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How fast is US inflation falling?

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A series of strong economic data has persuaded investors swing behind US central banker hints that the Federal Reserve will only cut interest rates gradually in the coming months. Next week’s inflation figures mark the next point to shape investor thinking. 

Thursday sees consumer price inflation figures with producer price numbers due on Friday. Before both, the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s September meeting, due on Wednesday, should reveal more about the debate that led the bank’s rate-setting committee to cut rates by half a percentage point in its first divided decision in almost two decades. 

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A blowout payrolls report last week showed the US adding 240,000 jobs in September, far more than forecast, and pushing futures contracts to imply about a 90 per cent probability that the Federal Reserve will only cut interest rates by a quarter-point when it meets in early November. 

Thursday’s consumer price index is expected to support that with only muted price pressures seen last month. The core index — stripping out volatile food and energy — is expected to have risen 0.2 per cent month-on-month, according to economists polled by Reuters, while the headline reading is predicted to rise 0.1 per cent on the same basis. Year on year, that would put the two at 3.2 per cent and 2.3 per cent respectively, estimate analysts at Barclays.

“Inflation outcomes along the lines of our forecasts should reinforce the [Fed’s] confidence that the disinflation process is intact and would likely keep the focus on upcoming labour market data and other indicators of activity,” US economist Pooja Sriram wrote in a note to clients. Jennifer Hughes

Is the yen carry trade back?

An unexpected rate hike in August led to a dramatic unwinding of the so-called yen carry trade, through which investors and speculators borrow yen to fund trades in higher yielding currencies and assets.

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Comments from Japan’s incoming prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, suggesting the economy is not ready for further rate rises, has been taken by some investors as a sign that it is safe to re-enter the trade.

The yen fell almost 3 per cent last week to ¥146 to the US dollar, triggering a small rally in Japanese equities, particularly export-heavy companies that benefit from a weaker currency.

“Investors took those comments as a green light to rebuild the carry trade”, said Wei Li, head of multi-asset investments based in China at BNP Paribas.

“We are in a risk-on environment”, he said, adding that demand to borrow yen to fund riskier trades was coming back as confidence in the US economy remains strong.

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Tomochika Kitaoka, Nomura’s chief equity strategist in Japan, warned that the data behind whether investors were piling back into the carry trade was “imperfect”, adding there was evidence that some hedge funds had returned to net short positions in the yen.

“Before the Japanese snap election [on October 27], it’s a relatively safe window to review the carry trade”, added Li. Arjun Neil Alim

Is the UK economy growing again?

The UK economy is expected to return to growth in August after two months of stagnation, according to official data published on Friday.

The robust expansion of the UK economy at the beginning of the year has strengthened the argument for a gradual approach to reducing interest rates until clearer indications of a decrease in the high inflation in the services sector. In August, services in inflation rose to 5.6 per cent from 5.2 per cent in the previous month.

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However, economic growth in the second quarter was revised down to 0.5 per cent, marking a slowdown from the 0.7 per cent in the previous quarter. Incoming data suggest growth could slow to 0.3 per cent in the third quarter, but the figures for August will bring greater clarity. Economists polled by Reuters expect that GDP expanded by 0.2 per cent month-on-month in August.

Last week, the governor of the Bank of England said bank’s rate-setters could be “a bit more aggressive” in lowering borrowing costs. However, the BoE’s chief economists warned against rapid rate cuts saying: “It will be important to guard against the risk of cutting rates either too far or too fast” and cautioned for a “gradual withdrawal”.

Ellie Henderson, an economist at Investec, is more optimistic than the consensus, expecting a rebound in retail sales and the absence of junior doctor strikes to fuel a 0.3 per cent expansion.

She said that while activity in the autumn might be temporarily depressed due to households and businesses holding off on large purchases and investments ahead of the Budget on October 30, the monetary policy easing cycle and strong growth in real household disposable income will “continue to support economic momentum”. Valentina Romei

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Is This Company an “Nvidia Killer?” What to Know About Cerebras’ IPO

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Is This Company an "Nvidia Killer?" What to Know About Cerebras' IPO


Conventional wisdom is that Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) will continue to dominate the artificial intelligence (AI) chip market, as it has since the introduction of ChatGPT. Yet, there’s a barrage of competition coming not only from merchant competitors and cloud giants producing their own in-house accelerators but also from AI chip start-ups.

