Emerging Stocks Gain on Global Optimism as Korea Leads Rally
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index climbed as much as 1.2%, led by a surge in Asian tech stocks. The Korean won outperformed peers while the country's equity market entered bull territory — adding further momentum to the broader emerging-market rally. An index for EM currencies inched higher, as the dollar slipped.
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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
IPO market 101: Everything you need to know
Yahoo Finance Markets and Data Editor Jared Blikre, who also hosts Yahoo Finance's Stocks in Translation podcast, explains everything you need to know about the initial public offering (IPO) market. Catch more Stocks in Translation, with new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Catalysts. After the 2022 bear market, stocks were hitting record highs by early 2024, but the frozen IPR market IPO market has taken a little bit longer to warm back to life. And on today's stocks and translation, we are providing a refresher into IPO basics. Now, let's start with a definition. An initial public offering is the first time a private company sells stock to everyday investors and gets its ticker listed on an exchange. It gives a company fresh cash. It also gives a chance to earlier investors to cash out, and it gives everyone a real-time price tag on the shares. Now, let's check out a chart of IPO activities going back to 2020, the start of the pandemic. All the stimuli stimis are stimulus from the Fed and also from Congress, they quickly found a home in speculative corners of the market. Just as GameStop was peaking in early 2021, so did IPOs. There's $131 billion in IPOs offered in the US in the first quarter of 2021 alone. But the 2022 bear, it wiped out risk appetite around the world, and only recently has IPO issuance started to perk up again. There are a few steps along the way for a new IPO, and this begins with a bunch of preparation with the help of bankers, auditors, and lots and lots of lawyers. The company's financials must be audited, and the lawyers draft what's called a registration statement that has all the docs that investors need to read. Now, this whole stage takes easily a few months to a year. Then in step two, a company will file the package confidentially with the SEC, which is a stocks watchdog in the US. Government lawyers, they will then comb through the documents, and then there's a bunch of back and forth as SEC comments are addressed. This can easily take six months and often longer for smaller companies. And when it looks like the new, what, like the SEC is nearly satisfied, the bankers or underwriters, they put on a roadshow for investors to gauge demand for the shares. They will build what's called a book of orders to arrive at a price tag for the stock shares. This period is measured in days to a couple of weeks. Now, moving on, when the bankers decide on a selling price, that's called the IPO price. It's determined the night before the stock starts trading on an exchange. Most investors will not be able to get in at this price, and it's considered a privilege to get in at that IPO price. On what's called listing day, a market maker will try to align demand for the IPO shares with the supply of shares that the company is offering. And ideally, the stock will trade higher than the IPO price, which produces a gain for new investors. But guess what? It doesn't always work out that way. Finally, a lot of times shares issued at the attractive IPO price, they are locked up for a period of six months to avoid investors dumping the stock on the market to collect easy profits. Now, this year, money is finally starting to pour back into new ventures, and we've seen some giant IPOs take place. As part of the AI trade, Corweve, they raised a billion and a half dollars, but on the very first day of trading, the stock closed exactly at its IPO price. So, no first day gain for investors there. Figma and Circle, on the other hand, they delivered some nice pops for investors, 250% and nearly 170%, respectively, with chime just a little bit lower on the list. And there's still a number of unicorns or private companies of a billion dollars or more in value that are waiting to IPO from Klarna and Stripe in the Fintech space to Cerebrus Systems in AI to the Winklevoss Brothers Gemini Crypto Exchange. All in all, IPOs can present opportunities for investors, but before jumping in with your eyes closed, remember this, over 90% of IPO stocks, they trade lower than they did on their first day of trading, and more than half the time, that happens within three weeks. So you can usually wait for the stock to come back a bit before dipping in. And thinking about the long term, only one in five new IPOs doubles in price their first year, a word of caution for those who like to swing for the fences. So always remember, you should treat these as riskier than average investments. And tune into Stocks and Translation, the podcast for more jargon busting deep dives. New episodes can be found Tuesdays and Thursdays on Yahoo Finance's website or wherever you find your podcast. Related Videos What would a September Fed rate cut mean for mortgage rates? Circle earnings, CPI, comments from Fed's Bostic: What to Watch Dip buys, stagflation talks, gold tariff scare: Market takeaways Why many strategists think the market rally will continue 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
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
China tells brokers to halt endorsements of stablecoin, sources say
