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gstar288 The market has been infatuated with Nvidia for a few years now. So much so that this month, it has once again become the largest company in the world by market capitalization, with a net worth of more than $3.5 trillion. The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has been a huge benefit to the business, and with the stock up more than 10x in just a few short years, it would be understandable for investors who didn't get in earlier to think they missed the boat. So what's an investor to do now if they want to open a new position that will let them ride the AI wave? One promising AI stock that has taken a tumble this year is Applied Materials ( AMAT -0.49% ) . The semiconductor equipment maker is getting hit due to a slowdown in sales to China, but smart investors will know that this is just a temporary headwind for a business with a wide moat. Here's why now is the time to buy the dip on Applied Materials. Applied Materials: The machines that make the machines Many investors know by now that Nvidia -- like numerous other companies -- designs computer chips that are used extensively in modern life. From data centers to smartphones to virtual reality glasses, the world is powered by semiconductors. Building advanced semiconductors takes a lot of innovation, and making them progressively smaller and more powerful requires intricate and advanced machines. This is where Applied Materials steps in. Without getting into the nitty-gritty details, the company produces the equipment and software that semiconductor manufacturers use to package, etch, and form their chips. Its technology allows fabricators to produce chips with higher performance, lower electricity consumption, and a smaller surface area -- attributes prized in the semiconductor industry. Given how important these factors are in building chips, Applied Materials is able to charge a lot for its machines and the service contracts that come with them. Over the last four reported quarters, it has generated $27 billion in revenue from customers around the globe. Free cash flow growth, falling shares outstanding Applied Materials' financial performance has been phenomenal over the long term. Its free cash flow over the last four quarters was $7.5 billion, and it has been cash-flow positive over every 12-month period in the 21st century. Even though Applied Materials operates in a cyclical industry, it has been able to consistently generate positive cash flow due to how important its machines are to manufacturers. With all the cash coming into the business, the company has been able to repurchase a lot of stock. Since 2003, it has reduced its outstanding share count by more than 50%, which helped it grow its earnings per share (EPS) and free cash flow per share . For investors, these are two of the most important metrics to track as they are what create shareholder value over the long term. Free cash flow per share is up by almost 800% over the last 10 years. ACHR Operating Income (TTM) data by YCharts. Why you should buy the dip on Applied Materials stock Investors have sold off Applied Materials stock due to its sharply declining China revenue in its latest fiscal quarter. During its fiscal Q4, which ended Oct. 27, its China revenue fell to $2.1 billion compared to $3 billion in the same period a year ago. Semiconductor manufacturers in China are ordering a lot of machines due to threatened or existing export restrictions from the United States. Investors see those trade restrictions as a major headwind for a segment that accounted for 30% of Applied Materials revenue last quarter. While this is a concern in the short term, the world will need more computer chips regardless of where they are manufactured. If the tools to make them are less available to companies operating in China, then their production will happen in other nations. But Applied Materials will still find demand for its highly sought-after machines. After the recent sell-off, Applied Materials is now trading more than 33% below its all-time high. Its stock trades at a trailing price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of 20 and a forward P/E of 17.7, based on analyst estimates -- well below the S&P 500 index's average P/E of 30. For a company that should grow along with the booming semiconductor market, these earnings ratios seem far too cheap. So buy up some shares of Applied Materials stock on this dip, and hold onto them for the long haul.Trump disavowed Project 2025. Now he’s hiring its contributors for his administrationSmith scores 18 in Bellarmine's 80-68 win against Bowling Green

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All you have to do to become a South Dakota resident is spend one night. Stay in a campground or hotel and then stop by one of the businesses that specialize in helping people become South Dakotans, and they’ll help you do the paperwork to gain residency in a state with no income tax and relatively cheap vehicle registration. The system brings in extra government revenue through vehicle fees and offers refuge to full-time travelers who wouldn’t otherwise have a permanent address or a place to vote. And that’s the problem. State leaders are at a stalemate between those who say people who don’t really live in South Dakota shouldn’t be allowed to vote in local elections and those who say efforts to impose a longer residency requirement for voting violate the principle that everyone gets to vote. And at least one state has gotten wind that its residents might be avoiding high income taxes with easy South Dakota residency and is investigating. Easy South Dakota residency for nomads has become an enterprising opportunity for businesses such as RV parks and mail forwarders. “That’s the primary concept here, is the people that have given up their sticks and bricks and now are on wheel estate, we call it, and they’re full-time traveling,” said Dane Goetz, owner of the Spearfish-based South Dakota Residency