Japan's Kato Aware Market Views Over Debt Driving Bonds
Yields surged this week after polls signaled a potential defeat for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party. A loss of majority for the ruling bloc, which is in the minority in the lower house, risks destabilizing economic policy and driving up government spending.
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Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Berkshire Hathaway earnings: 'Perfect' stock to own when 'worried'
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B, BRK-A) stock has fallen 12% since May, with investors weighing leadership change and macro pressures. Bill Stone, Glenview Trust Company chief investment officer, joins Market Domination Overtime to explain why he sees the stock's recent dip as a potential entry point. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination Overtime. Berkshire Hathaway has underperformed in the second quarter, fallen over 10% since Warren Buffett's announced his intention to retire as CEO and elevate current Vice Chairman, Greg Abel in his place. The conglomerate, with big stakes of course, in Kraft Heinz, Occidental Petroleum, American Express, set to report quarterly results August 4th. Is now a good time to buy shares on recent weakness? Well, here with more on that very question, we got Bill Stone, the Glenview Trust Company Chief Investment Officer. Bill, always great to see you. Maybe Bill, let's start with the stock here. It is down about 12% here, Bill, since that annual meeting back in May. Why is that, Bill? What's going on there? Well, I know some people say it's because, you know, Warren Buffett, you know, said he was going to step down as CEO at the end of the year. I actually think it has a lot more to do with the macro environment. Uh, when you look at it, you could almost lay it right on top of kind of the out performance of Berkshire at the beginning of the year came as the worries around tariffs and and the economy rose. The stock just really took off, and then as, you know, kind of in that May period, which just happened to fall, like you said, in that same period when the meeting was, um, then as that receded, then the stock went, you know, really started to underperform. I just think of it is, Berkshire is kind of the perfect stock to own when you're worried about the world for two reasons: One is this massive amount of cash they hold. But two is because you expect they should be able to take advantage of it if, in fact, you get big sell-offs in the market or dislocations. Um, when you're not as worried about that, like we haven't been here for the last quarter, um, you know, you're not as excited about Berkshire Hathaway. Well, let me ask you, Bill, uh, Buffett is stepping down. Greg Abel's taking the reins. As a shareholder, how how do you feel about that changing of the guard? Well, you know, it's you can't, you know, follow the goat and uh, and expect to feel good about it. I do think Greg has shown up as a very good operator. In fact, I think you could argue probably a better operator than Buffett, because frankly, Buffett doesn't want to spend his time operating businesses necessarily or getting into the weeds of them. Um, so I think he's very competent and for a company that is, uh, already so large. There I think there's already been some distinct benefits from having him already take on a much larger role. Again, you know, would I rather Buffett was going to live forever and keep running it? Of course, but I can't have that. Do you think this weakness, Bill, in the stock, buying opportunity in your opinion? Yeah, I think it's back to a point where you can feel pretty good about owning it. You know, we're back down to 1.5 times book. Still maybe a little rich, um, that would you know, the way I kind of think of it is, I would suspect we won't see any buybacks, uh, stock buybacks from Berkshire Hathaway. I kind of frankly just try and, you know, essentially I get more interested as I suspect they're getting more interested because they're the ones that know the intrinsic value, certainly even better than I do. Um, but I don't think you're crazy here. When it got up to like 1.8 times book, it it was expensive stock, you know, not that it's a reason to sell it. It's just probably was a reason to slow down owning it. I think now you can be back to at least slowly get, you know, grabbing some uh, as you go. What do you expect to see the earnings results, Bill? I don't think they're going to be great. You know, obviously the headline, all of the the stock, you know, increase to show up there. Although, we'll say a lot of their big holdings didn't have a good quarter in the second quarter. Um, so like Apple was down in the second quarter, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum. They did have nice moves out of Bank of America, uh, and American Express, but anyway, set that aside. I don't I think if you really are looking at the stock, you don't pay much attention to the headline earnings numbers. You really have to look at operating earnings. Those are likely to be, um, not great, probably, in terms of year-over-year. Uh, they may actually be even be down year-over-year. Um, what it really will be is probably a solid you know, report out of the insurance sector because you can pretty much bank on, uh, that they'll have a nice amount of, uh, interest income off the amount of cash they're holding. Um, but then on the other side, they're going to have almost certainly some, you know, pain on the housing related companies they own, and the retailing companies that they own. So tough to see how it all plays out. Again, doesn't get me overly upset. I know it's a very diversified company. We'll see how the I mean, I also should say the railroad is probably not going to have great numbers, although it could be okay. Again, it's it's really hard with Berkshire because they don't give you any guidance and really give you no clues. So you're really working in the dark other than trying to look at what other companies in those industries have done, or maybe we've seen their earnings and and back into it a little bit. Related Videos Big Tech's huge AI spending spree: A closer look post-earnings Fed Governor Adriana Kugler to resign Dow falls more than 500 points on jobs report, tariffs Colgate-Palmolive, Rocket, Regeneron: Trending Tickers 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
