00:00 Dave Briggs
It’s now time for some of today’s trending tickers. We are watching Citizens Financial, Merck, and Occidental Petroleum. First up, let’s check in on Citizens Financial, increasing its share buyback authorization to 1 and a half billion dollars. That’s an increase of 1.2 billion dollars above the 300 million dollars currently remaining under the prior June 2024 authorization here. You’re taking a look at shares, they are slumping with the broader markets right now, now down by about 1.3%. But this is a considerable move, especially just what we’re seeing within banks more broadly here in some of the appetite for the financial sector right now. What are you seeing in some of those uh plays as a thematic approach from investors?
00:53 Josh Schafer
Yeah, so, well, banks have actually underperformed much of the year. We’ve seen outflows. KBE uh is one of those large bank diversified bank ETFs uh that Citizen Financial is part of and it’s down. So it’s nice to see the company buying back stock. I I think we’re going to see more uh uses of buyback stock. We’re looking at companies that have strong free cash flow that have the ability to do that. And for folks that are looking for an ETF real quick, VFlow, uh Victory Shares free cash flow ETF, companies that have that strong capability to buy back stock.
01:37 Dave Briggs
Great context there. Also, we’re tracking this name on the day. Merk, getting FDA approval for the use of Keytruda to treat head and neck cancer. The drug had already been approved to treat various other cancers. They’re taking a look at Merk shares rising right now by about three tenths of a percent. And what’s noteworthy for a lot of the biopharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies is many of them trying to figure out what is the next major element of their R&D pipeline that could add to its ability to deliver some of both the margins, uh for investors that have been looking for even more shareholder value, but also just looking for that next big breakthrough. But Keytruda has largely been that for Merk, and that’s why they’re looking for other sources while also leaning into the ability to prop up uh especially through the approvals process, some of the the efficacious measures that they’ve seen so far right now.
02:57 Josh Schafer
Yeah, and it’s great to be able to see, you know, healthcare tends to be one of those historically defensive sectors. It also has underperformed uh for much of the year. So it’s great to see a growth driver for one of those large cap companies that you’d find within XLV. I’m going to keep throwing out ETF tickers. I’m the ETF guy. Mm-hmm.
03:21 Dave Briggs
Look, that’s your that’s your jam right now. What is the so what is the ETF play within healthcare that is seemingly uh more resilient at this juncture?
03:33 Josh Schafer
Yeah, I mean so XLV is the healthcare sector of the S&P 500. So you’re going to get those large cap companies. Um biotechnology is more growth oriented side of it. So IBB would if you wanted to play that drug uh drug pipeline uh for individual biotechnology companies.
04:01 Dave Briggs
Finally here, let’s talk Occidental Petroleum. Occidental Petroleum getting a boost from surging oil prices. The Warren Buffett backed oil and gas company is one of several energy names climbing today after Israel launched an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. It earlier today was the top trending ticker on the Yahoo Finance platform right now. You’re seeing it up about 3.4%. And this is one of the green areas of the market. We know that this is the typical activity and reaction to when there is conflict that breaks out in one of the most oil and energy and gas rich portions of the world as well.
04:47 Josh Schafer
Right. And so energy is roughly 3% of the S&P 500. So it’s a pretty small stake. Uh so when oil prices spike, that’s usually a bad thing for the rest of the market, you know, we talked about consumer sentiment earlier, but higher oil prices is a negative thing. So folks that want to overweight their exposure to energy, XLE is again that S&P 500 one. I touched on AMLP, which is a more stable uh uh MLP oriented product. That’s for Molarian. That’s a good way of uh having energy exposure, but not necessarily the same level of volatility. Right. Yep.
05:31 Dave Briggs
Yeah, we were talking about, even as you were mentioning, the impacts that consumers typically see when oil prices are lower versus higher. Well, we’ve had a lower protracted period as well here for a little bit, and that playing into some of what we had seen in the CPI release earlier this week where we saw the gasoline index fall over the month, uh the energy index decline by about 1% here. You can scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks of the session with Yahoo Finance’s trending ticker page.