One such start-up, Cerebras, just filed a prospectus ahead of an impending initial public offering (IPO). After reading, I think Cerebras is a name every Nvidia investor should monitor closely. But is it really a threat to the graphics processing unit (GPU) giant?

Technician holds up a semiconductor wafer.

Image source: Getty Images.

What is Cerebras?

Cerebras was founded in 2016 by current CEO Andrew Feldman and a group of technologists who had founded and/or worked at a company called SeaMicro over a decade ago. SeaMicro made efficient high-bandwidth microservers and was later acquired by Advanced Micro Devices in 2012.

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Cerebras sold its first AI chips in 2019 and has recently seen a big acceleration in demand, leading to this recent IPO filing.

Cerebras’ giant chip

Cerebras’ big differentiator is that its AI chips, which it calls wafer-scale engines (WSEs), are huge. And by huge, we’re talking a chip that takes up an entire semiconductor wafer. A foundry usually produces many chips per wafer, some of which have defects and are discarded. But Cerebras goes for one giant chip per wafer.

The result is a massive processor 57 times larger than an Nvidia GPU, with 52 times more compute cores, 880 times the on-chip memory, and 7,000 times more memory bandwidth. One Cerebras WSE has a remarkable 4 trillion transistors — that’s 50 times the 80 billion transistor count of Nvidia’s H200! Like Nvidia, Cerebras’ chips are produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

The theory behind making a giant chip is that by doing more processing on the chip, the WSE does away with the need for the Infiniband or Ethernet-based networking connections that string hundreds or thousands of GPUs together. According to Cerebras, this architecture allows WSEs to achieve over 10 times faster training and inference than an 8-GPU Nvidia system.

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In a recent interview, Feldman said recent tests showed Cerebras chips were 20 times faster for inference than Nvidia’s. Sound impressive? When Feldman was asked at a summer conference how much market share Cerebras planned to take from Nvidia, he answered, “All of it.”

Financials show a big acceleration

Not only does Cerebras talk a big game, but it’s also shown impressive revenue acceleration and improving profitability this year, as you can see:

Cerebras (Nasdaq: CBRS)

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H1 2023

H1 2024

Hardware revenue

$1,559

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$104,269

Service revenue

$7,105

$32,133

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Total revenue

$8,664

$136,402

Gross profit

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$4,378

$56,019

Operating profit (loss)

($81,015)

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($41,811)

Data source: Cerebras S-1. H1 = first half of the corresponding year.

As you can see, between the first half of 2023 and the first half of 2024, Cerebras’ revenue jumped a whopping 1,474%. While gross margin technically declined, from 50.5% to 41.1%, that was mainly because virtually all of last year’s revenue came from higher-margin services. Cerebras’ hardware gross margins actually went up over that time. Even better, operating losses narrowed by $40 million, a great indication that the company will be profitable if it scales.

That exponential scaling should continue into next year. According to the filing, Cerebras’ largest customer, Abu Dhabi’s G42, agreed to purchase $1.43 billion of equipment through the end of 2025. That’s sixfold growth over the current 2024 run rate.

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Risks to the Cerebras story

There are a couple of risks to the Cerebras story, however. One is that producing one massive chip can lead to lots of defects. Whereas Nvidia or any other chipmaker can throw out all the bad chips on a wafer, Cerebras has to take the whole thing, opening its WSEs to imperfections.

To get around this, Cerebras says it has created “redundant” cores and interconnects on its chips, as Cerebras assumes many chips will have defects. “Flaws are designed to be recognized, shut down, and routed around,” the filing says.

However, building redundancy also means Cerebras can’t get all the potential the surface area of its chip could otherwise get. Obviously, management believes the “big chip” architecture more than makes up for this inefficiency.

A second risk, and likely the biggest, is Cerebras’ customer concentration. Right now, AI company G42 from the United Arab Emirates accounts for 87% of Cerebras’ sales in the first six months of 2024. G42 and affiliated entities are also behind next year’s $1.43 billion order, meaning that concentration will only grow.

