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Strategy Analytics: Roku Extends U.S. Lead in First Quarter Roku (NASDAQ: ROKU) has been absolutely crushing it in recent quarters , and continues to guide 2019 revenue to over $1 billion . Total active accounts hit 29.1 million in the first quarter, and average revenue per user (ARPU) keeps marching steadily higher. Roku defines ARPU as trailing-12-month platform revenue divided by the average number of active accounts during that time, and the platform business is predominantly advertising. The company is the largest streaming-TV platform in the U.S. -- and is extending its lead. Roku platform displayed on a Roku TV Roku TVs are an important source of active account growth. Image source: Roku. Roku has the largest installed base in the U.S. Roku doesn't disclose unit sales or provide a geographical breakdown of its user base, but it grabbed over 30% of connected TV device sales in the first quarter, according to recent estimates from Strategy Analytics . The market researcher now estimates that there are over 41 million Roku devices in use in the U.S., which includes its streaming-media players, as well as Roku TVs, smart TVs made by third-party manufacturers that integrate Roku's platform. An active account may be accessed by multiple users and through multiple devices, which is how the estimated installed base can be greater than the number of active accounts. Roku's installed base now represents 15.2% of all media-streaming devices in the country, according to the report. Trailing Roku is Amazon.com in No. 2 with 12% of U.S. sales in the first quarter, and Samsung's Tizen platform comes in at No. 3 with 11%. Alphabet 's Google garnered 9% of sales with Android TV and Chromecast. Chart showing devices in use for different streaming TV platforms Image source: Strategy Analytics . Roku has long billed itself as an agnostic platform, not trying to push any given video-streaming service over another. The company simply wants to provide as many choices as possible, and let consumers choose what to watch. That approach seems to be resonating with the market. "Roku's extensive content offering, comprehensive search function and simple and intuitive user interface have been key factors in its success, alongside affordable hardware and regularly updated software," Strategy Analytics' David Watkins said in a statement. "Roku has managed to establish itself as a highly respected and trusted brand in the US with no perceived hidden agenda when it comes to promoting content on its platform." Story continues However, Roku lacks international brand recognition compared to the larger tech behemoths that it competes with. That will make expanding abroad more challenging. "Revenue in international markets was less than 10% for all periods presented," Roku notes in regulatory filings. Looking ahead, Strategy Analytics expects Roku's installed base to swell to over 52 million by the year's end, which would represent 18% of all connected media devices in the U.S. More From The Motley Fool 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) What Is an ETF? 5 Recession-Proof Stocks How to Beat the Market John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Evan Niu, CFA owns shares of AMZN. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends GOOGL, GOOGL, AMZN, and Roku. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
Love Island LIVE: Michael, Amber and Anna have a huge fight after the most dramatic episode yet What an epic helping of mass-market emotional manipulation! Last night, Love Island ’ s Great Recoupling episode lived up to its billing as hearts were shattered, egos broken and everyone ended up looking as if they were trapped in the longest, most surreal (and humid) romantic comedy ever. With the show having divided the original couples, last night they reunited and decided whether they wished to carry on as before. Your faith in human nature was very briefly restored as Tommy and Molly-Mae cuddled and pledged their gooey fealty to one another. Alas, your fate in human nature had already been reduced to tatters courtesy of Curtis and his half-girlfriend shenanigans with poor, love-struck Amy. And what about Jordan, who declared he was staying true to Anna only to discover she’s paired off with Ovie. It’s hard keeping track. So here’s a definitive countdown of who is with who. Amy and Curtis (just about). Michael and Joanna. Molly-Mae and Tommy. Anna and Ovie. Lucie and George. Anton and Belle. Maura and Marvin (you can call them “M&M” if you really want to). Danny and Jourdan. Which leaves Amber and Jordan as the uneasy singles in the pack. Follow along with tonight's episode on our live blog below Please allow the live blog a moment to load
At US$30.11, Is Rexnord Corporation (NYSE:RXN) Worth Looking At Closely? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Rexnord Corporation (NYSE:RXN), which is in the machinery business, and is based in United States, saw a significant share price rise of over 20% in the past couple of months on the NYSE. With many analysts covering the mid-cap stock, we may expect any price-sensitive announcements have already been factored into the stock’s share price. However, could the stock still be trading at a relatively cheap price? Let’s take a look at Rexnord’s outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if the opportunity still exists. View our latest analysis for Rexnord Good news, investors! Rexnord is still a bargain right now. According to my valuation, the intrinsic value for the stock is $41.77, which is above what the market is valuing the company at the moment. This indicates a potential opportunity to buy low. Although, there may be another chance to buy again in the future. This is because Rexnord’s beta (a measure of share price volatility) is high, meaning its price movements will be exaggerated relative to the rest of the market. If the market is bearish, the company's shares will likely fall by more than the rest of the market, providing a prime buying opportunity. Future outlook is an important aspect when you’re looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so let’s also take a look at the company's future expectations. With profit expected to grow by 29% over the next couple of years, the future seems bright for Rexnord. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation. Are you a shareholder?Since RXN is currently undervalued, it may be a great time to increase your holdings in the stock. With a positive outlook on the horizon, it seems like this growth has not yet been fully factored into the share price. However, there are also other factors such as capital structure to consider, which could explain the current undervaluation. Are you a potential investor?If you’ve been keeping an eye on RXN for a while, now might be the time to enter the stock. Its prosperous future outlook isn’t fully reflected in the current share price yet, which means it’s not too late to buy RXN. But before you make any investment decisions, consider other factors such as the strength of its balance sheet, in order to make a well-informed investment decision. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters – the fundamentals – before you make a decision on Rexnord. You can find everything you need to know about Rexnord inthe latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Rexnord, you can use our free platform to see my list of over50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Kim Kardashian Awarded $2.7 Million in Knockoff Outfits Lawsuit Kim Kardashian West has been victorious in her lawsuit against an online retailer she sued in February for allegedly using her name and image without permission to sell imitations of her outfits. According to court documents obtained by ET, the 38-year-old reality star was awarded $2.7 million in damages and $59,600 in attorneys' fees from Missguided USA, who it's alleged in her lawsuit "have repeatedly used Kardashian’s name and image without authorization to generate interest in their brand and website, and to elicit sales of their products." The court documents state that Missguided USA has "failed to appear, plead, or otherwise defend in this action," and that a default judgment was entered on March 29. "Furthermore Missguided USA is hereby permanently enjoined from using Plaintiffs' trademarks in connection with the sale, marketing or distribution of its products," the documents state. Back in February, Kardashian West shared photos of what she claimed were Missguided’s "knock-off" versions of her clothing. She also claimed that the retailer "specializes in 'fast' and inexpensive clothing designs, which are often derivative of other companies’ designs if not blatant knock-offs." "Missguided has not only knocked-off the clothing of other designers, but it has unabashedly misappropriated the rights of celebrities like Kardashian in selling these knock-offs on its websites," her lawsuit states. On Twitter, Kardashian West explained why she's so upset about fashion labels imitating her looks, and also blasted companies she said made money by ripping off her husband, Kanye West's, designs. "My relationships with designers are very important to me," she tweeted. "It's taken me over a decade to build them and I have a huge amount of respect for the amount of work that they put into bringing their ideas to life. I often plan for weeks, sometimes months, and even a year in advance, and I’m grateful for every fashion moment those designers and their dresses have helped me create.” Story continues "It's devastating to see these fashion companies rip off designs that have taken the blood, sweat and tears of true designers who have put their all into their own original ideas," she continued. "I've watched these companies profit off my husband's work for years and now that it's also affecting designers who have been so generous to give me access to their beautiful works, I can no longer sit silent." But she recently got into her own trademark drama, when she initially named her new shapewear line Kimono , and received backlash for attempting to trademark the name in a specific font version of the word. After being accused of cultural appropriation, she initially defended herself in a statement to The New York Times that said she had "deep respect for the significance of the kimono in Japanese culture," but later announced she would be renaming her line. "I am always listening, learning and growing - I so appreciate the passion and varied perspectives that people bring to me," she tweeted. "When I announced the name of my shapewear line, I did so with the best intentions in mind." "My brands and products are built with inclusivity and diversity at their core and after careful thought and consideration, I will be launching my Solutionwear brand under a new name," she continued. "I will be in touch soon. Thank you for your understanding and support always." For more, watch the video below: RELATED CONTENT: Kim Kardashian Rocks Curve-Hugging Mini Dress for 'Rare' Club Outing With All Her Sisters Kim Kardashian Defends Trademarking 'Kimono' After Being Accused of Cultural Appropriation Kim Kardashian Graces the Cover of 'Vogue Japan' -- See the Pics! Related Articles: Hollywood Bikini Bods Over 40 Biggest Celebrity Breakups of 2019 -- So Far! Celebrities in Their Underwear
Should You Be Concerned About Saga Communications, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:SGA) Historical Volatility? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Anyone researching Saga Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGA) might want to consider the historical volatility of the share price. Modern finance theory considers volatility to be a measure of risk, and there are two main types of price volatility. The first category is company specific volatility. This can be dealt with by limiting your exposure to any particular stock. The second type is the broader market volatility, which you cannot diversify away, since it arises from macroeconomic factors which directly affects all the stocks on the market. Some stocks see their prices move in concert with the market. Others tend towards stronger, gentler or unrelated price movements. Some investors use beta as a measure of how much a certain stock is impacted by market risk (volatility). While we should keep in mind that Warren Buffett has cautioned that 'Volatility is far from synonymous with risk', beta is still a useful factor to consider. To make good use of it you must first know that the beta of the overall market is one. A stock with a beta below one is either less volatile than the market, or more volatile but not corellated with the overall market. In comparison a stock with a beta of over one tends to be move in a similar direction to the market in the long term, but with greater changes in price. View our latest analysis for Saga Communications As it happens, Saga Communications has a five year beta of 1.07. This is fairly close to 1, so the stock has historically shown a somewhat similar level of volatility as the market. While history does not always repeat, this may indicate that the stock price will continue to be exposed to market risk, albeit not overly so. Beta is worth considering, but it's also important to consider whether Saga Communications is growing earnings and revenue. You can take a look for yourself, below. With a market capitalisation of US$179m, Saga Communications is a very small company by global standards. It is quite likely to be unknown to most investors. It doesn't take much money to really move the share price of a company as small as this one. That makes it somewhat unusual that it has a beta value so close to the overall market. Since Saga Communications has a beta close to one, it will probably show a positive return when the market is moving up, based on history. If you're trying to generate better returns than the market, it would be worth thinking about other metrics such as cashflows, dividends and revenue growth might be a more useful guide to the future. This article aims to educate investors about beta values, but it's well worth looking at important company-specific fundamentals such as Saga Communications’s financial health and performance track record. I highly recommend you dive deeper by considering the following: 1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for SGA’s future growth? Take a look at ourfree research report of analyst consensusfor SGA’s outlook. 2. Past Track Record: Has SGA been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look atthe free visual representations of SGA's historicalsfor more clarity. 3. Other Interesting Stocks: It's worth checking to see how SGA measures up against other companies on valuation. You could start with thisfree list of prospective options. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Roche's Flu Medicine Xofluza Meets Goal in Study on Kids Roche Holding AG ’s RHHBY member, Genentech announced that a phase III study investigating its new single-dose oral flu medicine, Xofluza (baloxavir marboxil) in children met the primary endpoint. The MINISTONE-2 study demonstrated that Xofluza was well tolerated in otherwise healthy kids aged between one and less than 12 years old with the flu. The study also showed that Xofluza is comparable to Roche’s older flu medicine, Tamiflu, (oseltamivir) in reducing the duration of flu symptoms, including fever. Tamiflu, to be taken twice daily for five days, has lost patent protection and generic versions are available. Xofluza is presently marketed in the United States for the treatment of acute, uncomplicated influenza in people 12 years of age and older. It is not approved for use in children younger than 12 years of age. It is approved in Japan and several other countries to treat influenza types A and B in children, adolescents and adults. Roche developed Xofluza in partnership with Japan’s Shionogi. Roche’s shares have risen 14.3% this year so far compared with an increase of 2.9% for the industry. Children are usually at a higher risk of catching flu and approximately one in three children develop flu every year. Moreover, they are more contagious than adults and sometimes develop complications such as breathing problems and pneumonia. If approved to treat flu in children, Xofluza could be a convenient treatment option as it is the only approved single-dose oral medicine to treat flu. Meanwhile, Xofluza is being evaluated in several studies to expand its eligible patient population including MINISTONE-1, which is evaluating the safety and efficacy of Xofluza in infants under the age of one. In fact, in March, the FDA had accepted a supplemental new drug application for Xofluza for the treatment of influenza in people at high risk of complications based on data from the CAPSTONE-2 study. The FDA is expected to make a decision on approval by Nov 4, 2019. Xofluza is also being evaluated in phase III studies in severely ill, hospitalized people with flu as well as to assess the potential to reduce transmission in otherwise healthy people. Story continues Popular influenza vaccines in the market are Sanofi’s SNY Fluzone Quadrivalent, Glaxo’s GSK Fluarix Quadrivalent and AstraZeneca’s AZN FluMist Quadrivalent Roche currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here . The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) : Free Stock Analysis Report Roche Holding AG (RHHBY) : Free Stock Analysis Report Sanofi (SNY) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research
Ball Park Will Honor Baseball’s Best Hot Dog Vendors in a Trading Card Set Baseball cards have been immortalizing baseball players for nearly as long as the sport’s been around. But nowadays, fans often get just as excited about the ballpark food as they do about seeing the players, so it only makes sense that the hot dog brand Ball Park is creating a new kind of trading card: hot dog vendor cards . Ball Park has put the call out for baseball fans to nominate their favorite hot dog vendors over the next few weeks for inclusion in the set which is scheduled to go into print in late September/early October — also known as playoff season, where baseball’s biggest heroes shine. “Whether fans are regulars at a ball park, ordering hot dogs from the same vendor, game after game — or — they had just one memorable experience, Ball Park Brand wants them to share their favorite hot dog vendor story on social, using the hashtag #HotDogHeroes,” the hot dog maker writes. The brand says it will be curating the list of featured vendors throughout the summer before choosing the final vendor lineup. The hope is to end up with as many as 27 to 30 vendors in all, representative of “each baseball market.” (The cards aren’t affiliated with Major League Baseball or any specific teams, thus the vague language.) Ball Park says this is the first time ever these hot dog “MVPs” will be recognized in card form. (It appears that the Reading Phillies mascot known as the “Crazy Hot Dog Vendor” got his own Topps card back in 2017 — and posing with my old friend Benjamin Hill , no less — but, alas, he is not a real hot dog vendor.) As a result, these “limited release” cards could prove to be a hot item for collectors. However, as of now, Ball Park isn’t providing any details on how fans will be able to score the cards once they're officially printed. So for now, just ignore the game and keep an eye out in the stands for your best hometown hot dog slinger.
