Missing person: Police seeking public assistance to find Jaiden Liegh Grantham who could help with probe
Missing person: Police seeking public assistance to find Jaiden Liegh Grantham who could help with probe
WA Police are seeking help from the public to locate a 30-year-old man they believe can assist in an ongoing investigation.
Jaiden Liegh Grantham has been described as being 165cm tall, of medium build, with brown hair and blue eyes.
If found, members of the public have been advised not to approach Mr Grantham but to contact police immediately on 131 444.
Anyone with information has been asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 00 or file a report here.
Camera IconJaiden Liegh Grantham. Credit: WA police
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Tesla: 2 Reasons to Buy, 1 Reason to Run
Tesla: 2 Reasons to Buy, 1 Reason to Run
Tesla (NASDAQ:) has had a wild ride over the past few months. In the weeks following Trump’s election victory, the stock soared 130%, reaching an all-time high in December before momentum stalled. Since then, shares have fallen more than 25%, with investors taking profits and shifting to a more cautious stance.
While Tesla’s recent earnings report didn’t help sentiment, the pullback may be setting up a compelling buying opportunity. With bullish analysts calling for 45% upside, momentum swinging from the bears, and technicals improving, there are two strong reasons to buy, but also one big reason to stay on the sidelines.
Reason #1 to Buy: The Sell-Off Looks Overdone
Tesla’s January earnings report wasn’t pretty. Both headline figures missed estimates, and revenue growth was a disappointing 2% year over year. Given the stock’s massive rally in the months prior, this was enough to trigger a sharp sell-off as investors rushed to take profits.
But the market may have overreacted. Despite missing expectations, Tesla still posted record revenue, showing that demand remains strong. Additionally, much of the disappointment is now fully priced in; shares have fallen more than 25% since earnings, creating an opportunity for long-term investors who still believe in Tesla’s growth story.
Momentum also appears to be shifting back in Tesla’s favor. The RSI sits at 43 and is trending up, indicating that the stock is moving out of oversold levels. The recent downtrend could be nearing an inflection point for buyers thinking of stepping in at these levels.
Reason #2 to Buy: Analysts See Big Upside
Despite the post-earnings sell-off, analysts remain mostly optimistic. Just last week, Benchmark reaffirmed its Buy rating and issued a $475 price target. That echoed similar bullish calls from Stifel Nicolaus and Mizuho, which also reiterated their Buy ratings earlier this month.
The price targets from the latter went as high as $515, suggesting a potential 45% upside from Wednesday’s closing price.
Analysts point to Tesla’s long-term dominance in EVs and energy storage as reasons to stay bullish, even as near-term growth slows.
With their sentiment remaining very much in Tesla’s favor, you can’t help but feel the recent pullback could be a great entry point before the next move higher.
1 Reason to Run: Growth Concerns Are Real
The biggest reason to avoid Tesla right now is slowing revenue growth. A 2% year-over-year increase is a far cry from the double-digit expansion investors are used to seeing. If Tesla can’t reaccelerate growth in the coming quarters, it will be difficult to justify the stock holding onto last year’s massive gains.
This risk has already been reflected in some bearish analyst calls. Needham & Company recently rated Tesla a Hold, and UBS Group went even further, issuing a Sell rating after January’s earnings report. Their hesitation suggests that not all of Wall Street is convinced Tesla will be able to regain its growth momentum anytime soon.
Why This Might Be the Perfect Entry Point
With Tesla now trading 25% off its highs, the risk-reward setup is looking more attractive. The RSI at 43 indicates that selling pressure is fading, while bullish analyst targets suggest that there’s significant room for upside. If momentum continues to shift and buyers step in, Tesla could be setting up for a strong recovery rally. But the next earnings report will be critical – if growth doesn’t improve, investors could see another wave of selling pressure.
Final Thoughts
Tesla’s post-earnings decline has created a major buying opportunity, but only for investors who believe in the Company’s long-term growth potential. The stock is up 10% in the past week, analyst targets suggest a lot more upside remains, and technicals indicate a possible rebound has started.
However, growth concerns remain the biggest risk. If Tesla can’t deliver a strong earnings rebound, the stock may struggle to hold onto its 2023 gains.
This could be a great entry point for those willing to bet on a turnaround. But for more cautious investors, it may be worth waiting until Tesla proves it can reignite growth.
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Ford’s Farley believes he knows how to beat the ******** on EVs. Wall Street’s reaction.
Ford’s Farley believes he knows how to beat the ******** on EVs. Wall Street’s reaction.
Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley sees the automaker as in a race against ******** manufacturers to make affordable, yet profitable, electric vehicles. Farley says that the key to winning is to downsize the vehicles and the price.
That might sound obvious, but it is also counterintuitive, given that the automaker’s first all-electric vehicle in recent years was the F-150 Lightning pickup. Also, Ford’s bread-and-butter moneymakers are the F-Series gasoline and hybrid pickups.
But Ford’s restructuring of its EV investments and strategy has become a repetitive mantra for Farley in recent weeks, as he tells Wall Street analysts the automaker is in good shape to develop a variety of vehicles and propulsion systems to meet customers’ range requirements and wallets. Most importantly, Ford is positioned to better compete against the ******** EV giants, especially BYD, which is known for high-quality, yet affordable, EVs. Those cars are currently barred from the U.S.
“We think that our battery strategy is more fit than our competitors,” Farley said at a Wall Street conference recently. “And we have understood BYDs through teardowns and future knowledge from the supply chain.”
While Ford deserves credit for tweaking its EV strategy to focus on smaller, more affordable EVs, some industry experts said all of the Detroit automakers should have recognized sooner that developing cheaper battery technology on smaller vehicles was the right way to gain widespread EV adoption in the United States.
“If anything, Ford was way too aggressive in capacitizing for more expensive vehicles and late to recognize that it needed the Skunkworks,” Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of Market Research at Telemetry Insights said.
Skunkworks is the team of engineers that Ford put together in California to develop a low-cost EV platform.
“Even Tesla was early in recognizing the need to take cost out of its EVs, and while affordability remains challenging with Teslas, they have found a path to profitability, something few automakers globally have achieved with EVs,” Abuelsamid said.
In its EV fleet, Ford currently sells the Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning and E-Transit van. The company remains on target to launch a new, smaller EV, likely a midsize pickup, in 2027. It is expected to be priced below $30,000. In the fourth quarter, Ford’s sales of 30,176 EVs in the states rose 16% from the year-ago *******. For the full year, Ford sold 97,865 EVs, up 35% from 2023.
