Auteur/autrice : News Team

FedEx Corporation (NYSE-FDX) was founded in 1971. The company is headquartered in Memphis, Tennesee, USA. The Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the company is Raj Subramaniam. FedEx Corporation provides a portfolio of transportation, e-commerce and business services through subsidiaries that operate independently and are managed collectively under FedEx Corporation. The subsidiaries include FedEx Express, TNT Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight and FedEx Services. The FedEx Express segment offers a range of domestic and international transportation services for the delivery of packages and cargo. The TNT Express segment collects, transports and delivers documents, packages and shipments on a daily or time-definite basis. The FedEx Freight segment offers freight transportation services. The FedEx Services segment provides sales, marketing, information technology, communications, customer service and other back-office support to its other companies.

This managed consolidation of FedEx Corporation will be a gradual transition that will ultimately bring FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Services and other FedEx operating companies into Federal Express Corporation, which will become a single company operating a single, fully integrated ground-to-air network under the FedEx brand. This full implementation is expected to be completed in June 2024. FedEx expects to realize a permanent cost reduction of $4 billion in fiscal year 2025 as a result of this major consolidation. This includes cost reductions of $1.2 billion in internal communications networks, $1.3 billion in air and international networks, and $1.5 billion in general and administrative cost savings. CEO Raj Subramaniam said: « Over the last 50 years, we have built networks that have created a differentiated and unrivalled service portfolio, with this organisational evolution reflecting how we position ourselves in the marketplace – focused on flexibility, efficiency and intelligence. As one FedEx team, we are well positioned to deliver on our mission to help customers compete and win with the smartest logistics network in the world. »

The company also recently announced plans to reduce managerial positions at FedEx Freight and to adjust and reduce flight networks to ensure stable deliveries with minimal disruption. For fiscal year 2023, the company generated total sales of $90.155 billion with an operating profit of $19.166 billion and employs 529,000 tribal workers.

FedEx Corporation (NYSE-FDX) also pays regular quarterly dividends to its shareholders. The dividend yield is currently 2.04% per annum and the actual dividend amount has been approved by the company’s board of directors at $1.26 per share. Currently, shareholders can also look forward to the dividend payout as the last date to purchase FedEx Corporation (NYSE-FDX) shares using the dividend payout, the so-called Ex-Dividend Date, has been set for March 8, 2024 and the actual dividend payment (Pay Date) has been set for March 21, 2024. According to analysts at brokerage firms and financial strategists at investment banks, the share price can be expected to rise in the short to medium term investment horizon, where the average target price has been set at $297.55 per share.

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The company reported a 10% year-over-year increase in fourth-quarter revenue to $6.2 billion. This was mainly due to the increase in data center sales, which still accelerated significantly towards the end of the year, thanks to the active involvement of AI in targeted advertising. The data center and Ryzen Embedded processor segment grew by $1.2 billion and accounted for more than 50% of Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD)’s total revenue for the fourth quarter. For the full year, data center segment revenue grew 43% year-over-year to a record $2.3 billion. In the fourth quarter, the company also saw its server CPU business, the next-generation EPYC 4 and EPYC 3 processors, double in revenue. Among other things, the company also gained share in servers running its next-generation AMD Instinct AI accelerators, positioning it as the largest provider of adaptive computing in the IT industry. These AMD Instinct MI300 accelerators are connected to AI chips with an ultra-fast 192GB GPU RAM and 5.3TB per second data transfer rate.

Shares of chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) have seen a more than 300% increase since the fall of 2022. This increase shows the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry. This potential added value associated with AMD chips thanks to Instinct AI accelerators could further boost the company’s sales growth and stock value (NASDAQ:AMD). If the company can defend its market leadership, dominated by Nvidia, we can expect AMD to have another strong quarter. These facts have attracted the attention of multinational investment corporations and private investors to buy shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) specifically, for which an average target price of $196.65 per share has been set for the short to medium term investment horizon.

