Call of the Day: Goldman Sachs
Bank of America reiterates their buy rating on Goldman Sachs, it's our Call of the Day. The Investment Committee debates how to trade the banks.
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Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Gold prices should hit $4,000 as U.S. deficits may overshadow the Israel-Iran conflict, BofA says
Wars and geopolitical conflicts typically aren't long-term growth drivers for gold prices, according to analysts at Bank of America, which sees the precious metal reaching $4,000 an ounce over the next year. Despite the Israel-Iran conflict heating up, the outlook for gold is likely to be swayed more by the U.S. budget deficit. Gold is often seen as a safe-haven asset during times of global turmoil, but wars and geopolitical conflicts typically aren't long-term growth drivers for gold prices, according to analysts at Bank of America. In fact, gold has actually dipped 2% in the week since Israel began its airstrikes on Iran. Meanwhile, tensions are ramping as reports Saturday said B-2 stealth bombers are headed over the Pacific. That's as President Donald Trump weighs involvement in the conflict, potentially with bombers dropping massive 'bunker busters' on heavily fortified Iranian nuclear sites. In a note on Friday, BofA analysts said they expect gold prices to reach $4,000 per ounce in the next year, representing an 18% jump from current levels. 'While the war between Israel and Iran can always escalate, conflicts are not usually a sustained bullish price driver,' they wrote. 'As such, the trajectory of the US budget negotiations will be critical, and if fiscal shortfalls don't decline, the fallout from that plus market volatility may end up attracting more buyers.' The Israel-Iran conflict has drawn attention away from Trump's tax-and-spending bill making its way through Congress. While the House and Senate versions have key differences that need to be reconciled before it can become law, the bill's fiscal impact is still expected to add trillions of dollars to U.S. deficits in the coming years. That's raised fears about the sustainability of U.S. debt and global demand for the flood of Treasury bonds that will be issued to finance all the red ink. And amid Trump's trade war, the U.S. dollar—traditionally viewed as a haven asset—has suffered as well, slumping against other top currencies and providing more upside to gold. Central banks around the world have dumped $48 billion in Treasuries since late March alone. At the same time, central banks keep buying gold, continuing a trend that began years earlier. A recent survey from the World Gold Council found that geopolitical instability and potential trade conflicts are chief reasons why central banks in emerging economies are shifting toward gold at a much faster rate than those in advanced economies. BofA estimated the central banks' gold holdings are now equivalent to just under 18% of outstanding U.S. public debt, up from 13% a decade ago. 'That tally should be a warning for US policymakers. Ongoing apprehension over trade and US fiscal deficits may well divert more central bank purchases away from US Treasuries to gold,' analysts warned. Meanwhile, the market still doesn't appear to be overexposed to gold. BofA estimated that investors have allocated just 3.5% of their portfolios to gold. And regardless of how Congress ends up rewriting the budget bill, analysts said deficits will remain elevated. 'Therefore, market concerns over fiscal sustainability are unlikely to fade no matter the result of Senate negotiations,' BofA predicted. 'Rates volatility and a weaker USD should then keep gold supported, especially if the US Treasury or the Fed are ultimately forced to step in and support markets.' This story was originally featured on
CNN
4 hours ago
- CNN
So, has anything actually gotten more expensive because of Trump's tariffs?
