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While "boring" bitcoin has been chopping sideways since March, bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy is trading at its highest level relative to the flagship crypto since 2019. Wolfe Research managing director Rob Ginsberg said he "loves [MicroStrategy's] chances to get out and continue climbing," but that the stock is overbought in the near term. He suggested a bitcoin hedge. MSTR BTC.CM= YTD mountain Bitcoin and MicroStrategy in 2024 "Lack of enthusiasm for the once high flying asset class is one of the factors that led us to maintain a more defensive, risk off bias of late," he said in a Wednesday note. "Many of the crypto related equities such as MARA , COIN , & RIOT have acted the same. That is beside one … as MSTR rallied back to the highs over the past few weeks." "On a relative basis vs....

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell holds a press conference following a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on interest rate policy in Washington, U.S., September 18, 2024. REUTERS/Tom BrennerTom Brenner | ReutersFalling interest rates are usually good news for banks, especially when the cuts aren't a harbinger of recession.That's because lower rates will slow the migration of money that's happened over the past two years as customers shifted cash out of checking accounts and into higher-yielding options like CDs and money market funds.When the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate by half a percentage point last month, it signaled a turning point in its stewardship of the economy and telegraphed its intention to reduce rates by another 2 full percentage points,...

AMD launched a new artificial-intelligence chip on Thursday that is taking direct aim at Nvidia's data center graphics processors, known as GPUs.The Instinct MI325X, as the chip is called, will start production before the end of 2024, AMD said Thursday during an event announcing the new product. If AMD's AI chips are seen by developers and cloud giants as a close substitute for Nvidia's products, it could put pricing pressure on Nvidia, which has enjoyed roughly 75% gross margins while its GPUs have been in high demand over the past year.Advanced generative AI such as OpenAI's ChatGPT requires massive data centers full of GPUs in order to do the necessary processing, which has created demand for more companies to provide AI chips.In the past few years, Nvidia has dominated the majority of ...

The pace of price increases over the past year was higher than forecast in September while jobless claims posted an unexpected jump following Hurricane Helene and the Boeing strike, the Labor Department reported Thursday.The consumer price index, a broad gauge measuring the costs of goods and services across the U.S. economy, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.4%. Both readings were 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus.The annual inflation rate was 0.1 percentage point lower than August and is the lowest since February 2021.Excluding food and energy, core prices increased 0.3% on the month, putting the annual rate at 3.3%. Both core readings also were 0.1 percentage point above forecast.A separate report Thursday showed ...

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg presents Orion AR Glasses, as he makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event, at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S. September 25, 2024. Manuel Orbegozo | ReutersWhen Facebook changed its name to Meta in October 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg used the occasion to show the world his vision of a digital future of work and recreation accessible through a virtual reality headset. The company soon opened its play universe called Horizon Worlds, featuring floating personalized avatars.As the rebranding to Meta approaches its third anniversary, none of that stuff has gone mainstream. But the company appears to have found its footing in virtual and augmented reality through a different medium.After achieving surprise early success in the s...

Ian Read, chairman and chief executive officer of Pfizer Inc., gestures as he speaks during a panel session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017.Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesActivist Starboard Value accused Pfizer of threatening litigation against the company's former CEO and CFO in order to get them to break ranks with the investor's nascent turnaround campaign at the pharmaceutical giant.Starboard managing member Jeff Smith said in a Thursday letter to Pfizer's board that the company or its advisors also "threatened" to claw back former chief executive Ian Read and ex-CFO Frank D'Amelio's past compensation and cancel their unvested shares.Smith asked that the board assemble a special committee to investigate the matter, describing i...

The latest inflation report came in slightly hotter than expected, knocking stock prices lower. But there are some encouraging signs within it. The consumer price index rose by 0.2% in September on a month-over-month basis and 2.4% from the year-earlier period . Economists polled by Dow Jones had forecast expected a 0.1% gain month over month and 2.3% increase year over year. Core CPI, which strips out food and energy, also was more than expected. Some investors worried the report means the Federal Reserve may not be able to cut rates further. But the odds of a quarter-point Fed rate cut in November actually rose after the report came out. Per the CME Group's FedWatch tool, the fed funds futures market indicated a 94% probability of a quarter-point rate cut next month. That's up from about...

Portra | E+ | Getty ImagesThe Social Security Administration has announced a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment for 2025.The agency announced the change on Thursday morning via its press office feed on X and confirmed the news to CNBC by phone.The Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for 2025 is the lowest annual increase since 2021, when beneficiaries saw a 1.3% increase to benefits. In recent years, COLAs have been larger in response to record high inflation.While the cost-of-living adjustment for 2024 was 3.2%, beneficiaries saw the highest increases in four decades in 2023, with an 8.7% increase, and in 2022, with a 5.9% boost to benefits.Now that the pace of inflation has come down, the cost-of-living adjustments are more average. Social Security's annual benefit increases have avera...

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:1. Wait-and-CPIStock futures slipped Thursday as investors await the latest CPI data, out at 830 a.m. ET. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell or 0.1%, while S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures fell roughly 0.2%. each. Economists polled by Dow Jones anticipate the consumer price index for September to show a 0.1% increase on a monthly basis and a 2.3% jump over the prior 12 months. That result will inform the Federal Reserve's next policy steps when the central bank meets in November. Follow live market updates.2. Cutting it closeJerome Powell, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, during the National Association of Business Economics (NABE) annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, US, on Monday, ...

A vehicule is stranded on a water-flooded street after Hurricane Milton made landfall in Brandon, Florida on October 9, 2024. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo | AFP | Getty ImagesMillions of people in Florida were without power Thursday after Hurricane Milton spawned tornados, flooding, powerful winds and left multiple people dead.Milton made landfall Wednesday evening as a Category 3 storm near Siesta Key on Florida's west coast south of Tampa Bay. The storm churned east-northeastward toward Cape Canaveral with maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour and is moving off the coast of Florida into the Atlantic, according to the National Hurricane Center.More than 3 million people were left without power in Florida, according to PowerOutage.us. A crane collapses on a building, during heavy ra...