Markus Andrews

Vanguard announced fee reductions for 168 mutual fund and exchange-traded share classes across 87 funds.
The move will save investors roughly $350 million this year.
The asset manager’s wide fee cut comes less than a month after Vanguard agreed to pay more than $100 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission over alleged violations involving its target date retirement funds.

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Asset management giant Vanguard announced broad fee cuts for many mutual funds and exchange-traded funds on Monday, reinforcing its standing as one of the cheapest options for investors.
The move reduces fees on 87 different funds, and 168 total share classes of those funds. The average fee cut is 20% per share class. Vanguard said this is its biggest fee cut ever and will save investors about $350 million this year, based on current asset levels.

“We’re proud to build on Vanguard’s legacy of lowering the costs of investing—which we have done more than 2,000 times since our founding—by announcing our largest ever set of expense ratio reductions. Lower costs enable investors to keep more of their returns, and those savings compound over time,” Vanguard CEO Salim Ramji said in a press release.
The list of cuts includes actively managed and index-based products, with many of the funds representing billions of dollars. Stocks, bonds and commodities products are all included in the reductions. Some of the funds on the Vanguard list include:

Fund fees for mutual funds and ETFs are assessed as an annual percentage of total assets under management for the share class.
The fee cuts to VEGBX and some other actively managed bond funds is notable because active fixed income is emerging as a growth area for the exchange-traded fund industry. The booming popularity of ETFs, which can be purchased more easily than many mutual funds, is often cited as a key factor in driving down management fees for stock funds in recent decades.
Vanguard said its actively managed fixed income funds and ETFs have a weighted average expense ratio of 0.10% versus an industry average of 0.53%.

Vanguard has long been a leader in lowering fees among asset managers, a tradition dating back to its founder, Jack Bogle. Monday’s announcement is a sign that the trend could continue under Ramji, who took over as CEO in 2024 and previously worked at rival BlackRock.
The fee cuts come less than a month after Vanguard agreed to pay more than $100 million to settle charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission related to disclosures around some of its retirement products.

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The cost to rent is coming down faster in some areas of the U.S. than others. 
A higher inventory of available units helps level out rental prices, experts say.

Vesnaandjic | E+ | Getty Images

The cost to rent is coming down faster in some areas of the U.S. than others. 
Overall, rent affordability is improving thanks to a combination of factors, said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin. One is, there’s more supply.

“There are more apartments for rent now because there was a bit of a construction boom during the pandemic,” she said. 
With a higher rental inventory, landlords and property managers must lower their rent prices in order to compete with one another, Fairweather said. 
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Renters are also earning more, giving them more buying power.
In 2024, the median income among renters was $54,752, up 5.3% from $52,019 in 2023 and 35.2% higher from $40,505 in 2019, according to a recent report by Redfin.

Even so, that median income is still 14% below — or about $8,928 under — the amount tenants need to comfortably afford rent, the report found.
“The majority of renters are rent burdened,” said Fairweather, meaning tenants are spending more of their income than they should be on rental housing.
The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University defines a renter as “cost burdened” if they spend more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities.

Some areas in the U.S. may have more favorable rental market conditions, like a higher supply of newly built apartment buildings. Other areas, however, see more competition for available units and higher costs due to lower rates of building activity. 
Whether you’re apartment hunting or renewing your lease, here are the 10 places where rents are falling the most and the 10 places where costs are climbing higher.

Where declining rents are improving affordability

Austin, Texas is No.1 among the “most affordable metros,” which Redfin defines as places where renters typically earn more money than they need in order to afford a typical rental unit. 
The typical renter in the area makes $69,781 annually, which is 25.14% higher than the $55,760 the site estimates is required to afford a typical apartment there.
Austin is followed by Houston; Dallas; Salt Lake City; Raleigh, North Carolina; Denver; Phoenix; Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; and Nashville. 