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Apple recently announced financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2024, ending December 30, 2023. The company reported quarterly revenue of $119.6 billion, an increase of 2% year-over-year. Apple Inc (AAPL-NASDAQ) CEO Tim Cook said « Apple reported revenue growth for the December quarter, driven primarily by sales of new iPhones and record sales of services. » « We are pleased to announce that our active device base has now surpassed 2.2 billion, reaching an all-time high across all products and geographic segments. And as customers begin to recognize the incredible Apple Vision Pro, we are as committed as ever to pursuing disruptive innovation – in line with our values and on behalf of our customers. » According to Forrester analyst Thomas Husson, investors are likely to have questions about Apple’s business and demand for its devices in China, where the company faces strong competition from Huawei and other Chinese brands. « A key element, for the next quarter, will be the sales of the new iPhone 15 during the holiday season and also the sales of Apple products in China.

Apple Inc. also announced that it has already started selling the revolutionary Vision Pro virtual glasses on its App Stores.This next generation computer is changing the way people work, collaborate, connect, make memories and have fun. Vision Pro connects digital content to the physical world through virtual glasses and opens up spatial experiences through VisionOS, controlled in the most natural and intuitive ways possible by the user’s eyes, hands and voice. This new headset from Apple, Vision Pro, is a new product category the company is entering since the launch of the Apple Watch in 2015. While iPhone sales are expected to be at their strongest, sales of this new Apple Vision Pro headset will be closely watched. According to Apple news site MacRumors, the company has already sold over 200,000 headsets.

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Apple Inc (AAPL-NASDAQ) pays regular quarterly attractive dividends to its shareholders. The dividend yield is currently 0.5% p.a. The actual dividend amount has been approved by the company’s shareholders at $0.24 per share. The average target price has been set by tipranks.com analysts for the short to medium term investment horizon at USD 208.07 per share.

Amazon reported financial results for Q4 and fiscal year 2023. Progress at Amazon last year was primarily in improving customer service, continued innovation, reducing cost to serve, and investing in future growth. Amazon’s profits grew sharply. The world’s largest retailer generated revenue of $170 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023, up 14% from the same period in 2022, beating the expectations of Wall Street Journal analysts, who estimated around $166 billion. Net income for the fourth quarter was $10.6 billion. This increase was due to the company’s extensive restructuring, where the company decided to cut costs and draw a line under years of rapid expansion after the pandemic outbreak, but also due to strong growth in cloud computing and a $100 billion increase in « AWS (Amazon Web Services) » sales thanks to Gen AI artificial intelligence. The company also launched an AI-powered shopping assistant, Rufus, in its mobile app. The company’s revenue for fiscal year 2023 increased 12% to $574.8 billion compared to $514.0 billion in the previous year.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said: « This Q4 was a record-breaking quarter in Christmas shopping, capping off a successful year for Amazon in 2023. While we made meaningful progress in revenue, operating income and free cash flow, we are most excited about the continued reinvention and improvement of customer support for our businesses. »

The company employs around 1,600,000 tribal workers and last year it began layoffs, laying off 27,000 tribal workers. The move was mainly because the company is dealing with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Recruitment has increased during that time as more customers have turned to online services for their needs. However, the demand for these services is now declining.

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23 Wall Street brokers raised their price targets on the stock as the online retail giant posted a 14% increase in sales in the holiday quarter, pointing to strong spending despite a tight economy. The average price target was set by the multinational investment corporations for the short- to medium-term investment horizon at $207.72 per share.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ-MSFT) today announced via press release that it has decided to expand the use of artificial intelligence in its business. The company plans to make this move for future and steady revenue growth. The company expects a 15.8% year-over-year revenue growth for the fourth quarter, the best growth in nearly two years, thanks to the AI services already in use with Office 365, but also due to the growing trend in the adoption of generative AI for demand with other cloud services. With its leadership in AI, Microsoft is likely to consolidate its lead as the largest company by market capitalization this year. The software giant took the top spot on Friday with a valuation of $3 trillion, surpassing Apple Inc.