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Concentration is somewhat expected in the early stages of a company’s growth. But should anything go wrong with the relationship or G42 itself, it could seriously derail Cerebras’ plans. G42’s close affiliation with a foreign government — the UAE’s national security advisor is the company’s founder and largest shareholder — certainly poses a risk should there be a geopolitical flare-up.

Cerebras is one to watch

When it goes public, Cerebras will be a new AI player on the block and will probably sell for a high valuation. So, investors should be cautious about how much they pay for the stock when it comes to market.

Nevertheless, the company has a differentiated architecture from the rest of the pack. Therefore, it’s certainly worth watching whenever it goes public — especially if you’re a big Nvidia or AMD shareholder.

Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

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The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $765,523!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks »

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*Stock Advisor returns as of September 30, 2024

Billy Duberstein and/or his clients have positions in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Is This Company an “Nvidia Killer?” What to Know About Cerebras’ IPO was originally published by The Motley Fool



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China Stock Skepticism Gets Louder as World-Beating Run Extends

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China Stock Skepticism Gets Louder as World-Beating Run Extends


(Bloomberg) — The world-beating rally in Chinese stocks is failing to convince many global fund managers and strategists.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Invesco Ltd., JPMorgan Asset Management, HSBC Global Private Banking and Wealth, and Nomura Holdings Inc. are among those viewing the recent rebound with skepticism and waiting for Beijing to back up its stimulus pledges with real money. Some are also concerned many stocks are already reaching overvalued levels.

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Chinese shares have skyrocketed since late-September as a barrage of economic, financial and market-support measures reinvigorated investor confidence. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, which comprises Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong, has jumped more than 30% over the past month, making it the best performer among more than 90 global equity gauges tracked by Bloomberg.

“In the short term, sentiment could overshoot but people will go back to fundamentals,” said Raymond Ma, Invesco’s chief investment officer for Hong Kong and Mainland China. “Because of this rally, some stocks have become really overvalued” and they lack a clear value proposition based on their likely earnings performance, he said.

Stimulus announced by Beijing has included interest-rate cuts, freeing-up of cash at banks, billions of dollars of liquidity support for stocks, and a vow to end the long-term slide in property prices. While there’s plenty of optimism that could underpin a sustainable equity rally, there have been a number of false dawns before, most recently a rally in February that completely unwound.

The surge in the past two weeks has seen Chinese equities reassert their influence over broader emerging-market gauges, and dented the performance of fund managers who had been running underweight positions in the biggest developing-nation economy. The durability of the rebound will not only matter for the year-end performance of index-tracking funds, but also have direct implications for nations that have trading and investment links with China.

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Ma at Invesco, who was one of relatively few China bulls coming into this year, said he’s in no rush to add to his investments now.

“There are a group of stocks whose share prices are up by 30% to 40% and almost at historical highs,” he said. “Whether in the next 12 months the fundamentals will be as good as before their peak, that’s more uncertain to me. That would be the category we would like to trim.”

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JPMorgan Asset Management is just as cautious.

“Additional policy steps would be needed to boost economic activity and confidence,” said Tai Hui, Asia Pacific chief market strategist in Hong Kong. “The policies announced so far can help to smoothen out the de-leveraging process, but the balance-sheet repairing would still need to take place.”

Hui also pointed to global uncertainties that may crimp the nascent stock rally.

“With the U.S. elections only a month away, many investors would argue that the U.S. view of China as an economic and geopolitical rival is a bipartisan consensus,” he said. Moreover, “foreign investors may choose to wait for economic data to bottom out and for this new policy direct to solidify,’ he said.

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Slowing Growth

HSBC Global Private Banking remains concerned the steps China has taken aren’t enough to reverse the nation’s slowing long-term growth outlook.

“More significant fiscal easing is still needed to sustain the recovery momentum and shore up growth to achieve the 5% 2024 GDP growth target,” said Cheuk Wan Fan, chief investment officer for Asia at the private bank in Hong Kong. “For now, we stay neutral on mainland China and Hong Kong equities based on our expectation of China’s GDP growth decelerating from 4.9% in 2024 to 4.5% in 2025.”

