Latest Picks from United States of America
NBC Sports
15 minutes ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Wyndham Clark confirms that he damaged lockers at Oakmont: 'I made a mistake'
Wyndham Clark fired a 6-under 64 Thursday in the first round of the Travelers Championship, his best round since late March. But all most reporters wanted to talk about was last week's report that Clark damaged multiple lockers following his U.S. Open missed cut Friday at Oakmont Country Club. A photo, shared to social media by No Laying Up's Tron Carter, showed the lattice panels of two bottom lockers appearing to be kicked in. Clark confirmed he was the culprit, though he didn't provide much aside from a quick apology. 'I've had a lot of highs and lows in my career, especially this year some lows,' Clark said. 'I made a mistake that I deeply regret. I'm very sorry for what happened. 'But I'd also like to move on, not only for myself but for Oakmont, for the USGA, and kind of focus on the rest of this year and things that come up. I still want to try to make the Ryder Cup team. I still am on the outside looking in for the FedExCup. So I'm starting to move on and focus on those things.' Clark, the 2023 U.S. Open champion, entered this week's final signature event of the season ranked No. 80 in FedExCup points and No. 23 in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings.
Chicago Tribune
16 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
‘Teen takeover' event in downtown Naperville Saturday attracted 150 people, resulted in 5 arrests, police say
After Naperville police allegedly found a 14-year-old carrying a loaded, semiautomatic pistol at a downtown 'teen takeover' event last weekend, authorities are urging safety and, again, stressed they have zero tolerance for illicit behavior. 'While we encourage everyone to exercise their first amendment right and we encourage everyone to enjoy what the downtown provides, we need everyone to do that lawfully,' Naperville police Cmdr. Rick Krakow said. 'There's going to be zero tolerance for any sort of criminal behavior, from trespassing to disorderly conduct to fighting.' Since May 1, there have been seven planned teen takeover events in Naperville, each with varying degrees of participation, Krakow said. The latest, held Saturday, resulted in five arrests, including that of the 14-year-old, who was charged with one count of unlawful possession of a weapon, authorities said. Charges in other arrests included disorderly conduct and battery, Krakow said, adding that he had no reports of injuries from the incidents. Police estimated about 150 people were involved with Saturday's takeover. Asked when the gathering took place, Krakow couldn't give an exact time but said that 'when the sun starts to go down, the activity tends to ramp up.' Police were aware of the gathering ahead of time as it had been advertised on social media and assigned eight to 10 officers to be there, he said. There also were a few school resource officers patrolling the downtown as part of their normal assignment when schools aren't in session, Krakow said. Even prior to the takeover, downtown Naperville was abuzz with activity. At the Naperville Municipal Center, a few thousand demonstrators gathered for a 'No Kings' rally while Naperville's fourth annual Juneteenth celebration took place over at Rotary Hill. And along Jackson Avenue, there was a classic car show. Despite the activity, staffing the events 'was not an issue,' Krakow said. 'Staffing those events, especially all in one day, can be difficult,' he said. 'But the men and women of the Naperville Police Department are dedicated and committed to the safety of everyone downtown or any area where there's going to be large gatherings.' In the wake of Saturday's takeover, Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the 14-year-old's arrest on firearm-related charges was a 'wake-up call' and 'reminder that safety isn't something that we can take for granted.' 'Our kids need us,' he wrote. 'They need mentors, guidance, support, and, sometimes, someone to step in before things go too far. We can't afford to look the other way. If you see a young person struggling, reach out. If something feels wrong, report it.' Speaking to the incident, Krakow addressed parents and guardians, urging them to 'know where and what your teenager is participating in.' Naperville police previously emphasized zero tolerance for unlawfulness after two takeover events took place the weekend of May 17-18, leading to the issuance of numerous citations and two arrests. There were similar incidents in 2023, including one in which police had to be dispatched downtown to break up a group of about 150. Such gatherings are not unique to Naperville. Takeovers have become commonplace in Chicago's downtown neighborhoods over the past few years.
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Is Tyler Technologies Stock Outperforming the Dow?
