Aside from Disney+, where we hope the company can share the profit margin potential for the streaming platform once it breaks even — expected to happen by the end of the fiscal year. What's happening with ESPN, which we feel isn't being appropriately leveraged to its full potential? As with Estee, there is a China problem for Wynn Resorts, which has properties in Macau. Fortunately, management has proven effective operators (unlike the team at Estee Lauder in recent quarters) and the weakness in China is well understood by the market. As a result, we don't think expectations are overly high for its print on Wednesday. In the third quarter, we learned that Macau properties were generating 85% of 2019 levels. Any further progress toward achieving 100% of those 2019 levels would be great. The market is looking for sequential growth across both China properties (with sequential growth in Wynn Macau – which came up short in the third quarter – expected to more than offset a slight sequential decline at Wynn Palace. As for Vegas, we expect to see some benefit from the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix; the inaugural race was on Nov. 18 of last year. Monday, February 5 10:00 a.m. ET: ISM Services PMI Before the bell: Estée Lauder Companies (EL) , Caterpillar (CAT), McDonalds Corp. (MCD), onsemi (ON), Allegiant Travel Company (ALGT), Bowlero Corp. (BOWL), Tyson Foods (TSN), Air Products & Chemicals (APD), IDEXX Laboratories (IDXX), Affiliated Managers Group (AMG), CNA Financial Corp. (CNA), Timken Company (TKR), Graham Corporation (GHM), Mesa Laboratories (MLAB), Sphere Entertainment Co. (SPHR), Loews Corp (L) After the bell: Palantir Technologies (PLTR), Symbotic (SYM), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXPI), Simon Property Group (SPG), Amkor Technology (AMKR), Chegg (CHGG), FMC Corporation (FMC), Rambus (RMBS), BellRing Brands (BRBR), Crown Holdings (CCK), ChampionX Corporation (CHX), Golub Capital BDC LLC (GBDC), Flexsteel Industries (FLXS), Fabrinet (FN), Kilroy Realty Corp. (KRC), Coherent (COHR), Gladstone Capital Corp. (GLAD), Hillenbrand (HI), Itaú Unibanco Holding S.A. (ITUB), J & J Snack Foods Corp. (JJSF), Kimball Electronics (KE), Kforce (KFRC), Skyline Corp. (SKY), AECOM (ACM), Cabot Corporation (CBT), Simpson Manufacturing Co. (SSD), Varonis Systems (VRNS) Tuesday, February 6 Before the bell: Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) , GE HealthCare (GEHC) , Linde plc (LIN) , DuPont (DD) , Fiserv (FI), Spotify Technology S.A. (SPOT), BP p.l.c (BP), Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ), Spirit AeroSystems Holdings (SPR), Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), Cummins (CMI), AMETEK (AME), Check Point Software Technologies (CHKP), AGCO Corporation (AGCO), Autohome (ATHM), Carrier Global Corporation (CARR), Lear Corp. (LEA), CONSOL Energy (CEIX), Centene Corporation (CNC), Gartner (IT), Jacobs (J), Valvoline (VVV), Arcbest Corp. (ARCB), AudioCodes (AUDC), CTS Corporation (CTS), Energizer Holdings (ENR), Hamilton Lane Incorporated (HLNE), KKR & Co. L.P. (KKR), Precision Drilling Corporation (PDS), Premier (PINC), Tradeweb Markets (TW), Frontier Group Holdings (ULCC), Waters Corp. (WAT), Xylem (XYL), Alfa Laval (ALFVY), Aramark Holdings Corp. (ARMK), Cerence (CRNC), FirstService Corporation (FSV), Ingredion Incorporated (INGR), Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. (MSGS), New Jersey Resources Corp. (NJR), nVent Electric plc (NVT), PJT Partners (PJT), PNM Resources (PNM), ScanSource (SCSC), Sensata Technologies Holding N.V (ST), Willis Towers Watson (WTW) After the bell: Ford Motor Company (F) , Snap (SNAP), Enphase Energy (ENPH), Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG), e.l.f. Beauty (ELF), Fortinet (FTNT), VF Corp. (VFC), Amgen (AMGN), MicroStrategy (MSTR), Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (EW), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Lumen Technologies (LUMN), Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. (CTSH), Weatherford International plc (WFRD), Amcor plc (AMCR), Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals (ARWR), AllianceBernstein Holding LP (AB), Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS) Wednesday, February 7 Before the bell: Alibaba Group Holding (BABA), Uber Technologies (UBER), CVS Health (CVS), Roblox Corporation (RBLX), Ares Capital Corp (ARCC), Bunge (BG), XPO Logistics (XPO), Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (SMG), Berry Global Group (BERY), Ceridian HCM Holding (CDAY), Flex LNG (FLNG), Equinor ASA (EQNR), Griffon Corporation (GFF), OneMain Holdings (OMF), Brookfield Asset Management (BAM), Emerson Electric Co. (EMR), Hilton Worldwide Holdings (HLT), Reynolds Consumer Products (REYN), Silicon Laboratories (SLAB), Yum! Brands (YUM), Anavex Life Sciences (AVXL), CDW Corp (CDW), Fox Corporation (FOXA) After the bell: Walt Disney (DIS) , Wynn Resorts (WYNN) , PayPal (PYPL), Arm Holdings plc (ARM), Axcelis Technologies (ACLS), Confluent (CFLT), Mattel (MAT), Paycom Software (PAYC), Annaly Capital Management (NLY), McKesson Corp. (MCK), Encompass Health Corporation (EHC), O'Reilly Automotive (ORLY), Allstate Corp. (ALL), Oscar Health (OSCR), Fluence Energy (FLNC), Monolithic Power Systems (MPWR), Digital Turbine (APPS), Blue Bird Corp. (BLBD), Everest Group, (EG), Omega HealthCare Investors (OHI), Paycor HCM, (PYCR), Coty (COTY) Thursday, February 8 8:30 a.m. ET: Initial Jobless Claims Before the bell: ConocoPhillips (COP), Cameco Corp. (CCJ), Philip Morris International (PM), Spirit Airlines (SAVE), Hershey Company (HSY), Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD), Aurora Cannabis (ACB), Dynatrace, (DT), Lincoln National Corp. (LNC), Tapestry (TPR), S & P Global (SPGI), Tenet Healthcare Corp. (THC), Under Armour (UAA), Asbury Automotive Group (ABG), Arrow Electronics (ARW), Axalta Coating Systems (AXTA), Baxter International (BAX), BorgWarner (BWA), CyberArk (CYBR) After the bell: Affirm Holdings (AFRM), Pinterest (PINS), Cloudflare (NET), DexCom (DXCM), Expedia (EXPE), CleanSpark (CLSK), Bill.comHoldings (BILL), Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO), Illumina (ILMN), PetMed Express (PETS), Boyd Gaming Corp. (BYD), Impinj (PI), FirstEnergy Corp. (FE), Motorola Solutions (MSI), Terex Corp. (TEX), Doximity (DOCS) Friday, February 9 Before the bell: PepsiCo (PEP), Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC), Enbridge (ENB), AMC Networks (AMCX), Blue Owl Capital (OWL), Plains All American Pipeline (PAA), TELUS International (TIXT), Magna International (MGA), Newell Brands (NWL) (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. Eli Lilly & Co. Mounjaro brand tirzepatide medication arranged at a pharmacy in Provo, Utah, US, on Monday, Nov. 27, 2023. George Frey | Bloomberg | Getty Images

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/09/analyst-calls-all-the-market-moving-chatter-from-wall-street-tuesday-morning.html

MPWR

Monolithic Power Systems

Tuesday's analyst calls: Netflix downgraded by Citi, Deutsche sees more upside for JPMorgan Chase

(This is CNBC Pro's live coverage of Tuesday's analyst calls and Wall Street chatter. Please refresh every 20-30 minutes to view the latest posts.) Netflix was in focus Tuesday after the streaming giant got a big downgrade. Citi lowered its rating on the stock to neutral from buy, noting expectations for the company have become too lofty. Shares fell slightly in the premarket. Elsewhere, Deutsche Bank upgraded JPMorgan Chase to buy from hold. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. 8:44 a.m. ET: Bank of America downgrades JetBlue to underperform JetBlue has rallied since November, but a tough backdrop for domestic airlines and engine issues could weigh on the New York air carrier, according to Bank of America. The firm on Tuesday downgraded JetBlue to underweight from neutral and cut its price target in half to $3, saying issues with Geared TurboFan (GTF) engines could pressure growth and costs in 2024. The stock traded lower by 5% premarket. "We forecast -1.4% capacity growth in 2024 … as the number of aircraft out of service due to GTF maintenance nearly doubles from 6 in 4Q23 to over 10 by year end 2024," accounting for about 3% of its fleet, Bank of America analyst Andrew Didora said in a note Tuesday. "Historically, JBLU has needed to grow nearly mid- to high-single digits to get flattish [costs per available seat mile], so our new capacity forecast results in CASM +6%." The downgrade comes after the company also announced late Monday that CEO Robin Hayes will step down Feb. 12 and be replaced by President and Chief Operating Officer Joanna Geraghty. Additionally, Didora mentioned execution risk as the market awaits a ruling in the Department of Justice's lawsuit against JetBlue to block its acquisition of Spirit Airlines. — Tanaya Macheel 8:31 a.m. ET: Bernstein lays out top restaurant stocks for 2024 With 2024 set to be the first "normal" year for restaurants since 2019, Bernstein has some stocks worth watching. Analyst Danilo Gargiulo listed Chipotle and Restaurant Brands International , the parent of chains including Tim Hortons and Burger King, as his top picks. He has outperform ratings on both. Gargiulo said the former should show topline resilience as consumer sentiment cools. Margin expansion should continue as productivity improves, while accelerated unit growth in the back half of 2023 can buoy investor interest. And he said Restaurant Brands' international business to show hidden strength, bringing investors to what the analyst called a "rekindled growth story." Outperformance in Tim Hortons and improvements at Burger King should also help, he added. In addition, Gargiulo raised Chipotle's price target by $100 to $2,400 per share, now implying an upside of 7.3%. His $85 target for Restaurant Brands International reflects a gain of 8.8%. While not a top pick, he upgraded Domino's Pizza to market perform from underperform and increased his target price by $40 to $370. Still, this new level requires shares to slide 8.1% from Monday's close. While there's reasons for optimistic in the short term, he emphasized caution when looking at the longer-term story. "Despite continued skepticism on pizza category outlook, we believe the near-term setup for 2024 has turned attractive and there are no immediate catalysts that could materially pressure DPZ," he said. "However, we believe that valuation has run ahead of growth expectations and will eventually re-rate downward as the dynamics of a hyper competitive, mature category ... translates to moderating growth beyond the ST growth catalysts." — Alex Harring 8:29 a.m. ET: HSBC upgrades Nu Holdings to buy Latin American bank Nu Holdings should have another big year ahead, according to HSBC. Analyst Neha Agarwala upgraded the Brazil-based financial firm to buy from hold, saying in a note to clients that Nu appears to have earnings momentum after its stock surged in 2023. "With the key risk of regulatory changes in credit cards pushed further out to the horizon and asset quality trends stabilizing, we believe the coast is clear for Nu to accelerate personal loan origination which should drive up profitability in 2024; growth in payroll loans should help further. Showing success in Mexico will likely be a concern for 2025," the note said. Shares of Nu more than doubled in 2023, and the stock is already up more than 6% this year. HSBC hiked its price target on Nu to $10 per share from $8.70. The new target is 12.5% above where shares of Nu closed on Monday. — Jesse Pound 8:11 a.m. ET: Piper Sandler upgrades GoDaddy, cites reversal in multiple compression Piper Sandler upgraded shares of GoDaddy to overweight as the website domain company situates itself to bounce back from a five-year trend of multiple compression. "Looking ahead to 2024; we see an opportunity for positive growth revisions in our higher quality names without losing progress on profitability," wrote Clarke Jeffries in a Tuesday note. The analyst downgraded shares last year as growth compressed to the mid-single digits. But a quicker-than-expected bounce in margins is situating GoDaddy for a 29% net debt-to-EBITDA margin exit rate for 2023 and 8% domain bookings growth in the last quarter. This is also positioning GoDaddy for a reacceleration to high-single-digit growth in the new year and a NEBITDA margin exceeding 30%. Along with the upgrade, Jeffries lifted the firm's price target to $121 from $100 a share, reflecting about 19% upside from Monday's close. — Samantha Subin 8:08 a.m. ET: BofA recommends buying United Airlines stock for first time since 2020 Analyst Andrew Didora upgraded United Airlines to buy from underperform and raised his price target by $16 to $56. Didora's new target reflects the potential for shares to rally 30.5% in the next year from Monday's close. "Today, we see a valuation disconnect vs UAL's execution and its more favorable leverage outlook than expected," he said. "While industry risks remain ... and capex is above historical norms, UAL has outperformed the industry on revenues, can maintain about 2.5x leverage through this capex cycle, and trades at just 4.5x our 2024E EBITDAR, towards the low end of historical valuations." It marks the first time Bank of America has had a buy rating on United since March 2020. Between then and now, he said a relatively high valuation and capital expenditures, as well as leverage concerns, had made the firm cautious. The upgrade comes as recent events have created challenges for the air travel sector. United was among airlines that found loose hardware on Boeing planes. Those discoveries came during a grounding that was prompted by a door plug blowing out during an Alaska Airlines flight last week. United shares advanced 1.6% before the bell. — Alex Harring 8:07 a.m. ET: Jefferies turns bullish on KeyCorp, Regions Financial Jefferies turned bullish on two regional banks. Analyst Ken Usdin upgraded KeyCorp and Regions Financial to buy from hold. He also raised the price targets for both, with the new anticipated levels implying upsides of 15.6% for KeyBanc and 12.8% for Regions from Monday's close. Specifically, he increased his price target on KeyCorp to $17 from $10. His Regions target went up to $22 from $15. "Bank valuations have expanded as the market adjusts for peak/lower rates. ... P/Es remain below historical avgs., with potential for more expansion in a benign soft landing, plus help from growing book values and capital ratios," Usdin wrote to clients, using shorthand for the price-to-earnings ratio and earnings per share. "The timing bridge between '24 EPS softness and '25 improvement will be important." Usdin said KeyCorp's forward price-to-earnings remains the lowest among large-cap regional banks, even after the stock bounced from its fall 2023 low. The bank should also see some of the biggest benefits to forward net interest income as low-yield securities and low rate receive-fixed swaps mature. Fee performance should also improve as near-flat costs boost positive operating leverage in 2024 and 2025, the analyst added. Regions is also still at a price-to-earnings discount compared with peers, despite resetting many expectations in its October guidance, Usdin said. The market better understands challenges on net interest income, while consensus still needs to adjust 2024 costs to the right basis. Meanwhile, he said capital is strong as buybacks have resumed. KeyCorp added 0.6% in Tuesday's premarket trading, while Regions climbed 0.4%. — Alex Harring 7:48 a.m. ET: Morgan Stanley downgrades CyberArk, cites lack of near-term catalysts CyberArk is a promising long-term contender but falls short in the near term, according to Morgan Stanley. The bank downgraded shares of the identity management software company to equal weight from overweight, although it lifted its price target to $240 from $195. This implies a 10.1% potential upside from the stock's Monday closing price of $217.99. Analyst Hamza Fodderwala noted that while he is bullish on the name in the long term, he sees limited room for upside in the near term. "We think the company has improved its position with a higher mix of recurring SaaS revenue in recent years. However, nearer term, we think the setup is more difficult and outperformance in CYBR shares is unlikely," he wrote. The analyst attributed this to two factors. First, he thinks that annual recurring revenue is likely to slow. The stock already seems to have priced in investor expectations for 30% growth in 2024, above consensus estimates of 26% — which could lead investors disappointed. "While migration from the existing maintenance base to SaaS should provide a multi-year tailwind, we think the shift will be more gradual and the ASP uplift may be less than expected due to CyberArk's premium pricing vs competitors," Fodderwala noted. The analyst added that there's limited upside to the company's free cash flow margins as cloud hosting costs rise and new product investments increase. "Net, with the stock up +70% over the last year vs Nasdaq +48% and lack of upside catalysts nearer term, we're moving to the sidelines and would look for a more attractive entry point," he wrote. CyberArk shares are down 0.5% to start the year. However, they are coming off a 69% gain in 2023. CYBR 1Y mountain CYBR in past year — Lisa Kailai Han 7:20 a.m. ET: BofA calls Ferrari a top auto pick, noting 'intangible brand value' and 'true luxury status' Bank of America named Ferrari a top auto stock for the new year. Analyst John Murphy said the Italian sports car maker also has a buy rating. He called the company a "unique asset with significant intangible brand value and a true luxury status." "We believe the company's balanced strategy of restrained volume growth, strong price increases, and new model introductions over our forecast period should drive strong consistent revenue and earnings growth," he told clients. "In our view, the stock should outperform in 2024 given the resiliency of its financial performance in periods of macro uncertainty." Ferrari's outlook should remain conservative, while the majority of benefits should come from mix and price, he said. Any easing of material costs or supply chain snafus can also help. Ferrari shares are coming off their best year since 2019, surging 58% in 2023. To start 2024, the stock is up 1.7%. Murphy also listed retailers Asbury Automotive Group and AutoNation as best ideas, citing strong free cash flow. That can allow for capital allocation to buybacks and acquisitions, among other initiatives. 7:06 a.m. ET: Morgan Stanley downgrades PayPal, citing glacial strategic initiative cycles There's reason for pause on PayPal as the digital payment platform shows slower-than-expected progress on strategic initiatives, according to Morgan Stanley. Analyst James Faucette downgraded the financial technology stock to equal weight from overweight and slashed his price target to $66 from $118. Faucette's new target implies shares can advance just 6.9% from Monday's close over the next year. "Product evolution and progress on key strategic imperatives, ... which are key to supporting faster-than-eComm growth, are taking longer than we initially thought," Faucette wrote to clients. PayPal is moving "too slowly" on key strategic initiatives like improving branded checkout and expanding Venmo, Faucette said. Any acceleration is difficult given the company's relationships, the analyst added. He's also less optimistic that PayPal can monetize Venmo as a checkout tool for younger shoppers. A larger share of these consumers would help the company grow at above-average rates, he said. More broadly, Faucette said he's losing confidence that the company can investment enough to make meaningful improvements to its business in the near future. Still, he said the company should be able to grow revenue in line with other e-commerce peers, excluding Amazon. Shares slipped 2.4% in premarket trading on Tuesday. PayPal has fallen for three straight years. In 2023, the stock lost 13.8%. — Alex Harring 6:42 a.m. ET: HSBC says buy Citigroup, hold Morgan Stanley HSBC replaced Morgan Stanley with Citigroup on its list of buy-worthy bank stocks. Analyst Saul Martinez upgraded Citigroup to buy from hold, while giving Morgan Stanley the reverse treatment. His price targets of $61 and $96 suggest upside of 12.9% for the former and 2.7% for the latter. Despite noting that the revenue outlook still has challenges, Martinez said the fundamental backdrop for U.S. banks has improved in recent months. Namely, he said that moderating deposit cost pressure should help net interest income hit a bottom and earnings expectations are positive. Investors can add exposure to banks through Citigroup as management credibility increases and there's more opportunity for buybacks, Martinez said. Still, he said Goldman Sachs is the "preferred way" to play a recovery in capital markets specifically. Elsewhere, he noted Morgan Stanley has seen cuts to earnings estimates even as the share price has risen. That's created an increase to the price-to-earnings multiple while expectations for wealth management revenue soften. Citigroup advanced around 0.4% in Tuesday premarket trading, while Morgan Stanley slipped 1.6%. — Alex Harring 6:23 a.m. ET: Oppenheimer names Nvidia a top pick entering semi earnings Nvidia is one of Oppenheimer's favorite names heading into semiconductor earnings. Artificial intelligence remains the top theme for semis in 2024, analyst Rick Schafer said, after it led growth in the prior year. A focus will be on how companies monetize their strategies in the space, the analyst added. Looking to 2024, he said picking the right names in the space is increasingly important after 2023's "correction year." In addition to Nvidia, he pointed to Marvell Technology, Monolithic Power Systems and Broadcom as top picks. Schafer said the best growth stories in the sector outperformed in 2023, with the top picks group surging 125% on average. By comparison, the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) gained a relatively modest 65.6%. Following an initial inflection, he said history shows that the group of best ideas should gain another 11% in 2024. Semiconductor earnings kick off the week beginning on Jan. 22, according to the analyst. — Alex Harring 6:07 a.m. ET: Goldman says Interactive Brokers is a buy that investors have overlooked due to interest rate concerns Investors should snap up Interactive Brokers as oversensitivity to potential interest rate cuts unnecessarily cheapens the stock, according to Goldman Sachs. Analyst James Yaro upgraded the brokerage to buy from neutral. His $102 price target, up from $88, shows a potential gain of 16.4% in the next year from Monday's close. "We see current valuation as offering an attractive entry point, with risk skewed to the upside," he told clients. Interactive Brokers has underperformed rate-sensitive peers since six month before the first cut to the Federal Reserve funds rate, Yaro said. But the analyst warned that the market may have over-extrapolated the company's connection to interest rates. Indeed, he said the company should be able to offset a hit from interest rate cuts by the Fed. That's because it has balance sheet growth, a shift in mix and increasing commissions. The analyst also found that the company can likely keep earnings per share growth flat in a down environment. Yaro said upside can stem from a focus on capital priorities, which can drive dividend growth or acquisitions. A bank license in the European Union can also help unlock capital, he added. Interactive Brokers Group rose just over 14.5% in 2023, underperforming the broader market. — Alex Harring 5:47 a.m. ET: Morgan Stanley upgrades CrowdStrike, says cybersecurity tech provider is 'firing on all cylinders' Morgan Stanley said traders should flock to CrowdStrike shares. Analyst Hamza Fodderwala upgraded the cybersecurity software stock to overweight from equal weight and raised his price target by $101 to $304. His new target reflects the potential for shares to climb 16.4% from Monday's closing level. "We are upgrading CRWD ... based on improving demand, broader platform traction and multiple product cycles still ramping up, including the recently launched Charlotte AI," Fodderwala said, adding that the company is "firing on all cylinders." "We think these factors should result in more meaningful upside to ARR and FCF forecasts throughout the year," he added, using acronyms for annual recurring revenue and free cash flow. That allows for "driving the stock higher despite significant outperformance over the last year." CrowdStrike is the "leading beneficiary" as ransomware becomes more common given the company's s incident response and endpoint security services, Fodderwala said. In fact, attacks grew by a clip of more than 70% last year, leading to growth in professional services revenue, according to the analyst. Elsewhere, Fodderwala pointed to multiple product cycles still ramping up. In particular, he pointed to the company's "strong position" for leveraging and monetizing generative artificial intelligence. CrowdStrike's Charlotte AI can add $100 million in annual recurring revenue by 2025 if there's 10% penetration in the installation base, he said. To be sure, Fodderwala knows his upgrade comes after a strong year for the stock, with shares outperforming security peers and the Nasdaq Composite in 2023. While he admitted to being late to the party, he said investors aren't too late to buy in given the reasons for optimism. CRWD .IXIC 1Y mountain CRWD vs Nasdaq in past year Shares rose 2% before the bell on Tuesday. — Alex Harring 5:32 a.m. ET: Citi downgrades Netflix, says streaming giant could underperform on some Street projections Investors should move to the sidelines on Netflix as Wall Street's expectations have gotten too grandiose, Citi warned. Analyst Jason Bazinet downgraded the streaming giant to neutral from buy. His $500 price target implies an upside of 3.1% from Monday's close. "Across 2024 and 2025, the Street has lofty expectations for Netflix. We see three potential risks," Bazinet wrote to clients. "At prevailing levels, we find the risk-reward relatively balanced." Bazinet said the first of those three reasons is that 2024 revenue expectations may be too high. Next, 2025 content investments should be higher than analysts anticipate. And finally, he said potential acquisitions can't be ruled out. Given these risks, he said the risk-reward ratio is no longer compelling. Bazinet's downgrade comes on the heels of a strong year for Netflix, making Bazinet's upside expectations relatively muted. Shares rallied more than 65% in 2023, regaining some ground after dropping more than 50% in the prior year. Netflix stock slipped 2.1% before the bell Tuesday. — Alex Harring 5:32 a.m. ET: Deutsche Bank upgrades JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase shares have more upside left in them after a stellar 2023, according to Deutsche Bank. Analyst Matt O'Connor raised his rating on the bank to buy from hold and raised his price target to $190 from $140 per share. The new forecast indicates a potential gain of 10.5% from Monday's close. "Shares should benefit from upside to net interest income guidance (vs. downside risk at peers), good leverage to a pick up in capital markets revenues, and strong capital and loan loss reserve levels," O'Connor wrote. "And while we wouldn't argue JPM shares are cheap, they also aren't expensive at 11.5x our 2024e or just a slight premium to the broader group multiple of 11.0x." JPMorgan Chase rallied 24.6% in 2023. The stock hit a record high last week. JPM 1Y mountain JPM in past year — Fred Imbert

