Yahoo Finance Plus Cyxtera Federal Group CISO and Executive Vice President Leo Taddeo joins the On The Move panel to discuss how Iranian cyberattacks could impact the United States.
If this market is going to form a short-term top, it’s not likely to be related to an economic event, but rather surprise news.
Bank chief Noel Quinn says the "new reality of life" is people will not be in the office five days a week.
(Bloomberg) -- Working from home in the U.K. tended to hurt the careers of those doing it before the pandemic, new government data show.Those who mainly worked at home were significantly less likely to be promoted, receive a bonus or training, according to figures published Monday by the Office for National Statistics. Last year, home workers also put in more hours of unpaid overtime.“This may suggest that they were less productive than those who never worked from home,” the ONS said. “However, it could also reflect biases in the labor market, with people who worked mainly from home being overlooked for promotions and bonuses due to a lack of visibility at work. It could also reflect a preference for non-monetary benefits, such as flexibility and a shortened commute.”The gradual easing of lockdown restrictions means companies are now having to decide whether to ask their employees to return to the office at some stage or allow them long-term flexibility.Companies including Nationwide Building Society and PricewaterhouseCoopers have already told staff they can work from anywhere in future. The trend is starting to reshape the housing market, with areas outside big urban centers seeing strong demand from people anticipating an end to the five-day-a-week commute.The ONS said about 36% of employees did some work at home in 2020, an increase of more than 9 percentage points from 2019.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
(Bloomberg) -- A sweeping agreement designed to prevent turmoil from being unleashed in the global derivatives market when Libor expires is gaining widespread acceptance.Nearly 14,000 parties have agreed to sign on to the ISDA protocol, according to the the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. The pact allows for Libor to automatically be yanked from hundreds of trillions of dollars of interest-rate swaps, futures and options and replaced with another rate, addressing a major risk hanging over markets as the discredited benchmark’s end nears. While it doesn’t completely rule out the potential for disruption, the protocol goes a long way toward ensuring a smooth transition.“The ISDA protocol has been a resounding success in de-risking the derivatives market,” said Tom Wipf, chair of the Alternative Reference Rates Committee, the Federal Reserve-backed group guiding the transition. “People’s biggest concern was asymmetric take-up. There are very few household names or big players in the market that haven’t adhered.”Entities accounting for almost 95% of gross notional outstanding cleared and uncleared swaps have signed up to the ISDA protocol, according to February data by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In the U.K., 97% of sterling interest-rate derivatives were covered by fallbacks as of January, according to the Financial Conduct Authority.“Market participants can press on with active transition of their portfolios, taking into account the most appropriate alternatives for hedges and specific products, safe in the knowledge that a workable and clear back-up will take effect if they aren’t able to transition away from all of their Libor exposures,” Ann Battle, head of benchmark reform at ISDA, said by email.Barclays Plc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Credit Suisse Group AG are among the major banks that have signed on to the agreement. There’s close to $280 trillion worth of swaps being traded in five Libor-linked currencies, according to data from the Bank for International Settlements covering the first half of 2020.Even with the safety net now in place, it’s still an open question about how it’ll all work in practice. Some experts say the boilerplate language in the legal documents might not cover every situation and some holdouts remain.Firms who sign the ISDA protocol could be locked into interest-rate risk that’s difficult to hedge or be forced to use the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, or SOFR, the main Libor replacement, instead of a better alternative, according to Hanif Virji, founder of Vivadum Ltd., a financial services litigation consultancy.Some hedge funds “may still be doing the math to figure how they feel about it,” said Anne Beaumont, a partner at law firm Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman LLP. “If you’re an investment manager, you have a fiduciary duty to not blindly amend your contracts.”“You’re going to want to at least go through the process of evaluating what the process means,” she added.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Global oil markets are stressed, not only due to OPEC+ or Iran JCPOA issues but also because international financials are predicting gloomy pictures for oil demand.
