At the recent Microsoft Ignite event in Chicago, CEO Satya Nadella and his team told what I thought was a strong, cohesive story to pull together the complex strands of enterprise AI. The company still managed to make many separate announcements during the three-hour keynote — I’ll spare you the rundown of every single detail — but there was a unifying arc to it that I think positions Microsoft well as AI continues its move from hype generator to value generator in the enterprise. Making Clear Strides To Achieve ROI For Enterprise AI Let me reiterate the obvious: enterprise AI is really complex. That holds even more for a company the size of Microsoft, which came out of the gate early in 2023 with AI-driven search , quickly got into copilots (and launched Copilot) and is now helping to fundamentally change personal computing with the Copilot+ PC . That’s before we get to Microsoft Azure’s role as the second-largest cloud service provider in the world. So it only makes sense for the company to commit itself to innovating in AI in myriad ways. As he kicked things off at the event, Nadella emphasized that the company’s AI efforts aren’t pursuing tech for the sake of tech, but to achieve real outcomes for business. In part this is an answer to the recent chorus of criticisms from Wall Street that the tech industry and its enterprise customers are overbuilding AI without having solid ROI to show for it. But from everything I can see, it also reflects Microsoft’s genuine intentions with AI: to empower people and companies to do more with multi-model (and multi-modal) AI, better reasoning and planning capabilities and richer context for greater accuracy and relevance. Nadella did point out some impressive technical achievements: AI performance is doubling every six months, consumption of Azure’s AI models has also more than doubled in the last six months, Copilot is now twice as fast while delivering 3x higher user satisfaction and so on. But there was a louder drumbeat of business results, starting with an example in the opening video that described an AI use case worth $50 million annually to the customer. Later on, Nadella and other presenters went through countless AI use cases, from monitoring legal contracts to shortening customer-service calls to accelerating protein research by 5x. While I absolutely agree with the shareholder perspective that any major area of investment must justify itself with meaningful returns for the business, I’m also seeing more and more real-world examples of quantifiable — and often large — ROI on AI investments reported by disciplined, no-nonsense companies including Microsoft, Lenovo, HPE, Adobe and others. The Copilot Three-Layer Cake During the keynote session, Nadella introduced a three-layered diagram to explain Microsoft’s approach to AI: Copilot is one layer, Copilot-powered devices are another, and Copilot in the AI stack is the third. This organizing rubric is another reminder of Microsoft’s reach among both consumers and businesses, because ongoing improvements to Copilot ripple out across the largest installed base of productivity software in the world (as well as enterprise apps including Power BI and Dynamics ERP), plus Microsoft can introduce whole new classes of computing devices (more on that below) — and then there is all the heavy-duty enterprise IT, especially via Azure. First, Copilot. What started with essentially a chatbot is now far more than that, crucially incorporating AI agents at every step. Nadella emphasized that expanding Copilots with agents is fundamental to Microsoft’s approach; one Copilot can employ thousands of agents for all kinds of tasks — think anything that involves automation, monitoring, scheduling, planning or collaboration. More than that, agents can be allotted specific roles and permissions tied to job duties, for example by restricting access to certain systems or data to IT or HR staff. Tools within the Copilot ecosystem can ingest many different multi-modal inputs: numerical data from spreadsheets or your ERP, text or diagrams in documents, social media feeds, e-mails and on and on. The outputs can likewise be almost anything you want: graphs, draft reports, project reminders, webpages, e-mails etc. One presenter even demoed Copilot creating a customized article to help him plan a camping trip, complete with recommended products to buy — all executed onstage in the moment in response to his verbal commands. The potential productivity gains are pretty compelling. Nadella and other presenters gave examples of synthesizing thousands of reports for risk analysis (saving weeks of laborious reading and collation); helping a salesperson monitor their pipeline and find upsell opportunities; answering questions about a presentation in Teams; extracting information from SharePoint; or, as Nadella himself does, organizing e-mail and prepping for meetings. Copilot Studio can help you make your own agents, and there was a big point made that creating a basic AI agent should be as easy as creating a Word document. For more advanced functions and more technical uses, there are also Copilot dev tools and coding-friendly agent creation services. In a separate meeting for analysts, Nadella pointed out that office work hasn’t meaningfully changed since the widespread adoption of the PC; things have gotten incrementally better, of course, but haven’t changed fundamentally. He sees Copilot upending this. From the Ignite stage, he said, “Every employee will have a Copilot that knows their work, helping them unlock productivity, enhancing creativity and saving time.” Importantly, Copilot now includes analytics that will show you exactly what Copilot is doing for your top and bottom line. In the analyst meeting, Nadella also said that a big first step is agents that can connect organizational silos. During the keynote I was particularly impressed with how Copilot can now connect not only with pre-built