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/30/stocks-making-the-biggest-moves-after-hours-pins-wolf-anet.html

MPWR

Monolithic Power Systems

Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Pinterest, Wolfspeed, Arista Networks and more

Check out the companies making headlines in extended trading. Arista Networks — The cloud networking solutions company added 6% Monday after the bell. Arista Networks reported $1.83 in earnings per share, excluding items, on $1.51 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by FactSet had estimated $1.58 in earnings per share on $1.48 billion in revenue. Lattice Semiconductor — The maker of low-power programmable chips dropped about 16% in late trading. Lattice's fourth-quarter revenue forecast of $166 million to $186 million fell short of analysts' consensus estimate of $195.7 million, according to FactSet's StreetAccount. Wolfspeed — Shares of the chipmaker jumped more than 11% following its fiscal first-quarter results. The company posted a loss of 53 cents per share, while analysts called for 67 cents per share, per LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv. Revenue fell short of estimates, coming in at $197 million, while analysts forecast $208 million. Tenet Healthcare — Shares of the health-care services company added 3%. For the third quarter, Tenet posted adjusted earnings of $1.44 per share on revenue of $5.07 billion. Analysts called for $1.20 per share in earnings and revenue of $5.02 billion, per FactSet. VF Corporation — The apparel and footwear company tumbled 6%. The company, which owns The North Face, withdrew its previous full-year 2024 guidance for earnings and revenue, and noted that shoe brand Vans' performance isn't expected to improve in the second half of fiscal 2024 due to a more difficult U.S. wholesale environment. Monolithic Power Systems — Shares popped 5% in extended trading. The semiconductor company reported third-quarter adjusted earnings of $3.08 per share, while analysts polled by FactSet called for $3.06 per share. The company also gave fourth-quarter revenue guidance ranging between $442 million and $462 million, while analysts called for $451.7 million. Pinterest — The social media stock jumped 13% after Pinterest beat analysts' expectations for the third quarter. The company posted adjusted earnings of 28 cents per share on revenue of $763 million, while analysts polled by LSEG anticipated earnings of 20 cents per share and revenue of $744 million. — CNBC's Darla Mercado and Scott Schnipper contributed reporting.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/29/on-tap-this-week-jobs-report-plus-10-key-earnings-what-we-want-to-see.html

MPWR

Monolithic Power Systems

On tap this week: Jobs report plus 10 key earnings. Here's what we want to see

All three major averages advanced for the week, powered by strong mega-cap earnings and favorable inflation data. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led with a 2% gain, while the S & P 500 increased about 1% and the Dow rose 0.6%. Thursday snapped a 13-day winning streak for the 30-stock Dow average, a stretch not seen since 1987. Looking to next week, earnings season enters its second half with the last of our mega-caps — Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) — set to report on Thursday. More economic data is on the way, which should show how the Federal Reserve is doing in its battle against inflation. That includes the super important monthly jobs report on Friday. 1. Economic releases : It's another big week for data following the Federal Reserve's expected decision this past Wednesday to raise the federal funds rate by another 25 basis points. The ISM Manufacturing report comes out on Tuesday and factory orders on Thursday. Combined, these reports provide insight into the state of manufacturing, which accounts for about 12% of U.S. GDP. This number been contracting for the past eight months as of June's ISM Manufacturing report. That trend isn't expected to have reversed in July, but investors are forecasting the rate of contraction to slow. Anything below 50 on the ISM purchasing managers' index (PMI) is indicative of a contraction while anything above that level points to expansion. The rate of contraction/expansion is measured by the distance from that 50-level benchmark. The further below 50, the faster the contraction and the further above 50, the faster the rate of expansion. Also out Thursday is the ISM Services PMI, which has showed the services industry has expanded for six months straight through June. Investors expect this trend to continue but don't expect the rate to ramp up. We'll get a better read on the employment picture on Wednesday with the ADP report and then, more importantly, on Friday's nonfarm payrolls report for July. As has been the case for many months, we want a strong headline number (200k is the estimate as of Friday) to be tempered by a slight slowdown in annual wage inflation (4.2% is the estimate as of Friday). Unemployment is expected to hold steady at about 3.6%. One thing to note: In past reports a lot of emphasis has been on the strength of the headline number and wage inflation on the view that higher-than-expected results would support elevated inflation. However, these two numbers have stayed high and inflation has come down — as we saw on Friday with the release of the June personal consumption expenditures price index. It will be interesting to see if investors are still as concerned about the impact these numbers may have on inflation. If we can get inflation down while keeping folks employed and making more than they did last year, that's an incredibly bullish set up as we work our way into 2024. Consumption represents nearly 70% of U.S. GDP and employment and wages play into consumers' buying power, even if the magnitude of their role in inflation is being somewhat questioned. 2. Quarterly earnings : Economic releases are important, especially the nonfarm payrolls report. But they are all backward looking. As a result, earnings will continue to garner the bulk of investors' attention as they provide better insight into the state of various industries at a granular level and in real time. We are about halfway though earnings season, with 51% of S & P 500 companies in the books, according to FactSet. Of those that have reported, 80% reported an upside earnings surprise while 64% reported better than expected revenue results. Let's hope the positive trend continues. Caterpillar (CAT) and Stanley Black & Decker (SWK) report Tuesday morning before the bell. For Caterpillar, there is going to be a lot of focus on the backlog and current state of dealer inventories. Caterpillar put up very strong results the last time around, but some investors worried those results were as good as it gets for the machinery maker, weighing on shares. It was a view we disagreed with due to billions of dollars earmarked by the government for infrastructure projects that should prolong the cycle. As for Stanley Black & Decker, we want to see progress on the three problem areas we called out in our initiation alert : too much inventory, bloated costs and a problematic supply chain. We're about one year into the company's restructuring, so we expect to hear about how it's going and what more can be done to unlock even more cost savings. Housing market dynamics should also be in focus as new home construction, repair, and remodeling in the U.S. all require tools like those made by Stanley Black & Decker. Later Tuesday after the bell, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Starbucks (SBUX) and Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) report. For AMD, we'd like further confirmation the PC market has bottomed, as well any updates on the timing of its MI300 AI chip production ramp. For Starbucks, it's all about demand in China. Management had good things to say about the region last quarter, but investors remain on edge about the pace of the post-Covid recovery. As for Pioneer Natural Resources, management missed the mark last quarter on realized prices and as a result took a hit on free cash flow performance. We want to see management get it right this time around, especially on free cash flow which is used for buybacks and the variable portion of the company's dividend payout. On Wednesday before the bell, Emerson Electric and Humana (HUM) report results. For Emerson, we really need to see some follow-through on the second quarter's strong performance. The name went into penalty box after reporting a disappointing fiscal first quarter but managed to work it's way out of the hole with a strong fiscal second quarter performance. Let's see if it can stay out. As for Humana, the benefits expense ratio (or medical loss ratio) will be in focus as an uptick in hospital visits and elective procedures have weighed on the name since mid-June. Bausch Health (BHC) is Thursday. Not much to say here, as the results will likely remain overshadowed by the ongoing Xifaxan litigation. As noted last quarter, a resolution in Xifaxan litigation and the spinoff of the remainder of its Bausch + Lomb stake represent the two most important future catalysts for the stock. Any commentary on these fronts would be welcome. Thursday after the close brings us to the main events of the week: Earnings from Apple and Amazon. From Apple, a general update on the business, some commentary on the demand in China and the opportunity in India (which investors see as the next major growth region) and maybe some comments on efforts to diversify the supply chain. Any commentary on feedback since the Vision Pro was unveiled would also be welcome. As for Amazon, we want to hear more about progress being made to rein in costs and grow into excess fulfillment capacity in its retail business. As for cloud unit AWS, we're listening for commentary on customer cloud optimization efforts as well as future capital expenditure expectations as the team works to build out it's artificial intelligence capabilities — a theme that was in focus during the calls hosted by Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META). For those looking to review first quarter performance ahead of these releases, be sure to keep our first-quarter earnings report card handy. Here's the full rundown of all the important domestic data in the week ahead. Monday, July 31 Before the bell: SoFi (SOFI), onsemi (ON), Symbotic (SYM), ImmunoGen (IMGN), Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. (ARLP), AerCap Holdings N.V. (AER), CNA Financial Corp. (CNA), Alexanders (ALX), Apellis Pharmaceuticals (APLS), Community Bank System (CBU), SJW Group (SJW), Hutchison China MediTech Limited (HCM), Camtek Ltd. (CAMT), Silvercrest Asset Management Group (SAMG), Loews Corp (L), Oxford Lane Capital Corp. (OXLC), Banco Santander - Chile (SAN), Silicom Ltd (SILC), SuperCom Ltd. (SPCB) After the bell: Arista Networks (ANET), Avis Budget Group (CAR), Diamondback Energy (FANG), Lattice Semiconductor Corp. (LSCC), Republic Services (RSG), Yum China Holdings (YUMC), Western Digital Corp. (WDC), Monolithic Power Systems (MPWR), Tenet Healthcare Corp. (THC), Vornado Realty Trust (VNO), BioMarin Pharmaceutical (BMRN), PetMed Express (PETS), AvalonBay Communities (AVB), Harmonic (HLIT), SBA Communications Corporation (SBAC), Brixmor Property Group (BRX), J & J Snack Foods Corp. (JJSF), Cushman & Wakefield (CWK), Hologic (HOLX), Leggett & Platt (LEG), Sonoco (SON), Sanmina Corporation (SANM), TFI International (TFII), Trex (TREX), TrueCar (TRUE), Welltower (WELL) Tuesday, August 1 10:00 a.m. ET: ISM Manufacturing PMI 10:00 a.m. ET: JOLTS Job Openings Before the bell: Caterpillar (CAT) , Stanley Black & Decker (SWK) , Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (NCLH), Uber Technologies (UBER), Pfizer (PFE), Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (EPD), Merck & (MRK), JetBlue Airways Corporation (JBLU), Allegro MicroSystems (ALGM), Altria Group (MO), SunPower Corp. (SPWR), SiriusXM Holdings (SIRI), Molson Coors Beverage (TAP), Marriott International (MAR), Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), BP p.l.c (BP), SYSCO Corp. (SYY), Global Payments (GPN), Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC), Shutterstock (SSTK), Ares Management LP (ARES), Equitrans Midstream Corporation (ETRN), International Game Technology (IGT), Illinois Tool Works (ITW), Ecolab (ECL), IDEXX Laboratories (IDXX), Rockwell Automation (ROK), Watsco (WSO), Bloomin' Brands (BLMN), Graphic Packaging International Corp. (GPK), Gartner (IT), Zebra Technologies Corp. (ZBRA), IQVIA Holdings (IQV), Oshkosh Corporation (OSK), Leidos Holdings (LDOS), Eaton Corp. (ETN), yte Corp. (Y), Lear Corp. (LEA) After the bell: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) , Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) , Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) , Devon Energy Corp. (DVN), Pinterest (PINS), MicroStrategy (MSTR), e.l.f. Beauty (ELF), SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG), Lumen Technologies (LUMN), Virgin Galactic Holdings (SPCE), Caesars Entertainment (CZR), VF Corp. (VFC), Exact Sciences Corp. (EXAS), Paycom Software (PAYC), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), Suncor Energy (SU), Camping World Holdings (CWH), Mosaic (MOS), Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK), Match Group (MTCH), Boston Properties (BXP), American International Group (AIG), Allstate Corp. (ALL), Aspen Technology (AZPN), Columbia Sportswear (COLM), Electronic Arts (EA), Flowserve Corporation (FLS), Sprouts Farmers Market (SFM), Denny's, Corp. (DENN), Prudential Financial (PRU), Container Store Group (TCS), Ternium S.A. (TX), Vimeo (VMEO), AFLAC (AFL), Cardlytics (CDLX) Wednesday, August 2 8:15 a.m. ET: ADP Employment Survey Before the bell: Emerson Electric (EMR) , Humana (HUM) , Bausch + Lomb Corporation (BLCO), CVS Health (CVS), Generac Holdings (GNRC), Cameco Corp. (CCJ), Perion Network Ltd. (PERI), Kraft Heinz (KHC), Builders FirstSource (BLDR), Carlyle Group L.P. (CG), Scorpio Tankers (STNG), Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd (TEVA), Phillips 66 (PSX), Dynatrace (DT), Rithm Capital Corp (RITM), Wingstop (WING), Ferrari N.V. (RACE), Spirit AeroSystems Holdings (SPR), Vertiv Holdings Co (VRT), Johnson Controls (JCI), Allegiant Travel (ALGT), BorgWarner (BWA), CDW Corp (CDW), DuPont (DD), Driven Brands Holdings (DRVN), Scotts Miracle-Gro (SMG), Yum! Brands (YUM), Allegheny Technologies orporated (ATI), AmerisourceBergen Corporation (ABC), Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation (ACRE), Adient plc (ADNT), Editas Medicine (EDIT), Garmin Ltd. (GRMN), WWE (WWE), Bunge Ltd. (BG), Criteo S.A. (CRTO), Seagen (SGEN) After the bell: PayPal (PYPL), Shopify (SHOP), QUALCOMM (QCOM), Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY), Unity (U), Robinhood Markets (HOOD), MercadoLibre (MELI), Energy Transfer LP (ET), Etsy (ETSY), Apache Corp. (APA), Albemarle Corp. (ALB), MGM Resorts International (MGM), Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO), Sunrun (RUN), Joby Aviation (JOBY), Confluent (CFLT), DoorDash (DASH), Innovative Industrial Properties (IIPR), HubSpot (HUBS), CF Industries Holdings (CF), Lemonade (LMND), Goodyear Tire & Rubber (GT), Fastly (FSLY), Realty ome Corp. (O), Upwork (UPWK), Metlife (MET), TripAdvisor (TRIP), Pacific Biosciences of California (PACB), EVgo (EVGO), Rush Street Interactive (RSI), Revolve Group LLC (RVLV), Zillow Group (ZG), JFrog Ltd. (FROG), Herbalife Nutrition Ltd. (HLF), Schrödinger (SDGR), Simon Property Group (SPG), Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), Clorox (CLX), McKesson Corp. (MCK), NerdWallet (NRDS), Public Storage (PSA), Qorvo (QRVO), Cerus Corporation (CERS), C.H. Robinson Worldwide (CHRW), Traeger (COOK), GXO Logistics (GXO), RE/MAX Holdings (RMAX), Rayonier (RYN) Thursday, August 3 8:30 a.m. ET: Initial jobless claims 10:00 a.m. ET: Factory Orders Before the bell: Bausch Health Companies (BHC) , Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD), Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), Cheniere Energy (LNG), ConocoPhillips (COP), Expedia (EXPE), Moderna (MRNA), Wayfair (W), Hasbro (HAS), CIGNA Corp. (CI), Lantheus Holdings (LNTH), Quanta Services (PWR), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN), Fiverr International Ltd. (FVRR), Air Products & Chemicals (APD), TopBuild Corp. (BLD), EPAM Systems (EPAM), InterDigital (IDCC), Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD), Aurinia Pharmaceuticals (AUPH), Cummins (CMI), HF Slair Corporation (DINO), Southern (SO), Starwood Property Trust (STWD), Vulcan Materials (VMC), Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY), Daqo New Energy Corp. (DQ), First Citizens BancShares (FCNCA), Cedar Fair Entertainment (FUN), Kellogg (K), Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA), Oaktree Specialty Lending Corporation (OCSL), Privia Health Group (PRVA), Becton, Dickinson & (BDX), Chimera Investment Corp (CIM), Canadian Natural Resources Ltd (CNQ), Shift4 Payments (FOUR), Hyatt Hotels Corp (H), Lion Electric (LEV), Portillos (PTLO), Shake Shack (SHAK), Deluxe Corp. (DLX), Iron Mountain (IRM), Murphy Oil Corp. (MUR), PBF Energy (PBF), Papa John's International (PZZA), Targa Resources Corp. (TRGP), Wix.com Ltd. (WIX), Apollo Global Management, LLC (APO), Butterfly Network (BFLY), Planet Fitness (PLNT), Sempra Energy (SRE), Aptiv PLC (APTV), Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P (BIP), Canada Goose Holdings (GOOS), Pitney Bowes (PBI), Parker-Hannifin Corporation (PH), Trimble (TRMB), WESCO International (WCC), WestRock (WRK), Arrow Electronics (ARW), Cars.com (CARS), Constellation Energy Group (CEG), Magellan Midstream Partners (MMP) After the bell: Amazon.com (AMZN) , Apple (AAPL) , Coinbase Global (COIN), Block (SQ), Airbnb (ABNB), DraftKings (DKNG), Cloudflare (NET), Fortinet (FTNT), Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras (PBR), Amgen (AMGN), ContextLogic (WISH), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Opendoor Technologies (OPEN), Booking Holdings (BKNG), Atlassian Corporation Plc (TEAM), WW International (WW), Redfin Corporation (RDFN), Motorola Solutions (MSI), Yelp (YELP), Dropbox (DBX), Stem (STEM), Corteva (CTVA), Monster Beverage Corporation (MNST), Consolidated Edison (ED), Rocket Companies (RKT), Apple Hospitality REIT (APLE), Cirrus Logic (CRUS), EOG Resources (EOG), FIGS (FIGS), Funko (FNKO), Universal Display Corporation (OLED), Chesapeake Utilities Corp. (CPK), Opko Health (OPK), Sprout Social (SPT), Udemy (UDMY), CarGurus (CARG), DaVita (DVA), GoDaddy (GDDY), Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS), Progyny (PGNY), Post Holdings (POST), Tandem Diabetes Care (TNDM), Ziff Davis (ZD), Friday, August 4 8:30 a.m. Nonfarm payrolls Before the bell: fuboTV (FUBO), Nikola Corporation (NKLA), Fisker (FSR), Enbridge (ENB), Magna International (MGA), Dominion Energy (D), ACM Research (ACMR), Cinemark (CNK), Frontier Communications Parent (FYBR), Brookfield Renewable Partners (BEP), inTEST Corporation (INTT), Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (PAA), TELUS International (TIXT), XPO Logistics (XPO), Fluor Corp. (FLR), Gray Television (GTN), Cboe Global Markets (CBOE), LyondellBasell Industries (LYB), Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST), Global Partners LP (GLP) (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. CEO of Apple Tim Cook arrives at the Sun Valley Lodge for the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, July 11, 2023. Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/28/july-jobs-report-and-more-big-tech-earnings-are-in-the-week-ahead.html

