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The Dow Jones Industrial Average ( ^DJI 1.18% ) might be the best-known of the major stock market indexes, but experienced investors know that the S&P 500 ( ^GSPC 1.09% ) is the index that best reflects the overall market. As the name implies, the index holds 500 of the top U.S. large-cap stocks. In order to join it, a company must be based in the U.S., be profitable on a generally accepted accounting principles ( GAAP ) basis over its last four quarters, and have a "large-cap" market cap, generally meaning above $10 billion. S&P Global , which runs the index, also considers liquidity, share float, and the stock's contribution to sector balance in the index. The S&P 500's managers review the index every quarter and generally swap one or two stocks in and out based on these criteria, so we're likely to see some more changes and new entrants next year. Two stocks in particular looking ripe to join the vaunted index are AppLovin ( APP 6.98% ) and The Trade Desk ( TTD -0.97% ) . The market's AppLovin it AppLovin has somewhat quietly been one of the best-performing large-cap stocks of 2024, going parabolic following its third-quarter earnings report. Through Dec. 19, the stock is up 700% year to date as the mobile adtech company has posted skyrocketing growth this year. Revenue jumped 39% in the third quarter to $1.2 billion, and its margins have dramatically expanded thanks to its investments in AI, including its Axon engine, an AI-driven platform that optimizes ad placement, enhancing ROI for its customers. Net income in the quarter jumped 300% to $434 million, while adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization ( EBITDA ) rose 72% to $72 million. Its software platform, built on Axon and its AppDiscovery marketing software, has become its primary growth driver, contributing more than two-thirds of its revenue in the quarter. AppLovin's other segment is Apps, which consists of more than 200 free-to-play mobile games, though growth in that segment was essentially flat in the third quarter. The emergence of AI and adtech is clearly what's driving the business. After its surge last year, AppLovin now has a market cap of $107 billion, which would rank it in the top 100 of S&P 500 companies by market cap. Even if the valuation falls, it seems hard to exclude it from the index based on recent trends. The Trade Desk has earned it Another adtech stock deserving of a spot in the S&P 500 is The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk has long been considered the leading independent demand-side platform (DSP) in adtech, as its tools help brands and ad agencies effectively manage and optimize their campaigns across an array of platforms, including Connected TV (CTV) and retail media. The Trade Desk has also established itself as a linchpin of the industry through products like Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), which gives brands a way of tracking users without using cookies, making it more amenable to internet privacy standards. Like AppLovin, The Trade Desk has also delivered solid growth of late. Revenue rose 27% in its third-quarter earnings report, while GAAP net income jumped 141% to $94 million. The business has long earned high marks for customer satisfaction, as it's reported customer retention of at least 95% every quarter for the last 10 years. Additionally, The Trade Desk continues to roll out new products like its Kokai AI platform and Ventura, a new streaming TV operating system, bringing it into direct competition with Roku . The Trade Desk has been profitable for several years now, and its market cap of $62.3 billion would put it well within the 200 most valuable companies in the S&P 500. Why joining the S&P 500 matters Gaining admission to the S&P 500 is about more than just recognition. When stocks are added to the broad-market index, the exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track those indexes must buy them. ETFs like the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF now have total assets of more than $1 trillion, meaning an average of more than $2 billion is being invested in each stock in the index, though the fund leans heavily toward the most valuable stocks in the S&P 500, as the current market cap of the index is around $50 trillion. For that reason, stocks tend to jump when they are added to the S&P 500. S&P Global rebalances the index on a quarterly basis, so the next opportunity for these two stocks to gain admission will be in March. Based on this evidence, you shouldn't be surprised to see AppLovin and The Trade Desk join the S&P 500 at some point next year.