‘Go Further’

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Still, some remain bullish, saying valuations are cheap due to the three-year selloff.

“The rally can run, there’s a lot of money that still needs to rebalance. especially from global investors,” Matthew Quaife, global head of multi-asset investment management at Fidelity International in Hong Kong, said on Bloomberg Television.

“We know valuations are still below mean and could run further from a technical view. This could have more legs and how much it goes into earnings is a bigger question,” he said.

Potential Bust

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Nomura Holdings Inc. is among the most pessimistic, warning the rally may quickly turn from boom to bust.

In the most gloomy scenario, “a stock market mania would be followed by a crash, similar to what happened in 2015,” Nomura economists led by Ting Lu in Hong Kong wrote in a note to clients. That outcome may have a “much higher probability” than more optimistic scenarios, they said.

Bond ‘Challenges’

Some investors and strategists are also wary about what the stimulus blitz means for the nation’s bonds and currency.

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China’s bonds have dropped since the stock rally started, ending at least temporarily a period in which yields set successive record lows as investors bought haven assets.

“There are still major challenges to be resolved, and it’s not an easy road,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING Bank in Hong Kong. “We need to ensure that this policy blitz is effective in stabilizing the downward trajectory of the housing market and not just result in a rush of hot money to equities.”

Bonds may become a beneficiary if the stock market cools, Song said. “There’s certainly a risk we could revert back to the previous months’ environment if anything goes wrong in the next steps ahead.”

Yuan traders will be watching out on Tuesday for the central bank’s daily reference rate, the level around which the currency is allowed to trade. The onshore yuan has strengthened more than 1% in the past month to approach the key level of 7 per dollar. A break of that barrier may trigger a further rally.

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What to Watch

  • China publishes FX reserves data for September

  • A swath of countries release inflation data, including Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina

  • Central banks in India, Peru and South Korea announce interest-rate decisions

  • Mexico and India release industrial production data

–With assistance from Shulun Huang and Carolina Wilson.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

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What to know this week

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What to know this week


A turbulent five days for markets, featuring rising tensions in the Middle East and a port strike that both started and stopped, was capped off by a better-than-expected September jobs report that helped stocks close marginally up on the week.

For the first week of October the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose about 0.1%.

An update on inflation and the start of third quarter earnings reports will grab investor attention in the week ahead.

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The October Consumer Price Index (CPI) report will headline an economic calendar that will also feature updates on consumer sentiment and the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s September meeting.

On the corporate side, some of America’s largest financial institutions, including JPMorgan (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), and BlackRock (BLK), will kick off third quarter earnings season on Friday. PepsiCo (PEP) and Delta Air Lines (DAL) are also scheduled to report earlier in the week.

On Friday, the September jobs report cooled concerns that the labor market is rapidly deteriorating and will prompt another jumbo-sized rate cut.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday showed the labor market added 254,000 payrolls in September, more additions than the 150,000 expected by economists. Revisions to both the July and August report showed the US economy added 72,000 more jobs during those two months than previously reported.

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Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 4.1% from 4.2% in August.

This, Wall Street economists and strategists argued, likely takes another half-percentage-point interest rate cut from the Fed in November off the table.

“We think that the rate descent should continue, but with today’s strong data it’s more likely that the Fed will move in 25 basis point (bps) cut increments,” BlackRock chief investment officer of global fixed income Rick Rieder wrote in a research note on Friday. “For a Fed that is recalibrating to an economy that is operating at a very solid level, it seems more appropriate for the market to price in a small probability of “no cut” at the next meeting, rather than a small probability of a 50-bps cut.”

While concerns about the Fed’s maximum employment portion of its dual mandate appear to have eased for now, inflation remains above the central bank’s 2% target.

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The week ahead will provide a fresh update on how quickly price increases are falling toward that goal.

Wall Street economists expect headline inflation rose just 2.3% annually in September, a slowdown from the 2.5% rise seen in August. August data marked the slowest year-over-year inflation reading since early 2021. Prices are set to rise 0.1% on a month-over-month basis, a decrease from the 0.2% reading seen in May.