MPWR

Monolithic Power Systems

July jobs report and more Big Tech earnings are in the week ahead after markets notch historic run for Dow

More Big Tech earnings and the jobs report are in the week ahead as investors wrap up a strong week that included a historic run for the Dow Jones Industrial Average . The Dow and the S & P 500 notched their third straight week of gains on Friday . On Wednesday, the 30-stock Dow posted a 13-day advance that matched the index's longest streak of gains going back to 1987. One more positive session would have tied the Dow with its record 14-day rally in 1897. Back then, Queen Victoria was still the reigning monarch in the United Kingdom. And, the index listed just 12 stocks in total, such as American Cotton Oil and American Sugar. Of those original names, General Electric remains in business with its name intact, though it was kicked out of the blue chip index in 2018. Even so, markets continued their upward momentum as more inflation data pointed toward signs of cooling, and earnings came in far better than feared. That added to the bull case that the U.S. economy can manage a soft landing. "While the economy isn't like white hot, it ain't bad," said Kim Forrest, founder and chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners. This week alone, investors digested Friday's data for personal consumption expenditures price index that continued to show cooling inflation in June. The gross domestic product report showed the U.S. economy is growing faster than expected, and also suggested price pressures are easing. And, mega-cap tech stocks Alphabet and Meta gained more than 10% this week after their respective earnings beats. To top it off, the Federal Reserve hiked rates to their highest level in more than 22 years after passing a much-anticipated quarter-point hike. Even more important, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank could pause here, taking a data-dependent approach going forward. "All of this fuels the buying frenzy, and it's more than certain stocks now, right? It's spreading out," Forrest said. "So yeah, I think that this market is merited." Jobs report out Friday Investors will digest the latest data from the July jobs report due out next Friday. Market participants are not expecting any major surprises from the report, which could continue to show solid results in what has been an extraordinarily strong labor market. It could also hold some signs of easing in jobs growth similar to the June report. Nonfarm payrolls increased 209,000 last month, lower than the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 240,000. The unemployment rate was 3.6%, in line with expectations. "I don't expect any huge surprise from this jobs report next week," said Liz Young, head of investment strategy at SoFi. "Maybe it's a little lighter. But I don't think it's going to be a huge surprise to the downside or the upside. I think it probably is a little bit more of the same." Investors will be watching the wage numbers closely. Market bears worry that persistent wage growth could mean inflation will spiral higher, as it did in the 1970s and early 1980s. In those years, average wages typically jumped 7%, 8% or 9% year over year, according to the Pew Research Center. However, Bokeh's Forrest said those concerns have yet to materialize. While wages have increased, she said they're not driving the sort of price pressures that occurred during those high inflation decades. "The wage inflation is not driving the inflation because people are slowly getting raises that allow them to kind of match the new pricing environment," she said. Bokeh's Forrest would like to see average hourly earnings rise 4.4% from the year-earlier period, which is what they were in the June report, or lower. She'd also like to see the average workweek stay around the 34-hour mark, or "the golden number for hours worked." "Higher than that means things are getting hot, people are being overworked, working more, and that hiring will pick up," Forrest said. "Less, it means people aren't being worked as much and layoffs may occur." Big Tech earnings continue with Apple, Amazon Wall Street is at about the halfway mark for second-quarter earnings season, with results thus far coming in stronger than anticipated. Of the 255 companies that have reported in the S & P 500, about 81% have posted positive surprises, according to FactSet. Earnings will continue to pour in next week, with key results from Big Tech companies Apple and Amazon on Thursday. Both companies, whose stocks are up more than 50% each year to date, will have to justify their valuations amid criticism that they have gotten too frothy. "CEOs need to justify these valuation levels. And we've gotten some of them but not all, so rolling through the rest of the tech and communications, and basically the growthy names will be very important," SoFi's Young said. "Much like other quarters, the results are important, but the guidance is even more so because now when we look out a 12-month view, we've got 2024 in that picture as well," Young added. Other companies will be monitored for any signs of weakness in the consumer. Bokeh's Forrest said she'd keep an eye on the back-to-school trade, particularly in computer companies such as Apple or the semiconductors, which should get a boost as students require electronics in the fall. Chip company ON Semiconductor reports Monday, and Advanced Micro Devices posts results Tuesday. Outlook ahead Even with markets posting yet another positive week, market skeptics continue to urge traders to take caution, especially as the effects of tightening monetary policy start to make its way through the economy. For instance, there's the decision by the Bank of Japan on Friday to ease its yield curve control , a move that SoFi's Young said have investors uncertain how it will affect markets. She also worried about the path forward for inflation. "I think inflation could prove to be kind of a tricky situation for the rest of the year, meaning we've gotten used to this linear decline since last summer in the inflation measures. It may not continue along that path," Young said. "Now, it may not spike back up, but it could stay steady, if not rise a little bit given what's happening with commodity prices right now." "Momentum is a very, very strong force," she said. "And I think it's at play until there's a reason for it to turn around." Still, cooling inflation, strong jobs market and a resilient economy could spell a happy path for Wall Street. Bokeh's Forrest said, "This would be the soft landing. The mythical soft landing." Week ahead calendar All times ET. Monday 9:45 a.m.: Chicago PMI SA (July) 10:30 a.m.: Dallas Fed index (July) Earnings: ON Semiconductor , Arista Networks , Western Digital , Monolithic Power Systems Tuesday 9:45 a.m.: Markit PMI Manufacturing SA final (July) 10:00 a.m.: Construction Spending SA M/M (June) 10:00 a.m.: ISM Manufacturing SA (July) 10:00 a.m.: JOLTS Job Openings (June) Earnings: Merck & Co., Stanley Black & Decker , Caterpillar , Marriott International , Altria Group , Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings , Pfizer , Marathon Petroleum , Molson Coors Beverage , SolarEdge Technologies , Advanced Micro Devices , Caesars Entertainment , Electronic Arts , Starbucks Wednesday 8:15 a.m.: ADP Employment Survey SA (July) Earnings: CVS Health , Fidelity National Information Services , Generac Holdings , Humana , The Kraft Heinz Co. , Yum Brands , MetLife , Marathon Oil , Occidental Petroleum , PayPal Holdings , Qualcomm , Etsy , The Clorox Co ., Costco Wholesale , MGM Resorts International Thursday 8:30 a.m.: Continuing Jobless Claims SA (7/22) 8:30 a.m.: Initial claims SA (7/29) 9:45 a.m.: PMI Composite SA (Final) 9:45 a.m.: Markit PMI Services SA final (July) 10:00 a.m.: Durable Orders SA M/M final (June) 10:00 a.m.: Factory Orders SA M/M (June) 10:00 a.m.: ISM Services PMI SA (July) Earnings: EPAM Systems , News Corp ., Constellation Energy , Moderna , Warner Bros. Discovery , Hasbro , Iron Mountain , ConocoPhillips , Kellogg , Booking Holdings , Amazon.com , Expedia Group , Fortinet , Motorola Solutions , Apple , Monster Beverage Friday 8:30 a.m.: Hourly Earnings SA preliminary (July) 8:30 a.m.: Average Workweek SA preliminary (July) 8:30 a.m.: Manufacturing Payrolls SA (July) 8:30 a.m.: Nonfarm Payrolls SA (July) 8:30 a.m.: Private Nonfarm Payrolls SA (July) 8:30 a.m.: Unemployment Rate (July) Earnings: Dominion Energy

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/01/stocks-making-the-biggest-moves-midday-coinbase-sofi-doordash-and-more.html

MPWR

Monolithic Power Systems

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Coinbase, SoFi, DoorDash and more

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Toyota Motor — Shares rose 2.1%, hitting a new 52-week high, after the company reported a revenue beat in the fiscal first quarter. Toyota posted operating income of 1.12 million yen ($7.84 billion), which was 94% higher than a year prior. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected 9.878 trillion yen. Coinbase – Shares of the crypto exchange dropped 4.5% after a federal judge said some crypto assets are securities regardless of the context in which they are sold. The opinion came from the same Manhattan federal court that handed down a controversial ruling in the Securities and Exchange's suit against Ripple in July, which said the opposite in the case of Ripple's XRP token and gave investors optimism that Coinbase might prevail in its own battle with the SEC. ResMed — The health technology stock advanced 1.3% after RBC upgraded shares to outperform, citing an appealing risk-reward profile. Gap , American Eagle — Shares of Gap were up 3.1% after Barclays upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight. Analyst Adrienne Yih assigned a $13 price target to the company, which suggests shares could rally 26.2% from Monday's close. Barclays also upgraded retailer American Eagle, which gained 4.2%. DoorDash — Shares tumbled 4.6% ahead of the company's quarterly earnings announcement Wednesday after the bell. ZoomInfo Technologies – Shares tumbled almost 27% after the data company reported a weak revenue outlook for the third quarter in its financial update late Monday. ZoomInfo forecast $309 million to $312 million in revenue for the quarter. Analysts expect $326 million, according to Refinitiv. The company also missed revenue expectations for the most recent quarter. JetBlue Airways – The airline saw shares fell more than 8% after it cut its 2023 outlook and warned of a potential loss in the current quarter, pointing to challenges from a shift toward international travel and the the end of its partnership with American Airlines in the Northeast. Earnings and revenue for the second quarter were in line with analysts' estimates. Zebra Technologies — The stock slid more than 17% after the company posted disappointing results for the second quarter. While earnings topped analyst estimates, revenue came below expectations. The company's third-quarter earnings guidance of 60 cents to $1 also missed analyst estimates of $3.76 earnings per share from FactSet. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings , Carnival — Shares of Norwegian Cruise Line plunged 12% Tuesday. While the company posted an earnings and revenue beat in the second quarter, its third-quarter guidance missed analyst estimates. Carnival's shares also shed 5.7% in tandem. Rockwell Automation — The industrial automation company's stock fell 7.5% after a disappointing earnings report. The company reported $3.01 earnings per share and revenue of $2.24 billion. Analysts had estimated $3.18 earnings per share on $2.34 billion in revenue, according to FactSet. Monolithic Power Systems — The semiconductor-based electronics company's stock lost 1.6% following its earnings announcement Monday after the bell. Despite reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenue in the second quarter, its third-quarter revenue guidance was lower than analysts were expecting. Molson Coors Beverage — Shares fell 4.6l% after the brewing and beverage company reported mixed quarterly results before the bell. Its second-quarter revenue of $3.27 billion fell short of the $3.29 billion expected from analysts polled by StreetAccount. Adjusted earnings per share, however, topped expectations. Leidos Holdings — The defense solutions company's shares rallied 6.9% after its second-quarter results topped analyst estimates. The company posted $1.80 earnings per share on $3.84 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected $1.57 earnings per share on $3.72 billion in revenue. Eaton Corporation — The power management company's shares increased 6.6% after beating analyst expectations on both earnings and revenue in the second quarter. The company's full-year earnings guidance also came above estimates. Global Payments — Shares jumped 9.5% following the company's second-quarter earnings announcement. Global Payments reported $2.62 adjusted earnings per share on $2.2 billion in adjusted net revenue. Meanwhile, analysts had estimated $2.59 earnings per share on $2.19 billion in revenue, according to FactSet. — CNBC's Alexander Harring, Yun Li, Pia Singh, Tanaya Macheel, Michelle Fox and Sarah Min contributed reporting

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/31/stocks-making-the-biggest-moves-after-hours-yumc-wdc.html

MPWR

Monolithic Power Systems

Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Yum China, Western Digital, ZoomInfo and more

Check out the companies making headlines in extended trading. Yum China — The restaurant franchiser's shares fell 3.4% following its mixed second-quarter results. The company announced 47 cents in adjusted earnings per share on $2.65 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected 46 cents earnings per share on $2.68 billion in revenue. Management noted that same-store sales across its restaurants still remained below pre-pandemic levels. ZoomInfo Technologies – Shares shed 17% in extended trading after the company posted a weak outlook for third-quarter revenue. The data company anticipates $309 million to $312 million in revenue, while analysts called for $326 million, according to Refinitiv. ZoomInfo's revenue in the latest quarter also missed expectations, coming in at $309 million, while analysts estimated $311 million. Western Digital — The data storage company's stock gained 2% after a better-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter earnings report. Western Digital posted a loss of $1.98 per share on $2.67 billion in revenue. Analysts had estimated a loss of $2.01 per share on $2.53 billion in revenue, according to Refinitiv. Arista Networks — Shares rose more than 11% after the company's quarterly earnings topped analysts' expectations. Arista reported adjusted earnings of $1.58 per share, versus consensus analyst estimates of $1.44 per share, according to Refinitiv. Revenue also came in higher than expected at $1.46 billion, compared to analyst expectations of $1.38 billion. Lattice Semiconductor — The stock declined 2.6% after management noted that the company "is not immune to macroeconomic challenges" impacting the chip sector. Lattice reported second-quarter earnings of 52 cents per share, adjusted, on revenue of $190.1 million, while analysts polled by FactSet called for 51 cents in earnings per share on revenue of $188.2 million. Rambus — The stock tumbled more than 8% after the release of its second-quarter earnings. Rambus posted $120 million in revenue, versus analysts' forecast for $133 million, according to Refinitiv. Licensing billings and product revenue also declined year over year. Monolithic Power Systems — Shares lost 3.8% Monday in extended trading. The lower end of the semiconductor company's revenue guidance for the third quarter came in below analysts' estimates. Monolithic forecasts revenue of $464 million to $484 million for the third quarter, while analysts called for $473.4 million, per FactSet. SBA Communications — Shares of the real estate investment trust added more than 4%. The wireless infrastructure company reported second-quarter revenue of $678.5 million, while analysts called for $676.9 million. SBA also announced a newly signed master lease agreement with AT&T.

https://www.cnbc.com/select/what-is-estate-planning/

MPWR

Monolithic Power Systems

Estate planning isn't just for the wealthy — here's why everyone should do it

Though estate planning isn't the most enjoyable aspect of personal finances, it's one of the most crucial. Getting your affairs in order ensures your loved ones aren't left scrambling over your assets or debts when you pass away. There are a lot of misconceptions about estate planning — like, that it's only for the wealthy or that you don't need to worry about it until later in life. Everyone should make their wishes clear — and the earlier you can start, the better. Below, CNBC Select looks into what estate planning includes and how you can get started on the process. What we'll cover What is estate planning? Estate planning resources Your estate planning checklist Bottom line What is estate planning? Estate planning essentially involves deciding how your assets and belongings will be managed and distributed in the event of your death or incapacitation, typically through a legal document like a will or trust. Most people will need to determine how they want their bank accounts, investment accounts and life insurance policies allocated, as well as any property and personal possessions. Estate planning can also include assigning financial and medical power of attorney and, if you have children who are still minors, directions for their care. More help: 4 things you should know about inheritance tax Because estate planning encompasses so many things, it can be a daunting process. That's why it's best to not view it as a one-time action, but something you can start and revisit whenever circumstances call for it. Estate planning resources You can find downloadable templates for wills and other legal documents online or from software programs. While these templates serve as a good starting point, be mindful that they don't always address specific needs and, in general, are better suited for very straightforward situations. Those with large families or complex financial holdings should consider speaking with an attorney who specializes in estate planning. LegalZoom offers downloadable wills, living wills and financial power of attorney. Live legal advice and state-specific information is available with certain plans or can be purchased separately. LegalZoom Learn More Cost From $35 to $279+ App available? Yes Standout features LegalZoom offers all sorts of legal document templates online so users can avoid having to hire an outside lawyer. Its downloadable wills, living wills and financial power of attorney documents make it easy to estate plan. LegalZoom also has its own network of attorneys that customers can utilize to ask questions, etc. The Quicken WillMaker & Trust program has a simple-to-use interface that lets you draft basic wills, trusts, living wills and other documents and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. There is no live legal support but the system is updated regularly to ensure you're abiding by state laws. Quicken WillMaker & Trust Learn More Cost $99 to $209 App available? No Standout features Quicken WillMaker & Trust allows users to create wills, health care directives and living trusts online and through downloadable software. Its all-access plan includes a digital storage vault through Everplans. A 30-day money-back guarantee will ensure that your documents are what you want. Fabric by Gerber Life is a life insurance provider that also allows users to generate free digital wills designating beneficiaries and appointing guardians for minors. You may still need to get your will notarized, but Gerber Life includes instructions for ensuring it's legally binding. Fabric by Gerber Life Learn More Cost $0 App available? Yes Standout features Fabric by Gerber Life offers a simple, quick way to make a will and designate your beneficiaries. Designed for parents, this online will maker allows you to appoint a guardian for children and make any final arrangements. The app walks you through the process and gives directions on how to make the will legally binding after creating it. Your estate planning checklist These steps will help get you started before drafting a will. Take an inventory of your assets Your tangible assets include items of monetary value — like your home, car, jewelry and collectibles — as well as those with sentimental value, like photographs, books and mementos. Intangible assets can include bank and brokerage accounts, retirement funds and insurance policies. Keep a list of account numbers and the market value of your tangible assets and update it annually. List outstanding debt What happens to your debts after you pass away depends on what kind they are and the state you lived in. Unsecured debt like credit card bills and student loans is frequently written off. But if you have debts secured with collateral — like mortgages and car loans — those assets could be seized or sold to settle the balance. More help: What happens to your loans when you die? Writing down all your outstanding debts can help both your executor and your beneficiaries get a clearer picture of your estate. Choose an executor The executor or estate administrator is responsible for making sure your wishes are carried out. They will be compensated from the probate estate, though the specific amount varies according to the will or state law. It's essential to have an honest conversation with the person you'd like to be your executor so they understand what's required and can consent to accept the responsibility. You may also want to let close friends and family know who you've selected so there's no confusion later. You'll also want to appoint powers of attorney, who can make financial and medical decisions if you are unable to. Name guardians If you have minor children (or pets), decide who you want to take care of them if you die. Be sure to include a second choice, in case your first isn't able to assume the responsibility. Read on: Living trusts vs. wills — what's the best way to pass on an inheritance? As with your executor, be crystal clear with this person about your wishes and what is expected of them if they agree. Select beneficiaries If you haven't already, you'll want to name beneficiaries for your retirement accounts, life insurance policies and annuities. Many states allow you to set up transfer-on-death deeds so they can bypass probate. Provide the beneficiary's full legal name and relationship to you. You may also need to include their date of birth, Social Security number and additional details. An entity can also be a beneficiary, including any charitable organizations you may want to pass assets on to. Bottom line Estate planning offers peace of mind to both you and those you leave behind. It's important to organize your financial records and make plans early and revisit them as your circumstances change. Subscribe to the CNBC Select Newsletter! Money matters — so make the most of it. Get expert tips, strategies, news and everything else you need to maximize your money, right to your inbox. Sign up here. Why trust CNBC Select? At CNBC Select, our mission is to provide our readers with high-quality service journalism and comprehensive consumer advice so they can make informed decisions with their money. Every personal finance article is based on rigorous reporting by our team of expert writers and editors with extensive knowledge of personal finance products. While CNBC Select earns a commission from affiliate partners on many offers and links, we create all our content without input from our commercial team or any outside third parties, and we pride ourselves on our journalistic standards and ethics. Catch up on CNBC Select's in-depth coverage of credit cards, banking and money, and follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to stay up to date. Editorial Note: Opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the Select editorial staff’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any third party.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/26/stocks-making-the-biggest-moves-midday-ford-marvell-technology-paramount-gap-more.html

