If you could buy only one stock for 5G and artificial intelligence, this would be it

During the California gold rush, many miners went bankrupt. However many merchants who were selling picks and shovels became rich. Most investors recognize that the gold rush is on in 5G and artificial intelligence.

• 
  5G Sends a Confusing Signal

  The Wall Street Journal
• 
  Analysts: 5G Ramp Provides Upside for These 3 Stocks

  TipRanks

Dow Jones Futures: Walmart Earnings Due, 3 IPOs Near Buys; Warren Buffett Stock Set To Break Out

Futures: Walmart, Medtronic and InMode earnings are due Tuesday. IPO stocks InMode, Progyny, Ping are near buy points. So is Taiwan Semiconductor. Buffett-boosted RH is likely to break out.

Kroger stock soars after Buffett’s investment

Kroger Co.’s stock soared in after-hours trading Friday following the disclosure that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate has made a huge investment in the supermarket giant’s stock.

• 
  Buffett's Berkshire buys Kroger and Biogen, reduces Wells Fargo and Goldman stakes

  Reuters
• 
  Buffett’s Berkshire Adds Biogen, Kroger Stakes; Stocks Climb

  Bloomberg

What do the world’s most successful people do when it’s time to retire?

When Thomas Schreier Jr. graduated from the University of Notre Dame more than three decades ago, he never envisioned that in his late 50s he’d be teaching a class there called Designing an Inspired Life and regularly walking the South Bend, Ind., campus as the founding director of the university’s Inspired Leadership Initiative. The initiative, now in its second year, consists of 15 accomplished individuals who have wrapped up two or three decades in successful careers and are eager to devote an academic year to studies at Notre Dame. Notre Dame’s joins similar programs at prominent institutions pioneering this concept: the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute, operated in partnership with the Stanford Center on Longevity, and Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative, a yearlong program for corporate executives and professionals interested in applying their skills to social problems.

2 “Strong Buy” Healthcare Stocks with Over 100% Upside Potential

While each investor has their own way of going about it, at the end of the day, the common theme unifying all is the universal pursuit of returns. The difficult part, of course, is recognizing the names which can outperform the market in the long run.All stocks are different, though, and finding those which can potentially yield said returns requires due diligence. Naturally, the research should include what the pros on the Street think about a company’s long-term growth narrative.Using TipRanks’ Stock Screener, we’ve dug up two healthcare stocks that look especially promising. While each one is unique, the tickers have two things in common: all have room for upside of more than 100%, and what’s more, each one currently boasts a “Strong Buy” consensus rating from the Street. Let’s get started.Applied Genetic Technologies (AGTC)This rare retinal disease-focused biotech has started 2020 in the same way it exited the previous decade: by adding extra muscle to the share price.2019’s performance saw an addition of a considerable 84%. 2020 has started off in much the same vein, with the company giving market-trouncing Tesla a run for its money in January by shooting up over 100% in one day. The reason? Well, as this company is a biotech, it’s usually due to one of two reasons: either a regulatory approval for a drug, or, as in this particular case, positive data from a clinical trial.AGTC recently presented updated data from its Phase 1/2 study of centrally-treated X-linked retinitis pigmentosa patients. The positive results showed that patients treated with the candidate exhibited durable improvement in visual function six months after dosing. The data backs up results reported in September and will be used in the pivotal trial’s design, which AGTC plans to initiate later this year. Not to mention secondary data showed encouraging improvements in Best Corrected Visual Acuity (vision impairment) and a favorable safety profile was demonstrated by all patients dosed with the drug.The results are music to the ears of H.C. Wainwright’s Joseph Pantginis. Pantginis argues the "highly anticipated" data confirmed his expectations on the performance of the company's therapy. According to the analyst, an upcoming meeting with the FDA should provide critical guidance on endpoints, size and statistics, randomization protocol, and bilateral dosing.To this end, the 5-star analyst reiterated a Buy rating on AGTC along with an $18 price target. The implication for investors? Further gains of a massive 252%. (To watch Pantginis’ track record, click here)A fellow analyst beating the drum for the bulls is Wedbush’s David Nierengarten. The 5-star analyst believes Applied Genetic is the market leader in X-linked retinitis pigmentosa and lists the company as one of his top picks for 2020. Accordingly, Nierengarten kept his Outperform rating on AGTC along with his $12 price target, too. (To watch Nierengarten’s track record, click here)Does the Street concur? Yes, it does. 5 Buy recommendations add up to a Strong Buy consensus rating. The average price target of $13.33 implies gains of 160% could be lining investors’ pockets in the next year. (See Applied Genetic price targets and analyst ratings on TipRanks) Sol-Gel Technologies Ltd (SLGL)The other company on our list continues the pattern established by AGTC. Totally outpacing the market last year, this skin disease-focused company from Israel posted yearly gains of 172%, the majority of which came in the final week of the decade. It will be no surprise to learn why.On December 30, Sol-Gel announced that its acne drug Twyneo met the primary endpoints in two late-stage trials. The company intends to file a new drug application (NDA) with the FDA for Twyneo in the second half of 2020, with hopes of bringing it to market in 2H21. The application will be the second one this year, as plans are already in place to submit one for Epsolay, the company’s rosacea candidate, during the first half of 2020.The global acne market is expected to be worth over $7 billion by 2025, a point not lost on H.C. Wainwright’s Ram Selvaraju. The 5-star analyst believes the positive results for Twyneo have increased its probability of approval to 90%, up from his previous estimate of 70%. Selvaraju notes that should the drug get the go ahead, it will be the first once-daily acne vulgaris treatment to combine benzoyl peroxide and a potent retinoid in a cream.The analyst, therefore, kept his Buy rating as is. The positive data, though, meant the price target got a boost, from $23 to $26. Investors stand to take home gains in the shape of 145% should his thesis play out. (To watch Selvaraju’s track record, click here)The Street is with the H.C. Wainwright analyst. The acne warrior has 4 ratings, all Buys, which put together, amount to a Strong Buy consensus rating. The average price target of $22.75 implies potential upside of 115% in the next 12 months. (See Sol-Gel stock-price forecast on TipRanks) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.

