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Caterpillar stock doesn't have any hot tech sector buzz, but it boasts an impressive share price performance that beats Apple's - plus, it offers financial strength and a promising outlook that make it a compelling choice for investors.

Microsoft stock still looks attractive to value investors given its massive free cash flow and reasonably cheap metrics. Moreover, short sellers of near-term put options are making good money.

U.S. stock ended mostly lower on Thursday, making August the worst trading month of 2023 as the Fed’s closely-watch inflation gauge came largely in line with expectations for July. Investors are now awaiting August’s jobs report w

Apple (AAPL) is one of the stocks most watched by Zacks.com visitors lately. So, it might be a good idea to review some of the factors that might affect the near-term performance of the stock.

Nvidia Corp’s market capitalization climbed higher in August thanks to its strong profit forecasts, which defied the broader downtrend in mega-cap technology stocks during the past month as an uptick in U.S. bond yields rattled the sector.

A smart beta exchange traded fund, the WisdomTree U.S. LargeCap Dividend ETF (DLN) debuted on 06/16/2006, and offers broad exposure to the Style Box - Large Cap Value category of the market.

Launched on 07/14/2015, the ALPS (OUSA) is a smart beta exchange traded fund offering broad exposure to the Style Box - Large Cap Value category of the market.

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett is easily one of the greatest investors of our generation. He's doubled up the annualized total return, including dividends paid, of the S&P 500 since becoming CEO in 1965 (as of Dec. 31, 2022), and he's overse

Sometimes in life, you need to go big or go home. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF ( NYSEARCA:MGK) brings this winner-take-all attitude to the market by investing in the market’s largest growth stocks. This strategy is simple yet effective. Why is investing in mega-cap stocks a winning strategy? Stocks that are winners often keep winning, and you don’t grow to a market cap in the hundreds of billions of dollars without being an exceptionally strong company for a long period of time.  What is the MGK ETF’s Strategy? MGK is a passively-managed ETF that “seeks to track the performance of the CRSP US Mega Cap Growth Index,” according to Vanguard. Its goal is to provide “a convenient way to get diversified exposure to the largest growth stocks in the U.S. market.” The ETF launched in 2007 and has grown to $13.7 billion in assets under management (AUM). Monster Gains While the strategy of investing in the U.S.’s largest growth stocks may sound like a simple one, investing doesn’t need to be complicated, and MGK has generated monster returns for its holders over the years. The mega-cap ETF has returned 18.6% over the past year. As of the end of July, over the past three years, MGK generated an admirable annualized total return of 12.0%. Zooming further out, its five-year annualized total return stands at a fantastic 15.6%, and its 10-year annualized total return came out to an equally impressive 15.5%. Since the fund's inception in 2007, it has delivered annualized total returns of 12.1%. On a cumulative basis, this means that MGK holders have enjoyed blockbuster total returns of 106.1% and 323.3% over the past five and 10 years, respectively.  These results surpass the solid returns that the broader market has posted over the same time frames. For example, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF ( NYSEARCA:VOO) , which simply invests in the S&P 500 ( SPX ), has returned 12.9% over the past year. Its three-year annualized total return of 13.7% beats MGK, but its five- and 10-year annualized returns of 12.2% and 12.6%, respectively, while excellent, can’t compete with MGK’s superior returns over the same time frame.  Below, you can check out a comparison of MGK and VOO using TipRanks' ETF Comparison Tool, which enables users to compare up to 20 ETFs at a time across a variety of factors. Big-Time Holdings Given its mega-cap focus, it’s unsurprising that MGK’s holdings are comprised of household names that everyday investors are familiar with. The ETF has 98 holdings, and its top 10 make up 60.9% of the fund. You can check out the chart below for an overview of MGK’s top 10 holdings.   As you might guess (because it’s the world’s most valuable company by market cap) Apple ( NASDAQ:AAPL ) is the fund’s largest holding, with a weighting of 15.9%, followed by Microsoft ( NASDAQ:MSFT ), which weighs in at 13.5%. Other top 10 holdings include the tech behemoths Amazon ( NASDAQ:AMZN ), both classes of Alphabet ( NASDAQ:GOOGL ) ( NASDAQ:GOOG ) stock, Nvidia ( NASDAQ:NVDA ), Tesla ( NASDAQ:TSLA ), and Meta Platforms ( NASDAQ:META ) that comprise the market’s so-called “magnificent seven.”  While these tech mega-caps reign supreme at the top of MGK (the technology sector accounts for 56.3% of the fund's holdings, according to Vanguard), the fund has plenty more to offer beyond big tech. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly ( NYSE:LLY ) and global payment network Visa ( NYSE:V ) occupy the final two spots of the top 10. Just outside the top 10, you’ll find other blue chip, large-cap names representing a wide variety of industries, such as Home Depot ( NYSE:HD ), McDonald’s ( NYSE:MCD ), Costco ( NASDAQ:COST ), Mastercard ( NYSE:MA ), and Thermo Fisher Scientific ( NYSE:TMO ).  These are some of the market’s largest stocks, and they also enjoy strong Smart Scores across the board. The Smart Score is a proprietary quantitative stock scoring system created by TipRanks. It gives stocks a score from 1 to 10 based on eight market key factors. A score of 8 or above is equivalent to an Outperform rating. Seven of MGK’s top 10 holdings, and all five of its five largest positions, have Outperform-equivalent Smart Scores of 8 or above, further indicating that this is a strong collection of holdings. MGK itself features an Outperform-equivalent ETF Smart Score of 8. What is the Price Target for MGK? Turning to Wall Street, MGK earns a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 87 Buys, 10 Holds, and one Sell rating assigned in the past three months. The average MGK stock price target of $275.53 implies 14.2% upside potential. Reasonable Expense Ratio  Thankfully for investors, one area where MGK doesn’t go big is when it comes to expenses. Vanguard pioneered the idea of low-cost index investing through mutual funds and later expanded this philosophy into the world of ETFs. As such, MGK has a reasonable expense ratio of just 0.07%.  This means that an investor who puts $10,000 into MGK today will pay just $7 in fees during their first year of investing. Assuming the expense ratio remains at 0.07% and the fund gains 5% per year going forward, over the course of a decade, this same investor would pay just $90 in fees. By investing in low-cost ETFs like this, investors can preserve more of their principal over time and avoid having large chunks of their gains eaten up by fees and expenses.   Does the MGK ETF Pay a Dividend? With a dividend yield of just 0.5%, dividends are another area where MGK doesn't go big, but in reality, income is not one of the fund's primary objectives. On the plus side, MGK offers good longevity in this department, with 14 consecutive years of dividend payments under its belt. The Takeaway The market’s largest stocks by market value didn’t get to where they are by being slouches -- they are winners for a reason. That’s why it’s probably not a bad idea to invest in these long-term winners, and MGK offers investors a simple, low-cost, and convenient way to gain exposure to all of them in one vehicle. The ETF’s stellar returns over the long term are a testament to the effectiveness of its investment strategy, meaning that MGK continues to be an attractive long-term investment opportunity. Disclosure

