Half of U.S. Living Paycheck to Paycheck — and More Headlines You Might Have Missed
As we check on the news that helps shape the Pro Portfolio, we're eyeing the adoption of AI, demand for data centers, and distressing signals on the state of Americans' finances.
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Amid the holiday shopping frenzy, we’re collecting articles and data points that confirm strategies powering the Pro Portfolio. News continues to unfold around us and we've spotted many critical headlines. Here’s what we saw this week:
Aging of the Population
“Medicaid is the nation’s publicly financed health and long-term care program for low-income people. It was originally established to provide benefits to those receiving cash assistance or 'welfare.' In the case of older Americans, that source of cash benefits was — and remains — the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. Over the years, however, Congress and the states have expanded Medicaid to reach a broad array of uninsured Americans living near or below the poverty level." Read more here
“The typical American retires far earlier than he or she expects to, and it's often not by choice, according to new research from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. The median retirement age in the U.S. is 62, with nearly six in 10 retirees telling the research firm that they stepped back from the workforce earlier than they had planned. Almost half of those people said the reason came down to health issues, such as physical limitations or disability. Losing a job or an organizational change at their employer were among the other reasons people stopped working before they planned to retire.” Read more here
Position: Labcorp LH
Artificial Intelligence
“ChatGPT now has over 300 million people using the AI chatbot each week. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed the milestone during The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday, which comes just months after ChatGPT hit 200 million weekly users in August. “Our product has scaled ... now we have more than 300 million weekly active users,” Altman said. “We have users sending more than 1 billion messages per day to ChatGPT.” Read more here
Position: Elastic NV ESTC, Microsoft MSFT, ServiceNow NOW
Artificial Intelligence, Digital Lifestyle
“The artificial intelligence boom is reshaping Black Friday, too. U.S. e-commerce sales on the unofficial shopping holiday hit a record this year, with online spending hitting $10.8 billion, up 10.2% from 2023, according to Adobe Analytics. Generative AI chatbots played a starring role in the retail bonanza, driving an 1,800% surge in retail site traffic compared to 2023, Adobe said. These tools, which mimic human conversations to help shoppers find deals, compare products, and check out faster, became essential for bargain hunters navigating this year’s online frenzy.” Read more here
Position: Amazon AMZN, Costco COST
Artificial Intelligence, Digital Infrastructure, Energy Pain Point
“Facebook-parent Meta said on Wednesday it plans to invest $10 billion to set up an AI data center in Louisiana, in what would be the tech company's largest data center in the world. The hyperscaler data center, which is planned in Richland Parish, is designed to process huge amounts of data required to support digital infrastructure, including artificial intelligence workloads. The development comes a day after Meta said it was seeking proposals from nuclear power developers to help meet its AI and environment goals, adding that it wanted to add 1 to 4 gigawatts of new U.S. nuclear generation capacity starting in the early 2030s.” Read more here
Position: Eaton ETN, Marvell MRVL, Meta META, Nvidia NVDA
Cash-Strapped Consumer
“Deal-hunting during the event is now a mostly online pursuit. Seventy-two percent of shoppers made their purchases via the Internet this year. Most in-store shopping supplemented consumers’ online spending. Economic motivations for the best deals drive Black Friday shopping, yet most consumers focus on discretionary spending, with 59% purchasing ‘nice-to-have’ items for others, 53% purchasing those items for themselves and 14% indulging in experiences like trips or massages. Additionally, data revealed that Black Friday shoppers using buy now, pay later (BNPL) spent more on average than others using credit or debit cards.” Read more here
“Nearly half of Americans at least somewhat agree with the statement, “I am living paycheck to paycheck,” as of the third quarter of 2024. The share shrank slightly between the second and third quarters of this year, but in 2022, less than 40% of Americans felt this way, Bank of America reports.” Read more here
“One thing has remained consistent in 2024 with cable TV bills going up…again. Both Comcast and Spectrum, two of the nation’s largest cable providers, have announced significant price increases, leaving many customers feeling gouged and frustrated. They are joined by many smaller cable TV companies and satellite TV companies like DIRECTV, raising their prices in 2024. For some, the increases could add up to $20 a month, translating to a whopping $240 extra per year.” Read more here
Position: Amazon, Costco
Cybersecurity
“Forty-nine cybersecurity-related merger and acquisition (M&A) deals were announced in November 2024. This was a record month for 2024 in terms of M&A deals.” Read more here
“A new set of 15 SpyLoan Android malware apps with over 8 million installs was discovered on Google Play, targeting primarily users from South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
The apps were discovered by McAfee, a member of the 'App Defense Alliance,’” Read more here
“A popular open-source game engine called Godot Engine is being misused as part of a new GodLoader malware campaign, infecting over 17,000 systems since at least June 2024… It's no surprise that threat actors are constantly on the lookout for new tools and techniques that can help them deliver malware while sidestepping detection by security controls, even as defenders continue to erect new guardrails.” Read more here
“Hackers are using artificial intelligence to mine unprecedented troves of personal information dumped online in the past year, along with unregulated commercial databases, to trick American consumers and even sophisticated professionals into giving up control of bank and corporate accounts.” Read more here
Position: First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF CIBR
Digital Lifestyle
“Black Friday shoppers spent a record $10.8 billion this year, primarily via online purchases. A report Monday (Dec. 2) from NPR — citing data from Adobe Analytics — notes that this figure is 10% higher than last year’s total, and double the amount of spending from 2017. Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Friday, online shoppers spent $11.3 million per minute, Adobe said… The report also cited data from Salesforce showing that 69% of Black Friday purchases came from mobile devices, up 1% from last year’s figures.” Read more here
“Walmart says its third-party sellers enjoyed record sales as the holiday shopping season began. The company’s Marketplace saw its highest-ever sales day and also set a single-day conversion rate record during the period between Nov. 25–Dec. 2, or Cyber Monday, Walmart announced Tuesday (Dec. 3). Walmart says this record comes as the company’s eCommerce business is experiencing substantial growth.” Read more here
Energy Pain Point
“Big tech firms including Amazon.com and Alphabet have recently made splashy investments in new kinds of small nuclear plants to power their AI data centers. The announcements have sent the stocks of startup nuclear developers Oklo and NuScale Power up 120% and 750%, respectively, this year. Now, there’s another set of buyers warming to the idea of putting lots of small nuclear reactors all over the country—state governments. New York, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Tennessee have lately started to join the bandwagon.” Read more here
“Apollo Global Management Inc. sees an “industrial renaissance” emerging as part of an energy transition investment opportunity worth $50 trillion over the coming decades, according to Leslie Mapondera, a partner at the private capital firm. “Just in Europe there’s probably $1.8 trillion to be spent” between 2025 and 2030, Mapondera, the company’s co-head of European credit, said at the Bloomberg Intelligence credit market outlook conference in London on Thursday.” Read more here
Position: Eaton
Safety & Security
“Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a record-breaking defense budget, setting aside a staggering third of the government’s total spending as the war in Ukraine drains resources from both sides nearly three years on. The budget for 2025, which was published Sunday, allocates about $126 billion (13.5 trillion rubles) to national defense – amounting to 32.5% of government spending.” Read more here
Position: Lockheed Martin LMT