or custom agents created using Microsoft, but also with agents from Adobe, SAP, ServiceNow, Workday and even Cohere. This would allow you to keep Copilot as your main AI assistant, but take advantage of all the other agents that may be available through your enterprise systems. Besides connecting silos, this could be a potential solution to the AI agent version of app sprawl that we’re starting to see. This is highly relevant because the enterprises and global systems integrators I have talked with are having a very tough time integrating these silos of data to be able to do all this magic, and Microsoft is offering solutions to help. Spreading AI With Copilot Devices Microsoft is in a position to provide compute everywhere from Azure datacenters to the edge to the device in your hand, and in many cases the company is either making the hardware itself or intimately involved with creating the hardware’s architecture. This of course includes Copilot+ PCs, for which the company has collaborated with all the big PC OEMs, Qualcomm and increasingly AMD and Intel. At Ignite, Microsoft used this opportunity to talk up the benefits of moving your enterprise to Windows 11 — and let me say that if your company is not yet making that move, that’s something you need to fix immediately. From my perspective, Microsoft has removed every single objection to making this transition. At the event, Microsoft also announced a new piece of hardware called Windows 365 Link. It’s essentially a compute puck that delivers a virtual Windows experience from the cloud. Microsoft has already offered Windows 365 for a few years; the kicker here is that there’s absolutely zero maintenance and zero management of this client, which is adminless, passwordless, cannot be turned off, stores no data and uses the cloud for literally everything. Thinking strategically, I believe that Windows 365 and hardware like the Windows 365 Link are the future of Windows over the next decade. I need to get more information about the Link product, and maybe even get hands-on with it to test the experience, because what broke virtual desktop infrastructure from scaling was the user experience. Windows 365 isn’t VDI, as it’s a managed service — but latency cannot be variable. Microsoft’s Version Of The Enterprise AI Stack A lot of the hyperscalers (starting with AWS) and even some of the on-prem vendors (Dell, HPE, Lenovo — each in collaboration with Nvidia) are setting up their own AI factories under one name or another. For Microsoft, it’s the Azure AI Foundry, which I believe makes a big statement about the company’s strategic approach in this area and its dedication to multi-model AI. We’re talking about more than 1,800 models, including all of the latest ones from OpenAI plus open-source models from Meta, Mistral and others. In this context, I was fascinated to hear about the 20-plus specialized vertical models Microsoft has developed with partner companies outside the tech sphere, including heavy hitters like Bayer, Rockwell and Siemens. This is a very cool phenomenon of companies we don’t consider as high-tech getting into an emergent aspect of the high-tech market to create differentiation. Bigger picture, Azure AI Foundry unifies everything enterprises need in one place, complete with all the apps and tools to put AI to work. Within it, you can evaluate models, customize them, govern them. And of course it’s built to play nicely with Microsoft’s many other services, from GitHub to Copilot Studio. You can also use it to fine-tune your models with RAG or other methods, and fine-tuning is only growing more important for enterprises as they work to get the most out of their AI investments. But the number one impediment to enterprise AI adoption and effectiveness? Data. Data is everything, but it presents a lot of sticky problems for enterprise AI. The reason is very simple. When business AI was dominated by machine learning, the data you needed came from inside the stack. You created new efficiencies in your supply chain, for example, by analyzing the structured data in your ERP and SCM systems. But in this era of generative AI, there’s way more data, it comes from everywhere, and it’s often a mess. Again, every show I attend where I talk to enterprises and integrators, they say they are struggling with integrating their data silos. The need to harness all that data to make it usable is what led Microsoft to launch Fabric, its unified data platform, last year. All of the hyperscalers have something like this, plus many customers achieve parts of this functionality from more specialized vendors such as Cloudera, Snowflake and Databricks. Even though it’s only been in GA since last year’s Ignite conference, Fabric already has 16,000 customers, including 70% of the Fortune 500. Microsoft bills it as an enterprise data platform for all use cases, bringing together operational and analytical workloads in one place. At Ignite 2024, Microsoft announced a significant advance for the platform called Fabric Databases. This brings SQL Server natively into Fabric, which I think will give enterprises an “easy button” to simplify and optimize their databases for AI use. Making Enterprise AI Digestible And Effective If we take a broader view of all the experiments in enterprise AI across the two years since the AI hype cycle began, the painful truth is that many of them yielded no meaningful results — and in lots of cases maybe shouldn’t have been built in the first place. By contrast, Microsoft was very early with its investments in generative AI (especially through its support of OpenAI), and since early 2023 it has taken an aggressive but very steady approach to making AI a genuine source of value, for itself and for its customers. It’s no accident that today big names as diverse as Toyota, Blackrock and NASA are using Microsoft’s AI stack. It’s also no accident that Microsoft has done the hard, unglamorous work