In this exclusive StockCharts video, Julius takes a look at what he recently called “The Best Five Sectors” on a relative rotation graph side-by-side with their price charts. He then takes an in-depth at Consumer Discretionary, and shares some interesting stocks within, including AMZN, ULTA, and more.
This video was originally published on January 8, 2025. Click on the icon above to view on our dedicated page for Julius.
Past videos from Julius can be found here.
#StayAlert, -Julius
Panera Bread’s parent company announced Tuesday that CEO Jose Dueñas is stepping down, effective immediately.
The change in leadership is the latest challenge to the company’s plans to go public eventually, following several years of hurdles.
Panera Brands CFO Paul Carbone will step in as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent replacement to lead the company, which includes Panera Bread, Einstein Bros. and Caribou Coffee.
Dueñas plans to stick around through the end of March as a special advisor, the company said. He took over as CEO of Panera Brands in July 2023 after four years leading bagel chain Einstein Bros.
JAB Holding, the investment arm of the Reimann family, bought Panera Bread in 2017 for $7.5 billion, taking it private and then forming Panera Brands with some of its other acquisitions.
JAB has been trying to take Panera public again for years. In 2022, Panera scrapped a deal with Danny Meyer’s special purpose acquisition company, citing market conditions.
In the same 2023 announcement tapping Dueñas as its latest CEO, Panera said the leadership transition is to prepare for an eventual initial public offering. Months later, in December 2023, the company confidentially filed for an IPO.
It has yet to go public, following lawsuits tied to its heavily caffeinated Charged Lemonade, a rocky year for the restaurant industry and a sluggish market for IPOs in 2024.
The chief executive of U.S. Steel appealed directly to President-elect Donald Trump to take a second look at a Japanese company’s $15 billion deal to buy the American steelmaker.
President Joe Biden blocked the deal between U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel on Friday, citing national security concerns after a key business-review panel failed to reach a consensus on whether the acquisition posed any risks. Both companies sued the administration over the decision.
Trump has also opposed Nippon’s purchase of the once-iconic Pittsburgh-based firm and again questioned the proposed sale Monday. But U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt told CNBC on Tuesday that he believes he can appeal to Trump’s business sensibilities.
“We have a new president that will take a fresh look at this. We understand what his current views are, but he’s a smart guy,” Burritt said.
He added that he hopes Trump will “see how this helps make U.S. Steel great again. And frankly, Nippon is going to pay for it,” he said, echoing Trump’s frequent assertions during the 2016 campaign that Mexico would pay for a wall along the U.S. southern border, which never came to pass.
A spokesperson for Trump referred to his earlier comments on the matter. A White House spokesperson reiterated a statement provided to NBC News on Monday night: “President Biden will never hesitate to protect the security of this nation, its infrastructure, and the resilience of its supply chains.”
Since Trump won the election, a deluge of business leaders have visited his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as they seek to win favor with the incoming administration, among them Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Trump’s inaugural committee has also received millions in donations from Apple, Amazon, OpenAI, Uber, Meta and some of their executives personally.
Twenty mayors and community leaders in Pennsylvania and Indiana called on Biden to approve the deal in a letter late last month. On the opposite side, the United Steelworkers International union repeatedly pressed Biden to block the deal. It said last week said it had ‘no doubt that it’s the right move for our members and our national security,’ and it praised Biden’s decision Friday.
Burritt said any potential national security concerns about the agreement could be “easily mitigated.” He said Biden had “tainted” the process by making it clear since the deal was announced that he would side with unions and didn’t allow the review to “play out as it is supposed to.”
Burritt, the U.S. Steel chief, also dismissed Biden’s concerns that the company needed to remain American-owned and -operated for national security and supply chain reasons. “In fact, it strengthens national security, it strengthens economic security, it strengthens job security. In fact, it grows the business,” he said.
Burritt declined to speculate on what would happen to U.S. Steel if the company’s lawsuits or the incoming administration don’t change the outcome. “Nobody in the integrated mill space is better than Nippon, and they’re going to do great things for the workers here in Pennsylvania, in Indiana and all the places we do business.”
Nippon Steel has said there is “no reason to need to give up” on its deal. “This is not just the most important matter for our company’s business strategy. I am firmly convinced this is something extremely beneficial for both Japan and the United States,” its chairman and CEO told reporters Tuesday.
