Latest news with #techstocks
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's latest trade threat looms over Wall Street as investors celebrate stock market's return to record territory
Major equity indexes including the S&P 500 tallied their first record closing highs in months on Friday — but something happened on the way to the closing bell that left a bad taste in some traders' mouths. Just a couple of hours before trading was set to conclude for the week, President Trump surprised investors with a Truth Social post that briefly sent stocks skittering into the red. 'He doesn't seem to care': My secretive father, 81, added my name to a bank account. What about my mom? My brother stole $100K from my mom to buy bitcoin. Do I convince her to sue him? My job is offering me a payout. Should I take a $61,000 lump sum or $355 a month for life? Most American weddings are a lot more extravagant than the nuptials of Amazon's Jeff Bezos Tech stocks are powering this record-setting rally on Wall Street — but how long can it last? The president announced that the U.S. would immediately end all trade talks with Canada in retaliation for Ottawa imposing a digital-services tax on American technology giants. 'Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period,' Trump said in the post. Although it may have been incidental, the timing of the post didn't sit well with some on Wall Street. Even though stocks had shaken off most of the losses by the closing bell, some investors couldn't help but wonder whether the market's remarkable comeback rally might have emboldened Trump to once again take a more aggressive tack on trade. If that was in fact the case, it could go a long way toward undoing much of the progress that has been made in markets over the past couple of months. Trump blamed turmoil in financial markets for his decision to walk back many of his most troublesome 'liberation day' tariffs in April after the S&P 500 tumbled right to the edge of bear-market territory, while ructions in the bond market stoked widespread alarm. Ultimately, the decision to hit the pause button helped inspire the concept of the 'TACO' trade. In this case, TACO stands for 'Trump Always Chickens Out.' See: The 'Trump always chickens out' trade is the talk of Wall Street. Here's one way to play it. But now that things have calmed down, could the TACO trade return — but this time, in reverse? 'If you think about it, he shifted when the market fell,' said George Cipolloni, a veteran portfolio manager, during a phone interview with MarketWatch Friday afternoon. 'He probably feels like he has a bit of wiggle room because the stock market has done so well over the past couple of months.' It isn't just markets. Cipolloni also pointed out that inflation has remained relatively tame since Trump imposed the first tariffs of his second term earlier this year, defying the expectations of many economists. That price pressures have yet to significantly surface in the data could also encourage Trump to consider taking a hard line on tariffs as he seeks political victories he can bring home to his base. Additional tariff revenue, in theory, could help offset the budgetary impact of his signature budget plan to extend tax cuts passed during his first term in office — unless parts of the economy, like farmers, require another round of significant federal bailouts due in part to tariffs. To be sure, the latest official economic data released this week included some signs of weakness that investors might want to consider, according to Mike O'Rourke, chief market strategist with Jones Trading. Revised first-quarter GDP, released earlier in the week, showed the economy contracted by more than previously believed between the beginning of January and the end of March. Then on Friday, new data showed personal spending declined in May for the first time in four months, while a reading on core inflation came in slightly hotter than expected. Although the inflation reading didn't exactly move the needle, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell did say during congressional testimony earlier in the week that he expected tariffs to start to show up in the inflation data some time this summer. So far, investors have been mostly happy to tune out the constant noise regarding the administration's trade agenda as the Trump team pursued its goal of '90 trade deals in 90 days' as first touted back in April, O'Rourke said. In late May, Trump announced plans to slap a 50% tariff on E.U. imports, before quickly backing down after European leaders promised to speed up talks. Pain for stocks during that episode was pretty short-lived. On Friday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during an interview that the U.S. and China had completed an accord negotiated last month in Geneva, and added that deals with 10 major trading partners would be announced imminently. Investors will be keeping a close eye on how things go with Canada, and a deal with the E.U. remains top of mind as well, O'Rourke said. Given Trump's unpredictable nature, it is impossible to say with certainty what might happen next. O'Rourke thinks there is almost no chance that Trump will allow the 'liberation day' levies to return. Indeed, Trump himself said earlier that he might not stick to the deadline. But with so much about Trump's trade agenda still up in the air, investors may want to consider taking some chips off the table. 'It's very easy for the tariff situation to come back into play, and this could be the first shot across the bow here,' O'Rourke said about Trump's decision to end talks with Canada. 