of building a data management platform like Fabric, which appeals mainly to IT geeks — but which could be a boon for scaling AI beyond experiments and into pervasive operational deployments. To be sure, the company has to watch out for over-hyping its capabilities, yet still be inspiring enough to motivate enterprises to move more quickly. The biggest thing Microsoft needs to address is something it didn’t at the show related to data. With 70% to 80% of enterprise data on-prem or on the edge, how does Microsoft maximize its play with AI? From my vantage point, the talking point so far is “Move the data to the public cloud.” Yet we’re 17 years into the public cloud, the on-prem stacks from VMware, RedHat and Nutanix are getting better, and I don’t see a mass public-cloud migration anytime soon. Microsoft can more directly address this. On the plus side, Microsoft seems to grasp how quickly AI is evolving, from models to apps to use cases to user experiences. And the company certainly doesn’t lack ambition. At the analyst session during Ignite, the question arose of how ubiquitous Nadella thinks Copilot could be. His answer: “How many Excel spreadsheets are there in your organization?” Based on what we saw at Ignite, I think Microsoft’s odds of achieving that are pretty good.
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A look at how some of Trump's picks to lead health agencies could help carry out Kennedy's overhaul Donald Trump's health team picks include a retired congressman, a surgeon and a former talk-show host. All could play pivotal roles in fulfilling an agenda that could change how the government goes about safeguarding Americans’ health, from health care and medicines to food safety and science research. In line to be Trump's health secretary is anti-vaccine organizer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He says his task is to “reorganize” federal health agencies. They employ 80,000 scientists, researchers, doctors and other officials, and effect Americans’ daily lives. Trump raced to pick many Cabinet posts. He took more time to settle on a treasury secretary WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump launched a blitz of picks for his Cabinet, but he took his time settling on billionaire investor Scott Bessent as his choice for treasury secretary. The Republican not only wanted someone who jibes with him, but an official who can execute his economic vision and look straight out of central casting while doing so. With his Yale University education and pedigree trading for Soros Fund Management before establishing his own funds, Bessent will be tasked with a delicate balancing act. Trump expects him to help reset the global trade order, enable trillions of dollars in tax cuts, ensure inflation stays in check, manage a ballooning national debt and still keep the financial markets confident. Israeli strikes in central Beirut kill at least 20 as diplomats push for a cease-fire BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanese officials say Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 20 people and injured dozens in central Beirut, as the once-rare attacks on the heart of Lebanon’s capital continue without warning. Diplomats are scrambling to broker a cease-fire but say obstacles still remain. The current proposal calls for a two-month cease-fire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River. Lebanon’s Health Ministry says Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon in the months of fighting that have turned into all-out war. Voters rejected historic election reforms across the US, despite more than $100M push JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Election reform advocates had hoped for a big year at the ballot box. That's because a historic number of states were considering initiatives for ranked choice voting or to end partisan primaries. Instead, voters dealt them big losses in the November elections. Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and South Dakota all rejected proposed changes to their voting systems. In Alaska, a proposal to repeal ranked choice voting appears to have narrowly fallen short. The losses in many states came even though election reform supporters raised more than $100 million, easily outpacing opponents. Supporters say they aren't giving up but plan to retool their efforts. The week that upped the stakes of the Ukraine war KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — This past week has seen the most significant escalation in hostilities Ukraine has witnessed since Russia's full-scale invasion and marks a new chapter in the nearly three-year war. It began with U.S. President Joe Biden reversing a longstanding policy by granting Kyiv permission to deploy American longer-range missiles inside Russian territory and ended with Moscow striking Ukraine with a new experimental ballistic weapon that has alarmed the international community and heightened fears of further escalation. US reels from rain, snow as second round of bad weather approaches for Thanksgiving week WINDSOR, Calif. (AP) — The U.S. is reeling from snow and rain while preparing for another bout of bad weather ahead of Thanksgiving that could disrupt holiday travel. California is bracing for more snow and rain while still grappling with some flooding and small landslides from a previous storm. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for California's Sierra Nevada through Tuesday, with heavy snow expected at high elevations. Parts of the Northeast and Appalachia are also starting the weekend with heavy precipitation. Meanwhile thousands remain without power in the Seattle area after a “bomb cyclone” storm system roared ashore the West Coast earlier in the week, killing two people. Even with access to blockbuster obesity drugs, some people don't lose weight Most people taking popular drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy to lose weight have shed significant pounds. But obesity experts say that roughly 20% of patients — as many as 1 in 5 — may not see robust results with the new medications. The response to the drugs varies from person to person and can depend on genetics, hormones and differences in how the brain regulates energy. Undiagnosed medical conditions and some drugs can prevent weight loss. Experts say it can take experimentation to help so-called nonresponders find results. Fighting between armed sectarian groups in restive northwestern Pakistan kills at least 37 people PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A senior Pakistani police officer says fighting between armed sectarian groups in the country's restive northwest has killed at least 37 people. The overnight violence was the latest to rock Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and comes days after a deadly gun ambush killed 42 people. The officer said Saturday that armed men torched shops, houses and government property overnight. Gunfire is ongoing between rival tribes. Although Sunnis and Shiites generally live together peacefully in Pakistan, tensions remain in some areas, especially Kurram. Hydrate. Make lists. Leave yourself time. And other tips for reducing holiday travel stress Travel, especially during the holiday season, can be stressful. But following some tips from the pros as you prepare for a trip can make for a smoother, less anxious experience. One expert traveler suggests making a list a week before you go of things you need to do and pack. Cross off each item as you complete it during the week. Another tip is to carry your comfort zone with you. That could mean noise-canceling headphones, playlists meant to soothe airport travelers, entertainment and snacks from home. Carry a change of clothes and a phone charger in case of delays. Stay hydrated. Leave extra time. And know your airline's rules. Downloading the airline's app can help with that. Andy Murray will coach Novak Djokovic through the Australian Open Recently retired Andy Murray will team up with Novak Djokovic, working with him as a coach through the Australian Open in January. Murray’s representatives put out statements from both players on Saturday. Djokovic is a 24-time Grand Slam champion who has spent more weeks at No. 1 than any other player in tennis history. Murray won three major trophies and two Olympic singles gold medals who finished 2016 atop the ATP rankings. He retired as a player after the Paris Summer Games in August.(BPT) - The holidays are almost here! It means parties and events, hustle and bustle ... and figuring out what to buy for everyone on your list. Sometimes it's hard to get inspired with great ideas that your nears and dears will love at a price you can afford, right? The good news? Inspiration + savings are covered this year. One of the top gifts of Holiday 2024 is technology, and there are a lot of deals out there right now. Done and done! Here are 5 ideas for hot tech gifts for everyone on your list. Smartphones for the family T-Mobile is running a hot deal right now. Get four new smartphones at T-Mobile — this includes Samsung Galaxy S24 and other eligible devices — and four lines for just $100/month . It doesn't get better than that! These new Galaxy phones are tech-tastic, too, with features like AI, Circle to Search with Google, which can be used to help solve math problems and translate entire pages of text in a different language, and Note Assist with Galaxy AI, which lets you focus on capturing your notes and then Note Assist will summarize, format and even translate them for you. High tech spiral notebook for students We've got to admit, this is pretty cool. The Rocketbook looks (a bit) like a regular spiral, paper notebook. Here's the high tech twist: You can take notes, capture ideas, brainstorm, draw — whatever you do on paper — on the pad, and the Rocketbook digitizes your doodles and saves to the cloud device of your choice. Then you simply wipe the pad clean and it's good to go. Look for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales at your favorite online retailer. Wrist-worthy smartwatches for athletes (or those who want to be) Everyone loves smartwatches (if you're not already tracking your sleep and heart rate, where have you been?) and the Google Pixel Watch 3 (41mm & 45mm) takes it to the next level with features for athletes or anyone who may be setting fitness goals for the coming year. The watch has workout prompts like Real Time Guidance — audio and haptic cues for when to sprint, cool down or maintain pace. It gives you the ability to program your workouts and even monitors your cadence and stride. It also has Offline Maps, with driving navigation, search and maps. Here's the deal of the century: Get it for free at T-Mobile when adding a qualifying watch line. Cute wireless keyboard for people who are all thumbs Who else is annoyed by typing email or texts or social posts on a smartphone? The Logitech Multi-Device Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard solves that problem with style! It comes in sweet colors like lavender, it's wireless, it's small and portable, and it works with just about any device. Pop it into your backpack or purse and you'll never have to thumb-out a message again. Speakers perfect for hosting and giving Have a music lover in your life or need the perfect hosting gift? T-Mobile has you covered. For a limited time, you can get the JBL Clip 5 for free when you pick up a Harman Kardon Onyx Studio 9 . The JBL Clip 5 is an ultra-portable Bluetooth speaker perfect for those on the go and the Onyx Studio 9's sleek design and booming sound will take care of all your holiday hosting needs. For more tech-tastic holiday gift inspiration, check out T-Mobile's holiday gift guide at t-mobile.com/devices/tech-gifts .