Here’s how one ‘black swan’ investor is protecting his $5 billion fund against a market crash that ‘won’t be pretty’

Mark Spitznagel of Universa Investments is getting ready for the next big drop, but he says he’s fine if it never comes.

Pete the Planner: I owe $15K on my credit cards at 69 and haven't told my husband. What now?

Pete the Planner: I owe $15,000 in credit card debt at age 69 and haven't told my husband. What should I do?

GM shuts Australia, New Zealand operations; sells Thai plant to Great Wall

NEW YORK/BEIJING (Reuters) - General Motors Co <GM.N> said it would wind down its Australian and New Zealand operations and sell a Thai plant in the latest restructuring of its global business, costing the U.S. auto maker $1.1 billion. The moves will accelerate GM's retreat from unprofitable markets, making it more dependent on the United States, China, Latin America and South Korea, and give up an opening to expand in Southeast Asia. GM has forecast a flat profit for 2020 after a difficult 2019, and is facing ballooning interest in electric car rival Tesla Inc <TSLA.O>.

U.S. weighs blocking GE engine sales for China's new airplane - sources

The potential restriction on the engine sales - possibly along with limits on other components for Chinese commercial aircraft such as flight control systems made by Honeywell International Inc - is the latest move in the battle between the world's two largest economies over trade and technology. The issue is expected to come up at an interagency meeting about how strictly to limit exports of U.S. technology to China on Thursday and at another meeting with members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet set for Feb. 28, sources said. The White House and the U.S. Commerce Department, which issues licenses for such exports, declined to comment, as did a GE spokeswoman.

Bearish Bets: 2 Stocks You Must Consider Shorting This Week

Using recent actions and grades from TheStreet's Quant Ratings and layering on technical analysis of the charts of those stocks, Trifecta Stocks identifies five names each week that look bearish. While we will not be weighing in with fundamental analysis we hope this piece will give investors interested in stocks on the way down a good starting point to do further homework on the names. Royal Gold Inc. recently was downgraded to Hold with a C+ rating by TheStreet's Quant Ratings.