Microsoft Inc. has also committed to investing more than $10 billion in generative AI. The company also recently launched a paid AI-enabled Microsoft 365 service, « Copilot, » for $30 per month. Copilot can draft emails, create presentations, and prioritize appointments on a calendar. The company is also of interest to investors with the release of its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 financial results tomorrow, January 30, 2024. The company also pays regular quarterly dividends to its shareholders. Currently, the dividend yield is 0.74% p.a. The actual dividend amount was approved by the AGM at $0.75 per share. According to analysts at brokerage firms and financial strategists at investment banks, the share price can be expected to rise in the short to medium term investment horizon. The average target price for the short to medium term investment horizon was set at USD 442.70 per share

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The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE-DIS) was founded by Mr. Walt Disney and Roy Disney on October 16, 1923 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Its business segments include – Media Networks, theme parks and resorts, interactive products, and consumer promotional products. The Media Networks segment includes cable, terrestrial and satellite broadcasting, distribution of television shows and radio stations. The Walt Disney Co (NYSE-DIS) also broadcasts in the entertainment segment, social events and animated films, recorded music, and live theatrical plays. The company owns theme parks and resorts and operates Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, which includes theme parks, hotels, restaurants, sports complexes, convention centers, campgrounds, golf courses, and water sports parks. The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE-DIS) also owns and operates Disneyland Resort in California, Disney Vacation Club and Disney Cruise Line. The company also operates the Disneyland Resort in Paris, the Disneyland Resort in Hong Kong and the Disney Resort in Tokyo, Japan. The company employs 225,000 tribal workers.

The company recently released its financial results for fiscal year 2023. The company generated total sales of $88.898 billion for fiscal year 2023, which increased 7% year-over-year. The company earned a net profit of USD 2.354 billion. Total assets are USD 205.579 billion. Shareholders’ equity of USD 103.957 billion. The company also performed very well for the fourth quarter, with nearly 7 million more subscribers. The most popular streaming content included theatrical titles such as Elemental, Little Mermaid and Guardians of the Galaxy 3rd, as well as the Ahsoka and Moving series. The company expects free cash flow for fiscal year 2024 to increase significantly from fiscal year 2023, approaching pre-pandemic years. Both the continued strong growth in the Company’s business and the pipeline of new projects will ensure that the Company will have good investment progress and meet its targets in the future.

The Company expects free cash flow for fiscal 2024 to increase significantly from fiscal 2023, approaching pre-pandemic levels. This continued strong growth in free cash flow, as well as the Company’s upcoming new projects, will ensure the Company’s investment and shareholder goals for the future. The company also pays a regular quarterly dividend. The quarterly dividend payout is $0.3 per share. The annual dividend yield is 0.32%. The average target price for the short- to medium-term investment horizon has been set at $107.89 per share.

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Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ-MAR) is the world’s largest hospitality and travel company. Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ-MAR) is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. The company currently owns over 6,000 of its properties worldwide, located in 122 countries and territories. Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ-MAR) operates hotels and franchises. The company currently has 30 subsidiaries that are engaged in the same business. Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ-MAR)’s most prestigious resort hotel brands include : Bulgari®, The Ritz-Carlton®, St. Reserve®, Regis®, W®, JW Marriott®, Marriott Hotels®, Westin®, Le Méridien®, Sheraton®, Marriott Vacation Club®, Gaylord Hotels®, SpringHill Suites®, Fairfield Inn, TownePlace Suites®, Aloft®, Element®. The Company also operates award-winning loyalty programs: Marriott Rewards®, which includes Ritz-Carlton Rewards® resorts and Starwood Preferred Guest®.