2024 Fourth Quarter Highlights– comparisons to the prior year quarter 2024 Fiscal Year Highlights - comparisons to prior year MIAMI , Dec. 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Lennar Corporation (NYSE: LEN and LEN.B) , one of the nation's largest homebuilders, today reported results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended November 30, 2024 . Fourth quarter net earnings attributable to Lennar in 2024 were $1.1 billion , or $4.06 per diluted share, compared to $1.4 billion , or $4.82 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2023. Excluding mark-to-market gains on technology investments, fourth quarter net earnings attributable to Lennar in 2024 were $1.1 billion , or $4.03 per diluted share, compared to fourth quarter net earnings attributable to Lennar in 2023 of $1.5 billion , or $5.17 per diluted share, excluding mark-to-market losses on technology investments and other one-time items (collectively, "adjustments"). Net earnings attributable to Lennar for the year ended November 30, 2024 were $3.9 billion , or $14.31 per diluted share, compared to $3.9 billion , or $13.73 per diluted share for the year ended November 30, 2023 . Excluding adjustments, net earnings attributable to Lennar for the year ended November 30, 2024 were $3.8 billion , or $13.86 per diluted share, compared to $4.1 billion , or $14.25 per diluted share for the year ended November 30, 2023 . Stuart Miller , Executive Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Lennar, said, "In the course of our fourth quarter, the housing market that appeared to be improving as the Fed cut short-term interest rates, proved to be far more challenging as mortgage rates rose almost 100 basis points through the quarter. Even while demand remained strong, and the chronic supply shortage continued to drive the market, our results were driven by affordability limitations from higher interest rates." "Accordingly, in our fourth quarter, sales pace lagged expectations as interest rates climbed and our new orders fell short of expectations to 16,895 homes vs the low end of our guidance of 19,000 homes. Consistent with our strategy of matching sales pace with production, we adjusted sales price, incentives, and margin in order to re-ignite sales and actively manage inventory levels. We ended the quarter with two completed, unsold homes per community, which was within our historical range." "In the fourth quarter, earnings were $1.1 billion , or $4.06 per diluted share. We delivered 22,206 homes in the quarter and our average sales price, net of incentives, per home delivered was $430,000 in the fourth quarter, slightly down from last year. Our homebuilding gross margin in the fourth quarter was 22.1%, with SG&A expenses of 7.2%, resulting in a 14.9% net margin." "Driven by our consistent focus on cash flow, we constructively allocated capital while we continued to strengthen and fortify our balance sheet. During the quarter, we repurchased $521 million of our common stock, had no outstanding borrowings on our $2.9 billion revolving credit facility and cash of $4.7 billion , ending the quarter with homebuilding debt to total capital of 7.5%. With cash on hand exceeding our debt, and with overall liquidity of approximately $7.6 billion , our balance sheet remains extremely strong." "Against this backdrop, we continue to remain focused on our volume-based strategy of driving sales and cash flow while using margin as a shock absorber as we continue to migrate to an asset-light, land-light business model. This strategy is reflected in both the public filing of a registration statement on Form S-11 for the planned spin-off of Millrose Properties, Inc., as well as our previously announced acquisition of Rausch Coleman Homes as we focus on growing to drive affordability and fill the supply gap that is reflected in the marketplace." Jon Jaffe , Co-Chief Executive Officer and President of Lennar, said, "Operationally, our starts pace and sales pace were 4.6 homes and 4.2 homes per community in the fourth quarter, respectively, as we continue to move closer to an even flow operating model. Our cycle time was down to 138 days, or 14% lower year over year, as our production first focus has positively impacted our production times, while our inventory turn improved to 1.6 times reflecting broader efficiencies. Concurrently, the Lennar Marketing and Sales Machine continued to carefully match our sales pace to our production pace using our digital marketing and dynamic pricing models." "During the quarter, we continued the migration to our land light strategy. This was evidenced by our years supply of owned homesites improving to 1.1 years from 1.4 years last year and our controlled homesite percentage increasing to 82% from 76% year over year, resulting in a return on inventory of 29.2%." Mr. Miller concluded, "As we look ahead, we expect to deliver between 17,000 and 17,500 homes for the first quarter of 2025 and between 86,000 and 88,000 homes for the full year 2025, including the impact of the Rausch Coleman acquisition. While we remain optimistic that margins will normalize as affordability normalizes and our cost structure benefits from our volume, we expect our gross margin in the first quarter to be between 19.0% and 19.25%, and at this time, we will not guide to full year gross margin until we have a better sense of market conditions as the year unfolds." RESULTS OF OPERATIONS THREE MONTHS ENDED NOVEMBER 30, 2024 COMPARED TO THREE MONTHS ENDED NOVEMBER 30, 2023 Homebuilding Revenues from home sales decreased 9% in the fourth quarter of 2024 to $9.5 billion from $10.