Category: Business

Although nothing has been more popular with the investment community than Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 2024, the euphoria about stock splashes, demonstrable, can give AI a run for its money.

A stock split is a tool that has listed companies at their disposal that gives them the option to adjust their share price and outstanding stock count with the same factor. Keep in mind that stock splits are pure surface -crabs and have no influence on the market capitalization of a company or its operational performance.

Most investors tend to companies that announce forward stock splits. A forward split is designed to reduce the share price of a company to make it more affordable for retail investors and/or employees who do not have access to fractional approach with their broker. This type of split is almost always announced by companies that surpass and innovate their competition.

On the other hand, investors usually prevent companies that complete reverse stock splits. A reverse split strives to increase the share price of a listed company, with the aim of often ensuring a continuous mention on a large stock exchange. The lion’s share of companies that perform reverse splits do this from a position of working weakness.

In 2024, slightly more than a dozen leading companies announced or completed a stock split. Only one of these most important companies completed an inverted split and It is the stock that I have used for more than mid-April.

Although inverted stock splits takes place all the time, no more was expected in 2024 on Wall Street than the recent split of satellite radio operator Sirius XM Holdings (Nasdaq: Siri).

In mid-December, Sirius XM announced that it would merge with the Sirius XM tracking stock from Liberty Media, Liberty Sirius XM Group, to eliminate the confusion and share price variant caused by several classes of ordinary shares. Prior to their combination, which came into force after the end of the trade on 9 September, Liberty Sirius XM Group shares were enormously better than the shares of Sirius XM during the following.

But in addition to this merger, Sirius XM announced a 1-out-10 reverse stock split (even after the end of the trade on September 9), which reduced its outstanding stock count from almost 3.4 billion to a little north of 339 million.

In contrast to the countless companies that perform reverse splits every year to maintain and prevent minimal stock -of -chorus list standards, Sirius XM was a company of around $ 10 billion at the time of the split and was not in danger of deletion.

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On the contrary, the company’s board wanted to increase its share price to make it more attractive for institutional investors. Shares that act under $ 5 per share are considered by some fund managers as not too risky or too risky. Splitting the shares of the company and cosmetically elevating its share price to the middle of $ 20 should make it tastier for investors with large money.

However, it is not only institutional investors lured by Sirius XM.

Well before the Sirius XM board announced plans to carry out an inverted split, I was busy adding what the year started as a token interest in Sirius XM. Since mid -April I have increased the number of shares that I have with a cool 463%.

Let me precede this discussion by clearly stating that Sirius XM is far from perfect. The total subscribers have fallen in each of the last two quarters, with concern about the health of the American economy and the car market.

With regard to the latter, promotional subscriptions to the services of Sirius XM are sometimes offered to new vehicle buyers for a period of three months. The company counts on these promotional listeners to become self-paid subscribers. If fewer cars are sold, this means less chance for Sirius to convert promotional users into paying subscribers.

There are also a few predictive statistics, such as the first remarkable deterioration of the American M2 money quantity since the great depression, as well as the longest yield curve inversion in history, suggesting that economic weakness lies in the unaccompenting future of the US economy. Most radio operators are highly dependent on advertisements to maintain the lights, and advertisements are usually very Cyclic.

Despite this headwind, I see Sirius XM as historically cheap and worth stacking.

A phenomenal aspect of the operational model is that it is a really legal monopoly. Although it is still confronted with the competition for listeners with terrestrial and online radio providers, Sirius XM is the only legally licensed satellite radio operator. This offers the company a certain degree of price force with its subscriptions and should help it to stay ahead of the inflatory curve.

Another reason why I am attracted to the most anticipated inverted stock split from Wall Street of 2024 is because of How It generates income. While traditional radio companies almost exclusively on advertising confidence to keep the lights, Sirius XM is closer to an 80/20 income that is divided from subscriptions and advertisements (via Pandora Media, which acquired it in 2019).

