Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Duolingo — The online language app company popped 5.3% after JPMorgan reiterated its overweight rating on the stock , saying it has an attractive risk/reward and potential upside for its first-quarter guide and 2024 outlook. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing — U.S.-traded shares of the Taiwanese chipmaker dropped 4.9% after the company noted that, although it did not experience structural damage, some wafers “had to be scrapped” after the earthquake in Taiwan earlier in April. Most of the lost production will be recovered in the second quarter, according to management. The company still beat revenue and profit expectations in the first quarter and forecasted healthy growth in 2024. JetBlue Airways — Shares jumped 4.1% after JPMorgan upgraded the airline to neutral from underperform, saying it likes its turnaround potential. Bitcoin miners – Shares of bitcoin mining companies rallied ahead of the widely anticipated “halving,” which cuts miners’ main stream of revenue in half , as mandated by the Bitcoin code. Marathon Digital rose 2.7%, while Riot Platforms and Iris Energy gained 4%. CleanSpark , which is one of the only miners still up for the year, rallied 8.8%. Estee Lauder — Deutsche Bank added a short-term buy rating on the cosmetics giant, sending shares 4.9% higher. The firm positively views the setup into Estee Lauder’s earnings, which are due May 1. Meta Platforms — The tech giant advanced 1.5% after striking a partnership with Google to include its search results in its new AI assistant, Meta Llama 3. Tesla — The electric vehicle manufacturer slid 3.6%, hitting its 52-week low, after Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner downgraded Tesla stock to hold from buy. Rosner pointed to a report from Reuters that said Tesla had canceled plans to build its inexpensive Model 2 car, which he said creates the risk of no new vehicle in Tesla’s consumer lineup for the foreseeable future and would put continued downward pressure on the company’s volume and pricing for many more years, lowering earnings. Barnes Group — The global industrial tech and aerospace stock jumped 9.3% after DA Davidson upgraded the company to buy from neutral, saying shares are attractive. Alaska Air Group — Shares of the airline jumped nearly 8.1% on better-than-expected first-quarter results. Alaska Air’s loss per share of 92 cents ex-items was lower than an LSEG estimate of $1.05 per share. Revenue came in at $2.23 billion, beating analysts’ forecasts of $2.19 billion. Blackstone — The asset manager slipped 2.3% after lowering its dividend to 83 cents per share from 94 cents per share. Earnings in the first quarter came in at 98 cents per share, slightly higher than the LSEG consensus estimate of 96 cents per share. BJ’s Wholesale Club — Loop Capital downgraded BJ’s on valuation, sending the stock 3.6% lower. The firm lowered its estimates on the warehouse store company for merchandise same-store sales and gross margin. D.R. Horton — Shares added 0.1% after D.R. Horton exceeded expectations in its fiscal second quarter, posting earnings of $3.52 per share on revenue of $9.11 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG, meanwhile, expected the homebuilder to post earnings of $3.06 per share on revenue of $8.27 billion. eBay — The e-commerce stock rose 1% following a double upgrade at Morgan Stanley to overweight from underweight. The firm said eBay seems undervalued relative to its peer Etsy. Elevance Health — Shares jumped 3.2% after the health insurance company posted an earnings beat and raised its full-year guidance. Elevance’s revenue came out slightly below estimates, however. Zoom Video Communications — Rosenblatt Securities upgraded shares of the video conferencing company to buy from neutral, saying it is optimistic on Zoom’s “refocused” channel strategy and its healthy balance sheet. The stock rose 1.5% on the new rating. Trump Media & Technology Group — Shares of former President Donald Trump’s media firm and Truth Social parent company climbed 25.7%, adding to gains from a day earlier . Earlier in the week, the company announced plans to launch a TV streaming arm of Truth Social which sent shares lower. — CNBC’s Samantha Subin, Brian Evans, Hakyung Kim and Lisa Kailai Han contributed reporting.
