Business
Lakers Could Trade Bronny James to Reunite Him With LeBron After the NBA Legend Picks His Next Team
LOS ANGELES — Bronny James may soon follow his father to a new NBA city, with ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reporting that the Los Angeles Lakers could trade the 21-year-old guard to whatever franchise LeBron James ultimately chooses in the most closely watched free agency of the modern era, potentially keeping the historic father-son playing partnership alive for a third NBA season.
The timeline of events surrounding the James family’s separation from the Lakers was nothing short of whiplash-inducing. On June 29, the Lakers fully guaranteed Bronny’s $2.3 million salary for the 2026-27 season, choosing not to waive him before his contract deadline. The very next morning, LeBron James informed the franchise he would not be returning for a ninth season, leaving a roster that had just locked in the son without the father.
McMenamin detailed the situation directly in his reporting.
“LeBron has spoken at length about how meaningful it has been to be teammates with his son, and those feelings only grew late last season when they shared the court in competitive games,” McMenamin wrote. He added: “Once LeBron makes his decision on his next team, there could be a subsequent move made with Bronny.”
The mechanics of any potential Bronny trade would be relatively straightforward given his minimum contract. Because his $2.3 million deal falls near the league minimum, any team with cap space or a roster spot can absorb him without sending matching salary back to Los Angeles in return. The ideal outcome for the Lakers, according to reporting from LakersNation.com, would be to extract a second-round draft pick in any deal involving Bronny, giving the franchise a small return on a player whose guaranteed contract they could otherwise monetize through trade. Whether that extraction is achievable in a transaction involving a minimum-salary player is less certain, and the Lakers may ultimately be willing to move Bronny without any compensation simply to free up the roster spot for a more impactful signing.
The father-son pairing that made history throughout the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons resonated on a level that transcended the basketball court. LeBron and Bronny became the first father-son duo ever to play an NBA game together, a milestone that drew emotional responses from across the sport and from fans who had followed LeBron’s career since he entered the league as a teenager himself in 2003. The partnership deepened through two seasons of shared professional experience, including a moment in the first round of the 2026 playoffs against the Houston Rockets when the two combined to score 10 consecutive points in a single second-quarter sequence, five each, a snapshot of shared purpose that captured the imagination of anyone who watched it.
Bronny, now in his second season, showed genuine developmental progress relative to his rookie campaign. He appeared in 69 total games across his two professional seasons, averaging 2.7 points, 1.1 assists and shooting 34.8% from three overall, but his three-point percentage improved to 38.7% in his second year, a threshold that begins to suggest he could develop into a credible rotational option if given consistent opportunity. His defensive effort has been consistently praised by coaches and teammates, and his postseason performance in Game 4 against the Rockets, in which he produced five points and four assists across 15 minutes, offered the clearest evidence yet that he can contribute in meaningful moments at the NBA’s highest level.
Those developmental gains, modest as they are in the broader context of the league, have created what ESPN described as genuine uncertainty about whether the Lakers would even want to trade him regardless of where LeBron lands. The franchise has a thin backcourt beyond Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, and a young, minimum-salary guard with defensive instincts and improving shooting represents exactly the kind of depth piece a rebuilding team can use without any financial strain.
“There’s very much a world in which the Lakers see Bronny as young, cheap depth they aren’t willing to part with this summer,” Bleacher Report noted in analysis of the situation.
The three franchises most frequently identified as the leading contenders for LeBron James himself, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors and Miami Heat, all present different circumstances for a potential Bronny trade. Cleveland already has a crowded backcourt featuring Donovan Mitchell and James Harden, raising questions about whether Bronny would have a meaningful role. Golden State’s current depth at guard might make a Bronny addition more logistically complex than it appears, while Miami’s situation, with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo consuming significant minutes and attention, could provide Bronny the kind of low-pressure environment in which developmental players tend to thrive.
For the Lakers, the Bronny question is one of the few remaining roster decisions that has not yet been resolved in what has otherwise been an extraordinarily active first week of free agency. The franchise added center Walker Kessler from Utah in a sign-and-trade, signed guard Collin Sexton and is finalizing the addition of Quentin Grimes, moves focused entirely on building around Doncic rather than maintaining any continuity with the LeBron era. Trading Bronny to LeBron’s eventual destination would serve that pivot by opening an additional roster spot while simultaneously allowing the front office to serve the James family’s interests one final time in a way that preserves goodwill without compromising the Doncic-centered vision.
LeBron’s own decision remains unresolved, with Rich Paul disclosing Friday that he has now spoken to 27 teams about his client’s availability and that the factors guiding James’ thinking are genuinely fluid. Until that decision is made, Bronny James remains a Laker on paper, surrounded by teammates his father will never play alongside, waiting for clarity that is entirely dependent on a choice happening somewhere else in the league.
