Latest news with #Barron's
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Dow Inc. Cut Its Dividend in Half. Why It Had to Be Done.
FEATURE Advisor TakeKey takeaways from the Barron's Advisor editorial team Chemicals producer Dow cut its dividend on Thursday to preserve cash in tough times. The new quarterly payout is 35 cents, down from 70 cents. Solve the daily Crossword
Business Wire
7 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Seven Ameriprise Financial Advisors Named to
MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE: AMP) today announced that seven of the firm's financial advisors were named to Barron's list of the 'Top 100 Women Financial Advisors' in the country. Barron's recognizes the industry's top women advisors based on several factors, including levels of professionalism and success in the business. The rankings are created by data provided by thousands of the nation's most successful women advisors. Ameriprise advisors named to the 2025 Barron's ' Top 100 Women Financial Advisors' list: Susan Kim, Private Wealth Advisor at Kim, Hopkins & Associates in Vienna, Virginia Jennifer Marcontell, Private Wealth Advisor at Marcontell Wealth Management in Mont Belvieu, Texas Charla McIntyre Fields, Private Wealth Advisor at Fields Wealth Management in Hurst, Texas Kim Orth, Private Wealth Advisor at Orth Financial Group in Wilmington, Delaware Gail Reid, Private Wealth Advisor at Castlewatch Wealth in Glendale, California Kim St. Pierre, Private Wealth Advisor at TruSpire Wealth Advisors in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania Michelle Young, Private Wealth Advisor at Confetti Wealth in Edina, Minnesota 'The Ameriprise advisors recognized by Barron's have built incredible practices, and we're proud of all they've accomplished,' said Bill Williams, Executive Vice President and President of the Ameriprise Independent Advisors channel. 'These advisors are continually raising the bar by providing a consistent and exceptional client experience. They're bringing the best of Ameriprise to their clients, leveraging the firm's innovative technology, leading investment capabilities and tailored advice solutions – all backed by the firms differentiated service and operations.' The full list of Barron's ' Top 100 Women Financial Advisors' can be found at Barron' About Ameriprise Financial At Ameriprise Financial, we have been helping people feel confident about their financial future for more than 130 years 1. With extensive investment advice, global asset management capabilities and insurance solutions and a nationwide network of more than 10,000 financial advisors, we have the strength and expertise to serve the full range of individual and institutional investors' financial needs. 1 Company founded June 29, 1894 Barron's generates its rankings from a formulaic analysis of surveys answered by candidates regarding assets, revenue, and quality of practice, including an advisor's regulatory and compliance record. Certain awards include a demographic component to qualify. This award for each applicable year is based on data from the previous two calendar years and is not indicative of this advisor's/team's future performance. Neither Ameriprise Financial nor its advisors pay a fee to Barron's in exchange for the ranking or its use. Barron's is a registered trademark of Dow Jones, L.P.; all rights reserved. Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Ameriprise Financial cannot guarantee future financial results. Investment products are not insured by the FDIC, NCUA or any federal agency, are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed by any financial institution, and involve investment risks including possible loss of principal and fluctuation in value. Securities offered by Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC. Member FINRA and SIPC. © 2025 Ameriprise Financial, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mint
29-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Bonds have underperformed. Why you should own them now.
