- S&P Futures2,799.75+0.13%
- Dow Futures25,978.00+0.14%
- Nasdaq Futures6,831.75+0.28%
- Russell 20001,576.73-0.63%
- Crude Oil63.08-1.36%
- Gold1,334.20+0.53%
- Silver17.02+0.42%
- EUR/USD1.23+0.07%
- 10-Yr Bond2.61+1.28%
- Vix12.19+2.35%
- GBP/USD1.39-0.14%
- USD/JPY110.57-0.41%
- BTC-USD11,749.94+5.14%
- FTSE 1007,711.05+0.13%
- Nikkei 22523,808.06+0.19%
- U.S.News & World Report•yesterday
8 Reasons to Pursue Early Retirement
Early retirement planning makes you rethink what brings you happiness and life satisfaction outside of your career and improves your financial footing. Many Americans are unprepared for retirement and may need to continue working during their 60s and beyond. The sooner you begin planning and making serious efforts to secure your retirement future, the greater your chances of achieving it.
Yahoo Finance•2 days ago4 things to know about the new U.S. tax law
Under the old tax code, the average family of four (that submitted taxes married-filing-jointly) received a tax break of $16,200 through the personal exemption, one $4,050 exemption for every member of the family. “The idea is that that loss of $4,900 of shieldable income will be offset by the lower brackets,” said Rebecca Walser, a tax attorney at Walser Wealth. Your marginal tax rate is changing, but so are the income levels.
- MarketWatch•22 hours ago
Apple didn’t say it was hiring 20,000 new workers, nor bringing back its overseas cash
Apple Inc. announced a series of plans Wednesday that were celebrated as promises to hire thousands of workers and bring home billions of dollars in cash. Well, not necessarily. Apple AAPL, +0.22% said in its release that the company planned to “create over 20,000 new jobs through hiring at existing campuses and opening a new one.” The key word there is “create,” which Apple really likes to use when discussing jobs: The company even has a portion of its website dedicated to “job creation” that claims it is “responsible for 2 million jobs” in the United States, most of which are jobs “attributable to the App Store ecosystem.” Apple currently employs 84,000 people in the U.S., it said Wednesday,
The Street•yesterdayHow Does Social Security Calculate My Benefit Check?
Question: My wife died two years ago at age 53. I am currently 53. At the time, I was told that I would receive 80% of her Social Security when I reached retirement age in addition to my Social Security if I did not remarry. Is this true? We both worked long enough to qualify for Social Security at retirement age. Answer: Looks like you got some bad information, according to Joe Elsasser, president of Covisum and the developer of Social Security Timing. "The general rule of thumb for coordinating all benefits is that a beneficiary receives the higher of his or her own benefit or the benefit of the deceased," he said. That said, even after the law changes a few years ago, Elsasser said there are
- Reuters•12 hours ago
Possible Buffett successor Jain reports $109 million Berkshire stake
Jain directly owns $21.7 million of Berkshire stock, and indirectly owns $87.5 million of Berkshire stock held by his wife, a family non-profit foundation and two family trusts, according to a regulatory filing. Berkshire last week appointed Jain, 66, its top reinsurance executive, as vice chairman for insurance operations such as the Geico auto insurer and General Re reinsurer. It also appointed Gregory Abel, 55, the longtime chief of its Berkshire Hathaway Energy unit, as vice chairman for non-insurance operations such as the BNSF railroad and Dairy Queen ice cream.
- barrons.com•16 hours ago
IBM Q4 Revenue, EPS Beat, Stock Sags
Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) are down $5.50, or 3%, at $163.67, in late trading, despite the company this afternoon reporting Q4 revenue and profit per share that topped analysts’ expectations. It was the last quarter IBM would report under outgoing CFO Martin J. Schroeter, who is passing the reins to James Kavanaugh in order to take over direction of IBM's "global markets" effort. Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 4%, year over year, to $22.5 billion, yielding EPS of $5.18. Analysts had been modeling $22.03 billion and $5.17 per share. The results include a 17% jump in IBM’s “strategic imperatives” revenue, to $11.1 billion, and a 30% rise in its cloud computing
Yahoo Finance•yesterdayMeet the man behind those ‘bitcoin genius’ ads all over the internet
There is an advertisement online that’s been stalking people as they surf around the internet. You’ve probably seen them, too: A man with wild hair and wire-rimmed glasses, staring out into the beyond, with bitcoin logos next to his face. The ad might say something like “Crypto-Genius Reveals the ‘Next Bitcoin’” or “California genius says, this is the next bitcoin.” Some even use a variation on the classic clickbait syntax: “bitcoin won’t want you knowing this cryptocurrency,” as if bitcoin were a corporation, trainer, or language professor.
