• Facebook May Ban Political Advertising

    Facebook May Ban Political AdvertisingFacebook is considering a prohibition on political ads on its platforms, according to multiple media reports. If the social media giant made such a move, it would be a significant about-face to the company's long-held laissez-faire approach to political ads and political speech more broadly, coming just months ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections. Facebook […]

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  • Infectious Diseases Specialist on the ‘snowball effect’ that occurs when labs are overwhelmed with COVID-19 tests

    Infectious Diseases Specialist on the 'snowball effect' that occurs when labs are overwhelmed with COVID-19 testsDr. Isaac Bogoch, Infectious Diseases Specialist, joined Yahoo Finance’s The Final Round to discuss the latest developments regarding the coronavirus as cases in the U.S. surpass 3.1 million.

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  • Why I would put excess funds into ASX dividend shares instead of a savings account

    piggy bank

    If you have money in the Australia and New Zealand Banking GrpLtd (ASX: ANZ) Online Saver account, you’ll be receiving a base interest rate of just 0.05%.

    This means that even if you put $1 million into this savings account, you would yield just $5,000 of interest each year. That’s certainly not enough to live from.

    The good news is that there are dividend shares on the Australian share market that offer considerably better yields.

    Two top ASX dividend shares that I would invest my excess funds into next week are listed below:

    Dicker Data Ltd (ASX: DDR)

    The first ASX dividend share to consider buying is Dicker Data. It is a wholesale distributor of computer hardware and software throughout the ANZ region. Earlier this month it released its half year update and revealed that its strong form had continued during the pandemic. Dicker Data reported an unaudited first half net profit before tax of $40 million on revenue of $1 billion. This was an increase of 25% and 18.3%, respectively, over the prior corresponding period. This strong form appears to have put the company in a position to deliver on its plan of lifting its dividend to 35.5 cents per share this year. Based on the latest Dicker Data share price, this equates to a fully franked 4.9% dividend yield.

    Rural Funds Group (ASX: RFF)

    Another dividend share for income investors to consider switching funds into is Rural Funds. I think the agriculture-focused property group is one of the best options on the local share market. This is due to its very positive long term outlook thanks to its high quality property portfolio, periodic rental increases, and lengthy tenancy agreements. In respect to the latter, at the end of the first half Rural Funds’ weighted average lease expiry stood at 11.5 years. I believe this gives it great visibility with its future earnings and positions it perfectly to grow its distributions consistently in the future. In FY 2021 the company intends to lift its distribution to 11.28 cents per share. Based on the current Rural Funds share price, this works out to be a forward 5.6% distribution yield.

    Where to invest $1,000 right now

    When investing expert Scott Phillips has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Motley Fool Share Advisor newsletter he has run for more than eight years has provided thousands of paying members with stock picks that have doubled, tripled or even more.*

    Scott just revealed what he believes are the five best ASX stocks for investors to buy right now. These stocks are trading at dirt-cheap prices and Scott thinks they are great buys right now.

    *Returns as of June 30th

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    Motley Fool contributor James Mickleboro has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of and has recommended Dicker Data Limited and RURALFUNDS STAPLED. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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  • 3 exciting ASX growth shares to buy and hold until 2030

    crystal ball with bar graph inside, future share price, afterpay share price

    Looking to add some growth shares to your portfolio next week? Listed below are three fast-growing companies that I think could be worth considering.

    Here’s why I think these ASX growth shares could be top long term investment options:

    Bravura Solutions Ltd (ASX: BVS)

    Bravura Solutions is a financial technology company best known for the Sonata wealth management platform. This popular wealth management platform allows advisers to connect and engage with clients via computers, tablets, or smartphones. Demand for the platform has been growing very strongly in the past few years and shows no signs of slowing. And together with recent acquisitions that have given Bravura access to new and lucrative markets, I believe it is well-positioned to grow its earnings at a solid rate over the long term.

    PolyNovo Ltd (ASX: PNV)

    Another growth share to consider buying is PolyNovo. It is the medical device company behind the NovoSorb Biodegradable Temporising Matrix (BTM) product. This product was developed at CSIRO and is a wound dressing intended to treat full-thickness wounds and burns. Its current target market has a massive $1.5 billion addressable opportunity, but management isn’t settling for that. It is busy looking to expand its use into hernia and breast treatment markets. If this is successful, it would add $6 billion to its addressable market.