Both companies have emphasized in their lawsuits that “never before has a President prohibited an acquisition by a company based in Japan, one of our closest allies.”
Oklahoma City Thunder and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The two best teams in the NBA. The two hottest teams in the NBA.
And they play Wednesday (7 p.m. ET, ESPN) in one of the biggest regular-season games of the past few seasons. No one will be surprised if Thunder-Cavaliers ends up the Finals series.
Cleveland owns the best record at 31-4, and Oklahoma City has the second-best record at 30-5. The Cavaliers are No. 1 offensively and No. 7 defensively, and the Thunder are No. 1 defensively and No. 8 offensively.
Oklahoma City rides a 15-game winning streak into the contest, and Cleveland has won 10 consecutive games.
Both teams are led by dynamic guards: Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who finished second in MVP voting last season and averages 31.3 points, 6.1 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 2.0 steals and 1.1 blocks and shoots 52.4% from the field, 36% on 3-pointers and 88.8% on free throws; and the Cavaliers’ Donovan Mitchell, who averages 23.3 points, 4.6 assists, 4.4 rebounds, and 1.5 steals and shoots 45.7% from the field, 41.3% on 3s and 81.5% on free throws.
But these are not one-man teams as you’ll see in this much-anticipated matchup.
Opening tip will be Wednesday, Jan. 8 at about 7 p.m. ET.
The Cavaliers will host the Thunder from Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.
The game will be televised on ESPN.
The game will be streamed on ESPN+ and on Fubo, which offers a free trial.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are favorites to defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder during their regular-season matchup Wednesday, according to the BetMGM odds.
Spread: Cavaliers (-2.5)
Moneyline: Cavaliers (-140); Thunder (+115)
Over/under: 229.5
Wildfires continued to rage in California on Wednesday, resulting in evacuation and destruction in the Los Angeles area.
The fires destroyed more than 1,000 homes, businesses and other structures, Los Angeles County Fire chief Anthony Marrone said at a briefing Wednesday. There also were a ‘high number of significant injuries to residents who did not evacuate, in addition to first responders who were on the fire line.’
The Los Angeles Kings’ game against the Calgary Flames was postponed, with scheduling changes still possible for other professional and college sports in the days to come.
Here’s how the fires are affecting sports in Southern California:
The Los Angeles Kings’ game against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday has been postponed, the NHL announced.
‘In light of the devastating effects of the wildfires in the Los Angeles area, tonight’s game between the Los Angeles Kings and Calgary Flames at Crypto.com Arena, NHL Game No. 653, has been postponed,’ the NHL said in a statement. ‘The thoughts of the entire NHL family are with the Kings, hockey fans and the people of the Los Angeles area during this difficult time.’
The league added that a makeup date will be announced as soon as it can be confirmed.
On Monday night, the Los Angeles Rams will play the Minnesota Vikings in an NFC wild-card game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
‘The NFL continues to closely monitor developments in the area and will remain in contact with both clubs and the NFLPA,’ the league said in a statement.
The Lakers return home to play the Charlotte Hornets on Thursday and the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday. The Clippers start a three-game homestand against the Hornets on Saturday.
Los Angeles Lakers head coach J.J. Redick said his family members are safe after being forced to evacuate their Southern California homes this week as wildfires continue to sweep across parts of Los Angeles County.
The fire has destroyed homes in several Los Angeles suburbs, including Pacific Palisades, where Redick and many others live. The Lakers just completed a two-game swing through Texas against the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks and have a scheduled home game against the Charlotte Hornets on Thursday.
‘I just want to acknowledge and send thoughts and prayers to everyone in the Palisades right now,’ Redick said. ‘That’s where I live.
‘Our family, my wife’s family, my wife’s twin sister, they’ve evacuated. I know a lot of people are freaking out right now, including my family. From the sound of things, with the winds coming (Tuesday night), I know a lot of people are scared. So I just want to acknowledge that. Thoughts and prayers, for sure, and hope everybody stays safe.’
‘I want to send my thoughts and condolences to everybody in Los Angeles dealing with the fires,’ Kerr said after the Warriors’ 114-98 loss to the Miami Heat. ‘My mom lives in Pacific Palisades. She had to evacuate.’