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023. Revenues were lower primarily due to a 7% decrease in the number of home deliveries and a 3% decrease in the average sales price of homes delivered. New home deliveries decreased to 22,206 homes in the fourth quarter of 2024 from 23,795 homes in the fourth quarter of 2023. The average sales price of homes delivered was $430,000 in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to $441,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023. The decrease in average sales price of homes delivered in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the same period last year was primarily due to pricing to market through an increased use of incentives and product mix. Gross margins on home sales were $2.1 billion , or 22.1%, in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to $2.5 billion, or 24.2%, in the fourth quarter of 2023. During the fourth quarter of 2024, gross margins decreased primarily because revenue per square foot decreased while land costs increased year over year, which was partially offset by a decrease in costs per square foot due to lower costs of materials as the Company continued to focus on construction cost savings. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $682 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to $688 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. As a percentage of revenues from home sales, selling, general and administrative expenses increased to 7.2% in the fourth quarter of 2024, from 6.6% in the fourth quarter of 2023, primarily due to less leverage as a result of both lower volume and average sales price. Financial Services Operating earnings for the Financial Services segment were $154 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to $168 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. The decrease in operating earnings was primarily due to lower profit per loan in the Company's mortgage business. Other Ancillary Businesses Operating loss for the Multifamily segment was $0.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to operating loss of $12 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. Operating earnings for the Lennar Other segment were $0.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to an operating loss of $125 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. The Lennar Other operating earnings for the fourth quarter of 2024 were primarily due to positive mark-to-market adjustments of $13 million on the Company's publicly traded technology investments, which was partially offset by other operating losses. The Lennar Other operating loss for the fourth quarter of 2023 was primarily due to negative mark-to-market adjustments of $36 million on the Company's publicly traded technology investments and a $65 million write-off of one of the Company's non-public technology investments. Tax Rate For the quarters ended November 30, 2024 and 2023, the Company had a tax provision of $358 million and $417 million , which resulted in an overall effective income tax rate of 24.6% and 23.4%, respectively. For both periods, the Company's effective income tax rate included state income tax expense and non-deductible executive compensation, partially offset by tax credits. The increase in the effective tax rate from the prior year for the three months ended November 30, 2024 was primarily due to additional state income tax expense. OTHER TRANSACTIONS Credit Facility In November 2024 , the Company amended and restated the credit agreement governing its unsecured revolving credit facility (the "Credit Facility") to, among other things, increase the lenders' commitments to $2.875 billion until May 2027 when this amount will be reduced to $2.650 billion until final maturity in November 2029 . As of November 30, 2024 , there were no outstanding borrowings under the Credit Facility. Share Repurchases During the fourth quarter of 2024, the Company repurchased 3 million shares of its common stock for $521 million at an average per share price of $173.79 . Liquidity At November 30, 2024, the Company had $4.7 billion of Homebuilding cash and cash equivalents and no outstanding borrowings under its $2.9 billion Credit Facility, thereby providing approximately $7.6 billion of available capacity. Guidance The following are the Company's expected results of its homebuilding and financial services activities: First Quarter 2025 New Orders 17,500 - 18,000 Deliveries 17,000 - 17,500 Average Sales Price $410,000 - $415,000 Gross Margin % on Home Sales 19.0% - 19.25% S,G&A as a % of Home Sales 8.7% - 8.8% Financial Services Operating Earnings $100 million - $110 million About Lennar Lennar Corporation, founded in 1954, is one of the nation's leading builders of quality homes for all generations. Lennar builds affordable, move-up and active adult homes primarily under the Lennar brand name. Lennar's Financial Services segment provides mortgage financing, title and closing services primarily for buyers of Lennar's homes and, through LMF Commercial, originates mortgage loans secured primarily by commercial real estate properties throughout the United States . Lennar's Multifamily segment is a nationwide developer of high-quality multifamily rental properties. LEN X drives Lennar's technology, innovation and strategic investments. For more information about Lennar, please visit www.lennar.com . Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: Some of the statements in this press release are "forward-looking statements," as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements relating to the homebuilding market and other markets in which we participate, as well as our expected results and guidance. You can identify forward-looking statements by the fact that these statements do not relate strictly to historical or current matters. Rather, forward-looking statements relate to anticipated or expected events, activities, trends or results. Accordingly, these forward-looking statements should be evaluated with consideration given to the many risks and uncertainties inherent in our business that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements. We wish to caution readers not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement and speak only as of the date made. Important factors