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Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
These Are Stocks You Should Watch in June
Stocks soared in May, lifted by easing trade tensions between the U.S. and China, a strong end to first-quarter earnings season, and evidence the economy remains on solid footing. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both notched their best months since November 2023, rising 6.2% and 9.6%, respectively. Trade policy is likely to remain Wall Street's primary focus in June. With President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs expected to go back into effect on July 9, investors will be hoping the White House strikes more trade deals in the coming weeks. Wall Street will also be watching Congress, where Republicans are hammering out the details of Trump's 'One Big, Beautiful Bill.' Below, we look at a few stocks to keep an eye on this month. Tariffs have been the primary focus of Apple (AAPL) investors in recent months, but their attention is likely to shift to artificial intelligence when the company hosts its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) on June 9. Last year's WWDC saw the unveiling of Apple Intelligence, the company's proprietary artificial intelligence offering. Executives touted Apple Intelligence's personalization and privacy features, and showed off a few AI applications like image and emoji generators. At this year's WWDC, Apple is reportedly planning to release a software development kit that enables third parties to build features using the large language models underpinning Apple Intelligence. Apple has disappointed Wall Street and some users with its slow AI roll-out. Opening up Apple Intelligence to outside parties could satisfy the critics by accelerating the development of AI apps for the iPhone and other AI-enabled devices. Apple shares, weighed down by President Trump's tariff threats, have lost about 20% of their value so far this year. Now that CEO Elon Musk has left Washington, he'll be spending much more time delivering on his promise to transform Tesla (TSLA) from an electric vehicle manufacturer to a leading artificial intelligence company. Tesla is reportedly aiming to launch its new robotaxi service on June 12 in Austin, Texas, about eight months after Musk first unveiled prototypes of the company's completely autonomous 'Cybercab' and 'Robovan.' The rollout is arguably the most high-profile test yet of Tesla's full self-driving software. The public and Wall Street's perception of its success will likely affect how quickly Tesla expands the robotaxi service beyond its home turf of Austin. The stakes are high for Tesla. Sales plummeted in the first quarter as consumers across the globe revolted against Musk's controversial work with the Department of Government Efficiency. Shares shed more than 50% of their value between hitting a record high in mid-December and reporting disappointing first-quarter earnings in April. Musk's decision to step away from government—first intimated during Tesla's most recent earnings call—has resuscitated Tesla's ailing stock. Shares are down about 14% since the start of the year but are up 60% from their lows in early April. Nike (NKE) is scheduled to report results for the quarter ending May 30 after the closing bell on Thursday, June 26, and investors will be bracing for signs tariff mayhem is weighing on earnings. Nike's fiscal fourth-quarter report will be one of the first from a major U.S. consumer goods company to encompass the brief implementation of President Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs and the weeks when duties on Chinese goods started at 145%. Executives said on Nike's last earnings call they expected tariffs on China and Mexico to cause profit margins to compress by 4 to 5 percentage points in the quarter. However, that forecast was in March, before tariff rates went through the roof, and Nike hasn't updated its guidance since. Granted, Nike has a relatively diversified supply chain. Bank of America analysts estimate it manufactures just 18% of its footwear and 16% of its apparel in China. Still, its results may give investors an idea of how April and May's tariff mayhem will show up in the next round of corporate earnings. Nike shares have lost about 20% of their value since the start of the year. UnitedHealth Group (UNH) was the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 in May, shedding about a quarter of its value. The company enters June with former CEO Stephen Helmsley, who led the company from 2006 to 2017, back in the driver's seat to navigate a tangle of controversies. Shares tumbled nearly 20% in a day mid-month when the healthcare giant withdrew its full-year earnings guidance, citing elevated care activity and costs, and announced its CEO was stepping down 'for personal reasons.' The stock slumped by double-digits again just days later following reports the Justice Department was investigating UnitedHealth for Medicare fraud. No sooner had shares recovered from that sell-off than the stock tanked again after a report the company paid nursing homes secret bonuses to reduce hospital transfers. Despite the investigations and difficult business environment, May's slump has left the stock at a historically low valuation. Of the 16 UnitedHealth analysts tracked by Visible Alpha, 13 rate the stock a buy. Wall Street's average price target of about $415 represents nearly 40% upside from the stock's close at the end of May. UnitedHealth shares have lost 40% of their value since the start of the year. Solar stocks tumbled in May after the House of Representatives approved tax and spending legislation that, if enacted, would effectively kill Biden-era tax credits meant to promote residential and industrial solar projects. The bill takes a 'sledgehammer' to the clean energy provisions of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, according to Jefferies analysts, who called it a 'worse than feared' scenario for the solar industry. Shares of Enphase Energy (ENPH) and SunRun (RUN) tumbled 20% and 37%, respectively, the day after the House's vote, while First Solar (FSLR) stock slid 4%. The bill now goes to the Senate, where lawmakers could propose revisions that would need to be reconciled with the House's version to reach the president's desk. Republicans on Capitol Hill have given themselves a July 4 deadline, meaning any reprieve for solar companies is likely to come in the next month. Shares of Enphase Energy are down about 40% since the start of the year, while SunRun and First Solar have shed 19% and 10%, respectively. Read the original article on Investopedia
Bloomberg
a day ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Google Search Judge Zeroes In on AI Power in Trial Resolution
The federal judge who will decide how to limit Google's monopoly in search is looking closely at its power in a more nascent market: artificial intelligence. On Friday in US District Court in Washington, Alphabet Inc. 's Google and the Justice Department began answering Judge Amit Mehta's final questions in the government's monopoly case against the search giant. It will be up to Mehta to decide whether to break up the company and reshape the internet or impose more limited penalties.