Business
Kling Raises $2.8 Billion Amid Planned Spinoff From Kuaishou
Kuaishou Technology’s 1024 -0.09%decrease; down pointing triangle Kling has raised $2.80 billion from investors, as the short-video company seeks to spin off and list its artificial-intelligence video unit.
Venture capitalists and other investors have injected 19.04 billion yuan, or $2.80 billion, into Kling, Kuaishou said late Thursday. Additional investors could still join this funding round, potentially taking the total investment as much as $3 billion, it added. Kuaishou’s stake in Kling could fall to as low as 68.33% after the capital injection.
Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Business
Why is Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund still a top recommendation despite underperformance? Expert explains
A similar query came up during The Money Show on ET Now, where the host pointed out that Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund has recently underperformed several peers in the flexi-cap category, with many other funds beating their benchmarks. So why do advisors continue to recommend it?
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Aditya Shah, Founder, Hercules Advisors explained why he believes investors should focus on long-term consistency rather than chasing short-term performance.
Shah said that the outperformance and underperformance are part of every mutual fund’s investment cycle, and no single fund can consistently outperform every year over a period of time. He said investors should avoid judging a scheme solely based on its recent returns and instead look at its performance over a longer period.
“What matters more is the risk-adjusted return,” Shah said. He noted that Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund has consistently ranked among the top two or three funds on a risk-adjusted basis and is likely to remain in the top quartile over a five- to ten-year period.
“Over a period of 5 to 10 years, Parag Parikh will be in the top five quartile and that is all that an investor really needs,” the expert said.He explained that every year, you cannot get a fund that is outperforming. Funds go through phases of outperformance and underperformance.
Shah also highlighted the fund’s large-cap bias as one of the key reasons behind his recommendation. According to him, investors with an investment horizon of around five years should prioritise controlling risk rather than chasing high returns from riskier segments of the market.
He said portfolios with a greater allocation to large-cap and mid-cap stocks tend to offer a better balance between risk and return over shorter investment horizons, whereas small-cap funds can be significantly more volatile.
According to the expert, “Over a period of five years, you cannot go into the market into the smallcap side of the market. You have to assume an orientation of a largecap and a midcap side of the market because a smallcap fund will have a higher risk.”
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He further pointed out that despite their strong performance in earlier years, small-cap funds have struggled recently, demonstrating why investors should not assume that past winners will continue to outperform.
According to Shah, risk management should take precedence over return maximisation when the investment horizon is relatively short. Instead of chasing the best-performing fund every year, investors should remain invested in schemes with a consistent long-term track record and strong risk-adjusted performance.
The expert said that one should evaluate funds over complete market cycles rather than based on short-term returns. A temporary phase of underperformance does not necessarily make a fund a poor investment if it continues to deliver competitive long-term, risk-adjusted returns while keeping portfolio risk under control.
As per the data available on ACE MF, in the last six months, the fund lost 4.94% compared to a loss of 2.99% by the benchmark (Nifty 500 – TRI). In the last one year, the fund delivered a negative return of 2.43% against a marginal loss of 0.26% by the benchmark.
After delivering positive returns in the last three months, the fund failed to outperform its benchmark. The fund delivered a return of 4.87% against a return of 11.48% by the benchmark.
Over the longer horizon, the fund has delivered a return of 14.24% in the last three years against a return of 13.33% by the benchmark. In the last five years, the fund delivered a return of 13.85% compared to 12.62% by the benchmark and since its inception, the fund has delivered a CAGR of 17.50%.
The database platform ACE MF further showed that on a monthly basis, the fund delivered best returns between March 24, 2020 to April 24, 2020 where it delivered 18.63% return against 17.74% by the benchmark. And the worst performance was between February 24, 2020 to March 23, 2020 where it lost 30.98% and the benchmark lost 37.16% in the same period.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)
If you have any mutual fund queries, message on ET Mutual Funds on Facebook/Twitter. We will get it answered by our panel of experts. Do share your questions on ETMFqueries@timesinternet.in alongwith your age, risk profile, and twitter handle
Business
Oracle: Positioned For Success, Priced For Failure
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Vedanta among top 5 stocks with lowest price-to-earnings ratio. Check details
Repco Home Finance, LIC Housing Finance, Power Finance Corporation, Vedanta and The Great Eastern Shipping feature among the cheapest stocks by price-to-earnings ratio. Most are widely held by mutual funds and carry strong Value Research ratings.
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BKV Corporation: Dilution Fears Make A Great Case Not So Great
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Independence Day Puzzle Has a Very American Double-Letter Twist
Millions of Americans woke up on the nation’s 250th birthday, July 4, and reached for their phones to check the morning Wordle before the barbecue got started. What they found was puzzle number 1,841, a five-letter word that immediately struck many players as a fittingly patriotic choice for Independence Day, even if its origins trace not to Philadelphia but to Naples.
