Latest news with #CapitalOne
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Wall Street's Secret Weapon: How Citi and Capital One Cracked the H-1B Code
Wall Street might not be building the next ChatGPT, but it's hiring like it wants to. New data covering May 2020 through 2024 shows that Citigroup (NYSE:C) brought in over 3,000 new H-1B workersmore than many Big Tech names. But here's the kicker: nearly two-thirds weren't even Citi employees. They were contractorslower-paid, outsourced, and funneled in through firms like Tata Consultancy Services, which is now under federal investigation. These middlemen operate a parallel system: they recruit, place, and often underpay talent while clipping a cut from each paycheck. Median salary for one of these H-1B developers? $94,000. Compare that to $142,000 for a direct hire doing similar work. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 7 Warning Sign with C. Capital One might just be the poster child for how deep this goes. More than half of its 905 H-1B contract hires came from staffing firms flagged for using multiple registrationsa strategy the government deemed fraudulent just last year. The company worked with 429 separate middlemen, including six previously linked to visa gaming. Other big namesVerizon (NYSE:VZ), AT&T (NYSE:T), Walmart (NYSE:WMT)also relied heavily on such contractors, but remained silent when pressed for comment. Even with similar job titles and education levels, the pay gap between contract and full-time H-1B workers remained stark. In some cases, one in three contractors was paid the bare minimum allowed under US law. This is no longer just a Silicon Valley story. It's a systemic reshaping of white-collar labor. And the incentives are clear: lower wages, flexible hiring, and easier paths to offshoring. The data, obtained through FOIA litigation, exposes how middlemen now dominate a program once meant to bring in the best of the best. But instead of elite AI talent, we're seeing armies of outsourced IT workers filling lower-level rolesoften stuck in second-tier status due to visa restrictions. Whether Washington reforms it or not, investors would be smart to watch how companies like Citigroup and Capital One are quietly arbitraging America's immigration system. This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
CNBC
9 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
We're raising our price targets on 5 stocks — and cutting our outlook on another
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Markets: The S & P 500 is rallying to a new record high on Friday, though the index came off its best levels of the day after President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that he has ended trade talks with Canada due to concerns about digital services taxes on U.S. tech companies. Still, it has been an exceptional week for the broader market. As tensions in the Middle East eased, oil prices plunged, interest rates declined, and stocks surged. Some of the biggest winners this week were in tech and AI -infrastructure related stocks. But the financials had an impressive week, too. We'll see the results of the Fed's annual stress test later Friday. Some Wall Street analysts expect Club name Wells Fargo to be among the biggest winners . Price target changes: We're making a handful of changes to our price targets on portfolio stocks. Apple : We are lowering our price target to $240 a share from $280 to reflect some of our recent concerns that a demand pull-forward from people buying iPhones ahead of tariffs could moderate sales in the quarters ahead. We've also expressed frustration about how Apple is allocating too much capital to stock buybacks, when those funds could be more effectively used to accelerate its lagging AI initiatives. Capital One Financial : We are increasing our price target to $250 from $210. As we talked about on Friday's Morning Meeting, the stock still trades at a huge discount to peer American Express , and maybe it shouldn't since Capital One now also operates a closed-loop network – meaning it issues its own cards and runs its own payment network, just like American Express. Based on 2026 earnings per share estimates, Capital One is trading at an 11 multiple while AXP trades at 18. We're not arguing for parity, necessarily. But if Capital One re-rates to 13 times earnings, still a five-turn discount to American Express, as it proves the benefits of the Discover deal, then we're talking about stock trading at about $250 based on the consensus earnings per share estimate of $19.32. CrowdStrike : We are nudging up our price target to $520 from $500. This higher price target reflects the higher price-to-earning multiple the best of breed cybersecurity companies continue to deserve in the market. Although we are raising our price target, we remain mindful of the run the stock has had this year. This was the main reason why we trimmed this position earlier in the week. GE Vernova : We are increasing our price target to $550 from $500. GE Vernova's valuation may look stretched, but the stock keeps powering higher due to the heavy investment needed to power AI data centers around the world. The robust demand for the company's gas turbines and electric grid solutions should translate to strong pricing power for many years. The company remains a potential winner from future trade deals and should benefit from the Trump administration's push to boost energy supply to power AI. Goldman Sachs : We are increasing our price to $725 from $615. We continue to see Goldman Sachs as one of the biggest beneficiaries of an improving initial public offering market, as well as an increase in mergers-and-acquisitions activity. The big banks could also get a boost from looser regulations , as we wrote Thursday. Meta Platforms : We are raising our price target to $800 from $700. A pair of separate bullish analysts raised their Meta price target above $800 this week, and we want to be right there with them because the social media giant has been one of the best at using AI to generate more revenue. Next week: There are no companies in the portfolio scheduled to report earnings next week. On the data side, it will be a jobs-week, which means we'll see the ADP employment report Wednesday morning, as well as the all-important nonfarm payroll report. The jobs report will be on Thursday, not the usual Friday, because the market is closed on July 4 in observation of Independence Day. A few other key data reports are the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing and services activity indexes for the month of June. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
CNBC
11 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