(Reuters) -Chinese regulators have asked big local brokers to halt publication of research endorsing stablecoins in a bid to curb a surge in interest in the digital currency among domestic investors, two sources familiar with the matter said. While crypto trading is banned in mainland China, brokerages have received a wave of requests for information on stablecoin and digital assets from Chinese investors since Hong Kong passed a stablecoin bill in May, sources at the brokerages say. Some major brokerages received guidance from market regulators in late July and earlier this month pushing them to discontinue publishing research notes and making public comments on stablecoins, the sources said. The People's Bank of China said it had no immediate comment on the matter, while the China Securities Regulatory Commission did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Bloomberg first reported the news. Some think-tanks have also received guidance from financial regulators that they should cancel stablecoin-related seminars, its report said. Chinese policymakers have been more openly talking about stablecoins in the past few months, with PBOC governor Pan Gongsheng saying in June the boom in digital currencies and stablecoins poses huge challenges to financial regulation. A Shanghai regulator held a meeting last month for local government officials to consider strategic responses to the rise of stablecoins and digital currency - a sign of a potential shift in tone from China over crypto assets. But the post on the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission's official WeChat account giving details of the meeting is no longer available. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value. They are usually pegged to a fiat currency such as the U.S. dollar, and are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Cathie Wood Goes Bargain Hunting. 1 Dirt Cheap Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock With Monster Potential She Just Bought
Key Points Cathie Wood is known for making high-conviction bets on speculative stocks. Wood recently scooped up shares of Alphabet, despite a bearish narrative surrounding the company's ambitions in artificial intelligence (AI). A close look at Alphabet's financial picture suggests the company's AI pursuits are paying off in spades. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › Cathie Wood has earned a reputation on Wall Street for making high-conviction bets on emerging businesses seeking to disrupt legacy incumbents across industries such as technology, financial services, and pharmaceuticals. With that said, every now and again, Wood complements some of the more speculative positions in Ark's portfolio with well-established blue chip opportunities. When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, it should come as no surprise that Ark's portfolio includes several high-flying growth stocks such as Palantir Technologies, CrowdStrike, and CoreWeave. Also in the mix, however, are several members of the "Magnificent Seven." In late July, Ark added to an existing position in Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) -- scooping up 181,640 shares in the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF. Let's explore how Alphabet is investing in AI to transform its business. From there, I'll break down some financial and valuation trends to help illustrate why Alphabet stock looks like a no-brainer right now. Alphabet's business is in great shape Alphabet recently reported operating results for its second quarter, which ended June 30. The company's largest source of revenue -- advertising -- generated $71.3 billion in revenue, growing by 10% year over year. Advertising growth from Google Search and YouTube was even more robust, coming in at 12% and 13%, respectively. Over the last few years, skeptics on Wall Street have been parroting a bearish narrative that the rise of ChatGPT and other competing large language models (LLMs) will diminish Google's dominance in search. Accelerating growth between Google Search and YouTube suggests that advertisers still see a high return on investment (ROI) from these platforms, despite some shifts in how people are consuming content on the internet. Where investors may be getting nitpicky is around Alphabet's profit margin profile. The advertising segment sits under a larger category of Alphabet's business, called Google Services. During the second quarter, Google Services grew its revenue 12% year over year to $82.5 billion. However, the operating margin for the Services business remained flat year over year -- coming in at 40%. When expenses grow in line with revenue, profit margins become capped. On the surface, this may look like Alphabet is not running an efficient business despite an accelerating top line. I wouldn't rush to such a conclusion, though. Over the last few years, Alphabet has made a number of strategic investments to bolster its AI position. For starters, the company augmented its cloud infrastructure business by acquiring cybersecurity start-up, Wiz, for a reported $32 billion. On top of that, Alphabet's multibillion-dollar investments in AI data centers are often underappreciated -- and yet it's this infrastructure that attracted OpenAI, a perceived rival, as one of Google Cloud's new major partners. Lastly, Alphabet is also quietly building its own quantum computing operation through the development of its own custom chipsets, called Willow. Although monetizing quantum computing applications is still likely many years away, I find it encouraging that Alphabet is allocating capital across several pockets of the AI realm in an effort to build a diversified ecosystem that strengthens core businesses while opening the door to new opportunities as well. Is Alphabet stock a buy right now? The chart below benchmarks Alphabet against many of its big tech peers on a price-to-earnings (P/E) basis. Ultimately, I think Alphabet stock is being punished by investors because the company isn't posting growth as robust as some of its peers. In my eyes, the fact that the company continues to grow revenue from its core businesses while striking lucrative deals with rivals and maintaining its profit margin profile in the face of aggressive investments shows a high degree of resiliency from Alphabet. Given the disparity in valuation multiples illustrated above, I think that the bearish narrative appears to be fully baked into Alphabet stock at this point. To me, Alphabet is positioned for significant valuation expansion in the coming years as its infrastructure investments continue to bear fruit. I think Wood identified a rare opportunity among major AI players by identifying such a cheap stock floating around in a sea of frothy valuations. I see Alphabet stock as a no-brainer buying opportunity at its current price point for long-term investors. Should you invest $1,000 in Alphabet right now? 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 $653,427!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,119,863!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 182% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 4, 2025 Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, CrowdStrike, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool 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. Cathie Wood Goes Bargain Hunting. 1 Dirt Cheap Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock With Monster Potential She Just Bought was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