The silver lining for the radio industry as a whole is that the US economy enjoys long periods of expansion. But when inevitable decline occurs, it is completely normal that advertising income enters considerable taps. Since Sirius XM generates most of its sales from subscriptions and subscribers are less inclined to cancel their service than companies to mate their advertisements back, the Sirius XM places on a solid foundation than its competition.

I also started to appreciate the somewhat predictable cost structure of Sirius XM over the years. Line articles such as equipment costs and transmission costs will not change much or at all, regardless of how many subscribers Sirius XM sign up.

But the primary artificial bait, at least at the moment, must be the historically cheap appreciation of Sirius XM. Even with the revenue growth that is currently stagnating, shares are valued on a forward year income several of less than 8, which is almost a low point since the company became public in September 1994.

Moreover, the recent weakness in its shares has increased the annual return of the company to 4.2%. The board of Sirius XM strives to maintain the annual payment of the company of more than $ 1 per share.

Sirius XM may not be a sexy stock selection compared to fast-growing/high-flying AI shares, but it is a historically cheap legal monopoly that should yield a solid return for patient investors over time.

Consider this before you buy stock in Sirius XM:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor Analyst team has just identified what they believe are the 10 best shares For investors to buy now … and Sirius XM was not one of them. The 10 shares that made the cut can produce sample returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005 … If you have invested $ 1,000 at the time of our recommendation, You would have $ 740,704!**

Inventor Offers investors an easy -to -follow blueprint for success, including guidelines for building a portfolio, regular updates to analysts and two new share choices per month. The Inventor Service More than quadrupled The return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 shares »

*Stock Advisor Returns as of September 23, 2024

Sean Williams has positions in Sirius XM. The Motley Fool has no position in one of the aforementioned shares. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

I have tangled more than my interest in this historically cheap legal monopoly that has just performed an inverted stock split, was originally published by the Motley Fool

Looking for trillion-dollar opportunities? View the hydrogen market. This renewable fuel source could become a staple of the global economy in the coming decades. Worldwide consulting firm Deloitte believes that it will someday be a trillion dollar market. McKinsey & Co, another global consultant, predicts the demand for hydrogen to “grow considerably” in the coming years.

Plug (Nasdaq: plug) Is one of the biggest names in the hydrogen industry, and many investors bet on his large upward potential. The potential is not difficult to calculate given the meager $ 1.8 billion appreciation of the company. If the demand meets expectations in the long term, would expect to see some large hydrogen winners in 2050. But will the power be one of that? The answer may surprise you.

There is no doubt that the hydrogen market itself will grow with jumps and boundaries by 2050. That is because hydrogen is a great option for what economists are difficult to attach sectors.

Although it is relatively easy to replace coal-driven electricity with solar or wind energy, certain sectors of the economy for example cement and steel production-the high heat levels produced by burning fossil fuels. It is unlikely that existing technologies will be able to scale in a way that still supports these critical industries. That is where hydrogen technology comes into play. As DELOitte’s research concludes, “it will be difficult to occur sectors such as sectors, chemicals, aviation and shipment probably require hydrogen use worldwide to grow six -fold to almost 600 million tons, by 2050.”

When this future passes, Deloitte believes that the total hydrogen demand in 2050 will surpass $ 1.4 trillion. But the growth should pick up much earlier than that. According to estimates, the demand between now and 2030 could double, with the total market value reaching $ 642 billion.

The hydrogen market seems to be a big gamble for investors who are willing to be patient. But is Plug Power shares a good way to take advantage of this chance of several decades?

Hydrogen can indeed have a huge long -term promise. But investing in the industry is a much different challenge. The situation is very similar to other capital -intensive, renewable energy companies such as electric vehicles. Although some companies like it Tesla His prosperous, countless other startups have gone bankrupt. The same will probably be true for hydrogen. Building the necessary infrastructure requires billions in financing, and there is no guarantee that the technology of a company will win.

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The history of Plug Power in the last 20 years paints this photo well. The sale has been picked up and frees it to spend more on research and development. Yet in the long term, the share has been a terrible investment. That is largely due to the sharing of dilution. During the past two decades, the number of shares of the Power has been expanded with an amazing 9,950%!