3 Tech Stocks Under $10 to Buy for July At Zacks, we try to avoid labeling stocks as “cheap” or “expensive.” Instead, we opt to look beyond a stock’s face value, and our system puts an emphasis on earnings estimate revisions to find stocks that will hopefully be winners for investors. With that said, low-priced stocks can still be attractive to investors as they present the chance to take a larger position in a company, which they might not be able to in higher-priced stocks. When searching for these low-priced stocks, we still look for similar trends in growth, value, and momentum. Then we apply the Zacks Rank to properly analyze the potential that these companies have. We are also aware of the latest sector trends and make sure to cover all of the hottest industries. Today we’ve highlighted three stocks that fall into the broad “technology” sector that investors might want to consider as we start the second half of 2019. Each of these three stocks is currently trading for less than $10 a share and holds a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or #2 (Buy) at the moment. 1. Intevac, Inc. IVAC Prior Close: $4.56 USD Intevac designs and develops high productivity, thin film processing systems. The Santa Clara, California-headquartered company also develops high-sensitivity digital sensors, cameras, and systems with a focus on the the defense industry. Investors should note that Intevac is the “sole source provider” of integrated digital imaging systems for most U.S. military night vision programs. IVAC is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), with a price/sales ratio of 1, which marks a discount compared to its industry’s 1.3 average. Intevac also sports “A” grades for both Growth and Momentum in our Style Scores system. Looking ahead, our current Zacks Consensus Estimate calls for the company’s full year revenue to jump over 20% to $114.5 million. In a sign of continued top-line growth, IVAC’s is projected to see its revenue climb 16% higher than our current year estimate to reach $132.8 million in the following year. At the bottom end of the income statement, Intevac is projected to swing from a loss of $0.19 a share last year to +$0.03. Better still, IVAC’s adjusted EPS figure is expected to come in at $0.27 in the following year. 2. Adesto Technologies Corporation IOTS Prior Close: $8.24 USD Adesto provides application-specific semiconductors and embedded systems that help drive Internet of Things edge devices. Shares of IOTS have soared roughly 80% so far this year from $4.66 in early January to Wednesday’s opening price of $8.24 per share. This helps the firm outpace its industry’s 22% average climb. Adesto's price to sales ratio of 2.5 represents a significant discount against its industry’s 4.2 average. Like, Intevac, Adesto is also currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), based, in large part, on its positive longer-term earnings estimate revision activity. IOTS, which also sports a “B” grade for Momentum in our Style Scores system, is projected to see its quarterly revenue surge 65% to help lift its adjusted earnings from a loss of -$0.08 to -$0.04 per share. The company full-year revenue is expected to climb over 48% to $123.9 million, with adjusted EPS projected to jump 87%. Adesto has also crushed its quarterly earnings estimates in the trailing three periods by a 27% average. 3. Digital Turbine, Inc. APPS Prior Close: $5.11 USD Digital Turbine operates in our Internet – Software industry and its business tries to connect OEMs, mobile operators, and publishers with advertisers and app developers. APPS stock has skyrocketed nearly 200% this year and 25% in the last month. The company posted better-than-projected fourth quarter fiscal 2019 earnings and revenue in early June, with Q4 revenue up roughly 29%. Digital Turbine is a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at the moment that rocks “A” grades for both Growth and Momentum. Despite its growth-focused profile, APPS’ price/sales ratio marks a discount compared to its industry at 4.03. The Austin, Texas-based company is projected to see its Q1 fiscal 2020 revenue surge 28.4% to $28.39 million. Meanwhile, Digital Turbine’s adjusted first-quarter earnings are projected to swing from a loss of -$0.01 per share in the year-ago period to +$0.02. Peeking further down the road Digital Turbine’s fiscal 2020 EPS figure is projected to soar 62.5% to $0.13 a share on the back of 22% revenue growth. Will you retire a millionaire?One out of every six people retires a multimillionaire. Get smart tips you can do today to become one of them in a new Special Report, “7 Things You Can Do Now to Retire a Multimillionaire.”Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportIntevac, Inc. (IVAC) : Free Stock Analysis ReportDigital Turbine, Inc. (APPS) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAdesto Technologies Corporation (IOTS) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research
Here's What TE Connectivity Ltd.'s (NYSE:TEL) P/E Ratio Is Telling Us Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! The goal of this article is to teach you how to use price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). We'll apply a basic P/E ratio analysis to TE Connectivity Ltd.'s (NYSE:TEL), to help you decide if the stock is worth further research. Based on the last twelve months,TE Connectivity's P/E ratio is 11.41. That corresponds to an earnings yield of approximately 8.8%. Check out our latest analysis for TE Connectivity Theformula for P/Eis: Price to Earnings Ratio = Price per Share ÷ Earnings per Share (EPS) Or for TE Connectivity: P/E of 11.41 = $97.35 ÷ $8.53 (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2019.) The higher the P/E ratio, the higher the price tag of a business, relative to its trailing earnings. That isn't a good or a bad thing on its own, but a high P/E means that buyers have a higher opinion of the business's prospects, relative to stocks with a lower P/E. P/E ratios primarily reflect market expectations around earnings growth rates. If earnings are growing quickly, then the 'E' in the equation will increase faster than it would otherwise. And in that case, the P/E ratio itself will drop rather quickly. And as that P/E ratio drops, the company will look cheap, unless its share price increases. TE Connectivity's 154% EPS improvement over the last year was like bamboo growth after rain; rapid and impressive. The sweetener is that the annual five year growth rate of 21% is also impressive. With that kind of growth rate we would generally expect a high P/E ratio. The P/E ratio indicates whether the market has higher or lower expectations of a company. We can see in the image below that the average P/E (18.4) for companies in the electronic industry is higher than TE Connectivity's P/E. This suggests that market participants think TE Connectivity will underperform other companies in its industry. While current expectations are low, the stock could be undervalued if the situation is better than the market assumes. It is arguably worth checkingif insiders are buying shares, because that might imply they believe the stock is undervalued. The 'Price' in P/E reflects the market capitalization of the company. Thus, the metric does not reflect cash or debt held by the company. Theoretically, a business can improve its earnings (and produce a lower P/E in the future) by investing in growth. That means taking on debt (or spending its cash). Such expenditure might be good or bad, in the long term, but the point here is that the balance sheet is not reflected by this ratio. TE Connectivity's net debt is 11% of its market cap. This could bring some additional risk, and reduce the number of investment options for management; worth remembering if you compare its P/E to businesses without debt. TE Connectivity's P/E is 11.4 which is below average (18.2) in the US market. The EPS growth last year was strong, and debt levels are quite reasonable. If it continues to grow, then the current low P/E may prove to be unjustified. When the market is wrong about a stock, it gives savvy investors an opportunity. As value investor Benjamin Graham famously said, 'In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.' So thisfreevisualization of the analyst consensus on future earningscould help you make theright decisionabout whether to buy, sell, or hold. You might be able to find a better buy than TE Connectivity. If you want a selection of possible winners, check out thisfreelist of interesting companies that trade on a P/E below 20 (but have proven they can grow earnings). We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Boeing to pay $100 million to crash families, communities Boeing said Wednesday that it will provide an "initial investment" of $100 million over several years to help families and communities affected by two crashes of its 737 Max plane that killed 346 people. The Chicago-based company said some of the money will go toward living expenses and to cover hardship suffered by the families of passengers killed in the crashes. Boeing faces dozens of lawsuits over the accidents. Relatives of passengers on a Lion Air Max that crashed off the coast of Indonesia agreed to try to settle through mediation, but families of passengers killed in an Ethiopian Airlines crash are waiting until more is known about the accidents. Preliminary investigations point to the role played by new software that pushed the planes' noses down. Boeing is updating the software to make it easier for pilots to control, but the company doesn't expect to submit its work for final regulatory approval until September. Lawyers who are suing Boeing on behalf of passengers' families said the new $100 million promise won't stop them from demanding that Boeing provide details about how the plane and the new flight-control software were developed. Some of them discounted the amount of aid. "For the totality of these losses, that is a very small number," said Robert Clifford, who represents relatives of those killed in the March crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Max. "I wouldn't even say it's a good start." Boeing didn't give many details about the financial help. It did not say how much will go to families and how they will apply for aid. The company said it will work with local governments and nonprofits on programs and economic development to help affected communities. "We at Boeing are sorry for the tragic loss of lives in both of these accidents ... and we hope this initial outreach can help bring them comfort," Boeing chairman and CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a statement. Story continues The CEO added that the company is focused on winning the trust of airlines and the flying public in the months ahead. Nearly 400 Max jets at airlines around the world have been grounded since mid-March. In April, Boeing reported a $1 billion charge against earnings because of higher production costs for the Max. Analysts expect more charges will follow, including compensation for families and for airlines that have lost the use of the planes until regulators clear them to fly again. Thomas Demetrio, a lawyer with cases in both crashes, called Boeing's announcement Wednesday "a PR move" that won't affect compensation for families. "I would like it to go to making the plane safer," he said. The lawyers said Boeing didn't provide enough details about how the money will be distributed and spent. They added that Boeing did not tell them in advance about the announcement. ___ David Koenig can be reached at http://twitter.com/airlinewriter
Should You Worry About Eagle Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:EGRX) CEO Pay Cheque? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Scott Tarriff has been the CEO of Eagle Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:EGRX) since 2007. This report will, first, examine the CEO compensation levels in comparison to CEO compensation at companies of similar size. After that, we will consider the growth in the business. And finally we will reflect on how common stockholders have fared in the last few years, as a secondary measure of performance. This method should give us information to assess how appropriately the company pays the CEO. See our latest analysis for Eagle Pharmaceuticals At the time of writing our data says that Eagle Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has a market cap of US$789m, and is paying total annual CEO compensation of US$11m. (This is based on the year to December 2018). While we always look at total compensation first, we note that the salary component is less, at US$769k. When we examined a selection of companies with market caps ranging from US$400m to US$1.6b, we found the median CEO total compensation was US$2.7m. As you can see, Scott Tarriff is paid more than the median CEO pay at companies of a similar size, in the same market. However, this does not necessarily mean Eagle Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is paying too much. We can better assess whether the pay is overly generous by looking into the underlying business performance. You can see, below, how CEO compensation at Eagle Pharmaceuticals has changed over time. Over the last three years Eagle Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has grown its earnings per share (EPS) by an average of 7.9% per year (using a line of best fit). In the last year, its revenue is up 4.8%. I'd prefer higher revenue growth, but it is good to see modest EPS growth. It's clear the performance has been quite decent, but it it falls short of outstanding,based on this information. You might want to checkthis free visual report onanalyst forecastsfor future earnings. With a total shareholder return of 30% over three years, Eagle Pharmaceuticals, Inc. shareholders would, in general, be reasonably content. But they would probably prefer not to see CEO compensation far in excess of the median. We compared total CEO remuneration at Eagle Pharmaceuticals, Inc. with the amount paid at companies with a similar market capitalization. Our data suggests that it pays above the median CEO pay within that group. Over the last three years returns to investors have been uninspiring, and we would have liked to see stronger business growth. So it's certainly hard to argue that the CEO is modestly paid, although we don't see the remuneration as an issue. If you think CEO compensation levels are interesting you will probably really likethis free visualization of insider trading at Eagle Pharmaceuticals. Important note:Eagle Pharmaceuticals may not be the best stock to buy. You might find somethingbetterinthis list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Vectrus (NYSE:VEC) Shareholders Booked A 41% Gain In The Last Three Years Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Investors can buy low cost index fund if they want to receive the average market return. But across the board there are plenty of stocks that underperform the market. For example, theVectrus, Inc.(NYSE:VEC) share price return of 41% over three years lags the market return in the same period. On the other hand, the more recent gain of 29% over a year is certainly pleasing. Check out our latest analysis for Vectrus There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time. Vectrus was able to grow its EPS at 1.5% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. This EPS growth is lower than the 12% average annual increase in the share price. So it's fair to assume the market has a higher opinion of the business than it did three years ago. It is quite common to see investors become enamoured with a business, after a few years of solid progress. You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values). We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. Dive deeper into the earnings by checking this interactive graph of Vectrus'searnings, revenue and cash flow. It's nice to see that Vectrus shareholders have gained 29% (in total) over the last year. That gain actually surpasses the 12% TSR it generated (per year) over three years. The improving returns to shareholders suggests the stock is becoming more popular with time. It is all well and good that insiders have been buying shares, but we suggest youcheck here to see what price insiders were buying at. Vectrus is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to findwinning investmentsthisfreelist of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Broadcom Seeks Economies Of Scope With Potential Symantec Deal Semiconductor behemoth, Broadcom AVGO, is reportedly in late-stage talks with software security company, Symantec SYMC, regarding a potential deal. The news sent SYMC shares surging this morning with a more than a 14% rally in today’s shortened day of trading. Broadcom investors are not as enthusiastic about this ostensible acquisition as shares of AVGO fall close to 4%. An Infrastructure Technology Company This would not be the first of Broadcom’s acquisitions that seemed to fall beyond their scope. Broadcom announced it would be buying CA Technologies, an IT management software & solutions company, for $18.9 billion (23% premium), almost a year ago today. The stock plummeted almost 20% on the news that a semiconductor company was acquiring outside of its core competencies, investors saw a lack of synergies. This ended up being a great buying opportunity with AVGO having gained more than 40% since this announcement was priced in. Broadcom is achieving economies of scope with the CA acquisition as well as a with the potential Symantec deal. Becoming an infrastructure technology company from the pure-play semiconductor firm diversified Broadcom’s revenue drivers as well as broadened its customer based. The cyclicality in the semiconductor space can take a toll on revenue consistency and in turn, valuation metrics. Broadcom’s move to buy a cybersecurity company isn’t as big of a shock to investors as the CA deal, with the company already having ventured outside of its perceived scope. Symantec may not have held a place in Broadcom’s portfolio 52 weeks ago, but as the company pivots into an infrastructure technology company, the acquisition makes more sense. Symantec is one of the largest software security companies in the US but has been struggling in recent years with management turnover becoming a systemic issue. This acquisition comes at a good time for SYMC investors and could be opportune for Broadcom as long as the premium they pay isn’t overly aggressive. SYMC has been trading at 17x P/E, which is far below the software sector average of 27x and on the lower side of Symantec’s 5-year trend. Semiconductor Category The M&A activity in the semiconductor space has been ramped over the last few year. The semiconductor category is slowing down with negative EPS growth expectations over the next few quarters. Companies are attempting to hedge this deceleration by acquiring economies of scale, reaching for fatter margins. The semiconductor segment has been quite volatile over the past 52 weeks with the iShare Semiconductor ETF SOXX fluctuating up and down large double-digit percentages. SOXX is up 28% since the beginning of the year. Economies of scope acquisitions aren’t common in this sector. Broadcom’s quest for the benefits is pioneering with the outcome remaining to be seen. Take Away Broadcom’s potential acquisition of Symantec could have some benefits for both sides of the equation, but it will all boil down to price. Look for AVGO to fall further once the acquisition is officially announced. This could provide potential investors with a buying opportunity as the CA Technology acquisition did. Broadcom’s attempt to achieve economies of scope is going to be put the test if this acquisition comes to fruition. Will you retire a millionaire?One out of every six people retires a multimillionaire. Get smart tips you can do today to become one of them in a new Special Report, “7 Things You Can Do Now to Retire a Multimillionaire.”Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportSymantec Corporation (SYMC) : Free Stock Analysis ReportiShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF (SOXX): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.
EnPro's (NPO) Aseptic Group Buyout to Aid Garlock Business EnPro Industries, Inc.NPO, yesterday, announced that it has acquired a privately held company, The Aseptic Group. Financial terms of the transaction have been kept under wraps.Before we proceed further with the buyout details, it’s worth mentioning that Limonest, France-based The Aseptic Group specializes in designing, manufacturing and distributing products related to aseptic fluid transfer. These products are mainly used in biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical industries.Details of the BuyoutAs noted, EnPro Industries will integrate the acquired Aseptic Group — comprising Aseptic Services SARL and Aseptic Process Equipment SAS — to its Garlock Family of Companies. Garlock is mainly engaged in supplying fluid handling and sealing products to customers in the process industries.EnPro Industries anticipates that the Aseptic buyout will add vigor to Garlock’s operations by strengthening its product offerings and manufacturing capabilities, and expanding in biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical industries.Zacks Rank & Other Key PicksWith a market capitalization of $1.3 billion, EnPro Industries currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). In the past three months, the company’s share price has declined 8% versus the industry’s growth of 2.9%. Further, earnings estimates for the company have been revised downward in the past 60 days. Currently, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for EnPro Industries is pegged at $4.19 for 2019 and $4.88 for 2020, indicating decline of 2.3% and 1% from the respective 60-day-ago figures.EnPro Industries Price and Consensus EnPro Industries price-consensus-chart | EnPro Industries QuoteSome better-ranked stocks in the industry are Roper Technologies, Inc. ROP, Chart Industries, Inc. GTLS and Flowserve Corp. FLS. While Roper sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), both Chart Industries and Flowserve carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.In the past 60 days, earnings estimates for Roper and Chart Industries have improved for the current year, while were unchanged for Flowserve. Further, Roper, Chart Industries and Flowserve generated an average positive earnings surprise of 8.43%, 16.56% and 0.49%, respectively, over the last four quarters.The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of AllLast year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportRoper Technologies, Inc. (ROP) : Free Stock Analysis ReportFlowserve Corporation (FLS) : Free Stock Analysis ReportEnPro Industries (NPO) : Free Stock Analysis ReportChart Industries, Inc. (GTLS) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research
Are Arvida Group Limited’s (NZSE:ARV) High Returns Really That Great? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Today we are going to look at Arvida Group Limited (NZSE:ARV) to see whether it might be an attractive investment prospect. In particular, we'll consider its Return On Capital Employed (ROCE), as that can give us insight into how profitably the company is able to employ capital in its business. First, we'll go over how we calculate ROCE. Second, we'll look at its ROCE compared to similar companies. Last but not least, we'll look at what impact its current liabilities have on its ROCE. ROCE measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. All else being equal, a better business will have a higher ROCE. In brief, it is a useful tool, but it is not without drawbacks. Renowned investment researcher Michael Mauboussinhas suggestedthat a high ROCE can indicate that 'one dollar invested in the company generates value of more than one dollar'. The formula for calculating the return on capital employed is: Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities) Or for Arvida Group: 0.014 = NZ$18m ÷ (NZ$1.3b - NZ$85m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2019.) So,Arvida Group has an ROCE of 1.4%. See our latest analysis for Arvida Group ROCE is commonly used for comparing the performance of similar businesses. In our analysis, Arvida Group's ROCE is meaningfully higher than the 0.9% average in the Healthcare industry. We consider this a positive sign, because it suggests it uses capital more efficiently than similar companies. Independently of how Arvida Group compares to its industry, its ROCE in absolute terms is low; especially compared to the ~2.4% available in government bonds. Readers may wish to look for more rewarding investments. Arvida Group's current ROCE of 1.4% is lower than its ROCE in the past, which was 3.4%, 3 years ago. So investors might consider if it has had issues recently. You can click on the image below to see (in greater detail) how Arvida Group's past growth compares to other companies. It is important to remember that ROCE shows past performance, and is not necessarily predictive. ROCE can be misleading for companies in cyclical industries, with returns looking impressive during the boom times, but very weak during the busts. This is because ROCE only looks at one year, instead of considering returns across a whole cycle. Future performance is what matters, and you can see analyst predictions in ourfreereport on analyst forecasts for the company. Short term (or current) liabilities, are things like supplier invoices, overdrafts, or tax bills that need to be paid within 12 months. The ROCE equation subtracts current liabilities from capital employed, so a company with a lot of current liabilities appears to have less capital employed, and a higher ROCE than otherwise. To counter this, investors can check if a company has high current liabilities relative to total assets. Arvida Group has total liabilities of NZ$85m and total assets of NZ$1.3b. Therefore its current liabilities are equivalent to approximately 6.5% of its total assets. Arvida Group has a low level of current liabilities, which have a negligible impact on its already low ROCE. Nevertheless, there are potentially more attractive companies to invest in. Of course,you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a few good candidates.So take a peek at thisfreelist of companies with modest (or no) debt, trading on a P/E below 20. If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love thisfreelist of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
If You Had Bought Amerigo Resources (TSE:ARG) Shares Three Years Ago You'd Have Made 312% Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Amerigo Resources Ltd.(TSE:ARG) shareholders might understandably be very concerned that the share price has dropped 37% in the last quarter. But that doesn't displace its brilliant performance over three years. The longer term view reveals that the share price is up 312% in that period. So the recent fall doesn't do much to dampen our respect for the business. Only time will tell if there is still too much optimism currently reflected in the share price. Check out our latest analysis for Amerigo Resources In his essayThe Superinvestors of Graham-and-DoddsvilleWarren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement. During three years of share price growth, Amerigo Resources moved from a loss to profitability. Given the importance of this milestone, it's not overly surprising that the share price has increased strongly. The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail). We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. Dive deeper into the earnings by checking this interactive graph of Amerigo Resources'searnings, revenue and cash flow. While the broader market gained around 1.3% in the last year, Amerigo Resources shareholders lost 29%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 10.0%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. If you want to research this stock further, the data on insider buying is an obvious place to start. You canclick here to see who has been buying shares - and the price they paid. Amerigo Resources is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at thisfreelist of growing companies with insider buying. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on CA exchanges. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
30-Year Treasury Bonds Flash Economic Warning Signal The bond market flashed yet another warning signal for investors on Wednesday that a downturn for the economy may be coming. Despite the S&P 500 hitting new all-time highs, the yield on 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds briefly dipped below the overnight fed funds rate, a signal that has preceded the past five U.S. recessions. Bearish Signal The 30-year Treasury yield dropped 0.032% on Wednesday to 2.476%, its lowest level since October of 2016. The chart below shows the last six times 30-year yields fell below the fed funds rate. Five out of those six instances were followed by a recession, with only one false signal back in 1986. Despite the potential bearish signal, the Federal Reserve could be adjusting interest rates as soon as later this month, potentially reducing the fed funds rate significantly. According to the CME GroupFedWatch tool, the bond market is currently pricing in a 100% chance the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by at least 0.25% this month and a 29.7% chance of a 0.5% cut. Looking ahead to the end of the year, the bond market is pricing in a 92% chance rates will be at least 0.5% lower and a 60.2% chance they will finish the year lower by at least 0.75%. Trump Applying Pressure U.S. President Donald Trump has been increasingly critical of his Fed Chair Jerome Powell for refusing to cut interest rates up to this point. This week, Trump said he plans to nominate Christopher Waller and Judy Shelton as Fed governors, a move that experts say will help Trump apply pressure to Powell. “The president has the right to appoint people to the Fed who support his view on monetary policy. That being said, this is one area in particular where the Senate has rebuffed the president for various reasons,” Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC,told CNBCthis week. Despite the mixed economic signals, stock market investors don’t seem particularly concerned about the near term. TheSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(NYSE:SPY) traded higher by 0.8 percent on Wednesday and is now up 19.5% year to date. Related Links: Analyst: The G-20 Winner 'Is Clearly Apple' US GDP Growth Rebounds To 3.1% In Q1 See more from Benzinga • Balyasny Asset Management Shifts Gears • US GDP Growth Rebounds To 3.1% In Q1 • Here's Who Trump Will Be Meeting With At G-20 © 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Why Zendesk Stock Jumped 52% in the First Half of 2019 Shares of customer service platformZendesk(NYSE: ZEN)have skyrocketed in 2019, rising 52.5% during the first half of the year, according to data provided byS&P Global Market Intelligence. The stock's gain has been driven primarily by Zendesk's impressive business performance this year. But overall strength in technology stocks throughout 2019 has contributed to Zendesk's rise, too. Zendesk support dashboard metrics. Image source: Zendesk. Providing underlying support for Zendesk stock throughout 2019 has been a bullish run for technology stocks. The tech-heavyNASDAQ Compositeindex rose 21% during the first six months of the year, outperforming theS&P 500's 17% gain over the same time frame. More importantly, however, Zendesk has seen strong growth in its business. Sharessurged 15%in a single day in February when Zendesk said its fourth-quarter revenue increased 41% year over year -- an acceleration from 38% growth in the prior quarter. Strong performance persisted in the company'sfirst quarter of 2019, when revenue jumped 40% year over year. Management expects Zendesk's momentum to continue. In the company's most recent quarterly update, management said it expected full-year revenue to be between $802 million and $810 million. The midpoint of this guidance range implies 35% year-over-year growth. Before Zendesk's first-quarter update, management was expecting full-year revenue to be between $795 million and $805 million. Importantly, Zendesk expects full-year free cash flow to be between $55 million and $65 million, up from $36 million in 2018. More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market Daniel Sparkshas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Zendesk. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
