India's Lofty Equity Valuations Are Pure Bollywood
Building materials are just one example, though that's what analyst Sanjeev Prasad and his team at Kotak Institutional Equities picked to raise some provocative questions in a recent investor note, titled What the cement sector tells us about our industry.
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31 minutes ago
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Which Is the Best "Magnificent Seven" Stock to Buy Right Now?
Key Points This dominant internet enterprise is already positioned as a leader in the AI race, with popular products and services, a cloud platform, and chips. There are few companies that have the financial firepower that this one does, letting it always operate from a position of strength. Despite being a high-quality business, shares trade at a below-market valuation multiple. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › Before, it was the FAANG stocks. In recent years, the term "Magnificent Seven" was used to group what the market believes are some of most dominant businesses on Earth. These companies' shares soared, a key factor putting them in investors' good graces. But among these elite businesses, which one is the best Magnificent Seven stock that investors should buy right now? The answer is as clear as day. Dominant internet enterprise operating from a position of strength The Magnificent Seven stock that investors should buy today is Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG). As artificial intelligence (AI) alters how people search for and obtain information, there have been real worries that this internet giant's competitive position is under attack. However, I don't think investors should worry. Google Search is Alphabet's bread and butter, raking in $50.7 billion in revenue in the first quarter. That figure was up 9.7% year over year and 25.5% higher than exactly two years ago despite the rise of OpenAI's ChatGPT. CEO Sundar Pichai says that the AI Overviews feature is "going very well with over 1.5 billion users per month." Alphabet operates from a position of power because it has "15 products that each serve half a billion people, and six that serve over 2 billion each," according to Pichai. No company has this type of reach and broad adoption, giving Alphabet a unique advantage with its distribution capabilities to introduce new AI features. And for what it's worth, Google Gemini is already integrated into these offerings. Alphabet is in a position to be a leading AI company, at least when it comes to serving individual users out there. However, the business is also poised to be an AI powerhouse from an enterprise perspective thanks to Google Cloud. Specifically, the Vertex AI platform lets customers build and deploy their own Generative AI applications. This invaluable offering looks to be a mission-critical partner for customers that don't want to get left behind in the AI race. Besides Google Cloud making Alphabet a major player at the AI platform layer, the company is also working on infrastructure. Alphabet is developing tensor processing units (TPUs), its custom-built chips made to handle inference at a larger scale. "It delivers more than 10 (times) improvement in compute power over our recent high-performance TPU, while being nearly twice as power efficient," Pichai claimed on the Q1 2025 earnings call. With deep pockets ($95 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities as of March 31), Alphabet has what it takes to play offense and keep its foot on the gas pedal. The company plans to spend a whopping $75 billion in capital expenditures this year to buttress its technological infrastructure and build servers and data centers. We haven't even mentioned YouTube yet, which might get overshadowed by the market's focus on AI. According to data from Nielsen, YouTube commands the most daily TV viewing time in the U.S. among any streaming rival, well ahead of Netflix. This video platform also benefits from a powerful network effect, with the service becoming more valuable as the number of content creators and viewers grows. Bargain hiding in plain sight It's reasonable for investors to think that the best opportunities come from smaller companies whose stocks fly under the radar. This just isn't the case, though. Alphabet is the perfect example of a bargain that's hiding in plain sight. Yes, it carries a massive $2.2 trillion market cap. And it did bring in $350 billion in revenue in 2024. However, its valuation is compelling. As of July 15, the stock trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 20.3. This represents a discount to the overall S&P 500. And it makes Alphabet the cheapest stock of all the Magnificent Seven businesses, supporting the argument that this company should be in your portfolio. Should you buy stock in Alphabet right now? Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $687,149!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,060,406!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,069% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Neil Patel has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Which Is the Best "Magnificent Seven" Stock to Buy Right Now? was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
New York Times
an hour ago
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China Exit Ban on Wells Fargo Executive Stokes Foreign Business Anxiety
China has sentenced a Japanese executive to more than three years in prison and blocked a U.S.-based Wells Fargo banker from returning home, the latest in a series of episodes that have made leaders of multinational corporations leery of traveling to China. Economic policy ministries in China have been trying to persuade multinationals to increase their investment in China. That is an effort that the exit ban and prison sentence are likely to make harder, especially because foreign enthusiasm was already waning. A real estate crash has depressed consumer spending; regulatory obstacles hamper sales in China by foreign companies; and many industries face severe overcapacity. China has said little about either executive. Eric Zheng, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, called for the release of more details in the Wells Fargo case in order to reassure the foreign business community. Wells Fargo has suspended travel by its executives to China. Many Japanese companies have already been limiting travel to China and have been withdrawing family members of managers stationed in China. Sean Stein, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said that if more information did not emerge soon in the Wells Fargo case, other American businesses might also discourage their executives from going to China. 'In cases like this, transparency is extremely important, or else there will be a spillover effect on other companies' travel policies,' he said in a telephone interview. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
How higher education failed America's poor
Julien Berman is a Post Opinions intern. The best investment you can make isn't in stocks or real estate — it's enrolling in college. At least, if your family is rich. But for America's poor, it's not so simple. On average, workers who complete at least one year of college significantly outearn those with only a high school diploma. This 'college-going premium' reflects the relative demand in the labor market for college-educated workers. Most students who enroll in college graduate, and over a lifetime that degree tends to translate into better job opportunities.