In February, the motorcycle maker unveiled a new turnaround plan that targets low double-digit earnings growth through 2025. The company said its retail sales, a measure of demand at its dealerships, surged 30% to 32,800 motorcycles in North America in its first quarter. Retail sales in Europe, Harley's second biggest market outside the United States, slumped 36% to 4,900 motorcycles, due to the company's decision to stop selling its smaller and less profitable Street or Sportster motorcycles and shipping delays as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Bloomberg) -- A planned $3.1 billion merger of two Australian miners is set to create one of the world’s biggest producers of lithium products key to meeting fast-growing global demand for electric vehicle batteries.The deal between Orocobre Ltd. and Galaxy Resources Ltd. is the biggest mining sector deal of the year so far, according to Bloomberg data, with shares of both companies closing at the highest in three years in Sydney. The merger would create the world’s fifth-biggest producer of lithium chemicals, the refined form of the raw materials that are used to make electric vehicle batteries.Miners to battery makers have rushed to secure lithium supply amid expectations the EV frenzy will create a structural deficit as soon as this year, and prices are already roaring back after a three-year slump. Battery demand is expected to surge tenfold by 2030, according to BloombergNEF, as the global clean-energy transition accelerates.The new company “is going to be a globally relevant player in terms of lithium chemical production,” said Reg Spencer, head of mining research at Canaccord Genuity Australia Ltd. He said that it could grow to be number three producer by 2025 if all growth projects go ahead.The A$4 billion deal values Galaxy at about A$3.53 a share, a 2.2% discount to Friday’s close, and has the backing of both company boards. Orocobre’s Chief Executive Officer Martin Perez de Solay will head the new group.Orocobre will offer 0.569 of its shares for every Galaxy share and will own 54.2% of the merged company, with Galaxy holding 45.8%. Orocobre was advised on the deal by UBS AG, while Galaxy’s adviser was Standard Chartered Plc. The deal is targeted for completion in mid August 2021.Diverse AssetsThe merged group, which has yet to be formally named, will have its headquarters in Buenos Aires, but its primary share listing will remain in Australia.The deal gives the companies a geographically diversified set of assets. Orocobre sells lithium carbonate from its Olaroz operation in Argentina, while Galaxy has a mine in Australia and growth projects in Canada and South America.Lithium raw materials are most commonly extracted at brine operations which pump liquid from underground reservoirs into vast evaporation ponds, or in traditional hard rock mines. China is the biggest player in electric vehicle batteries, with the majority of the world’s production capacity, and has a stranglehold over processing of the required commodities.The growth profile of the combined group’s existing assets put it on track to grab a 10% share of the lithium market over the next five to seven years, Perez de Solay said in an interview, backed by “a strong balance sheet that will enable us not only to deliver those projects but to continue to grow.” Top global lithium producers currently include Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile SA and Albemarle Corp.Argentina RiskCanaccord’s Spencer said there were risks in having the largest part of an operation in Argentina, given its history of geo-political and financial volatility, although Orocobre’s local management team had so far proven adept at navigating those risks.“From Galaxy’s perspective, we were looking for a partner which had deep in-country Argentinian experience and we’ve got that in Orocobre,” said Simon Hay, Galaxy’s CEO, who will take on the role of president of international business in the new organization. The merger will help to de-risk Galaxy’s Sal de Vida growth project in the South American country, he said.(Updates to add lithium chemicals and processing information in second, ninth paragraphs.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
When Robinhood suddenly set buying restrictions at the height of the GameStop trading frenzy in the early months of 2021, users reacted with fury. April19 is the initial court date following a judicial panel’s decision to bunch together nearly 40 lawsuits — and possibly more — in front of one Miami federal judge who will handle the “multi-district litigation.”
The IRS commissioner now says the monthly payments to families will indeed start in July.
More employers are actively recruiting job candidates, even for low- and middle-level white collar jobs as fewer answer ads during COVID crisis.
During March 2021, the advertised pay levels for cashier positions across the US was $11.25 per hour, only 1.3% higher than one year previously. Labor market intelligence firm Greenwich.HR analyzed advertised pay levels for over 70 thousand online job listings across 415 metro and rural markets. They found that across the US wages for this bellwether hourly position have remained constant in spite of difficulties employers are having as they try to fill jobs and increased pressure in many cities and states calling for higher minimum wage.
There's speculation about forgiving $10,000 or $50,000 per person, but no real plan yet.
The price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies was climbing on Monday, after a rough weekend that resulted in the biggest drop since February.