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DETROIT (AP) — Brandon Noel's 26 points helped Wright State defeat Detroit Mercy 80-72 on Saturday. Noel had seven rebounds for the Raiders (6-5, 1-1 Horizon League). Jack Doumbia scored 21 points while shooting 8 of 16 from the field and 5 for 6 from the line and added 13 rebounds and three blocks. Alex Huibregste shot 5 of 10 from the field, including 2 for 6 from 3-point range, and went 5 for 5 from the line to finish with 17 points, while adding six assists. The Titans (5-6, 1-1) were led in scoring by Orlando Lovejoy, who finished with 14 points, seven rebounds, four assists and two steals. Detroit Mercy also got 12 points from Nate Johnson. Grant Gondrezick II also recorded 11 points and two steals. Wright State's next game is Wednesday against Marshall at home. Detroit Mercy visits Davidson on Saturday. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .Court rejects request to sideline San Jose State volleyball player on grounds she's transgender
Orange County girls athlete of the week: Holly Barker, Trabuco HillsMillions of university graduates and students will soon wake up to an early Christmas present after the government wiped thousands of dollars off their debts. or signup to continue reading Laws to cap the indexation rate for the Higher Education Loan Program at either the rate of inflation or the wage price index - whichever is lowest - passed federal parliament late Tuesday night after Australians were stung with a 7.1 per cent increase to their student debts in 2023 because of surging inflation. The indexation changes will lead to $3 billion in debt being cleared over coming weeks. "University is a lot more expensive today than when I was at university," Education Minister Jason Clare told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday. "Wiping $3 billion in debt will fix that spike in inflation that happened last year and it'll make sure that never happens again." People with an average HELP debt level will get a $1200 reduction on their loans. Those with a debt of $45,000 will get a decrease of about $2000, while students with $60,000 owning will have debt lowered by $2700. The changes were recommended in the university accords, a review of the tertiary education sector handed down in February. The laws mean university students completing placement will receive payments to help with living costs from July 2025. Students in degrees including teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work will receive an allowance of $319 per week. The reforms were a big win for students and graduates at a time when many Australians were struggling with the high cost of living, Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy said. Though universities have celebrated these measures, other government proposals for the sector have been widely spurned. Labor has attempted to implement a cap on the number of foreign student arrivals from 2025. The reform would be used in place of an immigration rule known as ministerial direction 107, that has throttled student visas. Swinburne University of Technology vice-chancellor Pascale Quester has urged the government to replace the ministerial direction and prioritise visa processing for enrolments in science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses - collectively known as STEM subjects. The number of domestic students taking these courses has dropped steadily, while international student interest has increased by 39 per cent since 2021. "Forget a brain drain, we are at risk of a brain drought," Professor Quester said. "There is so much STEM talent in the region, but we have slammed the door in their faces with hastily-crafted policy." The government is also expected to slash a further 20 per cent off Australians' student debt if it wins the federal election in 2025. Advertisement Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date. We care about the protection of your data. Read our . AdvertisementInversion Space, a startup looking to lead in logistics and delivery from above Earth’s atmosphere, has captured $44 million in Series A capital to support its development of a new autonomous re-entry vehicle and team expansion efforts. Spark Capital and Adjacent co-led the round that also included Lockheed Martin’s venture capital arm as a participant, while Kindred Ventures and Y Combinator also were involved. The Series A round announced Thursday brings Inversion’s total amount of investment raised since its 2021 inception to $54 million, which includes a $10 million seed round closed shortly after the company opened for business. Inversion is designing its flagship Arc vehicle to store cargo while in-orbit and re-enter the atmosphere more quickly than other systems with the idea of being able to reach remote parts of the globe. As Inversion sees the world, autonomous re-entry vehicles can achieve what it calls the “holy grail” of logistics that sees delivery of key items to any location within minutes. “Space is currently used as a tool to deliver global internet connectivity and earth observation, both massive terrestrial existing markets. Inversion is introducing the third pillar – cargo delivery – transforming the $6 trillion logistics industry,” Inversion’s cofounder and chief executive Justin Fiaschetti said in a release. “We have proven our capabilities, and our Series A funding will help us iterate, scale, and build our next generation of autonomous re-entry vehicles. Transportation and logistics advancements have been transformative throughout history – think of the societal impact of ships, trains, and airplanes – and the ability to access anywhere on Earth in minutes will be just as groundbreaking.” Under a $71 million , Inversion is working with Space Force’s SpaceWERX acceleration arm to test and refine the technologies and systems needed for precision delivery on-demand. For Lockheed Martin Ventures, space technologies like those Inversion focuses on represent one of 12 focus areas for investments in startup companies. “Inversion’s innovative approach to on-demand delivery from space has the potential to revolutionize the way goods are transported and delivered globally,” said Chris Moran, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Ventures. “We’re excited to support them in their mission to make this vision a reality, unleashing the power of autonomous spacecraft technology to unlock new opportunities for industries and communities around the world.”
