Tag Archives: S&P 500 Index

Here’s how to report Roth IRA conversions on your taxes

January 22, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

If you made a Roth individual retirement account conversion in 2022, you may have a more complicated tax return this season, experts say.

The strategy, which transfers pretax or non-deductible IRA funds to a Roth IRA for future tax-free growth, tends to be more popular during a stock market downturn because you can convert more assets at a lower dollar amount. While the trade-off is upfront taxes, you may have less income by converting lower-value investments.

“You get more bang for your buck,” said Jim Guarino, a certified financial planner and managing director at Baker Newman Noyes in Woburn, Massachusetts. He is also a certified public accountant.

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If you completed a Roth conversion in 2022, you’ll receive Form 1099-R from your custodian, which includes the distribution from your IRA, Guarino said.

You’ll need to report the transfer on Form 8606 to tell the IRS which portion of your Roth conversion is taxable, he said. However, when there’s a mix of pretax and non-deductible IRA contributions over time, the calculation may be trickier than you expect. (You may have non-deductible contributions in your pretax IRA if you don’t qualify for the full or partial tax break due to income and workplace retirement plan participation.)

“I see a lot of people making a mistake here,” Guarino said. The reason is the so-called “pro-rata rule” which requires you to factor your aggregate pretax IRA funds into the calculation.

How the pro-rata rule works

JoAnn May, a CFP and CPA with Forest Asset Management in Berwyn, Illinois, said the pro-rata rule is the equivalent of adding cream to your coffee then finding you can’t remove the cream once it’s poured.

“That’s exactly what happens when you mix pretax and non-deductible IRAs,” she said, meaning you can’t simply convert the after-tax portion.

For example, let’s say you have a pretax IRA of $20,000 and you made a non-deductible IRA contribution of $6,000 in 2022.

If you converted the entire $26,000 balance, you would divide $6,000 by $26,000 to calculate the tax-free portion. This means roughly 23% or about $6,000 is tax-free and $20,000 is taxable.

Alternatively, let’s say you have $1 million across a few IRAs and $100,000, or 10% of the total, is non-deductible contributions. If you converted $30,000, only $3,000 would be non-taxable and $27,000 would be taxable.

Of course, the bigger your pretax IRA balance, the higher percentage of the conversion will be taxable, May said. Alternatively, a larger non-deductible or Roth IRA balance reduces the percentage.

But here’s the kicker: Taxpayers also use the Form 8606 to report non-deductible IRA contributions every year to establish “basis” or your after-tax balance.

However, after several years, it’s easy to lose track of basis, even in professional tax software, warned May. “It’s a big problem,” she said. “If you miss it, then you’re basically paying tax on the same money twice.”

Timing conversions to avoid an ‘unnecessary’ tax bump

With the S&P 500 still down about 14% over the past 12 months as of Jan. 19, you may be eyeing a Roth conversion. But tax experts say you need to know your 2023 income to know the tax consequences, which may be difficult early in the year.

“I recommend waiting until the end of the year,” said Tommy Lucas, a CFP and enrolled agent at Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo in Orlando, Florida, noting that income can change from factors like selling a home or year-end mutual fund distributions.

Typically, he aims to “fill up a lower tax bracket,” without bumping someone into the next one with Roth conversion income.

For example, if a client is in the 12% bracket, Lucas may limit the conversion to avoid spilling into the 22% tier. Otherwise, they’ll pay more on the taxable income in that higher bracket.

“The last thing we want to do is throw someone into an unnecessary tax bracket,” he said. And boosting income may have other consequences, such as reduced eligibility for certain tax breaks or higher Medicare Part B and D premiums.

Guarino from Baker Newman Noyes also crunches the numbers before making Roth conversion decisions, noting that he’s “essentially performing the Form 8606 calculation during the year” to know how much of the Roth conversion will be taxable income.

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Business

Europe markets open to close

January 3, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

LONDON — European markets were higher in morning trade, as investors assessed China’s reopening and awaited key European inflation figures.

