Free Republic

Investors on Wednesday appeared to reassess the risks that Kamala Harris could win the presidential contest, sending the major stock indexes plunging on the morning after the debate between Harris and Donald Trump. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 550 points, or 1.4 percent. The S&P 500 declined by 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq Composite was off by 0.70 percent. Harris has said she would seek to hike a broad range of taxes, including taxes on corporate profits, unrealized capital gains, and the incomes of wealthier Americans. Many investors and Wall Street analysts think these taxes would...

NEW YORK — There’s a new member of the $1 trillion company club in the U.S. — and for the first time, it isn’t a technology company. On Tuesday morning, shares of Berkshire Hathaway briefly rose high enough to give the conglomerate holding company a market value of $1 trillion. Topping the list of the most valuable companies are Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft, which all are worth more than $3 trillion. Other companies trading above $1 trillion include Alphabet, Amazon and Meta. Among those companies, Microsoft, which was founded in 1975, is the oldest. Berkshire Hathaway, meanwhile, was founded in...

US stocks closed at session highs on Monday after posting their best week in a year as the markets continued to rally in a sharp turnaround from their early August sell-off. The S&P 500 rose nearly 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also gained 0.6%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite increased roughly more than 1.4%. Technology and Consumer Discretionary stocks led the gains, as the S&P 500 stretched its daily wins to eight, its longest streak since November of last year, according to Bespoke Investment data. The Nasdaq also logged its an eighth consecutive session win as shares of chip...

At least one SS whistleblower is now claiming that the SS was acting under a stand down order at Pa. APW LLC had to have gotten word of this, which would explain the gigantic put option buy the day prior, i.e. they supposedly had inside info that DJT and Rumble stock would be worthless in two days.

U.S. stock futures tumbled Monday as part of a global market sell-off centered around U.S. recession fears. Japan’s Nikkei 225 plunged 12% in its worst day since the 1987 Black Monday crash for Wall Street. Here’s where U.S. stock market futures stand at the moment: * Dow Jones Industrial Average futures dropped 633 points or 1.6% following a 611-point loss on Friday. * S&P 500 futures are down 2.6% after the benchmark lost 1.8% on Friday. * Nasdaq-100 futures lost 4% as big tech stocks got hit hard in early trading.

Japan down 12.4%. No Japan trades for the last 10 minutes. South Korea halted trading. Now trading resumed, at down 9.6%.

Asia-Pacific markets continued Friday’s sell-off as investors awaited key trade data from China and Taiwan this week, as well as central bank decisions from Australia and India. At these levels, both the Nikkei and Topix are nearing bear market territory, having fallen almost 20% from their all-time highs on July 11. Monday’s decline follows Friday’s rout when Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Topix fell more than 5% and 6%, respectively. The broader Topix marked its worst day in eight years, while the Nikkei marked its worst day since March 2020. In early Monday trading, the yen also strengthened to its highest...

Choudary: Refuses to discuss his dissolute youth At 39, Anjem Choudary should be a symbol of success for his peers. Born into the working-class family of a market trader in Welling on the outskirts of London, he has risen - thanks to the opportunities offered by the British education system - to become a qualified lawyer. But it is unlikely his old school will be inviting him to be guest speaker on prize-giving day. Their former pupil is not famous for his elegant oratory in court. Instead, the articulate Mr Choudary preaches hatred and murder in the streets of Britain...

Shorts against the Truth Social stock more than doubled from July 1 -July 12, meaning, people or large organizations were predicting that by Monday the stock would plummet, something that undoubtedly would have occurred had President Trump died in Pennsylvania.

The stock price of Trump Media soared more than 11% in premarket trading Friday morning after majority shareholder Donald Trump benefited from President Joe Biden stumbling through their first presidential debate...Trump Media, which trades under the DJT ticker, had closed down 6.42% on Thursday afternoon at $36.73 per share.

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that a ban on bump stocks — attachments that allow semi-automatic rifles to fire more quickly — implemented by President Donald Trump in 2017 was unconstitutional. In a 6-3 ruling, the court found that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had overstepped its authority by classifying bump stocks as illegal machine guns. “We conclude that semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a ‘machinegun’ [sic],” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority, “because it does not fire more than one shot ‘by a single function of the trigger.'” “Even if a...

