The Disciplined Investor

Make it or break it time – earnings season is right ahead…

Fed heads – 8 speakers this week.

Tesla – blows away delivery estimates – what that means for profitability.

Change of direction for this currency? What the players expect.

PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts !

Click HERE for Show Notes and Links

DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar.

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Warm Up

- It is make or break - Earnings season is here

- Hot weather and hot inflation

- 8 Fed Speakers this week

- CPI data Wednesday - expected to be soft - Base effect

- Summer Doldrums but a Buying Frenzy!

Market Update

- Resilient - that's the word

- Eco divergence as employment stays strong

- Tech in the lead - But Banks ALL pass stress tests

- Europe favored over US on valuations (new analyst call)

- Big best on rising USD being reversed

AI

- Party’s over for ChatGPT Plus subscribers as OpenAI announced it has temporarily disabled the Browse with Bing beta tool from its service.

- Apparently, people used the feature to completely bypass paywalls and consume content for free.

- If a user specifically asks for a URL’s full text,” the AI will fulfill the request, including displaying content from paywalled articles

- How did it avoid the paywall?

---- Some paywalls are simply pasted over” articles, ChatGPT could simply read the code rendering the text and display the content without a problem.

META

- New Threads is threat to Twitter

---Twitter has degraded severly since Musk took over (IN AH opinion)

- META stock on fire, 100 million accounts created already

- Twitter is threatening to sue (of course)

West Wing Scandal?

- White powder was found in the White House last week

- Turned out to be Cocaine...

- - Who leaved a stash of coke anywhere - much less the White House?

Best Stock Market

- This year (to date) ???

- Zimbabwe

---- 5, 10, 20% daily gains

- Up 800% YTD

- Argentina up only 100% in 2023

Best Market 2023

FOLLOW UP

- Hyper-Inflation seems to boost stock markets

- Is it possible that this is the playbook that investors are using in US and other developed countries?

Change of Plans

- Apple is slowing its headset production and also slowing the rollout

--- By appointment only?

- Goldman is in talks to offload Apple credit and savings products to Amex

---- Goldman trying to rid itself of bad bet on personal/retail finance endeavor under CEO Solomon.

Jobs/Employment

- End of June: US weekly jobless claims post biggest drop in 20 months as economy shows stamina

- July saw a slight uptick in initial claims

- ADP report - HOT - 450k new jobs added to payrolls

- BLS official disappointed - 200k added but Unemp Rate ticked down to 3.6%

-- Jobs report still solid down to wage growth

---- Last 4 months added near 1M new jobs - not a jobs markets that is seen as being held back by rates

Fed Rate Plans

- Since we last spoke.... Odds are now 83% +/- of a rate hike in July

- 10 year treasury over 4%

- 2 year treasury over 5%

- Inversion of 2/10 worst since 1980s (and holding for LONG time)

-- Powell's recent commentary discussed potential for 2 more hikes and acknowledged that the inflation rate will not come to 2% target until at last 2025

------ Note - they have never nailed a prediction for as long as time itself

Meanwhile

- Rates do not seem to be bothering many...

--- Consumer Confidence hits 17-month high

--- Housing seems to be coming back from brief dip

- - Many of the homebuilders shares are at ATH

China Economy - Another story

- PPI inflation shrank to -5.4% below expectations

- Industrial profits are in bad shape

- Factory activity is in contraction for last few months

- Government pushing stimulus - targeting housing

TESLA

- Big print on deliveries

- China also looking good

- - Wondering if the deep discounts that sparked the sales will show up as hurting profits

- Stock on FIRE since the start of 2023 (coincides with him refocusing on Tesla over Twitter?)

Windy

- Siemens Energy shares plunged 31% on Friday morning after the company scrapped its profit forecast and warned that costly problems at its wind turbine unit could last years.

- "substantial increase in failure rates of wind turbine components."

- Spinoff of the former gas and power division of German conglomerate Siemens

SVB

- SVB Financial Approved to Sell Investment Bank Back to Founder for $100 Million (4 years ago they paid $280 million)

- AND, not SVB suing FDIC to unlock the $ that it has in receivership so bank can run again

- What a great deal - again!