Officials said that two people have been killed, 30,000 Los Angeles area residents are under evacuation orders, and more than 13,000 buildings or structures are in the fire’s path. The fires are driven by Santa Ana winds that have reached more than 80 miles per hour.
(This story has been updated with more information.)
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The final pieces of the NFL’s playoff picture came together Sunday with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers securing their fifth consecutive playoff berth. On the other end of the spectrum, the Denver Broncos return to the playoffs for the first time since 2015 when they won the Super Bowl with Peyton Manning at quarterback.
The Broncos join three other teams newly qualifying for the postseason: the Los Angeles Chargers, Washington Commanders and Minnesota Vikings. All four will be back on the field Jan. 11-13 with eight other teams in what the NFL calls ‘Super Wild Card Weekend.’
Can’t view our graphics? Click here to see them.
After next weekend’s games, the records of the remaining four teams in each conference determine how the divisional championships set up Jan. 18 or 19:
No. 1 seed hosts the lowest remaining seed.
The next highest remaining seed hosts the other wild-card winner.
BetMGM’s betting lines moved incrementally by Wednesday morning for two of the six wild card games. A plus before the number signifies the amount a bettor would win on a $100 bet. A minus signifies the amount a bettor must bet to win $100.
Chargers (-160) favored by 3 points at Texans (+135)
Steelers (+425) at Ravens (-600) favored by 10 points
Broncos (+350) at Bills (-450) favored by 9 points
Packers (+195) at Eagles (-250) favored by 4.5 points
Commanders (+140) at Buccaneers (-165) favored by 3 points
Vikings (-110) at Rams (-110) favored by 1 point
The Chiefs finished the regular season with the league’s best record, but did so with the lowest scoring differential among the top playoff teams. They outscored their opponents by just 59 points. Sunday’s 38-0 loss didn’t help, but less than a third of the NFC-leading Detroit Lions. Both the Lions and the Buffalo Bills scored more than 500 points this season – a milestone only the Dallas Cowboys hit in 2023.
In his first season back in the NFL, head coach Jim Harbaugh turned up the Los Angeles Chargers’ defense, cutting their ‘points against’ to 301 – almost than 100 points fewer than 2023 and leading the league in the category. The five-seed Chargers and Houston Texans will open Wild Card Weekend on Saturday afternoon. Interestingly, the underdog 10-7 Texans scored exactly as many points as they gave up this season.
The NFL regular season has concluded, and now, the high-stakes playoffs are upon us, with each team’s destiny hanging in the balance.
The Kansas City Chiefs have clinched a coveted bye week, propelling them straight to the divisional round and securing the No. 1 seed in the AFC. Similarly, the Detroit Lions have triumphed, earning the No. 1 seed in the NFC. Both teams will bask in the advantage of playing on their home turf throughout the postseason.
The wild-card matchups are set with two games on Saturday, January 11, and three on Sunday, January 12. The schedule will culminate with a ‘Monday Night Football’ game on January 13, all of which will be win-or-go-home matches to determine which teams advance to the divisional round.
The division round will be four games and will occur on Saturday, January 18, and Sunday, January 19, followed by the NFC and AFC conference title games on Sunday, January 26.
Here is how the AFC and NFC brackets look, including a full schedule leading up to Super Bowl LIX.
NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.
Get your very own playoff bracket to fill out and prognosticate accordingly.
Printable NFL bracket: Wild card matchups and beyond
Los Angeles Chargers vs. Houston Texans at 4:30 p.m. ET on CBS
Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Baltimore Ravens at 8 p.m. ET on Prime Video
Denver Broncos vs. Buffalo Bills at 1 p.m. ET on CBS
Green Bay Packers vs. Philadelphia Eagles at 8 p.m. ET on FOX
Washington Commanders vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 8 p.m. ET on NBC
Minnesota Vikings vs. Los Angeles Rams at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN and ABC
Watch the wild-card games on Fubo
The divisional round will feature four games scheduled for Saturday, January 18, and Sunday, January 19. The AFC’s No. 1 seed, the Kansas City Chiefs, will host the lowest-seeded team in the AFC. Similarly, the NFC’s No. 1 seed, the Detroit Lions, will host the lowest-seeded team in the NFC.