Source: CNN Predictions from mainstream economists were dire after President Donald Trump launched his tariff campaign just a couple weeks after he began his second term in office: Prices would rise — sharply — they said, reigniting an inflation crisis that tens of millions of Americans had elected him to solve. But that massive, tariff-induced inflation spike hasn't materialized. Not even close. Not yet, anyway. Consumer prices rose just 2.4%, annually, last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was less than economists had expected, and only slightly higher than the 2.3% rate in April, which was the US economy's lowest inflation since February 2021. According to the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index most closely followed by the Federal Reserve, core inflation — which strips out volatile items like food and gas prices — fell to 2.5% in April. That was the lowest reading since March 2021. That's a far cry from what economists and consumers have predicted. Month after month, inflation has fallen short of Wall Street's expectations, as American businesses said they would be forced to hike prices as a result of historically high tariffs. America's effective tariff rate is now 14.1%, according to Fitch Ratings, up from 2.3% last year. That means Trump raised taxes on imported goods by nearly 12 percentage points in 2025. Economists expected substantial inflation increases as a result. Goldman Sachs analysts last month said core goods inflation could hit 6.3% this year and consumer prices would surge 3.7% by early 2026. JPMorgan economists said core inflation would nearly double by the end of this year. And American consumers in May expected prices to rise an alarming 6.6% this year, according to sentiment surveys from the University of Michigan. That prediction fell in June, but consumers still expect inflation to hit 5.1% in 2025. So what happened? Are economists just really bad at their jobs? Not quite. Their predictions may yet come true — and economists are largely cleaving to their bets. America's economy is enormous and complex, and predicting when prices will rise and fall can be an extremely tricky business — particularly when factoring in the on-again, off-again nature of Trump's tariff regime. Still, tariffs through mid-June haven't caused inflation to spike. Love tariffs or hate them, there's no denying inflation is lower now than when Trump took office. Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday said just a few items are growing in price as a result of tariffs, including electronics that come from China. He said PCs and A/V equipment have become more expensive because of Trump's trade war. But the price increases aren't widespread yet, Powell noted, because stores are still working through the inventory that came in to their warehouses before Trump put tariffs in place. 'Goods being sold at retailers today may have been imported several months ago, before tariffs were imposed,' Powell said. Research firm Telsey Advisory Group, which has been tracking the prices of 80 select consumer items across a wide variety of retail categories, reported this week that just 19 products it has tracked have gained in price since mid-April — and 16 items' prices fell. Similarly, the New York Times' Wirecutter, which recommends consumer products, tracked the prices for 40 of its top picks over the course of two months and found this week that the vast majority didn't change price at all: 10 gained in price and only half of those gained more than 7%. 'There haven't been many significant upticks in prices as of yet given that many retailers are still selling through their lower-cost inventory,' Dana Telsey, CEO and chief research officer of Telsey Advisory Group told CNN. Even autos, many of which are subject to a 25% tariff, plus a tariff of up to 25% on some imported auto parts, haven't gained in price — they've fallen . New car prices fell 0.2% in May, according to car-buying research site Edmunds, and they rose only 2.5% compared to the pre-tariff period in March. Both new and used car prices fell in May, according to the BLS' Consumer Price Index. That's because dealers are still working through their supply of pre-tariff cars, according to Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds. With prices remaining in check so far, the Trump administration has declared victory. 'They've all been discredited,' said the White House's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, in an interview last month with CNN, referring to tariffs' detractors. 'What we got in the first term [of Trump's presidency] was not recession or inflation, we got price stability, robust economic growth and rising wages, just as we thought we would.' Navarro has frequently pointed to the low overall inflation during Trump's first term, despite his tariffs. And he's right: CPI peaked at 2.9% in mid-2018 before falling below 2% throughout most of 2019. But Navarro's assertion about the impact of tariffs on the US economy comes with a couple of significant caveats: First, Trump during his current term has already placed tariffs of at least 10% on $2.3 trillion of imported goods, comprising 71% of all US goods imports, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. In his first term, Trump placed tariffs on just $380 billion worth of foreign goods. And second, the pandemic severely disrupted the global economy soon after Trump's tariffs took effect, preventing economists from getting a decent picture of how significantly prices rose. But some data shows prices gained in the specific sectors Trump targeted with his first-term tariffs. For example, after imposing some steel tariffs in 2018, US production expanded modestly, but it sent costs rising for cars, tools and machines; and shrank those industries' output by more than $3 billion in 2021, the International Trade Commission found in a 2023 analysis. Nevertheless, Joseph Lavorgna, a former Wall Street economist turned Treasury Department official, took a victory lap because inflation hasn't risen since Trump imposed tariffs during his second term. 