This is the most important problem with plug power today. The demand of hydrogen will almost certainly increase in the coming decades, although the exact scale and speed of that growth will remain very uncertain. But plug capacity remains needed billions in new capital to remain competitive. Although it has so far survived about the dilution of shares and government subsidies, so that it can gradually expand its sales basis, losses have taken away possible profit for shareholders.

This issue – that market growth simply occurs too slowly for shareholders to win – will not disappear quickly. Goldman Sachs recently estimated that plug capacity has a sharing time of 25.8 years. That figure intends to capture the weighted average of the expected cash flows of the company. In a sense, Plug Power shares are such as buying a bond that has not been mature for several decades, making the share price very sensitive to changes in interest rates and shifts in the competitive climate. For example, plug capacity can make billions in its technical pile of casting for a competitor to catch up with a new production method for cheap costs.

Could plug capacity become a trillion dollar stock by 2050? The answer is almost certainly no. The total market size in 2050 will only reach around $ 1.4 trillion. And which companies or technologies will win is currently impossible to know. The only thing we know is that investments in competing technologies are rising, just as the research and development budget of Plug Power is starting to stagnate.

In 2023, Plug Power received a notification from Goight Concern from its accountants, warning for potential insolvency if it has not raised a new capital. This financial stress will not disappear quickly and the further revenue growth will probably be canceled by more share dilution. For the time being, plug power seems to be ready to survive and potentially become a larger player in the wider hydrogen market. But investors – even those who are willing to accept more risk of more returns – have to look somewhere else.

Consider this before buying stock in plug capacity:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor Analyst team has just identified what they believe are the 10 best shares For investors to buy now … and Plug Power was not one of them. The 10 shares that made the cut can produce sample returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005 … If you have invested $ 1,000 at the time of our recommendation, You would have $ 740,704!**

Inventor Offers investors an easy -to -follow blueprint for success, including guidelines for building a portfolio, regular updates to analysts and two new share choices per month. The Inventor Service More than quadrupled The return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 shares »

*Stock Advisor Returns as of September 23, 2024

Ryan Vanzo has no position in one of the aforementioned shares. The Motley Fool has positions and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Will plug capacity be a trillion dollar stock by 2050? was originally published by the Motley Fool

Passive income is a powerful tool for building wealth in the long term and securing financial freedom. Dividend shares with a high return offer investors an effective way to generate a steady cash flow without active management or daily involvement.

Success in Dividend Investing depends on identifying companies that offer attractive revenues and possess the financial strength to maintain and possibly grow their payouts over time. These rare finds can become Cornerstone investments and offer reliable income flows for decades.

Two shares are currently in the high -interest landscape, each offer yields above 5% with intriguing long -term perspectives. Let us investigate why these dividend powerhouses deserve further attention from income -oriented investors.

Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) presents a mandatory matter for income -oriented investors in the light of its hefty 6.07% dividend yield. The Telecom Giant has an 18-year series of consecutive diviveng increases, which recently increases its quarterly payout to 67.75 cents per share despite its 100% payment ratio.

The power of Verizon stems from its dominant American wireless market position and controls approximately 40% of the market share after the paid telephone. With this scale, Verizon can generate a leading margins and the return on capital, underlie his generous dividend payments.

The shares of the company have risen more than 18% to date, probably benefit from the rotation of investors in selected dividend shares with a high interest rating prior to the expected interest rate lets. While Verizon is confronted with fierce competition and challenges in its fixed business activities, the extensive fiber network activa and 5G technology offer growth potential.

The focus of Verizon on the growth of wireless service income, adapted income before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) expansion and generating free intention enhances its dedication to maintaining an attractive dividend. With shares that act only 9.5 times, the share also offers a considerable safety margin in the case of a market -wide withdrawal.

This mix of high-efficiency, growth potential and attractive appreciation makes Verizon an attractive passive income game.

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) Passive income investors offers a considerable dividend yield of 5.69%. The pharmaceutical powerhouse also has a huge portfolio of more than 350 medicines and 113 candidates for clinical process, with a global footprint of more than 200 countries.