China

- Yellen visits - has a good time and supposedly smooths over a few issues.

- Bulgari under pressure - Put Taiwan as a separate country and now China is pissed

- - Company cowered and posted this apology on its official Weibo account, saying the "mistake was due to a management error and that it "respects China's sovereignty and territorial integrity".

Housing

- Hitting record highs

- Home prices hit a record high in May, rising 0.7% nationally compared with April at a seasonally adjusted rate, according to the Black Knight Home Price Index.

- By May, just over half of the nation's 50 largest housing markets, mostly in the Midwest and Northeast, had either returned to their prior price peaks or set new highs.

- Home prices are still weaker in the West and in many of the cities deemed pandemic "boom towns," which had an influx of remote workers finding new homes during the earlier days of Covid.

Congress - Focus Fuzzy

- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday called on regulators to investigate a popular influencer-created energy drink with nearly twice the caffeine of a Red Bull that he said is being marketed to children.

- Logan Paul's company PRIME to be investigated by FDA

--- Then there is the PGA and LIIV Golf merger

------ But they cannot seem to get a budget done or figure out spending...!

New tech

- Applied Materials released its first major update to some of its core semiconductor manufacturing equipment in more than decade, aiming to boost the number of chips factories can make while using less energy.

- The new system, called Vistara, is a central hub inside chip factories that feeds silicon discs called wafers into sealed vacuum chambers, where metals and other materials can be either deposited or stripped away within a few atoms of precision.

- The Vistara system is the first update to Applied's core chipmaking platform since 2010.

- The new system is also fitted with thousands of sensors that feed data into an artificial intelligence system, where factories can analyze the data to tweak manufacturing processes and cut down the use of electricity. The new system cuts energy use by about 10%, Applied said.

Tech News

- Microsoft confirmed Monday that it's eliminating additional jobs, a week after the start of its 2024 fiscal year.|

- Judge rules that the Microsoft Activision deal can go through

- Salesforce is increasing prices by about 9% on some cloud products

- Threads vs. Twitter

- Amazon Prime Day

- 27% of jobs at risk from AI revolution

---- More than a quarter of jobs in the OECD rely on skills that could be easily automated in the coming artificial intelligence revolution, and workers fear they could lose their jobs to AI, the OECD said on Tuesday.

List of AI Target Professions

- Advertisement

- Coders/programmers

- Writers

- Finance professionals

-Legal workers

- Researchers

- Customer service

- Data entry and analysis.

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National Debt – Which way is it moving?

Cough Syrup risk – toxic supply alert…

Fed paused or skipped in last week’s meeting – what that really means.

New Things – from the screen to your table (New meaning for Binge)

PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts !

Click HERE for Show Notes and Links

DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar.

Love the Show? Then how about a Donation?

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Check out ccpstats.com

Warm Up

- National Debt - Which way is it moving?

- Booming business - converting ICE to EV

- Cough Syrup risk - toxic supply

- Fed paused or skipped in last week's meeting

- New Things - from the screen to your table (New meaning for Binge)

- Happy belayed Juneteenth

Market Update

- Bulls are in control - half full

- Fed says more hikes to come - no one believes them

- ECB raises rates again - even as Eurozone slips into recession

- Economic point to downside risk

- China stimulus on the way

NO SHOW NEXT WEEK - Cruising the Abacos (Bahamas)

--- Assuming Tropical storm does not kick up

Fed Meeting

- Looked like a hawkish call

- Unanimous decision to hold this meeting

- Powell talked up future rate hikes and changed outlook to include 2 more @0.25%

- Markets are not buying it..

--- Initial rates came up then they came in a bit, equity markets moved in similar fashion

- What this is telling you is that markets feel that higher rates impacting the economy is fake news

----- BUT, if so, Powell will be even more aggressive

Fed Follow Up

- Last week, S&P 500 reaches highest in 14 months.