'The way investors have to look at this is: Do you want to roll the dice here?' The S&P 500 SPX gained 32.05 points, or 0.5%, to finish at 6,173.07 on Friday — a record close, and the index's first since Feb. 19, Dow Jones Market Data showed. The Nasdaq Composite COMP rose by 105.55 points, or 0.5%, to 20,273.46, its own first record close since Dec. 16. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA also finished higher, although it remained shy of record territory. The trade truce between the U.S. and China, strong consumer-confidence data from the University of Michigan, and investors' positive reaction to earnings from Nike Inc. NKE were just some of the factors that helped push stocks higher on Friday, according to Farzin Azarm, a managing director at Mizuho Securities USA. Reports about a coming U.S.-E.U. trade deal and an administration plan to boost energy availability for the purpose of powering the expansion of artificial-intelligence technology also helped, Azarm noted. 'I am horrified': My company won't allow me to tip more than 15% for Ubers. Do I explain this to the driver? JPMorgan has a new way of forecasting the stock market — and there's a surprising finding My cousin died before claiming his late father's $2 million estate. Will I be next in line for this inheritance? S&P 500 scores record high for first time in 4 months. What could push stocks higher from here? Coinbase's stock is up over 40% this month as Wall Street projects amazing profit growth
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Are Tesla, Apple, and Alphabet Underperforming the "Magnificent Seven" and the S&P 500?
Investors are rewarding big tech companies that are monetizing AI. Tesla, Apple, and Alphabet could be coiled springs for long-term growth. Tesla needs its big bets to pay off. These 10 stocks could mint the next wave of millionaires › The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) has more than recovered its losses from earlier this year and is now up nearly 4.4% year to date. Many mega-cap tech-focused companies have posted sizable gains -- including "Magnificent Seven" members Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). But investors may be souring on Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) due, in part, to their apparent lack of artificial intelligence (AI) achievements. Here's what's going wrong for these growth stocks, and whether they are buys now. A great divide has appeared through the Magnificent Seven between companies whose investment theses have been enhanced by AI and those whose theses have not. Perhaps the simplest reason why Tesla, Apple, and Alphabet are underperforming their Magnificent Seven peers is that they are on the unfavorable side of this great divide. Just a couple of months ago, Tesla was down around 45% in 2025. It has recovered a substantial amount of those losses despite plummeting vehicle deliveries. Tesla stock popped after its robotaxi event showcased progress on self-driving cars. Some investors have been waiting nearly a decade for this update, so it's understandable that the stock reacted favorably to the event. Given the weak results in Tesla's core business, Tesla's investment thesis increasingly relies on longer-term bets on self-driving cars and robotics. Tesla could benefit from AI one day, but it isn't monetizing it to a significant extent right now. Apple is in a similar boat. Its core business is selling tech-focused consumer products and services. Apple hasn't made meaningful AI improvements to its product suite, but it has released a slew of new tools and a software interface update that tout AI capabilities. However, it remains to be seen if Apple will be a net beneficiary of AI. AI presents arguably the best opportunity in decades for competition to tap into Apple's dominant smartphone market share. Apple has grown increasingly dependent on sales outside the U.S., but has been losing market share in key markets like China due to intense competition from companies like Xiaomi, Huawei, and Vivo. Like Tesla, Apple could benefit from AI in the near future. But so far, AI simply hasn't been a catalyst for the company in the same way it has for other mega-cap tech-focused companies. Alphabet is much more of a mixed bag. AI growth is a boon for cloud computing, and Google Cloud is the No. 3 player in the space behind Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Alphabet-owned YouTube can also benefit from AI, as it helps creators produce content and streamline suggested videos and advertisements better targeted to individual users. Google's self-driving car project, Waymo, could also benefit from AI. Alphabet-owned generative AI model Gemini is a multimodal tool -- meaning it can work with text, audio, visuals, video, and even code. Gemini got off to a rocky start, but now it's a major player in the chatbot space, along with OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and other generative AI companies. However, the elephant in the room is uncertainty about how AI could affect Alphabet's cash cow, Google Search. Integrating Gemini with Google Search, or simply changing Google Search from a web page ranking tool to an interactive information powerhouse, could be a simple and effective way for Alphabet to hold its own despite mounting competition. But there's no denying that Google Search is facing its biggest challenge in decades from competitors' AI-powered search