Jim Cramer says buy this bank stock — plus Street analyst names Meta a top pick
Every weekday the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a "Morning Meeting" livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here's a recap of Friday's key moments. 1. The S & P 500 hit a new record high on Friday as investor optimism builds that trade deals are coming. The U.S. and China confirmed an agreement that would allow for rare earth exports along with easing of technology restrictions. Core PCE, the Federal Reserve's favorite measure of inflation, came in slightly ahead of expectations and bond yields are unchanged. "Basically, the data is not going to impact the market," Jim Cramer said. "We continue just to levitate higher in the market, [with] a lot of it being driven by AI," said Jeff Marks director of portfolio analysis for the Club. Magnificent Seven stocks are also making a big comeback, with portfolio name Amazon now in positive territory for the year. We took some profits in Disney Friday morning with the stock's return this year double that of the S & P 500. 2. Capital One acquisition of Discover puts it in a position to make more money from debit cards than its peers, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. And yet, Capital One still trades at a major discount to rival American Express . "I think people should still be buying the stock," Jim said. The Club initiated a position in Capital One back in March, with a $250 price target. 3. Piper Sandler named Meta a top large cap pick and raised its price target on shares to $808 from $650. According to the analysts, Meta's AI investments are transforming advertising technology with tools that can push mid-teen revenue growth for multiple years. We recently wrote about the secret AI sauce behind Meta's huge stock rally since 2022. "It's my favorite right now of the mega caps," Jim said. "I don't think people realize how powerful this [Meta's ad tech] is." 4. Stocks covered in Friday's rapid fire at the end of the video were: Nike , JP Morgan , Bank of America , and Molson Coors . (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long AMZN, COF, DIS, META. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
CNET
15 hours ago
- Business
- CNET
This Is the Least Rewarding Card in My Wallet. Here's Why I Still Use It
CNET/Getty Images As a credit card writer, I carefully curate my wallet. I have cash-back cards that earn rewards on everyday spending, travel cards with useful perks and other cards that I've picked up for one reason or another. Most of them earn between 2% and 5% rewards in different categories or provide benefits such as trip insurance. Then there's my humble Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card*, which earns a flat 1.25x miles on all purchases and comes with relatively few travel benefits. It's not a bad card for its niche -- a no-frills travel card meant for those who don't want to pay an annual fee -- but I personally have more rewarding options in my wallet. So why do I use it? For one specific feature: Capital One's virtual credit cards tool. It's invaluable for keeping my card information secure when shopping online. This alone makes my VentureOne worth using over my other, more rewarding cards. What's a virtual credit card and how does it work? A virtual credit card is a unique, randomly generated card number you can use in place of your real card information when making purchases online. The benefit of a virtual card is that you don't have to share your real card number during the transaction, giving you some extra protection from hacking and fraud. A digital wallet like Google Pay and Apple Pay provides similar benefits, but not all merchants accept this payment method. You can use virtual credit cards anywhere online that you'd use a normal credit card. Some issuers will give you a temporary virtual card number for a newly opened card so you can start spending while you wait for the physical card to arrive. But Capital One's virtual cards feature lets you create and manage new virtual cards at will, which is what really makes it useful. How to use Capital One's virtual credit card Capital One's virtual card is available on most of its credit cards, not just the VentureOne. So if you have one of Capital One's other consumer or business cards, you can still use this feature. There are two ways to generate a virtual credit card for your Capital One credit card: Use the Eno browser extension, which lets you automatically generate a virtual card at checkout when shopping online. Manually generate virtual card numbers through the Capital One online account portal or mobile app. To create a virtual card in the online portal, click on your profile picture in the top right corner, then select "digital wallet manager" in the drop-down menu. Screenshot by Raina He/CNET You'll be directed to a new page. Click on the "virtual cards" tile to go to your virtual cards manager. Screenshot by Raina He/CNET Here, you can see and manage all your existing virtual cards. You can check the card information and lock, unlock or delete them. Screenshot by Raina He/CNET If you click on the "create virtual card" link at the top, you'll be prompted with a pop-up to choose which credit card you want to link your virtual card to (if you have multiple compatible Capital One cards). You can then give your virtual card a nickname. You can also choose whether you want to limit the virtual card to a single use. By default, each virtual card is good for repeated use at one store only. Once you create your virtual card, you'll be presented with a virtual card number, CVC and expiration date. Use this card like you would your physical credit card when shopping online. When I use my VentureOne virtual card (and when I don't) Because the VentureOne's 1.25x flat rewards rate is lower than what most of my other cards earn, using its virtual card feature typically means losing out on some rewards or benefits. But I think the trade-off is worth it for these situations: Online purchases on sites I don't completely trust: Whenever I buy something from a website I'm not familiar with or I don't trust completely, I'll use a virtual card for some extra security. Depending on whether I think I'll shop there again, I'll either generate a single-use virtual card or a repeated-use card for the specific merchant. In the latter case, I'll lock the virtual card after purchasing and keep it locked until I need it again. Whenever I buy something from a website I'm not familiar with or I don't trust completely, I'll use a virtual card for some extra security. Depending on whether I think I'll shop there again, I'll either generate a single-use virtual card or a repeated-use card for