The Schwab US Dividend Equity (SCHD) ETF stock has held steady this month even as the blue-chip indices like the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 crashed. The SCHD ETF stock was trading at $28.45 on Monday, up by about 6% from the lowest level this year. So, is it a good stock to buy this year?

SCHD has headwinds and tailwinds

The SCHD ETF stock has moved sideways in the past few days. It has faced numerous headwinds and tailwinds this year. 

The biggest headwind is that the US has embarked on major changes, including the ongoing tariff issues by Donald Trump. He has announced tariffs on goods from key countries like Mexico, Canada, and China. 

These tariffs will have an impact on most companies in the SCHD. However, the impact of these tariffs will be limited because of its constituents. The biggest firms in the fund are the likes of Abbvie, Amgen, Pfizer, and Bristol Myers Squibb. 

The other top companies in the fund, like Cisco Systems, Chevron, and PepsiCo, will also be less affected by these tariffs. 

The other big headwind is that there is a risk that the SCHD ETF will be impacted the potential slowdown of the American economy. A recent report by the Atlanta Fed estimates that the economy will contract by over 2% this year. 

On the positive side, American companies are expected to continue reporting strong earnings. According to FactSet, the estimated earnings growth of this quarter will be 7.3%, marking the seventh-straight quarter of earnings growth. 

Is SCHD ETF a good investment?

The SCHD ETF has become one of the best-known funds among investors because of its strong dividend growth. Data shows that it has a dividend yield of about 3.50%, providing consistent growth metrics.

The fund has a dividend growth rate of about 11% in the past ten years. Its five-year growth rate was about 11.60%, which is much higher than most dividend funds. 

Still, there are concerns that US bond yields have remained above 4% in the past few weeks. The ten-year yield rose to 4.28%, while the 30-year and 2-year stood at 4.58% and 4%, respectively.

Some investors believe investing in these US Treasuries makes sense because they offer a higher yield. However, the challenge is that these treasuries will remain volatile as the Federal Reserve delivers its interest rate decisions. 

However, the SCHD ETF offers better returns because of the stock performance. For example, $100,000 invested in US Treasury bonds 12 months ago would now be worth about $4,400. On the other hand, a similar amount invested in the fund would be worth over $12,000. 

Read more: SCHD outlook for 2025: blue chip dividend ETF faces turbulence

SCHD ETF stock price analysis

The weekly chart shows that the SCHD ETF stock has been in a strong uptrend in the past few months. It has formed an ascending channel that connects the lowest and highest swings since April 2023. 

The index has moved above the 50-week and 100-week Exponential Moving Averages (EMA), a bullish sign. Also, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the MACD indicators have pointed upwards. 

Therefore, the outlook for the SCHD ETF share price will likely keep rising as bulls target the all-time high of $29.38. A move above that level will point to more gains, in the coming months.

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Asana (ASAN) stock price has imploded in the past few weeks, falling by over 34% from its highest point in 2024. It has dropped to a low of $18.3, and is hovering at its lowest swing since December 6. Is ASAN a good company to buy ahead of the upcoming quarterly and annual results?

Asana earnings ahead

Asana stock price will be in focus on Monday as the technology company publishes its financial results.

Historically, its stock tends to have some big moves after publishing its quarterly results. It jumped by over 40% in December when it released strong financial results and boosted its forward guidance. It dropped by 15% in September and May after releasing its numbers. 

Wall Street analysts are optimistic that the company continued growing slowly in the last quarter. The average estimate is that its revenue rose by almost 10% in Q4 to $188 million.

While the last quarter’s numbers are important, investors often look at a company’s guidance to determine the next price action. Analysts expect the guidance for the current quarter will be $190 million, while the annual revenue will be $723 million. 

The most recent results showed that the company’s growth continued. Its revenue rose by 10% to $183.9 million in Q3’25, while its loss continued to narrow. The company had a net loss of $57.3 million, down a bit from the $61.8 million it had lost a year earlier. 

Read more: Expensive Asana stock price could surge by 195% in 2025

Asana growth is slowing

However, while these results were better than expected, they also demonstrated that the era of its strong growth was ending. 

There are two potential reasons for this. First, Asana operates in a highly competitive industry, competing with Wrike, Jira, Smartsheet, Trello, and Monday.com. 

Most companies interested in these solutions already have their service provider, and in many cases, they rarely change. As such, the future growth in terms of customer additions will likely be slow.

Second, companies, especially in the technology vertical are facing substantial challenges, a trend that may continue this year because of Donald Trump’s tariffs. These issues mean that the company will likely struggle adding more customers in the coming years.

The other major challenge is its AI Studio, a solution that enables companies to build and launch AI agents easily. For example, companies are using these agents to translate content across numerous languages and execute complex workflows. 

Asana’s AI Agent is the company’s first consumption-based pricing product, which will provide higher revenues in the future. However, it is still too early to predict whether the business will help to supercharge Asana’s growth trajectory.