Auto industry legend Lee Iacocca dies at 94 DETROIT – He was one of those unique personalities that America’s auto industry sometimes produces – a larger-than-life presence who changed the course of automotive history. Revered by some, reviled by others, Lee Iacocca was a force to be reckoned with, both publicly and privately. Father of the Mustang, midwife to the minivan, rescuer of Chrysler Corp., restorer of the Statue of Liberty, Lee Iacocca died Tuesday at his home in Bel Air, California, Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel and longtime auto executive Bob Lutz confirmed to the Free Press. He was 94. During the height of his career in the 1980s, Iacocca was arguably the most popular business figure in the world. Pictures of him, often with his trademark cigar, were on magazine covers and TV screens. His 1984 autobiography became an international best -seller. He was in global demand as a speaker. There even were movements to draft him as a presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988, and as a U.S. senator in 1991. Iacocca – probably wisely – sidestepped all those drives. His death was met by an outpouring of tributes and sadness late Tuesday. "He was one of the great leaders of our company and the auto industry as a whole," Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said in a statement. "He also played a profound and tireless role on the national stage as a business statesman and philanthropist. Lee gave us a mindset that still drives us today – one that is characterized by hard work, dedication and grit." Lee Iacocca speaks at the 70th Luncheon of the Metro-Detroit And Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford said Iacocca had a deep and lasting impact on the auto industry. “Lee Iacocca was truly bigger than life and he left an indelible mark on Ford, the auto industry and our country," he said. "Lee played a central role in the creation of the Mustang. On a personal note, I will always appreciate how encouraging he was to me at the beginning of my career. He was one of a kind and will be dearly missed.” Lido Anthony Iacocca was born Oct. 15, 1924, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where his family ran a small hot-dog eatery – the forerunner of a Coney Island-type chain now known as Yocco’s, a Lehigh Valley corruption of the Iacocca name. The family eventually expanded its interests into real estate and other businesses. Story continues Iacocca’ parents immigrated through Ellis Island from Italy – his father, Nicola, in 1902 and his mother, Antoinette, in 1921. The future auto executive – the younger of two children – went to public school, graduating 12th in the Allentown High School class of 1942. Because he had rheumatic fever a couple of years earlier, Iacocca was rejected and classified 4F when he tried to join the Army Air Force after high school. Disappointed that he couldn’t help fight World War II, he threw himself into the engineering program at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Iacocca ripped through eight straight semesters, with no summers off, graduating with honors in industrial engineering in 1945. Even before finishing at Lehigh, Iacocca had set his sights on working for Ford Motor Co. He won a job with the automaker upon graduation but, at the same time, was offered a fellowship for graduate work at Princeton University. The Ford recruiter told him to take the fellowship; the company would hold a spot for him. He completed a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Princeton in 1946 and arrived by train in Detroit with $50 to start work as a Ford engineering trainee. Quickly bored with the nitty gritty of engineering, Iacocca started what would become his life’s work – marketing – by selling Ford executives on the notion that he should switch to sales. He started that same year as a lowly fleet salesman in Chester, Pennsylvania. By 1949, he was a zone manager working with 18 dealers. Ten years after switching to marketing, Iacocca won the attention of Ford headquarters in Dearborn by developing a finance program to move slow-selling 1956 models: Customers could make a 20% down payment, then make three years of $56 monthly payments. Financing for new cars was just coming into vogue; Iacocca called his version "56 for ’56.’’ The program took off, and so did Iacocca’s career. By 1960, he was head of car and truck sales for Ford Division. Later that year, at age 36, he was named vice president in charge of the division. Fired from Ford Lee Iacocca, as a young man, already president of Ford Motor Company, pictured here in front of the River Rouge Plant in 1971. Iacocca’s first major achievement as head of Ford Division was also his first major contribution to automotive history – the Mustang. Iacocca and his team members were looking for a car that would have youthful appeal, with head-turning style, strong performance and a low price, he wrote in his autobiography. They used the engine, transmission and axle from Ford’s popular but plain Falcon, designed a whole new body for that platform, and brought it to market in the spring of 1964 with a base price of just $2,368, including bucket seats, wheel covers and carpeting as standard equipment. During Mustang’s first sales weekend, 4 million people visited Ford dealerships. The car appeared simultaneously on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazines. The Mustang set a U.S. record of 418,812 sold in its first 12 months, and Iacocca got a promotion to vice president in charge of all car and truck development for both Ford and Lincoln-Mercury divisions. By December 1970, 24 years after joining the company as a trainee, Iacocca was president of Ford. But his relationship with Chairman Henry Ford II, at first warm, grew chilly with time as conflicts developed between the two strong personalities. Donald Frey, Lee Iacocca and Henry Ford II at the New Henry Ford II fired Iacocca on July 13, 1978. When journalists asked for a reason, Ford responded, “It’s personal, and I can’t tell you any more. It’s just one of those things.” To protect some of Iacocca’s benefits, Ford agreed to make the firing effective Oct. 15, Iacocca’s 54th birthday. But as a final humiliation, he exiled Iacocca from Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, known locally as the Glass House, and assigned him a small uncarpeted office in a company parts depot off Telegraph Road in Detroit. Chrysler's savior Within a few weeks, Chrysler Corp., the nation’s No. 3 automaker, had wooed and won Iacocca, although announcement of the new alliance was postponed to Nov. 1,1978, when Iacocca was named Chrysler’s president and chief executive officer. In less than a year, in September 1979, he would become chairman. The day Iacocca was made its president, Chrysler announced record third-quarter losses of $160 million. As Iacocca wrote in his autobiography, “One of Chrysler’s biggest problems, as I soon learned, was that even its top management didn’t have a very good idea of what was going on. They knew Chrysler was bleeding. What they didn’t realize – and what I would soon find out – was that it was hemorrhaging.” By the summer of 1979, Iacocca had concluded that Chrysler would need government help to survive. After a long and sometimes humiliating campaign, Iacocca’s team won a $1.5 billion loan guarantee from Congress. The Chrysler Loan Guarantee Act gained congressional passage Dec. 21, 1979, saving 600,000 Chrysler jobs and countless supplier companies and giving Chrysler time to restructure. Between early 1980 and February 1981, Chrysler used $1.2 billion of the $1.5 billion guarantee. To access the money, the company had to streamline itself, secure wage and benefit concessions from all employees, renegotiate existing loans and get financial backing from banks and suppliers. Iacocca set the pace by cutting his own salary for 1980 from about $360,000 to $1. Everybody affiliated with Chrysler made financial concessions: union members, executives and suppliers. In addition, the company laid off thousands of blue- and white-collar employees as it cut beyond fat and into the meat of operations. At the same time, Iacocca pushed through the development pipeline the plain, rectangular and desperately needed K-cars that gave Chrysler fuel-efficient family sedans to sell. The Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant K-cars came to market in 1981 and Iacocca, by this time appearing in Chrysler TV ads as well as running the company, told Americans, “If you can find a better car, buy it.’’ A survey showed that 85% of TV viewers knew who Iacocca was and believed him to be sincere. By mid-1983, Chrysler was in good enough shape to pay back its entire loan package seven years ahead of schedule. Iacocca announced the move at the National Press Club in Washington on July 13, 1983 – exactly five years after Ford had fired him. In three years time, lending banks had made $404 million in interest off Chrysler; the federal government made $33 million in administrative fees; lawyers and investment bankers had made $67 million, and the U.S. Treasury made more than $311 million off Chrysler stock warrants the department received as part of the loan guarantee package. As if he weren’t busy enough, Iacocca said yes in May 1982 when President Ronald Reagan asked him to lead a multimillion-dollar private fund drive to renovate the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in time for the statue’s 100th birthday in 1986. Iacocca accepted the task in tribute to his parents. But Iacocca’s supercharged activities came to a sudden halt on May 15, 1983, when Mary, his wife for 26 years, died of complications from diabetes. Though he had one of the best-known faces in America, Iacocca always described himself as a homebody. He detested eating out, preferring a home-cooked pasta meal and an update on what daughters Kathi and Lia were up to. Mary Iacocca had been the anchor of the auto executive’s private life; now she was gone. Iacocca called her death the “greatest personal sadness of my life.” But he couldn’t stay still for long. Iacocca was by now an international business hero with many demands on him. Admirers wanted to draft him as a 1984 presidential candidate. He declined, signing a new three-year contract with Chrysler at the end of 1983. “I’m too outspoken to be a good politician,” he observed later in his autobiography. “If a guy’s giving me a lot of baloney, I tell him to buzz off because he’s wrong. Somehow I don’t think the presidency works that way.” That November, Chrysler turned consumer heads with something entirely new – a vehicle the company called a minivan. Iacocca described the minivan as revolutionary and historic and predicted it would “create extraordinary excitement and buyer interest and force other manufacturers to come up with copycat versions.” He was right. With a unique design, high utility and a base sticker price of about $8,500, the minivan created a consumer sensation as well as a whole new market segment. Iacocca had now turned the auto industry upside down three times in his career: first with the Ford Mustang in 1964, next with the salvation of Chrysler and then with the minivan. Fired again On Iacocca’s 60th birthday, Oct. 15, 1984, his autobiography hit the nation’s bookstores and became an instant best-seller. The book was vintage Iacocca – blunt, folksy, opinionated, colorful and full of details about his turbulent career. Iacocca made no promotional tours for the book. Nevertheless, by the end of the year, publisher Bantam Books had printed a million hardcover copies of “Iacocca: An Autobiography.” Stores sold out of the $18 books as fast as they got them. Hundreds of fans mailed copies to Chrysler headquarters hoping Iacocca would autograph the volumes. Iacocca increased his already intense popularity by announcing that all profits from the autobiography would go toward finding a cure for diabetes. Iacocca and Chrysler both were on a roll. As the Statue of Liberty’s 1986 centennial approached, Iacocca announced the fund drive for its restoration had exceeded its goal, with $277 million either in hand or pledged. Then, almost as proof that he wouldn’t mix well in politics, Iacocca found himself fired again – this time as chairman of the national commission overseeing actual restoration work on the statue and Ellis Island. Interior Secretary Donald Hodel said in February 1986 that he didn’t want one man in charge of both raising and spending the money for the project. But employees of the National Park Service, which maintains the statue and Ellis Island, reportedly resented Iacocca’s take-charge methods and accused him of running roughshod over them with his plans. In addition, there were rumors Iacocca might be drafted to run for the White House as a Democrat in 1988. “I’m no threat,” an outraged Iacocca said after the firing. “I’m not running for anything except my life. If it was just politics, boys will be boys down there. They get nervous, and an election is coming up and that’s the game they play in Washington.” The smoke created by Iacocca’s firing had drifted away by the time the auto executive revved up the Statue of Liberty Centennial celebration on the July 4 weekend of 1986. The glittering salute featured special musical performances and a massive fireworks display, and drew more than 20 tall ships, dozens of movie stars, heads of state, business leaders, thousands of journalists and an estimated 13 million spectators to New York harbor. Iacocca said income from tickets and advertising would nearly cover the $3.2 million cost of the gala. Asked about accusations that the restoration project had been commercialized, Iacocca snapped, “Commercialization is a good American trait. We’ve been commercializing things for more than 100 years.” Iacocca’s father, Nicola, was not there to see the celebration, having died in 1973. But the auto executive’s mother, Antoinette, then 82, was an honored guest. “My son God gave me,” a teary Antoinette Iacocca said. “I’m happy so much for him I can describe to nobody. He makes me feel so good in here,” she said, tapping her chest over her heart. “Sometimes I think a little too much is on him; but he loves it.” The Jeep deal Indeed, Iacocca seemed always at the center of a whirlwind. Chrysler, now profitable but still short on appealing models, formed joint ventures with overseas automakers, including Mitsubishi, Samsung and Maserati. But the biggest deal by far was Iacocca’s announcement March 9, 1987, that Chrysler would buy American Motors Corp. from French automaker Renault for about $1.5 billion. The deal created merger headaches for Chrysler in the form of layoffs and plant closings; but it also brought the company its valuable Jeep brand. Never one to think small, Iacocca had also explored acquiring General Motors Corp., a deal that analysts said would have cost about $40 billion. “In the end, I concluded that it might be easier to buy Greece,” Iacocca said in a second book, “Talking Straight,” published by Bantam Books in June 1988. The GM daydream may have foreshadowed Iacocca’s boldness in an ill-fated 1995 bid – three years after his 1992 retirement – to take over Chrysler Corp. with Las Vegas billionaire Kirk Kerkorian. The whole idea was to take Chrysler private, or at least only quasi-public, so it could be run more efficiently with a core group of stockholders controlling it, much as the Ford family controls Ford Motor Co., Iacocca explained later. Iacocca hoped or mistakenly believed that the Chrysler board and management would accept the notion. When they didn’t, the situation deteriorated into a painful and bitter legal war between Iacocca and the company to which he had given so much of his life and energy. Kerkorian and Iacocca’s takeover attempt failed when Chrysler’s board said the company wasn’t for sale. Man of contradictions Iacocca was a contradictory character. He was on one hand the cigar-chomping, swashbuckling salesman who seemed to know instinctively the right things to say and do to impress a Senate subcommittee or an ordinary consumer. On the other hand, he was intensely private and almost painfully shy offstage, a man who got nervous before every speech. He was also a bit of a hypochondriac. It was sometimes joked by Chrysler insiders that if you wanted to shake up the day, you had only to tell Iacocca he didn’t look so good. Meticulous in his attention to detail, Iacocca was known within Chrysler for making efficient use of his time, insisting that issues be boiled down to their essential elements before being brought to him for a decision. He was often inspiring, but he wasn’t a back slapper and he didn’t plunge into crowds. He always maintained a certain distance, a reserve that implied power, intentionally or not. The air around him almost crackled with electricity. Only one person was ever allowed to make fun of him in public with relative impunity: his longtime friend and fellow Ford and Chrysler executive Ben Bidwell. At the office, only a handful of people were allowed close to him, and directives were passed down through them. The roster of executives who abruptly left the company after clashing with Iacocca was impressive and included some top men he had recruited or brought with him from Ford – Chrysler Vice Chairman Gerald Greenwald and Chief Financial Officer Steve Miller among them. Greenwald, asked once to describe Iacocca’s management style, answered only half-jokingly, “the whip.” Private chaos At home, Iacocca’s private life was scarcely less chaotic. In April 1986, three years after his beloved Mary died, Iacocca married former flight attendant and publicist Peggy Johnson. Both of them known for their short fuses, the two quarreled almost from the beginning. They separated six months after the wedding and divorced a year later, in November 1987. In his second book, Iacocca wrote of his marriage to Johnson. After Mary died, he said, “I found myself all alone and tired as hell. Eating alone was bad enough, but living alone really scared me. Dying alone scared me even more. … “I have to admit that I didn’t know for sure if I was ready to get married just yet. I wasn’t sure in my heart I was done mourning my first wife. I probably should have waited a little longer than I did. … Right away I started to second-guess myself.” In March 1991, nearing retirement, he tried again. This time, Iacocca married former California restaurant owner Darrien Earle. That union dissolved in a nasty and public divorce squabble that finally ended in May 1995, in the middle of Iacocca’s bid to take over Chrysler with Kerkorian. Iacocca’s private life and his executive habits inevitably invited comparisons with the colorful Henry Ford II, and several former colleagues said Iacocca was driven by wanting to outdo his old adversary. Iacocca did little to dispel his imperial reputation. As time approached for introducing the cars and trucks for a given model year, Iacocca would walk through a lineup of vehicles in the Chrysler styling dome and literally give each one a thumbs up or thumbs down. This exercise sometimes resulted in costly, last-minute changes in tooling or paint colors. On one occasion, he changed the name of a model the day before it was to be introduced to magazine reporters. Numerous news releases and other handout materials had to be ripped up and redone overnight. As a nationwide recession took its toll on automakers in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Iacocca’s purchases of American Motors and other companies lost their luster among Wall Street analysts and critics within Chrysler. They argued the acquisitions had stripped Chrysler of money it needed to develop exciting new products. During the first half of 1991, Chrysler lost $553 million; the company’s market share skidded from more than 12 percent in the mid-1980s to 8.7 percent for the first half of ’91. Iacocca came under increasing pressure to retire and make room for someone with a fresh perspective - a move he finally made at the end of 1992, when the board put former GM executive Robert Eaton behind the wheel at Chrysler. Gagged by a post-Kerkorian court settlement with Chrysler that barred both parties from criticizing each other in public, Iacocca kept his mouth uncharacteristically shut when Eaton arranged Chrysler’s buyout by Germany’s Daimler-Benz AG, announced in May 1998. Equally uncomfortable for Iacocca was life as a retiree. Retirement Unhappy as a bachelor, but unwilling to risk another disastrous marriage, he tackled a series of business ventures. They included gambling resorts, restaurants, olive oil, margarine, electric vehicles and an Internet company formed to sell used industrial equipment. Some of the projects kept his interest; some didn’t. “I tell people who are getting ready to retire, don’t – meaning don’t just worry about your financial well being. You better volunteer for something, or paint or play music or be a mentor to kids. You better do something, even if you don’t need the money, just to keep active. You go nuts if you don’t,” he said in a 1999 interview. Yet, after all his career achievements and civic activities, it was his family that Iacocca always said was most important. “My legacy is two great daughters and six grandchildren so far. That’s your only real legacy, let’s face it. The rest comes and goes. …In the end, if you’re healthy and your family’s good, the rest was fun,” he said in a 1999 interview. “I’ve always felt that when I die, if I can say I’ve done well by my family … then I’ve lived a full life and a good life. What else is there? You get up in the morning, you go through the same day and night as everybody else. … Maybe you’ve truly enjoyed life. But how? You’re only as good as the sharing you’ve done with those around you, especially your family and friends,” he wrote in his second book. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Auto industry legend Lee Iacocca dies at 94
Baskin-Robbins Is Bringing ‘Stranger Things’ Scoops Ahoy Ice Cream Shop To Life This Summer Photo credit: Netflix/Baskin-Robbins From Delish Deep into any Netflix binge of Stranger Things , it’s easy to get sucked into the misadventures of Eleven and co. and wonder what a day in the life of a character would be like. Baskin Robbins is making this marathon-fueled fever dream one step closer to a reality. The ice cream retailer announced on Wednesday that they'll be recreating the Stranger Things Scoops Ahoy Ice Cream Shop . Lick your ice cream cone like its 1985 at a Burbank, CA, installation in its Baskin-Robbins location. Designed to reflect the ice cream parlor located inside the food court of Starcourt Mall-which is frequented by Hawkins, IN locals-you can visit from Tuesday, July 2 to Sunday, July 14. Not only does a press release boast replicas of nautical décor and staff uniforms (like you could forget Steve Harrington and Robin’s shifts scooping sundaes there), but also show-inspired treats. Previously announced Stranger Things flavors , which have been teased relentlessly on the company’s Instagram, will be ready for consumption and include: Flavor of the Month, USS Butterscotch: Inspired by the Scoops Ahoy shop at the Starcourt Mall in Hawkins, IN, the July Flavor of the Month is a decadent butterscotch-flavored ice cream with butterscotch pieces and a toffee-flavored ribbon. Also available in pre-packed quarts. Photo credit: Baskin-Robbins USS Butterscotch Sundae: Guests can set sail with this nautical themed, three-scoop sundae from the show, topped with waffle sails. Exclusive in-store experiences : Including a Scoops Ahoy photo moment to share all the Stranger Things love. Guests can still experience the Upside Down and Demogorgon Sundaes , the Byers’ House Lights Polar Pizza® Ice Cream Treat , the Elevenade Freeze , and limited-edition Stranger Things fresh-packed ice cream containers. Photo credit: Baskin-Robbins As if a real-world trip to Scoops Ahoy wasn’t trippy enough, on National Ice Cream Day (Sunday, July 21) visitors can buy two pre-packed quarts of any ice cream for just $7.99. On Wednesday, July 31, viewers can Celebrate 31 and a restock of the merch with $1.70 Scoops and the pre-packed quarts deal. In-store pick-up and delivery is also available, per the press release. Story continues Photo credit: Baskin-Robbins If you’re in Los Angeles (or wanna book a plane ticket real quick) the first week of July will bring a Scoops Ahoy ice cream truck to town at select locations. It will also be at the opening of the Burbank Scoops Ahoy on July 2 from 2:00–5:00 p.m. Got that all down? While you’ll have to wait for Season 3 of Stranger Things to fill your queue, visions of yourself at Scoops Ahoy can happen today, free of charge. ('You Might Also Like',) Crave Carbs? We Created This 21-Day Keto Plan Just for You Insanely Easy Weeknight Dinners To Try This Week 29 Insanely Delicious Vodka Cocktails
Why Employers Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EIG) Could Have A Place In Your Portfolio Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! As an investor, I look for investments which does not compromise one fundamental factor for another. By this I mean, I look at stocks holistically, from their financial health to their future outlook. In the case of Employers Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EIG), it is a financially-robust , dividend-paying company with a great history of performance. In the following section, I expand a bit more on these key aspects. For those interested in understanding where the figures come from and want to see the analysis, take a look at thereport on Employers Holdings here. In the previous year, EIG has ramped up its bottom line by 62%, with its latest earnings level surpassing its average level over the last five years. In addition to beating its historical values, EIG also outperformed its industry, which delivered a growth of 9.2%. This is what investors like to see! EIG's ability to maintain an adequate level of cash to meet upcoming liabilities is a good sign for its financial health. This suggests prudent control over cash and cost by management, which is a crucial insight into the health of the company. EIG seems to have put its debt to good use, generating operating cash levels of 7.44x total debt in the most recent year. This is also a good indication as to whether debt is properly covered by the company’s cash flows. EIG is also a dividend company, with ample net income to cover its dividend payout, which has been consistently growing over the past decade, keeping income investors happy. For Employers Holdings, there are three key factors you should further examine: 1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for EIG’s future growth? Take a look at ourfree research report of analyst consensusfor EIG’s outlook. 2. Valuation: What is EIG worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? Theintrinsic value infographic in our free research reporthelps visualize whether EIG is currently mispriced by the market. 3. Other Attractive Alternatives: Are there other well-rounded stocks you could be holding instead of EIG? Exploreour interactive list of stocks with large potentialto get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Funko Pop’s new Marvel and Harry Potter advent calendars are best-sellers on Amazon — and they're on sale today Funko Pop is already gearing up for the holidays with two new advent calendars featuring your favorite Marvel and Harry Potter characters. The Marvel 80th Anniversary and Harry Potter advent calendars are both officially released today, and feature 24 miniature Funko Pops for each day in December leading up to Christmas. The calendars have been available for pre-order since July — since then, both currently dominate Amazon’s top five best-selling action figures , and the Marvel version is the retail giant’s number one best-selling advent calendar . Plus, both calendars are marked down for their release day, so you can snag one today for just $39.99. Funko Buy it! Funko Advent Calendar: Marvel 80th Anniversary, $39.99 (was $59.99) on amazon.com Funko Pop has also been unveiling tons of new figures in festive attire for the holidays, including Minnie Mouse , Winnie the Pooh , and Marvel Comics’ Groot . All of them feature holiday-inspired details like Santa Claus hats, mistletoe, and bags of presents — there’s even one of Deadpool serving up a turkey for Thanksgiving . All of the figurines are currently available for pre-order, and will start shipping early October. Funko Buy it! Funko Advent Calendar: Harry Potter 2019, $39.99 (was $59.99) on amazon.com And, to continue its festive streak, Funko revealed a third advent calendar in August themed around popular video game Fortnite . The calendar is jam-packed with 24 Funko Pops, including favorites like Rabbit Raider, Merry Marauder, and Whiteout. It’s currently available for pre-order ($39.99; amazon.com ), and will start shipping on October 1st. Funko Buy it! Funko Advent Calendar: Fortnite, $39.99 (was $59.99) on amazon.com You can browse through everything Funko Pop has to offer on Amazon here , or shop a few of our favorite festive releases available for pre-order below. Remember, it’s never too early to start planning for the holidays! Funko (3) Buy it! Funko Pop! Marvel: Holiday Groot with Wreath, $10.99 on amazon.com ; Funko Pop! Marvel: Holiday Deadpool with Turkey, $10.99 on amazon.com ; Funko Pop! Disney: Holiday Minnie, $10.99 on amazon.com Related content: The Fortnite advent calendar from Funko Pop is officially available for preorder Nintendo just dropped a Super Mario-themed advent calendar you can only get on Amazon
What Kind Of Investor Owns Most Of Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. (NYSE:ARCO)? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Every investor in Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. (NYSE:ARCO) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.' Arcos Dorados Holdings has a market capitalization of US$1.5b, so we would expect some institutional investors to have noticed the stock. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutional investors have bought into the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about ARCO. View our latest analysis for Arcos Dorados Holdings Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing. We can see that Arcos Dorados Holdings does have institutional investors; and they hold 46% of the stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone, since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Arcos Dorados Holdings, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Arcos Dorados Holdings. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily. The definition of company insiders can be subjective, and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. The company management answer to the board; and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board, themselves. Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances. Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc.. It is very interesting to see that insiders have a meaningful US$586m stake in this US$1.5b business. Most would say this shows a good degree of alignment with shareholders, especially in a company of this size. You canclick here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling. The general public, with a 11% stake in the company, will not easily be ignored. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders. It seems that Private Companies own 3.8%, of the ARCO stock. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research. It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Arcos Dorados Holdings better, we need to consider many other factors. I always like to check for ahistory of revenue growth. You can too, by accessing this free chart ofhistoric revenue and earnings in thisdetailed graph. But ultimatelyit is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look atthis free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Taylor Swift Couldn’t Buy Masters Without Signing New Big Machine Deal Click here to read the full article. In the wake of Sunday’s blockbuster announcement that Scooter Braun has acquired Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Label Group — and with it the rights to Taylor Swift ’s first six albums — most reports have noted that Swift could have purchased the rights to her music and/or the label itself. While that is true, the playing field was not quite as level as it might seem. Parsing the statements from both Swift and her attorney Donald Passman, it is clear that she was not offered the opportunity to acquire the rights to her music without signing a new deal with Big Machine, under terms she herself said were not acceptable. Her Tumblr post from Sunday begins: “For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in.” It is worth noting that nowhere in her statement does she say she was not offered any opportunity to buy her masters, as many have reported. Related stories Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun: A Crisis PR Expert's Take on 'Scootergate' What Is Taylor Swift's Endgame in the Big Machine Battle? Brendon Urie Supports Taylor Swift, Bashes 'Toxic' Scooter Braun Passman’s statement on Tuesday reads: “ Scott Borchetta never gave Taylor Swift an opportunity to purchase her masters, or the label, outright with a check in the way he is now apparently doing for others.” While Passman declined Variety ’s request for further comment, a source close to the situation confirmed that Swift was not offered the opportunity to buy either her masters or the label without signing a deal that would bind her to Big Machine, apparently for another 10 years, and whomever Borchetta chose to sell the label to. “I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past,” she wrote. Story continues In his blog post titled “ So, It’s Time for Some Truth ,” Borchetta writes, “As you will read, 100% of all Taylor Swift assets were to be transferred to her immediately upon signing the new agreement. We were working together on a new type of deal for our new streaming world that was not necessarily tied to ‘albums’ but more of a length of time.” Those terms, judging by the excerpt of the deal memo he posted, were proposed as seven years by Swift’s team and 10 years by Big Machine — the contract was never signed, so presumably that is one of the terms on which the two sides did not agree. (Reps for Swift and Big Machine either declined or did not immediately respond to Variety ‘s request for comment.) Informed observers might say: “Duh! Of course he wouldn’t let her just buy her masters!” Although Big Machine still has strong artists on its roster, obviously Swift’s catalog represents an overwhelming percentage of its reported $300 million value — and apparently Borchetta made the calculation that he’d get a better deal selling the label with Swift’s masters than selling the two assets separately. And despite the seeming disingenuousness of some of the other comments from Swift and her camp — Braun and Borchetta had been conspicuously bro-ing down for weeks and insiders, particularly the industry trade Hits magazine, had speculated loudly that something big was afoot, so the claim that her camp did not know the sale was imminent is almost on the level of climate-change denial — in the context of her stated feelings about Braun and her history with him , her comment that she “walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future” is at the core of the situation. That is the unique disadvantage at which artists can find themselves when trying to acquire the rights to their past work — which amounts to, “You can buy it if you agree to give me more” — and the reason why this particular playing field is not as level as some might maintain. Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter . For the latest news, follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .
Broadcom Acquiring Symantec Media reports say that Broadcom AVGO is acquiring security software maker Symantec SYMC for $15 billion. The formal announcement could be made as soon as today or after the July 4th holiday. Unfazed by President Trump’s move to block its acquisition of Qualcomm QCOM, the company and its determined CEO Hock Tan proceeded to transfer its headquarters to the U.S., so it could continue on its strategy of acquiring technology companies and squeezing efficiencies from the combinations. But those aspirations have shifted of late away from the semiconductor space that has been battered by trade tensions with China to infrastructure software (particularly hybrid cloud software), where such tensions don’t exist and where valuations are also more reasonable. That’s what led the company to acquire CA Technologies last year, and if the unconfirmed rumors are right, will lead to its Symantec buy this year. In a recent note, Morgan Stanley analyst Craig Hettenbach said after conversations with Broadcom CFO Thomas Krause, that Broadcom’s CA acquisition was already yielding a 14% return on investment. So the alteration in strategy is already successful for the company. Symantec shares jumped over 20% at the news, still well below their 2017 highs, while Broadcom shares dropped off. Investors are rightly concerned about Symantec, which while continuing to generate strong cash flows, has been growth-strapped. What’s more, the company is currently seeing increased competition at enterprise customers that are turning to cloud-based providers on the one hand, and new-age players offering mobile security on the other. There have also been a slew of executive departures of late, the highest-profile one being CEO Greg Clark in May. Symantec director Richard Hill is taking over as President and CEO. The recent internal investigation into its book keeping irregularities may have had something to do with the turnover. But these negatives aside, this may be just the right time to buy the company’s growing intellectual property in cloud security, especially in hybrid cloud environments covering on-premise workloads and those in public and private clouds. Since a large percentage of enterprises looking to transfer their workloads to the cloud are hesitant to go ahead because of security considerations, this is quite an attractive space. Management said on the last earnings call that Symantec’s cloud offerings have been revitalized, so although enterprise losses will likely continue, the negative impact on revenue will be less in the current quarter, and hopefully continue downward thereafter. This technology is likely what Broadcom is after, and buying the company when it is down, may just mean that it will be paying a lower price. Both Symantec and Broadcom shares carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportQUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) : Free Stock Analysis ReportSymantec Corporation (SYMC) : Free Stock Analysis ReportBroadcom Inc. (AVGO) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research
Financial Advice From America's Founding Fathers Getty Images Benjamin Franklin famously coined the phrase, "A penny saved is a penny earned." That's a good start. To help you prosper even more, in honor of Independence Day, consider what other founders of the United States of America had to say on the subject of personal finance. As you'll see, many of their ideas live on today in Kiplinger's advice to our readers. We hope their original calls to action inspire you to forge a path toward your own financial independence. SEE ALSO: All 50 States Ranked for Retirement John Adams - On the Importance of a Financial Education Getty Images "All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from the defects of the Constitution, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation." - From a letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1787 Related words of wisdom from Kiplinger: 8 Rules for Raising Money-Smart Kids Thomas Jefferson- On the Recipe for Debt Getty Images "Never spend your money before you have earned it."- From a letter Jefferson wrote to his granddaughter outlining 12 "Canons of Conduct in Life", 1811 Jefferson's words of wisdom, which he shared in letters to his children and grandchildren, are still applicable more than two centuries later. Failing to live within your means leads to debt and financial insecurity, as Jefferson himself proved. (More on Jefferson in a few slides. . .) Related content from Kiplinger: The Barrier to Becoming Rich? Living Like You're Rich Before You Really Are Benjamin Franklin - On the Magic of Compounding Getty Images "Remember that Money is of a prolific generating Nature. Money can beget Money and its Offspring can beget more, and so on. Five Shillings turn'd, is Six: Turn'd again, 'tis Seven and Three Pence; and so on 'til it becomes an Hundred Pound. The more there is of it, the more it produces every Turning, so that the Profits rise quicker and quicker." - From "Advice to a Young Tradesman, Written by an Old One" (1748) Story continues Related words of wisdom from Kiplinger: 57 Best Dividend Stocks You Can Count On in 2019 Alexander Hamilton - On Sin Taxes Getty Images "It is a singular advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end purposed - that is, an extension of the revenue." - From the Federalist Papers, "Federalist No. 21" Hamilton knew that consumers would pay extra for their indulgences. Imagine if he were alive today to see modern day "sin" taxes covering everything from electronic cigarettes to champagne. Related words of wisdom from Kiplinger: See how different states tax purchases of alcohol, tobacco and more with the Kiplinger Tax Map . Abigail Adams - On the Importance of Education Getty Images "Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence." - Letter to John Quincy Adams, 1780 Related words of wisdom from Kiplinger: 25 Best College Majors for a Lucrative Career George Washington - On Tracking Your Expenses Getty Images George Washington was a man of few words, but his actions--and old Library of Congress records--speak for themselves. Washington was a stickler about keeping track of his money. When he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in 1775, he did not accept a salary. Instead, he agreed to reimbursement of his expenses after the war. Congress readily agreed to his request--and, naturally, he proceeded to record just about everything. From brooms to mutton to payment to his soldiers, Washington was a meticulous record keeper. Although some of his founding fellows died in debt, Washington went down in history as one of the richest men of his time. Related words of wisdom from Kiplinger: 14 Frugal Habits of the Super Rich Benjamin Franklin - On Death and Taxes Getty Images "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." - From a 1789 letter to French scientist Jean-Baptiste Leroy Yikes, two inevitable horrors - death and taxes. What could be worse? Death taxes, otherwise known as estate taxes, which can be levied by both the federal government and your state, depending on the size of your estate. Related words of wisdom from Kiplinger: 9 States With the Scariest Death Taxes Alexander Hamilton (the Musical) - On Building Your Career Early in Life Getty Images In the opening song of the Broadway musical Hamilton, John Laurens, a famous Revolutionary War soldier, exclaims of Alexander Hamilton, "The ten-dollar founding father without a father got a lot farther by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter, by being a self-starter. By fourteen, they placed him in charge of a trading charter." There is lyrical truth to Laurens' words. Hamilton was born to his single mother in the West Indies and was orphaned in childhood. At the age of 14, he began working as a clerk at a local import-export firm, Beekman and Cruger. When the owner was at sea, he was placed in charge of the firm for five months before he moved to New Jersey. His work ethic and early managerial experience put him on career path to greatness. Related words of wisdom from Kiplinger: Best Jobs You Can Get Without a College Degree Marquis de Lafayette - On Careful Deliberation Getty Images "I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I think, and out of all that I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can." - From a letter to his father, 1776 The French aristocrat and military officer probably isn't the first person that comes to mind as a "Founding Father," but Lafayette played a pivotal role in securing American independence. A trusted confidant of Washington, he provided a critical channel of French support for the colonists. Lafayette was hailed as a "Hero of Two Worlds" when he returned to his home across the Atlantic. Throughout his life, he showed the value of carefully studying any situation and determining all possible outcomes to arrive at the best possible decision - whether that be military strategy in 1777 or investing in 2018. Related from Kiplinger: Read Insights From Practicing Financial Pros on Our Wealth Creation Channel John Hancock - On Having (and Not Having) Money Getty Images "I find money some way or other goes very fast. But I think I can reflect it has been spent with satisfaction and to my own honour." - From letter to his uncle, 1761 John Hancock might be remembered for his iconic signature today, but he also knew a thing or two about money. He inherited a hugely successful mercantile business from his uncle, making him one of the wealthiest men in the American Colonies. In 2007, Forbes magazine estimated his net worth (in today's dollars) was around $19.3 billion . Yet, he still understood how quickly a fortune could disappear without wise budgeting and planning. Related content from Kiplinger: Great Ideas for $1,000: Home, Travel, Gifts & Fitness Thomas Jefferson - On Living Within Your Means Getty Images "But I know nothing more important to inculcate into the minds of young people than the wisdom, the honor, and the blessed comfort of living within their income, to calculate in good time how much less pain will cost them the plainest stile of living which keeps them out of debt, than after a few years of splendor above their income, to have their property taken away for debt when they have a family growing up to maintain and provide for." - From a letter to Martha Jefferson Randolph in 1808 Jefferson knew what he was talking about. He not only inherited debt from his father-in-law; he also lived way beyond his means. When he died, it's estimated he still owed about $107,000--estimated to be $2.64 million in today's dollars. Related content from Kiplinger: Do as he says, not as he does. Get your own finances in order using Kiplinger's Household Budgeting Worksheet . Benjamin Franklin- On Enjoying the Wealth You Earn Getty Images "Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it."- From Franklin's book, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1736 What's the point of working hard if you don't enjoy what you've earned? Franklin published Poor Richard's Almanack under a pseudonym as a book of instructions and advice for commoners. The book included life tips, as well as recipes, a calendar, and other tools. Related content from Kiplinger: Great Ideas for $1,000: Home, Travel, Gifts & Fitness More from Kiplinger SLIDE SHOW: Obama's 4 Tips for Your Personal Finances QUIZ: The Truth About Credit and Debt QUIZ: Test Your Startup Know-How WASHINGTON MATTERS: 6 Rules for Predicting the Next U.S. President EDITOR'S PICKS Knight Kiplinger\'s 8 Keys to Financial Security 4 Tips for Personal Finance Success From President Obama 10 Personal Finance Commandments for Your 20s Copyright 2017-2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors
Should You Be Excited About The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.'s (NYSE:EL) 40% Return On Equity? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! One of the best investments we can make is in our own knowledge and skill set. With that in mind, this article will work through how we can use Return On Equity (ROE) to better understand a business. We'll use ROE to examine The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE:EL), by way of a worked example. Over the last twelve monthsEstée Lauder Companies has recorded a ROE of 40%. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity in the company, it was able to earn $0.40. See our latest analysis for Estée Lauder Companies Theformula for ROEis: Return on Equity = Net Profit ÷ Shareholders' Equity Or for Estée Lauder Companies: 40% = US$1.8b ÷ US$4.6b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2019.) Most know that net profit is the total earnings after all expenses, but the concept of shareholders' equity is a little more complicated. It is the capital paid in by shareholders, plus any retained earnings. You can calculate shareholders' equity by subtracting the company's total liabilities from its total assets. ROE looks at the amount a company earns relative to the money it has kept within the business. The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that the higher the ROE, the more profitable the company is. So, all else being equal,a high ROE is better than a low one. That means it can be interesting to compare the ROE of different companies. Arguably the easiest way to assess company's ROE is to compare it with the average in its industry. However, this method is only useful as a rough check, because companies do differ quite a bit within the same industry classification. As is clear from the image below, Estée Lauder Companies has a better ROE than the average (21%) in the Personal Products industry. That is a good sign. We think a high ROE, alone, is usually enough to justify further research into a company. For exampleyou might checkif insiders are buying shares. Virtually all companies need money to invest in the business, to grow profits. The cash for investment can come from prior year profits (retained earnings), issuing new shares, or borrowing. In the case of the first and second options, the ROE will reflect this use of cash, for growth. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but won't affect the total equity. In this manner the use of debt will boost ROE, even though the core economics of the business stay the same. Although Estée Lauder Companies does use debt, its debt to equity ratio of 0.74 is still low. Its ROE is very impressive, and given only modest debt, this suggests the business is high quality. Conservative use of debt to boost returns is usually a good move for shareholders, though it does leave the company more exposed to interest rate rises. Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. In my book the highest quality companies have high return on equity, despite low debt. All else being equal, a higher ROE is better. Having said that, while ROE is a useful indicator of business quality, you'll have to look at a whole range of factors to determine the right price to buy a stock. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth -- and how much investment is required going forward. So you might want to check this FREEvisualization of analyst forecasts for the company. Of course,you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere.So take a peek at thisfreelist of interesting companies. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Perrigo Completes Ranir Acquisition, Raises '19 Guidance Perrigo Company plcPRGO announced that it has completed the previously announced acquisition of privately-held Ranir Global Holdings LLC, the global leader in private label oral self-care products. Perrigo had announced its agreement to buy Ranir in May this year. Back then, the company had stated that it expects the acquisition of Ranir to increase adjusted earnings for 2019 by 10 cents Along with the latest release, Perrigo raised its guidance for 2019 adjusted earnings per share by 10 cents taking into account the acquisition. The company now expects adjusted earnings to be in the range of $3.75 – $4.05 (previously $3.65 – $3.95). Perrigo expects the deal to generate annual operating synergies of approximately $10 million by 2021. Perrigo’s share were up 1.8% on Jul 2 following the announcement. Shares of the company have rallied 27.5% so far this year compared with the industry’s rise of 16.2%. In the first quarter of 2019, Perrigo initiated a transformation process to change itself from a healthcare company to a self-care company. The acquisition of Ranir is part of the transformation process The company expects the inclusion of Ranir to enhance its already robust store brand portfolio and boost global presence, which will lead to accelerated growth. Ranir generated sales of $287 million in 2018. As part of the transformation process, Perrigo had announced the sale of its animal health business for $185 million in cash to pet medication and wellness company, PetIQ PETQ, in May. Notably, Perrigo re-confirmed its plan to spin-off the Rx segment in 2019 or 2020. The company is launching products, entering into partnerships and investing in capacity expansion as well new technologies to drive growth. It is also looking to partner with natural brand makers and cannabidiol developers. The company also initiated a cost savings program as part of the transformation process, which is expected to generate $100 million in annualized savings. These initiatives are likely to boost Perrigo’s businesses, which is being impacted by pricing and other macro-economic pressure. Moreover, sales of new products and innovation with Perrigo’s core brand products have not been enough to offset the decline in sales due to price competition. Perrigo Company plc Price Perrigo Company plc price | Perrigo Company plc Quote Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider Perrigo is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock. A couple of better-ranked stocks from the pharma space are Axovant Sciences Ltd. AXGT and BioDelivery Sciences BDSI, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Axovant’s loss per share estimates have narrowed from $7.00 to $5.71 for 2019 and from $6.48 to $3.59 for 2020 over the past 60 days. BioDelivery also witnessed positive estimate revision. Estimates for 2019 have narrowed from loss of 21 cents per share to 14 cents per share while that for 2020 earnings per share has increased from 20 cents to 25 cents over the past 60 days. The stock has increased 27.3% so far this year. The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportPerrigo Company plc (PRGO) : Free Stock Analysis ReportBioDelivery Sciences International, Inc. (BDSI) : Free Stock Analysis ReportPetIQ, Inc. (PETQ) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAxovant Sciences Ltd. (AXGT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research
Do You Like Village Super Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:VLGE.A) At This P/E Ratio? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Today, we'll introduce the concept of the P/E ratio for those who are learning about investing. We'll show how you can use Village Super Market, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:VLGE.A) P/E ratio to inform your assessment of the investment opportunity.Village Super Market has a price to earnings ratio of 15.32, based on the last twelve months. That corresponds to an earnings yield of approximately 6.5%. Check out our latest analysis for Village Super Market Theformula for P/Eis: Price to Earnings Ratio = Share Price ÷ Earnings per Share (EPS) Or for Village Super Market: P/E of 15.32 = $26.37 ÷ $1.72 (Based on the trailing twelve months to April 2019.) The higher the P/E ratio, the higher the price tag of a business, relative to its trailing earnings. That is not a good or a bad thingper se, but a high P/E does imply buyers are optimistic about the future. Generally speaking the rate of earnings growth has a profound impact on a company's P/E multiple. When earnings grow, the 'E' increases, over time. That means unless the share price increases, the P/E will reduce in a few years. And as that P/E ratio drops, the company will look cheap, unless its share price increases. Village Super Market shrunk earnings per share by 3.9% last year. But over the longer term (5 years) earnings per share have increased by 35%. One good way to get a quick read on what market participants expect of a company is to look at its P/E ratio. We can see in the image below that the average P/E (20.3) for companies in the consumer retailing industry is higher than Village Super Market's P/E. This suggests that market participants think Village Super Market will underperform other companies in its industry. While current expectations are low, the stock could be undervalued if the situation is better than the market assumes. It is arguably worth checkingif insiders are buying shares, because that might imply they believe the stock is undervalued. Don't forget that the P/E ratio considers market capitalization. So it won't reflect the advantage of cash, or disadvantage of debt. Hypothetically, a company could reduce its future P/E ratio by spending its cash (or taking on debt) to achieve higher earnings. While growth expenditure doesn't always pay off, the point is that it is a good option to have; but one that the P/E ratio ignores. Village Super Market has net cash of US$55m. This is fairly high at 15% of its market capitalization. That might mean balance sheet strength is important to the business, but should also help push the P/E a bit higher than it would otherwise be. Village Super Market has a P/E of 15.3. That's below the average in the US market, which is 18.2. The recent drop in earnings per share would make investors cautious, but the net cash position means the company has time to improve: if so, the low P/E could be an opportunity. Investors have an opportunity when market expectations about a stock are wrong. As value investor Benjamin Graham famously said, 'In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.' Although we don't have analyst forecasts, shareholders might want to examinethis detailed historical graphof earnings, revenue and cash flow. Of course,you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a few good candidates.So take a peek at thisfreelist of companies with modest (or no) debt, trading on a P/E below 20. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