the specific merchant. In the latter case, I'll lock the virtual card after purchasing and keep it locked until I need it again. Services that require me to keep a credit card on file: Some services, like rideshare apps, require you to keep a payment method on file. I'll use a virtual card for these services so that if my account is hacked, my real credit card won't be at risk, and I can easily disable the virtual card in my Capital One dashboard. Some services, like rideshare apps, require you to keep a payment method on file. I'll use a virtual card for these services so that if my account is hacked, my real credit card won't be at risk, and I can easily disable the virtual card in my Capital One dashboard. Subscriptions, memberships and free trials: I currently don't have many subscriptions or memberships, but if I did, I'd use a virtual card for them. I've heard horror stories about subscriptions that are easy to sign up for but hard to cancel, and I'd want an easy way to cut off payments if a company doesn't honor my cancellation request. The same goes for free trials, which often automatically turn into ongoing subscriptions if you don't cancel in time. Using a single-use virtual card can help prevent this. And here's what I don't use the card for, because I either don't need to or I don't think the trade-off is worth it: Anywhere I can use my digital wallets: While creating a virtual card through Capital One's tool is relatively simple, it's still an extra step. When a site lets me use my digital wallets, which offer the same protections as a virtual card but are more streamlined to use, I'll use that instead. While creating a virtual card through Capital One's tool is relatively simple, it's still an extra step. When a site lets me use my digital wallets, which offer the same protections as a virtual card but are more streamlined to use, I'll use that instead. Expensive purchases from trustworthy sites: For high-value purchases on sites I trust, the potential for additional rewards outweighs the security risks, so I'll use the card with the highest rewards. Generally, that means a tiered rewards card or a 2% flat rewards card (depending on the purchase). For high-value purchases on sites I trust, the potential for additional rewards outweighs the security risks, so I'll use the card with the highest rewards. Generally, that means a tiered rewards card or a 2% flat rewards card (depending on the purchase). Travel purchases (with a caveat): I use my Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card for most travel purchases to activate the card's various trip protections. However, sometimes I'm forced to book travel through sites whose security I'm not entirely confident in. In these situations, I weigh the risk of not having my Chase Sapphire Preferred's travel protections if something goes wrong versus the risk of having my credit card information potentially compromised, then make a decision on a case-by-case basis. I use my Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card for most travel purchases to activate the card's various trip protections. However, sometimes I'm forced to book travel through sites whose security I'm not entirely confident in. In these situations, I weigh the risk of not having my Chase Sapphire Preferred's travel protections if something goes wrong versus the risk of having my credit card information potentially compromised, then make a decision on a case-by-case basis. In-person purchases: Since I can't use a virtual card to make in-person purchases (except through a digital wallet, which makes a virtual card unnecessary), I'll generally use my other, more rewarding credit cards over my VentureOne card. There are many different Capital One credit cards, and some offer competitive rewards in their category. Depending on which card you have and what you're buying, your virtual card may well be your most rewarding card. In that case, feel free to use it for everything. Other tips to keep your credit cards safe Using a virtual card is one good way to keep your money safe, but it shouldn't be your only line of defense. Here are some other strategies I personally use and recommend: Lock any cards you aren't regularly using: I have a lot of credit cards, and some see more frequent use than others. Any card I'm not using on a daily basis, I keep locked, which blocks new purchases but generally allows established recurring transactions to go through. Most banks allow you to lock and unlock your card at will through your account dashboard. If you have virtual cards that allow repeated use, lock those too when you're not using them. I have a lot of credit cards, and some see more frequent use than others. Any card I'm not using on a daily basis, I keep locked, which blocks new purchases but generally allows established recurring transactions to go through. Most banks allow you to lock and unlock your card at will through your account dashboard. If you have virtual cards that allow repeated use, lock those too when you're not using them. Don't save payment methods in your browser or online accounts: I try to avoid saving my credit card information in my browser or on any website that doesn't require it. The convenience isn't worth the security risk if your account gets hacked or the site experiences a data breach. I try to avoid saving my credit card information in my browser or on any website that doesn't require it. The convenience isn't worth the security risk if your account gets hacked or the site experiences a data breach. Regularly monitor your accounts and report any unauthorized transactions immediately: Make a habit of going through your credit card transactions on a regular basis. If you find anything that looks wrong, report it to your issuer immediately. This way, they can deactivate and replace your card to prevent further unauthorized transactions, as well as potentially refund your money. And if your physical card has been stolen or you suspect your card information has been compromised, you should also report it, even if no unauthorized transactions have occurred. *All information about the Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card has been collected independently by CNET and has not been reviewed by the issuer.
Wall Street Journal
18 hours ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
It's a New Era for Capital One. Amex and Chase Are in Its Sights.
Capital One Financial COF 1.19%increase; green up pointing triangle once featured gnarly barbarians threatening high interest rates in its ads. More recently, it has featured Taylor Swift at an airport lounge. But the real work is now happening behind the scenes, as the credit-card giant embarks on its own new era.