The U.K.’s FTSE 100 rose 2.1%, while Germany’s DAX index was up 1.4% and France’s CAC 40 was up 1.2%.

Overall, the pan-European Stoxx 600 gained 1.6%, led by travel stocks, up 2.7%.

German preliminary inflation figures for December are due Tuesday afternoon, and are expected to show a fall on the previous month.

They will be followed by inflation figures from France on Wednesday, Italy on Thursday, and a flash estimate for the whole euro area on Friday.

U.K. markets were closed Monday, but shares across the rest of the continent rose as euro zone manufacturing data indicated that the worst may have passed for the 20-member currency bloc.

The figures offered hope of a light at the end of the tunnel, after a year beset by recession fears as central banks around the world hiked interest rates aggressively to rein in soaring inflation.

Meanwhile, markets in Asia-Pacific were mixed overnight as investors weighed the short-term implications of the rise in coronavirus infections in China against the potential longer-term boost from the full reopening of the world’s second-largest economy.

The Caixin purchasing managers’ index showed further declines in factory activity on surging Covid infections, but the survey also put business confidence around the 12-month outlook for output at its highest level since February 2022.

Global investors will also be watching for minutes from the Fed’s December policy meeting, due to be published Wednesday.

The central bank hiked rates by 50 basis points in December following four consecutive 75 basis point increases, and markets will be keen to gauge the likely trajectory of monetary policy in 2023.

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Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google will fuel the next rally

December 12, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

To build a fire — but not destroy the market by doing so. That’s the goal right now. It’s not as easy as in the famous Jack London short story (“Too Build a Fire”) where in the end the survivors profit rather than freeze to death in their sleep. In the early part of this decade, we saw the rise of Robinhood (HOOD) and the distribution of investments from the serious to the ephemeral. These days, Robinhood has the appearance of one gigantic bonfire of young peoples’ money. The gamification concept was real and the exodus of investors was noisy — culminating with the ridiculous self-immolation of GameStop (GME), AMC Entertainment (AMC) and the meme stocks. Those who fought this trend abandoned Twitter, hired bodyguards and tried to hide from the angry mob that was attempting to will stocks higher by savaging the sellers. No tinder from these clowns. Then there was the much larger-than-expected romp to crypto. The people who bought it somehow ensconced their brains into something they didn’t understand. As a result, they overran their brains and outsourced them to others who claimed to know more than they did. You had to oppose a phalanx of vociferous, self-promoting scoundrels and their fintech allies in government and venture capital — all of whom should feel shame, but shame eludes them. They will not accept their intellectual disgrace, and instead continue to argue that it was all about blockchain and DeFi (decentralized finance). They want to explain to you why they got it right and you got it wrong, even as they lost everything and you were safe keeping your cash at JPMorgan. I wish I had a hubris scale, something like a gigantic thermometer that could measure these arrogant promoters and give them the hook when they contend that they are smarter than you for believing in something with a best-use case as untraceable ransom money. But this era is running out. It’s going to be done with a fight, of course, as we see its representatives defend themselves with specious arguments that sound so self-serving and outright phony that even neutral minds are repelled and rebelling. The money furnace that was Robinhood burns blandly versus the napalm of crypto. The interests that defended crypto can’t go quietly because they will empty the coffers of their crypto banks and cause waves of bankruptcies; the $34 billion that we know of that was destroyed by Sam Bankman-Fried — the disgraced former boss of failed crypto exchange FTX — pretty much propped up everything. We keep getting stung by the alleged due diligence done by so many who should have known better, with only a couple of institutions writing their investments to nothing, along with their explanations, or lack thereof. Here’s the problem: If it all goes away — crypto and all the institutions supporting it — the money that’s left won’t help push equity prices higher. It was once a magnet to a couple trillion dollars. Now I wonder if there’s $400 billion to the entire edifice. The whole thing reminds me of a line from the film “Beau Geste,” when two of the main characters are under attack: “You’ll do your duty better dead than you ever did alive.” The biggest guns are most likely liquidating as they talk, the duplicitous cads. They will tell us that we are fools not to believe in blockchain as if somehow that is dispositive to something other than lies and blunders. My point is this: The crypto con and the Robinhood dollar conflagration can’t produce enough money to buoy stocks. There’s not enough left in these embers to do anything but marvel at how much there used to be and how little bankruptcy produces. No matter how many hearings, we will never know the full culpability behind those in Congress and those in the Securities and Exchange Commission who opposed Chair Gary Gensler. He came on CNBC specifically to warn us of made-up coins and institutions that give you too high a return compared to cash in a real bank. Self-serving cryptocurrency players have been critical of the SEC. They want to school Gensler and let him know he can only go so far before running into all the well-endowed entities and their secret paid supporters. The horror! The horror! So where else will the money come from? Unlike the chimerical trillions that vanished into thin crypto air, the fuel will come from four stocks that have a combined total of $6 trillion to donate: Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN). There is simply too much money in these names to take us higher, or at least how high we can go after the Federal Reserve’s next meeting this week. But I think some of that investor money will be transferred into the stocks of companies that have the most voracious buybacks. Those are the companies without enough stock available to handle all the money that will flood in. Money in those four stocks will be pulled out, kicking and screaming, until the valuations become earthly — better than Meta Platforms (META) and more like the S & P as they are revealed to be mortal. Not until then can the rally start in earnest. Can these valuations be played out? It’s happening as you read this. Of course, there’s one other enemy to the advance and it’s a powerful one: The 4.5% yield from 2-year Treasuries is outrageously bountiful in a market where anything north of 4% in equities is likely tied to plummeting oil. However, we cling to the oils, betting that they can maintain their well above market prices when Russia can’t produce its endless reserves and China goes voracious upon reopening. I think we will win. We will hold Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon , even as we’ve trimmed them higher. Their spiral down to earth, however, will be painful. If we hadn’t sold some, it would be getting late in the game. But I suspect there’s more pain to come. Why take it? Because these companies still have value, even though it won’t surface until the selling’s done and we don’t know when that will occur. It’s too dangerous now to depart, although Apple could see $120 and Microsoft a 10-point decline. Amazon and Alphabet control their own destinies through headcount reductions. The good news? The selling could end after the Fed meeting. The bad news: If it does, there will not be enough rocket fuel. The big four need to shed a trillion minimum to power things higher. I think it will happen in time. Which would mean a brutal week until the transfer begins to be made. Hold on to what you have, but get ready to be lifted by the stocks with the strongest buybacks. That’s where the accumulation will matter the most. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) 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.

Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., during the company’s Ignite Spotlight event in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022. Nadella gave a keynote speech at an event hosted by the company’s Korean unit.

SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images

To build a fire — but not destroy the market by doing so.

That’s the goal right now. It’s not as easy as in the famous Jack London short story (“Too Build a Fire”) where in the end the survivors profit rather than freeze to death in their sleep.

In the early part of this decade, we saw the rise of Robinhood (HOOD) and the distribution of investments from the serious to the ephemeral. These days, Robinhood has the appearance of one gigantic bonfire of young peoples’ money. The gamification concept was real and the exodus of investors was noisy — culminating with the ridiculous self-immolation of GameStop (GME), AMC Entertainment (AMC) and the meme stocks. Those who fought this trend abandoned Twitter, hired bodyguards and tried to hide from the angry mob that was attempting to will stocks higher by savaging the sellers. No tinder from these clowns.

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Business

Cramer on hot industrial stocks, and how we’re playing the tech pivot

December 5, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

The market is so possessed by tech that it can’t see the forest through the industrials. If the discourse isn’t about the slowdown in the cloud, it’s about who is pulling out of the now-private Twitter, or how disappointing it is that co-CEO Bret Taylor left Salesforce (CRM). Meta Platforms ‘ (META) Mark Zuckerberg could sneeze and Amazon (AMZN) CEO) Andy Jassy cough and it’s a bigger deal than United Airlines ‘ (UAL) order for 100 Dreamliners from Boeing (BA). We don’t pay much attention to the industrials anymore. There aren’t that many of them. We are used to them being hostage to so many forces of negativity that they just aren’t worth our focus. That’s wrong. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has done so much better than the average semiconductor company, or even the above-average enterprise software company that it’s insane that we even focus on some of the latter. The 600 companies formed in the last two years rent too much of your brain space even in passing. Advertising, which turned out to be the Achilles heel of everything internet and media, just seems to have vanished. There’s not enough of it to feed the mouths of all of the players and nobody seems to be able to reach the 18- to 24-year-olds with whatever they spend. So they are shelling out a fraction of what they used to spend. It’s so bad that we cheer when a semiconductor company like Marvell Technology (MRVL), guides down and it only edges the stock down slightly. That gives the market hope that some of the inventory glut for chips is near its end. In the meantime, the unheralded industrials gap up on any S & P 500 run, where there never seems enough stock ahead to where you find sellers. I will go into the ones that intrigue — but first, let me just say that the biggest problem with so many of these techs is that there is so much supply at every level. Someone is always a seller. There’s always merchandise up a penny. And it is sizable. The orders, if you could hear them would be something like, “sell 50,000 shares every five cents thereabout for the next dollar and then I will reload when I get my report if there is enough time left at the end of the day. I don’t want to hurt the stock too much because I have so much behind it.” There is endless selling in anything related to the cloud and it isn’t just from the price target reductions. It is from insiders who sense that the era is over and they all compete with each other now, even Amazon, Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta get that. When the biggest issue with Meta is how much time is Zuckerberg really working on his alleged metaverse pipedream, instead of the highly profitable but slow-growing Instagram, you know you are way too deep in the weeds. Now I want you to hit up the stock of Caterpillar (CAT). When you are in the deep stages of a Federal Reserve interest rate tightening I would normally say that this may be the single best short in the book. Shorting a stock means betting it will go down. But not this time. There is no way CAT can meet its orders. Every industry needs more of what they make, whether it be coal because Europe has taken so many nuclear plants offline and natural gas has risen so much in price, or earthmovers needed for all the roads that are about to be built in this country because of the Democrat’s infrastructure bill, which favors domestic product. Meanwhile, its raw costs are