    Zip Co Ltd (ASX: Z1P)

    This payments company has well and truly broken out of the shadow of Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT) in 2020 with very impressive sales, customer, and merchant growth. It also announced its expansion into the massive United States market via the acquisition of QuadPay. If the company can make a success of this expansion, it could be destined for further explosive growth over the coming years. And while the Zip Co share price is certainly not cheap after its incredible rise over the last few months, I would still buy its shares if you plan to make a long term investment.

    5 stocks under $5

    We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Altium or Afterpay when they were first recommended by The Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!” And it’s true.

    And while Altium and Afterpay have had a good run, we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $5 a share!

    *Extreme Opportunities returns as of June 5th 2020

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    James Mickleboro has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. owns shares of POLYNOVO FPO and ZIPCOLTD FPO. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of and has recommended Bravura Solutions Ltd. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of AFTERPAY T FPO. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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  • Billionaire Musk’s net worth zooms past Warren Buffett’s – Bloomberg News

    Billionaire Musk's net worth zooms past Warren Buffett's - Bloomberg NewsMusk’s fortune rose by $6.07 billion on Friday, Bloomberg News said, following a 10.8% jump in the electric carmaker’s stock. Buffett’s net worth dropped earlier this week when he donated $2.9 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock to charity, the report added.

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  • Trader: How Warren Buffett missed the market rally

    Trader: How Warren Buffett missed the market rallyDuring a recent Yahoo Finance Premium webinar, Yahoo Finance’s Jared Blikre and Brian Shannon, CMT and founder of AlphaTreds.net discuss the stock market rally and how Warren Buffett and Stanley Druckenmiller — two of the world’s highest profile investors — may have missed the boat.

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  • Trivago CEO Says Domestic Travel Is Returning First

    Trivago CEO Says Domestic Travel Is Returning FirstJul.10 — Trivago Chief Executive Officer Axel Hefer discuss rapidly changing rules for European travel and how Covid 19 is transforming travelers preferences. He speaks with Anna Edwards and Matt Miller on “Bloomberg Markets: European Open.”

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  • Where I would invest $5,000 into ASX shares in July

    business leader making money

    Interest rates are at record lows and look likely to remain that way for some time to come, possibly even years.

    In light of this, I believe investors would be better off putting any excess funds into the share market rather than leaving them to gather only paltry interest in a savings account.

    But where should you invest these funds? Here are three top shares I would invest $5,000 into in July:

    Appen Ltd (ASX: APX)

    The first ASX share I would invest $5,000 into is Appen. It is a global leader in the development of high-quality, human-annotated training data for machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). I think Appen could be a great long term option due to the expected growth of the AI market. Management estimates that this market will be worth between US$169 billion and US$191 billion per annum by 2025. And with 10% of AI spending expected to be on the data labelling that Appen is a leader in, I believe it bodes very well for its future earnings growth. 

    BetaShares NASDAQ 100 ETF (ASX: NDQ)

    I believe the BetaShares NASDAQ 100 ETF is another great option for a $5,000 investment. This exchange traded fund gives investors access to tech behemoths such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Google parent, Alphabet. Given how the majority of the 100 companies in the fund have very positive long term outlooks, I believe there is a high probability of it providing investors with stronger returns than the ASX 200 index over the next decade.

    Kogan.com Ltd (ASX: KGN)

    A final share to consider investing $5,000 into is Kogan. I think the fast-growing ecommerce company is well-placed to profit from the continued rise in online shopping and the growing popularity of its Kogan-branded products and Marketplace. Its expansion into potentially lucrative verticals such as energy and mobile should also be supportive of its growth. As should the $120 million it recently pulled in from a capital raising. Management intends to use these funds to make value accretive acquisitions in the near term.

    5 stocks under $5

    We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Altium or Afterpay when they were first recommended by The Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!” And it’s true.

    And while Altium and Afterpay have had a good run, we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $5 a share!

    *Extreme Opportunities returns as of June 5th 2020

    More reading

    James Mickleboro has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. owns shares of BETANASDAQ ETF UNITS and Kogan.com ltd. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of Appen Ltd. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended BETANASDAQ ETF UNITS and Kogan.com ltd. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

    The post Where I would invest $5,000 into ASX shares in July appeared first on Motley Fool Australia.