Farley told Wall Street to expect more news this year around Ford’s EV investment strategy and that one thing is certain: Exorbitantly priced EVs will not yield high sales volume or profits, so don’t expect to see them come from Ford, he said.
“For larger retail electric utilities, the economics are unresolvable,” Farley said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call with analysts earlier this month. “These customers have very demanding use cases for electric vehicles: They tow, they go off-road, they take long road trips. These vehicles have worse aerodynamics and they’re very heavy, which means very large and expensive batteries.”
Farley said retail customers have shown that they will not pay a premium for these large EVs, making them “a really tough business case given the expense of the batteries.” He told Wall Street that some of Ford’s competitors are continuing to bring expensive EVs to the market “that are not going to work.”
While he did not name those competitors, General Motors has launched newer EVs that include the GMC Hummer pickup and SUV, both starting at about $96,500 and the Silverado EV starting at $73,100. GM also offers the more affordable Chevrolet Equinox EV starting at $35,000.
Jim Farley, president and chief executive officer of Ford, talks with the media after Ford kicks off the 2025 Detroit Auto Show with a reveal at Huntington Place in Detroit, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025.
Farley said Ford will make more profits from its larger vehicles if they are extended-range electric vehicles — which means they combine an electric motor with a small internal combustion engine — where “one tank of gas gets over 700 miles of range, but still drives most miles all-electric,” Farley said.
The “sweet spot” that has emerged for EVs, Farley said, are small and medium-size pickups and SUVs. They are good daily commuters and, because they require smaller, much lower-cost batteries, they can be priced reasonably.
Farley told investors at Wolfe Research Auto, Auto Tech and Semiconductor Conference held in New York earlier this month that Ford is in “good shape” after restructuring its EV investment strategy. That’s even after the automaker lost about $5.1 billion on its EVs last year.
In 2022, Ford established Skunkworks, where Farley said, “My badge does not work in that building,” alluding to the top-secret development happening there. He said Ford hired a whole new team in California, with many from competitive all-EV brands.
“They have developed a platform that we think is fully competitive with BYD,” Farley said.
Farley said creating Skunkworks proved to be effective from a cost standpoint. The automaker has developed a new platform at about a third of the cost than had Ford done it in-house.
“That will give us a huge benefit, because we believe that EV demand is still out there, that there is a very underserved group of people on the super affordable,” Farley said. “But these very large EVs that cost $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, we don’t believe in. We think (extended-range electric vehicle) or hybrid is a much better, more profitable investment in our capital.”
For that reason, Ford canceled plans last August to develop an all-electric three-row SUV. The high costs of producing a large battery for it would require a high-price tag on it and likely little, if any, profit margin.
“We learned quickly,” Farley said at Wolfe. “We adjusted our capital spending in line with where we think the market is going.”
Farley did not address the fate of the F-150 Lightning in any of his recent comments to Wall Street. But the EV is a big pickup that starts at $47,780, which would not fit his expressed vision for Ford’s EV future. A Ford spokesman did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on the Lightning’s future.
But industry follower and host of the podcast and webcast “Autoline After Hours,” John McElroy, told the Free Press that he thinks the Lightning, in its current form, is likely to go away.
“Ford will almost certainly let the current Lightning fade away when it comes to the end of its product cycle,” McElroy said. “Though it’s a good truck, it never sold very well, mainly because it couldn’t carry heavy loads or tow for long distances. It will probably be replaced by an electric truck with a range-extender gasoline engine. And we’ll see if Ford decides to use the Lightning name on that.”
For all of last year, Ford sold 33,510 Lightning trucks, a 39% increase from 2023 sales.
Ford spokesman Ian Thibodeau said the Lightning remains an important part of Ford’s lineup.
“Lightning sales grew last year — and we continue to learn a lot about the evolving electric vehicle market by having been in the game early with a full-size electric pickup truck,” Thibodeau said.
He added that Farley was referring to the need for better efficiency in ******* batteries, which will come as the technology evolves. Also, Farley believes in the importance of growing the EV market more rapidly through the introduction of more affordable vehicles, Thibodeau said.
Overall, U.S. automakers face a serious challenge to catch up to ******** automakers that have the benefit of government support not just encouraging the technology but almost mandating it, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of Global Vehicle Forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions LLC.
Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, raises questions about the future of the Ford Edge built at the Oakville Assembly Plant in Ontario, Canada. This photo was taken in March 2019.
“By building an industry around battery electric vehicles, China positions its companies as global market leaders rather than having to find openings in the global (gasoline-powered) vehicle market or by establishing their brands as low-cost, entry-level offerings, Fiorani said. “Brands like MG and BYD are carving out their own niche in many markets and will be well-positioned as buyers find they can live with EVs.”
China automakers’ head start will snowball because they can put revenue back into research and development to make better batteries, which keeps them ahead of the profit-focused automakers in Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea, Fiorani said.
“Unless there’s a huge shake-up among the ******** automakers, this lead isn’t going to diminish,” Fiorani said.
It should come as no surprise that smaller, less expensive EVs make sense, Abuelsamid said. For that reason, he stops short of giving Ford too much credit for refocusing its strategy, saying it’s what Ford and its Detroit counterparts should have done all along.
“All you have to do is look at China and Europe where those form factors are thriving as EVs,” Abuelsamid said. “Unfortunately, for Ford and the rest of the U.S. industry, they have become so utterly dependent on large trucks and utilities they overcommitted to electrifying those segments and put way too much resource there.”
Abuelsamid concedes that GM did have affordable EVs as part of its plan from the beginning with the Chevrolet Bolt and, later, the Equinox. CEO Mary Barra has said offering an EV at under $30,000 was the key to widespread EV adoption. The Equinox EV was supposed to start at under $30,000. Unfortunately, it got more expensive when battery material costs spiked in 2022, Abuelsamid said.
But the Chevrolet Bolt was available starting at about $27,000 in its last two years of production before GM halted it at the end of 2023. The new Bolt, due out this year, is supposed to start at under $30,000.