(Bloomberg) -- China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Ltd.’s expansive pop-up showroom sits at the heart of Shanghai’s National Exhibition and Convention Center. With nine models on display, it’s hard to miss. The electric car upstart has one of the biggest booths at China’s 2021 Auto Show, which starts Monday, opposite storied German automaker BMW AG. Yet its bold presence belies an uncomfortable truth -- Evergrande hasn’t sold a single car under its own brand.China’s largest property developer has an array of investments outside of real estate, from soccer clubs to retirement villages. But it’s the recent entry into electric cars that’s captured investors’ imaginations. Shareholders have pushed Evergrande NEV’s Hong Kong-listed stock up more than 1,000% over the past 12 months, allowing it to raise billions of dollars in fresh capital. It now has a market value of $87 billion, greater than Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co.Such exuberance over an automaker that has repeatedly pushed back forecasts for when it will mass produce a car is emblematic of the froth that has been building in EVs over the past year, with investors plowing money into a rally that briefly made Elon Musk the world’s richest person and has some concerned about a bubble. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in China, home to the world’s biggest market for new energy cars, where a mind-boggling 400 EV manufacturers now jostle for consumers’ attention, led by a cabal of startups valued more than established auto players but which have yet to turn a profit.Evergrande NEV was a relatively late entrant to that scene.In March 2019, Hui Ka Yan, Evergrande’s chairman and one of China’s richest men, vowed to take on Musk and become the world’s biggest maker of EVs in three to five years. Tesla Inc.’s Model Y crossover had just had its global debut. In the two years since, Tesla has gained an enviable foothold in China, establishing its first factory outside the U.S. and delivering around 35,500 cars in March. Chinese rival Nio Inc. earlier this month reached a significant milestone when its 100,000th EV rolled off the production line, prompting Musk to tweet his congratulations.Read more: Nio, Xpeng Exude Optimism as EVs Boom: Shanghai Auto ShowDespite his lofty ambitions and Evergrande NEV’s rich valuation, Hui has repeatedly pushed back car-production targets. The tycoon’s coterie of rich friends, among others, have stumped up billions, but making cars -- electric or otherwise -- is hard, and hugely capital intensive. Nio’s gross margins only flipped into positive territory in mid-2020, after years of heavy losses and a lifeline from a municipal government.Speaking on an earnings call in late March after Evergrande NEV’s full-year loss for 2020 widened by a yawning 67%, Hui said the company planned to begin trial production at the end of this year, delayed from an original timeline of last September. Deliveries aren’t expected to start until some time in 2022. Expectations for annual production capacity of 500,000 to 1 million EVs by March 2022 were also pushed back until 2025. Still, the company issued a buoyant new forecast: 5 million cars a year by 2035. For comparison, global giant Volkswagen AG delivered 3.85 million units in China in 2020.It’s not just Evergrande’s delayed production schedule that’s raising eyebrows. A closer look under the company’s hood reveals practices that have industry veterans scratching their heads: from making selling apartments part of car executives’ KPIs, to attempting a model lineup that would be ambitious for even the most established automaker.‘Weird Company’“It’s a weird company,” said Bill Russo, the founder and chief executive officer of advisory firm Automobility Ltd. in Shanghai. “They’ve poured a lot of money in that hasn’t really returned anything, plus they’re entering an industry in which they have very limited understanding. And I’m not sure they’ve got the technological edge of Nio or Xpeng,” he said, referring to the New York-listed Chinese EV makers already deploying intelligent features in their cars, like laser-based navigation.A closer look at Evergrande NEV’s operations reveals the extent of its unorthodox approach. While it’s established three production bases -- in Guangzhou, Tianjin in China’s north, and Shanghai -- the company doesn’t have a general car assembly line up and running. Equipment and machinery is still being adjusted, according to people who have seen inside the factories but don’t want to be identified discussing confidential matters.In a response to questions from Bloomberg, Evergrande NEV said it was preparing machinery for trial production, and would be able to make “one car a minute” once full production is reached.The company is targeting mass production and delivery next year of four models -- the Hengchi 5 and 6; the luxe Hengchi 1 (which will go up against Tesla’s Model S); and the Hengchi 3, according to people familiar with the matter. The company has told investors it aims to deliver 100,000 cars in 2022, one of the people said, roughly the number of units Nio, Xpeng Inc. and Li Auto Inc., the other U.S.