going LOWER. Caterpillar de-emphasized China and emphasized oil and gas. While the public companies have cut back the pace of drilling, the private equity companies are drilling like mad to cover cash flow. Take a look at how CAT acts on up days. There is none for sale. None. A decent day and it always seems like Caterpillar’s stock has rallied three points. Why not; there are 527 million shares outstanding, down 20 million shares. What enterprise software company can say that? There are no stock base compensation issues. Stock is precious. CAT sells at 17 times REAL earnings, not FAKE or MADE UP earnings. That’s what we really should call the shameless non-GAAP adjusted earnings-per-share nonsense we get from these West coasters, which seems a lot like what General Electric (GE) was doing before its collapse. I bet an order to buy 100,000 shares of Caterpillar moves it 2 points. In a year when the S & P 500 dropped 14%, CAT has gained 14% year to date. Not to mention it has an annual dividend yield of 2%. Last week, I met with Emerson Electric (EMR) CEO Lal Karsanbhai. He’s turning this old-line but excellent valve and home appliance maker into a company that digitizes your hardware, that automates your plants while cutting out waste. In less than two years, Karsanbhai has sold slow-growing divisions, bought faster-growing businesses, and joint-ventured others in ways that the arrogant software types can only dream of doing. Like Caterpillar’s stock, EMR is straight up: 4% higher year-to-date. But in the past three months, shares are up 18.5%. I think the idea of bringing in an Emerson to innovate, automate and become cleaner — it also has a huge business in environmental improvement — is one of the first calls I would make if I ran an industrial. It’s an 18 times earnings stock. Anything that happens to Boeing, I am always bittersweet about. We sold some high, we sold some low, but most importantly we were just annoyed by its constant errors. We wanted to play aerospace, though, with so much travel, so we did it with Honeywell (HON). Here’s another story that just never stops ceases to amaze. Another reconfigured company with chemicals that clean the refining process, machines that automate factories, climate controls, and some of the most important parts of an airplane including the cockpit, for not just Boeing but Airbus. Honeywell stock sells at 25 times earnings but its growth is accelerating and it has cash and a balance sheet that is ready to be put to work for anything needed. HON is another one that’s up 5% year to date and more than 17% in the past three months. We know that we have gone through arsenals of low-tech military equipment as has NATO. But this big appropriation boost last week is going to give Raytheon Technologies (RTX) orders it needs to raise numbers for 2023. The anti-missile products that Raytheon specializes in are what I think are now headed to NATO members to do what they want with them, which means take them to Ukraine to defend against the now-nine-month invasion by Russia. Meanwhile, Raytheon’s aerospace, both military and commercial, have too many orders to handle. After some re-configuring as part of the merger between United Technologies and Raytheon, the buyback is in place. The only thing holding this company back is a lack of engineers. Can the people out West learn military engineering? They better learn to do so. RTX is up 17% year to date. I could include so many companies like these, Eaton Corporation (ETN) for pumps, valves and what you need for electrical vehicle charging; Illinois Tool Works (ITW) for equipment like welding, the growth portion of autos, and polymers, and all sorts of in high demand products; or Agilent Technologies (A), a test and measurement company for all sorts of industries that require precision and pinpoint accuracy. You can’t just own these. You won’t know when they stop going straight up. And you can’t just buy them. Jeff Marks, portfolio director for the Investing Club, and I went at it last week when I said that we have to, just have to own Emerson as fast as we can. But one look at the stock tells us that it’s just gone too far too fast. The thing is, they all have. I say let’s take a serious break from the software companies that were claimed to have eaten everything else for breakfast and start discussing the real winners since the November pivot — the companies that were supposed to collapse that, instead, have reinvented themselves and are part of the new industrial economy that’s been automated and digitized and doesn’t need customer relations management because it has too many customers. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long CRM, META, AMZN, GOOGL and HON. 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.