- Yahoo Finance•2 days ago
Apple says it will invest $350 billion in the U.S. over the next five years
Apple (AAPL) is making a major investment in the U.S. economy. In a release on Wednesday afternoon, the world’s largest publicly-traded company said it would make a “direct contribution” of $350 billion into the U.S. economy over the next five years. The company said this number does not include ongoing tax payments, or tax revenue generated by wages paid to employees or sales tax on Apple products.
- Zacks•2 days ago
Realty Income (O) Announces Hike in Monthly Dividend Payment
Retail REIT Realty Income Corporation O has announced a hike in its common stock monthly cash dividend, rejoicing shareholders. This marks the company’s 95th dividend increase since its NYSE listing in 1994. The company will now pay 21.90 cents per share against 21.25 cents paid earlier.
- CNBC Videos•17 hours ago
Steve Wozniak is still on Apple's payroll four decades af...
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak told an audience of Silicon Valley veterans that he's still a company employee after four decades.
- Investopedia•yesterday
How to Retire a Millionaire Without a 401(k)
Is it possible to retire a millionaire without having a 401(k) plan? It’s true that a 401(k) can be an extremely powerful tool for fueling your retirement savings efforts. However, research from Pew Charitable Trusts shows that 42% of workers don’t have access to one through their employer. And, of the 58% that do, less than half are participating. If your goal is retiring a millionaire but saving in a 401(k) isn’t an option, you’ll need to work a little harder to hit your target. Fortunately, there are some savings alternatives you can use to grow a seven-figure retirement nest egg. Start with an IRA An individual retirement account (IRA) is one of the most obvious ways to sock away $1
- Bloomberg•yesterday
OPEC Frets About Flood of U.S. Shale
OPEC increased its forecast for rival oil-supply growth for a second month running after a recovery in prices sent Brent crude to $70 a barrel. OPEC’s output cuts -- now entering a second year -- have been successful in eroding bloated stockpiles and lifting prices to a three-year high. Yet the rally has prompted concern that competitors in the U.S. will be emboldened to expand production. “Higher oil prices are bringing more supply to the market, particularly in North America,” the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said Thursday in its monthly report. The group raised its forecast for 2018 non-OPEC supply growth by 160,000 barrels a day, or 16 percent, to 1.15 million barrels a day.
- CNBC Videos•13 hours ago
IBM: Blockchain 'creates a lot of value'
Jim Cramer spoke with IBM's Martin Schroeter after earnings to hear his take on blockchain, bitcoin and the new tax law.
- Zacks•yesterday
NextEra Unit to Use $1.3B Tax Savings to Recoup Storm Costs
NextEra Energy, Inc.’s NEE subsidiary Florida Power & Light Company (“FPL”) announced its plans to apply federal tax savings toward the Hurricane Irma restoration cost of $1.3 billion. After recovering the costs, the unit anticipates saving each of its 4.9 million customers an average of approximately $250. With the execution of the aforementioned plan, the unit intends to exclude customers from paying a surcharge for Hurricane Irma restoration as previously anticipated.
- Zacks•23 hours ago
Will New Products Lift Procter & Gamble's (PG) Q2 Sales?
The Procter & Gamble Company PG is set to report second-quarter fiscal 2018 results on Jan 23, before market open. The company’s total sales grew only 1% in the first quarter. The improvement during the last reported quarter was due to higher shipment volumes.
- Philadelphia Business Journal•17 hours ago
Teva cutting 200+ local jobs as part of broader restructuring plan
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries will be laying off more than 200 local employees as part of a major restructuring plan designed to save the company $3 billion by the end of 2019. The Israeli generic drug maker, which calls North Wales, Pa. its U.S. headquarters, said last month it would eliminate 14,000 positions globally — more that 25 percent of its total work force — over the next two years. It has about 56,000 employees worldwide including about 2,000 people in North Wales, West Chester and Frazer, Pa. In a WARN notice filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, Teva (NYSE: TEVA) said it would be cutting 65 jobs across three buildings in North Wales and Horsham, 96 in two
- CNBC.com•20 hours ago
Wrong on GE, market-beating value investor Bill Nygren says he is sticking by tanking blue chip
Oakmark's Bill Nygren shared his market views and top stock ideas in an interview Thursday on CNBC's "Halftime Report." General Electric was "the worst performing stock in our portfolio. We were seriously off," he said. However, he added his fund is sticking with its position and expressed confidence in the industrial company's new management team. "In this case, there has been a tremendous change in people," the investor said. "We think [their businesses] deserve better than average multiples. We think with a fresh look GE deserves to be in the portfolio." John Flannery succeeded Jeff Immelt as General Electric's CEO in August. Nygren said his fund owns more shares of General Electric after
Business Insider•16 hours agoRipple's XRP is leading the cryptocurrency comeback
Cryptocurrencies of all sizes got smoked this week, when a “bloodbath” of sell-offs wiped out roughly 43% of the world’s total cryptocurrency market cap. XRP, the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has gained over 75% since Wednesday’s lows, trading at $1.614 per coin Thursday evening, according to Markets Insider data. The digital coin had plunged well below the $1 mark on Wednesday, bottoming out at $0.8771, in the depths of a global cryptocurrency sell-off.