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Two unaffiliated candidates run for Charlotte City Council
Two candidates who are running to serve Charlotte on the city council have their work cut out for them just to get on the ballot. Lia White and Robin Emmons want to run for Charlotte City Council as unaffiliated candidates. But the process isn't easy. An unaffiliated voter who wants to run for the city council has to collect signatures of registered voters to qualify for the ballot. White wants to run in District 2 against Malcolm Graham. READ: Councilwoman Tiawana Brown files for reelection Emmons wants to run in District 3 against Tiawana Brown. They each need about 1,400 signatures to get on the ballot. And they told Channel 9's Joe Bruno that the challenge of canvassing and asking for help has been a rewarding experience. 'I work at Camp 7:00 to 6:00, and so I get off from 6:30 to 8:00, or I'll say, by time the sun goes down, I'll knock on doors,' White said. 'I've been doing community events. I've been reaching out to local businesses to see if I can leave petitions there.' And Emmons said she can see the benefits to the process. 'I want to say that the bar is obviously higher, but I think maybe the outcome is better,' she said. 'It has really been so gratifying to talk with people and to earn the respect and the credibility of getting on the ballot rather than putting a sign in the yard and giving a political pitch.' To learn more about the candidates, watch their full interviews with Channel 9's Joe Bruno on The Political Beat on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. WATCH: Councilwoman Tiawana Brown files for reelection Solve the daily Crossword
Gizmodo
24 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
Elon Musk Gave Millions to Trump After Publicly Blowing Up Their Bromance
Newly disclosed federal filings show that Elon Musk gave President Trump's super PAC $5 million and congressional Republicans $10 million during the same period when he was experiencing a very public meltdown over the president's One Big Beautiful Bill. Onlookers have interpreted it as a sign that the Tesla billionaire was vacillating between taking shots at Trump and making conciliatory moves designed to mend their fraying relationship. Last year Musk went all-in on Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party, engaging in an unprecedented spending blitz designed to see the former reality TV star returned to the White House. Musk was successful in that gambit, but the relationship between him and his gold-haired 'buddy' has since soured. After briefly leading the Department of Government Efficiency (a quasi-agency designed to shrink the federal government), Musk began having problems with Trump over provisions in his spending bill that threatened the EV industry (and, you know, Musk's Tesla). At the end of May, Musk formally left the administration in a swirl of controversy, while also sporting a mysterious black eye (he claimed his son, X, had socked him in the face). Politico notes that Musk's contributions to Trump and the GOP took place not long after the blowup between him and the president, when Musk accused Trump of being in the Jeffrey Epstein files. The outlet writes: The contributions came weeks into Musk's public feud with Trump, as the tech billionaire was slamming Republicans for voting for the megabill that he argued would blow up the deficit. Still, the SpaceX CEO donated $5 million each to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the Senate Leadership Fund and MAGA Inc. on June 27, according to the groups' filings with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday. Those are the top super PACs supporting the House and Senate Republicans and the Trump political operation. If the point of the contributions was to try to make amends with Trump and the Republicans, it doesn't appear to have worked. Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill sailed through Congress, and none of the provisions that proved problematic to Musk's businesses were taken out. Since then, Elon's influence in the government has notably waned. This week, Politico reported that the administration was conducting a 'de-Muskification' at the General Services Administration, where DOGE had formerly holed up. One person close to the organization claimed that DOGE had 'lost all remaining influence' at the agency, which is responsible for supporting basic infrastructure (like office spaces and communications) at federal agencies throughout the government. Musk has since launched his America Party—a supposed third party—as revenge against the President and the GOP lawmakers who passed the One Big Beautiful Bill. Theoretically, were the party to ever take off, it could cause serious electoral problems for many Republicans by siphoning off votes from their political races. However, 'America' isn't much of anything yet, having not yet filed any of the proper paperwork necessary for it to be incorporated. It also doesn't seem like many people are interested in joining the America Party, should it ever materialize. Indeed, a recent poll showed that only 14 percent of surveyed participants had any interest in joining a political party created by Musk. The poll, conducted by Yahoo/YouGov survey, found that while nearly 40 percent of Americans are interested in the creation of a third party, 55 percent said they had no interest in such a party founded by the Tesla CEO. Meanwhile, Musk's businesses have also been flailing. Musk recently announced that Tesla—whose sales have recently plummeted all over the world—would start a robotaxi business, claiming that a driverless service would soon be launched. Tesla subsequently launched a ride-hailing service in California, but, instead of robotaxis, the cars are just normal Teslas driven by humans. Musk's behavior over the past year only seems to strengthen the argument that the billionaire class is a grossly inefficient, stupid, and wasteful segment of people, many of whom seem to feel that gobs of money can solve any problem. Elon has definitively proven this assumption to be false, since he reportedly spent close to $300 million on Trump's campaign last year and, now, less than twelve months later, can't be said to have gained much except the burning hatred of tens of millions of Americans. I'd call that a pretty bad deal.