Jim Cramer at the NYSE, June 30, 2022.

Virginia Sherwood | CNBC

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Business

How much you’d have if you invested $1,000 a decade ago

November 15, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

About 10 days ahead of Black Friday — one of the most anticipated shopping days for merchandisers — big-box retailer Walmart reported better-than-expected revenue and earnings.

And good news for consumers: The company plans to set prices for Thanksgiving staples at the same level as 2021.

For the fiscal third quarter, Walmart generated more than $152 billion in total revenue, eclipsing the nearly $148 billion Wall Street analysts expected. The company also reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.50 for the quarter, compared to the $1.32 analysts expected.

Walmart saw growth in its grocery sales this quarter as it rolled out various deals to draw in budget-conscious consumers.

“Through our Deals for Days events in the U.S. and a Thanksgiving meal that will cost the same as last year, we’re here to help make this an affordable and special time for families around the world,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a press release.

Shoppers will be able to take advantage of savings for holiday meal items through Dec. 26, according to Walmart’s website.

In addition to increased grocery sales, Walmart also got a boost from a strong back-to-school shopping season in the U.S. and global sales events in countries such as India and China, McMillon said on a call with investors.

Back in the second quarter, Walmart’s earnings also surpassed Wall Street analysts’ expectations as inflation-pinched shoppers sought out affordable necessities like groceries over discretionary merchandise such as clothing.

What this means for investors

Walmart shares jumped on Tuesday, following the company’s earnings call.

If you had invested $1,000 into Walmart a year ago, you’d see a slight return on your investment and have about $1,024 as of Nov. 15, according to CNBC’s calculations. These computations were performed after the markets opened and are based on a share price of $149.

If you had invested $1,000 into Walmart five years ago, your investment would be worth around $1,755 as of Nov. 15, according to CNBC’s calculations.

And if you had invested $1,000 into Walmart a decade ago, your investment would have more than doubled in value and be worth about $2,377 as of Nov. 15, according to CNBC’s calculations.