offerings. That uncertainty alone, despite all the other ways Alphabet benefits from AI, has led some investors to avoid and/or dump the stock. Buying Tesla, Apple, or Alphabet is a belief that these companies will be able to adapt in the age of AI -- even if they don't benefit drastically from it. Tesla is arguably the highest-risk name given its lofty valuation (it has the highest price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio and highest forward P/E ratio of the Magnificent Seven). But Apple and Alphabet both have more reasonable valuations (31.2 P/E for Apple and just 18.6 for Alphabet). These companies also generate a ton of free cash flow and earnings that they can use to reinvest in the business and return capital to shareholders through buybacks and dividends. Additionally, Apple and Alphabet have substantially more cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities on their balance sheets than long-term debt. Apple's big product launch this September could be just what the company needs to prove that it has the hardware and software to attract Wall Street's attention. Alphabet investors should continue to monitor the performance of the company's services segment, which is led by Google Search. So far, Google Search ad revenue has been incredibly strong despite increased adoption of ChatGPT and other competition. Until that trend shifts, it's hard to get too pessimistic about Alphabet, especially with potential upside from Gemini and Waymo. The beauty about being an individual investor is that you don't have to agree with Wall Street sentiment and can take advantage of when great companies go on sale. Short-term-minded investors may pass on Tesla, Apple, and Alphabet simply because they aren't proven AI plays, but all three stocks could still be worth buying and holding for long-term investors. At this juncture, Apple and Alphabet present far more compelling risk and potential reward profiles than Tesla -- especially Alphabet, given its dirt-cheap valuation. So Alphabet would be my top pick of these three underperformers, with Apple as a close second. However, the best buy ultimately depends on your personal risk tolerance and the end markets you believe will thrive over the long term. Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you'll want to hear this. On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a 'Double Down' stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you're worried you've already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it's too late. And the numbers speak for themselves: Nvidia: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2009, you'd have $402,034!* Apple: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2008, you'd have $38,158!* Netflix: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2004, you'd have $704,676!* Right now, we're issuing 'Double Down' alerts for three incredible companies, available when you join , and there may not be another chance like this anytime soon.*Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Daniel Foelber has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Xiaomi and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Why Are Tesla, Apple, and Alphabet Underperforming the "Magnificent Seven" and the S&P 500? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
5 Top Bargain Stocks Ready for a Bull Run
Alphabet and Salesforce stocks are in the bargain bin, but both have solid growth opportunities ahead. Alibaba is one of the cheapest stocks out there and is becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) leader in China. AMD has a big opportunity with AI inference, while TSMC has made itself an invaluable part of the semiconductor value chain. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › While the stock market has rallied from its lows earlier this year, there are still nice bargains in the tech space. Let's look at five bargain tech stocks ready for a bull run. Trading at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of below 16.5x analyst 2025 estimates, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) is the cheapest of the megacap tech stocks. While best known for its Google search engine, Alphabet has a solid collection of market-leading and emerging businesses. Its YouTube streaming service is the most-watched in the world and the fourth-largest digital advertising platform. Meanwhile, its fast-growing Google Cloud service is the third-largest cloud computing company on the planet. On the emerging technology side, the company has jumped out to the lead in autonomous driving with its Waymo robotaxi service, while it's also at the forefront of quantum computing with its Willow chip. While there is some worry about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on its search business, Google has a strong offering through its Gemini model. In addition, the company has big distribution and ad network advantages. With its new AI mode, users also don't have to even leave its popular Chrome browser and can conveniently toggle between AI, search, and news to get the answers they are seeking. Expect Alphabet to be an AI winner, not an AI loser, setting up the stock for solid gains in the years ahead. Software-as-as-service (SaaS) stocks historically trade at premium valuations due to their recurring revenue models and strong visibility. However, with a forward P/E of around 20.5x and a price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio of 0.5 -- with PEGs below 1 indicating a stock is undervalued -- Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) currently finds its stock on the clearance rack. Despite its low valuation, Salesforce has strong growth opportunities ahead. It is looking to become a leader in agentic AI through its Agentforce platform, where customers can create AI agents that will complete tasks with little human intervention. Even though the product has only been available for two quarters, Salesforce already has more than 4,000 paying customers and many more in pilots. Its Data Cloud offering, which helps customers unify their data into a single source, has also seen huge growth. The company's AI agent strategy is already evolving, as it is looking to tightly integrate Agentforce and Data Cloud with its apps and metadata to help lead the way in digital labor. In order to help increase adoption and improve customer satisfaction, the company also recently introduced a new flexible Agentforce consumption-based pricing model that is more aligned with outcomes. If Salesforce can become an AI agent leader, then the stock should have strong upside from here. Trading at a forward P/E of just 10 times and a cash-rich balance sheet, Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) is one of the cheapest stocks around. The company is both an e-commerce and cloud computing leader in China, and it has been seeing strong AI momentum. Earlier this year, it announced that Apple would use its AI models to help power its Apple Intelligence features in China, and it just launched new Qwen3 AI models that are compatible with Apple devices. At the same time, the company has done a great job turning around its core e-commerce platforms by first investing to reaccelerate its gross merchandise volume (GMV) growth and then better monetizing that higher GMV through a small software fee and its AI-powered marketing tool, Quanzhantui. It's also seen strong momentum in its Cloud Intelligence segment. Last quarter, the segment's revenue jumped by 18%, while AI-related revenue more than doubled for the seventh straight quarter. In addition, the company expects its international commerce segment (AIDC) to turn profitable within the next year, which would be a big earnings driver. With a forward P/E of 23 times and a PEG of just 0.2 times, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) is one of the cheapest chip stocks out there. The company has been seeing strong revenue growth and become the market leader in central processing units (CPUs) in the data center arena. That said, the company's biggest opportunity moving forward is with its graphics processing units (GPUs). While the company is a distant second behind market-leader Nvidia, it has carved out a nice niche with AI inference, which isn't as technically demanding as training and where costs become more important. This is key for AMD, as the inference market is eventually expected to become the much bigger market. If it can only take a little share away from Nvidia in this area, AMD should see very strong growth ahead. With a forward P/E of around 19 times and a PEG near 1, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM) remains attractively valued. The company is the leading semiconductor manufacturing contractor in the world, making chips for companies like Nvidia, AMD, and Apple. Semiconductor manufacturing is a difficult business, and with its main competitors Intel and Samsung struggling, TSMC has turned into the primary manufacturer of advanced chips. This has given it strong pricing power and helped it become an invaluable partner to chip designers. As such, TSMC is one of the best-positioned companies to continue to benefit from increasing AI infrastructure spending. It also has a big future opportunity with autonomous driving and robotaxis, as these cars will require a lot of advanced chips, as well. 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 $687,731!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $945,846!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 818% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 175% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet and Salesforce. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Apple, Intel, Nvidia, Salesforce, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends Alibaba Group and recommends the following options: short August 2025 $24 calls on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 5 Top Bargain Stocks Ready for a Bull Run was originally published by The Motley Fool
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Citi's Kate Moore Sees Tech Stocks Leading Markets in 2H
"We need to be balanced about what might happen in the second half of this year," Citi Wealth Chief Investment Officer Kate Moore says. Speaking on "Bloomberg Open Interest," Moore says she expects the macro and policy headwinds to be in place over the next few quarters and sees tech stocks leading the way going into 2026. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Got $5,000? 2 Tech Stocks to Buy and Hold for the Long Term
