Nasdaq MSFT MicroSoft

The Nasdaq rose on Wednesday as easing long-term U.S. Treasury yields boosted megacap stocks, while investors shrugged off hotter-than-expected inflation data and awaited minutes from the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting.

Advanced Micro Devices AMD is expanding its open AI software capabilities with the recently announced acquisition of Nod.ai, a provider of compiler-based automation software.The deal will add a vastly experienced team capable of d

While many growth stocks have fallen hard in the recent market pullback, Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) is not one of them. The e-commerce platform is up about 50% so far in 2023, roughly doubling the return of the Nasdaq Composite to date.

Below is Validea's guru fundamental report for MICROSOFT CORP (MSFT). Of the 22 guru strategies we follow, MSFT rates highest using our Twin Momentum Investor model based on the published strategy of Dashan Huang. This momentum model looks for a combination of fundamental moment

Wall Street's main indexes advanced on Wednesday as long-term U.S. Treasury yields continued to retreat, while investors shrugged off hotter-than-expected inflation data and awaited minutes from the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting.

The artificial intelligence (AI) arms race is a heated contest. On one side lies Big Tech. In particular, Microsoft and Alphabet have invested billions into large language models (LLMs) and other AI-powered applications. On the other side are integrators such as Cathie Wood favor

Wall Street's main indexes were set to open higher on Wednesday as U.S. Treasury yields continued to retreat, while investors assessed the latest inflation data and awaited minutes from the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting.

Futures tracking Wall Street's main indexes advanced on Wednesday as U.S. Treasury yields continued to retreat, while investors awaited minutes from the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting and fresh inflation data.

Global PC shipments were down 9% year over year in the third quarter, according to Gartner, marking the eight consecutive quarter of decline. While the PC industry was riding high during the first 18 months of the pandemic as consumers and businesses snapped up new laptops, eleva

Any company with even a moderately complex cloud-based IT infrastructure is going to run into problems if it doesn't have some sort of "glue" that holds everything together. Apache Kafka, a popular piece of open-source event streaming software, is often used as that glue. Kafka e

The iShares S&P 100 ETF (OEF) was launched on 10/23/2000, and is a passively managed exchange traded fund designed to offer broad exposure to the Large Cap Blend segment of the US equity market.

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

A trillion dollars isn't as insurmountable a market cap goal as it used to be.

U.S. stock index futures ticked higher on Wednesday as Treasury yields retreated, while investors awaited minutes from the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting and more economic data.

Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW) was one of the hottest tech IPOs of 2020. The cloud-based data warehousing company went public at $120, started trading at $245 per share, and eventually rallied to a record high of $401.89 on Nov. 16, 2021.

When examined over extended periods, Wall Street is a wealth-building machine. But over shorter timelines, the stock market is far less predictable. Since this decade began, all three major indexes have vacillated between bear and bull markets.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has been a company to watch this year, with its e-commerce business rebounding from a disastrous 2022 and an increasing position in artificial intelligence (AI). The retail giant's stock has risen some 55% since Jan. 1, as Wall Street has grown increasingly

