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- Tech-Hungry Shoppers Deliver a Surprising Holiday Lift
Tech-Hungry Shoppers Deliver a Surprising Holiday Lift
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When shoppers flock back for gadgets and gear, it tends to show up quickly in the numbers, and this past quarter delivered exactly that.
Strong traffic online and in-store has turned a cautious outlook into a confident one. Are you plugged in?
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Pharma
Everyone Saw Big Deals, AbbVie Looked at Startups
AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) is opening the newest round of its Quebec Biotech Innovators Award, and the move lands much bigger than a simple community prize.
The winning startup receives a full year in adMare’s Innovation Centre, with lab space, office resources, and direct access to AbbVie’s senior scientific teams.
Once a young company steps into that kind of setup, you can see how quickly early research turns into something real.
AbbVie gets an early look at ideas that could inform its next wave of pipeline development.
Where Early Ideas Meet Serious Firepower
AbbVie is targeting startups in immunology, oncology, neuroscience, eye care, and aesthetics, turning Quebec into a real scouting ground for future therapies.
The province has become one of Canada’s strongest science hubs, giving AbbVie a front-row view of emerging technologies.
The company tested this model earlier in Toronto, and your sense of its strategy changes once you see AbbVie building a regional network instead of isolated programs.
A Local Bet With Global Upside
The award program also strengthens Quebec’s broader biotech ecosystem, giving young teams the stability and lab access they normally struggle to secure.
It cuts early stress and lets founders move faster.
You might look back and see this effort as the spark that helped AbbVie reshape how early science flows into its global research engine.
The company is building feeder channels that could become one of its strongest competitive advantages in the years ahead.
ABBV currently trades at $228 and pays a dividend of $6.92 per share, a yield of 3.03%.
Energy
A Supply Chain That Refuses To Sit Still
Chevron (NYSE: CVX) just hit a fresh snag in Venezuela after a key shipment had to be rerouted at the last minute.
The vessel could not load crude as planned, so the company sent it off to pick up diluent naphtha somewhere else before looping back.
That quick change shows how sensitive operations have become.
Once you hear the word naphtha, you know the stakes.
Venezuela’s oil is so thick that nothing moves unless this light fluid arrives on time, and Chevron has become the main one bringing it in.
A Country Where Plans Change Fast
An explosion at a local facility recently tightened naphtha supply inside Venezuela. That puts more pressure on Chevron to bring its own material from abroad.
The company must time every shipment perfectly, or production slows down.
Your view of the situation shifts once you realize how one delayed ship can stall an entire chain of crude lifting, storage, and export planning.
A Balancing Act With No Spare Room
Chevron is now juggling foreign suppliers, tight timelines, and routes that can change overnight.
The company needs everything to line up smoothly just to keep crude moving out of the country.
You end up seeing how these small disruptions shape big decisions. Chevron has to weigh risk, timing, and long-term plans every time a ship leaves port.
CVX currently trades at $149 and pays a dividend of $6.84 per share, a yield of 4.56%.
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Fast Food
A Bold Seasonal Move That Could Rewrite McDonald’s Future
McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) is trying a new way to pull customers back in as U.S. traffic softens.
The company is rolling out a Christmas-themed meal plus a full line of holiday merch, something you would usually expect from fashion brands, not fast food.
The timing is no accident. Many households are cooking at home more often, and even big names like McDonald’s feel that shift.
You can already tell the chain wants attention that goes beyond the drive-thru.
McDonald’s Rewrites Its Winter Playbook
Seasonal merch drops are becoming a quiet trend in fast food, and McDonald’s wants to make this one loud.
Holiday retail gives the company another way to stay in your day, even if you are skipping a few meals.
Traffic has been weaker across the whole industry, so extra brand touchpoints matter. Once a customer buys into a cute sweater or a gift set, their connection to the brand changes.
When Merch Drops Meet McChicken Energy
McDonald’s is treating this winter like a test for how it should handle every future holiday season.