Walmart is expected to continue to perform well over the holiday season since the company’s focus on low prices is expected to continue to attract price-conscious consumers, Deutsche Bank analyst Krisztina Katai predicted ahead of the earnings report.

However, Walmart’s performance could be hurt by various factors, such as shifts in consumer buying habits or further increases in labor costs, Katai adds.

Investors should always do their homework

With that in mind, it’s always important to remember that a stock’s past performance shouldn’t be used as an indicator of how well it will perform in the future.

Given the unpredictability of the stock market, a passive investing strategy tends to make sense for most investors, rather than investing in individual stocks.

Investing in a market index, like the S&P 500, can be a great way to get started. Since the S&P 500 tracks the stock performance of large American publicly traded companies, investing in an S&P 500 index fund or exchange traded fund (ETF) can be a great way to gain exposure to a number of well-known companies.

As of Nov. 15, the S&P 500 declined by about 15% compared to 12 months ago, according to CNBC’s calculations. However, the index has increased by about 55% since 2017, and grown by about 196% since 2012.

Want to earn more and work less? Register for the free CNBC Make It: Your Money virtual event on Dec. 13 at 12 p.m. ET to learn from money masters like Kevin O’Leary how you can increase your earning power.

Don’t miss: Apple just announced its new iPhone 14—here’s how much you’d have if you invested $1,000 a decade ago

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Business

U.S. inflation data, China Covid measures

November 11, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

European stocks were cautiously higher on Friday as global markets remained buoyant after softer-than-expected U.S. consumer price index reading signaled that inflation may have peaked.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.2% by late morning, having pared earlier gains of around 0.7%. Financial services added 2.2% while health care stocks fell 1.7%.

The European blue chip index closed 2.8% higher on Thursday after the release of the U.S. consumer price index , which sent major averages stateside to their biggest one-day rallies since 2020.

Markets are hoping the data could encourage the U.S. Federal Reserve to ease its aggressive monetary policy tightening.

U.S. stock futures rose early on Friday, pointing to further gains on Wall Street, with investors also keeping an eye on outstanding results from the U.S. midterm elections.

Investor optimism was boosted on Friday after China said it would ease some Covid measures, which sent Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index soaring more than 7% overnight.

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Business

Berkshire Hathaway Q3 earnings BRK

November 5, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett.

Andrew Harnik | AP

Berkshire Hathaway on Saturday posted a solid gain in operating profits during the third quarter despite rising recession fears, while Warren Buffett kept buying back his stock at a modest pace.

The Omaha-based conglomerate’s operating earnings — which encompass profits made from the myriad of businesses owned by the conglomerate like insurance, railroads and utilities — totaled $7.761 billion in the third quarter, up 20% from year-earlier period.

Insurance-investment income came in at $1.408 billion, up from $1.161 billion a year earlier. Earnings from the company’s utilities and energy businesses came in at $1.585 billion, up from $1.496 billion year over year. Insurance underwriting suffered a loss of 962 million, however, while railroad earnings dipped to $1.442 billion from $1.538 billion in 2021.

Berkshire spent $1.05 billion in share repurchases during the quarter, bringing the nine-month total to $5.25 billion. The pace of buyback was in line with the $1 billion purchased in the second quarter. Repurchases were well below CFRA’s expectation as its analyst estimated it would be similar to the $3.2 billion total in the first quarter.

However, Berkshire did post a net loss of $2.69 billion in the third quarter, versus a $10.34 billion gain a year before. The quarterly loss was largely due to a drop in Berkshire’s equity investments amid the market’s rollercoaster ride.

Berkshire suffered a $10.1 billion loss on its investments during the quarter, bringing its 2022 decline to $63.9 billion. The legendary investor told investors again that the amount of investment losses in any given quarter is “usually meaningless.”

Shares of Buffett’s conglomerate have been outperforming the broader market this year, with Class A shares dipping about 4% versus the S&P 500‘s 20% decline. The stock dipped 0.6% in the third quarter.

Buffett continued to buy the dip in Occidental Petroleum in the third quarter, as Berkshire’s stake in the oil giant has reached 20.8%. In August, Berkshire received regulatory approval to purchase up to 50%, spurring speculation that it may eventually buy all of Houston-based Occidental.