Tyler Technologies, Inc. (TYL), based in Texas, is the quiet powerhouse fueling government tech. With software in over 13,000 locations and all 50 U.S. states, Tyler's mission is to modernize public sector operations. Its tools help agencies streamline data, boost efficiency, and make smarter decisions. Valued at $24.5 billion by market cap, Tyler is not just digitizing government – it is reshaping how it works. Large-cap stocks are those companies valued at north of $10 billion, and Tyler Technologies fits that mold with ease. With a market cap well above the threshold, Tyler dominates the government tech arena, driving innovation in cloud, data, and cybersecurity. Through bold acquisitions and strategic plays, it has become the digital backbone for smarter, faster, more transparent public services. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says 'We Are Heading Towards a World Where AI Will Just Have Unbelievable Context on Your Life' How a Stablecoin Could Absolutely Transform This 'Strong Buy' Dividend King OpenAI's Sam Altman Says Meta Offered Employees $100 Million Sign-On Bonuses, But 'Really Happy' None Have Accepted Yet Tired of missing midday reversals? The FREE Barchart Brief newsletter keeps you in the know. Sign up now! But even giants stumble. Tyler's shares are down 14% from their 52-week high of $661.31 achieved on Feb. 13, slipping 1% over the past three months and lagging the Dow Jones Industrials Average's ($DOWI) 1.4% rise. However, over the longer term, TYL stock rose 20.3% over the past 52 weeks, outperforming DOWI's 8.6% returns over the past year. Tyler Technologies has been stuck in a technical tug-of-war. Since March, the stock drifted below both its 50- and 200-day moving averages. By May, TYL managed to claw back above its 50-day line - just enough to tease a comeback. The stock just flashed a bearish crossover - its 50-day average dipped beneath the 200-day, signaling momentum fatigue. Shares of Tyler Technologies have been grinding up the charts over the past year, powered by its sharp pivot into cloud-based solutions and a growing appetite for AI integration. Plus, the company's fundamentals were robust, consistently outpacing the broader market. For instance, released on April 23, its Q1 fiscal 2025 numbers were rock solid: $2.78 in adjusted EPS and $565.2 million in revenue – both exceeding estimates. But Wall Street can be a cold game. Despite the beat, a wave of analyst downgrades sent the stock sliding 6% overnight, proof that even solid execution can get undercut by shaken sentiment. Tyler's rival, Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (CDNS), has been on a short-term sprint jumping nearly 17% over the past three months. But zoom out, and Tyler's shares win the marathon - its year-long rally easily outpaces Cadence's 9.1% stumble. Wall Street analysts are cautiously optimistic about TYL's prospects. The stock has a consensus 'Moderate Buy' rating from the 18 analysts covering it, but that's a downgrade from the 'Strong Buy' rating a month ago. Meanwhile, the mean price target of $670.35 suggests a potential growth of 17.9% from current price levels. On the date of publication, Sristi Jayaswal did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published 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
16 minutes ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Unusually Active Put Options Signal Long Straddle Opportunity After Zoetis Downgrade
Stifel Financial analysts downgraded Zoetis (ZTS) stock from a Buy to a Hold rating on Wednesday, citing slower growth over the next two years due to increased competition. The animal health company's shares fell by 4% on the news. Down nearly 8% over the past year, considerably worse than the 9.3% gain for the S&P 500 and 4.8% for Idexx Laboratories (IDXX), its biggest competitor. Geopolitical Volatility Puts Iamgold (IAG) on the Radar for Risk-Tolerant Bulls Unusually Active Put Options Signal Long Straddle Opportunity After Zoetis Downgrade Get exclusive insights with the FREE Barchart Brief newsletter. Subscribe now for quick, incisive midday market analysis you won't find anywhere else. As a result of the downgrade, its share volume yesterday was 4.66 million, x times its 30-day average. At the same time, the options volume was also unusually high, at 5,028, almost five times the average. There were 2,014 unusually active options yesterday--1,001 calls and 1,013 puts. Of the puts, Zoetis had one unusually active option. It signals a potential long straddle strategy for investors. The question is whether it's the best strategy to use in this instance. Here are my thoughts. The July 18 $155 put above had a volume of 1,011 yesterday. There were a lot of bets made on the unusually active option. The most significant trade among the 1,011 contracts was 44, which changed hands at approximately 9:42 a.m. I count 36 trades of 10 or more, and 66 trades of less than 10, indicating that this was a combination of retail and institutional investor bets. As I said, the $155 strike set up for a possible long straddle strategy. There are pros and cons to this play. The long straddle strategy is applied when