The education technology sector is facing unprecedented transformation driven by two powerful forces: the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and the return of Trump-era education policies. These dual disruptions are forcing companies to radically rethink their business models and market approaches. AI’s Revolutionary Impact on Education Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping how education is delivered and consumed. Traditional educational models are being upended by AI-powered tools that can provide instant tutoring, grade assignments, and create personalized learning paths. The technology is capable of analyzing student performance in real-time, adapting content difficulty, and providing immediate feedback – functions that traditionally required…

It’s a tradition unlike any other! Move over, Masters. In these contrarian pages we select one dividend stock (or fund) for the year ahead. Last year we bet on a “safe, somewhat-secret” 7.4% dividend from Jamie Dimon & Co with iShares JP Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF (EMB). EMB’s payout plus price gains combined for a 12% total return. Nice. This is exactly what we look for as income investors. A high-yield investment that will pay us our divvies—and gain a bit in price. But this year we are flipping the script. My favorite divvie stock for next year…

Gold-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) experienced rare outflows in November as Europeans liquidated their holdings, according to the World Gold Council (WGC). Global funds lost 29 tonnes of the yellow metal last month, which pushed total holdings to 3,215 tonnes. Collective outflows were worth $2.1 billion. This was the first month of outflows since April, the WGC said. November’s drop, combined with a fall in the gold price, meant total assets under management (AUMs) declined 4% month on month, to $274.3 billion. Bullion values slipped around 4% over the course of November. This was thanks in large part to a resurgent…

Key News Asian equities were mixed but mostly higher overnight as Pakistan and Malaysia outperformed and Hong Kong underperformed. Xinhua had an editorial on China’s expanding domestic demand, stating that it is an important factor in overall economic growth. The editorial also noted that sales of household appliances surged by +30.2% year-over-year in October, driven by the trade-in subsidies. The editorial did not say that this would lead to an uptick in GDP growth, which the bears highlighted along with a Bloomberg article citing the piece. Investors are awaiting the Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC) next week for more clarity…

With bitcoin bumping up against $100,000, crypto enthusiasts are once again frothing at the mouth. The election has given a boost to crypto sponsors, miners, and owners—and anyone else who has a vested interest in that corner of DeFi. Although bitcoin has never really proven itself to be a reliable medium of exchange given its extraordinary volatility, it has shown itself to be an alternate store of value similar to gold. Every time it gets clobbered (and boy does it get clobbered: it lost nearly 80% of its value in 2022), every big step down has been followed by several…

Sitting beneath the $15 trillion that global investors have sunk into private capital, a burgeoning pool of investments that covers everything from private equity and private credit to venture capital and real estate funds, is a mind-numbing accounting problem. Investment firms make countless bespoke deals with their deep-pocketed clients, creating the need for highly complex, custom calculations to figure out the investment firms’ management fees and who will reap what share of the profits. “It doesn’t matter if you manage $50 million or $250 billion across venture capital, real estate or private equity. All of this is managed in Excel,”…

Both positive and negative earnings surprises—that is, reported earnings above or below analyst expectations—can have lingering long-term effects. Therefore, tracking analysts’ revisions to their earnings estimates can be a rewarding investing strategy. AAII tracks four screens that look for earnings estimate revisions: one that looks for upward revisions in annual earnings estimates; one that screens for companies with downward revisions; one that screens for companies that have had at least a 5% increase in annual earnings estimates over the last month; and, finally, one that screens for companies that have had at least a 5% decrease in annual earnings estimates…

In this article I use AAII’s A+ Investor Stock Grades to provide insight into three retail stocks. With retail sales data beating market expectations, should you consider the three stocks of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA), Dillard’s (DDS) and JD.com (JD)? Retail Stocks Recent News Retail sales in the U.S. increased 0.4% month over month in October 2024, surpassing market expectations of 0.3%, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. This builds on the 0.8% increase in September, highlighting persistent strength in consumer spending. Deloitte’s annual holiday retail forecast predicts a 2.3% to 3.3% increase in holiday retail sales for…

With Bitcoin bumping up against $100k, crypto enthusiasts are once again frothing at the mouth. The election has given a boost to crypto sponsors, miners, and owners—and anyone else who has a vested interest in that corner of DeFi. Although Bitcoin has never really proven itself to be a reliable medium of exchange given its extraordinary volatility, it has shown itself to be an alternate store of value similar to gold. Every time it gets clobbered (and boy does it get clobbered: it lost nearly 80% of its value in 2022), every big step down has been followed by several…

Most people think inflation will rise in a second Trump term—we can see it in the jump in 10-year Treasury rates over the last few weeks. But that trade is getting just a little bit crowded—and we contrarians are going to take advantage of that with a 10.4%-yielding closed-end fund (CEF) that’s come back to earth as a result. This situation reminds me a little of October 2023, when investors were also betting on “inflation forever.” We didn’t buy it then, either. Instead I named the DoubleLine Yield Opportunities Fund (DLY), payer of a 9.5% yield at the time, as…