“It’s certainly a valid option,” said certified financial planner Ronald Myers, a managing member at Fortune 360 Group in Plantation, Florida. Basically, in exchange for guaranteed income over a set period of time (or for your lifetime), you give an insurance company a lump sum, which in turn becomes part of the insurer’s pooled investments. “All you’re left with is an income stream,” said David Mendels, a CFP and director of planning at Creative Financial Concepts in New York. This was so he co

Apple’s iPhone sales in China rose more than 18% last month, according to CNBC calculations using government data published by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a government think tank. The news drove Apple stock up more than 2% Thursday, bringing the stock to a fresh all-time intraday high of $310.01, according to FactSet. Apple shipped 3.2 million iPhones in China through December, according to the data, and that figure was up from 2.7 million units shipped in Dec

Barclays upgraded its rating on Starbucks stock to overweight from neutral on Thursday and told clients that the coffee chain’s focus on menu innovation and the customer experience could lead to big gains in 2020. Analyst Jeffrey Bernstein highlighted Starbucks’s recent initiatives to improve employee-customer interaction as well as popular drink options like the Nitro Cold Brew platform and a rising number of digital sales. Those changes have led to better comparable sales, or “comps,” an indus

Shares of Goldman Sachs climbed on Thursday after two firms upgraded the bank’s stock on the belief it is cheap and will benefit from a rebounding global economy. Bank of America upgraded Goldman Sachs to buy from neutral on Thursday, while hiking its 12-month price target on the stock to $270 from $245. The new target would translated into a 14% gain for the stock, based on its Wednesday’s close of $237.76. The brokerage firm upped its ratings on Goldman to buy from neutral, citing reduced macr

Two Wall Street firms lowered their ratings on Tesla, backing away from Elon Musk’s electric automaker after its recent swift share climb. Baird downgraded Tesla to neutral from outperform on Thursday before the bell, while CFRA downgraded Tesla to sell from hold after the bell Wednesday. “We have become incrementally cautious on the stock, given its huge recent surge in price,” Sacconaghi said in a note to investors Thursday. In heavy trading Thursday, Tesla shares swung up as much as up 1%, ne

Coca-Cola has transformed into a better business that’s growing faster with more cash on hand than ever, according to Credit Suisse. The firm upgraded shares of Coca-Cola to outperform from neutral and raised its price target to $64 per share, near 20% upside to Wednesday’s closing price of $54.35 per share. The upgrade sent shares of Coca-Cola up more than 1.2% in on Thursday. Since James Quincey became CEO of the company in May of 2017, shares of Coca-Cola have risen about 26%. Quincey has spu

Shares of Virgin Galactic rose 4.5% in trading from its previous close of $11.42. But Virgin Galactic froze ticket sales after a crash in 2014 killed a pilot during a test flight. Virgin Galactic said in its third-quarter results that – following those test flights – the company received 3,557 expressions of interest in flight reservations. Before that happens Virgin Galactic will move its spacecraft Unity to the company’s spaceport in New Mexico from its testing facility in Mojave, California.

Like a savings account or individual retirement account (IRA), a 401(k) itself is simply a type of financial account. Pick your investmentsOnce you start contributing money to a 401(k), you then have to choose investments. No matter how many funds you’re offered, you’ll need to do a bit of research before you make your selections. One way to assess each fund you’re offered is to search its name via Morningstar, an investment research firm. “Costs really matter in investments,” investing icon War

UK travel agency Ocean Florida is looking to hire someone to be a theme park tester throughout Florida. The company will pay £3,000 (about $3,930) for the tester to spend three “magical weeks” exploring Orlando, Florida’s theme parks during April or May, according to the job listing, including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and the SeaWorld Parks, among others. The chosen tester will have the option to bring a friend, with travel costs and accommodations covered by the company for both. In

