Friday was a fine day to hold the stock of ASML Holding(ASML +4.17%), the Netherlands-based company that specializes in photolithography (essentially, printing circuits onto a microprocessor). A highly bullish analysis of a top name in the chip sector sparked a sympathy rally in related stocks, pushing ASML’s equity up by over 4%.
Supplier to the stars
That analysis was published by the research firm Lynx Equity Strategies. The firm’s K.C. Rajkumar waxed bullish on two high-profile memory chipmakers, Micron Technology and Sandisk. Lynx continues to rate them as clear buys with anticipated upside of 33% and 49%, respectively.
Image source: Getty Images.
This comes after an intense period of volatility in the two stocks, during which their prices swung more on emotion and hype than on fundamentals. Since then, those prices have come down, and the prospects for both remain solid as the world scales up with more computing power driven by the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI).
And if Micron, Sandisk, and other chipmakers are ramping up to meet this elevated demand, ASML is sure to benefit. The lithography systems it sells are indispensable for many clients, and that will only be exacerbated by the Great Build-Out.
Today’s Change
(4.17%) $68.69
Current Price
$1,714.88
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$634BMarket cap calculated using publicly traded shares outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded shares. Implied market cap may vary.
Day’s Range
$1675.92 – $1721.66
52wk Range
$766.24 – $1999.96
Volume
1.3M
Avg Vol
1.8M
Gross Margin
52.73%
Dividend Yield
0.55%
Still underrated
ASML didn’t come close to the nearly 12% pop of Sandisk stock after investors disseminated the Lynx report. Its gain was also under Micron’s 6% rise.
This, however, makes the company’s stock that much more attractive, as it’s a somewhat under-the-radar play on current trends. It’s feeling like an ideal pick-and-shovel investment on the AI revolution these days, and a solid candidate for inclusion in any stock portfolio.
Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends ASML and Micron Technology. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Alaska Airlines Adds 50th Nonstop Destination from San Diego
Alaska Airlines is commemorating 40 years in San Diego with its 50th nonstop from San Diego International Airport. The new seasonal route to Loreto, Mexico, takes off Dec. 19, just in time for a warm winter escape. Tickets are available now on alaskaair.com.
Alaska will become the only airline to connect guests between Loreto and San Diego when flights begin this December. With twice-weekly flights through April aboard Alaska’s E175 aircraft, operated by SkyWest Airlines, guests can enjoy a seamless travel experience on their way to one of Baja California Sur’s hidden gems, known for its stunning coastline, pristine beaches and outdoor adventures, as well as high-speed Starlink Wi-Fi, offered complimentary to Atmos™ Rewards members thanks to T-Mobile.
Passengers can also jump in on the anniversary celebration, thanks to a giveaway, with 40 people getting Atmos Rewards Gold status for 40 years. One grand-prize winner also will receive 1 million Atmos Rewards points.
Alaska Airlines plans to build one of the largest airline lounges in San Diego, set to open in 2028.
Bitcoin hit a multi-month high this week thanks in part to investors fleeing volatility and treating the largest cryptocurrency like a safe haven again.
From early June, the price had been stuck in a range between $60,000 and $70,000, disappointing investors still hopeful Bitcoin could return to the boom times of October when it skyrocketed above $126,000.
Late last month, it finally broke out of that range, and on Thursday, it reached a four-month high of $82,262, before paring back gains. Bitcoin was down 2% at about $79,800 on Friday afternoon, still near the highest level it had reached since May.
In a recent note to clients, Bitwise’s director of research for Europe, André Dragosch, said the cryptocurrency’s recent upswing comes as investors have treated it more as a store of value than a risky tech stock.
That’s after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently revealed a plan to increase the Treasury’s buybacks of long-dated bonds as yields surged. The move raised fears of “financial repression” and came as the 30-year yield hit its highest level in nearly two decades late last month, with the Iran war keeping inflation forecasts elevated.
Amid Bessent’s proposed measure, which hasn’t been rolled out yet, Bitcoin’s 90-day correlation with gold has neared a six-year high, Dragosch wrote in the note.
That marks a change from earlier this year, when Bitcoin traded more like a risk-on asset that was more correlated with tech stocks.