For Ford and GM, the move to EVs was initially an opening to transform the legacy car companies into technology companies, Fiorani said. He said the companies knew that years of undervalued stock prices were not going to be turned around by simply making a faster Corvette in GM’s case, or a more capable F-150 in Ford’s case. But the stock could be improved if the carmakers morph into modern technology firms by engineering EVs. There was just one problem, he said,
“GM’s ‘all-in’ approach was a bit too premature for the public and Ford’s direction to appeal to established nameplates like Mustang and F-Series was a good first step, if only people were ready in huge volumes,” Fiorani said. “Both automakers saw the need to appeal to everyday buyers with the Chevrolet Bolt and Ford’s Skunkworks vehicles, however, that also anticipated millions of buyers looking for an EV but only turned off by price.”
Fiorani said the widespread volume of EV buyers is years away, and until then, automakers should be offering “lower-cost models that use gas, mostly because that’s what they know and appreciate.”
Abuelsamid said Ford, GM, Stellantis, Rivian and Tesla should have paid more attention to what was happening in China with vehicle sizes and battery technology. For example, lithium iron phosphate — a type of lithium-ion battery that uses iron phosphate instead of cobalt and nickel and is cheap to produce — and extended-range electric vehicles were both created in the United States, he said. But Abuelsamid said U.S. automakers largely ignored them instead of developing the technologies.
“For full-size pickups, the emphasis should have always been on the commercial sector where 300-plus mile ranges just aren’t needed,” Abuelsamid said. “The focus should have been on products like the Lightning Pro and they should have launched from job one with cheaper lithium iron phosphate batteries to keep the cost down where it was originally promised.”
The commercial use of all-electric pickups offers big cost savings in both fuel and service. But for consumer vehicles, all-electric pickups do not make sense because of towing expectations, which severely hinder range, Abuelsamid said.
“On the other hand, the GM approach of a ridiculously large battery gets the range, but the cost and weight are just too high to be a viable product,” Abuelsamid said.
According to Chevrolet’s website, the 2025 Silverado EV can tow up to 12,500 pounds and it gets an estimated 460 miles of range, but its starting price is $73,100.
GM spokesman Shane Levy sent a statement in response to the idea that GM’s batteries are large and costly. He noted the results from GM’s fourth-quarter U.S. sales in which EV sales soared 125% for the quarter to 43,982 EVs sold compared with the year-ago *******, roughly doubling GM’s market share over the course of the year.
“GM’s battery platform is powering the most diverse portfolio of EVs on the road today, including the segment range-leader Chevrolet Silverado EV which has an EPA-estimated 492 miles of range,” the statement read. “With our diverse portfolio, we continue to innovate on our battery technology to deliver even greater choice to customers — aligning performance, cost, and range with customer needs.”
More: Ford introduces new features to its security app to prevent theft of F-150 pickups
Stellantis actually had the right solution with an extended-range electric truck, Abuelsamid said, and should have planned to launch that first. In January, Stellantis canceled its long-range version of the RAM 1500 REV electric pickup and delayed the launch of the all-electric model to 2026 so that it can instead focus on the Ram 1500 Ramcharger, which will use both gas and electric power.
Abuelsamid said Stellantis announced plans at its investor day last year for a Jeep EV, to be priced starting below $30,000, due to market next year.
Then there’s Hyundai Motor Group, which has also offered a much wider array of EV models in the United States than any other automaker.
“While Ford likes to tout being the No. 2 brand, it only sells EVs under the Ford brand (no Lincolns) while Hyundai has three brands and sold about 26% more EVs than Ford in 2024 and 2023,” Abuelsamid said. “The Hyundai Kona EV starts at $32,000 and offers up to 260 miles of range while the range spans up to the three-row SUV Kia EV9 and the upcoming Hyundai Ioniq 9.”
Abuelsamid said because the domestic industry has put so much emphasis on selling large pickups and SUVs, “they painted themselves into a corner” and tried to convince consumers that they don’t want smaller vehicles.
“The marketers also put too much emphasis on range, so they had to commit to using nickel-rich cell chemistries that increase costs compared to the lithium iron phosphate batteries that are dominant in China and growing in popularity in Europe,” Abuelsamid said. “The reality is the commitment to building expensive premium EVs was a huge product planning mistake.”
Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of Market Research at Telemetry Insights, speaks during the Wards Auto User Experience Conference at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.
He said there was never going to be enough demand for $100,000 EVs to justify the capacity the automakers wanted to build.
“GM’s target of 400,000 electric trucks and Ford’s expansion of the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center to 150,000 capacity along with BlueOval City was never likely to pay off,” Abuelsamid said. “Now they may have a harder time selling smaller EVs to American consumers.”
More: Ford cuts stock middle manager stock bonuses; bosses told to pick who gets them
Ford builds the F-150 Lightning at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn. For 2024, the 33,510 Lightnings sold was nowhere near the 150,000 capacity. Ford’s BlueOval City is a 4,100-acre campus under construction in Tennessee to make batteries, electric trucks and other EVs.
If the industry had invested in a charging infrastructure, smaller EVs, cheaper lithium ion phosphate batteries and extended-range electric vehicles, Abuelsamid said, EV adoption would be further along.
At the Wolfe conference, Farley assured investors that Ford is “doubling our EV volume this year.”
“We still have a vibrant business in Europe, the Puma electrics coming out,” Farley said. “We’re going to go from 100,000 to 250,000 to 260,000 EV (production). So we have a lot of growth, but it’s not in America so it’s not as obvious to investors.”
He said the innovation at Skunkworks is to design a vehicle for “manufacturability.” That means to have the “simplest, smallest footprint in a plant with the lowest labor content and that drives a lot of complexity reduction,” he said.
All in all, Wall Street was pleased with Farley’s message, saying at least “there’s a pilot on the plane navigating,” Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities, told the Free Press.
“Ford was late to game with the rest of the crowd, but has been ahead of it with its 2027 strategy plans with a smaller, cheaper EV,” Ives said. “Farley is trying to get his arms around the EV strategy, but we believe heading in the right direction with all the changing headwinds in the Beltway.”
Jamie L. LaReau is the senior autos writer who covers Ford Motor Co. for the Detroit Free Press. Contact Jamie at *****@*****.tld. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. To sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ford’s Farley believes he has a plan to compete against ******** on EVs
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Amazon Boss Jeff Bezos Asks Who Fans Would Pick as the Next James Bond, and the Answer Is Loud and Clear – IGN
Amazon Boss Jeff Bezos Asks Who Fans Would Pick as the Next James Bond, and the Answer Is Loud and Clear – IGN
Amazon Boss Jeff Bezos Asks Who Fans Would Pick as the Next James Bond, and the Answer Is Loud and Clear IGNJames Bond Shocker: Amazon MGM Gains Creative Control of 007 Franchise as Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson Step Back VarietyJeff Bezos asks fans who they’d ‘pick as the next Bond’ as Amazon takes control of the franchise Yahoo EntertainmentAmazon Gains Creative Control Over the James Bond Franchise The New York Times
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IRS cutting 6,000 jobs: Impact of tax filing, audits and collection enforcement
IRS cutting 6,000 jobs: Impact of tax filing, audits and collection enforcement
CNBC’s Robert Frank joins ‘Squawk Box’ to report on the latest news.