- Led by the Mega-caps again.

- Markets fell a bit on Friday with Op-X and long weekend

Even more Fed Follow up

- Friday: The Federal Reserve warned Friday that tighter U.S. credit conditions following a spate of bank failures in the spring could hinder economic growth this year.

- In its semi-annual monetary report to Congress, the central bank noted that bank lending conditions have "tightened notably" over the past year due to the rapid increase in interest rates and the recent turmoil within the financial sector.

- "Evidence suggests that the recent banking-sector stress and related concerns about deposit outflows and funding costs contributed to tightening and expected tightening in lending standards and terms at some banks beyond what these banks would have reported absent the banking-sector stress," the report said.

- That survey also pointed to a sharp slowdown in demand for credit.

----- The percentage of banks reporting stronger demand for commercial and industrial loans tumbled by 55.5% in the first three months of the year, the sharpest decline since 2009 during the global financial crisis.

- Powell: "The economy is facing headwinds from tighter credit conditions for households and businesses, which are likely to weigh on economic activity, hiring and inflation," he said. "The extent of these effects remains uncertain."

Economics

- Data showed U.S. retail sales unexpectedly rose in May as consumers spent on a range of goods including vehicles.

- Another data set showed jobless claims were unchanged at a seasonally adjusted 262,0000 for the week ended June 10, but were above economists' forecast of 249,000 claims.

- Import prices fell in May and the annual decrease was the sharpest in three years.

- That followed a report on Tuesday showing April headline inflation increased by less than expected.

Crypto

- According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and despite the U.S. regulator not approving any applications for spot bitcoin ETFs to date, BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust will use Coinbase Custody as its custodian.

- The SEC rejected Grayscale Investment LLC’s application last year to convert its flagship spot Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an ETF.

- The SEC has also rejected proposals for spot bitcoin ETFs from firms including Fidelity, Cboe Global Markets and NYDIG.

- Does Larry Fink/Blackrock hold more sway with the SEC????

Post Debt Ceiling - NO LIMIT

- The U.S. national debt hit $32 trillion for the first time ever this week.

- Debt Ceiling bill suspended limits - will allow the government to borrow whatever it wants until the end of 2024, when the debt ceiling suspension ends.

- 12 month federal deficit $2 TRILLION - way overspending

- Discussion: How does this work out? (Rates higher, cost of borrowing surging, spending continues = unsustainable)

Over to China

- China's economy stumbled in May with industrial output and retail sales growth missing forecasts

- Industrial output grew 3.5% in May from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday, slower than the 5.6% expansion in April and slightly below a 3.6% increase expected by analysts

- Retail sales - a key gauge of consumer confidence - rose 12.7%, missing forecasts of 13.6% growth and slowing from April's 18.4%.

- China's youth unemployment rose to a record in May.

- - The unemployment rate for young people ages 16 to 24 rose to 20.8% in May, a record and above the high set in April. The jobless rate for people of all ages in cities was 5.2% in May.

- GOOD NEWS! STIMULUS ON THE WAY!

More China

- Goldman Sachs cuts China growth forecast as property slowdown bites

- Goldman Sachs analysts have cut forecasts for China's economic growth, citing persistently weak confidence and the cloud over the property market as stronger-than-expected headwinds.

- The U.S. investment bank lowered its full-year real gross domestic product growth forecast for the world's second biggest economy from 6% to 5.4%, according to a note published late on Sunday. It also lowered its 2024 growth forecast from 4.6% to 4.5%.

- Investors are starting to change the way they view the real estate opportunity that has been a staple in China for years.

Blinken Meets XI

- Comments that all happy that US/China tensions thawing

Screen to Table

- Netflix is opening its first-ever restaurant featuring food from ‘Chef’s Table’ and ‘Iron Chef’ stars

- The streaming service is opening Netflix Bites this month, an “elevated dining experience” in Los Angeles that features chefs who star in popular Netflix shows like “Chef’s Table” and Nailed It!”"

- Mixologists from Netflix’s “Drink Masters” competition show will be in charge of creating custom cocktails for the drink menu.

