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Happy Kikky If you're looking for a high-yield income vehicle at a discount, the universe of closed-end funds, “CEFs,” can often fill that bill. They frequently sell discounted to their daily NAV/share, which can be to your advantage when deciding when to buy. This article Looking for solid high yield income? The Hidden Dividend Stocks Plus portfolio yields over 9%. It features a variety of overlooked high yield income vehicles, all with good dividend coverage - Common and Preferred stocks, Bonds, and CEF's. One of our Preferred stock picks being called in 2024 has delivered a 27%-plus return, and there's more where that came from. There's currently a 2-week Free Trial, and a 20% discount for new members. Click here to start earning high yield income today. Robert Hauver, MBA, aka “Double Dividend Stocks” was VP of Finance for an industry-leading corporation for 18 years and has been investing for more than 30 years. He focuses on undercovered and undervalued income vehicles and he leads the investing group Hidden Dividend Stocks Plus . With Hidden Dividend Stocks Plus he scours the world's markets to find solid income opportunities with dividend yields ranging from 5% to 10% or more, backed by strong earnings. Features include: a portfolio with up to 40 holdings at a time including links to associated articles, a dividend calendar, weekly research articles, exclusive ideas, and trade alerts. Learn More . Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of ECAT 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. Disclaimer: This article was written for informational purposes only, and is not intended as personal investment advice. Please practice due diligence before investing in any investment vehicle 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.As the gaming world is rapidly changing, high-performance laptops have emerged as a necessity for gamers while preserving portability and power. However, immenseness in processing comes along with a big challenge - cooling. In gaming laptops 2024, advanced cooling comes into play to meet the demands of those gamers who push their limits to the very end. Let’s see how these innovations are changing the face of gaming and why this should be interesting to every serious gamer. Gaming laptops are generally designed for very high-end CPUs and GPUs to have fluid gameplay at ultra-high settings. These are sources of much heat during extended usage, which if not well managed, may lead to performance throttling, the reduction in the lifespan of the hardware, and eventually system failures. Maintain Optimal Performance: Prevent thermal throttling by keeping temperatures within a safe range. Enhance Durability: Protect internal components from overheating and wear. Improve Comfort: Ensure laptops remain comfortable to use, even during long gaming sessions. Here are 8 gaming laptops that excel in cooling technology, ensuring top-notch performance and durability: Features liquid metal thermal paste and a vapor chamber design for efficient heat dissipation. Incorporates Cryo-Tech cooling technology and AI-optimized fan systems for quiet and effective thermal management. Utilizes a quad-fan setup and a vapor chamber to keep its powerful components cool. Equipped with 5th-generation AeroBlade 3D fans for enhanced airflow and quieter operation. Combines a sleek design with a custom vapor chamber and high-performance fans. Features ColdFront 5.0 cooling technology with improved air intake and liquid metal thermal paste. Uses Omen Tempest cooling with three-sided venting and five-way airflow for efficient heat management. Includes a Windforce Infinity cooling system with dual fans and multiple heat pipes for sustained gaming performance. Liquid metal is a game-changer for heat transfer. Unlike traditional thermal pastes, liquid metal conducts heat much more efficiently, keeping CPUs and GPUs cool under intense loads. Many high-end gaming laptops now feature vapor chambers, which offer superior heat dissipation compared to traditional heat pipes. This design allows for even heat distribution across the laptop’s chassis. It adjusts the fan speeds according to dynamic user behavior with Artificial Intelligence, respectively optimizes power usage, and predicts all kinds of thermal patterns. Laptops like the ASUS ROG series are introducing innovative airflow solutions, such as raising the rear of the laptop to improve ventilation or using multi-fan setups that efficiently expel heat from the system. Some manufacturers are now offering external liquid cooling docks that connect to laptops, providing desktop-grade cooling for portable machines. Bulk and Weight: Advanced cooling systems usually add to the size and weight of laptops, making them less portable. Cost: Revolutionary cooling can inflate the gaming laptop's price. Noisy Levels: Some fans start making noise at full operating speed, reducing immersion for gamers. Looking ahead, manufacturers are exploring technologies such as graphene-based cooling solutions and sub-ambient cooling systems that could revolutionize laptop thermals. The integration of liquid cooling directly into laptop designs without external docks also seems imminent. Advanced cooling systems will set courses for gaming laptops with unmatched performance, reliability, and lifespan. The manufacturers have made tremendous leaps in thermal innovation over the years and 2024 is probably a break-out year for portable gaming on the whole.