Last week, I talked about the best places to keep your short-term cash, including Treasurys and certain certificates of deposit (CDs).Perhaps Warren Buffett is a Wealthy Retirement reader, because his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, is holding more cash in Treasurys than ever before: $189 billion. (As they used to say in the old New York state lottery commercial, “That’s a lot of bread!”)Interestingly, the only time Berkshire’s cash stash has declined since 2016 was in 2022, when the market had an awful year and dropped by more than 19%. That tells us that as the market was falling, Buffett was putting...

Warren Buffett hasn’t found a lot to like in the stock market recently.In each of the last six quarters, Buffett has sold more stocks for Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) than he bought. Last quarter, he sold off a big chunk of his Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) position and the entirety of his Paramount Global (NASDAQ: PARA) investment. All told, he sold nearly $20 billion worth of stocks from Berkshire’s portfolio, and he bought less than $3 billion.Buffett lamented investment opportunities for Berkshire are few and far between as the company grows bigger. With a market cap of about $877 billion, there...

No one can accurately predict where the stock market will go, but it is a fact that the Biden administration’s spending imperils every American. After a strong run in 2023 and early 2024, stock markets have been selling off lately. I cannot predict whether this market sell-off will continue, but I can state what has happened so far and speculate as to why it has happened and whether it will continue. In my opinion, anyone who says he can do more than speculate is deceived or lying. After closing at an all-time high of 5,254 on March 28, the S&P...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is illegally collecting data of every citizen who invests in the stock market, according to a new lawsuit. The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) filed the suit Tuesday against the SEC claiming that the agency, through its “Consolidated Audit Trail,” or “CAT,” program, is collecting mass amounts of personally identifiable data by forcing brokers, exchanges, clearing agencies and alternative trading systems to capture and send detailed information on every investor’s trades in U.S. markets to a centralized database. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is illegally collecting data of every citizen who invests in...

Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social (DJT) surged more than 50% in its first day of trading on the Nasdaq Tuesday morning. Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, Truth Social's parent company, were trading above $75 under the ticker symbol "DJT," Trump's initials, just after the market open. The company merged with special purpose vehicle Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) in a deal approved by shareholders last week. Prior to the merger, DWAC had been on the public market since 2021. Trump founded Truth Social after he was kicked off major social media apps like Facebook and Twitter,...

Stock have notched a string of record highs this year, driven by a tech frenzy and high federal spending that have blotted out all else, Bill Gross wrote in his latest investment outlook.It's these factors that have spurred the S&P 500 up over 20% since mid-2022, even as interest rates tightened aggressively in the same timeframe, sending Treasury yields higher.And the trend isn't going away anytime soon, he asserted: "Buckle up for excessive exuberance."Typically, bond yields will decline ahead of stock euphoria. For instance, the Nasdaq 100 increased twelvefold after the 10-year real rate fell from 2% to negative 1%...

Just as confidence grew that inflation was tamed, it rears its head again, sending shockwaves through the markets. The Dow Jones takes a nosedive of more than 400 points following January's inflation report, which significantly surpassed expectations. Economists find themselves puzzled as both Core CPI and headline CPI register higher than anticipated for the second consecutive month. The unsettling reality extends beyond these headline figures, with inflation soaring in essential areas: Car Insurance Inflation: 20.6% Transportation Inflation: 9.5% Hospital Services Inflation: 6.7% Car Repair Inflation: 6.5% Homeowner Inflation: 6.2% Rent Inflation: 6.1% Food Away From Home Inflation: 5.1%

i am trying to get a feel for the USA economy and USA stocks through to nov-dec 2024. what is the best prognosis? and why? what is the worst prognosis? and why? allow me to take a swag at both. the best would be that QE is re-instituted or continued. this however gets into the definition of "best." best in the longer term would involve reducing welfare which we all know is difficult to touch politically. i think we can do at least one more year of federal funding through issuing more debt although the current US govt bonds are...

In the ever-evolving landscape of financial markets, a red flag is waving high as market concentration risk reaches an unprecedented peak. The Top 10 stocks in the Russell 1000 now hold a staggering 31.3% of the index, marking a historic high and raising questions about the sustainability of the current market euphoria. The earnings gap between Mega Cap Tech Stocks and Small Caps has widened to an all-time high, creating a stark dichotomy in the performance of different segments of the market. As history unfolds, it’s vital to pay heed to the lessons of the past, where the most significant...