The SoftBank Vision Fund’s self-driving car deal with General Motors is more than a way to hedge its many bets. The huge Japanese investment outfit will sink $2.25 billion into the U.S. carmaker’s autonomous-vehicle unit. The risk may not be spreading its holdings too widely, but doing it too early. The Vision fund has certainly been spraying its nearly $100 billion of cash around. Earlier this year, it took a 15 percent stake in ride-hailing firm Uber, which is also developing self-driving vehicles. An investment in chip firm Nvidia is also a play on AV technology, as that company is

Ford stock’s staying power makes no sense. The Motown carmaker run by Jim Hackett is valued by the market at some eight times forecast earnings for this year, a higher multiple than General Motors. Yet Ford has hit a series of potholes while its rival’s prospects soar. A profit warning from the “Blue Oval” on Tuesday ought to convince investors to cash in the difference. Finance chief Bob Shanks told investors at a conference in Detroit that the company is likely to miss consensus estimates when it reports fourth-quarter earnings next week, largely because of shifting costs and currencies. There’s

A historic week saw the Dow Jones Industrials Average (.DJI) close above 20K for the first time, President Trump’s first week in office, and a flood of fourth quarter earnings from 108 S&P 500 constituents.

Companies in the S&P 500 index continued reporting generally better than expected results for the week ended Oct. 23