On a “core” basis, which strips out food and energy prices, CPI is forecast to have risen 3.2% over last year in September, unchanged from August. Monthly core price increases are expected to clock in at 0.2%, below the 0.3% seen in August.

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“Inflation continues to move in the right direction, which will allow further cuts,” Bank of America US economist Stephen Juneau wrote in a research note previewing the release. “However, we continue to think labor data matters more for size of cuts.”

Tesla will once again be one of the key individual stocks in focus during the upcoming week. The electric vehicle maker is expected to host its highly anticipated robotaxi event on Oct. 10.

Tesla is expected to provide further details on its plans for its full self-driving project. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a note to clients he expects attendees will be shown and given rides in one of Tesla’s “cybercabs.”

As Yahoo Finance’s Laura Bratton reported, RBC analyst Tom Narayan told Yahoo Finance that while he has high hopes for a future of self-driving robotaxis, the event is unlikely to send Tesla stock soaring.

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“I think it’s difficult to get excited on a stock on something so high level,” he said, noting that the launch will showcase Tesla’s big-picture vision for AI and autonomous vehicles — a vision that he said will probably take several years to become “financially meaningful” for the EV maker.

Tesla stock fell about 5% last week ahead of the event as the company announced third quarter deliveries that fell short of Wall Street’s estimates.

Big banks are set to kick off what Wall Street expects to be a subdued quarter for year-over-year earnings growth. Entering the reporting period, consensus projects earnings to grow 4.7%. This would mark the fifth straight quarter of growth compared to the same period a year prior but would also be the slowest year-over-year growth since the fourth quarter of 2023.

“The bottom-up consensus forecasts a sharp and broad slowing,” Deutsche Bank chief equity strategist Binky Chadha wrote in a note to clients.

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Chadha added that this should set up company earnings to surpass Wall Street’s expectations as they often do. It does not, however, make Chadha more bullish on how stocks might perform during the reporting period.

“Earnings seasons are typically positive for equities, but the strong rally and above-average positioning going in argue for a muted market reaction,” Chadha wrote. “This earnings season will also take place against a backdrop that could see it overshadowed by geopolitical developments and noise around the US elections.”

Bank of America US and Canada equity strategist Ohsung Kwon told Yahoo Finance that with consensus not expecting a strong third quarter, much of the focus will be on what companies say about the path forward.

“Now that the easing cycle has started, what are companies … going to say about any early indications of improvement given the lower rate environment?” Kwon said.

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Economic data: No notable releases.

Earnings: Duckhorn (NAPA)

Economic data:

Earnings: PepsiCo (PEP)

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Economic data: MBA mortgage applications Oct. 4 (-1.3% prior), Wholesale inventories month-over-month, August final (0.2% prior); FOMC September meeting minutes

Earnings: Helene of Troy (HELE)

Economic data: Consumer Price Index, month-over-month, September (+0.1% expected, +0.2% previously); CPI excluding food and energy, month-over-month, September (+0.2% expected, +0.3% previously); Consumer Price Index, year-over-year, September (+2.3% expected, +2.5% previously); CPI excluding food and energy, year-over-year, September (+3.2% expected, +3.2% previously); Real Average Hourly Earnings, year-over-year, September (+1.4% previously); Real Average Weekly Earnings, year-over-year, September (+0.9% previously); Initial jobless claims, week ended Oct. 5 (237,000 expected, 225,000 prior)

Earnings: Delta Air Lines (DAL), Domino’s (DPZ), Tilray (TLRY)

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Economic data: Producer Price Index, month-over-month, September (+0.1% expected, +0.2% previously); PPI, year-over-year, September (+1.6% expected, 1.7% previously); Core PPI, month-over-month, September (+0.2% expected, 0.3% previously); Core PPI, year-over-year, September (+2.7% expected, +2.4% previously); University of Michigan consumer sentiment, October preliminary (70.3 expected, 70.1 previously)

Earnings: BlackRock (BLK), BNY Mellon (BK), JPMorgan (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC)

Josh Schafer is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X @_joshschafer.

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You Won’t Want to Miss These 3 Under-the-Radar Dividend Stocks

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You Won't Want to Miss These 3 Under-the-Radar Dividend Stocks


Hundreds of companies pay dividends, making it easy to miss some great dividend stocks. Many smaller companies that aren’t big enough to be in the S&P 500 tend to fall under the radar of most investors.