- The two-week pop-up will open on June 30. Guests who make a reservation will be required to put down a non-refundable $25 deposit which will go toward their final bill

- “As yummy as that’d be, Netflix Bites is strictly an opportunity to taste these chefs’ unique dishes,” the FAQ reads. “Chefs will not be on site to meet and greet.”

Target

- Target, which has been struggling with pushback over transgender merchandise, is also dealing with downgrades that have pushed its stock price to a three-year low.

- BOA lowered its price objective from $180 to $145 while saying the reduction is a response to weakened peer multiples, decelerating traffic and modest mobile app engagement.

- Since mid-May, when the controversy hit Target's market value, Target had lost over $15 billion at one point. As of Wednesday, it recovered slightly to $61 billion from the high of $74 billion last month.

- KeyBanc Capital Markets cut the retailer's shares June 5, to "sector weight" from "overweight" as the resumption of student loan payments stipulated by Congress' debt ceiling agreement posed a sizable headwind for the discretionary spending of shoppers.

Mortgage Rates

- Some good news for home-buyers

--- Mortgage rates fall, pulling 10- and 15-year terms below 6%

- The rest of the rate curve is still well above 6%

- - Not seemingly stopping new home sales - Lennar had spectacular numbers last week and guided pretty impressively

Cars

- Toyota Motor stock sealed its best week since 2009 on Friday, as the automaker laid out a robust plan for future all-electric vehicles and company scion Akio Toyoda became leader of the Japanese company's board.

- Shares of Toyota on the New York Stock Exchange closed Friday at $164.35 per share, down 2.3% for the day but still up 10.6% on the week. That 5-day gain is the stock's best week since April 2009 when shares increased 14.5%.

More Cars

- A burgeoning industry is breathing new life, and power, into internal combustion vehicles by converting them to electric.

- Big DIY community working on conversions

- This can't be a mainstream thing...

Berkshire

- Berkshire Hathaway on Monday said its wholly-owned subsidiary National Indemnity Company has increased its stake in five Japanese trading firms to average more than 8.5%.

- The companies involved are Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo. The aggregate value of these interests surpasses that of Berkshire-held stock in any country outside of the U.S., the firm said.

- Berkshire Hathaway said it intends to hold its Japanese investments for the long term, with CEO Warren Buffett pledging the company will only purchase up to 9.9% of any of the five firms.

- Conglomorates

- Berkshire also knows that Japan supports its stock through semi-direct purcharse by BOJ

- Only issue with this bet is that it is very susceptible to Yen moved

Terrible Cough Syrup

- There is an ongoing global threat posed by toxic cough syrups, said the World Health Organization (WHO)

- The U.N. agency has already named nine countries where tainted syrups may have been on sale, after the deaths of more than 300 infants on three continents last year were linked to the drugs.

- They warned that contaminated medicines could still be found for several years, because adulterated barrels of an essential ingredient may remain in warehouses. Cough syrups and the ingredient, propylene glycol, both have shelf-lives of around two years.

- Unscrupulous actors sometimes substitute propylene glycol with toxic alternatives, ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol, because they are cheaper, several pharmaceutical manufacturing experts have said.

Fishing News (h/t Mat D)

- North Carolina blue marlin fishing tournament ends in controversy after 619-pound catch is disqualified

- Big Rock Tournament (big money$$$$$$$)

- "After careful deliberation and discussions between the Big Rock Rules Committee and Board of Directors with biologists from both NC State CMAST (Center for Marine Sciences and Technology) and NC Marine Fisheries biologists as well as an IGFA (International Game Fish Association) official, it was determined that SENSATIONS 619.4lb Blue Marlin is disqualified due to mutilation caused by a shark or other marine animal. It was deemed that the fish was mutilated before it was landed or boated and there for it was disqualified," the statement read.

- 484 lb won = Boat named Sushi

- Organizers said 271 boats participated in the tournament. Sushi took home $2.77 million from the tournament, according to the Jacksonville Daily News.

