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Fox Sports
18-03-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Brian White's USMNT opportunity is a career in the making: 'I always kept dreaming'
At this point, Matt Turner's rags-to-riches story is well known. A walk-on at humble Fairfield University in Connecticut, Turner went from undrafted MLS long shot to New England Revolution starter to the U.S. national team's No. 1 goalkeeper at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Could Brian White be the 2026 tournament's version of Turner? The 29-year-old White just received his first call-up to the full-strength USMNT. With UEFA Champions League-level strikers Folarin Balogun and Ricardo Pepi both unavailable this month because of injury, U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino named the Vancouver Whitecaps forward to his roster for Thursday's Concacaf Nations League semifinal against Panama. The winner will meet either Canada or Mexico in Sunday's final. "It's a vote of confidence, and you try and take that to heart," White told FOX Sports in a phone interview. "You know they trust you to come into camp and help the team in any way you can." With Balogun and Pepi out, Josh Sargent is expected to lead the line for the Americans in the two games. (The semifinal losers will play for third place before Sunday's title bout.) But White — the second-oldest field player selected by Pochettino after 37-year-old Tim Ream — could definitely play an important role off the bench during this camp, especially if the U.S. needs a goal. It's an opportunity White has waited his whole career for. White played four years of college soccer at Duke before turning pro with the Red Bulls in his home state of New Jersey. He started with the club's lower division development squad, scored 10 times in 26 appearances, then was promoted to the MLS franchise late in the 2018 season. But despite nine regular season goals in 2019, White couldn't stick in the Red Bulls' XI. It took a 2021 trade to Vancouver for White to become a lineup staple in the U.S. and Canada's top league. He's rewarded the Whitecaps for their confidence, notching back-to-back 15-goal seasons in 2023 and 2024. That production earned White a second consecutive January camp call-up this winter. White scored his first international goal in the 3-0 friendly win over Costa Rica. "He performed really well today and he scored, which for a striker is the most important" thing," Pochettino told reporters afterward. Clearly, the coach liked what he saw out of White and 24-year-old Charlotte target man Patrick Agyemang, whom Pochettino also summoned this month. Agyemang is an NCAA product like White and Turner, an increasingly rare distinction these days. The overwhelming majority of the current U.S. squad turned pro as teenagers, forgoing the scholastic route. "I think it should just tell everybody," Turner said, "if you just keep focusing on yourself and bettering yourself every day, the doors are never closed." After being named to the squad last week, White promptly celebrated the call-up by helping the Caps stun Mexican powerhouse Monterrey in the Concacaf Champions Cup round of 16, one of the biggest wins in the Canadian team's 50-plus year history. Vancouver also sits alone atop the 30-team MLS standings, with a perfect 4-0 record. The hot start to 2025 has turned heads south of the border, where the Whitecaps are usually an afterthought. If they're a thought at all. "Especially when I was at Red Bull, we never really heard much about Vancouver," White said. "I think it's difficult sometimes for the casual MLS fan to tune in for Whitecaps game at 10:30 at night Eastern time." White is getting noticed now, too. A strong performance this week could keep him in the mix when Balogun and Pepi return this summer. It won't be easy, though. With the next World Cup less than 15 months away, the competition for places will be fierce. Sargent is in sizzling form for his club and desperate to take advantage of this opportunity. Haji Wright, another 2022 World Cup vet who notched a hat-trick for English second tier side Coventry City over the weekend but who was ineligible for Nations League duty after being left off the preliminary roster because of injury, is another World Cup candidate up top. Timing is everything, though. World Cup history is littered with players who used a strong late push to snare a roster spot against long odds. Turner is just one example. Not that White is looking ahead. Right now, he's exactly where he's always wanted to be. "Playing for the national team is the dream of every player," he said. "I was never in the youth national teams growing up. I was always on the outside looking in. But I always kept dreaming. It's something I never gave up on. "You just keep fighting, hoping to one day maybe get the chance," he added. "Obviously, 29 is kind of late. "But it's never too late." Doug McIntyre is a soccer writer for FOX Sports who has covered the United States men's and women's national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him at @ByDougMcIntyre . FOLLOW Follow your favorites to personalize your FOX Sports experience United States CONCACAF Nations League Brian White Get more from United States Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN): Among Top Stocks to Buy from Joe DiMenna's Portfolio