Bonds have been hard to love in recent years—but they are getting easier to appreciate. Over the past decade, bonds have barely mustered a 2% annual return, well behind the S&P 500's 13%. And with their struggles, the asset class has found itself fighting for a place in portfolios as many individual investors and financial advisors abandon the traditional 60/40 mix of stocks and bonds and substitute alternatives like real estate, private equity or private credit for all or part of the fixed-income allocation. Take a look now. Despite all the knocks against them, bonds are having a decent year—through late June, U.S. bonds were about even with the S&P 500 as both were generating returns of close to 4%. And the outlook for the rest of 2025 looks good with the Federal Reserve poised to cut short-term rates by as much as half a percentage point and inflation running near 2%. 'Now is not the time to abandon fixed income," writes Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, who notes that bonds have generated respectable returns in 2025, despite what she calls 'tariff-related inflation risk" as well as pervasive concerns about intractably high federal deficits. Barron's has long favored stocks for income because of their growth potential, and generally low rates on bonds. But there is a case for bonds now because the earnings yield of the S&P 500—the inverse of the price/earnings ratio—is now under 5%, comparable with the yield on long-term Treasuries and municipal bonds, and below those on mortgage securities, preferred stock and junk bonds. Bonds may not carry the lofty yields of the 1990s, when Treasuries yielded 6% to 7%, but rates are way better than they have been for most of the past decade. Treasuries now yield around 4%; municipals yield 3% to 5%; preferred stock yield 6% or more; mortgage securities yield 5.5%; junk bonds yield 7%; and cash, in the form of money-market funds and Treasury bills, now yield about 4%. There are still pockets of yield throughout the stock market that comfortably exceed the 1.2% dividend rate on the S&P 500. Real estate investment trusts yield an average of 4%, energy pipelines, 3% to 7%, and electric utilities about 3%. At the start of 2025, Barron's ranked foreign high-dividend paying stocks and U.S. equity high-yielders as the favorites in our annual survey of fixed income, and relegated preferred stock and municipal bonds to near the bottom. That call looks good so far given the strength in international stocks and flattish returns in munis and some preferreds. This represents an update based on first-half performance and the outlook for the next six months: Tax-exempt bonds ranked near the bottom of returns in the fixed-income market during the first half of the year—but that offers a solid setup for the rest of 2025. Weighing on the muni market lately has been a heavy supply of new issues in the first half of June, but longer term, the outlook looks better. Single-A and double-A bonds now yield from 4.5% to 4.75%, just a touch below those on 30-year Treasury bonds at 4.85%. The tax-equivalent yield on those munis is over 7%. 'The underperformance has created attractive relative value," says Anders Persson, CIO of global fixed income at Nuveen. Investors have favored exchange-traded funds like the $39 billion iShares National Muni Bond, but active managers can find value in the opaque and heterogenous $4 trillion market. Many individuals still prefer to buy individual municipal bonds and clip coupons. For residents of high-tax states like New York and California, consider long-term debt from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power or Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, which now yield about 4.75%. Intermediate-term munis aren't as appealing relative to Treasuries based on relative yields, but there is less rate risk. The $77 billion Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt fund yields about 3%. Non-investment-grade muni funds like the $13 billion Nuveen High Yield Municipal Bond fund now yield over 5%. There has been some concern that the tax bill making its way through Congress could curb the muni tax exemption. BofA analysts Yingchen Li and Ian Rogow wrote on Friday that they are optimistic the exemption will 'survive" the negotiations between the House and Senate. Dividend payers still look like a solid way to generate income. Right now, investors can get yields of 2.5% or more plus dividend growth and capital appreciation. Not all dividend strategies are created equal. The $60 billion Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF has returned 4% this year, in line with the S&P 500. The $68 billion Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF, however, is down 1%, while the ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF, which owns companies with at least 25 years of annual dividend increases, is up 2%. Healthcare stocks are worth a look for contrarian investors with the sector at its lowest relative level to the S&P 500 in 25 years. Among big stocks, Merck yields 4%, Pfizer, 7% and UnitedHealth Group 3%. Hurt by tough consumer trends, food stocks have rarely been more disfavored and offer ample—and likely secure—yields. General Mills yields almost 5% and Kraft Heinz yields 6%, with both stocks near 52-week lows. International high yielders came to life this year as overseas markets rallied and the dollar dropped. The trend likely has staying power following many years of underperformance relative to the U.S. Overseas companies favor dividends over stock buybacks, resulting in widespread 3%-plus dividends. Investors can do better. The Schwab International Dividend Equity ETF yields 4% while the iShares International Select Dividend ETF is at 5%, even after gaining 28% this year. Pipelines do the boring work of transporting oil and natural gas from one place to another. But they also represent a backdoor play on the AI boom since they provide the fuel that generates the electricity to power data centers. Barron's highlights Kinder Morgan in the current issue as a gas play that is cheaper than industry leader Williams Cos. Kinder Morgan yields 4%. Kinder Morgan, like most U.S. pipelines, is a corporation. More yield is available, however, in stocks like Enterprise Products Partners and Energy Transfer, which are structured as partnerships that generate cumbersome K-1 tax forms. The result is 7% yields on the pair, against 3% to 5% yields on corporate pipelines. The partnership-heavy Alerian MLP ETF yields 8% Regardless of the structure, pipelines often get too little attention from investors. 