A strong response would tell the company to keep leaning into non-food ideas that spark buzz.
You end up watching a chain try to stay relevant in a season where every shopper wants value and something fun.
If this works, the holiday playbook for fast food could look very different next year.
MCD currently trades at $311 and pays a dividend of $7.44 per share, a yield of 2.39%.
Dividend Stocks Worth Watching
Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) has increased its sales and earnings outlook for the year after posting strong Q3 results.
The retailer described the quarter as ‘better than expected’ thanks to a surge in website and store sales.
This growth was driven by growing consumer demand for computing, gaming, headphones, wearable technology, and mobile phones.
The report highlighted a few key leaders within those categories, with sales of Nintendo Switch 2, new iPhones, and AI-enabled laptops all firmly in the high-performance category.
Consumers are very deal-focused, CEO Corie Barry shared, while saying that comparable sales increased 2.7% year over year. BBY hasn’t seen an increase of this size since 2021.
BBY pays a 95-cent dividend, yielding 4.61%.
Macy's Inc. (NYSE: M) is the retailer most closely associated with the holiday season in the USA, thanks to its starring role in Miracle on 34th Street.
Following the annual Thanksgiving parade, the retailer is gearing up to support shoppers across the country as they navigate tighter budgets with a wide range of options.
Over 189 million Americans are expected to shop in-store or online between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.
To ensure they all find something within budget, Macy's says a key focus is mitigating the cost of trade tariffs.
This means that some categories, such as children’s toys, may be smaller than in years past, though favorites like Lego will remain.
M currently pays an 18-cent dividend, yielding 3.21%.
RGC Resources, Inc. (NYSE: RGC) has pulled off an earnings surprise, with strong growth on the back of record levels of gas deliveries.
The energy company’s earnings for the 2025 fiscal year topped $13.3 million, up from $11.8 million in 2024.
The firm's CEO, Paul Nester, said the improvement stemmed from investments in infrastructure and the company's ability to deliver gas to customers across Virginia during one of the coldest winters on record.
On the back of its earnings beat, RGC increased its dividend by 4.8% marking its 22nd consecutive annual increase.
Dividend Increases
HPQ has increased its dividend to 30 cents, up 3.7%. Its new yield is 4.93%.
RGCO has upped its dividend to 28 cents, a boost of 4.82%. Its new yield is 3.87%.
OBT has boosted its dividend to 13 cents, an increase of 38.46%. Its new yield is 2.74%.
RGC has lifted its dividend to 22 cents, a rise of 4.8%. Its new yield is 3.87%.
Dividend Decreases
ATAT has cut its dividend to 36 cents, a 14.3% drop. Its new yield is 0.97%.
FRO has trimmed its dividend to 19 cents, a cut of 47.22%. Its new yield is 2.94%.
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Trivia: Which currency holds the title of world’s highest face value ever printed? |
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SBUX’s ex-dividend date for the forthcoming 62-cent payment is 11/28/25.
PFE’s ex-dividend date for the forthcoming 43-cent payment is 12/01.25.
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ZTS’s ex-dividend date for the forthcoming 5-cent payment is 12/02/25.
Everything Else
GM is losing another key executive with the departure of GM's senior vice president of software and services product management, Baris Cetinok.
Dick’s Sporting Goods has confirmed it will proceed with some Foot Locker store closures before the end of the year to start 2026 in a stronger position.
Kohl’s has named its third new CEO in as many years. Michael Bender was appointed in an interim capacity back in May but will now take the helm permanently as the retailer looks to reset ahead of 2026.
Comcast, Netflix, and Paramount Skydance have all entered the fray to take over Warner Bros. Discovery. Comcast and Netflix’s bids are focused solely on streaming and film assets.
That’s all for today’s edition of the Dividend Brief.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any feedback or dividend stocks you want me to take a look at, just reply to this email!
—Noah Zelvis
DividendBrief.com