U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attends at an Economic Club of New York event in New York City, U.S., March 6, 2025. Jeenah Moon | ReutersTreasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday acknowledged some signs of weakness in the U.S. economy.”Could we be seeing that this economy that we inherited starting to roll a bit? Sure. And look, there’s going to be a natural adjustment as we move away from public spending to private spending,” Bessent said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.””The market and the economy have just become hooked. We’ve become addicted to this government spending, and there’s going to be a…
Author: usaeverydaylife
Check out the companies making headlines before the bell. Broadcom — Shares of the chipmaker jumped 10% after the company’s fiscal first-quarter results beat Wall Street’s estimates on both the top and bottom lines. Broadcom also issued rosy guidance for the current quarter. The company forecasts second-quarter revenue of $14.9 billion, above the $14.76 billion expected from analysts polled by LSEG. Gap — Shares surged 17% after the apparel giant, which owns brands such as Old Navy and Banana Republic, posted a fiscal fourth-quarter beat . Gap reported earnings of 54 cents on revenue of $4.15 billion, exceeding the 37…
Here are Friday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: JPMorgan downgrades Macy’s to neutral from overweight JPMorgan lowered its price target to $14 per share from $19 on Macy’s following earnings on Thursday. “Downgrade to Neutral lowering our Dec ’25 price target to $14.” TD Cowen upgrades Tesla to buy from hold The firm upgraded the stock following a change in analyst coverage and said investors should buy the dip. “We’re also Buy-rated on Tesla post the recent pullback and ahead of potentially consequential catalysts this year.” TD Cowen names General Motors a top pick The firm named GM a new…
Job growth was weaker than expected in February as the Trump administration began to slash the federal workforce.Nonfarm payrolls increased by a seasonally adjusted 151,000 on the month, better than the downwardly revised 125,000 in January but less than the 170,000 consensus forecast from Dow Jones, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The unemployment rate edged higher to 4.1%.The report comes amid efforts from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to pare down the federal government, starting with buyout incentives and including mass firings that have impacted multiple departments.Though the reductions likely won’t be felt fully until…
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gives a keynote address at CES 2025, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. Jan. 6, 2025. Steve Marcus | ReutersMore than two years into the generative artificial intelligence boom, Wall Street is setting an increasingly high bar for chipmakers.When it comes to earnings reports — most recently from Marvell Technology — good isn’t good enough. That’s because investors previously poured into the companies making the infrastructure and devices at the heart of the AI economy, bidding the stocks up to historically high levels.They’re demanding results.Marvell shares plummeted 20% on Thursday, their steepest slump…
Russia unleashed a furious bombardment aimed at critical Ukrainian infrastructure overnight on Thursday and on Friday amid increasing worries that the American decision to withhold intelligence assistance could leave Ukraine more vulnerable to attacks.Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, said Russian forces launched a “massive missile and drone” assault on power and gas facilities across the country.The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia sent 261 attack vehicles — 67 missiles of various types and 194 drones, some which were outfitted with dummy warheads to confuse and overwhelm air defense crews.Ukraine shot down or disabled most of the attack drones, the air…
S & P Dow Jones Indices is out with its annual survey of the performance of active fund managers, and once again the performance is dismal. Sixty-five percent of large-cap fund managers underperformed their benchmark (the S & P 500) in 2024. The long-term performance is even worse: 84% underperformed after 10 years. The SPIVA U.S. Scorecard , run by S & P Dow Jones Indices, is the gold standard for evaluating the performance of active fund managers against their benchmarks. The 2024 report includes more than 2,000 mutual funds and ETFs in the U.S., substantially all the domestic funds…
Furniture and home goods retailer Wayfair has several “green shoots” to power the stock higher, according to Jefferies. The firm upgraded shares to buy from hold in a Friday note, in addition to notching up its target price by $2 to $47. The new price target suggests shares rallying 42% from where they closed on Thursday. Shares are trading at the levels seen right after Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic in 2020 — even though Wayfair is 30% larger, with EBITDA nearly 10% higher, per analyst Jonathan Matuszewski. “With top-tier market share gains, a new paid loyalty program, compelling…
Europe’s struggling economy has economists worried — and senior European Central Bank policymaker Mário Centeno, echoes that view.”I am very concerned about the European economy,” Centeno, who is also governor of the Bank of Portugal, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday.On Thursday, the ECB revised its gross domestic product expectations for the euro area to 0.9% growth in 2025, down from a previously projected 1.1% expansion. The euro area’s seasonally adjusted GDP most recently eked out a 0.1% increase in the fourth quarter.Centeno linked the downward growth outlook revision to reduced exports and investments, echoing the ECB statement.”Special investment…
Elon Musk listens to U.S. President Donald Trump speak in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Feb. 11, 2025. Kevin Lamarque | ReutersPresident Donald Trump said he told his Cabinet secretaries during a meeting Thursday that staffing decisions will be left up to them, not Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.Trump said he instructed Cabinet members to work alongside DOGE on spending and workforce reductions while clarifying that final job cuts will be at the discretion of the department leaders.”We just had a meeting with most of the Secretaries, Elon, and others, and it was a very…