-listed Chinese EV contender, delivered last year, combined.Its workers are also being asked to help sell real estate, the backbone of the Evergrande empire.New hires are required to undergo internal training and attend seminars that drill them on the company’s property history and have nothing to do with car making. In addition, employees from all departments, from production-line workers to back-office staff, are encouraged to promote the sale of apartments, whether through posting ads on social media or bringing relatives and friends along to sale centers to make them appear busy. Managerial-level staff even have their performance bonuses tied to such endeavors, people familiar with the measure said.Meanwhile, the ambitious targets have Evergrande NEV turning to outsourcing and skipping procedures seen as normal practice in the industry, people with knowledge of the situation say.While it’s hiring aggressively and recently scored Daniel Kirchert, a former BMW executive who co-founded EV startup Byton Ltd., the firm has contracted most of the design and R&D of its cars to overseas suppliers, some of the people said. Contracting out the majority of design and engineering work is an unusual approach for a company wanting to achieve such scale.14 Models At OnceOne of those companies is Canada’s Magna International Inc., which is leading the development of the Hengchi 1 and 3, one of the people said. Evergrande NEV has also teamed with Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Baidu Inc. to co-develop a software system for the Hengchi range. It will allow drivers to use a mobile app to instruct the car to drive via autopilot to a certain location and use artificial intelligence to switch on appliances at home while on the road, according to a statement last month.A spokesperson for Evergrande said it was working with international partners including Magna, EDAG Engineering Group AG and Austrian parts maker AVL List GmbH in developing “14 models simultaneously.” Representatives from Magna declined to comment. A Baidu spokesperson said the company had no further details to share, while a representative for Tencent said the software venture is with a related firm called Beijing Tinnove Technology Co. that operates independently. Tinnove didn’t respond to requests for comment.Rather than staggering model releases, Evergrande NEV appears to be rolling out every type of car all at once under its Hengchi brand, which sports a roaring gold lion on the badge and translates loosely to ‘unstoppable gallop.’ The nine models being launched span almost all major passenger vehicle segments from sedans to SUVS and multi-purpose vehicles. Prices will range from about 80,000 yuan ($12,000) to 600,000 yuan, although the final costs could change, a person familiar said.That’s a completely different product development strategy to EV pioneers like Tesla, which only has four models on offer. Nio and Xpeng have also chosen to focus on just a handful of marques, and even then are struggling to break into the black.“The market has proved the effectiveness of the ‘one product in vogue at one time’ strategy,” said Zhang Xiang, an automobile industry researcher at the North China University of Technology. “Evergrande is offering many products and expects a win. There’s a question mark over whether this will work.”Without any long-term carmaking nous, Evergrande has issued uncompromising directives to meet its latest production targets, according to the people. Two models, including the Hengchi 5, a compact SUV that rivals Xpeng’s G3, are targeting mass production in a little over 20 months. To hit that timing, certain industry procedures, like making mule cars, or testbed vehicles equipped with prototype components that require evaluation, may be skipped, people familiar with the situation said. Evergrande told Bloomberg it has entered a “sprint stage toward mass production.”As it is, Bloomberg could only find one instance where the Hengchi 5 has been showcased in public, in photos and grainy footage released by Evergrande in February as the cars drove around a snow-covered field in Inner Mongolia. The company’s shares surged to a record.Glossing over those steps is unusual, said Zhong Shi, a former automotive project manager turned independent analyst.“There’s a standard engineering process of product development, validation and verification, which includes several laboratory and road tests” in China and everywhere else, Zhong said. “It’s hard to compress that to shorter than three years.”While there’s no suggestion Evergrande’s approach violates any regulations, its stock-market run could be in for a reality check. After similarly hefty market gains, some EV startups in the U.S. that have yet to prove their viability as revenue-generating, profitable entities have lost their shine over the past few months amid concern about valuations and as established carmakers like VW move faster into EV fray.Read more: The End of Tesla’s Dominance May Be Closer Than It AppearsThe industry’s multi-billion dollar surge also hasn’t escaped Beijing’s attention. Evergrande NEV shares dipped lower last month after an editorial from the state-run Xinhua news agency highlighted concerns about how the EV sector is evolving. Of particular worry are companies that are shirking their responsibility to build quality cars, a blind race by local governments to attract EV projects, and high valuations by companies that have yet to deliver a single mass-produced car, according to the missive, which named Evergrande specifically in that regard. “The huge gap between production capacity and market value shows there is hype in the NEV market,” it said.Still, Evergrande NEV’s stock has gained 18% since then, buoyed by the outlook for China’s electric-car market. EVs currently account for about 5% of China’s annual car sales, BloombergNEF data show, with demand forecast to soar as the market matures and electric-car prices fall. EV sales in China may climb more than 50% this year alone, research firm Canalys said in a February report.With competition also on the rise, some outside Evergrande NEV’s loyal shareholder base remain skeptical.