'The sector continues to be under owned and underappreciated. It's critical to the economy and AI," says Rob Thummel, a senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital, which runs the Tortoise Energy Infrastructure closed-end fund. The fund now yields 10% and trades at a 7% discount to its net asset value. Large holdings including Williams, Targa Resources, and Energy Transfer. Agency mortgage-backed securities offer the combination of nice yields and high credit quality. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage issues now yield more than 5.5%, about 1.3 percentage points above the 10-year Treasury. That 'spread" is now wider than the long-term average and compares with less than a percentage point yield pickup for high-grade corporates. The Simplify MBS ETF buys new mortgage issues and yields 6%, while the larger iShares MBS ETF, which holds a lot of lower-rate securities, yields 4%, but has more capital appreciation potential. The DoubleLine Total Return Bond fund holds a mix of agency and higher-yielding nonagency issues that do carry some credit risk. Run by veteran manager Jeffrey Gundlach, the fund yields about 5.7%. Private real estate is attracting more interest from financial advisors but there's a strong case to be made for the public REITs, which offer some of the industry's best assets and management teams, plus liquidity and transparency. The sector is flattish this year based on the total return of the Vanguard Real Estate ETF, which offers broad industry exposure and yields nearly 4%. Though the apartment sector is in the red this year, it is expected to benefit in the coming years from reduced supply. Big operators like AvalonBay Communities, Mid-America Apartment Communities, and Equity Residential yield in the 3% to 4% range. Prologis, the leading warehouse owner, is trading close to where it was five years ago and yields almost 4% Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Goldfarb is partial to SL Green Realty, which yields 5% and is one of the two leading New York office REITs. Its shares fell 6% this past week on concerns about the prospect of socialist Zohran Mamdani winning the mayoral election in November. Goldfarb likes SL Green's focus on the hot market around Grand Central Terminal. One popular area outside of traditional bonds are high-grade collateralized loan obligations, derivatives usually packaged out of junk-quality loans. They have produced higher returns than major bond indexes in recent years with higher credit quality. The Janus Henderson AAA CLO ETF, which yields 6%, has attracted $20 billion since its inception almost five years ago and produced 7% annual returns over the past three years, against 3% for the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF. The newer Nuveen AA-BBB CLO ETF dips down in credit quality and has a 6.5% yield. The iShares Flexible Income Active ETF holds CLOs, as well as a raft of other asset classes with higher yields including junk debt, emerging market bonds, and commercial mortgage securities. Run by BlackRock's head of fixed income Rick Rieder, it has returned 8% annually since its inception in 2023 and now yields over 6%. The combination of yield, security, liquidity, and tax benefits has helped preferred stock gain a following among many income-oriented buyers. There are two main types of preferred: $25 par securities that generally trade on the NYSE or Nasdaq, and $1,000 par securities that mostly trade over the counter like bonds. The $25-par market, which is geared toward retail buyers, was richly priced at year-end, but has since gotten more reasonable after suffering a 1% loss including reinvested dividends based on the iShares Preferred and Income Securities ETF. Banks are the major issuers in the $300 billion market and their $25-par issues now yield around 6%. Consider preferreds with below-market dividends of 4% to 5% since those offer more upside potential if rates fall. Another bonus: Most preferred dividends are taxed like common stocks at a top federal rate of 20%, while corporate bond interest is taxed at income-tax rates. For those comfortable with Bitcoin, there are three high-rate preferreds from Bitcoin holder MicroStrategy, including the recent deal known as STRD for its ticker now yielding 11.5%. Doomsayers assert reduced foreign demand and the prospect of $2 trillion annual budget deficits will inevitably lead to higher rates on government bonds. But the Treasury market has held up well this year and the reason could be relatively high yields relative to the 2% inflation rate. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note is down about a quarter percentage point to 4.30% this year, resulting in a total return of 5% on the iShares 7-10 Treasury Bond ETF. Long-term Treasury yields at around 4.85% are slightly higher this year and the result is that the popular iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF has returned just 2%. Barron's wrote recently that Treasury inflation-protected securities, or TIPS, are a good alternative to regular Treasuries. They sport break-even yields of around 2.30%, meaning that if inflation runs higher than that, investors will do better in TIPS versus run-of-the-mill Treasuries. The best value in TIPS are 30-year securities offering a real, or inflation-adjusted, yield of 2.5%. The big iShares TIPs ETF, has an average maturity of around seven years, while the Pimco 15+ Year U.S. TIPS Index ETF offers exposure to the longer end of the market. Cash isn't just a parking place. It's an asset class and an alternative to bonds for risk-averse investors. Money-market funds and Treasury bills now yield around 4%, exceeding the inflation rate by about two percentage points. The challenge is that short rates are likely headed lower. But even a half-point drop by year-end would still leave cash yields in the 3.5% to 3.75% range. T-bill ETFs are a good alternative to money-market funds because of higher yields, high credit quality, monthly income and generally lower fees. T-bill ETFs have sucked in a record amount of cash this year as individuals emulate Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett who has put over $300 billion of the company's cash into T-bills and holds virtually no bonds. The $50 billion iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF yields about 4.2% and has an expense ratio of just 0.09%. Investors can buy Treasury bills at weekly auctions through the TreasuryDirect website and banks and brokers. The six-month T-bills to be auctioned Monday will mature in early January, allowing holders to defer paying taxes on the interest income until 2027 since T-bill interest is paid at maturity. Write to Andrew Bary at
Mint
27-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Yergin: $40 oil isn't happening. Where energy is headed after Iran.