Podcast News

- Spotify exec calls Harry and Meghan ‘grifters’ after podcast deal comes to early end

- Spotify executive Bill Simmons described Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, as "grifters" after the couple's partnership with the streaming platform came to a seemingly premature end Friday.

- The partnership with Harry and Meghan's production company Archewell Audio, first announced in Dec. 2020, was originally described by Spotify as a "multiyear partnership," with the promise of delivering "podcasts that will inspire."

- However, the collaborative efforts have resulted in just one, 12-episode series of the podcast "Archetypes," which saw Meghan interview notable guests, including Serena Williams and Mariah Carey.

Reddit Strike

- API fees and whatever else is going on - people pissed

- User rooms turned private - "on strike"

- Looking for income - need to show something for IPO - A target is artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI that create value by scraping Reddit’s forums to hone their own products. Huffman’s plan would shut off that free-data spigot

- Big problem for IPO plans

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Markets are moving back and forth just waiting for some big news.

Talk of a US default is making the rounds.

Tech has a big day – helping to push markets up from their recent despair.

PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts !

Click HERE for Show Notes and Links

DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar.

Love the Show? Then how about a Donation?

Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter

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Warm Up

- All of a sudden - recession fears

- US Default whispers

- Republicans put forth budget with increase and expense slashing

- India - taking over the population race

- Resiliency everywhere ...

Market Update

- Banks - Still on shaky ground

- Central Banks blamed for market rally

- "This year’s rally in risk assets is more to do with a $1 trillion central bank liquidity injection than any improvement in the economic outlook, according to Citigroup Inc.. "

- "That massive tailwind — enough to lop 50 basis points off the investment-grade risk premium — may soon become a huge drag as policymakers get back to quashing inflation, having extinguished the banking-sector fire. "

- Do we believe that the Fed is done?

Earnings

Coca-Cola - Average price of 192 ounces of Coca-Cola's soda (12 pack of 16oz bottle) in the U.S. rose to $9.30 in 2022 from $8.03 in 2021, according to NielsenIQ's data. It stood at $10.55 so far in 2023. (31% increase in 2 years)

- Adjusted earnings came in at 68 cents per share, compared with estimates of 64 cents.

- The company's first-quarter revenue rose about 5% to $10.98 billion, beating estimates of $10.80 billion

IBM Earnings

- Bellweather anymore?

- IBM Corp missed Wall Street expectations for first-quarter revenue

- WHY? Hurt by shrinking corporate spending on IT services and a strong dollar.

- IBM cut its full-year consulting revenue growth forecast to 6%-8% from earlier expectations of high single-digit percentage growth.

- "We are seeing softness in certain components of our discretionary based offerings in consulting," Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh told Reuters about the U.S. market.

Whirlpool

- Didn't everyone think that margins would compress and higher rates will kill real estate?

- Whirlpool prelim Q1 $2.66 vs $2.17 S&P Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; revs $4.65 bln vs $4.50 bln S&P Capital IQ Consensus Estimate

- Whirlpool sees FY23 $16.00-18.00 vs $15.97 S&P Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees revs $19.4 bln vs $19.02 bln S&P Capital IQ Consensus Estimate

Tech

- Microsoft beats by $0.22, beats on revs; Azure +31% constant currency growth (Shares up 6% A/H)

---- Revenue rose 7% to $52.9 billion in the quarter ended March

- Windows division reporting revenue of $13.3 billion versus analyst estimates of $12.19 billion

- Alphabet beats by $0.10, beats on revs, Google Advertising revenue essentially flat yr/yr; On April 19, Board of Directors authorized repurchase up to additional $70 bln of Class A and Class C shares PLUS big 70b buyback announcement (Shares slight move A/H)

------- Ad sales saw a drop again - although not as much as last quarter

Banks

- The bank crisis is not totally over yet

- Earnings and news from First Republic Bank - massive loss of deposits and company looking to some drastic ways to save itself (stock don 49% today)

- Pacific West bank - better than expected results, shares up 13% A/H

Debt Ceiling - Limits

- Republican led plan

- McCarthy floated a plan last week that would pair $4.5 trillion in spending cuts with a $1.5 trillion increase in the $31.4 trillion U.S. debt limit.