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Despite Being a Sandbox Builder Mojang’s Touch of Realism Is What Makes Minecraft So Unique
Despite Being a Sandbox Builder Mojang’s Touch of Realism Is What Makes Minecraft So Unique
Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time. It is a sandbox survival where you build your own world in the virtually infinite terrain made up of voxels. However, the graphics are nothing special (unless you use some sort of high-end shader), far from the ultra-realistic games’ visuals these days.
Minecraft was released in 2011. | Credit: Mojang Studios.
Then why are fans so much in love with this title? Why are nearly 170 million monthly active players playing the game? Actually, there are many reasons for this, but the most viable factor for this immense success of the game has to be its touch of realism in the gameplay. Yes, the visuals might be cartoonish but the in-game objects are so close to the real-life aspects. And this is what makes this title a world-beater.
The pickaxe race that defined realism in Minecraft
The golden pickaxe is the worst in terms of durability. | Credit: Mojang Studios.
There has been a five-year-old video that has been surfacing a lot on the internet. This video actually compared the durability of various pickaxes in Minecraft, made from different in-game materials. It is actually a race of the pickaxes on which one can cut through the rally of voxels and make it through the finish line the earliest.
There were a total of 6 types of pickaxes, made from wood, stone, iron, gold, diamond, and netherite. Now, the astonishing part is that all of those pickaxes actually had varying durability. For example, the golden pickaxe quickly took the spotlight it had the fastest digging rate, but just like gold in real life, it had low durability and broke down pretty quickly upon use.
This was a real-life demonstration of how gold works—fast but less durable. Similarly, wood and stone were seen to be more durable than gold but they were slow, even though you could mine more blocks with them.
Ultimately the race of longevity was won by the netherite pickaxe, followed by the diamond one. Netherite might not be a real-life material, but the diamond’s longevity in the race shows how close Minecraft is to realism.
Minecraft player creates highly realistic glacier in the game
Minecraft is not so far from the real world. | Credit: Mojang Studios.
A very dedicated Minecraft player built some incredibly realistic fjords and glaciers in their enormous in-game world, which appeared to be modeled after actual places where they were raised. In addition to being extremely detailed considering the constraints imposed by Minecraft and its blocky aesthetics, the build is enormous in scale, spanning thousands of blocks.
When this user, octavian_world, posted multiple pictures of their elaborate fjord and glacier creations in Minecraft to the official subreddit, other players showered them with praise. The user claims that the build is largely inspired by the Pacific Northwest in real life, particularly Southern Alaska and British Columbia in Canada, which is where they are said to be from.
So, you see, no matter how unrealistic and cartoonish Minecraft looks, you can always extract incredible realism from the game. And those small voxels are the building blocks of every realistic aspect of the game.
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Why Cadre Holdings, Inc. (CDRE) Is Skyrocketing So Far In 2025
Why Cadre Holdings, Inc. (CDRE) Is Skyrocketing So Far In 2025
We recently published an article titled Why These 15 Defense Stocks Are Skyrocketing So Far In 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Cadre Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CDRE) stands against the other defense stocks.
A Republican administration usually points to a good time for defense stocks and the military-industrial complex as a whole. However, the Trump administration has taken a surprising departure from the traditional Republican stance of advocating for ever-increasing military budgets. Instead, Trump has introduced significant shifts in priorities. His administration has pushed for budget cuts at the Pentagon.
Trump wants to cut defense spending by 8% and re-allocate that toward border security and nuclear modernization instead of traditional military programs. The proposed cut would amount to approximately $50 billion in cuts each year and would total around $300 billion in reduced spending by fiscal 2030.
However, that’s unlikely to happen as both Democrats and Republicans in Congress haven’t been cooperating. Similar attempts previously didn’t get through. Regardless, many defense and aerospace companies have been posting great numbers and the stock market has rewarded them accordingly. It’s a good idea to look into the ones investors are piling into this year, as they could also be the winners of the Trump era.
For this article, I screened the top-performing defense stocks year-to-date. Stocks that I have covered recently will be excluded from this list.
I will also mention the number of hedge fund investors in these stocks. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds invest in? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points. (see more details here).
A U.S. Marine in full body armor standing in formation in a parade.
Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q4 2024: 12
Cadre Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CDRE) makes safety equipment for law enforcement, first responders, and for military uses.
The stock is up significantly so far in 2025 as it announced an agreement to acquire Carr’s Group’s Engineering Division for £75 million in cash, which includes multiple nuclear brands. This division generated £51 million in revenue for fiscal year 2024. The acquisition will expand Cadre’s nuclear safety presence.
Story Continues
Furthermore, Cadre Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CDRE) announced a 9% increase in its quarterly dividend to $0.095 per share and raised its annual dividend from $0.35 to $0.38 per share. It also received $590 million in new credit facilities.
The consensus price target of $39.67 implies 13.65% upside.
Cadre Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CDRE) stock is up 9.16% year-to-date.
Overall CDRE ranks 12th on our list of the defense stocks that are skyrocketing so far in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of CDRE as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CDRE but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: Why These 15 Data Center Stocks Are Skyrocketing So Far In 2025 and Why These 15 Transportation Stocks Are Skyrocketing So Far in 2025
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
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Planes diverted as China conducts rare military drill near Australia – BBC.com
Planes diverted as China conducts rare military drill near Australia – BBC.com
Planes diverted as China conducts rare military drill near Australia BBC.comChinese Navy Drills in Tasman Sea Unnerve Australia and New Zealand The New York TimesFlights diverted off Australia as ******** navy conducts ‘show of force’ The Washington Post
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Woman charged with stalking Madeleine McCann’s family
Woman charged with stalking Madeleine McCann’s family
A woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann has been charged with four counts of stalking the missing girl’s family.
Julia Wandel, also known as Julia Wandelt, was arrested at Bristol Airport on Wednesday on suspicion of stalking involving serious alarm and distress.
Ms Wandel, who is originally from Poland, is due to appear at Leicester Magistrates’ Court later.
