Month: August 2020

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The retirement crisis in America is real…
According to a recent Bankrate study…

20% of Americans have NOTHING saved for retirement
Another 20% have saved less than 5% of their annual income
Less than 33% of Americans have saved 11% or more of their annual income.

And the COVID-19 pandemic is about to make it all a lot worse…

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A whole lot worse.
According to Richard Johnson – the director of the Program on Retirement Policy at the Urban Institute – the value of Americans’ retirement accounts has shrunk from $18 trillion in 2019 to $14 trillion this year (through April 3).
That’s a staggering 22% decrease!
It’s …read more […]

* This weekend’s Barron’s cover story discusses how to prepare a portfolio for the upcoming elections. * Other featured articles look at stand-out dividend growth stocks, how to play dual-share stocks and who wins and loses from the shift in moviegoing. * Also, the prospects for Warren Buffet’s empire, a cosmetics giant, a pawn shop operator and more.Cover story “2020 Election: How to Prepare Your Portfolio” by Lisa Beilfuss explains what three potential election outcomes could mean for stocks from Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) to Tesla Inc(NASDAQ: TSLA) and for industry sectors and the U.S. …read more […]

The standard method of determining what industry a company is in is by looking at its underlying business. By that standard, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is clearly in the auto business. Virtually all of the company’s revenues and costs are related to building, selling, and servicing automobiles. But there is another way of checking whether a company is an […] …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — When Bank of America Corp. recently elevated its next class of senior executives, one name was conspicuously absent: Fab Gallo.Few would have bet against the marathon-running head of the firm’s global equities division, especially after he set a revenue record early this year amid the messiest markets in a generation. Yet after a leaked recording of a conference call thrust Gallo’s blunt communications style into the public, and turbulence emerged in parts of his business, the bank’s bosses left him behind.While eight colleagues got invited to join the firm’s elite management team in late July, Gallo was told …read more […]

On CNBC’s “Options Action,” Mike Khouw suggested that investors with a long position in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd – ADR (NYSE: BABA) should consider a less risky alternative going into earnings.Khouw wants to sell the September $235 put for a credit of $8 and buy the September $260/$285 call spread for total cost of $7. With the options structure, he collects a premium of $1. If the stock rallies through $285, Khouw is going to make a profit of $26 or a little over 10% of the current price. If the stock drops below $235, he would have to buy …read more […]

Horizon Therapeutics Public Limited Company’s (NASDAQ:HZNP) price-to-earnings (or “P/E”) ratio of 27.8x might make it… …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Warren Buffett’s dire airline predictions have hit close to home.After dumping his stakes in airlines earlier this year with a warning that the pandemic had unleashed fundamental change on that business, Buffett’s own Berkshire Hathaway Inc. took a roughly $10 billion impairment charge tied to Precision Castparts, its massive maker of plane parts. A vaccine may be the only remedy for the pandemic’s “particularly severe” impact on the aerospace market, Berkshire said.“The Covid-19 pandemic produced material declines in commercial air travel during the second quarter,” Berkshire said Saturday in a regulatory filing discussing second-quarter results. “Airlines responded by …read more […]

Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it’s exciting to see Eli Lilly… …read more […]

Berkshire, which acquired Precision for $32.1 billion in 2016 in its largest acquisition, said COVID-19 caused airlines to slash aircraft orders, resulting in significantly less demand for Precision’s products and revenue to fall by about one-third. It also said results may continue suffering as the unit undertakes an “aggressive restructuring” to shrink operations to meet lowered demand. Precision was not the only drag on Berkshire, which said the pandemic has caused “relatively minor to severe” damage to most of its more than 90 operating businesses, which include the BNSF railroad, Geico auto insurer and See’s candies. …read more […]

A Lordstown Motors IPO is coming to the market. Announced on Monday, the company plans to go public via SPAC IPO. It will be another electric vehicle (EV) company to hit the stock market in 2020.
But is Lordstown Motors stock a good investment? Here’s what we know…
Lordstown Motors IPO: The Business

Steve Burns founded Lordstown Motors in 2019. Burns is the also the founder and former CEO of Workhorse Group, an electric delivery and utility vehicle manufacturer. In November 2019, Lordstown Motors bought GM’s Lordstown plant, giving the company its name. The company is less than a year old. And it …read more […]

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(Bloomberg) — Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. spent a record $5 billion buying back Berkshire’s own stock in the second quarter.Berkshire’s Class A shares, which fell in line with the S&P 500 in the first three months of the year as the pandemic spread in the U.S., fell another 1.7% last quarter while the broader index rallied 20%. Buffett said in May that repurchases weren’t more compelling, but the buybacks in the quarter suggest his thinking shifted.Key InsightsEven with buybacks that more than doubled the previous quarterly record, Berkshire’s cash pile kept growing and hit $146.6 billion. Buffett has struggled …read more […]

Here’s how to avoid high closing costs that can eat up your savings. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Drillers cut exploration in U.S. oil fields to a 15-year low as billions of barrels from old discoveries became worthless and explorers abandoned growth plans.The number of active oil rigs in the U.S. fell by four to 176, the lowest since 2005, according to Baker Hughes Co. data released Friday. Energy companies have been parking rigs on an almost uninterrupted streak for more than four and half months.Stung by the pandemic-driven slump in demand and prices, oil explorers are fleeing from the very lifeblood of their business: Drilling for new discoveries. Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. have …read more […]