The surprisingly calm reaction in global oil markets to the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear operations highlights the realigning world order of oil supply. Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of S&P Global, spoke to Barron's on Wednesday about the implications of the conflict and the two-month cease-fire announced this week on oil markets, which have since stabilized. Brent crude is trading at $66, just around where it was priced before Israel first attacked Iran on June 13. 'The market is telling us that a disruption of supply isn't expected, which implies that this cease-fire will hold. But is the crisis over? Only the events will provide that answer," said Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of oil. This transcript of the conversation has been edited. Barron's: How have the increased tensions in the Middle East and U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities impacted your outlook for oil prices? Daniel Yergin: Going into this latest crisis, prices were set to be in a lower range than they had been before. Coming out of the crisis, they will probably revert to that low range, unless the cease-fire doesn't hold or there is some other disruption. The risk premium that went into the price was actually not that high given the amount of oil and [liquefied natural gas] that flows out of the Gulf. But there was no meaningful disruption. A year ago, we were talking about a range of $70-85 [per barrel of Brent]. Now it seems more likely like a $55-70 range, because of the imbalance between supply and demand. Are you concerned Iran may retaliate further? Is Middle East oil infrastructure still vulnerable? There is such a concentration of infrastructure—not only oil and gas but also desalinization. But it isn't necessarily rational for the Iranians to attack the Arab side of the Gulf, because, at least lately, there has been something of a detente between Iran and the Gulf Arab states. There has been a lowering of tension between both the Iranian side and on the Arab side, an effort to modulate tensions between them. You could see that in the Gulf states' statements. They deplored violence. One of the key elements for Iran to consider is that it depends upon the Strait of Hormuz to export oil and for its main source of revenue. Any disruption of the Strait would very likely bring retaliation against its own oil infrastructure. There are checks and balances at work here, even in a volatile war situation. China is the main buyer of the oil that goes through the Strait, and given Iran's relationship with China, that isn't something they would want to disrupt. China is their biggest buyer of oil by far. How does OPEC+ factor into this? They increased production recently. It is the Gulf Arab states who are the real ones in favor of increasing production, because they have all the shut-in production, and I think that they had really come to that conclusion several months ago. Some countries weren't sticking to quotas. But more important, they decided it was finally time to bring back this oil that they had been keeping on the sidelines and to accept the price consequences, but make it up—at least to some extent—by volume what they may lose on price. They clearly want to regain market share that they may have lost to other producers. Before Israel attacked Iran, there was talk in the market about potentially $40 oil by the end of the year. Is that possible? Certainly not $40, but based upon market conditions, we see oil prices at the end of the year lower than we have seen for some time. The fourth quarter is when I expect to see the biggest weakness in price. What does that mean for the U.S. producers? They have an obligation, a big social contract, to return money to investors. Therefore, when prices come down, then they would indeed reduce levels of investment. We already saw companies beginning to reduce their investment level. I think in July we will see companies really rethinking, looking very carefully, at how to be more prudent in terms of investment. The thing about shale is you have to keep investing to maintain production. So, in a lower-price environment, if we could see prices for an extended period in the $50s, then next year, we would see U.S. oil production going down. What does this all mean for the energy transition? The energy transition, as conceptualized in the last few years, is in trouble. There was this notion that there was going to be this linear transition that we get to net zero by 2050 for about half the world's emissions. The energy transition is going to be slower, more expensive. And it will be multidimensional—unfolding at different paces in different regions, with different mixes of technology, and definitely with different priorities. I'm just back from Asia, and it was clear that countries aren't going to trade-off economic growth. Economic growth and poverty reduction are just as big priorities as addressing climate. Wind and solar continue to grow. In the U.S., obviously the pace of that transition will be further affected by what happens in the current legislative battles of the budget. The fate of the tax breaks will have a big impact. But the biggest thing going on is the resurgence of natural gas: If you also look at the orders for gas turbines to generate electricity, they are through the roof It is odd that we just have this crisis in the Gulf, and we're all concerned about energy security. But the biggest area of protracted concern for energy security is about electricity and the reliability of electric power systems to meet the demand requirements of artificial intelligence. We show that data centers alone could go from 4% to about 10% of total electricity demand by 2030 in the U.S. But how do you produce the power? Natural gas is going to have a bigger role in it, and we will see the question of postponing the closing of coal plants. Despite the situation in the Middle East, where tensions remain high as the cease-fire may or may not hold, oil is still at the price level it was weeks ago. It seems like oil isn't a weapon anymore. Is that right? There is a stabilizer that wasn't there in previous crises. The global oil market has been rebalanced. The fact that the U.S. is now the world's largest producer of oil and the largest exporter of LNG changes both the geopolitical, the physical, and the psychological balance. That is very different from earlier decades, where the U.S. was an offset. It doesn't mean that the Gulf is less important. I think the growth in the Western Hemisphere, that is important. People generally know who the three largest oil producers in the world are the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Russia. But how many know the fourth largest oil producer in the world is Canada? Canada is growing. Brazil is growing. Guyana is growing. That is not great news for Vladimir Putin. Thanks, Dan. Write to editors@
Mint
24-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
The stock market has been resilient. How long can that last?