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) stands against other top stocks to buy from Joe DiMenna's portfolio. Zweig-DiMenna Associates Inc. is a U.S.-based hedge fund with a legacy spanning four decades. Established in 1984 by Joseph A. DiMenna and Martin Zweig, the firm specializes in absolute return investing. Its strategies encompass fundamental long/short equities and global macro approaches, positioning it among the longest-running hedge funds in the industry. DiMenna serves as the Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer, overseeing the firm's partnerships and investment funds. DiMenna's initiation into the financial world began as a college student in 1977 when he became a research assistant for renowned investor Martin Zweig. A keen student of stock markets since his early teens, DiMenna had been an avid reader of financial newsletters, particularly Zweig's highly regarded The Zweig Forecast. He earned a B.S. in Finance from Fairfield University's Dolan School of Business in 1980. Beyond his work in finance, he has contributed to various organizations, serving on the boards of the Harlem Children's Zone, Orchestra of St. Luke's, The Brearley School, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the New York Historical Society. Zweig, a Ph.D. in finance, was known for his data-driven market analysis and the development of key investor sentiment indicators, including the Put/Call ratio. His well-known investment maxims, such as 'Don't fight the Fed' and 'Don't fight the tape,' significantly influenced DiMenna's approach. Their professional relationship began when DiMenna, impressed by Zweig's insights, reached out to him with market ideas and a request for a college recommendation. This correspondence led to his recruitment as a research assistant, a role that involved extensive data analysis, often delving into market trends spanning over 50 years. Zweig remained a key figure in DiMenna's career until his passing in 2013. After graduating in 1980, DiMenna continued working with Zweig, refining market research techniques and stock selection strategies. He took on editorial responsibilities for a stock-focused newsletter and co-developed a mutual fund trading business based on market timing principles. By 1983, DiMenna proposed leveraging their expertise to launch a hedge fund, a relatively rare venture at the time, with fewer than ten such funds in existence. In 1984, they established the first Zweig-DiMenna partnership, followed by the launch of Zweig-DiMenna International Limited in 1987. Their approach combined long/short equity investing with macroeconomic risk management. DiMenna led the stock selection and investment process, while Zweig focused on broader market conditions, shaping strategies that DiMenna implemented. The fund quickly gained prominence for its strong returns. In 1999, BusinessWeek recognized DiMenna as 'one of the best stock-pickers no one has ever heard of,' highlighting the fund's impressive 15-year annualized return of 25% after fees, significantly outperforming the broader market's 18.6% annualized total return. DiMenna's achievements earned him several accolades. In 2002, the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship named him 'Entrepreneur of the Year' for his contributions to financial education. The Zweig-DiMenna International hedge fund won Absolute Return Magazine's 'U.S. Equity Fund of the Year' award in 2007 after delivering an 82.25% annual return, far surpassing industry peers. In 2008, Alpha Magazine ranked DiMenna 13th on its list of top moneymakers, citing his $450 million earnings in 2007 and his fund's consistent double-digit annual returns between 2002 and 2007. The stocks discussed below were picked from Zweig-DiMenna Associates' Q4 2024 13F filings. They are compiled in the ascending order of the hedge fund's stake in them as of December 31, 2024. To assist readers with more context, we have included the hedge fund sentiment regarding each stock using data from 1008 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey in the fourth quarter of 2024. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (). A customer entering an internet retail store, illustrating the convenience of online shopping. In Q4 2024, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) reported $187.79 billion in revenue, a 10% year-over-year increase, while earnings per share (EPS) of $1.86 exceeded analyst expectations by 25%. As of Q4 2024, Zweig-DiMenna Associates held 283,009 shares of the company, valued at approximately $62.09 million. Hedge fund interest in Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) also increased, with 338 funds tracked by Insider Monkey holding positions worth nearly $69.02 billion by the end of the quarter, up from 286 funds in Q3. This growing institutional investment reflects strong confidence in Amazon's continued growth and market dominance. Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has outperformed the broader market over the past year, with analysts projecting further upside driven by its strong position in e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. Jefferies analyst Brent Thill has set a target price of $275 per share, implying a 20% gain from its current level, while Wall Street's median target price of $270 suggests a 17% increase. Despite reporting strong Q4 results— with revenue rising 10% to $188 billion and GAAP net income surging 86%—the stock declined due to lower-than-expected guidance. Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) anticipates a 7% revenue increase in Q1, impacted by currency exchange headwinds and AI-related investments affecting margins. However, these expenses are expected to fuel long-term growth, solidifying the company's dominance in cloud computing and logistics. While the stock's valuation appears high at 41 times earnings, it has consistently surpassed earnings estimates, suggesting analysts may be underestimating its potential. Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)'s strong financial performance, expanding dominance in multiple high-growth sectors, and increasing hedge fund interest make it a top stock to buy. Its leadership in e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, coupled with strategic investments in logistics and AI infrastructure, positions it for sustained long-term growth, making it an attractive choice for investors seeking both stability and upside potential. Overall, AMZN ranks 4th on our list of top stocks to buy from Joe DiMenna's portfolio. While we acknowledge the potential for AMZN as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AMZN but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Amid critical shortage of nurses in CT, colleges step in. Despite major strides, ‘we're in a pickle'