The conglomerate amassed a cash pile of nearly $109 billion at the end of September, compared to a total of $105.4 billion at the end of June.

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Business

Fund manager names 3 recession-proof stocks and reveals how to rescue portfolio

October 26, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

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Business

European markets lower as UK political chaos continues

October 21, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

Sterling falls further as UK PM contest begins

UK public sector borrowing soars to £20 billion

Public sector borrowing reached £20 billion ($22.2 billion) in the U.K. in September, up from £11.8 billion in August, according to the Office for National Statistics.

It is the second highest September borrowing figure since monthly records began in 1993.

The figure is £5.2 billion more than the £14.8 billion originally forecast by the ONS.

— Hannah Ward-Glenton

Retail leads losses as UK reports lower sales figures

Retail leads losses in the European markets this morning, down 2.9%.

Britain’s retail sales figures were lower than expected, down 1.4% in September according to the Office for National Statistics.

The figure is 1.3% below pre-Covid levels in February 2020.

Retailers continue to cite rising prices and the cost-of-living crisis for hampering sales. The death of Queen Elizabeth II in September also caused many retailers to close.

— Hannah Ward-Glenton

Adidas shares down 7.2% after profit warning

Shares of Adidas have dropped 7.2% in early trade after the company issued a 2022 profit warning.

Puma is also trading around 4% lower following the Adidas announcement.

— Hannah Ward-Glenton

European markets: Here are the opening calls

The U.K.’s FTSE 100 is set to open 36 points lower at 6,905, according to data from IG.

Germany’s DAX is seen opening around 119 points lower at 12,636, France’s CAC is set to drop by 51 points to 6,026 and Italy’s MIB index is expected to fall around 205 points at 21,398.

— Hannah Ward-Glenton

CNBC Pro: Goldman Sachs says these stocks could beat an increasingly likely recession

“The macro picture is arguably more challenging than it has been for some time,” says Goldman Sachs, which is favoring a barbell strategy for the recession jitters.

The bank named several buy-rated stocks it thinks could do well against the current macro backdrop.

Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Zavier Ong

U.S. Treasury yields notch new decade-highs

The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield moved up as high as 4.272%, after topping 4.2% for the first time since 2008.

The policy-sensitive 2-year Treasury yield also rose to 4.639%, at its highest levels in 15 years.

The yield on the 30-year Treasury soared to a new 11-year peak of 4.266%.

Yields and prices move in opposite directions and one basis point equals 0.01%.

–Jihye Lee

CNBC Pro: Stay invested in chip stocks, one fund manager reveals how he’s trading the sector

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European markets higher after UK fiscal U-turns; EU energy announcement

October 18, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

The U.K.’s new Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt made big fiscal announcements Monday.

House of Commons – PA Images / Contributor / Getty Images

LONDON — European markets are higher as the region feels the impact of the U.K.’s fiscal U-turns on Monday and anticipates new EU measures to tackle energy prices. The Stoxx 600 index is up 0.4%.

Most sectors and major bourses have made gains at 11.00 a.m. London time, with autos leading increases up 2.2%, followed by technology and financial services both at 1.4%.

Basic resources, health care and oil and gas have dipped into the red, with losses below 1%.

The British pound rose and bond yields fell after new Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt scrapped most of Prime Minister Liz Truss’ fiscal policies in an announcement Monday. Sterling is down 0.7% to $1.1353 at 11.00 a.m.

Truss apologized for the “mistakes” she made in her first six weeks in the position.

U.S. stock futures rose Tuesday morning after the Nasdaq Composite posted its best daily performance since July. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 373 points, or 1.23%. S&P 500 futures jumped 1.46% and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 1.7%.

Shares in the Asia-Pacific traded higher on Tuesday after Wall Street’s rally overnight. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.68% to lead gains in the region, the Nikkei 225 was 1.38% up, while the Topix added 1.11%.

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European markets higher after UK fiscal U-turns; EU energy announcement

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