Fast Company
a day ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Google will face off with the DOJ in the final day of a historic antitrust trial
Google will return to federal court Friday to fend off the U.S. Justice Department's attempt to topple its internet empire at the same time it's navigating a pivotal shift to artificial intelligence that could undercut its power. The legal and technological threats facing Google are among the key issues that will be dissected during the closing arguments of a legal proceeding that will determine the changes imposed upon the company in the wake of its dominant search engine being declared as an illegal monopoly by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta last year. Brandishing evidence presented during a recent three-week stretch of hearings, Justice Department lawyers will attempt to persuade Mehta to order a radical shake-up that includes a ban on Google paying to lock its search engine in as the default on smart devices and an order requiring the company to sell its Chrome browser. Google lawyers are expected to assert only minor concessions are needed, especially as the upheaval triggered by advances in artificial intelligence already are reshaping the search landscape, as alternative, conversational search options are rolling out from AI startups that are hoping to use the Department of Justice's four-and-half-year-old case to gain the upper hand in the next technological frontier. 'Over weeks of testimony, we heard from a series of well-funded companies eager to gain access to Google's technology so they don't have to innovate themselves,' Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google's vice president of regulatory affairs, wrote in a blog post earlier this month. 'What we didn't hear was how DOJ's extreme proposals would benefit consumers.' After the day-long closing arguments, Mehta will spend much of the summer mulling a decision that he plans to issue before Labor Day. Google has already vowed to appeal the ruling that branded its search engine as a monopoly, a step it can't take until the judge orders a remedy. While both sides of this showdown agree that AI is an inflection point for the industry's future, they have disparate views on how the shift will affect Google. The Justice Department contends that AI technology by itself won't rein in Google's power, arguing additional legal restraints must be slapped on a search engine that's the main reason its parent company, Alphabet Inc., is valued at $2 trillion. Google has already been deploying AI to transform its search engine into an answer engine, an effort that has so far helped maintain its perch as the internet's main gateway despite inroads being made by alternatives from the likes of OpenAI and Perplexity. The Justice Department contends a divestiture of the Chrome browser that Google CEO Sundar Pichai helped build nearly 20 years ago would be among the most effective countermeasures against Google continuing to amass massive volumes of browser traffic and personal data that could be leveraged to retain its dominance in the AI era. Executives from both OpenAi and Perplexity testified last month that they would be eager bidders for the Chrome browser if Mehta orders its sale. The debate over Google's fate also has pulled in opinions from Apple, mobile app developers, legal scholars and startups. Apple, which collects more than $20 billion annually to make Google the default search engine on the iPhone and its other devices, filed briefs arguing against the Justice Department's proposed 10-year ban on such lucrative lock-in agreements. Apple told the judge that prohibiting the contracts would deprive the company of money that it funnels into its own research, and that the ban might even make Google even more powerful because the company would be able to hold onto its money while consumers would end up choosing its search engine anyway. The Cupertino, California, company also told the judge a ban wouldn't compel it to build its own search engine to compete against Google. In other filings, a group of legal scholars said the Justice Department's proposed divestiture of Chrome would be an improper penalty that would inject unwarranted government interference in a company's business. Meanwhile, former Federal Trade Commission officials James Cooper and Andrew Stivers warned that another proposal that would require Google to share its data with rival search engines 'does not account for the expectations users have developed over time regarding the privacy, security, and stewardship' of their personal information. The App Association, a group that represents mostly small software developers, also advised Mehta not to adopt the Justice Department's proposed changes because of the ripple effects they would have across the tech industry. Hobbling Google in the way the Justice Department envisions would make it more difficult for startups to realize their goal of being acquired, the App Association wrote. 'Developers will be overcome by uncertainty' if Google is torn apart, the group argues. Buy Y Combinator, an incubator that has helped create hundreds of startups collectively worth about $800 billion filed documents pushing for the dramatic overhaul of Google, whose immense power has discouraged venture capitalists from investing in areas that are considered to be part of the company's 'kill zone.' Startups 'also need to be able to get their products into the hands of users, free from restrictive dealing and self-preferencing that locks up important distribution channels. As things stand, Google has locked up the most critical distribution channels, freezing the general search and search text advertising markets into static competition for more than a decade,' Y Combinator told Mehta.