Court documents state Ms Wandel is alleged to have sent messages, left voicemails and turned up at the family home between 3 January 2024 and 15 May 2025.
The charges state the alleged context “had a substantial adverse effect” on the family’s day-to-day activities “when you knew or ought to have known that your course of conduct would cause alarm or distress”.
Madeleine McCann’s disappearance at the age of three in Portugal in 2007 is one of the most widely reported missing child cases in history and remains unsolved.
The 23-year-old claimed to be missing Madeleine McCann in an Instagram post in 2023, saying she has “gaps in her memory” of childhood after suffering abuse.
However the claim was contradicted in a DNA test in 2023, which revealed she was from Poland, with some Lithuanian and Romanian heritage.
A 60-year-old woman from Wales, who was also arrested alongside Ms Wandel on suspicion of stalking, has been released on bail, Leicestershire Police added.
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Nothing concrete on Trump-Putin meeting, Kremlin says
Nothing concrete on Trump-Putin meeting, Kremlin says
The Kremlin says there is a mutual understanding about the need for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, but that the details of such an encounter had yet to be worked out.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the two sides agreed at talks in Riyadh this week – their first on how to end the Ukraine war before more formal negotiations – that the two leaders should meet, but “there are no specifics yet.”
He noted that both men had said they were keen to talk in person.
“There is a desire of the two presidents, which they expressed, and there is also an instruction to prepare this meeting well so that it will be as productive as possible. It is during the preparation that all the nuances will be discussed,” Peskov said.
Trump said after the Saudi meeting on Tuesday that he would probably meet Putin before the end of the month.
Putin said on Wednesday the meeting needed to be carefully prepared in order to achieve results.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said a Putin-Trump meeting would largely depend on whether progress could be made on ending the war, and Trump wanted to know if Putin was serious about that.
Peskov restated that Putin was open to negotiating a settlement to the conflict.
“We have our goals, connected with our national security, with our national interests, and we are ready to achieve this goals by means of peace talks,” he said.
He denied a Financial Times report that Russia, at the talks in Saudi Arabia, had demanded the withdrawal of NATO forces from eastern Europe – something it sought in negotiations with the United States in the months before the start of the war, whose third anniversary falls on Monday.
Asked about that milestone, Peskov said it was too early to sum up the results of what Moscow calls its special military operation.
“The special military operation continues. All the goals set by the head of state and the supreme commander-in-chief must be achieved,” he said.
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New Farm Fertilizer Could Remove CO2 from Air, Improve Soil Quality
New Farm Fertilizer Could Remove CO2 from Air, Improve Soil Quality
A potential method to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere has been identified, involving a material that could be used in agriculture. This approach utilises specific minerals to accelerate the natural process of carbon mineralisation, a method that could significantly impact carbon removal efforts. Research suggests that by modifying certain minerals, CO2 can be absorbed and locked into stable compounds much faster than traditional methods, potentially sequestering billions of tons annually. Scientists believe this innovation could complement existing climate mitigation strategies while benefiting agricultural practices.
Study Identifies Faster Carbon Capture Process
According to a study published in Nature, researchers have found that calcium silicates react with CO2 more efficiently than the traditionally used magnesium silicates. This reaction speed makes them a promising option for large-scale CO2 removal. The study, led by Stanford University chemist Matthew Kanan and postdoctoral researcher Yuxuan Chen, suggests that integrating these materials into agricultural soils could provide a dual benefit—enhancing soil quality while removing atmospheric CO2.
Mineral Conversion Could Enhance Efficiency
A method was developed to produce calcium silicates by heating a mixture of calcium oxide (CaO) and magnesium silicates at high temperatures. This process, which facilitates a mineral exchange, resulted in a material that binds CO2 thousands of times faster than natural weathering. Speaking to Science, Kanan noted that while magnesium silicates are abundant, calcium silicates are less available and require processing. The study outlines a technique to produce CaO from limestone, though capturing emissions from this process remains a challenge.
Practical Implications for Agriculture
Farmers currently use calcium carbonate to reduce soil acidity, applying about a billion tons annually. Replacing it with calcium silicate and magnesium oxide could serve the same purpose while also capturing CO2. Field trials have been initiated in Louisiana and New Jersey to assess potential impacts on soil health. According to reports, concerns regarding impurities in the minerals, such as trace metals, are being examined before large-scale implementation.
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James Carville Hits Hannity With Searing Fact Check On Live TV
James Carville Hits Hannity With Searing Fact Check On Live TV
James Carville took to Fox News on Thursday where he pushed back against host Sean Hannity in a debate on cost-cutting efforts under President Donald Trump.
Hannity, in a live interview with the longtime Democratic strategist, declared that he was scrolling through “all the waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal government as an on-screen graphic touted “accomplishments” by the Trump administration’s nonofficial Department of Government Efficiency.
Carville then swerved away from the host’s question to call out a separate graphic on “questionable spending” at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has a budget of about $40 billion compared to the $6.8 trillion federal budget.
“I did the math, Sean, it actually comes to something like .014%,” Carville said.
He continued, “So take the $41 billion, put it against the $6 trillion and see what you’ve done when your president is responsible for more federal debt than any president in the history of the United States.”
The national debt — under Trump’s first term in office — grew by $7.8 trillion, the largest four-year increase in history, The Washington Post found last year.
Earlier in the interview, Hannity declared that the Democratic Party is for “tens of billions spent abroad for a Green New Deal, DEI woke agenda and transgenderism” as he asked Carville what happened since President Bill Clintonbalanced the budget during his White House stint.
“Well, we got to get that $100 million for condoms for ******,” said Carville, who mocked the president’s debunked claim.
Hannity, toward the end of the interview, claimed that Trump made America “energy independent” for the first time in 75 years, adding that Democrats have been “fighting against that” with electric vehicle mandates.
“I think you need a new playbook, I really do,” Hannity said.
“I’m not too worried about the high school track meet,” replied Carville, referring to Hannity’s earlier remarks on transgender athletes in sports.
“But I am worried about people having affordable healthcare and that’s the difference between our two parties.”
Related…
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Beyond Blue: After The Storm Review (Meta) – Shallow Waters | Finger Guns
Beyond Blue: After The Storm Review (Meta) – Shallow Waters | Finger Guns
Sean @ FG: A new perspective takes Beyond Blue to new shores, but After the Storm cant quite hit the depths of its predecessor. The Finger Guns Review.