“The market is getting crowded but unless you have a preferred lane, there’s not much chance to win,” Automobility’s Russo said. “Maybe there’s some synergy with the property businesses but right now it’s an EV story, and a pretty expensive one.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE: SPY) and Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) made new highs last week of $417.91 and $64,896.75, respectively, while small and midcap stocks trading on smaller exchanges took a pause. Although Bitcoin has consolidated over the weekend, indicating the SPDR S&P 500 ETF and the Nasdaq may need some consolidation in the coming days, Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), Snowflake Inc (NYSE: SNOW) and Biomark Diagnostics Inc. (OTC: BMKDF) look bullish going into the week. Related Link: Bitcoin Plunges, Taking Other Cryptocurrencies With It The Ethereum Chart: Ethereum made a new all-time high of $2548.53 April 15 and has since consolidated. On Sunday, Ethereum retraced to a daily support level at $1935.44 and bounced sharply, regaining a higher daily support level at $2,150, which aligns with the 21-day exponential moving average (EMA). Although Ethereum is trading below the eight-day EMA, the eight-day EMA is still trending above the 21-day EMA, making for an overall bullish picture. Bulls want to see Ethereum continue to hold the $2,500 support level and the 21-day EMA. They also want see it consolidate healthily near all-time highs while it collects enough volume to push it back towards all-time highs. Bears want to see sustained bear volume to push Ethereum back down below its $2,500 support level. If Ethereum can’t hold that support level, it could retest the $1,935 mark and eventually force the eight-day EMA to cross below the 21-day EMA. If that happens, it could push Ethereum down further towards the $1,824 area. The Snowflake Chart: Snowflake has retraced 45% from its all-time high of $429 made on Dec. 8, 2020. The stock has fallen into a bullish falling wedge pattern, however, and on April 13 made a bullish break up from it. Snowflake’s stock is trading on both the eight-day and 21-day EMAs and bullish volume, with even a slight move up in share price, would cause the eight-day EMA to cross above the 21-day EMA, which would be bullish. Declining bear volume on the daily chart shows the stock is running out of sellers, which is also a bullish sign. Learn more: Technical Analysis Bulls want to see bull volume come into Snowflake’s stock and for it to push off the $232.74 support it is trading at to make a move towards its next resistance level at $255.25. If the stock can reclaim that level, it could move towards the $270 mark. Bears want to see Snowflake’s stock lose support at the $232 area, which could see it fall down to the stock’s next level of support around $213. The Biomark Chart: After reaching an all-time high of 42 cents on March 17, Biomark’s stock settled into two bullish patters — a daily bull flag and a daily symmetrical triangle — before breaking bullish on Friday and making a new all-time high on large bull volume. Biomark’s stock is trading above both the eight- and 21-day EMA, which is a bullish sign, and, although somewhat extended from them, the two commonly followed EMAs made an abrupt upward turn on Friday to try and catch up. Bulls want to see sustained bullish volume in Biomark’s stock for it to continue its run in all-time highs as there is no price history resistance. Bulls could wait for a retest of the previous all-time high of 42 cents to see if the stock holds above. Bears want to see bull volume drop off and for Biomark’s stock to lose support at the 42-cent level, which could see the stock drop back down to 35 cents. If Biomark can’t hold support there, it has room to drop further towards the 32-cent area. Related Link: 3 Cancer Diagnostic Stocks To Watch Following Roche's GenMark Buy ETH, SNOW and BMKDF Price Action: Etherium was trading at $2170.05 at publication. Snowflake closed at $232.74 on Friday, and Biomark's stock closed at 45 cents. See more from BenzingaClick here for options trades from BenzingaQuantumScape Stock Falls After Pump-And-Dump Accusations: A Technical AnalysisWho Let The Doge Out And Where Is The Cryptocurrency Headed Next?© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
"Only five US industry sectors—all manufacturing-based—have become dependent on China, whereas just about every industry now relies on India for IT."
Advocates and lawmakers say the crisis isn't over, and neither is the need for relief.