WASHINGTON — Russell Vought is well-known on Capitol Hill and thus far at least looks like a shoo-in to be confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump’s budget director, as he was during Trump’s first term on a party-line vote in 2020. The hard-charging Vought is a revered figure on the right with his pledges to upend the “deep state” and dismantle “woke and weaponized government,” including by refusing to spend all the money Congress appropriates. He’ll need to be vetted again in the new year, where Democrats on the Senate Budget and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panels will be poring over Vought’s writings and speeches since leaving the Trump administration to found a new pro-Trump think tank, the Center for Renewing America. Vought is also one of many contributors to the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025, which Trump disavowed during his presidential campaign and is a major lightning rod on the left. Since Trump’s Nov. 22 announcement that Vought was his choice to once again lead his Office of Management and Budget, a parade of conservative GOP senators have come out in support, such as Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. Incoming Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, is not among those openly praising Vought. “I would not have anticipated that choice, because wasn’t he associated with the Heritage study that the president very much stepped away from? So, seems unusual to choose him,” Collins told reporters last month. But Collins didn’t rule out supporting him either as she has twice before — in 2020 as well as in 2018, when he was confirmed as deputy OMB director on a tie-breaker vote by then-Vice President Mike Pence. “I give deference to all presidents as they try to build their Cabinets,” Collins said. “But there are certain standards, and that’s why the advice and consent role of the Senate is so important.” Collins’ Democratic counterpart on Appropriations, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, has made her opposition to Vought clear. She called him a “far-right ideologue” seeking to unlawfully expand executive spending powers, fire “tens of thousands” of federal workers and “gut programs that help working families” in a statement after Trump announced his selection. ‘Grinding halt’ If confirmed, Vought would play a key role in next year’s budget reconciliation and appropriations debates, as well as in a new set of negotiations to lift the debt limit. Senators are sure to scrutinize Vought’s past commentary, including his no-compromise approach to spending deals. He’s called for shutting down the government rather than accepting a bipartisan stopgap funding bill the last two years, for instance. “The Biden regulatory agenda comes to a grinding halt with a government shutdown,” he posted on X in September 2023. Vought called the 2023 debt ceiling and spending caps deal “terrible,” and backed Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, for speaker later that year. “The American people deserve a Speaker that represents them and not the DC Cartel,” Vought wrote. After Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was elected and cut a deal to continue spending levels negotiated by Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Vought bashed “Mike Johnson’s spending deal” that Democrats were “celebrating.” Here’s a look at what Vought has proposed, including as part of Project 2025 and in a budget blueprint he and his think tank drafted in 2022 that could become a template for Trump’s new budget due early next year. Project 2025 President Joe Biden put apportionments back into the hands of the career officials after Trump OMB officials signed off on the Ukraine aid holds that became the basis for Trump’s first impeachment, in 2019. Vought and his team always held that the moves were lawful uses of apportionment authority, and further, they want to push the envelope of what constitutes an illegal “impoundment” of federal funds under a 1974 law. Trump has suggested that could involve vast clawbacks of previously-signed spending laws. The first Trump administration implemented the policy on its own, where Vought is said to have used it to discourage pricey rulemakings by the Department of Health and Human Services, for instance. Republicans criticize the Biden administration for expanding food-stamp benefits and student debt relief via regulatory actions and believe a tighter “administrative pay-as-you-go” policy would keep regulatory spending in check. And his agency will work hand in hand with the new, informal “Department of Government Efficiency” advisory group, with a stated goal of reducing the federal employee headcount through return-to-office mandates, building relocations and more. “There certainly is going to be mass layoffs and firings, particularly at some of the agencies that we don’t even think should exist,” Vought said in an interview last month with Tucker Carlson. ‘Fiscal brokenness’ Lost amid the focus on Trump’s other prospective nominees and Project 2025 is the detailed budget blueprint Vought and his team at the Center for Renewing America released in December 2022. It’s a clear rejection of traditional GOP orthodoxy calling for higher defense budgets and overhauling Social Security and Medicare, though it’s more aligned on tax policy. But virtually every other entitlement and discretionary program would be on the cutting board, with a stated goal to “consciously and indelibly link the efforts of getting our nation’s finances in order with removing the scourge of woke and weaponized bureaucracy aimed at the American people,” Vought wrote. The budget compares its proposed fiscal 2023 spending agency by agency to enacted spending in fiscal 2021, so its numbers are not up to date. Nevertheless, the scale of reductions gives a sense of the magnitude of changes Vought contemplates. Here are some highlights of Vought’s budget plan, which he wrote in a preface would cure “America’s fiscal brokenness” by cutting trillions of dollars from federal spending. Vought makes no secret of his views on this budget category. “When families decide to get on a budget, they do not target the largest and immovable items of their spending, like their mortgage, first. They aim to restrain discretionary spending — they eat out less, shop less, and find cheaper ways of entertaining themselves,” Vought writes. “Politically, a similar approach is the only way the American people will ever accept major changes to mandatory spending.” The blueprint doesn’t outline all of the cuts over a decade, but in the first year of implementation, nearly every domestic agency would see double-digit appropriations cuts: a 54% reduction at the National Science Foundation, 45% to the State Department and foreign assistance, 43% at the Department of Housing and Urban Development; 40% to the Labor Department and more. Cuts would be more muted at NASA and the Justice Department, while the only nondefense agencies receiving discretionary increases are Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and Transportation. He would downsize the “bloated overhead of the Pentagon, the general officer corps, the civilian workforce, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense,” and shift responsibility for Ukraine’s defense to a European-led effort. And it would slash about $1 trillion, or 7%, from Medicare payments to providers, which could cause them to limit access and pare back services, as well as through pharmaceutical price restraints opposed by many in Trump’s own party. A small piece of the cost savings would come from charging new user fees to cover the cost of USDA meat, poultry and egg inspections. The plan would keep in place the current $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, unlike Vought’s boss who has called for some level of unwinding for the “SALT” cap. And it says nothing of Trump’s new campaign trail innovations like eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay. The budget also assumes the tax cuts would pay for themselves through economic growth — an assumption that isn’t shared by nonpartisan budget scorekeepers and most mainstream economists.