Center, which caters to full-time travelers. “They need a place to call home, and we provide that address for them to do that, and they are just perpetually on the move.” Goetz estimated more than 30,000 people are full-time traveler residents of South Dakota, but the actual number is unclear. The state Department of Public Safety, which handles driver licensing, says it doesn't track the number of full-time traveler applications. Officials of the South Dakota Secretary of State's Office did not respond to emailed questions or a phone message seeking the state's tally of full-time travelers registered to vote. The office is not responsible for enforcing residency requirements, Division of Elections Director Rachel Soulek said. Victor Robledo, his wife and their five kids hit the road a decade ago in a 28-foot (8.5-meter) motorhome to seek adventure and ease their high cost of living in Southern California. They found South Dakota to be an opportunity to save money, receive mail and “take a residency in a state that really nurtures us,” he said. They filed for residency in 2020. “It was as simple as coming into the state, staying one night in one of the campgrounds, and once we do that, we bring in a receipt to the office, fill out some paperwork, change our licenses. I mean, really, you can blow through there — gosh, 48 hours,” Robledo said. Residency becomes thorny around voting. Some opponents don’t want people who don’t physically live in South Dakota to vote in its elections. “I don’t want to deny somebody their right to vote, but to think that they can vote in a school board election or a legislative election or a county election when they’re not part of the community, I’m troubled by that,” said Democratic Rep. Linda Duba, who cited 10,000 people or roughly 40% of her Sioux Falls constituents being essentially mailbox residents. She likes to knock on doors and meet people but said she is unable to do “relationship politics” with travelers. The law the Republican-controlled Legislature passed in 2023 added requirements for voter registration, including 30 days of residency — which don't have to be consecutive — and having “an actual fixed permanent dwelling, establishment, or any other abode to which the person returns after a period of absence.” The bill's prime sponsor, Republican Sen. Randy Deibert, told a Senate panel that citizens expressed concerns about “people coming to the state, being a resident overnight and voting (by) absentee ballot or another way the next day and then leaving the state.” Those registered to vote before the new law took effect remain registered, but some who tried to register since its passage had trouble. Dozens of people recently denied voter registration contacted the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, according to the chapter’s advocacy manager, Samantha Chapman. Durational residency requirements for voting are, in general, unconstitutional because such restrictions interfere with the interstate right to travel, said David Schultz, a Hamline University professor of political science and a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas. “It’s kind of this parochialism, this idea of saying that only people who are really in our neighborhood, who really live in our city have a sufficient stake in it, and the courts have generally been unsympathetic to those types of arguments because, more often than not, they’re used for discriminatory purposes,” he said. Earlier this year, the Legislature considered a bill to roll back the 2023 law. It passed the Senate but stalled in the House. During a House hearing on that bill, Republican Rep. Jon Hansen asked one full-time traveler when he was last in South Dakota and when he intends to return. The man said he was in the state a year earlier but planned to return in coming months. Another man who moved from Iowa to work overseas said he had not lived “for any period of time, physically” in South Dakota. “I don’t think we should allow people who have never lived in this state to vote in our state,” Hansen said. Republican Sen. David Wheeler, an attorney in Huron, said he expects litigation would be what forces a change. It's unlikely a change to the 30-day requirement would pass the Legislature now, he said. “It is a complicated topic that involves federal and state law and federal and state voting rights, and it is difficult to bring everybody together on how to appropriately address that,” Wheeler said. More than 1,600 miles (2,500 kilometers) east, Connecticut State Comptroller Sean Scanlon has asked prosecutors to look into whether some state employees who live in Connecticut may have skirted their tax obligations by claiming to be residents of South Dakota. Connecticut has a graduated income tax rate of 3.0% to 6.99%. Connecticut cities and towns also impose a property tax on vehicles. South Dakota has none. Scanlon and his office, which administers state employee retiree benefits, learned from a Hartford Courant columnist in September that some state retirees might be using South Dakota’s mail-forwarding services for nefarious reasons. Asked if there are concerns about other Connecticut taxpayers who are not state retirees possibly misusing South Dakota’s lenient residency laws, the Department of Revenue Services would only say the agency is “aware of the situation and we’re working with our partners to resolve it.” A South Dakota legislative panel broached the residency issue as recently as August, a meeting in which one lawmaker called the topic “the Gordian knot of politics.” “It seems like it’s almost impossible to come to some clear and definitive statement as to what constitutes a residency with such a mobile population with people with multiple homes and addresses and political boundaries that are easy to see on a map but there’s so much cross-transportation across them,” Republican Sen. Jim Bolin said. Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota. Associated Press Writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.