The biggest companies in the world are using their significant cash piles to pump up their stock prices into year-end.  About 53.8% of third quarter stock buyback activity was fueled by the top 20 companies, according to new data from S&P Dow Jones Indices senior index analyst Howard Silverblatt. The top 20 list (see below) was headlined by a who’s who of the rich and powerful in corporate America: Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Oracle and Microsoft. These five companies alone repurchased a startling… Source link

Streaming providers have revolutionised the way we watch television and now Google are looking to get in on the action with the launch of Google TV. Consumers are already concerned by the number of different subscriptions they feel they have to take out – Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+ and so on – but Google are trying to present their new offering as a solution, due to the amount of free content they will be offering. What is Google TV and what is their partnership with Pluto TV? Google TV… Source link

Somehow, we get Washington Football Team on Sunday night when the NFL has what amounts to two division title games. So much for flexing.  There are two great matchups in the NFL in Week 16 and both happen at 1 p.m. ET. Both should directly affect who wins a division title.  Let’s start with the undercard, and that’s the Baltimore Ravens at the Cincinnati Bengals. The Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns are still hanging around a wild AFC North race, but whoever wins Ravens-Bengals will… Source link

TikTok beat out Google for the most popular domain in 2o21, according to data from web security and performance company Cloudflare’s 2021 Year in Review of internet traffic. Why it matters: Video-sharing platform TikTok rose to massive popularity in 2021. Surpassing mammoths like Google, Facebook, YouTube and Netflix in web traffic shows the speed and power of the ascent. Google and Meta-owned Facebook are well aware of TikTok nipping at their heels, unveiling video-based features like… Source link

The clock has officially begun on a potential year-end Santa Claus Rally for the stock market.  A Santa Claus Rally is one where stocks climb higher in the final seven trading sessions of a year plus the first two trading days of the New Year. Its precise cause has never been greatly explained — theories range from year-end tax considerations to people spending their fat bonuses to buy stocks to general seasonal effects. Wednesday is the first day in this nine session trek for the markets…. Source link

Some Democrats despise him. Some Republicans lionize him. He seems to be pleasing all the wrong people, but this could make Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia exactly the type of purplish crossover politician voters would cheer as a 2024 presidential candidate. Manchin, of course, has gained fame and notoriety for saying he won’t vote for President Biden’s “build back better” legislation. There are only 49 other Democratic senators, so Manchin’s defection is a de facto… Source link

CONCORDIA, Mo. – It was recently discovered that Google Maps captured a rare photo of a stealth bomber flying over Concordia, Missouri. The Google Maps photo was discovered by a Reddit user. Also known as the B-2 Spirit, the stealth bomber “is a low-observable, strategic, long-range, heavy bomber capable of penetrating sophisticated and dense air-defense shields,” according to an Air Force Technology article. The aircraft has speeds of 628 miles per hour. “It is… Source link

Oppenheimer chief investment strategist John Stoltzfus is in rarified air on Wall Street entering the New Year.  The long-term market forecaster now sports the most bullish price target on the S&P 500 amongst his peers, eclipsing the always optimistic Brian Belski at BMO Capital Markets. Stoltzfus — who has spent 38 plus years on the Street — sees the S&P 500 climbing 14% to 5,330 by the end of 2022. Belski forecasts S&P 500 5,300. Through Wednesday, the S&P 500 is up 24%… Source link

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Waymo, a unit of Google’s Alphabet Inc, and Yandex Self-Driving Group, a division of the Russian-based Yandex corporation, are among more than a dozen leading names in automated vehicle software and hardware. The former recently launched a pilot self-driving taxi program in San Francisco, the latter has been testing its automated cars worldwide for the past several years and has self-driving rovers on several… Source link

Season-long leagues are winding down — some may even have crowned their champion — but fantasy owners who need their fix can turn to daily fantasy football moving forward. We’re headed into Week 16 which means there are three more main slates remaining in 2021. Our Week 16 Yahoo DFS tournament picks include several low-price, high upside values, and we think we have the right configuration to take a shot at the top spot in GPP tournaments.  We’re also calling… Source link