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YouTube Premium Lite Plan With Limited Ads Said to Launch Soon in Four Countries
YouTube Premium Lite Plan With Limited Ads Said to Launch Soon in Four Countries
YouTube is preparing to launch a cheaper version of its ad-free YouTube Premium subscription that could offer users access to video streaming with advertisements on some types of content, according to a report. The new plan could be called YouTube Premium Lite, and is expected to be introduced in four countries after being tested for several months. The Alphabet-owned video and music streaming platform has yet to announce plans to roll out a cheaper YouTube Premium plan, or how much it could cost.
YouTube Premium Lite Subscribers Could See Ads in Music Videos
Citing a person familiar with YouTube’s plans, Bloomberg reports that the firm is planning a cheaper version of YouTube Premium that will soon be launched in Australia, Germany, Thailand, and the US. The purported ‘YouTube Premium Lite’ subscription is expected to cost less than $13.99 (roughly Rs. 1,200) per month in the US, which is the cost of the company’s ad-free plan.
While there’s no word on how much the YouTube Premium Lite plan might cost, the report states that customers who opt for it will see advertisements while watching music videos on the platform. As a result, users who want to watch other types of videos on the platform might not see ads unless they stream a music video.
According to the report, the new plan could benefit users who rely on YouTube to watch guides or informative videos, but not music videos. These users might not see ads on YouTube, if they avoid listening to music on the streaming platform. However, subscribers who want to view music videos without any advertisements will need to subscribe to YouTube Premium.
An official announcement regarding the launch of the cheaper plans is still awaited, but a company representative effectively confirmed that a new plan with “most videos ad-free” has been in testing in several markets. “As part of our commitment to provide our users with more choice and flexibility, we’ve been testing a new YouTube Premium offering with most videos ad-free in several of our markets,” the spokesperson told Bloomberg.
It’s currently unclear whether (or when) the company also intends to roll out the YouTube Premium Lite to other regions, including India. Currently, YouTube Premium is priced at Rs. 149 per month (a student plan is also available at Rs. 99), while the Premium Family plan costs Rs. 299 a month. Users can also opt for a YouTube Music Premium subscription that is priced at Rs. 119 per month.
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Trump administration ends extension of Haiti’s temporary protected status
Trump administration ends extension of Haiti’s temporary protected status
Haitian migrants get off a plane after U .S. authorities flew them out of a Texas border city where thousands of mostly Haitians had gathered under a bridge after crossing the Rio Grande river from Mexico September 19, 2021.
Ralph Tedy Erol | Reuters
The Trump administration on Thursday canceled an extension of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, the latest move by the president targeting the form of immigration relief for people coming from countries facing political upheaval and natural disasters.
In June, amid the island’s violent domestic turmoil, the Biden administration announced the temporary immigration protection was extended for Haitians until February 2026.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday that it was vacating the extension and the protections would end on Aug. 3.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the decision by the former administration as an attempt to “tie the hands” of President Donald Trump.
“President Trump and I are returning TPS to its original status: temporary,” Noem said in the statement.
Biden extended TPS in June for Haitians who arrived in the U.S. on or before June 3, 2024, to provide humanitarian relief. The small island nation descended into widespread gang violence last year, forcing the former Haitian president to flee the country and resign.
The U.S. previously designated the status for Haitians who arrived in the country before the 2010 earthquake and renewed it as recently as 2022 prior to Biden’s decision.
The DHS said in its statement that by July 2024, an estimated 520,694 Haitians were eligible to register for TPS.
TPS is granted to immigrants in the U.S. who can’t return to their countries because of natural disasters or political upheaval. It does not provide a path to citizenship.
“The Trump administration is ripping stability away from half a million Haitians who have built their lives here — children, workers, parents, and neighbors who have become integral to American communities and contributed to our economy,” Beatriz Lopez, co-executive director of the Immigration Hub, an immigrant advocacy organization, said in a statement. “Deporting people to a country plagued by violence and political turmoil is unconscionable, and stripping them of legal status will only force working families into the shadows, inflicting fear in children and their loved ones and leaving industries like healthcare, construction, and hospitality scrambling for workers.”
“Once again, Trump’s agenda isn’t about security—it’s about cruelty and chaos,” Lopez said.
Haitians who were in the U.S. legally under temporary programs previously told NBC News they lived with anxiety knowing the Trump administration could end the temporary forms of relief from deportation.
At least 5,600 people were killed in gang violence in Haiti in 2024, according to the United Nations. More than 200 people were executed in December in the Cité Soleil commune of Haiti’s capital, the U.N. said.
A report from the U.N. Integrated Office in Haiti said that people were tracked down and taken to a gang stronghold, where they were either shot or killed with machetes. Most victims were elderly and targeted under accusations of “practicing voodoo and causing the gang leader’s child’s illness,” the U.N. said.
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CNBC Daily Open: Alibaba shares jump and Amazon beats Walmart in quarterly revenue – CNBC
CNBC Daily Open: Alibaba shares jump and Amazon beats Walmart in quarterly revenue – CNBC
CNBC Daily Open: Alibaba shares jump and Amazon beats Walmart in quarterly revenue CNBCAlibaba Adds $123 Billion in Value in Stunning Comeback Rally BloombergWatch These Alibaba Price Levels as Stock Jumps to 3-Year High After Earnings InvestopediaZacks Investment Ideas feature highlights: Alibaba, Futu, Baidu, Krane CSI China Internet ETF and JD.com Yahoo FinanceThis ******** AI Bet Has Outperformed Magnificent Seven Names Like Meta and Google This Year Inc.
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Solasta II is a Shiny Sequel | COGconnected
Solasta II is a Shiny Sequel | COGconnected
Solasta II is the sequel to Tactical Adventures’ 2021 TRPG, Solasta: Crown of the Magister, using the 5th Edition D and D ruleset.
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Vivo X200 Ultra Tipped to Feature iPhone Style Action Button, MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ SoC, More
Vivo X200 Ultra Tipped to Feature iPhone Style Action Button, MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ SoC, More
Vivo X200 Ultra is expected to launch soon. While we have already seen several leaks about the specifications of the new Vivo X series phone, a new leak coming out of China suggests that it will get an iPhone-like feature. Vivo is said to employ a triple rear camera unit on the Vivo X200 Ultra comprising a 200-megapixel periscope telephoto sensor. The upcoming high-end Vivo smartphone is said to run on the MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ chipset.
