The Big Picture

APRIL 11, 2024

Confused about where we are today? A favorite exercise is to go back to first principles to consider how we got to where we are. (That is a favorite way to find fresh insights). On the equity side, you have to go back a century or so. Equities were considered speculative endeavors, best suited for gamblers and punters. The exceptions? A handful of “Widows & Orphan” stocks, like Ma Bell, some railroads, utilities and the rare bank that was not suffering regular runs.

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Private Equity Info

APRIL 3, 2024

Private Equity Info founder and managing partner Andy Jones recently joined Cornerstone International Alliance managing director Nick Olsen on his podcast, The M&A Mastermind. The conversation provides valuable insights for sell-side M&A professionals, with advice for nurturing relationships to increase referral activity, and avoiding the temptation to accept lower-quality deals when business is slow.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 30, 2024

One of the most outspoken investors on Wall Street is Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood. Wood is known to take large positions in emerging technology businesses that she and her team believe have massive upside potential. However, like any other money manager, Wood faces her share of backlash and skepticism. I'll concede that some of Wood's high-conviction opportunities look far-fetched to me.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 30, 2024

If you didn't think the demand for artificial intelligence (AI) could get any stronger, think again. Four of the biggest tech companies in the world all reported very strong demand for AI applications, and that's great news for Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). The chipmaker designs the leading GPUs for training the large language models powering new generative AI applications.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 30, 2024

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) had more than $110 billion in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet at the end of 2023. The company is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, and capital expenditures are projected to climb 27% this year from a record $32 billion last year, according to Bloomberg. However, several Wall Street analysts saw that cash pile as evidence that Alphabet was preparing to pay a dividend.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 30, 2024

I have been steadily building a position in dividend powerhouse Realty Income (NYSE: O) over the past few years. I recently bought some more shares and plan to do that again this May. Here's why I can't seem to get enough of this magnificent dividend stock these days. A premier passive-income producer The biggest reason I have been buying Realty Income is to collect more of its attractive monthly dividend.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 30, 2024

Investing in the stock market is one of the simplest, most effective ways to build long-term wealth, and even novice investors can make a lot of money with the right strategy. An exchange-traded fund (ETF) can be a fantastic option for new and seasoned investors, especially those looking for a low-effort investment. An ETF is a basket of securities bundled together into a single fund, meaning you'll instantly own a stake in dozens or hundreds of stocks with just one investment.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 30, 2024

Image source: The Motley Fool. Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Apr 30, 2024 , 10:00 a.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Lilly Q1 2024 earnings call. [Operator instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Joe Fletcher, senior vice president of investor relations.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 30, 2024

Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ: WBD) were heading lower today on reports that its TNT cable network was expected to lose the rights to air the NBA in the latest auction. Separately, the stock also seemed to be declining in response to Paramount Global 's slide after its rival reported disappointing earnings and took a step closer to a merger, seemingly putting a nail in the coffin of a once-rumored merger with Warner Bros.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 29, 2024

Image source: The Motley Fool/Upsplash Being a millionaire has been synonymous with being rich for decades. It doesn't quite mean what it used to, thanks to inflation. But it's still an ambitious financial goal, and one that may seem out of reach if you don't earn a higher salary. But a net worth of $1 million is more realistic than many people realize.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 29, 2024

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) shareholders are licking their wounds once again after the chip titan's latest earnings report. It's a familiar position for Intel investors. The company has repeatedly disappointed the market, making big promises about revamping its business only to come up short when it's time to open the books. This time around, Intel beat estimates in the first quarter with a modest increase in revenue, but its second-quarter forecast was worse than expected as it called for flat revenue

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 29, 2024

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) delivered another impressive earnings report on April 25. Revenue and earnings per share (EPS) respectively grew 17% and 20% year over year for the fiscal 2024 third quarter (ended March 31), and the analyst at Wells Fargo sees more gains in store. Analyst Michael Turrin raised the price target on Microsoft from $480 to $500 and maintained an overweight (buy) rating on the shares.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 29, 2024

Image source: Getty Images Credit card surcharges have become a controversial practice. Many restaurants and small businesses now tack on an extra 3% or more for credit card payments. People who prefer to pay this way are understandably frustrated. If you're tired of getting dinged with extra fees, the best way to handle it is to vote with your wallet.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 29, 2024

When it comes to making forecasts about the future direction of the crypto market, there's arguably no one with a higher profile than Cathie Wood of Ark Invest. In 2022, she famously made a $1 million price forecast for Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). And she hasn't shied away from making some truly mind-blowing forecasts for other, lesser-known cryptocurrencies as well.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 29, 2024

There's a benefit to saving for retirement in a traditional IRA or 401(k) plan. The money you contribute, up to the allowable limits set by the IRS, can serve the very important purpose of exempting some of your income from taxes, all the while giving you access to funds you can use later in life. But the problem with housing your nest egg in a traditional retirement plan is having to deal with required minimum distributions , or RMDs, down the line.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 30, 2024

The Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) provides a much-needed income boost to retirees and other beneficiaries, allowing them to maintain the same quality of life despite rising prices. Over the past three years alone, Social Security COLAs have increased benefits by a total of nearly 19%, which has certainly eased the sting of high inflation on the tens of millions of beneficiaries.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 29, 2024

Why put a lot of work into trying to beat the market year after year when you can match the market's return with almost no effort? That's the core reasoning behind making exchange-traded funds (ETFs) a big part of your investing strategy. There are many ETFs that replicate the returns of large indexes like the S&P 500 , essentially allowing you to outperform most professional fund managers with just one simple investment.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 29, 2024