Investors seem to be humming the chorus of Bob Marley's 'Three Little Birds" lately. Don't worry about a thing 'Cause every little thing gonna be all right. Wall Street has shrugged off concerns about tariffs and trade, interest rates remaining higher than many consumers (and President Donald Trump) would like, the prospect for slowing earnings and economic growth and, new worries about higher oil prices and greater geopolitical tension following the U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend. Stocks rose Monday but trading was volatile. Still, the market, after getting hit hard in early April by Trump's tariff war, has enjoyed an impressive surge since then. The Dow is now essentially flat for the year while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both in positive territory and inching back toward record high levels. Does the rally make sense? Or are investors now being too glib and dismissing a growing cavalcade of risks? It's increasingly looking like the latter scenario, especially when you consider that the S&P 500 is trading at nearly 23 times earnings estimates for this year, above its 10-year average forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 20. 'Not to sound like a Debbie Downer, but this is the time for investors to assess vulnerability in their portfolios," Kristina Hooper, chief market strategist with Man Group, told Barron's. 'Look at U.S. equities. There is a risk of a significant selloff. The stock market is priced for perfection," Hooper added, noting that even as earnings estimates have come down a bit lately, stocks have rebounded in the past few months. Stephen Dover, chief market strategist with Franklin Templeton, adds that the market seems to be once again buying into the idea of U.S. exceptionalism, even though a weaker dollar and the prospect of more stimulus (particularly military spending) from Germany and other European nations should boost shares of foreign companies. 'Many investors are still underweight international stocks and overweight American stocks, particularly the Magnificent Seven," Dover told Barron's, adding that 'Europe makes more sense tactically" than the U.S. market. Others note that investors are being cavalier in assuming that the situation between Iran and Israel will cool off soon, particularly after the U.S. stepped in with the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites. 'It seems markets are waiting until some sort of resolution in the Middle East," said Tavis McCourt, an institutional equity strategist with Raymond James in a report Monday. McCourt added that 'anxiety" about the possibility of oil shipments being halted in the Strait of Hormuz is a major concern. 'Increased escalation likely means short term higher oil…and mentions of 'stagflation' in the media, which can't help equities," McCourt wrote. Wall Street shouldn't assume that there will be a quick resolution to the tension in the Middle East. Nor should it dismiss the potential for inflation remaining sticker than the Fed would like for the foreseeable future. 'Tariffs here to stay as fixture of this administration's policies," Jordan Rizzuto, chief investment officer and managing partner with GammaRoad Capital Partners, told Barron's. 'We're going to have higher prices. That is depressive to economic growth but also inflationary." Rizzuto added that consumer discretionary stocks continue to lag the broader market as well, despite a recent rebound. That isn't a good sign considering that many market bulls continue to cling the notion that the American consumer will keep spending even when faced with difficult times. Simply put, the recent rally may be close to running its course. But some still see hopeful signs. Chris Hyzy, chief investment officer at Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank, acknowledged that there is 'a dark cloud hanging over the market and a lot of negativity." But he thinks profit growth could rejuvenate next year, once again led by big tech companies. The Fed could also come to the rescue later this year with more rate cuts. So all isn't lost for the bulls. It just may be a bumpy ride as economic and geopolitical fears start to pick up. Write to Paul R. La Monica at