Is ASAN stock cheap or expensive ahead of earnings?

Asana is a company valued at over $4 billion, and its annual revenue for 2025 is expected to be $723 million, followed by $802 million in 2026. 

These numbers mean that the company has a forward price-to-sales of about 5, which is higher than other similar companies. 

Asana is not making profits yet, meaning that it does not have a price-to-earnings ratio for now. However, we can estimate its future net profit margin by comparing it with other SaaS companies like Salesforce, Adobe, and Servicenow. CRM has a margin of 16%, while Adobe has 25%, and Servicenow has 13%. 

As such, assuming that it can achieve a 25% profit margin, its annual profit would be $201 million, meaning that it has a hypothetical multiple of 20, which is not all that expensive. 

Asana has a revenue growth rate of 10% and a present net income margin of minus 36%, giving it a rule of 40 metric of minus 26%. That is a sign that the stock is a bit overvalued.

Asana stock price analysis

The daily chart shows that the ASAN share price has crashed in the past few months. It has dropped from a high of $24.43 in February to the current $18.25. 

The stock has crashed below the key support at $18.45, the neckline of the double-top pattern. It has dropped below the 50-day moving average and the 50% Fibonacci Retracement point.

Asana share price has found support at the 200-day moving average. Therefore, the key support and resistance levels to watch will be at $16.80 and the 50-day moving average at $20.

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The JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF (JEPI) stock price has pulled back in the past few weeks as American equities slumped. JEPI has slumped by about 2% from its highest point this year. Its total return rose by 2.30% this year, compared to the S&P 500 index, which has dropped by 1.73%.

What is the JEPI ETF?

The JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF is a popular covered call that has about $40 billion in assets.

It aims to generate returns by investing in 130 American companies in the S&P 500 index, including popular blue-chip firms, including blue-chip names like Abbvie, Progressive, Visa, NVIDIA, Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Analog Devices.

After investing in these companies, JEPI applies the covered call concept to generate returns. It does this by writing or selling the S&P 500 index call options and receiving a premium, which it returns to investors through monthly dividends. 

JEPI is beloved because of its higher dividend payouts to investors. It has a dividend yield of about 7.3%, much higher than the S&P 500 index, which pays about 2% annually. 

The fund is often seen as a better alternative to S&P 500 index ETFs like the Vanguard S&P 500 (VOO) and the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) ETF in periods when the stock market is facing turbulence. It does this because of the premium it receives when it writes call options on the S&P 500 index.

JPMorgan Equity Premium Income is facing risks

The JEPI ETF is facing several risks that may affect its performance this year. First, there are concerns that Donald Trump’s trade war will affect corporate earnings this year. A good example of this is in the automobile industry, where companies like GM and Ford may see rising costs and weaker demand. 

Companies in other industries will see higher costs. For example, Trane Technology, a company that manufactures HVAC and other related solutions in countries like China and Taiwan will have higher fees.

However, unlike the S&P 500 index, most companies in the portfolio will not be highly affected by these tariffs. These include companies like Salesforce, American Express, ServiceNow, and ExxonMobil. 

JEPI stocks also faces another risk in that corporate earnings may slow down in the next few quarters. This slowdown will likely be because of the ongoing performance of the American economy, which may go through a recession. 

Further, while JEPI pays a higher dividend return than the S&P 500 index, its total return has always lagged. As shown below the total return of the JEPI ETF in the last three years has been 30% compared to the VOO ETF’s 43%. 

JEPI vs VOO ETF chart by SeekingAlpha

JEPI ETF stock has a technical risk

JEPI stock by TradingView

The JPMorgan Equity Premium Income has another technical risk that may push it lower in the coming months. The daily chart shows that the JEPI ETF formed a double-top pattern at $60, and whose neckline is at $56. A double-top is a popular bearish pattern that often leads to further downside.

The stock has crashed below the 50-day moving average, a sign that bears are in control for now. Therefore, the combination of tariffs and the double-top pattern points to further downside in the coming months. If this happens, the next level to watch will be at $56, down by 3.65% below the current level.

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The USD/CAD exchange rate rose slightly after the latest Liberal Party election in which Mark Carney won to replace Justin Trudeau. It also rose ahead of the upcoming Bank of Canada (BoC) decision and the US consumer inflation data. It was trading at 1.4380,  few points above last week’s low of 1.4340.

Bank of Canada decision

The USD/CAD exchange rate will be in the spotlight this week as the Bank of Canada releases its interest rate decision.

Economists expect the bank to continue with its dovish outlook in this meeting by cutting interest rates by 0.25%. If this happens, the bank will bring its official cash rate to 2.75% from the previous 3.0%.

The BoC has been one of the most dovish central banks in the market in the past few months after cutting rates six times. It has moved them from last year’s high of 5.5% to the current 3%.

These interest rate cuts happened as the Canadian economy slowed down substantially and inflation moved to the 2% target rate. Data released last week showed that the unemployment rate was 6.6%, while the economy added just 1.1k jobs in February. 

