Author: starbpo

A new report from Goldman Sachs’ prime brokerage division shows that hedge funds bought commodity-sensitive stocks at the fastest rate in five months in the week ending July 4. They also put a lot of money into U.S. energy and materials companies for the third week in a row. Goldman Sachs’ research shows that hedge funds have been net sellers of commodity-sensitive stocks for six weeks in a row, up until three weeks ago. The report said that hedge funds have changed their minds about their buying spree and are now putting all of their money into the materials and…

The most important event for U.S. markets this week is likely to be Thursday’s inflation report. This is because it’s the start of the second quarter earnings reporting season for companies, there are a number of Treasury debt auctions, and there may be changes in the presidential race. The June consumer price index numbers could have big effects on the markets, just like any other big economic report. But investors will be paying extra close attention this month because the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate cut could depend on them. A rise in inflation that is smaller than expected could…

Even though inflation has gone down since its high point in 2022, food prices are still much higher than they were a few years ago. One family in California showed the world how expensive it has become to shop for groceries lately. It cost Galen Callahan, 39, and her husband $444.38 to shop at Trader Joe’s all at once. “This is what it takes to feed six kids for about a week and a half,” they wrote on the video that showed the receipt. Over 17 million people have seen it. But Callahan, whose husband works at a title company,…

On Friday afternoon, Koss Corp. stock was up more than 35% because of all the meme-stock talk going on about the company that makes headphones. Koss KOSS, +25.59% shares went up 143.8% on Wednesday, the last trading day before the Fourth of July holiday. It was the biggest daily percentage gain since January 27, 2021, when they went up 480%. It took 51.41 million shares to trade on Koss today, which is more than the 1.93 million shares that were traded on average over the last 65 days. 7.7% of Koss’s public float of shares are held by people who…

After a bumpy start, Tesla Inc. stock closed higher on Friday, continuing their longest winning streak in over a year and beginning a positive year for 2024. The winning streak began on June 25, and the stock’s rise sped up earlier this week after Tesla reported surprisingly strong deliveries for the second quarter. Friday, the stock TSLA, +2.08% closed up 2.1% to $251.52. It was the highest it had been since December 28 at $253.18. That made Tesla’s year-to-date gain 1.2%, the first time this year it has been positive. The stock went up and down by as much as…

There are a lot of Wall Street analysts who are positive about Nvidia Corp.’s stock, but on Friday, there were a few more analysts who were neutral. In an industry report he called a “health check” on AI stocks, Pierre Ferragu, an analyst at New Street Research, lowered Nvidia shares NVDA, -1.91% from “buy” to “neutral.” Eight of the 62 analysts that FactSet follows now have neutral or similar opinions on Nvidia’s stock. Ferragu thinks that “upside will only materialise in a bull case, in which the outlook beyond 2025 increases materially,” but he doesn’t think that this will happen…

Britain’s top homebuilders saw their stock prices rise on Friday morning after the Labour Party won the general election by a large margin. Investors were hopeful that Keir Starmer’s new government would move forward with plans to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years. The Labour Party’s June manifesto laid out their plans to fix Britain’s housing crisis. They said they would do this by bringing back mandatory house building targets and changing the U.K.’s planning system, which many people think makes it hard to build new homes. In its platform, the Labour Party says, “Labour will…

Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, spoke to reporters and supporters outside of Number 10 Downing Street in his first speech as Prime Minister. He focused on “national renewal.” In his almost seven-minute speech, he said, “Now our country has voted decisively for change, for national renewal, and a return to the politics of public service.” Starmer’s Labour party won by a huge margin in Wednesday’s general election, ending 14 years of Conservative rule. As of now, he is the seventh Labour Prime Minister of the UK. He talked to people who didn’t vote for Labour and…

WAUSAU, WIS.— In a much-anticipated TV interview on Friday, President Joe Biden tried to save his re-election bid, but he refused to get an independent medical exam that would show voters he is healthy enough to serve another term. Instead, he blamed his terrible performance in the debate on a “bad episode” and said there were “no indications of any serious condition.” “Look, I have a cognitive test every single day,” Biden told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News. He was talking about the difficult tasks he has to do every day at his job. “I’ve had tests every day.” Everything…

The summer rally in the U.S. stock market has gone on longer than expected. On Friday, as investors looked at the latest jobs report, the S&P 500 index hit yet another record high. Andrew Slimmon, senior portfolio manager for U.S. stocks at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said on the phone on Friday, “The economy is cooling, but not collapsing.” “The market doesn’t expect anything more than a slowdown.” As of Friday, a report from the Bureau of Labour Statistics showed that the U.S. economy added 206,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate went up slightly to 4.1%. The U.S.…