Marriott International, Inc. celebrated the opening of a new hotel under its new StudioRes hotel brand on January 17, 2024, through inaugurations in Canada and the U.S. This new and distinct company brand features Marriott’s affordable mid-market guest experience. The move marks a significant milestone for Marriott International as it expands its hotel offerings to the middle class and helps make staycation dreams come true. Among those attending the ceremony were Marriott President and CEO Tony Capuano and Liam Brown, along with other company leaders.

The company also recently released its financial results for the third quarter of 2023. The company’s total sales increased by 8.8% year-over-year, and the company reported net income of $752 million. This compares to USD 634 million in the same quarter of the previous year. During the third quarter, the company built approximately 17,200 new rooms worldwide. At the end of the quarter, Marriott’s global development pipeline included more than 3,200 properties and nearly 557,000 rooms, including approximately 40,300 approved for construction. At the end of the third quarter, approximately 238,000 hotel rooms were under construction. During the third quarter, Marriott International, Inc (NASDAQ-MAR) repurchased 4.8 million shares of common stock for $950 million and returned $3.7 billion to its shareholders through dividends.

Marriott International, Inc. (Nasdaq-MAR) will report financial results via conference call for the fourth quarter and full year 2023 on Tuesday, February 13, 2024. Marriott International’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Anthony Capuano, and Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Development, Leeny Oberg, will discuss the Company’s performance on this conference call.

Marriott International Inc (NASDAQ-MAR) also pays a regular quarterly dividend to its shareholders. The dividend yield is 0.89% per annum and the actual dividend amount has been approved by the company’s general meeting of shareholders at $0.52 per share. The high estimate average target price was set at $255 per share.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ-AMD) will unveil its new products at CES 2019, which begins on January 8, 2019. The company’s Chairman and CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, will speak about the near future next week. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. plans to focus this year on solving a variety of computational problems in the near future in computer gaming and virtual reality, which will be more advanced than ever before. The company is also talking through public media about revolutionizing the gaming industry, but also virtual entertainment. These facts have attracted private investors and multinational investment corporations to buy shares of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ-AMD), which rose 2.00% to $18.83 per share in trading on January 2, 2019.

Advanced Micro Devices (abbreviated as AMD) is an American hardware company founded on May 1, 1969 in Sunnyvale, California with operations in the global market. The company is engaged in the development and sale of processors, APUs, GPUs and chipsets. The company also owns an 8.6% stake in Spansion, a flash memory manufacturer. The products are manufactured by external suppliers: GPUs are manufactured by TSMC, CPUs are manufactured by GlobalFoundries together with TSMC, and chipsets are manufactured by GlobalFoundries. Graphics cards are produced by each company on its own. AMD’s biggest competitors are Intel, which mainly produces CPUs and chipsets, and nVidia, which mainly produces GPUs. In 2011, AMD is the 2nd largest company developing processors (mainly x86 compatible, but also ARM processors), graphics chips and chipsets.

Earlier in the press conference, Dr. Lisa Su, Chairman and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ-AMD), announced that in 2019, AMD will showcase a new generation of gaming and visual technology featuring high-performance 7nm processors and GPUs that will provide the performance needed to take computing to the next level, which will be seen in the most demanding games, as well as entertainment and virtual reality with a new dimension of definition in modern life. With 7nm technology, the company will once again manage to leapfrog Intel, which is still struggling with 10nm manufacturing. Since the birth of the first ZEN processors, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ-AMD) has been planning to improve performance by 40% over time. However, the reality ended up being with a 52% performance increase. The current size of ZEN+ chips is 12nm, so it is very likely that with the new ZEN2 processors, which have chips at just 7nm the company can significantly increase the performance of the processor. These facts have attracted the attention of private investors and multinational investment corporations to buy shares of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ-AMD) specifically, which generated total sales of $5.33 billion for fiscal year 2017 with an operating profit of $204 million. After deducting all expenses, the company generated a net profit of $43 million. The company has total assets of $3.54 billion with equity of $611 million and employs 8,900 tribal employees.

