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Investing.com – The U.S. dollar climbed to new highs Wednesday, as uncertainty over U.S. interest rates and the upcoming presidential elections kept the safe haven in demand. At 04:10 ET (08:10 GMT), the Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, traded 0.3% higher to 104.175, close to a near three-month high.  Risks point to dollar upside The dollar has climbed to its highest level since early August as reasonably healthy economic data has seen expectations for aggressive interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve fade. Traders were seen pricing in a 85.9% chance for…

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(Bloomberg) — Options traders are increasing bets that Bitcoin will reach a record high of $80,000 by the end of November no matter who wins the US presidential election. Most Read from Bloomberg The implied volatility for Bitcoin options coming due around the Nov. 5 election day is elevated, with the wagers skewed toward call options that give the buyer the right to buy the cryptocurrency at new highs. “I believe the market consensus is that Bitcoin is likely to perform well regardless of the election outcome,” said David Lawant, head of research at crypto prime broker FalconX. “Our analysis…

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Image source: M&S Group plc FTSE 100 retailer Marks and Spencer (LSE: MKS) has risen 79% from its 30 October 12-month traded low of £2.12. However, just because a share has gained a lot does not mean there is no value left in it. How much value is left in this stock? My starting point to see if this is true here is to assess its key stock valuations with those of its competitors.   On the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) Marks and Spencer currently trades at 18.1 against a peer group average of 33. So it looks very cheap on this…

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By Waylon Cunningham (Reuters) – Starbucks (NASDAQ:)’ new CEO Brian Niccol has his work cut out for him. Tasked with reassuring investors that the company’s coffee shops are still hugely popular in the U.S., Niccol also has to contend with baristas and hardcore Starbucks customers who say they want plenty of changes. Baristas complain about what they say are chronic understaffing and poor pay and benefits, and their inability to easily ban aggressive customers from Starbucks stores. Zealous customers want consistently good coffee. On Tuesday, after Starbucks reported a 6% fall in fourth-quarter same-store sales in the U.S. and pulled…

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The Role of Low Volatility Strategies in Investment Portfolios  Low volatility equity strategies appeal to investors for many reasons. First, they help keep our portfolios invested in equities during periods of market turmoil. Second, when well-constructed, they often exhibit higher risk-adjusted returns than their higher volatility counterparts. While general surveys of low volatility strategies show that they do indeed shield investors from market-driven risk, what is frequently overlooked is that these same strategies can be insufficiently diversified or risk controlled. To that end, we will examine the critical components of an effective low volatility portfolio construction process. These elements enable…

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New findings from the Transforming Energy Markets Research Centre have identified changing government regulations as one of the reasons behind the very low and highly volatile prices of carbon credit units in Australia.Economic mechanisms designed to reduce carbon emissions and limit the effects of climate change take many forms. In Australia, one of these is Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), which can be purchased by companies – and traded on the Australian carbon credit market – to offset their emissions. Macquarie Business School researchers have studied the dynamics of the Australian carbon credit market in a new project titled ‘What…

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Stocks have had quite a run over the past couple of years, with the S&P 500 climbing about 60 percent since its October 2022 lows. The ascent has resulted in many stocks trading near all-time highs, but there are some that have lagged behind, creating a potential investment opportunity for contrarian investors. A contrarian investment strategy involves purchasing investments that are out of favor at the time of purchase. Contrarian investing is closely tied to value investing because both investment strategies attempt to buy assets when they are attractively priced, which often occurs when they are unpopular in the market. …

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Image source: Getty Images I reckon it’s possible to generate a bumper passive income of £9,913 a year by investing £20k in a Stocks and Shares ISA. That seems a tall order and I won’t get anywhere that much in year one. No stock on earth yields 49.56% a year, and if it did, I wouldn’t touch it. Today, the FTSE 100 index has an average yield of around 3.5%, which would give me income of around £700 annually in year one. That’s a long way from £9,913. So how do I go from here to there? I’d start by…

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By Pietro Lombardi MADRID (Reuters) -Europe’s largest utility Iberdrola (OTC:) posted on Wednesday a 50% increase in net profit for the first nine months of the year, in a sign that its focus on Britain and the United States is paying off. This is part of a broader shift – toward building and upgrading power grids while taking a more selective approach toward renewables, with a preference for offshore wind projects – that has pushed its market cap to record levels. Record investments in the past 12 months allowed the Spanish company to add lucrative regulated assets to its network…

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