There is a risk that the Canadian economy will continue to decelerate now that the country has moved into a trade war with the United States. Trump has added a universal tariff on Canadian goods and 10% on energy products. 

Trump believes that these tariffs will help to balance the trade with Canada. Experts have noted that, while Canada has a trade surplus with the US, it is mostly because of energy products. Excluding these products, the US has a large trade surplus with Canada

Mark Carney, the former Bank of Canada (BoC) governor and the incoming prime minister, has maintained that he will maintain the tariffs that the country has implemented on US goods until Trump caves. 

Read more: USD/CAD forecast: BoC, Fed and the carry trade opportunity

US inflation data ahead

The USD/CAD exchange rate reacted to last Friday’s US jobs numbers. According to the statistics agency, the US economy created 151k jobs in February after adding a downward-revised 125k a month earlier. This job creation was lower than the median estimate of 159k.

The US unemployment rate rose to 4.1%, while the average hourly earnings rose to 4.9%, lower than the median estimate of 4.1%. The ongoing trade war that has affected consumer and business confidence in the US will affect the labor market. 

Looking ahead, the next key USD/CAD news to watch will be the upcoming US consumer inflation data. Economists expect the data to show that US inflation dropped from 0.5% in January to 0.3% in February and from 3.0% to 2.9% on a YoY basis. 

Core inflation is expected to move from 3.3% to 3.2%. While this will be a good report, there are concerns that inflation will tick up over time because of these tariffs.

USD/CAD technical analysis

USDCAD price chart | Source: TradingView

The USD to CAD exchange rate has been in a strong uptrend in the past few years as the Canadian economy has slowed. It moved from a low of 1.2000 in July 2021 to 1.4400 today.

The USD/CAD pair moved above the 23.6% Fibonacci Retracement level. It has also remained above the 50-week Exponential Moving Average (EMA).

The pair has formed a bullish pennant pattern, a popular continuation sign. Therefore, the path of the least resistance for the pair is bullish, with the next level to watch being at 1.4790, the highest level this year. 

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Lloyds share price continued its strong surge this year as European bank stocks soared and after publishing strong financial results. LLOY soared to a multi-year high of $74.46 also after analysts upgraded the stock, pointing to its strong positioning. 

Lloyds Bank stock has jumped by over 252% from its lowest level in 2020, giving it a market cap of over $57.8 billion. So, is it a good stock to buy?

Lloyds stock surge mirrors other European banks

The ongoing LLOY share price performance mirrors the performance of other European bank companies that have surged this year. 

Societe Generale share price has jumped by over 50% this year, making it the best-performing major banks globally. 

In the UK, NatWest share price has soared by almost 90% this year, while Barclays has surged by 70% in the last 12 months. 

Other European banking groups like UBS, Santander, Credit Agricole, Unicredit, and HSBC have all surged. These companies have continued to outperform their American peers like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. 

The ongoing surge is because many of these banks have benefited from higher interest rates in the past few months. Higher rates helped to boost their earnings, which in turn, pushed them to increase their distributions to shareholders.

Lloyds Bank, which has a dividend yield of 4.13%, has boosted its payouts in the past few quarters, helped by its strong balance sheet. The company is achieving this by continually reducing its CET-1 ratio. It has a CET-1 ratio of 13.5%, and the management now hopes that the figure will drop to 13% by 2026.

These actions have led to multiple upgrades of the Lloyds share price. Just last week, analysts at Morgan Stanley and Peel Hunt upgraded the stock, citing its strong performance and the fact that it may play catch up to other banks. 

Morgan Stanley expects that the Lloyds share price will surge to 90p, while Peel Hunt boosted their outlook to 70p. 

LLOY business is thriving

The most recent results showed that LLoyds Bank’s business was doing well. For example, over 20 million customers are now using its mobile applications to handle transactions, up from 15 million in 2021. 

Another key data point is that Lloyds Bank now has over 3 million mass affluent customers, higher than 2 million in 2021. 

Net income has jumped from £15 billion to £17 billion, while the company has addressed the pension deficit that stood at over £7 billion a few years ago.

The most recent results showed that Lloyds Bank’s business did better than expected. Its net interest income came in at £12.8 billion, while its total net income fell by 5% to £17.1 billion. 

The company will likely continue doing well this year as demand continue rising in the coming months.

Read more: Lloyds share price patterns point to a 47% surge ahead of earnings

Lloyds share price forecast

The weekly chart shows that the LLOY share price peaked at 74.55p this month. It has remained above the crucial resistance level at 63.35p, the highest swing in October 2024.

The stock has remained above all moving averages, a sign that bulls are in control for now. Also, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the Stochastic RSI have pointed downwards.

Therefore, the stock will likely drop and retest the key support at 63.35p, the highest swing in October 24 last year. This performance is known as a break and retest pattern, pointing to more upside in the coming weeks. This means that the stock will ultimately jump above 80p later this year.

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