“When things get serious and macro forces are strong, investors are discriminating less and less between bitcoin and gold as they navigate rising currency debasement risks,” Dragosch wrote in the note. “In those scenarios, bitcoin has recently started to look like an amplified version of gold.”
Still, this may not be as good a sign for the overall market. The last time Bitcoin and the dollar were this closely correlated was in 2020, as central banks worldwide responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with stimulus and quantitative easing, Dragosch warned.
Some traders also claim Bitcoin’s recent good news could be short-lived, given the four-year cycle theory, which holds that Bitcoin’s bear market lows and bull market tops tend to occur in four year increments. This means Bitcoin’s next bear market bottom could be some time in November, four years after the last bear market bottom in November 2022, if the theory holds true, according to Fidelity’s fourth quarter crypto market outlook.
The four-year cycle theory is partly tied to the process of Bitcoin’s halving, which cuts rewards to miners that keep the blockchain that backs up Bitcoin running.
One of the louder voices touting the four-year cycle theory is Alex Thorn, Galaxy’s head of firmwide research. In a June report, Thorn wrote “the historical analogies suggest a base case bottom for the current drawdown between $40k-46k occurring sometime between now and Q4 2026,” although he noted this was not a price prediction.
Still, Chris Kuiper, vice president of research at Fidelity Digital Assets, said in the fourth quarter market outlook that this theory doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a downslide later this year, as the timing of the four-year cycle theory isn’t exact.
“In light of this, having a long-term perspective and holding period is what has historically been the most beneficial for investors,” Kuiper wrote in the report this week.
We throw around ‘trillion-dollar’ valuations, but how much does that really mean? Compared to today’s giants, even massive historical deals shrink into insignificance. The scale of modern finance is staggering. #CompanyValuations #Billionaires #Economics #Finance #Business
Is Meta’s $18 billion settlement just the cost of doing business?
We analyze the scale of this payout compared to historical tech acquisitions like Instagram and what it reveals about current corporate finances. This breakdown is essential for tech professionals tracking the shifting landscape of Big Tech regulations.
Join us for PDQLIVE every Thursday at 10 am MST for more sysadmin content.
Two-thirds of American high school students say the adults at their school put “a lot of emphasis” on attending a four-year college, while far fewer hear the same push toward community college, apprenticeships, work, or the military, according to a new RAND Corporation report on career-connected learning in K-12 schools.
The survey of 626 public high school students found that 66% reported heavy emphasis on a four-year college or university. For families weighing whether college is worth the investment the study confirms what many suspect: the default advice inside most high schools still points in one direction.
The report paired the student survey with surveys of district leaders and school principals. Those educator surveys show why the message is so uniform. Nearly every high school principal (96%) reported offering one-on-one counselor meetings about college or career plans, and 63% of schools set numeric targets for how many students meet with a counselor each year. Yet only 32% of schools track whether students are accepted to college, and just 15% track whether students land a job after graduation.
The number is not surprising then, considering that schools are measuring the wrong metric of success.
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Why It Matters
About 45% of students enroll in a four-year college immediately after high school, according to National Center for Education Statistics data, while 38% of high school graduates don’t immediately enroll in any college at all.
That means a large share of the students hearing the four-year message every day are not headed there, and the report says the “comparative lack of emphasis on other pathways may indicate a gap in school supports relative to some students’ needs.”
Students who skip the traditional route still have options, from free community college programs in a growing number of states to registered apprenticeships, but they are less likely to hear about them from school staff.
The students who feel this gap the most are the ones who already know a bachelor’s degree isn’t for them. Among students who do not want a four-year degree, only 13% said the planning information they get at school “very much” matches their interests, versus 27% of students aiming for a bachelor’s or higher.
Half of the non-bachelor’s group rated their school as doing “better than OK” at helping them plan, compared with 70% of college-bound peers, and 23% rated their school as doing “worse than OK,” double the 11% among degree-seekers.
Lower-income students were also more likely to say the information didn’t fit their family’s finances: 23% of students from households earning under $75,000 said the guidance matched their family’s financial situation “not at all,” versus 8% of students from households earning $150,000 or more.
That tracks with our reporting on what families really pay for college after financial aid, where sticker prices and net prices diverge sharply by income.
