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    Roku shares surge as company halves quarterly losses, adds 4 million streaming households

    Roku shares surged Friday morning on the heels of a stronger-than-expected quarterly report, reaching a new yearly high.
    CEO Anthony Wood said the company added more than four million new streaming households during its most recent quarter and is on track to reach 100 million streaming households in the next year.
    The company boosted revenue by 22% to $1.2 billion.

    Shares of Roku surged 14% Friday, notching a new 52-week high, on earnings that beat Wall Street expectations.
    In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” CEO Anthony Wood said more than half of U.S. broadband households now watch TV with Roku.

    Wood said the company added more than four million new streaming households during its most recent quarter and is on track to reach 100 million streaming households in the next year.
    The company’s growth was driven in part by the Roku user experience, including promoting content on its home screen, Wood told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin.
    “We’re the No. 1 streaming operating system in the country and in most of the Americas by a wide margin,” he said.
    Here’s how the company performed for the fourth quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

    Loss per share: 24 cents vs. a loss of 40 cents expected
    Revenue: $1.2 billion vs. $1.14 billion expected

    The company boosted revenue by 22% to $1.2 billion. It reported a net loss for the period of $35.5 million, or 24 cents per share, an improvement from a net loss of $78.3 million, or 55 cents per share, during the same quarter a year earlier.

    Roku reported 89.8 million streaming households as of the end of 2024, a 12% year-over-year increase. Beginning next quarter, the company no longer expects to report that metric as it streamlines earnings reports to focus on revenue and profitability numbers.
    Roku also reported an 18% year-over-year increase in streaming hours in the fourth quarter, with a focus on continuing to grow ad demand through “deeper third-party platform integrations,” the company said in its earnings release.
    “Advertising is a big part of our business, and so a big focus for us in our strategy is to continue to grow demand by working with third-party partners,” Wood said.
    The company is forecasting net revenue of $1 billion and gross profit of $450 million for the first quarter of 2025.

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    Here’s a potential winner from the Trump tariffs: American tourists traveling abroad

    Economists expect the U.S. dollar to strengthen further against foreign currencies in 2025 due to President Donald Trump’s tariff policy.
    That would give travelers who are going abroad more buying power.
    Interest rates play a big role in currency moves with developed nations like the United Kingdom and European countries, economists said.

    A customer at a food market in Palma, Mallorca, Spain.
    Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    As economists ring alarm bells over the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariff policy on consumers and the U.S. economy, there’s a group of Americans who may benefit: tourists traveling abroad.
    That’s due to the impact of tariffs on the U.S. dollar and other global currencies. Economists expect tariffs imposed on foreign imports to strengthen the U.S. dollar and potentially weaken major currencies like the euro.

    In such a case, travelers would have more buying power overseas in 2025, economists said. Their dollar would stretch further on purchases like lodging, dining out and guided tours that are denominated in the local currency.
    “Tariffs, all else equal, are good for the U.S. dollar,” said James Reilly, senior markets economist at Capital Economics.

    The U.S. dollar has risen amid tariff threats

    The Nominal Broad U.S. Dollar Index in January hit its highest monthly level on record, dating to at least 2006. The index gauges the dollar’s strength against currencies of the U.S.’ main trading partners, like the euro, Canadian dollar and Japanese yen.
    Meanwhile, the ICE U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) – another popular measure of the strength of the U.S. dollar – is up more than 3% since Trump’s election day win.
    Trump on Thursday laid out a plan to impose retaliatory tariffs against trading partners on a country-by-country basis. Specific levies will depend on the outcome of a Commerce Department review, which officials expect to be completed by April 1.

    Meanwhile, Trump has imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods. A 25% duty on all steel and aluminum imports is set to take effect March 4. Further, a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico may take force in March, after being paused for 30 days.
    The Canadian dollar offers a recent example of the potential impact of a tariff, Reilly said.
    On Feb. 4, when the Canadian tariffs were set to take effect, the U.S. dollar spiked to its highest level in at least a decade against the Canadian dollar, before eventually falling back when Trump delayed the duties for a month.
    More from Personal Finance:Here’s the inflation breakdown for January 2025 — in one chartWholesale egg prices have ‘blown way past’ record highsHow the U.S. has used tariffs throughout history
    A trade war with China in 2018-19 during Trump’s first term also offers insight into the impact of tariffs on currencies, J.P. Morgan global market strategists wrote in October.
    The Trump administration raised tariffs on about $370 billion of Chinese goods from an average of 3% to 19% during 2018-19, and China retaliated by raising tariffs on U.S. exports from 7% to 21%, the J.P. Morgan strategists wrote.
    While other factors also influenced currency moves, trade policy uncertainty “tended to bolster the dollar,” J.P. Morgan reported. The DXY index rose up to 10% during tariff announcement windows in 2018 and 4% in 2019, they wrote.

    Why tariffs are good for the U.S. dollar

    Tariffs — even the threat of them — can bolster the dollar relative to other currencies in a few ways, Reilly explained.
    One key way is via interest rates — specifically, the differential between one nation’s interest rates and another, he said.
    Tariffs are generally viewed as inflationary, since the import duties are expected to raise consumer prices, at least in the short term, economists said.

    The Federal Reserve would likely keep interest rates elevated to keep a lid on U.S. inflation, which hasn’t yet fallen back to policymakers’ target level after soaring in the pandemic era.
    “We expect the USD [U.S. dollar] to remain strong in the short term, mostly on the back of US inflationary policies and particularly tariffs,” Bank of America currency analysts wrote in a note Friday.
    (Their analysis was of “G10” nations: Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and U.S.)
    Based on available information around Trump’s retaliatory tariff plan, the average effective tariff rate on all U.S. imports would rise from less than 3% now to around 20% — which would add about 2% to U.S. consumer prices and temporarily boost inflation to 4% in 2025, Paul Ashworth, chief North America Economist at Capital Economics, estimated Thursday.

    On the flip side, other nations’ economies would likely suffer from the U.S. levies, Reilly said.
    Take Europe, for example.
    Europe might export less to the U.S. as a result, which would negatively impact the European economy, he said. That would make it more likely for the European Central Bank to cut interest rates in order to bolster the economy, Reilly said.
    A wider interest-rate differential would result from elevated U.S. interest rates and lower European rates.
    Such a dynamic would likely lead investors to move money into U.S. assets — perhaps U.S. Treasury bonds, for example — to seek a higher relative return, causing them to sell euro-denominated assets in favor of dollar-denominated assets, Reilly said.
    In this case, higher demand for the U.S. dollar and lower demand for the euro may lead to a stronger dollar, he said.
    The euro and British pound sterling are especially sensitive to such interest-rate differentials, while emerging-market currencies are less so, Reilly said.

    Will the dollar weaken later in the year?

    Of course, there’s considerable uncertainty over how the U.S. would apply tariffs on other nations — and whether levies that have been proposed would even take effect. Retaliatory tariffs from trading partners could blunt a runup in the U.S. dollar, economists said.
    The dollar could weaken later in the year if the world retaliates against the U.S. and these trade policies “take a toll on the U.S. economy,” Bank of America analysts wrote.
    Indeed, most investors expect the U.S. dollar’s strength to peak in the first or second quarter of 2025 — 45% and 24%, respectively, according to a Bank of America survey conducted from Feb. 7 to Feb. 12. (The poll was of 52 fund managers from the U.K., Continental Europe, Asia and the U.S.)
    However, in general, most countries are more dependent on the U.S. than the U.S. is on them for trade, Reilly said.
    “So they can’t really retaliate to the same extent the U.S. can,” he said. More

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    Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sells some DaVita, shares fall on disappointing guidance

    DaVita saw shares tumbling Friday after issuing a weak outlook amid rising care costs, while big investor Berkshire Hathaway offloaded some shares in a preplanned agreement.
    The disappointing guidance underlined increasing patient care costs due to center closure costs and health benefit expenses.

    Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Feb. 13, 2025. 

    DaVita, a company that provides dialysis services, saw shares tumbling Friday after issuing a weak outlook amid rising care costs, while big investor Berkshire Hathaway offloaded some shares in a preplanned agreement.
    The health-care stock fell more than 12% Friday. The Colorado-based company said it expects its 2025 adjusted profit per share to be between $10.20 and $11.30, compared to analysts’ average expectation of $11.24 per share, according to LSEG.

    The disappointing guidance underlined increasing patient care costs due to center closure costs and health benefit expenses. In the fourth quarter, the company incurred charges for closures of its dialysis centers in the U.S. totaling $24.2 million.
    Still, DaVita’s fourth-quarter earnings of $2.24 per share on an adjusted basis topped analysts’ estimates of $2.13 per share per LSEG.

    Loading chart…

    Separately, DaVita’s largest institutional investor Berkshire Hathaway sold 203,091 shares on Tuesday to reduce its stake to 45%, worth nearly $6.4 billion, a regulatory filing Thursday night showed.
    The sale was part of a share repurchase agreement the two parties reached back in April. DaVita agreed  to buy back shares to reduce Berkshire’s ownership stake to 45% on a quarterly basis.
    Warren Buffett’s conglomerate first invested in DaVita in 2011. As of the end of September, DaVita was Berkshire’s 10th largest equity holding.

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    Moderna beats on revenue but loses more than expected as it scales down manufacturing

    Moderna beat on fourth-quarter revenue but lost more than expected for the period, as the biotech company continues to slash costs and see lower demand for its Covid vaccine. 
    It marks another quarter of growing pains for the company, which is racing to launch new products and recover from the rapid decline of its once-booming Covid business. 
    Moderna reiterated its full-year 2025 product sales guidance of $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion, most of which will come in the second half of the year.

    The Moderna Inc. headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 26, 2024.
    Adam Glanzman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Moderna on Friday posted fourth-quarter revenue that beat estimates, but lost more than expected for the period, as the biotech company continues to slash costs and demand for its Covid vaccine falls. 
    It marks another quarter of growing pains for the company, which is racing to launch new products and recover from the rapid decline of its once-booming Covid business. 

    Shares of Moderna fell more than 4% in premarket trading Friday.
    Moderna posted a net loss of $1.12 billion, or $2.91 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2024. That compares with net income of $217 million, or 55 cents per share, reported for the year-ago period.
    The company said the quarterly loss includes a roughly $238 million noncash charge related to ending a contract manufacturing agreement.
    In an interview, Moderna Chief Financial Officer Jamey Mock said one of the most important takeaways from the company’s full-year 2024 results is that it reduced costs by 27% compared to 2023. By the end of 2025, Moderna expects to cut costs by $1 billion compared to 2024.
    Moderna reiterated its full-year 2025 product sales guidance of $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion, most of which will come in the second half of the year. Moderna expects only $200 million in sales to come in during the first half of the year due to seasonal demand for respiratory products, which typically rises in the fall and winter. 

    The company slashed its 2025 sales guidance by roughly $1 billion in January, causing its shares to plummet. The stock is now down more than 20% for the year. 
    At the time, Moderna pointed to increased competition in the Covid market, falling vaccination rates, timing around manufacturing contracts with a handful of countries and uncertainty around what advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would recommend for revaccination of respiratory syncytial virus shots. 
    “Should those potential headwinds all hit, that’s what would bring us to the low end of our guidance,” Mock told CNBC, adding that the company is hoping to “combat” the challenges.
    Here’s what Moderna reported for the fourth quarter that ended Dec. 31 compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

    Loss per share: $2.91 vs. an expected loss of $2.68
    Revenue: $966 million vs. $942.8 million expected

    Moderna posted fourth-quarter sales of $966 million, less than half of the $2.8 billion it recorded during the same period a year ago. 
    The vast majority of that total came from its Covid shot, which raked in $923 million, down 66% from the prior year. That includes $244 million in U.S. sales and $679 million from international markets. 
    Analysts had expected the jab to pull in $909 million in sales for the quarter, according to estimates compiled by StreetAccount. 
    Moderna said the decrease was mainly due to the earlier launch of the newest iteration of its Covid shot last year, which shifted sales into the third quarter. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the new vaccine three weeks earlier than in 2023, allowing Moderna to “meet demand more effectively ahead of the fourth quarter,” the company added. 
    Covid vaccine sales fell internationally because the company continued to phase out advance purchase agreements with certain countries, according to Moderna. 
    The company’s fourth-quarter revenue also included $15 million in U.S. sales of its RSV shot, which rolled out to seniors in the fall and winter after winning approval in May. It is Moderna’s second approved product after its Covid vaccine. 
    Analysts had expected sales of $13 million for the RSV vaccine, according to StreetAccount estimates. Moderna’s RSV shot is so far approved for adults age 60 and above in the U.S., European Union, Canada, Norway, Iceland and Qatar, among other countries. 
    The company is betting on a pipeline built around its messenger RNA platform, which is the technology used in both of those products. Moderna plans to beef up its portfolio with 10 new product approvals over the next three years. 
    During the fourth quarter, Moderna submitted three mRNA products for regulatory approval, including its “next-generation” Covid shot, combination shot targeting Covid and the flu and RSV vaccine for high-risk adults ages 18 to 59. Moderna expects a decision from the FDA on the next-generation Covid shot in May, and a potential expanded approval for the RSV shot in June, according to Mock.
    Moderna is also developing a stand-alone flu shot, a personalized cancer vaccine with Merck and shots for latent viruses, among other products. Some of those products will have data readouts later this year, Mock noted.
    Cost of sales for the fourth quarter was $739 million, down 20% from the same period a year ago. That includes $193 million in write-downs of unused doses of the Covid vaccine, among other costs. 
    Research and development expenses dropped 20% to $1.1 billion compared with the same period in 2023. Moderna said that decline was primarily due to lower clinical development and manufacturing expenses on its Covid, RSV, flu and combination shot programs, and partially offset by increased spending on other new experimental products. 
    Meanwhile, selling, general and administrative expenses for the period fell 25% to $351 million compared with the fourth quarter of 2023. SG&A expenses usually include the costs of promoting, selling and delivering a company’s products and services.

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    Stock pickers are seeing record inflows, but still won’t outperform the market, says investing legend Charley Ellis

    Active stock funds have seen record inflows, but what’s a good business for Wall Street still can’t deliver long-term outperformance to investors, according to Charley Ellis, who helped pioneer market indexing.
    The vast majority of flows still go to index funds due to the lower fees on portfolios like ETFs that appeal to average investors, but it’s become a bloated industry also, with too many niche and “unhealthy” ideas, he told CNBC’s Bob Pisani on “ETF Edge.”

    Stock picking looks easy, but the numbers prove it isn’t. S&P Global reports that after one year, 73% of active managers underperform their benchmarks. After five years, 95.5% of active managers miss the mark. After 15 years, nobody outperforms.
    That is not going to change, according to Charles Ellis, a veteran investment industry figure and believer in the power of indexing. In fact, the growth of passive funds has led some in the industry to worry it will kill the active management business, a charge Ellis says doesn’t hold true, but it will remain true that active managers struggle to find an edge in the market. 

    “The number of people that get hired into active management keeps rising and we’re way overloaded with talent in that area and we’ll stay there as long as it is great fun, with high pay and you can also make a small fortune,” Ellis said on CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.
    ETF industry expert Dave Nadig agreed that active managers aren’t going away. “We just had the best year for active management inflows that we’d ever had,” he said on “ETF Edge.” 
    Active ETFs continued their hot streak bringing in investor money in January. Still, good times for active fund flows can’t compare to the index fund and ETF flows behemoth. “It isn’t that anybody thinks active management shouldn’t exist, but the vast majority of flows are coming from fairly unsophisticated individual investors going into big indexes and big target data funds,” Nadig added. 

    More from ETF Edge

    Ellis, who first made his mark in finance by founding the consulting group Greenwich Associates, and was later a board member at low-cost index fund giant The Vanguard Group, is worried about the ETF space as it grows. “What you have to be really positive about is the increase of ETFs that are available and a steady reduction in the fees that are being charged,” he told CNBC’s Bob Pisani.
    But Ellis, whose new book is called “Rethinking Investing – A Very Short Guide to Very Long-Term Investing” said success has bred some new investor dangers. “You must worry about the ETFs that are being produced much more for the salesperson than the buyer and how they’re too specialized and too narrow,” he said.  Ellis is especially concerned about leveraged ETFs “so that you get explosive upside but also explosive downside.” 

    Ellis believes investors have to look for ETFs “that are best for you, and what you want to accomplish.”
    Nadig made the point that technology has become the great equalizer in the markets: everyone has it, meaning getting an edge on other traders who often have the same or similar technology, is difficult.  “Active management is possible, you’ll just never find it in advance,” he said.
    “The ironic reason that active managers underperform is that they’re all so good at what they’re trying to do, they cancel each other out,” Ellis said. Because of the computing power and quantitative models that are now so accessible to stock pickers, “it’s like playing poker with all the cards face up,” he added.
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    As Target and other retailers drop DEI programs, Black founders could face tougher battle to get and stay on shelves

    As more retailers like Walmart and Target drop DEI initiatives, companies’ efforts to find and fund Black-owned brands are also at risk.
    Gutting those efforts could jeopardize a valuable pathway for Black founders to build their businesses and reach the millions of shoppers who browse retailers’ websites and aisles.
    Yet companies including Sephora and Costco have stressed the importance of carrying products that reflect the diversity of their customers.

    Brown Girl Jane’s sales have more than doubled since the brand got picked up by Sephora last year. The beauty retailer took the 15 Percent Pledge, an effort to add more Black-owned brands to shelves.
    Courtesy: Brown Girl Jane

    Fragrance brand Brown Girl Jane’s perfume bottles sit on shelves at Sephora near some of the most storied labels in the fashion and beauty world, including Prada and Dior.
    For the Black-owned brand, getting a retailer to bet on it was just the start, Brown Girl Jane CEO and co-founder Malaika Jones said. She said Sephora has supported the company so it can better compete with well-known brands with huge marketing budgets and glossy celebrity endorsements.

    Brown Girl Jane got a $100,000 grant last year to help grow its business through Sephora’s Accelerate program, which aims to boost founders who are people of color. Sephora spotlighted the fragrance brand in an email to customers in early February, putting it in front of potential shoppers who don’t know its name. Brown Girl Jane’s sales more than doubled after Sephora began carrying the company’s fragrances online and at select stores about a year ago.
    While Sephora has put its weight behind its brand incubator, much larger retailers like Walmart and Target recently scaled back similar efforts focused on finding and funding more brands founded by people of color. Without that support from the retailers themselves, brands like Brown Girl Jane could face a tougher time getting on shelves — and succeeding once they get there.
    “For small brands, but for any brands, really, it’s a constant fight for relevance and for visibility,” Jones said. “And so when you don’t have that commitment or even that understanding from the retailer side, it becomes quite difficult for small brands to survive — even when they’ve made it on shelves.”

    Malaika Jones, CEO of Brown Girl Jane, founded the company with her sister, Nia Jones. Its products are now sold by Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Sephora.
    Courtesy: Brown Girl Jane

    When retailers launched supplier diversity programs — many of them in the months after police killed George Floyd in 2020 — top industry leaders including Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and Target CEO Brian Cornell spoke out about the institutional barriers that people of color face, including when financing their businesses. Now, as more retailers drop diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Black-owned brands may find it harder to clear those hurdles.
    In January, Target dropped specific DEI pledges that it made four years ago after Floyd was murdered a short distance from its Minneapolis headquarters. Among those goals, the big-box retailer had committed to adding products from more than 500 Black-owned brands to its shelves or website and spending $2 billion with Black-owned businesses by 2025.

    Late last year, Walmart confirmed that it was ending key diversity initiatives, including winding down the Center for Racial Equity, a nonprofit that the retailer started and funded with $100 million to tackle racial inequities. It had chosen finance as one of those focus areas, noting the gap in funding for Black entrepreneurs.
    Gutting those efforts could jeopardize a valuable pathway for Black founders to build their businesses and reach the millions of shoppers who browse the websites and aisles at the nation’s largest and best-known retailers.
    Not every major retailer has dropped DEI initiatives. Sephora, Costco and E.l.f. Beauty, among others, have reaffirmed their commitments. And the most prominent effort to increase the share of Black-owned brands on retail shelves, the 15 Percent Pledge, still has major backers.

    A larger retreat

    Companies from Google to Ford and Tractor Supply have rolled back their initiatives to boost representation of people of color, women and LGBTQ+ people, as political backlash and pressure from conservative activists has intensified. The trend only accelerated after President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning DEI programs in the federal government and describing the efforts as “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences.”
    It’s a sharp change from about five years ago, when companies released a wave of announcements committing to fighting inequity. They made bold pledges to add more diversity to their workforces and C-suites, seek out Black and minority vendors and donate to philanthropic causes that fought racism and supported expanded opportunities for marginalized groups.
    Fear of litigation, activist investor scrutiny and political pressure has caused companies to backpedal or keep their initiatives below the radar, said Jon Solorzano, an attorney at Vinson & Elkins who advises companies on DEI.
    One of those lawsuits targeted The Fearless Fund, an Atlanta-based venture capital fund dedicated to awarding grants to businesses founded by Black women to bridge a longstanding funding gap. Only 1.3% of the more than $345 billion raised by venture-backed startups in 2021 went to Black founders, according to Deloitte and Venture Forward’s 2023 report. About 2.4% went to startups led by female founders and 2.1% of that total went to startups led by Hispanic founders.
    American Alliance for Equal Rights, a conservative group founded by Edward Blum, sued The Fearless Fund in 2023, accusing it of discriminating against non-Black business owners. Blum previously fought against race-based college admissions, a campaign that led to the Supreme Court’s ruling that affirmative action policies are unconstitutional — which some companies cited last year in ending their DEI initiatives.
    As part of a settlement reached last year, The Fearless Fund shut down its grant program.
    Solorzano said that lawsuit had a chilling effect and will “seriously undermine some of these [supplier] initiatives.” He said he expects more corporations to scrub numbers from their diversity programs, including supplier programs focused on increasing Black- and minority-owned brands on shelves.
    Yet ending or scaling back efforts to seek out merchandise that reflects the diversity of U.S. consumers could put a company at risk, too, he said. Not only could companies face boycotts, but also they could miss out on fresher items and brands that help them stand apart from competitors.

    The companies standing firm

    Even as some retailers walk back diversity pledges, Sephora, Costco and E.l.f. Beauty, have doubled down on those efforts not as a feel-good move, but as a meaningful part of their business strategies.
    Sephora, a 15 Percent Pledge member which is owned by LVMH, has increased the percentage of Black-owned brands on its shelves from 3% in 2020 to about 10% as of 2025, said Artemis Patrick, CEO of Sephora North America. In its hair category, 15% of the brands are Black-owned.
    Sephora started Accelerate in 2016 with a focus on female founders. The six-month incubator helps mentor business owners, connects them to investors and gives them the opportunity to launch at Sephora.
    The retailer pivoted the program in 2020 to focus on Black and other minority founders to address “the need of the evolving consumer and where we truly did feel like we had an assortment gap,” Patrick said.
    So far, more than 33 Black- and minority-owned brands have gone through the incubator, she said.
    “Our business is really good and the fact that we’ve been really focused on diversifying our assortment, I think there’s a strong correlation,” she said.
    She added “it would be very strange in a beauty category to not be driving diversity in your assortment that meets the needs of your clients.”

    Customers shop at a Costco Wholesale store on Jan. 31, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. 
    Scott Olson  | Getty Images

    At Costco’s annual meeting last month, 98% of shareholders rejected a proposal that requested a report on the risk of Costco maintaining diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
    In a proxy statement ahead of the meeting, the warehouse club’s board of directors said diversity benefits its business and helps it better serve a wide range of customers.
    “Among other things, a diverse group of employees helps bring originality and creativity to our merchandise offerings, promoting the ‘treasure hunt’ that our customers value,” it wrote.
    Costco’s board added that diversity across its suppliers “fosters creativity and innovation in the merchandise and services that we offer our members.”
    Tarang Amin, CEO of popular Gen Z makeup brand E.l.f. Beauty, called the company’s diversity “a key competitive advantage in terms of our results” in an interview with CNN earlier this month. He said the company’s employees are 74% women, 76% Gen Z and millennial and over 44% diverse and “reflect the community we serve.”

    The rise of 15 Percent Pledge

    Nearly five years ago, Aurora James challenged companies in an Instagram post to dedicate more of their shelf space to Black-owned businesses. That idea, which she proposed days after Floyd’s murder, started the 15 Percent Pledge.
    “So many of your businesses are built on Black spending power,” she wrote at the time. “So many of your stores are set up in Black communities. So many of your posts seen on Black feeds. This is the least you can do for us. We represent 15% of the population and we need to represent 15% of your shelf space.”
    Sephora was the first company to sign the pledge. About 22 companies are active participants in the pledge, including Macy’s and Nordstrom, according to the nonprofit. The 15 Percent Pledge has a directory of Black-owned brands on its website. It also awards grants to businesses and raises money to back Black-owned businesses through an annual gala, which drew celebrities, actors and business leaders including Kim Kardashian, Kelly Rowland and Jesse Williams earlier this month.
    Some of the changes inspired by the pledge are visible on shelves.
    Sephora has more than tripled the Black-owned brands on its shelves in the past five years. In the email to customers, it noted that number had spiked from eight to 30 since it took the Fifteen Percent Pledge in 2020.
    Those brands include makeup, shampoos and more backed by small entrepreneurs and celebrities, including Fenty Beauty by Rihanna, Pattern by Tracee Ellis Ross and Sienna Naturals, which was co-founded by Hannah Diop and actress Issa Rae.
    Nordstrom, which also signed on to the 15 Percent Pledge, has now added more Black-owned brands, too, including Buttah Skin, Briogeo and Honor the Gift.
    And Macy’s, another 15 Percent Pledge participant, has had an accelerator for over a decade which was launched to support underrepresented brand owners and founders. The Workshop, which started in 2011, offers grant funding and education for companies seeking to make it on retailers’ shelves and websites.
    James, who herself is a Black founder of a luxury brand called Brother Vellies, said she’s disheartened to see companies back away from supporting smaller Black- and minority-owned suppliers.
    “The idea is not about giving preferential treatment,” she said. “The idea is about making sure that we cast our net wide enough that we’re not just looking at the obvious channels.”
    By relying more on big conglomerates, retailers miss out on funding smaller U.S. business that create jobs and stimulate the local economy, she said.
    “In a time when I think small business all across America is suffering, to specifically target groups of founders and say, ‘You can’t get access or opportunity,’ just feels like a blow to all small businesses across America,” she said.
    She said the reversal of DEI by some companies show their commitments never ran deep.
    “Target never took the pledge. Walmart never took the pledge,” she said. “I don’t think that they were ever really that serious about what they were doing.”
    Not every company has stuck with the pledge. Gap did not renew with the group late last year — but said in a statement that it’s not backing away from DEI efforts. Over the past year, the company has gone through major changes as part of a turnaround led by Richard Dickson, its new CEO.
    In a statement, the denim and apparel retailer, which also includes Old Navy and Athleta, said the pledge looked different for the company because it sells and manufacturers its own brands. It said it “joined the pledge with the goal of increasing our diverse access and pipeline programs, and we met and exceeded that goal.”
    A Gap spokesman declined to share specific goals, but said they focused on recruiting talent from diverse backgrounds.
    This week, Gap rolled out a limited-time initiative to support Black businesses by selling shirts and hoodies from six Black designers from Harlem’s Fashion Row online and in select stores.

    Risks for Black founders

    Walmart and Target have downplayed concerns that they will start to carry fewer Black-owned brands. A Walmart spokesperson pointed to the company’s Supplier Inclusion Program, which focuses on adding products from smaller vendors. She said the company also works with banks and lenders to expedite payments for orders or connect suppliers to loans.
    Even as Target phases out DEI goals for Black-owned businesses, the discounter will keep offering Black-owned and minority-owned brands, a spokesman said. On its website, it’s promoting its collection of Black History Month items. He said Target will offer its Forward Founders program two times per year, which is designed for early-stage consumer packaged goods companies across categories including beauty, food and pets.
    When Target launched Forward Founders in 2021, the company said the program was “designed to help Black-owned businesses increase their potential for long-term success in retail.”
    Since last year, Target’s website has said the program is “evolving” — noting that founders no longer fill out an application for programs and Target will reach out to them if they’re “a strategic fit.” A spokesman said the company’s changes to its DEI initiatives do not affect its programs to boost founders, but did not offer more detail.
    Some Black founders have warned against boycotting Target and other retailers that have walked back DEI efforts, saying it could further hurt Black-owned businesses.
    In an Instagram post, social media personality, actress, and entrepreneur Tabitha Brown said “it’s definitely heartbreaking to feel unsupported.” But Brown, who has an active contract with Target, encouraged shoppers to use their dollars strategically when shopping Target’s shelves.
    She’s developed merchandise with Target, including a collection of clothing, swimwear and home decor. Target also carries Donna’s Recipe, a haircare brand she co-founded.
    “You can still go into those stores, if you choose to, and buy specific brands that you want to support. And let the other things not get your money,” she said.
    She said if sales of Black-owned brands fall, retailers will remove them from their shelves.
    “And then what happens to all the businesses who worked so hard to get where they are?” she said.

    Brandon Blackwood’s brand took off in 2020 when he made a tote labeled with three words instead of a logo: “End Systemic Racism.” The bag went viral.
    Photographed by Nico Daniels / Courtesy of Brandon Blackwood

    Handbag designer Brandon Blackwood said he worries that it will be harder for the next founder like him to get picked up by a major retailer.
    His brand took off in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement, after he made a tote decorated with three words instead of a logo: “End Systemic Racism.” The bag gained traction through social media.
    Yet he said major retailers that picked up handbags from his brand at the time, including Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom, “helped put my product in front of a lot of people that wouldn’t necessarily have seen it.”
    “That really helped us and that really helped our brand awareness,” he said.
    If retailers drop supplier diversity initiatives, he said it will thin out choices for customers.
    For Brown Girl Jane, winning the confidence and business of major retailers — and particularly, Sephora — has been game changing, said Jones, the company’s co-founder and CEO. The brand got picked up first by Nordstrom in 2021. Now, Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s also sell its fragrances.
    Sephora is its the biggest wholesale deal so far: The beauty retailer carries some exclusive scents, including Carnivale, a fragrance that sells for $102 and blends together juicy mango, sandalwood and creamy vanilla.
    Jones said the company’s annual revenue is now in the $5 million to $7 million range. Roughly half of the company’s sales come from wholesale.
    She described getting picked up by Sephora last year as a “vote of confidence,” but said they’ve also been “the biggest champion and a true partner of the brand.”
    And she said that customers of all races desire her brand — and others from Black founders. About 40% of Brown Girl Jane’s customers are white, she said.
    By backing away from DEI, she said companies also send a message to their buyers that casting a wide net for new brands doesn’t matter.
    “It’s one thing to say ‘Ok, yeah. They [buyers] can still find who they find,'” she said. “But we know that without intentionality, a lot of these brands are just going to be overlooked.” More

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    GameStop is considering investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, sources say

    GameStop is exploring investments in alternative asset classes, including crypto and bitcoin in particular, three sources said.
    The company is still in the process of figuring out if this makes sense for GameStop’s business, according to one source.
    Last weekend, CEO Ryan Cohen posted a photo on social media site X with Michael Saylor, co-founder and chairman of MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin.

    A general view of the GameStop logo on one of its stores in the city center of Cologne, Germany.
    Ying Tang | Nurphoto | Getty Images

    Video game retailer turned meme stock GameStop is considering investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, according to sources familiar with the matter.
    GameStop is exploring investments in alternative asset classes, including crypto and bitcoin in particular, three sources said. Shares of GameStop soared as much as 20% in extended trading following the news.

    The retailer could decide not to follow through with the investments. The company is still in the process of figuring out if this makes sense for GameStop’s business, according to one source.
    Last weekend, CEO Ryan Cohen posted a photo on social media site X with Michael Saylor, co-founder and chairman of MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin. However, Saylor is not involved in GameStop’s discussion about crypto investments at this time, two of the sources said.
    In 2022, GameStop launched crypto wallets that let users manage their crypto and nonfungible tokens. However, the firm shut the service down in 2023, citing “regulatory uncertainty.”
    Cohen, co-founder of Chewy, bought shares in GameStop in 2020 and joined the board in 2021 as GameStop became one of the key meme stocks in the trading mania. His e-commerce experience fueled hopes that he could help modernize the brick-and-mortar retailer, but the company is still struggling to adapt to changing spending habits by gamers.
    Under Cohen’s leadership, GameStop has focused on cutting costs and streamlining operations to ensure the business is profitable even though it is not growing. As of Nov. 2, the company had amassed a $4.6 billion cash pile and has been using those funds for investments, according to a December securities filing.

    Companies considering adding bitcoin to their balance sheet would be following in the footsteps of MicroStrategy. That company, recently rebranded to Strategy, has bought billions of dollars worth of bitcoin in recent years, effectively transforming from a software stock to a bitcoin holding vehicle.
    The decision has helped fuel a rapid, if volatile, rise for Strategy’s stock.
    In December 2023, GameStop’s board approved a new “investment policy.” It allows Cohen, plus two independent board members and other necessary staff, to manage GameStop’s portfolio of securities investments. Those investments have to conform to the policy’s guidelines, or be approved by the committee by unanimous vote or the full board by majority vote.

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    CVS shares are up 45% this year — here’s why it may be starting to turn its business around

    CVS Health could be starting to turn itself around after a dismal 2024.
    Its shares are up more than 45% this year, outperforming pharmacy rival Walgreens and other insurers like UnitedHealth Group and Cigna.
    The company’s stock plummeted last year, largely due to higher-than-expected medical costs in its insurance unit that hurt its bottom line, but some analysts are more optimistic about the company’s ability to navigate that challenge moving forward.

    The CVS pharmacy logo is displayed on a sign above a CVS Health Corp. store in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Feb. 7, 2024.
    Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

    After a dismal 2024, CVS Health could be starting to turn itself around. 
    Some investors seem convinced, especially after the retail drugstore chain on Wednesday posted a big beat on fourth-quarter earnings and a 2025 profit outlook that was in line with expectations. 

    Shares of CVS are now up more than 45% for the year, unlike the company’s main retail pharmacy rival Walgreens, whose stock is up nearly 3%. Shares of other insurers UnitedHealth Group and Cigna are up about 4% and nearly 8%, respectively.
    The upbeat quarterly results may be a sign that brighter days are ahead for the CVS – or at least that things may not be as bad as they were last year. 
    The company’s stock plummeted more than 40% in 2024 after it missed earnings estimates for three straight quarters and withdrew its annual forecast, largely due to higher-than-expected medical costs in its insurance unit, along with other issues like pharmacy reimbursement pressure.
    CVS isn’t out of the woods yet. Medical costs were less severe during the fourth quarter but will likely remain elevated in 2025, as more seniors flock to hospitals and doctor’s offices and use more health-care benefits. 
    But some analysts are more optimistic about the company’s ability to navigate those challenges moving forward and reach its full-year 2025 adjusted earnings outlook of $5.75 to $6 per share. CVS has pursued store closures and other cost cuts, and its new CEO David Joyner has spent much of his first 100 days at the helm focusing on the company’s insurance unit Aetna. 

    “The pieces are in place for [CVS to return] from what has been a bottoming of operations performance,” said Leerink Partners analyst Michael Cherny, who upgraded the stock on Wednesday after the results. 
    Cantor Fitzgerald analysts on Wednesday also upgraded CVS’ stock, citing “increased confidence in a successful turnaround.” 

    Insurance business woes

    CVS has already taken steps to rightsize its insurance business, which includes plans for the Affordable Care Act, Medicare Advantage and Medicaid, as well as dental and vision. The company exited certain unprofitable health plans in 2024, and hiked premiums to enroll fewer members this year. 
    In a research note, Cantor Fitzgerald analysts said they are “incrementally more confident” that CVS will improve margins in its Medicare Advantage business and return to “normal levels” by 2027. 
    CVS has said it wants to get the Medicare Advantage business back to a 3% to 5% margin. They were in the negative 4.5% to 5% range at the end of 2024, CVS CFO Tom Cowhey said during an earnings call on Wednesday. 
    CVS and other insurers such as UnitedHealth Group and Humana have seen medical costs spike over the last year as more Medicare Advantage patients return to hospitals for procedures they delayed during the pandemic. 
    Medicare Advantage, a privately run health insurance plan contracted by Medicare, has long been a driver of growth and profits for insurers. But investors have become concerned about the runaway costs tied to those plans, which cover more than half of all Medicare beneficiaries. 
    To improve margins, the company plans to shrink Medicare Advantage membership by a “high single-digit percentage” from the end of 2024, executives said on Wednesday. Aetna had 4.4 million Medicare Advantage members as of December, up from 3.5 million the year before, according to the company’s fourth-quarter release.
    Overall, CVS executives said they expect to decrease insurance members by more than 1 million this year, including 800,000 in the individual market. Patients who lose insurance can enroll in a new Medicare Advantage plan or join traditional Medicare plans.
    Aetna also scored better Medicare Advantage star ratings for the 2025 payment year, which should boost its federal payments in 2026. Those crucial ratings help patients compare the quality of Medicare health and drug plans and determine how much an insurer receives in bonus payments from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

    CVS Health Corp. acquired Hartford-based health insurer Aetna Inc. in 2018. 
    Brad Horrigan | Hartford Courant | Getty Images

    On the earnings call, Joyner said the company is pushing for higher payment rates from the government for Medicare Advantage. He said the proposed rates for 2026 don’t account for higher medical costs over the last year. 
    The Biden administration in January proposed to increase Medicare Advantage reimbursement rates by 2.2% in 2026, up from the 0.2% drop in rates for this year. But Cantor analysts also said they expect the Medicare Advantage reimbursement rate could rise, projecting a finalized increase of 2% to 2.8%.
    “We’re assuming an improving rate environment … maintaining STARS ratings, and [medical] costs trends that do not exceed 2024 levels,” the analysts wrote. 
    It is difficult to predict what medical costs trends across the insurance industry will look like in 2025. But higher medical costs are baked into CVS’s full-year guidance this time around. 
    The outlook assumes that the trends the company saw in 2024 will carry over into this year despite more favorable medical costs for the company in the fourth quarter, said Tanquilut. 
    “The early reads for ’25 or at least late ’24 is that it’s starting to get better. But they did not assume that improvement in the 2025 guidance,” Tanquilut told CNBC. “So it sounds like there’s upside to their numbers for 2025. 
    The company last year also said it would make significant changes to its Medicare Advantage plans for 2025, such as increasing copays and premiums and cutting back certain health benefits. That will eliminate the expenses tied to those benefits and drive away patients who need or want to use them.
    Other insurers such as Humana, the second largest Medicare Advantage insurer, are similarly culling their plan offerings for 2025 to reduce lower-profit membership. Humana is dropping a staggering 550,000 Medicare Advantage customers in less profitable markets. But the company has said that people who lose access to their existing plans will likely have another Humana Medicare Advantage plan option.

    CVS stock outperforms rivals

    The Walgreens store at 3646 N. Broadway in Chicago on Nov. 28, 2024. 
    Antonio James | Chicago Tribune | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

    Shares of CVS are outperforming most of its health-care rivals, both on the insurance and retail pharmacy sides. Jefferies analyst Brian Tanquilut said that is likely due to CVS’ unique position as a company that owns a health insurer, a retail drugstore chain and a pharmacy benefit manager, or PBM, called Caremark.
    “I think what they’re starting to show is the real synergy…in owning all three assets,” Tanquilut said. 
    PBMs such as Caremark sit at the center of the drug supply chain in the U.S., negotiating drug rebates with manufacturers on behalf of insurers, creating lists of preferred medications covered by health plans and reimbursing pharmacies for prescriptions. 
    That means Caremark also sits at the intersection of CVS’ retail pharmacy operation and its Aetna insurer, boosting the competitive advantage of both of the businesses.
    For example, Caremark in some cases directs drug prescriptions to CVS retail pharmacies. That has helped the company’s drugstores gain meaningful prescription market share over its chief rival, Walgreens, which has been struggling to operate as a largely standalone pharmacy business, Tanquilut said. 
    Other insurers, such as Cigna and UnitedHealth Group, also own PBMs. But the fact that CVS has a retail pharmacy “just pulls it all together and differentiates it from the others,” Tanquilut added. 
    That doesn’t necessarily mean that other insurers are underperforming. Tanquilut said UnitedHealthcare, the insurance arm of UnitedHealth Group, is still “best in class” in the industry. 
    Other insurance companies have their own hurdles apart from higher medical costs, such as Humana seeing a drop in its Medicare Advantage star ratings for the year. 
    But CVS’ story has been much more complicated than other insurers given its business model, and the company could now be reaching a point where “all three of its business segments are clicking,” said Tanquilut. More