The NFC and AFC Championship Games will take place on Sunday, January 26. The highest remaining seeds from the divisional rounds will receive home-field advantage.
Super Bowl LIX will be played at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on February 9.
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Colorado football coach Deion Sanders received a “very credible threat” that two people were going to try to assault him last September, among other threats he faced throughout the year, his bodyguard said in the new season of the “Coach Prime” documentary series.
Sanders’ bodyguard, Michael Rhodes, also revealed he uses nitrile gloves to handle Sanders’ mail and runs the mail through a machine to detect hazardous materials.
Before the Colorado State game Sept. 14, Rhodes even said multiple law enforcement agencies got involved to monitor his safety after receiving “multiple threats concerning people trying to do harm to Coach,” including a threat that two people “were trying to possibly tackle Coach, either before, during or after the game.”
Rhodes said he makes a practice of sending death threats to police and the FBI.
“I have to keep my head on a swivel” Rhodes said. “I have to keep my eyes open. I really have to watch the crowd, pay attention to everybody’s body language, facial expressions, hands, because everybody doesn’t love Coach. … With all of the death threats, I don’t know who is who. I’ve got one job, and that’s to make sure that Coach is good, to make sure he’s safe, so he can go out and coach the team to a victory.”
Rhodes provided these details in Season 3 of “Coach Prime,” which debuted Tuesday on Amazon Prime Video. The new series covers the 2024 Colorado football season under Sanders and runs five episodes, all of which became available to stream on Tuesday.
Among other revelations, viewers will learn that freshman offensive lineman Jordan Seaton is a yoga-practicing pescatarian, that Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter has been involved in the song selection at his coming wedding and that Sanders had choice words for game officials as his team was pelted by debris thrown from the crowd at Texas Tech.
The show is produced by Sanders’ business manager at SMAC Entertainment, which also has editorial control over the content, with input from the University of Colorado.
As a result, the series serves as a recruiting advertisement of sorts for Sanders and Colorado football, interspersed with touching human subplots, including one Colorado player’s battle with lymphoma and the criminal sentencing of another player’s father in Florida on drug-related charges.
It’s the kind of infomercial that other coaches would love to have for their programs but few if any others could get. On the other hand, the overall spotlight on Sanders also swings both ways, making him and his family a frequent target of criticism.
“A lot of media personalities have understood that if you just mention me, or (his son) Shedeur or Colorado or Travis or anybody, you’re gonna get attention,” Sanders says in Episode 2 of the new season. “And that’s what this country is seeking – a tremendous amount of attention. … You have your own social media, your own platforms. Even the person out there with 500 followers wants six. So whatever he or she needs to do to get that or warrant that, they’re gonna do it.”
The new season does not cover the team’s final game at the Alamo Bowl Dec. 28 − a 36-14 loss to BYU − presumably because of production deadlines. Likewise, Hunter’s Heisman win in New York Dec. 14 is shown only as a footnote in the final episode. The new season otherwise focuses on Sanders in his final season coaching his two youngest sons in college – quarterback Shedeur and safety Shilo – as well as his relationship with other players, including Hunter.
Colorado finished the season with a 9-4 record after finishing 4-8 during Sanders’ first season in Boulder in 2023. The Buffaloes played in front of sellout crowds in all but three of their games in 2024 and also drew the biggest-ever television audience for the Alamo Bowl (8 million).
In one game, a 41-27 win at Texas Tech in November, the crowd got so out of hand that Sanders pleaded with game officials to do something about it. Episode 5 of the new season captures the sound.
“There’s gotta be something said (to the crowd),” Sanders told the game officials during the game. “Now they throwing bottles and everything now. There’s gotta be something said.”
One of the officials then replied with his own warning to Sanders.
“One thing I was going to come and tell you, Coach, is that the next time you guys score again and your players are blowing kisses to the crowd…,” the official said.
This remark set Sanders off. While Sanders was expressing concern for his team’s safety, the game official was bringing up the behavior of Colorado players.
“Hey, we can blow what we want,” Sanders replied, raising his voice. “That ain’t got nothing to do with no throwing no bottles, man. I don’t want to hear that bulljunk. They throwing it! I don’t want to hear that. Blowing a kiss ain’t got nothing to do with that. That’s football! That’s football!”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
The Rams announced just after 3 p.m. ET on Wednesday that due to an ongoing water outage, which was caused by Monday’s winter storm, fans won’t be allowed inside the Siegel Center Wednesday for their home game against Fordham.