For the majority of these 10 metros, construction activity “mediated rents,” or increased the supply so much that prices moderated, Fairweather explained.  
“Waning demand” is also a factor, she said — there was a “boom in popularity” for places like Austin when remote work jumped during the pandemic, and people were moving to these locations. 
But now, the metro is “past the peak” of people migrating from New York for remote work as “people are back in the office,” Fairweather said. 

Therefore, the combination of new builds and less demand is bringing prices down, increasing affordability for renters, Fairweather said.

Where ‘lack of new construction’ keeps rents high

The metropolitan areas in the U.S. where prices remain high are areas where construction activity has not kept up with demand, resulting in lower supply available and higher costs, experts say.
“It’s a lack of new construction,” said Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com.
Providence, Rhode Island, made the top of Redfin’s list of least affordable areas because it’s within commuting distance of Boston, an “extremely unaffordable” area, Fairweather said. 

People in Boston tend to have a much higher income versus Providence residents.
The “spilled over” demand into Providence is pricing out locals, she said. And the city’s unable to build more housing to quench the need.
Major metros like Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Diego are among the priciest areas in the U.S., because, on top of their limited supply, they’re areas with job opportunities and vibrant lifestyles that attract high earners, Fairweather said.
“Everything in the housing market is econ 101,” Berner said — as long as supply remains low, prices will stay high. More

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TrumpCoin cryptocurrency price on Binance website is displayed for illustration photo in Krakow, Poland, on Jan. 20, 2025
Beata Zawrzel | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Meme coins plummeted over the weekend as President Donald Trump signed long-threatened tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, kicking off a trade war that caused investors to dump risk assets worldwide.
Trump’s own meme coin, dubbed Official Trump, which launched a little more than two weeks ago, was last down 15% to $17, according to CoinGecko. It rallied to a high of about $73 the weekend of its launch before crashing 50% on Inauguration Day.

The biggest and most popular meme coins, dogecoin and Shiba Inu, lost about 14% each. Pudgy Penguins was down 13%, while dogwifhat tumbled 26%.
Meme coins as a group have dropped 17% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
The drop began Saturday evening after Trump signed an order imposing 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, as well as a 10% duty on China. The U.S. does about $1.6 trillion in business with the three countries.
“Every coin that recently rallied through January, including memes like [dogecoin], have essentially handed back most of their gains,” said James Davies, CEO and co-founder at trading platform Crypto Valley Exchange.
“Crypto is fundamentally about freedom to make and conduct trades, which runs counter to the global political narrative of the last week,” he added.  “As a community, we are pro free-trade … when that is being restricted, many investors are risk-off in terms of their holdings. This massively impacts the alt coin market.”

Meme coins were some of the biggest winners after the U.S. presidential election, with some traders seeing it as a green light for a new crypto craze. Others have become worried that the latest Trump-fueled meme mania was becoming too hot, however, and was likely to result not just in pain for investors, but also misallocation to less valuable projects in the industry.
Bitcoin losses Monday were relatively modest compared to meme coins and other smaller cryptocurrencies further out on the risk curve. It was last lower by just 3%, though it could see more pain in the short term as the trade war triggered by Trump’s tariffs plays out.

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Nearly 1 in 5 eligible taxpayers miss the earned income tax credit, or EITC, which averaged $2,743 in 2023, according to the IRS.
For 2024, the EITC is worth up to $7,830 for eligible families with three or more children, up from $7,430 for 2023.
Meanwhile, eligible workers ages 25 to 64 without dependents can claim up to $632 for 2024.

Milan2099 | E+ | Getty Images

This tax season, the IRS expects more than 140 million individual returns — and many filers could miss a credit worth thousands of dollars. 
The earned income tax credit, or EITC, is a tax break for low- to moderate-income workers. In 2023, eligible taxpayers received an average credit of $2,743, according to the IRS.

“Every year, millions of households receive the EITC,” former IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in early January, but “nearly 1 in 5 eligible taxpayers don’t claim this valuable credit because they don’t know about it or don’t realize they qualify.”
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For 2024, the EITC is worth up to $7,830 for eligible families with three or more children, up from $7,430 for 2023, according to the IRS. Eligible workers ages 25 to 64 without kids can claim up to $632 for 2024. 
By law, the IRS can’t issue EITC refunds before mid-February, according to the agency. However, most early tax filers will see a status update in the “Where’s My Refund?” portal by Feb. 22. Refunds should arrive by March 3 for filers who chose direct deposit and whose tax returns have no problems. 