We charted the ideological lines along which each Supreme Court justice voted The US Supreme Court last week wrapped up the 2018 term, having decided on the merits of 72 cases. These matters yielded many opinions, revealed surprising alliances, and proved you never know how the justices will vote. New data from Empirical SCOTUS (pdf) provide a snapshot of the term and how it compares to years past. Quartz charted the stats on everything from narrowly decided cases to long drawn out opinions, prolific writers to enthusiastic questioners, which justices most often agree with each other, and also those least inclined to see eye to eye. Jeffrey Epstein’s fortune is built on fraud, a former mentor says Close calls Of the 72 cases this term, 20 were narrowly decided in 5-4 decisions. Notably, the court’s conservative majority didn’t vote together for most of those cases. The conservatives on the bench are chief justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. They agreed with each other on only eight of those 20 matters. Meanwhile, the minority of liberals—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor—won just as often as their colleagues on the ideological right. That’s because one conservative justice agreed with them on eight other close cases. And in the four remaining 5-4 decisions, the justices did not vote along expected ideological lines. Hong Kong’s protesters put AirDrop to ingenious use to breach China’s Firewall What’s most surprising about the liberal victories in these close cases is who among the conservatives emerged as their consistent ally. While one conservative justice each joined the liberals in four different narrowly decided matters, Gorsuch sided with the liberal wing four times, or in 20% of close cases. Without him, liberals would have won only half as many of these disputed decisions. A look at the court’s closest cases since 2005 revealed that there aren’t usually so many 5-4 splits. That said, there have been a few sessions with a bunch of narrowly decided cases before. In 2006, for instance, there were 24 close calls. Story continues What is striking about the most recent season is that there were 10 different alignments among justices in 20 contested cases, which is far more than seen previously. In 2006, for example, there were only six different alignments for 24 close cases. This indicates that the current bench is quite flexible and that ideology isn’t a perfect predictor of outcomes with the current nine justices. Looking back at the 5-4 cases and ideological divides between 2006 and 2018 shows that liberals actually fared relatively well this term. In 2017, for example, 75% of 5-4 decisions were split along ideological lines and conservatives were victorious in 75% of those close cases. This term, 80% of close cases were decided along ideological lines and the liberals won half of them. If that still sounds like too much division, just consider that in 2015, all of the 5-4 decisions were split on ideological grounds and liberals won only 25% of the time (although it should also be noted that there were far fewer close cases that year than in 2018). On the whole, the current crop of justices tend to agree with each other, though some are more inclined to join the crowd than others. Kavanaugh voted with the majority the most, in 91% of cases. Roberts was in the majority in 85% of cases. Yet even those most often in the minority—Ginsburg, Thomas, Sotomayor, and Gorsuch—voted with the majority 75% of the time. Opinionated The justices don’t all write opinions for each case. The majority opinion is assigned by the most senior justice in the majority on any given case, which is Roberts, the chief justice , whenever he’s in agreement with most of the other justices. When Roberts is in the minority, however, seniority is determined by years on the high court. The chart below shows how many total opinions each justice wrote and whether it was the majority opinion, a concurrence, or a dissent . The chief justice wrote 12 opinions total, seven for the majority, two concurrences, and three dissents. Only Kagan wrote as few opinions as Roberts. Thomas wrote the most by far, authoring eight majority opinions, 14 concurrences, and six dissents. Breyer and Gorsuch were the term’s most frequent dissenters, writing 10 dissents each. The high court imposes strict word limits on lawyers filing briefs. But the justices themselves aren’t always so concise. Empirical SCOTUS deemed opinions of five pages or more “long.” Thomas, it turns out, writes lengthly opinions, 19 out of 28 in total. Gorsuch is also wordy, penning 19 long opinions out of 23. Breyer seems most inclined to make a short story long, however. He wrote 20 opinions, 18 of which ran five pages or longer. Similarly, Kagan wrote only 12 opinions but 11 of them were long. Agree to disagree Some people on the court tend to agree with each other more than others. This chart shows which justices agree the most and at what rate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kavanaugh, the most junior justice, agrees an awful lot with his boss, Roberts, at an overall rate of 93.8%. But Ginsburg and Sotomayor also often see eye to eye, agreeing at a rate of 93.1%. Kagan agrees with Ginsburg and Sotomayor in 87.5% of cases. There are also justices who regularly disagree with each other. Still, even the most commonly opposed—like Ginsburg and Thomas, or Sotomayor and Thomas—agree with each other half the time. Interestingly, Gorsuch and Ginsburg have sniped at each other in opinions but actually agree relatively frequently, in 62.5% of cases, whereas Breyer and Gorsuch only agree 54.2% of the time. Curiosity and questions Court dynamics are revealed in all aspects of the job and oral argument is no exception. The next chart shows which justice most frequently asks the first question at these sessions. Ginsburg doesn’t ask the most questions of advocates overall, but she is most inclined to start the questioning. Meanwhile, Thomas, who wishes justices would just let lawyers speak during arguments, never begins the questioning and has very rarely ever asked a question. Also telling is the frequency with which a justice asks questions during argument sessions. Sotomayor was extremely curious, posing an average of more than 23 questions per argument, while Thomas spoke not at all. Roberts, Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh asked on average about 15 questions per session. Now, all that’s left to do is enjoy the summer while the justices are on break and wait for them to return to work in the fall. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the world’s most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: Tip your delivery worker in cash, not via an app A “Go Back to Africa” media campaign uses AI to boost African American tourism
Here's What AstroNova, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ALOT) P/E Is Telling Us Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Today, we'll introduce the concept of the P/E ratio for those who are learning about investing. We'll look at AstroNova, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ALOT) P/E ratio and reflect on what it tells us about the company's share price.AstroNova has a price to earnings ratio of 27.22, based on the last twelve months. In other words, at today's prices, investors are paying $27.22 for every $1 in prior year profit. View our latest analysis for AstroNova Theformula for P/Eis: Price to Earnings Ratio = Price per Share ÷ Earnings per Share (EPS) Or for AstroNova: P/E of 27.22 = $26 ÷ $0.96 (Based on the year to May 2019.) A higher P/E ratio implies that investors paya higher pricefor the earning power of the business. That is not a good or a bad thingper se, but a high P/E does imply buyers are optimistic about the future. Probably the most important factor in determining what P/E a company trades on is the earnings growth. Earnings growth means that in the future the 'E' will be higher. That means even if the current P/E is high, it will reduce over time if the share price stays flat. A lower P/E should indicate the stock is cheap relative to others -- and that may attract buyers. AstroNova's 78% EPS improvement over the last year was like bamboo growth after rain; rapid and impressive. The cherry on top is that the five year growth rate was an impressive 21% per year. With that kind of growth rate we would generally expect a high P/E ratio. The P/E ratio essentially measures market expectations of a company. The image below shows that AstroNova has a higher P/E than the average (17.9) P/E for companies in the tech industry. Its relatively high P/E ratio indicates that AstroNova shareholders think it will perform better than other companies in its industry classification. Shareholders are clearly optimistic, but the future is always uncertain. So further research is always essential. I often monitordirector buying and selling. The 'Price' in P/E reflects the market capitalization of the company. In other words, it does not consider any debt or cash that the company may have on the balance sheet. The exact same company would hypothetically deserve a higher P/E ratio if it had a strong balance sheet, than if it had a weak one with lots of debt, because a cashed up company can spend on growth. While growth expenditure doesn't always pay off, the point is that it is a good option to have; but one that the P/E ratio ignores. Net debt totals just 6.9% of AstroNova's market cap. It would probably trade on a higher P/E ratio if it had a lot of cash, but I doubt it is having a big impact. AstroNova has a P/E of 27.2. That's higher than the average in the US market, which is 18.2. While the company does use modest debt, its recent earnings growth is superb. So to be frank we are not surprised it has a high P/E ratio. When the market is wrong about a stock, it gives savvy investors an opportunity. As value investor Benjamin Graham famously said, 'In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.' So thisfreereport on the analyst consensus forecastscould help you make amaster moveon this stock. You might be able to find a better buy than AstroNova. If you want a selection of possible winners, check out thisfreelist of interesting companies that trade on a P/E below 20 (but have proven they can grow earnings). We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Do Institutions Own Shares In eMagin Corporation (NYSEMKT:EMAN)? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! If you want to know who really controls eMagin Corporation (NYSEMKT:EMAN), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones. We also tend to see lower insider ownership in companies that were previously publicly owned. With a market capitalization of US$23m, eMagin is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. In the chart below below, we can see that institutions own shares in the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about EMAN. See our latest analysis for eMagin Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices. As you can see, institutional investors own 7.6% of eMagin. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at eMagin's earnings history, below. Of course, the future is what really matters. It would appear that 19% of eMagin shares are controlled by hedge funds. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. While there is some analyst coverage, the company is probably not widely covered. So it could gain more attention, down the track. The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it. I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions. Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in eMagin Corporation. In their own names, insiders own US$315k worth of stock in the US$23m company. This shows at least some alignment, but I usually like to see larger insider holdings. You canclick here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling. The general public, mostly retail investors, hold a substantial 50% stake in EMAN, suggesting it is a fairly popular stock. With this size of ownership, retail investors can collectively play a role in decisions that affect shareholder returns, such as dividend policies and the appointment of directors. They can also exercise the power to decline an acquisition or merger that may not improve profitability. We can see that Private Companies own 22%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company. While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. I always like to check for ahistory of revenue growth. You can too, by accessing this free chart ofhistoric revenue and earnings in thisdetailed graph. But ultimatelyit is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look atthis free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
12 relaxing products that will help you find your zen Whether you're stressed about your job, an upcoming family vacation, budgeting for your family's future (or a little bit of everything), stress is unfortunately a part of almost everyone's life. Instead of letting your worries over take you, prioritize your mental health and set a side a few minutes each day (or whenever you can) to breath deeply and meditate. Healthline says that meditation not only helps to reduce stress and control anxiety, but it also can extend your attention span, help your memory, improve sleep and decrease blood pressure. Sounds pretty great to us. If you are new to meditating and have no idea where to start, try downloading a guided app (like Headspace or Calm ) and bring home a few helpful items. From essential oils and diffusers to meditation cushions, shop 12 of our favorite relaxing products below and find your inner peace. Meditation essentials from Walmart: View comments
Are Insiders Buying The Eastern Company (NASDAQ:EML) Stock? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! We've lost count of how many times insiders have accumulated shares in a company that goes on to improve markedly. On the other hand, we'd be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So we'll take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares inThe Eastern Company(NASDAQ:EML). It is perfectly legal for company insiders, including board members, to buy and sell stock in a company. However, rules govern insider transactions, and certain disclosures are required. We would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing. But it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing. For example, a Harvard Universitystudyfound that 'insider purchases earn abnormal returns of more than 6% per year.' View our latest analysis for Eastern In the last twelve months, the biggest single purchase by an insider was when President August Vlak bought US$93k worth of shares at a price of US$26.58 per share. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at above the current price of US$26.49. Their view may have changed since then, but at least it shows they felt optimistic at the time. We always take careful note of the price insiders pay when purchasing shares. Generally speaking, it catches our eye when an insider has purchased shares at above current prices, as it suggests they believed the shares were worth buying, even at a higher price. August Vlak was the only individual insider to buy shares in the last twelve months. You can see the insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! Eastern is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at thisfreelist of growing companies with insider buying. For a common shareholder, it is worth checking how many shares are held by company insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Our data indicates that Eastern insiders own about US$7.1m worth of shares (which is 4.1% of the company). Whilst better than nothing, we're not overly impressed by these holdings. The fact that there have been no Eastern insider transactions recently certainly doesn't bother us. On a brighter note, the transactions over the last year are encouraging. The transactions are fine but it'd be more encouraging if Eastern insiders bought more shares in the company. Along with insider transactions, I recommend checking if Eastern is growing revenue. This free chart ofhistoric revenue and earnings should make that easy. But note:Eastern may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at thisfreelist of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
FILING DEADLINE--Kuznicki Law PLLC Announces Class Actions on Behalf of Shareholders of BE, HL and DBD CEDARHURST, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 3, 2019 /The securities litigation law firm of Kuznicki Law PLLC issues the following notice on behalf of shareholders of the following publicly traded companies. Shareholders who purchased shares in these companies during the dates listed below are encouraged to contact the firm regarding possible appointment as lead plaintiff and a preliminary estimate of their recoverable losses. If you wish to choose counsel to represent you and the class, you must apply to be appointed lead plaintiff and be selected by the Court. The lead plaintiff will direct the litigation and participate in important decisions including whether to accept a settlement for the class in the action. The lead plaintiff will be selected from among applicants claiming the largest loss from investment in the respective securities during the class periods. Members of the class will be represented by the lead plaintiff and counsel chosen by the lead plaintiff. No classes have yet been certified in the actions below. Appointment as lead plaintiff is not required to partake in any recovery. Bloom Energy Corporation (BE) Investors Affected : on behalf of all persons who purchased or otherwise acquired Bloom Energy common stock pursuant or traceable to Bloom Energy's July 2018 IPO. A class action has commenced on behalf of certain shareholders in Bloom Energy Corporation. The complaint alleges that Bloom Energy's Registration Statement was materially misleading as it failed to disclose known events and trends that were severely affecting the Company's business and that made investment in Bloom Energy significantly riskier than presented in the Registration Statement. In particular, the Registration Statement failed to disclose that the Company was experiencing material construction delays. These construction delays would cause system deployments (or "acceptances" as Defendants referred to them) to fall significantly below even the low end of the Company's previously announced guidance.While the Registration Statement purported to warn of risks that "may arise," which could materially affect the Company, in actuality these material negative events were already occurring. As a result, the representations and purported risk disclosures were false and misleading because, by the time of the IPO, construction delays had already impacted or would soon impact Bloom Energy's ability to deliver acceptances in line with its guidance. Shareholders may find more information athttps://kclasslaw.com/securities/bloom-energy-corporation-loss-submission-form/?id=2229&from=1. Hecla Mining Company (HL) Investors Affected : March 19, 2018 - May 8, 2019 A class action has commenced on behalf of certain shareholders in Hecla Mining Company. The filed complaint alleges that defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (a) the Nevada operations were hemorrhaging cash due to a multitude of material problems identified by Defendants during Hecla's extensive due diligence of the Nevada mines before the Class Period, and (b) as a result of these material problems, Defendants had no reasonable basis for their representations that the Nevada operations would be in a position to have positive or self-funding cash flow. Shareholders may find more information athttps://kclasslaw.com/securities/hecla-mining-company-loss-submission-form/?id=2229&from=1. Diebold Nixdorf, Incorporated (DBD) Investors Affected : May 4, 2017 - July 4, 2017 A class action has commenced on behalf of certain shareholders in Diebold Nixdorf, Incorporated. The filed complaint alleges that defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) the Company was experiencing delays in systems rollouts as well as a longer customer decision making process and order-to-revenue conversion cycle; (ii) the foregoing issues were negatively impacting the Company's services business and operations; and (iii) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. Shareholders may find more information athttps://kclasslaw.com/securities/diebold-nixdorf-incorporated-loss-submission-form/?id=2229&from=1. Kuznicki Law PLLC is committed to ensuring that companies adhere to responsible business practices and engage in good corporate citizenship. The firm seeks recovery on behalf of investors who incurred losses when false and/or misleading statements or the omission of material information by a Company lead to artificial inflation of the Company's stock. CONTACT: Kuznicki Law PLLCDaniel Kuznicki, Esq.445 Central Avenue, Suite 344Cedarhurst, NY 11516Email:dk@kclasslaw.comPhone: (347) 696-1134Cell: (347) 690-0692Fax: (347) 348-0967 SOURCE:Kuznicki Law PLLC View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/550789/FILING-DEADLINE-Kuznicki-Law-PLLC-Announces-Class-Actions-on-Behalf-of-Shareholders-of-BE-HL-and-DBD
KBR Wins Navy Contract, Eyes Government Solutions Growth KBR, Inc.KBR has received $45.9 million task order from Naval Air Systems Command's (NAVAIR) Logistics and Maintenance Information Systems and Technology Division to provide logistics information technology services.Under the Department of Defense Information Analysis Center's (DoD IAC) multiple-award contract (MAC), the company has been awarded this cost-plus-fixed-fee task order. Per the terms of the agreement, KBR will provide services like research, analysis, design, development, unit testing, verification and validation (V&V) integration testing, training, deployment, operations, and maintenance of IT solutions. The task order’s performance period is 56 months.KBR Government Solutions U.S., president, Byron Bright, said that “KBR is very pleased to continue working with NAVAIR to deliver logistics IT solutions that improve maintenance, logistics efficiency, and operational readiness for the warfighter across the Naval Aviation Enterprise.”Backed by solid backlog growth, and robust earnings and revenues, shares of KBR have gained 64.4% so far this year, outperforming the industry’s 26.6% rally.Notably, KBR’s solid backlog level of $13.6 billion (as of Mar 31, 2019) compared with $13.5 billion in the corresponding period of 2018, highlights its underlying strength. Nearly 80% of the backlog represents work in Government Solutions. Majority of these work are long-term reimbursable service annuity-type contracts that have significantly lower risks than some of the other projects. The company believes that this will ultimately help in margin expansion and de-risking of business considerably. Government Services Solutions: Major Growth DriverKBR’s Government Solutions unit, accounting for more than 72% of total revenues, recorded 44% revenue growth in the first quarter of 2019. This unit also recorded organic revenue growth of 22% during the same time period, following a 31% increase in fourth-quarter 2018. Its industry-leading organic revenue growth was underpinned by on-contract growth in logistics and engineering, take-away wins alongside new contract awarded under the company’s portfolio of well-positioned contracting vehicles.Zacks Rank & Other Stocks to ConsiderKBR currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Other top-ranked stocks in the industry include Altair Engineering ALTR, Quanta Services PWR and Jacobs Engineering JEC. Altair Engineering sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), whereas Quanta Services and Jacobs Engineering carry the same rank as KBR. You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.Altair Engineering, Quanta Services and Jacobs Engineering’s earnings for 2019 are expected to rise 53.7%, 29.5% and 5.2%, respectively.The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of AllLast year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportQuanta Services, Inc. (PWR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportJacobs Engineering Group Inc. (JEC) : Free Stock Analysis ReportKBR, Inc. (KBR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAltair Engineering Inc. (ALTR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research
What Type Of Shareholder Owns Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc.'s (NYSE:BR)? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Every investor in Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. Companies that have been privatized tend to have low insider ownership. Broadridge Financial Solutions has a market capitalization of US$15b, so it's too big to fly under the radar. We'd expect to see both institutions and retail investors owning a portion of the company. Taking a look at our data on the ownership groups (below), it's seems that institutions own shares in the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about BR. Check out our latest analysis for Broadridge Financial Solutions Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices. As you can see, institutional investors own 86% of Broadridge Financial Solutions. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Broadridge Financial Solutions, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too. Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Broadridge Financial Solutions is not owned by hedge funds. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too. The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. The company management answer to the board; and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board, themselves. Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group. Our most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc.. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own US$91m of stock. It is good to see board members owning shares, but it might be worth checkingif those insiders have been buying. With a 13% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over BR. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run. I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. I like to dive deeperinto how a company has performed in the past. You can accessthisinteractive graphof past earnings, revenue and cash flow, for free. Ultimatelythe future is most important. You can access thisfreereport on analyst forecasts for the company. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
