Broadcom is one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world and has also expanded into infrastructure software. Its semiconductors primarily serve computing and networking, with custom AI accelerators now accounting for the bulk of the business. It is primarily a fabless designer, but holds some manufacturing in-house, such as for its best-of-breed film bulk acoustic resonator filters that sell into the Apple iPhone. In software, it sells virtualization, infrastructure, and security software to large enterprises, financial institutions, and governments. Broadcom is the product of consolidation. Its businesses are an amalgamation of former companies like legacy Broadcom and Avago Technologies in chips, as well as VMware, Brocade, CA Technologies, and Symantec in software.

Dividend income is often overlooked amid gyrations in the stock market. Consider that in 2024, market bulls were boasting about 24%-plus S&P 500 returns. No one was very focused on the broad market index's 1.2% dividend yield. But dividends are an important element of return, and 2025 for a while was bearing that out. Through May, the S&P 500 was up a thin 1.1%; without dividends, there was essentially no returns at all. Of note, dividend income accounted for 42% of the total return of the S&P 500 between 1930 and 2012, according to Hartford Funds. And that's just the average. In some of those decades, dividends accounted for more than 50% of total returns and even 100%. More recently, dividends have accounted for a smaller portion of returns, at around 15%-20%. But not all dividends are created equal, though, and it is important to understand the difference between the two main investment categories: high-yield stocks and dividend-growth stocks.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

A stunning three-day rally has catapulted the major indices back near their June all-time highs and, once again, has set a clear mandate for who has control of the market. The S&P 500 (SPX) has jumped 4% after almost reaching its 50-day average just three days ago. More impressively, the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) has exploded 7.3% over the same time and has booked daily gains of more than 3% in two of the past three days. These are the best short-term advances since stocks were emerging from the "tariff tantrum" in April of 2025. Quick moves like this for the QQQ generally happen when the ETF is forming either a bottom after a correction/bear market or when it is breaking out after a decent decline and completing the bottoming process. This strength usually is not seen coming out of a minor 4.5% decline (as we just had).