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Over the last 7 days, the United States market has risen by 4.4%, contributing to a remarkable 32% increase over the past year, with earnings projected to grow by 16% annually. In this thriving environment, identifying strong dividend stocks like First Financial Bancorp and others can offer investors a reliable income stream and potential for growth amidst favorable market conditions. Name Dividend Yield Dividend Rating Provident Financial Services (PFS) 4.47% ★★★★★★ Peoples Bancorp (PEBO) 4.84% ★★★★★★ OTC Markets Group (OTCM) 5.44% ★★★★★★ Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI) 5.97% ★★★★★★ First Interstate BancSystem (FIBK) 5.55% ★★★★★★ First Community Bankshares (FCBC) 5.33% ★★★★★★ Farmers National Banc (FMNB) 5.03% ★★★★★★ Ennis (EBF) 4.59% ★★★★★★ Dil...

Commodities are waking up — and it’s more than just gold (GC=F) and crude oil (CL=F). The long downtrend in commodities versus stocks that followed the 2008 global financial crisis is starting to crack. The setup looks a bit like an echo of how this century began: After the 1999-2000 bottom, commodities broke higher for nearly a decade. Gold led first, energy followed, and the move eventually spread into food. That stretch became what's called a commodities supercycle — a long period when raw materials prices surge as supply and demand remain structurally imbalanced. This year, we’ve already seen metals rip to record highs. Now energy is joining in. The next tell is grains (ZC=F, ZW=F, ZS=F). They’ve rallied this year, but not in a way that screams broad food inflation. S...

Earnings results often indicate what direction a company will take in the months ahead. With Q4 behind us, let’s have a look at Lincoln Financial Group (NYSE:LNC) and its peers. Life insurance companies collect premiums from policyholders in exchange for providing a future death benefit or retirement income stream. Interest rates matter for the sector (and make it cyclical), with higher rates allowing insurers to reinvest their fixed-income portfolios at more attractive yields and vice versa. Additionally, favorable demographic shifts, such as an aging population, are driving strong demand for retirement products while AI and data analytics offer significant opportunities to improve underwriting accuracy and operational efficiency. Conversely, the industry faces headwinds from persistent...

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management has proposed a massive cash-and-stock acquisition of Universal Music Group (UMG), the creative home of Taylor Swift, Drake, and Bad Bunny. UMG stock soared 13% on Tuesday following the announcement. The deal, valued at approximately $64 billion, would merge UMG with Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, an acquisition vehicle. The move would create "New UMG," an SEC-registered corporation in Nevada that would be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and report under US GAAP standards. Invest in Gold Powered by Money.com - Yahoo may earn commission from the links above. Pershing is Universal's fourth-largest shareholder with a 4.74% stake. In a letter to the UMG board, Ackman argued that the company's current valuation ...

Bill Ackman Wants to Put Universal on a Bigger Stage - Moby Bill Ackman is back for another shot at Universal Music Group. The Pershing Square boss has pitched a roughly €55 billion (about $64 billion) deal for the world’s biggest record label, arguing that UMG is being valued like a sleepy European listing instead of a global entertainment heavyweight. His fix is classic Ackman: move it to New York, tighten the story, shake up the board, and hope Wall Street starts humming a different tune. Pershing Square has proposed a cash-and-stock transaction for Universal Music Group that values the company at €30.40 a share, or about €55.8 billion. Under the proposal, UMG shareholders would receive €9.4 billion in cash overall, equal to €5.05 per share, plus 0.77 shares in a newly...

NEW YORK, April 7 (Reuters) - Gautam Adani, India's second richest person, will ask a ‌U.S. judge to dismiss the Securities ‌and Exchange Commission's civil fraud case against him, his lawyers ​said on Tuesday. Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani were charged by the SEC in November 2024 with orchestrating a scheme to pay or promise ‌to pay hundreds ⁠of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials to benefit ⁠Adani Green Energy, where both men are executives and directors. The securities fraud case is tied ​to Adani ​Green's alleged failure to ​disclose the scheme ‌in documents for a $750 million bond offering in 2021. In a filing in the Brooklyn, New York federal court, Adani's lawyers said the SEC claims were "impermissibly extraterritorial," given that the defen...

Pershing Square logo Ackman proposes merging UMG into an SEC-registered "New UMG" that would pay shareholders ~€5 cash plus 0.77 New UMG shares (total consideration ~€30.40, a 78% premium), effectively a €22 buyback and cancellation of ~17% of shares, with Pershing Square funding the deal via €2.5bn of equity/backstop, €5.4bn of debt and €1.5bn from a Spotify sale and boosting its stake to 11.7%. The plan monetizes UMG’s ~€2.7bn Spotify stake to deliver about €1.5bn to shareholders after taxes and artist shares, targets a 2.5x net debt/adjusted-EBITDA leverage while keeping investment-grade flexibility, and changes the dividend policy from a 50% net-income payout to growing the dividend at 2% per year. The proposal calls for a U.S. listing on the NYSE as a Nevada corporation wit...

Find your next quality investment with Simply Wall St's easy and powerful screener, trusted by over 7 million individual investors worldwide. Axos Financial (AX) has drawn investor attention recently, with shares last closing at $86.78 and showing a mixed return pattern over the past week, month, and past 3 months. See our latest analysis for Axos Financial. Recent trading has been choppy, with a 1-day share price return of 1.66% and a 7-day share price return of 4.71%. Over the longer term, the 1-year total shareholder return of 51.93% suggests that momentum has been stronger over time than in recent months. If Axos Financial has you looking more broadly at financials and market trends, it could be a good moment to broaden your search with 20 top founder-led companies With...

UnitedHealth Group (UNH) and other health insurer stocks surged on Tuesday after the US government said it would boost payments for Medicare Advantage plans next year. The US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said it would increase payments to insurers for older Americans by an average of 2.48% in 2027, amounting to a $13 billion annual increase in payments to plans. UnitedHealth stock jumped 8%, while Humana (HUM) popped 5%, and Aetna's parent company, CVS Health (CVS), rose more than 4%. The payment bump was much higher than the 0.09% payment increase CMS initially proposed in January. "Final rates typically rise from initial rate notices, and we think investors appreciated that pattern remaining intact, despite the ongoing regulatory pressure on this end mark...

Choosing a crypto exchange isn't just a matter of picking the most recognizable name. The platform you use affects how much you pay on every trade, which coins you can actually buy, and how well your funds are protected. We put the most widely used U.S. exchanges through hands-on testing by verifying fees in live accounts, comparing coin selections, evaluating security practices, and checking how each platform actually performs for real users. Here’s how they stack up. Best overall: Kraken Best for reliability: Coinbase Best for active traders: OKX Best for rewards and ecosystem: Crypto.com Best for beginners: eToro Best for currency and commodity traders: Uphold Best for security-conscious investors: Gemini Exchange Our rating Beginner trading fees ...