Italy’s bailed-out Monte dei Paschi di Siena on Friday launched a 13.3 billion euro ($13.95 billion) all-share takeover offer for larger domestic peer Mediobanca.
Offering 23 of its shares for 10 of its acquisition target, Monte dei Paschi values Mediobanca’s stock at roughly €15.992 each, a 5% premium to the close price of Jan. 23.
The equity of Monte dei Paschi was worth 8.7 billion euros as of the Jan. 23 close, while Mediobanca’s market capitalization stood at at 12.3 billion euros, according to FactSet data.
Monte dei Paschi, the world’s oldest bank, required a state rescue in 2017 after years of crippling losses, but has turned the tides of its fortunes under the leadership of UniCredit veteran Luigi Lovaglio.
The offer adds to a picture of heating M&A appetite in Italy’s banking and financial services sector, where the country’s second-largest bank UniCredit previously offered to buy out Banco BPM, which in turn seeks to acquire fund manager Anima Holding.
A major exchange-traded fund provider is trying to take the volatility out of bitcoin investing.
Calamos Investments launched the Calamos Bitcoin Structured Alt Protection ETF (CBOJ) on Wednesday. The firm brands it as “the world’s first downside protected bitcoin ETF.” It is built with risk-adverse investors in mind.
“You can get in all day long. Get that 100% protection. And then at the end of the day, we’re going to strike the cap,” the firm’s ETF head Matt Kaufman told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.” Bitcoin is a volatile asset … we don’t want the price of bitcoin to move on you overnight.”
The firm launched the new bitcoin ETF on Wednesday. It coincides with a winning month for bitcoin. The cryptocurrency is up 10% as of late Thursday afternoon.
According to a Calamos press release, the fund provides access to bitcoin in a risk-controlled environment.
“Many investors have been hesitant to invest in bitcoin due to its epic volatility,” Kaufman said in the release. “Calamos seeks to meet advisor, institutional and investor demands for solutions that capture bitcoin’s growth potential while mitigating the historically high volatility and drawdowns of this fast-growing and high performing asset.”
Calamos has more crypto funds on deck. It is set to launch Calamos Bitcoin 90 Series Structured Alt Protection ETF (CBXJ) and Calamos Bitcoin 80 Series Structured Alt Protection ETF (CBTJ) on Feb. 4, according to the Calamos website.
‘You’re not going to see meme coin ETFs from Calamos’
Despite the firm’s appetite to offer cryptocurrency funds, Kaufman told “ETF Edge” there is one group Calamos will not consider.
“You’re not going to see meme coin ETFs from Calamos. But the ability to access bitcoin in a way that meets your risk tolerance, that’s what we’re about,” Kaufman said.
Entrepreneur Eric Malka had to completely shift his mindset when he sold his company and became an investor. Since then he’s learned many lessons he’s now passing to his kids.
When The Art of Shaving — which Malka and his wife Myriam Zaoui founded in 1996 — was bought by Procter & Gamble for a reported $60 million in 2009, Malka realized he needed to educate himself.
“When an entrepreneur like me is lucky enough to have a liquidity event, then we’re faced … with managing assets without proper training,” he told CNBC by video call. Investors must focus on being patient and on long-term returns, whereas company founders often look at a short-term plan, “almost an opposite” mindset, Malka said.
He took courses on wealth management, read books on investing and now has a diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, private equity and real estate, with about 10% allocated to riskier investments. In 2014 he founded private equity fund Strategic Brand Investments.
The lessons learned when you lose are more valuable than the ones when you succeed.
Eric Malka
Co-founder and CEO, Strategic Brand Investments
When it came to educating his children — sons aged 14 and 16 — about money, Malka’s attitude has been to help them learn from the ground up.
“One of the challenges I faced with my teenagers early on, is their belief that it’s very easy to make money by investing through social media and through what they hear from friends,” he said. His older son thought he could generate a 20% monthly return, which Malka described as “very concerning.” So, Malka let him invest a small portion of his savings, hoping it would provide an opportunity to learn — and his son lost 40% of that investment after trading currency futures.