It’s natural to want to buy into a rising stock, so much so that following upward trends as a market strategy has a name: momentum investing. It’s the art of following the upward trends. Momentum investing has its advocates and detractors, as do all investing styles. While past performance does not guarantee future returns, it's still a a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to. With this in mind, we used TipRanks' database to identify two stocks that boast a Strong Buy analyst consensus rating and considerable upside potential – on top of impressive recent gains. Let's take a closer look. Identiv (INVE) The first momentum stock we’ll look at, Identiv, is a tech company providing solutions for authentication and security systems online. Identiv’s products protect users’ identity, and prevent malware and other malicious attacks in the IoT world. The importance – and value – of this niche can be seen in the company’s share growth over the past year. INVE is up 65% year-to-date, and longer term, over the past 12 months, the stock has gained 404%. The strong share growth has gone hand-in-hand with strong revenue growth. The company reported 31% year-over-year top-line growth, to $24.8 million, in 4Q20, along with solid prospects going forward. Entering Q1, the company had $10.5 million in backlogged orders, a 121% gain over the year before. Growth was driven by gains in the company’s RFID segment, which was up over 100% yoy, and in the Identity segment, which registered a 53% yoy gain. While revenues were solid, earnings were down. EPS had been positive in Q3, but turned negative in Q4, coming in at a 5-cent net loss per share, and missing the expectation of a 1-cent EPS profit. Investors have not appeared too concerned by the earnings loss; Identiv’s historical earnings pattern is to show a Q4 loss after a Q3 profit, and the 4Q20 loss was 7 cents per share less than the year-ago result. Management has moved to take advantage of the company’s rising share value, by putting a public offering of stock earlier this month. The offering, of 3.78 million shares at $10.65 each, closed on April 12 and raised – before expenses – over $40 million. There’s a lot here to get an analyst’s attention, and 5-star analyst Craig Ellis of B. Riley initiated coverage of this stock with a Buy rating and a $21 price target, indicating ~50% one-year upside potential. (To view Ellis’s track record, click here) "We believe the recent capital raise is transformative and will accelerate growth from 10% over the past two years to +20% as the company broadens its RFID IoT portfolio. To start, $38M in net proceeds suggests $50M in incremental sales potential at current GMs," Ellis opined. The analyst added, "We believe that INVE’s custom engagement, design, and prototype model is strong and that CY22 proceeds sales conversion is likely, led by RFID IoT, where 3Q20 and 4Q20 sales surged 100% Y/Y and where CY21TD backlog is robust. Success with healthcare, consumer electronics, and medical devices early adopters could tilt high-volume industries INVE’s way, thus enriching growth." Ellis is not outlier in his view of this stock; there are 3 recent reviews on file here, and all are to buy, making the analyst consensus a unanimous Strong Buy. The shares are priced at $14.04, with an average target of $17.33 suggesting room for 23% growth in the year ahead. (See INVE stock analysis on TipRanks) Tronox (TROX) Next up, Tronox, is a miner and manufacturer of specialty metals used in the production of titanium chemicals. The company mines titanium ores and zircon, and uses them in the production of titanium dioxide and chemical sands, both essential ingredients in industrial dyes. The company’s products are found in a range of everyday products, including paints, papers, and plastics, and useful byproducts of the manufacturing process include caustic soda and gypsum. While the industry lacks the cachet of high-tech, it is still vital to the modern economy, and Tronox has ridden that fact to a 37% year-to-date share gain. For the past 12 months, the stock’s gain has been 224%. For the full-year 2020, Tronox showed a top line of $2.76 billion, up 4.5% from 2019. The 4Q20 results show that the top line gains are accelerating – the fourth quarter revenues of $783 million were up 13.6% yoy. The company saw quarterly titanium dioxide sales volume increase 8% yoy in the fourth quarter, indicating improved global demand as world economies reopen. Looking ahead, Tronox expects titanium dioxide sales to continue gaining, in the range of 11% to 15% for 1Q21. With all of that in the background, BMO analyst John McNulty listed TROX as one of his top picks for 2021 “Rarely can we recall a time when the stars aligned in such a way that the risk/reward pointed to dramatic upside potential with relatively minimal risk--the current outlook for TiO2 and TROX is one of those times. TiO2 is poised for a steady tightening over the next 2-3 years, driving volumes and prices higher,” McNulty noted. The analyst summed up, "We listed TROX as one of our top picks for 2021 for a host of reasons, including our belief that the strength of the cycle would surprise investors in the near term on the volume side and in the intermediate term on the pricing side." In line with this upbeat outlook, McNulty rates TROX shares an Outperform (i.e. Buy), and his $29 price target implies a one-year upside potential of 45%. (To watch McNulty’s track record, click here) The analyst consensus on this stock is not unanimous – but it is decisive. The reviews break down 4 to 1 in favor of Buy versus Hold, for a Strong Buy consensus rating. The average price target of $24.40 suggests a 22% upside for the next 12 months. (See TROX stock analysis 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. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
U.S. stocks may be set for a subdued start to a week of big earnings, but bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been far from quiet.