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  • Remdesivir Tied to Fewer Deaths; Japan Trace Fails: Virus Update

    Remdesivir Tied to Fewer Deaths; Japan Trace Fails: Virus Update(Bloomberg) — Texas hospitalizations topped 10,000 for the first time and California suffered its second-highest day of deaths. Florida’s biggest county had a record number of patients in its intensive-care units.New York will allow limited visitors into nursing homes and long-term facilities for the first time in months. Overall U.S. cases rose 1.9%, matching the average daily rise over the past week.Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir treatment reduced the mortality risk for Covid-19 patients by 62% compared to standard care, a new analysis of trial data showed. Japan is trying to fix its contact-tracing app after it failed to register new cases.Key Developments:Global Tracker: Cases top 12.4 million; deaths surpass 558,000Wuhan shows the world how economies may recoverTesting bottlenecks are keeping states from tamping down virusBillionaire’s empire unexpectedly thrives in BrazilBringing students back poses ultimate test for collegesTrump school-reopening gambit stokes fresh concernSubscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg’s Prognosis team here. Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus.Japan’s Contact-Tracing App Fails (8:49 a.m. HK)Japan’s health ministry suspended the registration of positive cases on its contact-tracing smartphone app Cocoa as it worked to fix an error that left some people unable to enter their information.The ministry aims to get the feature running again next week, according to a statement. The ministry encouraged users to keep using the app, which had 6.5 million downloads across iOS and Android phones as of Friday evening. Mexico Cases Rise 6,891 to 289,174 (8:23 a.m. HK)Mexico reported 6,891 new confirmed cases, bringing the country’s total to 289,174, the Health Ministry said late Friday. Deaths rose by 665 to 34,191.San Francisco to Pause Reopening Salons, Parlors (7 a.m. HK)San Francisco will delay reopening businesses that provide personal services, including haircuts, massages, tattoos and manicures, from an originally planned restart on Monday. The city made a similar move earlier this week to halt re-openings of indoor dining and outdoor bars.“Re-opening businesses that will encourage gathering and interacting with people outside of your own household is not the safe thing to do right now,” Mayor London Breed said Friday in a statement. The city’s new cases have jumped to 7.4 per 100,000 people, well above the goal of 1.8 and the rate of 3.5 when re-openings began on May 18.Texas Hits Milestone (5:35 p.m. NY)More than 10,000 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 in Texas Friday, the first time the state has reached that benchmark. Cases there jumped by 9,765, an increase of 4.2% compared with the seven-day average of 3.9%. The state has added close to 10,000 cases for each of the last four days, and deaths have begun to spike in tandem, with another 98 fatalities exceeding the seven-day average.Governor Greg Abbott stepped up efforts to encourage people to wear masks, making the rounds of local television stations to warn that deaths are likely to rise in coming days. Though Abbott has issued a mask mandate for the state, he allowed counties to opt out if they had fewer than 20 active cases, and almost a third of Texas’ 254 counties have done so.California to Release Prisoners (4:30 p.m. NY)California plans to release about 7% of its prison population, roughly 8,000 non-violent offenders, to relieve pressure on a chronically overcrowded correctional system that’s now struggling with a spike in coronavirus cases.The move will enable prisons to maximize available space to implement physical distancing, isolation and quarantine efforts, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement. It estimated that about 8,000 currently incarcerated people could be eligible for release by the end of August.U.S. Cases Rise 1.9% (3:55 p.m. NY)U.S. cases rose by 59,782 from a day earlier to 3.14 million, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News. The 1.9% jump matched the average daily increase over the past week. Deaths rose 0.7% to 133,677.Arizona reported 4,221 new cases, a 3.7% gain to 116,892 that matched the average rise of the previous seven days. The state also reported 44 new deaths, bringing the total to 2,082.Florida reported 244,151 cases, up 4.9% from a day earlier, compared with an average increase of 4.7% in the previous seven days. Deaths reached 4,102, a gain of 93, or 2.3%.California Has Second-Deadliest Day (2:21 p.m. NY)California reported 140 new virus deaths, second only to the 149 reported Thursday as the most yet for the pandemic. The 14-day average is 75, according to state health data.Total confirmed cases rose by 7,798, or 2.6%, pushing California’s total infections to 304,297. While the gain was less than the 3% average over the past seven days, the state’s outbreak has been accelerating: Infections have exceeded 300,000 just two weeks after crossing the 200,000 milestone.N.Y. Nursing Home Residents Get Visits (2:17 p.m. NY)With the number of cases in New York remaining relatively low, residents the state’s nursing homes and long-term facilities will be allowed to have visitors, health officials said. They must be virus-free for at least 28 days, and no more than two visitors will be allowed at a time.Visitors must have their temperature checked, wear face coverings, and socially distance during the visit, according to the guidance. Only 10% of the residents in each facility can be allowed visitors at any one time.Cases in the state, once the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, remain low with 786 new infections and 8 deaths reported Friday. Of the 73,558 tests conducted in the state 786, or 1.06%, were positive.N.J. Transmission Drops below 1 (1:27 p.m. NY)New Jersey’s virus transmission rate dropped to 0.98, Governor Phil Murphy said Friday, “a good sign” that the state is making progress to reverse an uptick in Covid-19 transmission.Two days ago, the rate had reached 1.1, the highest in 10 weeks. The virus rate of transmission — a measure of how many people a carrier infects — was more than 5 at the pandemic’s March height in New Jersey. Any figure over 1 suggests the virus is spreading.Russia Triples Death Toll in Revised Data (12:33 p.m. NY)Russia reported 15,277 deaths linked to the virus in April and May, including 9,192 where Covid-19 was reported as the main cause. That compares with the 4,831 deaths reported previously by the government for those months.The earlier data didn’t include cases where the virus was present but not considered the main cause, but some regions, including the capital Moscow, began reporting those figures, as well. Using the new data, the death rate from the virus stood at 3.7%, three times the previously reported figure.The Statistics Service didn’t release June data. The government has faced questions about the much lower number of deaths attributed to the pandemic compared with other nations.Gilead’s Remdesivir Linked to Death Reduction (9:36 a.m. NY)Gilead Sciences Inc. said its remdesivir virus treatment is associated with a 62% reduction in the risk of death compared with the standard of care. The death rate with remdesivir was 7.6% at Day 14 versus 12.5% among those not taking remdesivir.The finding is based on an analysis that combines results from a Phase 3 trial and a “real-world” retrospective cohort of patients with severe disease, the company said, noting that it requires confirmation in prospective clinical trials.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  • Has Apple Surged Too Far, Too Fast? Analyst Weighs In