As nursing shortages remain an issue in the U.S. and Connecticut, university programs continue to grow in the state and $2.9 million in federal funding has been obtained to train nurses and create opportunities for frontline health care professionals. Still, experts say there is work to be done. Nursing programs at UConn, Fairfield University, Sacred Heart University, University of Hartford and Quinnipiac University received the most qualified applications for four-year schools in the state, according to the 2024 Connecticut Center for Nursing Workforce report that collected data in 2023. The report shows 2,181 graduates in 2023. 'For state projections with acute care hospitals, long-term care hospitals, nursing homes, community-based public health nurses where numbers are sustainable and safe, we need to graduate about 3,000 nurses a year from our programs. We fall a little bit short,' said Dr. Laura Andrews, an associate professor of nursing at Yale University and chair of the Graduate Entry Prespecialty in Nursing. 'In 2023, there were 2,935 eligible seats in nursing programs in Connecticut and there were about 11,600 applicants,' Andrews said. 'More than half were admitted, 6,165, but only 2,682 took up those letters of acceptance. We're in a pickle.' Andrews, who is also a part-time nurse practitioner at the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain, said she saw the nursing numbers plateau in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic and witnessed a massive departure from the field during the pandemic. 'It was scary enough for us at the hospital and in nursing homes and in the community to deal with a lot of the unknown of the disease. A lot of that played into nursing leaving the field and fewer nursing school applicants,' Andrews said. 'If you look at Connecticut now, there are almost 90,000 registered nurses and about half are practicing nursing. If you look at the studies why nurses leave, is that it's physically and mentally demanding work. We do nights, weekends and holidays. We lose a lot of time with our families.' The number of working registered nurses decreased nationally by more than 100,000 from 2020 to 2021, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Health Resources and Services Administration said there are projected national shortages until 2037. The report shows there will be a 10% shortage of registered nurses by 2027 and by 2037 improving to a 6% deficit. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 194,500 openings for registered nurses are projected each year, on average, until 2033. 'Many of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire,' the bureau said. 'We are looking at a shortage for the next 10-15 years,' said Caryl Ryan, the chief nursing officer and chief operating officer at UConn Health. 'We have an older population still working. We have seen a big retirement number over the past two years, and we are expecting to see more of that. Then you will get less nurses that want to do frontline nursing and want to go into specialties earlier. I don't think the shortage is going to go away.' Yale's Graduate Entry Prespecialty in Nursing (GEFN) program graduated 67 people last year and will be up to 97 graduates this year with an increase in applications. The undergraduate program produces about 130-150 nurses a year, according to Andrews. Andrews said most graduates begin their career in acute care at least for a little while and then some leave to work in primary care or community services and skilled nursing facilities. She added that there is a big demand for midwifery and primary care. 'There has been a big push to graduate primary care providers because our health care system is a little messed up these days and we have to start doing a better job at preventative care for people,' Andrews said. 'The fear that the numbers will not stabilize and not increase to where they need to be for adequate staffing,' she added. 'Research shows one of the number one prevention of hospital morbidity and mortality is (an) inadequate nursing-patient ratio.' According to a Nurse Journal report from last year, Connecticut is slightly above the national average of a 9.22 nursing-to-patient ratio with 9.46. Ryan said nurses in operating rooms are the biggest shortage in recent years. In recent years, UConn Health has started new intern programs for college students. 'Only in the last three years have we started to have intern programs that we actually have clinical rotations in the (operating room),' said Ryan, who is also the interim vice president for John Dempsey Hospital. 'We also have certain programs offered to students for their senior year, their Capstone Projects that they can do in the OR. We are doing more of that now. We do have a graduate program for our OR now, which we didn't have three years ago.' Ryan said it takes new nurses about a year to become accustomed to being in the operating room. 'We are playing catch-up right now,' Ryan said. 'The nursing sects in the state are working well with the deans of the schools to ensure we have a stronger workforce of nurses coming into the school. One of those directions is working with nurses to obtain their associate's degree to BSN. We want to put more students in the OR and have nursing rotations. We are doing a lot of work in those areas right now,' she added. Ryan said during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, John Dempsey Hospital's two operating rooms had as many as 25 travel nurses between the hospital's two operating rooms. That number has dropped in half and will drop to as low as 10 after new college graduates come off of orientation in the next couple of months. 'COVID did a lot to provide negatives and positives to the profession of nursing. It showed our most intense moments, and it showed our biggest challenges and then it was such rewarding times. Many hospitals went through turnover at that time,' Ryan said, adding that there were nursing shortages before the pandemic, and COVID heightened that shortfall in the critical care areas. 