What Students Say They’re Hearing
RAND asked students how much adults at their school (teachers, counselors, principals, and coaches) emphasize each option after graduation. The share saying “a lot of emphasis,” broken out by family income, shows how lopsided the messaging is, and how little of it covers the two-year and career-training routes that cost a fraction as much:
Four-year college or university: 58% of students from families earning under $75,000, 66% from families earning $75,000 to $149,999, and 72% from families earning $150,000 or more.
Two-year community college: 22%, 11%, and 20%, respectively.
Technical training or apprenticeship: 23%, 16%, and 12%.
Work part-time: 18%, 15%, and 13%.
Work full-time: 14%, 17%, and 12%.
Join the military: 5%, 8%, and 9%.
Gap year: 5%, 3%, and 2%.
The four-year push is strongest among the highest-income students, but even among lower-income students it outweighs every other pathway by more than two to one. Apprenticeships, which we’ve covered as a booming alternative whose job pipeline hasn’t always kept pace, barely register for wealthier students. A gap year is almost never spoken about.
The Follow-Through Problem
The report also found that the counseling itself arrives late. By spring of junior year, more than four in ten students had not yet met with a counselor about their post-high school options or developed a plan for what they want to do. In grade 11, 53% had met one-on-one with a counselor about school or career options, and 57% had developed goals or a plan.
Even among seniors surveyed in March, 20% still had no plan. RAND attributes part of this to well-documented strain on counseling capacity, a reason some families turn to private college admissions counselors despite the cost.
Work-related learning fares worse. Only 37% of districts offer internships and 21% offer apprenticeships in any industry, and students’ plans consistently outrun what schools deliver.
Among seniors, 71% had planned to visit an employer or workplace before graduating, but only 39% had done so. Two-thirds (66%) had planned to complete an internship or apprenticeship; 22% actually had.
The report says “student interest is not the limiting factor” and that schools “are not doing enough to encourage take-up of the opportunities that do exist.” Families paying for trade or career training have their own tools, including 529 plans, which can now cover trade school and other non-college programs.
How This Connects
The four-year college default is running into a post-college market that is questioning it. Gallup found Americans’ confidence in higher education fell to 38% as doubts about AI and job prospects grew, and RAND cites Pell Institute research showing the share of high school students who expect to earn a bachelor’s degree has dropped sharply over the past two decades.
At the same time, more students are picking work over college, and 18-to-20-year-olds have become the largest group earning associate degrees. The advice students get in school hasn’t caught up with the world they are actually entering.
That lag has a price that is compounding the problem. Students steered toward a four-year program that doesn’t fit their goals are the ones most at risk of leaving with debt and no degree, and our student loan debt statistics show how heavily that outcome weighs on borrowers who never finish.
The skilled trades aren’t risk-free either, though. Federal data shows a higher disability risk for trades careers even though they can pay off earlier. The point of RAND’s findings isn’t that the trades beat college. It’s that students should be hearing a real comparison, and most aren’t.
What’s Next
RAND recommends that schools and districts “reconsider the mix of career-planning supports that they prioritize” and close the feedback loop by tracking what happens to graduates, a job the report says state education agencies are well positioned to support.
Watch for whether states tie career-pathway funding to post-graduation outcome data rather than counselor-meeting counts, and whether the Education Department’s new earnings test that cuts federal loans to low-earning college programs pushes high schools to broaden the conversation.
The RAND data is cross-sectional, so it can’t show whether the four-year emphasis changes outcomes, only that most students are hearing it and a sizable share say it doesn’t fit.
The post High Schools Push Four-Year College To 66% Of Students. Only 45% Actually Go. appeared first on The College Investor.
Joshua Kushner, brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared and the founder of VC firm Thrive Capital, has some regrets about a failed plan to allow private investors to take a stake in the World Cup.
In a statement published initially by Axios this week, Kushner said the firm “failed to appreciate the political dynamics of global football, and the lengths some would go to.” Defending Thrive’s participation in the failed deal, Kushner added: “Had we known what this would devolve into, we would not have gotten involved.”