Vivo X200 Ultra Specifications Tipped
Well-known tipster Digital Chat Station posted details about the Vivo X200 Ultra on Weibo. As per the post, the handset will feature a new Action button. This button arranged on the lower part of the right frame is said to be used for taking photos and capturing videos. The Action button is likely to function as a camera button. Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 series feature an Action button that can be used for several functions like turning on DND mode, launching the camera app and more.
Further, the tipster states that the Vivo X200 Ultra will have a triple rear camera setup including a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 200-megapixel periscope telephoto camera. It could also get an improved generation of its self-developed imaging chip.
It is tipped to run on the unannounced MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ chipset. MediaTek is said to launch the new chipset around the launch of the Vivo X200 Ultra.
Previous= leaks claimed that the the Vivo X200 Ultra will be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, paired with up to 24GB LPDDR5X RAM and 2TB UFS 4.0 storage. It is said to get a 6.8-inch 2K LTPO OLED display. It could feature a 50-megapixel front camera for selfies and video chats. It is tipped to come with an IP68/IP69-rated build. Vivo is expected to pack a 6,000mAh battery in the handset with 90W wired and 50W wireless support.
Vivo is likely to launch the Vivo X200 Ultra in April. It will debut as a higher-end sibling of the Vivo X200 and X200 Pro.
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Champions League last-16 draw: Liverpool face PSG, Arsenal meet PSV Eindhoven & Aston Villa play Club Brugge
Champions League last-16 draw: Liverpool face PSG, Arsenal meet PSV Eindhoven & Aston Villa play Club Brugge
Liverpool will face Paris St-Germain in the Champions League last 16, while Arsenal take on PSV Eindhoven and Aston Villa will play Club Brugge.
Holders Real Madrid face local rivals Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich play Bayer Leverkusen in an all-Germany affair.
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Too Difficult or Just Too Long? Two Weeks into Release, Only 8% of Players Completed Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Too Difficult or Just Too Long? Two Weeks into Release, Only 8% of Players Completed Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has been a massive success. The game has sold over two million copies within two weeks of its February 4 release. But according to game director Daniel Vávra, only 8% of players have reached the end of the game. It’s been a little over two weeks since the game came out so it is a little surprising.
Why is the completion rate this low? | Image Credit: Warhorse Studios
Is the game too long? Or too hard? According to players, it’s a mix of both. The difficulty of the game has turned off a lot of people, but some players have reported that they’ve spent 100 hours in just the first region alone. Either way, it doesn’t make the game’s success any less impressive.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has a lot of players but barely anyone has finished it
But why could that be? The answer is pretty simple. | Image Credit: Warhorse Studios
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a big game, there’s no doubt about it. The game is filled with side quests and a fresh, lively world. KCD2 offers two large regions to explore and takes a while to complete. The early estimate for a standard playthrough is already about 60 and 80 hours and if you’re a completionist, expect to be well past the 100-hour mark.
According to achievements, so far, around 8% of people finished KCD2 and it takes around 90-120 hours to do so Have you finished it yet? What do you think of the ending. Any tears or laughs? pic.twitter.com/A72lqaWdj3
— Daniel Vávra (@DanielVavra) February 20, 2025
Players are reporting that they’ve spent a hundred hours on just the first region alone. Others say that they are deliberately avoiding finishing the game to prolong the experience. So the consensus seems to be that no one is rushing through the game, they are taking their time with quests, and exploring every detail of this potential Game of The Year contender. But is length the only reason?
Unlike many RPGs, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 does not offer an easy mode, meaning all players must engage with its challenging combat and survival mechanics. The game has no difficulty settings and the combat is hard to adjust to as players have found themselves struggling even against basic enemies.
Comment byu/Drogo49 from discussion inkingdomcome
WTF are you doing there!
— Daniel Vávra (@DanielVavra) February 21, 2025
Aside from the length and difficulty, there have also been some technical issues. While the game itself has been praised for its optimization and performance on the hardware side of things, some players have reported bugs, save file losses, and mission-breaking glitches. These reports aren’t common but some players have lost entire playthroughs which does contribute to the low completion.
It just speaks to the quality and success of the game
And the game is good, very good. | Image Credit: Warhorse Studios
None of this means that the game isn’t successful though. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has been a massive commercial success. The game has already sold over two million copies in under two weeks and has completely overtaken the first game. On Steam alone, it peaked at over 250,000 concurrent players, a huge jump from the original game’s record of around 96,000.
Warhorse Studios and its parent company, Embracer Group, have expressed confidence that the game’s strong launch will translate into long-term success. The post-launch roadmap includes updates like a Hardcore Mode and a new Barbers feature, alongside three major expansions throughout 2025. So if you were taking it slow before, feel free to speed it up because more is coming.
Given the game’s depth, some may never truly “finish” it. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is on track to become a game like Skyrim which never truly dies and always has people playing it. It may or may not be too long or too hard, but it might just work out in favor of the game.
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Google Pay Reportedly Levies Convenience Fees on Bill Payments via Credit and Debit Cards
Google Pay Reportedly Levies Convenience Fees on Bill Payments via Credit and Debit Cards
Google Pay is now levying convenience fees on bill payments made via credit and debit cards, according to a report. Until now, the unified payments interface (UPI) platform was charging users Rs. 3 as a service fee on mobile recharges. However, it will now reportedly also levy a charge, in addition to the goods and service tax (GST), on utility bill payments for services such as electricity, piped gas, and water.
Google Pay’s Convenience Fees on Bill Payments
According to a report by the Economic Times, the Google-owned UPI platform will charge users between 0.5 to 1 percent of the transaction value as a convenience fee, along with applicable GST on utility bill payments. It is reportedly labelled as a “processing fee” for debit and credit card transactions.
With this move, Google Pay has followed in the footsteps of other UPI platforms such as Paytm and PhonePe. While the former levies a charge between Rs. 1 to Rs. 40, the latter charges the same as Google Pay on bill payments via debit and credit cards. Citing an individual familiar with the matter, the report claims that the addition of the convenience fee indicates a shift towards making it a common industry practice.
As per a PWC analysis, Google Pay and other UPI platforms incur a fee of 0.25 percent of the total transaction value while processing peer-to-merchant transactions. While Google Pay previously covered this fee on the user’s behalf, it will now charge them between 0.5 to 1 percent, depending on the transaction type and value. However, the company emphasises that this only applies to debit and credit card payments and payments made via UPI-linked bank accounts remain unaffected.