'When you are taking in new nurses, you also have to train new nurses. Education has really been the key, giving these new nurses the type of medical and clinical education they need to take care of critical care patients,' she said. 'I would say during the last year of COVID and post-COVID there have been tremendous shortages and in the last year has been the time frame that we made bigger strides in our vacancy replacement.' Ryan said the hospital currently has 850 nurses in its workforce. 'We all had severe turnover during this period and all hospitals had partial to a healthy recovery. We are not where we need to be, but we are recovering. I think retirements and regulatory and fiscal impacts and budgets will be hardships for nursing and for all staff in health care,' Ryan said. Ryan, who has been at UConn Health for 39 years, said many recent nursing graduates are prioritizing work-life balance and many want to work remotely at discharge clinics or surgery centers. 'Before you needed a great deal of experience before you could work in the surgery center. You used to have had to work in an ICU or critical care experience. Now surgery centers, because of staffing shortages, they've been hiring nurses right out of school. They can be working in discharge clinics and certain clinics that are remote. That takes away from what the hospitals can get from frontline nursing,' Ryan said. 'Frontline nursing is an art. It's a science. It's really hard work. I think that is why you see this generation within their first year of working in a clinical area getting themselves to get back into school to be an APRN so that they can work as a provider much sooner than they used to,' she added. Paula Dowd, the dean of nursing and Health Professions at CT State, said CT State has worked to be 'nimble to the needs of our health care industry partners to try to fill that nursing gap.' Connecticut State Community College has all 12 of the state's community colleges under its umbrella after a merger in 2023. Dowd said CT State graduates are staying in Connecticut, and the program provides 65% of all associate degree RNs in the state every year. Dowd said the bulk of graduates aren't only staying in the state, but they are also staying in the communities where they are studying. Dowd said the state has six accredited RN programs over 12 campuses, and she said the state students 'get out of the gate running.' 'We have a 96% pass rate for the RN national licensure exam (NCLEX) and CT State was just approved as the first credit-bearing Licensed Practical Nursing program (LPN) at a public institution of higher learning in the state expected to start in June 2025 at the Quinebaug Valley campus,' Dowd said. From 2022 and 2024, the program has graduated more than 1,500 students, according to Dowd. 'We want to increase our seat capacity and also maintain a robust curriculum. We don't want to increase seat capacity just to increase seat capacity. We want to make sure these students graduate and are successful,' Dowd said. 'It's common knowledge that there is a nursing shortage and there is a push for all constituents to help increase nursing program offerings,' Dowd said. 'Health care isn't like some industries,' Dowd added. 'We have a lot of oversight as we should. We have oversight by the Connecticut Public Health, we have over CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) we have licensure, oversight program accreditation. We are in tune with that, but we are still able to grow our programs by listening to the voices of the needs of Connecticut.' Dr. Victoria Vaughan Dickson, a dean and professor at UConn School of Nursing and a professor for the Department of Medicine at UConn School of Medicine, said the university is also responding to this shortage. 'UConn School of Nursing, as a premier school of nursing in our region, has responded to this by increasing the number of students in our undergraduate four-year traditional program and our accelerated bachelor of science program that is geared toward students that already have a bachelor's degree and come in with one year of heavy additional coursework necessary to earn a bachelor's of science,' Dickson said. Dickson said UConn School of Nursing has had an increase in application. UConn applications increased 32% in 2023 and 44% in 2024. UConn also has 4,600 applicants for the fall semester for an incoming class of about 225 students this fall. 'What we have seen is a doubling in class size and we are continuing to grow that cohort with exceptional education and experiences that prepare them with high quality,' Dickson said. The UConn School of Nursing has plans to open a new, five-story, 92,000-square-foot building in the fall of 2026. There will be over 13,000 feet of clinical simulations that will feature flexible simulation rooms that will have virtual reality simulations, home care simulations and skills labs. 'We will have cutting-edge facilities for nursing education and simulation and experience and high-quality space for research as well flexible and innovative learning experiences,' Dickson said. 'This helps us to prepare future nurses who will be ready for their clinical practices when they go on to their new jobs.' Dickson said within the two years the school will be producing 250 undergraduates per year in UConn's four-year traditional program. This past year, the accelerator program had its best-ever number of 147 graduates , and the graduate program is producing about 200 graduates per year. 'The 250 undergraduates doubled what we have graduated in the past,' Dickson said. 'For many years, we were graduating in the 130 range. We are rapidly increasing our class size for our undergraduates. We have been able to do that because of the plan to increase space as well as a number of funding opportunities from the state as well as the CT Health Horizon's grant, which helped us to increase our facility for the accelerated program.' Dickson said the accelerator program will produce about 200 more nurses into the workforce within the next year.