(Bloomberg) -- The frenzy around digital tokens is taking its zaniest turn yet in the price of a token created as a joke, buckling the crypto trading system at Robinhood Markets.Dogecoin, boosted by the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Cuban, rallied more than 110% Friday before dropping by 26% on Saturday, according to CoinMarketCap.com. It now has a market value of more than $36 billion and is still up 13,400% from a year ago, when it traded for $0.002 and was worth about $250 million.Demand was so brisk for the token that investors trying to trade it on Robinhood crashed the site, the online exchange said in a blog post Friday. Some $68 billion worth of Dogecoin changed hands in the prior 24 hours as of 4:45 p.m. Friday in New York, the most since June, CoinMarketCap.com data showed.Doge’s surge is part of a rise in altcoins, a term for all the digital tokens that have sprung up in imitation of Bitcoin. Like most of them, its use case is limited, making it a tool for speculators and raising concern that a bubble is inflating in a crypto world now worth more than $2.25 trillion.“This reminds me of the dot com days. We knew something big was going on, a lot of investors were chasing it hard. That led to a bubble,” Scott Knapp, chief market strategist at CUNA Mutual Group, said. “For every Amazon.com there were 10 pets.com that went bankrupt. Is Dogecoin the pets.com of the cryptocurrency era?”Interest in crypto is on the rise again after companies from PayPal to Square started enabling transactions in Bitcoin on their systems, and Wall Street firms like Morgan Stanley began providing access to the tokens to some of the wealthiest clients. All along, crypto die-hards who say the blockchain technology will rewire the financial community have been plugging crypto, getting rich in the process.The Shiba-Inu themed Dogecoin was created as a joke by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in 2013. Musk sparked a rally in it earlier this year when he posted a photo of a faux magazine “Dogue” featuring a dog in a red sweater.But Michael Novogratz, chief executive officer of Galaxy Digital Holdings, isn’t buying the hype, since Dogecoin “doesn’t really have a purpose.”“It’s reminiscent of GameStop,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, referring to the meme stock mania that gripped markets in February. “I would be very, very worried if one of my friends was investing in Dogecoin at these prices.”With little to back up the case for buying cryptocurrencies, the likelihood of them cratering remains high, leaving novice traders who jumped in on the hype vulnerable to steep losses.“The government has pumped so much monetary and fiscal stimulus into the economy now, even worthless assets are being bid up,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading.Yet alt-coin popularity is hard to ignore. While Bitcoin is worth more than $1 trillion, the total market cap of the token universe now exceeds $2.25 trillion, according to CoinGecko.com, which tracks more than 6,700 coins.Bitcoin’s dominance in the crypto world has declined 28% since the beginning of the year, according to OKEX Insights Analyst Robbie Liu, citing data from Tradingview. The waning influence started to accelerate this month, he said in an email Friday, and Bitcoin now accounts for less than 54% of the crypto market capitalization -- the lowest level in nearly two years.“On the altcoins front, we continue to see strong momentum,” said Pankaj Balani, the CEO of Delta Exchange, a leading crypto derivatives exchange, in a note Thursday. He noted Ether’s recent record and increased activity in decentralized finance or DeFi, adding that “decentralized exchange coins will be in focus in the next few days, given that the market has validated Coinbase at a $100 billion valuation.”Other tokens with shaky to no fundamentals are also rising. Cardano and Polkadot, both in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, have surged this week.“Polkadot and Cardano have very few ‘users’” currently, said Shashwat Gupta, founder of Altcoinbuzz.io, in an email Wednesday, though he added that there’s a substantial amount of development being built on them.And it looks like Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong may have been on to something when he said after the listing that it marks a “shift in legitimacy” for crypto.The Coinbase listing “ultimately will deliver more ‘use cases’ for cryptos and should keep the crypto market growing,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst for North America at Oanda Corp.(Updates with Dogecoin’s price decline on Saturday. A prior version of this story was corrected to show Dogecoin was created in 2013.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
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