Nevertheless, recent challenges, mainly due to falling Covid-19-Franchiseverkoop, have hit the shares of Pfizer hard. The share price of the medicine maker has fallen by more than 50% compared to his three -year peak, which may make it an attractive value. Currently, Pfizer is only projected 9.6 times projected 2026 income.

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Enbridge (NYSE: ENB) is one of the most sustainable dividend shares in the energy sector. The Canadian pipeline and utility company has paid dividends to its investors for more than 69 years. It has increased its payment over the past 29 years in a row. That is impressive, given that all volatility in the energy sector over the years.

The energy company has a lot of fuel to continue to pay dividends. Immediately dividend yield Above 6.5% and more growth ahead, it is an excellent option for those who have a terribly Bankable income flow.

Enbridge has four core franchises: Liquids pipelines that make up 50% of its adapted EBITDA; Gastransmission and midstream, 25%; Gas distribution and storage, 22%; And renewable power, 3%. They offer the company of terribly Predictable income supported by cost-of-service agreements and long-term contracts, in total accounting for 98% of his EBITDA. That predictability has been completely visible in the last 18 years. Enbridge has achieved its financial guidance every year despite two major recessions and two Extra periods of turbulence of the oil market.

The pipeline And utilities Company pays 60% to 70% of the stable cash flow in dividends every year. That is a conservative payment ratio for a company with such stable Cash flow. It gives Enbridge sufficient room for errors, while the company can retain a meaningful cash flow to finance expansion projects and bolt-on-acquisitions.

Enbridge also has a Rock-Solid Financial Foundation. Thanks to the strategy of using long -term, fixed interest debts and the retention of his lever ratio Low, it has a creditworthiness of investment quality. It ended the second quarter with a 4.7 lever ratio, that was In the middle of its 4.5-to-5.0 target range. It sees its lever ratio trending in the direction of the bottom of that reach next year, because it records the full benefits of his recent acquisitions of natural gas use and retains its current capital expenditure range.

These functions put the high -productive dividend of Enbridge on a very sustainable basis. It generates sufficient free cash flow after the dividend to finance a considerable part of the secure capital program. In the meantime, it has the balance capacity to finance the rest with space. This offers extra flexibility to take advantage of future growth opportunities as soon as they arise.

Enbridge finished in the second quarter with $ 24 billion Canadian ($ 17.8 billion) in secure capital projects in its backlog. These projects include extensions of the oil terminal, new gas pipelines, extensions of natural gas and projects for renewable energy. The company expects these projects to enter the commercial service until 2028. That offers Enbridge enormous visibility in its future growth.

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Micron Stock (MU) rose with 17% for the bell on Thursday after the chip maker predicted higher than expected income for the coming quarter.

Micron projected the turnover of the first quarter of $ 8.5 billion to $ 8.9 billion, above the anticipated analysts of $ 8.3 billion.

Managers attributed the increased guidelines to a more favorable price environment and the robust demand for Micron’s memory chips used in data centers to feed artificial intelligence.

“With the arrival of AI we are in the most exciting period I have seen for memory and storage in my career,” said CEO Sanjay Mehrotra during a phone call on Wednesday afternoon. Mehrotra said that the company enters the 2025 financial year with ‘the best competitive positioning in the history of Micron’.

Executives now expect that the market for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in AI data centers, in 2025 will increase to $ 25 billion, an increase of $ 5 billion this year and an increased demand for its HBM chips to bring several billions of dollars next year.

Analysts at Wedbush, JPMorgan, TD Cowen and Raymond James repeated their outper formation of the shares, encouraged by Micron’s comments about AI question and recovery in his more traditional markets. For example, they pointed to repairing the demand for micron memory chips from PC and smartphone manufacturers.

Matt Bryson van Wedbush said that the prospects of Micron ‘first quarter’ reflect our conviction that the overall memorial dynamics will probably improve considerably “after the start of next year.

Raymond James -analysts said: “HBM question remains strong and Micron appears firmly on schedule to achieve his goals.”