The answer to today’s Wordle is PIZZA.
It is, by any measure, a perfectly themed solution for a holiday built around backyard cookouts, gatherings with family and friends, and the very particular American tradition of ordering takeout when the grill runs out of space. Pizza arrived in the United States with Italian immigrant communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, took root in cities like New York, Chicago and New Haven, and over the following century became so thoroughly embedded in American food culture that it now ranks among the most consumed foods in the country. An estimated 3 billion pizzas are sold in the United States every year, with the average American eating roughly 23 pounds of pizza annually. Its presence on the Fourth of July is about as inevitable as fireworks.
For Wordle purposes, the word is a reasonably tricky proposition despite its familiarity. PIZZA contains two vowels and three consonants, starts with P and ends with A, and crucially features a double Z at its center, a letter pairing that sits at the exact intersection of unusual and unfamiliar in the Wordle context. Most experienced players build their opening strategies around the most common Wordle letters, typically a mix from the group containing R, S, T, N, L, E, A and O. The letter Z, one of the least common in standard English usage, rarely appears in those opening frameworks. When it appears twice in five letters, the word becomes considerably more resistant to standard elimination strategies.
The most effective openers for today’s puzzle tended to be those that secured an early confirmation of the P, the I and the A, the word’s two vowels and its most distinctive consonant beyond the double Z. Starting words such as PHASE, IDEAL, PLANE or APRIL each gave solvers a meaningful foothold from which to reconstruct the word’s structure, particularly once the double-Z middle revealed itself through the process of elimination. Players who opened with standard vowel-heavy words like ORATE or RAISE found themselves with minimal useful feedback after the first guess, since none of the letters in those common openers appear anywhere in PIZZA.
The double Z specifically is the trap that likely cost the most streaks today. Wordle players who correctly identified the P as the first letter and the A as the last letter through their early guesses still faced an unusual challenge in reconstructing the interior, since a Z-Z combination does not appear in many five-letter English words and does not naturally surface as a guess even for players who know a word ends with the right letters. Experienced players often remind each other that repeated letters are more common in Wordle answers than intuition suggests, pointing to past answers including SHEEP, BLOOM and PUPPY as examples, but applying that principle specifically to Z requires a level of vocabulary recall that even regular players can stumble on.
The connection between today’s answer and the holiday on which it falls adds a pleasing layer of thematic resonance that has not gone unnoticed on social media this morning. The New York Times’ Wordle editing team, led by puzzle editor Tracy Bennett, has not confirmed whether the Independence Day placement was deliberate, but the combination of a universally recognized American food with a national celebration has generated the kind of enthusiastic online response that particularly satisfying or well-timed Wordle answers tend to produce.
Today’s puzzle is number 1,841 in the Wordle sequence, a milestone that speaks to how thoroughly the game has embedded itself in daily life since Josh Wardle created it in 2021 as a private project for his partner before it went viral globally in January 2022. The New York Times acquired it shortly afterward for a reported seven-figure sum and has maintained its core mechanics, free daily access and single-puzzle-per-day format throughout more than three years of operation under its editorial umbrella. Wordle now sits alongside Connections, Strands, Spelling Bee and the Mini Crossword as part of the Times’ suite of daily games products that have collectively attracted tens of millions of regular players.
For players whose streaks survived the double-Z challenge today, tomorrow’s puzzle arrives with a clean slate. For those who did not, the only consolation is that PIZZA is genuinely one of the more memorable, thematically appropriate and conversation-generating answers the puzzle has produced in its history, the kind of word that makes non-players smile when they hear it described and that reminds regular players why they keep coming back to a two-minute word game every morning, including on a national holiday when there are plenty of other things competing for their attention.
Business
Candel Stock: An Overlooked Late-Stage Biotech With Real Potential (NASDAQ:CADL)
Max is an independent equity research analyst with a primary focus on biotechnology, healthcare, and technology companies. His investment approach is fundamentally driven, combining detailed financial modeling, valuation analysis, and in-depth research into clinical trial data, regulatory pathways, competitive dynamics, commercialization potential, and long-term business fundamentals. He is currently pursuing his academic studies while continuing to expand his expertise in equity research and financial analysis. He has gained additional experience through work exposure at the Deutsche Bundesbank and EY, where he developed a deeper understanding of financial systems and professional analysis standards. Through Seeking Alpha, Max aims to publish independent, research-driven analysis of biotechnology and healthcare companies, translating clinical and financial data into actionable investment insights.
Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, but may initiate a beneficial Long position through a purchase of the stock, or the purchase of call options or similar derivatives in CADL over the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Business
Looking for the best mutual funds to invest in? Check top 10 picks for July 2026
Choosing mutual funds solely on past returns can be misleading. ETMutualFunds shortlisted 10 funds across five equity categories using rolling returns, consistency, downside risk, outperformance and asset size, helping investors align investments with their goals, risk appetite and time horizon.
Business
Solutions to Today’s Puzzle Including the Tricky Purple Category
Saturday’s New York Times Connections puzzle delivered something of a surprise for players expecting a patriotic Fourth of July theme: no fireworks, no flags, no founding fathers and no stars and stripes anywhere on the board. Instead, puzzle editor Wyna Liu served up a grid organized around words meaning to persist, poetic forms, tropical cocktails, and a fill-in-the-blank category built around the word “sweet,” the last of which proved to be the session’s most effective streak-breaker heading into the holiday weekend.
Here is a complete breakdown of every category and every answer for Connections puzzle number 1,119, published July 4, 2026.
Yellow: Persist
The yellow category, as always the most accessible of the four, grouped together four verbs all meaning to continue or endure: Continue, Last, Linger and Stay. Each word describes the act of remaining in place or carrying on despite an implied pressure to stop or leave. The category offered a straightforward entry point for most experienced solvers, with the shared meaning immediately apparent once the theme of persistence clicked. The one mild trap in this group was that words like Last and Stay can carry multiple meanings, but in this context the puzzle was clearly organizing them around their intransitive verb sense of enduring through time rather than any alternative usage.
Green: Kinds of Poems
Wednesday’s geography-themed puzzle asked players to find countries hidden inside other words. Saturday’s green category asked for something entirely different: recognizing four types of poems. The green group gathered Ballad, Epic, Ode and Villanelle, each of which names a distinct poetic form with specific structural or thematic characteristics. A ballad is a narrative poem or song, typically with repeated refrains and a storytelling structure. An epic is a long narrative poem traditionally concerned with heroic figures, usually drawn from mythology or national history, with Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid as the most frequently cited examples. An ode is a formal lyric poem addressed to a particular subject, typically composed in praise or celebration of a person, place, event or abstract quality. The villanelle is perhaps the most structurally rigid of the four, a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a closing quatrain with a strict pattern of alternating rhymes and two refrains, best known to contemporary readers through Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Recognizing villanelle as a poetic form rather than as a character from the spy thriller television series Killing Eve was reportedly the gateway moment for a number of solvers who found this category first after the word stood out prominently on the board.
Blue: Tropical Drinks
The blue category grouped four cocktail names that share a tropical or island identity: Hurricane, Painkiller, Scorpion and Zombie. The Hurricane is a sweet, rum-based cocktail associated most closely with New Orleans and the Pat O’Brien’s bar where it was reportedly invented in the 1940s, served in a distinctive curved glass that mimics the shape of a hurricane lamp. The Painkiller is a rum-and-coconut drink that originated in the British Virgin Islands. The Scorpion is a Polynesian-style tiki cocktail typically made with rum, brandy and citrus, associated with the tiki bar culture that spread across the United States in the mid-twentieth century. The Zombie is perhaps the most legendary of the four, a potent rum-based cocktail created by Donn Beach in the 1930s and traditionally limited to two per customer at many bars due to its extremely high alcohol content. The shared tropical cocktail identity of all four words is clear in retrospect, but the category offered multiple misleading possibilities since Hurricane, Zombie, Scorpion and Painkiller all carry strong associations with other categories that could plausibly have appeared in a Connections puzzle on any given day.
Purple: Sweet ___
The purple category, which Connections traditionally reserves for the most challenging or wordplay-intensive grouping, asked players to identify four words that can each follow the word “sweet” to form a recognized compound word or common phrase. The purple answers were Spot, Dreams, Pea and Nothings. Sweet Spot refers to an optimal point or position, used across contexts from baseball hitting to product pricing. Sweet Dreams is a widely recognized expression and phrase associated with saying goodnight, wishing someone restful sleep. Sweet Pea is a climbing garden flower with fragrant blossoms and a term of endearment. Sweet Nothings refers to affectionate, inconsequential words whispered intimately between partners, as in the phrase “whispering sweet nothings.” The challenge in the purple category was separating these four words from other candidates on the board that could plausibly follow “sweet” in some context, and from the multiple alternative connections those same words suggested within the broader grid.
The puzzle was edited by Wyna Liu, who developed Connections for the New York Times in 2023 and whose editorial style emphasizes category overlap designed to mislead players who commit too early to groups that seem obvious. The game refreshes daily at midnight in each player’s local time zone, remains free to play on the Times’ website and app, and allows up to four incorrect guesses before ending the puzzle, giving players a modest safety margin while still preserving the meaningful sense of failure that makes a completed streak feel like an achievement worth protecting.
Business
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