Day: October 5, 2024

• A millennial with a Ph.D. and more than $250,000 in student-loan debt says she can’t find a job.

• She’s looking for business roles while working as a nurse to help pay the bills.

• She says she wishes she prioritized work experience over her graduate degrees.

Over the past decade, A. Rasberry has placed a great deal of value on higher education. She’s now come to regret it.

Rasberry earned a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degree in business management from Saint Leo University in Florida. However, she says she’s struggled to find a job in her field of study over the past four years. She also has more than $250,000 in student-loan debt, according to a document viewed by Business Insider.

“I graduated with my Ph.D. in 2020 and can’t find a job to save my life,” the 38-year-old, who lives in Virginia, told Business Insider via email. She asked for partial anonymity, using only the first initial of her first name and her last name, because of privacy concerns.

Since earning her Ph.D., Rasberry has applied for various business-management roles but had little success. She said she’d been forced to expand her job search and explore a new career in nursing to help her make ends meet.

“I thought education was the road to financial freedom,” she said. “But I was wrong.”

Rasberry is among the Americans who are having a tough time finding work. In part, it’s because businesses across the US have significantly scaled back on hiring over the past two years. The ratio of job openings to unemployed people — an indicator of job availability — has declined considerably.

While the unemployment rate and layoff rate remain low compared with historical levels, the hiring slowdown means that many job seekers are having a considerably harder time than they were a few years ago.

Rasberry shared why she thinks her job search has been so challenging, how she made her career pivot, and her top piece of advice for people pursuing higher education.

‘Most organizations prefer experience over education’

After receiving her doctorate degree, Rasberry’s initial goal was to land an adjunct professor position. However, after speaking with people in the education field, she decided to change course.

“I’ve learned how difficult it is to get started in the field,” she said. “Essentially, after earning a Ph.D., I would have to go back to school to take more courses to support a teaching career.” She said she was told she’d specifically need more education-related credits.

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As a result, Rasberry said, she decided to give up on teaching and focus on finding other roles in her area of study: business management.

But her job search has been challenging. Rasberry said she hasn’t landed many interviews, and when she has — and has been turned down — she’s had a hard time figuring out what went wrong. She said she’s expanded her job search to non-managerial bookkeeping, accounting, tutoring, and human-resources roles but that she hasn’t had much luck with these either.

Rasberry thinks the biggest obstacle in her job search is her lack of work experience.

While pursuing her degrees, she gained some entry-level work experience in banking, human resources, and bookkeeping roles. However, she said this experience might be insufficient in the eyes of employers.

“I am over qualified for most entry-level positions, but I am under qualified for management or leadership positions,” she said. “Ultimately, my degree has been both a blessing and a curse.”

Rasberry’s top piece of advice for people who pursue higher education is to do your homework. She said she wishes she’d spent more time evaluating her school’s job placement programs, internship partnerships, and the employment rates of recent graduates across different fields before she pursued her degrees.

She also recommended taking time to think about the value of a college degree and the best ways to use it to land a job.

“I learned most organizations prefer experience over education,” she said. “Had I known that I would not have spent so many years in college.”

Nursing is helping to pay the bills during her job search

Rasberry said that in recent years, she’d worked various part-time jobs to pay the bills.

“It feels next to impossible to work a single job and earn enough money to cover essentials like rent, fuel, electricity, etc. in the state of Virginia,” she said. One analysis found Virginia was the 13th-most expensive state when it comes to overall cost of living.

She said she’s completing a training program to work remotely for TurboTax as a tax expert. At the same time, she’s also exploring a new career: nursing. Rasberry said that for roughly the past year, she’d been working as much as 80 hours a week as a nurse.

“I am new to nursing, but I find it rewarding, and I like the shift flexibility,” she said.

Rasberry found a nursing role that provided free training and certification. But she said the downside was that this certification wouldn’t carry over to any other employers — limiting her opportunities in the industry. This is among the reasons she hasn’t stopped applying for business-related jobs.

Another reason is that she doesn’t think she’s paid particularly well — she said she was earning $21.50 an hour. In 2023, the median pay for a registered nurse in the US was about $41 an hour. Despite the long hours, she said the low pay is why she doesn’t view nursing as a full-time job.