How the earned income tax credit works

The EITC “can be confusing,” said Syracuse University law professor Robert Nassau, director of the school’s low-income tax clinic.  

For tax year 2024, you may be eligible with “earned income,” or wages from working, of up to $59,899 for single filers and up to $66,819 for married couples filing jointly, according to the IRS. These income limits are based on households with three or more qualifying children and decrease for households with fewer children.
These limits use adjusted gross income, which is your total income after subtracting pretax 401(k) plan contributions and “adjustments,” such as certain pretax individual retirement account contributions, student loan interest and educator expenses.  

Other EITC requirements include:

Your investment income can’t be above $11,600
You must be a U.S. citizen or resident alien all year
You need a valid Social Security number for you, your spouse (for joint returns) and qualifying children 
You must file a tax return

Some eligible taxpayers missing the EITC could be lower earners without a filing requirement, Nassau said. But the EITC is “refundable,” meaning you can still claim a refund even without tax liability.
You can use the IRS’ EITC assistant to see if you qualify.
If eligible, you can file for free using IRS Direct File, IRS Free File, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and others. More

More than one-third, or 37%, of Americans want a retirement that looks different from previous generations, a recent report found.
Younger generations are increasingly shunning retirement stereotypes of the past, where stability and relaxation were the goals, the report said. Instead, most say they want a more active and adventurous retirement.

By many measures, millennials are doing considerably well financially. Still, fewer younger adults are thinking about retiring in the traditional sense one day.
“Retirement is becoming more deprioritized,” said Michael Liersch, head of advice and planning at Wells Fargo.

“Ten or 15 years ago that was always the number one goal,” he said. Now, “actually living one’s life in the moment is a bigger priority.”
Although this cohort is very focused on building wealth, “the end game might not be no longer working and sitting on my Adirondack chair,” he said. “That just might not be it.”
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More than one-third, or 37%, of Americans want a retirement that looks different from previous generations, according to a 2024 report from Edelman Financial Engines.
Most say that means a more active and adventurous lifestyle. And 32% say they will never be able to “fully” retire, the report found.

“This contrasts sharply with retirement stereotypes of the past, where stability and relaxation were the primary goals,” the report said.

Meanwhile, the median wealth of younger millennials and older Gen Zers — or those born in the 1990s — “more than quadrupled” in recent years, according to an analysis of 2022 data by the St. Louis Federal Reserve.
The number of millennials with seven-figure retirement balances also jumped 400% as of the third quarter of 2024, compared to a year earlier, according to data from Fidelity Investments prepared for CNBC.
Compared to other generations, millennials are also more likely to say that their income went up over the last few months and that they expect their earnings potential to increase again in the year ahead, another report by TransUnion found.
Collectively, millennials are now worth about $15.95 trillion, up from $3.94 trillion five years earlier, according to the most recent Federal Reserve data as of the third quarter of 2024.

But a lot has changed for younger generations, too, said Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia Business School.
What assets millennials have on hand and their relative financial stability “is determined by how they shape up against immediate needs — such as housing down payments or emergency medical payments — and their capacity to generate income to replace salaries and wages in retirement amidst the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pensions, or the elimination of workplace pensions all together,” House said.
Most younger adults are no longer getting pensions of any kind, so individuals who enter retirement age are now more dependent on personal savings and Social Security, he said.