The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF ( NYSEARCA:RSP) offers investors equally weighted exposure to the S&P 500 ( SPX ) index. In other words, it's not overly concentrated in one particular sector or stock. Why is this something investors might be interested in? Let’s find out.  What is an Equal-Weight S&P 500 ETF? RSP can be thought of as an alternative way to invest in the S&P 500, the index that tracks the performance of 500 of the largest publicly-listed companies in the United States and, in many ways, serves as a proxy for the U.S. stock market as a whole.  Most ETFs that track an index like the S&P 500 are weighted by market cap, meaning that stocks with large market valuations like Apple ( NASDAQ:AAPL ) or Microsoft ( NASDAQ:MSFT ) will account for a higher percentage of the fund’s holdings compared to stocks with lower market caps. These stocks will thus command outsized influence on the results of the fund. Conversely, RSP uses an equal-weight strategy for the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, meaning that it invests the same amount in each stock and rebalances on a quarterly basis. Because of this process, no individual stock has a disproportionate or overwhelming influence on the overall results of the fund.   Why Go Equal Weight? While investing in a typical S&P 500 fund offers investors decent diversification, as this type of ETF owns 500 stocks, these ETFs are not as diversified as they might appear on the surface, given the high concentration they have in their top holdings. For example, the largest S&P 500 ETF, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust ( NYSEARCA:SPY) , owns 504 stocks, but SPY's top 10 holdings make up nearly one-third of assets. This is because mega-cap tech stocks like Apple and Microsoft account for large positions in this market-weighted fund, given their immense market caps.  Below, you can take a look at SPY’s top 10 holdings, which account for 31.4% of the fund. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as these stocks have been strong performers this year, but it does leave investors with more concentration risk and more exposure to just a handful of stocks. Conversely, because they all start with a weighting of 0.2% each quarter, RSP’s top 10 holdings make up just a minuscule 2.3% of the fund. This shields investors from concentration risk and gives them more exposure to smaller components of the S&P 500, which can otherwise be crowded out by the mega-cap tech stocks in market-weighted S&P 500 ETFs. Below, you can take a look at RSP’s top 10 holdings. Furthermore, if Apple, Microsoft, or big tech as a whole experience a pullback, this will have more of a pronounced effect on SPY than it will on RSP, where these stocks are weighted equally with every other stock in the S&P 500.  A lot has been written of the fact that the "Magnificent Seven" stocks like Apple, Microsoft, and their fellow mega-cap tech peers have driven much of the market’s gains this year. For example, Apple is up 41.9% year-to-date, Microsoft is up 36.6% year-to-date, and Nvidia ( NASDAQ:NVDA ) is up an incredible 219.7% in 2023. Because of this, some analysts and observers feel that these mega-cap tech stocks are due for a pullback after the tremendous runs they have enjoyed in 2023.  At the very least, there could be some reversion to the mean as other stocks catch up with the market’s current leaders, so an equal-weighted fund like RSP could be the right type of ETF to own in the current climate.  Performance Comparison As you might guess, RSP has underperformed the S&P 500 so far this year (with a total return of 1.3% versus 14.8% for the S&P 500), given that by design, it doesn’t have as much exposure to the Magnificent Seven stocks that have done much of the heavy lifting for the market this year.  However, RSP has still put up a solid return, and when you zoom out beyond the past year, there is much less of a disparity. For example, over the past three years (as of the end of September), RSP has actually outperformed the S&P 500 with a total return of 11.5% versus a total return of 10.2% for the S&P 500 Index.  RSP has slightly underperformed the S&P 500 over the past five and 10 years, with annualized five- and 10-year returns of 8.0% and 10.2%, respectively, versus annualized returns of 9.9% and 11.9% for the S&P 500 over the same respective time frames. So, RSP has outperformed the S&P 500 over the past three years, and while it has underperformed it slightly over the past five and 10 years, it could be well-positioned against the market-weighted index in a market environment where the mega-cap tech stocks revert to the mean.  Is RSP Stock a Buy, According to Analysts? Turning to Wall Street, RSP earns a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 403 Buys, 93 Holds, and eight Sell ratings assigned in the past three months. The average RSP stock price target of $169.82 implies 19.5% upside potential. Reasonable Expense Ratio Additionally, RSP is a cost-effective option for investors, with a reasonable expense ratio of 0.20%. This means that an investor allocating $10,000 into the ETF would pay $20 in fees during their first year of investing in the fund. Assuming that the expense ratio remains at 0.20% and that the fund returns 5% per year going forward, this investor would pay $255 in fees over the course of a 10-year investment.  The Takeaway Investing in RSP gives investors many of the same benefits that they get from investing in the S&P 500 -- exposure to over 500 of the United States’ best and brightest companies. However, it does so with much less concentration risk than the typical market-weighted S&P 500 fund, as it isn’t dominated by the big tech stocks like these funds are. I view RSP as an interesting and sensible ETF that can allow investors to gain exposure to the S&P 500 while hedging against the risk of a reversion to the mean of the market’s big year-to-date winners.  Disclosure

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq touched three-week highs on Tuesday as dovish comments from U.S. Federal Reserve officials pushed Treasury yields lower, while investors kept a close eye on the latest developments amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.

EU industry chief Thierry Breton will likely set out a strategy next year requiring Big Tech to help fund the rollout of 5G and broadband across Europe, leaving it to the next European Commission to decide whether to adopt legislation, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.