How Vince Holding Corp. (NYSE:VNCE) Can Impact Your Portfolio Volatility Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Anyone researching Vince Holding Corp. (NYSE:VNCE) might want to consider the historical volatility of the share price. Volatility is considered to be a measure of risk in modern finance theory. Investors may think of volatility as falling into two main categories. The first type is company specific volatility. Investors use diversification across uncorrelated stocks to reduce this kind of price volatility across the portfolio. The second type is the broader market volatility, which you cannot diversify away, since it arises from macroeconomic factors which directly affects all the stocks on the market. Some stocks mimic the volatility of the market quite closely, while others demonstrate muted, exagerrated or uncorrelated price movements. Beta can be a useful tool to understand how much a stock is influenced by market risk (volatility). However, Warren Buffett said 'volatility is far from synonymous with risk' in his 2014 letter to investors. So, while useful, beta is not the only metric to consider. To use beta as an investor, you must first understand that the overall market has a beta of one. A stock with a beta greater than one is more sensitive to broader market movements than a stock with a beta of less than one. See our latest analysis for Vince Holding Given that it has a beta of 1.78, we can surmise that the Vince Holding share price has been fairly sensitive to market volatility (over the last 5 years). Based on this history, investors should be aware that Vince Holding are likely to rise strongly in times of greed, but sell off in times of fear. Many would argue that beta is useful in position sizing, but fundamental metrics such as revenue and earnings are more important overall. You can see Vince Holding's revenue and earnings in the image below. Vince Holding is a rather small company. It has a market capitalisation of US$167m, which means it is probably under the radar of most investors. It takes less money to influence the share price of a very small company. This may explain the excess volatility implied by this beta value. Since Vince Holding has a reasonably high beta, it's worth considering why it is so heavily influenced by broader market sentiment. For example, it might be a high growth stock or have a lot of operating leverage in its business model. In order to fully understand whether VNCE is a good investment for you, we also need to consider important company-specific fundamentals such as Vince Holding’s financial health and performance track record. I urge you to continue your research by taking a look at the following: 1. Financial Health: Are VNCE’s operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why we’ve done it for you. Check out ourfinancial health checks here. 2. Past Track Record: Has VNCE been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look atthe free visual representations of VNCE's historicalsfor more clarity. 3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore ourfree list of these great stocks here. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Why Shares of Old Dominion Freight Lines Were Up in June Shares ofOld Dominion Freight Line(NASDAQ: ODFL)followeda rough month of Maywith a strong 12.7% gain in June, according to data provided byS&P Global Market Intelligence, as some of the macroeconomic factors weighing on truckers earlier in the year showed signs of a rebound. Despite the volatility, Old Dominion investors are having a pretty good year so far in 2019. Shares of Old Dominion were under pressure in May due to fears about moderating demand for truckers, made worse by the uncertainty surrounding potential trade wars and a slowdown in the economy. Add in the negative ripple effect felt throughout the industry fromAmazon.comreportedlyexploring ways to expand into third-party shipping and logistics, and shares of Old Dominion and other truckers were bound to feel pressure. Image source: Old Dominion Freight Lines. Early in the month, Old Dominion reported that revenue per day for its less-than-truckload sector in May 2019 was actually up 4.2% compared to May 2018, easing fears of a slowdown. Later in the month, Bank of America Merrill Lynch upped its price target for the stock to $150 from $144 following a meeting with management. The BofA analysts said that Old Dominion has seen a lack of pricing discipline in the markets in recent months but said it varied by market. Old Dominion management said it would not make pricing concessions to maintain market share, believing that the company's best-of-breed service reputation and approach to managing assets, along with industry dynamics, would give it a competitive advantage. Old Dominion shares, despite a strong June, have not yet recovered what they lost in late April and May, but the shares are up 21% year to date, outpacing the S&P 500 by 3 percentage points. The company is showing itself to be a top performer in a difficult market. What comes next remains to be seen. Old Dominion expressed some confidence in its future in May when its board approved a new $300 million stock repurchase program. There are some early hints of a pricing recovery in trucking and optimism that if the U.S. can resolve its trade differences with China, economic activity -- and demand for trucking service -- will accelerate. A lot of factors outside of Old Dominion's control will determine how fast this stock will climb. But for long-term holders willing to ride out the rough road, Old Dominion is a top trucker with a history of delivering. More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors.Lou Whitemanhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and Old Dominion Freight Line. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
Boasting A 47% Return On Equity, Is Collectors Universe, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLCT) A Top Quality Stock? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! One of the best investments we can make is in our own knowledge and skill set. With that in mind, this article will work through how we can use Return On Equity (ROE) to better understand a business. By way of learning-by-doing, we'll look at ROE to gain a better understanding of Collectors Universe, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLCT). Over the last twelve monthsCollectors Universe has recorded a ROE of 47%. One way to conceptualize this, is that for each $1 of shareholders' equity it has, the company made $0.47 in profit. See our latest analysis for Collectors Universe Theformula for return on equityis: Return on Equity = Net Profit ÷ Shareholders' Equity Or for Collectors Universe: 47% = US$8.1m ÷ US$17m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2019.) Most know that net profit is the total earnings after all expenses, but the concept of shareholders' equity is a little more complicated. It is the capital paid in by shareholders, plus any retained earnings. You can calculate shareholders' equity by subtracting the company's total liabilities from its total assets. ROE measures a company's profitability against the profit it retains, and any outside investments. The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. A higher profit will lead to a higher ROE. So, as a general rule,a high ROE is a good thing. That means ROE can be used to compare two businesses. One simple way to determine if a company has a good return on equity is to compare it to the average for its industry. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. As is clear from the image below, Collectors Universe has a better ROE than the average (13%) in the Consumer Services industry. That's what I like to see. We think a high ROE, alone, is usually enough to justify further research into a company. One data point to check is ifinsiders have bought shares recently. Virtually all companies need money to invest in the business, to grow profits. The cash for investment can come from prior year profits (retained earnings), issuing new shares, or borrowing. In the first two cases, the ROE will capture this use of capital to grow. In the latter case, the debt required for growth will boost returns, but will not impact the shareholders' equity. That will make the ROE look better than if no debt was used. Collectors Universe has a debt to equity ratio of 0.15, which is far from excessive. Its ROE is very impressive, and given only modest debt, this suggests the business is high quality. Conservative use of debt to boost returns is usually a good move for shareholders, though it does leave the company more exposed to interest rate rises. Return on equity is one way we can compare the business quality of different companies. A company that can achieve a high return on equity without debt could be considered a high quality business. If two companies have the same ROE, then I would generally prefer the one with less debt. But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. Profit growth rates, versus the expectations reflected in the price of the stock, are a particularly important to consider. Check the past profit growth by Collectors Universe by looking at thisvisualization of past earnings, revenue and cash flow. But note:Collectors Universe may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at thisfreelist of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Woman who 'died' for 27 minutes writes chilling note after she's resuscitated An Arizona woman who "died" for a total of 27 minutesaskedfor a notepad after she was resuscitated to share an urgent message about the afterlife, her family claims. Madie Johnson took to Instagram last month to sharephotosof her new tattoo, modeled off a note written by her aunt, Tina Hines, who suffered a massive heart attack in February 2018. "Her story is too real not to share and has given me a stronger confidence in a faith that so often goes unseen," Johnson wrote. Hines, from Phoenix, was getting ready to go for a hike with her husband, Brian, last year when she suddenly collapsed. "Her eyes didn't close, and they were rolled back in her head," Brian Hines toldAZFamilyat the time. "She was purple and not making any noise or breathing." Hines's husband was successfully able to resuscitate his wife before paramedics arrived, but she coded multiple times on the way to a local hospital, where she had to be intubated. "We ended up shocking her three times on scene and two en route," one Phoenix firefighter told the outlet. "I've never shocked anyone five times." Miraculously, the mom of four woke up and immediately gestured for a pen and piece of paper, with which she scribbled down, "It's real." When asked what her note referenced, Hines responded by "pointing up to heaven with tears in her eyes," according to her niece. "It was so real, the colors were so vibrant," Hines recalled of her vision, which she said included Jesus standing in front of black gates with a bright yellow glow behind him. Johnson said she wanted the tattoo as a permanent reminder of her aunt's journey, which has given her a "tangibleness to an eternal hope that is not too far away." "The way you boldly love Jesus and others has changed the way I hope to live and love," she added. Johnson's tattoo artist,Suede Silver, took to Facebook to share photos of the tattoo along with the story behind it. They have since been shared over 237,000 times and racked up 38,000 comments, some from people who have experiencedsimilar visionsfollowing near-death experiences, which is not an uncommon occurrence. A 2013 study on the phenomenon,publishedin the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that high levels of brain waves present in rats at the time of their deaths may help explain the vivid experiences described by near-death survivors. "A lot of people thought that the brain, after clinical death, was inactive or hypoactive, with less activity than the waking state, and we show that is definitely not the case," said Dr. Jimo Borjigin, who led the study. "If anything, it is much more active during the dying process than even the waking state."
Sun Life Closes Buyout of Majority Stake in BentallGreenOak (revised) Sun Life Financial Inc.SLF has closed the buyout of a majority stake in BentallGreenOak for cash. The acquisition will help the leading life insurer widen its global real estate investment footprint. This will be part of Sun Life Investment Management.Sun Life had acquired Bentall Kennedy, a North American real estate and property management firm in 2015, which it subsequently merged with GreenOak Real Estate, a global real estate investment firm with $11 billion in assets under management. Sun Life named it BentallGreenOak.Sun Life Investment Management is a business unit of one of the pillars of Sun Life Asset Management. Sun Life remains focused on investing in Sun Life Investment Management, its $66 billion alternative investments business. The addition of BentallGreenOak will increase Sun Life Investment Management's total assets under management to $75 billion.BentallGreenOak will be the real estate arm of Sun Life’s institutional asset management business, SLC Management and add to its capabilities. The buyout will not only expand Sun Life Investment Management’s assets under management but also enhance its services.The transaction is also estimated to be accretive to underlying earnings per share by 4 cents and return on equity by 60 basis points in 2019. However, the Life Insurance Capital Adequacy Test (LICAT) ratio of Sun Life Financial will be lowered by one point. Also, Sun Life’s common shareholders' equity will be lowered by about $730 million.Sun Life Financial paid shareholders $146 million in cash in exchange for a 56% interest in the combined BentallGreenOak entity. Sun Life also has an option to acquire the remaining interest in BentallGreenOak about seven years from the closing. Sun Life Financial will also have the right to a portion of shareholders' share of BentallGreenOak net income against a fixed amount to be paid in quarterly installments. Thus, Sun Life will have rights to about 90% of BentallGreenOak earnings, prior to exercising its option to increase its ownership level.Sun Life is aggressively growing its Asset Management Business with 1 trillion assets under management already. Sun Life Investment Management boosts its investment capabilities in private fixed income, mortgages and real estate by investing in pension plans and other institutional investors. This development further strengthens Sun Life’s asset management capabilities.Sun Life considers acquisitions a prudent approach to ramp up its growth profile. Strategic buyouts have positioned it as the second-largest dental network in the United States, consolidated its footprint in Vietnam, Indonesian and India and expanded its wealth business in Hong Kong.Shares of this Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) company have rallied 25.5% year to date, outperforming the industry’s increase of 21.4%. Focus on expansion of Asia business and global asset management business, favorable business mix, strategic acquisitions and solid capital position should help the stock retain the momentum. There have been a number of acquisitions in the insurance space of late given the significant capital available. Brown & Brown of Kentucky, Inc., a subsidiary of Brown & Brown, Inc. BRO, acquired United Development Systems, Inc. The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. HIG acquired The Navigators Group, Inc. In its effort to expand outside the United States, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. AJG has agreed to acquire a minority stake in Renomia a.s.The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of AllLast year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportBrown & Brown, Inc. (BRO) : Free Stock Analysis ReportArthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AJG) : Free Stock Analysis ReportSun Life Financial Inc. (SLF) : Free Stock Analysis ReportThe Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (HIG) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research
Is Petrobras Stock the "Best Story" in Big Oil? Every day, Wall Street analysts upgrade some stocks, downgrade others, and "initiate coverage" on a few more. But do these analysts even know what they're talking about? Today, we're taking one high-profile Wall Street pick and putting it under the microscope... Today, we're going to look at an oil stock. I know, I know --renewablesare the future of energy, andbig oilis the past. And yet, just this morning, analysts at Merrill Lynch announced they're recommending an oil stock, saying thatPetroleo Brasileiro(NYSE: PBR)(NYSE: PBR-A)-- also known as Petrobras -- is currently telling "the best story" they've seen in the last six or seven years. Is Merrill Lynch right about that? Let's find out. Image source: Getty Images. Merrill Lynch justifies its new buy rating on Petrobras (and its $21 price target on the $15 stock) by laying out two main themes: debt and cash. On the debt front, Merrill argues today in a note covered onStreetInsider.comthat after years of carrying too much debt for its earnings to support, Petrobras has finally reached a point at which its debt is small enough, and its earnings large enough, to allow the company to grow sustainably. That's actually a curious statement -- or at least, curious timing -- because according to data fromS&P Global Market Intelligence, Petrobras' long-term debt levels at the end of the last quarter ($96.9 billion) are actuallyupfrom where they were three months ago ($80.6 billion). And at the same time, cash reserves for the company aredown --from $15 billion at the end of 2018 to $10.5 billion at the end of Q1 2019. That being said, it is still true that net debt levels at the company ($86.4 billion) are now below Petrobras' market capitalization of $95.6 billion. Still, $86.4 billion isstilla pretty heavy load to carry. Petrobras needs to generate a lot of cash to maintain interest payments on that debt and pay it down over time. Fortunately, though, Merrill notes that the company is generating solid free cash flow with which to service its debt. Over the last 12 months, Petrobras reported net income of $5.9 billion, butcashprofits of more than twice that amount: $13.2 billion. Applied fully to paying down debt, that's enough cash to give Petrobras a clean balance sheet (and have a little cash on the side) in under eight years. And by all appearances, this is cash that Petrobras (and its investors) can count on. S&P Global data show that from 2016 through 2018, the oil giant has thrown off $12 billion to $13 billion or so in cash profits for three years running, a significant improvement over 2015's performance (less than $4 billion in free cash flow) or 2014's (negativefree cash flow). Merrill Lynch characterizes Petrobras' free cash flow as "solid," according to a report byTheFly.com, and the company is likely to show "strong growth" in coming years. Although growth estimates are all over the map, the consensus of analysts who follow Petrobras, according to S&P Global, is that earnings at the Brazilian oil giant will grow 7.5% this year (to $1.14 per share), then explode higher in 2020 and 2021, with earnings in excess of $2 a share each year. Relative to Petrobras' share price, currently $15 and change, that works out to a forward P/E ratio of about 7.5 -- or closer to 15 when net debt is taken into account. Valued on free cash flow, the stock'senterprise value-to-FCF ratio is less than 14. If you ask me, that doesn't seem like too much to pay for a company set to nearly double its earnings over the next three years. Merrill Lynch is right to recommend Petrobras. More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market Rich Smithhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
At US$35.82, Is It Time To Put Columbia Banking System, Inc. (NASDAQ:COLB) On Your Watch List? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Columbia Banking System, Inc. (NASDAQ:COLB), operating in the financial services industry based in United States, saw a double-digit share price rise of over 10% in the past couple of months on the NASDAQGS. With many analysts covering the mid-cap stock, we may expect any price-sensitive announcements have already been factored into the stock’s share price. However, could the stock still be trading at a relatively cheap price? Today I will analyse the most recent data on Columbia Banking System’s outlook and valuation to see if the opportunity still exists. View our latest analysis for Columbia Banking System According to my valuation model, Columbia Banking System seems to be fairly priced at around 3.2% below my intrinsic value, which means if you buy Columbia Banking System today, you’d be paying a reasonable price for it. And if you believe the company’s true value is $37.02, then there isn’t much room for the share price grow beyond what it’s currently trading. So, is there another chance to buy low in the future? Given that Columbia Banking System’s share is fairly volatile (i.e. its price movements are magnified relative to the rest of the market) this could mean the price can sink lower, giving us an opportunity to buy later on. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for share price volatility. Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so let’s also take a look at the company's future expectations. However, with a relatively muted profit growth of 4.8% expected over the next year, growth doesn’t seem like a key driver for a buy decision for Columbia Banking System, at least in the short term. Are you a shareholder?It seems like the market has already priced in COLB’s future outlook, with shares trading around its fair value. However, there are also other important factors which we haven’t considered today, such as the track record of its management team. Have these factors changed since the last time you looked at the stock? Will you have enough confidence to invest in the company should the price drop below its fair value? Are you a potential investor?If you’ve been keeping an eye on COLB, now may not be the most advantageous time to buy, given it is trading around its fair value. However, the positive outlook means it’s worth further examining other factors such as the strength of its balance sheet, in order to take advantage of the next price drop. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters – the fundamentals – before you make a decision on Columbia Banking System. You can find everything you need to know about Columbia Banking System inthe latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Columbia Banking System, you can use our free platform to see my list of over50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
'Toy Story 2' sexual harassment scene cut Characters from Toy Story appear at the premiere of Toy Story 4 on June 11 in Los Angeles. (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images) One of the many amusing aspects of the Toy Story movies are the jokes in the blooper reel at the end, which depicts favorite animated characters, including Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Mr. Potato Head, as actors flubbing various scenes. The problem is that one of them, a blooper from 1999’s Toy Story 2 , isn’t so funny anymore. Following the #MeToo movement and sexual harassment allegations against hundreds of men throughout the entertainment industry, a new release of the second movie in the storied franchise leaves out a scene in which a character named Stinky Pete the Prospector, voiced by Kelsey Grammer, suggestively tells twin Barbies that he could get them a part in Toy Story 3 . He stops speaking when he realizes that he’s being filmed. Sharp-eyed Disney fans noticed last month that the blooper had been cut from a new 4K Blu-ray version of the film as well as all digital downloads. Yahoo Entertainment has reached out to Disney for comment. Many of the dozens of women who accused former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of harassment or assault said that he had promised to help their careers if they complied. Many of them alleged that their careers suffered when they didn’t. Weinstein, who faces trial in September, has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex. Another Hollywood player affected by the movement: John Lasseter, the director of Toy Story 2 . In November 2017, he took a leave of absence from his position as chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation on the same day that The Hollywood Reporter published accusations of inappropriate kissing, groping and other behavior from company employees. He apologized to “anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of an unwanted hug or any other gesture they felt crossed the line in any way, shape or form.” He left the company at the end of last year. Toy Story 4 is currently raking in big money at the box office. Since it opened on June 21, the family flick has earned $237 million in the United States and $497 million worldwide. Story continues Read more on Yahoo Entertainment: Beyoncé fans are ecstatic after she shares gorgeous photo promoting 'The Lion King' Jeremy Piven says he's 'collateral damage' in #MeToo movement: 'I took one for the team' Items from Disneyland's 'Star Wars': Galaxy's Edge are popping up on resale sites Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyle’s newsletter.
