Kingfisher’s share price slumped on Monday, as ongoing sales weakness forced the FTSE 100 retailer cut its full-year profit guidance. At 257.1p per share, Kingfisher was last dealing 12.8% lower in start-of-week business. For the financial year ending January 2025, the business now expects pre-tax profit to be between £510 million and £540 million. This is down from previous guidance of £510 million to £550 million. At group level, like-for-like sales dropped 1.1% in the three months to October, to £3.2 billion. On a reported basis, turnover was down 0.6% year on year. UK and Irish Sales Climb In its…

The economy is starting to sputter as the last of the pandemic stimulus funds have been doled out and consumers face a major debt reckoning The presidential election kept economists and corporate finance executives busy this year trying to assess what the future would hold. How can we plan when competing policies are so different? Who would be better? My advice to industry execs long before the first vote was cast: Understand the possible effects of BOTH and test your ASSUMPTIONS! Either way, the forces that will shape the next year have already been in motion. The big squeeze is…

It’s hard to find a hater right now. Wall Street analysts have Buy ratings on more than 75% of the S&P 500 at the moment. Give us the Sells. That’s right. We contrarians are not afraid to dumpster dive for dividend value! Today we’ll slam a six-pack of analyst pans yielding between 6.1% and 11.8%. We searched far and wide for these loathed names because, as I write, there are but two blue chips in the Sell bin! Sells are where the party is at. Think about it—every subsequent rating change is an upgrade from here. The “Pros” Say to…

Stock market indexes are at near record highs following the federal election. With a 26.7% total return for the S&P 500 in 2024, investor enthusiasm for additional gains is running high with the possibility of lower corporate taxes, less regulation, and a domestic-focused agenda. Many balanced portfolio investors will look to rebalance their holdings at the end of the year, given the strong outperformance of stocks compared to bonds. Rebalancing would mean locking in some of the gains in the equity market and reallocating to the bond market, where returns were much lower—the year-to-date total return for the $119 billion…

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Scott Bessent, a prominent pro-crypto hedge fund manager, as his pick for Treasury Secretary. Known for his tenure as chief investment officer for billionaire George Soros and as the founder of Key Square Capital Management, Bessent is an outspoken advocate for blockchain and digital assets. Bessent’s nomination marks a sharp departure from the Biden administration’s cautious regulatory stance on crypto, led by current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. If confirmed, Bessent could add more regularity clarity and implement policies more favorable to the crypto industry—potentially aimed at integrating digital assets into the financial mainstream. Bessent’s pro-crypto…

Well, that was fast. As you no doubt know by now, stocks gave back their post-election bump nearly as fast as they took it. Now they’re more or less where they started pre-election. There’s a story behind this “pop and drop” that showed me something we need to bear in mind more and more as we head into 2025 (and a new presidential term): The need to diversify our portfolios, not only within stocks but (especially, with more volatility likely) beyond them. And that need for diversification goes for our holdings of high-yielding closed-end funds (CEFs), too. Now, market veterans…

Not all Nasdaq tech stocks are trading with sky-high multiples. These five are actually available below their book value: that is, the stock price is less than the figure derived from subtracting total liabilities from total assets. Four of the five pay dividends. Each one has a 5-year earnings record. 5 Nasdaq Stocks Below Book Value. Chipo’s Technologies ADR. The semiconductor services company is based in Taiwan. According to the website, the company provides “a full range of back-end testing services for liquid crystal display (LCD) drivers, high density memory, and mixed-signal semiconductors.” The market capitalization is $712 million and…

Week in Review Asian equities were mixed for the week as Korea and Pakistan outperformed while Hong Kong and Mainland China underperformed. It was a busy week for internet earnings, as we had Q3 earnings releases from Trip.com, which beat expectations, Kuaishou, which beat expectations, fintech Qifu Technology, which beat, and PDD, which missed, among others. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) encouraged solar panel manufacturers to cut excess after the Ministry of Finance (MOF) reduced the tax rebate for exports of solar panels, moves to lower other countries’ trade deficits with China in preparation for potential trade…

Amid ongoing lawsuits between health technology company Masimo and its recently ousted billionaire ex-CEO Joe Kiani, shareholder RTW Investments was dragged into the fight but for the first time is breaking its silence. In a new filing overnight, the $5.9 billion (assets) New York-based biotech and medtech investment firm filed to dismiss an ongoing lawsuit from Masimo alleging that the firm and Masimo founder Kiani colluded in an “empty voting” scheme to manipulate a board election. RTW asserts in new court filings that the litigation strategy pursued by Masimo’s new leadership is merely a ploy to avoid paying Kiani’s hefty…

Earlier this year, a fleet of new exchange traded funds tracking the price of bitcoin cropped up, and just this week, exchange-traded options on these ETFs began to trade. Bitcoin, meanwhile, has continued to hit new all-time highs, today hitting $98,351.75 for a 36% gain in the month of November. A crypto-friendly incoming Trump administration is behind the recent momentum. Because we usually do our trades only on dividend-paying stocks and appreciate risk redution, we will do a buy write with protective puts on the most liquid of the bitcoin ETFs, iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT). Please email me (dobosz@gmail.com)…