'Tariffs have just not shown up at all in any of the data,' Lavorgna, counselor to the Treasury secretary, told CNN this week. 'The forecasting community has been completely wrong.' Lavorgna, a former SMBC Nikko Securities chief economist who also served in the White House during Trump's first term, said a broad range of inflation metrics suggests foreign producers are absorbing tariffs and that the trade war won't be inflationary. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed that message Thursday during a briefing, saying: 'America is quickly returning to the successful formula of the first Trump administration: low inflation and rising wages.' Many mainstream economists argue that the low inflation of the spring represents a calm before the summer storm, when they expect prices to rise. 'It's a question of when, not if,' Stephanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research, told CNN. Walmart, Target, Lululemon, Home Depot and Costco among others have said in recent weeks that they will raise some prices because of tariff pressures. Although some of the big box retailers said they would work to keep most prices low, they acknowledged that they operate low-margin businesses, and in the cases when American-made alternatives are unavailable or more expensive, they expect that they'll have to pass some of that additional cost to their customers. Consumers won't be alone in their struggles with tariffs in the coming months, said said Sid Malladi, CEO of Nuvo, a company that manages businesses' trade partnerships. Price hikes will weigh on businesses, too, many of whom will take on some of the hit to keep prices as low as possible for as long as possible. But that could mean difficult conversations in the boardroom later this year about potential layoffs and other cost cutting. 'This is early innings. No one wants to be first out of the gate,' said Malladi. 'You don't want to risk reputational damage to your brand, because raising prices in this environment might cause customers to turn away from you. Many may eat their margin for a few months.' 'It's hard to overstate the level of anxiety businesses have,' Malladi added. Small businesses, without the supply chain mastery of larger companies, have struggled in particular to afford higher tariff costs and have said they are reducing supply or raising prices. Many have complained that American alternatives for some foreign imports may be unavailable or are too expensive. 'While larger retailers may have the scale, capital and pricing power to absorb or strategically offset these pressures, small and mid-sized players remain significantly more vulnerable, with limited flexibility to manage rising input costs or supply disruptions,' Telsey said in TAG's latest Product Pricing Analysis report. Telsey noted that prices, when they eventually start to rise, won't all gain equally or across the board. Only select goods will start to gain in price to start, likely beginning in late August or September. 'Inventory is ordered typically anywhere from six months to one year in advance, and it is expected that the select pricing pieces will begin to show up in late summer,' she said. Fed Chair Powell on Wednesday agreed that the tipping point for broad consumer price increases could come this summer as inventories of pre-tariff warehoused goods dry up. 'We do expect to see more of that over the course of the summer,' Powell said. 'It takes some time for tariffs to work their way through the chain of distribution to the end consumer.' Normally, retailers hold about 1 to 2 months' worth of inventory on items, noted Kristy Akullian, head of iShares Investment Strategy, Americas, so prices could begin to rise in the coming weeks. Another indication that prices could start to spike: In April's Institute for Supply Management services report, prices paid by businesses increased the most since November 2022, and business inventories contracted. 'Low inventories make it harder for companies to keep prices steady, so going forward, we expect the inflation impacts from tariffs to become more apparent,' Akullian said. Powell agreed with that timeline, noting companies that report on their business sentiment to the Fed have said they expect to pass those tariff costs on down the supply chain. 'Many, many companies do expect to put all or — some of the effect of tariffs through to the next person in the chain, and ultimately, to the consumer,' Powell said. 'So we're beginning to see some effects. We expect to see more.' Despite initial success at maintaining low prices, Treasury's Lavorgna conceded inflation could begin to rise down the road because of tariffs. 'I'm not saying there can't be a tariff effect on the numbers at some point,' he said. See Full Web Article
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
Korn Ferry price target raised to $85 from $77 at Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs raised the firm's price target on Korn Ferry (KFY) to $85 from $77 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares after fiscal Q4 revenue, EBITDA margins and EPS came in ahead of the firm's estimates and consensus and guidance for Q1 exceeded Street expectations. The fourth edition of Talent Suite released in Q4 should drive accelerated digital segment revenue growth in calendar 2026 and potential upside to management's 16%-18% medium-term EBITDA margin target, the analyst tells investors. Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter Published first on TheFly – the ultimate source for real-time, market-moving breaking financial news. Try Now>> See today's best-performing stocks on TipRanks >> Read More on KFY: Disclaimer & DisclosureReport an Issue Korn Ferry's Resilience and Growth Potential Amid Economic Uncertainty Korn Ferry Reports Steady Growth Amidst Global Challenges Korn Ferry's Earnings Call: Strong Growth Amid Challenges Korn Ferry rises 13.1% Korn Ferry rises 16.5% Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
