While sometimes people have to look harder to find value in the market, activist investor Cliff Robbins told CNBC on Monday he’s not having any trouble finding new ideas. “Having said that, I also feel that if there is a surprise to the market it will be to the upside. “There’s a lot of scope to deploy that capital through acquisitions, through buybacks, through dividends, through growing the core organic bank. If they can convert that excess capital to core capital then this stock’s going up si

All that said, Buffett’s statements about his Google miss intrigued Cramer. Buffett admitted that he realized the value of Google early, when Berkshire’s auto insurance subsidiary, GEICO, was seeking advertising outlets. He even met with the founders of Google,” Cramer said. Few people would’ve had the kind of insight that Buffett had about Google, and yet he didn’t buy it,” Cramer said. Cramer’s final takeaway was that keeping your eyes open is key to picking and buying the right companies at t

Larry Robbins closed out the 2017 Sohn Conference with stock picks on companies he said have benefited from deal-making in a tough environment. His three picks: DXC, FMC and Quintiles IMS Holdings. “A lot of stocks were left for dead because they were in regulatory purgatory,” Robbins said. While the stocks look expensive by some metrics, Robbins is focused on the companies’ ability to grow through synergies created in their mergers. More from the Sohn Conference:Jeff Gundlach makes bets against

Pandora shares whipsawed in after-hours trading on Monday, after it announced a $150 million investment and mixed financial results, and said that two board members would resign as the company gears up for a potential sale. KKR — an investment firm known for its private equity and hedge funds — will invest $150 million in Pandora in exchange for new shares of preferred stock, the companies said on Monday. Still, Pandora lost less money per share than Wall Street was expecting in the first quarte

One example Polk touted was the company’s foray into offering personalized products at its Yankee Candle stores, one of Newell’s key brands. The CEO said Newell will put kiosks in every single Yankee Candle location so customers can customize their purchases in-store. “There’s real excitement in the candle business. Finally, as Newell Brands integrates the recently purchased Jarden into its corporate infrastructure, Polk said three factors are contributing to the company’s growth and relative st

There are some great investment opportunities right now, but not necessarily in the United States, Brian Singer told CNBC on Monday. “The U.S. market has really been … sliding up a hill of complacency right now,” the portfolio manager at William Blair said in an interview with “Closing Bell.” The U.S. stock market has been trading in a narrow range recently after running up in the months after the presidential election. With a 1.95 percent dividend yield on the S&P, we should be very comfortable

Joshua Reeves bought a couple hundred dollars worth of Berkshire Hathaway shares in 2004, with some money he made from an internship at Intel. Thirteen years later, as CEO of a $1.1 billion software start-up called Gusto, Reeves took advantage of his Berkshire ownership and traveled to Omaha, Nebraska, for the company’s annual shareholder meeting. Gusto’s software is designed to simplify back office functions like human resources and payroll. “I sat there for seven hours writing pages and pages

Asia has experienced a productivity growth slowdown since the global financial crisis, particularly in more advanced economies such as China, the IMF noted. “Sustained improvements in welfare and living standards ultimately require productivity growth. But over long periods of time, only productivity growth, or intensive growth, can overcome decreasing returns to capital and lower investment.” New technologies, new ways of organizing production processes, research and development (R&D) expenditu

China’s domestic airlines have been major buyers of large passenger aircraft from Airbus and Boeing but the Western manufacturers shouldn’t lose sleep over China’s ambitions in the market, according to analysts. This is at least the third attempt by the Chinese to build a commercial passenger aircraft that can successfully compete with Western manufacturers. Last Friday, a 158-seat jetliner built by the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China took its maiden flight from Shanghai. Th

Her son, Jett, was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare, debilitating condition, when he was 5. “It’s all about choice, and choice of a reasonable price,” McSherry, executive director of the non-profit Jett Foundation, said in an interview. Deflazacort wasn’t approved in the U.S., so McSherry and a number of other families of kids with Duchenne imported the drug from overseas. Upon approval, Marathon set an annual price in the U.S. of $89,000, generating an immediate outcry from th