you expect the volatility of a stock to increase and the share price to move aggressively in either direction, but are unsure which way it will move. To execute the long straddle, you buy a call and put at the same strike price and expiration date. This bet generates a profit if the share price at expiration (July 18) is above $165.40 or below $144.60. However, should it fail to move up 6.7% or down 6.7% over the next 30 days, you are out the net debit of $10.40 [$5.70 ask price on call + $4.70 ask price on put] or 6.71% of yesterday's $155.06 closing share price. When considering these strategies, it's easy to think that a 6.7% move in either direction over 30 days is a realistic expectation. It's not. The expected move over the next 30 days is 5.22% in either direction. To increase your chances of profiting from this long straddle bet, you'd be better off extending the DTE by 28 days to Aug. 15, nine days after Zoetis announces its Q2 2025 results. However, that would have cost you approximately $17.50 [$9.60 ask price on call + $9.90 ask price on put], or 11.5% of its share price, nearly double the July 18 call and put. Interestingly, despite the lower expected move for the July DTE, the long call and long put pages suggest, at least individually, they have a slightly better profit probability, 1.92 percentage points higher [33.41% profit probability for July 18 $155 put compared to 31.49% for the Aug. 15 $155]. So, even though the July put has a lower expected move, the cost (net debit) of the long straddle, at $710, is less than that of the August put, making it more sensible. But is the long straddle the best strategy? Zoetis was spun off from Pfizer (PFE) in 2013. Conducted in two parts, it first sold 20% of the animal health company in a February 2013 initial public offering (IPO). The remaining 80% was spun off in a share exchange on June 20, 2013, in which Pfizer shareholders received 0.9898 shares of Zoetis for each Pfizer share. If you had kept your Pfizer shares rather than exchanging them for 0.9898 shares of Zoetis, your Pfizer stock would have lost ground over the next 12 years, generating an annual return of only 2.96%, because of the dividends. Meanwhile, adjusted for dividends, 0.9898 shares of Zoetis would have appreciated by 15.5% annually over the same 12 years. That's the good news. The bad news is that most of the gains came between 2016 and 2021. Since its all-time high of $249.27 on Dec. 30, 2021, its shares have lost 38% of their value. The likelihood of its shares moving higher seems remote given the downgrade. However, it wouldn't be surprising to see it trading below $150 before too long. So, the short bet is a better play. Three possibilities to use based on a bearish outlook are the long put, bear put spread, or bear call spread. Buying the July 18 $155 long put based on the numbers above, you're making money if it falls below $150.30. Simple enough. With the bear put spread, you're buying a put and selling a put at a lower strike with the same expiration date. This bet limits your profit and loss. Going long with the $155 put, here are three lower strike prices to consider. Given the difference in maximum loss between the $140 short put and $150 short put is only $170, or 1.1% of yesterday's closing price, the $140 short put seems like the play with a risk/reward of just 0.38 to 1. The final of three bearish put strategies is the bear call spread. Here you're using calls rather than puts. It involves selling a call and buying a call at a higher strike price with the same expiration. In this instance, using the same $155 strike but for calls, you're generating a net credit rather than a net debit. For example, the net credit of the $155 long call and $165 short call is $3.10 [$4.60 bid price - $1.50 ask price]. The $170 short call raises the net credit to $4.00, and the $175, to $4.30. If you're bearish, despite the higher risk/reward, the profit probability is significantly higher than the bear put spread, varying between 60.3% and 64.1%, nearly double. Counterintuitively, even though you're exposing yourself to higher losses, you're doing so to secure a profitable trade. For this reason, the downgrade from yesterday likely led to some call action on the $155 strike. I see 22 calls in Wednesday trading. Not as much as one might expect. In Thursday morning options trading, of the July 18 options, there is only one call strike that has had a trade of 10 or more [$160], with plenty of 10+ trades for put strikes, especially the $155. Investors have spoken. The bear put spread is the play for those bearish on Zoetis. On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Sign in to access your portfolio
USA Today
17 minutes ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Is there really a Masters Curse? It would explain Rory McIlroy's recent play