    Has Apple Surged Too Far, Too Fast? Analyst Weighs InWith the market getting extra frothy, it is legitimate to wonder whether we are in the midst of a bubble. Despite the growing disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, the surge has been almost relentless since the coronavirus inflicted meltdown in March. Tech stocks, in particular, have outperformed, including the world’ largest company by market cap – Apple (AAPL).It has become increasingly hard to keep up, as Apple has repeatedly notched new all-time highs recently. In a research note to clients, Deutsche Bank analyst Jeriel Ong ponders this exact issue.“AAPL's prior pre-COVID peak was ~$325 back in Feb-20,” Ong noted, “and we can't say that the fundamentals behind the stock for 2021 and beyond are ~15% better than the pre-COVID era as the present difference in all-time highs today vs. back then suggests.”Additionally, aside from “the speed and magnitude of the rebound,” going forward, Ong says, Apple’s surge is at risk of being derailed due to several possible elements. These include a contracting economy with high unemployment rates and less spending from “smaller wallets,” a second COVID-19 wave which will result in stores closing again and the risk of delays to the anticipated iPhone 12 launch.So, with these concerns laid out, is now the time for investors to step aside and come back after Apple has cooled off?Uh-uh. Looking ahead, the pluses outweigh the minuses.Ong explained, “Long-term, we see investors building more confidence in 4 drivers of the stock (iPhone, AirPods, Services, and GM mix shift) as the market continues to stabilize. Simply put, while we see the risks outlined above and perhaps negative catalysts on the horizon (maybe a weak 4Q guide as a result of a delayed next-gen iPhone launch?) ultimately we continue to believe the reward/positive catalysts outweigh the risks, at least at this point in time.”Therefore, Ong keeps his Buy rating intact, and somewhat surprisingly given the concerns, increases the price target. The figure moves up from $380 to $400. (To watch Ong’s track record, click here)Among the analyst fraternity, Apple remains a firm favorite. AAPL's Strong Buy consensus rating is backed by 1 Sell, 6 Holds and a resounding 26 Buys. However, the Street expects shares to decline by 8%, should the $355.52 average price target be met over the following months. (See Apple stock-price forecast on TipRanks)To find good ideas for tech stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * Aurora Cannabis (ACB): Transformation on Track * 3 “Strong Buy” Penny Stocks That Could See Outsized Gains * Amazon Is Said To Offer $100M In Stock Awards To Keep Zoox Talent * Walgreens Reports $1.7B Quarterly Loss, Cuts 4,000 Jobs Due To Covid-19 Impact

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