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ-AMD) have currently become very attractive for private investors and multinational investment corporations to buy shares, mainly due to the long-awaited unveiling of the new ZEN2 processor line at CES 2019, but also due to the recently released 3Q 2018 financial results, in which the company increased net income by 67.2% to USD 102 million, and the launch of the Radeon Pro V340 graphics card, which can provide the most demanding visualization requirements from data centers. According to analysts at brokerage firms and financial strategists at investment banks, the share price can be expected to increase in the short to medium term investment horizon, where the average target price has been set at $23.95 per share.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ-MSFT) has reported earnings results for the first quarter of 2024 above the expectations of global analysts. Revenues were $56.5 billion, up 13% year-over-year, according to the company’s press release. Operating profit was up 25% year-over-year to $26.9 billion. The company’s net profit, after all expenses, was up 27% year-over-year to $22.3 billion. Revenue from commercial Office products and cloud services grew 15%, driven primarily by growth in Office 365 Commercial revenue. Revenue from Dynamics products and cloud services grew 22%. These facts have made Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ-MSFT) stock highly sought after by private investors and multinational investment corporations.

Microsoft’s Chairman and CEO said: « We are rapidly deploying artificial intelligence at every layer of the technology stack and in every role and business process to deliver productivity gains for our customers. » « With copilots, we are making the age of AI real for people and businesses around the world, »

Microsoft Corporation also recently launched a large-scale investment in Floyd County, Georgia, on Huffaker Road in Rome.  This investment will exceed $1 billion and will include the construction of a data center to support the Azure platform. « This is a tremendous economic opportunity for our community that will have positive impacts for decades to come, » said Jimmy Byars, Chairman of the Rome Floyd County Development Authority. The site itself is 347 acres in size. The company will also create 150 senior management jobs at the Georgia data center with this investment. This project is expected to take about three years to complete.

The company also pays regular quarterly dividends to its shareholders. Currently, the dividend yield is 0.81% p.a. The actual dividend amount was approved by the AGM at $0.75 per share. According to analysts at brokerage firms and financial strategists at investment banks, the share price can be expected to rise in the short to medium term investment horizon. The average target price for the short to medium term investment horizon was set at USD 424.36 per share.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ-GOOGL) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California, USA. Alphabet Inc. was formed through the restructuring of Google LLC on 2 October 2015 and became the parent company. Mr. Larry Page is the founder and CEO of the company and Mr. Sergey Brin is the Chairman of the company. This new portfolio in Alphabet Inc. includes several sectors including technology, life sciences, investment capital and research. The Google segment includes internet products such as : search, ads, commerce, maps, YouTube, Google Cloud, Android, Chrome and Google Play. The Google segment engages in advertising, digital content sales, applications and cloud offerings, and hardware product sales. The Other Offerings segment engages in the sale of Internet and television services through Google Fiber, the sale of Nest products and services, and the provision of licensing and research and development services through Verily. It offers Google Assistant, which allows users to text or communicate with Google. The company also has a Google Maps navigation service, and a Google Photos app that helps users store and organize all their photos.

Despite growing competition in the AI space, Google’s stock has risen 55% this year. Google is also trying to counter Microsoft’s investment in AI startup OpenAI by making its own generative AI tools available through its software developers. The question is how much the integration of chatbot AI technology will affect advertising revenue. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ-GOOGL) also had a big day in Washington recently when U.S. President Biden signed an executive agreement in guarantees for the AI industry that could affect Google’s most important projects. The company also recently received an award from U.S. Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken for its work and contributions in helping Ukrainian refugees and promoting women’s economic security.

Alphabet Inc. also recently released financial results for the third quarter of this year in which it beat analysts’ expectations. The company generated total sales of $76.693 billion with a year-over-year growth of 9.68%. The company’s net profit increased by 41.54% to USD 19.689 billion. These facts have attracted the attention of private investors and multinational investment corporations to buy shares of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ-GOOGL) , for which the average target price for the short- to medium-term investment horizon has been set at $153.84 per share.