Arm Holdings Ltd plans to launch its roadshow for investors after Labor Day, as the chip designer prepares for its much-anticipated initial public offering (IPO) in September, according to people familiar with the matter.

InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips

Broadcom forecast fourth-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates on Thursday, on worries bleak enterprise spending and stiff competition in the networking chip space will outweigh benefits from a boom in artificial intelligence-led demand.

The NASDAQ 100 After Hours Indicator is down -4.85 to 15,496.22. The total After hours volume is currently 216,953,947 shares traded.The following are the most active stocks for the after hours session: Apple Inc. (AAPL) is +0.1022 at $187.97, with 7,844,246 shares traded. Over

Vanguard exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are among the most popular funds out there, and for good reason. Investors of all stripes can make good use of this asset manager’s wide variety of investment strategies—offered up in simple, cost-effective ETFs. The best Vanguar

Apple and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office told a Virginia federal court on Thursday that they have settled Apple's lawsuit challenging the office's rejection of its application for a federal trademark covering the term "Smart Keyboard."

InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips

Artificial intelligence has gone mainstream as everyone piles into artificial intelligence stocks.  While the concept of artificial intelligence has been around for decades, 2023 was indeed the breakout year and tipping point, making it accessible to anyone and everyone with int

Amazon has made major strides to expand its payments business in recent quarters, and could snag market share from FAANG rivals like Apple and Google.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic these days and it’s changing a lot of industries, from healthcare to self-driving cars. Basically, AI is a technology that allows machines to learn and make decisions, kind of like how humans do. This has big implications for busi