- All talking about this being political divided and will not pass

- The HOPE is that it will get sides talking

Change of US Default - debt ceiling etc

- Current pricing of credit default swaps soar

- BUT, only 2% implied odds of a default

- Seen this movie before.......

- This time different?

- As of April 19, investors were willing to pay $9,600 a year to insure $1 million in U.S. Treasury debt, up from $1,400 at the start of the year. That is even more than during major budget fights in 2011 and 2013 when, like now, Republicans in Congress were refusing to raise the statutory ceiling on how much Treasury could borrow unless a Democratic president agreed to reduce spending.

CDS US Chart

USD - Bets are more downside

- Some 87% of 331 survey respondents expect the Fed to cut interest rates to 3% or below

- Discussion that the markets are under-pricing the Fed's oncoming easing cycle

- Good for commodities, crypto, metals, multinationals

Credit Suisse

- Credit Suisse said on Monday that 61 billion Swiss francs ($68 billion) in assets left the bank in the first quarter and that outflows were continuing, underscoring the challenge faced by UBS Group AG in rescuing its rival.

- It also said customer deposits declined by 67 billion francs in the quarter and that there had been significant non-renewals of maturing time deposits.

- 167 years old bank.....

Bed Bath and Bankrupt

- Bed Bath & Beyond Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday after the home goods retailer failed to secure funds to stay afloat.

- The Union, New Jersey-based home goods retailer filed for bankruptcy in a District of New Jersey court, listing both its estimated assets and liabilities in the range of $1 billion and $10 billion, according to a court filing.

- Retail locations will be closing (360 locations for BB&B and 120 for Buy Buy Baby)

- Blame for establishment failure was the move to sell more store-branded products.

Tesla - More Jabber

- Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk on Wednesday doubled down on the price war he started at the end of last year, saying the electric vehicle (EV) maker would prioritize sales growth ahead of profit in a weak economy.

- "It's better to shift a large number of cars at lower margin and harvest that margin in the future as we perfect autonomy," Musk told analysts on a conference call.

- The company reported total gross margin of 19.3%, short of market expectations of 22.4%, according to 14 analysts polled by Refinitiv.

- Tesla also did not report its automotive gross margin, a figure closely watched by investors, with Musk saying the weak economy making it hard to provide margin outlook.

Same Day (Zero Day Options)

- Day Traders Lose $358,000 Per Day Gambling on Zero-Day Options

- Researchers warn about growing risk should 0DTE broaden out

TECH

- SoftBank-owned Arm Ltd. will work with manufacturing partners to develop its own semiconductor, the Financial Times reported Sunday, citing unidentified people briefed on the move.

- What is this about?

- ARM competing with it's customers?

More Tech

- Alphabet CEO’s Pay Soars to $226 Million on Huge Stock Award

- Meanwhile - cancelling buildouts and cutting expenses and jobs. Stock in the dumper...

Champagne - Only in France

- Miller High Life - the Champagne of Beers?

- At the request of the trade body defending the interests of houses and growers of the northeastern French sparkling wine, Belgian customs crushed more than 2,000 cans of Miller High Life advertised as such.

- The Comité Champagne asked for the destruction of a shipment of 2,352 cans on the grounds that the century-old motto used by the American brewery infringes the protected designation of origin "Champagne."

- Started with the slogan in 1969

India - Overtaking China

- India is on its way to become the world’s most populous country, overtaking China with almost 3 million more people in the middle of this year

- The demographic data from the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) “State of World Population Report, 2023” estimates India’s population at 1,428.6 million or 1.4286 billion against 1.4257 billion for China.

- The United States is a distant third, with an estimated population of 340 million

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Superbowl mania – what we think (not that anyone cares)

China balloons, market bubbles and plenty of frothy convo.

An update on the Weekly Stock pick’s game and the current Closest to the Pin

PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts !

Click HERE for Show Notes and Links

DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar.

Love the Show? Then how about a Donation?

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Warm Up

- Superbowl teams are set - Eagles and Kansas City (spread +1.5 KC)

- Markets have a very amateurish feel to them - crypto patterns of intraday rush and bust

--- Meme Stocks moving again

- Seems that the Church of Whats Hot Now - back in Biz (AI names)

-- Latest Google, Baidu and Microsoft all announced AI integration today (catnip for traders)

- There is a Sushi Terrorist on the loose

- Hustle Bros are latching on and sucking your wallets

- A new FED word to watch

Market Update

- Blowout Jobs report - what in tar-nation?

- Another fraud uncovered - India

- State of the Union Speech - going after the wealthy...

- Powell speaks - Whipsaw

Golf Fitting this week..

- Pretty interesting technology

- Callaway Paradym X

MARKETS!

- The S&P 500 index rose 1.6% last week with the communication services and technology sectors leading a broad climb amid better-than-expected quarterly results from some companies and a slower pace of rate increases from the Federal Open Market Committee.

- The market benchmark ended the week at 4,136.48, up from last Friday's closing level of 4,070.56. The index is now up 7.7% for the year to date but down 8.1% from a year ago.

- This feels like an attempt to move off bottom like everyone in the pool from March/April 2020. (But this is a different time)

Fed Speak

- There was irrational exuberance

- Transitory inflation

- Green shoots

- quantitative easing

- not thinking about thinking about thinking about...

- Average inflation targeting

- balance outlook

- And Now, introducing the work - disinflation ... Powell used dozens of times in last speeches...

Earnings Update

- The slowdown in YoY revenue growth... Tesla: slowest since 2020 Amazon: 3rd slowest in company history Microsoft: slowest since 2017 Netflix: slowest in company history Google: 3rd slowest in company history Facebook: 2nd slowest in company history Apple: slowest since 2016

- BP on Tuesday reported a record profit of $28 billion for 2022 while boosting its dividend in a sign of confidence as it sharply raised overall spending plans and scaled back ambitions to reduce oil and gas output by 2030.

MEME Stocks Moving again

- BBBY (looking at potential bankruptcy) up 100% today.

- AI Stocks on the move

- KOSS, GME, AMC all rocking....

Fed decision and Employment Report?

-- Odds rise after the the BLS employment report

- 500k + new hires (estimates were for +250k)

- labor participation rate rising

- 3.4% unemployment rate (lowest since 1969)

- USD jumps, Rates turn higher

- Thoughts?

State of the Union Speech

- CNBC reports President Biden will call for quadrupling the tax on stock buybacks and a 'billionaire minimum tax' in his State of the Union speech tonight

Earnings and corporate

-Amazon, Google, Apple -all had questionable earnings reports

- Apple showed worst revenue groth in years and years - stock came off then buyers stepped in for some reason

- Amazon was down as AWS missed

- Google (Alphabet) just bad all the way around.

- FORD - ugly outlook, loss and not at all what GM looked like.

- Dell slashing 6,000 jobs (5% of workforce)

----!!! Company up initially on the news, then falls 3% during session

------ ALERT, Job cuts may no longer be seen as a good thing (Investors were rewarding companies)

- HP cutting 6,000 jobs

- Chipotle - Misses on earnings (top and bottom) - guidance soft (slowing growth/comps)

- Zoom cutting salaries for execs by 20%

India

- New discussion

- Hindenburg Research (Short sellers) wrote report of biggest scam and fraud in corporate history about Adani

-- Accused company of stock manipulation, unsustainable use and tax havens

- Adani is India conglomerate whose founder was 2/3 richest person in Asia

- Gautam Adani (founder) and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi are from the same state.