MPWR

Monolithic Power Systems

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Ford, Marvell Technology, Paramount, Gap and more

A Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum electric truck during the 2022 New York International Auto Show, New York. Check out the companies making the biggest moves midday Friday. Ford — Shares popped 6.24% after Ford and Tesla announced a partnership late Thursday that will give Ford owners access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers in the U.S. and Canada. Tesla 's stock gained 4.72%. Marvell Technology — The semiconductor stock soared 32.42% after the company's earnings beat analyst expectations. Marvell Technology also expects revenue growth to accelerate in the second half of the fiscal year, with CEO Matt Murphy citing artificial intelligence as a "key growth driver." Ulta Beauty — Shares of the beauty retailer tumbled 13.37% following the company's first-quarter earnings announcement. Despite reporting an earnings and revenue beat, shares fell on the company's reduced operating margin outlook for the full year. Paramount — Shares of the media company gained 5.89% after National Amusements, Paramount's majority voting shareholder, announced a $125 million preferred equity investment by BDT Capital Partners. Loop Capital upgraded Paramount to a hold rating from a sell in light of the news. The Wall Street firm said the bull case is the financial pressure will force Paramount to find a buyer and shareholders will achieve private market value. Gap — Shares of the apparel retailer jumped 12.4% even after the company posted net losses and declining sales Thursday for its most recent quarter. Investors cheered Gap's big improvement in its margins, which it attributed to reduced promotions and lower air freight expenses. Workday — The stock rallied 10.01% after its first-quarter earnings and revenue beat analysts' expectations. Workday also raised the low end of its full-year subscription revenue guidance and named a new chief financial officer, Zane Rowe. RH — Shares tumbled 3.07% after the retailer's second-quarter guidance missed analysts' expectations. The company also warned of increased markdowns. However, RH beat estimates for first-quarter adjusted earnings per share and revenue, per Refinitiv, when it reported results after Thursday's close. Deckers Outdoor — Deckers Outdoor popped 3.37% after the footwear company behind Ugg and HOKA shoes reported fiscal fourth-quarter results that exceeded analysts' expectations. However, it gave full-year earnings and revenue guidance that was lower than expected. American Express — Shares added 4.08%. On Friday, Morgan Stanley said the recent sell-off was "overdone" and with the stock trading at its cheapest level in years, it's a good entry point for investors. Nvidia — The semiconductor stock added 2.54%, a day after surging 24% on the back of the AI darling's blowout earnings report. The move higher Friday takes Nvidia closer to reaching a $1 trillion market cap. Monolithic Power Systems , Arista Networks — The stocks were among those getting a boost from Nvidia's earnings report and the excitement over AI. Monolithic Power Systems rallied 6.68%, while Arista gained 9.06%. Broadcom moved 11.52% higher, NXP Semiconductors added 5.74% and Adobe rose 5.95%. — CNBC's Hakyung Kim, Yun Li, Tanaya Macheel and Sarah Min contributed reporting.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/08/these-are-stocks-the-street-thinks-will-keep-winning-as-rates-rise.html

MPWR

Monolithic Power Systems

These stocks are winning even as Fed hikes rates — and Wall Street sees the gains continuing

The Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes have made markets volatile, but some stocks have still managed to outperform. The S & P 500 is down 6.6% since March 15, 2022 — one day before the central bank began its campaign to push interest rates to almost 5% today from near 0% a year ago. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told Congress Tuesday that rates will likely continue higher for longer to contain inflation, fueling a selloff in stocks. Against such a backdrop, CNBC screened for stocks that have outperformed in the past year and are poised to see continued gains even as monetary policy stays tight. The following stocks are up more than 10% since the day before the Fed began its current policy last March. Analysts are also bullish on the stocks, with more than 70% rating them buy and consensus price targets offering upside of 10% or more. Here are some of the stocks that can continue to gain even as the Fed lifts its likely peak interest rate, and where analysts expect the stocks to trade in the future. Several energy stocks made the list of winners over the past year, including Schlumberger N.V. , EQT and Diamondback Energy . Schlumberger has surged 38% since rates began to rise, and has an average price target of $64, which implies an upside of 22% from its closing price on Tuesday. Although the stock has dipped 2% in 2023, more than three quarters (77%) of analysts covering SLB rate it a buy. Diamondback Energy has an average upside of about 25% based on analysts' average price targets. Three-quarters of analysts on the stock give it a buy rating. The stock is up almost 3% in 2023, after rallying 26.8% last year and more than doubling in 2021. Credit Suisse analyst Bill Janela said in February that Diamondback also has an attractive relative valuation, adding that "while M & A headline risk was the frequent pushback on FANG for much of last year, acquisitions made in 4Q22 were sufficiently accretive and well received by the market such that the M & A concerns have been alleviated." Analysts are optimistic that Delta Airlines will manage to continue its gains — 86% of analysts rate the stock a buy. Shares have already jumped 20% in 2023 as demand and ticket prices remain elevated post-pandemic. Evercore ISI upgraded Delta on Tuesday to outperform from in line, saying it anticipates several positive catalysts ahead for the carrier and encouraged investors to buy the dip. Technology companies Synopsys , CoStar , Monolithic Power Systems , EPAM Systems and CDW Corporation were also on the list. EPAM Systems shares have rallied almost 36% during the Fed's rate hike cycle, but have fallen 9% year-to-date. —CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/100843412

MNST

Monster Beverage

Second Wrongful Death Suit Filed Against Monster Beverage

A second wrongful death suit has been filed against energy drink maker Monster Beverage. Attorneys retained by the family of 19-year-old Alex Morris filed suit in California today. The attorneys claim that 19-year- old Alex Morris suffered cardiac arrest July 1st of last year after consuming at least two 16-ounce cans of Monster's energy drink the day before his death. The California Coroner's office ruled his death was due to cardiac arrhythmia and cardiomyopathy. That report is similar to the report filed by a coroner in Maryland in the case of 14-year-old Anais Fournier who died in the fall of last year. (Read More: McDonald's Retreats From Selling Halal Food After Lawsuit) Both lawsuits were filed by the same team of attorneys including Maryland-based Kevin Goldberg of Goldberg, Finnegan and Mester. Goldberg says: "we are committed to holding energy-drink companies accountable for the injuries and deaths their products are causing." Late on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Monster said in a statement: "the lawsuit admits that Mr. Morris consumed Monster Energy Drinks for years without incident. Simply because Mr. Morris happened to have consumed a Monster Energy Drink or two on the day of his cardiac arrest does not establish any causal connection between the two." Earlier this year an attorney representing Monster said two doctors the company hired found no evidence to support claims Anais Fournier died due to consuming their drink. In that case, the girl had an existing heart problem but it was not severe enough for doctors to limit her activities and tell her to stay away from caffeine.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/15/red-bull-f1-dominance-boosts-energy-drink-sales.html

MNST

Monster Beverage

Red Bull's F1 dominance is translating to higher energy drink sales, team's principal says

Red Bull Racing's dominance in Formula 1 this year is translating directly to higher sales of its namesake energy drink, the team's principal and CEO, Christian Horner, told CNBC. "There's an old adage of, 'Win on Sunday and sell on Monday.' Well, what we do for the Red Bull brand, for the energy drink in advertising the product globally for 23 race weekends a year, we're the biggest marketing impact that the beverage company has," Horner told CNBC's Sara Eisen in the documentary "The Inside Track: The Business of Formula 1." The Red Bull team, which also counts tech giant Oracle as a title sponsor, has trounced the grid this season, winning 19 of the 20 Grand Prix weekends so far. Its world champion driver, Max Verstappen, has taken the checkered flag on 17 of those wins, with his teammate Sergio Perez collecting wins in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan. Verstappen already clinched the 2023 drivers title — his third world championship — in early October during the 17th Grand Prix weekend of the season, in Qatar. The Red Bull team secured the constructors championship the weekend prior, in Japan. The drivers will take to the track again on Sunday in Las Vegas before the season wraps at the end of this month in Abu Dhabi. Red Bull declined to share specific sales metrics, but a company spokesperson reiterated the F1 "uplift" and said it's particularly noticeable in corresponding race markets. "They see it, they can measure it. It's incredible the amount of consumption of Red Bull that is happening," Horner told CNBC.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/monster-energy-stock-mnst-citi-upgrade.html

MNST

Monster Beverage

Citi upgrades Monster Energy, says underperformance is opportunity to get the growth stock for cheap

Investors should jump on Monster Energy before the beverage stock finds a second wind, according to Citigroup. Monster's stock has been sluggish in 2021, rising just 1% year to date. Citi analyst Wendy Nicholson said in a note to clients Thursday night that the underperformance has created an opportunity, and it upgraded the stock to buy from neutral. "Given that this relative valuation is well below MNST's average 85% premium to the market over the last decade, today's stock price feels attractive enough to us to warrant a Buy rating," the note said. Monster has averaged a 12-month return of 21% over the past decade The energy drink company also offers a strong growth outlook and a clean balance sheet, Citi said. "We like the long-term outlook for MNST and we continue to be optimistic that MNST will gain more market share in the growing global energy drink category. Further, with $2.2+ [billion] of cash and zero debt on its balance sheet, MNST has considerable flexibility to repurchase more shares," the note said. As part of the upgrade, Citi hiked its price target on Monster to $110 per share from $97. The new target is 17.8% above where the stock closed on Thursday. Monster has not announced the date for its next earnings report, but it typically releases its second-quarter results in August. -CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report. Cans of Monster Energy Drink are displayed on a shelf at a convenience store in Kentfield, Calif. Getty Images

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/03/analyst-calls-all-the-market-moving-chatter-from-wall-street-on-friday-morning.html

MNST

Monster Beverage

Analyst calls: All the market-moving chatter from Wall Street on Friday morning

(This is CNBC Pro's live coverage of Thursday's analyst calls and Wall Street chatter. Please refresh every 20-30 minutes to view the latest post.) A chunk of the Wall Street chatter Friday morning centered around Apple and its latest quarterly report. The tech giant posted fiscal third-quarter earnings that exceeded analyst expectations. However, revenue was down for a fourth straight quarter . Shares were down 3% in the premarket on the back of those results. Elsewhere on Wall Street this morning, Goldman Sachs named Monster Beverage a top pick. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. 9:15 a.m. ET: JPMorgan downgrades Fox despite strong quarter A solid quarterly report this week doesn't clear up the long-term concerns for Fox, according to JPMorgan. Analyst Philip Cusick downgraded the media stock to neutral from overweight, saying in a note to clients that the company has big-picture questions to answer despite a "solid" quarter. "We like Fox's concentrated news, sports, and broadcast strategy, which has buoyed shares vis-à-vis media peers during the industry-wide selloff of the last two years, but long-term strategic questions remain. We particularly question the lack of a wider digital strategy, as linear ecosystem subscriber losses remain elevated in the coming years and the pace of affiliate increases will fade, leaving Fox subject to a tough linear affiliate trend more similar to peers," the note said. On Thursday, Fox beat Wall Street estimates for revenue and adjusted earnings per share for its fiscal first quarter, according to StreetAccount. Shares rose about 1.6% on Thursday. JPMorgan lowered its price target on Fox to $36 per share from $40. That is 16% above where the stock closed Thursday. — Jesse Pound 9:01 a.m. ET: Investors should pick up shares of Starbucks after earnings, revenue beat, analysts say Analysts are bullish on Starbucks after the coffee maker surpassed Wall Street's expectations for its fiscal quarter on Thursday, delivering strong comparable-store sales growth and margin expansion. Bank of America analyst Sara Senatore maintained her buy rating and $121 price target on Starbucks. She cited Starbucks' new long-term growth algorithm as a revenue and earnings catalyst for the company, adding that the coffee maker has unmet customer demand, further potential to grow in the China market and additional cost savings opportunities to realize over the next three years. "Starbucks should trade at 1.5x relative to the S & P 500," Senatore said. "We believe that the multiple is justified given tailwinds as China reopens, increased investments associated with labor, operations, and unit development, as well as a return to a higher long term growth algorithm." JPMorgan analyst John Ivankoe also likes the stock, saying the company's strong fourth-quarter results were followed by an "equally solid" outlook for 2024. He maintained his overweight rating and upped his price target by $3 to $110, which indicates about 9.9% potential upside. — Pia Singh 8:37 a.m. ET: Oppenheimer says Expedia is 'arguably best bargain in travel' after earnings beat Expedia remains Oppenheimer's top online travel pick after the company delivered strong third-quarter numbers, the firm said in a Friday note. The online vacation booking company posted strong margin expansion and a quarterly profit of $425 million during the quarterly period, and also reiterated its 2023 outlook in its earnings release on Thursday. Expedia also announced a new $5 million share repurchase authorization. Analyst Jed Kelly maintained his 12 month-18 month price target of $135, which implies shares can jump roughly 42%. Shares climbed 10.4% in Friday premarket trading. "We believe the market is not properly reflecting improvements to EXPE's unified tech stack creating a more consistent earning grower, post COVID. Our base case assumes better brand cohesion and higher direct traffic mix equating to revenue/EBITDA growing," Kelly said, adding that Expedia is "arguably [the] best bargain in travel." The analyst noted that while Expedia experienced some travel disruption in early October from the war in the Middle East, global demand remains "healthy." — Pia Singh 7:56 a.m. ET: Citi upgrades Cedar Fair and Six Flags after merger announcement The deal to combine Cedar Fair and Six Flags into a theme park giant is getting a warm reception from at least one Wall Street analyst. Citi analyst James Hardiman upgraded both Six Flags and Cedar Fair to buy from neutral, saying in a note to clients that the merger should enhance the upside that already exists for both stocks. "Adding the $120M of cost synergies gets us to approximately $5.5B in equity value, or 45% upside to the current valuation, with this upside roughly evenly split between the value we see from the standalone companies and the additional value stemming from the synergies, with significantly more upside the more that we relax what we believe to be fairly-conservative profit and valuation assumptions," the note said. The initial reaction to the news was positive for Six Flags, whose shares rose 6.5% on Thursday. Shares of Cedar Fair dipped 1.4%. Both companies also reported third-quarter results on Thursday, and those showed positive trends for the theme park business, Hardiman said. "Lost in all of the merger discussion were some positive earnings takeaways from SIX and especially FUN on Thursday —Combined, the two would have beaten the Street by ~$17M on the EBITDA line (FUN +$39M; SIX -$22M) although both companies comfortably beat on the top line and the attendance line," the note said. — Jesse Pound 7:52 a.m. ET: Raymond James sees positive momentum for Regeneron Raymond James upgraded Regeneron shares to outperform from market perform following the company's third-quarter earnings announcement Thursday before the bell. Regeneron has several clinical updates in its oncology portfolio through 2024, according to analyst Dane Leone. He believes the most significant near-term catalyst could be the interim analysis of its Phase 3 trial of its treatment Dupixent in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with evidence of type 2 inflammation. Leone set his price target at $950, which implies 16% upside potential from Thursday's close. "Our new price target represents 7x EV/ NTM sales, a premium to its large cap biotech peer group (5x), which we believe is justified given first in class opportunity for Dupixent in COPD, incremental optimism around the trajectory of the Eylea franchise, and the potential of inflecting the oncology portfolio during 2024," he wrote in a Thursday note. — Hakyung Kim 7:37 a.m. ET: KeyBanc assigns overweight rating on Uber, expects third-quarter growth to accelerate KeyBanc upgraded Uber ahead of the rideshare company's earnings scheduled for Tuesday, which it expects to come out in line with analysts' expectations. Analyst Justin Patterson rated the stock overweight with a price target of $60, suggesting shares can climb roughly 29% over the next twelve months. Shares inched up 1.2% in early Friday morning. UBER YTD mountain UBER in 2023 "We believe expense discipline at Uber should continue driving an EBITDA and FCF inflection, while advertising provides a lever to keep prices low to drive volumes," he wrote in a note. "Taken together, we are more comfortable projecting a mid-teens growth profile with a path to $7.7B in EBITDA by 2025E." Patterson said he expects Uber to deliver an acceleration of growth in the third quarter and stable margin improvement throughout 2024. He noted that Uber is still dominant in the rideshare space, maintaining the majority share of U.S. app downloads even though Lyft has grown downloads at a faster pace. Uber's multiple also has more opportunity to expand, particularly when comparing Airbnb's multiple premium despite its lower growth, he added. — Pia Singh 7:05 a.m. ET: HSBC upgrades Moderna, says shares are at a fair valuation HSBC analyst Yifeng Liu upgraded Moderna shares to hold but slashed his price target on the company, saying the stock's downside has "played out" after a disappointing earnings release. Liu's $69 price target, which is substantially lower than the previous target of $89, suggests shares can lose 3.1% from Thursday's close. "While there remains considerable uncertainty for products from the mRNA technology platform, the current share price has taken into account such risks, including weakened COVID-19 vaccine revenues," Liu said. "We think the company is now trading at a fair valuation." Moderna's total revenue topped analysts' expectations for the third quarter, but the company still reported a loss for the period after seeing demand decline for its Covid shots. Moderna also put a "softer tone" on its 2023 revenue outlook, Liu said, adding that the company now expects at least $6 billion in sales for the full year, which is $2 billion less than its previous guidance. According to the analyst, Moderna's revenue will slowly shift from being generated by Covid-19 products to instead being supported by RSV and combo vaccines. Its medium-term revenue is still being driven by its respiratory vaccines. — Pia Singh 6:50 a.m. ET: Stifel downgrades Papa John's, calls 'uncle' "OK Papa, We Call Uncle." That's what Stifel analyst Chris O'Cull wrote in his downgrade of Papa John's shares to hold from buy. O'Cull also cut his price target to $65 from $81, citing disappointing third-quarter earnings. "The company also lowered its unit opening guidance for 2023 and indicated that 2024 would be a challenging year for international development and N.A. comp growth," he said. "Our Hold thesis reflects our view that performance during the next several quarters will be volatile given the U.K. market turnaround, sales and development obstacles in key international markets, like the Middle East, and our view that the promotional activity in the U.S. QSR Pizza segment has intensified." Papa John's shares have struggled in 2023, losing 23.5%. PZZA YTD mountain PZZA in 2023 — Fred Imbert 6:11 a.m. ET: New Tesla truck poses 'threat' to global truck manufacturers Tesla's new Semi truck puts original equipment manufacturers at risk, according to Morgan Stanley. "We expect the Tesla Semi to deliver a competitive payload, creating a highly efficient, high range, fast charging, software-defined, Class 8 truck. This poses a threat to Truck OEMs worldwide," analyst Shaqeal Kirunda wrote in a note. The electric truck has both higher efficiency and longer range than incumbent OEM BEV, or battery electric vehicle, offerings, Kirunda wrote. The analyst expects Tesla to present a competitive payload in 2024 and thinks the EV maker can achieve this, as Tesla has a competitive advantage in battery production and its Semi truck is BEV native, rather than a diesel truck being transformed with an electric powertrain. Kirunda noted that delays in production and supply chain have currently limited the Semi truck to pilot phases, but that some key Tesla customers — including PepsiCo —have begun to use a small number of the trucks. Volvo, which the firm said has already made strides with its electric vehicle offerings, seems to be best protected against disruptions caused by Tesla's product. Shares of Tesla were down less than 1% in premarket trading. . — Pia Singh, Michael Bloom 5:51 a.m. ET: Here's what analysts have to say about Apple's earnings Apple reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings after the closing bell on Thursday that beat analyst expectations for sales and earnings per share but indicated a decline in overall sales for the fourth quarter in a row. Shares dipped 3.4% in premarket trading Friday. Here's what some of the major shops on Wall Street have to say about the results: Morgan Stanley maintained its overweight rating on the stock and kept its price target of $210, noting that Thursday's results "strengthen the bull case" for investors. The firm expects Apple's average revenue per unit to increase once macroeconomic headwinds lessen. Goldman Sachs reiterated its buy rating on the stock and its 12-month price target of $227, which implies 27.8% potential upside for Apple. The bank noted that "this was a solid quarter" with gross margin strength driven by strong iPhone results and an acceleration in services revenue. Like Morgan Stanley, the firm is confident that the iPhone active installed base will compound and reach a record in the fourth quarter, in part, by expanding into emerging markets and a growing base in other Apple products. JPMorgan kept its overweight rating, but cut its price target by $5 to $225, based on its 2025 earnings estimate. The firm likes Apple's iPhone and Services revenues, tight discipline on operating expenses, its revenue growth catalysts and upside to earnings. These qualities should lead "Apple to deliver to sell-side consensus EPS expectations for F1Q24 despite a softer revenue outlook," according to the firm. Wells Fargo reiterated its overweight rating on the stock, noting Apple's strong balance sheet and free cash flow generation, as well as its growing recurring paid subscriber base. The firm, which also kept its $225 price target, said it thinks Apple's fourth-quarter results could be "largely uneventful." — Pia Singh, Michael Bloom 5:40 a.m. ET: Goldman names Monster Beverage a top pick Goldman Sachs analyst Bonnie Herzog called Monster one of the bank's top picks after the energy drink maker posted its third-quarter results. The company reported adjusted earnings per share of 41 cents, beating a StreetAccount forecast of 40 cents per share. "We continue to favor strong volume-led growth stories across the Staples universe (we model FY23/FY24 vols of +10.4%/+13.1%), with MNST being a standout. Against this backdrop, we are increasingly bullish on the stock, though maintain our FY23/FY24 EPS est of $1.54/$1.85 to be conservative," Herzog said. The analyst has a buy rating on Monster along with a $62 per share price target. That forecast implies upside of more than 17%. — Fred Imbert, Michael Bloom

https://www.cnbc.com/id/47390853

MNST

Monster Beverage

Cramer's Options Play on Monster Beverage

Cramer's Option Play on Monster Beverage 6:25 PM ET Fri, 11 May 2012 "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer has long liked beverage maker Monster Beverage. Right now, the beverage sector is doing well and ranks among the best areas of growth. But given the current market environment, Cramer doesn't recommend buying Monster's common stock outright. In fact, he prefers investors buy deep-in-the-money call options. Cramer thinks it's just a more conservative trade than buying the company's stock. Watch the video to see why Cramer likes using options to play Monster! Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBC Questions for Cramer? madmoney@cnbc.com Questions, comments, suggestions for the Mad Money website? madcap@cnbc.com

https://www.cnbc.com/id/100153744

MNST

Monster Beverage

RESEARCH ALERT-Stifel cuts Monster Beverage to hold

Oct 10 (Reuters) - Monster Beverage Corp : * Stifel cuts Monster Beverage to hold from buy For a summary of rating and price target changes on U.S. companies: Reuters Eikon users, click on Reuters 3000Xtra users, double-click Reuters Station users, click .1568 For a summary of rating and price target changes on Canadian companies: Reuters Eikon users, click on Reuters 3000Xtra users, double-click Reuters Station users, click .4899 ((Bangalore Newsroom; +1 646 223 8780))