How Many Copart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRT) Shares Have Insiders Sold, In The Last Year? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! It is not uncommon to see companies perform well in the years after insiders buy shares. The flip side of that is that there are more than a few examples of insiders dumping stock prior to a period of weak performance. So before you buy or sellCopart, Inc.(NASDAQ:CPRT), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling. Most investors know that it is quite permissible for company leaders, such as directors of the board, to buy and sell stock on the market. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market. Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing. As Peter Lynch said, 'insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise.' View our latest analysis for Copart In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when the CEO & Director, A. Adair, sold US$13m worth of shares at a price of US$74.54 per share. That means that an insider was selling shares at below the current price (US$74.80). As a general rule we consider it to be discouraging when insiders are selling below the current price, because it suggests they were happy with a lower valuation. While insider selling is not a positive sign, we can't be sure if it does mean insiders think the shares are fully valued, so it's only a weak sign. This single sale was just 2.6% of A. Adair's stake. The only individual insider seller over the last year was A. Adair. A. Adair sold a total of 223k shares over the year at an average price of US$74.57. The chart below shows insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! For those who like to findwinning investmentsthisfreelist of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. Copart insiders own about US$2.1b worth of shares (which is 12% of the company). This kind of significant ownership by insiders does generally increase the chance that the company is run in the interest of all shareholders. An insider sold Copart shares recently, but they didn't buy any. Looking to the last twelve months, our data doesn't show any insider buying. On the plus side, Copart makes money, and is growing profits. It is good to see high insider ownership, but the insider selling leaves us cautious. Of course,the future is what matters most. So if you are interested in Copart, you should check out thisfreereport on analyst forecasts for the company. Of courseCopart may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see thisfreecollection of high quality companies. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Republicans revolt against White House budget plan Senate Republicans are rebelling against the Trump administration’s proposed fix to a fiscal pile-up this fall, rejecting a one-year stopgap funding bill as insufficient for the military. In a letter to President Donald Trump's budget negotiators led by close Trump ally Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, 15 Senate Republicans on Wednesday asked the White House to avoid imposing “draconian” conditions that would render the Pentagon “incapable of increasing readiness, recapitalizing our force, or rationalizing funding.” “While some members of the Administration have suggested a yearlong CR as a viable path forward, this must be avoided,” the senators wrote . “Simply put, our adversaries do not handcuff their militaries with funding gimmicks like continuing resolutions — nor should we.” The letter was addressed to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The senators added that a continuing resolution would stall a military pay raise and make spending far more inefficient. A senior administration official said that the letter from the senators ignores the House Democrats’ internal divisions “and lacks a plan to stop Democrats from dismantling the president’s deregulatory and border security agendas with poison-pill riders.” “If these members have another plan for fiscal restraint, then we’re all ears,” the official said on Wednesday afternoon. The war of words Wednesday underscores unrest in the GOP ranks about deadlocked budget negotiations, which Republicans have blamed on Democrats’ push for higher domestic spending. As of Wednesday, there were no new meetings planned between congressional leaders and the administration after June’s impasse. At the time, the White House proposed a stopgap funding bill aimed at avoiding a shutdown and stiff, automatic budget cuts. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell panned a continuing resolution, and many of his rank-and-file members feel the same way. Story continues Senate Armed Services Chairman Jim Inhofe signed on to the letter, as did Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, John Cornyn of Texas, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Pat Roberts of Kansas, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The senators and other congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle are seeking a new two-year budget deal to provide certainty through the presidential election. Without action, the government would shut down on Sept. 30 and the sequester would ultimately shave $71 billion from defense spending and $55 billion from domestic spending. Meanwhile, Congress also must raise the debt ceiling this fall or face a default that could destabilize the global economy.
How Does Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A) Fare As A Dividend Stock? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Today we'll take a closer look at Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A) from a dividend investor's perspective. Owning a strong business and reinvesting the dividends is widely seen as an attractive way of growing your wealth. If you are hoping to live on the income from dividends, it's important to be a lot more stringent with your investments than the average punter. While Empire's 1.5% dividend yield is not the highest, we think its lengthy payment history is quite interesting. Some simple research can reduce the risk of buying Empire for its dividend - read on to learn more. Click the interactive chart for our full dividend analysis Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. As a result, we should always investigate whether a company can afford its dividend, measured as a percentage of a company's net income after tax. Empire paid out 31% of its profit as dividends, over the trailing twelve month period. This is a middling range that strikes a nice balance between paying dividends to shareholders, and retaining enough earnings to invest in future growth. Besides, if reinvestment opportunities dry up, the company has room to increase the dividend. In addition to comparing dividends against profits, we should inspect whether the company generated enough cash to pay its dividend. Of the free cash flow it generated last year, Empire paid out 26% as dividends, suggesting the dividend is affordable. It's positive to see that Empire's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut. Consider gettingour latest analysis on Empire's financial position here. From the perspective of an income investor who wants to earn dividends for many years, there is not much point buying a stock if its dividend is regularly cut or is not reliable. For the purpose of this article, we only scrutinise the last decade of Empire's dividend payments. During the past ten-year period, the first annual payment was CA$0.23 in 2009, compared to CA$0.48 last year. Dividends per share have grown at approximately 7.5% per year over this time. Dividends have grown at a reasonable rate over this period, and without any major cuts in the payment over time, we think this is an attractive combination. Examining whether the dividend is affordable and stable is important. However, it's also important to assess if earnings per share (EPS) are growing. Over the long term, dividends need to grow at or above the rate of inflation, in order to maintain the recipient's purchasing power. Strong earnings per share (EPS) growth might encourage our interest in the company despite fluctuating dividends, which is why it's great to see Empire has grown its earnings per share at 18% per annum over the past five years. Earnings per share have been growing at a good rate, and the company is paying less than half its earnings as dividends. We generally think this is an attractive combination, as it permits further reinvestment in the business. When we look at a dividend stock, we need to form a judgement on whether the dividend will grow, if the company is able to maintain it in a wide range of economic circumstances, and if the dividend payout is sustainable. Firstly, we like that Empire has low and conservative payout ratios. We like that it has been delivering solid improvement in its earnings per share, and relatively consistent dividend payments. Overall, we think there are a lot of positives to Empire from a dividend perspective. Companies that are growing earnings tend to be the best dividend stocks over the long term. See what the 7 analysts we track are forecasting for Empirefor freewith publicanalyst estimates for the company. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at ourcurated list of dividend stocks yielding above 3%. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
States Step in to Boost 401(k) Savings Tobias Read is the state treasurer of Oregon. SEE ALSO: 10 Reasons Your Nest Egg Will Never Be Enough for Retirement Oregon is one of six states that require employers that don't have a 401(k) or other retirement savings plan to offer a state-sponsored plan to their workers. How successful has OregonSaves been in encouraging more people to save for retirement? Our goal was to remove as many barriers and sources of intimidation as possible. And from that standpoint we feel we're doing really well. As of mid June, we had close to 86,000 enrolled accounts. In a little less than two years, more than $20 million has been accumulated by these folks, and what's especially impressive is that most of them had never saved before. Several other states are con­sidering offering state-sponsored retirement plans. What advice do you have for them? We learned to work closely with business groups and advocates, and we've made it easier for employers by integrating our system with some of the biggest payroll providers, such as Paychex. We all want to make it as easy as possible for both employers and savers. In recent testimony before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, you suggested that another way to improve the retirement savings rate was to allow individuals as young as 16 to invest in an IRA. Why do you think this is a good idea? It's very simple: compound interest. We should not, in my view, put up any barriers to someone getting started as soon as they're working. I can recall working at a bike shop when I was in high school, and if I had been auto-enrolled at that time, it would have been a good thing. If young people are going to join the workforce, they shouldn't be denied the opportunity to save. I was fortunate to get into the savings habit early with my first job out of college, but it sure would've been even better to have started at 16. But how do you convince a 16-year-old to save for retirement instead of spending the money? Information and access are the keys. We have to develop financial tools that meet the needs and realities of those who are looking for advice. Financial technology tools and social media offer a number of opportunities that are just being grasped. I reject the notion that "the younger generation" isn't financially savvy. They face a number of headwinds, including rising student debt. Story continues EDITOR'S PICKS How Much Can You Contribute to a Solo 401(k) for 2019? How to Become a 401(k) Millionaire When You Can Tap a 401(k) Early With No Penalty Copyright 2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors
Why Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Had to Buy Amazon • (0:45) - 2019 Performance of Value Stocks • (4:15) - Understanding Berkshire Hathaway's Purchase of Amazon • (9:50) - Tracey Breaks Down The FANG stocks • (17:00) - Episode Roundup:VTV, VUG, AAPL, FB, GOOGL, NFLX, AMZN, MSFT, MCD • Podcast@Zacks.com Welcome to Episode #148 of the Value Investor Podcast Every week, Tracey Ryniec, the editor of Zacks Value Investor portfolio, shares some of her top value investing tips and stock picks. Stocks continue to hit new all-time highs this year. In the first six months of the year, the NASDAQ jumped 21%. But what about value stocks? How are they doing in 2019? Like we’ve seen over the past 2 years, they underperformed growth for the first six months. The Vanguard Value Index ETF was up 14% while the Vanguard Growth Index ETF gained 22.9%. What’s a value investor to do? Berkshire Bought Amazon in 2019 Despite Warren Buffett’s insistence that his lieutenants were still value investors, the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio took a turn this year when it bought nearly $1 billion worth ofAmazon AMZNshares. Unlike the purchase of Apple in 2016, there was no argument to be made that Amazon was a value stock by any classical definition such as P/E, P/S or PEG. But perhaps the managers were tired of buying airline stocks, as the portfolio already owns four of those, or financials. Nearly half the Berkshire portfolio is now in financials, which are underperforming again. Growth Stocks for Value Investors? There’s nothing wrong with value investors diversifying their portfolios to include some growth. There are no rules to investing in your own portfolio. For instance, what about buying some big cap growth? Is there any value in any of the big cap FAANG names? The Cheapest FAANG Stocks 1.       On a P/E level,Apple AAPLhas been the cheapest of the FAANG stocks. But it’s not as cheap as it used to be. It now has a forward P/E of 17.3 and earnings are expected to fall 3.5% this fiscal year. 2.Alphabet GOOGLis next cheapest with a forward P/E of just 23.7 and a Price-to-Book ratio of 4.1. Shares are up just 6.5% year-to-date. 3.Facebook FBalso sports a moderate P/E ratio of just 27.2. But it has a price-to-book of 6.4 and a price-to-sales ratio of 9.4. But that’s cheaper thanNetflix NFLXwhich sports a P/B ratio of 28. Facebook shares have soared in 2019, up 48% year-to-date. What other big cap growth stocks could value investors consider? Tune into this week’s podcast to find out. [In full disclosure, Tracey owns shares of FB, GOOGL, and AMZN in her personal portfolio.] Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside?Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana.Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look.See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportAmazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis ReportNetflix, Inc. (NFLX) : Free Stock Analysis ReportFacebook, Inc. (FB) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAlphabet Inc. (GOOGL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportApple Inc. (AAPL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Raid the College Fund to Pay for K-12 Tuition? Until recently, 529 college-savings plans offered tax-free withdrawals only when the money was used for qualified college education expenses. But under the federal tax overhaul enacted at the end of 2017, parents can withdraw up to $10,000 tax-free from a 529 plan each year to pay for private-school tuition for kindergarten through 12th grade. SEE ALSO: 529 Plans Aren't Just for Kids Before you start using your 529 plan to pay private-school tuition, check with your state's plan. Although most states conform with federal law, a few, including Illinois, New York and Oregon, have different rules that could result in unexpected taxes and penalties. They typically charge state income tax on the earnings portion of the distribution and require families to return state tax deductions or credits received for contributions. There are other reasons to think twice about using your 529 plan for precollege expenses. College savings plans work best when your investments have plenty of time to grow. Plus, tapping the account for precollege expenses could leave you with a shortfall for college. Families planning to use 529 funds for K-12 should consider opening a separate 529 account for that purpose. This allows you to track K-12 and college savings separately and pick investment portfolios that match your needs for each. EDITOR'S PICKS What the New Tax Law Means for Students Using 529 College-Savings Plan Money for Part-Time Students How to Transfer Money Between 529 College-Savings Accounts Copyright 2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors View comments
Maximize Your Travel Perks A spate of loyalty partnerships in the travel industry are making it easier to increase your stash of points at no additional cost. But these benefits are not automatic; you need to opt in through the partnership program's website. SEE ALSO: The Best Rewards Cards for You, 2019 For example, Hilton and Lyft recently joined forces to reward Hilton Honors members with two or three points for every dollar they spend on Lyft, depending on the type of ride. (Customers cannot yet redeem Hilton points for Lyft rides.) This deal can be stacked with JetBlue TrueBlue points and Delta SkyMiles you earn on Lyft rides. Meanwhile, American Airlines and Hyatt recently set up reciprocal benefits for their members. Another program exists for Marriott and United members. Grant Martin, who covers the business of loyalty at Skift, a travel industry website, says a couple of trends are coming into play. Uber and Lyft are competing for customers, which motivates them to seek out partners who will help them snare riders. At the same time, major airlines "are getting more judicious in how they target loyalty customers," he says. As their pools of members get smaller, partnerships help attract new, high-spending prospects. EDITOR'S PICKS 34 Best Travel Websites to Save You Money When Your Credit Card’s Travel Insurance Coverage Isn’t Enough 26 Secrets to Save Money on Travel Copyright 2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors
When to Fire Your Adviser Holly and Gary Wolf's investment accounts thrived under their financial adviser's management. Yet after 20 years together, the couple fired him. SEE ALSO: Warning: 3 Serious Red Flags about Financial Advisers When the Wolfs, of Fleetwood, Pa., got closer to retirement, Holly worried that their nest egg might not last through retirement, and she often discussed her concerns with the adviser. "He'd say, 'Trust me, you're fine,' " says Holly, 58. But she wanted the adviser to show her how their pot of money would hold up once they started drawing from it in retirement. That's when Holly decided to visit a coworker's adviser to see if he operated differently. She found that not only would he be able to run the retirement projections she wanted, he also addressed other questions and concerns she had. Holly hired him. Breaking up with a financial adviser can be difficult, particularly if you've spent years sharing not only your financial information but also your triumphs, failures, hopes and fears. But when you're no longer getting what you need, it's time to part ways. Here are reasons to end the relationship. No chemistry. If you just don't like the adviser, find one you do like. Otherwise, you might find yourself avoiding meetings and phone calls with the adviser or withholding information, which ultimately doesn't help you or allow the adviser to do her job. Advisers want to work with clients they like, too. Find one who will agree to an initial meeting without charge to see if the two of you would be a good fit. You can find advisers through cfp.net , napfa.org , garrettplanningnetwork.com and xyplanningnetwork.com . The adviser is cagey about compensation. Some advisers don't make it easy to know the cost of their services. "Would you work with a contractor who would not tell you how much he gets paid? No," says Rick Brooks, a certified financial planner in Solana Beach, Calif. And people shouldn't put up with that from an adviser, either. Story continues Some earn a commission on annuities, mutual funds and other products they sell to you; others charge a fee based on the amount of assets they manage for you. (An adviser providing advice and handling your investments typically charges about 1% of assets under management each year on a $1 million account, reducing the rate for larger accounts.) Or an adviser may be paid a combination of fees and commissions. You may pay for advice by the hour (typically $180 to $240), be charged a flat fee for a specific project--say, creating a retirement plan, which may cost $1,000 to $2,000 for a mid-career couple--or pay a monthly or quarterly subscription fee (often starting at $100 to $200 a month). Ask for the dollar amount you'll pay, says Ron Rhoades, director of the personal financial planning program at Western Kentucky University. "When people hear percentage amounts, they tend to disregard that," he warns. When they hear a flat dollar amount, he says, it makes a much greater impact. Communication is spotty. When you call or send an e-mail, you should expect to hear back within 24 hours. But if days or weeks go by without a word--or you only hear from the adviser when he's trying to sell you something--it's time to move on. "It could be simply that he's very busy, in which case he doesn't have time for your account," says Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission. "And you need someone who is going to pay attention." Lew Altfest, a CFP in New York City, has reviewed performance for other advisers' clients. In one case, an investor was upset that his account balance was lower and his adviser wasn't communicating with him. The review revealed that the man's account was down 2%, whereas the market was down 10%. Altfest told the man that the manager was doing a good job with his investments but that he should tell the adviser he needed to hear from him more often. Your portfolio is off track. Any money manager can have a bad year--even Warren Buffett. And before you dump an adviser because of poor returns, make sure you're comparing apples to apples. For instance, if your portfolio is 60% stocks and 40% bonds because you told the adviser you can handle only a moderate amount of risk, you can't reasonably compare your results with those of Standard & Poor's 500-stock index or your coworker who aggressively invests 100% in stocks. If your portfolio is way off one year and the adviser's explanation makes sense, give him or her another chance to deliver, says Rob Siegmann, chief operating officer with Total Wealth Planning, in Cincinnati. But if it's down the next year when all the markets are up, get a second professional opinion, he says. Your situation changes. That can happen when someone starts out needing only simple planning and then inherits a fortune and suddenly needs sophisticated financial and estate planning, Altfest says. Or you may want a new adviser if your child develops a disability and you need a professional with expertise in special-needs planning. The death of a spouse often leads to a switch. Research by Spectrem Group shows that 70% of widows fire the family adviser. One big reason: Their husbands were the ones who dealt with the adviser and now the widows want their own, Altfest says. You spot red flags. Among the warning signs of potentially illegal behavior by an adviser: You stop getting statements; you're guaranteed a market-beating return; or the adviser tells you to write checks to her instead of to her firm. You should check advisers' disciplinary records before hiring them. But Borg says even after you engage an adviser, review his disciplinary record every two years. The records can reveal complaints about the adviser and whether he has been sued. "A guy who goes 15 years without a problem and then has six complaints in a row--that tells me something has gone really wrong," says Borg. Find disciplinary records for investment advisers at adviserinfo.sec.gov and for brokers at brokercheck.finra.org . You can also request disciplinary records from your state's securities regulator. SEE ALSO: Some Financial Adviser Credentials Are Not Trustworthy Why your adviser might fire you Your spending is out of control. Clients will be fired if they spend wildly, constantly tapping their portfolio and ignoring the adviser's warnings that they're at risk of running out of money. "You start to lose sleep over it because you know one day they will wake up and they're not going to have any money, and you want to parachute out of that airplane before it hits the mountain," says John Bacci, a certified financial planner in Linthicum, Md. You don't follow the advice. If you're paying for advice but you never take it, eventually the adviser will suggest you move on. You're rude or abusive. Yell at support staff or make unrealistic demands and you'll be shown the door. EDITOR'S PICKS Why Adviser Rankings May Not Be All They Seem 7 Secrets Financial Advisers Won\'t Tell You The Elephant in the Room: Your Adviser Is Getting Paid Copyright 2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors
'Forrest Gump' at 25: Film's screenwriter on the deleted MLK scene, never-used special effects and a Billy Crystal speech that didn't make the cut Forrest Gump , the iconic comedic drama that took viewers on a sprawling tour of three decades worth of American touchstones through the eyes of its titular hero ( Tom Hanks ), turns 25 this weekend. Following its July 6, 1994 release, the film turned into a cultural touchstone of its own, reigning over the year’s box-office charts with a whopping $329 million gross, becoming one of the decade's most oft-quoted films and, ultimately, winning six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The Robert Zemeckis -directed film had a long and storied journey to the big screen, as its Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth told Yahoo Entertainment during a wide-ranging interview (watch above). "I was writing something else for Tom Hanks, which [eventually] became not a very good movie called The Postman ," Roth said about his entry into Gump , referring to the 1997 post-apocalyptic adventure that ultimately starred Kevin Costner and turned into one of the decade's most infamous box-office busts. Knowing Roth and Hanks were high on collaborating, producer Wendy Finerman sent them both Winston Groom's 1986 novel Forrest Gump to see if they'd be interested in adapting and partnering on it. The rest is history. Some other choice tidbits from the true story of Forrest Gump : Roth toned down some of the coarser and more outrageous aspects of Groom's book . "He swore more, he had a lot of sex. It was more farcical. He was supposed to weigh about 350 pounds." In one of the most infamous footnotes from the source material, the Alabaman went to space with a male orangutan named Sue, and crash lands on an island full of cannibals (he only survives this by beating them at chess). "It was really pretty exaggerated." Roth incorporated special effects into the screenplay that would have heightened defining aspects of his main characters. "I pushed the envelope with certain things. I had Jenny ( Robin Wright ) always with angels wings, which is a little much. I had Lt. Dan (Gary Sinese) always with a cloud over his head, like it's going to rain," Roth explained. "There were like 12 of those things. I think I just overwrote. I probably went too crazy, and Bob started taking back what he thought was too much." Story continues The screenwriter consulted with friends Billy Crystal and Robin Williams with Gump's Vietnam protest speech at the Washington Monument. "[Zemeckis] never liked the speech I had Forrest Gump give when he was given the microphone at that event. He said, 'We need something that's way funnier and way more important.' Funnier I tried, and I even enlisted some comedians. I asked Billy Crystal to help me, I asked Robin, [some] other people. And nothing ever resonated. And then I tried to write some big glorious speech about patriotism and Vietnam. It was a really wonderful American speech. And that didn't quite work. So Bob came up with the solution of he starts speaking, and they pull the plug." The filmed yet ultimately cut a scene involving Martin Luther King Jr. and the Selma protestors being attacked by dogs. "It was the very first day of shooting. Jenny and [Forrest] are walking along a bridge, they're about to go to college and bemoaning the fact that she got into college but he didn't. And they hear a bunch of noise. And they see that the Selma march is happening. It was sweet, but probably a little bit disrespect, maybe. Maybe, I don’t know. And I don't think Tom's accent was quite right, it was the first time he tried it," Roth explained. "I think we felt we went a bridge too far. We wanted to honor Martin Luther King and the march and the importance of that, obviously. So I'm glad we didn't use it." Roth has mixed feelings about the more recent criticisms of Gump , which have called out the film for mocking its hero's mental handicap at points and the "classic mother-Madonna-whore figure" Jenny, who succumbs to a disease the screenwriter confirmed was HIV/AIDS. "Look, this was the subject matter, so I tried to make him as human as possible. Yes, I think you could say it's probably not a particularly nice portrait. … It's a nice portrait of a man, but he happens to have mental challenges, and is certainly not sophisticated in that way," Roth said. "Any criticism I've heard about her was not really fair. … I know it's a very simplistic look at things, because her father was supposed to be sexually molesting her, abusing her. I don't think it's unusual for those people to be in a lot of pain, and addiction is a very common. And in that era using various needles, you could very well get HIV. So I don't think it's untoward at all that we had die of something like that. I don't think there's a politic behind the movie. In other words, I think it reflects what you want to see in one sense, and in the other sense all the variations of what people look like in this country." Watch: Eric Roth talks about the Forrest Gump sequel that never happened: Read more on Yahoo Entertainment: 'Spider-Man: Far From Home' star Jake Gyllenhaal on loving his Mysterio costume and his costar Tom Holland 2019 Midyear Report: The 15 best movies (so far) 'Midsommar' star Jack Reynor on filming the year's craziest sex scene Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyle's newsletter.