that could cause differences between anticipated and actual results include slowdowns in real estate markets in regions where we have significant Homebuilding or Multifamily development activities; decreased demand for our homes, or for Multifamily rental apartments or single family homes; the potential impact of inflation; the impact of increased cost of mortgage financing for homebuyers, increased or continued high interest rates or increased competition in the mortgage industry; supply shortages and increased costs related to construction materials, including lumber, and labor; the possibility that increased tariffs will increase the cost of production materials; cost increases related to real estate taxes and insurance; the effect of increased interest rates with regard to our funds' borrowings on the willingness of the funds to invest in new projects; reductions in the market value of our investments in public companies; natural disasters or catastrophic events for which our insurance may not provide adequate coverage; our inability to successfully execute our strategies and our planned spin-off on the timelines expected or at all; a decline in the value of the land and home inventories we maintain and resulting possible future writedowns of the carrying value of our real estate assets; the forfeiture of deposits related to land purchase options we decide not to exercise; the effects of public health issues such as a major epidemic or pandemic that could have a negative impact on the economy and on our businesses; possible unfavorable outcomes in legal proceedings; conditions in the capital, credit and financial markets; harm to our business from information technology failures and data security breaches; changes in laws, regulations or the regulatory environment affecting our business; policy changes that may be introduced by the new administration that could affect economic conditions, tax regimes and regulatory frameworks, and the other risks and uncertainties described in our filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including those included under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on January 26, 2024 , as amended by our Annual Report on Form 10-K/A filed on April 25, 2024 , and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. A conference call to discuss the Company's fourth quarter earnings will be held at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday , December 19, 2024. The call will be broadcast live on the internet and can be accessed through the Company's website at investors.lennar.com . If you are unable to participate in the conference call, the call will be archived at investors.lennar.com for 90 days. A replay of the conference call will also be available later that day by calling 203-369-0176 and entering 5723593 as the confirmation number. LENNAR CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES Selected Revenues and Operating Information (In thousands, except per share amounts) (unaudited) Three Months Ended Years Ended November 30, November 30, 2024 2023 2024 2023 Revenues: Homebuilding $ 9,548,684 10,516,050 33,906,426 32,660,987 Financial Services 304,550 304,693 1,109,263 976,859 Multifamily 88,917 140,824 411,537 573,485 Lennar Other 4,737 6,616 14,226 22,035 Total revenues $ 9,946,888 10,968,183 35,441,452 34,233,366 Homebuilding operating earnings $ 1,495,383 1,912,639 5,342,252 5,527,707 Financial Services operating earnings 154,476 169,130 577,184 509,461 Multifamily operating earnings (loss) (160) (12,155) 42,635 (50,651) Lennar Other operating earnings (loss) 450 (125,414) (47,967) (209,788) Corporate general and administrative expenses (170,011) (136,336) (648,986) (501,338) Charitable foundation contribution (22,206) (23,795) (80,210) (73,087) Earnings before income taxes 1,457,932 1,784,069 5,184,908 5,202,304 Provision for income taxes (358,058) (416,780) (1,217,253) (1,241,013) Net earnings (including net earnings attributable to noncontrolling interests) 1,099,874 1,367,289 3,967,655 3,961,291 Less: Net earnings attributable to noncontrolling interests 3,660 6,002 35,122 22,780 Net earnings attributable to Lennar $ 1,096,214 1,361,287 3,932,533 3,938,511 Basic and diluted average shares outstanding 267,262 279,438 272,019 283,319 Basic and diluted earnings per share $ 4.06 4.82 14.31 13.73 Supplemental information: Interest incurred (1) $ 29,254 41,434 129,310 187,640 EBIT (2): Net earnings attributable to Lennar $ 1,096,214 1,361,287 3,932,533 3,938,511 Provision for income taxes 358,058 416,780 1,217,253 1,241,013 Interest expense included in: Costs of homes sold 39,513 69,859 160,848 240,871 Costs of land sold 29 156 373 1,588 Homebuilding other income, net 4,472 4,525 18,771 15,434 Total interest expense 44,014 74,540 179,992 257,893 EBIT $ 1,498,286 1,852,607 5,329,778 5,437,417 (1) Amount represents interest incurred related to Homebuilding debt. (2) EBIT is a non-GAAP financial measure defined as earnings before interest and taxes. This financial measure has been presented because the Company finds it important and useful in evaluating its performance and believes that it helps readers of the Company's financial statements compare its operations with those of its competitors. Although management finds EBIT to be an important measure in conducting and evaluating the Company's operations, this measure has limitations as an analytical tool as it is not reflective of the actual profitability generated by the Company during the period. Management compensates for the limitations of using EBIT by using this non-GAAP measure only to supplement the Company's GAAP results. Due to the limitations discussed, EBIT should not be viewed in isolation, as it is not a substitute for GAAP measures. LENNAR CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES Segment Information (In thousands) (unaudited) Three Months Ended Years Ended November 30, November 30, 2024 2023 