“It doesn’t come with full time pay,” she said.

Rasberry said that in recent months, she’d begun focusing more on looking for remote roles such as the TurboTax opportunity. She said working remotely would make it easier to keep her nursing job, reduce her commuting costs, and care for her dog.

Over the past month, Rasberry finally had some luck in the job market. She said she landed a remote plan consultant position in the nursing field that pays about $70,000 a year — equivalent to an hourly rate of more than $30 an hour.

While she views this as a positive development, she said she’d “absolutely” continue searching for higher-paying roles in her field of study.

“When I’m not working, I’m online, putting in applications for employment,” she said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The S&P 500 is the most widely followed stock market index in the U.S. and consists of the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the country. Given the scope of its membership, it is considered by many investors to be the most dependable gauge of overall stock market performance. To be included in the S&P 500, a company must meet the following criteria:

• Be based in the U.S.

• Have a market cap of at least $8.2 billion.

• Have a minimum of 50% of its outstanding shares available for trading.

• Be profitable on a GAAP basis in its most recent quarter.

• Be profitable, in aggregate, over the preceding four quarters.

Deckers Outdoor (NYSE: DECK) is one of the most recent additions to the S&P 500, joining the fold on March 18, one of only 11 companies to be added to the index so far this year. Furthermore, the outdoor footwear and apparel specialist recently completed a 6-for-1 forward stock split, usually reserved for companies with years of strong business and financial results. Since it went public 21 years ago, Deckers shares have soared 12,870% (as of this writing), as the company has navigated the vagaries of the ever-changing outdoor apparel market. Those results aren’t relegated to some distant past either. Over the past five years, Deckers stock has surged 548%.

Despite its impressive rise, many on Wall Street believe there are additional gains to be had. Let’s look at why Deckers has been so successful and what the future holds.

From humble beginnings

Deckers got its start in the surf culture in the early 1970s, creating a comfortable yet stylish sandal that soon became a staple among California surfers. From those humble beginnings, Deckers has forged a multinational path by focusing on niche offerings with a wide appeal. Its iconic footwear brands include Hoka, Ugg, Teva, Ahnu, and Koolabura. The company’s expanding line of performance footwear, strong brands, and reputation for comfort have catapulted Deckers to international success.

These factors have helped the company generate impressive financial results, and the past year has pushed the stock to a new zenith. After delivering record sales and profitability during its fiscal 2024 (ended March 31), Deckers kicked off this year with a bang.

For its fiscal 2025 first quarter (ended June 30), the company generated revenue of $825 million, up 22% year over year, while its diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $4.52 soared 87%. If that wasn’t enough to grab shareholders’ attention, Deckers increased its full-year profit forecast to EPS of $30.20 at the midpoint of its guidance, which would mark a new high watermark for performance.

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The enduring appeal of Deckers footwear has propelled the company to new heights, and that appears poised to continue. The company has been taking market share from its larger rivals. Furthermore, even as the competition is cutting prices and offering discounts to lure customers, Deckers is selling its most popular brands at full retail prices.

Last fiscal year, sales of the company’s luxury lifestyle brand Ugg climbed 16% to $2.2 billion, while its high-end Hoka running shoe brand surged 28% to $1.8 billion and they show no signs of slowing. Deckers is taking the lessons learned from its most popular makes to reignite sales of its other brands. The company is also working to expand its international and direct-to-consumer sales and those efforts could boost its results for the foreseeable future.

There’s another reason for investors to be excited. Since the company began buying back stock in 2012, Deckers has decreased its share count by nearly 34%, giving shareholders an even bigger piece of the earnings pie. The company bought back $152 million worth of stock in Q1 and has roughly $790 million remaining on its current repurchase authorization.

Analysts are still bullish on Deckers

Wall Street is famous for its diverse group of opinions, so it’s noteworthy that the majority of analysts that cover Deckers believe there’s still upside ahead. Of the 22 analysts that covered the stock in September, 16 rated it a buy or strong buy, and none recommend selling. Furthermore, an average price target of roughly $179 suggests that Deckers stock has 15% upside compared to Tuesday’s closing price.