- Bloomberg•yesterday
Big U.S. Banks Slashed 8,000 More Jobs Before Tax-Cut Windfall
America’s biggest banks just spent a week regaling shareholders about brighter days ahead, when tax cuts add billions of dollars to the firms’ annual profits. About 8,000 people are getting left behind. The nation’s six largest banks shrank their combined workforce at the fastest pace in two years during the final quarter of 2017, according to figures disclosed in earnings reports since Friday. Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. eliminated the most positions, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. added some. Source: Company filings. The staff reductions occurred as Republicans and President Donald Trump’s White House finished a tax overhaul that will benefit banks more than
Associated Press•23 hours agoSound familiar? Burger King launches quarter pound burger
Burger King is looking to start a beef with McDonald's. The chain says the Double Quarter Pound King, its own version of McDonald's quarter-pound burger, will hit restaurants Thursday. It comes as McDonald's is working to swap out frozen beef patties for fresh ones in its Quarter Pounder.
Business Insider•22 hours agoTHE TECH COMPANIES IN PAYMENTS REPORT: How technology giants are using their reach and digital prowess to take on traditional banks (GOOG, GOOGL, AAPL, FB, MSFT, AMZN)
As headlines like "Amazon Is Secretly Becoming a Bank" and "Google Wants to Be a Bank Now" increasingly crop up in the news, tech giants are coming into the spotlight as the next potential payments disruptors. To mitigate potential losses under this scenario, traditional players will have to grasp not only the level of the threat, but also which segments of the financial industry are most at risk of disruption. Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft, collectively known as GAFAM, are already active investors in the payments industry, and they're slowly encroaching on legacy providers' core offerings. Each of these five companies has introduced features and offerings that have the potential to disrupt specific parts of the banking system.
- Zacks•20 hours ago
The Secret Winners from Amazon's Second Headquarters Shortlist
Amazon AMZN announced on Thursday that it had officially narrowed the list of candidates for its second headquarters down to 20, eliminating the vast majority of the reported 238 applicants and brining the remaining cities one step closer to the 50,000 jobs promised by the e-commerce behemoth. Not surprisingly, Amazon’s shortlist includes several locations in the Midwest and South and on the East Coast. Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough – all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity,” said Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s head of economic development, in a press release.
Business Insider•2 days agoApple is building a new campus and will hire 20,000 new employees (AAPL)
Apple on Wednesday announced plans to open a new campus in the United States and said it would hire 20,000 new employees over the next five years. It also says it plans to pay $38 billion in repatriation tax. CNBC estimated that with the new repatriation tax rate of 15.5%, the company would bring nearly all its overseas cash, or about $245 billion, back to the United States.
- Bloomberg•16 hours ago
Citigroup Predicts That This Year Will Have a Record $140 Billion of CLOs
Citigroup Inc. analysts have come up with Wall Street’s most bullish forecast yet for 2018 collateralized loan obligation sales: a record-breaking $140 billion. Citigroup’s forecast significantly exceeds the next-highest 2018 prediction on the Street, Wells Fargo & Co.’s $125 billion estimate, and would eclipse a record $124 billion of sales in 2014. Strong CLO supply would build on 2017’s banner year for the debt, despite new risk-retention rules that were widely expected to quell the market.
- Zacks•yesterday
How ConocoPhillips (COP) Stock Stands Out in a Strong Industry
One stock that might be an intriguing choice for investors right now is ConocoPhillips COP. This is because this security in the Oil and Gas - Integrated - United States space is seeing solid earnings estimate revision activity, and is in great company from a Zacks Industry Rank perspective. This is arguably taking place in the Oil and Gas - Integrated - United States space as it currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 27 out of more than 250 industries, suggesting it is well-positioned from this perspective, especially when compared to other segments out there.