VCU is coming off a 1-1 road trip to open up conference play, with a 77-75 loss at St. Bonaventure and 84-65 win at Loyola Chicago. Ryan Odom’s squad is 11-4 overall to start the season, with Power Four wins against Boston College and Miami.
Fordham has dropped each of its first two Atlantic-10 contests to Saint Louis and St. Bonaventure, and is 8-7 overall on the season.
Here’s what you need to know on why there won’t be fans inside the Siegel Center for VCU-Fordham, including how to watch Wednesday’s Atlantic-10 contest:
The reason for VCU and Fordham playing in an empty arena on Wednesday has to do with an ongoing water outage in the Richmond, Virginia area.
The City of Richmond has been under a water boil advisory since Monday and will likely remain in one until Friday as water pressure continues to build up per VPM News. In a statement on VCU basketball’s X (formerly Twitter) account, Rams’ athletic director Ed McLaughlin said that the university was expected to get water back in the Siegel Center by Wednesday night — which is why the game wasn’t postponed and rescheduled as a whole.
‘We had to make the very difficult decision this afternoon to hold our game tonight without any spectators or members of the general public,’ Ed McLaughlin said in a statement on X. ‘We wanted to wait as long as possible but water service has not returned to the Siegel Center, despite assurances throughout the last two days that it would.
‘We hoped to serve the role of a place for our fans to gather and enjoy a few hours of happiness during a time when so many people in our community have suffered grave challenges.’
TV: MASN
Streaming: ESPN+
VCU vs Fordham will be broadcast on MASN, a local TV station in the D.C.,Maryland and Virginia region. Streaming option for the game includes ESPN+, ESPN’ subscription streamings service.
Date: Wednesday, Jan. 8
Time: 7 p.m. ET
VCU and Fordham will tip-off at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Jan. 8 from the Siegel Center.
President-elect Donald Trump is envisioning a future without new wind energy projects under his administration, arguing that this power source is economically impractical and is causing harm to marine life.
Trump has long criticized using wind farms as a main form of energy production, but his latest remarks suggest that his incoming administration could place major restrictions on the future production of new wind-powered energy projects.
‘It’s the most expensive energy there is. It’s many, many times more expensive than clean natural gas,’ Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday. ‘So we’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built.’
The federal government currently offers several different ways to obtain subsidies for windmill production, which Trump pointed to as one of the main issues with the energy source.
‘The only people that want them are the people getting rich off windmills, getting massive subsidies from the U.S. government,’ he added. ‘You don’t want energy that needs subsidy.’
The incoming president has also claimed potential interference with sea mammals is an issue, specifically in Massachusetts.
‘You see what’s happening up in the Massachusetts area, where they had two whales wash ashore in I think a 17-year period,’ Trump said during the news conference. ‘Now they had 14 this season. The windmills are driving the whales crazy, obviously.’
Trump finds consensus with some environmental groups on the issue.
‘That’s the only thing out there that’s changed, and it’s changed dramatically,’ said Constance Gee of Green Oceans, a group that strives to protect ocean life, according to WCVB 5. ‘There is so much ship traffic out there. It’s so loud. There’s piledriving. There’s sub-bottom profiling with sonar.’
The National Marine Fisheries Service, however, says that there is no evidence currently connecting wind turbines and whale deaths.
Trump’s latest comments were criticized by a Democratic ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, who said the incoming president ‘is completely out of touch.’
‘Trump is against wind energy because he doesn’t understand our country’s energy needs and dislikes the sight of turbines near his private country clubs,’ Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement.
Wind energy is currently the largest source of renewable energy in the U.S., according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). However, such energy production has received growing opposition from members of the GOP in recent years, who have expressed concerns over its potential adverse effects.
‘Like the canary in the coal mine, the recent spate of tragic whale deaths shed new light and increased scrutiny to the fast-tracking of thousands of wind turbines off our coast,’ Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said in March 2023.
Over the past four years, President Joe Biden has made major investments in the offshore wind industry as part of his green energy push, approving the nation’s first 11 commercial scale offshore wind projects.