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Only One S&P 500 Sector’s Core Earnings Improved This Year

The COVID-19-induced economic downturn wiped out eight quarters of core earnings growth in just two quarters, as I highlighted in “S&P 500 Peaks As Earnings Trough.” This report focuses on the core earnings of each S&P 500 sector to narrow in on where the most damage was done.

My firm’s measure of core earnings leverages cutting-edge technology to provide clients with a cleaner and more comprehensive view of earnings[1]. Investors armed with this measure of core earnings have a differentiated and more informed view of the fundamentals of companies and sectors.

Within the S&P 500, only the Technology sector saw a rise in core earnings since the end of 2019, as the shift to work-from-home drove growth in many technology companies.

Rankings the Sectors by Core Earnings Growth

Figure 1 ranks

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Technology
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Smartphone market expected to sink this year but will rebound due to 5G push

Shipments are forecast to drop almost 10% for 2020, but a revival is due in 2022 courtesy of a 5G push and other factors, says research firm IDC.

People group having addicted fun together using smartphones - Detail of hands sharing content on social network with mobile smart phones - Technology concept with millennials online with cellphones

Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Global smartphone shipments will fall by 9.5% this year to 1.2 billion units as a result of economic concerns, IDC projected in a report released Thursday. Though the second quarter results were slightly better than expected, the market was still down by 17% compared with the same period last year.

SEE: Mobile device computing policy (TechRepublic Premium) 

Like many sectors, the smartphone industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdown. Despite the shift to remote working and self-quarantining, a lack of consumer demand amid fears of an economic slowdown have reduced smartphone shipments.

Prior to the pandemic, total smartphone sales were expected to return to growth this year, IDC said, but now that possibility is

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Programming
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Russians tend to insure Chinese, Korean smartphones more often this year – Business & Economy

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/. Russians tend to insure their smartphones by Chinese and Korean producers more often this year, according to a study by Sberbank Insurance, a subsidiary of Sberbank, obtained by TASS. The price of most often insured phones varies from 12,000 ($164) to 14,000 rubles ($191).

This year, Honor became the “most insured” smartphone brand: 35% of the total amount of insurance purchased for this gadget. Most often users insured their Honor 9X model (6.7%).

Korea’s Samsung is the second most popular brand (22%) on the list. The Samsung A10 model is the most dear to their owners: it accounted for 6.6% of purchased insurance contracts.

One fifth (21%) of insurance contracts are concluded for Chinese smartphones under the Xiaomi brand. The most popular model is Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T (6% of purchased insurances), according to the study.

If in 2019, Russian phone owners insured mainly Apple and

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Programming
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These online learning tips will help parents prepare for a successful school year, even if it is virtual.

Many of the nation’s largest school districts plan to begin the fall semester online-only. As schools consider reopening, children face a future in which online courses will probably be part of the curriculum. To make the best of this situation, here are some tips to help your child adapt to learning from home.

Studies show that in online learning, parents often take on the role of a teacher. Making school a priority will help keep kids from treating online learning as a vacation.

Research suggests that some types of parental participation have a greater impact on children’s academic achievement than others. One analysis showed that schoolchildren benefit from discussions about learning and school-related issues with their parents and from joint readings.

Reduce distractions

A report in 2016 found that students spent about one-fifth of class time on laptops, smartphones and tablets, knowing that doing so could harm their grades. They

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Computer
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I’m a journalist who lived through Kashmir’s traumatic internet blackout, which started one year ago. Here’s what it’s like to have your freedoms ripped away for 213 days.

kashmir internet shutdown
kashmir internet shutdown

REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

  • On August 5, 2019, India’s Hindu nationalist government revoked the autonomy of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir region by scrapping Article 370, a constitutional provision that grants special status and allows the Indian state to make its own laws. The day before, it had cut off phone signals, mobile data, and broadband internet.

  • Majid Maqbool is a freelance journalist from the region and the opinions expressed are his own. He says Kashmir’s internet blackout traumatised families, devastated businesses, and cut millions of people off from the outside world. 

  • A year on from when 213-day blackout started, he writes about what it was like to live through — and about how the media celebrated Kashmiris’ loss of freedom.