‘People are really feeling the cash crunch’

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“There are a lot of financial priorities that we are all trying to reach simultaneously,” said Sophia Bera Daigle, founder and CEO of Gen Y Planning, a financial planning firm for millennials.
Many millennials must contend with hefty student loan balances, mortgages, car payments and child care costs in addition to saving for retirement or future college costs, she said.
“People are really feeling the cash crunch in their 30s to 40s,” said Bera Daigle, a certified financial planner and a member of CNBC’s Advisor Council. “Their net worth is going up but they don’t feel like they are getting ahead.”
That has also contributed to changing views on retirement for millennials, she said.
“When I got into this business, retirement was about quitting the grind … playing golf,” Bera Daigle said.
Now, “it’s really more about flexibility,” she added. “We don’t know what retirement will look like in 20 years… there’s a lot more emphasis on choosing the work they want to do in their 60s.”
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Former President Joe Biden forgave more student debt than any other president.
Still, the country’s outstanding federal education debt balance is higher today than when Biden entered the White House.
The data shows how hard it is to make a meaningful dent in student debt with new student borrowing and current repayment rates.

US President Joe Biden gestures after speaking about student loan debt relief at Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin, April 8, 2024.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

Former President Joe Biden forgave more student debt than any other president. However, the country’s education debt tab still grew during his presidency.
Outstanding federal student debt stood at roughly $1.64 trillion toward the end of 2024, according to U.S. Department of Education data analyzed by higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. That compares with around $1.59 trillion at the start of 2021.

“Total student loan debt went up while President Biden was in office, despite all of the student loan forgiveness,” Kantrowitz said.
While Biden was in the White House, he canceled student debt for 5.3 million borrowers, for a total of $188.8 billion in relief.

While these numbers don’t account for inflation, they still show how difficult it is to make a meaningful debt in the country’s student loan balance, experts said.
There were roughly the same number of people with student debt — 42 million — both when Biden entered and exited office, according to Kantrowitz’s calculations.

Root cause of the crisis is ‘the cost of higher education’

Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a nonprofit that helps borrowers navigate the repayment of their debt, said it didn’t surprise her that the country’s loan balance still climbed.

“We’re going to continue to see that until we solve the root cause of the student loan crisis,” Mayotte said. “And the root cause is the cost of higher education.”
Before financial aid, the sticker price at some four-year colleges and universities — after factoring in tuition, fees, room and board, books, and other expenses — is now nearing $100,000 per year.
For undergraduate students in the 2024-25 academic year, the estimated expenses for tuition, fees, housing and food at a public four-year in-state college is $24,920, and $58,600 at a private, nonprofit four-year college, according to the College Board.

“New borrowing outpaces repayment,” Kantrowitz said. Indeed, more than $300 billion in new federal loans were taken out while Biden was president, Kantrowitz calculated.
Another reason student debt didn’t drop under Biden was the Covid-era pause on federal student loan payments, which spanned from March 2020 to September 2023, Mayotte said.
“We went 3½ years where the vast majority of borrowers weren’t paying,” she said.

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Karen Bagnard’s home of more than 50 years in Altadena, California, burned down in January’s Los Angeles-area wildfires.
The fires have displaced older residents at a vulnerable time in their lives.
“I sure didn’t expect this at the end of my life,” Bagnard, 79, told CNBC. “I figured I’d go before the house would.”

Remains of Karen Bagnard’s Altadena, California, house after it burned in the January 2025 Los Angeles-area wildfires.
Courtesy: Chelsea

On the night of Jan. 7, Karen Bagnard sat in her Altadena, California, house in the dark.
Forceful winds had caused her home to lose power, and she also had no running water, save for one bathroom.

“My daughter called and said, ‘Mom, do you realize there’s a fire?'” said Bagnard, who is 79 years old and legally blind. “I had no idea there was a fire.”
At that point, the evacuation zone for the Eaton Fire was far enough away for her to feel safe.
“I thought, ‘Oh, they’ll never get to my house,'” Bagnard said.
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About 30 minutes later, her daughter Chelsea Bagnard called back. With the fire spreading quickly, Bagnard’s home was now near the border of the evacuation zone.