The failed proposal, known as FIFA Forward Enterprise, or FFE, would have created a new commercial subsidiary that would hold commercial rights in FIFA competitions, including broadcasting, licensing, and ticket sales. Thrive was set to be the lead investor in a group that also included BANN Ventures CEO Greg Maffei, which would have put in as much as $4.2 billion for about 20% of the business, valuing it at about $20 billion.
Each member association would have immediately received $20 million in increased development funding under the plan, with more to come later. FIFA would have retained control of FFE while outside investors purchased minority, non-controlling stakes.
Kushner, in his statement, argued the FIFA Forward Enterprise would have allowed more capital to flow to “underdeveloped nations” and their soccer infrastructure and players.
“Money in football has historically been concentrated amongst a small group of countries,” Kushner said.
But critics of the proposal fiercely rejected the plan over concerns about introducing private interests into the world’s largest soccer tournament that would expect to make a profit on their investment. FIFA is a nonprofit. Several also criticized the way the plan was drawn up and executed. FIFA and Infantino scrapped the FFE plan in late July.
UEFA raising the stakes
UEFA, the governing body for European soccer, is now reportedly preparing to file a criminal complaint in Switzerland in which it alleges that FIFA president Gianni Infantino and other FIFA officials developed the FFE plan with a small group of advisers and investors without notifying FIFA’s governing body, the FIFA Council, or any regional confederations or member associations, which make up the rest of the FIFA’s governance.
After the press first revealed the plan to create the FFE, UEFA, as well as North American soccer’s governing body CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation, issued statements rejecting it. Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who faced accusations of corruption and mismanagement during his tenure, was one of the plan’s most vocal critics, along with current FIFA president Infantino.
Overall, critics voiced concern over giving outside investors a long-term stake in some of FIFA’s most valuable commercial assets and the influence that might give them over the world’s largest sporting event. They also questioned how the $20 billion price was reached.
Kushner and Thrive have now been thrust into what may be a prolonged fight between FIFA and UEFA, the European confederation representing 55 member associations. Thrive has reportedly engaged with high-profile lawyer Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, who has made a name for himself defending big names like Elon Musk, billionaire rapper and businessman Jay Z, and actor Alec Baldwin. UEFA has said Kushner and Thrive themselves are not suspected of wrongdoing.
UEFA has asked several U.S. federal courts including in Florida and the Southern District of New York for permission to obtain documents and testimony through discovery that it could use for a potential criminal complaint in Switzerland against Infantino and other FIFA officials over the proposed transaction.
Meanwhile, FIFA in court filings this week asked a U.S. court to defer giving UEFA the documents or give FIFA a chance to oppose the move by the end of the month, the BBC reported. FIFA said in filings that UEFA is seeking U.S. documents for a foreign criminal proceeding that doesn’t exist yet and that UEFA lacks the authority to initiate. It claims UEFA wants to maintain its outsized influence over global soccer by blocking other regions and member associations from gaining financial strength. It also accused UEFA of a “smear campaign against it and its leadership.”
Infantino, up for reelection as FIFA president in March 2027, now faces a steep crisis of confidence despite previously being seen as likely to win another four-year term. Several European member associations, each with one vote in the election, have withdrawn support for Infantino. Still, he retains support from the African and South American confederations, which together represent 64 member associations.
Infantino has apologized for errors surrounding the aborted proposal while still defending the underlying idea that it would have distributed more money to smaller and poorer soccer federations.
Kushner for his part emphasized in his note this week that FIFA’s members would ultimately have decided whether to participate.
“It was an idea that every Member Association would vote on, not an obligation or determination,” Kushner said.
In Florida, a federal court allowed FIFA to intervene and oppose UEFA’s discovery request, and its opposition is due by the end of the month. In New York, FIFA is seeking the same outcome and has asked the court to defer its proceedings while the Florida court weighs similar underlying legal questions.
Update 9/3/26: Offer for 90k with $5k spend is back (ht wiivile). Not as good as prior 100k offers, but better than the 75k offer we’ve been seeing the past bunch of months.
Update: Deal reduced to 90k points for $5k spend.
Update 9/3/25: Available again.