Is there really a Masters Curse? It would explain Rory McIlroy's recent play A lot of time has been spent analyzing Rory McIlroy's post-Masters funk. No one, however, wants to contemplate the unthinkable. The Masters Curse. Ridiculous? Yeah, sure it's ridiculous. How on Earth could it be bad for a golfer's career to win a major golf championship so steeped in history and tradition that even non-golfers know about the Green Jacket and Amen Corner? A Masters hangover is a natural occurrence and quite forgivable, and that's a big part of what Rory is dealing with. Well … that and having his driver deep-sixed at the season's next major — the PGA Championship a month later — when it was deemed non-conforming after some routine testing. That's not unusual, since the wear and tear on the driver's clubface eventually thins the front plate beyond the tolerance level. Even Scottie Scheffler had his driver taken away before the PGA (and won anyway, by the way). Rory finished 47th at the PGA and shunned media requests along the way. He later raised eyebrows by skipping Jack Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament so he could play the week before the U.S. Open, which he did, for two days — he missed the 36-hole Canadian Open cut by 12 shots. TWELVE! Rory then finished 19th in the U.S. Open, which actually wasn't that bad considering how miserable he looked during the entire four-day trudge. After finally completing the career grand slam with his Masters win, he's a man searching for new motivation. More: Lynch: Rory McIlroy had three goals in 2025. He's achieved the first, now on to the second Will he find it? Yeah, most likely. Unless there really is some sort of a Masters hex. These Masters champions left it all at Augusta National Crazy talk? Well, let's examine over a third of the Masters winners from the 21st Century. For some (Phil Mickelson, Jordan Spieth, Scottie), their Masters win was the first of multiple majors. But for over a third of this century's winners, the Masters victory was the final highlight — for now, anyway. None ever won another major, some never won again in North America, one quit the job entirely, and hell, one of 'em even went to prison. Let's examine. Mike Weir (2003): Poor play and injuries sent him tumbling down the world rankings, and by decade's end, he was struggling to maintain PGA Tour status. Trevor Immelman (2008): His career highlight was his last PGA Tour win. Within two years, tendonitis in his left arm was wearing him out. By 40, he was Jim Nantz's wingman in the CBS booth — and a good one, by the way. Angel Cabrera (2009): It was five years before he won one last time on Tour, though he nearly won the 2013 Masters. Over the next decade after his Masters win, he had just two top-10s in 31 majors. After two years in an Argentine prison, he returned to pro golf this year at the senior level and has three wins on the PGA Champions Tour, including the recent Senior PGA Championship. Charl Schwartzel (2011): Has had just five top-10s in his next 42 majors. Reminded us he was still kind of relevant when he signed with the LIV Tour. Danny Willett (2016): As a past champ, he remains Masters-eligible at age 37. But it's the only major for which he retains playing status. He recorded one top-10 in 28 majors after taking advantage of Spieth's 2016 meltdown. Sergio Garcia (2017): After shedding his label as best without a major, he slowly slid away, eventually joining the LIV crowd. He won one ho-hum tournament (the 2020 Sanderson Farms) after his Masters victory, and a few times in Europe, but in 27 majors since that 2017 Masters, there have been zero top-10s and 16 missed cuts. Dustin Johnson (2020): It was his 24th and final PGA Tour win before jumping at the LIV money two years later. He's missed the cut in half of his 18 major starts since 2021. He has one year left on the 10-year U.S. Open exemption, and after that, the Masters could become the only major he plays. That's pretty stunning when you consider his level of play just five years ago. Jon Rahm (2023): It's probably premature to count this guy, since he's just 30 and has contended in a couple majors since winning in Augusta. But the Masters triumph came during a time when he was swearing allegiance to the U.S. tour, and it came eight months before he ditched that tour for LIV. His Masters win certainly gave him added contractual leverage with LIV's rainmakers, but did it also doom his future? Should Tiger Woods be on this Masters list? Maybe Tiger Woods didn't make the above list for obvious reasons. His first Masters win, in 1997, heralded an unmatched decade-plus of dominance. But you can make a case for the curse with Tiger's 2019 Masters victory, which in retrospect has a Damn Yankees feel to it. Quite literally, a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears flowed between Tiger's 14th major (2008) and his 15th (2019). In the post-tournament presser six years ago, he admitted to looking forward to a day or two away from the clubs, beginning the next day. Sounds normal. But Tiger was never exactly normal, and even if he was going to take a day off, it's doubtful he would've admitted it. He might not have sold his soul for that long-awaited return to glory, but he looked like a guy who'd given everything he had left to make it happen. And look what all happened since then. And now consider Rory, who at 36 certainly has a lot of time to get over this Augusta hangover. Unless it's not just a hangover. — Reach Ken Willis at