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/13/the-biggest-stocks-to-watch-on-wednesday-by-analysts.html

MNST

Monster Beverage

Here are Wednesday's biggest analyst calls: Tesla, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Ferrari, Roblox, Disney and more

Here Wednesday's biggest calls on Wall Street: Morgan Stanley reiterates Disney as overweight Morgan Stanley raised its price target to $110 per share from $105 and says it's sticking with Disney. "We remain OW as we see its Parks assets limiting downside risk, and see opportunities for the company to improve and unlock value in its Media businesses." Bank of America names General Electric a top pick The firm said General Electric is a "pure-play aviation stock" for 2024. " GE is on track to spin-off Vernova (GE's Renewable Energy & Power segments) in April. We see GE as benefiting from competitors' distractions at both Aerospace and Vernova. We view the cancelation of one of three of GE's offshore wind projects as a positive, as it allows GE to avoid a loss-making contract." KBW upgrades D.R. Horton to outperform from market perform KBW said the homebuilder's outlook looks positive. "We upgraded DHI to Outperform (OP) and reiterated OP ratings on LEN and TOL due to positive earnings and book value growth, healthy liquidity, and track record of delivering value to shareholders via stock buybacks." Morgan Stanley initiates DoubleVerify as overweight Morgan Stanley said the ad software company is innovative. " DV addresses a significant industry challenge and $215bn of total digital ad spend. We see its leading product offering and innovation pipeline (particularly in activation/programmatic) driving 22% sales/23% EBITDA CAGRs through '27." Bank of America reiterates Apple as neutral Bank of America said it sees a balanced risk/reward for Apple. "We rate Apple Neutral as we see risk-reward as balanced. Negatives are: a) weaker iPhone 15 cycle on consumer spending and China risk, b) weaker n-t services trajectory where App Store & Licensing can decelerate." Wolfe initiates Thermo Fisher as outperform Wolfe said it sees share outperformance for the life sciences company. "We expect that TMO shares will outperform the peer group over the next year as confidence builds in the outlook for a return to MSD/HSD [mid single digit/ high single digit] revenue growth and sustained margin improvement." JPMorgan initiates Kanzhun as overweight JPMorgan initiated the China online recruiter and said it has a strong network. " Kanzhun has emerged as a disruptive leader in China's online recruitment market, underpinned by its innovative matching model, scale advantages and strong network effect." HSBC downgrades Ferrari to hold from buy HSBC downgraded the stock mainly on valuation. "In many ways Ferrari is an unusual car company — by virtue of demand outstripping supply (the order book now extends to end-2025) it doesn't have to deal with the volatility most other OEMs face around demand and/or model changeovers. Arguably this is reflected in the valuation — currently." Bank of America reiterates Broadcom as buy Bank of America raised its price target on the stock to $1,250 per share from $1,200 and said it's "best-in-class." "Reiterate Buy, raise PO to $1250 from $1200 following virtual investor meeting with Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, CFO Kirsten Spears, and Head of IR Ji Yoo." Wells Fargo downgrades Johnson & Johnson to equal weight from overweight Wells Fargo said in its downgrade of the stock that it's concerned about "muted" earnings per share growth. "We are downgrading JNJ to EW from OW and lowering price target to $163 (from $170)." JPMorgan upgrades Health Catalyst to overweight from neutral JPMorgan said the data analytics health-care company has "upside potential." "We are upgrading Health Catalyst to Overweight, as we see the valuation as not reflective of earnings potential." Wells Fargo initiates Roblox as overweight Wells Fargo said in its initiation of Roblox that it has a "growing audience platform." " RBLX: Audience Platform w/ Advertising Upside; Initiate at OW, $49 PT." Morgan Stanley names L3Harris a top pick Morgan Stanley said the defense company is its new top pick. "While LHX's new targets are somewhat muted, we think they could represent a new floor. Risk-reward skews positive on upside potential." TD Cowen initiates Cava as outperform TD Cowen said it likes the Mediterranean restaurant's long-term growth. "We are bullish on CAVA's long-term story as the category leader in the attractive Mediterranean segment, while encouraging new unit economics demonstrate portability and lend confidence to the targeted 1,000+ U.S. stores by 2032." Wells Fargo names AT & T a top pick Wells Fargo said the stock is a top idea in 2024. "We believe T provides the most balanced growth in 2024, and we see upside to lowered expectations for postpaid phone net adds and FCF." Morgan Stanley downgrades Coherent to equal weight from overweight Morgan Stanley downgraded the laser systems solutions company mainly on valuation. "Downgrading COHR to EW from OW given recent performance captures NT upside, still like the stock over the LT." Citi downgrades Church & Dwight to sell from neutral and names Clorox a top 2024 pick Citi said in its downgrade of Church & Dwight that it sees "slowing topline trends." The firm also named Clorox a top pick for 2024. "Our Sell-rated stocks are CHD, KMB, BFB. We prefer names with inflecting results post temporary issues (CLX) or multinational names with higher topline growth potential, lower PL risk, pricing power, share gainers, and exposed to higher growth categories." Morgan Stanley upgrades MSCI to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said in its upgrade of the financial company that it's defensive. "We upgrade MSCI to OW given its defensive characteristics and growth opportunities." JPMorgan names Amazon, Alphabet and Uber top 2024 picks JPMorgan said Amazon, Alphabet and Uber are top ideas for 2024. "We anticipate our coverage universe will broadly re-accelerate revenue growth to more normalized levels, including mega-caps (3 of the Mag 7) returning to LDD% [low double digits] Y/Y growth." Morgan Stanley upgrades Ally Financial and Capital One to equal weight from underweight Morgan Stanley said in its upgrade of Ally Financial that it sees "easing net interest margin pressure." The firm also upgraded Capital One and says it sees slower credit deterioration. "As part of our shift in Industry View, from Cautious to In-Line, we upgrade ALLY to EW (easing NIM pressure as Fed no longer hiking rates) and COF to EW (credit deterioration slowing)." Evercore ISI reiterates Tesla as in line Evercore ISI said Tesla remains the "king of EV's." " Tesla remains (and will continue to remain) king of US EVs, as the 'rise of others' and the "incoming competition" that's been discussed for years has still not taken place." Bank of America names Humana a top pick Bank of America said Humana's "earnings power" stands out. "We see multiple ways for the company to get to $37 in EPS in 2025, despite market concerns that the ramp may be too steep." Truist initiates Microsoft as buy Truist said in its initiation of the stock that its artificial intelligence execution has been "impressive." "We are initiating coverage of MSFT with a Buy rating and three-year price target of $600. In a year when shares of the software behemoth have risen by over 50% (S & P500 up 19%), we expect many investors to be wondering where the upside potential is from here." Evercore ISI reiterates Monster as outperform Evercore ISI said the beverage giant is a top idea in 2024. " MNST is our favorite large cap growth name for 2024." Susquehanna initiates Impinj as buy Susquehanna said in its initiation of the radio frequency ID company that Impinj has an "underpenetrated" total addressable market. "The company holds incredible product and technology, with an expanding application set and commensurate TAM that can implement products for a low cost." Goldman Sachs initiates Opera as buy Goldman Sachs said the web browser and content company has idiosyncratic levers. "We view Opera as positively levered to long-term secular tailwinds within digital advertising and idiosyncratically benefiting from geographic & product mix shift dynamics as a driver of sustained double-digit % growth over the next several years." Oppenheimer downgrades Hertz to perform from outperform Oppenheimer said a transition year is coming for the rental car giant. "We move to the sidelines, as we believe next year will be a transition year for HTZ. " Oppenheimer names Target a top pick Oppenheimer said it sees a "very attractive" risk/reward for Target in 2024. "We are adding TGT to top pick status as we see a very attractive risk/reward scenario and the potential for positive comps later in 2024. We are removing COST from the list due primarily to valuation." Deutsche Bank names Wynn and Las Vegas Sands as top 2024 ideas Deutsche Bank said in an outlook note Wednesday that there are several casino stocks well-positioned to outperform in 2024. "Not dissimilar to our view heading into 2023, which proved incorrect for a myriad of reasons, we believe WYNN and LVS represent the best opportunities for outperformance in 2024." Jefferies adds Ulta to the franchise picks list Jefferies said the beauty company is best in class. "We flag ULTA as a best in class retailer, diversified across beauty product categories and price points." B. Riley initiates Vizio as buy B. Riley initiated the consumer electronics company and said it's underappreciated. "Although we recognize macro-related TV shipment volume headwinds, we believe these risks are more than priced into shares, with the stock underappreciating Vizio's opportunity to grow gross profit, adjusted EBITDA, and FCF via Platform+ ARPU expansion as consumer behavior and, in turn, advertiser spend shift from linear to streaming environments."

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/traders-bet-on-one-beverage-and-alcohol-stock-this-holiday-season.html

MNST

Monster Beverage

Traders bet on one beverage and alcohol stock this holiday season

"We like Constellation. The dividend is at about 1.4%, it's only trading at 20.5 times next year's earnings, 37 trailing [price-earnings]. It's not overly valued," Gordon told CNBC's " Trading Nation " on Tuesday. Todd Gordon, founder of TradingAnalysis.com, is backing Wells Fargo's call on one of those stocks. Gordon noted that Constellation appears to have broken through trend line resistance at $195. Should it hold that level, he would look to add the stock to his portfolio. Constellation traded above $209 on Wednesday. Mark Tepper, president of Strategic Wealth Partners, also sees value in Constellation Brands, citing strength in its Mexico-imported beers and higher-end wines. He says it also has exposure to one high-growth segment. "With Constellation Brands, let's not forget you also get the call option on the cannabis business with Canopy Growth … and that's an industry that is just looking better and better every single day. I mean, all those stocks are going up," Tepper said. Constellation Brands holds a 38% stake in cannabis producer Canopy Growth. Total sales for Canopy are expected to increase 48% for fiscal 2021 ending in March. Disclosure: Strategic Wealth Partners holds STZ. Disclaimer

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/17/analyst-calls-of-the-day-apple-netflix-monster-eli-lilly-more.html

MNST

Monster Beverage

Here are the biggest analyst calls of the day: Apple, Netflix, Monster, Eli Lilly & more

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Thursday: Barclays raised its price target on Apple to $224 from $207 Barclays raised its target price on Apple on better than expected iPhone demand. "We see stronger initial demand likely driven by the lower pricing strategy on the iPhone 11, which is partially why China was better in Q3. The compares were easy in September although as the XR didn't launch until late October last year. We still see mix shifting downward, so we lower our ASP assumptions. We raise our iPhone unit estimates by 1% and 4% (by 8M units in total) to 184/192M for FY19/20 to reflect more optimistic demand." Read more about this call here . RBC initiated Campbell's Soup & Mondelez as 'outperform' RBC said it saw stability taking shape at Campbell's while Mondelez was "poised" to deliver revenue growth at the higher end of its peer group. "For MDLZ, we believe the company is poised to deliver revenue growth at the upper-end of its big cap peer group, which should help close the the valuation gap with the likes of PG/PEP/CL. We believe CPB will succeed in stabilizing soup, which should help its multiple. Fundamentals aside, we also view CPB as the most probable special situations story across packaged food (we believe the company could break into 2 businesses – snacks and soup/convenience meals." Cowen upgraded Boston Beer to 'outperform' from 'market perform' Cowen upgraded the stock and said it was bullish on the company's pipeline of products. "We are upgrading SAM to an Outperform rating, and raising our PT to $450, which reflects a ~37x P/E on our upwardly revised 2020 estimate. With Truly continuing to drive outsized growth for SAM , and with new formulations and a Lemonade line-extension slated for next year, we believe Truly will continue to transform SAM's growth algorithm, and offset continued softness in beer and cider." Cowen downgraded Monster Beverage to 'market perform' from 'outperform' Cowen downgraded the stock on the heels of the company's disappointing launch of its energy drink, Reign. "Meaningful category under-performance leaves us cautious on longer-term U.S. prospects. While we had been hopeful that the launch of Reign would be a sufficient response to category disrupter, Bang, that has not been the case. Given MNST 's outsized exposure to the U.S., we expect this will prove problematic." Evercore ISI initiated Travelers Company as 'underperform' Evercore initiated the stock as underperform and said it was concerned about the company's recent earnings reports due to "adverse" trends on commercial auto and general liability. "Results at TRV have suffered over the last several quarters driven by adverse trends on commercial auto and general liability, and the company has indicated that it will take another current accident year charge in 3Q due to higher attorney involvement than expected even after the 2Q charge taken for the same issue." Bank of America reinstated Eli Lilly as 'buy' Bank of America said it views the company's risk/reward profile as "compelling." "We are reinstating coverage of LLY shares with a Buy rating and a $133 PO. The crux of our thesis is that Lilly's young product cycle offers a growth profile that should remain differentiated versus peers on both revenue and non- GAAP EPS (11% vs 5%)." Macquarie downgraded Netflix to 'neutral' from 'outperform' Macquarie said it thinks it will be harder for Netflix to grow in the U.S. going forward. "In some ways Netflix has defied the naysayers in Q3, coming close enough to guidance and delivering impressive revenue and earnings growth. We still think its opportunity is excellent, especially internationally where sub adds should continue to step up. But it's hard to deny the US is maturing, with sub add growth halving this year and the revenue effect of the price increases wearing off in Q1'20. We expect competition coming from Disney+ and others especially in the US will have only modest effect on churn, but we think it will be hard for Netflix to grow much more in the US, and we suspect pricing power is limited." Read more about this call here. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., July 10, 2019. Brendan McDermid | REUTERS

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/28/monster-jetblue-papa-johns-autodesk-are-analyst-calls-of-the-day.html

MNST

Monster Beverage

Here are the biggest analyst calls of the day: Monster, JetBlue & more

"Recent pullback in JBLU share price provides an attractive entry-point, in our view, as the stock is currently trading at 6.8x our 2020 EPS estimate of $2.40 or two standard deviations below its 10-year forward P/E average of 10.4x. Additionally, we think the name has attributes that should help mitigate the impact of growing trade disputes and/or weaker GDP growth: good balance sheet, solid market position, primarily domestic operator and costs under control as it is on track to achieve it flat to 1% 2018 - 2020 CASM CAGR goal." Deutsche said investors should buy the airline's stock and that it had a "good" balance sheet and "solid" market position among other things. "We reiterate our Outperform rating and move Monster to our Top Pick following price depreciation of 15% from July. Reign's primary objective—to arrest share gains at Bang—appears to have been successful. Despite ongoing distribution gains, Bang's share has flattened at 8% since Reign launched. In fact, Bang lost share in the most recent period." "We believe the CEO change represents a tactical opportunity for investors giving them time to weigh the results of the turnaround. We were surprised at the speed with which the board acted to effect this change and believe investors will likely give CEO Rob Lynch some time to demonstrate his strategy is working. We have previously seen sentiment reverse quickly on highly-shorted stocks, such as Chipotle and Dine Brands, following a change in executive leadership with these stocks experiencing large moves well before better results materialized." " Autodesk printed stronger than expected July Q but lowered F20 guidance across the board, albeit slightly to account for weakness in manufacturing and construction in select geos such as UK, Germany and China. We downgrade ADSK from Neutral to U/P with a new PO of $127 vs $170 using triangulation method on lower ests/valn multiples." Bank of America cut the maker of computer-aided design software after the company reported earnings and lowered its 2020 earnings forecast. Barclays said in its downgrade of the beer maker that the market's valuation of the company was "overly simplistic." "ABI has had a good share price run in recent months, but we see 3 reasons for this to end. We d/g to UW and go against the 92% of analysts who are buyers or holders. The 3 critical operational issues are: 1) Key markets of Brazil, Colombia and South Africa are likely to cede share to Heineken. 2) ABI's largest market, the US, is likely remain in structural decline. 3) ABI's Chinese business is likely to underperform other European operators in the market. The market's valuation of ABI is overly simplistic, in our view – it ignores inflation and minority interests." Note: This call occurred before the bell on Tuesday.

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/03/china-debt-fix-is-short-term-pain-long-term-gain.html

MCO

Moody's Corporation

China debt fix is ‘short-term pain, long-term gain’

hudiemm | iStock/360 | Getty Images China's debt loads have long loomed as a serious economic risk, and while analysts say new plans to clean up local government borrowing will bring near-term pain, a longer-term fix may be in sight. "[The new plan] represents the first concrete step by the central government to clean up the debt problems at the local governments," analysts at Bernstein Research said in a note Friday. Read More China's parliament authorizes local governments to issue bonds Provincial governments' debt, often issued via local government financing vehicles, or LGFVs, has worried economists for years. Outstanding debt climbed to around 17.9 trillion yuan ($2.92 trillion) by the end of the first half of 2013, according to the most recent national audit, from around 10.7 trillion in 2010. watch now On Thursday, China's State Council, its highest authority, set quotas on the amount of debt that local governments can issue, required it to be used for public projects rather than operational spending and tied debt levels to local officials' performance reviews. It also barred local governments from using LGFVs and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to raise debt and from guaranteeing or covering the liabilities of financial institutions or local corporates. Read More China's local government debt burden varies widely: Moody's "It's a tick in the right box," said Freya Beamish, an economist at Lombard Street Research, noting it indicates Beijing is willing to accept slower growth as a step toward avoiding an "Armageddon" scenario over its debt. "While this may bring short-term pain in terms of slowing economic growth and accelerating credit losses at LGFVs, we think the reform will benefit the economy and the Chinese banking sector in the long term," Bernstein said. It expects the reforms will weaken economic growth in debt-laden provinces as they incorporate existing and new debt into their budgets, as well as spurring an increase in the number of defaults among existing LGFV and local SOE debts. Read More 'Perfect storm' to hit China economy in 2016 But on the flip side, Bernstein expects more discipline in local government borrowing and budgets and reduced reliance on shadow banking. OCBC echoes the "short-term pain, long-term gain" view, seeing positives in separating government from corporate debt. watch now

https://www.cnbc.com/id/46421260

MCO

Moody's Corporation

Can Goldman, JPMorgan Weather Moody’s Downgrade?