“I was a good student, but my memory was average,” Dellis, 35, tells CNBC Make It. Dellis scoured the internet looking for tips to improve his memory and joined a few forums where professional “memory athletes” (people who train their memory skills for high performance) chatted about different memory techniques. Then he listened to “Quantum Memory: Learn to Improve Your Memory with The World Memory Champion,” an audiobook by Dominic O’Brien, a seven-time world memory champion. Today Dellis, auth

“He said, ‘Warren, you can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow,'” Buffett recalled. If you feel the same way tomorrow, tell them then — but don’t spout off in a moment of anger!” If you feel the same way tomorrow, tell them then — but don’t spout off in a moment of anger!” Warren Buffett CEO, Berkshire HathawayIt’s important to note that Buffett isn’t advising people to not be emotional. Warren Buffett CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

Trump wants our allies to work with us in Iraq, says US NATO ambassadorUS Ambassador for NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, joins “Squawk on the Street” to discuss President Trump’s calls for more NATO involvement in the Middle East.

The open banking movement is inspiring consumers to ask who owns their banking dataIf you’ve used Venmo, Coinbase or Robinhood, then you’ve used Plaid, whose software links users’ bank accounts to these apps. Investors include the venture capital arms of Goldman Sachs and Google parent Alphabet. Plaid’s mission is to help consumers own their banking data by being able to more easily see their complete financial picture. This goal is part of an “open banking” movement, sweeping across the fintech

A trader works on the floor at the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange, December 30, 2019. This suggests the bull market may still have some room to run. Investment flow data shows that individual investors were largely net sellers of equities in 2019, even as corporate buybacks helped push the market to record highs. The lack of widespread participation suggests that the market hasn’t hit a moment of euphoria or “blow-off top” that often precedes a pullback. The same data showed that th

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday that research houses on Wall Street underestimated the staying power of the stock market’s 2019 advance and they’re being forced to scramble. So they are trying to raise price targets to where the stocks are, if not beyond. And that’s just a very bullish moment,” Cramer said on “Squawk Box.” He marveled at how stock futures overnight Tuesday into Wednesday were nosediving, only to give way to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting new intraday highs on Wall Street during

The world’s largest brewer, AB InBev, has signed a deal with renewable energy developer BayWa r.e that will see the drinks giant purchase 100% renewable electricity for its brewing operations in Europe. Under the 10-year virtual power purchase agreement, announced on Thursday, the brewer will be supplied with power from two solar facilities that have a “combined power output” of nearly 200 megawatts (MW). AB InBev said the solar plants would provide its breweries with 250 gigawatt hours of renew

“You’ve been marked eligible and must come to the nearest recruitment branch in Jacksonville, Florida for immediate departure to Iran.” The message was signed off “U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion” and offers a name and location to which the recipient is directed to report. The demographic of who the messages were sent to appears random — from adults to kids as young as 14, according U.S. Army Recruiting Command media relations chief who spoke to NPR. The Army statement added, “Registering for the

President Donald Trump’s killing of an Iranian military leader will haunt him and drag the U.S. into an “endless war,” according to one analyst at U.S think tank the Cato Institute. The U.S. assassinated Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani late last week with an airstrike on Iraq’s Baghdad Airport. Iran retaliated Wednesday by firing missiles at two Iraqi bases where American soldiers are stationed, although no casualties were reported and U.S. forces suggested there had been minimal damage.

President Donald Trump on Thursday is expected to propose sweeping changes to a landmark environmental protection law to make it easier to approve of major infrastructure projects like oil and gas pipelines. The proposed regulations would update how federal agencies implement the National Environmental Policy Act, a law aimed at ensuring that the government protects the environment when reviewing such projects as building roads and bridges or logging in forests. The change would be the first in

Airbus is also scrambling to keep up with strong demand, which was a key driver in ramping up production, a spokeswoman said. The increase at the Mobile plant would bring Airbus’ A320-family production across its four production plants to a rate of 63 a month in 2021. The U.S. government said in October that it would implement tariffs on Airbus planes after the WTO sided with the U.S. in 15-year-old dispute over European government subsidies to Airbus. Boeing this month plans to suspend producti