When chief executives ring the closing bell at the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York, it is usually because their firm has just gone public. When Adam Selipsky did so on June 27th, he was celebrating a tie-up with the bourse. He is the boss of Amazon Web Services (aws), the tech giant’s cloud-computing arm, and the deal is part of the exchange’s shift of its stockmarkets to aws’s More
“Game of Thrones” is back on the air, and with it has returned the cottage industry devoted to breaking down George R. R. Martin’s Westeros to viewers.
HBO’s new series “House of the Dragon” is set roughly 170 years before the events of the original “Game of Thrones” series. That means there are new families, characters, histories and alliances underpinning the plot. It can be a lot to take in, particularly for casual fans who haven’t read George R. R. Martin’s books.
Luckily, help is out there for those fans who want to study up. There’s no shortage of supplemental “House of the Dragon” content to consume, from YouTube channels to written recaps and reviews.
Here are four “House of the Dragon” companion podcasts worth trying out if you want to make sure you don’t miss a single detail while you watch season one.
HBO’s official ‘House of the Dragon’ podcast
Hosts: Greta Johnsen and Jason Concepcion
Length: 1 hour
Frequency: Weekly
HBO has in recent years released companion podcasts to its biggest shows, including “Chernobyl” and “Watchmen”. The “House of the Dragon” podcast not only breaks down the events of the show and provides listeners with additional Westerosi history to help explain what’s going on, but also features exclusive interviews with members of the show’s cast. Listen here.
Talk the Thrones — The Ringer
Hosts: Chris Ryan, Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin
Length: 1+ hours
Frequency: Weekly
The Ringer has been covering “Game of Thrones” since it launched in 2016. “Talk the Thrones”, which can be found on its Ringer-Verse podcast feed, features instant reactions to the week’s episode, as well as analysis and predictions about what may be coming. Listen here.
Still Watching — Vanity Fair
Hosts: Richard Lawson and Josh Wigler
Length: 50 minutes
Frequency: Weekly
Vanity Fair’s TV recap show often spreads the love among multiple programs, but it is giving each “House of the Dragon” installment its own episode. Listen here.
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Every weekday the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a “Morning Meeting” livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here’s a recap of Monday’s key moments: Putting cash to work as stocks slide Buying shares of AMZN, QCOM, TJX and SBUX One stock we’re looking to trim 1. Putting cash to work as stocks slide The major U.S. stock averages fell Monday , starting the new trading week in the same way the last one concluded . The tech-heavy Nasdaq led the losses Monday, down about 1%, while the Dow Jones and Industrial Average and S & P 500 fell around 0.5%, respectively. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rose to over 3.11%, and the 2-year Treasury yield was up to over 3.41%. With Wall Street adding to Friday’s declines, Jim Crame r said on the “Morning Meeting” that the Club is putting to work some of the cash it’s been raising in recent weeks. “When you’re a portfolio manager and you sold and sold and sold, when you get these declines, that’s chance to buy. You can’t say, ‘Well, now everybody is selling. We’re going to join them.’ It’s the opposite. What you do is you say, ‘Everyone is selling, we want some,'” Cramer said. “We said that after a meme-stock revival, you do have an average of about 12% [decline in the Nasdaq ; we had about a 9% decline,” Cramer continued. “We said that, seasonably, we were going to go into the seasonal low, which is the beginning of September. We’re not going to catch the bottom, but this is the level that we have to start buying.” 2. Buying shares of AMZN, QCOM, TJX and SBUX We made four purchases Monday morning, putting out the alert to members before the opening bell . The “Morning Meeting” recapped the moves and added some additional Club commentary on the trades. A couple of them were tech stocks, a sector Jim talked about in his Sunday commentary . Amazon (AMZN) : Bought back some of the stock we sold at higher levels earlier this year and upgraded the cloud computing and ecommerce giant to a 1 rating . We’d rated AMZN a 2, meaning we’d be buyers on a pullback, since March . “It’s a great time to be buying Amazon,” Cramer said, noting that higher gas prices and widespread discounts across the retail sector could lead more people to shop online, benefiting the company. Qualcomm (QCOM) : Bought back 50 of the 75 shares we sold in mid-July around $143 apiece. On Monday, shares of Qualcomm were down over 1%, trading between $136 and $137 each. “We don’t know how long this decline is going to be — the semiconductors are also doing quite badly — but the stock is selling around 11 times next year’s earnings. That’s way too negative,” Cramer said, adding that any rationalization to China’s Covid policy will help Qualcomm. Starbucks (SBUX) : Purchased 150 more shares of the coffee chain, one week after we added it to the portfolio. We were able buy these additional shares at a price lower than where we made our initial 275-share purchase Aug. 22, demonstrating the benefits of patiently and slowly scaling into a new stock. TJX Companies (TJX) : Added 200 shares of the off-price retailer, following a similar strategy to Starbucks since we also initiated a position in TJX last week. We this TJX, which owns Marshall’s, T.J. Maxx and Home Goods, is perfectly situated for this moment. “This is the most I’ve ever seen in terms of the amount of inventory TJX can buy. The fact the stock is not dramatically higher is a testament to the pull of the S & P 500 futures,” Cramer said. 3. One stock we’re looking to trim While we’re sticking to our discipline and buying the aforementioned stocks into weakness, our discipline also calls for us to pare back some energy exposure on a day like Monday. Energy is one of just two S & P 500 sectors in the green Monday; the utilities sector is the other positive performer. After building up an energy position with a weighting more than double the S & P 500 to hedge against inflation, Cramer explained during the “Morning Meeting” that we’re looking to lock in gains on days of outperformance. To that end, the Club is looking to trim Devon Energy (DVN) Monday as the stock trades higher by roughly 3% to nearly $75 per share. “People need to know who are watching this video, we are going to strip some of our Devon simply not because we want to raise cash thinking that the market is going to be oversold,” Cramer said. Rather, the upcoming sale is motivated by a desire to “get back to 8% weighting in oil,” he said. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long DVN, AMZN, TJX, SBUX and QCOM . See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. More
Honda Motor and LG Energy Solution plan to invest $4.4 billion to build a battery plant for electric vehicles in the U.S.
The facility is expected to begin mass production of advanced lithium-ion battery cells by the end of 2025.
It’s the latest in a slew of automakers announcing plans to invest in American production of battery cells for electric vehicles.
An employee inspects the door of a 2018 Honda Accord vehicle during production at the Honda of America Manufacturing Inc. Marysville Auto Plant in Marysville, Ohio, on Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017.
Ty Wright | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Honda Motor and LG Energy Solution said Monday they plan to invest $4.4 billion to build a new battery production plant for electric vehicles in the U.S.
The announcement marks the latest plans by automakers to invest in American production of battery cells for electric vehicles, as the industry works to to meet stricter regulations and accelerate production of such zero-emissions cars and trucks. Others have included General Motors, Ford Motor, Rivian Automotive and Hyundai Motor.
Honda and LG Energy said their plant is expected to begin mass production of advanced lithium-ion battery cells by the end of 2025. The facility will be built and operated by a joint venture between the companies, which is expected to be established this year.
Many of the battery plant investments by automakers follow the stricter sourcing guidelines that are part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (formerly the North American Free Trade Agreement) and, more recently, the Inflation Reduction Act. Both increased requirements for domestically sourced parts and materials for vehicles to avoid tariffs or be eligible for financial incentives.
Honda and LG Energy Solution did not announce a location for the multibillion-dollar plant, but automakers have largely been announcing battery production near their assembly operations. Honda currently has large manufacturing facilities in Ohio, Alabama and Indiana.
The new plant will aim to have an annual production capacity of approximately 40 gigawatt hours, which is in line with plants announced by other automakers. Earlier this year, Japan-based Honda said it plans to release 30 electric vehicles globally and produce about 2 million EVs a year by 2030.
Youngsoo Kwon, CEO of LG Energy Solution, called the new plant “another milestone” for the South Korea-based company, which also has joint ventures with GM, Hyundai and Jeep-maker Stellantis.
“Aligned with our longstanding commitment to build products close to the customer, Honda is committed to the local procurement of EV batteries which is a critical component of EVs,” said Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe in a release.
LG Energy Solution is a spinoff from LG Chem.
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From waiting tables to living in a basement apartment, three travel hosts tell CNBC about how they got to where they are.
Here are their stories.
Samantha Brown
Job: Emmy-award winning TV host of “Samantha Brown’s Places to Love”Started in: Comedy
“I went to Syracuse University for musical theater because I so desperately wanted to move to New York City and become a thespian. I wanted to do Shakespeare and be on Broadway.
That didn’t pan out. I waited on tables for a good eight years. But I loved improv, and I was a part of an improv comedy troupe. So I just kept auditioning for jobs.
Samantha Brown said the best part of her job isn’t “that I get to travel to all these free places — it’s that I get to spend time with people in their everyday lives.”
Source: Samantha Brown Media Inc.
A writer recommended me to a production company that was … looking for a host. But my audition for it had to be totally improvised. That’s how I got the job.
When you are a travel host, there’s no script. Yet it is still up to you to define the scene, to understand the trajectory of a story and how to end it. Also in improv, the golden rule is to never say no, it’s always yes — to keep things going.
Waiting on tables in New York City for eight years, you start to be really humbled, [but] those were the tools that I had that got me a job that I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever have.”
Mike Chen
Job: Creator of “Strictly Dumpling” and other YouTube channels (total: about 8 million subscribers)Started in: Accounting and wedding videography
“I moved to the U.S. from China when I was 8 years old. My parents started working in restaurants, and eventually started their own very Americanized Chinese restaurant. So I grew up on a steady diet of General Tso’s chicken and crab rangoon.
There wasn’t a lot of diversity where I’m from, but it helped that my parents sent me back to China when I was 13. Most people get grounded and sent to their room as a punishment — I got sent to China for two years. That’s when I was like: Wow, it’s so amazing — the people, the history — I want to know more.
After college, I went to New York and worked on Wall Street for a year. Then I became a wedding videographer because I wanted to be flexible. I was living in a small basement apartment in Brooklyn with no air conditioning, making about $400 — on a good week.
But this was the first time I was eating something that wasn’t Red Lobster and Olive Garden. I got a taste of diverse ethnic food in Chinatown, and I started to discover a lot of my heritage that I never really saw as important before.
I started recording food videos on YouTube as a food diary for myself. I remember having a conversation with a friend that food content will never amount to anything. There wasn’t anybody online doing it. I had like 10 subscribers. Somehow it grew to this, which was never expected.
I never really had much money growing up — or throughout most of my adulthood. So I was always looking for things that were inexpensive but also really filling and delicious. And that’s pretty much what I do around the world now.”
Colleen Kelly
Job: Television host of “Family Travel with Colleen Kelly”Started in: Sales
“I tried out for the broadcast school at the University of Texas. The school gave you one chance to be accepted into the program. I had never sat at an anchor desk with a camera pointed at me. I failed miserably.
Several years later, I graduated and got my first job in sales, eventually moving to Chicago and working in the pharmaceutical industry. The money was amazing, and I had a company car. But I wasn’t living my dream, and this started to really bother me.
In my early 30s, I got married and eventually quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom. One day, when my two little girls were in school, I went to our town hall’s cable TV station and asked if, in exchange for teaching me how to edit, I could host the local entertainment show about our village — something like “Access Hollywood” for our 50,000-resident town.
Because they had no other offers, they said yes. I acted confident, but I was as green as they come. I was shaking in my boots every time I did an interview and read voice-over, but I was gaining experience and knowledge.
Colleen Kelly with her family at Mirabell Gardens in Salzburg, Austria (left); and filming “Family Travel with Colleen Kelly” at Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland (right).
Source: Kelly Media Productions LLC
I confided in another mom that my dream was to host a national travel show, and, surprisingly, she agreed to produce it with me. We wrote a script, found a local camera guy for a few dollars and made a pilot.
I took meetings with two major companies — both said no. I was told by one network that women don’t watch travel shows, so the concept of family travel didn’t appeal to them. I then sent thousands of emails to television stations. Nothing worked. Finally, my mother suggested I call the local PBS station. I googled the head of programming, called him (no emails) and got a meeting.
After more meetings, we learned PBS was picking two shows to go national, and “Family Travel with Colleen Kelly” was one of them.
We scraped by for a year, producing 13 episodes that first season. Now, the show has been on for more than 10 years. And, the best part is that I can bring my family with me.
It’s been a long and arduous journey, but I hope this story inspires others to believe in themselves, ignore the naysayers, and never give up on their dream.”
Editor’s note: These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. More
NASA delayed the debut of its towering moon rocket Monday after issues emerged during countdown, postponing the launch.
The agency was slated to launch its Artemis I mission during a two hour-long launch window that opened at 8:33 a.m. ET.
NASA was unable to resolve a temperature problem identified with one of the four liquid-fueled engines.
In this handout provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Space Launch Systemrocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard atop a mobile launcher as it rolls out of High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building for the first time on its way to to Launch Complex 39B March 17, 2022 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Nasa | Getty Images
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida – NASA postponed its Artemis I launch Monday after issues emerged during countdown, delaying the debut of its towering moon rocket and its long-awaited mission to the moon.
The agency was slated to launch its Artemis I mission from the Kennedy Space Center during a two hour-long launch window that opened at 8:33 a.m. ET, sending the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule on a more than month-long journey around the moon.
But NASA was unable to resolve a temperature problem identified with one of the four liquid-fueled engines, discovered with under two hours to go in the countdown.
In a blog post, NASA said that its “engineers are looking at options to gather as much data as possible.”
“The Artemis I rocket and spacecraft are in a stable, safe condition,” NASA said.
The agency on Monday also found a hydrogen leak in the engines and a crack in the thermal protection system material that protects the core of the rocket — though those issues were resolved before the planned launch window.
The agency has back-up launch dates scheduled for Sept. 2 and Sept. 5, although whether the issues will be resolved before then is yet unknown.
The uncrewed Artemis I launch marks the debut of the most powerful rocket ever assembled and kicks off NASA’s long-awaited return to the moon’s surface. It’s the first mission in NASA’s Artemis lunar program, which is expected to land the agency’s astronauts on the moon by its third mission in 2025.
While Artemis I will not carry astronauts, nor land on the moon, the mission is critical to demonstrating that NASA’s monster rocket and deep space capsule can deliver on their promised abilities. Artemis I has been delayed for years, with the program running billions over budget.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
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Two Panera Bread locations in upstate New York are testing artificial intelligence technology that takes drive-thru orders.
Restaurants have been investing in improving the drive-thru experience for customers, adding more lanes and testing tech that would improve order accuracy and service times.
About 45% of Panera’s more than 2,000 locations have drive-thru lanes.
A Panera Bread location in Spring Hill, Florida.
Jeff Greenberg | Universal Images Group | Getty Images
Starting Monday, drive-thru customers at two Panera Bread locations in upstate New York will have their orders taken by a computer in a test of artificial intelligence technology’s accuracy and ability to decrease service times.
The sandwich chain is the latest restaurant company to invest in potential improvements to the drive-thru experience. A surge in drive-thru ordering during the Covid pandemic led to long lines of cars wrapped around restaurants, pushing chains to focus on speed of service and order accuracy.
For example, McDonald’s has also been working to automate its drive-thru lane, announcing a partnership last year with IBM to work toward that goal. Yum Brands’ Taco Bell and Restaurant Brands International’s Burger King have been building double drive-thru lanes at some locations to allow customers to pick up their digital orders more quickly. Fast-casual chains like Shake Shack and Sweetgreen that once balked at drive-thru lanes have been adding them.
Panera Bread is using OpenCity’s voice-ordering technology, called Tori. The start-up has raised $6.82 million from private investors, giving the company a valuation of $26.82 million, according to Pitchbook. So far, its technology is being used by more than two dozen restaurants, including at least one Popeyes location in Louisiana, OpenCity’s website said.
Financial terms of Panera’s agreement with OpenCity weren’t disclosed.
At Panera, customers will interact with Tori when they pull up to the drive-thru speaker. Panera employees will be on standby to offer assistance and to take payment for orders.
The test will be used to evaluate if Tori should be expanded to more Panera restaurants, Panera’s operating chief, Debbie Roberts, said in a statement. About 45% of Panera’s more than 2,000 locations have drive-thru lanes.
Panera has already been tinkering with using automation to improve the customer experience. Earlier this year, it announced a test of Miso Robotics’ CookRight Coffee system, which uses artificial intelligence to monitor coffee volume and temperature.
Panera has been privately owned since 2017, when JAB Holding bought the company for $7.5 billion. The chain has kept investing in technology, boosting its digital sales and maintaining its reputation as a leader in the restaurant industry. Earlier this summer, citing market conditions, it scrapped a planned deal with restaurateur Danny Meyer’s investment group that would have helped it go public again.
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September is usually thought to be the worst month for stocks.
This year, it’s reasonable to expect a better-than-usual September. That’s because much of the annual de-risking took place earlier in the year.
Some of the stocks hit hard at the beginning of the year could now be attractive, mainly because their valuations already reflect further rate hikes.
Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty Images
September has historically been the worst month for stocks.
To that point, just two months have delivered an average negative return for stocks since 1945, according to market research firm CFRA: February and September, with the latter being the worst. The Stock Trader’s Almanac reports that, on average, September is the month when the stock market’s three leading indexes usually perform the poorest.
Theories abound as to why this is the case. In fact, many have dubbed this annual drop-off as the “September effect,” which refers to historically weak stock market returns for the month.
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It is generally believed that investors come back from their summer vacation in September and want to sell some holdings to lock in gains for the year. Others speculate that this is when families need money to pay for tuition or back-to-school items. Also, September marks the beginning of the period when mutual fund companies start to pay distributions, which can trigger some tax selling.
While these factors may play a part, the real culprit is likely something more technical.
To start each year, sell-side analysts tend to be overly optimistic, forcing them to cut estimates later, usually after the second-quarter earnings season wraps in August. Those downgrades frequently impact the market the following month, with some institutional investors responding by de-risking some of their positions.
Whatever the case, some experts predict that stocks will again struggle in September. On the surface, it makes sense, especially in light of the recent market losses and the continued impact of high inflation and rising rates.
Bucking trends in 2022
Still, we could buck the September-selling trend this year. This is because much of the de-risking has already happened, thanks to the historic collapse during the first half of 2022.
Therefore, once analysts conclude issuing downgrades this time around, many stocks will get even cheaper. At that point, institutional investors will jump in and be more active than usual.
This dynamic has already begun to play out in semiconductors. When Micron Technology reported earnings on June 30, it provided lower forward guidance, which caused analysts to cut calendar 2023 estimates by nearly 60%.
Even so, from July 1 to Aug. 4, the stock shot up by more than 18%. The reason? It had already taken a beating earlier in the year, and the downward revisions signaled to investors that Micron had finally been de-risked.
Applying that template to the entire market makes it easy to see why another bump could be coming. Indeed, much of the bad news is already baked in, while the estimate cuts are a sign the bottom is near or has already happened.
What’s on the investment horizon
Current asset prices reflect future events, thanks to institutional investors attempting to get ahead of everyone else by focusing on what may happen, not what already has. Consider the yield curve.
While many pundits and market watchers obsess about it being inverted, this phenomenon is old news to many institutional investors, who long ago adjusted their allocations in anticipation of this happening. In part, this explains the severe downdraft earlier this year.
Instead, they are much more likely to focus on other factors such as terminal rate expectations, which currently suggest that the Fed will stop tightening policy in December. If so, institutional investors will deploy capital with an eye toward late next spring, when the Fed may be cutting rates.
This means that some of the names hit hard at the beginning of the year could now be attractive, mainly because their valuations already reflect further rate hikes.
For instance, Globalfoundries (GFS), a U.S.-based semiconductor contract manufacturer, has shed about a quarter of its value since April. Nevertheless, it could benefit from an emerging onshoring trend, as many CEOs of domestic companies may be looking to diversify their manufacturing footprint outside of Taiwan.
Meanwhile, biotech company Abbvie (ABBV) should experience a de-risking event after its earnings announcement in October. With its Humira patent set to expire at year end, investors have become nervous about the company’s future.
However, if executives can quantify the impact during the call and chart a clear path forward, Abbvie — which is currently trading at a significant discount — should recover. It now pays a 4% dividend yield and has already launched Skyrizie and Rinvoke to replace Humira.
Over the next few quarters, we will undoubtedly see more bouts of volatility. Moreover, breaking through certain technical levels will be difficult until the Fed stops raising interest rates, which will take more than one good consumer price index print.
Still, it’s reasonable to expect a better-than-usual September.
— By Andrew Graham, founder/managing partner of Jackson Square Capital
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