Not so for Morgan Stanley, which could see a three-notch downgrade. Such a move, Hintz said, could seriously impact the profitability of its fixed-income business. Tim McCullough of Hedgeye Risk Management raised the issue of Japan as a sovereign debt issue in March. But Hintz said the question was more about when the market would begin to believe its strategy, having struggled with its margins. “They’re doing everything right now to try to get them moving,” he said. “But let’s face it, Morgan Stanley is running at a 9 percent pretax margin in their retail business, while Bank of America — hardly the paragon of good management — is running at about a 16 percent pretax margin.” Hintz noted that Moody’s emphasized the fact that all the banks are interlinked. If Europe can keep its head above water, U.S. banks will survive. But in a tail event, everyone loses, he said. “There’s the problem with all of the large-cap banks, which is that the U.S. economy will do OK and M&A will come back and equity underwriting will come back. That works,” he said. “That works only as long as Europe doesn’t self-destruct here.” ______________________________________________________ Got something to to say? Email us at fastmoney-web@cnbc.com and your comment might be posted on the Rapid Recap. If you'd prefer to make a comment, but not have it published on our website, email fastmoney@cnbc.com. Trader disclosure: On Feb. 16, 2011, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC’s "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders; Grasso is long ASTM; Grasso is long S; Grasso is long XLU; Grasso is long AVAV; Grasso is long BA; Grasso is long D; Grasso is long DIO; Grasso is long LIT; Grasso is long MHY; Grasso is long NUAN; Grasso is long MO; Grasso is long PFE; Grasso is long PRST; Seymour is long BAC; Seymour is long INTC; Adami owns C; Adami owns GS; Adami owns MSFT; Adami owns AGU; Adami owns NUE; Adami owns INTC; Adami owns BTU For Steve Grasso Stuart Frankel & Co and it’s partners own CSCO Stuart Frankel & Co and it’s partners own HPQ Stuart Frankel & Co and it’s partners own MU Stuart Frankel & Co and it’s partners own P Stuart Frankel & Co and it’s partners own ZNGA For Mike Khouw No disclosures For Erica Maschmeyer Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated makes a market in the securities of JWN. For Brad Hintz Brad Hintz, as a former Managing Director at Morgan Stanley Group (MS), owns an equity position in MS that is held in a Morgan Stanley Group ESOP Trust at Mellon Bank as convertible preferred stock. These MS ESOP securities were awarded to him as compensation and are fully vested. Mr. Hintz is also an investor in Morgan Stanley Capital Partners III, LP — a merchant banking fund where Morgan Stanley maintains an equity interest as a limited partner. Mr. Hintz participates in the Morgan Stanley Pre Tax Investment Plan, which is a deferred compensation plan structured as a note to Mr. Hintz from Morgan Stanley with the return on the note tied to one of many alternative asset classes. In addition, as a result of the complete spin-off of Discover from Morgan Stanley on June 30, 2007, Mr. Hintz received a long position in Discover stock as a beneficiary of the Morgan Stanley ESOP. These shares of Discover will ultimately be distributed to Mr. Hintz by the ESOP trustee. For Adam Holt Morgan Stanley & Co. International PLC and its affiliates have a significant financial interest in the debt securities of Adobe Systems, Autodesk, Intuit, Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, Symantec. For Zach Karabell River Twice is long GOOG River Twice is long AAPL River Twice is long MA

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/09/top-states-for-business-new-jersey.html

MCO

Moody's Corporation

Top States For Business 2019: New Jersey

Governor: Phil Murphy, Democrat Population: 8,908,520 GDP growth (Q4 2018): 1.8% Unemployment rate (May 2019): 3.8% Top corporate tax rate: 9% Top individual income tax rate: 10.75% Gasoline tax: 41.40 cents/gallon Bond rating (Moody's/S&P): A3, stable/A-, stable Major private employers: Wakefern Food Corporation, Johnson & Johnson Economic profile sources: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federation of Tax Administrators, American Petroleum Institute (excluding 18.40 cent/gallon federal tax), Moody's Investor Service, S&P Global Market Intelligence

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/09/top-states-for-business-kansas.html

MCO

Moody's Corporation

Top States for Business 2019: Kansas

Governor: Laura Kelly, Democrat Population: 2,911,505 GDP growth (Q4 2018): 0.9% Unemployment rate (May 2019): 3.5% Top corporate tax rate: 4% Top individual income tax rate: 5.7% Gasoline tax: 24.03 cents/gallon Bond rating (Moody's/S&P): Aa2, stable/AA-, stable Major private employers: Cessna Aircraft Corporation, Sprint Corporation Economic profile sources: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federation of Tax Administrators, American Petroleum Institute (excluding 18.40 cent/gallon federal tax), Moody's Investor Service, S&P Global Market Intelligence

https://www.cnbc.com/id/43684334

MCO

Moody's Corporation

As Wall St. Polices Itself, Prosecutors Use Softer Approach

Federal prosecutors officially adopted new guidelines about charging corporations with crimes — a softer approach that, longtime white-collar lawyers and former federal prosecutors say, helps explain the dearth of criminal cases despite a raft of inquiries into the financial crisis. Though little noticed outside legal circles, the guidelines were welcomed by firms representing banks. The Justice Department’s directive, involving a process known as deferred prosecutions, signaled “an important step away from the more aggressive prosecutorial practices seen in some cases under their predecessors,” Sullivan & Cromwell, a prominent Wall Street law firm, told clients in a memo that September. The guidelines left open a possibility other than guilty or not guilty, giving leniency often if companies investigated and reported their own wrongdoing. In return, the government could enter into agreements to delay or cancel the prosecution if the companies promised to change their behavior. But this approach, critics maintain, runs the risk of letting companies off too easily. “If you do not punish crimes, there’s really no reason they won’t happen again,” said Mary Ramirez, a professor at Washburn University School of Law and a former assistant United States attorney. “I worry and so do a lot of economists that we have created no disincentives for committing fraud or white-collar crime, in particular in the financial space.” While “deferred prosecution agreements” were used before the financial crisis, the Justice Department made them an official alternative in 2008, according to the Sullivan & Cromwell note. It is among a number of signs, white-collar crime experts say, that the government seems to be taking a gentler approach. The Securities and Exchange Commission also added deferred prosecution as a tool last year and has embraced another alternative to litigation — reports that chronicle wrongdoing at institutions like Moody’s Investors Service, often without punishing anyone. The financial crisis cases brought by the S.E.C. — like a recent settlement with JPMorgan Chase for selling a mortgage security that soured — have rarely named executives as defendants. Defending the department’s approach, Alisa Finelli, a spokeswoman, said deferred prosecution agreements require that corporations pay penalties and restitution, correct criminal conduct and “achieve these results without causing the loss of jobs, the loss of pensions and other significant negative consequences to innocent parties who played no role in the criminal conduct, were unaware of it or were unable to prevent it.” The department began pulling back from a more aggressive pursuit of white-collar crime around 2005, say defense lawyers and former prosecutors, after the Supreme Court overturned a conviction it won against the accounting firm Arthur Andersen. That ended an era of brass-knuckle prosecutions related to fraud at companies like Enron . Another example of this more cautious prosecutorial strategy: Government lawyers now go to companies earlier in an inquiry, and often tell companies to figure out whether improper activities occurred. Then those companies hire law firms to investigate and report back to the government. The practice was criticized last year when the Justice Department struck a settlement with Beazer Homes USA, a home builder accused of mortgage fraud. This “outsourcing” of investigations — as some lawyers call it — has led to increased coziness between the government and companies, some critics say. In banking, the collaboration is even stronger, dating to the mid-1990s when banks were asked to regularly report suspicious activities to the Treasury Department, an effort that aimed at relieving regulators of some of their enforcement loads. But it gave regulators a false assurance that banks would spot and report all wrongdoing, former investigators say. Moreover, companies are not as likely to come forward with evidence related to senior executives or to widespread patterns of misbehavior, some academics say. Intended to make the most of the government’s limited investigative resources, the government’s cooperation with corporations and industry groups can work well and save money when business hums along as usual. But some veterans of government prosecutions question such collaboration in financial crisis cases, and contend they should have been pursued more aggressively. “Traditionally, a bank would tell the Department of Justice when an employee engaged in crimes, but what do you do when the bank itself is run by a criminal enterprise?” said Solomon L. Wisenberg, former chief of the financial institutions fraud unit for the United States attorney in the Western District of Texas in the early 1990s. “You have to be able to investigate without just waiting for the bank to give you the referral. The people running the institutions are not going to come to the D.O.J. and tell them about themselves.” A Clash of Agencies Beazer Homes, based in Charlotte, N.C., became one of the nation’s 10 largest home builders in the 2000s — in large part because of mortgage lending options that attracted buyers. But its mortgage business eventually attracted prosecutors, too. In March 2007, the inspector general and officials of the Department of Housing and Urban Development began investigating claims that Beazer had engaged in mortgage fraud, causing losses to the Federal Housing Administration’s insurance fund that covered mortgages when buyers couldn’t pay. Investigators found that Beazer had been offering a lower mortgage rate if buyers paid an extra fee, but then not giving them the lower rate. And it was enticing homeowners by offering down payment assistance, but not disclosing that it then raised the price of the house by the same amount. The Beazer board’s audit committee hired the law firm of Alston & Bird to conduct an internal investigation. Documents supplied to Congress by HUD show that Justice Department officials advised HUD investigators not to interview borrowers or former Beazer employees until Alston & Bird completed its review. In April 2009, justice officials notified HUD that a deferred prosecution agreement with Beazer had been reached — the sort of deal that Sullivan & Cromwell had celebrated in its client memo a year earlier — essentially shutting down the HUD investigation. Beazer agreed to pay consumers and the government as much as $55 million under the deal. It also paid approximately that amount to Alston & Bird, investigators found. While a member of the justice team told HUD that criminal proceedings would be forthcoming against individuals at Beazer, the documents show, there has been only one indictment: of Michael T. Rand, the company’s former chief accounting officer, whose trial is to begin this fall. A year after the settlement, Kenneth M. Donohue, the inspector general of HUD at the time, raised questions about its handling. He said he was disturbed by the interference by the Justice Department and its calls to stop pursuing Beazer executives so the deferred prosecution deal could be completed. “As a law enforcement official for over 40 years,” Mr. Donohue wrote in a letter to Eric H. Holder Jr., the attorney general, “I have never witnessed a like action in any of my varied dealings.” In a recent interview, Mr. Donohue, now a senior adviser at the Reznick Group, an accounting firm in Bethesda, Md., said of the Justice Department: “The most important point of this whole thing is the fact that they threatened the HUD office of the inspector general that we would not be allowed to go forward with our investigation of executives if we didn’t agree to their settlement.” David A. Brown, acting United States attorney on the case, said: “What we do is work cooperatively as a team in conducting these investigations. We don’t tell agencies to stand down when they are working as part of the team.” He said that the investigation was continuing, and that the Justice Department was proud of the deferred prosecution agreement and the restitution Beazer paid, which more than covered the losses of the Federal Housing Administration fund. Beazer did not respond to an e-mail, and Alston & Bird did not return a call seeking comment. Ms. Finelli, the department’s spokeswoman, said that deferred or nonprosecution agreements had led to charges against individuals in many cases; of the 20 companies she cited, three were financial companies. But none were cases related to the financial crisis. Still, some lawyers applaud the closer relationship between the government and business. “Given the scanty resources that have been committed to corporate crime enforcement, I think the government’s leveraging of its prosecution power from corporations and their lawyers has been critically important,” said Daniel C. Richman, professor of law at Columbia and a former assistant United States attorney in New York. But Professor Richman added that the government should have “a much more developed, funded and empowered S.E.C., Federal Reserve, E.P.A. and other agencies to do regulation, to do enforcement and feed cases where necessary to criminal prosecutors.” Changing Course The names have become synonymous with corporate wrongdoing — and forceful prosecution: Not just Enron, but also WorldCom,Tyco, Adelphia, Rite Aid and ImClone. In the early part of the last decade, senior executives at all these companies were convicted and imprisoned. But by 2005, a debate was growing over aggressive prosecutions, as some business leaders had been criticizing the approach as perhaps too zealous. That May, Justice Department officials met ahead of a session with a cross-agency group called the Corporate Fraud Task Force. It was weeks after Justice Department lawyers had presented to the Supreme Court their case against Arthur Andersen, which was seeking — successfully, it would turn out — to overturn its criminal fraud conviction in a prominent case. In the meeting, the deputy attorney general at the time, James B. Comey, posed questions that surprised some attendees, according to two people there who asked to remain anonymous because they were not supposed to discuss private meetings. Was American business being hurt by the Justice Department’s investigations?, Mr. Comey asked, according to these two people, who said they thought the message had come from others. He cautioned colleagues to be responsible. “It was a total retrenchment,” one of the people said. “It was like we were going backwards.” Mr. Comey said recently that he did not recall this conversation. Around the same time, the Justice Department was developing instructions on dealing with companies under investigation — particularly companies that work with the government. It issued a memo in 2003 that gave companies more credit for cooperating than in the past. That message was reinforced in another memo in 2006. As the first memo put it, “it is entirely proper in many investigations for a prosecutor to consider the corporation’s pre-indictment conduct, e.g., voluntary disclosure, cooperation, remediation or restitution, in determining whether to seek an indictment.” During this period, the Justice Department increased the use of deferred prosecutions or even nonprosecution agreements. Many well-known companies have benefited. In 2004, the American International Group , the giant insurer, paid $126 million when it entered a deferred prosecution agreement to settle investigations into claims that it had helped clients improperly burnish financial statements. Deals over accounting improprieties also were struck that year by Computer Associates International, a technology company, and in 2005 by Bristol- Myers Squibb, a pharmaceutical concern. Prudential Financial entered into a deferred prosecution in 2006 over improper mutual fund trading. No such prosecution deals for large banks have yet arisen out of the financial crisis. Some bank analysts say they may be coming. The government may eventually strike one with Goldman Sachs , which it continues to investigate for its mortgage securities dealings, Brad Hintz, a securities analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, wrote recently. “If an alleged violation is identified during a Goldman investigation, we expect a reasoned response from the Justice Department,” he added. Goldman Sachs declined to comment. The S.E.C. can also file deferred prosecutions, and it sometimes issues reports about wrongdoing in lieu of litigation. It has been increasing the number of reports it files, and is considering issuing one about misleading accounting at Lehman Brothers, Bloomberg News has reported. The S.E.C. did something similar last year to resolve a credit ratings investigation of Moody’s Investors Service. The reports from the commission are intended to give companies guidance on appropriate practices. Such results provide bragging rights among corporate defense lawyers, according to longtime observers of the legal system. “The corporate crime defense bar has this down to a science,” said Russell Mokhiber, the editor of Corporate Crime Reporter, a publication that tracks prosecutions. “I interview them all the time, and they boast about how they’ve gamed the system.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/10/top-states-for-business-new-jersey.html

MCO

Moody's Corporation

36. New Jersey

We think of the 50 states as being divided by red or blue political leanings, but each state has a more deeply rooted psychology, with centuries of history that controls whether it rises or falls.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/01/ford-general-motors-rally.html

MCO

Moody's Corporation

GM, Ford shares jump in relief as Canada trade deal failure would have disrupted supply chains

Workers install doors on Chevrolet Malibu and Buick LaCross vehicles at the General Motors plant in Fairfax, Kansas. Automobile manufacturers Ford and General Motors rallied Monday after the United States and Canada struck a last-minute deal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement. General Motors shares rallied 1.5 percent Monday, while Ford rose 0.7 percent. Parts manufacturer Lear Corporation rose 2.6 percent. The pending United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is expected to affect the auto industry most, requiring a greater portion of vehicles to be made in North America and establishing a minimum fixed wage level for car manufacturers of $16 an hour. The USMCA also includes a concession by Canada to effectively cap its automobile exports to the U.S. For Ford and GM, the agreement announced late Sunday likely comes as a relief after President Donald Trump threatened in May to tax all auto imports in an attempt to safeguard national security. Tariffs would have been a negative for both manufacturers, according to Moody's analysis, since 30 percent of GM's U.S. unit sales depend on imports from Mexico and Canada, while 20 percent of Ford's domestic unit sales depend on such imports. Trump touted the new deal Monday as "a new dawn" for the U.S. auto industry. Trump also took time to criticize Democrats and international trading partners including China and the European Union.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/10/top-states-for-business-kansas.html

MCO

Moody's Corporation

Top States for Business: Kansas

We think of the 50 states as being divided by red or blue political leanings, but each state has a more deeply rooted psychology, with centuries of history that controls whether it rises or falls.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/39495068

MCO

Moody's Corporation

Cheap Debt for Corporations Fails to Spur Economy

Companies like Microsoft are raising billions of dollars by issuing bonds at ultra-low interest rates, but few of them are actually spending the money on new factories, equipment or jobs. Instead, they are stockpiling the cash until the economy improves. The development presents something of a chicken-and-egg situation: Corporations keep saving, waiting for the economy to perk up — but the economy is unlikely to perk up if corporations keep saving. This situation underscores the limits of Washington policy makers’ power to stimulate the economy. The Federal Reserve has held official interest rates near zero for almost two years, which allows corporations to sell bonds with only slightly higher returns — even below 1 percent. But most companies are not doing what the easy monetary policy was intended to get them to do: invest and create jobs. The Fed’s low rates have in fact hurt many Americans, especially retirees whose incomes from savings have fallen substantially. Big companies likeJohnson & Johnson, PepsiCo and I.B.M. seem to have been among the major beneficiaries. “They are benefiting themselves by borrowing and keeping this cash, but it is not benefiting the economy yet,” said Dana Saporta, an economist at Credit Suisse in New York. American corporations have been saving more money since the financial collapse of 2008. But a recent rush of blue-chip bond offerings — including a $4.75 billion deal last month by Microsoft, one of the richest companies in the world — has put even more money in their coffers. Corporations now sit atop a combined $1.6 trillion of cash, a figure equal to slightly more than 6 percent of their total assets. In the first quarter of this year it was 6.2 percent of assets, the highest level since 1964, when it was 6.4 percent. When will they start spending that money — in particular, by hiring? That is part of what has become the great question of this long, jobless recovery: When will corporate America start to feel confident enough to put its cash to work, building factories and putting some of the nation’s 14.9 million unemployed to work? Businesses are holding on to their protective cash cushions, worried perhaps that the economy could slip back into recession or at least grow too lethargically to make an investment worthwhile. The nation’s corporations will be strong, well capitalized and ready to act aggressively when executives finally decide it is time to expand their businesses. After running up sharply every quarter since mid-2008, the ratio of cash holdings to assets by corporations fell slightly for the first time in the second quarter of this year. Although investment in factories and plants still languishes, companies have spent some money on investment in new equipment and software. That spending grew at an annualized rate of more than 20 percent in the first two quarters of this year. But economists say that such investment is still below its peak before the financial crisis. In addition, many of the new machines and computers may be replacing older machines companies put off retiring in the recession. Businesses are playing catch-up, and little expansion is occurring. “They may actually be using this new investment to be more efficient and cut jobs,” said Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays Capital. “The mix of signals right now is still telling corporations to sit tight and wait.” Mr. Gapen said those signals included the direction of the housing market, the outcome of midterm election, the effects on the economy as the fiscal stimulus wears off and any changes in tax policy. They are deciding, “Why don’t we just wait until the first quarter of next year?” he said. The cheap money may be having yet another effect unintended by policy makers eager to cut the nation’s 9.6 percent unemployment rate. Several of the corporations borrowing billions on bond markets are using the money to put their own financial house in order rather than to create jobs. Microsoft said it was using some of its money to buy back shares, other companies are locking in longer-term borrowing, and some of the new borrowing is financing an increase in mergers and acquisitions. All of this may enrich the corporations’ shareholders and cut company costs in the long run, but it does not necessarily lead to more jobs and it does not represent the big investments in growth that could fuel a sharp economic recovery for everyone. “They are still holding on to more cash in the same way that Noah built the ark,” said David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates in Toronto. “It is very telling.” In the case of Microsoft’s bond offering, one factor might have been avoiding a big tax bill, said Richard J. Lane, who analyzes Microsoft for Moody’s. If Microsoft had needed cash, it could have pulled some from its operations abroad, but “borrowing new money on the debt markets is now cheaper than bringing its own money back from overseas,” Mr. Lane said. Microsoft’s offering was only its second; its first was last year. The second offering included three-year debt at an interest rate of 0.875, among the lowest on record for that type of borrowing. According to the financial data provider Dealogic, United States companies have borrowed $488 billion on the American high-yield and investment grade bond markets so far this year, 7 percent more than businesses borrowed during all of 2009, and on track to at least match the $589 billion borrowed in the boom year in 2007, which was the highest on record. Smaller companies continue to have trouble borrowing, and most of the new financing is limited to bigger corporations. Their borrowing spree is in contrast to America’s households, which continue to cut their debt and consumption. Perhaps unsure of the recovery, like the corporations hoarding cash, Americans are saving far more than they have in years, and some economists fear that consumers’ frugality will further hobble growth. One of the biggest corporations to borrow recently, the DuPont Company, said it was using the cheaper money to lock in borrowing over a longer period. “The current low interest rate environment provides DuPont a great opportunity to refinance our long-term debt at lower rates,” it said in a statement. Conditions have become so good that some companies are borrowing money they will not have to repay until the next century. In August, the railroad Norfolk Southern Corporation borrowed $250 million in 100-year bonds at an annual rate of 5.95 percent. Robin Chapman, a spokesman, said, “Opportunistic borrowing is a good way to characterize this.” He said that the company was seeing a “slow and steady pickup” in rail traffic but that any hiring the company was doing was to replace workers lost through attrition. Other companies are borrowing to finance acquisitions. PepsiCo borrowed recently to help pay for the takeover of two bottling plants. Hertz borrowed $300 million for its bid to buy a rival car rental company, Dollar Thrifty . Economists say it is rational for companies to seize the opportunity to borrow at low interest rates and to buy back shares. But Guy LeBas, a fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Chicago, said, “It is not particularly beneficial for economic conditions.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/17/noble-shares-take-second-day-drubbing.html