2024 2023 Homebuilding revenues: Sales of homes $ 9,500,991 10,442,850 33,778,149 32,459,129 Sales of land 39,568 63,501 93,384 109,963 Other homebuilding 8,125 9,699 34,893 91,895 Total revenues 9,548,684 10,516,050 33,906,426 32,660,987 Homebuilding costs and expenses: Costs of homes sold 7,400,266 7,919,724 26,255,353 24,900,470 Costs of land sold 30,162 39,413 73,802 92,142 Selling, general and administrative 682,003 687,774 2,480,309 2,231,033 Total costs and expenses 8,112,431 8,646,911 28,809,464 27,223,645 Homebuilding net margins 1,436,253 1,869,139 5,096,962 5,437,342 Homebuilding equity in earnings (loss) from unconsolidated entities 12,410 9,223 66,448 (3,886) Homebuilding other income, net 46,720 34,277 178,842 94,251 Homebuilding operating earnings $ 1,495,383 1,912,639 5,342,252 5,527,707 Financial Services revenues $ 304,550 304,693 1,109,263 976,859 Financial Services costs and expenses 150,074 135,563 532,0795 top tech gifts for the holidays
Wirestock Investing in the aerospace industry offers many opportunities. Many of the names covered by The Aerospace Forum have seen market outperforming returns and some stocks even doubled (or more) in value. Since I initiated coverage for Ducommun ( If you want full access to all our reports, data and investing ideas, join The Aerospace Forum , the #1 aerospace, defense and airline investment research service on Seeking Alpha, with access to evoX Data Analytics, our in-house developed data analytics platform. Dhierin-Perkash Bechai is an aerospace, defense and airline analyst. The Aerospace Forum Learn more Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of BA, EADSF either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.Unlike scores of people who scrambled for the blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy to lose weight in recent years, Danielle Griffin had no trouble getting them. The 38-year-old information technology worker from New Mexico had a prescription. Her pharmacy had the drugs in stock. And her health insurance covered all but $25 to $50 of the monthly cost. For Griffin, the hardest part of using the new drugs wasn't access. It was finding out that the much-hyped medications didn't really work for her. ''I have been on Wegovy for a year and a half and have only lost 13 pounds,'' said Griffin, who watches her diet, drinks plenty of water and exercises regularly. ''I've done everything right with no success. It's discouraging.'' In clinical trials, most participants taking Wegovy or Mounjaro to treat obesity lost an average of 15% to 22% of their body weight — up to 50 pounds or more in many cases. But roughly 10% to 15% of patients in those trials were ''nonresponders'' who lost less than 5% of their body weight. Now that millions of people have used the drugs, several obesity experts told The Associated Press that perhaps 20% of patients — as many as 1 in 5 — may not respond well to the medications. It's a little-known consequence of the obesity drug boom, according to doctors who caution eager patients not to expect one-size-fits-all results. ''It's all about explaining that different people have different responses,'' said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity expert at Massachusetts General Hospital The drugs are known as GLP-1 receptor agonists because they mimic a hormone in the body known as glucagon-like peptide 1. Genetics, hormones and variability in how the brain regulates energy can all influence weight — and a person's response to the drugs, Stanford said. Medical conditions such as sleep apnea can prevent weight loss, as can certain common medications, such as antidepressants, steroids and contraceptives. ''This is a disease that stems from the brain,'' said Stanford. ''The dysfunction may not be the same'' from patient to patient. Despite such cautions, patients are often upset when they start getting the weekly injections but the numbers on the scale barely budge. ''It can be devastating,'' said Dr. Katherine Saunders, an obesity expert at Weill Cornell Medicine and co-founder of the obesity treatment company FlyteHealth. ''With such high expectations, there's so much room for disappointment.'' That was the case for Griffin, who has battled obesity since childhood and hoped to shed 70 pounds using Wegovy. The drug helped reduce her appetite and lowered her risk of diabetes, but she saw little change in weight. ''It's an emotional roller coaster,'' she said. ''You want it to work like it does for everybody else.'' The medications are typically prescribed along with eating behavior and lifestyle changes. It's usually clear within weeks whether someone will respond to the drugs, said Dr. Jody Dushay, an endocrine specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Weight loss typically begins right away and continues as the dosage increases. For some patients, that just doesn't happen. For others, side effects such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea force them to halt the medications, Dushay said. In such situations, patients who were counting on the new drugs to pare pounds may think they're out of options. ''I tell them: It's not game over,'' Dushay said. Trying a different version of the new class of drugs may help. Griffin, who didn't respond well to Wegovy, has started using Zepbound, which targets an additional hormone pathway in the body. After three months of using the drug, she has lost 7 pounds. ''I'm hoping it's slow and steady,'' she said. Other people respond well to older drugs, the experts said. Changing diet, exercise, sleep and stress habits can also have profound effects. Figuring out what works typically requires a doctor trained to treat obesity, Saunders noted. ''Obesity is such a complex disease that really needs to be treated very comprehensively,'' she said. ''If what we're prescribing doesn't work, we always have a backup plan.'' ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
