Company leadership changes over time. New leadership can bring about fresh energy, new ideas, and potentially find new ways to grow a business. Such leadership doesn’t always have to come from the CEO seat as well. That could be the case withGoldman Sachs (GS), which just announced a new CFO to replace the retiring one after a three-year tenure. Shares have had some strong performance over the past three years, rebounding strongly from the pandemic to new highs. The investment bank has seen shares more than double with a 107 percent return in the past year alone. Even with those r...

Earnings season has been solid the past few quarters for most stocks. Companies have been reporting numbers that crush pandemic levels from over the past year. Now, however, companies are getting past the worst of the pandemic, and growth has been slowing from the artificial boost from reopening (or providing a useful service during the pandemic. That’s creating some modest selloffs, but also some modest buying opportunities. Case in point?Oracle (ORCL). The tech giant, best known for database technologies, has been expanding into enterprise software services. The company just report...

Times are changing for many tech companies. Regulators around the world are looking into how tech companies collect and store data, or how they provide marketing or payment services to third-party providers. The latest company to take a hit?Apple (AAPL). Last week, a US District Judge ruled that the company need to allow developers alternative payment methods for purchases and apps made in the Apple app store. The ruling led to an immediate drop in Apple shares on Friday, with a 3.5 percent drop. However, analysts see further risk to the company’s cash flows as limited. The compan...

There are a number of big-picture trends likely to play out over the next decade. One of the more interesting is the evolution of social media from websites into a veritable “metaverse.” That’s a plan thatFacebook (FB) in particular is looking at. The company has just unveiled its Smart Glasses hardware. The device can work with integrated-reality software to create an immersive viewscreen that can likely make a future metaverse interface possible. Priced at $299, the gadget has a number of features. Chances are better models will come out in time, with better software integration fo...

Many traders are expecting a market pullback. The question is how much stocks could drop in the next few months. It’s likely based on a number of factors to be a limited pullback at best. One top reason is simply the number of deals being made right now. If deal flow were slowing and mergers were going away, that would be a sign of poor market liquidity, a much bigger harbinger of a big market selloff. Yet mergers remain alive and well, and at relatively decent valuations too. One big merger underway is the $40 billion offer to buy chipmaker Arm. The acquiring company is graphics pro...

Typically, a growing company will hit certain milestones in its career. The most important for getting onto the radar for investors is being included in a major index. Over time, companies that hit earnings and revenue goals may find they join more and more prominent indices. The S&P 500 has recently started rebalancing, taking a few companies out, but adding some new players as well, who are seeing their shares soar now. Case in point?Match Group (MTCH). The owner of Tinder, Hinge, and other dating apps, saw shares rise over 7.5 percent on news that they would be added to the wi...

The past few years has seen a major jump in streaming services from various media companies. The competition has heated up, but the big players are up for the challenge. That’s seen with the original streaming giantNetflix (NFLX), which not only started streaming old shows, but started creating award-winning content to keep subscribers content with their monthly payments as well. To stay on top, the king of content has now bought the king of comedy. Shares got a boost late last week as Netflix added to its $27 billion in content assets with streaming rights to all 180 episodes of Sei...

Stocks never move up in a straight line. One reason is profit-taking. In a bull market like this, that’s a bit rare. But other events can also temporarily weigh on a stock’s long-term uptrend. One big event is a regulatory warning. While big tech names sometimes take a one-day dive as some agency announces a record fine, or even a bank, which have collectively paid billions in fines, big pharma is the latest industry to come under fire as well. ConsiderAbbVie (ABBV), a company that the FDA issued a warning against last week on one of its key arthritis drugs. Shares shed nearly 10 per...

Shares of energy producerNorthern Oil & Gas (NOG) have been moving higher over the past year. Shares trended down over the summer, but are now starting to move higher, and one trader sees that rally continuing. That’s based on the March $20 calls. With 192 days until expiration, over 2,645 contracts traded against a prior open interest of 131, for a 20-fold rise in volume. The buyer of the calls paid about $2.10 to make the trade. Shares are currently in the $17 range, but have traded in the $21 range in early June before selling off, so the strike price is a reasonable one for w...

While some big spending bills are being discussed in Washington, the private sector is already moving towards growing out the technology of tomorrow. From the rollout of the 5G network to the ground-up monetary overhaul of cryptocurrency, the next decade looks to be the most transformative one yet. That’s also true with transportation. The last decade saw that the mass production of electric vehicles was possible. This decade, trends will move even more strongly in favor of these vehicles. One of the biggest issues today is that of range. While batteries are improving, it’s necessary...