Amazon Drops the Newest Echo Pop to Its First and Lowest Price Yet, Practically Free for a Limited Time
If you've been thinking about dipping your toes into the smart home world, one good place to start is with an Amazon Echo device. It's easy to use, and you can put it just about anywhere in your house. It's a solid speaker and a smart home hub, and it's pretty unobtrusive, too. And if you want to go ahead and lock one in for yourself, Amazon is selling one at a great price right now. You won't want to miss out on this one, especially since it's available for only $25.
In fact, you can get the newest version of the Echo Pop for just $25, down from its usual price of $40. That's $15 off and a discount of 38%.
See at Amazon
The smarter speaker that you can place anywhere
The 4th Gen Echo is a smaller, sphere-shaped device that you can put just about anywhere and it won't look or feel too out of place. It's an effective speaker with a 3-inch woofer and dual front-firing tweeters, which means it actually offers sound that can fill a room if you want that type of music. And it can push out clear, crisp voice calls if you use it to communicate.
But it's much more than that. In fact, you can use it to set up and keep track of all your smart home devices. That includes cameras, bridges, and more. You can use the Echo to bring them all together in a central location, which should make it a lot easier to set routines, get updates, control lights, and more.
Alexa can help with a lot of that too, like weather updates, voice-controlled routines, news briefings, shopping lists, alarms, and more. There's even a built-in temperature sensor and motion detection, which you can use to trigger automations based on whether someone's in the room. And if you're worried about privacy, there's a physical button that cuts power to the microphones. You're in control of when it's listening.
For just $25, this is a device that punches above its weight class in a big way. You'd probably find yourself spending a lot more on similarly functioning tech elsewhere, but Echo speakers are cheaper for a reason. And this one is affordable in a way right now that means you can get a couple and place them around your house, or give them as gifts. Whatever the case may be, don't miss out on this deal and head to Amazon to scoop one up.
See at Amazon
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
35 minutes ago
- Forbes
Wall Street Is Steadily Investing In Energy As An Inflation Hedge
CULVER CITY, CA (Photo by) At the end of last week, fund managers had built up the largest net long position in crude oil futures in nine months, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It is serving as a necessary inflation hedge given a growing conflict in the Middle East, and declining drilling at home. The biggest risk to equity returns remains inflation and funds need to protect themselves. Inflation also risks prolonging the current period of high rates, which is already taking its toll on several asset classes, including housing. Oil and energy equities broadly are increasingly appealing as a result of these dynamics. Funds flow into energy is expected to continue and the recent involvement of the U.S. in Iran will only accelerate this move. In the latest Bank of America fund manager survey, energy and materials still remained unloved, with managers net underweight. This is even after the recent increase, as allocations were near record lows just earlier this year. Yield and an inverse correlation to bonds has been another benefit of the trade. The yield on XLE, the energy sector ETF, is also almost three times that of the broader market, providing income that closer tracks inflation. It has also been performing as a hedge when bonds, the historical hedge in the 60/40 portfolio, have been failing. Periods of increased inflation expectations, as seen with the initial tariff announcements, now see both bonds and equities dropping in parallel. This is because inflation would force rates to remain high right as the U.S. refinances a sizable chunk of government debt this summer. The already large deficit means that higher rates become a self-fulfilling problem as more and more of future bond raises goes towards paying interest, which investors demand a higher rate for, creating a growing deficit spiral in an inflationary environment. The above strategy has played out in actual returns. US equities are up only slightly this year, a little over 1%, while emerging markets and commodities have outperformed, with gold up over 25%, oil up over 5%, silver up over 20%, emerging markets up over 10%, and bonds returning a little less than 1%. Several other dynamics make continued energy outperformance, and increased fund exposure likely, and these are outside of the increasing conflict in the middle east. The first is that escalating equipment costs, due to a combination of climbing labour costs and changing supply chains, benefits incumbent energy names. The second is that power demand shows no signs of slowing down with natural gas being the winner in AI data centers that require both scale and reliability. This is also during a period that the US wants to continue to grow natural gas exports, creating multiple demand levers at a time when storage availability remains flat. That creates an asymmetry where prices can spike to the upside. The third is that oil rigs have dropped by 9% in the U.S. as producers pulled back capital amidst economic uncertainty. This reduces the chance that supply will overwhelm demand and helps alleviate some of the downside risks to the trade. While energy investing always has a risk, an allocation as a hedge, especially given the broader macro tailwinds, is increasingly appealing for funds. This continues to show up in recent funds flow and is expected to only increase this coming week with both energy equities and oil prices likely to spike on the news of U.S. strikes.