Notably, 16.99 billion UPI payments in India were reportedly recorded in January 2025, amounting to a total of Rs. 23.48 lakh crore. This is said to be an increase of 1 percent in terms of the transaction value compared to December 2024.
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Death in custody: Woman has died at Melaleuca Women’s Prison
Death in custody: Woman has died at Melaleuca Women’s Prison
A woman has died after being found unresponsive in her Melaleuca women’s prison cell on Friday morning.
The Department of Justice said the 37-year-old woman was found early this morning and was declared deceased at the scene.
Staff provided first aid to the prisoner until paramedics arrived.
WA Police will prepare a report for the State Coroner.
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The M4 MacBook Air’s performance scores just leaked – and they suggest it’ll be a solid upgrade
The M4 MacBook Air’s performance scores just leaked – and they suggest it’ll be a solid upgrade
A Metal benchmark for the M4 MacBook Air has just leaked
It’s in line with the M4 chip in the iPad Pro, which makes a lot of sense
The laptop is anticipated to launch within the next few weeks
The M4 MacBook Air is widely expected to launch imminently, with the new chip touted to bring performance and efficiency improvements to one of Apple’s best MacBooks. And it looks like we won’t even have to wait until its release to find out its performance.
That’s because a benchmark has just leaked on the Geekbench website. The test results were published on February 19 and show a device running macOS 15.2 and bearing a ten-core M4 chip and 24GB of memory.
In terms of performance, the M4 chip in this MacBook scored 54,806 in the Metal graphics benchmark. Compare that to the 13-inch iPad Pro with M4 chip, which scored a very similar 54,064. Considering both devices are known for their thinness and fanless cooling, the slim margins between them make sense.
Labelled as “Mac16,12,” the mysterious MacBook is thought to be Apple’s upcoming M4 MacBook Air because it doesn’t match any existing Mac codenames. It does, however, line up with a Mac identifier that Apple itself accidentally leaked – one that was attributed to an M4 MacBook Air.
A believable benchmark
(Image credit: Future)
It’s possible that this benchmark was faked to give the appearance of belonging to an unannounced piece of Apple hardware. That seems unlikely, though, as it’s broadly in line with what we’ve come to expect from the M4 chip.
We mentioned the iPad Pro score above as a comparison point, but we can also see how this leaked benchmark does against the M4 MacBook Pro. On Geekbench, a sample Metal test scored 57,596, an improved result versus the MacBook Air that shouldn’t come as a surprise given that the MacBook Pro has active cooling that can help boost its performance.
So, all things point towards this leak being a believable, perhaps genuine result for the upcoming M4 MacBook Air.
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Aside from the new M4 chip, the next MacBook Air could get an improved LCD display (sadly an OLED panel is still a few years away), a better webcam, and stronger support for connecting multiple monitors.
It’s widely expected to launch this Spring (sometime between now and June), with Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman claiming it will be on ***** “by March at the latest.”
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Luxury homebuilder says more than 70% of business is from wealthy move-ups and empty nesters with years of home price appreciation. The rest are rich millennials
Luxury homebuilder says more than 70% of business is from wealthy move-ups and empty nesters with years of home price appreciation. The rest are rich millennials
Home prices and mortgage rates are high but haven’t hampered demand for what Toll Brothers calls its “luxury niche.” That niche is made up of empty nesters, rich millennials, and wealthy buyers who are inoculated from housing market swings.
More than half-a-century-old luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers has its wealthy homebuyers to thank for pushing it through a housing market at a standstill. Home prices soared throughout the pandemic, and mortgage rates that hit rock bottom reached levels unseen in decades after scorching inflation sent the Federal Reserve into a tightening cycle.
Economic conditions have changed, but home prices and mortgage rates are still high. It really hurts typical Americans, but the rich or anyone who has owned a home before are somewhat insulated for a couple of reasons. They are either unaffected by mortgage rates because they can buy a house in all cash (about 26% of Toll Brothers buyers paid all cash in the first quarter of the year); they can pull from their prior home that appreciated immensely over the past several years; or they simply have a high enough income to carry them through tough housing costs (the loan-to-value ratio for Toll Brothers buyers who took on a mortgage was about 68%, meaning they are putting down more than the median).
“Demand for our homes continues to be supported by our affluent customer base,” Toll Brothers chief executive and chairman Douglas Yearley said in an earnings call on Wednesday. “Over 70% of our business is luxury move-up and empty nester, which serves a wealthy cohort that has benefited from years of home price and stock market appreciation. The remaining 25% to 30% serves the more affluent first-time buyer, many of whom are older millennials buying their first home later in life when they have higher incomes and are more financially secure.”
It’s why Yearley is confident in the newly constructed home market ahead. “We continue to see the long-term outlook for the new home market to be very positive, particularly for our luxury niche,” he said.
Throughout this latest bust in the housing world, the new home market has topped the existing home market. Builders can craft smaller homes and offer price cuts, mortgage rate buydowns, and design upgrades, among other incentives that have helped offset drops in demand because of inflated costs. Not to mention, the existing home market is constrained by homeowners who refuse to sell and give up their low mortgage rate in exchange for a much higher borrowing cost, a phenomenon dubbed the lock-in effect. So all roads lead to a newly built home.
Story Continues
That doesn’t mean Toll Brothers was exempt from the pain. Yearley explained that affordability constraints did put some pressure on sales, especially in lower-tier markets or lower-end priced homes. But in all of California, for instance, demand was strong.
Toll Brothers’ net income and earnings per share came in below expectations, but according to Yearley, it was primarily because of impairments and a delay in the ***** of a stabilized apartment. Its core homebuilding operations, on the other hand, met expectations. In the first quarter of the year, the homebuilder delivered 1,991 homes at an average price of around $925,000, creating home sales revenues of $1.84 billion. Toll Brothers reported that it signed 2,307 net contracts for $2.31 billion in the first quarter, up in units and dollars compared to last year. It owns enough land for more development, too, the company said.
Still, Toll Brothers shares fell almost 6% today on the news.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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New Mexico reports Texas measles outbreak has now crossed it's border – Fox News
New Mexico reports Texas measles outbreak has now crossed it's border – Fox News
New Mexico reports Texas measles outbreak has now crossed it’s border Fox NewsIn Texas, vaccine-choice activists are ascendant The EconomistMeasles outbreak in Texas grows to 58 cases: What are the symptoms? Is it fatal? USA TODAYI’m a pediatrician working in the middle of Texas’s measles outbreak. Here’s what I want parents to know. Business Insider
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