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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks tiptoed to more records amid a mixed Tuesday of trading, tacking a touch more onto what’s already been a stellar year so far. The S&P 500 edged up by 2 points, or less than 0.1%, to set an all-time high for the 55th time this year. It’s climbed in 10 of the last 11 days and is on track for one of its best years since the turn of the millennium. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 76 points, or 0.2%, while the Nasdaq composite added 0.4% to its own record set a day earlier. AT&T rose 4.6% after it boosted its profit forecast for the year. It also announced a $10 billion plan to send cash to its investors by buying back its own stock, while saying it expects to authorize another $10 billion of repurchases in 2027. On the losing end of Wall Street was U.S. Steel, which fell 8%. President-elect Donald Trump reiterated on social media that he would not let Japan’s Nippon Steel take over the iconic Pennsylvania steelmaker. Nippon Steel announced plans last December to buy the Pittsburgh-based steel producer for $14.1 billion in cash, raising concerns about what the transaction could mean for unionized workers, supply chains and U.S. national security. Earlier this year, President Joe Biden also came out against the acquisition. Tesla sank 1.6% after a judge in Delaware reaffirmed a previous ruling that the electric car maker must revoke Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package. The judge denied a request by attorneys for Musk and Tesla’s corporate directors to vacate her ruling earlier this year requiring the company to rescind the unprecedented pay package. All told, the S&P 500 rose 2.73 points to 6,049.88. The Dow fell 76.47 to 44,705.53, and the Nasdaq composite gained 76.96 to 19,480.91. In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady after a report showed U.S. employers were advertising slightly more job openings at the end of October than a month earlier. Continued strength there would raise optimism that the economy could remain out of a recession that many investors had earlier worried was inevitable. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.23% from 4.20% from late Monday. Yields have seesawed since Election Day amid worries that Trump’s preferences for lower tax rates and bigger tariffs could spur higher inflation along with economic growth. But traders are still confident the Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rate again at its next meeting in two weeks. They’re betting on a nearly three-in-four chance of that, according to data from CME Group. Lower rates can give the economy more juice, but they can also give inflation more fuel. The key report this week that could guide the Fed’s next move will arrive on Friday. It’s the monthly jobs report , which will show how many workers U.S. employers hired and fired during November. It could be difficult to parse given how much storms and strikes distorted figures in October. Based on trading in the options market, Friday’s jobs report appears to be the biggest potential market mover until the Fed announces its next decision on interest rates Dec. 18, according to strategists at Barclays Capital. In financial markets abroad, the value of South Korea’s currency fell 1.1% against the U.S. dollar following a frenetic night where President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law and then later said he’d lift it after lawmakers voted to reject military rule. Stocks of Korean companies that trade in the United States also fell, including a 1.6% drop for SK Telecom. Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.9% to help lead global markets. Some analysts think Japanese stocks could end up benefiting from Trump’s threats to raise tariffs , including for goods coming from China . Trade relations between the U.S. and China took another step backward after China said it is banning exports to the U.S. of gallium, germanium, antimony and other key high-tech materials with potential military applications. The counterpunch came swiftly after the U.S. Commerce Department expanded the list of Chinese technology companies subject to export controls to include many that make equipment used to make computer chips, chipmaking tools and software. The 140 companies newly included in the so-called “entity list” are nearly all based in China. In China, stock indexes rose 1% in Hong Kong and 0.4% in Shanghai amid unconfirmed reports that Chinese leaders would meet next week to discuss planning for the coming year. Investors are hoping it may bring fresh stimulus to help spur growth in the world’s second-largest economy. In France, the CAC 40 rose 0.3% amid continued worries about politics in Paris , where the government is battling over the budget. AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.