The Offer
Direct link to offers: British Airways | Aer Lingus | Iberia
Chase is offering 100,000 points on the Chase British Airways card after $7,500 in spend within the first six months
Our Verdict
We once saw a bonus that was 100,000 after $5,000 in spend but we haven’t seen that for multiple years. Other recent bonuses include 125,000 points for $20,000 spend or 75,000 points for $5,000 spend. I do think this bonus is competitive and probably the best points:spend ratio we have seen for a long time, so if you think it’s worth using a 5/24 slot for this card then I’d recommend signing up and will add it to our best credit card bonus page.
Key insight: A surprisingly strong jobs report bolsters the argument for the Federal Reserve to raise rates later this month, but much will depend on next week’s consumer price index inflation report.
Expert quote: “With economic activity and the labor market in good shape, they are not a large factor in my determination of the appropriate setting of monetary policy. But they are an important backdrop for the part of the outlook that is my focus right now, inflation, and my judgment about how much the current stance of policy is working to return inflation to 2%.” — Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller
Forward Look: The August consumer price index, set to be released on Sept. 11, will determine the Federal Open Market Committee’s next move.
Hiring in the U.S. got back on track in August, with employers adding 162,000 workers to their payrolls in August. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1%.
Processing Content
Friday’s surprisingly strong reading on the labor market by the Bureau of Labor Statistics underscores the overall strength of the economy and keeps the Federal Reserve’s focus squarely on inflation as it weighs whether to raise interest rates during its next monetary policy meeting later this month.
The bump in hiring far exceeded market expectations, with forecasts projecting just 65,000 hires from the month and a slight uptick in the unemployment rate from 4.1% to 4.2%. The BLS report comes after a surprise net decline of 23,000 jobs in July.
In Friday’s report, the bureau also revised its July figure from a net loss of 23,000 to a gain of 21,000 and also added another 11,000 jobs to its June tally. Overall, the economy has added more than 200,000 jobs during the past three months, the report said.
Yet, policymakers at the Fed have been unconcerned about this tepid labor market activity, chalking it up to demographic trends, such as an increase in retirements and a lack of growth due to immigration restrictions.
“When labor supply is barely growing, monthly job gains are naturally going to run low,” Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said in a speech last week. “There are always areas of concern in the labor market — for example, among recent graduates. In general, though, people who want to work, by and large, are holding or finding jobs.”
In his own speech Thursday morning, Fed Gov. Christopher Waller described the labor market as being in “satisfactory shape.”
Earlier this year, Waller said the low hire-low fire stasis among employers has made the labor market vulnerable to shocks and layoffs. But, for now, he said the employment situation is not a driving factor in his assessment of the appropriate stance of monetary policy.
“With economic activity and the labor market in good shape, they are not a large factor in my determination of the appropriate setting of monetary policy,” he said. “But they are an important backdrop for the part of the outlook that is my focus right now, inflation, and my judgment about how much the current stance of policy is working to return inflation to 2%.”
Like other Fed officials, Waller said he would be willing to hold interest rates steady if inflation continued to inch toward the central bank’s target or raise them if price growth accelerates.
Fed Gov. Michael Barr outlined a similar reaction function during a speech earlier this week.
“If trends in the data give me some confidence that inflation is moderating on a path to 2 percent, then I think we can take a bit more time to assess our policy stance,” Barr said. “However, if inflation appears not to be moderating sufficiently, then I think we should act decisively to raise rates.”
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Opinions have been split among Federal Open Market Committee members about the trajectory of inflation and the wisdom of raising rates. In an appearance on CNBC this week, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams — a permanent member of the FOMC — took a more sanguine view of the inflation picture, noting that markets continue to expect inflation to return to 2% over the long-term.
Williams also said he sees inflation trending in a positive direction, though he stopped short of endorsing a rate hold to allow that process to play out. He said he wants to see the data on August inflation, which is due out next week.
“I am actually seeing the trend in inflation moving slowly down as some of the effects of the tariffs kind of move into the rearview mirror,” he said. “But we have to be data dependent; got to keep watching that data.”
Yet, other FOMC participants have less optimistic inflation outlooks. Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack, one of three committee members to vote in favor of a hike in July, has continued to beat the drum for tighter monetary policy.
“I don’t want to prejudge anything. But I believe now is the time to act,” Hammack said. “I believe that we’ve been in an inflationary situation for more than five years. It’s been running well above our target. I don’t see any restriction in policy when I look at financial conditions and when I talk to market participants.”