Micron is the first chip maker to report this profit season of quarterly results. The report gives a first glance at how the semiconductor sector goes in the midst of high expectations of Wall Street.

The company reported a turnover of $ 7.75 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter ending on August 29 – 93% higher than last year and exceeded the $ 7.66 billion expected by analysts, who recently mitigated their expectations. Adapted profit per share of $ 1.18 also exceeded both the top range of Micron’s guidance and the $ 1.11 prediction by Wall Street.

Micron’s memory chip activities have undergone a revival in the past year, because large technology companies pour billions in the semiconductor sector for hardware to power AI data centers.

Micron distinguishes itself by working together with, instead of competing against Superpower Nvidia (NVDA) in the industry. Micron delivers memory chips for Nvidia’s fierce requirements GPUs.

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Investors have amazingly high and increasingly larger standards for AI chip makers, who have often disappointed them in recent months. Micron’s profit in the third quarter of Micron made few investors and the shares plummeted because of the Outlook of the fourth quarter, which came in line with (instead of beating) the expectations of Wall Street.

NVIDIA shares also fell after reporting a quarterly win at the end of August. Despite more than doubling the profit and beating sales forecasts, investors wanted more of the Semiconductor Superpower.

NVIDIA has returned since then and Micron’s fourth quarter results have lifted its shares after a different disappointing few months, in which shares decreased in the mid -June of the highlights in the range of $ 150.

The PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index (^SOX) started repairing a dip at the beginning of the month while Tech shares gathered after the Jumbo Renter reduction of the US Federal Reserve and the wide stimulation package of the Chinese Central Bank. The index has risen almost 6% in the past week.

The company will also benefit from a bill pending the signature of President Joe Biden who would detach the environmental requirements for microchip projects that were financed by the Chips and Science Act. Micron is one of the largest beneficiaries of chips act financing, and the building chips in America act of the American house of delegates Monday would allow access to financing for his projects in Idaho and New York.

Laura Bratton is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.

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After having complained for the majority of two years that Gen -Grads are difficult to work with, bosses no longer all talk, no action: now they quickly fire young employees who are only a few months after hiring them.

AWith a new report, six out of 10 employers say that they have already dismissed some of the Gen Z employees that they have taken fresh from the university earlier this year.

Intelligent.com, a platform that focuses on helping young professionals to navigate the future of the work, interrogates nearly 1,000 American leaders. It turned out that the shortcomings of the 2024 class will influence future grads.

After experiencing a series of problems with young new recruitments, one in six bosses says that they hesitate to hire university degrees again.

In the meantime, one in seven bosses has admitted that they cannot hire this year.

Three quarters of the companies surveyed said that some or all their recent graduated employees were unsatisfactory in one way or another.

So what goes wrong for graduates with a fresh face?

The complaint from employers with young people nowadays is their lack of motivation or initiative – 50% of the leaders investigated, it called that the reason why things were not possible with their new recruitment.

Bosses also pointed out that it is unorganized and have poor communication skills as their main reasons for having to dismiss grads.

Leaders say they have struggled with the tangible challenges of the newest generation, including often too late to work and often meetings, do not wear clothing suitable in the office and use language that is suitable for the workspace.

Now, more than half of the recruitment managers have come to the conclusion that university degrees are not prepared for the world of work. In the meantime, more than 20% say that they cannot process the workload.

In reality, colleges know that their students are completely unprepared for the workforce and that some have started filling the gap.

Michigan State University is for example Students learn to deal with a network interview, Including how you can look for drawing that the other party is starting to get bored and that it is time to continue.

In the meantime, a secondary school in London is testing a 12 -hour school day to prepare students for adult life.

To the question of what university degrees would make more recruiting, bosses responded: a positive attitude and more initiative.

Intelligent’s Chief Education and Career Development Advisor, Huy Nguyen, advises Gen Z Grads to observe how other employees deal with the corporate culture at every new company with which they can participate. From there it is easier to gauge what a suitable way is to deal with others.

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