Author: starbpo

The head of the Chicago Federal Reserve said Friday that the drop in inflation in May was a big step in the right direction. However, prices need to drop even more before U.S. interest rates can be lowered. When asked about the May consumer price index report, Austan Goolsbee said, “That was a very good number.” For the first time in almost two years, the CPI showed that prices did not go up last month. As the Fed ended a two-day meeting on Wednesday morning, the CPI was made public. The Fed also left a key short-term interest rate at…

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and start talks if Kyiv started pulling its troops out of the four regions Moscow annexed in 2022 and gave up its plans to join NATO. Kyiv doesn’t seem interested in such a deal because it wants to join the military alliance and has asked Russia to pull its troops out of all of its territory. Ukraine didn’t say anything right away about Putin’s idea. Putin said in a speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow, “We will do it right away.” The leaders…

Tesla Inc. shareholders overwhelmingly approved CEO Elon Musk’s huge pay package late Thursday night. This was a big win for the electric vehicle maker, even if it was just symbolic, and it gave the company the green light to move its headquarters from Delaware to Texas. The vote on the pay package was only advisory and had no legal weight. In premarket trading on Friday, Tesla shares TSLA, -2.44% went up 0.8%. This comes after rising 6.9% in the last two sessions. After the results were read, Musk took the stage to cheers and chants of “Elon, Elon!” from the…

Shares of Apple Inc. gained a lot of ground this week, and that could keep up from here. If it lasts until the end of the day, the stock’s 7.7% rise so far this week will be the best in the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA. This comes at a time when investors have been doubting Apple’s AAPL, -0.82% AI strategy for most of the year. Companies with catchy names, like Nvidia Corp. NVDA, +1.75% and Meta Platforms Inc. META, +0.11%, seemed like better bets on the AI trend because they were already making money from it. But Apple helped…

Even though there seems to be a rush of high-profile stock split announcements from companies like Broadcom Inc., Nvidia Corp., and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., management teams are usually taking their time before going to Splitsville. Birinyi Associates data shows that as of Wednesday night, 10 S&P 500 SPX companies had announced stock splits for the year. If the same number of splits are announced in the second half of the year, the index is on track for its busiest year of splits in almost 20 years. But executives are still much more patient with splits than they were in…

Along with dividends, Nvidia Corp. stock has returned 162% this year as of Thursday. It has also more than tripled in value from a year ago. As an investor, does this mean it’s too late for you to join the party? It could. In its place, though, the stocks below may be a better deal. On the other hand, this is all up to you. There isn’t much competition for Nvidia NVDA, +1.75% yet when it comes to graphics processing units (GPUs) that data centres are using to help their corporate clients build new AI technologies. How long could this…

Some sectors have been selling off very quickly compared to the market as a whole. This could be a sign of underlying weakness, but Janney analyst Dan Wantrobski says it means there are good chances to buy in the near future. Wantrobski told his clients on Friday that he was seeing some big changes in the relative strength of different sectors. This was because some of the major large-cap benchmarks were continuing to move higher even though the number of stocks in those sectors was decreasing. “This gives traders some chances to see the mean return going into the second…

No matter how much Americans love a winner, the losers in the stock market are starting to get their own attention. And there are a lot of them. “At the megacap level, I think it’s just a story of momentum that’s been going on all year.” MarketWatch talked on the phone with Kevin Gordon, senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “I think the bigger story is under the surface,” he said. Because of that story about momentum, Apple Inc. (AAPL, -0.82%) had to play catch-up with Nvidia Corp. (NVDA, +1.75%), which made chips for AI and gained another 9% this…

According to news reports, Tesla Inc. plans to raise the price of its Model 3 car in the European Union starting in July. This is because the EU will put import taxes on cars made in China, the electric car company said on its website on Thursday. Reports from Reuters and others say that the message was posted on Tesla’s TSLA, +3.88% website for countries like Germany, France, Ireland, Belgium, and Hungary. “We expect that we will have to raise the prices of Model 3 cars starting July 1, 2024.” The message said, “This is because more import taxes are…

Washington, D.C. The leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies have agreed to help Ukraine get a $50 billion loan. The loan would be backed by interest earned on profits from Russia’s frozen central bank assets. While the G7 leaders were meeting in Italy for a summit, the deal’s details were still being worked out. However, the money could get to Kyiv before the end of the year. According to a French official who confirmed the deal on Wednesday, the deal will be officially announced at the summit. This is how the plan would work: Where is the cash…