Growing Number of Tech Giants Looking to Move Production Out of China It's not justApple(NASDAQ: AAPL)that's looking tomove productionout of China, although the Mac maker is among the largest multinationals that rely on the Middle Kingdom for product assembly. The consumer electronics supply chain has spent the past several decades consolidating in China and other parts of Asia, but President Trump's ongoing trade war with the country has made other major tech companies anxious about their supply chains, too. Many are now actively evaluating the idea of shifting production elsewhere. Image source: Getty Images. TheNikkei Asian Reviewreports that a growing number of gadget makers are exploring plans to move production to other countries, includingHP(NYSE: HPQ),Dell(NYSE: DELL),Microsoft(NASDAQ: MSFT),Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN),Sony(NYSE: SNE), andNintendo(NASDAQOTH: NTDOY), among others. Even Chinese companies likeLenovoare interested in a similar move, as are Taiwan-based PC makers Acer andAsustek. In an unexpected move, Apple is reportedly moving production of itsnew Mac Profrom the U.S. to China. HP, Lenovo, Dell, Apple, and Acer are the top five PC vendors in the world (in that order), according to IDC, representing 77% of worldwide unit volumes in the first quarter. HP is considering moving 20% to 30% of production out of China, according to the report, potentially to Thailand or Taiwan. Dell has started producing a small number of laptops in Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Amazon's wildly popular line of Echo smart speakers and its Kindle e-readers are also assembled in China, but the e-commerce giant is considering Vietnam as an option. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo represent the game console market and jointly penned a letter last month to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) arguing that the tariffs on game consoles coming out of China would cost U.S. consumers an additional $840 million and result in a net loss of $350 million for the U.S. economy even after accounting for tariff revenue. "While we appreciate the Administration's efforts to protect U.S. intellectual property and preserve U.S. high-tech leadership, the disproportionate harm caused by these tariffs to U.S. consumers and businesses will undermine -- not advance -- these goals," the console makers wrote. Sources told theNikkeithat Nintendo is also looking at Vietnam and Microsoft is exploring Thailand and Indonesia for production. It's worth noting that the U.S. trade deficit -- Trump's preferred gauge on whether the U.S. is "winning" or "losing" in trade -- jumped to $55.5 billion in May, according to new figures released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. That included a $30.1 billion trade deficit with China. Economists do not consider a trade deficit to indicate a loss to the economy, and in fact it can be the result of a strong economy. More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Teresa Kersten, an employee of LinkedIn, a Microsoft subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors.Evan Niu, CFAowns shares of Amazon and Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool recommends Nintendo. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
Should You Move or Stay Put in Retirement? Now that I'm retired, people often ask me if I'm planning to move. The short answer: Not anytime soon. My husband and I live in a location that's easily accessible to activities, friends and family members, both near and far. Our house is large enough to accommodate out-of-town guests but not so big that we rattle around in it. Our mortgage is paid off, and I don't have a burning desire to live anywhere else--at least for now. SEE ALSO: Early Retirement Cities: 21 Great Places Near the Mountains to Retire That makes me pretty typical of retirees, according to a study by Age Wave and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Their research shows that 36% of retirees do not anticipate moving in retirement. But more than one-third (37%) of retirees have moved, and 27% expect to move at some point. Among those who have relocated, about half downsized. But a surprising 30% moved up to a larger home. "That stunned us," says Ken Dychtwald, CEO of Age Wave. Those who upsized, says Dychtwald, "wanted a house where they could add an office or where grandchildren could come and spend the summer." Respondents in the Age Wave study said their primary reason for moving was to "be closer to family." But no single reason--and no single destination--makes sense for everyone. "Decades ago, people thought of relocating to places where they vacationed, such as Phoenix and Miami," says Dychtwald. "Now, they look for somewhere that's stimulating, has access to excellent health care and a community of folks to interact with." Before you make a move, make sure that you and your spouse agree on the destination. It's not uncommon for one of you to dream of being closer to the grandkids while the other prefers to bask in a warmer clime. Ask yourself if you'd still be happy if the temperature soared or the grandkids didn't visit often. And consider your finances. If you're hoping to unlock your home equity, Fidelity estimates that transaction and moving costs can eat up as much as 13% of the sale price of your home. "Do your homework and learn from the successes and failures of others," says Dychtwald. Story continues Reality check. A good place to start is with the experience of Kiplinger's readers such as Mark and Sharon Koenig. The Koenigs agreed on several criteria for a retirement location when they moved from South Carolina: a climate with less heat and humidity, a place their scattered kids would visit, proximity to a major airport and a community that would allow them to meet new friends. They settled on an active living community near Denver, and "things couldn't have worked out better for us," says Mark. A number of readers turned into reverse snowbirds as they got older. After a "wonderful, 20-plus-year vacation in Florida," Joe and Ginger Cissell say, they moved back to Wisconsin to "reconnect with old friends, be closer to the family we love and start a new adventure." Sometimes a retirement move hits a speed bump. Together with another couple, Tom and Gayle King bought a home in Belize. The other couple decided almost immediately that an ex-pat community wasn't for them and returned home. The Kings traveled back and forth for several years before selling the house and returning to New Mexico because, says Tom, "I didn't have enough to keep me busy." Before retiring overseas, he advises, "rent for at least one year, or one season, to see if you like it." That's good advice wherever you decide to go. And be prepared to adapt. One New Jersey couple, Nancy and Garry, had always planned to spend time at their Florida condo when Garry retired. But when the time came, it was hard for Nancy to step away from her volunteer activities, including a youth group and a basketball program. SEE ALSO: 12 States That Won't Tax Your Retirement Income The solution: During the couple's initial 3½-month stay in Florida, Nancy returned home for a basketball fundraiser. And she is stepping up her volunteer time over the summer. "The best thing is to talk it through," she says. "I figured out a way to spend time with my husband in Florida and still get joy from my volunteer work." EDITOR'S PICKS 12 Cheapest Small Towns in America Great Places to Retire Early Near the Beach 50 Great Places for Early Retirement in the U.S. Copyright 2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors
How--and Why--to Invest in the Dow After 123 years, has the Dow Jones industrial average finally become obsolete? It pains me to think so. My fondness for the index can be traced to a book I coauthored 20 years ago called Dow 36,000 , but today's Dow is not the same as the Dow of 1999. [Editor's Note: Read Knight Kiplinger's 2011 take-- Dow 36,000 Revisited --on James Glassman's book, more than a decade after it was published.] More than half of the stocks have been replaced. Even so, the adjustments fail to reflect a U.S. economy dramatically changed by the internet. Where is Amazon.com (symbol AMZN , $1,870)? Where is Facebook ( FB , $181)? Where is Alphabet ( GOOGL , $1,086), alias Google? Not in the Dow. (Stocks I like are in bold; prices are as of June 14.) See Also: The 5 Highest-Rated Dow Jones Stocks Let's face it: The Dow has always been weird. Unlike the Nasdaq, Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and nearly all other indexes, the Dow weights its component stocks by price rather than by market capitalization, which is share price times shares outstanding. A stock's price is almost completely arbitrary. If I start a company and want to raise $100 million in equity, I can issue 1 million shares and price each at $100, or I can issue 10 million shares and price each at $10. Basing an index on share prices can produce serious distortions. Of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow, Boeing ( BA ) has by far the most influence on the value of the index because its stock costs by far the most: $347 per share. Verizon Communications ( VZ ) has a market cap that is 23% greater than Boeing's, but Verizon's share price is $58, so it has about one-sixth of Boeing's impact on the overall value of the Dow. If Boeing rises 10%, the Dow goes up more than 200 points; if Verizon rises 10%, the index goes up less than 40. Between March 1 and June 3 of this year, the Dow dropped 700 points. The decline in Boeing's stock over the period essentially accounted for the entire decline in the index. The other 29 stocks were, on average, flat. Story continues Which Stocks Are in the Dow? The Dow's membership criteria are, to say the least, vague. S&P Dow Jones Indices, which owns and manages the index, says: "A stock typically is added only if the company has an excellent reputation, demonstrates sustained growth and is of interest to a large number of investors.... Changes to the indices are made on an as-needed basis." Decisions are made by a committee of three representatives from S&P and two from the Wall Street Journal , which is owned by Dow Jones (Charles Dow, who invented the index, was the first editor of the Journal ). Terms such as "excellent reputation" and "as needed" sound quaint, and, indeed, the Dow has the air of a wood-paneled gentleman's club, admitting new members with proper social standing while showing the door to those who haven't measured up. The last company to be expelled was General Electric ( GE ), a year ago; it was replaced by Walgreens Boots Alliance ( WBA ), the drugstore chain. GE was the only firm left from the 12 in Charles Dow's original index. Changes to the DJIA come in spurts--four firms on one day in 1997, four in 1999, three in 2004 and three in 2013. We may be due for another upheaval. [PULLQUOTE] The current list of 30 stocks is distinguished as much by who isn't on it as by who is. Of the seven largest companies by market cap listed on U.S. exchanges, only two--Apple ( AAPL ) and Microsoft ( MSFT )--are in the Dow. The membership committee, like that for any tony club, does not explain its decisions. But it's clear that as long as it is price-weighted, the Dow will not admit Amazon, which goes for $1,870 a share. If Amazon were in the Dow, it would account for about half the movement of the index. Nor will Berkshire Hathaway ( BRK.B ) make the list, even with its less-pricey B shares trading at $205 each. Berkshire pays no dividends, and although the Dow has no official dividend rule, all 30 of its components make regular payouts. SEE ALSO: 9 Great Dividend-Growth Stocks in the Dow The Dow includes no utilities or transportation shares (they are in separate Dow indices), and no real estate stocks. The index is overweighted--compared with the market as a whole--in industrials and consumer cyclical companies, which provide nonessential goods or services. Despite all that, the Dow's performance has closely tracked that of the S&P 500, a market-cap-weighted index of roughly the 500 largest U.S. stocks (see the chart below). Over the past 10 years, the annual average return of the Dow has been 14.1%; the return of the S&P, 13.9%. Still, there are striking year-to-year differences. In 2012, the Dow returned 10% and the S&P, 15%. But in 2017, the Dow beat the S&P by more than six percentage points. Over time, the main difference between the Dow and the S&P is risk, expressed as volatility--that is, the extremes of the ups and downs of the two indexes. Over the past 10 years, the Dow has an average standard deviation, a common measure of price variation, of 11.9%, compared with 12.6% for the S&P. Consider that in 2008, the year the market collapsed, the Dow lost 31.9% (taking into account dividends, as all of these return calculations do), while the S&P 500 lost 37%. Then in 2009, the rebound year, the Dow gained 22.7%, and the S&P gained 26.5%. How to Invest in the Dow The Dow seems to prove that a reasonably diversified portfolio of 30 stocks will perform close to the same as the broad market. That doesn't mean the Dow membership committee should be less diligent, but it also doesn't mean that major changes are needed in the selection process. Perhaps the committee could be more up-to-date. It did not add Apple, for instance, until 2015. But overall, the brilliant idea of Charles Dow--to pull together a group of stocks that represent U.S. industrial shares as a whole--has withstood the test of time. The easiest way to invest in the Dow is to buy an exchange-traded fund called SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ( DIA , $262), nicknamed Diamonds. The ETF reflects the movements of the Dow, carries an expense ratio of 0.17% and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Or you could try variations on the theme. One is First Trust Dow 30 Equal Weight ( EDOW ), an ETF whose portfolio is adjusted from Charles Dow's original price-weighted formula to give each stock the same influence--that is, 3.3%, compared with Boeing's current 9.2% and Verizon's 1.5%. The fund is less than two years old, and although it beat Diamonds in 2018 and is leading in 2019, I can't recommend it until it has built a longer track record. Another popular play on the Dow is to buy the highest-yielding stocks in the index, a strategy called Dogs of the Dow . Lofty yields can indicate firms that are shunned and, therefore, bargains. Put equal amounts of cash into the 10 Dow stocks with the highest yields at the start of the year, then rebalance with the new Dogs the next year. Analyst James O'Shaughnessy tracked the system from 1951 to 1996 in his book How to Retire Rich , finding that the Dogs whipped the full Dow by a wide margin. In recent years, however, there has not been much difference between the two approaches, and I am not a fan. If you must go canine, I recommend just scanning the list for attractive stocks to buy. Among the current Dogs, I am especially fond of International Business Machines ( IBM , $135), yielding 4.8%; Cisco Systems ( CSCO , $55), 2.6%; Coca-Cola ( KO , $51), 3.1%; and Chevron ( CVX , $121), 3.9%. SEE ALSO: The Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio: All 48 Buffett Stocks The Dow, despite its quirks, is still far from obsolete. I like Diamonds better than the S&P 500 index funds because of its lower volatility. And don't forget that the index has to rise only another 40% or so to reach 36,000. James K. Glassman chairs Glassman Advisory, a public-affairs consulting firm. He does not write about his clients. His most recent book is Safety Net: The Strategy for De-Risking Your Investments in a Time of Turbulence. Of stocks mentioned here, he owns Amazon.com. EDITOR'S PICKS 13 Blue-Chip Stocks to Buy on the Next Dip 20 Great Stocks You Haven’t Heard of 14 Stocks With Special Dividends to Watch Copyright 2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors
People are freaking out because Taco Bell is starting to run out of tortillas Click here to read the full article. A Reddit user claiming to be a Taco Bell employee has an ominous warning for fans of the fast-food chain. A “tortillapocalypse” (their words, not ours) is confronting the chain, with some locations already seeing a shortage of tortillas and causing customers to freak out at what they’d imagined is the last thing they’d ever encounter at one of the chain’s locations. Related Stories: It took two minutes for Taco Bell to sell out its new hotel, because people are weird Taco Bell's free giveaway was so popular it briefly crashed the website and mobile app I can't believe this Taco Bell hotel and resort is a real thing “There’s a warehouse shortage (nationwide, I believe) of 10″ tortillas, which, if you dont [sic] know, is like half the menu,” the Reddit user notes. “So what this means is: no burritos, quesadillas, Quesaritos, grillers, etc.” Picking up on that last thought, a Food & Wine writer noted today that Taco Bell has gotten masterful over the years at expanding its menu by reusing existing menu elements in different ways. So, for example, a Double Decker Taco is merely a hard taco inside a soft taco. You get the idea. The downside to this is the effect of a shortage of an ingredient like tortillas. Thus, what’s been dubbed the “Tortillapocalypse.” Taco Bell says it’s working hard to fix the problem, putting out this official statement: “While some Taco Bell restaurants are experiencing supplier shortages, we are working diligently to replenish the supply of our tortillas (used for products like quesadillas and burritos) in those restaurants and encourage fans to try any of our other delicious menu items like the Power Menu Bowl or Cheesy Gordita Crunch in the meantime.” Of course, this is one more indication that there are some pretty intense fans of Taco Bell out there. The chain recently hosted a giveaway, for example, that was so popular it crashed the app and website briefly. And let’s not forget the upcoming pop-up Taco Bell hotel that’s launching in California in August. As we noted here , it took just two minutes for Taco Bell to completely sell out of reservations. Story continues BGR Top Deals: This $16 clip-on lens kit fits the iPhone or any Android phone, and it’s awesome Amazon deal offers a 7-inch Android tablet for under $43 See the original version of this article on BGR.com
How Much Are 5N Plus Inc. (TSE:VNP) Insiders Spending On Buying Shares? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! We often see insiders buying up shares in companies that perform well over the long term. The flip side of that is that there are more than a few examples of insiders dumping stock prior to a period of weak performance. So before you buy or sell5N Plus Inc.(TSE:VNP), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling. It's quite normal to see company insiders, such as board members, trading in company stock, from time to time. However, such insiders must disclose their trading activities, and not trade on inside information. Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. For example, a Harvard Universitystudyfound that 'insider purchases earn abnormal returns of more than 6% per year.' See our latest analysis for 5N Plus In the last twelve months, the biggest single purchase by an insider was when Chairman Luc Bertrand bought CA$144k worth of shares at a price of CA$2.89 per share. So it's clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price than the current share price (being CA$2.66). While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. We always take careful note of the price insiders pay when purchasing shares. It is generally more encouraging if they paid above the current price, as it suggests they saw value, even at higher levels. In the last twelve months insiders paid CA$170k for 60000 shares purchased. 5N Plus may have bought shares in the last year, but they didn't sell any. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date! There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at thisfreelist of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). Over the last three months, we've seen significant insider buying at 5N Plus. Overall, two insiders shelled out US$170k for shares in the company -- and none sold. This could be interpreted as suggesting a positive outlook. For a common shareholder, it is worth checking how many shares are held by company insiders. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. Insiders own 4.0% of 5N Plus shares, worth about CA$8.9m, according to our data. Whilst better than nothing, we're not overly impressed by these holdings. The recent insider purchases are heartening. We also take confidence from the longer term picture of insider transactions. On this analysis the only slight negative we see is the fairly low (overall) insider ownership; their transactions suggest that they are quite positive on 5N Plus stock. Of course,the future is what matters most. So if you are interested in 5N Plus, you should check out thisfreereport on analyst forecasts for the company. Of course,you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere.So take a peek at thisfreelist of interesting companies. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Wipe Out Debt, One Step at a Time An old proverb asks: How do you eat a whale? A poem in Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends tells the story of a girl named Melinda Mae who decides to try. She starts with the tail, takes little bites and is eventually left with a cascading pile of whale bones--89 years later. The answer to the proverb, of course: "One bite at a time." SEE ALSO: 15 Reasons You'll Go Broke in Retirement So it goes with personal debt--a whale that an increasing number of millennials find sitting on their plate. Our generation now has total non-mortgage debt of almost $1.6 trillion, according to the New York Federal Reserve. We're even warming up to credit card debt for the first time, with more than $200 billion held on plastic at the end of 2018. Melinda's story underscores another fear--that the slow, grinding approach to paying off debt will take over our lives, leaving us weighed down well into our golden years. It doesn't have to. You may be able to pay down a significant chunk of debt by starting as early as possible and taking it one step at a time. Other times, you may need to ask for help. Choosing priorities. Last year, just days after I completed my drive from Denver to Washington for this job, I received a friendly e-mail from my student loan provider reminding me that it was time to start paying up. I took one look at my checking account--shriveled from cross-country moving costs, a fresh security deposit and my first experience with Washington rent--and determined that wouldn't be possible. But I was lucky: Because my debt was in federal loans, I was eligible for forbearance, meaning I could hold off paying for a year and re-evaluate later. As a result, I was able to get settled in my new home and build up an emergency fund. Now that I have about six months' worth of expenses saved, I'll be able to manage an unexpected event without having to take on credit card debt. I accrued a few hundred dollars in student loan interest while I didn't pay, but that amount pales next to a $1,000 credit card charge--plus interest. Story continues However much you owe, the basic strategies of debt management are the same: Pay off debt with the highest interest first, stick to a schedule, and automate payments. In a pinch, you can even ask your lender for some leeway; most will work with you if you have a temporary setback. Careful planning isn't always enough to avoid hardship, however. At least 71 million U.S. adults, or about 22% of the population, have had an unpaid debt turned over to a collection agency, according to the Urban Institute. It's about as common as high blood pressure. If you find yourself being pulled underwater by debt, consider credit counseling, a service that offers financial advice and debt-management plans. If you work with a nonprofit organization such as the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), lenders are more likely to accept new terms for your debt, which can lead to a more manageable payment schedule and lower interest rates. To find an NFCC office near you, go to nfcc.org/locator . SEE ALSO: Smart Ways to Manage Your Student Loans Be wary of companies that offer debt settlement or relief. Debt settlement is a legal solution usually pushed by for-profit companies in which a creditor agrees to accept a lump sum payment that's less than what you owe overall. These deals often fall through because creditors reject them or debtors fall behind while trying to save the lump sum, according to the Federal Trade Commission. If you've stopped paying the loan directly while you save up a lump sum in hopes that your debt will be forgiven, you'll be left with steep penalties and interest when the agreement fails. Paying off debt will take time and, in all likelihood, it will be hard. But remember, you have options and, if you stick to a plan, it will get done. Just start with the tail and you'll be on your way. EDITOR'S PICKS The Right Way to Borrow for College Smart Ways to Give (or Lend) Money to Family Who Qualifies for Student Loan Forgiveness? Copyright 2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors