- Jamie Dimon, CEO of largest US bank, optimistic about economy despite recession fears: ‘Positives are huge’ ABC News
- Jamie Dimon Warns on Banking Crisis in Annual Letter Bloomberg Television
- STOCK MARKET NEWS: IRS $80B spending plan, Johnson & Johnson talc deal, Expedia’s ChatGPT app Fox Business
- JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon voices recession concerns as bearish sentiment sweeps across Wall Street Yahoo Finance
- Crypto Critic Jamie Dimon Issues Warning on Inflation, Says Fed Likely To Raise Rates Higher Than Expected The Daily Hodl
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: positives
Cramer says these 6 ‘positives’ could lift stocks in earnings season
CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday said that several elements could help propel stocks higher, even during what could be an ugly earnings season.
Tuesday kicks off a new earnings season featuring some of the biggest companies in technology, retail and consumer goods. Companies like Microsoft, IBM and ServiceNow are slated to report their quarterly financial results this week.
Here are the six factors that could help stocks as companies report earnings, according to Cramer:
- More firms are implementing layoffs. Companies including Microsoft, Salesforce and Wayfair recently announced head count cuts, and their stocks popped.
- The U.S. dollar and interest rates peaked last fall. Cyclical, more economically sensitive stocks have since bounced, as many companies conduct a large portion of their business overseas.
- The Federal Reserve could almost be done raising interest rates. That’s according to a Wall Street Journal report, and could mean that bad loan worries – and possible ensuing damage to banks – could be over.
- China’s economy is reopening. The return of the world’s second-largest economy is great news for companies, particularly those in entertainment, travel and consumer goods.
- The government is poised to spend big on infrastructure. Cash from the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act provide a “safety net” for companies that build roads, bridges or tunnels.
- Analysts are upgrading chip stocks. Barclays on Monday upgraded Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm to overweight. “Remember, the [semiconductor chips] inventory glut included everything from cellphones to desktops to high-performance computers. This is a very big deal,” Cramer said.
Cramer cautioned that while earnings season may still not be smooth sailing, any dips in stock price aren’t necessarily unwelcome.
“At the moment of the first print, when we see the numbers, I still expect to see some vicious declines. The difference from 2022? Those declines, they might be buyable,” he said.
Disclaimer: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Advanced Micro Devices, Qualcomm, Salesforce and Microsoft.
Will Everyone Get Omicron? NY Smashes Single-Day Case Record With Nearly 70K New Positives as US Sets Pandemic High – NBC New York
What to Know
- New York state smashed its single-day COVID case record Wednesday, reporting a total of 67,000 new positives, a 64% increase in the last day. Nearly 20% of the 362,000 some tests statewide were positive
- Virus hospitalizations are at mid-February levels and climbing, with NY reporting 6,700 patients as of Wednesday, a 10% increase in the last day, and nearly triple-digit daily deaths for the first time in months
- While this intense omicron wave is expected to be shorter-lived than the delta one, Gov. Kathy Hochul says she expects a peak on all core COVID metrics next month and says the state is prepared to handle it
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned lower reported COVID-19 infections across the state earlier in the week likely were a result of reduced holiday weekend testing, cautioning a surge could appear mid-week as more results came in. They’re in.
The state reported a new single-day high of 67,090 cases on Wednesday, a 64.5% increase in just the last day, Hochul said. The unprecedented total came amid a recent high in the number of daily tests — 362,594 — for a positivity rate of 18.5%.
The governor described those high testing numbers as a “very positive outcome” in that it shows the state is able to deploy sufficient resources to meet testing demand, which has skyrocketed amid this wave of omicron variant infections.
At the same time, Hochul reported 97 new COVID fatalities in New York, the first time in many months daily deaths have neared 100. It tops the most recent reported high by at least 20 lives and is “not the direction we want to go,” Hochul said.
Hospitalizations are escalating exponentially, too, rounding out at about 6,767 total statewide as of Wednesday, Hochul said. That’s a 10% increase over Tuesday’s admissions and perilously close to the 2021 highs around 8,700 from January. More than 960 patients are in ICUs, with another 17 added to Wednesday’s count.
For now, most hospitals are able to manage the increases, given omicron’s tendency to cause milder infections among the fully vaccinated. About two dozen hospitals throughout the state have paused elective surgeries to maintain at least 10% bed capacity, but that number is down from 32 in the last weeks and stable.
“We’re basically preparing for a January surge. We know it’s coming. And we’re naive to think it won’t,” Hochul said Wednesday, shaking her head at the apparent simple inevitability of the fact. “We do think there’s going to be a spike in cases that’s going to continue, not just in our positive rates but in our hospitalizations.”
The data are almost hard to fathom — nearly 20% of all COVID tests in the state came back positive Wednesday, and in just the last seven days, about 1.5% of all New York residents tested positive.
As Hochul said of omicron a day ago, “This is a different variant” as far as its unprecedented infectiousness and vaccine resistance.
Breakthrough infections have been particularly problematic with this strain, crippling everything from Broadway companies to transit operations, airlines and more as industries race to adopt new CDC isolation guidelines that account for both omicron’s heightened transmissibility and milder cases for the vaccinated.
As of New York state’s latest report, vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection was 75%, meaning fully vaccinated New Yorkers had about a 75% lower chance of becoming infected than unvaccinated New Yorkers. In May, the rate was 92%. It dropped to 80% during the delta variant surge and again amid omicron.
Vaccine effectiveness against COVID hospitalization dropped to a much slighter degree under omicron (94.6% effectiveness rate, state data shows). That’s a higher rate than New York saw in mid-July amid delta’s peak (93.7%) and on par with early May efficacy rates against COVID hospitalization for the fully vaccinated.
The state does not separate fully vaccinated New Yorkers from fully vaccinated New Yorkers who have gotten boosters in this data set, so the data may be a bit skewed.
Meanwhile, positivity and transmission rates are soaring in New York City especially, which accounts for a significant share of all new COVID cases nationally.
Omicron has fueled unprecedented daily infections across the U.S. as well. America set a record seven-day case average on Tuesday, according to NBC News data.
The average of 262,034 daily cases eclipsed the former record set on Jan. 11 of 252,776 new cases a day. It dropped a bit, according to the CDC, to around 240,400 cases per day on Wednesday, still up 60% over the previous week.
“The rapid increase in cases we are seeing across the country is in large part a reflection of the exceptionally transmissible omicron variant,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a White House briefing Wednesday. “In a few short weeks, omicron has rapidly increased across the country, and we expect, will continue to circulate in the coming weeks. While our cases have substantially increased from last week, hospitalizations and deaths remain comparatively low.”
The severity of omicron is taking its toll, generating record-breaking case increases as cities from coast to coast scramble to try and slow the spread. NBC News’ Liz McLaughlin has the latest from the head of the CDC on the incubation period and more.
The variant, the first local case of which was reported on Dec. 2, accounted for 74.2% of genetically sequenced positive New York COVID samples uploaded to GISAID, the world’s largest repository of COVID-19 sequences, over the last two weeks. That’s up from 73.3% a day ago, 11.1% in the two-week period ending Dec. 18 and from 2.2% in the two-week period before that, state data shows.
CDC data for the latest two weeks says omicron could account for anywhere from 70% to 97% of current infections in the New York area for the week ending Dec. 25. Nationally, the prevalence is estimated to be as high as 74%, the agency says.
Ultimately, officials say vaccinations will quell the increases in hospitalizations and deaths associated with the omicron wave — and those metrics are a much greater concern for them than infections alone. That’s why they’re urging calm at this time — and pushing vaccinations and COVID boosters for those who have to get them.
“New Year’s Eve is coming. I do hope we can have a healthier next year, but we’re going to be smart. New Yorkers, if we’re anything, we’re tough, we’re tenacious but we’re also smart,” Hochul said Wednesday. “We’re going to do the right thing by continuing to share the message of getting vaccinated, getting children vaccinated, getting the booster shots, wearing the mask, and I know I sound like a broken record but I’m going to keep repeating it because we need to remind people that this is the way out of this. We’re not as vulnerable as we were this time last year.”
Still, the governor acknowledges the devastating toll of these last two years as she thanked healthcare workers in the North Country region for their tireless dedication.
“There’s an exhaustion setting in, they never dreamed they’d be going through not one but two winters of this with no end in sight because this variant is so wildly unpredictable,” the Democrat said. “Everyone in this whole healthcare ecosystem, they are owed a tremendous debt of gratitude.”
Home Covid tests recalled over false positives reach 2 million kits.
The Australian company Ellume has expanded a recall of its at-home coronavirus test because of concerns about a “higher-than-acceptable” rate of false positives, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday.
The recall now includes roughly 2 million of the 3.5 million test kits that Ellume had shipped to the United States by last month, a substantial increase from the company’s earlier estimate that about 427,000 of those kits were potentially faulty.
It is not clear how many false positives the affected tests have yielded. The issue, which the company had previously traced to a problem with one of the raw materials used in its test kits, does not affect the reliability of negative results.
The F.D.A. categorized the recall, which was first announced last month, as Class I, the most serious type. Use of the tests could have “serious adverse health consequences,” the agency said. People who falsely test positive for the virus may receive unnecessary treatments for Covid-19 and experience delays in being diagnosed with and treated for “the actual cause of the person’s illness,” the agency noted.
“Ellume has investigated the issue, identified the root cause, implemented additional controls, and we are already producing and shipping new product to the U.S.,” a company representative said. “Importantly, not all of the positive results of the affected tests were false positives, and negative results were not affected by this issue.”
Many of the affected test kits have already been used. Consumers can determine whether they have used or purchased one of the affected tests, and request a replacement, online.
Those who try to use one of the affected test kits will be notified in the app that the test has been recalled. “It really won’t be possible to use any of those tests now,” Dr. Sean Parsons, Ellume’s chief executive, said in an interview last month.
The company has put additional precautions in place to prevent the issue from recurring, he added.
“I’m very sorry that this has happened,” Dr. Parsons said. “We’re all about chasing accuracy, and to have these false positives is disappointing.”
Positives & negatives from the USMNT win vs. Jamaica – and what’s to come vs. Panama
The US men’s national team got it done again Thursday night, putting together a never-actually-in-doubt-if-occasionally-a-bit-frustrating 2-0 win over Jamaica in Austin during both teams’ fourth game of this final round of World Cup qualifying.
Thanks to the win — their second straight, and second straight by multiple goals — and some help elsewhere, the US now top the Octagonal standings on goal differential. A tepid and nervous and at times borderline calamitous start to World Cup qualifying has smoothed out into something closer to what we all hoped to see from this very talented, but still impossibly young bunch.
So, things are good right now. When I wrote this column a month ago it was hard to start with the positive takeaways and the list was short. Now, as I’m writing this, I feel like I’m about to go on for a bit.
The biggest, most important thing from this game was not the play of any one particular player or the execution of any one particular attacking sequence. The biggest, most important thing is that the US played a straightforward 4-3-3 with few bells and whistles, and every player was in their best, most comfortable position.
So a lot of the good things that happened out there — and there were a ton of good things, even if the scoreline didn’t indicate a blowout — just sort of flowed naturally from how the US were arranged by head coach Gregg Berhalter. Ditto for who was out there in key spots.
Let me phrase it this way: When I saw the USMNT’s starting XI come out and visualized what this team would look like on the field, what I saw in my mind looked very much like what I eventually saw on the pitch.
That kind of predictability is good. When you have superior talent (and in my opinion the US will have superior talent in literally every game they play in the Ocho, barring a cascade of injuries), that isn’t just good: It’s match-winning.
And it will get this program back to the World Cup.
• The entire second half was an expression of how comfortable the players were in this scheme, and it highlighted some of the outstanding skills of a few of them. Berhalter talked, on ESPN’s halftime interview, about the need to move the ball forward with a bit more speed and bravery, and then three minutes into the second half this happened:
The reason Jamaica never get set is because Matt Turner takes zero time with his distribution, collecting from one side and immediately rolling out to Sergino Dest for a transition opportunity. Dest then makes a simple play, sliding it inside to Yunus Musah, who drives forward at the Jamaica backline and forces them to make a play or just keep retreating forever.
When they decide to keep retreating forever, Musah himself makes the simple play, sliding back to Dest on the overlap. Dest has the whole wing to himself because of the hard, unselfish, dangerous run Paul Arriola made.
That goal ended up being an 18-year-old to a 20-year-old to an 18-year-old.
• When Berhalter talks about verticality (and he’s talked about verticality A LOT), he doesn’t just mean the likes of Arriola or Brenden Aaronson running in behind. He also means sequences like this, where the US push the ball forward against a scrambling defense, and where one of the central midfielders takes the responsibility to be brave on the ball and punish them.
Musah’s game is tailor-made for that. His first 45 minutes were kind of invisible, which is to be expected from an 18-year-old making his World Cup qualifying debut. But in the second half I thought he was the best US player, the one who most often turned those scrambled Jamaican moments into true danger for the US.
He finished the night 18-for-19 passing into the final third, just a godsend of a “pass before the pass” guy. Getting this kid was a recruiting coup by Berhalter. He is my favorite player in the pool.
• Back to the other type of verticality: Arriola set the tone within 25 seconds, getting behind the Jamaican backline and earning what should have been a red card on Kemar Lawrence. The D.C. United attacker was clean through. Lawrence was spared the sending-off by a timid ref, but by the end of the night he might’ve wished he saw red because Arriola ran him into the ground:
Lawrence is Jamaica’s safety valve, and easily their best at progressing the ball from back to front. When they run out of ideas they funnel play to him. But because of the energy Arriola expended, that Reggae Boyz strategy was useless. Lawrence was a non-factor and so they generated nothing up their left side all night, instead having to rely upon Alvas Powell and the aged (or should I call him “Timeless?”) Je-Vaughn Watson.
It didn’t work out well for them.
• As the tweet says, Arriola’s end product was lacking. But he earned what should’ve been a red card there, and hit the defense-splitting through-ball that put Aaronson through later in the half (and was again not given as a red card). He also made side-clearing runs like on the goal, which opened space for Dest to get forward.
The defense, though. Man. One of the scariest things about Jamaica is that any semi-accurate clearance can turn into a breakaway, so it’s incumbent upon the whole front line to close down hard and make those clearances rushed, hopeful and un-targeted.
Arriola, Aaronson and Ricardo Pepi took that to heart. No Jamaica defender ever had a chance to pick up his head and dime it into space for Shamar Nicholson (who I love, and who some MLS team should sign as a DP) or any of the wingers.
Defense starts at the front, and the entire frontline was excellent defensively.
• That excellent defensive performance from the wingers meant that both fullbacks could and did get forward often, and at pace. That’s exactly how you want a 4-3-3 to function against a low block.
• This was Musah’s World Cup qualifying debut, as well as Walker Zimmerman’s in central defense. They were two of the three best US players (Zimmerman, who started over young Chris Richards and Mark McKenzie, was absolutely the correct call in order to battle Nicholson. Hat tip to Berhalter on that one).
Luca de la Torre and Tim Weah came off the bench to make their World Cup qualifying debuts in the second half and they looked very, very good — Weah was a constant menace, and de la Torre really loves to drive the game forward with the ball, a la Musah. Never forget that this man posted his way into a World Cup qualifier.
Shaq Moore also made his WCQ debut, coming in for Dest over the final 15 minutes and putting in an unremarkable (I mean that in a good way) shift.
• Weston McKennie was back and put in what Berhalter deemed a “professional” performance. I think that was an apt description.
• I can think of no greater compliment to Aaronson, Tyler Adams, Miles Robinson and Matt Turner than “I was supremely confident each would put forth the exact type of performance we ended up seeing.” Those four guys have all managed a high level of quality and consistency to the point where it’s kinda boring to talk about them, isn’t it?
Though I will note it was fun to see Adams dropping deep to split the center backs occasionally in build-up play. He seems to relish those moments.
• The subs were sensible and point toward a smarter approach to squad rotation this window, I thought. Berhalter did a poor job of keeping the roster balanced and his players fresh last window, but he looks to have learned his lesson and took the chance to get rest for crucial players. Everything seems positioned to lean on a mix of veteran starters and backups — guys like Kellyn Acosta, Sebastian Lletget and George Bello are likely to see big minutes down in Panama, and guys like Aaronson and Pepi were spared playing the full 90 so should have something left in the tank — over the next two games, which means that the US should stay fresh throughout the full 270 minutes.
• One more Berhalter-related positive: When he was coaching the Columbus Crew, his teams were best known for attacking patterns of play that ended up with whoever happened to be his center forward getting a one-touch finish in the box. Gyasi Zardes, Ola Kamara and Kei Kamara all had their very best years playing in Berhalter’s system.
When he was named national team head coach, I assumed that’s what we were going to get. Maybe the US would be a little too naive defensively at times or too rigid about playing out of the back, but dammit, they’d create chances!
It’s been the opposite of that. The US, under Berhalter, have strangled the hell out of almost everyone defensively, and haven’t really been punished for playing out of the back since 2019.
At the same time, they have done a poor job of creating repeatable, high-level chances.
Until last night. Last night, in the second half, the US suddenly looked like the 2018 Crew:
• The US have now failed to score in seven straight first halves, which is not great for my blood pressure. You could see the ideas were there in this one, at least, and it was just a matter of execution.
Hopefully on Sunday in Panama (6 pm ET | Paramount+, Universo) they’re able to execute from the jump.
• The end product from Arriola and Gyasi needs to be better. I am a big “process” guy and the process was really, really good for the US. But these two guys are fighting for minutes and while I sang Arriola’s praises (you should, too) and Gyasi constantly put pressure on Jamaica’s backline, eventually those roles require more than great defense and precise runs. The ball has to hit the back of the net.
• The lack of 1-v-1 ability from the wingers was telling at times, at least until Weah came in. Aaronson and Arriola are both much more about stretching the field off the ball and quick combination play, and aren’t great off the dribble even when they’ve got a defender backpedaling.
• US set-piece delivery was generally really, really really poor. Really poor. Bad, even.
• Dest, who had his best game for the US (only one true defensive lapse that I noted), limped off injured. It didn’t look bad but that’s now two games in a row he’s had to come off with a knock.
I didn’t expect Dest to play against Panama anyway — he’s really not made for road qualifiers — but it’s a mild concern going forward.
Win at home, draw on the road is the path to Qatar. A point in Panama City would be fine.
That said, even if Berhalter opts for heavy squad rotation (which I suspect will be the case), the US will have a pronounced talent advantage in this game. Thomas Christiansen’s men played well in the September window, including a 3-0 evisceration of Jamaica in Jamaica, but they started October with a listless 1-0 loss at El Salvador on Thursday night.
Panama, like so many of the other tough Central American teams of the past decade, are in a bit of generational flux right now and haven’t been able to backfill as the golden generation of guys like Blas Perez, Jaime Penedo and Roman Torres have aged out.
So expect to see a lot of familiar 30-somethings — Nashville’s Anibal Godoy, former TFC man Armando Cooper, former Rapid Gabriel Torres and former ‘Quake Harold Cummings (he’s 29, but still) — throughout Christiansen’s 4-4-2 formation.
I don’t think they’ll sit back; home teams rarely do. El Salvador didn’t, and Honduras didn’t. But thus far they haven’t really shown the ability to create danger via possession, and any midfield turnover should present an opportunity for the US to go at pace directly at the Panamanian goal.
• Taking Aaronson and Pepi off in the 67th minute felt kind of like a giveaway that Berhalter plans to start them again in this game. I am absolutely fine with that.
• Cristian Roldan is in to reprise the Arriola role (I assume Arriola’s tank is empty after the work he put in on Thursday).
There is strong Twitter sentiment against that, but 1) I want Weah as a game-changer off the bench, and 2) nobody’s had more muscle injuries over the past few years than Weah, so I think it’s smart to just ask him for 30 good minutes in this one, then get him the start next week at home against Costa Rica.
Back to point No. 1 there for a sec. Here’s what Berhalter had to say about Weah after the game:
“Then Timmy, when he came in, the advice to Timmy was to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Stretch them, use your legs. And he did that. I mean, to think about a guy like that coming off the bench when the opponent’s tired, is a frightening, frightening sight.”
Anyway, I completely trust Roldan to put in the exact same type of shift that Arriola put in on Thursday, and just wear the Panamanian backline out. Plus his end product has been a little bit better lately, so…
• Very obvious midfield rotation here, leaning on a pair of veterans in Lletget and Acosta to get Adams and Musah some rest. Keeping McKennie in for some continuity from Game 1 to Game 2 just makes sense to me.
I’m sure de la Torre will get some minutes as well. Like Weah, I expect him to make his starting debut at home against Costa Rica.
• Again I’m going to opt for experience (of a sort) at fullbacks. DeAndre Yedlin’s the most veteran player on this roster, while Bello isn’t, but consider the fact that he’s now started a Gold Cup final, the US’s previous road qualifier, and multiple road matches in the CCL. He actually has more experience in these types of games than Antonee Robinson does.
So the Atlanta United homegrown should be ready for this. And considering that Antonee came into camp carrying a knock, went 90 on Thursday and probably shouldn’t be asked to go from the start three days later, he better be.
• Miles Robinson and McKenzie locked it down in the second half at Honduras last month, so they’re back at it here. Richards will have to wait until the Costa Rica game to make his US debut.
• There is just zero question that Turner is the No. 1 ‘keeper. (I told you so)
• And finally, here is the single most important thing that the team needs to internalize over the next 48 hours: “Everything was pretty good about this game,” Berhalter said after the Jamaica win. “The trap is going to be us thinking we’re great, and thinking we’ve qualified for the World Cup. And if we do that, we’ll get our ass kicked in Panama on Sunday.”
It felt really good to see the US play the way they did in that second half. But that good feeling will disappear in a hurry if they don’t bring the same level of intensity two days from now.
AMC, Gamestop share offerings are longterm positives
CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday applauded GameStop and AMC Entertainment for issuing new shares, moves he said upset many in the Reddit investing crowd.
The “Mad Money” host took aim at the “hold the line” cohort of investors that get stock tips from the Wall Street Bets forum, saying their plans to offer new shares and raise cash to improve their operations should not be frowned upon.
“If you care about the future of either company or the long-term trajectory of their stocks, issuing shares up here is the right move,” Cramer said. “But the ‘hold the line’ crowd they hate these offerings … and they despise anyone who defends them.”
“It can only go so far,” he added.
AMC expects shareholders to vote in May on a measure authorizing the sale of another 500 million shares on the secondary market. GameStop submitted a prospectus to sell up to 3.5 million shares of common stock in its own equity offering program.
AMC hopes to use the funds to improve its balance sheet, while executives at the beleaguered GameStop seek to engineer a turnaround story.
“AMC and GameStop need money,” Cramer said. “Raising capital is good for both companies and over the long haul, what’s good for the company should be good for the stock.”
As for the “hold the line” strategy, Cramer worries too many investors have unrealistic expectations that they can pile into a stock and force its share price to go up.
“I find this whole narrative insane,” he said. “When the Wall Street Bets cohort takes over the flow of certain stocks, they want to call the shots and they expect management and all the shareholders to obey. Well, frankly, that is a recipe for disappointment.”