After Bagnard’s grandson, Dalton Sargent, who is 32 and also lives in her home, came back from work, the two decided to leave for the night.
In the more than 50 years she lived in the house, Bagnard had been close to evacuating before but had never actually left.
“I thought, ‘Okay, we’ll evacuate this time, but we’ll be back,'” she said.
That was the last time she stepped foot in her home.
The next day, Bagnard’s daughter and grandson returned to the neighborhood to check on the home before authorities sealed off the area. What they found was a “smoldering pile of debris,” her daughter wrote on Facebook, with only larger appliances such as the refrigerator and stove recognizable.
It was Jan. 22 before Bagnard was able to return to her neighborhood to see the devastation for herself.
“They brought a chair for me, and I sat in the driveway, and what I could see was just the land,” Bagnard said of the surreal scene. “I started looking at it in terms of, ‘How would we rebuild?'”

Karen Bagnard, 79, sits in the ruins of her Altadena, California, home, after it burned in the Los Angeles-area wildfires of January 2025. “I hope to live long enough to see it rebuilt,” she said.
Courtesy: Chelsea Bagnard

Older adults especially vulnerable to natural disasters

The Los Angeles-area wildfires destroyed tens of thousands of acres, ruining homes and entire neighborhoods. Insured losses could climb to $50 billion, according to estimates from JP Morgan.
Additionally, an unknown number of residents have been left homeless.
For older individuals, the catastrophe comes at a vulnerable time in their lives, when relocating and coping with physically difficult conditions can be more challenging.
By 2034, we’ll have more people over 65 than under 18 in our country, according to Danielle Arigoni, an urban planning and community resilience expert and author of the book “Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation.”
Yet those demographics are not used as a lens for climate resilience planning in most cases, she said.
“In two decades, we have not seen any improvement in the fatality rate of older adults in these kinds of disasters,” Arigoni said. “When you see that kind of trend line, to me that just screams for a different approach.”
The LA-area wildfires forced some assisted living facilities to evacuate, and some burned down, according to Joyce Robertson, CEO and executive director of Foundation for Senior Services.
In the aftermath of the fire, the public charity is focusing on providing supplies, including wheelchairs, and is working with nursing and assisted living facilities to help fill gaps for services and resources.
“You can imagine the stress for all those seniors having to evacuate,” Robertson said.
For older individuals who live on their own, the risk is that they will not be able to leave their homes, said Carolyn Ross, co-executive director of the Village Movement California, a coalition of 50 neighborhood-based community organizations that provide community programming and expertise to help older residents age in place.
“In natural disasters, they are disproportionately affected, more likely to be the ones found in their homes because they couldn’t evacuate,” Ross said.

The hardest hit of the Village Movement’s communities — Pasadena Village — had around 60 members displaced by the fires, and 19 lost their homes entirely, including Bagnard.
“It’s been heartbreaking,” said Katie Brandon, executive director at Pasadena Village.
“But it’s also been really beautiful to see the older adults really support each other, be there for each other, and see the communities of support that they’ve built over the last months and years really work for them,” Brandon said.
As Bagnard searched for a new residence, one of the Pasadena Village members stepped up to offer her a six-month temporary lease to live with her in her home, though the two women had not previously met.
Bagnard has been a valued member of the Pasadena Village for many years, according to Brandon, having hosted many events and programs at her “beautiful house, outside on her patio.”
As Bagnard regroups, the Pasadena Village is replacing the computer she lost with the accessibility features she needs due to her vision loss. The community organization is working with other affected area residents to help provide the equipment they need, such as air purifiers and computer printers. Where possible, it’s also encouraging older residents to continue to gather socially.
“The insurance companies seem to be pretty good at reacting and seeing what they can replace, but sometimes it’s quite a process,” Brandon said. “The sooner we can get our older adults the resources and equipment that they need, the better off they’ll be in this recovery period.”

Older victims face greater health, financial risks

Experts emphasize that older individuals may face a prolonged recovery.
In the aftermath of a disaster, there tends to be a lot of people helping, providing donations and other support, said Joan Casey, associate professor at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health.
Yet in the rebuilding period that follows, there’s often a lull, where volunteer efforts and donations dry up, she said.
Yet more than a year from now, those same disaster victims may still be displaced from their homes, she said.
“It’s that medium-term disaster period where we still want to check in on people,” Casey said.