There’s a Wall of Cash Eager to Buy Treasuries on Any Price Dip

(Bloomberg) -- Investors overseeing trillions of dollars are plowing money into U.S. government debt like never before, in a wave that’s only gaining strength as the spreading coronavirus casts doubt on the global growth outlook.Evidence of the insatiable demand can be found across the fixed-income universe. Pensions, which have been ramping up bond allocations for more than a decade after a change in regulations, now hold a record amount of longer-dated Treasuries. Bond mutual funds saw a historic inflow of money last year, with no sign of a slowdown. Even hedge funds have piled in.The wall of cash is a boon to American taxpayers as the federal deficit swells. It’s keeping Treasury yields, a benchmark for global borrowing, near all-time lows. With buyers ready to pounce, even surging stocks, record auction sizes and the tightest labor market since the 1960s can barely make a dent in bond prices.“Treasuries are a resilience play that makes sense,” said Scott Thiel, chief fixed-income strategist at BlackRock Inc. “And so far, people have been rewarded for coming in and buying when yields get to the high end of the range.”Just weeks ago, global economic reflation and the seeming inevitability of higher yields were the buzz among strategists and investors. The virus’s onslaught is unraveling that narrative, which already faced skepticism from those who argue that persistently low inflation and shifting demographics will pull yields lower.“I expect the Treasury 10-year yield to fall to zero, perhaps within two years,” said Akira Takei, a global fixed-income fund manager at Asset Management One Co., which oversees more than $450 billion. “I’ve been overweight U.S. Treasuries. That’s based on my view that developed economies are facing a combination of aging demographics and falling birth rates, slow growth and low inflation.”Investors snapping up Treasuries as an insurance policy have turned the U.S. yield curve on its head. With inflation still subdued and concern mounting that the spreading illness will damage an already fragile global economy, traders have boosted bets on Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2020. That prospect is in turn supporting equities.The appetite for debt has extended to sovereign obligations of all flavors. One example: Greek 10-year rates once near 45% slid below 1% this month. The country’s junk rating is proving little deterrent with the world’s pile of negative-yield debt climbing above $13 trillion amid the latest global bond rally.Benchmark 10-year U.S. yields have dropped to around 1.6%, from a 2020 peak of 1.94% in the first week of the year. The world’s biggest bond market has earned about 2.2% this year, after a 6.9% return in 2019 -- the best performance since 2011.“You still need a duration ballast and shock absorber,” said Con Michalakis, chief investment officer of retirement fund Statewide Superannuation Pty., which manages about $7 billion in Adelaide, Australia. “And I don’t see yields moving materially higher from here.”The likely economic hit from the virus reinforces that view. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell last week cited the outbreak as a risk. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts it will subtract two percentage points from annualized global growth this quarter.“If the Fed is staying super-accommodative -- basically in reflation mode -- then you want to buy equities, credit and, strangely, you also want to buy Treasuries,” said Ralph Axel, an analyst at Bank of America Corp.The demand for Treasuries in some corners has been building for years. U.S. corporate pensions, for example, have been big buyers since the federal Pension Protection Act, passed in 2006.For the top 100 funds, with combined assets of more than $1.4 trillion, the fixed-income allocation surged to about 49% at the end of 2018 from 29% in 2005, as equities’ share fell by half to 31%, according to Milliman Inc., a pension and risk advisory firm. JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists estimate the debt portion topped 50% as of December.An up-to-date read on retirement funds’ demand can be seen in the record surge in Strips, which are created when Treasuries are split into principal- and interest-only securities. Pensions tend to favor these assets, which have longer duration, or sensitivity to interest-rate changes, to match the length of their liabilities.Soaring stocks are also spurring buying of bonds on price declines.U.S. public pensions, with total assets of over $4 trillion, have kept holdings steady over the past five years, at about 25% in fixed income, 50% in public equities and the rest in alternative investments, according to data from the Pew Charitable Trusts.As equities have climbed, the funds have needed to buy more debt to keep the breakdown stable, said Greg Mennis, director of public sector retirement systems at Pew.Veteran bond manager Dan Fuss says he’s been been buying Treasuries as a safety play. He points to last week’s 10-year auction as a sign that yields won’t bust higher anytime soon. A measure of demand for the $27 billion sale was the highest since March.“When you look at the bids for the 10-year notes, you’d have thought, ‘Wow, the government was giving out free ice cream’,” said Fuss, vice chairman of Loomis Sayles & Co. “There’s just more money available to invest than there’s marketable investment opportunities, and no risk of inflation at this time.”\--With assistance from Masaki Kondo and Matthew Burgess.To contact the reporters on this story: Liz Capo McCormick in New York at emccormick7@bloomberg.net;Ruth Carson in Singapore at rliew6@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Benjamin Purvis at bpurvis@bloomberg.net, ;Tan Hwee Ann at hatan@bloomberg.net, Mark Tannenbaum, Jenny ParisFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

US manufacturing jobs are not in demand any longer: Farmgirl Flowers CEO on moving jobs to Ecuador

A manufacturing slowdown has extended to the startup space.

• 
  Farmgirl CEO: Manufacturing jobs are no longer in demand

  Yahoo Finance Video
• 
  How weed legalization impacts flower companies

  Yahoo Finance Video

Afraid of sky-high stock valuations? Consider this ‘deep value’ strategy

There’s no shortage of arguments that the U.S. stock market, whose main benchmark indexes are at record highs, is overvalued. If your investment portfolio is concentrated in an index fund, you might feel you are properly diversified, but there’s a good chance your risk is concentrated among a short list of companies. Jim Roumell, the founder of Roumell Asset Management of Chevy Chase, Md., and manager of the Roumell Opportunistic Value Fund (RAMSX) offers an investment strategy that is truly different: A balanced fund that takes concentrated positions in micro-cap companies that he argues are grossly undervalued.