Rexford Industrial Realty (NYSE: REXR), Equity LifeStyle Properties (NYSE: ELS), and NNN REIT (NYSE: NNN) are smaller real estate investment trusts (REITs). Because of that, many investors are missing out on how good they are at paying dividends. Here’s why they’re worth a closer look.

Its focused strategy is paying big dividends

Rexford Industrial Realty is an industrial REIT focused on a single market: Southern California. That market has tremendous fundamentals. It’s the largest industrial market in the country and consistently has the highest demand with the lowest supply. Those factors keep occupancy levels high while driving strong rent growth, which has helped drive strong outperformance for Rexford over the last several years.

Its funds from operations (FFO) have grown at a 16% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) during the past five years. That’s much faster than the 9% CAGR of its peers, helping to drive faster dividend growth (18% CAGR over the last five years compared to 10% from its peers).

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Rexford Industrial has substantial embedded internal growth drivers. A combination of repositioning and redevelopment projects, rent growth, and recently announced acquisitions will add 35% to its annual net operating income over the next three years. That lays a strong foundation for continued dividend increases from a payout that already yields more than 3%. Meanwhile, there’s additional upside potential from future accretive acquisitions, which would further enhance its ability to continue increasing its dividend.

Going off the beaten path has paid big dividends

Equity LifeStyle Properties is a residential REIT focused on manufactured home communities, RV resorts, campgrounds, and marinas. Fewer real estate investors focus on those niche property types, which leaves less competition to acquire properties when they go on the market. That has enabled the REIT to earn higher investment returns via a higher initial real estate cap rate.

The fundamentals in those niche sectors are strong and durable. Relocating a manufactured home is expensive, which enables Equity LifeStyle to raise rents every year, even during a recession. Because of that, it has grown its net operating income at a higher rate over the years (4.4% annually compared to 3.3% for the REIT industry since 1998).

These factors have contributed to Equity LifeStyle’s strong dividend growth rate. The REIT has increased its payout at a 21% compound annual rate since 2006. With a strong balance sheet and robust market fundamentals, Equity LifeStyle is in an excellent position to continue growing its 2.7%-yielding dividend in the future.

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A remarkable record

NNN REIT has quietly put together an amazing record of dividend growth. The retail REIT recently delivered its 35th consecutive annual dividend increase. That’s a rare feat. Only two other REITs and fewer than 80 publicly traded companies have reached that milestone.

The REIT’s strategy is very simple and consistent. It buys single-tenant net lease retail properties. It focuses on well-located properties leased to growing national and regional retailers, like auto service locations, convenience stores, and restaurants. The net lease structure provides predictable cash flow because tenants cover all operating expenses, including routine maintenance, building insurance, and real estate taxes.

NNN REIT grows by acquiring additional income-producing retail properties, primarily via existing tenant relationships. Those deals have higher cap rates than market/auction transactions, enhancing the company’s investment returns. It has a low dividend payout ratio and a very conservative balance sheet, giving it lots of flexibility to continue making accretive property acquisitions as opportunities arise. Those deals should enable the REIT to continue steadily increasing its 4.8%-yielding dividend.

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Small but mighty

Rexford Industrial Realty, Equity LifeStyle Properties, and NNN REIT are smaller companies that many investors have likely overlooked. Because of that, they’ve missed out on their tremendous dividend growth track records. They should be able to continue increasing their payouts, which could make them a great addition to any investor’s income portfolio.

Should you invest $1,000 in Rexford Industrial Realty right now?

Before you buy stock in Rexford Industrial Realty, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Rexford Industrial Realty wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $765,523!*

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Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of September 30, 2024

Matt DiLallo has positions in Rexford Industrial Realty. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Rexford Industrial Realty. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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You Won’t Want to Miss These 3 Under-the-Radar Dividend Stocks was originally published by The Motley Fool



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BTC short-term holders 'likely taking on more risk' as realized cap drops by $6B

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BTC short-term holders 'likely taking on more risk' as realized cap drops by $6B


Bitcoin short-term holders are “likely taking on more risk” amid long-term holders “likely taking profits,” according to a crypto analyst.