They may be more susceptible to certain health and financial risks, particularly if they do not have a community safety net.
Nearly 80% of older adults have two or more chronic conditions, according to research from the National Council on Aging. If that includes respiratory or heart disease, the worsened air quality may be even more harmful to their health.
Older adults may also have paid off their homes, which means they may not be required to have homeowners’ insurance. Consequently, some may be completely uninsured, while others may be underinsured in an effort to keep their monthly expenses down, Arigoni said.
Scientific literature on how disasters affect older adults is “pretty mixed,” especially with regard to mental health, according to Casey. Some neurologists have found natural disasters may be a tipping point in cognitive function for older adults, she said.
Yet there’s also evidence that older individuals may be more resilient because they have developed better strategies to deal with stress over time, Casey said. They may have already experienced a disaster before, and therefore may be better prepared to handle another event.

‘I hope to live long enough to see it rebuilt’

Remains of Karen Bagnard’s Altadena, California, house after it burned in the January 2025 Los Angeles-area wildfires.
Courtesy: yesterday, my mom saw her home of over 50 years for the first time since it burned

Prior to losing her home in the wildfire, Bagnard, a professional visual artist, had recently gone through a big life adjustment as she dealt with her vision loss.
In early 2024, she held a show of her work at Pasadena Village, where she talked about coming to terms with blindness. Her favorite piece — of a sphere falling — played on darkness and light amid a color scheme of blue, teal and black, a symbol of her own journey.
“Knowing that you’re going blind is like a free fall into the darkness, and then at some point you realize that you bring the light with you, so it isn’t really dark,” Bagnard said. “You have a different kind of light; the light is inside.”
That piece was destroyed and is now among her home’s ashes, along with most of her other artwork.
For most of her life, Bagnard did pen-and-ink drawings with watercolor washes. Since the onset of her vision loss, she has transitioned to other methods, using decoupage and handmade papers as well as writing haikus.
The process of coping with her vision loss has helped her to keep the more recent loss of her home in perspective, she said, though she admits she still has moments of frustration.
To help rebuild, she has applied for a Small Business Administration loan, and her daughter started a GoFundMe account.
Other community organizations, in addition to Pasadena Village, have also stepped in to offer support.
A local nonprofit organization, Better Angels, has provided grant money to Bagnard and her grandson. And Journey House, a provider of foster care services, has promised to help Bagnard’s grandson, a former foster youth, who also lost everything in the fire.
Amid her home’s rubble, Bagnard said she has also seen signs of hope. A Danish plate with a mermaid, which Bagnard considers an art muse, survived the fire, as well as cement stairs she had painted with images of the four seasons.
She has told her two daughters and grandson it is up to them to decide what to do with the property they will eventually inherit.
“I’m going to be 80 next month, and I hope to live long enough to see it rebuilt,” Bagnard said. More

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Investors had a volatile end to January as they weighed the Federal Reserve’s pause on rate cuts, a busy earnings season and the prospect of new tariffs.
Given these dynamics and the volatility in the stock market, it could be difficult for investors to pick the right stocks for their portfolios. Tracking the recommendations of top analysts could be helpful in this regard, as they look beyond short-term noise and focus on companies’ long-term growth potential.

With that in mind, here are three stocks favored by the Street’s top pros, according to TipRanks, a platform that ranks analysts based on their past performance.
Netflix
We start with streaming giant Netflix (NFLX). The company recently impressed investors with better-than-anticipated results for the fourth quarter of 2024, reporting about 19 million subscriber additions.
Reacting to the stellar Q4 print, JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth reiterated a buy rating on NFLX stock and boosted the price target to $1,150 from $1,000, saying “NFLX enters the new year firing on all cylinders.”
Anmuth added that Netflix is gaining from a very solid content slate. While the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson fight, the Christmas Day NFL games and the second season of “Squid Game” were major content releases in Q4, the analyst noted the company’s commentary that these three together accounted for only a small percentage of the overall subscriber additions and that the robust additions were driven by broad content strength.
The analyst also highlighted that Netflix is witnessing enhanced engagement per member household and encouraging retention. Reacting to the company’s decision to raise prices, Anmuth expects only a little pushback in the U.S. and a few other markets, given the strong content. Looking ahead, the analyst believes that the story this year will shift more towards advertising, with the company gearing up to pursue several initiatives.

Overall, Anmuth is bullish on Netflix based on double-digit revenue growth estimates for 2025 and 2026, operating margin expansion, its dominant position in streaming, and expectations of a multi-year rise in free cash flow. He now expects 30 million net additions in 2025 compared to the previous estimate of 21 million. The analyst also increased his revenue estimates for 2025 and 2026 by 4% and raised his operating profit estimate for both years by 13%.
Anmuth ranks No. 80 among more than 9,300 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been profitable 63% of the time, delivering an average return of 20%. See Netflix Hedge Fund Activity on TipRanks.
Intuitive Surgical
This week’s second stock pick is Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), a pioneer in robotic-assisted surgery and the maker of the popular da Vinci surgical systems. The company ended 2024 on a strong note, with market-beating earnings. However, ISRG’s gross margin guidance for 2025 fell short of expectations and indicated contraction compared to 2024.
In reaction to the results, JPMorgan analyst Robbie Marcus reaffirmed a buy rating on ISRG stock and increased the price target to $675 from $575. The analyst noted the company’s upbeat profitability metrics and explained that the revenue beat was driven by solid gross system placements and procedure growth.
In particular, Marcus noted the placement of 174 da Vinci 5 systems in Q4 2024, way ahead of JPMorgan’s estimate of 125. “With strong momentum from dv5 heading into 2025 and a setup for another year of beat-and-raise quarters, we remain bullish on Intuitive and reiterate our Top Large Cap Pick,” he said.
Commenting on the 2025 outlook, Marcus stated that Intuitive Surgical’s gross margin guidance of 67% to 68% slightly lagged JPMorgan’s and the Street’s estimate of about 68.5%. However, the analyst contended that while the gross margin guidance miss triggered some concerns, he sees the outlook as conservative, with a possible upside just as seen in 2024. He highlighted that ISRG’s 2024 initial gross margin outlook was 67% to 68%, but it then ended the year favorably with a gross margin of nearly 69%.
Overall, Marcus thinks that Intuitive Surgical is well positioned in the rapidly growing, underpenetrated soft-tissue robotics space. He expects the introduction of new systems and approval of the use of ISRG’s systems in new procedures to drive future expansion.
Marcus ranks No. 683 among more than 9,300 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been profitable 56% of the time, delivering an average return of 11.2%. See Intuitive Surgical Ownership Structure on TipRanks.
Twilio
Finally, let’s look at the cloud communications platform Twilio (TWLO). Goldman Sachs analyst Kash Rangan upgraded TWLO stock to buy from hold and increased the price target to $185 from $77 following the company’s analyst day event and ahead of the fourth-quarter results in February.
“Following multiple years of growth compression and several strategic actions, we believe Twilio is now hitting an inflection point both in terms of narrative and fundamentals,” said Rangan, explaining the reason behind his rating upgrade.
Further, Rangan expects solid free cash flow generation, supported by Twilio’s aggressive cost reduction and efficiency measures. Rangan added that TWLO’s analyst day reinforced his optimistic view, thanks to accelerated product velocity and an improved go-to-market strategy.
The analyst thinks that enhancements to the company’s Communications portfolio can help Twilio expand its already dominant position in the core CPaaS (communications platform as a Service) market. He thinks that following robust Q3 results, there is still notable upside in TWLO stock, driven by the company’s strategic actions over the past two years.
Also, Rangan sees a possible upside to the calendar year 2025 revenue growth estimates, given inflecting usage trends in communications and new product cross-sell opportunities, backed by core platform enhancements and generative AI innovations.
Rangan ranks No. 345 among more than 9,300 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been successful 61% of the time, delivering an average return of 11.4%. See Twilio Stock Charts on TipRanks. More