MCO

Moody's Corporation

Noble shares take second-day drubbing

watch now Noble Group's shares faced a second wave of selling despite analysts' skeptical view of an anonymously written critical research report comparing the company to Enron and assigning a 10 Singapore cent price target. "Neither of those was really supported in the document," Conrad Werner, head of research at Macquarie , told CNBC. Iceberg Research published a report headlined "Noble Group , a repeat of Enron," and saying more critical reports are on the way. The report alleges that the Singapore-listed commodities trader's accounting treatments were "unusual," result in "fabricated" profit and "intentionally misleads credit agencies and investors." In a statement to the Singapore Stock Exchange Monday, Noble said it "completely" rejected" the allegations, adding that all the information cited in the report was in the public domain. After the market close, Noble issued an additional statement via SGX, disputing several of Iceberg's assertions and noting it had "a solid balance sheet and industry leading liquidity headroom." Read More Are short sellers gunning for Singapore again? That didn't support the share price, which closed down 5.4 percent at 1.05 Singapore dollars in mid-day Tuesday trade after dropping 7.9 percent Monday. Interestingly, Iceberg agreed with Werner's assessment, saying in emailed comments Tuesday that its first report didn't support a comparison with Enron, but advised staying tuned for its second and third reports. Werner specifically criticized Iceberg's assessment of Noble's 13 percent stake in Australia-listed coal company Yancoal. Iceberg claims Noble is valuing its stake at 55 times the market value of its stake, but Werner noted this has largely been true since Yancoal was listed in 2012. Yoshikazu Tsuno | AFP | Getty Images Noble wrote down the value of the stake in 2013 and with coal prices remaining weak, another writedown may be on the cards this year, Werner noted. "But Iceberg are suggesting that the whole asset needs to be written down to zero, which we think is sensationalistic and an extreme conclusion," Werner told CNBC. Noble weighed in on the valuation question. "The carrying values of our associates, including Yancoal, are tested for impairment using discounted cash flow models that are updated every quarter," it said in Tuesday's filing with SGX, adding that the valuation is currently being audited for its upcoming results release. In a report, Macquarie noted Noble uses a financial model to value the stake, a process reviewed by its auditors Ernst & Young, to compensate for the thin trading in Yancoal's shares. The stake is currently valued at $677 million on Noble's balance sheet, compared with a stock market value of $11 million, Macquarie said. But Iceberg appears unwilling to accept the use of a financial model. "You cannot seriously explain a $600 million gap by saying shares are thinly traded," it said in an email that used the first-person "I," in a departure from Monday's use of "we." Macquarie, which is sticking with its Outperform rating and 1.60 Singapore dollar target price on the stock, isn't the only one questioning Iceberg's analysis of Noble. watch now

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/05/morgan-stanley-says-ma-will-rebound-and-these-stocks-have-an-elevated-likelihood-of-a-takeover.html

MS

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley says M&A will rebound and these stocks have an 'elevated likelihood' of a takeover

Global merger and acquisition activity will soar this year, and several names could benefit from the comeback, according to Morgan Stanley. The firm expects global M & A volume activity to rise 50% this year compared to 2023. It also forecasts a multiyear secular recovery, data from a new survey of 150 industry teams across the bank shows. Health care, real estate, consumer staples and technology are the most favored sectors for M & A within private markets, according to the survey. "We believe that a cyclical and structural rebound in M & A is coming," Morgan Stanley said in a note titled "Stocks with Elevated Likelihood of Receiving an Offer," which was released Monday. "The structural case is driven by dry powder, private markets, regional shifts and new innovations … rising demand for AI capabilities, the clean energy transition, innovation in life sciences, reshoring and geographic diversification in a multipolar world should structurally support M & A over the next cycle." A comeback this year would mark a sharp reversal from record-low global M & A volumes in 2023, which were partly caused by higher interest rates that drove up funding costs and led to declines in global equity markets. Morgan Stanley pointed out that 2021 to 2023 could have seen a drop of activity worth between $4 trillion and $11 trillion. The firm expects a reversion to normalized activity levels by 2026, with Europe leading the recovery. Necessity and opportunity should drive more M & A activity in nonlisted private companies, the firm said, noting that more than 1,200 unicorns are currently valued at $4 billion or more. "Global listed non-financials hold US$5.6 trillion in cash while private market investors sit on US$2.5 trillion of dry powder, providing fuel for activity," the note said. The firm used quantitative models to screen for the stocks that have an elevated chance of receiving a deal offer in the next year. Take a look at some of the U.S. names below: Stocks that are smaller in size, have a lower price-to-book ratio, higher quality and within sectors that have seen a higher number of offers are the names more likely to receive a tender offer. Morgan Stanley said it has no information about M & A activity involving the companies. The firm's screen is just theoretical. Several health-care names were named, including Sarepta Therapeutics and Tenet Healthcare . Analysts are generally fond of Sarepta, a biotech that focuses on treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The stock has a consensus buy rating and $164.42 target price, per FactSet, suggesting shares could gain 32.6% since Monday's close. BMO Capital Markets initiated coverage of Sarepta at an outperform rating on Jan. 31, and said the company could have a strong year as its latest drug, Elevidys, continues to see strong patient demand. TripAdvisor is another name that could receive an M & A offer within the next year, according to Morgan Stanley's screen. Analysts surveyed by FactSet have a $27.19 target price on the online travel company, which suggests just 2.7% upside for shares. So far this year, the stock has climbed more than 23%. On Feb. 16, UBS analyst Stephen Ju had upped his price target on the stock by $6 to $27 and maintained his neutral rating, viewing TripAdvisor's fourth-quarter earnings and revenue beat as a favorable sign of future growth and profitability. Fast-food chain Wingstop was also a potential beneficiary of M & A trends. Several firms increased their price targets on Wingstop after the company surpassed revenue and earnings expectations for the fourth quarter. It also reported record-breaking new guest acquisitions. But the stock's more-than 39% run so far this year suggests shares could decline roughly 11% from its latest close price of $366.51, according to consensus FactSet estimates. Other companies included in Morgan Stanley's screener include Victoria's Secret , Hertz Global Holdings and Viatris .

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/15/layoffs-could-be-coming-to-morgan-stanley-wealth-management.html

MS

Morgan Stanley

Layoffs could be coming to Morgan Stanley's wealth management business at a critical time

Layoffs could be coming to Morgan Stanley's crucial wealth management business — a prudent step to improving the bank's overall cost structure amid uncertainty over Federal Reserve interest rate moves. Morgan Stanley has plans to cut several hundred employees in the division as new CEO Ted Pick tries to keep costs in check, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. While impacting less than 1% of the division's workforce, the cuts represent Pick's first big move at the helm of the firm and Morgan Stanley's need to drill down on expenses. Morgan Stanley declined CNBC's request for comment. Pick, a veteran of the bank, officially took the reins from longtime CEO James Gorman on Jan. 1. During his tenure at the helm, Gorman pivoted Morgan Stanley to rely less on investment banking by building up wealth management, which has a more predictable revenue stream. MS YTD mountain Morgan Stanley (MS) year-to-date performance Possible layoffs in wealth management are important because it's Morgan Stanley's largest operating segment — making up roughly half of companywide revenue. Any reductions there can have an outsized benefit toward reducing costs to stay on track to meet, and hopefully exceed, Pick's conservative reset guidance . Despite delivering in mid-January a better-than-expected fourth quarter, shares dropped more than 4% on earnings day as investors worried about the picture the new CEO was painting for the future. It didn't help that Q4 results for all of the major banks were rather messy as they were forced to pay the FDIC back for rescuing regional lenders after last year's failure of Silicon Valley Bank. On the post-earnings call, Pick said the bank was far from reaching management's previously issued goal of 30% operating margins for wealth management. To make matters worse, he said that headwinds such as geopolitical conflicts and the state of the U.S. economy could weigh on profits. Elevated interest rates have continued to pressure margins. (And, Tuesday's hotter-than-expected inflation data certainly hurt the case for a near-term start of Fed rate cuts.) At the time, we weren't thrilled with the quarterly results. But Jim Cramer did say, "When you get this kind of cautious commentary from a new CEO, my gut says he's simply trying to lower expectations to play the [under promise, over deliver] game." He added the Club's not throwing in the towel yet on the bank stock. "Morgan Stanley's paying you to wait with that 4% yield, and they're right in there buying with you thanks to their aggressive buyback." Investors seem upbeat on word of cost-cutting efforts. Shares rose more than 2% on Thursday. Our other bank stock, Wells Fargo , rose more than 7% to a 52-week high Thursday on news the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency terminated a 2016 consent order linked to its sales practices. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long MS, WFC. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. Ted Pick, CEO Morgan Stanley, speaking on CNBC's Squawk Box at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 18th, 2024. Adam Galici | CNBC

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/14/morgan-stanley-names-head-of-artificial-intelligence-jeff-mcmillan.html

MS

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley names a head of artificial intelligence as Wall Street leans into AI

The Morgan Stanley digital sign is seen at the company's Times Square headquarters in New York, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 12, 2016. Morgan Stanley promoted a tech executive in its wealth management division to become the bank's first head of firm-wide artificial intelligence, CNBC has learned. The bank is elevating Jeff McMillan, a veteran of the New York-based bank, to help guide its implementation of AI across the firm, according to a memo sent Thursday from co-presidents Andy Saperstein and Dan Simkowitz. Last year, Morgan Stanley became the first major Wall Street firm to create a solution for employees based on OpenAI's GPT-4, a project overseen by McMillan. The move shows the rising importance of artificial intelligence in financial services, sparked by the meteoric rise of generative AI tools that create human-like responses to queries. While Wall Street firms broadly pared back jobs last year, they competed to fill thousands of AI positions, poaching employees from one another. In June, JPMorgan named Teresa Heitsenrether its chief data and analytics officer in charge of AI adoption. At Goldman Sachs , Chief Information Officer Marco Argenti is seen as the lead AI advocate. Read the full Morgan Stanley memo announcing McMillan's new role:

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/16/morgan-stanley-names-ai-enablers-in-asia-pacific-set-to-outperform.html

MS

Morgan Stanley

'Underappreciated beneficiaries' of AI: Morgan Stanley shares Asian names and gives one 113% upside

Many U.S. companies have caught the attention of investors amid the artificial intelligence boom, but there are "underappreciated beneficiaries" in Asia-Pacific, according to Morgan Stanley. It said Japan stands out, with 53% of companies seen as AI beneficiaries — nearly matching the United States' 54%, above Europe's 50% and Asia-Pacific ex-Japan's 39%. "Tightening labour markets and digitalisation policy initiatives make this an underappreciated opportunity, in our view," the bank said in a Feb. 8 report. Beneficiaries could be both AI adopters and enablers — or those that are a mix of both, according to Morgan Stanley. AI enablers facilitate the use of AI for other companies. The greatest share of AI beneficiaries in Asia and emerging markets were found in IT and communications, it said. "Financials were also seen as well advanced in AI adoption plans, with a view to benefits materialising over the next 12-24 months for over half of constituents," it said, adding that health care and health tech could also be beneficiaries. At the opposite end of the spectrum, sectors Morgan Stanley said had "unknown" AI impact included real estate, materials and energy. The utilities sector largely fits that bill but, it noted, may benefit from a rapid growth in electricity demand to power AI servers and computing. AI enablers have been the strongest performers in all regions, though companies in Asia-Pacific lagged their peers in Japan and the United States, according to the bank. Here are some names in Morgan Stanley's screens of AI beneficiaries — enablers, adopters and those that are both — that it says have the "most potential for outperformance over the next 12 months."

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/11/morgan-stanley-recommends-buying-three-chinese-ev-makers-after-2024-pullback.html

MS

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley recommends buying this trio of Chinese EV makers after 2024 pullback

The electric vehicle industry in China could stage a comeback after selling off this year with three standout stocks poised to deliver significant returns, according to Morgan Stanley. Analysts led by Tim Hsiao told clients Sunday that under-owned stocks Li Auto , Xpeng and Nio offer investment opportunities, rating all three of them overweight, while the rest of the sector shakes out. On the other hand, BYD , which is equal weight, will likely face another round of downward revisions from analysts due to market saturation in China, Hsiao wrote. "Although the macroeconomic and operational environment is certainly challenging, we think the negative forces influencing the trio of EV stocks are more or less [already reflected] in stock prices," Hsiao told clients. "While challenges persist, we see green shoots to bring the under-owned autos group back into focus in 2Q," Hsiao said. The auto sector in China has sold off about 30% year to date as companies work through bloated inventory due to seasonal market weakness, Hsiao wrote. EV penetration fell from a peak of 40% in December to 33.5% this year as makers of internal combustion engine cars pushed sales aggressively ahead of the Chinese New Year, according to the analyst. Despite a rough start to the year, Chinese EV makers are expected to launch a record number of new models and accelerate expansion plans in Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia, at the same time as they're seeing lower battery costs, Hsiao wrote. Li Auto has booked several profitable quarters in a row, demonstrating solid execution of model launches and effective cost management, Hsiao told clients. Morgan Stanley has boosted total sales volume for the company by 12% in 2024 and 8% in 2025, reflecting stronger demand for new models. Hsiao has a price target of $74 for Li Auto's ADR shares, which implies that the company's stock could double in value from its recent close below $36.50. Xpeng has also successfully launched several new models and has a strong pipeline, the investment bank said, with Morgan Stanley expecting monthly sales to accelerate compared to the second half of 2023, according to Hsiao. The price target of $18 for Xpeng's ADRs imply upside of about 90% from its previous close of $9.52. Nio's plan to introduce a mass market brand could lead to upside for the company's vehicle sales volume, according to Hsiao. Morgan Stanley has a price target of $10 for Nio's ADRs, equal to roughly 72% upside from the previous close of $5.80.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/18/netflix-reports-results-after-the-bell-what-wall-street-is-watching.html

MS

Morgan Stanley

Netflix earnings are about to hit the Street. Here’s what traders need to know

The unofficial start of the first-quarter reporting season for technology giants begins with Netflix after the bell Thursday. Shares of the media behemoth have kicked off the year on a strong note, rallying nearly 26% and outperforming the broader S & P 500. The pressure is on for Netflix following two back-to-back quarterly reports that boosted shares double-digits in the ensuing trading sessions. Last quarter, Netflix fell short of earnings expectations but topped revenue estimates and total memberships. The company also added 13.1 million subscribers , easily topping Wall Street 8 million to 9 million estimate — helped in part by its harsh crackdown on password sharing. NFLX YTD mountain Shares this year For the first quarter, analysts polled by LSEG expect Netflix to report earnings of $4.52 per share on roughly $9.28 billion in revenue. The closely-watched subscriber add figure is expected to come in at 4.59 million, according to Street Account. Wall Street anticipates a largely rosy setup for the stock, with many forecasting that the company beats, or reports in line with expectations. The anticipation contributed to some Wall Street firms lifting their price targets heading into the print. This month, Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne retained his overweight rating and hiked his price target to $700 a share, implying 14% upside from Wednesday's close. JPMorgan's Doug Anmuth lifted his price target to $650 a share, citing ongoing subscriber growth from paid sharing. "Netflix's track record includes pivoting from DVD to streaming, scaling the world's largest studio, and successfully monetizing password sharing," wrote Morgan Stanley's Swinburne. "This track record, combined with new call options (ads, games, live sports) and a 25%+ EPS [compound annual growth rate], supports a premium multiple," and justifies a continued overweight rating. To be sure, some analysts with neutral ratings on the stock have also increase their price targets in recent weeks to account for the stock runup, and some earnings and free cash flow adjustments. Piper Sandler lifted its target to $600 a share, while both Deutsche Bank and Barclays moved to a $550 target from $525 and $475, respectively. Ongoing paid sharing tailwinds? Outside of the top and bottom line figures, Wall Street's keeping a close watch on paid sharing, otherwise known as the company's recent crackdown on password sharing. While no specific metric tracks paid sharing, benefits typically show up in subscriber numbers. In fact, the clampdown helped boost subscriber numbers well above expectations in the past two quarters, contributing to strong additions in the third and fourth quarters of 2024. Analysts expect these tailwinds to ease at some point this year, but the crackdown should continue boosting the company's revenues and subscriber numbers at least in the first quarter. To reflect that, several Wall Street analysts recently lifted their subscriber addition numbers. Along with a price hike, JPMorgan's Anmuth raised the bank's estimate to 6 million from 4.5 million this month, citing paid sharing, alongside a strong content slate and the build out of Netflix's advertising tier. Under the paid sharing plan , Netflix account owners can buy an extra member slot and invite people outside their household to use the service. "While the lowest hanging fruit was captured in 2023, we believe Netflix still has meaningful Paid Sharing monetization opportunity as it tightens filters across specific use cases & borrower cohorts," Anmuth wrote. Also in April, Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan lifted the firm's estimate for net adds for the first quarter to 7.2 million from 6.6 million, while Deutsche Bank analyst Bryan Kraft upped his estimate by 1.5 million to 7 million. Kraft estimates that Netflix has added about 20 million new accounts, or about 25 million households, through this initiative. But that growth will begin to fade at some point this year. "After 1Q24, Netflix begins to lap the paid sharing benefits - most significantly in 2H24," wrote Morgan Stanley's Swinburne. "This is when we estimate net adds decline YoY." Reason for caution Despite Netflix's strong run this year and the benefits reaped through paid sharing, some Wall Street analysts see reasons for caution. Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar retained his equal weight rating on the stock despite its recent strong performance and subscriber numbers, noting that much of the company's growth potential appears priced in and while long-term margin expectations may be too high. Deutsche Bank's Kraft also expressed some caution on the 450% increase in Netflix's share price over the last 18 months, saying that it creates a "tricky set up" heading into the print. "We believe that in order for the stock to appreciate further, consensus estimates for 2024-2025 will need to be revised higher, as we believe a lot is already priced in at these valuation levels," he wrote, adding that paid sharing should "normalize" at some point this year. Piper Sandler's Matt Farrell said that he's bracing for a pullback to "get more constructive" given the recent run in the stock and heightened expectations. Investors may also be getting overexcited about the company's paid sharing initiative, with MoffettNathanson's Michael Nathanson retaining his neutral rating despite hiking the firm's subscriber estimates. "That said, we continue to remain cautious of pie-in-the- sky forecasts that see this hockey stick continuing indefinitely– the password-sharing crackdown was likely a pull-forward of growth and does not change the underlying fact that there are increasingly fewer and fewer households in UCAN yet to subscribe to the streamer," he wrote. What else to watch Along with paid sharing, Wall Street's also keeping close watch on comments surrounding Netflix' ad-supported tier, which boasted 23 million users earlier this year . Farrell said in an April note that he's keeping an eye on the ramp up of the company's advertising business and on the lookout for signs of a "advertising inflection." "We continue to wait for the pivot to 'walking' from 'crawling', but as the ad-tier competitive landscape intensifies, we suspect scale needs to happen sooner rather than later," adding that the scope of the ad-tier seems to be "lagging expectations." Wall Street will also be monitoring any comments related to Netflix's partnership with WWE , with Citi's Jason Bazinet noting that the company could potentially acquire NBA rights at some point in other regions. "Following Netflix's WWE rights and the pending NBA rights, we believe investors will be listening for any change in tone regarding the company's sports strategy," he said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/11/morgan-stanley-just-named-3-favorite-chip-stocks-after-hosting-tech-meeting.html

MS

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley just named its 3 favorite chip stocks after hosting a big tech conference

Morgan Stanley's recent Technology, Media & Telecom conference reinforced investors' high hopes for artificial intelligence as a catalyst for the industry, even as some parts of the industry weather a correction. "Overall our TMT conference reinforced that industry conditions are in a bottoming process — albeit one that is out of phase across different end markets," analysts led by Joseph Moore wrote in a Sunday report to clients. "We continue to be positive on the group, and we want some AI exposure and some cyclical exposure." Moore named Nvidia , Western Digital and Microchip Technology as the investment bank's favorite names coming out of the conference. Computer drive maker Western Digital is the firm's top pick. Moore noted that WDC raised its revenue and earnings guidance at the conference, and said the company's NAND business will retain its "significant value proposition" given that the CEO will remain with that side of the company. Western Digital announced in late October that it will split its hard disk drive and NAND memory businesses into two separate public companies. NAND flash memory is a type of nonvolatile storage technology that can store data without power . Moore foresees strong NAND fundamentals in the first half of 2024 and a potential modest fade in the second half of the year, before a "return to peak earnings power in CY25." "Every semiconductor equipment company that we talked to highlighted that NAND spending will remain at minimal levels through CY24, even as DRAM spending and cutting edge fab spending hit new highs," he said. "The picture could not be clearer — the enthusiasm for AI is drawing DRAM spending towards the siren song of high bandwidth memory, drawing away NAND spending and setting us up for a multiyear upturn in that space." Western Digital shares are up 17.9% so far this year. With Nvidia, Moore thinks the rally in all stocks exposed to AI leaves it a "likely outperformer." Rack space and power, rather than graphics processing unit shortage, are leading to the stock's bottleneck to adding further AI capacity, the analyst said. He still believes the company is in a "good place relative to that concern," however. Nvidia shares have soared more than 75% year to date, but fears about the concentrated AI-fueled rally have accumulated, leading the stock to stall on Friday and Monday. Microchip is another one of Morgan Stanley's picks following the tech conference. Moore noted that the company's February bookings rose from January, and that Microchip reiterated its guidance for the current quarter. Shares of Microchip are down 0.4% to start the new year, but are up almost 7% this month. Analysts' consensus rating on MCHP is overweight, with an average price target approaching $93 a share, which suggests a 4% decline from the stock's latest close, according to FactSet. "As a core investment concept, we want to buy semiconductor stocks when they are materially undershipping end demand, all else being equal, and with revenues down nearly 40% from peak we think that's the case here," Moore said about Microchip. "That would make this the most severe inventory correction of all time, and when that bottoms out we should see a nice recovery in 2h."