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A GE spinoff’s stock is surging as it positions itself as the ‘supermarket’ for AI energy demand

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A GE spinoff's stock is surging as it positions itself as the 'supermarket' for AI energy demand


The massive demand for energy as Big Tech races to build its AI infrastructure has been a tailwind for GE Vernova (GEV), the power equipment maker that spun out of iconic GE earlier this year.

Shares of the Cambridge, Mass.-based company have been hovering near all-time highs, along with the broader S&P 500 Industrial ETF (XLI), as investors look to play off the electrification and artificial intelligence theme led by AI chip heavyweight Nvidia (NVDA).

“[Vernova] seems to be caught up in the broader trade of AI and power demand,” Daniel Rich, analyst at CFRA, told Yahoo Finance. The firm has a Buy rating and a price target of $230 on the stock.

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Much of Wall Street’s bullishness stems from expectations of power demand growth stemming from Big Tech’s commitment to record infrastructure technology investments.

Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Meta (META) are expected to spend a combined $200 billion this year on cloud and AI investments, including building and maintaining data centers.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks at a Google I/O event in Mountain View, Calif., May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks at a Google I/O event in Mountain View, Calif., May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Power demand from infrastructure technologies in the US is expected to more than double by 2030 thanks to use of AI, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

“Because of how much more power we’re going to need —if the projections are accurate to power data centers — to power AI applications, Vernova is definitely a winner,” he added.

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One Wall Street analyst dubbed the $72 billion company the “supermarket” for the electric power industry — from natural gas turbines used to generate electricity to servicing of power plants, modernizing electric grids, and building wind turbines.

“This company does everything,” Raymond James managing director Pavel Molchanov told Yahoo Finance in an interview this week.

“Because the buildout of electric power infrastructure is an all-of-the-above story, that means all of these solutions are going to be needed,” he added.

The analyst notes Vernova’s reach is global, with roughly 30% of its revenue stemming from the US. Some of its big competitors, like Siemens Energy, Schneider Electric, and ABB, are based abroad.

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Vernova expects to deliver 70 to 80 heavy-duty gas turbines per year in 2026, up from roughly 55 for the last few years. Servicing those units is also expected to grow substantially.

“We’re seeing increasing demand for power generation, driven by manufacturing growth, industrial electrification, EVs, and emerging data center needs,” Vernova CEO Scott Strazik said during the company’s latest earnings call over the summer.

The recent deal between software giant Microsoft and nuclear power provider Constellation Energy (CEG) to restart a reactor at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island is one recent example of the growing energy demand among Big Tech.

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The partnership has made Morgan Stanley analysts more bullish on the prospects of gas-powered plants adjacent to data centers.

“We believe a co-located data center and gas-fired power plant utilizing GEV’s gas-turbine equipment could be announced in 2025,” Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco wrote in a note last week.

The analyst reiterated an Overweight rating and increased his bull case scenario price target on the stock to $397 from $371.

A rendering of GE's 7HA Gas Turbine. (Graphic: Business Wire)

A rendering of GE’s 7HA gas turbine. (Business Wire) (Business Wire)

Vernova stock is up more than 100% since its spinoff, compared to the S&P 500’s (^GSPC) 21% year-to-date gain. That’s despite negative headlines in the company’s most challenged unit — its wind turbines — after incidents of blades breaking off in key offshore projects.

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Molchanov from Raymond James cautions the strong run-up means there could be little room to run, though.

“It’s an S&P 500 stock that has doubled in the last six months. If that sounds a little bit like certain other AI-related companies that people are familiar with, well, that’s not a coincidence,” said Molchanov.

Calling the AI-fueled rally “overstretched,” the analyst and his team downgraded the stock from Outperform to Market Perform based on valuation. Much of the enthusiasm over AI is already baked into Vernova’s share price, he said.

“The bottom line is that we think the stock could use a period of consolidation after its sentiment-driven gains, and we look forward to revisiting our rating if and when the trade becomes less crowded,” he said.

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The stock has 19 Buy, six Hold, and two Sell analyst recommendations.

Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @ines_ferre.

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