E&E News
a day ago
- Science
- E&E News
DOE unveils AI supercomputer aimed at transforming energy sector
The Department of Energy announced details Thursday for an advanced supercomputer that would speed up development of technologies such as artificial intelligence and fusion, priorities for Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The supercomputer, NERSC-10, is expected to provide more than 10 times the performance of the most advanced machine at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is housed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. DOE said it is partnering with Dell Technologies — a leader in servers for artificial intelligence — to develop the supercomputer, which would be powered by chips from Nvidia. 'Doudna is a time machine for science — compressing years of discovery into days,' Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, said in a news release. The system, expected to be delivered in 2026, is named after Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist at the lab who won the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Advertisement Wright, who visited the lab Thursday, called the system 'a powerhouse for rapid innovation that will transform our efforts to develop abundant, affordable energy supplies.'
Japan Times
a day ago
- Business
- Japan Times
The next great job churn is already starting
The geography of employment in the U.S. is being shaped by two distinct trends. The first is low levels of housing churn and, therefore, interstate migration, a normal part of the business cycle that should eventually turn around. More consequential are signs that artificial intelligence is beginning to suppress hiring in some of the most technology-centric parts of the country such as the San Francisco Bay Area — a shift that may portend a structural change in the labor market. This is a useful time to look at changes in employment growth in different parts of the country and compare these with the pre-pandemic economy, since overall job growth is currently only a touch lower than it was in 2019. U.S. employment grew 1.2% in April from a year earlier, close to the 1.3% growth seen in 2019. Let's start with the reduced migration from cold states to warm states that is showing up in the employment data of the metros most affected. House prices are a useful proxy for interstate migration. The two large metros with the weakest home price growth are Dallas, Texas, and Tampa, Florida, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller indices. Employment in Dallas grew 1.4% in March from a year earlier, roughly half its 2019 pace, while in Tampa, it grew just 0.9%, a third of its 2019 pace. Reduced outmigration from the Northeast and Midwest, on the other hand, helps explain why job growth is above the pre-pandemic pace in Buffalo, New York and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In theory, less interstate migration should also boost the fortunes of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region famous for people leaving to get away from high housing costs. Yet employment in the region has been declining since its post-pandemic peak in November 2022 — coincidentally, the month OpenAI's ChatGPT launched. This could be chalked up to tech companies laying off workers in 2023 and early 2024 to preserve profitability after a hiring binge in the years previous. Meta Platforms's headcount fell by 22% on a year-over-year basis in its "year of efficiency' push in 2023. But that post-COVID-19 culling is behind us — big tech companies are collectively investing hundreds of billions of dollars into AI, and Meta's headcount has grown 10% over the past year. So, it's noteworthy that employment in the country's tech heartland continues to decline at a time when, in theory, the Bay Area has the tailwinds of massive investment and fewer people leaving the region. The most likely culprit is the impact that AI is having on labor demand. The types of white-collar jobs shrinking the fastest in the U.S. include categories such as software engineers, data engineers and application engineers. On recruitment site Indeed, job postings for software engineers are currently lower than they were in the spring of 2020. Some of this drop is likely due to efficiency gains from AI, while some may be due to companies needing to control headcount where they can while they pile huge sums of money into advanced chips and data centers. Boston is another knowledge job-centric metro area showing signs of labor market softness, with its unemployment rate rising from 3.5% to 4.5% over the past year, the highest level outside of the pandemic period since 2015. The education hub may be more vulnerable than some other cities to AI adoption since the technology tends to be good at the kind of work that would typically be offered to young college graduates. These are dynamics we should expect to see, according to "From San Francisco to Savannah? The Downstream Effects of Generative AI,' a paper by researchers at Louisiana State University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Metro areas with both high educational attainment and high costs of living are the most vulnerable to AI disruption. These metros have many of the kinds of jobs AI can replace and cuts there help reduce headcount expenses more quickly. Authors Scott Abrahams and Frank S. Levy highlight parallels with the 1980s when manufacturing-centric communities with a low share of educational attainment were hit hardest by the negative shock of automation and globalization. This doesn't mean that San Francisco will turn into a technological Rust Belt — the region is at the forefront of AI innovation, after all, and even if it ends up with fewer software development jobs, those could be replaced by different kinds of AI-enhanced knowledge work. Abrahams and Levy point out that the manufacturing shock benefited the southern U.S., not just Asian exporting countries, and it's possible an AI shock will lead to more balanced economic development across the U.S. That may take time, though, particularly while interstate migration remains constrained by a dysfunctional housing market. Given our experience with manufacturing job losses and signs that another labor-market reordering is coming, it's time policymakers at the local and national level start to take the potential for AI disruption seriously. Conor Sen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.