BIG TEN THIS WEEK
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER WASHINGTON (AP) — One year after the Jan. 6, 2021 , U.S. Capitol attack, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department was committed to holding accountable all perpetrators “at any level” for “the assault on our democracy.” That bold declaration won’t apply to at least one person: Donald Trump. Special counsel Jack Smith’s move on Monday to abandon the federal election interference case against Trump means jurors will likely never decide whether the president-elect is criminally responsible for his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 campaign. The decision to walk away from the election charges and the separate classified documents case against Trump marks an abrupt end of the Justice Department’s unprecedented legal effort that once threatened his liberty but appears only to have galvanized his supporters. The abandonment of the cases accusing Trump of endangering American democracy and national security does away with the most serious legal threats he was facing as he returns to the White House. It was the culmination of a monthslong defense effort to delay the proceedings at every step and use the criminal allegations to Trump’s political advantage, putting the final word in the hands of voters instead of jurors. “We always knew that the rich and powerful had an advantage, but I don’t think we would have ever believed that somebody could walk away from everything,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and former Justice Department official. “If there ever was a Teflon defendant, that’s Donald Trump.” While prosecutors left the door open to the possibility that federal charges could be re-filed against Trump after he leaves office, that seems unlikely. Meanwhile, Trump’s presidential victory has thrown into question the future of the two state criminal cases against him in New York and Georgia. Trump was supposed to be sentenced on Tuesday after his conviction on 34 felony counts in his New York hush money case , but it’s possible the sentencing could be delayed until after Trump leaves office, and the defense is pushing to dismiss the case altogether. Smith’s team stressed that their decision to abandon the federal cases was not a reflection of the merit of the charges, but an acknowledgement that they could not move forward under longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution. Trump’s presidential victory set “at odds two fundamental and compelling national interests: On the one hand, the Constitution’s requirement that the President must not be unduly encumbered in fulfilling his weighty responsibilities . . . and on the other hand, the Nation’s commitment to the rule of law,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. The move just weeks after Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris underscores the immense personal stake Trump had in the campaign in which he turned his legal woes into a political rallying cry. Trump accused prosecutors of bringing the charges in a bid to keep him out of the White House, and he promised revenge on his perceived enemies if he won a second term. “If Donald J. Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison,” Vice President-elect JD Vance, wrote in a social media post on Monday. “These prosecutions were always political. Now it’s time to ensure what happened to President Trump never happens in this country again.” After the Jan. 6 attack by Trump supporters that left more than 100 police officers injured, Republican leader Mitch McConnell and several other Republicans who voted to acquit Trump during his Senate impeachment trial said it was up to the justice system to hold Trump accountable. The Jan. 6 case brought last year in Washington alleged an increasingly desperate criminal conspiracy to subvert the will of voters after Trump’s 2020 loss, accusing Trump of using the angry mob of supporters that attacked the Capitol as “a tool” in his campaign to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence and obstruct the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters — many of whom have said they felt called to Washington by Trump — have pleaded guilty or been convicted by juries of federal charges at the same courthouse where Trump was supposed to stand trial last year. As the trial date neared, officials at the courthouse that sits within view of the Capitol were busy making plans for the crush of reporters expected to cover the historic case. But Trump’s argument that he enjoyed absolute immunity from prosecution quickly tied up the case in appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court. The high court ruled in July that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution , and sent the case back to the trial court to decide which allegations could move forward. But the case was dismissed before the trial court could get a chance to do so. Related Articles National Politics | After delay, Trump signs agreement with Biden White House to begin formal transition handoff National Politics | Rudy Giuliani in a courtroom outburst accuses judge in assets case of being unfair, drawing a rebuke National Politics | With Trump as president, can TikTok in the US survive? National Politics | Surveillance tech advances by Biden could aid in Trump’s promised crackdown on immigration National Politics | Expecting challenges, blue states vow to create ‘firewall’ of abortion protections The other indictment brought in Florida accused Trump of improperly storing at his Mar-a-Lago estate sensitive documents on nuclear capabilities, enlisting aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showing off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and classified map. But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in July on grounds that Smith was illegally appointed . Smith appealed to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but abandoned that appeal on Monday. Smith’s team said it would continue its fight in the appeals court to revive charges against Trump’s two co-defendants because “no principle of temporary immunity applies to them.” In New York, jurors spent weeks last spring hearing evidence in a state case alleging a Trump scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex. New York prosecutors recently expressed openness to delaying sentencing until after Trump’s second term, while Trump’s lawyers are fighting to have the conviction dismissed altogether. In Georgia, a trial while Trump is in office seems unlikely in a state case charging him and more than a dozen others with conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. The case has been on hold since an appeals court agreed to review whether to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over her romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. Associated Press reporter Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed.Smart Cities Market Size & Trends To 2030There’s been a lot of reporting in recent months around Apple’s efforts to expand its footprint in customers’ homes with in-development products like a wall-mounted smart home hub . According to a new report in Bloomberg , that strategy could also include a smart doorbell. This doorbell would use Apple’s FaceID technology to scan people’s faces as they approach the door, then connect wirelessly to a deadbolt lock and automatically unlock for residents of the home. The doorbell is reportedly in the early stages of development and wouldn’t come to market before the end of 2025 at the earliest. It might work with third-party locks that are compatible with Apple’s HomeKit, or Apple might launch with a specific lock maker. Bloomberg notes that while a smart doorbell with FaceID would allow Apple to compete with products like Amazon Ring, it would also make the brand vulnerable to new risks, particularly if the system was blamed for home break-ins.
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List of compromised VCE exams revealed