- 50-60% drop in the company values (all associated

- Getting so bad, Parliament was shut down for a couple of days

- $110 Billion in losses since the Hinderburge Report

--- Also of interest is the question about: How did Hindenburg play this as difficult to get direct exposure to companies in Indian market

Call for TikTok Ban

- Governor Abbot (TX) looking to ban on devices conducting state business

- Other states have been making similar statements

- Funny part: every time we hear about ban on TikTok, knee jerk reaction is to bid up SNAP (makes no sense)

AI names still kicking

- ANY mention of AI is brewing up a storm

- Change of name, align with CHATGPT or another name - zoom

- Going to be some great shorting opportunities

AND AI ...

- Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel, became the first world leader to publicly use ChatGPT on Wednesday after delivering a speech partly composed by the AI, the Jerusalem Post reported.

- It is like children with a new toy

- According to Sky News, the AI-written section began: "I am truly proud to be the president of a country that is home to such a vibrant and innovative hi-tech industry."

- Combine this with Deep Fakes - it will be all over

Powell Speaks

- Today's market action was interesting... Powell opens his mouth and markets scream higher.

- I listened - nothing at all was said to make that happen, on fact, seemed pretty dour and no stray from his previous discussions

- Once he finished (he talked about the potential need for a long grind with higher rates), markets turned down hard.. 400 point swing on DJIA, 1.6% on S&P 500

- Listen! People! You are not paying attention!

Hustle Bros

- Newest pitch: ChatGPT coaching and help

- Showing you how to create automated newsletters, write non fiction books, invest in real estate

- Make MILLIONS (essentially sitting on your ass) - No Brainer - guaranteed!

- " You no longer need to develop the skill as long as you have AI"

MUSK

- Found not-liable of the famous "420 secured Tweet"

--- With that out of the way, watch how aggressive he will get -as that seemed like a pretty serious violation

- Now complaining that the last couple of months has been tough on him

- Twitter now trending toward breakeven, rescued it from bankruptcy, while also fulfilling his roles at other companies

- "Wouldn't wish that pain on anyone," he wrote. "Twitter still has challenges, but it is now trending to breakeven if we keep at it. Public support is much appreciated!"

---- Who pays $44 billion for a company that was on the brink of bankruptcy - seems like poor financial management?

- TESLA - raised prices on Model Y after Biden admin tweaked the tax credit availability (stock up)

----- TESLA dropped prices a couple weeks ago - stock up (so doesn't matter, as long as there is news)

Drug Companies - CLIFF

- Pharmaceutical companies that made billions from the pandemic over the past two years selling vaccines and treatments are now up against a steep COVID cliff and investor pressure to spend their windfalls wisely.

- Western drugmakers including Pfizer Inc, BioNTech SE, Moderna Inc, Gilead Sciences Inc , AstraZeneca Plc and Merck & Co are estimated to have brought in about $100 billion in revenue from COVID vaccines and treatments in 2022.

- Company and analyst estimates suggest sales from COVID vaccines could fall by nearly two-thirds this year due to built up product inventories around the world including in the countries that pay the most.

- Strategists are now desirous of these companies to use their gains for consolidation / M&A

And this...

- Sushi Terrorist

- A teenager, dubbed a ‘sushi terrorist’, caused the stock value of a Japanese restaurant to plunge after he was filmed licking the top of a communal soy sauce bottle and contaminating a piece of food on a conveyor belt.

- He also licks the rim of a teacup before placing it back on a shelf and touched a piece of sushi after licking his finger.

- Meanwhile - everyone seems okay eating a piece of RAW FISH or

Flat Earther

- Flat Earthers seem to beleive that Photoshop and CGI is used by NASA to prove earth is a sphere

- Claims that $52 million a day is given to cover up the flat earth reality while there are startving kids in Africa

---- What is going on?

Crypto

- Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, will suspend U.S. dollar deposits and withdrawals, the company said Monday

- "We are temporarily suspending USD bank transfers as of February 8th," a Binance spokesperson told CNBC. "Affected customers are being notified directly." The company said "0.01% of our monthly active users leverage USD bank transfers" and added that "we are working hard to restart service as soon as possible."

- The start of something???

420 Stocks ...

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Stocks to watch: CGC, STZ, TLRY, CRON, MJ, NBEV

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