Netflix shifted its focus from subscriber growth to profitability in 2022 and hasn't looked back. AMD is gaining ground in the AI hardware race and could challenge bigger rivals like Nvidia. Buying and holding quality tech stocks can pay off -- even when markets are volatile. 10 stocks we like better than Netflix › The stock market has been a bumpy ride in 2025. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) rose 4% in the first two months before taking a 19% dive in the next six weeks. The index has recovered from that plunge and trades just above the year-end level again, but it has been an adventure to remember. With volatility like this, it's no wonder many investors are staying away from the "buy" button. But there are some great buys available, even in the extra-volatile tech sector. If you have $5,000 to invest right now, this could be a great time to buy some Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) or Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) shares -- for very different reasons. Netflix took a deep price cut in 2022, as investors worried about the company's new strategy and the inflation-burdened economy. It's often a bad sign when a high-growth business refocuses on a different set of business metrics, after all. You don't change a winning recipe, so there had to be something wrong when Netflix stepped away from maximizing subscriber additions in favor of "profitable growth" at that point. Right? As it turns out, Netflix was just taking the next step in its long-term evolution. With media-streaming services taking over the media market, there's less room for high-octane subscriber growth in the largest and most lucrative markets. So it made sense to try some new ideas such as ad-supported subscriptions and live sports coverage while giving account-sharing families a couple of options. If you grabbed some Netflix shares in that period of temporary cheapness, you could have gained as much as 667% by today, June 25 2025. Netflix has almost kept up with mighty Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) over that period, which also happens to span most of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Both stocks left the S&P 500 far behind, despite historically strong returns in that index: And the thing is, Netflix is still a great buy today. This is not the end of the rocket ride. The stock has gained 43% year-to-date, and it looks expensive at first glance. Netflix shares trade at lofty valuation ratios, such as 60 times trailing earnings and 13.6 times sales. At the same time, Netflix is growing faster where it counts the most -- on the bottom line. Trailing twelve-month earnings have nearly doubled in three years, while free cash flows rose from breakeven to $7.4 billion. So Netflix's sales got over the 2022 speed bump and are growing quickly again. Meanwhile, the company is converting a stellar 18.5% of those incoming revenues into cash profits. I can go on, but you don't need to hear me gushing about Netflix. You get the point by now -- Netflix is a tremendous business and the soaring stock should still be able to rise much higher in the long run. This one is worth buying even when the shares aren't cheap. Speaking of Nvidia, I'm intrigued by one of its chief rivals. AMD shares have gained 19% in 2025, but only 76% over the last three years. Yes, that's barely ahead of the S&P 500's three-year gains and far behind Nvidia's 672% jump. After waxing poetic about Netflix, I'll cut to the chase this time. AMD looks ready to steal market share from Nvidia in the all-important AI market. The latest and upcoming versions of AMD's AI accelerator series are surprisingly competitive. Nvidia isn't winning every big-ticket contract just by showing up anymore. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is impressed by the recently launched AMD Instinct MI350 and MI400 chips, calling them "an amazing thing" in a conference last week. The organization behind ChatGPT will use AMD's accelerators in the next generation of its AI back-end systems. These processors provide top-notch AI performance at a distinctly lower price point than Nvidia's Blackwell solutions. AMD's accelerators won't be the right tool for every job, but they will chip away at Nvidia's commanding lead. And that's not the whole story. Meta Platforms already uses the older MI300 chips in its Llama series of large language models, looking forward to doing more with the newer chips. IBM (NYSE: IBM) sees great value in running AI inference processes on AMD Instinct chips with Red Hat software. The beat goes on. AMD has a long list of very excited large-scale AI customers these days, and this surge is already boosting its financial results. Data center revenues rose 57% year-over-year in the latest earnings report while AMD's earnings increased by 55%. The company still looks small next to Nvidia's trillion-dollar market cap and six-fold advantage in top-line sales. But I expect the minnow to grow larger in the coming years. The best way to take advantage of AMD's blossoming business is to grab a few shares in 2025. AMD's stock should soar in the near future, as Wall Street wraps its collective head around the company's game-changing innovation. Before you buy stock in Netflix, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Netflix 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 $687,731!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $945,846!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 818% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 175% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025 Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Anders Bylund has positions in International Business Machines, Netflix, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, International Business Machines, Meta Platforms, Netflix, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Got $5,000? 2 Tech Stocks to Buy and Hold for the Long Term was originally published by The Motley Fool