“I hate to set up my child for failure, but sometimes, you know, the lessons learned when you lose are more valuable than the ones when you succeed,” Malka said.
It’s a point that resonates with Gregory Van, CEO of Singapore-based wealth platform Endowus. He and his wife have children aged eight, six and three. He said he’ll be teaching them that it’s important to make mistakes when the stakes seem large to them, though may be small in reality. “The emotional muscle, and humility required to be a good investor is something that people need to develop on their own,” he said.
Teaching kids how to invest
For Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos, president and co-founder of real estate company Flag Luxury Group, educating kids early about money is key.
She and her husband allocated a “low risk” sum of money to each of their three children in middle school for them to pick companies to invest in. “Our children chose Apple, Amazon, Google and Alibaba. All but one had terrific runs. As long as they kept their money in the market and continued to be thoughtful in their approach, we added every year to their nest egg,” she told CNBC by email.
Olarte de Kanavos said her experience in real estate investing taught her the value of patience. “It influenced my business approach by emphasizing long-term strategy over quick gains,” she said. The mother of three described her own investments in the stock market as “very conservative, in order to best manage the huge risks that we take in our real estate business.”
Give them an allowance no later than the first grade.
Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos
President and co-founder, Flag Luxury Group
She suggested having children explain why they want to buy certain stocks, because it “can demystify investing and make it an exciting and integral part of their education,” she said.
Van said he talks to his young kids about the tradeoffs of investing in their own terms. “I ask them: ‘If we invest this $100 and it goes down by $70 next year, how will you feel?’ ‘Do you want to spend $100 today on a toy, or have it turn into $200 in 10 years when you are 16?’,” Van told CNBC via email. “Surprisingly, they are very rational and always go for delayed gratification,” he said.
Van and his wife have investment portfolios for each of their kids, mostly made up of gifts they’ve received during holidays such as Chinese New Year. “Given their long investment horizon, they are in very diversified, multi-manager, low-cost equities portfolios,” Van said, and he shows his children their portfolios’ performance — positive or negative — whenever they ask.
Budgeting and saving for children
Age-appropriate advice is very important, Malka said. His focus right now is teaching his children about budgeting, providing them with a fixed allowance per month.
“In the beginning, you know, they would spend in 10 days what they were supposed to spend in 30 days … now I’ve been doing this for eight months or nine months, now they’re really managing it properly, and I think that’s a skill they don’t realize they’re being taught,” he said. He recommended the book “Raising Financially Fit Kids,” by Joline Godfrey, which provides advice by age-group.
“Give them an allowance no later than the first grade,” is Olarte de Kanavos’ suggestion. “The purpose of an allowance is to allow them to learn to make their own decisions about money and to manage the repercussions that come with their choices,” she told CNBC. “As they get older, teach them about saving, the concept of interest, and the difference between good and bad debt,” she said.
For Roshni Mahtani Cheung, CEO and founder of media company The Parentinc, long-term thinking is important. She and her husband opened a fixed-deposit account for their eight-year old daughter for the money she receives at Chinese New Year, and at Diwali she receives a gold coin. “My goal is for her to grow up financially savvy, confident, and ready to make her own decisions,” Mahtani Cheung told CNBC by email.
Talking to kids about their inheritance
A concern for the wealthy members of advisory network Tiger 21 is how and when to talk to their children about their inheritance. “They are most concerned about their kids leading independent productive lives and don’t want knowledge about the wealth they will inherit to distract them or take them off course,” said Tiger 21’s founder and chairman Michael Sonnenfeldt in an email to CNBC.
Around 70% of the network’s members want to wait until their kids are close to 30 years-old and have established careers to detail what they might inherit — and when, Sonnenfeldt said. “However, about 30% of members want to begin working with their kids in their late teens or early 20s to teach them to become responsible stewards for the wealth they will inherit,” he said. Both approaches are valid, he added.
“I suggest that parents encourage open, values-driven conversations about money and investing,” Sonnenfeldt said.