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/01/ai-is-fueling-global-power-demand-morgan-stanley-thinks-these-stocks-will-benefit.html

MS

Morgan Stanley

AI is fueling global power demand. Morgan Stanley sees opportunities for these 'underappreciated' winners

Generative artificial intelligence is about to rapidly scale up global power demand. That's a boon for several power providers and data center builders. Morgan Stanley highlighted more than a dozen overweight-rated stocks that stand to benefit from the surge in generative AI power demand, which is increasingly being driven by the need to build and supply data centers that train and deploy advancing AI models . Power demand from generative AI will soar from 46 terawatt hours to 224 TWH between this year and 2027, according to the firm's base case scenario. That's equivalent to more than 75% of the total global data center power use in 2022, or close to Spain's entire power consumption in 2022, the firm said. "We expect growth upside for power providers and data center infrastructure stocks, but do not expect GenAI power to move the needle for regulated utilities," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in the Monday research note. "We believe the rapid power demand growth from GenAI is not well understood, and not priced into a number of stocks." To be clear, many of Morgan Stanley's picks are large-scale renewable energy and infrastructure stocks that stand to gain market share from this trend over time. CNBC recently reported on the companies that already specialize in servicing data centers' physical infrastructures and the power grids that supply these power-hungry sites. Here are some of the firm's top picks: Sustainable data centers Morgan Stanley's picks favor companies such as Bloom Energy , AES Corp and NextEra Energy , that provide scalable renewable energy because this will be an important focus for new data centers. That's because tech giants are trying to reach sustainability goals at the same time their businesses will need more energy to fuel generative AI. Google, for example, plans to use 100% carbon-free energy in its data centers by 2030, while Microsoft is aiming to operate on entirely renewable energy sources by 2025. Morgan Stanley's base case is that, if 80% of incremental data center power demand in the U.S. is from renewable energy, developers would need to build about 5 gigawatts of renewables this year, which should be manageable in most cases. "We think the impact on global carbon emissions is likely to be small, while the sustainability benefits of GenAI are likely to be large," the analysts said. Bloom Energy has "exceptionally high upside to (as yet unrealized) orders from data centers," the Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in the note. That's because the company provides baseload power fuel cells — devices that generate electricity and heat by combining fuel with oxygen — to data center customers. "BE is a secular winner as the world adopts GenAI given the significant incremental power demand associated with data center growth, coupled with grid infrastructure constraints and reliability concerns," analyst Andrew Percoco wrote in a Wednesday note where he called the stock an "underappreciated AI winner." Percoco estimates that generative AI could require 20 gigawatts of global electricity generation capacity through 2027. He expects Bloom could generate nearly $75 billion in near-term revenue for its fuel cell product. Bloom shares could rise more than 94% from its latest close, according to his price target. However, not all analysts agree, and the stock has lost about 18% so far this year. Bank of America recently downgraded shares to underperform from neutral, saying revenue will likely be about flat from 2023 to 2025 due to low orders. Among large-scale renewable developers in the U.S., AES has the largest commercial and industrial market share, according to Morgan Stanley. Percoco thinks AES' commercial relationships with Big Tech, including Google, Microsoft and Amazon, could be a strength in serving data center demand as these tech giants are considered to be the data center "hyperscalers." He estimates, however, that generative AI currently accounts for 0% of revenue, but that it could grow to 3.5% by 2027. AES shares have plunged roughly 13% since the start of the year amid a larger slide in utilities stocks. Morgan Stanley sees an upside of nearly 56% over the next 12 months, however. NextEra , the leading renewable developer in the U.S., is "well-positioned" to supply renewable power to new data centers, according to Morgan Stanley. The firm expects NextEra could go from incurring 0% of generative AI-driven revenue to 2.2% by 2027, especially given the company's geographic scale, competitive costs with its purchasing power, and its ability to integrate wind, solar, storage and software to optimize its services. Last week, NextEra reaffirmed its full-year guidance and posted a beat on quarterly earnings per share, excluding items. Morgan Stanley analysts think the stock can gain more than 30% from its latest closing price. Stocks supplying data center infrastructure Morgan Stanley also sees an opportunity for vendors that provide power management solutions like Delta Electronics and cable manufacturer Prysmian , which analyst Max Yates called a global grid play. "As power demand grows, in order to reduce costs, we think customers will turn to IT equipment such as Delta's to support power efficiency and for reliable backup power," analyst Sharon Shih said. She pointed to Delta's InfraSuite software product, which optimizes critical device monitoring in data centers. Other stocks that stand to benefit from data center infrastructure needs of data center are real estate investment trust company Prologis , which is set to build out between $7 billion and $8 billion worth of data centers over the next five years, and Mitsubishi Electric , which builds a variety of products and systems for data centers related to air conditioning, energy savings and other functions. Apart from data center infrastructure and power providers, utilities are another part of the data center servicing ecosystem. But it's the only business model that is not reliant on power demand for its growth, Morgan Stanley analysts said, as the power needed for generative AI is largely relative to the size of power providers, which are often small companies. Analysts noted that regulated utility companies, such as Dominion Energy , provide power infrastructure at a "massive scale, and data center power needs are still going to be a small part of utility capex budgets."

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/19/goldman-sachs-is-strong-netflix-raises-questions-what-we-learned-from-earnings-this-week.html

MS

Morgan Stanley

Goldman Sachs is strong, Netflix raises questions: What we learned from earnings this week

Earnings season kicked off in earnest this week, with some notable results including those from some of the biggest U.S. banks and a major entertainment company. So far, more than 14% of S & P 500 companies have reported. Of those companies, 73.6% have beaten earnings expectations, FactSet data shows. Here's a look at some of the biggest reports of the week and what analysts think — along with a look at potential implications for the broader market. Investment banks doing well, BofA not so much The major banks that posted results this week — Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley and Bank of America — beat earnings expectations. Nonetheless, that didn't translate into a positive stock reaction for all three of them. Bank of America shares fell more than 3% despite the company beating on both top and bottom lines. Net interest income, a key metric of how much money a bank makes from loans, was $14.19 billion, above the $13.93 billion StreetAccount estimate. However, net interest income was lower on a yearly basis. Finance chief Alastair Borthwick also told analysts during a post-earnings conference call that net interest income will likely decline in the second quarter due to drops in wealth management, before potentially rebounding later in 2024. To be sure, Wells Fargo's Mike Mayo said Bank of America's first-quarter results were "not too surprising" and benefited from improved capital market conditions. He remains confident in the bank's reputation, deposits and credit quality in relation to its big bank peers. "Overall, BAC is a Goliath at a time when Goliath is winning," Mayo wrote in a Tuesday note. Mayo has an overweight rating on Bank of America. BAC 5D mountain BAC 5-day chart Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley shares climbed around 3% and 2.5% each following their earnings announcements. For the week, they are up 3.7% and 6%, respectively. Analysts from JPMorgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo all raised their price targets on Goldman following its positive results. Wells Fargo's Mayo said the firm is "likely best-of-breed" among its peers. The bank's pivot away from commercial banking into a renewed emphasis on its asset and wealth management segments is a positive for Goldman, per Bank of America analyst Ebrahim Poonawala. He named Goldman as one of the best names to own thanks to its exposure to a broader uptick in investment banking activity, as well as secular trends including more financing opportunities for artificial intelligence projects and a growth in private credit. Mayo prefers Goldman over Morgan Stanley, for which he holds an equal weight rating on shares. The company posted a growth in wealth inflows and revenue. However, Mayo remains concerned about the flat NII in the wealth segment, keeping him on the sidelines. UnitedHealth crushes estimates, but cyberattack still an overhang UnitedHealth's results easily exceeded analyst expectations, sending shares soaring more than 14%. That would be its biggest weekly gain since April 2020, when it rallied 15%. However, management noted the ongoing fallout of the cyberattack on its subsidiary Change Healthcare will result in an impact on full-year earnings of between $1.15 and $1.35 per share. "So while core MLR [medical loss ratio] in Q1 was slightly higher than expected, the outlook for the year seems largely inline with expectations, alleviating investor concerns around runaway medical cost trends and the risk from that to EPS," Deutsche analyst George Hill said in a Thursday note. He reiterated his buy rating on the stock, and slightly increased his price target to $562 from $545. UNH 5D mountain UNH 5-day chart Netflix concerns Netflix had a strong start to 2024 across the board, but its weaker-than-expected full-year revenue outlook weighed on sentiment. The streaming service also announced it would stop reporting quarterly subscriber numbers — a key metric watched by traders ahead of the report — and average revenue per membership starting next year. Shares fell on Friday more than 8% and were headed for their worst day since July 2023. "Overall, NFLX's 1Q was very clean, but we'd expect pushback from the 2024 revenue growth outlook, ongoing concerns about slowdown of Paid Sharing benefits & advertising monetization, & valuation," JPMorgan's Doug Anmuth wrote in a Friday note. He reiterated his overweight rating and $650 price target on shares. Bank of America also remains bullish on shares. Analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich kept her buy rating and $700 price target, which she said is supported by its increased visibility in growth drivers and strength in innovation. Not all firms were as optimistic, however. Goldman Sachs retained its neutral rating on the stock, while Canaccord Genuity downgraded shares to hold from buy on slower forecasted growth. The reduced subscriber disclosures "add to uncertainty," the firm said. Mixed earnings picture Although nearly three-quarters of the reported earnings so far have topped expectations, the broader picture is more muddled. Profit growth is on track to disappoint, according to FactSet data. The blended earnings growth rate, which considers the reports already out and the estimates from those still pending, sits at just 0.16%. Analysts expected year-over-year profit expansion of more than 3% heading into the season, per FactSet. Revenue beats have also lagged earnings, with just 61% of companies exceeding top-line expectations. First-quarter results "have been a mostly negative catalyst for large caps, with below-typical sales beat rates. Demand has come in lighter than expected, though 'higher-end' consumers remain resilient with record household wealth and cash balances," wrote Wells Fargo strategist Chris Harvey. He forecasts more downward revisions to forward guidance, versus raises, from the companies scheduled to report going forward. Next week, about 150 S & P 500 names are slated to report, including Microsoft, Exxon Mobil, Alphabet and Tesla.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/19/wall-street-on-friday-says-buy-nvidia-netflix.html

MS

Morgan Stanley

Here are Friday's biggest analyst calls: Nvidia, Netflix, Shopify, Dell, Microsoft, Meta, Coca-Cola, Amazon & more

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Friday: Oppenheimer reiterates Nvidia as a top pick Oppenheimer says Nvidia remains a best-investment idea. "We continue to favor structural growth for long term outperformance, but believe investors are beginning to revisit diversified analog names that have lagged YTD. Our top picks are NVDA , MPWR, MRVL and AVGO." Morgan Stanley reiterates Ford and General Motors at overweight Morgan Stanley remains bullish on both automakers. "We are bullish on F and GM. In our opinion, the key to unlocking upside potential for both Ford's and GM's share prices is showing significant improvement in the return on incremental invested capital (ROIIC), where we see multiple paths of improvement as we pass through the EV recession." Mizuho reiterates Amazon as a top pick Mizuho is bullish heading into Amazon earnings on April 30. "Into the print, Amazon is our top pick due to the positive e-commerce checks and accelerating [Amazon Web Services] trends." Canaccord downgrades Netflix to hold from buy Canaccord downgraded Netflix following earnings on Thursday and said investors should look for better value elsewhere. "Despite these mostly solid results and outlook, we see limited growth catalysts for the next few quarters and with the stock up ~90% over the last 12 months and up ~25% YTD, we think investors may be well served to look elsewhere for upside and are downgrading the stock to HOLD." Loop initiates DoorDash as buy Loop said in its initiation of the stock that it has more earnings potential. "We are initiating coverage of DoorDash with a Buy rating and $170 price target. We think that years of debate over viability and earnings potential of on-demand gig platforms has been settled." Bank of America reiterates Netflix as buy Bank of America said it's sticking with its buy rating on Netflix following the streamer's earnings. "We reiterate Buy and raise our price objective to $700 (from $650)." Loop initiates Instacart at buy Loop said it sees share gains for the delivery company. "Instacart is the leader in grocery delivery in the U.S. by a wide margin and has been gaining share." Jefferies downgrades Ulta to hold from buy Jefferies downgraded the stock due to increasing competition. "The prestige makeup composition at ULTA is heavily weighted towards legacy brands (e.g Clinique, Estee, even MAC, etc), which, while they've been gradually losing share for years (ex. 3), diversification efforts have been unsuccessful." B. Riley upgrades Lam Research to buy from neutral B. Riley is more confident about the semi-equipment company's "revenue ramp potential." "In the past month, we've become much more confident on Memory's 2H24-through-2026 fundamentals, and with that, LRCX's revenue ramp potential." Wells Fargo upgrades First Solar to overweight from equal weight and downgrades Sunnova to equal weight from overweight Wells said it's "getting more defensive" in a "tough" solar market and that it's upgrading First Solar and downgrading Sunnova. "As the solar sector continues to struggle due to several headwinds, we're getting more defensive with our ratings. Upgrading FSLR to OW due to relative stability & several potential catalysts. Downgrading NOVA to EW as rates may stay higher for longer." Edward Jones downgrades Hershey to hold from buy Edward Jones sees too many cocoa headwinds. "Hershey is facing headwinds from record-high cocoa prices, which we expect to limit near-term earnings growth. Hershey has highly recognizable brands and a leading position in the attractive and fast-growing confectionery category." Bank of America reiterates Meta as buy Bank of America said it's bullish heading into earnings on April 24. "We remain positive on Meta and reiterate our thesis that Reels, Messaging, and AI-driven ad improvements are still early, and could lead to positive product surprises & revenue momentum in 2024." JPMorgan reiterates Coca-Cola as a top pick JPMorgan said it's bullish heading into Coca-Cola earnings on April 30. "Favorable Set Up for 2024, Although More Cautious on Volumes in 1Q vs. Street; Not Expecting Guidance Raise." Wolfe upgrades Bank of America to outperform from peer perform Wolfe said it sees a compelling entry point for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based national bank. "BAC : Upgrade to OP – Underearning Firms Shouldn't Trade at a Discount." Raymond James downgrades Pure Storage to outperform from strong buy Raymond James said in its downgrade of the data storage company that it's "less optimistic regarding Pure gaining material traction with cloud operators." " Pure generates nearly half its sales from subscriptions/recurring sources, which justifies a higher multiple." Morgan Stanley upgrades Shopify to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said market share gains are increasing for Shopify. "Still Operating Leverage Left to Realize; Upgrading to Overweight." RBC initiates Inspire Medical Systems as outperform RBC said it's bullish on shares of the sleep solutions company. " INSP offers a novel solution to treat patients suffering from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in a $16B U.S. market." Morgan Stanley reiterates Microsoft as overweight Morgan Stanley said it's bullish heading into earnings on April 25. " Microsoft viewed as the clear beneficiary of incremental AI spend with a net 38% of CIOs expecting it to be the top AI budget share winner over the next 3 years." UBS reiterates Dell as a buy UBS raised its price target on the stock to $141 per share from $113. "While hyperscaler spend on Servers, the primary driver of the growth, is not a direct driver of Dell's Server business, a rising tide in our view should lift all boats as AI investments broaden." Needham upgrades Netflix to buy from hold Needham sees "revenue growth upside" following the company's earnings report on Thursday. "We raise our estimates and upgrade NFLX to Buy (from Hold) on rev growth upside as we believe: a) GenerativeAI will MOST benefit companies that are tech-first, and NFLX qualifies; b) NFLX has global scale, which maximizes the value of its data." Baird adds a bearish fresh pick on Columbia Sportswear Baird said it's negative heading into the clothing company's earnings report on April 25. "We expect COLM to reach low Q1 estimates (reporting April 25), but see risk of negative revisions to Q2."

https://www.cnbc.com/id/29666075

MOS

Mosaic Company (The)

Lightning Round: U.S. Steel, Mosaic, Hewlett-Packard and More

AeroVironment : Stay away from AVAV, Cramer said. The money’s already been made in this stock. U.S. Steel : J.P. Morgan said that U.S. Steel might violate its debt covenants, but Cramer wants to hear from the CEO before he gives up on U.S. Steel. In the meantime, don’t buy. Mosaic : Cramer likes Terra Nitrogen and its 9.5% dividend yield more than MOS. Terra Nitrogen Netscout Systems : Cramer said it’s not the time to speculate in technology. Buy Taiwan Semiconductor or Hewlett-Packard instead. Taiwan Semiconductor Hewlett-Packard Cramer’s charitable trust owns Hewlett-Packard. Questions for Cramer? madmoney@cnbc.com Questions, comments, suggestions for the Mad Money website? madcap@cnbc.com

https://www.cnbc.com/id/20057731

MOS

Mosaic Company (The)

Beautiful Mosaic

______________________________________________________ Got something to say? Send us an e-mail at fastmoney-web@cnbc.com and your comment might be posted on the Rapid Recap! Prefer to keep it between us? You can still send questions and comments to fastmoney@cnbc.com. Trader disclosure: On July 31st 2007, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC’s Fast Money were owned by the Fast Money traders; Macke Owns (ATVI), Najarian Owns (GS); Bolling Owns (DIS), (T); Bolling Is Short S&P Futures; Bolling Is Short Nasdaq Futures: CNBC Is A Service Of NBC Universal And Dow Jones

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/20/emj-capitals-eric-jackson-likes-these-agriculture-and-nuclear-stocks.html

MOS

Mosaic Company (The)

EMJ Capital's Eric Jackson likes these agriculture and nuclear stocks, shares his favorite beaten-down tech names

Agriculture technology and nuclear stocks are set to benefit as the global economy reels from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to Eric Jackson, EMJ Capital founder and portfolio manager. The war in Ukraine has disrupted the international supply of commodities like oil and wheat. Companies that address these supply shortages could be poised to see a multiyear boom, Jackson said. "There's a consensus view that this fall, we're going to start to see parts of the world dip into famine levels," Jackson said. "It's going to shine a light on questions around food security." "How do we ensure that we can always grow enough to supply our population with its food needs? If there are companies out there that are offering solutions, ... that kind of story is going to be a popular stock to invest in in the coming years," he added. While many agritech businesses are private, Jackson said he likes and owns Appharvest . Appharvest develops and operates high-tech indoor farms. The stock is up 17.9% this year. The investor also likes fertilizer companies as a way to play the agriculture trend. "You just can't grow crops successfully without fertilizer," Jackson said. He named North American fertilizer companies Mosaic , CF Industries and Nutrien as top picks. Mosaic has seen its share price nearly double this year and CF and Nutrien are up more than 46% this year. "They are still, in my eyes, undervalued when you compare them to the kind of a big supercycle commodity boom that happened in 2007, 2008," Jackson said. On the energy side, Jackson is bullish on nuclear as an alternative to oil. "We're still years away from solar and wind being a viable solution. That means we're going to have to lean on fossil fuels and it means we should take ... a real fresh look at nuclear," Jackson said. "From an investment perspective, there are just a real small number of uranium producers out there," he added. The investor highlighted Cameco as his favorite nuclear name. The Canada-based company is the world's largest publicly traded uranium corporation. Cameco shares are up more than 40% this year. The war in Ukraine, along with the Federal Reserve's rate-hiking cycle, have weighed on equity markets this year, particularly in growth-oriented segments. Given the pullback, Jackson also sees opportunity in several beaten-down technology names. "There are a bunch of companies that have been really rerated down ... in my eyes, unfairly so," Jackson said. The investor said he likes Opendoor , Upstart , Carvana and Bill.com . Agriculture technology and nuclear stocks are set to benefit as the global economy reels from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to Eric Jackson, EMJ Capital founder and portfolio manager.