However, UBS analyst Jay Sole is the biggest bull among his Wall Street colleagues, with a buy rating and a split-adjusted Street-high price target of $225. That suggests potential gains for investors of 45% compared to Tuesday’s closing price. The analyst cites Deckers’ robust quarterly results and the ongoing strong demand for its Hoka and Ugg brands.

Despite the stock’s relentless climb over the past few years, it’s still attractively priced, selling for roughly 30 times earnings, matching the current multiple of the S&P 500 — despite outpacing the index by a wide and growing margin in recent years. Perhaps more importantly, analysts’ consensus estimates are calling for EPS of $6.05 for Deckers next fiscal year, so the stock is selling for less than 26 times next year’s earnings — an even better bargain.

That’s why Deckers stock is a buy.

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Meet the Newest Stock-Split Stock in the S&P 500. It Soared 12,870% Since Its IPO, and Wall Street Says It’s Still a Buy Right Now. was originally published by The Motley Fool

In a recent episode of The Ramsey Show, financial expert Dave Ramsey didn’t hold back when discussing the Federal Reserve’s latest rate cuts and timing – just weeks before a major election. Ramsey, known for his no-nonsense approach to personal finance, raised questions about the motives behind the Fed’s decision, saying it’s no coincidence that interest rates were lowered so close to Election Day.

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On Sept. 18, the Federal Reserve cut its interest rates by half a percentage point – the first cut since 2020. While some say this is a bold move to help a struggling national economy, Ramsey calls it bogus.

Ramsey opened his discussion with a bold statement: “We just got word a few moments ago – surprise, surprise, 45 days from the election, the Fed dropped the interest rate … That wasn’t possible four months ago or eight months ago, but right before the election, it’s possible. That’s just sus.”

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He criticized what he sees as the politically motivated nature of the timing, asking listeners, “Are you folks in America that stupid? That you don’t look at this and go, well, that’s suspicious timing?”

The timing of the rate cut is significant because economic issues have been a focal point in the current administration’s challenges. Ramsey pointed out that it’s really hard to keep a party in office when the economy is struggling during an election year and emphasized that the Fed rate cuts are just a political move.

Ramsey believes the Fed’s decision to cut rates won’t immediately impact the housing market, despite mortgage rates being at their lowest levels since early 2023. He also mentioned that the real estate market hasn’t experienced a boom despite these lower rates. Homeowners are reluctant to sell homes with 2-3% mortgage rates and upgrade to homes with significantly higher rates.

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Ramsey proposed an additional theory: “Some people might be waiting on the Harris administration or the Trump administration to fix their life and they’re going to wait until after the election to decide whether they’re gonna buy a house or not.” Ramsey emphasized that waiting on political outcomes to change personal financial situations is misguided.

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George Kamel agreed, noting that while supply and demand in the housing market remain issues, some potential buyers have been holding off, waiting for rate cuts to make homes more affordable.

Despite the hype, Ramsey warned that the Fed’s rate cut won’t immediately impact mortgage rates, as those are influenced more by the bond market. “It’ll be postelection before you see any benefit from that. But it’s all about perception … This is a PR move.”

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Ramsey and Kamel concluded the discussion by pointing out that these kinds of announcements, like the Fed rate cut or the promises of student loan forgiveness, are often politically motivated. As Kamel put it, “It’s amazing the timing of that,” and Ramsey agreed, saying, “Pretty much like during the congressional elections, midterm stuff, Biden came out and said he’s gonna forgive all student loans. And everybody knew he couldn’t do it.”

In the end, Ramsey’s message to his audience was clear: don’t let political timing cloud your judgment regarding personal finance.

If you are considering selling or purchasing a home, take the time to get informed about the economy and other factors that impact mortgage rates. Consider talking to a financial advisor to better understand your finances and how selling or purchasing a home at this time could impact your long-term goals.

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This article Are Folks In America That Stupid?’ Dave Ramsey Says Americans Should Be More Suspicious Of The Fed Rate Cuts Timing originally appeared on Benzinga.com

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