Category: Penny Stocks

This past week has been strong for the U.S. Dollar Index DXY — its best since October 2022, in fact. It’s a far cry from the first half of this year, when the index lost almost 11% — the worst first-half return on record since the index was created in the early 1970s.

Looking back, you might think that the weak dollar was good for U.S. stocks, given the S&P 500’s SPX total return of 6.2% during this recent period of dollar decline. But the U.S. stock market has also performed spectacularly in years when the dollar was unusually strong. So maybe the dollar’s movements don’t matter to dollar-based investors.

For stock-market investors over the last three months, even bad news was considered good news.

Take falling corporate profits, which would normally be bearish. But not in the second quarter of this year, during which the S&P 500’s SPX estimated calendar 2025 earnings per share fell nearly 10%. In response, the overall stock market rose 11%.

Shares of Beyond Inc. rose then fizzled after hours on Monday after the online retailer, which oversees the resurrected Bed Bath & Beyond and Overstock.com, reported second-quarter results that weren’t as bad as expected.

But the company’s blockchain investments — along with retail, its crypto roots go back at least a decade — have been a different story. And its chief executive on Monday also urged more concerted action to deliver results from those businesses, as investor pressure intensifies and cryptocurrency regulation starts to take shape.

Intel Corp. recently indicated that it might give up on its next-generation chip technologies, and some analysts said it could signal a future where the chip maker doesn’t have its chip fabrication facilities anymore — a move that could have ripple effects across the semiconductor sector.

In a 10-Q filing earlier this month, Intel INTC said that it is still focused on developing its next-generation Intel 14A process node, which will follow its Intel 18A process node and Intel 18A-P variant. The company’s 18A process node will be the foundation of at least the next three generations of the company’s products, Intel said on its earnings call.

PayPal Holdings Inc. has been a “battleground stock,” according to Bernstein analyst Harshita Rawat — with some investors worried about competition for the company’s core checkout busines, and others hopeful that the current management team will be able to execute better than past leaders.

Looking at a short window, PayPal’s stock PYPL is on a hot run — it logged its eighth session in a row of gains Friday, and is ahead almost 7% over that period. It’s the stock’s longest winning streak since a 10-session one that ended April 13, 2021, according to Dow Jones Market Data.