She noted that the TPP was skewed toward U.S. interests, which may pose challenges to shaping an ex-U.S. pact, but she still expected a deal could be reached by year-end. Elms added that Japan may also be hoping the U.S. might rejoin the deal later. Japan was set to be a major beneficiary of TPP, particularly the country’s auto sector would have obtained cheaper access to U.S. markets. Analysts generally attribute the imbalance not to trade barriers, but to U.S. cars being ill-suited to the Japa

The S&P rose just nine-hundredths of a point Monday to a new high of 2,399, but some parts of the market have been showing signs of wear while the big name tech companies have been the engine driving the market higher. Apple surged to a new high and topped $800 billion in market capitalization for the first time Monday. The S&P energy sector was up 0.7 though it is down 3.5 percent in the last month. “Energy shares have been laggards for 2017, and are starting to turn into a headwind.” Energy sh

Topping the list of market worries is China, which has been on the back burner for months now. “I’m more concerned about the risks stemming from a China slowdown,” said Jeff Kleintop, Charles Schwab chief global investment strategist. Copper was down about 3 percent last week amid concerns about China, and off another 1.4 percent Monday. A significant slowdown in China could be deflationary,” said Paul Christopher, chief international investment strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. Ch

When software engineer Joe Knipp flies into Pueblo, Colorado for work he knows the plane will be small, but the impact on his life will be huge. If Great Lakes Aviation did not offer the flight, Knipp would have to drive more than two hours from Denver. The money helping Great Lakes Aviation offer flights three times a day to Pueblo comes from the Essential Air Service (EAS) program run by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Since then the program’s budget he risen to more than a quarter bill

Commodity prices usually rally as the U.S. Federal Reserve heads into a hiking cycle, but it might be different this time, Goldman Sachs said in a note Monday. Historically, “commodities perform the best when the Fed is raising rates,” Goldman said. “This makes intuitive sense because the reason why the Fed raises interest rates is that the economy displays signs of overheating. It added that rising interest rates in China also tend to coincide with better commodities performance, noting the mai

With the French election out of way, investors are now focusing on when and how the European Central Bank could scale back its quantitative easing given the recent strength in the euro zone economy. ECB board member Yves Mersch said on Monday that the central bank is close to replacing its negative view on whether the euro zone economy will reach growth targets with a neutral one, and should adjust its policy guidance accordingly. ECB chief Mario Draghi is also due to speak at Dutch House of Rep

Spot gold was up 0.2 percent at $1,228.20 per ounce at 0320 GMT, after touching a seven-week low of $1,224.86 the day before, just above its 100-day moving average. U.S. gold futures advanced 0.1 percent to $1,228.20 an ounce. Elsewhere, Wall Street’s volatility index, which measures implied volatility of stock options and is often seen as an investor fear gauge, closed at 9.77 on Monday, its lowest since December 1993. “The fall of the volatility index further hollows out the safe-haven bid tha

Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil prices, were at $49.37 per barrel at 0252 GMT on Tuesday, down from a high of $49.60 earlier in the day and near their last close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were trading at $46.46 per barrel, down from an intra-day high of $46.66 and also little changed from their last settlement. U.S. crude production has risen by over 10 percent since mid-2016 to 9.3 million bpd, close to the output of top producers Russia and

South Koreans take to the polls today to choose a new leader after the ouster of former President Park Geun-hye on bribery charges. The front-runner in the election is Moon Jae-in from the liberal Democratic Party of Korea. Polls show that Moon has secured 38 percent of support from voters among a total of 13 candidates, according to Reuters. “The election result is largely priced into the markets. They are one of the best performing Asian markets … so the market is expecting a change there,”

One analysts gives apple its highest price target yet 7 Hours Ago | 00:54After reporting mixed earnings last week, Apple was given a $202 price target, its highest to date, by one analyst on Monday. “We believe Apple remains among the most underappreciated stocks in the world,” White said. The analyst raised his 12-month price forecast for Apple stock to $202 from $185, reiterating a buy rating on the shares. Apple closed Friday at $148.96 per share. If the stock climbed to White’s target (a gai