Author: News Room

Things have been going quite well for shareholders of tobacco giant Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO). Since I last rated the company a “hold” back in late April of this year, shares have skyrocketed by 15.3%. That’s almost double the 8.6% increase seen by the S&P 500 (SP500) over the same window of time. This upside is also even though, on July 31st, shares declined by 3.1%. This was in response to management reporting financial results for the second quarter of the 2024 fiscal year. Revenue and adjusted earnings per share both came in lower than anticipated. This was disappointing, as…

The narrative on Wall Street is shifting. Traders have long placed their bets on the Federal Reserve cutting rates in September, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell basically confirmed as much Wednesday. That rate cut, expected in six weeks, was priced in to stocks, which have been rising over the past few months in hopes of a cut. Rate cuts tend to juice stocks, because they lower borrowing costs for businesses and can help boost profits. But now, fear is starting to take hold, as concerns mount that the Fed may not be acting quickly enough to keep America’s job market in good shape. Powell warned Wednesday that cracks are…

Snap shares fell more than 20% in extended trading on Thursday after the company reported guidance for the third quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates.Here is how the company did:Earnings per share: $0.02 adjusted vs. $0.02 per share expected, according to LSEGRevenue: $1.24 billion vs. $1.25 billion expected, according to LSEG Global daily active users: 432 million vs. 431.1 million expected, according to StreetAccountGlobal average revenue per users: $2.86 vs. $2.91 expected, according to StreetAccountSnap said third-quarter revenue will be between $1.335 billion and $1.375 billion, or $1.355 billion in the middle of the range. Analysts were expecting $1.36 billion. The company expects adjusted…

Intel shares slid as much as 19% in extended trading on Thursday after the chipmaker said it would lay off over 15% of its employees as part of a $10 billion cost-reduction plan and reported lighter results than analysts had envisioned. The company also said that it would not pay its dividend in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2024 and that it will lower full-year capital expenditures by over 20%. Here’s how the company did, compared to LSEG analyst expectations:Earnings per share: 2 cents adjusted vs. 10 cents expectedRevenue: $12.83 billion vs. $12.94 billion expectedIntel’s revenue declined 1% year over…

Our goal here at Credible Operations, Inc., NMLS Number 1681276, referred to as “Credible” below, is to give you the tools and confidence you need to improve your finances. Although we do promote products from our partner lenders who compensate us for our services, all opinions are our own. The interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is 6.625% as of July 19, which is unchanged from yesterday. Additionally, the interest rate on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage is 5.875%, which is 0.115 percentage points lower than yesterday.  With mortgage rates changing daily, it’s a good idea to check today’s rate…

One of the most commonly quoted pieces of investment advice (or cliché) is you want to buy low and sell high. It’s as simplistic, as it’s unhelpful. Despite the obviousness of the advice, there’s only one proven way to do this consistently: through a tactic called rebalancing. It’s an important wrinkle to remember as the summer doldrums hit. Despite the flurry of activity on the last day of July, as the Federal Reserve hinted at September interest rate cuts, the summer results in fewer trades and, commonly, poorer performance. While there’s no hard-and-fast rule to these things, historically speaking August…

A former health care worker was convicted Wednesday of illegally accessing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s medical records in 2019 as she was battling cancer, a move prosecutors claimed was driven by online conspiracy theories about her health. But the jury acquitted Trent Russell of a separate charge stemming from the posting of those records online. Prosecutors had claimed that Russell, a former Army medic who worked as an organ transplant coordinator, shared the documents on the message board site 4chan. The unusual case had political overtones as prosecutors painted Russell as engaging with conspiracy theories online that falsely…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Bill Ackman has withdrawn the proposed public listing for closed-end fund Pershing Square USA in a huge about-face for the billionaire investor who just months ago predicted it would be among the largest initial public offerings ever.The proposed IPO’s spectacular collapse caps a dramatic stretch for the billionaire hedge fund manager, who has embraced social media fame in recent months and established himself as one of the most well-known investors in the US. Ackman had envisaged the company along the lines of…

This article series aims at evaluating ETFs (exchange-traded funds) regarding the relative past performance of their strategies and metrics of their current portfolios. Reviews with updated data are posted when necessary. RDVI strategy FT Cboe Vest Rising Dividend Achievers Target Income ETF (BATS:RDVI) is an actively managed fund launched on 10/19/2022. It has a portfolio of 50 stocks, a 12-month distribution rate of 8.51%, a 30-day SEC yield of 1.33% and an expense ratio of 0.75%. Distributions are paid monthly. RDVI “seeks to provide investors with current income with a secondary objective of providing capital appreciation.” It invests in the…

Some Instagram posters got a shocking notification from the app Wednesday: Certain photos have been permanently deleted from the app’s Stories archives, unable to be recovered. “This story is no longer available,” some users saw on certain Stories. “Due to a technical issue, this story is no longer available. While we’ve since fixed this issue, your story can’t be restored.” Meta, which owns Instagram, declined to share how many users were affected, but said only the people whose Stories were lost will see the notice. “We found and fixed a bug that caused some people’s Story highlights and archives to…