Latest in Economics
CNBC
18 minutes 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 . 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National Post
18 minutes ago
- Business
- National Post
BREAKING: Trump 'terminating' trade talks with Canada over digital services tax
Article content OTTAWA — U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday he is putting an end to trade discussions with Canada because of the digital services tax moving ahead next week. Article content Trump made the announcement on his social media network, Truth Social. Article content Article content 'We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with… has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country,' he wrote. Article content Article content '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.' Article content Article content The first payment for Canada's digital tax is due Monday, according to the Finance department, and covers revenue retroactively to 2022. The tax is three per cent of the digital services revenue a firm makes from Canadian users above $20 million in a year. Earlier this month, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said his government was moving ahead with the tax even though it remained an irritant with the United States. Article content 'That's the law in Canada. We had fairly long, extensive discussions at the G7 about the different regimes that you find in different parts of the world. That's not unique to Canada, by the way,' he said. Article content The prime minister's office did not immediately issue a comment about Trump's latest statement. Article content More details to follow… Article content — With files from Christopher Nardi and Bloomberg. Article content
Time of India
18 minutes ago
- Business
- Time of India
Trump terminates trade talks with Canada with immediate effect, says tariffs will be announced within a week
US President Donald Trump on Friday said that the country was he is calling off trade negotiations with Canada immediately, citing its digital services tax . He added that the neighbouring country would be informed of the tariff rate within a week. "We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country," Trump said on Truth Social. Trump accused Canada of blatant attack on the US and copying the European Union. "They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. 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," he added. Live Events Canada is the second-largest trading partner of the US. Currently, all non-USMCA goods imported from Canada face a tariff rate of 25 per cent. This excludes energy products, which Trump has applied a 10 per cent tariff rate to. It also bears much of the brunt of Trump's 50 per cent tax on steel and aluminum imports.
CNBC
19 minutes ago
- Business
- CNBC
Traders head into the second half of the year with stocks at all-time highs, jobs report pending
Next week kicks off a new trading month as well as the back-half of 2025, and Wall Street will be watching to see if stocks keep up their recent than momentum. Stocks have made a massive comeback after seeing steep declines in early April, when investor anxiety around President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff policy put the S & P 500 near bear market territory . On Friday, the S & P 500 rose to a fresh all-time intraday high , spurred by optimism that trade deals with China and other U.S. trading partners would be announced soon. The three leading indexes are on pace to close out the first half of the year with solid gains. The S & P 500 as well as the Nasdaq Composite are up more than 5% year to date, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has advanced more than 3%. .SPX YTD mountain S & P 500, year-to-date Yet, some on the Street, such as BlackRock's Rick Rieder, are already projecting that the market could surge even higher in the year's second half. That's because the artificial intelligence revolution could bring down inflation , thereby sending the market higher, he said Wednesday during a keynote speech at the Morningstar Investment Conference. July 'fireworks'? Supporting a sustained rally, the market is also entering a historically strong month. July has been a positive one for the S & P 500 for the last 10 years straight and is the index's best month over the last 20 years, according to Ryan Detrick of the Carson Group. He also noted that July is the best month in a post-election year. "When you're higher in May and June like we're probably going to be with June, because we're up pretty good, July does better, and the final six months of the year have been higher 15 of the last 16 times," the firm's chief market strategist said Thursday on CNBC's " Worldwide Exchange ," noting that his word of the day is "fireworks." "When these weak months are strong, like we're doing right now, that could be a signal this bull market is alive and well." However, others are more skeptical that July will be smooth sailing for the market, seeing that Trump's 90-day tariff pause is set to expire on July 9. While the White House said Thursday that the deadline " is not critical " and that "perhaps it could be extended," the ensuing uncertainty around it could pose a risk. "Elevated macroeconomic and policy uncertainty suggests that equity volatility should remain high in H2, with multiple potential catalysts for volatility such as the July tariff deadlines," Goldman Sachs analyst Andrea Ferrario wrote in a Thursday note. On top of that, current valuation levels could signal the market may be getting ahead of itself. The S & P 500 currently trades at 23.3 times earnings, per FactSet. By comparison, the index's forward price-to-earnings ratio at the peak of the dot-com bubble was at 24.4 times earnings, as said by DataTrek co-founders Nick Colas and Jessica Rabe in a recent post on X . "A bullish call on U.S. large caps therefore requires believing that we can get to 1999-type valuations," they wrote. "The good news is that 2025 has a much more positive setup than 1999 (rate cuts, cheaper oil, greater S & P Tech exposure). Even still, current valuations reflect a full glass of optimism." Jobs on deck At this point, significantly more gains for stocks depend on the U.S. economic environment remaining rather stable, said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise. That will come especially into view next week. With U.S. markets closed Friday and a shortened trading day Thursday due to Independence Day, a slew of economic data is set to be released Thursday morning, including June's nonfarm payrolls reading. Economists polled by Dow Jones are expecting the report to show 115,000, per FactSet, down from the previous month's reported growth of 139,000 . "I think the most important kind of data to look at right now, and especially since next week we're going to get some of it, is employment," Saglimbene told CNBC. "The only time that consumers really pull back is when they fear they're going to lose their job or they've lost their job, and if we see employment data kind of remain firm, it's unlikely they're going to materially alter their spending, which is a positive for the economy, even with all of this uncertainty around trade and tariffs." Tuesday 9:45 a.m.: S & P Global manufacturing PMI (June) 10 a.m.: ISM Manufacturing (June) 10 a.m.: JOLTS (May) Wednesday 8:15 a.m.: ADP employment report (June) Thursday 8:30 a.m.: Nonfarm payrolls (June) 8:30 a.m.: Initial jobless claims (Week ended June 28) 8:30 a.m.: International trade (May) 9:45 a.m.: S & P Global services PMI (June) 10 a.m.: ISM services (June) 10 a.m.: Factory orders (May) U.S. stock market closes at 1 p.m. Friday U.S. markets closed for Fourth of July holiday
CBS News
22 minutes ago
- Business
- CBS News
Trump says he's "terminating all discussions on trade with Canada, effective immediately"
Fed Chair testifies that tariffs could drive up inflation, which is why rates were held steady President Trump says he's "terminating all discussions on trade with Canada, effective immediately," after Canada announced a digital services tax on large foreign and domestic technology companies. Posting on Truth Social Friday afternoon, the president said the U.S. will let Canada know what their tariff rate will be in the next week. The trade talks blowup comes only a week after the president met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the Group of Seven economic summit in Alberta. "We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country," the president wrote. They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately." The post came shortly after Mr. Trump told reporters in a press conference at the White House that he will soon be sending letters to countries with whom trade talks aren't going well, and tell them what their tariff rate is. Canada is one of the United States' biggest trading partners. The U.S. has imposed tariffs on most imports from Canada, and Canada has hit back with tariffs on U.S. exports to Canada.