Fool.com contributor Parkev Tatevosian evaluates Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) stock and determines if it is an excellent investment. *Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of April 25, 2024. The video was published on April 27, 2024. Should you invest $1,000 in Intel right now? Before you buy stock in Intel, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Intel wasn’t one of them.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 29, 2024

Image source: Getty Images Many Americans are opting to rent rather than buy a place to live right now, as house prices have soared over the past few years. The increased demand for rentals has merged with rising inflation, pushing rent prices higher. The result is that the typical monthly rent in the U.S. is now $1,988 -- an increase of more than 30% from early 2020.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 29, 2024

Image source: The Motley Fool. MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Apr 29, 2024 , 5:00 p.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Shirish Jajodia Hello, everyone, and good afternoon. I am Shirish Jajodia, vice president of investor relations and treasury at MicroStrategy I'll be your moderator for MicroStrategy's 2024 first quarter earnings webinar.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 30, 2024

Image source: The Motley Fool. Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Apr 30, 2024 , 5:00 p.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Over greetings and welcome to the AMD first-quarter 2024 conference call. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

Social Security benefits got a 3.2% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in 2024, a smaller raise than the historic 8.7% COLA doled out in 2023. Unfortunately, retired workers are on pace to get an even smaller pay bump of 2.6% in 2025, according to The Senior Citizens League, a non-profit advocacy group. What makes that steady decline surprising is that many seniors report facing financial hardships.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) -- like the name implies -- is a company that makes rockets. Small, expendable "Electron" rockets, for the most part (although Rocket Lab has plans to test fly a new medium-size and reusable "Neutron" rocket in either 2024 or 2025). On Wall Street, a lot of analysts have pegged the introduction of Neutron as the event that flips the switch on Rocket Lab and turns the rocket company from just one of many unprofitable space stocks into a bona fide profit-making corporatio

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) garnered a lot of attention after it was revealed that it was one of four stocks, along with Arm Holdings (NASDAQ: ARM) , that Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) invested in late last year. Nvidia took some of its ample cash and invested in companies it thought could greatly benefit from the upcoming artificial intelligence (AI) revolution.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

Many investors are familiar with the three major U.S. stock market indexes. I am talking about the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) , the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) , and the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC). Those three indexes cover different facets of the domestic stock market, but they all measure the performance of large-cap U.S. companies.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

Social Security retirement benefits provide much-needed income to millions of seniors who rely on this money to help cover their essential costs. Unfortunately, many seniors are losing thousands of dollars worth of these benefits every year as a result of a problematic rule. Here's what the issue is, and some details about why a growing number of Social Security recipients get to keep less of their benefits each year.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

These days, a lot of people are on top of economic news, with topics like inflation and interest rates monopolizing much of the media. As such, news pertaining to Social Security tends to get pushed to the background to a large degree. But it's important to know about changes to the program, whether you're currently receiving benefits or are years away from filing your claim.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has multiple major accomplishments on her resume. She's been a U.S. Representative for nearly 37 years. She's the first female Speaker of the House and the first woman to lead either chamber of Congress. Is she also a market-beating investor? The former House Speaker nearly tripled the S&P 500 's returns in 2023, giving her the ninth-best returns among members of Congress , according to options trading platform operator Unusual Whales.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

Image source: Getty Images Looking to buy a house in 2024? It's not really a great market for anyone (well, maybe for people who can buy all in cash and don't need to worry about mortgage rates), but if it's your first time, you have my sympathies. You'll contend with a ton of competition -- according to data from the National Association of Realtors, there was only a 2.9-month supply of homes available in February 2024.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

Investing is simple to learn, but it can be very hard to master. I've made my fair share of mistakes, particularly when I was just starting out. Instead of taking a measured approach and trying to focus on the long term, I jumped in with both feet and did a lot of things that weren't good for me financially. It would have been much better if I had bought a broad-based index fund, like SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: SPY).

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

In the ever-evolving landscape of cryptocurrencies, few events hold as much influence and anticipation as Bitcoin 's (CRYPTO: BTC) halving. On Friday, April 19, the world's original cryptocurrency underwent its fourth halving, setting the stage for a potential price surge. While past performance doesn't guarantee future results, with a deeper exploration of the halving, it becomes clear that Bitcoin's price increasing is as close to a safe bet as you can get in the world of investing, especially

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

I've been investing in Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) on and off for more than 10 years now, but I never quite had the conviction to hold onto my coins for very long. After all, it's doubtful that the coins will ever have real utility like a precious metal might, and there's certainly no major nation-state or equivalently powerful actor supporting its value or accepting it as a medium of exchange.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

Dividend stocks are some of the best investments you can choose to have in your portfolio. They provide investors with valuable stability that flows from their large sales footprints, established market share positions, and passive income streams. This is an excellent time to be shopping in this market niche, too. That's because many dividend giants have fallen out of favor as Wall Street focuses on the small group of tech stocks that have powered most of the market's recent rally.

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The Motley Fool

APRIL 28, 2024

Many electric vehicle (EV) stocks crumbled over the past year as the market cooled off and rising interest rates compressed their valuations. But according to Precedence Research, the global EV market could still expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.4% from 2024 to 2032 as EVs gradually replace gas-powered vehicles. Therefore, the recent sell-off in EV stocks might represent a golden buying opportunity for value-minded investors who can look past the near-term headwinds.

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