  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

This week marks one year since I and seven million other Kashmiris were subjected to the longest-ever internet blackout in a

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Internet
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Mother, 52, reveals how she overcame a 25 year addiction to prescription painkillers

Nicki Hari took up to 20 painkillers a day at the height of her addiction. (Supplied)
Nicki Hari took up to 20 painkillers a day at the height of her addiction. (Supplied)

A mother has revealed how she overcame an addiction to painkillers that spanned a quarter of a century.

Nicki Hari, 52, from Hertfordshire, was first prescribed paracetamol and ibuprofen for persistent knee pain when she was 18.

The mother-of-two later developed neuralgic pain, which she now knows to be a symptom of withdrawal, prompting her doctor to dole out the more intense analgesics codeine, co-codamol and tramadol.

Whenever Hari tried to come off the drugs she endured depression, night sweats and pain over her entire body.

Read more: Common painkillers for chronic discomfort may ‘do more harm than good’

During the height of her addiction, Hari took up to 20 painkillers a day, buying them online on top of her repeat prescription.

Having “lost all zest for life”, her friends staged an intervention and

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Internet
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Some parents want to hire tutors, start mini schools this year. Most can’t afford to.

CHICAGO – Millions of parents across the nation are facing difficult decisions about what to do with their kids this school year. But the pandemic affects every family differently, for reasons that range from their socioeconomic status to their health to the fields they work in.

Some parents are in a better position than others to ensure their children stay healthy and keep up with schoolwork, and researchers are raising questions about how the pandemic may exacerbate existing educational inequalities.

“Kids who are disproportionately low-income are at highest risk for learning losses,” said Ariel Kalil, a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. “When these gaps in learning open up, absent some really serious and sustained intervention, the kids won’t (catch up). That will result in less academic achievement, lower lifetime earnings and even lower productivity in adulthood.”

USA TODAY spoke with more than a dozen

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Internet
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Online school? Some parents want to hire tutors, start mini schools this year. Most can’t afford to.

CHICAGO – Millions of parents across the nation are facing difficult decisions about what to do with their kids this school year. But the pandemic affects every family differently, for reasons that range from their socioeconomic status to their health to the fields they work in.

Some parents are in a better position than others to ensure their children stay healthy and keep up with schoolwork, and researchers are raising questions about how the pandemic may continue to exacerbate existing educational inequalities.

“Kids who are disproportionately low-income are at highest risk for learning losses,” said Ariel Kalil, a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. “When these gaps in learning open up, absent some really serious and sustained intervention, the kids won’t (catch up). That will result in less academic achievement, lower lifetime earnings and even lower productivity in adulthood.”

USA TODAY spoke with more than

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Internet
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Colleges could reopen if they test students every 2 days; Fauci ‘cautiously optimistic’ for vaccine this year

In its biggest coronavirus vaccine deal yet, the U.S. said Friday it will pay French pharmaceutical company Sanofi and Great Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline up to $2.1 billion to test and produce 100 million doses of an experimental coronavirus vaccine.

The deal is part of Operation Warp Speed, a White House-led initiative aimed at getting a vaccine to stop SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

On Capitol Hill, Dr. Anthony Fauci testified Friday before a special House panel. He told the committee that he’s “cautiously optimistic” that by late fall or early winter a vaccine now being tested would be deemed safe and effective.

Also in Washington, the extra $600 in federal unemployment aid that helped many Americans stay afloat amid the coronavirus pandemic is expiring as plans for additional stimulus stalled in a deadlocked Senate.

Here are some significant developments:

  • A new survey shows fewer Americans want to resume daily activities

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Computer
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As the School Year Approaches, Education May Become the Pandemic’s Latest Casualty

Children tumble off a yellow school bus, where every other seat is marked with caution tape. Wearing whimsical masks—one has whiskers, another rhinestones—they wait to get their temperatures checked before filing into the one-story school building. Inside Wesley Elementary in Middletown, Conn., plastic shields rise from desks, and cartoon posters exhort children to cover your cough. In the middle of a lesson, teacher Susan Velardi picks up her laptop and pans it so her students can see the screen. “Look,” she tells them, “I have a friend that’s joining us at home!”

There’s a new set of ground rules in Velardi’s classroom. “Your mask is on, and your mask stays like this. If we go outside if it’s nice, we have to sit apart,” she tells the students, who will enter third grade in the fall. When one tries to high-five her, she compromises with an “air high five.” Other

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Computer