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Dollar Confidence Is Waning, Bitwise CIO Warns—Is Bitcoin The New Safe Bet?
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Confidence in the dollar and the fiat system, in general, is breaking down, and central banks are turning to gold while individuals are turning to Bitcoin, according to Bitwise investment chief Matt Hougan. Hougan said in a June 17 note that 54 years after the U.S. left the gold standard, the world is waking up to the reality that the fiat system may not make sense. 'Maybe printing money out of thin air, as we started to do in 1971, is actually a wild idea,' he said. "Maybe sound money requires limits. Put differently, people are starting to look around and ask: What the hell is fiat?' Don't Miss: — no wallets, just price speculation and free paper trading to practice different strategies. Grow your IRA or 401(k) with Crypto – . Hougan cites a recent Financial Times report, which said that gold was once again becoming the anchor of the global economy as people questioned the core assumptions of the present system. Central banks have been rapidly accumulating gold in recent years, with spikes following the 2008 financial crisis and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Amid this buying spree last year, gold surpassed the euro as the second most widely held reserve asset by central banks, behind only the dollar. Hougan said the flight back to gold came as governments started abusing fiat and accelerated after they began seizing it. He said the desire by central bankers to hedge their bets has only grown with the increasing temptation for the U.S. to devalue its way out of its ballooning $37 trillion debt. He notes that they are turning to gold because it is scarce, global, resistant to manipulation and non-sovereign. These characteristics, he points out, also apply to Bitcoin, which he says has become the alternative for individual investors. He cites the large capital inflows into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds since they started trading in January 2024 compared to gold. Trending: New to crypto? on Coinbase. Bitcoin ETFs have attracted $45 billion in net inflows. By comparison, gold ETFs have attracted only $34 billion. 'I see these as two sides of the same trade,' he said, comparing the flight of central banks to gold and the individuals to Bitcoin. Hougan said the main reason central banks still preferred gold boiled down to market size. At $2 trillion, Hougan said the Bitcoin market did not yet have the liquidity to support the entry and exit of central bankers at scale. But he said this might be changing as government demand grows. To be sure, several countries have started considering Bitcoin reserves following President Donald Trump's move in March to establish a U.S. reserve from seized assets. According to Hougan, whether it is gold or Bitcoin, the message is clear: investors are rethinking their portfolios to hedge against fiat risks. 'For the last forty years, we've been taught to diversify our portfolios by combining stocks and bonds,' he said. 'But no matter how you calibrate that—60% stocks and 40% bonds, or 70/30, whatever—you are still 100% exposed to fiat currency. People are realizing that those are rather risky waters to be swimming in.' Read Next: A must-have for all crypto enthusiasts: . Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — Image: Shutterstock This article Dollar Confidence Is Waning, Bitwise CIO Warns—Is Bitcoin The New Safe Bet? originally appeared on 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
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Veteran chartist unveils eye-popping S&P 500 target
Veteran chartist unveils eye-popping S&P 500 target originally appeared on TheStreet. With the stock market again flirting with record highs, investors want to know if their portfolios can keep climbing the proverbial wall of worry or whether the recent gains have been a last gasp before headline risks kick in and the next downturn starts. It's a fair question in a market that has largely performed to analyst expectations only if you measure prognostications by their beginning and end points. 💵💰💰💵 Plenty of analysts expected the market to be near peak levels by mid-year, but no one was calling for the bumpy ride that stock market has actually seen. The S&P 500's roller coaster ride this year has left many scratching their heads, wondering what may happen next. Many on Wall Street are revamping their S&P 500 targets, including two long-time technical analysts who recently shared their updated forecast. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index entered 2025 at 5,868 and peaked on February 19 at 6,144; it then proceeded to give back nearly all of that gain by the time April rolled around. But after President Trump's so-called 'Liberation Day' – when he announced sweeping tariff plans that rattled the markets – the index lost another 15% in a matter of days, setting a new low on April 8 at 4,982. The market then began to grind its way back; a month after Liberation Day, on May 2, it had recovered the full measure of the decline triggered by the tariff announcement. By May 13, the S&P 500 was in positive territory for the then, it has ground higher, crossing 6,000 on June 6; that – and the record of 6,144 – was where a lot of market observers expected to see resistance, where a market that failed to break through could fall back, potentially all the way back to the April lows. While news events don't become part of the S&P 500 chart until they show up in prices, they do factor into what market technicians think can happen next. Technical analysts can cite legitimate concerns about a potential economic slowdown, sticky inflation, uncertain tariff policies, geopolitical tensions around the world and more. Those headlines cast a shadow over the market, which has market technicians looking for a breakthrough to confirm that the recent bounce-back isn't just a bear market rally. Two prominent technical analysts have made it clear that they expect the rally to hold, with new record highs coming any day now. Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial, says that investors see the messy economic backdrop and figure it's not conducive for a rally to new highs. Focus on the technicals and rely on history, however, and Turnquist says a different picture starters, bottoms are a process where the market hits lows and then tests them repeatedly, but the April downturn was V-shaped, steep and fast down but with a hard bounce and no-retest of the downturn. There is reason to believe in the upside, Turnquist says. In an interview on 'Money Life with Chuck Jaffe,' Turnquist noted that LPL research shows that over the last 75 years, when there is a meaningful new high three months after the last high was set, momentum tends to keep rolling, and the average return for the index over the ensuing 12 months is nearly 10 percent. 'We can't discount the fact that we have a lot of trade uncertainty,' Turnquist said. 'Yes, we're past peak policy uncertainty when it comes to trade, but still very elevated, still a lot of headline risk. We talk about the deficit as well. There's risk there.' Turnquist said if the market struggles to break through to new highs, a lot of analysts will call for a double-top and expect a fall back to at least the 5,400 level on the S&P 500. That's a 50% retracement on the rally, and it overlaps with some of the lows from last September. More Experts Analyst makes bold call on stocks, bonds, and gold TheStreet Stocks & Markets Podcast #8: Common Sense Investing With David Miller Veteran fund manager sends dire message on stocks For that reason, Turnquist expects the market to find 'a confluence of support around those levels,' but that's not the move he's calling for. Instead, he called this 'a market where you want to be buying dips and not selling rips right now.' He's not the only technical analyst who foresees those rips and new highs. Matt Fox, president of Ithaca Wealth Management, said in an interview on the June 17 edition of Money Life that the sell-off in April did a lot of the 'technical damage' necessary to set up a rally. He said he now has a 7,000 target on the S&P 500, meaning a gain of roughly 20% in the next 12 months. 'The momentum has been strong, and we have seen a lot of great participation across sectors,' Fox said. 'It's not just a handful of stocks that has driven this rebound from the April tariff lows; it has been the entire market. I think that's a good sign that not only will we test those new highs but we will keep on going up and keep on making new highs for the foreseeable future.' Fox said the current charts are particularly strong, noting that he sees a lot of cup-and-handle patterns indicating stocks on the verge of a breakout. 'It seems like we are in this sweet spot where the charts are lining up perfectly as the fundamentals are improving, and that can lead to some explosive moves,' Fox said, noting that the conditions he sees in current charts remind him of 2013, a year in which the S&P 500 gained nearly 33%. 'This is reminiscent of that,' he said. 'I'm worried to come off as too bullish, but I think it's hard not to be pretty constructive on the market going forward.'Veteran chartist unveils eye-popping S&P 500 target first appeared on TheStreet on Jun 22, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jun 22, 2025, where it first appeared. Sign in to access your portfolio
